This Day, April 24, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

 April 24 

70: During the Jewish rebellion against Rome, Roman legions break through Jerusalem’s middle wall, but are driven back by the Jewish defenders. 

396: As conditions for the Jews in the Roman Empire worsen, the Roman Emperors adopt a law that appears to be an anomaly. They issue a decree punishing anyone who insults Jewish leaders. "If any one dare publicly insult the Illustrious Patriarchs, he shall be subject to a sentence of punishment."  (Editor’s Note – I can find no explanation for this)

858: Start of the papacy of Nicholas I. During his papacy he issued “a very obscure order which is contained in a letter Bishop Arsenius of Orta, to whom he prohibits the use of Jewish garments.”

1288:  A Christian body was placed in the house of the richest Jew of Troyes, France. The resulting tribunal condemned fourteen of the city's wealthiest men and women to be burned at the stake. This was part of a blood libel which the Dominicans and Franciscans used to “provoke a massacre of the local Jews.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2979/PFT.2009.29.1.1?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21106566490833

1288: “Hebrew-French poet Jacob Ben Judah” was an eyewitness today to an auto-de-fe in Troyes.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/jacob-ben-judah\

1342: Pope Benedict XII passed away. In 1337 Benedict’s effort to protect the Jews when Christian mobs in Germany Bavaria, Bohemia, Moravia and Austria attacked them because of false accusations of “host desecration,” proved futile. Benedict’s intervention on behalf of the Jews marks him as unusual.  His failure is a testament to the strong power of these false allocations.

 1439(30th of Nisan, 5199): Rabbi, Kabbalist and poet Avigdor Ben Isaac Kara passed away today.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0011_0_10738.html

1547:  Elector of Saxony John Frederick, the patron and protector of Martin Luther, who in 1536, “issued a mandate that prohibited Jews from inhabiting, engaging in business in, or passing through his realm” completed his reign as Elector of Saxony and Landgrave of Thuringia today

1547: Maurice, the Duke of Saxony, who expelled the Jews from Zwickau, became the Elector of Saxony today.

1575: Thomas Wakefield, “the first Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge was buried today at Chesterton.

1731: Daniel Defoe passed away.  Apparently, the author of “Robinson Crusoe had a rather low opinion of the Jews since he “depicted Jews as vicious and corrupt” according to “Britain in the Hanoverian Age.” For reasons yet not understood, Defoe’s “An Essay Upon Literature” was published in the same pamphlet with Toland’s “The Agreement of the Customs of the East Indians With Those of the Jews.”

1744: The Revenge, a British privateer commanded by Captain James Allen, intercepted the sloop Fortune, one of whose passengers was an English Jewish merchant named Isaac Mendez.  When Captain Allen brought the Fortune to Newport, he filed papers claiming the cargo of the Fortune as his pirze.  Mendez took exception with the claim, and this would lead to tortuous litigation. [Editor’s note: There will be more to the story in THDIJH in May.]

1758(16th of Nisan, 5518): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer

1761(20th of Nisan, 5521): Sixth Day of Pesach observed on the birthdate of Ira Allen, the younger brother of American patriot Ethan Allen, leader of the Green Mountain Boys and the captor of Fort Ticonderoga.

1764(22nd of Nisan, 5524): Eighth Day of Pesach; Yizkor recited two weeks after Massachusetts had observed “a Day of Feasting and Prayer” during a smallpox outbreak still plague the colony.

1768(7th of Iyar, 5528): Rabbo Ezra be Raphael Malki, the Safed born son of Rafel Mordechai and Chief Rabbi of Rhodes who was the brother of Moses Malki “who was probably an itinerant money living in Newport, RI and New York City in 1759 passe away today after which he was buried on the Greek Island of Rhodes.

1772(21st of Nisan, 5532): Seventh Day of Pesach

1772: Empress Marie Theresa issued an order allowing Jews to “engage in jeweler’s work but not to employ apprentices in the business.

1776: During the American Revolution The Pennsylvania Journal published a letter from Thomas Paine in which the famous pamphleteer uses quotes from the Bible including the books of Samuel and Hosea to show that a monarchy is a sinful form of government condemned by God. (As reported by Abraham Bloch) While most of the American revolutionaries had never met a Jew, they identified with the ancient Israelites through the lens of the Old Testament.  They saw King George as a modern Pharaoh and compared their fight for independence with the Exodus from Egypt.  Benjamin Franklin wanted a depiction of the Jews crossing the Red Sea to appear on the Great Seal of the United States.

1783(22nd of Nisan, 5543): Eight Day of Pesach; Yizkor

1783: Emperor Joseph II granted the request of his Jewish subjects that they be able to continue to wear beards. At the same time he reaffirmed all of the other parts of the “Systematica gentis Judaicae regulation”

1788: In Frankfurt am Main, Guttle and Mayer Amschel Rothschild gave birth to “"Carl Mayer von Rothschild the founder of the Rothschild banking family of Naples."

1790(10th of Iyar, 5550): Talmudic scholar, Rabbi Meir Margalioth passed away in Ostrog

1791(20th of Nisan, 5551): Sixth Day of Pesach

1793: Isaac de Lyon and his wife gave birth to Abraham de Lon, the husband of Hannah Sheftall whom he married on March 21, 1827.

1800: The United States Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs legislation to appropriate $5,000 USD to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress". “The Hebraic Section … Israel, the Hebrew language, biblical studies, and the ancient Near East. began operation in 1914 as part of the Division of Semitic and Oriental Literature, and it concentrates on Jewish culture, Israel, the Hebrew language, biblical studies, and the ancient Near East.” http://www.loc.gov/rr/amed/guide/hsillguide.html

1805: The Syrian Society which had been formed in March held its first meeting today where it was deiced that the Society would be call “The Palestine Association” whose members sought “to promote the study of the geography, natural history, antiquities and anthropology of Palestine and the surrounding areas, "with a view to the illustration of the Holy Writings”

1807: Rachel Emanuel De Piza and Joseph Gabriel Israel Brandon gave birth to Isaac Joseph Brandon.

1809: Birthdate of Joseph Addision Alexander, a Protestant biblical scholar and student of the Hebrew language whose works included two volumes on the prophecies of Isaiah.

1811(30th of Nisan, 5571): Rosh Chodesh Iyar

1811: Today thirty-year-old London native Jacob da Silva Solis who arrived in the United States in 1803 married Charity Hayes with whom he had seven children and still found time to found “Congregation Shanarai Chasset in New Orleans” and later be active in Congregation Shearith Israel in Mt. Pleasant, NY.

1813(24th 5573): Parashat Achrei Mot

1813: The American squadron left Sackets Harbor, NY bound for the Canadian city of York which would be partially destroyed three days later – a burning which would later be used to excuse British troops burning Washington, DC in 1814

1818: “The Jew of Malta” by Christopher Marlow which was billed as “The Famous Tragedy of The Rich Jew of Malta” “was revived by Edmund Kean at Drury Lane.”

1821(22nd of Nisan, 5581): Eighth Day of Pesach and Yizkor

1824: Birthdate of Sabato Morais, the native of Leghorn, Italy who rise to become one of the earliest and most prominent Rabbis to serve the American Jewish Community. [This is based on an article published at the time of his death.  Other sources show April 13, 1824.]

1827: In Rotterdam, Sara Lit and Harry de Groot gave birth to Cato de Groot, the wife of Rotterdam native Herman Heijermans

1830: Ellen Alice Jacobs and Prussian Gabriel Simmons gave birth to Solomon Simmons.

1834(15th of Nisan, 5594): Pesach

1836: Birthdate of Rabbi Moses Samuel Zuckermandl, the native of Breslau who studied under Samson Raphael Hirsch

1838: Birthdate of Jules Levy, the native of London who was perhaps “the most celebrated” person to play the coronet during the 19th century

1839: Mr. Eugene Esdra of Bordeaux married Miss Esther Rodrigues Monsanto in her native city of Charleston, SC.

1840(21st of Nisan, 5600): Seventh Day of Pesach

1842: In Neisse, Germany, Julius Schindler and Bertha Algasi gave birth to Solomon Schindler, the husband of Henrietta Schutz, who came to the United States in 1870 where he served as rabbi at Adath Emuno in Hoboken, NJ and Adath Israel in Boston before becoming Superintendent of the Leopold Morse Home for Infirm Hebrews and Orphans at Mattapan, MA and a published author whose works included Dissolving Views in the History of Judaism.

1842(14th of Iyar, 5602): Pesach Sheni

1842: In Cincinnati, a group of Jewish women met and established a Sunday School under the direction of Mrs. Louisa Symonds who would later resign her post due to the heavy workload.  She would be replaced by Mr. Joseph Jonas.

1843(24th of Nisan, 5603): Marianne Abraham Hamming / Hammo, the Amsterdam born daughter of Abraham Hamming / Hammo and Heintje Cohen, the wife of Simon Jacob Jacobs and the mother of Ravel Beer Jacobs and Abraham Jacobs passed away today in the Netherlands.

1845(17th of Nisan, 5605): Third Day of Pesach

1846: The Voice of Jacob contained a short article describing that described the two public Jewish schools at Kingston, Jamaica as “languid and unsatisfactory,” due the paucity of trained and qualified teachers.

1848(21st of Nisan, 5608: Seventh Day of Pesach

1848: Birthdate of Saxony native and husband of actress Grace Filkns Adolph Marix the first Jewish graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who was serving on the USS Maine when it exploded, served on the Board of Inquiry that examined the cause of the explosion and fought in two major naval examinations during the Spanish American War after which he was promoted to the rank of commodore and acting Vice Admiral

1849: Birthdate of Dusseldorf native and University of Bonn educated mathematician Felix Klein who “became an assistant in the institution of physics in 1866 at his alma mater.

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9373-klein-felix

1851(22nd of Nisan, 5611): Eighth Day of Pesach

1851: Charles Sumner began his twenty three year career as a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.  In 1864, he introduced an amendment to the United States Constitution that would define the United States as a “Christian government.”  Congress rejected the proposal. (For more see A New Promised Land by Hasia R Diner, et al.)

1852: In Gorizia, Italy, Stefan and Lucia Schmdit gave to “August Schmidt, the husband of Adele Ammalie Schdmidt.”

1853(16th of Nisan, 5613): Second Day of Pesach

1853: In Paris, Louis-Adolphe Bertillon and his wife gave birth to Alphonse Bertillon who was not a handwriting expert but who testified against Alfred Dreyfus claiming that the Jewish French officer was the author of “the incriminating document” known as the “bordereau” – the treasonous document that supposedly proved he was selling French military secrets to the Germans.

1854: In New York, Ahawath Chesed began worshiping at their synagogue at Number 27 Columbia Street which would be there home for the next ten year when the growing congregation moved to a facility on the corner of 4th Street and Avenue C.

1856:  Birthdate of Henri-Phillipe Petain.  In World War I, General Petain was a hero - the leader in the victory at Verdun.  In World War II, he was head of the Vichy Government. The Vichy Government was allied with the Nazis and was an active participant in the deportation and death of thousands of Jews.  Some of these were part of the very old French Jewish community.  Others were relative new-comers who had sought refuge in France during the 1930's as the Nazi scourge began to sweep across Europe.  Petain was not prosecuted for collaborating because of his previous military contribution and advanced age.  Pierre Laval, the Prime Minister of the Vichy government did not escape punishment. Petain passed away at in 1951at the age of 95.

1859: The First Hebrew Benevolent Association was founded today in Portland, Oregon.

1861(14th of Iyar 5621) Pesach Sheni

1861: "When the Richmond Blues left...for war" today, fifteen of its ninety-nine members were Jewish including Ezekiel J. ("Zeke") Levy, it fourth sergeant. 

1863(5th of Iyar 5623: On the 20th day of the Omer, during the Civil War that “The Confederate Congress passed a tax set at 8% on all agricultural produce grown in 1862 and a 10% tax on profits made from the sale of iron, clothing and cotton.”

1864(18th of Nisan, 5624): Fourth Day of Pesach

1864: Isaac Levy, a Virginian serving the Confederate Army wrote his mother from his post in South Carolina describing the Seder that he and his fellow soldiers had celebrated a few days earlier.

1865: Today the Washington National Intelligencer published the resolution of the Washington Literar and Dramatic Association drawn by a committee that included Simon Wolf and Julius Lowenthal which began “By the death of Abraham Lincoln the nation has sustained an irreparable loss, freedom her brightest and purest champion, humanity her greatest benefactor…”

1866: Seventy-year-old Protestant Biblical commentator Hermann Upfield who specialized in studies on the “Old Testament” and whose works included a “treatise on the early history of Hebrew grammar among the Jews” published in 1846 passed away today.

1867: Michael Rudelsheim married Rebecca Hirsch today in Amsterdam.

1869: Mlle. Janauschek is scheduled to appear in a benefit performance of "Deborah," the proceeds of which will go to the Hebrew Free School in New York City.

1871: “Synagogue Consecration” published todaydescribed the ceremony led by Rabbi S.M. Issacs as Derech Emunoh took over its new home in what had been the chapel of New York University.

1872(16th of Nisan, 5632): Second day of Pesach; first day of the Omer.

1873: Today, oet and translator Alice Julia Lucas - the sister of C.G. Montefiore, and the sister-in-law of Sir Arthur Lewis – who was the founder and President of the Jewish Study Society whose works included Translations from the German Poets of the 18th and 19th Centuries, published in 1876 and Talmudic Legends, Hymns and Paraphrases published in 1908 “married barrister Henry Lucas, who later served as treasurer and vice-president of the United Synagogue.”

1873: Birthdate of Corpus Christi, TX native and “insurance agent” Joseph Hirsch the President of the ZOA and “chairman of the American Bankers Agricultural Commission.”

1875(19th of Nisan, 5635): Fifth Day Pesach and Shabbat

1876(30th of Nisan, 5636): Rosh Chodesh Iyar

1876(30th of Nisan, 5636): Eighty-five year old Therese Aron, the Lorraine born daughter of Baruch Gougenheim and Rosel Rosette Rosele Gougenheim , the wife of Isaac Aron and mother of Simon Aron, (Baby); Rosine Haguenau; Jacob Aron; Simon Aron and Gertrude Oppenheimer passed away today in Strasbourg.

1876: Birthdate of Holocaust survivor Erich Raeder.

1878: In Buffalo, TX, Lena Catosk Pearlstone, the New Orleans born daughter of Mina Louis Hart and her husband Barney Pearlstone gave birth to Hyman Pearlstone, who was a businessman in Waco, Palestine and Dallas, TX where he was a member of the Chamber of Commerce.

1879(1st of Iyar, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Iyar

1880: Birthdate of Elizabethgrad native Phineas Israeli, the JTS trained Rabbi who in 1923 was hired by Etz Chaim Congregtion in Portland where he worked with Orthodox Rabbi Moses Shohet and “initiated modern innovations such as late Friday evening services with English which was a departure from” having sermons delivered in Yiddish” but failed in his attempts to have the congregation join the Conservative movements United Synagogues of America and left the congregation for years later “due to illness.”

1880(13th of Iyar, 5640): Parashat Achrei Mot-Kedoshim

1880(13th of Iyar, 5640): Isaac Amberg, the son of Moses and Sophia Neumann Amberg passed away today after which he was buried at the Jewish Cemetery of Greater Lafayette in Lafayette, Indiana.

1880:  Because of his “reputation of a public-spirited man…and because of his many gifts to charitable and scientific institution which won Raphael Louis Bischoffsheim the exceptional honor of "grande naturalization," by which, today he became a citizen of the French republic.”

1881: The Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, the only Jewish “institution for advanced study in America” is dedicating a new building today.  As a testament to the school’s strength, the administration was able to spend $25,000 to purchase one of the city’s old mansions and then spend additional funds to remodel it.  The school began as a dream of community leaders in 1872 and opened its doors in 1875 to 17 pupils who used rooms at the Plum Street Temple for their classes.

1881: It was erroneously reported today that King Charles I, the new King of Romania “has removed the disabilities of the Jews who comprise the largest foreign element of his population.”

1881: “Disraeli, Novelist and Orator” published today examines the career of the author turned politician.  It concedes that nobody could have imagined the political heights he was to scale when his first novel came out.  At the same time, throughout his 40 year career, he was victimized by the press as can be seen by the issues of Punch in which he was “assailed…with ridicule, sneer and caricature.”

1882: Lena Catosk Pearlstone, the New Orleans born daughter of Mina and Louis Hart, her husband gave part to Julius Heart Pearlstone.

1883(17th of Nisan, 5643): Third Day of Pesach

1883: Birthdate of German actress Lotte Spira who was forced by the Nazis to divorce her Jewish husband Fritz Spira because he was Jewish and then forced to sign a statement that her daughter Camila was his daughter.

1885(9th of Iyar, 5645): Sixty-four-year-old Dresden born actor and director who “made his début in 1838 at Hainichen, Saxony” and who ‘was director of the Carl Theater in Vienna” from 1866 to 1872 and who should not be confused with the American actor of the same name who appeared on Broadway in the early twentieth century passed away today.

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1893-ascher-anton

1885: Birthdate of Romana Manczyk, the Warsaw native who became famous as Zionist activist Romana Goodman.

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/goodman-romana

1885: According to today’s Boston Post, there is a colony of Jews living in China who came to that country two hundred years before the Christian era.

1887(30th of Nisan, 5647): Rosh Chodesh Iyar

1887(30th of Nisan, 5647): Grand Rabbi Joseph Emmanuel Levi of Italy who had previously served as rabbi of Mondovi and Cuneo before taking the pulpit at Corfu passed away today.

1887: When the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society held its 64th annual meeting this morning, Jesse Seligman was chosen to serve as President and Henry Rice was chosen to serve as Vice President.  Currently, there are 482 orphans in the asylum, 277 of whom are boys. According to Myer Stern, the society’s secretary, 16 of the boys have recently “been provided with good positions.”

1888: Birthdate of Julius Hart Pearlstone, a native of Buffalo, TX who became a merchant in Palestine, TX and a leader of the Jewish Federation for Social Service in Dallas, TX.

1888: London born Kate Moses and Cairo, Egypt native Myer Balu gave birth to Leon Blau who did not live to see his fifth birthday.

1888: Eleven of Jeanne Franko’s pupils gave a concert in Steinway Hall, and similar events occurred during the next thirty years.”

1888: Eduard Glaser completed his third journey from Sanaa to Ma’rib

1889(23rd of Nisan, 5649): Salomon or Solomon Formstecher, a German rabbi and student of Jewish theology passed away. Born at Offenbach am Main in 1808 he earned a Ph.D from the Giessen University, he settled in his native city as preacher, succeeding Rabbi Metz in 1842 a position he held until his death. “During his long ministry he strove to harmonize the religious and social life of the Jews with the requirements of modern civilization. His aims were expressed at the Rabbinical Conference of Brunswick, Frankfurt, Breslau, and Kassel in the conferences of the German rabbis. The most important of his works is Religion des Geistes ("Religion of the Spirit," Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1841). It contains a systematic analysis of the principles of Judaism. The author endeavors to demonstrate that Judaism was a necessary manifestation, and that its evolution tends in the direction of a universal religion for civilized mankind. Judaism, in contrast with paganism, considers the Divinity to be a Being separate from nature, and allows no doubt of God's existence. Consequently, any theogony, any emanation, any dualism must be rejected. Formstecher concludes his work with a history of Judaism which is a valuable contribution to Jewish religious philosophy.”

1889: Birthdate of Yakov Naumovich Reizen the “Ukrainian-born Bolshevik” who gained famed Jacob Golos, a member of the Communist Party in the United States and a Soviet espionage agent during WW II.

http://documentstalk.com/wp/golos-jacob/

1889: In Galicia, Aaron and Frima (Silberman) Kligler gave birth to CCNY, Columbia and Northwestern trained Bacteriologist Israel Jacob Kligler, the professor of bacteriology at Hebrew University who lived in Jerusalem with his wife Helen Friedman.

1889: It was reported today that some brokers at the NYSE who are not Jewish are accusing Isidore Wormser of leading a cabal of Jewish financiers in stock manipulation especially where the Reading Railroad is concerned.  The charge is not anchored in reality since some of his cohorts are said to include the notorious Jay Gould and the very gentile James R. Keene.

1890: Sylvester Pennoyer was nominated for Governor today at the Democratic State Convention in Portland, Oregon, with the expectation that he could be able to carry the Jewish vote in the upcoming general elections.

1890(4th of Iyar, 5650): Frances Cohen, the daughter of Rachel and Moses Cohen and the wife of Philadelphian Jonas Altamont Phillips with whom she had nine children, passed away today in Philadelphia.

1890: Judge Max Mayeyhardt of Rome, GA, the son of David J. and Esther (Marks) Mayerhardt today married Nettie Watson, a native of Tuskegee, Alabama.

1890: “A Mighty Power” by Frank Rothschild, Jr. had a pre-Broadway matinee performance at the Fifth Avenue Theatre.  The play is a melodrama set in Czarist Russia that portrays the suffering of a Jewish brother and sister at the ends of “a fierce, malignant, autocrat, General Mickrakoff. The play was poorly received particularly by the Jews in the audience who do not care for this sort of “buncombe.”

1891: Henry Blumenthal took his father David Blumenthal out of an insane asylum in Amityville, Long Island, today. He then took his father who had been a wealthy Jewish dry goods businessman before his confinement to all of the banks where he had deposits, withdrew the funds that totaled over $30, 000 and then boarded a ship bound for Bremen, Germany.

1892: Birthdate of violinist Frederic Fradkin, who was concertmaster for the Boston Symphony from 1918 to 1920.

https://secondhandsongs.com/artist/78384/all

 https://mahlerfoundation.org/mahler/contemporaries/frederic-fradkin/

1893: “On The Watch For Converts” published today described the aggressive attempts by various Christian churches to convert Jews in response to which “a considerable number” of the Jews in New York “have formulated a plan for checkmating the vigorous efforts…to proselytize them from their ancient faith.”

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=FB0E1EF6345B1A738DDDAD0A94DC405B8385F0D3

1894(8th of Nisan, 5654): Fourth Day of Pesach

1894: In Tyler, TX, Rose and Samuel S. Mallinson gave birth to Herbert Mallinson, the wife of Beatrice Mallinson and a “member of the board of directors and chairman of the Southwest region of the American Joint Distribution Committee.

1894: Four days after he had passed away, 53-year-old Woolf Emden, “the eldest son of the Joseph and Rachel Emden” was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1894: In New York, “Russian Jewish immigrants Frederick and Yetta Pitler gave birth to Jacob Albert “Jake” Pitler the husband of Henrietta L. Pitler whose two year career with Pittsburgh Pirates was followed by lengthy career as a coach with the Brooklyn Dodgers that included being on the 1955 team that won Brooklyn’s only World Championship.

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/4b700caf

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/pitleja01.shtml

1894: “Mr. Seligman’s Career” published today glowingly described the career of the recently deceased Jewish businessman and philanthropist Jesse Seligman who “came to New York in steerage” and was worth over $20,000,000 when he passed away.

1895: “Mr. Hutton’s Book On Jerusalem” published today provides a detailed review of Literary Landmarks of Jerusalem by Laurence Hutton.

1895: “Saved From Starvation” published today described the work of the Monte Relief Society led by Mrs. Sofia Monte Loebinger whose five hundred members provide immediate relief in the form of money and clothing to the needy immigrants of the Lower East Side and who also help them find jobs which will provide long term improvement in their condition.

1896: A new synagogue is scheduled to be dedicated this evening in Lancaster, PA.

1896: “Does Not Favor Intermarriage” published today described the meeting of the New York Section of the National Council of Jewish Women at Temple Beth-El presided over by Mrs. Alexander Kohut at which included the reading of papers on “Intermarriage” and “A Practical View of Philanthropy.”

1897(22nd of Nisan, 5657): Eight Day of Pesach and Shabbat; Yizkor

1897: It was reported today that during March the United Hebrew Charities dealt with 3,326 applications for relief that affected 11,086 peoples.  One thousand people received clothes, shoes and furniture while 319 people were taken to the doctor.  Of the 950 people who registered for work, 589 were found jobs.

1897: In Kovno, Lithuania, Morris and Hinda (Markson) Stern gave birth to University of Cincinnati graduate and HUC ordained rabbi Harry Joshua Stern who began serving Temple Israel in Uniontown, PA in 1922 while serving as chairman of the United Palestine Appeal for Fayette County.

1898: On its 76th anniversary, the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society met at the asylum’s building on 136th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

1898: It was reported today that among those who attended the 5th annual reunion banquet of the Hebrew Technical Institute were Meyer Cushner, Maximilian Zipkes, James Hoffman, Joseph L. Gensler, Dr. Henry M. Leipziger, A. Lincoln Saruya and Edgar S. Barnay

1898:  Congress today declared that a state of war between the U.S. and Spain had existed since April 21, the day the blockade of Cuba had begun. Fifteen Jews serving on the battleship were killed. Five thousand Jews served in the American Army, a ratio of 20% more than the general population. The first person of Colonel Roosevelt's Rough Riders to reach the top of San Juan Hill was reportedly a Jew named Irving Peixotto.

1898: The Adath Israel Fair which is a fundraiser for their new building in West Harlem is scheduled to come to an end.

1899(14th of Iyar, 5659): Pesach Sheini

1899: In Kobrin, Russia, Bazel Zaritsky and Hanna Tennenbaum gave birth to Oscher Zaritsky who gained fame as award winning American mathematician Oscar Zariski.

http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Zariski.html

1900: The Twenty-Seventh Convention of District No 7 of the B’nai B’rith continued for a third day in New Orleans.

1901: “United Work for Oppressed Hebrews” published today described a standing-room-only meeting at Temple Emanuel where the topics of the evening were “The Condition of the Jews” and “The Alliance Israelite and American Judaism” and the speakers include A. S. Solomons, Jacob H. Schiff, Rabbi H. Pereira Mendes, Louis Marshall and Nissam Benard

1902: The first step toward the creation of a permanent endowment fund for the United Hebrew Charities was taken today by William Guggenheim, a member of the Board of Directors, when he sent” Henry Rice, “the President of the organization…a check for $50,000 for that purpose and a promise of $50,000 more…”

1902: Birthdate of Moshe Ziffer the native of  Przemyśl, the Austro-Hungarian city that was the scene of great Jewish suffering during WWI, who made Aliyah in 191 and became a leading Israeli artist and sculptor whose works included busts of Einstein, Ben-Gurion and Weizman.

1903: “Massacre of Jews in Russia” published today reported that “twenty-five Jews were killed and 275 were wounded, many of the mortally, in ant-Semitic riots at Kishineff…on April 20 when a number of workmen organized an attack on the Jewish inhabitants.”

1904: In Chicago, Rabbi Hirsch delivered a lecture at St. James Methodist Church during which he said, “If Jesus Christ should return to the earth tomorrow, he would be welcome in every synagogue in the land …” which led to the audience responding with “a storm of applause when he sat down.

1905(19th of Nisan, Fifth Day of Pesach

1905(19th of Nisan): Anti-Semitic riots began in Zhitomir, Russia

1905: In New York, Gladys Seligman the daughter of David and Adelaide Seligman became Gladys Wertheim when she married Henri Hendrik Pieter Wertheim van Heukelom today,

1906: In Barley, Hertfordshire, England, Redcliffe Nathan Salaman, the son of Myer and Sarah Salaman, and Nina Ruth Salaman gave birth to Raphael Arthur Salaman.

1907” Birthdate of Chicago native and St. Johns trained attorney Harold Horton Boxer who while living in New York was active in New York Democratic politics and  served as an officer of the Union of Orthodox Congregation

1907: Today marks the start of two ten-day sales at Bloomingdales; one for Women’s Tailored suits and the other for Men’s Spring suits, overcoats, Prince Albert Coats and Vests.

1907: Today, The Right Reverend Plato, who had defended himself during a session of the Duma by declaring that “I got do in the mud at Kieff in order to save the Jews from those who would attack them was elected today to serve as Archbishop of the Orthodox Russian Church in the United States.

1908: It was reported today that while speaking between performance at the Children’s Theatre of the Educational Alliance, Mark Twain announced that “after July 1, the Educational Theatre for children will enter upon an independent existence under a different board of directors.

1909: A meeting is scheduled to take place this evening sponsored by the Free Songs of Israel where attendees will express their opposition to the Wagner-Stein Bill which allow for part of the land now occupied by Crotona Park to be used for in a new armory building

1910(15th of Nisan, 5670): Pesach

1910: It was reported today that “the government order for the wholesale expulsion of Jews residing illegally in Kieff and elsewhere outside the pale, which was to have taken effect on April 28” and which would have negatively affected at least 2,700 Jews living in Kieff, “has been suspended by the Premier to permit a further examination of the matter.”

1911:  Birthdate of comedian Jack E Leonard.  Born Leonard Lebitsky in Chicago, Illinois, Leonard was a heavy-set, cigar-smoking practitioner of an aggressive form of humor.  His movie credits included the “Disorderly Orderly,” “The Fat Spy,” and “Target: Harry.” He passed away on May 9, 1973.

1912: It was reported today that the memorial services which were to be held last night in memory of Isidor Straus had to be abandoned because of the great crowd which assembled and which, because of its congestion, threatened for a time to create serious injury to many people.

1913(17th of Nisan, 5673): Third Day of Pesach

1913: In Chicago, Rabbi Schanfarber officiated at the funeral of 44-year-old Oscar Grant Lehman, the son of Louis and Barbara Lehman.

1913: In Chicago, Rabbi Schanfarbert officiated at the funeral of Rena Levi, the wife of Julius Levi and the “mother of Sigbit and Fannie L. Rothschild.”

1914: Birthdate of Jan Karski, a liaison officer of the Polish underground who infiltrated both the Warsaw Ghetto and a German concentration camp and then carried the first eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust to a mostly disbelieving audience of Western leaders.

http://web.archive.org/web/20110727171727/http://www.poloniatoday.com/karski0311.htm

http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/saviors/diplomats/list/jan-karski-820/

1914: Birthdate of actress and political activist Roberta "Robbie" Seidman Garfield Cohn, the wife of actor John Garfield.

1915(10th of Iyar, 5675): Parashat Acrhei Mot-Kedoshim

1915(10th of Iyar, 5675): Seventy-five-year-old Belarus born Rabbi Yshaaya Epstein the son of Rabbi Abraham Epstein and the “husband of “Esther (Judith) Epstein” passed away today in Jerusalem.

1915: “Betty” a musical comedy with lyrics and music by Paul Rubens opened at Daly’s Theatre in London where it ran for 391 performances.

1915: Nearly 1,000 people “representing every synagogue and Jewish society in” New York City met tonight “at the Concert Hall for the opening session of the annual convention of the Kehillah or Jewish Community” which is led by “Dr. J. L. Magnes, the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Kehillah” who said “the fate of the Jewish people is hanging in the balance” and wondered if “the great war will bring political, religious and national freedom to the Jews?”

1915: The Armenian Genocide began when the Young Turks undertook the systematic annihilation of Armenian intellectuals and entrepreneurs within the city of Constantinople and later the entire Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire.  The Jewish population of Palestine was aware of this slaughter.  The leaders of its nascent military force, Hashomer, were especially cognizant of what had happened.  They were determined that the Jews would not suffer a similar fate.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/gallery/the-armenian-genocide-1915-16-in-depth-photographs

1916:  Birthdate of movie critic Stanley Kauffmann the husband of Laura Kauffman.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115089/stanley-kauffmann-has-died

1916(21st of Nisan, 5676): 7th day of Pesach

1916:  Birthdate of movie critic Stanley Kauffmann the husband of Laura Kauffman.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115089/stanley-kauffmann-has-died

1916: In Ireland foundation stone of the Greenville Hall Synagogue was laid coincidentally on the same day as the Easter Rising.

1916(21st of Nisan, 5676):  During WW I, Captain Wilfrid Langdon, a graduate of Rugby, was killed today.

1916: In New Orleans, Ted “Kid” Lewis lost a bout which cost him his title as World Welterweight Champion.

1916: The Easter Rising began in Dublin.  Many Jews were attracted to the cause of Irish Republicanism including Estella Solomons and Michael Noyk an Irish solicitor who joined Sinn Fein shortly after the Rising and defended several of the I.R.A. prisoners.

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/198888/solomons-irish-rising/?print=1

1917(2nd of Iyar, 5677): Sixty-five-year-old Berlin born Oscar Blumenthal playwright and critic passed away today in his hometown.

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0ahUKEwjusqq3vvTZAhVKyoMKHeNyCrgQFghSMAc&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcommons.unl.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1011%26context%3Dtheatrefacpub&usg=AOvVaw3KZ3_zdpuR6EDo8OflpB-X&httpsredir=1&article=1011&context=theatrefacpub

1917: The final session of the “assembly of the Eastern Council of Reform Rabbis” which had split over the issues of voicing support for women’s suffrage and Zionism was held today.

1917: Jacob de Hass, Secretary of the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs said” today “that the consideration by the envoys in Washington of the problem of a Jewish nation in Palestine was the result of a carefully planned movement by the Zionist organizations in the United States, England, France and Russia.”

1918: It was reported today that “The Jewish Administration Commission for Palestine has established bureaus in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and is engaged in the actual work of laying the foundation for the Jewish state.  Of immediate concern was the need for “large sums of money designed to save orange growers from ruin owing to their inability to market their crops due to the World War.  Long term loans to the orange growers are imperative necessity.”

1918: Author Thomas Mann and his wife Katia, who would later convert to Christianity gave birth to their fifth child Elisabeth today.

1918: Birthdate of Chicago native, U. of Chicago grad and Rush Medical College trained physician Henry Kaplan, the cancer specialist who raised two children – Ann and Paul – with his wife Leah.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/06/obituaries/dr-henry-kaplan-cancer-fighter-is-dead.html?searchResultPosition=1

1918: “Violent pogroms” took place in Cracow today.

1919: Hungarian Jewish immigrant Mary Teitelbaum and her husband gave birth to Sara Teitelbaum who gained fame as Clinton confidant Sarah Ehrman.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/us/sara-ehrman-dead-adviser-to-clintons.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1919(24th Nisan, 5679): A month before his 56th birthday Parisian born opera composer Camille Erlanger passed away.

1919: “The Chicago Mendelssohn Club” is scheduled to give the final concert of this season this evening.

1920: Birthdate of New York City native and Columbia University trained historian Dr. Herman Ausubel who taught at Columbia, Yeshiva University, Brooklyn College and the University of Manchester in England and whose works included Historians and Their Crafts.

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/03/04/archives/profherman-ausubel-of-columbia-an-authority-on-victorian-england.html

1921(16th of Nisan, 5681): Second Day of Pesach

1921:  Vladimir Jabotinsky was sentenced by the British mandatory government of Palestine to 15 years of imprisonment for his participation in the Jewish self-defense corps. During Passover in 1920, Jabotinsky stood at the head of the Haganah in Jerusalem against Arab riots and was condemned by the British Mandatory Government to 15 years hard labor. Following the public outcry against the verdict, he received amnesty and was released from Acre prison. 

1921: Secretary of Labor James J. Davis continued his inspection tour of Ellis Island, the gateway to America for tens of thousands of Jews.

1921: Birthdate of Layos Lenovitz, the native of Hungary who as Lou Lenhart served as pilot with the U.S. Marines during WW II before volunteering for “Sherut Avir, the precursor of the IAF,” taking part in IAF’s first attack on Egyptian forces driving on Tel Aviv and helping to airlift immigrants to the nascent Jewish State.

http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-lou-lenart-20150722-story.html

1922: “The committee directing the Palestine Foundation Fund campaign announced” today “that $300,000 had been raised in New York City with the larges sing subscription being $100,000 from the Society for the Advancement of Judaism.”

1923: The Jewish Daily News published “The Development of Jewish National Art” written by Marie Trommer.

1923: Solomon Lamport who is en route to Palestine to study condition among the Jewish settlers, Harry Fischel who has donated a home for the Chief Rabbi of Palestine and Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein are among the passengers who will be sailing this morning aboard the Berengaria, a Cunard Line vessel.

1924: Birthdate of Detroit native Isadore Manuel Singer, a Professor of Mathematics at MIT who “is noted for his work with Michael Atiyah proving the Atiyah–Singer index theorem in 1962, which paved the way for new interactions between pure mathematics and theoretical physics.” (This breakthrough was accomplished by an American Jew and a native of the Sudan, raised in Egypt who now lives in Great Britain.  Yes, peaceful collaboration is possible.)

1924: Birthdate of Ruth Maxine Kahn, the native of Des Moines, IA, who gained fame opera and Broadway musical star Ruth Kobart.

1924:  Birthdate of composer and pianist Yehoshua Lakner.  Born in Bratislava, Lakner moved to what is now Israel in 1941. During his early years in Palestine, Lakner studied and played in small jazz band. Yehoshua Lakner's work has received numerous awards, including the Engel Prize of Tel-Aviv for his "Toccata for Orchestra" (1958). He was honored by the Zurich City Council for his theatre music (1969) and was awarded the Salomon David Steinberg Foundation's Music Prize, as well as a composer-in-residency from the City of Zurich (1987/88).  Lakner taught at the Rubin Academy for Music in Tel Aviv and later used the computer to create multi-sensory musical experiences.

1925: Arthur “Murray married his famous dance partner, Kathryn Kohnfelder” today.

1925: At Carnegie Hall, “Variations for Piano on a Theme by Dvorak,” and “Suite for Two Pianos,” which had been composed by Leopold Damrosch Mannes was performed for the first time

1926(10th of Iyar, 5686): Parashat Achrei Mot-Kedoshim

1926: “The strong probability of a Jewish financial expert holding a portfolio -and very likely that of Finance -- in the new Polish Cabinet, as announced in a dispatch from Warsaw printed today, is in line with the policy of Count Alexander Skrzynski, who was instrumental a year ago in arranging a protocol between the Jewish Club and the Government

1927(22nd of Nisan, 5687): Eighth Day of Pesach

1927: Birthdate of Springfield, MA native, WW II Navy veteran and Yale trained attorney David S. Davidson, the Chief Judge of the NLRB and Reform Judaism leader who married Dorothy Davidson after the death of his first wife Judge Rita Davidson.

https://washingtonjewishweek.com/51976/david-s-davidson-former-nlrb-chief-judge-dies-at-91/obits/

1927: “A testimonial performance” is scheduled to “be given at the Mansfield Theatre” tonight in honor of Ossip Dymow who is “celebrating” his 25th anniversary as an author.

1928: “A subscription of $1,000,000 by Felix M. Warburg to the $10,000,000 fund sought by the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation for the establishment of Jewish Agricultural colonies in Russia was announced today by James N. Rosenberg, Chairman of the corporation.”

1929(14th of Nisan, 5689): Fast of the First Born; erev Pesach

1929: The Ezra Society for Nervous Diseases arranged the Passover celebration “held tonight for several hundred Jewish patients at the Manhattan State Hospital on Ward’s Island.

1929: Thanks to the efforts of the Jewish Social Service Association “said to be the oldest Jewish relief and family welfare society in America” “flour, food and funds” have been distributed to those in need so they can “observe the traditions of the holiday” this evening.

1929: Louis Singer led the Seder at the Home of Old Israel on Jefferson Street which was attended by 112 residents.

1930: In the Bronx, Hattie Schwartzberg and her husband Fred, the owner of “a small furniture manufacturing business” gave birth to Richard Donald Schwartzberg who gained fame as the award winning director and producer Richard Donner whose greatest claim to fame may have been directing Christopher Reeve in the 1978 epic “Superman” which brought the man of steel to the wide, modern movie screen.

1931: In a match whose outcome he disputed English boxer “Jack Kid Berg” (Judah Berg) lost his World Light Welterweight Championship.

1932: Detroit Tigers Pitcher Izzy Goldstein, a native or Odessa, Russia, appeared in his first major league baseball game.

1932(18th of Nisan, 5692): Fourth Day of Pesach

1932: Benny Rothman, the Jewish political activist, led the Mass trespass of Kinder Scout, leading to substantial legal reforms in the United Kingdom.

1932: Tonight’s “symposium on the theatre to be conducted by the Group Theater and the Junior Jewish Federations of New York and Brooklyn will take place at the Morosco Theatre instead of the Bijou as first announced.”

1933: Soviet Union Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinov appears on the cover of Time and is the subject of the magazine’s feature article. Litvinov was the son of a wealthy Jewish banking family who became an ardent Bolshevik. Stalin will remove Litvinov, the Jew, when he decides to negotiate the non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939. Americans would come to know Litvinov during World War II when he served as the Soviet ambassador to the United States where he played a key role in lend-lease negotiations.  Litvinov was unique among the original Jews Bolshevik leaders because he was one of the few to escape Stalin’s wrath and die of natural causes.

1933(28th of Nisan, 5693): Eighty-one-year-old Felix Adler passed away.

http://www.nysec.org/felixadler

1933: After meeting with President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull wrote to Norman Davis, the American representative to the Geneva Disarmament Conference that FDR would regard adjournment of the conference as a failure that might give Hitler an excuse to start a war.  (In the first months of his Presidency, FDR saw that Hitler posed an undetermined threat to peace.  He wanted to keep him at bay because he was dealing with the worst crisis in American history.  What most people fail to understand with their twenty-twenty hindsight was that the United States was tottering on the brink of disaster and there was no guarantee that she could not followed the fascist model of Germany and Italy or the Communist model of the Soviet Union.)

1933: “A conference of executive directors of Y.M.H.A.’s, Y.W H. A’s and Jewish Community Centers” is which is considering “an evaluation of present membership policies, news systems of membership and other measures that will build up memberships in Jewish centers scheduled to meet for its third and final session today at the 92nd Street Y.

1934: In the Bronx, Harry Rosen and the former Ruth Jacobson gave birth to Walter Rosen who made Junior’s Restaurant and its cheesecake into a New York cultural icon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/15/nyregion/walter-rosen-longtime-stewardof-juniors-restaurant-dies-at-81.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1934: It was reported today that Abraham Stavsky, Zvi Rosenblatt and Abba Achimeyer have gone trial for the murder last month of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff.  “Achicmeyer is charged with inciting the alleged murderers by speeches and newspaper articles.”  The other two defendants are charged with the actual murder with Rosenblatt having been named as the “trigger man.”

1935: Birthdate of Pottsville, PA native Allan Jaffe, “the entrepreneur who developed Preservation Hall into a New Orleans jazz tradition” and father of Ben Jaffe who followed in his father’s footsteps.

https://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/11/obituaries/allan-jaffe-new-orleans-jazz-revivalist-dies-by-frances-frank-marcus.html

http://www.allanjaffe.net/

1935: The New Republic published “The Funeral of R.A.A.P.” by Jewish author Robert Gessner.

1935: “Today, the Angriff, the official afternoon” Nazi newspaper “in Berlin appeared with black banner headlines above a story asserting that half the apartment house in” Berlin “were still owned by Jews.”

1936: “Reports that eight Arabs had been killed yesterday during disorders were described as ‘false and baseless’ by the Jewish Agency in Palestine.”

1936: In Detroit, Temple Beth-El began celebrating its 85th anniversary.

1936: Today David Ben Gurion was reported to have “urged that exaggeration of the disturbances” in Palestine “be avoided” no doubt because the Arabs were using their attacks to pressure the British to end Jewish immigration and land purchases.

1936: “Assurance has been given to Jews in America by the High Commissioner of Palestine that he would not ‘put a premium upon violence’ by yielding to any unjust demands of the Arabs, Dr. Stephen S. Wise said today and that furthermore “continued admittance of immigrants to Palestine was guaranteed.”

1936: At a luncheon held in the Hotel Astor, “Luis Posner, Mortgage Commissioner of the State of New York said the Jewish settlers” in Palestine “had always pursed a policy of peaceful cooperation and mutual understanding with the Arabs.

1936: In Zagreb, Yugoslavia, Dr. Vladimir Matchek denied today that anti-Semitic pamphlets recently published under the name of the Croat Peasant party had been approved or circulated by the party.”

1936: While contrary to expectations there was no violence in Jerusalem today “rifle shots were fired at Hakoresh, a Jewish settlement in northern Palestine” and “fires in crops, houses, shops and timber yards” owned by Jews continue to break out in different parts of the countries.

1937:  Pastor Martin Niemöller, one of the foremost leaders of the German opposition forces to Hitler, preached that it is unfortunate that God permitted Jesus to be born a Jew.

1938: In Vienna, Marrianne and Hubert Joachim Adler gave birth to San Diego, CA “civil rights and criminal defense attorney” Tom Adler.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sandiegouniontribune/obituary.aspx?n=tom-adler&pid=144988528

1938: In one of those uniquely American cross-cultural events, the orchestra led by African-American Duke Ellington recorded “a live performance” “On the Sunny Side of the Street” with lyrics by Dorothy Fields at Harlem’s iconic Cotton Club.

1938: All sessions of the religious school resumed at Temple Emanu-El following the Passover recess.

1938: At the Free Synagogue meeting in Carnegie Hall, Dr. Ludwig Lewisohn is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “My Unwritten Books: A Preview.”

1938: At Temple Rodeph Sholom, Dudley Digges and Rabbi Louis I. Newman are scheduled to deliver an address on “The Ethical Message of Paul Osborn’s play ‘On Borrowed Time.’”

1939: Birthdate of Ernst Zündel, the German-born Canadian Holocaust denier who also published neo-Nazi pamphlets such as “The Hitler We Loved and Why.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/world/europe/ernst-zundel-canada-germany-holocaust-denial.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1939: It was reported today that donations totaling $40,000 have been made to cover last year’s deficit of $80,000 at the Beth El Hospital in Brooklyn.

1939: In apparent response to pressure from the British government the Greek government announced that a law prohibiting Greek vessels from carrying any more Jewish refugees unless their papers are strictly in order would be enforced.  The move will strike a blow against the Greek economy since Greek ship owners and “brokers” had been able to make “exorbitant profits” from trafficking in Jewish misery.

1940(16th of Nisan, 5700): Second Day of Pesach

1940(16th of Nisan, 5700): Forty-three-year-old Joe “Yussel the Muscle” Jacobs fight manager passed away today.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jacobs-joe

1941: Birthdate of Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke “a top-ranking American diplomat, magazine editor, author, professor, Peace Corps official, and investment banker. He was the only person to have held the position of Assistant Secretary of State position for two different regions of the world (Asia from 1977 to 1981 and Europe from 1994 to 1996). Later, was the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan under the Obama administration. Holbrooke was born in New York City, to Dan Holbrooke and Trudi Moos (née Kearl). Holbrooke’s mother, whose Jewish family fled Hamburg in 1933 for Buenos Aires before coming to New York, took him to Quaker meetings on Sundays. “I was an atheist, his father was an atheist,” says his mother, a potter now married to a sculptor. “We never thought of giving Richard a Jewish upbringing. The Quaker meetings seemed interesting.” Holbrooke’s father, a doctor born of Russian Jewish parents in Warsaw, died of cancer. His father changed his name to Holbrooke when he arrived in the United States in the 1930s. Such, however, is the family’s loss of contact with its roots that his original name is unknown. After Scarsdale High School Holbrooke received his A.B. from Brown University in 1962 and completed a post-graduate fellowship at Princeton University in 1970. He married Kati Marton in 1995. His marriage to Marton has led him to look more closely at his past. She was born into a family of Hungarian Jews but raised a Roman Catholic. In researching a book about Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat in Budapest who saved Jews during World War II, Marton traveled to her native Hungary whence she and her parents had fled the Communists in the 1950s. It was there that an old friend of her mother’s told her that Wallenberg had come too late for Marton’s grandparents. It was the first she had heard about her Jewish roots. Like Madeleine Albright’s parents, Marton’s family hid their Jewish identity when they came to the United States. She learned that one of her maternal grandparents had died in the Auschwitz concentration camp. He passed away in 2010.

1941:  The Nazis “closed” the Lublin Ghetto.  The Lublin (Poland) Ghetto was established in March, 1941 and contained about 34,000 Jews.  As of this date Jews could only leave if they had a special permit or were part of a labor group. The Lublin Ghetto was the first ghetto in the General Government to be liquidated, and the Nazis gained much experience, for future deportation actions. Jews from Lublin were the first victims of the newly constructed death camp at Belzec. Only 200-300 of formerly 40,000 Lublin Jews survived in hiding or were finally liberated in several concentration camps. About 1000 Jews survived the war in Soviet areas.

1942: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for fifty-nine-year-old Romanian born Isadore Wexler, the thirty-year resident of Toledo, HO where he owned the Wexler Ice company and the husband of Yetta Leffner Wexler with whom he had eight children -- Louis, Joseph, Ralph, David, Morris, Oscar, Max and William A. Wexler – followed by burial at Shari Zedick  Cemetery in Lima, OH.

1942: The liquidation of the WloclawekGhetto began today.

1942:  Jews throughout Greater Germany were prohibited from taking public transport.

1942: Eight days after turning nine, Ruth Bachrachova was transported from Prague to Terezin, the first leg of a trip that would lead to the death camps.

1942:  Birthdate of singer and film star Barbra Streisand.

1943(19th of Nisan, 5703) Shabbat Shel Pesach

1943: Oliver Harvey, Anthony Eden’s Private Secretary described the British Foreign Minister’s attitude toward the Jews with an entry in his diary stating “Unfortunately AE is immovable on the subject of Palestine.  He loves Arabs and hates Jews.”  This entry explains why the British Foreign office did nothing to save the Jews of Europe from the Holocaust and gives some examples of the type of society in which Churchill was forced to make his decisions.

1943: A twelve-day joint Anglo-American conference designed to deal with the issue of refugees (and in reality, Jewish refugees) comes to an end without taking any action to save the Jews of Europe including the opening of Palestine to settlement by Jewish refugees.

1943(19th of Nissan 5703): Rabbi Menachem Ziemba a distinguished pre-World War II Rabbi who had been born in 1883, known as a Talmudic genius and prodigy was gunned down by the Nazis during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. “Rabbi Menachem Zemba was born in a suburb of Warsaw, Poland in 1883. A follower of the Gerrer Chassidic dynasty, he was a great genius and Torah scholar. He joined the Warsaw rabbinate in 1935 and was recognized as a leading rabbinic figure in pre-war Eastern Europe.

Rabbi Zemba was a moral force in the Warsaw Ghetto, always striving to infuse the community with optimism and hope. He arranged clandestine locations in cellars and bomb shelters where girls and boys would study Torah. Although afforded opportunities to escape the ghetto, he refused to do so, insisting that his presence was needed by the Jews in the ghetto. Rabbi Zemba was a strong supporter of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, donating personal funds for ammunition and giving his whole-hearted blessing for the endeavor (see Jewish History for the 27th of Nissan). Five days after the fighting begun, on Shabbat the 19th of Nissan, the house were Rabbi Zemba was hiding was set afire by the SS. When attempting to escape, Rabbi Zemba was shot dead by the Nazis. May G-d avenge his blood. The rabbi was buried in the Ghetto, and in 1958 his body was flown to Israel where he was buried in Jerusalem amid a great funeral procession. Rabbi Zemba was a prolific writer. Unfortunately, most of his scholarly manuscripts were burnt in the Warsaw Ghetto. His few works which were authored before the war are still studied by Torah scholars world-wide. (As reported by Chabad)

1944(1st of Iyar, 5704): Rosh Chodesh Iyar

1944(1st of Iyar, 5704): Seventy-five-year-old “German physical chemist” George Bredig, the Silesia bon son of Ernestine Troplowitz and Max Bredig who discovered that his identifying as a Protestant did not save him from fleeing the Nazis because of his “Jewish descent” passed away in the United States where he had found refuge thanks to the intervention by Ernest Cohen who “ironically” died at Auschwitz.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Georg+Bredig&sca_esv=ffa6a5b912f672b6&source=hp&ei=DZkmZpz-MN2O0PEP84ykkAo&iflsig=ANes7DEAAAAAZianHtPncYMhugKjjkYwmyqVlHGKgk_1&ved=0ahUKEwjcuKunp9aFAxVdBzQIHXMGCaIQ4dUDCBg&uact=5&oq=Georg+Bredig&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6IgxHZW9yZyBCcmVkaWcyBRAuGIAESI-XAVAAWMmLAXADeACQAQCYAYIBoAGMC6oBBDEwLjW4AQPIAQD4AQGYAhKgAr8LwgILEAAYgAQYsQMYgwHCAhEQLhiABBixAxjRAxiDARjHAcICCBAAGIAEGLEDwgIOEC4YgAQYsQMYgwEYigXCAgsQLhiABBixAxjUAsICDhAuGIAEGLEDGNEDGMcBwgIIEC4YgAQYsQPCAgUQABiABMICCxAuGIAEGLEDGIMBwgILEC4YgAQYxwEYrwHCAgcQLhiABBgKwgIHEAAYgAQYCsICChAuGIAEGLEDGArCAg0QABiABBixAxiDARgKwgINEC4YgAQYsQMYgwEYCsICEBAuGIAEGLEDGIMBGIoFGArCAgoQLhiABBjUAhgKwgIGEAAYFhgewgIIEAAYFhgKGB7CAgsQABiABBiGAxiKBZgDAJIHBDEzLjWgB5v3AQ&sclient=gws-wiz

https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/tyeplmz

1944: Two escapees from Auschwitz, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler reached Zilina, in northern Slovakia, where they worked with Jewish leaders on their report. The two men provided separate but consistent accounts. Factual assertions were checked against records whenever possible. The 32-page report was sent to the British and United States governments, the Vatican and the International Red Cross. Most important, it went to the leadership of Hungary's Jews, next on Hitler's list.

1945: When Soviet troops entered the German capital, they found 800 Jews alive at Berlin’s Jewish Hospital.

1945: “Today, the satellite labor camps around Dachau were being cleared out by the Nazis ahead of the advancing Allied troops, and some 15,000 prisoners were first marched to the Dachau camp, only to be sent southwards on a death march towards the Austrian border,the path for which generally headed southwards, partly along the eastern shore of the Starnberger See, taking a left turn to the east in the town of Eurasburg and heading towards the Tegernsee.”

1945: Forty-three-year-old Karl Ludwig von Guttenberg who had been arrested after the failure of the plot to assassinate Hitler in July, 1944 and who refused to name names despite being tortured by was murdered in the early hours of this morning by order of “Gestapo chief Heinrich Muller.”

1945: Holocaust survivor Dr. Hadassah Bimko Rosensaft, gave one of the first eyewitness accounts of the horrors of the Holocaust on a Movietone News newsreel that was filmed at the recently liberated Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. "It is difficult for me to describe," she said, "all that we inmates experienced here in the camps. As a small, very small example I can relate that we inmates were thrown onto the earth of a filthy, lice-filled camp, without blankets, without bags of hay, without beds. We were given a 12th of a piece of bread daily and one liter of turnip soup so that almost 75 percent of the inmates were swollen from hunger. A severe typhus epidemic broke out, and the hunger and the typhus devoured us." Through the camera she told the world how the Germans had refused to give starving inmates food shipments sent by the Red Cross until shortly before the arrival of British troops, and how the camp's SS commandant had stolen large quantities of chocolate intended for Jewish children to enrich himself on the black market.

1946(23rd of Nisan, 5706): San Francisco native and Stanford trained surgeon Lawrence Harold Hoffman the World War I veteran and brother of William J. and Melville G. Hoffman passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1946/04/25/88354485.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1946:  Five thousand Jews attending a funeral for five Jews murdered by Poles at Nowy Targ, Poland, three days earlier were abused from rooftops and windows by anti-Semitic taunts.

 

1947: Birthdate of Roger David Kornberg an American biochemist and professor of structural biology at Stanford University School of Medicine who “was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2006 for his studies of the process by which genetic information from DNA is copied to RNA, "the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription."

1947: The trial of Hans Biebow “the chief of German Nazi administration of the Łódź Ghetto in occupied Poland” continued for a second day.

1948(15th of Nisan, 5708): Pesach

1948(15th of Nisan, 5708): Fifty-six-year-old New York native Edward C. Hartman, the treasurer and director of the Stahl-Meyer, Inc meat packers who “began his career there in 1922 with the Louis Meyer Company passed away today at his home on Long Island.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1948/04/26/84536738.html?pageNumber=23

1948: During the siege of Jerusalem, on the first day of Pesach, Zipporah Porath “feasted on an omelet made from our special Pesach ration, which included Matzah and one egg each.”

1949: Birthdate of Peter Friedman, the New York native who “played the role of Jewish immigrant ‘Tateh’ in Ragtime” for which he “was nominated for the 1998 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical.”

1950: King Abdullah of Jordan annexed all of the land west of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea seized by his troop.  The state of Jordan was formed by the union of Jordanian-occupied Palestine and the Kingdom of Transjordan. In the view of some, the creation of the original state of Trans-Jordan by the British after World War I was an illegal act since amounted to a partition of the Palestine Mandate.  That is why there are those that contend that if the Arabs want a state in Palestine, they already have it.  It is called Jordan.  The creation of Jordan in 1950 was another act of illegality.  The land west of the Jordan River including the eastern part of Jerusalem had been seized by the Jordanian Army during the Israeli War for Independence.  Since the Arabs held what is now called the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza in 1950, you would have expected that the Arab State of Palestine would have been created.  The demand for an Arab state of Palestine in these areas only began after June, 1967.

1950: The government of Israel announced that it would not accept the annexation of eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank by Jordan.  Israel said that it had accepted the occupation as part of the truce agreement subject to final peace negotiations.  Israel expressed its displeasure at the possibility of British military installations being installed on her frontiers. 

1951(18th of 5711): Fourth Day of Pesa

1953(9th of Iya, 5713): Fifty-two-year-old London born and NYU School of Engineering graduate Herman M. Braloff, the president of the Cauldwell-Wingate Company, construction engineers which built “projects for the armed forces at the Sampson (NY) Naval Training Session and Camp Shanks (NJ) as well as the Carnegie Foundation Building, Temple Emanu-El, Mt. Sinai Hospital and “the addition to the Metropolitan Museum of Art” while serving on “the board of directors of the Jewish Hospital in Brooklyn and being a member of Temple B’nai Sholom in Rockville Cetntre.

1953: Drummer Buddy Rich, the son of Jewish-American vaudevillians, married “dance and showgirl” Marie Allison today with whom he had one child – Cathy – and to whom he remained married “until his death in 1987.”

1955: The Bandung Conference came to an end. At the height of the Cold War, twenty-nine self-described non-aligned nations of Asia and Africa finish a meeting that condemned colonialism, racism, and the Cold War. One of the prime movers behind the conference was Prime Minister Nehru of India.  The Israelis had wanted to attend.  They saw themselves as a socialist country who had thrown the British out and was not officially aligned with either the Eastern or Western Blocs.  However, Nehru did not want the Israelis there because it would upset the Arabs and the Moslems. 

1955(24th of Iyar, 5715): Eighty-three-year-old Rudland, VT native and Fairfield CT resident the long-time President of Armstrong Manufacturing Company passed away today at Bridgeport, CT Hospital.

1958(4th of Iyar, 5718): Yom HaAtzma'ut

1958: Thirteen months after being released in the United Kingdom, “Ill Met by Moonlight” on which Emeric Pressburger served as co-writer, co-director and co-producer was released today in New York City.

1958: Chaim Laskov, the recently appointed Chief of General Staff, “presided over a huge military parade in Jerusalem to mark the tenth anniversary of Israel's independence. This took place despite warnings by Jordan that such a parade would be considered an act of aggression. During the parade, Laskov displayed Israel's latest military hardware, including weapons captured from Egypt in the Sinai and from Syria during clashes in the Hula Valley.”

1958: Brooks Atkinson reviewed the first production of JB, a play based on the Book of Job for the New York Times.

1959(16th of Nisan, 5719): Second Day of Pesach

1959(16th of Nisan, 5719): Ninety-three-year-old violinist and conductor David Mannes, the husband of Clara Mannes and son-in-law of Leopold Damrosch, who helped to “found the Colored Music Settlement School” and the Mannes Music School

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/04/25/83683650.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

 

1960(27th of Nisan, 5720): Sixty-five-year-old Ukraine native, Sophie Udin, the feminist and Zionist who married Pinhas Ginguld with whom she had two children – Yehuda and Marcia passed away today.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/udin-sophie-ada

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/udin-sophie-a

1961, Professor Salo Baron testified at the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Baron explained the historical context of the Nazi genocide against the Jews. He further explained that in his birthplace, Tarnow, there had been 20,000 Jews before the war but, after Hitler, there were no more than 20. His parents and a sister were killed there1961, Professor Baron testified at the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Baron explained the historical context of the Nazi genocide against the Jews. He further explained that in his birthplace, Tarnow, there had been 20,000 Jews before the war but, after Hitler, there were no more than 20. His parents and a sister were killed there.

1962:  Dodger Legend Sandy Koufax pitched his second 18-strikeout game.

1963: The will of Samuel Paley, the father of William S. Paley, the Chairman of the Board of the Columbia Broadcasting System, was filed for probate today showing that that his estate “was valued at $27,000,000.

1963: Oskar Schindler wrote a letter from Frankfurt am Main today “to his close friend confidante Itzhak Stern” in which he “discusses his financial hardship,” speaks of the “optimism towards the future” he felt a year ago” and expresses his despair by asking himself “if it’s even worth living.

1965(22nd of Nisan, 5725): 8th day of Pesach

1966(4th of Iyar,5726): Seventy-one-year-old New Yorker, Zionist leader and American Hebrew educator Samuel J. Borowsky the general secretary of the National Association for Jewish Education who attended the Rabbi Jacob Joseph Yeshiva and was an NYU graduate who was the husband of the former Selma Juliette Sonnenberg with whom he had two daughters passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/04/25/80004569.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1966(8th of Iyar, 5726): Seventy-one-year-old, Samuel Borowsky “a Zionist leader and leading American Hebrew education” who raised two daughters with his wife “the former Selma Juliette Sonnenberg” passed away today in Israel.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/04/25/80004569.html?pageNumber=31

https://www.jta.org/archive/samuel-borowsky-noted-american-jewish-educator-dies-in-israel

1967(14th of Nisan, 5727): Fast of the First Born; erev Pesach

1968: The original West End London production of Man of La Mancha with music by Mitch Leigh opened at the Piccadilly Theatre.

1968: Mauritius becomes a member state of the United Nations. During World War II, the British used Mauritius as detention camp for Jews fleeing Hitler’s Europe who were trying to enter Palestine despite the White Paper. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Mauritius.html

1969(6th of Iyar, 5729): Seventy-seven-year-old Yonkers NY, native and Dickinson College trained attorney, Joseph Altman a powerful figure in New Jersey politics which led to his serving six terms as the Mayor of Atlantic City while raising his son Michael with his wife Lillian passed away today

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/04/25/90095532.pdf

1969: “If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” a comedy directed by Mel Stuart, produced by Stan Margulies and David Wolper, with music by Walter Scharf and featuring Sandy Baron, Normal Fell and Marty Ingels was released today in the United States.

1969(6th of Iyar, 5729): Sixty-three-year-old Cincinnati native Henry Tavel, the HUC trained rabbi who served as chaplain during WW II winning the Bronze Star and entered civilian life in 1960 as congregational rabbi in Houston while raising a daughter Barbara with his wife Charlotte passed away today.

http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0209/ms0209.html

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/04/28/90099871.pdf

1969(6th of Iyar, 5729): Fifty-four-year-old CCNY and NYU alum, Robert F. Greenberg, the New York math teacher and principal at the Walter J. Damrosch Jr. H.S. who raised two daughters – Mary and Amy – with his wife “the former Lucy Wachtell” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/04/25/90095537.pdf

1970(18th of Nisan, 5730): Fourth Day of Pesach

1970: Myrna Lamb’s musical “Mod Donna” opened the Joseph Papp Public Theatre in New York today.

1971(29th of Nisan, 5731): Parashat Shmini

1971: In “Making the Rock Pop Scene” published today, Richard Locke reviews FREAKSHOW: The Rochsoulbluesjazzsichjew blachhumoraexpoppsych Gig and Other Scenes from the CounterCulture by Albert Goldman

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/24/archives/making-the-rock-pop-scene.html?searchResultPosition=3

1974(2nd of Iyar, 5734): Yom HaZikaron

1974: “Refusenik and war hero Yefim Davidovich suffered a heart attack”

1976: Birthdate of Nathan Rabin, an American film and music critic

1976: At The Town Hall in New York City, world premiere of Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians.

1977: A terrorist bus bombing injured 28 people at Hebron today.

1977: NBC broadcast the fourth and final episode “Lanigan’s Rabbi” which was based on a series of novels by Harry Kemelman co-starring Bruce Solomon in the role of “Rabbi David Small.”

1979(27th of Nisan, 5739) Yom HaShoah

1979(27th of Nisan, 5739): Seventy-six-year-old British Labour Party leader Maurice Orbach, the father of author Susie Orbach and Laurence Obach, the former history teacher and CEO of the Quarto Publishing Group passed away today.

http://www.jta.org/1979/04/27/archive/maurice-orbach-dead-at-76

1980: A seminar on Soviet Jewry sponsored by The European Union of Jewish Students opened today in Amsterdam.

1980: The world premiere of “Lakeboat.a semi-autobiographical play by David Mamet was staged today by the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre.

1980: Barbara Tuchman delivers the Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. The announcement contains the following:

 

Barbara Tuchman, who was born in 1912, never earned a graduate degree in history, but her best-selling books made history come alive for millions of readers and earned two Pulitzer Prizes for their author. Raised in a privileged New York family, Tuchman traveled extensively with her parents before attending Radcliffe College, where she studied history and literature. After her graduation, she wrote about the Spanish Civil War for The Nation, and then worked at the Office of War Information during World War II, traveling in Asia. These reporting stints sparked Tuchman's interest in the history of war. Tuchman’s first book, Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour (1956), expressed strong sympathy for Zionism. She is best known, however, for two books that won Pulitzer Prizes: The Guns of August (1962), about the First World War, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945 (1972). The Guns of August was later made into a movie of the same name. Although her relationships with professional historians were sometimes strained, Tuchman did garner recognition, serving as the president of the Society of American Historians (1970-1973), and as president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1979).Tuchman was the first woman invited to deliver the Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities under the auspices of the National Endowment for the Humanities. An invitation to give the Jefferson Lecture is the highest honor the federal government confers for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities. In her lecture, presented on April 24, 1980, Tuchman took "Mankind's Better Moments" as her title and theme, reflecting her general optimism about the human condition. Tuchman repeated the lecture in London a week later, the first time that a Jefferson Lecture had been repeated abroad, marking her international renown as a writer. Tuchman published her last book, The First Salute, just a year before her death in 1989.

 

1981(20th of Nisan, 5741): Sixth Day of Pesach

1982: “A 5,000-word article in the newspaper Sovetskaya Moldaviya condemned the practice of sending parcels to Soviet Jews by people living in London, Copenhagen, Basel as part of the “Zionist conspiracy.”

1983: In “Discovering Herod’s Israel,” published today, Nitza Rosovsky describes the various building projects of the cruel king including those at Caesarea, Masada and Jerusalem remnants of which can be seen today as well as the opportunities for students to take part in archaeological digs during the summer.

1984(22nd of Nisan, 5744): Eighth Day of Pesach

1984: David Shipler, the New York Times correspondent in Israel “was summoned to the office of the director of the Government press office, Mordechai Dolinsky, and was ‘severely reprimanded’” for his reporting on the so called “Bus 300 Affair.”

1985: According to Israeli businessman Yaacov Nimrodi, today he canceled the sailing of the merchant ship, the Westline which had been scheduled to leave Eilat filled with weaponry for Iran as part of a deal that Americans would come to know as Iran-Contra.

1986(15th of Nisan, 5746): Pesach

1986(15th of Nisan, 5746): Eighty-seven-year-old Morris Israel Fishbein the Chelsea, MA born son of Sarah Miller and Louis Fishbein, the construction contractor and real investor who was a member of Congregation Beth Sholom and Congregation Mishkon Tifiloh and who four children with his wife Helen Fishbein passed away today in Providence, RI.

1987:  Howard Stern held a free speech rally at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza New York City.

1990: In an example of meaningless political posturing, the House of Representatives adopted H.R. 290 “expressing support for Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/HouseRes290.html

1990:  Securities law violator Michael Milken pled guilty to 6 felonies.

1991(10th of Iyar, 5751): Eighty-five-year-old English and Yiddish Poet Menke Katz who “won two Stephen Vincent Benet Narrative Poetry Awards, in 1970 and 1974” whose English version of his two-volume Yiddish epic poem, "Burning Village," had been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize” passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/26/obituaries/menke-katz-85-poet-appreciated-for-his-lyrical-style.html

1992: Catcher Jesse Levis appeared in his first major league baseball game wearing the uniform of the Cleveland Indians.

1992:  George Steinbrenner dropped his lawsuits against major league baseball.

1992: U.S. premiere of “White Sands” produced by Scott Rudin

1992: “Passed Away” a comedy produced by Larry Brezner and co-starring Peter Riegert was released today in the United States.

1992: U.S. premiere of “A Midnight Clear” a WW II movie starring Peter Berg.

1993:  ABC news analyst Jeff Greenfield married Karen Gannett.

1994: After having made it world premiere at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass opened at the Booth Theater.

1994: “Acting Against Type: The Self-Hating Jew” published today provides an interview with actor Ron Rifkin who plays the role of Phillip Glellburg in Arthur Miller’s “Broken Glass.”

1995(24th of Nisan, 5755): Ninety-five year old Warsaw born “actress, scenarist, film director, and film preservationist” Marie Epstein who had been arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 but avoided deportation and who was  the sister of French filmmaker and novelist Jean Epstein passed away today.

1996(5th of Iyar, 5756): Yom HaAtzma’ut – Israel Independence Day

1996(5th of Iyar, 5756): Seventy five year old Los Angeles native Melvin Wallace “Mel” Bleeker the USC quarterback who played for four years in the NFL – first with the Eagles and then with the Giants.

http://www.profootballarchives.com/playerb/blee00400.html

1997(17th of Nisan 5757): Third Day of Pesach

1997: A special Seder was held in Washington D.C. today and attended by the Dalai Lama, as well as by numerous U.S. dignitaries and celebrities, including Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys

1998: “Sliding Doors” a comedy starring Gwnyeth Paltrow and produced by Sydney Pollack was released today in the United States.

1998: “In God’s Hands” a surfing film directed by Zalman King who co-authored the screenplay was released in the United States today.

1999(8th of Iyar, 5759): Parashat Achrei Mot-Kedoshim

1999(8th of Iyar, 5759): Sixty-three-year-old Alexandria born French psychiatrist Jacques Hassoun who became an amateur expert on the history of the Egyptian Jewish community.

http://www.bassatine.net/hassoun.php

1999: “Woman Wins 600G From Face-Lift Doc” published today described the outcome of a suit brought against Dr. Pamela Lipkin.

2000(19th of Nisan, 5760): Pearl Padamsee, the Indian stage actress, director and producer whose mother was Jewish passed away today.

http://www.hindu.com/2000/04/30/stories/1330128a.htm

2001: The Criterion Collection released a DVD version of Jules Dassin’s “Rififi.”

2002: The National Science Board has named Erich Bloch as the recipient of the Vannevar Bush Award, “its highest award for scientific achievement and statesmanship.”

https://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/02/pr0230.htm

2003(22nd of Nisan, 5763): 8th Day of Pesach

2003(22nd of Nisan, 5763): Outside the train station in Kfar Saba which had only been open for eleven days, Security guard Alexander Kostyuk was murdered and 13 were wounded in a suicide bombing for which groups related to the Fatah Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility.

http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Terrorism/Victims/Pages/Alexander%20Kostyuk.aspx

2004(3rd of Iyar, 5764):  Estée Lauder, founder of a cosmetics company bearing her name passed away.  Lauder was born Josephine Esther Mentzer in Queens, New York in 1906.  She was the daughter of Hungarian Jewish immigrants. She married Joseph Lauter in 1930, divorced him in 1939, and re-married him in 1942. The Lauter family changed their surname to "Lauder" in the late 1930s.They remained married until his death in 1982. Lauder died in her Manhattan home of cardiopulmonary failure at the age of 97. She was the only woman on Time magazine's 1998 list of the 20 most influential business geniuses of the 20th century. She was also the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/26/nyregion/estee-lauder-pursuer-of-beauty-and-cosmetics-titan-dies-at-97.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

2004(3rd of Iyar, 5764): Twenty-four-year-old Nathan Bruckenthal was killed today in a suicide attack in the Northern Persian Gulf. “Nathan Bruckenthal was a fun-loving child. “He was all good things, everything every father would love,” recalled his father, Eric Bruckenthal. His parents separated when Bruckenthal was 6 years old and then respectively remarried, but the two families remained close. Bruckenthal grew up in Stony Brook, N.Y., in a home where a sense of purpose was drilled into him. His father has been on the police force for 35 years, and his stepfather was in the Army. So when Bruckenthal approached his father about enlisting in the Coast Guard, Eric Bruckenthal was not surprised. Later, after joining the specialized Tactical Law Enforcement Team, Bruckenthal was deployed to Iraq.  He had just found out that his wife was three months pregnant with their first child when he was killed. That child, a daughter, recently turned 6 years old. As the only Coast Guard officer to be killed in action since the Vietnam War, Bruckenthal left a legacy that has been embraced by the Coast Guard, which has invited his father to speak at its events. “Though I lost a son, I gained 40,000 surrogate sons and daughters in the Coast Guard,” his father said. Though Bruckenthal did not have a bar mitzvah, he began identifying with Judaism toward the end of his life and decided that when he returned home, he would become a bar mitzvah. “He was laid in his coffin, draped in a tallis and the Star of David. For our family, he received his last rites as a Jewish man,” his father said.      

2005(15th of Nisan, 5765):  First day of Pesach.  In the evening, count the omer for the first time.

2005(15th of Nisan, 5765):  Ezer Weizman passed away. If you did not know that such a person had really lived, you would have thought his life was the creation of Walter Scott style novelist.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/obituaries/25weizman.html?pagewanted=all&position=

2005: The New York Times reviewed The End of Poverty by Jeffrey D. Sachs, in which the author argues that if the wealthy countries of the world were to increase their combined foreign aid budgets to between $135 billion and $195 billion for the next decade, and properly allocate that money, extreme global poverty -- defined by the World Bank as an income of less than a dollar a day -- could be eliminated by 2025.

2006(26th of Nisan, 5766): Ninety-one-year-old “Rabbi Moshe (Moses) Teitelbaum, the leader of the Satmar sect passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/nyregion/rabbi-moses-teitelbaum-is-dead-at-91.html

2006: This evening, the State of Israel will take time out to remember the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, marking the start of Holocaust Remembrance Day. The annual state ceremony will begin at 8 p.m. at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority. The hour-long event, which will be broadcast live on television and radio, will be attended by President Moshe Katsav, Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and scores of dignitaries and ambassadors from around the world. The theme of this year's ceremony - coming at a time when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called the Holocaust a myth - is "The Human Spirit in the Shadow of Death." Six torches will be lit by Holocaust survivors in memory of the six million Jewish victims. The chief rabbis will recite a selection from Psalms and Kaddish, the Jewish mourning prayer. All places of entertainment will be closed on Monday night. At 10 a.m. on Tuesday, a two-minute siren will sound to mark the start of a day of ceremonies throughout Israel. A wreath-laying ceremony will take place just after the siren is sounded Tuesday at the Warsaw Ghetto uprising memorial at Yad Vashem, in the presence of Olmert and other dignitaries. Victims' names will be read out loud during "Unto Every Person There is a Name" ceremonies, at both the Hall of Remembrance at Yad Vashem and at the Knesset. An estimated 250,000 Holocaust survivors live in Israel. About one-third live in poverty, according to recent social welfare reports. "Israeli society has a moral duty to honor the Holocaust survivors, and to take care of them in the twilight of their days," Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev said.

2007: The New York Times reported that “David Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and tireless author of books on topics as varied as America’s military failings in Vietnam, the deaths of firefighters at the World Trade Center and the high-pressure world of professional basketball, was killed yesterday in a car crash south of San Francisco. He was 73.” Strangely enough the prolific author who wrote on from Apartheid to the Red Sox-Yankee rivalry never wrote about Israel, the Middle East, or any topic related to Jews or Judaism.

2007: The military wing of Hamas fired a barrage of rockets and mortar shells from the Gaza Strip into Israel for the first time since Hamas committed to a cease-fire in November. A spokesman for the Hamas military wing in Gaza declared the truce there over.” The rockets fired by Hamas are not to be confused with rockets fired by other terrorists during this period. 

2007: The long awaited second novel by Nathan Englander, The Ministry of Special Cases, was released.

2007: Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and the Brooklyn Jewish Heritage Committee co-hosted Jewish Heritage Night. The annual event, which is open to the public, recognizes the myriad achievements of Jewish Brooklynites and celebrates Israeli independence.

2007 (6th of Iyar, 5767): Yom HaAtzma'ut

2007: Irwin Hansen, the creator of the comic strip Dondi suffered a stroke today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/16/arts/irwin-hasen-comic-book-artist-and-dondi-illustrator-dies-at-96.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2008: The Jerusalem Cinematheque features a screening of Adma \ אדמה. The film looks at the legendary Moshav Nahalal, an agricultural settlement, and focuses on the veteran farmers who are now forced to deal with the generation gap conflict: the continuation of the traditional family based farms, and difficult personal questions.

2008: The Washington Post reported that author Cynthia Ozick has won 2 Lifetime Achievement Awards this week - the $5,000 PEN/Malamud prize for short fiction, and the $20,000 PEN/Nabokov award for "enduring originality and consummate craftsmanship."

2008(19th of Nisan, 5768): Two Israeli security guards were shot dead in a night time attack at the Nitzanei Shalom industrial zone, near the West Bank city of Tul Karm. A third guard managed to flee after the gunman opened fire. The victims were named as Shimon Mizrahi, 53, of Beit Hefer, and Eli Wasserman, 50, of Alfei Menashe.

2009(30th of Nisan, 5769): Irving D. Chais, who in his 45 years as the owner and chief surgeon of the New York Doll Hospital in Manhattan reattached thousands of heads, arms and legs; reimplanted fake hair shorn by scissor-wielding toddlers; and soothed the feelings of countless doll lovers, young and old, passed away today at the age of 83.

2009: At Agudas Achim in Iowa City, annual Sisterhood Shabbat.

2009: Harvard Law School professor Cass Suunstein and Samantha Power gave birth to their first child Declain Power Sunstein

2009: In Columbus, Ohio, last day for nominations JCC's Jewish Sports Hall of Fame

 2009:  At the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., Amy Bloom, author of the novels “Come to Me” (a National Book Award finalist) and “Away,” joins novelist Susan Choi, author of “The Foreign Student and American Woman,” for a joint reading presented by PEN/Faulkner.

2009: Rosh Chodesh Iyar, 5769 (first day of two day Rosh Chodesh)

2010: “A Tiny Piece of Land” is scheduled to have its final performance at the Pico Playhouse in Los Angeles California.

2010:Father’s Footsteps,” a movie about a Tunisian-Israeli family that settles in Paris and  “For My Father,” a movie about a Palestinian terrorist who comes to know Israelis first-hand when forced to spend a weekend in Tel Aviv are scheduled to be shown at the 2010 NoVA International Jewish Film Festival.

2011: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to present “Russian Piano School: A Conversation with Vladimir Feltsman” the Russian born Jewish classical pianist.

2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish president and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Scribble, Scribble, Scribble: Writing on Politics, Ice Cream, Churchill, and My Mother” by Simon Schama, “Come On All You Ghosts” by Matthew Zapruder and “Silver Roses” by Rachel Wetzsteon.

2011: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish president and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Trillin on Texas” by Calvin Trillin.

2011(20th of Nisan, 5771): A group of 15 Jewish worshipers were hit by gunfire from Palestinian security forces as they gathered at Joseph’s Tomb. A 30-year-old male was pronounced dead at the scene. A 20-year-old man was injured in serious condition, suffering of an abdominal wound. He was airlifted to Bellinson Hospital in Petah Tikva where he underwent surgery. A 17-year-old youth was evacuated by a Magen David Adom Yarkon crew in moderate condition, suffering a wound to his shoulder. Another youth was injured and evacuated for medical treatment after he was questioned by authorities. Another two were in light condition and were treated on scene.

2011(20th of Nisan, 5771): Ben Yosef Livnat, 25, was killed this morning after praying at Joseph's Tomb where his father, Noam once sat and learned more than a decade ago.

2011(20th of Nisan, 5771): One hundred-year-old Hudesa Gora, a Holocaust survivor who ran a fur business in the Cleveland area for many years passed away today. According to published reports, “She belonged to Kol Israel Foundation, a Cleveland-area group of Holocaust survivors, and to ORT. Gora was born in Krasnik, Poland, a town of 5,000 at the time, half of which was Jewish. After the Nazi occupation at the beginning of World War II, Gora obtained false gentile identity papers so she could work outside the ghetto. According to a story in the Cleveland Jewish News, Gora raised the suspicions of the Catholic family for whom she worked when she “baked a loaf of bread and did not put a cross on the bottom of it per their custom. She left that job quickly.” The Gestapo once rounded up a group that included Gora, her sister and her sister’s two children, almost all of whom had false identity papers. She was not able to get them for her nephew. “When an officer discovered this and asked who the boy belonged to, Mrs. Gora prevented her sister from claiming him because she realized the Nazis would know she was Jewish and kill her. The boy was taken away and killed,” the Cleveland paper reported. Gora lost the majority of her family in the Holocaust. She met her husband, Charles, and married him in Germany, came to the United States in 1949 and settled in Cleveland the next year.”

2011: Tamir Cohen, of the Bolton Wanderers, and the son Avi Cohen paid a tribute to his late father after scoring the winner against Arsenal and celebrating with a printed T-shirt with his father's face on it.

2012: “Looking for Lenny,” a film about the late Lenny Bruce, is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Film Festival.

2012: The Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, a project initiated by pianist Elena Bashkirova, is scheduled to begin today in the Glass Courtyard.

2013: “Kinderblock 66” and “Hitler’s Children” are scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.

2013: Wa'al al-Arjeh “was convicted of intentional murder and sentenced to two life terms and an additional 58 years” for his role in the deaths of Asher and Yonatan Palmer.”

2013: Representatives from the Virginia Jewish Community are scheduled to participate in “Mission to Washington” which include briefings from State Department Officials about the Arab Spring and meetings with Senators Warner and Kaine.

2013: “Pictures of Resistance: The Wartime Photographs of Jewish Partisan Faye Schulman” is scheduled to close at the Oregon Jewish Museum in Portland.

http://www.ojm.org/index.htm

2013: Deputy Finance Minister Mickey Levy (Yesh Atid) denounced the haredim as "parasites" during an interview on haredi radio this morning. He almost immediately retracted the comment, explaining that it was said "in a moment of anger."

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Deputy-FinMin-calls-haredim-parasites-apologizes-310912

2013: Histadrut Labor Federation Chairman Ofer Eini threatened Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid with a general strike over expected budget cuts that could cut workers’ pay.

http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Israels-union-boss-threatens-general-strike-over-budget-310911

2014: Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host “Rwanda in the Aftermath of Genocide: A Twenty Year Perspective.”

2014: In Washington, D.C., Georgetown University is hosting “a full-day centenary tribute” in honor of Jan Karski.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/holocaust-whistleblower-jan-karski-honored-by-georgetown/

2014(24th of Nisan, 5774): Supercentenarian Arturo Licata passed away today leaving Alexander Imich “who escaped Nazi persecution and the Soviet gulag” “as the world’s oldest living man.” (As reported by Yifa Yaakov)

2014: “The Jewish Cardinal” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC Rockland International Jewish Film Festival

2014: In New York, Temple Shaaray Tefila is scheduled to host a “Klezmer Jam” where attendees are encouraged to bring their own instruments and join in the dancing.

2015: In Cedar Rapids, IA, Temple Judah is scheduled to host “Retro Reform” Shabbat services using Gates of Prayer.

2015: Lewis Black is scheduled to appear at the DeVos Performance Hall in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

2015: “The Go-Go Boys” and “While We’re Young” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.

2015: Thanks to the efforts of Ben Jaffe, the son of Allan Jaffe of blessed memory and Alan Samson “the Preservation Hall Jazz Band headlined this year’s 24th annual Touro Synagogue Jazz Fest Shabbat held as part of the Friday night service. (The event took place on the 80th anniversary of Allan Jaffe’s birth)

2015: Shoah survivor Louise Lawrence Israels is scheduled to speak the US Holocaust Memorial Museum today.

2015: The main, Midtown Manhattan branch of Carnegie Deli was closed temporarily due to the discovery of an illegal gas line in the restaurant.

2015: Ninety-three-year-old Auschwitz survivor Wladyslaw Bartoszewski passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/28/world/europe/wladyslaw-bartoszewski-polish-auschwitz-survivor-who-fought-for-jews-dies-at-93.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2015: The meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition is scheduled to open today in Las Vegas.

2016(16th of Nisan, 6776): Second Day of Pesach

2016: “Two Indian-born Jewish brothers” David and Simon Reuben” were named today as the
richest people in Britain according to the UK Sunday Times.
2016: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Old Age: A Beginner’s Guide by Michael Kinsley, Disraeli: The Novel Politician by David Cesarani and The Houseguest by Kim Brooks.

2017: Seventy-seven-year-old Benjamin Reynolds Barber, the New York born son of Philip Barber and the daughter of Doris Frankel best known for his writings about Jihad passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/us/benjamin-barber-dead-jihad-vs-mcworld.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2017(28th of Nisan, 5777): Yom Ha’Shoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day

2017: Holocaust Survivor Jacob Eisenbach is scheduled to speak this afternoon at the Sinclair Auditorium at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, IA thanks to the efforts of the David and Joan Thaler Holocaust Remembrance Committee chaired by Dr. Robert Silber.

2017: The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to present “When We Remembered Zion” during which “the Grammy-nominated New Budapest Orpheum Society, under the direction of Philip V. Bohlman and Ilya Levinson, bears witness to those murdered, those who resisted, and those who must not be forgotten. 2017: The Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to present Liel Leibovitz lecturing on “Inbound Exile: Jerusalem As Viewed From Tel Aviv.”

2017: The Center for Jewish History and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to host a poetry reading and discussion led by Lee Sharkey who “will read from her new poetry collection Walking Backwards.”

2017: With “Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day” coming just a week after the end of Passover, “Yad Vashem created an online photo exhibit commemorating the celebration of the significant spring holiday before, during and after the Holocaust.”

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/passover/index.asp?utm_source=social&utm_medium=tw&utm_campaign=pessach_en#prettyPhoto

2017: The Seder Plates belonging to the late Joan Rivers, “made in the 1980s by Spode Judaica in the United Kingdom” is scheduled to be auctioned today J. Greenstein and Co. in Cedarhurst, NY.

2018: Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, an event discussed in Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story by Henry Morgenthau, Sr. and was an event that helped Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin to “coin the concept of Genocide as a crime against humanity.”

2018: Today, “it was announced that the Canadian division would be sold to Fairfax Financial for approximately $234 million, and would continue to operate the locations under the Toys "R" Us name, a name made famous by the chain’s founder Charles Lazarus.

2018:” The head of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, warned against wearing religious symbols on city streets for fear of attacks” and urging “Jews to wear baseball caps instead of kipot.”

2018: The Streicker Center is scheduled to hold a reception prior to tomorrow’s opening to the general public of the exhibit “Home: Lens on Israel” which is “a photographic tour celebrating Israel’s 70th birthday, explore the multitude of communities—and worlds—that dwell side by side within Israel’s meager 8,000 square miles, just the size of New Jersey.”

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a new version of “Dine and Discuss” where attendees will watch and discuss an episode of “Shitsel.”

https://forward.com/culture/334808/why-i-cant-stop-watching-shtisel/

2019: The Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to host an art workshop where attendees can “create a Mizrach, a family name plate or a decorative plaque” which will be “a personally meaningful work of art for the Passover holiday.”

2019: At the same time that Jews stop praying for the winds to blow and the rain to fall, Israelis are spending Pesach enjoying a “rare Spring-time snow” that has fallen on Mount Hermon.

2019(19th of Nissan, 5779): Fifth Day of Pesach; Fourth Day of the Omer.

2020: In Boston, the Combined Jewish Philanthropies is scheduled to host “Friday Night Lights: Welcoming Shabbat Together online.

2020: Through Zoom or Facebook Life, the Riverway Project is scheduled to host “Shabbat Recharge” during which “we will light candles, offer a blessing over the wine and challah, sing blessings for healing and hear a kavannah (intention) from a member of our community.”

2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host online Spices 101 with LIor Lev Sercarz talking about “How to Build the Perfect Spice Pantry at Home.”

2020: Observance of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, marking the 105th anniversary of Ottoman assault on its Armenian citizens which was an event that Hitler reputedly cited when he would take about the need not to fear any worldwide backlash during the Holocaust.

2020(30th of Nisan): Rosh Chodesh Iyar.

2021(12th of Iyar, 5781): Acharary Mot and Kedoshim; Pirkei Avot Chapter Three

2021: The Jewish Federation of Des Moines, IA is scheduled to present “"The Spirituality of Laughter: A Jewish Look at the Holiness of Humor" with Rabbi and Comedian Bob Alper.”

2021: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to present Torah Study with Rabbi Feivel Strauss.

2021: This afternoon “streaming live from the Vancouver Symphony with Maestro Ken Selden, pianist Orli Shaham is scheduled to perform Beethoven's bright and lyrical Piano Concerto No.2 in honor of the composer’s 250th anniversary.

2021: The JCC of Boston is scheduled to present online “Rock Steady Boxing Class” during which participants “learn how to fight Parkinson’s disease in these non-contact boxing style fitness class.

2021: Rabbi Mychal Copeland, author of “I Am the Tree of Life: My Jewish Yoga Book,” is scheduled to lead Earth Day yoga with tree and mountain poses.  

2021: Tamar Eden Music Center is scheduled to present “The Glorious Sound of the Piano,” a piano recital dedicated to the memory of pianist Dmitry Bashkirov.

2022: UK Jewish Film is scheduled to host a screening of “Hester Street” at Curzon Mayfair.

2022: Theatremacher Community Conversation on Jewish Representation & Casting in Theater, Film,and Television led by Theatremachers Casey Adler, Lauren Schaffel, and Elyssa Nicole Trust is scheduled to take place this afternoon.

2022: The exhibition “Debra Olin: Every Protection” is scheduled to come to an at the Museum at Eldridge Street.

2022: The Teen Leadership Board & Young Professional Committee are scheduled to hos an Open House at Illinois Holocaust Museum

2022: YIVO is scheduled to host a meeting of the YIVO Yiddish Club featuring Zalmen Mlotek, conductor, composer, pianist, and the artistic director of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (NYTF), the longest continuously running Yiddish theatre in the world as he discussed Yiddish Theatre Today.

2022: The Virtual Passover Film Festival, presented by the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan is scheduled to come to an end today.

2022: In New Orleans, the Jewish Federation is scheduled to host “Partnership2Gether Kosher Wine Tasting” during which attendees will learn “about what exactly makes wine kosher.”

2022: “Israel’s security forces are preparing for the possibility of a flare-up with the Gaza Strip following repeated incidents of rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave over the past week.”

2022: Barbra Streisand turns eighty.

2023: The Director of the Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre, Professor Shirli Gilbert, is scheduled to deliver the keynote panel at the Schwartz-Reisman Graduate Student Conference in Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto.

2023: Yom HaZikaron is scheduled to begin this evening.

2023: The Yom HaZikaron Ceremony is scheduled to take place in Ammunition Hill.

2023: In a program that represents some of the fruits of ongoing collaboration with leading Israeli composers, the Meitar Ensemble is scheduled to conclude its U.S. tour with a concert in Merkin Hall.

2023: The Consulate General of Israel to New England and the Israeli House in Boston invite you to the annual memorial ceremony for fallen Israeli soldiers and victims of terror, Yom HaZikaron.

2023: “Belmont World Film’s 21st International Film Series, “Complicated Identities,” is scheduled to observe Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, with the French film “Farewell Mr. Haffmann.”

2023: “The long-delayed Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial” is scheduled to begin today.

https://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/jta/long-delayed-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-trial-to-begin-monday-igniting-pain-fear-and-hopes-for/article_d8e9db05-ca43-53e0-b9e9-603c04deb58d.html

2024: In Jerusalem, “Passover at Agnon” is scheduled to take place today featuring “dramatized tours and creative workshop for the whole family.”

2024: Cantor Rosale Will is scheduled to lead another session of Hadrach which is “aimed at providing resources, materials, and support for lay leaders who lead Shabbat worship and general life cycle events.”

2024: This evening, s part of the Genocidal Captivity exhibition events series, The Wiener Holocaust Library is scheduled to host “Saving the Survivors: Danish relief workers and Armenian women genocide survivors in the 1920s.”

https://wienerholocaustlibrary.org/event/exhibition-event-saving-the-survivors-danish-relief-workers-and-armenian-women-genocide-survivors-in-the-1920s/

2024: As April 24 begins in Israel, the Hamas held hostages begin day 201 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(16th of Nisan, 5784): Second Day of Pesach; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/