#ourCOG This Day, June 17, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin
This Day, June 17, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin
JUNE 17
397: Roman Emperors Arcadius and Honorius issue the following
order “The governors must be informed that, upon receipt of this notice,
all insults attacking the Jews shall be averted and that their synagogues shall
remain unmolested.” This protection for Synagogues was not a sign of
Philo-Semitism. Even with the rise of
Christianity, the Emperors were concerned about maintain order in the Empire
and allowing mobs to attack Jewish buildings would undermine their authority.
397: Roman Emperors Arcadius and Honorius issued a decree saying,
“If Jews are harassed by a criminal charge or by debts then pretend that
want to be subject to Christian law in order to avoid the criminal charges or
debts by taking refuge in the church, they must be driven away. They cannot be
received as Christians until they pay off all their debts or have been cleared
of criminal charges.” As Christianity
took on the trappings of a state-religion, some Jews sought to avoid paying
debts by pretending to be Christians.
Again, in the name of public order, the imperial system could not
tolerate such behavior.
827: An invasion force of 10,000 Muslims invaded Sicily with the
intention of taking control of the island; a goal when accomplished did not
negatively impact the Jewish community which dates back to the first century of
the Common Era when they probably arrived as slaves during the Rebellion
against Rome.
845: At a synod at Meaux, King Charles the Bald rejected the
anti-Jewish policies of Theodboldus
Amulo, the Archbishop of Lyons.
1025: Boleslaw I the Brave, first king of Poland, passed away.
There were reports of Jews living in Poland during the time Mieszko I,
Boleslaw’s father. Jews were reported to have been living in Gniezno, Poland’s
first capital during the 10th and 11th century which
included the reign of Boleslaw.
1239: Birthdate of King
Edward I known as “Longshanks” and famed for the “Model Parliament.” He is known to American filmgoers as the King
who tortured and killed William Wallace.
In Jewish history, he is the monarch who expelled the Jews from his
realm in 1290, having extracted every economic advantage from them that was
possible. Jews would not return as a
community until the final days of the Tudors.
1242: At the decree of Pope Gregory IX and King Louis, all copies
of the Talmud were confiscated in Paris. Declaring that the reason for the
stubbornness of the Jews was their study of the Talmud, the Pope called for an
investigation of the Talmud that resulted in its condemnation and burning.
Twenty-four cartloads of Hebrew manuscripts were publicly burned. Rabbi Meir
was an eyewitness to the public burning of the twenty-four cartloads of
Talmudic manuscripts (and he bewailed this tragedy in his celebrated
“Kina” Shaali serufah (שאלי שרופה) which is still recited on Tisha B’Av.
1244: According to one source the above captioned happened Erev
Shabbat Chukath, 5004
1291: Today, the Mamluks under the command of al-Ashrff Kahlil
captured Acre which had been defended by the Knights Templar and after the
inhabitants had fled, the victors looted the city after which they destroyed
the fortifications.
1462: Vlad III the Impaler attempted to assassinate Mehmed II
forcing him to retreat from Wallachia. Fortunately for the Jewish people, the
attempt on his life failed. When Mehmed conquered Constantinople he was warmly
greeted by the city’s Jews. Over the
years, he welcomed Jews fleeing from Europe and urged them to settle in his
domain. The Jews were so grateful that
they even formed a regiment called “The Sons of Moses” to fight under Mehmed’s
banner.
1501:
John I Albert (or Olbracht in Polsih) passed away. In
1495 King Jan I Olbracht transferred Krakow Jews to the nearby royal city of
Kazimierz, which gave rise to its once bustling Jewish quarter and a major
European center of the Diaspora for the next three centuries. With time it
turned into virtually separate and self-governed 34-acre Jewish Town, a model
of every East European shtetl, within the limits of the gentile city of
Kazimierz. As refugees from all over Europe kept coming to find the safe haven
here, its population reached 4,500 by 1630.
1590: In Lisbon, Estevainha Gomes of Faro was burned at the stake
by the Inquistion. The first records of Jews living in Faro dates from the
reign of Alfonso III in the 13th century. Descendants of the Faro
Jewish community were among the first members of Bevis Marks Synagogue in
London.
1696: John III Sobieski, King of Poland, passed away. John III Sobieski is best remembered as
commander who defeated the Turks at Vienna.
According to tradition, the first bagels were baked by Jewish bakers in
Vienna to commemorate the victorious charge by the Polish cavalry. The bagel was shaped to look like a stirrup
(key equipment for cavalrymen) and one of the first one baked was given to John
III. Modern day scholarship has
challenged the legend, but the legend lives on.
1703: Today an affidavit was given by Lewis Gomez as to goods
imported by Joseph Nunes.
1731: At an auto-de-fe in Lisbon four men and eight women were
condemned. A majority of the 12 were burnt at the stake. On this particular
Sunday four men and eight women were present at the auto-de-fe of Lisbon. A
majority of them were burned alive. A total of 71 other persons were sentenced
at this event. Duarte Navarro, an 83 year old New Christian, was among
those condemned for Judaizing.
1756: Birthdate of Tobacconist Isaac Abrahams, the New York born
son of Abraham Isaac Abrahams and husband of Catherine Pollock.
1756: Birthdate Dr. Isaac Abrahams the New York Born son Abraham
Isaac Abrahams, who in 1774 became “the first Jewish graduate of King’s
College” and husband of Rachel Nathan whom he married in Philadelphia on
November 4, 1778.
1758(11th of Sivan, 5518): Parashat Beha’alotcha read
as British troops position their batteries for the assault on Fort Louisburg during
the Seven Years War/
1761: In Nancy, France, 22-year-old Jacob Alexandre was sentenced
to be hanged for receiving communion.
Alexandre was Jewish and had violated the canon law that “bars
non-Christians from receiving communion.” On appeal, Alexandre’s sentence was
commuted to a lifetime in the galleys.
Apparently, Alexandre was a near-do well who thought that as an apostate
Jew he would be will taken care of by the Catholics. While he took on their manners and customs,
he tried to have the best of both worlds by not actually converting, a fact
that caught up with him and proved to be his undoing.
1764: In Amsterdam, Abraham Emden and Martha Van Minden gave birth
to Eliaser Abraham Emden.
1768(2nd of Tammuz, 5528): During the Cossack Uprising,
Jews and Poles fought alongside each other as the siege of Uman began; a siege
that would end with the Jews being massacred following their betrayal by the
Poles.
1775(19th of Sivan, 5535): Parashat Beha’alotcha
1775: The Battle of Bunker
Hill (which actually took place at Breed’s Hill) fought on this date shows that
American troops can stand against British professionals. Aaron Solomon was among the volunteers braving the British
assaults. In 1823, prominent Bostonians
established a committee to build a monument to honor the American “moral”
victory. It would take twenty years to
raise the funds and actually build the Bunker Hill Monument. Famed Jewish businessman, veteran of the
Battle of New Orleans, and philanthropist, Judah Turo donated the amazing large
sum (for the early 19th century) of ten thousand dollars to this
effort.
1783: “A document requesting civil rights’ for the Jews was given
to Josef II when he visited Czernowitz today – a request that was denied.
1786: In Savannah, GA, “David N. Cardozo, a member of the
Sephardic Jewish mercantile community who had served in the South Carolina
militia during the American Revolution” and an “unidentified woman” gave birth
to “economist and journalist Jacob Newton Cardozo.”
1802: Birthdate of Hermann Mayer Salomon Goldschmidt, the German
born French astronomer and painter who discovered “shadow bands in total solar
eclipses” and received the “Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society” for
having discovered a record number of asteroids.
1802: Jacob Marks and Hannah Alexander were married today at the
Great Synagogue in the United Kingdom.
1804: In Easton, PA, Isaac Nunez Cardozo, the Long born son of
Aaron Nunez Cardozo and Sarah Nunez Cardozo and his wife Sarah Cardozo gave
birth to Esther Nunez Cardozo.
1807: M.J. Bing writes to Nathan Rothschild asking that Nathan
deal directly with him and not through his father.
1808: In Kristiansand, Norway, Nicolai Wergeland, who was opponent
of letting Jews living in Norway and his wife gave birth to Henrik Wergeland
who started out agreeing with his father but had a change of heart and led the
fight for repealing the clause in the constitution that kept Jews from settling
as citizens in Norway.
1811: Mordechai Manuel Noah (a Sephardi) accepted the
appointment as American Consul General at Tunis, “supported as I should
with the wealth and influence of forty-thousand residents.” Noah was the
first Jew to be appointed to a diplomatic post by an U.S. President. The President was James Madison.
1811: Birthdate of Adolphe Philippe, the native of Paris who
gained fame as dramatist and author Adolphe Philippe d’Ennery.
1813: Moses Levy and Elizabeth Jacobs were today at the Western
Synagogue in the United Kingdom.
1816: In Kovno, Rabbi Tzemach Sachs and his wife gave birth to
Russo-French Hebrew scholar Senior Sachs.
1825(1st of Tammuz, 5585): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1829: Birthdate of German rabbi and historian. Meyer Kayserling. Born in Hanover, He
was educated at Halberstadt, Nikolsburg (Moravia), Prague, Würzburg, and
Berlin. He devoted himself to history and philosophy. Encouraged in historical
researches by Leopold von Ranke, Kayserling turned his attention to the history
and literature of the Jews of Iberia. n 1861 the Aargau government appointed
him rabbi of the Swiss Jews, which office he held until 1870. During his
residence in Switzerland, he argued in favor of civil equality for his
coreligionists, both then and later facing the charges brought against them. In
1870 he accepted a call as preacher and rabbi to the Jewish community of
Budapest. Kayserling was a member of the Royal Academy in Madrid, of the
Trinity Historical Society, and others. He died at Budapest in 1905.
1832: Birthdate of Abraham Cohn,
the native of Prussia who was an American Civil War Union Army Sergeant Major
and recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor “for having distinguished
himself at the Battle of the Wilderness, Virginia …and the Battle of the
Crater, Petersburg, Virginia…”
1834: Moses Schoenfeld and Amalie
Male Marcus Schoenfeld gave birth to Meyer Schoenfeld the brother of Salomon
Schoenfeld; Philip Schoenfeld and Raphael Schoenfeld
1834: After three days, a pogrom in
Safed came to an end leaving much of the Jewish “homeless, distraught” and
impoverished.
1836: A day after she passed away,
Gila bat Yehud was buried today at “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.
1838: In Prague Elisabet Faunders
becomes Elisabet Popper when she married Isaias Popper.
1840: Israel Mombach married
Catherine Hyams at the Great Synagogue
1843:In Greater London, Moses Aaron
Jessel, the London born son of Aaron and Maria Theresa Jessel and his was wife
Elizabeth Jessel gave birth to Amelia Jessel who became Amelia Sawyer when she
married Edmund Joseph Sawyer.
1844: In Paris, Joseph Derenbourg
and his wife gave birth to Orientalist Hartwig Derenbourg.
1845: Twenty-six-year-old Hermann
“Hirschell” Bodenheimer, the son of Emanuel and Johanna Bodenheimer married
Elise “Elka” Hisrchfelder, with whom he had eight children – Jakob, Fanny,
Pauline, Emanuel, Wilhelmine, Moritz, Bertha and Salomon
1846: French native Lion Lion married Rosine
Bing-Jacob at the Great Synagogue in the United Kingdom.
1847: Grace
Aguilar, her brother Emanuel and their mother Sara left to catch a steamer that
would take them to Ostend where her brother had arranged for her to seek
medical treatment for her depression and headaches.
1848(16th of Sivan,
5608): Parashat Nasso
1848: During “the Revolutions of
1848, in the Austrian Empire,” at least seven people were killed and fifty more
were injured in the Massacre in Běchovice.
1852(30th of Sivan,
5612): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz observed as Franklin Pierce and Winfield Scott sought
to be elected President of the United States.
1854: In Dayton founding of B’nai
Yeshurun which holds services on Friday evening and Saturday morning; religious
school on Saturday and Sunday; is supported by a Ladies’ Hebrew Relief Society
and owns “a cemetery two miles southwest of the c
1856 “Who are Jews?” published
today explained that whenever the term Jew is used “in our police reports or
elsewhere in the Times” it is not a reference to the religion of those
described but “solely the designation of their nationality.”
1856: The Republican Party opens its 1st
national convention in Philadelphia. The
Republican Party included a strong abolitionist strain; the party adopted a
stance of opposing the expansion of slavery into the Western territories. The party nominee was John C. Fremont and the
party slogan was free soil, free men, Fremont.
Many Jews were drawn to the party because of its anti-slavery stance
including Moritz Prinner who edited a German-language abolitionist paper in
strife torn Kansas. Prinner was joined
at the 1860 Republican convention by other Jews including Lewis Naphtali
Dembitz, uncle of future Supreme Court Justice Louis Dembitz Brandies who
nominated Lincoln and Sigismund Kaufman of New York. Abraham Jonas of Illinois
was another early member of the Republican Party and served as one of Lincoln’s
campaign managers in 1860.
1858: Isaac and Julie Judith
Josephine Mautner gave birth to Eugenie Jenny Sarah Schur
1859: New York Rabbi Morris Jacob
Raphall officiated at the consecration of the United Hebrew Congregation’s new
building which was located on 6th Street between Locust and St.
Charles streets. Founded in 1837,
historian Jonathan Sarna describes it as the oldest synagogue west of the
Mississippi River.
1862: Isaac H. Philipps of Company
F of the 36th Regiment completed his service in the Union Army
1863(30th of Sivan, 5623): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz observed
as Confederate forces under General Lee continue their “second invasion of the
Union” heading for Pennsylvania.
1864: It was reported today that The Misses Silverstone of Exeter,
Honiton lace manufacturers, had moved to 29, Paradise Street, Birmingham.”
1865(23rd of Sivan, 5625): Parashat Sh’lach
1865(23rd of Sivan, 5625): Forty-five-year-old Jacob
Washington Cromelien, the New York born son of David and Henriette Cromelien
and the husband of Albiona Wartenby passed away today after which he was buried
in the Mikveh Israel Cemetery in Philadelphia, PA.
1866: In “Achim, Germany, Abraham and Emma Auerbach” gave birth to
Kansas City, MO businessman Henry A. Auberbachm, the husband of Rosine
Auerbach.
https://pendergastkc.org/collection/9130/20003413/house-henry-auerbach
1868: In Kalwaria, Russian Poland, Mordecai L. Frank and Brocha R.
Bernstein gave to Simcha Pawil Frank, who taught “classes in Jewish literature
and religion at the Educational Alliance in New York and was the author of
numerous articles published in both the Jewish and secular press” on “subjects
dealing with the Bible and religion.
1869: Birthdate of Swiss born and educated William Dreyfus, the
“chief chemist of the West Disinfecting Company and chairman of the National
Association of Insecticide and Disinfectant Manufacturers. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1946/03/14/88347882.pdf
1871(28th of Sivan, 5631): Parashat Sh’lach
1871: William H. Seward, the Secretary of State under Abraham
Lincoln who had been contender for the Presidency spent part of Shabbat in
Jerusalem at the Huvra Synagogue which he described as “a very lofty edifice,
surmounted by a circular dome and where, as he sat “in the chief seat in the
synagogue” he heard “a prayer for the President of the United States, and a
thanksgiving for the deliverance of the Union from its rebellious assailants
[the just-concluded Civil War]” followed by “a prayer of gratitude for Mr.
Seward’s visit to the Jews at Jerusalem, for his health, for his safe return to
his native land, and a long, happy life.”
1873: In New York City, Lyman Bloomingdale and Hattie Collenberger
gave birth to Samuel Joseph Bloomingdale, he husband of Rita Goodman and the
Columbia educated businessman who “upon the death of his father in 1905, became
with his two brothers, owner of Bloomingdale Brothers Department Store.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/05/11/77304407.pdf
1874: Barnet Henry Abrahams married Dinah Zox at the Borough
Synagogue in the United Kingdom.
1877:
“The Jews in Turkey” published today, traces the
history of the Jewish population in the Ottoman Empire from the days when they
first came to Macedonia during the reign of Alexander the great. Today “the Jewish element in the population of Turkey is strongly
represented in Macedonia….because” in part
“it is the richest quarter of the empire;” More for
2014
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E03E4DF113AE63BBC4F52DFB066838C669FDE
1878(16th of Sivan, 5638): Seventy-eight year old
“physician, poet and writer Aaron Ludwig Joseph Jeitteles passed away today at
Graz.
1879: It was reported today that young Richard J.H. Gotthell read
an essay at the commencement ceremony of the Temple Emanu-El Preparatory School
of the Hebrew College that were being over-seen by his father, the rabbi, Dr.
Gottheil.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9807E2DA1E3FE63BBC4F52DFB0668382669FDE
1880: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa Charles and Ada Van Vechten (who were
not Jewish) gave birth to their youngest son Carl Van Vechten “the literary
executor of Gertrude Stein” and portrait photographer whose subject included
Man Ray, Sidney Lumet, Norman Mailer and Beverly Sills
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Ray#/media/File:Man_Ray_1934.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Ray#/media/File:Man_Ray_Salvador_Dali.jpg
1880: Two days after he passed away, forty-eight year old Leopold
Oppenheim, the native of Offenbach was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road
Jewish Cemetery.”
1881: “Fashionable” Parisians attended a concert to raise funds to
aid Jews living in Russia.
1882(30th of Sivan, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1882: Lewis and Rose Barnet were seriously injured when the fell
down the equivalent of 3 stories when the fire escape in their tenement gave
way. The two Austrian born Jews lived on
the 5th floor of a building that housed Kenneseth Israel, a
congregation of Polish and Russian Jews.
Supposedly the building had been fully inspected and passed without any
problems. [Unfortunately, accidents like
this were all too typical on the lower East Side and were the result of a
combination of shoddy construction and graft.]
1882: In “Oranienbaum, a suburb of Saint Petersburg, Fyodor
Stravinsky a well-known bass at the Kiev opera house and the Mariinsky Theatre
in St. Petersburg, and Anna (née Kholodovsky), a native of Kiev, one of four
daughters of a high-ranking official in the Kiev Ministry of Estates gave birth
Igor Stravinsky who to the world was one of the leading composers and
conductors of the 20th century but to Jews was also “an admitted
anti-Semite.”
http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/politics-and-propaganda/igor-stravinsky/
http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/politics-and-propaganda/igor-stravinsky/
1882: Josiah Cohen, a Jewish lawyer living in Pittsburgh, will
probably be selected to be the Republican nominee for an at-large Congressional
seat.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9902E3DE1E3EE433A25754C1A9609C94639FD7CF
1883: In Russia, Mary Roth and Samuel Feingold gave birth to
Trinity and Harvard educated educator and author Gustave Alexander Feingold,
the Principal of Bulkeley High School in Hartford, CT and husband of Etta Flora
Ruffkess.
1883: In Cincinnati, OH. Laura Mack and Henry Newburgh gave girth
to Harvard educated medical doctor Louis Harry Newburgh, the husband Irene
Haskell and starting in 1922, the Professor of Clinical Investigation at the
University of Michigan where he conducted “studies dealing with the relation
between diet and disease.”
1883: It was reported today that that the Czars coronation is
being celebrated with balls and galas in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In Kiev and
Rostov on the Don the celebrations have taken another form – serious
disturbances including attacks on the Jews of the area.
1884: In Leadville, CO, the Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Schloss, prominent
Jewish leaders of the community hosted a soiree that including chess
competition in which J.H. Zucketort played six opponents simultaneously. The
visiting champion won three and lost three.
1884: In “Hraboce, Herman and Sarah (Hubschman) Berger gave birth
to New York trained physician Benjamin Berger, the husband of Victoria Brand
who served as an “instructor in dermatology and urology at University and
Bellevue Hospital Medical College” and “chief of clinic in dermatology at Beth
Israel Hospital” while being “actively affiliated with numerous Jewish
charitable and educational institutions.”
1885: “The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France,
arrives in New York harbor aboard the Isere.” “The Jewish American poet
Emma Lazarus saw the statue as a beacon to the world. A poem she wrote to help
raise money for the pedestal, and which is carved on that pedestal, captured
what the statue came to mean to the millions who migrated to the United States
seeking freedom, and who have continued to come unto this day.”
1886: It was reported today that Levi P. Morton has been chosen as
Chairman of the Republican County Committee despite his previous statement
refusing to accept the position even if he were chosen to fill it. Friends of
the Jewish community leader hope to be able to convince him to change his name.
1887: It was reported today that Justice Rhinehart has reserved
his decision in the suit brought by Samuel Colman against Charles Frank, a
matrimonial agent who had promised to help him woo and win a young Jewess named
Wolf and a counter-suit brought by Frank against Colman for money owed for
providing him help in this matter. [Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match]
1888: It was reported today that Mrs. Katie Levy, the wife of
Albert Levy, has filed an alienation of affection suit against her
mother-in-law, Mrs. Pauline Levy in which she is seeking $50,000 in
damages. The younger Mrs. Levy is a
Roman Catholic who claims that her mother-in-law has interfered with her
marriage because she wanted her son to marry a rich Jewish girl.
1888: “A Hebrew Charity Ball” published today described the second
annual fund raiser hosted by the staff of the Hebrew Journal for the benefit of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian
Society.
1888: A partial list published today of those who attended the
charity reception and ball sponsored by the staff of the Hebrew Journal for the
benefit of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society including Coroner Levy, Civil
Justice Goldfogle, Judge Steckler, Judge Ehrlich, Judge Pitshke and “School
Trustee Fleischauer” as well as members of the Henrietta Verein, the Deborah
Verein and the Edward Lasker Literary, Dramatic and Social Circle.”
1888: it was reported today It was reported today that Rabbi
Gottheil of Temple Emanu-El described the later Emperor Wilhelm of Germany as a
“noble soul” who was “an ideal ruler…loved by all men.” He saw him as a friend of the Jewish people
since he said that “Germany has lost an Emperor…the oppressed a champion and
Israel a true friend. [For those who grew equating Germany with Nazis and the
Holocaust, this positive view of Germany and German leaders might come as a bit
of a surprise.]
1889: Among the items found inside a chest with a false-bottom
that was being inspected by government agents as it was being unloaded from
Hamburg American steamship Gellert were “23 fine seamless woolen shirts” like
those worn by Orthodox Jews.” (Who would
have guessed there was such a market?)
1889: In Albany, the Talmud Torah Benevolent Association of New
York was incorporated today.
1889: In the East End of London, “Nathan Ostrer, a jeweler’s
salesman and his wife Francesca Fanny gave birth to Isidore Ostrer founder of
the Lothbury Investments Corporation and Ostrer Brothers Merchant Bank whose
loans led them to become active in the motion picture industry.
1891:
Le Roy Eltinge, the author of Psychology of War which contained such anti-Semitic
passages as “He doesn’t know what patriotism means”, “the soldiers lot is hard
physical work” which “the Jew despises and “he does not have any of the
qualities of a good soldier” – remarks which forced the War Department to order
him to go over the book and remove all such objectionable portions – began his
military career today when he was appointed to the United States Military
Academy at West Point.
1891:
In New York City, David and Sarah Aronson Jacobson, gave birth to Edward
“Eddie” Jacobson,the resident of Kansas City, MO who became friends with Harry
Truman when they served together in France during WW I and ran a haberdashery
store during the early 1920’s who arranged a critical meeting between Chaim
Weizmann and Truman that helped pave the way to the United States being the
first country to recognize the new state of Israel.
https://reformjudaism.org/blog/2018/04/03/what-did-eddie-jacobson-have-do-founding-state-israel
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-a-few-humble-coins-and-the-making-of-israel-quot
1892: It was reported today that the highlight of annual
exhibition of the Hebrew Technical Institute was “the twenty-light Edison continuous dynamo
that illuminates the laboratory” which was made by last year’s and this year’s
graduates without any outside assistance.
1893: In Brooklyn, Emma Indig and Maximillian Schwarcz gave birth
to N.Y. School of Fine and Applied Art
trained artist Dorthea Schwarcz , the wife of Edward S. Greenbaum whom she married
in 1920.
1893: It was reported today that Jacob A. Schiff and Joseph
Bloomingdale are sending the top five students from the senior class of the
Hebrew Technical Students – Martin Loewing, Max Goldstein, Louis Wohlgemuth,
Albert Finkelstein, and Henry L. Rubovitz – and the two top students in the
Junior Class – Samuel Druskin and Solomon Lurie – to the 1893 World’s Fair.
1894: It was reported today the August Bebel gave a speech to the
Social Democratic Party in which he called for Jewish members to play a less
public role in public affairs. This way
the party would avoid suffering from the current wave of anti-Semitism. Jewish
members including Emanuel Wurm and Paul Singer objected to his proposal saying
that there must be a better way of dealing with “the Jew-baiters.” The matter will be voted on at the next
meeting of the next Social Democratic Congress.
1894: Ezra Hurwitz, the Lithuanian born son of Nachum and Freida
Leah Hurwitz married Bertha Deutsch, the New York born daughter of Joseph and
Theresa Deutsch.
1895: In south Sweden, August and Mathilda Andersson gave birth to
Ruben Andersson who would gain fame as Ruben Ruasing the founder of Tetra Pak.
1895: Two days after he had passed away, 43-year-old Johan
Newmann, the son of Wilhelm Newmann and Priscilla Davis was buried today at the
Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1895: Birthdate of Baltimore native and wholesale grocer Lee Lazar
Dopkin, the President of the Hebrew Home for the Aged.
1896: The upcoming Commencement Exercises of the Hebrew Technical
Institute and an outing for members of the Young Folks’ League of the Hebrew
Infant Asylum were two of the items listed in today’s Coming Events Column.
1896: “Incidents of the Day” included an explanation of why a
Rabbi was chosen to give the opening prayer at the Republican National
Convention. The party is split between
factions representing the American Protective Association, an anti-immigrant,
anti-Catholic organization and delegates who are Catholics. The managers for William McKinley who is the
probable nominee chose a rabbi because the choide of Protestant minister or
Catholic priest would have split the Convention. To make matters worse the Rabbi is a Democrat
and members of his family are active in the local Democratic Party. (Echoes of
the APA can be heard in the 21st century as the United States
debates the immigration issue.)
1896: Morris Rosenwasser, the Warsaw born son of Therese Mohr and
I.H. Rosenwasser and President of Rosenwasser Brothers, the New York
manufacturer of boots and shoes who was a member of the Free Synagogue in New
York married Pearl Mary Cohen today.
1896: In the court at Essex Market, an unidentified lawyer used
the Hebrew word for “drop dead” when the magistrate said he would not hear any
more cases until 9:30 next morning.
Fortunately for the lawyer, the job did not understand Hebrew.
1897: Herzl moves the Zionist Congress to Basel.
1897(17th of Sivan, 5657): Fifty-four-year-old Henry
Gersoni, Ph.D., the Russian born, German educated teacher and author who went
to Atlanta GA in 1874 to serve as rabbi before accepted a similar position at
B’nai Sholem in Chicago passed away today.
He left the rabbinate to found the Jewish Advance which he published
successfully before returning to New York where he worked as a teacher and
journalist.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9D06E1D81230E333A25753C3A9609C94669ED7CF
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6628-gersoni-henry
1897: As of today, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association is reported
to have 1,000 members.
1897: Having already donated a brownstone at 861 Lexington Avenue
valued at $20,000 to the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, Jacob Schiff has
authorized YMHA President Percival S. Menken to spend an additional $30,000 to
purchase property and equipment so it will have a facility that will include a
meeting hall, gymnasium and reference library.
1897: Birthdate of Montreal native Lt. Gen. Edeson Louis Millard
“Tommy Burns” the Canadian military officer who after his retirement was
closely involved in the Middle East peace process during the 1950’s and wrote
Between Arab and Israeli published in 1963.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9E06E0D61331E036A05757C1A9619C946291D6CF
1897: Tonight, the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church completed its
investigation of charges of immorality and untruthfulness leveled against
Herman Warszawiak and found him guilty.
Warszawiak was a convert who had been conducting a mission on Grand
Street to convert other Jews.
1898: Birthdate of German professor of crystallography Carl
Hermann. Hermann was a Quaker and a man
of rare courage. “When the Nazi Party rose to power, he refused their political
restrictions on academic positions, leaving to take a position as a physicist
with industrial dye firm I.G. Farbenwerke at Ludwigshafen, where he continued
his crystallographic research and studied symmetry in higher-dimensional
spaces. During the war that followed, he and his wife Eva helped many Jews hide
and escape persecution and death, for which he himself spent much time in
prison and was sentenced to death. As he was an eminent scientist with
influential friends, the sentence was never carried out, and he survived.
1898(27th of Sivan, 5658): Seventy-seven-year-old
Italian author and bible scholar Moses Isaac Tedeschi passed away today. His autobiography was appended to Simhat ha-Regel a collection of
homilies and glosses on the Targum to Proverbs
1898: In New York City, “Maurice and Bertha (Cantor) Fishberg”
gave birth to Columbia University trained physician Arthur Maurice Fishberg,
the husband of Irene Levin who served as the clinical professor of medicine at
Mount Sinai School of Medical and clinical professor at NYU while conducting
“extensive” research into “cardiovascular and renal diseases.”
1898: George M. Appel began serving as a Sergeant with the 1st
U.S. Volunteer Engineers during the Spanish American War.
1898: Twenty-four-year-old Detroit businessman Hyman P. Weller,
the Austrian born son Shendel and Solomon married Miss Minnie Weiselthier of
Boston today with he raised a son and two daughers.
1898: In Cincinnati, Ohio at the Mound Street Temple, Rabbi Isaac
M. Wise is scheduled to confer the degrees at the graduation exercises of the
Hebrew Union College
1898: In Austria, “gangs of peasants…attacked and plundered the
Jewish shops at Frysztak near Rzeszow” wounding several Jews.
1899(9th of Tammuz, 5659): Sixty-three-year-old Josef
Goldstein who had been chief cantor at the Leopoldstädter Tempel in Vienna,
Austria since 1857 passed away today. Cantorial music runs in the family since
his brother Moritz (Morris) Goldstein who was the cantor at K.K. Bene Israel
Synagogue in Cincinnati, Ohio.
1899: The United Hebrew Charities has told immigration authorities
that no expense is to be spared in caring for Julia Lichtner, the 12 year old
youngster, who became an orphan when her father jumped overboard while they
were returning to New York aboard a White Star liner out of LIverpool. If it can be proven that she really was born
in the United States, she will be classified as a U.S. citizen “and place in a
home where she can be taken care of with money given by passengers” of the
ship.
1900: Anti-Semitic riots broke out at Komarczyn.
1901(30th of Sivan, 5661): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1901: Birthdate of Miklós Nyiszli the Jewish doctor who survived
Auschwitz.
http://www.auschwitz.dk/Nyiszli.htm
1902: Birthdate of Samuel E. Feinberg, the native of New York who
gained fame as songwriter Sammy Fain who collaborated with Irving Kahal until
the latter’s death in 1942.
1902: Twenty-seven-year-old NYU trained attorney, the New Orleans
born son of David and Selma Franko Golden who was an advocate for the formation
of a public defender office married Mattie Marcoson today.
1903(22nd of Sivan, 5663: Sixty-five-year-old Salomon Mosse the
son of Dr. Marcus Mosse and Ulrike Mosse passed away today.
1903: Herzl
wrote to Lord Rothschild that there is a chance to get a good piece of land
from the Sultan
1903:
Bendix Rosenwald, the Westphalia born Son of Hermann (aka Isaac) Rosenwald and
Jeanette David and his wife Emma Rosenwald gave birth to Chicago resident Fritz
Richard Rosenwald, the husband of Gertrude Anna Rosenwald and Eva Jaffe
Rosenwald and Kathe Jeanette Schloss, the wife of Otto Schloss
1904:
In Chicago, Lilla Louise Smith and Charles Rexford Bellamy gave birth to award
winning actor in Ralph Bellamy who in 1943 starred in Ben Hecht’s pageant “We
Will Never Die” which had been created by Billy Rose and Ernst Lubitsch as a
response to the world’s (and America’s) silence in the face of the Holocaust,
as well as their growing frustration with American policy and their contempt
for Hollywood’s “fear of offending its European markets,”
1905: Fire destroyed 130 houses in Constantinople inhabited by
Jews. 400 families rendered homeless.
1906: In Pinsk, Rebecca Mullin and Jacob Eskolsky gave birth to
Mitchel Simon Ekolsky, the husband of Amelia “Mildren” Mullin and in 1940 at
the age of 34 was a rabbi at the Elchanon Theological Seminary in New York.
1906: Hunter College graduate and NYU trained attorney Anna Weinger,
the Polish born daughter of Herman Weiner and Henrietta LaFrantz became Annie Weiner Hochfelder when she
married Hungarian born Julius Hochfelder who was her law partner and the father
of her two sons, Julian and Richard.
1906: Five Jewish members of the Russian Parliament sent a
telegram today that read “The outbreak at Bialystok clearly was the beginning
of an organize massacre, similar to the bloody October days” and that “only
energetic intervention an prevent a terrible catastrophe.
1907: “Jacob H. Schiff appealed to representatives of orthodox
Jewish congregations tonight for help for the Jewish Theological Seminary on
Morningside Heights” and said that the
orthodox congregations had not given the seminary proper support.”
1908: In Frankfurt, Germany, Jacob and Celestine (Mullings) Weiss
gave birth to Trude
Weiss-Rosmarin who became a major commentator on the nature of American Jewish
life.
https://jwa.org/thisweek/jun/17/1908/trude-weiss-rosmarin
1909:
One day after he passed away, Leah Gorfunkle, the daughter of Polish native
Samuel Gorfunkle, was buried today at the “Belfast Jewish Cemetery” in Northern
Island.
1910:
In Dresden, “Siegfried Goldschmidt, a banker from Frankfurt, and Vally
Goldschmidt Peiser, teacher from Breslau gave birth to Swiss musicologist Harry
Goldschmidt.
1910:
It was reported today that 30 Jewish pharmacists and assistants had been
ordered to leave Rostoff-on-Don.
1911(21st
of Sivan, 5671): Parashat Beha’altocha
1911:
It was reported today that Representative Sulzer of New York, “who believes
there should be some Jewish chaplains in the Army, has introduced a bill
providing two additional chaplains, which it is hoped will “provide an
opportunity for appointing Jews” to fill this role.
1912:
Harvard and University of Missouri educated mathematician Dr. Louis Lazar
Zilverman, the Kovno born son of Fanny Swig and Abraham Silverman and professor
of mathematics at Dartmouth College married Sonia Paeff today.
1912:
The survivors of the Titanic, including Edith Russell were nearing New York
aboard the Carpathia which they had boarded on or about April 16.
1913:
Twenty-three-year-old Cooper Union trained Engineer Jacob X. Cohen, the son of
Barnet and Ida (Weaver) Cohen married Sadie Alta Friedberg in Pittsburgh, PA
before going to a career in Syracuse, NY
1913:
Dr. William Armhold, the Rabbi Emeritus of Keneseth Israel in Philadelphia
celebrated his 84th birthday today with friends and family in
Atlantic City, NJ.
1914: Birthdate of author John Hersey. Hersey was not Jewish. In
fact he was born in China, the son of missionaries. Jews should remember as the
author of The Wall, which was a gripping account of the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising, and the events that led up to it. What makes this book even more of a
standout was that Hersey wrote it in 1950 long before the Holocaust genre
became an acceptable literary topic and motif for Jewish authors, let alone
non-Jewish authors. Hersey passed away in 1993 after a long and distinguished
career.
1914: Jane Marian Joseph, the daughter of George Solomon Joseph, a
Jewish solicitor and his wife Henriette Franklin Joseph “participated in a
performance of Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust that was praised in today’s
edition of the Cambridge Review.
1915: Birthdate of Dr. Bernard Lander, the Orthodox rabbi who was
one of the founders of, and first president of Touro College
1915: Governor Slaton is “giving deliberate study to every detail
of the appeal of Leo M. Frank for commutation” of his death sentence “at his
country home on Peachtree Road where he has the trial evidence and other data
presented by the State and the defense.”
1915: During World War I, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, Rabbi J. Leonard
Levy, Jacob Schiff, Isaac Seligman and Oscar Straus are among those who have
been invited to attend a conference today at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall
whih will “consider the adoption of proposals for a League of Peace and to
decide upon steps to be taken for obtaining the support of public opinion and
of Governments.”
1915: The disclaimer by Thomas Hardwick, the United States from
Georgia, that he had written a letter to Governor Slaton urging clemency for
Leo Frank, was published today along with his explanation “that his reason for
making this denial was that he wanted it known that he had not expressed
himself” one way or the other “regarding the Frank case.”
1916: Rabbi Joseph Rosenblatt, the cantor at “Ohab Zedek Synagogue
sang the funeral hymns’ at Carnegie Hall tonight where “more than 2,500 Jews
paid honor to the memory of Sholem Aleichem during an “evening mourning”
marking the passing of “the man who perhaps did more than any other to life the
burdens and make light the hearts of Jews.”
1916: Funds were not collected today at mass meetings on what had
been designated as “Zionist Fund Day” because it would conflict with the
upcoming convention of the Federal of American Zionists in Philadelphia.
1917: In Great Britain, as
the conflict between Zionists and anti-Zionist heated-up the Board of Deputes
condemned the letter that David Lindo Alexander had sent to The Times of London specifying “grave
objections” to the Zionist agenda. The vote of censure forced Alexander resign
his Presidency of the Board of Deputies.
1917: In Nevada, Jewish community leaders met and formed a
committee to raise funds for the construction of Reno’s first Synagogue.
1917: This afternoon in New York, Borough President Marcus M.
Marks is scheduled to deliver the principal address “when the cornerstone of
the new synagogue of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun” of which he has been a member
since he was a “youth” will be formally dedicated.
1918: It was reported today that “ant-Semitic agitation has
increased in Poland” as can be seen by the “placards that have been posted all
over Lodz and Warsaw signed by the ‘Army of Liberation’ urging Polest to begin
anti-Jewish massacres.”
1918: In White Plains, NY, publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Sr and
Blanche Wolf gave birth to Alfred A. Knopf, Jr. “one of the founders of
Atheneum Publishers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/books/16knopf.html?_r=0
1918: “Kosher Food At Upton” published today described the plan of
the Jewish Welfare Board to erect “hostess house to provide Kosher food for the
Orthodox Jews who are training at Camp Upton, the U.S. Army base that is home
to the largest contingent of Jewish soldiers in the United States.
1919: “A suggestion that English responsive reading be
incorporated in synagogue services was offered today by Rabbi Israel Levinthal
addressing the session of the Jewish Theological Seminary Rabbinical Assembly
at 581 West 123d Street” because he “said most of the younger worshippers did
not understand Hebrew and needed the English text.”
1920: Birthdate of Jacob H. Gilbert the graduate of St. John’s
College whose career of public service was capped by serving the U.S. House of
Representatives from 1960 to 1971.
1920: Birthdate of Dr. Dr. François Jacob the native of Nancy
whose combat wounds sustained while fighting in WW II “forced him to change his
career paths from surgeon to scientist, a pursuit that led to a Nobel Prize in 1965 for his role in
discovering how genes are regulated.” (As reported by William Yardley)
1921: It was reported today that “Winston Churchill, British
Secretary of State for the Colonies” re-affirmed in a speech in the House of
Commons “the determination of his Government to make an ‘honest, just, patient
and decisive attempt’ to fulfill the responsibility assumed by the British
government in connection with the establishment of the Jewish National Home in
Palestine.”
1921(11th of Sivan, 5681): Eighty-year-old German
native and Chicago Heights resident These Schoenemann Eisendrath, the wife of
Benjamin Eisendrath with whom she had four children – Bertha, Samson, Frieda
and Oscar – passed away today after which she was buried at Rosehill Cemetery in
Chicago.
1922:
Anna Rachel (Berman) Asimov and Judah Asimov gave
birth to Marcia Asimov, the younger sister of author Isaac Asimov.
1922: In Pittsburgh, PA, Esther and Hiram Harris Feldman gave
birth to Joshua Itzhak Feldman who fame composer and musical director Jerry
Fielding who was forced to change his in 1947 so he could get a job working for
Jack Parr of which he later wrote, “They told me I was not going on with
any name as Jewish as Feldman. I don’t think there’s any lessening of prejudice
today. There’s just more politeness about where and when it happens now. I
think it’s going to be the downfall of Homo sapiens.”
1922(21st of Sivan, 5682): Sixty-three-year-old Flora
Goldschmidt, the wife of Emil Schwarzschild who was the son of Emanuel Schwarzschild and Rahel
Fraenkel, passed away today in Frankfurt.
1923: The Independent order of Brith Sholom which had been founded
in 1905 and has 35,802 members opened its 18th annual convention
today in Atlantic City, NJ
1923: Birthdate of Arnold Seymour “Bud” Relman the native of
Queens, NY who pursued a medical career and served as the “longtime editor of
the New England Journal of Medicine.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)
1923: Today, Rabbi David de Sola Pool conducted the funeral
services for Albert Lucas, Secretary of the Union Orthodox Jewish Congregation
of America, and Secretary of the Joint Distribution Committee “in the chapel of
the Shearith Israel Congregation at Cypress Hills Cemetery.
1924: In Manhattan, “Hyman and Sadie Nadjari, Sephardic Jews who
had immigrated from Greece” gave birth to WW II veteran and NYU trained
attorney Maurice Hyman Nadjari ,the husband of Joan Boskey, who was best known
for his role in fighting police department corruption in the 1970’s. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)
1925:
Alexander Theodore Shulgin, who was known as Sasha to
friends, was born in Berkeley, California today.
1925: In Brooklyn, the former Gertrude Goldberg, “a theater ticket
broker” and Julius A. Fox, a “textile converter” gave birth to Irwin Fox, who
as Sonny Fox was “presided over ‘Wonderama,’” “a four-hour combination of fun
and learning” that was broadcast on Sunday mornings from 1959 to 1967.” (As
reported by Richard Sandomir)
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/30/arts/television/sonny-fox-dead-covid.html
1926: At a luncheon today given by Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist
Organization of America and the American Physicians Committee was reported that
“infant mortality among Jews in Palestine was as high as 33 per cents as
comparted with a rate of 1.7” in the United States.
1927: “Max Levy, pioneer in photo-engratving and inventor of
machinery for manufacturing half-tone screen left an estate appraised today at
$963, 402 of which $905,070 was in mortgages on Philadelphia business
buildings.”
1927: “Felix Warburg, New York banker and capitalist, returned
today on the Cunarder Aquitania from a six months’ tour of the world” where he
“went through the Suez Canal to India, China and Japan and back over the
Trans-Siberian Railway through Russia and visited the farm lands where 130,000
Jews have been colonized.”
1928: “Bronx real estate dealers who are trying to establish an
exclusively Jewish colony were denounced this morning by Dr. Jacob Katz, the
Rabbi of the Montefiore Congregation in the Bronx.”
1929: It was reported today that the issue of immortality in
Judaism was the subject of Rabbi Jacob Katz’s Shabbat sermon given at the
Montefiore Congregation in the Bronx.
1930: Police Captain F.M. Scott was stabbed in Jaffa during a
clash with an Arab crowd following the execution of three Arabs at Acre.
1930: During a recording session” today, “just after completing
Chopin’s E major Scherzo, pianist” Leopold Godowsky “suffered a severe stroke
which left him partially paralyzed. Godowsky’s remaining years were
overshadowed by the event, leaving him deeply depressed.”
1931: “Five injured Jews were taken to a hospital and twelve more
were arrested after a clash between British police and unemployed Jews at Afula,
a central town in the Valley of Jezreel.”
1932: “In an article written for The American Hebrew and Jewish
Tribune, published today, Dr. Cyrus Adler. president of the American Jewish
Committee, takes sharp issue with the proposal of Dr. Stephen S. Wise. honorary
president of the American Jewish Congress, for the convening of a world Jewish
congress.”
1933(23rd of Sivan, 5693): Parashat Sh’lach
1933: German Jews were shocked by news of the murder of Dr. Chaim
Arlosoroff in Tel Aviv. During a recent trip to Berlin, Arlosoroff had outlined
a plan for settling German Jews in Palestine; a plan that they feared would die
with the Zionist leader.
1933: “The annual convention of the Council of Young Israel
Organizations” which will be attended by “delegates from the United States,
Canada, Great Britain, France and Poland” is scheduled to continue for a second
day at “the Hotel Clarendon-Brunswick” in Asbury, NJ.
1934: Birthdate of Yitzchok Meyer Abramson, the native of Chicago
who served as a rabbi in St. Louis, MO.
1934: A track and field event under the auspices of the Maccabi
organization in New York City led by executive secretary Dave White is
scheduled to take place today.
1935: Birthdate of Frederick Delano Newman who became an eccentric
gadfly in the world of New York politics.
1936: Himmler was put in charge of the S.S. as Chief of the German
Police. This vicious little man was the architect of evil, the person who
actually ran the killing machine that was known as the Holocaust. Several of
the SS officers on the Eastern Front held Himmler in contempt. It seems that on
the one visit he made to watch the Killing Squads at work, he could not stand
the sight and vomited. He was also stupid enough to believe at the end of the
war that he could negotiate a separate peace with the Western Allies and get
them to join the Nazis sans-Hitler in a war against the Soviets.
1936: As Arab violence intensified, The Palestine Post reported
that Jacob Gerson, the lorry driver ambushed on the Kastel bends of the
Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road, became the 32nd Jew to be killed by Arabs since April
19. Scores of Arab leaders and agitators were interned at Sarafand. The Yishuv
launched a Relief and Consolidation Fund to assist all those who suffered
through the disturbances. The government announced a new scheme for the opening
and improving the Old City of Jaffa.
1936(27th of Sivan, 5696): “Dr Julius Brodnitz, attorney and
President of the Central Union of Jews in German passed away” today in Berlin
at the age of 68. Born in Posen, Dr.
Brodnitz came to Berlin in 1894 where he pursued a successful legal career and
become a leader in Jewish communal affairs.
Although he had not originally been a Zionist, his views changed after
the Nazis came to power. He visited
Palestine in April and was no longer opposed to Jewish immigration to Eretz
Israel.
1936: Senator Royal Copeland, who spoke out against the Nazi
regime as early as June, 1933, passed away today.
1936: Birthdate of Lumberton, NC merchant and Democrat political
leader who served in the North Carolina General Assembly and as head the Governor’s Highway Safety Program under Governor
Perdue.
1936: “Fifteen prominent businessmen, bankers, clergymen and
lawyers met at the Metropolitan Club” tonight “and accepted the invitation of
George Gordon Battle to launch the American League for Religious Liberty, an
organization of Catholics, Protestants and Jews” of which Governor Herbert H.
Lehman is one of the three co-chairmen.
1936: The nine judges of General Sessions accepted a painting of
the late Judge Otto A Rosalsky which presented by Judge Jonah Goldstein on “on
behalf of the Grand Street Boys Association” which Rosalsky had served as
president.
1937: Borough President Samuel Levy “denounced dictators and
bigots of the present day” today at the “sixth commencement exercises of
Yeshiva College.
1937(8th of Tammuz, 5697): Russian born Louis Katcher,
the husband of Rebecca Katz Kratcher and
the father of Samuel, Shirley, Jack, Irving, Archie and Molly Ann Katcher
passed away today in Detroit after which
he buried at Hebrew Memorial in Clinton Township, Michigan.
1937: Marx Brothers’ “A Day
At The Races” opens in New York
1938: Royal S. Copeland who served as Republican Senator from
Michigan and then as a Democratic Senator from New York passed away. In the spring of 1933, Copeland spoke out
against the abuse of the Jews by the Nazis on the floor of the U.S. Senate. In
1936, during the Arab Uprising, he was part of delegation of U.S. Senators who
went to Palestine to get a first-hand view of what was going on and how the
British were administering the mandate. Upon his return, he introduced a
resolution on the floor of the Senate condemning the British attempts to
unilaterally modify the mandate especially as it pertained to attempts to limit
Jewish immigration and purchase of land.
1938(18th of Sivan, 5698): Eighty-three-year-old
Friederike “Rika” Einstein, the youngest sibling of Hermann Einstein, the
father of Albert Einstein passed away today.
1939(30th of Sivan, 5699): Parashat Korach; Rosh
Chodesh Tammuz
1939: In Washington, D.C., “Stanley Irving Posner and Lillian
(Kahn) Posner-Wallace” gave birth to Smith College graduate Elisabeth Posner
Cohen, the President of the Posner-Wallace Foundation and mother of Suzanne and
Rachel Cohen.
1939: A “capacity audience” filled Town Hall tonight to “celebrate
the 80th anniversary of the birth of Sholem Aleichem when “the
Jewish Cultural Society presented a memorial program” that included appearances
by Michael Goldstein, David Opatoshu, playwright Peretz Hirshbein and “the
Freiheit Choir directed by Max Helfman and Lillian Taiz.”
1939: After being denied access to
Cuba and the United States, the German refugee ship St. Louis docks in
Antwerp, Belgium. Belgium offers to take 214 passengers, the Netherlands 181,
Britain 287, and France 224. Ultimately, the Nazis will murder most of the
passengers except for those accepted by Great Britain.
1940: Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes decided to
follow his conscience and disobeyed Dicator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar’s
strict orders not to issue any visas to “Jews.” His actions gave meaning to his
explanation “I would rather stand with God against man, than with man
against God.”
1940: As the Nazis sweep through the Low Countries and France,
Edmond Michelet distributed leaflets calling for a continuation of the
war. This was considered to be the first
act of French Resistance during WW II coming one day before De Gaulle’s appeal
to the French nation.
1940: In New Haven, CT, Rosalie (née Hirschfelder) and Gösta
Åkerlöf gave birth to George Arthur Akerlof who won the 2001 Nobel Memorial
Prize in Economic Sciences and who is married to Janet Yellen, head of the Fed.
1940: Today “Marshal Philippe Pétain issued orders to the French
Army to cease fighting, signaling the capitulation of his country to the forces
of the Third Reich” which would lead in very short to the Jews of France being
“rounded up in the notorious rafles, sent first to prison camps within France
and ultimately to the east” where they were murdered in the concentration
camps. (As reported by Sara Paretsky)
1941: Reinhard Heydrich briefs Einsatzgruppen commanders
on the implementation of the “Final Solution.”
1941: French priests in the Lyon
diocese publicly protest the Vichy government’s anti-Jewish policies.
1941:
The Japanese ocean liner Hikawa Maru whose passenger
list included Zerach Warhaftig, a future signatory of Israel’s Declaration of
Independence and his parents – Yerucham Warhaftig and Rivka Fainstein – docked
at Vancouver, Canada and safety from the Holocaust thanks to the courage of the
Japanese Vice-Consul in Kaunas, Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara who defied his
government by issuing visas to Jewish refugees.
1941: Today Michael Schapp, president of Bloomingdale’s announced
that Harry A. Hatry has tendered his resignation as vice president and
merchandise director a post he has held since 1930.
1941: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for Bertha
Sachs, the widow of Sigmund Sachs and the mother of Jeanette Barr and Rosalie
Morgenthau.
1942: Following the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the
Gestapo broke into the home of František Moravec, head of the Czech
intelligence services and tortured the family until one of the children who had
been shown the severed head of his mother broke down and gave them the
information they were looking for.
1943: Sixty-four of the remaining Jews in the German city of
Wuerzburg were deported. 7 were sent to Theresienstadt and 57 were deported to
Auschwitz.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/june/12.asp
1943: In Brooklyn, Edna Manilow and Harold Pincus gave birth to
Barry Alan Pincus known as singer/songwriter Barry Manilow.
1943(14th of Sivan, 5703): Sixty-year-old David Druck,
the native of Latvia who came to the United States “during the First World War
as a war correspondent” and remained as a “writer for the Jewish Morning
Journal” and the author of “a number of books in Yiddish and English.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/06/18/88545608.pdf
1944: In Budapest, SS General Veesenmayer notified Berlin that
from April 29, 1944 until this date 340,000 Hungarian Jews had now been
deported to the death camps. Among them was the family of Nobel Prize Winner
Elie Wiesel.
1944: For the next seven days, the Jews of
Budapest, Hungary, are confined to specially marked “Jewish
buildings.”
1945: “In the first official and comprehensive report on the
post-war situation of Jews in four countries of southern Europe –Italy,
Austria, Yugoslavia and Albania – the American Joint Distribution Committee’s
chief of operations n that area, Reuben B. Resnik, said today their future on
the whole was encouraging with Italy the brightest spot and Austria the
darkest.”
1946: Birthdate of Barry Manilow. Born Barry Alan Pincus, in
Brooklyn, he was the son of Edna Manilow and Harold Pincus. Apparently somebody
thought his mother’s less ethnic name would lead to greater fame. No less an
arbiter of pop culture than Rolling Stones named him
“Showman of the Generation.”
1946: Operation Markolet, or Night of the Bridges, a Haganah
operation meant to immobilize the transportation system by blowing up the
bridges linking Palestine to the surrounding Arab states came to a successful
close.
1946: Lehi attack the railway operations at Haifa.
1946: In an unusual turn of events Haganah
completed attacks on railways and bridges in Eretz Israel.“Haganah united
launched the most daring attack of their underground campaign by blowing up ten
of the eleven bridges connecting Palestine with surrounding nations.”
1947: Al Langer opened Langer’s Deli in Los
Angeles. The MacArthur Park eatery would
stand the test of time. Tragically, Mr.
Langer passed away at the age of 94, a week after his signature deli celebrated
its 60th anniversary.
1948: Despite sporadic outbreaks, the UN truce
between Israel and its Arab attackers that went into effect on June 11
continued to hold today.
1949: George P. Alpert announced today the
election of Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt to the Board of Trustees of Brandeis
University making her the first woman to serve on the board of the school “now
completing its first academic year.”
1949: “Eleven Hungarian Jewish leaders, all
identified with the Zionist movement” are scheduled to go on trial today “on
charges of having promoted illegal mass emigration of Jews from Hungary.”
1950: According to reports published today,
peace talks resumed this week between Israel and King Abdullah of Jordan. The talks centered on creating a corridor
that will give Jordan access to the Mediterranean possibly at Gaza which is
held by Egypt. The Egyptians might agree
to the deal, according to these same reports, if the Jordanians and Israelis
would take responsibility for the quarter of million refugees in Gaza whom the
Egyptians are controlling with a military garrison.
1951: Central system of Israel’s
underground water supply was dedicated in Northern Negev. This was the start of
a project dear to the heart of David Ben Gurion. He saw the Negev as vital to
the growth of the new Jewish State. He was determined to bring water to this
arid region and make the “Desert Bloom.”
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported
that only 40 per cent of the electorate voted in the Zionist Congress
elections. In Tel Aviv Mapai scored 45, Herut 20, and Mapam 16 percent of the
vote; the rest was divided among small parties. In Jerusalem Mapai scored 54,
Herut 17, Hapoel Hamizrahi 16, Mapam 8 and Progressives 4 percent of the vote,
the rest being divided among small parties.
1951:
Left-wing labor leaders called a one-hour strike in
Tel Aviv harbor today to block loading of a cargo of citrus juice concentrates
which was a gift from the Republic of Korea, also known as South Korea, which
was engaged in a bitter war with communist North Korea.
1951:
The College World Series in which Moe Savransky pitched for Ohio State
University came to an end today in Omaha, Nebraska.
1952: “A home for 75 girls donated by the Goodwin Welfare League
of Brooklyn was dedicated this afternoon as part of the Children’s City build
around the Ponievez Talmudic College at B’nai Brak, a suburb of Tel Aviv.
1953” Francis Covers the Big Town,” one of a series about a
talking mule directed by Arthur Lubin and produced by Leonard Goldstein was
released today in the United States.
1953: The 117 Squadron “First Jet” was inaugurated today
as the IAF’s first fighter jet squadron at Ramat David.”
1953: Supreme Court Justice William O Douglas issued an order
staying the executions for convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg which are
scheduled for the next day. The Rosenbergs
were part of a plethora of Jews who were involved in both sides of this famous
spy case. However, the anti-Semites who
sought to use the Rosenberg case as proof of Jewish perfidy never talked about
he Jews who prosecuted the case of the Jewish judge who imposed the death
sentence.
1955: Birthdate of New Bedford, MA native and recipient of a
MacArthur Fellowship Aaron Lansky, the author of Outwitting History and
the founder of the Yiddish Book Center.
https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/27/books/aaron-lansky-yiddish-book-center.html
https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/about/staff
1956: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion names Golda Meir to replace
Moshe Sharett as Foreign Minister.
1957: In Langley Park, MD, a suburb of Washington, DC, during
Abraham Posin, the owner of kosher delicatessen on Georgia Avenue, “collapsed
during the ribbon cutting” ceremony marking the opening of “a large modern
supermarket” that the Washington Post called “the world’s largest retail kosher
food enterprise.”
1958: Birthdate of Jonathan David Leibowitz who served as Chairman
of the Federal Trade Commission during the Obama administration.
1960: Prime Minister Ben-Gurion is scheduled to leave France today
for the Netherlands and Belgium.
1961(3rd of Tammuz, 5721): Parasaht Korach
1961: At Congregation B’nai
Jershurun, Rabbi William Berkowitz is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Our
Youth – What Can We For Them?”
1961: Robert Bernard Alter, the New York born son of Harry and
Tillie Alter who became a professor of Hebrew at Cal-Berkley and created his
own translation of the bible, today married his married second wife Carol
Cosman, an editor and translator.
1961(3rd of Tammuz, 5721): Actor Jeff
Chandler passes away at the age of 40 due to complications from
surgery. Born Ira Grossel in Brooklyn, New York, handsome matinee idol gained
his greatest fame and Oscar nomination playing the role of the Apache Chief
Cochise in “Broken Arrow,” a western depicting attempts to establish a truce
between the Indians and the white settlers on the Arizona Frontier.
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/813872%7C81275/Jeff-Chandler/
https://www.facebook.com/jeffchandlerforever/posts/314521811944608
1962(15th of Sivan, 5722): Seventy-eight year old
Brooklyn native Grace Baer Bachrach, the school teacher and wife of attorney
Clarence G. Bachrach with whom she had two children who was so active in
various civic and cultural organizations including the “Brooklyn division of
the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies” that was honored as “Brooklyn’s First
Lady of Philanthropy in 1956 passed away today.
1962: At the Savoy Hilton, Rabbi Richard Steinbrink officiated at
the wedding of Adele Mintz and James Samuel Dalsimer.
1963: In Rye, NY, “Samuel J. Bloomingdale, the honorary chairman
of Bloomingdale’s department stores observed his 90th birthday today”
declaring that “You’ve either got the genes to live to 90 or you haven’t.”
1963: The United States Supreme Court rule 7 to 2 in Sherbert v
Werner that aan employee who refused to work on Saturday because it was the
Sabbath and was terminated for that did not lose the right to collect
unemployment benefits. As is often the
case, the sabbatarian was not Jewish. In this case she was a Seven Day
Adventist.
1963(25th of Sivan, 5723): Eighty-four-year-old Polish
born American builder Jacob D. Berge who came to the United States in 1914
where he served as a director of the
Sholem Aleichem Folk Institute and a director of YIVO.
1963: The United States Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 in Abington
School District v. Schempp against allowing the reciting of Bible verses
and the Lord’s Prayer in public schools.
As is so often the case in litigation involving separation of church and
state,, the plaintiffs were not Jewish.
In this case they were Unitarians.
The opinions of the Justices clearly state the importance of religion in
America, but they also are quite clear that it does not belong in public venues
such as schools.
1966: “Cul-de-sac” a “crime-thriller” directed and written by
Roman Polanski and co-starring Lionel Stander was released in London today.
1967: Moshe Dayan ordered the responsibility for the Haram, which
had been under Israeli military control for a week, to be restored to the
Muslims. He also insisted that all
Muslims, whether living in Israel or the West Bank be allowed to pray at the
Haram.
1967: Barbra Streisand performed
“A Happening in Central Park.”
1968(21st of Sivan, 5728): Sir Andrew Benjamin Cohen KCMG KCVO OBE, who served as
Governor of Uganda from 1952 to 1957 passed away. Born in 1909, Sir Andrew was
“a descendant of Levi Barent Cohen, the founder of the oldest Ashkenazi family
in Britain.”
1969(1st of Tammuz,
5729): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1969(1st of Tammuz,
5729): One American was killed today during a shelling attack on Kalya, a
settlement “on the northern shore of the Dead Sea.”
1969: “Arthur Rubinstein – The Love
of Life” (FL’Amour de la vie – Artur Rubinstein) a 1969 documentary about pianist, Arthur
Rubinstein which won the 1969 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature was
released to movie theatres today.
1970(13th of Sivan,
5730): Seventy-eight-year-old Herbert Brutus Ehrmann, the Louisville, KY born
son of “Hilmar ‘Hillel’ Ehrmann and Erna Ehrmann” and Harvard trained attorney
best known for his role in the defense of Sacco and Vanzettia who raised two
sons Rabbi H. Bruce Ehrmann and Dr.
Robert L. Ehrmann with “his wife, the former Sara Rosenfeld” passed away today.
http://digifindingaids.cjh.org/?pID=109155
1970: Birthdate of actor Michael
Showalter.
1970: “The Anderson Tapes,” a
sophisticated crime film directed by Sidney Lumet co-starring Dyan Cannon
(Samille Diane Friesen), Martin Balsam and Alan King was released today in the
United States.
1971: In Paris, Ilan and Sylvia
Moreno, Maghrebi Jewish immigrants from North Africa gave birth IDF Lt. Colonel
Emanuel Yehuda Moreno, the grandson of one of the passengers who was aboard the
highjacked plane taken to Entebbe, the husband of Maya Moreno with whom he had
three children – Aviya, Neria and Noam-Yisrael — who was a member of the Sayeret Matkal and
casualty during the Second Lebanon War.
1971(24th of Sivan, 5731): Sixty-seven-year-old
Viennese born American composer Walter Jurmann passed away today.
1972: In Washington, DC, five men
were arrested at the Watergate complex marking the start of the Watergate
Scandal which would end the Presidency of Richard M. Nixon. None of the principles in the burglary or the
cover-up were Jewish. According to some
Henry Kissinger played a role in the creation of the Plumbers when he
complained about the leaks to the press that were hampering his diplomatic
negotiations. In 1973, during the Yom
Kippur, there were those who wondered if the politically wounded Nixon would
come to the aide of the Israelis. He did
and the decision had no impact on what was going on in Washington.
1973: On Sunday at the Hillel House in Iowa City Dr. Ron Reider
married Sue Reider.
1973: A “car parked near the El Al office in Rome exploded”
injuring 2 Arabs who were arrested and then freed without ever standing trial.
1973: U.S. premiere of “Blume in Love,” directed, produced and
written by Paul Mazursky starring George Segal and Shelly Winters.
1974: “Songwriter Alexander Galich was granted an exit visa” that
would only be valid until June 25th.
1974: Four days after she had passed away, ninety-two-year-old
Gertrude Kaplan, the “daughter of Abraham and Anna (Hinde) Shemerinsky” and the
wife of Jacob Kaplan with whom she had had five children was buried today in
Forest Park, Illinois.
1975: Soviet authorities interrogated Ida Nudel about documents
“relating to Prisoners of Zion.”
1975: Five days after he had passed away, funeral services are
scheduled to be held this afternoon for “seventy-four-year-old Arthur Kober, the
husband of Lillian Hellman who gained his own measure of fame as a screenwriter
and author whose works appeared in The New Yorker.
https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/13/archives/arthur-kober-humorist-is-dead-at-74.html
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that the US Ambassador to
Lebanon Francis Meloy, his Economic Counselor Robert Waving and their Lebanese
driver were kidnapped and later found murdered in a Muslim area of Beirut.
1976: “Silent
Movie,” “a satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel
Brooks” with a cast that included Marty Feldman, Sid Caesar, James Caan, Marcel
Marceau and Paul Newman was released in the United States today.
1976: “Harry and Walter Go
to New York,” a comedy directed by Mark Rydell, starring James Caan, Elliot
Gould and Lesley Ann Warren with a script co-authored by Robert Kaufman and
music by David Shire was released in the United States today.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported
that King Hussein of Jordan, on the eve of his visit to the Soviet Union, said
that he was ready to purchase Russian missiles even if it angered the U.S.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported
that the citizens of Tel Aviv were promised a complete restoration of their
beach-front promenade to its former glory.
1977: U.S. premier of “The Deep”
the film version of the book with same name produced by Peter Gruber, the son
of a Somerville, MA “junkman.”
1980(3rd of Tammuz,
5740): Sixty-five-year-old George Pinkowitz, the Bayonne, NJ born son of
Benjamin and Mollie Finkelstein Pinkowitz, the World War II veteran who
supplemented his income as a teacher by working as a pharmacist after having
married Cecelia Glick Pinkowitz, passed away today after which he was buried at
the Beth Israel Memorial Park in Woodbridge, NJ.
1981(15th of Sivan,
5741): Sixty-five-year-old Yitzhak Zuckerman, the leader of the ZOB who survived the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising,
founded two kibbutzim with his wife Ziva and other survivors and testified at
the trial of Adolf Eichmann passed away. (Please read the items below. There is no way for me to do justice to this
man)
https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206398.pdf
https://spartacus-educational.com/2WWzuckerman.htm
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Zuckerman_Yitshak
1982: “Nazeyh Mayer, a leading figure in the PLO’s Rome office, was shot dead
outside his home”
1982:
“Kamal Husain, deputy director of the PLO office in Rome, was killed by a
shrapnel bomb placed under the back seat of his car as he drove home, less than
seven hours after he had visited the home of Nazeyh Mayer.”
1984: In “God the Implausible Kinsman,” Arthur A. Cohen reviewed Responses
to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture by David G. Roskies
1987: In Tel Aviv, a program created by Sara Levi-Tanay is
scheduled to open at the Inbal Yemenite Dance Theatre where she is the
choreographer.
1988: U.S. premiere of “The Great Outdoors” a comedy directed by
Howard Deutch with music by Thomas Newman the son of composer Alfred Newman.
1989: Today, Aaron Lansky, “an Amherst man who had spent more than
a decade scrounging in dumpsters, basements, and attics was awarded a MacArthur
Foundation “genius grant.”
https://www.massmoments.org/moment-details/yiddish-book-rescuer-wins-genius-grant.html
1994: U.S. premiere of “Getting even with Dad” a comedy directed
by Howard Deutch
1996(30th of Sivan, 5756): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1996(30th of Sivan, 5736): Seventy-three-year-old
University of North Carolina and Yale trained economist Luicille Mauer, the
first woman to be serve as Treasurer of the State of Maryland who was born in
Brooklyn NY and who was the wife of Ely Mauer with whom she had three children,
passed away today.
1996(30th of Sivan, 5756): Thomas Samuel Kuhn, who wrote and
taught about history and philosophy science, passed away. A Guggenheim Fellow, Kuhn won the George
Stanton Medal for his work in the history of science.
1999(3rd of Tammuz, 5759): Eighty-two-year-old Polish
born and Columbia and University of Wisconsin educated “health economist”
Herbert Kalman, the recipient of a
Guggenheim Fellowship and father of Seth and Michael Klarman who was “a
professor at Johns Hopkins University, State University of New York, and New
York University” passed away today.
2000: “Secretary General Kofi Annan today certified Israel’s
withdrawal from southern Lebanon, opening the way to a more robust United
Nations peacekeeping presence along Lebanon’s often troubled border with
Israel.” (As reported by Christopher Wren)
2001:”
The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan,
today urged Israelis and Palestinians to take advantage of a crucial moment to
move toward resuming peace talks in the violence-plagued region.” (As reported
by Douglas Frantz)
2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest
to Jewish readers including Does American Need A Foreign Policy? by
Henry Kissinger and Borrowed Tides by Paul Levinson.
2002: “Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today rejected
the idea of a provisional Palestinian state, which President Bush is said to be
considering as part of a plan he is expected to announce this week in hopes of
reviving peace talks.” (As reported by John Kifner)
2003(17th of Sivan, 5763): Noam Leibowitz, 7, of Yemin Orde was
killed and three members of her family wounded in a shooting attack near the
Kibbutz Eyal junction on the Trans-Israel Highway. The terrorist fired from the
outskirts of the West Bank city of Kalkilya. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command claimed
responsibility for the attack.
2004: “Dissent Greets Isaac Bashevis Singer Centennial” published
today described the one-woman battle of Inna Grade, the widow of Yiddish Chaim
Grade to set the record straight when it comes to Isaac Bashevis Singer, “the
only Yiddish author to win a Nobel Prize in Literature.” (As reported by Alana
Newhouse)
2005: Professor Esther “E.M.”Broner’s musical Higginson: An
American Life,” was performed for the first time by the Michigan Opera Theatre
2005: “Wordplay,” an exhibition assembled by curator Tamar Cohen
opened at the Julie Saul Gallery today.
2005: Jean Perron, coach of
the Israeli Men’s Hockey Team, and other Israeli hockey officials ran a one-day
tryout camp in Mississauga, Ontario for the senior and junior players. Almost forty North American players, mostly
from Canada, who had some kind of tie to Israel, took part in the tryouts.
2005: Ken Feinberg, the man who served as “Special Master of the U.S. government’s September 11th
Victim Compensation Fund and …the Special Master for TARP Executive
Compensation,” “was honored by his
hometown of Brockton by having a road named after him: Attorney Ken Feinberg
Way.”
2006: The Israeli national
soccer team may not have made it to the World Cup Finals, but the Israeli flag
did. John Pantsil, a Ghana defender who plays professionally for Hapoel Tel
Aviv, pulled a blue-and-white flag out from his sock following both of his
team’s goals against the Czech Republic as the “Black Stars” pulled
off the tournament’s most significant upset.
2006 Daniel Barenboim left his position of music director of the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra today.
2007: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is scheduled to meet United
Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York today
2007(1st of Tammuz, 5767): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
2007: The Sunday New York
Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special
interest to Jewish readers The Gravedigger’s Daughter by Joyce Carol
Oates whose main character is Rebecca Schwartz the daughter of Jacob and Anna
Schwartz, German-Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Germany and Volume One of A
Young People’s History of the United Sates: Columbus to the Spanish-American War by Howard Zinn.
2007: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors
and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including 15 Stars: Eisenhower,
MacArthur, Marshall by Stanley Weintraub, a book that examines three of the
generals who played key roles in the winning of World War II.
2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that “aid embargo on the Palestinian
Authority is set to be lifted.”
2008: Ryan Braun drove in his 152nd
career RBI, in his 182nd game
2008: Ifar “Eef” Barzelay”s “second solo
album, Lose Big, was released today.”
2008: The Jerusalem Post reported that “more
US Jews today are “uncoupled” in two senses of the term -unmarried
and unconnected to organized Jewry – according to the latest study by
researchers Steven Cohen and Ari Kelman, who call this data
“disturbing,” though not for the reasons one might expect. In 1990,
33 percent of non-Orthodox Jews aged 25-39 were single. By 2000-01, the number
had grown to 50%. In fact, “never in Jewish demographic history have we
seen so many young adults unmarried, or ‘uncoupled,'” the study says.
2008: The New York Times reported that Michael
R. Bloomberg, NYC’s Jewish mayor, remains as popular as ever despite “an
overall sense the city headed down the wrong path according to the newspaper’s
latest polling data.
2009: At
the DCJCC, Nextbook DC presents an evening with Lucette
Lagnado author of “The Man in
the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family’s Exodus from Old Cairo to the New
World.”
2009: The Montreal International
Yiddish Theater Festival opens at the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts.
2009:
The Museum of History of Polish Jews launched a bilingual Polish-English
website called the Museum of the History of Polish Jews “Virtual
Shtetl”, listing 1,240 towns with maps, statistics and picture
galleries.[5] The new portal intends to collect and provide essential
information about Jewish life in Poland prior to Second World War and the
Holocaust in Poland.
2010: The Biennial Scholars’
Conference on American Jewish History is scheduled to come to an end.
2010: In
Cedar Rapids, IA, Temple Judah is scheduled to hold its Annual Congregational
Meeting.
2010:
The Museum of History of Polish Jews launched a bilingual Polish-English
website called the Museum of the History of Polish Jews “Virtual
Shtetl”, listing 1,240 towns with maps, statistics and picture galleries.
2010: After a day which brought weeks
of tensions between Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community and the state to a
climax, 35 fathers of students at the Emmanuel Beit Ya’acov girls school began
two-week jail terms for contempt of court over discriminatory practices at the
school, and their hassidic community hailed them as heroes for “choosing Torah”
over the secular court system
2011: In
New York, Sotheby’s is scheduled to auction Marc Chagall’s sketchbook.
http://forward.com/articles/138344/#ixzz1OpmcMXom
2011: An exhibition entitled
“In the Footsteps of My
Grandparents, A Photographic View of Israel” by Talya Arbisser is scheduled to
come to a close at the Deutser Art Gallery
2011: Defense Minister Ehud Barak
thinks there is a 50-50 chance that Israel and the Palestinians will return to
the negotiating table before September but that Israel cannot stop settlement
construction, he told France 24 in an interview today. “I hope that it’s
at least 50-50, probably more than 50-50,” the defense minister answered
when asked what chances are that peace talks will resume between Israel and the
Palestinian Authority before Palestinians plan to ask the UN for recognition of
statehood in September.
2011(15th
of Sivan, 5771): Ninety-six-year-old Austrian born Holocaust escapee Katherine
Bachrach who along with her husband, fellow Holocaust survivor Harry Bachrrach,
founded a textile firm, Harry Bachrach, Inc. passed away today
2011: A Holocaust exhibit has
disappeared from a subway station in Romania for the second time in a week, its
creators said today. Austrian journalist Emil Rennert and Israeli photographer
Shani Bar-On said 12 out of 24 panels depicting Romania’s Jewish heritage and
the Holocaust were missing from the Piata Unirii Station in Bucharest.
2012: “I
Shot My Love” is scheduled to shown at the London Israeli Film & Television
Festival.
2012: The
Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including Guy Delisle’s Jerusalem:
Chronicles from the Holy City
2012: The
New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including End This Depression Now! by
Paul Krugman
2012(27th
of Sivan, 5772): Eighty-two-year-old “Anthony Schulte, a publishing executive
who was an early proponent of audiobooks” passed away today. (As reported by
Paul Vitello)
2012:
“Ours to Fight For: American Jews in the Second World” an exhibition that
explores and celebrates the achievements of Jewish men and women who were part
of the American war effort on and off of the battlefield is scheduled to have
its final showing at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center
http://www.ilholocaustmuseum.org/pages/special_exhibitions/21.php
2012:
The IDF is concerned that rocket fire will increase from the Sinai Peninsula
and into Israel over the coming days as Egyptian presidential elections come to
a close.A senior defense official said today that Israel had not yet confirmed
the identity of the terror cell which launched two rockets into southern Israel
on Friday night – one near Uvda and the other near Mitzpe Ramon
2012:
The government approved the establishment of a ministerial committee headed by
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this morning to deal with issues relating to
settlement construction.
2013:
Dr. Nathan Shields is scheduled to begin teaching “Schoenberg: Music, God, and
Catastrophe in Fin-de-siècle Vienna” which will examine the remarkable cultural
ferment of fin-de-siècle Vienna through the lens of one of its principal
protagonists, the composer Arnold Schoenberg.
2013:
Today, Jessica “Meir was named as a candidate for astronaut training by NASA,
becoming one of the eight members of NASA Astronaut Group 21”
2013:
The Ir Yamim Mall in Netanya is scheduled to host a large employment fair
dedicated to summer jobs for teenagers looking to work during their upcoming 10
weeks long summer vacation from school.
2013:
Former President Bill Clinton is being paid $500,000 to address a dinner at the
Peres Academic Center in Rehovot which will be attended by the President of
Israel and several top governmental officials.
2013:
“The Quebec government’s anti-corruption unit, known as the Unité permanente
anticorruption or simply UPAC, announced that” Saulie Zajdel who served as the
director of the Jewish Rehabilitation Hospital had been arrested along with the
city’s interim mayor, Michael Applebaum. Zajdel himself was charged with five
counts of fraud, corruption, breach of trust and payment of secret commissions,
related to construction permits issued between 2006 and 2011 when he was a city
councilor
2013:
Barbra Streisand is scheduled to receive an honorary doctorate from The Hebrew
University in Jerusalem
2013:
A 16-year-old girl, Coral Vedder, who is suffering from a rare form of cancer,
sang Barbara Streisand’s song “People” to the Jewish legend when the award
winning singer met with a group of children today at the official Jerusalem
residence of President Shimon Peres. (As reported by Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu)
2013:
U.S. entertainer Barbra Streisand today took a swipe at Orthodox Jews in Israel
who compel women to sit in the back of buses and assault them for following
religious rituals traditionally reserved for men while speaking at Hebrew
University.
2014: The Center for Jewish History is
scheduled to present “Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl: Yiddish Letter Manuals from
Russia and America”
2014: Today, three retired Jewish egg farmers
shared their experiences at the Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi_MyVHza4w&feature=youtu.be
2014: “Wonders” and “The Lab” are scheduled to
be shown at the JCC in Manhattan as part of the Israel Film Center Festival.
2014:
The Pixies, a rock band that had canceled plans to play in Israel 4 years ago
in protest over the country’s policies is scheduled to perform at the
Bloomfield Stadium in Jaffa.
2014:
In Cedar Rapids, a memorial service was held for Kevin Skinner of blessed
memory at Temple Judah
2014:
Balad MK Hannin Zoabi said today that the Palestinian kidnappers of three
Israelis were “not terrorists” but “they are people who do not see any way of
changing their situation and they have to resort to these measures until Israel
sobers up a bit, until the citizens of Israel and the public sober up and
relate to the suffering of others.” (As reported by Spence Ho)
2014:
“New York’s Metropolitan Opera canceled its live transmissions of a
controversial opera featuring the murder of a Jewish character by a Palestinian
hijacker today, amid fears the screening would stir up global anti-Semitic
sentiment.”
2014(19th
of Sivan, 5774): Ninety-three-year-old Israeli diplomat Asher Ben-Natan who
played a key role in the capture of Adolf Eichmann passed away today.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10964480/Asher-Ben-Natan-obituary.html
2014(19th
of Sivan, 5774): Ninety-year-old sociologist, psychotherapist and author
Lillian B. Rubin passed away today in San Francisco. (As reported by Paul
Vitello)
2014(19th
of Sivan, 5774): Eighty-six-year-old NFL defenseman Lazarus “Larry,
Rock” Zeidel who played on the Stanley Cup winning Detroit Red Wings in
1952 and finished his career with the Philadelphia Flyers passed away today.
http://articles.philly.com/2014-06-19/news/50682068_1_larry-zeidel-flyers-bernie-parent
2014:
Michael Rosenbaum “was cast as the lead in the TV Land original sitcom
Impastor.”
2014:
“Police arrested three men today for threatening their relative, an Arab
Israeli teen who, in a strikingly pro-Israel video posted online, wraps himself
in an Israeli flag and expresses solidarity with three kidnapped Israeli
youths. (As reported by Gavriel Fiske)
2015: The Center for Jewish History
and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is scheduled to present a
lecture by Dr. Andrew J. Falk entitled “Shadow Diplomats: American Jewish
Foreign Policy in the Era of World Wars” in which he will talk about “the work
of global Jewish organizations in the mid-20th acentury.”
2015: “Kulturfest” is scheduled to
host a walking tour that will a view of the world of Russian Jews in New York
over the past century.
2015: In Philadelphia, the National
Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled to host a screening the 1996
documentary “Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light.”
2015: The Chelsea Music Festival is
scheduled to return to Leo Baeck Institute with a program of chamber music
focused on Finland (to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Jean
Sibelius) and Hungary
2016: After premiering at the El
Capitan Theatre nine days ago, “Finding Dory” an animated film featuring the
voices of Albert Brooks and Eugene Levy was released today in the United
States.
2016: Today, “a terrorist was found
with explosives in his bag at the light rail station on Yafo and King George
Street in central Jerusalem.”
2016: Balkan Beat Box, which was
“founded by Israeli-born ex-pats Ori Kaplan and Tamir Muskat” is scheduled
appear a Irving Plaza in NYC.
2016: In Coralville, IA, Agudas Achim
is scheduled to host a “Roast and Toast” for interim Rabbi Barry Diamond.
2016: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is
scheduled to host the next its “Excellence of the Future Generation Series
featuring Niya Guretskaya, Lior Lifshitz, Eden Agranat, Dani Dvorkin, Lihi
Javits, Ido Zeev and Nabeel Haick
2016: “P.S. Jerusalem” is scheduled
to be shown at the IFC Center.
2017(23rd
of Sivan, 5777): Parashat Shela Lecha
2017(23rd of Sivan, 5777):
Ninety-nine-year-old Elias Burstein, the pioneer in the field of
semi-conductors who never earned a Ph.D. passed away today. (As reported by
Dylan Loeb McClain)
2017(23rd of Sivan, 5777):
The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to celebrate “the last
Shabbat of the year.)
2017: “An army ambulance called to
the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar was stoned by area residents tonight, in an
incident the military said crossed a “red line.” (As reported by Jacob Magid)
2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum
and Education Center is scheduled to host a day of “Interactive Survivor
Stories.”
2017: The Female Brain”
co-starring Beanie Feldstein premiered today at the Los Angeles Film Festival.
2018: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors
and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Reporter: A Memoir by Seymour M. Hersh, You All Grow Up and Leave Me: A Memoir of Teenage Obsession by Piper Weiss and
the recently released paperback edition of The Awkward Age by Francesca Segal.
2018(14th of Tammuz,
5778): Eighty-three-year-old Robert L. “Bob” Sill, a founding member of the
Cleveland Chapter of American ORT who went on to serve as national president of
American ORT and chairman of the board of World ORT, is remembered for his
passion to educate young people around the world and as a mentor to many in the
Cleveland community” passed away today.
2018: “Two Gaza-launched balloons
carrying incendiary devices become entangled in branches in backyards of home
in Beit HaGadi Moshav, while another three land in a tree in suburbs
surrounding Sderot.” (As reported by Matan Tzuri, Yoav Zitun and Liad Osmo)
2018: Today “Shuva Malka, an
18-year-old high school student who was wounded in a terror stabbing attack in
Afula last week, has expressed her gratitude to Israeli security forces and
medical teams who helped save her life, and has called on the nation to pray
for her.” (As reported by Ahiya Raved)
2018: In Atlanta, The Breman Museum
is scheduled to host a free day for the exhibition “Chasing Dreams: Baseball
and Becoming American” in honor of Father’s Day.
2018: The Center for Jewish History’s
Ackman and Ziff Family Genealogy Institute are scheduled to host a walking tour
that will explore “East Village Lost Synagogues.”
2019: The
American Sephardi Federation’s Institute of Jewish Experience in partnership
with Association Mimouna is scheduled to host the opening night event of
“Uncommon Commonalties,” a “three-day scholarly and cultural conference
dedicated to exploring the uncommon commonalities shared by Moroccan Jews and
Muslims.”
2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “93Queen” a
film which tells “the story of Rachel “Ruchie” Freier, full-time lawyer
running to be a Civil Court Judge and Hasidic mother of six, who is fighting
for the creation of NYC’s first ever all-female volunteer ambulance corps.”
2019: In Atlanta, GA, The Breman
Museum is scheduled to host “Peek Behind the Curtain” with a theme of “Wild
About Harry: Magic Inspired by Magical Harrys” as in Harry Houdini.
2019: It was reported today that Foreign
Minister Israel Katz has said that “Israelis will attend a U.S.-led conference
in Bahrain next week on proposals for the Palestinian economy as part of a
coming peace plan.”
2020: The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience is
scheduled to present “The Music of North Africa and the Musical Life in
Devotional Texts” by ASF Broom & Allen Fellow, ethnomusicologist and
multi-instrumentalist Dr. Samuel Torjman Thomas.
2020: Future Secretary of State Tony Blinken
said the Joe Biden “would not tie military assistance to Israel to things like
annexation or other decisions by the Israeli government with which me might
disagree.”
2020: As part of the Songs of Our, Songs of Our
Neighbors program, the National Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled
to host a Livestream Conversation and Concert featuring Joe Weisenberg.
2020: The Center for Jewish History is
scheduled to host “Identity in the Throes of Crisis” with Irna Nevzlin, the
Chair of the Board of Directors of the Museum of the Jewish People at Beit
Hatfutsot, Ethan Bronner, senior editor at Bloomberg News and Ambassador Dani
Dayan, the Consul General of Israel.
2020: In place of its usual “formal event,” the
Aleph Society is scheduled to “host and Ungala” were supporters of the society
are urged to open a book and raise a glass in “L’chaim to Rabbi Steinsaltz.”
2021: The Contra Costa JCC is scheduled to
present UC David Professor David Biale talking about his book Hasidism: A New
History which tells “about the history and the important of the modern Jewish
movement.”
2021: In Atlanta, the Breman Museum is
scheduled to host “Why Went” a webinar on the June 18th, 1964,
Sit-In during which attendees will “relive a landmark moment in the history of
our nation’s civil rights struggle when 16 rabbis were arrested in St.
Augustine, FL, in 1964 in support of Martin Luther King’s request to Jewish
leaders to help bring attention to the plight of black people in America.”
2021: New York based comic talent Emmy Blotnick
is scheduled to perform at the DC Improv this evening.
2021: The American Sephardi Federation,
Department of Anthropology & Archeology at the University of Calgary,
King’s College London, The International Network of Jewish Thought are
scheduled to present “Sephardi Thought and Modernity: Foreign in a Familiar
Land: Language and Belonging in the Work of Jacqueline Kahanoff, Albert Memmi
and Jacques Derrida – Live on Zoom”
2021: The Illinois Holocaust Museum is
scheduled to commemorate Juneteenth by “paying tribute to victims, survivors,
and descendants of the Tulsa Massacre” with a virtual program, featuring Dr.
David Gray, professor of American Studies at Oklahoma State University and
recipient of the 2017 OSU-Tulsa President’s Outstanding Faculty Award for
teaching, who will lead a powerful and thoughtful-provoking discussion with
Phil Armstrong, Project Director for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial
Commission, and Carlos Moreno, author of The Victory of Greenwood, a
groundbreaking book that shares perspectives of Greenwood’s most prominent
figures and dispels some of Tulsa’s persistent myths and inaccuracies about the
events leading up to the Massacre of 1921.”
2021 The Jewish Women’s Archives is scheduled
to present online the third lecture in its series on “Forgotten Lives”
featuring “Miriam Karpilove with Jessica Kirzane, editor-in-chief of In geveb:
A Journal of Yiddish Studies and translator of Miriam Karpilove’s “Diary of a
Lonely Girl”
2021: The JCC Greater Boston is scheduled to
present, online, “The Flowers of Marc Chagall,” “a magical evening, live on
Zoom, with floral designer and owner of Manhattan’s Fleurs Bella, Bella Meyer,
the granddaughter of artist Marc Chagall.”
2022: The Center for Jewish History is
scheduled to present “Discovering Your Jewish Ancestors in France” sponsored by
the Ackman and Ziff Family Genealogy Institute.
2022: Temple Emanu-El is scheduled to host
Friday Night Juneteenth Services with special guest Thomas Chatterton Williams.
https://streicker.nyc/current-season/fnl-williams
2022: The Hamusika Live broadcast on Kan Kol is
scheduled to feature a Young Artist Concert from Eden Tamir Center.
2023(28th of Sivan, 5783): Parashat Shelach-Lecha
(Send forth); for more see
https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2023: Hyde Park is scheduled to hold its second
annual community-wide Juneteenth celebration which included a color guard from
the 54 Massachusetts Voluntary Infantry Regiment, the first black regiment to
be organized during the Civil War.
2023: The Lazer Lloyd Band is scheduled to
perform at the Yellow Submarine in Jerusalem.
2023: In Washington, DC, in the afternoon,
Naomi Gedan is scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah.
2023: “Thirty-five Israeli athletes in seven
disciplines are heading off to represent the Jewish state at the Special
Olympics in Berlin, which is scheduled to kick off with the opening ceremony today.”
(As reported by Amy Spiro)
2023: In Washington, DC, at Adas Israel
Madeline Addeo is scheduled to be call to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah.
2024: Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari and JWI
CEO Meredith Jacobs are scheduled to present a special briefing “on the ongoing
fight to hold Hamas and other of perpetrators of sexual violence on October 7
accountable” for deeds that would be unacceptable if the victims had not been
Jewish.
2024: YIVO is scheduled to present a panel discussion led by YIVO Senior Academic
Advisor & Director of Exhibitions, Eddy Portnoy, and featuring Professor
Annette Igra (Carleton College) and Dr. Annie Polland (President of the
Tenement Museum) on “Runaway Husbands, Desperate Families: The Story of the
National Desertion Bureau.”
https://programs.cjh.org/event/runaway-husbands-2024-06-17
2024: The Wiener Holocaust Library is scheduled
to “celebrate” Refugee Week, the world’s largest arts & culture festival
celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people
seeking sanctuary” which was established in 1998 in the UK with events,
exhibitions, and presenting online resources reflecting this year’s theme: “Our Home”.
2024; The Jewish Gun Violence Roundtable is
scheduled is scheduled to host “an online conversation with esteemed panelists
Rabbi Tamar Manasseh (Founder, Mothers and Men Against Senseless Killings), Dr.
Chana Sacks (Co-Director, Massachusetts General Hospital Gun Violence
Prevention Center), Dr. Robbie Goldstein (Commissioner, Massachusetts
Department of Public Health), and Dr. Dorothy Novick (PCP, Children’s Hospital
of Philadelphia) about how to keep our children safe from gun violence.”
2024: The state of Iowa’s Attorney General’s Anti-Semitism Task Force
chaired by Dan Breithbarth, the Assistant Attorney General for Legislative
Affairs is scheduled to meet this afternoon in Des Moines, IA.
2024: As June 17th begins in Israel, an unprecedented wave of
anti-Semitism that has included Hamas supporters calling for Zionist passengers
on a New York subway to raise their hands, sweeps the United States and the
Hamas held hostages begin day 255 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.)
ourcog 
