August 26
1071: The Seljuk Turks defeat the Byzantine Army at the Battle of Manzikert. This battle took place during the successful conquest of Palestine, or as what the Christians called the Holy Land which lasted until 1080. This left the Muslim Turks in possession of Jerusalem and the rest of what Christians called the Holy Land and this is what triggered the Crusades which led to the Christians conquest of the City of David and the slaughter of its Jewish inhabitants.
1171: Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, known by nickname “Strongbow” who defied King Henry II and began campaign to conquer Ireland which was financed “by a Jewish moneylender – Josce Jew of Gloucester” married Aoife MacMurrough today in Waterford.
1278: Ladislaus IV of Hungary and Rudolph I of Germany defeated Premysl Ottokar II of Bohemia in the Battle of Marchfield near Dürnkrut in (then) Moravia. All three of these monarchs had dealings with their Jewish subjects. At the Synod of Buda (1279), which was held during ithe reign of King Ladislaus IV it was decreed, in the presence of the papal ambassador, that every Jew appearing in public should wear on the left side of his upper garment a piece of red cloth; that any Christian transacting business with a Jew not so marked, or living in a house or on land together with any Jew, should be refused admittance to the Church services; and that a Christian entrusting any office to a Jew should be excommunicated. Rudolph had a rather “uneven” record in dealing with his Jewish subjects. For example, he continued to enforce the statute originally adopted by Frederick the Valiant, “which afforded protection against persecution and murder” to the Jews of Austria. But then the next year he issued a decree to the citizens of Austria declaring that Jews were ineligible to hold public office in Vienna. In 1254 Premysl Ottokar II issued his charter, an adaptation of one originally issued in 1244 by Duke Frederick II of Austria. Among other provisions it forbade forced conversion and condemned the blood libel. In 1268 Premysl Ottokar II renewed his charter; under which the Jews of Brno were expected to contribute a quarter of the cost of strengthening the city wall. In an undated document, he exempted the Brno Jews from all their dues for one year since they had become impoverished. So, it would seem that the ruler most positively disposed towards the Jews lost.
1280: King James I of Aragon (Spain), under the influence of the Dominican Friar Raymond Martini, ordered all disparaging statements regarding Jesus and Mary erased from the Talmud. In addition, the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides was condemned to be burned due to references to Jesus in the chapter on the laws of kingship. There is really irony in the decision to burn the works of Maimonides since he was one of the few Jewish leaders of his time who could find a positive value in both Christianity and Islam.
1310: Henry II, the Crusaders whom the Christians recognized as the King of Jerusalem returned to Cyprus and resumed his throne on that island with the aid of the Hospitallers after which he dissolved the Templars and turned their wealth over to Hospitallers. (Another example of the non-religious and some might say the true reason for Christian nobles’ interest in Eretz Israel)
1346: Charles IV who would be unable to keep the Jews of Frankfurt from being slaughtered, began his reign as King of Bohemia.
1684: In Padua, Jews were prepared to travel outside of the Ghetto six days after a plunder mob had entered the “Jewish Jail” in an attack described by both Sema Cuzzeri and Rabbi Isaac Hayyim Cantarini in “Pahad Yizak.”
1711: Charles VI, the Holy Roman Emperor officially recognized the fact that the Jews of Hungary had bestowed the title of “Landesrabbiner on Samson Wertheimer
1754: Birthdate of rabbi and author Eleazar Ben David Fleckeless who served as Dayan of Prague, his native city starting in 1780.
1789: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was approved by Constituent Assembly at Palace of Versailles.
1795: Bennet Cohen married Abigail Abrahams at the Great Synagogue today.
1799(25th of Av, 5559): Koppel Theben, the leader of the Hungarian Jewish community who challenged regulations promulgated by Joseph II and was presented with a gold medal by Leopold II passed away today.
1800(5th of Elul, 5560): Rabbi Hirschel Ben Arye Löb Levin (Also known as Hart Lyon and Hirshel Löbel) who served as the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom and Berlin, and Rabbi of Halberstadt and Mannheim passed away. His son, Rabbi Solomon Hirschell was also Chief Rabbi of the British German and Polish Jewish community, and the first of the British Empire.
1806: Abraham Abrahams married Rachel Lazarus today.
1807: During the Bombardment of Copenhagen which would destroy the property belonging to the family of poet Henrik Hertz, General Arthur Wellesley the future Duke of Wellington, led a force that was trying to relieve the Danish capital>
1821: Johann Emanuel Veith, the son of a Jewish family from Bohemia who converted in 1816 was ordained as minister today.
1823: Abraham Defreece married Mary Isaacs today at the Great Synagogue.
1824: Six year old Karl Marx is baptized. His father Heinrich Marx had already converted and his mother would convert after her father passed away.
1825: Nathaniel Isaacs, the son of Chatam merchant and Lenie Solomon, daughter of Nathaniel Solomon of Margate and Phoebe Mitz who came from the Netherlands set sail aboard The Mary from Cape Town with party serving for East India merchant Francis Farewell and Dr. Francis Flynn.
1827: In Russia, Emperor Nicholas issued an edict filled with onerous conditions under which Jews were to perform military service including making Jews as young as 12 and as old as 35 eligible for conscription, requiring the Jews to provide “10 recruits per 1,000 inhabitants every year, while non-Jews were to furnish 7 per 1,000 every alternate year” and requiring additional recruits to be supplied to compensate for any unpaid taxes.
1827: Emanuel Aguilar and Sarah Aguilar gave birth to Henry Aguilar, the younger brother of Grace and Emanuel Aguilar. (Jewish Virtual Library)
1828: In St. Gallen, Josef Anton Henne and his wife gave birth to Otto Henne am Rhyn the author of Mysteria: History of the Secret Doctrines and Mystic Ritesin which he wrote that the Jews were the only people in the ancient world who practiced monotheism. “Their synagogues were everywhere and they had proselytes in every large city, especially Rome” which was the “first step in the dissemination of monotheism.” However, most people who were attracted to monotheism “took a like to the strictness of the Mosaic religion and the God of the Jews was too spiritual a being to be grasped.” Others were bothered by “the indefinites of the Jewish notions of immortality and the strange rites…of the Jewish people.”
1829: Coleman Moses married Deborah Cohen married Hambro Synagogue today.
1835: Lewis and Augusta Feuchtwanger wed today in Philadelphia, PA.
1840: During the Damascus Affair, a British squadron sank Egyptian supply ships on their way to Syria.
1840: Aaron Jacobs married Maria Nathan at the New Synagogue today.
1841: Norwegian Henrik Wergeland whose “long harbored prejudice against Jews” changed after he traveled in Europe today published pamphlet Indlæg i Jødesagen, “arguing passionately for a repeal of the clause in the constitution banning Jews from living in Norway.
1842: Possible birthdate for Akiva Rolland “who entered Cuban history as General Carlos Roloff” an adventurer who led a group of invaders in 1895 and became the first fiancé minister of the independent Cuban Republic.
1843: In New York Abigail and Asher Kursheedt gave birth to Alexander Kursheedt.
1851(28thof Av, 5611): Elias Abrahams, the son of Emanuel and Judith Abrahams and the husband of Catherine Abrahams with whom he had two children – Alexander and Henriette – passed away today in Charleston, SC
1852: As the question of altering the oath of office so that Jews can sit in Parliament continues to embroil British Politics, “The Foreign Items” column reported that the Dublin University Magazine has quoted the late Irish Richard Lalor Sheil, an Irish MP, as having told the House of Commons that “I cannot for the life of me see why the Jews should not have a voice in the Legislature, as well as any other body of Christians." Sheil was a supporter of Lord John Russell who was a supporter of attempts to seat Jews in Parliament.
1852: Abraham Levy married Amelia Joel at the Great Synagogue today.
1853(22ndof Av, 5613): Sixty-three year old Major Meno Berg who “was the first and for a long time, the only Jew serving as a Prussian staff officer passed away today.
1854: “Great Cry and Little Wool” published today described the failure of the recently adjourned Parliament to fulfill the goals set out in "Speech from the Throne." Among the failures listed was the failure to abolish or amend the oaths that prevent Jews from sitting in Parliament. The column spoke contemptuously of Lord John Russell who, if he had really wanted to admit Jews to Parliament, could have done so any time in the last twenty years, by support a measure that would have allowed either House to change the wordings of the oath. This would have passed the House of Commons with a simple majority.
1853(22ndof Av, 5613): Sixty-two year old Major Meno Burg, “the first and for a long the only Jew to serve as a Prussian staff officer passed away and was buried “with full military honors at” the Jewish cemetery at Schönhauser Allee
1854: Ralph Bernal a British MP and art collector who was the son of Sephardi Jews who became an Anglican when he was baptized at St. Olave passed away today.
1856: In the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn the Board of the Kane Street Synagogue decided it would keep a ten dollar payment for a burial place made by a non-congregant even though he had not made use of the burial plot because he “had the use of the” congregation’s “funeral untensils.”
1856: Today, the Cantonist policy was abolished by Tsar Alexander II's decree, in the aftermath of the Russian defeat in the Crimean war, which made evident the dire necessity for the modernization of the Russian military forces.” All unconverted cantonists and recruits under the age of 20 were returned to their families. The underage converted cantonists were given to their godparents. However the implementation of the abolition took nearly 3 years. It is estimated that between 30,000 to 70,000 Jewish boys served as cantonists, their numbers were disproportionately high in relation to the total number of cantonists. Jewish boys comprised about 20% of cantonists at the schools in Riga and Vitebsk, and as much as 50% at Kazan and Kiev schools. A general estimate for the years 1840–1850 seems to have been about 15%. In general Jews comprised a disproportionate number of recruits (ten for every thousands of the male population as opposed to seven out of every thousand,] the number was tripled during the Crimean War (1853–1856). After the 25-year conscription term, former cantonists were allowed to live and own land anywhere outside the Pale of Settlement. The earliest Jewish communities in Finland were Jewish cantonists who had completed their service…”One of the most famous cantonists was Captain Herzl Yankelevich Tsam, who “appears to have been the only Jewish officer in the Tsarist army in the nineteenth century.” Born in Ukraine in 1835, he was drafted into the Russian army when he was 17 and served in Tomsk, Siberia. “Tsam became an officer in 1873 (his fellow officers attested to his qualities in the promotion petitions) and, after forty-one years of service, he was retired with a rank and pension of colonel. The promotion was granted on the day of his retirement, so he would have the pension, but wouldn't be able to serve as a colonel. An able commander and administrator, he turned one of the worst companies of his regiment into one of the best. In spite of pressures, he never converted to the state religion of Russian Orthodox Christianity.” “After he retired, he became treasurer of a synagogue in Tomsk. The building has been gutted and converted into squalid apartments.”
1853(22ndof Av, 5613: Sixty-two year old Major Meno Burg, “the first and for a long the only Jew to serve as a Prussian staff officer passed away and was buried “with full military honors at” the Jewish cemetery at Schönhauser Allee
1864: In Elgin, Illinois, Leopold and Rose Adler gave birth to Harriet Wile, the wife of David Jacob Wile.
1871: Birthdate of Liverpool native “M. Kaizer,” who was “principal of the South London Jewish Schools from 186 to 1902.
1877: Ralph Levy, the husband of the former Phoebe Abrahams with whom he had two sons -- Henry and Moses – was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1878: Birthdate of Lina Stern the Latvian born Soviet biochemist who was the first woman to be named as Professor at the University of Geneva and the first female member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
1878: It was reported today that Dr. Abraham Benisch has passed away at the age of 67. Born in Bohemia in 1811, Benish studied medicine at Vienna before moving to England in 1841 where he eventually became the editor of the Jewish Chronicle. He was the author of Judaism Surveyed as well as what may have been the first Jewish translation of the TaNaCh into English. The bilingual edition with both Hebrew and English texts was published in England in 1851.
1881(1st of Elul, 5641): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1881: “Against The Jews” published today described events at the conference of Orthodox Evangelical which was addressed by Herr Plath, the Inspector of Missions who said “the rights already accorded to the Jews could be withdrawn” and that Christians “must free themselves from the supremacy of the Jews.”
1882: It was reported today there has been “a renewal of outrages against Jews…Poland. The assailants are encouraged in their attacks by the apathy of the officials.”
1882: “Saratoga’s Hideous Women” published today provides a sketch of the fashionable resort including the fact that three “great hotels” are populated in the following manner: The United States is “the home of the millionaires, Congress Hall as the camp of the Israelites and the Grand Union as the great three-ringed side-show of fat woman. The vast hotel…controlled by Judge Hilton cast out the Jews, but keeps the Gentile mammoths.”
1883: “Herr Lasker on the German Jews” published today relies on information that originally appeared in the American Hebrew to paint a portrait of conditions among the Jews of Germany. On the one hand they “are foremost among the best of Germany” who are “making great strides in the intellectual pursuits” and have advanced “to the higher and more respectable” “grades of industry and trade.” On the other hand there are those, in the universities for example, who show “a great deal of feeling against the Jews.” And there are those who claim that the Jews control the press, a claim that Dr. Lasker refuted as “very much overrated.” (This mixed bag by a contemporary German Jewish intellectual is an accurate picture of German Jewish life that would last through WW I.)
1884: Thanks to the generosity of Commissioner Jacob Hess, the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society will provide a cruise up the Hudson River on the SS Bellevue for poor children on the living on the lower East Side.
1885: An article published today entitled “Montefiore and Longevity” that had previously appeared in The London Worlddescribed “the munificence, the philanthropy and the centenarianism of the recently deceased Jewish leader.”
1887: The body of a young woman which had been found in the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia was identified today as Lizzie Kauffman a German Jewish girl who had moved to American three years ago with her two brothers.
1887: It was reported today that Jews living in Taganrog and Rostoff have been expelled and ordered to live elsewhere in Russia now that these areas have been annexed to the Don Cossack District.
1888: The New York Timesreviewed Amelia Rives’ novel, Herod and Mariamne , “a tragedy” about “the Greek house that ruled the Jews. Rives was a colorful American author whose life began during the Civil War and ended with World War II.
1890: “Immigration” published today provides a snapshot of the changing flow of immigrants as compared with 1889 including the comment that “increase of Russian arrivals by 3,280” is a reflection of the Czar’s cruelty especially toward “his Jews” who flocked” to the United States “by the thousands” when attacked them before.
1890: “Immigration” published today provides a snapshot of the changing flow of immigrants as compared with 1889 including the comment that “increase of Russian arrivals by 3,280” is a reflection of the Czar’s cruelty especially toward “his Jews” who flocked” to the United States “by the thousands” when attacked them before.
1890: “Charged With Conspiracy” published today described Dennis Collonge’s scheme to extort money from Sampson and Isaac Heidenheimer two of Galveston’s wealthiest Jewish citizens. He planned to recant his testimony that two brothers had burned down the cottonseed mill belonging to the Texas Standard Oil Company for a cash payment. The grand jury indicted Collonge and cleared the brothers of all charges when it was determined that he had burned the building down as part of his scheme.
1891: “The North German Lloyd steamer Weimer arrived at Baltimore, MD” today” with 566 steerage passengers, including 150 Jews banished from Russia.”
1891: Jesse Seligman “accompanied by Mr. Solomons of the Baron de Hirsch Fund” met with the Assistant Superintendent of Immigration, General James O’Beirne to intercede on behalf of 86 passengers whom he had barred from landing in the United States.
1891: Jesse Seligman left for Washington DC, this evening after General Jame O’Beirne refused to reconsider his decision, barring 86 Jews from leaving SS Marsala and settling in the United States.
1891: Based on stories first published in the Pall Mall Gazette, it was reported today that “whither the persecution of the Jews was spontaneous or the result of government action, “there is no doubt of its popularity.”
1891: The SS Westerland which is scheduled to set sail for Europe today includes among its passengers a number of Russian Jews who were denied the right to land in the United States “on the ground that they were liable to become public charges”
1891: “The Russian Persecutions” published today described the indirect assistance that the Prince of Wales has given to Anglo-Jewish committees dealing with the problems of Russian Jews. His wife, “who is a sister-in-law of the Czar” is working with the Prince “is rendering much valuable aid in his efforts to ameliorate the condition of the poverty stricken” Jews.
1892: The SS Kehrweiderwhich arrived at Boston from Hamburg today with seventy steerage passengers many of whom were Russian and Polish Jews, was placed in strict quarantine because of fears about Cholera which had broken out in Europe.
1892: The French government “has ordered all Russian Jews arriving at Marseilles be sent to the Lazaretto (quarantine station) and their clothes burned.”
1892: The French government “has ordered all Russian Jews arriving at Marseilles be sent to the Lazaretto (quarantine station) and their clothes burned.”
1892: In Paris, “the Jewish committee” stated “that within a month” a thousand Jewish refugees from Russia pass through the city, “most of whom were on their way to the United States. The physical condition of these Jews is such that should a cholera outbreak occur, they would be “a fertile field for its spread.”
1893: “Camden Merchants Organizing for Self-Protection” published today described the plans of Jewish storekeepers in the New Jersey city to deal with the “thieves and marauders who have made them the objects of the attacks…”
1894: Two days after he had passed away, Solomon Harris, the husband of the former Elizabeth Hart with whom he had eleven children, was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”
1895: Two days after she had passed away, 55 year old Annette Davis, the wife of “Joseph John Davis” with whom she had four children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1897: Birthdate of Jacob Raphael, a native of Posen, whose family would escape to Sweden just before the Nazi invasion of Poland. He passed away in 1971 at Ramat Gan.
1897: The two wills of David Blumenthal were filed at the Surrogate’s office today.
1898: Birthdate of art patron and art collector, Peggy Guggenheim. She passed away in 1979.
1898: Israel Zangwill, who sailed from England a week ago, was expected to arrive in the United States today where he will renew old acquaintance’s and “be heard as a lecturer.”
1899: It was reported today that Macmillan and company will be published a new novel by Israel Zangwill in November that “belongs to the Series of Ghetto Tragedies which was begun with The Children of the Ghetto“
1899: When the court martial of Captain Dreyfus resumed today. Alphonse Bertillon, Chief of the Anthropometric Department of the Paris Prefecture of Police continued his testimony in which he continued to contend that Dreyfus was the author of “the famous bordeau.” His responses on cross-examination provoked repeated laughter from those attending the trial.
1900(1stof Elul, 5660): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1900(1stof Elul, 5660): Sixty-six year old Austrian publisher Chaim David Lippe who edited “a bibliographical lexicon of modern Jewish literature” that was published in Vienna in 1881 passed away today.
1900: Two days after she had passed away, 75 years old Rebecca Jonas, the widow of Samuel Adolph Jonas, was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”
1902: One day after she had passed away, Polly Kosloski, “the daughter of Jacob and Sarah Kosloski” was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery.”
1902(23rdof Av, 5662): Eliezer Mordechai ben Tzvi Persky, a native of “Volozhin in the Pale of Settlement and the husband of “Minnie, (Mindel), Disha bat Reb Eliyah” with whom he and their four children “immigrated to the United States in 1883 through Castle Garden” and “then moved to Alliance, Salem County, NJ, to become part of the original pioneering group in the Jewish agricultural settlement there” passed away today.
1903: The forged “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” were serialized in a Russian publication. This document has been a favorite among anti-Semites since then.
1903: Forty-one year old Austrian dramatist Arthur Schnitzler married Olga Gussmann “a 21-year-old aspiring actress and singer who came from a Jewish middle-class family
1903: At the Zionist Congress, during the debate on what was called the Uganda Plan, “the sealed an signed document from the British government” was read into the record by L.J. Greenberg which was followed by a two hour recess, which led to a resumption of deliberations that would last until two o’clock in the next morning.
1904: Mortimer L. Schiff and Adele Neustatdt gave birth to their only son John Mortimer Schiff who “was the father of Dorothy Schiff, the owner and publisher of the New York Post. (As reported by William Blair)
1907: Houdini escapes from chains underwater at Aquatic Park in 57 seconds.
1907: Houdini escapes from chains underwater at Aquatic Park in 57 seconds.
1906: Birthdate of Dr. Albert Sabin, Jewish-American doctor who developed a vaccine for polio. Sabine was the second Jewish doctor to develop a vaccine for this dread disease. The first was Dr. Jonas Salk. It is contributions like these that should cause Americans and not just Jewish Americans to celebrate the 350th Anniversary of the Jewish Community in the United States. Born in Bialystok, Poland, Sabine and his family immigrated to the United States in 1921 to escape persecution aimed at Jews. An uncle who was a dentist offered to finance his education if he would go to dental school. Sabin switched from dentistry to medicine because he fell in love with medical research. He graduated from NYU Medical School in 1931, the same year that New York was struck by a major Polio epidemic. This led him to care of research into the causes of polio and other infectious diseases of the human nervous system. He passed away in 1993.
1911: Jacob H. Schiff, the banker, returned today from his annual trip to Europe, on the Hamburg-American liner Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, accompanied by Mrs. Schiff, and appeared to be in the best of health
1911: In Brooklyn, founding of the Borough Park Civic Club.
1912: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Aaron Rosenberg who went from being an All-American lineman at USC to a career in the movies that included an Academy Award nomination for producing “Mutiny on the Bounty” in 1962.
1912(13th of Elul, 5672: Sixty-six year old Michaelis Machol the German born reform rabbi who served two Cleveland, Ohio congregations – Anshe Chesed and the Eagle Street Synagogue – passed away today.
1913: Today, “the day after the guilty verdict was reached by the jury, Judge Roan brought counsel into private chambers and sentenced Leo Frank to death by hanging with the date set to October 10.”
1914: The Germans and the Russians meet at the Battle of Tannenberg. At the urging of the French, the Russian Army began advancing before it was fully mobilized and ready for battle. The Russian Army advanced into East Prussia which caused panic in Berlin. The Germans transferred troops from the Western Front to meet the Russian advance. This shift of troops weakened the forcing attacking the French, undermined the German grand strategic design and enabled the French to finally halt the advance. This would lead to the four year stalemate known as World War I. The strengthened German forces in Prussia blocked the Russians and hurled them back. The fighting in the East would be a see-saw affair that would bleed Russia until the Revolutions of 1917 and 1918. The Jews living in the Pale of Settlement which was in the path of this clash between the Kaiser and the Czar suffered great privations. The irony was that the Germans could probably have won the battle without the additional troops and World War I might have been a rather brief affair where the troops were home by Christmas and Europe (including the Jews) would have been the upheavals that led to World War II and the Holocaust.
1915(14thof Tammuz, 5675): Parashat Balak
1915(14thof Tammuz, 5675): Fifty-three year old Chicago banker Edwin G. Foreman passed away today in San Francisco, CA.
1915: Many of the Jews who had been expelled from Brest-Litovsk by the Russians returned after the “Austro-German Army occupied the city today” only to suffer a second expulsion by the Kaiser’s forces.
1915: In Albany, the Constitutional Convention voted to kill “the proposal requiring a literacy test as a voting qualification” which if it had been approved Louis Marshall had said the one million Jews in New York would look upon the work of the “convention as a deliberate insult.”
1915: “Russian Pale Wiped Out” published today described the decision of the Council of the Empire to allow Jews to settle in areas outside of the Pale “ with the exception of Moscow, Petrograd and places under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of War and the Imperial Court” due to the German conquests.
1915: One hundred and fifty Orthodox rabbis are scheduled to attend tonight’s meeting at the Norfolk Street Synagogue where plans will be discussed “to aid Jews suffering because of the war.”
1915: Birthdate of Rolf Friedemann Pauls, the native of Eckarsberga who was the“first ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Israel serving from 1965 to 1968” after which her served as Bonn’s ambassador to Washington.
1915: A message received via wireless from Berlin today said that of the 30 councilors appointed by the Germans to govern Warsaw, six of them were Jews.
1916: Birthdate of Charles Parmet, the native of Brooklyn who served as executive director of the Hillcrest Jewish Community Center in Flushing, LI.
1917: A review of Aristodemocracy by Sir Charles Waldstein, the Anglo-American Jewish archaeologist that tried to “reconcile the lasting principles of Mosaic ethics with Platonic reality was published today.
1918: Local draft boards accepted the registration of newly eligible Jewish youths today because the original registration date fell on the Jewish Sabbath.
1918: “Hungary Expels Jews and Seizes Their Money” published today described the barricading of streets so that Jews could be dragged to prison in Budapest and police in Galicia taking “large sums money” from the Jews as “a special tax” after which they were “escorted to the frontier.”
1919(30th of Av, 5679): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1919: Following his arrival from Europe on the SS George Washington this morning, Samuel Gompers attended a mass meeting of the actors at the Lexington Theatre. In an address to members of the Actors' Equity Association Gompers, pledged the full force of organized labor to that body in carrying on its present strike.
1920: “The Head Janus” a silent horror film with a script by Hans Janowitz and filmed by cinematographer Karl Freund was released today in the Weimar Republic.
1920: The 19th amendment to United States Constitution takes effect, giving women the right to vote. Numerous Jewish women were active in the “suffragette movement” including Rose Schenidermann who was the leader of New York City’s Women’s Suffragette Party and the untold numbers of “Jewish women garment works who represented the very core of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.:
1922: Birthdate of Irving R. Levine. Levine’s ever-present bow tie was his unique visual signature while he covered business and the economy for NBC News. Unlike the blowhards and blow dried talking heads who read this news beat today, Levine understood the subject matter and conveyed it a low keyed professional manner.
1923(14thof Elul, 5683): Eighty-two year old Leopold Kahn, the husband of Louise Kahn and the father of Baruch Kahn passed away today in Mulhouse.
1923: Samuel "Sammy" Weiss, Jacob "Little Augie" Orgen and Samuel Gepson were arraigned at the Essex market Courthouse on charges that they had violated the Sullivan Law.
1925: “The Merry Widow” a romantic comedy directed and produced by Erich von Stroheim who also co-authored the script along with Benjamin Glazer was released today in the United States by MGM.
1926: In the New York Times, P.W. Wilson describes the work of University of Chicago archaeologists digging at Meggido where the excavations “recall the splendor of Solomon, the monarch who was also a poet and a philosopher.”
1928: Birthdate of Günther Schwarz, a member of Edelweiss Pirates who was executed at the age of 16 for his role in the anti-Nazi resistance group.
1928: “Oh, Kay!” a silent film directed by Mervyn LeRoy was released in the United States today by First National Pictures.
1929: Birthdate of Aaron Moses Asher, the native of Memel who became a publisher responsible for several works on the Shoah including “Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe, 1933-1945” (1992), by Raul Hilberg; “Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland” (1992), by Christopher R. Browning; and “The Joke” (1992), a novel by Milan Kundera
1929: As a result of what the British report described as “Arab mobs” forty-five Jews in Safed were either killed or wounded.
1931: “Street Scene” the movie version of the Pulitzer Prize winning play Elmer Rice, produced by Samuel Goldwyn and with music by Alfred Newman premiered in New York City today.
1931: Viscount Herbert Samuel began serving as Home Secretary in the government headed by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald.
1933: In Montreal, Canada, The Montreal Star editorially attacks attempts to organize swastika clubs in Canada.
1933: Premier J. B. M. Hertzog issues an appeal to South African Jewry to refrain from boycotting German goods on the ground that the boycott hurts the interests of the country.
1933: Berl Locker, a member of the Zionist Executive informed the Zionist Congress officially that the Executive did not participate in the negotiations which resulted in the agreement between Anglo-Palestine Bank and German government. The Congress adopted a resolution, presented by the Actions Committee, to send a committee to Palestine to investigate the alleged use of violence and terroristic methods by members of the Zionist Organization. This committee is not to deal with question of the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff.
1933 The Council of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, in its initial session, although objecting to proposed plans to modify the constitution of the Agency at this time, appoints a committee of five Zionists and five non-Zionists to consider the issue.
1933(4thof Elul, 5693): Parashat Shoftim
1933 (4th of Elul, 5693): Sir Maurice Levy, of Liberal MP Sir Maurice Levy the second son of Joseph Levy of Leicester and elder brother of Arthur Lever, husband of Elise Zossenheim, father of Ewart Maurice Levy and Managing director of the family business, Hart and Levy who was a political confidant of Prime Minister David Lloyd George and created 1st Baronet in 1913 passed away today.
1934: Birthdate of Danville, Illinois businessman and civic leader Louis Mervis who with his wife Sybil “established the chair in Jewish Culture and the Arts in the Robert and Sandra Borns Jewish Studies Program at his alma mater, Indiana University.”
1934(15thof Elul, 5694): Seventy-six year old Marcus M. Marks, president of several clothing industry trade associations and the Manhattan Borough President from 1914 to 1917 who was the father of Johnny Marks, who ironically wrote “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”passed away today.
1935: Birthdate of Aaron Albert “Al” Silvera who played the outfield for the Cincinnati Reds during the 1950’s when there only 8 teams in each league and the Reds were a solid third place team always chasing after the Dodgers.
1936: In Jaffa, British troops kill 6 Arabs in a shoot-out with armed bomb-throwers while two more Arabs died in a fire-fight in Tel Aviv.
1936: “The world has created the Jewish problem and the world must help to solve it, the Zionist Organization of America declared today in a review of the Jewish affairs in Palestine issued in behalf of the organization by William M. Lewis of Philadelphia, the acting President.”
1936: “Appeals to Great Britain for the termination of Arab anti-Jewish disorders were received in Washing today by the Zionist Organization of America from Senator William H. King, Senator David I. Walsh, Senator Morris Sheppard, Senator Arthur Capper, Representative John J. O’Connor of New York and Representative Isaac Bacharach of New Jersey.”
1936: Dr. Dresider Baltazar, Bish of the Trans-Tisiscan district of the Hungarian Protestant Reformed Church who as a member of the Upper House in the Hungarian Parliament advocated “liberalism and understanding among Jews and Christians” passed away today.
1936: “More than 1,500 mourners attended the funeral services this afternoon for Moses S. Margolies, the death of the orthodox rabbis of American who had been head of Kehilath Jeshurun Synagogue for 30 years.”
1937: A new wave of anti-Jewish terror had broken out in Bialystok district of Poland, resulting in more than 50 Jews being injured, some of them seriously. In one instance Polish rioters gouged out the eyes of Leib Koza, a Jewish carter. In understanding the Holocaust, one must understand that anti-Semitism did not arrive in Eastern Europe only with the coming of the Nazis.
1937: Arab villagers bringing fowls and eggs to sell in Safad¹s Jewish Quarter were shot at and scared away by armed Arabs. They were warned never to try to sell their produce to Jews again. This was part of the on-going violence against the Jewish settlers and those who Arabs who wished to live peacefully that had brought about the Peel Commission in the first place. Mixing peace talks with terror is not a tactic that was invented by the PLO. It has been part of along standing behavior pattern. The Arab terrorists of the 1930’s would be rewarded with an effective end to the sale of land to Jews and Jewish immigration just before the start of World War II.
1937: The British Consul in Athens refused to grant visas to Palestine to members of a Jewish swimming team.
1937: The Council of People’s Commissars for Ukraine approved plans to settle 1,525 Jewish families and 1,020 individuals in Biro-Bidjan, and 350 Jewish families in Crimea. This reflected a challenge that the Soviet Union faced in dealing with what was the Nationalities Problem in general and Jews and Zionism in particular.
1938: This morning a Jewish owned bus traveling on the road between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv was fired on by attackers in an Arab owned orange grove resulting in the wounding of seven Jewish passengers.
1938: An Arab gunman fired on a car driven by Isaac Greenbaum, a member of the Jewish Executive Committee as he traveled on the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Neither Greenbaum nor his traveling companion was harmed.
1938: Schumel Winer was stoned while riding through Ramleh. The stoning would lead to his death six days later.
1938(29th of Av, 5698) “Miss Charlotte Epstein, chairman of the United States Olympic Women’s Swimming Committee and long a leader in women’s swimming activities died today in her Manhattan apartment.” She was fifty three years old.
1938: The Nazis passed a law requiring all Jews to take the names Israel and Sara. Apparently, this was Goebbels way of mocking the Jews, since both names contain the word SAR, a person of power.
1938: “The Gladiator” a comedy produced by David Loew with a script by Arthur Sheekman and music by
Arthur Young was released in the United States today by Columbia Pictures.
1939(11thof Elul, 5699): Parashat Ki Teitzei
1939(11thof Elul, 5699): Sixty-five year old Warsaw native Joshua Zambrowsky, the father of Reb Eliezer Elimielech and Reb Tzemach Zambrowsky of Cleveland, who was the chief Rabbi of Syracuse and then Buffalo and the author of Sefer Ateret Yehoshua passed away today.
1939: The family of Zeev (Heinz) Raphael left Zwickau on perilous trip that would end with their arrival in Sweden three days before the start of World War II in Europe.
1939: Hitler did not invade Poland as planned today because Great Britain unexpectedly signed a defense pact with Poland on August 25.
1940(22nd of Av, 5700): In Rio de Jenerio, Clarice Lispector’s father, Pedro, died as a result of a botched gall bladder operation.
1941: Germaine Ribière and Pastor Chaudier of Limoges provided hideouts during the roundups in the Zone libre, in Haute-Vienne, Creuse and Indre that took place today.
1941: After hiding in Cauterets, France for the last “eight to ten months” 20 year old Leo Bretholz took refuge the Pyrnees to escape deportation to the death camps.
1942(13th of Elul, 5702): At 2.30 am in the morning the German Schutzpolizei in Chortkiv in the western Ukraine starts driving Jews out of houses, splits them into groups of 120, packs them in freight cars and deports 2000 Jews to Belzec death camp. Five hundred sick Jews and children were murdered on the spot.
1942: A large scale Aktion occurred in Wieliczka, Poland, during which some Jews were selected for labor with the majority being sent to the Belzec death camp. (Yad Vashem)
1942: Seven thousand stateless Jews in the Vichy Free Zone of France were rounded up. Many of these people were refugees from Nazi conquests in Eastern Europe. The Vichy Government was very prompt in turning Jews over to the Nazis.
1942: During the roundup of Jews living in the Vichy Free Zone, Germaine Ribière and Pastor Chaudier of Limoges provided refuge for children in the homes of non-Jews/
1942: Nazis closed all synagogues and schools in the Kovno ghetto.
1942: After being unloaded at the Treblinka death camp, a Jew named Friedman uses a razor blade to cut the throat of a Ukrainian guard. SS guards retaliate by immediately opening fire on the other newly arrived deportees.
1942: Thousands of Jews from Miedzyrzec, Poland, are deported to the Treblinka death camp.
1942: Nearly 1000 Belgian Jews, including 232 children, are deported to the East.
1942(13th of Elul, 5702): 518 Jewish children deported from Paris are gassed at Auschwitz.
1943(13th of Elul, 5702): Seventy-four year old Odessa native Jacob Magidoff who in 1886 came to the United States where he earned a law degree from NYU, co-founded the United Hebrew Trades of New York in 1899 and 42 years of service as the city editor of The Jewish Morning Journal and married Tinnie Magidoff with whom he had three daughters – “Bella, Dorothy and Helen” – passed tonight at his home in Brooklyn.
1943(13th of Elul, 5702): Seventy-four year old Odessa native Jacob Magidoff who in 1886 came to the United States where he earned a law degree from NYU, co-founded the United Hebrew Trades of New York in 1899 and 42 years of service as the city editor of The Jewish Morning Journal and married Tinnie Magidoff with whom he had three daughters – “Bella, Dorothy and Helen” – passed tonight at his home in Brooklyn.
https://www.jta.org/1943/08/29/archive/jacob-magidoff-jewish-morning-journal-writer-dies-in-new-york
1943: The Jewish community from Zawiercie, Poland, is destroyed at Auschwitz.
1943: A young Jewish woman, one of 24 who was an unwilling guest at an SS "party" at the Janówska, Ukraine, labor camp the previous night, is shot during an escape attempt. The remaining 23 women are subsequently murdered
1943: Germany declared martial law in Denmark. As the Nazi s prepared for the deportation the Danish Jews, Danes ferried over 6,000 Jews to safety in Sweden. This was one of the most famous acts of courage when it came to saving Jews during the Holocaust. Why, when so many others were willing to sit idly by and watch the Jews go their death or to help the Nazis in their work did the Danes behave so bravely and nobly? Some would say that the behavior of the Danish people was a modern miracle. It is a topic we can discuss some Monday night when we get to twentieth century Europe.
1943: King Boris returned to Bulgaria from Berlin after receiving a browbeating from Hitler over his unwillingness to immediately ship Jews to the death
1943: “The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America” which “is named after Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr., a noted history professor at Harvard during the 20th century; and his wife Elizabeth Bancroft Schlesinger, a noted feminist” “was begun today when a Radcliffe College alumna “donated her collection of books, papers and memorabilia on female reformers to Radcliffe.”
1944: As the Allies continued their invasion of southern France, the Germans surrenderd at the port of Toulon, a town whose Jewish presence dated back to the 14th century and which “twin” with Herzilya, Israel.
1945(17th of Elul, 5705): Fifty-four year old Franz Werfel, Austrian-Czech philosopher and author who was a contemporary of such luminaries as Franz Kafka and Martin Buber, passed away.
1946: Birthdate of Romanian-born Israeli neuropsychologist Shlomo Bentin.
1946: Time features a cover story “Jews Arabs Jerusalem”
1947: Birthdate of author Jonathan Nasaw the younger brother of author David Nasaw.
1948: In Ontario, the Huntsville Forester described the performance of tenor Lou Herman, the son of a Montreal cantor who served with the Canadian Army in Europe at a recent Rotary Club luncheon.
1950: Birthdate of Richard H. Jones who was sworn in as the U.S. Ambassador to Israel in September of 2005.
1950: In Brooklyn, Max Gottfried who ran a hardware store with his brother Seymour in Coney Island and “the former Lillian Zeimmerman” gave birth to Arlene Gottfried, the photographer who took the images of the ordinary and captured them as extraordinary on film. (As reported by William Grimes)
1951: Birthdate of Roger Karoutchi, the Moroccan born scion of a Jewish-Armenian family who became a prominent French political leader who has served as Secretary of State to the French Prime Minister and the French Ambassador to The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
1952: Stalin ordered the arrest of Jewish Artists and closed all Yiddish institutions. They were accused of "Jewish Nationalism" and spying for the West. Twenty-six of the members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were immediately executed.
1952: The Knesset passed the bill increasing the conscription for men by six months (to 30 months). As of June 1, 1953, the maximum age for reserve duty was reduced from 49 to 44. The maximum conscription age for doctors was set at 39 and for women physicians at 34.
1952: The new Oil Bill, passed in the Knesset by a majority of 54 to 13, provided for leases to be given to prospectors for 30 years and offered them extensions for another 20 years. The royalties were set at 12.5 percent and investors were to be subject to 50% income tax on companies. Of course the joke was that Israel was the country in the Middle East that did not have oil. If only Moses had turned right instead of left, as the comedians used to say.
1952(5th of Elul, 5712): An Israeli soldier was killed by Jordanian snipers in the Wadi Ara area.
1954: In San Francisco, “Doris Feigenbaum Fisher and Donald Fisher, the co-founders of Gap, Inc.” gave birth to Robert J. “Bob Fisher the graduate of Princeton and Stanford who became a director of Gap in
1955(8th of Elul, 5715): Sixty two year old Dorothy Kahn the Seattle born daughter of Viola (Cohen) Kahn and Rabbi Julius Kahn who was a leading social worker during the 1930’s and 1940’s passed away today.https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/Kahn-Dorothy-C
1957: “The Abominable Snowman,” a British horror film featuring Wolf Morris was released in the UK today by Warner Brothers.
1960(3rd of Elul, 5720): Eighty-one year Russian born “British concert pianist Mark Hambourg” passed away today.
1961: Birthdate of Daniel Levi, the native of Algeria who gained fame as French singer and songwriter.
1962: Seventy nine year old Edward Turnour, 6th Earl Winterton “who head the British delegation to the conference on refugees at Evian, France” and delivered a speech in Parliament in 1938 calling on the Germans to cooperate in dealing with the problem of “minorities forced to leave the country of their birth” and praised “the moderation, good sense and common sense of the many representatives of Jewish organizations with whom he had discussed the Refugee Problem” passed away today.
1962: Eighty-two year old Canadian explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson one of the author Fannie Hurst’s lovers passed away today.
1963: Diana Barnato Walker, the daughter of Woolf Barnato and the granddaughter Barney Barnator flew an English Electric Lightning T4 to Mach 1.6 (1,262 mph) becoming the first British woman to break the sound barrier while establishing “by this flight a world air speed record for women.”
1966: Birthdate of Avner Ben-Gal “an international painter and artist, working mainly from Tel Aviv, Israel. His works depict various intense, often neglected locations such as agricultural fields, prisons and smoky interiors, whereby theatrical scenes play out.
1968: The Democratic National Convention which Bruce Sundlun attended as a delegate opened in Chicago, Ill.
1968: “Rachel, Rachel” which marked the directorial debut of Paul Newman who also served as producer and with music by Jerome Moross was released in the United States today.
1970:Ten thousand women marched down New York's Fifth Avenue to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment, which granted women the right to vote. In New York, the speakers at the evening march included a battery of Jewish women long active in the feminist movement. Congressional candidate Bella Abzug, writer Gloria Steinem, and former Miss America Bess Myerson Grant, then the city's Commissioner of Consumer Affairs, joined Friedan on the platform. Although Jewish women would later struggle with anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism within the American feminist movement, the 1970 strike was emblematic of the crucial role that Jewish women played in forming and advancing that movement. Businesses and retail stores reported little effect from the strike.
1971: Gertrude Schimmel “was sworn in today as the NYPD’s first female captain by Mayor John Linday.
1972: Games of the XX Olympiad open in Munich, Germany. Nobody had a clue that this peaceful athletic venue would turn into a killing field for the Israelis and a triumph for terrorism.
1974: Charles Lindbergh passes away at the age of 72. The Lone Eagle became a national hero when he flew the Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic landing in Paris. However, he lost some of his luster when he became one of the leaders of the isolationist movement dedicating to keeping America out of World War II. He had been to Nazi Germany and expressed his admiration for what was being accomplished. He cautioned Americans about the might of the fascists and described World War II as European family fight that had nothing to do with the United States. After Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh is reported to have sought a commission with the Army Air Corps. His request was blocked by those who held Lindbergh partially responsible for the lack of military preparedness since the isolationists had done all they could to deny funding for the Army and Navy prior to December 7.
1975: “Odessa activist Lev Roitburd received a two year sentence of imprisonment “for resisting arrest” during the visit to USSR of a US Senate delegation.”
1976: Robert G. Clegg, a British national who was farmer in Uganda and had been accused of spying for the Israelis during the raid on Entebbe was among those who were released by President Idi Amin.
1976: “The Last Tycoon” a film version of the novel by the same name produced Sam Spiegel, with a screenplay by Harold Pinter, starring Tony Curtis and featuring Peter Straus was released in the United States today.
1977: The National Assembly of Quebec adopted the Charter of the French Language. This would help trigger a mass migration of Jews from Montreal to English speaking Toronto, making Toronto the center of the Canadian Jewish Community.
1977(12th of Elul, 5737):H.A Rey (born Hans Augusto Reyersbach) the creator of Curious George, passed away. http://www.legacy.com/ns/news-story.aspx?t=the-curious-journey-of-ha-rey&id=101
1978: The thirty-three day Papacy of John Paul I began today. While he had no direct impact on the Jewish people, his brief time in office paved the way for the papacy of John Paul II who “often devoted his energy to improving relations between Jews and Catholics.”
1980: Three generations of Seaman family women marched with the New York Women's Strike for Equality
1983: “Strange Brew” a comedy co-directed by Rick Moranis who also helped to write the script and in which he also played a starring role and featuring the voice of Mel Blanc was released today in Canada.
1983(17th of Elul, 5743): Sixty-one year old Hartford, CT born actor and WW II Navy veteran Mike Kellin the son of Russian Jewish immigrants and the older brother of Shirley Ann Kellin passed away today.
1983: Canadian premiere of Producer Louis M. Silverstein’s “Strange Brew” a co-starring Rick Moranis who also co-authored the script and served as co-director.
1983: In “The Pride of Being Kurdish” published today Greer Fay Cashman wrote “Few of the ethnic ingredients in Israel’s sizzling melting pot have been as cruelly maligned as the Kurds. The deprecating image of a hot tempered illiterate primitive is so deep-seated that for many years Israelis of Kurdish extraction denied their origins and identified with other national backgrounds…The effort to distance themselves from their past had an unfortunate effect. They began to forget their customs and traditions. There was an acute danger that the very existence of Kurdish Jewry would be erased from the annals of history.”
1988(13th of Elul, 5748): Seventy-six year old screenwriter and independent producer Milton Sperling passed away toda.
1989(25th of Av, 5749): Author Irving Stone passed away. Stone is best known for the blockbuster novel and film epic, Lust For Life.
1992(27th of Av, 5752): Sixty nine year old American mathematician Daniel E. Gorenstein, passed away. His groundbreaking work earned him the Steele Prize in 1989
1992: In France, premiere of “The Last of the Mohicans” directed and co-produced by Michael Mann who also co-authored the script, starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
1993: “The Unspeakable Atrocity,” a documentary examining the BBC’s ignoring of the Holocaust during WWII is scheduled to be broadcast this evening on Radio 4.
1993: “The former chief of New York’s highest court” Sol Wachtler “collected more than $805,000 as executor of the will and trust funds left by the stepfather of his former lover, according to a pre-sentencing letter released today.”
1994: “Police Academy: Mission to Moscow,” a comedy co-starring Ron Perlman was released in the United States today.
1994(19th of Elul, 5754): Hamas claimed responsibility for today’s murder of 18 year old Ron Saval who lived at Lehavim.
1995(30th of Av, 5755): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1995: The 13th and final episode of “The Ben Stiller Show” created and written by Ben Stiller and Judd Apatow was broadcast today
1996: Brooksley E. Born, the former wife of the late Jack Landau began serving as chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
2001: The New York Times book section featured a review of Babes in Paradise, a collection of short stories by Jewish author Marisa Silver.
2001(7th of Elul, 5761): Fifty-eight year old Dov Rosman was murdered today outside of Kibbutz Magal by Fatah terrorists.
2003: The Columbia Investigation Board releases its final report on the loss of the space shuttle Columbia. Ilan Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut was on the Columbia as Payload Specialists.
2005: The Jerusalem Post reported that undefeated Jewish boxing phenom Dmitriy "Star of David" Salita will fight Shawn "The Educator" Gallegos for the vacant North American Boxing Association junior welterweight championship belt today in New York City. Salita, who is Orthodox, is also known as the "Hammerin' Chabadnik." If he wins, Salita will be the first Jewish fighter to win a boxing championship since 1978.
2005: Eve Ensler the author of “The Vagina Monologues” appeared on “Real Time with Bill Maher” today
2006: Shabbat Shoftim – Anniversary of the Bar Mitzvah of Sheldon Luber, of blessed memory
2007: The Sunday New York Times book section featured a review of Bearing the Bodyby Ehud Havazelet.
2007: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at Temple Judah 2007-2008 religious school year begins.
2007: Ryan Braun hit his 25th home run in his 82nd game.
2007: Competition So Fierce That the Yarmulkes Fly Off,” published today it reports on the fortieth anniversary of the Orthodox Bungalow Baseball League, a forty team softball league whose Chasidic and Orthodox Jewish players have romped across the diamonds of the Catskills for the past forty years.
2007(12th of Elul, 5767): Rabbi Judah Nadich, a leader of Conservative Judaism who served as General Eisenhower’s adviser on Jewish affairs in 1945 when the U.S. Army discovered the aftermath of the Holocaust, passed away at the age of 95.
2008: Opening night of the inaugural Gilboa Coexistence Festival taking place throughout the Gilboa region.
2008: Israel Bar-On “won the final of Kokhav Nolad 6 contest with 56% of the votes.”
2008:In two hours-long program on Israel Radio’s "Kol Hamusika", Dani Orstav hosts Yeheskell Beinisch, Chairman of the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival who will present the Festival’s rich, varied program and will introduce the new artists who will be performing this year.
2008:The search for oil in Israel got a big push forward tonight after The Nature and Parks Authority general assembly approved plans for the drilling of an exploratory hole to search for oil in the Judean nature reserve. Two Israeli companies, Ginko Oil Exploration and Delek Energy Systems, believe there could be as much as 6.5 million barrels below the reserve.
2009:In Cedar Rapids, Charlene Wolf hosts a meeting of the Hadassah book club where they discuss their latest selection, The Triumph of Deborah by Eva Ezioni-Halevy
2009:As the fall semester starts at the University of Iowa, offers course styled Biblical Hebrew I which “is the first in a sequence of classes designed to give students the tools necessary to read the Hebrew Bible in its original language.”
2009:As the fall semester starts at the University of Iowa, offers course styled Biblical Hebrew I which “is the first in a sequence of classes designed to give students the tools necessary to read the Hebrew Bible in its original language.”
2009:If Reform and Conservative Jews want more synagogues or mikvaot [ritual baths] they should build them themselves with private money and not expect the state to foot the bill, Religious Affairs Minister Ya'acov Margi (Shas) said today.
2009:Government officials in Lithuania reached agreement today with Jewish organizations over the future of an historic cemetery in the capital city Vilnius, putting an end to a long-running dispute over the site.
2009:Government officials in Lithuania reached agreement today with Jewish organizations over the future of an historic cemetery in the capital city Vilnius, putting an end to a long-running dispute over the site.
2009(6th of Elul, 5769): Sixty-eight year old song writer Eleanor Louise “Ellie” Greenwich passed away today.
2009(6th of Elul, 5769): Ninety-six year old iconoclastic painter Hyman Bloom passed away today (As reported by Holland Cotter)
2009(6th of Elul, 5769): Eighty-seven year William Korey, who was one of the leaders in the fight to protect the rights of Jews living in the Soviet Union during the Cold War passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/world/04korey.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
2010: The Michigan Region of ORT, the world's largest Jewish education and vocational training non-governmental organization, is scheduled to sponsor “Rub-a-Dub” which includes both a silent and a live auction.
2010:Dozens of Palestinian youths hurled Motolov cocktails and stones at security forces this morning in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.\
2011:Congregation Adat Reyim’s is scheduled to host “Erev Shabbat on the Water” at the Fairfax Yacht Club in Fairfax, VA.
2011:Congregation Adat Reyim’s is scheduled to host “Erev Shabbat on the Water” at the Fairfax Yacht Club in Fairfax, VA.
2011: Elisha Banai “played in the short film, ‘Tank full of Petrol’, a futuristic spaghetti western with bikers.”
2011:Cantor Larry Paul and musician Robyn Helzner are scheduled to lead a Carlebach-inspired service at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC.
2011: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a Triple Header Shabbat Eve Service at Temple Judah: Start of the Fifth Musical Shabbat Season; Recognition of the Accomplishments of Past Board Members; Installation of the new board including co-Presidents Laurie Silber and Ben Dillon.
2011: A Kassam rocket fired into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip landed in open territory in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council area tonight hours after a Grad rocket landed south of Ashkelon.
2011(26th of Av, 5771): Seventy-one year old novelist Susan Fromberg Schaeffer passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)
2011(26th of Av, 5771): Sixty-two yearold Nahum Itzkovich, Jerusalem district psychologist of the Israel Employment Service and husband of The Jerusalem Post’s veteran health and science reporter Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, passed away today. ]
2011:Hundreds of Egyptians gathered today outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo in what was supposed to be a "million-man march" calling on the government to expel Israel's ambassador. 2012: “Going Beyond Memory: A Conference on Synagogue Archiving is scheduled to begin in Cincinnati, Ohio
2012: The Alexandria Kletzet is scheduled to perform at Riderwood Village in Silver Spring, MD
2012: The alumni reunion celebrating the 60thanniversary of Camp Massad, “the only Hebrew immersion summer camp in Western Canada” is scheduled to come to an end.
2012: The Montreal Jewish Music Festival is scheduled to begin today.
2012: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Every Day by David Levithan
2012: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said today that her government was hard at work trying to find a quick solution to the circumcision controversy raging in her country.
2012: A Kassam rocket from the Gaza Strip landed in the Eshkol Regional Council in southern Israel shortly after 8 PM Israel time
2013: An HBO documentary directed by James Freedman about Marty Glickman is scheduled to be shown for the first time today. (As reported by Joe Winkler)
2013(20thElul): Yarhrzeit of Dr. Jacob Levin, a great husband, wonderful father and the best uncle in the world.
2013: A report of the investigation conducted by Sullivan and Cromwell released today concluded “Incidents of physical and sexual abuse at Yeshiva University were not limited to its high school for boys, an investigation has found.” Investigators found of evidence of abuse “at other divisions of the university.” (As reported by JTA)
2013: “The head of Australia’s opposition said Monday that he will seek to improve ties with Israel, as his conservative bloc geared up for a national election next month.” (As reported by Joshua Davidovich)
2013: The International Cantor Concert is scheduled to take place this evening at the Dohany Street Synagogue
2014(30thof Av, 5774): Rosh Chodesh Elul I
2014: “A Triumph of Life: Commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the Oregon Holocaust Memorial” is scheduled to open in Portland, OR.
2014(30thof Av, 5774): Fifty-five year-old Ze’ev Etzion, the security chief for Kibbutz Nirim and 43 year old Shahar Melamed a father of 3 living at Nirim were murdered in a salvo of rockets fired just before the latest ceasefire went into effect.
2014: Nariman House, the six-story home of Chabad-Lubavitch of Mumbai “which closed after a terror attack six years ago” is scheduled to be rededicated today.
2014: “Maccabi Tel Aviv coach Oscar Garcia has quit his job, with the club saying today it was because of the “current security situation” in Israel.” (As reported by Times of Israel and JTA)
2014: Terrorists in Gaza launched salvo after salvo of rockets just before the ceasefire went into effect at 7 pm local – a ceasefire which was greeted as a victory by Hamas but which did not have the support of many cabinet members and was seen as a disappointment by many Israelis especially those living in the Eshkol Region.
2015: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to host a screening “It Happened One Night.”
2015: Muammar Ata Mahmoud, 56 of Hebron who stabbed and lightly wounded an Israeli border policeman in Jerusalem’s Old City this evening is the convicted killer of an Israel Prize winning professor of history Menahem Stern who was “stabbed to death while walking to work at the Givat Ram campus in 1989.
2015: “After a public outcry, a Tel Aviv market complex today revoked a NIS 3,500 ($900) monthly fine imposed on a café owner who refused to open his business on Shabbat.” (As reported by Josefin Dolsten)
2015: In Cedar Rapids, IA, Temple Judah is scheduled to host “Nosh and Chagall” its first ever Adult Art Class and Potluck.
2015: The American Jewish Archives is scheduled to host the latest in its Travels in American Jewish History with a study mission in New Orleans, LA.
2016: Despite objections from the religious parties allied with the Prime Minister construction work began this afternoon, erev Shabbat, on the Shalom station with the Netanyahu’s full approval.
2016: “Is That You? The Road Not Taken” a film about a 60 year old Israeli film projectionist is scheduled to open at the Cinema Village.
2016: Jewish actress/comedian Roseanne Barr who has slammed Hillary on Twitter saying Clinton will be the absolute death of Israel today “tweeted and re-tweeted several posts about Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin, whom Barr labeled “a filthy nazi whore.”
2016: “Hanna Goor, who was a contestant on the Israeli reality music show “Kochav Nolad” (“A Star is Born”) in 2004, was performing at the Hagaugust (August Festival), which was organized by the Culture and Sport Ministry” when she “was asked to leave the stage because she was wearing a bikini top.
2016: Israeli born cellist Inbal Segev is scheduled to open “Bryant Park Presents IN/TER\SECT's Breaking Boundaries, a free five-hour outdoor concert.”
2016: “Janet L. Yellen, the Federal Reserve chairwoman, said today that she saw a stronger case for raising the Fed’s benchmark interest rate, suggesting the central bank was likely to act in the coming months.”
2016: Barbra Streisand’s latest album “Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway,” is scheduled to be released today.
2017(4thof Elul, 5777): Parashat Shoftim;
2017(4thof Elul, 5777): Seventy-six year old playwright Bernard Pomerance passed away today. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)
2017(4thof Elul, 5777): Seventy-seven year old publisher Howard Kaminsky who authored The Twelve, a novel with Susan Kaminsky passed away today. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)
2017: “Israelis flocked to Tel Aviv’s Ganei Yehoshua Park today for the city’s second annual canine celebration, called “Kelaviv.” (As reported by Luke Tress)
2017: Bat Yam is scheduled to host the final day of a festival featuring theatre and “street theatre.”
2017: In Coralville, IA, Congregation Agudas Achim is scheduled to host The Iowa Early Keyboard Society concert
2017: In Terre Haute, IN, the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host Peter Hayes, the author of Why?: Explaining the Holocaust.
2017: In Corpus Christi, TX, Congregation Beth Israel has cancelled Shabbat services because of Hurricane Harvey.
2018: In another example of Jews as life-long learners, in Memphis, TN, Adult Hebrew Classes are scheduled to start this morning at Temple Israel.
2018: At part of the “Home: Lens on Israel” series, the Temple Emanuel Streicker Center the photographic exhibition “The Ultra-Orthodox of Bnei Brak” is scheduled to come to an end today.
2018: In Atlanta, GA, Jeremy Katz, the Archives Director at the Bremen Museum is scheduled to address the meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society