This Day, October 16, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
OCTOBER 16
521 BCE (10th of Tishrei): Darius, the
Persian monarch under whose rule the Second Temple was completed, and six
companions killed another claimant to throne and cemented his position as
ruling monarch.
912: Abd-ar-Rahman III began his reign as Emir of
Cordoba. The Emir appointed Hasdai ibn Shaprut to serve as his physician. Their relationship developed to the extent
that the Jewish physician became the confidant and advisor to the Muslim ruler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasdai_ibn_Shaprut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_ar-Rahman_III
976: Sixty-one year old Al-Hakam II the second Caliph of Córdoba, whose subjects
included Enoch Ben Moses, who followed his father as Rabbi of Cordoba and whose
students included Samuel ha-Nagid passed away today.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5777-enoch-ben-moses
996:
Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim who “ordered…Jews to wear wooden calves around their
necks” began his reign today.
1384: Jadwiga, the youngest daughter of Louis I of
Hungary is crowned King of Poland. In 1385, she married Wladislaus II which
meant that Lithuania was united with the kingdom of Poland. Now the rights
enjoyed by Polish Jews would be extended to Lithuanian Jews.
1529:
Suleiman the Magnificent gives up on the siege of Vienna which means that
a large section of central Europe and all of Western Europe will remain under
Christian domination as opposed to becoming part of Muslim Empire.
1590(27th of Tishrei, 5351, OS): Roman
born “physician and Talmudic authority” Eliezer Isaac Cohen ben Abraham, the
brother-in-law of David de Pomis both of whom were “distinguished in medicine
and rabbinical literature” passed away today.
1649: The American colony of Maine passed legislation
granting religious freedom to all its citizens, on condition that those of
contrary religious persuasions behave acceptably. This early evidence of religious tolerance
demonstrates why Jews would flourish in the land that would become the United
States.
1655(25th of Tishrei, 5416): Joseph
Solomon Delmedigo a rabbi, author, physician, mathematician, and music theorist
passed away. Born in Candia, Crete in 1591 he moved to Padua, Italy, throughout
most Europe and North Africa, and finally died in Prague. Yet in his lifetime
wherever he sojourned he earned his living as a physician and or teacher. His
only known works are Elim (Palms), dealing with mathematics, astronomy, the
natural sciences, and metaphysics, as well as some letters and essays. He
followed the lectures by Galileo Galilei, during the academic year 1609-1610.
Elim (1629, published by Menasseh ben Israel, Amsterdam) is written in Hebrew,
in response to 12 general and 70 specific religious and scientific questions
sent to Delmedigo by a Karaite Jew, Zerach ben Natan from Troki (Lithuania).
The format of the book is taken from the number of fountains and palm trees at
Elim in the Sinai Peninsula, as given in Numbers, xxxiii, 9: since there are 12
fountains and 70 palm trees at Elim, Delmedigo divided his book into twelve
major problems and seventy minor problems. The subjects discussed include
astronomy, physics, mathematics, medicine, and music theory. In the area of
music, Delmedigo discusses the physics of music including string resonance,
intervals and their proportions, consonance and dissonance.
1655(15th
of Tishrei, 5416): Sukkoth
1655(15th
of Tishrei, 5416): Sixty-four year old Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, passed
away. A native of Crete, he was known
for his work as a philosopher, mathematician, physician and the author of Elim
(Palms) a wide ranging tome on numerous scientific subjects.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0005_0_05064.html
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5068-delmedigo-joseph-solomon
1656:
Thomas Burton, who recorded Oliver Cromwell’s assurance to Antonio Fernandez
Carvajal that Jews could return to England in his famous diary appeared before
parliament where he successfully defended himself against “a charge of
disaffection towards the existing government.
1660:
Sixty-two year old English preacher and political leader Hugh Peters who
supported the ideas of Roger Williams which included “writing on behalf of the
toleration of Jews” was hanged, drawn and quartered today.
1679:
Fifty-seven year old Roger Boyle, the 1st Early of Orrery, the
Anglo-Irish dramistis who works included “Herod The Great” and “Tryphon” which “enacted
the story of the pretender to the throne of Syria in the 2nd century BC as related
by Josephus in History of the Jews and in the First Book of Maccabees
passed away today.
1752: Sampson Lazarus and his wife gave birth to
Brandy Lazarus who married Joshua Issacs in 1781 at Lancaster, PA.
1753: Birthdate of Johann G. Eichhorn, the German Old
Testament scholar who was a pioneer in “higher criticism,” which
evaluated Scripture through literary analysis and historical evidence, rather
than by the unquestioned authority of systematized religious tradition as can
be seen in his seminal work Introduction to the Old Testament.
1769(15th
of Tishrei, 5530): Sukkoth
1769:
Birthdate of Sara Binswanger, who had four children with her first husband
David Wolf Bernheim and two children with her second husband Abraham Dreifus.
1773:
In Braunschweig, Rabbi Meyer Hall and his wife Hale gave birth to their third
son Samuel Meyer Ehrenberg the director of the Jewish Samson School in
Wolfenbuttel.
1777(15th
of Tishrei, 5538): First Day Sukkoth
observed as the British burned Kingston, NY in what was a spinoff of the
ill-fated (for the British) Saratoga Campaign which was a turning point in the
American Revolution.
1779:
In Charleston, SC, Sarah De La Motta and Levi Sheftall, a member of one of the
leading southern Jewish families gave birth to Isaac Sheftall who died the
following summer.
1780(17th
of Tishrei, 5541): Third Day of Sukkoth observed on the same during the
American Revoltuion that “Lieutenant Houghton of the British Army’s 53rd
Regiment of Foot and a single Grenadier, along with 300 Mohawk warriors from
the Kahnawake Reserve in the British province of Quebec, attacked and burned
the towns of Royalton, Sharon and Tunbridge along the White River in eastern
Vermont.”
1783:
Birthdate of Jeanette Wohl, the native of Frankurt am Main who “was a longtime
friend and correspondent of Ludwig Börne.”
1788(15th
of Tishrei, 5549): Sukkoth
1793:
Judah Moses married Polly Levy at the Great Synagogue.
1794(22nd
of Tishrei, 5555): Shemini Atzeret
1794:
In London, Mosseh and Judith de Castro gave birth to Hananeel de Castro, the
husband of Deborah de Jacob Mendes da Costa and President of the Board of
Deputies of British Jews who was “among the first to urge Sir Moses Montefiore
to journey to the East” to intervene during the blood libels at Damascus in
1840
1796(14th
of Tishrei, 5557): Erev Sukkoth observed for the last time during the
Presidency of George Washington.
1805(23rd
of Tishrei, 5566): Simchat Torah celebrated on the same day that Lewis and
Clark “negotiated the last of the Snake River and arrived on the Columbia River
as they continued their exploration of the Louisiana Territory.
1809:
In Germany, Johanna Grunebaum and David Jacob Felsenthal gave birth to Jacob A.
Felsentahl who settled in Chicago before he passed away.
1810(18th
of Tishrei, 5571): Fourth Day of Sukkoth
1810:
(18th Tishrei), 5571 Nachman of Breslov also known as Reb Nachman of Bratslav, Nachman from Uman, or simply as Rebbe Nachman (in local Yiddish reb Nokhmen Broslever) passed away.
“Born in 1772, he was the founder of the Breslov Hasidic dynasty.Born at a time
when the influence of his great-grandfather, the Baal Shem Tov, was waning,
Rebbe Nachman breathed new life into the Chasidic movement by combining the
esoteric secrets of Judaism (the Kabbalah) with in-depth Torah scholarship. He
attracted thousands of followers during his lifetime, and after his death, his
followers continued to regard him as their Rebbe and did not appoint any
successor. Rebbe Nachman’s teachings continue to attract and inspire Jews the
world over.” Some of his most famous
quotes are:
·
“It
is a great mitzvah to be happy always.”
·
“If
you believe that it is possible to break, believe it is also possible to fix.”
·
“And
know that a person needs to traverse a very, very narrow bridge, but the
fundamental and most important principle is to have no hesitation or fear at
all…” (This saying has been set to music in Hebrew as the song Kol
Ha-Olam Kulo
For more information about Rebbe Nachman see
the attached or go to http://www.breslov.org/
1812:
Birthdate of Lazarus W. Powell, the Kentucky Senator who sought to have
Congress condemn General Grant for issuing General Order No.11. Powell was animated more by his anti-war
views than he was by affection for the Jews.
1814:
Simon Davis married Sarah Martin at the Great Synagogue today.
1821:
Hannah and Moses Collis gave birth to Harriet Collis.
1826(15th
of Tishrei, 5587): First Day of Sukkoth celebrated on the same day that
representatives of the U.S. government signed a treaty with the Potawatomie Tribe.
1833:
Benjamin Phillips married Rachel Faudel at the Great Synagogue today.
1835(23rd
of Tishrei, 5596): Four-month Ada Isaacs Menken, can celebrate her first
Simchat Torah
1835:
In Savannah, GA, Virginia Russell and Mordecai Sheftall gave birth to Sarah
Virginia Sheftall.
1836:
Joseph Jones married Sarah Simmons at the Great Synagogue today.
1837(17th
of Tishrei, 5598): Third Day of Sukkoth observed for the first time during the
Presidency of Martin Van Buren.
1839(8th
of Cheshvan, 5600: Gittel Rinkel Friedlander, native of Bohemia who had married
Joseph Friedlander of Saxony through which she gained permission to become a
resident of that Kingdom passed away today.
1840:
In Philadelphia, Myer David Cohen and Judith Simha Sols gave birth to author,
attorney and Civil War veteran Leon da Silva Solis-Cohen “the brother of Jacob
da Silva Solis-Cohen and Solomon Solis-Cohen, and a grandson of Jacob da Silva
Solis and the husband of Lucia Manness Ritterband, with whom he had two
daughters (Jessie Myra and Gertrude) and one son (Leon Manness).”
1841:
Founding of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Today Queen’s University offers “Jewish Studies courses that may be taken as
electives by any student, or as part of a Minor in Jewish Studies. The Minor
can be the main focus of a three-year BA or a secondary focus in a 4-year
Honours BA.” The University is also home to Queen’s University Hillel,
the Jewish Student Union.
1841(1st of Cheshvan, 5602): Rosh Chodesh
1841: In Germany, on a Shabbat that was also Rosh
Chodesh Chesvan, Issac Bernays, the Chief Rabbi of Hamburg condemned the newly issued
Prayerbook for the Israelites and the rabbis who had authored it. This was part of dispute that had been taking
place at The Hamburg Temple among the orthodox members and the reformers who
were led by Gabriel Riessler. It was
part of larger dispute that was rocking German Jewry as it dealt with issues of
Reform, Orthodoxy, and coping with modernity. (If this sounds familiar, it is
since we continue to deal with these issues in the 21st century. Considering the rancor and ill will that was
created, some would say that the German experience in the 19th century is
primer for how not to deal with these issues.)
1841: In Vilna, Feiwe Zunser and Ita Glasstein gave
birth to poet and printer Eliakum Zunser, the husband of Feige Katzewitz who
came to America in 1889 where he printed books of Hebrew poetry the most famous
of which was Shirim Hadoshim.
1843(22nd of Tishrei, 5604): Jews observe
Shemini Atzeret on the same day that Fear and Trembling by Søren
Kierkegaard was published.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Trembling
1844: Saul Samuel married Catherine Levy at the Great
Synagogue today.
1845(15th of Tishrei, 5606): Jews in
Texas observe Sukkoth for the first time as citizens of the United States since
the citizens of what had been the Lone Star Republic approved the new
constitution and the statute of annexation three days before. Today, Houston, Dallas and Austin are home to
three of the most vibrant Jewish communities in the United States.
1846: One day after he had passed away, 24 year old
Israel Sampson, the son of Dutch born Levi Sampson and Sarah Sampson was buried
today in the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”
1847:
District Rabbi Jonas Wiesner and Estra (Therese) Wiesner Schur gave birth
to their daughter Fanny Abeles Wiesner.
1848: Sara Wolf and Benjamin Spiers gave birth to
Emely Ann Spiers.
1849: In South Carolina, Lizar and Perla Sheftall
Solomons gave birth to Cecilia Solomons and became Cecilia Solomons Abrahams
when she married Edmund H. Abrahams with whom she had a son Edmund H. Abrahams,
“a collateral descendant of Benjamin Sheftall.”
1850: In Pennsylvania, Sophia Landau and Bernard H.
Gotthelf gave birth to Isaac Gotthelf, the husband of Bertha Epstein and the
father of Harold and Bernard Gotthelf.
1851: “The News by the Mails” column published today
reported that “The New York correspondent of The Republic replies to the
animadversions of certain parties here, in relation to his former statement
that there were no Jews on Wall Street.
The letter-writer substantiates his assertion by citing names, etc; and
states that the fact was mentioned in order to prove that the Jewish people
have no natural aptitude for the brokerage business, and are only driven into
the money-dealing business by the disabilitities which shut them out of other
honorable employment.
1852: After having been denied admission to the
Union Club, today, a group of German Jews including “Herman Cohn, Charles
Werner and Sigmund Werner founded the “Gesellschaft Harmonie” better known as
the Harmony Club.
1853(14th of Tishrei, 5614): Erev Sukkoth
observed for the first time during the Crimean War
1854: Birthdate of Oscar Wilde, the Anglo-Irish
author who is remembered as much for his sexual orientation as for his literary
works. In The Picture of Dorian Gray,
Wilde presents us with a Jewish theatre manager named Isaacs. The depiction of the character can only be
described as anti-Semitic. One critic
attributes Wilde’s creation of the character to a dispute he was having with
the author George Eliot. Since Eliot had
created a sympathetic Jewish figure in one of her works, Wilde felt compelled
to do just the opposite.
1855(4th of Cheshvan, 5616):
Seventy-seven year old Jeremiah Heinemann, the son of Rabbi Joachim Heinemann
and the brother of Moses Heinemann who had published a translation of “Kohelet”
passed away today.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0008_0_08690.html
1858: In Greenwich, Kent, Rebecca Meyers and Israel
Marks gave birth to Isabella Marks.
1859(18th of Tishrei, 5620): Fourth Day
of Sukkoth
1859: Abolitionist John Brown, whose followers
included August Bondi, Jacob Benjamin and Theodore Weiner, leads the raid on
the arsenal at Harpers Ferry.
http://www.theoccident.com/WildWest/san_francisco.html
1860: “Rarely
has the ‘opening lecture of the season’ been attended by so large and
fashionable an audience as that which assembled at Clinton Hall this evening to
greet R.J. De Cordova the popular humorist, and to listen to his new poem
entitled a ‘Photograph of Broadway.’ The poem was one of Mr. De Cordova’s best
efforts, and can hardly fail of having what the theatrical men term a
successful run. All the salient points of the great New-York thoroughfare, —
its crowd of vehicles, and pedestrians, its churches, its theatres, its hotels,
its mock-auction shops, its marble stores, its policemen, its dandies, its
gamblers and its beggars, — were hit off in a style at once humorous and
sarcastic, that kept the audience in a constant roar of laughter.” Mr. De
Cordova was a well-known Sephardic humorist, speaker and sometime investor who
was quite popular with New York audiences – Jewish and non-Jewish alike.
1861:A. Eger, the Secretary of Congregation Emanu-El
in San Francisco wrote to I.J. Benjamin that the congregation has “set aside
the sum of $250 in order to assist you in your…journey to the Orient. (“I. J.
Benjamin was a nineteenth-century Moldavian Jewish world traveler. His primary
goal, his mission, was to be a “living link” between all the Jews in
the world, “a maggid [traveling preacher] on a worldwide circuit.” He
wrote Three Years in America, in German, for readers in Europe, most of whom
had never been to the New World and would be very curious about it. He wrote it
largely to raise money to fund his travels. As reported by Gabriel Steinfeld)
1861: During the Civil War, Henry Jacobs who would
reach the rank of Lieutenant, began his service with Company F of the 51st
Regiment.
1862(22nd of Tishrei, 5623): Shmini
Atzeret
1862(22nd of Tishrei, 5623): As Jews observe Shemini
Atzeret, Major General Ulysses S. Grant is given command of the Department of
Tennessee.
1862(22nd of Tishrei, 5623):
Seventy-eight year old Alexander Haindorf the physician, philanthropist and
advocate for Jewish emancipation who was the first Jewish lecturer at
Heidelberg passed away today.
1862(22nd of Tishrei, 5623):
Seventy-eight year old Alexander Gove Village a physician who championed Jewish
emancipation and co-founded the Westphalian Art Association in 1831 passed away
today.
1867(17th of Tishrei, 5628): Sukkoth Chol Hamoed
1867(17th of Tishrei, 5628): Solomon Judah Löb
Rapoport passed away. Born in 1790, at
Lemberg, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria, “he was a Galician rabbi
and Jewish scholar.” “After various experiences in business, Rapoport became
successively rabbi of Tarnopol (1837) and of Prague (1840). He was one of the
founders of the new Wissenschaft des Judentums movement. His chief work was the
first part of an (unfinished) encyclopaedia (Ereklz Millin, 1852). Equally
notable were his biographies of Saadia Gaon, Nathan (author of the Arukh), Hai
Gaon, Eleazar Kalir and others.Thrown upon his own resources about 1817,
Rapoport became cashier of the meat-tax farmers. He had already given evidence
of marked critical ability, though his writings previously published were of a
light character—poems and translations. His critical talent, however, soon
revealed itself. In 1824 he wrote an article for Bikkure ha-‘Ittim on the
independent Jewish tribes of Arabia and Abyssinia. Though this article gained
him some recognition, a more permanent impression was made by his work on
Saadia Gaon and his times (published in the same journal in 1829), the first of
a series of biographical works on the medieval Jewish sages. Because of this
work he received recognition in the scholarly world and gained many
enthusiastic friends, especially S. D. Luzzatto. After the fashion in rabbinic
circles, Rapoport was known by an acronym “Shir”, formed by the
initial letters of his Hebrew name Shelomo Yehuda Rapoport. Solomon Judah Löb
Rapoport notes that according to the Masoretes there are ten vowel sounds. He
suggests that the passage in the Sefer Yetzirah, which discusses the
manipulation of letters in the creation of the world, can be better understood
if the Sefirot refers to vowel sounds. He posits that the word sefirah in this
case is related to the Hebrew word sippur (“to retell”). His position
is based on his belief that most Kabbalistic works written after Sefer Yetzirah
(including the Zohar) are forgeries.”
1868: In Cleveland, OH Rosa Salinger and Joseph
Maschke gave birth to Harvard graduate and attorney Maurice Maschke, the
Republican party leader and member of Tifereth Israel Congregation who married
Minnie Rice in 1903.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Hypertrophied_Pharyngeal_Tonsil_as_the_E.html?id=yEWCzQEACAAJ
1869: Solomon Bibo arrived in New York from his
native Prussia. This was the first leg
of a journey that would take him to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he would join
his brothers Nathan and Simon. Yes, Jews
played an active role in life of what we now call “the Old West.”
1869: Girton College, Cambridge is founded, becoming
England’s first residential college for women. Gertrude
Himmelfarb, the wife of Irving Kristol and mother of Bill Kristol, may have
been one of the most famous Jews to have studied Girton College which she
attended on a fellowship after World War II.
Today, Griton is home to one of the UK’s Judaica collections and its
Theology and Religious Studies program includes course work on the Old
Testament; World Religions including a separate paper on Judaism (separate papers on Indian religions, Islam
and Judaism) and Jewish and Christian Responses to the Holocaust.
1869: The President of Congregation Emanu-El in San
Francisco, CA, sent a letter to Israel J. Benjamin, also known as “Benjamin the
Traveler” who was spending time in the city that informing him that the
congregation had voted to give him $250 to help defray the costs of his
travels.
1870: Charles August Lauff, an early settler of
Marin County and his wife Maria J. Sebran, the daughter of Gregorio and Ramono
Briones gave birth their son Marcius today.
1870:”The New Jewish Ritual” published today
described the changes being instituted by Raphael Lewin, the rabbi at Temple
Israel in Brooklyn.
1871(1st of Cheshvan, 5632): Six days
after the Great Chicago Fire came to an end Jews in the Windy City observed
Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
1872(15th of Tishrei, 5633): Sukkoth
1872: Birthdate of Buffalo native Julius Ullman who
practiced medicine in his hometown for more than sixty years.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1953/08/16/92731390.pdf
1872:“Succoth- The Jewish Feast of Tabernacles”
published today reported that “last evening witnessed the commencement of the
Jewish feast of Succoth, or Tabernacles, which continues for eight days.” The
article goes on to report that the first two and last two days are full
holidays while the intermediate days are called Chol Hamoed and “are of no
special import. The article continues with a description of the Thanksgiving
aspect of the festival as well as the “extemporized booth” in which “the pious
Israelite, surrounded by his family, takes his meals” in this “season of joy
and thankfulness…”
1874: It was reported from Vienna today that the
Italian Consul at Bucharest has refused to open negotiations for commercial
treaty between Italy and Romania as long as the Jews of that country are not
fully emancipated.
1874(5th of Cheshvan, 5635): Seventy-nine year old
German rabbi and early supporter of Zionism Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, passed away.
http://zionism-israel.com/bio/kalischer_biography.htm
1874: It was reported today that Mr. Peixotto, the
American Consul at Bucharest has refused to enter into negotiations with the
government of Romania as long as the Jews of that country are denied their
civil rights.
1874 (5th of Cheshvan, 5605): Rabbi Zevi Hersh Kalisher passed away. Born in 1795 in the Polish town of Lissa that
had just become part of Germany, Kalisher was unique because he was an Orthodox
Rabbi who believed that Jews develop a practical program for returning to Eretz
Israel instead of just waiting for the coming of the Messiah. In 1860, he published Derishat Tziyyon
, his blueprint for the return to the Holy Land. Almost forty years before the advent of Herzl
and Zionism he called for a systematic purchase of land, the development of
agriculture, the development of a self-defense force and the need to develop
viable businesses to replace the charitable institutions that traditionally
supported the Jews in Palestine. The
Reform opposed Kalisher because of the nationalist content of the
proposal. The Orthodox saw it as a form
of blasphemy. One of the practical
results of his work was the establishment of Mikveh Israel, a school located
near Jaffa, designed to teach the new generation of pioneers the scientific
agricultural skills that would enable them to reclaim the land.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/zevi-hirsch-kalischer
1875(17th of Tishrei, 5636): Shabbat shel
Sukkoth
1878(19th of Tishrei, 5639) Fifth Day of
Sukkoth
1878: In Charleston, SC, at Beth Elohim, Rabbi Levy
officiated at the wedding of Georg W. Markens of Jacksonville, FL and Ann Weiskopf
of Charleston, SC.
1879: In Paris, TX, “Henry and Clara (Marx) Levy”
gave birth to Edward Dailey Levy, the President of Pierce Petroleum Corporation
and the husband of Katye Levy Lewis.
1880(11th of Cheshvan 5641): Parsahat
Lech-Lecha
1880(11th of Cheshvan, 5641):
Seventy-three year old Bohemian born painter Leopold Pollak whose works
included “Shepherdess with Lamb” and “the Shepherd Boy” passed away today.
1880: In Lodz, Pauline Greenbaum and Isadore Gibbs
gave birth to Louis DeWitt Gibbs, the 1906 graduate of New York University Law
and state legislator who led the battle to make the Bronx into a separate
country before going to serve as “a member of the New York State Supreme Court
and who was the husband of Anna White Gibbs with whom he had three children –
Howard, Harriet and Isadora.
1880: In New York, Maurice and Eliza Brooks Rapf
gave birth to “motion picture and studio executive” Harry Rapf, the husband of
Christina Uhfelder Rodin and father of Matthew and Maurice Harry Rapf whose film career spanned
30 years – 1917 to 1949.
1881(23rd of Tishrei, 5642): Three days
after Eliezer Ben-Yehuda had what is believed to be the first modern
conversation in Hebrew, Jews observed Simchat Torah
1882: Birthdate of New York movie producer Harry
Rapf who began a 20 year career with MGM in 1917 and was “one of the founding
members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
1883(15th of Tishrei, 5644): Sukkoth
1883: Birthdate of New York native and financier
Irving Isaacs the
husband of Ernestine Isaacs and father of Alvin Isaacs and Jeanne Kramer who
“was instrumental in the mering of the American Union Banks into the Manufacturers
Trust Company” and a member of Temple Israel.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/01/25/89108967.html?pageNumber=92
1883: In Boston, Ida Freedman and Meyer Joseph gave
birth to Gertrude
Cohen, the Boston University Law School student who became Gertrude Cohen
Mann when she married William Mann and
with whom she raised five children while living in Roxbury and being a leader
in the Jewish community as can be seen by her serving as President of the New
England Regional conference of Hadassah and vice president of the Boston
chapter of Hadassah.
1883: “In Uman province of Kiev, Russia, David Coralnik
and Gittle Coralnik birth to Dr. Abraham Coralnik the American journalist and
Zionist.
https://www.jta.org/1937/07/18/archive/dr-a-coralnik-journalist-dies-of-heart-attack-at-54
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9F03E2DE163DE23ABC4F52DFB166838C629EDE
1884: Four days after she had passed away, 66 year
old Harriette (nee Moses) Nathan, the daughter of Henry and Esther Moses and
husband of Louis Nathan whom she had married in 1837 was buried today at the “Willesden
Jewish Cemetery.”
1884(27th of Tishrei, 5645): Fifty-five-year-old
Rabbi Moses Jesaias Cohn, Altona, Germany born son of Doris and Rabbi Ruben
Samuel Cohen and the husband of Hanna Cohn and Rosa Cohn passed away today at
Frankfurt am Main.
1885: In Galicia, Chaja Grunberg and Abraham Moses
Fox gave birth to George Fox the husband of Roselyn R. Gold who served as a
Treasure for the American Jewish Congress starting in 1919 and served as the
Chairman of the Fur Trade Commission which raised $150,000 for the Palestine
Fund.
1886(17th
of Tishrei, 5647): Shabbat Cho HaMoed Sukkoth
1886(17th
of Tishrei, 5647): Sixty-year old German banker Mayer Carl von Rothschild, the
nephew Amschel Mayer Rothschild passed away today
1886:
In Plonsk, Scheindel (Broitman) Grun and Avigdor Grun, “a lawyer and a leader
in the Hoevei Zion movement gave birth to David Grun who gained fame as David
Ben-Gurion.. To describe him as one of
the earliest Zionist leaders, founding father of Israel, and its first Prime
Minister would not even begin to do justice to this gigantic figure. Ben-Gurion
was no saint and it is easy to criticize him.
But he was a committed socialist.
He truly believed in the brotherhood of man. At the same time, he was committed to the
Zionist movement and worked to create a “new” Jew in a Jewish homeland. Ben-Gurion was a realist and a gambler. Despite a great deal of criticism, he was
willing to accept the 1947 Partition Plan even though it meant a Jewish state
without Jerusalem. At the same time, he
was bold enough to declare the independence of the Jewish state in May of 1948
when most of the “smart” leaders of the world told him to wait. The modern state of Israel might have come
into existence without Ben-Gurion, but it is hard to imagine how it would have
happened. I urge you to read more about
the truly remarkable, complex leader. He
passed away on December 1, 1973.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/david-ben-gurion
1887:
“Where Has The American Merchant Gone” published today bemoans the passing of
the country’s mercantile activities into the hands of recent immigrants
including Jews who usually “own the largest and best stocked store in
town.” “The American importer of dry
goods” have been replaced by “firms composed of well-dressed and highly
intelligent Jews,” Germans or even Scandinavians. Americans shrug their
shoulders, say “it could not be helped “and then curse the foreigners as they
drink a cocktail to their speedy downfall.”
1887:
It was reported today that the property belonging to the Home for Aged and
Infirm Hebrews in New York City is valued at $75,000 for tax purposes. But the building is tax exempt because it was
owned by a non-profit religious organization.
1888:
The decision was made tonight “to depose” Professor Horowitz as manager of the
fund raising theatrical productions being sponsored by the Jewish Order of the
Harp of David appearing at Poole’s Theatre because “he has been running things
in a high-handed manner.”
1888:
Birthdate of Robert A. Hess “a lawyer who was a leader in the Milwaukee Zionist
District and who in the early 1930s, attended an American Jewish Congress
meeting in New York City.
1888:
Sixty-year old Horatio Gates Spafford, one of the founders of the “American
Colony,” whose members “engaged in philanthropic work amongst the people of
Jerusalem regardless of their religious affiliation and without proselytizing
motives” lost his battle with malaria and passed away today following which he
was buried in Mount Zion Cemetery.
1889(21st
of Tishrei, 5650): Hoshana Raba
1889:
Birthdate of Philadelphia native and John Marshall Law School trained Chicago
attorney Archie H. Cohen.
1890:
Joseph Jacobs, a Jewish glazier who was attacked by a gang in Jersey City is
lying unconscious in City Hospital after having had his skull fractured by a
paving stone.
1890:
“City and Suburban News” published today described the upcoming social events
which will be sponsored the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1891:
The Chicago Symphony debuted today at the Auditorium Building designed by
Dankmar Adler which they continued to use as their musical home until 1904.
1891:
Birthdate of Philadelphia native Louis Samter Potsdamer the author who earned a
B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
1892:
“A Jewish Historical Society” published today described the organization of the
American Jewish Historical Society under the presidency of Oscar S. Straus which
has already gained the interest of European historians who are sending
materials about “the Jews who first crossed the Atlantic with Columbus
1892:
Saul Solomon passed away in Cape Town. A native of St. Helena, he settled in
South Africa where he became a leader of the Liberal Party. He was known as the “Cape Disraeli” because,
like his English predecessor, he converted but retained a public affection for
his former co-religionists.
1892:
Missouri Republican Party leader Isaac Isaacs said that unless Major Warner,
the party’s nominee for governor fired his campaigner manager after he made
anti-Semitic remarks, he would not even get 8 of the 1,200 Jewish votes in
Kansas City and would lose most, if not all, of the 25,000 Jewish voters in the
state.
1892(25th
of Tishrei, 5653): Seventy-four year old Saul Isaac Kaempf, a native of Posen
and a disciple of Akiba Eger who became an assistant professor of Oriental
languages at the University of Prague passed away today.
1892:
“Did Harris Get Files from the Hallman” published today described the escape of
Henry Harris from the Hudson County, NJ, Jail despite the fact the a Jewish
prisoner, Benjamin Greyer, had warned authorities that prisoner Paul Zimmerman
who was serving as a “hallman” had supplied Harris with two files for sawing
through the bars.
1893:
In New York City, Sophie Hernstein and William Bernard gave birth to Stevens
Institute of Technology trained mechanical engineer and author Harold Baruch Bernard,
the husband of Edith Clyde whom he married in 1923, the same year he began
serving as vice president at the Sinclair Oil and Gas Company and who served in
the Army Coast Artillery during World War I and who was the inventor of
“Gasoline Recovery Equipment.”
1893:
Birthdate of Port Chester, NY native Joseph Ralph Palkin, the graduate of
George Washington University, Northwestern and the Naval Dental School who
worked as a dental surgeon in Washington, DC while serving on the faculty of
George Washington.
1894:
Birthdate of New York City native Frank J. Cohen, the dentist who served as
director of the “Lavenburg-Corner Youth House” and a “Consultant on Community
Relations” with NYU.
1894:
In New York, founding of Congregation Agudath Jesharim on East 86th
Street with services, which on Friday begin at sundown and on Saturday at
9:30 led by Rabbi Calman and Cantor L.H.
Martin that is supported by a Sisterhood and Young Folk’s League.
1894:
“They Will Not Deal With Strikers” published today described the organization
of the Cloak and Suit Manufacturers’ Association whose officers included Frank and Louis
Rothschild and which is the manufacturer’s to the strike of cloakmakers.
(Editor’s Note: There are Jews on both sides of this fight)
1894:
“Business Men and Tammany” published today provides a cross section of
responses to the nomination of Nathan Strauss for Mayor. Most of it was negative as the respondents
were “reformers” supporting William L. Strong and would have opposed any
Tammany candidate. (None of the responses made any references to Strauss’
ethnicity)
1895:
The will of Babet Karl which was prepared by her nephew Abraham Stern, “a
wealthy real estate lawyer” “is on the
Surrogate’s calendar for probate today even though a second will which was
written after this name Rabbi Wise and his son as primary beneficiary has just
been found.
1895:
Birthdate of Chicago native Dr. Isadore Pilot, M.D., the husband of Anna B.
Pilot and the father of Sarah and Martin Pilot.
1897(20th
of Tishrei, 5658): Shabbat Shel Sukkoth
1897:
In Cranbrook, Kent, UK, Edith Goldsmid and British barrister and judge Sir Charles James
Jessel gave birth to Marjorie Constance Jessel
1897(20th
of Tishrei, 5658): Fifty-eight year old Elizabeth Solomon, the widow of the
late Edward Solomon passed away today in the United Kingdom.
1897:
The Beni Zion Association is scheduled to host a lecture at King’s Hall on
Commercial Road in London.
1897:
The East London Jewish Communal League is scheduled to host a “social
gathering” at the Stepney Jewish Schools.”
1898:
Birthdate of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas who in 1949 “revealed that
he was ‘converted to Zionism’ by the late Justice Louis D. Brandeis” and
pledged to continue his sympathies for Israel and to do whatever” he could do
“for its welfare.” (As reported by JTA)
1898:
In Norfolk, VA, Arther and Sadie (Spagat) Morris gave birth to Virginia Leigh
Morris who gained famed as sculptor Virginia Morris Pollak.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/pollak-virginia-morris
1899:
Israel Zangwill’s play “Children of the Ghetto,” premiers at the
Herald Square Theatre in New York. The play was based on a novel of the same
name published in 1892 that describes the life of a Jewish family living in
London in the last decade of the 19th century.
1900(23rd
of Tishrei, 5661): Simchat Torah celebrated for the first time in the 20th
century.
1900:
Today, Columbia trained physician Julian Walter Brandeis, “the chief of Clinic
in medicine at Lebanon Hospital, the President of the New York Physician
Association and New York City born son of Evelyn Nathan and Frederic Brandeis
marred Pauline Florence Aron.
1901:Forty-five
year old Clarence Isaac de Sola, the “third son of Abraham de Sola and Esther
Joseph married Belle Maud Goldsmith of Cleveland, Ohio with whom he had two
sons and two daughters.
1902(15th
of Tishrei, 5663): On the same day that the first “Youthful Offenders
Institution” opened in Borstal, Kent, UK, Jews observed Sukkoth
1902(15th
of Tishrei, 5663): Rebecca Saltzstein passed away today after which she was
buried at the Greenwood Cemetery in Milwaukee.
1903:
It was reported today that Oscar S. Straus, President of the New York Board of
Trade and Transportation presided over the opening meeting the National Civic
Federation conference at the Steinway Hall where he delivered a speech on “How
to Establish Better Relations Between Employer and Employee.”
1904:
After his divorce from Grace Brown, today 35 year old William Guggenheim, the
“American businessman, philanthropist and youngest son of Meyer Guggenheim
married Aimee Lillian Steinberger, the mother of William Guggenheim, Jr.
1905(17th
of Tishrei, 5666): Third Day of Sukkoth observed during the First Russian
Revolution which led to the creation of the Duma
1906:
Birthdate of León Klimovsky the Argentine dentist who gained fame as a film
director.
1906:
Birthdate of Los Angeles native “producer, direct and actor” Sam White, the
brother of Jack, Jules and Ben White and husband of Claretta Ellis whose career
including everything from making musical comedies to WW II armed forces
training films.
1907:
“A number of Jews arrived at Tangier today from Casablanca, have left that city
because “native sources” said “that a division of the Sultan of the South” “is
approaching Casablanca with twenty field guns” with which they intend to shell
the town unless the French forces leave.
1908(21st
of Tishrei, 5669): Hoshana Raba
1908:
Two days after she had passed away, Adelaide Decker, the wife of Louis Decker,
was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.”
1909:
The University of Tennessee Volunteers coached by George Levene lost to
Kentucky State College in Lexington.
1909:
The University of Michigan led by halfback Joseph “Joe” Magidsohn, “the first
Jewish athlete to win a varsity ‘M’” who was the “first athlete known to have
refused to compete on the Jewish High Holy Days” defeated Ohio State today.
1910:
Birthdate of Sir MIsha Black, Russian-born British architect and designer.
1910(13th
of Tishrei, 5671): Fifty-three-year-old Ray Forst Kaluber, the spouse of Morris
Kaluber with whom she had two children, Marie and Edward, passed away today
after which she was buried at The Temple Cemetery in Louisville, KY.
1911:
According to The Reform Advocate,
Henry W. Savage’s “Every Woman” is scheduled to open today at the “Auditorium”
in Chicago.
1912(1st
of Cheshvan, 5673): Parashat Noach and
Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
1912(1st
of Cheshvan, 5673): Eighty-five-year-old Hungarian born Austrian rabbi Joachim
Jacob Unger, the hold of a Ph.D. from the University of Berlin and who began
servings as the rabbi in Jihlava, Moravia in 1860, passed away
1912:
Birthdate of Elizabeth H. Friedman who when she passed away in 1959 will be
buried in the Jewish Cemetery at Natchitoches, LA.
1913(15th
of Tishrei, 5674): Sukkoth
1913:
In New York, Governor William Sulzer, who had been defended by William
Marshall, was convicted on three articles of impeachment. Sulzer was replaced
by his Lieutenant Governor, Martin Glynn, the author of the 1919 article “The
Crucifixion of the Jews Must Stop!”
1914:
During WW I, British forces recaptured Givenchy during the Battle of La Bassee,
one of those inconclusive actions that would set the stage for the four year
stalemate and slaughter on the Western Front.
1914:
Reports from Petrograd today claim that the inhabitants in the part of Poland
controlled by the Germans “are mostly Jews” who have most “of their belongs
taken away.
1915:
It was reported today that of the 831,000 children in New York public schools,
41,000 of them attend “Jewish religious schools of the Jewish Educational
Bureau.”
1915:
“Drop Jewish Conference” published today described how the opposition led by
Louis D. Brandeis had thwarted Louis Marshall’s call for a national meeting of
Jewish leaders to discuss what American Jews could do to improve the conditions
of their European and Palestinian co-religionists after the war.
1915:
It was reported today that three of the Jewish members of the
Interdenominational Committee are Rabb J.L. Magnes, Rabbi H.P. Mendes and Rabbi
M.H. Harris
1915:
“How great the debt which modern Judaism and the land of his adoption owe to
Rabbi Max Lillienthal, a leader in Israel and an American citizen un-hyphenated
was the theme of the services held this morning at Temple Emanu-EL in
commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of his birth.”
1916:
Felix M. Warburg a co-founder and Chairman of the Jewish Philanthropic
Societies gave a dinner for his “co-workers” at Sherry’s tonight where the
prospects of success of the newly formed umbrella agency were discussed and
among the evidence presented the fact that so far “1,200 person have
contributed $800,000” which is “$240,000 more than the same persons gave last
year” to the various societies and institutions that are now part of the new
umbrella group.
1916:
“Replying today to the charge made by a committee of Jews that the Democratic
campaign managers had been attempting to inject religion into the present
Presidential Campaign, Henry Morgenthau, the Treasurer of of the Democratic
National Committee and Herman Bernstein issued a statement say ‘We deprecate as
much and perhaps more than the signers of the protest – all of whom are
supporting the Republican Committee – the bring or religion or religious issues
into this campaign” and “to avoid the possibility of this we shall refrain at
this time from any comment.’”
1916:
A letter was published today “from Henry Sliozberg, a Jewish lawyer, who
writing from Petrograd, said that the Russian Jews were hoping for an allied
victory, in which they foresaw reforms affecting their own conditions” and who
expressed the view “that the Jews of Russia saw in a victory of the Allies in
their emancipation.”
1917:
Pvt. Maurice Avner, the Manchester, UK born son of Rose and Abraham A. Avener
was called for service as a member of the British Army Service Corps Reserves.
1917:
President Woodrow Wilson sent word to Lloyd George that he approved of the
issuance of the Balfour Declaration.
1917:
Today, a list of 159 emigres, including 99 Jews, who had arrived in Russia in
sealed trains from Germany was published today.
1917:
“According to a report” that today is in the possession of the Commander of the
Second Field Artillery at Camp Wadsworth in South Carolina, Captain Howard
Sullivan of Battery D of the Bronx who was charged earlier with trying to bar
Jews from serving in the unit “directed four non-commissioned officers to take
Private Otto Gottschalk from his tent, strip him, force him to drink filthy
water and beat him with sticks until welts are raised.”
1917:
Maurice Avner, the Manchester, England born of Rose and Abraham A. Avner who had
joined the British Army Service Corps Reserves in 1916 was called up for
service today.
1917:
Birthdate of Nathan “Fred” Asher, the New York native and 1939 graduate of the
U.S. Naval Academy who at the age of 24 was the highest ranking officer on the
U.S. Blue when he was attacked at Pearl Harbor where he acted to move the ship
out of harm while responding to the arial onslaught.
1918:
Birthdate of Abraham Nemeth, who developed the Nemeth Code, a form of Braille
that greatly improved the ability of visually impaired people to study complex
mathematics (As reported by William Yardley)
1918:
The advance in the Argonne Forest that had begun on September 25 during which
Sergeant Harvey H. Blum of the 307th Infantry “was continually with
the advance line despite the fact that several section of his platoon
periodically relieved one another and during which he displayed “great bravery
and coolness under fire” came to an end today.
1919(22nd
of Tishrei, 5680): Shmini Atzeret
1919:
“Rabbi Wise Upheld After Gary Attack” published today reported that “the
executive Council of the Free Synagogue” has “upheld the right of Rabbi Stephen
S. Wise to speak his views on any questions – religious, spiritual, social or
political—“ after he had offered to “resigned if any considerable number of he
members of his congregation desired him to do so in view of his attack on E.H.
Gary’s attitude in the streel strike.
1920:
In a speech today, Judge Otto Rosalsky delivered a speech at the Lincoln League
Republican Club in New York where he “assailed the articles in Henry Ford’s The Dearborn Independent as the work of
of a madman who is a menace to American institutions.”
1921:
Birthdate Krakow native Andrzej Munk, the movie director and screenwriter who
took part in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, became a leading Polish filmmaker in
the post-Stalinist era and in a moment of cosmic irony died “in car accident
while on his way home from Auschwitz’ where he was shooting a film called
“Passenger.”
1922:
A campaign to raise $1,000,000 for the Federation for the Support of Jewish
Philanthropic Society which “is needed for the maintenance of its 91
institutions” for the rest of the year continued for a second day today.
1923:
University of Buffalo trained attorney Charles Dautch, the Buffalo born person
of Esther Belle Amdur and Louis Dautch a member of the law firm of Aaron and
Daurch and a Trustee Temple Beth-El
married Charlotte Wallach today in Buffalo, NY.
1923:
Birthdate of “Walter Zacharius, who rode the passion-swollen wave of romance
fiction in the early 1980s to build the Kensington Publishing Corporation into
a leading purveyor of bodice-rippers and other romance genres.” (As reported by
William Grimes)
1923:
Tonight, at the Hotel Commodore the American Jewish Congress adopted a
resolution prepared by the Committee On Palestine, assisted by Israel Zangwill,
carrying out Mr. Zangwill’s suggestion for a resolution insisting that the
British Government fulfill its mandate under the League of Nations for the
“upbuilding “of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
1924(18th
of Tishrei, 5695): Fourth Day of Sukkoth
1924:
In New York City Jennie (née Friedman) and Jacob J. Scherick gave birth to
Edgar J. Scherick the ABC television producer who helped create “ABC’s Wide
World of Sports.”
1925:
In Manhattan, schoolteacher “Rose (Landa) Heller” and William Heller, the
founder of “Heller Jersey, a small but successful textile manufacturing
company” gave birth to their youngest child, Benjamin Theodore Heller the
influential “art collector and dealer.” (As reported by Roberta Smith)
1926(9th
of Cheshvan, 5687) Parashat Lech-Lecha
1927(20th
of Tishrei, 5688): Sukkoth Chol HaMoed
1927:
Birthdate of Lee Montague, “a tailor’s son born with the surname Goldberg in
London’s East End whose long acting career including being voted “Best TV Actor
of the Year in 1960.
1927:
Birthdate Danzig native Günter Grass, the Nobel Prize winning author.
1927(20th
of Tishrei, 5688): Thirty-four year old bootlegger and labor racketeer Jacob
“Little Augie” Orgen died after having been shot by rivals while walking on the
Lower East Side.
1928:
“Dr. Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organization arrived today
on the Ile de France” so he could attend the Non-Zionist Conference which will
be held this week at the Hotel Biltmore.
1929:
“The Arabs held their general Strike throughout Palestine today, which caused
tension greater than at any time since Palestine’s recent troubles began.”
1930:
Birthdate of Dan Pagis, holocaust survivor and poet whose most famous work may
be:
written in pencil in the
sealed railway car
Here in this carload
I, Eve,
with my son Abel.
if you see my older boy,
Cain, the son of man
tell him that I
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Belzec_oboz_zaglady_pomnik_ewa_abel.JPG
1931:
Jesse I. Straus, the chairman of the New York State Temporary Relief
Administration “announced that the expenture of the first $1,000,000 for
unemployment relief would begin on or before November 1st.
1932(16th
of Tishrei, 5693): Second Day of Sukkoth
1932:
British flyweight Moe Mizler fought his last bout today.
1933:
Leo R. Sack began serving as United States Minister to Costa Rica.
1933:
The Associated Press reported that the German citizen who had assaulted a New
Yorker named Dr. Daniel Mulvhill
“because he had failed to ‘salute a Nazi detachment’” was being held at
an unnamed concentration camp. (This seemingly harsh punishment may have been
an attempt to ingratiate the new Nazi regime with the West while it went about
its various nefarious activities including re-armament in violation of the
Versailles Treaty)
1934:
The position of the Jew in Europe is “completely impossible,” and
Zionism is the “only logical answer” that the Jewish world can give
to the great needs of life which confront it, Rabbi Milton Steinberg of the
Park Avenue Synagogue, New York City, declared tonight.”
1935(19th
of Tishrei, 5696): Fifth Day of Sukkoth
1935(19th
of Tishrei, 5696): Seventy-two-year-old Silver Star honoree and Lt.
General Milton J. Foreman, the Chicago
born son of Mary Hoffman and Joseph Foreman
and Chicago Alderman whose distinguished military career began with the
Pancho Villa Expedition and included being recommended by General Pershing the Distinguished Service Cross for his
command efficiency during the Saint Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives passed
away today.
1935:
When the Belgian steamship Leopold II was unloading 97 tons of cement at Jaffa,
“a tin case of cartridges concealed in a barrel” was discovered. According to “unconfirmed reports from Arab
sources…800 rifles and 400,000 cartridges” were also found among the 537
barrels of cement. Officials have not
been able to determine who was supposed to be getting the weaponry.
1936:
“Dimples” a musical with a script Arthur Sheekman was released today in the
United States.
1936:
It was reported today that English residents Mrs. Rebecca Sieff, Mrs. Miriam Sachers and
Matilda Marks had given £15,00 for the “erection of a baby home in Jerusalem.
1936:
In response to the violent “excesses of Sir Oswald Mosley’s Black Shirts, Sir
Samuel Hoare, the First Lord of the Admiralty delivered a speech in which he
said “no extremists…would allowed to threaten the liberties of British
Citizens” and “Sir John Simon, the Minister of Home Affairs…declared tonight
that he would be willing to receive a deputation from the East End of London
and hear their grievances growing out of persecution of Jews in that part of
the city by Sir Oswald’s followers.”
1937: Hans Achim Litten, a lawyer whose father had
converted to Christianity before and who represented several of the opponents
of the Nazis in court, arrived at Dachau where he was placed in the same
barracks as the Jewish prisoners and after being tortured unmercifully would
finally take his own life.
1938(21st
of Tishrei, 5699): Hoshana Raba
1938:
“Winston Churchill, in a broadcast address to the United States, condemned the
Munich Agreement as a defeat and called upon America and western Europe to
prepare for armed resistance against Hitler.”
1939(3rd
of Cheshvan 5700): Morris Rosenthal, the
husband of Mary Rosenthal passed away today after which he was buried at Ahavas
Sholom Congregation Cemetery in Baltimore County, MD.
1939: Kraków, one of the most important Jewish
communities since the 1300s, is designated the capital of the Generalgouvernement.
1939: “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” a three act
comedy created by those Jewish stalwarts of the Broadway Theatre, George S.
Kaufman, premiered at the Music Box in New York
1939: Mary Menk and Samuel Weisstein gave birth to
Phi Beta Kappa member and Harvard Ph.D Naomi Weisstein the psychologist and
neuroscientist who “formed the Chicago Women’s Liberation Rock Band in order to
fight back against the prominent and accepted sexist themes in rock music.”
http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/CWLUNew/Weisstein.html
https://jwa.org/feminism/weisstein-naomi
1940: “Arise My Life” a comedy with a script
co-authored by Billy Wilder based on a story by Benjamin Glazer was released in
the United States today by Paramount Pictures.
1940: Warsaw Ghetto established. (In note of historic
irony, six years later to the day, those convicted at the first Nuremberg Trial
were hung)
1941:
“After Leon Blum had been in prison for a year, Marshal Pétain announced in a
radio speech that a special Political Justice Council had decided that Blum
along with other leaders of the Third Republic would be transferred to a
fortified installation (Fort de Portalet, a castle in Urdos in the Pyrenees)
for trial – the outcome of which he assured them would not be disappointing.
1941:
The Germans murdered 4,500 Jews outside of Lubny, Urkaine (USSR). Unknown Nazi
photographers left a photo of a mother and her children just before the
atrocity and a photo of a group of Jews awaiting their fate.
1941:
In response to Hitler’s plea that all Jews must leave Germany, the first of
twenty trains left Germany for the East. Jews from Luxemburg and Vienna were
part of the deportation. Within the next month 19,827 Jews from the Reich would
be sent to Lodz.
1941: The German Army advanced to within 60 miles (96 K)
of Moscow. One not need romanticize life in Stalin’s Russia to recognize the
courage of the Soviet Army. Stalin decided to remain in Moscow and take
personal command of the battle. As bad as the Holocaust was, it would have been
even worse if the Soviets had not held on.
At the same time many revered the Soviet Army because it liberated so
many of the camps as it later moved west towards Berlin.
1941(25th
of Tishrei, 5702): Three days after the German murder of 15,000 Jewish
residents of Dnepropetrtovsk, Ukraine, an additional 5000 Jews are executed in
the town.
1941: The first SS deportation train of Western
Jews travels to ghettos at Lódz, Lublin, and Warsaw, Poland.
1941(25th
of Tishrei, 5702): Twenty trains carrying nearly 20,000 Jews travel from
Germany, Luxembourg, Czechoslovakia, and Austria to the Lódz (Poland) Ghetto.
The shipments will come to an end in the first week of November.
1942:
Final liquidation of the Ghetto at Zamosc, Poland
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/april/08.asp
1942: The Nazis arrest more than 1000 Jews in
Rome and deport them to Auschwitz.
1942:
“Eyes in the Night” a crime film directed by Polish born American Oscar winning
director Fred Zinnemann was released today in the United States.
1943: German Ambassador to the Vatican Ernst
von Weizsäcker compliments the Holy See for its “perfect
even-handedness” in treating Germany and the Allies. When Weizsäcker asks
what Pope Pius XII will do if the German government persists in its present
Jewish policy in Italy, Vatican Secretary of State Maglione replies that
“the Holy See would not want to be put in the position of having to utter
a word of disapproval.” The Pope is being “cautious so as not to give
the German people the impression that [he] has done or has wished to do even
the smallest thing against Germany during this terrible time.”
1943: Germans looking for Jews in Rome conduct
house-to-house searches. About 1000 Jews are briefly held at Rome’s Collegio
Militare and then deported to Auschwitz. 477 Jews are sheltered in the
Vatican, and another 4238 find sanctuary in convents and monasteries throughout
Rome. Nevertheless, by this date more than 8300 Italian Jews have been deported
to Auschwitz.
1943:
In Rome, Germans searched through streets and homes for Jews. Of the 1,015 Jews taken on that morning only
16 would survive the war. Within two
months, another 7,345 Jews would be found and deported from Northern Italy
1943: Two days after a violent Jewish revolt at
the Sobibór death camp, SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders the camp destroyed.
1943:
Today, “45 year-old Settimio Calo left his wife Clelia and their nine children
in their apartment so he could buy a pack of cigarettes and “when he got home
he found the place in Via del Portico D’Ottavia, the heart the Jewish Ghetto
completely empty” because “the Nazis had raided the neighborhood and round over
1,000 Jews” only sixteen of whom survived Auschwitz, none of which part of his
family.
1943 Samuel Fuller and the rest of “The Big Red One” left Liverpool for
Dorchester today where they began 7 months of training for what would be the
Normandy Invasion.
1944:
Birthdate of Joseph Sitruk the native of Tunisia who as Joseph Haim Sitruk
served as Chief Rabbi of France from June, 1987 to June, 2008.
1944: Following the coup led by the Arrow Cross, the
Germans and their Hungarian allies resume resumed their attacks on the Jews of
Budapest. Jews were again dragged from their homes and into the streets. Then
for the next 10 days, all Jews are forbidden to leave their homes.
1944: Germans and members of the Fascist Nyilas
group prohibit Jews in Budapest, Hungary, from leaving their homes. Many Jewish
slave laborers are killed by Nyilas members on a bridge linking Buda with Pest.
1944: In Rome, the roundup of the Jewish population
began. “SS troops surrounded the
Lungotevere, the former ghetto area, where some 4,000 of the city’s 12,000 Jews
still lived.” The SS selected 1,000 men,
women and children for immediate shipment to Auschwitz. This was only the beginning of a march to the
Death Camps that took place in the city of the Pope.
1944:
Composer, conductor, pianist and music critic Viktor Ullmann was sent to
Auschwitz today.
1945: David Lubin’s dream for the creation of an
“international organization for food and agriculture” came to fruition today
with the founding of The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations
1945: During the presentation of the Army-Navy “E”
Award (a commendation for outstanding production during WW II) at Los Alamos,
NM, Robert Oppenheimer delivered his “farewell speech” as director of the
project that led to the development of the Atomic Bomb.
1945: In Chicago, Rhoda Goldberg Pritzker and Jack
Nicholas Pritzker gave birth to University of Chicago trained attorney and
venture entrepreneur Nicholas J Pritzker the wife of Susan Stowell Pritzker who
served as President of the family owned Hyatt Hotels Corporation.
1945(9th of Cheshvan, 5706): Eighty-year
old Berta Zuckerland, the daughter of Mortiz Szeps and the wife of Dr. Emil
Zuckerkandl who was famous for her Salon in Vienna passed away today in Paris
after having spent much of the war in Algeria.
1946: Ten Nazi leaders were hanged as war criminals after
the Nuremberg trials. This chart shows
the fate of those tried at Nuremberg.
|
Name |
–Count– |
Sentence |
Notes |
||||
|
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
|
|
|
|
Martin |
I |
º |
G |
G |
Death |
In |
|
|
Karl |
I |
G |
G |
º |
10 |
Initiator |
|
|
Hans |
I |
º |
G |
G |
Death |
Expressed |
|
|
Wilhelm |
I |
G |
G |
G |
Death |
|
|
|
Hans |
I |
I |
I |
º |
Acquitted |
Tried |
|
|
Walter |
I |
G |
G |
G |
Life |
|
|
|
Hermann |
G |
G |
G |
G |
Death |
Commander |
|
|
Rudolf |
G |
G |
I |
I |
Life |
Hitler’s |
|
|
Alfred |
G |
G |
G |
G |
Death |
Posthumously |
|
|
Ernst |
I |
º |
G |
G |
Death |
Highest |
|
|
Wilhelm |
G |
G |
G |
G |
Death |
|
|
|
Gustav |
I |
I |
I |
I |
—- |
Medically |
|
|
Robert |
I |
I |
I |
I |
—- |
Suicide |
|
|
Konstantin |
G |
G |
G |
G |
15 |
Released |
|
|
Franz |
I |
I |
º |
º |
Acquitted |
|
|
|
Erich |
I |
G |
I |
º |
Life |
Released |
|
|
Joachim |
G |
G |
G |
G |
Death |
Nazi |
|
|
Alfred |
G |
G |
G |
G |
Death |
Racial |
|
|
Fritz |
I |
I |
G |
G |
Death |
|
|
|
Hjalmar |
I |
I |
º |
º |
Acquitted |
|
|
|
Baldur |
G |
º |
º |
G |
20 |
Head |
|
|
Arthur |
I |
G |
G |
G |
Death |
|
|
|
Albert |
º |
º |
G |
G |
20 |
Responsible |
|
|
Julius |
I |
º |
º |
G |
Death |
|
|
“I” indicted “G” indicted and
found guilty
1947: In Milwaukee, WI, Charlotte A. (Lefstein) and
Burton C. Zucker, who was a real estate developer gave birth to producer,
director and screenwriter David S. Zuker.
1947(2nd of Cheshvan, 5708): Theatrical
manager Gus Kahn, the Huntington, Indiana born son of Marx and Barbara
Newberger Kahn passed this evening “at the St. Joseph Hospital in Fort Wayne”
after which he was buried in the Rodef Sholem Cemetery in Wabash, Indiana.
1948: During Operation Yoav, Israeli forces were
repulsed after heavy fighting as they tried to open the road to Jewish
settlements in the Negev and Beersheba.
1948: “Arab Legion forces at the Arab-held Zion Gate
attacked the Jewish positions on Mount Zion, but were driven off after fierce
fighting.”
1948(13th of Tishrei, 5709): Twenty-seven
year old Mordechai “Modi” Alon died today when his plane crashed after
returning from an attack on Egyptian forces. A native of Safed, Alon trained
with the RAF during World War II and flew in the first combat mission
undertaken by the Israeli Air Force in May of 1948. He scored infant air forces’ first kills when
he shoot down to Royal Egyptian Air Force C-47’s over Tel Aviv. These air
victories were more than just numbers.
They gave heart to the beleaguered Yishuv who had had no protection from
the air forces of their Arab attackers.
http://fly.historicwings.com/2012/06/first-kills-of-the-iaf/
http://101squadron.com/101real/people/alon.html
1948: Leonard Bernstein, who had come to Israel
specifically to do this, conducted a concert of the newly created Israel
Philharmonic Orchestra at Jerusalem’s Edison Theatre. “He did so amid the
persistent background noise of rifle and machine-gun fire from the direction of
the Old City. The climax of the evening
was Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.”
According to eye witness Tom Tugend, “’Towards the end of the first
movement machine-gun fire burst out in the Old City, held by Jordanian
forces. The gunfire continued unabated
throughout the performance. Lenny and
the orchestra never missed a beat.’”
1948: Birthdate of Bruce Fleisher, the Union City,
TN native who became a successful professional golfer.
1949(23rd of Tishrei, 5710): On the same
day that the Greek Civil War came to an end marking a victory for the West in
what was called the “Cold War,” Jews observed Simchat Torah
1949: The covette K-24, “the first Israeli warship to
visit Italy” arrived in Naples today.
1950: In Lowell, Massachusetts, Julia M. and Louis
S. Lipman gave birth to Simmons College trained author Elinor Lipman, the wife
of Radiologist Robert Austin and the mother of Benjamin Lipman Austin whose “1998 novel The Inn at Lake Devine
explores anti-Semitism and Jewish intermarriage.”
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported from New York
that hundreds of Jewish congregations throughout the US joined in a unique
nationwide effort on behalf of the Israel Independence Bonds sales drive, to
mark the recent holiday period. Tens of thousands of bonds were sold in scores
of cities in which leading American personalities visited synagogues to present
the facts about the importance of such action. In New York the actor Edward G.
Robinson canceled his important personal plans to substitute for his colleague,
Eddie Cantor, who became ill, and to participate in a series of special,
festive Bond dinners.
1953:
Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for Irving Solomon, the husband
of the former Frieda Fox and Vice President of Congregation B’nai Israel of
Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn.
1955: Esther Lederer, writing as Ann Landers, had her
first advice column published in the Chicago Sun Times. By the end of Lederer’s life, Ann Landers had
become the world’s most widely syndicated column, published in more than 1,200
publications and with more than 90 million readers around the world. When Esther Lederer and her husband
moved to Chicago in the 1950s, she contacted a family friend at the Chicago
Sun Times to see whether the columnist Ann Landers needed any help in
writing her column. The Sun Times was in the process of finding a
replacement writer for the column, and Lederer took over as the new Landers, a
name that would remain with her for the rest of her life. Because Lederer had
been involved in politics and had volunteered extensively, she was very well
connected, and her column reflected these connections. Lederer was able to
solicit advice from experts in many different fields. From her column, Landers
openly opposed racism and anti-Semitism, and devoted much space to fighting
injustice. Lederer continued to write as Ann Landers for 46 years, until her
death in 2002. (WJA)
1955:
The Los Angeles Rams coached by Sid Gillman lost to the Green Bay Backers by a
score of 30 to 28 suggesting the notion that he might have been better off in
the synagogue than in the stadium.
1955:
At the Ambassador, Rabbi Jacob Shankman officiated at the wedding of Hope Jane
Lewin and Gerald I. Benson, the captain of the basketball team at his alma
mater Amherst College.
1956:
“Attack” a WW II “anti—war” movie co-starring Robert Strauss was released today
in the United States.
1957(21st
of Tishrei, 5718): Hoshana Raba
1957:
The German Pharmacological Society is scheduled to present a medal at 4 o’clock
this afternoon to Dr. Otto Lowei, Research Professor of Pharmacology at the
College of Medicine of NYU and the winner of the 1936 Noble Prize in Medicine.
1960:
Rabbi Meshulam Zusia Heschel, the son of Rabbi Abraham Joseph Heshel, and his
wife gave birth to Shoshana Bluma Reizel Heschel, the wife of “Nachum Dov
Brayer, the Rebbe of the Boyan Hasidic dynasty.”
1960:
“Israel Gives Aid to New Nations,” published today described the visit to the
United States of Dr. Benjamin Mazar, the noted archaeologist and President of
Hebrew University. During his visit, Dr. Mazar described the aid that Israel is
providing to the newly emerging nations of Africa and Asia including the
enrollment of 100 students from nations in these two continents in courses at
Hebrew University and the sponsorship by the government of Ethiopia of several
medical students at the university’s medical school. The university has also
sent teams to various developing countries to aid in the development of
educational and health programs.
1960:
Birthdate of “Franco-British lawyer” Philippe Sands the author of sixteen books
including the award winning East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and
Crimes against Humanity,
1961:
“Let It Ride,” a musical version of “3 Men on a Horse” opened today at the
Eugene O’Neill Theatre with a cast that included Sam Levene who had appeared in
a “1936 film adaptation of the play.”
1961(6th
of Cheshvan, 5722): Sixty-two year old Russian born U.S. Army WW I veteran
Joseph Kaplow, “the national treasurer of the Israel Histadrut Campaign,
President of the Jackson Furniture
Company and husband of “the former Rhoda Yevelson” with whom he had two
daughters passed away today in New York.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1961/10/18/97253465.html?pageNumber=43
1961:
Birthdate of French-Jewish novelist Marc Levy.
1962:
Today, Francis Henry Russell, who had served as “a special assistant for
Israeli-Arab relations under Secretary John Foster Dulles and who served as
charge d’affaires at the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv in 1953 and 1954
began serving as the 3rd United States to Tunisia.
1962:”Requiem
for a Heavyweight” the movie version of the Playhouse 90 play produced by David
Susskind was released in the United States today.
1964:
ABC broadcast the “The Addams Family Tree” part of the Addams Family series
created by David Levy.
1965(20th
of Tishrei, 5726): Shabbat shel Sukkoth
1965(20th
of Tishrei, 5726): Eighty-year-old German-American art historian Dora Panofsky,
the wife art historian Erwin Panofsky, the mother of Han and Wolfgang Panofsky,
the Berlin born daughter of legal scholar Albert Mosee and granddaughter of Dr.
Markus Mosse passed away today.
1966:”Eh?”
by Henry Livings, premiered at the
Circle in the Square Downtown under the direction of Alan Arkin and featured
Dustin Hoffman in “his first critical success.”
1966:
“A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to the Forum” based on the play co-authored
by Larry Gelbart, produced by Melvin Frank who also co-authored the screenplay,
with music by Stephen Sondheim and starring Zero Mostel, Jack Gilford and Phil
Silvers was released today in the United Sates.
1967(10th
of Av, 5727): Seventy-five year old Ralph E. Samuel, the husband of Florence
Samuel with who he had three children – Ralph, Donald and Howard – “who played
a central role in the founding of Commentary” passed away today in Israel.
1968:
“Far From the Madding” the film version of the novel by the same name directed
by John Schlesinger, with a script by Fredrick Raphael was released in the
United Kingdom today.
1968:
“The Boston Strangler” directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Tony Curtis
in the title role was released in the United States today.
1969:
A revival of “3 Men on a Horse” co-starring Jack Gilford, Sam Levne and Hal
Linden opened at the Lyceum Theatre.
1970: Anwar Sadat was elected president of Egypt, succeeding
Gamal Abdel Nasser. Sadat was
responsible for the Yom Kippur War. But
his claim to fame was the courage to risk all with his famous trip to Jerusalem
and the peace treaty with Israel. His
motives are of less importance than the deeds he performed.
1970:
Andersonville, the notorious Confederate prison, was designated as a National
Historic Site. Among those who were
imprisoned in the camp was George Geiger who would go on to win the
Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery at the Battle of the Little Big
Horn.
1972:
Thirty-eight year old Wael Zwaiter, a member of Black September was killed
today for his role in the Munich Massacre.
1973:
Just after mid-night, a small force of Israeli tanks crossed to the western
bank of the Suez Canal. This daring
success was a closely held secret. The
first task of this force was to find and destroy the
Missiles that were negating Israel’s air superiority. The Israelis were dismayed to find that the
French were supplying weapons to the Arabs.
Israeli pilots shot down a French Mirage that belonged to the Libyans.
On the diplomatic front, President Sadat asked Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin
who was in Cairo to get the UN to call for an immediate cease fire. The Israeli Foreign Ministry exploded with indignation
when Kosygin complied. The Israelis
recounted the massive buildup of Soviet military equipment that had been sent
to the Arabs. The war could not have
started it the Russians had not provided the weapons. To the Israelis, it was lie the man who
supplied an arsonist with gasoline calling on the fire department to protect
the arsonist.
1973:
Events on the northern front dispelled any doubt as to how broad support was in
the Arab world for this war aimed at destroying Israel. Israeli forces were forced to fight two major
tank battles on the Syrian front and neither of them was with the Syrians. In the first battle a Jordanian brigade
including twenty-eight tanks was beaten back.
In the second fight, the Israelis faced a larger number of Iraqi tanks. Exactly how many Iraqi tanks were involved is
unknown; all the Israelis know is that the Iraqis left the hulks of sixty tanks
behind when they retreated.
1973: Henry
Kissinger
and Le Duc Tho jointly awarded Nobel peace prize. Kissinger is Jewish. Le Duc Tho is not Jewish. Kissinger was a refugee from Nazi Germany. In
the 1950”s when others in academia were converting to advance their careers,
Kissinger did not choose to follow that path.
1973:
American Sephardi Federation and the Sephardic community at large collected
$4,000,000 for Israel by week two of the Yom Kippur war.
1974:
“Felix Kamov Kandel and Mikhail Suslov, leading film workers, began a hunger
strike in Moscow to obtain permission for emigration.
1974:
The KGB prevents “a weekly Moscow refusenik-scientist seminar from taking
place.”
1974:
“Soviet Jewish activist Victor Polsky was found guilty in Moscow of dangerous
driving and fined 100 rubles.”
1975:
“A letter of Anatoly Malkin, where he appeals to Russian Jews not to serve in
the Soviet army, is publicized in the West; the authorities are using the draft
as a deterrent for those who want to emigrate to Israel.”
1975:
As New York City teetered on the verge of bankruptcy, real estate developer
Richard Ravitch received a call from the Governor of New York asking him to
convince teachers’ union president Al Shanker to save the city by having the
union taps into its pension funds “to by buy bonds from the Municipal
Assistance Corporation.”
1976(22nd
of Tishrei, 5737): Shmini Atzeret and Shabbat
1976:
“Enid Wurtman, co-chairman of the Union of Council for Soviet Jewry, and Connie
Smukler arrived on a visit to Moscow.”
1977:
Birthdate of John Meyers, creator of Blues
for Peace which was set up in Israel to honor the roots of blues music and promote
peace and the understanding that
peoples have had their share of the blues. Blues for Peace is dedicated to the
unsung heroes, local blues musicians that love the blues and pass it on to the
next generation.
1977:
The Jerusalem Post reported that
three people were slightly injured, two of them tourists, by two bombs thrown
at them by Arab terrorists in the Old City of Jerusalem. There was no security barrier, no trip to the
Temple Mount by Sharon, etc. In other
words, each of these current excuses for terror are just that excuses for
continuing behavior of longstanding.
1977: “Equus” a film version of the play by Peter
Schaffer who wrote the screenplay and directed by Sidney Lumet was released
today in the United States.
1978(15th of Tishrei, 5739): First Day of
Sukkoth observed on the same day Archbishop of
Kraków Cardinal Karol Wojtyła was elected as Pope and took the name John Paul
II, making him the first Pope in 455 years who was not Italian 1980: A boycott of cooperation with the USSR is announced by Scientists for
Sakharov, Orlov and Shcharansky (SOS) Committee simultaneously in London,
Paris, Washington and Geneva as part of a world-wide protest against the
jailing of Orlov and Shcharansky and the banishment of Sakharov. About 7,900
scientists and engineers in 44 countries will participate in the boycott. 150
scientists from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announce
on the same day that they will take part in the boycott.
1980: In Syosset, NY, Herschel and Nancy Bird gave
birth to Suzanne Brigit “Sue” Bird, who won the Wade Trophy and Naismith Award
as she led the U Conn Women’s Basketball team to an undefeated season in 2002,
before going on to a successful career with the Seattle Storm of the WNBA
before becoming an executive with the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball
Association. (and that is just the tip
of the iceberg)
1980: In “The Fate of Israel” an essay by William
Safire, the NYT columnist concluded that President Jimmy Carter “sees Israel as
a stiff-necked burden to be coerced for its own good” while Governor Ronald
Reagan, his opponent for re-election sees Israel “as a loyal ally to be
supported for our own good.”
1980(6th of Cheshvan, 5741):
Seventy-two-year-old Leavenworth,
KS native and Washburn University trained attorney Irvine Ungerman who settled
in Tulsa, OK where he was active with the Tulsa Hebrew School and who was the
father of Maynard Ivan Ungerman passed away today.
1981 (8th of Tishrei, 5742): Moshe Dayan passed
away. The much acclaimed Israeli general with the
eye-patch was born in 1915. He was one
of the first children born at Deganya Alef, “the mother of all kibbutzim.” Dayan joined the Haganah at the age of 14, learning
military tactics from the fabled British Captain, Orde Wingate. He lost his left eye fighting the Vichy
French in Lebanon during World War II.
Dayan held a variety of important positions during Israel’s fight for
independence. During the 1950’s he
helped mold the IDF and led it to a lightening victory over Egypt in 1956. Dayan left the Army to purse a role in
politics, but returned to serve as Minister for Defense during both the Six Day
and Yom Kippur Wars. In a an unexpected
switch, Dayan joined the right wing government Begin government and served as
the Foreign Minister who negotiated the peace treaty between Israel and
Egypt. Dayan died at the age of 66, a
victim of colon cancer.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/moshe-dayan
https://www.idf.il/en/minisites/past-chiefs-of-staff/lt-gen-moshe-dayan-1953-1958/
http://www.zionism-israel.com/bio/biography_moshe_dayan.htm
1981(8th
of Tishrei, 5742): Sixty five year old Haim Landau who made Aliyah in 1935,
joined both Betar and Irgun before serving as an MK and government minister
passed away today.
1981:
“Moscow Hebrew teachers Boris Terlitzky, Yuli Edelstein, Victor Fulmacht, and Vladimir
Kuravsky were warned to cease their activities.”
1981:”Writer
of Central Europe Wins Nobel Prize” published today provides John Vincour’s
description of the triumph scored by Sephardic Jew Elias Canetti.
1982: George Shultz warns that the United States will
withdraw from the UN if they vote to exclude Israel.
1983
(9th of Cheshvan, 5744): Dr. Leonardo De Benedetti, friend and companion of
Primo Levi, passed away at the age of 85 in the Jewish Rest Home where he had
lived for years.
1986:
“The Name of the Rose” a medieval movie co-starring Ron Perlman was released
today in Germany.
1986:
“The Color of Money” starring Paul Newman in his Oscar winning role of “Fast
Eddie Felson: was released in the United States today.
1986:
Ron Arad, Israeli Weapons System Officer, is captured by Lebanese Shi’ite
militia Amal.
http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=242616
1986: Armand Hammer returns to the United States with
Jewish refusenik David Goldfarb.
1986:
The Jonathan Netanyahu Memorial by Buky Schwartz, was dedicated outside the
entrance to the National Museum of American Jewish History, along the walkway
between 4th and 5th Streets north of Market Street today.The sculpture, donated
by Muriel and Philip Berman, consists of four white marble monolithic vertical
blocks, roughly 7′ high by 2′ deep and wide, standing in a square formation.
The four blocks originated from one block of stone.Yonatan “Yoni”
Netanyahu or Jonathan Netanyahu was a member of the Israel Defense Forces elite
Sayeret Matkal unit. Yoni was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service for
his conduct in the Yom Kippur War. He was killed in action during Operation
Entebbe at Entebbe airport in 1976, by Ugandan soldiers, when the Israeli
military rescued hostages after an aircraft hijacking. He was the leader of the
assault, and the only Israeli military casualty of the raid. His younger
brother Benjamin Netanyahu was Prime Minister of Israel from 1996-1999. The
National Museum of American Jewish History, founded in 1976, contains a large
collection on the role and the everyday life of Jews in America. In 2010 the museum
will open the doors to a new state-of-art facility
1987(23rd of Tishrei, 5748): Simchat Torah
1988(5th of Cheshvan, 5749): Seventy-four year
old Dorothy Helen Perlberg, the New York born daughter of Morris and Rose
Gintzleer and the wife of Charles
Perlberg passed away today.
1992: “Night and the City” a movie version of the 1938
novel by Gerald Karsh, directed by Irwin Winkler who coproduced the film with
Jane Rosenthal and co-starring Alan King
was released today in the United States.
1993:
Anti-Nazi riot breaks out in Welling in Kent, after police stop protesters
approaching the British National Party headquarters.
1994:
Rabbi Richard Rehins is scheduled to officiate at the wedding of Valerie Ann
Wasserman and David Michael Rheins, “the associate publisher of Spin magazine.”
1995(22nd
of Tishrei, 5756): Shemini Atzeret
1995:
Alternate-side street cleaning regulations are scheduled “to be suspended in
New York City today because Shemini Atzeret.”
1995(22nd
of Tishrei, 5756): “Six Israeli soldiers were killed and a seventh was wounded
today in the deadliest attack by Muslim guerrillas in southern Lebanon this
year.”
1996:
Dustin Hoffman’s “first critical success was in the play ‘Eh?,’which had its US
premiere at the Circle in the Square Downtown” today.
1997(15th
of Tishrei, 5758): Sukkoth
1997(15th
of Tishrei, 5758): Ninety-two British philatelist Marcus Samuel who served in
the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve during WW II and “was also a founder
member of the Society of Postal Historians” passed away today.
1997: Prolific American Author James Michener
passed away at the age of 90 in Austin, Texas. . A non-Jew, Michener’s specialty was historic
fiction in the tradition of the grand saga.
One of Michener’s most famous books was The Source. In it he traced the history of the Jews from
earliest times to modern days using the artifacts discovered at an fictional
archeological dig as the literary springboard.
It is one of the easiest ways to enter into the world of Jewish history.
1997: Sir Isaiah Berlin, who had been gravely ill
since late July, made what turned out to be a final statement on the subject of
the Israeli–Palestinian situation. “Since both sides begin with a
claim of total possession of Palestine as their historical right; and since
neither claim can be accepted within the realms of realism or without grave
injustice: it is plain that compromise, i.e. partition, is the only correct
solution, along Oslo lines – for supporting which Rabin was assassinated by a
Jewish bigot. Ideally, what we are calling for is a relationship of good
neighbors, but given the number of bigoted, terrorist chauvinists on both
sides, this is impracticable. The solution must lie somewhat along the lines of
reluctant toleration, for fear of far worse – i.e. a savage war which could
inflict irreparable damage on both sides. As for Jerusalem, it must remain the
capital of Israel, with the Muslim holy places being extra-territorial to a
Muslim authority, and an Arab quarter, with a guarantee from the United Nations
of preserving that position, by force if necessary.” To make a
statement of this kind was unusual for him, since he rarely if ever made public
statements on political topics, though, in the case of Israel, he was ready to
be known as a supporter of Peace Now. On this occasion, however, he decided to
take what might be his last opportunity to set out his strongly held views,
which he sent in the form of a brief statement (dictated to his secretary)
entitled ‘Israel and the Palestinians’ to his close friend Professor Avishai
Margalit in Jerusalem.
1998:
“Practical Magic,” a romantic comedy with a script co-authored by Akiva
Goldsman and featuring Mark Fuerstein was released in the United States today.
2000(17th
of Tishrei, 5761): Sukkoth Chol Hamoed
2000:
It was reported today that Geoffrey Robinson, a millionaire Labour MP had
“accused Peter Mandelson,” the scion of distinguished Anglo-Jewish family
“of lying to the Commons about the home loan affair that cost both of them
their government jobs.”
2001:
“Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urgently appealed for continued support today
after two far-right ministers quit his cabinet, accusing him of buckling under
American pressure to take a softer line toward the Palestinians.”
2002:
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Miles Lerman Center for the Study
of Jewish Resistance posthumously awarded the Museum’s Medal of Resistance to
Heshek Bauminger and Aharon Liebeskind, founders of the Jewish Fighting
Organization (JFO) in the Cracow Ghetto. Hela Schupper-Raufaizen, who fought
with the JFO in Cracow, accepted the medal during the summer on their behalf.
2003(20th
of Tishrei, 5764): Sixth Day of Sukkoth
2003:
“Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad of Malaysia lashed out today against what
he described as the Jewish subjugation of Muslims, urging a gathering of Muslim
leaders to help harness the Islamic world’s collective brainpower to turn the
tide.”
2004(1st
5765): Parashat Noach; Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
2004:
“Israel said that it had begun to scale back its 17-day military operation into
the northern Gaza Strip.
2005: The
New York Times book section featured reviews of books by Jewish authors
and/or that featured Jewish topics including Postwar: A History of Europe
Since 1945 by Tony Judt, In Case We’re Separated: Connected Stories by Alice Mattison, The Other
Shulman by Alan Zweibel and The Tiger In the Attic:
Memories of the Kindertransport and Growing Up English by Edith Milton
2005(24th
of Tishrei, 5767): Palestinian gunmen killed three Israelis and wounded as
least 5 others in two separate drive-by shootings in the West Bank. The Al Aqsa
Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for both attacks.
2005:
Even in disaster, hope can be found. In
a move that would have been unthinkable only months ago, Pakistan has expressed
a willingness to accept aide from Israel as the Moslem nation deals with the
aftermath of a major earthquake.
2005:
The New York Times published “My Four
Hours Testifying in the Federal Jury Room,” Judith Miller’s account of her time
spent before the federal grand jury.
2006:
“Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Israeli Parliament today that he was
willing to meet the leaders of Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority in an
effort to ease regional tensions, though no such meetings appear imminent.”
2007: Sasha Cooke, a mezzo-soprano, saved Stephen
Sondheim’s “Take Me to the World” for the second encore of her New York recital
debut tonight at Zankel Hall. (As reported by Steve Smith)
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/arts/music/18cook.html?searchResultPosition=10
2007:
At the Jewish Museum of Florida an exhibition styled “Zap Pow Bam – Super Héroes
of the Golden Age of Comics” opens. “
2008:
Proposed date on which Italy’s Holocaust Museum will open in Rome on the 65th
anniversary of the German capture of more than 1,000 Jews from Rome’s ghetto, a
major Holocaust episode in Italy.
2008: At SUNY New Paltz as part of the Israel @ 60
celebration the Resnick Institute for the Study of Modern Jewish Life
hosts a lecture by Dr. Len Lyons, author and member of the Ethiopian Jewry
Committee of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Boston, entitled “The Ethiopian Jews of Israel.”
2008:
One thousand Jews traveled in and out of Nablus on buses from midnight to 5
a.m. on Thursday, in a brief pilgrimage to the burned-out shell of the building
that covers Joseph’s Tomb. Eight years ago this month, Israel withdrew from the
tomb after a fierce gun battle in which six Palestinians and Border Police Cpl.
Madhat Yusef were killed. Within a week, a Palestinian mob ransacked and burned
the buildings in the compound, and Eilon Moreh resident Hillel Lieberman, who
also held US citizenship, was killed en route to the tomb.
2008:
A play by Ilan Stavans based on “The Disappearance” “premiered at the Skirball
Center in Los Angeles today.
2009:
Scottish actress Ronni Ancona appeared for the second time this year on “The
One Show.”
2009:
The joint Israeli-US Navy military exercise code named “Juniper Cobra” comes to
an end.
2009: Frances Goodrich and Albert
Hackett’s “The Diary of Anne Frank” is performed at Kimmel Theatre on the
campus of Cornell College in Mt. Vernon Iowa. The production is based on Wendy
Kesselman’s acclaimed new adaptation of the play that makes thoughtful use of
recently recovered segments of Anne’s diary to deepen our understanding both of
the cultural context of the events and to present a much more complex (and less
sentimental) Anne.
2009: Acclaimed Israeli choreographer
Hofesh Shechter makes his West Coast debut at UCLA Live with his UK-based
company performing “Uprising,” inspired by the Paris protests of 2006 and “In
Your Rooms,” which traces Shechter’s traumatic time in the Israeli military.
The 33-year-old is one of Britain’s most sought-after choreographers.
2009: In an article entitled “Book on
March Rich Detials His Iran Oil Deals,” Jad Mouawad examines the life this
rogue businessman who profited from the oil industry while working with a host
of governmental agencies including the U.S. State Department and Mossad as he
reviews The King of Oil by Daniel Ammann.
2009: The Irish tenor Ronan Tynan, a
fixture at Yankee Stadium for years with his stirring rendition of “God Bless
America,” was scheduled to belt out the song again during Game 1 of the
American League Championship Series today. Instead, he was disinvited by the
Yankees after he admitted making an anti-Semitic remark at his Manhattan
apartment building a day earlier. Howard Rubenstein, a spokesman for the
Yankees, said the team took action as soon as Tynan acknowledged making the
comment.
2010: Avishai Cohen, singing in in Hebrew, English, Spanish and Ladino,
is scheduled to perform at the Winter Garden in New York City.
2010: The new Natalie G. Heineman Smart Love Preschool was dedicated to
the memory of her life and her love and understanding of children.
2011: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is among the
partners supporting Ford’s Theatre scheduled
matinee and evening productions of “Parade,” a Tony-award winning
musical drama about the story of Leo Frank, who was lynched by a Georgia mob
after having been wrongfully convicted of the murder of a Christian girl
working in his factory.
2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish
authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Puppy
Diaries: Raising a Dog Named Scout” by Jill Abramson and “Until The Dawn’s
Light” by Aharon Appelfeld; translated by Jeffery Green.
2011: The Los Angeles Times features a review of “MetaMaus” by Art
Spiegelman which is “a lavish deconstruction of his magnum opus” known to one
and all as “Maus.”
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/books/la-ca-art-spiegelman-20111016,0,7783952.story
2011: The Shalit family
requested today be present at a High Court of Justice hearing, scheduled to
discuss petitions issued geared at thwarting a prisoner exchange deal that
would secure the release of their son, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, warning that
any delay in the agreement’s execution could lead to its failure.
2011: Palestinian
terrorists due to be deported overseas as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner
swap deal will no doubt find their way back to Palestinian land, a top Hamas
official said in an interview today
2011: Two
Palestinians who participated in the 2000 lynching of two Israel Defense Forces
soldiers in Ramallah will be released as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap
deal, an official prisoners list indicated today
2012: The Raw Men
Empire, “an Israeli indie folk band” formed in 2009, is scheduled to perform at
CMJ Music Marathon in New York.
2012: In Herndon,
VA, Congregation Beth Emeth’s Hazak Chapter is scheduled to present a lecture
by Dr. Mark Lowenthal, President and CEO of the Intelligence & Security
Academy.
2012: Delegates to
the Hadassah Convention are scheduled to “march, sing, dance and cheer” their
way “through the streets in downtown Jerusalem” as they mark the opening of
their convention.
2012: YIVO Institute
for Jewish Research and the Consulate General of Lithuania in NY are scheduled
to present “Reclaiming the Jewish Narrative in Lithuania Today,” a lecture by Markas Zingeris, Lithuanian Jewish author
and Director of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum.
2012: Israel will weigh military action if it
suspects Syria’s chemical weapons might fall into the hands of terrorist
organizations, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said today.
2012: Vandals
desecrated the grave of former defense minister and IDF chief of staff Moshe
Dayan tonight (As reported by Ben Hartman)
2012: A rocket
fired from Gaza hit close to a house in the Hof Ashkelon area tonight. Two
people were treated for shock and minor damage was inflicted on the building,
Channel 10 reported.
2012: The Contemporary Jewish Museum’s “California
Dreaming: Jewish life in the Bay Area from the Gold Rush to Present” is
scheduled to come to an end. (For more about
American Jewry in the American West see Harriet Rochlin & Western
Jewish History http://www.rochlin-roots-west.com/
2012: Recommended
Reading is scheduled the 7th and final of Alex Epstein’s stories
from the collection “For My Next Illusion I Will Use.”
2012(30th of Tishrei, 5773):
Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
2013: The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival is
scheduled to present an evening with Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz
author of For the Next Generation: A Wake-Up Call to Solving Our Nation’s
Problems
2013: In New York, The Center for Jewish
History is scheduled to present “Transcending Tradition: Jewish Mathematicians
in German-Speaking Academic Culture”
2013: The Lawrence Family JCC is
scheduled to present “Middle East Updated” with Professor Sandy Lakoff
2013: The office of Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis
next week.
2013: The United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum will be able to reopen following the vote by Congress to
approve legislation that will federal agencies to resume operation and raise
the debt limit.
2014(22nd of Tishrei, 5775):
Shemini Atsert
2014: In the evening, Agudas Achim in
Coralville, Iowa led by Rabbi Jeff Portman is scheduled to host a Simchat Torah
celebration complete with “pizza and treats.”
2014: At noon today, the Eden-Tamir Music
Center is scheduled to host a Festive Concert featuring the Philomusica Piano
Quartet.
2014: The Oxford University Jewish
Society chaplains are scheduled to host a Simchat Torah dinner this evening.
2014: While “Senior Hamas members said
today that indirect ceasefire talks with Israel in Cairo are set to resume at
the end of this month” “the political
leader of Hamas, Khaled Mashal, called today for Muslims to defend the al-Aqsa
mosque compound in Jerusalem, saying Israel was trying to seize the site, which
is revered in both Islam and Judaism. (As reported by Stuart Winer)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-indirect-talks-with-israel-to-resume-this-month/
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4581071,00.html
2014: In a Congressional hearing today,
Tom Frieden, the Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CD) was questioned for his handling of the Ebola crisis following
the spread of the disease to two nurses from the original patient in the US.”
2014: Publication of “The Beggars of
Lakewood.”
2014: “In a brief reported released”
today “the medical examiner said the cause of Joan Rivers’ death was brain
damaged caused by low blood oxygen or ‘anoxic encephalopathy due to hypoxic
arrest.’”
2014: Lewis Black is scheduled to appear
at the Palace Theatre in Albany, NY.
2015: “Dozens of Palestinians set fire at
dawn today to a holy site known as Joseph’s Tomb, in the Palestinian
Authority-controlled city of Nablus in the West Bank, damaging the tiny stone
compound that many Jews believe is the burial place of the son of the biblical
patriarch Jacob.”
2015:
The Catinca Tabacaru Gallery is scheduled to host a reception marking
the opening of Israeli artist’s Addam Yekutieli first solo exhibition.
2015: The American Jewish Historical
Society is scheduled to host an “exhibition of selected works by JDOCU, who
document activities of Tikkun Olam (‘Repair the World’) with special emphasis
on Israeli and Jewish culture.”
2016(14th of Tishrei, 5777):
Erev Sukooth
2016: The
New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939 by
Volker Ullrich, Murder, Inc. and the Moral Life: Gangsters and Gangbusters
in La Guardia’s New York by Robert Weldon Whalen and A Gambler’s Anatomy
by Jonathan Lethem
2016: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and
Education Center is scheduled to re-launch “Make A Difference” – the Harvey
Miller Family Youth Exhibition.
2016: The 92nd Street Y is
scheduled to host a Sukkah Decorating Party
2016: In a cultural combination that
could only take place in the United States, the Bay Ridge Jewish Community is
scheduled to host a Sukkah Pizza Party.
2017: “Israeli Air Force jets attacked an
anti-aircraft battery well inside Syria this morning, after the surface-to-air
system launched a missile at a different plane over the skies of Lebanon,
2017: The Oxford University Jewish
Society is scheduled to provide a variety burgers – Beef, Chicken and Veggie –
for hungry students.
2017: “Cousins Muhammad and Khalid
Muhamra and Younis Ayash Musa Zayn “were convicted today” of murder because of
their role “in a deadly terror attack in Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market in June 2016
in which four people were killed.”
2017: “Filmmaker and Director Aviva
Kempner” is scheduled to present “the D.C. premiere of her barnd new 2-disc DVD
packaged of ‘Rosenwald’” which examines the life of Chicago philanthropist and
business man Julius Rosenwald.
2017: The Yeshiva University Museum is
scheduled to a host a walking tour of the exhibition “The Arch of Titus – from
Jerusalem to Rome and Back.”
2017: “Actor-pianist Hershey Fedler is”
scheduled to host a “concert in New York, leading guests at Temple Emanu-El in
a sing-along concert of tunes by great 20th century Jewish American
songwriters.”
2018: In Cedar Rapids, IA, Barnes and Noble is scheduled to host a book
signing for Barbara Feller, the Hebrew teacher par excellence, author of the
newly released Road to Waubeek: Discovering Jay G. Sigmund.
2018: Jane Leavy’s The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created
“which was named one of the top ten biographies/memoirs for the fall of 2018 by
Publishers Weekly, was published
today.
2018: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host an
evening with former Secretary of State Madeline Albright who told Ed Bradley in
1997 “that both her Jewish origins” and the death of her grandparents in
concentration camps “had been totally unknown to her” and former Vice President
of Dick Cheney who may discuss his role in the one of the greatest, if not the
greatest foreign policy debacle in American history.
2019(17th of Tishrei, 5780): Third Day of Sukkoth
2019: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host Jeff
Zucker as he discusses The Enemy of the People with the author and CNN newsman
Jim Acosta.
2019: In New Orleans, the JCC is scheduled to host “Nursery School
Parents’ Night.”
2019: In Oakland, CA, Temple Sinai is scheduled to host “Parent and Me
Jewish Music” the first class in a six week workshop led by Isaac Zones.
2019: The Jewish Community Center of San Francisco is scheduled to host
Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the creator of “BoJack Horseman” as he “discusses his
debut short-fiction collection Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged
Glory.
2019: In Glencoe, IL, the North Shore Congregation is scheduled to host
author Michael Dobbs as he discusses The Unwanted: America, Auschwitz, and a
Village Caught in Between,
2020: The Mandel JCC Cleveland FilmFest is scheduled to continue for a
second day with home-views of “Antisemitism in 4 Mutations,” “Muna” and
“Unchained.”
2020: Havurah on the Hill is scheduled to present online, “October
Kabbalat Shabbat: Repair the World.”
2020: In Cedar Rapids, IA. Temple Judah is scheduled to host
live-streamed Shabbat evening services.
2020: Following yesterday’s announcement by coronavirus cabinet voted to reopen small business that don’t involve
interaction with the public, kindergartens, take-away food services and beaches
starting Sunday, Israelis are also dealing with the statement from Health
Minister Yuli Edelstein :that during the exit from the lockdown, which will not
be short, there will be situations in which we will have to stop.”
2021: The Eden-Tamir Center is scheduled to being
the 53rd concert season with a performance by The Ben-Haim Trio.
2022: Schechter Boston is scheduled to host Science in the Sukkah!, an interactive science
show and sample delicious ice cream created right before your very eyes!
2022: In Foster City, CA the Ronald C. Wornick
Jewish Day School is scheduled to host “Cooking in the Sukkah.”
2022: Dan DeClue , a product of the Cedar Rapids
Jewish community and the son of Carolyn Simon is scheduled to perform with the
North Winds Symphonic Bank.
2022: A group from the Oshman Family JCC is
scheduled to partake in the “Sukkot Harvest” during which they will harvest
fall crops, plant winter crops and enjoying a Sukkot tasting.
2022: The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled
to a walking tour focusing on “Activism on the Lower East Side” in participants
explore “landmarks in the movement for social and economic reform on the Lower
East Side at the turn of the 20th century.
2022(21st
of Tishrei, 5783): Hoshana Rabba
2023:
The JDC Archives is scheduled to host a webinar on “Relief Supplies – Films”:
On the Road with the JDC’s Mobile Film Units in Postwar Germany.
2023:
The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host a presentation by
“professional chef” Lior Lev Sercarz,
author A Middle Eastern Pantry: Essential Ingredients for Classic and
Contemporary Recipes.
2023:
In New Orleans, the National Council of Jewish Women is scheduled to host the
Hannah Solomon Luncheon.
2023:
The Hebrew College is scheduled to present, online, “Ansky, Asch, Aleichem: A
Journey Through Yiddish Theater.”
2023:
Brigadier General (Res) Amir Avivi is scheduled to provide an update on the
current was in Israel via zoom.
2023:
In the tradition of offering study for everybody, Temple Judea is scheduled to
host “Taste of Torah with Yaron” and
Beginner Hebrew with Rabbi Feivel.
2023:
As October 16 begins in Israel, Israelis wonder if the rocket attacks by Hezbollah
on Nahariya and other nearby towns presage a wider war and in the United States
Americans, according to FBI Director Chris Wray, may have to deal with the “possibility
that Hamas and other groups could exploit the conflict in the Middle East to
call for or plot attacks in the United States.”
2023(1st
of Cheshvan, 5784): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
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