This Day, February 29, In Jewish History by Mitchell A Levin and Deb Levin Z"L
February 29
1236: In Narbonne (France), an attack on
the Jewish quarter occurred after a Jew accidentally killed a Gentile during an
argument. The Governor of the city, Don Amyeric, forcibly reestablished order.
The house and library of Rabbi Meir ben Isaac were pillaged, but no one was
killed.
1468: Birthdate of Alessandro Farnese who as
Pope Paul III failed in his attempt to censure Bomberg’s
Hebrew publications because the printer successfully argued that “ancient
manuscripts were not to be altered.”
1644: Dutch explorer Abel Tasman began his
second Pacific voyage which proved to be a disappointment to his backer – the
Dutch East India Company in which Jews owned approximately a quarter of the
shares
1704: During Queen Anne’s War, French forces
and their native allies staged a raid on Deerfield, MA which today is home to
Schoen Books and the Jewish History Society of Western Massachusetts.
1720: Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden, in whose
presence “two Jews of Stockholm, Israel Mandel and Moses Jacobs together with
their families were baptized in 1681” abdicated in favor of her husband, who
became King Frederick I.
1752(25th of Adar, 5512): Shabbat
HaChodesh (According to Rosetta Calendar)
1772(25th of Adar I, 5532): Parashat
Vayakhel; Shabbat Shekalim
1776: Today, in an attempt to crush the
American Revolution which was supported by most Jews in the 13 Colonies, “the
House of Commons approved treaties with German principalities supplying Great
Britain with German troops.
1792(6th of Adar, 5552): On the
Hebrew Calendar, Yahrzeit of tosafist Rabbi Samuel ben Natronai who died a
martyr’s death
1796(20th of Adar I, 5556): On the
Hebrew calendar, Yahrzeit of Rabbi Joel Sirkeks, the author of Bayit Hadash, a commentary on the Tur code.
1804: Twenty-four-year-old Judah Lyons, the
Philadelphia born son of Eleazar Lyons married Mary Levy in New York City.
1808(1st of Adar, 5568): Rosh
Chodesh Adar
1812(16th of Adar, 5572): Paashat Ki
Tasa
1812: In Charleston, SC, Sarah and Chapman
Solomon gave birth to Levy J. Solomon, the husband of Hannah Hyams with whom he
had eight sons.
1816(30th of Shevat, 5576): Rosh
Chodesh Adar
1816: In Santa Cruz, Jamaica, Joseph Alexandre
Lindo, the Son of Alexandre (Elisha) Lindo and Hannah Lindo and his wife Sarah
Lindo gave birth to Caroline Munt Braham, the wife of John Richard Braham
1820(14th of Adar, 5580): Purim
1824: In Savanah, GA, Sarah E.
Melhado, who was Sephardic and Cosam Emir Bartlett gave birth to Washington
Montgomery Bartlett, the first Jewish governor of California.
1828(14th of Adar, 5588):
Purim
1828: Dutch natives Vrouwtje Salomon Barnstijn
and Benjamin Jacob Van Blercom gave birth to Judi Van Blercom.
1828: Birthdate of Ludvi Jacob Hertz who was
buried in Denmark’s Horsens Jewish Cemetery.
1832(28th of Adar I, 5582): Jendle
Jentle, the wife of Jose Falsche passed away today.
1832(28th of Adar I, 5582): Emanuel
Baruh Lousada, the uncle and namesake of West Indies merchant Emanuel Baruch
Lousada and the uncle of Abigail Lousada, who lived at Sidmouth and was a
member of the Mahamad (Council of Elders) of the London Spanish and Portuguese
Synagogue passed away today.
1836: Les Huguenots an opera composed by Jewish
composer Giacomo Meyerbeer premiered at the Paris Opéra
1840(25th of Adar I, 5600): Parashat
Vayakhel; Shabbat Sekalim
1844(9th of Adar, 5604): On the Jewish
calendar, ancient fast day observed to mark “the first controversy between he
schools of Hillel and Shammai.”
1848(25th of Adar I, 5608): On the
Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of “Rabbi Moses ben Abraham, the son of a Swedish
Count who had converted to Judaism, served as a rabbi in Amsterdam and was the
author of Meliz Yosher” who had passed away in 1803.
1852(9th of Adar, 5612): On the
Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of Prague communal leader Mordecai Marcus Meisel who
pass away in 1601.
1856: Sir Saul Samuel completed his first term
as a member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales.
1860: Samuel Levy, alias "Old Levy";
Morris M. Goldstein, alias Goldever; L. Truebart; Michael Roberts, alias
"Big Roberts," and Henry Wcyman, “five Polish and Prussian Jews known
to the authorities of New York as expert pickpockets and daring burglars left
town this evening on what was described as a “Western Tour” meaning they were
heading for Albany, Buffalo and parts unknown.
1864: Birthdate of Baltimore native Sadie
Altman, the wife of Henry A. Altman
1868: Benjamin Disraeli completed his third and
final term as Chancellor of the Exchequer
1868: Birthdate of Heinrich Class, the
anti-Semitic German politician who supported the Putsch of 1923 and was a
member of the Nazi Party who avoided punishment for his evil and passed away in
1953.
1872: Birthdate of bantamweight boxer Sigmund
“Sig” Hart who managed three Heavyweight Champions including Jack Johnson.
1872: In Budapest, orientalist Armin Vambery
and his wife gave birth to future New York resident Rusztem Vambery, the
attorney and godson of Edward, Prince of Wales (King Edward VII) who opposed
the dictatorships of Bela Kuhn and Miklos Horthy and served briefly as
Hungary’s ambassador to the United
1872: In Hartford, CT, Hannahlie and Jacob Lyon
gave birth to Bernhard Lyon, the father of Delphine Lyon Kohn, the father-in-law
of Police Commissioner Sol H. Kohn, and “head one of the largest firms of
plumbing contractors in the state” of Connecticut who served as a health
commissioner for Hartford and who served as an “office of Congregation Beth
Israel.
1876: Birthdate selected by Ferencz Deszo Weisz, who gained fame as
“magician and escape artist Theodore Hardeen” who joined with his brother Harry
Houdini for a brief period before going off on a career of his own, when he was
reportedly creating an American persona.
https://timenote.info/lv/person/view?id=11368959&l=en
https://www.wildabouthoudini.com/p/theo-hardeen.html
1876(4th of Adar, 5636): On the
Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of av Ahai b. Ray Huna, an early Saboraim (Post
Talmudic Sages) who had passed away in 506 C.E, (As reported by Abraham Bloch)
1880: It was reported that the Young Men’s
Hebrew Association will hold a Purim celebration at the Lexington Avenue Opera
House featuring performance by the Torriano Opera Troupe.
1884: In Washington, DC, Rhode Island
Congressman Nelson W. Aldrich and his wife gave birth Richard S. Aldrich who
while serving in Congress as Republican from Rhode Island in 1924 joined
Congressmen Adolph J. Sabah, Samuel Dickestein and Emanuel Celler in opposing
the proposed immigration bill denouncing it as “the worse kind of
discrimination against a large class of individuals and absolutely opposed to
our American ideas of equality and justice.”
1888: Birthdate of Lucille Selig, the Atlanta
native who married Leo Frank
1892: Sir Edgar Speyer, the American born
chairman of Speyer Brothers, the British branch of his family’s financial
empire, became a naturalized British citizen.
1892: Among the charities that were named at
today’s meeting of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment to receive
contributions from the city’s theatrical and concert license fund were the
United Hebrew Charities of the City of New York, $1,500; the Montefiore Home,
$1,000; Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews, $350; and Beth Israel Hospital, $100.
1892: Incorporation of St. Petersburg, Florida
which has become the site for the Florida Holocaust Museum.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0017_0_17303.html
1892: Thirteen new cases of typhus were
discovered today by sanitary authorities in New York City. Seven of the new cases were Russian Jews who
had arrived aboard the SS Massilia
and had been quarantined at a facility provided by the United Hebrew
Charities. The other six were people who
had come in contact with one of these seven.
1892: “Renan on the Prophets” published today
provides an in-depth review of History Of The People of Israel From the Time
of Hezekiah Till The Return From Babylon by French author Ernest Renan
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F10811F93D59107788DDA00A94DA405B8285F0D3
1896: In Brookline, MA,
Cecilia McCarthy and Arthur Wellman gave birth to director William Augustus
Wellman who won the Oscar for his work on the script of “A Star is Born” which
included contributions by Dorothy Parker, produced by David O. Selznick and
with music by Max Steiner.
1904(13th of Adar, 5664): Ta’anit
Esther; Erev Purim
1908(27th of Adar I, 5668): Shabbat
Shekalim; Parashat Vayakhel; Mevarchim Chodesh Adar II observed on the same day
that James Madison University which at last report had a Hillel House servicing
over 400 Jewish students, was founded at Harrisonburg, Virginia in the United
States as The State Normal and Industrial School for Women by the Virginia
General Assembly.
1912(11th of Adar, 5672) Ta’anit
Esther is observed on Thursday to avoid conflict with Shabbat.
1912: “The Nathan Straus Pasteurized Milk
Laboratories with principal office in New York City was incorporated today to establish infant
milk depots throughout the State and dispense through them pasteurized milk
free or at a cost price with a view of reducing sickness among babies” whose
directors are Nathan Straus, Lina Straus, Nathan Straus, Nathan Straus Jr., H.
Grant Straus an Sissie S. Lehman.
1912: In an echo of “America’s difficulties with
Russia of the passports of American Jews,” this morning, in London, The Times
printed a letter from David L. Alexander, K.C., President of the Jewish Board
of Deputies and Claude Montefiore, President of the Anglo-Association,
protesting against the anomalous position in which Jews desiring of visiting
Russia are placed by restrictions imposed upon them by the Russian Government.”
1916: In Winchester, Tennessee, “Russian-Jewish
immigrant shopkeepers, Anna (née Stein) and Solomon Shore gave birth to Frances
Rose Shore who gained fame as singer, actress and television variety show
hostess, Dinah Shore. She overcame a childhood bout of polio to
become a successful dancer. After
graduating from Vanderbilt University, she found early fame and fortune as a
singer with bandleader Xavier Cougat (Charo’s husband). She took the name Dinah from the title of a
popular song. During the 1950’s she
hosted a Sunday Night variety show which she always ended by giving America a
big sweeping kiss before singing the theme “See the USA in your
Chevrolet.” Most Americans did not know
that this all-American blond girl-next door was Jewish.
(Please note, NYT shows her birthdate as March
1 while all other sources show February 29.
I realize I disagree with the Times at my peril)
1916: Funeral Services are scheduled to be held
this morning at the Uptown Talmud Torah for Henry Glass the husband of Fannie
Glass and head of Henry Glass and Company where the mourners will include
members of the Young Women’s Hebrew Association, the Jewish Centre and the
Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War.
1920: In New York, Gertrude and David Nemerov
gave birth to Howard Nemerov, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet who was the older
brother of famed photographer Diane Arbus.
1920: Czechoslovakia’s National Assembly passed
a constitution establishing a democratic republic. At the time there were approximately 350,000
Jews living in the country making them about 2 to 3% of the total population.
Jews of the newly created republic would flourish until the shameful Munich
Agreement of 1938.
1920: “The Annual Meeting of the Federation for
the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies” is scheduled to take place this
evening in the ballroom of the Hotel Astor complete with supper and dancing to
the music of Michael Markel’s Orchestra.
1920: In Hungary Admiral Miklos Horthy
overthrew the government and becomes Regent, a position he will hold until
1944. Horthy was an avowed anti-Semite who promulgated a series of declarations
and laws aimed limiting the participation of Jews in all facets of Hungarian
society. This played well with the
populace since at this time, the Jews who were 5% of the population were 60% of
the doctors, 51% of the lawyers, 25% of the university students, etc. [Anti-Semitism goes hand in hand with Jewish
success. Yet, anti-Semites also attack
Jews as a pariah when they are poor.]
1924: In Munich, Geneal Ludendorff, one of the
chief defendants in the trial of those held responsible for the Bavarian ‘putsch’
last November took the stand today” and declared that him the Jewish question
was a racial question; that the Jews had no more right than the English or
Frech to be allowed to obtain authority and influence in Germany.”
1924: It was reported today that “the Chief
Rabbi of Palestine, Abaham Isaac kook has left” Palestine “ for
America on an official visit.”
1924: Birthdate of Cleveland third basemen Al
Rosen. Rosen elected MVP of the American League in 1953. He was the first
player to be elected unanimously. He led the Indians to the American
League Pennant in 1954. He left baseball after 1956, his all-star career
shortened by injuries.
1928: Birthday of Laszlo Berkowits “a
Hungarian-born American Reform rabbi. From 1944-1945, he was imprisoned in a
Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. After his release in 1945, he studied
briefly in Sweden before he moved to the United States, where he began studying
to be a rabbi. He was ordained in 1962.” In 1963, he was hired by Temple Rodef
Shalom as its first senior rabbi. He held this title for 35 years, prior to his
retirement in July, 1998. In 1988, he received his Doctor of Divinity from Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He is currently the Rabbi Emeritus
at Temple Rodef Shalom.
1932: A portrait of Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo
was among those on display at an exhibition of American portraits by
contemporary American artists that was held this afternoon at the American Art
– Anderson Galleries for the purposed of raising funds to support the Free Milk
Coffee Stations for the unemployed.
1932: “Benjamin Cardozo, the newly appointed
Justice of the Supreme Court” had lunch with President Hoover today at the
White House during which they “discussed legal affairs and his new duties on
the highest tribunal.
1932: Twenty-four-year-old Jackie Fields (born
Jacob Finkelstein) won a non-title bout with a 9th round knockout in
Pittsburgh, PA.
1932: Birthdate of Chicago native and University
of Illinois trained mathematician (B.S., M.A. and Ph.D.) Gene Howard Golu the numerical
analyst “who taught at Stanford University as Fletcher Jones Professor of
Computer Science and held a courtesy appointment in electrical engineering.
https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet/MRAuthorID/74940
1936: Twenty-two-year-old track star Milton
Green who would boycott the Berlin Olympics, won the 45 high hurdles, the 50
yard spring and the broad jump in a competition today between Harvard, Yale,
Cornell and Dartmouth.
1936(6th of Adar, 5696): Parashat
Terumah
1936: Rabbi Israel Goldstein is scheduled to
deliver a sermon on “What Is Success: How Much Is Worth?” at B’nai Jeshurun.
1936(6th of Adar I, 5696): Seventy-one-year-old
Abraham “Abe” Ruef, who began as a reformer but became a political boss and
Mayor of San Francisco who went to prison after being convicted of corruption
related to the rebuilding of the city after the earthquake.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9400E6DC133BE33BBC4953DFB566838D629EDE
1936: Paul Baerwald, Chairman of the Joint
Distribution Committee announced today that “New York City’s quota in the 1936
national $3,500,000 fund of the Joint Distribution Committee has been set at
$1,500,000.
1936: Dr. Chaim Weizmann, is reported scheduled
to meet with those Jews who “are sponsors of a scheme to accelerate the
evacuation of Jews from Germany “told the New York Times ‘I do not know the
extent of the funds of the nature of the scheme contemplated by Herman Samuel’s
mission, but I am ready to cooperate in the execution of any project promising
to increase Jewish immigration to Palestine.’”
1936: In Berlin court today, when sentencing
five communists to death and “five more to penal servitude for fourteen years
each and six others to penal servitude ranging from three to twelve years” the
presiding Judge said that in passing judgement he had “considered all the
circumstances that had led to the incitement of the masses by Jewish-Marxist
wirepullers.”
1936: In Lwow, Poland, “two Jewish students
were seriously injured and other were slightly hurt in a clash” tonight
“between Jewish and non-Jewish students at the Lwow University of Polytechnic
and Commerce.
1936: Birthdate of Gene Golub, the Fletcher
Jones Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and co-author of
“Matrix Computations.”
1936: Baby Snooks, played by Jewish comedic
actress Fanny Brice, debuts on the radio program The Ziegfeld Follies of the
Air.
1936: During a concert at the Carnegie Hall,
Bronislaw Huberman, switched the Stradivarius "Gibson" he owned for
over 40 years with his newly acquired Guarnerius violin in his dressing room
during the intermission and went on to the second half of the concert. When he
was playing Cesar Franck's Violin Sonata in A Major, his secretary, Miss Ida
Ibbiken, noticed that the "Gibson" disappeared from the dressing
room. It was snatched by a young New York nightclub musician, Julian Altman, who
kept the violin for the next half century. After being convicted of child
molestation in 1985, Altman made a deathbed confession to his wife, Marcelle
Hall, that he had stolen the violin. The insurance company, Lloyd's of London,
paid Huberman $30,000 for the loss in 1936. Ironically, Julian Altman went on
to become a violinist with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.
and performed for Presidents and politicians with the stolen Stradivarius for
many years. After Altman's death in 1985, Ms. Hall consulted experts who
confirmed that the violin was indeed the Gibson Stradivarius. Two years later,
she returned it to Lloyd's and collected a finder's fee of $263,000. The
instrument underwent a 9-month restoration by J&A Beare Ltd., in London. In
1988, Lloyd's sold it for $US1.2 million to British violinist Norbert Brainin.
In October 2001, the American violinist, Joshua Bell, purchased it for
$4,000,000. "Normally someone in my situation with my income could not
afford to own a Strad like this, but I was very lucky in my purchases of
violins", Bell said. "I kind of worked my way up and managed."
1936: “Not The Only Victims” published
today described efforts to by the American Christian Committee for German
Refugees to provide aid for Christians seeking to flee Nazi Germany including
raising a fund of $400,000 for the resettlement of 2,500 Christian refugees.”
1940: "Gone with the Wind" won eight
Oscars at the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, including Best Picture of
1939. This American classic certainly had a Jewish touch. It had a Jewish producer, theme music written
by a Jew and of course a Jew, Leslie Howard, played one of the leading
characters – the soulful Ashley Wilkes
1940: The screen version of The House of the
Seven Gables with a script by Lester Cole and directed by Joe May premiered
in Chicago today.
1940: In response to the adoption of the Land
Transfer Regulations, David Ben Gurion declared that “The effect of these
regulations is that no Jew may acquire in Palestine a plot of land, a building
or a triee, or ay right in water, except in town and a very small part of the
country. The regulations not only
violate the terms of the Mandate but completely nullify its primary purpose.’
1940: “Jewish women and children marched
through the streets of Tel Aviv today carrying banners with biblical quotations
prophesying Jewish ownership of Palestine.
1940: In Tel Aviv, Avraham Milstein, a
volunteer in the British army in World War II, and Sarah Milstein, a kindergarten
teacher” who “were among the founders of Kibbutz Afikim” gave birth to “Israeli
military historian Uri Milstein,” the husband of “actress Shifra (Ben David)
Milstein.”
1944: “Views Here Irk Egypt” published today
reported that “Mustafa Nahas Pasha, as Egyptian Premier and Foreign Minister,
has gone to the United States Minister to Egypt, Alexander Kirk, protesting
against speeches made in Congress favoring the recognition of Palestine as a
Jewish nation and the unrestricted settlement of Jews there.”
1944: Today, in Washington, “the Iraqi
Legations made public protests from leaders of the Iraqi Parliament against a
proposed Congressional resolution in favor of lifting restrictions on the
immigration of Jews into Palestine.”
1944: It was reported today that “for the first
time since the liberation of North Africa, Jewish delegates from Algeria, Tunis
and French Morocco will proceed to the United States to report on the situation
of the Jews there before and after the Nazis were driven out of their
homelands…”
1944: “Incomplete returns on the results of a
three-week fund-raising drive to further the work of the National Conference of
Christians and Jews show that $100,000 has been collected, it was announced today
at a luncheon at the Hotel Commodore attended by 1,000 members of the textile
and allied industries who conducted the campaign.”
1948(19th of Adar I, 5708): Two Jews were killed,
and five other persons were wounded in a bomb explosion in Haifa today on the
third floor of Barclays Bank building near the railway station in the harbor
zone.
1948: The Stern Gang bombed
the Cairo-Haifa train killing 27 British soldiers.
1952: In Queens, NY, Raymond and Shirley (née
Silverstein) Joseph, emigrants from Poland gave birth to Cornell and G.W. alum
Abby Joseph Cohen known for her bullish stock market predictions who is the
wife of David Cohen with whom she had two children.
1952: Lawrence Demmy and his partner won “the
ice dancing title at the World Figure Skating Championship in Paris.” (As
reported by Bob Wechsler.
1956: President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower
announced that he would seek a second term.
He would win in a landslide in November.
In the last weeks of the campaign (October, 1956) the Suez Crisis would
flair up and Ike would have to deal with a major foreign policy challenge which
would have special meaning for Jewish voters as they went to the polls.
1960: The first Playboy Club opened in Chicago,
Illinois. One of the most famous Playboy Bunnies was feminist activist Gloria
Steinem.
1960: “The Play of the Week” broadcast the Moss
Hart adaption of “The Climate of Eden” produced by David Susskind
1960: An earthquake in Agadir, Morocco
killed 5000 people, including hundreds of Jews.
1964(16th of Adar, 5724): Parashat
Ki Tisa
1964: Birthdate of Princeton graduate and
Orthodox rabbi Joshua Berman, the holder of a PhD from Bar-Ilan university
where he later joined the faculty as a professor of bible and as a contributor
to several publications including Mosaic Magazine, he “has written there
on a variety of topics including most commonly the Israelite exodus out of
Egypt and the current state of biblical studies…”
https://bible.biu.ac.il/en/node/559
https://mosaicmagazine.com/author/joshua-berman/
1964: Birthdate of James Robert Bruce Ogilvy,
the editor of Revisioning Philosophy which included a section by Naomi
Scheman who wrote about attempts to heal the rift between Blacks and Jews which
included her membership in a Black and Jewish Women Dialogue Group in the Twin
Cities.
1968(30th of Shevat, 5728) Rosh
Chodesh Adar
1968: Eighty-two-year-old Barnard and University
of Chicago graduate Margaret Avery Augur, the Evanston, IL born daughter of
Walter Wheaton Augur and Nellie J Augur, the headmistress of the Kingwood
Schoolpassed away today in Hingham, MA
1968: “The Secret War of Harry Frigg” with Tom
Bosley, Norman Fell and Paul Newman was released today in the United States.
1972(14th of Adar, 5732): Purim
1972: “Plans to hold antipoverty elections on,
the Jewish Sabbath would be forestalled by legislation introduced in the New
YokCity Council today at the request of the Lindsay administration.”
1976: Birthdate of Lior Mor, the native of
Haifa who was Israel’s 2000 Davis cup team and coached Israeli players at the
2008 Summer Olympics.
1976: “Operation Daybreak” a “film based on the
true story of Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of SS General Reinhard
Heydrich in Prague” with a screenplay by Ronald Harwood was released in the
United Kingdom, 3 months after having first been seen in the United States.
1980 (12th of Adar, 5740): Yigal Allon (יגאל אלון) passed away. Born on a kibbutz in 1918, this sabra played
an active role in the creation of the Kibbutz movement and the IDF. He was a member of the Haganah and leader of
the Palmach. After the War for Independence,
he became a leading general in the IDF.
After leaving the army, Allon became active in politics and held several
responsible government positions including acting prime minister between the
death of Levi Eshkol and the installation of Golda Meir as head of the
government.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Allon.html
http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14393.html
1984: Pierre Trudeau, whose son Justin would
apologize for Canada’s treatment of Refugees and condemn the BDS movement as
anti-Semitic, announced today that he was stepping down as the Prime Minister
of Canada.
1988(11th of Adar, 5748): Eighty-seven-year-old
May Weiss, the New York born daughter of Regina and Frederick Fred Margareten
and wife of Morris Weiss with whom she had two sons – Richard and Stanley
Weiss.
1988: Nazi documents implicated former UN
Secretary-General and Austrian President Kurt Waldheim in WWII
deportations. Waldheim's claims that he was just an Austrian serving
as an officer in the Nazi Army, proved to be false. His war time
behavior would make him persona non grata in many countries and he did not
run for re-election as President of Austria.
1992(25th of Adar I, 5752): Parashat
Vayakehl; Shabbat Shekalim
1992: In Lawrence, L.I., at Temple Israel,
Rabbi Gilbert Klaperman officiated at the wedding of Michele Lesley Bialek, an
assistant district attorney and Todd Alan Neufeld, C.P.A.
1992: It was reported today that “The
International Paper Company said it had tentatively agreed to acquire roughly
an 11 percent stake in Israel's Scitex Corporation for $209 million in a
private placement.”
1996: Novelist Joan Collins, the daughter of a South
African Jew, was awarded US $1 million from Random House for breach of
contract.
1996: Manhattan Borough President Ruth
Messinger named today as “Henry Roth Day” in New York City.
2000: In “Its Children; Cultural Ties and Low
Costs Lure Orthodox Couples to Lower East Side” published today, Tina Kelly
described the phenomena of young Jews returning en masse to an area from which
their immigrant forbearers sought to escape.
2004: Thirty-four-year-old “defenseman Mathieu
Schneider” whose love of the game may have come his French-Canadian mother
Aline, led the Detroit Red Wings to victory over the Philadelphia Flyers.
2004: "Ten Years of Hope," a play by
Elizabeth Swados about the experiences of women who fled El Salvador for new
lives in New York City, opened.
2004: The
New York Times features books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest
to Jewish readers including Five Men Who Broke My Heart by Susan Shapiro
and the recently published paperback edition of Michael Pye’s novel World War
II art theft The Pieces From Berlin. A woman in wartime Berlin accepts
objets d'art for safekeeping from cultivated Jews, most of whom are sent to
their deaths in Nazi camps. Sixty years later a Holocaust survivor recognizes a
table in the window of her shop in Switzerland, forcing both characters to
confront their long-submerged pasts.
2004(7th of Adar, 5764): Playwright Jerome
Lawrence passed away. Born Jerome
Schwartz in Cleveland, Ohio, Lawrence is best known for the hits “Auntie Mame”
and “Inherit the Wind” both of which became hit films.
http://www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040325/news_1m25lawrence.html
2004: In “A Frenchman Or a Jew?” published
today Fernanda Eberstadt uses a sketch of the life of a French Jewess named
Brigitte Stora as a vehicle for describing the changing status of the Jews of
France especially in light of the growing Moslem population in metropolitan
France.
2008: At Temple Judah, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
the second in a series of special Musical Shabbats.
2008: The original motion picture soundtrack of
“The First Basket,” a “documentary film on professional basketball’s influence
on Jewish culture was released today.
2008: Two weeks after its premiere at the
Berlin International Festival, “The Other Boleyn Girl” starring Natalie Portman
and featuring Andrew Garfield was released today in the United States.
2008: A Belgian writer has
admitted that she made up her bestselling "memoir" depicting how, as
a Jewish child, she lived with a pack of wolves in the woods during the
Holocaust, her lawyers said. Misha Defonseca's 1997 book, Misha: A Memoire
of the Holocaust Years, was translated into 18 languages and made into a
feature film in France, according the Associated Press.Her two Brussels-based
lawyers, siblings Nathalie and Marc Uyttendaele, said the author acknowledged
her story was not autobiographical and that she did not trek 1,900 miles as a
child across Europe with a pack of wolves in search of her deported parents
during World War II, the AP reported. Nor is she Jewish.
2008: Israel began Operation Hot
Winter, also called Operation Warm Winter a “military campaign in the Gaza
Strip, launched in response to Qassam rockets fired from the Strip by Hamas.
Two days prior to the IDF mission, “Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees
and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad carried out a rocket barrage, in which they
fired for the first time 6 Grad missiles at the industrial city of Ashkelon.”
2012: “New
Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza” is scheduled to open at
Theatre J in Washington, DC.
2012: A
petition that had been presented to Parliament by Isabel Ferreira Lopes,
granddaughter of Barros Basto and Vice President of the Jewish Community of
Porto that stated Barros Basto’s dismissal from the army was a matter of
political and religious segregation on account of being Jewish, the name of Artur
Carlos de Barros Basto was officially “rehabilitated” today.
2012: The
annual Latke-Hamentasch Debate is scheduled to take place at Adas Israel in
Washington, DC.
2012:
Violinist Yehonatan Berick and cellist Rachel Mercer are scheduled to perform a
series of duets at the Jerusalem Music Center.
2012: A number
of people were injured; traffic was disrupted and electricity was cut today due
to winds that reached up to 110 kilometers per hour as a late-February winter
storm swept across the country. In Tel Aviv, a large tree was toppled on the
city's central King George Street, taking down an electricity line with it. The
street was closed to traffic as crews worked to clear the tree and restore
electricity. A number of other trees were uprooted in Tel Aviv, causing damage
to cars. In Herzliya, Netanya, Ramat Hasharon, municipal crews were working to
clear fallen trees from city streets. In Netanya, a driver was trapped when a
tree fell on his car. Emergency crews freed the uninjured driver from his
vehicle. In Netanya, a 70-year-old man was lightly injured by flying glass from
a shattered store door. Magen David Adom crews treated the man on the scene and
evacuated him to a hospital. In the North, a major road in Hatzor Haglilit was
closed to traffic due to a number of uprooted trees strewn across the road.
Police were allowing traffic to access the city from the direction of Safed.
The Israel Electric Company said its crews were working to restore electricity
in a number of locations. It asked the public to stay away from downed power
lines and to report such dangerous instances to its hotline, *103. In the
North, snow fell this morning on the Hermon Mountain in the Golan Heights,
leading police to close access to the area. Schools in the Golan Heights closed
early Wednesday and sent children home due to the snow. By the afternoon snow
flurries spread to the south over the Golan, prompting authorities to close
Route 91 between the Hasharyon and Wasat junctions leading to the Golan
settlement Ein Zivan. Snow was expected
to reach other mountain areas in the North later tonight and it was possible
snow would reach mountains in the Center of the country later tonight. (As
reported by the JPost)
2012: Members
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints posthumously baptized slain
Jewish reporter Daniel Pearl last year, the Boston Globe reported today.
2012(6th
of Adar, 5772): Ninety-one-year-old “Sheldon Moldoff, who drew some of the most
recognizable superheroes of comic books’ golden age without receiving
recognition in his own right until decades later” passed away today. (As reported by Daniel Slotnik)
2016: Shulem Deen, the author of All Who Go Do
Not Return, his story of growing up among the Skverers, one of the most insular
Hasidic sects in the US is scheduled to lecture on “Telling Your Story: The Art
and Craft of Memoir Writing” at the Skirball Center.
2016: Mike Brown who had placed on waivers by
the Sharks was claimed today by the Montreal Canadians.
2016: “Sands and Seasons” and “Carvalho’s
Journey” are scheduled to be shown at the 26th annual Washington
Jewish Film Festival.
2020: In the Bay Area, among the
non-traditional Shabbat observances are “Tot Shabbat with Isaac Zones” hosted
by Urban Admah and “Shabbat Forest Bathing” in the Redwood Regional Park.
2020: In Berkeley, CA, the Kehilla Community Synagogue
Immigration Committee is scheduled to co-present “Witness at Tornillo,” a “documentary
that follows Josh Rubin, a border activist who plants himself outside a child
detention center in Texas.”
2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is
scheduled to host a Seduah that will begin an hour the end of Shabbat.
2020: This evening, The New York Sephardic
Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “The Syrian Jewish Community:
Coming to America (1900-1919).”
2020: The Illinois Holocaust Museum is
scheduled to host George Levy Mueller as part of the “Resistance, Resilience
and Hope” program where Holocaust survivors tell their stories.
2020: The Seven Annual Jewish Film Institute
Winterfest is scheduled to open today with screenings of “Soros” and “Oliver
Sacks: His Own Life.”
2020: In Palo Alto, CA, the Oshman Family JCC
is scheduled to host a Klezmer band performing on instruments preserved and
restored from the Holocaust as part of the “Violins of Hope” project.
2020(4th of Adar, 5780): Parashat
Terumah;
2024: Since Rabbi Feivel is on a mission to
Israel, Cantor Abbie will lead the Thursday morning minyan at Temple Judea.
2024: YIVO is scheduled to present a discussion
of Firebird with translator Alissa Valles, led by YIVO Executive
Director Jonathan Brent.
2024: In New Orleans, Chabad and Hadassah are
scheduled to jointly host a Challah Bake.
2024: The Sir Martin Learning Center is scheduled
to host Allen Packwood’s third lecture on “Churchill’s D-Day.”
2024: In Washington, the Lillian and Albert
Small Capital Jewish Museum is scheduled to present “CJM After Sunset: Summer
Camp” for those age 21 and above.
2024: The
Streicker Center is scheduled to host “Antisemitism Yesterday, Today and
Tomorrow” during which will Mark Weitzman, Dr. Robet J. Williams and Professor
Magda Teter will discuss The Routledge History of Antisemitism, “a
guidebook to the breadth and depth of conspiracy theories, libels, rumors and
propaganda that have underpinned the oldest hatred across time and space.”
2024: As
February 29th begins in Israel, the Hamas held
hostages begin day 146 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.)
