August 31
1932(29th of Av, 5692):Moyshe-Leyb Halperndied of a heart attack in New York City. Born in 1886, he was a Yiddish-language modernist poet raised in a traditional Jewish household in Zlotshev, Galicia and brought to Vienna at the age of 12 in 1898 to study commercial art. Halpern began writing modernist poetry n German while living in Vienna. Upon returning to his hometown in 1907, he switched to writing in Yiddish. In 1908, Halpern emigrated to New York City in order to avoid the military draft. There he became associated with a group of Yiddish poets called Di Yunge (The Young Ones). He published his first book of poetry in 1919, In nyu york (In New York). That same year, he married. He had a son in 1923. His second book, Di goldene pave (The GoldenPeacock), was published in 1924. Halpern also wrote for satirical magazines and Frayhayt (Freedom), a communist Yiddish newspaper.
1933: Rabbi Joseph Zvi Dushinsky becomes the Chief Rabbi of the Agudath Israel in Jerusalem.
1933: The Jiidische Rundschau is permitted to reappear. The popular Jewish weekly, which had been published since 1902, had been forced to suspend publication for producing editorials that had challenged Nazi charges against the Zionists. The magazine would be forced to close in 1938
1933: The eighteenth World Zionist Congress adopted a resolution providing for sending a commission to Palestine to investigate charges of terrorism in connection with the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, the Zionist leader who had been killed in Tel Aviv.
1933: Professor Selig Brodetsky told members of the World Zionist Congress that Zionist organization has inaugurated conversations with Arab leaders of Syria and other neighboring lands for the extension of Jewish colonization.
1933: The Council of the Warsaw Jewish Community sends a protest to the Zionist Congress against agreements for exchange of goods between Nazi Germany and Palestine.
1933(9th of Elul, 5693): Nazi agents murdered Theodore Lessing in Marienbad, Czechoslovakia. Lessing was an anti-Nazi Jewish philosopher and Zionist who had taught at Hanover Technical High School. He had moved to Czechoslovakia because he feared for his safety. 1935(2nd of Elul, 5695): Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook known as Rav Kook passed away. Rabbi Kook was the first Chief Rabbi Ashkenazic of Palestine, serving from 1921 until his death in 1935. Born in Russia in 1865, Kook was a child prodigy and star student at the famed yeshiva in Volozhin He served as a Rabbi in several communities in Europe before moving to Eretz Israel in 1904 where he served as a rabbi in Jaffa as well as for the new Zionist settlements. "Kook was the outstanding leader and thinker of the religious Zionist movement at a time when the great majority opposed of Orthodox Jewry Zionism. He endeared himself to the nonreligious elements in Israel by sympathy and support for the secular sector, particularly in the agricultural settlements." He regarded all who made Alyiah, "regardless of their beliefs to be inspired by holy sparks "since they were laying the foundation for the ultimate messianic redemption."
1935(2nd of Elul, 5695):Herman Bernstein an American journalist, writer, translator, and diplomat, passed away. Herman Bernstein was born in 1876, at Vladislavov which was on the Russo-German border to David and Marie Bernstein. In 1893, he emigrated to the United States, where he completed his education and married Sophie Friedman on December 31, 1901. “His first stories were published in 1900. He contributed to the New York Evening Post, The Nation, The Independent, and Ainslee's Magazine. He was the founder and editor of The New London Day and an editor of the Jewish Tribuneand of the Jewish Daily Bulletin. As a correspondent of the New York Times, Bernstein regularly travelled to Europe. In 1915, he went to Europe to document the situation of Jews in the war zones. He documented the Russian Revolution in 1917 for the New York Herald, which led him to both Siberia and Japan with the American Expeditionary Forces. He also covered the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 for the same newspaper. In 1921 Bernstein published a book History of a Lie, an account of the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. According to GPU agent Pavlovsky (Yakshin), arrested in Germany in 1929, Bernstein worked for both GPU and Comintern, arranging pro-Soviet coverage in American press. One of his main goals was to describe White army and White emigres as anti-Semitic instigators of pogroms and suppress coverage of pogroms by units of the Red Army and other forces allied to Bolsheviks during the Russian civil war. GPU supplied Bernstein with forged documents for publication. In 1921 Bernstein received 17 000 gold rubles for his services.
1936: “Fear that the future of Jews in Palestine was imperiled by British ‘inaction’ was voiced today in a declaration issued at the close of an extraordinary session of the general council of the World Zionist Organization” that was held in Zurich.
1936: “The problem of uniting the religions of the United States, not under one banner of dogma or doctrine, but a united front to deal with civic, social and welfare problems of the nation was discussed” at a meeting in Appleton, Wisconsin, tonight by three clergymen of the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish faiths” the latter of which was Rabbi L.L. Mann of Sinai Temple in Chicago.
1936: Dr. Alexander Rosenfeld, vice president of the Tel Aviv Sports Organization received a cable today saying that the Maccabees Palestine Soccer team is scheduled to arrive in New York on September 14.
1937: In Brooklyn Frieda (née Shapkin) and Elias Berlinger, a building contractor gave birth to actor Warren Berlinger whose career included everything from appearing in the original Broadway production of “Annie Get Your Gun” to the ever-popular kids’ show “Howdy Doody.”
1937: The violence orchestrated by Arab leaders that was designed to end Jewish immigration and land purchases continued with seven Arab attacks on Jews in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Karkur. Three Jews and four Arabs were killed and there were many wounded. Moshe Goldenberg, the mukhtar (village elder) of Beit Alfa, had a narrow escape when shot at in Beit Shean. (Yes, this is the same Beit Shean where the bodies of Saul and his sons were taken as described in the Book of Samuel.) Jewish and Arab leaders were summoned by district commissioners who appealed for the restoration of law and order.
1938: Moslem terrorists sought to extend their power by killing other Arabs. “Tewfik Shantin an Arab broker was shot dead in the waiting room of an Arab doctor in Jaffa” while an unnamed Arab village chieftain was shot to death while walking with a friend in the Old City of Jerusalem.
1938(4th of Elul, 5698): Mordecai Leznick, a Jewish policeman riding on an Arab owned bus traveling between Lydda and Jaffa was shot to death by an Arab passenger.
1938(4th of Elul, 5698): In Tel Aviv Schmuel Weiner died from wounds sustained when he was stoned last Friday while riding through Ramleh.
1939: The last day of peace in Europe before the outbreak of World War II. Every one waited to see if the Poles would cave into German demands. Every one waited to see if the British would betray the Poles as they had the Czechs in 1938. What the world did not know was that Hitler issued Directive no.1, 1939 ordering the attack on Poland to begin at dawn the following day. Already, 1,500,000 German troops were poised to enact Case White, the invasion of Poland, The plan to create a fake attack by Polish troops on a German transmitter was about to be enacted. Bynoon the next “Polish casualties” (actually the corpses of concentration camp inmates) would provide Hitler’s proof of Polish perfidy and the Blitz of Poland would be on its way.
1939: Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on Gleiwitz radio station giving them an excuse to attack Poland the following day, starting World War II.
1940: From July 9 through today, Chiune Sugihara, the Vice Counsel for the Empire of Japan in Lithuania issued over 2,000 visas to Polish Jews so that they could escape from the Nazis. This does not count the three to five thousand visas issued to Lithuanian Jews without his government’s approval that enabled them to escape as well.
1940: The National Encampment of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States continued for a third day.
1941: Churchill received 17 reports of the shooting of Jews and Russians in numbers ranging between 61 and 4,200. These reports covered the two month period beginning with June, 1941 when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union and the special Killing Squads began their work.
1941: In response to a Jewish reprisal raid on a German patrol, all Jews were confined to their homes. That evening the "action" commenced. The entire Jewish section of Vilna was raided. As a result 2,019 women, 864 men, and 817 children were taken away to pits in Ponar forests and all shot dead. This event is notable for two reasons. First it is unusual because it includes the report of Jewish resistance. Second it is unusual because the Nazis supplied a specific reason for killing Jews other than their usual anti-Semitic drivel.
1941: As the month came to a close, “the Vichy Government of France had enacted laws that discriminated against Moroccan Jews” by setting quotas on the number of Jewish doctors and lawyers, which forced many Jews living in the European quarters to move to the mellahs.
1942: One day after he had passed away funeral services are scheduled to be held this afternoon at the Park West Memorial Chapel for fifty-two year old Nissim Joseph Ovadia, the Turkish born chief rabbi of Vienna and Paris who came to the United States after the French surrendered to the Nazis
1942: A story headlined "Jewish Children Interned by Vichy" appeared in today’s Chicago Sun.
1942: By the end of August SS officer Kurt Gerstein has failed in his attempt to publicize his knowledge of the mass gassings of Jews. He is rebuffed in his approach to the German papal nuncio, Cesare Orsenigo
1942: In Ternopil, western Ukraine, at 4.30 am, German SS organize the first deportation of Jews from Ternopil ghetto to death camp in Belzec, about 5,000 Jews were deported to face death in Belzec. When the Germans captured Ternopil, about 18,000 Jews lived in the city.
1943(30thof Av, 5703): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1943: The Swedish ambassador in Copenhagen was given clearance by the Chief Legal Officer Gösta Engzell to issue Swedish passports in order to "rescue Danish Jews and bringing them here".
1943: The USS Drum, an American submarine, with Maurice Rindskopf serving as Executive Officer sank a Japanese cargo ship while patrolling off New Georgia
1943: During its meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria the “American Jewish Conference adopted a resolution accusing the American Council for Judaism of an ‘attempt to sabotage the collective Jewish will to achieve a unified program’ by its statement made public” yesterday “in Philadelphia opposing the creation of a Jewish state.”
1943: By the end of August, 47 Jewish women and 50 Jewish men are executed after being discovered in the "Aryan" section of Warsaw.
1943: “Vice Chancellor John O. Bigelow ordered an audit of the first accounting of the estate of Abraham Wolff of Morristown, NJ who was a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Co.
1943: In Toronto, the Group on Racial Relations presented a report today in which “Christians were called up to accept Jews a members of the community on a basis of complete equality and to take drastic action in opposing discrimination” in both the personal and social interactions.
1943: “Zionists in England have exceeded the £250,000 goal set for this year’s Palestine Foundation Fund campaign, Mrs. Archibald Silverman reported today at a luncheon in her honor held at the Belmont Plaza Hotel by the Palestine Fund and the Jewish National Fund.”
1943: In Halifax the Army Show which had first been seen by “an all service audience” staring the comedy team of Frank Shuster and Johnny Wayne who came to be known simply as Wayne & Shuster was seen by a civilian audience for the first time tonight.
1944(12th of Elul, 5704): Fifty-three year old Yiddish actor Ludwig Satz passed away today.
http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/yt/lex/S/satz-ludwig.htm
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=23149236
http://www.jta.org/1944/09/03/archive/ludwig-satz-star-of-yiddish-stage-dies-in-new-york-was-53
1944: Jews liberated from the Novaki labor camp joined the battle for Banska Bystrica. Four weeks later Eichmann exacted revenge for the Slovak Uprising by deporting 8,975 Slovak Jews to Birkenau where most met their deaths.
1944: Over the next four days Jews formerly interned at the Nováky labor camp fight in a Slovakian uprising against the Germans. In all, more than 1500 Jews join 16,000 Slovak soldiers and partisans. One partisan battalion commander, a Jewish woman named Edita Katz, covers the retreat of her men with a machine gun and hand grenades until she is killed by Germans and the Hlinka Guard. Another Jewish partisan, Tibor Cifea, is shot by Germans and left hanging for three days.
1944: A photograph was taken of a small group of survivors from the Kovno, a town in Lithuania that had been liberated on August 1. At the start of the war there were approximately 40,000 Jews living there. There were only 2,000 still alive at when the Soviets liberated the city.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/august/14.asp
1945: The Liberal Party of Australia is founded by Robert Menzies. During the Parliamentary elections in August, 2010, The Liberal Party sought the support of the Jewish community by picturing itself as being a better friend of Israel than the Labor Party.
1945: President Truman endorsed a proposal for 100,000 Jews to be immediately admitted to Palestine and so informed the British Prime Minister. Mr. Atlee was, to say the least, not pleased.
1945: Birthdate of Itzhak Perlman. Born in Tel Aviv, Perlman was stricken with polio. He triumphed over the adversity to become one of the world’s greatest violinists.
1945: Lt. Col. Louis Geffen, a judge advocate in the US Army who was sailing across the Pacific to his new duty station was allowed to use an area on the bow of the ship for Kabbalat Shabbat services.
1947: UNSCOP, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, published its report. Under the plan, Palestine was to be partitioned into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. Jerusalem was to be a demilitarized, neutral city governed as an international trusteeship under the United Nations.
1948: In New York City, Jean (née Farber) and Irving Ganz, an arts supply executive gave birth to screenwriter Lowell Ganz
1948: Birthdate of Steve Soboroff, successful businessman, Republican political leader and executive for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
1950: Birthdate of David Bedein, a journalist who established the Israel Resource News Agency and “serves as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.”
1950: “Summer Stock,” a corny musical produced by Joe Pasternak, based on a story by Sy Gomberg for which he won an Oscar and with songs by Harold Arlen was released today in the United States.
1950: Business leaders, Cabinets members and leading representatives from the Knesset held an all-day session to discuss Israel’s worsening economic conditions. “The economic troubles stem mainly from the fact that the expansion of production is unable to keep up with the growth of the population, which increased in 27 months from 655,000 to 1,125,000.”
1951(29thof Av, 5711): Ninety-one year old Abraham Cahan the socialist newspaper editor whose name is synonymous with the Jewish Daily Forward passed away today.
http://college.cengage.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/late_nineteenth/cahan_ab.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/cahan.html
1952: In Monmouth County, Sidney Goldman, Justice of the Superior Court of New Jersey was the principle speaker at the cornerstone laying for Temple Beth Miriam’s new facility.
1952: The final draft of the Reparations Agreement signed at The Hague was sent to Bonn. It was still waiting for the West German government's formal approval. The UN submitted to Bonn for special consideration a list of more than 380 survivors of the Nazi scientific experiments conducted in concentration camps. More than 200 such victims were still living in Germany.
1954: Operation Binyamin 2 led by Ariel Sharon and Meir Har-Zion came to an end with the capture of 3 Jordanian soldiers.
1955:In response to repeated attacks from Fedayeen (the term for terrorists at this time) forces under the command of Mordechai “Motta” Gur and Rafael “Raful” Eitan led an attack which destroyed the military installations at Khan Yunis in what was known as Operation Elkayanm.
1959: Premiere of “Middle of the Night” a drama featuring a May to December romance deftly told in a script by Paddy Chayefsky which features “future Oscar winners Martin Balsam and Lee Grant.
1961: Those “sons of Moses,” the Sherry brothers, combined their efforts to give the Dodgers a 5 to 2 victory over the Cubs. Norm Sherry hit a two-run homer for the Los Angeles Dodgers today and Larry Sherry pitched well enough in relief to get credit for the “save.”
1962(1st of Elul, 5722): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1962: Seventy year old Henrikas Rabinavicius, “the only Jew to have served in the Lithuanian diplomatic corps” after it gained its independence following World War I, and the husband of the former “Ethel Edna Kabat, passed away today in New York.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/09/01/83515186.pdf
1962: In Egypt Alaa al-Zayat “a prominent doctor and professor of medicine” and his wife gave birth to Ahmed Zayat who gained fame as Ephraim David Zayet the American businessman who owns 2015 Triple Crown Winner “American Pharoah.”
1962: Trinidad and Tobago become independent. The Jewish community dates back to the 18th century. At the time of independence there were approximately 700 Jews living in the two islands.
1967(25th of Av, 5727): Ilya Ehrenberg, Soviet author, journalist, apologist and political survivor par excellence, passed away.
1968: Birthdate of Yossef (Joseph) Cedar the native of New York who “grew up in the Bayit VeGan neighborhood in Jerusalem” and became an award winning director and screenwriter best known for the 2011 tale of clash between academics and fathers and sons – “Footnote.”
1972: Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, both of whom were Jewish “answered the advertisement of Peter Criss in Rolling Stone that would lead to the formation of KISS.
1972(21st of Elul, 5732): Seventy-six year old David Abraham Jessurun Cardozo, the Dutch born, English educated Sephardic rabbi who was the assistant rabbi at New York’s prestigious Spanish and Protuguese Synagogue and the first Rabbi to led Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services in Spain since the 1492 Expulsion passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/09/05/archives/rabbi-cardozo-dies-a-sephardic-leader.html
1977: “You Light Up My Life” a romantic comedy written, directed and produced by Joseph Brooks who also composed the score and starring Didi Conn was released in the United States today by Columbia Pictures.
1977: US Undersecretary of State Philip Habib assured Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz that the US would block any Arab attempt to change UN Security Council Resolution 242. This UN Resolution included a guaranteed of the right of Israel to exist and was part of the diplomatic efforts surrounding the Six Day War. Various Arab leaders have erroneously claimed that this resolution required Israel to return to the truce lines that existed in June, 1967.
1979: “Time After Time” a sci-fi film directed by Nicholas Meyer who also wrote the screenplay was released today in the United States.
1981(1st of Elul, 5741): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1981(1st of Elul, 5741):Prof. Elias J. Bickerman, a historian and authority on the influence of the Greeks in the Middle East at the time of Jesus and before, died today in Tel Aviv, where he was on vacation. He was 85 years old and lived in Manhattan.
1981(1st of Elul, 5741): Eighty-two year old businessman and philanthropist Joseph Hirschhorn whose name became famous because of the art museum of which he was “the founder and benefactor” passed away today. (As reported by John Russell)
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/02/obituaries/joseph-hirschhorn-dies-financier-art-patron.html?pagewanted=all
1983: Flight 007, among whose passengers were 23-year-old Alice Ephraimson-Abt, the daughter of Hans Ephraimson-Abt completed “a refueling stop in Alaska” and “took off for Seoul.”
1987: “On the occasion of a meeting in Rome today of representatives of the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, the then President of the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, announced the intention of the Commission to prepare an official Catholic document on the Shoah.”
1988(18th of Elul, 5748): Seventy-five year old Lin Jaldati, the Dutch born Holocaust who brought Yiddish music Communist controlled countries in Asia passed away today.
https://yiddishkayt.org/art-is-my-weapon/
https://www.davidshneer.com/art-is-my-weapon.html
1989(30th of Av, 5749): Eighty-nine Morris Barney Dalitz, the gangster known as Moe Dalitz passed away today.
http://lasvegassun.com/news/1989/sep/01/las-vegas-gaming-pioneer-moe-dalitz-dies-89/
1990: Rabbi Bonnie Koppell, the first female Jewish chaplain in the U.S. military, was profiled in the Omaha "Jewish Press"
1994(24th of Elul, 5754): Harry Rosenblatt, one of the last survivors of the Jewish Legion of World War I, which fought with the British against the Turks in Palestine, passed away. He was 101 years old. A native of Rovno, Ukraine, he came to New York at the age of 17. He joined the British Army after hearing a speech in Union Square by Vladimir Jabotinsky in 1916 in which the Zionist leader called for volunteers to join in the fight to help the British wrest control of the Palestine from the Ottoman Empire. “Mr. Rosenblatt was among the troops entering the city, and his picture and biography are on display in the Museum of the Israeli Defense Forces.” After the war, “he returned to New York, became a U.S. citizen and opened a tailor shop which he kept open until he turned 90.”
1995: Ninety-four year old Gertrude Luckner, a Christian social worker who resisted the Nazis and provided food and assistance to Jews during the Shoah passed for which was named as a righteous among the nations by Yad Vashem passed away today.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/luckner.asp
1997: The New York Times featured a review ofPrivate Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life by Janna Malamud Smith the daughter of Bernard Malamud.
2000(30th of Av, 5760): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2000: Graveside services for Gertrude Schaefler, the widow of the late Leon Schaefler were held today.
2000: “In the Penal Colony,” an opera composed by Philip Glass, based on a story by Franz Kafka, premiered today in Seattle, Washington.
2001: Adel Mughrabi purchased the MV Karine A sothat the Palestinian Authority could use it to smuggle a large shipment of arms to terrorists
2001: Stanley “Stan” Fischer completed his term as First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.
2001: “Children of a Vanish World” an exhibition of photographs by Roman Vishniac is scheduled to come to a close at the Spertus Museum in Chicago.
2001(12th of Elul, 5761): Seventy-five year old Lord Hamlyn, the son of refugees from Hitler’s Germany and became a publishing mogul passed away today.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/sep/03/guardianobituaries.politics
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/sep/03/guardianobituaries.politics
2001(12thof Elul, 5761: Seventy-nine year old child prodigy violinist Jacob Morris Kramalnick, who served as concert master with several orchestras passed away today.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Jacob-Krachmalnick-former-concertmaster-of-2881754.php
2001: An exhibition entitled “Moritz Daniel Oppenheim: Jewish Identity in 19th-Century Art” comes to a close at Yeshiva University Museum in Manhattan. Oppenheim was one of the first Jewish artists to become successful in the 19th century. His “chief claim to fame was as a portraitist to the Rothschild family. He was called ‘the painter of the Rothschilds, and the Rothschild of painters.’”
2002: The Israeli Defense Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, issued a statement expressing "regret" over "harming" civilians in Tubas when an Israeli helicopter fire four missiles at a car in which the local leader of the al-Aqsa brigade was thought to be riding but which actually contained five civilians and one teenager accused of being part of the terrorist organization
2003: Luis Sandoval and two unidentified co-conspirators went to Cafe Bazel, a chic restaurant popular with expatriate Israeli artists in the Encino area, and fatally shot a man suspected of stealing 76 kilograms of Ecstasy tablets from Moshe Malul and Itzhik Abergil. This hit appears to have been the high point of the Israelis' collaboration with the Vineland crew.
2003: The Sunday New York Times book section includes a review of Off With Their Heads:
Traitors, Crooks and Obstructionists in American Politics, Media and Businessby Jewish political consultant Dick Morris.
2004(14th of Elul, 5764): Hamas suicide bombers blew up two buses in Beersheba, Israel, killing 16 passengers and wounding 100’s more. The dead included Shoshana Amos, 64; Aviel Atash, 3; Vitaly Brodsky, 52; Tamara Dibrashvilli, 70; Raisa Forer, 55; Larisa Gomanenko, 48; Denise Hadad, 50; Tatiana Kortchenko, 49; Rosita Lehman, 45; Karine Malka, 23; Nargiz Ostrovsky, 54; Maria Sokolov, 57; Roman Sokolovsky, 53; Tiroayent Takala, 33; Eliyahu Uzan, 58 and Emmanuel Yosef (Yosefov), 28 all from Beersheba.
2004: The Philadelphia Inquirer featured a review of a biography of Jewish born violinist Efrem Zimbalist entitled Efrem Zimbalist: A Life by Roy Malan.
2005(26th of Av, 5765): Sir Joseph Rotblat passed away at the age of 96. The physicist was the only scientist who quit working on the development of the atomic bomb for “moral reasons.” The Polish born scientist awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to him and the Pugwash conferences in 1995 for their work in trying to limit and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons.
2005: “The Constant Gardner” a movie version of the novel by the same name starring Rachel Weisz was released today in the United States.
2005: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russian born Jewish oligarch and businessman, announced that he would run for parliament.
2006: A mass rally calling for the release of the three kidnapped IDF soldiers, Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser attracted thousands to Tel Aviv Rabin's Square.
2006(7th of Elul, 5766): Bernard J. Wohl passed away at the age of 76. An advocate for New York’s poor and homeless; he served as Executive Director of the Goddard Riverside Community Center for 26 years.
2006(7thof Elul, 5766): Sixty-two year old Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Ph.D. the Professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School and award winning author whose works included Reading the Women of the Bible passed away today.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/nas.2007.-.13.252
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/archaeology-today/archaeologists-biblical-scholars-works/tikva-frymer-kensky-1943%E2%80%932006/
2007: In Jerusalem, clarinetist Karl-Heinz Steffens joins members of the Jazz Faculty of the Israel Conservatory of Music for a Jazz Concert.
2007: The ZF conference entitled “Israel at 60” opens in London.
2007: In an address given at the annual meeting of the Islamic Society of North America Rabbi Eric Yoffee, president of the Union for Reform Judaism “pleaded with American Muslims to transcend the differences that have their people for decades and Join Jews to confront the extremist factions and prejudice that plague both religious traditions.”
2007: Today,Rabbi Israel Rubin took his students on an unusual field trip. They went to Barn 70 on the backside of Saratoga Race Course on Friday morning to see a trainer about a horse. The trainer was Bob Baffert, and the horse, Maimonides, was a fast one, who just may capture the Kentucky Derby next May. Maimonides cost $4.6 million at last year’s Keeneland September Sale, and last month he appeared as if he was worth every penny when he won his debut by 11 ½ lengths. He is one of the favorites Monday to win the Grade I $250,000 Hopeful Stakes, a seven-furlong sprint for 2-year-olds. None of that, however, interested Rubin or his charges. He does not attend horse races or gamble. In fact, upon hearing about the colt, Rubin thought long and hard before arranging to take his students here. “Some may think this is sacrilegious,” he said. Ultimately, however, the rabbi and his students were drawn here from the Maimonides Hebrew Day School in Albany for what is in a name. The school and the colt are named for Moses Maimonides, who lived more than 800 years ago and is considered among the greatest Jewish philosophers. He was the chief rabbi of Cairo and the physician to the sultan of Egypt. “He blended religious study and intellect with worldly manners to heal the sick and guide the healthy,” Rubin said. “He was respected and honored by both Jews and Arabs. This is especially relevant now in our life and times.” Maimonides is owned and was named by Ahmed Zayat, an Egyptian now living in New Jersey. He did not know about Rubin’s visit, and, indeed, was flying back from San Diego and Del Mar on Friday morning. When told of the smiles of the youngsters petting the nose of his expensive colt, however, Zayat was beyond gratified. He is a Muslim who grew up in a suburb of Cairo and had put much time and effort into bestowing the name Maimonides on his prize purchase.“ He was a very special man who was highly regarded by all people, regardless of faith,” Zayat said of Maimonides. “What has happened with Sept. 11, Iraq, and what’s going on in the region is contrary to the way I grew up. If this horse was going to be a superstar, I wanted an appropriate name. I wanted to say something with the tool I had, which was a horse. I wanted it to be pro-peace, and about loving your neighbor.” When Zayat tried to register the name Maimonides with the Jockey Club, however, he discovered that it had been reserved for more than nine years by Earle I. Mack, a New York real estate investor and a former ambassador to Finland. In 1997, Mack, then the chairman of the board for the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, was instrumental in bringing King Juan Carlos I of Spain to New York to accept the school’s Democracy Award. Mack had been moved by the king’s remarks about how much Spain’s culture had lost when the country expelled its Jews in 1492 as part of the Inquisition. The king mentioned Maimonides, who was born in Córdoba, Spain, in 1135, and who, with his family, was forced out of the country while Spain was ruled by Muslims. “I was just waiting for a horse good enough to deserve the name,” Mack said. He has owned and bred horses for more than 40 years, and knew that Zayat’s colt, a son of Vindication, was bred to be special. Each also understood the other’s good intentions. Zayat donated $100,000 to Cardozo to commemorate the king’s visit there, and to promote tolerance. Mack released his claim to the name Maimonides. “He had the right horse, and the right motives,” Mack said. “We are all after the same thing: to touch people across cultures.” Zayat and Mack know that horse racing is an unpredictable business, and a thoughtfully named horse hardly guarantees future fame and fortune. When Eli O’Brien, 14, patted Maimonides between the ears and promised to say some prayers for him, Baffert nodded enthusiastically. “We’ll take anything you can give us,” Baffert said.
2008: The Sunday New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including g Still Alive! A Temporary Condition: A Memoirby Herbert Gold and two books by Adam Krisch; Invasions and The Modern Element: Essays on Contemporary Poetry.
2008: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Man in the Dark by Paul Auster, Dough: A Memoir by Mort Zachter, issued in paperbackand Norman Mailer's Miami and the Siege of Chicago, now reissued for the 40th anniversary of those groundbreaking 1968 presidential conventions.
2008: At Yeshiva University Museum, an exhibition entitled “The Six Day War Series: Painting by Ira Moskowitz” comes to an end. “Eight oil paintings gifted to the Museum Collection by the family of Ira and Ann Moskowitz in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem. This series depicts emotionally powerful scenes after the Six-Day War in June 1967. Artist Ira Moskowitz (1912-2001) employs vivid color and expressive brushwork to convey the euphoria of this victorious moment in Israel's history. Born in Poland and educated in Prague, Moskowitz studied at the Art Students League and spent extended periods in Israel.”
2008: Dr. Andrew G. Bostom, author of The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History a book that describes what it was like living as Jew under Moslem rule, was interviewed on Israel National Radio's Tamar Yonah Show. During the interview he “shared the dramatic account of a young Moroccan Jewess in her teens who lived in the 1800's, named Sol Hachuel. Falsely accused on charges of "apostasy" from Islam, she was offered riches and special rights if she embraced Islam - or prison, torture and death if she did not. Sol Hachuel chose to be imprisoned, starved, tortured and then decapitated in the town square rather than give up her Judaism. "I was born a Jew, and I shall die a Jew," she boldly stated to the Islamic court, according to Bostom's accounts. On the show, Bostom read her historic speech that inspired the Fez Jewish community to remain committed to their Judaism despite the hardships of constant false charges, unfair heavy taxes, violence and murder.”
2009(11THof Elul, 5769): Fifty-five year old documentary film maker Elliot Berlin who made “Paperclips” one of the best Holocaust related movies ever passed away today.
http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2009/09/07/elliot_berlin_at_55_was_noted_film_documentarian/
2009: Opening night of the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival.
2009 The Education Ministry announced this evening that an agreement to enroll Ethiopian students initially banned from some of the city's schools had been reached following a meeting between Petah Tikva Mayor Yitzhak Ohayon, Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar (Likud) and other Education Ministry officials.
2009: The stock of Africa Israel investments, a real estate firm owned by Lev Leviev “fell another 13.7 percent today as the firm floated the idea of renegotiating the terms of its debts with bond holders and banks.” (As reported by Marcy Oster)
2010: An exhibition, The Works of Mordechai Rosenstein, on display at the Fine Family Art Gallery and the Katz Family Mainstreet Gallery of the MJCCA is scheduled to come a close today in Atlanta, GA.
2010: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his negotiating team took off for Washington this morning, ahead of the relaunch of peace talks with the Palestinians.
2010(21stof Elul, 5770): Sixty-five year old Gail Koff a partner in Jacoby & Meyers, passed away. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/nyregion/03koff.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
2010(21stof Elul, 5770): Four Israelis were shot dead in their car today near the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba less than a day before Israeli and Palestinian leaders meet in Washington for a summit to announce the resumption of direct peace talks. The attack, for which Hamas has claimed responsibility, shattered years of relative calm in the West Bank. The victims are a couple from the settlement of Beit Hagai and two residents of Kiryat Arba. One of the dead was a woman believed to have been pregnant. The Beit Hagai couple has been identified as Yitzhak and Tali Ames, 45 and 47. They are survived by six children, the oldest 24 and the youngest 5. Just six months ago, the Ames couple celebrated the birth of their first granddaughter. Tali worked as an account manager in various offices in the area and Yitzhak was a tour guide who accompanied groups to the Temple Mount area every Wednesday. Beit Hagai, a tiny settlement in the South Hebron Hills, is home to 100 families. A spokesman for Hamas' military wing, the Iz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, announced Tuesday that members of the organization carried out the shootings. A Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri, said the Islamist group praises the attack and considers it a natural response to "the crimes of occupation." Another Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, said the attack was meant to highlight the failure of the security cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. A senior PA official who is in Washington for today's official launch of direct peace talks with Israel expressed outrage over the attack and accused Hamas of attempting to thwart the negotiations. The Fatah-dominated Palestinian security forces in the West Bank launched their own investigation into the incident in an effort to track down the gunmen. The South Hebron Hills, where the attack took place, is considered an area in which Hamas cells have heightened their presence. The commander of the West Bank division, Brig. Gen. Nitzan Alon, said the authorities believe that Hamas is telling the truth in claiming the attack. After the incident, Israeli troops and police were stationed at major checkpoints and junctions along West Bank roads in an effort to track down the gunmen. In addition, the police's operations branch has issued instructions to officers throughout the country to stay alert. The Israel Defense Forces said it had located the gunmen's car. IDF sources said there had been no indications that an attack was imminent. Defense officials now believe that Palestinian terrorist organizations may seek to sabotage the peace negotiations. The authorities are also worried that far-right settlers may try to provoke unrest as well. At around 7:30 P.M. this evening, gunshots were heard near the Bnei Naim junction just south of Kiryat Arba. A preliminary investigation revealed that the gunmen drove alongside the car and opened fire. Authorities believe it is possible that after the driver was shot and the car was forced off the highway, the gunmen approached the vehicle to ensure that all the car's passengers had been killed. Guy Gonen, a Magen David Adom paramedic who arrived at the scene, told Channel 2 that his crew saw "a car that was pierced with dozens of bullets and inside there were four bodies. There was absolutely no chance of helping." Defense Minister Ehud Barak was briefed on the attack by IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin. Barak conferred by telephone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was on his way to Washington. He also spoke with Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, who is serving as acting prime minister while Netanyahu is abroad. "Unfortunately we are once again witness to the fact that while we are working to find ways to co-exist and create a reality of peace, there are those who continue to take the path of terror and are busy killing innocents," said Shalom. "Today it is clearer more than ever that the real obstacle to peace is terrorism and the extremists who will do anything to send the entire region up in flames. It is incumbent on the Palestinian Authority to fulfill its obligations in the territories that are under its purview," Shalom said. "We are giving full backing to the prime minister during the talks in the United States." According to Barak, "This apparently is an attempt by depraved terrorists to harm efforts to move the diplomatic process forward and to try to harm the chances of peace talks that are beginning in Washington." The attack prompted sharp reactions from West Bank settler leaders, who were quick to draw a link between the killings and the peace talks that are set to get underway. "It's about time that the leaders of Israel wake up from their delusions of an imaginary peace," said Zvi Bar Hai, the head of the South Hebron Hills regional council.
2011(1stof Elul, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2011: Rami Feinstein, “a widely popular Israeli artist who has developed a diverse and devoted following over the last seven years” is scheduled to perform at the Bitter End in New York City
2011: Today, the head of the government-appointed committee on socioeconomic change in Israel, Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg, defended the recent criticism cast upon the leaders of the social protest, and explained they were simply "inexperienced." Today marked the committee's last meeting with representatives from the public, which included the participation of 17 representatives from tent encampments from across the country.
2011: Summer rainfall took Israelis by surprise today when slight showers were felt in Hadera, Netanya, and even Tel Aviv.
12 CE: Birthdate of Gaius Caligula, Roman Emperor. Caligula was crowned in 37 and murdered in 41. Life for Jews during his reign was part of the downward spiral that would result in three rebellions by the Jews over the next one hundred years. Caligula was crazy. Unfortunately his insanity had additional negative impact on the Jews. Caligula thought he was divine and insisted on his statue being placed in the Temple at Jerusalem. His efforts were twice thwarted and his untimely death prevented him from taking vengeance against his Jewish subjects.
38 CE: Riots broke out in Alexandria, Egypt after the Jews spurned an order by the Roman Prefect Flaccus to place a statue of Emperor Caligula in the local synagogue. This was an outgrowth of antagonism between the Jews of Alexandria and some of their pagan neighbors. The pagans were angered by the Jews celebrating Caligula’s decision to restore Agrippa, a descendant of the Hasmoneans to the Jewish kingship in Palestine. They knew that the Jews could not worship a statue so by forcing a statue of Caligula into the synagogue, Apion, the pagan leader knew he was asking for trouble. The violence ended and Flaccus was recalled to Rome. But this was not the end of the trouble much of which was rooted in the fact that some pagans begrudged the Jews their commercial success and wished to do away with them as competitors. This would not be the last time that those who sought to oust the Jews from commercial ventures did so under the guise of religion.
161; Birthdate of Commodus, the Roman Emperor who reigned while Judah ha-Nasi was compiling and editing the Mishna
1056: Byzantine Empress Theodora becomes ill, dying suddenly a few days later, without children to succeed the throne ending the Macedonian dynasty. This was a period of relative calm for the Jews of the Byzantine Empire. The last official persecution had taken place at the end of the 10th century. Conditions would not seriously deteriorate until the arrival of the waves of Crusaders that began at the end of the 11th century.
1481: Coronation of John II, the Portuguese monarch who employed Abraham Zacuto whose accomplishment included the development of a new type of astrolabe as Royal Astronomer and Historian.
1506: The first printed edition of Lashon Limudim, a Hebrew grammar by David ben Yahya was published today in Constantinople.
1694:A difference between the Jewish and Christian relations with the slave population in the Antilles is evidenced in an act passed today by the Dutch Leeward Council and Assembly. “The act was specifically directed at the Jews and states that it is: 'An Act against Jews ingrossing Commodities imported in the Leeward Islands, and trading with the slaves belonging to the inhabitants of the same.’”
1774: “Austrian general, Gabriel Freiherr von Spleny entered Czernowitz at the head of his troops” following which he administered the city in such a way that “the situation of the Jews basically remained unchanged.”
1793(23rd of Elul, 5553): Parshat Nitzavim-Vayeilech and Leil Selichot
1801: Birthdate of Pierre Soulé, a United States politician and diplomat from Louisiana during the mid-19th century. He is best known for his role in writing the Ostend Manifesto, which was written in 1854 as part of an attempt to annex Cuba to the United States. The Manifesto was roundly denounced, especially by anti-slavery elements, and Soulé himself came under severe attack. According to an article published in the New York Times, Soule was Jewish.
1834: Birthdate of Simon Kayserling, a German educator and writer; who was the principal teacher and inspector of the M. M. David'sche Freischule from 1861, and taught for several years in the Jewish teachers' seminary in Hanover.
1836: Isaac Kalischer married Rose Marks at the Great Synagogue today.
1836: Henry Worms married Rebecca Nathan at the Great Synagogue today.
1837: In Amsterdam, Salomon Bernard Sichel and Fanny Sichel gave birth to their daughter Henrietta who became Henrietta Montefiore when she married Joseph Mayer Montefiore.
1839: Birthdate of Julien Sée the Paris born librarian who made the first translation in French of Joseph ha-Kohen's "'Emeḳ ha-Baka," a history of the sufferings of the Jewish people from the time of their dispersion to the present day.”
1842: Birthdate of Adolf Pinner, the German chemist who began his schooling at the Jewish Theological Seminary at Breslau before attending the University of Berlin where he earned a doctorate in Chemistry in 1867.
1842: In London, George Palmer Putnam and Victorine Haven Palmer gave birth to Mary Corinna who became Mary Corinna Jacobi when, in 1873, she married Dr. Abraham Jacobi, the Jewish physician known as the “father of American pediatrics”
1852: One day after he passed away, “Simcha bar Meir” (Simon Marks) was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.
1853: Birthdate of Aleksei Brusilov, the Russian General who as Chief of Staff in 1917 approved the appointment of Jewish Chaplains to serve alongside Orthodox Priests.
1857: In New York, James and Rosa Seligman gave birth to Eugene Seligman.
1857: In Safed Yaakov Mordechai Hirsch who had come to Palestine from Pinsk in 1848 and his wife gave birth to Chaim Hirsch the future “Chief Rabbi of Hoboken, NJ.”
1861: Philadelphian, Corporal Jacob Ullman began serving a four year hit with Company E of the 75th Regiment.
1862:This afternoon the Congregation Baith Israel dedicated their new synagogue to public worship. The synagogue, which is a very handsome brick structure, stands upon the lot at the corner of State and Boerum streets, Brooklyn, and cost in the neighborhood of $10,000. Rabbis Raphael and Isaacs entered the sanctuary which was packed with congregants leading a procession that carried the synagogues “sacred scrolls.” They were greeted by Baith Israel’s spritiual leader, Rabbi Joel Alexander “who said or rather intoned the sacred welcome "Boruch habo" -- when the choir, which was composed of several beautiful black-eyed Hebrew maidens led by Felix Sanger, and accompanied by Sanger's brass band, sang with strange effect one of their quaint and sacred songs. The procession then marched around the room seven times, the Rabbis successively chanting an appropriate song to which the choir responded with the proper chorus. The eternal fire was lighted, the sacred rolls were deposited behind the altar, the Synagogue was irrevocably dedicated to the worship of God, the Father; and after other songs were given, Rabbi Raphael delivered the consecration sermon. [Editor’s Note - Baith Israel was also known as Baith Israel Anshei Emes and is now known as the Kane Street Synagogue,, the oldest continually running synagogue in Brooklyn. Among the congregations Bar Mitzvah “boys” was Aaron Copland.]
1864:The New York Times reviews a new translation of the Book of Job by J.M. Rodwell, “an eminent Oriental scholar who has lately published the first readable English version of The Koran, in which the chapters are chronologically arranged, and the poetical portions rendered metrically.” His translation of the Book of Job, “the most sublime of the Hebrews scriptures” follows the same pattern. Instead of following the normal pattern of chapters and verses, Rodwell’s translation “divides the book according to the stages of the narrative, arranging the text in couplets of measured prose that represent the simple energy of the original.”
1864(29th of Av, 5624): Thirty nine year old Ferdinand Lassalle died of wounds he sustained while fighting a duel two days ago that had been precipitated by a star-crossed love affair.
1864: The Union Army under General William T. Sherman began the final assault on Atlanta. Among those leading the way was Frederick Knefler, an immigrant from Hungary who rose to the rank of Major General in the Army of the Cumberland.
1865: In San Francisco, Leopold Seligmann, the son of Fanny and David Isaac Seligman and his wife Julia Levi gave birth to Florence Meyer, the wife of Albert H. Mayer..
1865: A writer who simply signs his letter to the editor of the New York Times“A Subscriber” took issue with Max Maretzee’s description of his dispute with the New York Herald. In defending The Tribune, the unnamed letter writer accuses Max of using “all the cunning of his Jewish origin.” Max Maretzee probably refers to the German born composer and impresario Max Maretzek
1867: The Detroit Free Presspublished a description Temple Beth El at Washington Avenue and Clifford Street.
1868: In Pilsen, Elise Herz, neé Edle von Lämmel, contributed 40,000 florins to establish a foundation that would help “respectable craftsman” to set up their own business regardless of their religious affiliation – a caveat that should not come as a surprise since the benefactor came from a prominent Jewish family.
1875: The New York Timespublished a detailed description of Sir Moses Montefiore’s visit to Jerusalem in the last weeks of July, 1875.
1875: Birthdate of New Haven, CT native Alexander Cahn, the Yale educated engineer who served as “member of the Board of Education in New Haven.”
1876:After only three months on the throne, Ottoman sultan Murat V is deposed and succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid II. During his reign, the Jews celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of their arrival from Spain. Abd-ul-Hamid II is the first Sultan to meet with Herzl. Unfortunately, this meeting does not result in approval for Herzl’s plan to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine as part of the Ottoman Empire.
1877: Birthdate of St. Louis, MO, native and Washington University and Cornell University educated engineer Alexander S Langsdorf, the Dean of the School of Engineering and Architecture “who worked tirelessly for the advancement of new curricula, expansion of scholarship and loan funds and the development of engineering graduate programs” at his alma mater for thirty years..
1877: The recently re-built synagogue of Washington Hebrew Congregation was dedicated this evening. President Rutherford B. Hayes who was supposed to attend the service sent a message expressing his regret that official business kept him from fulfilling his obligation. Rabbi Benjamin Szold of Baltimore’s Temple Oheb Shalom preached the sermon at the service. [Rabbi Szold was the father of Henrietta Szold.]
1877: “The Life of Midhat Pasha” published today described the rise to power of the leader of “Young Turkey,” the party of reform in the Ottoman Empire. Pasha, who was born in 1822, is the son of a Bulgarian Jew “who embraced Islam in order to make his fortune.” (Sounds almost like a Turkish Disraeli)
1878: In New York, Judge Van Brunt rejected Lowenthal Cohen’s attempt to use a writ of Habeas Corpus to regain “possession” of his daughter Rebecca who had married Thomas F. Fallon. The young couple had eloped and the Judge found the marriage to be perfectly legal. Cohen’s real objection to the marriage may have stemmed from the fact that Fallon was not Jewish.
1878: As the Yellow Fever Epidemic continues in the Deep South, The Young Men’s Hebrew Association of New York City has received an appeal for aid from those living in New Orleans Contributions can be sent to the offices on West 42nd Street.
1878: It was reported today that the world’s population includes 8 million Jews. Other reports have placed this number anywhere from 3,500,000 to 15,000,000. The claim that there are only 73,000 Jews living in the United is thought to be low since it commonly assumed that the U.S. Jewish population is approximately 150,000. The European portion of the Russian Empire has the largest Jewish population (2,610,179) followed by Austria with 1,600,000. Surprisingly, Asia, not counting Turkey is reported to have a total Jewish population in excess of 2,000,000 while Canada has one of the smallest number of Jews ranging anywhere between 1,500 and 7,000. Spain and Scotland are reported to have the fewest number of Jews of all the places surveyed.
1878: Albert Chapsky who died of Yellow Fever in St. Bernard Parish was buried today in the Hebrew Cemetery in New Orleans, LA. [In Louisiana, the term Parish as used here refers to a county and is not a religious designation.]
1879: Birthdate of Alma Mahler. She passed away in 1969.
1879: William Price died in a freak accident while driving a wagon filled with the bodies of three children who were to be interred in the Hebrew Cemetery at Cypress Hills.
1879: It was reported today that Mme. Caroline Bertrand, the daughter of Samson Bertrand has written a placed called “Le Noveau Juif Errant” or in English, “The New Wandering Jew.”
1879: In New York, Judge Van Brunt was satisfied that Rebecca Cohen, a 15 year Jewish girl, was legally married to Thomas Fallon, a Roman Catholic and vacated the writ of habeas corpus that he had previously issued. The writ had been granted when the girl’s father, Lowenthal Cohen, came before the court and claimed that his daughter had been taken against her will or had been deceived into going off with Fallon.
1879: At the Essex Market Police Court, Justice Smith decided that Henry O’Brien was justified in hitting Harris Goldstein in the face with a shovel and breaking his nose. O’Brien had tricked Goldstein into eating a piece of pork and then tried to escape from him by taking refuge in his apartment. The judge felt Goldstein had earned his punishment for letting his temper get the better of him and for breaking into O’Brien’s apartment. The judge sent both of the boys on their way.
1882: Three days after she had passed away, “Evelina Mocatta the widow of Abraham Mocatta” was buried at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1883: In a letter to the Times, Herman Strack, a Christian theologian who was an expert on rabbinic literature and a supporter of the Jews against the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Germany, provided his evaluation of the recently discovered scroll of the book of Deuteronomy which he feels is a forgery.
1883: Jacobi Bornstein, the son of Aron and Sara Bornstein and Thelka Bornstein gave birth to Alexander Bornstein
1884(10th of Elul, 5644): Daniel Weinberger, a German Jewish peddler was found dead in his room on South Halsted Street in Chicago, Illinois.
1885: A fight took place today in Montreal, Canada during the annual meeting at the German and Polish Synagogue.
1885: Today, the U.S. Secretary of State wrote to the U.S. charge d’affairs in Vienna expressing his disgust with the government of Austria-Hungary’s refusal to accept Anthony M Keiley as the American minister “on the ground of his wife being a Jewess.”
1886(30th of Av, 5646): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1886: It was reported today that the 9 Russian Jews who arrived in the United States two days ago and have not found sponsors will probably be sent back to Europe.
1886: An earthquake kills 100 in Charleston, South Carolina. The earthquake occurred in the same year that members of Sheartih Israel reunited with members of Congregation Beth Elohim, Charleston’s (and the nations) oldest continually functioning Reform Temple.
1887: The expenses for today’s excursion under the auspices of the Board of Managers of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will be defrayed by the widow and children of the late Edward J. King are doing this to honor his memory.
1887: In Vienna physiologist Joseph Paneth and his wife, both of whom were Jewish, gave birth to British scientist Friedrich Adolf Paneth who life his three brothers was raised as a Protestant. Knowing what he did of Hitler’s racial rules and being opposed to his politics, Paneth did not return from a speaking tour during the 1930’s and remained in Britain where he studied and worked.
1888(24th of Elul, 5648): In New Jersey, two Jewish men from New York were killed when they were struck by Pennsylvania Railroad express train. Louis Greenburg suffered internal injuries and Israel Cohen was killed instantly.
1883: It was reported today anti-Jewish riots are continuing at Egerszeg, Hungary despite the declaration of martial law. After having burned the homes of Jews and destroyed their crops, the peasants are now threatening to attack their gentile landlords.
1890: Rabbi Taubenhaus is scheduled to deliver his inaugural sermon at Mount Sinai Temple on East 72nd Street.
1892: It was reported from The Hague today that the man who was identified as a cholera victim last night was a Jew from Vilna who had arrived here from Hamburg.
1893: Birthdate of Lily Aimée Laskine, the Parisian who became one of the leading harpist of the twentieth century
1894(29th of Av, 5654): In his 62nd year, Jacob F. Bamburger the husband of Pauline Bamburger passed away today at his home on West 56th Street.
1895: During a meeting at the Hebrew Institute, the Street Cleaning League adopted a resolution dealing with the “pushcart nuisance.
1896: Birthdate of Ukraine native, Sophie Udin, the feminist and Zionist who married Pinhas Ginguld with whom she had two children – Yehuda and Marcia.
1897(3rd of Elul, 5657): Eight-two year old Bavarian native Lazarus Morgenthau the son of Moses and Brunhilda Morgenthau and the husband of Seline Babette Morgethau who was a major cigar manufacturer and the founder of the Orphan Dowry Fund passed away in New York City.
1897: Three days after he had passed away, 43 year old Solomon Rosenthal was buried at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.
1897: A meeting of the Old Fifth Street School Association will take place today in the office of Maurice B. Blumenthal who is the secretary of the organization.
1897: In Basel, “Dr. Theodor Herzl…presided at the morning” session of The Zionist Congress. The delegates discussed” a plan “to centralize the Zionist Movement” with the formation of Central Committee that would be headquartered in Vienna.” The committee would “consist of twenty-three members representing” all of the major Jewish “natural groups” who would be expected to contribute to a central operating fund.
1898: Major Hubert- Joseph Henry, one of those who was arrested yesterday on charges of having forged the evidence used against Alfred Dreyfus was found dead in his cell. The assumption was that he had committed suicide.
1898:”Boy Kills A Rabbi” published today described the murder of Rabbi Rosenbloom who was kicked to death by a mob of a half a dozen “young men” led by seventeen year old John Schlechta who had been terrorizing the Levi family.
1899: “It was learned” today “that as soon as the State Board of Charities” approves “the plans of incorporation for the Emanuel Hospital and Dispensary of New York, Dr. Maurice J. Burstein will select a site” and begin erect a building.
1899: As a result of his role in creating forgeries during the Dreyfus Case, the Minister of War struck Major Esterhazy from the army lists.
1899: “The Degenerates” which premiered in London tonight includes a series of “well drawn characters” including “the rich Jew who sneers at his own race.”
1899: Today’s session of the court martial of Captain Dreyfus “opened behind closed doors” so that General Deloye and Majors Hartmann and Ducros could testify about the secret artillery information contained in the documents that had been given to the Germans.
1900(6th of Elul, 5660): Eighty-year old Ferdinand Falkson, the German physician and doctor possibly best known for his three battle to have his marriage recognized passed away today.
1903: Herzl's last meeting with German nobleman Grossherzog Friedrich of Baden on the island of Mainau. Herzl presents his difficult dilemma between East Africa and Palestine. "We would be glad to renounce the good land of East Africa for the poor land of Palestine. I in particular would see an honorable rescue for our poor Jews if this exchange could be made."
1902: Mrs. Adoph Landenburg introduces the split skirt for riding horseback.
1905(30th of Av, 5665): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1905: Birthdate of Dore Schary, American screenwriter, playwright, producer and director. The son of immigrant Russian parents, Schary’s first name came from shortening the original which was Isadore. Shary provided the Oscar winning script for the film “Boys Town.” He also produced another all-American film, “Lassie come Home.” Shary was part of that gaggle of first generation American Jews who created the cinematic version of the American Myth. Shary’s greatest success came late in his career when he wrote the script for “Sunrise At Campobello” the popular play and film that focused on FDR’s fight with polio. Shary was active in numerous Jewish organization including the Anti- Defamation League. He passed away in 1980.
1905: In Brooklyn, the former Bertha Knoepfler and furrier Hermann Meisner gave birth to Sanford Meisner, American actor, teacher and creator of the Meisner Technique.
1906(10th of Elul, 5666): Edward Rosewater, the founder of the Omaha Bee and unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate from Nebraska passed away. His son Victor took over leadership of the paper
1907: In Chicago, Illinois, Benjamin T. and Anna (née Bransky) Chon gave birth to William Shawn the editor of The New Yorker magazine.
1909(14th of Elul, 5669): Joseph Goldberg passed away.
1909: Nobel laureate Paul Ehrlich began the first chemotherapy when with his assistant Sahachiro Hato, a rabbit infected with syphilis was injected with "Preparation 606." This number marked the 606th chemical devised and tested by Ehrlich's team at his Frankfort laboratory. The compound was so successful that the sores on the rabbit promptly healed. The term "chemotherapy" was coined by Erhlich.
1912(18th of Elul, 5672): Parashat Ki Tavo
1912(18th of Elul, 5672): Sixty-eight year old “communal worker” Samuel Hirsch passed away at Niagara Falls, NY.
1913: Birthdate of Helen Levitt, the Brooklyn native “noted for her street photography around New York City.
1914: In Berlin, Kurt W. Rosenthal, a flour merchant, and Elsa Rosenthal (née Kirschstein) gave birth to their second son Franz Rosenthal who the Louis M. Rabinowitz professor of Semitic Language at Yale and then the Sterling Professor Emeritus of Arabic at the same institution.
1914: In response to an appeal by the Yishuv’s leaders and his own knowledge of the desperate condition of the thousands of Jews living in Palestine Henry Morgenthau, Sr., the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire sent a cable to Jacob Schiff that read, in part, “PALESTINIAN JEWS FACING TERRIBLE CRISIS … BELLIGERENT COUNTRIES STOPPING THEIR ASSISTANCE … SERIOUS DESTRUCTION THREATENS THRIVING COLONIES … FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS NEEDED.” Within a month the appeal produced $50, 000 (the equivalent of 1 million dollars in the 21stcentury)
1915: “The Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of America of which ex-Judge Leon Sanders is President announced today that it had established at its offices, 229 East Broadway, a bureau through which dependent Jews in the war zones may be more readily located by their immigrant relatives in this country seeking to render them assistance.”
1915: At Beth Hamidrash Hagadol a synagogue on Norfolk Street, “Rabbi Israel Rosenberg of Paterson presided over a service attended by 25 rabbis and 1,000” congregants which he opened the ark and the attendees began singing Avienu Malkenu.
1915: “Resolutions calling for an American-Jewish congress to formulate plans for the unification of the 3,000,000 Jews in the United States were adopted at a meeting” in Chicago, “tonight of the Lawyers’ Jewish Congress Committee.”
1915: George Breitman, a native of the Ukraine who was working as a laborer in Australia enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF).
1916: In the Bronx, “Russian Jewish immigrants, Tillie Godiner and Gedaliah Tchornemoretz gave birth to broadcast journalist Daniel Schorr. To the current generation, Schorr is the wild old political voice on NPR. To an earlier generation, he is one of the journalists who made Richard Nixon’s infamous “Enemies List.” To an even older generation, Schorr was the voice of CBS news from Moscow during the coldest days of the Cold War in the 1950’s. The Soviets finally go disgusted with Schorr that they expelled. This gave Schorr the singular distinction of antagonizing the Communist Russians and the ant-Communist Nixon.
1917: Birthdate of communist politician György Aczél/
1917: In Berlin, premiere of “Hilde Warren Und der Tod” directed and produced by Joseph Otto Mandel who would be known as Joe May with a screenplay by Fritz Lange and featuring Hermann Picha.
1917: “A deputation of prominent English Jews head by Lord Swaything visited the Secretary of War…and urged the abandonment of the title ‘Jewish Regiment’ which had been adopted for the new regiment recently organized” because “the 40,000 Jews now serving in the army were fighting not as Jews but as British subjects…”
1917: “It was announced tonight that Rabbi Samuel Greenfield and Reverend Einer Larsen had reached an agreement that would allow the Jews of the Isaiah Temple to temporarily use the quarters of the Swedish Baptist Church for worship services until they can build a sanctuary of their own.
1917: “An Invitation to Soldiers” published today described an announcement by Simon Franks that Temple Emanu-El in Brooklyn will have “free seats” for any members of the United States Army and Navy who attend Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur Services at this congregation.
1918: Following petition of leading Jews, the Polish Council of State abolished existing restrictions respecting the purchase of land by Jews.
1918: For the past 7 months, ending today, Lt. Hugo Gutman, a Jewish officer serving with Kaiser’s army commanded Adolph Hitler who received the Iron Cross First Class thanks to Gutman’s efforts.
1918: The Polish Council of State adopted a resolution giving authorities power to open in existing schools separate classes for Jewish children which shall be closed on Saturday if a sufficient number of parents apply for such a privilege and recognizing as private schools all Talmud Torahs and hedarim in which the teaching of Polish is to be obligatory and in which instruction in all elementary secular subjects is to be given in Polish.
1918: In Nizhni-Novgorod, authorities arrested seven ringleaders for their role in “anti-Jewish riots.”
1918: In Chovol, a Council of Workmen and Soldiers put an end to efforts to start a Pogrom.
1918:The Australian Corps under the command of Sir John Monash broke the German lines at the Battle of Mont St. Quentin and the Battle of Péronne.
1918: Birthdate of Alan Jay Lerner, American librettist and lyricist for stage and screen. Lerner was yet another of a myriad of Jews who created and refined that most original American art form – the Broadway musical. One of his most famous contributions was “My Fair Lady.” He passed away in 1986
1919: Thirty five members of the Jewish Defense Organization were disarmed and shot after the Ukrainian National Army recaptured Kiev from the Bolsheviks. As an organized unit, the Jews had played an important role in the defense of Kiev. This was part of massacre of the Jews at Kiev.
1919(5th of Elul, 5679): Sixty-year old Austrian born Dr. Joseph Zeisler, the son of Anna and Isaac Leonard Ziesler and husband of “Theresa Freuchtmean” who was recognized as an expert in the fields “of skin and venereal diseases passed away today
1920: In Boston, three thousand children are scheduled “to gather in Franklin Field” today “for a grand outing and pageant” sponsored by the Recreational Bureau of the Federated Jewish Charities with the assistance of the Associated Boston Hebrew Schools, the Bureau of Jewish Religious Schools, the Council of Jewish Juniors, the Home for Jewish Children and the Jewish Welfare Centers.”
1921: Birthdate of Madeline Rochelle Barotz who as Madeline Rochelle Amgott was a pioneer in the early days of broadcast television news – a role made all the more difficult because was the first and only member of her sex to do this in the 50’s and early 60’s.
1921: “Ilona” a silent film produced by Joe May, with a script co-authored by Adolf Lantz was released today in Germany.
1924(1st of Elul, 5684): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1924: Birthdate of actor and comedian Buddy Hackett.
1926: Robert and Lillian Mulwitz gave birth to their daughter Ruth at Port Chester New York. The family changed their name to Roberts and it was as Ruth Roberts that she gained fame as the “songwriter best known for her cheerful and durable baseball anthem ‘Meet the Mets.’”
1927:Dr. Leon Motzkin presided over today's session of the Fifteenth Zionist Congress in Basel.
1928:“The Threepenny Opera” with music by Kurt Weill was first performed at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin today.
1929: Bedouins attacked nearly a dozen Jewish settlements in the northern Galilee pillaging the houses and burning the crops.” According to at least one report, at least 22 Jews were wounded in the attacks. “In Jerusalem, houses of Georgian Jews located near the Damascus Gat which were reportedly left open by police during their unsuccessful search for weapons were looted by Arab marauders.
1929:A party of thirty-seven Jewish settlers left for Palestine today on the steamer Carnaro bound for Jaffa. Dr. A. Kligler of the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, Professor Roth, the Palestine labor leader Ben Gurion, Dr. Benzion Mossensohn, director of the Hebrew High School at Tel Aviv, and other Palestinian Jewish leaders sailed on the same steamer
1932(29th of Av, 5692): Seventy-two year old Sir Sassoon Eskell, the first Finance Minister of Iraq passed away today.
1932(29th of Av, 5692):Moyshe-Leyb Halperndied of a heart attack in New York City. Born in 1886, he was a Yiddish-language modernist poet raised in a traditional Jewish household in Zlotshev, Galicia and brought to Vienna at the age of 12 in 1898 to study commercial art. Halpern began writing modernist poetry n German while living in Vienna. Upon returning to his hometown in 1907, he switched to writing in Yiddish. In 1908, Halpern emigrated to New York City in order to avoid the military draft. There he became associated with a group of Yiddish poets called Di Yunge (The Young Ones). He published his first book of poetry in 1919, In nyu york (In New York). That same year, he married. He had a son in 1923. His second book, Di goldene pave (The GoldenPeacock), was published in 1924. Halpern also wrote for satirical magazines and Frayhayt (Freedom), a communist Yiddish newspaper.
1933: Rabbi Joseph Zvi Dushinsky becomes the Chief Rabbi of the Agudath Israel in Jerusalem.
1933: The Jiidische Rundschau is permitted to reappear. The popular Jewish weekly, which had been published since 1902, had been forced to suspend publication for producing editorials that had challenged Nazi charges against the Zionists. The magazine would be forced to close in 1938
1933: The eighteenth World Zionist Congress adopted a resolution providing for sending a commission to Palestine to investigate charges of terrorism in connection with the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, the Zionist leader who had been killed in Tel Aviv.
1933: Professor Selig Brodetsky told members of the World Zionist Congress that Zionist organization has inaugurated conversations with Arab leaders of Syria and other neighboring lands for the extension of Jewish colonization.
1933: The Council of the Warsaw Jewish Community sends a protest to the Zionist Congress against agreements for exchange of goods between Nazi Germany and Palestine.
1933(9th of Elul, 5693): Nazi agents murdered Theodore Lessing in Marienbad, Czechoslovakia. Lessing was an anti-Nazi Jewish philosopher and Zionist who had taught at Hanover Technical High School. He had moved to Czechoslovakia because he feared for his safety. 1935(2nd of Elul, 5695): Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook known as Rav Kook passed away. Rabbi Kook was the first Chief Rabbi Ashkenazic of Palestine, serving from 1921 until his death in 1935. Born in Russia in 1865, Kook was a child prodigy and star student at the famed yeshiva in Volozhin He served as a Rabbi in several communities in Europe before moving to Eretz Israel in 1904 where he served as a rabbi in Jaffa as well as for the new Zionist settlements. "Kook was the outstanding leader and thinker of the religious Zionist movement at a time when the great majority opposed of Orthodox Jewry Zionism. He endeared himself to the nonreligious elements in Israel by sympathy and support for the secular sector, particularly in the agricultural settlements." He regarded all who made Alyiah, "regardless of their beliefs to be inspired by holy sparks "since they were laying the foundation for the ultimate messianic redemption."
1935(2nd of Elul, 5695):Herman Bernstein an American journalist, writer, translator, and diplomat, passed away. Herman Bernstein was born in 1876, at Vladislavov which was on the Russo-German border to David and Marie Bernstein. In 1893, he emigrated to the United States, where he completed his education and married Sophie Friedman on December 31, 1901. “His first stories were published in 1900. He contributed to the New York Evening Post, The Nation, The Independent, and Ainslee's Magazine. He was the founder and editor of The New London Day and an editor of the Jewish Tribuneand of the Jewish Daily Bulletin. As a correspondent of the New York Times, Bernstein regularly travelled to Europe. In 1915, he went to Europe to document the situation of Jews in the war zones. He documented the Russian Revolution in 1917 for the New York Herald, which led him to both Siberia and Japan with the American Expeditionary Forces. He also covered the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 for the same newspaper. In 1921 Bernstein published a book History of a Lie, an account of the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. According to GPU agent Pavlovsky (Yakshin), arrested in Germany in 1929, Bernstein worked for both GPU and Comintern, arranging pro-Soviet coverage in American press. One of his main goals was to describe White army and White emigres as anti-Semitic instigators of pogroms and suppress coverage of pogroms by units of the Red Army and other forces allied to Bolsheviks during the Russian civil war. GPU supplied Bernstein with forged documents for publication. In 1921 Bernstein received 17 000 gold rubles for his services.
1936: “Fear that the future of Jews in Palestine was imperiled by British ‘inaction’ was voiced today in a declaration issued at the close of an extraordinary session of the general council of the World Zionist Organization” that was held in Zurich.
1936: “The problem of uniting the religions of the United States, not under one banner of dogma or doctrine, but a united front to deal with civic, social and welfare problems of the nation was discussed” at a meeting in Appleton, Wisconsin, tonight by three clergymen of the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish faiths” the latter of which was Rabbi L.L. Mann of Sinai Temple in Chicago.
1936: Dr. Alexander Rosenfeld, vice president of the Tel Aviv Sports Organization received a cable today saying that the Maccabees Palestine Soccer team is scheduled to arrive in New York on September 14.
1937: In Brooklyn Frieda (née Shapkin) and Elias Berlinger, a building contractor gave birth to actor Warren Berlinger whose career included everything from appearing in the original Broadway production of “Annie Get Your Gun” to the ever-popular kids’ show “Howdy Doody.”
1937: The violence orchestrated by Arab leaders that was designed to end Jewish immigration and land purchases continued with seven Arab attacks on Jews in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Karkur. Three Jews and four Arabs were killed and there were many wounded. Moshe Goldenberg, the mukhtar (village elder) of Beit Alfa, had a narrow escape when shot at in Beit Shean. (Yes, this is the same Beit Shean where the bodies of Saul and his sons were taken as described in the Book of Samuel.) Jewish and Arab leaders were summoned by district commissioners who appealed for the restoration of law and order.
1938: Moslem terrorists sought to extend their power by killing other Arabs. “Tewfik Shantin an Arab broker was shot dead in the waiting room of an Arab doctor in Jaffa” while an unnamed Arab village chieftain was shot to death while walking with a friend in the Old City of Jerusalem.
1938(4th of Elul, 5698): Mordecai Leznick, a Jewish policeman riding on an Arab owned bus traveling between Lydda and Jaffa was shot to death by an Arab passenger.
1938(4th of Elul, 5698): In Tel Aviv Schmuel Weiner died from wounds sustained when he was stoned last Friday while riding through Ramleh.
1939: The last day of peace in Europe before the outbreak of World War II. Every one waited to see if the Poles would cave into German demands. Every one waited to see if the British would betray the Poles as they had the Czechs in 1938. What the world did not know was that Hitler issued Directive no.1, 1939 ordering the attack on Poland to begin at dawn the following day. Already, 1,500,000 German troops were poised to enact Case White, the invasion of Poland, The plan to create a fake attack by Polish troops on a German transmitter was about to be enacted. By
1939: Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on Gleiwitz radio station giving them an excuse to attack Poland the following day, starting World War II.
1940: From July 9 through today, Chiune Sugihara, the Vice Counsel for the Empire of Japan in Lithuania issued over 2,000 visas to Polish Jews so that they could escape from the Nazis. This does not count the three to five thousand visas issued to Lithuanian Jews without his government’s approval that enabled them to escape as well.
1940: The National Encampment of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States continued for a third day.
1941: Churchill received 17 reports of the shooting of Jews and Russians in numbers ranging between 61 and 4,200. These reports covered the two month period beginning with June, 1941 when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union and the special Killing Squads began their work.
1941: In response to a Jewish reprisal raid on a German patrol, all Jews were confined to their homes. That evening the "action" commenced. The entire Jewish section of Vilna was raided. As a result 2,019 women, 864 men, and 817 children were taken away to pits in Ponar forests and all shot dead. This event is notable for two reasons. First it is unusual because it includes the report of Jewish resistance. Second it is unusual because the Nazis supplied a specific reason for killing Jews other than their usual anti-Semitic drivel.
1941: As the month came to a close, “the Vichy Government of France had enacted laws that discriminated against Moroccan Jews” by setting quotas on the number of Jewish doctors and lawyers, which forced many Jews living in the European quarters to move to the mellahs.
1942: One day after he had passed away funeral services are scheduled to be held this afternoon at the Park West Memorial Chapel for fifty-two year old Nissim Joseph Ovadia, the Turkish born chief rabbi of Vienna and Paris who came to the United States after the French surrendered to the Nazis
1942: A story headlined "Jewish Children Interned by Vichy" appeared in today’s Chicago Sun.
1942: By the end of August SS officer Kurt Gerstein has failed in his attempt to publicize his knowledge of the mass gassings of Jews. He is rebuffed in his approach to the German papal nuncio, Cesare Orsenigo
1942: In Ternopil, western Ukraine, at 4.30 am, German SS organize the first deportation of Jews from Ternopil ghetto to death camp in Belzec, about 5,000 Jews were deported to face death in Belzec. When the Germans captured Ternopil, about 18,000 Jews lived in the city.
1943(30thof Av, 5703): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1943: The Swedish ambassador in Copenhagen was given clearance by the Chief Legal Officer Gösta Engzell to issue Swedish passports in order to "rescue Danish Jews and bringing them here".
1943: The USS Drum, an American submarine, with Maurice Rindskopf serving as Executive Officer sank a Japanese cargo ship while patrolling off New Georgia
1943: During its meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria the “American Jewish Conference adopted a resolution accusing the American Council for Judaism of an ‘attempt to sabotage the collective Jewish will to achieve a unified program’ by its statement made public” yesterday “in Philadelphia opposing the creation of a Jewish state.”
1943: By the end of August, 47 Jewish women and 50 Jewish men are executed after being discovered in the "Aryan" section of Warsaw.
1943: “Vice Chancellor John O. Bigelow ordered an audit of the first accounting of the estate of Abraham Wolff of Morristown, NJ who was a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Co.
1943: In Toronto, the Group on Racial Relations presented a report today in which “Christians were called up to accept Jews a members of the community on a basis of complete equality and to take drastic action in opposing discrimination” in both the personal and social interactions.
1943: “Zionists in England have exceeded the £250,000 goal set for this year’s Palestine Foundation Fund campaign, Mrs. Archibald Silverman reported today at a luncheon in her honor held at the Belmont Plaza Hotel by the Palestine Fund and the Jewish National Fund.”
1943: In Halifax the Army Show which had first been seen by “an all service audience” staring the comedy team of Frank Shuster and Johnny Wayne who came to be known simply as Wayne & Shuster was seen by a civilian audience for the first time tonight.
1944(12th of Elul, 5704): Fifty-three year old Yiddish actor Ludwig Satz passed away today.
http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/yt/lex/S/satz-ludwig.htm
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=23149236
http://www.jta.org/1944/09/03/archive/ludwig-satz-star-of-yiddish-stage-dies-in-new-york-was-53
1944: Jews liberated from the Novaki labor camp joined the battle for Banska Bystrica. Four weeks later Eichmann exacted revenge for the Slovak Uprising by deporting 8,975 Slovak Jews to Birkenau where most met their deaths.
1944: Over the next four days Jews formerly interned at the Nováky labor camp fight in a Slovakian uprising against the Germans. In all, more than 1500 Jews join 16,000 Slovak soldiers and partisans. One partisan battalion commander, a Jewish woman named Edita Katz, covers the retreat of her men with a machine gun and hand grenades until she is killed by Germans and the Hlinka Guard. Another Jewish partisan, Tibor Cifea, is shot by Germans and left hanging for three days.
1944: A photograph was taken of a small group of survivors from the Kovno, a town in Lithuania that had been liberated on August 1. At the start of the war there were approximately 40,000 Jews living there. There were only 2,000 still alive at when the Soviets liberated the city.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/august/14.asp
1945: The Liberal Party of Australia is founded by Robert Menzies. During the Parliamentary elections in August, 2010, The Liberal Party sought the support of the Jewish community by picturing itself as being a better friend of Israel than the Labor Party.
1945: President Truman endorsed a proposal for 100,000 Jews to be immediately admitted to Palestine and so informed the British Prime Minister. Mr. Atlee was, to say the least, not pleased.
1945: Birthdate of Itzhak Perlman. Born in Tel Aviv, Perlman was stricken with polio. He triumphed over the adversity to become one of the world’s greatest violinists.
1945: Lt. Col. Louis Geffen, a judge advocate in the US Army who was sailing across the Pacific to his new duty station was allowed to use an area on the bow of the ship for Kabbalat Shabbat services.
1947: UNSCOP, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, published its report. Under the plan, Palestine was to be partitioned into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. Jerusalem was to be a demilitarized, neutral city governed as an international trusteeship under the United Nations.
1948: In New York City, Jean (née Farber) and Irving Ganz, an arts supply executive gave birth to screenwriter Lowell Ganz
1948: Birthdate of Steve Soboroff, successful businessman, Republican political leader and executive for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
1950: Birthdate of David Bedein, a journalist who established the Israel Resource News Agency and “serves as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.”
1950: “Summer Stock,” a corny musical produced by Joe Pasternak, based on a story by Sy Gomberg for which he won an Oscar and with songs by Harold Arlen was released today in the United States.
1950: Business leaders, Cabinets members and leading representatives from the Knesset held an all-day session to discuss Israel’s worsening economic conditions. “The economic troubles stem mainly from the fact that the expansion of production is unable to keep up with the growth of the population, which increased in 27 months from 655,000 to 1,125,000.”
1951(29thof Av, 5711): Ninety-one year old Abraham Cahan the socialist newspaper editor whose name is synonymous with the Jewish Daily Forward passed away today.
http://college.cengage.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/late_nineteenth/cahan_ab.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/cahan.html
1952: In Monmouth County, Sidney Goldman, Justice of the Superior Court of New Jersey was the principle speaker at the cornerstone laying for Temple Beth Miriam’s new facility.
1952: The final draft of the Reparations Agreement signed at The Hague was sent to Bonn. It was still waiting for the West German government's formal approval. The UN submitted to Bonn for special consideration a list of more than 380 survivors of the Nazi scientific experiments conducted in concentration camps. More than 200 such victims were still living in Germany.
1954: Operation Binyamin 2 led by Ariel Sharon and Meir Har-Zion came to an end with the capture of 3 Jordanian soldiers.
1955:In response to repeated attacks from Fedayeen (the term for terrorists at this time) forces under the command of Mordechai “Motta” Gur and Rafael “Raful” Eitan led an attack which destroyed the military installations at Khan Yunis in what was known as Operation Elkayanm.
1959: Premiere of “Middle of the Night” a drama featuring a May to December romance deftly told in a script by Paddy Chayefsky which features “future Oscar winners Martin Balsam and Lee Grant.
1961: Those “sons of Moses,” the Sherry brothers, combined their efforts to give the Dodgers a 5 to 2 victory over the Cubs. Norm Sherry hit a two-run homer for the Los Angeles Dodgers today and Larry Sherry pitched well enough in relief to get credit for the “save.”
1962(1st of Elul, 5722): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1962: Seventy year old Henrikas Rabinavicius, “the only Jew to have served in the Lithuanian diplomatic corps” after it gained its independence following World War I, and the husband of the former “Ethel Edna Kabat, passed away today in New York.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/09/01/83515186.pdf
1962: In Egypt Alaa al-Zayat “a prominent doctor and professor of medicine” and his wife gave birth to Ahmed Zayat who gained fame as Ephraim David Zayet the American businessman who owns 2015 Triple Crown Winner “American Pharoah.”
1962: Trinidad and Tobago become independent. The Jewish community dates back to the 18th century. At the time of independence there were approximately 700 Jews living in the two islands.
1967(25th of Av, 5727): Ilya Ehrenberg, Soviet author, journalist, apologist and political survivor par excellence, passed away.
1968: Birthdate of Yossef (Joseph) Cedar the native of New York who “grew up in the Bayit VeGan neighborhood in Jerusalem” and became an award winning director and screenwriter best known for the 2011 tale of clash between academics and fathers and sons – “Footnote.”
1972: Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, both of whom were Jewish “answered the advertisement of Peter Criss in Rolling Stone that would lead to the formation of KISS.
1972(21st of Elul, 5732): Seventy-six year old David Abraham Jessurun Cardozo, the Dutch born, English educated Sephardic rabbi who was the assistant rabbi at New York’s prestigious Spanish and Protuguese Synagogue and the first Rabbi to led Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services in Spain since the 1492 Expulsion passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/09/05/archives/rabbi-cardozo-dies-a-sephardic-leader.html
1977: “You Light Up My Life” a romantic comedy written, directed and produced by Joseph Brooks who also composed the score and starring Didi Conn was released in the United States today by Columbia Pictures.
1977: US Undersecretary of State Philip Habib assured Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz that the US would block any Arab attempt to change UN Security Council Resolution 242. This UN Resolution included a guaranteed of the right of Israel to exist and was part of the diplomatic efforts surrounding the Six Day War. Various Arab leaders have erroneously claimed that this resolution required Israel to return to the truce lines that existed in June, 1967.
1979: “Time After Time” a sci-fi film directed by Nicholas Meyer who also wrote the screenplay was released today in the United States.
1981(1st of Elul, 5741): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1981(1st of Elul, 5741):Prof. Elias J. Bickerman, a historian and authority on the influence of the Greeks in the Middle East at the time of Jesus and before, died today in Tel Aviv, where he was on vacation. He was 85 years old and lived in Manhattan.
1981(1st of Elul, 5741): Eighty-two year old businessman and philanthropist Joseph Hirschhorn whose name became famous because of the art museum of which he was “the founder and benefactor” passed away today. (As reported by John Russell)
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/02/obituaries/joseph-hirschhorn-dies-financier-art-patron.html?pagewanted=all
1983: Flight 007, among whose passengers were 23-year-old Alice Ephraimson-Abt, the daughter of Hans Ephraimson-Abt completed “a refueling stop in Alaska” and “took off for Seoul.”
1987: “On the occasion of a meeting in Rome today of representatives of the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, the then President of the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, announced the intention of the Commission to prepare an official Catholic document on the Shoah.”
1988(18th of Elul, 5748): Seventy-five year old Lin Jaldati, the Dutch born Holocaust who brought Yiddish music Communist controlled countries in Asia passed away today.
https://yiddishkayt.org/art-is-my-weapon/
https://www.davidshneer.com/art-is-my-weapon.html
1989(30th of Av, 5749): Eighty-nine Morris Barney Dalitz, the gangster known as Moe Dalitz passed away today.
http://lasvegassun.com/news/1989/sep/01/las-vegas-gaming-pioneer-moe-dalitz-dies-89/
1990: Rabbi Bonnie Koppell, the first female Jewish chaplain in the U.S. military, was profiled in the Omaha "Jewish Press"
1994(24th of Elul, 5754): Harry Rosenblatt, one of the last survivors of the Jewish Legion of World War I, which fought with the British against the Turks in Palestine, passed away. He was 101 years old. A native of Rovno, Ukraine, he came to New York at the age of 17. He joined the British Army after hearing a speech in Union Square by Vladimir Jabotinsky in 1916 in which the Zionist leader called for volunteers to join in the fight to help the British wrest control of the Palestine from the Ottoman Empire. “Mr. Rosenblatt was among the troops entering the city, and his picture and biography are on display in the Museum of the Israeli Defense Forces.” After the war, “he returned to New York, became a U.S. citizen and opened a tailor shop which he kept open until he turned 90.”
1995: Ninety-four year old Gertrude Luckner, a Christian social worker who resisted the Nazis and provided food and assistance to Jews during the Shoah passed for which was named as a righteous among the nations by Yad Vashem passed away today.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/luckner.asp
1997: The New York Times featured a review ofPrivate Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life by Janna Malamud Smith the daughter of Bernard Malamud.
2000(30th of Av, 5760): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2000: Graveside services for Gertrude Schaefler, the widow of the late Leon Schaefler were held today.
2000: “In the Penal Colony,” an opera composed by Philip Glass, based on a story by Franz Kafka, premiered today in Seattle, Washington.
2001: Adel Mughrabi purchased the MV Karine A sothat the Palestinian Authority could use it to smuggle a large shipment of arms to terrorists
2001: Stanley “Stan” Fischer completed his term as First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.
2001: “Children of a Vanish World” an exhibition of photographs by Roman Vishniac is scheduled to come to a close at the Spertus Museum in Chicago.
2001(12th of Elul, 5761): Seventy-five year old Lord Hamlyn, the son of refugees from Hitler’s Germany and became a publishing mogul passed away today.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/sep/03/guardianobituaries.politics
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/sep/03/guardianobituaries.politics
2001(12thof Elul, 5761: Seventy-nine year old child prodigy violinist Jacob Morris Kramalnick, who served as concert master with several orchestras passed away today.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Jacob-Krachmalnick-former-concertmaster-of-2881754.php
2001: An exhibition entitled “Moritz Daniel Oppenheim: Jewish Identity in 19th-Century Art” comes to a close at Yeshiva University Museum in Manhattan. Oppenheim was one of the first Jewish artists to become successful in the 19th century. His “chief claim to fame was as a portraitist to the Rothschild family. He was called ‘the painter of the Rothschilds, and the Rothschild of painters.’”
2002: The Israeli Defense Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, issued a statement expressing "regret" over "harming" civilians in Tubas when an Israeli helicopter fire four missiles at a car in which the local leader of the al-Aqsa brigade was thought to be riding but which actually contained five civilians and one teenager accused of being part of the terrorist organization
2003: Luis Sandoval and two unidentified co-conspirators went to Cafe Bazel, a chic restaurant popular with expatriate Israeli artists in the Encino area, and fatally shot a man suspected of stealing 76 kilograms of Ecstasy tablets from Moshe Malul and Itzhik Abergil. This hit appears to have been the high point of the Israelis' collaboration with the Vineland crew.
2003: The Sunday New York Times book section includes a review of Off With Their Heads:
Traitors, Crooks and Obstructionists in American Politics, Media and Businessby Jewish political consultant Dick Morris.
2004(14th of Elul, 5764): Hamas suicide bombers blew up two buses in Beersheba, Israel, killing 16 passengers and wounding 100’s more. The dead included Shoshana Amos, 64; Aviel Atash, 3; Vitaly Brodsky, 52; Tamara Dibrashvilli, 70; Raisa Forer, 55; Larisa Gomanenko, 48; Denise Hadad, 50; Tatiana Kortchenko, 49; Rosita Lehman, 45; Karine Malka, 23; Nargiz Ostrovsky, 54; Maria Sokolov, 57; Roman Sokolovsky, 53; Tiroayent Takala, 33; Eliyahu Uzan, 58 and Emmanuel Yosef (Yosefov), 28 all from Beersheba.
2004: The Philadelphia Inquirer featured a review of a biography of Jewish born violinist Efrem Zimbalist entitled Efrem Zimbalist: A Life by Roy Malan.
2005(26th of Av, 5765): Sir Joseph Rotblat passed away at the age of 96. The physicist was the only scientist who quit working on the development of the atomic bomb for “moral reasons.” The Polish born scientist awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to him and the Pugwash conferences in 1995 for their work in trying to limit and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons.
2005: “The Constant Gardner” a movie version of the novel by the same name starring Rachel Weisz was released today in the United States.
2005: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russian born Jewish oligarch and businessman, announced that he would run for parliament.
2006: A mass rally calling for the release of the three kidnapped IDF soldiers, Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser attracted thousands to Tel Aviv Rabin's Square.
2006(7th of Elul, 5766): Bernard J. Wohl passed away at the age of 76. An advocate for New York’s poor and homeless; he served as Executive Director of the Goddard Riverside Community Center for 26 years.
2006(7thof Elul, 5766): Sixty-two year old Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Ph.D. the Professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School and award winning author whose works included Reading the Women of the Bible passed away today.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/nas.2007.-.13.252
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/archaeology-today/archaeologists-biblical-scholars-works/tikva-frymer-kensky-1943%E2%80%932006/
2007: In Jerusalem, clarinetist Karl-Heinz Steffens joins members of the Jazz Faculty of the Israel Conservatory of Music for a Jazz Concert.
2007: The ZF conference entitled “Israel at 60” opens in London.
2007: In an address given at the annual meeting of the Islamic Society of North America Rabbi Eric Yoffee, president of the Union for Reform Judaism “pleaded with American Muslims to transcend the differences that have their people for decades and Join Jews to confront the extremist factions and prejudice that plague both religious traditions.”
2007: Today,Rabbi Israel Rubin took his students on an unusual field trip. They went to Barn 70 on the backside of Saratoga Race Course on Friday morning to see a trainer about a horse. The trainer was Bob Baffert, and the horse, Maimonides, was a fast one, who just may capture the Kentucky Derby next May. Maimonides cost $4.6 million at last year’s Keeneland September Sale, and last month he appeared as if he was worth every penny when he won his debut by 11 ½ lengths. He is one of the favorites Monday to win the Grade I $250,000 Hopeful Stakes, a seven-furlong sprint for 2-year-olds. None of that, however, interested Rubin or his charges. He does not attend horse races or gamble. In fact, upon hearing about the colt, Rubin thought long and hard before arranging to take his students here. “Some may think this is sacrilegious,” he said. Ultimately, however, the rabbi and his students were drawn here from the Maimonides Hebrew Day School in Albany for what is in a name. The school and the colt are named for Moses Maimonides, who lived more than 800 years ago and is considered among the greatest Jewish philosophers. He was the chief rabbi of Cairo and the physician to the sultan of Egypt. “He blended religious study and intellect with worldly manners to heal the sick and guide the healthy,” Rubin said. “He was respected and honored by both Jews and Arabs. This is especially relevant now in our life and times.” Maimonides is owned and was named by Ahmed Zayat, an Egyptian now living in New Jersey. He did not know about Rubin’s visit, and, indeed, was flying back from San Diego and Del Mar on Friday morning. When told of the smiles of the youngsters petting the nose of his expensive colt, however, Zayat was beyond gratified. He is a Muslim who grew up in a suburb of Cairo and had put much time and effort into bestowing the name Maimonides on his prize purchase.“ He was a very special man who was highly regarded by all people, regardless of faith,” Zayat said of Maimonides. “What has happened with Sept. 11, Iraq, and what’s going on in the region is contrary to the way I grew up. If this horse was going to be a superstar, I wanted an appropriate name. I wanted to say something with the tool I had, which was a horse. I wanted it to be pro-peace, and about loving your neighbor.” When Zayat tried to register the name Maimonides with the Jockey Club, however, he discovered that it had been reserved for more than nine years by Earle I. Mack, a New York real estate investor and a former ambassador to Finland. In 1997, Mack, then the chairman of the board for the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, was instrumental in bringing King Juan Carlos I of Spain to New York to accept the school’s Democracy Award. Mack had been moved by the king’s remarks about how much Spain’s culture had lost when the country expelled its Jews in 1492 as part of the Inquisition. The king mentioned Maimonides, who was born in Córdoba, Spain, in 1135, and who, with his family, was forced out of the country while Spain was ruled by Muslims. “I was just waiting for a horse good enough to deserve the name,” Mack said. He has owned and bred horses for more than 40 years, and knew that Zayat’s colt, a son of Vindication, was bred to be special. Each also understood the other’s good intentions. Zayat donated $100,000 to Cardozo to commemorate the king’s visit there, and to promote tolerance. Mack released his claim to the name Maimonides. “He had the right horse, and the right motives,” Mack said. “We are all after the same thing: to touch people across cultures.” Zayat and Mack know that horse racing is an unpredictable business, and a thoughtfully named horse hardly guarantees future fame and fortune. When Eli O’Brien, 14, patted Maimonides between the ears and promised to say some prayers for him, Baffert nodded enthusiastically. “We’ll take anything you can give us,” Baffert said.
2008: The Sunday New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including g Still Alive! A Temporary Condition: A Memoirby Herbert Gold and two books by Adam Krisch; Invasions and The Modern Element: Essays on Contemporary Poetry.
2008: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Man in the Dark by Paul Auster, Dough: A Memoir by Mort Zachter, issued in paperbackand Norman Mailer's Miami and the Siege of Chicago, now reissued for the 40th anniversary of those groundbreaking 1968 presidential conventions.
2008: At Yeshiva University Museum, an exhibition entitled “The Six Day War Series: Painting by Ira Moskowitz” comes to an end. “Eight oil paintings gifted to the Museum Collection by the family of Ira and Ann Moskowitz in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem. This series depicts emotionally powerful scenes after the Six-Day War in June 1967. Artist Ira Moskowitz (1912-2001) employs vivid color and expressive brushwork to convey the euphoria of this victorious moment in Israel's history. Born in Poland and educated in Prague, Moskowitz studied at the Art Students League and spent extended periods in Israel.”
2008: Dr. Andrew G. Bostom, author of The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History a book that describes what it was like living as Jew under Moslem rule, was interviewed on Israel National Radio's Tamar Yonah Show. During the interview he “shared the dramatic account of a young Moroccan Jewess in her teens who lived in the 1800's, named Sol Hachuel. Falsely accused on charges of "apostasy" from Islam, she was offered riches and special rights if she embraced Islam - or prison, torture and death if she did not. Sol Hachuel chose to be imprisoned, starved, tortured and then decapitated in the town square rather than give up her Judaism. "I was born a Jew, and I shall die a Jew," she boldly stated to the Islamic court, according to Bostom's accounts. On the show, Bostom read her historic speech that inspired the Fez Jewish community to remain committed to their Judaism despite the hardships of constant false charges, unfair heavy taxes, violence and murder.”
2009(11THof Elul, 5769): Fifty-five year old documentary film maker Elliot Berlin who made “Paperclips” one of the best Holocaust related movies ever passed away today.
http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2009/09/07/elliot_berlin_at_55_was_noted_film_documentarian/
2009: Opening night of the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival.
2009 The Education Ministry announced this evening that an agreement to enroll Ethiopian students initially banned from some of the city's schools had been reached following a meeting between Petah Tikva Mayor Yitzhak Ohayon, Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar (Likud) and other Education Ministry officials.
2009: The stock of Africa Israel investments, a real estate firm owned by Lev Leviev “fell another 13.7 percent today as the firm floated the idea of renegotiating the terms of its debts with bond holders and banks.” (As reported by Marcy Oster)
2010: An exhibition, The Works of Mordechai Rosenstein, on display at the Fine Family Art Gallery and the Katz Family Mainstreet Gallery of the MJCCA is scheduled to come a close today in Atlanta, GA.
2010: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his negotiating team took off for Washington this morning, ahead of the relaunch of peace talks with the Palestinians.
2010(21stof Elul, 5770): Sixty-five year old Gail Koff a partner in Jacoby & Meyers, passed away. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/nyregion/03koff.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
2010(21stof Elul, 5770): Four Israelis were shot dead in their car today near the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba less than a day before Israeli and Palestinian leaders meet in Washington for a summit to announce the resumption of direct peace talks. The attack, for which Hamas has claimed responsibility, shattered years of relative calm in the West Bank. The victims are a couple from the settlement of Beit Hagai and two residents of Kiryat Arba. One of the dead was a woman believed to have been pregnant. The Beit Hagai couple has been identified as Yitzhak and Tali Ames, 45 and 47. They are survived by six children, the oldest 24 and the youngest 5. Just six months ago, the Ames couple celebrated the birth of their first granddaughter. Tali worked as an account manager in various offices in the area and Yitzhak was a tour guide who accompanied groups to the Temple Mount area every Wednesday. Beit Hagai, a tiny settlement in the South Hebron Hills, is home to 100 families. A spokesman for Hamas' military wing, the Iz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, announced Tuesday that members of the organization carried out the shootings. A Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri, said the Islamist group praises the attack and considers it a natural response to "the crimes of occupation." Another Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, said the attack was meant to highlight the failure of the security cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. A senior PA official who is in Washington for today's official launch of direct peace talks with Israel expressed outrage over the attack and accused Hamas of attempting to thwart the negotiations. The Fatah-dominated Palestinian security forces in the West Bank launched their own investigation into the incident in an effort to track down the gunmen. The South Hebron Hills, where the attack took place, is considered an area in which Hamas cells have heightened their presence. The commander of the West Bank division, Brig. Gen. Nitzan Alon, said the authorities believe that Hamas is telling the truth in claiming the attack. After the incident, Israeli troops and police were stationed at major checkpoints and junctions along West Bank roads in an effort to track down the gunmen. In addition, the police's operations branch has issued instructions to officers throughout the country to stay alert. The Israel Defense Forces said it had located the gunmen's car. IDF sources said there had been no indications that an attack was imminent. Defense officials now believe that Palestinian terrorist organizations may seek to sabotage the peace negotiations. The authorities are also worried that far-right settlers may try to provoke unrest as well. At around 7:30 P.M. this evening, gunshots were heard near the Bnei Naim junction just south of Kiryat Arba. A preliminary investigation revealed that the gunmen drove alongside the car and opened fire. Authorities believe it is possible that after the driver was shot and the car was forced off the highway, the gunmen approached the vehicle to ensure that all the car's passengers had been killed. Guy Gonen, a Magen David Adom paramedic who arrived at the scene, told Channel 2 that his crew saw "a car that was pierced with dozens of bullets and inside there were four bodies. There was absolutely no chance of helping." Defense Minister Ehud Barak was briefed on the attack by IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin. Barak conferred by telephone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was on his way to Washington. He also spoke with Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, who is serving as acting prime minister while Netanyahu is abroad. "Unfortunately we are once again witness to the fact that while we are working to find ways to co-exist and create a reality of peace, there are those who continue to take the path of terror and are busy killing innocents," said Shalom. "Today it is clearer more than ever that the real obstacle to peace is terrorism and the extremists who will do anything to send the entire region up in flames. It is incumbent on the Palestinian Authority to fulfill its obligations in the territories that are under its purview," Shalom said. "We are giving full backing to the prime minister during the talks in the United States." According to Barak, "This apparently is an attempt by depraved terrorists to harm efforts to move the diplomatic process forward and to try to harm the chances of peace talks that are beginning in Washington." The attack prompted sharp reactions from West Bank settler leaders, who were quick to draw a link between the killings and the peace talks that are set to get underway. "It's about time that the leaders of Israel wake up from their delusions of an imaginary peace," said Zvi Bar Hai, the head of the South Hebron Hills regional council.
2011(1stof Elul, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2011: Rami Feinstein, “a widely popular Israeli artist who has developed a diverse and devoted following over the last seven years” is scheduled to perform at the Bitter End in New York City
2011: Today, the head of the government-appointed committee on socioeconomic change in Israel, Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg, defended the recent criticism cast upon the leaders of the social protest, and explained they were simply "inexperienced." Today marked the committee's last meeting with representatives from the public, which included the participation of 17 representatives from tent encampments from across the country.
2011: Summer rainfall took Israelis by surprise today when slight showers were felt in Hadera, Netanya, and even Tel Aviv.
2011: Over 20,000 are expected to attend the 7th Annual Jerusalem Beer Festival tonight and tomorrow night at the Old Train Station in Jerusalem.
2012: Israel responded bitterly today to comments by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, who said yesterday that he did not want “to be complicit” if Israel were to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities. Dempsey’s comments were “strange” and characterized the failure of the United States to take a determined position against Iran’s nuclear drive, a source in Jerusalem was quoted as saying
2012: The White House today dismissed statements made by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney yesterday that the Obama administration had “thrown allies like Israel under the bus” regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program. “Cooperation with Israel between our military and intelligence communities has never been closer” under the Obama administration, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.
2012: The Fifteenth Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival is scheduled to open today.
2012: After premiering at the Sundance Film Festiva. “For a Good Time, Call” a comedy starring Ari Graynor and Lauren Miller, who co-authored the screenplay was released today in the United States.
2012: In Leesburg, VA, Congregation Sha'are Shalom is scheduled to greet the Sabbath Queen with a Musical Shabbat and Ice Cream Social
2012: “Labor on the Bimah” is scheduled to begin Erev Shabbat.
2012(13thof Elul, 5772): Seventy-nine year old British composer whose family was murdered at Auschwitz and “a world authority on the Dreyfus Affair” who cred the Dreyfus Centenary in 1994 passed away today.
2013: At the Rose and Crown Theatre the curtain came down on a London production “Little Me,” a Neil Simon musical
2013: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg officiated at the wedding of Michael Kaiser and John Roberts “in what was the first-ever instance of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice performing a same-sex marriage.”
2013: An exhibit celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Columbus (Ohio) Jewish Center which was developed by the Columbus Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to come to an end today.
2013: The Tel Aviv Woodwind Quintet is scheduled to play Ligeti’s “6 Bagatelles For Wind Quintet” at the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival.
2013: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa Temple Judah marks Selichot a study session, services and the Changing of the Torah Covers ceremony.
2013: “Ivri Lider, one of the most successful Israeli musicians of his generation” is scheduled to perform at the Budapest Music Center.
2013: Israeli communications company Spacecom has successfully launched a state of the art satellite to space tonight from the Zenit launching pad in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
2013: Labor MK Omer Bar-Lev today criticized Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Avigdor Liberman for refusing to call a meeting of the committee to discuss a possible US strike on Syria and its implications on Israel.
2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madness by Joel Gold and Ian Gold and a Q & A with Rick Pearlstein whose most recent work is The Invisible Bridge: The Fall Nixon and the Rise of Reagan.
2014: Dr. Judith Rosenbaum is scheduled to succeed Dr. Gail Reimer as Executive Director of the Jewish Women’s Archives.
2014(5th of Elul, 5774): Twenty year old Paratrooper Shahar Shalev passed way today as a result of wounds suffered from an IED explosion four and a half weeks ago that took place while he was working to locate and destroy the Hamas terror tunnels during Operation Protective Edge. (“In life he was loved and admired; he was swifter than eagles and stronger than lions.”)
2014: “The Israeli Air Force downed an unmanned drone (UAV) over the Golan Heights as it attempted to enter Israeli airspace from Syria.” At this time, the IDF does not know who launched the drone or if it was weaponized. (As reported by Uzi Baruch)
2014: Tenth anniversary of the Beersheba Bus Bombings.
2015: A Classical Trio Concert featuring Gabriel Chouraki - violinist and Eyal Heiman - cellist is scheduled to take place at Migdalei haYam haTichon in Jerusalem.
2015: In Coralville, Iowa, Hebrew School is scheduled to begin today.
2015: The Toronto Blue Jays announced that Mark Shapiro would become their new president and chief executive officer (CEO) at the end of the 2015 season
2015: After a weeklong trial, jurors deliberated for about two hours before convicting Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., 74, a former Ku Klux Klan leader with a history of racist and anti-Semitic actions in the shooting deaths of three people a year ago at a Jewish community center and an assisted living facility in suburban Kansas City.
2015: The Jewish Historical Society of Great Washington is scheduled to co-sponsor screening “Rosenwald” “the documentary by Aviva Kempner” that “tells the incredible story of how businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald (who made his fortune at the helm of Sears, Roebuck and Co) joined with Booker T. Washington and African-American communities in the South to build schools during the early part of the 20th century.”
2016: “The improbable story of the man who won history’s ‘biggest murder trial’ at Nuremberg” published today tells the tale of Ben Ferencz, “the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials.”
2016: Today, “a U.S. appeals court threw out a $655.5 million verdict against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization for damages suffered by American families from terrorist attacks in Israel.”
2016(27thof Av, 5776): Eight-six year old photographer Nathan Lyons passed away today.
2016: In Memphis, TN, The Temple Israel Chazak Campaign is scheduled to come to a close.
2017: Esther Hugenholtz, the Congregation Agudas Achim’s new rabbi is scheduled to arrive this evening at the Eastern Iowa Airport.
2017: “Energy Department official William Bradford who is Jewish and was appointed by President Trump to lead the Office of Indian Energy and who made disparaging remarks about President Barack Obama’s Kenyan ancestry and called Facebook founder Marc Zuckerberg a “self-hating Jew” resigned today. (CJN)
2017: The Diver Festival, three weekends of modern dance in and around Jaffa and Tel Aviv is scheduled to begin today.
2017: JW3 is scheduled to host the two final screenings in London of “Alone in Berlin,” a haunting tale about a German husband and wife who were guillotined for mounting an anti-Hitler postcard campaign.
2018: “As a Blue Star Museum, the Illinois Holocaust Museum” is scheduled to begin offering “free admission to active-duty military personnel and up to five of their family members” today which will continue through Labor Day Monday.
2018: Starting at 6 pm the Ayalon Highway Company was scheduled to close the Ayalon Highway for twenty-four hours in the first of six weekend closures so the “construction of a pedestrian and cycling bridge” could be completed until Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz order a halt in response to threats from “Haredi parties.” (As reported by Roi Rubinstein, Moran Azulay)
2018: The Jerusalem Centre for the Performing Arts is scheduled to host screenings of “Her Love Boils Bathwater” and “Transit.”
2018(20 Elul): Yahrzeit of Dr. Jacob Levin, of blessed memory, beloved husband of Betty, loving father of Michael (Gigi Cohen) Levin, Stephen (Dian Garton) Levin, Sharon (Philip) Wein and Lawrence (Sandra Morrison) Levin and proud Zaide to a whole tribe of grandchildren. To his brother Joe, he was the incomparable “Yaenkel” and to me his was my wonderful Uncle Jack – living proof that good guys finish first.