This Day, January 12, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
January 12
1349: A letter sent
today “from the city of council of Cologne…to the leaders of Strasbroug” warned
that pogroms (attacks on the Jews) had turned into general riots “by the common
people” and “had led to much evil and devastation.”
1412: In Spain, the
regent Donna Catalina acting in the name of the child-king Juan II issued an
edict of twenty-four articles intended to impoverish and humiliate the Jews and
to reduce them to the lowest grade in the social scale.
1492: After having met
with Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand today to discuss financing his westward
voyage, Columbus told Luis de Santangel that he was going to seek funding from
France and England which may have been the impetus for the Converso to provide
the funds to the Italian explorer.
1493: After the expulsion of the Jews from Sicily
had been postponed been twice after the payment of thousands of gulden, the
Jews were scheduled to be expelled today from Sicily, which had become a
province of Aragon in 1412.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/500-years-after-being-wiped-out-sicilian-jewish-life-is-reborn/
1517:
María López denied all charges presented against her by the prosecutor of the Inquisition including observing the Sabbath and dressing in holiday garb. (As
reported by Renee Levine Melammed)
1519: Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor passed
away. Joseph ben Gershon Loans better
known as Yosel von Rosheim an Alsatian Jew born in 1480, served as “shtadlen”
or advocate for the Jews during Maximilian’s reign. In 1514, while living in
Mittelbergheim Yosel and several other Jews were imprisoned on charges of “host
desecration.” They were all freed several months later when their innocence was
established. Between 1515 and 1516, Yosel personally presented the complaints
of the Jews of Oberehnheim to the Maximilian himself and obtained a safe
conduct pass for his co-religionists. Yosel outlived Maximilian and served as
‘shtadlen” until his death in 1554.
While Maximilian was capable of taking stands inimical to Jewish
interests such as when he signed an edict allowing John Pfefferkorn to
confiscate Hebrew books (an order he later modified, he was also capable of
coming to their aide. He regarded the Jews as his property and opposed those
who banish them from his empire. For
example in January of 1516, he sent a letter to the Elector Albert and his
allies ordering them to hold any meetings that would result in the banishment
of the Jews from Frankfort, Worms and Mayence.
1539:
King Francis I of France and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V signed the Treaty of
Toldeo. The treaty ended the hostilities
between the two monarchs. Charles wore
two hats (or crowns) – Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain. As Holy Roman Emperor, he treated the Jews of
central Europe comparatively well. As
King of Spain, he continued the policies of the Inquisition and hostility to
the Jewish people. Both monarchs were
beneficiaries of business dealings with Dona Gracia Nasi one of the most
powerful and unusual leaders of the Sephardic community.
1565(29th
of Tevet, 5325): Meir ben Isaac Katzenellenbogen, the Meir of Padua, passed
away.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0012_0_10865.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me%C3%AFr_Katzenellenbogen
1712:
Moses Ben Mordecai Susskind Rothenburg the German rabbi who had served in
Brest-Litvoks and Altona passed away today.
1723:
Birthdate of Reverend Samuel Langdon, the President of Harvard who delivered a
speech to the Legislature in New Hampshire entitled “The Republic of the
Israelites an Example to the American States” in which he contends that Moses
and the “Old Testament” provide a picture of proto-democratic government which
stands in contrast to the monarchy of the English.
1726:
Today, Meyer Low Schomberg became a fellow of the Royal Society after which in
1730: he was admitted to the Freemasons’ Lodge at the Swan and Rummer.”
1729: Birthdate of Edmund Burke, Anglo-Irish
statesman and political philosopher. One
of Burke’s most famous quotes is “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil
is that good men do nothing.” This line
is found in many study programs about the Holocaust.
1735:
At Frankfort-on-the-Main, Rabbi Jacob Kahana demanded that Moshe Chaim Luzzatto
take an oath promising “to abandon his Kabbalistic illusions, and to
refrain from writing on or instructing anyone in the doctrines of the
Zohar.”
1741:
Birthdate of Dorsten, Germany native Nathan Baruch Eisendrath, the son of
Baruch Eisendrath and the father of Rosetta, Samson, Moises, Else and Eva
Eisendrath.
1747:
Benjamin Levy, the son of Moses Levy, and his wife Judith gave birth to
Jochebed Levy, who was married at Newport in 1770 to her cousin Moses, the son
of Isaac Mendez Seixas and Rachel Levy.
1770:
Charles Bonnett wrote a letter to Moses Mendelssohn saying that he regretted
that Lavater had sent him a copy of his book as if it were an attack on the
beliefs of the Jewish philosopher.
1773:
The first museum in the American colonies is established in Charleston, South
Carolina where Jews had been living since 1695 when records show that the
governor employed a Jews “as interpreter.”
1780:
In Savanah, GA, Leah Benjamin and David Nunez Cardoza gave birth to Sarah
Cardozo.
1780:
Birthdate of German theologian and biblical scholar Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de
Wette whom Julius Wellhausan described as “the epoch-making opener of the
historical criticism of the Pentateuch.”
1783:
Rachel Franks and Chaim Solomon, the Jew who gave up his family funds to
finance the American Revolution gave birth to Deborah Solomon who became
Deborah Myers-Cohen when she married Simon Meyers Cohen with whom she had three
children – Myer, Haymon and Ezekiel almost exactly two years before he passed
away in Philadelphia.
1794(11th
of Shevat, 5554): Elizabeth Gompertz, the daughter of Solomon Barent Gomperz
and Martha Hyman and the wife of Abraham Benjamin Cohen with whom she had four
children, passed away today in Amsterdam.
1797:
Birthdate of Gideon Brecher, the “Austrian physician and writer” who “was also
known as Gedaliah ben Eliezer” best known for his commentary “on the ‘Cuzari’
of Judah ha-Levi.”
https://www.jtsa.edu/prebuilt/archives/jtsarchives/brecher_gideon.shtml
https://disc.ceu.edu/node/26704
1802:
Just fifteen days before their third wedding anniversary, Zipporah Levy and
Newport, RI native Benjamin Mendes Seixas gave birth to Miriam Seixas.
1805(12th
of Shevat, 5565): Polish born David bar Jacob passed away today in England.
1808:
“Jerome…issued an edict declaring all Jews of his state without
exception to be full citizens, abolishing Jew-taxes of every description,
allowing foreign Jews to reside in the country under the same protection as
that afforded to Christian immigrants and threatening with punishment the
malicious who should derisively call a Jewish citizen of his state ‘protection
Jew’ (Schutz-Jusde).” Jerome is Jerome Bonaparte, the youngest of
Napoleon’s brothers who was King of Westphalia from 1807 to 1813.
1809:
In Easton, PA, Isaac Nunez Cardozo, the London born son of Saran and Aaron
Nunez Cardozo and wife Sarah Cardozo gave birth to Judith Nunez Cardozo
1811(15th
of Tevet, 5572): Seventy-five-year-old Salomon Myers, the father of Judith
Myers passed away today after which he was buried at the Brady Street Jewish
Cemetery.
1813:
Alexander Goldsmid married Eliza Israel today at the Great Synagogue.
1816:
Today’s edition of The Aurora, published in Philadelphia described the
activities of the Phillipson brothers — Jacob, who had opened a general store
in St. Louis, Joseph who along with Jacob had started that city’s firs brewery
– which now included involvement in the highly lucrative fur trading business.
1818:
Birthdate of Ludwig Traube, the son of a wine merchant in Silesia, “the German
physician and co-founder of the experimental pathology in Germany.”
1821:
Birthdate of Bohemian native and University of Prague graduate Bernard Fischer,
the Austrian rabbi who served “various small congregations in the district of
Eger from 1854 to 1863.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6147-fischer-bernard
1823:
Birthdate of Hermann Jellinek the Austrian author who was the brother of Adolf
Jellinek.
1826(4th
of Shevat, 5586): Forty-seven-year-old Aharon ben Moshe passed away today in
England.
1823:
Birthdate of Moravian native Hermann Jellinek, the rabbinic student turned
agnostic who was executed at Vienna during the Revolution of 1848.
1824:
At Nancy, Mosie Abraham, “a member of the Jewish consistory of Nancy and his
wife gave birth “French brigadier-general of artillery Bernard Abraham.
1832:
The Courier reported today that Solomon Benjamin had married Miss Catherine
Woolfe the youngest of daughter of Charleston, SC resident Mrs. Rebecca Woolfe.
1833:
Birthdate of Isabella Salomonsen, the wife of Isaac Zacharias, who was buried
in Denmark’s Horsens Jewish Cemetery.
1833:
Birthdate of Eugen Karl Dühring, the Berlin native who was one of the “fathers”
of modern anti-Semitism.
1838:
Rebecca Roxas, the daughter of Judith and Isaac Nunes Cardozo gave birth Julia
Roxas,
1842:
Seventy-one-year-old German philosopher and writer Wilhelm Traugott Krug who
was an advocated for the emancipation of the Jews of Saxony passed away today.
1842:
Alfred Benjamin Baumann married Priscilla Phineas Isaacs today at the New
Synagogue.
1848:
In Middleton, OH, Sophia Neumann Amberg and Moses Amberg who became a
successful clothing merchant in Layfette, IN where he was on of the founders of
Congregation of Ahavat Achim, gave birth to their third child and second son,
David Moses Amberg. Who became “a prosperous liquor wholesale who in 1909 build
house in Grand Rapids designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
https://www.loc.gov/item/mi0014/
1850:
Birthdate of Wilhelm Bacher, the native of Liptó-Szent-Miklós, Hungary who
gained fame as a scholar, rabbi, Orientalist, and linguist.
1851:
Sarah Naar Cardozo, the New York born daughter of Dr. Daniel Moses Levy Maduro
Peixotto and Rachel Lopes Mendes Peixotto and her husband Abraham Hart Cardozo
gave Michael Hart Carodozo.
1853:
In Baltimore, Sarah Miriam Carvalho the daughter of Jacob da Silva Solis and
Charity Solis and Solomon Nunes Carvalho gave birth Charity Solis Marshuetz
1853:
In Baltimore, MD Solomon Nunes Carvalho and Sarah Miriam Carvalho gave birth to
Charity Solis Marshuetz
1853:
The New York Times reported that William Gladstone has replaced Benjamin
Disraeli as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the new British government. Gladstone and Disraeli would be political
rivals for much of the rest of the century with one replacing the other as
Prime Minister in future governments.
1855:
Mr. Abraham Bensich, the native of Bohemia who had come to London in 1841
assumed the editorship of The Jewish
Chronicle and Hebrew Observer.
1858:
In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Henry Jacobs officiated at the wedding of Adolph G.
Haas and Hester Hyams, “the third daughter of M.D. Hyams.
1859:
Articles I and Articles XI of The Anglo-Russian Treaty of Commerce and
Navigation of January 12, 1859, were, much to the later disapproval by the
British Jewish community, used by the Russian “to impose restrictions on
British subjects of the Jewish faith.”
1860:
In New York City, Barbetta Koenigsberger and David Levy gave birth to NYU
trained attorney Samuel D. Levy, the husband of Millie Irene Berg and a Special
Sessions Justice “assigned to Children’s Court for 10 years who a director of
the United Hebrew Charities, president and vice president of the Hebrew
Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum and during World War, vice president of the
Patriotic Service League. (Some sources show the dob as 1862)
1861(1st
of Shevat, 5621): Rosh Chodesh Shevat; Parashat Vaera
1861:
As Jews observe Shabbat, the country moves closer to Civil War when the
Governor of South Carolina demanded that the U.S. government surrender Fort
Sumter.
1862:
Members of Congregation Beth Elohim laid the cornerstone for the first
synagogue built on Long Island on two lots at the corner of State Street and
Boerum Place in Boerum Hill.
1862:
In Buffalo, NY, Clara Sommers and Emanuel Levi gave birth to St. Joseph’s
College, Cornell University and University of Bottingen trained chemist Dr.
Louis E. Levi, the husband of Clara Krayseki and Chief Chemist at Pfister and
Vogel Lea Company in Milwaukee who was a contributor to “Hide and Leather” and
the “Journal of American Leather Chemists.”
1863:
Today, President Jefferson Davis issued his response to the Emancipation
Proclamation which showed him to be a modern day “Pharaoh” since, among other
things he said the U.S. officers captured would now be treated as “criminals
exciting servile insurrection.”
http://www.awb.com/dailydose/?p=822
1864:
As Americans prepare for their first war time Presidential elections, August
“Belmont held a national committee meeting at his Fifth Avenue home, the first
since the summer of 1860. Most of the twenty-three members attended.” Most of
those who were absent were westeners only the weather accounted for the absence
of some westerners,” Belmont sided with those committee members who wanted
a late Democratic national convention — in July.
1864:
Dr. Jacob da Silva Solis who had served as an Assistant Surgeon in the Union
Army and then transferred to the U.S. Navy where he served “as Acting Surgeon,
serving under Rear Admiral DuPont” aboard the USS Florida, resigned his
commission today.
1864:
Esther Jacobs, the London born daughter of Benjamin Jacobs and the wife of
Moses Phillips with whom she had had seven children was buried today at the
West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”
1868:
Approximately 200 people attended today’s annual meeting of the Jewish Hospital
Association in Philadelphia where “the following officers were elected:
President, Alfred T. Jones; Vice President, Abraham S. Wolf; Treasurer, Samuel
Weil; Secretary, Mayer Sulzberger; Corresponding Secretary, Henry J. Hunt.”
1868:
One day after she had passed away, 75-year-old Caroline Van Weerden, the wife
of Edward Van Weerden, was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”
1870:
Nathaniel Nathan married Clara Samuels today.
1871:
Two days after he had passed away, Benjamin Emrick, was buried today at the
“Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”
1871:
In New York City, Julia Links and Dr. Adolph Huebsch, the Hungarian born rabbi
and Talmudist, gave birth to CCN graduate and Jean University (Germany) trained
psychoanalyst Dr. Daniel Adolph Huebsch, the husband of Nettie Hays and
president of The Du Hold Company in Cleveland who was a member of the Council
on Sociology in Cleveland, the author of such works as Pathways to the Field of
Art and The Murder Complex and a member of the American Jewish Committee.
1872(2nd
of Shevat, 5632): Seventy-six-year-old Island of Saint Christopher native and
“descendant of Daniel Robles de Fonseca Aaron Wolff, the “president of the Bank
of St. Thomas which he managed for thirty-two years while also serving as
president of the local synagogue and as a member of the King’s Royal Council
passed away today in London.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14986-wolff-aaron
1873:
Relying on information that first appeared in the London Daily Telegraph, “The Past” published today provides a
summary of a paper by George Smith in which he summarizes his findings and
hopes for the future surrounding the explorations of the ruins and mounds in
the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates which have shed light on the historical
veracity of accounts in the Biblical Book of Kings and which should provide
further information about the origins of the Semitic people of the area
including the ancient Hebrews. (Editor’s
note –Smith was a noted 19th century Assyriologist who discovered
and translated “The Epic of Gilgamesh.”)
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F04E5D71439EF34BC4A52DFB7668388669FDE
1874:
Four days afther she had passed away, the former Mary Solomons, the wife of
Joel Jewell with whom she had had seven children was buried today at the “Balls
Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1875:
Birthdate of Max Naumann, the German WW I veteran and Berlin lawyer who
advocated total assimilation and attempted to protect the position of German
Jews in the 1930’s by disparaging the Polish Jews living in Germany. (Editor’s note: It didn’t work).
1876:
In London, Rachel Adler and Dr. Hermann Adler, the Chief Rabbi, to Solomon
Alfred Adler, who served as the “visiting minister for the Reading Hebrew
Congregation” and the Rabbi at the Liverpool New Hebrew Congregation before
becoming the Rabbi at the Hammersmith and West Kensington Synagogue in 1904.
1876:
James Eustis began serving as U.S. Senator from Louisiana. Eustis would later serve as U.S. Ambassador
to France during the Dreyfus affair and apparently was sympathetic to the
French Jewish officer.
1877:
Today’s issue of the Jewish Chronicle published
a review of “a sermon delivered by Dean Stanley” which protested “against his
having declared that ‘in Judaism God was to be regarded as the God of Israel
only’ and ‘that the Christian morality was superior to the Jewish.’”
1877:
Birthdate of Kiev native Lazar Samoiloff, the European opera singer who
eventually settled in San Francisco.
1878:
In a case of Jews versus Jews, at Buffalo, NY, Jacob and Burnet Friedmann
brought suit in chancery court against Henry Cone, Abraham Altman, Emanuel Levi
and the Third National Banks charging them with fraud and other financial
crimes.
1878:
In Budapest, Dr. Mór Neumann, a prosperous and popular gastroenterologist, and
Jozefa Wallfisch gave birth to Ferenc Molnár, the Hungarian attorney turned
author and playwright who came to the United States to escape the Nazis.
1878(8th
of Shevat, 5638): Joseph, Baron Günzburg passed away.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/249571/Joseph-Baron-Gunzburg
1879:
It was reported today that “Liberty in Germany” an article about the Socialist
movement, by Leonard Montefiore, will be published in the January issue of The
Nineteenth Century. A graduate of Balliol College, Montefiore was the
brother of Claude G. Montefiore and a fellow student of Arnold Toynbee.
1880:
Birthdate of Lebovics Menyhért who gained fame as “Hungarian writer, dramatist
and screenwriter” Melchior Lengyel.
1882:
In Austria, Louis and Bessie Saphir gave birth Columbia University trained
“physician and surgeon” Dr. Joseph F. Saphir, the former “chief of proctology
at Manhattan State Hospital” and the husband of Elsa Saphir with whom he had
had three daughters.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/11/27/80562443.pdf
1884:
Birthdate of Wilhelm Herzog the German playwright and historian who wrote Die Affäre Dreyfus (The Dreyfus Affair)
which “was adapted to English as the 1931 film Dreyfus and as a play by the
theatre critic James Agate, having a short run in London as “I
Accuse!”, in 1937.”
1885(25th of
Tevet, 5645): Russian native Joseph B. Isaac Rosen, who gave up a “commercial
career” to serve as Jewish cleric and who served as the rabbi for Telz and
Slonim passed away today.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12832-rosen-joseph-b-isaac
1885:
Three days after he had passed away, 75-year-old Isaac Sanguinetti, the husband
of the former Harriett Nathan with whom he had had six children was buried
today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1886:
Birthdate of Norihiro Yasue “an Imperial Japanese Army colonel who played a
crucial role in the so-called Fugu Plan, in which Jews were rescued from Europe
and brought to Japanese-occupied territories during World War II” who after the
war “was arrested by the Russians, sent to Siberia” and died “in 1950 in the
labor camp at Khabarovsk.”
1886:
Abraham Bernard, the French brigadier-general of artillery, retired from active
service today.
1887:
“Archaeologist Joseph Reinach and his wife Henriette-Clémentine Reinach gave
birth to archaeologist Adolphe Reinach.
1887:
In New York, leather merchant Julius Helburn and the former Hannah Peyeser gave
birth Bryn Mawr College graduate and Radicliffe trained paywright Theresa
Helbrun, the theatrical producer and co-founder of New York’s Theatre Guild.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/helburn-theresa
1890:
The Harmony Club, which housed a Jewish social organization, was among the
buildings caught in the path of cyclone that struck St. Louis, MO this
afternoon.
1890:
President James H. Hoffman presided over today’s meeting of the members and
patrons of the Hebrew Technical Institute in New York City.
1890:
“Crowns” published today described the royal headgear of 19th
century monarchs the purposed of which “remains as it was in the days of King
Solomon…an article of display rather than of practical of utility. “The King of
Romania is said to buy his crown from a Jewish dealer in Frankfort” Germany.
1891: It was reported today that the Hebrew Technical
Institute which was formed eight years ago as manual training school for Jewish
students has elected a officers for the new year including: James Hoffman –
President; David L. Einstein – First Vice President; Otto A. Moses – Second
Vice President; Leo Schlesinger – Treasurer; Joseph Metzler – Secretary.
1891: Professor Dr. Moritz Lazarus wrote in his foreword
to Nahida Ruth Remy’s The Jewish Woman (Das jüdische Weib): “Writing
about Jews is seldom without prejudice; writing by women is seldom thorough.
But this book about the Jewish woman, written by a Christian woman, is both
thorough and free of prejudice.” (As reported by the Jewish Women’s Archive)
1892: First day of the ceremonies marking the opening of
the Jewish Maternity Association’s facility in Philadelphia, PA
1892: Based on information that first appeared in the Kreuz Zeitung it was reported today that
a Jewish butcher who had been arrested in the town of Xanten on charges of
murdering a Christian boy has been released.
The German paper maintains the release was in error and that the boy had
been part of a Jewish practice “of killing Christian children for the purpose
of using their blood in their peculiar religious rites.”
1893:
It was reported today that the Fire Chief in Elizabeth, NJ said that the fire
that burned down the house and saloon owned David Sampson, a Jewish citizen,
was of mysterious origin. Sampson estimated the loss, which was covered by
insurance, at four thousand dollars.
Neighbors claim that the fire was deliberate.
1893:
Thirty-year-old Isaac H. Silverman, who has been in the “electric light and
street railway business in Pittsburgh since 1887” and is the Pittsburgh born
son of Henry and Babette (Frank) Silverman married Ida Hirsch today in Chicago
after which he followed a path in the railway business hat let him serve as
President of the Philadelphia Railways Company and a membership in Keneseth
Israel Congregation in Philadelphia.
1894:
Birthdate of Brooklyn native a NYU trained chemist and “All-American basketball
star” Colonel Samuel N. Cummings the veteran of two world wars who “in civilian
life was president of the Pylam Products Company,” a supporter of the Brooklyn
Hebrew Home and Hospital for the Aged and the Union Temple of Brooklyn and the
husband of Molly Cummings with whom he had two daughters – Joan and Roberta.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1955/10/01/84157116.html?pageNumber=19
1895:
Birthdate of Henry Lipschitz, the native of Boston, who gained fame
Philadelphia A’s infielder Harry Bostick.
1895: As part of the Dreyfus Affair, the French
military judges acquit Colonel Esterhazy of all charges while the high command
stripped Colonel Picquart of his commission and pension for not letting the
Dreyfus matter come to a quiet, if unjust end.
1895: Birthdate of Leo Aryeh Mayer, the native of
Galicia who became “an Israeli scholar of Islamic art and rector of the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. The L.A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art which was
established in 1974 by Vera Bryce Salomons was named in his honor.
http://www.islamicart.co.il/en/
1895: Reports published today in the Baltimore Sun
described the visit of Dr. Michael L. Rodkinson, a Russian Jew, to Maryland’s
largest city where he has attempted to gain financial backing from the local
rabbis for his proposed first of its kind translation of the Talmud into
English
http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/talmud.htm
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=FA0C1EF83A5416738DDDA10994D9405B8585F0D3
1896:
The National Council of Jewish sponsored a lecture given by Dr. Solis Cohen of
Philadelphia, a Temple Beth-El in New York City.
1896:
Birthdate of tennis player Uberto De Morpurgo, the native of Trieste who played
on Italy’s Davis Cup from 1922 through 1933.
1896(26th
of Tevet, 5656): Sixty-seven ear old Selig Meier Goldschmidt, the son of Meyer
and Lea Goldschmidt and the husband of Clementine Goldschmidt passed away today
in Frankfurt am Main.
1897: Property valuations reported today included
Temple Emanu-El, $700,000; Temple Beth-El, $400,000; Shearith Israel, $275,000;
Mt. Sinai Hospital – $300,000. All of
this property is tax exempt.
1897:
In Vilnius, Samuel and Celia Pores gave birth to Charles Pores, the husband of
Adele Meltsner.
1899:
Mr. Adler introduced a bill for consideration by the New York State Assembly
“fixing the rate for infants received and cared for by the Hebrew Infant Asylum
of New York City at 38 cents per day.”
1899:
In Hüngheim, Germany, businessman Isaak Schorsch and his wife gave birth to
Emil Schorsch a German born rabbi who survived Buchenwald who served a
congregation in Pottstown, Pa from 1940 to 1964 before passing away in 1982.
http://access.cjh.org/home.php?type=extid&term=1309582#1
1900:
Premiere of Herzl’s “I Love You” in the Vienna Burgtheater.
1900:
One day after she had passed away, the former Yetta Cohen, the wife of Harris
Goldstein, was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1901(21st
of Tevet, 5661): Parashat Shemo
1901:
Topics of the Times published today included a description of the Jews living
in the town of “Kai-fung-too” who once “were the richest and most people of the
place” but who now number only 140 souls, very poor” and whose “condition in
society is not very high.”
1901:
Hoboken and Jersey City, NJ millinery shop owner, Nathan Weinberg, the Cracow
born son of Pincus Weinber, married Gussie Shoengut today in New York/
1902:
Birthdate of New York native Joseph Klewan who gained fame as nightclub
entertainer Joe E. Lewis.
http://www.lvstriphistory.com/ie/joelewis.htm
1903:
Birthdate of Binyamin Mintz, the native of Lodz who made Aliyah in 1925 who was
elected to the first Knesset and served as Minister of Postal Services.
1903: Harry Houdini performed at the Rembrandt
Theater in
1903: Herzl
arrives in
continuing quest to gain governmental support for a Jewish homeland in Eretz
1903: In Brooklyn at the home of the bride’s
parents, Rabbi Leon Nelson officiated at the marriage of Alexander A. Hirsch,
of Charleston, SC and Miriam Newman, the “daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas
Newman.”
1904: Birthdate of Ida S. Sittler Farber, the wife
Joseph J. Farber with whom she had two children,
Donald and Nancee.
1904: The U.S. Supreme Court heard the re-argument
of “State of South Dakota, Complainant versus the State of North Carolina,
Charles Salters and Simon Rothschilds.
1905: German anti-Semitic agitator Count Walter
Pückler-Muskau was “sentenced to six months imprisonment” for “inciting to
violence.
1905: Emanuel Wallach, the son of Samson and
Adelaide Wallach and the brother of the distinguished attorney Leopold Wallach
was laid to rest today.
1906: Rabbi F.L. Cohen delivered an “address at the
great synagogue” on “the spiritual significance of the kosher table.”
1906: Birthdate of Lithuanian born French
philosopher Emmanuel Levinas.
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/27/world/emmanuel-levinas-90-french-ethical-philosopher.html
1906: Birthdate of German mathematician Kurt Hirsch,
the name sake for the “Hirsch length and Hirsch-Plotkin Radical.”
1906: Churchill was elected a Liberal Member of
Parliament for North-West Manchester following which he traveled to
Sir Ernest Cassel, Lionel Rothschild and Baron de
1906: Harry Marks defended his seat in Commons in
the General Elections which began today.
1907: Isidor Straus was the guest of honor at a
dinner at Sherry’s tonight, “given by his fellow-Directors in the Educational
Alliance, of which he is President, to celebrate his departure on an extended
trip to the East which will begin on January 19.
1907(26th of Tevet, 5667) Parashat Vaera
1907(26th of Tevet): On the Jewish
calendar, Yahrzeit of Rabbi Zevi Hirsch Deutsch of Brody,
1908(9th of Shevat, 5668): Rabbi Bernhard Felsenthal, one of the world’s
leading Jewish scholars who is considered to be the founder of the Reform
Movement in Chicago, Illinois, passed away today at the age of 88.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=FA0A16FC3D5D16738DDDAD0994D9405B888CF1D3
1908: Today,
Jefferson Seligman of J&W Seligman The Times a check for $50 to be turned
over to be turned over to the widow of John Fallon of the Fire Patrol who died
while fighting the fire at the Parker Building and another $100 to be divided
amonth the the families the two other fireman who were killed.”
1909(19th of Tevet, 5669): Forty-four-year-old
German mathematician Hermann Minkowski,
who was the brother of Dr. Oskar Minkowski a key player in research on the
pancreas that led to life saving treatment of diabetics passed away today.
1909: This afternoon at the Majestic Hotel in New
York City, Rabbi Silverman officiated at the wedding of Irma Bronnolo, the
daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bronnolo to Herbert George Einstien, the son
of Mr. and Mrs. Sol Einstein of New Rochelle, NY with Yattes Einstein, the
grooms brother serving as best man.
1909: This evening, at Delmonico’s, Rabbi Samuel
Schulman officiated at the wedding of L. Kelcey Posner and Jane Hillborn, the
daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gustav Hilborn whose daughter Rosalie served as maid
of honor.
1909(19th of Tevet, 5669):
Eighty-nine-year-old Major General Sir Fredric John Goldsmid passed away today.
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/goldsmid
1910: In Dusseldorf, Heinrich and Emilie (née
Königsberger) Rainer gave birth to Louise Ranier who won the Oscar for best
actress in 1936 for her portrayal of “Anna Held.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-30631088
1910: Birthdate of Detroit native and HUC ordained
rabbi, Morton Jacob Cohn, the U.S. Navy WW II chaplain and longtime leader of
Congreation Beth Israel and Temple Emanu-El in San Diego, CA, where he raised
two children, Jane and Morton, Jr with his wife Sally.
https://scua2.sdsu.edu/archon/?p=collections/findingaid&id=448&q=&rootcontentid=136436
1911(12th of Tevet, 5671):
Fifty-nine-year-old Austrian legal scholar and “legal positivist” George
Jellink passed away.
1911(19th of Tevet, 5671):
Seventy-eight-year-old Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling the son of a
Liverpool watchmaker who founded the bank of Samuel Montagu & Co, sat in
the House of Commons and was a leader of the Anglo-Jewish community passed away
today.
1911: Birthdate of Robert Abshagen, the native of
Hamburg who would be beheaded in 1944 for his role in the anti-Nazi resistance movement.
1912: In Philadelphia, “Lily Cartun Goodman and
Philip Goodman, a playwright and a theatrical producer” gave birth to Ruth
Goodman better known as Ruth Goetz, the playwright who collaborated with her
husband Augustus Goetz on many of her efforts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/16/arts/ruth-goetz-93-who-co-wrote-the-heiress.html
1912: “Flashgraph pictures of the Balkan War” are
scheduled to be shown at this afternoon’s meeting of the Zion Temple Auxiliary
at the Zion Temple in Chicago.
1912: The Oregon Journal described a meeting of the
Portland Equal Suffrage League (PESL) that was held at the home of Josephine
Hirsch.
1913: “Taft To Meet B’nai B’rith” published today
tells of plans for the Present to address members of that organization in New
York when they celebrate the 70th anniversary of their organization
on January 19,
1913(4th of Shevat, 5673):
Fifty-five-year-old “communal worker” Samuel Schwartzberg passed away today in
St. Louis, MO.
1913: The election of a Chief Rabbi for the United
Kingdom will not take place today as planned because the Selection Committee of
the Rabbinate Conference has not reached an agreement on which of the three
candidates to nominate for the position.
1914: “Big Hebrew Ball Nets Poor $10,000” published
today described the successful charity event in Chicago that raised funds for
“the Orthodox Home for Jewish Aged, the Marks Nathan Jewish Home, the
Maimonides Hospital, the Jewish Consumptive Relief Society, five Hebrew free
schools and two Hebrew free burial societies.”
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/20552323/1914jan12_chicago_tribunechicago/
1914: “The formal opening of the first exhibition of
Jewish arts and crafts” which including works by “craftsmen at the Bezalel
School in Palestine” and “several important sculptures and by Professor Boris
Schatz’ is scheduled to take place this evening “in the Concert Hall of Madison
Square Gardens.”
1915: “Will Tell of Jews’ Hardships” published today
described plans for a series of lectures that will be held to describe the
suffering be endured by the Jews in Europe and Palestine as a result of the
World War.
1915: Birthdate of Los Angeles native Israel
Shapiro, the son of “a Russian Jewish immigrant, a lawyer, poet and socialist”
and UCLA student who gained fame as screenwriter and producer Paul Jarrico, the
victim of the blacklist and the husband of Sylvia Gussin,
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/30/arts/paul-jarrico-82-blacklisted-screenwriter.html
1915: The Tennessee, a cruiser in the U.S. Navy, set
sail from Alexandria for Jaffa where it will try and evacuate 1,500 refugees.
1915: “Asks Loan To Save Jews” published today
includes Dr. Shmaryahu Levin’s view of the desperate conditions of Jews in
Europe saying that “the Jewish rich have ceased to be rich particularly in
Poland and Galicia.” After six months
of war, “it is safe to estimate that at least 3,000,000 Jews have been ruined”
and that another 5,000,000 Jews in Russia and Austria have also been “hard
hit.”
1915:
Birthdate of Martin Agronsky a journalist and Peabody Award winning radio and
television newsman and commentator. He
was also related to Gershon Agronsky.
Gershon changed his named to Agron and was the founder of the Palestine Post which became the Jerusalem Post after the birth of
Israel.
1915:
Birthdate of Norman Rufus Colin whose father was Jewish and whose mother was
Roman Catholic. The
historian influenced a generation of historians and social scientists with his
insight that totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century, chiefly Communism and
Nazism, were propelled by mythologies associated with medieval apocalyptic
movements. He was married to Vera Broido, “the daughter of two Russian Jewish
revolutionaries whose autobiography began with her Russian childhood and
following “her journey thought Europe to England.”
1915:
U.S. premiere of “A Fool There Was” a five reel silent drama produced by
William Fox (Wilhelm Fried).
1916:
Birthdate of William Pleeth, the London born son of Jewish immigrants from
Warsaw who became one of the most renowned cellists of the 20th
Century.
1916:
“At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Independent Order of B’nai
B’rith” held in Chicago today, “the status of the Armenian Christians and
Russian and Rumanian Jews at the close of the European war was considered.”
1916:
“In response to the Senate resolution requesting him to do so, President Wilson
today issued a proclamation designating January 27 as a day upon which
Americans may make contribution for the relief of suffering Jews” which
according to Wilson number 3,000,000 “the great majority of” whom “are
destitute of food, shelter and clothing” having “been driven from their homes.”
1916:
“The Business Men’s League for the Relief of Jewish War Suffers, working in
co-operation with the American Jewish Relief Committee, announced” today “that
$64,000 had been paid and subscribed for the relief fund.”
1916:
Herbert Samuel assumed the position of Home Secretary in the government of
Prime Minister H.H. Asquith.
1916:
“Many prominent women from Brooklyn” attended “the regular monthly meeting of
the Civitas Club” today where they heard anarchist Emma Golden declare that
“Society, as it exists today is rotten to the core” because “it is
disintegrated in every phase of life and cannot be patched up.”
1916:
Previously M.S. Lehman’s contribution to the American Jewish Relief Committee
was reported to be $500 when in fact it was for $5,000.
1916:
According to Dr. Henry Moskowitz a “Black Book” that will be published “within
the next few days” by “the National Jewish Workmen’s Committee on Jewish
Rights” “will contain authentic documentary evidence of the persecutions
charged against Russian officials” including the commanding officers of the
Russian Army.
1917:
First provisional council of Palestinian Jewry was established. (The Jews were
the Palestinians long before the name was usurped by the Arabs.)
1918:
American violinist Max Rosen who has recently returned to the United States
after studying in Europe for the past five years is scheduled to make his debut
tonight at Carnegie Hall.
1918:
Finland’s “Mosaic Confessors” law went into effect, making Finnish
Jews full citizens. “Under the Act, Jews
could for the first time become Finnish nationals, and Jews not possessing
Finnish nationality were henceforth in all respects to be treated as foreigners
in general.”
1919:
Birthdate of Seymour B. Sarason, “a leader in Community Psychology.”
1919:
“Comes Home Blinded” published today described the homecoming of Regimental
Sergeant-Major Michael Aaronsohn, “the first blinded Baltimore soldier to
return from France” who had “lost his sight while trying to rescue a wounded
comrade while fighting through the Argonne Forest” and who plans on returning
to Cincinnati to resume his studies to become a rabbi which were interrupted
when he enlisted in May of 1917.
1919:
A general assembly met today to form a women’s Zionist organization in Great
Britain.
1920(21st
of Tevet, 5680): Thirty-two-year-old Rabbi Solomon T.H. Hurwitz, the descendant
of an old rabbinical family who was a “lecturer on Semitic Languages at
Columbia University, a founder and editor of the Jewish Forum and professor of
Hebrew and Aramaic Philology at the Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary” passed
away today “in the Beth Israel Hospital of paralysis.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1920/01/13/102738099.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1920:
Birthdate of Marion Andred the founding artistic director of The Saidy Bronfman
Centre for the Arts named for Saidye Rosner Bronfman, “the matriarch of the
Canadian-Jewish Bronfman family” who was married to Samuel Bronfman.
1920:
In Cincinnati, Philip and Jennie (Fridman) Posner gave birth to Leah Frances
Posner who as the wife of Arnold Meyer Spielberg gave birth to film maker
Steven Spielberg.
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/latimes/obituary.aspx?n=leah-frances-adler&pid=184237455
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/leah-adler-dead-mother-steven-spielberg-was-97-978312
1921:
The position of Baseball Commissioner, which had been part of the Lasker Plan
(named after its author Albert Lasker) was created. Lasker would play a key role in having Judge
Kenesaw Mountain Landis serve as the frist commissioner.
1921:
In a letter to Prime Minister Lloyd George and Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon,
Churchill summarized the view of the French government toward the
anti-Zionist.
1921:
Composer-pianist Harold Morris is scheduled to “make his New York debut at
Aeolian Hall” this afternoon
1922:
It was reported today that while speaking at the British embassy in Washington
Arthur James Balfour said “that his belief in the success of the Zionist ideals
was undiminished and that his sentiment in favor of a Jewish Palestine were the
same as in November, 1917…”
1923:
Following undercover work by federal agents Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith,
injunctions were served today on several people restraining them from further
violation of the Volstead Act including Harry Horovitz and Bernard Stein of 833
Sixth Avenue.
1924(6th
of Shevat, 5684) Parashat Bo
1924:
It was reported today that Federal Judge Know has heard an argument “on a motion to vacate an
attachment on $150,000 of Henry Ford that was obtained in an action instituted
by Herman Bernstein , editor of the Jewish Tribune for $200,000 for the
libel by Mr. Ford’s paper The Dearborn Independent which had charged
among other things that “Mr. Bernstein was a spy for international bankers who
were all said to be Jews
1924:
In Warsaw, Pola Tenenbaum and Gustav Rosenberg gave birth to WW II British Army
veteran and Oxford University graduate Shaul Ramati, the husband of Esther
Dembowski and the father of Pnina and Shlomo Ramati who reached the rank of Lt.
Colonel in the IDF while fighting in the War for Independence and who served
the Israeli government in numerous positions including tours as Ambassador to
Japan and Brazil.
1925:
Forty-four-year-old Hyman Goldstein who had arrived in the United States in
1912 and settled in Chicago became a citizen of his adopted country today.
1926: Birthdate of composer Morton Feldman.
1926(26th of Tevet, 5686): Sixty-one-year-old Martin
Behrman, who was serving his 5th terms as Mayor of New Orleans,
passed away today. A native of New York, he came to the Crescent City as an
infant and grew up in the Algiers section which was on the city’s West Bank.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F30611FE395D13738DDDAA0994D9405B868EF1D3
1927:
Middleweight Seymour ‘Cy” Schindel won his bought today by a knockout at the
Manhattan Casino.
1927: Based on reports published today Lean Paul and
her nine year old daughter Dorothy are destitute since her husband gamble Sam
Paul “died penniless.
1927: Birthdate of Leslie Eleazer Orgel, the British
chemist who created “Orgel Diagrams” which are correlation diagrams that show the
relative energies of electronic terms in transition metal complexes.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/us/05orgel.html?_r=0
1928: Birthdate of Henry Pollak, the husband of
Elain Pollak who was buried at Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol Cemetery in Ladue
1928: In the UK, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Sharp gave birth to Major David
Sharp, who was called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah Singer Hills Synagogue in
Birmingham and who was captured while serving with a British military fighting
behind the lines during the Korean War.
1929(1st of Shevat, 5689): Parashat Vaera; Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1929(1st of Shevat, 5689): Sixty-one year old Washington University graduate and
Republican party member Louis P. Aloe, the “president of A .S. Aloe, Co,
opticians” and the husband of Edith Rosenblatt with whom he had three daughter
– Clara, Viola and Louise – and who was the
St. Louis, born of son A.S. and
Isabella Hill passed away today
1929: In El Paso, TX, Eleanor and Errold Baum Lapowski gave birth to
future physical education teacher Emily Louise Lapowski the physical teacher
known as Emily Louise Schapiro.
1930: “Harmony at Home,” a comedy produced by William Fox and with music
by Samuel Kaylin was released in the United States today.
1930: According to dispatches from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
published today, “Achduth Avodah, representing the industrial workers and
Hapoel and Hazaif” joined together at a meeting in Tel Aviv last week to for
the Palestine Jewish Labor Party. Among
those sending congratulatory telegrams to the new organization were Leon Blum,
Chaim Wiexann and PIincus Rutenberg.
1931: Julius L. Meir, the son founders of the Meier and Frank Department
Store began serving as the 20th Governor of Oregon,
1932:
In the midst of dedicating the main building, Ada Maimon and 10 girls,
accompanied by a Hebrew guard, started living in Ayanot. They had to live in the cowshed for a short
time, and they were later joined by more girls until there were 70 residents.
1932(4th
of Shevat, 5692): Samuel Louis Lazaron the Atlanta, GA born husband of Zipporah
Alice DeCastro Lazaron and father of Morris Samuel Lazaron passed away today
after which he was buried in the Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery.
1932:
In Stepney, London, “Henry O’Conner, an Irish dustman” and the former Maude
Basset, “a Jewish cleaner gave birth to multi-talented entertainer Desmon
Bernard “Des” O’Connor who joked that he was “the only O’Connor to have a Bar
Mitzvah.
1933:
The newly elected officers of the Jewish Conciliation Court of America for the
year 1933 are “Dr. Israel Goldstein, President; Mrs. Rebekah Kohut, Hon. Jacob
Panken, Dr. Moses Hyamson, Vice-Presidents; Jacob R. Schiff, Treasurer; Louis
Richman, Executive Secretary.” (As reported by JTA)
1934:
“Madame Bovary” the film version of the novel by the same name with music by
Darius Milhaud was released in France today.
1935:
“The eighty-eight anniversary of the birth of the late Jacob H. Schiff, banker
and philanthropist, and the tenth anniversary of the dedication of the Jacob H.
Schiff Center is scheduled to be observed with special services at the center”
in the Bronx, “beginning this evening.”
1936:
In Mary, Efraim and Yelizaveta Malayev, a Bukharian Jewish family, gave birth
to Uzbekistani musician and poet Ilyas Malayev.
1936:
It was reported today that while the White House announced that the recent
brief meeting between President Roosevelt and Rabbi Stephen Wise “did not
concern plight of the Jews in Germany” Wise was telling reported that “it would
not be too wild a speculation to say” that they had “discussed…the plight of my
people in some European countries.”
(Editor’s note: This was one more example of the balancing act that FDR
engaged in while dealing with Isolationism and interventionism in the 30’s made
all the more acute by the fact that 1936 was an election year.)
1936:
“Testifying before the royal inquiry commission today, Haj Amin el Husseini,
Mufti of Jerusalem said Palestine Arabs’ demands were: Abandonment of the
Jewish national home policy in Palestine; Complete stoppage of Jewish
immigration; Prohibition of the sale of land to Jews; Termination of the period
of mandatory rule; A treaty between Great Britain and Palestine: the
establishment of an independent government constitutionally elected
government.” (Editor’s Note – the last item is a farce since the Arab terms
guaranteed an Arab majority and almost without exception there has never been a
democratically elected Arab government.)
1936:
“More than 1,000 delegates from the eight states comprising the Northeast
Region of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations” met today at the
Community House of Temple Emanu-El for their day long annual convention during
which the topic of discussion was “If the Synagogue Could Speak.”
1936:
Heinz Liepmann, the German author who spent time in a Nazi concentration told
“the congregation of the Free Synagogue worshipping in Carnegie Hall” this
morning that “America, the only country that Hitler respect should have refused
to send its athletes to the Olympic Games in Berline.
1936:
Dr. Jacob Isaac Niemerower, the chief rabbi Rumania who also serves as a
Senator was recovering from the wounds he suffered yesterday when he was shot
by Aurel Jonescu.
1936:
According to a report of Otto D. Tolishchus, the Pulitzer Prize winning Berlin
correspondent, published today, “because the hope for any other solution of the
Jewish question except the ultimate elimination of Jews from Germany has
disappeared there is a growing interest in moderate German quarters in the
project for a Jewish mass exodus…” (Editor’s note – this is a neutral party
writing 3 years before the killing squads began making their way across Europe
with the Nazi Army.)
1936:
“Reich Scientists Uphold Freedom” published today descried the hostility showed
by the National Socialists (Nazis) for the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the
Advancement of Science which “has refused to introduce the ‘Aryan clause’”
which would require it to “expel Jewish members.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F00815FA3455147B93C0A8178AD85F428385F9
more
2016
1937:
Solomon Blatt, Sr. the Blackville, SC born of son Russian Jewish immigrants
Nathan and Molly Blatt began serving his first term as Speaker of the South
Carolina House of Representatives.
1937:
When the Mufti expressed a belief that Jews intended, when they became a
majority in Palestine, to destroy Moslem holy places” “Earl Peel, Chairman of
the Royal Inquiry Commission reminded the Mufti that responsible Jewish bodies
had given assurance in regard to the” protection of Moslem holy places.
1937:
Judge Jonah J. Goldstein is scheduled to be installed as the president the
Grand Street Boys Association on West 55th Street tonight.
1937:
Louis K. Anspacher is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “The Discipline of
Education” this moring at the League for Political Education meeting at the
Town Hall.
1938:
The Palestine Post reported that John
Llewellyn Starkey, 50, one of the most distinguished archaeologists conducting
excavations in
and killed by a gang of Arab terrorists on the Beit Guvrin track, northwest of
ancient
discovered inscribed tablets from the period of Jeremiah. Starkey was buried in
Jerusalem.
1938:
In Bucharest, “American Minster Franklin Mott Gunther told Premier Octavian
Goga today that the United States was deeply concerned over evidences of
anti-Semitism in Rumania.
1938:
The Palestine Post reported that The
Court of Honor of the Zionist Congress found Mr. Meir Grossman of the Jewish
State Party guilty of revealing details of the secret conversation between Dr.
Chaim Weizmann and the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Ormsby Gore, on the subject of Partition.
Grossman was fined to cover the costs of the trial and deprived from
participation in the Zionist General Council for two years.
1939:
“Long-distance shots reportedly fired at a German consular official’s private
home and a legation secretary’s workroom in The Netherlands caused an outburst
of fury today in German papers which unanimously assumed the culprits must be
Jewish.” (Editor’s note – Looking for
another Kristallnacht)
1939(21st of Tevet, 5699): Forty-year-old
Grodno native Irving Pojanskywho played for varsity basketball for three years
at CCNY under the name of Projan passed away today.
1940:
The Nazis murdered 300 patients at Hordyszcze, a Polish mental health facility.
1940:
“The Shop Around The Corner,” a comedy directed and produced by Ernst Lubitsch
and with a screenplay by Samson Raphaelson and Ben Hecht was released in the
United Sates today.
1940:
Ferenc Molnár, the Hungarian born novelist and playwright who fled the Nazis,
arrived in the United States today.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FA0F1FF63F5415738DDDAB0994D9405B8888F1D3
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1952/04/03/84247680.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1941:
The New Friends of Music is scheduled to honor the late pianist Mischa Levitzki
with a chamber music concert at Town Hall.
1941:
Birthdate of Rabat, Morocco native Nessim Max Cohen who boxed in France under
the name of Max Cohen.
1941:
In the UK, “the Poale-Zion and the Zionist Federation are scheduled to hold a
joint memorial meeting” to mark the recent death of Tel Aviv’s Deputy Mayor Dov
Hos.
1942:
China joins 9 European nations in adopting a resolution calling for the trial
of Axis Leaders on charges of War Crimes.
1942:
Seventy-five of the best works of art belonging to the National Gallery
“arrived at the Biltmore, the great Vanderbilt estate in the mountains of North
Carolina where they would remain hidden until 1944.”
1942:
A message was sent to Gussie Schwebel by one Mrs. Roosevelt’s personal
secretaries acknowledging her letter of January 6 and saying that the First
Lady “wants you to know how much she appreciates your kind offer to send her a
sample of your knishes.”
1942: The first of 19,582 Odessa Jews were
transported in cattle trucks to Berezovka and then onto two concentration camps
elsewhere. Most would die within the year of starvation, cold, untreated
disease, or executions. The Jews of Odessa were no longer.
1942: While working as part of burial duty at
Chelmno, Michael Podklebnik found the remains of his wife, daughter and
son. He buried them amongst the other
corpses of those just gassed.
1943:
Over the next eight days, twenty thousand Jews are deported from
1943:
Mrs. Louis Popkin, the former Zelda Feinberg and her two sons Roy and Richard
were reported to be the immediate surviving family members of the deceased
public relations executive.
1944:
It was reported today that while visiting “American soldiers in India, the
Persian Gulf and the Middle East” Rabbi Barnett R. Brickner has “been
particularly impressed by good care taken of American soldiers.
1945:
M. Metz Cohn, a member of the Board of Review of the State Unemployment
Commission and his wife announced the engagement of their daughter Bernard
Schwartz, the manager of the Colgate University varsity basketball team.
1945: Shalom Scopas, a Jewish soldier serving with the
Soviet Army, went behind the lines of the Nazis “for what would be his
last retrieval mission.”
1945: The
Soviets began a major winter offensive against the Nazis in Eastern
Europe. This final push would help to
liberate the remnant of the Jews who had escaped the final solution including
the more than 100,000 Jews clinging to life in
1946: This morning a gang of seventy robbers took
part in a daring train hold-up that
resulted in the robbery of 35,000 pounds [about $140,000] in cash, representing
the railway staff payroll. According to officials, the robbers were Jews armed
with rifles and automatic weapons.
1946: Birthdate of Hazel Josephine Cosgrove, Lady
Cosgrove, CBE (née Aronson) the Glasgow born lawyer who was the first woman to
be appointed a Senator of the College of Justice, a judge of Scotland’s Supreme
Courts.
1947: Members of Lehi blew up a police station in
Haifa.
1947(20th of Tevet, 5707): Jonas Cohn passed away at
the age of 77 in Birmingham. The German
born professor of philosophy was forced to flee
in 1933 with the rise of the Nazis. He
settled in
continued his work.
1948: Ferenec Molnar planned to spend his 70th
birthday by “working, because it’s an old habit of mine.” He is currently
working on two plays, “Wax Works and “Games of Hearts.” While some Americans may not be acquainted
with his more than 40 dramatic works, many know the Rogers and Hammerstein
musical “Carousel” which was inspired by his play “Liliom.”
1949:
“The Smile of the World” written by Garson Kanin opened at the Lyceum Theatre
in New York City.
1949:
U.S. premiere of “CrissCross” directed by Robert Siodmak with a script by
Daniel Fuchs which featured “the screen debut of Tony Curtis.”
1949:
Gabriel Haritos, as the Mayor of Rhodes, was the local partner for the
proceedings for the initial talks between Israel, Egypt and Jordan, under the
auspices of United Nations, at the Grande Albergo delle Rose (Hotel of Roses)
in Rhodes which began today.
1950:
Birthdate of Dorit Moussaieff, “an Israeli-born British jewelry designer,
editor and businesswoman” who was the great granddaughter of Shlomo Moussaieff
“one of the founders of the Bukharim neighborhood in Jerusalem
1950(23rd
of Tevet, 5710): Producer and director John M. Stahl, a Jewish immigrant from
Baku who was one of the founding members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts
and Sciences (the Oscars), passed away today.
http://www.filmdirectorssite.com/stahl-john-m
1952
The U.N. Genocide Pact went into effect
1952(14th
of Tevet, 5712): Parashat Vayechi
1952(14th
of Tevet, 5712): Ninety-three Fanny Bonheim, the daughter of Solomon and Rachel
Lubin Weinstock, wife of Albert Bonnheim and the mother of Joseph Bonnheim
passed away today.
1952:
In Los Angeles, CA, Leroy Mosely and Ella Slatkin whose family was Jewish
immigrants from Russia, gave birth to mystery writer Walter Ellis Mosley. “In
2010, there was a debate in academic literary circles as to whether Mosley’s
work should be considered Jewish literature.”
1953:
The Jerusalem Post reported that
despite
against the British occupation of the
zone and disregarding Israeli protests that such action might bring a new war,
1953: Nine “Jewish”
physicians were arrested for “terrorist activities” in Moscow. This was part of the so-called “Doctors’
Plot” that existed only in the twisted minded of Joseph Stalin. Stalin planned to use the plot as a
springboard for creating a wave of virulent anti-Semitism in the
Stalin died before he could bring his plans to fruition.
1954: Birthdate of Howard Stern. Hey, they all can’t be Nobel Prize Winners!
1954:
Harry Shulman an immigrant Jew who came to the United States in 1912 “was named
next Dean of the Yale Law School” today
1954(8th
of Shevat, 5714): Bernard “Barney” Samuel passed away. Born in 1880, he was a Republican
Pennsylvania politician who served as mayor of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from
1941 to 1952. Samuel first won election to City Council in 1923. When in 1939
George Connell, then president of City Council, became acting mayor upon the
death of S. Davis Wilson, Samuel succeeded to the position of president pro
tempore. Upon the death in August, 1941, of Mayor Robert Eneas Lamberton,
however, Samuel assumed the mayoralty for the remainder of Lamberton’s term.
Samuel won re-election to the mayor’s office in 1943 and 1947, defeating
Democrats William C. Bullitt and Richardson Dilworth respectively, to become
the first multi-term mayor since William S. Stokley (1872–81). To date, Bernard
Samuel’s mayoralty was the longest in Philadelphia’s history. In defending the
political machine, he served, Mayor Samuel ironically prepared the city for
reform by endorsing creation of Philadelphia’s highly-touted City Planning Commission
and supporting 1947’s Better Philadelphia Exhibition, which subjected the
failures of a “corrupt and contented” Republican political machine to
harsh scrutiny and made the elections of 1949 and 1951 for city controller and
mayor, respectively, landmarks in the city’s political history. Samuel was
succeeded by reformist mayors Joseph Sill Clark, later Democratic United States
Senator, and Richardson Dilworth, later a Democratic candidate for governor of
Pennsylvania who was also mentioned as a possible Democratic presidential
candidate in 1960.] Samuel remains the last Republican elected mayor of
Philadelphia. Mayor Samuel is buried at Arlington Cemetery in suburban Drexel
Hill, Pennsylvania.
1954:
Harry A. Shulman the Russian born of Simon Shulman and Tillie Klebanoff, was
named Dean of the Yale Law School today.
1955(18th
of Tevet, 5715): Sixty-seven-year-old Pinsk born artist and Jewish Daily
Forwards cartoonist Leon Israel, who in 1905 came to the United States
where he “worked on Kundes, a comic weekly and on the Jewish Morning
Journal while raising two daughters with his wife Rose and who signed many
of his cartoons “Lola” passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1955/01/13/92842381.html?pageNumber=27
1958:
Birthdate of Haifa native Eytan, a veteran of the IAF, successful businessman
“a space tourist” described as “the second Israeli in space.”
1960:
Birthdate of Boston native Kenneth Scott “Ken” Kaplan the University of New
Hampshire alum who played Tackle for Tampa Bay and New Orleans.
1960:
“Dolph Schayes of the Syracuse Nationals became the first NBA player to surpass
15,000 career points, scoring 34 points in 127-120 victory over the Boston
Celtics.” (As reported by Bob Wechsler)
1964:
Mrs. Manuel Hollander, the widow of Manuel Hollander announced the engage of
her daughter Penny to Harvard doctoral candidate Roy E. Feldman, the future
father of legal scholar Noah R. Feldman
1966:
The 6th Knesset “started with Levi Eshkol’s Alignment forming the 13th
government today.
1966:
Golda Meir completed her service as Foreign Minister. She was the second person to hold that post
and the first women to hold it. It would
be forty years before another woman would hold this post.
1966:
Abba Eban completed his service as Deputy Prime Minister.
1966:
Shlomo-Yisrael Ben-Meir completed his service as Deputy Minister of Health.
1971: Norman Lear’s “All in the Family” premiered
on CBS featuring. Once again we find a
Jew creating an American cultural icon.
1971:
A Federal grand jury indicted Reverend Philip Berrigan and 5 others, including
a nun and 2 priests, on charges of plotting to kidnap Henry Kissinger. They were not kidnapping Kissinger because he
was Jewish. They were looking for a
dramatic way to protest the Vietnam War and Kissinger was Nixon’s leading
foreign policy advisor.
1971(15th
of Tevet, 5731): Sixty-three-year-old Philadelphian Cyrus Sol “Cy” Malis whose
major career consisted of one appearance on the mound for the hometown Phillies
passed away today.
defeated
Minnesota in Super Bowl IX at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, LA.
1973(9th
of Shevat, 5733): Sixty-nine-year-old Harry Issadore Silverman, the Polish born
son of Rachel and Jacob Silverman and the husband of Mae Silverman Eplan with
whom he had three children, passed away today in Baltimore, MD.
1977: Anti-French demonstrations took place in
released Abu Daoud, responsible 1972
massacre of Israeli athletes
1978(3rd
of Shevat, 5738): Seventy-six-year-old Arthur Sheekman the Chicago born son of
Jewish immigrants from Russia who was such a successful writer that “Groucho
Marx called him ‘The Fastest Wit in the West’” passed away today in Santa
Monica.
1978:
The Jerusalem Post reported that
Israeli-Egyptian negotiations started somewhat inauspiciously after
settlements in Sinai. There were severe differences over the agenda, and the
Egyptians did not permit the Defense Minister Ezer Weizmann to give the speech
he had prepared for the opening. In
however, President Anwar Sadat assured Rabbi Alexander Schindler “that
1982(17th of
Tevet, 5742): Sixty-three-year-old Eva Schocken Glaser, the president of
Schocken Books which published the works of Kafka and Buber, among other and
who had married Julius Glaser after the death of her first husband Theodore
Herzl Rom passed away. (Editor’s note: JWA reported her age as 64 but we have
used the age given by the NYT)
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/schocken-eva
1985(19th of
Tevet, 5745): Parashat Shemot
1985: Michael Armand
Hammer, the son of Julian Armand Hammer and the grandson of Armand Hammer of
Occidental Petroleum fame married Dru Ann Mobley in Tulsa after having
converted to Christianity.
1985(19th of
Tevet, 5745): Ninety-seven-year-old Joshua Hensel Altfeld, the husband Goldie
Altfeld and older brother of to Emanuel Milton Altfeld, a member of the
Maryland House of Delegates from 1914 to 1916 and a member of the Maryland
State Senate from 1930 to 1934 who was the author The Jew’s Struggle for
Religious and Civil Liberty in Maryland passed away today in Owings Mills,
MD and was later interred in the B’nai Israel Congregational Cemetery in
Baltimore, MD.
1986(2nd of Shevat,
5746): Hinko Bauer, the Croatian-Jewish architect who fought with the Partisans
in WW II and survived Dachau passed away today.
1988: Eighty-four-year-old
Hiram Bingham, the American diplomat who worked with Varian Fry to save over
2,500 Jews in France from falling into the hands of the Nazis.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Binghams-List.html
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Binghams-List.html
1989(6th of
Shevat, 5749): Ninety-five year old Paula Ackerman passed away today in
Thomaston, GA
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0001_0_00358.html
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/ackerman-paula
1989: In
“Soviet-Israeli Diplomacy Is Winner in a Court Test,” published today, Esther
B. Fein describes the significance of the fact that an Israeli basketball team
was playing on a court in the Soviet Union for the first time 21 years. The game represents a major step in the
normalization of relations between the Soviet Union and Israel. Even more
amazing than the game itself was the scene at courtside where “blue-and-white
Israeli flags, large ones draped from poles, small paper ones, homemade ones
painted on sheets were being waved to Hebrew chants of ”Am Yisrael chai!” –
The people of Israel lives! – and ”Hevenu shalom aleichem!” – We bring you
peace! -and to loud cries of Mac-CA-bee! Tonight’s game seemed less a sports
event than an occasion for Soviet Jews to flaunt their pride in Israel. Stars
of David and medallions with the word ”chai,” Hebrew for life, were worn
proudly. Heads bared of fur hats were covered with yarmulkes. Hebrew folk songs
rang out spontaneously. People greeted one another by saying ”shalom.” Soviet
officials said 175 Israeli fans had been issued visas to attend the game, but
the loudest Hebrew cheers in the audience appeared to come from Soviet Jews.
1990: In “Mencken Just
Plain Antisemitism” published today Doris Grumbach examines the bigotry of
author H.L Mencken.
1990: Richard Shepard
reviewed ‘‘The Return,” Frederic Glover’s play at the Jewish Repertory Theater
about conflict between two leading Zionists – Chaim Weismann and David
Ben-Gurion.
1993(19th of Tevet,
5753): Eighty-six-year-old Yehezkel Streichman, the Kovno native who became an
award winning Israeli artist passed away today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehezkel_Streichman#mediaviewer/File:Streichman_001.jpg
1993: Mervyn Taylor
began serving as Minister for Labour in Ireland.
1993: “Paul William
Mozer an American former Treasury bond trader for Salomon Brothers who was
represented by attorney Stanley Arkin was indicted by a federal grand jury,
that was the first step in a legal process that led to him being sentenced to
four months in prison and fined thirty thousand dollars.
1994(29th of Tevet,
5754): Moshe Becker of Rishon Le-Zion was stabbed to death by three Palestinian
terrorist employees while working in his orchard. The Popular Front claimed
responsibility for the murder.
1994(29th of
Tevet, 5754): Eighty-five-year-old producer and director Samuel Bronstein, the
nephew of Leon Trotsky passed away today.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-samuel-bronston-1408086.html
1995: Harry Schwarz
whose family fled Germany in 1934 and who was an active opponent of Apartheid
completed his service as South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States.
1996: “Bio-Dome,” a
comedy starring Pauly Shore and featuring Jack Black was released today in the
United States.
1996: On the 80th
birthday of cellist William Pleeth, “a celebration concert was given for him by
friends and students in the Wigmore Hall.”
1997: The New York Times book section features
a review of Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood by Binjamin
Wilkomirski, a Holocaust survivor who was born to a Jewish family in Latvia in
1941 and was rescued from Auschwitz at the age of five.
1998(14th of
Tevet, 5758): American born poet and Professor of English Lit at Hebrew
University passed away today.
http://robert_friend.tripod.com/id1.html
2000: “The William
Pleeth Memorail Concert was held in London” featuring performances by his son
Anthony and his granddaughters Tatty Teho and Lucy Theo.
2001: The University of
Pennsylvania Law School announces that during the spring semester Harry
Reicher, a University of
adjunct law professor, will teach “Law and the Holocaust,” a course
which has been termed a world first. Reicher, an Australian expert in the study
of international law, was born in
2002(28th of
Tevet, 5672) Parashat Vaera
2002: By the end of
this week “a new trial had been ordered for two black men convicted in the
fatal stabbing of a Hasidic Jew in 1991 in racial rioting in Crown Heights,
Brooklyn. A federal appeals court ruled that the judge at the trial of Lemrick
Nelson Jr. and Charles Price had improperly manipulated jury selection so that
there would not be too many African-American jurors and two few Jews.
2003: The New York Times featured reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Lucy
by Ellen Feldman
2003(9th of
Shevat, 5763): Vic Zimet, “the captain of the boxing team at CCNY and “a
teacher and administrator in the New York public school system “who “in 1986
named Coach of the Year by the National Amateur Boxing Federation” passed away
today.
https://www.worldcat.org/title/papers-and-memorabilia-of-vic-zimet-192-200-196-199/oclc/422624009
2004: “Israel’s
president, Moshe Katsav, issued an invitation today to the Syrian president,
Bashar al-Assad, to come to Jerusalem, but Syria rebuffed the offer as a
stunt.”
2005: It was reported
today that the United Nations “would hold a special session of the General
Assembly on Jan. 24 to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi
concentration camps, the first time it has officially commemorated the event.’
2005: Jean-Marie Le Pen
was quoted today “as saying that the Nazi occupation of France “was not
particularly inhuman, even if there were blunders…”
2006: Jewish political
leader Steve Rothman was featured on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report,
in Stephen Colbert’s part nine of the “Better Know A District”
segment, which highlighted Rothman and
9th District.
2007: Theo Epstein
married Marie Whitney today but not at Nathan’s Hot Dog Stand as erronolsy
reported by the Boston Globe which apparently fell “for a prank by Theo’s
father Leslie.”
2007: Kassam rockets
were fired from the Gaza Strip at southern
as IDF troops operating in
and the
safely detonated two bombs.
2007: “Alpha Dog” a
crime thriller starring Anton Yelchin was released in the United States today.
2007: Author E.L.
Doctrow spoke at
for a Jewish Supreme Court Justice where he was questioned by an avid audience
of African American, Latino and Asian American students. “Only in America.”
2008: “Four days before
her 103rd birthday,” Jackson, KY native Rosalie Friedman Birnbaum
who converted to Christianity at the age of 16, married Professor Solomon
Birnbaum in 1927 and became the director of Bethel, “a children’s home in
Haifa” in 1959 passed away today.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/21/AR2008012102077.html
2008: In a tribute to
the vitality of small community Judaism, Shecharya Flatte celebrates his Bar
Mitzvah at Agudas Achim Congregation in
2008: “Yud Shevat” Yahrtzeit observances begin. The Hebrew letter has the numerical
value of “10.” Since the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe passed away on the tenth day
of the month of Shevat the anniversary of his passing is called “Yud Shevat. Chabad-Lubavitch Chassidim observe the special
customs of the Shabbat prior to the yahrzeit (anniversary of the
passing) of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn
(1880-1950), which occurs next week, on the 10th of Shevat,
Schneerson, the son-in-law of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe wrote the following
instructions for how this Yahrzeit should be observed. For those who know Lubavitch only through
elements of its outreach program including the Mitzvah Mobiles and the public
Chanukah Menorah lightings, the instructions provide an interesting view of the
wondrous and wonderful rituals and philosophy that are part of Chabad. “On the
Shabbat before the yahrzeit, each should try to be called up to the Torah for
an aliyah. If there are not enough aliyot, the Torah should be read a number of
times in different rooms. However, no additions should be made to the number of
aliyot per reading. The one who is honored with Maftir should be the most
respected congregant, as determined by the majority; alternatively, the choice
may be determined by lot. The congregation should choose someone to lead the
prayers on the day of the yahrzeit. It is proper to divide the honor, choosing
one person to lead the evening service (Ma’ariv), a second to lead the morning
service (Shacharit), and a third – the afternoon service (Mincha). In this way
a greater number of community members will have the privilege. A yahrzeit
candle should be lit that will burn for the entire twenty-four hours. If
possible, the candle should be of beeswax. Five candles should be lit
throughout the prayer services. After each prayer service (in the morning
service—following the reading of Psalms), the one leading the prayers should
study (or at least conclude the study of) the following selections from the
Mishnah: Chapter 24 of Keilim and chapter 7 of Mikvaot. He should then recite
the Mishnah “Rabbi Chananyah ben Akashya…,” followed silently by a
few lines of Tanya and Kaddish de Rabbanan. After Ma’ariv, part of the
discourse (maamar) entitled Basi LeGani, which the Rebbe released for the day
of his passing, should be recited from memory. If there is no one to do this
from memory, it should be studied from the text. This should be continued after
Shacharit, and the discourse should be concluded after Mincha. Before
Shacharit, a chapter of Tanya should be studied. This should also be done after
Mincha. In the morning, before prayer, charity should be given to causes
associated with our Nasi, my revered father-in-law, of sainted memory.
Donations should be made on behalf of oneself and on behalf of each member of
one’s family. The same should be done before Mincha. After Shacharit and the
recitation of the maamar, each individual should read a pidyon nefesh. (It goes
without saying that a gartl should be worn during the reading.) Those who have
had the privilege of being received by the Rebbe in yechidut, or at least of
seeing his face, should—while reading the pidyon nefesh—envision themselves as
standing before him. The pidyon nefesh should then be placed between the pages
of a discourse maamar or other pamphlet of the Rebbe’s teachings, and sent, if
possible on the same day, to be read at his graveside. In the course of the day
one should study chapters of Mishnah that begin with the letters of the Rebbe’s
name. In the course of the day one should participate in a Chassidic gathering
(farbrengen). In the course of the day one should set aside a time during which
to tell one’s family about the Rebbe, and about the spiritual tasks at which he
toiled throughout his life. In the course of the day, people (to whom this task
is appropriate) should speak at synagogues and houses of study in their cities
and cite a saying or an adage from the Rebbe’s teachings. They should explain
how he loved every Jew. They should make known and explain the practice that he
instituted of reciting Psalms every day, studying the daily portion of Chumash with
the commentary of Rashi, and (to appropriate audiences) studying the Tanya as
he divided it into daily readings throughout the year. If possible this should
all be done in the course of a farbrengen. In the course of the day, people
(who are fit for the task) should visit centers of observant youth — and, in a
neighborly spirit, should make every endeavor to also visit centers for the
young people who are not yet observant — in order to explain to them the great
love that the Rebbe had for them. It should be explained to these people what
the Rebbe expected from them, his hope for them and the trust that he placed in
them that they would ultimately fulfill their task of strengthening Judaism and
disseminating the study of Torah with all the energy, warmth and vitality that
characterize youth.”
2009: The American Jewish Historical Society, the
Center for Jewish History and Jewish Heritage present: “The Lifecycles of New
York Jews: Little Disturbances and Enormous Changes.” This is the first in a series of staged literary evenings
that will depict the complex and ever-surprising lives of
star Kathleen Chalfant will be joined by Matt Rauch, Jerry Matz and Robert
Zukerman to pay tribute to authors Grace Paley and J. D. Salinger.
Gabriel Brownstein will read from his Hemingway/PEN Award-winning
fiction. A sample of a work-in-progress documentary film portrait of
Grace Paley by Lilly Rivlin will be shown.
2009:
The Canadian dance troupe La La La
Human Steps takes part in the Dance at the Mishkan series by performing Edouard
Lock’s newest piece, Amjad, a marriage and contemporary reinvention of
two of Tchaikovsky’s most famous works,
and Sleeping Beauty at The Performing Arts Center in Tel Aviv.
2009: Edward Kritzler discusses, and signs copies of his latest book entitled
Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews
Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious
Freedom–and Revenge at the D.C. Jewish Community Center.
2009: Haaretz reported on demonstrations around the world that have been held in
support of Israel’s cross-border military action. According to the paper,
nearly 1,000 people in Mexico City demonstrated over the weekend in favor of
Israel and its war effort.
2009 (16 Tevet): Rabbi Alan Lew, who was known for his efforts to
bridge Judaism and Buddhist teachings, died unexpectedly. Lew, the retired
spiritual leader of San Francisco’s Congregation Beth Sholom, died Monday while
jogging, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. He was 65. Synagogue
officials told JTA that he was in Baltimore teaching at the Jewish Theological
Seminary’s rabbinic training institute. Lew was the author of “One God
Clapping: The Spiritual Path of a Zen Rabbi.” Before joining the Conservative
rabbinate he spent 10 years studying Zen Buddhism, and later pioneered the use
of meditation to enhance Jewish spirituality. The rabbi also was a social
justice activist who protested executions at San Quentin penitentiary and
argued for the homeless and poor at City Hall, according to Rabbi Micah Hyman,
the current spiritual leader at Beth Sholom.
2009: Several news
outlets reported that Julius Genachowski would be President-Elect Obama’s
choice to head the FCC.
His father’s
cousin, Menachem Genack, is the CEO of the Orthodox Union Kosher Division.
2009: Jason Kander began
serving as a Member of the Missouri House of Representatives from the 44th
District” today.
2010: Father Patrick Desbois who has spent a
lifetime documenting the Holocaust was honored today by Alan Solow Chairman of
the President’s Conference and by Malcolm Hoenlein, the group’s executive vice
chairman who presented him with an etching of a dove.
2010: The first class of a four-part series entitled “Why
Be Jewish” is scheduled to be taught tonight by Dr. Erica Brown at The Sixth
& I Historic Synagogue. This four-part series will explore modern Jewish
identity in America through self-reflection, an exploration of stereotyping, case
studies, and classic Jewish texts. The four classes include: “You as a Jew,”
“Stereotypes Make Life Easy,” “Jewish Foods, Jewish Moods,” and “Jewish Values:
Seeking and Finding.”What do Barbie and Borat have in common?
2010: Steve Luxenberg, a
senior editor at The Washington Post, is scheduled to discuss and sign his
memoir “Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret” at the Jewish
Community Center of Greater Washington in Rockville, MD.
2010: The Hebrew Language Table of the Library of
Congress presents a lecture by Dr. Maurice Roumani entitled “North African
Jewry during WWII: The Holocaust and its Impact.”
2010(26th of Tevet, 5770): Shirley
Bell Cole passed away. From 1930 to
1940, she was the primary radio voice for Little Orphan Annie. (As reported by
Dennis Hevesi)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/arts/30cole.html
2010: Pope Benedict XVI should be welcomed when he visits
Rome’s main synagogue, but he should halt moves to beatify wartime pontiff Pius
XII, criticized for not doing enough to stop the Holocaust, a former chief
rabbi of Israel said today. Israel Meir Lau, a Holocaust survivor and now chief
rabbi of Tel Aviv, said Benedict’s synagogue visit Sunday would be
“appreciated and blessed.” But in an interview with Italy’s Sky TG24
television, he said he was “surprised” by Benedict’s decision last
month to move the controversial World War II-era pope closer to sainthood.
2011: The New York Jewish Film Festival is
scheduled to begin tonight, marking the 20th year of the event.
2011: Rami Kleinstein & ISRAMERICA are scheduled to
perform at The City Winery in New York City.
2011: CMJ UK is scheduled
to hold a memorial service for Kristine Lukenin today at Southwell, north of
Nottingham. Lukenin was one of two women who were stabbed as they took a
Shabbat walk near Beit Shemesh. Her friend, Givat Ze’ev resident Kay Wilson was
seriously wounded.
CMJ is the
Church’s Ministry Among Jewish People, which promotes Messianic Judaism.
2011: The New York Times featured a review of Dueling Writers Take
on Each Other and the World co-authored by Bernard-Henri Lévy.
2011: The Knesset
approved a preliminary reading of the “Jerusalem Law” proposed by MK
Uri Ariel (National Union). The bill, which was supported by the government,
determines that Jerusalem will become a priority area, and that the grants will
be awarded to young couples in the city. In addition, the city will receive a
special bonus
2011:
“Mahler on the Couch,” a lush fictionalization of a 1910 meeting between
composer Gustav Mahler and psychologist Sigmund Freud, opened the New York
Jewish Film Festival
2012:
Eric Garcetti completed his terms as the 22nd President of the Los
Angeles City Council.
2012:
“His Wife’s Lover” is scheduled to shown at the Yiddish Film Series in
Santander, Spain.
2012:
Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to present “Poetics of Place – Readings
with Drunken Boat, Tin House and Conjunctions.”
2012:
Donna Karan is scheduled to join Fern Mallis at 92Y for a coffee klatch today,
where the two fashion industry powerhouses will talk shop–and, of course,
shopping
2012:
The Israeli Defense Forces demolished the illegal West Bank outpost Mitzpe
Avichai near Kiryat Arba, in the early hours of this morning.
2012:
IDF tanks opened fire on a terror cell operating east of the al-Bureij refugee
camp in central Gaza late tonight, Palestinian sources said..
2012:
“We, the State of Israel, should say thank you to immigrants from Ethiopia
and not vice versa,” President Shimon Peres said today during a visit to a
school in Jerusalem
2012:
“The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” opened tonight at the Richard Rogers Theatre in
New York.
2013(1st
of Shevat, 5733): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
2013:
Eighty-three-year-old “Leon Leyson, the youngest Holocaust survivor on
Schindler’s list passed away today in Los Angeles.
http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Youngest-Schindlers-list-survivor-dies-at-83
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/14/local/la-me-leon-leyson-20130114
2013:
Magen David Sephardic Congregation is scheduled to host “Path to Jerusalem”
which will let attendees “visit Israel in the heart of Rockville, MD” with
music, coffee and pasties.
2013:
“How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire” is scheduled to be shown at The New York
Jewish Film Festival.
2013:
The Minneapolis (MN) Jewish Humor Festival is schedule to open for the 4th
year in a row tonight.
2013:
“The Best of Chamber Music” featuring a performance of Dvorak Piano Quintet of
opus 81 in A major is scheduled to be
performed at the Eden-Tamir Music Center.
2013:
Avraham Heffner’s “The Winchell Affair” is scheduled to be shown at the
Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2013:
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef suffered a mild stroke this morning during the
Sabbath-morning prayer service
2013:
Jan Fischer lost in his bid to become the first Jew to be elected President of
the Czech Republic.
http://forward.com/articles/169174/jewish-candidate-loses-czech-presidential-race/
2014:
At Agudas Achim, Nancee Blum is scheduled to present “To Buy or Not to Buy” a
program about compulsive shopping.
2014:
In Ashburn, VA, Beth Schafter is scheduled to perform at Beth Chaverim.
2014:
JCCNV is scheduled to present the final performance of “Mister Benny.”
2014:
“Mamele” and “The Zigzag Kid” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish
Film Festival.
2014:
The New York Times features reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including Andrew’s Brain by E.L. Doctorow and The Exiles Return
by Elisabeth de Waal
2014:
“The Ministerial Committee on Legislation approved today a bill forbidding the
use of Nazi symbols and labels.”
2014:
In Burlington, VT, Rabbi Aryeh Azriel of Temple Israel in Omaha officiated at
the funeral services for Vermont State Senator Sally G. Fox at Temple Sinai.
2014:
Israel is scheduled to bid farewell to former prime minister and one of the
most prominent commanders of all times today. The casket of Israel’s 11th prime
minister Ariel Sharon will be placed in the Knesset Plaza from 12:00 noon until
18:00 so the public can pay its last respects. (As reported by Moran Azulay)
2014:
A steady stream of people walked up the hill to the Israeli parliament, through
metal detectors and along the path that led to the coffin of one of Israel’s
most controversial and iconic Prime Ministers. The coffin was draped in an
Israeli flag, surrounded by wreaths, and attended by an honor guard. A rabbi
read psalms quietly as the crowd walked by.
2014:
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called on Israel today to
halt all construction in the West Bank immediately and said the building of
settlements was detrimental to the ongoing peace talks between Israel and the
Palestinians.
2015:
The Grammy-winning band The Klezmatics is scheduled to perform from the
original score they composed for the exhibition Letters to Afar in the MCNY
gallery.
2015:
JTA European Bureau Chief Cnaan Liphshiz (reporting from France) and Senior
Correspondent Uriel Heilman (in New York) are scheduled to participate in
telephone call-in presentation where they will “discuss the situation in France
and Europe.”
2015:
Mitchell Bard, the Executive Director of the American Israeli Cooperative
Enterprise is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitle “The Global Jihad”
sponsored by the Tulane University Jewish Studies Department.
2015:
Professor Abe Lavendar is scheduled to deliver a lecture “Descendants of the
Secret Jews of Iberia: Their Current Return to Judaism” as the Jewish Museum of
Florida.
2015:
Professor Anita Shapira, author of Ben-Gurion: Father of Modern Israel
is scheduled to deliver a lecture at the Jewish Community Center in Washington,
DC.
2015:
The French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said France will deploy nearly
5,000 security forces and police to protect 700 Jewish schools following last
week’s terrorist attacks on HyperCacher, the Paris kosher market.
2015:
“Faina Kirshenbaum stepped down as a member of Knesset today in light of a
corruption scandal that has rocked her Yisrael Beytenu party in the past few
weeks.” (As reported by Judah Ari Gross)
2015:
Three days after an attack on HyperCacher kosher mart in Porte de Vincennes,
the owner, Patrice Walid, who was wounded in the attack made known his
intentions to take his five kids and immigrate to Israel as soon as he is
discharged from the hospital. (As reported by Avi Lewis)
2016:
The Cornelia Street Café is scheduled to host the third and final day of the
Israeli Jazz Fest featuring “Dida” and the “Ziv Ravitz Trio.”
2016:
The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to tour of
“the exhibition ‘Esther Bubley Up Front’ featuring the works by the famous
Jewish photographer Esther Bubley.”
2016:
“Strange Fruit” is scheduled to be shown at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center
for Holocaust Education.
2017(14th
of Tevet, 5777): Fifty-five-year-old Israeli musician “died from cancer” today
“in Hemed.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/meir-banai-55-led-israeli-music-into-a-more-soulful-space/
2017:
The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host the NYC premiere of
“There Are Jews” the Brach Lichtenstein film that “tells the stories of once
thriving Jewish American towns that now can barely hold a minyan, focusing on
the residents lamenting the gradual disappearance of their communities, and
critically examining issues of class, family, and identity.”
2017:
The Oxford University Jewish Society hosted its “Extraordinary General
Meeting.”
2017:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “No Man’s Land: Jewish
Refugees on the Borders of East-Central Europe in 1938” in which Michal Frankl
“will speak on expulsions of Jews in 1938 and offer perspectives on the
implications of the East-Central European No Man’s Land.”
2017:
“Aida’s Secrets” and “Mr. Gaga” are scheduled to be shown at the New York
Jewish Film Festival.
2017:
Defense Secretary-designate James Mattis said today, “that the United States
should continue treating Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital” thus “breaking with the
Republic members of Congress and Donald Trump” who pledged to move the US
embassy to Jerusalem during last falls elections.
2018:
In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah is scheduled to host Musical Shabbat.
2018:
“Residents of Nablus threw Molotov cocktails at Israeli troops searching for
“the perpetrators of a lethal terror attack in which an Israeli father of six
was gunned down” while driving down a nearby highway two nights ago.
2018:
As students return for Hilary, the Oxford University Jewish Society is
scheduled to host Kabbalat Shabbat followed by Shabbat Dinner.
2018:
Four of men were arrested today “in connection a firebomb attack on a historic
synagogue in Tunisia.”
2018:
In Memphis, TN, is scheduled to host a special Musical Shabbat as part of the
observance MLK Day.
2019(6th
of Shevat, 5779): Pararshat Bo;
2019:
Despite the “government shutdown,” the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
is scheduled to be open today “from 10 a.m. to 5:20 p.m.”
2019:
In Coralville, IA, Mya Witt is scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bat
Mitzvah at Agudas Achim.
2019:
The New York City premiere of “Echo,” starring Yael Abecassis and Yoram
Toledano is scheduled to take place this evening at the Walter Reade Theatre.
2020:
The New York Times features reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including Supreme Ambition: Brett Kavanagh and the Conservative Takeover
by Ruth Marcus
2020:
As winter snow grips Iowa, in Des Moines the Engman Camp is scheduled to host
its “Shalom Pre-Summer Party.”
2020:
In San Francisco, the Jewish Community Library is scheduled to host “How Old is
the Bible?! During which Ron Hendel of UC Berkeley Jewish studies talks about
dating the Bible and understanding aspects of its historical and contemporary
significance.”
2020:
In Atlanta, as part of its Bearing Witness program, the Bremen Museum is
scheduled to host a talk by Auschwitz survivor Helen Weingart.
2020:
The American Sephardi Association is scheduled to celebrate International
Ladino Day with Prof. Gloria Ascher, who has taught courses in Ladino at Tufts
University for 17 years; Prof. Dina Danon, whose Stanford University Press book
brings Izmir’s Ottoman Jewish community to life; two scenes from a New York
Ladino play; a panel of Generation Y and Z Ladino enthusiasts; The Elias Ladino
Ensemble and Sarah Aroeste.
2020:
At the Illinois Holocaust Museum, the exhibition “Memory Unearthed which offers
a rare glimpse of resistance inside the Lodz Ghetto during World War II through
the lens of Polish Jewish photojournalist Henryk Ross” is scheduled to come to
a close.
2020:
In Natick, MA, Temple Israel is scheduled to host “” Chloe Valdary, a leading
voice among pro-Israel activists, will speak on “Zionism: Jewish Empowerment.”
2021:
The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience is scheduled to present the second
session of the writers’ workshop “Tell Your Sephardi-Mizrahi Story” with
award-winning author Gila Green.
2021:
In Palm Beach Gardens, FL Temple Judea, is scheduled to host via ZOOM “Cuba –
History, Culture and Jewish Life.”
2021:
The Temple Eamnu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host Dr. Sanjay Gupta as
he discusses his new book Keep Shart.
2021:
Judaism Your Way in Colorado is scheduled to host “Charoset from around the
world – Sephardic and others,” part of its series of virtual cooking classes on
how to make Jewish comfort food.
2021:
The choices facing Israeli voters today would seem to be more confused than
ever following yesterday’s call by “Blue and White leader Benny Grant” for
“center-left parties to unite in a bid to oust Prime Minister Netanyahu” which
Avigdor Liberman dismissed saying that Gantz had missed his opportunity be
prime minister and that “the only thing he can now for the country is to
announce he is not running for Knesset.
2022:
The American Friends of the Rabin Medical Center is scheduled Global to presents
panelists David Ignatius (Washington Post), Michael Oren (former Israeli
ambassador), Roya Hakakian (Iran Human Rights Documentation Center founder) and
David Horovitz (Times of Israel) as they discuss online “Iran: What To Do
Next?”
2022:
“The Jewish Museum and Film at Lincoln Center are scheduled to present the
opening of the 31st annual New York Jewish Film Festival.
2022:
Based on previously published reports starting today Israel will cut the
compulsory quarantine period for individuals diagnosed with coronavirus who no
longer display symptoms from ten to just seven days.
2022:
The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present Dr. Shir Klein “who
will be discussing her new book, Italy’s Jews from Emancipation to Fascism.
2022:
In California, Congregation Ner Shalom is scheduled to host class led by
rabbinic pastor Judith Goleman that examines Jewish prayer language, teachings
from the Baal Shem Tov and other Kabbalistic/Hasidic sources to support a
process of deepening self-love and self-acceptance.
2023:
LBI and the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present Andrew Meier will
discuss his book Morgenthau new family biography that chronicles how the Morgenthaus amassed a
fortune in Manhattan real estate, advised presidents, advanced the New Deal,
exposed the Armenian genocide, rescued victims of the Holocaust, waged war in
the Mediterranean and Pacific, and, from a foundation of private wealth, built
a dynasty of public service. with journalist Kati Marton.
2023:
In New Orleans, the Jewish Community Center is scheduled to host two screening
of “The Levy’s of Monticello, a documentary film that tells the little-known
story of the Levy family, which owned and carefully preserved Monticello for
nearly a century, far longer than Jefferson or his descendants.
2023:
After announcements made yesterday, today, the Knesset will be considering draft
bills that will remake Israel’s judicial system and strictly limit the High
Court of Justice’s authority of judicial review over Knesset legislation and
executive action and “a triage plan to combat the high cost of living designed to
freeze or reduce price hikes affecting core utilities, fuel and municipal
property taxes.”
2024:
In Metairie, LA, Chabad is scheduled to host a Shabbat Dinner for Israelis and
“Hebrew speakers.”
2024: Kan Kol Hamuska is scheduled to
broadcast live a Young Artists Concert with cellist Nahar Eliaz and pianist
Amir Ron.
2024: The staff of the Center for Jewish
History’s Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute are scheduled to host
the first session of a 10-week online genealogy course, suitable for beginners
and anyone interested in reviewing the basics
2024: As January 12th begins in Israel,
the Hamas held hostages begin day 98 in captivity. (Editor’s note: this
situation is too fluid for this blog to cover so we are just providing a
snapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time.)
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