This Day, January 23, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
January 23
393: Roman
Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his nine-year-old son Honorius co-emperor.
“Under the rule of Theodosius and his sons… the Christian church consolidated
its position as the sole power in the empire,” became less tolerant and the Jews
“suffered in inverse proportion to the strength of the emperor’s personality.”
1002: Otto
III, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire passed away. No, Otto was not Jewish. But
his passing offers an instructive note when studying history, especially Jewish
history. A thousand years ago, Otto was the “George Bush” of his day, a major
political and military leader. Otto lived in the same century as Rashi, a guy
who sold wine in a small town in France. We remember Rashi. Rashi still speaks
to us today infusing our lives in ways in which we are not aware. Who remembers
Otto?
1199:
Birthdate of Almohad ruler Abu Yusuf who ordered the Jews of the Maghreb to
wear dark blue garments with long sleeves and saddle-like caps. His grandson
Abdallah al-Adil made a concession after appeals from the Jews, relaxing the
required clothing to yellow garments and turbans.
1235: False
accusations of Ritual Murder at Baden, Germany resulted in a massacre of the
Jewish population.
1295: Boniface
VIII consecrated as Pope. During his Papacy he will issue “Unam Sanctam”
a Bull that “declares there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church”
which means that all Jews are denied a portion in “the world to come.”
1295:
Consecration of Boniface VIII the pope who “objected to the erection of a new
synagogue in Trier, Germany,” who in 1297 “praised the queen of Sicily for
having expropriated the property of Jewish usurers,” who “in 1300 ordered the
expulsion of Jewish and Christian usurers from Avignon” and who made it a
matter of Canon Law that “Jews, even minors, once baptized must Christians.”
1350:
Birthdate of Vincent Ferrer, the native of Valencia, who was responsible for
the conversion of an untold number of Jews by methods that were other than just
an appeal to faith and who helped to flame the fires of anti-Semitism in
Iberia.
1490: At
Naples, the first printed edition of the Ramban’s “Sha’ar ha-Gemul,” The Gate
of Reward, was published by Joseph ben Jacob Gunzenhauser. Gunzenhauser and his
son Azriel had moved from southern Germany to Italy where “they produced
various books, including a Hagiographa with rabbinical commentaries, Avicenna's
medical Canon, and Abraham ibn Ezra's commentary on the Pentateuch.” Jacob
passed away in 1490, the same day that they published the Ramban’s seminal
work.
1492: At
Brescia. Italy, Gershon Soncino produced the first printed Chumash with
Megilot.
1519: Today,
Pope Leo X granted the “privilege of awarding eight benefices in five Polish
cathedrals to Queen Bona who thirty years later, in 1549 introduced regulations
“modifying and defining the rights of the Jewish community in Grodno dealing
with taxation and land ownership.
1571: The
Royal Exchange opens in London. The first Jewish broker was admitted to the
Royal Exchange in 1657; the same year a piece of land was purchased for a
Jewish cemetery in London.
1579: The
Union of Utrecht a treaty that forms a Protestant republic in the Netherlands
and that created the union which guaranteed religious peace under article 13
meaning that the persecuted Jews of Spain and Portugal could turn toward Holland
as a place of refuge was signed today.
1634: Trial of
the men implicated in the 'Complicidad Grande' (Great Complicity). Seventeen
arrests were made by the Inquisition after a man turned another man in for
being "unwilling to make a sale on Saturday," and for not wanting to
eat bacon. The man’s possessions were confiscated, more people were implicated,
and eventually a total of 81 persons would be locked up and their possessions
sequestered. These men were prominent businessmen of the Lima (Peru) community,
and their arrests and led to a "widespread commercial crisis" and
failure of the community bank.
1639: In Lima,
Peru, at an Auto Da Fe, more than eighty New Christians were burned, including
Francisco Maldonna de Silva (Elia Nazareno), after the Inquisition discovered
that they were holding regular Jewish services. De Silva spent 12 years in
prison, during which time he managed to write two books using a chicken bone
and charcoal. Each book was about 100 pages. He succeeded in putting together a
rope out of corn husks but instead of escaping he used it to visit other
prisoners urging them to believe in Judaism.
1656: French
Philosopher Blaise Pascal published the first of his Lettres provinciales.
Pascal did not radiate the anti-Semitism typical of so many European
intellectuals. Over 300 years ago, when King Louis XIV of France asked, the
great French philosopher, to give him proof of the supernatural. Pascal
answered: "Why, the Jews, your Majesty -- the Jews." The best proof
of the supernatural that Pascal could think of was: "The Jews."
1719: Creation
of the Principality of Liechtenstein which reportedly provided a refuge for 240
Jews fleeing the Nazis during the Holocaust.
1719(8th
of Shevat, 5479): Sarah Ashkenazi, the wife of Zebi Hirsch Ben Jacob Ashkenazi
and “the daughter of Meshullam Zalman Mirels Neumark, chief rabbi of Altona,
Hamburg, and Wandsbeck” passed away today.
1765:
Birthdate of Christian publisher Anton Von Schmid who served as an apprentice
to the court printer Joseph Edler von Kurzbeck who provided him with the
initial training that enabled him to become a leading printer of Hebrew books.
1769(15th
of Shevat, 5529): Tu B’Shevat
1770: Joseph
Abrahams, the son of Abraham Abrahams “was admitted as an attorney of the
King’s Bench” today.
1776: In
Aldingen, Elkele Kahn and Samuel Isaac Wormser gave birth to Isaac Wormser the
husband of Sheinle Ephraim and the father of Lewis, Pauline, Ephraim, Simon,
Ester and Marianne Wormser.
1777(15th
of Shevat, 5537): Tu B’Shevat
1777: Today,
as the Jews celebrated the New Year of Trees, “200 New Jersey Continentals”
under the command of General William Maxwell defeated two British regiments
near Woodbridge in part of campaign to deny the King’s forces food and forage
while they were in winter quarters.
1782: Bilhah
Polock and Joseph Jacobs gave birth Raphael Jacobs who passed away in New
Orleans.
1786(24th
of Shevat, 5546): Abraham Landauer, the Austrian born husband of Judith
Landauer and father of Judith, Aron and Elias Landauer passed away today.
1789: In
Washington, D.C., Georgetown becomes the first Catholic college in the United
States. Today approximately 650 of Georgetown’s 6,000 are Jewish and a thousand
of its 6,000 graduate students are Jewish. The school offers 35 Jewish studies
courses and students can major in Jewish Studies. The university also has an
active Hillel Chapter.
1793: Prussia
and Russia sign a treaty that is known as the Second Partition of Poland.
Each of these partitions resulted in Russia acquiring large chunks of Poland,
which she wanted, and large numbers of Jews which she did not want.
1805: Walter
Nathan married Sophia Friedberg at the Great Synagogue today.
1814(2nd
of Shevat, 5574): Francis Mosely, the son of Ephraim Mosely, the husband Elizabeth Samuel whom he married
in 1802 at the Great Synagogue in London and the father of Meyer and Ephraim
Mosely passed away today.
1815: In
England, Miriam Aaron and Abraham Franklin gave birth to Esther Franklin, the
wife of Jacob Liepman Prins with whom she had 13 children.
1822: Avigdor
ben Benjamin married Frumat bat Abraham today at the Western Synagogue.
1828: Judah
Casper married Rachel Michael at the Great Synagogue today
1831(9th
of Shevat, 5591): Roschen “Rose” Levy, the eight-month-old daughter of Hannchen
and Moses Nathan Levy passed away today in her hometown of Hamburg, Germany.
1831:
Birthdate of London native Elisa Berger, the wife of Austrian native Leo Berger
and the mother of Eleanor, Philip, Frank, Nanette and Charles Berger all of
whom were born in London.
1833: Leman
Levi married Elizabeth Meyers at the Great Synagogue today.
1837:
Birthdate of Copenhagen native and University of Copenhagen graduate Ernst
Johannes Trier who founded a high school at Vallekilde which offers not only
the ordinary high-school curriculum of studies, but also courses in navigation
and in various branches of trade.
1838: David
Judah Alberga married Henrietta Delgado today.
1840:
Birthdate of Warsaw native William Rudolph Landstein who apparently lived in
China since he was buried at the Happy Valley Jewish Cemetery in Hong Kong.
1840: Birthdate
of Philadelphian Pauline Allman, the wife of David Allman and the mother of Estell,
Claudia, Millard, Belle, Hattie, Blanche, Justin and Sydney Allman.
1844: Nine days
after she had passed away, the will of Rebecca Isaacs, the wife of diamond
merchant Lazarus Isaacs and the mother of Annie Isaacs was abstracted today.
1846: “Samuel
and Jeanette Bloch” gave birth to Leopold Bloch who married Klara Bloch after
the end of his marriage to Babette Bloch.
1849: In
Albany, NY, Joseph Ehrich and Rebecca Sporborg gave birth to Yale educated art
dealer and “hard money advocate” Louis R. Ehrich, the husband of Henriette
Minzesheimer and founder of the Ehrich Galleries on New York’s Fifth Avenue.
1851: In Leer,
Lower Saxony, Germany, Moses and Betty Gans gave birth to Isaac Gans, the husband
of Diertjen Jette Fischer and father of Betty Gans; Sophie Gans and Moses Gans.
1854: In
London, Louis and Rachel Greenbaum gave birth to Samuel Greenbaum, the Columbia
trained attorney and husband of Selina Ullman who served three years as an
Associate Justice of the Appellate Division in New York while also serving as
President of The Educational alliance, Vice President of the Baron de Hirsch
fund and trustee of the Jewish Theological Seminary.
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/courts/ad1/centennial/Bios/sgreenbaum2.shtml
1855: In New
York City, a complaint was entered today in "The Mayor's Little Black
Book" stating that on Chatham Street "a Jewish drummer is stationed
in front of his store insulting passengers as they pass along. The latter
nuisance is glaring and intolerable...and calls for intervention of the proper
authorities." Chatham Street was the heart of the second-hand clothing
“industry” and was equated with Jews in a most uncomplimentary way.
1855:
Middlesex natives Grace Josephs and Jones Syper gave birth to Solomon Spyer.
1856: In
Philadelphia, Morris Rosenthal and Jeanette Wallerstein Ahrndt gave birth to
Henrietta Radzinski, the wife of A. Isaac Radzinski and Chicago social activist
who served as a member of the national board of the Council of Jewish Women,
President of the Baron Hirsch Ladies’ Aid Society and the director of the
Chicago Home for Jewish Orphans.
1858: In Ft.
Recovery, OH, Fannie Steinfeld and Gottlieb Kiser gave birth to medical school
dropout Sol S. Kiser, who settled in Indianapolis where he established a
clothing store, dealt in real estate and organized the Meyer-Kiser Bank while
servings as a director and trustee of the National Jewish Hospital for
Consumptives in Denver and the Cleveland Jewish Orphan Home
1864(15th of
Shevat, 5624): As the United States entered into its first Presidential
election campaign during wartime, Jews observe Tu B’Shevat
1870: In
Bromberg, Germany, Cecily W. Hirschberg and Samuel Friedlander gave birth to
electrical engineer Eugene Friedlander, the husband of Emily Wolf whom he
married in San Antonio, TX and a member of Rodeph Sholom Congregation in
Pittsburgh who spent 30 years with “Steel Corporation at their Carnegie Works”
where he “was instrumental in electrifying the steel industry” and who in 1924
accepted a “position with Kaufman’s
Department Stores in Pittsburgh” to serve as “engineer, architect and
superintendent of maintenance for all of their properties.”
1871(1st of
Shevat, 5631): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1871: In New
Yok Henry B. Herts and Esther Moss gave birth to CCNY and Columbia University
education architect and engineer Henry B. Herts who along with his partner Hugh
Tallant designed The Amsterdam Theatre, the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway and the
Follies Bergère on West 46th Street.
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095933423
1871(1st
of Shevat, 5631): Fifty-two-year-old Samuel (Isaac) Henry Gluckstein, the
husband of Hannah Coenraad Gluckstein and the brother of Henry Gluckstein with
whom he began a cigar making business in England which he later turned into a
cigar manufacturing jointly run with his son Isidore and Montague passed away
today.
1872: Two days
after she had passed away, 30-year-old Caroline Abrahams, the daughter of Myer
Myers and the wife of Barnet Henry Abrahams with whom she had had two sons –
Joseph and Henry [[ was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”
1873:
Birthdate of Odessa native Jacob Chase who in 1899 came to the United States
where he settled in Red Wing, MN.
1873: In
Wheeling, West Virginia, Lena Berg and Herman Hirschfield gave birth to
Princeton graduate and University of Pittsburgh trained Benjamin Lewis
Hrischfeld, the winner of the Baird and Lynne prizes and treasure of the
Blaw-Konx Company, general fabricator of steel who served as a director of the
Federation of Jewish Charities of Pittsburgh and the Y.M. and W.H.A. of
Pittsburgh while being a member of the Rodef Shalom Congregation.
1873: A large
crowd braved a snowstorm to hear a lecture at the Beeckman Street Church by
Jewish humorist Raphael De Cordova entitled “The New Clergyman.”
1878: Marcus
J. Waldheimer, a partner in the firm of Townsend & Waldheimer, denied
reports that his father-in-law, Leopold Bamberger, had disappeared. Waldheimer
said that Bamberger who has been holding funds in trust that are related to a
messy bankruptcy case, has “merely left…temporarily for recreation.”
1879: In New
York City, Hannah Gorechter and David Davidson gave birth to CCNY and NYU Law
School graduate Dr. Gabriel Davidson, the managing director of the Jewish
Agricultural Society, author of Our Jewish Farmers and an active member of the
Jewish community as can be seen by his membership in the American Jewish
Historical Society and the American Friends of the Hebrew University.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/11/09/92655404.pdf
1879: It was
reported today that a revised edition of “Hebrew Men and Times from the
Patriarchs to the Messiah” by Joseph Henry Allen will be reissued by Roberts
Brothers
1882: In St.
Paul, MN, the Daily Globe reviewed “Hearts of Oak,” an American melodrama
co-authored by David Belasco.
1883: Fifty-one-year-old
French artist Gustave Doré who illustrated “The Wandering Jew” passed away
today.
http://www.wikiart.org/en/gustave-dore/the-wandering-jew
http://www.amazon.com/Legend-Wandering-Jew-Joseph-Gaer/dp/B0000CKZDK
1884: The
first four page edition of the Financial and Mining News founded by
Harry Marks which became the Financial News appeared today
1888(10th
of Shevat, 5648): Max Hoffheimer, a member of the board of Hebrew Union College
passed away today.
1888(10th
of Shevat, 5648): Morris L. Goodman, “the Jewish Los Angeles City Council
member” who served as a deputy sheriff and a member of the Los Angeles County
Board of Supervisors before opening a dry goods store I Anaheim, CA passed away
today.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160304200224/http://file.lacounty.gov/lac/mlgoodman.pdf
1888:
Birthdate of Russian native and graduate of the Hebrew Technical Institute
Morris Sprayregen, the president of the Cloak, Suit and Skirt Manufacturers’
Protective Association and member of the New York Stock Exchange specializing
in railroad securities who had one daughter, Jacqueline, with his wife “the
former Charlotte Kaiser.”
1888: In
Breslau, Jewish businessman Max Bernstein and his wife Franziska Altmann gave
birth to Arnold Bernstein, the German-American shipowner who was stripped of
his assets and imprisoned by the Nazis before making his way to the United
States in 1939.
1889(21st
Shevat, 5649): After suffering a stroke, thirty-nine-year-old “English singer,
actress, theatre manager and writer of the late Victorian era” Selina Simmons Belasco
Dolaro, the London bon daughter of violinist and conductor Benjamin and Julia
Lewis passed away today after which she was buried in the Beth Olam Cemetery in
New York City.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/dolaro-selina
1889: French
painter Alexandre Cabanel, who taught and was the greatest influence on the
work of, Jewish painter Solomon Joseph Solomon, passed away.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solomon_Ajax_and_Cassandra.jpg
1891:
Birthdate of Jonas Bernanke. Born in Boryslav, which was then part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, he eventually made his way to Dillon, South Carolina
where he owned a drug store and raised a son named Ben who would become
Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
1891: In New
York Harry Sachs and his wife gave birth to Joseph Howard Sachs, Harvard Grad
class of 1911, an investment banker with Goldman, Sachs and the husband of
Eleanor Burtis Sachs.
1891: The
funeral of Lazarus Rosenfeld who had served as Vice President of Temple Emanu
El and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan
Asylum are scheduled to be held at his home at 139 Madison Avenue starting at
9:30 a.m,
1892: It was
reported today that the Russian government is taking a variety of measures to
avert the repetition another famine including postponing “the enactment of the
laws” aimed at the Jews.
1892:
Birthdate of Moritz Neumann one of the last Jewish inhabitants of Kleinsteinach
whom the Nazis shipped to either Izbica or Theresienstadt.
1893: The New York Times featured a review of A
Visit to Wazan: The Sacred City of Morocco by Robert Spence Watson. Watson
used a letter of introduction from Sir Moses Montefiore to the Chief Rabbi of
Morocco “as a passport to meeting Jews” wherever he went. Watson reported that
Montefiore’s efforts on behalf of the Moroccan Jews had improved their
condition including the comment that “the children of the better class of Jews
of Tangiers are taught in English” and use English textbooks.
1893: “Heine
in his Family Life” published today provides a detailed review of The Family
Life of Heinrich Heine written by his nephew, Baron Ludwig von Embden.
1893: It was
reported today that while Richard Mansfield’s depiction of Shylock vividly
portray “his hatred, his vindictiveness” and “his implacable cruelty in the
pursuit of revenge” “he is much more successful than any other actor…in this
day, in denoting the affection of the Jew for his kind and the intense mental
agony he suffers over Jessica. His portrayal is deemed as “less
theatrical and more human than others.” (Over the centuries, the
portrayal of Shylock has reflected the skill of the actors and, more to the
point, the view of Jews in current society.)
1893: It was
reported that Emma Goldman spoke at a meeting of anarchists who call themselves
the Pioneers of Liberty.
1894:
Birthdate of Bukovina native and Yiddish author and editor Shalom Adler-Rudel, who
“contributed to Undzer bavegung (Our movement), Virtshaft un lebn (Economy and
life), Der veg (The way), and a number of Jewish-German publications (Berlin)
and Jewish-English publications (London), as well as Hapoel hatsair (Youth
laborer) and Davar (Word) in Tel Aviv” and who beginning in “1921 devoted
himself to Jewish refugee care. He maintained important positions in the Poale
Tsiyon movement and in the Jewish Agency.”
https://congressforjewishculture.org/lexicon/t/7066
1894: It was
reported today that the “stores and fuel yards” that have been provided by
Nathan Straus during the current Depression have been “besieged” by the poor
and needy.
1895: In
Brooklyn, at the Academy of Music Mr. and Mrs. Moses May led the grand march at
the charity ball attended by 2,000 people that raise over $10,000 for the
Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
1895: In New
York, the Young Ladies' and Gentlemen's League of the Montefiore Home sponsored
a grand ball to raise funds for the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids. The
successful fund raiser was attended by members of “the best circles of Jewish
society.” The dances for the Montefiore Home have replaced the Purim Balls
which up until two years ago were the great fund raising and major winter
social events of these prosperous Jewish citizens.
1895: It was
reported today that “Congregation Shearith Israel has abandoned the idea of
selling the synagogue property on 19th Street between 5th
and 6th Avenues.
1896: It was
reported today that the officers of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society are: Moses
May, President; Abraham Abraham, Vice President; Herman Newman, Treasurer.
1896:
Notorious German anti-Semitic agitator Hermann Ahlwardt addressed a meeting at
Proesser’s in Jersey City, NJ.
1897: It was
reported today that Scribner’s is ready to publish Professor Charles F. Kent’s
second volume of the History of the Hebrew People.
1898: An
anti-Dreyfus/anti-Zola demonstration was scheduled to take place on the Place
de la Concorde in Paris.
1898:
Ant-Semitic riots continued today in Algiers when “the mob invaded the Jews
quarter and pillaged the shops in the Rue Babaoum, driving the Jewish merchants
into the streets.”
1898: It was
reported today that Selah Miller, a Congregationalist Minister from
Massachusetts has been reappointed to by the President as U.S. Consul at
Jerusalem. He had served in that capacity from 1882 to 1886.
1898: The
annual meeting of the Mount Sinai Hospital Society was held today in the
Dispensary building on east 67th Street.
1898: “A
Man Fasts For Twenty Years” published today describes the regiment followed by
Morris Fox, a forty year old Jew from Russia who has been living in London for
the last twenty years. During that time he has lived exclusively on a
diet of six pints of milk, three pints of beer and half pound of Demerara
sugar. Physicians in Konigsberg provided this “fast” which has proven to
be the only way to cope with effects of an illness that “entirely destroyed his
digestive organs.”
1898: One day
after he had passed away, 35 year old Mendel Hoffman was buried today at the
“Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1898: It was
reported today that the ant-Dreyfus riots at “Nantes, Bordeaux, Marseilles” and
other cities outside of Paris “are frankly anti-Semitic…The mobs have a single
purpose which is to outrage, plunder and kill in the Jewish quarters.”
Their cries against Zola are based on their belief that he is a “hired
champion” of the Jews. (More for 2014)
1898: It
was reported today that American correspondent does not think that Sarah
Bernhardt will enjoy a successful season this winter when she performs in
Paris.
1898: It
was reported today that Justice J.J. Cohen, Isaac N. Seligman and Jacob Schiff
were among those who attended Legal Aid Society’s 22nd annual dinner
at Delmonico’s. (More 2014)
1898
(29th of Tevet, 5658): Yehoshua Yehudah Leib Diskin passed away. Born in 1818,
this important rabbi, Talmudist and Biblical commentator was also known as the
Maharil Diskin. He served as a rabbi in Łomża, Mezritch, Kovno, Shklov, Brisk
and finally Jerusalem after moving there in 1878, where he became the spiritual
leader of a part of the Yishuv haYashan. He was part of a family of rabbis. His
father, Binyamin Diskin, served as rabbi in Grodno, Volkovisk and later Łomża.
His son was Rabbi Yitzchok Yeruchem Diskin.
1899: Henry
Herzberg delivered a lecture at Temple Beth-El tonight in New York entitled
“The Soul of Judaism.
1899: Three
days after he had passed away, 45-year-old Walter Bertram Phillips the sone of
Barnet Samuel Phillips and Philippa Samuel was buried today at the “Balls Pond
Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1899: The
Baron de Hirsch Trade Schools are scheduled to move into a new facility on East
Sixty Fourth Street. The school had outgrown its old facility on East 9th
Street that it had occupied for the last five years.
1899(12th
of Shevat, 5659): Five months before his 50th birthday Bohemian
born, University of Vienna trained lawyer Emil Schiff who worked as a
journalist while piling up knowledge that he never used for practical purpose
including the study of “higher mathematics at Berlin University and graduating
from Medical School passed away after which a memorial address was delivered at
the Berlin Medical Society.
1899: It was
reported today that newly created Central Federate Union which has replaced the
old Central Labor Union refused to admit delegates from the Federated Hebrew
Trades Unions because “they represented a central body and not individual
unions.”
1899: In
Albany, New York state Senator Elsbeg introduced a bill that would the Hebrew
Infant Asylum of New York to the list of institutions that are entitled to
receive public money.
1900(23rd
of Shevat, 5660): English born “communal worker” Alfred H. Beddington, a warden
of the Central Synagogue and a member of committees devoted to “the Jews’ Free
School, the Jews’ College, the Jewish Middle-Class School for Girls and the
Jewish Association for the Diffusion of Religious Knowledge passed away today
1900: The
Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society whose members include Alfred
Jaretzki, Percy S. Straus, Eugene Meyer, Jr. and Solomon G. Rosnebaum was
organized today.
1901: Tonight,
at the Educational Alliance on East Broadway “more than 1,000 Hebrews of the
east side, together with many wealthier persons actively interested in
charitable worked attended the ninth annual meeting of the Hebrew Free Loan
Association” which had been “formed on the lines laid down by the late Baroness
de Hirsch and which lends money to the worthy poor in sums from $10 to $100 on
notes made by themselves and endorsed by a responsible party” which does not
make any charge for the service.
1902(15th
of Shevat, 5662): Tu B’Shevat
1902: The
President of the Equitable Life Insurance Company denied that a combine that
included Kuhn, Loeb and Company and Jacob H. Schiff has bought the company.
1902: In Grass
Valley, CA, Polish-Jewish immigrants Fannie (Meyer) and Zalkin H. Rubinstein
gave birth to Cecilia Rubinstein who as Cecelia Ager, the wife of songwriter
Milton Agar, “was the first female reporter for Variety, a movie critic for PM
and contributor to the New York Times”
while raising their two daughters -- Laurel Bentley and Shana Alexander.
1903(24th
of Tevet, 5663): Sixty-seven-year-old Jonas Leopold Brendis, the Prague born son
of Lazar Brandeis and Helena Brandeis, the husband of Franziska Brandeis and father
of Emil Franklin Brandeis; Sarah Cohn; Hugo Brandeis and Arthur D. Brandeis who
the founder of the J. L. Brandeis
Stores in Omaha, Nebraska, passed away today in Omaha
1903: In
making comments today about the plans of Charles Frohman, the Ohio born Jewish
theatre manager and producer to host “a testimonial for A.M. Palmer,” theatre
people said that this “testimonial must be a graceful way of indicating that
all past differences between the two managers was at an end.”
1904(6th
of Shevat, 5664): Sixty-two-year-old Flaminio Ephraim Servi who had been
serving as chief rabbi at Casale-Monferrato (Italy) since 1872, passed away
today.
1904:
Herzl was received by the Italian King, Vittorio Emanuele III. The king showed
a serious interest in Zionism. But under the Italian political system, the king
reigns but does not rule so it will be to Foreign Minister Tittoni to gain
political support in Constantinople. Tittoni asked for a memorandum and
promised to write to the Italian ambassador in Constantinople.
1905: In
Albany, Melvil Dewey, Director of the State Library of the state Library
tonight made public the reply which he had sent to the Library Committee’s
Board of Regents, in response to a request from the committee for an answer to
the charge made against him…that while using his official position to advertise
the Lake Place Club he was a party to a rule of the club that Jews should not
be received as guests at the club’s hotel in which he stated that the Jews had
not been admitted to his Lake Placid Club since its founding in 1895 but while
the allegations were true they were not, in his words “serious.” (Editor’s note – this is the Dewey of Dewey
Decimal fame whose anti-Semitism is not something they teach us about in
school)
1906: It was
reported today that a mass meeting held in New York to celebrate the first
anniversary of “Red Sunday” when thousands of workingmen were shot down in St.
Petersburg when they tried to deliver a petition to the Czar there were cries
of “Down with anti-Semitism” followed later by a denunciation of “the massacre
of the Jews.”
1907(8th
of Shevat, 5667): Ten days after his 60th birthday, Berdichev native
Osip Mikhailovich Lerner also known as Y. Y. (Yosef Yehuda) Lerner, a
19th-century Russian Jewish intellectual, writer, and critic who was the
husband of Mariam Rabinovitch and father of pianist Tina Lerner passed away
today.
1907: Columbia
graduate Jean Starr, the Zanesville, OH, born daughter of Abram E. and Hannah
(Schofeld) Starr who wrote Growing Pains and Dreams Out of Darkness
and sang professionally in Vienna and London became Jean Starr Untermeyer who
she married Louis Untermeyer today,
1907: It was
reported today that “Max Marks has brought…several plots aggregating
forty-acres” in Westchester County, NY “for a Hebrew charitable organization.”
1908: “Attacks
Immigrant Jews” published today described how a speech delivered by William H.
Corbin in which he described Jews as “ignorant an dirty…crowding the schools
and high schools” and “crowding their way into the professions to practice them
for getting money…while working with low ideals and sordid practices” was
received with applause by the 150 members of the Chenango County Society
meeting at the Hotel Astor.
1909(1st
of Shevat, 5669): Parashat Vaera; Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1909: As part
of the meeting of the 21st council of the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations in Philadelphia, Rabbi Joseph Stolz of Chicago is scheduled to
deliver a sermon a Rodeph Shalom today.
1909:
Birthdate of Simon W. Gerson, a leader of CPUSA and editor for The Daily
Worker.
1909: As part
of the meeting of the 21st council of the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations in Philadelphia, Moses J. Gries of Cleveland is scheduled to
deliver a sermon at Keneseth Israel.
1909: In the
UK, Blanche Esther Barnett and Lionel D. Barnett, M.A., Ph.D., CB gave birth
Richard David Barnett, the British academic, “an authority on archaeology of
the ancient world”, President of the Jewish Historical Society of England,
Chairman of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society and the husband of Barbara
Barnett.
1909: Tonight,
Professor Adolph Werner was one of the featured speakers at “the annual dinner
of the Associated Alumni of the City College which was held at the Hotel Astor.
1910: “A
benefit performance for the National Jewish Hospital Consumptives at Denver,” a
non-sectarian facility that treats patients for “free” is scheduled to take
place this evening at the Broadway in Manhattan.
1910:
The Board of Directors of Mount Sinai Hospital held their annual board meeting
today at the hospital on 100th Street and Fifth Avenue. During the reading of
the annual report Isaac Stern, the President, announced that the plan to
establish a federation of the larger Jewish charitable institutions of the
city, a plan for some time in contemplation, had failed. Mr. Stern said that
there were certain disadvantages to the creation of such a federation without
the guarantee of “any permanent advantages.” Therefore, the directors
considered it “in the best interest of the community not give their consent” to
such a plan. Mr. Stern announced that the children of the late Mayer Lehman had
donated $78,528 which was to be used to add two stories to the Dispensary
Building as a memorial to their late father. In the past year, almost 89% of
the nearly 9,000 patients admitted to the hospital were treated without paying
a fee. The hospital’s expenditure of $399,170 exceeded income by almost
$15,000. Jacob Schiff, who apparently favored the creation of the federation,
gave a speech in which he thanked the board and the medical staff for their
efforts in the last year. The board’s decision about joining a federation of
charitable institutions doomed the idea at a cost of one million dollars. That
was the amount that the late Louis A. Heinsheimer had set aside in his will for
such an organization, if and when, it should be created.
1911: It
was reported today that “the Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Charities” showed
receipts for 1910 of $90,180 “compared with $81,877 in 1909 for an increase of
$8,303.
1912: Hugo
Doblin and Herwatch Walden served as best men at the wedding Erna Reiss, a
medical student and daughter of a wealthy factory owner to Bruno Alfred Döblin
whose works including Berlin Alexanderplatz published in 1929
1913(15th
of Shevat, 5673): Tu B’Shevat
1913:
The annual meeting of the United States Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC
which S.S. Brill of St. Louis attended as a delegate came to an end.
1913:
The 3-day ceremonies marking the dedication of new buildings at Hebrew Union
College in Cincinnati, Ohio, came to an end today.
1913: At
today’s session of the 23rd Biennial Council of the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations Simon Wolf of Washington, DC, Chairman of the
Board of Civil and Religious Rights delivered a report on his group’s
activities which have “dealt with the problems of immigration” and providing
clarification for the general public of matters” regarding the unfair
discrimination to American citizenship by the Russian authorities in the recent
passport legislation.”
1914: Henry
Green, the organizer of the Jewish-American Rumanian Committee which was formed
to protest against the Rumanian Government’s policy concerning the Jews is
scheduled to attend the International Conference opening today at Berlin.
1914: Sir
Johnston Forbes-Robertson is scheduled to appear for the last time on the New
York stage when he plays the starring role in “The Merchant of Venice” at the
Manhattan Opera House.
1915:
Among those listed today as contributors to the Red Cross fund of which Jacob
H. Schiff is Treasurer is Congregation B’Nai Israel of Natchez, Mississippi.
1915:
“The American Jewish War Relief Committee of which Louis Marshall is President
and Felix M. Warburg is a Treasurer issued a statement today showing that since
December 13 the committee has sent $200,000 to Europe and Palestine” and that
to date “the committee’s relief fund” now totals “more than $378,000.
1916: In New
York City, Jewish immigrants Samuel and Bella Price, who would move to San
Diego in the 1920’s gave birth to Sol Price, the founder of Price Club which
later merged with warehouse giant Cosco.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/business/16price.html
1916: Birthdate
of Irwin Witty who played Center for the 1938 NYU basketball team which he led
to their first appearance in a “final four tournament” – The NIT.
1916: It was
reported today that the American Jewish Relief Committee has received to date
$1,236,846 including a contribution of $328.32 from the Provisional Executive
Committee “for the relief of Jews in Palestine” and $250 form “Minneapolis
Jews.”
1916: At
Carnegie Hall, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, rabbi of the Free Synagogue delivered a
sermon today in which he defended Zionism from charges that it was un-patriotic
and un-American.
1916: “United
States Senator Martin of New Jersey, Mayor Mitchell, Commissioner of
Immigration Frederick C. Howe, New York Congressman Walter M. Chandler and
Isaac Siegel, Louis D. Brandeis, Adolph Lewisohn, Samuel Untermyer and Judge
Leon Sanders” are all reported to be among the speakers who will address
tomorrow evening’s meeting at Carnegie Hall hosted by the Jewish Congress
Organization Committee.
1916: “College
of Physicians and Surgeons” trained ear, nose and throat surgeon Eugene Lee
Myers, the St. Louis born son of Sarah Greengard and Lee Myers and
bronchoscopist at the Jewish Hospital in St. Louis who was the “assistant
auto-rhino-laryngologist at the Jewish Hospital in St. Louis and a member of
B’nai El Congregation married Faletia Ray today in East St. Louis, IL.
1917: Dr. Lee K. Frankel, the Philadelphia born son of Aurelia
Lobenburg and Louis Frankel and the husband of Alice Reizenstein who held a PhD
from Penn where he taught Chemistry became a “third vice president at
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company today
1917: It
was reported today that Dr. H.G. Enelow, the rabbi at Temple Emanu-El told an
audience that included Jews and non-Jews that “Jewish interest in Jesus should
be aroused…by the fact that Jesus was a Jew” and that while such writers as
Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and George Moore were “brilliant” their views on this
topic were “inaccurate” because “they did not know enough about Jesus’ relation
to the Jews to fit them for the instruction of others.”
1918: In New
York Bertha Cohen and Robert Elion, DDS, gave birth to Gertrude Belle Elion.
Elion graduated from Hunter College and then earned a Master in Science from
N.Y.U. in 1941. In a classic case of sex discrimination, she was unable to
obtain a graduate research job which meant she could not earn a Ph.D. Thus the
1988 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine ended up working as
a lab assistant and high school teacher.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1988/elion/biographical/
1918: The list
of the newest members of the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Relief
Committee published today including William Fox of New York, Moses A. Gunst of
San Francisco, Samuel Lamport of New York City, Joseph Michaels of Rochester,
NY, H.B. Rosen from the Harrison National Bank of New York City, Abe Rothstein
of New York City, Reuben Sadowsky of New York City, Ben Salling of Portland, OR
Jacob Sperber of New York City and Judge Edward L. Lazansky of Brooklyn.
1918:
The Chief Rabbi of Algeria plans a community building which will contain a
yeshiva, an assembly hall, a library, shelter for strangers, a mikvah and a
bakery for matzah.
1919:
Birthdate of Patterson NJ native and West Virginia football player Millard
Lampell the blacklisted television and movie screenwriter whose first brush
with social protest appears to have come from songwriting with Pete Seeger and
Woody Guthrie,
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/11/arts/millard-lampell-78-writer-and-supporter-of-causes-dies.html
1919: In
Mannville, Alberta, Max Goffman, and his wife, Ann (née Averbach) gave birth to
Frances Goffman who gained fame as character actress Frances Bey who played
Fonzi’s grandmother on “Happy Days.”
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/17/local/la-me-frances-bay-20110917
1919:
General Lyautey, the resident General of Morocco visits the Mellah (Jewish
Quarter) and urges the Jews to contribute towards its sanitation and
enlargement.
1920: In New
York, Joseph Frederick “Joe” Saphir, the son of Louis and Bessie Saphir and his
wife Elsa Saphir gave birth to Lois Saphir Lee.
1920: In
Berlin, while addressing the Prussian Parliament, the Minister of State
“proposes that alien Jews be interred in concentration camps.”
1921:
Birthdate of Gdansk native Justus Rosenberg, a member of Vivian’s Fry’s
Emergency Rescue Committee which helped to spirit “intellectuals and artists”
out of Vichy France and went on to a career as a Professor at Bard College.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/nyregion/justus-rosenberg-dead.html
1921: “The Ohel
Rachel Synagogue (Tent of Rachel), a Sephardi synagogue in Shanghai, China, built
by Sir Jacob Elias Sassoon in memory of his wife Rachel, which was completed in
1920, was consecrated today under the leadership of Rabbi Hirsch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohel_Rachel_Synagogue#/media/File:Ohel_Rachel_Synagogue_old.jpg
1921: The
members of the directorate are scheduled to talk about the year’s
accomplishment today at the annual meeting of the Bronx Hospital at Temple
Adath Israel.
1921: In
Shanghai, Rabbi W. Hirsch consecrated The Ohel Rachel Synagogue for worship.
This marked the culminating achievement of Shanghai's First Wave of Jewish
immigrants and it was built to accommodate the community of Baghdadi Jews which
at its peak numbered 700.
1921:
Approximately three students are scheduled to receive their diplomas when
“twelve of the largest Talmud Torahs and Hebrew Schools in Manhattan hold joint
graduation exercises” today “at Stuyvesant High School after which Israel
Unterberg, Samuel C. Lamport, Joseph Levy and Harry H. Liebowitz will host a
dinner at the Jewish Center.
1922: “Abuses
leading from the issuance of permits for sacramental wine were discussed this
afternoon at the convention of the United Synagogue of America representing
almost 200 conservative congregations” after which a resolution which sought to
have individuals desiring wine for sacramental purposes deal directly with the
prohibition enforcement officials was introduced.
1923:
Birthdate of Dina Gottliebova, the native of Brno who gained fame as Dina
Babbit who survived Auschwitz by drawing portraits of Dr. Josef Menegle
1923: “The
Stone Rider” a silent film starring Lucie Mannheim was released today in
Germany.
1923 (6th of
Shevat, 5683): Max Nordau passed away at the age of 73. http://www.herzl.org/english/Article.aspx?Item=531
http://www.zionism-israel.com/bio/Nordau_Biography.htm
1924: Laborite
Emmanuel “Manny” Shinwell began his first term as Secretary of Mines under
Prime Minister MacDonald.
1924: In
Paterson, NJ, Sam and Mollie Lautenberg gave birth to Frank Lautenberg who rose
to be a United States, a support of the down-trodden and a leader in the Jewish
community.
http://www.jta.org/2013/06/03/news-opinion/politics/new-jersey-sen-frank-lautenberg-dies-at-89
1925: In
Rokiskis, Lithuania, Avraham and Devora Harmatz, gave birth to Joseph Harmatz,
a Holocaust survivor and comrade of Abba Kovner who plotted to kill German
soldiers at WW II passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/world/europe/joseph-harmatz-dead.html?_r=0
1925:
Birthdate of Yonkers, NY native and Erasmus Hall High graduate Doris Hoffman
Scherback who lived with her husband Boris in Danville, VA from 1947 to 1948
“where he worked wit the Textile Workers
Union and she registered minority voters” and who retired as the “Executive
Secretary to the Director of the National Center for Health Statistics in 1987
after twenty years of government service” while raising two children – Janet
and David.
1926(8th
of Shevat, 5686): Parashat Bo
1926: It was
announced today that “Henry M. Toch has been elected Chairman of the New York
Committee for School Extension of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations to
succeed the Late Judge David Leventritt.”
1927(20th
of Shevat, 5687): Author Annie Eichberg Lane, the only daughter of composer and
musical director Julius Eichberg passed away today.
1927: It was
reported today that “the newly-elected officers of the Federal of Jewish
women’s Organizations of Greater New York will be installed at the seventh
annual convention of the organization” which will take place this at the Hotel
Astor.
1928: “The
tenth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration…was celebrated” tonight “at the
Grand Street Boys’ Association Clubhouse under the auspices of the West End
group of Hadassah” during which Dr. Stephen S. Wise “urged Jews to cooperate
with England in building Palestine.”
1929(12th
of Shevat, 5689): Seventy-one-year-old Emily Speilman, the London born daughter
of Sir Joseph Sebag-Montefiore and Adelaide Sebag-Montefiore and wife of Sir
Isidore Spielmann passed away today.
1929:
Birthdate of Myron Sidney Kopelman, who, as Myron Cope, would become an
American sports journalist, radio personality, and sportscaster best known for
being "the voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers."
1930: “A
verdict of not guilty was pronounced this afternoon on all twelve Arabs charged
with the murder of five members of the Macleff family and their two guests at
the Jewish colony of Motzah, five miles outside of Jerusalem, on Saturday, Aug.
24.”
1931: “The Man
Who Murdered” a crime film directed by Curtis Bernhardt with a script by Henry
Koster and Carl Mayer was released today in Germany.
1931: Sir
Isaac Isaacs was sworn in as the first Australian born Governor General.
1931: Ninety-one-year-old
Catholic theologian and author of anti-Semitic polemics August Rohling whose
work included Der Talmudjude published in 1871 “which bean a
standard work for anti-Semitic authors and journalist” passed away today in
Salzburg.
1932(15th
of Shevat, 5692): Parashat Beshalach; Tu B’Shevat
1932(15th
of Shevat, 5692): Fifty-year-old Australian born, Laborite MP Marion Phillips
passed away today.
https://spartacus-educational.com/Amarion_phillips.htm
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/Phillips-Marion
1932: Chief
Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo of the Court of Appeals was formally endorsed for
associate justice of the United States Supreme Court to fill the seat recently
vacated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes at tonight’s closing session of the
annual meeting of the New York State Bar Association at the Hotel Astor
1932: In
Manhattan, Sidne Silverman, the son of Sime Silverman the publisher who founded
Variety in New York and Daily Variety in Hollywood and former actress Marie
Saxon gave birth to their only son Syd who continued the family publishing
business.
1933:
Birthdate of composer Joel Spiegelman.
1933: At 7:30
p.m., the NBC Blue Network broadcast the 9th episode of “Flywheel,
Shyster, and Flywheel, a situation comedy radio show starring two of the Marx
Brothers, Groucho and Chico, and written primarily by Nat Perrin and Arthur
Sheekman.”
1934: “No More
Ladies” a comedy produced by Lee Shubert and co-starring Melvyn Douglas opened
on Broadway at the Booth Theatre.
1935: “Harry
Schneiderman, assistant secretary of the American Jewish Committee for
twenty-six years, was honored by his associates in the field of religion,
education and social welfare at a luncheon today in the Hotel Vanderbilt on his
fiftieth birthday anniversary.”
1936: “The
social security act was declared to be ‘economically and socially unworkable’
by attorney Julius Leventhal and CPA Louis Weinstein in addresses before
members of the Waste Paper Association” at their meeting at the Broadway
Central Hotel today.
1936: Sir
Isaac Isaacs, a native-born Australian who was the son of Polish Jews,
completes his term as the 9th Governor-General of Australia.
1936: Senator
William H. King of Utah told the U.S. Senate today “that 600,000 Jews were”
being subjected to “ruthless persecution under decrees of the present German
regime” and that “Congress must soon face” the need to liberalize the
immigration laws of the United States “to permit the admission of Jewish
refugees from Germany.”
1937(11th
of Shevat, 5697): Parashat Beshalach; Shabbat Shirah
1937: Today,
the United Palestine Appeal released an economic survey on “How Many Jews Can
Palestine Hold?” by Joseph L. Cohen, “a British member of the advisor of the
committee on social insurance of the International Labor Organization” which
show among other things that the “Jewish population” in Palestine had
“increased from 17 to 30 per cent of the total population during the last few
years” and that today, “there are forty-seven Jews to every 100 Arabs.”
1937: In
Moscow, 17 leading Communists went on trial. They were accused of participating
in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime and
assassinate its leaders. Stalin combined Trotsky’s Jewish parentage with
traditional Russian anti-Semitism to demonize Trotsky and destroy those
opposing his authoritarian rule. Having branded the “Jew, Trostky” as an enemy
of the revolution, or the Communist Party and/or the Soviet Union, Stalin would
feel to move against the Jews of the U.S.S.R when it fit his needs or his
demonic spirit.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that two
Arabs, implicated in the murder of J.L. Starkey, a noted archaeologist who was
excavating in Palestine, were hanged at Acre. The Motza brick and burnt-tile
factory was completely gutted by fire. Arson by Arab terrorists was suspected. Ephraim
Brin, 19, and Aziz Jacob, 17, both of Jerusalem, were the first Jews to be
sentenced, under the newly created Military Courts, to five years' imprisonment
for carrying a pistol and a few rounds of ammunition.
1939(3rd
of Shevat, 5699): Sixty-five-year-old Courland, Latvia native Dr. Leopold
Jaches, the New York Law School attorney and Columbia University trained
physician who served as officer in France with the U.S. Army Medical Corps
during WW I and who became the chief of the X-Ray Department at Mt. Sinai
Hospital while raising a daughter Irene with his wife Miriam Jaches passed a
way today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1939/01/24/94669028.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1939: “The
body of a woman taken from the River Thames was identified today as that of
Countess Mari Kageneck, a wealthy Austrian Jew” and wife of a husband who
“holds a position in Vienna under the Nazi
regime” who had disappeared in
December at a time when she had been separated from her two children and Vienna
and was feeling great despair “over the persecution of the Jews in Germany.”
1940: In Perth
Amboy, NJ, Philip Kaplan Cheuse who defected from the Russian Air Force and the
former Matilda Diamond gave birth to author and critic Alan Stuart Cheuse.
1941(24th
of Tevet, 5701): Ninety-three-year-old Flora Ochs, the Louisville, KY born
daughter of Agatha Schwab and Maier Ochs passed away today in Fayette County,
KY.
1941: Charles
Lindbergh testified before the U.S. Congress and recommended that the United
States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler. For those who are
perplexed by Roosevelt’s response to the plight of European Jewry, this entry
should give you a clue as to the kind of the environment in which he was
operating. “The Lone Eagle” was a national monument and, as the leader of the
America First Movement, he saw WW II was a European measure. He would only
grudgingly give ground on his opposition to war once the bombs were falling on
Pearl Harbor. Opposition of this magnitude fashioned all of FDR’s decisions
about the war, including how to deal with the Shoah. It is only with the warmth
of the myth of America’s Greatest Generation that the United States seems like
an ant-fascist monolith in WWII.
1941: “Lady in
the Dark” a product of “3 Jewish Musketeers” - music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by
Ira Gershwin and book and direction by Moss Hart – opened at the Alvin Theatre
in New York
1942(5th of
Shevat, 5702): In Novi Sad, Hungary, 550 Jews and 292 Serbs were driven onto
the ice and then shelled. All drowned. [Ed. Note: Who says Kaddish for these
people?]
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/january/07.asp
1942(5th of
Shevat, 5702): Paul Levinstein was killed in Hadjerat M'Guil a Nazi
concentration camp built in remote part of the Sahara Desert in 1941. Upon
hearing of their son's death his parents committed suicide in Britain.
1942:
Hungarian military units began “cleaning up” the region of captured Yugoslavia
which included the massacre of the local Jews.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/january/07.asp
1943: Italian
authorities refuse to cooperate with Germans in deportations of French Jews
living in zones of France under Italian control
1943: The
“father, mother and daughter” of Moshe Hans Jahoda who had escaped to Palestine
five months before the start of WWII, “were transferred to Auschwitz
concentration camp, where all three were murdered.
1943: After
having had its world premiere at the Hollywood Theatre in 1942, Casablanca “was
released nationally in the United States” today. The Jewish connections with this film
classic are so numerous that this should only be considered a partial list.
Jewish actors included Peter Lorre, S.Z."Cuddles" Sakall, and Leonid
Kinskey. Conrad Veidt was not Jewish,
but his wife was. Michael Curtiz, a
Hungarian Jew, was the director. The script was a product of Jewish writers
Julius and Philip Epstein. The inspiration for the movie came from a play by
Murray Bennett. Bennett got the idea
after going to Vienna to help Jewish relatives after the Aunschluss in
1938. The score was written by Max
Steiner…and that will have to do for now.
1943: The last
airfield held by the Nazis fell to the Russian cutting any further supply to
the 6th Army which brought victory at Stalingrad ever so much closer
1943: Marcia
Davenport, the daughter of Bernard Glick and Alma Gluck was a panelist today on
a radio panel show “The People’s Platform: when one of the other panelist had a
heart attack and passed away.
1944:
"Ode to Napoleon" by the Jewish composer Arnold Schoenberg premieres
in New York City
1945(9th
of Shevat, 5705): Seventy-one-year-old Annie Edith Landau, the London born
daughter of Marcus Israel and Chaja Kohn who settled in Palestine where she
played a key role in the development of education and culture for which she was
twice honored by King George V passed away today after which she buried “on the
Mount of Olives.”
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/landau-annie-edith
1945:
Birthdate of Bruce Ratner. Appointed by Ed Koch to the position of Commissioner
of Consumer Affairs for New York City in 1978, he became a real estate
developer in 1982. He is now the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team,
his net worth now several hundred million dollars. Ratner is the developer
charged with building the New York Times Tower. He is a member of the board of
the Jewish Heritage Museum.
1946: The
Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee
composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining
the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they
bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the
well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in
Washington, D.C. began its meetings today in London.
1947(2nd
of Shevat, 5707): Fifty-seven-year-old Russian born and Boston public educated
journalist Michael Brown, the husband of Rose Brown and the thee father of
Kermit, Jerry and Judith Brown who has been with The Jewish Morning Journal for
twenty years, the last ten of which were as city editor passed away today in
Brooklyn.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1947/01/24/88741654.html?pageNumber=2
1947: It was
reported today that “Zoltan Korda has concluded arrangements with William
Goetz, Universal-International production chief, for filming "Mortal
Coils," a Photoplay by Aldous Huxley, at Universal…”
1947: Diana
Dill and Kirk Douglas gave birth to their second son movie producer Joel
Douglas.
1947: U.S.
premiere of “Johnny O’Clock” directed by Robert Rossen, featuring Lee J. Cob
and providing Jeff Chandler (Ira Gorssel) with his appearance in a major motion
picture.
1948: It was
announced today that “the name of Moshe A Pearlman, a Brooklyn student killed
in Palestine” by Arabs on January 16 “will be inscribed on a student’s chair at
the projected Hebrew University –Hadassah Medical School” thanks to a
one-thousand-dollar contribution made by an anonymous donor.
1948(12th
of Shevat, 5708): Seventy-four-year-old Romanian born Samuel Zuckerman, the
husband of Ida Greenberg Zuckerman and the father of Max H. Zuckerman passed
away to in Schenectady, NY after which he was buried in the Albany Hebrew
Tailors Cemetery in Albany, NY>
1949: At the
Hollywood Athletic Club, the first Emmy Awards are presented. A year later, two
Jewish stars would dominate the Emmy Awards. The Texaco Star Theatre starring
Milton Berle and The Ed Wynn Show starring Ed Wynn would walk off with top
honors while Berle and Wynn would each earn awards in their own right.
1950: The 3rd
edition of Famous 1st Facts by Jewish trivia expert Joseph Kane is
published
1950: Israeli
Knesset resolved that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
1951:
“Declaring that a strong and prosperous Israel is the best guarantee of peace
in the Middle East, Senator Irving M. Ives today requested that the United
States Government give ‘some form of grant-in-aid’ to Israel immediately.” (As
reported by JTA)
1951:
Seventy-five-year-old Rabbi Judah L. Maimon, Israel’s Minister of Religion
arrived in New York today which marks the start of a four weeklong speaking
tour in the United States sponsored by “the Mizrachi Organization of America.
1951: It was
announced that 42-year-old Dr. Aron Kaminsky has been named chairman of the
Department of Dermatology at the Jewish Hospital of Buenos Aires.
1952: “Bend of
the River,” the film version of the novel of the same name filmed by
cinematographer Irving Glassberg was released today in the United States.
1952:
Birthdate of Jeanette Ingberman, the Brooklyn born daughter of Holocaust
survivors who became a founder of the New York cultural center Exit Art, a
hotbed of avant-garde work by artists from around the world. (As reported by
Margalit Fox)
1953(7th
of Shevat, 5713): Zlynka native Solomon Bregman the editor-in-chief of The
Book About Jews-Heroes of the War against Fascism who was arrested “with
other members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in 1948” passed away today
in jail “after surviving several severe beatings.”
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported from New York
that the Soviet Union was about to break diplomatic relations with Israel. The
first five tons of the copper ore, excavated from Timna mine in the Negev, were
sent for industrial tests to Europe.
1954: “Killers
from Space” a sci-fi film directed and produced by W. Lee Wilder was released
today in the United States.
1955(29th
of Tevet, 5715): Fifty-two-year-old New Yorker Fanny Levy, a friend of Dr.
William Fernhoff and his wife, the former Tola Schwarz died from injuries from
an automobile accident in which all three had been victims two days ago.
1956(10th
of Shevat, 5716): Sixty-two-year-old filmmaker Alexander Korda, the Hungarian
born son of “Henrik Kellner and Ernesztian Weisz,” the patriarch of the Korda
movie family which included his brothers Vincent an Zoltan and whose colorful
career would have made a wonderful biopic like the ones he made about King
Henry VIII and Lord Nelson, passed away today. (There is no way that this blog
can do justice to his colorful life)
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/01/24/86509856.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1959(14th
of Shevat, 5719): Terrorists killed a shepherd from Kibbutz Lehavot HaBashan.
1959(14th
of Shevat, 5719): Seventy-four-year-old New York born financier, Irving H.
Issacs, the husband of Ernestine Isaacs and father of Alvin Isaacs and Jeanne
Kramer who “was instrumental in the mering of the American Union Banks into the
Manufacturers Trust Company” and a member of Temple Israel passed away today in
West Palm Beach.
1960(23rd
of Tevet, 5720): Parashat Shemot
1960:
Birthdate of Sheri Miriam Goldhirsch the Brooklyn native who became the
“artistic director of Young Playwrights, Inc.”
1960: Israeli
General Yitzhak Rabin sends an aerial reconnaissance across the Suez Canal to
ascertain the position of Nasser’s advancing troops. When the troops cannot be
found, Rabin correctly assumes they have crossed the Canal. It turned out that
the bulk of Egyptian army was almost at the border with Israel where they would
only be opposed by force of twenty or thirty tanks.
1961: Today,
Francis Henry Russell, who had served as “a special assistant for Israeli-Arab
relations under Secretary John Foster Dulles and who served as charge
d’affaires at the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv in 1953 and 1954 began
serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana.
1963: The
latest installment of the memoirs of Ilya Ehrenberg which described the Soviet
response to the invasion of June of 1941, appeared today. Ehrenbeg depicted a
hesitant Stalin whose ever-present picture disappeared from view for months and
who did not speak to the nation until November of 1941. This installment also
describes how Stalin mobilized Soviet Jews including Ehrenberg, Sergei
Eisenstein and Solomon Mikhoels to make broadcasts abroad to gain support for
the Soviets in their fight against the Nazis. [After the war, Stalin, like
Pharaoh, would know not the Jewish contribution and murdered many of them
included Mikhoels.]
1963:
Recording session began today at Columbia’s Studio A in New York that would
lead to “The Barbra Streisand Album.”
1963: Lew
Pollack’s “Charmaine” was released today Decca Records.
1964: Arthur
Miller's "After the Fall" premiered in New York City.
1968: Mapai,
Ahdut HaAvoda and Rafi merged into the Israeli Labor Party and ceased to exist
as individual entities.
1969: “Hour of
the Wolf” the second album of the rock group Hassles whose members included
Billy Joel who wrote some of the songs for the LP was released today.
1969: “A
Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed today that Foreign Minister Abba Eban met
secretly with United Nations special envoy Dr. Gunnar V. Jarring in Zurich ten
days ago” where they discussed Jarring’s upcoming peace-keeping visit to the
middle east.
1970(16th
of Shevat, 5730): Seventy-four-year-old Annie Stein Lazarus, the wife of Sam
Lazarus and mother of Jacob, Leon, Freances, Ralph and Irwin Lazarus passed
away today after which she was buried in the Jewish section of the Sunset Hill
Cemetery in Valdosta, GA.
1972: In
Caen, France Dr. Jacques Drucker and his wife Martine gave birth to French
actress Léa Drucker.
1973(20th
of Shevat, 5773): A Palestinian terrorist murdered Baruch Cohen in Madrid.
1974:
“Professor David Azbel announced his intention to hold a hunger strike in
support of Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn.”
1974: “Izak
Tsudikovich Hochberg of Kishinev, the well-known mathematics professor and
Corresponding Member of Moldavian Academy of Sciences, was dismissed from his
post as head of Department in the Institute of Mathematics after applying to
emigrate to Israel.”
1975:
"Barney Miller" starring Hal Linden premiered on ABC TV.
1976: It
was reported today that even if the Soviet Union is overhauling its emigration
procedures, “emigrants to Israel will continue to pay 500 additional rubles
($665) to renounce their Soviet Citizenship…” (As reported by JTA)
1976: It was
reported today that the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) “has learned
of a new Soviet Jewish “Prisoner of Conscience,” Lydia Abatorovna Nisanova the
32 year old native of Derbent who applied to emigrate in July 1975 and who was
sentenced recently to a year-and-a-half for speculation.” (As reported today by
JTA)
1977(4th of
Shevat, 5737): Bernard "Toots" Shor passed away. “Toots Shor, a bulky
Jewish street kid from Philadelphia, who made and gambled away several fortunes
in the big town, was in a sense the original insult comic—crass, coarse,
jesting jibes being the prime ingredient of pal ship among all those heavy
hitters.” Shor was the premier Saloonkeeper, and his New York restaurant was a
thing of legend.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/movies/17shor.html
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the
cabinet decided to postpone the military talks held with Egypt in Cairo, after
the Egyptian delegation broke off political negotiations with Israel, held in
Jerusalem. It was expected that this step might influence Egypt to moderate its
demands, in tone as well as in contents. The US expressed its disappointment
with Israel's sharp reaction to President Anwar Sadat's demands for a total
withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the recognition of the rights of the Palestinians.
Four hundred and twenty-five Israelis flew to the US under the 'Friendly Force'
program designed to promote peace through personal contacts.
1978
(15th of Shevat, 5738): A hundred thousand trees were planted on Tu Bishvat by
the Jewish National Fund.
1981(18th
of Shevat, 5741): Eighty-eight-year-old Yale graduate and president of the
American Metal Company Harold K. Hochschild, the son of Mathilde Blumenthal and
Berthold Hochschild and the husband of Mary Marquand with whom he had one son,
author Adam Hochschild passed away today.
https://www.mininghalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/harold-k-hochschild
1981:
Birthdate of Long Branch, NJ, native and UCLA gymnast Alyssa Erin Beckerman who
earned a Gold Medal for her performance on the Balance Beam at the U.S. National
Championship in 2000.
1983(9th
of Shevat, 5743): Seventy-eight-year-old Uman, Russia native and University of
Pennsylvania trained neurologist Dr. Morris Bender who raised five children –
Barbara, Leila, Adam, Barnaby and Victor – with his wife Sarah passed away
today.
1984(19th
of Shevat, 5744): Ninety-two-year-old Pulitzer Prize winning composer and
violinist Samuel Gardner, the husband of Henrietta Holtzman Gardner with whom
he had two children – Sally and Herbert – passed away today.
1986:
"Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood" opens at Ritz Theater New York City.
1987:
Meir Heth was appointed today as the new chairman of Bank Leumi L'Yisrael,
Israel's biggest commercial bank. The former head of the Tel Aviv stock
exchange, Heith was criticized over a 1983 collapse of bank shares. A
commission of inquiry last year criticized Mr. Heth for failing to prevent the
country's four major banks from manipulating their shares.
1988: As the
Arab uprising called the Intifada brings an increase in violence the
representative of the Arab League and three other Arab diplomats met with a
senior State Department official today to complain about what they considered
inadequate United States pressure on Israel to halt the violence against
Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
1990(26th
of Tevet, 5750): Eighty-five-year-old Nathan N. Rosen, a graduate of Yeshiva
University and Columbia College who served as an Army Chaplain during World War
II before beginning a 25 year career as a chaplain at Brown University where he
founded the Hillel chapter, passed away today.
1991. At a
briefing this morning, Israeli officials appeared to play down the deaths that
occurred when an Iraqi Scud missile evaded two American Patriot air-defense
missiles and slammed into a Tel Aviv suburb on Tuesday night, leaving 3 people
dead and 96 wounded emphasizing that the three victims had suffered heart
attacks.
1991: The
first episode of the second season of "Seinfeld" debuts on NBC-TV
1994: Coach
Marv Levy led the Buffalo Bills to victory over the Kansas City Chiefs which
marked his fourth straight victory in the American Football Conference
Championship.
1995: A
memorial service is scheduled to be held at Riverside Memorial Chapel for ninety-five-year-old Philadelphia born
and University of Pennsylvania and Fordham trained biochemist Dr. Bernard L.
Oser “who spent 47 years with Food Research Laboratories, later Food and Drug
Research Laboratories, as it grew into one of the country's foremost commercial
testing grounds for wholesomeness” while raising two children, Alan and Zelda,
with his “wife the former Clara Kotkin”
1997(15th
of Shevat, 5757): Tu B’Shevat
1997:
Madeleine Albright became the first woman to serve as United States Secretary
of State. During her term as Secretary of State, Albright found out for the
first time that her family was Jewish.
1998: “The
Wonderful Ice Cream Suit” co-starring Side Caesar and Howard Morris is
scheduled to be released today in the United States.
1998:
“Phantoms” the movie version of the novel by the same name produced by Bob and
Harvey Weinstein and starring Live Schreiber was released in the United States
today.
1999: Today,
Gene Siskeil reviewed “The Theory of Flight” which marked his last on-air
appearance with co-host Roger Ebert.
2000: The New York Times includes a review of The
House of Rothschild: The World's Banker, 1849-1999 by Niall Ferguson.
2001: This
afternoon, two Tel Aviv restaurateurs and an Israeli Arab friend sat down for a
late lunch in Tulkarm, a battle-scarred town rarely visited by Israeli Jews
since the West Bank erupted in riotous protests nearly four months ago. The
three were seized by armed men who later let the Israeli Arab go, but shot the
two Israeli Jews at point-blank range, Israeli officials said. Hamas, the
militant Gaza-based Islamic movement, took responsibility for what it called an
''execution'' and said the shooting had been videotaped.
2001: The
killing of two Israeli civilians by Palestinian militants earlier today
interrupted a new round of peace negotiations here, with Prime Minister Ehud
Barak condemning the slayings as ''horrendous'' and ordering the three cabinet
ministers in the talks to return to Jerusalem.
2001: Today,
in a talk with high school students on the campaign trail, Ehud Barak appeared
to disavow proposals for relinquishing control of the ancient city core of
Jerusalem. ''Under any settlement, the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter, and
the Mount of Olives, and what is called the holy basin, will remain under
Israeli sovereignty,'' Mr. Barak said.
2002(10th of
Shevat, 5762): Bernard Rothman passed away. Cause of death was a stroke. He was
better known as Benny Rothman, “a UK political activist, most famous for his
leading role in the Mass trespass of Kinder Scout in 1932. He was born in
Cheetham Hill, Manchester, in 1911. His family was so poor that he had to start
work at the earliest opportunity rather than take full advantage of a
scholarship that he had won. Working as an errand boy in the motor trade, he
studied geography and economics in his spare time while his Aunt Ettie
introduced him to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and the works of Upton
Sinclair. Increasingly committed to the causes of socialism and communism,
Rothman lost his job after getting into some trouble with the law while selling
copies of the Daily Worker. During a period of unemployment, with the help of a
bicycle salvaged from spare parts, he discovered the nearby wilderness regions
of the Peak District and North Wales. The combination of his political activism
and interest in the outdoors led to his participation in the mass trespass of
1932, an enterprise that resulted in a spell in prison and further employment
difficulties. In 1934, Rothman went to work at Avro in Newton Heath and
instantly became an officer of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU). At
Avro's, he met and married fellow communist Lily Crabtree but his political
views became increasingly visible to his employer and he was dismissed. Rothman
was active in working with Jewish groups in Manchester to oppose the campaigns
of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. In 1936, he started work at
Metropolitan Vickers at Trafford Park and was again soon an AEU official.”
2002: Daniel
Pearl was kidnapped and subsequently murdered in Karachi, Pakistan. Based on
the tape of his murder, Pearl was killed because he was a Jew.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1014311357552611480.html
2003 (20th of
Shevat, 5763): Actress Nell Carter passed away. She had converted from
Catholicism to Judaism in 1982.
2003: The 12th
annual Jewish Film Festival comes to an end in New York.
2003: As
of 10 pm, Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, the holy man of unknown but tremendous age, who
was scheduled to visit the Hall of Moses synagogue and then a candlelit
graveyard in this Tel Aviv suburb tonight for a rally that mixed mystic ritual
with all the grit of Chicago ward politics had failed to make an appearance and
the police were forced to disperse the disappointed crowd
2004(29th
of Tevet, 5764): German born photographer Helmut Newton passed away. (As
reported by Suzy Menkes)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/news/26iht-obits_ed3__23.html
2004:
U.S. premiere of “The Butterfly Effect” featuring Logan Lerman which was
distributed in Israel by Forum Film.
2005: The
Squid and the Whale, an American comedy-drama film written and directed by Noah
Baumbach featuring Jesse Eisenberg as “Walt Berkman” premiered at the Sundance
Film Festival.
2005: Stanley
Fischer, a widely respected American economist and banker, has agreed to leave
the United States and a job as a vice chairman of Citigroup to become governor
of the Bank of Israel.
2005: The
New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including recently published paperback
editions of Horse People: Scenes from the Riding Life by Michael Korda and
Unsettled: An Anthropolgy of Jews, Melvin Konner’s sweeping study that
follows a roughly historical outline, from the earliest pre-biblical days to
the establishment of the state of Israel, and tracks down far-flung Jewish
communities in China, India and Afghanistan.
2006: The
Andrew Carnegie Medal for best children's video was given to the producers of
Mordicai Gerstein's "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers," winner
of the Caldecott in 2004. Mordicai Gerstein was born in Los Angeles in 1935. He
lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Susan Yard Harris, who is also an
illustrator, and their daughter, Risa. The award-winning illustrator, painter
and graphics artist has collaborated on numerous books for children including
many with a Jewish motif including Queen Esther the Morning Star, Noah and the
Great Flood and Jonah and the Two Great Fish
2006: In
“Attorney's Perseverance Yields a Legal Masterpiece” published today Anne-Marie
O’Connor described Randol Schoenberg’s struggle to re-gain art looted by the
Nazis.
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jan/23/local/me-schoenberg23
2006(7th of
Tevet, 5766): Andrea Bronfman, the wife of Jewish Canadian billionaire Charles
Bronfman, was killed in a traffic accident in New York Monday.
2007:
“Attorney-General Mazuz announced that he would consider charging Katsav with
rape, sexual harassment, breach of trust, obstruction of justice, harassment of
a witness and fraud.”
2007(4th of
Shevat, 5767): Aharon Uzan passed away at the age of 82. Born in Tunisia in
1924, he made Aliyah in 1949 where he became active in a variety of left-wing
political parties. He served in the Knesset and held a variety of cabinet posts
included Minister of communications and Minister of Agriculture.
2007:
"Two Hands” a short documentary on Leon Fleisher by Nathaniel Kahn was
nominated for an Academy Award for best short subject today
2007: Israel’s
“Sweet Mud” and Holland’s “Black Book,” a movie about a Jewish woman serving in
the Resistance against the Nazis are among 61 foreign language films that may
be nominated for an Oscar.
2007: Rabbi
Andrew Bossov successfully received a kidney from Methodist minister, Reverend
Karen Onesti.
2008: “Lasting
Legacy: Al Malnik” published to described Malnik’s rise from St. Louis teenage
gangster to millionaire and south Florida trend setter.
http://hauteliving.com/2008/01/lasting-legacy/2109/
2008: It was announced
today that Randy Lerner had donated £5 million to the National Gallery, the
largest single donation that it has ever received, which may accounted for the
fact that the ground floor galleries will named “The Lerner Galleries.”
2008: The
third and final episode of “The Jewish Americans” airs on PBS. The three
episode series traces the history of the Jews in America starts with the
arrival of the first 23 Sephardic Jews in New Amsterdam in 1654 and “ends with
Maisyahu, the Chasidic hip-hop star, one of about six million Jews in America
today.” For more information see http://www.jewishtvnetwork.com/jewishamericans/
2008:
The New York Jewish Film Festival presents “Labyrinths of Memory, a documentary
that draws parallels between two very different women united by a search for
identity: Maite Guiteras, Mexican born, adopted at birth, and raised in Cuba;
and the film’s director, born in Costa Rica to East European Jewish parents and
raised in Mexico. Each defies ethnic and geographic boundaries to travel to her
ancestral home to claim a place in the world”; “The Unkosher Truth a short
documentary in which the filmmaker must muster the courage to tell her father,
an Orthodox rabbi and U.S. Army general, that her boyfriend is German and
gentile”; “Film Fanatic, in which Ultra-Orthodox Jew Yehuda Grovais rebels
against his religious community, and battles the secular cultural establishment
in Israel to make Hollywood-style blockbusters on a budget.”
2008: In a nighttime
attack, two armed Palestinians affiliated with Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’
Brigades infiltrated a yeshiva at Kfar Etzion wounding three civilians. The two
had just been released from an Israeli prison.
2008
(16th of Shevat, 5768): Rami Zuari, a 20-year-old Border Police officer was
killed during a terrorist attack at an East Jerusalem checkpoint. Border Police
officer Shoshana Samendayev sustained moderate to serious injuries in the same
attack.
2008: The
New York Times featured a review of The Forger: An Extraordinary Story
of Survival in Wartime Berlin, the autobiography of Cioma Schonhaus.
2009:
“Lansky,” a one-man play about Meyer Lansky starring Mike Burstyn opens in an
off-Broadway production. “Acclaimed American/Israeli actor Mike Burstyn stars
as Meyer Lansky in the New York premiere of a new play by Richard Krevolin and
Joseph Bologna about the life of the “little man,” known as the “brains behind
the mob,” and his efforts to become an Israeli citizen.
2009: Final
showing of “Zion and His Brother,” a family drama set in Tel Aviv, at the
Sundance Film Festival.
2009: Shiva
ended for Sherwin “Shy” Raiken the Villanova and New York Knicks basketball
player who had passed away at the age of eighty.
2009: Temple
Judah in Cedar Rapids hosts another creative Musical Shabbat Service.
2009: In “The
End of a Chicago Tradition: Is absolutely nothing sacred?”, published
todaySusan Berger reports on the demise of the Best Kosher Sausage Company
while documenting the history of a small slice of Chicago-based Jewish
Americana.
2010: The 19th
annual New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the New York
premiere of “Eyes Wide Open,” a film whose protagonist is an ultra-orthodox
butcher living in Jerusalem.
2010:
The 10th annual Atlanta Jewish Festival is scheduled to present a screening of
“Protektor,” “a smart, stylish psycho-thriller about a Prague journalist and
his part-Jewish wife whose lives are ravaged by the outbreak of WWII.”
2010:
Israel is looking into adopting Haitians orphaned by January 12's earthquake,
Minister of Welfare and Social Services Isaac Herzog told The Jerusalem Post
today. "We see this as part of Israel's humanitarian outreach,"
Herzog said, referring to the IDF medical operation and the Israeli rescue
efforts in the Caribbean nation. "Haiti was one of the countries that
supported us on November 29, 1947, [in the UN vote on the establishment of the
state], and now it's our turn to support them," he said.
2011: Adam
“Richman appeared on Food Network's Iron Chef America as a judge for a battle
with Gruyère cheese as the theme ingredient.”
2011:
“Another Day” directed by Sam Levinson who also wrote the script and starring
Ellen Barkin who also co-produced the film premiered at the Sundance Film
Festival today.
2011: Israeli
cellist Amit Peled and pianist Eli Kalman are scheduled to perform this
afternoon at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.
2011: The 2011
Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival is scheduled to present “Laughter Yoga
Workshop with Molly Dworsky” and “An Adult Evening with Shel Silverstein.”
2011: The Los Angeles Times featured reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including J.D.
Salinger: A Life by Kenneth Slawenski
2011: The New York Times featured reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Cinderella
Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein and the recently published paperback
editions of A Strange Death by Hillel Halkin and Where The God of
Loves Hangs Out by Amy Bloom.
2011(18th of
Shevat, 5771): Rabbi Nachum Zev Dessler, a leader at the Hebrew Academy of
Cleveland for more than 60 years and a nationally known leader in Orthodox
education passed away today at the age of 89. Dessler, the school's first
principal in 1944, pressed the Jewish Federation of Cleveland to back the
school, and it became the first federation in the country to subsidize a
full-day Jewish school in 1948. At the end of 2010, the school had nearly 800
students on three campuses in Cleveland and its suburbs, and nearly 6,000
alumni. Over the years, the school has accepted children from families with all
degrees of observance, children of former Soviet Jews who had moved to
Cleveland, as well as those with special needs. “His vision was focused on providing
every Jewish child, regardless of religious orientation or ability to pay, a
quality Jewish and secular education,” said Ivan Soclof, a past president of
the school. "Each child was truly an individual and was treated like he or
she was the most important person in the world," wrote Louis Malcmacher,
the Hebrew Academy's current president. "As a child of Holocaust
survivors, my parents came to this country with literally nothing. And as part
of Rabbi Dessler's greatness, the doors to The Hebrew Academy were opened to
every Jewish child, no matter what their background was or their ability to
pay." Dessler was born in Lithuania, raised in London, and traveled
through Siberia and Japan to reach the United States during World War II, a route
similar to that traveled by another recently deceased Orthodox rabbi and
educator, Menachem Zeev “Wolf” Greenglass. Dessler arrived in Cleveland in 1941
with students and rabbis to re-establish the Telshe Yeshiva of Lithuania.
Dessler came from a line of rabbis; His father was Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler.
Nachum Zev Dessler also was instrumental in building Torah Umesorah, an
organization of nearly 700 Orthodox schools. (As reported by The Eulogizer)
2011(18TH
of Shevat, 5771): Ninety-year-old Stanley Frazen “a longtime film and
television editor who was a member of the Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture
Unit during World War II,” passed away today at his home in Studio City
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/film-television-editor-stanley-frazen-75597
2012: “Follow
Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story” is scheduled to shown this evening at the New
York Jewish Film Festival.
2012: At
Wolfson College, Oxford, Penguin Books celebrated the golden jubilee of The
Dead Scrolls in English by Géza Vermes
2012:
Israeli pianist Alon Goldstein and the Jupiter musicians are scheduled to
perform Schubert's celebrated Piano Trio in B-flat Major and the Beethoven
"Gassenhauer" Trio at Good Shepherd Church in NYC.
2012: On the
secular calendar, 10th anniversary of the kidnapping of Danny Pearl.
2013(12th
of Shevat, 5775): Eighty-eight-year-old investment banker Edward M. Kresky
passed away today. (As reported by Paul Vitello)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/nyregion/edward-m-kresky-88-calmed-fiscal-panic.html?hpw
2013:
L'ayla Women's Initiative is scheduled to present a lecture by “The Shmuz” also
known as Rabbi Bentzion Shafier.
2013: The
final performance “The Winter’s Tale” sponsored by the Association of Americans
and Canadians In Israel is scheduled to take place this evening in Jerusalem.
2013:
The Republican Jewish Coalition is scheduled to sponsor an evening with Lela
Gilbert and Jennifer Rubin – “The Real Israel: An American Christian’s
Perspective” – at the Park East Synagogue.
2013:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set out his principles for forming a new
government Wednesday, issuing a brief statement in which he listed the needs
for a more equitable distribution of the national burden, affordable housing
and changing the system of government as his would-be coalition’s three top
priorities.
2013:
Following the Knesset elections, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro told
Israel Radio today the US government remains committed to preventing Iran from
acquiring a nuclear weapon. He also said that Washington looks forward to
continued cooperation with the next Israeli government.
2014:
Artist Dasha Shishkin is scheduled to provide commentary to “Chagall: Love, War
and Exile” at the Jewish Museum.
http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/chagall-love-war-exile
2014: As part of the JPS/Skirball Series,
Salo Aizenberg is scheduled to introduce his new book, Hatemail:
Anti-Semitism on Picture Postcards.
2014: The
United Nations Department of Public Information is scheduled to present “The
70th Anniversary of the Deportation of the Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust”
during which “the participants will learn how the German Security Police worked
with Hungarian authorities to systematically deport Jews from Hungary in May of
1944.”
2014: In an
appearance that was not listed on the Mayor’s public schedule, Mayor Bill de
Blasio gave an unannounced speech at a Manhattan gala of the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee, assuring its members that “part of my job description
is to be a defender of Israel.”
2014:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today laid out the dilemma facing his
administration when it comes to the Palestinian conflict — the imperative to
avoid a binational state encompassing Israel and the Palestinians, but also to
prevent a future Palestinian state from becoming an Iranian proxy. “Half of
Palestinian society is dominated by Iran’s proxy,” he said in an apparent
reference to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. (As reported by Lazar Berman
and Adiv Sterman)
2014:
The New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.
2014: Four
days after his death, a memorial service is scheduled to be at Kehillat Israel
Sanctuary in California for ninety-year-old Princeton Graduate and WW II Army
Veteran Jay Douglas Levinsohn, the husband of the former Joyce Salton.
2014(22nd
of Shevat, 5774): Sixty-three-year-old Tatyana (Tanya) Edelstein, the wife of
Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, to whom she had had been married for 33 years,
passed away tonight.
2015:
The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present the next in the
“Excellence-The Future Generation Series” featuring performances by Hanan
Becher, Piano, Netta Karni, Piano, Liel Kaplyushnik, Piano, Daniel Fenings,
Violin, Salmon Markman, Violin,Yael Koldobsky, Piano, Yael Koldobsky,
Piano, Lior Greenwald, Violin, Tom Zalmanov, Piano and Alon Mamo,
Piano
2015:
“Judy Berlin” is scheduled to be shown at the 92nd St Y as part of
the Women on Top series.
2015: In “For
Auschwitz Museum, a Time of Great Change” published today, Rick Lyman described
plans for the gathering to mark the 70th anniversary of the
liberation of the death camp.
2015: In Cedar
Rapids, the first Musical Shabbat of 2015 is scheduled to begin this evening.
2016: Shabbat
Shira
2016:
“Rabin in His Own Words” is scheduled to be shown at the Brooklyn Israel Film
Festival.
2016:
“Benya Kirk” and “Hot Sugar’s Cold World” are scheduled to be shown at the New
York Jewish Film Festival.
2016:
“Restoring Tomorrow” which tells the story of the restoration of the Wilshire
Boulevard Temple, “one of Los Angeles’s architectural treasures and home to the
city’s oldest Jewish congregation” is scheduled to premiere at the Skirball
Cultural Center.
2017(25th
of Tevet, 5777): On the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of Moses Levi Ehrenreich the
chief rabbi of Rome “who was instrumental in translating part of the TaNaCh
into Italian and through whose efforts the Collegio Rabbinico Italiano was
reopened in 1887.”
2017:
A celebratory Western Wall women’s prayer and Torah reading held by the
Original Women of the Wall group this morning tested a recent interim order by
the High Court (As reported by Amanda Borschel-Dan)
2017:
“Dimona” is scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2017:
The annual Jewish Leaders Conference met in Brussels today at which the
attendees “called on Israel to help them tackle the rising threat of terrorism
and anti-Semitism” by providing “vital security assistance against potential
attacks.” (As reported by Raoul Wootliff)
2017:
In “German Party Won’t Expel Rightist Who Assailed Holocaust Apology” published
today Alison Smale described the decision to discipline Björn Höcke for making
a speech that challenged the German atonement for the Holocaust and other Nazi
Crimes but to remove him from the Alternative for Germany Party.
2018:
The Washington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host “An Evening
Bernard-Henri Levy” during which the “French philosopher, activist, writer (The
Genius of Judaism), and filmmaker Bernard-Henri Lévy offers a special
presentation of his two most recent documentaries, Peshmerga and The Battle of
Mosul.”
2018(7th
of Shevat, 5778): Ninety-two year old University of Texas undergraduate Arnold
Gold, “a pediatric neurologist” and the husband of Sandra Gold with whom he
founded the Arnold P. Gold Foundation passed away today. (As reported by
Richard Sandomir)
2018:
“A Kid Like Jake” co-starring Amy Landecker premiered today at Sundance.
2018:
The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host Rabbi Jonathan
Wittenberg of the New North London Masorti Synagogue who “will be speaking on
‘The launch of the Eco-Synagogue.’”
2018:
The final session of “The Jewish Workers’ Bund” taught by Jack Jacobs is
scheduled to take place at the YIVO Institute.
2018:
The Center for Jewish History and Oxford University Press are scheduled to
present Professor David N. Myers speaking on “All Jewish History in Less Than
An Hour.”
2019:
In Potomac, MD, Beth Sholom Congregation is scheduled to host a presentation of
the Silk Road, with an emphasis on its “ancient Jewish Highlights.”
2019:
The Oxford University Jewish Student Society is scheduled to host a “Dine and
Discuss Event” led by the Chaplains.
2019:
The Joyce Theatre is scheduled to host a performance of Jerusalem choreographer
Sharon Eyal’s “Love Chapter 2.”
2019:
At the Bender JCC of Greater Washington, Cinema J is scheduled to host a
screening of “1945.”
https://forward.com/culture/film-tv/386434/the-last-jewish-writer-in-hungary-returns-to-1945/
2019:
In “The Story of Jewish Immigrants to Canada, and How They Prospered” published
today Jonathan Kay described a movement that was not a straight line of upward
mobility but more of “U” with ups, downs and ups again.
https://www.cjnews.com/living-jewish/the-story-of-jewish-immigrants-to-canada-and-how-they-prospered
2020:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education al Center is scheduled to host
author Jack Fairweather as he talks about his newest work, The Volunteer:
One Man, an Underground Army and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz
which tells “the story of Witold Pilecki, a Polish resistance fighter who
worked undercover in Auschwitz to sabotage the camp from within.”
2020:
Mohammed al-Issa, the secretary-general of the Mecca-based Muslim World League
(MWL) and a former Saudi justice minister, “is slated to visit the Auschwitz
death camp in Poland today ahead of the 75th anniversary of its liberation by
the Soviet Red Army” “alongside Muslim religious leaders from more than 24
countries and a delegation of American Jewish Committee (AJC) officials.” (As
reported by Adam Rasgon)
2020:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a screening of Israeli director Guy
Nattiv’s Academy Award winning short “Skin.”
2020:
Following last night’s state dinner at President Reuven Rivlin’s official
residence, today Netanyahu, Rivlin, Macron, Putin, Pence, Prince Charles and
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier are scheduled to address memorial
ceremonies at Yad Vashem which will be attended by dignitaries from forty
countries.
2020:
“Those Who Remained” and “They Ain’t Ready for Me” are scheduled to be shown at
the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2020:
Presidents Rivlin and Putin and Prime Minister Netanyahu are scheduled to
attend a dedication ceremony for the “Monument in Memory of the Heroism and the
Soldiers and Residents who were Killed During the Siege of Leningrad in WWII,”
in Jerusalem’s Sacher Park.
2021:
The New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to offer a screening of it
“Shorts Program” for the last time.
2021:
Israel passes 4,000 COVID related deaths amid published reports about “seven
Israelis police officers being injured in clashes with Orthodox protesters over
COVID-19 restrictions” and police in being called to break up a 400-person
wedding party at the Stamford Hill Charedi School.
2021:
In Pepper Pike, OH, B’nai Jeshurun is scheduled to host a Tu B’Shevat Baking
event during which Hedy Molgrom shows attendees “a receipe that will highlight
the carob as she bakes chocolate babka.
2021:
The Vilna Shul, “Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture,” is scheduled to present “Persona
Non Grata: The Story of Chiune Sugihara a Virtual Screening & Discussion.”
2021(10th
of Shevat, 7801): Parashat Bo;
2021:
Eighty-seven-year-old Larry King, who shot the breeze with presidents and
psychics, movie stars and malefactors — anyone with a story to tell or a pitch
to make — in a half-century on radio and television, including 25 years as the
host of CNN’s globally popular “Larry King Live,” passed away today in Los
Angeles.” (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/23/us/larry-king-dies-trnd/index.html
2021(10th
of Shevat, 7801): Walter Bernstein, the Brooklyn born son of school t each
Louis Bernstein and the former Hannah Bistron “whose career as a top film and
television screenwriter was derailed by the McCarthy-era blacklist, and who
decades later turned that experience into one of his best-known films, “The
Front,” passed away today at the age of 101. (As reported by John Anderson)
2022:
Temple Israel of Natick is scheduled to present online Michael Ordman, creator
of the blog site Very Good News From Israel, speaking about Israel’s leadership
in medicine, Israel’s inclusivity, .Israel’s breakthroughs in science and
technology, Israel’s thriving economy and businesses and Israeli culture, entertainment
and sports.
2022:
The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including The Zen of Therapy: Uncovering
a Hidden Kindness in Life by Mark Epstein, I Came All This Way to Meet
You: Writing My Way Home by Jami Attenberg, Mala’s Cat: A Memoir of
Survival in World War II by Mala Kacenberg and The Final Case, as
novel by David Guterson
2022:
KelzCalifornia is scheduled to host, “Full Frontal,” an “online Yiddish folk
dance workshop with choreographer and teacher Steve Weintraub.”
2022:
Anna Tucker, “the curator at the newly opened Museum of the Southern Jewish
Experience in New Orleans is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Shalom
Y’All: Exploring the Jewish South Through Art and Artifact.”
2022:
Jewish rappers Nissim Black and Kosha Dillz are scheduled to perform at the
Brick and Mortar Music Hall in San Francisco.
2022:
The Miami Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host the Florida premiere of
“The Automat.”
2022:
The Temple Emanuel of Newton, MA Israel Action Committee is scheduled to host
online a presentation by Rabbi Yehoshua
Pfeffer on “An Existential Challenge: Haredim and the State of Israel,” which
will discuss the complex issues related to the economic and civil integration
of Haredim in Israel.
2022:
Twentieth anniversary of the kidnapping of Daniel “Danny” Pearl by terrorists
who targeted him because he was Jewish. (Editor’s note – this anniversary comes
one week after an anti-Semitic terrorist seized a synagogue in Texas)
http://pearlproject.georgetown.edu/
https://www.washingtonian.com/projects/KSM/
https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2460&context=consensus
2023:
The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience is scheduled to present “1925-1979:
How
Iran’s Jews Flourished & Helped Iran Prosper,”
2023:
Congregation Beth Elohim is scheduled to present the first session of
“Exploring Judaism with Rabbi Braham David.”
2023:
80th Anniversary of the national release of Casablanca.
2023:
As part of its 50th anniversary programming, the Indiana Jewish
Historical Society is scheduled to host 19a virtual program on “Indiana’s
Jewish Civil War General,” Frederick Knefler.
2023:
The Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre is scheduled to host a lecture by
Professor Susan R. Grayzel on “The Age of the Gas Mask.”
2023:
The Israel Medical Association is scheduled to hold a protest at public
hospitals and clinics today.
2023(1st
of Shevat, 5783): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
2024:
Lockdown University is scheduled to host a lecture by Trudy Gold on “America
and the Holocaust, Part 1.”
2024:
“The acclaimed Grand Prix winner at the Cannes Film Festival 2023 and Golden
Globe nominee, THE ZONE OF INTEREST is scheduled to be screen at Everyman Elsize
Park under the auspices of UK Jewish Film.
2024:
Today, in the 64th Annual Leo Baeck Memorial Lecture, historian Atina Grossmann
(Cooper Union) is scheduled to examine the ambivalent, paradoxical, and diverse
experiences, emotions, and memories of Jews who found refuge from National
Socialism and the Holocaust in India and Iran after 1933.
2024:
Lockdown University is scheduled to host a lecture by Professor Simon Sibelman on
“A Portion of the People: 300 Years of Jewish Life in Charleston."
2024:
In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Illinois Holocaust
Museum is scheduled to host the U.S. premiere of “Resistance: They Fought Back.”
2024: As January 23rd begins in Israel,
the Hamas held hostages begin day 109 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.)
