November 15
1215: Pope Innocent III opened the convocation of the Fourth Lateran Council, considered the most important council of the Middle Ages. By its conclusion it issued seventy reformatory decrees. Among other things, it encouraged creating schools and holding clergy to a higher standard than the laity. It also forbade clergymen to participate in the practice of the judicial ordeal, effectively banning its use. At the Fourth Lateran Council, Innocent III and his prelates legislated against subordination of Christians to Jews. Canon 69 forbade "that Jews be given preferment in public office since this offers them the pretext to vent their wrath against the Christians."
1280: Albertus Magnus, the German Dominican Friar and Bishop also known as Albert of Cologne who while in Paris took part in the council that ordered the burning of the Talmud but who took a special interest in Jewish literature and who according to Manuel Joël drew many of his ideas from Jewish writers including Maimonides, passed away today.
1316: Birthdate of King John I of France who lived for only five days. He was the son of Louis X who readmitted the Jews to France. He was succeeded by his uncle Philip V, who according to some may have played a role in the death of the infant monarch. Regardless, Philip followed the policies initiated by Louis that among other things, protected them from the enmity of the clergy.
1380: Charles VI ascends the French throne: He told a mob that he would relieve some of the taxes but not expel the Jews. Screaming "Aux Juifs" they plundered and murdered in the Jewish quarter for four days. Some Jews took refuge in the royal prison. Hughes Abriot, the Provost, obtained an order for restitution of all property and the return of all infants forcibly baptized. Because of this, he was accused of converting to Judaism and sent to jail for a year in penance.
1492: Six Spanish Jews and five Spanish Conversos were accused of using black magic
1515: Thomas Cardinal Wolsey is invested as a Cardinal. A year before getting his “red hat” Wolsey had been named Bishop of Lincoln. This is the same town of Lincoln which had been home to one of the five most important Jewish communities in England, well established before it was officially noted in 1154. In 1190, anti-Semitic riots that started in Lynn, Norfolk, spread to Lincoln; the Jewish community took refuge with royal officials, but their habitations were plundered. The so-called "House of Aaron" has a two-storey street frontage that is essentially 12th century and a nearby "Jew's House" likewise bears witness to the Jewish population. In 1255, the affair called “The Libel of Lincoln” in which prominent Jews of Lincoln accused of the ritual murder of a Christian boy ("Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln" in medieval folklore) were sent to the Tower of London and 18 were executed. The Jews were expelled en masse in 1290.
1658: “Alexander VII., in bull "Ad ea per quæ," orders Roman Jews to pay rent even for unoccupied houses in ghetto, because Jews would not hire houses from which Jews had been evicted” (As reported by the Jewish Encyclopedia)
1660: Asser Levy was licensed as the first kosher butcher in New York City. From such humble beginnings came such great institutions as the Second Avenue Deli of blessed memory
1688 (28th of Cheshvan): Rabbi Zev Wolf, author of Nahlat Binyamin, passed away
1727(2nd of Kislev): The General Assembly of New York passed an act permitting Jews to omit the phrase “upon the faith of a Christian” from the oath of abjuration.
1771: Orders were given to ban auto-de-fe's from taking place in public, and to ban the production of lists of persons who would be sentenced.
1780: In Mecklenburg, Germany Louis Wolf and his wife gave birth to William Leo Wolf who was the father to at least three doctors – Moritz, George and Joseph Wolf.
1782: In Scotland, printer Thomas Dobson, and his wife, the former Jean Paton gave birth to their third and youngest daughter, Catherine after which the family moved to Philadelphia where Dobson would be the first person “to publish a complete Hebrew Bible.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Dobson_-_Hebrew_Bible.jpg
1790: The Jews of Hungary organized a celebration marking the coronation of King Leopold II. The celebration was held in anticipation of the expectation that the new king would approve the decision of the Diet to grant them citizens.
1791: Georgetown University, America’s first Catholic college opens its doors. Georgetown has followed the trend at a number Catholic colleges and universities in offering programs in Jewish studies. Today Georgetown offers approximately 35 courses in its Jewish Studies Program and offers a Major in Jewish studies. About 650 of its 6000 undergraduates are Jewish. Approximately 1,000 of the schools 6,000 grad students are Jewish.
1796: At the age of 16, “Daniel Meijer took the lawyer's oath, becoming the first Jewish lawyer and one of the youngest lawyers in the history of the Netherlands”
1802: A delegation of German Jews came to Ratisbon where the German princes were trying to create the government that would replace the now defunct Holy Roman Empire and today presented a petition asking for "passive citizenship." The petition, which probably originated with the Jews of Frankfort, requested freedom to live any place they desired and to pursue a wide variety of occupations and trades. At this time, Jews in many part of the empire had been classified as "serfs" regardless of the economic level.
1805: At Hamburg Abraham Mendelssohn and Lean Salomon, a granddaughter of Daniel Itzig gave birth to Fanny Mendelsohn.
1809: Edward Hime married Priscilla Elkin at the Great Synagogue today.
1812: Two days after she had passed away, 91 year old “Abigail Fano, the wife of Hyam Fano” was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”
1816: Birthdate of Isidor Kalisch, the German born Rabbi who became the spiritual lead of the Tifireth Israel congregation in Cleveland, Ohio in 1850.
1817: Birthdate of James Koppel Gutheim, the native of Münster, Germany who came to the United States in 1843 and became a prominent American rabbi. He served in that capacity in several southern towns and cities including Temple Beth El in San Antonio Congregation Shangarai Chasset of New Orleans
1829: Birthdate of Benjamin Szold, the Hungarian born American scholar who began serving as the Rabbi for Temple Oheb Shalom in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the father of Henrietta Szold, the founder of Hadassah.
1832(22nd of Cheshvan): Hannah Adams, early American author of a book on Jewish history, passed away
1832: Birthdate of Abraham a native of the village of Kashua (“now a part of Slovakia”) and husband of Rosa Printz who was buried in the Tod Homestead Cemetery in Youngstown, Ohio.
1835: In Novogrodak, Yaakov Harkavy and Dvora Weisbrem gave birth to Dr. Albert (Avraham Eliyahu) Harkavy.
1835: In, Baltimore, MD, “Benjamin I and Kitty (Etting) Cohen gave birth to Edward Cohen the brother of Israel Cohen and the nephew of his business mentor Samuel Etting, who left his native city at the start of the Civil War and settled in Richmond where married Caroline Myers, “became president of the City Bank of Richmond and supported numerous civic porjects.
1840: Birthdate of Jacob Furth, an Austrian native who became a prominent banker and businessman in Seattle, Washington where he was a member of Ohaveth Sholum, the city’s first synagogue.
1842: At Borek, Prussia, Louis Gerechter and his wife gave birth to Emanuel Gerechter who came to the United States in 1866 and who began serving as Rabbi of Temple Zion, in Appleton, Wisconsin.
1848: In the Berlin national assembly, together with two other deputies, Johann Jacoby initiated the resolution calling for citizens to withhold paying taxes as an attempt to combat the coup d'état
1851: Herman Melville’s novel, Moby Dick, was published. Relax; Melville was not Jewish. But this large literary work is another example of the impact that Jewish Civilization has had on Western and/or World Civilization. From “Call me Ishmael,” to Captain Ahab, to the great white whale, there could have been no Moby Dick without the Bible. More to the point, Melville knew that his readers were so conversant in this aspect of Jewish culture that they would understand his references. Just as an aside for those who were forced to read this novel by some English teacher, the book was deemed a flop when it first came out.
1852: Hermann Goldschmidt discovered his first asteroid today which was named 21 Lutetia.
1854: Said Pacha, the Viceroy of Egypt gave a French company headed by Ferdinand de Lesseps the concession to dig the Suez Canal, which would link the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. The canal would create a short, all-water route from Great Britain to its most valued possession, India. Defense of the Canal became one of the keystones of British foreign policy for the next hundred. This British obsession would play a key role in the development of the Jewish homeland in Eretz Israel. Sometimes the effect was positive; more often than not, it was negative.
1855: The 34th anniversary of the Hebrew Benevolent Society was celebrated tonight at the Chinese Asssembly Rooms in New York City. The event, which was attended by 250 to 300 people rasied $4,000. During his address, the society’s president reported that they had provided assistance to 1,600 applicants which had depleted the organization’s treasury of its $4,500 in receipts.
1856: “Tonight, a German Jew named Isaac Morris was arrested at West Hoboken by Officer Stephen H. Manly, of Baltimore, and Deputy-Sheriff Robins of Hudson County, on the charge of obtaining goods by false pretences. He was apprehended upon the authority of a requisition from the Governor of Maryland.”
1857: Three days after he had passed away, Abraham Davidson, a London surgeon and the husband of Hannah Davidson with whom had seven children, was buried to at the Lauriston Road Jewish Cemetery with whom he had had eight children, was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”
1857: Two days after he had passed away, 70 year old Eleazer Hart, the husband of Sarah Hart q
1858: “The Mortara Casa” published today reported that Jews of New York are planning on holding a meeting to protest the “recent abduction of the child Mortara and the extraordinary pretensions of the Pope in regard to such cases. It will be remembered that the Catholic nurse of the infant had it baptized without the knowledge of its parents, who were Jews; and that the child was then taken away and committed to the care of priests.” The Pope and local authorities refused to return the child who had “thus ‘miraculously’ snatched from the hands of unbelievers. It is natural that Jews should the lead in demonstrations against such pretensions, inasmuch as they are thus far the principal suffers from them. But all persons not Catholic are, or may be equally interested in” joining the protest. “It is not possible to conceive of any greater outrage upon private rights than is embodied in these extraordinary claims, and unless the whole matter should be hushed up, and the principle on which it rests quietly abandoned, it should receive the attention of the government as well as the people of every country holding relation with the Roman states.
1859: Birthdate of Leo Lerner, the native of Bessarabia born “seventeen days after his father’s death” who came to “the United States with his wife and five daughters in 1891” after which he earned an LL.B. from NYU, practiced law starting in 1897 and served as the President of the Hebrew National Orphan Home and the President of the original federation for Bessarabian Jewry of which he was one of the founders.
1860: Birthdate of Simeon Samuel Grigoryevich Frug, the native of the Ukrainian “Jewish agricultural colony of Bobrovy-Kut, Kherson” who gained fame a multi-lingual poet and early Zionist support Simon Frug.
1861: Judah P. Benjamin completed his service as Attorney General for the Confederate States of America.
1862: During the Civil War, First Lieutenant Michael Rosenstein began his service with Company K of the 173rd Regiment.
1863(4th of Kislev, 5624): Barnett Abrahams passed away. Born at Warsaw in 1831, he moved to England in 1839.. Following a rigorous education program that included study with Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler, he started serving as the rabbi at Bevis Marks in 1851 and was serving at the Principal of Jew’s College at the time of his death. His sons Joseph and Moses became rabbis and Israel “became an author and teacher.”
1864: Colonel Edward S. Salomon (later General), one of a small group of general officers who were both at the Battle of Gettysburg and the Battle of Atlanta, was among those who marched out of Atlanta as Union forces began their march to Savannah, one of the major Atlantic seaports still in Confederate hands.
1868(1st of Kislev, 5629): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1868: Esther Mocatta the daughter of Rebecca and Jacob Abraham Mocatta was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1868(1st of Kislev, 5629): Seventy-six James de Rothschild who founded the French branch of the family banking empire with the opening of De Rothschild Frères and whose name lives on among wine drinkers when they order a bottle of Lafite-Rothschild passed away today.
1871: “Barnard Lawrence Phillips,” the son of Lawrence Phillips and Esther Spyer and the husband of Emma Phillips with whom he had two children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1873: Rabbi Raphael D.C. Lewin delivered a sermon on the subject of “Judaism” in the new synagogue at 63rd& Lexington in New York City.
1874: A service was held to honor the memory of Rabbi Abraham Geiger, of blessed memory, who had passed away in October of 1874.
1878: Birthdate of Jacob Polakavetz, the native of Kamenetz-Litovsk who came to the United States where he became a successful merchant in Troy, NY.
1879: Rabbi De Sola Menes will deliver the first in a series of lectures on the history of Jewish literature at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association this evening. The lectures which begin at 8:30 are free and open to the public.
1881: One hundred sixty Jewish refugees from Russia arrived in New York today aboard the SS Bohemia. The Alliance Israel Universelle helped pay for their passage.
1881: Chicago native Simon Cook was promoted to the rank of Ensign today in the United States Navy.
1881 In Chicago, “Moses and Clara Schlossberg Adams gave birth to Franklin Leopold Adams who gained fame as Franklin Pierce Adams or F.P.A,, the alumnus of Armour Institute and the University of Chicago, husband of Esther Sales Root and author whose works ranged from newspaper columns at various New York newspapers the most famous of which was “The Conning Tower,” a “humorous syndicated column.
1881: A report published today described plans for an upcoming lecture to be delivered by Julius Franks sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Association entitled “The Jew: Has he Still a Mission?”
1881: The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada, which would become The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was founded in Pittsburgh. Samuel Gompers, a Jewish immigrant from London, was the first President. In fact, with the exception of one year, he served in that capacity until his death in 1924. Unlike more militant leaders of the labor movement, Gompers believed in the capitalist system and rejected the concept of class struggle. As a member of the working class (he was a cigar maker by trade) Gompers was no naïve fool. He and his union fought for the concept of collective bargaining, binding written contracts and a ban on injunctions aimed against working men and women. When asked what the American worker wanted Gompers replied, “More!” During World War I, Gompers showed that the American labor movement could be patriotic when he and the AFL supported Wilson in the “word to end all wars.” Gompers philosophy was simple. “Reward your friends and punish your enemies.”
1882(4th of Kislev, 5643): Daniel Ehrmann, the Bohemian born rabbi who “edit the Jewish periodical Das Abendland was teaching at Brunn when he passed away today.
1882: Birthdate of Felix Frankfurter. Born in Vienna, educated at CCNY and Harvard Law School, the young, legally brilliant Frankfurter became the protégé of the very powerful Henry L. Stimson. He began a twenty-five year career as a professor at Harvard Law School in 1914. But Frankfurter was no cloistered Ivy tower egghead. He was a confidant of Woodrow Wilson and, among other things attended the Versailles Peace Conference. As a Zionist, like Brandeis, Frankfurter worked to promote the cause of the Jewish homeland in Palestine. In the 1920’s and 1930’s the liberal Frankfurter was an advisor to and supporter of, Al Smith and FDR. Several of Frankfurter’s former students were part of the FDR’s Brain Trust or held important positions in several regulatory agencies created by the New Deal. FDR appointed Frankfurter to the Supreme Court in 1939, making him the third Jew to hold such a position since 1916. He retired from the court in 1962 after suffering a stroke. Frankfurter’s tenure on the court was a disappointment to many of his political allies and colleagues. They had expected him to be a liberal. However, Frankfurter believed in judicial restraint which meant he gave great credence to federal and/or state legislative actions. He looked to the legislative branch to correct social ills. The pre-court liberal turned into a High Court conservative. He passed away in 1962.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/robes_frankfurter.html
1883: Three days after he had passed away, Lazar Schorstein, a Viennese born “financial editor” and the husband of Clara Schorstein with whom he had three children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1883: It was reported today that Annie Zeiss is claiming that she was betrothed to Morris Dampsky according to Jewish custom which is the basis for her suit that she has brought against him for breach of contract (marriage). While sitting in jail, Dampsky is wondering if a secular court will accept a religious observance as binding under civil law.
1884: It was reported today that an unnamed Jewish cattle dealer had tried to sell seventeen diseased cows to several farmers between Jamaica and Foster’s Meadow.
1886: In state Supreme Court, Judge Andrews heard a case that will determine whether or not $50,000 that was originally part of the estate of the late Sampson Simpson will go the North American Relief So city for the Indignant Jews of Jerusalem or two his surviving relatives.
1886: It was reported today that Jacob H. Schiff has given $10,000 to a project designed to establish a free library which will be “called the Aguilar Free Library Society” and which will be open to “people of all religions and nationalities.”
1886(17th of Cheshvan, 5647): Seventy four year old Gustav Heine von Geldern the founder of Vienna Das Fremdenblatt, a periodical that became the official organ of the Austrian Foreign Office, the brother of Heinrich Heine and the father of Maximilian Heine, “the author of the libretto to Mirolan” passed away today.
1886: It was reported today that Judge M.S. Isaacs and Uriah Herrman addressed a reception given in honor of Mrs. Julius Hammerslough, Mrs. Simon Steinberger, Mrs. Solomon Loeb and Mrs. Louis Levy, members of the Hebrew Free School Association’s Board of Directors who have just returned from a trip to Europe.
1886: It was reported today that the Hebrew Free School Association is currently industrial education to 2,500 youngsters. The service is only available to youngsters who are enrolled in the public system.
1888: The will of Sidney Greenberg who lived at the Caulfield Club Hotel was probated today.
1889: Emperor Pedro II is deposed and Brazil is declared a republic. At the time, Brazil had a small community of Sephardic, mostly Moroccan, Jews. One group established a synagogue in Belem in the northern part of the country while another built a synagogue on the banks of the Amazon River. A decade after becoming a republic, experimental agricultural were established that provide a haven for Jews fleeing the violence of Czarist Russia.
1890: Birthdate of American screenwriter and novelist Samuel Ornitz, one of the victims of the Hollywood blacklist which was the epitome of Right Wing America’s paranoid reach for power.
1891:”An Oriental Bazar” published today described the plans of a group of prominent New Yorkers led by J.H. Schiff and Julian Nathan among others for hosting a Palestine Bazar to raise funds for the Louis Down-Town Sabbath and Daily School
1892: In Memphis, TN, the National Farmers’ Alliance and the Industrial Union opened its convention at the hall of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association. (This agriculture alliance was considered to be “radical” and the Jewish owned facility may have been the only one that was available for its use.)
1892: “Graded Rates Established” published today described the decision of the B’nai B’rith to adopt a sliding membership fee based on age starting with those between the ages 21 and 25 paying $15 rising to a maximum of $30 for those aged 50 and above. The sliding scale was adopted to attract younger members, all of whom will be eligible for the same $1,000 in burial insurance.
1892: The trial of Reverend Henry P. Smith, the professor of Hebrew at Lane Theological Seminary, goes into its second day. The trial has gained national attention from members of many denominations because Smith has used modern scholarship to question the inerrancy of the Bible – a conflict that was helping to divide Reform from Orthodox among the Jewish people.
1892: Several parties of Russian Jews were reported today to have been on their way to Hamburg now that travel restrictions in Russia have been eased.
1892: The funeral for Seligman Adler, the husband of Caroline Adler, who was a supporter of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Mount Sinai Hospital, is scheduled to take place at 9:30 this morning at Temple Emanu-El.
1893: Birthdate of John H. Salman, the husband of Regina Salmen.
1893: Commissioner Senner said that the immigrants who arrived the SS Roland, most of whom are Russian Jews, are “all nearly impoverished, unclean and unkempt.”
1895: Birthdate of Polish poet and writer Antoni Słonimski, a Roman Catholic whose great-grand father was Abraham Sztern the Jewish inventor who “made important contributions to the construction of mechanical calculators.”
http://dictionary.sensagent.com/list+of+polish+jews/en-en/
1895: Birthdate of Yisrael Idelson, the Ukrainian native who made Aliyah in 1926 and as Yisrael Bar-Yedhuda became an MK, Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of Transportation.
1895: According to Rabbi Joseph Silverman of Temple Emanu-El in New York, during the last 25 days ending on this date 15,000 Armenians have been massacred and “200,000 souls have been rendered homeless and robbed of their possessions.
1895: Birthdate of Bella Rosenfield Chagall, the first wife of Marc Chagall whom she met when he was a penniless painter in 1909, married in 1915 and posed for several of his pictures including “Bella with White Collar.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bella_Rosenfeld#/media/File:Chagall_Bella.jpg
1895: Pennsylvania native Daniel M. Appel was promoted from the rank of Captain, Assistant Surgeon to Major/Surgeon.
1895: Herzl began a two week visit to Paris and London designed to meet and gain support from the leaders of these two Jewish communities In Paris he conducted negotiations with Narcisse Leven, Chief Rabbi Zadoc Kahn among others. None of these leaders took the assimilated Viennese journalist seriously
1896: The National Council of Jewish Women opens its first national convention at Tuxedo Hall in New York City. Founded at the conclusion of the Jewish Women’s Congress held at Chicago’s World Columbian Exposition in November 1893, the National Council of Jewish Women was the first national open-membership organization for American Jewish women. Addressed by the leaders of the nation’s leading women’s organizations and numerous prominent rabbis, it was clear that the Council was helping to establish the legitimacy of Jewish women’s presence on a public stage. The convention received extensive coverage in the New York Timesand other papers. With the NCJW's creation in 1893, local sections around the country began focusing on diverse activities ranging from Bible study to education for children to active philanthropy in the interest of immigrant women and children. Representatives at the first convention summarized these achievements, established a clear institutional structure, and sought to offer guidance to local sections. Conflict emerged during the 1896 convention in relation to the Jewish character of the Council. Hannah Solomon of Chicago presided over the meetings, but some members objected to her advocacy of Sunday as the Jewish Sabbath. Solomon memorably responded “I consecrate every day in the week.” As the New York Times reported, “Pandemonium reigned for five minutes, and then Mrs. Solomon was re-elected.” In its first few decades, NCJW transcended religious divisions by focusing especially on aid to newly arrived Jewish immigrants. In sections across the country, NCJW provided an early training ground for Jewish women leaders and a forum for Jewish women’s concerns within and outside the Jewish community.
1896: Mrs. Mary Low Dickinson, President of the National Council of Women is scheduled to deliver the opening address at the first convention of the National Council of Women followed by address on “Philanthropy” given by Mrs. E. M. Henrotin “who was the Vice President of the of the Ladies’ Board of Managers of the Columbian Exposition.
1896: It was reported today that in speeches delivered at Delmonico’s Jacob A. Schiff and Senator Jacob A. Cantor urged Jews to take “a deeper interest in national affairs and Adolph S. Ochs spoke about the “ideals and influence of journalism.”
1897: Birthdate of Aneurin Bevan the British Foreign Minister in the Labor Government of Clement Atlee. Much to the dismay of Zionist leaders, the Laborite government elected in 1945 opposed the creation of the Jewish state. Displaying that uniquely understated form of British anti-Semitism, when talking about the plight of Jewish Displaced Persons, said that the Jews were always “pushing their way to the head of the cue” instead of patiently waiting their turn.
1897: Today, Rabbi Taubenhaus of the State Street Synagogue is scheduled to officiate at the funeral of Mrs. Marion Levy a long time member of the Hebrew Benevolent Society and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum who was the widow of A.S. Levy and the mother of Bella Levy.
1897: When Mathieu Dreyfus, the brother of imprisoned Captain Dreyfus “denounced Esterhazy” today he responded by saying that “Captain Dreyfus had forged his handwriting”
1898: One day after he had passed away, 80 year old Morris Solomons, the husband of Caroline Abrahams with whom he had four children, was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.”
1898: The demolition of the building on Clinton Street occupied by Ohab Zedek has been temporarily stopped which will give the congregants time to raise enough money to save the structure.
1898: Novelist and playwright Israel Zangwill delivered a lecture this morning at the Waldorf Astoria “on the ghetto…not the poetic Ghetto of his books, but the real specific Ghetto, the dwelling place of the Jews…closed by real gates and the home of a peculiar to itself.”
1898: The Berlin correspondent of the Times reported on the expulsion of Polish Jews from Breslau which is part of a larger pattern of deportations instigated by the Prussian Minister of Finance “which will serve as a pretext for more severe measures against aliens.”
1898: Section two of the Constitution of the Union of Judæo-German Congregations commits the organization to providing funds for several purposes including training for teachers and cantors, for pensions for “aged officials” and their families and for providing aid to released convicts.
1899: “The Merchant of Venice” opened tonight at the Knickerbocker Theatre with Ellen Terry playing the Jewess Portia and Henry Irving delivering his signature performance of Shylock.
1902: A political cartoon, “Draw the line in Mississippi” by Clifford K. Berryman that “spawned the Teddy Bear” appeared in the Washington Post. Russian Jewish immigrants Rose and Morris Michtom created the Teddy Bear created the creature after seeing this cartoon which showed T.R. and bear cub.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TheodoreRooseveltTeddyBear.jpg
1905: Further evidence that the drive to provide relief for the Jews being massacred in Russia is not a matter for the Jewish community will be seen this evening when Bishop Coadjutor Greer of the Episcopal Diocese of New York and the Reverend Dr. Robert S. MacArthur of Calvary Baptist are among the speakers at meeting sponsored by the Council of Jewish Women at Temple Emanu-El.
1905: Moses Plaut of L.S. Plaut & Co. is the driving force behind the meeting scheduled to be held in Newark, NJ tonight where “a large sum of money will be raised” to aid victims of the anti-Semitic violence in Russia.
1905: “The Odessa Relief Committee made up of former residents of that city” is scheduled to meet in the Apollo Hall” for the purpose of raising funds for those suffering attacks in Russia.
1905: The New York Socialists’ Organization is scheduled to meet this evening to raise funds for the victims of the anti-Semitic attacks in Russia.
1905: “The United Hebrew Community which has a membership of over 4,000” is scheduled to meet “in the Synagogue Beth Hamedrash Hagodol at 61 Norfolk Street” where the leaders expect the attendees to add a considerable amount to add to the $500 that has already been raised.
1906(27th of Cheshvan, 5667): Sixty-three year old Raphael Benjamin passed away today at the Hotel St. George where he had been living for the past three years. A native of London, he came to the United States 25 years ago and settled in Cincinnati before moving to New York where he became the Rabbi of Temple Beth Elohim.
1907: One day after she had passed away, 29 year old Dora Yanovsky Solomon, the wife of John Solomon and the moterh of Betsy and Samuel Solomon was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.”
1909(2nd of Kislev, 5670): Mrs. Frume Rostowsky passed away today.
1912: Rabbi Gerson B. Levi is scheduled to lead Friday evening services at B’Nai Sholom – Temple Israel in Chicago.’
1912: Rabbi Abram is scheduled to lead Friday evening services at Temple Sholom at the corner of Pine Grove Avenue and Grace Street.
1914: “A special meeting of the officers of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society is scheduled to be held today Temple Emanu-El in NYC.
1915: The list of the officers of the American Jewish Committee published today included Louis Marshall, President; Judge Julian W. Mack and Professor Jacob H. Hollender, Vice Presidents; Isaac W. Bernheim, Treasurer; Jack H. Schiff and Dr. J. L. Magnes, Executive Committee.
1915: President Clarence I de Sola presided over today’s opening session of the “Fourteenth Convention of the Federation of Zionist Societies of Canada” at the Auditorium Hall.
1916: Two days after she passed away, Caroline Spiers Boas, tfehe daughter of Benjamin Spiers and Sara Wolf and the wife of Hermman Boas with whom she had seven children, was buried today at the Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern Ireland.
1917(30th of Cheshvan, 5678): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1917(30th of Cheshvan, 5678): Fifty-nine year old Sociologist Emile Durkheim, the son, grandson and great-grandson of French rabbis, passed away.
http://durkheim.uchicago.edu/Biography.htmla
1917: As Allenby’s forces continued their advance, “the 75th Division and the Australian Mounted Division advanced towards Latron where the Jaffa to Jerusalem road enters the Judean Hills.
1917: Birthdate of Bernard Bellush, the Bronnx native who became a Professor of History at City College of New York.
1917: As British forces continued their successful campaign in Palestine, ANZAC forces occupied Ramleh and Lydda.
1917: It was officially announced today that British forces under General Allenby had taken the junction point of the Beersheba to Damascus Railway with the Jerusalem line after fighting that resulted in heavy Turkish losses.
1918: Four days after the Armistice, Sergeant Abraham Blaustein who received the Croix de Guerre for heroism visited Lyon where he found out that the Army Candidate School was to be closed since “no more officer commissions will be granted.”
1918: “The Jewish Press reported” from Stockholm, “that anti-Semitic riots have broken out in several towns in Western Galicia and Poland” where at least “six Jews have been killed” in a village 55 miles southeast of Warsaw.
1918: “Julian W. Mack, President of the ZOA and Louis Marshall” joined together and sent a telegram to President “acquainting him the facts concerning” the threat of Jews in Eastern Europe with a special emphasis on Poland and Romania.
1920: Mr. Louis Mann is scheduled to deliver an address at the annual meeting of the Rodeph Sholom Women’s Association this afternoon in Manhattan.
1921: Benjamin Schlesinger, the President of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union laid the cornerstone for the union’s new headquarters building on West 16th Street in NYC.
1923(7th of Kislev, 5684): Rosalie V. Moses passed away today after which she buried at the Fairmount Cemetery in Denver, CO.
1923: Birthdate of Polish born Holocaust survivor Samuel Klein, the found of “the Casas Bahia chain of department stores whose success has led him to be called “the Sam Walton of Brazil.”
1924: In Hartford Max Rich and the former Bella Shub gave birth to DNA expert Alexander Rich.
1924: Russian born American journalist Isaac Don Levine and his first wife gave birth to their only child, a son, named Robert Don Levine.
1925: Birthdate of Russian author Yuli Daniel
1925: In Paris, Pierre Léon Dreyfus, the “son of Alfred Dreyfus and Lucie Eugénie Hadamard” and Marie Apollonie Dreyfus gave birth to Nicole Dreyfus
1925: Birthdate of Jacek Zlatka, the native of Warsaw who as “Jack P. Eisner used the millions he made in the import-export business to tell the story of how he survived the Holocaust in a book, play, movie and many public appearances.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)
1925: “The Road to Yesterday” a silent film starring Joseph Schildkraut and Jetta Goudal was relased today in the United States.
1926: The National Broadcasting Company, part of Robert Sarnoff’s “RCA Empire” debuted with a radio network of 24 stations.
1927: A pre-Broadway tour of Showboat, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II musical based on Edna Ferber’s novel began today.
1928: The National Conference of Jews and Christians sent a telegram to President-elect Hoover “congratulating” him “on his upcoming trip to South America” which the organization hopes “will bring all peoples and creeds both at home and abroad into better relationships of mutual understanding and helpfulness.”
1929: In Kansas City, MO, Russian Jewish immigrants, Lizzie (née Seliger) and David Morris Asner gave birth to Edward “Ed” Asner the multi-talented actor who could play everything from “Lou Grant” to the menacing “Axel Jordache” in “Rich Man, Poor Man.”
1930: Northwestern, led by guard Hy Crizevsky, defeated the University Wisconsin by a score of 20-7 at Dyche Stadium in Evanston, IL.
1932: Birthdate of Haim Drukman, the native of Kuty who made Aliyah in 1944 and now serves as Rosh Yeshiva of Ohr Etzion Yeshiva.
1932: U.S. premiere of “In the Dough,” a comedy “featuring Shemp Howard of the Three Stooges and Lionel Stander.
1935: Under the Nuremberg Laws, German Jews are formally stripped of their citizenship meaning among other things that they cannot vote, hold public office or be employed by the government.
1935: The German Churches begin to collaborate with the Nazis by supplying records to the government indicating who is a Christian and who is not; that is, who is a Jew.
1935: “A Night at the Opera” the Marx Brothers comedy co-starring Kitty Carlisle, produced by Irving Thalberg with a script by George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind and Al Boasberg was released in the United States today by MGM.
1936: In Hamburg Emma (née Dietrich), a Communist Party activist, and Dagobert Biermann, a German Jewish dockworker a member of the German Resistance gave birth to Wolf Biermann, a Jewish communist German singer-songwriter who survived the bombing of Hamburg in 1943.
1936: Israel Rokach begins serving as Mayor of Tel Aviv.
1936: “In Abraham’s Ur of the Chaldes” published today, Louise Maunsell Field provided an in depth review of Abraham: Recent Discoveries and Hebrew Origins by Sir Leonard Woolley.
1937: The Habima Players of Tel Aviv “who have just ended a successful season at the Paris Exhibition open a season at the Savoy Theater” today in “their second appearance in Britain. They will open with ‘The Dybbuk,’ probably their finest as well as their most popular production. The plays all will be performed in Hebrew, but the realism of their acting surmounts to a large degree the barrier of language.” During the course of the season Habima will also be performing “Uriel Acosta,” “The Wandering Jew,” and “The Goldem’s Dream.”
1937: Birthdate of actor Yaphet Kotto, both of whose parents are African Jews from Cameroon. In an interview he said being fully Black and Jewish gave others even more reason to pick on him growing up in New York City. However, to this day, he remains a devout, practicing Jew. Yaphet Kotto is a regular on TV's, Homicide: Life on the Streetsplaying the role of Lt. Al Giardello
1937: Haaretz and Davar, two of the leading Jewish dailies in Palestine, “publish strong editorials “condemning recent acts of violence by Jews brought on by the last two years of Arab attacks. The two papers called on “Jews to ‘take revenge’ only through constructive activities.”
1938: “The first solo exhibition of the work of Frida Kahlo” which had been mounted by Julien Levy at his gallery at 15 East 57th Street came to a close today.
1938: Jewish students were barred from German schools
1938: In Saxony, eleven year old Zeev Raphael was expelled from the Hans-Schemm-Schule.
1938: Captain Archibald Henry Maule Ramsay, the British anti-Semitic Nazi sympathizing politician attended a luncheon at the German Embassy in London where he met with other Englishmen who sympathized with Hitler.
1938: In the wake of the bloody pogroms of Kristallnacht, United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt withdraws the United States ambassador from Germany;
1939: The Nazis began the mass murder of Warsaw Jews. The war had started on September 1, 1939. After only two and a half months, the War Against the Jews was in full swing. This is one more fact that puts the lie to those revisionists who contend that genocide was not an essential part of the Nazi program from its very outset.
1939: The anti-Semitic Fideikommissariat(Estate commission) is established to "Aryanize" Jewish-owned businesses in Occupied Poland.
1939: In New York City Avraham Kotto who claimed to be related to Jews who had ruled a region in Cameroon and Gladys Marie, a nurse and Army officer who had converted before marrying her husband gave birth to actor Yaphet Kotto, whose most famous role may have been that of Lt. Al Giardello in the outstanding series “Homicide: Life on the Street.”
1940: The Nazis officially declared the Warsaw ghetto to be in existence as workers began to build walls to encircle district.
1940: Welterweight Al “Bummy” Davis (Albert Abraham Davidoff) lost a non-title bought in which he committed so many fouls that he was disqualified from boxing by the New York State Boxing Commission.
1941: Four days after his death in a plane crash, Charles Huntziger, one of the French generals who signed “the anti-Semitic Statue on Jews in 1940” and whose widow was decorated by the regime at Vichy was buried today at Vichy
1941: “Blues in the Night” a musical directed by Anatole Litvak, produced by Hal B. Wallis and with a script by Robert Rossen was released in the United States today.
1941: Hinrich Lohse, the Nazi official who had created the ghetto in Riga, Latvia, by rounding up all of the Jew’s living in the city and its surrounding areas asked his boss Alfred Rosenbeg to confirm that all the Jews were to be killed “regardless of economic considerations.” The response would be in the affirmative since the goal was to make Latvia “judenrein” or “Jew free.”
1942: The Soviet-based Jewish Antifascist Committee releases a report, "The Liquidation of the Jews in Warsaw."
1942: In Japanese occupied Shanghai, “the idea of a restricted ghetto was approved” today.
1942: In an action led by Mayer List, two Jewish women partisans in Paris place two time bombs at a Nazi barracks window, which will kill several soldiers.
1942: In his diary, Rudolf Rederlin described the scene at Belze after a train was unloaded. The men were stripped naked and sent directly to the gas chambers, the women brought to the barracks to have their head shaven. Then they went to the chambers. The head of the Judenrat was ordered to stay behind and beaten to near death as an orchestra played on. Then the man was shot in the head and pushed into the bundle of gassed Jews.
1942: In Buenos Aires, Aida (née Schuster) and Enrique Barenboim gave birth tod pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim.
1942: Birthdate of Devra G. Kleiman, “a conservation biologist who reintroduced into the wild the tiny endangered monkey known as the golden lion tamarin, and who learned so much about the lives of giant pandas that scientists could later help them reproduce in captivity”
1943: In describing Leonard Bernstein's first performance as conductor of the New York Philharmonic which occurred last night, The New York Times editorial remarked, "It's a good American success story. The warm, friendly triumph of it filled Carnegie Hall and spread far over the air waves."
1943: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies are to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps".
1943(17th of Cheshvan, 5704): Twenty-one year old Lawrence Balfour “Duke” Abelson, a Flying Officer with the Royal Canadian Air Force from Ottawa, Ontario, “was killed during a training flight” today after which he was buried in Cheshire, England.
1943(17th of Cheshvan, 5704): Salo Landau, a Galician born Dutch Chess Champion was probably murdered today at Auschwitz.
1944: Actor and director Kurt Gerron was killed today at Auschwitz.
http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/places/camps/western-europe/westerbork/gerronkurt/
1944: The deportations of Hungarian Jews living in Budapest continued In the meantime the authorities establish an ‘international ghetto' consisting of dozens of buildings that housed Jews technically under the protection of the Swiss Legation. This rescue operation was engineered by Carl Lutz, a Swiss official representing Great Britain’s interests in Hungary. Lutz’s rescue work mirrored that of the other, more famous, hero of Hungarian Jewry, Raoul Wallenberg.
1944: “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” the film version of the Doolittle Raid directed by Mervyn LeRoy and produced by Sam Zimbalist was released in the United States by MGM.
1945:Today is a day of prayer and fasting to protest British foreign minister Ernest Bevin's actions.
1945: A complete curfew is declared at noon in Tel Aviv, Palestine by the British government. Any one (this means Jews) carrying a weapon may be punished by execution.
1945: In Haifa, Palestine, Zionist sailors serving in the British navy protest.
1945: Forty people who were part of the staff of the concentration at Dachau go on trial. The trial would last until December 14, 1945 resulted in thirty seven of the accused being sentenced to death.
1947: The British foreign office denies that Britain plans to take over financial surplus in Palestine treasury to pay for costs of evacuation and fighting illegal Jewish immigration.
1947: Moses A. Leavitt, the executive vice chairman of The Joint Distribution Committee, said that the committee “would increase its food purchases to eight million pounds for the last quarter of this year” and that it would be shipped abroad immediately to aid “distressed Jews” in Europe.
1947: In Atlantic City, NJ, where 250 delegates had gathered for the opening of the 38th annual convention of the American Federation of Polish Jews, Dr. Schwartzbart, a “member of the World Zionist council and a member of the Polish Parliament in pre-war Poland, said that “the Jewish people may be far from reaching their goal of a Jewish state” because “the way is still fraught with obstacles.”
1947: “Universal relief over the fact that Britain has formally announced her intention of getting out of Palestine, surrendering her mandate and disassociating herself from the United Nations partition” plan was evident in London today.
1948:Moshe Shertok declares that Israel will fight before it gives up Negev.
1948:Israel announces its peace conditions: (1) Jewish control of modern Jerusalem corridor to remainder of Israel; (2) no Arab use of Haifa port or Lydda airport except under Israeli terms; (3) retention of Western Galilee as long as area is needed for Israel's defense; and (4) no readmission of Arab refugees to Israel until peace is established. Israel also requests UN admission.
1948: As of today, another seven Spitfires had been prepared for the long-range flight to Israel, but Czech authorities refused to let them take off.
1948:Salah el-Kuntar, leader of Druse tribesmen's National Army, says Druses want their 4,000-square-mile area shifted from Syria to Israel. Druses helped drive Syrian troops out of Upper Galilee.
1950: The Israeli Cabinet appointed a planning unit “to examine the possibility of” establishing a “settlement in the northeastern Negev desert and the Arad area.”
1952: FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover met with Lewis Wester Jones the president of Rutgers University to discuss pending security cases including one involving ancient and classical scholar Moses I. Finley.
1952: The Bugs Bunny Cartoon Rabbit's Kin featuring the voice of Mel Blanc is released in theaters throughout the United States.
1953: The 17thannual meeting of the United Israel Appeal which had been meeting in Chicago for the last two days came to an end. “In response to Prime Minster David Ben-Gurion’s plea for aide, the delegates pledged to carry out a program, apart from fund-raising. Of borrowing a minimum of $75,000,000 for a period of five years ‘in order to refund Israel’s short-term obligations which were incurred as a result of the unprecedented immigration policy.’”
1953: Alexander Wiley, the Republican Senator from Wisconsin and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee clashed with Guy Gillette, the Democratic Senator from Iowa and the senior member of the committee over the issue of U.S. support for Israel. Gillette took issue with the Eisenhower administration’s policy in the Middle East which he described as appeasing the Arab states by kicking Israel in public.
1955(30th of Cheshvan, 5716): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1957(21stof Cheshvan, 5718): Seventy-seven year old Oswego, NY native and Columbia trained urologist Dr. Clarence Garfield Bandler, the son of William and Eva Fox Bandler and the husband of Miriam Zack passed away today.
1962: Birthdate of Judy Gold the Newark, NJ native known as a comedian but who has also “won two Daytime Emmy Awards for her work as a writer and producer on The Rosie O'Donnell Show.”
1962: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for Dr. Milton Simon Fine, the husband of Frances Fine and the father of Stephen Isaac Fine in Manhattan.
1962: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for Celia Fishman, the wife of Dr. Harry Fishman and mother of Muriel Feuerman and Dr. Stanley Fishman at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue where she is remembered for her “gracious service to the synagogue” of which her husband was President.
1963(28th of Cheshvan, 5724): Symphony conductor Fritz Reiner passed away. Born in Hungary in 1888, Reiner trained as both a lawyer and a musician. After a successful career in Europe, he moved to the United States in 1922 where he served as conductor for several symphony orchestras. He was the conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the time of his death at the age of 74
1966(2nd of Kislev, 5727): William Zorach was a Jewish Lithuanian-born American sculptor, painter, printmaker, and writer who won the Logan Medal of the arts passed away.
1966: At Staatsoper, world premiere of Paul Dessau’s “Puntila.”
1967: Birthdate of actress Lisa Bonet. The daughter of a Jewish mother and a black father, Lisa Bonet first found fame in the mid-80s on The Cosby Show as Denise, one of the four daughters of Bill Cosby’s character Cliff Huxtable.
1967: “Who’s That Knocking At My Door” which marked the cinema debut of Harvey Keitel premiered today in Chicago.
1967: Two days after he had passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held today for seventy-two year old Lemberg, Austria, native, Harry Salpeter, “an art deal and critic” and the husband of Betty Berkowitz
1968: Birthdate of Dr. Michael Levin
1969: U.S. premiere of “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” a musical adaption of the novel by the same name directed by Herbert Ross
1973: Egypt and Israel exchange prisoners of war following the Yom Kippur War.
1974: “Earthquake” a disaster film produced and directed by Mark Robson which marked the cinema debut of Walter Matthau was released in the United States today.
1977: Birthdate of Wharton graduate Jonathan Benjamin “Jon” Hurwitz, the screenwriter/director responsible for among other things the “Harold & Kumar” movies.
1979: Rodef Shalom, “the oldest congregation in Western Pennsylvania” which traces its origins to formation of a burial society in Pittsburgh in 1847, was placed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places today.
1979: The B'er Chayim Temple (Well of Life, a metaphor in which Torah is likened to water) in Cumberland, Allegany County, Maryland was added to the National Register of Historic Places Properties in Allegany County: Maryland Historical Trust; 2008-10-06. The Temple was built in 1866 for the local Jewish congregation. Originally Orthodox, it is now Reform. It is one of the oldest congregations in Maryland and its 1865 building is one of the oldest synagogue buildings in the United States.
1981: A revival of Lerner and Lowe’s “Camelot" opens at Winter Garden Theater in New York City for 48 performances
1984: 2:00 AM Paradise Cafe is the fourteenth album by singer-songwriter Barry Manilow was released today.
1984: After over two decades of building a reputation as a passionate and generous member of the Jewish community through her activism and volunteer work, Baltimorean Shoshana Cardin was elected as the first woman president of the Council of Jewish Federations. Through her work with civic and Jewish groups, Cardin has become one of the most respected Jewish lay leaders of the 1980s and 1990s. As a young mother, Cardin worked as a volunteer and served on the boards of a variety of local nonprofit organizations. As president of Maryland's Federation of Jewish Women's organizations in 1960 and 1961, she used her position to call attention to issues of racial inequality. In 1967 Cardin served as a delegate to Maryland's Constitutional Convention and joined Maryland's Commission for Women in 1968. Although she turned down a nomination to the Federal Reserve Board, Cardin worked to change federal and state laws concerning women's legal access to credit. She also served on Maryland's Commission on Human Relations and as chair of Maryland's State Employment and Training Council from 1979 to 1983. In 1984, Cardin was elected as the first woman president of the Council of Jewish Federations, a national umbrella organization for local groups raising money for social and educational services and for Israel in 189 North American Jewish communities. In this role, she became the first woman to lead a major national Jewish organization. In subsequent years, Cardin has led the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the United Israel Appeal, the Center for Learning and Leadership, and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Most recently, she has been instrumental in creating the Shoshana S. Cardin Jewish Community High School, Baltimore's first transdenominational Jewish high school. (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archivdes)
1985: “The Last Romantic,” “a documentary filmed the townhouse of Vladimir Horowitz” produced by Peter Gelb was released in the United States today.
1986: The SEC fined Ivan F. Boesky $100 million for insider stock trading. Boesky was, and is, one of many Jews who have been involved in white collar crime stretching from the junk bond debacle to the collapse of Enron. To paraphrase a character in a Faye Kellerman novel, God must have known that Jews were capable of theft. Why else would He have commanded the Jews not to steal?
1986(13thof Cheshvan, 5747): Eighty-nine year old composer Alexandre Tansman whose career was a “casualty” of the Holocaust passed away today.
1987: After 1,761 performances over four years, “La Cage aux Folles” with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman came to a close.
1988: An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council.
1988: “Goetz Collection Picasso Sold for $24.75 Million” published today described the auction of the art collection of the late William and Edith Mayer Goetz.
1988: ABC broadcast the second episode of “War and Remembrance,” “an American miniseries based on the novel of the same name written by Herman Wouk”
1989: U.S. premiere of “Steel Magnolias” a film highlighting the strength of southern women directed by Herbert Ross.
1989: Aaron Sorkin's "Few Good Men," premiered in New York City. Born in 1961, the Scarsdale native wrote this successful court-martial melodrama without ever serving in the military or attending law school. He showed his versatility when he wrote the hit romantic comedy, American President.
1991: CBS broadcast the final episode of “The Trials of Rosie O’neill” created and produced by Barney Rosenzweig.
1996; “The English Patient” a movie version of the novel of the same name which won an Oscar for producer Saul Zaentz as the Best Picture of the Year, was released today in the United States.
1997: William Shatner weds Norine Kidd.
1997: Eighty-eight year old John Coulson “a diplomat at the British Embassy in Paris during the Exodus crisis “suggested how to spin the Jews’ confinement in the camps to score a public relations” when he wrote “If we decide it is convenient not to keep them in camps any longer, I suggest that we should make some play that we are releasing them from all restraint of this kind in accordance with their wishes and that they were only put in such accommodation for the preliminary necessities of screening and maintenance.
1997(15th of Cheshvan, 5758): Saul Chaplin passed away. Born Saul Kapan in 1912, this leading American composer and musical director lists of hits include the scores for American in Paris, West Side Story and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He collaborated with Sammy Cahn on that unique musical creation "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” a popular song, the title meaning "to me you are beautiful." According to at least one show biz legend, the original verson of the song was written for a Yiddish musical in 1932. In 1937 Cahn and Chaplin heard two African American singers perform it at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Impressed with the audience response, they bought the rights to the song, reworked it, and the rest is musical history.
1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including The Hidden Book In The Bible Restored, translated and introduced by Richard Elliott Friedman, Truth Comes In Blows: A Memoirby Ted Solotaroff, There Once Was A World: A Nine-Hundred-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshokby Yaffa Eliach, Flora’s Suitcase by Dalia Rabinovich and Seasons of Her Life: A Biography of Madeleine Korbel Albrightby Ann Blackman.
1999: Irwin Cotler began serving as a Member of the Canadian Parliament for Mount Royal.
1999: INS Leviathan, a Dolphin class submarine, was commissioned today.
1999: A new exhibit on life and work of Jewish activist Rebecca Affachiner, known affectionately as "the Betsy Ross of Israel," at Emory University's Schatten Gallery will open with a special public program and reception today in the Joseph W. Jones Room of Woodruff Library.
1999: A dinner was held in Melbourne in honor of the late Ron Castan.
2000: U.S. Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton “delivered an emotional eulogy for Leah Rabin” today in Jerusalem.
2001: After being hired today as President and CEO of the Red Sox, Larry Luchino hired Theo Epstein
2001: Ilyas Malayev an Uzbekistani musician and poet who had emigrated to the United States, in part because he could not get his poetry published due to anti-Semitism became a United States citizen today.
2002: “Interview With The Assassin” produced by Brian Koppelman and David Levien was released today in the United States today.
2002(10th of Kislev, 5763):Twelve people - 9 soldiers and three civilians from the Kiryat Arba emergency response team - were killed and 15 others wounded in Hebron when Palestinian terrorists opened fire and threw grenades at a group of Jewish worshipers and their guards as they were walking home from Sabbath prayers at the Cave of the Patriarchs. The dead included civilian worshipers and soldiers, some of whom were caught in an ambush as they pursued the attackers. Three terrorists were killed in the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic Jihad. The victims: Col. Dror Weinberg, 38, of Jerusalem; Border Police officer Ch.-Supt. Samih Sweidan, 31, of Arab al-Aramsha; Sgt. Tomer Nov, 19, of Ashdod; Sgt. Gad Rahamim, 19, of Kiryat Malachi; St.-Sgt. Netanel Machluf, 19, of Hadera; St.-Sgt. Yeshayahu Davidov, 20, of Netanya; Sgt. Igor Drobitsky, 20, of Nahariya; Cpl. David Marcus, 20, of Ma'aleh Adumim; and Lt. Dan Cohen, 22, of Jerusalem. The three civilian members of the Kiryat Arba emergency response team killed were Yitzhak Buanish, 46; Alexander Zwitman, 26; and Alexander Dohan, 33.
2002: In the following letter-to-the editor published in the New York Times, Martin Peretz, Editor in Chief, “The New Republic,” comes to the defense of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen,
In a vast documentation of the culpability of the Roman Catholic Church in the Nazi genocide of the Jews, the archdiocese of Munich has caught Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, the author of ''A Moral Reckoning,'' in one tiny mistake. It has gone to court to get an injunction against the sale of the book, reviving the index of what it does not want people to read. Mr. Goldhagen misidentified a cleric marching at a Nazi rally in a photograph included in his text. Relying on the authority of a responsible scholarly archive, he indicated that the priest was Cardinal Michael Faulhaber. It wasn't. Still, several incidents involving the cardinal, cited in the book and not challenged by anyone, are devastating. They support the author's argument that the church was not a passive witness to the Holocaust but an active collaborator in it. And who was the mysterious father in the photograph? Alas, the papal nuncio, Cesare Orsenigo, the personal diplomatic representative of Pius XI.
2003(20th of Cheshvan, 5764): Laurence Tisch, former CEO of CBS passed away.
2003(20th of Cheshvan, 5764): The first day of the 2003 Istanbul Bombings, in which two car bombs, targeting two synagogues, explode, killing 25 people and wounding about 300.
2005: Two years to the day after his brother passed away, Preston Robert Tisch, owner of Lowes Hotel and the New York Giants, passed away.
2005: Today, a fellow female police detective described her first meeting with Felicia Shpritzer “who in the early 1960's broke a gender barrier in the New York Police Department when she earned a sergeant's stripes, paving the way for the advancement of women in police work across the country” saying that “she was wearing a trench coat and loafers and carrying two shopping bags.” Speaking with “her thick Yiddish accent” Shpritzer “looked and acted like the typical Jewish mother” who “comforted her subordinates when they had problems and scolded them when they were wrong.”
2005: When an Israir charter flight takes off this morning for Tunis it will be historic not only because it is the maiden trip of an Israeli airline to the North African Arab country. More significantly, it will be carrying Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom a man who left Tunisia, his place of birth, at the age of one and is now returning for the first time as his adopted country’s foreign minister. Shalom is traveling to Tunisia to attend the UN World Summit on the Information.
2005: Judge Ulrich Meinerzhagen announced that the trial of Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel on 14 counts of inciting racial hatred “was to be rescheduled to allow new counsel time to prepare.”
2006: “The Jewish Eye-World Jewish film Festival” opened at Be’er Sheva. The festival featured the first showing of Director Ramin Farahani’s Jews of Iran.
2006: Jack Abramoff began serving his term in the minimum security prison camp of Federal Correctional Institution, Cumberland, Maryland, as inmate number 27593-112.
2007(5thof Kislev, 5768): Ninety-two year old Tani Lispector, the middle daughter of Pinkhas Lispector and Mania Krimgold Lispector and older sister of Brazilian author Clarice Lispector passed away today.
2007: Ruth Wisse, “a pioneer in the development of Yiddish scholarship in the United States…received the…National Humanities Medal in a ceremony at the White House.” (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archives)
2007: In Stuttgart, the first German production of Stephen Schwartz’s musical “Wicked” opened at the Palladium Theatre.
2007: A children’s book entitled Germ Stories by the late Dr. Arthur Kornberg appears in bookstores.
2007: In Jerusalem, as part of the International Oud Festival, Muhammad Abu Ajaj presents Bedouin music and songs from the Negev.
2007:The MFA in Creative Writing Program at George Washington University hosts an evening with four writers participating in the University of Iowa's International Writing Program including AlexEpstein, a fiction writer from Israel.
2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Curtis David Litow, son of Kathy and Charlie Litow, is called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah.
2008:The Ninth Annual Rutgers New Jersey Jewish Film Festival presents “Jellyfish.” “Set against the background of Israel’s most cosmopolitan city, Jellyfish tells the story of three very different Tel Aviv women – a waitress, a disappointed bride, and a domestic worker from the Philippines. Subject to the whims of destiny, they struggle to find love as their intersecting lives create an unlikely portrait of modern Israeli life.”
2008: On Saturday night MK Ya'acov Litzman was attacked by a group of Slonimer Hassidim. Reportedly the attack shows the anger with the Gur community over Nir Barkat's victory in the Jerusalem mayoral race has continued past Election Day. The embattled Litzman, a representative of the Gur Hassidim within the haredi United Torah Judaism Party, was allegedly cursed, pushed and kicked before being pelted with kugel shortly after arriving at a family celebration being held at a Slonimer-owned hall in Jerusalem's Mea She'arim neighborhood
2009: A revival of “Ragtime” a musical based on the E.L. Doctorow’s novel with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens opened at the Neil Simon Theatre.
2009: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington holds its 49thannual meeting.
2009: The groups Adas Reads and Brunch & Learn present a reading and discussion with New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, author of "From Beirut to Jerusalem" and, most recently, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America," and Washington Post reporter Laura Blumenfeld, author of "Revenge: A Story of Hope," at the Adas Israel Congregation, the only Conservative Synagogue located in the Distric of Columbia. The writers will discuss the influence of revenge on international affairs
2009: The 40th Annual Book Festival sponsored by the JCC of Greater Washington and The 4th annual Jewish Book Festival sponsored by The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia come to an end.
2009: AJHS, CJH, and YUM sponsor an International Conference entitled “Genocide and Human Experience: Raphael Lemkin's Thought and Vision.”
2009: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Humbling by Philip Roth and the recently released paperback editions of Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963 by Susan Sontag; edited by David Rieff and My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Family’s Past by Ariel Sabar whose “father was the last bar mitzvah boy in a Kurdish town where Jews had lived for nearly 3,000 years. Soon thereafter, most of Kurdistan’s Jews left for Israel, taking with them their ancient language, Aramaic, Jesus’ tongue. The elder Sabar, reduced to manual labor in Israel, spent his time obsessively cataloging his dying language. Sabar’s book is a biography of his father but also ‘part history, linguistics primer and memoir.’”
2009: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including America’s Prophet: Moses and the American Story by Bruce Feiler and SUPERFREAKONOMICS: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
2009: In Crown Heights Chabad's the 25th annual International Conference of Shluchim comes to a close. The “lamplighters” like the renowned Rabbi Pinchas Ciment of Little Rock, AR, return to the life-long labor of drawing their fellow Jews to warmth of Torah and the love of Ha-shem.
2010: Internationally acclaimed photographer, videographer and filmmaker Shirin Neshat and best-selling author Angella Nazarian are scheduled to present a program entitled The Jewish-Iranian Immigrant Experience: At the Threshold of Two Worlds at the 92nd Street Y.
2011: Julie Salamon, author of “Wendy & the Lost Boys,” Myla Goldberg, author of “The False Friend,” and William Cohan, author of “Money & Power” are scheduled to speak at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festiva.
2011: “The Little Traitor” a film based on a novel by Amos Oz is scheduled to be shown at the Jewish Eye World Film Festival.
2011:Recent bouts of violence along Israel's border with the Gaza Strip are leading toward significant and offensive military action in the coastal enclave, Israel Defense Forces chief Benny Gantz said today, adding that there was still a chance for a flare-up of West Bank violence over the Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations.
2011:About 100 senior doctors submitted their resignation today, in an apparent escalation of the residents' struggle against a National Labor Court decision to cancel their previous collective protest resignation.
2011(18th of Cheshvan, 5772): Eighty-nine year old Hubert C. Wine “a solicitor, District Court judge and prominent member of the Irish Jewish community who served as the chairman of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland for fourteen years” passed away today.
2012: “The Art of Spiegelman” which provides a look at the world and studio of Art Spieglman, the creator of Maus, is scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival.
2012: World Music from Poland is scheduled to meet Spanish Flamenco when Kroke Trio and Amir-John Haddad perform at the International Jerusalem Oud Festival.
2012: The Canadian Folk Music Awards is scheduled to open today in New Brunswick. “Songs for the Breathing Walls,” a collection of mainly Jewish liturgical pieces recorded by Lenka Lichtenberg in 12 Czech Synagogues has been nominated for two awards at the festival. (As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)
2012: Final day for submitting entries to the Agudas Achim Poetry Contest. The poems are each intended to memorialize the congregation’s former home on East Washington Street in Iowa City.
2012(1st of Kislev, 5773): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
2012(1st of Kislev): According to Rabbi Judah, the start of the winter season in Israel
2012:The Israeli Air Force struck some 70 targets in the Gaza Strip in one hour's time, the IDF Spokesman's Office said shortly before 10 p.m. tonight. Among the targets, the IDF statement said, were underground medium-range rocket launching pads. The most recent blitz of air strikes brought the total number to well over 300.
2012:Booms were heard following an air raid siren in Tel Aviv this evening, just an hour after a rocket from the Gaza Strip exploded in an open field outside of Rishon Lezion. There were no reports of injuries in either strike.
2012(1st of Kislev, 5773): Mirah Scharf, 25, Aharon Smadja, 49, and Itzik Amsalem, 27 were murdered by Hamas rockets at Kiryat Malachi (City of Angels).
2013: “The Fading Valley” and “Under The Same Sun” are scheduled to be shown 7th annual Other Israel Film Festival.
2013: “Boris Lurie: The 1940’s”, a ninety five piece exhibition is scheduled to come to an end today at the Studio House Space.
2013: The Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform at the University of Mary Washington in Frederiksberg, VA
2013: In Encino, CA, Valley Beth Shalom a Yiddish evening of song featuring Eleanor Reissa.
2013: Today “the first baby was born at the IDF field hospital set up the day before in the Philippines to help deal with the destruction Typhoon Haiyan has left in its wake. The mayor of Bogo City where the hospital was established announced the baby will be named "Israel." As reported by Ari Yashar)
2013: “Jewish Identities” published today included reviews Jews in Gotham, The Rise of Abraham Cahan, Hanukkah in America and Jews and the Military.
2014(22ndof Cheshvan, 5775): Shabbat Chayei Sarah
2014: In New Orleans, Tulane University, home of the Tulane University Jewish Studies Department chaired by Dr. Brian Horowitz is scheduled to play its first Homecoming Football game in Yulman Stadium.
2014(22ndof Cheshvan, 5775): Sixty five year old transgendered activist and author Leslie Feinberg passed away today in Syracuse, NY.
2014(22ndof Cheshvan, 5775): Seventy-seven year old “Mervyn Smith, president of the African Jewish Congress and a major anti-apartheid activist in the Jewish community” passed away today.
2014: The 6th Annual International Holiday Bazar sponsored by Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to open today.
2014: The Batsheva Dance Company is scheduled to perform for the third and last time during its current visit to New York.
2014: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a chamber music concert featuring works by Brahms and Tchaikovsky.
2014: In Melbourne, “Natan” and “24 Days” are scheduled to be shown at the Jewish International Film Festival.
2014: “The Sturgeon Queens” and “Bethlehem” are scheduled to be shown at the 18thUK Jewish Film Festival.
2014: “A 31-year-old Belgian rabbi was stabbed in Antwerp today while on his way to his synagogue, near a train station in the city’s Jewish district.”
2014: Arabs threw rocks and fired fireworks at police as they clashed with Israeli security forces in East Jerusalem.
2014: “University professor Hassan Diab, a Canadian of Lebanese descent, appeared before an anti-terror judge just hours after arriving from Montreal after losing a six-year legal battle against extradition” and “was charged in Paris today for his role in the deadly 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue that killed four and wound forty who were among the 300 worshipers attending Kabbalath Shabbat services.
2015(3rd of Kislev, 5776): Seventy year old songwriter P.F. Sloan (born Philip Gary Schlein) passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
2015: The 17th Annual Jewish Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators Seminar sponsored by the Jewish Book Council is scheduled to be held today in NYC.
2015: "Theodore Bikel: In the Shoes of Sholom Aleichem" is scheduled to be shown at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA.
2015: The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington in partnership with the University of Maryland Hillel are scheduled to host “Routes: A Day of Jewish Learning.”
2015: Eighty-six year old Stephen Birmingham who was mistakenly thought to be Jewish because he wrote Our Crowd’: The Great Jewish Families of New York, The Grandees: America’s Sephardic Elite and The Rest of Us: The Rise of America’s Eastern European Jews passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
2015: Dr. Stanton Samenow, author of Inside the Criminal Mind is scheduled to serve as moderator at Beth El Hebrew Congregation’s “Meet the Authors” program featuring Ellen Brazer, Bea Epstein and Dr. Allan J. Lichtman.
2015: Tel Aviv born composer, pianist, singer and arranger, Yoni Rechter who “has worked closely with many of Israel's top artists, including Arik Einstein, Gidi Gov, and Yehudit Ravitz” is scheduled to perform at the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill tonight in New York.
2015: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Killing A King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel by Dan Ephron, My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem, Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few by Robert B. Reich, Reading Claudius: A Memoir in Two Parts by Caroline Heller and Between Gods: A Memoir by Alison Pick.
2016(14thof Cheshvan, 5777): Ninety-two year old music producer and arranger Milt Okun passed away today. (As reported by Daniel E. Slotnik)
2016: Kosherfest, “the world’s largest kosher trade show” opened today at Secaucus, NJ.
2016: According to a report by Channel 10 broadcast 10, David Shimron “a long-time personal lawyer to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu” and “the representative of a German company trying to sell Israeli military submarines that Netanyahu has been pushing for Israel to buy against the will of the IDF” “is alleged to be at the center of a multi-billion shekel controversy involving Israel’s possible purchase” of these ships.
2016: In collaboration with multiple organizations, including the Thaler Foundation and Coe College, the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library are scheduled to host Gideon Frieder, a speaker from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Survivor Speakers’ Bureau to speak of his experience as a Holocaust survivor at Coe College’s Sinclair Auditorium.
2017: Lebanon is scheduled to announce which companies have won the auction granting drilling rights “to areas in the Mediterranean Sea contested by neighboring Israel.”
2017: “Ra’anan Boustan (Princeton University)” is scheduled to “speak on the paradoxical image of Rome as a repository for “Jewish” artifacts and strategies by which Roman Jews and Roman Christians utilized these artifacts to make claims on the ancient past’ at the Center for Jewish History
2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host “Jewbilation MT17.”
2017: “Land of the Little People” and “West of the Jordan River” are scheduled to shown at the 21st UK International Jewish Festival.
2017: Kosherfest 2017 is scheduled to come to an end today.
2017(26thof Cheshvan, 5778): One-hundred and six year old MIT graduate and numismatist Eric Pfeiffer Newman, the husband of Evelyn Newman with whom he had two children, passed away today, (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)
2017: Jewish Book Month, an annual event that provides us with a chance to contemplate the lives of Jewish authors such as Dr. Brian Horowitz the author of a series of books including Empire Jews which paint a realistic of the world most know only from “Fiddler on the Roof” and Jewish books for the next thirty days is scheduled to continue for a fourth day.
2018: “Jonathan Franzen is scheduled to read from his new essay collection, The End of the End of the Earth” at the 92nd Street Y today.
2018: The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host “Seltzertopia” which will include the New York “premier screening of the short ‘Egg Cream’ and a celebration of the publication of Seltzertopia: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary Drink by Barry Joseph, followed by tastings of various egg creams.”
2018: “Doubtful” and “Song of Black and Neck” are scheduled to be shown at the 38th Gershman Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival.
2018: The Maltz Museum is scheduled to host a lecture on “Talmud and Literature: How an Ancient Jewish Text Can Inspire Contemporary Art” followed by a Q and A with Ruby Namdar, the author of The Ruined House, “winner of Israel’s 2014 Sapir Prize.”
2018: Columbia University, Fordham University and YIVO Institute is scheduled to host “In Dialogue: Polish Jewish Relations During the Interwar Period” with “Samuel Kassow, the Charles H. Northam Professor of History at Trinity College, and one of the world's leading scholars on the Holocaust and the Jews of Poland” and “Paul Brykczyński, an independent historian, whose interests include nationalism, antisemitism, and radical politics, in Eastern Europe and beyond” and whose “first book, Primed for Violence: Murder, Antisemitism, and Democratic Politics in Interwar Poland, won the Kulczycki Book Prize in Polish Studies.
2018: As they awake this morning, Israelis look to see the impact of the resignation of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman while those living along the border with Gaza contemplate the impact of Netanyahu’s ceasefire agreement.