This Day, January 4, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
January
4
41: The Praetorian Guard killed the
Roman Emperor Caligula. Caligula is one of those vile figures whose
behavior is dismissed as the acts of crazy person. As far as the Jews are
concerned, Caligula had no use for them as a people. His attempts to have
them worship his image led to anti-Jewish riots in Alexandria, among other
places. His death avoided a collision between the Jews and Rome because
Caligula had ordered that the Jews begin worshipping him as god at their Temple
in Jerusalem.
1034:
According to Yahia of Antiochia the port of’ Akko
fell dry for an hour and there was a Tsunami at Jaffa.
1248: Alfonso III whose mention of the Jews of Faro in the
municipal establishes the antiquity of the community replaced Sancho II as King
of Portugal.
1278(2nd
of Shevat, 5038): Rabbi Isaac Males was burned at the stake by order of the
Inquisition. A Jew who had converted to Christianity returned to Judaism.
When he died, he was buried in a Jewish cemetery by the Rabbi. The Church
felt the need to severely punish Males as a part of deterring converts to
Judaism and encouraging those who had converted to Christianity to remain
faithful to their new faith.
1361:
The aljama of Barcelona was pardoned by the king after it had
“persuaded” a Muslim to convert to Judaism. An aljama was the
name given to self-governing Jewish communities in the kingdoms of Christian
Spain.
1361:
The aljama of Barcelona was pardoned by Peter, the King of Castile and Leon
after it had “persuaded” a Muslim to convert to Judaism. An
aljama was the name given to self-governing Jewish communities in the kingdoms
of Christian Spain.
1361): The aljama or
“self-governing Jewish community” of Barcelona was pardoned by Peter, the King
of Castile and Leon after it had “persuaded” a Muslim to convert to
Judaism. Peter’s rivals who favored pogroms and forced conversions
ridiculed by call him “King of the Jews” – a term that must have had some
reality since he executed “the anti-Jewish leaders of some of these riots.”
1559:
The first critical edition of Hovot ha-Levavot by Rabbi Bahya ben Joseph ibn
Paquada was published in Mantua, Italy
1729(4th of Shevat, 5489) Hebrew poet Meir Bacharach,
the brother of Michael Bacharach passed away at Presburg.
1754(10th of Tevet, 5514): Asara B’Tevet
1760(1th of Tevet, 5520): Abraham Joseph passed away today in
London.
1766: In Germany, Madele Mathes Landau and Elias Guttman gave
birth to Matthes Gutman, the husband of Hindle Rosenheim with whom he had six
children.
1767: In Buchau, Rebekka and Joseph Einstein gave birth to Leopold
Einstein, the husband of Roesle Salomon Joseph with whom he had had eleven
children
1776: Aaron Hart, one of the earliest leaders of the Jewish
community in Canada wrote Colonel James Livingston at Quebec wishing him “a
happy new year” and asking his help in retrieving merchandize that has been
stored with Edward Harrison.
1777(25th of Tevet, 5537) Parashat Shemot
1777: As Jews observe Shabbat, Americans get to bask in the glory
of the victories at Trenton and Princeton which rejuvenated the Patriot Cause
when it appeared to be doomed to defeat.
1784(10th of Tevet, 5544): Asara B’Tevet observed ten days before the
Continental Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris which marked an end to the
American Revolution
1786 (5th of Shevat, 5546): Moses Mendelssohn passed away at the
age of 56. Born in 1729 at Dessau Germany, Mendelssohn was leader of the
movement to emancipate the Jews of Europe. He argued for the separation
of church and state. At the same time he sought to prepare Jews for
entrance into German society. This included efforts to replace Yiddish
with German as can be seen by his translation of the TaNaCh into German.
Mendelssohn himself was an observant Jew for his entire life. Some view
him as one of the fathers of what would become Reform Judaism. Mendelssohn’s
descendants would forsake the religion of Mendelssohn and convert to
Christianity as they sought acceptance in the world of German culture.
1794: In Philadelphia, Susanna Dunwoody and Daniel McKaraher gave
birth to Elizabeth McKaraher who had five children with her first husband Louis
Bomeisler after which she married George Murray.
1796: “Solomon Etting’s name appears in the Advertiser as
one of five persons authorized ‘to receive proposals in writing for a house or
suitable lot’ for a bank to be established in Baltimore Town.”
1797: In Berlin, Jacob (Jehuda) Herz Beer and Amalie Beer gave
birth to Wilhelm Wolff Beer
1802: In Paris, Chazzan Élie Halévy and his wife gave birth to
Léon Halévy the French intellectual who converted so he could “marry the
daughter of the architect Louis-Hippolyte Lebas and become assistant professor
of French literature at the Ecole Polytechnique,
1803(10th of Tevet, 5563): Asara B’Tevet observed on
the same day that the U.S. House of Representatives debated “Spain’s cession of
Louisiana to France” which was a prelude to the Louisiana Purchase.
1804: In the Netherlands, Meyer Samuel Issacs and Rebbec Samuels
Isaac gave birth to Rabbi Samuel Myer Isaacs, the husband of Jane Symmons who
was “a professor of Hebrew in London before coming to the United States where
he led Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, founded Congregation Shaaray Tefila and was
the first rabbi to deliver sermons in English while also being a strong
abolitionist.
1811: Hannah Jones and Samuel Phillips gave birth to Benjamin
Samuel Phillips, the husband of Rachel Faudel and father of George
Faudel-Phillips.
1811: In London, Hannah and Samuel Phillips gave birth to Benjamin
Samuel Phillips, the Lord Mayor of London and husband of Rachael Phillips.
1813: One day after he had passed away, Abraham Isaacs was bried
at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.
1814: Samuel Marx and Michle Brisac gave birth to Caroline
Gungenhiem, the wife of Max Gungenheim
1821: In Rheinberg, Germany, Lehmann (Asher) Meyer Glückstein and
Helena “Lena” Samuel Gluckstein gave birth to Samuel (Isaac) Henry
Gluckstein, the husband of Hannah Coenraad Gluckstein and the brother of Henry
Gluckstein with whom he began a cigar making business in England which he later
turned into a cigar manufacturing jointly run with his son Isidore and
Montague.
1822: Birthdate of Eugenia Pavia Gentilomo Fortis, the native of
Milan who composed poetry in Italian and translated “medieval Hebrew poems”
into Italian.
1822(11th of Tevet, 5582): Fourteen days before his 24th
birthday, Baruch Jonas, the Devon, England born son of Annie Ezekiel and
Benjamin Jonas the husband of Teresa Barbarin passed away today in New Orleans,
LA.
1824: In Cincinnati, Ohio a group of approximately 20 Jews met “to
consider the advisability of organizing a congregation.
1824: In London Sarah Nathan and Lazarus Samuel gave birth to
Aaron Samuel, the husband of Phoebe Levy with whom he had twelve children.
1824: Two days after he had passed away, 31-year-old Samuel
Emanuel was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”
1826: Simon Simmons married Catherine Davis at the Great Synagogue
today.
1830: In Cincinnati, Ohio, a preliminary meeting was held by
a group of Jews to consider the advisability of organizing a congregation.
1832: In Charleston, SC, Solomon Benjamin married Catherine
Woolfe, the daughter of Rebecca Woolfe.
1838: Birthdate of Isabella Ascher, the wife of Portuguese native
Abraham Bensabat and mother of Leonora and Evelina Bensabat.
1840: The first edition of Der Orient, “a German weekly
founded by Julius Furst” was published today in Leipsic.
1840; In Kent, Ann Crawcourt and Reuben Alexander gave birth to
Rachel Alexander.
1843: Birthdate of Prussian native Bernhard Daniels, the husband
of Julia Kaatz Daniels with whom he had five children – Max, Julius, Minnie,
Samuel and Hattie.
1843: Birthdate Bialystok native Kayhim, a resident of Jerusalem
who “was a pioneer of the Yiddish press in Eretz Israel.”
1844: In Middlesex, Rebecca Hyams and Samuel Joseph gave birth to
Bluma Joseph, the wife of Louis Joseph and the mother of Miriam, Isidore,
Benjamin and Blanche Joseph.
1846: Birthdate of Fritz Emanuel Kohnstamm, the native of Bavaria
who settled in London.
1847: Elizabeth Levi and Abraham Abrahams gave birth to Frances
Jane Abrahams.
1847: In Charleston, SC, David and Rebecca Cohen Moise Lopez gave
birth to Abram Moise Lopez, the brother of Abram, Eugene and Columbus Lopez.
1849: Birthdate of Pomeranian native and University of Berlin
trained physician, Leopold Ewer who served “as an assistant surgeon during the
Franco-Prussian War” who went on to practice in Berlin “where he became a
specialist for massage and orthopedia.
1850: Birthdate of Frederick Kohn, the native of Prague better
known as the French author Paul d’Brest who married Fannie Sulzer, the wife of
Viennese cantor Salomon Selzer in 1877.
1850: Birthdate of Joseph Haiem Donnenberg who was buried at the
Happy Valley Jewish Cemetery in Hong Kong just days after his 64th
birthday.
1851: Birthdate of German native and future New Jersey resident
Sigmund Eckhouse, the husband of Lena Sternberger Eckhouse whom he married in
1869 and with whom he had four children – Jennie,
1855:
Birthdate of Edward S. Rothschild, the native of Louisville who “is believed to
have built the first sizable office building in San Francisco after
the…earthquake” and who served as President of two New York banks – the Public
National Bank and the Chelsea Exchange Bank formerly known as “The Bank of the
Theatre.
1854:
Shortly after Nathaniel Rothschild’s bar mitzvah in 1853, his mother, Charlotte
today described her son as “being shy and nervous” which means he “is not
appreciated in Society” and praised the “zeal” he had shown in studying for his
Bar Mitzvah and for his study of German which she hoped would carry over into
his study of French and English.
1857:
In London, Rebecca Crawcour and Aaron Hart gave birth to Rosina Hart who was
living in Australia at the time of her death.
1858: The New York Times published a very detailed article
describing “the ‘jahrszeit’ or mortuary services” on the 4th
anniversary of the death of Judah Touro held at the Green-street Synagogue
“which were performed by the Gemelth Chased Society.” The article noted that
“every man, woman and child Israel knew that…the anniversary of parent’s
decease should be observed with prayer and fasting by his kindred.” Since
Touro had no children, he would be denied such honor would be denied him; a
reality that was offensive given the virtue and generosity of this self-made
millionaire. So the community gathered to honor his memory with a service that
included a sermon by Rabbi Raphall that included a biography of this wealthy
businessman who had fought at the Battle Of New Orleans and who was a generous
benefactor to a variety of Jewish and gentile causes and charities. The
service concluded with the Dr. Ritterman chanting in Hebrew, “a prayer for the
soul of the deceased.”
1858:
French author Mario Uchard wrote a letter to Victorien Sardou describing the
final hours of the Rachel Felix, the Franc-Jewish actress known as Mademoiselle
Rachel.
1858:
Birthdate of Victor Léon the Jewish Austrian-Hungarian librettist best known
for his work on the romantic operetta “The Merry Widow.
http://www.jta.org/1940/04/30/archive/victor-leon-famous-austrian-jewish-actor-and-librettist
1860:
In Stettin, Germany, “Carl and Marie (Neumann) Pietsch gave birth University of
Chicago Professor Karl Pietsch, the husband of Elizabeth Pietsch and father of
Ewald and Peter Pietsch
1861;
As “the dissolution of the Union [became] more and more imminent
[President] Buchanan, who had tried to appoint his friend Senator Judah P.
Benjamin U.S. Minister to Spain and who supported Uriah Philips in his fight
for exoneration but who was, up until the 21st century, the most
ineffectual president in U.S. history issued a proclamation…appointing today,
as a national fast day
1861:
Members of the New Orleans Jewish community heard an address delivered by Rabbi
Bernard Illowy in Baltimore which resulted in their offering him a position in
the Crescent City.
1861: As the storm clouds of the Civil War gathered, Morris J.
Raphall, the Rabbi at B’Nai Jershrun in New York gave a sermon entitled “The
Bible View of Slavery” in which he argued that the Bible did permit
slavery. This statement was popular with pro-slavery forces and
erroneously stamped Raphall as being pro-slavery since he personally opposed
what Southerners called “their peculiar institution.”
1862: Rabbi Arnold Fischel wrote a letter today describing his
efforts to get Congress to pass legislation that would Jews to serve as
Chaplains in the Union Army. The bill would remove the requirement that a
chaplain be “of a Christian denomination” but will instead say the “the
Chaplains must be of a religious denomination”, which will open the office
to Jews without offending the religious sensibilities of the Christians. He
also asked that this news not be shared with the general public or with the
newspapers since the matter has not been voted on by Congress.
1863:
Today Congressman John A. Gurley arranged a meeting between Cesar J. Kaskel,
and Abraham Lincoln regarding an order issued by Gen. Grant expelling Jews from
Military Department of Tennessee. Bertram W. Korn, American Jewry and the Civil
War
1863:
Following the instructions of President Lincoln, General Halleck sent a
telegram to General Grant calling for the immediate revocation of General Order
11.
1863:
One day after she had passed away, 59 year old Priscilla Davis, the wife of
Joel Davis and the mother of Murray Joel Davis was buried today at the
“Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”
1865: Julius and Caroline Mayer Weiss gave birth to Henrietta
“Retta” Weis Godchaux the wife of Paul Leon Godchaux
1865: The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent
headquarters at 10-12 Broad near Wall Street in New York City. The NYSE was
founded in 1791. Three Jews, Benjamin Mendes Seixas, Ephraim Hart and
Alexander Zuntz, were among the original founders.
1867:
Philadelphian Myer Asch, who had reached the rank of Colonel while serving with
the Union Army during the Civil War was elected Post Quartermaster of the
George G. Meade Post, Number 1, Grand Army of the Republic.
1867:
One day after she had passed away, Rachel Angel, the wife of Daniel Angel with
who she had had five children, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish
Cemetery.”
1868:
In Louisville, KY, Moses and Eleanor Bensinger gave birth to Benjamin Edward
Bensinger, the husband of Rose Frank Bensinger and the father of Robert and
Benjamin Bensinger.
1869:
Baron George de Worms and Louisa de Samuel gave birth
to 1.Baron Anthony Denis Maruice George de Worms.
1869: La Périchole, “an
opéra bouffe in three acts by Jacques Offenbach” was performed in New York City
for the first time today at Pike’s Opera House.
1870: Birthdate of Dresden, Germany native and Zionist leader
David Trietsch, the husband of Ema Trietsch and the father of Alfred Benjamin
Trietsch; Rachel Badt; Hannah Jeremias; Eli Manuel (Emanuel) Trietsch and
Judith Trietsch,
1872: In Baltimore, Rose Laura Sutro and Ottilie Sutro gave birth
to their second daughter Ottilie who along with her sister Rose “were notable
as one of the first recognized duo-piano teams.”
1875: “A Disappointed Russian wrote to the London Times to denounce last year’s proclamation of amnesty
issued by the Russian government was a fraud. Under the terms of the
declaration anybody who took part in an assassination plot were eligible to
return. The author’s only crime was leaving the country without a
passport. However, his application to return home was denied because,
according to the Russian official in London, he was Jewish. Furthermore,
the Russian Consul asked the writer not to disclose the facts of the case.
1877: It was reported today that the Austrian Government will
probably take decisive steps to ameliorate the suffering of Jews in Romania
because some of the suffering Jews may actually be subjects of the Austrian
Empire.
1878: Birthdate of Zvi Nishri, the native of Russia who made
Aliyah in 1903 and became one of the “founding fathers” of modern physical
education programs in Israel.
1878: A report published today that described the conflict between
the Turks and the Russians described a plan being put forth by business leaders
in London to check “Russian progress toward the Mediterranean” by having the
Jews purchase Syria and Palestine from the Turks which would lead to “the
establishment of a Jewish Kingdom or Republic under the guarantee of England
and France.” Reportedly the Jews of London and “several eminent
Christians” support the idea. “The restoration of the Jews with the aid and
under the patronage of a financial company, would at least be in keeping with
the utilitarian spirit of the age.”
1880(20th of Tevet, 5640): Yaakov Abuhatzeira, also known as the Avir Yaakov and Abu
Hasira,” a leading Moroccan Rabbi” passed away today in Egypt while on his way
to Palestine.
1882: Members of the Baruch family of Alexandria Egypt were
released from jail and exonerated from ritual murder charges in the Fornaraki
affair
1882: British political leader Ralph Bernal Osborne, the eldest
son of an Anglo-Sephardic Jew who converted to Christianity, passed away today.
1883: In Yalta, Lia Rabinowicz and Josef Wainstein gave birth to
Odessa trained attorney, turned Finnish wool manufacturer Leo Waistein, the
wife of Regina Trillin who in 1928 with his wife “founded foundation Leo ja
Regina Wainsteinin säätiö to celebrate their tenth anniversary in Finland and
as a gratitude to their new home country.”
1883:
Twenty-one old Israel Cowen, the Houston born son of “Bennett and Bertha
(Semel) Cowen, the graduate of the Union College of Law began practicing today
in Chicago, fourteen years before he married Alma M. Desenberg.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4720-cowen-israel
1883:
Thirty-five-year-old Emma Mayer, the Natchez, MS born daughter of Aaaron and
Jeannetter W. Helene Roos and her husband Simon Mayer gave birth to Muriel
Mayer who became Muriel A. Lemann when she married Walter Lemann.
1884: The Fabian Society is founded in London. Society
advocated socialist reform but by gradual, not revolutionary means.
Leonard Woolf an English Jew was one of the early members of this society of
intellectuals derisively referred to as Parlor Pinks by left wing activists.
1887:
Boise Penrose who in 1911 would describe “discrimination by the Russian
Government against American Hebrews as an assault on American principles and
traditions” and assured a delegation of Jews from Philadelphia “that he agreed
with their contention that the violation of their treaty rights as American
citizens was not a proper subject for an arbitration tribunal but should result
in the passing of a resolution by Congress denouncing the present treaty” with
Russia began serving as a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate from the 6th
District.
1887:
Birthdate of Rhode Island resident Joseph Schlossberg and the husband of Bertha
L. Goldberg Schlossberg with whom he had three children – Harry, Regina and
Selma.
https://spartacus-educational.com/ARTbecker.htm
1889:
Twenty-three-year-old Charles Werner, the Polish-born son of Bessie Marion
Feidel and Aaron Werner, the “branch manager of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film
Corporation” and the first vice-president of the “Orthodox Old Folks Home”
married Edna Korn today.
1889: In
Russia, Rose Siminoff and Isidor Becker gave irth to
1889: Birthdate of Jacob Urdang, “a 1911 graduate of Long Island
Hospital in Brooklyn, an intern at Sydenham Hospital from 1911 to 1913, a
member of the orthopedic department of the United States Army from 1917 to 1919
and a member of the orthopedic staff of the Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn from
1923 to 1940.”
1889: Twenty-three-year-old Charles Werner, the Polish born son of
Aaron and Bessie Werner and MGM executive who made his home in St. Louis
married Edna Korn today.
1890(12th of Tevet, 5650): Thirty-two-year-old Austrian
physiologist Joseph Paneth, a friend of Sigmund Freud, passed away today in
Vienna.
1891: “Matters We Ought To Know” published today provides a
detailed review of How The Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New
York, the seminal work on this topic by social reformer Jacob A. Riis.
(When one considers the large number of Jews who would live in these tenements
during the next three or four decades, the importance of this work to Jewish
people should be self-obvious)
1892: R.D. MacLean played the role of Shylock the Jew in a
performance of The Merchant of Venice produced by the MacLean-Presscott Company
in New York. The Merchant of Venice was the first play by Shakespeare
performed in the Thirteen Colonies and its continued performance attests to the
popular enjoyment of a play that portrays the Jew as the “moneylender.”
1892: The funeral for retired businessman and Jewish communal
leader Jacob Goldsmith who is the stepfather of Alan L. Sanger is scheduled to
be held at Temple Emanu-El.
1892: In New Orleans, LA, Rabbi Maximilian Heller and Ida Annie
Heller gave birth to James G. Heller, the Tulane alum who gained famed as a
musician and reform rabbi.
http://www.jta.org/1971/12/21/archive/rabbi-james-g-heller-dies-at-79#ixzz2wW2ILkgY
http://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/20/archives/rabbi-james-g-heller-is-dead-ade-ito-saaim-r9t.html?_r=0
1894: “A special meeting of the Board of Alderman will be held
today” to deal with the death of Adolph L. Sanger, the President of the Board
of Education.
1894:
Birthdate of Vicksburg native Samuel Lasker Erhman, the Columbia University
trained lawyer and member of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association who served
as President of Temple B’nai Israel in Little Rock, AR.
1894: It was reported today that one hundred Jews who have
converted to Christianity have signed a protest that they will present to the
New York Presbytery over the refusal to ordain Hermann Warszawiak.
Warszawiak because he is a convert and
the petitioners express their displeasure he should be subjected to persecution
and attack by Christians…from whom only brotherly love and kindness were due.”
1894: A reporter for the New York Times visited the
headquarters of the United Hebrew Charities on Second Avenue in search of a
reaction to Oliver Sumner Teall’s report that was highly critical of the work
being done by charities in New York.
1894: “Want The Jewish Sabbath Observed” published today described
efforts by rabbis in New York to improve the observance of the Jewish day of
rest. They plan to publish a list of all Jewish businesses that observe
Shabbat so that those in search of work can know where they should go for a job
if they are “observant.” Among those take a leading role in the movement
are Stephen S. Wise, Aaron Wise, Max Cohen, Moses Oettinger, Simon M. Roeder,
Joan Weil, David M. Pizer and Abraham Neumark.
1896: Utah becomes the 45th state to join the
Union. According to Ralph Tannenbaum, Jews have been in Utah from its
earliest days. “Julius and Gerson Brooks came to Salt Lake in July 1853 from
Illinois, and their millinery establishment became the first Jewish
business in the area. The earliest record of Jewish religious observance
in the area is the celebration of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) in 1864 at the
home of one of the Jewish merchants. High Holyday (Rosh Hashonah [New Year] and
Yom Kippur) services in 1867 were observed in the Seventies Hall at the
invitation of Brigham Young. The Passover observance of 1876 was reported in
the Salt Lake Tribune, which noted that the Jewish congregation of Salt Lake
numbered some forty families. Jewish men were active in public life. Louis Cohn was
elected as a member of the city council in 1874 and was reelected in 1882. The
formation of the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce in 1887 records the names
of J.E. Bamberger, M.H. Lipman, Fred H. Auerbach, and several other prominent
Jews. Although Moses Alexander of Idaho was elected as the first Jewish
governor in the United States, it is still surprising to learn of the election
two years later of Simon Bamberger as the governor of Utah in 1916. Governor
Bamberger was the first non-Mormon governor of Utah.”
1896:
Birthdate of Philadelphia native and Lehigh grad Ellis Brodstein, the
University of Pennsylvania trained attorney who settled in Reading, PA.
1896(18th
of Tevet, 5656): In Philadelphia, PA, 45-year-old Levi Harris and 30 year old
Marks Feinberg died in a fire at a tenement house on 3rd and Gaskill
Streets. Harris suffocated while marks died in the hospital from internal
injuries suffered while trying to escape the burning building.
1896:
Jacques Ochs, a Romanian Jew was arrested in Chicago today on charges that he
had masterminded a swindle that had earned him over $50,000.
1896:
Speaking in Russian and Hebrew, Dr. Adolph Rodin addressed a meeting of the
City Vigilance League which was held at the Hebrew Institute.
1896:
At the Oakland Club in Chicago, Rabbi Joseph Stoltz officiated at the first
services of Reform Congregation of Isaiah Temple
1896:
It was reported today that McMillan & Co will be publishing Jewish
Ideals and Other Essays by Joseph Jacobs which include chapters on “the
Jewish diffusion of folk tales, the London Jewry, Mordecai of Daniel Deronda as
typical Jews, Browning’s theology of the Jewish point of view, the solution
other Jewish questions, the legends concerned with little St. Hugh of Lincoln
and the poet Jehuda Halevi.
1897:
It was reported today that those taking the competitive civil service
examinations that will be given for the post of court interpreter may be fluent
in any one of six languages including Hebrew (but not Yiddish).
1897:
Two days after she had passed away, 61-year-old Esther Martin, the wife of
Morris Martin, was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1897:
The Hebrew Technical Institute began using its new building today although the
formal dedication will not take place until Lincoln’s Birthday, February 12.
1898(10th
of Tevet, 5658): Asara B’Tevet
1898:
In Brooklyn, David and Rebecca Kaufman Alpher gave birth to Minnie Alpher
Bogdonoff, the wife of Meyer Myron Bogdonoff whom she married in 1923 and the
mother of Morton David Bogdonoff.
1898:
It was reported today that State Supreme Court Judge William N. Cohen will
speak at the upcoming meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1899:
In Sokolov, Czech Republic, Mortiz Low, the son of Helene and Daniel Low and
his wife Kamilla Low gave birth to Otto Low who reported worked for a coal
company and perished during the Holocaust “circa 1942.”
1900:
In a formal flag raising ceremony the United Kingdom assume the administration
of Nigeria home to the Igbo Jews and Yoruba Jews, also known as the B’nai
Ephraim.
1901(13th
of Tevet, 5661): Solomon Kern, the husband of Babette Levy Kahn and the father
of Leon, Marucs, Rebecca and Joseph Kahn passed away after which he was buried
in the “Jewish Cemetery” in Monroe, LA.
1901: “The Bank of Berkley, a private institution conducted in
Berkley by R.L.W. Brooks since 1897” which “was patronized largely by the small
Jewish merchants of Berkley and South Norfolk” failed to open its doors today.
(Editor’s note – this means the bank failed and the depositors probably lost
all of their money in a pre-FDIC world.)
1902: After 128 performances on Broadway, “The Messenger,” a
musical with “additional material and numbers by Paul Rubens” came to a close.
1902(25th
of Tevet, 5662): Parashat Shemot
1902:
“Religious News and Views” published today described the upcoming celebration
the 25th anniversary of Rabbi F. De Sola Mendes’ service as the
leader of Shaarai Tefillah Congregation, The West End Synagogue founded in
1869.
1902(25th of Tevet, 5662): Sixty-one-year-old Rabbi
Adolph Moses passed away today in Louisville, KY.
1903: Herzl ends a four-day visit to Edlach, his hometown.
1903: In Wurttemberg, Ludwig Elser and Maria Muller gave birth to
carpenter George Elser who was executed at Dachau after his plan to assassinate
Hitler in 1939 failed.
1904: “Russian Consul Saves Jews” published today described how
the intervention of the Russian Vice Counsul saved the Jews of Urmia from an
attack by the Persian population
1904: Four days after he had passed away, Lewis Abraham, the
Westminster, London, born son of Victor Abraham and Rebecca Levy, was buried
today at “The Walnut Hills Jewish Cemetery” in Cincinnati, OH.
1905: It was reported today that “Max Magilzinsky, or Max Magill,
“ who was at one time a Rabbi but has since join the Dowie Society, a Christian
sect, has been sentenced to six months in jail after having been found guilty
of a charge of general vagrancy and who had been accused of “carrying on a
wholesale begging business through the mails.
1905: Twenty-six-year-old University of Pennsylvania trained
attorney, Leo M. Brown, the Livingston, AL born son of Adolph and Ida Brown and
member of the Mobile, AL firm of Brown and Kohn who was a president and trustee
of Congregation “Sahaari Shomaymim” in Mobile, married Birdie E. Echold today.
1905: The stage version of “The Scarlet Pimpernel” which would be
the basis for the hit film of the same name produced by Alexander Korda and
starring Leslie Howard opened tonight at The New Theatre in London’s West End.
1906: Telegrams received in London today announced that ninety
thousand Russian Jews have emigrated to England “since the massacres began.”
(Editor’s note: The massacres referred to are the pogroms that began with the
revolution of 1905.)
1906: “According to the newspapers” in St. Petersburg “the
government has forbidden the Jewish committees to distribute the relief funds
without official supervision.”
1906: It was reported today that “the pupils of the public schools
of New York City have contributed $3,484.33 for the relief of the sufferers
from the Jewish massacres in Russia.”
1907: Birthdate of Krivozer, Russia native Yssak Gladstone who
gained fame as an American “cantor, radio and concert singer.”
1908(1st of Shevat, 5668): Parashat Vaera; Rosh Chodesh
Shevat
1908:
“Jew Baiting in New York” published today commented on Rabbi Emil Hirsh of
Chicago’s speech triggered by “attacks made upon Hebrews in Chicago” by saying
that “there are some streets of this big, civilized and enlightened (New York)
City where a Jew of the old school dare not
to pass without having his hat dented or crushed in, or spat on or
suffer worse insults” and that “Jew, who has endued suffering and persecution
of the last two thousand years, is averse to kill and thus be avenged upon his
tormentors.
1908: “Although it is four weeks tonight, to a day since the Mount
Royal sailed from Antwerp” for the port of St. John, Canada “with 804 Jewish
immigrants” on board nothing has been heard of her and the officials of the
line “fear that the vessel is drifting about the Atlantic in a helpless
condition.
1909: The funeral of Louis A. Heinsheimer, who passed away on
January 1st is scheduled to take place today at 9:30 a.m. at Temple
Emanu-El on New York’s Fifth Avenue.
1910(23rd of Tevet, 5670): On the Jewish calendar,
yahrzeit Rabbi Jacob Katz, author of Shev Ya’akov who passed away in
1740.
1911: Eugene Foss, one of those who would speak publicly in favor
of Leo Frank, was began serving as the 45th Governor of
Massachusetts.
1911: The Educational Alliance is scheduled to host the first in a
series of “lectures and address on the ‘Ethical Aspect of the Various Branches
of the Law.’”
1912: In Muskegon, Michigan, Zara Strong and Harry J. Warner gave
birth to Harriet Warner who gained fame as Riette Kahn, the author, artist and
wife of author Albert Kahn.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.obituaries/TnvFExQAN-s
1912: Thirty-year-old New York native Arthur Siegman, “a
manufacturer of men’s neckwear” married “Beatrice Rosenzweig of Brooklyn: with
whom he raised two daughters – Roselle and Dorothy.
1913: In Cologne, German, Boruch Chaim Dunner and Selma Dunner
gave birth to the hared rabbi Josef Hirsch Dunner also known as “Harav Yosef
Tzvi Halevi Dunner.”
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jul/03/guardianobituaries.religion
1913(25th of Tevet, 5673): Eighty-year-old Werner D.
Amram, the husband of Ester Hammerschlag and the father of Carrie Amram and
attorney David W. Amram passed away today in Philadelphia, PA.
1913:
It was reported today that in the wake of the announcement by Russian
authorities that the Jews of Kiev are being expelled from that city, “the Jews
of Kiev have transferred most their cash balances to Rmanian and Austrain banks
so that an immediate effect of their expulsion would be two flood Moscow and
Lodz manufacturers with bad debts involving thousands of smaller firms in the
retail trade.”
1914: Today, in Carnegie Hall, at the Free Synagogue Dr. Stephen
S. Wise delivered a sermon on “Are the Morals and Manners of Our Time Decadent?”
in which said, “My objection to so-called modern dancing arises out of the
belief shared by many that it is only a phase of the widespread social
deterioration which see about us” and that “one objects not merely to the new
dancing, but to the very atmosphere of this newest type of so-called amusement
or recreation which seems to be morally polluted.”
1914: Mrs. Charles H. Israels, head of the Committee on Amusement
Resources for Working Girls said that “the tango is a beautiful dance, if it is
danced beautifully.”
1914: In Germany, Maria and Peter K. Maybarduk gave birth to Dr.
Alexander P. Maybarduk, the husband of Ione Laon Kenniston Maybarduk.
1915: “Duties of American Jews” published today provided Louis D.
Brandies’ view that with “half the entire Jewish population of the world in the
western zone of the European war” “the people of Israel are now suffering the
greatest calamity since 1492” and that American Jews have “two obligations – to
give quickly and generous to the aid of the war sufferers and to live up to the
highest ideals of American democracy.”
1915: “Louis Marshall, Chairman of the American Jewish Relief
Committee received a telegram from Secretary of State Bryan” today “saying that
the expulsion program recently adopted by Turkey applies to Russian Jews who do
not renounce the Czar and become Ottoman subjects and that Ambassador
Morgenthau had cabled that while Jews in Turkey, who had not become Ottoman
subjects had suffered no ill treatment.”
1915: A letter to the American Jewish War Relief Committee was
made public today that came from Wolf Glucksin of Alexandria saying that “the
fund for Jewish relief was being expended carefully and that that the
authorities were warned from Constantinople to touch nothing that belongs to
the American Fund.”
1915: “Jacob H. Schiff made public” today “a letter from the
Jewish Relief Committee in Petrograd saying that the Petrograd committee was
collecting funds: and that the public was responding satisfactorily.
1915: As of today, the American Jewish Relief Committee of which
Felix M. Warburg has raised $276,566.35
1915: “British Dominions Pray For Victory” published today
described how all denominations included the Jews have responded to King
George’s call for special prayers of “intercession on behalf of the empire and
its allies in this time of war.”
1915: In Ben Shemen, Itzhak Elazari Volcani and Sarah Krieger gave
birth to microbiologist Benjamin Elazari Volcani who “discovered life in the
Dead Sea.”
1915: Democrat Moses Alexander, 62, was sworn in as
governor of Idaho. He was the first elected Jewish governor in the U.S.
He served two terms (1915-19).
1915: It was reported today that there were 300,000 Jews serving
in the Russian army and ‘a total of 600,000 Jews” in all “the warring armies.”
1916(28th
of Tevet, 5676): Seventy-year-old Tarnow, Austria native William Durst who
served aboard the USS Monitor when she fought the CSA Merrimack at Hampton
Roads, in the first naval battle fought by ironclads passed away today in
Philadelphia.
1916: In New Haven, CT, Luba Newman and her husband gave birth to
American conductor, pianist, and film and television composer Lionel Newman
part of a distinguished family including brothers Alfred and Emil Newman and
nephew Randy Newman.
1916:
In Chicago, officers are scheduled to be elected at this afternoon’s business
session of the Knights of Zion Convention
1916:
In Vienna, the “West Austrian, Galician and Bukowinean Zionist Central
Committee” adopted “resolutions expressing the hope that the Jewish question
will be discussed at the Peace Congress…”
1916: The American Jewish Relief Committee received actual cash
payments tonight totaling $798,007 and another $209,886 in pledges meaning that
$1,007, 893 has been raised meaning another four million dollars has to be
raised if the committee is to reach its goal of raising five million dollars to
aid the Jews suffering in the European war zone.
1916: It was reported today that “The People’s Relief Committee”
and “The American Committee” are planning another Tag Day because bad weather
on the first Tag Day limited the amount collected.
1917(10th of Tevet, 5677): Asara B’Tevet
1917: Rabbi Moses Hyamson and Morris Engleman, the Financial
Secretary of the Central Committee for the Relief of Jewish War Sufferers
returned today to New York from Kansas City where they attended the wedding of
Abraham J. Lewis and Sarah Appleman, during which the guests gave $7,000 “for
Jewish War relief.”
1918(20th
of Tevet, 5678): Seventy-nine-year-old “communal worker” Solomon Sulzberger
passed today in New York.
1918:
“The Zimreh Yoh Society” (Songs of God) “a new musical organization” with sixty
members who have “assembled for the purposed of the rejuvenation and revival of
the ancient lore” is scheduled to make its first appearance today in New York.
1918: In Zwolle, “the Netherlands Zionist Federation adopted a
resolution expressing gratitude to British Government for its sympathetic
attitude toward Zionism” and for the Balfour Declaration.
1918: “The Jewish Correspondence Bureau at the Hague” was informed
that the German Zionist Conference adopted a resolution stating that “The
German Zionist Association greets with satisfaction the fact that the British
Government has recognized in an official declaration the right of the Jewish
people to a national existence in Palestine.”
1918: Today, the Jews of Lithuania presented a memorandum to the
Central Committee on relations between Jews and Letts” which included a call
for “the recognition of the national rights of the Jewish minority…”
1918: In Leeds, the Vilna Synagogue was consecrated today.
1919:
SPD leader
and anti-Nazi leader Rudolf Breitscheld who would flee to France where
the authorities later turned him over to the Gestapo who imprisoned him at
Buchenwald where he died completed his
services the Interior Minister of the Free State of Prussia.
1919: A memorandum dated with today’s date signed by Faisal said
that he will agree to the implementation of the Balfour Declaration in
Palestine provided that he is named ruler of Syria. Faisal wrote that any
deviation from the agreement would nullify it in its entirety.
1919: Birthdate of Lester L. Wolfe, a Democratic politician who
represented two different Congressional districts from New York.
https://www.jta.org/2018/02/09/politics/this-99-year-old-is-the-oldest-former-member-of-congress
1920:
French forces stationed at a fort near Metulla retreated northward after being
attacked by Bedouins. With the defeat and retreat of the French army, the 120
members of the settlement of Metulla, all of whom were Jewish, fled to Sidon
where they boarded a ship to Haifa. Metulla was the northern most Jewish
town in Eretz Israel having been settled in 1896. Since it was close to the
border with Lebanon, which was under French control at the time, the retreat of
French military forces would have left the Jews to the “tender mercies” of
local, armed Arabs.
1921:
Henry Solomon of New York City was re-elected as a member of the State
Commission of Prisoners at Albany.
1921:
Leon C. Wienstock of New York City was elected to serve as a member of
the State Commission of Prisons at Albany today.
1922:
Rabbi Joseph Kornfeld of Columbus, the recently appointed Minister to Persia is
scheduled to set sail for his new post today.
1922(4th
of Tevet, 5682): Seventy-year-old German native Ben Holzman, the husband of
Stella Baer Holzmann, the father of Hortense Carlisle and Sadie Marks and the
grandfather of actress Kitty Carlisle Hart who served aboard the CSS Virginia
in the first clash of ironclads during the Civil War and who was the Mayor of
Shreveport, LA passed away today after which he was buried at the Hebrew Rest
Cemetery in Shreveport.
1923:
In Brooklyn, Abraham Kahan, a worker in the garment industry and his wife, the
former Sylvia Brahinsky gave birth to Miriam Kahan who gained fame as Miriam
Bienstock, the co-founder of Atlantic Records. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
1923:
As part of the Association of Reform Rabbis’ Lecture Series, Dr. Nathan Stern
will speak on “The Exile to the Destruction of the Second Temple” at West End
Synagogue in Manhattan.
1923:
As part of the Association of Reform Rabbis’ Lecture Series, Dr. Rudolph
Grossman will speak on “Hanukah and Purim” at the West End Synagogue.
1924:
“What Is American Music?” published today described plans for Paul Whiteman’s
upcoming concert at the Aeolian Hall which, according to the article, would
include the works of two Jewish composers – a jazz concerto by George Gershwin
and a “syncopated tone poem” by Irving Berlin.
1925:
In Chicago, Maxwell Abbell, the Lodz, Poland born son of Morris and Frieda
Abbeell, and his wife Fannie Abbell gave birth Sammy Harris Abbell
1926:
Following the death of his first wife, Dorothy Goetz in 1912, composer Irving
Berlin married Ellin Mackay today.
1926:
“The United Palestine Appeal and the ZOA announced the appointment of a
committee” today “to confer with officers of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis and
the Misrachi…regarding the retention of Rabbi Stephens S. Wise as Chairman of
the Appeal” whose resignation the National Executive Committee of the Appeal
had rejected which Union and Mizrachi had demanded.
1927:
“Joseph Montague Kenworthy, formerly a commander in the British Navy and now a
Labor Member of Parliament” who is not Jewish arrived in New York “to join the
European delegation of the United Palestine Appeal which is head by Dr. Chaim Weizmann,
President of the World Zionist Organization.”
1928:
“A Ship Comes” a film about immigrants coming to America with a script
co-authored by Sonya Levien and starring Rudolph Schildrkraut” was related in
the United States today.
1928:
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that Lord Burnham, the grandson of J.M.
Levy, has sold the Daily Telegraph to the Berry Newspaper Group.
1929:
The executive board of the National Conference of Jews and Christians announced
today that Newton D. Baker and Professor Carleton J.H. Hayes have been elected
co-chairman of the organization and that “Roger W. Straus, chairman for the
past year will continue as a third co-chairman.
1930:
Today, the
American Jewish Committee, took issue with the recent assertion of Judge Nathan
Cayton of the District of Columbia Municipal Court that there is “a Jewish
crime wave” and that the “Jews of America have produced far more than
their share of criminals.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1930/01/05/archives/asserts-jews-here-are-law-abiding-american-committee-demands.html?searchResultPosition=1
1931:
In the United Kingdom, the first meeting of the executive committee of the
newly formed United Hebrew Congregation met today.
1932:
Establishment of the Harry Fischel Foundation which was later renamed the Harry
and Jane Fischel Foundation.
1932
(25th of Tevet, 5692): Alexander Moses, former Governor of Idaho passed away at
the age of 78,
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/northwest/idaho/history/article195798964.html
https://www.nga.org/governor/moses-alexander/
1932:
“The Pride of Company Three” a comedy starring Anton Walbrook and Eugen Burg
was released in Germany today.
1933:
As he moved to consolidate his power, Hitler and former Prime Minister Franz
von Papen meet secretly to discuss Hitler’s future in the German government.
1934
(17th of Tevet, 5694): Samuel Sakier, a pioneer Jewish farmer in Palestine,
where he took part in the student agrarian movement of the Biluim forty years
ago, passed away.
1935:
Pierre Laval, the French politician who will be the driving force behind Vichy
France, met with Benito Mussolini for the first time.
1935:
Dr. Joseph H. Lookstein, the rabbi at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun officiated
at the funeral of Mrs. Jane B. Fischel, “a leader in the Jewish communal, a
generous donor to Jewish philanthropic and religious causes, the wife of real
estate man Harry Fischel, which was attended by over a thousand people, most of
whom could not gain entrance to the apartment where it was held.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1935/01/05/93769957.html?pageNumber=17
1935:
The Mayor of New York has become involved in a serious dispute with the
government in Washington over a PWA which would have the effect, among other
things, of replacing Park Commissioner Robert Moses from the Triborough Bridge
Authority and Tenement House.
1935(29th
of Tevet, 5696): Seventy-three-year Justine Koen, the wife of Joseph Koen and
the mother of Della Koen and William Joseph Koen passed away today in Austin,
TX.
1936:
Birthdate of American born Israeli computer scientist Shmuel Winograd whose
many accomplishments including serving as the director of the Mathematical
Sciences Department at IBM.
https://www.computer.org/web/awards/mcdowell-shmuel-winograd
1936:
“Diego von Bergen, Nazi Germany’s ambassador to the Vatican, wrote a letter to
German foreign minister Constantin von Neurath describing Pope Pius XI’s
complaints about German violations of the Concordat with the Vatican.”
1937:
Solomon Levitan took office today as state treasurer of Wisconsin.
1937:
In Berlin, “the government disclosed today that “all Jews were ousted from
country clubs just before Christmas” and that “German Jews have been barred
from Nazi golf clubs.”
1937:
Senator Copeland of New York who came to Providence to “address Rhode Island
Jewry regarding the situation in Palestine which he investigated last Summer”
“charged that Great Britain has failed to make the Holy Land safe for the Jews
because it ‘doesn’t suit her purpose’ in the Near and Far East.”
1937:
“At the closed session of the Royal Commission of Inquiry…Lieut. Gen. J.G.
Dill, commanding the British Forces in Palestine, submitted the plan for
maintaining public security in the country in the event of further
disturbances.” The commission is popularly known as the Peel Commission.
1937:
Toscanini conducted a concert in Jerusalem for the second time.
1937: In Tacoma, Washington, Claire (née Portnoy) Friesen and Ben
Friesen gave birth to Samile Diane Friesen, who gained fame as actress Dyan
Cannon, the fourth wife of actor Cary Grant. She was the mother of
Grant’s only child. Thus the great matinee idol’s sole offspring is
Jewish. Only in America!
1938: A decree issued today by “Adolf Hitler defines a Jewish
business as one where: Jews own it, dominate it, or if form a majority on the
corporate board” and starting next month “such companies will be ineligible for
government contracts.”
1939(13th of Tevet, 5699): Max Joachim, the husband of
Pauline Joachim and the father of the three “Ritz Brothers” passed away today.
1939: Hermann Goering appointed Reinhard Heydrich head of Jewish
Emigration. This is a charming euphemism for moving Jews to what would be
the chain of ghettos and death camps that would be known as the Final Solution.
1940: Birthdate of Brian D. Josephson winner of the Nobel Prize
for Physics in 1973.
1940(23rd of Tevet, 5700): Lewis Cohen the native Nagle, Germany native who at the age of 16
came to the United States where he “enlisted and served bravely with a New York
regiment” during the Civil War, “engaged in the manufacture of cigars and
settled in Bloomsberg, PA with his wife, “Flora (Alexander) Cohen” where they
gave birth to Alexander, Lena, Esther, Eugene, Isadore and Joseph, the
“physician and surgeon” as well as two youngster “who died in infancy” passed
away today.
1940(23rd of Tevet, 5700): Producer and distributor Charles B.
Mintz, the husband of Margaret J. Winkler and head of Winkler Pictures two of
whose short subjects were nominated for Oscars passed away today.
http://www.scrappyland.com/blog/2012/09/23/in-memoriam-charles-mintz/
1941(5th of Tevet, 5701): Eighty-one-year-old French
philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson and Nobel Prize winner passed away today in
Paris.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Bergson.html
1942:
Today, “representatives from the West London, North Western, St. George
Settlement, Glasgow, Manchester and Bradford synagogues met at the Midland
Hotel, Manchester and founded the Associated British Synagogues, later renamed
Associated Synagogues of Great Britain.”
1942 (15th of Tevet, 5702): At the age of 70, composer Leon Jessel
was murdered by the Gestapo.
1943:
Armed with only one gun and knife members of the Jewish Fighting Organization
at Czestochowa resisted a ‘selection.’ As a reprisal, the Germans shot 25 men.
Czestochowa is a town in Poland famous for the “Black Madonna” and is scene of
annual religious pilgrimages. Sometimes, the Jewish view is a little
different than the non-Jewish view of places and events.
1943
(27th of Tevet, 5703): Young members of the Jewish Fighting Organization are
rounded up in Czestochowa, Poland. Its leader, Mendel Fiszlewicz, uses a hidden
pistol to wound the German commander of the Aktion. Fiszlewicz and 25
other men are immediately shot, and 300 women and children from the group are
deported to the Treblinka death camp and gassed.
1943:
The SS administrative office instructs all concentration-camp commandants to
send human hair taken from Jewish women to the firm of Alex Zink, Filzfabrik
AG at Roth, Germany, near Nuremberg, for processing.
1944:
“What’s Up” the “first Broadway collaboration of Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay
Lerner closed after only 63 performances.
1945
(19th of Tevet, 5705): Fritz Elsas, the Jewish mayor of Berlin until his arrest
for alleged resistance activities in 1933, was executed at Sachsenhausen,
Germany, after 12 years of imprisonment.
1945:
Twenty-two-year-old U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Isadore Seigried, while serving
with Company B, 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment was mortally
wounded today “while saving his company from annihilation at Flamierge, Belgium
– an action for which he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of
Honor.
1946:
The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee
composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining
the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they
bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the
well-being of the peoples now living therein” met in Washington, DC today.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/anglo.html
http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=18119
1947: “Show Boat” closes at Ziegfeld Theater New York
City NY after 417 performances.
1947: “The Shocking Miss Pilgrim” with songs composed by George
and Ira Gershwin, produced by William Perlberg and music by Alfred Newman and
David Raskin was released today in the United States.
1948: It was reported today that in Portsmouth, NH, the Unitarians
and Universalists have accepted the offer by Temple Israel to use their
building for worship services for their next three months while a new heating
unit is being installed in their church.
1948: It was reported today that the United Palestine Appeal which
spent $73,817,132 in 1947 will need almost 285 million dollars to carry out its
mission in 1948 due to the decision of the United Nations to create an
“independent Jewish state in Palestine.”
1949: Today, “the United Nations summoned its Chief True
Supervisor, Brigadier General William E. Riley of the U.S. Marine Corps” to
return to New York from Palestine so he could “make a complete report on the
renewal of fighting in Palestine.”
1949: Today while the Egyptians are asserting the Gaza and Faluja
and “other main Egyptian bases” are under Israeli attack, “the Israelis
steeling are keeping battle news from this front secret.”
1949: “Israel Seeks Visitors, Especially Americans” published
today described how “despite war conditions which prevailed during most of last
year, Israel has kept its eye on the future and made very provision for
possible for business visitors who are sure to come in large numbers when peace
is assured.”
1950:
“Israel’s Knesset gave the government a 62 to 28 vote of confidence on foreign
policy tonight” which effectively gives approval to “peace negotiations with
Jordan that would provide for recognition of Jordan’s sovereignty over the
Arab-held part of Jerusalem and eastern Palestine.”
1951:
In Plainfield, NJ, Victor Auerbach, “a patents manager for Union Carbide” and
the former Leona Fishkin, a schoolteacher gave birth to Paul Stuart Auerbach
who gained fame as “Dr. Paul Auerbach, an emergency care physician who
pioneered the field of wilderness medicine in the 1980s and then taught ways to
heal people injured by the unpredictable…” (As reported by Alex Vadukul)
1954:
In “Recession Forecasts Questioned” published today, Lawrence Ottinger, the
Chairman of the Board of the United States Plywood Corporation takes issue with
the “undue weight” “given to the prognostications by “top economists” since
with one exception “they were unanimously wrong in 1929” and states that “in
the plywood industry the forecast of highly regard economists have been far
from accurate.”
1955:
The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to hold its first 1955 session
at 3 p.m today where it will take up Israel’s complaint that Egypt is
interfering with shipping in the Suez Canal to the determinate of Israel and
those wishing to do business with her.
1955(10th
of Tevet, 5715) Asara B’Tevet
1956: Announcement appeared today in the Seattle Times:
“The first new Jewish congregation in Seattle in more than a generation will be
launched with a service Friday evening…”
1958(12th of Tevet, 5718): Parahsat Vayechi
1958: Birthdate of Harvard graduate, comedian and actor Any
Borowtiz the product of “a marginally Jewish home in Shaker Heights” who
divorced his producer Susan Stevenson before marrying Oliva Gentile (What a
great name for the wife of a Jew)
1958(12th of Tevet, 5718): Fifty-six-year-old
self-taught painter and designer Barnette Freedman, the London born “London,
the son of Louis Freedman, a journeyman tailor, and Reiza Ruk, Jewish
immigrants from Russia” whose first “major commission” had a Jewish connection
since it was to
design and illustrate Memoirs of an Infantry Officer by Siegfried Sassoon, son
of Alfred Sassoon part of the Baghdad Sassoon clan, passed away today.
1959: Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Halpern of New York announced the
engagement of the daughter Libby Shana Halpern, a junior at Barnard to Columbia
trained engineer Alan Noel Miller, the son of Mr. and Mrs. David Z. Miller.
1960: “The Closing Door” produced by David Susskind with George
Segal in the role of “Don” was broadcast today as The Play of the Week.
1961: Nobel Prize winner Erwin Schrödinger who “in 1935, after
extensive correspondence with Albert Einstein, proposed what is now called the
Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment” passed away. In 1934, he left Germany
because “he disliked the Nazis’ anti-Semitismi” but recanted his position when
the Nazis annexed Austria, an act for which he personally apologized to
Einstein, after he fled Austria and was beyond the grasp of the Germans.
1962: Today, Doubleday will issue “The Man Who Played God,” a
novel about a man who bargains with the Nazis for a few thousand Jewish lives
and is tried for collaboration after the war.
1963: Levi “Oland joined the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr at a
poll tax rally at the Fair Park Auditorium
1964: In a series of firsts Pope Paul VI became the first Pope to
fly in a plane, the first Pope to leave Italy in more than a century and the
first Pope to visit “the Holy Land” when he began his trip to Israel and Jordan
today.
1964: Birthdate of Michael Brenner, the German born son of
Holocaust survivor and award-winning historian specializing topics related to
Jews and Israel.
1965(1st of Shevat, 5225): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1966(12th of Tevet, 5726): Seventy-four-year-old French
attorney and supporter of Charles de Gaulle Henri Torres, the son of Berthe
Torres and the grandson of Isaiah Levaillant, the founder of “the League for
the Defense of Human and Civil Affairs during the Dreyfus Affair, the decorated
WW I veteran who defended Samuel Schwartzbard in his
historic 1927 murder trial and was forced to flee France during the Second War
passed away today.
1968: Prime Minister Levi Eshkol arrived in New York this
afternoon “on his was to Texas to confer with President Johnson” where they
will discuss the possibility of the United States supplying the IAF with
Phantom Jets.
1968: It was reported today that “mines believed to have been made
in Communist China were used to blow up the offices for regional water
installations in the upper Jordan Valley.
1969: After 756 performances the curtain came down on “You Know I
Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running” with cast that, over time, included
Martin Balsam and Larry Blyden.
1970: In Washington, CD “journalist Susan Stamberg and Louis C.
Stamberg gave birth to University of Wisconsin alum and comedic actor Joshua
Collins, the husband of actress Myndy Crist because known for his three-year
stint on the cable series “Drop Dead Diva.”
1970: Abba Eban published an appeal for peace between Israel and
the Arab states in the London Sunday Times following an Arab summit in
the Moroccan city of Rabat.
1972: Having left the HaOlam HaZeh – Koah Hadash political
movement in 1971, today Shalom Cohen began sitting as in independent in the
Knesset. Born in Baghdad in 1926, Cohen made Aliyah in 1946 where he joined
kibbutz Nahshonim. “During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War he was part of the
Samson’s Foxes commando unit in the Givati Brigade.” In 1950, Cohen and Uri
Avnery bought the HaOlam HaZeh weekly magazine, which he remained an editor of
until 1971. “He joined the Black Panthers in 1971 and served as their secretary
general until 1977. Between 1971 and 1977 he was also a member of the
Histadrut’s executive committee. In the 1977 elections he ran as part of the
Hofesh party together with Yehoshua Peretz. However, it failed to cross the
electoral threshold. He later worked as a journalist for the French language
paper Le Matin. He died in 1993.”
1972:
Rose Heilbron became the first woman judge to sit at the Old Bailey in London.
The daughter of a Jewish hotelier, Rose Heilbron was born in Liverpool on
August 19, 1914, and educated at Belvedere School and Liverpool University,
where she took the top First in Law. Called to the Bar by Gray’s Inn in 1939,
she began practicing on the Northern Circuit from chambers in Liverpool. Dame
Rose Heilbron was one of the most celebrated defense barristers of the post-war
years; no woman before her enjoyed anything like her success rate at the
criminal Bar, and she later became only the second woman to be appointed a High
Court judge. She passed away in 2005 at the age of 91.
1973:
“The Grand Music Hall of Israel” is scheduled to open at the Felt Forum.
1973:
Birthdate Williams College graduate and MIT Associate Professor Ehtan
Zuckerman, the director of the MIT Center for Civic Media and author of Mistrust:
Why Losing Faith in Institutions Provides the Tools to Transform Them.
1974(10th
of Tevet, 5734): Asara B’Tevet
1974:
“Twenty-eight Jews from Vilnius” sent a “letter to the Supreme Soviet”
demanding passage of a “law guaranteeing the right unhindered emigration.”
1974:
Howard Metzenbaum began serving as a U.S. Senator from Ohio.
1975:
A Broadway revival of “Gypsy” closed at New York’s Winter Garden Theatre.
1975:
CBS broadcast the final episode of “Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers” a sitcom
created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns.
1975(22nd
of Tevet, 5735): Eighty-eight-year-old Russian born and Fordham University
trained physician Dr, Samuel Silveberg, the retired president of the Sterling
Magnesia Company and former Chairman of the Jewish Socialist Farband who was
the husband of Sarah Silverberg and father of Dorothy Weber was passed away
today in Tucson, AZ.
1975 (22nd of Tevet, 5735): Seventy-two-year-old Carlo
Levi, the Turin born son Dr. Ercole Lev and Annetta Treves and nephew of
socialist leader of Claudio Treves the Italian writer and painter who was
trained as a doctor and was an anti-Fascist leader in Italy during the 1930’s
passed away today.
https://biography.yourdictionary.com/carlo-levi
1976: “Home Sweet Homer” a Mitch Leigh musical opened this
afternoon at the Palace Theatre and became one of the biggest flops on Broadway
when “the closing notice was posed as soon as the curtain” came down on the production.
1978: When PLO official Said Hammami was shot and killed today in
London, those suspected of responsibility were Mossad and the Abu Nidal
Organization.
1978(25th of Tevet, 5738): Eighty-seven-year-old Yetta
Rubin Slutsky, the mother of Julius and Ben Slutsky who “with her husband,
Joseph, founded the Nevele Hotel and Country Club and built it into a leading
resort in the Catskill Mountains” passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1978/01/06/archives/yetta-rubin-slutsky-87-cofounder-of-nevele.html
1979(5th
of Tevet, 5739): Eighty-one-year-old Hungarian born English director, the
younger brother of Alexander and Zoltán Korda passed away today.
1981
In New York at The Jewish Museum of Andy Warhol: Portraits of Jews of the
Twentieth Century comes to a close.
1981:
Today Aeronautics engineer Lev Roitburd, the last of 18 in the list submitted
by Senator Edward Kennedy to President Brezhnev in 1978, arrived in Israel with
his family
1981(28th
of Tevet, 5741): Sixty-four-year-old Manhattan resident Yehuda L. Rabin, an
aircraft company executive and one of the founders of the Israeli Air Force,
died of a heart attack today while seeing a friend off at Kennedy International
Airport.
1982:
Today, “Anatoly Shcharansky’s mother is allowed to have a two-hour meeting with
her son in the Chistopol prison for the first time in 18 months” and “she finds
him in a weak condition after six months of solitary confinement with the low
food rations he received for allegedly breaking camp regulations.”
1983
(19th of Tevet, 5743): New York Congressman Benjamin Stanley Rosenthal passed
away.
1983:
Services are scheduled to be held today for 89-year-old Brooklyn born
theatrical agent Karl N. Bernstein who had passed away on January 1.
1985:
As of today, since November 20, 1984, 6,500 Ethiopian Jews have secretly made
their way to Israel as part of Operation Moses.
1987:
In “The Istanbul Synagogue Massacre” published today Judith Miller described
the inter-locking terrorist networks that were responsible for the attack on
the Neve Shalom Synagogue. The Arab terrorists killed 22 worshippers
before setting the building ablaze by detonating grenades. [Reading this
article for 35 years later makes it clear that authorities knew a lot about
terrorists and terrorism which means that 9/11 should not have as such a
surprise.]
1987:
An Israeli gunboat stopped a Cypriot ferry bound for Lebanon today. The
officials in the Lebanese port of Junieh said the ferry, the Empress, was
stopped off the Lebanese coast. The Israeli gunboat allowed it to proceed after
being told that only crewmen were aboard, they said.
1988(14th
of Tevet, 5748): Ninety-four-year-old award winning harpist passed away today
in Paris.
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/lily-laskine-mn0000001729
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=30176006
1989:
In Los Angeles, Mike and Wendy Pillar gave birth to All-American college
baseball player Kevin Pillar who began his Major League career as an outfielder
with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2013.
1990(7th
of Tevet, 5750): Ninety-year-old Artur Levin, the husband of Svedye Levin and
the son of Baltimore clothing manufacturer Isaac Aaron Levin, an organizer of
the Hebrew Charities and Rachel Levin passed away today in Baltimore, MD.
1991:
With most tourists staying away from Israel because of the Persian Gulf crisis,
the country’s two major museums have had to lay off employees and cut back
operations. “There are almost no tourists coming to Israel,” said
Nissim Tal, the deputy director of the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv. Mr. Tal
said the number of tourists visiting the museum was only a fifth of the usual
number. As a result, the museum has dismissed 15 percent of its employees,
including a few tenured staff members, to help reduce its $4.2 million budget.
“We hope the situation will stabilize shortly,” Mr. Tal said.
1991(18th
of Tevet, 5751): Eighty-one-year-old screenwriter Richard Maibum passed away
today.
1991(18th
of Tevet, 5751): Eighty-seven-year Louis Cohen, the old rare books expert and
founder of the Argosy Book Shop passed away today. (As reported by Stephanie
Strom)
1995(3rd
of Shevat, 5755): Eighty-seven year old Sol Tax, the Milwaukee born son of Morris and Kate Tax who earned a
Doctorate from the University of Chicago, founded “Current Anthropology” and received the Franz Boas Award from the
American Anthropological Association passed away today.
https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.TAXSOL
http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/950119/tax.shtml
1995(3rd
of Shevat, 5755): Eighty-one-year-old “Victor Riesel, the crusading syndicated
labor columnist who was blinded by an acid attack in 1956, died today at his
home in Manhattan. (As reported by Lawrence Van Gelder)
1998:
The New York Times book section featured a review of Cultivating
Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education by Martha C.
Nussbaum who would become a Bat Mitzvah ten and a half years later in August,
2008.
1999:
“Gunmen opened fire this morning on a van transporting Jewish settlers in
Hebron, wounding two Israeli women as two dozen bullets riddled the vehicle.”
2000:
In “A New Armageddon Erupts Over Ancient Battlefield; Archaeological Finds
Challenge Chronologies of the Israelites,” published today John Noble Wilford
describes how work at this ancient site is being used by Dr. Israel Finkelstein
and his associate to challenge the timelines presented in the Bible as well as
the historic accuracy of the Biblical narrative.
2001:
“The authorities raided a Brooklyn community center today run by followers of
Rabbi Meir David Kahane, the Israeli politician assassinated in 1990, whose
movements are designated as foreign terrorist groups by the State Department.”
2002:
The MV Karine A, a Palestinian ship loaded with 50 tons of arms including
rockets and missiles which the Israeli Navy had seized during the intifada was
brought to Eilat.
2002:
The Israeli Army said today that it had seized a ship carrying 50 tons of
rockets, mines, antitank missiles and other munitions meant for Yasir Arafat’s
Palestinian Authority, even as the Bush administration’s envoy met with Mr.
Arafat in the hope of strengthening his declared cease-fire with Israel.
2003(1st
of Shevat, 5763): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
2003(1st
of Shevat, 5763): Seventy-nine-year-old violinist Yfra Neaman, the Lebanese son
of Jewish parents from Palestine, passed away today.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/jan/08/guardianobituaries1
2004:
The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including Hegemony or Survival America’s
Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky and a newly release paperback
edition of Welcome to Heavenly Heights, by Risa Miller which tells the
story of an Orthodox couple from Baltimore, responding to their longing for the
holy city of Jerusalem who relocate to a heavily guarded settlement in the West
Bank, where they confront the vast abyss between contemporary Israel and the
ideals of their spiritual life.
2004:
The funeral of 90-year-old Joseph Nathan Polstein, the father of Ernest
Polstein and Meri Grumbacher and the brother of Ruth Sirota of Jerusalem is
scheduled to take place this afternoon in Hewlett, NY.
2005:
It was announced today that Mark Lehrman has been appointed director of YU’s S.
Daniel Abraham Israel Program. Mr. Lehrman has been at the university’s
Caroline and Joseph S. Gruss Institute in Israel since 1995 where he was most
recently assistant director of admissions. In the past decade, he has led YU’s
recruitment efforts in Israel and has helped bring about a significant increase
in enrollment in the Israel Program
2005:
Joshua Shaprio began serving as a “Member of the Pennsylvania House of
Representatives from the 153rd District” today.
2005: The 2 day international “Bridge Between
Judaism and Islam” conference held at Bar-Ilan University comes to a
conclusion.
2005(23rd of Tevet, 5765): Eighty-five year old
American economist Robert Heilbroner, the author of some twenty books, best
known for The Worldly Philosophers published in 1953, which is a survey of the
lives and contributions of famous economists, notably Adam Smith, Karl Marx,
and John Maynard Keynes passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/obituaries/robert-heilbroner-writer-and-economist-dies-at-85.html
2006, Rabbi Yaaqov Medan and Rabbi Baruch Gigi were
officially invested as co-roshei yeshiva alongside Rav Amital and Rav
Lichtenstein, with an eye toward Rabbi Amital’s intention to retire.
2006 (4th of Tevet, 5766): Milton
Himmelfarb who coined the aphorism on the Jewish community’s political
persuasions: “Jews earn like Episcopalians, and vote like Puerto Ricans” passed away at the age of 87 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center in Manhattan. (As reported by Joseph
Berger)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/nyregion/15himmelfarb.html
2006:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage at Havat
Shimim and collapsed into a coma.
2006:
Ehud Olmert assumes the duties of the Prime Minister after Prime Minister
Sharon suffered his second stroke.
2007:
Representative Bob Filner began serving as Chairman of the House Committee on
Veterans’ Affairs.
2007:
The 108th Congress is sworn in. Of the 43 Jewish members of
Congress, there is only one Jewish Republican in the House and two in the
Senate The number of Jews in the Senate will rise from 10 to 11. The number of
Jews in the House of Representatives will remain at 26.
2007:
Max “Kampelman served as a motivating forced the op-ed ‘A World Free of Nuclear
Weapons’ published today in the Wall Street Journal
2008:
Israeli officials reported that they they had uncovered an arms cache in the
West Bank city of Nablus last night that contained explosives, military
equipment and materials for manufacturing rockets. At least one rocket was
found in an early stage of production.
2009:
The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or
of special interest to Jewish readers including The Return of Depression
Economics and the Crisis of 2008 by Paul Krugman and Maimonides: The
Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds by Joel L. Kraemer
2009:
The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers that have recently been published in
paperback editions including: Linda Grant’s The Clothes on Their Backs
in which the protagonist is a London woman whose parents, Hungarian Jewish
refugees, have always been secretive about their past Ehud Havazelet’s Bearing
the Body in which a medical resident, accompanied by his father, a grumpy
Holocaust survivor, travels to San Francisco to investigate the life and death
of his older brother, a drug-addicted former ’60s radical and Suzanne Braun’s Bella
Abzug, an oral history of “the feisty feminist New York congresswoman.”
2009:
Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” a new musical stage reinvention of the
classic film, completed a limited engagement on Broadway at the Marquis Theatre
in New York City.
2009:
An exhibition at the Jewish Museum titled “The Dead Sea Scrolls: Mysteries of
the Ancient World” comes to an end.
2009: New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Police Commissioner
Ray Kelly and U.S. Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Chairman of the House
Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia arrived Sunday in Israel to show
solidarity with Israel’s besieged southern residents. The three men are
scheduled to tour the rocket-battered cities of Sderot and Ashkelon today.
2009:
Helen Suzman, who spearheaded the battle against apartheid
in South Africa’s parliament, was buried in a private Jewish ceremony at
Johannesburg’s Westpark Cemetery.
http://jwa.org/thisweek/jan/04/2009/helen-suzman
2009:
Three men charged with involvement in a deadly synagogue bombing in Tunisia
went on trial today in Paris in a case expected to highlight the reach and
complexity of al-Qaida-linked networks in North Africa.
2009(8
Tevet 5769): Sergeant Dvir Emmanueloff, 22, was killed during a firefight in
northern Gaza’s densely populated Jabalya refugee camp today. He was the first
fatality suffered by Israel since it launched the ground operation on Saturday.
Emmanueloff, who served in the Israel Defense Forces Golani infantry brigade,
was a resident of Givat Ze’ev, near Jerusalem. He was laid to rest late Sunday
at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl military cemetery. Emmanueloff was a graduate of a
Jewish seminary in the southern town of Netivot. He had been set to complete
his compulsory service in the Israel Defense Forces in six months’ time. The
22-year-old had recently been serving as an instructor at the IDF academy for
squad leaders, away from the front, and had fought to rejoin the Golani
infantry brigade in order to participate in operations.
2009(8
Tevet 5769): Gregory Sher, a Private serving in the Australian Army was killed
in a rocket attack on a military compound southwest of Kabul. Sher is the
eighth Australian soldier, and the first of the country’s reservists, killed in
Afghanistan since Australia sent forces to aid the United States-led coalition
against the Taliban and al-Qaida in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror
attacks. He is believed to be Australia’s first Jewish military casualty at
least since the Vietnam War.
2010:
Three Palestinian men were arrested in Jerusalem for allegedly planning a
stabbing attack. The men, from Hebron, were arrested today near the Jaffa Gate
with a knife in their possession. They told police later that they planned to
stab a security officer or a Jewish person. Also today, two Palestinians
carrying knives were stopped at a checkpoint near the Cave of the Patriarchs in
Hebron, according to the Israeli army. They were detained for
questioning.
2010:
In New York Israeli violinist Sergey Ostrovsky and Israeli pianist Einav
Yarden, together with the Jupiter musicians, perform the Janacek Concertino and
Dvorak’s beloved “American” String Quartet.
2010:
Yisrael Bar Kochav’s new book Shmu’ot (Rumors) is celebrated at
Mishkenot Sha’ananim.
2010:
Beit Avi Chai’s Music on Monday’s series presents Guitar virtuoso Ofer Amar in
a wonderful acoustic performance that combines world music, flamenco, and
ethnic jazz.
2010:
Yitta Schwartz of Kiryas Joel in New York was buried this morning. The
94-year-old Holocaust survivor left behind at least 2,500 descendants. She had
five generations of descendants. Schwartz survived Bergen Belsen, leaving the
concentration camp with her family intact when World War II ended in 1945.
Schwartz, her husband and six children moved to Antwerp and then Belgium before
settling in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, the Times Herald-Record
reported. The Schwartzes had 11 more children following the war. Her husband
died 33 years ago. Schwartz, who reportedly was reluctant to talk about the
Holocaust, had about 170 grandchildren — and knew all their names.
2010:
In Israel, the National Insurance Institute reported today that the number of
new claims for unemployment benefits dropped four percent in December.
2011:
Prof. Howard N. Lupovitch is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Hillel’s
World” at Congregation Beth Ahm in West Bloomfield, Michigan
2011:
In “Calling Steven Cohen. No, Not That One” published today, Joseph Berger
sought to distinguish between some of the many men with that common Jewish
name, including Steven A. Cohen, Steven M. Cohen, Stephen F. Cohen and more.
2011:
The Jerusalem Theatre is schedule to present “Sheindale,” an
“Amnon Levy and Rami Danon play about the ultra-Orthodox society, its fine line
between tradition and profess and its attitude towards women.”
2011:
Israeli greenhouses on a farm near Ashkelon sustained damage from a terrorist
rocket fired from Gaza today, and the Air Force responded by bombing a Hamas
training base.
2011:
About 20 Israeli suppliers will help build the first modern Palestinian city in
the West Bank but only after promising they will not use products or services
from Israeli settlements, the project’s developer said today. The announcement
angered Israeli residents of the West Bank, who accused the suppliers of caving
in to an international boycott of settlement goods and businesses.
2012:
“When Jews Lived in the Muslim Quarter,” an English Walking Tour that will help
participants to discover what life was like when Jews lived in the Muslim
Quarter is scheduled to begin at 9:30 this morning.
2012:
A comedy entitled “The Religion Thing” is scheduled to have its world premiere
at Theatre J, part of the DCJCC.
2012:
Opposition leader Tzipi Livni (Kadima) warned that ties between Jews in the
Diaspora and their Israeli counterparts are weakening, in today’s meeting with
US Senator Joe Lieberman in Jerusalem. Livni cited recent “radical
legislation” in the Knesset, religious extremism causing discrimination
against women, Jewish violence against IDF soldiers and “price tag”
attacks carried out by right-wing activists as reasons for the tension. These
events, she explained, “make it difficult for [Jews in the Diaspora] to
defend Israel.”
2012:
Police arrested two terrorists at different locations this morning and
prevented intended attacks on Be’er Sheva residents.
2013:
Rabbi Joshua Plaut and cantorial soloist Leah Tehrani as scheduled to lead
“Golden Shabbat” services at Metropolitan Synagogue which are intended to honor
“elder members” of the community.
2013:
Gesher City is scheduled to sponsor “SPY Shabbat.”
2013(22nd
of Tevet, 5773): Ninety-year-old philanthropist Celeste Bartos, who with her
husband Armand Phillip Bartos, shaped the cultural landscape of New York,
passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/nyregion/celeste-bartos-philanthropist-dies-at-99.html
2013:
“Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish
Film Festival.
2013:
The Reform movement’s international umbrella announced plans to open a large
community center in Kiev later this year.
2013:
“Into the Wilderness” published today provided a detailed review of The
Barbarous Years by Bernard Baylin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/books/review/the-barbarous-years-by-bernard-bailyn.html?_r=0
2013:
Former U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a mass shooting in
her Arizona district two years ago, met with Newtown officials on Friday
afternoon before heading to visit with families of the victims of last month’s
Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre
Read
more: http://forward.com/articles/168775/gabby-giffords-meets-with-newtown-families/#ixzz2H3o7c2JA
2014:
B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim on Lake Cook Road is scheduled to host a free
concert featuring “local band Shakshuka and Kol Echad, an a capella group” made
up of students from Boston University.
2014:
“Herod the Great: The King’s Final Journey” an example that “seeks to
illuminate Herod’s story – his reign and his role in the history of the region
– through a display of the archaeological remains of the architecture he
created and the art and artifacts that surrounded his royal life” at the Israel
Museum in Jerusalem is scheduled to come to an end today.
2014:
In Jerusalem, the Eden-Tamir Music Center a musical “New Year’s Celebration.”
2014:
“Last Vegas” and “Enough Said” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem
Jewish Film Festival.
2014:
After Shabbat, Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids is scheduled to host a special
performance by members Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre.
2014:
Happy
New Year Shabbat,
marks the start of the 13th consecutive year of the Traditional
Shabbat Monthly Minyan at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids – an event that owes its
creation to the vision of Deb Levin
2014:
Efforts continued today despite the fact that it was Shabbat to find developer
Menachem Stark the Hasidic millionaire real estate developer “who was
reportedly kidnapped outside his Brooklyn office.”
2014:
“Israel and the Palestinians are making progress towards reaching a framework
peace agreement but they are not there yet, US Secretary of State John Kerry
told reporters” today. (As reported by Eilor Levy)
2014:
The funeral for Menachem Stark, the Hasidic millionaire whose body had been
found in a dumpster yesterday after he had been kidnapped was held at Lodiner
Bais Medrash on Marcy Avenue in Williamsburg.
2015:
The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback
edition of Falling Out of Time by David Grossman and Honeydew:
Stories by Edith Pearlman
2015:
In Atlanta, the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum is scheduled to host
Holocaust Survivor Henry Friedman as part of its “Bearing Witness” program.
2015:
The Jewish Museum of London is scheduled to host a screening of ‘Abram Games:
Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means.’
2015:
“An alarm system that will detect incoming mortar fire will be installed in
Gaza border communities within three to six months, Channel 10 reported today.”
(As reported by Marissa Newman)
2015:
“Investigators pursuing a major fraud scandal involving key members of the
Yisrael Beytenu party found NIS 13 million ($3.3 million) in the bank account
of lobbyist Yisrael Yehoshua a close acquaintance of party leader Avigdor
Liberman, Hebrew-language media reported today.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)
2016:
Funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning at Agudas Achim for Kent
Braverman
2016:
“La Condanna” and “The Tenor” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem
Cinematheque.
2016:
American Airlines last flight from the United States to Israel is scheduled for
today when a plane takes off from Philadelphia bound for Tel Aviv.
2016:
Atri Michael Signer, who had to deal with a murderous
White-Supremacist/Neo-Nazi March was elected by the Charlottesville City
Council today to serve as the city’s mayor.
2016:
Yael, “a French/Israeli singer/songwriter and her Argentinian partner are
scheduled to perform at Radegast Hall in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
2017:
“Macy’s announced that it would closing its store at Hayden Run, a mall
developed by Taubman centers.
2017:
Just days after the last glow of the Chanukah lights, in Memphis, TN, Temple
Israel is scheduled to begin rehearsals for its annual Purimspiel.
2017:
At Congregation B’nai Israel in Boca Raton, Adam Benzine is scheduled to
discuss the making of “Claude Lanzmann: Specters of the Shoah.”
2017:
In Cedar Rapids, IA, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to discuss The Jazz
Palace, a novel set in Chicago of the 1920’s by Mary Morris.
2017:
Israelis are making reportedly making alternative travel plans due to “a
one-day ‘warning strike’” called by Histadrut for today as well as scheduled
closure of train lines today “due to infrastructure work.”
2018(17th
of Tevet, 5778): Eighty-five-year-old Romanian born Holocaust survivor Aharon
Appelfeld, the world class Israeli novelist passed away today in Petah Tikvah.
(As reported by Joseph Berger)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/obituaries/aharon-appelfeld-dies.html
2018: Paul G. Weintraub is scheduled to offer
another session of “Introduction to Judaism” at the Streicker Center.
2018, Julia Watts Belser published her book Rabbinic
Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex, and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem.
2019:
As the United States government continues to endure a “partial” shutdown with
workers not being paid, the U.S. Holocaust Museum is scheduled to be open
today. (Editors’ note – the matter of not paying workers would seem not to be
in sync with Leviticus 19:13)
2019:
In Rochester, NY, the Jewish community is scheduled to offer a fun-filled day
starting with Challah Baking at Temple Emanu-El followed by the JULIETS (Jewish
Unforgettable Ladies Interested In Eating And Talking) “casual drop-in lunch at
the Louis S. Wolk Jewish Community Center.
2019(27th
of Tevet, 5779): On the Jewish calendar Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch
http://www.aish.com/dijh/Tevet_27.html
2020(7th
of Tevet, 5780: Parashat Vayigash; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2020:
Tulane University, the home of Tulane Department of Jewish Studies and Dr.
Brian Horowitz, is scheduled to play in today’s Armed Forces Bowl https://liberalarts.tulane.edu/departments/jewish-studies
(Editor’s
note: This makes into the blog because, much to the dismay of the university,
the author of this meager effort actually graduated from the home of the Green
Wave.)
2020:
Lincoln Square
Synagogue and Congregation Shearith Israel are scheduled to present a screening
of “Children of the Inquisition,” a film about the experiences of Sephardi Jews
after the Spanish and Portuguese expulsions, followed by a talk by Rabbi Marc
Angel, author, director of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals and rabbi
emeritus of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue.
2020:
“The eighth annual Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre’s Temple Judah Preview Concert is
scheduled to take place this evening.
2020:
Today, on the same day that funerals are being held in Baghdad for Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandis and his allies for whom Hamas has offered its “sincerest
condolences” Israel has reportedly closed the Mount Hermon ski resort in the
wake of Hezbollah’s call for “resistance the world over.”
2021:
The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present “discussion of
the political system of modern Russia and its significance to the world by
Russian politician and economist Grigory Yavlinsky. Yavlinksy will address the
history of how and why Russia came to be as it is now, the current Russian
political system and how it works, and the future of autocracy in Russia.”
2021:
Temple Judea’s Book Club led by Marah Kurh is scheduled to meet over zoom to
discuss George O’Keefe: A Life by Roxana Robinson, Georgia by
Dawn Trip and Foursome: Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keefe, Paul Strand and
Rebecca Salisbury.
2021:
In Cedar Rapids, at Temple Judah, deadline “to register for Together and Apart:
The Future of Jewish Peoplehood.”
2021
Rabbi Daniel Sherman is scheduled to officiate at the graveside funeral service
for ninety-seven-year-old Myra Soboloff, the Minneapolis born holder of a M.A.
from The Tulane School of Social Worker and widow of Dr. Hyman R. Soboloff who
was a longtime, dedicated member of Temple Sinai and recipient of “the Hannah
G. Solomon Award from the National Council of Jewish Women.
2021:
Israelis are confronted with mixed Pandemic messages as the media reports that
the country leads the world in per capita inoculations while “the heads of
hospitals in Israel” are “expressing concern over the rise in hospitalization
for COVID-19 patients” and urging “the government to take further health
mitigation measures.” (As reported by Adir Yanko)
2022:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a book
talk moderated by Liza Wiemer, the author of The Assignment.
2022:
The Lappin Foundation is scheduled to present online “Drawn to Action: The of
Dr. Seuss and Arthur Szyk.
2022:
“A new Palestinian intifada could break out in the West Bank, warned MK Ahmed
Tibi, as Israeli security forces there remain on high alert for potential
terror attacks.”
2022”
The circumstances surrounding the crash of IDF helicopter crash off the coast
of Israel during a training mission where all three crew members were rescued
are under investigation.
2022: Urban Adamah is scheduled to host
“Rebalancing the Thinking Brain and the Feeling Body,” the first in the
six-part virtual series “Judaism Of and In the Body.”
2022:
The winners of The Young Artist Competition – Itamar Feinberg, Tomer Rubinstein
and Alan Karivv – are scheduled to perform with the Jerusalem Symphony
Orchestra this evening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTNfYKm3bjI
https://www.facebook.com/events/247236737538980/
2023:
The “Jewish Federations of North America is scheduled to hold a webinar on the
new government that will be live broadcast from the Israel Democracy Institute
(IDI) in Jerusalem.”
2023:
Rabbi Janet Roberts is schedule to deliver the first lecture on “Introduction
to Judaism” a virtual presentation host by the Streicker Center.
2023:
The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience is scheduled to present “Building your
family tree with Genie Milgrom databases.”
2024:
YIVO is scheduled to present in-person and via Zoom “Challenging the Theatre of
Memory: Yiddish Song Beyond Kitsch and Stereotype” which “begins with nostalgic
Yiddish songs” and is followed by Q and A with performers Isabel Frey and Benjy
Fox-Rosen moderated by Samantha Cooper and Gordon Dale.
2024:
“The first meeting of the Committee for Religious Freedom Abortion Lawsuit of
NCJW is scheduled to discuss strategies today at meeting to be held at the
Jewish Community Center in New Orleans.
2024:
Lockdown University is scheduled to host a lecture by Trudy Gold on the timely
subject of “Henry Ford, Charles Lindberg and the Rise of Antisemitism in
America.”
2024:
In an attempt to offer a wide range of programs Temple Judea is scheduled to
host “Candid Conversations for Women with Marcia Grobman” and a session of
“Music Sharing” with Cantor Abbie.
2024: As January 4th begins in Israel,
the Hamas held hostages begin day 90 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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