This Day, April 11, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
April 11
145: Birthdate of Septimius Severus, the “Roman emperor,
who according to the Virtual Jewish Library Lucious Septimus Severus treated “Jews
relatively well, allowing them to participate in public offices and be exempt
from formalities contrary to Judaism. However, he did not allow the Jews to
convert anyone.” [According to one
source, this had to do with the fact that Severus was not really a Roman, but
of Syrian-Phoenician stock, but I could find no further corroboration of this.]
399: In the Roman Empire, a law is promulgated
prohibiting sending emissaries to collect donations on behalf of the
nasi. “That the Jews should know that we have delivered them from
this iniquitous tribute.”
491:
Anastasius I begins his reign as the Byzantine Emperor. The reign of Anastasius
marked the renewal of warfare with the Sassanid Empire. The Sassanid Empire was the name given to the
Persian Empire of the day. This renewal
of warfare would have a negative impact on the Jews who ruled the island of
Yotabe also known as Tiran, which is in the straits of Tiran. The Jews of Yotabe played an instrumental
role in the trade along the Red Sea and when the Byzantines sought to move East
to take control of this trade and defeat the Sassanids, they would replace the
Jewish leaders with their own people.
1241:
The Mongol army under the command Batu Khan defeated King Béla IV of Hungary at
the Battle of Muhi. The defeat was a
disaster for Christian forces in general and the Hungarians in particular. Bela looked favorably on his Jewish subjects,
seeing them as a force that could raise his kingdom from the impoverishment
resulting from the defeat. Bela adopted measures that protected his Jewish
subjects from mob violence and church control and allowed them to use their own
legal system for settling communal disputes. In exchange for this protection,
the Jews were to pay their taxes directly to the royal treasury. Needless to say, Bela’s behavior did not meet
with the approval of the clergy and they would move to overturn his rulings
under his successor.
1302:
A decree was issued ordering the Jews of Barcelona to kneel when meeting a
priest with the sacraments.
1571:
Today, Richard Curteys, who had Joachim Gans, the Hebrew speaking first Jew to
settle in that part of North America controlled by the English brought before
the officials of Bristol to face charges of blasphemy was presented by Queen
Elizabeth to the vicarage of Ryhall, as the Bishop of Chichester.
1576:
Baptiste Bassano, a Venetian-born musician at the court of Elizabeth, who may
have been of Jewish descent and who was the father of Aemilia Bassano, who as
Emilia Lanier wrote Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (Hail, God, King of the Jews)
which was published in 1611, passed away today.
1632:
“French Protestant theologian Nicolas Antoine” who had been arrested on charges
of heresy after proclaiming that he was a Jew went on trial today where he
“repeated constantly, ‘I am a Jew, and all I ask of God’s grace is to die for
Judaism.
1649:
The largest Auto De Fe in the New World was held with 109 victims in
Mexico. All but one of them was accused of Judaizing. Thirteen were burned
alive and 57 in effigy. This for the most part ended the prominence of
crypto-Jews in Mexico.
1657:
“The Council of New Amsterdam denied a petition by Jacob Cohen (Henriques) for
a license to bake and sell bread.” (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch).
1713:
Following today’s
signing of the Peace Utrecth which marked the end of Spanish domination over
Belgium Jews began to reappear in Brussels after an absence that dated back to
1370.
1715:
Birthdate of Jacob Rodrigues Pereira, the Portuguese native, who gained fame as
Jacob Rodrigue Péreire, who devoted his life to teaching and working with
“deaf-mutes.” Péreire who came from a
family crypto-Jews, officially rejoined the faith of his fathers and was a
leader in the French Jewish Community. His grandsons were two famous 19th
century French financiers -, Emile and Isaac Péreire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jacob_Rodrigue_P%C3%A9reire.JPG
1717(30th
of Nisan, 5477): Talmudist Abraham ben Saul Broda, the son of Saul Broda and a
student of Rabbi Isaac ben Ze’eb Harif, passed away today in Frankfort on Main.
1755(30th
of Nisan, 5515): Rosh Chodesh Iyar observed as British and French fleets raced
across the Atlantic during the French and Indian War.
1762(18th
of Nisan, 5522): Fourth Day of Pesach
1765:
Founding of the Patriotic Society in Hamburg which would appoint Salomon Heine
as an honorary member in 1843
1766:
Virginia native Elizabeth Whitlock and Phildelphian Moses Mordecai gave birth
to Isaac Mordecai, the husband of Zipplorah Russell and the father of John,
Samuel and Isaac Mordecai.
1767(12tn
of Nisan, 5527): Parsahat Achrei Mot; Shabbat HaGadol observed as Benjamin
Franklin, who advocated including an image of the Israelites crossing the Sea
of Reeds as an image for the Great Seal of America, wrote to the British
warning them of the negative impact the Townshend Acts would have on relations
with the 13 colonies in America.
1772(8th
of Nisan, 5532): Parasha Metzora; Shabbat HaGadol
1773:
In Savannah, GA, Sarah De La Motta and Levi Sheftall gave birth to Hannah
Seftall, the wife of Abraham De Lyon whom she married in her hometown in 1827.
1778(14th
of Nisan, 5538): Shabbat HaGadol; erev Pesach observed on the same day that “emissions
totaling $25,000,000 payable in Spanish milled dollars, or the equivalent in
gold or silver, was authorized by Continental Congress resolutions passed at
Yorktown.
1789(15th
of Nisan, 5549): Pesach is observed as the letter from Congress telling George
Washington that he has been elected President of the United States makes its
way to his home at Mt. Vernon, VA.
1792(19th
of Nisan, 5552): Fifth Day of Pesach
1792:
In Germany, Jentle Loeb and Moses Faist Rosenheim gave birth to Abraham Moses
Faist Rosenheim, the husband of Voegele Ottenheimer with whom he had six
children
1795:
Birthdate of Friedrich Wilhelm Carl Umbreit, the German Protestant minister who
authored works on the books of the Hebrew Bible while serving as a Professor of
Old Testament Studies at the University of Heidelberg.
1792(19th
of Nisan, 5552): Fifth Day of Pesach
1792:
As Jews munched on their Matzoth, In Meriden, Ct. Joel and Esther Clark Yale
gave birth to Levi Yale, a member of the State House of Representatives. (They
are not Jewish, but the names remind us of the strong Biblical connection that
New England settlers had with the “Old Testament.”
1797(15th
of Nisan, 5557): Pesach celebrated for the first time during the Presidency of
John Adams.
1800(16th
of Nisan, 5560): Second Day of Pesach; Counting of the Omer begun for the last
time during the Presidency of John Adams.
1801(28th
of Nisan, 5561): Parashat Shmini
1801:
Birthdate of Harburg native and future Brooklynite Sara Selz, the daughter of
Elkan Selz, the daughter of Samuel Baer Liebmann1 with whom she had ten
children.
1802:
Today, Philadelphia merchant Solomon Lyons married Rebecca Abraham toda.
1803(19th
of Nisan, 5563): Fifth Day of Pesach is celebrated on the same day that “1803,
just days before James Monroe’s arrival, Barbé-Marbois offered Livingston all
of Louisiana for $15 million.”
1805(12th
of Nisan, 5565): Ta’anit Bechorot observed because the 14th of Nisan
fell on Shabbat
1807:
“Ezekiel Hart was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada over
three other candidates, obtaining 59 out of the 116 votes cast.” Since the election took place on Shabbat,
Hart refused to take the office on that date.
He would cause a further uproar when he did take the oath because he
insisted on using a Hebrew Bible instead of the Christian Bible normally used
for such events.
1808(14th
of Nisan, 5568): Ta’anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach
1808(14th
of Nisan, 5568): Fifty-three-year-old Benjamin Goldsmid, the husband of Jesse
and father of Israel-Levier. Solomons passed away today.
1808:
In Arnhem, a larger tract, adjacent to a lot forty feet by one hundred that had
been assigned to Samuel Levie and Solomon Cohen Jacobs in 1755 was added to
what had become the Jewish city’s burial ground.
1809:
In New York, Amsterdam native David Cromelien and Adeline (or Amelia) Cromelien
gave birth to Hannah Cromelien who became Hannah Spiro when she married Philip
Jacob Spiro with whom she had ten children.
1811(17th
of Nisan, 5571): Third Day of Pesach
1814:
“1814, Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France, abdicated the throne, and, in the
Treaty of Fontainebleau, is banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba
1822:
In Posen Prussia, “Sabbathi Fischel Huth and Handel Chajah Schreier” gave birth
to Myer S. Hood, the student of “Rabbis Isaac Leahs and Lippman Goldstaub” and
graduate of the Teacher’s Seminary in Breslaum who after coming to the United
States was the “head teacher and reader” two congregations in New Jersey and
the “Superintendent of the Plaut Memorial Hebrew Free School” while being
married to Ernestine Baruch.
1825:
Birthdate of Ferdinand Lassalle, the native of Breslau who became a prominent
German jurist and political leader.
http://spartacus-educational.com/GERlasselle.htm
1827(14th
of Nisan, 5587): One day after the birth of Lew Wallace, the Civil War General
who wrote Ben Hur, the title character who is one of the most famous
fictional Jews, the real Jews observed the Fast of the First Born and sat down
for their first Seder in the evening.
1830(18th
of Nisan, 5590): Fourth Day of Pesach
1831:
In Brno, Löbl Strakosch and Julia Schwarz gave birth to their 8th
child Sophia.
1831:
“The Society for the Education of Poor Children and Relief of Indigent of the
Jewish Persuasion in the City of New York was incorporated today.
1833(22nd
of Nisan, 5593): Eight Day of Pesach
1833:
In Bunde Germany, Bendix Rosenwald and Vogel Rosenwald gave birth to Hermann
(Isaac) Rosenwald, the husband of Jeanette David and the father of Bendix
Rosenwald; Gustav Rosenwald and Ida Bach.
1833:
As Jews munched Matzoth for the last time Connecticut voters chose all six of
their Congressman who were elected at-large instead of district by district.
1835:
Solomon Benoliel, the Gibraltar born son of Don Judah Benoliel and Esther
Benoliel and his wife Judith Benolie gave birth of Abraham Benoliel
1838(16th
of Nisan, 5598): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer
1842:
John Davis married Amelia Friedberg at the Great Synagogue today.
1844(22nd
of Nisan, 5604): Eighth Day of Pesach
1844:
On the same day that Jews munched their Matzoth for the ls time, Mormon Joseph
“was “chosen as our Prophet, Priest, and King by Hosannas,” two
months before he was murdered.
1845:
Isaac and Rachel Pereira Baiz gave birth to Jacob Baiz the “husband of Rebecca
Baiz” and “father of Angela Baiz.
1846(15th
of Nisan, 5606): The Jews of Texas observe their first Pesach as citizens of
the United States.
1848:
Jeanetta Malan and Kent, UK native Joseph Davis gave birth to Miriam Davis.
1850:
In Henderson, KY, Sarah Ochs and Samuel Bissinger who had been married in
Louisville in 1848 gave birth to Benjamin Bissinger, the husband of Helena Bach
whom he married in 1872 and the father of Nora, Bernard, Jacob, Louis and
Lawrence Bissinger.
1850:
Birthdate of Isidor Rayner, the native of Baltimore who represented the Fourth
Congressional District in the House of Representatives and represented Maryland
in the United States Senate.
1852:
In the “Czech Republic,” Rabbi Benjamin Ullmann, the son of Marks and Dewora
Ullmann and Theresa Ester Ullmann gave birth to Ignaz Ullmann.
1852:
Birthdate of John Stephany, the native of London who was one of the founders of
Congregation Emanu-El, the first Jewish congregation in Statesville, NC.
1856:
In Baltimore, Caroline and Rabbi Aaron Guinzburg gave birth to Henry Aaron
Guinzburg, the Colonel of Cavalry, aide-de-camp and chief of staff of Governor
Stone of Missouri and the husband of Leonie B. Guinzburg with whom he had three
children – Leonore, Harold and Herminia.
1860:
The State Assembly passed a bill to amend the charter of the
Hebrew Benevolent Society of New York
1860: In Bielitz, Austria, Anna Kanner and Ignatz Zeisler
gave birth to Chicago attorney Sigmund Zeisler who represented the defendants
in Illinois vs. August Spies, et al – the criminal litigation that grew out of
the Haymarket Square labor demonstration or riot, depending on your point of
view and who was the husband of the famed pianist Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler.
1860:
The State Assembly passed a bill to amend the charter of the Hebrew Cemetery
Association of New York.
1861(1st
of Iyar, 5621): Rosh Chodesh Iyar – Confederate General Beauregard sent two
officers to Fort Sumter with an ultimatum for Major Anderson, the commander of
the U.S. forces. Either he can evacuate
or face bombardment and attack from the surrounding Rebel forces. Today is the last day of peace for four years
in the United States.
1862:
Corporal Henry Wertheim, a native of Germany who was living in Mecklenburg
County (NC) enlisted in the Confederate Army.
1863(22nd
of Nisan, 5623): Eighth Day of Pesach; Shabbat Shel Pesach
1863:
Israel Cohen, “the son of Kitty and Benjamin I. Cohen” and Cecilia Eliza Cohen
gave birth to Anna Maria Cohen who became Anna Maria Minis when she married
Abram Minis.
1864(5th
of Nisan, 5624): Merchant and Hebrew scholar, Elijah Bardach, who was born at
Lemberg in 1794 and whose works included Akedat Yizhak written in 1833, passed
away today in Vienna.
1865(15th
of Nisan, 5625): Pesach observed for the first time without the firing of guns
from the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia.
1868(18th
of Nisan, 5628): Fourth Day of Pesach
1870:
In “Aid for the Hebrews of West Russia” published today, the Executive
Committee of the Hebrew Board of Delegates reported receipt of the following
donations:
Simeon
Lodge of Titusville, PA, $13.50; Israelites of Leavenworth, Kansas, $127.10;
Purim Association of Leavenworth Kansa, $202.10; Maimonides Lodge of Nashville,
TN, $10.00; Congregation B’nai Brith, Wilkes-Barre, PA, $30.00. [For those who think of American Jewish
History only in terms of a few major metropolitan areas, this list might give
you pause to consider another view of Jewish settlement of the United States.]
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F01EEDE133BE63BBC4952DFB266838B669FDE
1873(14th
of Nisan, 5633): Fast of the first born; erev
Pesach
1873(14th
of Nissan): This afternoon, Congregation Shaare Rachmim, officially began using
the Norfolk Street Synagogue with services led by the rabbi of Ahamath Chesed,
the congregation that formerly used the Norfolk Street Synagogue. Ahamath Chesed has moved to a new location on
Lexington Avenue.
1875:
Four days, after he had passed away, Louis Samson Diespecker, the husband of
the former Christian Warmington with whom he had had six children was buried
today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1875:
Birthdate of Kovno born “wood engraver and painter Henry Bock, the husband of
Dora Block and the father of Adolph and Martin Block whose “colored wood
engravings are on permanent exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, the New York
Public Library and the Library of Congress in Washington” passed away today in
Plainfield, NJ
1875:
In Presov, Hungary, Lena Lefkowitz and her husband gave birth to CCNY graduate
and HUC ordained rabbi, David Lefkowiz, the leader of Dayton’s Temple B’nai
Jeshurun and Dallas’ Temple Emanu-El where he opposed the rising Ku Klux Klan
and husband of Sadie Braham with whom he had four children including David, Jr.
who followed his father into the rabbinate.
http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0195/ms0195.html
1876(16th
of Nisan, 5636): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer
1876(16th
of Nisan, 5636): Fifty-eight-year-old “German physician and co-founder of
experimental pathology in Germany” Ludwig Traube passed away today in Berlin.
1877:
In Pittsburgh, PA, Sarah Weiler and Samuel Silverman gave birth to MIT trained
electrical engineer, the husband of Fannie M. Schloss and technical assistant
to the chairman of the executive committee of the Boston and Main Railroad who
was a member of Temple Israel in Boston.
1878(8th
of Nisan, 5638): Thirty-six-year-old Montefiore Jacob Moses, the Charleston
born so of Jacob I Moses and Rinah Jacobs Moses, the husband of Rosetta Moses
and the father of Belle Moses; Mary Stanford Moses; Montrose J. Moses; Walter
Jonas Moses; Eva May Moses; Edwin E. Moses and Montrose Jonas Moses passed away
today in New York City.
1879(18th
of Nisan, 5639): Fourth Day of Pesach
1880(30th
of Nisan, 5640): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1880(30th
of Nisan, 5640): Twenty-year old Fanny Adler, the wife of Moses Adler and the
sister of Selig Selbiger, a Jewish peddler from Prussia, passed away today.
1880:
In New York City, Joseph and Mathilde (Riegelman) Haberman gave birth to
Columbia trained psychiatrist and neurologist J. Victor Haberman, the WW I
veteran who enhanced his knowledge base by earning a doctorate from the
University of Berlin.
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fh0070291
1880:
“York Minister,” published today recounts the history of this English city
includes an account of the attacks made on the Jews during the reign of Richard
the Lionhearted. The recounting includes a graphic description of the suffering
and death of 500 Jewish citizens at the hands of mob more concerned with not
paying their debts and stealing from the Children of Israel than anything else.
1881:
Isabella Benjamin and David Moses Dyte gave birth to Henry Charles Dyte.
1881:
It was reported today that in Paris, the old customs for observing Shrove
Tuesday are dying out. For example, “the
traditional promenade of the Boeuf Gras” did not stop in front of the hotel of
Baron de Rothschild so that the revelers might “drink to the health of the
great banker” as they used to.”
1882(22nd
of Nisan, 5642): Eighth Day of Pesach; 7th day of the Omer
1882(22nd
of Nisan, 5642): Sixty-eight-year-old “German banker and philanthropist” Jacob
Nachod, the son of Naftali and Bertha Nachod who served as President of the
German Federation of Jewish Communities which he founded passed away today.
1883:
Attorney A. Leo Weil, the Keysville, VA born son of Minna and Isaac L. Weil,
the senior partner in the law firm of Weil, Christy and Weil and member of
Temple Rodef Shalom in Pittsburgh married Cassie Ritter today.
1884(16th
of Nisan, 5644) Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer counted
for the last time during the Presidency of Chester Alan Arthur who had gained
office because of the assassination of James Garfield.
1885(26th
of Nisan, 5645): Parsahat Shmini
1885:
In New Orleans, LA, Emma Schornstein, the daughter of Bertha and Hertzel Ber
Bonart and her husband Samuel Zigmund Schordnstein gave birth to Moise
Schornstein, Sr, the husband of Blanche Block and father of Beatrice and Moise
Schorenstein, Jr.
1886:
In London, Maria Carter and Joseph Ascher gave birth to Floretta Maria Ascher
who died before reaching the age of two.
1886:
In St. Louis, Louis and Clementine Lange Hellman gave birth to Milton Alfred
Hellman who married Alice Stix Eiseman 1917 and with whom he had three
children.
1887(17th
of Nisan, 5647): Third Day of Pesach
1888(30th
of Nisan, 5648): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1888:
In Jacksonville, FL, Rabbi David Levy of Charleston, SC officiated at the
marriage of “Mose J. Ullman of Evansville, Indiana and Susie Jacoby of
Charleston.”
1888:
Henry Ford, the anti-Semitic auto maker married Clara Jane Bryant today.
1889(10th
of Nisan, 5649): A young Jewish boy, Tobias Hipper, died today in New York, the
apparent victim of an assault by to other boys living in his neighborhood. The
police have launched an investigation into the matter.
1890: Ellis Island was
designated as an immigration station.
Ellis Island would be the first stop for millions of European Jews
coming to America.
1890: In Trenton, NJ, Herman Gross, an unemployed
German Jewish grocery clerk tried to kill himself for a second time while in
jail where he had been taken after his failed attempt to drown himself in the
creek near the Pennsylvania Train Station.
1891:
An eight-year-old Jewish tailor’s daughter disappeared on the island
of Corfu, Greece. Rumor spread that she was a Christian girl
ritually killed and these charges resulted in a pogrom.
Unfortunately, at this time of the year, no Jewish community would be exempt
from the possibility of charges like this and the subsequent public uprising.
1891:
Lieutenant Charles A. L. Totten, the military instructor at Yale University”
and the author of publications about the “Hebrew race” has reportedly
discovered the exact date of the “long day” described in the Book of Joshua.
1892(14th
of Nisan, 5652): Fast of the First Born observed for the last time during the
Presidency of Grover Cleveland.
1893:
The New York Times reported that “The stock market was not active today,
a large speculative element being absent, owing to the Passover
holiday.” [Editor’s Note: The italics are mine.
The description of the Jews is pure New York Times.]
1893(25th
of Nisan, 5653): Eighty-one-year-old Adolphe Franck who “became a chevalier of
the Legion of Honor in 1844” and who was an “active defender of Judaism” who continued
to the “Archives Israêlites” for fifty years passed away today.
1895:
Ecaterina Gaster Revici, the daughter of Phina Judith Gaster and Abraham Emauel
Gaster and her husband Tulius gave birth to Teofil “Teo” Revici
1895:
The will of the late Michael Stachelberg, the well-known New York cigar
manufacturer was filed for probate today.
1895:
The Board of Estimate and Appropriation met today in New York and disturbed the
proceeds from the theatrical and concert fund to several charitable
organizations including the United Hebrew Charities ($750), the Montefiore Home
($500) and Beth Israel Hospital ($100)
1896:
“The Young Folks’ League of the Hebrew Infant Asylum gave its first
entertainment at the Lexington Avenue Opera House” tonight.
1896:
In New York City, Pesach (Philip) Luria, a silverware dealer, and
Rebecca (Isaacson) Luria gave birth to Rose Luria Halprin one of the foremost American
Zionist leaders of the twentieth century who served twice as the national
president of Hadassah and held key posts within the Jewish Agency at critical
periods in the history of the Yishuv and the subsequent State of Israel and who
was the wife of Samuel W. Halprin.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/halprin-rose-luria
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0008_0_08276.html
1896:
It was reported today that David Finkelstein of Bridgeport, CT, has not lived
with his Ida since they were married in March when his wife discovered that he
had an artificial nose, a fact that he had not shared with her before their
wedding.
1896:
Convicted jewel thief Ben Ouni who had been as a Turk but claimed he really was
a Jew named Benjamin Dreyer is on his way to serving a four year and six-month
term in the New York state penitentiary.
1897:
“Jews, Anthropologically Considered” published today takes issue with the
contention that the “Israelitish race” …is “the most homogenous races”
describing the differences between the Sephardim, Ashkenazim as well as the
“nomadic Jews” of North Africa, the Falashas, the Jews of Cochin and Bombay as
well as the Jews of China.
1898(19th
of Nisan, 5658): Fifth Day of Pesach
1898:
Two days after she had passed away, 45-year-old Bloomah Jacobs, the daughter of
Isaac Henry Jacobs and Matilda Levy was buried today in London’s “Plashet
Jewish Cemetery.”
1899:
The First Jewish congregation was formed in Caracas, Venezuela.
1899:
Birthdate of Philadelphia native and Temple University trained attorney A.
Alfred Wasserman, a member pf the State House of Representatives from 1933 to
1937 and husband of Esther B. Wasserman with whom he had two children – Ethel
and Joseph.
1899:
“Citizen Pierre,” with Rose Eytinge playing the role of Madam Tison opened on
Broadway.
1900:
“Le Juif Polonais” (The Polish Jew), “an opera in three acts by Camille
Erlanger composed to a libretto by Henri Cain” was first performed today in
Paris at the Opéra Comique. The opera
was adapted from a play by Erckmann-Chatrian
of the same name. In 1871,
Leopold Lewis had translated the play into English under the title of “The
Bells” which provide Henry Irving with one of his most successful acting
vehicles.
1901(22nd
of Nisan, 5561): Eighth Day of Peach
1901:
The Ohavei Zion (Friends of Zion) are scheduled to hold a Passover celebration
and concert at Cooper Union this evening to raise money for the “suffering
Jewish farm laborers of Palestine.”
1902:
Birthdate of Michael Rothstein who gained fame as media magnate Michael
Redstone.
1903(14th
of Nisan, 5663): Parashat Tzav; Shabbat HaGadol; erev Pesach
1903:
Thirty-four-year-old German-Jewish poetess Else Lasker-Schuler and Berthold
Lasker were divorced today.
1904:
Conference of the Greater Actions Committee meets in Vienna. In the spirit of
the Sixth Congress it is decided to send an expedition to East Africa. The
reconciliation conference was Herzl’s last great achievement.
1905:
Today, in Warsaw, a Polish language version of Sholem
Aleichem’s play “Tsezayt un tseshprayt” which had been translated by
Mark Arnstein was staged in a Polish theatre under the direction Arnstein.
1905:
Einstein reveals his Theory of Relativity
1905:
Colonel Nicolas Pike, author, naturalist and a relative of the famous explorer
Zebulon Pike, passed away. Among his
possession was camp chest presented to the explorer Dr. David Livingston by
Jewish philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore
1906:
Congressman Allen L. McDermott delivered a speech in the House of
Representatives in which he defended the Jewish people. McDermott, “who represents a district in New
Jersey, a state in which is published the only avowed anti-Semitic publication”
produced in the United States, spoke out “against the ‘Christ Killing’ charge
and the ritual murder charge.”
1907:
A newspaper story entitled “More Rumors of Pogroms” describes the revival in
Russia of “the old stories about the disappearance of Christian children for
use in sacrifices at the time of the Jewish Passover.” There are rumors that outbreaks of violence
will take place during Russian Easter on April 2.
1907(27th
of Nisan, 5667): Eighty-six-year-old Nathan Becker, the German born son of
Isaac Becker and Philippine Liebenstein, the husband of Henrietta Jette Becker
and father of Ida D Becker; Rachel Schaffner; Viola Henrietta Stern; Abraham
Gamliel Becker and H. E. Becker passed away today in Chicago.
1908(10th
of Nisan, 5668): Parashat Metzora; Shabbat HaGadol
1908:
Tonight, the East Side Businessmen’s Protective Association gave away matzoth,
flour, potatoes tea and eggs to over 2,000 poor Jews living on the Lower East
Side.
1908:
Birthdate of Leo Rosten. Educated at the University of Chicago and the
London School of Economics, Leo Rosten spent sixty years acquainting his
readers with different aspects of Jewish culture and the Yiddish
language. Some of his better known works included Captain Newman, M.D.,
The Joys of Yiddish and Hooray For Yiddish. He passed away
in 1997.
1909(20th
of Nisan, 5669): Sixth Day of Pesach
1909(20th
of Nisan, 5669): In one of the great moments of modern Jewish History, Tel Aviv
(Hill of Spring), the first modern Jewish city, was founded on the sand dunes
north of Jaffa with the building of 60 houses. The actual name Tel Aviv was
given only the next year (Hill of Spring) and was taken from a Babylonian city
(Ezekiel 3:15) and used by Nahum Sokolow as the title for his translation of
Herzl’s book Altneuland. Today Tel Aviv is a thriving modern
metropolis, popular and favorite Mediterranean vacation spot for Europeans
seeking warmth in the wintertime.
1909:
Miss Judith Hirsch the “head worker of the Harlem Federation of Jewish Communal
Work” is reported to be one of those supporting The Central Park Protection
Association in its fight against legislation “authorizing the erection of a
gallery in Central Park by the National Academy of Design.
1910:
Members of the
Hebrew Retail Kosher Butchers’ Protective Association are scheduled to meet
this morning, at which time they will decide whether or not to make the boycott
of the slaughter houses permanent until prices are reduced at least to nine
cents, as it was four months ago.
1911:
Today marked the third and final day for distribution of free Matzoth by the
United Hebrew Community.
1911:
Birthdate of DeWitt Clinton High School child prodigy Benjamin Kaplan the
Columbia Law School graduate who helped prosecute war criminals after WW II and
whose Harvard Law School students included two future Supreme Court Justices –
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
1912:
The RMS Titanic left Cork for the United States carrying a wide variety of
famous from Cherbourg passengers including Edith Russell who had written her
secretary that “this is the most wonderful boat you can think of” and that “it
is a monster,” more like a “big hotel than a cozy ship.”
1912:
Birthdate of Elinor Sophia Coleman who became famous as Elinor Guggenheimer an
advocate for children, women and the elderly. Mrs. Guggenheimer became the
first woman to serve on the New York City Planning Commission and she was the
city’s commissioner of consumer affairs in the 1970, where in one of her more
lighthearted moments she went after a store in Queens for selling fake
lox. She passed away in 2008. Regardless
of how she may have felt about Kashrut she left us with this little rhyme, “Oysters
that could once delight us, now just give us hepatitis.”
1912:
A campaign began today to raise $200,000 for a new facility to be used by the
Young Women’s Hebrew Association in New York City.
1912:
The Technikum, later to be known as the Techinion (Israel’s M.I.T.) was
founded in Haifa, Israel. Later that year the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden,
which established the Haifa Technion, faced a strike by both teachers and
students when they tried to institute German as the school’s language instead
of Hebrew. The American co-trustees agreed with the strikers and the Society
left Eretz-Israel after the First World War. There was a lively debate as
to whether Yiddish, Hebrew or German would be the language of the embryonic
Jewish state. There was a strong sentiment for Hebrew since the other two
were languages of the Diaspora and Hebrew was “the language of the
land.”
1913:
In Chicago, at Temple Sholom, Rabbi Abram Hirschberg is scheduled to “deliver
his 15th anniversary sermon” this evening on the subject of “Fifteen
Years in the Jewish Ministry.
1913:
The President of Panama attended the dedication of the first synagogue in Colon
1914(15th
of Nisan, 5674): Last Pesach before the start of World War I which begin a long
series of cataclysms for the Jews of Europe.
1914(15th
of Nisan, 5674): A special Passover luncheon is scheduled to be served to
military personnel at Tuxedo Hall in New York City.
1914(15th
of Nisan, 5674): On the second night of Pesach, The Jewish Sailors and
Soldiers’ Passover Committee hosted a seder for U.S. soldiers, sailors and
marines at Tuxedo Hall.
1914(15th
of Nisan, 5674): Tonight, Rabbi Maurice H. Harris is scheduled to lead a Seder
at Temple Israel of Harlem.
1914:
Two days before Harry Horowitz was scheduled to be executed for his role in the
shooting of gambler Herman Rosenthal, New York State Justice Goff said the new
witnesses that came forward claiming that he was innocent were not credible and
that he would not grant the motion for a new trial.
1915:
Charlie Chaplin releases The Tramp.
1915:
‘In his sermon” this “morning in commemoration of the seventieth anniversary of
Temple Eamnu-El, Dr. Joseph Silverman” the congregation’s rabbi “called for
greater extension of social service and wider consideration of problems of
public welfare and personal conduct as the proper course for the congregation
whose founding was one of the greatest impulses in the development of reformed
Judaism” in the United States.
1915(27th
of Nisan, 5675): Four days before his 62nd birthday Manhattan born
Dr. Louis Waldstein Walston, the son of Henry and Sophie Schriesheimer
Waldstein passed away to day in England.
1916:
Based on today’s reports from the Relief Committee for Indigent Jews in Berlin
“nearly $2,000,000 has been spent in relief work” to aid the Jews in occupied
Poland much of which has come from Jews in America.
1916:
“Bundle Day timed to the seasonal change of raiment” today “brought 2,000
packages to the Industrial Department of the United Hebrew Charities at 37
Greene Street to be utilized for the poor.”
1917:
The first of the “Breaking Down the Barrier Meetings” sponsored by the Gramercy
Neighborhood Association which the Jews of the area have been asked to attend
is scheduled to take place tonight at the Washington Irving High School.
1917: In
Manhattan, Russian immigrant Louis Sobell, “a pharmacist who opened a drugstore
in the Bronx” and his wife Rose gave birth to Morton Sobell who was found
guilty along with the Rosenbergs but who, unlike them only served an 18 year
prison sentence instead of being electrocuted.
1917: It
was reported today that Utah Governor Simon Bamberger, the first Jew to hold
that position, has said that “by feeding and saving three million starving
Jews” in Russia “we help the new Government as well as our own people, and in
making Russian democracy strong to withstand German autocracy we serve
America.” (Editor’s note: At this time
it was seen as critical to keep Russia in the war fighting the Germans and to
do everything possible to keep them from making a separate peace with the
Kaiser whom the Americans had just declared war on a week ago.)
1917: It
was reported today, that before adjourning those attending the first ever
Zionist convention ever held in Russia, “sent greetings to the American
Provisional Zionist Committee, to the Inner Actions Committee, to Dr. Max
Nordau and to all the Zionist federations throughout the world.”
1918:
“The Liberty Loan drive among the Jews of the east side was launched” tonight”
at two meetings held in the Bank of United States Building at 77 Delancey
Street.
1918:
Fritz Beckhardt, the WW I German Ace who had transferred from the infantry “scored
his first victory, over a Royal Aircraft Factory RE.8.”
1919: As
Bavaria is engulfed in violence during an attempt to create a Socialist
Republic, “Max Cohen, Chairman of the Central Committee and one of the
Socialist leaders spoke against the terms of the Armistice and “advocated the
formation of a continental bloc as an offset to the ‘Anglo-American alliance.’”
1920:
Tonight, at a dinner at the Astor Hotel where “more than $1,600,000 was
subscribed at the launch of the campaign knowns the New York Appeal for Jewish
War Sufferers” the approximately one thousand attendees hear Herbert Hoover
warned that substantial amounts of equipment is need “if typhus is not to
spread eastward and westward across the whole of Europe” while Judge Arbam
Elkus “described the ravages of typhus as he witnessed it when Ambassador at
Constantinople.”
1920:
“More than 40,000 destitute Jews fleeing from persecution and economic
destruction Eastern Europe are now stranded in German cities according to a
cablegram received by Felix M. Warburg at the headquarters of the Joint
Distribution Committee for Jewish War Suffers.”
1921:
The British created The Emirate of Transjordan.
The British partitioned the land of the Palestine Mandate to create this
Arab kingdom. There are those who claim
that Palestine has already been partitioned.
Since the Arabs got the land east of the Jordan, the Jews should get the
remaining sliver west of the Jordan River. During the 1930’s Winston Churchill
opposed the partition of the land west of the Jordan River for this very
reason. Churchill knew whereof he spoke
since he was the one who really created the Emirate in the first place.
1922:
Thirty year old Philadelphia College of Osteopathy and Columbia University
physician Karl Benjamin Bretzfelder, the New Haven, CT. born son of Benjamin
and Bessie (Mendoza) Bretzfielder” who was a commissioned officer in the U.S.
Army’s Medical Corps, a surgeon for the New Have Police Department and
physician for both the Jewish Home for the Aged and the Jewish Orphans while
serving as an active member of the Horeb Lodge of B’nai Brith and Congregation
Mishkan Israel gave birth to Ameilia Kafka today.
1923:
Birthdate of Dr. Theodore Isaac Rubin the husband of Eleanor Katz and past
President of the American Institute for Psychoanalysis whose story “Lisa and
David” provided the inspiration for the 1962 film of the same name.
1924:
“Resorting to a new subterfuge,” Prohibition Agency Izzy Einstein and his
partner raided a crowded restaurant “and seized $25, 000 worth of contraband
goods.”
1925(17th
of Nisan, 5685): Third Day of Pesach; Shabbat Chol Hamoed
1925: It
was reported today that “the rebuilding of Palestine as a Jewish national home
and the spreading of ethical ideas based on the teachings of the Bible, will be
furthered to a great extent by a new foundation, which has the support of the
fortune left by Joseph Fels, single tax reformer, through an institution
established by his widow. Mrs. Mary Fels of New York…”
1926:
Tonight, “speaking from the pulpit of the West End Presbyterian Church, Dr.
H.G. Enelow, the rabbi of Temple Emanu-El…called up on Jews and Christians to
join together”…in “the religion of fellowship with God and fellowship with
man.”
1926:
The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of America is scheduled to meet at 2 p.m. at the
Broadway Central Hotel to develop plans for participating in the United Jewish
Campaign’s to raise $500,000 “for the relief and rehabilitation of Jews in
Eastern Europe.
1927:
Today, New York philanthropist Nathan Straus arrived back in the United States
after visiting Palestine and “said that he found steady progress there in spite
of the crisis of Tel Aviv which he said was temporary.”
1928:
Rookie Second Baseman Andy Cohen who had been the captain of the baseball team
at the University of Alabama where he belonged to a Jewish fraternity, led the
Giants to a stunning opening day victory over the Boston Braves at the Polo
Grounds at the end of which he was carried off the field on the shoulder of
adoring fans.
1929:
Tonight “Joseph V. McKee, the president of the Board of Alderman formally
opened the exhibition of ORT, the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural and
Technical Trades among the Jews of Eastern Europe” which was attended by five
hundred people included “Howard S. Cullman the commission of the Port
Authority” and the National Chairman of ORT.
1930:
“The new play put on at the Downtown National Theatre tonight was a musical
comedy called ‘Motke from Slobodke’ which is “comparatively plotless” which is
unusual for a Jewish play and which lacks the “sob-stuff” that is usually
connected with “every good Jewish popular play.”
1930: It
was reported today that in response to Nebi Musa, the Moslem pilgrimage to the
supposed site of the tomb of Moses near Jericho” which coincides with
observance of Pesach, “Jerusalem has reassumed the military aspect it had in
August and September 1929 when steel helmeted British soldiers, British police
armed with rifles and mounted Palestine constables with rifles slung over their
shoulders paraded through the streets.
1931(24th
of Nisan, 5691): Parashat Shmini
1931:
Dorothy Parker, the daughter of Jacob Henry Rothschild and the granddaughter of
Prussia born Jews Mary Greissman and Sampson Jacob Rothschild resigned “her job
as drama critic for The New Yorker magazine.”
1931:
Birthdate of Buenos Aires native and University of Buenos Aires alum Nelly
Kelly, “the family rebel “whose witty, satire-tinged French films about female
empowerment and revenge made her a distinctive voice in a male-dominated era.”
(As reported by Neil Genzlinger)
1931:
While speaking at a dinner given in his honor at London’s Savoy Hotel, David
Lloyd George “assured the leaders of world Zionism that his faith in the Jewish
national home was stronger than it was eleven years ago when his Government
took over the British mandate in Palestine….The Mandate must not be
administered nervously and apologetically, but firmly and fearlessly’ since
Christians and Arabs under the mandate can only benefit from the success of the
Zionist experiment.
1932:
Time magazine published the following description of the Macabbiah.
Three thousand Jewish athletes from 27
countries last week paraded through Tel Aviv (”Hill of Spring”) in
Palestine, for the opening of the first Maccabiad. Wrongly described as the
“Jewish Olympics,” the Maccabean Games were organized by the World
Maccabee Union, named for the Israelite hero, Judas Maccabaeus. The games began
when 120 pigeons in flocks of ten—messengers to the Twelve Tribes of
Israel—were allowed to fly to their homes in various parts of Palestine. Led by
Tel Aviv’s Mayor Dizengoff riding on a white horse, the 3,000 athletes, aged 5
to 60, marched to a huge new stadium that was crowded beyond capacity (25.000).
The Maccabiad lasted four days. No supremely able Jewish athletes were entered;
no world’s records were broken. No official team score was compiled.
1932:
Birthdate of actor Joel Grey. Born Joel
Katz, he is best known as one of the stars in “Cabaret.”
1933(15th
of Nisan, 5693): First Day of Pesach
1933: Mickey Cohen lost a fight with Chalky Wright in Los Angeles.
1933: “Nazis issued a Decree defining a non-Aryan as “anyone
descended from non-Aryan, especially Jewish, parents or grandparents. One
parent or grandparent classifies the descendant as non-Aryan…especially if
one parent or grandparent was of the Jewish faith.”
1933: The
German government began employment and economic sanctions against Jews that are
widely perceived as being racially based which were opposed by The Lutheran
Church.
1934:
“The national executive of the Pioneer Women’s Organization to with the New
York branch” is scheduled to hold a reception this evening at the Central Plaza
for Goldie Meyerson, the organization’s national secretary who has “returned
after a six month’s country-wide tour during which she visited many clubs” and
delivered numerous speeches. (Editor’s note – this is the future Golda Meir)
1935:
Ada Goldberg and Mathew L. Gelernter gave birth to right-wing columnist Judith
Ann Reisman, the wife of Arnold Reisman “best known for her criticism and
condemnation of Alfred Kinsey” and who reportedly “believes that a homosexual
movement in Germany gave rise to the Nazi Party and the Holocaust.”
1935:
Following “recent anti-Semitic riots” in Romania, “two German Nazis are
reported to be among those arrested” and will be expelled from the country for
“acting as agitators.”
1936(19th
of Nisan, 5696): Shabbat shel Pesach
1936: Rodgers & Hammerstein’s musical “On
Your Toes”, premiered in New York City.
1936:
“In a message read to 2,000 persons attending the annual dinner of the National
Labor Committee for Jewish Workers in Palestine at the Hotel Commodore”
tonight, Professor Albert Einstein expressed the opinion that a public protest
would prevent the British Government from approving additional restrictions in
Palestine which are now being considered.”
1936:
Joseph C. Hyman, Secretary of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
announced today that if the committee succeeds in reaching its goal of raising
$3,500,000, “it would allocate $1,115,000 to Jews in Eastern Europe of which 60
to 70 percent would go to aid Jewish communities and organizations in Poland.”
1936:
Birthdate of Carla Furstenberg, who as Carla Cohen, became co-owner of a unique
Washington, DC institution, Politics and Prose, an independent bookstore that
proved too successful in spite of chain bookstores and internet shopping.
1937:
At the Pierre Hotel, Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan officiated at the wedding of
Norma Rubenstein, a graduate of Smith College and Benedict I. Lubell of Tulsa,
OK and “an alumnus of Columbia College and Columbia Law School
1937:
Tonight, in the Starlight Roof of the Waldorf-Astoria, Rabbi Stephen Wise
officiated at the wedding Hilda Friedman ad Alexander Weinig.
1937:
It was reported today that “six American museums have acquired works by Elias
Newman a Palestinian artist of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Mr. Newman has been in the United States
collecting works of modern American artists for Tel Aviv’s new Museum of Art.
Newman was a Polish born artist best known for his watercolors.
1938:
Forty-six days after The British High Commissioner had declared Tel Aviv Harbor
open Eliezer Steinlauf, a resident of Tel Aviv who had been born in Austria,
disembarked from his ship at Tel Aviv making him the first passenger to
disembark at the world’s first “Jewish port.”
1938: The Palestine Post reported that since
the advent of the Nazi regime in Austria, the British Consulate in Vienna had
handed out more than 12,000 applications for immigration to Australia.
Immigration to New Zealand had been stopped “temporarily.” South
Africa demanded £250 for every immigrant.
1938:
The Palestine Post published a special, copyrighted story, written by
Ernest Hemingway, on the activities of the American and British volunteer
battalions, fighting General Franco’s insurgents in Catalonia.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that Aryans
said “Ja” or “Nein” (Yes or No) in Austrian Anschluss
(incorporation into Germany) plebiscite. Special trains brought more than
12,000 Nazi volunteers from Czechoslovakia for this purpose.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that the new
“Eden” hotel opened in Jerusalem – a valuable addition to Jerusalem’s
hotel amenities.
1939(22nd
of Nisan, 5699): 8th day of Pesach; unbeknownst to them, for
millions of European Jews this would be their last celebration of the
liberation from Egypt.
1939: Birthdate of Louise Lasser, the actress who gained
fame on “Mary Hartman! Mary Hartman!”
1940: Soviet forces complete the slaughter of
26,000 Polish army officers in the Katyn Forest. When the slaughter is discovered, the Soviets
will try and blame it on the Nazis.
1940:
The Nazi occupiers of Lodz, “renamed the city Litzmannstadt (after the German general
Karl Litzmann, who had conquered it in World War I); most of the German
documents concerning the Lodz Ghetto refer to it as the “Litzmannstadt
Ghetto.”
1941(14th
of Nisan, 5701): In Washington, D.C, Deb and Joe Levin celebrate their first
Seder – a tradition begins!
1941:
Erev Pesach the ghetto at Kielce, Poland “was sealed off from the outside
world” following “a Judenrat was
appointed, chaired by Moshe Pelc, who was eventually arrested and deported to
Auschwitz for resisting German orders.”
1941:
Nazi occupiers in Netherlands confiscated Jewish assets.
1941: On Good
Friday, Reverend Conrad Gröber “gave a sermon whose vocabulary came very close
to the anti-Semitic vocabulary of the Nazi rulers: “As a driving force
behind the Jewish legal power stood the aggressive toadyism and malevolent
perfidy of the Pharisees. They unmasked themselves more than ever as Christ’s
arch-enemies, deadly enemies…. Their eyes were blindfolded by their prejudice
and blinded by their Jewish lust for worldly dominion.” As for the
“people” or, in his words, the “wavering crowd of Jews”,
the archbishop said, “The Pharisees’ secret service had awakened the
animal in it through lies and slander, and it was eager for grisly excitement
and blood.”
1941: Jewish Weekly newspaper taken control by
Nazi’s.
1941:
Work was begun today to open the Jadovno contraction camp in Croatia.
1941: Birthdate of Ellen Goodman, the popular syndicated
columnist for the Boston Globe.
She is yet another in a long line of Jewish journalists who have won the
Pulitzer Prize. In her case it was for Commentary. In
addition to her journalism, she is a popular author and speaker.
1942: Three thousand Jews from Zamosc, Poland,
were deported to the Belzec death camp
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/april/08.asp
1942: A German proclamation issued in Lvov,
Ukraine, excoriated Polish civilians who assisted Jews.
1942:
The USS Blue, which had not been sunk or damaged during the attack on Pearl
Harbor thanks to the efforts of Ensign Nathan Asher, a graduate of the Naval
Academy who took command U.S.S. Blue since the skipper was ashore” was at the
Mare Island Navy Yard today.
http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/pix1/0538711.jpg
1943:
“The Jewish Forum, a publication
devoted to “uniting Jew and non-Jew in safeguarding democracy,”
celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary with a dinner at the Hotel Commodore today.”
1943:
“Jews in 6 Weeks of Mourning” published today described “a six week period of
mourning and intercession” proclaimed by the Synagogue Council of America
“during which Jews of America are to mourn the loss of two million European
Jews exterminated by Hitler and are to plead for governmental action to rescue
as many as possible of those remaining in Nazi-held Europe” which will start on
“start on the closing day of Passover.
1943:
The diary being kept by 19-year-old Julus Feldman that recorded events at the
Plaszow Concentration ended at mid-sentence today after which on an unknown he
was murdered.
https://www.holocaust.org.uk/diary-of-julius-feldman
1944;
Anne Frank diary insert – ‘Who has made us Jews different to all other people?
Who has allowed us to suffer so terribly up till now? It is God that has made
us as we are, but it will be God, too, who will raise us up again.
1944:
The trains filled with Jews from Ioannina, Arta, Volvos, Preveza, Chalkis,
Patras, Trikala, Larissa, Kastoria and other Greek cities arrived at Auschwitz
1944:
Shlomo Venezia saw his mother and his two little sisters – Marcia and Marta –
for the last time today as he climbed out of a freight car at
Auschwitz-Birkenau.
1945:
American soldiers liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald,
Germany. Thousands of Jewish prisoners had been marched from other camps
to Buchenwald in early 1945. As the Americans approached, the Nazis tried
to another Death March costing the lives of 25,000 mostly Jewish
prisoners. However, 21,000 prisoners were liberated including 4,000
Jews, 1000 of whom were teenagers and children. Thirty-one
members of the camp staff were later found guilty with two of them condemned to
death and four getting life sentences James Hoyt, of Oxford, Iowa, was the
radio operator and driver for a four-man reconnaissance team when two
Buchenwald escapees flagged them down. The team went to the camp, which was
hidden in a forested area. According to his eyewitness account, “When the
people saw our vehicle with the American markings on it, they really went wild.
They tore a part of the fence down. They threw us up in the air,” Hoyt told The
Gazette 10 years ago. “It was a very sorry sight all the way. They were
skin and bones, the living ones. Of course, there were all kinds of dead ones
there.” In all, about 238,500 prisoners were held at the camp.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/april/14.asp
1945:
Meir Binem
(Beniek) Wrzonski the son of Noah Wrzonski and was Rajzel Maroko was among
those who were found alive when Buchenwald was liberated today.
https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1942-1945/liberation-of-dora-mittelbau
1945:
The The 3rd Armored Division discovered the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp.”
1945:
The Palestine Post reported medical
relief units were going to be heading to Greece. Almost one-third of the team
which was first heading to Cairo and then would be off to Greece was made up of
Palestinians (Jews). The team was made up of doctors, nurses, sanitary officers,
laboratory technicians and drivers. Some of the Palestinians were fluent in
Judeo-Spanish and Greek.
1945:
Based on accounts from members of the 102nd Division, United States Army,
members of the SS burned to death over one thousand prisoners at
Gardelgen. The prisoners were slave laborers from several
concentration camps that were being moved east to keep them away from
advancing Allied soldiers. When the SS could no longer move them by
train, they herded them into a barn, soaked them with gasoline and burned them
to death. The SS soldiers killed in this manner to conserve
ammunition. Most of the dead were Jews, a large number of whom appeared
to be between the ages of fourteen and sixteen.
1945:
Henry Oster, a native of Cologne who “was taken to the Lodz ghetto in 1941 and
later to Auschwitz” was among those left alive when Buchenwald was liberated
today.
1946:
“More than 400 women members of Protestants churches were guests” today “at
Temple Emanu-El, at an institute on Judaism held under the auspices of the
National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods with the cooperation of the New York
Council of Church Women” where “they heard addresses by three rabbis” who
“explained the beliefs of Judaism, synagogue ritual and traditions and
ceremonies of the Jewish religion.
1947(21st
of Nisan, 5707): Seventh Day of Pesach
1947:
Today E.F. Hutton and Company founding partner, Gerald Martin Loeb, the San
Franciso born of Dahlia H. Lev and Solomon E. Loeb married Rose Lobree Benjamin
the widow of Shanghai real estate developer Maurice Benjamin and the Brentwood,
CA born daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A.E. Lobree.
1947:
In the Bronx, “Milton Riegert a food wholesaler” and his wife Lucille, “a piano
teacher gave birth to Academy Award nominate producer Peter Riegert who also
was an actor and screenwriter.
1947:
Birthdate of Israeli political leader Charlie-Shalom Biton. A native of Morocco, he made Aliyah in
1948:
“The first westbound convoy in almost three weeks fought its way through” to
Jerusalem today from Tel Aviv having fought its way “along the 40-mile
hazardous route” where it faced at least 2,000 Arab fighters.
1949:
“President Truman said today that he was firmly convinced of the need for a
speedy peace between Israel and her Arab neighbors, and he pledged this
country’s assistance to attain that objective.
1949:
Today, Israel accepted the United Nations Conciliation Commission’s invitation
to attend an ‘exchange of views’ with Arab states in Europe” which “might take
place in Switzerland on May 1.”
1950(24th
of Nisan, 5710): Sixty-eight year old Warsaw Polytechnic Institute trained
mechanical engineer Alphonse Illitch Lipetz, the husband of Basile Carp Lipetz
and the father of Rena Niles who was the
“chief of the locomotive department for the Ministry of Railways in Russia for
three years during the last years of the Czars and who became a consulting
engineer for the American Locomotive Company at Schenectady, NY in 1925 before
becoming a Professor at Purdue University passed away today in New York City.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1950/04/12/86424425.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1951:
President Harry Truman, who courageously recognized the state of Israel at its
moment of birth, showed his courage again today when he relieved General
Douglas MacArthur of his command.
1952(16th
of Nisan, 5712): 2nd day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer
1952:
After having premiered at Radio City Music Hall in March, “Singing in the
Rain,” directed by Stanley Donen, produced by Arthur Freed, with a script by
Betty Comden and Adolph Green, was released to theatres across the United
States today.
1953(26th
of Nisan, 5713): Parashat Shimini
1953(26th
of Nisan, 5713): Ninety-five-year-old David Bach, the German born son of
Abraham and Henrietta Jette Bach, the husband of Ida Bach and the father of
Alfred Bach passed away today in the Bronx.
1953:
This morning, NBC radio broadcast the final episode of “The Buster Brown
Program” featuring June Foray as “the voices of Midnight the Cat and Old
Grandie the Piano.”
1955(19th
of Nisan, 5715): Fifth Day of Pesach
1955:
“Marty”, the Oscar winning film with a script by Paddy Chayefsky was released
today in the United States.
1955:
Birthdate of Ethiopian native Ayele Seteng, the internationally acclaimed
Israeli cross-country runner and record holding “marathon man.”
https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/sa/haile-satayin-1.html
1955(19th
of Nisan): Rabbi Jekuthiel Judah Greenwald, author of “Ach laZarah” passed away
1956(30th
of Nisan, 5716): Terrorists opened fire on a synagogue full of children and
teenagers, in the farming community of Shafir killing three children and a
youth worker while wounding five more, three seriously including Albert Edery,
14, of Lod, Kamus Amos Uzan, 15, of Shafrir, Yaakov Harari, 13, of Shafrir, Simcha
Silberstrom, 25, a teacher from Shafrir, Shlomo Mizrahi, 16, of Shafrir abd
Nisim Assis, 13, of Jerusalem.
1956:
Funeral services are scheduled to be held at the “Riverside” for Oscar E.
Herbnstadt who raised two sons – George
and Richard – with his wife Helen who was a member of Temple Sinai of Long
Island in Lawrence, NY.
1956:
In the Chancery Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey, a decision was
rendered “In Re Katz Estate” today.
https://law.justia.com/cases/new-jersey/appellate-division-published/1956/40-n-j-super-103-0.html
1958(21st
of Nisan, 5718): Seventh Day of Pesach
1958(21st
of Nisan, 5718): Ninety-year-old Laura Louise Hart, the Charleston, SC born
daughter of Laura Louis Levy and Charles Ferdinand Levy and the wife of David
Lopez Hart passed away today in her hometown.
1959:
After 558 performances at the Imperial Theatre, the curtain came down on the
original Broadway production of “Jamaica,” a musical with a book and lyrics by
Yip Harburg, music by Harold Arlen and lighting design by Jean Rosenthal
1959:
“Davey Jones’ Locker” with music by Mary Rogers was performed for the last time
at the Morosco Theatre.
1960(14th
of Nisan, 5720): Fast of the First Born
1960(14th
of Nisan): Rabbi Chaim Heller, author LeHikre ha-Halakhot passed away
1961: Bob Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman,
makes his singing début in New York City.
1961:
The trial of Adolph Eichman on charges of genocide opened in Jerusalem.
The capture of Eichman in Argentina is the stuff of James Bond. His trial
marked a turning point as Jews and non-Jews alike began to talk openly about
what happened in Europe. Eichman would be the only person ever executed
by the state of Israel. “Justice Moshe Landau read the 15-count indictment
aloud in Hebrew, pausing as each charge was translated into German. The charges
included “causing the killing of millions of Jews,” “torture” and placing “many
millions of Jews in living conditions that were calculated to bring about their
physical destruction.”
1963(17th
of Nisan, 5723): Third Day of Pesach
1963(17th
of Nisan, 5723): Eighty-year old Latvian born leader of the Mensheviks and
life-long opponent of Stalin Raphael R. Abramovich, a co-founder of the Union
for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, “the editor of the Yiddish
encyclopedia Jewish People, Past and Present” and a feature writer for The
Jewish Daily Forward who was the husband of “the former Rosa Segal” and the
father of Dr. Lia Andler and Mark Abramovich, “an electrical engineer” who
“disappeared without a trace” while fighting with the International Brigade
against Franco after he had reportedly been kidnapped by Bolshevists who were
the political enemies of his father, passed away today.
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Abramovich_Rafail
1963:
Pitcher Conrad Cardinal appeared in his first major league game, taking the
mound for the Houston Colt 45’s, now known as the Houston Astros.
1965(9th
of Nisan, 5725): Eighty-seven-year-old Louise Kahn Hirschman passed away today
after which she was buried at Temple Beth-El Cemetery in Pensacola, FL.
1965(9th
of Nisan, 5725): Seventy-four-year-old Princeton graduate (1911) and New York
Stock Exchange member James Bernhimer Seligamn, the son of De Witt J. (David)
Seligman and Addie Seligman, passed away today.
1968:
The “I’m Solomon” a musical with music by Ernest Gold had its first Broadway
preview today.
1968: Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act
of 1968, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion or national
origin in the sale, rental, and financing of housing. It took the political skill and acumen of LBJ
to insure that being Jewish was no longer a disability when it came to renting
or buying a home. (This is not to be confused with more famous Civil Rights of
1964, the first piece of groundbreaking legislations signed into law by
President Johnson who proved to be as strong voice for the underdog and
disposed including the Jewish people and the state of Israel.)
1970:
Civil rights attorney Martin Garbus and
writer, therapist, and social worker Ruth Meitin Garbus gave birth to Elizabeth
Fraya Garbus the Brown University graduate who gained fame as Liz Garbus,
documentary film maker.
1971(16th
of Nisan, 5731): Second Day of Pesach
1971:
Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who had been trained as a paratrooper by the
Israelis and who was complicit in the hijacking of plane by terrorists that led
to the rescue at Entebbe, was forced to flee today marking the end of his
“reign.”
1971: A
revival of Kurt Weill’s “Johnny Johnson,” a musical version of The Good
Soldier Švejk opened today at the Edison Theatre
1972(27th
of Nisan, 5732): Yom HaShoah
1972(27th
of Nisan, 5732): Eleven days before his 54th birthday, Solomon Aaron
Berson the physician who was the research partner of Rosalyn Yalow passed away.
http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/87/5/1925.full
1973:
In the wake of the Munich Olympic Massacre, Zaiad Muchasi, the replacement for
Hussein Al Bashir in Cyprus, was killed by a bomb in his Athens hotel room
today.
1973:
New York premiere of “Scarecrow” directed by Jerry Schatzberg.
1974(19th
of Nisan, 5734): Fifth day of Pesach
1974(19th
of Nisan, 5734): Eighty-seven-year-old Jerusalem native Israel Porath, the
husband of Miriam Titktin with whom he “had 7 children – Shoshana, Samuel,
Tzve, Benjamin, Ben Zion, Joseph, and David – and “for almost five decades,”
“the ‘dean’ of Cleveland, Ohio’s Orthodox rabbis” passed away today.
https://case.edu/ech/articles/p/porath-israel
1974:
In a case of “Jew versus Jew” it was reported today that Lorence A. Silverberg,
chairman and president of the Kenton Corporation, is expected to become
president and chief executive officer of Interstate Stores, Inc., when its
pending purchases of more than 1,100 McCrory stores is completed” instead of
Samuel Neaman.
1974:
It was reported today that Samuel Neaman who had resigned as McCrory’s chairman
and chief executive Feb. 15 to negotiate for a post as Interstate’s top man”
and his wife Celia had left for a trip to England and Israel, countries where
Mr. Neaman has relaties.
1974(19th
of Nisan, 5734): Eighteen Israelis, including 8 children were murdered today
and 15 more Israelis were injured today when three terrorists belong to of the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command crossed the
Israeli border from Lebanon and attacked the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona.
1974(19th
of Nisan, 5734): Fifty-five-year-old German born, American mathematician
Abraham Robinson passed away today in New Haven, CT.
http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/robinson-abraham.pdf
1974(19th
of Nisan, 5734): Polish born American actress Lilian Satz, “a member of the
Adler Yiddish Theatrical dynasty” and the wife of Yiddish actor Ludwig Satz
passed away today at Mamaroneck, NY.
1974:
Golda Meir resigned as Prime Minister “after the Agranat Commission had
published its interim report on the Yom Kippur War.
1974:
“Music! Music!” a “cavalcade of American Musice with footnotes by Alan Jay
Lerner” opened today at the Theatre Center 55th Street Theatre.
1977:
Seventy-seven-year-old French poet and screenwriter Jacques Prevert who teamed
with hid Josef Kozma, the Budapest born Jewish composer he had worked with
during the 1930’s from Vichy and the Nazis at great person risk to his own life
passed away today.
1978:
The Jerusalem Post reported that
Israel had started to dismantle its outposts in South Lebanon in preparation
for the expected pullback. But Lebanese Christian leaders and many Israelis
expressed concern that the pullback was premature. The world’s greatest
battleship, the US atom-powered “Nimitz,” completed its Israeli visit
and sailed away from Haifa.
1978: 1978: Harold H. Saunders, who played a key role in the
creation of the Camp David Accords, began serving as the 12th
Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs.
1979(14th
of Nisan, 5739): Ta’anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach
1979(14th
of Nisan, 5739): Eighty-six-year-old Wharton graduate and WW I Army veteran Sam
Gukenheimer Adler, the former CEO of Leopold Adler Company and husband of
Elinor Gunsfeld Adler with whom he had two sons, Leopold and Sam, passed away
today in Savannah.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1979/04/12/111091623.pdf
1979(14th
of Nisan, 5739): New York City born social worker Maxwell W. Luchs, a director
of the welfare funds for the American Jewish Congress who had joined the
American Jewish in 1949 after having served as an overseas personnel director
for the Joint Distribution Committee and as field secretary of the Michigan
State Resettlement Service for Refugees passed away today.
Maxwell M. Lochs,
Former Aide Of American Jewish Congress – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
1979(14th
of Nisan, 5739): Eighty-two-year-old Detroit businessman Shmuel-Ber Leykin
passed away today.
http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2017/04/shmuel-ber-leykin.html
1983(28th
of Nisan, 5743): General Avraham Yoffe passed away. A sabra born at Yavne;el in 1913 Yoffe served
with Orde Wingate, fought with British Army during World War II before
beginning a distinguished career with the IDF that included command of the 9th
Brigade during the Suez Campaign and the capture of several significant
positions in the Sinai during the Six Day War.
1983:
In “How Punchy Was Slapsie Maxie?” published today, Jeff Wheelwright examined
the life and demise of the Jewish boxer.
http://www.si.com/vault/1983/04/11/619345/how-punchy-was-slapsie-maxie
1983:
Twenty-second and final episode of the first season of “Family Ties” sit-com
created by Gary David Goldberg was broadcast today.
1983:
In “This Week’s Citation Classic” published today Theodore Lowi discussed his
latest work, The End of Liberalism: Ideology, Policy and the Crisis of
Public Authority.
http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/classics1983/A1983QH93700001.pdf
1983(28th
of Nisan, 5743): Yom HaShoah
1983: Poland’s
Roman Catholic Primate, Jozef Cardinal Glemp, officiated today at a mass
honoring the Jewish fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The mass was one of
a series of events over the next week and a half commemorating the 40th
anniversary of the resistance to the Nazis.
1984:
CBS broadcast the final episode of the miniseries “George Washington”
co-starring Stephen Macht as “General Benedict Arnold.”
1985(20th
of Nisan, 5745): Sixth Day of Pesach
1986:
“Band of the Hand” a crime movie directed by Paul Michael Glaser and starring
Stephen Lang and James Remard was released today in the United States.
1986(2nd
of Nisan, 5746): Eighty-nine-year-old Israel Goldstein the long-serving Rabbi
at congregation B’nai Jerhurun and an ardent Zionist who was also the founder
of both the National Conference of Christians and Jews and Brandeis University
passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/13/obituaries/rabbi-israel-goldstein-a-founder-of-brandeis.html
1987(12th
of Nisan, 5747): An Israeli woman was
killed by a firebomb thrown into her car in the occupied West Bank today, and
in response hundreds of Jewish settlers rampaged in the West Bank town of
Kalkilya overnight, breaking windows and setting cars ablaze. The Israeli woman
was killed near Alfe Menashe, a Jewish settlement on the West Bank about 25
miles north of here. Her husband and two of her children, who were also in the
car, were reported in serious condition. Her third child and a young family friend
were treated for light burns. The army imposed a curfew on Kalkilya, located 17
miles from Tel Aviv, but security sources said they were unable to stop an
estimated 600 angry Jewish settlers from entering the town.
1987:
Following secret talks held in London, Shimon Peres and King Hussein of Jordan
reached an agreement outlining the method whereby a peace treaty could be
negotiated between Israel and Jordan. In
a tragic turn of events, Yitzchak Shamir, the Prime Minister of Israel,
scuttled the talks and for once it was the Israelis who may have “never missed
a chance to miss a chance.”
1987(12th
of Nisan, 5747): Primo Levi passed away. Primo Levi survived the
Holocaust and bore witness to it through an amazing collection of
literature. Born in Turin, Italy in 1919, Levi was trained as a
chemist. He was deported to Auschwitz as a Jew and a member of the
anti-Fascist Resistance. His experiences in the camps and his grueling
efforts to return to Italy after the war are the subject of two of his books, Survival
in Auschwitz and The Reawakening. He is also the author of Moments
of Reprove, The Periodic Table and If Not Now When? Levi did not make a career of being a
Holocaust Survivor. He worked as a chemist after the war and did not
retire to devote full time to his writing until 1977. He died under
tragic circumstances at the age of 67.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0731.html
1988(24th
of Nisan, 5748): Seventy-year-old screenwriter and author Jesse Lasky, Jr who
wrote the scripts for two Biblical “pot-boilers” – “Ten Commandments” and
“Samson and Delilah” – passed away today.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0489679/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
1990(16th
of Nisan, 5750): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer
1991:
Today, at 06:55:29 PDT, Atlantis whose crew including Jerome Apt, landed on
runway 33 at Edwards Air Force Base, California. The rollout distance was 1,940
m (6,360 ft), and the rollout time was 56 seconds.
1995(10th
of Nisan, 5755): Jacob Weingreen the professor of Hebrew in Trinity College,
Dublin who excavated Samaria and who is the namesake for The Weingreen Museum
of Biblical Antiquities passed away today.
1996(22nd
of Nisan, 5756): Eighth Day of Pesach
1997:
“Grosse Pointe Blank” the funniest high school reunion movie ever made
featuring Alan Arkin and Jeremy Piven was released in the United States today.
1997(4th
of Nisan, 5757): Terrorist killed a member of the IDF after having kidnaped him
near Moshav Zanoah.
1998(15th
of Nisan, 5758): First Day of Pesach
1998:
In the evening, Mitchell Levin and Harvey Luber, of blessed memory, celebrated
their last seder together.
1999:
Matt Bloom
debuted on the WWF episode of Sunday Night Heat.
1999:
The New York Times features reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including
“Reading the Holocaust” by Inga Clendinnen and recently published paperback
editions of “The Unexpected Salami” by Laurie Gwen Shapiro and “The Children”
by David Halberstam
2000:
A British court resolved David Irving’s libel case against Deborah Lipstadt by
affirming Lipstadt’s portrayal of Irving as an anti-Semitic Holocaust denier.
https://jwa.org/thisweek/apr/11/2000/deborah-lipstadt
2000:
“An Israeli judge ruled that” Daniel Weiz “a 19-year-old soldier can be
extradited to Canada to face murder charges, “charges which Wiez has denied.
2000:
“Germany has started an Internet Web site’ www.lostart.de listing thousands of
works of art plundered by the Nazis from museums and individuals in World War
II
2001(18th
of Nisan, 5761): Fourth Day of Pesach
2001:
“Plotting a Pardon; Rich Cashed In a World of Chits to Win Pardon” published
today described how Avner Azulay and Rich’s former wife worked with the
Clintons to obtain a midnight pardon for the billionaire fugitive from justice.
2002:
Palestinian terrorists begin to surrender at Jenin.
2002(29th
of Nisan, 5762): In Tunisia, the El Ghriba synagogue was bombed by Al Qaeda
killing 21. El Ghriba is an ancient synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba.
It is located close to Hara Seghira, several kilometers southwest of Houmt
Souk, the capital of Djerba. The
history of the synagogue is reported to go back about 2000 years, making it the
oldest synagogue in Africa and one of the oldest ones in the world. According
to an oral tradition, it was built by Jews who had immigrated after the
destruction of the first Temple in Jerusalem. The synagogue is the destination
of an annual pilgrimage of many Tunisian Jews after the celebration of
Passover.
2002:
Manhattan Ensemble Theater presented
the world premiere of a new English version of the Yiddish classic, The
Golem. “Drenched in magic and mystery, the play reworks an ancient Talmudic
legend about a 17th century Rabbi in Prague who molds and animates a huge clay
figure to fight for the Jewish community, which has been threatened by
accusations of spilling the blood of Christian children.”
2003: In
New York, a federal judged began hearing arguments in a case where it is
contended that Fritz and Guenther Werthiem had been swindled and that their
heirs should be allowed to sue one of Europe’s largest retailers,
KarstadtQuelle AG” which “llater absorbed the Jewish-owned Wertheim department
store chain and the land it once held in the heart of Berlin.”
2004(20th
of Nisan, 5764): Sixth Day of Pesach
2004(20th
of Nisan, 5674): Eighty-three-year-old Austrian-born British “Paul Philip
Hamburger, pianist, accompanist, vocal coach and teacher” passed away today.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1460602/Paul-Hamburger.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/paul-hamburger-549794.html
2004:
“Focus on the Soul: The Photographs of Lotte Jacobi” came to a close.
http://thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/focus-on-the-soul-the-photographs-of-lotte-jacobi
2004: An
exhibition entitled “Elijah Chair: Art, Ritual, and Social Action” comes to a close
at the Jewish Museum in New York. “Elijah
Chair,” a video sculpture was created for the Times Square Seder, a
public art and social action project which took place in New York in 2002.
2005: The New
York Times publishes an article entitled “Acts of Quiet Courage” by Bob
Herbert. It describes the role that Luiz Martins de Souza Dantas, the wartime Brazilian
ambassador to France played
in providing the visas that saved young Felix Rohatyn and his relatives during
World War II.
2005: At joint press conference with Ariel Sharon,
President George W. Bush endorsed the Prime Minister’s plan to withdraw from
Gaza and plans for a final peace treaty with the Palestinians that will
acknowledge the new realities on the ground, including already existing major
Israeli population centers, which make it unrealistic that the outcome of final
status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines
of 1949.
2007(23rd of Nisan, 5767):
Sixty-three-year-old Tina Susan Rieger, the wife of United Jewish Communities’
president and CEO Howard Rieger, lost her battle with pancreatic cancer and
passed away today.
http://www.jta.org/2007/04/12/archive/tina-susan-rieger-the-wife-of-united-jewish
2007: As part of the L.A. Theatre Works program, The
Skirball Cultural Center features a performance of Jewish playwright Arthur
Miller’s, “The Man Who Had All The Luck.”
2007: In an article entitled “A Youthful Chronicle
of Wartime in Prague,” the New York Times
reviewed The Diary of Petr Ginz: 1941-1942.
2008(6th of Nisan, 5768): Songwriter and musician Donald Kahn, the son of German born American
lyricist Gus Kahn, passed away today.
2008: Jason Hutt’s documentary film “Orthodox
Stance” about the pugilistic career of Dmitriy Salita which combines boxing
with Orthodox Judaism opens in Los Angeles.
2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Temple Judah hosts the Dan
Nichols Musical Shabbat Service!
2009(17th of Nisan, 5769): Shabbat Chol Hamoed
2010: “Sin,” a play
by Mark Altman based on “The Unseen” by Isaac Beshevis Singer is scheduled to
have its final performance at the Baruch Performing Arts Center.
2010: Aaron Posner’s
“My Name is Asher Lev” a dramatic adaption from the Chaim Potok novel is
scheduled to completed its premiere run at the Round House Theatre in Bethsda,
MD.
2010: Laura Cohen Applebaum The executive director of
the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to discuss the
new book “Jewish Life in Mr. Lincoln’s City at Barnes & Noble in
Rockville MD.
2010:
Public Broadcasting System is scheduled began a four-day series of new programs
about the Holocaust. In its first effort, PBS and Masterpiece Classic premiered
a new adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank.
2010:
The New York Times features reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including All the Whiskey in Heaven: Selected Poems by Charles Bernstein
and A Ticket to the Circus: A Memoir by Norris Church Mailer who was the
wife of Norman Mailer.
2010(27th
of Nisan, 5770): Yom HaShoah
2011:
Yeshiva University Museum and Stern College are scheduled to present a
performance by The Momenta String Quartet
2011:
Rabbi Jill Jacobs
is scheduled to begin serving, as the executive director of Rabbis for Human
Rights-North America on this date.
2011:
Dr. Brian Horowitz of Tulane University, author of “Empire Jews,” is scheduled
to speak at a conference on Jewish Emigration to be held at Temple University.
2011(7th
of Nisan, 5771): Eighty-seven-year-old poet Stanley Siegleman passed away.
http://forward.com/articles/137150/a-poet-passes-stanley-siegelman-/
2011:
Itzhak Perlman
and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra are scheduled to perform at Lincoln
Center in NYC.
2011:
The New York Times included a review of The Free World, “David
Bezmozgis’s intimate portrait of the Krasnanskys, a Jewish family from Latvia immigrating
to the West in 1978.
2011:
A 42-year-old man
who participated in Friday’s Tel Aviv marathon died today after being
hospitalized for severe dehydration. The man collapsed of dehydration during
the marathon on Friday and was brought to the emergency room in Ichilov
Hospital in Tel Aviv. His condition continued to deteriorate and this morning
he died due to liver damage as a result of dehydration.
2011:
Center for Jewish History presents “The Library that Never Was: The Attempt to
Build a Center for Jewish Books and Learning in Post-Holocaust Europe.”
2011:
Assembled in
Haifa and Nazareth for the third event held in Israel under the EUREKA
Chairmanship year, EUREKA’s national delegates today approved a series of
promising cooperative R&D projects in a variety of areas, including
renewable energy, agrofood technology, biotechnology, physical and exact
sciences, IT and electronics, industrial manufacturing, and more.
2011:
A joint
Chinese-Israeli conference opens today at Tel Aviv University, entitled
“Replanning Tilanqiao, Formerly the Jewish Ghetto in Shanghai.”
2011:
In “How Do You Say ‘Good to the Last Drop’ in Hebrew?” published today Stuart
Elliot traces the relationship between Maxwell House, American Jewry and Jacobs
Advertising.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/business/media/11adnewsletter1.html?_r=0
2011(7th
of Nisan, 5771): Forty-nine-year-old Cambridge educated Sir Simon Milton, whose
father came to England on the Kindertansport and later founded Sharaton and
whose government service led to serving as Deputy Mayor of London passed away
today.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/8446352/Sir-Simon-Milton.html
2012:
As part of the East Village Klezmer Series, Michael Winograd is scheduled to
Klezmer Music with Strings in NYC.
2012(19th
of Nisan): Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Menachem Zemba who was shot dead by the Nazis
during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.
http://www.chabad.org/calendar/view/day.asp?tDate=4/11/2012
2013:
The Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform at the Peabody Institute in
Baltimore, MD
2013:
As part of Holocaust memorial program, the University of Utah is scheduled to
host a Candlelight Vigil followed by Peter Black’s speech entitled “70th
Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising.”
2013:
“The Law In These Parts” which was selected as Best Documentary at the
Jerusalem Film Festival is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film
Festival.
2013:
“Hitler’s Children” is scheduled to be shown at the Hartford Jewish Film Fest.
2013:
Dr. Astrith Baltsan is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Hatikvah: Hope
Reborn”
2013:
Gilles Uriel Bernheim resigned as chief rabbi of France.
2013:
“The flag
representing the 30th Infantry Division assumed a place of honor during the
National Days of Remembrance ceremony, an annual event commemorating the
Holocaust at the U.S. Capitol’s Rotunda. It was added to the 35 others after
the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the U.S. Army Center for
Military History determined in late 2012 that members of the division had
liberated Holocaust survivors.” (As reported by Hillel Kuttler)
2013:
Two days after rejecting calls to do so, French Chief Rabbi Gilles Bernheim
announced that he was stepping down from his post amid two scandals, a French
newspaper reported today.
2013:
Police arrested five women this morning for wearing tallitot (prayer shawls)
traditionally worn by men, while participating in a Rosh Hodesh prayer service
at the Western Wall attended by some 200 women.
2014:
“Under the Skin” is scheduled to be shown at the Jacob Burns Film Festival.
2014:
“General Jack Weinstein was responsible for the firing of nine Air Force
commanders in Malmstrom AFB, Montana.”
2014:
Israeli artist Tirtzah Bassel’s solo exhibition is scheduled to open at the
Slag Gallery.
2014:
In “Laemmle’s List: A Mogul’s Heroism” published today Neal Gabler described
the life and times of “Carl Laemmle, a founder of Universal Pictures” who
“unlike his peers…saved Jews from the Nazis.”
2014:
Education and Sharing Day as established by the United States Congress in honor
of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson
2014:
Cesare Frustaci, a 77-year-old Holocaust survivor who has been speaking in
Cedar Rapids this week under the sponsorship of the Thaler Holocaust Committee
is scheduled to speak during Shabbat Evening Services at Temple Judah.
2014(11th
of Nisan, 5774: Eighty-five year old Darrell Zwerling the character who was the
son of Austrian and Romanian Jewish immigrants and was one of those faces you
recognize but a name you do not know passed away today.
2014(11th
of Nisan, 5774): Centenarian Myer S. Kripke, the Omaha rabbi who was both a
scholar and a philanthropist who relied on investment advice from his friend
Warren Buffett passed away today.
2015:
“David Orlowski, the son of Miriam Winter” is scheduled to be signing copies of
his mother memoir Trains at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
2015:
“The Farewell Party,” “Rue Madar,” “Victor ‘Young’ Perez” and “Belle and
Sebastian” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2015:
In New York City Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center is scheduled to host a
Havdalah ceremony marking the end of Shabbat and Pesach featuring Idan Raichel.
2015:
The family of Bernice Tannenbaum, of blessed memory, the former President of
Hadassah will sit shiva this evening at her apartment.
2015(22nd
of Nisan, 5775): Eight Day of Pesach, a holiday made great again in Cedar
Rapids, Iowa thanks to all of the work of Deb Levin whose skills include
everything from making a great Seder to provide all of the tech help to make it
possible to publish two blogs.
2015:
“An unseasonal recurrence of wintry weather across Israel today forced the
cancellation and rescheduling of many traditional Moroccan Mimouna celebrations
signifying the end of the Passover holiday.
2015:
“The Zabinskis’ remarkable wartime actions — which included hiding Jews in
indoor animal enclosures — and are the
subject of ‘Zookeeper’s Wife’ seem certain to gain even more renown with the
inauguration today of a permanent exhibition in the villa, an attractive
two-story Bauhaus home from the 1930s still on the grounds of the Warsaw Zoo.”
(As reported by Vanessa Gera)
2015:
“During an interview in Warsaw” today, seventy-eight-year-old Moshe Tirosh
recalled “hiding in a villa on the grounds of the Warsaw zoo for three weeks
during World War II.”
2016:
“A new study published today in the Proceedings of the National of Academy
Sciences” that combined archaeology, Jewish history and applied mathematics,
and involved computerized image processing” provided new information on “when
the Bible was written.”
2016:
“Rosenwald” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2016:
In Jerusalem Migdalei haYm haTichon is scheduled to present Journey through
Jazz and French Chanson” with the Blues star Deborah Benasouli
2016:
The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to present Jews on First (aka
The Right Pitch): an adaptation from Larry Ruttman’s award winning book American
Jews & America’s Game – an exploration of Jewish assimilation,
identity, and guts viewed through the lens of America’s favorite pastime.
2016:
Following a screening of “Rosenwald” the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival
is scheduled to host “LaNitra M. Berger, PhD, a historian of African and
African-American art talking about Julius Rosenwald’s impact on the
African-American art during the Harlem Renaissance.”
2017(15th
of Nisan, 5777): Seventy-one-year-old Dr. Mark Wainberg, the microbiologist
specializing in HIV research passed away today. (As Richard Sanomir)
2017(15th
of Nisan, 5777): First Day of Pesach; in the evening count the Omer.
15th of Nisan,
5650 (1890):
An untold number of poor New Yorkers enjoyed eating meat at their Seder tonight
thanks to the generosity of Mrs. Paulina Rosendorff who had provided the
funding that enabled butchers to distribute their product free of charge.
15th of Nisan, 5675(1915): The 300 Jewish
soldiers and sailors who attended last night’s Seder sponsored by the Army and
Navy Y.M.H.A. which also provided a night’s lodging at the Hotel Roland are
scheduled to worship at Temple Beth Israel at Lexington and 72nd
Street today while the Secretary of War, the Governor of New York and the Mayor
of New York City have been invited to attend tonight’s Seder sponsored by the
Army and Navy Young Men’s Hebrew Association for the benefit of 300 of the
8,000 Jews serving in the military which is being held at Vienna Hall on
Lexington and 58th Street.
15th of Nisan, 5677 (1917): One day after U.S.
declared War on Germany, Jews gather in the synagogue to observe Pesach and
Shabbat
15th of Nisan, 5705(1945): At least 58 Jews were
murdered in a forest near the Austrian village of Deutsch Shuetzen, in what
would come to be called the Deutsch Shuetzen Massacre while in the evening,
members of the Jewish Infantry Brigade of the British 8th Army
serving in Italy took part in a Seder at Faenza.
15th of Nisan, 5725(1965): While Jews in the Soviet struggled to deal
with a shortage of Matzah created by the government refusal to let state
bakeries prepare adequate supplies of unleavened bread Rabbis in America were
encouraged to deliver sermons that related the themes of Pesach with fight for
Civil Rights complete with references to the recent voting rights march in
Selma.
15th of Nisan, 5728(1968): For the first time,
Pesach is observed in a unified Jerusalem
2018: The
American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to host “Unsilencing Sephardic Women
Writer” Jewish Voices from North Africa” during while “French literary scholar
Nina B. Lichtenstein will “illuminate the shrouded histories and complicated…
identities” of a multiply marginalized minority: Magrebi (Moroccan, Algerian,
Tunisian) Sephardic women writers.”
2018: “CXX
Proof, the Bernice Diener Ensemble-in-Residence at Stern College for Women,
Yeshiva University, is scheduled to perform the work of Jewish composers and
featuring the world premiere of Proof Positive for violin, clarinet and piano
by YU faculty composer David Glaser. Musicians: Christopher Grymes, clarinet;
Xiao-dong Wang, violin; Xak Bjerken, piano” at the Center for Jewish History.
2018: “The
American Jewish Historical Society” is scheduled to host “We Spoke Out: Comic
Books and the Holocaust” which demonstrates that “long before the Holocaust was
taught in schools, the youth of America was learning about the Nazi genocide
from Batman, the X-Men, Captain America, and Sgt. Rock.”
2018: One day
after she had passed away, Rabbis Steven Silberman and Dana Evan Kaplan are
scheduled to officiate at the funeral of Harriet Scheuer Kahn at the Springhill
Avenue Temple Cemetery.
http://obits.al.com/obituaries/mobile/obituary.aspx?n=harriet-scheuer-kahn&pid=188704597&fhid=5490
2018(26th
of Nisan, 5778): Eighty-seven-year-old Green Bay, WI, native Mitzi Shore, the
owner of The Comedy Store and the mother of comedian Paul Shore passed away
today. (As reported by Daniel E. Slotnik)
2018:
Violinist David Lisker and Northwestern Theatre Professor Rives Collins are
scheduled to appear the Yom HaShoah Commemoration sponsored by the Illinois
Museum and Education Center that will include “a candle lighting by Holocaust
Survivors and their descendants, accompanied by prayer and song by Hazzan
Benjamin A. Tisser of North Suburban Synagogue Beth El.
2018:
Following this morning’s detonation of a Palestinian device “near an Israeli
construction vehicle” this evening IAF struck “a military site belonging to
Hamas. (As reported by Judah Ari Gross)
2019: The Cabaret
at Café Sabarsky in the Neue Galerie is scheduled to host Yael Rasooly’s debut
performance that tells “the stories of the backstreets and alleys, as well as
the glamour and exuberance, in the final years of the Weimar Republic.”
2019: The
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to host a presentation by
Holocaust survivor Sam Ponczak as part of its “First Person” series.
2019: “At
around 3 pm EST” today, Beresheet is expected to land on the Moon, making
Israel “only the fourth country to ever accomplish this feat.”
2020(17th
of Nisan, 5780): Shabbat Chol Hamoed Pesach
2020:
As Jews recite the special prayers that combine Pesach and Shabbat, we offer
special prayers for the health and well-being of Alan Smason and all the other
people at the Crescent City Jewish News
and the friends and family of Dr. Brian Horowitz, Chair of the Tulane
University Jewish Studies Department who are living in New Orleans, the latest
“hot spot” during the coronavirus epidemic.
2020:
The Tri-Valley Cultural Jews in the East Bay are schedule to lead a “Secular
Seder” on Zoom staring this evening at 5 p.m.
2020:
Today, Eric Greitens, the former Republican governor of Missouri and Sheena
Greitens would soon accept a job as an associate professor of political science
at the University of Texas at Austin Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs
announced they were ending their marriage
2020;
The Seder Squad is scheduled to present, via Zoom “Crafting our Liberation”
during which attendees can “reflect on Passover through art and the religious
ceremony of Havdalah” while “marking the separation between Shabbat and the
rest of the week.”
2020:
In what has to be one of the most imaginative responses to the Pandemic
Quarantine, the Riverway Project is scheduled to present the Seder Squad’s
on-line version of “The Great Passover Bake Off.”
2020:
Idina Menzel, Ilana Glazer, Ben Platt and many more celebs are scheduled to
lead a ‘Saturday Night Seder’ to raise money for “a Center for Disease Control fund for first responders
working during the coronavirus outbreak.” (As reported by the Crescent City
Jewish News, the voice for everything Jewish in the land of the Bayou)
2021: In Coralville, IA. Congregation Agudas
Achim is scheduled to present via Zoom, Kathy Jacobs who will hold an Adult Ed Mussar Talk about a New
Mussar Course “Gates of Everyday Holiness.”
2021: Eternal Life-Hemshech, the William Breman
Jewish Heritage Museum, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta are
scheduled to co-sponsor, online, Atlanta’s 56th Annual Community-wide Yom
HaShoah (Day of Holocaust Remembrance) Commemoration.”
2021: Yiddishkayt is scheduled to host live-streamed
Culinary + Culture Salon: The Rye Edition, in which attendees learn about the
history and significance of rye bread, from the one-of-a-kind Stanley Ginsberg,
The Rye Baker.
2021: Hadar and Sheldon are scheduled to host
the Yom Ha’Atzmaut Across America virtual concert with Sheldon Low.
2021: Based on the proclamation issued by
President Biden on April 2, today marks the end “of a week of observance of the
Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust…”
2021: As part of the Women of Sefarad Series,
the Jewish Heritage Alliance is scheduled to host lecture by Professor Abraham
Gross on the life and times of Doña Gracia Nasi
2021: Friends of Bezalel and AICF are scheduled
to present an event featuring Bezalel graduates and AICF grant recipients Zohar
Dvir (London) and Dan Azoulay (Tel Aviv).
https://events.aicf.org/events/discover-animation/
2021: The New York Times features
reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including Cynthia Ozick’s review of the biography of Philip Roth by Blake Baily
and Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure by Menachem
Kaiser.
2021: The JCRS, an organization that really
does provide meaningful support for the Jewish community is scheduled to
present “Jews Roots,’ a remote celebration online of the modern era of the
Jewish Children’s Regional Services which is marking its 75th
anniversary.
2021: At a time when most Israelis are hoping to
avoid a fifth election, Ra’am party leader Mansour Abbas is reportedly
considering making a political speech in which he will stress his commitment to
Israel, in order to ease the path toward his acceptance by right-wing parties,
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yamina party leader Naftali Bennett have
been wrangling over a potential agreement to rotate the prime ministership
between them
2021:
“A power failure that appeared to have been caused by a deliberately planned
explosion struck Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment site on today, in what
Iranian officials called an act of sabotage that they suggested had been
carried out by Israel.”
2021 “Fiddler
at 50: A Reunion Celebration of Fiddler on the Roof” is
scheduled to take place in London.
https://www.jw3.org.uk/whats-on/fiddler-50-reunion-celebration-fiddler-roof
2022:
Seventy-one year old author, public speaker and sometimes thespian Fran
Lebowitz is scheduled to bring her one-person show “An Evening With Fran
Lebowitz” to Playhouse Square’s Connor Palace in Cleveland today.
2022:
Stephanie Butnick, host of “Tablet’s Unorthodox Podcast” is scheduled to
moderate conversation with Lisa Barr and James McAuley as they talk about stolen Jewish art during the Holocaust, antisemitism
and displacement after the war, and the reclamation of the art and the narrative.
2022:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a conversation with journalist Bari
Weiss, author of How to Fight Anti-Semitism and The New Seven Words and the
Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright, director, author and screenwriter David
Mamet, the author of Recessional, who issues “warnings about the liberal
Visigoths at our gates whose “cultural thuggery” is killing not only free
thought and expression but democracy itself.”
2022:
Israel appears to be facing a governmental crisis today following yesterday’s
clarification by Yamina party MK Idit Silman “that she has no intention of
walking back her dramatic decision from last week to exit the coalition, a move
that ended the government’s razor-thin majority in the Knesset, paralyzed its
ability to pass legislation and left it near potential collapse. (As reported
by TOI)
2022:
Members of the staff from the Schottenstein Chabad House at Ohio State
University is scheduled to “meet with OSU’s president, Kristina Johnson,
Monday, to discuss the administration’s response” to the vote by the OSU
student senate to adopt a Boycott Divest and Sanctions resolution which is
aimed at Israel.
2022:
Today the HUC board of governors is scheduled to meet today and vote on a “plan
to stop training rabbinical students full time in Cincinnati, OH.
2023(20th
of Nisan, 5783): Sixth Day of Pesach; in the evening light candles
2023:
Lockdown University is scheduled to host a webinar in which Trudy Gold lectures
on “Nazis and Jews: 1933-1939.”
2023:
In Coralville, IA, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host a “Festival Evening
service.”
2023:
Bank Hapoalim is scheduled to sponsore free entrance to 170 museums, national
parks, and heritage sites in Israel, including ANU – Museum of the Jewish
People for the last time during this holiday season.
2023:
YIVO is scheduled to present a lecture by Bozena Keff based on “The Guardians
of Fate,” her collection of essays on Polish language literature the Holocaust.
2023:
Funeral services are scheduled to be held at Kfar Etzion today for 48 year old Lucy (Lucianne) Dee, who
succumbed to her wounds suffered in a terrorist attack that claimed the life of
two of her daughters as the family, including her husband rabbi Leo Dee were on
a trip to Tiberias. (As reported by Emanuel Fabian)
2024:
World Jewish Congress – North America and the American Sephardi Federation are
scheduled to present the Exhibit Inauguration of “The Golden Age of the Jews of
Alandalus” | “La Edad de Oro de los judíos de Alandalús”
2024:
As part of the Cathy and Morris Bart Jewish Cultural Arts Series, is scheduled
to present Tulane professor and New York Times contributor, Dr. Ilana M.
Horwitz as she lectures on God, Grades, and Graduation: Religion’s
Unexpected Influence on Academic Success,
2024:
Lockdown University is scheduled to host a lecture by Professor Marc Dollinger
on “Jews and Whiteness” and a webinar on “Christian Views of Jews, Part 2: The
Church Fathers” facilitated by Dr. Helen Fry.
2024:
In Marblehead, MA, Temple Sinai is scheduled to host “A Modern “Song of Songs”:
Exploring Jewish cultural themes thru Israeli Rock & Roll.”
2024:
The Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “a conversation between James S. Snyder,
Helen Goldsmith Menschel Director, and contemporary artist Michal Rovner as
part of the Museum’s continuing series of talks that reflect on the role of art
and culture in today’s complex times” during which “the speakers will discuss
Rovner’s career and work, which explores questions of nature, identity,
dislocation, and the fragility of human existence.
2024: At an online lunch and learn “filmmaker Adam Fried to discuss his film, “Everything’s
Koshe, a t documentary that spans countries, generations, and cultures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6CWE0sU_2Q
2024:
In its Main Sanctuary, The Museum at Eldrige is scheduled “to celebrate the
release of best-selling and award-winning author Joan Nathan’s new cookbook, My
Life in Recipes: Food, Family, and Memories (Knopf 2024), with cookbook
author and TikTok star Jake Cohen, moderated by four-time James Beard
award-winning chef and author Rozanne Gold.
2024:
The Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum to host “Nights at the Seder
Table”
2024:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a presentation by Carl
Kaplan and Vasily Zaitsau, TTP’s Archive Services Caseworker in Boston and
Archive Services Coordinator in Minsk, who “will explain how to initiate a
genealogy research request with TTP, what their research process entails, and
what kinds of results you may expect to receive from them, with examples of
discoveries made for previous clients.”
2024:
As April 11th begins in Israel, the Hamas held
hostages begin day 188 in captivity.
(Editor’s note: this situation is too fluid for this blog to cover so we
are just providing a snapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time.)
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