This Day, February 25, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
February 25
161 BCE:
Jewish soldiers led by Judah Maccabee defeated Nicanor, the Syrian general who
had boasted that he would destroy the Temple and mount Judah’s head on the
gates of Jerusalem.
138: The
Emperor Hadrian adopts Antoninus Pius, effectively making him his successor.
For Jews Hadrian stands out as one of the cruelest of the Roman emperors.
He is the one who defeated Bar Kochba. It is said that Hadrain was more
evil than Titus because he did not just make war against the Jewish
people. He made war against Judaism by banning its practice. In one
of those many ironic twists of fates, Antionious Pious, his hand-picked
successor reversed the decrees of Hadrain. He allowed the Torah to be studied
and is laws obeyed. He reinstituted the ban on imperial statues in
synagogues and he allowed the Jews to practice the rite of circumcision.
628: The reign
Persian Shah Khosrau II who “conquered Jerusalem after a brief siege in 614
during the Byzantine – Sasanian War” came to an end today.
1308:
Coronation of King Edward II. One of this uniquely incompetent monarch’s
claim to fame is that he was the first King of England to reign over a realm
without any Jews since the Norman Conquest in 1066. Edward’s father,
Edward I, had expelled the Jews in 1290.
1304:
Birthdate of Ibn Battuta, the Moslem Moroccan explorer who visit large segments
of Asia and Africa where he chronicled meetings with various groups including
Jews in India and China.
1333: Ibn
Batuta, the Arab traveler, visited Jewish communities in India
1336: Alfonso
X of Castile was persuaded by the apostate Alfonso of Valladolid to ban the
prayer Aleinu. Alfonso alleged that the prayer was anti-Christian. As a result,
many Jewish communities excised a sentence from the prayer which has only been
printed in recent years in only some prayer books. The offending line
which was taken out comes just before the time when everybody bows and recites
“Va-ananchnu Kor’im – But we bend our knees…” The line that was taken out reads
“For they bow to vanity and emptiness and pray to a god which helps not.”
If you read the entire prayer and insert this line, the following line makes a
lot more sense. According to several commentators the offending line had
nothing to do with the Christians but had been placed there to refer to all
heretics and that its origins were found in Isaiah (30:7 and 45:20). Further
evidence refuting the claim that it was anti-Christian can be found in the fact
that it was composed in the third century by Rav Abba Arucha head of the
Academy of Sura (Persia) which was not a Christian country. Ashkenazi
prayer books dropped the line but Sephardic prayer books i.e. those in the land
of Islam, retained the line. Today it can be found in some Ashkenazi
prayer books including those in the Artscroll Series.
1451:
Nicholas V issued a papal bull banning all social intercourse between
Christians and Jews probably caused by a fear of Christians being attracted to
Judaism. A Christian who converted to Judaism and the Jews who helped him were
usually subject to the death penalty in most Catholic and Eastern Orthodox
countries. It is amazing that with the Church’s attitude towards Judaism,
and with the contempt that Jews in which Jews were held, that there should be
such a fear of “Jewish missionizing”.
1570:
Pope Pious V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I. This was one of the steps
on the road to loosening the stranglehold that doctrinal Christianity had on
Western Europe. As the Church’s grip on Europe weakened it opened up the
way to a religious toleration that was highly beneficial to the Jewish people.
1593: Pope
Clement VIII issued “Caeca et Obdurata Hebraeorum perfidia” (the blind and
obdurate perfidy of the Hebrews) a papal bull which expelled the Jews from the
Papal States, effectively revoking the bull Christiana pietas issued in 1586 by
his predecessor Pope Sixtus V.The bull was a culmination of Clement VII’s
tightening of the anti-Jewish measures of his predecessors which began with his
elevation to the papacy in 1592. The bull gave Jews three months to leave the
Papal States (with the exception of Rome, Ancona, and the Comtat Venaissin of
Avignon). The main effect of the bull was to evict Jews who had returned to
areas of the Papal States (mainly Umbria) after 1586 (following their expulsion
in 1569) and to expel Jewish communities from cities like Bologna (which had
been incorporated under papal dominion since 1569). For the Jews remaining
within Rome, Ancona, or the Comtat Venaissin, the bull re-established mandatory
weekly sermons. The bull also resulted in the relocation of Jewish cemeteries
to Ferrara and Mantua. The bull alleged that Jews in the Papal States had
engaged in usury and exploited the hospitality of Clement VIII’s predecessors
“who, in order to lead them from their darkness to knowledge of the true
faith, deemed it opportune to use the clemency of Christian piety towards
them” (alluding to Christiana pietas).
1634: Albrecht
von Wallenstein, a Bohemian military leader during the Thirty Years War who
permitted a variety of non-Catholic sects, including Jews, to worship freely,
refused to enforce” the Edict of Restitution which “essentially turned back the
religious clock to pre-reformation days,” passed away today.
1713: The
reign of Frederick I, who in 1709 appointed Aaron ben Benjamin Wolf “to the
office of chief rabbi of Berlin with jurisdicition over all the Jews living in
the mark” came to an end today.
1742:
Birthdate of Nachum the son of David who died before reaching the age of five.
1774(14th
of Adar, 5534): Purim celebrated as the Parliament in London prepares to enact
measures punishing the colony of Massachusetts for the act of rebellion known
as “The Boston Tea Party.
1775: In
Kingston, Jamaica, Moses Israel Henriques and Abigail Henriques gave birth to Abraham
Quixano Henriques, Esq the thrice married husband of Leah Rachel Henriques;
Rebecca Henriques and Ann Henriques
1790(11th
of Adar, 5550): Ta’anit Esther on the same day that Eldridge Gerry addressed
the United States House of Representatives on the issue of the national
government assuming responsibility for debts incurred by the various States of
the Union.
https://www.consource.org/document/elbridge-gerry-in-the-house-of-representatives-1790-2-25/
1795: First
New York City performance of “Sheva, The Benevolent” by English playwright
Richard Cumberland which features, Sheva, “the Jewish moneylender as the
benevolent hero.”
1799: Napoleon
defeated the army led by Al Jazzar as he made his way from Khan Younis to Gaza.
1799: Napoleon
captured Gaza. (Yes, the same place in the news today). This was his first
encounter with “Palestinian” Jews.” It is said that he offered “the
reestablishment of ancient Jerusalem” as a Jewish homeland in return for Jewish
loyalty.
1803: A major
redistribution of territorial sovereignty within the Holy Roman Empire is
enacted, via an act known as the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss.
1806:
Birthdate of Rabbi Salomon Ulmann the French rabbi who among other things
organized the Central Conference of the Chief Rabbis of France
1806: Baptism
of German theologian Johann August Wilhelm Neander who had been born David
Mendel, the son of a Jewish peddler Emmanuel Mendel.
1808:
Eighteen-year-old Caroline Lazarus, the daughter of Marks Lazarus married Aaron
Phillips today.
1809(8th
of Adar, 5569): Parashat Tetzvaeh; Shabbat Zachor observed for the last time
during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson, a strong proponent of religious
freedom and according to some, the person who popularized the expression
“separation of Church and State.”
1810: Simcha
De Lara Cohen and London native Isaac Crawcour gave birth to Solomon Crawcour.
1824: Moritz
Bertram married Sophia Boss at the Hambro Synagogue.
1825(7th
of Adar I, 5585): Thirty-one-year-old Hannah Aarons (Hannah bat Aharon be Jacob
ZL) passed away today.
1826: In
Charleston, SC, Rebecca Phillips and Isaiah Moses gave birth to Adeline Moses,
the wife of Adolph J. Brady with whom she had five children – Matilda, Isaiah,
Illiee, Edwin and Rosa.
1830: In
Charleston, SC Moses and Isabel Mordecai gave birth to future Baltimore
resident Hortensia Mordecai.
1832: Kitty Etting
and Richmond born Benjamin I. Cohen who were married in 1819 gave birth to Kate
Frances Cohen today.
1834: The
“wife of Shmuel bar Shlomeh” was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road)
Jewish Cemetery.”
1840:
Birthdate of German philosopher, the Kantian, Otto Liebmann
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0012_0_12511.html
1841:
Birthdate of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the French artist who painted “Alice and
Elisabeth Cahen d’Anvers” (most commonly referred to as Pink and Blue).The
painting portrayed the 2 daughters of the banker Louis Raphael Cahen d’Anvers,
the blonde, Elisabeth, born in December 1874, and the younger, Alice, in
February 1876, when they were respectively six and five years old. The artist
produced many portraits for the families of the Parisian Jewish community at
the time. Renoir was commissioned to paint many portraits for this family,
which he had met through the collector Charles Ephrussi, proprietor of the
“Gazette des Beaux-Arts.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_and_Blue_(Renoir)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Renoir_Mlles_Cahen_d_Anvers.jpg
1842:
Birthdate of Elias Landauer who with “his spouse, Bertha Bodenheimer Landauer,
immigrated from Germany in 1866 settled in Harrisonburg, Louisiana where he
operated a retail supply business for 22 years before coming to New Orleans and
opening Landauer & Meyer, a wholesale hat store’
1844:
Birthdate of Leó Frankel, the Hungarian born revolution who active in the First
International and a member of the Paris Commune that was formed in the wake of
the Franco-Prussian War.
1846: Henry
Hyman Defries married Dinah Samson in Liverpool today.
1847: State
University of Iowa was approved. What is now called the University of
Iowa has certainly provided employment and educational opportunities for a fair
number of Jews from the land of the Hawks as well a number of other places. The
28,000-student body includes approximately 600 Jewish undergrads and 200 Jewish
grad students. The school offers ten Jewish studies courses and the
campus offers students a choice of Hillel or Chabad. They also have
access to Agudas Achim and its Rabbi, Jeff Portman, a mensch in the truest
sense of the word. Several distinguished Jewish scholars have taught at the
university including the late Dr. Jonathan A. Goldstein who provided the
introduction and commentary for The Anchor Bible’s Book of Maccabees and
Dr. David Schoenbaum who has authored numerous works about German history as
well as The United States and the State of Israel, a diplomatic history
of relations between the United States and Israel from 1948 to 1993.
1848:
Birthdate of Eugène-Melchior, vicomte de Vogüé the French diplomat and
archaeologist who provided “much of the earliest documentation about the Temple
Mount. Because his work was done with the “full consent of the Muslim Counsel”
he “work included the most complete and detailed mongraphs on how the mosques
looked and their relationships to ancient Temple of Jerusalem.” De Vogue
“was also known for his architectural studies of Jerusalem and its
surroundings.” (For more on this Digging Through the Bible by Richard A.
Freund
1848:
Birthdate of Hungary native Josef Schiff, the “Austrian stenographer” who was
“appointed teacher of stenography at the Vienna Academy of Agriculture in 1874”
and “lecturer on Gabelsberg’s system of stenographer at the University of
Vienna in 1898” which led to him receiving “the title of professor from the
Emperor of Austria.”
1850(13th
of Adar, 5610): Ta’anit Esther; erev Purim
1850: In South
Carolina, Alexander Abrams, the son of Elias and Catherine Abrahams, and his
wife Elizabeth Abrams gave birth to Isabella (Belle) Brady who became Isabella
Brad when she married Isaiah Abram Brady.
1851: Elias
Landauer, the German born son of Raphael Löb Landauer and Lucia Pessel
Landauerm and his wife Karoline Kehle Landauer gave birth to Raphael Landauer
1855: The
Jewish residents of Lancaster PA organized Congregation Shaarai Shomayim which
then took possession of the old Jewish cemetery.
1856(19th
of Adar I, 5616): Eighty-three-year-old Anglo-Jewish poet Isaac Gompertz, the
Middlesex born son of Solomon Gompertz and Lydia Cohen whose works include “The Modern Antique”,
“Time, or Light and Shade” and “Devon,” the husband of Charlotte
Florence Wattier with whom he had three children and the brother of
Barnet Gompertz and animal rights activist Lewis Gompertz passed away today after
which he as interred at the Exeter Jewish Cemetery.
https://books.google.com/books?id=J6v3p_cYpYEC
https://books.google.com/books?id=Jkg_AQAAMAAJ
https://archive.org/details/devonapoem00gompgoog/page/n9/mode/2up
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6797-gompertz-isaac
1856:
Professor O.M. Mitchell is scheduled deliver a lecture tonight entitled
“Critical Examination of the Astronomical Allusions and Illustrations
Employed by the Writers of the Sacred Books of the Hebrews” at the
Brooklyn Athenaeum.
1858: Sir
Anthony de Rothschild, Louis Nathan, Ephraim Alex and Marcus Samuel, the father
of the first Lord Bearsted were among those who attended a conference designed
to deal with the problems of “the strange and foreign poor” held in the
chambers of the Great Synagogue in London.
1859: The
first formal meeting was held at 31 New Bridge Street of the Board of Guardians
which consisted of delegates from the London’s three leading congregations.
1860:
Birthdate of Professor Hirsch Loeb Sabsovich, the native Berdiansk, Russia who
came to the United States in 1888 to serve as an agricultural chemist at
Colorado State Agricultural College before becoming the “General Agent of the
Baron De Hirsch Fund and the first mayor of the Jewish Agricultural Colony at
Woodbine, NJ.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1915/03/24/100147007.pdf
1861(15th
of Adar, 5621): Shushan Purim
1861: Judah P.
Benjamin began serving as Attorney General in the cabinet of Jefferson Davis.
1862(25th
of Adar I, 5622): German educator Emanuel Hecht passed away.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7469-hecht-emanuel
1862:
Birthdate of Stanisław Głąbiński Polish attorney and political leader who
shared a cell in Lubyanka Prison with Rabbi Moses Schorr with whom he formed a
close friendship before the Jew and Gentile met the same fate – murder by the
NKVD in 1941.
1862: A fire
broke at 6 o’clock this morning in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, on
Lamartine-place. Damages which are valued at three hundred dollars,
should be fully covered by insurance.
1862: During
the American Civil War commissioning of the USS Monitor, the U.S. Navy ironclad
with the revolving turret that revolutionized naval war and whose crew included
William Durst, the Austrian born “coal heaver” who was the last surviving
member of the ship’s crew.
1865(29th of
Shevat, 5625): Shabbat Shekalim observed as Union calvary included General
George Armstrong Custer prepared to move up the Shenandoah Valley in the
closing months of the Civil War.
1867: Ralph
Disraeli and his wife gave birth to British political leader Coningsby
Disraeli, the nephew of Benjamin Disraeli.
1868: In
Portsmouth, Isaac Phillips, the rabbi of the Portsmouth Hebrew Congregation and
his wife gave birth to Jacob Phillips, the author of A Peep Into the Talmud and
Jewish Rites and Ceremonies who served as the rabbi of congregations at
Tredegar, Swansea, Sunderland and Port Elizabeth, Cape Colony and was “Justice
of the Peace for the Division of Port Elizabeth’
1869(14th
of Adar, 5629): Purim observed for the last time during the Presidency of
Andrew Johnson.
1869: “In
Sagor, Russia, Etta and Solom Etta Levene” gave birth to Dr. Phoebus Aaron
Levene, “the internationally recognized authority in biochemistry and husband
of Anna Erickson Levene who in 1892 came to the United States where he began
practicing medicine in New York City.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phoebus-Levene
1870(24th
of Adar I, 5630): Seventy-two-year-old Danish poet Henrik Hertz passed away
today.
1870: As a
reminder that the battle over the separation of church and state which has been
a cornerstone of Jewish success in the United States is on-going, a meeting was
held at the Reformed Presbyterian Church in New York in which the attendees
called for a national convention that would promote “constitutional recognition
of Almighty God and the Christian religion in the United States.”
1871(4th
of Adar, 5631): Parashat Terumah
1871: London
native Dinah Abrahams and William Benjamin Collins gave birth to Alexander
Solomon Collins.
1871(4th
of Adar, 5631): Seventy-two-year-old Maurice Schlesinger (born Moritz Adolf
Slesinger)
“a German music editor” who followed in the footsteps of his father Adolf
Martin Schlesinger and founding a music publishing house passed away today in
Baden-Baden.
1871: Rabbi
Stephen Wise of Cincinnati delivered a lecture on the Apostle Paul, the third
and final in a series of addresses on the Origin of Christianity. The well
attended event took place at Steinway Hall in New York City.
1874: Jonas
Hart married Amelia Cohen in Dublin today.
1875: Today
eleven-year-old pianist Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler made her debut “at a concert
of the Wolfsohn’s Beethoven Society.”
1876(30th
of Shevat, 5636): Rosh Chodesh Adar observed during the U.S. Centennial
Celebration.
1876: In
Birmingham, England, 30-year-old Bernhard Hast and 28 year old Fanny Nelken
gave birth to Walter Hast, the husband of Margaret Lennie.
1877: It was
reported that the Purim Association will host a masked ball at Delmonico’s on
March 1st in celebration of this minor Jewish festival.
1877: A
reception celebrating Purim was held today at the Home for Aged and Infirm
Hebrews. The event was hosted by the lady managers of the well-maintained
facility located at 87th Street and Avenue A in New York City.
1877:
Professor Felix Adler delivered a detailed laudatory address to a mostly Jewish
audience at Standard Hall on the life and teachings of Baruch Spinoza.
The 200th anniversary of the death of the famous Jewish Dutch
philosopher provided the impetus for the “panegyric.”
1879”
Birthdate of German silent film actor and director Julius Falkenstein who
passed away the same year the Nazis came to power.
1880(13th of
Adar, 5640) Ta’anit Esther observed as James A Garfield and Winfield S. Hancock
prepare their Presidential campaigns.
1881: It was
reported today that the will of Louis Strauss of San Francisco includes
bequests to the Pacific Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Home Society of San Francisco
($10,000), and the Jewish Orphan Asylum of New York ($5,000) as well as three
other non-Jewish institutions.
1881: It was
reported today that Marion Calisch, young Jewess kindergarten teacher who
disappeared mysteriously, has been re-united with her parents and taken
home. The police are still investigating the matter since they do not
find Ms Calisch’s explanation of events creditable.
1882: A mass
meeting is scheduled to be held at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia during
which the attendees will express their outrage at the treatment of Russian Jews
by the Czarist government. The multi-denominational array of speakers
will be expressing their sympathy with the plight of the refugees, some of whom
have just arrived in the City of Brotherly Love.
1882: It was
reported today that John W. Foster will be deliver a lecture on “The Czar and
His People” before the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in Chickering Hall.
The New York event will be a benefit for Jewish refugees who have fled
persecution in Russia.
1882: A Purim
celebration for the Temple Beth-El Sunday School students was held at the
Terrace Garden this afternoon in New York City.
1882: The
Young Men’s Association of Temple Beth-El sponsored a grand ball in Terrace
Garden. This Purim celebration was organized by Nathan Ullman, Louis
Lowenfels and Samuel Eiseman.
1883: At
Frank-fort-on Main, Germany, Joseph H. and Ida (Kopp) Rossbach gave birth
University of Munich Ph.D. Max J.H. Rossbach, the husband of Mabel Limburg, who
went to work in New York in 1905 for J.H. Rossbach and Brothers which he became
President of in 1919 while also serving as President of the Hide and Leather
Association of New York and the the President of the National Association of
Importers of Hides and Skins.
1884:
Birthdate of Else Feldman, the native of Leopoldstadt (Austria) who overcame
poverty to become a leading socialist author and writer which did not keep the
Nazis from murdering her Sobibor.
1884:
Birthdate of Chicago native and University of Michigan educated advertising
executive Louis H. Hartman, the husband of Ann Hoffman Hartman and the father
of Robert H. Hartman who had begun his career with Sears, Roebuck and Company
and was known for his activities as beekeeper.
1885:
Birthdate of Princess Alice of Battenberg, the mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth
II, who personally saved Rachel Cohen and two of her children from the Nazi
death camps.
1887: In Sheffield, England, David and Jochebed
(Chaim) Benedict gave birth George Benedict, an alum of Jew’s College and the
University of London and husband of Pauline Lewin with whom he had two children
– Harold and David Jr – who organized and served s the first Rabbi of
Congregation Beth El in Philadelphia, before moving on to Shaari Zedek in Tampa
before settling in at Congregation Emanu-El in Roanoke, VA.
1887: Relief
expedition to rescue the apostate Jew turned Ottoman official Emin Pasha, under
the command of Henry M. Stanley, left Zanzibar for its next stop, Banana at the
mouth of the Congo River.
1888(13th
of Adar, 5648): Parahat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor; Erev Purim
1888(13th
of Adar, 5648): Prague born Austrian journalist Michael Klapp, a special
correspondent in Italy and Spain for the Neue Freie Presse and
co-founder of Montagrsrevue with Jacob Herzog, passed away today.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9363-klapp-michael
1888:
Birthdate of John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower’s Secretary of State from 1953
through 1959. No, Dulles was not Jewish. But this patrician Cold Warrior
did play a major role in American Israeli relations and his effect was less
than positive. He sided with the Soviets in their support of Nasser
during the Suez crisis of 1956. He led the forces that put pressure on
Israel to withdraw from the Sinai and Gaza leaving the terrorist bases in tact
while propping up the Egyptian dictator. Dulles and Eisenhower’s
misguided action led to the development of the independent French nuclear
capability and to the Six Day War in 1967.
1889:
Birthdate of Warsaw native and University of London alum Aaron Glanz-Leyeless
the Yiddish journalist, poet, playwright and author whose works included the
play “Shlomo Molcho and the award-wining A Jew at Sea and who had married “the
former Sophia Kupfer” after his first wife “the former Fannie Wolynsky.”
1890:
Birthdate of Kilburn, London, native Julia Myra Hess the accomplished concert
pianist remembered by many as the artist who “gave almost 2,000 lunchtime
concert” during the six years of WW II – a performance time brought about by
the wartime blackout and the need for moral building activities.
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/history/myra-hess-concerts/myra-remembered
1891: Charles
W. Foster began serving as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, a position which
gave him considerable control over the increasing influx of Jews from Russia
and Poland; a fact that would be duly noted later in appeals made to him by
leaders of the American Jewish Committee.
1892: “No
Mercy For the Jews” published today provided a detailed account of the report
prepared by Colonel John B. Weber who had represented the 33rd
District of New York in the 49th and 50th Congresses and
Dr. Walter Kempster on the “conditions and treatment of the Jewish subjects of
the Czar. The report which was prepared for the House Committee on
Immigration, “sets forth calmly, dispassionately and with a careful regard to
accuracy…a state of things unheard of in modern times.”
1893(9th
of Adar, 5653): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor
1893: In
Newark, NJ, “Max Bornestien, a Polish Jews…has retained counsel in a suit for
damages alleging that the defendants, three constables “brought pork sausage
into his house and ate them therein” defiling his property in such a manner
“that he can no longer make use of it.”
1894: In
Philadelphia, PA, a non-sectarian memorial service in memory of the late George
W. Childs was held at Keneseth Israel.
1894: It was
reported today that a member of the Women’s Literary Club of Baltimore has
contributed a paper on the “The Booth” the famous family of 19th
century thespians. According to the paper, they were originally a Jewish
family from Spain named “Cabana.” When one of the ancestors settled in England,
he translated the family name into English and that back the family name – Booth.
1895: “Once
Famous, Now Forgotten” published today described the life of Bernard Bauer, the
Hungarian Jew who converted to Catholicism, where, as Father Maria Berhnard he
became a popular preacher in France and the confessor of Empress. This
meant that he was following in the footsteps of Hermann Cohen, the Jewish
pianist who converted and gained fame as Father Hermann.
1896: In Abterode,
Germany, Isaak Rothschild, the son of Perez and Jettchen Rothschild and his
wife Malchen Amalie Rothschild gave birth to Hilde Hoflich, the wife of Nathan
Hoflich and the mother of Gerda Hoflich each of whom would be murdered in the
Holocaust.
1897:
Birthdate of Irving Maidman, “the New York real estate investor who offered
$1,000 to each of the 200 passengers who rode the New York Susquehanna and
Western Railroad which he had purchased so that he could develop the division
passenger stations “as small business concerns.”
1897(23rd
of Adar I, 5657): Sixty-two-year-old author and historian Michael Bernays
passed away today.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3120-bernays-michael
1898: A social
event is scheduled to be held today to raise funds for Jewish hospital to be
built in Brooklyn. Currently there are no Jewish hospitals in Brooklyn
and Robert Strahl, Sigmund Wechsler and Charles Levy are among those leading
the drive to remedy this deficiency.
1898(3rd
of Adar, 5658): Before reaching his second birthday, Albert Weil, the son of
Abraham and Berta Weil pass away today in Oppau.
1899: It was
reported today that the Junior Association of the Home for Aged and Infirm
Hebrews had participated in the annual Purim reception that had been held at
the home on 106th Street.
1899: Paul
Julius von Reuter founder of the news agency Reuters passed
away. Reuter was born in 1816 and his name was Israel Beer
Josaphat. He left his uncle’s bank in the German town of Gottingeng and
established what would become the world’s greatest wire service in 1848. No
Kaddish was said since he had converted and became a Lutheran in 1845 after
having moved to London.
1900: It was
reported today that Hermann Adler, the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire “has
been elected a member of the Athenaeum Club, after having been proposed for
membership by Reverend Mandell Creighton, the Bishop of London.
1900: Job
Harriman, a former Baptist minister now running for President as the Socialist
Labor’s Party candidate spoke to 1,500 Jewish Socialists today in the Windsor
Theatre.
1901: Ten days
after his 24th birthday, University of Cincinnati graduate and HUC
trained rabbi, Martin Zielonka the Berlin born son of David and Bertha Zielonka
married Dora Schatzkey today in San Antonio, TX while serving as the spiritual
leader of Temple Mt. Sinai in El Paso, TX.
1901: In New
York, Samuel and Minnie Schoenberg Marx gave birth to Herbert Manrfed Marx
known as Zeppo Marx, the youngest of the Marx Brothers.
https://www.biography.com/people/zeppo-marx-21181001
http://www.marx-brothers.org/biography/zeppo.htm
1902: Abraham
Abraham, Felix Adler, Jacob Schiff, Isaac N. Seligman, Adolph Ochs and Oscar
Straus are members of the committee that has planned the festivities for the
launching the yacht owned by Prince Henry of Prussia.
1902: In South
Carolina Rabbi B.A. Elzas officiated at the marriage of James Dundas and
Rebecca Bowman
1902: In
Sweden, Albert and Alma Mallin gave birth to Ivar Mallin.
1902: On
Broadway, final performance of “Frocks and Frills” starring Rose Eytinge.
1903: Dr.
Kaufmann Kohler, the senior Rabbi at New York’s Temple Beth-El has been asked
to serve as President of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, the first and
until recently, when a conservative seminary was established in New York, the
only college in America designed for the education of Rabbis.
1903: “Zionist
committees set out today to investigate the feasibility of a British proposal
to have Jews colonize El-Arish” which is located on the Mediterranean coast of
the Sinai Peninsula.
1903: Herzl
receives a telegram from the commission in El Arish: “Vicinity has made a
favorable impression.”
1904: Two days
after she had passed away, Flora Goldsmid, the daughter of Frederick David
Goldsmid and the former Caroline Samuel was buried today at the “Balls Pond
Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1905(20th
of Adar I, 5665): Parashat Ki Tisa
1905(20th
of Adar I, 5665): Sevent-eight-year-old Pauline “Barbara” Victor Barth the wife
of Gottlied “Leopold” Barth and the mother of Victor, Simon, Gustav, Moses,
Alexander and Solomon Barth passed away today after which she was buried at the
Illingen Jewish Cemetery in the Saarland.
1905: “The
Jewish Church” was one of the many buildings destroyed tonight as fire swept
through downtown Hot Springs, AR. (Editor’s note: This would be a reference to
the Jewish congregation known as The House of Israel which had purchased land
for a cemetery in 1876 and “constructed” it first congregational home in 1885)
1906: In New
York, today’s annual meeting of the Independent Order of Free Sons Israel
included a business meeting followed by a dinner at the Harlem Casino where
School Commissioner M.S. Stern and Coroner Julius Harburger were the principal
speakers.
1906: In “Why
France Sought Separation of Church and State” published today Yvest Guyot
traced attempts by the Catholic Church to gain unique total power from the
Napoleonic era, including the importation “of anti-Semitism from Austria” which
was intended to purge Army of non-Catholics starting with the Jews, followed by
Protestants and Freemasons.”
1907:
Birthdate of actor Shimen Rushkin, the native of Poland who gained famed in
America in televisions and a variety of films including Fiddler on the Roof
and the original version of The Producers. He passed away in 1967.
1907: “In the
Bishop’s Carriage” starring Rose Eytinge opened on Broadway.
1908:
Continued massacres in Setatt drive Jews to Casablanca for safety. During this
period the Jewish population of all Morocco is somewhere between 100,000 and
150,000.
1909:
Birthdate of Chicago native and Northwestern trained surgeon, Dr. Leon Judah
Aries, the husband of Marie L. Aries with whom he had three daughters – Jane,
Elizabeth and Nancy.
1909: In
Washington, D.C., Myer Solomon Cohn the Russian born son of Leo and Sarah Cohn
and his wife Sadie Cohn gave birth to Robert Cohn.
1910: In
London, “under the auspices of the Jewish Religious Union, Dr. Stephen S. Wise
the rabbi of the Free Synagogue” delivered the first of a series of addresses
which is expected to bring to a head the controversy between the liberal and
orthodox sections of the Anglo-Jewish Union,” “which was founded by C.G.
Montefiore, L.S. Montague and other well-known members of the Jewish Community.
1911(27th
of Shevat, 5671): Parshat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim
1911:
“Important Meeting of Jews” published today described plans for an upcoming
meeting of “representatives of widely different Jewish interests in New York
from small and scarcely organized Jewish gatherings on the east side to such
important bodies as the United Hebrew Charities, the American Jewish Committee,
and the Congregation Temple Emanu-El.”
1912(7th
of Adar I, 5672): Eighty-one year old Rabbi Nachum Paltiel Bromson passed away
today in Baltimore, MD.
1913:
“Reciprocity Day” Echoes of the Bicentennial Meeting of the Union of America is
scheduled to be the topic at today’s regular meeting of the K.A.M. Auxiliary in
Chicago.
1913:
Birthdate of Herman L. “Reds” Bassman, the native of Philadelphia who ran
track, wrestled and played football for Ursinus before playing professionally
for the Philadelphia Eagles.
http://www.profootballarchives.com/bass02000.html
1913(18th
of Adar I, 5673): Forty-nine year old Boston merchant Maurice Newman passed
away today.
1914:
Birthdate Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman,
whose donation of artworks by the likes of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning,
Robert Motherwell and Alexander Calder greatly bolstered the Metropolitan
Museum of Art’s standing as an exhibitor of modern art. Muriel Kallis was on
the only child of Maurice and Ada Nudelman Kallis. Her father was an engineer.
As a child she studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; she later
took art courses at the University of Chicago. Mrs. Newman did not turn her
back on her hometown; according to The Chicago Tribune, she donated more than
170 works to the School of the Art Institute. As an aspiring artist in her
early years, Mrs. Newman became a denizen of New York’s artistic haunts,
befriending noted Abstract Expressionists like de Kooning, Pollock, Motherwell,
Mark Rothko and Franz Kline. By the late 1940s, while married to a successful
businessman, Jay Z. Steinberg, she began acquiring works by those rising stars,
paying, for example, $2,700 for a de Kooning canvas and $3,000 for a Pollock.
Mr. Steinberg died in 1954, and a year later Mrs. Newman married Albert Hardy
Newman, another successful businessman. The walls of their Chicago apartment
were resplendent with her growing collection. In 1980, to the consternation of
art institutions in her native Chicago, Mrs. Newman bequeathed her collection
to the Metropolitan in New York.
Asked why, she
said at the time: “I’m so involved with New York, and besides, the artists I
knew loved the Met, particularly Franz Kline, who used to go there and study
Ingres by the hour. I find the idea that their work should hang there now
rather touching.” Eventually Mrs. Newman decided not to complete the gift
before her death. In 2004 Gary Tinterow, the Met’s curator of 19th-century,
modern and contemporary art, received a surprise call from Mrs. Newman, asking
that he start planning the transfer. “I’m about to turn 93,” she told The
New York Times last year, “and I think now is a great time to do it.” Mr.
Tinterow said that Mrs. Newman’s donation “created, with one fell swoop, an
extraordinary representation of postwar American Abstract Expressionism.”
The collection
of more than 70 works includes the 5-foot-by-9-foot “Number 28,” one of the
great canvases of Pollock’s classic period; de Kooning’s “Attic”; Motherwell’s
“Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 35”; a Calder mobile, “Four Directions”;
“Mecca,” a painting by Hans Hofmann; and an abstract version of Kline’s
portrait of the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. It also includes 30 examples of
primitive art from Oceania, the Americas and Africa, among them a phallic house
post from the Dogon people of Mali. Estimated to be worth $12 million to $15
million when first bequeathed in 1980, the collection is now valued in the
hundreds of millions. “Mrs. Newman’s collection remains paramount in its
quality, having been acquired by her soon after most of the works were made,”
Mr. Tinterow said. “She had this extraordinary insight into the importance of
this radical new style of art, and she acted upon it, seeking out the best
examples of the best artists.” Mrs. Newman’s second husband died in 1988. Her
son from her first marriage, Glenn Steinberg, died in 2004. Besides her
grandson Peter, of Manhattan, she is survived by four other grandchildren and
10 great-grandchildren. Speaking of her kinship with the great Abstract
Expressionists, she told The Times in 1980, “I knew them well and loved their
work.” She added: “At first I began to hang my own things next to them, but I
soon realized I wasn’t making much of a statement. I really am not at heart a
collector. I’m a failed artist — there’s no other way to describe it.” She died
in Chicago, her hometown at the age of 94.
1915(11th
of Adar, 5675): Ta’anit Esther
1915: “The
Supreme Court of the United States today heard” Louis Marshall “head counsel
for Leo Frank…on his appeal from the denial by the Federal District Court of
Georgia of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus.”
1915: Birthdate Philadelphia
native and Temple University and MIT trained physicist Samuel Silver , a
professor of Engineering Science at UC, Berkley.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=1141576
https://www.nae.edu/189499/SAMUEL-SILVER-19151976
1916: “Tales
of Hoffman” a silent film directed by Richard Oswald was released in Germany
today.
1916: Simon
Wolf wrote to Rabb C.H. Rubenstein of Baltimore, MD, expressing his
appreciation for the role he has played in opposing measures to allow the
reading of the Bible in Maryland public schools and asking to be kept informed
of the next steps he plans on taking.
1916: Based on
reports published today, that 35,000 Jews living in Palestine including those
at settlement started by Wolf Gluskin, are “in dire straits” because, among
other things, “the wine industry which” had been developed “before Turkey
entered” the World War “had been destroyed.”
1917: A list
of the accomplishments of Rabbi Henry Pereira Menes published today included
helping to found The American Hebrew, initiating the movement to found the
Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids and the School for Crippled Jewish
Children and helping to found the Jewish Theological Seminary.
1917: Among
the contributions acknowledged today by the American Jewish Relief Committee
included $200 from the Jewish Women of East Chicago, $100 from the United
Hebrew Organization of South Bend, Indiana and $500 from the Committee in
Council Bluffs, Iowa.
1917: Dr.
Samuel Schulman is scheduled to deliver an address on “The Jew’s Service to the
World” at Temple Beth-El.
1917: At
Temple Emanu-El, Dr. Silverman is scheduled to speak on “What the Hew Jews
Should Know about Jews and Judaism: the Patriotism of the Jews.”
1917: At
Carnegie Hall, Dr. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon to the Free Synagogue
entitled “Marriage Ideals, True and False.”
1918: Today “a
dispatch appeared in the daily newspapers to the effect that the Italian
Government had notified its Ambassadors that it approved of the stand on
Palestine taken by the Allies” making this “the first authorized announcement
by the Italian Government to the Zionist organization.”
1919: The
funeral for the Abraham Jesse Dittenhoefer, the native South Carolinian who was
the last living elector to have voted for Lincoln in 1864, will be held at his
home this morning at ten o’clock.
1919:
Birthdate of Brooklyn born cellist Fred Katz.
1920: In
Germany, the Nazi party endorsed its own platform consisting of twenty-five
points. Seven of these points concerned the Jews.
1920:
Twenty-one-year-old Parisian native Benny Valgar “won the Featherweight Boxing
Championship of the World today.
1921(17th
of Adar I, 5681): Twenty-six-year-old Harold Frederick Epstein, the son of
Ephraim and Sallie Lasker Epstein passed away today in Pulaski Country after
which he was buried in Oakland and Fraternal Historic Cemetery Park in Little
Rock
1921: Greek
authorities expropriate the old Jewish cemetery in Smyrna.
1922: In New
York, “the city committee in direction of the work of gathering $5,000,000 for
the relief fund for Jewish war sufferers reported today that the campaign was
progressing favorably and that in a few days a large part of the quota would be
raised.”
1923:
Birthdate of Viennese native Jacob Taubes who taught Jewish studies at Harvard,
Columbia, Princeton and the Free University of Berlin who was the husband of
author Susan Tabes with whom he had two children – Ethan and Tania.
1923: In Los
Angeles, Mildred Rosenkranz, the “daughter of Emil and Benvenida Solis Firth”
and her husband Elias Victor Rosenkranz gave birth to Marjorie Ruth Rosenkranz
1923: The
price of bread rose to 2,000 marks in Berlin. This hyper-inflation wiped
people’s life savings and destroyed the basic faith of the middle class in many
of the existing political and social institutions. It laid the groundwork
for the rise of political extremism that would make the Communists and the
Nazis the dominant political forces in the 1930’s.
1923: In New
York City, Louis Glazer, “a garment worker” and his wife Tilly, “a homemaker”
gave birth to sociologist Nathan Glazer. (As reported by Barry Gewen)
1923: In
“Palestine Relief Work Extended,” published today Doctor Isaac M. Rubinow, the
director of the Hadassah Medical Organization describes the positive changes
that the work of the Hadassah doctors and nurses has had on the citizens of
Palestine including Jews, Arabs, Moslems and Christians. When Dr. Rubinow
went to Israel in 1919 the unit consisted of 43 nurses and doctors. Today
four hundred medical personnel sponsored by Hadassah support five major
hospitals and several field hospitals. As a sign as of its commitment to
“heal the wounds of prejudice” all Hadassah hospitals and clinics are open to
Moslems and Christians as well as Jews. To ensure equality of treatment,
the staff members do not maintain a private practice and there are no private
rooms in the medical facilities. Everybody is treated in a democratic
fashion on modern hospital wards. The Hadassah Medical Organization has
established a modern infant welfare plan under the management of pediatricians
at Rothschild Hospital in Jerusalem and a department of school hygiene “which
has saved thousands of children from blindness and other ailments by regular
examination for and treatment of trachoma and various forms of skin diseases.”
1924: It was
reported today that Rabbi Stephen S. Wise had delivered a sermon at Carnegie
Hall in which he said that “the Balfour declaration in support of a Jewish
homeland in Palestine would never have been issued except for the support of
President Woodrow Wilson.
1925: In
Camden, NJ, Congregation Beth-El and the Council of Jewish Women hosted its
Fourth Annual Ball.
1926: New York
Mayor James J. Walker received the advance delegates of Europe’s champion
soccer team whose creation “was the direct result of the formation of the
Hakoah organization in Austria fourteen years ago and that Hakoah had been
created because of a realization of the need for building up the physical
health of the Jews in Europe.”
1926: The
Student’s Union gave as the reason for its strike which began today as being
“the authorities’ refusal to meet its repeated demand for limiting the number
of Jewish students admitted to the university.
1926: Three
hundred guests attended “the Hundred-Dollar-Dinner of the Washington Heights
United Palestine Appeal held tonight at the Hotel Astor” in New York City.
1926: “The
country home of Milton F. Untermeyer, a member of the brokerage firm of Henry
Henck and Company situated on the top of a mountain about five miles from
Butler, NJ, was struck by lightning tonight and destroyed by fire.”
1926: Henry
Hurwitz, the editor of The Menorah
Journal was the principal speaker at “the third of a series of ‘plain-talk’
dinners tonight at the Aldine Club.
1926: Among
those reported today to have recently met with President Coolidge are Jacob
Rosenheim, the President of Agudath Israel, Dr. Leo Jung, the rabbi of the
Jewish Centre in New York and New York state legislator Samuel H. Hofstadter.
1925: In Philadelphia,
Wharton graduate Milton Rabinowitz and his wife gave birth to WWII Army Air
Forces veteran, Syracuse undergrad and Harvard Law School trained attorney, Jay
Andrew Rabinowitz, the husband of Anne Rabinowitz with whom he had four children
including cross-country skier Judy Rabinowitz, who rose to become Chief Just of
the Alaska Supreme Court.
1927: “Maccabi
Tel Aviv defeated Hapoel-Allenby in the first Soccer Derby in Tel Aviv” today.
(As reported by Al Wechsler)
1928: In New
York City, Dr. and Mrs. Henry Stern gave birth to Richard Gustave Stern, the
best American author of whom you have never heard…” (As reported by Bruce
Weber)
1928: In
Chicago, Harry Gelbart, a Latvian born barber and Frieda Sturner gave birth to Larry
Gelbart, television producer responsible for the hit show “MASH.”
1928:
Birthdate of Shlomo Kalo, a native of Bulgaria who survived the Holocaust and
made Aliyah in 1949. He gained fame as a microbiologist as well as a poet
and an author of works of fictions and non-fiction.
1929(15th
of Adar I, 5689): Shushan Purim Katan
1929: In
Newark, NJ “Joseph and Myrtle (Lieberman) Kagan who ran a shoe store in Rahway,
NJ gave birth to “Prof. Jerome Kagan, a Harvard psychologist whose research
into temperament found that shy infants often grow up to be anxious and fearful
adults because of their biological nature as well as the way they were nurtured.”
(As reported by Sam Roberts)
1929: “Urges
Bible As Guide” published today quoted Louis Marshall as saying that “It is the
duty of Jewish parents to educate themselves so they may…discuss things Jewish
them” because if they do not, “all that our ancestors and our glorious
tradition have too for will have been for nothing and we as Jews will become a
degenerate people.”
1930:
“Declaring that at least three million Jews will remain in Russia to become
producers under the Russian law and system James N. Rosenberg, president of the
American Society for Jewish Farm Settlements in Russia, Inc., protested” today
“against what he called ‘dragging problems of Jewish reconstruction and relief
in Russia in to politics and controversies.’”
1931: Today,
the violent ant-Semitic attacks were renewed at Pecs University in Budapest
which resulted in the rector suspending lectures for two days
1932: Adolf
Hitler who had been born in Austria and whose Germanic connection was ethnic
rather than political until he joined the Kaiser’s army in 1914 officially
became a German citizen.
1932: Premiere
of “Behind the Mask” produced by Harry Cohn.
1932: In
Brooklyn, Harold Spitzer and the former Gertrude Schwartz gave birth to Lincoln
High graduate and Army veteran Elton Leopold Spitzer who created the
“broadcasting phenomenon at WLIR.”
1933: The
Literary Digest, the magazine that would go out of business after picking
Alf Landon to win the election in 1936, published “Israel’s Alarm at Hitler’s
Rise.”
http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/Jewish_reaction_to_the_rise_of_ADOLF_Hon
ITLER_pdf
1933: After 31
performances, the curtain came down at the 44th Street Theatre “Face
The Music,” the Irving Berlin musical with a “book” by Moss Hart.
1934:
Birthdate of Meir Har-Zion a sabra who “was an Israeli military commando” and
“a key member of Unit 101.”
1934:
Today the “Tel Hey Memorial,” known as the “Roaring Lion” which had been
fashioned from a 22-ton block of stone by Abraham Melnikov which took the form
of a “lion facing eastward and roaring to the heavens” was officially dedicated
today.
1934: In
London, two second-generation Jewish immigrants from Poland gave birth to 6’7”
British actor Bernard Bresslaw.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-bernard-bresslaw-1491593.html
http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/bernard_bresslaw.htm
1935:
Birthdate of Sally Lowenthal, better known to most Americans as talk show
hostess Sally Jesse Raphael.
1936: In
Brooklyn, Max and Marion (Smith) Reinsdorf gave birth tax attorney turned
sports mogul (Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox) Jerry M. Reinsdorf.
1936: Messages
from David Lloyd George, the former British Prime Minister, English
philanthropist Simon Marks and Leopold Amery, the former British Secretary of
State for the Colonies, “congratulating the Palestine Foundation Fund on its
fifteenth anniversary were made public” in New York today.
1936: In
Magdeburg, Germany, “three Jewish employees of the Barasch Department Store
were sentenced to four years, one year and give months imprisonment,
respectively, on charges of immorality” that had been brought salesgirls or
members of their families.
1936: Rose
Pesotta joined the Goodyear Rubber workers’ sit-in as an organizer of the
strike which temporarily closed the largest tire factory in the world.
http://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/25/1936/rose-pesotta
1937(14th
of Adar, 5697): Purim
1937: Children
in Herrlingen, Germany dressed in Bedouin costumes as part of the Purim
celebration.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/march/02.asp
1937: In
London, Winston Churchill met Emery Reves for the first time. Reeves was a
Hungarian born Jew whose birth name was Imre Rvesz who had become a leading
literary agent for European democratic leaders, a role he would soon assume for
Churchill.
1938: The
Palestine Post reported that The Times of London criticized, in its
leading article, the delay shown by the Colonial Office in appointing a new
technical commission which would advise how to implement the proposed by the
Royal (Peel) Commission and the League of Nations partition of Palestine.
1939(6th
of Adar, 5699): Parashat Terumah
1939: “I
Married An Angel,” a Rogers and Hart musical closed today at the Schubert after
338 performances.
1939: Rabbi
Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Is There Anything
Sacred to the Modern Mind” today at Temple Emanuel.
1939: Rabbi
Jonah B. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Gift of Faith” at the
Central Synagogue on Lexington Avenue.
1939: Rabbi
Louis I. Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “We Are All Semites
Spiritually” this morning at Temple Rodeph Sholom.
1939: Rabbi
William F Rosenblum is scheduled to deliver a sermon on American Jews Have a
Right to Be Proud” this morning at Temple Israel.
1939: Rabbi
Nathan Stern is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Facing Life’s Sanctuaries” at
West End Synagogue today.
1939: Rabbi
Alexander Segel is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Treasures in the
Sanctuary” at Fort Washington Synagogue today.
1939: Rabbi
Harold Mashioff is scheduled to deliver a sermon “If This Be Freedom of Speech”
at the Temple of the Covenant.
1939: Heinrich
Himmler reportedly issued a secret decree designed to get of Germany’s Jews by
encouraging emigration. This report would seem to lack credibility given the
impediments that the German government placed in the way of Jews leaving Nazi
control.
1939: U.S.
premiere of “Wife, Husband and Friend’ a comedy directed by Gregory Ratoff,
co-starring Binnie Barnes with music by Alfred Newman.
1939: In
Britain, the Picture Post published the first of two photo-journalist
presentations that supported the call for Winston Churchill’s return to an
active role in the Government. Stefan Lorant was the editor and designer
for the Picture Post was the moving force behind the article. Lorant was
a Hungarian born Jew who had worked in Germany before being imprisoned at
Dachau in 1933.
1940: Two days
after he had passed away funeral services are scheduled to be held for
seventy-seven year old businessman and philanthropist Henry Frederick Samstag,
the Washington, DC born son of Samuel and August Samstag who moved to New York
in 1895 where founded Samstag and Hilder, co-founded the Federation for the
Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies” and raised three children – Henry,
Katherine and Matilda – with his wife Belle Samstag.
1940: Bertha
Aaronson is scheduled to marry Dr. A.H. Green is scheduled to take place in the
Hotel St. Moritz in New York City.
1941(28th
of Shevat, 5701): Fifty-seven-year-old New York Eton educated real estate
manager and insurance agent Theodore Badman, the son of Herman and Rosa
Frandenfelder Badman, the husband of Hortense Goldsmith and mother of Carl and
Adolph Badman who had been a member of the Washington Lodge of B’nai B’rith and
Free Sons of Israel passed away today.
1941: The 1941
February Strike (aka The Strike of February 1941) which was organized in the
Netherlands as protest following pogroms that had taken place in Amsterdam’s
Jewish neighborhoods began today
1941: One
thousand, six hundred Jews were deported from Gora Kalwaria to the Warsaw
Ghetto.
1942: In Toronto,
Ontario, Herbert Dick “Hyman” Sherman a business partner for a zipper
company and Sara “Sarah” Sherman (née Winter) an occupational
therapist gave birth to billionaire Bernard Charles “Barry” Sherman the holder
of a Ph.D from MIT, the chairman and CEO of Apotex, Inc, the pharmaceutical
corporation and the husband of Honey Reich, who was found alongside his dead
body and with whom he had four children – Jonathon, Lauren, Alexandra and
Kaelen.
1942: For the
second time this month, Reverend Chait of the Army Chaplaincy visited Isidore
Newman who was in the hospital after having broken his leg while going through
parachute training for SOE agents
1943:
Birthdate of Detroit native and Wayne State alum Barry David Kramer, the owner
Full Circle, a Detroit record shop and Mixed Media, “a head shop” who founded
the music magazine Creem.
1943(20th
of Adar I, 5703): Sixty-three-year-old New York native Dr. Lawrence Satenstein,
the College of Physicians and Surgeons trained dermatologist and husband of
Victoria Satenstein passed away today.
1944: Robert
F. Wagner, the U.S. Senator from New York said today that “The American
Palestine Committee will sponsor a national conference here on March 9 to
promote “American Christian” support for the opening of Jewish
immigration into Palestine.”
1945: The
Faith of a Liberal by Morris R. Cohen and The House Near Paris
“written by M.R. Werner that tells the personal adventures of an American woman
in German-occupied France” were published today.
1945:
Birthdate of Amram Mitzna “an Israeli politician and former general. He is the
acting mayor of Yeruham, the former mayor of Haifa (1993–2003) and lead the
Labour Party from 2002 to 2003.”
1946(24th
of Adar I, 5706): Thirty-nine-year-old Beaver Falls, PA native and U. of
Cincinnati and HUC graduate Rabbi Abraham Feinberg who in 1942 succeeded Rabbi
I. Edmund Philo as the leader of Rodef Sholom Temple in Youngstown, OH, passed
away today.
http://www.vindy.com/news/2017/mar/21/today-is-tuesday-march–the-th-day-of–t/
1946: Three
RAF installations were attacked in Palestine tonight resulting in damage valued
at $2,000,000,000. Fourteen planes were destroyed outright and another 8
planes were damaged so badly that they were beyond repair.
1947:
Birthdate of Gary Rosenblatt who has served as editor for the Baltimore
Jewish Times, The Jewish News of Detroit, The Atlanta Jewish
Times and The Jewish Week of New York
1947: British
Foreign Minister Bevin continues his anti-Semitic rhetoric attacking Zionism
and defending the Arabs who have been in Palestine “for 2,000 years.”
1947:
Birthdate of Buffalo native Anne Beatts, the comedy writer who converted to
Judaism while a McGill University and “was the first female editor of National Lampoon magazine.
1947: The SS
President Warfield set sail from Baltimore, MD on a voyage which would sail
her into the history books as The Exodus.
1948: The
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia takes control of the government in
Czechoslovakia and the period of the Third Republic ends. The Communist
seizure of power was a major step in the hardening of positions during the
early days of the Cold War. It galvanized pro-western forces in Europe to
participate in what would become NATO. It also helped internationalists
(many of whom were Jewish) in the United States to overcome isolationist
opposition America taking the lead in opposing Soviet imperialism. For
the Jews of Palestine who were already facing Arab attacks prior to the pending
departure of the British, this turn of events was beneficial. With the
approval of their Soviet masters, the new Czech government would allow the
shipment of surplus ME-109 aircraft that was stored in Czechoslovakia to Israel
at the moment of the creation of the Jewish state. In one of the great
ironies of history, the first combat aircraft flown by Israeli pilots were
former German fighter planes shipped from Communist Czechoslovakia.
1949(26th
of Shevat, 5709): Noted portrait painter Alfred Joseph Praga, a native of
Liverpool born in 1861 and the husband of journalist Teresa Prager, “who
revitalized the art of miniature painting in Britain” and “was one of the
founders in 1895 of the Society of Miniaturists” passed away today.
1950(8th
of Adar,5710): Parashat Terumah; Shabbat Zachor
1950:
“Your Show of Shows” with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca premiered on
NBC. Writers included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon and Woody Allen. This
was an early hour-long variety – primarily comedy – show that dominated the
airwaves in its weekend time slot. And it was live, when live meant
live. Yes, three of those mentioned above were Jewish. But by now
you have come to expect a connection between Jewish and Humor.
1951(19th
of Adar I, 5711): Eighty-one-year-old Tuini, Russia native and Yiddish author
and paper bag and packaging manufacturer Pincus Puchkoff, the husband of Braian
Puchkoff with whom he had five children – Abraham, Louis, Theodore, Morris and
Rose – whose autobiography was entitled My Four Homes passed away today. (Some sources show February 26)
http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2018/07/pinkhes-pushkof-pincus-puchkoff.html
1951: Pan
American Games, during which Byron “Krieger won gold medals in team foil and
team sabre and the team silver in épée” opened today in Buenos Aires.”
1953: The
Jerusalem Post reported that after Jordan asked Britain to intervene
against what he called Israeli “aggression” and invoked the
Jordanian-British pact of mutual assistance, the British government officially
disclosed that it considered the possibility of stationing its armed forces on
Jordanian territory.
1953: The
Jerusalem Post reported that Hevrat Ovdim (the Histadrut’s General
Cooperative Society), together with the Histadrut’s pension funds and other
organizations, mobilized funds for the construction of the first huge hotel and
rest house in Eilat. Eilat is Israel’s southern port. Early on, the
Israelis sought to make it a tourist haven as well as a port that would be a
gateway to Africa and Asia. The blockade of Eilat by the Egyptians in
1967 was the official act of war that provided the justification under
international law for what would become the Six Days War.
1954: Nasser
became Egyptian premier. The “man behind the throne” who had masterminded the
downfall of the Egyptian monarchy now took center stage and took his country
down a road to repeated war with Israel as well as doom and disgrace.
1955(3rd
of Adar I, 5715): Sixty-year-old Cornell and Brooklyn Law School alum Solomon
Abelow the husband of Anna Abelow and father of Sanford Abelow who served as a
field artillery officer during WW I and who served as state commander of the
Jewish War Veterans passed away today after which he was buried at Mt. Hebron
Cemetery in Queens.
1955: “The End
of the Affair,” a film version of the novel produced by David Lewis was
released today in the United States.
1955(3rd
of Adar I, 5715): Arab terrorists, one of whom “was found to be in possession
of documents linking him to Egyptian military intelligence” murdered an Israeli
civilian in Rehovot.
1956: Nikita
Khrushchev delivered a “secret speech” at the Twentieth Communist Party in
which he denounced Stalin and his “cult of personality” – a denunciation that
would lead to the posthumous rehabilitation of the victims of past purges many
of whom were Jewish.
1957(24th of
Adar I, 5717): Mark Aldanov, aka Mark A Landau, Russian born author and chemist
passed away at the age of 70.
1957(24th of
Adar I, 5717): B. P. Schulberg passed away. Born Percival Schulberg in
Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1892, he took the name Benjamin from the boy in
front of him when registering for school to avoid mockery for his British name.
He worked in the fledgling film industry in New York City until 1919 when he
moved to Hollywood, California where he operated “Preferred Pictures”
and was responsible for making Clara Bow a star. He joined Louis B. Mayer to
form “Mayer-Schulberg Studio” but after Mayer became part of MGM,
Schulberg would join with Adolph Zukor and became the head of Paramount
Pictures. In an era when the film industry was filled with conservative studio
executives, B.P. Schulberg was a “New Deal” liberal, described by
Moving Pictures magazine as “a political liberal in the reactionary world
of Mayer and Hearst.” His wife Adeline Jaffe-Schulberg founded a talent
agency taken over by her brother, producer/talent agent Sam Jaffe. She spent
little time with Hollywood society women, instead working for charities that
aided the poor and promoting socialism. She subsequently had a literary agency
in New York. They were the parents of renowned novelist and screenwriter, Budd
Schulberg, producer Stuart Schulberg, and writer Sonya Schulberg O’Sullivan.In
a power struggle at Paramount, Schulberg left the studio in 1937 and remained
out of the business until 1940 when he began producing for Columbia Pictures.
He produced six films for Columbia in three years until he retired in 1943.
1958(5th
of Adar, 5718): Just seventeen days after celebrating her 87th
birthday Lillian Burkhart Goldsmith, the Pittsburgh born daughter of Adolph and
Rosalia Burkhart, and Curry Institute and University of Southern California
alum who married George Goldsmith and gained fame as Lillian Goldsmith, the
vaudeville performer turned social reformer who was member of the national
board of the Council of Jewish Women and President of the Los Angles Section of
the National Council of Jewish Women passed away today.
1960: Lillian
Hellman’s “Toys in the Attic” premiered in New York City.
1963: “The
Barbra Streisand Album,” “the debut album by Barbra Streisand was released
today on Columbia Records.
1963(1st of
Adar, 5723): Melville J. Heskovits passed away. The American born
anthropologist established African and African American studies in American
academia. Herskovits’s controversial classic The Myth of the Negro Past is
about African cultural influences on American blacks. He also helped forge the
concept of cultural relativism, particularly in his book Man and His Works.
1965: On New York’s Upper East Side, Jane and
Gerald Finerman gave birth to Karen Lisa Finerman, the sister of Wendy, Leslie,
Stacey and Mark Finerman and the wife of private equity manager Lawrence Golub,
who was the “co-founder and President of Metropolitan Capital Advisors, INC as
well as a panelist on “Fast Money.”
1965: During
the height of the Civil Rights struggle, Rabbi Max Nussbaum and his wife Ruth
welcome the Reverend Martha King Jr. to the pulpit of Temple Israel in
Hollywood.
1966(5th
of Adar, 5726): Seventy-five-year-old University of Maryland Medical School
graduate and WW I Army Medical Corps veteran Dr. Herbert L Langer, “the
president of the medical board of Peninsula General Hospital” and the husband
of “the former Helen Stein” with whom he had “two sons, Howard and Irwin”
passed away today.
1967(15th
of Adar I, 5727): Parashat Ki Tisa
1967: Today,
the former Anne Elfenbein and Dr. Murray B. Pincus gave birth to the daughter
Beth Susan Pincus.
1967:
Birthdate of Jonathan Saul Freedland “a British journalist, who writes a weekly
column for The Guardian and a monthly piece for the Jewish Chronicle.
Freedland has previously written for The Daily Mirror and as of September 2005,
he writes each Thursday for the London Evening Standard. He is the son of
Michael Freedland, the biographer and journalist.
1967: “Enter
Laughing” a comedy directed and co-produced by Carl Reiner “based on his
autobiographical novel and the stage play of the same name” with a screenplay
by Carl Reiner and Joseph Stein and co-starring Shelley Winter, Elaine May,
Jack Gilford, Janet Margolin, David Opatoshu and Don Rickles was released in
the United States today.
1969: One
person was injured during a bombing at the British consulate in East Jerusalem.
1969: “Does a
Tiger Wear a Necktie?” produced by Philip Rose opened at the Belasco Theatre.
1970(19th of
Adar I, 5730): Latvian born American painter and print maker Mark Rothko born
Marcus Rothkowitz passed away whose unusual work. includes the 1961 painting “Blue,
Orange, Red.”
1971: Part One
of a two-part production of Clifford Odette’s “Paradise Lost,” co-starring Eli
Wallach was broadcast for the first time on American Public Television.
1972:
Birthdate of Argentine attorney and activist Myriam Bregam who was elected as a
national deputy in 2015 as a member of the Workers’ Left Front.
1973: Steven
Sondheim’s musical “Little Night Music” premiered at the Shubert
Theater in New York NY for the first of its 601 performances.
1974(3rd
of Adar, 5734): Seventy-nine-year-old Lothar Mendes “the German born
screenwriter and film director who moved to the Hollywood in 1926 and is best
known as the director of Jew Süss, the British film adaptation of the novel by
Lion Feuchtwanger which is not to be confused with the viciously anti-Semitic
film made by the Nazis.
1975(14th
of Purim, 5735): Purim
1975: In
Livingston, NJ, the former Rita Stoecker, a Mormon housewife and Seymour
Handler an Ashkenazi Jewish used car dealer gave birth to multi-talented
Chelsea Joy Handler who, in 2012, Time magazine
named as “one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
1976: BBC2
broadcast the last episode of “The Glittering Prizes” a drama series written by
Frederic Raphael.
1977(7th
of Adar, 5737): Eighty-year-old producer Joseph Hyman, who collaborated with
Moss Hart to create several successful Broadway plays passed away today.
1980: The
first episode of the British sitcom “Yes Minister” created by Jonathan Lynn was
broadcast today.
1982: Today “Labor
Party chairman Shimon Peres today rejected Premier Menachem Begin’s latest
offer to form a national unity government.”
1983:
Birthdate of “French-Israeli journalist” Jonathan-Simon Sellem.
1986:
Birthdate of actor Justin Berfeld who plays Reese on “Malcolm in the Middle.”
1987(26th
of Shevat, 5747): Seventy-nine-year-old Alfred Plaut, the German born son of
Isaac and Sophie Plaut and the “husband of Fanny K. Kasper” passed away today
in El Paso, TX.
1988(7th
of Adar, 5748): Eighty-year-old William G. Braude who has served as a rabbi for
40 years at Congregation Sons of Israel and David, Temple Beth-El in
Providence, R.I., passed away today. A native of Lithuania, he came to the
United States in 1920 where he earned degrees from the University of Cincinnati
and Hebrew Union College. He also taught at Yale, Brown, Hebrew University and
Leo Baeck College in London.
http://www.fold3.com/page/3884072_william_g_braude/
1988: Eighty-four-year-old
Kurt Mahler, the German Mathematician who met Kurt Hirsch while in a British
internment camp for “enemy aliens” (a strange appellation for somebody who had
fled the Nazis) and eventually settled in Australia where he passed away today.
1988:
Secretary of State George Schultz arrived in Israel today on the first of four
day mission to the Middle East designed to explore reaction to recent American
peace proposal. Shultz called on Israel to make ”decisions of historic
proportions” to help change the status quo in the Middle East when greeted by
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres who responded by saying that this is ”a most
demanding period of our life, facing probably the most complicated issue of the
day.”
1990: In
“Cafritz v. Cafritz” published today, Marjorie Williams described the attempt
of two sons of the late Gwendolyn Cafritz to have her will overturned.
1991: The
barrage of Iraqi scud attacks that began on January 18th came to an
end today. During that period 39 missiles were fired into Israel.
1992: In
Scottsdale, AZ, Mindy Aaron, “a nurse” and pediatrician Neil Aaron gave birth
to figure skating champion Maxwell Theodore “Max” Aaron, brother of Molly Aaron
and ice skater Madeline Aaron.
1994(14th
of Adar, 5754): Purim
1994 (14th of
Adar, 5754): Eighty-year-old Sam Eisenstadt was assaulted with an axe while
walking in the center of Kfar Saba. Sam died of his wounds shortly afterwards.
1994: In one
of the most shameful acts committed by a Jew, American-born Baruch Goldstein
opened fire inside the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank, killing 29
Muslims before he was beaten to death by worshippers.
1995(25th
of Adar I, 5755): Parashat Vayakhel; Shabbat Shekalim
1996(5th
of Adar I, 5756): One person died in the bombing of the Ashkelon bus station
for which Hamas claimed responsibility.
1996: Today, “45
Los Angeles Jews, all at a stage of life when cemeteries seem like distant
destinations, set out to clean up Mount Zion Cemetery.”
1996(5th
of Adar I, 5756): Seventeen civilians and nine soldiers were murdered and
forty-eight people were injured when a Palestinian terrorist set off a bomb “on
a No.18 bus traveling down Jaffa Road near the Jerusalem Central Bus Station.”
1999: The
Reuters News Agency commemorated the 100th anniversary of the death of its
founder, Paul Julius Reuter, by launching a university award in Germany.
1999:
Eighty-eight-year-old Margaret Meagher, who when was appointed to be Canada’s
ambassador to Israel in 1958 became the first Canadian woman to reach that
diplomatic rank.
1999: Disney
named Bob Iger president of Walt Disney International, the business unit that
oversees Disney’s international operations, as well as chairman of the ABC
Group. Disney called the change a promotion for Iger. But the company’s
insistence was initially viewed with skepticism, as some thought Iger was
merely being removed from day-to-day authority at ABC since ABC had been
struggling.
2000: The
European Indoor Championships during which Aleksandr Averbukh placed first in
the Pole vault opened today in Ghent, Belgium.
2000: Hilary
Koprowski, a Polish Jew, was honored with a reception at Philadelphia’s Thomas
Jefferson University celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first
administration of his oral polio vaccine. At the reception, he received
commendations from the United States Senate, the Pennsylvania Senate and
Governor Tom Ridge.
2001(2nd
of Adar, 5761): Ninety-five year old Lithuanian born and education American
philanthropist Jacob “Jack” Hiatt, the son of Joshua and Leah Hiatt who died in
the Holocuast, the husband of Francis Hiatt with whom he had two children Myra
and Janice and the father-in-law of Patriot’s owner Robert Kraft passed away
today.
https://www.holycross.edu/departments/publicaffairs/hcm/spring01/in_memoriam/mem-spr01-hiatt.html
2002(13th
of Adar I, 5762): Sixty-five-year-old Avraham Fish and forty-six year old
Aharon Gorov were murdered by members of Fatah outside of Tekoa.
2003: “The new
government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon took shape today as a three-party
coalition that is expected to take a tough line on the Palestinian uprising and
on restarting peace negotiations.”
2003: “A
wide-ranging Middle East storm dumped almost a foot of slushy snow on Jerusalem
today, shutting schools, closing roads and temporarily infusing a tense city
with the feel of a tranquil alpine village.”
2004: “Israeli
security forces raided four branches of Palestinian banks, seizing $6.7 million
they said was sent by Iran, Syria and Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas to fund
Palestinian militants.”
2005(16th
of Adar I, 5765): Yael Orbach, 28, of Rehovot, Yitzhak (Itzik) Buzaglo, 40, of
Mishmar HaYarden, Aryeh (Arik) Nagar, 37, of Kfar Saba,Ronen Reuvenov, 30, of
Tel Aviv and Odelia Hubara, 26, of Jerusalem were murdered today and fifty more
people were injured when a Palestinian terrorist detonated a bomb “at the
entrance to “Stage”, a popular Tel Aviv nightclub, on the corner of
Herbert Samuel and Yonah Hanavi streets, opposite the Israeli beachfront.”
2006(27th
of Shevat, 5766): Parashat Mishaptim and Shabbat Shekalim
2006(27th
of Shevat, 5766): Graphic artist Sally Fox passed away today.
http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch01175
2006:
Tens of thousands of people marched through Paris in memory of Ilan Halimi, who
was kidnapped, tortured and killed two weeks ago in an attack that authorities
say was partly motivated by anti-Semitism.
2006: American
cellist Yo-Yo Ma, a group of four journalists and a pair of U.S. cancer
researchers have each won $1 million Dan David awards
2007: In
Amsterdam, an exhibition styled “Looted, But from Whom?,” an exhibition
about art objects which were either acquired by forced sale or stolen from
their Jewish owners by the Nazis during the Second World War, closed.
2007: Yaakov
Edri “was appointed be responsible for Israel’s sixtieth anniversary
celebrations.
2007: Yaakov
Edri “was questioned under caution on suspicion of having tried to receive
personal benefits in return for promoting a police commander, Ya’akov Zigdon,
whilst he was Deputy Minister of Internal Security” and denied the charges.
2007: The
Sunday New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including Bambi vs. Godzilla On
the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business by David Mamet, George
Gershwin His Life and Work by Howard Pollack and Overture by Yael
Goldstein.
2007:
Corresponds to the 7th day of Adar which “traditionally marks the
birth and the death of Moses. This is a minor fast date “observed by
members of Jewish burial societies to atone for any acts of disrespect which
they may unwittingly have committed toward the dead.”
2008: In New
York City, the 92nd Street Y presents “Life is a Cabaret: A Tribute
to Fred Ebb” highlighting the decades long collaboration between Jewish
lyricist Fred Ebb and composer John Kander that produced such works as Cabaret,
Zorba, Chicago, Woman of the Year, Kiss of the Spider Woman and Curtains
2008: Newsweek
reported on the financial loss suffered by the New England Patriots owner,
Jewish businessman Robert Kraft, as a result of the Pats failure to have a
perfect 19-0 season. Anticipating a Super Bowl victory, Kraft had applied
for trademarks to use phrases such as “19-0” and Perfect Season” on a litany of
gear including greeting cards, jigsaw puzzles, kites and temporary tattoos. The
trademarks are worthless and sale of the merchandize never materialized.
2008: Time
reported on the recent death of 14 term California Congressman Tom Lantos the
only Holocaust survivor to serve in the U.S. Congress. Lantos was sixteen
when the Nazis occupied his native Hungary where he escaped the death camps and
fought against the Nazis.
2009: In New
York, famed Italian performer Moni Ovadiahis presents a performance “Kavanah”
(intention and participation through a chant), a reflection on the Hebraic
liturgical tradition and its complex maze of meanings and sources.
2009: Another
stage of “Le Bœuf sur le toit, Op. 58 (English title, The Ox on the Roof: The
Nothing-Doing Bar) a surrealist ballet made on a score composed by Darius
Milhaud” took place today “as part of the Montreal Highlights Festival.
2009: A fresh
exhibition in New York that has put a spotlight on postcards used during and
after the turn of the 20th century meant to depict important aspects of Jewish
life comes to a close
2009: Rosh
Chodesh Adar 5769
2009: Two
Kassam rockets were fired across the Gaza border into Israel today. One of the
rockets fired from Gaza hit an agricultural area near a kibbutz in the Sha’ar
Hanegev region, and rescue services were yet to find the second rocket.
2009: A
British bishop whose denial of the Holocaust led Argentina to order him out of
that country returned to England today. Richard Williamson, a bishop with the
conservative Society of St. Pius X, was told to leave Argentina or face
expulsion amid criticism over a television interview in which he said no Jews
were gassed during the Holocaust. The controversial bishop had been
excommunicated 20 years ago, but Pope Benedict XVI last month lifted the
excommunication decree on Williamson and three other bishops.
2010: During a
hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee held today, Illinois Rep. Don
Manzullo, a Republican, asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to intervene
on behalf of a gefilte fish factory in his district. The factory, Schafer
Fishery is located in Thomson, Illinois. Manzullo is concerned about several
hundred jobs at the fishery in his district and he said Israel had imposed a
120-percent tax on nine containers of Asian carp that had been made into
gefilte fish patties. Drawing laughs, Clinton said she was up to a job that
“sounds to me like one of those issues that should rise to the highest levels
of our government.” “If not, we’re going to have to figure out what to do with
nine containers of it,” she said, prompting Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the
House committee, to quip that perhaps the fish would end up at the next state
dinner. Fresh and processed foods are subject to tariffs under the trade
agreement between the US and Israel. “Carp is not exempt from customs in the
framework of the free trade agreement between Israel and the United States,”
said Jonathan Peled, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington. “Having
said that, we are obviously looking into the request by Congressman Manzullo
and are trying to see whether something can be done.” Peled said two containers
of gefilte had already arrived at the port in Haifa.“I don’t think there’s a
lack of gefilte fish either in Israel or in the United States regarding
Pessah,” Peled said. Nonetheless, he said, “we’re seriously looking at this
request by a member of Congress.”
2010: As he
arrived at Jerusalem District Court for the opening of his trial today Ehud
Olmert became the first former prime minister in Israel’s history to stand
trial for alleged corruption.
2010(11th of
Adar, 5770): Fast of Esther
2010(11th
of Adar, 5770): “David Bankier, Professor of Holocaust History at the Institute
of Contemporary Jewry, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, head of the
International Institute for Holocaust Research and holder of the John Najmann
Chair at Yad Vashem passed away” today.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/about/institute/studies/issues/38-1/michman.pdf
2010(11th
of Adar, 5770): Eighty-one year old Irish jurist Henry Barron who served as a
justice on the Irish Supreme Court from 1997 until 2000 passed away today.
http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/respected-judge-who-led-bomb-inquiries-1.633921
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/former-supreme-court-judge-dies-1.853881
2010: “Andy
Warhol’s Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century: In Retrospect” is
scheduled to open at the Washington DCJCC.
2010:
Novelist, critic and broadcaster Howard Jacobson is scheduled to appear at the
Washington DCJCC.
2010: Just one
day after his 87th birthday, David Soyer, “the founding cellist of
the Guarneri String Quartet” who raised two sons – Daniel and Jeffery – with
his wife Janet passed away.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/arts/music/27soyer.html
2010(11th of
Adar, 5770): Ninety-two-year-old Eugene L. Moore, a past commander of the
Department of Florida Jewish War Veterans, passed in Boynton Beach, Florida.
2010(11th of
Adar, 5770): Herta Herzog-Massing, “Austrian-American social scientist
specializing in communication studies,” passed away
2011(21st
of Adar I, 5771): Ninety-two-year-old Eugene Moore, a past commander of the
Department of Florida Jewish War Veterans passed away in Boynton Beach, FL.
2011: Ahead of
Time, “graceful portrait of the extraordinary life of 99-year-old American
journalist and humanitarian Ruth Gruber whose efforts led to the rescue of
1,000 Jewish Holocaust refugees” and The Judge, a documentary featuring the
former Chief Justice of Israel’s Supreme Court, are scheduled to shown at the
Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.
2011: Today,
the IDF instructed teachers to keep children from going outside to play in
kindergartens located in towns near Gaza after two Grad rockets landed in
Beersheba
2012: “The
Death of Klinghoffer” an American opera, that critics including the two
daughters of the late Leon Klinghoffer have described as anti-Semitic and as
glorifying terrorism was performed in London for the first time.
2012: In
London, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jeffery Goldberg and Maureen Kendler are
scheduled to a new Haggadah edited by Foer and translated by Englander as part
of Jewish Book Week.
2012; “Jewish
solders in Blue and Gray” is scheduled to be shown at Young Israel of Woodmere
in Woodmere, NY.
2012: “Making
Trouble: Three Generations of Funny Jewish Women” is scheduled to be shown at
B’nai Sholom Reform Congregation in Albany, NY.
2012: HaOlam
II, at the end of which the second official National Collegiate Jewish A
Cappella will named, is scheduled to take place at Adas Israel in Washington,
DC.
2012: Indian
intelligence services have considerable evidence that Iran was behind this
month’s New Delhi terrorist attack but are not releasing it in a bid to avoid
public confrontation with the Islamic republic, an Israeli security source
says.
2012: Hundreds
gathered in front of Ministry of Interior offices in Tel Aviv today to protest
the deportation of families whose petitions for residency permits were
rejected.
2013: The Leo
Baeck Institute is scheduled to co-host “Arnold Bernstein and Gerd Bucerius,” a
lecture and discussion on the relationship between shipping pioneer Arnold
Bernstein and Gerd Bucerius, the lawyer and published who defended him against
the Nazis.
2013: Burglars
broke into the home of an employee at the Prime Minister’s Office today.
Initial reports indicate a computer was taken from the house, which is located
in Moshav Beit Yitzhak in the Sharon.. (As reported by Yaniv Kubovich)
2013: Israel
carried out a successful test of its upgraded Arrow III missile interceptor
today. Defense sources said it was the first flight test of the advanced
interceptor. (As reported by Gil Cohen)
2014: Graham
Spanier who was president of Penn St. during the “child sex scandal” “was
granted a stay in his defamation lawsuit until his criminal case is resolved.”
2014: Dr.
Daniel Rynhold is scheduled to deliver a lecture “Rav Kook and the Heroism of
the Holy” at the Skirball Center.
2014: German
Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to complete her two day trip to Israel.
2014:
Kay Menchel is scheduled to lecture on “The Short Stories of Bernard Malmud” at
the JCC of Northern Virginia.
2014: Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would neither confirm nor deny reports that
the IAF had destroyed a shipment of weapons being sent from Syria to Hezbollah
forces in Lebanon.
2014:
“Participants in programs that bring young Diaspora Jews to visit Israel should
be allowed to extend their stay without proving they are Jewish enough to make
aliyah, a Knesset committee recommended. (As reported by JTA)
2014: The
Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “YIVO, Freud, and American Jewry: Discourse on Eastern
Europe as a Talking Cure” for American Jewish Ambivalence” in which Marcus Krah explores how American Jews in the 1940s-50s used competing
narratives of aspects of the East European Jewish past – from the shtetl, to
pogroms, to Hasidism and Socialism – to find meaning in their American present.
2015: On the
heels of the terrorist attacks in Paris, The UK Jewish Film festival is
scheduled to host a showing of “Cartoonists: Foot Soldiers of Democracy.”
2015: Rosenwald
is a 2015 documentary film directed by Aviva Kempner about the career of
American businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald debuted today at the
Washington Jewish Film Festival
2015: The
Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Argentina and the Nisman Case:
Why is it so Hard to Understand What Really Happened?”
2015: Jewish
Disability Advocacy Day
http://blogs.rj.org/rac/2015/01/13/join-us-in-washington-for-jewish-disability-advocacy-day/
2016: The
Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center is scheduled to host a screening of “Footnote”
followed by a discussion with director/screenwriter Joseph Cedar moderated by
historian Eric Goldman.
2016(16th
of Adar I, 5776): Seventy-five-year-old “radical lawyer” William H. Schaap and
the brother of sports broadcaster Dick Schaap passed away today.
2016(16th
of Adar I, 5776): Ninety-year-old U.C.L.A. grad and developer of medical
devices Alfred E. Mann passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/business/alfred-e-mann-pioneer-in-medical-devices-dies-at-90.html
2016: “Yona”
and “On the Banks of the Tigris: The Hidden Story of Iraqi Music” are scheduled
to be shown at the Washington Jewish Film Festival.
2017(29th
of Shevat, 5777): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim
2017: “The
Eagle, a news site covering the Bryan-College Station area reported today that
US authorities came close to deporting Henry Rousso, “an Egyptian-born French
Jewish Holocaust-era scholar on his way to speak at a symposium at Texas A
& M University” because he appeared to fit the profile of those who had
been banned by President Trump’s executive order banning entry to refugees and
travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries.”
2017: The
Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to present a
“Survivor Talk” featuring Frankfurt native Frank Stern who survived
Kristallnacht at the age of ten, following which lived in Switzerland and
England before leaving from Southampton aboard an armed merchant bound for the
United States in 1940.
2017:
“Broadway actress Ruthie Ann Blumstein, whose stage name is Ruthie Ann Miles,”
attended FX’s
“The Americans” season five premiere at the DGA Theatre today. (As reported by
Andy Kropa)
2017: Virginia
Sen. Tim Kaine, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi and
chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat are some of the speakers scheduled to
speak at the annual meeting of J Street opening today at the Washington
Convention Center.
2018: The Exhibition:
Semi(te) Sweet: On Jews and Chocolate is scheduled to come to a close today.
2018: A final
closing reception celebrating Yiddish New York’s 2017 Visual Arts Exhibition is
scheduled to take place today.
2018: The
Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a
production of “We Are the White Rose” written and directed by “local teens”
that tells the story of the German resistance movement.
2018: In New
Orleans, the JCC is scheduled to the community’s annual Purim Carnival.
2018: In Iowa,
Congregation Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its annual Purim Carnival
2018: The 2018 Winter Olympics in which figure
skater Aimee Buchanan competed with the Israeli team ended today in Korea.
2018:
Eighty-six-year-old Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, who died in the night, is scheduled
to be buried today.
2018: In
Memphis, TN, Ti Chai and MEFTY are scheduled to present the Purim Carnival at
Temple Israel.
2019: In
Walnut Creek, CA, Emmy winning “writer-produced Mike Reiss” is scheduled to the
Jewish themes and characters in the television show “The Simpons” while also
signing copies his book Springfield Confidential.
2019: The
Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host “How To Fight
Anti-Semitism” in which Bari Wess of the New York Times discuss its appearance
at places including at “the Tree of Life Synagogue, in her native Pittsburgh,
on the streets of Paris, in the Labor Party in England, or in the leadership of
the Women’s March.”
2019: In San
Francisco, CA, the Commonwealth Club is scheduled to host Hungarian-American
Jewish Holocaust Dr. Edith Eva Eger, the clinical psychologist who will discuss
her memoir The Choice: Embrace the Possible.
2019: In
Highland Park, IL, North Suburban Synagogue Beth El is scheduled to host
survivor Paul Beller filmmaker Steve Pressman and USHMM Acquisition Curator
Fred Wasserman discuss issues related the documentary “50 Children” The Rescue
Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus.”
https://www.ushmm.org/online-calendar/event/mwrescevidhgpk0219
2019: In
London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “On the Basis of Sex,” a biopic
about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
2019: In
Washington, Adas Israel is scheduled to host “a Ruderman Foundation-sponsored
conversation about how different institutions in the Conservative Movement (the
Jewish Theological Seminary, the Camp Ramah network, the Rabbinical Assembly,
the Ziegler School) can be more inclusive” which stands in stark contrast to
the moves being by Prime Minister Netanyahu as he “boosts Otzma Yehudit.”
2019: The
American Sephardi Federation and the Muslim American Leadership Alliance are
scheduled to present “Looking In, Speaking Out: Commemorating the Khojaly
Tragedy.”
2020(30th of Shevat, 5780): Rosh
Chodesh Adar First Day;
2020: Celebration of Mardi Gras. For more about
Fat Tuesday and the Jewish people see https://www.crescentcityjewishnews.com/
the authoritative and informative source of information for all things Jewish
in New Orleans and the land of the bayou as well as https://forward.com/culture/214736/the-secret-jewish-history-of-mardi-gras/and
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/southern-and-jewish/is-mardi-gras-more-jewish-than-you-think/
2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is
scheduled to host a Chinese Dinner followed by a discussion of “Jewish
practice, theology, pluralism and more!”
2020: In Berkeley, CA, “Urban Adamah’s Becca
Heisler is scheduled to lead a rosh chodesh ritual in the Hebrew month of Adar.
2020: The New York Sephardic Jewish Film
Festival is scheduled to host screenings of “Shalom Italia,”
“The Hug of Destiny” and “The Last Jew in the Village.”
2020: As Israelis awake today, they will be
looking to see if yesterday’s fifty rocket barrage from the terrorists was the
last of it, or if this will be another day of terror attacks which tragically
are not considered newsworthy by any major news outlets in the United States.
2020: Rutgers University’s Allen and Joan
Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life are scheduled to screen “The
Adventures of Saul Bellow,” the first documentary about the life of
20th-century novelist and Nobel- and Pulitzer Prize-winner Saul Bellow this
evening at Rutgers Cinema, 105 Joyce Kilmer Ave., Piscataway (Livingston
campus).
2021: In Florida, Temple Judea is scheduled to
host a morning minyan with Abbie Strauss followed by an afternoon Hamantashen
Contest.
2021: The Boston Synagogue is scheduled to
present online “Purim with Klezmer Music” provided with the Klezmer duo
“Mamaliga.”
2021: In addition to the traditional reading of
the megillah and a Virtual Hamantaschen Bake Off, in London, the Highgate
Synagogue is scheduled to host an interactive, live Megillah reading on zoom
this evening.
2021: The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival is
scheduled to begin a virtual screening of “The Chosen,” a film based on the
Chaim Potok novel of the same name.
2021: The Friends of Bezalel are scheduled to
present a discussion with Elie Shamir and Ben Shani of “A Lullaby for the
Valley, a documentary that “focuses on the story of acclaimed artist Elie
Shamir, as an unforeseen danger threatens to rob him of his talent.”
2021: As part of the Atlanta Jewish History
Talks series, the Breman Museum is scheduled to host biographer David Lower “as
he discusses the life and career of one of Atlanta’s most prominent and
trailblazing Jewish politicians, Morris Abram, the civil rights lawyer who
worked to end segregation in Georgia and played a key role in the Supreme
Court’s “one man, one vote” ruling.
2021: In Columbus, OH, Tefireth Israel is
scheduled to a reading of the Book of Esther via Zoom during which there will
be a showing of photos from clergy, staff, and congregants acting out scenes
from the narrative.
2021: San Francisco Bay Area instructor James
Sokol is scheduled to lead a journey through a diverse array of music as part
“Songs of Victory and Triumph: A Multi-Genre Musical Celebration of Purim.”
2021: In Coralville, IA. Agudas Achim
congregants are scheduled to “grab their groggers, round up the kids and join
the wonderful spielers for a Pandemic in Persia, a Zoom Purim Spiel.”
2021: “In honor of the recently launched
Association of Jewish Communities of the Gulf, the Diarna Geo-Museum proudly
presented a preliminary exhibit of Jewish historical sites in GCC countries.”
https://diarna.org/exhibits/gulf-jewish-heritage-sites/
2021: In Cedar Rapids, IA, the Hadassah Book
Club is scheduled to discuss Sacred and Profane by Fay Kellerman.
2021: As part of the “Who Inspires the Women
Who Inspire Us” series the Streicker Center is scheduled to an evening Mayim
Bialik, the holder of a PhD in neuroscience best known for her role on as a
neurobologist married to a narcissist in the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory.”
2021(13th of Adar, 7801): Fast of
Easter; in the evening reading the Megillah
2022: The Combined Jewish Philanthropies are
scheduled to present a “Key Security Concepts Webinar” which provides training for those who welcome
people to Jewish institutions with strategies and tools to foster a welcoming
atmosphere while maintaining security.
2022: As part of the Young Artists in Concert
series, the Kan Kol Hamusika is scheduled to broadcast “Three Award Winning
Pianist” – Dani Dvorkin, Yoav Sened and Amir Ron
2022: The Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Center is
scheduled to present a lecture by Shirli
Gilbert, Professor of Modern Jewish History at University College London on “Wandering
Jews: Migration in Modern Jewish History.”
2022: Today, before Shabbat, The Case Western
Reserve University Chabad is scheduled to present a talk by Lily Brasch, a Orthodox
woman from Chicago about how she is overcoming a rare form of muscular
dystrophy and the diagnosis that she would never walk again.
2023: Temple Judea is scheduled to host a Zoom
Torah study with Rabbi Feivel Strauss.
2023: The East Bay International Jewish Film
Festival is scheduled to begin in-theatre screenings.
2023: The Boston Synagogue is scheduled to
present “La Commedia Performance” its first ever multi-media Visual and Performing Arts Benefit Concert!
2023: The Eden
Tamir Center is scheduled to host a chamber music concert with Ilya Schwartz,
clarinet; Kirill Mihanovsky, cello and Julia Gurvitch, piano.
2023: In
Georgia, the Henry County Performing Arts Center is scheduled to host a
screening of Rosenwald.
2023: “White supremacist hate groups” have
declared today a “a national day of hate targeting Jews.”
2023(4th of Adar, 5783): Parashat
Terumah
2024: The Jewish Gun Violence Prevention
Roundtable is scheduled to sponsor a panel discussion during which
“individuals, families and communities” will find out what they “need to know
when considering gun ownership.
2024: In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah is
scheduled to host the first in series of chapter-by-chapter review of Communities
of Meaning: Conversations on Modern Jewish Life Inspired by Rabbi Larry
Hoffman
2024: YIVO is scheduled to present an
informational program for those interested in participating in the Uriel
Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture.
2024: In Atlanta, the Breman is scheduled to
host “an incredible afternoon of Jazz as the Oran Etkin Quartet takes the stage
with their captivating Open Hands Project.”
2024: The Alliance for Jewish Theatre and
Theatremachers are scheduled to have an opportunity to network and discuss
potential collaborative opportunities online.
2024: The New York Times features
reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including Strong Passions: A Scandalous Divorce in Old New York by
Barbara Weisberg, the Philadelphia born daughter furrier Samuel Wiesberg and
the artist Miriam Weisberg who is the wife of writer David Black
2024: St. John’s Wood Synagogue and Saatchi Synagogue
are scheduled to present “In Support of Israel: Music or the Soul” featuring
“your favourite Israeli medleys from Broadway to the bima” with guest Chazanim
Simo Cohen, Netanel Hershtik and Avraham Kirshenbaum.
2024: JHMOC’s exhibition “If These Barn Walls
Could Talk: An 18-Year Journey at the Jewish Heritage Museum” is
2024: The
Chazak Meetup “Brunch at the Trolly” sponsored by Tifereth Israel is scheduled
to take place today in Columbus, OH.
2024: As
February 25th begins in Israel, the Hamas held
hostages begin day 142 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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