This Day, November 6, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
November 6
355: Roman Emperor Constantius II
promotes his cousin Julian to the rank of Caesar, entrusting him with the
government of the Prefecture of Gaul. Constantius II followed the pro-Christian
and anti-Jewish policies of his father, Constantine The Great. Julian would follow his cousin as Caesar and
enter history as Julian, the Apostate.
Julian was a Pagan who sought to reverse the Christianizing policies of
his two predecessors. He reversed the
rules against the Jewish people and was reportedly planning to allow them to
re-build the Temple; a plan that was aborted by his assassination.
1095: At the Council of Claremont, Pope
Urban II summoned Christians to retake the Holy Land from the Moslems, alleging
that they destroyed Christian holy places. A combination of religious, economic
and social motives resulted in the overwhelming response that became known as
the First Crusade. The Pope formed an army headed by special knights (i.e.
Raymond, Godfrey, etc.). A "people's" army also joined, encouraged by
Peter the Hermit and other local clerics. There would eventually be a total of
eight Crusades, but only the first four were of any real significance. The
Crusades meant death and destruction for the Jews of Europe and the
Levant. The “People’s Army” would lay
waste to the Jewish communities of Germany and Austria as they marched across
Europe. After all, why wait until they
got to Palestine to kill the enemies of Christ when they were living right
there in Europe? Of course, plundering
and pillaging the Jews of their wealth was just an unexpected benefit of
religious zeal.
1153: In accord with the terms agreed to at Winchester today, William
Marshall, who had been held as a crown hostage and who “regarded King John’s
policy towards the Jews…as harmful to the welfare of the state” was released.
1441: In Worms, the guilds of the “bakers, butchers and marketmen” enacted
regulations aimed at the city’s Jews.
1494: Birthdate of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. By 1517 the
Islamic Ottoman Empire, ruled by Selim I, took Palestine from the Egyptian
Mamelukes. Suleiman was so taken with the city of Jerusalem and its plight
(having suffered centuries of neglect under Mameluke rule), that he ordered the
construction of a magnificent surrounding fortress-wall that still stands
around the Old City. He reigned from 1520 to 1566. There is not room here to
acquaint you with all of the military and cultural accomplishments of the
Ottoman Empire’s longest serving sultan.
Like many living under his rule, the Jews benefited from his policies.
The Ottomans had taken Palestine from the Egyptian Mamelukes three years before
he came to the throne. Sulieman was so disgusted with the effect of Mameluke
neglect of the city that he built “a magnificent surrounding fortress-wall that
still stands around the Old City.”
“Suleiman was renowned as a just and fair ruler, choosing his
subordinates according to merit rather than social status or popularity. In
1553 Suleiman declared a law to stop the persecution of Jews via Blood libels,
decreeing that all accusations of the slaughter of Christian children by Jews
be referred to the Imperial Divan where the courts would expose these lies. The
preparation of the law included the input of Moses Hamon, a favorite doctor and
dentist of the Sultan. Another symbol of the Muslim-Jewish tolerance was the
building of a synagogue and mosque which was built by Suleiman.”
1498: The Jews of Nuremberg were scheduled to be expelled today but for some
reason it was postponed until “the fourth Sunday in the season of Lent” in
1499.
1593(11th of Cheshvan, 5354): Rabbi Abraham Menachem Rapoport
author of Minchah Beluah, passed away
1632: Christiana, who made Clement X end the custom of chasing the Jews
through the streets of Rome during carnival and who issued a declaration in
1686 placing the Jews of Rome under her protection, began her reign as Queen of
Sweden.
1637: Italian Jewish Hebraist Gai Solomon wrote Johannes Buxtorf a Swiss
born Christian Hebraist that “he had emigrated to Botzen, a town in Tyrol,
where he had become the tutor of the two sons of a rich man named Jacob
Moravia.”
1637: In a second letter written today in Latin with a Hebrew introduction
Solomon Gai wrote to Johannes Buxtorf about Hebrew books that the latter had
not seen and which he would later purchase on his behalf.
1643(24th of Cheshvan, 5404): Abraham ben Mordecai Azulai, the
native of Fez who “was a Kabbalistic author and commentator, passed away today
at Hebron.
1654: King John IV of Portugal who was erroneously reported to have employed
the Jewish doctor Fernando Menes as his physician passed away today.
1656: King John IV of Portugal who was erroneously reported to have employed
the Jewish doctor Fernando Menes as his physician passed away today.
1658: French dramatist Pierre du Ryer, whose work included “La chevalerie de Judas Macabé” which was one
of several European depictions of the life and death of the hero of the
Chanukah story created in a civilization where Jews were virtually
non-existent, passed away today.
1661:
Philip IV of Spain and Mariana of Austria gave birth to Charles II who gave Antonio Lopes Suasso the
title of Baron d'Avernas le Gras in recognition of his diplomatic service.
1730: For the second time, Moses ben Aaron received permission from the King
to serve as a rabbi in Frankfort-on-the-Oder under the condition that he make a
yearly payment of 300 marks to the chief rabbi of Berlin.
1754:Birthdate of King Frederick of Württemberg who in a decree in 1806
stated that "in view of the various services that the Kaulla family has
rendered to the country in critical periods", he had conferred upon Jacob
and a number of his immediate relatives and their descendants of both sexes all
rights of citizenship in Württemberg.
1755: Stanisław Staszic, a Catholic priest and government minister, who
“attempted to subject Polish Jewish books to the severest scrutiny” so that “no
Jewish book was to be printed or sold in the land or imported from aboard
through sale or subscription without the express permission of the Commission
of Religion Denominations and Public Enlightenment” was baptized today.
1765: Silversmith Joseph Pinto, the son of Abraham Pinto married Josse Hays
today in New York City.
1771: Birthdate of Baden, Germany native Fratel Oppenheimer, the wife of
Zacharias
1786: Future President of the United States James Madison who worked with
his mentor Thomas Jefferson to ensure freedom of religion in the state of
Virginia in the years between the Revolution and the ratification of the U.S.
Constitution began his second term as a delegate from Virginia to the Congress
of the Confederation which was the governing body of the United States at that
time.
1794: Marriage of Isaac Katzenelnbogen to Fanny Neuburg
1796: Catherine II, “whom the Boyars called The Great,” died. Many of her
predecessors on the Russian throne had done all they could to keep Jews from
living in the empire. Catherine’s
aggressive foreign policy helped to lead to the dismemberment of Poland. With
one fell swoop, Catherine undid all their efforts when she gained the Jews of a
large part of Poland and Lithuania.
Despite some early dabbling at enlightened treatment of her Jewish
subjects, Catherine began the policies that would create the Pale of
Settlement.
1796(5th of Cheshvan, 5557): German native Myer Lyon better known
by his stage name Michael Leoni, who was a hazzan at the Great Synagogue of
London and who achieved fame as a tenor opera singer in London and Dublin, and
as the mentor of the singer John Braham passed away today in Kingston, Jamaica
where he was serving as the Chazan for the community.
1800: In Kensington, London, Joseph Elias Montefiore, the London born son of
Moses Vita-Haim Montefiore and Esther Hannah Magood Montefiore and his wife
Rachel Montefiore gave birth to Justina Sebag Cohen, the wife of Benjamin
Barnet Cohen.
1801: Adelaide Hertz and Lion Abraham Goldschmidt gave birth to Amelia
Goldschmidt.
1801: Isaac Levy and his wife gave birth to Moses Isaac Levy, who was buried
at the Horsens Jewish Cemetery in Denmark.
1805(14th of Cheshvan, 5566): Meir Obornik, a Biblical
commentator in the style of Moses Mendelssohn who translated the Joshua
and Judges into German passed away today in Vienna.
1807: In Wiesenbronn, Bavaria, Shimon Simcha Bamberger and Judith Bamberge
gave birth Seligman Baer Bamberger who studied under Rabbis Wolf Hamburger and
Judah Leib Halberstadt, served as the rabbi at Wurzburg for 38 years and was
the husband of Kela Bamberger.
1811(19th of Cheshvan, 5572): Fifty-seven-year-old Sara De La
Motta, the St. Croix born daughter of Sarah and Isaac De La Motta and the wife
of Savannah native Levi Sheftall whom she married in 1768 passed away today in
Savanah.
1815: Birthdate of Rabbi and educator Max Lilienthal
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Lilienthal_Max
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0013_0_12538.html
1816: The Four Great Powers – England, Russia, Austria and Prussia – sent a
second note demanding that Frankfort repeal its ordinances that discriminated
against the Jews, in part because the regulation “of the affairs of the Jews
had been reserved for the Bundestag.”
1816: Today “Henry Solomon was interviewed for the post of Master at a new
school, the Jews’ Free School.”
1817: According to today’s entry in Friedrich von Gentz’s diary he “worked
on an important memorial on behalf of the Jews of Austria.”
1819: Seventeen-year-old Joël Jolson was baptized and became Lutheran lawyer
and politician Friedrich Julius Stahl.
1824: Birthdate of Cracow native
Jehuda Lejb, the liberal political leader and author who gained fame as
Julian Klackzo after he became a Roman Catholics in 1856 while living in Paris.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9361-klaczko-julian-judah
1824(15th of Cheshvan, 5585): Parashat Vayera
1824(15th of Cheshvan, 5585): Isaac King, the son of Richmond, VA
merchant Jacob King, passed away today in Philadelphia, PA.
1825: Birthdate of Vilna native Jehuda Lejb who emigrated to France,
converted to Christianity and gained fame as author Julian Klaczko.
https://yiddishkayt.org/view/julian-klaczko/
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9361-klaczko-julian-judah
1830: Twenty-nine-year-old Salomon Herxheimer became the district rabbi at
Eschwege where he wrote "Yesode ha-Torah," which went through 29
printings in the next fifty-three years.
1833: Joel Abrahams married Fanny Nathan in Dover, UK.
1834: The Jews of Austria were forbidden to have the first names
of Christian saints.
1838: Birthdate of Abraham Shalom Friedberg, the failed
businessman who found success as one of the earliest authors to write in Hebrew
who was the editor of Ha-Eshkol, a Hebrew encyclopedia and whose works
included Ḳorot ha-Yehudim bi-Sefarad, a history of the Jews in Spain.
1839(29th of Cheshvan, 5600): Rabbi
Hayim Rapoport, of Ostrowiec passes away. Rapoport was a member of a
distinguished family of Jewish scholars.
He was the author of a collection of Responsa called Maxim Chayyim.
1840: At Constantinople, Sultan Abd Al-Majid issued a firman
declaring that Jews did not use blood in their ceremonies, and for any of the
Sultan's subjects to say the Jews did was not truth. Moses
Montefiore met with the Sultan and helped to secure this Decree. The Sultan
issued the firman to protect the Jews of Rhodes and in Damascus, who were being
persecuted by this old anti-Semitic remark.
1842: The first Jewish benevolent society in St. Louis was formed,
Chesed v'Emeth ("Mercy and Truth"). Its purpose was to aid indigent
Jews. In December 1846 the group formally incorporated as the Hebrew Benevolent
Society (H.B.S.).
1843(13th of Cheshvan, 5604): Harriet Samuel the London
born daughter of Israel Isaac Israel and Rebecca Pearl Israel and the wife of
Moses Samuel with who she had five children – Hannah, Henry, Marian, Walter and
Alfred – passed away today in Liverpool, England.
1843: Tobias Phillips married Hannah Harris at the Great Synagogue
today.
1845: Unterreissheim-on-the-Main native Karl Friedrich Cerf, the
convert to Christianity who went from being a horse trader, to serving as the
chief military agent under Count Wittgenstein to own and operating a theatre in
Berlin “which was devoted to French comedy and Italian opera, passed away
today.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4181-cerf-karl-friedrich
1846: “At Wollstein, Prussia,” Henry and Zelda Rosnosky gave birth
to Isaac Rosnosky who came to Massachusetts in 1861 where he became a partner
of Lewis H. Clark, a manufacturer of clothing, a member of the Boston Common
Council, the first Jew to serve in the state legislature, a delegate to two
Democratic National Council and the long time “president of Temple Ohabei
Shalom, the oldest Hebrew Congregation in Boston.”
1847(27th of Cheshvan, 5608): Parashat Chayei Sara
1847: In Miskolc, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County, Hungary, Jakab Kis
and Babet Kis gave birth to Erzsébet Klein the “wife of Dr. Móricz Mayer Klein
and mother of Arnold Armin [Chaim Zvi] Kiss, Chief Rabbi of Buda; Eugenia
Hirtenstein; Eszter Etelka Lichter; Helen Steiner; Imre Klein; and Lajos
Borsodi.”
1847(27th of Cheshvan, 5608): Eighty-five-year-old
Rachel Doris Lazarus, the daughter of Benjamin Dorrris and Leah Cordosa, the wife
of Mark Lazarus whom she married in 1776 with whom she had six children – Leah,
Hannah, Solomon, Benjamin, Rachel and Daniel –passed way today after which she
was buried at the Coming Street Cemetery in Charleston, SC
1850: In Tarnow, Isaak Ettinger and Rebecca Schapiro gave birth to
Ester Ernestine Hortner, the wife of Gerson Hortner.
1851(11th of Cheshvan, 5612): Bella Hart, the daughter
of Mary and Mordecai Levy, the wife of
Daniel Hart and “mother of Rachel Hart; Miriam (Mary) Lazarus; Jane Warner;
Naphtali (Henry) Hart; Henrietta Hart; Samuel Hart, Sr. and Caroline E. Hart.”
1851(11th of Cheshvan, 5612): Bella Hart, the London
born daughter of Mary and Mordecai Levy and the wife of Daniel Hart passed away
today in Charleston, SC.
1853: In
Hartford, Conn, Samson and Adelaide Wallach gave birth to Leopold Wallach, the
prominent New York lawyer who was the father of Mrs. Max Morgenthau, Jr.
1853:
Joseph Seligman and Babette Seligman gave birth to
their daughter Sophie who married Morris Walter and became Sophie Seligman
Walter.
1854: In Cincinnati, OH, Solomon and Fannie Kuhn Loeb gave birth
to Therese Schiff.
1855: In “Rachel’s French Critic” published today described career
of Elizabeth-Rachel Félix the Jewish-French actress known as
Mademoiselle Rachel,
1856: The first work of fiction by the author later known as
George Eliot is submitted for publication. George Eliot was the pen name of
Mary Anne Evans. Daniel Deronda, published in 1876, would the last novel
she completed and the only one set in the contemporary Victorian society of her
day. Its mixture of social satire and moral searching, along with a sympathetic
rendering of Jewish proto-Zionist and Kaballistic ideas has made it a
controversial final statement of one of the greatest of Victorian novelists.
1858: In Dorsten, Germany, Bertha and Moses Samson Eisendrath gave
birth to Rose Flora Eisendrath, the wife of Emanuel Raphael Weil and mother of
Leon, Florence, Rose and Mildred Weil.
1858: According to the police reports published in the New York
Times, “when the case of Henry Myers” who was “charged with assault and battery
was called, Judge Osborn, the presiding judicial officer declared “Now you’ll
see some hard swearing. They’re a parcel of Jews.”
1859: Birthdate of clergyman and author Madison Clinton Peters,
the native of Lehigh County, PA whose works included Justice to the Jew,
Haym Solomon, The Genius of the Jew, The Jews as a Patriot
and The Wit and Wisdom of the Talmud.
1859: In Poland (part of the Russian Empire) Chaja Szarka and
Symcha Jakum Dancygier gave birth to Abraham Dancygier who gained fame as
Adolphe Danziger De Castro whose multifaceted career included authoring Jewish
Forerunners of Christianity which covered Jewish history from Hillel
through Judah HaNasi.
1860: Birthdate of Earlville, Illinois native Stephen Arnold
Douglas “Steve” Behel the 19th century baseball player who at one
time was classified as being Jewish.
http://www.jewsinsports.org/profile.asp?sport=baseball&ID=62
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/behelst01.shtml
http://www.espn.com/mlb/player/stats/_/id/19073/steve-behel
1860: In the United Kingdom, Mr. I. Lewis-Barned and his wife gave
birth to H.B. Lewis Barned the husband Albert Louis Cohen’s elder daughter Lily
who joined the army in 1878, rose to the rank of Major during the war with
South Africa, while serving the Jewish community in several capacities
including Warden of the Council of the West London Synagogue of British Jews,
co-founder of the Maccabaeans and co-founder and Assistant Commandment of the
Jewish Lads’ Brigade.
1860(21st of Cheshvan, 5621): Warder Cresson, who was known by his
Jewish name - Michael Boaz Israel ben Abraham – after he converted to Judaism,
passed away today in Jerusalem. Born in 1798, Cresson was a member of a Quaker
family that traced its roots back to the earliest days of the founding of the
American colonies. Like many men of his
time, Cresson was captivated by questions of morality and religion. Unlike
others, he found his answers in Judaism. Cresson was the first American to be
commissioned Consul at Jerusalem and the time spent in that city may have been
the cause of his conversion. At any
rate, his family took him to court and tried to have him declared a lunatic for
his change in religious beliefs. Having
prevailed in court, Cresson returned to Jerusalem where he took an active role
in the early projects aimed at having Jews settle in Palestine. Her married and had two children. “The Key of
David” is his most famous literary effort.
It is biographical in part. It
was written at a time when he was being persecuted for his religious beliefs so
it contains a comparatively harsh description of Christianity.
http://www.jewish-history.com/cresson/warderc.html
https://journals.psu.edu/pmhb/article/viewFile/42734/42455
1860: Abraham Lincoln was
elected 16th President of the United States. The message of opportunity and defense of the
Union represented by Lincoln and the recently created Republican Party
resonated positively with many Jews. As President, Lincoln took action to make
the Jews feel like “first class” citizens.
In 1862 he signed an act of Congress that required Army chaplains to be
Christian ministers. Now, Rabbis could
officially serve in this position.
Lincoln also rescinded General Grant’s notorious Order #10 that barred
Jewish merchants from operating in the military theatre under his command.
1860: Two days after she had passed away, 64-year-old Sophia Levy,
the wife of Nathaniel Levy with whom she had eight children was buried today at
the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”
1861: Philadelphian Morris Kayser who rose from the rank of First
Lieutenant to Captain in Company B of the 91st Regiment began
serving in the Union Army today.
1861: Birthdate of Scottish chemist Arthur Pillans Laurie who “in
1939 Laurie the notorious The Case for Germany, a pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic
work which praises Hitler…as a painter” and “continues with a revisionist
defiance of Nazism that denigrates the Jewish people and socialism.”
1861: Philadelphian Isaac M. Abraham began a three year enlistment
with the 85th Regiment where he was a Captain in Company G.
1862: Dr. Thomas Torrance and Susan Watt gave birth to Dr. David
Watt Torrance who arrived in Tiberias in 1885 where he soon tired of his
attempts to convert the local population and began ministering to the sick and
injured with such skill that he was viewed as a Chasid by the Jews living in
and around the Sea of Galilee. (Torrance was not Jewish but he was part of a
small stream of Anglo-Christians who may have come to convert but who stayed to
improve the life of the local population)
1863: Aaron Miller began his term of service with Company K of the
119th Regiment during which he would rise to the rank of Corporal
and held prisoner for ten months.
1864: In Boston, “Jewish immigrants Asher and Bertha Ratschesky
gave birth to “wholesale clothier” turned banker Abraham Captain Ratchesky, the
husband of Edith Ratshesky who with “his brother Israel founded the United
States Trust” and who was active in the Republican Party as can be seen by his
term as Massachusetts State Senator and delegate to several National Republican
Conventions starting in 1892.
https://digital.americanancestors.org/digital/collection/p15869coll19
1866: In Belfast, Caroline Spiers and Hermann Boas gave birth to
Oscar Benjamin Boas.
1867: Twenty-four-year-old Eduora Hart, the Charleston born
daughter of Hetty Maria Gomez and Hyman Hart married Gratz Nathan today in New
York City after which they had two children, Constance and Frank.
1867(8th of Cheshvan, 5628): Forty-four-year-old
Magdalena Madel Dukas, the Sulzberg born daughter of Leopold and Lea Kahn and
the wife of Leopold Dukas passed away today while giving birth to Herman and
Leopold Dukas.
1868: In Philadelphia, Barbara Myers Guggenheim and Myer
Guggenheim, “the founder of the vast mining and business dynasty” gave birth to
Wharton trained industrialist William Guggenheim who marred Aimee Steinberger
after divorcing Grace Brown and who created the Guggenheim Honor Cup.
1869: In Philadelphia, Barbara Meyers and Meyer Guggenheim gave
birth to William Guggenheim, the University of Pennsylvania student of mining,
metallurgy and che
1870: In Österreich, Leopold Bloch, the “son of Samuel and
Theresia Bloch” and his wife Rosa Bloch gave birth to Richard Bloch.
1870: In Philadelphia, Gustav Schamberg and Emma Frank gave birth
to University of Pennsylvania medical school graduate Jay Frank Schamberg the “Professor
of Dermatology and Eruptive Infectious Diseases in the Philadelphia Polyclinic
and College for Graduates in Medicine.
1870: Birthdate of Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel, the
brother of Sir Stuart Samuel and husband of Beatrice Franklin whose
distinguished career in public service included being name the 1st
High Commissioner of Palestine.
http://www.historytoday.com/geoffrey-wheatcroft/herbert-samuel-political-life
1871: Salomon Otterbourg married Theresa Cohen at the Northampton
Street Synagogue in Dover.
1875: In Austria, Lucille Krischer and Herman Hollander gave birth
to Adolph Hollander, a realtor wiped out in the Panic of 1907 and the husband
of Anna Newman who recouped his fortune as an agent for the Equitable Life Assurance
Society and president of the Grammercy Finance Corporation while being a member
of Federation of Jewish Philanthropic Societies of New York and Temple Israel.
1876: Johann Emanuel Veith, a Bohemian born Jew who became a Roman
Catholic priest passed away today.
1876: Birthdate of Maurice E. Pollak, a graduate of the University
of Cincinnati who was an executive with an “Iron Company” and director the
city’s Community Chest.
1876: Johann Emanuel Veith, the Jewish native of Bohemia who
became a doctor and a Roman Catholic passed away today.
1876: Giacomo Antonelli, the Cardinal Secretary of State passed
away today. During the Mortara Affair, Antonelli refused to allow British to
see the Pope about this matter. He
declared it “a closed question.” Oddly
enough, Antoneli was reputed to have Jewish ancestors, a condition not uncommon
among Italian Catholics of a certain vintage.
1877: In Boone County, MO, Victor and Nettie A. Barth gave birth
to Harvard trained attorney Irvin V. Barth the husband of Gussie Chan, a
circuit court judge and lecturer at St. Louis University who was a member of
Congregation Shaare Emetth.
1879: The funeral services for Rabbi David Einhorn of blessed
memory took place this morning at Temple Beth-El in New York City. The services, which began at 9 a.m. were
conducted in both German and Hebrew Rabbis. There were numerous rabbis from
across the country and several local dignitaries in attendance. Two of Einhorn’s sons-in-law – Rabbis Kaufman
Kohler and Emile Hirsch – and his close friend Rabbi Samuel Hirsch of Philadelphia
presided over this solemn event which ended with burial in Green Wood Cemetery.
1879: Daniel Dougherty is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled
“The Stage” at a meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in New York
City.
1880: In Oswego, NY,
“William and Eva (Fox) Bandler gave birth to Columbia trained urologist and
Captain in Medical Officer’s Reserve Corps Dr. Clarence Garfield Bandler, the husband of
Miriam Zack.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/11/17/132854902.pdf
1881: “Judaism and
Heine” published today described the Bible as the great treasure of the Jews
which has been their gift to the world.
1882: In Louisville,
KY, pharmacist Jacob Aaron Flexner and “Rosa (Maas) Flexner” gave birth to
Jennie Maas Flexner, the original and innovative readers’ adviser at the New
York Public Library.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/flexner-jennie-maas
1882: It was reported
today that Colonel Emmons Clark, the reform candidate for Sheriff in New York,
has issued a statement denying claims that he has used his influence to keep
Jews from serving under his command in the Seventh Regiment. While the Colonel has no role in choosing
members of the regiment he is proud of the fact that there are Jewish members
in each of the companies that make up the regiment. Clark’s version of events
has been accepted by “the managers of the newspapers which is recognized as the
organ of” the Hebrew “race.”
1884: Hovevei Zion was
founded in Kattowitz, Poland
1884: In Budapest,
Alexander Germanus and Rosalia Zobel gave birth to Julius Germanus the
Islamologist, author and member of the Hungarian Parliament.
1885: It was reported
today that “the Industrial School of the United Hebrew Charities” is enrolling
Jewish girls aged ten and above where they will learn to sew by hand and
machine at no charge.
1886: The Wendell
Phillips Literary Society is scheduled to sponsor a “dramatic entertainment”
this evening which is a fund raiser to for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian
Society which is planning on building a new, more spacious home for the
children in its care.
1886: Birthdate of Sir
Ian Morris Heilbron, the Glasgow born pioneer in the field of organic
chemistry.
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/priestley/recipients/1945heilbron.html
1886: Birthdate of
Gustav Gerson Kahn, the native of Koblenz whose family moved to Chicago in 1890
where he developed the skills that led to a career as a songwriter named Gus
Kahn, the lyricist for such “standards” as “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” “It Had to
Be You” and “Dream a Little Dream of Me” who went on to create musicals in
Hollywood while being married to Grace Kahn with whom he had one son, Donald.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1941/10/09/105163577.pdf
1887: Formation of the
Federation of Synagogues.
1888: “The
Protestant Reformation” published today provides a review of the History of
the Reformation by Philip Schaff in which the author says of Martin Luther
that he hated “Popery” and that “his last books against…the Jews are the worst.
1888: It
was reported today that Republicans in Merrill, Indiana, “stocked a room with
whiskey and beer and sent carriages out among the Polish Jews of the
neighborhood.” Once the Jews had been
gathered together and joined in the revelry, the Republicans tried to convince
them to vote for their candidates and failing that offered to buy their votes
for two dollars a head. (Editor’s note – regardless of Party or locations,
practices like this were all to common in the electoral until well into the
first half of the 20th century.)
1888:
Republican Benjamin Harrison defeated Grover Cleveland in his bid for
re-election. Cleveland won the popular
vote, but Harrison won in the Electoral College. In 1890, word reached the west, that Czar
Alexander III was planning additional punitive measured aimed at making the
lives of Russians Jews even more miserable. Harrison received a personally
received a petition from a committee of prominent Americans (including the
Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and leading Christian ministers) urging
him to act on behalf of the Russian Jews. “The petitioners called for the first
international conference "to consider the Israelite claim to Palestine as
their ancient home, and to promote in any other just and proper way the
alleviation of their suffering condition."
Years before the first Zionist Congress, they were calling for a Jewish
home in Palestine. Harrison instructed
Secretary of State James G. Blaine to contact the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow and
express United States’ displeasure with any measures aimed against the
Jews. Despite the urging of Harrison and
others, the Czar acted ordering the immediate removal of Jews from Moscow, St.
Petersburg and Kiev, using violent force if necessary.
1889: It was reported today that in three days, Sir Henry Isaacs
will installed as the Lord Mayor of London.
He is third Jew to hold the position in the last 20 years.
1890: Birthdate of New York City native and CCNY alum Fishcel
William Tischler, the merchant who was active in Republican politics and the
Federation of Jewish Philanthropies.
1890: Samuel Ach, the Dayton, OH born son of Jacob and Janette Ach
who owned the Samuel Ach Company and his wife Esther Kahn Ach gave birth to
Ernest M. Ach.
1892: “Beards” published today provides a brief history facial
history including the observation that “the ancient Jews considered it the
greatest insult that could be offered to a man to pluck his beard which may
account in part for the wonderful state of preservation that tradition has
connected with the beard of the Old World Male.”
1892: In Romania, Jacob and Clara Sarah Halpern gave birth North
Dakota trained attorney Samuel P. Halpern, the husband of Etta Halpern, who
moved his practice to Minneapolis.
1892: Two days before the general election the Jewish Democrats of
the Fourth Assembly District in New York City held “an enthusiastic meeting” at
the Hebrew Institute at the corner of Broadway and East Jefferson.
1893: “Jews In Early England” published today provided a complete
review of The Jews of Angevin England by Joseph Jacobs.
1893: On the day before elections are held in New York, Rabbi
Kaufman Kohler wrote that “It has always been my rule as a clergyman not to
meddle with politics” but that he is making an exception today because he feels
“bound to publicly declare that so far as” he knows his “co-religionist there
is no right-minded Jew in this country to whom law and justice, the welfare and
good order of the State are not of paramount importance.”
1895: Based on reports circulating in Vienna today the Ottoman
government is strictly enforcing emigration policies that will Jews to only
Jews visit Palestine for 30 days and then only if they have a Turkish passport.
1895: Two days after he had passed away, 63-year-old Lewis Nathan,
the son of Simon Nathan and Catherine Barnet and the husband of Regina Kisch
with whom he had ten children was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery
on Buckingham Road.”
1895: “End Fusion Ticket Business” published today described the
Republican leader Edward Lauterbach to the Tammany Victory which led him to
decry ever being involved with any kind of Good Government political coalition.
1895(19th of Cheshvan, 5656): Joel Müller, the German
rabbi who left the pulpit to pursue an academic career that included a
professorship at the Hochschule für die
Wissenschaft des Judentums, or Higher Institute for Jewish Studies passed
away in Berlin today.
1896: Birthdate of Otto Hahn who was deported from Prague in 1942
to Ujazdow where he was murdered.
1896: Sir Edward Levien Samuel, 2nd Bt. and Ray Cowan gave birth
to Sir Edward Louis Samuel, 3rd Bt an “officer in the Royal Field Artillery in
WW I and a “Major in the Royal Artillery in WW II” who “was Bursar of the
Prince of Wale’s Endowment Fund of Toc House.”
1897: “The Beni Zion Association” is scheduled to host a debated
at King’s Hall on Commercial Road in London
1897: In Paris, Gladys and Stella Dreyfus left school for the last
time telling their teachers that “they were going to London with their
parents.” (They would not return because their parents would kill them as part
of a murder suicide plot. The family was
distantly related to the French Captain convicted of treason but their deaths
had nothing to do with the scandal.
1897: “In a letter published by Le Temps today, Gabriel Monod stated his conviction that Dreyfus
was innocent and demanded that his case be reviewed, denying that it would be
an insult to the army: "There is no shame in a error that is consciously
committed and consciously rectified."
1897: Today, in the United Kingdom, The Jewish World published a
letter from “Don’t Cringe” on the subject of Zionism that concluded with the
wish that publication provide “us a full and rational discussion on the Zionist
movement.”
1898: Birthdate of Louis Buckhater the son of a rabbi who
“emigrated from Lithuania to Ireland” with his family at the age of 5 to escape
anti-Semitism and who gained fame as “footballer and cricketer Louis Bookman
1898: A truce was agreed upon today between the Dope Sing Kong Saw
(the Chinese Laundrymen’s Association) and the Hebrew Laundrymen’s Union which
should bring an end to the “price war” between the competitors.
1899: “Hebrew Guardian Society” published today provided a summary
of the annual report of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society which is led by
Samuel D. Levy as President and Directors Clara Jacobs, Samuel D. Levy and Eli
Bernays.
1899: Birthdate of František Lederer, the Bohemian born American
stage and film actor.(As reported by Todd S. Purdum)
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/27/arts/francis-lederer-dies-at-100-actor-known-for-suave-roles.html
1900: Herzl writes to David Wolffsohn. He wants him to ask Jacobus
Kann in The Hague whether he can raise £ 700.000 for a Turkish loan.
1901: Birthdate of Manistique, MI native Isadore Winkelman the
co-founder of “the Detroit-based women’s clothing chain Winkelman Stores, Inc
who was the youngest son of “Jewish shopkeeper Isadore Winkelman” and the
husband of Beryl Winkelman with whom he had three sons and two daughters.
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/58773397/obituary-for-isadore-winkelman-aged-77/
http://www.winkelmans.com/aboutus.html
1901: Birthdate of Austria native Jacob Pferstein, the New Jersey
lawyer and Jewish community leader who was the husband Viera Pfeferstein and
the father of Melvin and Marcio Pfeferstein.
1902: Birthdate of Chicago native Joseph Rabinovich, who attended
Walworth Institute in New York City, served in the National Guard and was
“active in the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and the United Palestine
Appeal.
1903: Birthdate of dentist turned abstract expressionist sculptor
Seymour Lipton.
https://buffaloakg.org/person/seymour-lipton
1903: Racing driver Dorothy Levitt was summoned “to appear at
Marlborough Street Assizes for speeding in Hyde Park.” The magistrate fined her £5 with 2s costs
1904(28th of Cheshvan, 5665): Seventy-nine-year-old
merchant turned novelist, Salomon Kohn, author of Gabriel, passed away
today in his native Prague.
1904: Birthdate of British philatelist Marcus Francis Javier
Samuel who
served in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve during WW II and “was also a
founder member of the Society of Postal Historians.”
1904: Elections in Italy result in the return of 13 Jewish candidates, among
them 3 new members for the Chamber of Deputies.
1905: In Tomsk, Siberia, “the troops today were forced to charge
with bayonets against which was pillaging Jewish houses” which left “a number
of people killed and wounded.”
1905: Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte, whose career had suffered
because his second wife, Matilda Ivanovna (Isaakovna) Lisanevich, was a
converted Jew, began his service as 1st Chairman of the Council of Ministers of
the Russian Empire
1905: As “anti-Semitic
disturbances” continue in the outlying districts around Odessa, “fresh
disorders were reported at 5 o’clock this evening in the suburb of Dalnia
Melnitzi”
1905: It was reported today that in the Jewish quarter of Odessa,
“all the bakeries and shops and nearly 600 homes have been destroyed” while the
“skulls of Jews were battered with hammers,” their “eyes were gouged out,”
their “ears were severed” and many of their bodies were disemboweled.
1906: Julius M. Mayer was elected Attorney General in the state of
New York.
1906: Today, Max James Kohler, the son of Reform Rabbi Kaufman
Kohler, married Winfred Lichtenauer, the daughter of banker Joseph M.
Lichtenauer
1907(29th of Cheshvan, 5668): Elias Shaare Zedek Abrams
passed away today in Pittsburgh, PA.
1908: President Theodore Roosevelt wrote to J.C. Martin today that
“in my cabinet at the present moment there sit side by side Catholic,
Protestant, Christian and Jews, each man chosen because in my belief he is
peculiarly fit to exercise on behalf of all of people the duties of the office
to which I have appointed him” and that “in no case does the man’s religious
belief in any way influence his discharge of his duties save as it makes him
more eager to act justly and uprightly in his relations to all men.”
1908: It was reported today that Isaac Untermyer, Samuel
Untermeyer and Jacob Schiff were among the dignitaries who entertained Lord
Northcliffe at a dinner at Delmonico’s hosted by “The Pilgrims of the United
States.
1909(22nd of Cheshvan, 5670): Parashat Chayei Sara
1909: The University of Michigan led by halfback Joseph “Joe” Magidsohn,
“the first Jewish athlete to win a varsity ‘M’” who was the “first athlete
known to have refused to compete on the Jewish High Holy Days” lost its only
game of the season when they were defeated by Notre Dame.
1909: Wake Forest, coached by George Levene lost to Vanderbilt
today.
1909: Celebration of the Einhorn-Adler Centenary[ML1] .
1910: Birthdate of Helen Marion Levin Eichenbaum, the wife of
architect Howard Samuel Eichenbaum, the mother of Lee Eichenbaum and a member
of Congregation B’nai Israel who was buried in the Oakland and Fraternal
Historic Cemetery Park in Little Rock, AR
1910: It was reported today that Boris Hambourg, the violincellist
has made his first American appearance which is unusual because “it is the very
general complaint of the players of the violoncello that they have no chance as
solo performers on account both of the comparative paucity of the literature
for the instrurnent and of the usual indifference of the larger public toward
both the literature and the instrument.”
1911: Francisco I. Madero who employed Felix A. Sommerfield a
colorful German Jew Felix A. Sommerfield as his Secret Service chief today
became the 33rd President of Mexico.
1911: Édouard Alphonse de Rothschild, and Germaine Alice Halphen,
gave birth to Jacqueline Rebecca Louise de Rothschild who gained fame
as the multi-talented Jacqueline Piatigorsky.
http://main.uschess.org/content/view/11816/141/
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-jacqueline-piatigorsky-20120722-story.html#page=1
1911: Birthdate of Florence Spurgeon who as Florence Zacks Melton,
“took a material invented as a helmet liner for World War II tank crewmen and
turned it into cushy foam-rubber slippers that have soothed billions of tired
feet.” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1912(26th of Cheshvan, 5673): Fifty-eight-year-old “German
businessman, metal trader, and co-founder of Metallgesellschaft AG” Zachary
Hochschild, the Biblis, Germany born son of Justina Bendheim and Koppel Jakob
Hochschild and husband of Philippine
Ellinger whose brother Berthold Hochschild founded the American
Metal Company passed away today in Munich.
1912: Kiamil Pasha, the longtime Turkish official who
was “born in the Jewish faith but has been a professed Mohammedan since his
boyhood” “summoned the Council of Ministers and Generals for a meeting at
Istanbul to decide whether to continue the war with the Balkan League or seek
peace.”
1913: In Brooklyn, Isadore Franklin, a furniture dealer and his
wife, the former Mae Bisgyer, gave birth to Bernice Annette Franklin who gained
fame as Hadassah Present Bernice S. Tannenbaum.
1913: Mortimer L. Schiff announced at a meeting of the Chamber of
Commerce today that $500,000 had been offered to found a College of Commerce by
a man who was not ready to have his name revealed. Few of the members present
had heard of the gift, and the announcement was received with much enthusiasm.
There were several people, who when they made their first of the donation,
attributed to the famous Jacob Schiff.
Such was not the case.
1914: One day after Great Britain declared war on the Ottoman
Empire, “Lord Herbert Samuel…met with Prime Minister Asquith to urge the
establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
1914: Twenty-nine-year-old University of Pennsylvania trained
orthodontist Bernard Wolf Weinberger, the Idaho Springs, CO born son of Simon
and Betty Weinberger married Sylvia Goodman today.
1914:
Gladys Guggenheim Straus and Roger W. Straus gave
birth to Oscar Straus II the American businessman who became Chairman of the
Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation, and the Fred Lavanburg Foundation
1914:Today, the German Ambassador wrote a letter “in response to
an inquiry by Herman Bernstein as to the allegations of German barbarities in
the Jewish towns of Russian Poland,” in which he said that “war is not play and
there no doubt that all the occupied countries must suffer from its burdens and
horrors” but that the German Army which is “coming to Russian Poland as
defenders of the German frontier” has “done everything in its power to protect
from the ravages of war the innocent civilian population in those districts”
which it has occupied.
1914: Birthdate of Holocaust survivor Gucia Marczak who found
refuge in Liege during the war.
1914(17th of Cheshvan, 5675): Baron Alexis George de Günzburg who “joined the 11th
(Prince Albert's Own) Hussars and then was attached as an interpreter to the
Royal Horse Guard was killed today on the Western Front.
1915: A circular sent out today to 25,000 people from “more than
200 prominent professional and businessmen” in New York City called for “the
organization of a federation of the contributors to Jewish charities” which
will be formed when one thousand people have endorsed the plan.
1915: Today the Russians explained blamed “the capture of a
certain hill by the Germans in the Galician campaign” on “betrayal by the Jews”
saying that “there are 900,000 Jews in Galicia spitefully disposed toward us
and maintaining without doubt a very close relationship with the Jews who
served in our ranks” which leads to “the Jewish soldiers betraying the secrets”
of the Russian Army “to Jewish civilians who immediately making the enemy aware
of the disposition and movements of our forces.”
1915: “Jews May Be Officers” published today described the
appearance of Baron Kress Von Kressenstein, the Bavarian War Minister, before
the Finance Committee where he said “that Jews had not been behind members of
other religious faiths in discharging their duty in the war and that the Jews
had thus obtained full opportunity to become reserve officers” as can be seen
by the fact that “many Jews have promoted to commissions during the course of
the war..”
1915:: Congressman Meyer London, the Chairman of the People’s
Relief Committee, said today that the newly formed committee “is not intended
as a rival to the American Jewish Committee of which Louis Marshall is Chairman
and Felix Warburg is Treasurer” but it to work in conjunction with them with
the work being divided so that the American Jewish Committee will direct its
efforts among the richer Jews; the Central Relief Committee will among the
Orthodox Jews and the People’s Committee will confine itslelf to the radical,
laboring and professional elements. (Talk about “market segmentation)
1916: Simon Wolf, who is “well-known throughout the United States
for his work for the Jews of this country and of Russia” said today that he
believed that “Jews of Poland will benefit greatly by the establishment of an
independent Poland.”
1916: It was reported today that Rabbi J.L. Magnes who has just
returned from the war zones on the Eastern Front where he had gone to examine the programs aimed at
distributing aid from Americans to the Jews of that area “said he had heard
little of anti-Semitism on the part of German officials” and “that the funds
from America which went to the Central committee of German Jews in Berlin were
handled admirably…”
1917: Morris Hillquit, the Socialist Party Candidate placed third
in today’s New York Mayoral election.
1917: In Massachusetts, “The Anti-Aid Amendment” which “provides
for the withdrawal of all State appropriations from institutions which hare
controlled by secular bodies including Protestants, Catholics and Jews” was
passed today despite opposition led by Cardinal O’Connell.
1917: It was reported today that Samuel Untermyer has “called upon
leaders of the Jews…to do everything in their power to avert ‘such a
catastrophe for my race’ as the election of Morris Hillquit by the votes of
Jews” because “the Jews are the bulwark…of the Socialist party,” the Socialist
Party candidate is a Jew and “the Jews will be held responsible in the public
estimate” if the “seditious” views of the Socialist Party triumph in the
upcoming Mayoral election.
1917: Birthdate Joseph Bloch, a professor of piano literature at
the Juilliard School in New York. A native of Indianapolis today Bloch earned a
bachelor’s degree from the Chicago Musical College and, after service in Guam
with the Army Air Forces in World War II, a master’s in musicology from
Harvard. For five decades except for an interruption in the 1980s when he tried
unsuccessfully to retire, every Juilliard pianist passed through Mr. Bloch’s
classroom. His pupils included many of the best-known performers of the second
half of the 20th century, among them Van Cliburn, Emanuel Ax, Garrick Ohlsson,
Misha Dichter, Jeffrey Siegel and Jeffrey Swann.
1917: As the British under General Allenby began its “Southern
Palestine Offensive” XX Corps attacked on Hareira and Sheira. (This matters in
Jewish History because after several failed attempts, Allenby would finally
take Palestine which make the Balfour Declaration a reality instead of just a
note between English gentlemen.)
1918: Itamar Ben-Avi of the Jewish Council and son of Eliezer
Ben-Yehuda was one of the twelve delegates explaining to the three hundred
guests attending a dinner at the Hotel Plaza the purpose and plans of the
Mid-European Union which had been founded in October at Independence Hall in
Philadelphia.
1919: Birthdate of Lou Rymkus who in 1970 coached Carroll
Rosenblum’s Baltimore Colts to victory in Super Bowl V. (I will do better next
year)
1920(25th of Cheshvan, 5681): Parashat Chayei Sara
1920: Rabbi Zinsler is scheduled to deliver a sermon this morning
on “Age Means Reverence” at Mt. Sinai Anshe Emeth.
1920: Rabbi I.L. Bril is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Can
Intermarriage Be Prevented” this morning at Shaarei Zedek.
1920: Rabbi David Davidson is scheduled to deliver a sermon
“Marriage in the Light of Judaism” this morning.
1921: Oscar S. Straus of New York City, who was formerly
Ambassador to Turkey, Secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor in the
Cabinet of President Roosevelt, and a member of the Permanent Court of
Arbitration at The Hague, accepted the position of Permanent Chairman of the
General Committee on Limitations of Armaments…”
1922: In Cincinnati, Ohio, James G. Heller, the Rabbi of the Plum
Street Temple, delivered an address on “Americanizing Our Universities” in
which he “said the proposal to restrict the number of Jews at Harvard was the
outgrowth of a steadily growing anti-Semitism” in the United States “which had
for its aim a social segregation of the Jew and Gentile.”
1923: Lord Alfred Douglas was committed for trial today at the Bow
Street Police Court on a charge of having criminally libeled Winston Church in
a pamphlet entitled ‘The Murder of Lord Kitchener and the Truth about the
Battle of Jutland and the Jews.”
1923: “Owing to the anti-Semitic character” of the food riots that
have taken place in several sections of Berlin and which more than 1,000 shops
have been damaged or pillaged, “the police forbade a proposed meeting of
anti-Jewish organizations tonight.”
1924: The Boston Jewish Advocate published “A Sculptor of the
Jewish Soul” by art critic Marie Trommer.
1924: It was reported today that ” Dr. Emanuel de Mornay
Baruch, professor of bacteriology, has returned on the S.S. “Majestic” from
Austria and Germany, where he studied and lectured in the clinics on the
treatment of cancer and tuberculosis.”
1925: In Portland, Oregon, grocer Charles Mann and his wife Anna
“a singer and pianist gave birth to
“medical pioneer Alfred Mann,” the brother Robert Mann, “a founder
of the Juilliard String Quarter” and concert pianist Rosalind Koff.
1925: “Dancing Mad” a comedy directed by Alexander Korda who
co-authored the script with Adolf Lantz was released in Germany today.
1926: Edith Gregor Halpert opened her Downtown Gallery on West 13th
Street in New York’s Greenwich Village.
The gallery was revolutionary because it promoted “American modernists
when their European counterparts overshadowed them.”
1927: “The Koony Lemmels” a comedy directed by Maurice Swartz is
scheduled to be performed at the Yiddish Art Theatre on Madison Avenue.
1927: New York Mayor Walker is scheduled to be one of the speakers
this evening at a function marking “the formal opening of the $5,000,000
money-raising program of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic
Societies, at the Hotel Pennsylvania…”
1928: Birthdate of Zara Steiner, (née Shakow) the British born
historian and author whose works include Britain and the Origins of the First
World War and “in 2007 was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the
UK's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences” while her
raising her son David Steiner along with her husband Francis George Steiner.
1928: In Pittsburgh, Louis N. Matz and Alice (née Krieger) Matz
gave birth to Peter Matz the Chemical Engineer turned composer, arranger and
conductor.
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/aug/11/local/me-matz11
1928: Republican Herbert Hoover
was elected president, beating the Democrat candidate. Alfred E. Smith. Smith
was a Catholic, but he received a large Jewish vote. What counted in America was that the he was
from New York which had a large Jewish population and he espoused programs that
appealed to the working class and newly enfranchised immigrants. This was the profile of the large mass of
Jewish voters. In a strange quirk of
history, the conservative Quaker from Iowa would appoint Benjamin Cardozo, a liberal
Jew from New York, to the Supreme Court.
Hoover viewed this as such an unremarkable act, that he covers it in one
paragraph in his multi-volume autobiography.
1928: Albert E. Ottinger, the Republican candidate for governor
was defeated by FDR in an election that was decided by less than one per cent
of the total vote.
1929: Rabbi Avrohom Yitzchok Shuchatowitz and Gitel Shuchatowitz
gave birth to Rabbi Joseph Shuchatowitz
1929: Today, MacMillian and Company published Palestine: Today
and Tomorrow by John Haynes Holmes, the pastor of the Community Church who
recently went to make a survey sponsored by Nathan Straus and who, as can be
seen in his book “blames the recent armed clashes between Arabs and Jews in
Palestine on the English Governing authorities.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/11/06/91992611.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1930: “Resolutions condemning the Passfield White Paper and
advocating the raising of money to support the JNF in Palestine were adopted”
tonight: a meeting of the JNF of America at the Hotel Pennsylvania where
speakers including Elias Epstein, Mrs. Irma Lindheim of Hadassah and Gedaliah
Bublick.
1931: In Mannheim, Germany, “cattle dealer and farmer Karl Weil”
and Sophie Eichtersheimer gave birth to Ruth (Weil) Winnick who along with the
rest of her family including her younger sister Marianne was “able to escape to
via Italy to the United States” in 1940.
https://www.synagoge-steinsfurt.org/en/people/individuals/weil-ruth
1931: “After having been on the verge of rehearsal for several
weeks, Sam H. Harris announced production of an untitled musical show with a
score by Irving Berling and a book by
Moss Hart and Morris Ryskind has been withdrawn.”
1931: In Berlin, “Brigitte (née Landauer) and Pavel Peschkowsky, a
physician” gave birth to Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky who gained fame as award
winning director, producer and actor Mike Nichols whose greatest early fame
came when he teamed with another Jew, Elaine May to create some of the most
memorable comedy sketches of the mid-twentieth century.
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/facesofamerica/profiles/mike-nichols/5/
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/09/remembering-director-mike-nichols
1931: Counselor-at-Law by Elmer Rice premiers at New York's Plymouth
Theater, with Austrian-born actor Paul Muni (originally Muni Weisenfreund) in
the starring role.
1932(6th of Cheshvan, 5693): Fifty-seven-year year old Joseph
Bragin, founder and principal of New York’s only Hebrew High School who had
died in auto accident today.
1932: “Funeral services for William Morris, theatrical booking agent and
president and founder of the Jewish Theatrical Guild, were held this afternoon
in Temple Rodeph Sholom, 7 West Eighty-third Street.”
1932: “Rabbi Morris Newfield of Birmingham, Alabama, was re-elected
President of the Central Conference at its closing session” today in
Cincinnati, OH.
1933: In Los Angeles, the strike by the ILGWU (International Ladies Garment
Workers Union) that was led by Rose Pesotta who had come from New York to
organize the west coast garment workers many of whom were Mexicans came to an
end today after 26 days after which “Dressmakers Union Local 96 with a
membership of 2, 646” was formed.
1934: Today, “Austrian-Czechoslovak Jewish communist Egon Erwin Kisch
arrived in Fremantle, Western Australia aboard the RMS Strathaird but was
refused entry as an "undesirable".
1934: In Cuyahoga, OH, Miriam Brudno, the daughter of Dr. Emil Manuel Brudno
and Mollie Rothenberg, a director of the National Council of Jewish Women married Ernest S. Half today.
1934: Moissaye Joseph Olgin ‘a
Ukrainian-born writer, journalist, and translator in the early 20th century. He
began his career writing for the Jewish press in support of the Russian
Revolution in 1910” who came to the United States in 1915 was defeated in
today’s congressional election.
1934: Today, Memphis, Tennessee became the first major city to join the
Tennessee Valley Authority, the major New Deal project overseen by David
Lilienthal.
1935: In Laupheim, where Jews had lived for two centuries, today when “a
non-local party group leader of the NSDAP took photographs of customers
entering a shoe shop, which happened to be owned by a Jew” it “caused such a
commotion that the police had to be called in to disperse the crowd, which was
shouting abuse at entering customers by calling them Volksverräter (people's
traitors) and Judenknecht (Jews' servant).”
1936: The Maccabees, the soccer champions of
Palestine were tendered an official farewell at City Hall today by Mayor La
Guardia. The mayor gave the players a
New York City flag in exchange for the flag of Tel Aviv that the team had given
him when they arrived in New York.
Jeremiah T. Mahoney, honorary chairman of the tour committee and
Benjamin Winter President of the Federal of Polish Jews in America also
attended the farewell ceremony.
1936: “Rembrandt” a biopic produced and
directed by Alexander Korda was released in the United Kingdom today.
1936: Funeral services are scheduled to be held
today for seventy-five-year-old “Samuel Abrams, retired New York silk
merchant,” a charter member of the Hebrew Free Loan Society and a leading
member of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies who
was the father of Mrs. Celia Oshman of Cedar Rapids, IA. Mrs. Queenie Grollman
and Henry Abrams.
1937(2nd of Kislev, 5698): Parashat
Toldot
1937: “Three rare Mortlake tapestries” that
“came from the estate of Emanuel Boasberg” were sold this “afternoon for $4,500
at the American Art Association Anderson Galleries.”
1937: Forty-year-old Dorothea Kuklin was arrested on charges of
grand larceny today based on a complaint filed by Mrs. Otto A. Rosalsky, the wife
of Otto Rosalsky the Justice of the General Sessions.
1937: Mussolini gave Von Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister,
his approval of Hitler's plans for Austria. "Let events (in Austria) take
their natural course. He was giving his approval to the German annexation of
Austria which would take place in 1938.
The annexation would prove to be quite popular with most Austrians, a
fact they tried to soft-peddle after the war.
For the Jews of Austria, the Anschluss meant they were now under the
control of the Nazis and their racial laws.
1938: First anti-Semitic attack over the radio in the U.S. was
broadcast.
1938: Herschel Grynszpan spent the night in a cheap hotel after
having asked his uncle Abraham to send
money to his family – a request that Abraham was loath to fufill because he
said he had little to spare, and that he was incurring both financial cost and
legal risks by harboring his nephew, an undocumented alien and unemployed
youth.
1938(12 Cheshvan, 5699): Sixty-eight-year-old Abraham Liessin the
Yiddish poet and editor of Zukunft passed away today.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0012_0_12518.html
http://www.jta.org/1938/11/07/archive/abraham-liessin-yiddish-poet-and-editor-dead-at-68
1939: Birthdate of Civil Rights Activist, Michael “Mickey”
Schwerner. Schwerener was murdered in
1964 outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi along with two fellow Civil Rights
workers, Andrew Goodman (who was also Jewish) and James Chaney, an
African-American. Their murder has
become part of the folklore of the fight for equal treatment for all Americans.
1940: Birthdate of Ruth Wyler Messinger, a political liberal who
served as Manhattan Borough President before running for Mayor. She is the CEO
of American Jewish World Service and one those listed as “Forward Fifty” by The
Forward.
1940: Eighteen-year-old Ottawa native “Duke” Abelson enlisted in
the Air Force today after which he “trained at Victoriaville, Quebec, and
Regina, Saskatchewan, before graduating as Observer from Mossbank,
Saskatchewan, where he was awarded a gold R.C.A.F. disc for leading his class.”
1941: Popular German
film star Joachim Gottschalk kills his family and himself rather than submit to
the deportation and probable deaths of his Jewish wife and child.
1941(16th of Cheshvan, 5702): This was the second of two successive days in which the Nazis
took Rovno, Ukraine, 17,500 Jews to the forests at Rovno in the Ukraine and
ordered them to dig five large pits. In the bitter cold they were ordered to
strip and the all murdered over a two day period.
1941(16th of Cheshvan, 5702): The Nazis massacred 500 Jews of Kolomyya, Galicia and 15,000 Jews
of Rowno, Poland.
1942: One thousand Jews were deported to Birkenau from
Drancy. Drancy was the the “transit camp
in a Paris suburb from which 70,000 French Jews were shipped to death camps in
the East. Drancy was run by the French
police until the summer of 1943 when the SS took over.
1942(26th of Cheshvan, 5703): The Nazis executed 12,000 Jews from
Minsk.
1942: Ceremonies marking the installation of Abraham Haskel
Feinberg as Rabbi of Rodef Sholem began this evening.
1942: One day after the Gestapo arrested Rabbi Regina Jonas, the
Nazis confiscated all of her property “for the benefit of the German Reich.”
1942: “The Falcon’s Brother “one of several of the films in the
Falcon series, edited by Mark Robson was released today in the United States.
1943: Five weeks after escaping from a work
detail at the Babi Yar, Ukraine, mass-murder site, about 14 Jews and Soviet
POWs come out of hiding to greet the Red Army as it liberates Kiev, Ukraine.
1943: Fourteen survivors of the massacre at Babi Yar made it to
the victorious Red Army in Kiev, and joined its troops.
1944: Two members of Lehi
(the Stern Gang) – Eliyahu Hakim and Eliyahu Bet Zuri murdered Lord Moyne in
Cairo. This led to what some call, The Hunting Season, which the name given to
the Haganah’s campaign to curtail the activities of Irgun and Lehi
1944: Thousands of Hungarian Jews were
sent westward to Austria. For most Jews, this was a Death March. Exposure to the harsh European winter,
exhaustion, snarling dogs and German bullets all took their toll. In an additional act of wives would bury
their husbands, then be shot dead themselves and finally thrown into the same
graves.
1944(20th of Cheshvan,
5705): Hungary's Arrow Cross murders 19 Jews in Budapest and drives close
to 30,000 toward the old Austrian border.
1944: In the Bronx, Harold and Ruth Berg
gave birth to James Berg, President of the Realty Advisory Board on Labor
Relations, the collective bargaining agent for the owners of more than 4,000
residential and commercial buildings in the city.(As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1945: Stanley Isaacs was reelected to
the New York City Council.
1946: In Chicago, publisher Oscar Dystel
and Marion Dystel gave birth to John J.
Dyste
1946: In London British MP Maurice
Orbach and his wife gave birth to Susie Orbach “a British psychotherapist,
psychoanalyst, writer and social critic”
http://www.psychreg.com/susie-orbach/
1947: Meet the Press,
billed as “America’s first televised, spontaneous press conference” made its television
debut. Meet the Press was the creation
of producer and moderator, Lawrence “Larry” Spivak. The half hour show was live
and came on late on Sunday afternoon - a dead zone in television broadcasting. The show featured one guest, who ranged from
American political leaders to the Prime Minister of France to the Foreign
Minister of the Soviet Union, and three journalists. The only things that the
current iteration of the program has in common with the original are the name
of the show, that it appears on Sunday and that it is broadcast on NBC.
1947: It was announced today that “contributions of food, clothing
and other relief supplies received by the Supplies for Overseas Survivors
collection of the Joint Distribution Committee in the first ten months of this
year totaled 5,400,000 pounds.”
1948: Birthdate of Sidney Blumenthal, journalist, author and
advisor to President Bill Clinton as well as Presidential candidate Hillary
Clinton.
1948: The village of Bayt Jirja was captured “during the final
phase of Operation Yoav.”
1948: “Barbara was captured by troops of the Negev, Giv'ati and
Yiftach brigades today during Operation Yoav.
1948: During its initial Broadway run “Born Yesterday” a play
written by Garson Kanin and starring Judy Holliday transferred from the Lyceum
Theatre to Henry Miller’s Theatre.
1949: In a letter dated with today’s date, Gershom Scholem, the
Berlin born scholar teaching at Hebrew University who was one of many who
“could not imagine a revival of Jewish culture in Germany,” wrote to
“Hans-Joachim Schoeps who had recently from to Germany from exile in Sweden
that ‘My impressions from Germany are such that I feel constrained to reject
numerous offers from there to publish a German edition of my English book in
Germany’ and ‘I am astounded that you breathe this air.’”
1950: Birthdate of Amir Can Aczel,, the Haifa born science
writer.(As reported by William Grimes)
1951: Premiere of “Let’s Make It Legal” a comedy with a script by
I.A.L. Diamond and a score by Lionel Newman, the uncle of Randy Newman
1951: U.S. premiere of “Detective Story” a dark tale of a big city
police precinct directed, produced and written by William Wyler, starring Kirk
Douglas and featuring Lee Grant in her screen debut.
1952(18th of Cheshvan, 5713): Eighty-six-year-old
Adolph Joachim "A.J." Sabath, the native of Bohemia who came to the
United States in 15 where, after graduating from law school, he began a career
in Chicago politics that led to him serving in the House of Representatives
from 1907 until 1952.
http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0043/ms0043.html
1952:
The Jerusalem Post
reported that the Knesset passed the first reading of a measure recognizing the
World Zionist Organization as the agency authorized to coordinate the
activities in Israel of all Jewish corporate bodies and associations engaged in
the development of the country and the integration of immigrants. During
discussions Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion said he regretted his choice of
words when he referred to American Zionist leaders as "bankrupt"
because they failed to immigrate. However, he stood by the substance of his
accusations. Ben Gurion, as an ardent
Zionist, believed that the only authentic Jewish existence was in Israel.
1953: Israel complained to the United Nations
truce supervision organization in Jerusalem today that armed Jordanians
murdered a guard last night in an attack upon a post along the railway track
north of Hadera in the coastal plain.
1956: During the Sinai Campaign, Golda Meir and
Shimon Peres met with French officials.
The two Israeli ministers were looking for French support in the face of
Soviet threats to use missiles against Israel.
The French Foreign minister told the Israelis that his government would
“support Israel with everything we’ve got.”
But, he also pointed out that the Soviets were more powerful and that
their arsenal included missiles and nuclear bombs. As the two ministers flew
back to Tel Aviv, the Eisenhower administration flip-flopped on its earlier
statements. It demanded that Israel withdraw immediately from the Sinai or
suffer the consequences. (The behavior of the United States during the Suez
Crisis would cause the French to create their own nuclear weapons program. This would lead to De Gaulle’s decisions to
take the French Army out of the NATO military command. This widening gulf between the French and
Americans haunts the relationship between these two old allies to this very
day.)
1956: Today, as the Sinai Campaign ended the Oded
Brigade held a victory assembly at Sharm el-Sheikh
1956: President Eisenhower sent a message to
Ben Gurion demanding that Israeli forces stop fighting immediately and withdraw
from the Sinai.
1957: It was reported today that “in
Manhattans’ Fourth Municipal Court District, Arthur A. Klotz, the
Democratic-Liberal nominee” edged out his Republican opponent.
1957: Birthdate of Lori Singer. The Texas born actress was the daughter of
Jewish Canadian parents. Her film credits include starring roles in The Falcon and the Snowman and The
Man with One Red Shoe.
1958:
Syria resumed its artillery bombardment of the Galilee, while Israeli workers
were involved in a massive project draining Lake Huleh to obtain more
agricultural land for the country. Under orders from IDF Chief of Staff Haim
Liaskov, the Israelis fired back at their attackers.
1959:
CBS broadcast “Escape Clause,” the sixth show in the Twilight Zone created by
Rod Serling.
1959:
“The Wreck of the Mary Deare” produced by Julian Blaustein and filmed by
cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released today in the United States.
1960(12th
of Cheshvan, 5783): As reported by the Virginia Holocaust Museum, 84-year-old
Erich Raeder passed away tody.
1961:
Today Mayor Robert Wagner swore in former city magistrate and current vice
president of the American Jewish Committee, Morris Ploscowe “as a member of the
New York City Commission on Intergroup Relations,” a fifteen member unsalaried
board.
1965:
After only four performances on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, the curtain
came down on “Xmas in Las Vegas” for which Karl Bernstein served as Press
Representative.
1967:
In Eugene, Oregon. Danna (née Wilner), a writer and instructor at Portland
Community College, and Dr. Benson Schaeffer, a child psychologist gave birth to
actress Rebecca Schaeffer, costar of the 1980’s sitcom My Sister Sam.
Tragically, she is best remembered for her manner of dying. She was murdered in 1989 by an obsessive fan
who had been stalking her for years.
1968: Twenty-five-year-old
Paul Zukofsky, “a recognized champion of the new and adventurous in violin
music” played the first concert in the “Music for the 20th Century
Violin” series tonight at Town Hall in New York.
1968:
“Head” a musical satire directed, produced and written by Bob Rafelson was
released in the United States today.
1969(25th
of Cheshvan, 5730): Susan (Feldman) Taubes, the Hungarian born daughter of
psychoanalyst Sandor Feldman and Marion Batory and granddaughter or Mozes
Feldman, the Chief Rabbi of Hungary who taught religion at Columbia along with
her husband Jacob Taubes with whom she had two children – Ethan and Tania –
died today shortly after the publication of her first novel Divorcing.
https://www.zfl-berlin.org/project/susan-taubes-biography.html
1969:
“Downhill Racer” a movie version of the book by the same name with a script by
James Salter was released today in the United States.
1971:
“The Incomparable Max,” a play co-authored by Jerome Lawerence based the works
of Max Beerbohm, closed today after twenty-three performances at the Royale
Theatre.
1972: “Guess Who’s for Richard
Nixon” published today described the improbable voters supporting Nixon’s bid
for re-election including Rabbi Herschel Schacter, former chairman of the
Conference of Presidents of Jewish Organizations; and David Luchins, who headed
the 1972 Jewish Youth for Humphrey.
1973: “The Girl Most Likely To” a
dark comedy written by Joan Rivers with theme music composed by Bernardo Segall
“a made-for-television movie was broadcast for the first time on ABC” tonight.
1973: Abe Beame defeated Mayor John Lindsay to
become the first Jewish mayor of New York City. Born on New York’s lower East
Side in 1906, Beame rose through the ranks and served two terms as comptroller
before unseating the ineffectual but popular Lindsay. Beame inherited the worst fiscal crisis in
the city’s history. Forced to slash budgets and reduce the city work force,
Beame was a courageous but unpopular figure.
He passed away in 2001. It does
seem strange to many that New York, with its large Jewish population would have
waited so long to have a Jewish mayor.
Heck, gentile dominated Oregon had a Jewish senator twenty years before
Manhattan et al had a Jewish chief executive.
1974: A group of refuseniks met with Senator
James Buckley of New York after which he promised to support them.
1974: Ratz (the Movement for Civil Rights and
Peace) left the governing coalition headed by Prime Minister Yithak Rabin.
1975: A revival of David Merrick’s “Hello
Dolly” starring Pearl Bailey and Billy Daniels in all-black production opened
at the Minskoff Theatre.
1975: John Gunter, a Jewish refugee from Nazi
Germany who became a member of the Foreign Service, presented his credentials
as U.S. Ambassador to Denmark.
1976((13th of Cheshvan, 5737): Sixty-nine-year-old
Albert Lasker Award winning physician Alexander Wiener passed away today.
http://www.scienceheroes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=195&Itemid=195
1977(25th of Chehsvan, 5738): PLO
gunners fired katyusha rockets from across the Lebanese border at the seaside
town of Nahariya killing two, one of whom was a Holocaust survivor and mortally
wounding another.
1977: The Immigrants, a novel by Howard
Fast “hit number 5 on the New York Times
adult best seller list” today.
1978(6th of Cheshvan, 5739): Sixty-nine-year-old character actor
known as Lou Gilbert, the product of Cleveland orphanage whose stage career
began in 1925 and whose film credits including “Viva Zapata,” “Marathon Man”
and “Raid on Entebbe” passed away today.
1978: Today, for the first time, NBC broadcast
“Rainbow” a biopic starring Pipe Laurie and featuring Jack Carter, Donna Pescow
and Martin Balsam
1979: U.C. Berkley trained attorney Harry
Pregerson, the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants completed his service as Judge
of the United States District Court for the Central District of California/
1979: “The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh”
featuring the voice of Harry Shearer and a cameo appearance by Marv Albert was
released today in the United States.
1980: In his longer memorandum written today
,Lewis E. Lerhman, the Harrisburg, PA born son of Rose Herman and Benjamin
Sachs Lehrman “declared that President-elect Reagan’s transition had been
‘overtaken by a financial crisis and economic events are moving rapidly beyond
his control.”
1987(14th of Cheshvan, 5748): Zohar Argov, a
popular Israeli singer and a distinctive voice in the Mizrahi music scene
passed away.
1987: The 27th episode of “My Sister
Sam” co-starring Rebecca Schaeffer aired tonight on CBS.
1987: “Less Than Zero” co-starring Jami Gertz
and filmed by cinematographer Edward Lachman was released today in the United
States.
1988(26th of Cheshvan, 5749): Eighty-two-year-old
“Norman N. Newhouse, a senior executive with the Newhouse newspaper chain who
helped his brothers build it into one of the nation's largest communications
conglomerates, died today at his home in New Orleans after a long illness.”
1989: Kitty Dukakis, the Jewish wife of
presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis is
hospitalized for drinking rubbing alcohol.
1989: “Closer Than Ever” a revue with music by
David Shire opened “at the off-Broadway Cherry Lane Theatre, where it ran for
312 performances.”
1991: The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in
Lee v. Weisman a school prayer case that had its origins in a request by a
middle school principal to have rabbi deliver a prayer at the graduation
ceremony which was objected to by the parents of Deborah Weisman.
1994: Michael Mark Appelbaum begins servings as
Montreal City Councillor for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce
1995: In his first court appearance on Yigal
Amir, 25, asserted that he was required to kill Mr. Rabin under religious law
because the Prime Minister was betraying Jewish lives and land to the enemy.
1995: In the following article entitled “The Unvanquished,” Michael D.
Lemonick describes how a group of young Jews “survived the Nazis, studied in
Germany and liberated themselves” which runs contrary to usual picture of Jews
seeking to flee the Home of the Holocaust.
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20102025,00.html
1997: Robert D. Sack “was nominated by
President Clinton” today, to a seat on the United States court of Appels for
the Second Circuit.
1997: Today Rosemary Shankman “Pooler was
nominated by President Clinton, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit
1998: “The Siege” a fictional look at
Washington’s reaction to a wave of terrorism directed and produced by Edward
Zwick who also co-authored the script was released in the United States today.
1998:
“B. Monkey” directed by Michael Radford who co-authored the script as well was
released today in the United Kingdom.
1999: Almost after its release in the United
States, “B.Monkey” directed by Michael Radford who co-authored the screenplay
was released in the United Kingdom today.
2000: “The White House said today that the
Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, and the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat,
would meet separately with President Clinton in the coming days, but with Mr.
Clinton by then a lame duck president expectations were low that he could
achieve much beyond trying to exercise a calming influence.”
2001(20th of Cheshvan, 5762): Capt. (Res.) Eyal
Sela, 39, of Moshav Nir Banim, was shot dead in an ambush by three Palestinian
terrorists on the southern Nablus bypass road.
2001(20th of Cheshvan, 5762): Seventy-five-year-old
barrister and author Anthony Joshua Shaffer whose most famous work is the play
Sleuth and who was the twin brother of Peter Shaffer passed away today.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/nov/07/news.nigelfountain
2002(1st of Kislev, 5763): Rosh
Chodesh Kislev
2002(1st of Kislev, 5763): Sgt.Maj. Madin
Grifat, 23, of Beit Zarzir was killed when a mine exploded during a routine
patrol northeast of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip. The Givati Brigade company
commander was wounded. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.
2002: The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of
2002 which was intended to limit the impact of big donors on the political
process which was co-sponsored by Senator Russ Feingold became effective today.
2003: The
Chicago Sun-Times published the last column written by 91-year-old Irv
Kupcinet.
2003: In “Rabbi Asher Wade tackles questions of
Holocaust, God at local lecture” Sherry Greenfield describes the upcoming
lecture by Rabbi Asher Wade on "God didn't die in Auschwitz: Answering the
question: Where was God in the Holocaust?" at the Beth Sholom Community
Center in Frederick, MD.
2004(22nd of Cheshvan, 5765):
Parashat Chayei Sara
2004: Yasar Arafat remained in a coma at a
French hospital, a coma from which he is not expected recover.
2005: A mosaic and the
remains of a building uncovered recently in excavations on the Megiddo prison
grounds may belong to the earliest church in the world, according to a
preliminary examination by the Israel Antiquities Authority. The church dates
from some time in the third or fourth century.
It features a table, instead of an altar, on which a sacred meal was
consumed to commemorate the Last Supper.
If this interpretation is accurate it might shed new light on the
origins of Christian rituals. The Church
was uncovered when digging had begun to extend the prison facility. Archaeology is “Israel’s national sport” and
evidence of other people’s practices and civilizations are treated reverently
by Israelis. The prison is located near Tel Megiddo, which is supposed to be
the site for the mythic Battle of Armageddon.
The Israelis expect that this latest find will be a boon to the tourist
industry which has suffered in recent years because of Arab Terrorism.
2005: The
New York Times features
reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interest
including The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at
Harvard, Yale, and Princeton by Jerome Karabel and Dean and Me (A
Love Story)
by Jerry Lewis and James Kaplan
2006: Borat,
the cinematic creation of British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, was the leading
box office hit over the weekend, grossing 26 million dollars in sales. This financial success is all the more
amazing when you consider the limited number of theatres in which the film
appeared.
2006: The edition of
Sports Illustrated of this date features two page retrospective on the recently
deceased Arnold “Red” Auberach without mentioning the fact that he was
Jewish. This is no small oversight when
one considers the role of two Jews - Abe Sapperstien and Red Auberach - for
opening up careers in professional basketball players to African Americans.
2006: The edition U.S.
News & World Report of this date reported that “prosecutors in Argentina
are placing blame on ‘the highest authorities’ of the then government in Tehran
for the 1994 Jewish Center bombing in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and
injured more than 2000. Prosecutors are
seeking arrest orders for former Iranian President Rafsanjani and seven others,
alleging that they plotted to have Lebanon-based Hezbollah stage the bombing,
the worst terrorist attack ever in Argentina.”
2007: The
Diaspora Museum (Beth Hatefutsoth), marks the 40th anniversary of the
Six Day War with the opening of an exhibition covering the Jewish nationalist
spirit that Israel's incredible 1967 military victory ignited among Russian
Jewry, setting of a struggle that began with a cry for free immigration to
Israel and ended with the struggle to lead a free Jewish existence in the
Soviet Union. Entitled, Jews of Struggle: The Jewish National Movement in
the USSR, 1967-1989, the
exhibition presents
photographs, posters, rare footage, artifacts, rare documents, books, diaries,
albums, letters and art (pictured is the Let My People Go! poster, USA,
1973, artist Saul Bass; the Ilan Roth Collection, Herzliya)..
2007: At the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington 38th annual Book
Festival, Walter Isaacson discusses his bestselling biography Einstein: His
Life and Universe.
2007:
Shalom Auslander reads from his biography Foreskin’s Lament at Prairie
Lights Books in Iowa City, Iowa.
2007:
In what appears to be a challenge to David Ben-Gurion’s old dream of “making
the desert bloom” The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI)
released a report detailing the extent of recent agricultural development
throughout the Negev and the underestimated impact of this development on the
local ecology.
2007(25th
of Cheshavn, 5768): Staff Sergeant Yariv Amitai of Moshav Hazor’im was killed
in a Jeep accident along the border with Gaza.
2007: At rededication ceremonies at Sha’ar Hashamayim
Synagogue Cairo, D. Gaber Baltagi recited one of his works in Arabic and Hebrew
calling for peace among the nations followed by the sounding of loud Shofar
blast.
2008: One day after she had passed away, a
memorial service was held today in Austin for 94-year-old Pauline Hirschfeld.
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/statesman/obituary.aspx?n=pauline-hirschfeld&pid=119826755
2008: At Columbia
University, the Alliance
Program presents a seminar entitled “Israel As A Jewish and Democratic State: A
Reappraisal” moderated by Peter Awn, Director of the Middle East Institute.
2008:
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Israel in a last ditch
attempt to salvage something from the aborted “peace talks” held in
Annapolis. Secretary Rice is forced to
admit that none of the grandiose Bush talk about peace in the Middle East have
become a reality.
2008:
Rahm Israel Emanual accepted an offer from President-elect Barack Obama
to become the White House Chief of Staff in Obama's administration, which
begins on January 20, 2009.
2009: Nobel Prize winning Israeli economist
Daniel Kahneman “was awarded an honorary doctorate from the department of
Economics at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands.”
2009: The 40th Annual Book Festival
sponsored by the JCC of Greater Washington continues with a presentation by
Fashion Institute of Technology Professor Helene Verin sharing the story of
Beth Levine, the trend-setting designer who led shoe fashion from the early
1950’s through mid-1970’s
2009: Beginning of Chabad’s New York Weekend
2010: Rivka Zohar, famed Israeli singer, is scheduled to perform at Bnei
Zion Hall in New York.
2010: Lauren Beth Denenberg married Alex Bettman, the son
of Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the National Hockey League, tonight at the
Plaza Hotel in New York.
2010(29th of Cheshvan, 5771): Eighty-eight-year-old Robert J.
Lipshutz,"who as White House counsel to President Jimmy Carter played an
important behind-the-scenes role in negotiations leading to the Camp David
peace accords, passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/us/politics/11lipshutz.html
2011: Annual Afternoon Tea featuring Karen Bergreen, author of “Following
Polly,” is scheduled to take place at the JCC of Northern Virginia Annual
Jewish Book Festival.
2011: Calvin Goldscheider, the Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Judaic
Studies at Brown University, is scheduled to discuss his recent book, "A
Typical Extraordinary Jew: From Tarnow to Jerusalem", which tells the
story of a charming Polish Jew, Shmuel Braw (1906 – 1992) who lived through the
traumatic historical events that shaped Jewish experience in the twentieth
century in the Adas Israel Freudberg Memorial Sisterhood Library
2011(9th of Cheshvan, 5772): Ninety-two year old Hal Kanter, the
Savannah born Jew who made everybody from Eddie Cantor to Bob Hope to Jerry
Lewis sound funny to their audiences passed away today.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/08/local/la-me-hal-kanter-20111108
2011(9th of Cheshvan, 5772): Seventy-eight-year-old Israeli
author Peretz Kidron whose translations include the memoires of Yitzak Rabin
and Ezer Weizman, as well as biography of David Ben Gurion.
2011: The Upshernish of Menachem Mendel Blesofsky is scheduled to take place
this evening in Iowa City, Iowa.
2011: The 33rd Annual St. Louis Jewish Book Festival, which
claims to be the largest Jewish book festival in the United States, is
scheduled to begin this evening.
2011: The Illinois Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to present “The
Valiant and the Indifferent – Honoring Rescuers, Commemorating Kristallnacht.”
2011: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to
hold its 51st annual meeting where it will celebrate the Giant Food
Archival Project. The Giant was the name
of what became a leading supermarket chain which was founded in 1936 by
Nehemiah Cohen and Samuel Lehrman.
Although the Giant was not “a Jewish store,” in the 1950’s the men who
worked at the fish counter at the Spring Valley store knew what to grind if you
wanted to make Gefilte fish and the Giant was the first chain store in
Washington to carry fresh baked challah.
2011: Peace Now activists said tonight that the words "price tag"
had been sprayed on the walls of the building where the movement operates in
Jerusalem.
2011: Police announced today that they have arrested a suspect in last
month's stabbing attack in which a Jewish youth was seriously injured in
Jerusalem's Ramot neighborhood. The suspect, 20-year-old Zaid Abd al-Rahman
from the village of Beit Iksa near Ramot, was arrested several days ago in a
joint, police, IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) operation. A media ban
on the arrest was lifted today.
2011:
The Jewish Federations of North America’s (JFNA) General Assembly opened today
in Denver, Colorado amid questions of how much funding the Jewish federations
will continue to provide to the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American
Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
2011(9th
of Cheshvan, 5772): Seventy-eight-year-old Israeli author and journalist Peretz
Kidron passed away. A native of Vienna,
his family escaped to Britain at the time of the Anschluss, and he eventually
made his to Israel where he lived at Kibbutz Zikim.
2011:
Irish blogger and author John Connolly, a member of the Anglican Friends of
Israel who has criticized the General Synod of the Church of England for
endorsing the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, a
group he claims has an anti-Israel bias and a history of misleading the public
about its own activities” scooped everybody when he published a picture of
“Irish politician Chris Andrews smiling and shaking hands with Bashar Al-Assad
of Syria.”
2012:
“The Price of Kings: Shimon Peres” is scheduled to have its British premiere at
the UK Jewish Film Festival.
2012:
Colorado voters adopted a newly permissive approach to marijuana following a
campaign spearheaded by Jewish activist Mason Tvert. (As reported by Ben
Harris)
2012”
Mill Creek entertainment released a DVD version of “Yellowneck” a film about
Confederate deserters and Seminole Indians with a musical score by Laurence
Rosenthal.
2012:
In the U.S. elections are scheduled to be held for President, the House of
Representatives, one third of the United States and host of state and local
positions. Among the candidates is Shelly Adler who is running in New Jersey’s
3rd Congressional District.
Mrs. Adler late husband had held the seat until he was defeated in 2010.
2012:
The United Nations today condemned the Syrian military’s breach of the
demilitarized zone between the Israeli and Syrian Golan Heights on Saturday,
calling it a violation of the 1974 disengagement agreement.
2012:
An explosion tore through the Gaza - Israel border this morning, injuring three
IDF soldiers.
The
blast occurred as an IDF force was on a routine patrol near southern Gaza.
Paramedics treated all the injured soldiers at the scene, two of whom suffered
light injuries. The third soldier was evacuated to hospital via helicopter with
moderate injuries.
2013:
“The Prime Ministers: The Pioneers,” a film based on The Prime Ministers
by Yehuda Avner produced by Richard Tank is scheduled to open in Los Angeles.
(As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)
2013:
“Child Refugees” Five Portraits from the Kindertransport” is scheduled to come
to an end at the Wiener Library in London, UK.
2013(3rd
of Kislev, 57754): Josef Harish, “an Israeli jurist who served as Attorney
General between 1986 and 1993” passed away today at Tel Aviv
2013:
A three-judge panel at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court unanimously acquitted
former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman of fraud and breach of trust charges
this morning, clearing the way for him to retake his cabinet post. (As reported
by Elie Leshem and Haviv Rettig Gur)
2013:
The year-round Washington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to show “AKA Doc
Pomus.”
http://washingtondcjcc.org/center-for-arts/film/wjff-year-round-/film-pages/akadocpomus.html
2014:
“The Art Dealer” is scheduled to be shown on the opening night of 18th
annual UK Jewish Film Festival.
2014:
The ADL is expected make an announcement confirming reports by JTA that
Jonnathan Greenblatt has been named to succeed Abraham Foxman as its new
national director.
2014:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Czechs, Slovaks and the
Jews, 1938-48: Beyond Idealization and Condemnation”
2014:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host
“Science Confronts Race: A Contested History.”
2014:
“Thousands attended the funeral today for Israeli Border Policy officer Jedan
Assad in the northern Druze village of Beit Jann after he was murdered
yesterday by a Hamas terrorist. (As reported by Spencer Ho
2014:
“An East Jerusalem man attacked a light rail security guard this morning after
being asked to provide his identification papers.” (As reported by Stuart
Winer)
2014(13th
of Cheshvan, 5775): Seventy-four-year-old multi-talented Daniel Meltzer passed
away today.
2015:
Author Amos Oz “said in comments published” today in the Maariv newspaper that
‘in the wake of growing extremism in the present government’s policy in various
areas, I informed my hosts that I prefer not to be invited to events held in my
honor at Israeli embassies overseas’” because he is protesting “against what he
says are extremist Israel policies.”
2015:
Peninsula Art Space is scheduled to host the reception marking the opening of
Pairing Down an exhibition that will include the works of Israeli artist Ariel
Reichman.
2015:
Israeli artist Sara Erenthal is scheduled to open an exhibition of her works on
the construction wall adjacent to FiveMyles on St. Johns Place as part of the
Interlude Project.
2015:
The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a “guest recital by the world
famous pianist Oxana Yablonskaya.
2015:
As part of Holocaust Education Week, 2015 Scholar-in-Residence Dr. Hilary Earl
is an historian of the Holocaust whose research focuses on perpetrator
testimony and war crimes trials in the aftermath of the Holocaust is scheduled
to talk about why “the Allies had gone back on their promise to hold Nazi war
criminals accounts” and to examine “the processes that encouraged the early
release and in some case amnesties for Nazi war criminals in the aftermath of
the war.”
2015:
“How Franklin, The Black ‘Peanuts’ Character Was Born” published today
described the role Harriet Glickman played in the creation of a new friend for
Charlie Brown.
2015(24th
of Cheshvan, 5776): Ninety-four-year-old Yitzhak Navon, Israel’s fifth present
and the first Sephardic Jew born in Jerusalem to hold the position passed away
today.
2015:
Jewish Book Month begins.
2016:
The Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center is scheduled to host Rabbi Leon A. Harris
speaking on “The Past, Present and Future Meaning of Jewish Identity.”
2016:
The New York Times features reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including the recently released paperback edition of The Fall of the
Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East by Eugene Rogan and The Tree
in the Courtyard: Looking Through Anne Frank’s Window by Jeff Gottsefeld
and illustrated by Peter McCarty which was listed as one of “The New York Times
Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2016”
2016:
The Jewish Review of Books is scheduled to hold its 2nd Annual
Conference at the Yehsiva University Museum at the Center for Jewish History.
http://us3.campaign-archive1.com/?u=fbf44b2ecba445bfe43b71970&id=37e442dbe5&e=b40a1dec43
• Bret Stephens on America, Israel, and Geopolitics
• Dara Horn and Ruth R. Wisse on Should
Jewish Literature Be Depressing?
• Shai Held and Meir Soloveichik on
Does God Love the Jews?
• Joseph H.H. Weiler and Moshe
Halbertal on Nationalism and Its Critics in Europe and Israel
• Eliot Cohen on David Ben-Gurion in
War and Peace
• Leon Wieseltier on The Soul of
American Jewry
2016:
Mrs. Goldie Plotkin of Toronto, Canada, is scheduled to speak the dedication of
The Mikvah at the Chabad Center for Jewish Life in Little Rock, AR which is led
by Rabbi Pinchas Ciment, the consummate “lamplighter.”
2016:
“The 90 Minute War” and “Mr. Predictable” are scheduled to be shown at the 20th
UK International Jewish Film Festival today.
2017:
In Philadelphia, the “27th Conference of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies
“Crypto-Judaism
in the Americas” is scheduled to continue for a second day.
2017:
The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host “a conversation with
Leon Wieseltier on “The Syrian Refugee Crisis – Their Agony, Our Conscience.”
2017:
Led by Adam Cohen the family of the singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen is
scheduled to host “Tower of Song: A Memorial Tribute to Leonard Cohen” in
Montreal a year after Cohen’s death on November 7, 2016.
2018:
"New Perspectives on Kristallnacht: After 80 Years, the Nazi Pogrom in
Global Comparison," a conference “co-organized by the USC Shoah Foundation
Center for Advanced Genocide Research and the USC Casden Institute for the
Study of the Jewish Role in American Life, and presented in cooperation with
the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the
US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., and the Center for Research on
Antisemitism at the Technical University Berlin, Germany” is scheduled to
continue for a third day with topics including “Anti-Jewish
excesses in response to von Rath’s assassination”: Public responses of the
Jewish Community in Japan-controlled Harbin to the Kristallnacht” and
“Kristallnacht in Film: From Reportage to Reenactments, 1938-1948.”
2018: In Nashville, TN, Vanderbilt University is scheduled to
host “The 80th Anniversary of Kristallnacht with Survivor Marion
Lazan” who “will recount the devastating years that shaped her childhood” after
Hitler’s rise to power.
2018: Rabbi Robert Hirt is scheduled to lecture on “Zionism and
the Challenge to American Jewry” at the Skirball Center.
2018: Eleven Jewish women, nine in the House and two in the
Senate, were among the winners in
today’s mid-term election.
2018: The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage is scheduled to host
“a docent-led guided tour of ‘Israel: Then and Now,’ a first-of-its-kind special exhibition that combines
milestone moments, historic images, interactive media, and film.”
2018: In Nevada. Jacky Rosen was elected to the Senate today
2018: Among those whose political fates will be decided today
“are 56 candidates for Congress who identify as Jewish.” (As reported by Ron
Kampeas)
2019(8th of Cheshvan): Yahrzeit of Avraham Elimelch ben
Yosef Dov, whose nickname was Melech and whose English name was Abraham Levin,
of blessed memory and for whom I am the namesake.
2019(8th of Cheshvan): Yahrzeit of Felek Gebotszrajber,
“a courageous man and remains a constant source of inspiration to his children
(Jack, Doris and Lena) and to those who knew him well.
2019: “My Polish Honeymoon” is scheduled to be shown on the
opening night of the UK Jewish Film Festival.
2019: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker is scheduled to host author
Mitch Albom as lectures “On the Making of a Family.”
2019: In San Francisco, writer and producer Denise Kiernan and
Gretchen Skidmore, the Director of Education Initiatives at the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum are scheduled to discuss “How Did American Women Act?
Heroism on the Front.”
2019: In Bloomington, IN, the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and
International Studies and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum are
scheduled to co-host a screening of “82 Names: Syria, Please Don't Forget Us.”
2019: AJC (American Jewish Committee) San Francisco is scheduled
to host the Judge Learned Hand Award Dinner honoring “attorneys Kelly Dermody
and Nanci Clarence.
2020: In another session examining UC Berkeley’s Magnes
Collection, curators Francesco Spagnolo and Shir Kochavi are scheduled to talk
about Russian modernist Roman Vishniac and his photos of New York.
2020: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to
offer a triple header of opportunities to welcome Shabbat – Kabbalat Shabbat
with YOZMA, the sister congregation in Israel, Shabbat B’Yachad, and Friday
evening Shabbat worship with Rabbi Yaron Kapitulnik and Cantorial Soloist Abbie
Strauss.
2020: Iowa’s Online Scholar in Residence for 2020 Professor
Amy-Jill Levine is scheduled to lecture on “Understanding Jesus and Paul Means
Understanding Judaism.”
2020: In Columbus, OH, Congregation Tifereth Israel is scheduled
to continue its online Friday morning discussion of How to Read the Jewish
Bible by Marc Brettler
2020: On its secure streaming platform the UK Jewish Film Festival
host the UK premier of Nisman” The Prosecutor, the President and the Spy.”
2020: The JCC Literary Consortium and JCCs across the nation are
scheduled to present Journalist Ariel Sabar as he talks about his book Veritas:
A Harvard Professor, A Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife.
2020: As Israel deals with a spate of “wintry weather,” today local rain is possible in some parts of the country,
while tomorrow will see an increase in temperatures and the weather is expected
to be mostly sunny.” (As reported by Danny Rupp)
2021(2nd of Kislev, 5782): Parashat
Toldot;
2021:
The 25th UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled today for a third day.
2022:
In Des Moines funeral services are scheduled to be held at Tifereth Israel
Synagogue for 87 year old Des Monies native and U.S. Army veteran Lawrence
Bernard Egman, the former Chairman and CEO of EMCO industries and husband of
the former Suzanne Cohn Z”L.
2022:
Likud Leader Bibi Netanyahu is scheduled to meet “the leaders of his right-wing
and religious bloc for individual meetings today in Jerusalem.”
2022:
The 34th Annual Boston Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a
screening of “Remember This” “followed by an in-person conversation with actor
David Strathairn, director and co-writer Derek Goldman, director and
cinematographer Jeff Hutchen, and producer Eva Anisko.”
https://rememberthiskarskifilm.com/
2022:
The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present a performance of
“Arrivals,” “a Jewish Romeo and Juliet love story based on historical events”
that took place in Seattle in 1902.
2022:
In New Orleans, The Jewish Children’s Regional Service (JCRS) is scheduled to
present “Hanukkah Wrap-a-Thon #2” at Congregation Gates of Prayer during which
gifts are wrapped for children residing the eight- state service area of the
JCRS who might otherwise not receive any Chanukah presents. (As reported by
Crescent City Jewish News)
2022:
JBC is scheduled to host its virtual Jewish Writer’s Conference.
2022:
The exhibition “Steve Marcus: Top Dog of Kosher Pop Art: is scheduled to come
to an end at the Museum at Eldridge Street.
2022:
Inaugural National Library of Israel Annual Lecture Series in Memory of Stuart
Schoffman is scheduled to host a lecture by Leon Botstein on “The Perils of
Identity: The American in Israel.”
2022:
The Conference on Jewish Leadership in the Past Millennium is scheduled to
begin today.
2022:
Holocaust survivor from Belgium, Bebe Forehand who like was hidden away from
the Nazis in an attic, is scheduled to tell her story of resilience at the
Breman Museum in Atlanta, GA.
2022:
The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including The Sassoons: The Great Global
Merchants and the Making of an Empire by Joseph Sassoon.
2023: Marsha Kuhr is scheduled to lead a
discussion of The Nowhere Girl by Cheryl Diamond at the Temple Judea
Book Club.
2023:
YIVO and the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present a screening of
“Labzik,” a film by on the children’s stories by Yiddish author Chaver Paver
followed by a Q&A with director Jake
Krakovsky and translator Miriam Udel.
2023:
As part of its Jewish Values and Strategy in Wartime series, Tikvah online
Academy is scheduled to present a lecture by Dr. Tevi Troy on “Israel and the
American Presidency.”
2023:
The Jewish Book Council, which was
founded in 1943, is scheduled to begin Jewish Book Month today which we
can all celebrate by reading a Jewish author, including my recent favorite,
Edna Ferber or a book on a Jewish subject regardless of the author’s ethnic
origins, like The Wall.
2023:
The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center is scheduled to host a live This
American Life Podcast with Ira Glass and Etgar Keret.
2023:
“In another lecture in the online lecture series "Creation and Inspiration
from the Sources of Judaism" S.Y. Agnon is scheduled to host a lecture “On
The Song of Man and Song of Angels given
by Dror Burstein.
2023:
As November 6, begins in Israel, “rocket sirens have been activated in the Tel
Avia area and Ashdod as the terrorists continued to fire salvos of rockets from
Gaza and the Hamas hostages begin day 31 in captivity.
(Editor’s
note: this situation is too fluid for this blog to cover so we are just
providing a snapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time)
2024:
Lockdown University is scheduled to host a lecture by Jeremy Rosen on “Middle
Books of the Bible: The Book of Judges 1, From Order to Chaos as Each Tribe
Fends for Itself”
2024:
In the presentation “In Search of Greener Fields” Rurality, Nostalgia and
Ideolog in Yiddish-American Folksong” “Zeke Levine is scheduled to consider
themes of rurality in 20th century Yiddish-American folksong.:
https://yivo.org/Greener-Fields
2024: In Metairie, LA, Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation is
scheduled to host the “Kabbalah Café” where participants can “
dive into the depths of Jewish Mysticism and uncover timeless wisdom for
today's world.”
2024:
As November 6th begins in Israel, an unprecedented wave of
anti-Semitism that has included Hamas supporters calling for Zionist passengers
on a New York subway to raise their hands, sweeps the United States and the
Hamas held hostages begin day 397 in captivity while Israelis brace for more
rocket attacks by Hezbollah, Iran and terrorists based in
Iraq (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)
