OCTOBER 30
1207BCE: According to “three scientists from Beersheba’s Ben Gurion University” who used NASA date today is the date of the eclipse which is described in the Book of Joshua as God making the sun stand still so that the Israelites could defeat the Amorites.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/eclipse-stopped-the-sun-for-biblical-joshua-israeli-scientists-say/
1270: Eighth Crusade comes to an ignominious end. The crusade started under the banner of France’s anti-Semitic King Louis IX. But he died of stomach ailment in August. Effective leadership devolved to Charles, King of Naples. The crusaders got no further than Tunis. The crusaders agreed to lift their siege of the Arab capital in exchange for commercial advantages. The crusaders went home having failed to accomplish any of their own noble aims. Considering the miseries that the Crusaders heaped on the Jews, they were just as glad to finally glad to see them come to an end after almost two centuries.
1340: At the Battle of Río Salado King Afonso IV of Portugal and King Alfonso XI of Castile defeated Muslim ruler Abu al-Hasan 'Ali of Marinid dynasty and Nasrid ruler Yusuf I. A Marinid victory would not have been a good thing for the Jews. In fact, Alfonso was greeted by crowds of cheering Jews when he returned to his capital. The victory was doubly important to the Jews of Spain and Portugal because the successors to both of these monarchs followed policies that were favorable to the Jewish people in their realms.
1348: After two days, the authorities of Amont, in France, had finished arresting all of the local Jews and taking their possession. The arrest of the Jews was tied to the belief that they were responsible for the Black Plague which was working its way across France. The Jews of Amont were lucky to have been just arrested and robbed since in most towns the Jews were expelled without their possessions or murdered.
1485: King Henry VII of England is crowned. Henry was quite willing to continue the policy of keeping England free of Jews; a policy that dated back to 1290. When Henry VII was arranging for the marriage of his son to Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella “he promised never to allow Jews into his domain. Isabella had made it quite clear, if he refused the oath, the marriage was off.
1491: Gershon Soncino printed the first copy of “Immanuel Romi, Mahberot” (The Notebook of Imamanuel Romi) at Brescia, Italy. (Heinrich Graetz described him as a “Jewish Dante)
1649: In Pawtuxet, Colony of Rhode Island, “Stephen and Sarah Arnold” gave birth to Israel Arnold, the husband of “Mary (Barker) Arnold” with whom he had fourteen children while find time to serve as Deputy Governor of the colony.
1682: Pope Innocent XI issued an edict by which all the money-lending activities carried out by the Roman Jews were to cease. However ultimately convinced that such a measure would cause much misery in destroying livelihoods, the enforcement of the edict was twice delayed
1708: Abraham ben Saul Broda entered into a contract with Jewish community of Metz to serve as its rabbi.
1735: Birthdate of John Adams, Founding Father and Second President of the United States.The correspondence of John Adams reflects the complexity with which Jews and Judaism were viewed in early national America. Most "enlightened" American Christians such as Adams saw Jews as an ancient people who, by enunciating monotheism, laid the groundwork for Christianity. He also saw them as individuals who deserved rights and protection under the law. Like many of his peers, Adams venerated ancient Jews and thought contemporary Jews worthy of respect, but found Judaism, the religion of the Jewish people, an anachronism and the Jewish people candidates for conversion to Christianity. In an 1808 letter criticizing the depiction of Jews by the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, Adams expressed his respect for ancient Jewry. Adams wrote of Voltaire, "How is it possible [that he] should represent the Hebrews in such a contemptible light? They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their Empire were but a Bauble in comparison of the Jews. They have given religion to three quarters of the Globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind more, and more happily, than any other Nation ancient or modern." Aware of Adams' benign view of Jews, American Jewish newspaper editor, politician, diplomat and playwright Mordecai Manuel Noah (1785-1851) maintained a correspondence with the former president. In 1818, Noah delivered a speech consecrating the new building erected by his own Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York. Noah's "Discourse," a copy of which resides in the archives of the American Jewish Historical Society, focused on the universal history of Jewish persecution at the hands of non-democratic governments and their peoples. An early Zionist, Noah believed that only when the Jewish people were reestablished in their own home, with self-governance, could they live free of oppression. Noah sent a copy of his "Discourse" to Adams. Adams responded encouragingly to Noah, although the former president was evasive regarding Jewish self-governance. Adams expressed to Noah his personal wish that "your Nation may be admitted to all Privileges of Citizens in every Country of the World." Adams continued, This Country has done much. I wish it may do more, and annul every narrow idea in Religion, Government and Commerce. … It has please the Providence of the 'first Cause,' the Universal Cause [phrases by which Adams' defined G-d], that Abraham should give Religion, not only to the Hebrews but to Christians and Mahomitans, the greatest Part of the Modern civilized World." For Adams, Jews had earned their rights by virtue of their historic contributions and by virtue of their citizenship, but he did not respond to the idea of a Jewish homeland. Remarkably, a year later, Adams made the first pro-Zionist declaration by an American head of state, active or retired. In 1819, Noah sent Adams a copy of his recently published travel book, Travels in England, France Spain and the Barbary States. In his letter acknowledging the gift, Adams praised Noah's tome as "a magazine of ancient and modern learning of judicious observations & ingenious reflections." Adams expressed regret that Noah had not extended his travels to "Syria, Judea and Jerusalem" as Adams would have attended "more to [his] remarks than to those of any traveller I have yet read." Adams continued, "Farther I could find it in my heart to wish that you had been at the head of a hundred thousand Israelites . . . & marching with them into Judea & making a conquest of that country & restoring your nation to the dominion of it. For I really wish the Jews were again in Judea an independent nation." What was the source of Adams's Zionist sympathies? What moved him to make his extraordinary statement? A clue can be found in the next sentence of his letter: I believe [that] . . . once restored to an independent government & no longer persecuted they [the Jews] would soon wear away some of the asperities and peculiarities of their character & possibly in time become liberal Unitarian Christians for your Jeh-vah is our Jeh-vah & your G-d of Abraham Isaac and Jacob is our G-d. Alexis de Tocqueville observed, "The Americans combine notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to conceive the one without the other." Adams was clearly confident that freedom would lead the Jewish people to enlightenment and that enlightenment would lead them to Christianity. For Adams, Jewish self-governance in the Holy Land was a step toward their elevation. Today, our understanding of democracy includes respect for diversity and support for the retention of one's religious faith.
1785: Birthdate of Hermann, Fürst von Pückler-Muskau who met Rabbi Moses Sachs in Tunis in 1835 and was so impressed with him and his plan to settle Jews in Palestine that he arranged for him to meet with Baron Salomon Mayer von Rothschild of Vienna
1786: A deadly fire in the Jewish Ghetto of Verona occurred causing a great loss of life.
1798: In Berlin, “Adolf Martin Schlesinger, founder of the music journal Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung” and his wife gave birth to Moritz Adolf Schlesinger the German music editor who was known by the French as Maurice Schlesinger the creator of the journal Gazette musical.
1815(26th of Tishrei, 5576): Ninety-one year old Rachel Pinto whose loyalty fluctuated during the American Revolution passed away today in New York City.
1821: Birthdate of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. The author of such major works as The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment was an anti-Semite. As he grew older he became convinced that Jews were the cause of all social ills and he was phobic on the idea of letting Jews live outside of the Pale of Settlement.
1835: In Philadelphia,Eleazer (Eugene) Moss and Mary (Levy) Moss the daughter of Solomon and Rebecca Eve Levy gave birth to John Moss II.
1850: Samuel Vandersluis married Hannah Kasner today at the Great Synagogue.
1856: William Cullen Bryant delivered a speech tonight in favor of the abolition of slavery. He recounted the story of the Israelite encounter with the Amalekites when Moses arms grew weary and Aaron and Hur contrived to keep Moses hands raised until victory was achieved. He urged the attendees to lend their support to the leaders of the fight against slavery so that when their arms grew weary like Moses, the people would lend their hands in support of abolition.
1856: During an anti-Slavery rally held at the Academy of Music in New York the speakers, who were Christian ministers, took issue with the idea that the Bible supported the institution of slavery as practiced in the United States. They contended that "there was no such idea of property in a servant existing among the ancient Jews." [For once somebody had actually read and understood the text of "The Old Testament."]
1860:The biennial banquet and ball in aid of the Jew’s Hospital, well known charitable Institution took place at the City Assembly Rooms this evening. As on former occasions of the same kind, the attendance was large, and the contributions in aid of the Institution were most liberal. Not less than 600 ladies and gentlemen of the Jewish faith sat down to the banquet, and subsequently joined in the dance. Mr. Benjamin Nathan the President of the Hospital, presided at the banquet, and on his right and left, at the head of the tables, sat Rabbi Lyons of the Nineteenth-street Synagogue , Rabbi Isaacs of the Wooster-street Synagogue, Rabbi Cramer, of the Greene-street Synagogue, and other prominent clergymen and laymen of the Jewish faith. The "grace before meal" was said in Hebrew by Rabbi Lyons, and the "grace after" was sung in the same language by Rev. Mr. Cramer. Following the latter, the President of the Institution addressed the audience, giving a brief sketch of the "Jews' Hospital in New-York," and welcoming his hearers to the entertainments of the evening. He said that the Jews' Hospital, since its foundation, in 1855, had accommodated 1,225 inmates, of whom 1,127 had been treated gratuitously. The benefits of the Institution were not confined to any creed or sect, but the sick and unfortunate of all creeds and nations had partaken of its blessings. At the same time it had neither asked nor received any aid from the State or Municipal Governments, but had depended entirely upon the voluntary contributions of its friends for support. In the intervals between the toasts, the Secretary read off a list of the donations received from those present, as well as by letter from absent donors. Among the latter was a letter from Gov. Morgan, speaking in the highest terms of the Jews' Hospital, and inclosing a check for $100. The total amount of donations announced last evening reached the liberal sum of $14,000. At the conclusion of the toasts the party retired to the ball-room adjoining, when the, dancing commenced, and was continued till a late hour of the night.
1863(17th of Cheshvan, 5624): Philadelphian Nathan Rosenfelt, a Sergeant serving with Company D of the 26th Regiment who had been serving with the Union Army since 1861 succumbed to wounds he had suffered on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
1864:Helena, Montana's capital, founded. Jews were involved with the Helena from its earliest days. According to local legend Russian born Julius Basinsky arrived in Helena in 1866 with one thousand cigars and not enough pocket change to buy lunch in one of the town’s saloons. Louis Kaufman came to Helena and worked in mining until 1872. He and Louis Stadler formed Stadler and Kaufman Meat Company in 1872. Charles M. Russell, one of America’s premier Western artists managed their ranch for several years. From the 1870’s on banks owned completely or partially be Jews were launched in towns and cities all over the Far West including Lewish Herschfield’s Merchants National Banking Company in Helena.
1869: In Karlin, “Leopold and Sofie Sara Pick gave birth to Amalie Pick” who became Amalie Kun when she married Franz Kuhn with whom she had one son - “Leopold ‘Poldi’ Kun.”
1869: In Vienna, Leopold Bloch, “the son of Samuel and Theresia Bloch” and his wife Rosa Bloch gave birth to Sophie Bloch, who became Sophie Eber after she married Ernst Eber Bloch.
1872: Morris Joseph married Frances Amelia Henry, “the third daughter of Michael Henry of Effingham House.”
1872: A two day meeting at Brussels that had been called so that leading European Jews could discuss measures that could be taken to relieve the suffering of their co-religionist in Romania was scheduled to come to an end.
1873: “In the hacienda of El Rosario, in Parras de la Fuente, Coahuila, Francisco Ignacio Madero Hernández and Mercedes González Treviño gave birth to Mexican Revolutionary and President who employed Felix A. Sommerfield a colorful German Jew Felix A. Sommerfield as his Secret Service chief which lead to his further involvement in Mexican civil wars including working for Pancho Villa.
1874: In London, Julia Matilda Cohen, “the daughter of Jacob and Matilda Waley” and her husband, Nathaniel Louis Cohen, gave birth to Jacob Waley-Cohen
1875(1st of Cheshvan, 5636): Rosh Chosesh Cheshvan and Parashat Noach
1875: As the debate over the use of public tax dollars to support religious education it was reported that in New York the Catholic Schools receive almost $1,400,000 or 91% of the amount spent while the Jewish schools receive less than $26,000.
1877: Birthdate of Salman Schocken, the German born publisher who became an ardent Zionist. Among other things, he founded Schocken Publishing House and published Haaretz. His life is too rich and textured for this blog and you are urged to study from the many resources that tell his fascinating story.
1878: Rebecca (nee Abrahams) Norva, the son of George Norva with whom he had four children, was buried to at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1879: In New York, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association is scheduled to present its first “down-town entertainment of the season” at the Pythagoras Hall.
1880: Billee Taylor or The Reward of Virtue "a nautical comedy opera" by Edward Solomon, the Anglo-Jewish composer and conductor was first produced today at the Imperial Theatre in London
1880: Birthdate of playwright and lyricist Aaron Hoffman whose works included “Welcome Stranger” a play set in “a narrow-minded New England town” where an “energetic kind-hearted Jew named Isidor Solomon confront the region’s “prejudice against the Jew” and whose basic theme “centers on the prejudice shown in some quarters against the Jew – because of fear or dislike of the Jew’s strong rivalry in business” or “because of his religion.
1881: Dr. Kaufmann Kohler gave his first Sunday lecture this morning at Temple Beth-El in New York. This is a reform championed by the Rabbi which will replace traditional Saturday morning services with an observance on Sunday since the realities of the American business world prevents people from attending services on the traditional day.
1882: “Church Contributions” published today provided a breakdown of charitable efforts by denomination including the fact that there are 2,937 Jews in New York who have contributed $100,000 for “benevolent purposes” that there are 12,516 Jews throughout the United States who contributed $300,000 “for benevolent purposes.”
1883: “Mr. Henry Irving In ‘The Bells’” published today gives a full-scale review of English actor Henry Irving’s performance in the American premiere of “The Bells.” “The Bells” by Anglo-Jewish playwright Leopold Davis Lewis is based on “The Polish Jew” by the French team of Erckmann and Chatrian.
1884(11th of Cheshvan, 5645): Isaac Honig, a native of Mayence who came to the United States in 1859 where he became a leading real estate dealer as well as a patron of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society and Mount Sinai Hospital passed away today.
1884: In a letter written today, J.S. Moore was critical of the rabbi who was part of group of clergymen that met with Republican Presidential candidate James Blaine because they had only come “to speak evil about” his opponent Grover Cleveland saying that he at least should have known that the Biblical punishment for speaking evil is “leprosy.”
1885: The newly elected officers of the United Hebrew Charities are: Henry Rice, President; Henry S. Allen and Morris Tuska, Vice Presidents; J.H. Hoffman, Treasurer; and I.S. Isaacs, Secretary.
1887: Mrs. Philip J. Joachimsen, President of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society reported that currently the society is providing “a home” to 543 children, 384 of whom range in age from 2 to 5 years. The facility which is on Washington Heights is the only facility in the city that provides shelter for “orphans, half-orphans or deserted children.”
1887: “The Oldest Jewish Gravestone” published today relied on information first published in the Times of London to the latest discovery about the history of the Jews of Europe. Up until now, a headstone on a grave in a cemetery at Worms dated 4660 (or 900 CE) has been thought to be the oldest of its kind. But now a headstone has been found at “Zahlbach, a small village close to Mayence” that bears the date 4560 (806 BC). After having been verified by Rabbi Lehman of Mayence, the stone was placed in the town’s museum.
1888: It was reported today that in the last year the United Hebrew Charities of New York assisted 16,953 in the past year. The society provided help to 29,602 immigrants who arrived at Castle Garden. Approximately 2,600 people were “provided with employment” and 600 poor Jews were provided with free burial. The society collected over $73,000.00 and spent all but $4,000 in providing assistance.
1889: “He Talks To Hebrews” published today described a well-received address Colonel Elliot F. Shepard a prominent lawyer and civic leader gave at Avhavth Chesed in New York City.
1889: Professor Morris Jastrow of the University of Pennsylvania presented a paper on “The Text Books of the Assyrians and Babylonians” at today’s meeting of the American Oriental Society.
1889: David Harfeld, a Richmond pawnbroker and the brother of Rabbi Eugene Harfeld went on trial for bigamy today in New York City
1889: “His Race Proud of Him” published today reported that Jesse Seligman presided over the dinner held in honor of Sir Julian Goldmid, Seligman praised the visiting Englishman as “one of the champions of Hebrew emancipation throughout the world” who “had made this voice heard in the halls of Parliament in behalf of civil and religious liberty and the removal of political disabilities from Jewish citizens of all nations.”
1890: According to reports in the London Figaroand the New York Times, the key to Baron Hirsch’s close relationship with the Prince of Wales is a combination of his great wealth and, more importantly, his good manners. The Baron is considered remarkable for his philanthropy and his love of England.
1891: As Russia reels from a series of social and economic problems that have been exacerbated by a famine it was reported today that “the suffering Russian peasantry has…avenged their sufferings upon the Jews who are already under an official as well as popular ban and this direction of their energies is entirely pleasing to the Russian Government.”
1892: Twenty women and sixty-three men, all of whom are Polish and Russian Jews were arrested today at the cloakmaking fir of S.M. Levi & Co on charges that they had violated the laws banning working on Sunday.
1892: V. Henry Rothschild, Lyman G. Bloomingadle, Isaac Eppinger, Sigmund Neustadt, Isidor Straus, Louis Gans, Samuel H. Eckman and Henry S. Hermnaa were elected directors of the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids when the patrons and managers held their annual meeting today.
1892: “Felix Adler’s New Book” published today provides a detailed review The Moral Instruction of Children by Felix Adler.
1893: “Koh-i-Noor” a one act operetta authored by Oscar Hammerstein opened tonight at Koster and Bial’s Music Hall.
1894(30th of Tishrei, 5655): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
1894: The Board of Estimate and Apportionment is scheduled to meet today to consider requests for 1895 including $80,000 by the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, $85,000 for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society of New York Orphan Asylum and $5,000 for the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children
1894: Superintendent Stump of the Bureau of Immigration has received a letter from Baron Hirsh, stating that the Jewish Colonization Society, of which Baron Hirsch is the head, is engaged in diverting Jewish immigration from the United States to Argentina; a county that is more open to accepting the Jewish immigrants.
1895: President Henry Rice and General Manager Nathaniel S. Rouseau presented the annual reports at the annual meeting of the United Hebrew Charities which was held at Temple Emanu-El today.
1896(23rd of Cheshvan, 5657): Samuel Corn, a native of Prussia who came to the United States in 1825 at the age of 22 where he became a successful businessman in the cap and furrier business as well as a patron of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society and the Montefiore Home passed away today.
1897: In the United Kingdom, Morris Joseph and the former Frances Ameila Henry celebrated their silver anniversary.
1897(4th of Cheshvan, 5658): Parashat Noach
1897: Dr. Adler, the Chief Rabbi delivered the sermon at the Hampstead Synagogue where he also consecrated “the new class rooms which have been erected” next to the synagogue.
1898: Three days after he had passed away, Harris Isaacs was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.”
1898: Birthdate of Lothar Kreyssig the German judge who defied the Nazis by trying to stop their euthanasia program and who hid two Jews on his farm.
1899: In Saratov, Russia, Yakov Arkad'evich Khazin and Vera Yakovlevna Khazina gave birth to Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam the author and educator who was the wife of poet Osip Mandelstam.
1899:Major Karri Davies was among the Jewish soldiers who fought during the Siege of Ladysmith which began today during the Second Boer War.
1899: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi B.A. Elzas officiated at the wedding of Joe H. Epstein and Bertha N. Mothner.
1900: In Kishinev, Chazkel and Dvoira Gurfinkel gave birth to Goldie Steinberg (née Gurfinkel) a survivor of the Kishinev Pogrom and the widow of Philip Steinberg, who lived to the age of 114 years, 290 days.”
1903: During the debate over accepting Uganda as a Jewish homeland, even on a temporary basis, the newspaperDie Weltpublishes Menachem Ussishkin's letter and Herzl's answer. Menachem Ussishkin opposed an expedition to Uganda.
1904: Cypriotes in Athens, Greece adopt a resolution, which they plan to send to England to protest against the increasing immigration of Jews to Cyprus.1905: The massacre and pillage of the Jews of Odessa which would leave 8,000 dead and 12,000 dead began today.
1905(1stof Cheshvan, 5666): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
1905: A production of “In New York Town,” a musical comedy based on the work of Loney Haskell” and “with music by Albert Von Tilzer” opened today at the Fourteenth Street Theatre.
1905: After a nation-wide strike, Russia’s Czar Nicholas II issued a manifesto granting a constitution and a Duma (parliament) in which the Constitutional Democrats (Cadets) and Social Democrats would participate. These revolutionaries many of whom were Jews, were known as the "Octoberists." The reforms did not work. Conditions worsened, in part because the Czar was a weak ruler and not committed to reform. Seventeen years later, Russia would explode in a revolution that would bring the Communists to power.
1907: In Chicago, “Morris Paul Tax and Kate (Hanwit Tax” gave birth to Sol Tax, who earned a Ph.D from the University of Chicago and founded “Current Anthropology.”
1910: A review of three plays by Arthur Schnitzler published today decries the fact that there is no English theatre equivalent to the German theatre as represented by Schnitzler’s work. That Schnitzler was actually an Austrian born Jew did not keep the critic from identifying the noted playwright as being “German.” Of course large numbers of the Jews in Austria and Germany would see themselves in the same way until they had their rude awakening in the 1930’s.
1910: During a pogrom known as the Shiraz Blood Libel, 12 Jews were killed, 50 more were injured and 6,000 were robbed of all their possession by a mob seeking vengeance for the baseless charge that the Jews had ritually murdered a Muslim girl.
1912: The first phase of the State of New York v Charles Becker came to an end. Becker was a police officer who had been charged with having a group of Jewish gangsters from the Lower East Side murder Herman Rosenthal, a well-known New York gambler.
1912: When the Bulgarians captured the Greek city of Didymoteikhon, the economic conditions of the Jews deteriorated when a great deal of their property including Jewish owned stores were damaged or destroy.
1914: The Ottoman Empire enters the Great War as an ally of Germany and Austro-Hungary.
1914: During the election campaign Nathan Strauss spoke at Niblo’s Gardens where he “struck down the charges of religious prejudice” that had been unfairly lodged against Governor Glynn.
1914: Dr. Bernard Drachman, the rabbi of Congregation Oham Zedek spoke out against the injection of religious prejudice in the current gubernatorial campaign.
1915: It was reported today that of the one million refugees created by the Russian withdrawal on the Eastern front who are facing mass starvation, 200,000 of them are Jews from Lithuania.
1915: In New York “Therese Friendly Wachenheimer and Samuel Wachenheimer, a jewelry manufacturer” gave birth to Ferdinand Friendly Wachenheimer who gained fame as Fred Friendly, the courageous, creative producer who worked with Edward Morrow on See It Now. There most famous broadcast was the one exposing Senator McCarthy. George Clooney played the role of Friendly in Good Night and Good Luck which captured the courage of Friendly and Morrow as well as the hostile environment in which they lived.
1915: “A financial report issued” today by “the American Jewish Relief Committee of which Felix Warburg is treasurer listed donors and their donations including $15 from the Jewish inmates at Green Meadow Prison, $100 from the Lawrence, Massachusetts Jewish Relief Committee, $70 from the Hebrew Literary Social Club and $32 from Temple Israel in Uniontown, PA.
1915: It was decided today to award the Nobel Prize in Medicine to Dr. Robert Barany of Vienna University for his work in the physiology and pathology of the ear.
1916(3rd of Cheshvan, 5677): Eighty-four year old German author and satirist Julius Stettenheim passed away today.
1916: Birthdate of New York native Herb Gershon who played for ten years in the American Basketball League, one of the forerunners of what is now the National Basketball Association where one of his teammates was New York University grad Simon “Si” Bordman.
1917: Today, Rabbi David Goldberg was commissioned “as the first Jewish Chaplain in the United States Navy – which must have been a lonely role to play since he was the only rabbi to be commissioned by the Navy.
1918: Two days after she had passed away, 18 year old Mary Sack was buried at the “Streatham Jewish Cemetery.”
1918: Sándor Wekerle, who had supported “a bill providing for equal religious rights for Jews and Christians” completed his second term as Prime Minister of Hungary.
1918: “Towards the end of World War I, the Sharifian Army led by Emir Faisal, backed by the British Army, captured Damascus from the Ottomans as part of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.”
1918: The Ottoman Empire signed an armistice signifying the end of hostilities for World War I. The news was greeted with great joy by the Jews of Palestine who believed that a benign British military government would allow them to live under the terms of the Balfour Declaration.
1919: Birthdate of Czarna (née Zielinski) Levy, the native of Poltusk who was the wife of Reuven “Ruwek” (Lewin) Levy
1919: In Poland, “Yisrael Aryeh Werdyger, a well-to-do wholesaler of men's shirts and dry goods and a prominent member of the Gerrer Hasidic community of Kraków (Cracow)” and his wife gave birth to their youngest son, David Werdyger, the Holocaust survivor and “Chasidic Chazan” “considered to be one of the pioneers of 20th century Jewish music.”
1920(18thof Cheshvan, 5681): Parashat Vayera
1920: Dr. Maurice H. Harris is scheduled to deliver a sermon this morning on “Unsuspected Powers” at Temple Israel of Harlem.
1920: At Petach Tikvah in Brooklyn, Rabbi Aaron Eisenman is scheduled deliver a sermon “The Greatnes of Human Sympathy.
1920: Dr. H.G. Enelow is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Jew and the Bible” at Temple Emanu-El.
1920: Rabbi Max Reichler is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Perpetual Youth” at Sinai Temple of the Bronx.
1922: Benito Mussolini became Premier of Italy. Mussolini was no anti-Semite. Several Jews supported him and he had a Jewish mistress. Mussolini would turn on the Jews during the 1930’s. How much of this was a matter of his own doing and how much was merely in response to curry favor with Hitler has become a matter of debate. Any diminution of suffering enjoyed by the Italian Jews was a credit to the people of Italy and not to Mussolini.
1923: Four days after he had passed away, Abraham Sackwild was buried today at the “East Ham Jewish Cemetery.”
1923: In New York, Yiddish theatre performer Berel and Helen Bernardi gave birth Herschel Bernardi best known for his portrayal of “Lieutenant Jacoby” on the television detective show “Peter Gunn.”
1926(22ndof Cheshvan, 5687):Rebbe Yissachar Dov, the third Rebbe of the Belz Chasidic dynasty and the father of Aharon Roekach who would succeed him and become the fourth Rebbe of the Belz Hasidic dynasty passed away today.
1927: With more than 1,000 representatives of American Zionism to hear his challenge at a conference in Cleveland, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, of New York, today called upon Zionist leaders attending the national conference on Palestine to hold Britain to its pledge to carry out the obligations of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
1928: Birthdate of Daniel Nathans, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. Despite the fact that his father lost his business during the Great Depression, Nathans took advantage of the American education system graduating from Washington University in St. Louis. A microbiologist, he spent at least some of his time at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovoth. Nathans won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1978. He won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1978. He passed away in 1999.
1930: In Brooklyn, Samuel Adelman, “an amateur photographer and craftsman who helped install the floors when Harry S. Truman renovated the White House” after WW II and the form Anna Pomerantz gave birth to Robert Melvin Adelman, the free-lance photographer best known for his pictures of the fight to end segregation in the South. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
1930: Austrian born bacteriologist and pathologist Dr. Karl Landsteiner won the Nobel Prize for Medicine today. Since 1922, Landsteiner has been doing his research at New York City’s Rockefeller Institute ofr Medical Research.
1931: “The Yellow Ticket” the cinematic adaption of the play by the same name that tells a tale about Russian Jews living under martial law that features Mischa Auer as “Melchior” was released in the United States today.
1932:The Jack Benny Program is broadcast for the first time on CBS Radio.
1932: A rabbi officiated at the marriage of Czech born American talent agent Paul Kohner, the founder of Paul Kohner Talent Agency and Mexican actress Lupita Tover at the home of his parents “Julius "Kino" Kohner, who managed the local movie theater and published a film industry newspaper, and his mother was Helene Kohner (née Beamt).”
1933: Irma Lindheim, a wealthy American-born Jewish woman who became President of Hadassah in 1926 joined Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek today
1935: In Hampstead, London, Helen (née Zlota) and George Joseph Winner gave birth to director and producer Robert Michael Winner who was best known as “a restaurant critic for The Sunday Times
1935: In New York, Cele (née Mendelow) and Benjamin Caro gave birth to author Robert Caro, best known for his multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson http://www.robertcaro.com/
1935:As reported in today’s Baltimore Sun, “Long owned by the Dukes of Brunswick, the treasure was purchased by a consortium of art dealers and sold to the government of Prussia.” “The treasure” refers to 82 pieces of the Guelph treasure which four Jewish art dealers, Zachary Max Hackenbroch, Julius Falk Goldschmidt, Isaac Rosenbaum and nephew Saemy Rosenberg bought from the Duke of Brunswick for 7.5 million reichsmarks in1929” and “the government of Prussia” refers to Hermann Goering.
1936: In London Hester and Siegfried Sassoon gave birth to their only child George Sassoon whose father described his expectations for his son to Max Beerbohm when he wrote "Will he, I wonder, become Prime Minister, Poet Laureate, Archbishop of Canterbury, or merely Editor of The Times Literary Supplement? Or Master of The Quorn? Or merely Squire of Heytesbury?"
1936: “The Trouble with Money” a Dutch comedy directed by Max Ophuls and produced by Will Tuschinksi the son Dutch businessman Abraham Tuschinski who built the famous movie theatre in Amsterdam that bears his name and who was murdered at Auschwitz, was released today in the Netherlands.
1936: A law promulgated today that empowers Josef Wagner “the new price commissar recently by ‘economic dictator’ Hermann Goering to fix ‘just prices’ for ‘goods and services of all kinds’” demonstrated that “Hitler’s second Four Year Plan” was not based on the “capitalistic law and supply and demand” but on “a more socialistic managed economy.” (The term Nazi meant National Socialist, a fact conveniently forgotten who sought to paint Hitler as anti-Communist defending the Free Enterprise System)
1936: While delivering a speech on the economy tonight in Berlin, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels declared “I am told that the Jews are becoming impertinent again. Let them beware. The more impertinent they become, the harder will be our laws.”
1938: In “A Poignant Record of Palestine,” published today T.R. Ybarra reviewed Going Home by Ernst Harthern, a German newspaper correspondent who has been working in Scandinavia which means he has been spared much direct contact with Hitler and his Nazis. In fact Hitler is not mentioned in this book which described Harthern’s first visit to Palestine in which he has the sensation of a true homecoming. As he says at one point, “Almost anywhere on earth there are more modern buses with better springs, but they are not Jewish buses.”
1938: Birthdate of Marina Ratner, the Moscow native who had to overcome the anti-Semitism of her native land to become an award winning Israeli mathematician.
1938: In “Fear Colors All Life In The Stricken Holy Land” Madeleine Miller describes the toll that Arab violence which she describes as a “civil war” has taken on Jews and Arabs.
1938: Mitch Miller was playing oboe with the CBS Symphony tonight during the broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” based on a script co-authored by Howard Koch.
1938: Washingtonian Henry Brylawski, the future president of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington was among those who heard the broadcast “The War of the Worlds” today.
1938(5thof Cheshvan, 5699): Fifty-two year old Baruch Nachman Charney (Baruch Charney Vladeck), the American Jewish labor leader who was the manager of the Jewish Daily Forward passed away today.
1938: This afternoon help arrived at Zbaszyn for the Polish Jews deported from Germany “from Warsaw, supplied by Emanuel Ringelblum and Yitzhak Gitterman of the Joint Distribution Committee, who were to form the General (Jewish) Aid Committee for Jewish Refugees from Germany in Poland”
1939: Heinrich Himmler head of the S.S. was instructed to have about a million people transported from the Generalgouverenment. Half are to be Jews and half are to be Poles.
1939: SS chief Heinrich Himmler designates the next three months as the period during which all Jews must be cleared from the rural areas of western Poland. Hundreds of communities will be affected, and thousands of Jews will be expelled with nothing but what they can carry with them.
1940: In New York, “Mollie and Walter Fox, a Jewish immigrant from Poland gave birth to composer Charles Ira Fox whose score for “The Other Side of the Mountain” was nominated for a Golden Globe.
1941(9th of Cheshvan, 5702): Four thousand Jews are murdered at Nesvizh, Belorussia.
1941: A 12-year-old boy who escapes the Ninth Fort massacre of October 28 returns to the Kovno Ghetto and reveals what happened.
1942: “The Men in Her Life” directed and produced by Gregory Ratoff with a script by Frederick Kohner and music by David Raskin was released in the United States today.
1942; The New York Times features a review of On Native Grounds: An Interpretation of Modern American Prose Literatureby the Jewish author Alfred Kazin.
1943(1stof Cheshvan, 5704): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
1943(1stof Cheshvan, 5704): Max Reinhardt, the Austrian-born American who was a director in both live theatre and film passed away today in New York at the age of 70. If you read the New York Times obituary of this (for his time) titan of the theatre and cinema you will find no mention of the fact that he was in New York because after the Anschlusshe could not remain in Austria.
1943: Dr. Zelik Levinbok, a Jewish doctor interned at the Koldichevo camp in Belorussia, escapes with his wife and eight-year-old son.
1944: Rudolf Kastner “travelled to St. Gallen, accompanied by Kurt Becher and Dr. Wilhem Billitz, director of the Manfred Weiss Works.
1944: The Martha Graham ballet ''Appalachian Spring,'' with music by Aaron Copland, premiered at the Library of Congress, with Graham in a leading role. Aaron Copland is another example of an American Jew who helped create a uniquely American culture.
1944: The final deportation train from Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, to Auschwitz arrives at the camp. Of the 2038 prisoners on board, 1689 are immediately gassed.
1944: Edith Frank was separated from her daughters today when she was selected for the gas chambers; a fate she avoided when with a friend “she escaped to another section of the camp.”
1944:Alberto Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho, Portugal’s Chargé d'Affaires in Budapest who is credited with saving the lives of thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary” was recalled to Lisbon today.
1944: The Nazis deported Margot and Anne Frank from Auschwitz to Bergen Belsen, where they both died five months later.
1944(13th of Cheshvan, 5705): On her 75thbirthday, Sophie Eber, the widow of Ernst Erno Eber, and the “mother of Vilma Eber; Grete Eber; Erzsébet Anna Éber and Olga Eber” passed away in her home town of Vienna.
1945: “The Day Before Spring” a Lerner and Loewe musical “opened at the Shubert Theatre in Boston.”
1945: On the West Side of Manhattan, “Ilse Anna Marie Winkler (née Hadra) and Harry Irving Winkler, a lumber company president” who had “emigrated from Berlin, Germany, to the United States in 1939, on the eve of World War II” gave birth to actor and director Henry Franklin Winkler who foar a whole generation of television viewers will always be The Fonz of the sitcom Happy Days.
1946: In New Rochelle, NY, Cecile Mitchell and Sydney Mitchell, “the chief executive officer and partial owner of a furniture company and longtime president of New Rochelle’s Beth El Synagogue gave birth to NBC newscaster Andrea Mitchell. When asked if her Judaism has ever been an issue, positive or negative, in the course of her career she responded as follows. “It's certainly not been a negative issue. I think when I was watching the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1979, after the Camp David Summit in 1978; I certainly felt a tremendous emotional connection to the issue and to the chances of a breakthrough between the Israelis and the Arabs. Seeing Sadat and Begin was a very emotional experience. Similarly, in 1993 I was one of many people on the South Lawn who were very excited about prospects for peace, when we finally saw Rabin and Arafat shake hands under the guidance of Bill Clinton. Perhaps it made me more eager to go the West Bank and interview people and learn more about the Palestinian perspective. So I think it's less a religious issue than a cultural connection to the Middle East. One other experience that was important was the controversy over President Reagan's visit to the cemetery in Bitburg where S.S. soldiers were buried. I remember when Elie Weisel came to appeal to the president not to go. That was a very powerful experience for me. I spent a lot of time covering that issue, then we ended up going and visiting Bergen-Belsen with the president. Certainly all of my childhood experiences and my parents' stories about the Holocaust are part of my personal and intellectual history. Our family was not Holocaust survivors, but it was a very important part of the way we were raised. My mother and father talked about it all the time.”
1946: British authorities held groups described as “Zionist extremists” responsible for the death of two British soldiers and one British police sergeant who were killed in separate land mine explosions today.
1947: “A Haganah sourced said today that a number of” its leading members “had been attacked and would by members of…Irgun Zvai Leumi in the Tel Aviv region last night.”
1948: During the War For Independence, Egyptian planes dropped supplies to their troops trapped in the Faluja pocket.
1948: The village Sa'sa' which was later re-built as a Kibbutz in the Upper Galilee “was demolished by the Israeli Seventh Brigade and Oded Brigade today.”
1948: During Operation Hiram, the Carmeli Brigade successfully fulfilled it mission of thwarting counter attacks from Syria and Lebanon when it crossed into Lebanon and surged all the way to the Litani River.
1949: Birthdate of James Judd, native of Hertfordshire who is “Music Director of the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion
1950: During the Korean War, Chinese forces attacked Tibor Rubin’s unit (Company I, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division) at Unsan, North Korea during a massive nighttime assault.” Tibor manned a 30 caliber machine gun at the south end of the unit's line which would mark the start of one-man holding operation that lasted for more than twenty four hours. (Based on Tibor’s Medal of Honor Citation)
1952,The Jerusalem Post reported that the Jewish National Fund had been granted a six million dollar loan by the Bank of America to further settlement activities in draining the Hula region, and for land reclamation and acquisition.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that work began on the 165-meter westward extension of Haifa Port's main quay to make it accessible to the largest ship in the Mediterranean. Building a new state took many forms including immigrant absorption, irrigating the Negev and expanding port facilities for future export trade.
1953: “Take the High Ground” a war movie set in Korea directed by Richard Brooks, produced by Dore Schary with music by Dimitri Tiomkin was released in the United States today by MGM.
1953(21stof Cheshvan, 5714): Sixty-nine year old classical pianist Leonid Kreutzer passed away today in Tokyo.
1955:Mohammed V, who according to Meredith Hindley, found Vichy’s laws pertaining to Jews “appalling” and did what he could given his limited power, to ameliorate their affect began his reign as Sultan Morocco.
1956: During the Sinai Campaign Israel captured the Egyptian military post at El-Thamad
1956: Soldiers in Rafael Eitan’s regiment spot an Egyptian armored column and call for an airstrike which destroys the vehicles, that unbeknownst to the Israelis, are empty because the Egyptian soldiers were already in position in the Mitla Pass.
1956: During the Sinai Campaign Israeli paratroops dug in to hold the Mitla Pass and await what would be the successful linkup with IDF armor moving overland. Egyptian aircraft attacked the Israelis for the first time, but the IDF was able to hold its own despite long odds.
1956: President Eisenhower assured Ben-Gurion that the United States would not censure Israel as long as the Sinai attack was not a grab for additional territory. Ben-Gurion responded that all Israel wanted was the end of Egyptian support for the fedayeen (the name for Arab terrorists), the end of Arab economic warfare against Israel and the opening of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. Ben-Gurion would stick to his goals. Eisenhower would betray his promise.
1957: In San Francisco Elaine Harlow and Robert Pollak gave birth to Craig Pollak’s younger brother actor and comedian Kevin Elliot Pollak, who demonstrated the ability to provide those supporting roles that are key to a film’s success as can be seen by his portrayal of Sam Weinberg, the number 2 defense lawyer in “A Few Good Men” and Jacob Goldman in the “Grumpy old men” movies.
1957: Birthdate of Moscow native Shlomo Mintz whose family moved to Israel in 1959 where he became a violin virtuoso and conductor.
1958: In San Francisco, Elaine Harlow and Robert "Bobby" Pollak gave birth to their youngest son Kevin Elliot Pollak, host of Celebrity Poker.
1959: U.S. Premiere of “The Wasp Woman” with music by Fred Katz.
1961:Birthdate of Emmanuel Finkiel, the French-born producer/director of Voyages,considered by some to be the best Jewish film of 2000)
1962: Yosefi Almogi began serving as Minister of Housing and Construction
1963: Sixty-five year old Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty whose courage in rescuing Italian Jews during WW II has earned him the sobriquet “the Irish Schindler” passed away today.
1963: U.S. premiere of “A New Kind of Love” a romantic comedy directed, produced and written by Melville Shavelson, co-starring Paul Newman and featuring George Tobias and Marvin Kaplan
1965(4thof Cheshvan, 5726): Parashat Noach
1965(4thof Cheshvan, 5726): Seventy-seventy year old historian and Harvard professor Dr. Arthur Meir Schlesinger, Sr., whose father had converted and the father of celebrity historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. passed away today in Boston.
1966(16thof Cheshvan, 5727): Fifty-year old “Samuel Adelman, the Rabbi of Adath Jeshurun Synagogue in Newport News, VA” who spent four weeks in Russia during the summer of 1956 “as a member of the Rabbinical Council of America Mission to the Soviet Union” passed away today after which he was buried at Mount Nebo Memorial Park in Aurora, CO.
1968: Israeli helicopter-borne Sayeret Matkal commandos carry out Operation Helem (Shock), destroying an Egyptian electric transformer station, two dams along the Nile River and a bridge. The blackout causes Nasser to cease hostilities for a few months while fortifications around hundreds of important targets are built. Simultaneously, Israel reinforces its position on the east bank of the Suez Canal by construction of the Bar Lev Line
1968: “The Lion in Winter” the Oscar winning movie version of James Goldman’s play produced by Joseph E. Levine was released in the United States and the United Kingdom by Avco Embassy Pictures.
1974(14thof Cheshvan, 5735):Eighty-four year old Brno born theatre director and producer who fled Europe after the Anschluss with his wife actress Adrienne Gessner and was the brother of author Hans Müller-Einigen passed away today.
1974: The National Religious Party joined the governing coalition led by Yitzhak Rabin who had replaced Golda Meir as Prime Minister.
1976: The second season of “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” with Lou Scheimer as the voice of “Dumb” Donald came to an end.
1976: Clarence Chamberlin, the second man to fly the Atlantic and the first to do so with a passenger, passed away. The passenger was a Jewish businessman from Massachusetts, Charles Albert Levine who had been dabbling in the new field of commercial aviation.
1977: The settlement of Mevo Dotan was founded on the West Bank by secular settlers.
1979(9thof Cheshvan, 5740): Seventy-five year old Northwestern University School of Law Jack Nicholas Pritzker who was part of the family that founded the law firm of Pritzker and Pritzker as well as the Hyatt Hotel Chain and who was the husband of the former Rhoda Goldberg of Manchester, UK with whom he had one son Nicholas J. Pritzker passed away today.
1981: “Halloween II” a slasher film directed by Rick Rosenthal was released today in the United States.
1982: In Monmouth County, Temple Beth Miriam “hosted a gala Dinner-Dance in Jacobson Hall.”
1984: Seventy-one year old Charles “Charlie” Thompson Winters, the American businessman who was imprisoned for his role in helping to smuggle three B-17’s to Israel during the War for Independence passed away today.
1984(4thof Cheshvan, 5735): Eighty-four year old German actor and director Wolfgang Heinz, born David Hrisch, who “President of the Academy of the Arts in Berlin between 1968 and 1974” passed away today.
1986: “ In 1986 Esther Rantzen, presenter of That's Life!, a popular consumer TV show, suggested to the BBC that they create "Childwatch", a program about child abuse that was screened today on BBC1, the aim being to try to detect children at risk before their lives were in danger”
1988: NBC broadcast the first episode of “Family Ties,” a sitcom created by Gary David Goldberg in what would be its seventh and final season.
1988: “At Temple Beth Israel in Niagara Falls, NY Rabbi Samuel Porath and Cantor Herbert Strauss officiated at the wedding of New York lawyer Claudia Leigh Grossman, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Grossman and Civil Engineer Aaron David Jaffe, a project manager with the Tishman Construction Company, the son “Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Jaffe of Shaker Heights, Ohio.”
1991: Mid East peace conference began in Madrid, Spain.
1993(15thof Cheshvan, 5754): Eighty six year old “screenwriter and actress” Maria Matray, who fled her native Germany when the Nazis came to power but eventually returned after the war passed away today in Munich.
1995: In a case of Jew versus Jews Ben Kamin, Senior Rabbi, Temple-Tifereth Israel Beachwood, Ohio, wrote the following letter-to-the editor in response to a column by Thomas L. Friedman.
Thomas L. Friedman's Oct. 29 column on Israel's emerging and opulent culture says a great deal about postmodern Israel, but it ultimately oversimplifies. Israel is a lot more than a cell phone, and Jewish identity has to do with a lot more than a new shopping mall in Kfar Saba. I was born in Kfar Saba, and I share some of Mr. Friedman's amazement at the transition. It's true that the orchards of my childhood are giving way to shopping plazas, condominiums and automatic teller machines. But a lot of the fear and concern that was part of those years has given way to a certain contentment with life that was not part of things a generation ago. Contrary to Mr. Friedman's assertion, a Jew who can have a pizza delivered via a cellular phone is not a Jew with a lost identity. That is a Jew who is free. I remember Kfar Saba very vividly. The dusty, underdeveloped hamlet was a prototype of early Israel. My birth village, tucked next to the Samarian Mountains, sat on a tense border with what was then the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. A mile from my grandmother's house, where we lived, the Arab town of Qalqilya brooded with hostility and occasional mortar fire. When I sat with my grandmother on her back porch and recited the words of the Prophets, we could see the minarets of Qalqilya to the east. The Mediterranean Sea was just a few miles to the west. We were living the post-Holocaust predicament of national Jewish life in a land still fighting for its life. There was indeed a strong pioneering spirit in Kfar Saba and throughout the fledgling country. Our teachers came from many other lands and many difficult experiences. They often wept while leading us in Hebrew folk songs and exhorting us to love the Bible. The mailman came on a tall horse. His sinewy arms betrayed the tattoos of Auschwitz. There was something to be learned from every conversation with people who either valued or feared life. The orange groves of the valley sent us a fragrance that none of us shall ever forget. It was the smell of rebirth. Somehow we knew that we were the free children of a dream that the world had disparaged and that even Qalqilya next door was determined to destroy. Now, many groves are gone and the delicious smell is no more. Yes, my birth village of donkeys and orange trees is a successful hub of sports cars and video stores. It's so easy for all who no longer live there, who are not taking the risks of peace, to criticize and lament. How ironic to dispatch a report about the creeping technological dexterity of Israel via electronic mail. All Israel is doing is becoming more like us. This is what we hoped for a generation ago. None of us would begrudge an Israeli youngster the right not to be killed in battle, not to fear the future or not to call his or her mother via a cell phone from any army base in Lebanon. None of us who lived in quaint Kfar Saba back then wanted anything for our descendants but the chance to be free or prosperous enough to draw cash out of a machine or to enjoy a fashionable coffee outdoors in the very same century as Hitler and Eichmann.
1996: Milton Berle was a guest on Howard Stern’s morning talk show.
1997(29thof Tishrei, 5758): Eighty-five year old writer and director Samuel Fuller, the decorated war hero who filmed footage of the liberation of a concentration camp and used his experiences fighting with the famous 1st Division in the 1980 film “The Big Red One” passed away today.(As reported by Richard Severo)
1998: “American History X” a film about neo-Nazis co-starring Elliott Gould was released today in the United States.
1999 (Britain's emeritus chief rabbi, Lord Immanuel Jakobovits attended Shabbat services for the last time. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and passed away on the following day.
2000(1stof Cheshvan, 5761): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
2000(1stof Cheshvan, 5761): The body of 30 year old Amos Makhlouf, who was the victim of an unknown murderer, was founded today in a ravine near Beit Jala.
2001: Lawsuits are filed seeking the removal Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s Ten Commandments monument. (Moore’s disregard for the Constitution is not a unique phenomenon in Alabama as anybody who remembers George Wallace and his ilk will know)
2003: In Miami, The IsraFest Foundation proudly presented Don BrowneCOO of Telemundo Communications Group, with the 19th Israel Film Festival 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award; Community Activist and Philanthropist Marcy Lefton with the 2003 IFF Humanitarian Award and Innovative Artist Ilana Lilienthal and Human Potential Researcher Alexander Brodt with the 2003 IFF Visionary Award. The Award Ceremony, hosted by NBC TV columnist Ike Seamans, will be followed by a special screening of the award-winning smash hit Wisdom of the Pretzel to be introduced by writer/director Ilan Heitner and star Benni Avni.
2003: Broadway premiere of the Stephen Schwartz musical “Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz.”
2004: The exhibition “David Bomberg en Ronda: at the Museo Joaquin Peinado in Ronda in Andalusia which showed work by Bomberg in the city and environment which he had celebrated in paintings and drawings in 1934-35 and 1954-47 came to an end.
2004: “Houdini enthusiast Sidney Hollis Radner” who had bought most of Houdini’s “props and effects” including “the water torture cell” from the magician’s brother, Theodore Hardeen, in the 1940’s auctioned his collection today in Las Vegas.
2005: Idina Menzel appeared off-Broadway in the Public Theater's production of “See What I Wanna See, “which premiered today and for which she received Drama Desk Award and Drama League Award nominations.
2005: An Islamic Jihad fugitive was shot and killed by Israeli security forces in a gun battle that erupted outside a house in Kabatiyah near Jenin. The man who died, rather than surrender to the Israelis, was being sought in connection with the part he played in the suicide attack on Hadera. The murder killed five Israelis and wounded at least fifty people in the peaceful coastal town of 80,000.
2005:The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interesting including Ahmad’s War, Ahmad’s Peace: Surviving Under Saddam, Dying in the New Iraqby Michael Goldfarb, Women’s Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the Present, edited by Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler and Faith for Beginnersby Aaron Hamburger
2006Israeli-born scholar Prof. Jehezkel Shoshani published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science identifying the remains of a 27-million-year-old creature unearthed in Eritrea as those of an ancestor of the modern elephant. The article describes an animal which was the size of a cow - about 1.5 meters high and weighing about half a ton - and has been named "Eritreum," for short. According to the fossil evidence, the animal had a long snout and small tusks, and fed mostly on vegetation. Prof. Shoshani, says it is the missing link in elephant evolution. It is customary to name new species after the scientist who discovers them. However, Shoshani chose to name the old-new creature after the farmer who found it and the country in which it was unearthed: Eritreum melekegabrachristos. He said he hoped that this would encourage the citizens of Eritrea to continue to assist scientific research.
2006(8thof Cheshvan, 5767): Ninety year old Jacob Mendel Lazarus, the son of Sam and Annie Stein Lazarus and the husband of Maxine B. Lazaurs passed away today after which he was interred at the Sunset Hill Cemetery in Valdosta, GA.
2006: Efraim Sneh was appointed Deputy Minister of Defense.
2007: Columnist Michael J. Gerson, a former speechwriter for President Bush, discusses and signs Heroic Conservatism: Why Republicans Need to Embrace America's Ideals (And Why They Deserve to Fail If They Don't) in Reston, Virginia
2007: Haaretz reports that a new memorial center opens at Bergen-Belsen camp.
2007: The state prosecution told the High Court of Justice that it had changed its mind about the indictment of Moshe Katsav on the basis of evidence from the two key complainants.
2007(18th of Cheshvan, 5768): Sixty-six year old Israeli comedian and actor Yisrael Poliakov died of cancer at the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus Petah Tikva after which there was a public memorial service at the Cameri Theatre followed by a burial at Kibbutz Einat.
2008(1st of Cheshvan, 5769): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, 5769
2008: The former manager of Agriprocessors was arrested on charges related to the hiring of illegal workers. Sholom Rubashkin was arrested today by immigration officials and was due to appear in federal court later that day.
2008: Haaretz reported that an Israeli archaeologist digging at a hilltop south of Jerusalem believes a ceramic shard found in the ruins of an ancient town bears the oldest Hebrew inscription ever discovered, a find that could provide an important glimpse into the culture and language of the Holy Land at the time of the Bible.
2008:The "gutter," or water system mentioned in the Bible as the way King David's men conquered Jerusalem may have been found. Dr. Eilat Mazar, an archaeologist excavating the City of David, the most ancient part of Jerusalem, believes it has, and is to present her findings this evening at a seminar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
2009:Hundreds of exhibits supporting a scathing report on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s past investigations of Bernard L. Madoff were released today by the author of the report, the agency’s inspector general, H. David Kotz. The exhibits include a full account of an interview with Mr. Madoff, who confessed in March to running the largest Ponzi scheme in history, a fraud whose victims number in the thousands and whose cash losses are now put at more than $21 billion..
2009(12th of Cheshvan, 5770)Claude Lévi-Strauss the "father of modern anthropology" passed away. (As reported by Edward Rothstein
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/europe/04levistrauss.html?pagewanted=all
2009:The Tower of David Museum presents: "Peace Making in Jerusalem--a Concert at the Tower of David Museum:"
2009:Opening of "Synergy,” the new exhibit on display in Beit Tzarfat, at Hebrew University's Givat Ram campus. The group exhibit displays the drawing, sculpture, and photography of artists Ann Rakover, Gila Robinson, Datia Landau, Yitzhak Shalhevet and Sasson Tiram.
2009: The Los Angeles Times featured a review of Ariel Sabar’s memoir “My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Family's Past," which won a 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award and has just been reissued in paperback.
2009: “Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza” a play panned by The Sunday Times, condemned by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and described as “a blood libel” by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic opened at Gustavus Adolphus College today
2010:Mark Zuckerberg received a "Medal of Fear" at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear
2010: The 16th Annual R' Shlomo Carlebach Memorial Concert sponsored by The R' Shlomo Carlebach Foundation is scheduled to take place in Jerusalem.
2010: The 15th Memorial Day Rally commemorating the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin is scheduled to be held at 7:30pm in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.
2010: Brazilian-born violist Myrna Herzog performed this evening at the Blumenthal Center in Tel Aviv.
2011: Sam Kringlen, Temple Judah’s young violin virtuoso is scheduled to perform at The Hadassah Donor Dinner in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2011:The Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago, Illinois, is scheduled to show Legado (Legacy) a documentary that tells the story of the Jewish colonization in Argentina.
2011:Acclaimed up-and-coming novelists David Bezmozgis, author of The Free World and one of The New Yorker’s “2010 top 20 fiction writers under the age of 40;” Nadia Kalman, author of The Cosmopolitans; and Haley Tanner, author of Vaclav & Lena are scheduled to explore the modern Russian immigrant experience with moderator Faye Moskowitz, author and professor of English and creative writing at George Washington University at the Hyman S & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival.
2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Jerusalem: The Biography” the 650 page epic tale by Simon Sebag Montefiore whose great-great uncle was Sir Moses Montefiore a giant of 19th century Jewry whom some only remember because of the windmill in Jerusalem that bears his name – Montefiore’s Windmill.
2011:Israel was hit with another volley of rockets launched by Gaza militants, despite reports that Egypt was working to secure a truce between Israel and the Islamic Jihad that would halt all rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip effective 10 P.M.
2011:Tel Aviv court sentences former soldier for gathering and possessing secret military documents, passing them to "Haaretz" reporter Uri Blau. The Tel Aviv District Court sentenced Anat Kamm to four and a half years in prison this morning.
2011:Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reiterated the Israeli government's policy of strict retaliation against those that harm Israelis, warning both Islamic Jihad and Hamas not to test Israel. His comments came the day after an Israeli man was killed by shrapnel when a Grad rocket hit Ashdod.
2012: The Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra is scheduled to perform at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles under the baton of Zubin Mehta.
2012: Publication today of “The Hidden Stories of Jews and English Football.”
2012: It was reported today that “actor Daniel Day-Lewis and his sister Tamasin are donating papers belonging to his father, the poet Cecil-Day Lewis which fill 54 boxes and included early drafts of the poet’s work” to Oxford University
2012: “Forty Years on the Bimah” a retreat organized by 80 year old Leah Novick the oldest woman rabbi within the Reconstructionist, Reform, and Renewal movements came to an end today.
2012: In Bloomfield Hills, MI, Temple Beth El is scheduled to present Jan Durecki speaking on “Behind the Wheel” part of the Rabbi Leo M. Franklin Archives Jewish History Detectives Lecture series.
2012:Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said today that Tehran was ready to discuss the 1994 terrorist bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center.
2012:More than 120 major decision makers, scholars and leaders from around the Jewish world will attend a conference in Jerusalem today to discuss strategic issues facing the Jewish people and the State of Israel in the future.http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=289754
2013: Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal is scheduled to perform a new work by American-born Israeli choreographer Barak Marshal.
2013: French Film Director Ilan Duran Cohen is scheduled to attend the opening of The UK Jewish Film Festival
2013: “Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz,” a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman celebrated its tenth anniversary on Broadway today.
2013: The 25th annual Kosherfest is scheduled to come to an end today.
2013: The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of conductor/violinist Julian Rachlin is scheduled to perform tonight at The Beverly Hills Hotel.
2013:Today the Israel Antiquities Authority released the discovery of a 1,700 year old curse found at the City of David archaeological site in Jerusalem.
2013: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries announced today that its president and CEO for the past two years, Jeremy Levin, has agreed to step down. Trading in shares of Teva were halted following the announcement of Levin's departure, and once trading resumed, the stock plummeted by 8 percent.
2014: The Skirball Center is scheduled to present Jerry Rabow lecturing on “The Lost Matriarch: Finding Leah in the Bible and Midrash.”
2014: Louis Black is scheduled to perform at the Hull Center in Eugene, Ohio
2014:“Rescue, Relief, and Renewal: 100 Years of ’the Joint’ in Poland” is scheduled to open at the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow today.
http://archives.jdc.org/about-us/articles/galicia-jewish-museum.html
2014: YIVO and the Museum of the City of New York are scheduled to present “Creating History: Can We Tell the Past?”
2014: “The suspected shooter in yesterday’s assassination attempt on a Temple Mount activist in Jerusalem was killed in the mixed Jewish-Arab Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor early this morning following a shootout with police.” (As reported by Ilan Ben Zion)
2014: “A senior IDF official warned today that Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group would likely target Ben Gurion International Airport and the Haifa seaport in a future war with Israel in an attempt to cut Israelis off of international travel.”
2014:Kevin Youkilis “announced his retirement from baseball.”
2014: Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund Planning Committee under the direction of Dr. Bob Silber is scheduled to meet in Cedar Rapids, IA.
2015: Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan set today as the sentencing date for “Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., 74, a former Ku Klux Klan leader with a history of racist and anti-Semitic actions who was convicted of capital murder in the shooting deaths of three people (none of whom were Jewish) a year ago at a Jewish community center and an assisted living facility in suburban Kansas City.”
2015: “Academic, writer, and cultural diplomat Annie Cohen-Solal is scheduled to discuss European and American modernism, the work of Niki de Saint Phalle, and the interactions among art, literature, and society” at the American Art Museum.
2015: “Hana’s Suitcase,” Emil Sher’s adaptation of Karen Levine’s best-selling novel is scheduled to be performed for the last time at the Young People’s Theatre in Toronto.
2015(17th of Cheshvan, 5776): “Dr. Joel Elkes, who published the first scientific trial of a medication for schizophrenia and became a foundational figure in modern psychiatry, describing a framework to understand how brain chemistry shapes behavior” passed away today at the age of 101. (As reported by Benedict Carey)
2015: An “Israeli man in his 20s sustained moderate injuries after being stabbed near the Ammunition Hill light rail station on Bar-Lev Street by a 23-year-old resident of Kfar Akeb in East Jerusalem” while “a second man was injured by police gunfire when security forces tried to subdue the attacker, who was shot and critically wounded.”
2015: Cellist Inbal Segev is scheduled to perform J.S. Bach’s Cello Suites at Bargemusic in Brooklyn.
2016: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including recently released paperback editions of Killing A King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel by Dan Ephron, America’s Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve by Roger Lowenstein and The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle by Lillian Faderman
2016: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to host an Open House at its new offices.
2016: Today, “Noa and her longtime collaborator, Gil Dor, are scheduled to return to the Skirball Center for an intimate concert with special guest singer/songwriter Mira Awad.”
2016: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a lecture by Rhoda Miller on “Long Island’s Jewish History.”
2016: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host a lecture by award-winning cookbook author Joan Nathan which will include a look at her new book King Solomon’s Table.
2016: As part of the Jewish Film Series, the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines is scheduled to host a screening of “Marvin Hamlisch: What he did for Love.”
2016: In Ridgefield, CT, Congregation Shir Shalom is scheduled to host an afternoon of musical theatre history featuring Ira Joe Fisher.
2016: “Last Portraits” “a new Dutch film about Annemie Wolff” who courageously created a photographic record of Dutch Jewry during the German occupation is scheduled to be shown as the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center opens a new exhibition “Lost Stories, Found Images.”
2016: The unveiling of Kevin Skinner’s matzevah is scheduled to take place this afternoon at Eben Israel Cemetery in Cedar Rapids, IA.
2016: Today, Anna Grinis “a 75 year old Russian born Israeli woman” “who was just two days old when World War II broke out” “was crowned Israel’s 5th‘Miss Holocaust Survivor’ in an unconventional beauty pageant dedicated to women who survived the horrors of World War II”
2016 “Senior journalist Ari Shavit resigned from both Haaretz and Channel 10 today as a former J Street staffer came forth as the “second woman to accuse him of sexual harassment.”
2016: In Chicago, the Cubs led by President Theo Epstein are scheduled to take on the Cleveland Indians led by General Manager Mike Chernoff in the fifth game of the World Series.
2017: The Temple Emanue-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host an evening with former first daughters Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush.
2017: Amid charges of sexual misconduct NBC and MSNBC “terminated Mark Halperin’s contract with the network.
2017(10th of Cheshvan, 5778): Ninety-six year old Argentine native Dr. Salvador Minuchin, a cutting-edge American psychotherapist passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
2017(10th of Cheshvan, 5778): Seventy-seven year old urban photographer Mel Rosenthal passed away today. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)
2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host an interfaith discussion co-facilitated by Rabbi Michael Rosenfeld-Schueler where attendees will examine the topic of the “Mind” by “looking at texts from the three Abrahamic traditions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism.”
2017: Dr. David Kraemer is scheduled to lecture on “Diaspora In Jewish History and Thought” in which he examines the ways in which, over 2,500 years, the diaspora competed with Zion “allowing for the growth of Torah even when are distant from their original home” which is an alternative to view that Jewish history is 2 millennia of misery that could only relieved by a return to Israel.
2018: Vanderbilt University and the Nashville Jewish Film Festival are scheduled to host a screening of “Who Will Write Our History: The Secret Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto” followed a by a discussion with the executive producer, Nancy Spielberg the sister of Steven Spielberg.
2018: In London, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “Generation Unexpected and Jewish Life in Contemporary Poland” in which “theatre makers Katka Reszke and Michael Rubenfeld discuss Jewish life and culture in today’s Poland.”
2018: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host “All About Seltzer,” in which Barry Joseph, author of Seltzertopia: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary Drink, Kenny Gomberg, the third-generation owner of Gomberg Seltzer Works in Canarsie and hit cookbook author, Adeena Sussman” discuss “the Jewish Champaign.”
2018: The Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan is scheduled to host “Whitechapel Noise: Politics, sex and religion in Yiddish rhyme on the streets of London’s East End 1884-1914,” in which “Vivi Lachs of Birkbeck, University of London will examine Yiddish kupletn (rhyming couplets) written by Jewish immigrant songwriters and poets in pre-World War I London.”
2018: The American Sephardi Federation and Reimagine are scheduled to present “Crafting a Memory; Preserving a Memory” which will included a “tour of the Spanish and Portuguese Cemetery” and a workshop at The Center for Jewish History.
2018: After five days, “The Israel Ride,” the country’s “premiere cycling experience sponsored by the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies is scheduled to come to an end today.
2018: Israel is scheduled to hold municipal elections including one in Tel Aviv, “where Ron Huldai, a former fighter pilot with a 20 year seniority as mayor, will face competition from his own deputy mayor for the past ten years Asaf Zamir and comedian turned entrepreneur Assaf Harel.
2018: A public letter in Arab media from "the Islamic nationalist forces in Al-Quds (Jerusalem)” calling on Arab Jerusalemites to boycott today’s elections asserted: "Whoever takes part in the elections is a traitor who harms all the Palestinian values.”
2018: The day after he called the press the “true Enemy of People” in an early morning tweet, President Trump is scheduled to visit Pittsburgh in the wake of Saturday’s murder of eleven Jews in their synagogue by a gunman who reportedly called for the death of the Jews and took particular exception to the work of HIAS because it aids immigrants.