This Day, July 20, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
July 20
356 BCE: In Macedonia, King Philip II and Queen
Olympia gave birth to Alexander the Great. You can draw a straight line from
Alexander’s Hellenization of Asia Minor to Chanukah to Tisha B’Av, 70 CE.
http://www.biography.com/print/profile/alexander-the-great-9180468
70: During the
Siege of Jerusalem, Titus, son of emperor Vespasian, storms the Fortress of
Antonia north of the Temple Mount. The Roman army is drawn into street fights
with the Zealots.
1031: Fifty-nine-year-old
King Robert II of France, who “conspired with is vassals to destroy all the
Jews who would not accept baptism” and inspired mob violence against the Jews
including “the learned Rabbi Senior” passed away today.
1402: During
the Ottoman-Timurid Wars, Timur led the forces of the Timurid Empire to victory
over the forces of the Ottoman Empire led by Sultan Bayezid I at the Battle of
Ankara. This defeat could not have been a source of joy for the Jews living in
the Ottoman Empire. Bayezid had proven to be a friend of the Jewish people. “In
1394 Sultan Bayezid invited the French Jews who were molested by King Charles
VI, to settle in the Ottoman Empire. They established communities in Edirne and
the Balkans. The French Kings had the habit of inviting the Jews to establish
commerce and borrowing money from them. However often, when payment was due,
they expelled them; only to re-invite them when they needed further financing.”
Bayezid died a year after the defeat.
1454: The
reign of King John II of Castile and León who overturned the Valladolid laws
that restricted Jewish activities and adopted “a more tolerant attitude toward
the already battered Jewish population of Castile following the mass wave of
conversions” that had taken place from 1391 to 1415, came to an end today.
1588: As the
English prepared to meet the Spanish Armada, their fleet “tacked upwind…thus
gaining the “weather gage” which would give the smaller fleet an edge in the
upcoming battle.
1660: Miguel
de Barria “the Spanish poet and historian “whose Hebrew name was Daniel ha-Levi
and who was the son of a converso Simon de Barrios (Jacob Levi Caniso) and
Sarah Valle” set sail with “152 coreligionists for West Indies, specifically
Tobago, where his wife died which led him to return to Europe.
1624(4th of
Av): Rabbi Abraham ben David of Lemberg passed away
1633 (13th of
Av): Rabbi Nathan Shaprio, a leading Kabblist from Cracow and author of Megale
Amukot passed away.
1660: Miguel
de Barrios with 152 coreligionists and fellow-sufferers set sail for the West
Indies. Soon after his arrival at Tobago his young wife died, and he returned
to Europe. He went to Brussels and there entered the military service of Spain
1706:
Shabbethai ben Joseph Bass who had founded printing business in Dyhernfurth, a
small town near Breslau which produced its first book, a work by Rabbi Samuel
ben Uri of Waydyslav in 1689, was forced to leave Breslau as a result of local
hostility to Jews.
1729: In King
William, VA, Captain Mordecai Abrahams married Sarah Levy today after which
they had at least two children, Mordecai and Jacob Abraham.
1771(9th
of Av, 5531): Shabbat Chazon; Parashat Devarim; Erev Tish’a B’Av
1774: Judith
Polock and Savannah, GA native Philip Minis, the parents of Abigail Minis were
married today in Newport, RI.
1775: At the
request of the Continental Congress, Jews fasted and prayed for the success of
the colonies against the British, and to be spared from the “agony of
war.”
1778: In New
York City, Rachel Heilbron and Haym (Chaim) Solomon who bankrupted himself to
help finance the American Revolution gave birth to Ezekiel Salomon
1778: In
Sandersleben, Rabbi Joachim Heinemann and his wife gave birth to Jeremiah
Heinemann the German author whose secular jobs including serving as the
inspector of a teacher’s seminary in Berlin.
1789:
Philadelphian Solomon Bush, a veteran of the Continental Army during the
American Revolution wrote to President Washington today whom he addressed as
“Your Excellency,” saying “Permit one who has fought and Bled in the service of
his Country, with heart felt pleasure to Congratulate Your Excellency in your
late dignified appoint [Washington’s election to the presidency] offering up
his sincere prayers to Almighty God for your health and happiness, and the
prosperity of his Country…”
1789: Solomon
Bush, who was practicing medicine in London “notified President Washing of the
seizure of an American ship from New York because the British alleged that
numerous seamen aboard were natives of Britain.”
1790(9th of
Av, 5550): Tish’a B’Av observed on the same day that the first U.S. Congress
adopted “The Act for the Government and Regulation of Seaman” which the first
federal labor law.
1795: In
Baltimore, Frances Etting, the Philadelphia born daughter of Michael Gratz and
Miriam Gratz and her husband Captain Reuben
Etting gave birth to Elijah Gratz Etting.
1797:
Birthdate of German native and future resident of Detroit Hannah Bachman
Butzel, the wife of Moses Leo Butzel with whom she had three children including
Fannie, Magnus and Martin.
1798: In
Charleston, SC Rebecca Hyams, he daughter of Colonel David Maysor and Sarah
Sarzedas and her husband David Hyams gave birth to Moses David Hyams
1800: Simon
and Johanetta Levy gave birth to their third child Raphael Levy.
1808: Napoleon
decreed that all Jews of the French Empire must adopt family names.
1808: Today in
accordance with newly adopted law, Samuel Marx Levi, the son of Rabbi Samuel
Marx Levi became Samuel Marx when he adopted “the family name Marx for himself
and his siblings
1817: In
Epinal France, Berr Marx Cerfberr and Marianne Cerfberr gave birth to journalist Maximilien Charles Alphons
Cerfberr, the husband of Augustine Cerfberr de Medelsheim and father of Gaston
Cerfberr de Medelsheim who “was attached in 1839 to the penitentiary
administration in the Ministry of the Interior and inn 1848 held for a short
time the position of commissary of the republic in the department of
Saône-et-Loire.”
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4187-cerfberr-maximilien-charles-alphonse-of-medelsheim
1819:
Birthdate of Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim the native of Frankfort-on-Main who
was the grandson of Gumpel, the banker of Hamburg who became a distinguished
jurist.
1820(9th
of Av, 5580): Tish’a B’Av
1820(9th
of Av, 5580): Judah Moses Ancona, the wife of Hannah Montefiore Ancona and the
father of Moses Montefiore Acona, who had been born in 1760 and “was part of a
Sephardic family which came to England in the 18th century” passed
away today after which he was buried the Sephardi New Cemetery in London.
1823: Pius
VII, the Pope who rebuilt the walls of the Rome Ghetto and returned the Jews to
its confines after they had been freed by Napoleon passed away today.
1823: Achille
Fould married Harriot Goldschmidt at the Great Synagogue today.
1828(9th
of Av, 5588): Tish’a B’Av observed
1829:
Birthdate of Thomas Rowe one of Australia’s leading architects of the Victorian
era who designed the Great Synagogue in Sydney
1830:
Birthdate of Francesca Janauschek, the Prague native who gained fame as 19th
century character actress Fanny Janauschek.
1833: In Brno, Löbl Strakosch and Julia Schwarz to their
daughter Aloisia.
1834:
Birthdate of Jacques Errera, the native of Venice who was a successful banker
and the father of botanist Leo-Abram Errera.
1837(17th
of Tammuz, 5597): Tzom Tammuz is observed for the first time during the
Presidency of Martin Van Buren.
1837:
Birthdate of Nena Frank Lewith, the wife of Edward Joseph Lewith with whom she had four
children – Hulda, Arthur, Josephine and Henry Lewith – who was buried in
Charleston, SC when she passed away in 1907.
1839(9th
of Av, 5599): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish’a B’Av
1839(9th
of Av, 5599): Fifty-nine-year-old Charity Hays, the Bedford, NY born daughter
of Esther Etting and David Barrack Hays and the wife of London, England native
Jacob da Silva Solis with she had seven children passed away today in New York
City.
1841: Rinah J.
Ottolengui and Columbia, SC native Jacob I. Moses who had been married in 1839
gave birth to Dr. Montefiore Jacob Moses, who married Rosa Jonas in 1863 and
with whom he had had seven children – Belle, Mary, Montrose, Walter, Edwin,
Montrose (who was apparently named for his older brother who had already passed
away) and Eva.
1842: In
London, Charlotte and Lionel Nathan Rothschild gave birth to their second son
Alfred Charles Rothschild, the first Jew to serve as “a director of the Bank
England,” a position which he held for twenty years.
1845: Nathan
and Catherine Levy were married at the Great Synagogue today.
1847:
Birthdate of painter and graphic artist Max Liebermann. “Liebermann was
one of the leading German impressionist painters.” He painted in the
manner of the Dutch impressionists rather than the French impressionists. This
meant “he often painted people at their everyday tasks and explored the
effect of changing sunlight on colors and shadows.” When the Nazis came to
power in 1933, they included his works in their first showing of
“degenerate art.” He died in 1935 having been stripped of all his
honors and ordered not to paint. Eight years later his was wife committed
suicide. I must admit a prejudice. I like his works.
http://www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/index.php/max-liebermann.html
http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/Liebermann/gallery
1849: In
Russia, Chayim Ydel Aronin and his wife gave birth to Aryeh Leib Aronin, the
rabbi of Congregation Adath Israel in Sheboygan, Wisconsin who was “progenitor
of the” Aronin clan in the United States that included Ben Aronin, “the Chicago
Jewish community’s quintessential Renaissance Man,” a lawyer who “wrote
Jewish-themed songs and plays” and his cousin Sanford Aronin.
1852:
Twenty-four-year-old Sarah Naar Cardozo the daughter of Dr. Daniel Moses Levy
Maduro Peixotto and Rachel Lopes Mendes Peixotto and her husband Abraham Hart Cardozo gave birth to Daniel
Henry Cardoza, Sr. the husband of Clara Cardozo and the father of Daniel Henry
Cardozo, Jr. his first-born son.
1855:
According to today’s “New by the Mail” column, “A Protestant lady in St. Louis
with seven children has joined the Hebrew congregation there.”
1856(17th
of Tammuz, 5616): Tzom Tammuz is observed for the last time during the
Presidency of Franklin Pierce
1858((9th
of Av, 5618): Tish’a B’Av observed on the day that an all-star baseball team
from New York played their counterparts from Brooklyn in what would be the
first game in the baseball rivalries between the teams from Gotham and Brooklyn
that only ended when the Dodgers and the Giants moved to Los Angeles in 1958.
1859:
Birthdate of German botanist and Zionist leader Otto Warburg whose family
originally came to Germany in the 16th century and who was “one of
the members of the El Arish expedition, appointed by Theodor Herzl as the
agricultural member of the team led by Leopold Kessler.”
1862: As
General George B. McClellan turned into a disaster, August Belmont wrote
Thurlow Weed to express his view that the only way to effect re-union was by
negotiations if possible. He called for
a cessation to the war effort because it was too costly in terms of human life
and treasure. (Belmont was Jewish. McClellan
and Weed were not.)
1863: In
describing conditions in Memphis, TN, a year after it had surrendered to forces
of the Union Army, the New York Times reported that “There remains in
the city but a portion of the old citizens, the balance are vagabonding in
Dixie, or are carrying a musket in the Southern army, or have left their bones
on the hundred battle-fields of the South. Their residences here have been
seized by the Government, and to-day the palatial dwellings of many an old
aristocrat are occupied by National officials, and the hordes of Jews, who
follow in the rear of an army, like wolves behind the hunters.” [Anti-Semitic
references like this stand in stark contrast to acceptance of Jews as can be
seen by the change in the law allowing Rabbis to serve as chaplains and the
reality of the thousands of Jews who fought for the federals, some of whom
reached the rank of general.]
1863: The 11th
Regiment of the New York State which was commanded by Colonel Joachim Maidhof
when it was mustered into federal service in 1862 was mustered out of United
States service today.
1864: Colonel
Frederick Knefler commanded the 79th Indiana Infantry at the Battle
of Peachtree Creek, part of Sherman’s audacious campaign to capture Atlanta.
1864: Today,
“at the battle near Peach Tree Creek” near Atlanta, GA, “Colonel Edward S.
Salomon, the commander of the 82nd Regiment, Illinois Volunteers
“performed a most gallant and meritorious part in repulsing the repeated
onslaughts made by the enemy” and “in the face of a furious raking fire, held
his line for four hours” after which “the enemy withdrew from his front with
great loss.”
1864: After
three years, Aaron Lazarus who risen from the rank of Private to that of Brevet
Captain in the 28th Regiment of United States volunteers completed
his enlistment while serving as the Regimental Adjutant
1865: Leopold
Hoffman who had risen from the rank of private to Regimental Quartermaster
Sergeant in the 12th Cavalry completed his three year enlistment
today.
1865:
Philadelphians Lt. Anton Goldschmidt, Sergeant Ephraim Rosenthal, Quartermaster
Sergeant Abraham Weinbach, Captain Leopold Meyer, Captain Jacob Herzog and
Sergeant Elias Reubenthal completed their service with the 113th
Regiment of the Twelfth Cavalry in the Union Army.
1867: In St.
Louis, MO, A.S. and Isabella Hill gave birth to Washington University graduate
and Republican party member Louis P. Aloe, the “president of A.S. Aloe, Co,
opticians” and the husband of Edith Rosenblatt with whom he had three daughter
– Clara, Viola and Louise.
1869: “The
Innocents Abroad” Mark Twain’s travelogue describing his visit to Europe and
the Holy Land (including what is now the state of Israel) is published. For more about the famed American humorist’s
attitude towards Jews see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/twain.html
1870(21st
of Tammuz, 5630): Forty-year-old French journalist Lucien-Anatole
Prévost-Paradol the son of Léon Halévy passed away today in Washington, D.C.
1871: British
Columbia joins the confederation of Canada. In 1858, the first large body of
Jews arrived in British Columbia along with others seeking their fortunes in
the Fraser River Gold Rush. By 1863,
there were enough Jews living in Victoria, B.C. to establish Congregation
Emanu-El, now Canada’s longest serving synagogue. Ten years after B.C. joined
the confederation, the Jewish community would receive its next influx of
settlers as refugees from Russian anti-Semitism settled in the Canadian West.
1872: Beatrice
Rachel Faudel, the daughter of Helen Levy and Sir George Faudel and the
granddaughter of Joseph Moses Levy married Phillip G. Henriques of Grosvenor
Square with whom she had one son born in 1894.
1873(25th
of Tammuz, 5633): Rabbi Asron Gunizburg, the Austrian born son of Moses
Gunzburg, the husband of Caroline A. Kuh and the father of Virginia and Clara
Gunizburg passed away today in Boston.
1874: In
Pittsburgh, PA, Mary Leavitt and Samuel Levin gave birth to Duquesne College
and University of Pittsburgh trained lawyer Leonard S. Levin, the husband of
Stella Fink and assistant City Attorney in Pittsburgh for two years who was President of the Men’s
Society of Temple Rodef Shalom and second vice president of the National
Federation of Temple Brotherhoods.
1875(17th
of Tammuz, 5635): Tzom Tammuz
1875: In New
York, Emma Goodman and Israel Stone gave birth Rosetta Stone, a teacher in the
Antique Department of the New York School of Applied Design for Women and a
member of the New York Section of the Council of Jewish Women who worked with
“Jewish girls at the State Reformatory for Women and House of Refuge.”
1875(17th
of Tammuz, 5635): Thüringen, Germany native Rosina Meyer Dreyfus, the mother of
Isaac Dreyfus and mother-in-law of Bertha Simon Dreyfus, passed away today
after which she was buried in the Congregation Anshe Emeth Cemetery in Pine
Bluff, Arkansas.
1876:
Birthdate of German mathematician Otto Blumenthal. Blumenthal converted at the age of 18. He may have believed that he would find the
path to academic success a lot smoother as a Protestant. In the end, it did not save him from the
Nazis. Blumenthal died in concentration
camp in 1944.
1880: In Osnabrück,
Lower Saxony, Germany, Julie Rosenberg, the Westphalia born daughter of Abraham
Bendix Weinberg and Frieda Sophia Weinberg and her husband Isaac Rosenberg gave
birth to Albertina Sophie Hedwig Rosenberg.
1881: It was
reported today that in Neu Stettin, at least 30 anti-Semitic rioters who
attacked the editor of the Neu Stettiner Zeitung, were arrested today.
1881: Rabbi
David Levy officiated at the wedding of Phil Lewinson of Darlington, SC to
Sarah Weinberg of Charleston, SC.
1881: “Jews In Spain” published today, relied
on information from the London Times
to report that “In Spain, Praxedes M Sagasta the President of the Council of
Ministers wrote to a prominent European Jewish author H. Guedalla that “article
1 of the Constitution of Spain is the most decisive revocation of the edict of
banishment against the Jews in the year 1492. Thus, all of your
coreligionists who wish can come to Spain without any obstacle whatever…”
1882: “A Great
Fire In Smyrna” published today described the conflagration that left 6,000
people homeless including many of the city’s sizable Jewish population. The Jews are the primary agents “in the
barter and sale of merchandise from Asia, Syria, Baghdad and Persia.”
1882: During
the Freight Handler’s Strike, the strikers stopped providing food for the
Jewish and Italian workers whom they had convinced to honor their strike. Mr. Wolkawoech, the President of the Jewish
Freight Handlers’ Union reluctantly provided enough funds to cover the cost of
the evening meal. [Yes there were Russia
Jews among the striking workers as well as Russian Jews among what would later
be called scabs.]
1883:
Birthdate of Bialystok native and CCNY and Long Island College trained
ophthalmologist Nathan Cohen.
1883: In
Hungary, as the trial of a group of Jews charged with killing a Christian girl
continued, it was reported that a constable testified that he had tortured one
of the prisoners with thumbscrews.
1884: “Lamb
and Mint Sauce” published today described John Brady’s contention that the
custom of eating tansy (bitter) puddings and cakes at Easter was introduced by
the monk as a symbolic remembrance of the bitter herbs used by Jews at this
time of year. The monks included bacon
in their dishes “to denote contempt for Judaism.” According to Brady, the Jews “have contrived
to diminish the bitter flavor” or their tansy “by making a it into pickle for
their paschal lamb.” From all of this
has come the custom of combing mint with sugar to create the mint sauce or
jelly eaten with the leg of lamb. [This was based on information provided by an
annual publication, Clavis Calendaraia.]
1885(8th
of Av, 5645) Erev Tish’a B’A
1885: “Jews in
Paris” published today summarized a report by the Judische Presse that
described the growth of the Jewish population in Paris. In 1789, there were only 500 Jews living in
the French capital. The numbers have
grown: 3,000 in 1806; 12,000 in 1842; 40,000 in 1872; more than 50,000 in
1885. Jews are more active in the
general population as can be seen by the fact that the number of Jewish
generals has grown from one in 1821 to five in 1878.
1886(17th
of Tammuz, 5646): Tzom Tammz
1886: Farrer
Herschell, 1st Baron Herschell completed his term in office as Lord Chancellor
in Great Britain.
1887: Mrs.
Betty Michaelis “began mandamus proceedings” before Judge Potter today, “in
which she asks that the Henrietta Verien be commanded to restore her to
membership on the ground that her expulsion was not done according to law.” The
legal action stemmed from a fight that she had with Mrs. Henrietta Loser, the
President of the Henrietta Verein.
1887: Louis
Keptlovwitch, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, who has been arrested on charges
of bigamy, was confronted by both of his wives – the one he married in Poland
and the one he married in New York – today.
1888: Isaac
and Lotta Alper gave birth to Abraham Joseph Alper, the husband of Lena Zion
Alper.
1888: In Fall
River, MA, founding of American Brothers of Israel, a congregation that holds
services daily at 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. that maintains a cemetery “southeast of the
city, near the Rhode Island state line.”
1889:
Effective today, Coney Island’s Brighton Beach Hotel announces that it will
completely exclude members of the “Hebrew Race” as guests. The hotel was following the policy adopted by
Messers Cable and Breen the lessees of the New York establishment.
1890: The
manager of the Bank and Steamship Passage at 78 Canal Street and his soliciting
agent Louis Silikowitz, were arrested on charges of having swindling their
customers, most of whom were Polish and Russian Jews out money with which they
had been entrusted to buy tickets for family members still in members.
1890: It was
reported today that Sol B. Solomon has raised $300 from the guests at the Long
Beach Hotel to pay for the excursions provided by the Sanitarium for Hebrew
Children.
1890: A
portion of the 12th annual report of the Sanitarium for Hebrew
Children published today showed expenditures of $3,221 and a balance of $7,126
“which is deposited in the seven leading savings banks” in New York City.
1890:
Birthdate of Theda Bara. Born Theodosia Burr Goodman in a wealthy suburb of
Cincinnati, Bara’s mother was Swiss and her father was a Jewish tailor. She was
known as a “vamp” and one of the first “sex symbols” of the
silver screen. She passed away in 1955.
1891: “Mercy
for Russian Jews” published today described a relaxation of “the persecution of
the Jews” by the government. Decrees
expelling Jewish artisans from St. Petersburg have “been indefinitely
postponed” and “and orders have been seen to the press” to have newspapers
“refrain from publishing articles like to excite animosity against the
Jews.”
1891: “The
young man who had killed three Russians” during an attack on the Jewish
community near Veile, Russia” and several other Jews were scheduled to go on
trial today and when the expected guilty verdict is returned the Jews will be
shipped to Siberia.
1892(25th
of Tammuz, 5652): Eighteen-month-old Siegfried Bloch, the son of Leopold and
Klara Bloch passed away today after which he was buried in his hometown of
Eichstetten.
1892: As of
today, the coroner has not made a determination in the cause of death of Behr
Israelson. Doctors claim he died of apoplexy but his Jewish neighbors claimed
he was clubbed to death by a policeman. The Jews would not let the coroner’s
jury hear the case because there it had no Jewish members.
1893: Three
men who claim to be tailors and Russian Jews were arrested and charged with
assault at the Essex Market Police Court based on evidence gathered Alter
Shapiro, the Vice President of the Hebrew Protective Society that showed them
to be part of a ring that robs and tortures Jews living on the lower east side.
1893: The
Marshall, who had arrived at the apartment of Mrs. Sarah Goldstein at 181
Orchard to execute the order of eviction gave her an extra day to seek relief
from the courts since she said her six children who had measles were still too
sick to be moved.
1894:
Birthdate of Joseph Louis Felsenfeld, the Columbia University trained dentist
who practiced in Brooklyn and who lived at 909 Driggs Avenue in 1916 and 1917.
1894: In
defending the blackballing of Mr. Peixotto from the Republican Club as being
based on reasons other than his being Jewish, Chairman Joseph M. Deuel was
reported today to have said that “There are probably fifty Hebrews who are in
good and regular standing in the club…There are Hebrews on the Executive
Committee of the club and on the campaign committee.”
1895: “Hebrew
Technical Institute Open” published described the school’s unique summer course
for which 200 boys ranging in age from 12 to 15 have enrolled so that they can
continue their education in the workshops, laboratories and drawing rooms of
the facilities on Stuyvesant Street.
1895:
Birthdate of Samuel Randolph Parnes, the native of New York City and WW I
veteran who was a textile manufacturing executive and trustee of the Brooklyn
Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
1895: Wolf
Silverman was arrested tonight and “charged with an attempt to swindle the
Empire Life Insurance Company.”
1895:
Birthdate of László Weisz, the native of
Bácsborsód, Hungary, who gained fame painter and photographer László
Moholy-Nagy who like so many of his generation left his native land with the
rise of the Nazis, settling first in England before finding final refuge in the
United States where he died in 1946.
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-moholy-nagy-laszlo.htm
1896:
Birthdate of Rome native Ernest Ascoli who was deported from Drancy to Kovno
Ghetto on Transport 73 on May 15, 1944
and died some time during that year.
1896(10th
of Av, 5656): Nathan Greenstein the co-owner of clothing business on Hester
Street who was taken ill last month and hospitalized in Mt. Sinai passed away
today after which his chevre chadish Society of Human Wisdom of the City of
Pinsk refused to honor its commitment resulting in a lawsuit in the Fourth
Civil District Court in New York.
1896:
Birthdate of Brooklyn native and WW I veteran Samuel Salzman who attended
Columbia and was active in the Jewish community as can be seen in his
involvement with the Hebrew Orphans Asylum and the Federation of Jewish
Charities.
1896: It was
reported today that an ambulance had arrived too late yesterday to save the
life of Charles Liebhaber who had been ill for weeks but still insisted on
observing the fast for the 9th of Av.
1896: Herzl met
with the Association des Etudiants Israëlites Russes.
1897: Funeral
services were held today for Mrs. Julia Lauterbach, the widow of Moses
Lauterbach, at her home on East 58th Street followed yb burial at
Cypress Hills Cemetery. She was one of
those who incorporated the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society of New York, a
group which served as Vice President for 11 years.
1898(1st
of Av, 5658): Rosh Chodesh Ave
1898: Among
those serving with the 6th Missouri Volunteer Infantry when it was
mustered into service at Jefferson Barracks for service in the Spanish-American
War were Captains John H. Goldman and Adolph J. Jacobs as well as Musicians
Oscar Bennewitz and Lewis Bloch, Corporal William A Feigel and dozens of
privates.
1898: Second
Lieutenant B. Albert Lieberman of Kansas City was appointed to serve as an
Assistant Surgeon in the 6th Missouri Volunteer Infantry.
1898:
Birthdate of New York native and Cornell University trained research chemist,
Nathaniel Fuchs, the husband of Jeanette Fuchs and the father of Lucy
Berkowoitz who “was credited with saving the Army millions of dollars during
World War II with the discovery of new method of manufacturing khaki dye” for
which he received a citation from the U.S. Army.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/01/27/84873805.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1899(13th
of Av, 5659): Seventy-four-year-old Charlotte de Rothschild, the French
socialite and wife of Nathaniel de Rothschild passed away today.
1900: New York
City architect E.G. Cohen, the namesake for the E.G. Cohen Medal, mourned the death of his father, Jacob Cohen,
the Savannah born wholesale grocer who became a leading cotton exchange broker who passed away on July 19 at his cottage in
Sullivan County, NY.
https://www.cohenconnect.org/medalists
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1900/07/21/102611521.html?pageNumber=7
1900: NYU trained attorney Julius Henry Cohen, the
Brooklyn born son of Elizabeth Wolf and Henry Cohen who while serving as
“counsel for the manufacturers in the cloak strike of 1910” helped to create
the “Protocols of Peace” in the women’s wear industry married Ida Strasburger
today.
1901(4th
of Av, 5661): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon
1901: “The
Jews” published today provided a review of the Volume One of The Jewish
Encyclopedia, “prepared by more than 400 scholars and specialist” under the
leadership of managing editor Dr. Isidor Singer published The Funk and Wagnalls
Company.
1902: In “Is
Yiddish A Jargon” published today, A. B. Rhine defended Yiddish against the
claim that it was a jargon and not language contending “a language derives its
importance from its literature and in this respect Yiddish by no means inferior
to any of the minor languages of Europe” such as Danish or Norwegian while
adding that “as a matter of fact, Yiddish has ‘literary monuments’ of such
lasting value that they will outlive the language itself.”
1903: Herzl
writes to Leopold Greenberg (“an English Zionist and future editor of the Jewish Chronicle”) in London to do
whatever possible to revive the Sinai enterprise. This is a reference to offers
by the British Foreign Office to allow Jews from Eastern Europe to settle in a
part of the Sinai Peninsula known as the Brook of Egypt. Another, better known of these schemes, was
the offer to allow Jews to settle in Uganda as a temporary Jewish
homeland. These desperate proposals came
against a backdrop of Pogroms in Russia and a general worsening of conditions
for Jews in Eastern Europe. While Zionists in German, Austria and Britain were
willing to consider such alternatives, the Zionists of eastern Europe rejected
them out of hand. Those living in the
greatest physical saw the spiritual danger in accepting anything less than
Eretz Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. In the man time Herzl wrote desperately,
“We must indeed take East Africa, or at least the Charter, but we must not
deceive ourselves as to the fact that all the non-English Jews are against East
Africa. I shall have to use a great deal of patience for it, whereas El Arish
is popular.” Herzl also prepares steps to approach Portugal for a Charter
for Mozambique, Belgium for a territory in the Congo and Italy for a section of
Tripoli.
1904: In
Vilnius, Meyer and Dora Rogoff Goldsmith Stein gave birth to Julius Rogoff the husband
of Francs Rogoff Silverstein Giovanni who is not to be confused with Dr. Julius
M. Rogoff “the pioneer in scientific research on the adrenal gland.’
1904(8th of
Av, 5664): Eighty-two-year-old Marcus Goldman a German-born American
businessman and entrepreneur who founded Goldman Sachs which became one of the
world’s largest global investment banks passed away.
http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=100
1905(17th
of Tammuz, 5665): A month after the Russian fleet was annihilated by the
Japanese bring on a crisis which would lead to a mini revolution in 1906,
1905: Today in
Yekaterinoslav (present-day Dnipro, Ukraine), was stopped by the Jewish
self-defense group. One man in the group was killed.
1906: Antoine
Louis Targe, a French officer whose investigations helped to establish the
innocence of Dreyfus was made an officer in the Legion of Honor.
1906: Dreyfus
was made a Knight in the Legion of Honor.
1906: In Baltimore,
MD, Max and Annie Kowalsky Hurwitz gave birth to Dickison College graduate and
Dickinson School of Law trained attorney Solomon Hurwitz, the husband of Martha
Lehrman Hurwitz with whom he had two children, Robert and Judi, and a member of
Bethel Temple in Harrisburg, PA who was “senior partner the law firm of Hurwitz,
Klein, Benjamin and Brown and the chairman of the 1964 Harrisburg Israel Fund
Committee.
1907(9th
of Av, 5667): Fast not observed because it is Shabbat.
1908: In a
letter to the New York Times, William
Maude provides commentary on the antiquity of an ancient copy of the Book of
Joshua obtained by Dr. Moses Gaster in Samaria.
1909: George
Clemenceau, who was “more cognizant of Jews that the average politician or
journalist of the Third Republic” and who carried on an “eight-year battle in
his newspapers La Justice and L’Aurore to gain justice for Alfred Dreyfus,
resigned as Prime Minister of France today.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4467111?seq=1
1910: Jacob Marinoff, the Pinsk born son of
Meyer and Leah Maifnoff who was the
founder of the Yiddish weekly Der Graiser Kundes (The Big Stick) married Esther
Salkowitz today.
1910: In the
Shaarei Chesed neighborhood of Jerusalem founded by Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Porush
Rabbi Chaim Yehuda Leib Auerbach, who was rosh yeshiva of Shaar Hashamayim
Yeshiva, and Rebbetzin Tzivia gave birth to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, the
rosh yeshiva of the Kol Torah yeshiva in Jerusalem, Israel
1911: In Great
Britain, the Home Secretary offered additional amendments to the Sunday closing
clauses of the Shop Hours Bill.
1911: Arthur
David Samuel who would die while serving as a 2nd Lt. in the British
Army during World War I married Mary Esther Jewell today.
1911: In New
York City, the Jewish Morning Journal, reported that Turkish Government had
issued “orders to the Governor of Jerusalem to facilitate naturalization of
Jews as Ottoman citizens.”
1912: Jewish
immigrants Clara (Hessner) and Joseph Boudin gave birth to St. John’s Law
School trained civil liberties attorney whose clients included baby-doctor
Benjamin Spock and Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame who was the husband
of poet Jean Roisman and nephew of equally famous and controversial attorney
Louis Boudin
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/26/obituaries/leonard-boudin-civil-liberties-lawyer-dies-at-77.html
1913: It was
reported today that “an analysis of the relations existing between the Jews and
modern capitalism will be published shortly by E.P. Dutton and Company under
the title The Jews and Modern Capitalism by German author Werner Sombert
“who has devoted himself to” economic research.
1913: In
Philadelphia, Norfolk native Edward L. Brylawski, a member of the Philadelphia
Stock Exchange and Hortense Mendelsohn
gave birth to their fourth child Michael Brylawski.
1913: Wilhelm Frankl, the
Hamburg born son of Jewish businessman who was a World War I fighter ace
credited with 20 aerial victories and earned Pour le Mérite, Royal House Order
of Hohenzollern and Iron Cross, l earned pilot’s
license number 49 today.
1914: As
Europe hurdles mindlessly through a series of thoughtless actions that will
lead to WW I with all that that would mean for the world in general and the
Jewish population in particular, “Germany began mobilizing its Navy and told
shipping companies to bring their vessels back to German ports in a move that
would avoid confiscation and help enhance its supply capacities.
1915(9th of
Av, 5675): Tish’a B’Av
1915: Georgia
Governor Harris “announced tonight that he would accompany the Prison
Commission” when it goes “to Milledgeville to investigate the attack on Leo M.
Frank.”
1915: Today,
following the attack on Leo M. Frank by a fellow prisoner,” Rabbi David Marx
and H.A. Alexander, the attorney for Frank in his final battle in the courts”
arrived at Milledgeville “to comfort Mrs. Frank who has been under great strain
since the attack on her husband.
1915: Today
the Austrians conquered Russian controlled Lublin, Poland. This would appear to
be the realization of a deathbed prophecy by the Chozeh of Lublin (Yaakov
Yitzchak Horowitz) came true. When he
died on July 15, 1815 (9th of Av, 5575) he said that 100 years from
the day of his death, the Russians would lose their control over Poland.
1916(19th of
Tammuz, 5676): 2nd Lt. Joel Jacobs who had been at the Perse School,
Cambridge before the war was killed today while serving with the Yorkshire
Regiment.
1916:
Alexander Protopopov, the Chairman of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce
who would express his belief that “the Jews will get equal rights in Russia”
after he became Minister of the Interior met with Czar Nicholas II prior to his
appointment to that important position.
1916(19th
of Tammuz, 5676): Eighty-three-year-old Algernon E. Sydney, not be confused
with the 17th English political of the same name, passed away today
in London.
1916:
“Following an appropriation of $400,000 for Jewish relief in Russia, the Joint
Distribution Committee of Jewish Relief Funds, which has distributed a total of
more than $4,000,000 announced” today that a committee of five headed by Rabbi
Judah L. Magnes, Chairman of the Kehiliah, would soon be sent abroad “to study
conditions in the warring countries on the eastern front and investigate the
methods employed in the distribution of the relief funds.”
1916(19th
of Tammuz, 5676): Simon Lewis, a collector of old Hebrew manuscripts passed
away today at Spitalfields.
1917: During
WW I and the Russian Revolution, in Minsk, Balta and Kherson “provincial
organizations including zemstvos, committees of soldiers and workmen and town
executives” issued a “strong appeal to soldiers to ignore all anti-Semitic
incitement to attack Jews.”
1917: The
Union of Italian Rabbis was formed today in Bologna.
1917: In
Warsaw, “at a meeting of the Municipal Council, anti-Jewish members charge that
Jews gave the German and Austrian governments the idea that these two
nationalities were the masters of Poland” and that “prominent Jews in Berlin
and Vienna are using their influence against the Poles.
1917:
According to a statement given to the Associated Press, “the disaster that
befell the Armenian nation is now being meted out to the mixed non-Turkish
population of Syria and Palestine” including the Jews in Jerusalem.
1918: During
WW I, Louis Henry Cohn of Brooklyn took part in the fighting along the Ourcq
River in France that would last for five days.
1918:
Pediatrician Sophie Rabinoff who was part of the “first American Zionist
Medical” sent to Palestine by Hadassah in 1918” was photographed today in
London.https://jwa.org/media/sophie-rabinoff-in-uniform
1918: Plans
are going forward at Camp Upton on Long Island for the consecration of “an ark
donated by State Supreme Court Just Irving Lehman” in the military camp’s
non-denominational chapel.
1919:
Birthdate of Shlomo Zalman Auerbach an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, posek, and rosh
yeshiva of the Kol Torah yeshiva in Jerusalem, Israel. “Auerbach was the first
child to be born in the Shaarei Chesed neighborhood of Jerusalem founded by his
maternal grandfather, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Porush, after whom he was named.”
1919: Dr.
Rudolph I Coffee, the former director of the social service department of the
Independent Order of B’nai B’rith in Chicago and the current Rabbi at Temple
Judea in Chicago “preached today in the Methodist Episcopal Church” in Chicago.
1919: At a
meeting of the Municipal Council in Warsaw, “anti-Jewish members charged that
Jews gave the German and Austrian Governments the idea that two nationalities
were the masters of Poland and of using the influence of prominent Jews in
Berlin and Vienna against Poles.”
1920:
Birthdate of Lev Aronin the native of the Soviet Union, who became
International Chess Master in 1950.
1920:
Birthdate of Detroit native Byron Lester Krieger the foil, saber and épée
fencer, first inspired “by his English teacher Beatrice Merriam who
“represented the United States in the Olympics in 1952 in Helskinki and 1956 in
Melbourne”
1920: As the
French sought establish their control over Syria, King Faisal who had expressed
the belief that Zionism was not inimical to the interests of the Arabs, sent
word that he was submitting to French General Gouraud’s ultimatum that he
disband his army and submit to French authority.
1921(14th
of Tammuz, 5681): Benjamin Bennett Levy, who won the Congressional Medal of
Honor during the Civil War, passed away today.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7980294
1922: In
Vilna, the administrator of the city’s Jewish Hospital, Solomon Kagan and his
wife Leah gave birth to Saul Kagan the refugee from Hitler’s Europe who “was
the founding director of the Conference on the Jewish Material Claims Against
Germany.” (As reported by Paul Vitello)
1922: In
Oradea, Romania, Chaim Meir Hager, “the fourth grand rabbi of Vyzhnytsia
(Viznitz in Yiddish), the village in the Carpathian foothills in what is today
western Ukraine” and his wife gave birth to Mordechai Hager, the rabbi who led
the “Viznitz sect” which settled in Kaser, an “upstate New York village.” (As
reported by Joseph Berger)
1923: Sadie
(née Schindler) and Philip Sendak, a dressmaker gave birth to children’s author
Jack Sendak the brother of Maurice Sendak.(As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)
1924:
Birthdate of Ann Gilbert. Born in Szydlowiec, Poland, Ann was a Holocaust
survivor. She spent over four years in concentration camps and was liberated in
April 1945. She married Fred Gilbert (Felek Gebotszrajber) on Jan. 2, 1946, in
Scwabisch Hall, Germany. Ann was a consummate homemaker, an accomplished
seamstress, and devoted to her family. She and Fred lived in Cedar Rapids from
1949 to 1986, where she was an active member of Temple Judah and in the
community. She was a lifetime member of Hadassah. From 1986 to 2003, Ann and
Fred lived in Los Angeles, where she was a much sought after seamstress to film
and motion picture stars. Ann and Fred were also very active in the survivor
community. They were regular speakers at the Simon Wiesenthal Center-Museum of
Tolerance in Los Angeles. She and Fred lectured frequently about their
experiences. In 2003, she and Fred returned to Cedar Rapids to be near to Lena.
Ann remained a constant source of inspiration until she passed away in 2008 at
the age of 84.
1925: “Dr.
Joseph A. Rosen returned on the Leviathan of the United States Lines today from
an extended tour through Russia, the Ukraine and the Crimea, after expending
$800,000 for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in settling in
the Crimea and the Ukraine 20,000 Jews on farmlands since December 1922.”
1926(9th
of Av, 5686): Tish’a B’Av
1926:
Sixty-five-year-old Charles S. Spiegelberg, the Santa Fe, N.M. born son of
Berta and Levi T. and Spiegelberg the husband of Lydia M. Spiegelberg passed
away today in Manhattan.
1926: Maxwell
“Mordecai” Abbell, the Lodz born son of Morris and Freida Abbell who owned a
chain of hotels and office buildings, and his wife Fannie Abbell gave birth to
their daughter Nahami Abbell.
1927:
“Representatives of the Jewish population of the city of Homel protested to the
Soviet authorities regarding the treatment of Jewish cemeteries by the Red Army
was has constructed stables on the oldest Jewish cemetery in that town.
1927:
Birthdate of Barbara Rose Berman, the Bronx native who gained fame as “Barbara
Bergmann, a pioneer in the study of gender in the economy who herself overcame
barriers to women in the world of academic economics.” (As reported by Nelson
D. Schwartz)
1928: In
Brooklyn, Isaac Solow, a bricklayer and Jennie (Brill) Solow gave birth to
Manhattan real estate developer Sheldon Henry Solow, the husband of Mia
Fonssagrives Solow. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)
1929(12th
of Tammuz, 5689): Parashat Chukat-Balak
1929: Today,
“Joseph Polstein, president of the Hennessy Realty Company, a Manhattan
apartment house builder is on his way to Leningrad, at the invitation of the
Soviet Government” as a representative of a group of New York builders who are
“studying conditions in the Russian city with a view to erecting a large group
of multi-family houses of the type now being constructed in New York.”
1929: Dr.
Henry Moskowitz, executive chairman of the American Ort is scheduled to address
the International Ort Conference in Berlin today.
1930: Maxim Litvinov is named the Soviet Union’s
Commissar of Foreign Affairs. Born Meir
Henoch Mojszewicz Wallach-Finkelstein in 1876, into a wealthy Jewish banking family in Białystok in
Congress Poland, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898.
The party was an illegal organization, and it was customary to use pseudonyms.
He changed his name to Maxim Litvinov, but was also known as Papasha and
Maximovich. Over the years, his politics become more radical in response
to the increasingly repressive policies of the Russian government. He joined the Bolsheviks where he became a
confidante of Lenin. Litvinov carried
out a variety of diplomatic missions for the Soviets after the Russian
Revolution. As Foreign Minister,
Litvinov was a key participant that led to recognition of the Soviet government
by the United States in 1933. Litivinov
sought to create an anti-fascist alliance with western powers during the
1930’s. When the British and French
caved in at Munich, Stalin decided to work on developing relations with
Hitler’s government. To that end, he
removed Litvinov since it would not due to have a Jew negotiating with the Nazi
government. After the Nazis attacked the
Soviet Union, Litvinov was sent to Washington to negotiate a Lend-Lease that
would provide the arms the Soviets needed to meet the Nazi onslaught.
1931:
According to a report Ralph Hayes gave to Winthrop W. Aldrich, the chairman of
the distribution committee of the New York Community trust today, the
University of Jerusalem received $11,383 from the trust during the first six
months of 1931.
1932(16th
of Tammuz, 5692): Sadie Strauss (nee Katz), the widow of Erwin Katz and mother
of Howard G. Strauss passed away today in New York City.
1932: Caroline
Rauschkolb, the widow of the late Frank Rauschkolb and mother of Abe, Benny and
Leo Rauschkolb passed away today in New York.
1933: Cardinal
Pacelli issued a concordant known as the Hitler Concordant. Hitler described it
as” unrestricted acceptance of National Socialism by the Vatican.”
Cardinal Pacelli later became Pope Pious XII. In its spirit all teaching
priests were to greet their students with “Heil Hitler, praised be Jesus
Christ.” (editor’s note: There is
not space to review the pernicious effect of this agreement but consider the
following When Einstein was told how Pius XII directed a Polish priest to keep
silent about the murder of Jews, because of the Concordat the Holy See had
signed with Nazi Germany “obliged the Church to tread softly”, he
replied “There are cosmic laws, Dr. Hermanns. They cannot be bribed by
prayers or incense. What an insult to the principles of creation. But remember,
that for God a thousand years is a day. This power maneuver of the Church,
these Concordats through the centuries with worldly powers… the Church has to
pay for it.”)
1933: In Germany, two-hundred Jewish merchants are
arrested in Nuremberg and paraded through the streets.
1933(26th
of Tammuz, 5693): Seventy-year-old Sir
Harry Lawson Webster Levy-Lawson, 1st Viscount Burnham GCMG, CH, TD, JP, DL, a
British newspaper proprietor and a Liberal Unionist politician who sat in the
House of Commons between 1885 and 1916 when he inherited his peerage passed
away today.
1933: In
London, 500,000 march against anti-Semitism. This may be seen as part of
companion piece to a rally held in March 1933 at Madison Square Garden in New
York City. The demonstration in London
was certainly not representative of British public opinion or policy. Many of the movers and shakers in Great
Britain were impressed with the
cleansing effect that the Nazis were bringing to Germany, marking them as
pro-German, anti-Semitic or both.
1934: In
Rochester, NY, Ben Krasnow, “a commercial artist (sign painter), and to the
former Gertrude Goldstein from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada both of Russian Jewish
parentage” gave birth to Robert Alan “Bob” Krasnow the music
executive who re-vitalized Elektra Records. (As reported by Ben Sisario)
1934: The
Court of Appeal today quashed the death sentence passed by the District Court
on Abraham Stavsky on June 8 for the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, prominent
labor leader and member of the Jewish Agency Executive of Palestine. The Appeal
Court found that the evidence was insufficient.
Thousands of supporters of Stavsky, who dodged a date with the hangman,
reportedly danced in the streets of Jerusalem as they celebrated a victory for
the Revisionist faction of the Zionist movement.
1935(19th
of Tammuz, 5695): Parashat Pinchas
1935: In
Shanghai, “the Municipal Council, after an investigation, said today that the
reports of ritualistic murders in a Jewish cemetery were false.”
1935(19th
of Tammuz, 5695): Ninety-year-old German native, Rabbi Joseph Kahn, the husband
of Rosalie Kahn and father of University of Michigan trained civil engineer
Moritz Kahn who is credited with the creation of “pre-case reinforced concrete
ships where were used by the English Admiralty in W.W I” passed away today
after which he was interred at the Woodmere Cemetery in Detroit, Michigan.
1935(19th
of Tammuz, 5696): Seventy-eight-year-old Minnie Ranshohoff, the “daughter of
Julius and Duffie Freiberg” and the wife of Dr. Joseph Ranshoff with whom she
had had five children, passed away today.
1936(1st of
Av, 5696): Rosh Chodesh Av
1936:
Birthdate of Harvey David Luber. The Chicago native became a first-rate
photographer, a leader of the Little Rock Jewish community and a great friend.
1936: “Earl
Peel, who was Secretary of State for India” has been name to a chair “a
commission that is inquiring into the unrest in Palestine” the other members of
which are Field Marshall Sir William Birdwood, Sir Horace Rumbold “who has a
fluent command of Arabic and has been Ambassador to Constantinople” and
“Reginald Coupland, Professor of Colonial History at Oxford University.
1936: The Palestine Post reported that since
according to the 1935 Official Palestinian Report on Migration certain
professions became overcrowded, the government had restricted the admission to
the country of all those belonging to the medical, legal and engineering
professions. [Editor’s note: This seemingly innocuous ruling came at a time
when educated Jews were trying to leave Germany.] Arab snipers shot at British
soldiers patrolling the Nablus Road in Jerusalem. Lengths of railway track were
found removed near Tulkarm. Arab hawkers asked for police protection in order
to be able to sell their wares. They complained that the general strike brought
them ruin, starvation and death. Several more prominent members of the Arab
“National Guard” were interned at Sarafand
1937: Today,
The American Citizen Members of the Arab National League and “a group of
Americans interested in the Far East question” including Professor Elihu Grant
of Haverford College and Dr. Leland W. Parr of the George Washington Medical
School urged President Roosevelt “to take no part in the Jewish-Arab
controversy.”
1937: Today,
William Green, the President of the American Federation of Labor issued “an
indignant statement to the press” expressing his opposition to the proposed
portioning of Palestine and accusing the British of “cool persecution of the
Jews.”
1938(21st
of Tammuz, 5698): Forty-five-year-old Julius S. Berg, the Manhattan born son of
Morris and Celia (Weinstein) Berg who was wounded at Arras, France in May of
1918 and who went to serve in both houses of the New York state legislature
while being married to Rose Schram passed away today.
1938: “The
Henlein newspaper Die Zeit” reported today “that two more important industrial
concerns owned by Jews – the Boemish-Krumau engine works owned by Ignatz Spiro
his sons and the Nestomicer sugar refinery owned by Dr. Bloch-Bauer – are
leaving the Sudeten German area for Prague which will cost 400 Germans and 199
Czechs to lose their jobs.
1939(4th
of Av, 5699): Dutch sculptor Joseph Mendes da Costa passed away. “Best known for making sculptures and
ornaments for buildings” Mendes da Costa was a member of “Ars et Labor” which
would become the Dutch version of Art Nouveau.
1939: British
policy on Palestine–particularly the latest decision to cut off legal
immigration for six months, beginning Oct. 1–came under heavy fire in the
House of Commons tonight. The opposition Laborites contended that the decision
to suspend immigration was proof of failure of the government’s new policy.
1939: Birthdate of Judy Chicago. For over four decades Chicago has been a
leading educator, artist and shaper of the feminist movement. One of her most famous works is the
multi-media history of women in Western Civilization entitled “The Dinner
Party.”
1940: “The
Breeze and I,” a popular song with English lyrics by Al Stillman “first reached
the Billboard magazine charts today and lasted 9 weeks on the chart, peaking at
#2.”
1940:
Ten-year-old David Judah Lawrence, the future alpine skiing race arrived in New
York aboard the Pan Am Yankee Clipper thanks to the visas given to him and his
family by “Portuguese consul Aristides de Sousa Mendes.”
1941: A
Jewish ghetto at Minsk, Belorussia, is established.
1941: Today,
marked the celebration of the 50th anniversary of City Park during
which Felix J. Dreyfous “received a golden bowl filled with fifty park-grown
roses “ at a time that Dreyfous was celebrating “his 50th
consecutive year as member of the park of board of commissioners” which he now
served as President.
1942: The
first detachment of the U.S. Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAC’s) begins basic
training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. Among this group of volunteers are twelve
Jewish women: Ruth Ginns, Beatrice Berg, Carolyne Casper and Jean Korn from
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Kathryne Goldfluss, Rose Ross and Joan Strongin
from New York, New York; Bee Rosenberg and Ruth Spivak from Chicago, Illinois;
Rita Fink and Isabel Bayley of Buffalo, New York; and Elizabeth Morgenstern of
Seattle, Washington.
1942: The Jews
of Kleck tried to revolt as the Germans circled their town. Only a few hundred
escaped. The 1,000 remaining Jews were shot dead.
1942: In
Cologne, “Jewish children and some of their teachers including Erich Klibanksy”
were deported to Minsk today.
1942: The Germans
murder 1000 Jews at Kleck, Belorussia; 400 flee into forests. Two from the
latter group, Moshe Fish and Leva Gilchik (from nearby Kopyl), will form a
partisan group;
1942: The Jews
from Kowale Panskie, Poland are deported, to the Chelmno death camp.
1942: In
Warsaw, Rabbi Alexander Zusha Friedman, a “leader in Agudat Israel, called on
the people not to oppose the Germans with force.”God will not permit his people
to be destroyed. We must wait and a miracle will certainly occur.” Agudat
Israel, like many groups in the Judenrat, were afraid that any
“violent” opposition would mean the liquidation of the ghetto. http://jewishhistory.org.il/history.php?search=warsaw
1943(17th of
Tammuz, 5703):Tzom Tammuz
1943(17th of
Tammuz, 5703): Five hundred slave laborers are murdered at Czestochowa, Poland.
1943: Over
two thousand Jews are deported from Holland to Sobibór.
1943: Two
Jews escape from Sobibór
1943: General
Leslie Grove, the director of the Manhattan Project acknowledged J. Robert
Oppenheimer’s importance to the program to build the Atomic Bomb when he issued
a written order to the Manhattan Engineer District commanding them to approve
Oppie’s security clearance regardless of any negative information that might
have been gathered.
1944: “Since
You Went Away” a film about the U.S. home-front in WW II, produced by David O.
Selznick who also wrote the screenplay and with music by Max Steiner was
released in the United States by United Artists.
1944: As of
today, almost all of the Jews of Rhodes “had been captured and were being held
in improvised concentration camps” while they were being robbed of their
valuables and their homes were being looted by the Nazis. (Editor’s Note: “At
this point one should mention the humanitarian stance shown by the Turkish
consul, Selahettin Ulkumen, who intervened to save not only Turkish nationals
but whole families as well, even at the remotest proof of their Turkish
citizenship. He managed to save from the Nazis approximately 40 Jews who would
have otherwise been led to death. For his acts, he was awarded after the War
the title of “Righteous among the Nations” by Yad Vashem.”)
1944: The most
famous plot to kill Hitler failed. This event has been romanticized by various
revisionists. The plotters realized that they could not win the war. They
thought that with Hitler gone, they could at least negotiate a peace treaty
with the West. The plotters were not only incompetent, they were delusional as
well. [For more about people who really worked to opposed Hitler see the
recently publish “Red Orchestra.”]
1945: Laurence
Adolph Steinhardt began serving as the United States Ambassador to
Czechoslovakia following his service as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey.
1946:
Birthdate of Israel Carmi (Weinstein) the native of Egypt who perished in 1968
at the age of 22 when the Israeli Submarine Dakar sank.
1947: “More
than 4,500 unauthorized Jewish immigrants who were deported from Hafia,
ostensibly to Cyprus, are being returned to France, informed quarters indicated
tonight.”
1947: Today a
Haifa court order three Americans – Captain Bernard Marks, the skipper of the
Exodus, Arthur Ritzer the ship’s cook from Brooklyn and Cyril Weinstein, a
seaman from New York – “held under $4,000 bond each for trial within fifteen
days on two charges, ‘abetting persons to illegally immigrate to Palestine’ and
‘being members of the crew of a Haganah ship which carried 4,700 illegal
immigrants into Palestine waters.”
1948: Samuel
Rothberg, who has just returned from Palestine “where he made a survey on the
settlement of Jewish displaced persons” said that the “extension of the truce
in Palestine has proved disadvantageous to Israel” since among other things, it
has disrupted Israel’s economy because of the country’s limited manpower.
1948: “Jewish
sources said today that 1,500 Jewish men women and children” have left Sofia,
Bulgaria
1949(23rd
of Tammuz, 5709): Fifty-nine-year-old Polish born “trade union official Nathan
Schedletzsky, a member of the “Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America” and the
“business agent for the “Pants-makers Local No.8” passed away today in New York
City.
1949:
Birthdate of Jean-Louis Cohen, “a French historian of architecture and
urbanism.”
1949: Israel’s
19-month War of Independence ended. The government of Syria signed the last of
four armistices, which marked the end of open warfare. The cessation of
hostilities did not bring peace since the Arab states refused to come to grips
with the reality of the existence of Israel.
1950: Harry
Gold, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia pleads guilty to spying for the
Soviet Union by passing secrets from atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs. Gold’s Jewish pedigree provided fodder for
anti-Semites who sought to make being Jewish and being Communist (or disloyal
to America) one and the same thing.
1950: “The
Men” directed by Fred Zinnemann, produced by Stanley Kramer, written by Carl
Foreman, with music by Dimitri Tiomkin was released by United Artists today in
the United States.
1950: In
Israel, doctors employed by the Health Ministry will go on strike today unless
their demands for increased pay are met.
1951: Abdullah
Ibn Hussein Jordan’s King was assassinated in Jerusalem. He was attending
Friday prayers at a mosque when he was killed by those who were afraid he was
negotiating with Israel. His grandson, Hussein, became the next King of Jordan.
The assassination influenced the young king
1951: “The Law
and the Lady” a comedy directed and produced by Edwin H. Knopf was released by
MGM today in the United States.
1953(8th
of Av, 5713): Erev Tish’a B’Av observed for the first time during the
Presidency of Ike Eisenhower.
1954(19th
of Tammuz, 5714): Herman Mantell, the husband of Carrie Mantell passed away
today after which he was buried at Springfield Gardens in Queens County, NY.
1954: United States Senator Joseph R. McCarthy
accepts the resignation of his aide Roy Cohn.
Roy Cohn was the chief counsel of the Senate Committee that McCarthy
used to conduct his investigations that smeared people, ruined lives and
unearthed no “Communist conspiracy among those he paraded before the television
lights. All of those right-wing
anti-Semites seemed to lose sight of fact that McCarthy’s chief henchman was
one of those “New York Jews.”
1955(1st
of Av, 5715): Rosh Chodesh Av
1955(1st
of Av, 5715): Sixty-nine-year-old Edward S. Siskind, the Russian born Jew who
was the first person of his faith “to participate in athletics at Fordham, a
Jesuit university” where played baseball, football l and basketball and coached
the football team in 1918, passed away today.
https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Edward_Siskind.html
1956(12th
of Av,5716): Eighty-three-year-old Jassy Rumanian native and a partner in Aron
Brothers, Elia Aron a manufacturer of hats and caps for boys and men who at the
age of 15 came to the United States where he “was an organizer of the association that published the Jewish
Daily Forward and raised three children – Leon, Sidney and Frieda – with his
wife Molly Segal Aron passed away today
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/07/21/94299674.html?pageNumber=15
1956:
Birthdate of Miami Beach, FL native and NYU educated composer and music
professor Michael Gordon, the husband of Julia Wolfe and co-founder of the Bang
on a Can music collective and festival.
https://michaelgordonmusic.com/
1957(21st
of Tammuz, 5717): Parashat Matot
1957(21st
of Tammuz. 5717): Seventy-year-old Etta A. Talheimer, the San Frisco born
daughter of Minnie and Jacob E. Thalheimer and the wife of William Flatow, Sr.
with whom she had three children passed away today.
1957(21st
of Tammuz, 5717): Seventy-eight-year-old New York native and Columbia trained
cardiologist Dr. Alfred Einstein Cohn, “an authority on the human heart and one
of the first physicians to make electrocardiograms” who was the husband of
Ruther Walker Price Cohn passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/07/23/84736623.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1958: At the
New Montefiore Cemetery in Pinelawn, L.I., “Rabbi Nissin Telushkin, honorary
president of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council recited the prayers for the dead” when
five hundred people gathered at the gravesite of Vladmir Jabotinsky, “Zionist
leader an founder of the Jewish Legion during WW I to mark the 18th
anniversary of his death.
1959(14th
of Tammuz, 5719): Forty-eight-year-old “Morrie (Morris) Aronivoch, the
Superior, Wisconsin major league outfielder nicknamed “Snooker” who played six
seasons with the Phillies, Reds and Giants after a successful collegiate
basketball career at U of Wisconsin-Superior and served with the U.S. Army in
the Pacific during WW II passed away today shortly before his “his third anniversary.”
1959:
Birthdate of Samuel Israel III, the New Orleans born incarcerated hedge fund
manager who was the subject of Octopus” Sam Israel, the Secret Market and
Wall Street’ Wildest Con by Guy Lawson
1960: The head
of the Physics Department at the Israel Institute of Technology, Kurt Sitte, is
arrested for espionage.
1961: “Take
Good Care of My Baby” a song written by the Jewish team of Carole King and
Gerry Goffin was released as a “45.” (If you know what the number means, you
probably grew up in what some called the golden age of Rock and Rool)
1961: The West
End production “Stop The World – I Want To Get Off” a musical created by
Anthony Newley who “was Jewish through his maternal grandmother.” Opened today.
1962: Pope John XXIII sent
invitations to all ‘separated Christian churches and communities,’ asking each
to send delegate-observers to the upcoming Vatican II Ecumenical Council in
Rome. Vatican II would result in an improvement in the relationship between the
Jewish Community and the Roman Catholic Church.
Of course, there are those that would that anything would have to be an
improvement over Pope John’s predecessor, Pope Pious, the Pope of the
Holocaust.
1964: Funeral
services are scheduled to be held today in Brooklyn for f Dr. Herman Bernard,
the husband of Sally Birnbuam with whom he raised four children – Rudolph,
Alfred, Beverly and Joseph Bernard and who was the “treasurer of the Brooklyn
Zionist Region.
1965: Lyndon B. Johnson nominates Abe Fortas to the
Supreme Court. Fortas was a close friend of Johnson’s; one of the few people
who could speak frankly with Johnson.
Fortas was “nominally” Jewish, and he warned Johnson that the American
Jewish Community would not see him as the right person to hold what, since the
days of Brandeis, had become “the Jewish chair” on the High Court.
1966(3rd
of Av, 5726): Sixty-five-year-old Warsaw born “Rabbi Zvi Eisenstadt, a member
of the presidium of Agudath Israel and of the Union Orthodox Rabbis who lived
in Tel Aviv during WW II and came to the United States in 1946 where he raised
his son Joseph with his wife Reisi passed away today.
1967(12th
of Tammuz, 5727): “As he was hard at work on the final revision of his latest
book,” fifty-eight-year-old linguist Morris Swadesh passed away after suffering
a heart attack.
https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/aa.1968.70.4.02a00070
1968(24th
of Tammuz, 5728): Parashat Pinchas
1968(24th
of Tammuz, 5728): Eighty-six-year-old Abraham Bitensky, “who retired in 1942 as
president of the Abe Bitensky and Brothers, rayon and silk convertors” and the
brother of Isaac Bitenksy passed away today in Far Rockaway, Queens.
1969: In an
event that transcended national, religious and all such boundaries, Neil
Armstrong walked on the Moon today.
1969: In
response to Nasser’s War of Attrition which was the Arab response to Israel’s
attempt to negotiate a peace after the Six Day War, Operation Boxer began with
a series of crippling air attacks.
1969: Israeli
commandos successfully finish their attack on Green Island by completely
destroying the island fortress. The
press hails the attack as an Israeli Navarone, after the fictional island in
the movie “The Guns of Navarone.” But
the casualties were not fiction. Not
only were they real, they were higher than expected. The Israelis learned from the mission and
went on to improve the functionality of their units.
1971: Nessim
(Max) Cohen, the Moroccan born Israeli boxer who is he French middle weight
champion, was in New York to promote his upcoming “bout with Emile Griffith, a
five-time world champion.
1971: Syria
and Jordan’s armies exchange fire over the common frontier. This would prove to
be prelude to a Syrian attempt to seize Jordan, part of Syrian President
Assad’s goal to create a Greater Syria.
In one of those strange twists, Israel moved tanks towards the area of
conflict which Washington’s way of letting the Syrians know that they should
back off and leave Jordan alone.
1972(9th
of Av, 5732): Tish’a B’Av
1973:
Palestinian terrorists hijacked a Japan Airlines jet en route from Amsterdam to
Japan and forced it down in Dubai.
1973(20th
of Tammuz, 5733): Fifty-three-year-old CCNY graduate and Ph.D holder from the
Illinois Institute of Technology Dr. Herbert
H. Hyman, the husband of Ruth Hyman with whom he had two sons – Mark and
David — who was “a senior chemist and
assistant director of the chemical division of the Argonne (Ill.) National
Laboratory” and who had “worked on the atomic bomb” suffered a fatal heart
attack today in Chicago.
1974: In
Washington, DC attorney Albert Foer and Esther Safran Foer, the daughter of
Holocaust survivors gave birth to Columbia educated writer and editor of The New Republic
Franklin Foer, the brother of Jonathan and Joshua Foer.
1976: Today
marked the start of what would become the Good Fence Policy along the border
with Lebanon. The hope was that the medical treatment of Lebanese citizens in
Israel and the beginning of trade between South Lebanon and Israel would start
a new era of relations between the two countries. Like so many other peace
initiatives this one died at the hand of terrorism.
1978:
Birthdate of Elliott Yamin, born Efraym Elliott Yamin, who is an American
singer known for his hit single “Wait for You” and placing third on
the fifth season of American Idol.
1980: The United Nations Security Council votes
14-0 that member states should not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of
Israel. This is another reason that Israel tends not to trust the UN. In 1947,
as part of the partition vote, the UN said Jerusalem would be governed by an
international body. When the Jordanians
attacked Jerusalem and expelled the Jewish population from the Old City, the UN
did nothing. During the 19-year
occupation of the city by the Jordanians Jews, of whatever nationality, were
kept out of the city. The UN did
nothing. But now that the Israelis
controlled the whole city and it was open to Christians, Moslems and Jews, the
UN acted to support the Arab view of the City of David.
1981: The administration of newly elected
Republican President Ronald Reagan suspends sales of F-16 fighter jets to
Israel.
1981(29th of
Tammuz, 5739): Seventy-nine-year-old Joseph N. Katz the founder and board
chairman of Empire Kosher Poultry Inc., passed away today http://www.empirekosher.com/history/
1983; The
Israeli cabinet votes to withdraw troops from Beirut but to remain in southern
Lebanon. The Israelis had gone into Lebanon because the PLO occupied the
southern half of the country and was using it as base to attack Israel. The government of Lebanon either could not or
would not remove the PLO so Israel was forced to act or accept the fact that
Arafat’s terrorists would have permanent base on Israel’s northern border.
1983(10th
of Av, 5743): Ninety-year-old Nina Dorothy Jessel, the daughter of Edith
Goldsmid and Sir Charles James Jessel passed away today in Harrow, Middlesex,
England.
1984: “Best
Defense,” produced by Gloria Katz who co-wrote the screenplay was released
today in the United States.
1986(13th
of Tammuz, 5746): Ninety-year-old Cambridge educated “British literary scholar” Joan Bennet (a.k.a. Joan Frankau) “the daughter of London cigar importer Arthur
Frankau and writer Julia Frankau” and the wife of Cambridge literary historian
Henry Stanley Bennett whom she married in 1920 who “was awarded the Rose Mary
Crawshay Prize by the British Academy in 1963 for her book Sir Thomas Brown:
His Life and Achievement” and “as one of the expert witnesses in the Lady
Chatterley Trial, helped counter the arguments of the prosecution by confirming
Lawrence’s reputation as a novelist, that the work was more than a description
of sexual encounters, and that Lawrence’s repeated use of ‘four-letter words’
were justified by literary intent” passed away today.
1987 The Los Angeles law firm of Kadison, Pfaelzer, Woodard,
Quinn & RossiThe Los Angeles law firm of Kadison, Pfaelzer, Woodard, Quinn
& Rossi which had been founded in 1967 by “several prominent attorneys
including “Morris Pfaelzer, the husband of U.S. District Court Judge Mariana R.
Pfaelzer” “went out of business” today.
1988:
“Midnight Run” a comedic “buddy movie” directed and produced by Martin Brest,
co-starring Charles Grodin, featuring Yaphet Kotto and with music by Danny
Elfman was released today in the United States.
1989(17th
of Tammuz, 5749): Tzom Tammuz is observed for the first time during the
Presidency of George Bush.
1991(9th
of Av, 5751): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish’a B’Av
1994: Israel’s
Shimon Peres visits Jordan, the highest-ranking Israeli official to do so.
1994: “The
Client,” the movie version of the novel with the same name directed by Joel
Schumacher, with a screenplay co-authored by Akiva Goldsman and music composed
by Howard Shore was released in the United States today.
1995(22nd
of Tammuz, 5755): Seventy-two-year-old Ernest Ezra Manel, the Frankfurt born
son of “Henri and Rosa Mandel, were Jewish emigres from Poland” the WW II
resistance fighter who survived and escaped from concentration camps and who
identified with the ideology of Leon Trotsky passed away today.
http://www.eilatgordinlevitan.com/kurenets/k_pages/mandel.html
1996: During the 1996 Summer Olympics, the
artistic gymnastic events in which Kerri Strug competed opened today at the
Georgia Dome.
1996(4th of
Av, 5756): Raphael Patai passed away.
Born Ervin György in 1910, Patai, was a Hungarian-Jewish ethnographer
and anthropologist.
1997: The Sunday New York Times book section
featured reviews of Egypt’s Road to
Jerusalem: A Diplomat’s Story of the Struggle for Peace in the Middle East by Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Fritz
Lang: The Nature of the
Beast by Patrick McGilligan and Inventing Memory: A Novel of Mothers and Daughters by
Erica Jong.
1997:
A conference “The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years After Their Discovery” opened
in Jersualem.
1999:
Roman Bronfman and Alexander Tzinker formed the Democratic Choice faction.
2000(17th
of Tammuz, 5760): Tzom Tammuz is observed for the first last time during the
Presidency of Bill Clinton.
2001:
After premiering at the Seattle International Film Festival, “Ghost World,” with a
script by Daniel Clowes who had a Jewish mother and Terry Zwigoff, the son of
dairy farmers who also served as director was released today in the United
States.
2001:
“America’s Sweethearts,” a comedy directed by Joe Roth, written, produced and
co-starring Billy Crystal and featuring Alan Arkin was released in the United
States today.
2002:
As a reminder that Jews were not the only victims of the Nazis, we mark the
death of concentration camp survivor and art Jan M. Komski.
http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/Komski.htm
2003: At the Lincoln Center Festival, Israel’s Gesher Theatre
gives its opening performance of its adaptation of “The Slave.
2003: Jewish
Women International’s first-ever international conference on domestic violence
in the Jewish community held its first meeting in Baltimore.
2003(20th of Tammuz, 5763): Rabbi Bezalel
Rakow, “an orthodox rabbi who headed Gateshead’s Jewish community” and who “was
the chair of the Council of Torah Sages of Agudas Yisroel of Great Britain”
passed away.
2004 (2nd of Av, 5764): Temple Judah mourned
the loss of Rabbi Ed Chesman who passed away unexpectedly while vacationing
with family in Florida.
2004: Ariel “Sharon called on French Jews to
emigrate from France to Israel immediately, in light of an increase in French
anti-Semitism (94 anti-Semitic assaults were reported in the first six months
of 2004, compared to 47 in 2003). France has the third-largest Jewish
population in the world (about 600,000 people).
2005: “Israel’s Parliament easily voted down
three bills today aimed at delaying the withdrawal of Jewish settlers from the
Gaza Strip…”
2005: Ernst Zündel, a 66-year-old white
supremacist and internationally known Holocaust denier who was deported to his
native Germany from Canada in March, has been charged with 14 counts of hate
crimes, a court in Mannheim said.
2006(24th of Tammuz, 5766): Charles Bettelheim
passed away. Born in 1913 he “was a French economist and historian, founder of
the Center for the Study of Modes of Industrialization (CEMI: “Centre pour
l’Étude des Modes d’Industrialisation”) at the Sorbonne), economic advisor
to the governments of several developing countries during the period of
decolonization. He was very influential in France’s New Left and considered one
of “the most visible Marxists in the capitalist world.”
2006(24th of Tammuz, 5766): Ninety-year-old
Frank Reginald Nunes Nabarro “a leading
authority on solid state physics” who was Professor of Physics and Deputy
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Witwatersrand passed away today.
2006: The following were among a total of 43
Israeli civilians (including four who died of heart attacks during rocket
barrages) and 116 IDF soldiers were killed in the Israel-Hizbullah war: Maj.
Benjy Hillman, 27; St.-Sgt. Rafenael Muscal, 21, of Mazkeret Batya; St.-Sgt.
Nadav Baeloha, 21, of Karmiel; St.-Sgt. Liran Sa’adiya, 21, of Kiryat Shmona;
St.-Sgt. Yonatan (Sergei) Vlasyuk, 21, of Kibbutz Lahav; Maj. Ran Kochva, 37,
of Beit Hananya.
2007: Under the direction of Lauren Reece, The
Footlighters ACT II performs “The Diary of Anne Frank” at the Herbert
Hoover Library in West Branch, Iowa.
Making this a Jewish as well as community even, Rabbi Portman of Agudas
Achim in Iowa City will conduct an outdoor Shabbat Eve services on the grounds
of what was Herbert Hoover’s boyhood home.
2007: The Crown Prosecution Service announced
that Lord Michael Levy was not to be prosecuted in connection with the so
called “Cash for Honours” affair and that there were to be no charges
against him.
2007: World premiere of David Zellnik’s “Ariel Sharon Hovers Between Life and Death
and Dreams of Theodor Herzl” at Theatre J in Washington, DC.
2008: Fast the 17th Day of Tammuz,
5768
2008(17th of Tammuz, 5768): Israeli
mathematician Michael Maschler best known for his contributions in the field of
“game theory” passed away today.
https://sites.google.com/site/themichaelbmaschlerprize/arachnid-story
2008: The
Washington Post book section features a review of Debra Winger’s memoir, Undiscovered.
2008: The
Sunday New York Times book section features a review of Rapture Ready
in which Jewish author Daniel Radosh explores Christian pop culture.
2009: In upstate New York, Marilyn and Lester
Milton Bornstein gave birth to Michael Scott Bornestein who gained fame as
Michael Oren the author who served as Israel’s ambassador.
2009: At the 18th Maccabiah Games, the
basketball competition continues as Brazil plays Germany, the USA plays
Argentina, France plays Mexico and the hometown Israelis tip off against
Canada.
2009: In an interview given today, Rabbi Eric
Yoffie, president of the Union of Reform Judaism said that the vast majority of
American Jews back a settlement freeze.
2009(28th of Tammuz, 5769): Mark Richard
Rosenzweig an American research psychologist who found in animal studies on
neuroplasticity that the brain continues developing anatomically, reshaping and
repairing itself into adulthood based on life experiences, overturning the
conventional wisdom that the brain reached full maturity in childhood passed
away at the age of 86.
2009: Amidst the controversy surrounding the
planned screenings of “Rachel,” a film that investigates the death of
anti-Israel activist Rachel Corrie, and its invitation to her mother, Cindy
Corrie, to speak afterward, the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival Board
President Shana Penn resigned from her post, citing “healthy differences on how
to approach sensitive issues,” with five months left on a two-year term.
2010(9th of Av, 5770): Tish’a B’Av: 1,940th
anniversary of the destruction of the Second Temple; 1,875th
anniversary of the fall of Bethar.
2010: A judge at Tel Aviv District Family Court
today rejected a request for a gag order on the contents of a box containing
manuscripts written by Franz Kafka. Eva Hoffe, the Israeli woman who inherited
the documents, was asked to pay court costs to the National Library and
attorney Ehud Sol, the manager of the estate of Kafka’s close friend Max Brod.
2010: Elena Kagan, President Obama’s Supreme
Court nominee, won approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee on a nearly
party-line vote today, her next to last hurdle before gaining a lifetime seat
on the high court.
2011:
Anat Cohen, an Israeli jazz clarinetist, saxophonist and bandleader, is
scheduled to appear at the Berman Center for the Performing Arts at an event
sponsored by Detroit Jazz Festival & The JCC Stephen Gottlieb Music
Festival.
2011: Medical residents announced an indefinite
strike today as they continued organizing protests throughout the country
against a deal being drafted between the Israel Medical Association and the
Finance Ministry to end the doctors’ strike.
2011: Reports
that an Israeli killed in the New Zealand earthquake in February was an
intelligence agent were wrong, Prime Minister John Key said today..
2011: An affiliate of Leonard Blavatnik’s Access
Industries “acquired Warner Music Group for $3.3 billion.”
2011(18th of Tammuz, 5771): Sixty-eight-year-old
Myra Kraft, the wife of Patriots owner Robert Kraft whom she married while a
student at Brandeis and with whom she had four son and whose philanthropy was
one of the things that led to her being chosen as “one of the 20 Most Powerful
Women in Boston” passed away today.
2011(18th of Tammuz, 5771): Eighty-eight-year-old
portrait artist Lucian Freud, the grandson of Sigmund Freud and the brother of
Clement Freud pass away today. (As reported by William Grimes)
2012(1st of Av, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Av
2012(1st of Ave, 5772): Thirty-year-old “Ari
Ephraim Rubin, vice chairman of the Jewish Defense League died of a
self-inflicted gunshot wound” today.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/jdl-vice-chairmans-suicide-continues-chain-of-violent-deaths/
2012: Fresh from her triumphal performance in Des Moines,
Iowa, renowned soprano Sarah Jane McMahon is scheduled to return to Touro
Synagogue in New Orleans this evening for the fifth in a series of musical
programs devoted to works by Jewish composers.
[For more about this and other happenings in “The Big Easy” see the
Crescent City Jewish News http://www.crescentcityjewishnews.com/
2012: “5-Day Kosher Bike Trek” a 420 mile bike ride that
began in and offers Kosher food for all riders is scheduled to end today at
Santa Fe, NM.
2012: As it marks it last Shabbat weekend in its downtown
Washington Avenue location in Iowa City, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host a
potluck supper before Friday services.
2012: Six months after premiering at Sundance, “The Queen
of Versailles,” a documentary about David Siegel’s private residence directed
and co-produced by Lauren Greenfield was released today in the United States.
2012: The tearful funerals of the five Burgas airport
suicide-bomb bombings were held in the course of today, drawing hundreds — and
in some cases thousands — of mourners. Two sets of childhood friends and a
newly pregnant woman, they were blown up on Wednesday at the start of what was
supposed to have been a vacation, on the bus that was taking them from their
plane to the airport terminal in the Bulgarian Black Sea resort.(As reported by
Ilan Ben Zion)
2012: After premiering in NYC four days ago, “The Dark
Knight Rises” featuring Ben Mendelsohn as “John Daggett and Alon Abutbul as
“Dr. Leonid Pavel” was released to the theatres in North American and the
United Kingdom.
2012: A suicide bombing that killed Israeli
tourists in Bulgaria this week bore hallmarks of Iranian-backed Hezbollah
terrorists but the U.S. Defense Department has not yet concluded who was behind
it, a Pentagon spokesman said today. The attack on a bus carrying Israelis at a
Bulgarian airport, “does bear the hallmarks of Hezbollah,” George
Little, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters.
2012(1st
of Av):Moshe Silman, the homeless man who set himself on fire at a Tel
Aviv rally last weekend, died this afternoon at the Sheba Medical Center at Tel
Hashomer after succumbing to the burns which covered over 90 percent of his
body.
2012: A Muslim husband and wife convicted of planning a
terror attack against Jews in Manchester, England, were jailed today. Shasta
Khan, who was convicted of preparing for acts of terrorism and two counts of
possessing information likely to be useful in an act of terrorism, was
sentenced to eight years in prison. The 38-year-old hairdresser, who had
pleaded not guilty, will serve four years minus the 350 days she spent on
remand. (As reported by Miriam Shaviv)
2013: “More than Carnival,” a season ending
summer concert is scheduled to take place at the Eden-Tamir Music Center.
2013: The Maccabeats are scheduled to perform
for a second day at the Hampton Synagogue at West Hampton Beach.
2013: “The geeky numbers guy who turned the
electoral vote counting into a national obsession with his FIveThirtyEight blog
is leaving the New York Times for the
sports network” (As reported by Forward Staff)
Read more: http://forward.com/articles/180844/geek-is-gone-nate-silver-to-dump-new-york-times-f/#ixzz2ZctSzkcr
2013: A leading minister confirmed Saturday
that Israel would release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the renewal of
peace talks, but said that the government is not bound to a settlement freeze
as a precondition for the resumption of negotiations. (As reported by Michael
Shmulovich and Ricky Ben David)
2014: The
New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including Falling Out of Time by
David Grossman and Friendship by Emily Gould
2014: Carole Glauber is scheduled to talk about
the photographers in her exhibit “Israel in Light and Shadow” at the Oregon
Jewish Museum and Center for Holocuast Education.
2014: As of 1:30 a.m. Israeli time, network
television reports on the fighting between Israel and Hamas show pictures of
Gaza but show no pictures of rockets falling in Israel or Israelis
“running for their lives”
2014(22nd of Tammuz, 5714: Thirteen
members of the Golani Brigade were killed today as they fought the terrorirsts
in Gaza including Captain Tzafrir Bar-Or, a commander in the Golani Brigade,
32, of Holon; Major Zvi Kaplan, a commander in the Golani Brigade, 28, from
Kedumim;
Gilad Yaakobi, 21, of Kiryat Ono; Sergeant Oz
Mendelovich, 21, from Avtalion; Nissim Shon Carmeli, 21, of Ra’anana (“In life
they were loved and admired; they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger
than lions.”)
2015(4th of Av, 5775): Ninety-four-year-old
Pennsylvania born pilot Lou Lenart whose colorful career included “saving Tel
Aviv” on May 29, 1948 when he and three other fliers conducted “a forty minute
strafing and bombing raid on a column of Egyptian tanks, trucks and troops”
that would have been in the Jewish metropolis the following day were it not for
this act of daring-do.
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-lou-lenart-20150722-story.html
2015: In Jerusalem, the OU Israel center is
scheduled to present a special lecture from Rabbi Herschel Schachter, the Rosh
Yeshiva at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS), Yeshiva
University.
2015: Archaeologist announced today that
“thanks to a high-tech solution, a charred parchment scroll discovered by the
shores of the Dead Sea bearing verses from the Book of Leviticus” has been
deciphered for the first time. (As reported by Ilan Ben Zion)
2016: At Temple Israel, in Memphis, TN, Rabbi
Feivel Strauss is scheduled to present “When Will We Find Peace?” in which he
explores “the 17th of Tammuz – Tzom Tammuz” as a part of the program
that “explores how observing the holidays enrich Jewish lives.”
2016: While working at “Freedom Square, the
makeshift booze and nosh area just outside the Quicken Loans Arena” in
Cleveland, 58 year old Joan Rosenthal described preparing platters of pierogis
for those attending the Republican Presidential Convention. (As reported by Ron
Kampeas)
2016: ZviDance, the Israeli dance troupe led by
choreographer Zvi Gotheiner is scheduled to perform at the Doris Duke Theatre.
2016: UK Jewish Film is scheduled to host the
final screening of “Labyrinth of Lies” a film “based on the investigations that
led to the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials” at the Cineworld in Manchester.
2016: Dr. Suzanne Schneider of the Brooklyn
Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to lead another session of “Primo
Levi: Memory, Meaning and the Holocaust” in which she examines the life of the
Italian chemist turned “witness to evil” whose writings provided new
perspective on the Holocaust.
2016: Eightieth anniversary of the birth of
Harvey David Luber, of blessed memory.
2017: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the
last two screenings of “Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York
Fixer.”
2017: “A Woman’s Life” and “The Pot and the
Oak” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
2017:”Sports attorney and former Washington
Senator’s broadcaster Philip Hochberg; Documentary Filmmaker Aviva
Kempner (The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg and an upcoming film
about Moe Berg); and author Frederic J. Frommer (You Gotta Have
Heart: A History of Washington Baseball from 1859 to the 2012 National League
East Champions) are scheduled to take part in “Fielding Dreams:
Washington’s Jewish Ballplayers.”
2017: After five days, the North American
Jewish Choral Festival sponsored by the Zamir Choral Foundation is scheduled to
come to an end today.
2017: Today “Britain’s National Archives
released records showing Winston Churchill’s attempts cover up a Nazi plot to
collaborate with the members of the British royal” who in this case was the
Duke of Windsor, the German’s candidate for the throne if they had been
successful. (As reported by Times of Israel)
2017: “Keep the Change,” “a documentary about a
community of adults living on the autism spectrum: is scheduled to be shown on
the opening night of The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival presented by the
Jewish Film Institute.
2018: World premiere of “Footprints” which
includes a presentation of work by “Dafi Altabeb, the recipient of the 2012,
2013, and 2016 Excellence Award for young choreographers from the Israeli
Ministry of Culture and the 2014 Rozenblum Award for Excellence from the
Municipality of Tel-Aviv…”
2018: In South Euclid, Ohio, the Mercury
Theatre Company is scheduled to host a production of “Joseph and the Amazing
Dreamcoat,” as part of the celebration of “its 50th anniversary.”
2019(17th of Tammuz, 5779): Parashat
Balak:
2019(17th of Tammuz, 5779): Tzom
Tammuz is postponed until tomorrow because of the rules concerning refraining
from observing minor fast days on Shabbat.
2019: In Edmonton, Jonathan Scheinman is
scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah at Beth Shalom Synagogue.
2019: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is
scheduled to host screenings of “Before You Know It” and “Golda.”
2020: “The first of a series of planned free seminars on cybersecurity is
scheduled to be held for the benefit of the Jewish community under the
direction of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans” today.
2020: The United
Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to host the “2020 Arthur and Rochelle
Belfer National Conference for Educators” which is a “virtual event.”
2020: As part of
its virtual July celebration webinars, the Streicker Center is scheduled to
host Adeena Sussan, “the Sababa Chef.”
https://www.emanuelnyc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sababa-all-recipes.pdf
2020: The Jewish
Museum of Maryland is scheduled to host a live digital program on “Preserving
Holocaust History through Artifacts, Archives and Research.”
2020: Online,
via Zoom, Dr. Shari Rabin, assistant professor of Religion and Jewish Studies
at Oberlin College, is scheduled to discuss Jewish immigration to the United
States around the turn of the 20th century and its ramifications on
contemporary American life
2020: Former
Camp Newman executive director Ruben Ruben Arquilevich (now V.P. of URJ Camps,
NFTY and Immersives) is scheduled to about how to recreate the magic of camp at
home to give kids meaningful experiences this summer as part of the Osher Marin
JCC Pivot series.
2020: The 11th
Annual Axelrod Jewish Film festival is scheduled to host a screening of “The
Crossing” the film that “tells the story of the adventurous 10-year-old Gerda
and her brother Otto, whose parents are in the Norwegian resistance movement
during the Second World War.”
2020: As
Israelis awake, they are confronted by the reality that according to the Health
Ministry, the number of Coved cases has surpassed 50,000 which has led the
Defense Minister to commit more IDF troops to help specified localities to cope
with the pandemic.
2021: East Bay Jewish film fest teams, Israeli Consulate and A
Wider Bridge are scheduled to present “The Signe for Love,” a 2017 Israeli
documentary about a deaf gay man raising a baby with his deaf friend.
2021: The Center
for Jewish History is scheduled to present a workshop “Creative Nonfiction
Writing for Genealogists.”
2021: Convicted
sex offender and former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was flown to Los Angeles and taken to the Twin
Towers Correctional Facility
2021: The United
States Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host Piecing Together One Family’s
Holocaust History Global Film Screening and Live Discussion.
2021: The
Williams Theatre is scheduled to present a performance of “Divorced.”
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/divorced-the-play-summer-tuesdays-in-williamsburg-tickets-158573450459
2021: The
Streicker Center is scheduled to present author Joshua Greene lecturing on
“From Nazi Prisoner to Wall Street King: The Indefatigable Siggi Wilzig.
2021: The Park
Avenue Synagogue in New York is scheduled to host a lecture by author Judy
Batalion.
2021: The
Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host a discussion of Mandela’s Way:
Lessons for an Uncertain Age as part of its One Museum, One Book Club program.
2022:LSJS is
scheduled to host a lecture by Rabbi Harvey Belovski on “Continuous
Revelation,” which is part of series “Why Rabbis Argue: The Genesis and Genius
of the Oral Law.”
2022: The Jewish
Heritage Museum of Monmouth County is scheduled to present kinescopes of the
sitcom “Stanley” followed by a discussion the Buddy Hackett sitcom led by Barry
Jacobsen.
2022: On
National Hot Dog, the Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host a talk by
Steve Marcus, the creator of its new exhibition “Steve Marcus: Tog Dog of
Kosher Pop Art.
2022 Boston
Jewish Film is scheduled to present a screening of “Carol of Bells” at the West
Newton Cinema.
2023: Lockdown
University is scheduled to host a lecture by Trudy Gold on “Edward VIII: A
Wasted Life?”
2023: The Summer
Institute “Teaching the Holocaust” sponsored by the Iowa Jewish Historical
Society is scheduled to continue today.
2023: Yeshiva
University Museum’s Director Gabriel Goldstein is scheduled lead “a guided tour
of The Golden Path: Maimonides Across Eight Centuries, illuminating the life
and impact of the multifaceted luminary and great Jewish sage across continents
and cultures through rare manuscripts and books.”
2023: In
Coralville, IA, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its next Seniors Chavurah.
2023: A
reception marking the New York premiere of Orit Ben Shitrit’s video
installations and paintings, curated by Maureen Sullivan is scheduled to take
place this evening.
2023: Hundreds
of anti-government protesters are scheduled to continue their march on
Jerusalem which they plan to reach tomorrow..
2023: The Museum
at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host an in-person book talk and signing with
Daniel Wolff, author of How to Become an American.
2024: Those on
the Poland 2024 tour are scheduled to attend “morning services with the local
community, followed by Kiddush and lunch and a walking tour of Kazimierz,
the heart of Jewish Krakow, and its extant synagogues and other site.
2024: In
Columbus, OH, as part of “No Tie July” Tifereth Israel is scheduled to host
Hawaiian Shirt Shabbat where congregants can “have a staycation” when they wear
their “favorite Hawaiian shirt to services..”
2024: Lockdown
University is scheduled to host lecture by Professor David Peimer on “Contemporary
Israeli TV: “Fauda” the Series.”
2024: The Eden
Tamir Center is schedule to host the “Season’s Final Concert” which will be “Ensemble
Millennium/Toscanini Quartet, Ensemble in Residence and Friends”
2024(14th of
Tammuz, 5784): Parashat Balak
For more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2024: As July 20th begins in Israel, an
unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism that has included Hamas supporters calling
for Zionist passengers on a New York subway to raise their hands, sweeps the
United States and the Hamas held hostages begin day 288 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.)
Leave a Reply