#ourCOG This Day, April 23, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levi Z"L
This Day, April 23, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levi Z"L
April 23
0034:
According to Sir Isaac Newton, this is the date of the crucifixion of Jesus.
1185:
Birthdate Alfonzo II, the third King of Portugal who was part of a dynasty that
provided a comparatively secure environment for their Jewish subjects. He was
the grandson of King Alfonso I and the son of King Sancho I both of whom had recognized
the Jewish community, allowing it to settle its own legal problems. King
Alfonzo set the tone for the dynasty when he appointed Yahia ben Yahi III, the
first chief Rabbi of the Portuguese Jewish community to serve as his royal tax
collector.
1229:
As the Christians fought the Moors, Ferdinand III of Castile re-conquered Caceres.
During this period the city had an important Jewish quarter: By the start of 15th
century 140 Jewish families lived in city that had a population of 2000 people.
As with everything in Sephard the story of the Jews of Caceres ends the same
way with the expulsion by Queen Isabella and Ferdinand of Aragon in 1492.
1283:
Sixteen Jews were killed in Bruckenhausen.
1533:
The Church of England annuls the marriage between Catherine of Aragon and Henry
VIII. This was a major step in the break between Protestant England and
Catholic Europe including France, Spain and those under the sway of the Pope. The English would be a valuable ally for the
Protestants who were struggling to establish themselves in such places as the
Netherlands and the Germanic states. For
the Jews, this growing division among European Christians had the short term
disadvantage of being caught between two warring parties and abused
accordingly. In the long run, it was
advantageous. Protestant England (even when the Catholic James II would come to
throne) and Holland would provide early and safe havens for European Jews,
especially those looking for homes and opportunity after their experience with
the Spanish Inquisition.
1564: Birthdate of William Shakespeare. Was Shakespeare an anti-Semite? The question comes up every time there is a
revival of “The Merchant
of Venice.” The term Shylock, the term “pound of flesh”
and the line “oh my ducats oh my daughter” have provided fodder for
anti-Semites through the centuries. On
the other hand, Shakespeare depicts Shylock as a human with feelings, which was
certainly a cut above the normal portrayal during the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance. According to some critics,
“Merchant of Venice” was written as The Bard’s theatrical response to
Christopher Marlow’s, “The
Jew of Malta.”
1571:
In Venice Diana Rachel and Isaac of Modena gave birth to Leon (Judah Areyh) of
Modena, famed Italian scholar, rabbi and Poet.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/modena-leon
1615:
Louis XIII decreed that all Jews must leave the country within one month on
pain of death. This decree became the basis for the infamous Code Noir the
Black Code which forbade Jews to live in French colonies in the New World
including in 1724 the colony of Louisiana. This may explain why there are
no Jewish Creoles in New Orleans society.
1615:
Christians in France were forbidden, under pain of death, to shelter or
converse with Jews, by order of Louis XIII.
1620(20th
of Nisan, 5380): Hayyim ben Joseph Vital passed away at Damascus. Born at
Calabria in 1543, he was a foremost exponent of Lurianic Kabbalah, recording
much of his master’s teachings.
1625:
Prince Maurice of Orange passed away despite the best efforts of his “Jewish
physician” Joseph Bueno
1659(30th
of Nisan): Eight Jews were martyred today at Przemysl
1661:
Birthdate of Issachar Berend Lehmann, the native of Essen, Westphalia whose
many accomplishments led him to become “the Court Jews for Elector Augustus II,
the Strong of Saxony.
1661:
King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland is crowned in Westminster
Abbey. The coronation of Charles II marked the Restoration
following the death of Oliver Cromwell.
Cromwell had allowed the Jews to quietly re-enter England and develop a
community. “Technically, the 1558 Act of
Uniformity, which labeled any rites other than
those of the Church of England unlawful remained in
force.” But while still in the
Netherlands, trying to secure his throne, Charles had assured Amsterdam that
English Jews had nothing to fear from his kingship. A generous contribution
from Jewish bankers and merchants certainly helped the situation. Once in power, the king proved true to his
word. When Christian merchants tried to
oust their Jewish competition on grounds that they were not members of the
Church, Charles stood by his Jewish subjects as long as they obeyed the laws
and remained peaceful subjects. In 1673,
an anti-Semitic mob demanded that the Jewish leaders be punished for worshipping in
public. When a grand jury caved in an
indicted some of the leading Jews, the Israelites threatened to leave the
kingdom rather than give up their religious liberties. Charles issued orders to halt the proceedings and “not to cause any more anxieties
to Jews.”
1662: Catherine
of Braganza, in whose train “came the brothers Duarte and Franciso da Sylva,
the Portuguese Jewish bankers to who was entrusted the management Catherine’s
dowry and whose marriage to King Charles led to an increase in the Marrano
community in London, began serving as Queen Consort today.
1702:
Margaret Fell, a founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers) who was a
passionate advocate for the readmission of Jews to England during the debated
in the middle of the 17th century passed away. At the same time, she
like many other English Protestants wrote epistles to Jews in mainland Europe
to persuade them to convert to true Christianity by which she “meant the Quaker
movement which they saw as the spiritual House of Israel.
1720: Birthdate of Elijah (Eliyahu) ben
Shlomo Zalman “Kremer” better known as the Vilna Gaon. [Ed. Note: There is not enough room to do justice to this Giant of
Judaism. The following website is a good
point of departure.]
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/vilnagaon.html
1744: In
Havana, Isaac Mendez, and two other Jews boarded the Fortune, a French merchant
sloop bound for Curacao. Mendez, a
resident of Kingston, Jamaica, was a Jewish merchant and loyal subject of King
George II. In 1743, during a trading voyage, Mendez’s ship was captured by the Spanish,
and he was imprisoned in Havana. In
accord with ancient Jewish tradition, friends learned of his plight. They “arranged for his release” and paid for
his passage aboard the French vessel. [Yes, there is more to the story. But you will have to wait for TDIJH for April
24 for the next installment]
1758(15th
of Nisan, 5518): First Day of Pesach
1764(21st
of Nisan, 5524): Seventh Day of Pesach
1761(19th
of Nisan 5521): Fifth Day of Pesac
1766(14th
of Iyar, 5526): Pesach Sheni observed for the first time since the repeal of
the Stamp Act
1769(16th
of Nisan, 5529): Second Day of Pesach
1772(20th
of Nisan, 5532): Sixth Day of Pesach
1783(21st
of Nisan, 5543): Seventh Day of Pesach
1785: In
New York, Rachel Heilbron and Chaim Salomon who had died in January gave birth
to their son Chaim Moses Salomon, who attempted to collect, some would say
through embellishment, moneys owed to his family for his father’s financial
assistance during the Revolution.
https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/01/financial-hero/
1785:
Three months after his father had passed away, in New York City, Rachel Franks
and Chaim Solomon, of Revolutionary War fame, gave birth to Chaim Moses
Salomon, the businessman
who spent much of his life trying to have the United States government
reimburse his father for the money owed to his father, Chaim Solomon for
helping to finance the cause of the American Revolution.
1786:
Birthdate of Amsterdam native Hyman Polock, the husband of London native
Rebecca Barnett who gave birth to Miriam Polock and Sarah Polock of
Philadelphia, PA.
1791(19th
of Nisan, 5551): Shabbat Shal Pesach
1791:
Birthdate of James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States who
in1857 received a committee of Jews led by Isaac Meyer Wise seeking his support in over-turning a
treaty with the Swiss Cantons that resulted in American Jews being subjected to
the anti-Semitic laws of Switzerland. Buchanan said he would work to correct
the situation. But Buchanan was no more
effective in helping American Jews than he would be in preserving the Union
when Secession came.
1794:
Benvenida de Isaac Henriques Valentine and Amsterdam native Solomon da Silva
Solis gave birth to Elijah Solis, the husband of Louisa Solis.
1797:
Birthdate of Solomon Plessner, the native of Bresalau who defended Orthodox
Judaism against the in-roads of the Reform Movement.
1797: In
Charleston, SC, Sarah and Abraham Moise who were married in 1779 at St.
Eustatia, gave birth to Penina Moise, “the first Jewish American woman to
contribute to the worship service, writing 190 hymns for Beth Elohim. The
Reform movement’s 1932 Union Hymnal still contained thirteen of her hymns.” (As
reported by Jay Eidelman)
http://www.scmuseum.org/women/Moise.html
http://www.discoveringpeninamoise.com/
1799(18th
of Nisan, 5559): Fourth Day of Pesach
1799:
Napoleon continued his siege of Acre.
1813:
Joseph Collins, the son of Hyman Collins and Mary Davis was buried today in the
UK.
1818:
Birthdate of Christopher Oscanyan, the Armenian-born American author and
speaker whose lecture topics included “The Women of Turkey and the Jews of the
East.”
1818(23rd
of Nisan, 5573): Thirty-two-year-old Emanuel Sheftall, the Savannah born son of
Levi and Sarah Shefall and the father of Solomon, Rebeca, Emanuel and Elizabeth
Sheftall passed away today in his hometown
1819: In
Devon, UK, Robert Frounde, the archdeacon of Totnes and his wife gave birth to
English historian and author James Anthony Froude whose works included the 1890
biography of Benjamin Disraeli entitled Lord Beaconsfield and who
defeated Disraeli by a vote of fourteen votes for the position of Lord Rector
of St. Andrews.
http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/1st-november-1890/9/mr-froude-on-lord-beaconsfields-religion
1821(21st
of Nisan, 5581): Seventh Day of Pesach
1823:
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia birthdate of composer Louis Lewandowski
which others show as April 3.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9915-lewandowski-louis
1826(16th
of Nisan, 5586): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer
1828: In
Bavaria, Moses Leo Butzel and Hanna Bachman Butzel gave birth to Martin Butzel,
the husband of Betty Binswanger Butzel and the father of Fanny, Emma, Edwin and
Leo Butzel who in 1845 came to the United States, settled in Detroit where he
was in the wholesale clothing business and served as President of the “Public
Lighting Commission” and supported the while supporting the Jewish farming
colony at Bad Axe, MI started by Lazarus Silberman.
The
Palestine Colony | Jewish Historical Society of Michigan (jhsmichigan.org)
1829(20th
of Nisan, 5589) Sixth Day of Pesach
1829:
Birthdate of Vienna native Lazar Schorstein, the son of Yitzhak Schorstein the
husband of Clara Schorstein and father of Bertha, Gustave and Therese
Schorstein.
1834(14th
of Nisan, 5594): Ta’anit Bechorot; erev Pesach
1836: In
Cincinnati, Alexander Lewis, the Charleston born son of David and Rachel
Benjamin Lewis and his wife Rebecca Lewis suffered the tragedy of having a
“stillborn” child today.
1840(20th
of Nisan, 5600): Sixth Day of Pesach
1843:
Birthdate of Hungarian native of Rabbi Sigmund Drechsler who was hired “at the
salary of $1,000 per year” to serve as the spiritual leader of Congregation
B’nai Jeshurun when it moved into its new building in Cleveland, OH.
https://www.bnaijeshurun.org/about-us-our-congregation-our-history
1845(16th
of Nisan 5606): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer
1845:
Birthdate of Louis M. Ernst, the husband of August Louis Ernst and the father
of Milton and Irving Ernst
1848: In
New York, Congregation B’nai Israel moved from the old Shakespeare Hall at the
corner of William and Duane streets” to a building on Pearl Street.
1849:
Noah Lodge No 1 of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel which had been
formed in January of this year, held its eighth meeting today at which Mr.
Stern and Mr. Buttenheim to advance the organization the 25 dollars needed to
buy “emblems for the grand officers.”
1851(21st
of Nisan, 5611): Seventh Day of Pesach
1852: “Le
Juif errant” premiered today at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opera. “
Le Juif errant (The Wandering Jew) is a
grand opera by Fromental Halévy, with a libretto by Eugène Scribe and
Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges.” The opera is based extremely loosely on
themes of the novel “Le Juif errant” by Eugène Sue. While the novel is set in
19th century Paris and the Wandering Jew is incidental to the main story-line,
the opera begins in Amsterdam in 1190 and the Jew, Ahasvérus, is a leading
character. The music was sufficiently popular to generate a Wandering Jew
Mazurka, a Wandering Jew Waltz, and a Wandering Jew Polka.”
1853(15th
of Kislev, 5613): Pesach and Shabbat
1854: In
New York, Abigail Kursheedt and Asher Kursheedt gave birth Alphonse Hart
Kursheedt.
1856:
Morris Ehrlich, the President of the Kane Street Synagogue “proferred a
complaint against the Shames for creating a disturbance in the Synagogue” which
was found to be valid enough to warrant a fine of $4.00 being levied against
the worker.
1858:
Birthdate of Max Plank, German physicist and Nobel Prize Winner. During
World War II, Plank tried to convince Hitler to spare the lives of Jewish scientists.
His son was executed for his part in the 1944 plot to kill Hitler. Plank
passed away in 1947.
1859:
In Ploieşti, Romania, house
painter and amateur artist, Moisi Şăineanu and his wife gave birth to Lazăr
Șăineanu who gained fame as Lazare Sainéan the French philologist and cultural
historian
1860:
According “The Extortions of Slavery” published today, Dr. George B. Cheever delivered an
anti-slavery speech last night at The Church of the Puritans in which he
compared slaveholders to the anti-Semitic King John of England who “who, to
extort money from a Jew, pulled a tooth every day from out the Hebrew’s head
until he complied with his demands.”
1860:
The Democratic National Convention which former Congressman Henry Myer Phillips
attended as a delegate from Pennsylvania opened today.
1860(1st
of Iyar, 5620): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1860(1st
of Iyar, 5620): Eighty-nine-year-old Sarah Lopez Isaacs, the Newport, RI born
daughter and wife of Judah Myers passed away today in New York City.
1861:
Major Alfred Mordecai wrote an angry letter to Colonel Craig complaining that
he had not had any response to his request for a transfer. Unbeknownst to Mordecai, Craig had been
replaced as his superior. Mordecai was a distinguished officer in the United
States Army who was born in the South.
He was trying to gain a transfer to a post in the West so he could stay
in the army without having to fight family and friends from the South.
1862:
Birthdate of Catonsville, MD native, financier Leo Henry Wise the resident of
Baltimore who was the “office of an insurance company.
1864(17th
of Nisan, 5624): Third Day of Pesach; Shabbat Shel Pesach
1864:
As Jews celebrate their ancient liberation from bondage, in Louisiana, Union
forces defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Monett’s Ferry, an episode in
the Red River Campaign, part of Grant’s grand plan to defeat those who sought
to destroy the United States so they could continue owning their slaves.
1868:
According to today’s “Foreign News by Mail” column, when Ion Bratiano, Minister
of State, was asked a question about the present of the National Guard at Jassy
(Romania), he that “as long as the violent hatred against the Jews lasted he
would not furnish the enemies of the Jews with arms.” Bratino was a Rumanian
nationalist who worked to secure the establishment of an independent
Romania. He was the leader of the
liberal cabinet that would declare Romania’s independence in 1877. The conditions of Romania’s Jews did not
improve with independence.
1870:
The remains of Dr. George Frick who had passed away while visiting Berlin were
interred in the Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore, MD. Dr. Frick was the younger brother of the late
Judge Frick.
1870(22nd
of Nisan, 5630): 8th day of Pesach
1871:
Franz Joseph I of Austria made Solomon Benedict de Worms the “1st
Baron de Worms.”
1871:
Derech Emunoh consecrated its new synagogue today in what has been the chapel
of New York University. The congregation
which has been using a building on Greene Street leased its new facility. The service was led by Rabbi S.M. Isaacs.
1872(15th
of Nisan, 5632): On the first day of Pesach, Rabbi Henry Vidaver delivered a
sermon “on the celebration of Passover” at B’Nai Jeshrum in New York City. Rabbi Vidaver was one of the contributors to
the “Abridged School and Family Bible in Hebrew & English.”
1873:
In Mariampol, Russia, Leah Puskelinsky and Pesach David Grunstein, gave birth
CCNY and University of Pennsylvania graduate Julius H. Greenstone, the JTS
ordained rabbi and husband Carrie E. Amram who served as lecturer at
Congregation Mickve Israel in Philadelphia.
1875(18th
of Nisan, 5635): Fourth Day of Pesach
1877:
In Charkow, Russia, Serebrin Genia and Aaron Goldenberg gave birth violinist
Albert A. Goldenberg, the husband of Rose Podal who in 1903 came to the United
States where he was a violin soloist with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and
a violin instructor in Brooklyn, NY
1878(20th
of Nisan, 5638) Sixth Day of Pesach.
1878:
In New Orleans, Rebecca (Kiefer) and Isidore Newman, the namesake of the
Isidore Newman School gave birth to Miriam Dorothy Newman who gained fame as
multi-talented artist Isadora Newman.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/newman-isadora
1879(30th
of Nisan, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1879:
In Charleston, Rabbi David Levy presided over the wedding of Julian C. Levin
and Lulie Bringloe, the eldest daughter of Captain Samuel G. Bringloe.
1880
In San Francisco, son of Rabbi Isaac S. Kallach “shot and killed Charle de
Young who had written “vociferously in the San Francsico Chronicle against the
Rabbi.
1880:
An article about Benjamin Disraeli published today, that begins with “Lord
Beaconsfield steps down and at his advanced age it is not probable that he will
ever again hold the reins of power” traces the career of the British statesman
that began fifty-four years ago with the publication of “Vivian Gray” and
includes such highlights as the maneuvering which brought the Suez Canal under
British control.” The article included
the following, “Of Semitic origin, his ideas, methods, and sentiments bore an Oriental
stamp.” His father may have taken
Disraeli to the baptismal font, but he was still “a Jew” to many of his
contemporaries.
1880(12th
of Iyar, 5640): Thirty-four year old San Francisco Chronicle editor-in-chief
Charles de Young the Natchitoches, LA born Miechel de Young and the former
Cornelia “Amelia” Morange and brother of M.H. de Young was murdered today by Isaac M. Kalloch, son of
Isaac S. Kalloch, the Mayor of San Francisco, in revenge for a feud Charles had
with the mayor.[
1881:
A large number of Jews have arrived in Cincinnati for the upcoming dedication
of a new building at the Hebrew Union College.
1881:
Samuel Alatri, the Italian politician who led the Jewish Community of Rome,
delivered “Discorso Pronunziato
nella Scuola del Tempio” today.
1882:
A conference designed to provide aid to the Jews of Russia was held today in
Berlin. There were representatives from
several different countries including the United States and Great Britain which
was represented by Sr. Juilan Goldsmid and Dr. Herrman Adler. In making plans for the future, the
conference assigned the Americans the responsibility for finding employment for
Russian immigrants going to the United States.
The Germans and British were given responsibility for raising additional
funds.
1882:
It was reported today, that as a result of a report issued by the Minister of
Justice, the Czar has ordered that the trials of all those accused “of outrages
against the Jews” be dealt with in a speedy manner.
1883(16th
of Nisan, 5643): Second Day of Pesach
1883:
It was reported today the biography of Dr. Barclay, the late Anglican Bishop in
Jerusalem will be published shortly. The
book will include significant information about the failure to convert Jews and
Moslems.
1884:
Birthdate of Russian native Samuel Barnett, whose father was “engaged in the
iron business in Wooster, OH and who became a successful businessman in
Cleveland who was the husband of Saddie Friedman and a member of the Euclid
Avenue Temple.
1888:
In London, Henry van den Bergh and Henriette Charlotte Spanjaard gave birth to
Colonel
Donald Stanley van den Bergh, JP, the husband of Norah Gilbert Van den Bergh
and the husband of Norah Gilbert Van den Bergh.
1888:
Birthdate of Polish native Abraham Tutelman Malmed, who in 1891 came to
Philadelphia where he attended Temple University and went into the business of
manufacturing cement.
1889(22nd
of Nisan, 5649): 8th day of Pesach
1889:
Birthdate of Chernihiv native Orkeh Serebrenik who gained famed Jewish American
Yiddish poet Alter Esselin.
https://www.best-poems.net/alter-esselin/poems/index.html#google_vignette
1889:
Millionaire stockbroker, Isidor Wormser, whose daughter is a Seligman by
marriage, was so upset with the comments that Rensselaer Bissell had made about
him that he challenged him to a fistfight outside of the NYSE after the
exchange had closed. In the end, Bissell
backed down, much to the disappointment of his fellow brokers.
1890:
“A Mighty Power” by Frank Rothschild, Jr. had a pre-Broadway matinee
performance at the Fifth Avenue Theatre.
1890:
Adolphus Leo Weil and Cassie Ritter Weil gave birth to Princeton alum and
University of Pittsburgh trained attorney Ferdinand Theobald Weil, the older
brother of Adolphus Leo Weil.
1891(15th
of Nisan, 5651): Pesach
1891:
Birthdate of Ostrog, Russia native and WW I veteran William Alexander Perlzweig
who came to the U.S. In 1906 where he earned all three degrees at Columbia
before pursuing a career as a biochemist at Duke University.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1949/12/12/96488618.html?pageNumber=33
1891:
An order expelling the Jews from Moscow was published today.
1892:
In Brooklyn, Samuel and Pauline Boochever gave birth to Anna Boochever the
graduate of New York State College of Teachers who when she married Frederick
S. DeBeer became Anna DeBeer, an active member of the National Council of
Jewish Women.
1893:
Birthdate of New York City native and Columbia trained educator Michael Kaplan,
who served as a principal in Brooklyn.
1893(7th
of Iyar, 5653): Marx Mordechai Pfaelzer, the son of Uri Feiss Pfaelzer and
Fanny Pfaelzer, andhusband of Karoline / Gitel Pfaelzer passed away today.
1893:
Rabbi Raphael Benjamin was reported today as describing the blackballing of
Theodore Seligman by the Union League as “unmanly, un-American and
un-Christian.” At the same time he took issued with those who “that this is
only the beginning of a movement against Jews” in New York City and saw “it
only as a small remnant of the ignorant prejudiced with once existed toward”
Jews “and which, under the enlightening influence of education is fast
disappearing.”
1894(17th
of Nisan, 5654): Third Day of Pesach
1894:
Hyman Blumenthal, a Jewish peddler is being held in jail facing charges of
arson for his role in burning a tenement in New York City.
1894:
“Lesson from the Passover published today presented Dr. Joseph Silverman’s view
of “Judaism as a religion based on freedom” and that “a religion that would
seek to subvert American unity and establish a union of Church and State and
subsidize itself from the Public Treasury was nothing but organized treason.”
1894(17th
of Nisan, 5654): American banker and philanthropist Jesse Seligman passed away
today at Coronado Beach CA. Born at Baiersdorf, Bavaria, on August 11, 1827, he followed his brothers to
the United States in 1841, and established himself at Clinton, Alabama. In 1848
he moved with his brothers to Watertown, N. Y., and then, with his brother
Leopold, went to San Francisco in the autumn of 1850, where he became a member
of the Vigilance Committee, as well as of the Howard Fire Company. He remained
in California until 1857, when he joined his brother in establishing a banking
business in New York. With his brother Joseph he helped to found the Hebrew
Orphan Asylum in 1859, and was connected with it till his death. At the time of
his death he was a trustee of the Baron de Hirsch Fund. He was a member of the
Union League Club, of which he was vice-president, and from which he resigned
in 1893 when the club for racial reasons refused to admit to membership his son
Theodore. He was head of the American Syndicate formed to place in the United
States the shares of the Panama Canal. He was also a friend and supporter of
President Grant whom he first met when the young army officer was stationed
near Watertown. In fact, Grant tried to
make him the first American Jew to serve in the Cabinet. (As reported in the
Jewish Encyclopedia and Dr. Jonathan Sarna)
http://www.fau.edu/library/brody33.htm
http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=184
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Seligman
1896,
Herzl wrote in his diaries of his arrival in Karlsruhe at Reverend William Hechler’s
request.
“Arrived here at eleven
last night. Hechler met me at the station and took me to the Hotel Germania,
which had been “recommended by the Grand Duke.” We sat in the dining-room for
an hour. I drank Bavarian beer, Hechler milk. He told me what had happened. The
Grand Duke had received him immediately upon his arrival, but first wanted to
wait for his privy-councilor’s report on my Jewish State. Hechler showed the
Grand Duke the “prophetic tables” which seemed to make an impression. When the
Kaiser arrived, the Grand Duke immediately informed him of the matter. Hechler
was invited to the reception and to the surprise of the court-assembly the
Kaiser addressed him with the jocular words: “Hechler, I hear you wanted to
become a minister of the Jewish State.”
1896: A memorial honoring the late Jesse Seligman
was unveiled this afternoon at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum on 138th
Street and Amsterdam Avenue
1896: The New York Section of the National Council
of Jewish Women met in vestry rooms of Temple Beth-El.
1896: The
Times of London reported today that Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria cut short
his official to Russia and left St. Petersburg for Paris so he could he could
attend the funeral “of his friend,” Baron Hirsch.
1897(21st
of Nisan, 5657): Seventh Day of Pesach
1897:
As Jews munch on their matzoth, Greek forces continue their withdrawal from the
area around Tyrnavos as they faced the larger, better organized units from the
Ottoman Empire was home to the large and ancient Jewish community of
Thessalonika, which would eventually come under Greek rule as the city of
Salonika.
1898: The Alumni Association of the Hebrew Technical
Institute hosted its fifth annual reunion banquet at the Tuxedo
1898: Start of a two-day Preliminary conference
in Vienna prior to the second Zionist Congress. Representatives from Russia,
Austria and Germany all attended. It is decided to send Leo Motzkin to
Palestine to prepare a report. The congress will meet again in Basel,
Switzerland. As was befitting for liberal movement that would come to be
dominated by socialist idealist, the Zionist leaders decided that women would
be allowed to attend the Congress as voting delegates. In other words, Zionist
women had the vote two decades before women in the United States got the vote.
1898:
Spain declared war on the United States in response to the American blockade of
Cuba which was one of the official acts marking the start of the Spanish
American War in which 5,000 Jewish volunteers would serve
1899:
Herzl begins the two day Bank
Conference in Köln with Wolffsohn and Heymann as he sought to develop his “top
down” concept of creating a Jewish home in Eretz Israel.
1899:
The American Hebrew League of Greater New York met in Brooklyn this evening.
1899:
Dr. Felix Adler is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “The Metropolitan
Greatness of New York and the Vast Moral Problems It Raises” at the Music Hall
in New York City.
1899:
Thanks to a donation of $25,000 from Abraham Slimmer of Waverly, Iowa a
permanent home for the Chicago Home for Jewish Orphans was dedicated on a piece
of land donated by Henry Siegel and other members of the Windy City’s Jewish
community.
1899:
“Hebrew Technical School” published today included a history of the Jewish
school that included among its graduates the architect William C. Sommerield
and that after being open for only 15
years has become so successful that it had turned away fifty applicants for
lack of space.
1900:
Birthdate of Zhitomir, Russia native Samuel Lackman who in 1904 “migrated to
Winnipeg” where after enlisting in 1918 which led to his serving with the 39th
Royal Fusiliers who served in Palestine,
1900:
The 27th Convention of the District Grand Lodge No. 7 of B’nai Birth
continued for a second day in New Orleans.
1901:
The New York branch of the Alliance Israelite Universelle was reorganized under
the direction of M. Nissim Behar at a meeting held at Temple Emanu-El in where
business was conducted in English, Yiddish and German and Mr. Louis Marshall
was elected President while Henry Periera Mendes served as secretary.
1901:
“Jewish Butchers’ Appeal” published today reported that “as soon as the New
York State Senate convened, Senator Elsberg introduced a bill amending the”
recently enacted “”O’Connel” which ordered all butcher shops to be closed on
Sunday, so that the law did not apply to people whose Sabbath is Saturday,
because under the O’Connell law Jewish butchers would have to remain closed
from midnight Friday until Midnight Sunday night.
1902(16th
of Nisan, 5662): Second Day of Pesach; First Day of the Omer.
1902(16th
of Nisan, 5652): In Detroit, “the cornerstone laying ceremony for the new
synagogue building of Temple Beth El” took place today.
1903: Herzl is received by Joseph Chamberlain, who just came back from Africa.
The Chamberlain-Herzl negotiations of the “Uganda scheme” are the
first recognition of the president of the Zionist Organization as representing
the Jewish people.
1903:
Birthdate of Holocaust victim Stephan Tandler
1903:
During the “Melvin Bellis Case” a report from the Kiev District Procurator,
based on an autopsy by a medical professor from Kiev University, intimated that
Andrei Yustchinski had been the victim of a ritual murder. “Years later, it would be learned that the
ministry of justice had slipped the doctor a four thousand ruble bribe.”
1904:
In London Gladys Helen Rachel Goldsmid and Louis Montagu, 2nd Baron Swaythling
gave birth to Ivor Goldsmid Samuel
Montagu “a British filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, film critic, writer,
table tennis player and apparent Soviet spy who “received some credit for the development of a
vibrant intellectual film culture in Britain during the interwar years.” He passed away in 1984.
http://www.jewishsports.net/BioPages/IvorGoldsmidMontagu.htm
1905(18th
of Nisan, 5665): Fourth Day of Pesach
1905:
As unrest grips the Russian empire, in Poland “special regulations have been
instituted to keep the army free from” the contamination of the Revolutionaries
and “these have been enforced in individual cases” which have been detected
particularly among Jews” who “have been severely punished.”
1906:
“The Viennese Zionists demanded” that Herr von Taussig, the banker who arranged
for Austrian participation in the loan to Russia to which many Austrian Jews
are opposed, be dismissed from his position as Vice President “of the Hebrew
Community.
1907:
Birthdate of Cincinnati native and Ohio State University graduate Aron Max
Mathieu the author of “The Writer’s Market for 1940,” “The Reataive Writer” and
“The Creative Writer.”
1907:
Columbia graduate and NYU trained attorney Samuel Bookman, the New York City born son of Caroline Mayer and Jacob
Bookman who pursued a career as physiological chemist specializing in
toxicological and chemical investigations while being a member of Temple
Emanu-El married Olga Blum today.
1907:
Birthdate of Elizabeth “Lee” Miller the fashion model who during WW II became a
war correspondent and photographer who covered the “horrors of Buchenwald and
Dachau.” (She was not Jewish but the photos were part of the creation of a
record of the Horrors of the Holocaust.)
1908:
Birthdate of Czech writer and diplomat Egon Hostovsky, a distant relative of
Stefan Zweig, most of whose immediate family perished in the Holocaust and who
was immortalized by the posthumous creation of the Egon Hostovsky Prize for
literature.
1908:
In Cologne, Germany, music critic Paul Hiller and his wife Sophie Lion gave
birth to Erwin Ottmar Hiller grandson of pianist Ferdinand Hiller, who gained
fame as Holocaust survivor and actor Marcel Hillaire, whose most memorable for
me was as the French Chef in the marvelous comedy “Sabrina.”
1909:
“The Bronx Aroused” published today described Jewish opposition to taking land
from Crotona Park to build an armory and plans to hold a protest meeting under
the leadership of the Free Sons of Israel.
1910:
Birthdate of Martin Roman, the German jazz pianist who played with the Marek
Weber Band and was shipped to Theresienstadt in 1944.
1910(14th
of Nisan, 5670): On Shabbat HaGadol, Rabbi Joseph Silverman delivered a sermon
at Temple Emanu-El in which his he praised Mayor Gaynor for this letter to
Reverend Chalmers refusing him a license to preach on the street corners of the
East Side with the aim of converting Jews to Christianity.
1910(14th
of Nisan, 5670): “Passover Begins To-Night” published today states that “”Pesach,”
the Hebrew festival of the Passover, one of the most important festivals of the
Jewish calendar, will begin at sunset this evening, which is the fourteenth day
of the month of Nison. This festival was ordained to celebrate the deliverance
of the children of Israel from their long captivity in Egypt and their
departure from the house of bondage on the way through the wilderness to the
promised land of Canaan.”
1910
(14th of Nisan, 5670): A Seder will be held tonight on Ellis Island for the
Jewish immigrants who have not been given permission to enter the United
States.
1910:
Clarence Charles Minzesheimer, head of the banking and brokerage house Charles
Minzesheimr & Co had his appendix removed after suffering an attack of
appendicitis.
1911:
It was reported today that Max Kohler the former United States District Attorney
“who is now a member of the Advisory
Board
of the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society” said the trouble immigrants have in
entering the United States lies not with Secretary Nagel and Assistant Secretary
Nagel Cable in Washington who are disposed to be fair but with “the policies of Commissioner of Williams”
who “ever since he has entered the department has been a law until himself and
not with Secretary Nagel and Assistant Secretary Nagel Cable in Washington who
are disposed to be fair and that the deportation rate of Russian Jews arriving
at Ellis Island is ten times greater than that of other aliens.
1911:
In Marseille, Erma Maria Domenica Giorcelli and “Henri Louis Firmin
Champmoynat, a French Jewish engineer, airplane pilot in World War II, who died
in a concentration camp” gave birth to French movie star Simone Thérèse
Fernande Simon.
1912:
In London, Helena Rubenstein and Edward William Titus gave birth to their
younger son Horace Titus.
1913(16th
of Nisan, 5673): Second Day of Pesach; First Day of the Omer
1913:
Max Moses Friediger, the chief rabbi in Copenhagen who was the Budapest born
son of Leopold Lipot Friediger and Betti Bertha Friediger and his wife Fanny
Friediger gave birth to Charlotte “Lotte” Jacoby, the wife of Erich Hellmuth
Jacoby and the mother of Evelyn Jacoby.
1913:
George Washington Ochs-Oakes, the son of Julius and Bertha Ochs, and his wife
Bertie gave birth to John Bertram Oakes, a creative pillar of the New York
Times whose accomplishments are beyond the scope of this blog. (As reported by
Robert D. McFadden
1914:
Birthdate of Harry Kravitsky, the Brooklyn native who as Harry Crane went from
Borscht Belt comic to screenwriter for Hollywood films and television
for which he created the “Honeymooners.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/20/arts/harry-crane-85-who-helped-create-the-honeymooners.html
1914:
Justice Ben Bill of the Georgia State Supreme Court heard the appeal of Leo
Frank today.
1915:
It was reported today that “Hermann Laundau, a prominent Jewish philanthropist
associated with various Jewish charities in London” has said that “seven
million Poles, of whom 2,000,000 are Jews are in dire need of food” and that
“the Jews are even poorer than the Gentiles, because of the boycott against the
Jews in parts of Poland before the beginning of the war, which impoverished
thousands who otherwise would have been able to provide for their families.”
1915:
Three years after its founding, the second annual convention of the Mizrahi of
America opened its second annual convention in New York City.
1915:
Rupert Brooke, a young scholar and poet serving as an officer in the British
Royal Navy” whom Alexander Aciman called his “Favorite Anti-Semite” “died of
blood poisoning on a hospital ship anchored off the Greek island of Skyros,
while awaiting deployment in the Allied invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula.
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/230744/rupert-brooke-my-favorite-anti-semite
1916(20th
of Nisan, 5676): Sixth Day of Pesach
1916:
“Nathan Straus greeted thousands of Jewish children” in New York this morning
“at the Passover gatherings of Young Judea” where “he urged them to remain true
to the traditions of their people and said they might well be proud of being
young Zionists.”
1916:
“Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, was the guest of honor this
afternoon at the Fifth Annual Convention of the Federation of Oriental Jews in
American” at P.S. No. 91 where he said “that his career had been started in a
public school and that a similar chance in life could be the reward for anyone
who was willing to make the effort.”
1917:
It was reported today that Louis Marshall has described the formation of The
League of Jewish Youth of America as “the protest of the young Jews and
Jewesses against the deadly tendency to drift hopelessly on arctic sea” and as
“the expression of their desire to affect a stable and dignified adjustment of
ancient Jewish idealism to perfect American citizenship.”
1917:
A cable received from the Petrograd correspondent of the Jewish Daily Forward
in New York today described “how the Jews of Russia are aiding the new
Government in its effort to bring order out of chaos and successfully prosecute
the war against Germany.”
1917:
Zangwill Back To Zionism” published today described the return of Israel
Zangwill to the Zionist Movement from which he has been estranged since 1905
when he others sought to find other places for a Jewish Home” including land in
Africa which was part of the British Empire.
1917:
“A stormy controversy over the question of woman suffrage sprang up at the
assembly of the Eastern Council of Reform Rabbis at Temple Emanu-El” today with
“Dr. Stephen S. Wise threatening to resign from the council because of the in
which the President, Dr. Joseph Silverman, opposed any attempt to present the
suffrage issue to consideration of the assembled rabbis.”
1918:
Dr. Alexander Dushkin announced today that 3,700 new members have joined “the
Jewish Community” which has its headquarters on Second Avenue and has been
conducting a membership drive that has “included Jews of all classes” in New
York City.
1918:
In New York, Regina and Nisim Yeuda Levy gave birth to World War II veteran
Louis N. Levy, the husband of Rena Dweck and a leader in the Sephardic
community in the United States.
http://www.sephardicstudies.org/Louis-Levy.html
1918:
In Paris, “Lazare Kessel, a promising actor of Jewish Russian descent who
committed suicide” and his wife gave birth to author Maurice Druon who along
with his Uncle Joseph Kessel wrote the lyrics “to the unofficial anthem of the
French Resistance” in 1943.”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/apr/16/maurice-druon-obituary
1919:
The funeral for one year old Pearl Gerber, the daughter of Edward and Rose E.
Gerber was held today in Chicago.
1920:
Political change comes to the Ottoman Empire as the national council denounces Sultan Mehmed VI and The Grand National Assembly of Turkey
is formed. These events are steps down
the road to the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of modern
day Turkey. The end of the Ottoman Empire was a critical factor in the creation
of a Jewish Homeland that led to the state of Israel. But this dismemberment has been a critical
factor that haunts the Middle East to this day.
1920(5th
of Iyar, 5680): Isaac Gause passed away.
Born in 1843 in Ohio, he was a corporal in the 2nd Ohio Cavalry (USA) Army who won the Medal of
Honor for valor displayed at Berryville, VA, in September of 1864.
1921(15th
of Nisan, 5681): First Day of Pesach
1921: In
their Passover sermons given today, Rabbis “discussed recent (negative) reports
made to the State Department concerning the restriction of Jewish, Armenian and
Persian immigrants.
1921(15th
of Nisan, 5681): Seventy-three-year-old Israel Zeitoun, “the chief rabbi and
president of the Rabbinical Court in Tunis” passed away today.
http://dbs.bh.org.il/image/rabbi-israel-zeitoun-chief-rabbi-of-tunisia-1917-1921
1921: In
his sermon today, Rabbi Samuel Schulman of Temple Beth-El said “that he
regretted that this country was departing from its sacred heritage under which all
oppressed people were invited here to enjoy the gifts of liberty and wondered whether
if it was because the Jews were victims of fierce attacks abroad that the gates
of this country were being closed to them.”
1921: In
his sermon today, Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstine of the Institutional Synagogue “demanded
that that the man in the State Department who wrote the insidious libel again
the Jewry of Europe…be forthwith dismissed from government service.
1921:
Gambler Nick Arenstein and comedic actress Fannie Brice gave birth abstract
painter William Brice.
http://www.lalouver.com/resource/brice_bio/brice_obituary.pdf
1921: In his sermon today, Dr. Maurice H. Harris at
Temple Israel of Harlem “said tat he was relieved to learn that Secretary o
State Hughes was not the person who made the statement concerning the Jews and deplored
the fact that the country was about to close its doors to refugees from other lands.”
1922:
The Paterson Jewish Singing Society and a symphony orchestra conducted by
Arnold Volpe provided the entertainment at “the 25th anniversary of
the Jewish Daily Forward which was celebrated this afternoon with a great mass
meeting at the Hippodrome” where Abraham Cahan, the founder and editor of The
Forward “received an ovation when he arose to speak which lasted several
minutes.”
1923(7th
of Iya, 5683): Fifty-six-year-old Chicago resident A.B. Seelenfreund, the secretary
of B’nai B’rith passed away today without warning in Memphis, TN.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1923/04/24/105858972.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1923: Birthdate of dancer Melissa Hayden
1923:
Birthdate of Avram Davidson. Born in Yonkers, NY, educated at NYU, Yeshiva U
and Pierce College, he spent a year in the Israeli Amy during the Arab-Israeli
War of 1948-49. His first sale was to Orthodox Jewish Life Magazine eight years
before he broke into the genre. Originally an observant Orthodox Jew. Converted
to Tenrikyo in 1970, after which he spent time in Japan, studied the religion
intensely, and translated some texts into English. He was a
writer of fantasy fiction, science fiction, and crime fiction, as well as the
author of many unclassifiable but unforgettable stories that do not fit into a genre niche. He won a Hugo
Award and was three-time winner of the World Fantasy Award in the science
fiction and fantasy genre, and a Queen’s Award and an Edgar Award in the
mystery genre. Davidson edited The
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1962 to 1964. He passed away
in 1993.
1924: In
Columbia, South Carolina dress shop manager Mordecai Moses Donen and Helen
Cohen, the daughter of a jewelry salesman gave birth to director and
choreographer best known for “Singing’ In the Rain” and “On the Town.”
1925:
After divorcing Blanche Lasky, the sister of Jesse Lasky in 1915 today movie
mogul Sam Goldwyn married Frances Howard “to whom he remained married for the
rest of his life” and with whom he shared a so Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.
1926: Sixty-eight-year-old
Joseph Pennell, the artist and author whose works include The Jew at Home:
Impressions of a Summer and Autumn Spent With Him.
https://archive.org/details/jewathomeimpress00pennrich
1927(21st
of Nisan, 5687): Shabbat Shel Pesach
1928:
“The Plastic Age” produced by B.P. Schulberg which would gain the attention of
Adolph Zukor, the CEO of Paramount, was released today in Finland.
1928: “Here’s
Howe is a musical in two acts with music by Roger Wolfe Kahn and Joseph Meyer
and lyrics by Irving Caesar” “premiered at the Shubert Theatre in Boston today
for a week of tryout performances
1929: In
Pairs, Frederick Steiner, a senior lawyer in the Austrian Central Bank and Else
Steiner, “a Viennese Grande Dame” gave birth to Francis George Steiner
“French-born American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, and
educator” whose works include Portage to San Cristobal
of A.H., in which Jewish Nazi hunters find Adolf Hitler (the
“A.H.” of the novella’s title) alive in the Amazon jungle thirty
years after the end of World War II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Portage_to_San_Cristobal_of_A.H.
1930:
In New York City, stockbroker Louis E. Oppenheimer and his wife Irene (née
Rothschild) Oppenheimer gave birth to Alan Oppenheimer who had a long list of
movie and television credits to his name including the role of Dr. Rudy Wells
in the “Six Million Dollar Man.”
1930:
In Brooklyn, attorney Louis Cohen and his wife gave birth to Arthur George
Cohen “who began a roller-coaster real estate career with a $25,000 investment
in tract housing on Long Island before creating the nation’s largest publicly
held real estate company, teaming up with tycoons like Aristotle Onassis to build
trophy Manhattan skyscrapers…” (As reported by Douglas Martin)
1931:
Brooklyn born Jewish bullfighter Sidney Franklin “sailed on the steamer Emanuel
Calbo for Barcelona, Spain today after receiving “from Bernard Sandler,
representing the Jewish Theatrical Guild, a charm to wear in his tunic while
fighting.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/04/24/102229587.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1932(17th
of Nisan, 5692): Shabbat Shel Pesach
1932:
It was reported today that Mortimer Brenner, the president of the United Jewish
Aid Societies of Brooklyn was among the “driectors of ten family welfare
agencies who petitioned the Board of Estimate to give immediate and serious
consideration to the problem of relieving the destitute” because of the
critical situation confronting New York City through the early exhaustion of
relief funds.
1932:
It was reported today that “there was a heated moment in the House of Commons on
April 22nd when Colonel Josiah Wedgwood accused the British
officials in Palestine of criticizing, cramping and disappointing the Jews and
administering pinpricks.”
1933:
“A conference of executive directors of Y.M.H.A.’s, Y.W H.A’s and Jewish
Community Centers” is which is considering “an evaluation of present membership
policies, news systems of membership and other measures that will build up
memberships in Jewish centers scheduled to continue for a second day at the 92nd
Street Y.
1933:
“The Empress and I” a musical comedy directed by Friederich Hollanender “who
had to leave Germany because of his German descent” was released in his native
land today.
1934:
Abraham Stavsky, Zvi Rosenblatt and Abba Achimeyer went on trial for the murder
of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff today in Jerusalem.
1935:
According to an announcement made today by Dr. Gross, the head “of the Nazi
party’s race bureau” “the exclusion of Jewish children from public schools in
Germany and their transfer to special Jewish schools is the next point in the
government’s program for dealing with German Jews.”
1935:
In Brooklyn, homemaker Ida Silverstein and newspaper truck driver Sam
Silverstein gave birth to State University of New York at New Paltz graduate
and holder of a Ph.D. in social psychology from Rutgers, Dr. Charles
Silverstein, co-author of The Joy of Gay Sex who “at the forefront in
persuading the American Psychiatric Association to reassess its classification
of homosexuality as a mental disorder.” (As reported by Neil Genzliger)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/07/health/charles-silverstein-dead.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/02/07/charles-silverstein-gay-rights-dead/
1936(1st
of Iyar, 5696): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1936:
Isaac Ben Zvi, representing Vaad Leumi (the Palestine Jewish National council)
and Rabbi Moses Blau of Agudath Israel call on Jon Hall, Chief Secretary of the
Palestine Government and asked him to prevent Arabs living in surrounding
villages from coming to Jerusalem tomorrow.
The villagers are coming in response to a call from the Mufit of
Jerusalem. The fears of the Jewish
leaders are based on the current climate of violence in Palestine and the fact
that the current conditions remind one of conditions that resulted in the
violent Arab riots in August of 1929. As
if to underscore their concerns, reports have surfaced in Jerusalem that the
“private offices of the May of Tel Aviv…were plundered in Jaffa this afternoon.”
1936:
“A meter which measures the electric voltage of nervous shocks in humans “which
was developed by Dr. Edmund Jacobson, Assistant Professor Physiology at the
University of Chicago” was demonstrated tonight to scientists arriving in
Evanston for the convention of the Midwestern Psychological Association.
1936:
John Hathorn Hall, Chief Secretary of the Palestine Government refused the
request of Isaac Ben Zvi of the Vaad Leumi (the Palestine Jewish National
Council) and Rabbi Moses Blau of Agudath Israel to prevents villages from
coming into Jerusalem tomorrow because “they were coming for religious
purposes.” Blau responded, “That is the
same reply I received from the High Commissioner Luke in 1929 just before the
big massacre of Jews began.”
1936:
In Massachusetts, “Alexander Lincoln, president of the Sentinels of the
Republic, whose recently voiced belief that ‘the Jewish threat is a real one,’
cause a storm of protest, resigned from the State Board of Tax appeals today”
at the same time that Governor Curley was trying to oust from the position.
1936:
Governor James Michael Curley announced today that he would appoint Abraham
Webber, a leader in the Jewish community to serve as a Public Utility
Commissioner.
1936:
“Travelers returning from Poland” brought “reports of pogroms and persecution
in the larger cities” and described the “state of affairs” under which the Jews
are living as “pitiable.”
1936:
The Jewish Telegraph Agency “said that thirty persons had been killed in the
four days of Arab-Jewish clashes” and approximately 190 more had been wounded.
1936:
“David Ben Gurion, Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine
spoke by telephone from Jerusalem with American Jewish leaders today and said
that the Jewish community in Palestine would not be dissuaded from their “work
of rebuilding the country” because of the current violence.
1937:
It was reported today that David Simonsen of Copenhagen has bequeathed his
library of Jewish books which contains nearly 100,000 volumes to the Royal
Library of Copenhagen.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23602300
1937(12th
of Iyar, 5697): Sixty-six year old Austrian obstetrician and gynecologist, Josef
van Halban, the son of Philipp and Anna Sara Hinda Halban and the husband of opera singer Selma von
Halban passed away today in Vienna.
1938(22nd
of Nisan, 5698): Eighth Day of Pesach and Shabbat
1938:
Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Jews by Birth
and Jews by Belief” at Temple Emanu-El.
1938:
Rabbi William F. Rosenblum is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “One Third of
the Nation and the Other Two Thirds” at Temple Israel.
1938:
Rabbi Alexander Segel is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Four Parties in
Israel at the Red Sea” today at the Fort Washington Synagogue.
1938:
In Carrigrohane, René Dreyfus took ahead of his number one pole position to win
the Cork Crand Prix in which he posted the fastest lap as well.
1938 Jews in Vienna, Austria, were rounded up on the
Sabbath by Nazis and forced to eat grass at the Prater, a local amusement park.
Many of the victimized Jews suffered heart attacks and a few died.
1939:
The police arrested 218 more illegal immigrants near Jaffa early this
morning. The group that included fifty
women and ten children had been put ashore by a Greek ship near Ashkelon. The British forces found them wandering in
the dunes. They were taken to holding
camps in Jaffa. Along the way, the
convoy passed several Jewish settlements where the residents cheered these
latest escapees from Hitler’s Europe.
1940(15th
of Nisan, 5700): Pesach
1940:
The Chief of Naval Operations “publicly stated that Admiral Joseph Taussig’s
views” on the inevitably of war between Japan and the United States if present
trends continue “were contrary to the Navy Department’s and today issued a
reprimand that was placed in Taussig’s file.”
1940:
The Nazis ordered the Jews to jump in cesspool at the Stutthof Labor Camp. The
short ones drowned.
1941:
Today in his first starting assignment for the Cardinals, Samuel Ralph “Subway Sam” Nahem the son of Jacob
and Esther Nahem, immigrants from Aleppo, Syria “pitched a three-hitter,
beating the Pittsburgh Pirates 3 to 1, striking out three and giving up only
one walk.’
1941:
Eighty-year-old Davenport, IA native Charles Edward
Russell the author of Haym Salomon and the Revolution and a leading
supporter of the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine passed away today in
Washington, D.C.
1942: German occupation in France are scheduled to execute eighty
hostages in Rouen today and deport another one thousand to “labor camps in the
East” if the saboteurs responsible for wrecking a German troop train are turned
over to authorities.
1942:
Judge Jonah J. Goldstein of the Court of General Sessions and Bertram Jacobson,
the European representative of the Joint Distribution Committee are scheduled
address the annual dinner of the real estate and allied trades division of the
UJA which is being held at the Harmonie Club.
1943(18th
of Nisan,5703): Fourth Day of Pesach
1943(18th
of Nisan, 5703): Saartje Polak de Beer and Wed. E. Polake de Levie, two sixty-year-olds
from Goor were murdered at Sobibor today.
1943(18th
of Nisan, 5703): Seventy-seven-year-old Alexander Gotthold Ephraim Freud passed
1943:
“Clancy Street Boys” a Bowery Boys comedy produced by Sam Katzman and Jack
Dietz was released in the United States today.
1943:
Much to everybody’s surprise, the Warsaw Uprising continues even though
supplies and weapons are at the bare minimum. By now the Poles know what
is going on. They watch, but they offer no aid. The Polish
underground will suffer a similar fate in 1945. Then they will rise up
against the Nazis, but the Soviet troops wait outside the city giving the
Germans to wipe the predominately non-Communist part of the resistance
movement. As somebody once said, as you treat your Jews, so shall you be
treated.
1944:
“Following the German occupation of Hungary,”
today, the Portuguese ruler António de Oliveira Salazar decided to order
his ambassador to return to Lisbon and leave Teixeira Branquinho, as the chargé d’affaires, in his place – a
move which made it possible for the courageous Branquinho to save at least a
thousand Jews from the Nazis and their Hungarian allies.
1944:
Otto Armster, a German military intelligence officer who was part of the plot
to kill Hitler was arrested by the Gestapo today where he was taken Berlin and
placed in solitary confinement.
1944:
Senator Guy Gillette of Iowa was among those scheduled to at tonight’s dinner
in Boston where a “colony bearing the name of Commonwealth Massachusetts” which
is in fact a“tract of about 1,320 acres that has been acquired in Palestine by
the Jewish National Fund of New England for the settlement of 600 Jewish
families” facing death in Hungary and Rumania” was dedicated.
1945:
Units from the U.S Army’s 2nd Cavalry Group, Mechanized, the 90th Infantry
Division and the 97th Infantry Division which include Pulitzer-Prize winning poet
Anthony Hecht, the New York City born son of German-Jewish parents, liberated
Flossenburg Concentration Camp today where they found 1,600 survivors including
Czech journalist Josef Taussig in a place where at one time the Nazis had
murdered 30,000 inmates.
1945:”
Twenty-year old Army medic Anthony Acevdo” who had been captured on January 6, 1945
during the Battle of the Bulge after which he was shipped to Berga with “350
Jews and other undesirables and who had been keeping a secret diary describing
the Nazi atrocities since March 25, was freed today.
1945:
As Nazi power crumbled Deutsche Lufthansa’s last flight departed from Berlin’s
Tempelhoff bound for Madrid which it would never reach because the Allies shot
it down.
1946(22nd
of Nisan, 5706): Eighth Day of Pesach
1946: Forces of the Irgun including Dov Bel
Gruner attacked the police station in Ramat Gan. Two policemen were killed and Gruner, who was
wounded in the attack, was taken prisoner.
1946(22nd of Nisan, 5706): Seventy-nine-year-old
journalist and Jewish labor movement leader Bernard Weinstein, the Odessa born
son David Wittie Lippman Weinstein, and the husband of the former Annie Freeman
passed away today at his home in the Bronx.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1946/04/26/88355625.html?pageNumber=21
1946: Birthdate of Detroit native Jackie Kaplan
who gained fame as Jackie Kallen “one of boxing’s first and most successful
female managers whose life was the inspiration for the 2004 film Against the
Ropes and who managed champion James Toney and Broncol McKart.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jackie-kallen#google_vignette
1947: The trial of Hans Biebow “the chief of
German Nazi administration of the Łódź Ghetto in occupied Poland” began today.
1948(14th
of Nisan, 5708): Erev Pesach the rations given out in Jerusalem for the
observance of Passover included 2 lbs. of potatoes, ½ lb of fish, 4 lb. of
matzo, 1 ½ oz. dried fruit, ½ lb. meat, and ½ lb. of matzo flour. As one who was
there later wrote, “For the trapped citizens of Jerusalem, who had become
accustomed to privation, the Passover provisions seemed like a banquet.
However, for the citizens of Jerusalem, it was not a particularly merry affair.
On the verge of their national freedom, the inhabitants of Jerusalem sat
somberly around their tables. This was the first time since the nightly
shellings that the city’s citizens had come together in assembly in the various
homes throughout the city that had been the dream of two thousand years’ Seders.
Tonight is a holiday, but tomorrow the struggle will go on. As they sat to
begin the Seder, they heard the beginning of the snipers bullets looking for a
straggler in the streets. But tonight was different. As they opened the door,
as they had done for scores of generations, to welcome in Elijah, there was no
fear. Tonight is a night of divine protection. As the Holy One protected the
Jews in Egypt, so shall he protect us here in the war torn city of Jerusalem.
“Once we were slaves, but today we are free men” recited in the
Haggadah, took on new meaning. The British are leaving, the Arabs are
attacking, and we are beginning our new national lives as free men in our own
country. “Next year in Jerusalem” had a meaning that we never before
understood. We meant it; we would not relinquish our dream to return to our
homeland, to the city that has been in our hearts throughout the two-thousand-year
exile. Now we are free men, tomorrow we must continue the fight to remain free.
1948: Corporal David Hyman Rubenstein the 19th
Milford, Massachusetts man to lose his life in World War II was buried at Beth
Israel Cemetery in Everett, with full military honors. “Milford’s Fallen
Family” of that war would come to total 55. Rubenstein was killed in action, in
France, on July 4, 1944. Weeks after his death, his last letter arrived home.
Written on June 28 from a fox hole, it described the “carnage about him … as
a slaughterhouse.”
1948: The port of Haifa was captured by elements of the
Israeli Carmeli Brigade. On April 21,
the general commanding British forces in Haifa announced that he was
withdrawing his forces in 24 hours. This
announcement resulted in an outbreak of fighting between Jewish and Arab
forces. Unfortunately for the Arabs,
their three to leaders fled at the outbreak of the fighting, demoralizing the
population. The British general lost his
bet that neither side would win as the outnumbered members of the Haganah took
control. Despite efforts of the Jewish
leaders to convince them to remain, most of the city’s Arab population left for Lebanon or Nazareth. . Today,
Haifa is a thriving and diverse cultural and ethnic center, home to Jews,
Arabs, and Druze, and marked for its high level of coexistence. It is this level of harmony that has made
Haifa a target for terrorist bombings in the latest wave of Arab violence.
1949: Israeli president Chaim Weizman is scheduled to attend
a dinner in New York which will be attended by a party of 12 including his
wife.
1949(24th of Nisan, 5709): Parashat Shmini
1949(24th of Nisan, 5709): Sixty-two-year-old Columbia
trained statistician William Morris Feigenbaum, the Antwerp, Belgium born son
of Benjamin Feigenbaum, husband of Margaret Feigenbaum and father of Thomas B
Feigenbaum who a Socialist political leader and “associated editor of The New Leader” passed away today.
1950: St. Louis Browns pitcher Sid Schacht made his major
league baseball debut.
1950: Correspondent Gene Currivan evaluates Israel’s chances
for survival and offers an explanation for her success against her more
powerful Arab neighbors in an article published today entitled “Mid-East Peace
Nearer Despite Arab Gestures.” He points
out that the Arab League’s failure to provide a common front was but one of the
many problems facing the Arabs. “At the
outset of the Israel-Arab war, when the Arabs spoke of 40,000,000 Arabs banding
together against Israel, the were thinking in terms of Moslems, but the Moslems
of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan could not have cared less…When those who
did enter the war sat back and licked their wounds, they probably wonder what
all the shouting had been about. The war
was started by the Arabs in defiance of the United Nations’ partition plan
which they had refused to accept…The Arabs made a grave mistake…but they are
reluctant to forgive and forget.”
1950: Israel continued to celebrate its second
year of independence as Dr. Weizmann receives congratulatory visits by foreign
dignitaries lead by U.S. Ambassador James G MacDonald.
1951(17th of Nisan, 5711): Third Day
of Pesach
1951: Today, “in a statement released through
the United Jewish Appeal of Greater” Ambassador Abba S. Eban “emphasized that
his nation’s interest would be effectively served if American Jews ‘contribute
greater sums than ever before to the UJA and also invest the maximum possible
amount in Israel through the purchase of bonds.’”
1952: In Tel Aviv, “The Barton Company will
manufacture chocolate novelties and specialties in Israel for sale in its
fifty-two shops in New York, Detroit and Newark, Stephen Klein, president of
the American chocolate manufacturing concern, said tonight before his return to
the United States” and said he expected sales to total $100,000 in the first
year.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the “past seven days was
the bloodiest week along Israeli borders for a long time.” Two Israelis
were murdered at Mevuot Betar, the marauders were active in the South, in
Galilee and Jerusalem. There was a general outcry when General Bennet L. de
Ridder, the U.N. Chairman of the Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission
refused to comply with the Israeli request to call an emergency meeting of the
Commission to discuss the latest developments and, in particular, the murder of
Zvi Genauer and his niece, Dvora, in Jerusalem. This incomprehensible U.N.
decision was taken despite the fact that the tracks of the three marauders,
responsible for this murder, were discovered by an U.N. observer and an Israeli
officer who noted that they led to the Jordanian-occupied village of Beit Iksa.
The General claimed that it was not the duty of his Commission to deal with
incidents “of this type.”
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel’s three-years-long land
survey, conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture, was almost completed.
1954: Jockey William Harmatz rode six
consecutive winners “at Bay Meadows Racetrack.”
1954: Cincinnati pitcher Moe Savransky made his
major league baseball debut.
1955: In New York, Robert and Patricia Mozer
gave birth to Paul William Mozer, the Salomon Brothers employee who “played a
pivotal role in a bond scandal.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/25/business/it-isn-t-the-paul-mozer-they-knew.html
1955(1st of Iyar, 5715): Parashat
Tazria-Metzora; Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1955(1st of Iyar, 5715): Three days
before her 51st birthday, Marion Elkus Kohlman passed away after
which she was buried at the Springhill Avenue Temple Cemetery in Mobile,
Alabama.
1955: Final performance of “The Dark Is Light
Enough” featuring Marian Winters as “Gelda.”
1956: For the third time, Sigmund Freud is
featured on the cover of Time
magazine.
1957(22nd of Nisan, 5717): 8th day
of Pesach
1957(22nd of Nisan, 5717): Lucille Frank, the
widow of Leo Frank, passed away, a victim of heart disease.
1958(3rd of Iyar, 5718): Yom HaZikaron
1958: Birthdate of Radu Mihăileanu, the native
of Bucharest who moved to Paris in 1989 where he gained fame as a film director
and screenwriter.
1958: The first production of “J.B.” a play
written in free verse which is a modern retelling of the story of the biblical
figure Job opened today at Yale University.
1958: “Expresso Bongo,” a musical with a book
co-authored by Wolf Mankowitz and music by Monty Norman opened for the first
time at the Saville Theatre in London today.
1958: San Francisco Giants outfielder Don
Taussig appeared in his first major league baseball game.
1959(15th of Nisan, 5719): Pesach
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/04/24/80771015.html?pageNumber=19
1960(26th of Nisan, 5720): Parashat
Shmini
1960(26th of Nisan, 5720): Sixty-five-year-old
Abraham Samuel Samuels, the native of Woltzin, Poland who came to the United
States in 1922 where he served as Rabbi in Elmira, NY and was active in a
number of Jewish organizations including the United Charities for Palestine
passed away today.
1960: In Shaker Heights, Raphael Silver and
Joan Micklin Silver, both of whom were directors, gave birth to Marisa Silver, an
American author, screenwriter and film director. She is a second generation
film director.
https://jwa.org/thisweek/apr/23/1960/birth-of-writer-marisa-silver
1961: Judy Garland, two of whose five husbands
were Jewish and who was re-interred at Beth Olam Cemetery performed at Carnegie
Hall today.
1962: A Labor Department spokesman said today
that Secretary of labor Arthur J Goldberg” had left on April 22 “to spend a
week vacationing in Florida.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/04/24/82124230.html?pageNumber=7
1962: “M’hammed Yazid, Algerian nationalist
Minister of Information, denied tonight that Mohammed Ben Bella, Vice Premier
in the Provisional Government, had ever promised that Algeria would send
100,000 soldiers to fight against Israel.”
1963(29th of Nisan, 5723): Seventy-eight-year-old Yitzhak
Ben-Zvi, third President of Israel passed away.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/ben-zvi.html
1963: Kadish Luz was named interim President of
Israel.
1964(11th of Iyar, 5724): Seventy-seven-year-old
Vienna born economist and WW I veteran of the Austrian Army Karly Polanyi, the
author of the Great Transformation and husband of the former Illona Duczynska,
the Hungarian author and translator with whom he raised Canadian economist Kari
Polanyi Levitt, passed away today in Ontario.
1965(21st of Nisan, 5725): Seventh
Day of Pesach
1966(3rd of Iyar, 5726): Parashat
Tazria-Metzora
1966(3rd of Iyar, 5726): Eighty-one-year-old
Gertrude D.H. Perlman “a lawyer for more than fifty years and an attorney with
the New York State Mortgage Commission” who was the widow of Max Perlman passed
away today.
1968: “I’m Solomon,” an Ernest Gold musical
opened on Broadway today.
1969(4th of Iyar, 5729): Yom
HaZikaron
1969(4th of Iyar, 5729): Eighty-three-year-old
San Francisco architect Albert Gustave Landsburg the son of Rebecca and Simon
Lazarus Landsburg passed away today.
http://www.jmaw.org/lansburgh-jewish-san-francisco/
https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf3n39n6xr/entire_text/
http://pcad.lib.washington.edu/person/123/
1969(4th of Iyar, 5729): Fifty-three-year-old
Robert Haines Levine, the longtime news editor of The Patterson News and
husband of “the former Shirley Stapleton” with whom had had five children –
Robert, John, Marjorie, Elizabeth and Marianne – who was the Patterson, NJ born
son Edith Stern Levine and Jules C. Levine, a “business manager of The News,”
passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/04/25/90095538.html?pageNumber=47
1969: It was reported today that the ADL has “elected
Samuel Dalsimer, advertising executive of New York City, as its national
chairman” succeeding playwright and producer Dore Schary.
1969:
Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death for killing Bobby Kennedy. Sirhan Sirhan’s
sentence was commuted to life in prison. He still is serving his
sentence. The young Palestinian claimed that he shot Kenney because he
was a supporter of Israel. Yes, the terror and the violence are an
old story.
1969: Birthdate of novelist Arthur Phillips, the native of
Minneapolis whose works include Prague, The Egyptologist, Angelica,
The Song Is You and The Tragedy of Arthur
http://www.bookslut.com/features/2009_05_014440.php
1970(27th of Nisan, 5730): Third Day of Pesach
1970(27th of Nisan, 5730): Two Israeli civilians
touring the Golan heights were killed today and five others were wounded when 20
infiltrators from Syria ambushed their cars on a main road less than a mile
from the 1967 cease‐fire line.
1971: Birthdate of Chicago native and Wesleyan and Trinity
College (Dublin) educated Daniel Brett Weiss the co-creator with his fellow
Jewish David Benioff of “Game of Thrones.”
1971(28th of Nisan, 5731): Fifty-one-year-old Terezin
Ghetto survivor Arthur Friediger, the Denmark born son of Chief Rabbi Max Moses
Friediger and Fanny Friediger and husband of Hanka Friediger passed away today
in Copenhagen
1972: It was disclosed today that Arthur Peterson, a 72-year-old
Briton “described as a teacher and a journalist” was arrested by Israeli
security agents on suspicion that he had spied for the U.A.R.
1972(9th of Iyar, 5732): Fifty-year old Chicago born and University of Chicago
trained attorney Lester Robert Uretz, the WW II and Chief Counsel of the IRS
who raised four children with his wife Miriam suffered a fatal heart attack
today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/25/archives/lester-r-uretz.htm
1972: At an “academic convocation held under the auspices of
the Jewish Theological Seminary of America” a thousand people saw “His
Excellency the Right Honourable Roland Michener, governor general of Canada,
accepted the honorary degree of doctor of laws from Rabbi Louis Finkelstein,
chancellor of the seminary. In his acceptance speech, Michener “made special
reference to the 125th
anniversary of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim.”
1972(9th
of Iyar, 5732): Fifty year old University of Chicago trained attorney Lester
Robert Uretz , “the chief counsel of the IRS and husband of Miriam Uretz with
whom he raised “two sons and two daughters” passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/25/archives/lester-r-uretz.html
1972(9th of Iyar, 5732):
Seventy-five year old British racecar driver Albert Moss who was the father of
the more famous racecar driver Sterling Moss passed away today.
1973(21st of Nisan, 5733): Seventh
Day of Pesach
1973(21st of Nisan, 5755):
Eighty-five year old Leonard Jacques Stein, the barrister and MP who served as
President of the Anglo-Jewish Association and Jewish Historical Society of
England passed away today.
1974(1st of Iyar, 5734): Rosh
Chodesh Iyar
1974(1st of Iyar, 5734): Fifty-year-old
Barnard College graduate and former Martha Graham dancer Mrs. Natanya Neumann,
“the wife of Harold P. Manson, director of the office of academic affairs of
the American Friends of the Hebrew University” passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/04/25/archives/mrs-harold-p-manson.html
1974: Senator Ted Kennedy arrived in Moscow
today where he planned to discuss issues related to the Middle East and
emigration.
1975: At Tulane University, U.S. President Gerald Ford
stated that the war is over as far as the United States was concerned.
According to at least one Jewish Tulane alum, this was an appropriate place to
make such an announcement since the primarily poitically apathetic campus had
missed the start of the war.
1977(5th of Iyar, 5737): Parashat
Tazria-Metzora
1977(5th of Iyar, 5737): Eighty-six
year old Vienna native William Popper, the son of Johanna and Herman Joseph
Popper and the husband of Annie Popper passed away today in San Francisco.
1980(7th of Iyar, 5740): Eileen
Wilner, the wife of the late Seymour Wilner with whom she had two children,
Frank and Jon, and the sister of Cell Berman passed away today in Hollywood,
FL.
1981(19th of Nisan,5741): Fifth Day
of Pesach
1984(21st of Nisan, 5744): Seventh
Day of Pesach
1984(21st of Nisan, 5744): Seventy-six-year-old
boxer Ruby Goldstein, who was one of the most referees of his time passed away
today.
http://www.jewishsports.net/BioPages/ReuvenGoldstein.htm
1984: During an attempt at reconciliation, at
“family dinner at the Carlyle Hotel” Lillian Goldman, the estranged wife of
millionaire Sol Godman agreed to return to her husband and the reconciliation
agreement which was written on the spot by Raoul Felder, Mr. Goldman’s lawyer
included a stipulation that she would receive one million dollars in cash
“within a week and additional five million dollars by April, 1989.
1986(14th of Nisan, 5746): Fast of the First
Born
1986(14th
of Nisan, 5746): Composer Harold Arlen passed away. Born Hyman Arluck in 1905,
in Buffalo, New York, Arlen’s father was a
cantor. Arlen inherited his father’s voice and the family hoped
he would become a cantor, or at least a doctor or a lawyer. However,
Arlen showed a propensity for the piano. He moved to New York City
in the 1920’s where he flourished as composer of a variety of hits. Some
of his most famous music is heard every time the Wizard of Oz is shown
on television. Arlene was murdered in 1981 at the age of 81
http://www.haroldarlen.com/home.html
1986(14th
of Nisan, 5746): Director and actor, Otto Preminger passed away. Born on
December 5, 1905, in Vienna, Preminger began as a director and producer in the
theatre. He came to the United States in 1935 as a film
director. Later he left to work in the theatre in New York.
He returned to Hollywood as actor where he played the Nazi or German
officer in several films, most notably Stalag 17, the product of
another Jew, Billy Wilder. Preminger and others were struck by the
success a Jew from Austria had playing Nazi soldiers. Preminger returned
to directing movies, one of which, Anatomy of A Murder is considered
to be one of the finest legal/mystery movies ever made. He passed
away after suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease for many years.
1986: An Israeli Defense Ministry official said today that
Avraham Bar-Am, a retired Israeli general who is among those accused in a
smuggling case involving attempts by Iran to buy American-made weapons through
illegal channels, was licensed to deal in weapons, but not in a manner that
violated the law.
1986:
CBS broadcast the final episode of “Fast Times” a television miniseries based
on the movies of the same name both of which were directed by Amy Heckerling.
1987:
Birthdate of Israeli singer and songwriter Boaz Mauda.
1990(28th
of Nisan, 5750): Yom HaShoah
1990(28th of Nisan, 5750): Actress Paulette
Goddard passed away
http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.obits2/49421/mb.ashx
1991: Gerald Ratner made a speech addressing a
conference of the Institute of Directors at the Royal Albert during which he described
his company’s business practices saying, “We also do cut-glass sherry decanters
complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray that your butler can serve
you drinks on, all for £4.95. People say, “How can you sell this for such
a low price?”, I say, “because it’s total crap.”
1991(9th of Iyar, 5751): Seventy-nine year old
attorney and advocate for the rights of women Harriet Fleischel Pilpel, the
Bronx born daughter of Julius and Ethel Flieshl, passed away today in New York
City.
http://www.webcitation.org/mainframe.php
http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/sophiasmith/mnsss155.html
1992(20th of Nisan, 5752): Sixth Day
of Pesach
1992: Two days after he had passed away,
funeral services were scheduled to be held for eighty-one-year-old Chicago born
and University of Chicago trained attorney Morris I Leibman, the husband of
Mary Leibman with whom he raised two sons and recipient of the Freedom Medal,
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/29/obituaries/morris-i-leibman-81-a-senior-law-partner.html
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-04-22-9202050616-story.html
1993: The United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum opened on the Mall in Washington, DC under the chairmanship of Miles
Lerman. Born Shmuel Milek Lerman in 1920 in Tomaszov-Lubelski, Poland was a
Holocaust survivor. He was appointed to
the chairmanship by Jimmy Carter and given responsibility for creating this
American memorial to the Shoah. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1994: In a letter to the New York Times
historian Ronald N. Stromberg wrote, “”The Italian government did not turn
a single Jew over to the Germans despite great pressure…”
1995(23rd
of Nisan, 5755): Howard Cosell passed
away. Born Howard Cohen in Winston Salem, North Carolina in 1918, Cosell
was educated in New York. Ah yes, grits and gefilte fish.
Trained as a lawyer, Cosell gained fame as a sports broadcaster. He
helped revolutionize television football coverage and changed American
social mores with his participation in Monday Night Football on ABC.
Cosell was a controversial figure with as many supporters as detractors. But
when he passed away, all that was remembered was the man who was “the
first to tell it like it is” in the world of sport.
1996(4th
of Iyar, 5756): Yom HaZikaron
1997(16th
of Nisan, 5757): Second Day of Pesach
1997(16th
of Nisan, 5757): One hundred-year-old Esther Schiff Goldfrank passed away in
New York.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/goldfrank-esther-schiff
1998(27th
of Nisan, 5758): Yom HaShoah.
1999:
After months of
testing, today McDonald’s officially unveiled — in 6,000 stores across the
Midwest and Northeast, including New York and New Jersey — three new ”bagel
breakfast sandwiches.” Ana Madan-Russo, president of McDonald’s New York
Tri-State Owners and Operators association, says franchise owners are excited
about selling bagel sandwiches ”in the bagel capital of the world.” Not so
fast, says Mr. Zabar, dissecting a McDonald’s steak, egg and cheese bagel in
Eli’s, his market on the Upper East Side.
A
true bagel, he asserts, must be boiled, then baked to achieve authenticity.
”This one,” he says regretfully, ”has been steamed, not boiled.” He notes
the telltale signs, the wimpy crust and the soft inside that pulls apart
without a fight. ”It’s like Wonder bread in a circle,” he says. ”A New York
bagel fights with you. It’s tough on the outside, and chewy on the inside, and
you struggle with it.” Elena Ramos, marketing director for McDonald’s in New
York, dismisses as irrelevant whether McDonald’s bagels are steamed or boiled,
or treated with any special preservatives. ”I’m not sure if the customers
buying them up get into all that,” she says. The company has no plans to sell
bagel sandwiches in its other 7,000 restaurants outside the Midwest and
Northeast, and Ms. Ramos says it is too soon to tell whether the McDonald’s
bagels will catch on with New York City’s sizable population of bagel nuts.
But, she notes, they sold briskly in several test markets, including Hartford.
In addition to the steak bagel, McDonald’s is offering a Spanish omelet bagel
and one with ham, egg and cheese.
”It
looks like the customers love them as much as we do,” she says. Indeed, some
New Yorkers welcome the menu additions. ”They should gear food for the area
they’re in,” says Joseph Loach, 39, of Brooklyn, during lunch in McDonald’s at
Eighth Avenue and 43d Street. ”Bagels are definitely indicative of New York.”
Which is precisely the worry for some New York food aficionados, who view the
bagel as the city’s cultural equivalent to Paris’s baguette. For New Yorkers
who first tasted bagels as teething babes, the notion of a ham, egg and cheese
bagel topped with McDonald’s special ”breakfast sauce” may seem, well,
unorthodox. Like lox on white. Or pastrami with mayonnaise. Ed Levine, author
of ”New York Eats (More),” bemoans the McDonald’s bagel invasion as ”a scary
proposition.” ”It seems to be that this is the logical extension of the
commodification of bagels,” he says. ”A bagel used to have character. Now
anything that’s vaguely round, that’s puffed up with a hole in it, can be
called a bagel. I knew this was coming.” He worries that in the age of fast
food chains and relentless mass marketing, McDonald’s $2.49 bagel sandwiches
will ever so gradually diminish a durable New York icon. ”I’m nostalgic, but
many people will taste McDonald bagels and think they’re fine,” he says.
”They’ve made the bagel into a neutral food. They used to be made with malt
and have a crust. Now even many New Yorkers don’t want their bagels with a
crust.” A skeptic might ask whether the Big Apple has any proprietary rights
to the bagel. New York, after all, didn’t invent the bagel. According to one
popular legend, that honor dates to 1683, when some Viennese bakers cooked up a
few in tribute to Jan Sobieski, the King of Poland. Bagels made their way to
New York in the early part of this century with Eastern European Jewish
immigrants. Now the bagel is everywhere. In Canada, Toronto holds a weekly
Bagel Bash. Mattoon, Ill., sponsors Bagelfest! In Boston, there’s a New Year’s
Eve Bagel-Off. On the Internet, you can find yourself a bagel consultant, or
read bagel poems. Some of New York’s most established bagel makers have done
their share to spread bagels to the masses. When a reporter visits H & H
Bagels on Broadway and 80th Street, the owner, Helmer Toro, sends over a media
kit boasting that his company supplies bagels to Dunkin’ Donuts. He even
provides a list of celebrity customers, including such un-New York names as Ann
Landers. And yet Mr. Toro, when asked about the McDonald’s bagels, is crushing
in his response: ”They’re not a quality product.” The reviews are more
generous just up Broadway in Zabar’s, another New York bagel landmark. The
owner, Saul Zabar, 70, is the older brother of Eli Zabar. Saul Zabar dissected
the Spanish omelet bagel. ”Hey, these bagels aren’t bad,” he says, tasting
first the egg, then the sausage patty and then the bagel itself. ”My God, I
think it’s remarkable.” And Dr. Rick Feinberg, eating a Zabar’s bagel with
Nova and cream cheese at the counter, makes a sheepish concession: If he were
on the highway in some strange place, and if he were really hungry, he might
just be tempted to stop at a McDonald’s and try one — though he probably would
stick with an Egg McMuffin
1999:
The Times of London reviews Weathered by Mircacles: A history of
Palestine from Bonaparte and Muhammad Ali to Ben-Gurion and the Mufti by
Thomas A Idinopulos.
2000:
An exhibit entitled “Berlin Metropolis: Jews and the New Culture, 1890 – 1918”
comes to an end at the Jewish Museum in New York City.
2000: The New
York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special
interest to Jewish readers including Ravelstein by Saul Bellow and No
Logo: Taking Aim at the Bullies by Naomi Klein.
2001: Eight people were injured when during a
bombing at Or Yehuda near Ben Gurion Airport for which Hamas took credit.
2002: Mast of the Senate, the third volume in
Joseph Caro’s biographical series about Lyndon B. John which won the 2003
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography was released today.
2002: “Only a Woman Like You” an album by
Michael Bolton was released today.
2002: “Alarmed that the composition and mandate of a United
Nations fact-finding teams were stacking it against Israel, the government
announced that it would delay the arrival of the team until Israel agreed to
its members and precise assignment.”
2003(21st of Nisan, 5763): Professor Bernard Katz, German-born biophysicist passed
away at the age of 92. Born and educated in Germany, Katz fled to Britain
during the 1930’s. He shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1970
with Julius Axelrod and Ulf von Euler. He was knighted in 1970. (As reported by
Sandra Blaeslee)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/25/obituaries/25KATZ.html
2004: Today, “the President of Rutgers
University condemned The Medium, a weekly campus publishing for printing a
front-page a “cartoon depicting a bearded man wearing a hat and sitting on the
edge of an open kitchen stove in a carnival setting,” under the heading
”Holocaust Remembrance Week,” with a t caption that reads: ”Knock a Jew in the oven! Three throws
for one dollar!”
2005(14th of Nisan, 5765): As Jews sit
down to celebrate the first night of Pesach, they can enjoy what the New York Times describes as two zippy kosher whites
from California and a pretty Israeli red from the Judean Hills: Baron Herzog’s
citric 2003 chenin blanc, Baron Herzog’s herbal 2003 sauvignon blanc and
Carmel’s juicy 2002 cabernet.” In this post-Manischewitz era, with dry trumping
sweet, they can be sipped all night.”
2005: At the
Nottingham Playhouse, final performance of Arnold Wesker’s “Chicken Soup with
Barley.’
http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/chickensoup-rev
2006: Aharon
Friedman of Brooklyn married Tamar Epstein, seven years his junior, of suburban
Philadelphia. Years later, their messy divorce would rock some in the Orthodox
world over his refusal to grant her a get.
2006: The Washington Post reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including “In Search of Memory: The
Emergence of a New Science Mind” by Nobel Prize Laureate Eric R. Kandel.
2006: The New York Times reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish
readers including “Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life” by Erica Jong and “Elements of Style” by Wendy Wasserstein who died of lymphoma at the age of 55 in January
of 2006.
2007: Yom Ha’atzma’ut – Israel Independence Day begins at sundown as
Israel celebrates her 59th birthday.
2007: “Shulamit ‘Shula’ Cohen-Kishik, a spy Mossad who worked
undercover in Lebanon for 14 years” and was faced the possibility of death by
hanging when she captured “was chosen to light a torch this year’s Independence
Day ceremony.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-spy-shulamit-cohen-kishik-dies-at-100/
2007(5th of Iyar, 5767): Seventy-three-old “Pulitzer Prize winning
journalist David Halberstam died in a
automobile accident today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/arts/24halberstam.html
https://www.amazon.com/David-Halberstam/e/B000AP783C%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
2007: The Center for Jewish History in New York presents “An Evening
with Acclaimed International PEN Author and Essayist George Konrad.” The Hungarian born Konrad
discusses his recently published autobiography, A Guest In My Own Country.
2007: Judy and Larry Rosenstein Memorial
Lecture at Tulane University features Professor David Stern, University of Pennsylvania speaking on “Through the
Pages of the Past: The Jewish Book in Its Historical Context.”
2008: The Jerusalem Cinematheque features a
screening of “Lonely Man of Faith: The Life and Legacy of Rabbi Joseph B.
Soloveitchik
2008(18th of Nisan, 5768): Fourth
Day of Pesach
2008(18th of Nisan, 5768): Esta
Saltzman, a veteran of the Yiddish Theatre passed away today.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E02E5DD113AF93BA15757C0A96E9C8B63
2009: In New York, a screening of “The
Forgotten Refugees” the award-winning film documenting the 20th
Century exodus of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa.
2009: In Chevy Chase, Maryland, Aaron David Miller, a
State Department veteran and most recently a senior adviser for Arab-Israeli
negotiations discusses his recent book, “The Much Too Promised Land: America’s
Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace.”
2009: Holocaust Survivor Irene Furst speaks to
the students of Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2010(9th of Iyar, 5770): “One
Israeli worshiper was killed and five were wounded in Nablus early this morning
after their vehicle was shot at by Palestinian security forces as they were
exiting the city from prayer services held at Joseph’s Tomb.”
2010: In “Emma Freud: My Father, Clement
Freud, Remembered” a daughter describes her feeling a year after her famous
father’s death.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/apr/24/clement-freud-funeral-emma-freud
2010: “American chess player, martial arts
competitor and author” Joshua Waitzkin “married Desiree Cifre, a screenwriter
and former contestant on The Amazing Race.”
2010: Robyn Helzner, one of the leading
interpreters of world Jewish music, and Cantor Larry Paul are scheduled to lead
a Carlebach-inspired service at the Historic Sixth & I Synagogue in
Washington, D.C.
2010: Wendy Becker & Rik Howard are scheduled to lead a special Musical
Shabbat Service at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2010: “The Chameleon” starring Ellen Barken as
“Kimberly Miller” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
2011(19th of Nisan, 5771): Shabbat
Chol Hamoed Pesach
2011: Today’s tours at the Skirball Cultural
Center are scheduled to focus on Passover.
2011: The Los Angeles Times featured a review of books by Jewish authors
and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including ‘Onward: How Starbucks
Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul’ by Howard Schultz.
2012: The Broadway revival production of
“Ghost the Musical” starring Cassie Shira Levy as “Molly Jensen” a role she
created in the original Broadway production opened at the Lunt-Fontanne
Theatre.
2012: Library of Congress, LCPA Hebrew Language Table is scheduled to present
an address by Canadian/Israeli journalist Judie Oron based on “Cry of the
Giraffe, “an award-winning book based on the story of an Ethiopian Jewish
teenager named Wuditu who, together with her younger sister, Lewteh, was
separated from her family in a violent incident in a refugee camp in Sudan.”
2012: Ambassador Peter Rosenblatt is scheduled
to take part in a Q&A following a screening of “Turkish Passport” at the
Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
Turkish Passport tells “the little-known story of the righteous Turkish
diplomats posted in several European countries who saved the lives of many Jews
during World War II by enabling them to find safety in Istanbul. (Considering
current conditions between Israel and Turkey, this film is well-worth seeing.)
2012: A weeklong program designed to highlight
the role of the Jews in the life of Wurzburg is scheduled to come to an end
today in this northern German city.
2012(1st of Iyar, 5772): Rosh
Chodesh Iyar
2012: Egyptian engineer Hani
Dahi, executive director of the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation, said
today that the military council and the government had no part in the decision
to terminate Egypt’s agreement to provide natural gas to Israel.
2012: Anti-Zionist graffiti was found this morning sprayed at various
locations at the Ammunition Hill memorial site in Jerusalem. The graffiti included slogans slamming
President Shimon Peres, as well as praise for German poet Gunter Grass. The
slogans that were found included: “The evil Zionist regime will fall,” and
“Gunter Grass – be strong and brave.”
2012:
U.S. President Barack Obama announced that Jan Karski would receive the
country’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in
recognition of the bravery he showed in informing the Polish Government-In-Exile
and the Allies about the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Nazi death
camps.
2013:
Trudy Peterson is scheduled to deliver a talk entitled “The French
Railroad, the Records, the Holocaust, and the State of Maryland” in Iowa
City.
2013:
The Algemeiner 40th Anniversary Jewish 100 Gala featuring Elie
Wiesel is scheduled to take place at Guastavino’s in New York.
2013:
The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present a lecture by
Efraim Sicher that examines the work of Isaak Babel entitled “Babel in
Yiddish/Yiddish in Babel.
2013:
Shia LaBeouf joined the cast of the upcoming WW II, “Fury.”
2013:
“The Young Salinger, Mordant Yet Hopeful” published today
2013:
The weeklong Holocaust Memorial Program came to an end in Wurzburg, Germany.
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishFeatures/Article.aspx?id=258332
2013:
Iran has essentially crossed the “red line” set by Israel for its nuclear
activity, and the coming few months will be a crucial period, Maj. Gen. (res.)
Amos Yadlin, a former head of IDF Military Intelligence, said today.
2013:
Israel’s senior military intelligence analyst said today there was evidence the
Syrian government had repeatedly used chemical weapons in the last month, and
he criticized the international community for failing to respond, intensifying
pressure on the Obama administration to intervene.
2014:
The Spring Semester of The Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning at Temple
Emanu-El is scheduled to begin.
2014:
“There Was Once…” which “documents the contemporary struggles of a Hungarian
high school teacher who sparks controversy by uncovering the Jewish past of her
small town, Kalocsa” is scheduled to be shown at The Center for Jewish History
2014:
“Plot for Peace” is scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival in
London.
2014:
Three cartoonists
Liana Fink (A Bintel Brief), Miriam Katin (Letting it Go), and Eli Valley
(artist in residence, The Forward) are scheduled to “discuss how their
surroundings, family, history, and backgrounds have inspired their
representations of Jewish life in pen and ink” at the Museum of Jewish
Heritage.
2015
(4th of Iyar): Yom HaAtsmaut – Israel Independence Day observed
2015:
Rabbi Deborah Waxman, President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and
Susan Herbst, President of the University of Connecticut are scheduled to
discuss “What is Zionism’s Role in North American Jewish Life Today?” as part
of the celebration of the 67th anniversary of the establishment of
the state of Israel.
2015:
Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to attend Israel’s Independence Day event
today in Washington, D.C.
2015:
“Deli Man” and “Woman in Gold” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester
Jewish Film Festival.
2015:
“FotoMacher Frank Barnett: Examining Lives with Jewish Eyes” is scheduled to
open at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.
2015:
IDF tanks struck targets in the northern Gaza Strip just before midnight toay,
after a rocket was fired from the Strip into the area of the Shaar Hanegev
regional council late tonight.
2015:
U.S. officials revealed today that American aid worker Warren Weinstein who was
being held captive by al Qaeda had been killed accidently by an U.S. drone
attack last January.
2015:
“Ordinary
Matters”: Animations and Paintings by Shelley Jordon is scheduled to open
at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.
http://www.ojm.org/experience/exhibit-2015-04-22-home-br-animations-and-paintings-by-shelley-jordon
2016(15th
of Nisan, 5776): First Day of Pesach; in the evening second Seder and counting
of the Omer
2016:
In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Temple Judah, under the leadership of its President
Nancy Margulis hosts its annual Community Seder.
2017:
The New York Times featured reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including You Say to Brick: The Life of Louis Kahn by Wendy Lesser and The
Soul of the First Amendment by Floyd Abrams.
2017:
Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Yom HaShoah Film Night
“preceded by a special ma’ariv service.
2017:
“Four people were wounded in a terror attack that “began in the lobby of the
Leonardo Beach Hotel” in Tel Aviv.
2017:
In Atlanta, Eternal-Life Hemshech, the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum,
and the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta are scheduled to host the 52nd
Annual Yom HaShoah Community-Wide Holocaust Commemoration at the Greenwood
Cemetery.
2017:
“In honor of Yom HaShoah” scheduled to host “Family Reunion After War”
presented by University of Iowa History Professor Elizabeth Heinemann.
2017:
The University of Iowa Hillel is scheduled to host its Spring Concert featuring
the Saul Lubaroff Quarter.
2017:
“Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a blistering assault on
Allied policy during World War II, saying world powers’ failure to bomb the
Nazi concentration camps from 1942 cost the lives of four million Jews and
millions of others.” (Editor’s note – In
the case of the United States this statement shows an ignorance of history
since “the first Army Air Forces bomber mission over Western Europe was by US
crews of the 15th Bomb Squadron” flying the British version of the
A-20, a twin engine aircraft that hardly had the range to fly from England to
Poland and back and lacked a pray of getting to the target since there were no
fighters to cover the mission for this lightly armored aircraft.)
2017:
“The annual Holocaust Remembrance Day event in Jerusalem began tonight at the
Yad Vashem Holocaust museum’s Warsaw Ghetto Square.”
2017:
A Community Service of Remembrance For the Victims of the Holocaust featuring
Holocaust survivor Jacob Eisenbach organized by The Thaler Holocaust Memorial
Fund is scheduled to be held in Cedar Rapids, IA.
2018:
“On the Spectrum” directed by Yuval Shafferman is scheduled to be shown at the
Tribeca Film Festival today.
2018:
The Streicker Center at Temple Emanu-El is scheduled to a presentation by
Cecile Richards, author of Make Trouble and the president of Planned
Parenthood.
2018:
The Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players which was bounded by Jens Nygaard who directed
the Washington Heights YW-YMHA concerts for 25 years, and which includes
violinist Itamar Zorman is scheduled to perform “Touched by Mozart” today.
2018:
NA’AMAT USA Cleveland Council is scheduled to honor Judge Francine Goldberg
this evening.
2018:
The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host an evening with JSoc
friend at Duke of Cambridge on Little Clarendon Street.
2018:
Funeral services are scheduled to held today the Plaza Jewish Community Chapel
for 88 year old Theodore R. Ginsberg, the husband of Cora Ginsberg followed by
Burail at the Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queen.s
2019:
The Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to present “Passover Objects Up and
Close Personal” during which “Curator Bonni-Dara Michaels handles and sheds
light on unique Passover objects from the Museum’s collection, which are currently
not on view to the public including traditional and modern Seder plates, Miriam
cups, beautiful fabric items, and whimsical artworks.”
2019(18th
of Nissan, 5779): Fourth Day of Pesach; Third Day of the Omer
2020:
Live on Zoom, the Center for Jewish History and the YIVO Institute for Jewish
Research are scheduled to host “A Strange New World: Time in David Bergelson’s
Literary Works.”
2020:
“HaMaqom/The Place” is scheduled to host “Spinoza on my Mind” in which Rabbi
Peretz Wolf-Prusan talks, virtually “about how the philosopher, who was
excommunicated from the Dutch Jewish community at age 24, shaped modern Jewish
life.”
2020:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host David Broza who takes attended “for a
Virtual Journey through His Life in Music.
2020:
Live on Zoom, the Center for Jewish History and the Jewish Lives Yale
University Press are scheduled to host “Stan Lee: A Life in Comics.”
2020:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a virtual presentation by Professor
Shai Arkin on “Coronavirus in Israel and the Future of Immunotherapy.”
2020:
Israelis can begin to absorb yesterday’s announcement by “Health Ministry’s
Deputy Director General Prof. Itamar Grotto … that the current wave of the
coronavirus outbreak in Israel has reached its peak and has begun to subside.”
2020:
Based on yesterday’s announcement the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in
Israel stands at 14,498, while 189 patients have succumbed to the disease,
health officials confirmed, but the accuracy of some virus related figures may
not be accurate because the Ministry of Health has suspended some of the
testing for COVID-19 “using swabs imported from China for fear they may be
faulty and contaminated.”
2021: To celebrate the 30th anniversary of
Operation Solomon and the ingathering of the Ethiopians Jews, Temple Emanu-El
is schedulrf to welcome musician Idan Raichel, whose collaboration with young
Ethiopians on the Idan Raichel Project propelled the sound of Ethiopian music
into the heart of Israeli music.
2021: The Jewish Community Center of the North
Shore is scheduled to present online a live discussion with Tamar Manasseh from
“They Ain’t Ready for Me” and director Brad Rothschild.
2021: SFSU professor
Eran Kaplan is scheduled to talk about what happened in Jaffa before, during
and after the War of Independence, in conjunction with East Bay Int’l Jewish
Film Festival streaming of the 2019 Israeli drama “The Dead of Jaffa,
2021: Based on reports published yesterday, as of
today “five million people, representing 80% of the population over the age of
15, in Israel have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. (TOI Staff)
2022(23rd of Nisan,5782): Eighth Day
of Pesach and Shabbat
2022: Citing the decline in morbidity, a
statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said Bennett and Health Minister
Nitzan Horowitz had agreed that the widely flouted masking requirement will be
scrapped as of 8 p.m. on April 23. (As reported by Alexander Fulbright)
2022: The Eden Tamir Center is scheduled to host
a performance by the Toscanini Quartet – cellist Felix Nemirovsky; violist
Dmitri Ratush; violinists Maoz Asaf and Yevgenia Pikovsky.
2023: “S.F. Rally for Saving Israeli Democracy”
is scheduled to be held at the De Anza Park in Sunnyvale, CA.
2023: The New York Times features books by Jewish
authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Blanche: The
Life and Times of Tennessee Williams’s Greatest Creation by Nancy
Schoenberger and Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take
Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan
2023: In Fremont, CA, Temple Beth Torah is
scheduled to host a Yom HaShoah program that includes screening of “A Sacred
Space: Rebuilding a Memory,” a documentary on the Czech Jews of Pacov and their
Torahs, a talk by the filmmakers and a close-up look at Temple Beth Torah’s
Holocaust Torah.
2023: The Weitzman National Museum of American
Jewish History is scheduled to sponsor a community Mitzvah Day in cooperation
with the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.
2023: The National Library of Israel is scheduled
host a lecture by Doris Parens on “Israeli Contemporary Theater and Shakespeare,
the first episode in a new National Library of Israel event series dedicated to
William Shakespeare, celebrating the 400th anniversary of the First Folio.”
2023: In Atlanta, the Breman Museum is scheduled
to present “The Gershwins: Who Could Ask For Anything More?”
2023: In Columbus, OH, The Tifereth Israel Men’s
Brunch Series is scheduled to present Jack Roslovic of the Columbus Blue
Jackets.
2023: Prime Minister Netanyahu’s keynote speech
at the conference in Jerusalem that is being attended by 3,000 North American
Jewish community leader is set to be met with a large protest. (As reported by
Carrie Keller-Lynn)
2024: Ma’yan Tikvah and Open Spirit are scheduled
to present “Passover Seder in an Interfaith Setting” led by Rabbi Suri Krieger.
2024:
In the evening Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids is scheduled to host a seder led by
Rabbi Todd.
2024:
In the evening Agudas Achim in Coralville, IA is scheduled to host a seder led
by Rabbi Hugenholtz.
2024: Temple Israel of Boston is scheduled to
present a “Clergy Matzah Brei Cook-Off + Passover Festival Service.’
2024:
As April 23 begins in Israel, the Hamas held
hostages begin day 200 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.)
2024(15th of Nisan, 5784): Pesach; for
more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
15th of Nisan, 5650 (1890): An untold number
of poor New Yorkers enjoyed eating meat at their Seder tonight thanks to the
generosity of Mrs. Paulina Rosendorff who had provided the funding that enabled
butchers to distribute their product free of charge.
15th
of Nisan, 5675(1915):
The 300 Jewish soldiers and sailors who attended last night’s Seder sponsored
by the Army and Navy Y.M.H.A. which also provided a night’s lodging at the
Hotel Roland are scheduled to worship at Temple Beth Israel at Lexington and 72nd
Street today while the Secretary of War, the Governor of New York and the Mayor
of New York City have been invited to attend tonight’s Seder sponsored by the
Army and Navy Young Men’s Hebrew Association for the benefit of 300 of the
8,000 Jews serving in the military which is being held at Vienna Hall on
Lexington and 58th Street.
15th
of Nisan, 5677 (1917): One day after U.S. declared War on Germany, Jews gather in
the synagogue to observe Pesach and Shabbat
15th of
Nisan, 5705(1945):
At least 58 Jews were murdered in a forest near the Austrian village of Deutsch
Shuetzen, in what would come to be called the Deutsch Shuetzen Massacre while
in the evening, members of the Jewish Infantry Brigade of the British 8th
Army serving in Italy took part in a Seder at Faenza.
15th of
Nisan, 5725(1965):
While Jews in the Soviet struggled to deal with a shortage of Matzah created by
the government refusal to let state bakeries prepare adequate supplies of
unleavened bread Rabbis in America were encouraged to deliver sermons that
related the themes of Pesach with fight for Civil Rights complete with
references to the recent voting rights march in Selma.
15th of
Nisan, 5728(1968):
For the first time, Pesach is observed in a unified Jerusalem.
ourcog 