This Day, November 20, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
November 20
331 BCE (21st of Kislev, 3431): According to the Talmud, Simeon the Just
destroyed the Samaritan Temple at Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans had undermined the efforts
during the post-exilic period and this move was as much about establishing
political sovereignty as it was about wiping out a “high place” intended to
compete with Jerusalem. The victory was
marked by a minor festival called Mt. Gerizim Day.
284: Diocletian was chosen as Roman Emperor.
Diocletian began a policy of subdividing the various provinces of the
Roman Empire into increasingly smaller administrative units. Palestine, the name the Romans gave to Eretz
Israel, was divided into three territories: Palaestina Prima including Judea,
Samaria, and the coastal plain, Iduemea and Peraea with Caesarea (the one on
the Mediterranean that had played such a key role in the Great Revolt against
Rome) as its capital; Palaestina Secunda, consisting of the Galilee and the
Golan with Beth-shean (the city to which the ancient Philistines had taken King
Saul’s decapitated body) as its capital; Palaestina Terita consisting primarily
of the Negev with Petra as its capital.
In a further division of powers, each of these new subdivisions had a
military and a civilian head. All of the new bureaucrats who came with these
new subdivisions took on aura of divinity connected in keeping with their role
as representatives of the Divine Emperor.
What it meant for the people of the empire was further subjugation and
impoverishment. Diocletian was also the
last of the Roman Emperors took actively persecute the Christians. His ultimate successor would adopt a policy
that represented a 180 degree and would mark even worse times for the Jewish
people.
542: The Nea Church which contains a the Madaba Map, the oldest surviving
original cartographic depiction of the Holy Land and especially Jerusalem as
part of its floor mosaic was dedicated today.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/02/10/jerusalem.road.discovery/index.html?hpt=T2
1194: Palermo, Sicily, is conquered by Emperor Henry VI. By the time of
Henry’s conquest, Jews had been living on the island of Sicily for over a
thousand years. Jews had been living in Palermo since the sixth century because
we have evidence that in 590 “Pope Gregory the Great ordered the ecclesiastical
authorities to reimburse the Jews of Palermo for the damage suffered by the
expropriation of their synagogue.” Furthermore, just prior to the conquest, the
famous traveler Benjamin of Tudela mentioned the Jewish community of Palermo in
his writings.
1272: Edward I proclaimed King of
England. Edward is remembered as the English king, who, after stripping the
Jews of their wealth, expelled them from his realm in 1290.
1316: King John I of France died. His
father, Louis X had issued a decree in 1315 allowing the Jews to return. We do not know how John felt about the Jews
(or anything else for that matter) since he only lived for five days. We do know that the Jews were allowed to
remain in France until the end of the 14th century when they were
again expelled.
1316: King Phillip V, also called Phillip the Long or Phillip the Tall began
his reign during which “300,000 men, headed by a deposed priest and a renegade
monk began their desultory march to the Holy Land: which included ravaging the
Jews of Navarre, slaying 6,000 Jews in Estella and laying siege to Verdun where
the Jews took their own lives rather than the victims of this so-called
“Shepherd’s Crusade”
1451: Pope Nicholas V issued an edict empower the bishop of Osma and the
vicar of Salamana to appoint new inquisitors to examine the cases of
“new-Christians suspected of Judaizing.
The inquisitors were authorized to punish the convict, imprison them,
confiscate their goods and disgrace them, to degrade even priests and hand them
over to the secular arm – a church euphemism for condemning them to the
heretic’s stake.
1521: All Jewish wine was dumped by Arabs and heavy fines imposed on the
Jewish community of Jerusalem. The Arabs blamed the Jewish use of wine for a
severe water shortage.
1600: Robert Wilson “the Elizabethan dramatist” who “is generally accepted
as the author of The Three Ladies of London,” a play that portrayed Jews in a
sympathetic light which went against the accepted view of them usurers and
Shylocks passed away today.
1616: Bishop Richelieu becomes French minister of Foreign affairs/War. Richelieu was the power behind the throne
during the reign of King Louis XIII. Any decree issued over the signature of
Louis was probably written by Richelieu.
While Jews had long been banished from France, exceptions were made. For
example, when the French captured the city of Metz, a special letter was posted
allowing the Jews to remain because their presence was a necessity for the good
of the Kingdom. Furthermore, the ban
against Jews was not enforced during Louis XIII’s reign in his overseas
possessions. Once again, thanks to economic needs, in places such as
Martinique, the Jews were allowed to settle while engaged in trade and
practicing their faith.
1657(24th of Kislev, 5418): Manasseh Ben Israel passed away.
Manasseh Ben Israel will always be remembered as the Jewish leader who
negotiated with Oliver Cromwell to gain the right for Jews to settle in
England.
http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/jb-Menasseh-ben-Israel
https://archive.org/details/menassehbenisra00isragoog
http://www.jewish-history.com/Occident/volume3/may1845/menasseh.html
1685: In Burlington, NJ, Elizabeth Harvey and John Day gave birth to
Elizabeth Day, the wife of Thomas I. Branson with whom she had 13 children.
1729(10th of Kislev, 5490): Isaac de Sequeira Samuda, a British
physician and poet, the first Jew to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
(in 1727) and who in 1728, he gave an oration at the funeral of Haham David
Nieto passed away today after which “he was buried in the Portuguese Jews’
“Velho” (Old) Cemetery in Mile End Road, Stepney…”
1738: Amsterdam native Hannah Solomons married Prussian born Benjamin
Sheftall today in Savannah, GA, after which they had two children, Levi and
Solomon.
1766: Birthdate of Rebeca Barnett, daughter of Nathan Barnett and younger
sister of Love Barnett
1772: In Philadelphia, PA, Sara Cohen and Henry Marks gave birth to Hyman
Marks, the husband of Grace Siexas Judah with whom he had 7 children.
1774: Hart Aaron, “a Long Island Merchant” and “Shochet in New York City
married Richa Simson today.
1775: In New York City, Rachel Mears and Moses Isaacks gave birth to Judah
Isaacks.
1778: In Amsterdam, Belia Meijer Wolfe and Emanuel Levie Duitz gave birth to
Elias Emanuel Duitz.
1779: Marks Lazarus and his wife gave birth to Benjamin Lazarus who died in
infancy.
1785: “The earliest known Yiddish letter from the United States was written
by Barnard Gratz of Philadelphia to his brother Michael in London today.
1789: New Jersey became the first state to ratify the amendments to the U.S.
Constitution known as the Bill of Rights with its guarantee of Freedom of
Religion. It would take another two
years for the Bill of Rights to become part of the Constitution. Virginia would
put it over the top in December of 1791.
1790: Governor of Georgia Edward Telfair authorized a charter for the
“Parnas and Adjuntas of Mickve Israel at Savannah” under which the
congregation still operates.
1796: David Levy married Hannah Solomons at the Great Synagogue today.
1808: During a debate on “Jewish emancipatory legislation Friedrich Leopold
Freiherr von Schrötter, the Prussian minister of state and veteran of the Seven
Years War, expressed his opinion about the demonstration of “Jewish valor on
the battle field in which he said “The Jew has fiery oriental blood in his
veins and vivid imagination, all indicative of virile courage, when utilized
and carried into practice. He was very
brave in the ancient and middle epochs and even in very recent times” during
“the American as well as French Revolutionary Wars. The timidity of the Jews arises, according to
my opinion, from the serfdom in which they are kept and from the contempt in
which all nations regard them.”
1811: Moses Phillips married Esther Jacobs at the Great Synagogue today.
1816: Birthdate of Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, the native of Mir, Belarus,
who was “also known as Reb Hirsch Leib Berlin, and commonly known by the
acronym Netziv amd was an Orthodox rabbi, dean of the Volozhin Yeshiva and
author of several works of rabbinic literature in Lithuania.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/naftali-tzvi-yehudah-berlin-the-netziv
1820: Teresa Barbarin and Baruh Jonas, the Devon, England born son of Annie
Ezekiel and Benjamin Jonas were married today in New Orleans.
1823: Birthdate of Baruch Hirsch Strousberg, the native of Neidenburg, East
Prussia, who gained fame as Christian convert Bethel Henry Strousberg, the
German industrialist who lost most of his railway empire following business
reverses that took place after the Franco-Prussian War.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9505E1D6113BE033A25755C1A9609C94659FD7CF
1824: Kitty Etting and Benjamin I. Cohen who were married in 1819 gave birth
to Benjamin Cohen who would only live for 13 months.
1827(1st of Kislev, 5588): Rosh Chodesh
1827: One day after she had passed away, 34 year old Sophia (Minden) Cohen
the wife of Aaron Cohen, was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.
1829: The Jews were expelled
from the Russian cities of Nikolayev and Sevastopol.
1833: Samuel Cohen married Hannah Phillips at the Great Synagogue today.
1836: Seventy year old Aaron Lazarus, who had married Ann Levy after his
first wife Sophia Lehman had passed away, was buried today in the United
Kingdom.
1842: Birthdate of Italian lawyer, editor and political leader Caser Porec.
1842: Morris Lee married Rebecca Duke today in the City of London
1845: Bolette Salomonsen and Zacharias Isaac Levy gave birth to Herman Levy
who was buried in Denmark when he passed away in 1895.
1845: In Philadelphia, Clarissa Alman and Joseph M. Asch gave birth toe
Charles J. Asch, who enlisted in the Union Army in 1862 and later served as “a
special gent of the War Department in Washington, D.C.”
1847: In St. Louis, Austrian Jewish immigrants Anna Abeles and “wool broker”
Charles Taussig gave birth to U.S. Naval Academy graduate and Rear Admiral
U.S.N. Edward David Taussig who was raised as a Unitarian, who was the first in
a four generational family that graduated from Annapolis and who played an
active role in the Pacific Theatre during the Spanish American War.
https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/us-people/t/taussig-edward-d.html
1850: Birthdate of Joseph Samuel Bloch, an Austrian rabbi, who aggressively
fought August Rohling, one of the leading Austrian anti-Semites – a stand which
resulted in his being elected to the Chamber of Deputies.
1850: In Columbia, SC, Rabbi P.S. Jacobs officiated at the wedding of Jacob
Levin and Julia Mordecai.
1856: Birthdate of Piemonte, Italy native and coal dealer Pacifico Ghiron
the husband of Ida Dolce Foa Ghiron and the father of Anna Ghiron Fubini.
1857: In Westphalia, German Solomon Spiegel and Rosalie Herzberg gave birth
to Cincinnati trained lawyer Frederick S. Spiegel, the husband of Minnie
Steinberg who became a Judge of Court of Common Pleas in the 1st
Judicial District of Ohio.
1858: The Executive Committee of the Representatives of the United
Congregations of Israelites of the City of New York addressed a letter to
President James Buchanan concerning the Mortara Case. The letter included
reference to the letter sent by London Committee of Deputies of British Jews
“to their brethren in the United States” seeking their support in having the
boy who was kidnapped in Bologna returned to his family. The letter informed the President of the support
being offered by several European nations and of plans to hold a public meeting
to enlist public support in the United States. The committee reminded President
Buchanan of the prompt action taken by President Van Buren in 1840 when he was
asked to intervene to aid the persecuted Jews of Damascus and expressed the
hope that he would do the same.
1858: At Vienna, Dr. of Jurisprudence Gustav Fruend and Rosa Fruend gave
birth to Dr. of Jurisprudence Hugo Freund.
1858(13th of Kislev, 5619): Hirsch Edelman, the native of White
Russia, who worked at Oxford’s Bodelian Library where he produced several works
on of the most famous of which was Derekh Tovim: The Path of Good Men,
“a compilation of writings by Judah ibn Tibbon and Maimonides along with Arabic
and Greek proverbs in Hebrew” passed away today.
1859: In Lancaster, PA, Moses Aaron and his wife gave birth to Israel Aaron
the graduate of the University of Cincinnati and Hebrew Union College who
served as a rabbi at Fort Wayne, Indiana, before filling the pulpit at Temple
Beth Zion in Buffalo, NY.
1859: In Chicago, Jacob Alschuler and his wife gave birth to attorney Samuel
Alschuler, the Democratic state legislator who lost in elections for Congress
(1892) and governor of Illinois (1900).
1863: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Albert M. Sigmund completed his
service as an Assistant Surgeon with the 38th Regiment.
1864(21st of Cheshvan, 5625): Fifty-year old Jacob Ezekiel Lowy,
the nation of Austrian Silesia passed at Beuthen where he had been serving as
rabbi since 1854.passed away today.
1869: In Kalwaria, Poland, Nehemiah Spectorsky and Hannah Leah Hirschberg
give birth to Isaac Spectorsky, the husband of Frances Hurwitz and graduate of
the “New York University School of Pedagogy” who was superintendent of the
Education Alliance in New York and assistant principal of the Baron de Hirsch
Trade School as well as the editor of the Cleveland
Jewish Free Press and the author of Yiddish Method of English for
Immigrants.
1870: It was reported today that Robert C. De Large, a mulatto with a Jewish
father has defeated Mr. C.C. Bowen in the race for the Second Congressional
District in South Carolina. A Republican, Mr. De Large “combines the shrewdness
of the Jew with the intuitive cleverness of the negro…”
1871: In Vienna, Louisa Wolf and Alexander Gutermann gave birth to City
College of New York graduate and humor poet Arthur Guiterman, the husband of
Louisa Wolf and editor of both the Woman’s
Home Companion and the Literary Digest who was a cofounder of the
Poetry Society of America.
1874: Thirty-two year old Joseph Naphthaly, the Prussian born son of Samuel
and Julia Naphthaly and San Francisco lawyer and his wife Sarah, “the daughter
of Blaize L. and Pauline Schhmitt” gave birth to Samuel Leon, their first born
child.
1874: In Allegheny City, PA, Henry and Henrietta (Naumburg) Rosenberg gave
birth to Columbia trained Attorney and “Renaissance man” whose interests
included art and poetry who was the husband of Bessie Herman, the son-in-law of
Boston shoe manufacturer Joseph Herman and the father Elizabeth Rosenberg Zetel
and Anne Rosenberg, the husband of historian Maxwell Geismer
https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.5380.html
1875: Amelia Strauss, the Charleston, SC born daughter of Fannie and Bendix
Abraham Weinberg and her husband Alfred Abraham Strauss gave birth to Mordechai
Straus, the husband of Annie Elizabeth Strauss.
1877: In “Suwalki, Poland,” Louis and Rebecca Goldstein Rosenthal, gave
birth to Elizabeth “Lizzie” Rosenthal who became Elizabeth Feinberg when she
married Moses Feinberg.
1880: It was reported today that the Purim Association will be hosting a
ball in March at the Academy of Music “for the benefit of the Hebrew Orphan
Asylum.”
1880: In Germany, the members of the government are expected to face
questioning from deputies about anti-Semitic “agitation” that has been taken
place.
1880: According to a referee’s reported filed today described the sham by
Henry Cone, Abraham Altman, Emanuel Levi and the Third National that enabled
them to gain control of the Buffalo clothing firm Friedman & Co owned by
Jacob and Burnet Friedman.
1881: It was reported today that “the King of Denmark has knighted four Jews
in Jutland.”
1881: A resolution was adopted by a group at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum to
hold a meeting on November 27 to discuss ways to deal with the unprecedented
demand on resources being created by the arrival of the wave of immigrants from
Russia.
1883: The Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum held its second annual charity ball
tonight.
1884: Birthdate of Norman Thomas social reformer and frequent Socialist
candidate for President of the United States.
Thomas was not Jewish but he was active in numerous causes that affected
the Jewish People. He was a founder of
the American Civil Liberties Union. As a
member of the America First Committee he opposed America’s entry into World War
II until Pearl Harbor changed his mind.
At the same time, he worked to change American policy during the 1930’s
to make it possible for Jewish victims of the Nazis to enter the United States.
1885: It was reported today that while the Reform movement has approved
substituting Sunday services for Saturday services, such will not be the case
in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rabbi Wise, who
spoke approvingly of the change said that it was not necessary to make the
change in the Queen City.
1886: Birthdate of Alexandre Stavisky, the Ukrainian born French financer
whose elaborate swindle gave rise to the infamous Stavisky Affair, a scandal
that rocked France in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s.
1886: Birthdate of Hungarian native Szoboszlo Hajdu who in 1895 came to the
United States where, as James Eugene
Tischler he later became a Notary Public in Ft. Wayne Indiana.
1886: It was reported today that the recent decision of the Supreme Court
that “affirmed the illegality of keeping open a shop on Sunday “for the purpose
of doing business’” will work an extra hardship on Jewish merchants. The police had allowed them keep their shops
open on Sunday “on the supposition” that because they observed the Sabbath on
Saturday they were not covered by the law.
Rabbi Solomon Schindler has already chaired a packed meeting at the
Columbus Avenue Synagogue on this subject.
The Jews will comply with the law but will work to have the legislature
change it in the next session.
1886(22nd of Cheshvan, 5647): After having been struck by a
Hansom cab, 54 year old artist Rebecca Solomon passed away today.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/solomon-rebecca
http://jwa.org/media/rebecca-solomon-wounded-dove-1866
1887: “Miss Adams, The Writer” published today traces the life and career of
Hannah Adams, the first American woman to earn her living as an author. Her works included The History of the Jews
which was published in 1812. The full
title was The History of the Jews from the Destruction of Jerusalem to the
Present Time and it may be the first book on this topic published in the
United States.
1887: “Reading From Right to Left” published today relied on information
that first appeared in the Hebrew Journal
to speculate as to way Hebrew is read from right to left. “The most pertinent reason lies in the fact
that our vision from right to left is much clearer and stronger than it is from
left to right.”
1887: “Emma Lazarus” published today provided a laudatory obituary of the
Jewish poet who passed away yesterday.
1887: Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler delivered a lecture to the congregants at Temple
Beth-El entitled “Prejudice.”
1888: A concert was given tonight at the Metropolitan Opera House to raise
money for the Aguilar Free Library, an institution supported by the leading
Jews of New York City.
1888(16th of Kislev, 5649): Forty-seven year old Mitchell J.
Asch, the “son of Clarissa and Joseph M. Asch” and the husband of “Manuella
Asch” passed away in New York.
1888: As the Third Republic continued to be torn apart by competing factions
“Count Munster, the German Ambassador in Paris” reported to his government in
Berlin that Baron Hirsch, the Jewish financier and philanthropist was willing
to put “a few million” down in support of General Ernest Boulanger “the man on
White Horse” who had risen to power originally with the support of one of the
sons of the former Orlean kings.
1888(16th of Kislev, 5649): Simon Lederer, a prominent New York merchant
passed away today. Born in Austria in
1823, he came to the United States in 1857 where he pursued a 17 year career in
the tobacco business first with Gustav
Resiman and then as a partner in Bondy
& Lederer. A life-long bachelor, he was a generous but modest supporter of
Jewish charities.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9502E0DD1330E633A25751C2A9679D94699FD7CF
1889: Gustav Mahler’s 1st Symphony premiered. Mahler was born Jewish and was still
nominally Jewish when he wrote the First Symphony. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1897 so
that he could become Director of the State Opera.
1889: Birthdate of “German textile merchant and manufacturer Karl Amson Joel
who fled the Nazis via Switzerland and Cuba and was the “grandfather of
conductor Alexander Joel and musician Billy Joel.”
https://www.revolvy.com/page/Karl-Amson-Joel
1889(26th of Cheshvan, 5650): Sixty-seven year old Dutch
bibliographer Meyer Roest who “to
various Jewish periodicals, such as the Dutch Spectator and the Taalkundig
Magazin, and edited the (non-Jewish) Navorscher and Israelietische Nieuwsbode
for several years and whose best known work is Catalog der Hebraica und Judaica aus der L. Rosenthal’schen
Bibliothek passed away in his native Amsterdam today.
1890: As the “run” on Citizens’ Saving Bank, located on the Lower East Side
with a large number of poor, Jewish depositors, it was suggested “that Chief
Rabbi Joseph be invited to examine the thousands of dollars in the bank’s vault
and then tell his people what he had seen” – a move that the Bank President
hoped would reassure the depositors and end the run.
1890: In Richmond, VA, “Philip and Mary (Meyer)” gave birth to dentist Harry
Bear, the first graduate of the School of Dentistry at Virginia Common
University to serve as its dean and the husband of Betty Gellman.
https://dentistry.vcu.edu/about/history/
1892 (1st of Kislev, 5653): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1892(1st of Kislev, 5653): Seventy-two year old Haim Nathan
Dembitzer the Galician rabbi and historian who worked with historian Heinrich
Graetz and whose publications include a
biography of Tosafist Joseph Porat passed away today.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5075-dembitzer-hayyim-nathan
1892: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Military Band is scheduled to play at a
fundraiser at Central Turn Hall which will be addressed by Ferdinand Levy,
Judge Henry M. Goldfogle and Dr. Herman Baar, the Superintendent of the Hebrew
Orphan Asylum
1892: A service is scheduled to take place this morning at Temple Emanu-El
to honor the memory of the recently deceased Seligman Adler.
1892: “Russia and Her Jews” published today provided a detailed review of
The New Exodus” a Study of Israel in Russia by Harold Frederic a Presbyterian
journalist and novelist who had just visited Russia last summer.
1893: As of today, the tenants at 59, 61, 63, and 65 Moore Street, all of
whom are Russian Jews are to have vacated the premises as ordered the Civil
Justice in Brooklyn.
1894(21st of Cheshvan, 5655): Russian born pianist and composer Anton
Rubinstein passed away.
1894: Birthdate of English film composer and music director, Louis Levy.
https://www.discogs.com/artist/942790-Louis-Levy
1894: Pauline and George Washington Milius gave birth to Dorothy Milius who
was the wife of “Sidney Walter Kaufman and Sidney Salkey.”
1894: Birthdate of Austrian screenplay writer Carl Mayer who, with the rise
of the Nazis, fled to Britain where he would die young, poor and almost
completely forgotten.
1893: Twenty-three year old Harvard graduate Jesse Isidor Straus, the New
York born son of Isidor Straus and the former Rosalie Ida Blum, who became an
executive with Macy’s and American Ambassador to France, today married Irma
Nathan.
1896: Birthdate of Rakhel Peisoty, the native of the Ukraine who gained fame
as American labor leader Rose Pesotta best known for her work with the
International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/pesotta-rose
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/pesotta-rose
1896: “Rachel Frank of California, the only woman rabbi who is famous as the
‘inspired prophet’ of the Jews on the Pacific Coat” was “conspicuous among” the
delegates at the just completed first convention of the National Council of
Jewish Women
1896: As the first convention of the National Council of Jewish Women during
which Joseph Jacobs of London gave an address in which he said “The future of
Judaism lies with Jewish woman and Mrs.
Hannah G. Solomon was elected president came to an end.
1896: Professor H. L Sabsovich, the General Agent of the Baron De Hirsch
Fund officiated at the service dedicating the new synagogue in Woodbine, NJ, a
colony settled by Russian-Jews. The
service included a sermon in English by Rabbi Sabato Morris and a sermon in
German by Dr. Morris Jastrow.
1896: Birthdate of Russian author Yevgenia Ginzburg.
1896: In Brooklyn, Joseph and Sarah (Lewis) Spero gave birth to economist
and political scientist Sterling D. Spero, the holder of a doctorate from
Columbia best known for “co-authoring a famous study of African-American labor
history entitled The Black Worker, the Negro & the Labor Movement.”
1897: The Beni Zion Association is scheduled to meet at 7:30 p.m. in King’s
Hall in London
1898: A summary of the United Hebrew Charities report for October revealed
that the society had processed 2,243 applications that would provide assistance
to 7,477 people.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F50B17F73A5D11738DDDA90A94D9415B8885F0D3
1898(6th of Kislev, 5659): Fifty-five year old Emanuel Wachenheim
passed away tonight at Bellevue after he had brought to the hospital from the
Victor Hotel where he had registered under an assumed name and may have tried
to take his own life.
1898: Birthdate of “German textile merchant and manufacturer” Karl Amson
Joel, “the grandfather of conductor Alexander Joel” and pop-star Billy Joel.
https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Karl%20Amson%20Joel&item_type=topic
1898: Vice President Maruice Untermyer gave the opening address at the
formal dedication of “the new home of the Hebrew Infant Asylum” which included
a performance by the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band.
1899: Birthdate of Bohemian born “Austrian-Swiss ophthalmologist and
inventor” Hans Goldmann. (Some sources show November 21 as his birthdate)
http://www.ascrs.org/honorees/hans-goldmann-md
1900: Mrs. Alexander Kohut presided over the monthly meeting of the Council
of Jewish Women in the vestry of Temple Beth-El where Miss Annette Kohn read a
paper on “The Jewish Problem in New York.”
1901: At the opening meeting of the Second New York State Conference of
Charities and Correction, Rabbi Adolph Radin of the People’s Synagogue and
Chaplain of the House of Refuge arose from his chair and said, “I wish to
register…my protest in the name of justice and humanity against the action of
the Juvenile Asylum” to which “Jewish children are sent…and after a brief
period are sent to Christian families.” He compared this form of proselytism to
the practices of Czar Nicholas II.
1901: A devastating fire broke out in a four story brick factory building in
Brooklyn, the top floor of which was occupied by Isadore Gerber’s sweatshop.
1901: Birthdate of Frankfurt, Germany native Albrecht Joseph, the
“playwright, screenwriter and film editor”
and husband of Anna Mahler, the daughter of Gustav Mahler, who fled Nazi
German and began working in Hollywood sometimes usings the name “Al Joseph.:
1902: “The Jewish Theological Seminary held its first public gathering this
evening in the hall of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association at Lexington Avenue
ad Ninety-Second Street. Prof. Solomon Schechter, the professor at Cambridge
University, England, who is known for his archaeological work in the Genizah of
Cairo, made his inaugural address as President of the Faculty of the new
seminary.” Dr. Cyrus Adler, President of
the Board of Trustees, followed with a speech that outlined the development of
Jewish educational institutions in the United States.
1903: Birthdate of journalist and co-editor of the Menorah, Herbert Solow
who began as a Bolshevik and ended up working for Henry Luce’s Fortune
magazine, the bible of Capitlism.
1904: It was reported that there has
been “increased violence on the part of the part of reservists near the Russian
frontier “including the murder of a “Jewish storekeeper and his wife at
Bendzin.”
1905: “Emma Lazarus’s Memory Honored At A Meeting” published today
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9803E7DC143DE733A25753C2A9679D946497D6CF
1905: “Says President Can Act” published today includes a challenge by
Charles Fleisher a Boston Rabbi to the notion that there is nothing President
Roosevelt can do to help the Jews of Russia saying that “if both as an
individual and the representative of 80,000,000 people consecrated to decency
and brotherhood, Mr. Roosevelt express with character vigor the indignant
protest of America, then the Czar cannot choose but take notice.
1905: Oscar S. Straus presided over The National Committee for the Relief of
Sufferers by Russian Massacre held a meeting today in Temple Emanu-El during
which reports were read by Treasurer Jacob H. Schiff, Secretary Cyrus L.
Sulzberger “and the various trade committees that have been soliciting funds.
1905: As of today, the Jewish Relief Fund for the victims of the Russian
massacres has reached the $500,000 dollar mark including $152 from the Jewish
community in Hamilton, Ohio, $20 from Congregation Temple Israel in Portsmouth,
N.H., $111 from the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Ybar City, FL and $93
from the Orthodox Jews of Wichita, KS,
1905: It was reported today that in England “at a good many churches
preachers have made references to the Russian atrocities” and that a number of
congregations have adopted “formal resolutions expressing sorrow and shame that
in the name of Christ’s religion and in a Christian county such acts of
fiendish cruelty have been perpetrated.
1905: It was reported today that National Committee collecting money for the
relief of the Russian Jews who are being massacred has raised $498,651
including $500 from “the Jews of Bradford, PA,” $200 from Dr. Morris Skalmer,
West Colfax Settlement, Denver, Colorado,” $93 from the “Orthodox Jews of
Wichita, Kansas and $112 from the Canton Hebrew Congregation, Canton, Ohio.
1906: Thirty-four-year old award winning
“painter and sculptor” Marco Zim , the Moscow born son of Bella Miriam
Ratner and Jacob Samson Zim, married Minnie Orlo Cohen today.
1906: In New York City, the Fire Commissioner asked the Finance Committee of
the Board of Alderman for an $8,000 for eight Fire Chaplains and “ $1,000 for
Hebrew interpreter” because as he said
can you imagine “an Irishman trying to talk Hebrew to men who can’t
speak English!”
1907(14th of Kislev, 5668): Forty two year old New York City
native Samuel A. Tuska, the 1884 graduate of CCNY and “member of Heller, Hirsh
& Co” who was a trustee of both the Aguilar Free Library society and the
Society for Ethical Culture passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1907/11/21/104712218.pdf
1907: Birthdate of New York City native Herbert Theodore Bergman who gained
as actor Alan Reed whose career included appearances in such major films as
“Breakfast at Tiffany’s but is best known for being the voice of “Fred
Flintstone.”
1908: The Grand Vizir of Morocco sent a letter to President of the Alliance
Israelite Universelle approving educational work and stating that the new
Sultan is resolved to protect Jews.
1909: In Berlin, “architect Alfred Breslauer” and “Dorothea Lessing, the
daughter of art historian Julius Lessing gave birth to Marianne Breslauer, the
noted photographer who left Germany rather than have work published under a
pseudonym and the wife of Walter Feilchenfeldt whom she met in Holland.
https://www.museunacional.cat/en/marianne-breslauer-photographs-1927-1938
1909(7th of Kislev, 5670):Parashat Vayetzei
1909(7th of Kislev, 5670): Mrs. Schore Shapiro passed away today.
1909: The University of Michigan led by halfback Joseph “Joe” Magidsohn,
“the first Jewish athlete to win a varsity ‘M’” who was the “first athlete
known to have refused to compete on the Jewish High Holy Days” defeated the
University of Minnesota today.
1909: The One-hundredth anniversary of the death of Moses Mendes Seixas was
observed at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York. Gershom Mendes Seixas was the first
native-born rabbi in the United States. He was one of seven children of Rachel
and Isaac Seixas. He was born in New York City on January 15, 1746. He was the
first rabbi in America to give his sermons in English. He gave sermons which
dealt with Jewish participation in the life of the state and made appeals for
support of the American Revolution and against the British-Indian raids in the
Northwest Territory. When the council members of Philadelphia made eligibility
for an assembly seat dependent on professing the divine origin of the New
Testament, he and other Jews fought against this unconstitutional religious
test.
1910: Fifty-eight year old Hungarian
born Rabbi Joseph Zeisler married his second wife Hermine Kafka today in New
York City.
1910: Twenty-seven year old University
of Chicago graduate ad HUC trained rabbi Gresham George Fox, the Russian born
son Moses and Isabelle (Kuklinsky) who served as the Rabbi for Congregation
Beth El in Ft. Worth, TX and found the South Short Temple of Chicago married
Hortense Lewis today.
1911: In Munich, Bruno Walter
conducted the premiere of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.
1911: The Hebrew Congress meeting in
Lemberg, Galicia came to a close.
1911: As American indignation over
the Russian treatment of American Jews in Russia continued to grow, members of
the “Progressive Order of the West” petitioned Missouri Governor Herbert Hadley
to “write to President Taft” asking him to “take action on the Passport
Question.”
1911: Missouri Governor Hadley wrote
to President Taft “advocating the abrogation of the Treaty of 1832” with
Russia.
1911: It was reported today that in
Camden, NJ, the Hebrew school will shortly open a course for girls since it now
successfully is conducting three classes for male students.
1911: In Warsaw, “Regina and
Benjamin Szymin, a respected publisher of Yiddish and Hebrew Books” gave birth
to David Syzmin who gained fame as David Seymour famed photographer and
co-founder of Magnum Photos.
http://lightbox.time.com/2013/01/16/a-second-look-chims-children-of-war/#1
http://merrill.umd.edu/events/visible-scars-children-and-war-photography-david-chim-seymour
http://museum.icp.org/mexican_suitcase/bio_chim.html
1912: Lee K. Frankel of New York, Simon Rosendale of Albany, and William M.
Rosendale of New York attended the second day of New York State Conference of
Charities and Correction at Syracuse, NY.
1912: The Alliance Israelite
Universelle New York branch which is led by its President Kaufman Mandell
issued an appeal for aid on behalf “of our brethren who have been left homeless
and falling victim to Cholera” as a result of the “massacres and devastations
of the Balkan War” in which thousands of more Jews have lost their lives.
1913: Arnold Schoenberg completed the opera “Die glückliche Hand” (“The Hand
of Fate”)
1913: Birthdate of Charles Bettelheim, a French economist and historian and
founder of the Center for the Study of Modes of Industrialization (CEMI).
1913: Birthdate of Leo Hanin, the native of Vilna who found refuge in China
and Japan before finally making Aliyah in 1948
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/idcard.php?ModuleId=10006693
1913: Birthdate of Professor Henry A. Fischel, the noted linguist who played
a key role in the founding of the Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University
1914(2nd of Kislev, 5675): Seventy-year old Lizzie Sicher
Fishell, the Prague born daughter of Daniel and Lizzie Sicher and husband of
Ferdinand Fischell with whom she had six children – Arthur, Regina, Samuel,
Henry, Daniel and Mamie – passed away today after which she was buried at the
New Mounty Sinai Cemetery in Aftton, MO.
1914: “For the Relief of Jews” published today urged donors making
contributions to The Central Committee for the Relief of Jews to send them to
Treasurer Harry Fischel at the World Building.
1915(13th of Kislev, 5676): In Chicago, Dr. Adolf Decker a
physician and chess champion passed away.
1915: The New York County Chapter of the Red Cross of which Jacob H. Schiff
is Treasurer “issued a Thanksgiving appeal for further funds for work in
Europe.”
1915: “A Great Thinker” published today described Dr. Cyrus Adler’s view of
his friend and colleague, Dr. Solomon Schechter of blessed memory which
included his statement that Schechter’s “most notable scientific discovery was
the great find of the Hebrew treasures in the so-called Genizah at Cairo, Egypt
which was the greatest single discovery of ancient manuscripts that has ever
been made by one man” and that included “the lost original of the Hebrew text
of Ecclesisasticus.”
1916: According to reports published today the new facility of the Young
Men’s and the Young Women’s Hebrew Association being built in Brooklyn “is the
first of its type to provide equal accommodations for men and women” and will
be “equipped with two gymnasiums and swimming pools
1916: Birthdate of Lilian Halpernova, who was transported from Prague in
1942 to Ujazdow where she was murdered.
1917: “The Chicago Woman’s Aid” is schedule to “hold its next regular
meeting today at 2:00 p.m. at Sinai Center.”
1917: “Approximately five thousand men and women composing the 1917
Committee For Six Thousand” are scheduled to “attend the Opening Dinner Rally
at the Standard Club” this evening which will mark the “launcing of the Ten Day
Campaign to raise additional funds for the Associated Charities” in Chicago.
1917(5th of Kislev, 5678): Caroline “Carrie” Goldman Bendel, the
daughter of Lewis and Sarah Peterson Goldman and the wife of Edward Henry
Bendel passed away today after which she was interred in the Indianapolis
Hebrew Congregation Cemetery.
1917: As the Empire of Russia collapses, the Ukraine declares itself an
independent republic. In the ensuing civil war, as many as 100,000 Jews may
have been killed in organized pogroms or by forces competing for control who
had one thing in common — anti-Semitism.
1917: “The Woman’s Society of Zion Congregation” is scheduled to act as
“hostess to the Jewish women of the sixty-three organizations affiliated with
the ‘Chicago Conference’’ this afternoon at the Zion Temple on Ogden Avenue and
Washington Boulevard.
1917: Nathan Straus, Henry Morgenthau and Jacob Schiff were among those who
attended a meeting tonight where plans were discussed for the upcoming campaign
in which New Yorkers were aiming to raise five million dollars for Jewish
Relief and for the Jewish Welfare Board in the United Army and Navy.
1917: In Palestine, during the Battle of Nebi Samwil, which was part of the
British offensive designed to capture Jerusalem, the 75th Division
advanced along water-logged muddy roads and seized the villages of Saris and
Kuryet el Enab which had been held by a rearguard detachment which meant the
main body of the Ottoman Army was still waiting for them.
1917: In Johannesburg, SA, those attending “a mass meeting” adopted a
resolution “favoring the establishment of a national home for Jews in
Palestine” and “thanking the Imperial Government for its sympathy and support”
in attaining this end.
1918: In “Palestine Needs Aid” published today an appeal was made for the
“contributions of clothing for men, women and children for immediate ship to
Palestine” where “an epidemic of pneumonia is threatening the population of
Galilee who are facing the cold weather in a practically naked condition.”
1918: Rabbi Joseph Silverman is scheduled to officiate at the funeral of
Civil War veteran and successful Peoria (Illinois) businessman Captain Joseph
B. Greenhut this morning at 10 o’clock at Temple Emanuel with burial at Salem
Field Cemetery.
1919: “A call for men to serve in a unit of expert relief and welfare
workers to aid in the rehabilitation of the Jews in Poland was issued” today “
by the Joint Distribution Committee.”
1920(9th of Kislev, 5681): Parashat Vayetzei
1920: Rabbi Max Reichler is scheduled to deliver a sermon this morning on
“The Pursuit of Happiness” at Sinai of the Bronx this morning
1920: Twenty seven year Rabbi Reuben Levovitz, the Minsk born son of Chaim
Joseph and Zive Lebe (Mandel) Levovitz who to the United States in 1920 where
he was a member of Rabbincal Board of New York City and a member of the
Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada married Zlate Kustonowitz in Minis.
1920: Rabbi Samuel Schulman is scheduled to deliver the sermon this morning
at Temple Beth-El at 5th Avenue and 76th Street.
1921(20th of Cheshvan, 5682): Seventy-seven year old David Zvi
Hoffmann passed away today in Berlin.
http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/01/rabbi-david-hoffmann-zl-by-eliezer-m.html
1922: The Conference of Lausanne, one of the many peace conferences held to
windup World War I which was covered by Albert Karasu opened today. Born in
1885 in Ottoman Salonika, he went to school in Switzerland before returning to
Istanbul where he founded Le Journal d’Orient which survived until 1971, 11
years before Karasu passed away.
1923: In Springs, Transvaal, Union
of South Africa, Isidore Gordimer, a
Jewish immigrant watchmaker from Žagarė and Hannah “Nan” (Myers)
Gordimer gave birth to Nadine Gordimer. a South African Jewish novelist
and writer, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in literature and 1974 Booker
Prize. Gordimer was educated at an
Anglican convent school. Thereafter she studied for a year at Witwatersrand
University, but did not complete her degree. During the 1960s and 1970s she
taught at several universities in the United States. She drew praise for her
demand that South Africa re-examine and replace its long held policy of
apartheid. As such, most of her works deal with the moral and psychological
tensions of her racially divided home country. Her first novel, The Lying
Days, was published in 1953. A founding member of the Congress of South
African Writers, Gordimer has been awarded numerous honorary degrees, as well
as France’s Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
1924: University of Cincinnati
graduate and HUAC ordained rabbi, Dr. Harry W. Ettelson, the holder of Ph.D
from your Yale and Lithuanian born son of Miriam Harris and Samuel Ettelson who
served as Chaplain in the U.S. Navy in WW I and led congregations in Ft.
Wayne, Hartford and Philadelphia before assuming the leadership of Temple
Israel in Memphis, TN married Nell R. Schwab today
https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/harry-w-ettelson/
1924: Birthdate of mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot. Mandelbrot is a leading proponent of
fractal geometry. He is Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences, Emeritus
at Yale University and
Emeritus at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/us/17mandelbrot.html
1925: “Countess Maritza” a silent film with a script by Max Glass was
released today in Germany.
1925: In Moscow, Rachel Messerer-Plisetskaya, a silent-film actress and
“Mikahil ‘Misha’ Plisetski, a diplomat and engineer” gave birth to “ballet
dancer, choreographer, ballet director, and actress Maya Mikhailovna
Plisetskaya.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/russia-mourns-jewish-ballet-rebel-maya-plisetskaya/
1925: Birthdate of Robert F. Kennedy
who was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan in 1968 be he was supposedly upset
because Kennedy was a supporter of the state of Israel.
1926(14th of Kislev, 5687): Parashat Vayishlach
1926: “Hundreds of delegates representing American Jews in 27 states” are in
Boston tonight “for the national conference for the United Palestine Appeal
ushering in the 1927 campaign” to raise ten million dollars.\
1927: “At the opening session of the Jewish Agricultural Society’s night
school at 301 East 14th Street, Gabriel Davidson, general manager of
the society declared” tonight “that Jews were turning to farming” in the United
States “in larger numbers than before.”
1927: The Jews are neither a race nor a religion; they are a historic
community, according to Rabbi Nathan Krass, who delivered the first lecture of
the current season Sunday Morning Services today on “Why We Remain
Jews” at Temple Emanu-El, at Fifth Avenue and Seventy-sixth Street”
1928: Birthdate of “Sgt. Alec ‘Moishe’ Freedman,” the native of
Stepney-Middlesex who was wounded when the 1st Battalion
Leicestershires attacked Hill 317 “on the night of November 6th,
1951.”
1928: “For the first time in the history of the Zionist movement in America,
150 leaders of the Zionist and non-Zionist facts met at a dinner” tonight at
the Hotel Astor” where “they discussed plans for the intensive development of
Palestine as the national home of the Jews and joined in praising Dr. Chaim
Weizmann…for his recent achievement in healing the split between Zionists and
non-Zionists.”
1929:
Birthdate of Joyce Beber (née Sacks) the yesihiva
student turned advertising executive who co-founded Beber Silverstein &
Partners and created numerous memorable campaigns for the Helmsley group of
hotels, which successfully promoted Leona Helmsley and her hotel chain, but led
to her being hired and fired four times by Helmsley.
1929: Rabbi Judah P. Magnes declares that Palestine must be a place for
Christians, Moslems and Jews. He sees Palestine as an international home for
people of all three faiths and calls for “the renunciation of all ideas of
Jewish political domination” along with the development of “cultural Zionism.”
1929: Today, Gertrude Berg’s popular radio program, The Goldbergs,
about an upwardly mobile American Jewish family debuted on NBC radio. Berg
developed the kernel of the show as a series of live sketches to entertain
guests at her family’s Catskills hotel. It was produced in recurrent runs as a
daily 15-minute program on NBC and other networks for nearly two decades before
shifting to television in January, 1949. On both radio and TV, Berg served as
the sole writer, producer, and star of one the nation’s most popular programs.
Throughout its 30 years on radio and television, as well as in presentations on
Broadway and on film, The Goldbergs dealt explicitly with Jewish life in
the United States, joking about the cultural differences between “old
world” immigrants and their American-born offspring. Berg’s Molly became a
cultural touchstone, a figure combining old world wisdom, new world common
sense, and a mother’s humanity in confronting the perplexities of American
life. Over the show’s three decades, the Goldberg family moved from a New York
City tenement to the Bronx and later to suburban Connecticut, mirroring the
upward progression of many Jews into the American mainstream. Although Berg
continued to produce The Goldbergs into the 1950s, the show’s popularity
declined. The demise of The Goldbergs reflects the homogenizing trend in
postwar American society. As millions of ethnic Americans fled their
traditional urban enclaves in search of an un-hyphenated, simply
“American” identity in the suburbs, programming explicitly grounded
in ethnic cultures gave way to more all-American shows like Leave it to
Beaver and Father Knows Best. The Goldbergs went off the air
in 1955.
1930: “A provisional committee of four which will act on behalf of the
American members of the Jewish Agency for Palestine has been established,
according to an announcement made tonight by Dr. Cyrus Adler, joint chairman of
the council of the Jewish Agency, through the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.”
1930: “The Rev. Dr. Isaac Landman, editor of The American Hebrew,
announced today that Newton D. Baker of Cleveland, President Wilson’s Secretary
of War, had been designated as the first winner of the publication’s annual
Medal for the Promotion of Better Understanding Between Christian and Jew in
America.”
1931: “Anti-Semitic attacks occurred today in Vilna, its suburbs and in the
neighboring towns of Lida and Trock” and “attacks against the Jews were also
carried out in Suvalk, Province of Grodno.”
1932: “A unified program consolidating all work for the upbuilding of the
Jewish National homeland in Palestine was adopted at the conference on
Palestine” being held in Omaha, NB, “today which leaders of seven national
Jewish organizations attended and where Professor Gustav Klausner of St. Louis
University was elected “president of the newly consolidated central and
southwestern divisions the Zionist Organization” which “embraces thirteen
states.”
1933(2nd of Kislev): Rabbi Moses Mordecai Epstein, author of Levush
Mordecai, passed away today.
1934: Lillian Hellmann’s “Children’s Hour,” premieres in New York
City.
1934: The Hartford Symphony Orchestra, which Fritz Mahler served as music
director from 1953-1962 performed for the first time tonight.
1934: At their home at 145 Central Park West, Mr. and Mrs. Abraham Gevirtz
hosted a dinner honoring “Judge Otto A. Rosalsky and the dinner committee of
the Bar Mitzvah celebration of the Jewish Education Association during which
“Judge Rosalsky was installed as the acting president of the association.”
1934: After Nazi students interrupted his lectures, Felix Hausdoff stopped
teaching his Calculus III course during the winter semester.
1935: Benito Mussolini, Hitler’s partner in the original “Axis of evil”
“declared government control of all the gold in Italy.”
1935: In Michigan, Miriam
Meckler-Horowitz, a piano teacher, and Ben Meckler, an English teacher, in
Detroit, gave birth to Ruth Meckler who gained fame as pianist Ruth Laredo.
1935: King Levinsky, who had recently been knocked out by a youthful Joe
Louis, “fought professional wrestler Ray Steele in a bout that attracted
national interest.”
1936: William Green, the President of the American Federation of Labor today
“protested again the persecution of the Jews in Germany by the Hitler
government voicing indignation against the attacks on a race which had
committed no wrong and which, during the centuries, ‘has made its contribution
toward freedom and the spiritual welfare of the world.’”
1936: At Temple Emanu-El, Rabbi Samuel H. Godenson is scheduled to deliver a
sermon on “The Stone That Became the Altar.”
1936: At the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall, author Marvin Lowenstein is
schooled to deliver an address on “The Jews of Germany.”
1936: At Temple Rodeph Shalom, Rabbi Louis I Newman is scheduled to deliver
a sermon “Where is the Gates of Heaven?”
1936: In Perth Amboy, NJ, Murray Goldstein and the former Evelyn Bier gave
birth to Charles Arthur Goldstein a successful attorney who worked to recover
Holocaust art.
1936: Today, Premier Benito Mussolini sent money and an invitation to come
to Italy to the Polish-Jeish student Janien Berg, who has been unable to finish
his studies” in Warsaw “because of anti-Semitic riots.
1937(16th of Kislev, 5698): Parashat Vayhishlach
1937: In Detroit, Michigan, “Miriam Meckler-Horowitz, a piano teacher, and
Ben Meckler, an English teacher” gave birth to Ruth Meckler who gained fame as
concert pianist Ruth Laredo, the wife of violinist Jamie Laredo.
1938: Father Coughlin made the first of his many anti-Semitic attacks on his
radio show. Using Nazi documents, American radio commentator Father Charles
Coughlin contends that Jews are responsible for Russian communism and for
Germany’s problems. All of Coughlin’s radio programs are approved by his
archdiocese as not contradicting Catholic faith or morals. Some Catholics
protest Coughlin’s broadcasts, including Chicago’s Cardinal George Mundelein,
but most of the American Church is silent.
1939: In what had been Poland, the Nazi Generalgouvernement blocked all bank
accounts held by Jews. Withdrawals were limited to thirty dollars per month.
1939: In a letter bearing today’s date sent to Representative Martin Dies,
Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on un-American
Activities, Harry A. Jung, honorary general manager of the American Vigilant
Intelligence Federation wrote that he had never corresponded with Oscar C.
Pfaus, “director of a Nazi propaganda agency called Ficte Bund” or “anyone else
about going on any publication board for an alleged Nazi magazine.”
1940: Britain announced a more stringent policy aimed at Jews trying to
enter Palestine illegally. Jews found on
ships running the British blockade will not be allowed to enter Palestine. They will be taken to an undetermined
colonial destination where they will be imprisoned until the end of the
war. At that time, there final
destination, which will not be Palestine or the site of the imprisonment will
be determined.
1940: The Jewish Agency informed Prime Minister Churchill of the inhumane
conditions under which Jewish detainees are being held on the island of
Mauritius.
1940: In Manhattan, attorney Walter J. Loria and his wife Ruth gave birth
Jerry Loria, the art dealer who bought the Miami Marlins major league baseball
team.
1940: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining
the Axis Powers. This is the first step on the long road which will belatedly
bring the Holocaust to the Jews of Hungary including Nobel Prize Winner Elie
Weisel.
1940: In Vienna, in his talk with Hitler Hungarian Prime Minister Teleki
“brought up the Jewish question” saying “that when peace was concluded the Jews
would have to be moved out of Europe” to which Hitler “replied that he regards
the solution of the Jewish question for Europe as one of the biggest problems
of peace”
1941(30th of Cheshvan, 5702): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1941(30th of Cheshvan, 5702): Approximately 7000 Jews from Minsk,
Belorussia, are killed at nearby Tuchinka.
1942 (11th of Kislev, 5703): Rechaviah Lewin-Epstein, who was in charge of
the economic work of the American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs died
in Cairo today at the age of 49 while on his way to Palestine to continue his
work. Mr. Lewin-Epstein, the son of
author and Zionist leader Elias W. Lewin-Epstein, established The Bureau of
American Economic Committee for Palestine an organization he headed until 1938. He returned to New York in 1939 after he had
“facilitated the settlement of thousands of refugees in agriculture, industry
and trade” in Palestine.
1942: U.S. premiere of “Strictly in the Groove” featuring Shemp Howard
1942: Birthdate of folk singer
Norman Greenbaum.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPlGFh6OpQ
1943: Facing withering fire from Japanese artillery and machine guns, U.S.
Marines land on Tarawa. This bloody
battle provides part of the backdrop for “Battle Cry,” the World War II novel
by Leon Uris.
1943: This afternoon several hundred residents of Tel Aviv protested the
search that had been carried out at Ramat Hakovesh. The protesters also demanded the release of
men who had been arrested during the search.
1943: After 36 performances at the Plymouth Theatre, the curtain came down
on “The Naked Genius,” a play produced by Mike Todd.
1943: “Winged Victory,” a play originally created and produced by the U.S.
Army Air Forces during World War II as a morale booster and as a fundraiser for
the Army Emergency Relief Fund” with a script by Moss Hart that “tells the story of a group of recruits struggling
to make it through pilot training” opened in New York at the Forty-Fourth
Street Theatre today and became a smash hit, playing to over 350,000 people in
226 performances.
1943: Madeline Dreyfus who had chosen to remain in France as part of the
Resistance instead of joining most of her family in the United States was sent
to Auschwitz. Her grandmother Lucie Eugénie Hadamard, Colonel Dreyfus’ widow
stayed with her. She would be hidden in
a convent, survive the war and not pass away until 1945.
1943: The Nazis auction off the furniture and household possessions of the
family of Isak Plesansky in an example of how the property of Norwegian Jews
“mysteriously” disappeared.
1944: Forty-five year old anti-Nazi resistance leader Leo Drabent who had
been arrested by the Gestapo along with his wife and eight other comrades was”
guillotined at the Brandenburg-Gorden Prison” today.
1944(4th of Kislev, 5705): Havivah Reik and Rafael Reiss, together with a
group of captured Jews, were murdered in the Kremnica forest by the Germans and
their Slovakian fascist collaborators. They dumped the bodies into a large
ditch that served as a mass, unmarked grave.
1944: “The
special People’s Court sentenced “Hans Neumann, Leo Drabant, his
wife along with eight other resistance members” “to death because they had
‘attempted to destroy the resistance of the German People…”
1944(4th
of Kislev, 1944): Twenty-six year old Madeleine Levy, the daughter of Jeanne
and Pierre-Paul Levy died today at Auschwitz.
1944(4th of Kislev,
5705): Haviva Reik was captured
and executed by the Nazis and members of the Ukrainian Waffen SS. Born in 1914,
she was one of four volunteers from the Yishuv in Eretz Israel who parachuted
into Slovakia to help the uprising against the Nazis. In September 1944 she
succeeded in helping the Jews who were left in Banska Bystresis. When it fell
they moved into the mountains with other Jewish partisans. Kibbutz Lahavot
Haviva and the Givat Haviva center are dedicated to her memory.
1945: Twenty-four Nazi leaders went on trial before
an international war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg in which Colonel Benjamin
Kaplan, “who later became a Harvard law professor and served nine years on the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court” played a key role in crafting the
indictment.
1945: Birthdate of Deborah Eisenberg, an American short-story writer, actor
and teacher who is the long-time companion of actor Wallace Shawn.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/25/books/review-your-duck-is-my-duck-deborah-eisenberg.html
1945: In Oceanside, NY, clothing store owners William and Bettina (May)
Barasch gave birth to Bettina Barash who gained fame as “Bettina Plevan, a top
litigator who made her name defending employers in sexual harassment and gender
discrimination cases, and who helped pave the way for women to advance in the
legal profession after shattering glass ceilings herself.” (As reported by
Katharine Q. Seelye)
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/nytimes/name/bettina-plevan-obituary?pid=200514348
1945: Joseph Newman wrote to the War Office today to ask why the Gestapo had
released Denise Desvaux so quickly, how did they know that Isidore Newman was a
British officer and had she betrayed him to the Nazis.
1946: As tensions rise in Palestine, a bomb exploded in Jerusalem.
1947: The New York Times includes
a review of The Victim, Saul Bellow’s novel about Asa Leventhal, “a
frightened and lonely, man.”
1947: “Meet the
Press” makes network TV debut on NBC. The popular television news show
began as a radio program in 1945, produced by Lawrence Spivak. A panel of four
news people interviewed a prominent leader of the day. When the show shifted to television, Spivak
was the permanent panel member and some time served as moderator.
1947: Lillian Hellman’s “Another Part of the Forest,” premieres in
New York City.
1947: It was reported today that Lessing J. Rosenwald, the President of the
American Council of Judaism, has expressed his strong opposition to “plans to
establish the American Jewish Conference on a permanent basis to coordinate all
Jewish activities in this country.” The
American Council of Judaism was a leading anti-Zionist Jewish organization in
the United State.
1947: British diplomat Sir Alexander
Cadogan delivered his country’s response to United Nations General Assembly’s
Committee on the Palestine.
1948: “The Little Ballerina” a British drama featuring Anthony Newley was
released in Sweden today.
1948: In New York City, “high school counselor Claire Masure” and her
husband who was a pharmacist gave birth to actor Richard Masur who “served two
terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild.”
1948: “An unarmed RAF photoreconnaissance De Havilland Mosquito of No. 13
Squadron RAF was shot down by an Israeli Air Force P-51 Mustang flown by
American volunteer Wayne Peake as it flew over the Galilee towards Hatzor
Airbase. Peake opened fire with his cannons, causing a fire to break out in the
port engine. The aircraft turned to sea and lowered its altitude, then exploded
and crashed off Ashdod.” Both members of the crew were killed. (So much for the
myth of British neutrality in the Middle East.
1948: The first preliminary armistice talks begin when William E. Riley,
chief UN truce observer, meets separately with Israel Foreign Office officials
and Egyptian commander Fouad Sadeh Bey.
1948: Dr. Philip C. Jessup announces U.S. policy regarding peace talks in
the Palestine including a proviso that any changes in Israel’s boundaries must
be agreed to by the Jewish state and a willingness to examine some parts of
Count Bernadotte’s plan including the internationalization of Jerusalem.
1949: The Jewish population of Israel reached one million.
1949: “The Austrian-born Joseph Floch who has been painting in” the United
States “for a nearly a decade is exhibiting recent work at the galleries of the
Associated American Artists” in what is his third one-man show. (Editor’s note:
What is left unsaid is that Floch was Jewish and he came to the United States
to escape the Nazis)
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1949/11/20/84287127.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/14365
1951: Lewis L. Strauss addressed the second annual convocation of the Jewish
Theological Seminary in New York City.
Dr. James Conant, President of Harvard, Dr. A. Whitney Griswold,
President of Yale and Arthur Hays Sulzberger, president and publisher of The
New York Times, received honorary degrees of Doctor of Letters. (Sulzberger was
the Jewish member of the trio).
1951: Dr. Simon Greenberg, vice chancellor of the Jewish Theological
Seminary conferred the degree of Doctor of Hebrew Literature on Rabbi Shraga
Abramson, a visiting lecturer on the Talmud.
1951(21st
of Cheshvan, 5712): Seventy-five year old Russian
native Philip Davis, whose education at the University of Chicago, Harvard and Boston University Law School led him into
the fields of social work, the law and motion pictures where he served as the
President of the National Motion Bureau “from 1914 to 1940” passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/11/21/94280389.pdf
1952: The Slánský trials- a series of Stalinist and anti-Semitic show trials
– began in Czechoslovakia. The Slansky trials take their name from Rudolf
Slansky. “A veteran of revolutionary of
Jewish origin, he had served as Secretary of the Czech Communitys Party. Slansky was accused of spying for American
imperialism, for the State of Israel and for the Zionist movement; allegedly he
was a link in a chain of treachery” designed to undermine the authority of the
Socialist Revolution i.e. Stalin and the Soviets. “Fifteen years later this affair was
officially declared to have bee a despicable slander, the whole affair having
been fabricated by Soviet security agents working in Czechoslovakia.”
1955: It was reported today that City College has received a bequest of
$6,000 from the late Eugene H. Hoeber, the nephew of “the late Professor Adolph
Werner, a City College graduate of the Class of 1857, a City College faculty
member from 1857 to 1915 and a twice acting president.
1955: Dr. Cari Alpert, special assistant to Yaakov Dori, president of the
Technion (Israel’s answer to MIT) “said a permanent peace between Israel and
the Arab states would result in the opening of Technion’s doors to Arab
students.
1957: Morton Wishengrad’s “Rope
Dancers,” premieres in New York City. Wishengrad was raised on New York’s
Lower East Side by his Orthodox Jewish father.
Wishengrad was not particularly interested in maintaining his Jewish
identity which was rather ironic because, in 1944, he became the first script
writer for the radio show, “The Eternal Light” produced by the Jewish
Theological Seminary.
1957(26th of Cheshvan, 5718): Seventy-two year old Vilna born
Cooper Union trained engineer Joseph Halpern, the “director of the Bureau of
Port Planning and Development and the Department of Marine and Aviation, the husband of Ida Halpern with
whom he had three children — Dr. Seymour, Adeline and Beatrice – passed away
today in Brooklyn.
1958: It was reported today that “Dr. Franz J. Kallman of the New York State
Psychiatric Institute is seeking to prove that hereditary physical factors make
persons susceptible to the disease” and “he has found that in schizophrenia
patients a certain enzyme regulating the metabolism of blood cells behaves
abnormally, possibly keeping the cells from transmitting proper substances to
the substances to the nervous system.”
1959:
jockey Alan Freed over payola scandal.
1960(1st of Kislev, 5721): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1960(1st of Kislev): Seventy-nine year old Ya’akov Cohen, the native of
Slutsk who made Aliyah in 1934 and became a prize winning “man of letters” who
received the Tchernichovsky Prize for exemplary translation, for translations
from the German of the first part of Goethe’s Faust and other Goethe’s works,
Torquato Tasso and Iphigenia in Tauris, as well as a selection of poems by
Heinrich Heine” passed away today.
1960: When the White House announced today that James D. Zellerbach was
retiring as U.S. Ambassador to Italy, it released a letter from President
Eisenhower to the Ambassador in which he wrote “You have served your country
with a high sense of dedication and purpose of which you should be justly
proud.”
1961: Birthdate of Shaker Heights, OH
native and Temple Kol-Ami confirmand James “Jim” Meririll Brickman “an American
pop songwriter, pianist and radio host. Brickman has earned two Grammy
nominations for his albums Peace (2003) for Best Instrumental, and Faith (2009)
for Best New Age Album.”
1962: Birthdate of pianist and
composer Robin Speilberg, the granddaughter of flutist Rubin Spielberg.
http://alextimes.com/2009/10/robin-spielberg-setting-her-life-to-a-s/
1963: It was reported that George
Maislen, the newly re-elected president of the United Synagogue proposed “that
a special committee be formed to help the Conservative clarify its philosophy
and to present a series of appropriate statements in the field of ritual
policies” that take into consideration and environments of our time.
1964: The Second Vatican Council, under Pope
Paul VI, condemned anti-Semitism, declaring that the Jewish people as a whole
are not to be blamed for Jesus’ death.
1965(25th of Cheshvan, 5726): Parashat Chayei Sara
1965(25th of Cheshvan, 5726): Forty-two year old Brooklyn
Polytech graduate Boris Sherback who worked with the Textile Workers Union, the
Marshall Plan and the Agency for International Development and who in 1946
married Doris Hoffman Scherback with whom he had three children – David, Janet
and Loren — passed away today.
1965: In New York, “art dealer” Harold Diamond and “interior designer”
Hester Diamond gave birth to Michael Louis Diamond who gained famed the rapper
“Mike D.P
1968: In New Jersey, Stephen and Nancy Einhorn gave birth Cornell graduate David
Einhorn, an American hedge fund manager and the founder of Greenlight Capital
who “was included
in Time magazine’s Time 100 list of “100
most influential people in the world” in 2013.”
1969(10th of Kislev, 5730): Sixty-three year old labor lawyer Lee Pressman
who was accused of involvement with the Communist Party passed away today.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=980CE5DA1E3AEF3BBC4951DFB7678382679EDE
1970(21st of Cheshvan, 5731): Eighty-year-old Columbia graduate
and JTS trained rabbi, Abraham Aaron Neuman the Austrian born of Rachel
Rose and Max Neuman who in 1898
immigrated to the United States where he eventually became President of Dropsie
College and served as Democratic elector in the 1940 presidential elections
passed away today.
1971(2nd of Kislev, 5732): Parsahat Toldot
1971(2nd of Kislev 5732): Seventy-three year old Katherine
Stieglitz, the daughter of photographer Alfred Stieglitz and Emmy Stieglitz
passed away today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Stieglitz#/media/File:Stieglitz-Katherine.jpg
1972(14th of Kislev, 5733): Eighty-year old Jennie Grossinger,
the “queen” of Grossinger’s Resort Hotel passed away today.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/grossinger.html
1973(25th of Cheshvan,
5734): Forty-eight year old author and songwriter Allan Sherman who
wrote the popular musical satire Camp
Granada passed away.
http://jangle04.home.mindspring.com/sherman3.html
http://users.bestweb.net/~foosie/sherman.htm
1974: “In The Boom Boom Room” directed by Joseph Papp and co-starring Ellen
Greene and Helen Hanft opened today at The Public Theatre.
1975: Spanish dictator Francisco Franco passed away. A fascist who aligned himself with the Hitler
and Mussolini during the Spanish Civil War which would be seen as a “dress
rehearsal for WW II” Franco refused to join the Axis and remained neutral
during the war. “According to the recent
discovery of a World War II document, Franco ordered his provincial governors
to compile a list of Jews while he negotiated an alliance with the Axis
powers.] Franco supplied Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler with a list of 6,000
Jews in Spain, for the Nazis’ “Final Solution”. However, Franco built
no Jewish concentration camps on Spanish territory, nor did he voluntarily hand
Jews over to Germany. Furthermore, Spanish diplomats extended their diplomatic
protection over Jews in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the Balkans
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/20/franco-gave-list-spanish-jews-nazis
1975: “The arrest of Boris Zaturensky, 33, in Minsk is reported. Zaturensky
was arrested on charges of buying and selling gold coins, not long after
his application to emigrate to Israel.
1975: A fortnightly scientific seminar, similar to the one in Moscow, is
begun in Kiev with the participation of 15 Jewish scientists, most of
whom were refused exit visas to Israel.
1976(27th of Cheshvan, 5737): Parashat Chayei Sara
1976: “Dorothy Schiff Agrees to Sell Post” published today described the
decision to sell the venerable afternoon New York newspaper to Australian
Rupert Murdoch including information that was found Jeffrey Potter’s biography Men,
Money and Magic which appeared last month.
1977: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to address
the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/sadat_speech.html
http://www.historycentral.com/Israel/1977SadatComesToIsrael.html
1978: The funeral of Judge Leo F. Rayfel is scheduled to take place today at
2 pm in Farmingdale, Long Island.
1979: About 200 Sunni Muslims revolt in Saudi Arabia at the site of the Kaaba
in Mecca during the pilgrimage and take about 6000 hostages. The Saudi
government receives help from French Special Forces to put down the
uprising. Anybody who was paying attention
would have noted that violence in the Middle East has many causes that have nothing
to do with Israel and the conflict
between Sunnis and Shiites should be a real matter of concern
1981: “Israeli President Yitzchak Navon appealed to a number of European
heads of state to intercede with the
Soviet Union to allow Dr. Alexander Paritsky to immigrate to Israel.:
1982(4th of Kislev, 5743): Parashat Toldot
1982: Andy Kaufman was forever voted off of Saturday Night Live by a live phone poll.
1982(4th of Kislev, 5743): Seventy-nine year old Abraham Louis
Pomerantz the Brooklyn trained lawyer who was “deputy chief counsel at the
Nuremburg Trials” and the father of Daniel Pomerantz and children’s author
Charlotte Pomerantz passed away today. (As reported by Edward R. Gargan)
http://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/21/obituaries/abraham-pomerantz-79-pioneering-lawyer.html
1983: ABC broadcast “The Day After,” a made for television film directed by
Nicholas Meyer, co-starring Steve Guttenberg and with theme music by David
Raskin for the first time tonight.
1986(18th of Cheshvan, 5747): ninety-three year old Mathematician
Alexander Markowich Ostrowski, the Kiev born son of merchant Mark Ostrowski
whose “work was mainly, but not exclusively in algebra and number theory, and
he had a great interest in numerical methods as well as abstract mathematics”
passed away today in his adopted home, Switzerland.
1987: Jerry Reinsdorf’s Chicago Bulls began a streak of sold out games that
would only come to an end with the retirement of Michael Jordan in 1999.
1988: ABC broadcast the fifth episode of “War and Remembrance,” “an American
miniseries based on the novel of the same name written by Herman Wouk”
1990: Efraim Gur began serving as Deputy Minister of Transportation.
1991: Nadine Brozan described one of those strange coincidences in life
where Richard Dreyfus and Michael Burns who lived near each other as children
both became involved in projected related to Alrde Dreyfus. Burns authored Dreyfus: A Family Affair,
1789-1945 while Dreyfus produced and starred in a film about the French Captain
entitled “Prisoner of Honor” that focuses on one of those sought to free
Dreyfus, Georges Picquart.
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/20/style/chronicle-992491.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm
1992: ABC broadcast the episode of “Civil Wars” a legal drama created by
Steven Bochco, the son of painter Mimi Bochco and concert violinist Rudolph
Bochco.
1995: In a front page article, The Austin American Statesman reported that a group of
Florida to Austin were balking at the move because Austin lacked a kosher
butcher and a Jewish Day School. With a
month, H.E.B opened a kosher butcher shop at one of its Austin stores.
1998(1st
of Kislev, 5759): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1998:
After having premiered at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, “The Rugrats Movie” with a
script co-authored by David N. Weiss was released in the rest of the United
States today.
1999:
In Paris, the 1999 Trophée Lalique figure skating competition which saw Galit
Chait and Sergei Sakhnovski give Israel a sixth place finish in Ice Dancing,
came to an end.
2000:
In Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum was nominated to serve as “Secretary of the of the
Environment of the Federal District” today.
2000(22nd
of Cheshvan, 5761): Sgt. Sharon Shitoubi, 21, of Ramle, wounded 2 days ago in
the Palestinian shooting attack in Kfar Darom, died of his wounds today
2000(22nd
of Cheshvan, 5761): Miriam Amitai, 35, and Gavriel Biton, 34, both of Kfar
Darom, were killed when a roadside bomb exploded alongside a bus carrying
children from Kfar Darom to school in Gush Katif. Nine others, including 5
children, were injured.
2001:
Toronto native and documentary film maker Avi Lewis, “the great grandson of
Moshe Losz, an outspoken member of the Jewish Bund,” “was featured on” today’s
“Life and Times” episode of “The Lewis Family.
2001(5th
of Kislev, 5762): Eighty-six year old Joseph Greenberg, the husband of the
former Marilyn Green and the father of LouEllen Barkan and William Greenberg
passed away today.
2002:
In “Network Tries to Expand Jewish Nation” published today Mica Rosenberg
described the work of the Jewish Multiracial Network in dealing with the
changing demographics of the Jewish people.
https://www.jta.org/2002/11/20/lifestyle/network-tries-to-expand-jewish-nation
2003:
Car bombings in Istanbul continues after the initial bombings targeted two
synagogues resulting in the death of 25 people and the wounding of 300 more.
2003:
“The Last Samurai” directed and co-produced by Edward Zwick, with a script
co-authored by Marshall Herskovitz and music by Hans Zimmer was released today
in Tokyo..
2004:
“The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” a comedy produced by Barry Mendel and Scott
Rudin, with a script co-authored by Noah Baumbach and co-starring Jeff Goldblum
premiered in Los Angeles today.
2005: A symposium is held at the American Schools of Oriental Studies
entitled “The Tel Zayit Stone: A New Tenth-Century Inscription from the Judean
Shephelah
2005: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors
and/or on topics of special Jewish interest including the paperback edition of Outwitting
History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books by
Aaron Lanksy which recounts the adventures of
Lansky, who won a MacArthur award in 1989, as president and founder of
the National Yiddish Book Center, traveling the world to salvage and catalog a
literature once on the verge of oblivion.
2006: “A rally organized by Anglo students to raise Israeli awareness about
the genocide in Dafur is held at Zion Square in downtown Jerusalem. The rally is sponsored by Hatzilu et Amei Dafur (Save the Nation
of Dafur) a group composed of Yeshiva and seminary students.
2006: Birthdate of Noah Pozner who would be the youngest victim at the Sandy
Hook Mass Shooting
2007: In Jerusalem, as part of the International Oud Festival, Imad Dalal
who heads the Arabic music department at Safed College presents a program of
traditional and contemporary song.
2007: Prime Minister Olmert is reported to be going to Cairo for a surprise
meeting with Egyptian leaders.
2008: At the conclusion of his three-day trip to Great Britain President
Shimon Peres is scheduled to meet Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace where
he will be awarded a Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of St.
Michael and St. George (KCMG), the sixth-most senior award in the British
system, used to honor individuals who have rendered important services in
relation to foreign nations.
2008: After critical failures in the US financial system began to build up
after mid-September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level
since 1997. This is part of the long
descent into what has been termed the worst economic crisis since the Great
Depression that will have a devastating on all Americans, Jew and gentile
alike. Many Jewish organizations will be
forced to down-size as funding sources dry up.
2008: In a secret ballot House Democrats voted 137-122 to have Congressman
Henry Waxman replace John Dingell as Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce
Committee.
2008: As part of the Live From
Lincoln Center series, Jewish, Violinist Gil Shaham, the son of two Israelis,
the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and pianist Jonathan Feldman perform this
intimate concert at the Stanley Kaplan Penthouse featuring the music of composer
Pablo de Sarasate in a panoramic survey of the music of his music on the
occasion of the 100 anniversary of his death.
2008: Poland’s capital marked the completion of a massive restoration project
that marks the borders of the former Jewish Ghetto that was walled in by Nazis
occupiers during World War II. otten. “This is all real and unreal,”
he said. “That we’re here walking, through these streets.”
2008: The 45th
anniversary edition of the New York Review of Books was was founded by Robert
B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein was published today.
2009: The 92nd St Y in
New York, hosts the Shababa Bakery where you are invited to prepare for Shabbat
by squishing, rolling and braiding your very own challah which you can take
home and bake.
2009: At Columbus, Ohio, at Tifereth Israel, Rabbi Unger leads The
Mitzvah Initiative which features an unconventional approach to learning that
is a series of open and honest workshops and discussion by participants which
examine some of the most critical elements of Jewish life.
2009: The U.S. State Department
issued a statement noting “a growing trend of anti-Semitic hate crimes and
discrimination around the world.” The statement coincided with the appointment
of Hannah Rosenthal to serve as the U.S. State Department’s special envoy to
monitor and combat anti-Semitism. “The
position has been vacant since Gregg
Rickman left at the end of the Bush administration.”
2010: Sarah Michelle Levin and
Melissa Ellen Levin are scheduled to be called to the Torah as B’not Mitzvah at
North Suburban Synagogue Beth El. They
are the twin daughters of Gigi Cohen and Michael Levin and the sisters of Dana
Levin who celebrated her Bat Mitzvah in the same congregation in November of
2008. They are the granddaughters of
Zena and David Cohen of blessed memory Mrs. Betty Levin, an ayash chayil par
excellence and Dr. Jacob Levin, of blessed memory.
2010: JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to hold its 30th Fall Fundraiser
honoring Tanya and Stephen Bodzin.
2011: The New York Times
features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest of
Jewish readers including “Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945” by Max Hasting,
“Eva Bruan: Life with Hitler” by Heike B Gortemaker, “The Unmaking of Israel”
by Gershom Gorenberg and Umberto Eco’s
novel, “The Prague Cemetery,” that explores the history of “The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion.”
2011: “Winston Churchill: Walking
With Destiny,” a film Narrated by Sir Ben Kingsley, that recounts Churchill’s
years in the political wilderness, his early opposition to Adolf Hitler and
Nazism, his support for Jews, his return to government by the demand of the
British people and his rise to the Prime Minister’s office in 1940, is
scheduled to be shown at The Jewish Eye World Jewish Film Festival.
2011: Rabbi Dr. Levi Cooper who the
Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem is scheduled to deliver a
lecture entitled the first in a three part lecture series entitled Rabbi Akiva:
The Mystical Prayer of a Legal Authority at Ohr Kodesh in Chevy Chase,
Maryland.
2011: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is
scheduled to speak at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa. Emanuel is Jewish. Jefferson and Jackson were not!
2011: Fears of a fuel crisis this morning followed last night’s discovery of a
water problem in Ben Gurion International Airport’s jet fuel.
2011:
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu today called for medical residents to return
immediately to their hospitals as their representatives informed the High Court
of Justice that they were willing to return to the negotiating table and to
accept the court’s proposal to appoint a mediator.
2012: The
Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginias is scheduled to present the final
part of the series “The Evolving Views on the Afterlife in Judaism.”
2012:
Steven A “Cohen was implicated in an alleged insider trading scandal involving
an ex-SAC manager” today.
2012:
Four rockets fired by Gaza-based terrorists exploded near a community in the
Eshkol Regional Council.
2012: As of midnight, Operation Pillar of
Defense enters its seventh day with the Israeli government holding off on a
ground offensive in the hope that talks in Cairo will lead to an end to massive
Hamas assault on its citizens.
2012:
Those living in southern Israel organize demonstrations against plans for a
cease-fire one of which is to take place in Kiryat Malachi where three Israelis
had been murdered by terrorist rockets and one at Ashdod.
2012(6th
of Kislev, 5773): Eighteen year old Corporal Yosef Partuk and an Arab-Israeli
civilian identified as Alayaan Salem al-Nabari were this morning during a mortar attack
2013:
Today Noah Pozner would be turning 7 if had not been gunned down last year at
Sandy Hook Elementary School.
2013:
Yosef Mendeolovich is scheduled to discuss his memoir, Unbroken Sprit: A Heroic
Story of Faith, Courage and Survival at the Center for Jewish History
2013:
Temple Judah is scheduled to host the Hadassah Book Club which will discuss Breakfast
at Stephanie’s by Nancy Margolis.
2013:
“Inheritance” is scheduled to be shown at the Other Jewish Film Festival.
2013:
Joseph P. Franklin a white supremacist who killed at least 8 people and wounded
Larry Flynt and Vernon E. Jordant, Jr. in an attempt to start a race war was
put death in Missouri today by lethal injection for have having murdered Gerald
Gordon outside of a St. Louis Synagogue where this innocent non-Jew was
attending a Bar Mitzvah.
2013: A
mid-range missile defense system, intended to close a large gap in Israel’s
aerial defense readiness, successfully completed an intercept test today, the
Defense Ministry announced. (As reported by Mitch Ginzburg)
2014(27th of Cheshvan):
“2104 BCE (1657 from Creation), as the Flood waters finally subsided, Noah, his
family and the animals left the Ark. On this day, God commanded them to
repopulate and resettle the earth
2014(27th of Cheshvan,
5775): Ninety-one year old Samuel Klein whose founding of the Casas Bahai chain
of Department Stores earned him the nickname “the Sam Walton of Brazil” and
whose philanthropies included major contributions to the Lubavitch Yeshiva in
the Born Retiro neighborhood passed away.
2014: “The Palestinian Authority has
arrested some 30 suspects over the last 72 hours thought to be planning terror
attacks, primarily against settlers, as well as operatives involved in
incitement against Israelis, senior Palestinian sources told The Times of
Israel today.”
2014: The American Sephardi
Federation is scheduled to present: “Mizrahi Music, Piyyut, and the Search for
Israeli Identity”
2014: “Authorities intercepted a
massive shipment of tens of thousands of firecrackers, as well as knives,
Tasers and other weapons today that police say was en route to rioters in East
Jerusalem.” (As reported by Tamar Pileggi)
2014: Jerry Seinfeld backtracked on
his recent self-diagnosis of autism today, saying he was not on the spectrum
but only “related to it on some level.”
2014:
“A Nazi Roundup, Chaotically Evoked In ‘La Rafle’” published today provides a
an informative review of movie that “chronicles
the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup of July 1942, in which roughly 13,000 Jews living in
Paris (4,501 of them children) were removed from their homes by French police
and sent to detention camps in the countryside, before being deported to
Auschwitz.”
2014: The Center for Jewish History
is scheduled to host a panel discussion “Towards Life: Reviving Jewish Life in
Contemporary Poland.”
2014: In the Senate, the Majority
Leader “filed for cloture on Noah Mamet’s nomination to serve as U.S.
Ambassador to Argentina.
2014: In Melbourne, “A Match Made in
Heaven” and “Zero Motivation” are scheduled to be shown at the Jewish
International Film Festival.
2014: “Unorthodox” is scheduled to be
shown at the 18th UK Jewish Film Festival
2014: The 16th Street Book
Club is scheduled to discuss The World to Come by Dora Horn
2015: After having premiered at
Cannes, “Carol” featuring Carol Brownstein as “Genevieve Cantrell” was released
today in the United States
2015: “Soviet genocide in Ukraine” by
Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jew who “coined the term genocide” was added to
Russian index of “extremist publications”, whose distribution in
Russia is forbidden
2015: Jeremy Katz, the Director of
the Cuba Family Archives for Southern Jewish History at the Breman Museum is
scheduled to host a tour providing an in-depth look at the Breman’s latest
Southern Jewish History Exhibition Eighteen Artifacts: A Story of Jewish
Atlanta.
2015: Broadway previews of the latest
production of Fiddler on the Roof are scheduled to begin this evening.
2015: The Oxford University Jewish
Society is scheduled to host “Schnitzel and Shmooze” Friday night dinner.
2015: “The Hunger Game:
Mockingjay-Part 2 produced by Nina Jacobson was released today in the United
States.
2015: In a post on Facebook today,
“said he planned to take two months of paternity leave after his daughter is
born this year” because “studies show that when working parents take time to be
with their newborns, outcomes are better for the children and families.”
2016: “Alone in Berlin” and is
scheduled to be shown on the last evening of the 20th UK
International Jewish Film Festival.
2016: “The Tenth Man” and “The Last
Laugh” are scheduled to be shown at Brisbane as part of the Jewish
International Film Festival
2016: “50 Children: The Rescue
Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus” is scheduled to shown as part of the Global Day
of Jewish Learning.
2016: “From Silence,” a new one-act
play by Anne Marilyn Lucas that explores how the trauma of the Holocaust gets
passed on from one generation to the next is scheduled to be performed for the
last time at the Theatre for the New City, the Lower East Side theatre that has
gained a reputation for staging radical political plays… (As reported by
Cathryn J. Prince)
2016: The Skirball Center is
scheduled to a mock trial “The People vs. King David” with Prosecutor Chris
Cuomo and Alan Dershowitz defending the Jewish monarch.
2016: A screening of “Mir Kumen On”
an “educational film from 1936 which is one of the precious few surviving
movies evoking Jewish life in Poland prior to its poisoning from external,
racist forces” is scheduled to be shown at MoMA today. (As reported by Jordan
Hoffman)
http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=cfb8b7e18d631d09f248bc525&id=c1a35cb9c2&e=e3800374ef
2016: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors
and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The People and the Books: 18 Classics
of Jewish Literature by Adam Kirsch, Moonglow by
Michael Chabon and Eleanor Roosevelt The War Years and After Volume Three: 1939-1962 by
Blanche Wiesen Cook
2017: “Holy Air” and “Monsieur
Mayonnaise” are scheduled to be shown at the 21st UK International
Jewish Film Festival.
2017: “The New York Times said today that it was suspending Glenn Thrush,
one of its most prominent reporters, after he was accused of inappropriate
sexual behavior.”
2017: Jacob Wisse, director of
Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to lead “a walking tour through Yeshiva
University Museum’s exhibition The Arch of Titus – from Jerusalem to Rome, and
Back, exploring the image and legacy of the Arch of Titus from Imperial Rome to
modern-day Israel.”
2017: The Primo Levi Center is
scheduled to host Michela Andreatta (University of Rochester), Serena Di Nepi
(University of Rome La Sapienza) and Jane Tylus (New York University) in a
discussion of “Ariosto’s masterpiece Orlando Furioso in the context of an early
modern Jewish quest to define minority status amidst a dramatic transformation
of mentality, political equilibria, and power structures.”
2017: The Oxford University Jewish
Society is scheduled to host its Chanumas/Chrismukah Party completed with “mince
pies, doughnuts, xmas crackers and dreidels.”
2017:
Jewish Book Month, an annual event that provides us with a chance to
contemplate Jewish books and the lives of authors such as Barbara Tuchman whose
works included The Guns of August and The Proud Tower: A Portrait of
the World Before the War, 1890-1914 continues today.
2018(12th
of Kislev, 5778): On the Hebrew calendar yahrzeit of “Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak
Kazen, the Director of Chabad Lubavitch in Cyberspace and considered by many
the pioneer of Jewish education on the internet.”
2018:
“An International Jewish Festival for Contemporary Culture” which will feature
“Erez Lev-Ari and The Suits doing Ari San, a tribute to Rabbi Shalom Shabazi”
is scheduled to open today.
2018:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host lectures on “Zionism and Challenge to
American Jewry” by Rabbi Robert Hirt and “Two Faiths, Two Scriptures, One God:
The Torah and the Quran” by Rabbi Leonard Schoolman and Dr. Hussein Rashid.
2019:
The UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screenings of “Leona” in
Glasgow and Manchester.
2019
The North Peninsula Jewish Community is scheduled to host a “From to Healing”
which will include a screening of “Bogdan’s Journey.”
2019:
Jews For Entrepreneurship is scheduled to celebrate its 10th
anniversary at the Greenwich Mansion in San Francisco.
2019:
JNEXT, the Jewish Federation’s “engagement vehicle for members of the Greater
New Orleans Jewish community (and interfaith partners and spouses) in their
forties and fifties is scheduled to take place this evening featuring Chefs Alon Shaya and Graison Gil in
conversation about their recent trip to Israel.”
2019:
“The head of the European Jewish Association has written to an auction house in
Munich, Germany asking for it to halt a sale of 147 different items from the
Third Reich, including clothing belonging to Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun,
Hitler’s top hat and a silver-covered edition of Mein Kampf” which is scheduled
to take place today. (YNET)
2020:
In another session examining UC Berkeley’s Magnes Collection, curators
Francesco Spagnolo and Shir Kochavi are scheduled to talk about Austrian artist
Lazar Krestin’s 1905 painting “Jewish Resistance.”
2020:
Ensemble for These Times’ Jewish Music & Poetry Project are scheduled to
present Dalit Warshaw live in N.Y.
playing her piano piece “Winter Dream,” in memoriam of artist-writer Charlotte
Salomon, who was killed in Auschwitz
2020:
Park Synagogue is scheduled to host “So You Think You Know Cholent?” a virtual
cooking class with Jared Skoff”
2020:
The Maine Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the last screening “Good
Thoughts, Good Words” and the first screening of “Heading Home.”
2020:
Beth Israel of Judea is scheduled to host Dr. Pamela Munster of UCSF Center for
BRCA Research and Aimee Sax of Sharsheret as they discuss the latest in genetic
testing, cancer prevention and how it impacts Jewish families.
2020:
Everybody Is A Star Foundation, Value Culture and rapper Kosha Dillz are
scheduled to present a Shabbat program celebrating people of all abilities,
with live music
2020:
In Palm Beach Gardens, Temple Judea is scheduled to virtual “Shabbat Worship
with Rabbi Yaron Kapitulnik and Cantorial Solist Abbie Strauss.
2020:
The JCC Literary Consortium is scheduled to co-present Mimi Lemay talking about
her memoir What We Will Become, about the odyssey of her transgender
child, Jacob, and her own struggles
2020:
The Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival goes dark because of Sabbat but is
scheduled to begin again tomorrow.
2021:
In Palo Alto, CA, the Oshman Family JCC is scheduled to host its “Hebrew
Channukah Party,” an “outdoor event for Hebrew speakers that includes menorah
making with artist Shira Lao, doughnuts and dreidels.”
2021:
In Waltham, MA, Temple Beth Israel is scheduled to present “Lift Every Voice
Shabbat,” during which “Rabbi David will deliver a dvar Torah that lifts up one
or more voices from a marginalized group within the Jewish community.”
2021:
The Eden Tamir Center is scheduled to present Ensemble Modus featuring piano
quartets by Mozart and Brahms.
2021:
The two-long Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.
2021(16th
of Kislev, 5782): Parashat Vayishlach;
2022:
Kol Israel Foundation is scheduled to hold its Roll with Kol 2022 casino night
fundraiser in honor of volunteer Elissa Wuliger at B’nai Jeshurun Congregation
in Pepper Pike, OH.
2022:
The Louis and Marilyn Hurwitz Community Mikveh is scheduled to have its “grand
opening” today. at Tifereth Israel Synagogue in Des Moines.
2022:
The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host the “East Coast debut of
Yale Strom’s cantata in honor of those lost in the 1911 Triangle Factory Fire
after which the quintet will also
perform klezmer and Italian melodies that would have been heard in NYC before
WWI.
2022:
AJEX (The Jewish Military Association) is scheduled to hold its annual
Remembrance and Parade Ceremony today at the Cenotaph.
2022:
The UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host its Closing Night Gala at
Curzon Mayfair.
2022:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host a reading of The Tattooed
Torah, Q&A, and film adaptation screening presented by Beth Kopin, the
film’s executive producer, and Brett Kopin, co-screenwriter
2022:
As part of the Molly Blank Concert Series, the Breman Museum is scheduled to
present the Annette Cohen Quartetinho
2022:
The New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including Free Market: The History of an
Idea by Jacob Soll.
2022:
Six-time Emmy award-winner Andres Cantor, the Argentine-Jewish announcer and two-time Emmy nominee Sammy Sadovnik, “a proud
Jew from Peru are scheduled to cover the World Cup which begins today for
Telemundo while Matt Turner and DeAndre Yedlin are scheduled to play for the
United States.
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/rksq00euus
2023:
“A concert supporting the Western Galilee is scheduled to take place in Omaha,
Nebraska.”
2023:
The St. Louis Jewish Book Festival is scheduled to come to an end today.
2023:
A celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Brandeis-Wellesley
Orchestra is scheduled to take place with a concert featuring Beethoven and
Hailstork.
2023:
Funeral services are scheduled to take place this morning at the Riverside Jewish
Center for Hector Goldman, Z”L, husband of
Gisele Goldman, father of Judy (and Joel) Isaacson, Debbie Rosenbloom and
(David Levin) and Edward (and Devorah) Goldman.
2023:
Agnon House, the home of Nobel Prize winner S.Y. Agnon is scheduled to host the
first lecture in a series that “will discuss Agnon’s writing in the shadow of
the war through reading the stories “Until Here” and “In Mr.
Lublin’s Shop”.
2023:
Temple Emanuel of Newton is scheduled to present online “Turmoil on Campus:
Learn How Jewish Students Are Coping & Standing With Israel, and How We Can
Help.”
2023:
In Metairie, LA, the Jewish Community Day School board is scheduled to take
place this evening.
2023:
The Yiddish Study group sponsored by Agudas Achim in Coralville, IA is scheduled to meet via zoom
2023:
As November 20 begins Israel; tensions on the northern border increase
following yesterday’s launch of at 25 rockets that triggered sirens in several
northern towns, Hamas continues to be threat as can be seen by yesterday’s
rocket launches and the Hamas held hostages begin day 45 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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