This Day, February 11, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
February 11
55:
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, heir to the Roman Emperorship, dies under
mysterious circumstances in Rome clearing the way for Nero to become Emperor
Would things have been better or worse if Britannicus had ruled instead of Nero?
Nobody can say for sure since there is no record of his views on the Jewish
people, Judea or Jerusalem. . Nero’s record regarding the Jews is a mixed bag
(at least he did blame them for burning down Rome), he did appoint four inept
governors to rule over Judea and appointed Vespasian to put down the Jewish
Revolt when it began in 66. Given the rest of Nero’s behavior, the world
(including the Jewish world) would have been better off with Britannicus.
1147
(24 Adar): The Jews of Wurzburg were attacked without warning by a band of
Crusaders. “More than twenty among them met a martyrs death including
Rabbi Isaac ben Eliakim…The humane Bishop of Wurzburg assigned a burial place
in his own private garden for the bodies of the martyrs and sent the survivors
to a castle near Wurzburg.”
1201:
In Worms, the Jews took up arms to fight alongside the city's non-Jewish
residents against an attack by Otto. At that time, Jews were still permitted to
bear arms in various cities in Germany, although this privilege was soon to be abolished.
1250:
During the Seventh Crusade, the three day Battle of Al Mansurah comes to an end
with the French forces under the command of the anti-Semitic King Louis IX
suffering a crushing defeat.
1349:
Jews of Uberlingen, Switzerland were massacred today.
1482:
By a Papal order, seven new Inquisitors were nominated, among them Tomas de
Torquemada who led the Spanish Inquisition that brought an end to the fabled
Spanish Jewish community.
1490:
In Spain it was declared that no Jew or convert ever be allowed to rule over
any Muslims. This was part of Spanish/Muslim negotiations leading up to the
eventual surrender of Granada, the last Muslim territory in Iberia.
1491:
Isaac ben Judah ibn Katorzi produced the first printed copy of at Naples the
Sefer ha-Shorashim a lexicon by Rabbi David Kimhi, known as RADAK.
1531:
King Henry VIII is recognized as head of the Church of England, thus helping to
unravel papal control of the British Isles, weaken the control of the Catholic
Church and help the forces of what might be loosely called Protestant
Christianity. Over the long haul, this was beneficial to the Jews since
the rise of Protestants in the Netherlands and England would prove to be
beneficial to their acceptance and provide escape from the Church approved
Inquistion that had driven them out of Iberia and kept them from New World
Settlements in Latin America and French controlled Canada.
1535:
Birthdate of Niccolò Sfondrati who as Pope Gregory XIV followed the
comparatively benevolent policies of his predecessor Sixtus V.
1632:
Nicolas Antoine, “a French Protestant theologian and pastor who attempted to
convert to Judaism, although he was never officially admitted to Judaism, due
to fears by the Jewish community that persecutions would happen if it became
known that he was an apostate of Christianity” “was placed in an asylum for the
insane” in an attempt by his fellow Christians to get him to recant his
declarations that he was a Jew.
1673:
In England, according to the Conventicle Act of 1664 any prayer meeting of more
than five persons not according to the Book of Common Prayer would be
considered seditious. The act had been originally designed as a device against
the Puritans but soon Jews were prosecuted as well. The Jews requested from the
King to either allowed freedom of worship or be allowed to leave the country
with their possessions. Charles II ordered the Attorney General to desist from
prosecuting the “offenders”.
1689(21st
of Shevat): Rabbi Moses ben Galante of Jerusalem, author of Zevah ha-Shelamim
passed away today.
1701(14th
of Adar I, 5461): Birthdate of St. James, Duke Place, London, native Moses
Louzada the husband of Hannah Myers who settled in New Brunswick, New Jersey
colony.
1717(11th
of Adar I, 5477): Fifty-eight-year-old Abraham Gruber, the Bavaria native and
husband of Katharina Haedel passed away today.
1720:
German born Moses Raphael Levy and the former Grace Mears of Jamaica gave birth
to their fourth child Miriam Levy.
1758:
David Franks received a post today in which was enclosed “the policy for £400
on the Charming Rachel” a cargo ship had sailed from Sandy Hook bound for
Liverpool in November of 1757.
1767:
In Curaco, Leah Cohen Peixotto Y Campos Perera and Samuel Levy Maduro Peixotto
gave birth to Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto, the husband of Judith Lopes Salzedo
with whom he had four children – Daniel, Raphael, Sarah and Grace – who later
married Rachel Sasportas with whom he had two children – Leah and Samuel.
1772:
Birthdate of Lewis Way, the English clergyman who in 1808 found he London
Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews and who “traveled at his
own expense through Holland, Germany, and Russia, in order to study the
condition of the Jews, ameliorate their social and political status, and urge
the Christians to missionary work among them.”
1774:
During his first term in Parliament
Samson Gideon who supported the administration of Lord North gave his
first and only speech.
1774:
In New York City, “Judith Rachel Mears” and Moses Isaaks gave birth to Frances
Isaacks the wife of Joseph Simson.
1783: Rachel
De Abraham (Salom) D’Azevedo married Haham Isaac Cohen D’Azevedo today in the
Bevis Marks Synagogue.
1786:
Birthdate of Great Barrington, MA, native Lucy Avery, the wife of Albany, NY
native Godfrey Lewis Rockefeller with whom she had ten children.
1797(15th
of Shevat, 5557): Tu B’Shevat is celebrated for the last time during the
Presidency of George Washington.
1789(15th
of Shevat, 5549): Tu B’Shevat
1789:
Solomon Sodicky won a bareknuckle fight today in Herts, England. (As reported
by Bob Wechsler)
1795:
“Sheva, the Benevolent,” an adaptation of English playwright Richard
Cumberland's “The Jew; or the Benevolent Hebrew”, the first English language
play to feature a Jewish moneylender as the benevolent hero of a stage comedy
had its American premiere in Philadelphia, PA.1802(9th of Adar I,
5562): Joel Löwe the Biblical commentator “who was a follower of Moses
Menedlssohn” and “biurists” – that group of commentators who helped to lay “the
foundation of a critical historical study of the TaNaCh” passed away today.
1795:
Moses Solomon Asser declared that today that “the Asser family was, as a
special favor, allowed to engage in navigation between the Netherlands and the
colonies, but this was conceded only after a long struggle, extending from
April 15, 1773, to 1794” or a total of 21 years.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11450-netherlands
1807:
Marcus Hyams married Rachel Davis today at the Great Synagogue.
1809(25th
of Shevat, 5569): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim observed for the last time during the
Presidency of Thomas Jefferson.
1810:
Philadelphia native Benjamin Jonas Phillips and Abigail Seixas gave birth to
Benjamin Phillips, Jr.
1811:
Birthdate of French banker and booklover Aaron Euryate Felix Solar.
1812(28th
of Shevat, 5572): Rabbi Joseph David Sinzheim passed away. According to The
Jewish Encyclopedia, Sinzheim was born in 1745. He was the son of R.
Isaac Sinzheim of Treves and brother-in-law of Herz Cerfbeer and the first
rabbi of Strasburg. He was the most learned and prominent member of the
Assembly of Notables convened by Napoleon I. He was entrusted with task of
answering the questions laid before the assembly by the imperial commissioner;
a task which he accomplished in such an admirable fashion that he won the
approval of the Emperor himself.
1814:
Norway's independence is proclaimed, marking the ultimate end of the Kalmar
Union, the union of Norway, Denmark and Sweden. As part of its
declaration of independence, Norway acquired its first constitution. “This
document was relatively liberal, but in §2 it stated that the official state
religion was Lutheran Protestantism and that Jews and Jesuits were forbidden
from entering the kingdom. The lobbying to change this paragraph was led by the
national poet, Henrik Wergeland. In 1851 the ban was indeed reversed, six years
after the Wergeland's death.”
1822:
Georgetown, SC native Divinah Cohen and Georgia born Isaac Minis who were
married in 1803 gave birth to Frances (Fanny) Minis
1826:
University College London is founded under the name University of London.
As the first university to open its doors to Women, Roman Catholics and
Dissenters, UCL was also the first to admit Jewish students. This traditional
link of the College with the Anglo-Jewish community is very much alive today. University College London houses the largest department of Hebrew and
Jewish Studies in Europe. The department is the only one in the UK to offer a
full degree course and research supervision in Jewish Studies at the BA
Honours, MA, MPhil and PhD levels in every subject of Hebrew and Jewish Studies
- philology, history, and literature - covering virtually the entire
chronological and geographical span of the Hebrew and Jewish civilization from
antiquity through the Middle Ages to the modern period. Degrees can be
completed on a full- or part-time basis.
1827:
Benjamin Farmer married Isabella Myers today at the Great Synagogue.
1829(8th
of Adar I, 5589): Sixty-seven-year-old Michael Marks, the English born son of
Sarah Cohen and Henry Marks, the husband of Joachbed Issaks whom he married at
Newport, RI in 1786 and with whom he had ten children passed away today in
Philadlephia.
1831:
In London, Amelia and Morris Harris gave birth to Jacob Harris
1833:
Birthdate of Auguste Scheurer-Kestner he became an ardent defender of Dreyfus
going so far as to take up the case with Minister of War Jean-Baptiste Billot
and President Felix Faure.
1837:
Seligmann Pinchas Luchs, the Bavarian born son of Moses and Marianne Marie Luchs,
and his wife Judith Luchs gave birth to future Ohio resident Samuel Salomon
Luchs, the husband of Mary Luchs.
1837:
Eliezer Eduard Hirschel Kann and Hyacintha Kann gave birth to Dorothea
Jacobson.
1841:
Hannah Weil and Benjamin Bloomingdale gave birth to Lyman Gustavus Bloomingdale,
the co-founder of Bloomingdale’s Department Store.
1842:
Birthdate of Ludwig Barnay, “the son of the secretary of the Jewish
congregation in Budapest who went on to become a leading German actor.
1846(15th
of Shevat, 5606): Tu B’Shevat observed for the last time before the start of
the Mexican American War.
1848:
Birthdate of Abraham Leon Emanuel, the two-term Mayor of Portsmouth and Trustee
of Aria College in England who was a member of the Jewish Athletic Committee
and the “Solicitor to the Home for Aged Jews, Jews’ Hospital and Jews’ Infant
Schools.”
1851:
In Sarrebourg, Lorraine, France thirty-one-year-old Kalmus Calmann Levy
(Calmann Levy) married Paulin Levy.
1852:
One day after he had passed away, Moses Phillips, the husband of Esther Jacobs
with whom he had had seven children was buried today at the “Brady Street
Jewish Cemtery.”
1851:
George Leverson married Henrietta Jonassohn today at Chester-le-Street, a town
in County Durham, England.
1853:
In Germany Simon (Schimele) Erlanger and Rosine Reele Erlanger, gave birth to
Abraham Erlanger, the husband of Bertha Bela Erlanger who should not be
confused with the American theatrical producer with the same name.
1856:
In Philadelphia, Levi Goldsmith, the German born son of
Seligmann Falcke Goldschmidt and Schönchen Hinka Alexander and his wife Henrietta
Goldsmith gave birth to Eva Goldsmith who when she married Nathan Anathan
became Eva Anathan, the mother of NN, Morton, Bessie and Helen Anathan.
1859: The New
York Times reported that Jews of San Francisco were scheduled to hold
a meeting to express their feelings over the kidnapping of “the Mortara
child” and the refusal of the papal authorities to return him to his parents.
[The Mortara Affair had a galvanizing effect on Jewish communities throughout
the world, especially in Western Europe and the United States. The public
displays and attempts to get governments to act on behalf of Jewish victims,
which is commonplace today, was almost unheard of one hundred and fifty years
ago.]
1859:
Heidenheimer, TX, which was named in honor Sampson Heidenheimer who along with
his brother Isaac owned grocery stores in Galveston was located along the Santa
Fe railway which was chartered today to join Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, with
Santa Fe, New Mexico
1860(18th
of Shevat, 5620): Parashat Yitro
1861(1st
of Adar, 5621): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1861:
Joseph and Esther Cohen Sampson gave birth to Cornelia C. Sampson who became
Cornelia C. Sampson Ehrich when she married Louis Seigman Ehrich with whom she
had eight children before passing away at the age of seventy-seven after which
was buried at Beth Elohim Cemetery in Georgetown, SC.
1861:
Edwin Booth appeared as Shylock for the first time at The Winter Garden in New
York City. According to the reviewer, “first to last, Mr. Booth preserved with
thorough faithfulness the varying passions which from time to time usurped the
heart of the Jew.” In playing Shylock, Booth was following in the
footsteps of his father Junius Brutus Booth who had previously this creation of
Shakespeare’s pen.
1865(15th
of Shevat, 5625) Tu B'Shvat is observed for the last time during the Civil War.
1866:
Ion Ghica who “was a valuable ally for Yiddish theater in Bucharest” and “on
several occasions expressed his favorable view of the quality of acting, and
even more of the technical aspects of the Yiddish theater” began serving as
Prime Minister of Romania today.
1867:
In Philadelphia, Abraham Isaac Levy, the Richmond born son of Hanna Norris Levy
and Isaac Henry Levy and his wife Helen Lev gave birth to Albert Smith Levy,
the husband of Ema Trinkler Levy.
1868:
Birthdate of Nachman Syrkin, the Russian-born American Zionist leader. He
may have been the only American to have attended the First Zionist Congress and
the Versailles Peace Conference. He was an early advocate of what became the
Kibbutz Movement.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/nsyrkin.html
1868:
In Savannah, GA, Mikveh Israel, a synagogue that had followed the Sephardic
Minchag began its shift from the Orthodox to Reform Judaism today “with the
addition of a musically accompanied choir and the elimination of observance of
the second day of festivals” starting today.
1869:
Jeannette and Aaron Schüler gave birth to Jewish German poet and playwright
Else Lasker-Schüler
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lasker-schueler-else
1869:
Louis Barnett, the Welch born son of Hebrew teacher
Barnett Abrahams who later became a cantor in Manchester and his second wife
Hannah, the headmaster of the Jews’ Free School in London” and a contributor to
such publications as The Jewish Chronicle and The Jewish Encyclopedia married
Fannie Rosetta Mosley with whom he had two sons including “Bertram Louis
Abrahams, a physician, member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and a Fellow of
the Royal College of Physicians.”
1874:
Birthdate of George Alexander Kohut an Hungarian-born American writer and
bibliographer. He was educated at the gymnasium in Grosswardein, at the public
schools in New York, at Columbia University (1893–1895), Berlin University, and
the Berlin Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums (1895–97). In the
year 1897 he became rabbi of the Congregation Emanu-El, Dallas, Texas, a post
which he occupied for three years. In 1902 he became superintendent of the
religious school of Temple Emanu-El in New York and was assistant librarian of
the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Kohut was the author of: The Index
to the Italian words in the "Aruch," "Early Jewish Literature in
America," "Sketches of Jewish Loyalty, Bravery, and Patriotism in the
South American Colonies and the West Indies," "Martyrs of the
Inquisition in South America," and “A Memoir of Dr. Alexander Kohut's
Literary Activity," and many other monographs on historical subjects and
on folklore. He also edited "Semitic Studies in Memory of Dr. Alexander
Kohut". Kohut established a library of Judaica at Yale in 1915, an
important collection made by his father, Alexander Kohut, and the "Kohut
Endowment" to maintain and improve the "Alexander Kohut Memorial
Collection". He passed away in 1933.
1874(24th
of Shevat, 5634): Eleanor Ezekiel passed away in Philadelphia, PA
1874:
Dr. Jacob Da Silva Solis Cohen a Sephardic Jew who served with Union forces
during the Civil War before returning to Philadelphia signed the death
certificate of Eleanor Ezekiel.
1875:
Abraham H. Keinski, a Polish Jew, was arraigned at the Yorkville Police Court
on charges that he was responsible for burning down a hat store that he owned
which was located on Third Avenue. The prisoner was released after posting
$5,000 in bail.
1866:
In Antrim, Northern Island Anne Rosenbaum and George Betzold gave birth to
Arthur Adolphus Betzold.
1874:
Birthdate of Hungarian native Rabbi George Alexander Kohut, who at the age of
11 came to the United States where he studied at Columbia and the Jewish
Theological Seminary, led several congregations including Congregation Emanu-El
in Dallas, TX, founded the Kohut School for Boys and wrote several books
including Early Jewish Literature in America, Jewish Martyrs of the
Inquisition in South America and Ezra Stiles and the Jews.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1934/01/01/94480670.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1878:
In Bucharest, Bertha Posmantir and Maurice Bloomfield gave birth to CCNY
graduate Meyer Bloomfield, the Boston University Law School trained attorney,
the husband “the former Sylvia Palmer “and father of Joyce and Lincoln
Bloomfield who was “a leading adviser on social and education problems and an
expert in labor matters.”
https://digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/984
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1938/03/15/98111471.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1878(8th
of Adar I, 5638): Fifty-two-year-old Bavarian born Pennsylvania lawyer Myer
Strouse, who was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth
Congresses and who later represented the “Molly Maguires,” a secret
organization of Irish coal miners seeking to improve their working conditions,
passed way today.
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S001026
1879:
Birthdate of Philadelphia native and NYU Law School graduate Israel J.P.
Alderman, the City Court Justice and husband of Saide Adlerman with whom he had
three daughters – Marion, Leona and Elaine.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1941/09/04/105838521.pdf
1880(29th
of Shevat, 5640): Asher Bijur passed at 4 o’clock this afternoon at his home on
West 53rd Street at the age of 54. He was born at Posen in
1825 and came to the United States when he was 20 years old. He began his
business career by manufacturing cigars and then moved into the leaf tobacco
trade. He leaves behind a widow and two sons.
1881:
Mr. Arbuckle, a pianist who had been engaged to play a benefit performance at
the Park Theatre for the benefit of synagogue in Brooklyn explained his side of
the conflict with another pianist named Joseffy.
1881:
Birthdate of Louis Ginsberg. Born in Russia, he came to the United States
at the age of 22. After working in West Virginia and Illinois, he settled
in Marietta, Ohio, where he established the Producers’ Supply and Tool Company
and became a pillar of the community serving as Secretary of B’Nai Israel,
President of the Local Jewish War Suffers’ Society, Director of the Hebrew
Immigration Society and a generous supporter of the Red Cross.
1882(22nd
of Shevat, 5642): Parashat Yitro
1882:
Birthdate of Cincinnati, OH, native Carl J. Fechheimer, the Purdue trained
engineer who settled in Milwaukee the husband of Carla Wilhemine Rich
Fechheimer who left “a $150,000 bequest…to establish a chair in electrical
engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.”
1883:
In Russia, Reichel Levine and Max Jellin gave birth New Jersey State Highway
Commissioner Abraham Jellin, the husband of Bessie Ida Slonimsky Jellin and
father of Jerome Kalman Jellin who in 1889 came to the United States with his
parents where he was “a road and bridge contractor” before serving as Street
Commissioner and Tax Assessor in New Brunswick, NJ.
Abraham
Jelin, b.1883 d.1946 - Ancestry®
1884(15th
of Shevat, 5644): Tu B’Shevat
1884:
Today, twenty-three-year-old Bayonne, NJ resident Jacob Herman, the Rumanian
born son of Joseph Hirsch Feige Herman who became a successful manufacturer of
cloth caps and hats and trustee of Temple Emanu-El, the Roumanian Congregation
of New York and the Talmud Torah of Bayonne married Rebecca Leah Vickron with
whom had three sons and seven daughters.
1885:
In Birmingham, England, Polish born English financer Isaac Abrahams and “his
Welsh Jewish wife, Esther Isaacs gave birth Olympic competitor Sir Sidney
“Solly” Solomon Abrahams, who served as the 26th Chief Justice of
Ceylon and who was the brother of Harold Abrahams of “Chariots of Fire” fame.
1886:
A charity ball sponsored by the Purim Association will be held this evening at
the Metropolitan Opera House.
1888(29th
of Shevat, 5648): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim
1888:
Birthdate of Kiev native Gdal Salesski the cellist and composer who settled in
the United States after World War I after which he was chosen to be “a member
of the original N.B.C. Symphony Orchestra.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9E0DEFDC133DE23BA1575AC0A9669D946791D6CF
1888:
In London, Rachel Sophia Waley and David Frederick Schloss gave birth to
Frederick David Schloss who died when he was four months old.
1889(10th
of Adar I, 5649): Simon Mussina, merchant, newspaper editor, and attorney
passed away. [This lengthy entry is intended to provide a sense of what
American Jewish life was like for those who lived outside of a few major
metropolitan areas.] Born in 1805, to Zachariah and Nancy Mussina in
Philadelphia, PA, Simon learned the mercantile business from his father. In
1821 Simon and his father took a business trip to Mobile and Clark County,
Alabama, where Zachariah drowned while crossing a swollen creek. The family
fortune of gold disappeared in the drowning, and Simon was left to support his
mother and several younger brothers and sisters. He set up a mercantile store
in Clark County, then moved to Mobile, where he developed one of the largest
mercantile businesses in the South. Before 1836 a fire burned his savings, and
that year he moved to Matagorda, Texas, with his family. He bought the
Matagorda Bulletin and edited it until 1840, when he moved to Galveston, where
he edited the National Banner to advertise his vast holdings of West Texas
lands. When Austin became the state capital, Simon sold the Banner and returned
to Matagorda to assume editorship of the Bulletin. He subsequently moved to
Galveston, where he established a large drugstore. When the Mexican War started
he went to Matamoros, bought land at Point Isabel on the Rio Grande, acquired
controlling interest in a Matamoros newspaper, the American Flag, and developed
it into one of the most popular newspapers of the time. At the end of the war,
he served as one of the surveyors who laid out the town of Brownsville. Mussina
became a close friend of Sam Houston, who encouraged him to become the chief
plaintiff against Judge John C. Watrous, charged with corrupt decisions on land
claims in and about Brownsville. The litigation lasted most of Mussina's life.
In 1868 he moved to Austin and began proceedings for the La Vega land grant, an
eleven-league grant that embraced a part of eastern Waco. This case, too,
stayed in litigation. In his sixties Mussina became a member of the State Bar
of Texas and established himself as one of the most astute land attorneys in
the state. From 1870 to 1873 he served as president of the board of trustees
for the state blind and insane asylums and in 1871 he served as alderman for
the city of Austin. Mussina never married, but he reared his father's family.”
His sister, who had married a Presbyterian minister of Galveston, buried him
from that church in Galveston.
1890:
Isaac Jacobs was fired from his job as a janitor at Etz Chaim (The Tree of
Life), a Hebrew School of which Isaac LIbermann and Hermann Rothstein are the
trustees.
1890:
A meeting took place at Temple Beth El this evening during which the young
people discussed ways of helping the city’s poor Jews many of whom “live on the
east side between 42nd and 86th streets from 5th
Avenue to the River.”
1890:
Among the recipients of the theatrical license fund which was distributed today
was the United Hebrew Charities which received $1,500 out of total of $38,200.
1890(21st
of Shevat, 5650): Solomon Eppinger passed away today.
1890:
Henry Zirndorf retired from the Hebrew Union College and “was given he honorary
title of D.D.”
1890:
This and final day of the annular meeting of Grand Lodge, No.1 of the
Independent Order of Free Sons Israel. The Jewish fraternal order’s newly
elected officers are: Grand Mater – Louis B. Franklin; First Deputy Grand Master
– Joseph Steiner; Grand Treasurer – Raphael Lehman; Grand Secretary – H.I.
Goldsmith.
1890:
In Vienna, Leopold and Emilie Kaluber Werner gave birth to Heinz Werner, the
engineering student, turned composer, turned psychologist who, after being forced
to leave his position at the University of Hamburg by the Nazis, came to the
United states where he taught at Brooklyn College and Clark University,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27849450\
1891:
In New York City, the daughter of Isaac Kleinert, the founder of the I.B.
Kleinert Rubber Company gave birth to Ralph Kleinert Guinzberg the husband of
“the former Edna Stern” with whom he had two daughters - Jeannette and Marjorie
– and president of the I.B. Kleinert Rubber Company who was a secretary of the
National Jewish Welfare Board, President of the Jewish Family Service and
Trustee of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/01/17/issue.html
1891:
Two days after he had passed away, 80-year-old Adolphus Italiener, the husband
of the former Anna Catherina Embden and father of Frances Emily Italiener was
buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1892:
In New York, the authorities expressed their concern today “over the worst
outbreak of typhus…that has occurred since the organization of the Health
Department.” The outbreak was most severe among recently arrived Jewish
immigrants from Russia.
1893(25th
of Shevat, 5653): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalom
1893:
In his lecture on the history of Morocco and Gibraltar delivered today,
Professor Albert S. Bickmore reported that the population of Tangier totaled
about 15,000 people of whom 4,000 were Jews.
1894(5th
of Adar I, 5654): Eight-one year old Zipporah Phillips, the Philadelphia born
daughter of Abigail Seixas and Benjamin Jonas Phillips, passed away today in
Brooklyn, NY having never married.
1894:
Birthdate of Isaac M Kolthoff, the Dutch born chemist who was considered by
some to be the “Father of Analytical Chemistry” and who passed away in
Minnesota in 1993 a month after his 99th birthday.
1894:
In Russia, Judel Harkavy gave birth Fordham University trained attorney Julian
Harkevy who in 1913 came to the United States where he practiced law and
married Fannie Gottlieb with whom he had two children – Judith and Louise.
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/12/05/archives/henry-j-harkavy.html
1894:
It was reported today that the fifth and final volume or Ernest Renan’s History
of the Jews “has had a unique reception in Paris. “In an interview,
Pere Henri Didon speaks tenderly of Renan, and almost approvingly of this
closing work” which was published posthumously.
1894:
“Diminutive Bride and Groom” published today described the nuptials of Maurice
Bear and Bertha Levy, a leading member of the Birmingham, Alabama, Jewish
community, both of whom are no more than four feet tall.
1894:
Rabbi Joseph Silverman delivered a talk on “The Mistakes of Ingersoll About
Moses” at Temple Emanu-El.
1895(17th
of Shevat, 5655): Mrs. Hannah Steinberger, the wife of William Steinberger who
teaches Hebrew and German, was found dead “in the miserable quarters” she
occupied with her three children in a tenement on the Lower East Side.
1898:
Birthdate of Physicist Leo Szilard. Born in Hungary, Szilard was a
refugee from Hitler’s Europe who first sounded the alarm about the need to
build an Atomic Bomb. He worked with Einstein on the letter that Einstein
would take to FDR in 1939. This effort led to the Manhattan Project.
1898:
During the trial of Emile Zola, Lt. Col George Picquart “described his mission
to Tunis” which he made under the orders of General Leclerc “when the Dreyfus
began afresh.
1899:
In Richmond, VA, the Ladies’ Hebrew Benevolent Association which had been
founded in 1862 and whose members included Mrs. Milton E. Marcuse, Mrs. William
Reinheimer and Mrs. Moses May was “chartered” today.
1899:
Birthdate of Jeanne Adele Levylier, Parisian daughter of “an active” Jewish
family and mistress of her distant cousin Leon Blum and who became Jeanne Blum
when she married the French political leader while they were both imprisoned in
Buchewald.
1900:
The Thirty-Fourth Annual Convention of District Grand Lodge No. 1 of the
Independent Order of the Free Sons of Israel took place today in New York City.
1900:
Four days after he had passed away, James Joseph Schloss, the son of Adel and
Joseph Schloss, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1901:
In Philadelphia, Peter and Rose Pressman gave birth to University of Virginia
graduate and Harvard trained physician Joel Pressman, co-chief of head and neck
surgery at the City of Hope Medical Center in Los Angeles, an authority on the
larynx and husband of actress Claudette
Colbert who “served as a naval flight surgeon aboard carriers with the rank of
commander.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/02/27/issue.html?pdf_redirect=true
1901:
It was reported today that the “world famous pacer Robert J, driven by his
owner Nathan Straus” lost his latest with Edward M.
1902:
Birthdate of Arne Jacobsen, Danish architect and designer.
1903:
In a letter to the Grand Vizir, Herzl summarizes his proposal – the Ottomans
will allow Jewish colonization in Palestine in exchange for a loan of 2 million
Turkish pounds.
1903: The
Zionist Commission led by Leopold Kessler and including Selig Soskin, Dr.
Hillel Yaffe, and Colonel Albert Goldsmid began its tour of the area around El
Arish.
1904:
Birthdate of Koppel Shub Pinson the native of Postaway who came to the United
States in 1907 who in 1945 “was appointed Director of Education and Culture for
Jewish Displaced Persons in Germany and Austria by the Joint Distribution
Committee” which enabled him to continue his work of providing aide for
Holocaust survivors.
1904:
One day after she had passed away, 55-year-old Rachel (Meyer) Davis, the wife
of Woolf Davis and the mother of Abraham, Esther, Nancy and Lazarus Davis was
buried today at the “Plashed Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1904:
Florence Lowenstein, the daughter of Sophia Mendelsohn Lowenstein and Benedict
Lowenstein and Louis Marshall gave birth to economist George Marshall whose
interest in conservation led him to be an early leader of both The Wilderness
Society and the Sierra Club. His role in the civil rights movement led to him
serving three months in prison after having been cited for Contempt for
Congress when being investigated by the infamous and inappropriately named
House Committee on Un-American Activities.
1905:
Jewish actress Katharina Hedwig Pringsheim married author Thomas Mann today.
1905:
Pope Pius X publishes the encyclical Vehementer nos. Vehementer
Nos was a papal encyclical by the French law of 1905 providing for the
separation of church and state, it denounced the proposition that the state
should be separated from the church as "a thesis absolutely false, a most
pernicious error". It is safe to assume that what Pius really meant was
that there could be no separation of state from the Catholic Church since he
only recognized the validity of the Catholic Church. His view towards Jews can
be seen in his response to Herzl’s 1904 request for Papal support for a Jewish
homeland in Palestine Pius X responded: We are unable to favor this movement ….
The Jews have not recognized our Lord; therefore, we cannot recognize the
Jewish people.”
1906:
“Israel’s Lost Tribes Again Found” published today examined the question of
whether or not “the Japanese the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel.”
1906:
It was reported today that Jewish refugees were among the 7,000 men being
employed to shovel snow today in New York City following yesterday’s storm.
1906:
Thirty-year old N.Y. Law School graduate Isidor Wasservogel, the Budapest born
son of Max and Katherine (Hoffman) Wasservogel while serving as the acting
district attorney married Dorothy Maas today in New York City.
1907:
One day after he had passed away, 7-year-old Myer Doff, the son of Abraham Doff
and Leah Goldstein was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1907:
Birthdate of Fred Saidy the Los Angeles born scriptwriter and father of “chess
master Anthony Saidy.”
1907:
The Federation of American Zionists is scheduled to host a banquet this evening
at the Vienna Hall in honor of Dr. Shmaryahu Lewin.
1908:
“Blue Laws Stop Wedding” published today described how “a squad of police
raided the Sharry Shomayim Synagogue” where Rabbi Levine was about to officiate
at a wedding ceremony and stopped the proceedings because it was Sunday, and
under “Lord’s Day Act,” no work was to be done on a Sunday and then took down
the names of those at the wedding so the Attorney General can prosecute them
for violating the law.
1908:
Emil Worms, the German born son of Babbete and Gabriel Worms and his wife Clara
Worms gave birth to David Ricardo Worms, the husband of Elsa Worms.
1909: In
Wilkes-Barre, PA, Franz Mankiewicz and Johanna Blumeau gave birth to Oscar
winning director and screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the brother of
screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz and the uncle of Kenney campaign manager
Frank Mankiewicz.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-joseph-mankiewicz-1471740.html
1909:
Birthdate of Leslie Lazarus Paisner the London born solicitor who founded
Paisner & Co a forerunner of the international law firm Berwin Leighton
Paisner and whose Jewish communal activities included serving “on the Board of
Governors of the Central Synagogue and a member of the Coucnil of the United
Synagogue.”
1909:
Birthdate of Max Baer, the heavyweight fighter who knocked out Max Schmeling,
the German champion and symbol of Hitler's Germany, in 1933. Baer had a
Mogen David sown on his shorts. However, he may really not have been
Jewish. According to some, his mother was a Christian and his father was
only "a nominal Jew." For more on the subject of Max Baer,
and Jews in sports, you might want to read Ellis Island to Ebbets Field.
1910:
The Turkish Council of State approves statutes, which will allow a Jewish bank
to be opened in Salonica.
1910
(2nd of Adar I, 5670): Moshe Leib Lilienblum, Russian born scholar, teacher and
philosopher passed away. Following the pogroms that began in 1881, Lilienblum
took the unusual stance, for an Orthodox rabbi, of supporting the settlement of
Palestine by the Jewish people as the only realistic course of action if Jews
were ever to be safe. This is yet another example of Zionism that
pre-dated Herzl.
1911(13th
of Shevat, 5671): Baron Albert von Rothschild of the Austrian branch of the
House of Rothschild passed away at age 66.
1912(23rd
of Shevat, 5672): Fifty-six-year-old Washington Seligman, the “son of James
Seligman who founded the banking firm of JW Seligman and; Co and brother of
Mrs. Benjamin Guggenheim and Jefferson and De Witt Seligman” took his own life
today. He left a note saying “I am tired of being sick all my life” – a
reference to the illnesses that he has confronted over the last quarter of a
century.
1912:
Two days after he had passed away funeral services are scheduled to be held
today in New York for “impresario” Theodore David “Ted” Marks, the grandson of
New Orleans merchant and philanthropist Isadore Newman after which his body
will be taken to his native Louisiana for burial.
1913:
“For Equal Rights for Jews” published today described the passage in Albany,
NY, of the “concurrent resolution…expressing sympathy to the oppressed Jews of
Rumania and call on the Federal Government to use its power to end that the
Treaty of Berlin, assuring the equal rights of Jews, be lived up to by
Romania.”
1914(15th
of Shevat, 5674): Tu B’Shevat celebrated for the last time before the start of
World War I which opened a four decades of world-wide cataclysm
1914:
Menucha and R’Shneur Zalman gave birth to Rabbi Yisroel Shimon Kalmanson.
http://crownheights.info/something-jewish/41854/remembering-rabbi-yisroel-shimon-kalmanson-98/
1914:
Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel completed his first term as
Post-Master General in the cabinet of Prime Minister Asquith.
1914: Twenty-three-year-old
Barney Sedran led the Utica Indians in the championship game of the New York
State (basketball) League.
1914:
In Swansea, Louis Levy and Have Levy (née Rubenstein) gave birth to writer,
critic and art teacher Mervyn Levy.
http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s10-LEVY-MON-1914.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-mervyn-levy-1347766.html
1915:
In New York, Edward Cahn and Martha Esther Cahn, the daughter of Rachel and
Moses Isaac Binion, gave birth to Joshua Binion Cahn
1915:
As of today, the American Jewish Relief Committee has collected $468,792.05
1915:
“The prediction that the present war will do away with anti-Semitism altogether
in Germany and the assurance that by ‘lessening the power of the nobility and
democratizing the people’ it already has removed most of the anti-Semitic
prejudices are expressed in a statement given by the German Ambassador, Count
von Bernstorff, to Dr. S. Melamed of the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung published in
that paper” today.
1915:
The Red Cross Fund of which Jacob H. Schiff is the treasurer received an
additional $162.50 today bringing the total collections to $457,583.86.
1915:
“The Jews in Serbia” published today contains the assessment by Mabel Grouitch,
the American born wife of Serbian diplomat Dr. Slavo Grouitch of the Jewish
condition in Serbia which she says “is the one country in the world next to
England and America where people of the Hebrew race enjoy the fullest of
religious and civil rights.
1916:
Emma Goldman was arrested for lecturing on birth control.
1916:
Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel completed his second term as
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. His replacement would be Edwin
Samuel Montagu, another prominent member of the Anglo-Jewish community.
1916:
In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bernard Wetzler set aside “fifty thousand
crowns ($10,000) to erect an institute for the study of the technical aspects
of problems related to food based on scientific discoveries in chemistry,
biology and physiology.”
1917:
At the Halkett Hotel in Jersey (UK) W.A.R. Hill and Catherine Jacobs gave birth
to their daughter Elizabeth Annette.
1917: Four
hundred and fifty-three delegates attended The Workman’s Convention on Jewish
rights meeting at the Forwards Building voted 141 to 127 in favor of a
resolution reaffirming their loyalty to the United States but expressing
opposition to the United States “becoming involved in the European War.”
1917:
Today, Chaim Weizman was elected president of the English Zionist Federation
(EZF) and Joseph Cowen and Leopold Kessler began serving on the executive
committee.
1917:
In Chicago, Natalie Marcus and Ascher “Otto” Schechtel, a jewelry store manager
gave birth to Sidney Schechtel who gained fame as author Sidney Shelton wjp won
an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in1947 for writing The
Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, a Tony Award in1959 for his musical Redhead,
and was nominated for an Emmy Award for his work on I Dream of Jeannie,
an NBC sitcom. He passed away in 2007 at the age of 89.
1917:
At the Halkett Hotel, Jersey, Catherine Jacobs and W.A.R. Hill gave birth to
their daughter Elizabeth Annette.
1918:
Ronald Storrs, the British governor of Jerusalem, approved a plan put forth by
British army engineers designed to alleviate the water shortage in Jerusalem.
1918:
Abraham “Shiplacoff and his 9 socialist colleagues in the New York State
Assembl refused to support a resolution of admiration for Abraham Lincoln
because it included language expressing gratitude for American soldiers
fighting in France.
1918:
The Joint Distribution Committee of the American Funds for Jewish War Sufferers
met today in the home of its chairman Felix M. Warburg where Dr. Boris D. Bogen
and Max Senior, the committee’s representatives who had just returned from a
mission to Europe told the committee members “of the arrangements which have
been made for the distribution of funds raised in the United for the relief” of
Jews in Europe – a task that has been complicated by the fact the United States
has gone from the status of neutral to a belligerent on the side of the Allies.
1918: Jan Kucharzewski who said, “he is not an anti-Semite” and
“that by mutual understanding Jews in Poland will receive equal rights” which
includes the Home Secretary according the same rights and privileges to the
Jewish as to the Polish press completed his term as Polish Prime Minister.
1918:
It was reported today that “the Maskel-el-Dol” a relief society on the east
side of New York City, “intends to distribute about 75,000 pounds of the mutton
to the poor” prior to Passover “including shipments which the society will make
to various” camps where Jewish soldiers are stationed.
1919:
Clarence Eiseman of Washington, DC, married Jennie Ruth Rice, the daughter of
Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Rice of Chicago, Illinois.
1919:
Frank Meyer, the husband of the late Helen Meyer, and father of Mrs. Ruth K.
Marks and Will, Flora, Sam and Frank Meyer is scheduled to be laid to rest this
morning at Shomar Hadash Cemetery.
1920:
Birthdate of King Farouk I, the last king of Egypt, who led Egypt into its
ill-fated war with Israel in 1948. There are those who say that if Egypt
had refused to join the other Arab states, there would never have been a war in
1948. When Farouk was ousted in 1952, the Israelis thought the new reform
government would want to end hostilities. Unfortunately, the leader of
the “Colonel’s Revolt,” Nasser, made destroying Israel the rallying cry for his
Pan-Arab Movement.
1921:
On Friday evening. Congregation Shaaray Tefila is scheduled to begin a
celebration of the 75th anniversary of its incorporation.
1922(13th
of Shevat, 5682): Parashat Beshalach
1922:
Lous Marshall, a member of the Executive Committee of the Joint Distribution
Committee has accused Dr. David Dubrowsky who has general direction of a number
of Russian relief organizations sending supplies to the Soviet Union of placing
“serious obstacles in the way of an effective collection and distribution of
relief by the JDC” which represents the American Jewish Relief Committee, the
Central Relief Committee and the People’s Relief Committee.
1922:
The Cunarder Carimina set sail this evening for Egypt and Palestine.
1923:
In New Orleans, LA, Balance Sternberger Benjamin and Edward Bernard Benjamin
gave birth to Yale graduate and WW II Army Air Corps veteran Edward Bernard
Benjamin, Jr. the Editor-in-Chief of the Tulane Law Review and member of Coif
who was the husband of “the former Adelaide Wisdom” and “a well-known author
and lecturer in the Tax and Estate Planning fields.”
1923:
In the Bronx, Robert Kattleson, an electrician and the former Bertha Garfunkle,
the owner of a corset shop, gave birth to street photographer and Photo League
member Seymour Kattleston. (As reported by Daniel Slotnik)
1924:
It was reported today that according to Julius J. Dukas, the President of the
Hebrew Free Loan Society “out of
the $15,000,000 lent in small sums to half a million persons by the Hebrew Free
Loan Society in a period of years, the losses have never exceeded one-fifth of
1 per cent.”
1924(6th of Adar I, 5684): Sixty-four-year-old
German born American biologist Jacques Loeb who “was educated at the
Universities of Berlin, Munich and Strasburg passed away today in Bermuda.
http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/loeb-jacques.pdf
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacques-Loeb
1924: In New York City, NYU trained attorney
Ullman Ziknke and Republican party leader, the son of Della and Isaac Zinke
married Goldine Kalusner today.
1925:
University of Pennsylvania trained physician Myer Solis-Cohen the Philadelphia
born son Jacob da Silva and Miriam (Binswanger) Solis-Cohen and a Major in the
Medical Reserve Corps of the United States Army who served in France, a
professor at the University of Pennsylvania Medical College and the Woman’s
College of Pennsylvania, an author of more than sixty medical journals who was
a member of Mikve Israel and Temple Beth-El in Philadelphia married Lotta
Teschner today.
1925:
The White Star Liner Olympic with Chiam Weizmann and Bernard Rosenblatt on
board, arrived today from Southampton and Cherbourg twenty-four hours late
because of the fog off the American coast.
1926:
Today, during the furriers’ strike led by Ben Gold, “the employers instituted a
lockout of 8,500 workers.
1926:
It was reported today that nearly a thousand people had been turned away from a
speech given by Chairm Nachman Bialik, because all four thousand seats at the
Mecca Temple had been sold at event designed to raise funds for the United
Palestine Appeal.
1927(10th
of Adar): Fifty-eight-year-old Composer Joel Engel passed away. Born at
Berdyansk in 1868 he moved from Berlin to Palestine where he became “"the
true founding father of the modern renascence of Jewish music."
http://yiddishsong.wordpress.com/tag/joel-engel/
1928:
The II Olympic Winter Games where skater Irving Jaffee “had the best time in
the Olympic 10,000 before the ice softened” opened today at St. Mortiz.
1929:
Dedication of the Nathan and Lina Straus Health and Welfare Center in Jerusalem.
1929:
The 31st biennial council of the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations is scheduled to open today in San Francisco.
1929:
“Pope Pius XI signs a Concordat and Lateran Treaty with fascist Italian leader
Benito Mussolini. The pope agrees to discriminate against Jews and Protestants
while gaining the assurance that Catholicism would remain the sole and official
religion of Italy.” (Pious was, if anything, not consistent in this
matter. Later he would condemn fascism and racism and support efforts to
rescue Jews.)
1929:
Sixty-six-year-old Frank Putnam Flint, the California Senator who has
represented “a committee which petitioned for the commutation of Leo M. Frank’s
death sentence” passed away today.
1929:
Attorney and collector of Lincolniana Emanuel Hertz said today that “the last
thing Abraham wrote before his assassination was a pardon for a prisoner
1930:
“Opposition to any cooperation between rabbis and butchers to maintain kosher
laws was expressed” today “in a resolution adopted at the second day’s session
of the fifteenth annual convention of the Assembly of Hebrew Orthodox Rabbis of
American and Canada meeting…in Brooklyn.
1931:
The “first legally constituted Jewish National Assembly” continued to meet for
a second day at the Nathan Straus Health Centre in Jerusalem.
1932:
Birthdate of pianist Jerome Lowenthal.
1933(15th
of Shevat, 5693): Parashat Beshalach; Tu B’Shevat
1933(15th
of Shevat, 5693): Conductor and composer
Gabriel Hines, the 1914 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and “musical
director at Swarthmore College” passed away today in Philadelphia.
https://archives.upenn.edu/collections/finding-aid/upt50h663#biographical-note
1933:
The national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP) together with the Stahlhelm and the Agricultural League
today once again formed a united Kampffront Schwarz-Weiß-Rot ("Struggle
Front Black-White-Red" named after the colours of the German Empire) in an
attempt to counter the Nazis which had outsmarted them during their march to
power.
1934: “Following four hours of heated debate, the
national executive committee of the ZOA voted at a meeting” today “to shelve
the proposal to convene a World Jewish Congress in the spring of this year.
1934: Today, Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels
“declared that the elimination of Jews from the production of films was
essential in order to clear the way for talented young Germans.” (JTA)
1935(8th
of Adar I, 5695): Fifty-five-year-old Grodno born University of Pittsburgh
trained attorney Abraham Stein Cass, the three term Republican congressman from
Pennsylvania and wine merchant passed away today in San Francisco.
1935:
Birthdate of Emanuel Zisman the native of Bulgaria who made Aliyah in 1949 and
returned to his native land as Israel’s Ambassador to Bulgaria in 2000.
1936:
Eighty-four year old William “Coin” Harvey author of the novel A Tale of Two
Nations, “the most notable example of Populist anti-Semitism” passed away
today.
1936:
In Washington, DC, Aaron Jacobson and Victoria Peyser gave birth to William
Peyser “Bill” Jacobson t1882he husband of Barbara Johnson and the father of
Michael Peyser Jacobson and Stacy Ann Jacobson.
1936:
Richard Tucker married Sarah Perelmuth, the only daughter of Levi and Perelmuth
who were also the parents of Yakob Perelemtuh who would gain fame as Jan
Peerce.
1936:
“According to well-informed” sources at least 150 Catholics “including priests
and layman” were arrested today by the secret police in “long-simmering
conflict between the National Socialist State and the Catholic Church” over who
will have control over nation’s youth and young people.
1936:
Today, “at noon, Adolf Hitler assembled 25,000 of his oldest stormtrooper
comrades in the Lustgarten in Berlin” as part of national celebration marking
“the third anniversary of National Socialism’s accession to power in 1933.”
1936:
“Charles David Isaacson, the writer on music, director of thousands of free
concerts in the metropolitan area and former opera impresario and radio
director” who has been ill for several weeks “as a result of complications
arising from an affection was transferred from Park West Hospital” to Bellevue
thanks to the intervention of Mayor La Guardia – an intervention would not save
his life since he passed away four days later.
1937:
“Anti-Semitic rioting broke out anew in Warsaw and Vilna Universities today,
causing numerous casualties among Jewish students.”
1937:
A month before his 18th birthday, Bernard Abramofsky, a resident of
Brooklyn who wanted to go to Spain to fight with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade,
received his passport today.
1937:
George Gershwin performed his Piano Concerto in F in a special concert of his
music with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the direction of French
maestro Pierre Monteux” during which he “suffered coordination problems and
blackouts during the performance” which were symptomatic of the brain tumor
that would claim his life a few months later in June of 1937.
1938:
As the German government “denied…that there had been disorders or disturbances
of a civilian or military nature in Germany,” Dr. Joseph Goebbels had a meeting
of foreign journalist at the Propaganda Ministry where he described these
reports as “a grotesque atrocity campaign organized by Jewish circles in
Poland.”
1938:
“Rumania’s new dictatorship” led by Patriarch Miron Cristea, the Premier who is
anti-Semitic “lost no time in getting into its stride with measures of
absolutism.”
1938:
In Danzig, “the police confiscated copies of fourteen newspapers” including
“four Polish-Jewish newspapers” “for spreading the most nonsensical reports
about Germany.”
1938: The
Palestine Post reported that an agreement was signed in Geneva providing
for the status of German refugees who were to be furnished with travel
documents, resembling Nansen passports, allowing them to work in the countries
where they had been living for more than five years.
1938: The
Palestine Post published a special Reporter's Report, a reproduction of a
broadcast made on the Palestine Radio by Gershon Agron, the founder and editor
of this newspaper, on the tragic situation of Jews in Romania where an
authoritarian, anti-Semitic regime was deeply entrenched and had the solid
backing of the king.
1939:
Birthdate of Gerald “Gerry” Goffin the American lyricist and husband of Carole
King.
1939:
Physicist Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Fritisch published a paper on
nuclear fission in the hour “Nature.” Her work contributed to the
development of the atomic bomb. Meitner was the daughter of a Viennese Jewish
family.
1940:
Among those attending the American Jewish Congress Conference which is
scheduled to begin today is Rabbi M.L. Perlzweig, “the head of the North
Western London Reform Synagogue.
1940:
Norma Shapiro, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Shapiro of the Bronx married
Dr. Samuel Slovak today.
1940:
Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Schoenfeld of New York City announced the marriage of their
daughter Lillian “to Dr. Aron Horn, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Gustav Horn of Tel
Aviv.
1940:
Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Religion of
Abraham Lincoln” at Temple Emanu-El
1940:
James Waterman Wise, a research consultant of the Council Against Intolerance
in America is scheduled to deliver an address at the Free Synagogue worshipping
at Carnegie Hall on “Coughlin or Lincoln – America Must Choose.”
1941:
Birthdate of Avraham Hirchson, an Israeli politician who served as a member of
the Knesset for Likud and Kadima between 1981 and 1984, and again from 1992
until 2009. “He also held the posts of Minister of Communications, Minister of
Finance and Minister of Tourism. He resigned following allegations of
corruption and was ultimately convicted of stealing close to 2 million shekels
from the National Workers Labor Federation while he was its chairman.”
1941:
A pitched-street battle took placed between the NSB, a pro-Nazi Dutch movement
and Jewish self-defense groups on the Waterloopein, a square in the center of
Amsterdam.
1942
(24th of Shevat, 5702): Flight Lieutenant Michael Weizmann of the Royal Air
Force Volunteer Reserve, the 25-year-old son of Chaim Weizmann, was shot down
over the Bay of Biscay. His body was never found.
1943(6th
of Adar I, 5703): Sixty-seven-year-old Bess Houdini, the widow of Harry Houdini
suffered a heart attack and passed away today in Needles, CA while aboard an
eastbound train traveling from Los Angeles to New York City.
1943:
The Nazis deported 123 children under the age of twelve without their parents
from Paris to the chambers of Birkenau.
1944: Seventy-five-year-old
Durch graphic artist Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita and his arrived at Auschwitz
today after which they were sent to the gas chambers.
1944(17th
of Shevat, 5704): Thirty-eight-year-old German national Leo Speyer, the son of
Flora and Isaac Alfred Speier, the husband of Elize Nanette “Nanny” Speyer and
the father of Isaac Alfred Speyer was murdered at Auschwitz today.
1944:
“The Bridge of San Luis Rey” the movie version of the novel by the same name
featuring an Academy Award Nominated original score by Dimitri Tiomkin was
released in the United States today.
1945:
A funeral service is scheduled to be held this evening for 98-year old Daniel
Harris who served in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War and is “said to have
been the lost survivor of the 8,000 Jewish ldiers who fought on the Union Side”
in his home in Brooklyn.
1945:
Edmund I. Kaufman, the president of the American Committee for the Weizmann
Scientific Institute announced that five hundred thousand dollars has been
donated toward the establishment of the institute in Palestine, which will help
meet the goal of raising two million dollars.
1946:
Dr. Jonas S.Friedenwald, who has just returned from Palestine, today told “the
Medical Reference Board physician’s advisory group for the American Friends of
the Hebrew University and Hadassah” that the proposed medical school to be
built on Mt. Scopus “will provide integrated work in preventative medicine and
public health” and that it will fill the void of there not being a “first class
medical education center in Europe east of London.”
1947:
Following the insistence of The American League for a Free Palestine, today
“for the first time in the history of the State of Maryland negroes were
permitted to attend the legitimate theatre without discrimination…when the
Maryland Theatre sold orchestra and box seats to ‘A Flag is Born’ to anyone who
asked for them without reference to race or color.”
1947:
Birthdate of Derek Victor Shulman, the native of Glasgow, the lead vocalist for
the band Gentile Giant which included his brothers Phil and Ray, who became a Scottish musician and singer, multi-instrumentalist,
and record executive.
1947: Birthdate of Toronto native Abigail Hoffman, the
medal winning track and field star who was Canada's flag-bearer at the 1976
Olympic Games in Montreal
1948:
Birthdate of Dr. Arthur Gould Schatzkin, “an epidemiologist whose
investigations into the connections between diet and cancer yielded new
analytic tools and led to the discovery that eating fiber did not prevent the
recurrence of polyps in the colon.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)
1948(1st
of Adar I, 5708): Fifty-year-old Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein whose
family had joined the Russian Orthodox Church passed away.
https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/where-begin-sergei-eisenstein
1948:
In Los Angeles, actress and television director Ruth (Brandman) Barnard and
photographer Bruno Bernard, a refugee from Hitler’s German gave birth to Susan
Lynn Bernard who gained fame as cult-favorite actress, model and promoter of
her father’s photographic collection. (As reported by Katherine Q. Seeley)
1948(1st
of Adar I, 5708): Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs GCB GCMG QC passed away, Born in
1855, the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland, he was an “Australian judge and
politician, the third Chief Justice of Australia, ninth Governor-General of
Australia and the first born in Australia to occupy that post. He is the only
person ever to have held both positions of Chief Justice of Australia and
Governor-General of Australia. He also was an anti-Zionist.
1948:
Oral arguments in the case of U.S. v Paramount Pictures, Inc, which had begun
on February 9 came to a close.
1949(12th
of Shevat, 5709): Eighty-seven-year-old Malinda Hirsh, the Alabama born
daughter of Morris and Hannah Weiss, the wife of Benjamin Walter Hirsh and the
mother of Bessie, Benjamin and Morris Hirsh passed away in Memphis, TN.
1950(24th
of Shevat, 5710): Parashat Yitro
1950:
After more than a month, “I Can Dream, Can’t I?” written by Sammy Fain and with
lyrics by Irving Kahal was still the number one song on the Cash Box Best
Sellers List.
1952(15th
of Shevat, 5712): Tu B’Shevat is observed for the last time under the
Presidency of Harry S. Truman.
1953: The
Jerusalem Post reported that 19 persons were detained in Tel Aviv in an
intense hunt for culprits responsible for the bombing of the Soviet Legation.
1953:
The Soviet Union broke diplomatic relations with Israel. The Soviet Union
competed with the United States to be the first to recognize the fledgling
state of Israel in 1948. Stalin hoped the new Jewish state would help to
undermine the power of the British Empire in particular and Western democracy
in general. Also, there were some in the Soviet Union who thought that
Israel's socialists would lead the new nation into the Eastern Bloc.
Since nobody really can say with total certainty what propelled Stalin and his
associates behavior, we can only assume that the decision to break relations in
1953 was a combination of the anti-Semitism which was running rampant in the
Soviet Union and/or the realization that the Arabs and not the Israelis would
be a better foil to foster Soviet imperialism in the Middle East.
1953:
President Eisenhower refused clemency appeal for convicted spies, Ethel and
Julius Rosenberg
1954:
Simon Attali, is a self-educated person who achieved success in perfumery in
Algiers and his wife Fernande Abécassis gave birth to Jacques Attali’s sister,
Fabienne
1955(19th
of Shevat 5715): Fifty-two-year-old “Mrs. Miriam Landey Linenthal who, with her
husband Harry Linenthal, had operated a designing and dressmaking establishment
at 22 East 65th Street” passed away today.
1958:
Seventy-year-old Alfred Ernest Jones a British neurologist who was the first
the first English-speaking practitioner of psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud’s
biographer passed away. In 1919 he found marital bliss when he wed Katherine
Jokl “a Jewish economics graduate from Moravia” who had been a classmate of
Freud’s daughters.
1958(21st
of Shevat, 5718): Terrorists killed a resident of moshav Yanov who was on his
way to Kfar Yona, in the Sharon area.
1959:
“The Hanging Tree,” a “dark” Western with a title song by Jerry Livingston and
music by Max Steiner was released today in the United States.
1959:
Three days after he had passed away, funeral services are schedule to be held
for sixty-year-old Pulitzer Prize winning “New York Timesman” Meyer Berger, the
husband of “Mrs. Mae Gamsu Berger.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/02/09/80760429.pdf
1960:
“Once More, with Feeling!” a comedy directed and produced by Stanley Donen,
written by Harvey Kurnitz and co-starring Gregory Ratoff was released today in
the United Kingdom.
1960(13th
of Shevat, 5720): Victor Klemperer passed away. Born in 1881, he “was a
businessman, journalist and eventually a Professor of Literature, specializing
in the French Enlightenment at the Technische Universität Dresden. His diaries
detailing his life, successively, in the German Empire, the Weimar Republic,
Nazi Germany and in the German Democratic Republic were published in 1995.”
1961:
The trial of Adolf Eichmann began in Jerusalem.
1962:
In Madison, WI, the former Pamela Green and Joseph Edward Baldwin gave birth
Senator Tammy Suzanne Green Baldwin whose maternal grandfather was Jewish
biochemist David E. Green.
1963:
“Hot Spot,” a Stephen Sondheim musical began tryouts today at the National
Theatre in Washington, DC.
1963(17th
of Shevat, 5723): Sixty-nine-year-old Charles Leon Strauss, the St. Louis born
son of Flora Isaacs Strauss and “major portrait photographer Julius Caesar
Strauss” passed away today in Houston, TX.
1963:
Sixty-Six year old Chelm born Eliezer Bloom, the Yiddish poet B. Alquit who in
1914 came to the United States where he served a member of the editorial staff
of the Jewish Morning Journal and published his works in many “Yiddish
periodicals including Die Zukunft and Freie Arbeiter Shtimme while being
married to Etta Blumpassed away today in New York City.
1964:
“The Passion of Josef D” a play written and directed by Paddy Chayefsky
starring Luther Adler and Peter Falk and featuring Milt Kamen in his Broadway
debut opened in New York today.
1965(9th
of Adar I, 5725): Sixty-one-year-old Robet Serebrenik , the Vienna born on of
Peisach Serebrenik and Theresia Reiß, the husband of Julia Herzog and the Chief Rabbi of Luxembourg starting who
negotiated with the Nazis to save his flock after they invaded in 1940 after
which he came to the United States and established Congregation Ramath Orah
with other refugees from Luxembourg passed away today.
Rabbi
Robert Serebrenik Dies; Ex-head of Luxembourg Community - Jewish Telegraphic
Agency (jta.org)
1967(4th
of Adar I, 5727): Eighty-year-old Charles N. Feidelson, the New York born son
of Rachel “Ray” Lipsietz Haddas and Max Feidlson and the husband of Adeline
Brady Falk who was a University of Georgia trained attorney passed away today
in Birmingham, AL.
1967:
The 41st Valentine’s Day dinner dance of the Physicians Wives League
of Greater New York which has been organized by Mrs. Seymour Gorssman is
scheduled to take place at the Waldorf-Astoria.
1968:
Border fighting broke out between Israeli and Jordanian forces.
1968:
“Charlie Bubbles” a British comedy filmed by cinematographer Peter Suschitzky
was released in the United States today.
1968:
The new Madison Square Garden complex on Seventh Avenue at West 33rd
Street whose Felt Forum was named for Michael Felt, the driving force behind
this construction project, opened today.
1968:
“Funeral services were held today” in New York for 75-year-old Dr. William F.
Rosenblum who had served Temple Israel for the thirty years and was active in
interfaith efforts designed to improve relations between Christians in the
years following WW II.
1970:
In a sign of how the “poor food of eastern European Jewish immigrants” has
become chic and trendy, bagels, seedless light rye and “a new marbled bread
combining twists of black and regular pumpernickels are among 113 different
varieties of breads, from nine Old-World-Style bakers, at Bloomingdale's Bread
Basket, which opens today in the delicacies department.
1973(9th
of Adar I, 5733): Eighty-four-year-old David Lawrence, the conservative
syndicated columnist and editor of U.S. New and World Report passed away today
in Sarasota, FL.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/02/12/90917039.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1975:
“Shampoo” a comedy co-starring Goldie Hawn and Lee Grant with music by Paul
Simon was released in the United States today.
1975:
When asked in Parliament by a National Party MP if he supported Enthoven's
liberal positions, Harry Schwarz replied "I make no secret of it. I am my
brother's keeper".
1976:
“Gable and Lombard” a biopic featuring Allen Garfield, Red Buttons and Melanie
Mayron was released today in New York City.
1976
(10th of Adar I, 5736): Actor Lee J Cobb passed away at the age of 64.
Some of Cobb’s most famous roles were in 12 Angry Men, On the
Waterfront and Death of a Salesman.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Lee_Cobb.html
1976:
Adlene Harrison became the first Jewish female mayor of a major American city
when she was appointed mayor of Dallas.
1978:
“Lemon Popsicle” a comedy “co-written and directed by Boaz Davidson” was released
in Israel today.
1979:
Under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi is swept
from power with the success of the Islamic Revolution. Khomeini. When Shah
Muhammad Reza Pahlavi held power, Iran was the world's biggest buyer of Israeli
arms. The Islamic fundamentalist government which succeeded the Shah militantly
damned Zionism up and down and hung a prominent Iranian Jew for "spying
for Israel." In 1980, however, when the Iraq-Iran war began, Iranian
representatives met in Paris with Israel's deputy defense minister and worked
out a "Jews for arms" deal. Iran permitted Jews to emigrate and
Israel sold Iran ammunition and spare parts for Chieftain Tanks and US-made F-4
Phantom aircraft. Channeled through a private Israeli arms dealer, this particular
agreement appropriately ended in 1984, when Iran was slow in paying its
bills. At the same time, under the Ayatollah and his successors, Iran
would arm and train Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon. Nothing is ever
straight forward in the swirl of the Middle East.
1979:
“They're Playing Our Song,’ “a musical with a book by Neil Simon, lyrics by
Carole Bayer Sager, and music by Marvin Hamlisch’ opened on Broadway at the
Imperial Theatre.
1980:
Moisei Tonkonogy, who had been “denied an exit visa due to previous service in
the Red Army as a private” was arrested today and later “sentenced to a year in
custody ‘for parasitism.’”
1981:
Birthdate of Michael Andrew “Mike” Seidman who played tight end for UCLA, the
Carolina Panthers and Indianapolis Colts.
1981: The
XIX Israeli Communist Party Congress which was attended by delegations from
Socialist countries including the USSR opened today in Haia.
1982:
After a premiere in San Francisco, and a preview in New York City, “One from
the Heart” featuring Allen Garfield was released in the United States today.
1982:
“Several Moscow activists were summoned to the KGB, police, or CPSU Central
Committee and warned that they must halt Hebrew studies.”
1983:
“Music From Tin Pan Alley” published today reviews the 92nd Street
Y’s “Lyrics and Lyricists” presentation which includes a look at some “unknown”
composers including Albert von Tilzer.
1986:
Having been released from imprisonment by the USSR, Anatoly Sharansky leaves
the country and begins his journey to Israel.
1988(22nd
of Shevat, 5748): Rabbi Israel Raphael Margolies, “who spoke out on a variety
of social issues and was a longtime civil rights advocate, died of
complications from hypoglycemia” at his home in Teaneck, N.J. at the age of 72.
Rabbi Margolies grew up in the Williamsburg and Crown Heights sections of
Brooklyn and graduated from the Jewish Institute of Religion in Manhattan, a
seminary for the education of conservative and reform rabbis He served at
Temple Emanu-el in Engelwood, N.J., from 1937 until 1953 and at Beth Am The
People's Temple in Manhattan, from 1953 to 1981 From his pulpit, Rabbi
Margolies frequently called for equality for minority group members and for
women. He was a supporter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and once
marched alongside him in a civil rights parade in Englewood Rabbi Margolies was
often quoted for his opposition to the Vietnam War and for his belief in
peaceful protest, and he was a founding member of the New Jersey chapter of
SANE, a Washington-based organization that opposes nuclear weapons.”
1989
(6 Adar I): Rabbi Shmaryahu Gurary
("Rashag") passed away. He was born in 1898. His father, a wealthy
businessman and erudite scholar, was a leading Chassid of the fifth Lubavitcher
Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom DovBer Schneersohn . In 1921, Rabbi Shmaryahu wed Chanah
Schneersohn,
the oldest daughter of the 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak
Schneersohn.
When Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak passed away in 1950, there were those who saw Rabbi
Shmaryahu -- an accomplished Chassidic scholar and the elder of the Rebbe's two
surviving sons-in-law -- as the natural candidate to head of the movement; but
when the younger son-in-law, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, was chosen as Rebbe, Rabbi
Shmaryahu became his devoted Chassid. Rabbi Shmaryahu served as the executive
director of Tomchei Temimim, the world-wide Lubavitch yeshiva system -- a task
entrusted to him by his father-in-law -- until his passing on the 6th of Adar I
in 1989.
1990:
In Mobile, Alabama, members of Ahava Chesed dedicated their new synagogue on
Regents Way. (Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life)
1991(27th
of Shevat, 5751): Eighty-two-year-old cultural anthropologist and holder of a
Ph.D. from Columbia, Ruth Landes the New York born daughter of Anna Grossman
and Joseph Schlossberg, a co-founder of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of
America and a mentee of Franz Boas passed away leaving no family members to
mourn her demise.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/landes-ruth-schlossberg
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/24/obituaries/ruth-landes-is-dead-anthropologist-was-82.html
1991:
Israel's Defense Minister, Moshe Arens, in a hastily arranged one-day visit to
Washington, told President Bush today that Israel was suffering heavy
"destruction" from Iraqi missile attacks and that its willingness to
refrain from retaliating was wearing thin. In a 30-minute meeting with the
President in the Oval Office, Mr. Arens reportedly detailed the effect of
Iraq's missile attacks on Israel, telling reporters later, "We see sights
of destruction in Israel that have not been seen in a Western country since
World War II. Mr. Bush responded by reiterating his longstanding position that
the United States appreciated Israel's restraint. The President also stressed
how important this restraint was for the anti-Iraq coalition and expressed the
hope that Israel would continue its policy. While Mr. Arens, vividly described
the costs to Israel of the missile strikes, he made no aid request in his
meeting with the President. While Mr. Arens's was meeting with President Bush,
Vice President Dan Quayle, Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d, Defense
Secretary Dick Cheney and other top Middle East experts, he was handed a note
that another Iraqi Scud missile had landed in central Israel.
1991:
This evening Iraq fired a scud aimed at Tel Aviv. It was the 12th
attack against Israel since the start of the Persian Gulf War. Debris
from the attack appeared to fall harmlessly in an unpopulated area causing no
injuries or property damage.
1993:
The Oslo Talks, which were being conducted in strictest secrecy, were resumed
for another two days. Yossi Beilin sent Dr. Ron Pundak and Dr. Yair Hirschfeld
“to a second round of talks at Sarpsbourg, Norway.
1994(30th
of Shevat, 5754): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1994:
Sheldon Silver assumed office as the 119th Speaker of the New York
State Assembly.
1995(11th
of Adar I, 5755): Eighty-eight-year-old Irving Loeb Goldberg, the U.T. and
Harvard Law School grad who was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Fifth Circuit by Lyndon Johnson passed away today.
http://www.fjc.gov/servlet/nGetInfo?jid=876&cid=999&ctype=na&instate=na
1998(15th
of Shevat, 5758): Tu B’Shevat
2000:
“The End of the Affair” the movie version of the novel by the same name
featuring Jason Isaacs and with music by Michael Nyman was released in the
United Kingdom today two days after premiering in the United States.
2001(17th
of Shevat, 5761): Screenwriter, author and producer Sy Gomberg passed away at
the age of 82. Born in New York City, he received an Oscar Nomination in 1951
for the script he wrote for “When Willie Comes Marching Home.” He also wrote
and produced “The Law and Mr. Jones,” a legal sit-com in the 1960’s. Gomberg
organized a Hollywood contingent to march with Dr. Martin Luther King during
the Civil Rights protests.
2001:
The Chicago Tribune published “Holocaust Suit, Book Claim IBM Aided Nazis.”
2001:
In “IBM Technology Aided Holocaust, Author Alleges” published today Michael
Dobbs describes the efforts of Edwin Black to connect IBM to the Final Solution
in IBM and the Holocaust
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cia-drugs_archives/message/18358
2002:
Israel attacked Palestinian security headquarters in Gaza City in response to
unprecedented Palestinian rocket fire and a shooting attack on Israeli
civilians.
2002:
French premiere of The Heidi Chronicles a made-for-television film by Wendy
Wasserstein based on her play of the same name.
2003:
After
a three-year legal fight, a Paris court today rejected a lawsuit by French
human rights advocates and Holocaust survivors who sued Yahoo for one symbolic
euro” because they accused Yahoo of having condoned war crimes when it sold
Nazi paraphernalia, including flags with swastikas, on its auction pages” which
is forbidden under French Law because “the court said that Yahoo did not seek
to ''justify war crimes and crimes against humanity'' when it sold the items on
its Web site.”
2004:
In what may be an explanation for the poverty suffered by Palestinians, “French
prosecutors reveal that they had opened a money-laundering probe into the
transfers of millions of dollars to accounts held by Suha Arafat, the wife of
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. It had been discovered that nearly $1.27
million had been transferred with some regularity from Switzerland to Mrs.
Arafat's accounts in Paris.”
2005:
The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that playwright Arthur Miller had
passed away on February 10 at the age of 89. The Gazette, along with
several other newspapers, was able to report on the life of this famous
dramatist without once mentioning that he was Jewish. This despite the
fact that one of Miller's first dramatic works dealt with the topic of
anti-Semitism and that Marilyn Monroe converted to Judaism when she married
Miller. (They always mention the Monroe part.)
2005: “The Merchant of
Venice” directed by Michael Radford who “believed that Shylock was
Shakespeare's first great tragic hero” and which “begins with text and a montage of how the Jewish
community is abused by the Christian population” was released today in the
Italy weeks after opening in the United Kingdom and the United States.
2005: Founding of Autism Speaks an “advocacy group that
sponsors autism research and conducts awareness and outreach activites” whose
“national celebrity spokesperson is Didi Cohn whose son “was diagnosed with
autism.”
2006(13th of Shevat, 5766): Parashat Beshalach
2006: Seventy-seven-year-old Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
who “has been in a comma since suffering a major stroke” in January “underwent emergency
surgery on his large intestine today at Ein Kerem Hospital and emerged in
stable condition
2007:
The synagogue of the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva “the first to be entirely
renovated by the Jewish community of Poland since World War II, was reopened”
today.
2007:
Woodwind player Ned Rothenberg, whose newest release is “Inner Diaspora,” on
the Tzadik label, performs at the New Art Center in Newtonville, Massachusetts.
2007: The
Sunday Washington Post book section features a review of Arianna Franklin’s
A Mistress of the Art of Death, a novel set in Medieval Cambridge where the
Jews are accused of killing Christian children and an Italian female doctor
must discover the truth.
2007:
“Wonder Wheel” recorded by the Klexmatics competed for a Grammy for best world
of music album.
2007:
“Flawless” a crime movie directed by Michael Radford premiered in Germany
today.
2007:
The Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism is scheduled to convene today with
an address by the Foreign Minister in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
in Jerusalem.
2008
(5th of Adar I, 5768): Eighty-year-old Tom Lantos the only Holocaust Survivor
to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives passed away. (As reported by
David Herszenhorn)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/washington/12lantos.html?_r=0
2008:
The 12th New York Sephardic Jewish Festival continues with showings
of “Mortgage”
(Mashkanta) followed
by the New York premiere of “Black Over White.”
2009:
Tel Aviv born magician Uri Geller “purchased the uninhabited
100-meter-by-50-meter Lamb Island off the eastern coast of Scotland, previously
known for its witch trials, and beaches that Robert Louis Stevenson is said to
have described in his novel Treasure Island.”
2009:
The Department of Academic Affairs offers an exclusive seminar with Dr. Asher
Susser, past director and senior researcher at the Moshe Dayan Center for
Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University.
2009:
Gaza terrorists fired three mortar shells at the Eshkol region
2009: Jewish students at York University in Toronto were
forced to take refuge in the Hillel office tonight as anti-Israel protesters
banged on the glass doors, chanting, "Die, bitch, go back to Israel,"
and "Die, Jew, get the hell off campus."
2010:
The first class of the David Project which is designed to educate and equip
people with knowledge about the Arab/Israeli conflict is scheduled to begin at
Beit Shalom Synagogue, the Jewish Congregation of Maui.
2010:
An exhibition entitled “Our Struggle: Responding to Mein Kampf” opened today at
the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco.
2010:
The 14th New York Jewish Sephardic Festival is scheduled to come to
an end with New York premiere of “Children of the Bible,” a film about the
“complex situations facing Ethiopian-Israeli youth.”
2010:
Ihad Khatib, the IDF officer who was stabbed to death yesterday by a member of
the Palestinian Authority, was laid to rest in his Druze community of Maghar
today. Khatib, 28, a non-commissioned logistics officer in the elite Kfir
Brigade, was attacked at Tapuach Junction, south of Nablus. Hundreds of people
attended the funeral, including Major Tomer Levi, Khatib's direct commander, as
well as the commander of the Kfir Brigade, Colonel Oren Abman.
2010:
After a media blackout was lifted today, the defense establishment revealed
that the IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) had foiled a Hamas attempt
to kidnap an IDF soldier in December of 2009 when five Hamas men were arrested
while trying to infiltrate Israel from Egypt, carrying explosives, a gun, a
silencer and $15,000 in counterfeit bills, according to the announcement.
2011(7th
of Adar I, 5771): Ninety-two-year-old Roy Gussow, an abstract sculptor
whose polished stainless-steel works with swooping contours gleam in public
squares and corporate spaces, died today in Queens. (As reported by Dennis
Hevesi
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/arts/design/21gussow.html
2011:
Release date for “Just Go with It” with a screenplay co-authored by Allan Loeb
starring Alan Sandler who also co-produced this remake I.A.L. Diamond’s “Cactus
Flower.”
2011:
“Surviving Hitler: A Love Story” and “Ingelore” are two documentaries scheduled
to be shown at The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.
2011:
“Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment” is scheduled to be shown at the 21st
Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.
2011:
Temple Judah is scheduled to host a Musical Shabbat in Cedar Rapids, IA.
2011:
“It was announced today that Michael Rosenbaum would return to ‘Smallville’ for
the two hour-series finale which” was broadcast later in the year.
2011:
In initial statements, Jewish groups congratulated Egyptians on ousting Hosni
Mubarak today and expressed hope for continued peace with Israel.
2011:
“Never Let Me Go” a movie based on the novel of the same name co-starring
Andrew Garfield was released in the United Kingdom today.
2011:
The last in a series of three concerts featuring the works of John Cage and
Morton Feldman took place at Carnegie Hall. They were a unique duo – a Jew from
New York a California transplant who dabbled in all sorts of eastern religions.
2011:
U.S. premiere of ‘Just Go With It” a comedy produced by and starring Adam
Sandler based on I.A.L. Diamond and Abe Burrows’ “Cactus Flower” with a script
by Allan Loeb.
2012:
In Olney, MD, Shaare Tefila Congregation is scheduled to host a Community Erev
Shira in Celebration of Tu B’Shevat.
2012:
The Anat Cohen Quartet, featuring works by Israeli woodwind virtuoso Anat
Cohen, is scheduled to make its debut performance at Columbia University’s
Miller Theatre in New York City.
2012:
IAF aircraft struck four terror targets in the Gaza Strip tonight, in response
to a Kassam rocket that was fired from Gaza a few hours earlier at the Eskol
Council area.
2012(18th
of Shevat, 5772): Medal of Courage winner Aharon Davidi a sabra who began
fighting for Israel in IDF and after retiring as a General in 1970 held several
different positions including serving as the first director of Sar-El (Service
for Israel) passed away today.
http://www.sar-el.org/about-us/history/
2012:
More than fifty years after premiering at Cannes, “The
Connection,” the film version of the play written by Jack Gelber opened in
Berlin.
2012:
As the body count rises in Syria, a group of activists held a candlelight vigil
tonight outside the Russian embassy in Tel Aviv to protest Moscow’s defense of
Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.
2013:
Temple Shaaray Tefila is scheduled to host “The Feminine Face of Spirituality”
which will explore essays and poetry that will help to “reveal the feminine
voice (bat kol) embedded in Jewish traction.”
2013:
Speaking in the Knesset for the first time since becoming an MK, Yesh Atid head
Yair Lapid lambasted the ultra-Orthodox community, saying the country’s Haredi
minority can’t hold the rest of the country hostage.
2013(1st
of Adar, 5773): Rosh Chodesh Adar
2013:
Four veterans of the battle for Jerusalem ensured a monthly female prayer
service, complete with prayer shawls, went ahead undisturbed at the Western
Wall for the first time in 24 years. Then the former fighters departed, and the
women were arrested (As reported by Mitch Ginsburg)
2014:
The Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning at Temple Emanu-El is scheduled
another lecture by Dr. Daniel Rynhold on “Rav Kook and the Heroism of the Holy.
2014:
“Aftermath” and “Brave Miss World” are scheduled to be shown at the San
Diego Center for Jewish Culture’s 24th annual Jewish Film Festival.
2014:
The Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “Masterpieces & Curiosities: A
Medieval Aquamanile.
2014:
Today Natalie Portman was in Jerusalem’s Nahlaot neighborhood directed a scene
from “A Tale of Love and Darkness” which is an adaptation of “an
autobiographical novel by Amos Oz.”
2014:
“The president of the largest Reform Jewish organization in the world welcomed
MK David Rotem’s full apology for reportedly saying the movement is “not
Jewish.”
2014:
“The filming of “A Tale of Love and Darkness,” based on the book by Israeli
author Amos Oz, began today in the Nahalot neighborhood. Portman, who appears
as Oz’s mother, is making her debut as a director.” (As reported by JTA)
2014:
“The Jerusalem District Court granted Hadassah hospitals’ request for a stay of
proceedings today, temporarily protecting them from creditors, and appointed
two trustees to formulate a rehabilitation plan for the hospitals, which are
currently struggling with a deficit of NIS 1.7 billion ($482 million.” (As
reported by Spencer Ho)
2014:
“Scientists from the Technion and Hebrew University are this year’s winners of
the Rappaport Prize for Excellence in Biomedical Research, given out by the
Technion’s Rappaport Institute. Prof. Yair Reisner of the Weizmann Institute of
Science will be recognized for his work in bone marrow transplant therapy,
while Dr. Yaakov Nahmias of Hebrew University will receive the award for
identifying a grapefruit molecule that can block viruses.” (As reported by
David Shamah)
2014:
“The Israeli Air Force attacked targets in the Gaza Strip overnight after two
rockets launched from the Hamas-controlled territory landed in the southern
part of the country earlier in the day.”
2015(22nd
of Shevat, 5775): Seventy-three-year-old CBS newsman Robert David “Bob” Simon
died today as the result of a car crash.
2015: Gail Sherman, Professor of English and Humanities at Reed
College, is scheduled to lead a discussion about Nathan Englander's powerful
short story, What We Talk About when We Talk About Anne Frank at
the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education
2015:
Today, in an interview with JTA, Sammy Ghozlan, founder of the National Bureau
for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, and a former police
commissioner, spoke out against President Obama’s assertion that the attack on
a Kosher market in Paris was “random” rather than “anti-Semitic.”
2015:
Lucinda Franks, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize and the widow of
Robert Morgenthau, is scheduled to speak about TIMELESS: Love, Morgenthau and
Me
2015:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Joseph Bau; From
Schindler’s List to Syria.”
http://us9.campaign-archive1.com/?u=9ee686c09238e3a1fb7447ee7&id=f9acfe517d&e=9870a7a862
2015:
In London, Ben Quash, Professor of Christianity and the Arts at King's College,
London, is scheduled to speak about Love in the context of the current
exhibition “Your Jewish Museum: Love.”
2016:
The Jewish Museum is scheduled to host an Adult Studio Workshop where attendees
will “explore a range of avant-garde aesthetics and photographic techniques
inspired by the exhibition ‘The Power of Pictures: Early Soviet Photography,
Early Soviet Film.’”
2016:
The world of astronomy was electrified today when scientist said “they have
finally glimpsed the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, or ripples
in space-time, which Albert Einstein predicted a century ago.”
2016:
Police in Columbus, Ohio shot and killed a man who stormed into an
Israeli-owned restaurant wielding a machete and randomly attacking people as
they sat unsuspectingly at their dinner tables this evening
2016:
“U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
might meet in Washington next month and complete a deal on future defense aid
to Israel that has been dogged by disagreement, the U.S. ambassador to Israel
said today.”
2016:
“The Law” a film that “chronicles the 1974-1975 efforts of Simone Veil, French
Minister of Health appointed by President Valéry Giscard d’Estang, to legalize
abortion in France” is scheduled to be shown for the first time in San Diego
today at the 26th Annual Jewish Film Festival.
2017(15th
of Shevat, 5777): Shabbat Shirah and Tu B’Shevat; Parashat Beshalach
2017(15th
of Shevat, 5777): Eight-seven-year-old Harvey Lichtenstein who devoted much of
his life to making the Brooklyn Academy of Music into a major cultural force
passed away today.
2017(15th
of Shevat, 5777): Ninety-three-year-old Warsaw native Abba Tour, the Technion
engineering student who helped start the IDF and was the “engineer of choice”
for such archeticural giants as Leo Kahn, passed away today.
https://archpaper.com/2017/02/abba-tor-engineer-obituary/
2017:
Today, The Wall Street Journal
described Gary Cohn as an "economic-policy powerhouse" and The New York Times “called him Trump's
"go-to figure on matters related to jobs, business and growth".
2017:
Following Shabbat morning services and a luncheon, the chaplains of the Oxford
University Jewish Society are scheduled to lead a Walking Tour of Jewish Oxford
and a “short learning session on Tu B’Shevat” as part of Parents’ Shabbat.
2017:
“Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill: A Musical Voyage,” “a joyous and moving
celebration of Kurt Weill, a cantor's son and one of the most extraordinary
composers of the twentieth century” is scheduled to open in New York.
2018:”The
Jewish Silk, a tour of the Bukharin Community in Rego Park that will provide an
opportunity to “learn about the Jewish community that lived for over 2000 years
on the Silk Road in cities such as Samarkand, Dunshabe and Tashkent” and that
now has “resettled in large diasporic enclaves in Queens and Israel, where community members continue to preserve unique
Central Asian traditions while creating one of New York's most vibrant
contemporary Jewish communities is scheduled to begin this morning at the
Bukharin Jewish Community Center.
2018:
JW3 is scheduled to present the initial London screening of the award winning
film “Scaffolding” today
2018:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a
screening of “Besa: The Promise” which “tells the story of the Muslim men and
women of Albania who saved the lives of nearly 2,000 Jews during World War II.”
2018:
“Rosenwald: The Remarkable Story of a Jewish Partnership with African American
Communities, is scheduled to be screened at the Wayne Theatre in Waynesboro,
VA.
2019:
A free trip to Israel paid for by PJ Library and PJ Our Way for “published
authors interested in bring Israel and Jewish ideas into their writing” is
scheduled to begin today.
2019:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host “Jewish Oscars,” the second in the
Jewish American Hit Parade series where attendees can hear “the works of Alfred
Newman, Randy Newman, Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Alan Menken, Marvin Hamlisch,
Barbra Streisand and Stephen Sondheim performed by Broadway and nightclub
singers.”
2019:
Sixty-nine-year-old Gonen Segev who served as energy minister in “Yitzhak
Rabin’s cabinet in the 1990’s” and who “will spend 11 years behind bars for
telling Iranian agents about sensitive Israeli sites and personnel” is
scheduled to appear is scheduled to appear before a judge today before “being
put behind bars.”
2020:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to co-host “bestselling author
Matthew Goodman as he discusses his critically acclaimed new book, The City
Game: Triumph, Scandal, and a Legendary Basketball Team, with Clyde
Haberman, CCNY 1966, former City College basketball co-captain, Ron Nadell,
CCNY ’51 and former sports editor of The
Campus, Mort Sheinman CCNY ’54.”
2020:
In Berkeley, CA is scheduled to host “Anti-Jewish Violence in French Algeria,”
during which “UC Berkeley Center for Jewish Studies Professor Joshua Cole of U.
of Michigan lectures on violence faced by Jews in colonial Algeria from 1830 to
1962.
2020:
In San Francisco, CA, Adath Israel is scheduled to host “Educator-author Rabbi
Zev Leff as he lectures on how to find the time to be Jewish.
2020:
As part of the Boston Israeli Film Festival, the West Newton Cinema is
scheduled to host a screening of “Breaking Bread.”
2020:
In Cincinnati, OH, the 2020 Jewish and Israeli Film Festival is scheduled to
host a screening of “Leona.”
2020:
Joshua Teplitsky, the assistant professor of history at Stony Brook University,
is scheduled to his new book Prince of the Press: How One Collector Built
History’s Most Enduring and Remarkable Jewish Library which tells the tale
about “David Oppenheim, the chief rabbi of Prague in the early 18th
century.”
2021:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to co-host a presentation by
“world-renowned Holocaust Historian Christopher Browning , author of Ordinary
Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, as he
“provides the shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans
became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews, and how themes
in Ordinary Men continue to resonate today.”
2021:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host Mike Harris, author of Mike Nichols:
A Life as he talks about how a seven-year-old boy who had escaped from Berlin
just before Kristallnacht became “a king of comedy, stage and film.”
2021:
Shir Chadash, the newest program of the Cantors Assembly, hosted by Abbie
Straus and Laurie Akers, is scheduled to begin today via Zoom.
2021:
Temple Emanuel of Newton is scheduled to present a screening of “A Father’s
Kaddish.”
2021:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present a lecture by Robin Magid
as part of “Family History Today: Finding Your Eastern European Jewish Family
on JRI-Poland.org.”
2021:
The Berkley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies is scheduled to present
“acclaimed Israeli author Etgar Keret, in conversation with GTU’s Deena
Aranoff, as he talks about his recent and future projects, his approaches to
storytelling and his penchant for the absurd.”
2021:
Based on yesterday’s report by the BBC “the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in
London” is one of the least safe places to be during the Pandemic since “a new
study has found that the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in London boasts one
of the highest COVID-19 infection rates in the world.”
2021:
The first session, online of the BBYO International Convention is scheduled to
begin today.
2022:
Those supporting an end to mask mandates and other measures designed to prevent
the spread of COVID can site the report from Israel, where the Health Ministry
is reporting that the Omicron-driven coronavirus infection wave is continuing
to ebb, and statements by Dr. Amos Dodi –
“an Israeli ICU and pulmonary disease expert working in New York’s Albert
Einstein College of Medicine, who only a month ago warned that the metropolis’
health system is on the verge of collapse – who now is saying the situation in
the city has indeed improved. (YNET and TOI)
2022:
Following a brief dinner break at the conclusion of Shabbat services, Temple
Beth Elohim is scheduled to present a “virtual classical concert to benefit the
resettlement of Afghan families featuring TBE’s own talented Lina Musayev on
flute, Andy Langowitz also on flute, Cantor Shanna Zell, Cantor Josh Rosenberg
and other professional musicians.”
2022:
Theatres in San Francisco, Berkeley, San Rafael and Santa Rosa are scheduled
host screenings of “Breaking Bread,” “a new, 86-minute documentary that follows
Arab and Jewish chefs in Haifa at the A-Sham Arabic Food Festival, created to
spark social change by the woman who was the first Muslim Arab to win Israel’s
“MasterChef.”
2022:
In Palo Alto, CA, the Oshman Family JCC is scheduled to host “For the Love of
Art and Jazz,” a “Valentine’s Day–themed event featuring exhibits by sculptor,
photographer and assemblage artist Dan Lythcott-Haims, plus concert by
Israeli-born singer Noa Levy and three-piece band.”
2022:
In New York, as part of Shabbat services, Temple Emanu-El is scheduled to host
a talk by Deborah Lipstadt on “what she plans to do as the Biden Administration
official charged with reporting on antisemitism across the globe and lobbying
governments to address anti-Jewish bigotry within their borders.”
2022:
JCC Manhattan is scheduled to host the first online screening of “The New
Black” known as Shababnikm in Hebrew
2022:
Congregation Beth Elohim is scheduled to present a “Scholar-in-Residence
Weekend with Rabbi Neal Gold” the “Jewish chaplain and Hillel director
at Babson College in Wellesley and the past president of the Massachusetts
Board of Rabbis.”
2023:
In Los Altos, CA, Congregation Beth Am is scheduled to host a screening of
“Joseph Pulitzer: The Voice of the People,” an 85-minute 2018 documentary about
the life and legacy of a once-penniless Hungarian immigrant who went on to
become an American icon who spoke of “fake news” more than 100 years ago.
2023:
In Coralville, IA, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host a “Tu B’Shevat Havdalah
Gathering” completed with wine, cheese, salmon and a vegan alternative.
2023:
The Palm Beach Jewish Festival Virtual Festival is scheduled to continue today
with screenings of several films including “The Man in the Basement” and
“Barren.”
2023:
The Eden Tamir Center is scheduled to host a performance of the Tel Aviv Wind
Quintet.
2023: Temple Emanuel of Newton is scheduled to present a
Talmud class where attendees “will explore how wisdom from Isaiah gives us
God’s definition of inclusion, and why belonging is the outcome people with
disabilities and mental health issues want – just like everyone else.”
2023: All decent people mourn the death of six-year-old
Yaakov Yisrael Paley and 20 year old Alter Shlomo Lederman, the recently
married Yeshiva student who were murdered in a “Jerusalem terror ramming” erev
Shabbat and pray for “perfect healing” for the other victims wounded in the
attacking including a child who is the brother of the murdered six-year-old.
2023(20th
of Shevat, 5783: Parashat Yitro
2024:
The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host the Walking Tour: Love and
Courtship on the Lower East Side during which attendees will find out how
people met and mingled 100 years ago “as immigrants wrestled with the new
American ways” such as mixing freely at dance halls, and their old traditions
including matchmakers and arranged marriages.
2024: YIVO and the International Association of
Yiddish Clubs (IAYC) are scheduled to host a beshutfesdike leyenung, or
a “Community Read” “led by esteemed Yiddishist, Dr. Raphael (Refoyl) Finkel, during
which attendees will read Sholem Aleichem's short story, “Ven ikh bin
Roytshild,” (“If I Were Rothschild”).
2024: The Mandel Jewish Community Center of
Cleveland is scheduled tot host a J Family Day: Israeli Song and Dance from
9:30 to 11 a.m. today at its Stonehill Auditorium at 26001 S. Woodland Road in
Beachwood.
2024: The S.Y. Agnon House is scheduled to host
the final session of “The Other Side of the Wall: On Neighborly Relations in
Literature and Poetry,” an online lecture series with Dr. Yahil Zaban
2024:
The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled and Arts and Learning event during
which attendees will learn about the more than sixty stained glass that our
found in the historic synagogue.
2024: As February
11th, begins in Israel, the Hamas held hostages
begin day 128 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.)
