This Day, March 25, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
972: Sviatoslav
I who had conquered the Khazarian kingdom in 969 after which the Khazar Jewish population may have
assimilated or migrated in part passed away today.
1271: King Jaime (Kings James I of Aragon)
freed all the Jews in Murviedro, a city in Valencia of debts from Christians.
It should be noted this came after the Christians burned down a synagogue, and
then were forced to rebuild it themselves.
1303(7th of Nisan): Massacre of the Jews of
Weissensse, Germany
1488: Obadiah ben Abraham of Bertinoro “a
15th-century Italian rabbi best known for his popular commentary on the
Mishnah, commonly known as “The Bartenura” arrived in Jerusalem where
he rejuvenated the moribund Jewish community.
1510: Birthdate of Normandy native Guillaume
Postel the linguist, diplomat and Cabbalist who “became the first scholar to
recognize the inscriptions on Judean coins from the period of the Great Jewish
Revolt as Hebrew written in the ancient “Samaritan” character” and
who collected Latin translations of the Zohar, the Sefer Yetzirah, and the
Sefer ha-Bahir, the fundamental works of Jewish Kabbalah” as well as other
Cabbalistic texts, such as his own commentary on the Cabbalistic significance
of the Menorah, which he published in 1548 in Latin and subsequently in
Hebrew.”
1525: Three years after the fall of Rhodes, the
janissaries revolted against Suleymann, ransacking the palace of Ibrahim Pasha
and looting the Jewish Quarter of Constantinople.
1541: Birthdate of Francesco I de’ Medici,
Grand Duke of Tuscany whose son would turn Tuscany into a haven for Sephardic
Jews fleeing the Inquisition.
1584: “Queen Elizabeth I granted Sir Walter
Raleigh a charter for the colonization of an area in North America” that would
lead him to recruit Joachim Gans to join the expedition which make Gans “the
first recorded Jew in Colonial America.”
1597(6th of Nisan, 5357): Rabbi
Samuel Judah Katzenellenbogen, known as “Samuel Judah of Padua, the son of
Rabbi Meir ben Isaac Katzenellenbogen and the father of Saul Wahl passed away
today.
1601(21st of Adar II, 5361): Doña
Mariana was tried and put to death at an auto-da-fé held in Mexico City today.
She was one of the two surviving daughters of Doña Francisca, who had been put
to death earlier. The entire family had been found guilty of the same crime –
relapsing from Catholicism to Judaism. Only the youngest daughter would escape
death.
1601: More than 100 people appeared in the
sanbenito at the auto de fe in Mexico today.
1735: For the year beginning today, Jews
accounted for 13 of the entries in the journal recording maritime trade for the
port of New York.
1737: In New York City, Hanna Mears and Abraham
Isaacks gave birth to Moses Isaacks, the husband of Rachel Mears with whom he had
fourteen children.
1748: “For the quarter beginning today there
were seven Jewish entries”. “Jacob Rivera had three entries and Mordecai Gomez,
Jacob Franks, Samuel Naphtali and Abraham Hart had one each.”
1758(15th of Adar II, 5518):
Parashat Tzav; Shushan Purim
1762: In Philadelphia, PA, Prague native
Mathias Bush and Tabitha Bush gave birth to David F. Bush.
1766(15th of Nisan 5526): Pesach
1769(16th of Adar II, 5529):
Parashat Tzav
1769: Birthdate of Wurttemberg native Levi
Abrahams, the husband of Roseanna Linderman and father of Hester and Maria
Abrahams, both of whom were born in Philadelphia.
1790: In North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Madel-Mathilda Cohen, the “daughter of Isaac Jacob Gans and Pesse Pauline Leah
Gans” and her husband Abraham Herz Cohen gave birth to Philip Abraham
Feibusch-Cohen
1795: Birthdate of Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, a
German born Orthodox Rabbi who supported the Zionist ideal before it officially
became a movement.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/zevi-hirsch-kalischer
1796(15th of Adar II, 5556): Shushan
Purim
1798: In Baltimore, MD, Philadelphia native Frances
Gratz and Reuben Etting gave birth to Benjamin Etting, the husband of Harriet
Marx whom he married in 1830 at Richmond, VA and with whom he had six children.
1801: In Padua, Baruch Hayyim Almanzi, a
wealthy merchant and his wife gave birth to Joseph Almanzi “an Italian Jewish
bibliophile and poet.”
1807(15th of Adar II, 5567): Shushan Purim on
the same day that in the United Kingdom, the Slave Trade Act received Royal
Assent.
1809: In Groningen, Holland, Elizabeth Speyer
and Benjamin Moses Van Praagh gave birth to Morris, Van Praagh, the husband
Sarah Boam the father of Rebecca and Lawrence Van Praagh and the President of
The Hambro Synagogue.
1810(19th of Adar II, 5570): Jochem
(Jochanan) David de Mets-Maarsen who had been born in Amsterdam in 1728 and
married Marianne Abraham passed away today in the Netherlands.
1817: Tsar Alexander I recommended formation of
Society of Israeli Christians, whose primary function was to convert Jews to
Christianity. It failed.
1822: In Stockholm, Beata Levin and Salomon
Josephson gave birth August Abraham Josephson, the husband of Augusta Hortensia
Jacobbson with whom he had three children and who may be have been a relative
of the painter Ernst Josephson.
1828: Shaare Chesed, which was re-named Touro
Synagogue, the first congregation formed in New Orleans was incorporated today.
1829: In York Place Queens Elm, Sophia and
Nathaniel Levy gave birth to Maria Levy.
1830(1st of Nisan, 5590): Rosh
Chodesh Nisan
1830(1st of Nisan, 5590): On the
Jewish Calendar, Yahrzeit of Rabbi Saul Shiskes of Vilna
1831: “The Colonial Act of William IV which
passed the Legislature “today” removed any restraint or disabilities under
which persons professing the Hebrew religion” in Barbados “then labored and
subjected them like other persons to fines and penalties for the
non-performance of duties.
1835: In London, Esther and John Nathan gave
birth to Samuel Nathan
1835: Birthdate of Amsterdam native Phoebe
Neuburger, the wife of Levy Duis.
1838: In Albany founding of Congregation
Beth-El which in 1885 joined with Anshe Emeth to form Congregation Beth Emth
whose members included Julius Laventall, Henry W. Lipman and Isaac Brilleman.
1838: In Jamaica, Hannah and Isaac Kursheedt
gave birth to Edwin Israel Kursheedt
1839: Birthdate of Solomon Hirsch, “one of the
early leaders of Portland, Oregon’s Jewish Community who “with Jacob Mayer and
Louis Fleischner, Hirsch was one of the founders of Fleischner, Mayer and Co.,
the largest wholesale dry goods company on the West Coast” and the “Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Ottoman Empire from
1889–1892”
1840: During the Damascus Affair, Adophe
Cremieux, vice president of the Central Consistorie of French Israelites, hears
the appeals Jews from the Syrian community seeking relief for the Jews who have
wrongly been imprisoned. A future member of the Chamber of Deputies, this
Sephardic lawyer, takes up the cause of his co-religionists enlisting the
support of no less than Adolphe Thiers, the French Prime Minister.
1841: Louis Lowe who had been praised by the
Board of Jewish Deputies “for his efficient assistance to Sir Moses Montefiore
“was presented to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria” today.
1842(14th of Nisan, 5602): Ta’anit
Bechorot; Erev Pesach
1843(23rd of Adar II, 5603):
Parashat Shimini; Shabbat Parah observed as the Great Comet begins to move away
from the earth.
1844: In Mannheim, Grandy Duchy of Baden, Jacob
Abraham Cohen and his second wife Friederike Ettlinger gave birth to Ferdinand
Cohen-Blind, the brother of Mathilde Blind who committed suicide after his
failed attempt to assassinate Otto Von Bismark.
https://academicinfluence.com/people/ferdinand-cohenblind
1845(16th of Adar II, 5606):
Fifty-seven year old Isaac Russell, the son of Philip and Esther Russell and
the husband of Perla Sheftall Russell passed away today after which he was
interred in the Mordecai Sheftall Museum in Savannah, GA.
1846: Sir Walter Charles James, 1st Baron
Northbourne and “Sarah Caroline, the daughter of Cuthbert Ellison” gave birth
to Walter James, 2nd Baron Northbourne the Liberal political leader who in 1906
called on the British government to make public “any consular or other reports
concerning the anti-Jewish outrages in Russia” because “he thought the
publication of any such reports might indirectly have some effect in inducing
the Russian Government to do its best to remedy conditions that outraged the
civilization of the twentieth century.” (Editor’s note – I have not been able
to find a reason why this member of the British aristocracy spoke out on behalf
of the Jews during the Pogroms in Russia.)
1848: In Germany Marx Mordechai Pfaelzer and
Karoline/Gitel Pfaelzer gave birth to Morris Moses Pfaelzer, the Philadelphia
jeweler who married Sophie Pfaelzer with whom he had two children – Frank
Pfaelzer and Henrietta Stern
1852: In Russia, Elias Rogoff and his wife gave
birth to Odessa and Konigsberg trained cantor Moses Rogoff the cantor at
Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Detorit.
1860: Austrian banker Jonas Freiherr von
Königswarter was knighted today.
1861(14th of Nisan, 5621): As the
storm clouds of secession roll across America, Jews on both sides of the
Mason-Dixon line sit down to the Seder tonight on the first night of Pesach.
1861: Thirty-one-year-old Henry Straus, a
native of Alsace living in Jackson, MS enlisted in the Confederate Army today.
1863: Barcuh Castello married Sophia Woolf
today.
1863: In Louisville, KY, “Moritz (Morris)
Flexner, an immigrant from Neumark, Bohemia, via several years in Strasbourg,
France; and his wife Esther from Roden, Germany” gave birth to Simon Flexner a
fighter against all diseases. He probed and pushed to find the causes and cures
for human ailments. As a result of his work, he became the director of the
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. His brother Bernard became a famous
lawyer and an ardent Zionist. Another brother, Abraham, was the first director
at the Institute for the Advanced Study at Princeton. Simon went to the University
of Louisville to study medicine, and received his M.D. in 1889. Finding that
the laboratories at the school had very few supplies, he acquired a microscope
and taught himself how to use it. He then went to Johns Hopkins Hospital in
Baltimore to study pathology. He soon began to publish papers on pathology and
in 1892. He became an associate in pathology in the newly opened Johns Hopkins
Medical School. He became involved with many epidemics, including one of
cerebrospinal meningitis in western Maryland in 1893. In 1899, he was in Manila
where he found the strain of dysentery bacillus that became known as the
Flexner type. In 1901, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research was
created and he was chosen to be one of seven members on the board of scientific
directors. He was asked to organize and direct the laboratories on medical
research. This concept of research was new to America and it was financially
secure through the Rockefellers’ endorsements. In 1905, New York City was hit
with a severe epidemic of cerebrospinal meningitis, which Flexner had
encountered 12 years before. He experimented with monkeys until he found a
serum to conquer the disease. In 1907, he found himself trying to fight an
epidemic of poliomyelitis which had spread through the eastern states. He was
able to isolate the infectious agent but he couldn’t find a cure, since the
disease was caused by a filterable virus rather than a bacterial organism. His
discovery laid the basis for others to find polio vaccines some 40 Years later.
Simon was the only editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine for 19 years.
During this time he wrote many articles on public health, research and
education. In World War I, he was commissioned a lieutenant colonel in the Army
Medical Corps and went to Europe to inspect and establish the medical
facilities of the expeditionary forces. After the war, his role in the
Rockefeller Institute became greater, and now included involvement in the
animal pathology department at Princeton. Flexner was active in many
organizations and became an officer of quite a few. He retired from the
Rockefeller Institute in 1935 and a year after was appointed an Eastman
Professor at Oxford University. He died in 1946, leaving behind a legacy in the
field of pathology.
1864: The
Jewish Chronicle published the following description of the death
of famed musician Isaac Nathan who had died in January of that year. Mr. Nathan
was a passenger by No. 2 tramway car […] [he] alighted from the car at the
southern end, but before he got clear of the rails the car moved onwards […] he
was thus whirled round by the sudden motion of the carriage and his body was
brought under the front wheel. “The horse-drawn tram was the first in Sydney:
Nathan was Australia’s (indeed the southern hemisphere’s) first tram fatality.”
1865: Captain Leopold Meyer of Philadelphia,
completed his three year enlistment as a member of Company C of the 113th
Regiment – Twelfth Cavalry.
1866: Two days after she had passed away, the
former Rebecca Arrobas, the wife of David Hyams and the mother of Rachel and
Abrahm Hyams was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery.
1867: In Saxe-Weimar, Germany, Nathan Riesman
and Sophie Eisman gave birth University of Michigan and University of
Pennsylvania educated doctor David Riesman, the professor of Clinical Medicine
at the Philadelphia Polyclinic and College for Graduates in Medicine and
visiting physician at the Philadelphia General Hospital and Jewish Hospital who
edited the American Text-Book of Pathology and was the father of sociologist
David Riesman, the author of the best-selling The Lonely Crowd.
1869(13th of Nisan, 5629):Ta’anit Bechorot
1869: “The Jewish Passover” published today
reported that “tomorrow evening at sundown the feast of the Passover will be
commenced by Israelites everywhere, in commemoration of their ancestors having
remained intact on the night when all of their oppressors, the Egyptians, were
smitten by the angel of death.
1869: The
New York Times reports that “To-morrow evening at sundown, the
feast of the Passover will be commenced by Israelites everywhere, in
commemoration of their ancestors having remained intact, on the night when all
the first-born in the families of their oppressors. the Egyptians, were smitten
by the angel of death. The feat will continue eight days, during which but
unleavened bread will be eaten…On the first and second evenings various
commemorative rites will be indulged in in every household including the
recital of Scriptural and legendary narratives, and familiar conversations on
the subject of the deliverance. Appropriate psalms will also be chanted.”
1870: It was reported today that the ladies of
the B’nai Jeshrun Benevolent Society in New York have established an Industrial
Home for impoverished Jewish Women.
1870: In Bohemia, Joachim and Barbara
(Eisenschimmel) Sabath, gave birth to Judge Joseph Sabath, who in 1885 came to
the United States where he studied law in Chicago with his brother Congressman
Adolph J. Sabath and lived with his wife
Regina Mayer.Sabath.
1871: In the Suwałki Governorate of Congress
Poland, a part of the Russian Empire Duvvid Schubart and Katrina Helwitzin gave
birth to Levi Schubart who gained fame as
Lee Shubert, the “American theatre owner/operator and producer and the
eldest of seven siblings of the theatrical Shubert family.”
http://www.shubertfoundation.org/about/brothers.asp
1872(15th of Adar II, 5632): Shushan Purim
1872: Today, “the Royal Navy launched it first
armour-cased iron vessel, the ironclad H.M.S. Thunder” which had “been built by
Samuda Brothers, Jewish marine engineers and ship builders.” MG 108
1873: Birthdate of agronomist Selig Suskin, a
native of the Crimea who was one of the founder of Be’er Tuvia, and a delegate
to the Sixth Zionist Congress.
1874(7th of Nisan, 5634): Leading
Hungarian tobacco merchant Simon Wolf Schossberger De Torna, “who in 1862
became the first Hungarian Jews elevated to the nobility by Emperor Francis
Joseph I” and whose son “Sigmund von Schossberger was the first Jew to be
created a Baron in Hungary” passed away today.
1874: Birthdate of Russian born American
chazzan Zevulun “Zavel” Kwartin
1875: La Périchole, “an opéra bouffe in
three acts by Jacques Offenbach” was part of a triple bill that opened today at
the Royalty Theatre in London.
1875: In Aldershot, Portsmouth
native Julia Phillips and Russian born Mayer Woolfson gave birth toe Lionel
Woolfson.
1877: In Alpena, Michigan, the Hebrew
Benevolent Society met today and decided that their meeting room would “be used
for holding ‘prayer meeting on the following Holy Days despite the fact that a
dispute had broken out over a “divergence” between Orthodox and Reform beliefs.
1877: Birthdate of Milton Moses Portis, the
native of Riceville, Canada who came to the U.S. in 1880 where he earned a B.S.
from the University of Chicago and an M.D. from Rush Medical College.
https://ihm.nlm.nih.gov/luna/servlet/detail/NLMNLM~1~1~101439778~192222:-Milton-M–Portis-
1878: Birthdate of Samuel Goldstein, the native
of Odessa who gained fame as Sidney M. Goldin “an American Jewish silent film
director as well as a prominent writer, actor and producer for Yiddish theater
during the early 20th century” who worked with such luminaries as “Molly Picon,
Maurice Schwartz and Ludwig Satz.”
1878: Rabbi Abram Isaacs is scheduled to
deliver a lecture tonight on “A Hero of the Synagogue” at the 34th Street
Synagogue in New York City.
1879(1st of Nisan, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Nisan
1880: In an article explaining the origins of
Easter Eggs, the New York Times reports that “the old Jews introduced eggs at
the feast of Passover…”
1880(13th of Nisan, 5640):
Fifty-nine-year-old Ludmilla Assing German-born Italian author, the daughter of
Dr. David Assing and Rose Marria Assing passed away today in Florence.
1880: Miss Emita Wolf and Mr. Lewis May were
married this evening at the home of Mr. Charles Wolf, the prominent New York
banker who is the brother of the bride. The groom is President of Temple
Emanu-El and “the head of a large banking house at No. 33 Broad Street in New
York City.
1881: Among the winners of the Grave Prize
Essays at Williams College was Austin B. Bassett of Albany, NY who wrote on
“Ancient and Modern Jew.”
1881: Rabbi Nahum Levison of Safed and his wife
gave birth to Sir Leon Levison, a convert who became the “first president of
the International Hebrew Christian Alliance,” founded “the Russian Jews Relief
Fund” and the “Palestine Jews Relief Fund” and married Kate Barnes, the
daughter of John Barnes, with whom he had four children and made his home in
Edinburgh.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1936/11/26/85439276.pdf
1882: A fire broke out at nine o’clock tonight
at a tenement house located at 159 Attorney Street in New York destroying a
supply of Matzah which a baker named Louis Schoenthal had stored on the
building’s first floor. Schoenthal claims that the Matzah which he had prepared
for the upcoming holiday of Passover was worth $6,000. Fortunately, he has
insurance which should cover the loss.
1883(16th of Adar II, 5643): Shushan Purim
observed since the 15th of Adar fell on Shabbat.
1883(16th of Adar II): Rabbi Simeon Sofer of
Galicia, founder of Mahazikei ha-Dat
passed away
1884: In New York City, Moses and Amelia
Ottinger gave birth to Lawrence Ottinger, the founder of the United States
Plywood Corporation, the brother of realtor Leon Ottinger, State Supreme Court
Justice Nathan Ottinger and New York State Attorney General Albert Ottinger,
and husband of “former Louise Lowenstein” with whom he had two children,
Richard and Patricia Ottinger.
1886: University of California trained engineer
and George Washington University trained attorney Morris Bien, the New York
City born son of Theresa Leipold and Joseph Bien and future resident of Takoma
Park, married Lilla Virginia Hart today.
1887: In Lithuania, Rosa Feinberg gave birth
University of Pennsylvania graduate and Yeshiva Mishkan Yistrole trained Rabbi
Louis Finberg, the spiritual leader of the “Adath Israel Congregation” and
husband of Rosa Rauneker Feinberg with whom he raised two daughters and one
son, Mordecai Feinberg.
1888: In New York, Mrs. Mary Isaacs, the mother
of six, was the first of over eight hundred poor Jews who received meat orders
courtesy of funds raised by Mrs. M. Rosendorff. This was part of an annual
project to provide food for the city’s poor Jews so that they can celebrate
Passover.
1888: Birthdate of New York City native and WW
I Jacob Julian Aper, the Columbia trained dentist.
1890: Zadoc Kahn was inducted as Chief Rabbi of
France, a position to which he had been elected in 1899 following the death of
Chief Rabbi Isidor. Kahn “then entered upon a period of many-sided
philanthropic activity. He organized the relief movement in behalf of the Jews
expelled from Russia, and gave much of his time to the work of the Alliance
Israélite Universelle, which elected him honorary president in recognition of
his services. He aided in establishing many private charitable institutions,
including the Refuge du Plessis-Piquet, near Paris, an agricultural school for
abandoned children, and the Maison de Retraite at Neuilly-sur-Seine, for young
girls. He was appointed Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1879 and Officer in
1901. He was also Officer of Public Instruction. He was one of the founders,
the first vice-president, and, soon after, president, of the Société des Études
Juives (1879). He was considered a brilliant orator, and one of his most
noteworthy addresses was delivered on the centenary of the French Revolution —
“La Révolution Française et le Judaïsme”.
1891: T. H. French and Frank Daniels have
purchased tickets so that all of the children attending the Industrial School
supported by the United Hebrew Charities can attend this afternoon’s
performance of “Little Puck” at the Grand Opera House. (Frank Daniels was a
stage actor who would pursue a film career in the early days of cinema. He was not Jewish – just generous)
1891: In the Court of Common Pleas, Joseph
Abrahamson, a wealthy young Jew, changed his his name to Joseph Abraham Edison.
1892: Two days after she had passed away, the
former Cecilia Samuels, the wife of Phillip Joseph Salomons with whom she had
had five children before marrying Sir David Salomons, MP was buried today at
the Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.
1893: “Russian Hatred of Jews” published today
described yet another manifestation of anti-Semitism in the Czar’s Empire where
“grain speculators and merchants” are forming “a new produce exchange from which
Jews will be excluded.”
1894: As the United States copes with an
economic depression, the Finance Committee of the 6-15-99 Club, a businessmen’s
funded relief organization allocated $1,600 to various charities including $100
to the United Hebrew Charities.
1894: In San Francisco, Isadore and Jennie
Baruh Zellerbach gave birth Harold Lionel Zellerbach, the graduate of the
University of Pennsylvania, who was a senior executive with the Crown
Zellerbach Corporation, patron of the arts and husband of “the former Doris
Joseph a daughter, Mrs. Stephen N. Loew Jr.” with whom he had two sons, Stephen
and William.
1895: In Lithuania, Bessie and Rabbi Ber
Boruchoff gave birth Boston University
trained attorney Raphael Phillip Boruchoff, the husband of Celia H. Boruchoff who
1905 came to Malden, MA where he was a member of the City Council and President
of the YMHA.
1895: In Austria, Israel and Chaie Sarah
Ashkenas gave birth to future Cleveland resident Bertha (Ashkenas) Feierman the
husband of Samuel Feierman with whom she had two daughers, Frances and Lois.
1896(14th of Adar, II, 5746): Purim
1896: The Monte Relief Society which was
started by former opera star Sofia Nueberger who is now known as Sofia Monte
Loebinger and 16 women in 1893 now has 350 members. Mrs. Monte-Loebinger
continues to serve as President. Other
officers including Louise Simon – Vice President; Mollie Teschner Recording Secretary; Emma Marx – Financial
Secretary; Carrie Heyman – Treasurer.
1898: “Vaudeville for Poor Children” published
today described a vaudeville show performed by members of the Ladies’ Auxiliary
of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society for the benefit youngsters under the
care of the society and the Montefiore Home.
1899(14th of Nisan, 5659): Parashat
Tzav; Erev Peach
1899 (14th of Nisan, 5659): This evening, as
Jews begin the observance of Pesach, services are held at New York’s Temple
Emanu-El conducted by Rabbi Joseph Silverman and Dr. Gustav Gottheil with Mr.
Sparger serving as Cantor.
1899: “The Hebrew Passover At Hand” published
today described the observance of the holiday that “s the anniversary of the
going of the Children of Israel out of Egypt and their freedom from bondage
under Pharaoh.” “During the feast no leaven is eaten” but “with the more
radical Jews the feast is not now closely observed and the unleavened bread is
not eaten, but a quantity is kept at the table…”
1900: Today Rabbi Henry S. Morais of Newport
offered the opening prayer at the “seventh biennial convention of the Jewish
Theological Seminary Association” which “was held at the Baron de Hirsch School
under the leadership of its President, former Assemblyman Joseph Blumentha.
1901: Birthdate of British anthropologist
Camillia Wedgwood, the daughter of Josiah Wegwood, the British leader who spoke
out against appeasement and supported the settlement of Jews in Palestine in
opposition to the White Paper. “From
1937 she was secretary of the German Emergency Fellowship Committee, which
included Max Lemberg and Sydney Morris. She pleaded the cause of Jewish and
non-Aryan Christian victims of Nazi persecution before (Sir) John McEwen,
minister for the interior. In close contact with her father, she raised money
for refugee passages to Australia, but confided to her sister Helen that she
felt like ‘a mouse nibbling at a mountain’. She publicly protested against the
treatment of the internees in the Dunera and the refugees in the Strouma which
sank in the Black Sea.” (As reported by David Wetherell)
1902: Herzl is informed that the Sultan studied
his plan. Herzl is asked what plans he has for the regulation of the Turkish
debts under more favorable conditions than those submitted by the French.
1903: Herzl met Lord Cromer and Boutros Ghali
in Cairo.
1903: In London, “Rosa Enoyce and George
Barnes” gave birth to Gertrude Maud Barnes, the actress known as “Binnie
Barnes.)
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/30/arts/binnie-barnes-95-actress-known-for-her-feisty-roles.html
1903: The Zionist Commission led by Leopold
Kessler and including Selig Soskin, Dr. Hillel Yaffe, and Colonel Albert
Goldsmid returned to Suez.
1903: The Jewish quarter of Port Said, Egypt
was invaded and looted by Arabs in consequence of an earlier ritual murder
charge that took place on September 17, 1902.
1904: Anatole Leroy Beaulieu visited Hebrew
Union College.
1905: University of Pittsburgh trained medical
doctor Luba Robin Goldsmith, the Ukrainian born daughter of Beatrice Malamud
and Nathaniel Goldsmith married Dr. Milton Goldsmith today.
1905: The
New York Times reviews “Volume 9,” the newest volume of The Jewish
Encyclopedia to be published. Eventually there will be a total of 12 volumes.
“Volume Nine” opens “with a record of the Marawezyk family of Polish scholars
that flourished during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and closes with
the Philippson family, a family of German authors and scientists, who rose to
fame in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.”
1906: “Dr. Paul Nathan’s View of Russian
Massacre” published today
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A00E7DE113EE733A25756C2A9659C946797D6CF
1906: In Pleschen, Ruschka and Alfred Pinczower
gave birth Dr. Kurt Pine, the refugee from Hitler’s German who earned an M.A.
and Ph.D from Yale while developing into a noted social worker and raising a
family with his wife Bessie Miriam Pine.
1907: The East Side Business Men’s Protective
Business Association continued their annual distribution Matzoth and Matzah
flour to the poor Jews
1908: It was reported today that Ethel Levy
will begin to appear at Keith Proctor’s vaudeville next month.
1909: “The Majesty of Birth, “a comedy…under
the direction of Cohan and Harris” which “deals with the intermarriage of Jews
and Gentiles” opened today in Trenton, NJ. (Harris was Jewish, Cohan was not)
1910(14th of Adar II, 5670): Purim
1910: Birthdate of Benzion Mileikowsky, the
native of Warsaw who gained fame as Benzion Netanyahu, a leading Jewish
historian whose son Benjamin became Prime Minister of Israel. (As reported by
Douglas Martin)
1910: Birthdate of “the deaf Jewish artist,
David Ludwig Bloch who was one of the
10,911 Jewish men interned at the Dachau Concentration Camp after
“Kristallnacht”, or the Night of Broken Glass, in November, 1938” and
who after his release was able to emigrate to China.
https://www.lbi.org/exhibitions/art-exile/david-ludwig-bloch
1911: Birthdate of Jack Ruby, the man who
killed Lee Harvey Oswald.
1911: The discovery of the mutilated body of
Andrei Yishinsky, near Kiev, Russia, led to the infamous trial of Mendel Beilis
on ritual-murder charges
1911(25th of Adar, 5671): In New
York City, 146 garment workers died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire in
a time when there were no effective pesky regulations regarding the health,
welfare and safety of workers. Many of
the victims were young immigrant Jewish girls working in the sweatshop
environment of the garment industry. The first helped spur the formation of the
International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Approximately 500 workers were
sewing shirtwaists in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company’s sweatshop near
Washington Square in Manhattan when a fire broke out. The building lacked
adequate fire escapes, firefighting equipment was unable to reach the top
floors, and — most tragically — exit doors had been locked to prevent
unauthorized breaks. Some women, unable to reach an exit, jumped from ninth-
and tenth-floor windows in a vain effort to save themselves. The fire did its
work within twenty minutes. In the end, 146 died and many more were injured.
Most of the dead were recent immigrant Jewish and Italian women between the
ages of sixteen and twenty-three. Just two years before, the Jewish owners of
the Triangle Shirtwaist Company had been among the targets of the strike known
as the uprising of the 20,000, which had sought union recognition through the
International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). Though the strike had
forced some firms to settle with their workers, Triangle had fired union
members there and remained an anti-union shop. In the wake of the fire, the
Jewish community and leading women in the labor movement sprang into action.
The Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL), a cross-class coalition that worked as
an ally of the ILGWU, organized a public meeting at the Metropolitan Opera
House on April 2. There, Rose Schneiderman, the leader of the 1909 strike,
called upon all working people to take action. Three days later, 500,000 people
turned out for the funerals of seven unidentified victims of the fire. Under
pressure from the ILGWU, the WTUL, and others, New York State established a
Committee on Safety in the wake of the fire. In addition, the state legislature
set up a Factory Investigating Committee, which drafted new legislation
designed to protect workers. Their recommendations included automatic sprinkler
systems and occupancy limits tied to the dimensions of exit staircases.
Thirty-six labor and safety laws were passed in the three years after the fire,
thanks to the agitation of working people.
Even as these regulations went into effect, the
site of the Triangle fire remained a rallying point for labor organizing. Some
survivors, galvanized by their experience, went on to lifetimes of labor
activism. Frances Perkins, who witnessed the fire, later became Secretary of
Labor under Franklin Roosevelt. She said that the Triangle Fire was what
motivated her to devote her career to helping workers. The last survivor of the
fire, Rose Rosenfeld Freedman, died in 2001 at age 107.
1911: Louis Waldman was a shocked member of the
crowd on the street that witnessed the catastrophic Triangle Waist Company fire
of 1911, an event which clearly always remained with him and served as one of
the landmarks of his life. Waldman described the grim scene in his 1944
memoirs:
“One Saturday afternoon in March of that
year — March 25, to be precise — I was sitting at one of the reading tables in
the old Astor Library… It was a raw, unpleasant day and the comfortable
reading room seemed a delightful place to spend the remaining few hours until
the library closed. I was deeply engrossed in my book when I became aware of
fire engines racing past the building. By this time I was sufficiently
Americanized to be fascinated by the sound of fire engines. Along with several
others in the library, I ran out to see what was happening, and followed crowds
of people to the scene of the fire.
“A few blocks away, the Asch Building at
the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street was ablaze. When we arrived at
the scene, the police had thrown up a cordon around the area and the firemen
were helplessly fighting the blaze. The eighth, ninth, and tenth stories of the
building were now an enormous roaring cornice of flames.”Word had spread
through the East Side, by some magic of terror, that the plant of the Triangle
Waist Company was on fire and that several hundred workers were trapped.
Horrified and helpless, the crowds — I among them — looked up at the burning
building, saw girl after girl appear at the reddened windows, pause for a
terrified moment, and then leap to the pavement below, to land as mangled,
bloody pulp. This went on for what seemed a ghastly eternity. Occasionally a
girl who had hesitated too long was licked by pursuing flames and, screaming
with clothing and hair ablaze, plunged like a living torch to the street. Life
nets held by the firemen were torn by the impact of the falling bodies.
“The emotions of the crowd were indescribable.
Women were hysterical, scores fainted; men wept as, in paroxysms of frenzy,
they hurled themselves against the police lines.”
1911(25th of Adar, 5671):
Seventeen-year-old Tillie Kuperschmidt died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
Fire. Along with many others, her tombstone is still standing at the Hebrew
Free Burial Association’s Mount Richmond Cemetery.
1912: Birthdate of Louis Pollock, the husband
of Marian Pollock, who passed away at the age of 90, just a month after his
wife had passed away.
1912: Thirty-one-year-old Benjamin Berenson,
the Russian born son of Charles and Dorothy Berenson Shapiro who in 1899
arrived in New York City where he went from being a carpenter, to being a
general contractor to being a bank vice president while joining serving as
board member for the Shield of Abraham, the Beth Abraham Home for Incurables
and the Montefiore Hospital married Frances Shapiro today. Shapiro who in 1899
arrived in New York City where he went from being a carpenter, to being a
general contractor to being a bank vice president while joining serving as
board member for the Shield of Abraham, the Beth Abraham Home for Incurables
and the Montefiore Hospital
1913: It was reported today, that starting on
March 27, Young Israel will begin hosting “a series of lectures illustrated by
stereopticon views, showing the condition of Jews in various countries in the
world.”
1914: Sixty-seven-year-old Theodore Samson
Samuel, the London born son of Isaac Samuel and Fanny Heilbronner was buried
today at the “Pere Lachaise Cemetery” in Paris.
1915: Professor H.L. Sabsovich, the General
Agent of the Baron De Hirsch Fund and the First Mayor of the Jewish Colony at
Woodbine, is scheduled to be buried today at Woodbine, NJ.
1915: In Camden, NJ, Rabbis Brenner and Friedman
of Philadelphia, PA officiated at the dedication of a new synagogue at 419 Arch
Street. The officers of this reform
congregation included Barnard Levin, President; Jacob Tarter, Vice President;
Louis Levin, Secretary and Max Greenberg, Treasurer.
1915: As The Great War rages across Europe,
Albert Einstein wrote from Berlin to the French writer and pacifist, Romain
Rolland “When posterity recounts the achievements of Europe, shall we let men
say that three centuries of painstaking cultural effort carried us no farther
than from religious fanaticism to the insanity of nationalism? In both camps
today even scholars behave as though eight months ago they suddenly lost their
heads.”
1915: As the Gallipoli Campaign gave rise to
all kinds of flights of political fancy, “The British Colonial Secretary, Lewis
Harcourt, sent the members of the War Council a memorandum headed ‘The Spoils’
in which he suggested that, on the defeat of Turkey, Britain…should offer the
Holy Places (in Palestine) as mandate to the United States” (How different
History might have been had the United States been an active participant in the
settling of the Jewish homeland immediately after WW I.)
1915: The largest segment of the civilian
population of Prezemysl which has just been occupied by the Russians was
composed of a few thousand Jews who had remained after the general evacuation
of the town last October.
1915: It was reported today that Europeans,
Ottomans and the Jews are fleeing the Turkish capital because of fear of the
Russians
1915: After two and half years, “Mortche”
Goldberg is scheduled to be arraigned today in General Sessions where he will
face an indictment charging that he, along with his wife Rosie Goldberg, Louis
Barusch and Gussie Cohen were the officials of the Vice Trust which maintained
forty “resorts” in New York City which divided nearly $1,250,000 a year in
profits and $400,000 yearly for protection to the police.
1915: “Judge Leonard S. Roan of the Court of
Appeals of Georgia who sentenced Leo Frank to death in 1913 is scheduled to be
buried at the Fairburn Cemetery in Fairburn, GA.
1916: A bazaar organized by the People’s Relief
Committee to raised fund for Jews suffering in the war zones is scheduled to
begin today at the Grand Central Palace where attendees will have a chance to
purchase items valued at more than $100,000.
1916: A preliminary conference where plans for
the proposed Jewish Congress will be discussed is scheduled to begin today in
Philadelphia.
1917: “Editors and publishers of Jewish daily
newspapers” published in New York City “met at the Summer home of Samuel
Untermyer at Greystone, on the Hudson, this afternoon “and organized the Jewish
League of American Patriots.
1917: In Philadelphia at the 29th
annual meeting of the Jewish Publication Society, President Simon Miller,
officially announced the “publication of a new Jewish Bible” which will appear
in two editions – “a popular edition designed for congregations and Sabbath
schools and an India paper edition, interleaved with blank pages for the use of
scholars and students.”
1917: Today, the formal pledge of loyalty
adopted by the Mayor’s Committee was sent to the membership of The Independent
Order of Israel so it can be recited at “a patriotic mass meeting which will be
held at the Floral Garden so “that the Jews of Greater New York may give joint
public expression of their loyalty and devotion to the flag.”
1917: The Central Committee for the Relief of
Jews Suffering Through the War of which Harry Fischel is the Treasurer received
contributions from committees in Cincinnati ($400), Meridian, Mississippi
(391), Salt Lake City ($101) and San Francisco ($1,500).
1917: A review of The Chosen People by Sidney
L. Nyburg was published today.
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t0tq5rk8z;view=1up;seq=7
1917: Today “a cpmferemce was held in the rooms
of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association” “for the purpose of securing for
Richmond proper representation in the congress to be held in Washing which will
consider how the religions and political rights of the Jews in the warring
nations of Europe can be best procured” which marked the first that delegates
“from all three congregations” in Richmond, VA, participated in the same
meeting.
1918: Lucien Millevoye the French right-wing
anti-Semitic politician who delivered numerous public attacks on Dreyfus during
the 1890’s passed away today in Paris.
1918: It was reported today “that the
unleavened bread obtained for the Jewish soldiers here during the Passover
season cannot be used because” it was “handled by those of another faith” so
“it will be made into pudding” while the Quartermaster Department will be the
expense of obtaining a new supply.
1918: In Winston-Salem, NC, Isidore Cohen and
Nellie Rosenthal Cohen gave birth to Howard Cosell, a Brooklyn trained lawyer
who gained fame as a sportscaster and was part of the trio of on-air talent
that made Monday Night Football a national event. As to being Jewish, Cosell
once said he remembered “going to school in the morning, a Jewish boy. I
remember having to climb a back fence and run because the kids from St. Theresa’s
parish were after me. My drive, in a sense, relates to being Jewish and living
in an age of Hitler. I think these things create insecurities in you that live
forever, and your desire to offset them is a drive to accumulate economic
security.”
1919: The Committee of Jewish Delegations is
formed during the Peace Conference at Versailles
1919: Grigori Yakovlevich Sokolnikov completed
his second term as a full member of the Politburo
1920(6th of Nisan, 5680):
Seventy-year-old Mathilda Ochs, the Mount Washington, KY born daughter of
Agatha Schwab and Maier Ochs and the wife of Louis Tachu whom she married I
Louisville, KY in 1871 passed away today.
1920: It was reported today that the State
Department has authorized the Joint Distribution Committee for Jewish Relief in
New York City to serve as a recipient for private funds for transmission to
Jews in Poland which can be transmitted at no cost to the sender.
1921(15th of Adar II, 5681): Shushan
Purim
1921: Arab demonstrations begin in Haifa
protesting Jewish immigration. Following police action designed to break up the
gatherings, anti-Jewish riots broke out “during which ten Jews and five
policemen were injured” by the rioters.
1921: It was reported today that “Eugene Meyer,
Jr. of New York” has been “elected Managing Director of the War Finance
Corporation” which “will be an important factor in promoting foreign trade”
during the administration of President Warren Harding.
1922(25th of Adar, 5682): Parashat
Vayakhel-Pekdui
1922: Rabbi Maurice H. Harris is scheduled to
give a sermon “Life” at services this morning at Temple Emanu-El.
1922: At Temple Israel in Manhattan, Rabbi Newman
is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Spiritual Revival.”
1922: Dr. Krass is scheduled to lead Saturday
morning services at Central Synagogue in Manhattan.
1923: Sir Herbert
Samuel, High Commissioner of Palestine denied the demands of the Arab Executive
Sir Herbert Samuel, High
Commissioner of Palestine, “that those arrested in the demonstration of March 14th to
celebrate the success of the Arab boycott of the Legislative Council elections
be released and that the Jerusalem chief of police be placed on trial for
causing their arrest.” (As reported by JTA)
1923: Birthdate of Murray Klein, the driving
force behind making Zabar’s Delicatessen into a New York institution.
1924: Today “in Thomashefsky’s National Theatre
there was staged with Lebedeff in the title role, “Mendel in Japan, an
operetta by Rakow and Rosenberg, lyrics by Gilrod, music by Peretz
Sandler.”
1925: Bantamweight Herman “Kid” Silvers”
(Herman Silverberg) fought his 8th bout which resulted in his second
professional loss.
1925: On a visit to Palestine, Lord Balfour of
Balfour Declaration Fame, who is still a supporter of the Zionist cause, drives
from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem stopping to visit with Jewish settlers and Arab
Sheiks, “who told him they lived quite happily in proximity with their Jewish
neighbors.”
1925: Dr. David de Sola Pool, rabbi of the
Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue addressed a dinner of the Jewish Education
Association at the Hotel Astor in New York City. He strongly supported the need
“for Jewish religious education entirely free from the public schools. He
voiced his support for the public schools remaining non-sectarian while calling
for an improvement in the quality of Jewish education which will ensure the
teaching of Jewish values, culture and character.
1925: In a speech delivered at the City College
of New York, Rabbi Stephen Wise called on Jews all over the world to contribute
to the support of the newly created Hebrew University which will officially be
inaugurated on April 1.
1926: It was reported today that “a committee
of presidents of the Jewish women’s organizations” in New York City are
scheduled to “meet at Temple Emanu-El to discuss plans to raise the $500,000
quota of the women’s division the United Jewish Campaign
1927: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, the son of the late
Rabbi Isaac M Wise and Dr. Nathan Krass, the rabbi at Temple Emanu-El delivered
‘the principle addresses” at services tonight marking the observance of the 80th
anniversary of the found of The Central Synagogue at Lexington and 55th
Street.1929: Montefiore Hospital for Chronic Diseases decided today to seek a
fund of $1,200,000 to provide more modern facilities for wheelchair custodial
cases. S.R. Guggenheim donates $50,000 and intends to given a similar sum when
an additional $1,150,000 has been raised from other sources.
1928: In Sheboygan, WI Rabbi Rub is scheduled
to officiate at the funeral and burial of forty-four-year-old grocery store
owner John Peykel who came to Sheboygan, WI thirty years ago and who was a
member of Ahavas Sholum congregation and of Davis Lodge, B’nai B’rith
1929: Der rote Kreis (The Crimson Circle) a
British-German crime film directed by Frederic Zelnik and starring Otto Walberg
was released in Berlin today.
1929(13th of Adar II, 5689): Fast of
Esther
1930: George J. Feldman, of Boston, for a
number of years the secretary to Senator David I. Walsh, of Massachusetts, has
resigned to accept appointment as special attorney of the Federal Trade
Commission, with the New York office of the Commission. (As reported by JTA)
1931: “The gist of a proclamation issued tonight by
the Palestine Arab Executive” was “that the Arabs definitely do not intend
negotiating with Dr. Chaim Weizmann or
in initiating peace talks.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/03/26/98327481.html?pageNumber=12
1932: “British policies in Palestine” were “assailed
in a statement issued” today “by the executive committee of the World Union of
Zionist-Revisionist” by Joseph Samler, a member of the organization.
1933: “Along with Julius Brodnitz, Heinrich
Stahl, Kurt Blumenfeld and Martin Rosenblüth, Max Naumann was one of the Jewish
activists who were summoned to a meeting with Hermann Göring” today where the
Number 2 Nazi tried to enlist their help in preventing a rally against Nazi
antisemitism which was planned in New York City for 27 March.”
1933: “Daring Daughters,” based on a story by
Sam Mintz was released today in the United States.
1934(9th of Nisan, 5694): Sixty-six
year old George Joseph Stern, the son of Pinkus and Ida Stern and the wife
Husband of Bertha Elisabeth Stern passed away today.
1934: Birthdate of feminist writer and activist
Gloria Steinem creator of Ms Magazine. Born into a dysfunctional family in
Toledo, Ohio, she loved to watch Shirley Temple movies, hoping to be rescued
miraculously from poverty, just like the little girl on the screen. Her first
book, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983), wasn’t published until
she was almost fifty. Steinem said, “A woman without a man is like a fish
without a bicycle.”
1934: Birthdate of Rabbi Berel Wein There is no
way to do justice to this eminent, literate, Jewish scholar. For those
interested in finding out more about him, you might begin at
1935: Reynaldo Hahn’s three act French opera
“Le marchand de Venise” based on “The Merchant of Venice” was first performed
at the Paris Opéra,
1935(20th of Adar II, 5695): Poet and translator Alice Julia Lucas – the
sister of C.G. Montefiore, the wife of barrister Henry Lucas and the
sister-in-law of Sir Arthur Lewis – who was the founder and President of the
Jewish Study Society whose works included Translations from the German Poets of
the 18th and 19th Centuries, published in 1876 and
Talmudic Legends, Hymns and Paraphrases published in 1908, passed away today.
1936: Funeral services for Mrs. Alice Davis
Menken, “whose efforts did much to establish a more humane trend in the field
of penology” and the widow of New York attorney Mortimer M. Menken are
scheduled to be held at the Riverside Memorial chapel followed by “burial in
the Spanish and Portuguese Cemetery at Ridgewood, Queens.”
1936: “Jews from almost forty countries found
homes in Palestine during 1935, according to a report made public” today “by
the United Palestine Appeals which seeks $3,500,000 for settlement work this
year.”
1936: “An explanation of the Slaughter Reform
Bill and a defense of the attitude of the Polish Government…were included in a
letter to Dr. Cyrus Adler, president of the American Jewish Committee made
public today by the Polish Embassy” in Washington, D.C. (Editor’s note – Jews
in Poland saw this bill as an attack on Kosher slaughtering and another
manifestation of the anti-Semitism gripping parts of that country.)
1936: In the U.S. premiere of “Ever of
“Everybody’s Woman,” the only Italian film directed by Max Ophuls.
1937: Mr. and Mrs. Hyman Werner of 20 East
Seventy-sixth Street announced the engagement of their daughter, Miss Jean
Werner, to Leonard L. Katz, son of Mr. and Mrs. Gustav W. Katz of Baltimore.
1937: The
Palestine Post reported that Petah Tikva had become Palestine’s
second purely Jewish town and had been granted municipal status. The newly
formed municipal council was to consist of 15 councilors, of whom one was to be
mayor and another deputy mayor.
1937: The
Palestine Post reported that Mr. Ormsby-Gore, the Colonial
Secretary, told the House of Commons that many arrests had been made in
Northern Palestine, but the security situation in the South was better.
Meanwhile Rehovot police fought a short battle with Negev Bedouin, searched
their encampments and made some arrests.
1937: “The Seventh Heaven” starring Simone
Simon, whose father would die in a concentration camp and featuring Gregory
Ratoff and J. Edward Romberg was released today in the United States.
1938: Birthdate of Decatur, AL, native and
Auburn University graduate Alan Goodman Koch, the right handed pitcher with the
Washington Senators and Detroit Tigers who perused a legal career after the
Major Leagues.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kochal01.shtml
1938: In Poland, after several attempts, the
Seym outlawed the ritual slaughter of meat. The bill was never enforced because
the Seym dissolved in September during the Czech crisis.
1939(5th of Nisan, 5699): Parsahat
Vayikra
1939: Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to
deliver a sermon on “Self-Preservation and the Moral” at Temple Emanu-El.
1939: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise is scheduled to
deliver a sermon on “The Life of Isaac M. Wise” at the Central Synagogue.
1939: Rabbi Hyman Judah Schachtel is scheduled
to deliver a sermon on “Judaism and Democracy” at the West End Synagogue.
1939: “Blackwell’s Island” a crime thriller
starring John Garfield was released by Warner Brothers today
1939: Birthdate of Carolyn Goldmark Goodman the
Bryn Mawr College graduate who married Oscar Goodman whom she followed as Mayor
of Las Vegas, Nevada.
1940: Birthdate of Susan Fromberg who became
famous as Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, a novelist with a gift for evoking complex
characters in the grip of extreme psychological stress and physical suffering,
notably in “The Madness of a Seduced Woman” and the Vietnam War novel “Buffalo
Afternoon.” (As reported by William Grimes)
1940: Birthdate of “Larry Rosen, the music
producer and digital-audio entrepreneur who was best known as a founder of the
pop-jazz record label GRP…”
1941: Today’s agreement by Prince Paul of
Yugoslavia to join forces with Germany led to a coup thwarting the alliance
which triggered an invasion of Yugoslavia. (from “The History of the Jewish
People”)
1941(27th of Adar, 5701): Dr. Froim Ephym
Syrkin, the brother of the Zionist leader Nachum Syrkin (of blessed memory)
passed away today at the age of 52. For the last five years, Dr. Syrkin has
been serving as the superintendent of Beth Moses Hospital in Brooklyn. Born in
Russia in 1889, Dr. Syrkin served with the Russian Army Medical Corps during
World War I before starting a medical practice in post-war Warsaw where he also
served as regional director for the American Joint Distribution Committee.
Syrkin came to the United States in 1920 and worked at the Beth Abraham Home
and Hospital for Incurables in the Bronx and the Bronxwood Sanitarium before
going to work for Beth Moses in 1936. Syrkin was a bachelor who was survived by
his mother and three sisters, two of whom are doctors.
1942: The government of the Slovak Republic
began to deport its Jewish citizens today. The Slovak Republic was one of the
countries to agree to deport its Jews as part of the Nazi Final Solution.
Originally, the Slovak government tried to make a deal with Germany in October
1941 to deport its Jews as a substitute for providing Slovak workers to help
the war effort. After the Wannsee Conference, the Germans agreed to the Slovak
proposal, and a deal was reached where the Slovak Republic would pay for each
Jew deported, and, in return, Germany promised that the Jews would never return
to the republic. The initial terms were for “20,000 young, strong
Jews”, but the Slovak government quickly agreed to a German proposal to
deport the entire population for “evacuation to territories in the
east”. The willing deportation was only the latest in a series of
anti-Semitic actions taken by the government. Soon after gaining its
“independence,” the Slovak Republic began a series of measures aimed against
the Jews in the country. The Hlinka’s Guard began to attack Jews, and the
“Jewish Code” was passed in September 1941. Resembling the Nuremberg
Laws, the Code required that Jews wear a yellow armband, banned intermarriage
and denied Jews the opportunity to hold a variety of jobs.
1942: Seven hundred Jews from Polish
Lvov-district reached Belzec Concentration camp
1942: The second wave of deportations of the
Jews of Laupheim took placed today when “a large number of them were transported
to Poland.”
1942: Lazar Kaganovich completed his second
term as People’s Commissar for Transport.
1943: Birthdate of William H. Ginsburg, the
Philadelphia born California lawyer best known for representing Monica
Lewinsky.
1943: A second group of Macedonian Jews who had
been imprisoned in tobacco warehouses in Skopje was shipped to the Treblinka
Death Camp.
1943: In a surprise move, 97% of all Dutch
physicians went on strike against Nazi registration
1943: One thousand Jews are deported from Marseilles,
France, to the Sobibór death camp.
1943(18th of Adar II, 5703): The Jewish
community from Zólkiew, Poland, was marched to the Borek Forest and executed.
[Ed. Note – Who says Kaddish for these people?]
1943: An anonymous letter written by a non-Jewish
German citizen, critical of Nazi ghetto-liquidation techniques, was forwarded
to Hitler’s Chancellery. There is no record of the author’s name or his/or her
fate.
1944: In the Ukraine, the Ghetto at Bar was
liberated.
1944: The Germans plan to start deporting the
Jews of Volvos today were thwarted thanks to a warning received by the town’s
Archbishop, Joachim Alexopoulos who work with the chief rabbi, Moshe Pessah “to
find sanctuary for the city’s Jews in the mountainous villages of Pelion.” (As
reported by Amanda Borschel-Dan)
1944: After weeks of political wrangling and
German invasion, official word came that Hungary was ready to deal with its
Jewish “problem”.
1944: In response to last night’s attacks by
members of the Stern Gang, the government imposed a curfew on the Jewish
sections of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Hadar Hacarmel in Haifa.
1945: After 87 performances, the two-act
musical composed by Arthur Gershwin “A Lad y Says Yes” closed at the Broadhurst
Theatre.
1945: Leopold Prince served as conductor of the
City Amateur Symphony during the concert this afternoon at the Museum of
Natural History in New York.
1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry
heard testimony from twelve witnesses today in Jerusalem. Among those
testifying were Golda Meyerson representing the General Federation of Jewish
Labor in Palestine, Sami Taha representing the Arab Worker’s Society who
“called Zionism a trick of British Imperialism” and E.A. Ghory who “said that
Palestine Arabs were supported against Zionism by the entire Moslem world.”
1946: “A shipload of illegal immigrant arrived”
off the coast of Tel Aviv tonight. Several of the immigrants evaded capture by
the British and reportedly “found shelter” in the homes of Jews living in Tel
Aviv.
1946: In the first outbreak of its kind since
the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry arrived in Palestine, unidentified
attackers stuck the Saronoa police camp.
1947: Meir Feinstein, a British army veteran,
Daniel Azulai, Massoud Bouton and Moshe Horowitz appeared before a three man
military tribunal to answer charges that they were responsible for the bombing
of a Jerusalem railway station last October resulting in the death of a British
constable. The quartet will face the death penalty if they are found guilty
1947: A bank in Tel Aviv was robbed today in
broad daylight by a gang believed to belong to the Irgun.
1947: In what appears to be another example of
an on-going conflict among Arabs over the sale of land to Jews, gunmen attacked
the home of Fakhri Eddine, a prominent Arab living in Beisan, seriously
wounding five men and a girl.
1948: Birthdate of Eliezer Kalina who lost his
leg during the Yom Kippur War and went on to be a Gold Medal Winning Paralympic
Champion.
1948(14th of Adar II, 5708): Purim
1948(14th of
Adar II, 5708): Sixty-four year old German native
Richard B. Feibelmann the holder of a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the
University of Munich who went from teaching to research chemist to chemical
company manager before, in 1935, coming to the United States where “he
developed starch solubilization processes for use in the textile and paper
finishing industries” while raising his daughter with his wife Carla passed
away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1948/03/26/93792659.pdf
1948: “Two mines exploded under an unescorted
Jewish convoy north of Gaza,” killing one unidentified Jew.
1948: As fighting continued today “along the
Jaffa-Tel Aviv border” ten Jews were wounded when “four mortar shells fired by
Arabs fell in southern Tel Aviv and “squads of the Haganah resumed shellfire at
dawn” aimed “at Arab positions.”
1949: The Scientific and Cultural Conference
for World Peace arranged by a CPUSA front organization and sponsored by Herbert
Aptheker opened today in New York City.
1950(7th of Nisan, 5710): Parashat
Vayikra
1950(7th of Nisan, 5710):
Fifty-six-year-old Sorrey, Russia born rabbi and lawyer Jacob Katz who served
as chaplain at Sing Sing Prison and the spiritual leader the Pelham Parkway
Jewish Center passed away today.
1950: Young Judeans from East Chicago attended
an Oneg Shabbat at the B’nai B’rith Club Rooms in Gary, Indiana where the
community has just announced to settle ten “displaced families.”
1950: The United States, Great Britain and
France issue a joint declaration promising to “take action against any
aggression “designed to alter the frontiers in the Middle East.
1951: “Rawhide” a western featuring George
Tobias and with a music by Sol Kaplan and Lionel Newman was released today in
the United States.
1952: The
Jerusalem Post reported from The Hague that the Israeli delegation
to the reparations talks feared that there was little hope of attaining early
substantial grants and had asked for a detailed clarification of the opening
statements made by the West German delegation. The atmosphere at the talks
continued to be formal. In Israel the police and Histadrut pickets stood by
while Herut was making final preparations for a huge mass demonstration against
German reparations.
1952: The
Jerusalem Post reported that three Arab infiltrators were killed in
the Sharon; a fourth escaped
1953: Four days after she had passed away in
Miami Beach, funeral services are scheduled to be held in Brooklyn for Lena
Shapiro, the wife of Karl Shapiro, Director of the Infants Home of Brooklyn and
mother of Solomon A. Shapiro and Yetta Sultan, a member of the Sea Group of
Hadassah.
1953: Dedication of a new road leading to
Sodom, Israel.
1953: Pearl Edelman LaPorte, the wife of Jacob
LaPorte whom she had married in 1904 in Chicago passed away today after which
she was buried at Waldheim Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois.
1955: “Interrupted Melody,” a musical biopic
directed by Curtis Bernhardt, with a screenplay by Sonya Levien and filmed by
cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released in the United States toda.
1955: “Strategic Air Command” a Cold War paean
to SAC produced by Samuel J. Briskin was released today in the United States.
1955: “The Big Combo” a film noire directed by
Joseph H. Lewis, with a screenplay by Philip Yordan and featuring Michael Mark
had a special screening in New York City today.
1956(13th of Nisan, 5716): Seventy-four-year-old
of Vilna native Arthur Lyon Malkenson, who in 1896 came to the United States in
1896 where he graduated from CCNY and earned a laws degree from NYU after which
he pursued a care in journalism which led to him serving as “president and
publisher of “The Jewish Morning Journal” while raising a family of five
children with his wife “Freda Friedkin Malenson” passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/03/26/84880944.pdf
1957(22nd of Adar II, 5717): Max Ophuls passed
away. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0649097/bio
1958: In Los Angeles, CA, Barbara and Anthony
H. Pascall gave birth to American movie executive Amy Pascal.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/can-amy-pascals-career-survive-sony-cyberattack/\
1959: “Tributes were paid” today “to Rabbi A.
Alan Steinbach, the spiritual leader of Temple Ahavath Sholem in Brookly and
“the retiring president of the New York Board of Rabbis’ at the board’s headquarters.
1960: The head of the Jewish Labor Committee
called on the State Department and other Federal agencies today to cease what
he termed discrimination against potential employees of the Jewish faith.
1963: At a surprise meeting with David Ben
Gurion, Meir Amit was ordered to take over Mossad following the resignation of
Isser Harel (“Little Isser”). Amit was forced to double as the
director of military intelligence and head of Mossad. (As reported by the
Telegraph of London)
1965: Birthdate of actress Sarah Jessica
Parker.
1965: The opera “Lizzie Borden,” with
mezzo-soprano Brenda Lewis singing the lead premiered today in New York City.
1965: The Bundestag voted to extend the
statutory deadline on war crimes prosecutions.
1968(25th of Adar, 5728):
Sixty-seven-year-old Chicago native and University of Chicago graduate Alex L.
Hillmen “publisher, investment executive, art collector” and husband the former
Rita Kanarek and father of Kent Hillman who “in 1953 established a fund at the
Museum of Modern Art that enabled the museum to purchase a cubist Picasso, four
works by Franz Kupka, large canvas by Francis Picabia and a painting by the
Italian futurist Balla” passed away today.
1974(2nd of Nisan, 5734):
Seventy-five year old Dr. Arthur Frederick Abt passed away.
1974: Barbra Streisand recorded the album
“Butterfly.”
1975: King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot at
point-blank range and killed by his half-brother’s son, Faisal bin Musa’id, who
had just come back from the United States. It is a commonly-held, but so far
unsubstantiated popular belief in Saudi Arabia and the Arab and Muslim world
that Faisal’s oil boycott was the real cause of his assassination, via a
Western conspiracy. [For once Israel and the Jews were not blamed for something
gone wrong in the Middle East. The event is a yet another reminder that Israeli
is not the cause of murder and mayhem in that part of the world as the
anti-Semites would have us believe.]
1977: The
Jerusalem Post reported that port workers returned slowly to work
under Labor Court orders. But the workers of the Land Registry went on a
wildcat strike unauthorized by the Histadrut.
1977: The
Jerusalem Post reported that a terrorist cell of 16 members,
preparing a car bomb, was caught at Jenin. A number of dentists were put on
trial for income tax evasion.
1977: The
Jerusalem Post reported Israeli scientists concluded that some of
the trees of the Gethsemane area in Jerusalem were at least 1,600 years old.
1978: During Operation Litani, the PLO ordered
a ceasefire in its fight with the IDF.
1979: Six year old Etan Patz, a Jewish child
living in Manhattan, disappeared as he walked to the bus stop for the first
time by himself.
1981(19th of Adar II, 5741): Seventy-two year
old Uriel Shelach, the Israeli poet who wrote under the pen name of Yonatan
Ratosh passed away today.
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/modern_judaism/v019/19.2rabin.html
1981(19th of Adar II, 5741): Ninety-year-old
chess champion Edward Lasker passed away today. (As reported by Thomas W.
Ennis)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Lasker
1982: Eighty-three-year-old Goodman Ace (born
Goodman Aiskowitz) known as “Goody” the husband of Jane Ace an the creator of
“Easy Aces” passed away today.
1982: Rabbi Ronald Sobel officiated at the
wedding of Joan Treble Sutton, a columnist for the Toronto Sun and Oscar S.
Straus, a former career Foreign Service officer and the grandson of Oscar
Straus who served under President Teddy Roosevelt, in his study at Temple
Emanu-El.
1982: CBS broadcast the first episode of
“Cagney and Lacey” a ground-breaking cop-buddy television series produced by
Barney Rosenzweig and co-starring Al Waxman “as Cagney and Lacey’s good-natured
and sometimes blustery supervisor, Lt. Bert Samuels.”
1983: “Bad Boys,” a coming of age movie
directed by Rick Rosenthal was released in the United States today.
1984: “Glengarry Glenn Ross,” a Pulitzer Prize
winning play written by David Mamet, opened today on Broadway.
1984(21st of Adar II, 5744):
Fifty-year old American psychiatrist Edward Joel Sachar, the son of historian
Abram L. Sachar and Thelma Sachar, and the brother of historian Howard Sachar
and gastroenterologist David B. Sachar passed away today.(As reported by Walter
H. Waggoner)
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/28/obituaries/dr-ej-sachar-psychiatrist-and-hormone-expert-dead.html
1986: ‘The Arthur Frank Collection of
Scientific Instruments’ which had been created by his father Charles Frank, a
Lithuanian born resident of Glasgow who
was an optical and scientific instrument maker, was sold today at Sotheby’s
Auction House
1986: The ILGU will host a ceremony marking the
75th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.
1986: The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Goldman
v. Weinberg a “case in which a Jewish Air Force officer was denied the right to
wear a yarmulke when in uniform on the grounds that the Free Exercise Clause
applies less strictly to the military than to ordinary citizens.”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/475/503
http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/Military_Law_Review/pdf-files/275075~1.pdf
1988: “A New Life” a comedy produced by Martin
Bregman and co-starring Hal Linden was released in the United States today.
1988: “The Fox and the Hound” an animated film
version of the novel by the same name featuring the voice of Jack Albertson,
Paul Winchell and Corey Feldman was re-released in the United States today.
1991: At a meeting with prominent Jews
President Lech Walesa of Poland repeatedly made explicit statements denouncing
anti-Semitism and vowed to fight bigotry in his country. Facing the questions
of members of the World Jewish Congress, an umbrella group of major Jewish
organizations in 70 countries, Mr. Walesa pledged to rescind Polish support for
a 1975 United Nations resolution that equated Zionism with racism. He also said
he would try to find a way to address the property claims of Jews who fled
Poland during World War II, and to pass a law protecting Jewish cemeteries and
synagogues in Poland as sacred places. His remarks contrasted sharply with
statements he made while visiting the United States two years ago. At that
time, he denied the existence of anti-Semitism in Poland, which before World
War II was home to three million Jews. Mr. Walesa conceded that there had been
a resurgence of ethnic prejudice in Poland, a country virtually without Jews
today but with a long history of anti-Semitism. “Though this is just a
marginal part of life, I am ashamed of it,” he said. “As long as I
have anything to say in Poland, I will oppose anti-Semitism.” Jewish
participants at the meeting said they were impressed with Mr. Walesa’s candor
and his promises to fight for the repeal of the United Nations resolution, and
for property rights of expatriated Polish Jews. “I thought he was very
sincere,” said Edgar M. Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress.
“When he got angry, there was a real force behind his words.” The
congress plans to set up a commission in May to delve into the causes of
anti-Semitism. Mr. Bronfman said Mr. Walesa had offered to sit on the
commission himself if he could not find an appropriate Polish representative.
Benjamin Meed, president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust
Survivors and a leader of the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943, said he was
satisfied with Mr. Walesa’s stance against anti-Semitism but wanted to see his
promises translated into action. “I was very impressed,” he said,
“but I’m waiting for the deeds.” The 45-minute exchange between Mr.
Walesa and congress members, held in a conference room at the Seagram Building
in midtown Manhattan, was respectful but charged with passion. The Jewish
participants deferentially but firmly demanded that he provide them with
concrete evidence of his desire to eradicate anti-Semitism. Mr. Walesa
responded by alternately pleading for patience and heatedly defending himself
against implications that he had provoked bigotry during the Polish election.
In a testy response to the representatives’ repeated insistence that he back
his words with actions, Mr. Walesa, a Roman Catholic, declared at one point:
“If I could, then frankly, I would be a Jew. Is it my fault that I’m
not?” Kalman Sultanik, president of the Federation of Polish Jews, asked
Mr. Walesa for assurances that a Carmelite convent on the grounds of the
Auschwitz death camp would be relocated. Last year, Jews and Catholics settled
the dispute by agreeing to move the convent to an interfaith center to be built
outside the former concentration camp. But the Polish Roman Catholic Primate,
Jozef Cardinal Glemp, spoke out against the agreement, and Mr. Sultanik
apparently wanted Mr. Walesa’s guarantee that it would go forward. The bitter
dispute underscores the belief held by many Jews that some members of the
Polish Catholic hierarchy harbor anti-Semitic sentiments. Although Mr. Walesa
unequivocally addressed most other issues raised by Jewish leaders at the
meeting, he responded to Mr. Sultanik’s request only by saying that his
Government would “do everything possible to do away with this problem so
it does not raise tensions between us.” Past anti-Semitism in Poland and
his new Government’s goal of combating any resurgence of it emerged as major
issues during President Walesa’s visit to the United States. During a ceremony
at the Holocaust museum in Washington, where Mr. Walesa began his United States
tour last week, he announced the formation of a presidential commission to
fight anti-Semitism and xenophobia. He also donated several relics from the
Holocaust to the museum, which is scheduled to open in 1993. After the World
Jewish Congress meeting, Mr. Walesa headed to the United Nations for a meeting
with Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, and he assured the Jewish
leaders he would discuss the Zionism resolution with him. Mr. Walesa also
promoted investment in Poland, which has been a major part of his mission to
the United States. Saying he would work to educate the younger generation of
Poles about the shared Jewish and Polish heritage, he said, “We shall,
however, know each other best not through textbooks but through business.”
1992(20th of Adar II, 5752):
Seventy-nine year old Max I. Dimont, the native of Helsinki who enjoyed a 35 year career in public
relations with Edison Brothers and is best remembered for writing several books
on the history of the Jews the best known of which was Jews, God and History,
passed away today.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=36887302
http://thehobophilosopher.blogspot.com/2010/08/jews-god-and-history-by-max-i.html
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/jews-god-and-history-by-max-i-dimont/
1994: In Albuquerque, NM, Sam and Jackie
Bregman, both of whom are lawyers gave to Houston Astros infielder Alex Bregman
who was part of long line of Baseball Buffs including his grandfather Stan
Bregman, the general manager of the Washington Senators and his uncle Ben
Bregamn.
1994: “D2: The Mighty Ducks” the second in this
hockey comedic trilogy directed by Brandeis graduate Sam Weisman was released
in the United States today
1995(23rd of Adar II, 5755):
Parashat Shimini; Parashat Parah
1995(23rd of Adar II, 5755):
Eighty-six year old Swarthmore College grad and Oxford attendee Elizabeth
Flexner, the Georgetown, KY born daughter of playwright of Anne Crawford
Flexner and reformer Abraham Flexner, known for her championing the field of
women’s rights and studies passed away today.
1997: It was reported today that “a furor is
erupting over the use of pigskin in the treatment of Orthodox Jewish children
with serious burns in New York’s pre- eminent pediatric burn center,” the New
York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center’s burn center.
1998(27th of Adar, 5758): Fifty-one
year old Congressman Steve Schiff passed away.
http://www.anomalies.net/archive/cni-news/CNI.0999.html
1998: U.S. premiere of “A Price Above Rubies,”
directed and written by Boaz Yakin
1999: Raik Haj Yahia, Amir Peretz and Adisu
Massala broke away from the Labor Party to form One Nation.
2000(18th of Adar II, 5760):
Parashat Tzav; Shabbat Parah
2000: As he prepared to meet with Pope John
Paul II in Jerusalem tomorrow, Sheik Ikrima Sabri, the Chief Islamic cleric in
Jerusalem “said today that he believed that the number of 6 million Holocaust
victims is exaggerated” and that Israel “considers its pain more important than
anyone else’s.”
2001(1st of Nisan, 5761): Rosh
Chodesh Nisan
2001(1st of Nisan, 5761): Ninety-one
year old “Canadian businessman and philanthropist” Jack Diamond passed away
today.
http://www.orderofbc.gov.bc.ca/members/1991-jack-diamond/
2001: “Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of
the Kindertransport” won the Oscar tonight for the “Best Documentary Feature.”
2001: The
New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or special
interest to Jewish readers including Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the
Turn of the Century by Laura Shapiro and Faithless: Tales of Transgression by
Joyce Carol Oates.
2001: Dick Schapp is honored by The National
Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum.
2002: “Shooter, Finding Surprises” published
today provides a review of Revenge by Laura Blumenfeld whose father New York
Rabbi David Blumenfeld was shot in Jerusalem in 1986 by the Aba Musa gang.
2003(21st of Adar II, 5763): Eighty-nine year
old Eddie Jaffe, a legendary New York press agent, passed away today. (As
reported by Ralph Blumenthal)
2004: The
Times of London reports that the chairman of Signature Restaurants,
which owns celebrity eateries in London such as The Ivy and Belgo, is backing
plans by the Giraffe’s owners, Jewish business people Russel and Juliette
Joffe, to double the size of the business to 16 sites over the next two to
three years.
2004: NBC broadcast the last episode of “Good
Morning, Miami” a sitcom created by David Kohan and Max Mutchnick and starring
Mark Feuerstein.
2005(14th of Adar II, 5765): Purim
2006(25th of Adar, 5766): Parashat
Vaykhel-Pekudi; Shabbat Hachodesh.
2006: Rabbi Harold S. White officiated at the
marriage of Sarah Elizabeth Ackerstin, “an assistant attorney general in the
attorney general’s office for the District of Columiba” and Israel Shai Klein,
the communications director, based in Washington, for Senator Charles E.
Schumer, Democrat of New York.”
2006: According to his report published today,
Steve Erlanger believes that “nearly three months after Mr. Sharon’s major
stroke on Jan. 4, his spirit hangs over this Israeli election, as the country
prepares to give its verdict on March 28 on Kadima, the centrist party he
created.”
2007: “International Jewish Artists of the Year
Awards” begins at Christies Auctions House, in London, England (UK).
2007: Funeral services are scheduled to be held
this morning in Chevy Chase, MD for eighty-one-year-old “L. Leonard Ruben, one
of Montgomery County’s best-known judges and the husband of former Maryland
state senator Ida G. Ruben,” who had passed away after he collapsed outside the
district courthouse in downtown Silver Spring.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/21/AR2007032102169.html
2007: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is
holding an academic symposium in commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of
the death of Uriel Weinreich, an exploration of the legacy of this premier
scholar of Yiddish linguistics in America.
2007: The curtain came down today on a
production of “The Farnsworth Invention” a play by Aaron Sorkin that examines
how David Sarnoff’s relationship to the “invention of television signal at the
La Jolla Playhouse.
2008: The 92nd Street Y presents “The Secret
U.S.-German Collaboration to End World War II” a lecture by Maria (Maki)
Haberfeld and Sigrid MacRae who offer startling facts about the war with
Hitler’s Germany and the way we might want to think about the resurgent
anti-Semitism in Germany today.
2008: Israeli artist Sigalit Landau opens a
solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The MOMA exhibition,
which was conceived in the wake of a recent show she did at the KW Gallery in
Berlin, includes works from the “Dead Sea” series, and a selection of
old and new video works.
2008: Israel’s UN ambassador, Dan Gillerman,
slammed the “trend” of equating the “lawful actions” of a
state defending its citizens with the “violence of terrorists,” in a
bitter exchange at the Security Council’s monthly session on the Middle East.
2008(18th of Adar II, 5768): Eighty-three year
old Abby Mann, the American film writer and producer who wrote the screenplay
for “Judgment at Nuremberg”, passed away, one day after Richard Widmark who
starred in this epic died. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/movies/28mann2.html
2009: At New Jersey’s Atlantic Cape Community
College Janna Gur Israeli culinary delivers the second of four lectures on the
cuisine of Israel and Tel Aviv in particular entitled “Celebrating the Food of
Tel Aviv.”
2009: The government of Israel hosts a public
celebration marking the signing of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty 30 years
ago.
2009: The Palestinian youths from a tough West
Bank refugee camp stood facing the elderly Holocaust survivors today, appearing
somewhat defiant in a teenage sort of way and then The choir burst into songs
for peace, bringing surprised smiles from the audience
2010: The Annual Downtown Seder is scheduled to
be celebrated tonight at the City Winery in New York. The City Winery is “the
brainchild” of Michael Dorf, a well-known Jewish entrepreneur.
2010: Moshe Peretz won
the prize פרס אקו”ם For “Best achievement in music”.
2010: The Jerusalem Municipality finance
committee approved a plan for the construction of a new cinema complex in the
Haleom parking lot opposite the Supreme Court, on condition that it closes
during Shabbat, Israel Radio reported today.
2010: “Monkey Business in a World of Evil”
published today described the Curious
George exhibition at the Jewish Museum.
http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/Military_Law_Review/pdf-files/275075~1.pdf
2011(19th of Adar II, 5771):
Ninety-six year old “Irving J. Shulman, who founded the Daffy’s clothing store
chain and brought discount fashion to Fifth Avenue through quirky marketing and
a promise of “clothing bargains for millionaires,” passed away today. (As
reported by Christine Hauser)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/business/30shulman.html?_r=0
2011(19th of Adar II, 5771):
Eighty-one-year-old Thomas Eisner the “groundbreaking authority on insects
whose research revealed the complex chemistry that they use to repel predators,
attract mates and protect their young” passed away today. (As reported by Kenneth
Chang)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/science/earth/31eisner.html
2011: “Last Folio” which has only been
exhibited in Cambridge, England i Scheduled for display at the Museum of Jewish
Heritage in New York in 2011, starting today” a date which “marks the 68th
anniversary of the first ever transport to Auschwitz — of young Jewish Slovak
girls. As the first inmates there, they were responsible for establishing the
routines that would keep them alive, and many became the dreaded and despised
kapos, or prisoner-guards.”
2011: In Albany, NY, The Reform Congregations
of the Capital District are scheduled to begin the celebration of Founder
Day’s.
2011: A Netanya Conservative and Reform house
of worship became the target of stone-throwing attacks during Shabbat evening
prayers.
2011(19th of Adar II, 5771): Ninety-one year
old Dr. Thomas Eisner, “who cracked the chemistry of bugs” passed away today.
(As reported by Kenneth Change)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/science/earth/31eisner.html
2011: The Jerusalem Marathon ended in some
confusion as the three leading runners apparently took a wrong turn and arrived
at the wrong finish line.
2011: U.S. release date for “Peep World,” a
comedy narrated by Lewis Black and co-starring Ron Rifkin, Ben Schwarts and
Sarah Silverman among others.
2011: New York City Marks the 100th
Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42273592/ns/business-us_business/#.VvSgeo-cF9B
2012: “White Balance is scheduled to be shown
tonight at the 16th Annual Hartford Jewish Film Festival.
2012: As part of a month-long national
conversation about Spinoza’s impact and legacy, Theatre J in Washington, DC is
scheduled to sponsor “Spinoza: A University Debate.”
2012: “The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo
League, 1936–1951” which has been on display at The Jewish Museum New York is
scheduled to close today.
http://www.forward.com/articles/144903/#ixzz1cnoqvT00
2013: The Wiener
Library is scheduled to host Compliant or Confrontational?: The Protestant
Church and the Holocaust,” a program
that “will examine the role of the Protestant Church during the Second World
War and the impact and legacy of the Holocaust upon the Protestant Church in
post-war Germany.
2013(14th of
Nisan, 5773): Fast of the First Born; Erev Pesach
2013(14th of
Nisan): On the Jewish calendar today marks the seventieth anniversary of the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Erev of Pesach
5703 (April 19, 1943), the German forces began their final drive to liquidate
the Warsaw Ghetto. When the SS entered the ghetto they were met with armed
resistance. Much to everybody’s
surprises a handful of fighters armed with a few pistols, rifles and Molotov
Cocktails inflicted casualties on the tank led German troops. At the end of the
day, the Jewish “fighters felt that the day was theirs. They had taken on
heavily armed and trained units and inflicted losses. They could not win or even hold out, but they
would die avenging the silenced dead.”
It would take the Germans more than a month to subdue the Jewish
fighters. When you consider that the
French surrendered to the Germans after only six weeks of fighting, the valor
of the Jewish men and women is even more impressive. There are several sites that are calling
attention to this anniversary including http://rhapsodyinbooks.wordpress.com/2009/04/19/april-19-1943-anniversary-of-the-warsaw-ghetto-uprising/ and http://www.juf.org/news/thinking_torah.aspx?id=419902
For those of you who
would like to add a reading to your Seder to mark the moment you might want to
consider the one below. It is an
eyewitness description of what the fighters saw as they set up a new position
in a rabbi’s apartment at 4 Kuzia Street on the night of the first Seder.
The apartment was in a state of chaos [a youth observed].
Bed linens were spread all around, chairs were turned
upside down, various household items were strewn on the
floor, and all the window panes were smashed into little bits.
During the daytime, while the members of the family had sought shelter in the bunker, the house
had become a mess; only the table in the middle of the room stood: festive, as if a thing apart
from the other furniture. The redness of the wine in the glasses which were on the
table was a reminder of the
blood of the Jews who had perished on the eve of the holiday. The Hagada was
recited while in the background incessant bursts of bombing and
shooting, one after the other, pounded throughout the night. The scarlet
reflection from the burning houses nearby illuminated the faces of
those around the table in the darkened room. When the rabbi reached the
passage, “Shofoch Chamatcha” [“Pour out Your wrath on the nations who have
not wished to know You“], he and his family broke down and cried bitterly. I had
the feeling that it was the weeping of people condemned to death, people who,
outwardly, had re- signed themselves to the idea of their deaths, yet were terrified when the moment neared. The rabbi
lamented those who had not lived to celebrate this Seder. From The Holocaust by Nora Levin
2013: This evening,
President Barak Obama is scheduled to host his annual White House Seder.
http://forward.com/articles/173508/how-is-the-white-house-seder-different-from-all-ot/?p=all
2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced today that he would
resume the routine transfer of tax revenues collected for the Palestinian
Authority, ending a freeze that began in December 2012 following the
Palestinian bid for upgraded status at the UN in late November.
2013: Two leaders that have been in the limelight
this month sent their thoughts to world Jewry today, as both Pope Francis and
US President Barack Obama wished their respective communities a happy Passover.
2013(14th of Nisan, 5773): Eighty-five year old two-time
Pulitzer prize winning New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis of whom “Nicholas
B. Lemann, the dean of Columbia University School of Journalism, said: “At
a liberal moment in American history, he was one of the defining liberal
voices” passed away today.
2014: “Two Sided Story” is scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia
Jewish Film Festival.
2014: “The Rolling Stones confirmed today that they will perform in Tel
Aviv on June 4 as part of their “14 On Fire” world tour.”
2014(23rd of Adar II, 5774): Eighty-eight year old sculptor
Mon Levinson passed away today.
2014(23rd of Adar II, 5774): Seventy year old journalist
Robert Slater passed away today.
2014: “A strike by Israeli diplomats over salaries
has foiled preparations in Nepal for what coordinators say is the world’s
biggest celebration of the Jewish Passover holiday, organizers announced
today.”
2014: “The Beginning” and “Among Believers” the opening episodes of “The
Story of the Jews” with Simon Schama are scheduled to be shown this evening.
http://www.iptv.org/series.cfm/23708/story_jews_with_simon/ep:101
http://www.iptv.org/series.cfm/23708/story_jews_with_simon/ep:101
2015: Sol Levinson
& Bros. Funeral Home and Jewish Community Services are scheduled to present
“The Empty Place at the Table: Coping with Loss During the Holidays.”
2015: Publication of
“From A Woman’s Thoughts to Welcoming the Ladies”
2015: The Jewish
Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host a “Workshop: Help
Make a Museum” as part of the planning process to create “a new regional Jewish
museum.”
2015: Auschwitz Museum
spokesman Pawel Sawicki told the AP today “that historians have no doubt that”
a list “of 15 Polish and Jewish inmates of the Nazi death camp” that had been
“found last inside a 1923 Polish book on the history of warfare” was authentic.
(As reported by Monika Scislowska)
2015: National Museum
of American Jewish History is scheduled to host the “3rd Annual Freedom Seder
Revisited.”
2015: The Hadassah Book
Club is scheduled to meet in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
2015: Thomas Barton is
scheduled to deliver a lecture on “The Battle Over Jews in Medieval Spain” in
Coronado, CA.
2016(15th of
Adar II, 5776): Shushan Purim
2016(15th of
Adar II, 5776): On the day after his 47th birthday Brigadier General
Muni Amar “died in a plane crash” this afternoon.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4783182,00.html
2016: As the Jews in
the America South reaches Savannah, GA, “local expert Harriet Meyerhoff is
scheduled to lead a tour that will include to Mickve Israel, one of the
nation’s oldest congregations and its museum.
2016: One-hundred fifth
anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduction/triangle-intro/
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/triangle-shirtwaist-fire
2017: The Seattle
Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to begin today.
2017: “Memory
Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross,” which was organized by
the Art Gallery of Ontario, is scheduled to open today.
http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/memory-unearthed
2017(27th
of Adar, 5777): TRIPLE HEADER SABBATH
Shabbat HaChodesh; Complete reading the Book
of Exodus; Anniversary of the
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
2018: The Yeshiva University Museum is
scheduled to present “Pomegranates and Palm Trees For Passover.”
2018: The American
Society for Jewish Music, The American Jewish Historical Society and the
American Sephardi Federation are scheduled to host “Songs of Devotion and
Desire” which examines “the music heritage of Jewish Spain.”
2018: JNOLA and
Jewish Community Day School are scheduled to host their 3rd annual Chocolate
Seder
2018(9th of Nisan, 5778):
One day after his 90th birthday, Bronx native and Iowa Hawkeye alum Melvin “Mel” Rosen who
went from being a successful collegiate middle distance runner to being the
highly successful track coach at Auburn University while raising two daughters
– Laurie and Karen – with his wife, “the former Joan Kinstler, passed away
today.
http://www.usatf.org/halloffame/TF/showBio.asp?HOFIDs=140
2018: The funeral
for Belle Lipsky is scheduled take place today followed by internment at Eben
Israel Cemetery in Cedar Rapids, IA.
2018: The World
Premiere of “Hero Among Us, that tells the story concentration camp liberator
John Gaultier is scheduled to take place in his hometown of Vinton, IA this
afternoon.
2018: The 18th
Annual New Jersey Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end today.
2018: The New York Times featured reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including
That’s What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About
Working Together by Joanne Lipman and American Innovations by Rivka Galchen.
2019: The Center for
Jewish History, the American Jewish Historical Society and MALA are scheduled
to host a screening of “RBG,” the documentary about Justice Ginsburg followed
by a discussion with RBG director Julie Cohen and associate producer Nadine
Natour.
2019: In “Museums
Cut Ties With Sacklers as Outrage Over Opiod Crisis Grows” published today,
Alex Marshall described how the world of art and culture are being impacted by
the behavior of this pharmaceutical family.
2019(18th
of Adar II, 5779): Eighty-five-year-old University of Chicago and Columbia
trained anthropologist Dr. Sydel Silverman, the Chicago born daughter of
Elizabeth Bassman and Rabbi Joseph Finer whose works included The Beast on the
Table passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/obituaries/sydel-silverman-dead.html
2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a
screening of “Driver,” a tale of an ultra-Orthodox father raising his daughter
as single parent after his wife leaves him.
2019: The annual AIPAC
Conference is scheduled to continue meeting for a second day in Washington,
D.C.
2020: Today is the
deadline the Supreme Court in Israel has set for Yuli Edelstein to convene the
Knesset so that a new speaker can be elected.
2020: The Streicker
Center is scheduled to host an online session with Leah Koenig as she talks
about “The History of Jewish Cookbooks in America.”
2020: Boston Jewish
Film is scheduled to present an online screening of “To Be of Service.”
2020: “Israel’s
Chief Rabbi David Lau, in a public letter, called on Jews to refrain from
eating or speaking unnecessarily today in light of the coronavirus pandemic”
since “abstinence from food and speech is a Jewish spiritual practice designed
to encourage self-reflection on the personal and communal level.”
2020: Observance of
National Medal of Honor Day as designed by the United States Congress in 1990
which provides us with a chance to remember all America’s heroes including
Abraham Cohn, Leopold Karpeles, Benjamin Levy and David Urbansky, veterans of
the Civil War who were among the first Jews to have been awarded the
Congressional Medal of honor.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-medal-of-honor-recipients
https://nmajmh.org/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/hall-of-heroes/
https://www.aish.com/j/f/We_Jews_Medal_of_Honor_Winners.html
https://www.geni.com/projects/Medal-of-Honor-Recipients-Jewish/4987
2021:
The Contemporary Jewish Museum is scheduled to present online Kristin Eriko
Posner, founder of Nourish, a lifestyle company, and social worker Faye Chao
Sofaer sharing recipes for Jewish Asian Passover recipes, stories and
traditions.
2021:
Temple Israel of Boston is scheduled to present online “Passover Cooking Across
the Diaspora with culinary historian Sara Gardner.
2021:
As part of the Marshall Weinberg Sprig 2021 Classical Music Season, the 92nd
Street Y is scheduled to host on cellist Alisa Weilerstein and pianist Inon
Barnatan.
2021:
The Jewish Studio Project is to present “Have You Made Art About It Yet?
Passover Edition”
a
virtual class for making art that explores moving from narrow places to
expansive joy.
2021:
The Boston Synagogue is scheduled to present online a “Passover Party with
Ezekiel’s Wheels Klezmer Band.”
2021:
Based on reports published yesterday that the Chinese government plans to
invite Israelis and Palestinians to hold talks in China, as of today there is a
new player in the long-running, inconclusive game of Middle East Peace Talk
2021:
Based on reports published yesterday, Prime Minister Netanyahu will not be able
to form a government with Gideon Saar because the leader of New Hope has
rejected proposals that he hold coalition talks with Bibi.
2022:
The Americans and the Holocaust traveling exhibition is scheduled to open at Marshalltown
Public Library (Marshalltown, IA),
University
Libraries, Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA) and Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public
Library (Bismarck, ND).
2022:
It was reported today that Israel will host a historic summit this weekend with
the top diplomats from the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and
Bahrain, a sign of how quickly the realignment of Middle Eastern powers is
accelerating as Israelis and some Arab governments find common cause not only
over Iran but in navigating the new global realities created by the Ukraine
war.
2022:
♪ Live broadcast on Kan Kol Hamusika of the Young Artists in Concert” featuring
“The Joshua Tuttenauer Choir”
2023:
“Shtisel “which tells the story of a Haredi family living in an ultra-Orthodox
neighborhood of Jerusalem, is planned to be removed by Netflix today.
2023:
Amid protests by Jewish groups, Prime Minister Netanyahu is scheduled to
continue his visit the United Kingdom.
2023:
Israel braces for another round Saturday night demonstrations by those opposed
to the package of “judicial reform” legislation.
2023(3rd
of Nisan, 5783): Parashat Vayikra; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
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