OCTOBER 6
877: Charles the Bald, King of France, passed away.Regardless of whatever others may think of him, Charles the Bald, who was King of France, comes up on the plus side in Jewish history when compared to other monarchs since he resisted enforcing the anti-Semitic edicts of the Archbishop of Lyon. Charles motives were political and economic, not religious.
1014: Samuil of Bulgaria passed away. He was the Emperor of the First Bulgarian Empire from 986 until his death in battle while fighting the Byzantines. Jews fleeing from the persecution of the Byzantine Empire had found refuge among the Bulgarians. Samuil was a member of the Comitopuli dynasty whose leaders had names like Samuel (Samuil), Moses and David,which “could indicate partial Jewish origin, most likely maternal, though this is disputed.”
1254: Innocent IV who expelled the Jews from Venice in 1253 issued “Querentes In Agro” a papal bull recognizing the University Oxford which today is the home to the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies which “was founded in 1972 by Dr. David Patterson.”
1536: William Tyndale, whose “English translation for Pentateuch in 1530 which was the first-ever English translation from the Hebrew would provide the fabric for the King James Bible and inject a Hebraic quality into the syntax and phraseology of English literary and religious usage without parallel in any European culture” was strangled and then burned at the stake today in Belgium.
1552: Birthdate of Matteo Ricci, the Jesuit missionary to China whose manuscripts indicate there were only approximately ten or twelve Jewish families in Kaifeng in the late 16th and early 17th century, that they had reportedly resided there for five or six hundred years, that there was a greater number of Jews in Hangzhou which could be taken to suggest that loyal Jews fled south along with the soon-to-be crowned Emperor Gaozong to Hangzhou.”
1755(1st of Cheshvan, 5516): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
1755(1st of Cheshvan, 5516): A.M. Rothschild’s father died of small pox.
1759(15th of Tishrei, 5520): Sukkoth
1776(23rd of 5537): Simchat Torah is celebrated for the first since the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
1780: Thomas Dobson the printer who was “the first in the United States to publish a complete Hebrew Bible and his way gave birth to their second child Alison.
1783(10th of Tishrei, 5544): As the American Revolution reaches its final conclusion with a treaty between Great Britain and her former colonies Jews on both sides of the Atlantic observe Yom Kippur in peace.
1795(23rd of Tishrei, 5556): Simchat Torah
1795: Rachel Sapnier, “the daughter of Nathan Spanier, the head of the Ravensberg Jewish community” and her husband author and bookseller Saul Ascher gave birth to their “only child, a daughter named Wihelmine.”
1805(13th of Tishrei, 5566): Twenty-four year old Rachel Aasron passed away today in London.
1806: The Assembly of Jewish notables is required to answer 12 questions intended to inform the authorities about the nature of Judaism and to test the knowledge of French among the Jews.
1808(15th of Tishrei, 5569): Sukkoth
1817: Birthdate of “Dutch physician and medical author Levi Ali Cohen” “who was one of the organizers of the new medical laws for the Netherlands” and who was “a member of the committee on Jewish affairs in Holland for twenty years.”
1820: “At Charles-Valentin's piano audition which was held oday when he was nearly seven (and where he is named as "Alkan (Morhange) Valentin"), the examiners comment "This child has amazing abilities."
1821(10th of Tishrei, 5582): Yom Kippur
1824(14th of Tishrei, 5585) Erev Sukkoth
1824: In Alsace, Alexandre Aron and Charlotte Aron, the daughter of Asser Lion and Gitlé Loëw gave birth to Rose Rosalie Bloch the wife of Marx dit Marc Bloch
1837(7th of Tishrei, 5598): Twenty-nine year old Moses Loeb Mack the “son of Löb Moses Mack and Henriette Samuel Mack” passed away today in his native Bavaria.
1843: In Courland, Russia, Mortiz Rosenthal and Pauline Birkhann gave birth to Herman Rosenthal the husband of Anna Rosenthal who, after arriving in the United States in 1881, “organized agricultural for Russian Jews in Louisiana, South Dakota and New Jersey, “started the Russian daily Zarya in 1890, published and edited the Hebrew Monthly Intelligencer in New York” and served as the secretary of the German American Reform Union.
1844(23rd of Tishrei, 5605): Simchat Torah
1846: In India, Jessie Sarah and Henry Edward Goldsmid gave birth to Albert Edward Goldsmid. A graduate of Sandhurst, the famed military school, he held a series of progressively more important positions in the British army until he was “selected by Baron de Hirsch to supervise” the colonies being established in Argentina for Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe. He went to serve with distinction during the Boer War.
1847: Michael Isaacs married Elizabeth Cohen at the Great Synagogue today.
1849: The victorious Austrian general orders the execution of 13 rebel Hungarian generals in Arad. These men are known as the 13 Martyrs of Arad. Their execution marked an end to the revolt by Kossuth against the repressive Austrian regime. Kossuth had supported emancipation for the Jews of Hungary and the Jews had supported the revolt. The Jews of Hungary suffered cruelly at the hands of the victorious Austrians as well as the local Slavic population that had viewed the uprising as a Magyar dominated event. The defeat of the liberal forces in Hungary led to immigration of Hungarians – Jews as well as non-Jews – to the United States just as a similar defeat for German liberals led to their migration to the United States
1850: In Baltimore, MD, Moses Keyser and Betty Preiss gave birth to sculptor Ephraim Keyser whose works included “busts of Sidney Lanier, Cardinal Gibbons, Dr. Daniel Gilman, and Henry Harland” and a “statute of Major-General Baron De Kalb” for the United States Government which was “erected at Annapolis, MD.
1851: “The Hungarians,” published today reported that the U.S.S. Mississippi, “commanded by Captain Levy” had arrived in Constantinople for the purpose of providing Louis Kossuth, the exiled Hungarian political leader, with safe passage to France. The Mississippi was one of the first ocean-going steam vessels belonging to the U.S. Navy and would be part of the fleet that entered Tokyo Bay with Commodore Perry. Captain Levy would not be part of that voyage.
1851(10th of Tishrei, 5612): Yom Kippur
1851: The first recorded Jewish religious observance in Southern California was held at the home of Lewis Abraham Franklin in San Diego on Yom Kippur. Franklin had held what may have been the first High Holiday Services in the history of the state. In 1849, he held Rosh Hashanah services in his "store" (a tent) in San Francisco. He later moved to San Diego. The first synagogue, Adath Jeshurun, was founded 10 years later by Louis Rose. Rose was a less than successful land speculator in San Diego.
1852(23rd of Tishrei, 5613): Simchat Torah
1853:The Foreign Items column published today reported that Alexander Weill, a Jew who converted to Catholicism attributes the diseases attacking crops in parts of Europe "to the non-observance to the precepts of Moses who ordained that the soil should be left fallow during every seventh year, as God rested on the seventh day.
1854:In recognition of Abraham Alexander Wolff’s “services in the organization of the Royal Library of Copenhagen he was created a knight of the Order of Dannebrog today and was also awarded the title of professor.”
1856:An article entitled Pleasant Prospect for Foreign Voters reported that, “Some ‘Jew’ having interrupted Governor Floyd, when he was avowing his readiness to vote for Fillmore, with the pertinent inquiry, ‘how about the foreign vote?’ the Governor replied, that they should be treated as the Greeks proposed to do with Hector, feed him on one day and disembowel him the next. Fillmore is Millard Fillmore former President of the United States who had been a member of the Whig Party. When the Whigs collapsed, Fillmore joined the American Party, the political party of the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic Know-Nothing Movement. John Floyd was a prominent member of the Democrat Party who had served as Governor of Virginia. Considering the surge in Jewish immigration to the United States during the 1850’s Fillmore and the Know-Nothings were a great concern to all Jews.
1857: Birthdate of physiologist Joseph Paneth, the native of Vienna who was the father of chemist Friedrich Paneth and “a good friend of Sigmund Freud.”
1858: Emanuel Vandervelde married Caroline Van Goor at the Great Synagogue today.
1863(10th of Tishrei, 5764): Yom Kippur
1863: During the U.S. Civil War, Union authorities began the process of mustering the 15th Kentucky Cavalry (a unit formed by Lt. Col. Gabriel Netter) out of active service. There is a note of irony that this process affecting a unit formed by a Jewish soldier, should begin on the Day of Atonement.
1864: In Náchod, Czech Republic, Isaac and Julie Judith Josephine Mautner gave birth to Adelheid Mauter who became Adelhied Goldschmid when she married Otto Goldschmid.
1865: In Frankfurt Selig Meier Goldschmidt, and his wife Clementine Fuld gave birth to Meier Selig Goldschmidt the husband of Selma Cramer and the son-in-law of Salomon Cramer and Therese (Röschen) Oppenheimer
1870: “Loss of Life in War” published today described what is considered to be “the shocking slaughter” taking place on 19thcentury battlefields. In making comparison, the article reports that when Titus took Jerusalem, “more than a million Jews are believed to have perished.”
1871(21st of Tishrei, 5632): Hoshanah Rabah
1872(4th of Tishrei, 5633): Fast of Gedaliah is observed since the 3rd of Tishrei fell on Shabbat
1873(15th of Tishrei, 5634): Sukkoth
1873: According to published reports today’s “Jewish festival of ‘Succoth’ or the Feast of Tabernacles…is the harvest feast of the Jews and is a season for rejoicing and thanksgiving…The observance of this festival is not general, being confined almost entirely to the orthodox portion of the Jewish community.
1873: At meeting of leading Christians held at Steinway Hall in New York City a person from Cincinnati claimed “the Jews in that section of the country asserted that America was their promised land, and they no longer believed the ideas taught by their forefathers.” [Cincinnati was the stronghold of the Reform Movement.]
1874: Jacques Lang married There Cowvan today.
1877: In New York City, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association sponsored a program at the Lyric Hall that was attended by “the elite of Jewish society. Mr. I.S. Isaacs presided over the event. He was joined on the platform by Dr. De Sola Mendez and Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs. General Stewart L. Woodford, who had served with distinction in the Civil War and was active in the New York State Republican Party delivered an address entitled “Toleration.” Professor J.L. Rice played a piano solo and Miss Gertrude Emanuel sang a ballad. The evening ended with a recitation of “Phil Blood’s Leap by Joseph Michaels.
1878(9th of Tishrei, 5639): Erev Yom Kippur
1878: Seventy-eight year old Maria Michael who passed away yesterday was interred at the Bath Jewish Burial Ground today.
1878: “The Hebraic Day of Atonement” published today reported that “the Jewish fast of Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, commences at sundown this evening. This fast is more generally observed than any other o the numerous fasts and feasts in the Hebraic calendar…This is particularly the case among the orthodox Jews who keep a strict fast for 24 hours…The Reformed Jews, while they have discarded the fast, still regard the day as one of solemn import…”
1879: On the Gregorian calendar, birthdate of Russian born Yiddish author Nohum Shtif who wrote under the pseudonym of Baal Dimon (Master of Imagination)
1880: In Los Angeles, founding of the University of Southern California whose original benefactors were a “Protestant nurseryman, Ozro Childs, an Irish Catholic former-Governor, John Gately Downey, and a German Jewish banker, Isaias W. Hellman”
1880: Just 3 weeks before his 49th birthday, Philadelphia born Colonel Myer Asch was “transferred to the Commandery of New York of the Loyal Legion of the United States.
1880: Godfrey Isaacs married Amelia Aarons at the Hambro Synagogue.
1882(23rd of Tishrei, 5643): Simchat Torah
1883: In New York City, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association hosted a meeting of Jewish immigrants from Germany and Russia at the Five Points House of Industry. The YMHA shared its plans to start classes in English and American social customs.
1884: Gabriel Richter, a Hebrew teacher, who had been arrested on charges of setting fire to his apartment at 219 Division Street was released today following a hearing at the Tombs Police court during which he said he was innocent because he was not at home and the police officer “could not swear” that the defendant “was the man whom had seen descending the stoop after the alarm was given.
1884: It was reported today that three alleged accomplices of Gabriel Richter who have conspired to set the three fires in the last 15 months set one at 203 East Broadway, “a three story tenement, occupied by” three Jewish families from Poland.
1884: Birthdate of Felix Weltsch, a German-speaking Jewish librarian, philosopher, author, editor, publisher and journalist who was a close friend of Max Brod and Franz Kafka, he was one of the most important Zionists in Bohemia.
1887: In Chicago, Samuel and Sarah (Fernberg) Ehrlich gave birth to Elma Ehrlich who became Elma Ehrlich Levinger, when she married Rabbi Lee J. Leving, the name she used as the author of over thirty children’s books. (As reported by Joan Moelis Rappaport)
1887: “Dr.M’Glynn and the Jews” published today briefly described the views of Edward McGlynn about religious doctrine stating that the difference between Judaism and Christianity was that the former placed a premium on universal justice while the latter placed a premium on “blind faith.” (McGlynn was a Roman Catholic priest who had been excommunicated earlier in the year because of his political positions including the support of Henry George.)
1889: Attorney Alexander Rosenthal, representing Joseph Linkowitz, the President of the synagogue at 91 Delaney has charged Officer Gebhard of entering the institution as the second day of Rosh Hashanah was ending and Shabbat was beginning and turning out the lights thus forcing the worshippers out into the street.
1889: Birthdate of Miguel Mariano Gómez, the President of Cuba who Representative William I. Sirovich met with in July of 1936 in an attempt to get “Cuba to open her doors for at least 100,000 persecuted German Jews.”
1889: “Talk of the Day Abroad” published today described the latest act of anti-Semitism in Leipzig as transcending “the ordinary in sheer stupidity.” In response to the thousands who visit the home of Mendelssohn, the citizenry raised money for a stained-glass window at the church of St. Thomas, to honor the composer of “Elijah.” However, the project came to a grinding halt when “somebody started an outcry that the Mendelssohns were Jews.
1890(22nd of Tishrei, 5651): Shmini Atzeret
1890: During today’s meeting of the Trustees of Columbia University, it was a reported that Jesse Seligman had donated another $1,000 for the Seligman Fellowships.
1892(15th of Tishrei, 5653): Sukkoth
1892: Birthdate of U.S. diplomat Laurence Steinhardt
1893: Birthdate of Milton Ager the Chicago native and song writer who served in the US Army’s Morale Division in Fort Greenleaf, Georgia and cranked out a slew of hits, including the “anthem of the Democratic Party, “Happy Days are Here Again.
1894: Mrs. Elke Rubenstein, the widow of convicted murderer Pesach N. Rubenstein and her sister Basche Ragleski were sent back to Jerusalem today after having been denied entrance to the United States because they “had only $50 and government authorities are not permitted to land anyone who may become a public charge.
1894: Those in charge of the Bureau of Elections are concerned that they will have completed their list of polling places in time for the first day of voter registration which begins on October 9 and continues on October 10. Several the locations used in the past are owned by Jews and they do not want to sign a lease that will have their property being used Erev Yom Kippur and Yom Kippur.
1894(6th of Tishrei, 5655): Shabbat Shuvah
1894(6th of Tishrei, 5655): Seventy year old German botanist Nathanael Pringsheim who ranks as the founder of our scientific knowledge of the algae” passed away today.
1895: “Prof. Haupt’s Literary Treasures” published today described the return of “Professor Paul Haput of the Oriental department of Johns Hopkins University” to Baltimore from Europe, where among other things he met with Professor Howard Furness who is working on a the new translation of “The Hebrew Bible” of which Professor Haupt is the editor in Chief.
1895: Professor Cyrus Adler explained how the United States National Museum acquired two Persepolitan cast one of which he says resembles “a frieze of enameled bricks found at Susa which is now in the Louvre.
1896: The list of gifts received by Columbia University published today provided by the Secretary of the Board included $5,000 from Jacob F. Schiff to aid needy students get through college.”
1896(28th of Tishrei, 5657): Dr. Moriz Schiff, the native of Frankfort-on-the-Main whose services as a surgeon in the rebel army during the Baden Revolution of 1849 led to him being labeled a “dangerous student” which forced him to pursue his medical career in Switzerland where he passed away today at Geneva.
1897(10th of Tishrei, 5658): Yom Kippur
1897: In Camden, NJ, Yom Kippur services “were held in Newton and Furey Halls.
1897: “Jew’s Greatest Fast Day” published today included a description of the preparation for Yom Kippur by “the orthodox Jew” who has for the past nine days been preparing himself for this day by doing “penance” which has entailed rising early “every morning since the New Year’s festival and repairing to the Beth Hamiderash (house of learning)” where he recited psalms and prayers for forgiveness and seeking “out his enemies” and making “peace with them” while discharging “all his worldly obligations.
1897: Dr. Gustav Gottheil led the services at Temple Emanu-El
1897: “There was a general suspension of business among the” Jewish merchants in Camden, NJ, because they were attending Yom Kippur Services.
1897: At Temple Elohim in Brooklyn Rabbi Taubernhaus delivered a sermon based on the Sayings of the Father that begin “Bear in mind three things and thou shalt escape sinning.
1897: At Temple B’nai Jeshurun, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise delivered a sermon entitled “Moses and Aaron.
1897: At Temple Rodoph Sholom, Dr. Rudolph Grossman delivered a sermon entitled “Home, Religion and Reconciliation.”
1897: At Temple Beth-El, Dr. Kauffman Kohler delivered a sermon on the “Dove of Peace.”
1897(10th of Tishrei, 5658): Fifty-three year old Lewis Stark, successful clothing merchant, passed away today at the home of his sister today from the effects of Bright’s disease.
1898: In London, Sime Zamremba and Avroam Kohen, a tailor from Lodz gave birth to Jacob Edward Kohen who gained fame as Jack Cohen, the founder of Tesco Supermarket Chain – an accomplishment that led to him being Sir John Edward Cohen.
1898:Herzl arrives in Berlin for another conversation with Graf Eulenberg.
1901(23rd of Tishrei, 5662): Simchat Torah
1902(5th of Tishrei, 5663): Eighty-three year old Austrian Rabbi Jacob Jacques Heinrich Hirschfeld, the son “Marie and Emanuel Isak Hirschfeld” and the husband of Pauline Hirschfeld passed away today in Vienna.
1903(15th of Tishrei, 5664): Sukkoth
1903: In Wiesbaden, Dr. Georg Honigmann and his wife gave birth to journalist Georg Honigmann.
1903: The High Court of Australia sits for the first time. In the early 1930’s Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs would be the first Jew to serve as Chief Justice of Australia.
1904: In New York, Felix Mortiz Warburg and Frieda Fanny Warburg, the daughter of Jacob and Theres Schiff, gave birth to Paul Felix Solomon Warburg.
1907: Birthdate of Salome Gluecksohn-Waelsch, a German-born geneticist and co-founder of developmental genetics who fled Hitler’s German to pursue her career in the United States. Winner of the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal in 1993 and the National Medal of Science in 1996, she passed away in November of 2007, a month after celebrating her 100th birthday.
1909(21st of Tishrei, 5670): Hoshanah Rabah
1909: In Philadelphia, Irving Kohn and Rebekah Kohn, the daughter of Simon and Florence Liveright gave birth to Florence Kohn who became Florence Abrahams after she married Robert David Abrahams.
1909: The funeral for Rabbi Falk Vidaver who passed away yesterday at the age of 65, is scheduled to be held today at his home in New York City. Burial will take place in the cemetery belonging to the Temple at 72ndand Lexington Avenue where Falk served as rabbi for twelve years.
1909:Miss Clara L. Clemens, daughter of Samuel L. Clemens, (Mark Twain,) was married at noon to-day to Ossip Gabrilowitsch, the Russian pianist. The wedding took place in the drawing room at Stormfield, Mr. Clemens's country home, with the Rev. Dr. Joseph H. Twitchell of Hartford, a close friend of Mr. Clemens, as officiating clergyman. The groom was Jewish. The bride was not.
1910(3rd of Tishrei, 5671): Tzom Gedaliah
1912(25th of Tishrei, 5673): Sixty-six year old philanthropist Simon Newman passed away today in San Francisco.
1914(16th of Tishrei, 5675): Second Day of Sukkoth
1914: The battleship U.S.S. North Carolina brought $50,000 from the Jews of the United States to the Jewish community in Palestine.
1914: It was reported today that U.S. government officials in the United States have not decided how to deal with reports of that a large part of the population of Jerusalem is facing starvation.
1914: Gilbert Frankau, the London born Jew who was baptized at the age of 13 and whose father Arthur converted to Roman Catholicism “a few months before his death” “was first commissioned in the 9th Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment” today.
1914: It was reported today that Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador at Constantinople “has appealed to the State Department for additional funds for the relief of American in the Ottoman Empire.”
1915: In Woodmere, NY, attorney Edward Drucker and his wife gave birth to Carolyn Elizabeth Drucker who became Carolyn Goodman after marrying civil engineer Robert W. Goodman which was the name she was known as when she gained gamed fame as the Manhattan clinical psychologist and mother of murdered civil rights worker Andrew Goodman. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1916(9th of Tishrei, 5677): Erev Yom Kippur and Erev Shabbat
1916: Appeals for funds are being made this evening in all Jewish houses of worship on “behalf of the Russian and Polish Jews in the war zones of Europe.”
1916: At Congregation Pincus Eliza on 95th Street General Sessions Judge Rosalsky “made an appeal for contributions to the fund for the aid of Jewish men, women and children affected by the war” which produced pledges of approximately $10,000.
1916: “Simon Samuel Frug, Yiddish Poet” published today reported the recent death of the Jewish poet from the Ukraine who following pogroms “circulated a poetic appeal asking for bread for the living and shrouds for the dead.”
1917(20th of Tishrei, 5678) Sixth day of Sukkoth and Shabbat
1917: As politicians sought to appeal to the Jewish vote on the Lower East Side William Hard, a supporter of New York Mayor John Mitchell wrote in today’s New Republic that Socialist Morris Hillquist who was Jewish had “a very considerable skill in the management of practical negotiations and an excellent command of quotations from standard authorities of his intellectual club and a manifest dislike for new and painful ideas.
1917: Today, during World War I, the 65th U.S. Congress passed an act that allowed for the creation of an additional twenty chaplains to serve in the United States Army. These positions were for representatives of "religious sects" not usually represented in these positions. The language of the act was convoluted but what Congress was really doing was creating positions to be filled by Jewish and Unitarian chaplains - religious sects that had hitherto been under-represented or unrepresented in chaplaincy.
1918: In Philadelphia, Manuel and Blanche (née Bergman) Korn gave birth to the Reform Rabbi Bertram Wallace Korn whose service as a chaplain began with the U.S. Navy in WW II and led to him reaching the rank of Rear Admiral in 1975.
1918: Birthdate of Abraham Robinson the German born, Israeli trained mathematician who earned his first degree from Hebrew University after he made Aliyah in 1933.
1918: While serving “on liaison duty with a battalion of the 308thInfantry which was surrounded by the enemy north of the Forest de la Buironne in the Argonne forest” and “after patrols had been repeatedly shot down while attempting to carry back word of the battalion’s position and condition” Abraham Krotoshinsky “volunteered for the mission and successfully accomplished it” in such a manner that he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
1918: On the Lower East Side of Manhattan the former Jennifer Garlick and her first husband gave birth to Joseph Nathaniel Glassman who gained fame as Joseph Frank author of the five volume life of Fydor Dostoevsky which is viewed as one of the greatest literary biographies of the 20thcentury. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
1920: Theresa Bruckner, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Max Bruckner is scheduled to marry Stanley Lee Weil this evening at the St. Regis in New York City.
1920: The High Commissioner for South Africa and Mrs. Blankenberg are scheduled to attend a dinner for Dr. Hertz, the Chief Rabbi of England and Albert M. Woolf today.
1921: In Tel Aviv, Samuel Lewin-Epstein, the “son of Judith and Eliyahu Ze’ev Lewin Epstein” and his wife “Madeline Lewin-Epstein” gave birth to “Noah Lewin-Epstein”
1921: Great Britain, the mandatory power governing Palestine, announced that Haifa will become a free port and that a new harbor will be constructed by a British company with a loan from the Palestine Mandatory Government of 10,000,000 English pounds. As part of a tariff agreement reached with the French, the mandatory power governing Syria, goods entering Haifa bound for Syria will be treated as duty free. This should be a boon to trade with those living in Mesopotamia as well.
1921: Birthdate of Soviet mathematician Yvgeny Landis who is known for his work on partial differential equations. (I do not have clue as to what that means)
1923: In Oshkosh, Wisconsin, scrap metal dealer Isadore Block and his wife gave birth to Allan Forrest Block “a leather craftsman and fiddler who made sandals and music in his Greenwich Village shop — which became a bubbling hub of folk music during the 1950s and ’60s.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)
1925(17th of Tishrei, 5686): Chol Hamoed Sukkoth
1925(17th of Tishrei, 5686): “The noted Jewish scholar, Dr. Israel Abrahams, reader in Talmudic and Rabbinic literature at Cambridge University passed away today in Cambridge” (UK) at the age of 66. Dr. Abrahams came from a family of scholars. “His father, Barnett Abrahams, was the Dayan of the Spanish & Portuguese Congregation in London.” Two of his brothers are rabbis including Dr. Joseph Abrahams, the Chief Rabbi of Melbourne, Australia. Dr. Abrahams has been at Cambridge for the last twenty three years. He was the first President of the Union of Jewish Literary Societies and held several leadership positions with the Jewish Historical Society of England. Dr. Abrahams was a prolific author whose best known work maybe “Jewish Life in the Middle Ages” which was published in 1896. In his later years he identified with the more liberal wing of Judaism. Abrahams’ first speaking tour in the United States was in 1912. He returned again in 1924. [Abrahams comment that anti-Semitism is on the wane in Germany made in 1912 stands in stark contrast to the reality of the post war years.]
1925: In Manhattan, on his 32ndbirthday, “Milton Ager, a successful composer whose tunes included ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’” and his wife “Cecilia, a film critic gave birth to Shana Ager who gained famed as journalist Shana Alexander between known as the liberal part of the Point/Counterpoint segment on “Sixty Minutes” with conservative columnist James Kirkpatrick. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1926(28th of Tishrei, 5687): Fifty-four year old Horki native Israel Joseph Zevin who gained fame as “a humorist and pioneer of the Yiddish press in America” using the pseudonym “Tashrak” passed away today.
1926(28th of Tishrei, 5687): Eighty year old Simon Bamberger the fourth governor of Utah who was the first non-Mormon to hold the post and the third Jew to be elected to a state chief executive position passed away today
1927(10thof Tishrei, 5688): Yom Kippur
1927: The era of talking pictures arrived with the opening of ''The Jazz Singer,'' starring Al Jolson.
1927: Jewish editor Herman Bernstein post a $15,000 bond so that Mordechai Golinkin, conductor of the Palestine Opera and former director of the Petrograd Opera, his wife Lea and a fellow traveler can be released from their three day detention on Ellis Island. Authorities detained the party because Golinkin had no contracts to perform in the United States which meant he did not meet the legal requirement of being able to demonstrate that he had a means of support.
1928: In the aftermath of the Massena (NY) Blood Libel that Assemblyman Julius Berg said that the apology by Mayor Gilbert Hawes “showed conclusively that he had been guility of a serious injustice against the Jews of Messina. Berg said no apology could make up for the wrong done and that unless the mayor resigned he would go to court to have him removed from office. When a four year child had been reported missing on the eve of Yom Kippur, the mayor had suggested that the disappearance might be due to a ritual murder. This resulted in Rabbi Brennglass being summoned to the police station for questioning.
1928:“The Wedding March” an “American silent romantic drama film written and directed by and starring Erich von Stroheim which was produced by Adolph Zukor and Jesse Laskey and edited by Josef von Sternberg was released in the United States today by Paramount Pictures.
1933: Birthdate of Ludwik Begleiter, the native of Stryj, Poland who survived the Holocaust ,graduated from Harvard Law School and who as Louis Begley became a successfully and author whose first book Wartime Lies was published in 1991.
1934: Birthdate of Philadelphia born, Ivy League educated philosopher and author Jacob Needelman.
1934(27th of Tishrei, 5695): Parashat Bereshit – The Cycle beings again
1934(27th of Tishrei, 5695): Max Yuditzky, who joined the Jewish Legion in 1918 and served in Palestine with the 38thRoyal Fusiliers passed away today in Winnipeg, Canada, where his passing is mourned by “his wife Katee and four son” Dave, Harold, Joseph and Bernard.”
1935(9th of Tishrei, 5696): Erev Yom Kippur
1935(9th of Tishrei, 5696): Eighty-three year old composer and conductor Sir Frederic Hymen Cowen passed away.
1935:Daniel Persky, editor of the Hebrew-language newspaper Hadoar and its sister publication for youth, Doar L’Noar wrote to Aliza Dworkin that ““In my opinion, Sara Kucikowicz’s future will be that of a great Hebrew poet,” who wrote “The Cruel Winter” and “The Vicious Spring.”
1936(20thof Tishrei, 5697): Sixth Day of Sukkoth
1936: Birthdate of Budapest native John Bienenstock, “one of the fathers of mucosal immunology” whose parents escaped to England where he received his medical education before eventually settling in Canada
1936:Sir Oswald Mosley planned a provocative meeting of his British Union of Fascists in the East End for today. The inhabitants of the area determined that ''They shall not pass!'' and congregated at Gardner's Corner. When in response Mosley and his Black Shirts, with a fair degree of police support, changed direction, the protesters dashed along the Commercial Road, surged down Christian Street and turned right into Cable Street. At the junction with Royal Mint Street, now marked by a plaque, the Fascists indeed ''did not pass.'' They were later ordered to disperse, and Mosley thundered: ''The government surrenders to Red violence and Jewish corruption. We never surrender.'' In fact, Fascism in Britain, at least as an organized political movement, was soon a dead letter.
1936: Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson led the funeral services for Jesse Isidor Straus this morning at Temple Emanuel which were attended by an array of dignitaries from several walks of life including Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt who represented the President, Governor and Mrs. Lehman, Mayor La Guardia and Andre de Laboulaye, the French Ambassador which served as a reminder of the close links that Straus had forged with that country while serving as the U.S. Ambassador in Paris.
1936: The New York City Public School system announced today that it is beginning a series of radio broadcasts as part of its educational efforts. Among the broadcasts will be a series aimed at language students including those studying Hebrew who will hear programs about Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and the Waves of Galilee.
1936: In Geneva, at a meeting of the League of Nations, the Polish representative said that it was becoming increasingly necessary to find outlets other than Palestine for the “immense reservoir of the Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe” and that includes Poland where “overpopulation creates a need for new immigration outlets for the Jewish masses whose economic structure makes it difficult to integrate them in Poland’s contemporary social evolution.”
1936: It was reported that Judge Bleakly, the Republican running against Herbert Lehmann for Governor of New York and who had “described David Dubinsky” the Jewish labor leader “as a renegade Socialist who sent money to the Reds in Spain” was making an erroneous charges since “the funds raised by the president of the of International Ladies Garment Workers went not to the Reds but to the Red Cross
1937: The Palestine Post reported from Berlin that German Jews might soon be ordered to wear yellow badges. Jews were ordered to report to local police stations where they were forced to stand for hours, facing the wall, until they collapsed and were ready to give up their property for nothing.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that he Arab Defense Party, which had broken away from the Husseini-run Arab Higher Committee, was allowed to meet in Jerusalem, under the chairmanship of Ragheb Bey Nashashibi.
1938: “Fast and Furious, a mystery comedy” written by Harry Kurnitz was released in the United States today by MGMm
1938: The last casualty of the International Brigades, Haskel Honigstern, was given a state funeral in Barcelona. The Spanish poet Jose Herrera wrote of him: "Haskel Honigstern, Polish worker of the Jewish race, son of an obscure land, killed in the light of my homeland." Coincidentally, the first casualty of the International Brigades was Leon Baum, a Jew from Paris
1939: In an address to the Reichstag,Hitler offers peace to England and France, but only if Germany's former colonies are returned, Germany is allowed to join world trade, and Britain and France allow Germany to solve the "Jewish problem."
1939: In Bucharest, “the Zionist organization announced today that Jewish refugees from Poland between the ages of 14 and 17 are being allowed to enter Palestine and that negotiations to obtain entrance permits for the remained of the Polish Jewish refugees hare are proceeding.”
1939: “Ninotchoka” a romantic comedy that was thinly veiled satire of the Soviet Union “based on a screen story by Melichor Lengyel, produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch with a script by Billy Wilder, co-starring Melvyn Douglas and featuring Alexander Granach was released in the United States by MGM.
1940(4th of Tishrei, 5701): Tzom Gedaliah
1940: Birthdate of music manager Gerald Eugene “Jerry” Heller, the Cleveland, Ohio native who was a driving force behind rap and “gangsta rap.”
1940: “The United Jewish Appeal for Refugees and Overseas Needs” is scheduled to “present a high holiday broadcast” today “at 2:35 p.m. over the WABC-Columbia network.
1940(4th of Tishrei, 5701): Illinois Governor Henry Horner passed away today at the age of 62. Horner was a distinguished jurist before entering state politics as a reformer. Henry Levy was the son of Solomon Levy and Dilah Horner. When his parents divorced, his mother resumed using her maiden name and young Levy became Horner.
1941(15th of Tishrei, 5702): First Day of Sukkoth
1941(15th of Tishrei, 5702): Over the next 48 hours, the majority of Jews in Dvinsk, Latvia, are murdered.
1941(15th of Tishrei, 5702): Phillip Manson, a one-time Rochester newspaper boy and advisor to Presidents Wilson and Harding, who “started the first regular steamship service between New York and Bermuda and who was the husband of Isabelle Manson passed away today.
1941(15th of Tishrei, 5702): In Kovno, 1,500 Jews without work passes were taken away to be shot. The Kovno hospital was sealed shut and burned to the ground with everyone still in it.
1941: It was reported today that Dr. Benjamin Harrow, author of “Jews who Have Received the Nobel Prize” and Chemistry Professor Dr. Harry Wagreich have received a grant from the medical fund of the Ella Sachs Plotz Foundation.
1943: Helen Manaster a Jew posing as a Catholic, was called out of the delivery room in the Kraków, Poland, hospital while in the throes labor pains to face two Gestapo agents. She keeps her calm and the Gestapo agents tell her to go back to bed.
1943: “In the Posen town hall” Heinrich Himmler delivers a speech in which he openly admits to the extermination of the Jews assuring this listeners that “The Jewish question in the countries that we occupy will be solved by the end of this year. Only remainders of odd Jews that managed to find hiding places will be left over."
1943: This is “The Day the Rabbis Marched on Washington.” Dr. Rafael Medoff‘s article describes one attempt to save the Jews of Europe. That they did not succeed is beside the point in terms of the historic record; they made the attempt. Each time we read of these “small” efforts, we cannot help but wonder what a concerted effort might have brought. The Jews of Europe Save or the Jews of America condemned as putting their own parochial interests ahead of the war effort?
1944(19th of Tishrei, 5705): During Sukkoth Chol Hamoed, a two day uprising begins at Auschwitz. SonderkommandoJews from Poland, Hungary, and Greece, who are forced to transport gassed corpses to crematoria at Auschwitz, attack SS guards with hammers, stones, picks, crowbars, and axes. They also blow up one of the four crematoria with explosives smuggled into the camp from a nearby munitions factory. Russian POWs throw an SS man alive into a crematorium furnace. The SS fights back with machine guns, hand grenades, and dogs. 250 Jews are shot outside the camp wire. An additional 12 who escape will later be found and executed.
1946: Eleven kibbutz settlements were established in a single night.
1946: Urim, a kibbutz located in the Negev, was established today.
1946: Kibbutz Beeri which “which was named after Berl Katznelson” was established today “near Wadi Nahabir, a few kilometers south of Be’erot Yitzhak” by “members of the HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed movement.”
1946: Kibbutz Kedma, in south-central Israel, was founded today.
1946: Dan Zur was amont those who founded Kibbutz Nirim, “which named after the Nir brigade of the Hashomer Hatzair” today in the Negev.
1946: Kibbutz Neavtim, which would hold out against the Egyptian Army despite being completely surrounded during the War of Independence, was founded today “by immigrants from Hungary in the northern Negev.
1946: Kibbutz “Hatzerim” which is “located 8 kilometers west of Beersheba in the Negev desert in Israel” was founded today.
1946:Mishmar HaNegev was established today by members of Borochovi Youth, a youth group affiliated with Poalei Zion,
1946: Establishment of Kfar Darom, not far from Gaza. Two years later, attacking Egyptian forces would capture the Kibbutz after a prolonged siege.
1946: Tkuma, a moshav located in the Negev whose original settlers were Holocaust surviors, was established today.
1946: Kibbutz Gal-On (Monument of Strength) “which stands on a hill approximately twenty kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea” was founded today by members from Poland some of whom had survived the wartime ghettos or had fought as partisans against the Germans. The name was a memorial to those who had died in the Ghetto revolts.
1946: Shoval, named for a nearby ancient biblical town, was established by South African Jews sixteen miles north of Beersheba. To deal with the harsh climate the kibbutzim used contour plowing and built a modern reservoir. While cultivating the land, they also cultivated good relations with the Bedouin who passed through the area.
1946: “Bill Steiner, representing the Maccabiah club of New York, captured the U.S. national title in the 30 kilometer run today” with a time of 1 hour, 38 minutes and 2 seconds. Steiner’s win was no fluke. He had won the AAU 20 mile run in Philadelphia in 1932 and won the Maccabiah marathon championship in Tel Aviv in 1935.
1947(22nd of Tishrei, 5708): Shmini Atzeret
1947(22nd of Tishrei, 5708): Just two days before his 57th birthday composer and screenwriter Samuel “Sam” Hoffenstein whose most famous work was “The Wizard of Oz” passed away today.
1947: After having opened at the National Theatre in 1946 and moved to the Majestic Theatre in July of 1947, Call Me Mister,” a revue with words and music by Harold Rome and a cast that included Jules Munshin continued its Broadway run at the Plymouth Theatre.
1948: Frederick Sylvester, a former employee of the Jerusalem Electric Corporation was found guilty of espionage in connection the Ben Yehuda Street Bombing and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
1949(13th of Tishrei, 5710): Sixty-two year old major league outfielder Guy Zinn who played from 1911 through 1915 and who scored the first run at Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox, passed away today.
1949: “The Heiress,” the film version of the 1947 play, directed and produced by William Wyler was released today in the United States.
1949: In New York City, “Josephine (Schleifer) Moonves, a nurse, and Herman Moonves gave birth to Leslie Roy “Les Moonves who in 2018 “stepped down as President and CEO of CBS after being named in multiple, credible claims of sexual harassment.
1950: Birthdate of science fiction author David Brin.
1951(6th of Tishrei, 5712): Shabbat Shuva
1951(6th of Tishrei, 5712):Otto Fritz Meyerhof, German born American physician and biochemist passed away. Mayerhof shared the 1922 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Archibald Vivian Hill. Meyerhof left Germany in 1938, settling in Philadelphia in 1941 where he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prof. Nelson Glueck was invited by the Israel Exploration Society to head a projected 10-year archeological survey of Israel. Nelson Glueck was one of the great names among the archeologists working in Israel. Born in 1900, Glueck graduated from the University of Cincinnati and earned his PhD from the University of Jena (Germany) in 1926. During his career he uncovered over 1,000 sites in the Middle East including the copper mines of King Solomon and the Red Sea port of Ezion Geber. Glueck's discoveries provided archeological verification for information found in the Bible. In 1947, Glueck was named President of Hebrew Union College. One of his most famous and popular books was Rivers in the Desert: A History of the Negev, published in 1959. Glueck's fame was such that he appeared on the cover of Time magazine in December, 1963, under the title "The Search for Man's Past." Glueck passed away in 1971.
1953(27th of Tishrei, 5714): Seventy-nine year old Moshe Smilansky, the Ukrainian native who became part of the first Aliyah when he moved to Palestine in 1890, who served with the Jewish Legion during WW I and “who considered himself a disciple of Ahad Ha’aim passed ways today.
1953(27th of Tishrei, 5714):Doctor Rahel Hirsch the German born doctor who became the first woman in the Kingdom of Prussia to be appointed as a professor in medicine passed away. Born in 1870 in Frankfurt am Main, she was one of eleven children of Mendel Hirsch, the director of the girls’ school of the Jewish religious community in Frankfurt am Main. From 1885 to 1889, she took a degree in education in Wiesbaden. She then worked until 1898 as a teacher. After her doctorate she was assistant to Friedrich Kraus at Charité. Since she was Jewish, the takeover by the Nazis meant she could not practice medicine. In October of 1938 she moved to London, where one of her sisters lived. Since her degree was not recognized by the British, she worked as a laboratory assistant and later as a translator. The last years she spent plagued by depression, delusions and persecutory fears. She was in a mental hospital on the outskirts of London, where she died on October 6, 1953 at 83 years old.
1955(20th of Tishrei, 5714): Chol HaMoed Sukkoth
1955(20th of Tishrei, 5714): Sixty year old English poet John Rodker, one of the “Whitechapel Boys” passed away today.
1956: Prime Minister David Ben Gurion rejects Moshe Dayan’s demand for a reprisal raid, assuring his chief of staff that plans were in the works for a major operation against the Egyptians.
1957: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today at Malinow & Silverman Mortuary on Venice Blvd. for Arthur (Artie) Auerbach best known for his comedic role of “Mr. Kitzel who was survived by his widow Mrs. Doris Auerbach.
1959: NBC broadcast “The Wonderful World of Entertainment” the first episode of “Startime” with a script by Larry Gelbart and starring Polly Bergin.
1960(15th of Tishrei, 5721): Sukkoth
1961: Vic Morrow “appeared in an episode of the ABC drama series “Target: The Corruputers.
1962: After 677 performances at the Brooks Atkinson the curtain came down on the original Broadway production of Neil Simon’s first play “Come Blow Your Horn.”
1963:Barbra Streisand appears on "The Judy Garland Show"
1963: Sandy Koufax leads the LA Dodgers to a four game sweep of the Yanks in the 60th World Series. Koufax pitched victories against Yankee ace Whitey Ford in games one and four.
1964(30th of Tishrei, 5725): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
1964(30th of Tishrei, 5725): Fifty-six year old who reached the rank of staff sergeant in WW II where his work of preparing paratroopers’ equipment included using his tailor skills to work on parachutes died of a heart attack today which led to his family memorializing his life fifty years later by donating a Torah written in his honor the USS Gerald R. Ford, “the U.S. Navy’s newest aircraft carrier.” (As reported by Rich Tenorio)
1965(10th of Tishrei, 5726): Yom Kippur
1965: It was reported today from “Jerusalem, Israeli Sector” that “that the 25 hours of fasting and worship will last until this evening.” (Editor’s Note – The use of the term “Israeli Sector” when used in terms of Jerusalem may sound strange to some. But this report was filed during those 19 years when Jordan illegally occupied the Old City in violation of UN resolutions passed in 1947 – violations which brought no condemnation from the World Community nor any accompanying demand to turn the city over to the local Arab population.)
1965: Sandy Koufax refuses to pitch in the first game of the World Series because it is Yom Kippur. “In October 1965, the Los Angeles Dodgers were playing the Minnesota Twins in the World Series. The opening game was on Yom Kippur and Sandy Koufax, who had won 26 games that season and struck out 382 batters to set a major league record, did not pitch for his team. Koufax was not treated with respect by the local press in St. Paul. He did pitch the second game and lost, but won the fifth and seventh games (both complete game shutouts), and the Dodgers won the World Series. Koufax won the Cy Young Award three times, as well as being voted the National League's Most Valuable Player in 1963. In 1965 he pitched a perfect game against the Chicago Cubs, the fourth no-hitter of his career. Koufax is considered by many to be one of the greatest pitchers of all time.”
1968: Eighty-nine year old Maurice Arnold de Forest passed. He was the adopted son of the millionaire Baroness Clara de Hirsch, née Bischoffsheim, wife of Jewish banker and philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch de Gereuth and/or the illegitimate son of Juliette Arnold de Forest fathered by the Baron. Regardless, the motor car race, aviator and British politician converted to Catholicism
1969: NBC broadcast episode for of “My World…and Welcome to it” created by Melville Shavelson, co-starring Harold J. Stone.
1969: Israeli officials reported today that three Egyptian MIGs (Soviet built warplane) had been shot down in a battle over the Suez Canal.
1973(10th of Tishrei, 5734): Normal life grinds to a halt in Israel on Yom Kippur which also happens to fall on Shabbat.
1973: At four o’clock in the morning, Israeli intelligence had hard proof that war would break out before sundown on October 6. The information had come from the head of Mossad. Moshe Dyan, the Defense Minister, refused the request of the IFD Chief of Staff General Elazar to mobilize and launch a pre-emptive strike against Syria. The Nixon Administration had warned the Israelis not to strike first or to take any action which the Arabs could claim was provocative. Elazar appealed to Prime Minister Golda Meir. Meir strikes a compromise. She will allow a mobilization, but it is only to be partial one.
1973: Prime Minister Golda Meir convened an emergency meeting in Tel Aviv with senior defense officials at 8:05 this morning. Six hours before the outbreak of the war, Israeli preparations for a general offensive by Arab armies finally began. The warnings of the intelligence source were being taken seriously, as was the fact that the Russians were pulling families out of Egypt and Syria, a sign of approaching war. But U.S. intelligence was not predicting war. Minister Yisrael Galili said a source had suggested the war could be prevented by leaking information that would reach the Egyptians and Syrians, so they would knew their plans for attack had been discovered. The Israeli officials at the meeting were concerned about Jordan because it wasn't clear if the kingdom would join in the assault on Israel. Initially, Mrs. Meir deliberated between Chief of Staff Elazar's call for a full mobilization of the reserves and Moshe Dayan's request for a limited call-up. "If you approve a major mobilization of the reserves, I won't resign," Dayan said. But with an eye to international reaction, he added, "A full mobilization before even one shot is fired - they will say right away that we are the aggressors." At 9:20 A.M., a full mobilization was approved.
1973: War erupted in the Middle East as Egypt and Syria attacked Israel during the Yom Kippur holiday. The two Arab states attacked with hundreds of planes and more than a thousand tanks. By the end of the day, the Egyptians have established three bridgeheads across the Suez, Syrian artillery is shelling Israeli settlements and Israelis were being told to black out their windows in case of an air raid. By the end of the day 200,000 Israeli soldiers, most of whom were mobilizing reservists faced 300,000 Syrians and 850,000 Egyptians.
1973: According to ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak he personally started the Yom Kippur War today “by attacking an Israeli communications base in his fighter jet six minutes before the rest of the Arab Armies’ surprise attack on the Jewish state began.” (As reported by Naama Barak)
1973:On the first night of the Yom Kippur War five boats led by flotilla commander Michael Barkai sailed north to engage in the first-ever missile battle at sea off the main Syrian port of Latakia. The feisty Barkai told his captains that their objective was to draw the Syrian missile boats out of harbor. "If they don't come out, I mean to sail in and get them with guns." Two Syrian picket boats were encountered well off the Syrian coast. The first, a torpedo boat, was sunk with gunfire. The second, a minesweeper, was hit with missiles, the Gabriel's first blood. Three Syrian missile boats already at sea turned to meet the intruders. With their 25-kilometer advantage, the Syrians got in the first salvo. The Israeli boats raised their electronic umbrella and charged. In naval headquarters, officers monitoring Barkai's radio net heard him report the Syrian launch. His voice was level but taut. Herut Tzemah braced. The lives of 200 men as well as the fate of the missile boat program hung now on whether he had assessed the Styx's parameters correctly. The radio remained silent for the two minutes it took for the Syrian missiles to complete their flight. Then Barkai's voice. "They missed." The three Syrian boats ran for harbor, but one, the only one with missiles remaining, turned on the closest Israeli pursuer. As the two boats raced at each other, the Syrian fired first. The Israeli vessel again put up its electronic and chaff umbrella and at maximum Gabriel range launched two missiles. The Styx and Gabriel missiles passed each other, the former hitting the sea, the latter exploding on the deck of the Syrian vessel. A second Syrian boat was sunk a few moments later. The Soviet-built vessels had no countermeasures and were doomed once the Israelis reached Gabriel range. The captain of the third Syrian boat, realizing the situation, ran his vessel onto the shore to escape.
1973: Shmuel Gonen who had “inherited the IDF Southern Command from Arik Sharon” on July 15, faced an Egyptian force of five infantry divisions, three mechanized divisions and two armored divisions that included 1,400 tanks with one division at the front that included 294 tanks.(As reported by Mitch Ginsburg)
1973: The 162ndDivision under the command of Major General Avraham Adan began the first three days of desperate attempts to drive the Egyptians back across the Suez Canal.
1973(10th of Tishrei, 5734): Yadin Tannenbaum, a young flautist was killed in 1973 while fighting in the Yom Kippur war. The 1981 Halil, Leonard Bernstein’s nocturne for flute, percussion, and strings, it is dedicated “to the spirit of Yadin and to His Fallen Brothers.”
1973: For action today simply described as delaying enemy armor, Captain Zvika Greengold earned Israel’s Medal of Valor. The events that earned him Israel’s highest commendation are as follows.
Twenty-one-year-old Lieutenant Greengold was home on leave when Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise attack on two fronts. He was not attached to any unit as he was about to take a course for company commanders. Once he realized war had broken out, he hitchhiked to Nafekh, a command center and important crossroads in the Golan Heights, where he initially helped with the wounded, as no tanks were available. When two damaged Centurion tanks were repaired, Greengold was put in charge of them and sent with hastily-assembled scratch crews down the Tapline Road.
Greengold's "Koah Zvika" (Zvika Force) spotted Syrian tanks belonging to the 51st Independent Tank Brigade of the Syrian Army which had broken through the line and were advancing unopposed northwest along the road to Nafekh. Greengold's two tanks engaged the opposing T-55s at 2100 hours, with Greengold destroying six. Later, he had lost contact with his other tank when he spotted the advancing 452nd Tank Battalion. He engaged the enemy, taking advantage of the darkness and moving constantly to fool the Syrians into thinking the opposition was stronger than it was. Greengold destroyed or damaged ten enemy armored vehicles before the confused Syrians withdrew, believing they were facing a sizable force. Even Greengold's superiors were deceived; as the fighting wore on, he did not dare report how weak he actually was over the radio for fear it would be intercepted; at best he could only hint "the situation isn't good". At a time when Force Zvika was only one tank, Colonel Yitzhak Ben-Shoham, the brigade commander, assumed it to be "of at least company strength". For the next 20 hours, he fought, sometimes alone, sometimes in conjunction with other tanks, displaying an uncanny knack for showing up again and again at the critical moment to tip the scales of a skirmish. He had to change vehicles "half a dozen times" as his tanks were knocked out. He soldiered on, even after he was wounded and burned. When Nafekh itself came under attack from a fresh force of T-62s, he rushed over to bolster the defense. In a lull in the fighting, an exhausted Greengold got out of his latest tank and dropped to the ground, murmuring, "I can't anymore." Afterward, he claimed 20 enemy tanks destroyed; other estimates place his tally at 40 or more.
1973:“The Syrian 7th Infantry Division attacked the Israeli 7th Armored Brigade in the area between Mount Hermon and a southern ridge known as "Booster" in Israel” in what was the first day of the Battle for the Valley of Tears.
1973: “Rabbis throughout” New York City interrupted…Yom Kippur service…to tell their congregations about the outbreak of war in the Middle East and to offer special prayers for Israel.
1974: Rose Kushner’s “first major article on the topic of breast cancer was published in The Washington Post” today.
1974: Soviet authorities allowed 90 Jews “to hold picnic in the woods outside Moscow in celebration of the festival of Succoth”
1978: “Goin’ Coconuts” “a musical comedy directed by Howard “Howie” Morris was released in Hawaii today.
1979(15th of Tishrei, 5740): Sukkoth and Shabbat.
1980: “Refuseniks Yacov Ariev and Haim Solovey from Riga, and Isai Minkin from Moscow, began a hunger in protest against the authorities’ refusal to grant them exit visas.”
1981: Anwar Sadat was assassinated by Moslem fanatics angered by the peace treaty with Israel. Sadat was murdered on the 14th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War.
1981:Israel, using the United States as a go between to gain Saudi cooperation, rescued a grounded Israeli missile ship from a sandbar off the coast of Saudi Arabia, Israeli military sources said today.
1983: During the Israel bank stock crisis, “Black Thursday.”
1984(10th of Tishrei, 5745): Yom Kippur
1985(21st of Tishrei, 5746): Hoshanah Rabah
1985(21st of Tishrei, 5746): Seventy-nine year old Czech engineer Vilém Klíma passed away today.
1986: CBS broadcast the first episode of “My Sister Sam” co-starring Rebecca Schaeffer
1986: NBC broadcasts the first episode of the 6thSeason of the “Cosby Show,” a sit-com created by Ed Weinberger.
1990: “American Dream” a documentary directed by Barbara Kopple who produced the film along with Arthur Cohn premiered today at the New York Film Festival.
1991: Elizabeth Taylor who had converted to Judaism in 1959 a year after her husband Michael Todd had died in a plane wreck, married her seventh husband today.
1991: During the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Nominee Clarence Thomas, Nina Totenberg filed a report on NPR outlining claims by Anita Hill that she had been the victim of sexual harassment by the nominee. (Totenberg was Jewish; the other two were note)
1993: “Marilyn” an opera by Ezra Laderman premiered at City Opera.
1994: Tova Blitz wrote a letter today historian Martin Gilbert today in which she described “a whimsical moment in the maternity ward of a Toronto hospital” on VE Day when she “Tova Blitz gave birth to her son while a Mrs. Berlin gave birth to her son
1995: Two days after premiering at the New York Film Festival, “Kicking and Screaming” directed by Noah Baumbach and co-starring Eliot Gould was released in the United States today.
1995: “Assassins” produced and directed by Richard Donner was released in the United States today.
1995: Melissa Gilbert gave birth to a son whom she named Michael, in honor of Michael Landon, her “father” Little House on the Prairie a slice of Americana in which Jews played a key creative role.
1996(23rd of Tishrei, 5757): Simchat Torah
1996: The New York Times features Meyer Levin’s review of The Diaryof a Young Girl by Anne Frank
1997(5th of Tishrei, 5758): Eighty year old Yevgeny Khaldei the Soviet combat photographer best known for the iconic picture of a Russian soldier raising a flag over the Reichstag at the end of the Battle of Berlin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Reichstag_flag_original.jpg
(This means that three of the iconic photos of WWII were taken by Jews, the others being Joe Rosenthal and Robert Capa)
1998(16th of Tishrei, 5759): Second Day of Sukkoth
1998(16th of Tishrei, 5759): Eighty-five year old Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and author Jerome Weidman passed away today. (As reported by Mel Gussow)
1999:A 75-year-old American woman sued the Hungarian Government today for the return of art masterpieces looted by Nazis from the Jews and now held by Budapest museums, lawyers said. Martha Nierenberg, granddaughter of Baron Maurice Herzog, who once owned a Budapest mansion filled with art valued today at $10 million to $20 million, filed the suit in Budapest City Court, the lawyers said. She lives in Armonk, N.Y. The suit seeks the return of parts of the 2,500-piece collection, which the suit says was looted by Adolf Eichmann as he oversaw the deportation of Hungarian Jews in 1944. The collection includes works by El Greco, Cranach and van Dyck, some of which have wound up in the Museum of Fine Arts and the National Gallery, both in Budapest. Eichmann, whose SS killed or deported some 600,000 of Hungary's prewar Jewish population of 800,000, shipped the best pieces of the Herzog collection to Germany. Many works recovered by the Americans after the war were shipped back to Hungary in the late 1940's but were placed in museums instead of being returned to their owners. Efforts to recover them revived only after Communism collapsed in 1989, the lawyers said. Peter Szakonyi, a public relations agent in Budapest working with the lawyers and the American public relations firm representing Mrs. Nierenberg, said negotiations between Mrs. Nierenberg and the Hungarian Government to reach an amicable settlement had been going on for four years, without result. A spokesman for the Hungarian Prime Minister said the Government had not yet gotten official notice of the suit and therefore could not comment.
2000: CBS broadcast the first episode of the original CSI (later known as CSI Las Vegas) a long-running cerebral crime series created by Antony E. Zuker and brought to the small screen by executive producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Carol Mendelsohn
2000: U.S. premiere of “Meet the Parents” directed by Jay Roach with a score by Randy Newman and a script co-authored by Jim Hamburg.
2000(7th of Tishrei, 5761): Fifty-four year old Bachor Jann was killed by stone-throwing Palestinians on the Coastal Highway near Jisr az-Zarqa
2002: Today, Ruth Gruber, who had worked to bring European Jews to a safe haven in Oswego, NY, helped to “dedicate the Safe Haven Museum” which houses of library named in her honor.
2002: The New York Timesfeatured a review of Mr. Strangelove, Ed Sikov’s biography of Peter Sellers the son of a Jewish motherand a descendant of famed Anglo-Jewish prize fighter Daniel Mendoza.
2003(10th of Tishrei, 5674): Yom Kippur
2003: Aviel Barclay has become the first certified Soferet, or female Torah scribe. She is currently writing a Sefer Torah, the first ever known to be written completely by a woman's hand. The Women's Torah project of Seattle's Kadima Congregation has hired Barclay to write the Sefer Torah and has sponsored her studies to become a certified Soferet. Writing a Sefer Torah is a full-time project that will take Barclay at least 12 months to complete. Once the Sefer is completed in the Spring of 2005 and is dedicated in Seattle, it will travel to Jewish communities around the world. (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archive)
2004(21stof Tishrei, 5765): Hoshana Raba
2005: The High Court of Justice established the absolute illegality of using Palestinian civilians in a military operation, whether in the "neighbor procedure" or the related "early warning procedure."
2005: The Jerusalem Post reported that two Israelis have undergone successful transplants over Rosh Hashana, in Israel and in Europe. Efrat Rinot-Koren, the 30-year-old mother whose liver failed from acute hepatitis a month after having a baby, had undergone a liver transplant in Belgium. Meanwhile, a 20-year-old man was the first Israeli to undergo a heart and kidney transplant at the same time. The patient, operated on successfully at the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus, was in critical condition and with only a few days to live when the organs became available. He was in stable condition on Wednesday night. So far, only a handful of such double transplants have been performed around the world.
2005: In the Jewish Journal, Jonathan Kellerman who along with his wife Faye, are writers of murder mysteries, publishes “Boy Do We Need Teshuvah Now!”
2006(14th of Tishrei, 5767): Erev Sukkoth and Erev Shabbat
2006: “Little Children” co-starring Gregg Edelman and featuring Rebeca Schull was released in the United States today by New Line Cinema.
2006: Robert Adler's latest patent application was filed on today for his work on touch-screen technology
2007(24th of Tishrei, 5768): Parshat Bereshit – the cycle begins again.
2007: In an article entitled “D.M. synagogue’s all-female leaders a rare feat,” the AP reports that Tifereth Israel Synagogue in Des Moines is unique among Conservative Congregations because it boasts both a female rabbi and a female cantor. Rabbi Beryl Pador and Cantor Deborah Bletstein make up this dynamic duo. Rabbi Pador had been leading the congregation for several years when the decision was made to hire Cantor Bletstein in time for the 2007 High Holiday season. In the Mid-Continent Region of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism which is composed of 48 congregations only one other has a female lead rabbi and only two others have female cantors.
2007: “A Priest Methodically Reveals Ukrainian Jews’ Fate” published today, Elaine Sciolino describes the efforts of a French Roman Catholic Priest named Patrick Desbois to discover and document the fate of the Ukrainian Jews.
2007: The New York Times featured a review of Francisco Goldman’s The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop?
2008(7th of Tishrei, 5769): Ninety-four year old anti-Zionist Alfred Lilienthal passed away today.
2008: At Rutgers University in New Jersey, Arie Nesher, architect, city planner and professor at Tel Aviv University delivers an address entitled “Politics of the Environment in Israel and the Region” as part of the Ruth Ellen Steinman Bloustein and Edward J. Bloustein Memorial Lecture series.
2008: Sports Illustrated Magazine includes a review of Boys Will Be Boys by Jeff Pearlman and an article about Joe Maddon, “Tampa Bay’s progressive contrarian skipper” who “was hired by” Matt Silverman, the Jewish President of the team whose primary owner is Jewish financier Stuart Sternberg.”
2009(18th of Tishrei, 5770):Raymond Federman, the French born American author who wrote Double or Nothing, passed away today.
2009: Mark A. Grey, Michele Devlin and Aaron Goldsmith are scheduled to discuss their new book “Postville, U.S.A.” at Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City, IA.
2009:MK Yossi Beilin, former head of the Meretz Party, announced tonight that he is quitting politics to enter business.
2009(18th of Tishrei, 5770:Ruth L. Kirschstein, a National Institutes of Health pathologist, passed away today.
2010: A program styled Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín, “We Will Sing to the Nazis What We Cannot Say to Them” is scheduled to be performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. “Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín tells the story of courageous Jewish prisoners in the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp during World War II who learned Verdi’s Requiem Mass by rote and then performed this compelling work 16 times as a statement of defiance and resistance, answering the worst of mankind with the best of mankind. The concert/drama will feature a full performance of The Requiem with actors, video testimony with surviving members of the choir, and original Nazi propaganda film footage
2010:The New York Public Library (NYPL) has named Anthony W. Marx as the new president. Marx calls New York City his native hometown, and currently serves as president of Amherst College
2011: Publication of “My Favorite Things: Calvin Trillin.”
2011: Sage “Rosenfels signed a one-year deal for $970,000 with the Miami Dolphins
2011: The Jewish Museum is scheduled to offer the last of its High Holiday Themed docent tours of the permanent exhibition, “Culture and Continuity.”
2011: Timothy Shriver is scheduled to moderate a program based on “War of the Worldviews” by Deepak Chopra and Leonard Llodinow, whose father led the Jewish resistance against the Nazis in Częstochowa, Poland and survived imprisonment at Buchenwald.
2011:Police arrested a suspect from northern Israel several days ago in connection with the torching of a mosque in the village of Tuba Zanghariya overnight Sunday in an apparent "Price Tag" attack.
2011:Thirty-eight years after the Yom Kippur War broke out, the IDF held a surprise drill today for two reservist divisions in an effort to prepare the Reserve Corps for possible emergency call-up orders.
2012: Arnon Goldfinger’s “The Flat” is scheduled for a second and final screening at the Hampltons International Film Festival.
2012: Director Erez Laufer’s “One Day After Peace” is scheduled for a second and final screening at the Hampltons International Film Festival.
2012: In Washington, DC the annual Cleveland Park Sukkah walk is scheduled to take place after Kiddush.
2012: The Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform at the “Art on the Avenue” festival in Alexandria, VA.
2012: In Grand Forks, ND, Cantor Alane Katzew is scheduled to lead services at B’nai Israel Synagogue that will encompass the themes of Sukkoth, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.
2012: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the traditional Saturday morning includes a special memorial to mark 39thanniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur which began on October 6, 1973.
2012:Police carried out raids across France today after DNA on a grenade that exploded last month at a kosher grocery store led them to a suspected jihadist cell of young Frenchmen recently converted to Islam.
2012: The IDF shot down a foreign drone that had penetrated deep into Israeli airspace this afternoon, flying for half an hour before it was intercepted.
2012: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak seemed to turn the page on their recent public bickering during a one-and-a-half-hour meeting tonight, saying that they had agreed to continue working together to overcome Israel's security threats.
2013: In New York the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Hidden from History: The Pinkas of the Metz Rabbinic Court, 1771-1789,” “a conference that explores French and German rabbinic courts of the late 1700s.”
2013: “Threshold to the Sacred: The Ark Door of Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue” is scheduled to open at Yeshiva University Museum.
2013: The Tulane University Jewish Studies Department is scheduled to sponsor a lecture by Jack Kulgelmas of the University of Florida, "Sifting the Ruins: Jewish Journalists Return to Poland, 1945-1947"
2013: The Tulane University Jewish Studies Department is scheduled to sponsor a lecture by Jack Kulgelmas of the University of Florida, "Sifting the Ruins: Jewish Journalists Return to Poland, 1945-1947"
2013: E.L. Doctorow is scheduled to give an exclusive preview of his newest book, Andrew's Brain: A Novel at the opening of The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival in Washington, DC.
2013: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Hotel Francforts by David Leavitt and “Unzipped,” an essay by Erica Jong “about storytelling – why certain stories stick with us and others don’t.”
2013: The formal ceremony installing Rabbi Asher Lopatin as the new president of Yeshivat Chovevi Torah is scheduled to take place today.
2013: The Jewish Endowment Foundation (JEF) of Louisiana is scheduled to honor several Jewish community leaders “who have exemplified giving and charity.”
2013: “Israel Prize winner David Kazhdan, 67, was severely injured when he was hit by a truck while riding his bike in Jerusalem.” (As reported by Spencer Ho)
2013: Eli Zeira and Zvi Zamir, former heads of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate and the Mossad respectively, bitter rivals who stood at the center of the drama leading up to the surprise Arab attack on Israel that launched the 1973 Yom Kippur War, shared their sharply divergent narratives about the outbreak of the fighting today. (As reported by Mitch Ginsburg)
2013: “Hundreds of Labor party activists, volunteers and supporters gathered in Tel Aviv tonight for the formal launch of MK Shelly Yachimovich’s campaign for reelection as party leader.” (As reported by Haviv Rettig Gur)
2013: Rabbi March Schneier, the graduate of Yeshiva University and founder of the Hampton Synagogue and The Foundation of Ethnic Understanding married his fifth wife who would later be replaced by his sixth wife “Simi Teitelbaum.”
2013: Two of the three winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine winners were Jews – James Rothaman of Yale and Randy Schekman of the University of California. Two of the candidates who did not win were Israelis – Professors Howard Cedar and Aharon Razin from Hebrew University.
2013(3rd of Cheshvan, 5774): Ninety three year old Rabbi Ovad Yosef, the spiritual leader of the Sephardi community passed away today.
2014: Roman Rabinoivich who “made his Israel Philharmonic debut…before his 11th birthday is scheduled to perform with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players.
2014: “A spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons was unable Monday to explain the change on the bureau’s “inmate locator,” which changed Jonathan Pollard’s release date on its website from “Nov. 15 2015” to “Life.” (As reported by JTA)
2014(12th of Tishrei, 5775): Eighty-six year old actress Marian Seldes the niece of journalist Gilbert Seldes passed away today.
2014: In Washington, DC, the Lillian & Albert Small Jewish Museum is scheduled to host a panel discussion “From Church to Condo: D.C.'s Urban Evolution.”
2014: Sweden’s Ambassador is scheduled to come to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem “for a reprimand meeting” following that country’s announcement that it intends to recognize Palestine. (As reported by Itamar Eichner)
2014: “The White House hit back today at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's accusation that US criticism of Israeli settlement construction was "against American values."
2014: “Welfare and Social Services Minister Meir Cohen announced today a budget increase of NIS 1.7 billion was approved for the implementation of the recommendations of the Elalouf Committee to Reduce Poverty in Israel.” (As reported by Omri Efraim)
2015(23rd of Tishrei, 5776): Simchat Torah
2015: “Vera Rubin, a US astronomer who has described herself as a religious Jew,” and who had “emerged as the pundits’ choice for the Nobel Prize Physics…failed to win the prestigious award” today. (As reported by Stuart Winer)
2015: After Simchat Torah Services the Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Pita Luncheon!
2016: In London, the UKJF is scheduled to host a screening of “Little Men.”
2016: “AKA Nadia” is scheduled to be shown at SERET DC, “a celebration of contemporary Israeli cinema.
2016: Shimon Dotan’s “The Settlers” is scheduled to be shown at the 54th New York Film Festival.
2016: “A mortar shell fired from the Gaza Strip landed in an open area in southern Israel today” making this “the second such attack in as many days.”
2016: The Israeli Supreme Court Project at Cardozo Law School in collaboration with Yeshiva University Museum are scheduled to a panel discussion on “Women at the Wall on the Bus, and in Front of the Court: Religious Women as Agents of Change through the Israeli Supreme Court."
2017(16th of Tishrei, 5778): Second Day of Sukkoth;
2017: On the secular calendar, 44thanniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur when a handful of brave men held the line on the Suez Canal and the Golan fighting desperately to avoid what could have been a Holocaust in the truest sense of the word – a Holocaust that was brought on in part by the hubris of leaders who refused to believe the intelligence reports they received warning of the attacks. Of these men we can repeat the words of Churchill – never have so many owed so much to so few.
2017: The Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem is scheduled to host special Chol Hamo’ed “special activities all about sugar…sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.”
2017: The evening, the University of Iowa Hillel is scheduled to host “Sushi Shabbat.”
2017: Two days “after his body was found covered in stab wounds” and one day after he was supposed to have celebrated his 70th birthday, Reuven Schmerling was laid to rest at a funeral attended by “over a thousand people” (As reported by Jacob Magid)
2018: On the secular calendar, 45th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur War. (Editor’s Note: Adjusting Sights a novel by IDF veteran Sabato, does an amazing job of capturing the desperation and bravery of the fighting on the Golan)
2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to a host a luncheon after Shabbat services and Seudah Shlishit following Mincah.
2018: In another example of the vitality of “small community Judaism,” Ari Collins is scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah at Agudas Achim in Coralville, IA.
2018(27thof Tishrei, 5779): Parashat Bereshit; the cycle begins again. For more see