This Day, July 30, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
July 30
762:Caliph Al
Mansur founded the city of Baghdad. By the start of the 10th century
wealthy Jewish merchants were playing the role of “court bankers” and were
reportedly lending funds to the caliphs and their ministers.
1192: The
forces of Saladin successfully stormed the walls of Jaffa forcing the remaining
Crusaders to take refuge in the town’s citadel.
1286: Gregory
Bar Hebraeus a bishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church whose name serves a
reminder that he was the father of Jewish physician passed away today.
http://sor.cua.edu/Personage/BarcEbroyo/Budge.html
1360: A
butcher’s license for a carniceria was issued to a Christian named Bernard
Arlouin. In Spain, Jews were not allowed to have butchers licenses. In other words, they operated butcher shops,
but were not allowed to own them. In this case, a Spanish Jew named Jafudenus
Amilus operated the shop.
1488: Sixteen
Jews were burned at the stake in Barcelona.
1492(9th
of Av, 5252): The entire Jewish Community, numbering 200,000 souls was expelled
from Spain.
1492: Don
Isaac Abravanel gave up his power, wealth and prestige to join his fellow Jews
on their perilous road out of Spain.
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111855/jewish/Don-Isaac-Abravanel-The-Abarbanel.htm
1494: In
Toledo, an especially large auto da fé was held today with 16 persons from
Guadalajara, Alcalá de Henares, and Toledo burned to death and 30 more
condemned to life imprisonment.
1540: Robert
Barnes for whom Miles Cloverdale, a translator of the Bible into English who
relied on Luther’s Bible and the Vulgate but who did have some knowledge of
Hebrew as can be seen by the fact that “the name of the Diety appears in Hebrew
on the Title Page” and that Hebrew characters are used to mark the divisions of
the Book of Lamentations” served as secretary, was burned at the stake at Smithfield
because of his religious beliefs.
1549:
Birthdate of Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany who “invited Jews,
including Marranos, to settle in Pisa and the free port of *Leghorn, which
before long became one of the great Jewish centers of the Mediterranean area.”
(Jewish Virtual Library)
1729: Baltimore, Maryland is founded. Jews were already living in the colony of
Maryland when Baltimore was founded. The
Jewish community in Baltimore is one of the oldest in the country. However, the
first building that was built as a synagogue, the Lloyd Street Synagogue, was
not constructed until 1845.
1756: In
London Elie and Hana Pinto Vega gave birth to Abraham Furtado the President of
the Assemblee des Notables and the
assistant of the Mayor of Bordeaux.
1758: In
London, Aaron Gomes Da Costa, the Portuguese born son of Abran Gomes da Costa
and Abigail Gomes da Costa and his wife Miriam De Solomon Gomes Da Costa gave
birth to Abraham Gomes Da Costa.
1760: In
Philadelphia, PA, Caroline Webb and Lyon Nathan gave birth to Leah Nathan, the
wife of Jacob Naphtalik Hart whom she married in 1778 and with whom she had 13
children.
1768(16th
of Av, 5528): Shabbat Nachamu observed during the first year of the war between
the Ottoman and Russian empires that would last for six years.
1770(8th
of Av, 5330): Tish’a B’Av observed as the English soldiers charged in what was
called “The Boston Massacre” waited to go on trial in what was one of the
stepping stones to the American Revolution.
1776: Hazan
Gershom Mendez Seixas and Elkaley Cohen who had married in New York in 1775
gave birth to their first child Isaac Seixas.
1780: In
Georgia, Judith Polock and Philip Minis who were married in 1774 gave birth to
Isaac Minis, the husband of Divinah Cohen whom he married at Georgetown, SC in
1803 and with whom he had 16 children.
1793:
Birthdate of Charleston, SC native Abraham Tobias, the auctioneer and commissioner who was a
supporter of John C. Calhoun and who was “a trustee of Beth Elohim synagogue,
of which his great-grandfather, Joseph *Tobias, was a founder in 1749,
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/tobias-abraham
1794: As part
of the Second Partition of Poland, Russian forces “occupied Vilna” a city with
a large Jewish population many of whom had supported Kosciuszko’s Uprising and
most of whom dreaded the change given their past experience with the Russians
during the 17th century. (As reported by Abraham Bloch)
1800(8th
of Av, 5660): Erev Tish’a B’Av observed for the last time during the Presidency
of John Adams.
1806(15th
of Av, 5566): Tu B’Av observed on the same day that Lewis and Clark deal with
rain as they paddled and rowed on the Missouri River with Clark traveling 45
miles.
1806: Beginning
today, Rabbi Joseph David Sinzheim a member of the
Assembly convened by Napoleon began to respond to the questions asked by the Imperial
Commissioner.
1811(9th
of Av, 5571): Tish’a B’Av
1819: One day
after she had passed away, 56-year-old “Rosy Isaacs, the widow of Abraham
Isaacs” was buried today at the Brady Street Cemetery.
1821(1st
of Av, 5581): Rosh Chodesh Av observed during the reign of George IV whose
coronation had taken place 11 days before.
1825(15th
of Av, 5585): Parashat Vaetchanan; Shabbat Nachamu; Tu B’Av
1825: Birthdate
of Ignaz Gorssman, the Hungarian born Rabbi who came to the United States in
1873 to lead Congregation Beth Elohim.
https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6892-grossmann-ignaz\
1825:
Birthdate of Chaim Aronson, a Lithuanian Jew, who was inventor and academic.
Aronson’s inventions, which included several machines for mass producing
cigarettes, a clockwork calculator, a prototype for an early movie camera, and
the microdiarama, were, for their time, ground breaking. Aronson, however, is
better remembered for a series of memoirs he wrote, published long after his
death in the book A Jewish Life Under the Tsars This is an autobiography
of Aronson’s own difficult life, but it also describes insightfully, the life
of ordinary society in Imperial Russia.
1828(19th
of Av, 5588): Sixty-two-year-old Lean Abrahams, the New York born daughter of
Abraham Isaac Abrahams passed away today,
1829: Daniel
O’Connell best known for his work in favor of the Emancipation of Catholics but
who also supported Emancipation for Irish Jews and the repeal of the British
law “De Judaismo”, was elected to Parliament today
1830: In “York
Place Queens Elm,” Nathaniel and Sophia Levy gave birth to Jonas Levy today.
1832: Three
days after she had passed away erev Shabbat, seventy-year-old Rachel Elias, the
wife of Godfrey Elias” was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.
1833: Joshua
Leavitt and Sarah Williams Leavitt gave birth to James Taylor Leavitt the
husband of Sarah Bancrot Leavitt and the father of William, James and Samuel
Leavitt.
1836:
Birthdate of Gustav Solomon Oppert, “German Indologist and Sanskrist who was
the brother of Julius Oppert.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0015_0_15159.html
1838: Felix
Mendelsohn wrote to Fredrick Daivd “ I should like to write a violin concerto
for you next winter.”
1841: One day
after she had passed away, “Jane Davis, the widow of Moses Davis” was buried
today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.
1849: In
Wittenburg, Germany Nathan Lazarus and Rebecca Ruben gave birth Paul Lazarus,
the husband of Bertha Levy and the assistant superintendent of the New York
Hebrew Orphan Asylum from February 15, 1876 to February 15, 1882.
1851: Rabbi
Lyons officiated at the wedding of Mr. Solomons from Savannah, GA and Frances
Joseph from Charleston, SC.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1925/06/16/99343876.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1855(15th
of Av, 5615): Tu B’Av
1856: In New
York Asher Kursheedt and Abigail Kursheedt gave birth to Lionel Judah Kursheedt
1856: In
Jamaica, Caroline Munt Braham, the Santa Cruz born “daughter of Joseph
Alexandre Lindo and Sarah Lindo” her husband John Richmond Braham gave birth to
Alice Smallwoood Braham
1859:
According to some sources, In Dublin,
portrait photographer Hyman Davis gave birth Julia Davis who became Julia
Frankau when she married London cigar importer Arthur Frankau and who wrote
under the nome de plume Frank Danby whose first novel Dr. Phillips: A Maida
Vale Idyll was a murder mystery that portrayed the life of London Jews.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/frankau
1860(11th
of Av, 5620): Catherine Judah, the seventy-eight-year-old New York born
daughter of Samuel Judah passed away today. (This not the same Samuel Judah as
the jurist an author who passed away in 1876)
1860: The New
York Times reported that The Fast of Ab. — Yesterday was the fast of the month
of Ab, the anniversary of the destruction of the temple of Solomon by
Nebuchadnezzar, and of the second temple by Vespasian, among the Hebrew
population all over the world; and was fully observed in the synagogues of this
City. The fast of Ab is really one of abnegation. No meat is eaten, and very little bread is broken. The synagogues
yesterday were hung with black, and the Book of Lamentation was read in the
original Hebrew.
1861: Philadelphian
Leopold Goldstein began a four year hitch in Company E during which he rose to
the rank of Sergeant.
1861:
Philadelphian Augustus Hassler enlisted for a three-year hitch in the
Forty-First Regiment where he rose to the rank of Sergeant in Company F.
1861:
Philadelphian Abraham B. Harris began serving a three year hitch in the 65th
Regiment also known as the 5th Cavalry during which he rose in rank
from Sergeant, to Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant to Second Lieutenant.
1862: During
the American Civil War, General William T. Sherman wrote a letter from
Union-occupied Memphis, Tennessee stating, “I found so many Jews and
speculators here trading in cotton, and secessionists had become so open in
refusing anything but gold, that I have felt myself bound to stop it. The gold
can have but one use – the purchase of arms and ammunition… Of course, I have
respected all permits by yourself or the Secretary of the Treasury, but in
these new cases (swarms of Jews), I have stopped it.”
1863: The
New York Times reported that “a Jew broker, made his appearance in
Westchester, Penn., accompanied by a dozen others, whom he represented as
anxious to serve as substitutes, for a consideration. Although some of the men,
it is said, boasted of having taken part in the New-York riots, yet they were
eagerly caught up by drafted men, and engaged at various prices as
substitutes.” [The Times did not report on the ethnic or religious origins of
any of the other participants in this scheme. This story was part of a series
on the Draft Riots that racked New York in the summer of 1863. Did the Times identify the rioters as
“Catholics” or Irish Catholics? ]
1863: In
Dublin, Ireland, Isabella Davis and “dentist turned portrait photographer Hyman
Davis” gave birth to Julia Davis who became Julia Frankau when she married
“cigar importer Arthur Frankau who gained fame writing under the name of “Frank
Danby.”
1863: During
the Civil War,Philadelphians Israel Maks
and Ferdinand K. Strouse completed their service with the 151st
Regiment.
1863:
Birthdate of American automaker Henry Ford. For Americans, Ford is the man who
made the Model-T. For Jews, he is the man who popularized the “Protocols
of the Elders Of Zion.” Towards the end of his life, Ford apologized for
his involvement with this anti-Semitic literature that still infects the world
today.
1863: Chief
Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler consecrated the new building housing the Bayswater
Synagogue.
1864: In
Dublin, portrait photographer and dentist Hyman Davis and his wife gave birth
to Julia Davis who became Julia Frankau in 1883 when she married Arthur Frankau
and gained fame as a novelist under the penname Frank Danby. (Editor’s note –
there seems to be some conflict as to the year in which she was born. Wiki says 1859. The Jewish Encyclopedia and “The Bookseller,
Newsdealer and Stationer”, a trade journal that carried a contemporaneous
obituary used the 1864 date.
http://www.londonfictions.com/julia-frankau-a-babe-in-bohemia.html
https://androom.home.xs4all.nl/biography/p016396.htm
1864(26th
of Tammuz, 5624): Parashat Matot-Masei; finish the Book of Numbers
1864: During the American Civil War, Union Army
Sergeant Major Abraham Cohn distinguished himself at the Battle of the Crater
at Petersburg, VA. Cohn would be awarded
the Medal of Honor for his fighting during the Wilderness Campaign and the
Siege of Petersburg.
1865: In
Philadelphia, PA, the Benjamin Lodge of the Free Sons of Israel which conducted
its proceedings in German was chartered today.
1866: In Davenport,
IA, Jessie Pollack and Herz Herzberg gave
birth to University of Pennsylvania trained attorned Max Herzberg, a Democratic
candidate for Congress in 1904 and “one of the founders of the Jewish Charities”
who was a director of the Educational Council of the Jewish Chautauqua Society
and secretary of the Auxiliary Branch of the United Jewish Charities.
1866(18th
of Av, 5626): Seventy-four-year-old Rebecca Hart, the New York City born
daughter of Leah Nathan and Jacob Naphtali Hart who were married in 1778 and
the wife of Moses Seixas Phillips whom she married in 1822 passed away today in
New York City.
1867:
Birthdate of Parisan native George Berr, the “French actor and dramatist” and
brother of Emile Berr.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3157-berr-george
1870:
Birthdate of Emil Schiff who was shipped from Leipzig to Terezin where he was
murdered at the age of 72.
1870:
Newspapers carry full accounts of what is called “A Horrible Murder” – the
murder of prominent New Yorker Benjamin Nathan – and the so far fruitless
efforts of the police to solve the crime.
1871: It was
reported today that “the industrious Jews” are “annoying Christians.” In New
York, the Alanson M.E. Church on Norfolk Street occupies a building adjacent to
a tenement house that is “occupied almost exclusively by” Orthodox Jews. The
Jews go to the synagogue on Saturday and work on Sunday. Many of them work as tailors “and the
ceaseless whirr of their sewing-machines has proved very annoying to the
worshipers in the church.” One of the Jews offered to stop working if the
church members would pay him for his lost time.
The trustees have declined his offer and are considering taking legal
action against the Jewish worker.
1874: In San
Francisco, CA, founding today of “Chebra Ohavai Shalom which offer members, who
included Jose Morris, David Cohen, Adolf Morris and Julius Israelsky, “sick benefits and endowments.”
1874: In
Hochneukirch, Germany cigar manufacturer
Isak Falksenstein and his wife gave birth to Leo Falkenstein the husband of
Bertha Falkenstien who “died in Theresienstadt in 1942 at the age of 67.” https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/id-card/leo-falkenstein
1875: In New
York City, Moses and Henrietta Hanauer gave birth to Kuhn, Loeb and Co. partner
Jerome J. Hanuauer , the director of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and
husband of Carrie Hellman Hanuaer whose daughter Alice married Lewis Strauss,
another Kuhn, Loeb partner.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1938/09/04/99559478.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1876(9th of
Av, 5636): Tish’a B’Av
1876: In
Philadelphia, Fanny Newgarden and Michael Hassler gave birth to University of Pennsylvania
trained attorney Isaac Hassler, “a descendant of a family that settled in
Philadelphia in colonial times,” and a president the Young Men’s Hebrew
Association and Congregation Rodeph Shalom who was also a leader of the Young
Men’s Hebrew Association and a member of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Immigration
Society.
1876: “A
Jewish Festival,” published today, reported that Tish’a B’Av, “a Jewish
festival” commemorating “the destruction of Jerusalem was begun at 9 o’clock
last evening in many of the synagogues” in New York City “and will be generally
observed today at the various Jewish temples of worship, notably those of the
orthodox Jews. In the churches of the
latter, the services will consist of chants and prayers for the
re-establishment of the Jewish hierarchy.”
In addition to praying and singing, “the festival is…observed…by a fast
of twenty-four hours duration.” [Ed.
Note – It is worth noting that this brief, but detailed description of a minor
Jewish fast day appeared in the New York Times.
1878:
Birthdate of Adolf Guttman, the native Kleinstinach who served in the German
Army during WW I.
1878: German
elections resulted in the reactionary element having a dominant voice in the
Reichstag. This date is considered the birthday of modern German anti-
Semitism.
1879: Twenty-seven-year-old
Rabbi Joseph Zeisler married his first wife Imma Lowy in Budapest today.
1879:
Birthdate of Vladmir Medem who chose a life that
reversed the choice, in a practical way,
his father’s decision to convert to Christianity by learning Yiddish and
being active in the Jewish Labor Bund
https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Medem_Vladimir_Davidovich
1880:
Birthdate of Colonel Robert R. McCormick who gained famed as the editor and
publisher of the Chicago Tribune in
an era when newspapers were the dominant voice of the media in the United
States. He was a founder of the American
First Committee, a powerful organization dedicated to keep the United States
out of World War II which took on a decidedly anti-Semitic viewpoint.
1880:
Birthdate of Bernhard Weiss, the German born lawyer who served as a top-ranking
police official during the Weimar Republic and fearlessly confronted the Nazis.
1880: “Resting
at Schooley’s Mountain” published today provided a brief history of this famous
New Jersey resort area. The area had become so popular with Jewish vacationers
that two of the cottages, Heath House and Belmont Hall, effectively banned
Jewish guests. The ban was lifted when the locals saw its negative impact. (This was one of only of series of bans
instituted at hotels, etc. following the Civil War.)
1881: In
Paterson, NJ, Liebchen Neufeld and Boas
Barnert gave birth to Columbia trained electrical engineer and WW I veteran who
became the general superintendent of the St. Paul Division of the Northern
States Power Company.
1881: “Foreign
Topics” published today described the nightly anti-Semitic demonstrations
taking place in Hammerstein, West Prussia.
The riots are similar to ones that have already taken place in Baerwald,
Pomerania.
1881: It was
reported today that troops fired on rioters in Poltava who have been attacking
Jews, killing four and wounding two.
1882: In Springfield,
MA, Fannie Levi and Simon Swig gave birth to Boston University trained attorney
a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention and founder the Touro
Lodge of B’nai B’rith in Taunton who was a member of Temple Israel and Temple David
in Miami, FL.
1882: The
permanent building housing the St. John’s Wood Synagogue whose first rabbi was
Dr. Hermann Gollancz was dedicated today by Dr. Hermann Adler.
1883: In
Bradock, PA, Sarah Nogler and Julius K. Fisher gave birth Jefferson Medical
College trained radiologist Dr. Mulford K. Fisher, the husband of Julia Goldman
was an instructor of radiology at Temple University and a member of Kenesseth
Israel.
1884(8th
of Av, 5644): Erev Tish’a B’Av
1884: In
Lithuania, Tzayata and Itzhak Fain gave birth to Joseph B. Fain the husband of
Sarah Fain and father of Rachel, Dorothy, Edith and David Fain, who in 1916
came to Portland where he served as a rabbi
1884: Theodor
Herzl is admitted to the bar in Vienna.
1884: Two New
York detectives apprehended Samuel Barnett, a Polish Jew who reportedly has
been committing a series of robberies over the last three months in Harlem.
1884: In
Nashville, TN, the jury hearing the case of Meyer Moskowitz and “Zeke” White
was discharged this evening. Moskowitz,
a Jew and White had been charged with murdering Meyer Fried of Nashville. The jury had acquitted White but was
deadlocked on the issue of Moskowitz‘s guilt.
1885: Myer S.
Isaacs presided over a meeting of the Board of Delegates of the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations which had been called to determine how to respond
to the death of Sir Moses Montefiore.
The board decided to recommend that all Jewish congregations hold
special memorial services on Friday night and Saturday morning in honor of the
late philanthropist. Plans will be made
a later date for a more formal memorial service to be held in September.
1885: “Two
young gentlemen of Hebrew extraction who were engaged selling bullet-like green
apples from a wagon at the rate of one cent per quart” unsuccessfully tried to
escape Dr. Cyrus Edson, Chief of the Secondary Sanitary Division, and his
officers during a raid on the lower east side as part of Edson’s drive to put
an end to the sale of unsanitary produce.
1885:
Birthdate of Stamford, CT. nativeSelma Werner Abrams, the Stamford, the wife of
Sylvain S. Abrams.
1886: Among
the institutions that received money from the Board of Estimate and
Apportionment today was the Hebrew Guardian Society in the amount of $2,858.29
1886: “Jew and
Gentile Wedded” published today described the elopement of Nellie Goodwin and
Meier Weil. Goodwin the 16 year old
daughter of Reverend W.R. Goodwin of the Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church
and Weil, the son of prominent Jewish merchant, have left Jacksonville,
Illinois for parts unknown.
1886(27th
of Tammuz, 5646): Shlomo Ganzfried, the Hungarian rabbi who created the “Kitzur
Schulchan Aruch” which may be viewed as a “summary” or abbreviation of the
larger work by Joseph Karo which makes Jewish ritual, customs and laws
available to the “average” Jew.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/judaism/FAQ/03-Torah-Halacha/section-42.html
1887(9th of Av. 5647): Parashat
Devarim; Erev Tish’a B’Av
1887: In Austria, Paulina West and Jacob
Goldberg gave birth to America actor, manager and theatre owner Nathan
Goldberg, the husband of Ruth Goldberg who “made his first appearance on Jewish
stage in 1904, bought the Lenox Theatre in 1913 and managed both the
Metropolitan Theatre and the Lyric Theatre in Brooklyn
1887: “Wealthy
Hebrews Worried” published today described Isidor Freedman’s inability to gain
membership in the Utopia Club, a social club for wealthy Jews living in New
Haven, CT. Freedman, part of the firm of
Mendel & Freedman had been blackballed by Isaac Ullmann. (Not exactly the
kind of story they taught us in Hebrew School)
1888: Forty-five-year-old
Irish-American playwright Barley Campbell author of “Siberia” a drama about the
persecution of the Jews of Russia passed away
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=990CE7DB143DE533A25756C1A9669D94639FD7CF
1888: In
Enghien-les-Bains, Val-d’Oise, dramatist Tristan Bernard and his wife gave
birth to French playwright Jean-Jacques Bernard
1888: In Paris
Louis Lehmann Berr and Henriette Alice Berr gave birth to Maurice Berr.
1889: In
Philadelphia, David Julius, “a bookbinder,” and his wife gave birth to Emanuel
Julius who gained gamed as socialist and published Emanuel Haldeman-Julius,
“the head of Haldeman-Julius Publications.”
1890: “The
Juvenile Band of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum” will play at today’s concert
sponsored by B’nai B’rith for the benefit of the Home for Aged and Infirm
Hebrews in Yonkers. 1892: Waldemar Mordecai Wolff Haffkine, a Russian born
Jewish bacteriologist, reported the results of his test of his cholera vaccine
to the Biological Society in London.
1890: The
Times of London reported that the Russian government has ordered the
enforcement of the edicts of 1882 which were aimed at limiting the economic
opportunities for Jews and forcing them to live “in certain towns.”
1890: The New
York Times will forward a check for $30.50 that it received from Mrs. S.J.
Nathan to the Hebrew Sanitarium, the charity for which the people of
Sucassunna, NJ collected the money.
1891: Morris
Goodhart of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society was among those who
testified as to the harmful effects of the Standard Gas Company works on the
riverfront at east 114th Street.
1891: The
Russian immigrants who arrived at Boston yesterday from Liverpool will not be
admitted into the country are because “they are deemed likely to be a public
charge.”
1891:
Birthdate of Berlin native and Berlin University trained attorney Gerhard
Jacoby who in 1939 came to the United States where he eventually became the
“permanent representative of the World Jewish Congress with UNESCO” while
raising one son, Frank, with his wife Margot Goldstandt Jacoby.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/08/20/99788762.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1892(6th
of Av, 5652): Parashat Devarim and Shabbat Chazon
1892(6th
of Av, 5652): Eleven-month-old Adrian Calisch, the son of “Gussie Woolner
Calisch” and “Rabbi Edward Calisch of Congregation Anshai Emeth,” passed away
today after which he was buried at the Springdale Cemetery in Peoria, Illinois.
1892: John
Collins chaired the meeting of Fourth Assembly District Republicans held at the
Hebrew Institute Hall.
1892: Dr. C.H.
Goodman and Mrs. Goodman set sail today aboard the SS Gallia for Liverpool.
1892: Dr.
Michael Singer’s denial of charges that he had “absconded” with funds from the
Baron Hirsch Fund published today stated that “Mrs. David Bischitz, who is a
million has charge of the fund and is the only person who handled any of its
money. We had a disagreement, and she
gave a certificate of character and 1,500 gulden in place of the usual notice
of dismissal.”
1892: “Divided
Against Itself” published today described a dispute about the spending of funds
by K.H. Sarasohn, the President of Society of the Hebrew Sheltering Home, which
was founded “about eighteen months ago to provide temporary home” for Jewish immigrants
for from Russia.
1893(17th
of Av, 5653): Seventy-six year old Solomon Heyman who operated a successful dry
goods business and was one of the Directors of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum passed
away while on vacation in Long Branch.
1893: “Sir
Richard Burton’s Life” published today provided a detailed review of The
Life of Capt. Sir Richard F. Burton, the author of The Jew, The Gypsy
and El Islam
1894: Two days
after he had passed away, thirty-four year old Joseph Levy was buried today at
the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery” on Buckingham Road.”
1894: “On the
Upper West Side of New York City, Julius Wolf and the former Bertha Samuel,
“the daughter of Lehman Samuels who co-owned Samuels Brothers which was at one
point the largest exporter of cattle in America” gave birth to Blanche Wolf who
gained fame as Blanche Wolf Knopf, “the wife of publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Sr.”
who was in her own right “president of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.” “Although her name and work have been
overshadowed by those of her husband, Blanche Wolf Knopf carved out her own
place in the publishing industry as vice-president and president of Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc. Blanche Knopf was raised in New York, where she met Alfred Knopf in
1911. They were married in 1916; the year after Alfred Knopf launched his
eponymous publishing firm. Blanche Knopf was involved in the firm from the
start, and in 1921, she became a director and vice-president. In addition to
running the office, Blanche Knopf’s duties included frequent travel to meet
with and recruit new authors for the press. By all accounts, she excelled in
establishing relationships with writers on three continents. Under her
leadership, Knopf published translations of French writers Albert Camus, André
Gide, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre; South American writers Jorge
Amado, Gilberto Freyre, and Eduardo Mallea; and the first American edition of
Sigmund Freud’s Moses and Monotheism. Knopf published American classics,
but under Blanche Knopf’s urging the firm also published such new American
writers as H.L. Mencken, Willa Cather, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler.
For her work in support of French literature in America, she was named a
Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the French government in 1949 and made an
officer in 1960. Similarly, she was honored by the Brazilian government in 1950
with the Order of the Southern Cross. In 1957, Alfred Knopf became chairman of
the board, and Blanche Knopf took over as president. However, in 1960, the firm
was sold to Random House, which maintains the Knopf imprint as an independent entity.
Blanche Knopf remained involved at the helm of the Knopf imprint until her
death in 1966. Her New York Times obituary said that her “alertness
and perspicacity in recruiting writers … and her driving energy as an
executive contributed immensely to the success of the house of Knopf.” In
a field dominated entirely by men, in which she was virtually the only woman in
her time to take a leading role, Blanche Knopf had a lasting impact on Alfred
A. Knopf, Inc., on the world of publishing, and on American letters.
1894:
“Socialist Leaders Went Too Far” described the conflict among the Cloakmakers
nearly all of whom are Jewish which was resolved when they chose Socialist
Joseph Barondess to serve as their president. One of the points of contention
was the Socialist demand that the Union Zeitung which is published in Hebrew
with a circulation of 10,000 paid subscribers should be replaced with the
Arbeiter Zeitung, “a Hebrew Socialist organ.”
1894: “Five
jurors were impaneled” today “in part I. of the Court of General Sessions to
try Policeman Jeremiah S. Levy” who is Jewish, “of the Thirty-first Precinct
for bribery.
1894: Max
Lefkowitz signed an affidavit today saying that Officer Jeremiah Levy was not
the man who had cheated him out of $25 in a scheme to provide testimony that
would have freed his brother Ignatz who was facing charges of grand larceny.
1895(9th of
Av, 5655): Tisha B’Av
1895(9th
of Av, 5655): New York banker Simon Wormser passed away today.
1895: The
strike of the Brotherhood of Tailors, most of whom were Jewish, seemed to be
coming to an today as could be seen by Meyer Schoefield that “at least seventy
contractors had already signed an agreement to give the strikers what they
demanded” and that another twenty were prepared to sign.
1895: Samuel
Gompers addressed a group of strikers tonight at Cooper Union.
1895: Otto von
Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor who was responsible for the unification of
Germany passed away. A complex person, Bismarck’s views changed from the 1840’s
when he “could not accept Jews serving in the name of his ‘holy majesty’” to
serving as Chancellor when Jewish emancipation came in 1869. For more see Were They Good for the Jews?
by Elliot Rosenberg
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3337-bismarck-prince-otto-eduard-leopold
1896(20th
of Av, 5656): On the Jewish calendar yahrzeits of Rabbi Joseph Steinhardt who
died in 1776, Polish banker and philanthropist Jacob Epstein who died in 1843 and
“annotator of rare rabbinic manuscripts” Nachman Nathan Coronel who died in
1890.
1897: In
Olean, NY, founding of the Hebrew Relief Association which met on the second
Sunday of each month for the purpose of urging “the founding of a City
Hospital” whose members included Max L. Cohen, Benjamin Ruttenberg, Morris
Cohen and H.I. Gloss.
1897(1st
of Av, 5657): Rosh Chodesh Av
1897(1st
of Av, 5657): Sixty-nine-year-old Viktor Isaac Michael, the son of Jette and
Isaac Joseph Michael, the husband of Therese Michael and the “father of Leonie
Eisner; Flora Cahn; Hermine Molling; Iwan Michael; Ernst Michael; and Lea Bona
Rosin” passed away today in Hamburg.
1898: Moses
Montefiore Congregation in Hoboken, NJ is contesting the claim by David Engler
that he actually owns the surface rights to the lot on which the synagogue sits
and that he has the right to lift the building off of its foundation so that he
can build a store on the property.
1899:”The
United Hebrew Charities acknowledged” today that it had received a total of
$180.50 to help resettle a family of four in the country. The parents have become chronic invalids from
their work in the city and seek to support themselves in a rural area.
1900(4th
of Av, 5660): “Political economist Samuel Cohn” the native of Bromberg, Germany
passed away today in Berlin.
1901: Fifty-one-year-old
historian Herbert Baxter Adams who wrote “valuable papers on the services”
contributed by the “patriotic Jew” Chaim Salomon when others challenged his
accomplishments, passed away today.
1901: Those
attending the “Conference of Chazanim” which ended today in Vienna “decided to
establish a General Cantors’ Association.”
1902: Over
50,000 mourners followed the casket of Rabbi Jacob Joseph during his funeral in
New York today.
1902: A riot
broke between the employees of Hoe and Company and Jews who were attending the
funeral of Rabbi Joseph.
1902: Dr. Paul
Kaplan and A.H. Sarahson, an attorney were among those attending a meeting in
the office of Dr. Julius Halpern tonight where the police were denounced “an a
committee was appointed to investigate and formulate charges against the
officers in charge” at the funeral of Rabbi Jacob Joseph.
1902: “At a
meeting of the John Steibling Republican Association of the Twelfth Assembly
District a resolution was passed denouncing the employees and heads of
departments of the R. Hoe & Co during the funeral” of Rabbi Jacob Joseph
when they threw “hot water and missiles on the mourners.”
1903: It was
reported today that changes the in Russian government’s policy on dealing with
the travel documents of U.S. citizens traveling to Russia are “intended to add
to the restrictions already imposed by Russia upon American citizens of the
Jewish faith who desire to visit that country.
1904(18th
of Av, 5664): Parashat Eikev chanted as President Roosevelt battled Judge Alton
Parker for the Presidency of the United States.
1905(27th
of Tammuz, 5665): Tobacconist Solomon Wallenstein passed away. Born 1831, he married Esther Hellman
Wallenstein, the founding president of the Hebrew Infant Asylum, in 1865.
1905(27th
of Tammuz, 5665): “Two female Bundists” – Ester Riskin and Gitial Zakhajm –
were killed toda by a bomb that “anarchists threw…into a patrol that stood near
the Bundist exchange on Surazer Street which led to an attack on the Jews by
the military which lasted into the night and left at least Jews dead and an
untold number wounded.
http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/Bialystok/bia2_114.html
1905: In
Bialystok, during the anti-Jewish riots, physicians were prevented from
treating Jewish victims.
1906(8th
of Av, 5666): Erev Tish’a B’Av
1906: It was
reported that Reverend W.M. Charles had written in the British Weekly wrote
that “one-third of Palestine proper is once again Jewish soil” and that “so
anxious are the Jews to again get possession that they endeavor to purchase all
that comes into the market.”
1907: “Mr.
Isidor Straus says he own trades show normal gains” “but looking ahead he does
find some signs to support for those
sounding the alarm “about the culmination of our prosperity” in the United
States.
1908: Dr.
Franz Kafka walked into the building housing the Worker’s Accident Insurance
Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague and began working as an
assistant in the legal department. He
would retire in 1922 because of complications from a lung disease.
1909: “The
first number of The Temple, a
Louisville Jewish weekly edited” by Hyman Gerson Enelow appeared today.
1910: It was
reported today that Mrs. Henriette Seligman who passed away on July 23, “willed
$1,000 each to the United Hebrew Charities, the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan
Asylum and the Mount Sinai Hospital.”
1911(5th
of Av, 5671): Moritz Pinner, the father of Rogers Pinner, who was known as
‘Captain Mortiz Pinner’ passed away today.
1912(16th
of Av, 5672): Sixty-two-year-old author and publisher E.P. Goodman passed away
today in Philadelphia, PA.
1913:
“According to the appraisal filed today in the Surrogates’ Court” the estate of
“Jacob Wolfgang Mack, the President of the Raritan Woolen Mills” which “which
consisted largely of securities in companies manufacturing steam pumps” “was
valued at $277,269”
1913(25th
of Tammuz, 5673): Five days after his 73rd birthday German born,
South African WW II veteran and numismatist Walter Bergman passed away today in
Cape Town.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/history-regular-emergency-issues-Africa/dp/B0000EE3WW
1914: In a
move the results of which resonant throughout the Middle East and beyond to
this day, two days after the outbreak of WW I, the Ottoman Empire formed a
secret alliance with Germany aimed specifically at Russia.
1915: Lt.
Charles Becker of the NYPD was executed by the state of New York today for his
role in the murder of Jewish gamble Herman Rosenthal.
1916: As of
today, the American Jewish Relief Committee of which Felix M. Warburg is the
treasurer “has collected since its organization about $4,500,000.”
1916: It was
reported today that among the contributions received by the Central Committee
for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War included $41 from the Jews of
Ironwood, Michigan and $150 from the Canada-Jewish Alliance.
1916(29th
of Tammuz, 5676): Dr. Albert Ludwig Sigesmund Neisser passed away.
http://deadscientistoftheweek.blogspot.com/2012/01/albert-ludwig-sigesmund-neisser.html
1917: It was
reported today that Rabbi G.W. Margulies, the director of the United Hebrew
Community, “one of the leading Orthodox rabbis” in the United States had said
on Tish’a B’Av said that “the Jews will reach Zion” in only a few years –
perhaps not more than seven years” and that “there were prophecies” in the
Zohar “led him to believe that the Germans might win the war.
1917: It was
reported today that Rabbi “G.W. Margulies, director of the United Hebrew
community and one of the leading orthodox rabbis in this country said that he
hoped to see Palestine restored to the Jews within the next seven years.”
1918(21st of
Av, 5678): Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik, the son of Rabbi Yosef Dov
Soloveitchik and author of the
Chiddushei Rabbeinu Chaim, a commentary on the teachings of Maimonides, passed
away today. Born in 1853, he was known as Reb Chaim Brisker because of the
methodology he developed for studying Talmud.
http://onthemainline.blogspot.com/2007/10/reb-chaim-soloveitchik-obituary.html
1918: In Paris, Rabbi Hyman Gerson went to the
burial of a soldier with whom he had spent several hours during the day as he
lay dying.
1918: The
Jewish Press Bureau in Stockholm described “a great sensation” that “has been
caused among the Jewish workmen in Warsaw by the sudden disappearance of
nineteen members of the executive committee of the Jewish trade unions.”
1919(3rd
of Av, 5679): Sara Frank, the first wife of Sioux City, IA merchant David
Davidson, the Russian born son of Henry L. and Cima Davidson whom she had
married in 1893 passed away today.
1919: The
Chicago Hebrew Institute is scheduled to host on of its semi-monthly concerts
this evening which will include “community singing.”
1920(15th
of Av, 5680): Tu B’Av
1920: The
first report of the wedding of Harriet B Lowenstein, an attorney and the first
woman to obtain a the degree of certified public accountant” in New York State,
and attorney Jonah Goldstein, which took place in London “was received by cable
today by Felix M. Warburg, Chariamn of the federation of Jewish Philanthropic
Societies in New York…”
1920: It was
reported today that Dr. Juilus Hochfelder, the patent lawyer, “organizer of the
Seaman’s Evening College and husband NYU trained attorney Anna Weiner
Hochfelder “has received a communication from Secretary of War Newton D. Baker,
in which Baker says he keenly appreciates the service rendered by Dr.
Hochfelder in suggesting the ‘University in Khaki’ which instituted among” the
A.E.F.
1920: It was
reported today that “for the first time in the history of Palestine, postage
stamps are being printed in Hebrew, English and Arabic.”
1921:
Birthdate of U.S. Army Alvin David Ungerleider who as a 23 year old lieutenant
stormed Omaha Beach during the Normandy landings and helped to liberate the
Concentration Camp at Nordhausen in 1945.
1922: In
Kansas City, Leon E. Bloch and Hortense (Bienenstok) Bloch gave birth to Henry
W. Bloch, the co-founder and (since 2000) the chairman emeritus of H&R
Block. Henry and his brother, Richard Bloch, founded H&R Block in 1955 in
Kansas City, Missouri. Bloch attended Southwest High School and was an
undergraduate at University of Missouri–Kansas City and the University of
Michigan, graduating from Michigan in 1944. Through the Army Air Corps he
received graduate training at the Harvard Business School. Bloch and his wife
Marion married in 1951 and live in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The Henry
Wollman Block fountain in front of Union Station in Kansas City is named in his
honor, as is The Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration at
the University of Missouri–Kansas City and the Bloch Building, a major addition
to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Mr. Bloch was inducted into the Junior
Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2001. (As reported by Robert D.
Hershey Jr.)
1923: In
London, Auguie Rantner, a New York Jewish box, “defeated Ted (Kid) Lewis, the
former middleweight champion, on points in a twenty-round bout.
1924(28th
of Tammuz, 5683): Yahrzeit of the 41 Jews burned at the stake in Breslau in
1453
1925(9th
of Av, 5685): Tish’a B’Av
1925: Funeral
services are scheduled to be held today in Louisville for former distiller and
one of the wealthiest men in the South Bernard Bemheim whose daughter’s
father-in-law was Barney Dreyfus, the owner of Pittsburgh Pirates after which
he will be cremated in Cincinnati.
1925:
Birthdate of Jakob Josef Petuchowski a native of Berlin, Germany. He was
brought from Germany to London, in a children’s transport, prior to the
outbreak of World War II. After receiving a B.A. with honors in psychology from
the University of London in 1947, Petuchowski moved to the United States in
1948 and earned his rabbinic ordination, master’s degree and Ph.D. from Hebrew
Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Petuchowski served in the congregational rabbinate in Welch, West
Virginia and Washington Pennsylvania. He was also the High Holiday rabbi of
Temple B’nai Israel, Laredo, Texas, from 1956 through 1991.
1925:
Sixty-year-old Emanuel Boasberg, a partner in the Buffalo NY tobacco wholesale
firm of Kaiser-Boasberg and the uncle of Hollywood humorist Al Boasberg “was
named one of the trustees of a Buffalo charity foundation fund” valued at one
million dollars.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/06/23/94394308.pdf
1926: In
Boston, salesman Martin Bookspan and the former Martha Schwartz gave birth to
Harvard graduate Martin Bookspan “who parlayed a childhood grounding in
classical music into a career as the announcer for the “Live From Lincoln
Center” telecasts and the radio broadcasts of the Boston Symphony and the New
York Philharmonic…” (As reported by James Barron)
1926: “An
appraisal filed today of the estate of Albert Kruger who died last August 12
showed that the chief asset was $90,000 in cash in a safe deposit vault in the
Bowery Savings Bank” and that he “left total property worth $147,232.”
1927(1st
of Ave, 5687): Parashat Masei; Rosh Chodesh Av
1927: Lord
Plumer, the High Commissioner of Palestine was on the second day of sea trip
from London to Palestine.
1928: Claims
by Frieda and Goldina Rubinson, two sisters born in Hamburg now living in Tel
Aviv that they are the authors of the opera now known as “Turnadot” and that
Puccini plagiarized the score from them were greeted with scorn and ridicule by
sources in New York including William J Guard of the Metropolitan Opera Company
and G. Ricordi & Co, the music publishers.
1929: In
Zurich, at the second session of the sixteenth Biennial Zionist Congress,
statistician and agricultural expert Dr. Arthur Ruppin of Tel Aviv delivers an
address in which he described the negative impact that conversion,
intermarriage, decreasing birth rate and an unchanged mortality rate were
having on the survival of the Jewish people.
1930: In
Brooklyn, Leon Kretchamr, who “worked with his family’s Catskills hotels” and
“Lilyan (Alperstein) Kretchmar gave birth to Elain Kretchmar who gained fame as
Elaine Markson, one of “the first women to own a literary agency” which she
used “to further the careers of fledgling feminist authors.” (As reported by
Sam Roberts)
1931: A
meeting of Arab leaders are scheduled to attend a mass meeting today at the
National Arab Club where resolutions will be adopted regarding the alleged
arming of Jewish colonies by the Palestine government.
1931: It was
reported today that NYC Mayor Jimmy Walker had turned over a check for $22,500
that had been raised at birthday party for him to the Jewish Central Relief
committee for the Relief of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe.
1932: In
Hamburg Germany, Dr. Hans Bruno and pianist Lotte Bruno gave birth to Michael
Peter Bruno all of whom moved to Haifa a year later where young Michael began
the education that would lead to him becoming him “a governor of Israel’s
central bank and a World Bank Chief Economist.”
1932: The 1932
Olympics opens in Los Angeles. Attila Petschauer a gold medal winning swordsman
was part of the Hungarian Fencing Team.
The 1999 film Sunshine is a
multi-generational study of Petschauer’s family and vividly depicts his death
at the hands of the Nazis in 1943. Jewish Gold Medal winners included Istvan
Barta, Hungary water polo, Gyorgy
Brody, Hungary, water polo; Lillian
Copeland, USA, athletics, discus throw; George Gulack, USA, gymnastics, flying rings; Endre Kabos, Hungary, fencing, team saber; Miklos Sárkány, Hungary water polo.
1933: “The
editor of Der Surmer, Julius
Streicher, newly appointed Reich Commissar for Franconia, gave orders that 250
Jewish tradesmen in Nuremberg should be arrested, and ‘set to plucking the
grass out of a field with their teeth.’”
1933: Catcher
Harry Danning made his major league debut with the New York Giants.
1934: The
Rabbinical Advisor Committee of Fifty, which “was appointed by Aldermanic
President last week to advise New York City on Kashruth” held its first meeting
and “adopted resolution” calling for “strict rabbinical supervision of poultry
markets.”
1934: In
Milwaukee, Ben Selig, an immigrant from Romania and the owner “of a car leasing
company” and is wife gave birth to University of Wisconsin graduate and U.S.
Army veteran Alan Huber “Bud” Selig, the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and the
Commissioner of Major League Baseball.
https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/selig-bud
1934: In Lodz,
Poland, Eljasz (Edward) and Natka Skornicki gave birth to Paulina Skornicka.
http://digitalassets.ushmm.org/photoarchives/detail.aspx?id=1106065
1935(29th
of Tammuz, 5695): Mrs. Hannah Lewin (who may be related to attorney Henry
“Honey” Lewin passed away today in Malden, MA.
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/bostonglobe/name/eve-lewin-obituary?pid=18385030
1936(11th
of Av, 5696): Lithuanian born Rabbi Moses Simon Sivitz, the husband of Maita
Banke Sivitz and father of Sam and Benjamin Sivitz, who in 1886 came to the
United States and settled in Pittsburgh, PA passed away today after which he
was buried in the Shaare Torah Cemetery. (Editor’s note – some sources show his
date of death and July 29)
https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/author/simon-moses/
http://kevarim.com/rabbi-moshe-shimon-sivitz-zivitz/
1936: It was
reported today that at the meeting of the Second World Congress of Jewish War
Veterans in Vienna, a resolution had been adopted “calling for the
establishment of a village in Palestine in honor of the 12,000 German Jews
killed in the World War.”
1936: The Palestine Post reported on the
appointment in London of the Royal Commission for Palestine, chaired by Earl
Peel. Other members were Sir Horace Rumboldt, Sir Laurie Hammond, Sir Morris
Carter, Sir Harold Morris and Professor Reginald Coupland. The commission’s
terms of reference were “to ascertain the underlying causes of the
disturbances… to inquire into the manner in which the Mandate was implemented
in relation to the obligations of the Mandatory towards the Arabs and Jews…
to study legitimate grievances and make recommendations for their removal and
for the prevention of their recurrence.”
1936: General
Franco declared his Fascist government and the Spanish Civil War broke out.
During the Second World War, Spain officially remained neutral, yet Franco sent
troops to fight against the Russians, and Spain later served as a refuge for
fleeing Nazis.
1937(22nd
of Av, 5697): Forty-three-year-old Jacob L. Zucker, the optometrist, former
“secretary to the Public Service Commissioner” and “an examiner for the estates
tax division of the State Tax Commission” who “was secretary and a founder
Temple Shaari Israel of Brooklyn” and the father of “Sidney, Estelle, Mortimer
and Mildred” Zucker passed away today “in the Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/08/01/507209632.pdf
1937:
Pierre-Marie Gerlier who would be posthumously awarded the title Righteous
among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1981 was named Archbishop of Lyon today.
1937: In
Memphis, TN, Lewis Glick and Sylvia Kleinman Glick gave birth to Milton D.
Glick, nationally renowned academic leader who served as the 15th
president of the University of Nevada, Reno
1937: “London
by Night” a murder mystery produced by Sam Zimbalist was released today in the
United States by Lowe’s Inc.
1937: In
Geneva, “The League of Nations Mandates Commission began its session on
Palestine today, hearing in private along statement on British policy by W.G.A.
Ormsby-Gore, the Colonial Secretary” who put the British Government” as
publicly and officially favoring partition.
1938: Today,
“the most surprised people in the world were Italians when a report drafted by
several anonymous but allegedly eminent fascist university professors warned
them of all sorts of grave, though unspecified dangers” threatening them due to
the presence of the Jewish minority “in their midst.”
1938: Today
Mussolini took is with the speech by Pope Pius on “racism” denying that Italy
is following the policies of Germany while “The Tribuna said that racism must
not be confused with anti-Semitism.”
1939: In
Kingston, NY, Serbian painter Borislave Bogdanovich and Herma Robinson
Bogdanovich, “a member of a well-to-do Austrian Jewish family gave birth to movie
director Peter Bogdanovich. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1939(14th of
Av, 5699): Dutch sculptor Joseph Mendes da Costa passed away.
1939: In a
private letter Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great Britain described
Germany’s jealousy of the Jews’ superior cleverness and states: “No doubt
Jews aren’t a lovable people; I don’t care about them myself; but that is not
sufficient to explain the Pogrom.”
1939: Reacting
to German anti-Jewish policies and reflecting the attitude of many other
officials in Great Britain and Western Europe, British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain writes: “No doubt Jews aren’t a lovable people; I don’t care
about them myself. But that is not sufficient to explain the pogrom.”
1940: Funeral is scheduled to place this afternoon in Riverside Memorial
Chapel for fifty-seven-year-old Riga born and NYU trained attorney Dr. Joseph
Kahn, the holder of Ph.D. who lectured at NYU at City College and was a senior
partner of Kahn and Zorn while serving as a director of the Hebrew National
Orphan Home Asylum in Yonkers, NY
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1940/07/29/91585307.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1940: Birthdate of producer Stanley Jaffe, the man who gave us Fatal Attracations.
1941(6th of
Av, 5701): At Ponar, outside of Vilna, approximately, 150 Jews are shot. Most of the victims are elderly.
1941:
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June, the Russians which
had agreed to the dismemberment of Poland did an about-face by signing the
Sirkorski-Mayski Agreement in which Stalin repudiated his previous treaties
with the Germans that had made WW II possible.
1941: “Today
the Aktion Klostersturm (Operation Monastery) was ended by a decree of Hitler,
who feared the increasing protests by the Catholic population might result in
passive rebellions, harming the Nazi war effort at the eastern front.”
1942: “Five
hundred and fifty-seven refugees from Nazism who had been stranded in Portugal
and unoccupied France, arrived” in Baltimore last night “aboard the Portuguese
liner, S.S. Nyassa.” (JTA)
1942: German
industrialist Eduard Schulte, whose company has mines near Auschwitz, reveals
to a Swiss colleague that Hitler and the German Reich have decided to round up
the millions of Jews of Occupied Europe, concentrate them in the East, and
murder them using prussic acid starting in the fall of 1942. The information is
soon communicated to Swiss World Jewish Congress representative Gerhart
Riegner.
1942(16th of
Av, 5702): German SS kills 25,000 Jews in Minsk, Belorussia
1942(16th
of Av, 5702): Seventy-eight-year-old George Moses Price, the native of Poltava
who came to New York City in 1882 where
he earned an MD from New York University after which he combined his medical
work with a career as an author in his field.
http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/KCL05244.html
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43058701?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
1942(16th
of Av, 5702): Fifty-four-year-old Bessie (Kaplan) Hage, the wife of Bernt Hage
and “ex-wife of Maurice Copeland passed away today.
1942: Esther
“Etty” Hillesum was transferred to Westerbork.
1942: The U.S.
government established the Navy WAVES, or Women Accepted for Voluntary
Emergency Service, program. Though Navy women would not be allowed to serve
outside the continental U.S., or even to go to sea, the military hoped that the
recruitment of 10,000 women, who would work in onshore bases, would free
sufficient numbers of men to fight overseas. Although women had served as
nurses in the navy as early as the Spanish-American War, and officially in the
Navy Nurse Corps since 1908, the WAVES program was by far the largest-scale
effort to recruit women to active duty in the Navy. In the WAVES program,
thousands of women performed nearly every possible job at over 500 naval
stations through the Second World War. As military leaders had hoped, they enabled
male officers and enlisted men to staff the ships that were responsible for the
Allied victory in the Pacific theatre. Among the earliest group of women to
enlist in the WAVES was Miriam Miller. Although her parents felt that military
nursing “wasn’t the life for a nice Jewish girl,” Miller enlisted
soon after her graduation from the Wilkes-Barre General Hospital School of
Nursing, in Pennsylvania. She was assigned first to the Great Lakes Naval
Station and then to the San Diego Naval Hospital. Later, when the Navy relaxed
its prohibition on women serving outside the continental U.S., she worked in
Guam, where she cared for soldiers injured in the battles of Iwo Jima and
Okinawa. Active in veterans’ affairs after the war, Miller was elected President
of the Jewish War Veterans National Ladies Auxiliary in 1961.
1943: The B-17
whose crew included Ralph Victor Guinzurge, was shot down today.
1943: Despite
the paper shortage, the Jewish Chronicle published today carried a suitably
fulsome tribute to that “staunch and steadfast” friend of “the Jewish cause in its
widest sense” Colonel Josiah Clement Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood, a
supporter of Zionism since 1916 who “prefaced the booklet STOP THEM NOW, the
first public report printed in English about the non-stop destruction of the
Jews in German-occupied territories, in which he says : “The Huns and the
Mongols, Tamerlane with his mountains of skulls, all these demons of long ago
were patterns of chivalry compared with the pureblooded devils into which
Hitler has converted Germans.”[
1943: First
publication of Mishmar, a newspaper
owned by Hashomer Hatzair that would be re-named Al HaMishmar
1944(10th of
Av, 5704): Since the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat, Tish’a B’Av is
observed today.
1944: Three
tankers, carrying some 1750 Jews from the Italian-held islands of Kos and
Rhodes, arrive at Piraeus, Greece, where the Jews are bullied onto trucks and
driven to the Haidar detention camp near Athens
1944: More
than 100 Jews are deported from Toulouse, France, to Auschwitz.
1944: Edi
Weinstein, his father and his friend Berl Goldberg, all of whom who had escaped
from Treblinka were discovered by German soldiers. They killed Goldberg. Weinstein and his
father survived and Edi Weinstein actually joined the Polish Army in 1945
helping to fight the Nazis in the waning days of the WW II.
1945: The
administration of Germany was assumed by the Allied Control Council.
1946: A
three-day pogrom began in Miskolc, Hungary.
1946:
Birthdate of two-time Oscar winning documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple.
1947: It was
announced at a press conference in New York today, that “official confirmation
that the Parliament of Surinam, in Dutch Guiana, and the Netherlands Government
have both approved the proposal of the Freeland League to settle 30,000
homeless European Jews in Surinam, was received by the Freeland League last
week.” (As reported by JTA)
1948: “Escape”
directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by William Perlberg was released
in Los Angeles today by 20th Century Fox.
1949(4th
of Av, 5709): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon
1949(4th of Av, 5709): Sixty-eight-year-old Henrik
Galeen, the actor, screenwriter and director from Lemberg whose first major
film was “The Golem” a 1915 silent movie depiction of the Jewish character and
who was forced to flee Europe when the Nazis came to power passed away today in
Randolph Vermont.
1950: James G.
McDonald, the U.S. Ambassador to the state of Israel has submitted his
resignation. McDonald is coming to the
end of a normal two year posting at Tel Aviv.
1950(16th
of Av, 5710): Fifty-nine year old Richmond born dentist Harry Bear, “the first
graduate of the VCU School of Dentistry to serve as the school’s dean who
“earned a national reputation in the field of dental education and was
president of the American Association of Dental Schools and the American
Society of Oral Surgery and was a Fellow of the American College of Dentists”
passed away today.
https://gallery.library.vcu.edu/exhibits/show/mcvportraits/004-bear
1950: “The
tankers committee of the American Merchant Marine” today requested the
“National Federation of American Shipping” to call for the U.S. State
Department protest the new regulations regarding use of the Suez Canal which
are intended “to present passage of oil tanker though the canal” that are
either going to or coming from Israel.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that more
than 1,500 polling stations opened to admit an estimated 880,000 voters for the
Second Knesset. There were 17 lists of political parties contesting for the
election of 120 Knesset members. About 75,000 Arabs were eligible to vote.
1951: Voter
turnout for today’s elections for the 2nd Knesset reaching 75.1%
1951:
Birthdate of Indian born, British artist and designer Gary Judah. For a look at
his work go to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Judah
1952(8th
of Av, 5712): Erev Tish’a B’Av
1952(8th
of Av, 5712): Seventy-nine year old Rebecca Weintraub, a native of Russia who
was a 60 year veteran of the Yiddish theatre and the widow of Yiddish actor
Sigmund Weintraub passed away today in New York.
1953: Senator Robert Taft of Ohio passed away. Most people do not
remember Senator Taft. But in his day he
was a political power. Known as “Mr.
Republican” Taft was considered a “shoe-in” for the Republican nomination for President
in 1952. However, his plans were upset
by the surprise entry of Ike Eisenhower into the battle for the
nomination. Ike won and the rest is
history. As a Conservative Republican, Taft opposed most the social legislation
that was popular among the Jews of his day.
The Taft-Hartley Act was seen as a piece of anti-labor legislation that
limited the power of labor and therefore the influence of many Jewish
leaders. However, Taft joined Senator
Wagner of New York (his political opponent on most domestic issues) in
introducing a resolution supporting a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The resolution was introduced in October of
1945 and demonstrated the changing attitude towards Jews and the increasingly broad
support for the Zionist cause among non-Jews.
1956: In Tashken, Avner and Chana Leviev gave birth to Lev
Avnerovich Leviev the businessman and philanthropist who served as president of
the World Congress of Bukharian Jews.
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/10/billionaires-2010_Lev-Leviev_XUR9.html
1957: It was
reported today that in compliance “with the terms of a consent decree signed by
Federal District Judge Irving R. Kaufman in February, 1956, the Shuberts have
sold the St. James Theatre at 246 West Forty fourth Street, near Eighth Avenue.”
1958(12th
of Av, 5718): Eighty-year-old retired department store manager Jacob A. Honig,
a member of the Young Friends Lodge of B’rith Abraham who was the father of one
son, Milton and two daughters passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/07/31/79457998.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1958(12th
of Av, 5718) Pennsylvania native Mary Rosenthal Gruskin, the wife of Dr.
Benjamin Gruskin the
Lithuanian born son of Leon Gruskin and a graduate of the University of
Pittsburgh and Rush Medical School who was “a leader in experimental medicine” and the mother of
Edward and George Gruskin passed away today in Los Angeles and which she was
buried in Culver City.
1959: “Blue Denim,”
the cinema version of the Broadway play of the same name featuring Warren
Berlinger as “Ernie” and with music by Bernard Herrmann was released today in
the United States.
1960(6th
of Av, 5720): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon observed for the last time
during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower.
1963(9th
of Av, 5723): Tish’a B’Av
1963:
Birthdate of University of Kansas graduate Michael Glassner, who worked on the
political campaigns for Senator Dole and President George W. Bush before
“becoming the executive director of the Donald Trump 2020 presidential campaign
committee.”
1963: In Los
Angeles, Nedra (née Stern) Kudrow, a travel agent, and Dr. Lee N. Kudrow , a
physician who specialized in the treatment of headaches gave birth to Lisa Kudrow the youngest sister of Helene
Marla Kudrow and neurologist David B. Kudrow who “has received ten Emmy Award
nominations, twelve Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, and a Golden Globe
Award nomination” during her acting career.
1964(21st
of Av, 5724): Eighty-year-old Joseph “Joe” William Sidenberg, the New York born
son of “Henry Sidenberg and Mary Sidenberg and “husband of Mildred Babette
Sidenberg” passed away today in his hometown.
1965: US
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law,
establishing Medicare and Medicaid. Wilbur Cohen, a man whose active career ran
from the New Deal through the Great Society and was serving as Under Secretary
of H.E.W. in 1965 was considered to be the driving force behind this landmark
legislation that removed the fear of ill health for senior citizens and their
families. Johnson would later name
Cohen, the Wisconsin born son of Jewish immigrants, to the position of Secretary
of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
1966(13th
of Av, 5726): Parashat Vaetchanan
1966: Birth of
Brooklyn native and University of Southern College graduate Richard Bernstein,
the American bass who has been performing with the Metropolitan Opera for a
quarter of century whose older sister is Edith Cohn, actress and singer
performing under the name of Didi Conn.
1968(5th of
Av, 5728): Seventy-three-year-old Dr. Morton Gottschall, the husband of the
former Frances Greenfeild and “dean emeritus of City College’s College of
Liberal Arts and Science” who spent his entire career at CCNY, passed away
today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/07/31/76959174.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1969(15th
of Av, 5729): Tu B’Av
1969: Barbra
Streisand opens for Liberace at International Hotel, Las Vegas
1969: In
Westchester, NY, two Jewish parents from South Africa gave birth to Harvard
educated attorney and author Suzanne Nossel, the “Chief Executive Office of PEN
America.”
1969: A
memorial service for 64 year old Carlos L. Israels, the son of architect
Charles Israels and Belle Linder, the graduate of Amherst and Columbia
University Law School, “a specialist in securities law” and “former president
of the United Hias Service” who was the husband of “the former Ruth Goldstein”
with whom he had three children – Charles, Michael and Elizabeth – is scheduled
to held this afternoon at Temple Emanu-El.
1970: Israeli
airmen shot down four MIGs flown by Russian pilots over the Suez Canal. This
marked the first military encounter between Israeli and Russian forces
1973(1st
of Av, 5733): Rosh Chodesh Av
1973(1st
of Av, 5733): Sixty-six-year-old Long Island born builder Sol G. Atlas, the
recipient of the Man of the Year from Yeshiva University in 1969 and was the
husband “of the former Edythe Samuel” with whom he had one daughter, Sandra,
passed away today.
1974: “Cockfighter,”
directed by Monte Hellman (Monte Jay Himmelbaum) was released today in Roswell,
GA.
1975(22nd
of Av, 5735): Seventy-four-old Darmstadt, Germany native Dr. Woldemar A. Weyl,
an authority on the technology of glass, who taught at Penn State and who left
his native land because of the Nazis passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1975/08/04/archives/dr-woldemar-weyl-authority-on-glass.html
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Woldemar_Weyl
1975(22nd
of Av, 5735): Seventy-four-year-old to Harvard graduate and folklorist Benjamin
Albert Botkin, the Boston born Albert B. and Annie Botkin and the holder of a
Ph. D from the University of Nebraska who was the husband of Gertrude Fritz ,who taught at the
University of Oklahoma and who is the namesake of Benjamin A. Botkin Prize
present by the American Folklore Society.
https://www.loc.gov/folklife/botkin/hirsch.html
1976: Two
French tourists were wounded when a bomb went off on a Jerusalem sidewalk.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Britain
severed relations with Uganda after Idi Amin’s regime failed to provide
information on the fate of Dora Bloch, the British-Israeli dual national
dragged from a Kampala hospital after her fellow hijacked Air France hostages
had been rescued from the Entebbe airport by Israeli commandoes
1976(2nd
of Av, 5736): Seventy-five Emile Solomon Sachs, the Lithuanian born South
African labor leader passed away today.
http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/emil-solomon-solly-sachs-south-african-socialist-dies-london
1976: Yuri
Vudka was “released from a labor camp” today “after serving a seven year
sentence for ‘anti-Soviet activities.’”
1977(15th
of Av, 5737): Parashat Vaetchanan; Tu B’Av
1978: Funeral
services are scheduled to be held this afternoon for Edward A. Cohen, the
husband of Ann Cohen and the brother of Joseph Cohen.
1978: Funeral
services are scheduled to be held this morning at the Riverside Chapel, for Bee
S. Cohen, the “wife of the late Dr. Jacob Cohen” and “sister of Julius Smolen.
1980(17TH
of Av, 5740): Seventy-eight-year-old Denver born Esther Greenblatt Quiat, the
wife of Ira Louis Quiat and the mother of Marshall and Gerald Marin Quiat
passed away today after which she was buried at the Congregation Emanuel
Cemetery in Denver, CO.
1980: The
Knesset passed the “The Jerusalem Law” establishing Jerusalem as the capital of
the State of Israel.
1981: After
opening in the United States “The Great Muppet Caper” co-produced by Frank Oz, born
Frank Richard Oznowicz to Frances
Ghevaret, a Flemish Catholic and Isadore “Mike” Oznowicz, a Dutch-Polish Jew
and featuring Charles Grodin was released today in the United Kingdom.
1982: “Night
Shift” a comedy produced by Brian Grazer, written by Lowell Ganz, with music by
Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager and co-starring Henry Winkler was
released in the United States today by Warner Bros.
1982(10th
of Av, 5742): Sixty-seven-year-old Philadelphia born and University
Pennsylvania honor graduate Samuel Lewis Gaber the former “Pennsylvania-West
Virginia-Delaware regional director of the ADL” passed away today in West Palm
Beach, FL.
1982: After
opening in Japan four days ago “The Last American Virgin” directed by Boaz
Davidson who also wrote the script, produced by Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan
and filmed by cinematographer Adam Greenberg was released in the United States
today.
1983(20th of
Av, 5743): MGM executive Howard Dietz passed away.
http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C62
1990: Today
Linda Lavin took over the role of “Rose” in the 1989 Broadway Revival of
“Gypsy” the musical created by Jule Syne, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents
1992(29th of
Tammuz, 5752): Ken Meyer, the son of
Australian entrepreneur and businessman Sidney Myer, and his wife died today in
plane crash.
1992(29th of
Tammuz, 5752): Seventy-eight-year-old Joe Shuster, co-creator of Superman,
passed away.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-joe-shuster-1538812.html?printService=print
1993: “Rising
Sun” an American murder mystery with a Japanese twist directed and produced by
Philip Kaufman who co-authored the script and co-starring Harvey Keitel was
released today in the United States by 20th Century Fox.
1996(14th
of 5756): Fifteenth days after his 90th birthday, Liepaja, Latvia
native Rabbi Judah Levinson, a resident of Great Britain since 1926 and the father
of two “daughters Norman and Deirdre both of whom became writers” who was a
reader in the South Wales communities of Brynmawr and Llanelli , the second
reader, mohel and shochet at the Hull Old Hebrew Congregation, and the minister
to the Hounslow & District Affiliated Synagogue, Middlesex (now west
London) before becoming minister to the Walthamstow and Leyton Synagogue,
Boundary Road, east London, which he served until his retirement in 1976,
following which he continued to serve the congregation for some years as a
part-time chazan passed away today.
https://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/Profiles/minister_profiles_orthodox_L.htm
1997(25th of
Tammuz, 5757): Double suicide bombings
to place in Jerusalem that would eventually claim the lives of fourteen Israeli
victims.
1997(25th
of Tammuz, 5757): Lev Desyatnik, 60, of Jerusalem; Regina Giber, 76, of
Jerusalem; Valentina Kovalenko, 67, of Jerusalem; Shmuel Malka, 44, of
Mevaseret Zion; David Nasco, 44, of Mevaseret Zion; Muhi A-din Othman, 33, of
Eilabun; Simha Fremd, 92, of Jerusalem; Gregory Paskhovitz, 15, of Jerusalem;
Leah Stern, 50, of Jerusalem; Rachel Tejgatrio, 83, of Jerusalem; Liliya
Zelezniak, 47, of Jerusalem; Shalom (Golan) Zevulun, 52, of Jerusalem and Mark
Rabinowitz, 80, of Jerusalem were murdered by Hamas today at Mahane Yehuda
Market.
1999: The INS
Dolphin was commissioned today.
1999: Russian
born American conductor led Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of
Peteris Vasks’s Symphony No. 2 at the Royal Albert Hall
2000: The African American/Jewish Coalition for Justice hosts a
picnic at Seward Park in Seattle, Washington.
2000:
Bruce Fleisher carded a three day score of 198 to win the Lightpath Long Island
Classic.
2000: The
New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special
interest to Jewish readers including Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America
With Einstein’s Brain by
Michael Paterniti, Inside the Halo and Beyond: The Anatomy of a
Recovery by Jewish born author Maxine Kumin and Millicent Dillon’s new
novel entitled Harry Gold about Harry Gold, the American Jewish chemist
who acted as a spy for the Soviet Union in the 1930’s and 40’s.
2001: “Jerusalem and its sacred places returned to the center of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict today when Palestinians on an elevated Muslim
compound hurled stones at Jews praying below, provoking a battle with the
Israeli police.”
2002(21st of Av, 5762): Five people were injured by
a suicide bomber on Hanevi’im Street in Jerusalem
2002: Simon and Shuster published a paperback
edition of Harry Kemelman’s 1964 novel Friday the Rabbi Slept Late, “the
first in Rabbi Small mystery series.”
2003(1st of Av, 5763): Rosh Chodesh Av
2003: “Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel today rebuffed pressure from
President Bush to halt construction of a security fence on the West Bank and
called on Mr. Bush to persuade Palestinian leaders to do more to dismantle
terrorist organizations.”
2004: In “Hyam Maccoby” Lawrence Joffe examines the
life an accomplishments of this Jewish scholar who was the grandson and
namesake of “Rabbi Hyam (or “Chaim”) Maccoby better known as the
“Kamenitzer Maggid,” a passionate religious Zionist and advocate of
vegetarianism and animal welfare.”
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/jul/31/guardianobituaries.religion
2004: Following its premiere 4 days ago, “The
Village” a horror film produced by Scott Rudin with a cast that included Adrien
Brody and Jesse Eisenbeg was released throughout the United States today by
Buena Vista Pictures.
2004: “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” with a script by Jon Hurwitz and
featuring Dov Yosef Tiefenbach and David Krumholtz was released today in the
United States.
2005(23rd of Tammuz, 5765): Parashat Matot
2005: “Jana Ruth Packman, a daughter of Nina J. Packman and Rabbi A.
David Packman of Oklahoma City, was married last evening to Mark Lee
Greenblatt, a son of Marshal Greenblatt of Potomac, Md., and the late Marian
Greenblatt” at the Willard InterContinental Hotel.”
2006: Jewish golfer Corey Pavin won the U.S. Bank
Championship in Milwaukee.
2006: The
New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special
interest to Jewish readers including the recently
released paperback edition of Freud’s Requiem: Mourning, Memory, and
the Invisible History of a Summer Walk by Matthew Von Unwerth. “This
elegantly meandering look at Sigmund Freud’s life and the intellectual world he
moved in examines an obscure 1915 essay, “On Transience,” in which
Freud records a conversation with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke and the
psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Salomé.”
2006:
Hezbollah fired a record 140 Katyusha rockets at targets in northern Israel
today wounding at least eight people, including a Haaretz correspondent.
2006(5th
of Av, 5766): One hundred and six year old Philip Montagu D’Arcy a pioneer in
the field of Tuberculosis Research who was the son of solicitor Henry D’Arcy
Hart, the husband of Ruth Meyer, the father of Harvard University economics
professor Oliver Hart and the brother of engineer James D’Arcy Hart passed away
today.
http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/philip-montagu-darcy-hart-1900-2006/
2006(5th of
Av, 5766): Murray Bookchin, American libertarian and socialist, passed
away.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/aug/08/guardianobituaries.usa
2007: In
Jerusalem, Peretz Eliyahu and Victoria Chana collaborate to perform original
music tied to ancient texts about love at a Tu B’Av event.
2007: Award
winning news anchor for KTLA and published author Hal Fishman’s “last
broadcast” took place this evening, “eight days before his death.
2007: Ehud
Barak “married 63 year old Nili Priel in a small ceremony in his private
residence.”
2007: Victoria
Redel, author of The Border of Truth based on the experiences of Jewish
refugees aboard the SS Quanza, presents a reading at the Fine Arts Work
Center in Provincetown, NY.
2007(15th of Av, 5767): Tu B’Av. The 15th Day of Av, is both an ancient
and modern holiday. Originally a post-biblical day of joy, it served as a
matchmaking day for unmarried women in the second Temple period (before the
fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.). Tu B’Av was almost unnoticed in the Jewish
calendar for many centuries but it has been rejuvenated in recent decades,
especially in the modern state of Israel. In its modern incarnation it is
gradually becoming a Hebrew-Jewish Day of Love, slightly resembling Valentine’s
Day in English-speaking countries. There is no way to know exactly how early Tu
B’Av began. The first mention of this date is in the Mishnah (compiled and
edited in the end of the second century), where Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel is
quoted saying, “There were no better (i.e. happier) days for the people of
Israel than the Fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur, since on these days the
daughters of Israel/Jerusalem go out dressed in white and dance in the
vineyards. What were they saying: Young man, consider whom you choose (to be
your wife)…”( Taanit, Chapter 4). The Gemara (the later, interpretive
layer of the Talmud) attempts to find the origin of this date as a special
joyous day, and offers several explanations. One of them is that on this day
the Biblical “tribes of Israel were permitted to mingle with each
other,” namely: to marry women from other tribes (Talmud, Taanit 30b).
This explanation is somewhat surprising, since nowhere in the Bible is there a
prohibition on “intermarriage” among the 12 tribes of Israel. This
Talmudic source probably is alluding to a story in the book of Judges (chapter
21): After a civil war between the tribe of Benjamin and other Israelite
tribes, the tribes vowed not to intermarry with men of the tribe of Benjamin.
It should be noted that Tu B’Av, like several Jewish holidays (Passover,
Sukkot, Tu Bishvat) begins on the night between the 14th and 15th day of the
Hebrew month, since this is the night of a full moon in our lunar calendar.
Linking the night of a full moon with romance, love, and fertility is not
uncommon in ancient cultures. For almost 19 centuries–between the destruction
of Jerusalem and the re-establishment of Jewish independence in the state
of Israel in 1948–the only commemoration of Tu B’Av was that the Morning
Prayer service did not include the penitence prayer (Tahanun). In recent
decades Israeli civil culture promotes festivals of singing and dancing on the
night of Tu B’Av. The entertainment and beauty industries work overtime on this
date. It has no formal legal status as a holiday– it is a regular workday–nor
has the Israeli rabbinate initiated any addition to the liturgy or called for
the introduction of any ancient religious practices. The cultural gap between
Israeli secular society and the Orthodox rabbinate makes it unlikely that these
two will find a common denominator in the celebration of this ancient/modern
holiday in the foreseeable future.
2008(27th of Tammuz, 5678): Eighty-seven year old RAF veteran,
naturalist and television presenter John Gordon Miller, the cousin of violinist
Yehudi Menuhin passed away today.
2008: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, embroiled in a
high-profile corruption investigation, announced that he would resign his
office after his party chose a new leader in September elections.
2009(9th of Av, 5769): Tish’a B’Av
2009:
Randi & Bruce Pergament Jewish Film
Festival presents a screening of “Max Minsky & Me,” a delightful comedy set in contemporary
Berlin in which Nelly, a bookish bat mitzvah candidate, who wants to be on her
school basketball team so she can meet her prince charming recruits a reluctant
coach who offers her athletic training and ultimately, his respect.”
2009: In an interview today the head of the Israel Defense Forces’ ground
troops during the Gaza disengagement said the decision to evacuate Gaza Strip
settlements in 2005 was “utter nonsense.”
2010: Two days after he had passed away funeral services are scheduled to
be held at Rodef Sholom Temple in Hampton, VA for 79-year-old Stanley W.
Drucker, the Newport News born son Loraine and Louis Drucker and University of
Virginia trained attorney who raised three daughters – Karen, Laurie and Ann –
with his wife Margo, followed by burial “at the Jewish Cemetery of the Virginia
Peninsula.
2010:
A Grad-type Katyusha rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza
Strip struck close to an apartment building in a residential area of Ashkelon
on today, while two mortar shells exploded in the western Negev just a few
hours later..
2010:
An Israeli Air Force Boeing aircraft
carrying the coffins of six IAF servicemen killed in Monday’s Yasour helicopter
crash in the Carpathian Mountains landed Friday morning at the Tel Nof air
base. The funerals of the fallen soldiers will be held at various military
cemeteries throughout the day today. Lt.-Col. (Res.) Avner Goldman will be
buried at 12:15 p.m. in Modi’in; Lt.-Col. Daniel Shipenbauer will be buried at
3:00 p.m. in Gdarot; Maj. Yahel Keshet will be buried at 1:00 PM in Sharona;
Maj. Lior Shai will be buried at 2:00 p.m. in Hod Hasharon; Lt. Nir Lakrif will
be buried at 12:30 p.m. in Haifa; and St.-Sgt. Oren Cohen will be buried at
1:00 p.m. in Rehovot.
2010;
It was reported today that the three
bidders still in the mix to buy Newsweek magazine, according to the New
York Times, are audio equipment tycoon Sidney Harman; tastefully named
hedge fund guy Marc Lasry; and Mort Zuckerman chum Fred Drasner. All three are
Members of the Tribe.
2010: “Mother’s Savior: A Revelation” published today chronicles the
misfortunes of the Peltzman family and Norbert Stern, “a piano prodigy” whose
musical skills were just one more victim of the Nazis.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/nyregion/01about.html
http://www.timesofisrael.com/echoes-of-prodigys-music-strike-chord-with-lost-family/
2010: After premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, “The Kids Are All
Right” an award winning comedy directed by Lisa Cholodenko and written by
Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg and co-produced by Gary Gilbert and Jordan
Blumberg was released in the United States today.
2010: “With Curious George” published today the plans for “Illumination
Entertainment, the animation company founded by former Fox Animation President
Chris Meledandri and whose movies Universal finances and distributes, is
developing a new version of ‘Curious George,’” the creation of the Jewish team of Hans and
Margret Rey.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2010/07/curious-george-illumination-movie-book-universal.html
2011: Gefen Books is
scheduled to release
Confidential: The Life of Secret
Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan, by brothers-in-law Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman, which “tells the story
of an Israeli nuclear intelligence agent who found his way into the film
business.”
2011(28th
of Tammuz, 5771): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum of Uhely, Hungary, author
of Yismach Moshe and patriarch of the Hungarian Chassidic dynasties who
passed away on the 28th of Tamuz, 5601 (July 17, 1841).
2011: “Blood Relation” and “77 Steps” are scheduled to be shown at the
San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2011:
Those who are protesting the spiraling
cost of living in Israel are planning to hold five marches tonight, in Tel
Aviv, Jerusalem, Be’er Sheva, Haifa and Nazareth. Each is expected to end in a
mass assembly. Organizers expect tens of thousands of people from all over the
country to participate.
2011: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was expected to put together a
team to examine the burden of indirect taxes on the public in the coming days,
Army Radio reported today. The expected move comes ahead of nationwide protests
scheduled to take place Saturday night, the second mass protest in as many
weeks. Speaking with Army Radio today, Netanyahu ally Likud MK Ophir Akunis
said that “the government is attentive to public sentiment and is working
to ease the [financial] burden on the public.”
2011:
An explosion was reported at a depot
along the Egyptian natural gas pipeline in Sinai that normally supplies Israel
with gas, Army Radio reported today. The attack on the pipeline was the third
this month and the fifth since the beginning of 2011. It also followed a
shootout between Egyptian security forces and apparent Islamic militants
yesterday.
2011:
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took
part in protests held in cities across the country tonight, the largest
collaborative protest yet in a popular movement over social issues that has swept
the country in the past two weeks.
2012: The Northern California Premiere of “Papirosen” is scheduled to
take place at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2012: “Yossi,” a sequel to “Yossi and Jagger” is scheduled to be shown at
the JCC in Manhattan.
2012:
Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud)
today slammed proposals calling for IDF conscription of Arabs. “You don’t have
to be a genius to realize that it’s impossible to draft the Arab public. Any
initiatives of this sort smack of hypocrisy and even malice,” Rivlin said at a
Ramadan Iftar feast at Kafar Qara
2012:
Following a day of mostly disappointing
results for Israel at the London Olympic Games, two Israelis advanced to the
semi-finals in their events in swimming and judo this morning. Amit Ivri set a
new Israeli record in the 200 meter women’s medley relay this morning. Ivri
finished the race in 2:13:29, putting her in 12th place and allowing her to
advance to the semi-finals this evening.
2012: (11th of Av, 5772): Ninety-one-year-old philanthropist
Fred Worms passed away today.(As reported by Greer Fay Cashman)
http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Philanthropist-Fred-Worms-dies-at-91
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/anglo-file/philanthropist-was-amazing-example-of-a-world-jew-1.455681
2012: “In what appears like a clear endorsement of a presidential
candidate, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said tonight that Barack Obama has been
the most supportive president on matters of Israeli security throughout the two
countries’ diplomatic relations.” (As reported by Yaakov Katz)
2012:
The climactic denouement of the Daf
Yomi seven-year study cycle of the Talmud was staged in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem
tonight, with tens of thousands of haredi men crowding into venues in the two
cities to celebrate their having completed the study of the ancient work of
Jewish law.(As reported by Jeremy Sharon)
2013: A conference on “The Bible in the Iberian World: Fundaments of a
Religious Melting Pot is scheduled to open at Leipzig, Germany.”
2013: “Sukkah City” and “Neil Diamond: Solitary Man” are scheduled to be
shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2013: Dancers from the Paris Opera are scheduled to appear at Haifa’s
Rappaport Hall.
2013: The Maccabiah Games are scheduled to come to an end.
2013: Ninety-nine-year-old Berthold Beitz, the head of ThyssenKrupp who
“was remembered for his efforts to save hundreds of Jews and Poles from the
Nazis while stationed in Poland during World War II” passed away today. (As
reported by Melissa Eddy)
2013: “President Obama announced his intent to nominate Noah Mamet to be
the U.S. ambassador to Argentina despite the fact that Mamet has never been to
Argentina.”
2013: Josh Zeid pitched in his first major league game as a member of the
Houston Astros.
2013:
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California
introduced a bill tonight that would have the Senate resolve itself to
supporting Secretary of State John Kerry’s push for a two-state solution.(By
Michael Wilner)
2013(23rd of Av, 5773): Ninety-four-year-old Ottie Schecthman,
one of the pioneering stars of the NBA passed away today. (As reported by
Richard Goldstein)
2014: Historic 6th & Synagogue
is scheduled to host Trivia Night sponsored by B’nai B’rith.
2014: The Washington Jewish Film Festival is
scheduled to host another night of Coen brothers’ films.
2014: Hamas continued its attack on Israel with
rockets being fired towards Ashkelon, Ashdod, Rishon, LeZion, Rehovot and Tel
Aviv.(As reported by Matzn Tzuri)
2014: “Conservative Jews” were photographed
today praying “at the temporary egalitarian Robinson’s Arch prayer pavilion at
the southern end of the Western Wall.”
https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2016/06/Robinsons-Arch.jpg
2014(3rd of Av, 5774): St.-Sgt.
Matan Gotlib, 21, from Rishon Lezion, St.-Sgt.Omer Hay, 21, from Savyon, and
St.-Sgt. Guy Algranati, 20, from Tel Aviv “were killed this morning in Gaza in
an explosion at a booby-trapped UNRWA health clinic that housed a tunnel entry
shaft.” (As reported by Mitch Ginsburg)
2015: The Annual Karmiel Dance Festival is
scheduled to come to an end.
2015: “Only three weeks after being released,
Yishai Schlissel stabbed six marchers during the Jerusalem gay pride parade.”
2015(14th of Av, 5775): Lasker Award
winning physician Dr. Louis Sokoloff, pioneer of the PET scan passed away at
the age of 93. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
2015(14th of Av, 5775): Seventy-eight-year
New York real estate lawyer Charles Goldstein who turned his legal efforts to
recovering looted art for Holocaust victims and their families passed away
today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
2015: In Mountain States Spotlight published
today “ADL Board Chair-Elect Jim Kurtz-Phelan” shared “his passion for Israel,
the law and working to ensure fair treatment for all.”
http://denver.adl.org/mountain-states-spotlight-with-jim-kurtz-phelan/
2015: Lewis Black is scheduled to perform at
the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom in New Hampshire.
2015: “In Poland, Searching for Jewish
Heritage” published today Joseph Berger described “Jewish Poland” that has
virtually no Jews.
2016: “Minister-without-portfolio Tzachi
Hanegbi of the Likud party asserted today that hundreds of Yemenite children
were kidnapped from Israeli hospitals in the 1950s in connection with the
so-called “Yemenite children affair.” (As reported by TOI)
2016: At the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower
Theatre, in Washington, D.C., the curtain is scheduled to come down on the
final performance Jonathan Munby’s version of “The Merchant of Venice” which
for some has reignited “questions of whether this tragicomedy about a Jewish
moneylender exacting a terrible revenge is a credible portrait of Jewish
persecution, or something more like an antique, anti-Semitic tract.” (As
reported by Peter Marks)
2016: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and
Education Center is scheduled to host a survivor talk by Matus Stolov who was
saved in part by an aunt who “arranged for false papers for him and his mother
through the underground.”
2016(24th of Tammuz, 5776): Shabbat
Pinchas
2016(24th of Tammuz, 5776):
Sixty-three year old weather meteorologist Dave Schwartz passed away today. (As
reported by William McDonald)
2016: Noam Banai, a member of the Banai musical
dynasty is scheduled to begin a concert tour with a performance in Tel Aviv.
2017: “IDF Sgt. Elor Azaria, a soldier
convicted of manslaughter for shooting an injured, disarmed Palestinian
attacker in Hebron, was seen today during an appeal hearing at the Kirya
military base in Tel Aviv.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)
2017: Today “a military court rejected an
appeal by attorneys for Elor Azaria aiming to overturn his conviction, as well
as an appeal by the prosecution that sought to stiffen his punishment.”
2017: The
New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback
editions of JACKSON, 1964: And Other Dispatches From Fifty Years of
Reporting on Race in America by Calvin Trillin and The Inseparables
by Stuart Nadler.
2017: “The Prudential Ridelondon-Surrrey 1000,
a World Jewish Relief Challenge Event is scheduled to take place today.
2017: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a
screening of “The Zookeeper’s Wife.”
2017: Final showing of “Memory Unearthed: The
Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross” is scheduled to come to a close at the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/memory-unearthed
http://www.timesofisrael.com/exhibit-trains-overdue-lens-on-secret-record-of-life-under-nazis/
2018: “Ambiguous Places” and “Leto, a musical
drama based on the life of Soviet musician Viktor Tsoy” are scheduled to be
shown today at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
2018: JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of
“Tracking Edith” in London
2018: The family of Yotam Ovadia, the husband
of Tal Ovadia and father of two children who was murdered by a terrorists last
week, continue to sit shiva.
2018: As the stock market opens this morning,
investors will find out if the value of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook continues
its precipitous fall.
2018: In “Remembering – and rereading – Stanley
Cavell,” published today, Jill Radiskin examined the life and work of Stanley
Cavell, the Atlanta born, Harvard educated academic
2019: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker is
scheduled to host the Orchestra of St. Luke as part of 114 year old Naumburg
Concerts for which it is serving as a temporary home while the bandshell in
Central Park is being renovated.
2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a
screening of “Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love” a biopic about Leonard Cohen
and his Norwegian muse Marianne Ihlen.
2019: In St. Louis, MO, The MUNY is scheduled
to host a performance of Lerner and Loewe’s “Paint Your Wagaon.”
2019: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is
scheduled to host screenings of “The Dancing Dogs of Dombrova” and “My Polish
Honeymoon.”
2020(9th of Av, 5780): Tish’a B’Av;
for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2020: The United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum is scheduled to host the virtual event “Friendships That Saved Lives
during the Holocaust” with Susan Goldstein Snyder, Curator, United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum and Dr. Edna Friedberg, Historian, United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum.
2020: The JWA is scheduled to a virtual author
talk with Jennifer Rosner, author of The Yellow Bird Sings, a World War
II tale about a mother, a child, and an impossible choice.
2020: Chabad of Fremont is scheduled to present
Irving Roth the Czech native talking about his Holocaust experiences and how he
survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald on line.
2020: “Beth El Congregation in Akron, OH, is
planning to enhance the meaning of Tisha B’av with a virtual observance and
workshop to create individual mosaic “Hands of Hope.”
2021: The Ancient Wine Guys are scheduled to
co-present “Wines of Dante’s Inferno,” a “fundraiser for an archaeology
nonprofit that promotes peace and dialoguing in Israel and the Palestinian
territories.”
2021: Congregation B’nai Torah is scheduled to
host “Shabbat on the Beach at the Wayland Town Beach,” in Massachusetts.
2021: The Sousa Menes Foundation is scheduled
to host screening of the “Partisans of Vilna.”
2021: Based on reports published yesterday,
today Israel is the only “country in the world to offer its citizens a third coronavirus
vaccine dose.” (As reported by Itamar Eichner)
2022: Lockdown University is scheduled to host
a webinar Yevtushenko “Babi-Yar” with Professor David Peimer:
2022: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is
scheduled to host a screening of “Charm Circle,” which is Nira Burstein’s
documentary that “is a love song to her eccentric and sometimes mentally
challenged family, who live in the gracious chaos of their Charm Circle New
York City home in Queens.”
2022(2nd of Av, 5782): Mattot and Mas’ey – Finish
Bamidar/Numbers
2023: The Macher Lab sponsored by the Alliance
for Jewish Theatre is scheduled to meet for a second session today.
2023: The Museum at Eldridge Street is
scheduled to host a “meeting” of the Eldridge Street Explorers that will in a
woodshop class like they used to have on the Lower East Side where attendees
will build a wooden birdhouse. 2023: The Macher Lab sponsored by the Alliance
for Jewish Theatre is scheduled to meet for a second session today.
2023: The Macher Lab sponsored by the Alliance
for Jewish Theatre is scheduled to meet for a second session today.
2023: The New York Times features
reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including Battle of Ink and Ice by Darrell Hartman in which Adolph Ochs
and the New York Times are major players.
2023: Israel braces for more demonstrations
against the judicial reform legislation
2023: Hezbollah is reportedly making renewed
threats as tensions increase on the border with Lebanon.
2024: “A new series of JWI’s Life$avings:
Financial Empowerment for Survivors of Abuse facilitator training” is scheduled
to begin today.
2024: The Hadassah National Conference is
scheduled to come to an end today in Las Vegas.
2024: The trip to Poland sponsored by JewishGen’s
Neshama Program is scheduled to begin today.
2024: Based on previously published
information, the IDF is dealing with the harm done to Israel’s security by “rioting
right wing mobs at the Sde Teiman based in southern Israel.
2024: Israeli surfer Anat Lelior does not know
yet if she can advance to Round 16 at the Olympics after organizers were forced
to “call off planned third day of qualification heats due to a storm at the
venue.
2024: As July 30th begins in Israel, an unprecedented wave of
anti-Semitism that has included Hamas supporters calling for Zionist passengers
on a New York subway to raise their hands, sweeps the United States and the
Hamas held hostages begin day 298 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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