This Day, May 27, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
May 27
1096 (3rd
of Sivan): Count Emicho and the Crusaders entered Mayence, Germany. The Jews
took refuge in the Episcopal Palace and committed mass suicide rather than
convert. One Jew by the name of Isaac, his two daughters and a friend called
Uriah allowed themselves to be baptized. Within a few weeks Isaac, who was
remorseful of his act killed his daughters burned his own house. He and Uriah
went to the local synagogue locked themselves in and burned it down. A large
part of the city was destroyed.
1199:
Coronation of John as King of England. The conditions of the Jews worsened
under the hapless rule of Richard’s younger brother. He squeezed the Jewish community for funds,
including the dowry for his daughter. He
also signed the Magna Carta which dealt specifically with the issue of
borrowing from Jews and debts owed to Jews by the survivors of deceased
Englishmen.
1234: Today
religious zealot Margaret of Provence married King Louis IX whose own religious
zealotry including a self-serving anti-Semitism
as can be seen by his using wealth stolen from Jews whom he then
expelled to finance his failed crusade
and ingratiating himself with the Pope Gregory by burning 12,000 copies of
Jewish texts.
1332:
Birthdate of Ibn Khaldun, the Tunisian historian who was the first to contend
that the Jrāwa, were a Berber Zenata tribal confederacy that had converted to
Judaism and were led by Dihya whom Arab historians described as a “Jewish
sorcerer.”
1679: The Pope
suspended the Portuguese Inquisition due to its severe treatment of Marranos.
1328: Philip
VI is crowned King of France. Phillip’s
attempts to take back territory that England held in France in 1337 is marked
as the start of the Hundred Years War. This period would mark the further
impoverishment of the kingdom’s Jews who had only been recently re-admitted to
the realm. The Black Plague would also
arrive in Europe in the middle of the 14th century, so it is
difficult to say how much of the suffering of the Jews of Europe was the result
of the ravages of the war and how much was the result of the plague and the
anti-Semitic behavior that rose with it.
1462:
Coronation of Louis XII who “ordered the final expulsion of the Jews from
Provence in 1501” and who levied a special tax on all the Jews who converted to
compensate for the loss of revenue.
1508: Fifty-five-year-old
Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan who “expelled all the Jews from the duchy on
December 3, 1490 passed away today.
1529: Thirty
Jews of Posing, Hungary, charged with blood-ritual, were burned at the stake.
1564: John
Calvin, the religious reformer whose doctrine came to be called Calvinism
passed away today. Among his writings was “Response to Questions and Objections
of a Certain Jew.”
http://www.reformedinstitute.org/documents/GSPak.pdf
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0004_0_03871.html
1647: Peter
Stuyvesant was inaugurated as Director-General of New Netherland. It was while
serving in this position, that Stuyvesant would greet the first group of Jews
to settle in what would become New York City.
After failing to force them out, he did what he could to treat them like
second class citizens. While Stuyvesant
had a somewhat distinguished career as soldier and political leader, the irony
is that the group that has the strongest memory of him is the one whom he
sought to harm – the Jewish people.
1682: Sir Christoper
Packe, the son of Catherine and Tomas Packe and former Lord Mayor of London “who
in 1656 joined with the merchants in London in opposing the readmission of Jews”
passed away today.
1703: Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint
Petersburg. Given Peter’s stated views in 1698 that no Jew should live in
Russia, one would assume that no Jews would live in his new capital. It is possible that two Jews named Meyer and
Lups who “assisted the Tsar in his financial operations” may have at least
visited Peter’s new city. By 1714, at
least one Jew was known to be living in St. Petersburg. Jan da Costa “a versatile linguist descended
from Portuguese Marranos” who had previously lived in Hamburg, arrived in St.
Petersburg where he was appointed court Jester by Peter in 1714. Of course, by then Peter’s realm was no
longer free Jews since his annexation of the Baltic territories and conquests
in the Ukraine had had the unintended consequence of bring him untold number of
Jewish subjects.
1724:
Beginning of the papacy of Benedict XIII, the pope who issued Emanavit nuper, a Papal Bull, dealing with “the
necessary conditions for imposing Baptism on a Jew.”
1730: The leaders of the Berlin community paid 4,500 marks to
replace Moses Aaron of Lemberg with another rabbi which resulted in Aron being
“forced” to become the rabbi at Frankfort-on-the Oder
1754(6th of Sivan, 5514): Shavuot observed as British
forces under the command of George Washington prepared to fight a French-Canadian
force on the morrow in what would be the opening battle of the French and
Indian War.
1758(19th of Iyar, 5518): Parashat Bechukotai chanted as
British troops prepare to attack Fort Carillon during the Seven Years War.
1759: In New York, Moses Benjamin Franks, the son of Rachel and
Benjamin Franks and his wife Sarah Franks gave birth to Isaac Franks who fought
with the Continental Army from 1776 until he was forced to resign due to ill
health in 1782.
1765(7th of Sivan, 5525): Second Day of Shavuot; Yizkor
observed on the same day that Philadelphia businessman and future delegate to
the Continental Congressman Samuel Wharton wrote to Benjamin Franklin about
several matters including the “insurrection in Cumberland County” led “by a
number of Irish Presbyterians.”
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-12-02-0071
1773(5th of Sivan, 5533): Erev Shavuot observed as Sejm
dealt with matters that would lead to the first of the three partitions of
Poland with all that that would mean for this large Jewish community.
1790: Joachim Edler von Popper, the “Court Jew” of the Habsburgs
“was ennobled as the first ‘Elder von Popper’ making him the second Jew to be
ennobled proving that you did not convert to attain this honor.
1792(6th of Sivan, 5552): Shavuot observed during the
French Revolution on the day when the French Assembly passed laws limiting the
power of the King’s Guard which reputedly opposed to the revolution.
1799: In Paris, Cantor Élie Halfon Halévy and his wife gave birth
to Fromental Halévy the French composer whose most famous work maybe the opera La Juive (The Jewess)
1804: In South
Carolina, Rabbi Solomon Hart officiated at the marriage of Solomon Levy, a
Charleston merchant and Mrs. Hannah Levy, the widow of the late Samuel Levy.
1808: The
Polonies Talmud Torah of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York became the
first Jewish day school in the United States when it modified its curriculum to
include both religious and secular studies.1811: Birthdate of Abraham de Pinto,
the native of the Hague who was awarded a gold medal when he earned his LL.D.
in 1835, the same year in which he became editor in chief of the “Weekblad voor
het Recht.”
1811: Mendel
Samuel married Amelia Emanuel today at the Hambro Synagogue.
1811:
Birthdate of Abraham de Pinto, the native of The Hague who became a leading
Dutch jurist.
1814: Today
the Emperor of Austria “wrote to one of his ministers” complaining about
reports that “Viennese Jews” had circumvented the law by buying “homes in the
name of Christians” and stating that this “would not be tolerated.
1822(7th
of Sivan, 5582): Second Day of Shavuot and Yizkor
1823:
Birthdate of David Rosin, the German born theologian and teacher who became a
professor at the Rabbinical Seminary in Breslau. He was a contemporary and
friend of Rabbi Michael Sachs.
1834(18th
of Iyar, 5594): Lag B’Omer
1834: Simeon
and Reizecha Collins were married today at the Western Synagogue.
1835: “At
Headley Rectory, Surry, the Reverend Ferdinand Faithful and Elizabeth Marry
Harrison” gave birth to “women’s rights activist” Emily Faithful, the author of
Three Visits to America published in 1884, wrote that twenty-seven year
old Leonard Montefiore, who had “died at Newport, RI” in 1879 “was visiting the
United States in order to see for himself what could be learned from the
political and social condition of the people” and that “the world can ill
afford to los men of such deep thought and energetic action.”
1837(22nd
of Iyar, 5597): Parashat Bechukotai
1837(22nd
of Iyar, 5597): One month old Eliza Emory Cohen, the daughter of Kitty Etting
and Benjamin I Cohen who were married in 1819 passed away toay.
1838: Joseph
David and Jeanetta Mallan were married today in the United Kingdom.
1839: John
Solomons and Louisa Pass were married today at the Great Synagogue in London.
1841(7th
of Sivan, 5601) 2nd day of Shavuot, Yizkor
1842: The Voice of Jacob in Sidney, Australia
reported on the conflagration at Smyrna: There was an additional series of
offerings to the fund in aid of the sufferers on the Day of Atonement in the
Great Synagogue…”
1848: In
Baltimore, MD, Aaron and Augusta Straus Bachrach gave birth to Henry Bachrach
who worked in Washington, D.C., Wheeling, W.Va. and Chicago before opening
Kaufman and Bachrach, a highly successful clothing store in Decatur, Illinois
where he and his wife, the former Matilda Hamburger raised three sons – John,
Louis and Charles who became a physician.
1849(6th
of Sivan, 5609): Shavuot
1849:
Birthdate of Adolph Lewisohn, a German-Jewish immigrant born in Hamburg who
became a New York City investment banker, mining magnate, and philanthropist.
1849:
Birthdate of Moriz Benedikt, the native of Krasice, who was the editor of Neue Freie Presse.
1852: Lionel
de Rothschild issued an address to the “independent electors of London” in
which he thanked them for their support and for twice electing him to the House
of Commons, even though he has been denied the right to assume his position. He went to thank them for supporting the
effort to make it possible him to serve in Parliament and asking for their
support in his third bid to be elcted to the House of Commons.
1853: The
author of an article entitled “The Word ‘Selah’” which was published today
sought to provide a meaning for the Hebrew word “Selah” which is used in its
untranslated form throughout the Bible especially in the Book of Psalms. In searching for the meaning, he states that
“the Targums and most of the Jewish commentators give the word, meaning eternally
forever. Rabbi Kinchi regards it as a sign to elevate the voice.” He concludes by saying that “selah” may be an
abridged version of Higgaion Selah.
[Editor’s Note – what makes this amazing is that this learned article
with all of these Jewish references appeared in the New York Times.]
1855: Reverend
Joseph P. Thompson who has just returned from the Holy Land is scheduled to
give a talk this afternoon based on his visit to Jerusalem.
1857: Hermann
Goldschmidt discovered Asteroid 44 Nysa.
1860(6th
of Sivan, 5620): In the United States, Jews on both sides of the Mason-Dixon
Line celebrate Shavuot for the last time as “brethren.”
1863: In
Vienna, Aurelia and David Schwarz gave birth to Mathilde Saphir, the wife of
Joseph Saphir and “mother of Heinrich Saphir; Thekla Müller; Friedrich Fritz
Saphir; Armin Saphir; Bernardo Saphir; Paul Saphir; Dr. Richard Saphir; Dr.
Otto Saphir; Dr. Dr. William Saphir and Dr. Erich Eric Saphir,”
1863:In
Hungary Eliyahu Menachem Goitein and Amalia Mahala Goitein gave birth to Rabbi
Hirsch Zvi Goiten who settled in Copenhagen, Denmark.
1864: The 79th
Indiana under the command of Colonel Frederick Knefler took part in the Battle
of Pickett’s Mill, one of the Union victories that marked General Sherman’s
campaign that led to the capture of Atlanta, GA. The campaign was a daring military action
that was a key to Union victory over the Confederacy. Knefler, who would rise to the rank of
General before the end of the war, was one of the highest ranking Jews to serve
in the Union Army.
1866:
The New York Times reported that one of the
ancient aqueducts which supplies Jerusalem with water is formed of blocks
of stone so keyed together as to form a perfect syphon.
1866: In Washington, DC, Leopold Luchs, the Bavarian
born
son of Seligmann Pinchas Luchs and Judith Marx Luchs and
his wife Hannah Luchs gave birth to Clara Kaufman.
1868(6th
of Sivan, 5628): Shavuot observed for the last time during the Presidency of
Andrew Johnson
1870: In New York’s “old Seventh Ward,” “Gerson Hyman, a
well-known Talmudist who emigrated to” the United States “from Wirballen,
Poland” and his wife gave birth to Samuel I Hyman, the founder and head of S.I.
Hyman & Brothers and leader of the Jewish community who “is a member of the
Executive Committee of the Kahilla, a delegate to the Jewish Congress and a
trustee of the Distribution Committee of the Federation of Jewish
Philanthropies.
1870: It was
reported today that Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum has been designated by
a recent act of the state legislature as one of the recipients of a pro rata
share of $150,000.
1870: In
Lithuania, David and Rebecca Davidson gave birth to Columbia PhD Israel
Davidson, the husband of Carrie Dreyfuss and Professor at JTS who was a guest
lecturer at Hebrew University in 1926.
1871(7th
of Sivan, 5631): Shabbat and Second Day of Shavuot
1871: Myer
Asch, who had reached the rank of Colonel while serving with the Army of the
Potomac during the Civil War was re-elected as Senior Vice Commander of the
George G. Meade Post of the Grand Army of the Republic.
1874:
Birthdate of Wetzlar, Germany native Max Rosenthal, a partner with Israel Cass
in Cass and Rosenthal, a manufacturer of clothing for infants and children.
1876: Birthdate of Dusseldorf native Wilhelm Levison, the
German medievalist who was forced to retire from his professorship at Bonn
University because of the Nuremberg Laws” and “fled Nazi Germany in the spring
of 1939, taking a position at Durham University” in the United Kingdom.
1877: The New York Times featured a review of
“The Life, Work and Opinions of Henrich Heine” a two-volume work
written by William Stigand.
1878: It was reported today that John Bright, who ranks
with Disraeli and Gladstone as a leading English statesman is reported to have
Jewish ancestry. According to several publications including The Examiner, one
of Bright’s Quaker forbearers married “a very pretty Jewess named Martha
Jacobs…Mr. Bright’s brother, what has a seat in the House of Commons is called
‘Jacob’ after the ‘pretty Jewess.’” This report should not be construed as
being informational or complimentary since it also includes the information
that Jacob Bright “has a nose duly fitted to the Anglo-Jewish role.” (The hooked nose Jew was a classic staple of
19th century anti-Semitism.
1879(5th
of Sivan, 5639): Erev of Shavuot
1879: In New
York, Judge Gildersleeve has ordered the sons of Fanny Solomon to pay $4.50 per
week for her support. “Mrs. Fanny Solomon an aged and infirm Hebrew lady” had
“instituted proceedings to compel her sons Leopold, Felix and Alfred to support
her.” The Solomon brothers own a factory
that manufactures paper-boxes. Mrs.
Solomon contended that she destitute and that her sons had refused to provide
with “the necessities of life” even though they were wealthy enough to have
done so. The sons claimed that she was
not destitute since she had savings of her own.
They also said that she had refused their offers to come and live with
them. Based on the decision, the Judge was not impressed by the brothers’
claims.
1879: In
Montreal, Canada, Rabbis De Sola and Levy officiated at the weeding of Joseph
H. Loryea of Charleston, SC and Rosabel L. Hyman, the “third daughter of
William Hyman of Montreal.”
1880: Twenty-four-year-old
New York born composer and theatrical manager Rudolph Aronson opened his new
concert-hall at 41st Street and Broadway today.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1811-aronson-rudolph27
1880: Moses
Bruhl set sail from New York aboard the steamship Gallia bound for Liverpool.
Bruhl was a New York businessman and philanthropist who created The Betty Bruhl
Prizes, awards for outstanding students at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum named in
honor of his late wife.
1883: Alexander III crowned Czar of Russia. Alexander pursued some of the most
anti-Semitic policies of all the Romanovs, which is saying something given
their miserable track record.
1884:
Birthdate of Prague native and novelist Max Brod, the husband Elsa Taussig, who
is best known for his friendship with Franz Kafka.
1884:
Josephine Sykes and Henry Morgenthau Sr. gave birth to their daughter Helen
Fox.
1886:
Birthdate of Galveston, TX native Max Geller, “the first native Texan to become
an Orthodox Rabbi who served
Congregations Beth Jacob and Congregation Adath Israel.
1887:
Birthdate of University of Michigan chemistry professor Dr. Kasimir Fajans the
holder of a Ph.D. from Heidelberg University who raised two sons – Stefan and
Edgar – with his wife Salome. https://lsa.umich.edu/chem/about/department-history/kasimir-j–fajans—1887-1975-.html
1888: In New
York City, “English-born antiques dealer and auctioneer Henry B. Herts” and his
wife gave birth to Columbia School of Architecture graduate Benjamin Russell
Herts who along with his brother Isaac founded Herts Brothers, the firm of
designers and architects whose clients included yachtsman William Astor, Jr and
the Knickerbocker Hotel.
1888 Birthdate
of Morris J. Clurman, the husband of Lena Shimshak and the father of Bernice
and Herman Clurman.
1889: In New
York City, “Nathan and Lina (Gutherz) Straus gave birth to Princeton graduate
and R.H. Macy partner Nathan Straus, Jr. the husband of Helen E. Sachs who
served as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy during WW I and a New York State Senator
while serving as a director of the Palestine Economic Corporation and the
Palestine Development Council as being an active member of the Free Synagogue
and the “Temple Beth-El Clubs.
1890: Mary
Frohman, the widow of Herman Frohman, is scheduled to appear in court today to
respond to a claim brought by her children that she is a “lunatic.” Frohman died without a will and since most of
his property was in his wife’s name she is now in control of it; a situation
that her four children seem determine to change.
1890: In
Clevedon, Somerset, UK, “grocer George Edward Gedye” and his wife gave birth to
George Eric Rowe Gedye who served as a foreign correspondent for a dozen years
in the 1920’s and 1930” and was the author the 1939 tome Betrayal in Central
Europe which was highly critical of Prime Minister Chamberlain’s policy of
appeasement and who provided an eyewitness of the “brutalities and
persecutions” of Jews in Austria.
1890: “The
inquest by Coroner Joseph Rosesh and a jury into the murder of Samuel Hutch a
Jewish peddler who is a member of the congregation at Roundout is still in
progress tonight at Middletown, NY.
1890: It was
reported today that Temple Beth-El will host the upcoming confirmation
exercises for students enrolled by the Hebrew Free School Association.
1891: While
being interviewed in Paris today Baron Hirsch said “The measures now enforced
against the Hebrews in Russia are equivalent to a wholesale expulsion of the
race from the Russian Empire.”
1892: “
‘Cranks’ And The World’s Fair” an editorial published today takes issue with
attempts in the U.S. House of Representatives to tie funding for the World’s
Fair to a promise to close the exhibitions on Sunday so as not to violate the
“Sabbath.” “It is only a very small
proportion of Christians who are so rigid Sabbatarians as the Jews. The orthodox Jews in every country make
considerable sacrifices, eager as for money as they are supposed to be, in
order to observe the Sabbath. Yet no
Jewish exhibitor at a World’s Fair that we know of has refused to allow his
exhibit to be shown along with the rest on Saturdays.”
1893: While on
his way to the synagogue this morning thirteen-year-old Israel Schwartz ran
away from the Ladies’ Deborah Nursery and went to the Gerry Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children where he was examined by Dr. Travis Gibb who
found “the boy had been brutally beaten.”
1893: “The
Second Mrs. Tanqueray,” a play by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, the grandson of
Sephardic Jews.
1894:
“Columbus and the Jews” published today provides a detailed review of
Christopher Columbus and the Participation of the Jews in the Spanish and
Portuguese Discoveries by Dr. Meyer Kayserling and translated by Charles
Gross.
1894: “The
Capital of Bosnia” published today described the “bewildering sights and
sounds” of Sarajevo including the presence of “hoary Spanish Jews, any one of
whom might sit as a model for a portrait of King Solomon.”
1894: It was
reported today that Samuel Montagu, “the well-known banker and philanthropist”
and almost the only important Jew who did not desert Prime Minister Gladstone
“on the Irish Question” has been made a
Baronet by Queen Victoria.
1894:
“Bequests of Jesse Seligman” published today included a lengthy list of those
institutions benefiting from the largesse of the late millionaire some of which
were the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum, $5,000; Mount Sinai Hospital,
$2,500; United Hebrew Charities the City of New York, $1,000 and the Montefiore
Home for Chronic Invalids, $1,000. (And that was only the tip of the iceberg of
his generosity)
1895: Birthdate
of Arthur Seymour Lyons, the brother of Sam Lyons with whom he formed the
theatrical agency firm of Lyons and Lyons whose best known client was Jack
Benny.
1897: In
Rovno, which at the time was part of Ukraine, “Levia and Miriam (Shearer)
Smolar gave birth to Ber (Boris) Smolar, the a staff member of the Warsaw
Jewish Daily who in 1921 came to the United States where he studies journalism
at Northwestern, the University of Chicago and Columbia while pursuing a career
with several publications in the Jewish Forward in Chicago and the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency where he served for as the editor.
1897(25th
of Iyar 5657): Eighty-two-year-old “painter, photographer, author and companion
of explorer John C. Fremont” Solomon Nunes
Carvahlo, the Charles born son of Sephardic Jews Sarah Cohen D’Azevedo and
David Nunes Cavalho, the husband of Sarah Miriam Solis whom he married in Philadelphia
and father of Charity and David Carvahlo “the famous paper, ink and handwriting
analyst” passed away today in Pleasantville, NY after which he was buried in
Beth Olom Cemetery in Ridgewood, NY.
https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/story/art-and-life-solomon-nunes-carvalho
https://www.jewishmag.com/185mag/solmon_carvalho/solmon_carvalho.htm
1898(6th of
Sivan, 5658): As the Spanish-American War enters into its second month,
celebration of Shavuot
1898:
“Montefiore Country Home” published today described plans for the upcoming
“formal opening of the country sanitarium of the Montefiore Home for Chronic
Invalids.”
1898: Simon
Cook who had been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in the Navy in 1893 was
assigned to the U.S.S. Princeton today.
1898: The
members of the Hebrew Union Veterans’ Association assembled at Yorkville Court
on the corner of 3rd Avenue and 57th Street and marched
to Temple Emanu-El where the Civil War veterans held their annual memorial
service.
1898:
“Chicago’s Jewish Guardsman” published today described the formation of the
“Guards of Zion” which is made up of approximately 190 of the younger members
of the Zion Association of Chicago. The
unit will be designated as Companies I and M of an Illinois Volunteer Regiment
under the command of Colonel McGrath. (Editor’s Note – this was part of the
patriotic response that was sweeping the country during the Spanish-American
War)
1899(18th
of Sivan, 5759): Ninety-five-year-old Jonas Hecht passed away in Norfolk. He
moved there in 1863 after having served as a rabbi in New York for 22
years. He was one of the original ten
men who found B’nai B’rith.
1899: David
Wolffsohn reports that the minimum funding for the Jewish Colonial Bank has
been finally assured.
1899: “New
Mount Sinai Hospital” published today descried plans for the new building for
which the Jews of New York have provided all of the funding even though “the
institution is non-sectarian…and the appointments on the house staff, medical
staff and the admission of patients are made without regard to religious
faith.”
1899:
Birthdate of Bernard Joseph the Montreal, Canada native who became known as Dov
Yosef, the Israeli political leader who served as military governor of
Jerusalem during the War for Independence in 1948.
1899: “From
Russia to America” published today described the decision of Israel Zangwill to
write a foreword to From Plotzk to Boston by Mary Antin. Mr. Zangwill
sees this collection of letters written in Yiddish by an eleven-year-old
Russian immigrant provides a view of the little known “inner feelings of the
people themselves” and helps us understand “what magic vision of free America
lures them on to face the great journey to other side of the world.
1899: W.B.
Clarke Company has announced that it will print “a second and much larger
edition of Mary Antin’s From Plotzk to Boston which was first produced by a printer in New York. An error was made in creating the title. Antin was from Polotsk, but in the process of
translation and printing it was changed to Plotzk.
1900: Pianist
Leopold Godowsky and his wife gave birth to violinist Leopold Godowsky who
helped to created Kodachrome.
1901: It was
reported today that “Memorial services were by the E.D. Morgan Post of the
Grand Army of the Republic at Temple Rodeph Shalom in Manhattan” where “the
veterans were welcomed to the Temple by Assistant District Attorney Maurice B.
Blumenthal” and Rabbi Rudolph Grossman after which they heard a speech by
Congressman H.M. Goldfogle.
1902: Today, “Orthodox
religious leaders, who had mostly remained on the sidelines, formally endorsed
the” boycott of kosher meat led by angry housewives on the east side who had
seen the price of meat jump from 12 to 18 cents.
1903:
Birthdate of Indianapolis native and University of Illinois trained engineer
Russell David Levy, an executive with the Zeckendorf Corporation.
1903: Senator
Boise Penrose who in 1911 described “discrimination by the Russian Government
against American Hebrews as an assault on American principles and traditions”
and assured a delegation of Jews from Philadelphia “that he agreed with their
contention that the violation of their treaty rights as American citizens was
not a proper subject for an arbitration tribunal but should result in the
passing of a resolution by Congress denouncing the present treaty” with Russia
began serving as Chairman of the Republican State Committee of Pennylvania..
1903: At
Carnegie Hall, New York May Seth Low presided over a mass meeting protesting
the Kishinev Pogrom which was addressed by former President Grover Cleveland.
1904(13th
of Sivan, 5664): Forty-four-year-old “Henry M. Hendricks, a junior member of
the firm of Hendricks Brothers, the oldest metal house in the United States
(dating back to 1764) dropped dead in the waiting room of the Christopher
Street Ferry this morning” while on his way to Hoboken, NJ to meet his 19 year
old daughter Aimia.
1904: It was
reported today that that in Russia, “the Emperor considered the present time
auspicious for the inauguration” of a reform that will repeal the law under
which Jews are forbidden to reside within 32 miles of the frontier since it
“will materially relieve the situation of the Jews who are crowded along the western borders.
1905:
Birthdate of forensic psychiatrist and author Dr. Henry A. Davidson, the
Newark, NJ born son of physician and husband of “the former Adelaide Heyman
with whom he had two children – Laurence and Ellen.
1905:
“Thirty-three men met today at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association where they
agreed to form “a congregation known as the Temple of Truth (Congregation Beth
Emth) which “held its first services at 504 Market Place” and was the
beneficiary of the generosity of D.L. Levy who purchased a Torah for the
congregation’s use.
1906: It was
reported today that “the Black Hundreds are attempting to invite the people to
attack the Jews by the circulation of false paper money purporting to have been
issued any an alleged Jewish republic in Tula Province, with Max Gorky as
president.”
1906:
Congregation Temple Adath Israel “dedicated its new house of worship on 169th
near Third Avenue” this afternoon.
1906: “The
Sabbath was rigidly observed today” in Louisville with all saloons being closed
“except one in a park kept by a Jew who had observed Saturday as the Sabbath”
and who “was arrested but was allowed to continued selling throughout the day’
while doing “a lively business when the news spread.”
1907: “Society
to Teach Jewish Deaf-Mutes” published today described the founding “of a
society for the instruction of Jewish deaf-mutes” the aim of which is “to
provide instructors to into Jewish homes and teach parents how to develop the
throat and mouth muscles of their deaf-mute children who are below school age;
to provide instruction for deaf-mute children in day schools and to establish
places of religious instruction and worship for Jewish deaf mutes of all ages.”
1908:
Birthdate of Newark, NJ of Jefferson Medical College and University of
Pennsylvania trained psychiatrist, a World War II veteran a leading forensic
psychiatrist who served as superintendent of one of the nation’s largest mental
health facilities, Overbrook Hospital while raising two children – Ellen and
Laurence – with his wife, “the former Adelaide Heyman.”
1908:
Birthdate of Harold Rome the Hartford, CT native and Yale University graduate
who turned his back on a career in architecture to become a composer and
lyricist.
1908:
Birthdate of Reform Rabbi Elmer Berger, the Cleveland, Ohio native who used the
American Council for Judaism as a platform to promote his anti-Zionist beliefs.
1909(7th
of Sivan, 5669) 2nd day of Shavuot, Yizkor
1909: Tonight,
the Jewish Morning Journal “gave out a special cable dispatch from
Constantinople saying that the Turkish Government had invited the Jews of Russia and Romania to settle in Turkey,
agreeing to remove all restrictions and to grant full citizenship to them.”
1910(18th
of Iyar, 5670): Lag B’Omer
1910: It was
reported today that “the exodus of Jewish families from Kieff has
commenced” with 300 proscribed families
belonging exclusively to the poorest classes having already been forced to
leave the city.
1911:
Birthdate of Hubert Humphrey, reform mayor of Minneapolis, U.S. Senator from
Minn. and Vice President of the United States.
Humphrey was a courageous supporter of civil rights including banning
religious discrimination. Humphrey
supported the state of Israel in the difficult days of the 1950’s. A visitor to his Washington, D.C. office
would find a JNF Tree Certificate displayed proudly on the wall for all to see.
1911:
Birthdate of Teddy Kollek, mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 till 1993. Born
Theodor Kollek to a Jewish family in Nagyvaszony near Budapest,
Austria-Hungary, and named after Theodor Herzl, Kollek shared his father Alfred’s
enthusiasm for Zionist ideas. He grew up in Vienna. In 1935, three years before
the Nazis seized power in Austria, the Kollek family immigrated to Palestine —
this was still the time of the British Mandate. Kollek was eager to help build
a new society and, in 1937, was one of the co-founders of Kibbutz Ein Gev near
Lake Galilee. In the same year he married Tamar Schwarz, who gave birth to two
children, Amos (born 1947) and Osnat. During the Second World War, Kollek tried
to represent Jewish interests in Europe on behalf of the Haganah At the
outbreak of the war he succeeded in persuading Adolf Eichmann to release 3,000
young Jewish concentration camp inmates and transfer them to England. Kollek
became a close ally of David Ben-Gurion; working for the latter’s government
from 1952 till 1965. In 1965 Teddy Kollek succeeded Mordechai Ish Shalom as
Mayor of Jerusalem. He served six terms of office — a total of 28 years, being
re-elected in 1969, 1973, 1978, 1983, and 1989. It has generally been agreed
that during his tenure Jerusalem was turned into a modern city, especially
after its reunification in 1967. In 1993 Kollek, aged 82, again ran for Mayor
but was defeated by Likud candidate Ehud Olmert who went on to become Prime
Minister in 2006
http://www.jerusalemfoundation.org/teddy-kollek-digital-archives.aspx
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/teddy-kollek
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/world/middleeast/03kollek.html
1912: It was
reported today that a window dedicated to Isidor Straus and his wife Ida Straus
who perished on the Titatinic has been dedicated “in the synagogue of the
Montefiore Congregation in the Bronx.
1913(20th
of Iyar, 5673): Sixty-five-year-old May Maier, a rabbi from Portland, Oregon,
passed away today at San Francisco.
1913:
Elections are scheduled to be held today for the directors of Michael Reese
Hospital – positions for which Edward Morris, Alfred Oppenheimer, Gustav Fruend
and Eli M. Straus have been nominated.
1914(2nd
of Sivan 5674): Fifty-one-year-old coffee merchant Solomon A. Cohn passed away
today in New York City.
1915: In
the Bronx, “Esther (née Levine) and Abraham Isaac Wouk, Jewish emigrants from
what is today Belarus” gave birth to Herman Wouk, the famous Pulitzer prize
winning who has written several books using Jewish themes and is living proof
that you can be a literary success and a mensch.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/obituaries/herman-wouk-dead.html
1915: Birthdate of Arieh Handler who was one
of the founders of the Religious Zionist movement in the United Kingdom
1915: “A
number of women made speeches to a crowd on behalf of Leo M. Frank on the
corner of 126th Street and Seventh Avenue tonight” and “obtained
many signatures on a petition” asking the Governor of Georgia to show clemency
in the case.
1915: Today
“additional Georgia jurists” including Spencer R. Atkinson, ex-Justice of the
Georgia Supreme Court and Judge E.C. Konitz of Atlanta “joined in the plea to
the Prison Commission to commute the sentence” of Leo M. Frank.
1915: Rabbi
Stephen S. Wise and Louis Marshall are among the speakers scheduled to speak at
a mass meeting sponsored by the League of Foreign Born Citizens at P.S. 91
where appeals for justice for Leo M. Frank who is sentenced to die next month
will be made.
1915: It was
reported today that Eugene N. Foss, the former Governor of Massachusetts, who
had employed Leo Frank in 1906 “said it was very evident that the unfortunate
man has not had a fair trial” and that “every gentile, as well as every Jew…was
interested in this case, because it be his turn next to be the victim of
‘public sentiment.’”
1915: The
partial text of a letter urging clemency for Leo Frank from Reverend Alfred K.
Glover, the rector of St. James Episcopal Church and “a recognized authority on
the laws and customs of the Jews” being sent to the Governor of Georgia
published today said that “Neither man nor beast has ever been known to have
been strangled by a Jews.”
1915: A copy
of a letter from the Grand Rabbi of Turkey to the American Jewish Relief
Committee in New York published today said that “nearly 5,000 individuals are
without any support and this number is increasing daily. My least resource is to implore you to
intervene on behalf of our community with Jews in America.” (Editor’s note: While many Jews know about the suffering of
the Shoah, they are unaware of the suffering of their co-religionist during WW
I especially in the Ottoman Empire and on the Eastern Front including Russia
and the Autro-Hungarian Empire.)
1915: Mrs.
Nina Stevens who would tell a judge “that she had made an affidavit in Atlanta
to show that Leo Frank was a degenerate” was arrested today in New York on a
warrant “charging her with maintain a disorderly resort in a house on West
Fifty-Second Street.
1915: Rabbi
Stephen S. Wise, Anna Rhodes, Louis Marshall, L.W. Fehr and William J. Burns
are among those scheduled to speak at a mass meeting sponsored by the League of
Foreign Born Citizens in New York where “appeals for justice for Leo Frank” who
is “sentenced to die next month for the murder of Mary Phagan” will be made.
1916: The
Federation of Rumanian Jews of America opened its ninth annual convention at
the Hebrew Technical School for Girls in New York tonight where in his opening
address Chairman Solomon Suffrin “to exception to allegations that there was
something lacking the Americanism of the Jew in America, saying “In regard to
the address six days ago by an eminent co-religionist of us Jews, we will
assure him that if this country should be called to arms we would respond.”
1917(6th
of Sivan, 5677): American Jews observe Shavuot for the first time as combatants
in World War I.
1917: In New
York, “at Temple Beth-El Dr. Samuel Schulman preached a sermon on the Russian
Revolution.
1917: In New
York, “at the Free Synagogue Dr. Stephen S. Wise spoke on ‘Israel’s Youth and
the Youth of Israel.’”
1917: On
Shavuot, in New York, “at Temple Emanu-El, Dr. Joseph Silverman delivered a
patriotic” sermon.
1917: Florence
Cohen and Pearl Decker were among those confirmed today at Temple Sholom at a
service led by Rabbi Abram Hirschbirg.
1917: Harold
Blitz and Gertrud Cohn were among those confirmed today at Beth El Temple at a
serviced led by Rabbi Julius Rappaport.
1917: At
Chicago’s Temple Sinai, Dr. Emil G. Hirsch officiated at Confirmation Services
this morning.
1917: Rabbi
Gerson B. Levin led Confirmation Services this morning at Congregation B’nai
Sholom Temple Israel on Michigan Avenue.
1917: Rabbi
Tobias Schanfarber led Confirmation Services this morning at Congregation
K.A.M. Chicago’s oldest Jewish congregation.
1917:
“Persecute Jews of Jaffa” published today described the plight of the 8,000 to
9,000 Jewish residents of the Mediterranean coastal city who “have been
expelled by Turks” and facing economic ruin as they camp out of doors “without
shelter” and food.
1917: It was
reported today that the American Jewish Relief Committee for the Suffers from
the War of which Louis Marshall is Chairman and Herbert H. Lehman is Treasurer
has $10,000 from the Minneapolis Committee, $404 from the Lake Charles, LA
Committee, $800 from the Oklahoma City Committee and $170 from the Las Vegas
Committee.
1917: It was
reported today that the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering
through the War of which Harry Fischel is Treasurer has received $750 from The Day and $101 from I. Rokeach and
Sons.
1918: Nathan
Straus, Adolph Lewisohn and Major C. Brooman White of the British Recruiting
Mission were among those who attended a dinner last night at Beethoven Hall
given by the Jewish Actors’ Club for the “500 members of the Jewish Legion for
Service in Palestine…on the eve of their departure” for the Holy Land where
they will join the other 2,000 members of the Legion.
1919: Dorothy
Engel and Herman Maltz were married in New York after which they lived at the
Hotel Cumberland before moving to California in 1920 where Herman went into the
wholesale shoe business which led to his opening West Coast Furniture in
partnership with William Weiss.
http://home.earthlink.net/~nholdeneditor/by_julie_maltz_borman.htm
1919: Harold
E. Foreman, Nelson Morris, Walter S. Bauer and Samuel Rosenthal are scheduled
to be elected as directors of Michael Reese Hospital
1919:
Birthdate of New York City businessman Joseph Puro the president of the
Purofield Down Products Corporation, “a leading pillow and comforter producer”
and philanthropist who served on the board of Albert Einstein College of
Medicine.
https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/24/archives/joseph-puro-51-president-of-down-products-corp.html?_r=0
1920: Jewish
veterans took part in a Memorial Festival “presented at Madison Square Garden
under the auspices of the People’s Liberty Chorus.
1920:
Psychologist Schachne Isaacs, the Cincinnati born son of Rachel Friedman and
Abraham Isaacs and instructor at Johns Hopkins who taught at the Baltimore
Hebrew College and Training School and who served in the U.S. Air Service
Medical Research Laboratory during WW I married France Dollinger today in New
York City.
1921:
“Shattered,” a “silent kammerspielfilm” with a script by Carl Meyer and
director/producer Lupu Pick was released today in Germany.
1922(29th
of Iyar, 5682): Parashat Bamidbar
1922: “The
so-called Zionist resolution has been further changed by the House Foreign
Affairs Committee so that “instead of speaking of ‘the’ national home for the
Jewish people, the proposal now is for on a ‘national home.’”
1923: In
“Furth, Bavaria, Germany” schoolteacher Louis Kissinger and homemaker Paula
(Stern) Kissinger gave birth to Heinz Alfred Kissinger who gained fame Harvard
Professor, national security advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,
the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
https://www.henryakissinger.com/
1923: In
Boston Belle (née Ostrovsky) and
Michael Rothstein, the owner of the “Northeast Theatre Corporation” and “the
Boston branch of the Latin Quarter Nightclub gave birth to Harvard trained
attorney Sumner Murray Redstone, the electronic media mogul who among other
things was Chairman and CEO of Viacom, Inc.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/obituaries/sumner-redstone-dead.html?searchResultPosition=5
1924: Jules
Stein founds Music Corporation of America in Chicago, Illinois. MCA began as a booking agency for bands. Over time it grew and eventually morphed in
Universal Studios in 1996.
1924(23rd
of Iyar, 5684): Forty-three-year-old St. Louis born vaudeville comedian and
Broadway playwright passed away today.
http://archives.nypl.org/the/18893
1925: At
luncheon today at the Hotel Astor, Adam L. Gimbel, the Vice President of the
Saks Company announced that 120 of the leading businessman are going to be
asked to pledge themselves to contribute six hundred dollars a year for the
next three years to the National Farm School located near Philadelphia that was
founded by Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf.
1926: It was
reported today that “Chaim Nachman Bialik was given the degree of Doctor of
Hebrew Literature on the occasion of the first graduation exercises of the
Jewish Institute of Religion, when ten rabbis were graduated” and “a similar
degree was given to Claude G. Montefiore, nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore and
England’s foremost Jewish scholar.” (JTA)
1927:
Birthdate of Zvi Malchin, who gained famed Mossad Chief of Operations Peter Zvi
Malkin, who played a key role in bringing Eichmann to justice.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/peter-z-malkin-527099.html
1927:
Birthdate of Galicia native Solomon David “Sam” Kimelman, the Holocaust
survivor who made a life for himself in Winnipeg, Canada.
https://passages.winnipegfreepress.com/passage-details/id-250778/KIMELMAN_SOLOMON
1927: “In the
Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York City “the former Clara Gordon” and
“Rabbi Bernard Birstein of the Actor’s Temple” gave birth to Ann Judith
Birstein the author and one-time wife of Alfred Kazin with whom she had a
child, Cathrael Kazin. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
https://web.archive.org/web/20160601153938/http://www.annbirstein.com/bio.htm
1927:
Birthdate of Polish native and Mossad agent Peter Zvi Malkin who “was part of
the team that captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960 and brought him to
Israel to stand trial for crimes against humanity.”
1927: National
Jewish Book Week, which had the unanimous endorsement of the Chicago Rabbinical
Association, is scheduled to come a close.
1928: In
retaliation, for a vote of no confidence by Hadassah in its President, the
Zionist National Executive Committee, threatened to discipline the women’s
organization
1928(8th
of Sivan, 5688): Seventy-five-year-old German mathematician Arthur Moritz
Schoenflies “known for his contributions to the application of group theory to
crystallography” passed away today. (I won’t even pretend to try and explain
what he worked on)
1929:
“Contributions amounting to $20,000” which included a donation of $3,000 from
Mrs. Jacob Schiff “were presented to the Ort, the Society for the Promotion of
Technical and Agricultural Trades among the Jews of Eastern Europe, by the
women’s committee of the Ort Campaign…today at a tea at the home of Mrs. Henry
Zuckerman.”
1930: Nobel
Prize Winner Dr. Otto Meyerhoff is one of the department chairmen at the Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute of Medicine, a facility modeled after the Rockefeller
Institute, which is opening today in Heidelberg, Germany.
1931: “Results
from the elections in Palestine for delegates to the Zionist Congress next
month showed today that the Jewish Labor party took 15,000 of the 25,000 votes”
with the Revisionists gaining 5,000 votes and the General Zionists getting
2,000 votes.
1931: The 44th
Street Theatre is schedule to host a matinee performance of Billy Rose’s “Crazy
Quilt,” a revue starring Fanny Brice
1932:
Birthdate of Linda Pastan who was Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1991 to 1995.
1932:
Birthdate of Brooklynite actor Stephen Robert “Steve” Franken, the cousin
comedian and U.S. Senator Al Franken.
http://abc7.com/archive/8792889/
1933(2nd of
Sivan, 5693): Karl Lehburger, a Jewish businessman, was murdered in
Dachau.
1933(2nd of
Sivan, 5693): James Loeb, a Jewish-German-American banker and philanthropist,
passed away. Born in New York in 1867,
he “was the second born son of Solomon Loeb and Betty Loeb.James Loeb joined
his father at Kuhn, Loeb & Co. in 1888 and was made partner in 1894, but he
retired from the bank in 1901 due to severe illnesses. In memory of his former
lecturer and friend Charles Eliot Norton, in 1907 Loeb created The Charles
Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship. In 1911 he founded and endowed the Loeb Classical
Library, and founded the Institute of Musical Art, which later became part of
the Juilliard School of Music.”
1934: “A
children’s review” is scheduled to be held this after at Union Temple on
Eastern Parkway “in an effort to help the Brooklyn Federation in its cureen
$500,000 twenty-fifth anniversary campaign.”
1934: Bernhard
J. Stern and Isidore Begun were among those attending a conference of teachers
in New York which had been called by “the Teachers’ Anti-War Committee” which
is scheduled to end today.
1934: In
Reisterstown, Mr. and Mrs. A. Ray Katz and Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Lansburgh, the
daughters and sons-in-law of philanthropist Jacob Epstein will present a
memorial bust of their father to the Mount Pleasant Jewish Tubercular
Sanatorium at ceremony where Dr. Edward L. Israel, the rabbi of Temple Har
Sinai will deliver the invocation “and lead in the recitation of the prayer for
the dead at the close of services.” (JTA)
1935: New York
City women led by activist Clara Shavelson, picketed Manhattan butcher shops to
demand a reduction in the price of meat. http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/shavelson-clara-lemlich
1935: In a
landmark case, The Supreme Court of the United States declares the National
Industrial Recovery Act to be unconstitutional in the case A.L.A. Schechter
Poultry Corp. v. United States, (295 U.S. 495). The challenge to the National
Industrial Recovery Act came from the most unlikely source, a Jewish chicken
producer. Joseph Schechter operated Schechter Poultry Company, and Martin, Alex
and Alan Schechter operated A.L.A. Schechter Company, both of which were
slaughterhouses selling chickens to kosher markets in New York City. Brandies and Cardozo, the two Jewish justices
joined the majority in this opinion proving that for these men of principle the
law trumped political beliefs.
1936(6th of
Sivan, 5696): First Day of Shavuot
1936: In New
York, Congregation Emanu-El is scheduled to hold its confirmation exercises
this morning at 10 o’clock.
1936: In New
York, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun is scheduled to hold its confirmation
exercises this morning at 10:30.
1936: In New
York, Rabbis are scheduled to use their Shavuot sermons “to make appeals…for
the aide of destitute Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe.
1936(6th of
Sivan, 5696): On Shavuot, the British
would not allow Jews to hold services at the Western Wall because of the
on-going attacks by Arabs.
1936: “In
Jaffa, hooligans” broke “streetlamps while approximately “400 orange trees were
uprooted in the vicinity of Peach Tikva” and “Arab demonstrators…continued
aimless shooting at Jewish” settlers.
1937:
Birthdate of Chicago native Allan Solomon who gained famed as Northwestern University alum Allan Carr who went from
running the talent agency Allan Carr Enterprises to a successful career as a
screenwriter and a producer who “was named Producer of the Year by the National
Association of Theatre Owners.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/01/arts/allan-carr-62-the-producer-of-grease-and-la-cage.html
1938(26th
of Iyar, 5698): Seventy-two-year-old Dr. Flora Pollack passed away today in her
hometown, Baltimore, MD.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that a
British constable was murdered near Ramat Hakovesh (formerly Juara) in the
vicinity of the spot where two American pioneers, Ephraim Tiktin, 24, formerly
of Detroit, Michigan, and Eliezer Korngold, formerly of Toronto (Ontario) were
murdered on April 8, 1938. Supernumerary policemen successfully defended the
Arab attack on Tel Adashim and wounded several attackers. Ze’ev Alianevsky, the
driver of a Hamekasher bus in Jerusalem who was stoned and injured by Arabs in
Romema, defended himself with his licensed revolver, hit and wounded an Arab
woman. He was taken out of Hadassah hospital to the Central Jerusalem Prison
for investigation.
1939: Two
weeks after 19-year-old George Jellinek and the family of Peter Gay arrived in
Cuba aboard the SS Iberia the SS St. Louis arrived in Havana, Cuba and
was denied use of the docking areas because the Cuban government “had
retroactively invalidated the land permits” of most of the Jewish passengers –
a fact of which they were not aware.
1939(9th
of Sivan, 5699): Forty-four-year-old Galician native Joseph Roth whose works
included “his family saga Radetzky March about the decline and fall of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire, his novel of Jewish life, Job and his
seminal essay “Juden auf Wanderschaft” translated into English in “The
Wandering Jews” died today in Paris where he had gone to escape the Nazis.
https://www.lbi.org/digibaeck/results/?qtype=pid&term=121485
1940: As the
British fought off attacks by the Germans at Dunkirk, members of “the 3rd SS
Division Totenkopf machine-gunned 97 British and French prisoners near the La
Bassée Canal”
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/le-paradis-massacre-outraged-even-nazis.html
1940: In
Brooklyn builder Lawrence Gallin and Florence Gallin gave birth to Albert
Samuel Gallin, the Boston University graduate better known as “talent manger”
Sandy Gallin who played a key role in the careers of such notables as Dolly
Partin.
1941: In New
York City, grocer Louis Berlin and “Sylvia (Lebwohl) Berlin, a homemaker turned
business manager for Ralph Lauren gave birth to University of Wisconsin trained
historian Dr. Ira Berlin. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)
1941: After staying
in Luxembourg for “as long as he could” Robert Serebrenik, the Chief Rabbi of
Luxembourg “left on one of the last convoys out of the Nazi occupied country.
1942: As of
today, “compulsory wearing of the yellow badge” was enforced in Belgium.
1942: Three
Jewish families living in the remote Ukrainian village of Chaplinka are killed.
1942: General
Reinhard Heydrich was fatally shot in Prague by two Czech patriots. The man
responsible for the formal initiation of Hitler’s Final Solution, a man
synonymous with terror, would die within the next eight days. The Holocaust
still had three more years of death ahead of it. SS General Globocnik begins
preparation for ‘Operation Rienhard’, in honor of the slain general. Operation
Reienhard was the deportation of Jews to meet immediate death at Treblinka,
Belzec and Sobibor. Goebbels wanted to make the Jews pay for Heydrich’s death.
According to at least one account, the attack on Heydrich was orchestrated by
the British and had nothing to do with his role in the Final Solution
1943: The Jews
of Sokal, Ukraine, are deported to the Belzec death camp.
1943(22nd
of Iyar, 5703): While serving with the 42nd Bomber Squadron of the
11th Bomber Group, Staff Sergeant Frank Glassman, the son of Russian
immigrants Peter and Sadie Glassman, died today when his B-24, nicknamed the
Green Hornet was ditched and lost in the Pacific Ocean
1943:
Three thousand Jews are killed at Tolstoye, Ukraine.
1943: Birthdate of actor Bruce Weitz who played
Sgt. Mick Belker on the NBC television police drama Hillstreet Blues.
1944: Two Jews
escaped from Birkenau. Arnost Rosin of Czechoslovakia and Czeslaw Mordowicz of
Poland had witnessed the first ten days of the Hungarian arrivals. They were
able to tell the West the truth about the tragedies they survived through.
1944: Joel
Brand “sent his wife a telegram” telling her about interim agreement that had
been reached to swap $4,000 for each Jewish emigrants to Palestine and one
million Swiss francs for each 1,000 Jewish emigrants to Spain, “hoping she
would tell Eichmann and that this might delay the deportations” of Hungarian
Jews to Auschwitz.
1944: Rudolf
Kastner was taken into custody by the Hungarian Arrow Cross in Budapest.
1945: “A
conference of 300 delegates from twenty nations called to devise a world-wide
program for the rehabilitation of Jewish life in Poland and to press for action
to safeguard Jewish security opened today at the Hotel Roosevelt under the
sponsorship of the American Federation for Polish Jews.”
1946:
Concentration Camp survivor Gerda Weissmann was reunited with her “liberator”
Kurt Klein whom she married and gained fame as author Gerda Weissmann Klein
1946: Birthdate
of Jerusalem native and Weizmann Institute of Science graduate Eliezer
Rabinovici the theoretical physicist who “is emeritus Professor of Physics
(Leon H. and Ada G. Miller Chair) at The Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, working on theoretical high-energy physics, in
particular quantum field theory and string theory.”
1947: Ben
Gurion drew up his first summary of the Yishuv’s military position. He wrote in
his diary, “There is not sufficient training even in the brigade
(Palmach). There is a shortage of
commanders, and those we have are not adequate [in standard]. There is no attempt at action, the planning
defective; the structure of the budget is not directed at the target. The most serious fault is that the experience
and human military material [those demobilized from the British army] have not
been utilized. The equipment has not
been adapted. For many years, a central idea has been missing: What is the duty
[of the Haganah organization]?
1948(18th
of Iyar, 5708): Lag B’Omer
1948: In
Brooklyn, George Lerner, who worked “as a fisherman and antiques dealer and
Blanche Lerner gave birth to actor Ken Lerner, the brother of Michael Lerner
and son of Sam Lerner.
1948: The
Israel Defense Army (Zahal) was established. Prior to the creation of the state
there had been several armed groups including Haganah, Palmach, Irgun and the
Stern Gang. Ben Gurion understood that there could only be one army and
that that army had to be under the control of the national government. He
acted decisively and overcame considerable opposition to achieve this
goal.
1948: In
Jerusalem, the hospital in which the mortally wounded Esther Cailingold came
under enemy fire forcing officials to move her and the other casualties to “a
safer area.”
1948: In
Jerusalem, troops of the Arab Legion “raised their flag on the roof of the
Huvra Synagogue, the main synagogue of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City and
then set it on fire. The Hebrew word
Huvra means ruin and the synagogue was so named because the Moslems had
destroyed it twice since it was first built in 1705. The dome of Huvra had been a major landmark
for almost one hundred years. The Huvra
was in the same category for Jews as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was for
Christians. Of course the Church
remained unharmed and nobody in the international community then or since
expressed any dismay over the destruction of a Jewish house of worship that was
also a civic treasure.
1948: Vitka
Kempner and Abba Kovner gave birth to their first son Michael. At the time of the boy’s birth, his father
was fighting with the IDF during the War of Independence. Kempner had proven
her martial mettle as a resistance fighter serving alongside her famous husband
during WW II.
1949: “The
American President liner General W.G. Gordon, the last large U.S. passenger
ship to leave Shanghai before the city fell to the Communists” arrived in San
Francisco carrying refugees included Jews “who had found wartime refuge” in the
city among whom were “Dr. Michael Lowe-Levai, the former foreign editor of the
Berliner Lokal Anzeiger whose son Eric A. Harris lives in Los Angeles.”
1949: The
United Service for New Americans, “which aids displaced Jews” in the United
States reported that there were still 1,500 Jewish refugees stranded in
Shanghai.
1950(11th
of Sivan, 5710): Parashat Naso
1950(11th
of Sivan, 5710): Sixty-four-year-old Harvard educated “investment banker, chase
player and philanthropist Maurice Wertheim, the Hartford, CT born son of Jacob Wertheim
and Hannah Frank, the founder of Wertheim and Company and husband of Alma
Morgenthau with whom he ha three children Josephine Pomerance, Anne Werner and
Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian Barbara Tuchman, passed aa toda.
https://hum11c.omeka.fas.harvard.edu/exhibits/show/cultural-space/maurice-wertheim–investment-b
1953: The
Jerusalem Post reported that Jordanian marauders carried out three
simultaneous attacks on three new immigrant villages of Beit Naballa, Beit Arif
and Beit Arif Bet, all of them near Beit Shemen. At Beit Naballa they threw a
grenade into the house of David Namdar, killed his wife, Tamar, 30, and wounded
two of his seven children. They also looted whatever was possible. At Beit Arif
they detonated three kg. of
under the house which was completely destroyed, and at Beit Arif Bet they did
the same to three houses. Seven people were injured in both explosions.
1953: The
Jerusalem Post reported that the General Zionists had resigned from the
Cabinet coalition. They resigned because the Labor majority turned down their
request for the exclusive use of a National Flag and anthem in schools, to the
exclusion of red flags, traditional to the Labor movement.
1954: In St. Louis, Kate and Sol Firestone gave
birth to Tirzah Firestone “an American analytical psychotherapist, author, and
Jewish Renewal rabbi who was the founding rabbi of Congregation Nevei Kodesh, a
Jewish Renewal synagogue in Boulder, Colorado and sister of writer and feminist
activist Shulamith Firestone.
1955(6th
of Sivan, 5715): Shavuot
1955: In
Bethesda, MD, Charlotte Schiff, “a television and publishing executive and
Edward Schiff, a real estate lawyer” gave birth CCNY graduate Richard Schiff,
the actor and director who married Sheila Kelly in 1996.
1956: Dr. Leo
Jung, Rabbi Max Kirshblum and Rabbi Maurice Wohlgerlertner officed at the
wedding Shulamtih Heller, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Tobias Heller and Ira
David Stavish, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Emanuel Stavish.
1956:
Birthdate of Brooklyn born, NYU trained attorney Lewis Fidler, the New York
City Councilman who raised two children with his wife Robin.
https://council.nyc.gov/district-46/
https://nypost.com/2019/05/05/former-city-councilman-lew-fidler-dead-at-62/
1956: In
Winnipeg, Canadian attorney and political leader Israel Harold “Izzy” Asper
“married Ruth Miriam ‘Babs’ Asper at Shaarey Zedek” today.
1957:
“Screaming Eagles” directed by Charles F. Haas was released today in the United
States.
1957:
Thirty-seventh and final broadcast of “Producers’ Showcase” a television
anthology series that featured the music of Sammy Cahn and Moose Charlap and
included shows produced by Sol Hurok and Anatole Litvak.
1957:
Birthdate David Chester Itkin, who “served as music director and conductor of
the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra from 1993 to 2010.”
1958(8th
of Sivan, 5718): Seventy-eight year old Dr. Meno Lissauer, the Lubeck born son
of Frieda and Abraham Adolph Moses Lissauer, who was the founder and chairman
of the Associated Metals and Minerals Corporation and who made his way from
Nazi occupied Holland via Lisbon to the United States where he became “a
director of the American Federation of Jews in Central Europe and established a
scholarship and endowment at Brandeis while raising a son and daughter – Franz
and Hannah – with his wife Meta passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/05/28/82695526.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1958:
Birthdate of Margate native Dr. Robin Mundill the historian and author whose
work included The King’s Jews: Money, Massacre and Exodus in Medieval
England
http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1077
1960:
Henriette von Shirach, “Hitler’s private secretary” wrote ‘a letter to a senior
Bavarian official” begging for art works” which in reality had been confiscated
from Gottlieb and Mathilde Kraus by the Gestapo in 1941” be returned to her.
1961: “The
Last Time I Saw Archie,” a comedy featuring Louis Nye, Robert Strauss and
Harvey Lembeck was released in the United States today.
1963(4th
of Sivan, 5723): Eighty-six-year-old “Louis Lipsky, noted Zionist leader,
journalist and author” who “had three sons: David Lipsky, a theatrical press
agent, Eleazar Lipsky, a novelist, and Joel Carmichael, a historian, passed
away today.
https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/3/resources/15570
1963(4th of
Sivan, 5723): Jacob Elie Safra, the Aleppo born of the Safra banking family who
married his cousin Sarah with whom he had eight children passed away today in
São Paulo, Brazil.
1964: Prime
Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru dies in office. Nehru opposed the creation of the state of
Israel. Given India’s large Moslem
population and the conflict with Pakistan at the time of India’s re-birth, this
is not surprising. What was
disappointing was the lengths that Nehru went to isolate the Jewish state after
its creation. In recent years, India has
turned its back on Nehru’s view of Israel.
1966: “The
Wrong Box” a comedy written by Larry Gelbart was released in the United Kingdom
today.
1967: “The
Israeli Cabinet met to decide whether or not to take military action against
Egypt” based on the continued blockade of the Straits of Tiran. The Cabinet
appeared to be evenly divided between those who were ready to take action and
those who were willing to wait and see if the international community would end
the crisis. During the Cabinet session,
Abba Eban arrived from Washington and his meetings with President Johnson. Eban
reported that Johnson was working to assemble an international flotilla of
warships that would open the Straits.
The Cabinet decided to hold off on military action in an effort to give
Johnson a chance to bring his plan to fruition.
A significant segment of the Israeli populace did not understand the
reason for waiting. The country had been on alert for some time and the strain
was taking its toll. The fear was that
waiting would only strengthen the Arabs militarily and led to defeat for the
Jewish state. Furthermore, they
mistrusted the United States because of its support of Nasser in 1956 and
1957. The Cabinet’s decision to wait was
based, in part, on a political calculation.
If they waited and Johnson succeeded, then the crisis would be ended
without war. If they waited and Johnson
failed, then the Israelis would have the support of the United States in the
upcoming conflict. If they did not give
a Johnson to avert a war, the Israelis would end up fighting the Arabs without
any international support. Based on the
experience of 1956, they knew that in the long run, this was not where they
wanted to be.
1967: The US
production “Eh?” starring Dustin Hoffman as “Valentine Brose” which “was the
first major critical success in his career, garnering him a Theatre World Award
and Drama Desk Award for his performance” closed today after 233 performances.
1969:
Terrorist fired a bazooka this morning at an Israeli patrol in the Beisan
Valley near Kfar Ruppin.
1970: “The
Grasshopper” written by Jerry Belson was released today in the United States.
1970(21st
Iyar, 5730): Seventy-one year old Colonel Richard Gimbel, USAF (ret), the New
York born son of Ellis and Minnie Gimbel and the grandson of the founder of
Gimbels who left the family business in the 1930’s and pursued a military
career in the 1940’s before becoming the “curator of aeronautical literature at
his alma mater Yale while raising seven children with his wife “the former
Julia de Fernex Millhiser, passed away today.
1970:
“Watermelon Man,” a comedy “inspired by Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis was
released in the United States today.
1971: In
Detroit, final performance of an “updated” version of La Périchole an opéra
bouffe in three acts by Jacques Offenbach with a libretto co-authored by
Ludovic Halévy
1973(25th
of Iyar, 5733): Seventy-three-year-old Federated Department Store president,
Fred Straus, Jr, the Columbus, OH born son of Fred and Rose Lazarus and husband
of Meta Marx Lazarus passed away today after which he was buried at Green Lawn
Cemetery in Columbus, OH.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fred-Lazarus-Jr
1973: The IDF
announced a state of emergency and reserve troops were called up in response to
a movement of Egyptian troops. The state of emergency was cancelled when it
became clear that this was only an exercise
1974(6th
of Sivan, 5734): Shavuot
1974: Simon
Veil began her first term as French Minister of Health.
1975: Anatoly
Malkin, who had already lost his position “for filing for emigration to
Israel,” was arrested today for “evasion of military service.”
1975: Sender Levinson, of Bendery in Soviet
Moldavia, went on trial today.
1977: In
Manchester, CT, Rabbi Neil Kominsky officiated at the wedding of Nan Elizabeth
Rypins Malkin, a psychiatric social worker at the Center for Mental Health of
the Manchester (Conn.) Memorial Hospital, and Dr. Donald L. Shapiro, the
medical director of the center…”
1979: “Dummy,”
a docudrama brought to the screen by Executive Producer Frank Konigsberg was screened
in CBS for the first time.
1980: “The
United States today rejected an Israeli request to renew a five-year agreement
that would give Israel preferential access to the American strategic stockpile
including the right to buy industrial diamonds at a negotiated price.”
1981: The
premiere performance of “Halil” took place today at the Sultan’s Pool in
Jerusalem with Jean-Pierre Rampal as the soloist and Leonard Bernstein
conducting the Israel Philharmonic. “Halil is a work for flute and chamber
orchestra composed by Leonard Bernstein composed in 1981. The work is sixteen
minutes in length. Bernstein composed Halil in honor of a young Israeli flutist
Yadin Tanenbaum who was killed at the Suez Canal in during the 1973 Yom Kippur
war.”
1982(5th
of Sivan, 5742): Erev Shavuot
1984: Seth
Mydans reviewed “The Revolt of Job,” a film that tells the story of “one Jewish
couple’s attempt to defeat their family’s extinction in the Holocaust by
adopting a non-Jewish boy, a child who would survive to carry on their line.”
1984(25th
of Iyar, 5744): Seventy-one-year-old Gallitzin, PA native and U of Michigan
trained labor lawyer Walter J. Isaacson, “an officer in the lawyers’ divison of
the UJA-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and husband of “the former Edith
Lipsig Hebald” passed away today.
1985(7th of
Sivan, 5745): Second Day of Shavuot
1985:
Birthdate of Dmitry Bukhman,a Russian-born Israeli entrepreneur who together
with his brother Igor Bukhman, founded the
online gaming company Playrix, which is best known for its mobile-app games
such as Homescapes and Fishdom.
1986(18th
of Iyar 5746): Lag B’Omer
1987(28th of
Iyar, 5747): Yom Yerushalayim
1987: Daniel
Barenboim is scheduled to serve as conductor for the IPO at a concert which is
part of its 50th anniversary celebration.
1990: After
three weeks, the curtain came down Playwrights Horizons Off-Broadway original
production of Lynn Ahren’s “Once on This Island.”
1993(7th of Sivan,
5753): Second Day of Shavuot
1993: The official
opening of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology and the Jill
Sackler Sculpture Court and Garden at Peking University is scheduled to take
place today.
1995: “A Walk in the
Clouds” produced by David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, filmed by cinematographer
Emmanuel Lubezki and co-starring Debra Messing was released in Japan today.
1997(20th of Iyar,
5757): One hundred-year-old Ralph Hoween, the Harvard and Chicago Cardinals
football player whose career had been interrupted when he volunteered to serve
with U.S. Navy during World War I passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/29/sports/ralph-horween-100-the-oldest-ex-nfl-player.html
1999(12th of
Sivan, 5759): Eighty-two-year-old Big Band vocalist Leah Ray Werblin, the wife
of Sonny Werblin passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/04/sports/leah-ray-werblin-singer-82.html
2000: At Brown
University noted scholar and feminist Alice Shalvi speaks on the effects of
feminism on Judaic life in Israel and the world beyond as part of the Stephen
A. Ogden Jr. Memorial Lectureship.
2001(5th of
Sivan, 5761) Erev Shavuot
2001: The
New York Times featured books by Jewish writers and/or of special interest
to Jewish readers including The Dying Animal by Philip Roth.
2001: The PFLP
claimed responsibility for today’s Jerusalem Center bombing
2001:
Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for today’s Jaffa Road bombing
in which 30 people were injured.
2001: “Sister
Mary Explains It All For You” a controversial film about Catholicism directed
by Marshall Brickman was broadcast by Showtime for the first time.
2002: The
Al-Aqsa Martyrs, Brigades claimed credit for today’s bombing in a mall at Petah
Tivka
2002(16th of
Sivan, 5762): Eighty-five-year-old weightlifter David Mayor who in 1937 “won
the U.S. heavyweight champion with a total lift of 835 pounds and was named
“America’s Strongest Man” passed away today.
2003: The
parents of Chandra Levy hold a private graveside for their daughter.
2004(7th of Sivan, 5764): Second Day of Shavuot
2004: Cruel Sister is a composition for string
orchestra by the American composer Julia Wolfe. was first performed by the
Munich Chamber Orchestra today
2004: On the day after the New York Times “mea culpa editorial” related to the reporting about
he Iraq war by Judith Miller, an article in Salon quoted her as saying
“You know what … I was proved fucking right. That’s what happened.
People who disagreed with me were saying, ‘There she goes again.’ But I was
proved fucking right.”
2005: The
Washington Post reported that meetings had been held over the weekend at
Yifat, Israel in which Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres announced that he
would seek the top spot in Israel’s government.
Despite the fact that he is now 81 and that he has failed to accomplish
the goal in four previous attempts, Peres thinks that now is the time for him
to finally reach his goal.
2005: The
Washington Post reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared
from Jerusalem, “that her meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders
convinced her that both sides share a commitment to ensuring Israel’s
withdrawal from Gaza takes place smoothly and peacefully.” At the end of the same article the Post
reported that “Coinciding with Rice’s visit, Palestinians…attacked Israelis…in
the southern Gaza Strip killing one Israeli and wounding two others…The attack
was the second major assault on Israeli targets in recent days.” Islamic Jihad and a group affiliated with
Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement took credit for the attack. As head of the
Abbas is one of those Palestinian leaders whom Secretary Rice said was
committed to a smooth and peaceful Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
2005(18th
of Iyar, 5765): Morris Cohen, a professor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology who helped to transform the field of
metallurgy into the modern discipline of materials science and engineering,
passed away at his home in Swampscott, Mass. He was 93.
2005(18th
of Iyar, 5765): Celebration of Lag B’Omer, Thirty-Third Day
of the Omer.
2005(18th
of Iyar, 5765): Observance of the Yahrzeit Rabbi Shimon Bar
Yochai. Born in 100 C.E., Shimon studied with the great Rabbi Akiva and was one
of only two scholars ordained by Akiva. Shimon is quoted in the Palestinian
Talmud as saying “To honor one’s parents is more important than honoring
God.” This belief did keep him from
openly disagreeing with his considering the Rebellion against Rome. Shimon was an outspoken supporter of Akivah
and Bar Kochba while his father believed in appeasing the Romans. According to legend, Shimon hid from the
Romans with his son in a cave for thirteen years livings on dates and carob.
Shimon was a great scholar who is quoted in the Talmud frequently both on
matters of Halakah and ethics. Judah the
Prince, the compiler of the Mishnah was one of his students. His greatest claim to fame among some is
based on the mythical belief that he wrote the Zohar (The Book of
Splendor). Although he was a mystic,
there is no proof that he was the author of the text. Regardless, starting in the 16th
the Chasidim who are his followers gather at his grave in Meron which is
located near Safed on the 33rd day of the Omer and commemorate his
passing by lighting bonfires and dancing by torchlight as they express their
joy in his teachings.
2006(29th
of Iyar, 5766): Ninety-five-year-old actress Thelma Bernstein and mother of
comedy writer Albert Brooks passed away.
(As reported by Dennis McLellan)
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/may/31/local/me-bernstein31
2007: Tony
Eprile, novelist and faculty member at the University of Iowa’s Writer’s
Workshop, discusses his prize winning novel, The Persistence of Memory
that describes apartheid in South Africa through the eyes of a shy, overweight
Jewish boy from Johannesburg’s wealthy northern suburbs. He also discusses his
just completed trip to Syria with other writers.
2007: The New York Times features reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A
Tranquil Star: Unpublished Stories by Primo Levi, translated by Ann
Goldstein and Alessandra Bastagli, City of Oranges: An Intimate History of
Arabs and Jews in Jaffa, by Adam
LeBor, My Holocaust by Tova Reich and The Last Tycoons: The Secret
History of Lazard Freres & Co. by William D. Cohan.
2007 (10 Sivan
5767):
Oshri
Oz a 35-year-old, resident of Hod Hasharon, was killed when a Qassam rocket
fired from the Gaza Strip hit the car in which he was driving in the western
Negev town of Sderot.
2008:
In Chicago, as
a prelude to the CSO’s production of Thomashefskys:
Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater, Spertus is proud to
host Chicago music critic Andrew Patner in a discussion with Michael Tilson
Thomas, who will vividly illustrate through projected images his grandparent’s
fascinating history, their starring roles in the American Yiddish Theater, and
its enormous contribution to the American cultural life.
2008: Public
sales of Chasing Harry, the third novel by Lauren Weisberger, author of The
Devil Wears Prada began today.
2009: Center for Jewish History and Untitled Theater Company #61
present: Golem Stories, A staged reading retelling the legend of a clay
man in 16th century Prague created by Rabbi Loew to defend the Jews.
2009: Fred
Hochberg began serving as Chairman and President of the Export-Import Bank.
2009 (4
Sivan): On the Jewish calendar, 2nd Yahrzeit for Shir-El Friedman
the thirty five year old woman who was killed by a Hamas rocket fired into
Sderot.
2009: William
Lanouette, the author of Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard,
the Man Behind the Bomb (written with Bela Silard) and Martin J. Sherwin,
the author (with Kai Bird) of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American
Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer take part
in a discussion entitled, Building the Bomb, Fearing Its Use: Nuclear
Scientists, Social Responsibility and Arms Control, 1946-1996, at
the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
2009:
As part of the Tel Aviv Centennial Celebration a statue of Meir
Dizengoff, the first mayor of Tel Aviv, riding his horse will be placed in
front of his home at 16 Rothschild Boulevard. The address has become one of the
most important landmarks in Israeli history: in his will, Dizengoff designated
his house to be the home of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (the museum later moved
to its current address on Shaul Hamelech Boulevard). On May 14th
1948, it was the site in which David Ben Gurion and the Provisional National
Council declared Israel’s independence.
2009: Thousands of Israelis from far and wide flocked to
Rothschild Boulevard in central Tel Aviv on Wednesday night, as the city held
its annual “White Night” event, with parties, music and street
theater lasting until the wee hours.
2010: In Paris, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
attended a ceremony marking Israel’s official joining the Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
2010: Professor Menahem Milson a professor of Arabic Literature
at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a co-founder of The Middle East Media
Research Institute (MEMRI) is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Arabic
and Islamic Anti-Semitism Today” at the Historic 6th & I
Synagogue in Washington, D.C.
2010: The first-ever Jewish America Heritage Month
celebration was held today at the White House.
2011: The National Museum of American Jewish Military
History, the Jewish War Veterans, and the Sixth & I Synagogue are scheduled
to host the first annual national service honoring the Jewish fallen heroes of
Iraq and Afghanistan. The service, which is scheduled to be conducted by Cantor
Larry Paul and musician Robyn Helzner, will open with remarks by NMAJH
President David Magidson and will feature the reading of the names of the more
than 40 Fallen Heroes in solemn remembrance and prayer.
2011: In Cincinnati, Ohio, Rockdale Temple is scheduled
honor Jewish American Heritage Month with a Rock Shabbat service highlighting
American-composed liturgical music.
2011: A week-end long celebration marking the 25th
anniversary of the ordinations of Rabbi Jonathan Rubenstein and Rabbi Linda
Motzkin is scheduled to begin this evening in Saratoga Springs.
2011: The annual conference of the Congress of Secular
Jewish Organizations (CSJO) is scheduled to open at Humber College in Toronto,
Canada.
2011: Limmud Colorado’s Fourth Annual Conference is
scheduled to begin at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, CO.
2011: Group of Eight leaders had to soften a statement urging
Israel and the Palestinians to return to negotiations because Canada objected
to a specific mention of 1967 borders, diplomats said today
2011: US President Barack Obama today travelled to Poland where
he honored the memories of those killed in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising during
the Holocaust. He was heard telling a Holocaust survivor that the US would be
there for Israel. During a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier in Warsaw Obama told one elderly man that the memorial was a
“reminder of the nightmare” of the Holocaust in which millions of
Jews were killed, The Associated Press reported.
2012(6th of Sivan, 5772): First Day of Shavuot
2012(6th of Sivan, 5772): Seventy-five-year-old
Dr. David L. Rimoin, the medical geneticist who did research into Tay-Sachs
disease passed away today. (As reported by Denise Grady)
2012: The New York
Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special
interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions
of The Arrogant Years: One Girl’s Search for Her Lost Youth, From Cairo to
Brooklyn by Lucette Lagnado and Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman.
2012: The Paul Feig Tikkun Leil Shavuot at The JCC in Manhattan
which began last night is scheduled to end at 5 am.
2012: The Cedar Lake Ballet’s two week engagement at the
Venue which has included the New York premiere of “Violet Kid,” by Israeli
choreographer Hofesh Shechter is scheduled to come to a close
2013: During “The Patron Trip to Israel” the IPO is
scheduled to perform a concert featuring conductor and violinist Pinchas
Zuckerman.
2013: A conference opened in Riga to discuss “Holocaust
commemoration in post-communist Eastern Europe.”
2013: Deputy Transportation Minister Tzipi Hotovely married Or
Alon an Israeli attorney.
2013: Egyptian-French singer-songwriter Georges Moustaki was
buried today according to Jewish rites in a family vault at the Père Lachaise
Cemetery in Paris a few meters from the grave of his former amour Édith Piaf.”
2013: US Secretary of State John Kerry held separate surprise
meetings in Jordan today with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, as he
intensified his efforts to revive the peace process.
2013: Amos Oz won the Franz Kafka Prize today in the
Czech Republic.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-author-amos-oz-wins-czech-kafka-prize/
2013: Memorial Day observed in the United States. Jews have fought in every war since the
American Revolution and served in all branches of the military. They have
served as generals and warriors who have earned the Congressional Medal of
Honor. Ironically, one of the Jews who
had the most effect on America’s defense was one who did not see combat –
Admiral Hyman Rickover. As the “father of
the nuclear navy” (and more specifically nuclear-powered submarines) he
provided the United States with its primary deterrent in dealing with the
Soviets which kept the Cold War from turning into the hot war of World War III
http://magazine.discoverjcc.com/jews-history-in-u-s-military/
2014:
Father Francis Wahle, the Kindertansportee, whose father had converted but
whose mother had not is scheduled to tell his story at the Weiner Library in
the UK.
2014:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled a lecture by Meki Tate entitled
“Warriors in Blue: Soldiers, Seders and Solidarity” which “explores the
experiences and contributions of the 7,000 Jewish servicemen who fought in the
Union Army during the Civil War.”
2014:
European Parliament Speaker Martin Schultz, French President Francois Hollande
and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi joined Belgium’s Elio Durpo in a
“paying home to the vicitims of last
weekend’s attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels when they met Jewish leaders outside the
museum and bowed their heads in tribute to a rabbi’s prayer.
2014:
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Rabbi Zvi (Herschel) Schachter, Rabbi Yehoshua
Yeshaya Neuwirth (deceased) and Rabbi Zalman Nehemiah Goldberg – the
receipients of the Katz Awared which is , bestowed upon individuals and
enterprises engaged in the application of Halacha, or Jewish law, to modern
life — were honored at a ceremony in
Jersualem today. (Times of Israel
2014:
“A rare monastic lead seal dating from the Crusader era has been positively
identified, over a year after it was discovered at an archaeological site in
the Jerusalem neighborhood of Bayit Vegan, the Israel Antiquities Authority
said today. “ (As reported by Gavriel Fisk)
2015:
The First Division Museum at Cantigny is scheduled to host “Liberation: Looking
Back 70 Years” that includes a conversation between Holocaust survivor and
George Brent and Arthur Sheridan who was one of the first infantrymen to enter
Dachau.
2015:
“The militant group Hamas used last summer’s war with Israel in the Gaza Strip
to carry out extrajudicial killings of at least 23 Palestinians accused of
collaborating with Israel and to torture dozens of others, including political
rivals, Amnesty International charged in a report issued early today.” (As
reported by Isabel Kershner and Jodi Rudoren)
2015:
Following yesterday’s rocket attack from Gaza on southern Israel the Gan Yavne
Council order bomb shelters to be opened and “unprotected schools in Ashdod are
to remain closed today.”
2015:
Pulitzer Prize winning author Herman Wouk who is living proof that you can be a
success in America while still being an practicing Jew and a mensch of the
first order turns one hundred today.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=herman+wouk+is+still+alive
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/10/herman-wouk-lawgiver-simon-schuster
http://www.biography.com/people/herman-wouk-20631823#synopsis
2016:
In Battle Creek, Michigan, the multi-dimensional Holocaust Remembrance exhibit
that began in April is scheduled to come to an end today.
https://sites.google.com/a/lakeviewspartans.org/holocaust-remembrance/
2016:
Barnes & Nobel is scheduled to host a presentation by Sarah Fader, “a
reform Jew still searching for her Jewish identity” who is the author of Stigma
Fighters Anthology.
2016:
Today in Tel Aviv, “a Christian Arab-Israeli ballet dancer, 21 year old Ta’alin
Abu Hanna, was named “Miss Trans Israel” at “Israel’s first-ever transgender
beauty pageant.”
2016:
The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a concert in “memory of Bracha
Eden on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of her death.”
2016:
Today, Anthony Graziano of New Jersey “was convicted of terrorism for
vandalizing and firebombing Jewish temples and a rabbi’s home, and is now
facing a possible life sentence.”
2016:
Herman Wouk whose latest work is Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a
100-Year-Old Author turns 101.
2017:
In “Ruth Madoff” Living Quietly Inside the Glare” published today Robert
Marchant described the life Ruth Madoff, the wife of Bernard Madoff has created
for herself in the “high end community” of Greenwich, CT.
2017(2nd
of Sivan, 5777): Parashat Bamidbar – begin the fourth book of the Torah.
2017: Friends, family, fans and all who love a “well told
yarn” are scheduled to celebrate the 102nd birthday of Herman Wouk.
2017:
“In the East Hampton hamlet of Springs, New York, the Leiber Collection is
scheduled to welcome the public with an Opening Celebration Garden Celebration
Garden Tea Party” where they can see “Magnificent Obsession: Fashion Passion
and Collection” which “display highlights five Leiber collectors at the
namesake gallery” Judith Leiber “shares with her husband’s paintings and
prints.
2017:
In at testament to the vitality to a small town Jewish community, friends and
family are scheduled to gather to celebrate the graduation of Jessica Herrin.
2018(13th
of Sivan, 5778): Eighty-one-year-old lesbian activist Connie Kurtz passed away
today. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)
2018:
The New York Times features reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest Jewish readers including The
Optimistic Decade by Heather Abel.
2018:
Shiva begins for “twenty-year-old Sergeant Ronen Luvarski, a resident of
Rehovot who died yesterday after having suffered a severe head injury when an
Arab terrorist threw a marble block at his head.
2018:
UK Jewish Film is scheduled to host a screening of “Scaffolding” directed by
Matan Yair.
2018:
At part of the “Home: Lens on Israel” series, the Temple Emanuel Streicker
Center is scheduled to open the photographic exhibition “Bedouin and Arab
Israeli Communities in the Negev.”
2018:
In Des Moines, Rabbi Emily Barton and Harlan Jacobs are scheduled to lead a
discussion following a screening of “Bal Ej: The Hidden Jews of Ethiopia.”
2018:
In New Orleans the curtain is scheduled to come down on the final performance
of “An Act of God.” (As reported by Crescent City Jewish News, the source for
everything Jewish in Cajun Country)
2018:
Herman Wouk turns 103 having outlived the number superlatives that can be
applied to a man who proved you can be a great author and mensch!
https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/herman-wouk/201831/
https://www.biography.com/people/herman-wouk-20631823
2019:
In Canada, the Edmonton Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening
of “Leona,” a story about young Jewish from Mexico City.
2019:
In Atlanta, the Breman Museum is scheduled to “remember and honor those who
died in active military servicing including Aaron Dreizin who died along with
the rest of the crew of his B-17 during WW II.
2019:
“The Comedy for Koby” tour is scheduled to open today in Haifa.
2019(22nd
of Iyar, 5779): Sixty-year-old Pulitzer Prize winning author the son of Dr.
Norman Horwitz, a neurosurgeon, and Elinor (Lander) Horwitz, a writer and the
husband of Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Geraldine Brooks passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/obituaries/tony-horwitz-dead.html
2019
(22nd of Iyar, 5779): Ninety-three year old WW II Army veteran and
Yale University graduate Roger Overholt Hirson a prominent writer for live
television in the 1950s and ’60s who collaborated with the composer Stephen
Schwartz on the hit Broadway musical “Pippin” passed away today.(As reported by
Richard Sandomir)
2019:
In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Outdoors,” named the “Best
Screenplay of the Haifa International Film Festival”
2019:
Memorial Day observed as Americans remember those who made the supreme
sacrifice for the United States and her citizens.
https://kaplancenter.org/memorial-day-and-united-jewish-people
http://forward.com/news/135331/profiles-of-our-fallen/#ixzz1DeAMPaIh
http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/07/18/jews-in-the-military/
2019:
The birth of Herman Wouk is celebrated for the first time in over a century
with the author not present.
2020:
Rabbi Moshe Bryski and Cantor Aryeh Leib Hurwitz are scheduled to officiate at
the Chabad
Pre-Shavuot
Yizkor Program.
2020:
Live on Zoom, YIVO is scheduled to present “Yiddish in Israel: A History”
during which Rachel Rojanski in conversation with Rachel Brenner, Shachar
Pinsker, and Sunny Yudkoff discuss Yiddish in Israel: A History.
2020:
Rabbi Ariel Root Wolpe, founder of Ma’alot, a Jewish outreach organization in
Atlanta, is scheduled to talk, virtually about the relationship between
prophecy and singing and leads a niggun
2020:
The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a live pre-Shavuot
reading of the Book of Ruth over Zoom which will largely be done by women.
2020:
The Vilna Shul is scheduled to host “Milk and Honey: A Shavuot Cheese-Making
Workshop” you can participate in “from your house.”
2020:
In Cedar Rapids, IA, three days after she had passed a memorial service is
scheduled to held this morning for ninety-one year old Bertie Schneider at the
Temple Judah Silber Outdoor Sanctuary where social distancing will be observed.
2020:
Thanks to an order signed by Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, restaurants and
bars are scheduled to open today in Israel.
2020:
One hundred and fifth anniversary of the birth of Herman Wouk whose names and
works you should know and if you don’t, today would be a good day to begin.
2021:
The Hillel of Silicon Valley is scheduled to present “a panel discussion about
the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s 2016 definition of
antisemitism and why it needs to be adopted on college campuses across the
country.
2021:
The Day of Action Against Anti-Semitism, a virtual rally, is scheduled to take
place today.
2021:
The Tabue Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford University is scheduled to
present “historian Peter E. Gordon talking his new book Migrants in the
Profane.
2021:
JWA’s Book Club is scheduled to present A Special Quarantine(ish) Book Talk
with Tovah Feldshuh
2021:
The Center for Jewish History and LBI are scheduled to present a conversation
with Leah Garrett, the author of X: Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of
World War II.
https://programs.cjh.org/event/x-troop-2021-05-27
2021:
National Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled to present “Let My
People Go! Lessons of the Soviet Jewry Movement for Today” with Nathan
Sharansky.
2021:
The Jewish Heritage Center is scheduled to present online “Using the Wyner
Family Jewish Heritage Center Archives for Family History Research.”
2021:
The Contra Costa JCC and Congregation B’nai Shalom are scheduled to present Under
One Tent program director Riva Gambert talks about President Harry Truman’s
response to the newly independent state after World War II.
2021: Israel’s cinemas are finally scheduled to reopen today after a
14-month, pandemic-induced hiatus. (As reported by Ina Toker)
2022: The Riverway Project is scheduled to host
its monthly “Neighborhood Shabbat” where it take it take Shabbat out of the
shul and brings it right to members of the community.
2022: Beth Menachem Chabad is scheduled to host a
Musical Tot shabbat and Challah Bake in Newton, MA.
2022: The international Conference on
Multidisciplinary Social Studies, Anthropology and Archaeology is scheduled to
begin today in Jerusalem.
2023: In Lisbon, IA, home of Temple Judah active
member Becky Bunting, the Lisbon Iowa Alumni Association is scheduled to host
the Lisbon Alumni Banquet this evening.
2023: The Eden Tamir Music is scheduled to
present the Israel Haydn String Quartet
with Tal Haim Samnon.
2023: In Stamford, CT, “Gateways Shavuos 2023” is
scheduled to come to an end.
2023: The Oshman Family JCC, Peninsula JCC and
Jewish Silicon Valley are scheduled to present “Home Sweet Shavuot,” a “night
of learning with eight sessions, some in English and some in Hebrew, hosted in
homes in Hillsborough, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Saratoga and San Jose
followed by Havdalah.
2023: Israel braces for another of what has
become a weekly event – a protest against the proposed judicial reform
legislation.
2023(7th of Sivan, 5783): Second Day
of Shavuot; Yizkor;
2024:
Memorial Day observed as Americans remember those who made the supreme
sacrifice for the United States
https://www.jwv.org/programs/in-your-area/memorial-day/
https://kaplancenter.org/memorial-day-and-united-jewish-people
http://forward.com/news/135331/profiles-of-our-fallen/#ixzz1DeAMPaIh
http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/07/18/jews-in-the-military/
2024: The Lillian and
Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum is scheduled to be open on Memorial Day so visitors
“can explore the Jewish history of the national capital region” and “savor the
national and local story of the Jewish deli and its impact on tradition,
culture, and the community.”
2024: Dana Berger “one
of the best and most respected singers and creators in Israel is scheduled to
perform at the City Winery in New York City.
2024:
As May 27th begins in Israel,
an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism sweeps the United States and the Hamas held hostages begin day 234 in captivity. (Editor’s note: this situation is too fluid
for this blog to cover so we are just providing a snapshot as of the posting at
midnight Israeli time.)
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