This Day, March 9, in Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

March 9

590: Bahram Chobin is
crowned as King Barham VI of Persia. The newly crowned king enjoyed support
among Persian Jews since opposing forces under a general named Mahbad “killed
the Jewish followers of the pretender to the throne, Bahram Chobin.”

1230: Bulgarian tsar
Ivan Asen II defeats Theodore of Epirus in the Battle of Klokotnitsa. According
to information in the Virtual Jewish Library Jacob b. Elijah wrote a letter in
which he reported that two Jews were thrown from a mountaintop for refusing to
obey the order of the Czar to put out the eyes of the defeated Greek ruler.

1244: The Pope ordered the burning of the
Talmud.  Those who hate the Jews understand how critical studying and
learning are to our survival.  Hence they have always burned our books and
outlawed study.

1276: Augsburg
becomes an Imperial Free City in the Holy Roman Empire. The Jewish presence in
Augsburg began during the days of the Romans. Existing records show that a
Jewish cemetery and synagogue existed by 1276. The Augsburg Municipal Charter
of 1276, determining the political and economic status of the Jewish residents,
was adopted by several cities in South Germany. “Regulation of the legal status
of Augsburg Jewry was complicated by the rivalry between the religious and
municipal powers. Both contended with the emperor for jurisdiction over the
Jews and enjoyment of the concomitant revenues.”  For more about this ancient Jewish community
see

http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Strasse/5960/history.html
.

1316: “Louis the
Bavarian granted the city of Worms the privilege of levying on the Jewish
community a yearly tax of 100 pounds heller in addition to the 300 pounds it
had thitherto paid.”

1489: Giovanni di
Lorenzo de’ Medici, the future Pope Leo X who relied on Bonet de Lates, a Jew
from Provence, as his personal physician and unofficial advisor, was named a
Cardinal today.

1490: In Florence,
Berahiel ben Hezekiah Trabot completed “a small machzor” today.

1496: 
The Jews of Carinthia, Austria were expelled (and not readmitted until
1848).

1500: A huge fleet under the command of Portuguese
explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, accompanied by Gaspar da Gama, a Polish born Jew
whose slave name had been Yusuf ‘Adil before being forcibly converted to
Christianity, set sail from Portugal today sailing south and the east for
India.

1513: Start of the papacy of Leo X who employed
Immanuel ben Jacob “as a physician and translator and approved the printing of
“the first edition of Mikraot Gdolot” by Daniel Bomberg which was edited under
the directing of “the Jewish convert to Christianity Felix Pratensis.”

1666: Birthdate of George Granville, 1st Baron
Lansdowne, the English poet, playwright and political leader.  In 1701 Lord Lansdowne produced “a spurious
version” the “Merchant of Venice” entitled “The Jew of Venice.”  In Lansdowne’s version the part of “Shylock
was degraded to a kind of low comedy.” 
The play would not be performed again for 40 years when Macklin would
revive it and begin the hundreds of his sensitive portrayals of Shakespeare’s
most famous Jewish character.

1739: In New York City, Rebecca Michaels and
Judah Hays gave birth to Boston merchant Moses Michael Hays, the husband of
Rachel Myers, the father of Catherine and Rebecca Hays and one of the founding
members of the famous Touro Synagogue.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/moses-michael-hays

1749:
Birthdate of Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, an early leader of the
French Revolution who came to be a defender of Judaism and Jews completed his
service as a member of the Estates General and began serving as a member of the
Constituent Assembly.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/mirabeau-honore-gabriel-riqueti-comte-de-x00b0

1757: In Bardeau, France, Rachel and Abraham
Benjamin Nones gave birth to “U.S. Patriot and soldier in the American Army
during the Revoltuion Benjamin Abraham Nones, the husband of Miriam Marks with
whom he had thirteen children and the Philadelphia abolitionist who freed his
own slaves.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nones-benjamin

1760: In Philadelphia, PA, Prague born Mathias
Bush and Tabitah Mears gave birth to Hannah Bush.

1773(14th of Adar, 5533): Purim

1773: On Purim at the Newport synagogue, the
future President of Yale University at Ezra Stiles described Rabbi Raphael
Chiam Isaac Carregal as being “dressed in a red garment with the usual
Phylacteries and habiliments, the white silk Surplice; he wore a high fur cap,
had a long beard. He has the appearance of an ingenious and sensible man”

1774:
Birthdate of sugar merchant Louis-August Say the brother of Léon Say, who
worked on the on the Northern Railway Company which was owned by his friend
Alphonse de Rothschild and who had supported Rothschild’s fight to maintain
bimetallism while serving as Minister of Finance.

1789: In Coswig, David Salomon Unger, the first
Jew to settle in Erfurt with full “civil rights” and his wife gave birth to
mathematician Ephraim Salomon Unger.

1792(15th of Adar, 5552): Shushan
Purim

1793: Robert and Lois Collins Pierpont gave
birth to Julia Pierpont Marks, the wife of Dr. Elias Marks, “a convert to
Christianity from Judaism who she married in 1832.

1799(2nd of Adar II, 5559): Parashat
Pekudi

1799: Napoleon came to power as a result of a
coup d’etat.

1800: Leah Nathan and Jacob Naphtali Hart gave
birth to Philadelphian Benjamin Hart, the husband of Delphine Hart.

1803(15th of Adar, 5563): Shushan
Purim observed on the same day, the British Ambassador writes to Lord
Hawkesbury to explain why he has issued a British passport to Meriwether Lewis
who was to be one of the two leaders of the Lewis and Clark expedition to
explore the Louisiana Purchase and find a land route to the Pacific Ocean.

1808: Seligman Löb (Siegmund Leopold) Beyfus
married Babette Rothschild.

1811(13th of Adar, 5571): Shabbat
Zachor; Erev Purim observed on the same day it was reported that the House of
Representatives at the behest of President Madison voting against a bill for
incorporating a Baptist Society in the Mississippi Territory and granting it
five acres because it was seen as “erecting a religious establishment and
therefore unconstitutional.

1815: Friedrich von
Gentz, the Secretary of the Congress of Vienna “had a conference” today “with
Simon Elder von Lamel of Prague, the distinguished Jewish patriot and accepted
a commission from him to urge Jewish emancipation” when the Congress met.

1816: Birthdate of
Jane L. Theiss Sheftall, the wife of Emanuel Sheftall and the mother of Sarah,
Mary, James, Edward, Jane, Louisa, Caroline, Josephine, Hannah and William
Sheftall.

1820: The revolutionary military leader and de
facto Spanish leader, Riego of Spain issued a decree ending the Inquisition.
This decree was apparently not accepted by everybody since people continue to
suffer under the Inquisition until 1826. The Spanish Inquisition was actually
only brought to an end on July 15, 1834.

1821: In Philadelphia, Aaron Moses Dropsie and
Angenette Dropsie gave birth to Moses Aaron Dropsie, the Jewish attorney,
scholar and philanthropist best known for bequeathing the funds that created
Dropsie College.

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5331-dropsie-moses-aaron

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43059613?seq=1

1825: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Peixotto
officiated at the wedding of Noah J. Ellis and Esther Levin.

1827: In London, Rebecca Montefiore and Joesph
Solomon gave birth to Henrietta Rachel Solomon, the wife of Lionel Benjamin
Coheb and the mother of Florence Justina Cohen

1828: At Posen, Rabbi Levi Aron Pinner and
Wilhelmine Goldbarth Pinner gave birth to Moritz Pinner who moving to the
United States became active in the anti-Slavery movement and the creation of
the Republican Party.

1832: Today in Jamaica, Samuel Delisser has
been promoted to the rank of Ensign.

1836: Charles Millingen married Sarah Barnet at
the Hambro Synagogue.

1839: In Bingen, German, Louis Loeb and his
wife gave birth to Adolph Loeb and husband of Lucille Hart who lived in Memphis
before moving to Chicago in 1873 where he served as a director and/or agent for
several insurance companies while serving as a President of Sinai Congregation
and the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith.

1831: Frederick David Goldsmid, the fifth son
of Isaac Lyon Goldsmid and a member of parliament and his wife Caroline Samuel
gave birth to Albert Abraham Goldsmid who passed away in 1864.

1839: In Bingen, Germany, Louis Loeb and his wife
gave birth to Adolph Loeb the head of the Chicago insurance firm of Adolph Loeb
and Son and the wife of Lucille Hart who had lived in Memphis where he was an
official with the Congregation of Children of Israel before moving to Chicago
where he served as  president of the
Chicago Sinai Congregation

https://chicagotribune.newspapers.com/clip/65697865/adolph-loeb-obit/

 

1841: Frederick David Goldsmid and his wife the
former Caroline Samuel, the daughter of Philip Samuel gave birth to their son
Albert Abraham who passed away in 1864.

1841: In Nice, France, Rachel Goldsmid and
Salomon Henri d’Avigdor, the son of Count Isaac Samuel d’Avigdor and Gabrielle
Pauline Henriette Avigdor gave birth Elim Henry d’Avigdor

1843: Bavarian born Judah Abraham and Sara
Sussman whom he married en route to the United States in 1837, gave birth to
Brooklyn resident Abraham Abraham, the husband of Ruth Epstein and “the founder
of Brooklyn department store Abraham and Straus who was president of Temple
Israel and Vice President of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum

1846: Birthdate of Emil Gabriel Warbug a
leading German Jewish physicist was part of the famous Warbug Family

1849:
Birthdate of Vilna native and German trained Reform Rabbi Herman Eliassof who
led Congregation Beth-El in Chicago while editing The Occident and
several history books including The Jews of Chicago and The Jews of
Illinois
.

1849: “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” an opera
with a libretto by Hermann Salomon Mosenthal was performed for the first time
in Berlin

1849: Today, just “a few weeks before his
death” Hananeel de Castro “secured the repeal of the herem that had been
promulgated against the Reform synagogue in London in 1841.

1851(5th of Adar II, 5611): Eighty-one-year-old
Ruben Samuel Gumperz an advocate of Jewish emancipation passed away today in
Berlin.

1852: The New York Times reported that
“France has addressed three demands to the government of Switzerland” one of
which concerned the treatment of the Jews of Basle Champagne.

1853: Ellis Harfield married Catherine Marks
today at the Great Synagogue

1855: “Response to the Call for a Rabbinical
Conference” published today.

http://www.jewish-history.com/Illoway/letter01.html

1857(13th of Adar, 5617): Fast of
Esther observed for the first time during the Presidency of James Buchanan

1857: Birthdate of Russian native and future
St. Louis resident Abraham I. Gallant, the husband of Jennie Kaplan Gallant and
the father of Max, C.Lew, Fan, David and Edward J. Gallant.

1860(15th of Adar, 5620: Shushan
Purim

1860(15th of Adar, 5620): David
Romm, who became head of the family printing business in Wilna after the death
of his father Joseph Reuben Romm, passed away today “while on his way to St.
Petersburg.”

1861(27th of Adar, 5621): Parashat
Vayakhel-Pekudei; Shabbat HaChodesh

1861: As the Jews observed the Sabbath, the
Confederate Congress passed “the Coinage Bill” which authorized the printing of
fifty million dollars of Confederate currency.

1861: Today, the Burlington Weekly Hawk-eye
printed in full President Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address in which
the new president stressed the Union between the North and South and his
constitutional duty to maintain and defend it – a view which was supported by a
vast majority of the Jews in the United States.

1862: Birthdate of Algerian native and French
physician Fernand Georges Widal, best known for his work in the fields of
pathology and bacteriology. 

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fernand-Isidore-Widal

1862(7th
of Adar II, 5622): During the Civil War, William Durst, the
Austrian born “coal heaver” was serving aboard the U.S.S Monitor when it scored
a strategic victory over the C.S.S. Merrimack in one of the most important
naval engagements in the 19th century.  This was the first
clash between ironclads which meant that the days of “wooden sailing ships were
numbered.  It also meant that the Union blockade, which was a key to the
Union victory favored by most Jews, would succeed.   Durst was one of
the eight to ten thousand Jews who served in the Union army and navy. When he
passed away in 1916, he was reported to be the last surviving member of the
crew of the Monitor, and he was buried at the Mt. Carmel Jewish Cemetery in
Philadelphia.
  

1864: President Lincoln appointed General Grant
who would be the first U.S. President to attend services dedicating a synagogue
to command all of the armies of the United States while General William
Tecumseh Sherman succeeded Grant as commander of the Union forces in the west
which contained several Jewish officers and enlisted men.

1865(11th of Adar, 5625): Ta’anit
Eshter is observed for the last time during the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln.

1865: Three days after he had passed away,
Henry Jacobs, the son of Jane Jacobs, the husband of Kitty Moses and the father
of Elizabeth, Moses and Amelia Jacobs was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish
Cemetery.

1867(1st of Adar II, 5627): Rosh
Chodesh Adar

1868(15th of Adar, 5628): Shushan Purim.

1868: The annual Purim Ball was held tonight at
Pike’s Opera House in New York City. The ball marked the end of city’s “season
of Carnival.”

1869: Joseph Aron married Maria Samuel today in
Paris.

1870: In Pekin, Illinois, Garrison and Sarah
Bloom gave birth to Sol Bloom, the husband of Sarah Bloom who went from
“entertainment impresario and sheet music publisher in Chicago to a legislative
powerhouse while serving in the House of Representatives from two different New
York congressional districts for more than two decades.

1870: Three days after he had passed away, David
Quixano Henriques one of the original founders of the West London Synagogue of
British Jews, the son of Abraham Quixano Henriques and Leah Rachel De Leon, the
husband of Rebecca Micholls and the father of Arthur and Edward Henriques was
buried at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

 1870:
Birthdate of Kovno native Samuel Osgood who in 1883 came to the United States
where he settled in Pittsburgh where he was a wholesale dry goods merchant and
active member of the Jewish community.

1872: A reporter for The New York Times visited
Temple Emanu El in this morning where he “at once noticed the extraordinary
resemblance” that this Jewish house of worship had “to the Christian cathedral
form.”

1875: In the UK, George Joseph Emanuel, “the
son of Joseph and Jane Emanuel” and his wife Elizabeth Emanuel gave birth to
Harry Emanuel today.

1876(13th of Adar, 5636): Fast of
Esther.

1877: In Chyenne, WY, after an argument over a
card game Jim Levy, an Irishman of Jewish decent mortally wounded Charlie
Harrison in what became known as the “Harrison-Levy Shootout.”

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/harrison-levy-shoot-out/

1877: Birthdate of Russian born American
businessman and musical impresario Max Rabinoff who also attended the
Versailles Peace Conference.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/archives/rbml/Rabinoff/

http://archives.nypl.org/mus/20361

1879(14th of Adar, 5639): Purim

1879(14th of Adar, 5639):
Fifty-nine-year-old London born Dutch writer and translator Mark Prager Lindo
who “went to Holland in 1838 as teacher of English, first at Arnhem, and then
at the Military Academy at Breda” after which “he studied Dutch literature at
Utrecht University” where he earned a doctorate in 1854 and began English by
Dickens and Thackery into Dutch while writing a two volume “history of England I
Dutch.”

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9997-lindo-mark-prager

1879: It was reported today that there of the
849,870 people living in Australia’s Victoria Colony, 4,237 are Jews.

1879: Thomas Grady is scheduled to speak at meeting
of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association tonight where he will defend his proposal
to abolish the Free College.

1880: Birthdate of Bernard “Barney” Samuel a
leader of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania who served as May of
Philadelphia from 1941 to 1952.  He
passed away two years later.

1881: Birthdate of English labor leader
and politician Ernest Bevin. Bevin was Foreign Minister in the Labor Government
after World War II. He helped to enforce the White Paper and hewed to a
pro-Arab line.  In responding to request for consideration for Jews after
the Holocaust, Bevin
commented that Jews were always trying to push to the head of the line. Bevin
died in 1951 at the age of 70.

1883: Thirty-year-old historian Arnold Toynbee,
the uncle of historian Arnold J. Toynbee who despairingly referred to “the
Jewish people as a “fossil of Syriac civilization” passed away today.

1884(12th of Adar, 5644): Moses Wilhelm Shapira
“shot himself in the Hotel Bloemendaal in Rotterdam. Born in the Russian Empire
in 1830 he followed his father to Palestine in 1856. He converted to
Christianity and began a career selling artifacts.  Unfortunately, many of these were reported to
be fakes. According to some reports he took his own life as the result of his
involvement in the forging of supposedly biblical texts.

http://www.johnallegro.org/books/the-shapira-affair-1965/

http://www.bl.uk/eblj/1995articles/pdf/article8.pdf

1885(22nd of Adar, 5645): Seventy-one-year-old
Breslau born merchant Simon Baruch Schefftel who after his retirement “prepared
a large Hebrew commentary on the Targum Onḳelos, which was published
posthumously by his son-in-law Joseph Perles” passed away today.

1887(13th of Adar, 5647): Ta’anit
Esther; erev Purim

1887: Birthdate of San Francisco native and
Stanford graduate Morgan A. Gunst, the husband of Aline Dreyfus Gunst, with
whom had two children, Mrs. Carl Stern and Morgan Gunst Jr. who became
vice-president of the Bank of Italy (Bank of America) and the Pacific Coast
manager of the General Cigar Company.

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=JW19580808.2.60&e=——-en–20–1–txt-txIN——–

1889: In Kovno, Fruma Bimstein and Joseph Silverman
gave birth to Syracuse University trained pediatrician A. Clement Silverman, the
specialist in children’s diseases and first lieutenant in the U.S. Army serving
at “base hospitals in France” during WW I who was “appointed assistant in
pediatrics at University Hospital” in Syracuse and who was a “member of the
board of trustees of the Jewish Fresh Air Campaign” while authoring “various
articles on physiology and pediatrics” and serving as the medical director at
City Hospital from 1928 to 1965 which to its name being changed to “the Dr.
Clement Silverman Public Health Hospital.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/10/27/archives/dr-ac-silverman.html

1889(6th of Adar II, 5649): Fifty-six-year-old
Giacomo Alatri, the Italian banker whose warnings about the impending
bankruptcy of Banca Romana and helped raise funds to support kindergartens for
poor Jewish children passed away today, two months before his father Samuel
Altari passed away.

1890: Several “Sabbath Schools of Jewish
congregations” in New York City hosted special Purim celebrations. One
congregation hosted a Purim Operetta performed by the female faculty for the
benefit of the young children.

1890: In Paramaribo, Suriname, Salomon David
Levy Hartogh and Rachel Fernandes gave birth to Daniel Joseph Hartogh the
husband of Estelle Celine Abrahams.

1890: Almost 2,000 people attended the Purim
celebration hosted by the Temple Beth El Sabbath School which was held at the
Lexington Avenue Opera House.

1890: It was reported today that the money
raised by the Hebrew Benevolent Society’s charity ball at Long Island City will
go “to the erection of a house of worship, a school for children, the purchase
of a burial plot” and for a fund to provide relief for widows and orphans.

1890: Rabbi Kohut recounted the Purim story to
350 children, their parents and friends at Temple Ahawath Chesed at 55th
and Lexington Avenue.

1890: It was announced today that Dr. Charles
Elliot who has been teaching Hebrew at Lafayette College for the past four
years will not be teaching after this year.

1891: Today during the strike by Polish
cloakmakers “a group of Polish Jews” broke into the tenement occupied by two
cloak contractors – Hermann Greenbaum and Sam Billet – where they were
reportedly having non-union workers make cloaks and broke up the work stations.

1891: Benjamin Fernstein, a seventy-year-old
clothing cutter who died yesterday while riding the Second Avenue El was the
victim of a heart attack according to his family.

1891: Birthdate of Georg “George”
Froeschel,  “the son of banker in Vienna”
and lawyer turned author who came to the United States where he wrote several
successful screenplays the most famous of which was the all-time classic “Mrs.
Miniver.”

http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/george_froeschel

1892: Today, Naphtali Taylor, a member of the
Sons of the American Revolution, married Rosalie Solomons, who “was active in
Jewish affairs as well as in politics” serving as Tammany co-leader of the
Seventh Assembly District, from 1918-1939 and the daughter of Adolphus S.
Solomons and Rachel Mendez Seixas Phillips Solomons.

1892: Following the death of two more Jewish
immigrants and two more Irish immigrants, it was reported that there have been
14 deaths since the outbreak of typhus with 70 known or suspected cases
quarantined on North Brother Island.

 

1892: Mason Hirsh, a senior member of the
umbrella manufacturing firm of Hirsh Brothers located in Philadelphia was
knocked down by a car in front of 435 Broadway in New York City today.

1892(10th of Adar, 5652): The four-year-old
“minor son” of Isaac and Esther Jacob passed away today after which he was
interred in the Jewish Cemetery at Natchitoches, LA.

1892: A. J. Rosenthal, a Jewish banker from
Fayette County served as Chairman of the Credentials Committee when the
Republican State Convention opened today in Austin, Texas.

1892: The New York State Senate passed the
“so-called Freedom of Worship bill” this afternoon

1892: Birthdate of Mátyás Rosenfeld, the
Hungarian communist leader who repudiated Judaism and changed his name to Mátyás
Rákosi as he climbed the ladder of “party success.”

1893: A charity ball sponsored by the Purim
Association will take place tonight at Madison Square Garden with the United
Hebrew Charities serving as the beneficiaries of the event where the admission
ticket costs $10 per attendee regardless of their sex.

1893: “Gift to the Aguilar Library published
today described an anonymous gift given to this non-sectarian institution
founded by several prominent Jews that is “open to any resident of New York
over twelve years of age.  (In a day of
“tablets” and “i-pads” it is hard to envision what the availability of this
trove of free books meant to generations of immigrants and their families)

1893: Today, Lord Lyon Playfair explained to
the House of Lords that “Messrs. Burnett and Schloss” had been sent to the
United States “as part of a general inquiry in the subject of pauper alients to
the United Kingdom” especially as it pertained to Russian and Polish Jews.

1895: On New York’s City Lower East Side, “Hannah
Pepper, an Austrian native who had emigrated to the United States via Russia”
and her husband gave birth to Bertha “Beatrice” Alexander Behrman who
gained fame as dollmaker “Madame Alexander.”

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/Alexander-Beatrice

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/05/obituaries/beatrice-behrman-95-doll-maker-known-as-madame-alexander.html

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/beatrice-alexander

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/131508/the-woman-behind-the-dolls?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=1e5aa771e2-5_7_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-1e5aa771e2-206644398

1895: Fifty-nine-year-old Austrian author Leopold
von Sacher-Masoch “who faithfully described the manners of Polish Jews but
feared that his affection for them might give the impression that he was”
Jewish passed away today. He was the author Jews and Russians and the editor of
At the Pinnacle, “a progressive magazine” that championed “tolerance and
integration for the Jews of Saxony.”

1895: Birthdate of Suffolk, VA, native Linwood
Lehman, the holder of a BA, MA and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia where
he was a Professor of Latin and translator of the first English edition of “Un
Jeune Homee Presse by Eugen Labiche.

https://virginiagleeclub.fandom.com/wiki/Linwood_Lehman

1895: Birthdate of Albert Günther Göring, the
older brother of Hermann Göring, who worked to save Jews while his brothers was
killing them.

http://www.auschwitz.dk/albert.htm

http://www.timesofisrael.com/yad-vashem-prize-for-top-nazis-brother/

1895: Purim will be celebrated this evening
with an invitation only fancy-dress reception at Delmonico’ sponsored by the
Purim Association.

1896: Today Baltimore native Sydney S. Weil
enlisted as a machinist in the United States Navy after which he “served on the
USS New York and USS Indiana and during the Spanish American War on the
“Castine.”

1896: Judge Julian Mack
married Jessie Fox.

1897: Maurico Jacobs
and his family are scheduled to set sail from New York to Panama today aboard
the SS Allianca thanks to funds provided by the United Hebrew Charities.  Jacobs is a native of Peru who owned a sugar
plantation in Cuba with his brother.  He
claims that they were forced to leave the island after his brother was killed
and the plantation was seized.

1898(15th of
Adar, 5658): Shushan Purim

1898(15th of
Adar, 5658): Seventy-seven-year-old “a Warsaw-born Polish composer and pianist,
promoter of Chopin, son of Gabriel Bereksohn, grandson of Berek and Temerl Bergson,
great-grandson of Samuel Zbytkower,” husband of Katherine Levison and father of
“influential French philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson and Moina Mathers, wife of
Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers” passed away today in London.

 

1898: Mrs. Oscar Hammerstein has obtained a
lease Olympia which was arranged by Andrew Freeman.

1898: It was reported today that the name of
Esterhazy, one of the French officers responsible for the false imprisonment of
Captain Dreyfus, was added to the name of villains who were booed during the
reading of the Megillah during Purim Services.

1899: “Peters Praises The Jews” published today
provides a summary of Reverend Madison C. Peters lecture on “Justice to the
Jew” – a unique highly positive view of the Jewish people.

1899: Attorney Benjamin
Charles Bachrach, the Elgin, Illinois born son of Leonora and Charles Kalman
Bachrach and his wife Martha Blanche Bachrach gave birth to Leona Celeste
Graham.

1900: Herzl had another meeting with Austrian
Prime Minister Ernest von Koerber. The subscribers the Colonial Bank were
permitted to complete their payments and receive their shares.

1900: In Buffalo, NY, Samuel and Rivka Halpern
gave birth to Julius Halpern “the husband of Mary Claire Halpern.”1900(8th of
Adar II): Sixty-three-year-old Hebrew poet and Yiddish author Isaac Rabinowitz
(Ish Kovno) who lived in Telshi where he met his wife
for 22 years before eventually settling in New York where he tried to continue
he vocation of writing songs and translating novels into Yiddish
passed
away today.

1901: Prinzessin Victoria Luise “the first
purposed built cruise ship” which part of the fleet of Albert Ballin’s Hamburg-American
Line” began her second cruise sailing today from New York to the Mediterranean
and Black seas.

1902: Birthdate of Paterson, NJ, native Judah
Harry Barth, the Hackensack lawyer and leader of the YMHA.
1902: Composer Gustav Mahler married Alma Schindler in Vienna.

1902: Louis and Clara Asia Parnes gave birth to
Rose Parnes who became Rose Parnes Petchesky when she married Joseph Petchesky
in 1932

1902: Birthdate of Elisabeth Pelletier de
Chambure, the member of a wealthy Catholic aristocratic family who became Élisabeth
de Rothschild when she married famed vintner Baron Philippe de Rothschild.

1902: Rabbi Isaac Jacob Reines founded the
Mizrachi Movement.

1903: “Duty of Jews in Politics” published
today described a speech given by New York rabbi Dr. Adolf Guttmacher in
Baltimore in which he called on Jews to exercise their franchise but denied
that there was a “Jewish Vote” saying that “the Jew is found in all political
camps” and the Jew “goes to the polls to perform the sacred duty of the citizen
not as Jews but as a citizen of this great Republic.”

1904: Birthdate of Gerald Ernest Heal Abraham,
the native of the Isle of Wright who forsook a career in the Royal Navy to
become one of Britain’s leading musicologists.

1905: It was reported today that Commissioner
Abraham Stern had attacked the City of Superintendent of Schools at a meeting
“called to consider” the State Commissioner’s “order to show cause why his
approval of the Normal College course of study should not be revoked.

1906: The Wadsworth District Sunday bill (H.R
16483) which would make it effectively to operate a grocery store on Sunday in
the District of Columbia – a bill that be at odds with the needs of Jewish
businessman – was introduced in the House of Representatives.

1906: In Russia, “founding of the Jewish
Socialist Workers Party” an offshoot of the Paole Zion that followed the
teachings of Chaim Zhitlowsky. 

1906: In Skokie, Illinois, Hyman and Rebecca
Bertha Goldstein gave birth to Bertha Rebecca Goldstein who became Bertha
Rebecca Brownstein when she married Henry J. Brownstein.

1907(23rd of Adar, 5667): Parashat
Vayakhel-Pekudi; Shabbat Parah

1907: Pavel Krushevan, “an anti-Semitic member
of the Duma from Kishinev” threatened those who had disqualified him from the
Russian Parliament would “be followed by more anti-Jewish attacks in Southern
Russia.”

1907: Birthdate of Moyshe Lenski.

http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2017/06/moyshe-lenski.html

1908: It was reported today that in Camden, NJ,
“because of the excellent work she has done in behalf of the Jewish Ladies’ Aid
Society, Mrs. Jacob Silver has been presented with a gold medal.”

1908: In Camden, NJ, “tonight Jacob Wietzman”
is scheduled to “give a reception and dinner to his fellow members of the
Seventh Ward Republican Club.

1909: As a result of meeting held yesterday at
the home Mrs. I.M. Appel, Jews can now make plans for electing officers for the
newly organized auxiliary for the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives at
Denver.

1909: It was reported today that incoming Taft
administration has offered former Secretary of Commerce and Labor Oscar S.
Straus, the position of Ambassador to Japan.

1910: The Mayor of New York appointed Moses J.
Harris, a Brooklyn lawyer to serve as Police Magistrate today.

1910: “Lee Shubert of Shubert Brothers
admitted” today “that negotiations were pend for the leas of six old private
dwellings…at 113 to 123 West Forty-third Street” which may become the site of a
new Shubert theatre.

1911: After having been baptized as Roman
Catholic in 1905 and having “taken” his doctorate in laws in 1906, Hans Kelsen
took “his habilitation today.”

1911: Today, composer and pianist Leo Ornstein,
the Russian born son of Clara and Abram Ornstein who had come to the United
States in 1907 gave his “public concert at the New Amsterdam Theatre” in NYC.

1911: In Detroit, Dr. Emil Amberg, the Santa
Fe, NM born son of Minna and Jakab Amberg, and his wife Cecile Amberg gave
birth to Robert Siegal Amberg.

1911: “Mr. Boris Hambourg, the excellent
violoncellist, who appeared here earlier in the season, gave a second recital this
afternoon in Mendelssohn Hall.”

1912(20th of Adar, 5672): Shabbat
Parah

1912(20th of Adar, 5672):
Fifty-seven-year-old Hiram Ullman, the Pennsylvania businessman who served on
the Williamsport Common Council passed away today.

1913: The Independent Anshe Bessarabia Talmud
Torah was founded in Philadelphia, Pa.

1913: The funeral for Pauline Phillips, wife of
Herman Phillips and the mother of Arthur Phillips is scheduled to take place
today followed by interment in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

1913: In Bangor, Maine, Beth Israel whose
synagogue had been destroyed in the Great Fire of 1911, dedicated its new
building today.

1914(11th of
Adar, 5674):  Seventy-six-year-old
Nuremberg born Henry Pretzfelder, the “senior member of the wholesale shoe firm
of Pretzfelder and Company, the husband of Hanna Ellel Prtzfelder and the
father of Gertrude Pretzfelder Schental passed away today in Baltimore after
which he was buried at the Oheb Shalom Cemetery.

1914: In Cambridge, MA, Herman Bernstein, the
Secretary of the American Jewish Committee told a meeting of the Menorah
Society at Harvard said that since public opinion has forced the Russian
government to abandon its policy of massacring Jews the Czar’s government was
not seeking to consign the Jews to permanent illiteracy by “closing the
schoolhouses” to Jewish students.

1915: “Bernstroff Defends Turks” published
today contains the assertion by the German Ambassador, who is trying to keep
the United States from joining the Allies, that his Turkish allies are tolerant
of all religions and that the suffering of Jews of Palestine is the product of
local zealots in the government in Jerusalem.

1916: Birthdate of Hyman H. “Bookie” Bookbinder
a Washington lobbyist for Jewish causes who spent many years working for a
variety of liberal causes including civil rights and the rights of labor.

https://forward.com/news/140356/hyman-bookbinder-passionate-moderate-dies-at-95/

https://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/speakers-and-events/biography/hyman-bookbinder

1916: Kitty Kelly of the Chicago Tribune staff is among those scheduled to address the
meeting this afternoon of The Deborah and Deborah at their meeting in the Sinai
Social Center on Chicago’s south side.

1917(15th of Adar, 5677): Shushan
Purim

1917: The Jewish Publication Society announced
“that it has published the first edition of the news translation of the Bible,
the first volume of The History of the Jews in Russia and Poland by
Simon Dubnow and that it will be holding its annual meeting later this month at
Dropsie College in Philadelphia, PA.

1917: Dr. M.H. Harris is scheduled to lead
services today, Shabbat, at Temple Israel of Harlem.

1917: Dr. Enlow is scheduled to deliver a
sermon on Apostasy and Judaism” this morning at Temple Emanu-El.

1917: Dr. Samuel Schulman is scheduled to
deliver the Sabbath morning sermon at Temple Beth-El.

1918: Ukrainian mobs massacre
Jews of Seredino Buda

1918: The Provisional Executive Committee for
General Zionist Affairs made public the suggestions by the British Palestine
Committee, “a non-Jewish organization” which spoke approvingly of the creation
of a Hebrew university in Jerusalem which was being built “while military
operations were still in progress.”

1918: In Bloomington, Illinois, vaudevillians
Claire and George Rockwell gave birth to George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder
of the American Nazi Party.

1919: In Manhattan, “Israel Edwin Goldwasser
and the former Edith Goldstein,” gave birth to physicist Edwin Leo “Ned”
Goldwassser

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/science/edwin-goldwasser-died-fermi-national-accelerator-laboratory.html?_r=0

1919: Jacob H. Schiff told 3,500 members of the
Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of America meeting in Carnegie Hall
tonight he hoped “that the portals of America would never be entirely closed to
the Jews” but he also “declared that the one aim of all Jews at the present
time should be the restoration of Palestine.

1919: The 30th annual convention of
the Federation of Roumanian Jews of America whose 20,000 members among other
things “maintain the Jewish Home for Convalescents at Grand View on the Hudson,
NY under the leadership of Samuel Goldstein, Rose Markowitz, Mrs. Clara Bereano
and Michael Baumann took placed today at New York City.

1919(7th of Adar II, 5679):
Forty-one-year-old Rangoon born barrister, Elisha Arkie Cohen, the first
husband of the former Ruth Jacobs the author and poet whose works include the
“Poem A Day Lady” passed away today in Manitoba, Canada.

1920: The tombstone for Emanuel Jacobs of
Covent Garden is scheduled to be consecrated at Jersey today.

1921: Winston and Clementine Churchill arrive
in Cairo in preparation for a conference to examine the workings of the
mandates for Palestine and Iraq.

1922: Birthdate of Camden, NJ native Harvey
Pollack, the “grandfather” of the NBA statistical records.  (As reported by Richard by Goldstein)

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/sports/basketball/harvey-pollack-a-statistician-in-nba-from-day-1-dies-at-93.html

https://www.nba.com/2015/news/06/23/sixers-harvey-pollack-obit/

1922: Twenty-two-year-old Alexander Neufeld,
the native of Budapest who in 1918 played his first game as a member of the
Hungarian national team which defeated Switzerland today led his team Hakoah
Vienna’s soccer team to victory. (As reported by Bob Wechsler)

1922: Winston Churchill delivered a speech in
Parliament in support the Balfour Declaration against its opponents.  He reiterated support for the establishment
of the Jewish Homeland in Palestine while cautioning against letting Jews who
were Bolsheviks settle in Palestine.

1922: The Shearith Israel League of the Spanish
and Portuguese Synagogue in New York City is scheduled to present a performance
of “The Mikado” today in the grand ballroom of the Hotel Plaza.

1923(21st of Adar, 5683): Charles
Eisenman, the New York City born son of Isadore and Caroline (Rosenblatt)
Eisenman, the cofounder in Cleveland of K and E Company, a manufacturer of
shirts and blouses and president of the Federation of Jewish Charities who had
married Bertha Hays in 1891 passed away today.

https://case.edu/ech/articles/e/eisenman-charles

1923: In Vienna, “Salomon Kohn, who ran a
business selling artistic postcards, and the former Gittel Rappaport, whom her
son described in an autobiographical sketch for the Nobel committee as “a
highly educated woman with a good knowledge of German, Latin, Polish and French
and some acquaintance with Greek, Hebrew and English” gave birth to Walter Kohn
winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1998.

http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~kohn/

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/science/walter-kohn-nobel-winning-scientist-dies-at-93.html

1924(2nd of Adar II, 5684): Abraham
Caraco, who was named rabbi of the Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel after 39
Turkish elders of the Sephardi community formed the Sephardic Community of Los
Angeles (“La Communidad”) in 1920 passed away today.

1924: The deeply anti-Semitic Theodore Duesterberg
who in 1932 would learn for the first time that his grandfather was a Prussian
Jewish doctor who converted to Lutheranism in 1818, began serving as the Deputy
Federal Leader of Der Stahlheim.

1925: In Lower Saxony, Jakob and Hanna Hanne
Cohen gave birth to David Jacob Cohen, the husband of Dian Berger.

1926: William Fox, the Chairman of the
$6,000,000 United Jewish Campaign of New York announced the appointment
“”Albert Goldman , Commissioner of Plant and Structures of New York City, as
Chairman of the Bronx Division of the drive, which is part of the $15,000,000
‘Overseas Chest of the United Jewish Campaign.”

1927: In London, Dr. Alex Tudor Hart and Dr.
Alison Macbeth gave birth to Dr. Julian Tudor Hart the husband of British
photographer and Soviet sympathizer Edith Suschitzky the daughter of Viennese
Jewish social democrat Wilhelm Shuschitzky.

1927: Birthdate of Erfut, Germany native Leo
Alexander Inselsbacher who gained famed as Hebrew musician Aryeh “Arik” Lavie,

http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2004/07/01/arik_lavie_at_77_israeli_singer_actor/

1928: In Vienna, Franzi Grossman and her
husband, a chief bank accountant gave birth to Lore Groszmann, who gained fame
as Lore Segal, the author of Shakespeare’s Kitchen, one of the finalists for
the Pulitzer Prize in 2008.

1928(17th of Ada, 5688): Birthdate
of Kassel, Germany native and “professor of Assyriology and Babylonian
Literature and curator of the Babylonian collection at Yale University” Dr.
William W. Hallo, a refugee from Nazi Germany whose family fled to England in
1939 before settling in the United States in 1941.

https://news.yale.edu/2015/03/30/memoriam-william-w-hallo-expert-ancient-near-east

1928: New York State Supreme Court Justice
Alfred Frankenthal was injured this morning when the taxicab in which he was
riding skidded out of control and hit an elevated pillar. Israel Mora was the
cab driver.

1928: In Manhattan, Maxwell Walzer, a furrier
and the former Ruth Rosenthal, gave birth to Peggy Sandelle Walzer gave birth
to Peggy Charren who gained fame as an advocate for improved children
television programming. (As reported by Bruce Weber)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/23/arts/peggy-charren-childrens-tv-crusader-is-dead-at-86.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1929(27th of Adar I, 5689): Shabbat
Shekalim

1929(27th of Adar I, 5689):
Thirty-four “English composer, arranger, music teach and pupil of Gustav Holst
passed Jane Joseph away today.

http://landofllostcontent.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/jane-joseph-brief-discussion-of-her.html

1929: The Zionist Organization of America
announced plans for the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the
founding of Tel Aviv.  The planned
activities include a Jewish ‘world Congress for Propagation of Interest in
Palestine Products and a Palestine and Newar East Exhibition and Fair.

1930: The two day “Washington Conference for
the Allied Jewish Campaign” which was “hailed as the beginning of a new
intensified activity by American Jews on behalf of their harassed brethren in
Eastern Europe and Palestine” came to an end today. (JTA)

1930: Funeral services were held this afternoon
at Temple Emanu-El for theatrical stage impresario Abraham L. Erlanger.

https://www.jta.org/1930/03/10/archive/funeral-services-for-a-l-erlanger-theatrical-magnate

1930: Twenty-nine-year-old Bucharest native
Leon Feldestein, the owner of Feldstein Furniture Company in Portland, OR
married Esther Gumbert today.

1930: “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
(German: Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny)  a political-satirical opera composed by Kurt
Weill” which was later banned by the Nazis, premiered today in Leipzig

1931: A “plenary meeting of Arab executives” is
scheduled to be held today which attendees will discuss “the Arab attitude toward
the Palestine Government and the summoning of the eighth Palestine Arab Congress”
and make a decision regarding the proposed economic boycott of Jewish
enterprises.

1931: Dr. Victor Rosewater, the former editor
and publisher of The Omaha Bee and a
leader of the Jewish community and Republican Party in Nebraska spoke at the
school of politics of the Women’s National Republican Club.  He told the gathering that “the influence of
the press in forming political opinion is no longer as directed as it once
was…”

1932: In Rochester, NY, Hebrew teacher Eva
Muchnick and attorney Arnold Heicklin gave birth Cornell and University of
Rochester educated chemist Dr. Julian Phillip Heicklen, the husband of Susan
(Hook) Heicklen and father of Alice Heicklen and Deborah Heicklen who gained
famed as “a charismatic, cantankerous chemistry professor who dedicated his
retirement years to a series of public protests in defense of civil liberties…”
(As reported by Clay Risen)

https://courtroomlogic.com/tag/julian-heicklen/

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/20/obituaries/julian-heicklen-dead.html?searchResultPosition=4

1932: The new turbines at the hydroelectric
project created by Pinhas Rutenberg began to turn today.

1932: “Night Over Taos” a three-act play
“staged by Lee Strasberg with a cast that included Luther Adler, Stella Adler,
J. Edward Bromberg, Morris Carnovsky, Sanford Meisner and Clifford Odets opened
at the 48th Street Theatre today.

1933: It was reported today “at an emergency
executive meeting of the Greater New York American Palestine Campaign Committee
it was voted unanimously…to continue the American Palestine Campaign to raise
money” for the Jewish Agency for Palestine.

1933: The first of thousands of “critics” of
The Third Reich were sent to Dachau.

1933: Henry Thomas Rainey who in 1906 attended
a mass meeting held to protest the “atrocities in Russia” and told the audience
that the Romanoffs “are inflaming the populace against the helpless Jews – and
already the blood of 100,000 Jews cries out for vengeance” began servings today
as 40th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

1934: “Coming Out Party” a comedy produced by
Jesse L. Lasky and with a script co-authored by Jesse L. Lasky, Jr. was
released in the United States today.

1934: The Pesach Cruise, managed by Rosen
Palestine Oriental Tours is scheduled to begin today aboard the SS Vulcania.

1935: “New German Plea” published today
described Dr. Julius Lippert’s call for American businessman to put an end to
the Jewish Boycott of German goods.

http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/American_Jewish_boycott_of_German_products

1936: The cover of Time magazine features the beaten, bandaged visage of Leon Blum who
had been beaten Royalist (right wing) youths.

http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19360309,00.html

1936: “Abominable Triumph” published today as
the cover story for Time described the causes of the life-threatening beating
given to Leon Blum by those who oppose him because he is a socialist,
anti-fascist and Jewish. (The road from Drancy to Auschwitz began on the
streets and chambers of Paris in the 1930’s)

http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,770084,00.html

 1936 🙁
15th of Adar, 5696): Shushan Purim

1936 Birthdate of Martin Ingerman who gained
fame as comic actor Marty Ingles. (A comedian born on Purim – talk about
bashert)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/23/arts/television/marty-ingels-actor-and-comedian-is-dead-at-79.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1936(15th of Adar, 5696): “Two Jews
were killed and four seriously injured today in rioting in the town of
Prystytyk in the District of Radom, Poland while “scores” more “were beaten or
wounded  and 700 Jewish families were thrown
into panic.”

1936: “A government statement issued by the
official news service” at Berlin which says “Jews do not enjoy the privilege of
voting – that is to say, such persons as are descendants of at least three
fully Jewish grandparents. Furthermore, persons are not privileged to vote who
are descendants of two fully Jewish grandparents and who were members of Jewish
religious bodies… or who joined a Jewish religious body after September 30,
1935 or who married a Jew after that date.”

1936: Birthdate of Juda Bar-Norwegian, Dutch
born Israeli actor.

1936: The Przytyk, Pogrom, the worst of a series of
pogroms that took place in Poland during the interwar decades, claimed the
lives of three people.

1937: “The anti-Semitic ‘Prophecy’ attributed to Benjamin
Franklin and distributed in Germany within the last few days by the government
news service was identified on publication” in the United States today “as a
document that made its appearance in 1934 and was investigated for several
months by Professor Charles A. Beard” one of the leading historians in the
United States who “pronounced it ‘a barefaced forgery’.”

1937: The American Labor Delegation to
Palestine, whose members include Max Zaristk, Josephy Schossberg, Isidore
Nagel, Samuel Perlmutter, Reuben Guskin, Jacob Breslaw and Jacob Blum is
scheduled to deliver their report at the Hippodrome today.

1938: The Chancellor of Austria, Schuschnigg,
announces a plebiscite on the question of Austrian independence. His policy was
to try and keep Austria semi-independent and to limit the more overt
anti-Semitic activities. Hitler furiously demanded his resignation, which
arrived two days later. His resignation opened the way to the Anschluss
(annexation) of Austria by Germany on March 13

1938: The Palestine Post reported that Arab terrorists sniped at
various quarters of Jewish Jerusalem. The Sanhedria Quarter came under a direct
Arab fire from Lifta.

1939: In what might be seen as double-header
for the Jews, today President Roosevelt “discussed tax legislation with
Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau” and received “a report on the progress
made in arranging for emigration of Jews from Germany” presented by George
Rublee, the director of the Intergovernmental Committee on Political
Refugees. 

1940(29th of Adar I, 5700): Parashat
Pekudi; Shabbat Shekalim

1940: Rabbi David de Sola Pool told congregants
at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue that “the postulate of democracy that
all men are created equal is based on the recognitions of the worth of the
individual” and that “religion and democracy are at one in holding that there
is qual worth to the soul of every human being whatever be his race and creed.”

1941: “An appeal to Protestants, Catholics and
Jews to unite in the relief of war sufferers and reufees and to reintegrate the
shatter spiritual life of the world was made” tonight “by four speakers”
included Rabbi Jonah B. Wise “in a nation-wide broadcast opening campaigns in
various communities of the United Jewish Appeal for Refugees and Overseas
Needs.”

1941: Esther “Etty” Hillesum began
writing in her diary which would provide a description of life Amsterdam under
the Nazis.

1941: After 8 months in office Petain and his
Vichy Government adopted an ordinance requiring Jews to get “authorization to
sell or rent property.”

1942: The Jews of the small Polish community of
Mielec were driven out of their homes and rounded up in the marketplace; the
old and feeble were shot on the equivalent of a death march. The survivors
waited in a hangar in the aircraft factory without food or water and were
herded into cattle cars a few days later.

1943: U.S. Army Colonel F.B. Yancy, Chief of
the Special Services spoke at the opening club designed for the use of U.S.
military personnel. The club is housed in the former Tel Aviv luxury hotel.

1943: Today Rokhl Auerbakh, one of the few
surviving members of Emanuel Ringelblum’s “Oyneg Shabes group” “escaped from
the Warsaw Ghetto and began working as Polish secretary which enabled her to
continue her work of recording the fate of the Jews of Warsaw.

1943: The Nazis continued the transport of
Greek Jews from Salonika to Auschwitz. Salonika was an ancient Jewish
community.  It became a haven for Sephardic Jews when they fled Spain at
the end of the fifteenth century.  It was renowned center for kabalistic
studies.  In 1943, Elie Veissi, a journalist, formed an all Jewish
resistance group at Salonika.  Veissi supplied valuable information to the
British about Nazi activities in Greece.  But he and his group failed in
their main mission – saving the Jews of Salonika.  A few thousand escaped
to Athens, but most of the rest perished in the camps. Some of you know about
the Jews of Salonika because of their unique music. Some of it was captured in
a recording called Kol Salonika.  You may have heard their haunting melody
for verses five and six of the 118th Psalm – Min hameitzar karati Ya, anani
vemerchav, Out of my distress I called upon the Lord and He set me free. 
.  The other famous song is entitled Kol Ha-Olam Kulo – “The
entire world is a narrow bridge; the main thing is not to fear.” (I
realize this has been a little lengthy, but one of the lessons of Jewish
History is that Holocaust Memorial Day should be plural, not singular, event.)

1943: In a rare case of open police resistance
to the arrest and murder of Jews of Europe during WWII, 12 Dutch military
policemen including 23-year-old Henk Drogt refused orders to round up the
remaining local Jews in Grootegast, Holland. The policemen were pressured and
threatened by their commanders with incarceration at a concentration camp
themselves, but steadfastly refused to carry out the orders. The group was
subsequently arrested and taken to the Vught concentration camp in the Southern
Netherlands.  Drogt would evade capture
until his arrest in August of 1943.  He
was executed in April of 1944.  In 2010,
he received the State of Israel’s highest honor for non-Jews on Monday at
Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.

1943:
An audience of 40,000 gathered in New York’s Madison Square Garden to watch “We
Will Never Die”  “a dramatic pageant”
designed “to raise public awareness of the ongoing mass murder of Europe’s
Jews. It was organized and written by screenwriter and author Ben Hecht and
produced by Billy Rose and Ernst Lubitsch. The musical score was composed by
Kurt Weill and staged by Moss Hart. The pageant starred Edward G. Robinson and
Paul Muni and subsequently traveled to other cities nationwide.”

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007047

 

1944(14th
of Adar, 5704): Purim

1944:
Today marked the second and final day of the “Liquidation of the Theresienstadt
concentration camp to which “approximately 144,000 Jews, most of whom were
Czech citizens” had been sent approximately 33,000 of whom had died” and whose
remaining inmates were on their way to Auschwitz.

1944:
The American Palestine Committee is scheduled to sponsor a national conference”
in Washington today “to promote “American Christian” support for the
opening of Jewish immigration into Palestine…”

1945:
“Seeks Voice at Parley” published today described demands by the American
Zionist Emergency Council to have Jewish representation “at the San Francisco
conference” when “all matter affecting Palestine and the future of the Jewish
people” are discussed.

1946(6th
of Adar II, 5706): Parashat Pekudi

1946:
“Establishment of a two million college in Brooklyn to train students for
teaching Hebrew and promote the study of Hebrew Ideals and culture is proposed
in a bill offered in the state legislature by Assemblyman Bernard Austin.”

1947:
In Tunis, Hnuna and Shimon gave birth to Yedhuda Galili who made Aliyah in 1956
and died aboard the Dakar, a submarine lost with all hands on board in 1968.

1947: The first unauthorized immigrant ship
known to have been sent to Palestine by the Hebrew Committee of National
Liberation was taken into government custody today. The ship which was known
variously as the SS Ben Hecht and/or the SS Abril was filled with 599 Jewish
refugees including 385 men, 194 women and 20 children.  All of the refugees were placed on two
ferries by the British and sent immediately to displaced persons camps in
Cyprus. 

1947: According to Jack Bernstein, who served
as a Seaman aboard the SS Abril (Ben Hecht) “at 05:33 A.M. the HMS Octavia came
along side, secured a line and towed the Ben Hecht to Haifa” where “the British
took the American crew members to Akko Prison” and shipped the “passengers  to Detention Camp Number 66.”

1947: “Troops fired over the heads of a number
of Jews in the marital-law area of Jerusalem” because officials said they were
“’too slow in returning to their homes when the daily curfew was re-imposed at
5 P.M.’”

1947: British policed reported that 25
“suspected terrorists” have been arrested in Tel Aviv in the last 24 hours.

1948: In Los Angeles, Henry and Phoebe Ephron
gave birth author to Hallie Ephron, the sister of Nora, Amy and Delia Ephron.

http://www.oprah.com/spirit/nora-ephrons-mother-hallie-ephron-essay

http://hallieephron.com/

1948: Jacob Joseph Kohn, the American-born
clothing salesman” is still being held by the Paris police having been charged
with complicity in the illegal collection of arms seized recently in Paris that
were “allegedly collected for use by the Jews in Palestine.”  (Editor’s Note – this is an example of the
double standard of the time. The arms embargo was enforced against the Jews but
the Arabs, because they were part of nation states had unlimited access to
modern military equipment.)

1948: Birthdate of American artist Eric Fischl.

http://www.ericfischl.com/

1949: During Operation Uvda, one unit from
Alexandroni Brigade captured Ein Gedi while another unit captured Masada.

1949(8th
of Adar, 5709): University of Cincinnati trained
attorney Alfred Morton Cohen, the Cincinnati born son of Phebe Phillips and
Morton Cohen and the husband of Millie Phillips who served as a state
legislator and city councilman passed away today.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/cohen-alfred-morton

1949: In Chicago, “Nathan Hirsch, a
businessman, and the former Mollie Shulman, who worked in a bank loan
department” gave birth to Dr. Arnold Richard Hirsch, the University of Illinois
trained historian best known for chronicling the story of housing segregation.
(As reported Sewell Chan)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/28/obituaries/arnold-hirsch-chicago-historian-dead.html

1949: During Operation Uvda, “Golani forces
captured Gharandal and proceeded to Ein Ghadyan (now Yotvata).”

1949: During the War for Independence, two IDF
units set off to take Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba

.

1950: A special meeting of the board of
directors at the Astor Hotel is held to announce the formation of the
Amun-Israeli House Corporation that “will finance $20,000,000 worth of housing
construction” in Israel.  The lack of
adequate housing is one of the Jewish state’s most pressing problems and this
effort which enjoys support from a diverse group that includes Nelson
Rockefeller and the leaders of the I.L.G.W.U. represents a major effort to
provide both immediate and long term relief.

1950:  It
was officially announced tonight that Turkey “has accorded full diplomatic
recognition” to the state of Israel.

1950: The Swedish government issued a report
today accusing the Israeli police of demonstrating grave negligence in
investigating the assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte which had taken place
in September of 1948.

1950: AT&T announced today that it has
created a new direct circuit between New York and Tel Aviv which will improve
phone service between the major cities. 
Calls can only be made between 7 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon
at a cost of $12 for the first three minutes.

1951: Birthdate of Michael Kinsley, journalist
and founder of Slate.

1951: The Pan
American Games, during which Byron “Krieger won gold medals in team foil and
team sabre and the team silver in épée” came to an end today in Buenos Aires.”

1951: Almost thirty thousand Iraqi Jews had signed up for
immigration for Israel as of today.  Today was the deadline the Iraqi
government had set for this registration.  Registration meant giving up
their Iraqi citizenship which meant that as of this date these people were
“stateless.”

1952(12th of Adar, 5712): Israel Gerstein, the
husband of Cecilia F. Gerstein and the father of Tillie and Maurice Gerstein
passed away today after which he was buried in the Tifereth Anshai Sfard
Cemetery in Lawrence, MA.

1952: Sioux City native and Air Force veteran Morris
Mirkin the founder of Budget Rent-A-Car married his first wife Judith Carole
Lindenberg today after which they had three children – Jeffrey, Margaux and
Mitchell.

1952: Birthdate of Amir Petertz, the native of Morocco
whose family made Aliyah in 1956. A Labor Party MK, he has served as Minister
of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that in Moscow following the death of
Stalin,Georgi Malenkov, 51, was appointed the head of the Soviet Union while
Molotov, Beria, Bulganin and Kaganovitch had been named as his deputies. Israel
was one of the few countries which were not invited to Stalin’s funeral.

1953: The
Jerusalem Post
reported that Israel had been divided into six
administrative districts: three urban: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, and three
rural: the Northern, Central and South.

1953: The
Jerusalem Post
reported that fifteen marauders were killed and 11 captured
during the past week.

1954: CBS broadcast the final episode of
Clifton Fadiman’s “This Is Show Business.”

1954: CBS television broadcasts the See It
Now
episode, “A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy,” that featured
Ed Murrow at his finest. Fred Friendly, a Jewish television producer born in
New York, joined forces with Murrow to produce all of the See It Now episodes.
CBS was owned by William Paley who was also Jewish.  Their ethnic origins had nothing to do with
this choice of programming.  In fact,
Paley, like so many other Jews in the print and electronic media, bent over
backwards to avoid any connection between being Jewish and the product they
offered.

1955(15th of Adar, 5715): Shushan
Purim

1955(15th of Adar, 5715):
Sixty-four-year-old Columbia trained physician Dr. Ernst Phillip Boas, the
Worcester, MA born son of “Franz Boas, regarded by many as the father of modern
anthropology” and the former Marie Krackowizer, 
who served as the Captain in Medical Corps of the U.S. Army during WW II
before becoming the Director of the Montefiore Hospital for Chronic Diseases
starting in 1921 while raising three children – Barbara, Donald and Norman –
with his wife “the former Helen Sisson” whom he married in 1917, passed away
today.

1956: In Finland, premiere of “The Rose Tatoo”
directed by Daniel Mann, produced by Hal B. Wallis with a script co-authored by
Hal Kanter.

1956: It was reported today that “eleven
Orthodox deans of Jewish seminaries have signed a directive declaring that
joint action with more liberal rabbis is “prohibited by Torah law.”

1959: Barbie, the popular girls’ doll, debuted.
Over 800 million have been sold marking another Jewish business success brought
to us, in this case, by Ruth Mosko Handler.

http://jwa.org/thisweek/mar/09/1959/ruth-mosko-handler

 

1959: “Juno, a musical with music and lyrics by
Marc Blitzstein and book by Joseph Stein” “premiered on Broadway at the Winter
Garden Theatre” today.

1959: In New York City, “Edie L. (Greene), a
merchandise manager, and Murray A. Price, a car leasing company owner” gave
birth to theatric actor, writer and director Lonny Price.

1960(10th of Adar, 5720): Forty-seven-year-old
Richard L. Neuberger, the junior Senator from Oregon passed away unexpectedly
today as the result of a cerebral hemorrhage.

https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/neuberger_richard_1912_1960_/#.WqCTBFuot9A
1962: “Knife in the Water” a film nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign
Language Film directed by Roman Polanski who co-authored the script along with
Jakub Goldberg was released in Poland team.

1962: Egyptian President Nasser declared that
Gaza belonged to the Palestinians. Of course, Gaza was occupied by Egypt from
1948 until 1967.  No attempt was made to turn the government over to the
Palestinians at the time of this declaration.  In fact, the Palestinians
were trapped in Gaza without meaningful economic assistance from their Arab
brethren.

1963: The 1963 NCAA Division I Basketball
Tournament which would provide a showcase for the talents of Duke’s Art Heyman
opened today.

1963: Allan Sherman’s “My Son The Celebrity”
reached #1 on Billboard’s Top 150 Best Sell LP’s Chart.

1964: Sir Alfred Knox, who in 1932 while
serving in the House of Commons raised the possibility of Palestine become a
source of suppl of oil for the British Navy, passed away today.

1965(5th of Adar II, 5725): Just
nine days before his 78th birthday, Abraham Abelson passed away
after which he was buried at the Jewish Peoples Cemetery in East Haven, CT.

1968: Today, while serving with the U.S. Army
in Viet Nam Jack S. Jacobs performed so heroically that earned the Medal of
Honor for Valor. “Although seriously wounded and bleeding profusely, he assumed
command and ordered a withdrawal. He then repeatedly returned through heavy
fire, to rescue other wounded including the company commander and treated their
wounds. On three occasions he repelled Viet Cong squads who were also searching
for wounded American soldiers in the same area, killing three and wounding
several others.”

1968(9th

1968: CBS broadcast the final episode of “Good
Morning, World” a sitcom created by Sam Denoff, Carl Reiner and Sheldon and
co-starring Goldie Hawn.

1968: Birthdate of Adam Carl Adamowicz,
“concept artist whose paintings of exotic landscapes, monsters and elaborately
costumed heroes and villains formed the visual foundation for two of the most
popular single-player role-playing video games of all time” – Fallout3 and The
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. (As reported by Daniel E. Slotnik)

1969: The chief of staff of the Egyptian Armed
Forces was killed today during the War of Attrition. Today marked the second
day of Egypt’s attempt to destroy the Bar Lev using massive artillery
bombardments.  While General Abdul Munim
Riad was at the front to personally viewing the product of his handiwork, he
was mortally wounded by Israeli artillery that had been fired in response to
the Egyptian assault.

1970: A meeting of over 100 investors
interested in financing tourist development projects in Israel will meet today
in Jerusalem today.  The government will
unveil its plans to provide support for these efforts.

1971: “When Eight Bells Toll” the film version
of the novel of the same name produced by Elliot Kastner and Jerry Gershwin was
released in the United Kingdom.

1972(23rd of Adar, 5732): Fifty year
old Israeli diplomat and former intelligence officer Yaakov Herzog, the son of
Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog and the brother of Chaim Herzog who was trained as a
rabbi and a lawyer passed away today.

http://www.magalbooks.com/herzog.html

1977: About a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims
invaded three buildings in Washington D.C., killing one person and taking more
than 130 hostages. The siege ended two days later. The three buildings were the
District Building (city hall), the Islamic Center and, surprise, surprise the
national headquarters of B’nai B’rith. And you thought terrorism like this only
started with Osama and company.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the US refused to consider any
new sale of arms to Israel, despite Defense Minister Ezer Weizmann’s pressing
requests, until the conclusion of the current Carter-Begin summit meetings and
negotiations.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel has started the
commercial exploitation of oil from the Alma II and III wells, situated near
a-Tur in the Gulf of Suez.

1979: President Carter is scheduled to meet
with President Sadat in Egypt today before traveling to Israel to meet with
Prime Minister Begin.

1980: Wrong Number on Israel published today

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1980/03/09/121004146.html?pageNumber=152

1981: According to reports published today,
19,000 Iranian Jews have made Aliyah since the fall of the Shah and the rise of
the Ayotollah and his fundamentalist forces.

1982(14th of Adar, 5742): Purim

1982: Pola Nirenska, a Polish-born dancer and
choreographer who first came to the United States with Mary Wigman’s company
from Germany in 1932, presented ”An Evening of Choreography” to night in
George Washington University’s Marvin Theater.

1984(5th of Adar II, 5744): Seventy-two-year-old
movie producer Hannah Weinstein passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/11/obituaries/hannah-weinstein-producer-and-political-activist-is-dead.html

1984: “Splash” a romantic comedy produced by
Brian Grazer, with a script by Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel and Bruce Jay
Friedman with a cast that included Eugene Levy and Howie Morris was released in
the United States today.

1985: As part of its pre-Broadway run the
curtain came down on a month long performance of Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues” at
the Curran Theatre in San Francisco which was its last stop before opening in
New York

1987(8th of Adar, 5747): Fifty-year-old
Pottsville, PA native and musical preservationist Allen Jaffe the owner of
Preservation Hall, that musical mecca that was always jam-packed even though it
was the only venue in the French Quarter that did not sell alcohol passed away
today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/11/obituaries/allan-jaffe-new-orleans-jazz-revivalist-dies-by-frances-frank-marcus.html

1989: “The Heidi Chronicles” by Wendy
Wasserstein opened on Broadway today.

1989: At the Lotus Club in Manhattan, Rabbi
Saul I. Teplitz officiated at the wedding of NYU trained attornev Ellen Minsky
and Wharton trained television producer Richard Diamon.

1990(12th of Adar, 5750):
Eighty-two-year-old Cambridge born, and Harvard trained attorney Harold
Rosenwald who was a member of the Alger Hiss defense team passed away today.

1990: “Coup de Ville” a “comedy-drama” directed
by Joe Roth and co-starring Alan Arkin was released in the United States today.

1991(23rd of Adar, 5751): Parsashat
Vayakhel-Pekudi; Shabbat Parah

1992(4th of Adar II, 5752): Former Israeli
Prime Minister Menachem Begin died in Tel Aviv at age 78. Regardless of your
view of his politics, Begin was one of the central characters in the Zionist
movement whom we will study in depth. Begin was the heir to Jabotinsky and the
founder of what today is the Likud Party.  In other words, he was the
leader of the Jewish opposition to the Labor Zionists personified by Ben
Gurion.  Begin was the founder and leader of the Irgun.  He was the
first right wing Prime Minister of Israel.  Most important of all, he
negotiated the peace treaty with Sadat that ended the state of war that had
existed with Egypt since 1948.

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0816.html

1993: In “Philip Roth Sees Double. And Maybe
Triple, Too” Esther B. Fein examines the author’s latest work, Operation
Shylock.

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/11/specials/roth-double.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Shylock#/media/File:Shylock.jpg

1994(26th of Adar, 5754):  Lawrence E. Spivak, creator of Meet the Press
passed away at the age of 93.  On radio
and then on television, Meet the Press was billed as the live press conference
of the air.  With Spivak sometimes
serving as the moderator and sometimes as a member of the four person panel,
American and foreign government officials took part in a thirty minute
unrehearsed question and answer session. 
While the programs were marked by an air of civility, the members of the
print and electronic media asked real questions and the guests were expected to
provide real answers.

1996(18th of Adar, 5756): Comedian George Burns
passed away at the age 100.

https://www.biography.com/people/george-burns-9232145

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/10/nyregion/george-burns-straight-man-and-ageless-wit-dies-at-100.html

1996(18th of Adar, 5756):
Fifty-one-year-old Imar Ambrose of Romania succumbed to the wounds he had
suffered during the Jaffa Road bus bombing on March 3rd.

1997: The New York Times featured reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Blood
and Water: Sabotaging Hitler’s Bomb
by
Dan Kurzman, Southernmost And Other Stories by Michael Brodsky
and The Stories of David Bergelson:Yiddish Short Fiction From Russia by
David Bergelson.

1999(21st
of Adar, 5759): Hermann Merkin, the native of Leipzig who fled Nazi German and
in 1940 arrived in the United States where, in turn, he served in the Army,
founded the investment firm of Merkin and Company and became a philanthropist
whose good works including the founding of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/11/arts/hermann-merkin-91-benefactor-of-judaism-and-a-concert-hall.html

2000: Barbra
Streisand began her tour of Australia with a concert at the Sydney Football
Stadium.

2001(14th of Adar,
5761): Purim observed for the first time under President George W. Bush.

2001(14th
of Adar, 5761): Eighty-two-year-old “William Hammerstein, the director and
producer who was the eldest child of Oscar Hammerstein II, and directed the
1979 Broadway revival of his father’s Oklahoma!, died today of complications
following a stroke suffered Jan. 6, according to Theodore S. Chapin, president
of The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization.”

https://playbill.com/article/william-hammerstein-director-and-son-of-oscar-hammerstein-ii-dead-at-82-com-95431

https://www.google.com/search?q=William+Hammerstein&sxsrf=ALeKk03oOo3OfoYLJs3VJ_gXC32KFfhCWA%3A1621466753907&source=hp&ei=gZ6lYL2lNNjOtQacwZ_gBw&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYKWskZD0ruIWFohZJa2MS4VB8vOwPn_w&oq=William+Hammerstein&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBQguEJMCOgQIIxAnOgsILhCxAxDHARCjAjoICAAQsQMQgwE6AggAOgUIABCxAzoOCC4QsQMQgwEQxwEQowI6CAguELEDEIMBOgIILjoICC4QxwEQrwE6BQguELEDOggILhDHARCjAjoLCC4QxwEQrwEQkwI6CAguELEDEJMCOgQILhAKOgYIABAWEB46DQguEMcBEK8BEA0QkwI6BAgAEA06CgguEMcBEK8BEA06BggAEA0QHjoICAAQCBANEB5Q4QpY4pEBYIWbAWgCcAB4AIABeYgBlxCSAQUxMC4xMZgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXo&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwj96YOv8tbwAhVYZ80KHZzgB3wQ4dUDCAk&uact=5

2001: “Get Over It,”
a comedy featuring Mila Kunis was released today in the United States.

2002(25th
of Adar, 5762): Shabbat HaChodesh2002(25th of Adar, 5762):
Limor Ben-Shoham, 27, of Jerusalem; Nir
Rahamim Borochov, 22, of Givat Ze’ev; Danit Dagan, 25, of Tel Aviv; Livnat
Dvash, 28, of Jerusalem; Tali Eliyahu, 26, of Jerusalem;Uri Felix, 25, of Givat
Ze’ev; Dan Imani, 23, of Jerusalem; Natanel Kochavi, 31, of Kiryat Ata; Baruch
Lerner-Naor, 28, of Eli;Orit Ozarov, 28, of Jerusalem and Avraham Haim Rahamim,
29, of Jerusalem were murdered by an Arab terrorist and 54 more people were
murdered  at the Café Moment in Jerusalem
“about 100 meters from the home of the Prime Minister.

2003: The
New York Times
featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
interest to Jewish readers including Regions of the Great Heresay: Bruno Schulz: A Biographical Portrait by Jerzy Ficowski, Down and Out in
the Magic
by Cory Doctorow and the recently released paperback edition of Me
Times Three
, by Alex Witchel.

2004: “Abu Abbas, the Palestinian mastermind of
a deadly 1985 cruise ship hijacking in which 69 year old Leon Klinghoffer, an
American passenger in a wheelchair was shot and thrown into the sea, has died
at a prison in Iraq, a Pentagon spokesman said today.”

2005: “The author of a damning report about the
illegal financing of settlement outposts recommended today that Israel consider
criminal investigations of some of those involved, in particular the
settlements adviser to the Defense Ministry, Ron Shechner.”

2006: There
was a palpable air of excitement at the Kraft Family Stadium, as two-time Super
Bowl MVP Tom Brady of the New England Patriots made a special visit to see what
American Football in Israel was all about,

2007: Robert Alan “Bob” Levinson “was taken
hostage” today “when visiting Iran’s Kish Island

2007: John Zorn’s Masada Quartet is scheduled
to perform on of its last concert at Lincoln Center.

2008: Novelist and former Roman Catholic priest
James Carroll discusses his
2001 book Constantine’s Sword: The
Church and the Jews: A History
at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

2008: The Sunday
New York Times
featured reviews of Beaufort, a novel by
Israeli author Ron Lehsem, translated by Evan Fallenberg, The Life of the
Skies
by Jonathan Rosen and
a collection of  four short works of
fiction by French novelist and Holocaust victim by by Irène Némirovsky
including David Golder, The Ball, Snow In Autumn and The
Courilof Affair
.

2008: In “A Family Tree of Literary Fakers,” published today Motoko
Rich traces famous literary frauds including Clifford Irving’s “biography of
Howard Hughes,” Binjamin Wilkomirski’s 1996 phony memoir, Fragments
describing how he survived as a Latvian Jewish orphan in a Nazi concentration
camp and Misha Defonseca’s book, Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years
about a childhood spent running from the Nazis and searching for her deported
parents; a childhood that did not happen.

2008: The Washington Post book section featured a review of Founding
Faith
: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in
America
by Steven Waldman.  Founding
Faith
takes up two central questions about religion in early America.
First, what did such Founding Fathers as Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison usually believe? And second, how
did it come about that the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees that
“Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof”? The answers to these questions
carry implications for Jewish Americans since the role of religion and
religious freedom has allowed the American Jewish community to think of itself
as a unique element that will transcend past Jewish experiences in other
societies and countries.

2008(2 Adar II, 5768): Twenty-year-old Sergeant Liran Banay, who was critically wounded last
Thursday when a bomb was detonated near an IDF vehicle patrolling the
Gaza security fence, died of his wounds on Sunday morning. The Givati
Brigade soldier, who lost both legs as a result
of Thursday’s explosion, died in Soroka Hospital
in Ashkelon.

2009: WebYeshiva started the WebYeshiva Blog today. “The WebYeshiva
Blog presents a variety of posts daily in audio, video, and text format, and
features regular columns such as the weekly Parsha, Haftora, Nach, Business
Ethics, Aggada, and Jewish Philosophy. Both WebYeshiva students and teachers
also make regular contributions, and WebYeshiva’s Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Chaim
Brovender, posts a video Halacha Yomit every day.” “WebYeshiva, founded in 2007
by Rabbi Chaim Brovender, was the first online yeshiva and midrasha.

2009 (13 Adar 5769): Fast of Esther

2009: In the evening, Megillah Reading

2009: Economist Nouriel Roubini, the Turkish born son of Iranian Jews
who spent part of his youth living in Israel and who was the “man who predicted
the current financial crisis said the US recession could drag on for years
without drastic action…Roubini sees ‘no hope for the recession ending in 2009
and will more than likely last into 2010.’”

2009:
Police
arrested two Arab youths carrying a commando blade in the Pisgat Ze’ev
neighborhood of Jerusalem today foiling a stabbing attack. During a preliminary
investigation, the pair said they had planned on carrying out a terror attack.

2009: In “Bad Guy Inspires Goodies,’ published today in the Cedar
Rapids Gazette, columnist Cecilia Hanley provides a brief account about Purim,
the history of Hamantaschen and a recipe for a pastry that she likened to the
Kolache, a pastry popular with the Czech population that settled Cedar Rapids
and is still a unique local delicacy.

2009: In “The Perfect
Hamantaschen” published today Deborah Gardner attempts to settle the dispute
between those who prefer prune and those who munch on “mun.”

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/the-perfect-hamantaschen/

2010: The winners of the National Jewish Book Award are scheduled to be
honored today in New York City. The names of the winners had been made public
in January. Toronto author Joseph Kertes won the 59th annual National Jewish
Book Award for Fiction for his novel, “Gratitude.” Other National
Jewish Book Award winners include Hasia Diner, author of “We Remember with
Reverence and Love: American Jews and the Myth of Silence after the Holocaust,
1945-1962” (New York University Press), the American Jewish Studies’
Celebrate 350 Award; Melvin Urofsky, the Everett Family Foundation Jewish Book
of the Year Award for “Louis D. Brandeis: A Life (Pantheon Books); Daniel
Gordis, for “Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win a War That May
Never End” (John Wiley & Sons), the Contemporary Jewish Life and
Practice Award. Ellen Frankel and Avi Katz of the Jewish Publication Society
won the Louis Posner Memorial Award in Illustrated Children’s Books for the JPS
Illustrated Children’s Bible. Sir Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of England,
won the Dorot Foundation Award in memory of Joy Ungerleider Mayerson in Modern
Jewish Thought & Experience for his “Covenant & Conversation: A
Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible, Genesis: The Beginnings” (Koren
Publishers).

2010: David Nemeth is scheduled to be the instructor at this evening’s
session of How to Give A D’var Torah at Adas Israel in Washington, D.C.

2011: Alan Joseph Shatter, Irish political leader, began serving as
Minister for Justice and Eguality

2011(3rd of Adar II, 5771): Seventy-two-year-old “Owen Laster, one of
the most powerful literary agents of his generation, who ran William Morris’s
worldwide literary operations and had a long list of best-selling writers that
included James A. Michener and Gore Vidal”, passed away today (As reported by
William Grimes)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/business/media/10laster.html?_r=0

2011: Calvin Goldscheider (Professor Emeritus of Judaic Studies, Brown
University), Max Ticktin (Professor of Judaic Studies, George Washington
University), Susan K. Finston (CEO and Managing Director, Amrita Therapeutics
Ltd.), Steve Rabinowitz (future emeritus president and CEO of
Rabinowitz-something Communications), and a special mystery guest speaker are
scheduled to appear at Washington DC’s 20th Annual Latke-Hamantash Symposium at
Adas Israel.

2011: The Lillian & Albert Small Jewish Museum is scheduled to host
“From Shtetl to City: Travel in the Old Jewish Heartland” featuring author Ruth
Ellen Gruber.

2011:
As Jerusalem
prepared for the possibility of a snowstorm, Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat asked
the public “to be responsible” “during an inspection of the city’s emergency
snow plans at the Givat Shaul maintenance center.

2011: Today the Knesset approved the initial reading of a bill which
proposes an end to allowing companies to discriminate against customers based
on where they live, a law which could potentially benefit West bank cities and
residents. ”

2011: UK Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks was honored by
Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba today for his exceptional work as “a widely
published theologian and philosopher, whose aspirations for truth and mutual
respect of all peoples guide his actions.”

2011: According to
an article entitled “50 Famous Travel Spots Every Literary Geek Should See”
published today by the website “Online Courses must see spots include the
following four spots of special interest to followers of Jewish history.

  1. The Secret Annex: Amsterdam has converted The Secret Annex into the Anne Frank
    Museum, preserving the memory of lives lost and destroyed when Nazis
    discovered their hiding place.

2.    
Auschwitz-Birkenau:
Holocaust literature frequently relates horrific tales of the Auschwitz
concentration camp, most notably Night and Maus, and today it
stands as a somber reminder of humanity’s capacity for senseless cruelty. Buchenwald
also appears in many memoirs as well.

3.    
Algonquin Hotel:
This lush Midtown Manhattan locale used to host the Algonquin Round Table,
consisting of New York’s finest wits. Their meetings resulted in a plethora of
fictitious and non-fictitious works alike, most famously the bulk of Dorothy
Parker’s oeuvre. Parker was born Dorothy Rothschild, the daughter of German-Jew
who was not related to the famous banking house.

4.    
Dublin, Ireland:
Visit the Irish capital on June 16th for Bloomsday, a festival honoring James
Joyce’s modernist magnum opus Ulysses. Readings and walks bring the
brick of a novel to life, allowing celebrants to follow in the footsteps of
iconic protagonist Leopold Bloom. Although fictious, Bloom may be Ireland’s
most famous Jews.

2011(3rd
of Adar II): Anniversary of the dedication of the Second Temple which took
placed on the 3rd of Adar, 3412 (349 BCE)

2011(3rd
of Adar II, 5771): Seventy-two-year-old Owen Laster, a literary agent for
William Morris passed away.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/business/media/10laster.html

2012:
In Washington, DC,  at Tifereth
Israel,  Artist in Residence Alison
Westermann is scheduled to kick off a weekend of “Translating Text Into Song”
with a Carlebach Kabbalat Shabbat Service.

 2012: “Footnote” – the Oscar nominated tale of
a rivalry between two Talmudic scholars who are father and son – is scheduled
to pen Angelika Film Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinema.

2012:
Two senior terrorists were killed in Gaza today after IDF aircraft targeted a
vehicle in the Strip, the army confirmed. One of the fatalities is Zuhir
al-Qaisi, the secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees terror
group, Palestinian sources said. The second terrorist killed in the strike is
Ahmad al-Khanini, a senior PRC member freed in the Shalit prisoner swap, the
Palestinians said. The senior terrorist killed in an IDF strike today was
planning a major terror attack on Israeli targets near the Egypt border, army
officials said. Zuhir al-Qaisi, also known as Abu Ibraim, was planning a
mega-attack in recent days that could have resulted in numerous casualties, the
army said. The planned multipronged terror strike was to originate from Egypt’s
Sinai Peninsula, military officials said.

 (As reported by Yoav Zitun)

2012:
More than 30 rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel tonight, leaving
at least eight people injured, one of them seriously.

2013:
“No Place On Earth” is scheduled to have its Minnesota Premiere this evening at
the Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival.

2013:
AMIT is scheduled to host “A Night of Israeli Cinema” at Tribeca Cinemas.

2013:
The Eden-Tamir Music is scheduled to host a concert “Loving Brahms” today in
Jerusalem.

2014:
In Coralville, Iowa, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its annual Purim
Carnival under the leadership of Rabbi Jeff Portman.

2014:
“The Sturgeon Queens,” a documentary about Russ & Daughters is scheduled to
be shown in Boulder, CO.

2014:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “The Whole Megillah: A
Family Purim Program featuring a Puppet Show and Art Project.”

2014:
The Washington DC JCC is scheduled to host the 4th Annual Community
Day of Education on Israeli Arab Issues.

2014:
The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host a Pre-Purim Pajama Party.

2014:
The 24th annual Washington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come
to an end.

2014:
David Brooks is scheduled to lecture on “Genius, God and Morality” at the 92nd
Street Y.

2014:
The third bi-annual LimmudFest New Orleans is scheduled to come to an end.

2014:
The New York Times published reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including Genesis: Truman, American Jews and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli
Conflict
by John Judis and The Double Life of Paul De Man by Evelyn
Barish

2014:
In “Eulogy for a Source” published today, Helen Epstein remembers Jiri Fiedler,
who along with his wife was murdered at the end of January.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/opinion/sunday/eulogy-for-a-source.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

2014:
In Eilat, this morning, Israeli troops unloaded some 150 containers, suspected
of holding illicit Iranian arms, from a ship seized several days earlier in the
Red Sea

2014:
Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews filled the streets in lower Manhattan today to
protest Israel’s proposal to draft strictly religious citizens into its army.

2015:
The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host a field
trip to The National Museum of American Jewish History which is featuring a an
exhibited “that examines the role that Jews have played in the American
Military from 1654 to present.”

2015:
The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host an evening with the Meitar
Ensemble which was “founded in 2004 in Tel Aviv by artistic director Amit
Dolberg.

2015:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a screening of “Above and
Beyond,” “the first major feature length-documentary about the foreign airman”
who served in the War of Independence in 1948 produced by Nancy Spielberg.

2015:
“A state attorney announced today that the Israel Prize for Literary
Scholarship will not be awarded this year, after a month-long controversy over
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intervention in the composition of the
judges’ panel.” (As reported by Tamar Pileggi)

2016:
Today, Mitchell “Schwartz signed a 5-year, $33 million contract with the Kansas
City Chiefs, making him one of the highest-paid right tackles in the NFL.”

2016:
Steven Gimbel, a Professor of Philosophy at Gettysburg College and author Einstein:
The Man
is scheduled to speak at Stevens Tech in Hoboken, NJ.

2016(29th
of Adar I, 5776): Eighty-six-year-old investment mogul John Gutfreund passed
away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/10/business/dealbook/john-gutfreund-who-ran-salomon-brothers-at-its-apex-is-dead-at-86.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

2016:
“Everything Is Illuminated” a favorite of festival chairman John Dreyfus is
scheduled to be shown at the Houston Jewish Film Festival.

2016:
Today, “Dos Equis Beer announced that it would replace Jonathan Goldsmith in
the role as the “Most Interesting Man in the World”,

2016:
“The Midnight Orchestra” is scheduled to be shown at the Charlotte, NC Jewish
Film Festival.

2017(11th
of Adar, 5777): Ta’anit Esther

2017:
Michael D. Cohen, the son of a Holocaust survivor the lawyer and confidant of
Donald Trump who personally paid off “porn start Stormy Daniels” registered as
a Republican today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/us/politics/michael-cohen-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

2017:  The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled
to co-host an evening with Tuvia Temebom” the author of The Lies They Tell
Us
who will talk about “What American Really Think About Jews And Israel.”

2018:
“Israeli dance master Roy Assaf’s ‘Girls and Boys’” is scheduled to pend for a
month-long run at the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv today. (As reported by
Stacey Menchel Kussell)

2018:
Rabbi Eli Glaser is scheduled to run “the Jerusalem Marathon in memory of, and
motivated by Rafael Shachar Weissberg” who succumbed to “a debilitating
neurological illness” last year at the age of 37.

2018:
In New York, the Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is “dark” this evening because
of Shabbat but is scheduled to continue on March 10.

2018:
In New York, the Landmark Theatre is scheduled to host a screening of “Itzhak,”
a film that “explores Perlman’s remarkable biography as an immigrant of humble
origins and a childhood victim of polio who went from young violin prodigy
(debuting at 13 on “The Ed Sullivan Show”) to established international star,
balancing a demanding performance schedule with a robust family life.”

2018:
“The Diary of Anne Frank,” featuring Serena Collins as “Margot Frank” is
scheduled to premiere at Theatre Cedar Rapids in Cedar Rapids, IA.

2019:
The Jewish Book Week Festival is scheduled to host a panel of Ruth Deech, Trudy
Gold, Rod Liddle and David Triesman chaired by Gavin Esler discussing
“Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred.”

http://jewishbookweek.com/event/antisemitism-the-longest-hatred/

2019:
Final performance of “Fiddler on the Roof” starring Andy Nyman as Tevye is
scheduled to take place this evening at The Menier Chocolate Factory.

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/a-new-tradition-the-revival-of-fiddler-on-the-roof/

2019:
In Vallejo, CA, Congregation B’nai Israel is scheduled to host the Klezmer
music concert with the Haimish Music Band.

2019:
The Fattal Rock Festival is scheduled to come an end at Eilat.

2019:
The New York Sephardi Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of
“Mori-Shabazy’s Riddle” directed by Israela Sha’ar Meoded.

2019(2nd
of Adar II, 5779): Parashat Pekuday;

2020:
The Berkeley Center for Jewish studies is scheduled to host Jelena Subotic,
assistant professor at Georgia State, talks about her new book, Yellow Star,
Red Star
that looks at “the suppression and obfuscation of Holocaust
memories in Eastern Europe.”

2020:
JSwipe, Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters, the ADL, the AJC, Apptopia, Lanky and
the Fens and Urbanites Boston are scheduled to host “the most anticipated young
professionals Purim event in Boston!”

2020:
In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Escape from Pretoria.”

2020:
In Cedar Rapids, the Megillah reading is scheduled to be followed by a meal
that include Pizza along with Hamantaschen

2020:
This evening in Iowa City, Hillel and Congregation Agudas Achim will co-host a
Hamantaschen Baking event followed by a reading of the Megillah.

2020(13th
of Adar, 5780): Fast of Esther: Erev Purim

2021:
The Lubavitch of Arkansas Center for Jewish Life, under the leadership of Rabbi
Pinchas Ciment, is scheduled to host an “interactive live music concert
featuring Tali Yess, “the son of the late Moshe Yess, a true music legend who
created my popular Jewish songs like My Zaidy, Our Land and The Angel Song.”

2021:
Congregation Beth Israel’s Rabbi Yonatan Cohen is scheduled to lead an online
session about how to engage kids and adults at the Passover table

2021:
SFSU’s Office of Diversity, Student Equity and Interfaith Programs, in
association with S.F. Hillel, is scheduled to present a conversation with
professor and Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University on
“Antisemitism on College Campuses.”

2021:
Members of Temple Judea are scheduled to participate in an act of tikkun olam
as they contribute to sandwiches to the Help Feed the Hungry program sponsored
by St. George’s Soup Kitchen.

2021:
As part of the “celebration of Jewish Women’s History Month,” the Lappin
Foundation is scheduled to present online a discussion of the new documentary
“The One and Only Jewish Miss America.”

2021:
In New Orleans, the Hadassah Reader’s Circle is scheduled to discuss
Mortality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times
by Rabbi Lord
Jonathan Sacks.

2021:
Based on reports published yesterday that Israel has administered its 5
millionth coronavirus vaccination, the country is able to contemplate relaxing
some of the virus-related restrictions.

2022:
Sephardi Thought and Modernity 2022 Webinar Series is scheduled to present Deborah
Starr (Cornell University) and Eyal Sagui Bizawe (Hebrew University of
Jerusalem) Nostalgia as Critique: The Case of Jews in Egyptian Cinema.

2022:
The King Lecture Series which preserves the work of UCSC History and
Comparative Religion professor Noel Q. King, promotes and explores the dialogue
between faiths is scheduled to present a lecture feature award-winning author
Dara Horn whose latest work is People Love Dead Jews.

2023:
The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to present a Julie Salamon
and Michael Schulman as they discuss his new book, Oscar Wars: History of
Hollywood in Cold, Sweat and Tears.

2023:
The Jewish Museum of London is scheduled to mark the first anniversary of the
war in Ukraine with a “conversation” centering on three Ukrainian spices used
for Havdalah that will be led by Dr Domenico Sergi, Senior Curator, Museum of
London and a panel that includes Sabina Artemieva, who fled Ukraine with her
son, Prof David Cantor, Director of The Refugee Law Initiative and Mark
O’Neill, Associate Professor in the College of Arts at Glasgow University.

2023:
The 2023 New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane co-charied by Walter Isaacson is
scheduled to open today.

2023:
In London, the Wiener Holocaust Memorial Library is scheduled to host a virtual
panel discussing More Than Parcels: Wartime Aid for Jews in Nazi-Era Camps
and Ghettos
edited by Jan Lanicek and Jan Lambertz.

2023:
The JWA Book Talk series is scheduled to host a conversation with Nell McShane
Wulfhart, author of The Great Stewardess Rebellion.

2023:
Prime Minister Netanyahu is scheduled to fly to Italy today, but based on
previously published reports he will be flying on a Boeing 737 because his
plane of choice the Boeing 777 is not available because he pilots qualified to
fly the 777s operated by Israel’s El Al airline reportedly refused to fly the
prime minister” a part of the protest against his plans to reform the
judiciary.

2023:
The Cleveland Jewish Book Festival is scheduled to host Jean Meltzer, author of
Mr. Perfect on Paper and Lynda Cohen Loigman, author of The
Matchmaker’s Perfect Gift.

2024:
In Iowa City, the traditional, egalitarian Hawkeye Minyan is scheduled to meet
at the Iowa City Public Library.

2024:
In Jerusalem, Agnon House is scheduled to host a reading “To My Father’s House”
followed by a discussion on “the tumultuous relationship between parents and
children, which lasts a lifetime and even more” led by Adin Ner-David.

2024:
On the same day that those kidnapped by Hamas spend their 155th day
in captivity, the “March for Gaza” sponsored by a group “that supports Hamas”
on its Facebook page and is described as “anti-Semitic” by the Quad-Cities
Jewish clergy is scheduled to take place today.

2024:
In Little Rock, following Mincha Lubavitch of Arkansas led by Rabbi Pincas
Ciment is scheduled host a “sponsored in honor of the birthday of Yisroel Aryeh
Leib Mockin.”

2024:
The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled “Romantic Nationalism” a chamber music
concert featuring Dima Pocitari, violin; Kirill Mihanovsky, cello and Julia
Gurvitch, piano.

2024:
In Metairie, LA, The Seymour Schram Private Foundation is scheduled to sponsor the
Havdalah Event at Congregation Beth Israel this evening.

2024:
“Major rising-star conductor Lahav Shani is scheduled to perform with the
Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in their first collaboration at Carnegie Hall.”

2024
(29th of Adar I, 5784): Shabbat Shekalim

For
more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

2024: As March
9th begins in Israel, the Hamas held hostages begin
day 155 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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