This Day, December 10, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
December 10
1475: Seventy-eight-year-old Italian artist Paolo Uccello
passed away. Like many artists of his time, Uccello produced what today would
be called anti-Semitic art. Among his
works was “Miracle of the Host”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Uccelo_host_burning.jpg
1508: The League of Cambrai is formed by Pope Julius II,
Louis XII of France, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Ferdinand II of
Aragon as an alliance against Venice. From a Jewish point of view, this item
presents a mixed bag. Ferdinand ruled over a kingdom that had expelled its Jews
and was home to the inquisition. But Pope Julius employed a Jewish physician,
Samuel Sarfatti and practiced a policy of “benign neglect” when it came to
dealing with the Jewish people. While Venice had enacted its share of ant-Jewish
laws (and in 1516 would create the first Ghetto), it was a better place for
Jews to settle than other parts of Europe. This is attested to by the fact that
many of the Sephardim who had been expelled from Spain made their new home in
the city of canals, including Isaac Abravanel.
1520: Martin Luther, who would condemn the “inhuman treatment
of the Jews” in 1523 before turning anti-Semite in 1536, responded to the Papal
Bull of excommunication by burning it (Exurge Domine) “along with the book of
church law and many other books by his enemies in Wittenberg” at a spot now
known as the Luther Oak.
1655: The Whitehall
Conference which had been called by Cromwell to consider allowing the Jews to
return to England continued the deliberations which had begun on December 4.
1675: A German Jew, Alexander Polak, became a citizen of The
Hauge. He was the progenitor of the Polak Daniels family and gave the
congregation a cemetery in 1697.
1723: Birthdate of Berlin native Aaron Gumprez, the
physician, mathematician and philosopher who “was the grandson of Elias
Gumperz.
1758: Martha Lampley and Philadelphian Samson Levy gave birth
to Joseph Levy who died in infancy.
1762(24th of Kislev, 5523): The first Chanukah
Candle was kindled for the first time during the reign of Catherine II who
reluctantly ended up with a large number of Jewish subjects thanks to the
partitioning of Poland.
1765(27th of Kislev, 5526): Third Day of Chanukah
1765: In Philadelphia, Rebecca Meyers-Cohen and Mathias Bush
gave birth to Richea Bush.
1768: Birthdate of “Christian Orientalist and theologian
Ernst Friedrich Karl Rosenmuller” who among other things “brought out a pocket
edition of the Hebrew Bible in 1822.”
1773(25th of Kislev, 5534): Chanukah
1774: After just a little over three months of Austrian rule,
General Gabriel Freiherr von Spleny reported on the conditions at Czernowitz
including a description of the Jewish population whose presence in the city
dated back to the 15th century during the reign of Moldavian Prince
Alexander the Good.
1776: Birthdate of Abraham Mendelssohn, the son of Moses
Mendelssohn and the father of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn. A successful banker,
he would change his name to Abraham Ernst Mendelssohn Bartholdy and change his
religion to Christianity. "Once I was the son of a famous father, now I am
the father of a famous son."
1776: Birthdate of Sarah Coates, the wife of Philadelphian
Samson Levy and the mother of Sophia and Margaret Maria Levy.
1779(1st of Tevet, 5540): Rosh Chodesh Tevet;
Seventh Day of Chanukah observed for the fourth time since the Americans took
up arms against the British.
1784(27th of Kislev, 5545) Third Day of Chanukah
on the same day that Thomas Jefferson wrote from Paris to George Washington
describing the situation in Europe.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-02-02-0142
1789: Birthdate of Rosetta Micholls, the Jamaica born wife of
Edward Emanuel Micholls, with whom she had eight children.
1792(25th of Kislev, 5553): Chanukah
1795(28th of Kislev, 5556): Fourth Day of Chanukah
observed on the same day that Abigail Adams wrote her husband Vice President
John Adams describing conditions in their home at Quincy, MA.
https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17951210aa
1798(2nd of Tevet, 5559): Eighth Day of Chanukah
1799: In Germany, Frommet Weil and David Hirsch Lindauer gave
birth to Mayer Hirsch Lindauer, who married “Senftele Cronheimer” after the
death of his first wife Kehle Lindauer with whom he had four children.
1803(25th of Kislev, 5564): Chanukah celebrated as
Lewis and Clark prepare for their famous expedition.
1804: In Philadelphia, PA, Rebecca Lyons and John Moss who
had been married in 1797 gave birth Joseph Lyon Moss, the husband of Julia Levy
with whom he had eight children.
1804: Birthdate of German mathematician Carl Gustav Jacob
Jacobi. Jacobi was the German mathematician who, with the independent work of
Niels Henrik Abel of Norway, founded the theory of elliptic functions. He also
worked on Abelian functions and discovered the hyperelliptic functions. Jacobi
applied his work in elliptic functions to number theory. He also investigated
mathematical analysis and geometry. Jacobi carried out important research in
partial differential equations of the first order and applied them to the
differential equations of dynamics. His work on determinants is important in
dynamics and quantum mechanics and he studied the functional determinant now
called the Jacobian. He passed away in 1851.
1805: In Furth, Bavaria, “Samuel Lazarus Affelder and Nanni
Nanette Affelder gave birth to Louis Loew Leopold Affelder, the husband of
Regine Rosalie Affelder and the “father of Isidor, Jacob, Moritz, and Jette
Affelder.”
1806: Aharon ben Yevzlah Hollander married Esther bat Zemel
at the Great Synagogue today.
1807: In Bavaria, “Lob Moses Mack and Henriette Samuel Mack”
gave birth to Moses Loeb Mack
1809(3rd of Tevet, 5570): Eighth Day of Chanukah
is observed for the first time during the Presidency of James Madison who had
written approvingly during the American Revolution provided by Chaim Solomon
1816: In London Abraham Levy, ben Levie and Sarah Rachel
Cornelia Levy gave birth Isaac Abraham Levy and the husband of Hannah Norris
Levy who settled in Richmond, VA before his death in 1849.
1814: Birthdate of Sebastian Brunner, the Benedictine trained
priest who was one of a group of authors including Anton E. von Roasa, Count
Ferdinand Schirnding and Albert Wiesinger and who launched a libel case against
Ignaz Kuranda and Heinrich Graetz.
1816: Birthdate of Dr. Albert Lowey, the rabbi who led the
West London Synagogue of British Jews, the “first reform synagogue in England.”
1816: In London, Abraham and Sarah Rachel Corneilia Levy gave
birth to future Richmond, VA resident Isaac Abraham Levy, the husband of
Cornelia Levy and father of Abraham, Daniel, Cornelius, Edgar and Ida Levy.
1817: Mississippi was admitted to the union as the 20th
state. The Jewish community in Mississippi dates back to the 1840’s. There are
Jewish houses of worship and cemeteries dotted in many towns across the state
including Jackson, the state capital, Greenwood and Vicksburg. The Museum of
the Southern Jewish Experience (MSJE) is located in Utica, Mississippi. Utica
is also the home to Henry S. Jacobs Camp, the summer destination for thousands
of southern Jewish youngsters in the last forty years. The Mississippi Jewish
community has produced several prominent individuals including Shelby Foote and
Rabbi Fred Davidow.
1818: Alexander Barnet Gompertz, the son of Barent Solomon
Gompertz and the former Miriam Keyser got married today in London.
1822(26th of Kislev, 5583): Second Day of Chanukah
celebrated on the birthdate of French composer Cesar Franck.
1825(30th of Kislev, 5586): Parashat Miketz; Rosh
Chodesh Tevet; Sixth Day of Chanukah
1826 (10 Kislev 5587): Rabbi Dovber of Lubavitch was released
from prison after being arrested the week after Sukkot on slander charges.
1827: Bolette Salomonsen and Zacharias Isaac Levy gave birth
to Isaac Zacharias Levy, the husband of Isabella Salomonsen.
1831: In Middlesex, Phoebe and Ephraim Benjamin gave birth to
Sarah Benjamin.
1833: Ameilia Joel and Solomon Marks gave birth to Aaron
Marks, the husband of Sarah Jacobs and the father of Laurence Marks.
1836: Emory College was chartered in Oxford, Georgia. Today
Emory University is located in Atlanta, Georgia. One third of the undergraduate
student body is Jewish and in 2005 Hillel received a three million dollar grant
to upgrade its services and facilities on campus. The university offers a two
year graduate degree in Jewish Studies.
1837: In Bavaria, Babette True and Isaac Jacob Bamberger gave
birth to Rosa Bamberger.
1837: In Bloomsbury, David Quixano Henriques and Rebecca
Henriques gave birth to Edward Micholls Henriques, the husband of Rose Emily
Henriques with whom he had eight children
1839: Rachel N. Cardoza, the Easton, PA born daughter of
Sarah Hart and Isaac Nunez Cardozo married her second husband, Joseph Phillips,
today in New York after which they had two children – Isaac and Ellen.
1843: In Prussia Rabbi Joseph Messing and Fogel Rothstein
gave birth to Mayer Messing who began serving as the rabbi for the Indianapolis
Hebrew Congregation in 1867, two years before married Ricca Naphtali with whom
he had nine children.
1847(3rd of Tevet, 5608): Eighth Day of Chanukah
1847(In Kovno, Rachel and Bernard Mark gave birth Bessie
Mark, one of the first Jews to settle in St. Paul, MN where she organized the
Jewish Shelter Home of St. Paul, founded the the Jewish Home for the Aged of
the Northwestern and “laid the cornerstone of the Temple of Aaron Synagogue
which was named in honor of Aaron Mark, her deceased husband.
1848: Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte won a four-way race and was
elected President of France today which led Michael Goudchaux to withdraw his
support of the government.
1850: Judah Leib "Leopold" Löw was installed as the
rabbi at Szeged, Hungary.
1851: In Adams Center, NY, Joel and
Eliza Greene Dewey, gave birth to librarian Melvil Dewey, the inventor of the
Dewey Decimal System who “was rebuked by the New York State Board of Regents
and resigned as state librarian over complaints from Jewish leaders about his
anti-Semitism, in part exhibited by his authoring of the Lake Placid Club’s
policy banning Jews, blacks and others from membership.”
1851: At Friedland, Germany Miriam Lessler and Wolf Schreier
gave birth to Eugene Schreier who was married Martha Kasprowicz and who was the
“first president of the reorganized Congregation Jeshuat Israel” for which he
procured a charter from the State of Rhode Island in 1894.
1854(19th of Kislev, 5615): Forty-three-year-old
Jacob Isaiah Moses, the husband of Rinah J. Ottonlegui Moses and father of
Montefiore and William Moses passed away today after which he was buried at the
Coming Street Cemetery in Charleston, SC.
1854: In Berlin tax-collector Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig
Henrici and his wife Wilhelmine gave birth to Carl Ernst Julius Henrici the
anti-Semitic leader who founded the Social Nazi Party in 1881
1855(1st of Tevet, 5616): Rosh Chodesh Tevet; Sixth Day of Chanukah
1855: Birthdate of Mrs. James (Selina) Levi. The Dubuque
native was the daughter of the founder of Iowa Jewry and one time held the
record for being the oldest Jewish woman born in the Hawkeye State.
1858: The Executive Committee of the Representatives of the
United Congregations of Israelites of the City of New York sent a letter to
President James Buchanan which described a public meeting held on December 4 in
which Jews and non-Jews gathered to demand the return of Edgardo Mortara to his
parents. Those attending the meeting also petitioned the President to join with
the several European nations who were protesting the kidnapping of the
youngster by representatives of the Pope. This letter was a follow-up to a
communication sent by the same group on November 20, 1858.
1858: Caleb Lyon delivered his second lecture on The Holy
Land under the auspices of the Mercantile Library Association at Clinton Hall
this evening. His lecture included a description of the mountains of Moab, the
Dead Sea and “the silvery Jordan River.” He described his trip to Jerusalem
which he said was populated by six thousand Jews as well as a visit to the
Siloam Springs, the Wailing Wall and attendance at a Jewish wedding.
1860(26th of Kislev, 5621): Second Day of Chanukah
as South Carolinians prepared to secede from the Union.
1861: “Sold by a Jew Peddler” published today reported that John H. Bornisky
had filed a complaint before Judge Osborne claiming that a Jewish peddler name
August Seligman had sold to him seven pieces of linen, for the sum of $38 50.
The sale was made by sample, and the complainant had paid the money upon the
promise of Seligman to deliver the goods immediately. Since the goods were not
delivered Seligman was arrested and held because bail had not been posted.
1861: Rabbi Arnold Fischel arrived in Washington, D.C. this
evening. He hopes to meet with government leaders including President Lincoln
in an attempt to change the law so that Jews can serve as chaplains with the
Union Army.
1861: Moses Grinnell wrote a letter of introduction to
President Lincoln on behalf of Rabbi Arnold Fischel.
“Sir, permit me to present to you Rev.Dr. Fischell of this
city who visits Washington as a delegate from the Board of Delegates of
American Israelites, having been selected as chaplain to the Jews of the army
around Washington estimated at about 8000. Dr. Fischell is of high literary
abilities and greatly esteemed by distinguished men of all religious
denominations. Believe me, etc.”
1864: Sherman’s Union Army reaches Savannah in what history
will call “Sherman’s March to the Sea.” Among those with Sherman was Major
General Frederick Knefler. The native of Hungary was the highest-ranking Jewish
officer in the Union Army. He was commander of the 79th Indiana regiment before
he was promoted to brigadier general for his performance at the Battle of
Chickamauga and then to major general during his service with Sherman on his
march through Georgia.
1864: While serving with Company A, of the 65th
Regiment-Fifth Cavalry, Max Armhold was taken prisoner and held until the
following April when the Confederates surrendered to the Union.
1864: While the Union forces were besieging the Army of
Northern Virginia, Abraham Schloss of Company E, 65th Regiment-Fifth
Cavalry was wounded at Richmond.
1865: The reign of Leopold I, the first King of the Belgians,
who was friendly enough with the Rothschilds to have stayed with Carl von
Rothschild at his villa in Naples came to an end today.
1863: Maria and Edward Johnson Etting II gave birth to
Frances Marx Etting who became France Landreth, the wife of Lucius Scott
Landreth and the mother of Maria Etting Landreth; Lucius Scott Landreth, Jr.
and Rodney Landreth.
1866(2nd of Tevet, 5627): Eighth Day of Chanukah
1867: Abraham and Zissel (Kornick) Cohn gave birth to NYU
trained physician Michael A. Cohn, the husband of Annie Maretsky who was a
support of HIAS and the Brooklyn Hebrew Home and Hospital for the Aged as well
as a “writer in English and Yiddish on social, political and economic
questions.”
1869: Ellen Cohen, the daughter of Louis Cohen and Samuel
Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling gave birth Louis Samuel Montague, the 2nd
Baron of Sawyling, “the merchant banker and communal leaders who “in 1911
became the first professing Jew to inherit a peerage and a seat in the House of
Lords..
1869(6th of Tevet, 5630): Fifty-four-year-old
Rabbi Maier Zipser passed away at Rohonc.
http://www.balassagyarmatizsidosag.hu/en/maier-zipser
1870: It was reported today that ground has been broken for a
new synagogue located at Lexington and 55th in Manhattan. Henry Fernbach who
was the architect for the 34th and 44th street synagogues as well as one of the
architects who worked on Temple Emmanuel, designed this building which he
estimates will cost $180,000, [Today this synagogue is the Central Synagogue
which was formed from the merger in 1898 of Shar HaShomayim (meaning Gate of
Heaven), founded in 1839 by German Jews, and Ahawath Chesed (meaning Love of
Mercy), founded in 1846 by Bohemian Jews. Its name was changed to Central
Synagogue in 1920 symbolizing not only its location, but also its change to
Reform Judaism.”]
1870(16th of Kislev, 5631): Parashat Vayishlach
1870(16th of Kislev, 5631): Russian born author
Joseph Schonhak, whose leading worked was Toledot ha-Arez passed away
today.
1871(27th of Kislev, 5632): Third Day of Chanukah
1871: In Leipzig, Henriette Goldschmidt “founded the
Association for Family and Popular Education (Verein für Familien- und Volkserziehung) today.
1871: It was reported today that the Jewish Messenger has a published “a very discriminating criticism
on the character of Shylock as a representative of the Hebrew nation.”
According to the Messenger, “as an embodiment of the Jewish people Shylock
stands forth strong in his love of religion, family and neighbors but impotent
to remonstrate against injustice or to resent it.”
1873: Philadelphian and veteran of the Union Army Myer Asch
was elected Commander of the George G. Meade Post, Number 1 of the Grand Army
of the Republic today.
1874: During today’s meeting of the Board of Alderman in New
York, a resolution authorizing the Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Society to sub-let
the property they obtained from the City was referred to the Committee on Law.
1875: Birthdate of Russian native Benjamin Duberstein who
owned the Dayton (Ohio) Mineral Water Company and was named as a defendant in
1917 “infringement of trade-mark suit” brought by the Coca-Cola Company against
him and several defendants.
1875: Today’s session of the Hebrew Charity Fair which closed
at 4 o’clock because of erev Shabbat raised $1,155.65
1875: In Philadelphia, Clara Einstein and Hyram Coriate gave
birth to Tufts Medical trained physician Isador Henry Coriate a pioneer in the
field of psychoanalysis who married Etta Dann in 1910.
.
1876(24th of Kislev, 5637): In the evening, kindle the first
Chanukah light.
1876: Birthdate of Baltimore native Ernest Wise Keyeser, who
like his uncle Ephraim Keyser was a sculptor who was a member of the “National
Sculpture Society” and whose work include a statute of Sir Galahad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Wise_Keyser#/media/File:Sir_Galahad_statue.jpg
1876: It was reported today that the Purim Association will
manage the upcoming Hebrew Charity Ball which is fund raiser for the United
Hebrew Charities.
1876: It was reported today that New York’s Hebrew Free
School Association is serving 580 students and that the association’s President
has announced that additional efforts will be made to provide more facilities
for the youngsters.
1876: Rabbi Lukskar officiated at the funeral of 27-year-old
Abraham Stettaner (sp) at the Cypress Hills Cemetery. He was one of the victims
of the Brooklyn Theatre Fire.
1877: In Cincinnati, Carl Iglauer and Rosa Stix gave birth to
Zillah Iglauer nine days before their first wedding anniversary.
1878: Birthdate of Niezin, Chernigov native Isdore Fine who
in 1892 came to the United States where he married his wife Bessie with whom he
had four children – Jesse, David, Leo and Blanche – and whose activities in the
Jewish community including founding The Bethlehem Hebrew Congregation.
1879: The New York
Times published a lengthy article about the history of Chanukah which
begins with the erroneous statement, “The Jewish feast called Chanukah, or the
Feast of Dedication will be honored by the adherents of the ancient faith on
the 16th.” On the evening of December 16th, Jews will be lighting the 8th candle.
1879(25th of Kislev, 5640): First Day of Chanukah
1879: In Prushany, Poland, Lea Parketl and Abram Olshevsky
gave birth to Samuel Olshevsky, who in 1912 came to the United States where he
served as the Rabbi at “Beth Hamedresh Hagadol” in the Bronx before becoming a
Professor of Talmud at REIT and Yeshiva College while raising his son Louis
Cort with his wife Gussie Olshevsky.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/02/11/85083985.html?pageNumber=19
1880: It was reported today that a fundraiser is to be held
to benefit the 44th Street Synagogue.
1880: Birthday of Lithuania native and Long Island College
trained gynecologist Dr. Hyman J. Epstein “an organizer of the Bronx Hospital”
and “an active Zionist” who raised a son, David, with “his wife, Dr. Stella
Schaffer Epstein.
1881: It was reported today that the Young Men’s Hebrew
Association is planning on hosting a ball in celebration of Chanukah at the
Academy of Music that will feature several tableaus depicting events in Jewish
history.
1881: In Brooklyn, the fair sponsored by Temple Israel which
opened on November 30 is scheduled to close this evening.
1881:Birthdate of Cleveland merchant Myron Albert Cohen, the husband of Edna
(Stone) Cohen with whom had two daughter, Marian and Eleanor and active member
of the “Jewish Welfare Association.”
1882: The annual meeting of the Hebrew Free School
Associations is scheduled to take place at ten o’clock this morning in
Manhattan.
1882: Four days after she had passed away, Adele (Fermi) Foa,
the wife of Octave Foa, with she had had six children, was married today at the
“Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1882: It was reported today that Alfred Steckler has obtained
an injunction preventing the police from arresting several Jewish shopkeepers
and workers for violating the Sunday Closing Laws. The injunctions were based on Section 264 of
the Penal Code which permits people to work on the first day of the week if
they “uniformly keep another day of the week as holy time” and that their labor
does not disturb those “observing the first day of the week as holy time.” (In our world where everything is 24-7-365 it
seems hard to remember that Sunday Closing Laws were the norm and vestiges of
them still exist such as the prohibition on buying and selling vehicles in Iowa
on Sunday.)
1882: Birthdate Austrian-born British philosopher Otto
Neurath, the Marxist radical and refugee from Hitler’s Europe who passed away
in 1945.
1882: It was reported today that the Jews are one of only
“religious sects” (the others being Catholics, Episcopalian and Presbyterians)
who have founded one or more hospitals in New York City.
1882: It was reported today that that the Prefect of Police
has ordered the expulsion of all Jews “residing within the boundaries of St.
Petersburg without official permission.”
1883: Birthdate of Shakhne Epstein the native of Vilna who
came from a long line of “distinguished rabbis and maskilim.”
http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/yt/lex/E/epstein-shakhne.htm
1883: In London, Rabbi Isidore Harris, the spiritual leader
“of the West London Synagogue and editor of the Jewish Year Book” and his wife
gave birth to Sir Archibald Isidore Harris, a partner in the timber firm of
Louis Bamberger and Sons and a decorated officer who saw active service in
France during WW I who had the distinction of being knighted and being awarded
the United States Medal of Freedom.
1884: It was reported today that the state of Connecticut has
had a law on the books “designed to exempt Jews and Seventh Day Baptists who
conscientiously observed Saturday as a day of religious worship from the
penalties apply to a violation of Sunday laws.
1884(22nd of Kislev, 5645): Abraham Placzek, the
chief rabbi of Moravia, passed away today.
1886: In Czernowitz, Austria, Jeannette Falick and Joseph
Epstein gave birth to University of Vienna and University of Zurich medical
school graduate Samuel Epstein, the husband of Bertha Pines who in 1909 came to
the United States where he settled in Chicago, became a successful diamond
importer and was “active in Jewish Charities of Chicago, the Jewish Historical
Society of Chicago and the American Jewish Congress.”
1887(24th of Kislev, 5648): Parshat Vayeshev;
kindle the first Chanukah candle
1887: In “Shemele, Russia (Belarus), “Ya’acov Abraham
Davidowitz” and “Taube Hinda Schwartzman” gave birth to Harry Hirsch
Davidowitz, the Columbia and JTS trained rabbi “severely wounded by shrapnel”
while serving in France during World War I as the chaplain of the 78th
Division and who was the husband of Ida Chaya Bloom with whom he had one son
and two daughters.
1888: “He Wants To Be A Boss” published today described moves
by Ernst Nathan to take control of “the Republican machine in Kings County
(NY)” by asserting his role to dispense patronage following the election of
Benjamin Harrison to the Presidency of the United States.
1889: In Brooklyn, founding of Congregation Mikro Kodesh
Anshey Klodower which was served by Rabbi S.L. Westman and President Jonas
Cohn.
1889: In the U.K. Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading, and
Alice Edith Cohen gave birth to Gerald Rufus Isaacs, 2nd Marquess of Reading
the WW I veteran, British barrister and MP who was the son-in-law of Alfred
Moritz Mond and the father-in-law of Solly Zuckerman.
1889: It was reported today that the Montefiore Home Fair of
1887 which raised $158,000 was the most successful fundraiser sponsored by the
Jewish community to date.
1889: It was reported today that this year’s Hebrew
Educational Fair is being sponsored by the Hebrew Free School Association, the
Aguilar Free Library and the Young Men’s Hebrew Association. Funds raised
during this two long event will go the Hebrew Institute.
1890: In London, The Lord Mayor presided over a meeting at
the Guildhall today “to consider the condtion of the Jews in Russia and to take
action to secure some alleviation of their distress.”
1890: A benefit performance of the play “Ein Konigreich um
ein Kind” presented by Amberg’s company “for the benefit of the building fund
of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum” will take place tonight at New
York’s Lexington Avenue Opera House.
1890: The forty-piece juvenile orchestra of the Hebrew Orphan
Asylum performed at the Teacher’s Bazaar; an event designed to raise funds for
teachers’ pensions.
1890: In New York the State Senate Committee on Finance whose
members included Jacob Cantor met today to “consider what disposition should be
made of the 121 acres of land on Ward’s Island” which had been the entry point
for untold thousands of immigrants including Jews from Russia and Poland.
1890: In New York, William Lesser who was accompanied by
Jacob Finkelstone of the United Hebrew Charities Organization, identified the
corpse of Maximillian Laski just before it was about to be dissected in the
amphitheater of the University Medical School
1891: Two days after shad had passed away, 80 year old
Barbara Cohen, the wife of I.M. Cohen and mother of “Meyer, Mina and Alida
Cohen” was buried today at the “Stockton Jewish Cemetery.”
1891: Birthdate of Nelly Sachs. Born in Berlin, Sachs was a
German poet and dramatist who was transformed by the Nazi experience from a
dilettante into a poignant spokesperson for the grief and yearnings of her
fellow Jews. Sachs found sanctuary in Sweden in 1940. When, with Shmuel Yosef
Agnon, she was awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize for Literature, she observed that
Agnon represented Israel whereas "I represent the tragedy of the Jewish
people." She passed away in 1970 and was buried in Sweden.
1891: Sixty-three-year-old Abraham Kuenen, “a Dutch
Protestant theologian” who specialized in the Hebrew Bible including as can be
seen by his text on the Hexateuch” passed away today at Leiden.
1891: “Our Foreign Relations” published today noted that
President Harrison’s “references to the persecution and expulsion of the
Russian Jews are just and temperate.” The President showed a “practical as well
as a humane and sympathetic interest in persuading” to “abate her cruelties”
when dealing with the Jews.
1892: Lucius Weinschenk, a member of the firm of Bryan,
Weinschenk & Hirschel and prominent member of the Chicago Jewish country
fled the United States “leaving a shortage in his accounts…of about $20,000.”
1893(1st of Tevet, 5654): Rosh Chodesh Tevet;
Seventh Day of Chanukah
1893: Professor Felix Adler delivered an address at Carnegie
Hall this morning on the teachings of Jesus Christ which began with a
comparison between Jesus and “the older prophets of Israel.”
1893: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil delivered a sermon this morning
at Temple Emanu-El on “Who Are the Enemies of Judaism?”
1894: “Cheap Loans A Success” published today described the
activity of the Provident Society, which had been established to lend money to
the needy at a rate far below of the pawnshops whose founders included August
Belmont and Jacob Schiff, had made half of its loans to Jews with the rest
going mostly to “Americans and Germans.”
1895: Today, twenty-four women organized the Tri-City Section
of the National Council of Women which included Davenport Port, Iowa, Rock
Island, Illinois and Moline, Illinois.
1895: Large crowds visited all of the booths and displays at
the Hebrew Fair in New York City. Isaacs S. Isaacs is editor in chief of the
Fair Journal. Rebecca Kohut is the business manager of the Fair Journal.
1896: A secretary for President-elect William McKinley wrote
a letter to Rabbi Emanuel Schwab in response to one that Rabbi Schwab had sent
to him congratulating McKinley on his election and telling the former Civil War
major that he had voted for him.
1897: Two days after she had passed away, 42 year old Rosie
(Levy) Sampson, the wife of Nathan Sampson with whom she had had eleven
children was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1897(15th of Kislev, 5658): Charles Louis Fleischmann passed
away. Born in 1835, he “was an innovative manufacturer of yeast and other
consumer food products during the 19th Century. In the late 1860s, he and his
brother Maximilian created America’s first commercially produced yeast, which
revolutionized baking in a way that made today’s mass production and
consumption of bread possible.”
http://www.breadworld.com/history
http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1000563
1898(26 of Kislev, 5659): Shabbat shel Chanukah; Parashat
Vayeshev
1898(26th of Kislev, 5659): Seventy-three-year-old
Josef Pick, “the son of Markus and Elisabeth Sara Pick” and the “husband of
Eleanor Pick” passed away today in Vienna.
1898: The Treaty of Paris is signed, officially ending the
Spanish-American War. Following the war, a number of Jewish veterans settled in
Cuba. By 1904, they were able to establish a synagogue in Havana.
1899: The National Jewish Hospital for Treatment of
Consumptives opened today in Denver, Colorado.
1900: “Judaism and the World” published today described the
sermon given Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch of Chicago in which he said, “Judaism has
never been a religion of dogma” and that “the Jew has the right to think out
the highest themes of life in terms of his own.”
1901(29th of Kislev, 5662): Fifth Day of Chanukah
1901: The first Nobel Prizes were awarded. In 1905, Adolph
von Baeyer, a German chemist, became the first Jew to win a Nobel Prize. He won
it in Chemistry for his work in synthesizing dye indigo.
1902: In Amsterdam, Jacob Querido, the Dutch born son of Abraham Querido and Schoontje / Ribca
Gosler and his wife Anna Heilbron gave
birth to Rudolph Querido
1903: “The Early and the Girl” a two-act musical comedy for
which Jerome Kern would write the song “How’d you like to spoon with me?”
opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London.
1903(21st of Kislev, 5664): Fifty-three-year-old
Baron Arthur de Rothschild, a member of the French branch of the famous banking
family who collected stamps, was an active yachtsman and who bequeathed part of
his art collection to the Louvre passed away today in Monte Carlo.
1904(2nd of Tevet, 5665): Parashat Miketz; Eighth
Day of Chanukah
1904: In New York City, Eugene E. Sperry and Rosalie Stanton
Bloomingdale gave birth to Josephine Bloomingdale Sperry.
1905: Sir Edward Grey, who in 1914 when asked by MP Herbert
Samuel “about a homeland for the Jewish people” replied “that the idea had
always had a strong sentimental appeal to him and he would be prepared to work
for if the opportunity arose” began his 11 years of services Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs.
1905: The Jews of Manchester, England called for a meeting to
publicly protest the treatment of Russian Jews as typified by the Kishinev
Pogroms.
1905: “Five hundred Jews who fled from Russia because of the
massacres arrived” in New York today aboard two separate steamships and are
awaiting approval from the immigration authorities to enter the United States.
1905: The Janitors’ Society held a meeting at the Educational
Alliance auditorium tonight and “took up a collection for the relief of the
Jews sufferers in Russia.”
1905: It was reported today that $1,111,183 has been
contributed to the fund for the Jews suffering from the Massacres in Russia
including $100 from I. Gothstein of Muscatine, Iowa, $500 from G.A. Efroymson
of Indianapolis, Indiana, $1,547.84 from Leo K. Steiner of Birmingham, Alabama
and $100.50 from Herman J. Nathanson of Virginia, Minnesota.
1906: Albert Lowey, the retired Rabbi of the West London
Synagogue of British Jews, “the first reform synagogue in England” celebrated
his 90th birthday today “in the full possession of his mental
faculties.”
1906: U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt wins the Nobel Peace
Prize, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize. Roosevelt never
intended to keep the money that was part of the prize. Finally, in 1918, he was
able to donate the money to a variety of charities. Among those receiving funds
was the Jewish Welfare Board, which received $4,000 for War Activities. The
funds were to be handled by the treasurer, Mr. Walter E. Sachs.
1907: Birthdate of Michael Blankfort, the New York native who
gained fame as the author and screenwriter who converted his novel The
Juggler into of the earliest Holocaust movies, “The Juggler” and who risked
his career to see to it that the Blacklisted Albert Maltz was able to continue
his career as a screenwriter.
1908: The trial of San Francisco political boss Abe Reuf
ended today “with a verdict of guilty and the maximum sentence for bribery—14
years in San Quentin.”
1909(27th of Kislev, 5670): Third Day of Chanukah
1909: Birthdate of New York born, Israeli journalist Ted
Lurie “who immigrated to Palestine in 1930 where he joined the staff of the
Palestine Post and eventually became editor of its renamed publication, The
Jerusalem Post.
1909(27th of Kislev, 5670): Mrs. Rose Samuelsohn
passed away today.
1909: Bessie Ida Ginsberg married Jesse Lasky, the co-founder
of Paramount Pictures.
1910(9th of Kislev, 5671): Seventy-seven-year-old
Michael Friedländer passed away. Born in
Posen, and educated in Germany, he moved to England in 1865 when he back
principal of Jews’ College in London, a position he held until three years
before his death. His English
translation of Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed is considered to be a
classic. He was the father-in-law of
Moses Gaster.
1910: German-Jewish author and translator Paul Johann Ludwig
von Heyse was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1910: Sir Edward Grey, the man who signed the Sykes-Picot
Agreement which has had such a significant impact on the Middle East and
Israel, began servicing as Secretary of State For Foreign Affairs.
1910 Birthdate of historian Jack D. Foner. (As reported by
William H. Honan)
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/16/arts/jack-d-foner-88-historian-and-pioneer-in-black-studies.html
1911: The Emperor appointed Dr. Desiderius Markus as Judge of
the Royal Curia, “the highest Court of Justice in Hungary.”
1912(30th of Kislev, 5673): Rosh Chodesh Tevet and
6th day of Chanukah
1912(30th of Kislev, 5673): Thirty-eight year old
Harry Milton Samson, the husband of Sarah C. Samson, “the son of Lena Samson
and the brother of E.J. Samson and Mrs. Victor J. Lowenthal” passed away today.
1912: Isidor Schuman married Ida Schiff today at the Ashland
Club House today.
1912: Funeral services are scheduled to be held at the
Rosehill Chapel today for the mother of Mrs. J.S. Kimmelstiel, Yetta Ballenberg
who passed away “in her 91st year.”
1913: “In the Richmond Hill section of Queens, NY, a Viennese
born real estate agent and his Russian born wife gave birth to composer Morton
Gould.
http://mortongould.com/biography.html
1913: In London, Charles Rothschild and his wife, Hungarian
baroness Rozsika Edle von Wertheimstein, daughter of Baron Alfred von
Wertheimstein of Transylvania gave birth to Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild
“a British-born jazz patroness and writer.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/arts/music/19sing.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
1914:
Under the caption “The Kaiser’s American Agents,” The Times of London
printed a letter from Israel Zangwill in which he wrote “I should add that
since receiving Sir Edward Grey’s assurance that England’s sympathies lay with
the emancipation of the Russian Jews I have had a number of applications from
Jews – Rumanian and English as well as Russian Jews living outside of Russia –
anxious to enlist in the Jewish Territorial Organization under the idea that is
a branch of the British Army.” (Gray was the British Foreign Minister who is
credited with the lines as he walked out of his ministry on the evening that
Britain declared war on Germany – "The lamps are going out all over
Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.”
1915: Moise Cohen of Constantinople was appointed professor
of finance at Ottoman University.
1916: Sir Edward Grey, who in 1914 when asked by MP Herbert
Samuel “about a homeland for the Jewish people” replied “that the idea had
always had a strong sentimental appeal to him and he would be prepared to work
for if the opportunity arose” completed his 11 years of services Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs.
1916: Hyman Daniel Rosenberg the University of Louisville
trained medical doctor and the Lomza, Poland born of Zipporah Chmilertiz and
Gershan Rosenberg married Hilda Cantro after which served on the staff of the
Unity Hospital in Brooklyn while serving as the Chairman of Keren Hayesod of
East New York.
1916: Alfred Mond began serving as First Commissioner of
Works under Prime Minister David Lloyd George.
1917(25th of Kislev, 5678): First Day of Chanukah
1917: Four days after he had passed away, 76-year-old Isaac
Henry Samuel was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1917: Sydney L. Nyburg of Baltimore, MD, the author of the
Chosen People is scheduled to speak at this afternoon’s meeting of the Council
of Jewish Women at Chicago’s Sinai Temple.
1917: Today, “Andrew Bonar Law, Chancellor of the Exchequer,
announced in the House of Commons today that Jerusalem after being surrounded
on all sides by British troops, had surrendered and that British, French and
Mohammedan representatives were on the way to Jerusalem to safeguard the holy
places.”
1917: “There was an outburst of applause which lasted for
several minutes” today at the gathering of those leaders working to raise the five
million dollar fund for Jewish war relief and welfare work in the Army and Navy
when Henry Morgenthau talked about the “recapture of Jerusalem from the Turks”
saying that “We ought to be particularly happy today, for apart from all
political considerations the capture of Jerusalem by the English is a momentous
occasion in the history of the Jews.
1917: As of today the team contributions made to the fund for
the Jewish War Relief and Welfare Work in the Army and Navy included
$231,888.00 from Mortimer L. Schiff’s Team 22,
$179.026.00 from H.D. Rosen’s Team 18, $177,483.70 from William
Goldman’s Team 4 and $173,798.00 from S. G. Rosenbaum’s Team 19
1918: “The Jewish War Relief campaign” designed to raise five
million dollars “to aid the suffering Jews of Europe passed the two-million-dollar
mark today” as it reached an actual total of $2,005, 840.
1918: Under the baton of conductor Modest Altschuler, the
Russian Symphony Orchestra Society which he had organized in 1903, gave the
premiere performance of Sergei Prokofiev Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1 in
D-flat major, Op. 10, at Carnegie Hall this evening.
1919: A delegation of “prominent Jews from New York,
Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Newark and other cities representing
the American Jewish Congress” meeting with Secretary of State Lansing and
described to him “the terrible situation in the Ukraine” and protested “against
the recent pogrom in which 40,000 Jewish men, women and children had lost their
lives in that region.”
1920(29th of Kislev, 5681): Fifth Day of Chanukah
1920: In Chechelnyk, Podolia, a shtetl in what is today
Ukraine Pinkhas Lispector and Mania Krimgold Lispector gave birth to Chaya
Lispector, the youngest of their three daughters, “the Brazilian author” whom
some describe as “the most important Jewish writer since Franz Kafka.”
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-true-glamour-of-clarice-lispector
1921(9th of Kislev, 5682): Parashat Kislev
1921: “Council of Jewish Women Benefit” published today
described plans for the upcoming concert and dance at the Astor Hotel sponsored
by “the New York Section of the Council of Jewish Women.”
1922: Due to travel problems, Albert Einstein was unable to
attend the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony and deliver his Nobel Lecture.
1922: Mrs. William Ratzenstein is the chairman responsible
for tonight’s “entertainment and dance to be given by the Milton Vehon Charity
Workers” at Chateau Hall.”
1922: The charity bazar sponsored by the Sisterhood of Temple
Beth Israel is scheduled to continue for a second night.
1923: Dr. Arthur Ruppin tells the Keren Hayesod Council that
“the housing shortage in Palestine has been relieved to a considerably extent
by the establishment of the General Mortgage Bank of Palestine, which has
invested more than $300,000 in mortgages, enabling the construction of 300
houses, chiefly in Tel-Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa and Tiberias.”
1923: In Schenectady, NY, “postal worker” Louis Goldestein
and part-time state health department employee gave birth Albany Teachers
College grad and WW II Army combat veteran Harold Vernon Goldstein who earned a
Ph.D. in theatre at Cornell where he met his wife Lea Vernon and who gained
fames as Harold Gould, one of those character actors whose face you know but
name you don’t as can be seen in such films as Harper and The Sting, both of
which he made with Paul Newman.
1924: In Cincinnati, OH, William Jacob Mack, Sr. the son of
Lydia and Millard William Mack and Harriette L. Segal gave birth to Leon Meyer
Mack
1925: “The question of restriction in the Jewish attendance
at Hungarian universisites to nine-tenths of the Jewish proportion of the
population of the country, which the League of nations has been condsider for
the past four years at the request of the Jewish Association of London, was
postponed again today and it appears that the Permanent Court of International
Justice at the Hague will be asked to give an opinion on whether the action of
the Hungarian Parliament is contrary to the stipulations of the Treaty of
Trianon which defines Hungarian nationals and provides equality before the law
and enjoyment of the same civil and political rights without distinction or
language.’
1926: In Hamburg, Germany, Solomon Birnbaum, the son of
Nathan Birnbaum, and his wife gave birth to Jacob (Yaakov) Birnbuam who
survived the Holocaust thanks to the Kindertransport and formed the Student
Struggle for Soviet Jewry”
1927: Seymour “Cy” Schindel fought his 20th bout
which would prove to be his last victory even though he fought three more times
before retiring.
1927: Birthdate of Danny Matt, the native of Cologne who made
Aliyah in 1934 and in 1943 began a military career that stretched from the
Jewish Brigade through the Yom Kippur and led him to the stars of a general in
the IDF.
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Esteemed-ex-IDF-general-Danny-Matt-laid-to-rest-334264
1928(27th of Kislev, 5689): Third Day of Chanukah
1928(27th of Kislev, 5689): Sixty-one year old
Joseph Handelsman passed away today after which he was buried in Mt. Hebron
Cemetery in Flushing, NY>
1928: WOR and nineteen other stations are scheduled to
broadcast the Jubilee Hour this evening featuring soprano Isa Kremer.
1928: According to a report made public today by Bernard
Flexner, the President of the Palestine Economic Cooperation, “extensive
development in Palestine is provided for in the budget of $1,010,000 authorized
at the executive committee meeting of the corporation” which was held last
week.
1929: Ossip Gabrilowitsch, the Jewish son-in-law of Mark
Twain, conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a concert at Carnegie Hall
tonight.
1929: Twenty-year-old flyweight Moe Mizler fought his 36th
bout which he lost on points.
1930: As the U.S. economy moved further into what we now call
The Great Depression, the savings bank in which many members of the Sephardic
Jewish Brotherhood in New York had placed their money closed and no funds were
made available to depositors. The collection of dues began to fall off at an
alarming rate, and there was a high demand for financial aid from the Secret
Relief Fund.
1931(30th of Kislev, 5692): Rosh Chodesh Kislev;
Sixth Day of Kislev
1931: “Baron De Hirsch Centenary” published today traces the
life of Jewish philanthropist who is all but unknown to modern generations.
http://www.jta.org/1931/12/10/archive/baron-de-hirsch-centenary
1931: U.S. Premiere of “The Struggle” based on a novel by
Emile Zola, the defender of Capt. Dreyfus which was filmed by cinematographer
Joseph Ruttenberg.
1931: U.S. premiere of “Men in Her Life” a drama with a
script co-authored by Robert Riskin.
1932: “Central Park” featuring Harold Hubert as “Nick Sarno”
was released today in the United States.
1933: “Dr. Cyrus Adler, president of the American-Jewish
committee, presented the organization's twenty-seventh annual report today to
delegates from thirteen States gathered at the Hotel Astor.
https://www.transcontinentalmusic.com/ProductListing.aspx?Composer=Max%20Grauman&page=0&sort=9
http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-no2010109189/
1934: By today, which marked the end of the weekend, “more
than 350 arrests had been made in Bucharest and the provinces” as “members of
the anti-Semitic Iron Guard” resisted the dissolution of their organization
which had been decreed by the government.
1934: Birthdate of Howard Martin Temin an American virologist
who in 1975 shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with his former
professor Renato Dulbecco and another of Dulbecco's students, David Baltimore,
for his co-discovery of the enzyme reverse transcriptase. In 1961, Temin's formed
a provirus hypothesis that cancer cells affect genetic material. The protein
coat of certain viruses contains an enzyme that facilitates the copying of
viral genes into the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of the host cell. In 1970 he
and Baltimore both independently isolated the enzyme, now called reverse
transcriptase. The viruses that contain the enzyme are known as retroviruses.
Temin also investigated how genetic information in the provirus transforms a
normal animal cell into a tumor cell. He passed away in 1994.
1934: A dramatization of Charge It to Me written by
Sara Smith, who “learned Yiddish to become a newspaperwoman” is scheduled to
open today in Baltimore under the name “Pied Piper.”
1934: Birthdate of Ryszard Przecicki, who as Richard J.
Pratt, became one of the richest men in Australia.
1935(14th of Kislev, 5696): Sixty-seven-year-old
Bella (Epstein) Unterberg, the wife of philanthropist Israel Unterberg who
founded the Young Women’s Hebrew Association in her home in September of 1902
passed away today.
https://jwa.org/media/ywha-bella-unterberg-still-image
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/young-womens-hebrew-association
https://www.jta.org/1935/12/12/archive/rites-held-for-mrs-unterberg-dead-at-67
1936: Jewish settlers erected the first of the “Tower and
Stockade” settlements,Tel Amel which is now known Nir David. These settlements
on remote parcels of land purchased by the Jewish National Fund were set up
overnight with the help of prefabricated towers and walls. They were usually
put up overnight with the help of hundreds of volunteers. Eventually 118 of
this type of settlement were erected throughout the Galilee, Bet-She'an Valley
and the Jordan Valley. The secretive construction method was one way of
avoiding Arab attacks.
1936: In Jerusalem, at the morning session of the royal
commission, Earl Peel, the chairman said that in his “opinion the Jewish Agency
should have pressed its claim for State domains to which it is entitled
according to the mandate” while Dr. Maurice B. Hexter “said that in the last
six or seven years he did not recall that any pressured was exerted by the Jews
on the Palestine Government in connection with the mandatory’s duty to allot
suitable portions of State domains for Jewish colonization.” (Translation – the
mandatory government did not give the Jews the arable land to which they were
legally entitled.)
1937: The Palestine
Post reported on the brazen attack carried out in the heart of Haifa's
Hadar Hacarmel. An Arab terrorist first exploded a bomb and then fired two
shots, seriously wounding 13-year-old Elimelech Gromet. Another bomb was thrown
in the Tel Arza quarter of Jerusalem, next to the Weismann carpentry.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that Sir Charles Teggart,
who won his reputation as an indefatigable anti-terrorist fighter in Bengal,
arrived in Jerusalem, to advise the government and police on new anti-terrorist
tactics.
1937(6th of Tevet, 5698): Eighty-one-year-old
Abraham Isaak the Russian born anarchist who worked as a journalist and founded
Aurora Colony with his in California which was based on his anarchist belief
1938: Thanks to the effort of Mrs. Gertruida
Wijsmuller-Meijer, a Dutch organizer of Kindertransporte, who had been active
in this field since 1937,” a train filled with 600 children left Vienna today.
1939: Friedrich Ubelhor, governor of the Kalisz-Lodz
district, issued a secret order for the establishment of a ghetto in the
northern section of Lodz, where the Jewish Baluty slum quarter was situated.
"Needless to say [stated his order] the establishment of a ghetto is only
a provisional phase...the ultimate goal must be the total purge of this
scourge."
1940: It was reported today that one million Jews “fifty
countries have been aided by” the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
during 1940.”
1941: In the dark days of WW II, Japanese bombers sank the
HMS Prince of Wales and the HMS Repulse, the last major battleships that would
be able to standup to an invasion of Australia, which had sent most of its
troops to the Middle East to fight against the Nazis.
1941: Today, sixteen-year-old Helena Zemankova was
transported from Prague to Terezin today.
1941: As of today, in the last 100 days an additional 600
Jews had been shot to death in and near the city of Liepāja
1942(2nd of Tevet, 5703): Seventh Day of Chanukah
1942(2nd of Tevet, 5703): Seventy-five year old
businessman and philanthropist Louis E. Kirstein, the Chairman of the Board of
Filene’s Department Store, President of the Graduate School for Jewish Social
Work and husband of Rose Stein with whom he had three children passed away
today.
https://www.jta.org/1942/12/11/archive/louis-e-kirstein-dies-in-boston-at-75
1942: A transport of Jews from Germany arrives at Auschwitz.
1942: At Wola Przybyslawska, Poland, near the Parczew Forest,
Nazis shoot seven Poles accused of aiding Jews.
1942: The Polish ambassador to Britain informs Foreign
Secretary Anthony Eden that the Polish government-in-exile can confirm that the
German authorities are systematically exterminating the entire Jewish
population of Poland and the rest of Europe.
1943: As Soviet troops began to break through German lines,
the Germans (and local Rumanians) tried cover up their actions by killing the
surviving inmates of the labor camp and destroying the camp itself in Tarasika
Rumania. This type of action was repeated over and over as Soviet troops moved
toward Germany.
1943: In Brooklyn Elaine and Arthur Niederhoffer gave birth
to Victor Niederhoffer “a hedge fund manager, champion squash player,
bestselling author and statistician” who is the older brother of Roy
Niederhoffer.
1943(13th of Kislev, 5704): Seventy-three year old
Dr.William Salant, the 1899 graduate of Columbia’s College of Physicians and
Surgeons, the pharmacologist who taught at Cornell University passed away
today.
1944(24th of Kislev, 5705): In the evening, Kindle
the first Light of Chanukah
1944: Birthdate of New York native Benjamin Mordecai the
graduate of Buena Vista University in Iowa and Eastern Michigan University and
founder of the Indiana Repertory theatre who was a Broadway University and
general manager of the Yale Repertory Theatre.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-may-11-me-mordecai11-story.html
1944: “Dr. Israel Goldstein, president of the ZOA said today
that ‘we are closer than ever before to the actual restoriation of Israel as a
people’” and he called for “the total mobilization of American Jewry and its
resources in the final effort to establish the Jewish Commonwealth in an
undivided Palestine…”
1945: Birthdate of James Lee “Jimmy” Kessler, the founder of
the Texas Jewish Historical society and the “first native Texan to serve as
Rabbi of B’nai Israel, in Galveston Texas.
1945: The cover of Time
features a montage of Nazi leaders standing trial at Nuremberg under the title
“Hitler’s Heirs”
1945: Time
published “War Crimes: Day of Judgment” describing the trial of Hermann Göring,
Alfred Jodl, Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, Alfred Rosenberg, Julius
Streicher, Julius Streicher and Rudolph Hess
1945: "The Chalice of Nurnberg," published today by
Time described the purposed of the
trials in the words US. Prosecutor Robert Jackson who defined the need for
individual responsibility and the establishment of a rule of International Law
that would prevent such crimes from happening again
1945: “Treason: The Seeker” published today described the
condition Ezra Pound, the expatriate American poet who relished giving
anti-Semitic and anti-American broadcast from his home in Italy. The latter earned him the dubious distinction
of being one of the few Americans indicted for treason because of his radio
broadcasts.
1945: President Truman names six U.S. members to
Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine. London announces six members.
1945: SS Captain Theodore Dannecker, a henchman of Adolf
Eichmann committed suicide after having been arrested by the United States
Army.
1946: Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver criticizes President Truman,
expresses his opposition to Partition and recommends resistance to the British
Mandatory Government.
1947: British leaders will not alter the Jewish quota that
limits the Jewish immigrants 1,500 a month.
1947: Dr. Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori became the first Jewish
woman, as well as the first American woman, to win a Nobel Prize in the
sciences when she received the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine on. She
won the prize jointly with her husband, Dr. Carl F. Cori, and Bernardo A.
Houssay. The scientists were honored for their research in identifying the
"Cori Cycle" which explained how the body converts carbohydrates into
sugars that supply muscles with energy. This research was particularly
important in leading to the understanding and treatment of diabetes. Dr. Gerty
Cori was born in Prague in 1896. Encouraged by her family, she enrolled at the
Medical School of the German University of Prague, receiving her Doctorate in
Medicine in 1920. Together with her husband, Cori immigrated to the United
States and became a citizen in 1928. Carl took a position at the State
Institute for the Study of Malignant Diseases in Buffalo, NY and Gerty was
hired as an assistant pathologist. The Coris persisted in working together
despite the discouragement of many institutions that sought to hire only Carl.
In 1931, they moved to St. Louis where Carl became the chair of the
pharmacology department at Washington University School of Medicine. Gerty was
offered a position as a research assistant. When Carl was made chair of a new
biochemistry department in 1946, Gerty was finally promoted to full professor.
They won the Nobel Prize the following year. In 1952, President Truman
appointed her to the Board of Directors of the National Science Foundation.
1947: A detachment of Palmach soldiers was attacked while
paroling the water pipeline near the Arab village of Shu’ut in the Negev. The
commander of the Palmach assured his men that they had nothing to worry about
since the head man of the village had been a friend of his. But in the Arab’s
undeclared war on the yet to be born Jewish state, friendships did not always
matter.
1948: Speaking in the House of Commons as leader of the
Opposition, Winston Churchill raised the question of why the British government
continued to refuse to recognize the state of Israel since nineteen other
countries including the United States and the Soviet Union had already done so.
He appealed to Parliament to end its “sulky boycott” of the Jewish state.
1948: Despite opposition from some of his ministers, Ben
Gurion pressured the cabinet into committing to move the Israeli government to
Jerusalem “without further delay.” Ben Gurion dismissed the fears of his
opponents that the move would anger world opinion by pointing out that the
occupation of the Old City and the West Bank by the Jordanians had changed the
equation.
1948: Israel agrees to UN truce mission's request to let a
trapped Egyptian force withdraw from Faluja in Negev. Was it only 6 months ago
that the Egyptians invaders were bombing Tel Aviv and heading toward the
“Jewish city” with the intent of driving the Jews into the sea.
1948: The Israelis devised Operation Horev, a new offensive
plan designed to drive the Egyptian army out of the remaining areas of
Mandatory Palestine south-west of Beersheba, along the western edge of the
Negev.
1948: Moshe “Dayan gave a sealed letter to Abdullah el-Tell
to be delivered to King Abdullah. Before delivering the letter el-Tell
discreetly lifted the seal and made a photo-static copy of its contents, which
was an invitation from Elias Sasson to King Abdullah to restart the
negotiations which had been led by Golda Meir before the outbreak of war.
1949(19th of Kislev, 5710): Parashat Vayishlach
1949(19th of Kislev, 5710): Fifty-eight-year-old
Russian born and Columbia University trained bio-chemist William Alexander
Perlzweig, the “professor of biochemistry and department chair at the Duke
University Medical School” best known for his work in the field of nutrition
passed away tonight in Durham, NC.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1949/12/12/96488618.pdf
1949: Birthdate of Harry Michael, a Labour Party MP, critic
of Israel and according to the Daily Telegraph, “one of the MPs who allegedly
made improper claims for expenses.”
1950: Ralph J. Bunche was presented the Nobel Peace Prize.
Bunche was the first black American to receive the award. He was honored for
bringing an end to the war between the Israelis and the Arabs that began in
1948 when the Arabs began their unsuccessful attempt to drive the Jews into the
sea.
1951(11th of Kislev, 5712): Sixty-five-year-old
Yampol native Solomon Pincasovich, the product of the Slobodka Yeshivan and the
Odessa Conservatoire who became the cantor of the New Synagogue in Manchester,
UK in 1921 and a lecturer at Jews College in 1947 passed away today.
https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/johannesburg/Pinkasovitch.html
1952: Members of the Jewish Education Committee of New York
are scheduled to attend today’s funeral for “teacher and author” Abraham
Epstein.
1952: Yosef Sprinzak, the first Speaker of the Knesset,
completed his service as President of Israel which had begun following the
death of Chaim Weizmann.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that at the end of the
30-day mourning period for the first president of the State of Israel, Dr.
Chaim Weizmann, his successor, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, took the pledge of office.
1953: Seventy-five-year-old Polish born, NYU trained attorney
Henry Lasker, the former President of the Board of Alderman in Springfield, MA
where he served as the first president of the local B’nai B’rith Lodged and was
a founder and President of the Spring Young Men’s Hebrew Association passed
away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1953/12/12/issue.html
1955(25th of Kislev, 5716): Shabbat shel Chanukah;
Parshat Vayeshev
1955: “An Israeli police boat approaching the Sea of
Galilee’s northwestern shore was fired on by Syrian guns” in the latest of a
series of Syrian violations of the truce agreement.
1956: Seventy-two year old Moses “Mosey” King, the Yale
lightweight who coached the boxing team for forty-six year and “was
Connecticut’s first boxing commissioner” passed away today.
1956(6th of Tevet, 5717): David Shimoni, Israeli poet, writer
and translator, passed away.
1957: In the Carpenter Suite of the Waldorf Astoria, Rabbi
Max D. Klein of Philadelphia officiated at the wedding of Henry Epstein and
Dasha Amsterdam, the Barnard graduate and Tony Award winning Broadway producer.
https://barnard.edu/news/way-back-wednesday-dasha-amsterdam-epstein-55
1959: Israeli political leader of Shulamit Aloni and her
husband Reuven Aloni gave birth to painter and
filmmaker Udi Aloni who “promotes replacing Israel with a binational state in
Israel-Palestine, and he supports the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions)
movement against Israel.”
1960(21st of Kislev, 5721): Parashat
Vayeshev
1960(21st of Kislev, 5721):
Ninety-year-old Austrian native Frederick W. Brown who in 1890 came to the
United States in 1890 where he be became a realtor and was a “fundraiser for
the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies” passed away today in New York.
1961(3rd of Tevet, 5722): Eighth Day of Chanukah
1961: Birthdate of Oded Schramm, who melded ideas from two
branches of mathematics into an equation that applies to a multitude of physics
problems from the percolation of water through rocks to the tangling of
polymers.
1962: In New York City, actress and author Carol Grace, the
daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants and award-winning actor Walter Matthau
gave birth to actor and director Charles “Charlie” Matthau, “one of three
founding nonprofit Board of Directors for the Maria Gruber Foundation, a
charitable foundation based in Beverly Hills, California”
1963: In Chamberlin v Dade County Board, the Florida State
Supreme Court heard “new arguments in a challenge to public school students in
Miami, Florida, being required to read passages from the Bible and recite the
Lord's Prayer at the beginning of every school day” (As reported by Austin
Cline)
1964: In Israel, the government resigned when “Ben-Gurion
demanded that members of the Supreme Court Investigate the Lavon Affair.
1964: “Father Goose” a WW II comedy which won an Oscar for
its screenplay co-authored by Peter Stone and with music by Cy Coleman and
Carolyn Leigh was released today in the United States.
1965: Birthdate of “Gary “The Kid” Jacobs the Scottish boxer
who “wore a Star of David on his trunks and who “held the British Commonwealth
and European (EBU) welterweight titles.”
1966: “A musical version of the Mossinsohn play, ‘Casablan’
starring Yehoram Gaon, opened today on the Alhambra Stage in Tel Aviv.”
1966(27th of Kislev, 5727): Shabbat Shel Chanukah;
Parashat Miketz
1966(27th of Kislev, 5727): Seventy-seven year old
Irving W. Halpern, the Russian-born school who rose from being a “probation
officer with the Jewish Protectory and Aid Society” to serving as chief
probation officer of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan” as well as a college
lecturer on criminology while raising a family with his wife, “Judge Caroline
K. Simon of the State Court of claims, passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/12/11/82529683.pdf
1966: Israeli Samuel Yosef Agnon and German-Jew Nelly Sachs
shared the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1967: “Bedazzled,” a comedy directed and produced by Stanley
Donen was released in the United Kingdom today.
1969: “They Shoot Horses, Don't They?” a movie version of the
novel of the same name directed by Sydney Pollack, produced by Robert Chartoff
and Irwin Winkler and featuring Al Lewis was released in the United States
today.
1970: A small group of local Jewish activists gathered on the
International Union of Electrical Workers Plaza which was across the street
from the Soviet Embassy. The group was protesting the verdicts of treason and
death sentences of 11 Soviet citizens, 9 of them Jewish.
1970: First Human Rights Day on which “a daily Soviet Jewry
Vigil is launched across from the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC” which will
last for twenty years.
1971: Dr. Gunter Kahn and one of his colleagues “went to
Upjohn’s headquarters in Kalamazoo where they briefed scientists and
executives” on minoxidil telling “them that he drug was a potential ‘gold
mine.’”
1972: U.S. premiere of “Sleuth” the film version of Anthony
Shaffer’s Tony Award winning play directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
1972(5th of Tevet, 5733): Forty-seven year old
Tibor Szamuely, the Russian born English historian who was the nephew of Tibor
Szamuely and the father of journalist George Szamuely, passed away today
1974(26th of Kislev, 5735): Second Day of Chanukah
1974(26th of Kislev, 5735): Eighty-four-year-old
New York born award winning author Manuel Komroff, the of 45 novels, many of
which were historical based “on such personalities as Marco Polo, Caesar,
Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson Talleyrand, Charlemagne and Marie Antoinette”
as well as the two-volume Coronet which sold over a million copies,
passed away today.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4079549/index.html
1974: As Jews prepared to kindle the third Chanukah light,
The U.N. General Assembly adopted Resoultion 3275 declaring 1975 “International
Women’s Year.”
1975: Activist Andrei Sakharov is awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize, accepted by his Jewish wife, Yelena Bonner.
1976: The KGB increased pressure on the organizers of the
symposium on Jewish culture by questioning “the main activists” responsible for
the event.
1978: The New York
Times features reviews of children’s books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including “My Noah’s Ark” by M.B. Goffstein
and “Hanukah Money” by Sholem Aleichem with illustrations by Uri Shulevitz.
1978: Richard Shepard reviews “The Girl From Tel Aviv,” a
throwback to “the Yiddish musical theater of bygone years, the type of theater
that provided escapism for the Lower East Side, which always enjoyed ‘tzoress’
on stage and had more than enough of its own waiting at the exit.”
1978: In Oslo, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat accepted the
1978 Nobel Peace Prize. The two men earned the prize for breaking the cycle of
violence. More to the point, their work has stood the test of time. These two
certainly earned their award.
1978: “Superman” the movie that brought to the big screen the
comic hero created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster and directed
by Richard Donner (born Richard Donald Schwartzberg) opened in Washington, DC
today.
1980(3rd of Tevet, 5741): Eighth Day of Chanukah
1980: Future Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer began
serving as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
1980: Two people were injured when a terrorist bomb “exploded
under a car” in Jerusalem.
1981: Jules Pfeiffer’s "Grownups" premieres in New
York NY.
1982(24th of Kislev, 5743): In a double header of
light, in the evening light the first Chanukah candle followed by lighting the
Shabbat candles.
1982: “Hyman Belzberg, one of Canada's wealthiest men, was
freed unharmed by his kidnappers today and flew to Vancouver to visit with
family members.”
1983: The curtain came down at the Plymouth Theater of a
Broadway revival of “You Can’t Take It With You” written by Moss Hart and
originally direct George S. Kaufman which would transferred to the Royale
Theatre.
1984: In “Jewish Federation Shifts Policy on Hospital Gifts”
published today Ronald Sullivan described changes the organization is making in
its distribution of five million dollars to local medical facilities
1986: Michiko Kakutani reviewed “Letters from Westerbrook”
the posthumously published diaries of Etty Hillesum that describe life in
Holland under the Nazi occupation. Westerbrook, where Miss Hillesum and a large
number of Dutch Jews were held, was, in reality a transit camp with the next
stop being Auschwitz
1986: Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel accepted the 1986 Nobel
Peace Prize.
1986(8th of Kislev, 5747): Fifty-nine-year-old
Susan Cabot (Harriet Shapiro) the actress who oddly enough was rumored to have
had an affair and a child with Jordan’s King Hussein was beaten to death
tongith.
http://articles.latimes.com/1989-10-11/local/me-58_1_involuntary-manslaughter
1987(19th of Kislev, 5748): Lithuanian born world class
violinist Yasha Heifetz passed away today
http://www.jaschaheifetz.com/about/
1989: The Intifada enters into its third year today.
1989: In “The Arab Uprising After Two Years: Voices From Both
Sides” published today, Joel Brinkley examines the impact of the Intifada on
average Arabs and Israelis.
1990: In Canada, Herb Gray, a member of the Liberal Party
stepped down as the leader of the Opposition
1990(23rd of Kislev, 5751): Ninety-two-year-old
Oil Tycoon Armand Hammer passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)
1992: In “Hafetz Hayim Journal; The Rabbis' Almanack of
Seventh-Year Farming” Clyde Haberman described the implementation of the
Sabbatical Year in modern day Israel
1994: The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Yitzhak Rabin,
Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat. Arafat betrayed Rabin, Peres and all who
supported the peace process as can be seen by his continuing support of
violence in the Middle East up until the day of his death.
1994(7th of Tevet, 5755): Eighty-seven-year-old
Philip “Phil” Piratin who was one of the leaders of “Battle of Cable Street” in
1936 and one of two members of the Communist Party elected to Parliament in
1945 passed away today.
1995: Vice President Al Gore, Prime Minister Shimon Peres and
Leah Rabin, addressed a crowd of nearly 15,000 people crowded into Madison
Square Garden today to honor the memory of Yitzhak Rabin.
1995(17th of Kislev, 5756): Eighty-eight year old
Philip Piratin, the circulation manager of The Daily Worker who was one of the
first members of the Communist Party of Great Britain to be elected as an MP.
1996: Three hundred Palestinian students “suddenly barged
onto the walled campus of Hebron University, closed by the Israelis since last
March, and declared that they would stay until it was reopened.”
1997: New York City native and George Washington University
Law School graduate Barbara Pariente began serving as a Justice of the Supreme
Court of Florida.
1997(11th of Kislev, 5758): Eighty-five-year-old
Kalmen Kaplansky who was described as
"the zaideh" (grandfather) of the Canadian human rights
movement” passed away today.
http://www.historyofrights.com/bios/kaplansky.html
1998(21st of Kislev, 5759): Ninety-seven-year-old
Minsk born Berta Singerman Begun, the Argentine singer and actress who gained
famed as Berta Singerman passed away today in Buenos Aires.
1999(1st of Tevet, 5760): Eighty-nine-year-old
Jack D. Foner, the black-listed historian who was the son of Eric and Thomas
Foner passed away today on his birthday.
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/foner-obit.html
1999(1st of Tevet, 5760): Rosh Chodesh is observed
for the last time in the 20th century.
2000: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak submitted his
resignation.
2000: The New York Times book section includes a review of
Open Closed Open by Yehuda Amichai whose “poems capture the joy of ordinary
experience.”
2000: The Manhattan Theatre Club’s final performance of
“Class Act” a musical “based on the life of composer-lyricist Edward Kleban”
who had passed away in 1987 at the age of 48 took place at Stage II.
2001(25th of Kislev, 5762): Chanukah is celebrated
for the first time in post 9/11 world.
2002: Former President Jimmy Carter, who gained fame for the
Camp David accords but later became a vocal critic of Israel, accepted the
Nobel Peace Prize today in Oslo.
2001: “It was reported today that “Israel has successfully
vaccinated more than 15,000 soldiers and public health workers against smallpox
on a voluntary basis since July with virtually no severe side effects, senior
Israeli officials say.”
2003: “The Big Fish” a cinematic version of a novel of the
same name co-produced by Bruce Cohen was released in the United States today.
2004(27th of Kislev, 5765): Third Day of Chanukah
2004: Actor Jeffrey Michael Tambor and “his wife Kasia gave
birth to Gabriel Kasper today.
2005: Deputy Chief Gertrude D.T. Schimmel, “the second
highest ranking woman ever in the New York Police Department described her
training in 1940 when she wrote today “we didn’t box or do the two-mile rue but
other than that the police academy training for women was the same as for men.”
2005: Deputy Chief Gertrude D.T. Schimmel, “the second
highest ranking woman ever in the New York Police Department described her
support for the Knapp Commission because as she wrote today that while she was
aware that “police officers were openly accepting money” “she was steadfastly
again the taking of bribes or any other unethical behavior on the part of the
police.”
2005: The first Asiatic elephant to be conceived in Israel
through artificial insemination was born at the Tisch Family Zoological Gardens
in Jerusalem. The Biblical Zoo joined the project to preserve the Asiatic
elephant, which faces extinction, several years ago. The zoo's next goal is to
mate the still-adolescent elephant bull Teddy -named after Jerusalem's former
mayor, Teddy Kollek -with elephant cows around the world, again through
artificial insemination.
2006: Reflections from the Heart, an exhibition of the works
of CHIM (David Seymour) at the Albin O. Kuhn Library came to an end today.
2006: The curtain came down on an Off-Off-Broadway production
of “Torch Song Trilogy” starring Seth Rudetsky.
2006: Celebration of Yud-Tes Kislev, the 19th of Kislev. “The
19th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev is celebrated as the Rosh Hashanah of
Chassidism. It was on this date, in the year 1798, that the founder of Chabad
Chassidism, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi was freed from his imprisonment in
Czarist Russia. For Chassidim this event is more than a personal liberation.
They see this as a watershed event heralding a new era in the revelation of the
‘inner soul’ of Torah. This is also the celebration of the birthday of Avraham
Elimelech ben Yosef Dov, the Coca Chef.
2006: Under the title of “The Schindlers of the Middle East”
The Washington Post book section features a review of Among the Righteous: Lost
Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands by Robert Satloff.
2006: Actor Jeffrey Michael Tambor and “his wife Kasia gave
birth to their second child, Eve “Evie” Julia today.
2006: Today, The New
York Times named The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan one of the
best nonfiction books of the year.
2007(1st of Tevet, 5768): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
2007: Publication of the Hebrew paperback edition of Sefer
Ateret Yehosua.
https://www.amazon.com/Ateret-Yehoshua-Hebrew-Zambrowsky-Joshua/dp/B00166S82O
2007: “President George W. Bush and Laura Bush invited Ruth
and Judea Pearl, parents of Daniel Pearl to the White House Chanukah reception,
to light the menorah that once belonged to Daniel's great grandparents, Chaim
and Rosa Pearl, who brought it with them when they moved from Poland to Israel
in 1924 to establish the town of Bnai-Brak.”
2007: The New Republic
features a review of The Book of Psalms: A Translation With Commentary
translated by Robert Alter. Over the centuries, The Book of Psalms has gained
popularity with a wide variety of religious groups and leaders. However, this
has led to translations and interpretations that fit their different agendas
and often has meant drifting far from the original meaning of the words. Alter
attempts to release this trend. “He has deliberately set out to evacuate these
covert (and usually Christological) assumptions” that distort or completely
alter what the Psalmists actually created.
2008: Peter Yarrow, the Peter in “Peter, Paul and Mary”
appears at the Barnes & Noble in Cedar Rapids, Iowa as he promotes “The
Peter Yarrow Songbook Series.”
2008:J. Ezra Merkin informed investors in his $1.8 billion
Ascot Partners fund that he was among those who suffered substantial personal
losses, since all of the fund's dollars were invested with Madoff, a fact that
Merkin had tried to conceal as can be seen by his lying to a client by saying
that he had not connection with Madoff and that the investments were with
Morgan Stanley and therefore fully protected.
2008: Baal teshuvah Andy Statman who is at home with Klezmer
and Country music joined Bela Fleck and the Fleckstone in a concert at the
University of Buffalo.
2008: The month-long exhibition “The Nature of Dreams:
Israeli photographs, selection from the collection of Yosefa Drescher Fine Art”
has its final showing at Trinity College in Hartford. Artists featured during
the exhibition included Noa Ben Shalom, David Harris, Menahem Kahana, Joel
Kantor, Alex Levac, Shimon Lev, Tamir Sher, Ilan Spira, and David Rubinger.
According to Yosefa Drescher, a well-known Israeli documentary photographer
“The land in which [Israeli photographers] live and work is replete with
gripping visual scenes, and striking images both human and landscape. The
challenge is at once to do justice to the external reality and not attempt to
usurp the power of the place and moment, while giving reign to deeply personal
comment and reaction to the subject.”
2008 (13 Kislev): On the Hebrew calendar, Yahrzeit of Ravina
II who passed away in 475 CE the same year in which he finished editing the
Gemara portion of the Talmud Bavli ("Babylonian Talmud"), completing
the work of his teacher Rav Ashi.
2008: At Princeton University, Dennis Ross former special
Middle East Coordinator under the Clinton administration and consultant for the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy delivers a speech entitled
"Whither the Middle East?"
2009: The third annual Kisufim Conference which aims to
"encourages encounters between Israeli creativity - in Hebrew and other
languages - and world Jewish creativity that is both multilingual and
multicultural," comes to an end.
2009: Screenwriter Steven Karras discusses and signs his
first book, The Enemy I Knew: German Jews in the Allied Military in World War
II, at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, in Washington, D.C.
2009: The 20th Washington Jewish Film Festival includes a
screening of “Brothers,” a film that depicts the struggle of 2 brothers who
struggle to come to terms with their political and religious beliefs when they
reunite in Israel after years of silence.
2009: “Avatar,” the science fiction film co-produced by Jon
Landau premiered in London.
2009: The 24th Annual New York Israeli Film Festival includes
a screening of “Achziv,” a film that documents the unique story of Eli Avivi,
President of "Achziv Land," from the time of the War of Independence
when Eli appropriated a deserted Arab village called A'Ziv.
2009: The Israel Aerospace Industries made the first delivery
of the Heron UAV to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) today. The ten
unmanned aerial vehicles will be used in Afghanistan in the coming weeks.
2009: The third annual Kisufim Conference, a series of
special workshops and meetings in Russian, English, French, Hungarian, Serbian
and Spanish which aims to "encourages encounters between Israeli
creativity - in Hebrew and other languages - and world Jewish creativity that
is both multilingual and multicultural," comes to an end in Jerusalem.
2009: A four-day conference entitled "A Century of
Yiddish:1908-2008" came to a close in Jerusalem
2010: On Human Rights Day, the community is scheduled to hold
a ceremony that will remember the Soviet Jewry Struggle and commemorate the
40th Anniversary of the Washington, D.C. Vigil that became part of efforts to
make it possible for Russian Jews to leave the Soviet Union.
2010: Daniel Burman, who lives and works in Argentina as one
of its leading filmmakers today, and Jorge Gurvich, also an award-winning
filmmaker who left Argentina for Israel are scheduled to present a program
entitled “Argentina’s Jewish Community Through Filmmaker’s Eyes at the 21st
Washington Jewish Film Festival.
2010: The 12th annual Jerusalem Festival is scheduled to come
to a close.
2010: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Kadima
chairwoman and opposition leader Tzipi Livni at the State Department in
Washington today, only a few days after the U.S. and Israel announced that
talks between Jerusalem and Washington over a new freeze on West Bank
settlement construction in exchange for a set of U.S. guarantees had hit a dead
end.
2010: Rain began falling on different parts of Israel this
afternoon, beginning what was expected to be a stormy weekend. Tel Aviv
received its first raindrops early in the afternoon, along with Haifa, Netanya,
Ra'anana and Kfar Saba.
2010: Thousands of people participated in a march celebrating
International Human Rights Day in Tel Aviv this morning. Protesters were
marching against what demonstrators called "the racist anti-democratic
wave which is hitting Israel.".
2010: Hundreds of people attended the funeral of former
Knesset speaker and Holocaust-survivor advocate Dov Shilansky at the Kiryat
Shaul Cemetery in Tel Aviv this morning.
2010: Memorial services were held this morning for Lawrence
E. “Larry” Gelf, the Professor-Emeritus in the Department of History at the
University of Iowa at Agudas Achim in Iowa City.
2011: As part of the Scholar-In-Residence Weekend at Touro
Synagogue in New Orleans, Dr. Ethan Bueno de Mesquita of the University of
Chicago is scheduled to lead the Shabbat Torah Study.
2011: Producer Aviva Kempner is scheduled to see the 2011
WJFF Visionary Award recipient at the 22nd Washington Jewish Film Festival
followed by a screening of her documentary “Partisans of Vilna” the theme of
which is "We will not allow them to take us like beasts to the
slaughter."
2011:
The second round of weekend events that are part of Hamshoushalayim are
scheduled to end today.
2011:
Israeli professor Dan Shechtman was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in
Stockholm today, and said that scientists have many duties, including keeping
an eye on politicians,
2012: The
Sephardic Music Festival is scheduled to continue today with performances by
Zion 80, Hasidic New Wave with Yakar Rhythms, and Mika Karney
2012(26th
of Kislev, 5773): Second Day of Chanukah
2012(26th
of Kislev, 5773): Eighty-six-year-old landscape architect Dan Zur, the partner
of Lipa Yahalom, passed away today.
2012(26th
of Kislev, 5773): Ninety-seven-year-old economist Albert O. Hirschman who
helped to rescue artists and intellectuals from Nazi-occupied France passed
away today. (As reported by William Yardley)
2012(26th
of Kislev, 5773): Zoltan Zinn-Collis, who was born at High Tatras in 1940 and
“was one of only five living survivors of the Holocuast in Ireland” passed away
today “in his Athy home.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoltan_Zinn_Collis
2012:
The Washington Jewish Festival and the Hebrew Language Table are scheduled to
present a screening of “There Was Once,” a film by Gabor Kalman, the focuses on
the work of a high school teacher in Kalocsa, Hungary to teacher her students
about the once thriving and now non-existent Jewish community that existed in
their city. She does this against the
backdrop of a rising tide of right-wing extremism.
2012:
The Sephardic Scholar Series is scheduled to continue this year with a free
concert at the CUNY-Graduate Center with the New York Andalus Ensemble.
2012:
Nechemya Weberman a 54-year-old unlicensed therapist who is a prominent member
of the Satmar Chasidic community in Williamsburg was convicted “of repeatedly
sexually abusing a young girl who had been sent to him for help.” (As reported
by Sharon Otterman)
2012:
After nightfall, Jews worldwide will celebrate the third of the winter
festival’s eight nights at which time those in Jerusalem can see a Hanukkah
menorah made from the ornamental headgear of a soldier of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire.
2012:
The Palestinian Authority today granted Hamas permission to mount a 25th
anniversary celebration in the West Bank in growing signs that Fatah and rival
Hamas are working to end the five-year schism between them, Ma'an News Agency
reported.
2012:
Today in
Stockholm, the Royal Academy of Sciences is scheduled to present the Nobel
Prize in chemistry to Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, and the Nobel in economics to Alvin
Roth. (As reported by Mark Shulte)
2013:
The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to sponsor a reading and discussion
of The Reason I Jump by Naokj Higashida.
2013:
“The Congress” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2013:
Keren Kayemet LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) is scheduled to begin
distributing free Christmas Trees at Nazareth.
(This is not a typo or a joke)
2013:
“Hundreds of haredi men from radical sectors of the ultra-Orthodox community
rallied once again in Jerusalem tonight in protest at the ongoing detention of
two yeshiva students by the army, and against enlistment to the military and
national service programs in general.” (As reported by Jeremy Sharon)
2013:
“Emergency services across” Israel “were put on high alert as a major storm hit
the region which is expected to last through the weekend. Mt. Hermon is already experiencing high winds
and snow according to the Israel Metrological Service (As reported by Gavriel
Fiske)
2013:
Israeli American chemists Arieh Warshel and Michael Levitt were officially
awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden,
today. The two, along with Martin Karplus, won the award “for the development
of multiscale models for complex chemical systems,” the Royal Swedish Academy
of Sciences said. (As reported by Adiv Sterman)
2014:
At the Historic 6th & I Synagogue is “Rabbi Shira” is scheduled
to present “What It Takes To Officiate at Your Friend’s Wedding.”
2014:
“Lester L. Wolff, Civil Air Patrol veteran and former member of Congress, spoke
today during a Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony for World War II era Civil Air
Patrol members, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, D.C.’
2014:
Rabbi Todd Thalblum officiated at the funeral of Sylvia Padzensky.
http://www.cedarmemorial.com/Obituary/2014/Dec/Sylvia-Padensky/
2014:
The IDF bolstered security measures across the West Bank this evening amid
fears that tensions could escalate after a senior Palestinian official died en
route to a Ramallah hospital earlier in the day following clashes with Israeli
troops.
2014:
“Poland’s constitutional court today overturned a ban on the ritual slaughter
of animals which had affected the Jewish and Muslim communities.”
2014:
Today, Israeli novelist Amos Oz saw “a film documenting the journey of Haifa
University historian Fania Oz-Salzberger, the author’s daughter, to the region
in north-western Ukraine, which was populated by more than 350,000 Jews on the
eve of World War II.”
2014:
Today, Noah Mamet was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to Argentina.
2014:
“As part of its Righteous Among the Nations project, the Raanana Symphonette
Orchestra has commissioned an original orchestral piece, “His Finest Hour,”
from composer Moshe Zorman in tribute to Perlasca which will have its debut at
concert today in Raanana in the presence of Perlasca’s son Franco and
daughter-in-law Luciana Amadia.”
2014:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to sponsor a tour of its exhibition
“Echoes of the Borscht Belt: Contemporary Photographs by Marisa Scheinfeld.
http://www.marisascheinfeld.com/Video-&-Interviews/The-Jewish-Daily-Forward/1/
2015(28th of Kislev, 5776): Fourth Day of
Chanukah
2015(28th of Kislev): On the Hebrew calendar
“Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Chizkiyah Da Silva, commonly known as the Pri Chadash, the
name of the commentary he authored on the Code of Jewish Law.”
2015(28th of Kislev, 5776): Eighty-seven-year-old
basketball pioneer Dolph Schayes passed away today. (As reported by Richard
Goldstein)
2015: Jonathan Birnbaum, of JBirnbaum which is located on
47th in the heart of Manhattan’s famous diamond district reported
today that diamonds worth between five and ten million dollars have been stolen
from is safe.
2015 Final performance of “Indecent,” “a play by Paula
Vogel that “recounts the controversy surrounding the play “God of Vengeance” by
Solomon Asch which was produced on Broadway in 1923.
2015: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center
is scheduled to host an evening with Dr. Danny M. Cohen, the author of Train
“which follows the story of six teenage who try to escape Nazi round-ups.”
2015: Catholics should not try to convert Jews and should
work with them to fight anti-Semitism, the Vatican said today in a major new
document that drew the Church further away from the strained relations of the
past.
2015: In Kensington, MD, Temple Emanuel is scheduled to
host a presentation by The Foundation for Jewish Studies “Home and
Homelessness: European Jews in 1948.”
2015: The Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “acclaimed
Israeli pianist Daniel Gortler as he presents a unique chamber music concert
featuring Brahms's Die schöne Magelone along with other 19th- and 20th- century
classics dedicated to the word.”
2015: Sheldon Adelson purchased the Las Vegas
Review-Journal
2015: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to “The
Poetry of Yehuda Amichai” a celebration of the poet and his works with Robert
Alter, Hana Amichai, Jonathan Galassi, Chana Kronfeld, Stanley Moss, Philip
Schultz and Leon Wieseltier.
2016: Nobel laureates including Bob Dylan are scheduled to
be honored today at ceremony on the anniversary of the death of Alfred Noble –
a ceremony that Dylan will not be attending but for which he has sent a speech
to be read aloud by somebody else.
2016(10th of Kislev, 5777): Shabbat Va-yaytzay
2016(10th
of Kislev, 5777): Chabad Chassidim are scheduled to party today in celebration
of the release of Dovber Schneuri, the second Lubavitcher Rebbe, by the
Russians on the 10th of Kislev, 5587.
2016: Israeli sculptor Oren Pinhasi’s solo exhibition is
scheduled to open at Temp Rubato.
2016:
Everyone is scheduled to continue saying prayers on behalf of Rav Adin ben
Rivkah Leah – Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz – who is recovering from a stroke.
2016:
The Israeli Consulate is scheduled to host “special screening of ‘On the Map”
followed by a discussion with Israeli filmmaker Dani Menken.
2017:
The New York Times features reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including A Bold and Dangerous Family: The Remarkable Story of an Italian
Mother, Her Two Sons and Their Fight Against Fascism by Caroline Moorehead,
Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life by Robert Dallek, The
Education of Eva Moskowitz: A Memoir by Eva Moskowitz and the recently released paperback edition of The
Fortunate Ones by Ellen Umansky
2017:
The URJ Biennial is scheduled to come to an end today in Boston, MA.
2017:
The Breman Museum is scheduled to host a lecture by Warsaw native George
Rishfeld who “as an infant he was thrown over the barbed-wire fence of the
Vilna Ghetto into the waiting arms of Halinka, the daughter of a man that
worked for George’s father.”
2017:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a
lecture in which Dr. Ian Hancock, a Professor at the University of Texas,
“discusses the experience of the Roma during the Holocaust, the persistence of
prejudice, and the current struggle of the Romani peoples.”
2017:
The Center for Jewish History and the Jewish Genealogical Society are scheduled
to present a lecture by New York journalist Marisa Fox entitled “By Thread – A
Daughter’s Search for Her Mother’s Hidden Identity” in which she examines the
life of her mother Tamar Fromer Fox.
2017:
Jewish Book Month, an annual event that provides us with a chance to
contemplate Jewish books and the lives of authors such as military leader and
archeologist Yigael Yadin whose works included Bar-Kochba: The Legendary
Hero of the Law Jewish Revolt Against Imperial Rome continues today.
2018(2nd
of Tevet, 5779): Eighth Day of Chanukah
2018:
Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to present “The Displacement of Jewish
Communal Life in Islamic Lands and Cultural Reconstruction in Israel.”
2018:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Reclaiming Citizenship:
Stories of a New Jewish return to Germany during which “Donna Swarthout, editor
of a volume of essays by authors who reclaimed German citizenship as the
descendants of persecuted Jews, discusses her story with historian David Sorkin
(Yale), whose research on Jewish Emancipation illuminates the meanings of
citizenship in Jewish history.”
2018:
JW3 is scheduled to host a screening in London of the award winning “Three
Identical Strangers.”
2018:
As an example of the diversity of activities American Jewish congregations must
offer in the 21st century, in Chevy Chase, MD, Ohr Kodesh is
scheduled to host the Second Annual Mentsch Club Charity Bowling Tournament.
2018:
As part of its Chanukah celebration, The Museum of Islamic Art is scheduled to
host a production for children of “Shmulik the Hedgehog.”
2018:
As part of its Chanukah Festival celebrations “for the whole family, The Bible
Lands Museum is scheduled to host the final “interactive tour and creative
workshop, The Mystery of the Hidden Pitcher.”
2018:
In London, Jewish Museum is scheduled to present “Philippe Sands and Adam
Wagner on Jewish Human Rights Heroes” as part of an evening that “celebrates
the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and
the lives of the Jewish Human Rights heroes behind it.”
2019:
San Francisco State University is scheduled to host “Jewish studies lecturer
Alexis Herr” as he discusses “Voice of Genocide, Echoes of the Holocaust.”
2019:
In New Orleans, the Jewish Children’s Regional Service, one of the most
worthwhile of such organizations that provides meaningful service, is scheduled
to hold it Executive Committee Meeting at the Uptown JCC.
2019:
The joint convention of the Rabbinical Assembly and the USCJ is scheduled to
come to an end today in Boston, MA.
2019:
Dizzy’s Club is scheduled to host an “Israeli Jazz Celebration” featuring the
Yuval Cohen Sextet.
2020(24th
of Kislev, 7801): Kindle the first Chanukah Candle
2020:
In Palm Beach Gardens, Temple Judea is scheduled to host via zoom a Chanukah
candle lighting with Rabbi Yaron from Israel and Cantorial Soloist Abbie
Strauss
2020:
Ofer Fohrer, the Minister for Economic Affairs at the Israel to UK is scheduled
to participate in a special Question and Answer Event during the celebration of
the first night of Chanukah.
2020:
The Naomi Less Band is scheduled to present, “Any Way You Light It” a live rock
musical featuring her band who can’t figure out what is THE story of Hanukkah
2020:
The Jewish Museum of London is scheduled to host Noami Dickson, the CEO of
Jewish Women’s Aid as the first of its 8 Digital Nights of Hanukah.
2020:
The Jewish Film Institute which is marking its 40th anniversary with
8 nights of films for Hanukkah is scheduled to host a screening “at the Fort
Mason Flix pop-up drive-in of the U.S. premiere of “Howie Mandel: But, Enough
About Me,”
2020:
In Little Rock, AR Chabad led by that lamplighter par excellence Rabbi Pinchas
Ciment is scheduled to host the annual public menorah lighting.
2020:
In Ohio, the Columbus Kollel is scheduled to begin the virtual celebration of
Chanukah with “Lighting a Flame of Unity.
2020:
In Manhattan, the Other Israel Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.
2020:
The FIDF is scheduled to host Col. Yuval Moshe, Chief of the IDF Engineering
Corps, Southern Command speaking on “Unearthing Terror’s Tunnels.”
2020:
Temple Israel of Boston is scheduled to present online the “First Night Dreidel
Tournament.”
2020:
“The government was to hold a
special session at 8:30am today to discuss limiting movement during the
eight-day Hanukkah holiday in order to stem the spread of the coronavirus and
was expected to announce nighttime closures in predominantly Jewish communities.”
2021:
As part of its Nordic Cinema Showcase, the Jerusalem Cinematheque is scheduled
to host a screening of “Riders of Justice.”
2021:
Arlekin’s Zero
Gravity (zero-G) Virtual Theater Lab, is scheduled to present “Witness” a new
documentary theater piece about Jewish immigration in the face of antisemitism
inspired by the ill-fated sailing of the St. Louis in 1939.
2021:
Based on decisions reach yesterday, as of today, Israel is scheduled to
continue the restrictions at Ben Gurion Airport which were put in place to
combat the Omicron coronavirus.
2022:
Observance of Nobel Prize Day which recognizes the annual award established by
Alfred Nobel of those identified as Jews have won 20% beginning with Adolf von
Baeyer, who was awarded the prize in Chemistry in 1905.
2022:
At Congregation Tifereth Israel in Columbus, OH, Gabriel Hanin is scheduled to
be called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah.
2022:
The Eden-Tamir Center is scheduled to host a Chamber Music Concert with Saida
Bar Lev, violin; Yoram Youngerman, viola; Chagit Glazer, cello; and Ron Regev,
piano.
2022
(16th Day of Kislev, 5783): Parashat Va-yishlach (lit. “And he sent”)
2023(27th
of Kislev, 57884): Third Day of Chanukah
2023:
In Philadelphia, PA, The Liberty Bell Center is scheduled to host a “Rally
Against Antisemitism.”
2023:
The New York Times “8 New Books Coming in December” list includes Everywhere an
Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in
Hollywood, by David Mamet and Yours for the Taking, by Gabrielle
Korn.
2023:
Gateways Channukah three-day retreat is scheduled to come to an end.
2023:
The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled to host
the Center City Kehillah & jkidphilly Hanukkah celebration!
2023:
The Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies is scheduled to host a virtual info
session.
2023:
The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host a walking tour “through the
historic Two Bridges neighborhood to Chatman Square.”
2023:
In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah is scheduled to host its annual Channukah Party
featuring the creations of that King of the Latkes, Biran Cohen.
2023:
YIVO is scheduled to present “Yiddish Club with Dylan Seders Hoffman.”
2023:
The New York Times “9 New Books We Recommend This Week” List includes A City
on Mars
Can
We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This
Through?,
by
Kelly
and Zach Weinersmith.
2023:
The American Society for Jewish Music and YIVO are scheduled to present the 2023
“Jazzukkah for Hannakuah Concert.”
2023:
In Coralville, IA, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its annual Chanukah Party
and Makers-and-Bakers Bazar.
2023:
As December 10 begins in Israel, based on yesterday’s statements by the Houthi’s
that they would attack any ship thought to be bound for Israel, the threat of a
third front becomes more of a reality, Hamas units are continuing to “fire
rockets at Israel from the humanitarian zone, the fate of one hostage, Sahar
Baruch, is no longer in doubt since “Hamas has released a video purporting to show
his body
the Hamas held hostages begin day 65 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)
