This Day, February 18, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

February 18

296: Cassius Dio, the namesake of the historian who “frequently records the religious zeal and self-sacrificing spirit of the Jews” and whose account of the Jewish War against the Roman Empire that resulted in the destruction of the Temple is more favorable to the Jews than that given by Josephus, was appointed Praefectus urbi of Rome today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassius_Dio_(consul_291)

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/dio-cassiusdeg

https://www.livius.org/sources/content/cassius-dio/cassius-dio-on-bar-kochba/

https://www.judaism-and-rome.org/cassius-dio-roman-history%C2%A0xxxvii16-17

654: “In Toledo Spain, Receswinth, King of the Visigoths, forced Judaizing Christians (converted Jews who still kept Jewish traditions) to swear loyalty to the Church or die” which meant “they were forced to spend Jewish and Christian holy days with the clergy, but were not forced to eat pork.”

1229: During The Sixth Crusade, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor signed a ten-year truce with al-Kamil, regaining Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem with neither military engagements nor support from the papacy. Prior to the Sixth Crusade, Pope Gregory III had used the Crusading Spirit to impose anti-Semitic legislation.  Frederick II was involved in a power struggle with the Papacy.  As part of that he struggle, he defied Rome and granted a charter of privileges to the Jews of Vienna in 1238.

1239: The ten-year truce between Emperor Frederick II and the Sultan of Egypt came to an end.  During this period, 1236, the Emperor issued a decree refuting the accusations of ritual murder and providing for the protection of his Jewish subjects.

1488: The first printed eviction of tractate Gittin of the Babylonian Talmud was published in Soncino, Italy

1405: Tamerlane or Timur, the Mongol leader “under whose rule the Jewish people prospered” passed away today. (For more see Tamerlane and the Jews by Michael Shterenshis)

https://books.google.com/books?id=vJZm9amnoAoC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

1474: According to bookplate, in Reggio de Calabria, Italy, Abraham ben Garton printed Rashi’s commentary on the Chumash.

1546: Martin Luther passed away.  Luther was a significant figure in the movement to reform Christianity.  He extended the hand of friendship to the Jews, thinking that he could win them over to his side with kindness.  When the Jews rejected his goal - conversion - Luther turned on them.  By 1544, he was publishing a pamphlet entitled "Concerning the Jews and Their Lies." Jews were characterized as “venomous, virulent, thieves, brigands and disgusting vermin."  According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, "'...Luther's ferocious castigation of the Jews provided fuel for anti-Semites and vicious force of that legacy was still evident in Nazi propaganda.'"

1559: Birthdate of Geneva native Isaac Casaubon, the French Huguenot scholar who in 1609 invited Jacob Barnet, an Italian Jew, to his home in Drury Lane, London” during which time they discussed Jewish texts on various topics, and Barnet proved to Casaubon that Jesus had been buried in accordance with standard Jewish burial practice rather than (as argued by Cardinal Baronio) in a new way that became the method of Catholic burial” after which Casaubon employed Barnet as his secretary, and in 1610 brought him to Oxford.

1564: Michelangelo passed away. Among his works were a statue of Moses that had horns and a statue of an uncircumcised David.

1574: An auto-de-fe took place in Mexico City; nearly 100 people were sentenced that day, including New Christians.

1577: The Jews of Safed requested assistance from the Sultan for persecution by local officials. In a letter to the local Ottoman officials, the Sultan told his people that the Jews, "have complained of wrong done to them." The Jews were forced to pay high taxes, transport dung on Saturdays, were levies tolls on the road to Damascus, and were beaten with a strip of metal. The Sultan ordered his people not to molest the Jews, to investigate and give back what the Jews are owed.

1653: After Cromwell’s government released him today, William Prynne returned to writing pamphlets on a variety of subjects including one call the “Short Demurrer” in which he expressed his opposition to Manasseh Ben Israel’s plea to Oliver Cromwell to overturn King Edward’s 13th century ban and allow the Jews to return to the British Isles.

1671: In Berkshire, England, Margaret and William Branson gave birth to Thomas I. Branson, the husband of Elizabeth Day with whom he had thirteen children.

1704: In London, Richea Asher and Moses Raphael Levy gave birth to Nathan Levy, the husband of Bila Levy and father of Rachel, Michel and Philadelphia Levy.

1723: In Prussia a revised form of the "Aeltesten-reglement" (Constitution of the Jewish Community) was issued.  The original document which was supposed to be read every in the synagogue was issued in March of 1722.

1732: In Rye, NY, Hetty Adolphus and Jacob Hays gave birth to David Barrack Hays, the husband of Esther Etting with whom he had eight children.

1751: German native Abraham Hutzler, the son of Moses Hutzler and the husband of Rosine Wambacher with whom he had four children – Moses, David, Isaac and Eve Hutzler.

1743: Premiere performance of Handel’s “Samson” at Covent Garden, an oratorio based on the life of the Biblical figure described in the Book of Judges.

1757: In Avignon, France, a local townsman walking through the ghetto on a dark night, stumbled and fell into a well near the synagogue. Fortunately, he was not hurt. The day was declared a local holiday for generations. The rationale was that had the townsman drowned so near the synagogue, the Jewish community would have been accused of complicity in his death. 

1758: David Franks was sent a note telling him owed £400 for insurance on goods being shipped from Liverpool to New York aboard “the ship Charming Rachel.”

1765: Hague native Frances Hart and Savannah, GA native Mordecai Sheftall gave birth to Elias Sheftall.

1768: In Germany, Jetle and Salomon Ottenheimer gave birth to Maier Ottenheimer, the husband of Madel Dreifuss with whom he had six children.

1772(14th of Adar I, 5532): Purim Katan observed on the day after “the first partition of Poland is agreed to by Prussia and Russia” who would later be joined by Austria.

1785: Birthdate of Munster, Germany native Samson Nathan Eisendrath, the son of Nathan Baruch Eisendrath and the husband of Julia Isaack with whom he had 18 children.

1787(30th of Shevat, 5547): Rosh Chodesh Adar observed on the same day that Thomas Jefferson, the founding father who coined the term “separation of church and state” wrote from Paris to Michael Carmichael the Charge d’Affaires for the United States in Spain.

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-11-02-0169

1788: In Charleston, SC, Sarah de la Motta and Levi Sheftal gave birth to Perla Shetall, the wife of Isaac Russel with whom she had nine children.

1789: In Easton, PA, Esther Levy and Isaac Simons gave birth to Eleazer Simons.

1789(22nd of Shevat, 5549): New York native Jacob Rodriques Rivera, the son of Abraham Rodrigues River, the husband of Hannah Pimentel and “prominent Newport merchant, manufacturer and member of the United Company of Spermaceti Candlers” who “introduced sperm oil industry into the colonies” and “was the President of the Newport Jewish Congregation” passed away today.

1791(14th of Adar I, 5551): Purim Katan observed on the same day that Senate and House of Representatives approved Vermont’s petition to join the Union.

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/vt03.asp

1792: In Germany, Kehla and Feis Moses Fraenkel gave birth to Isaac Fraenkel the husband of Esther Feuchtwanger with whom he had five children.

1793: In Germany, Marget Isaac and Aron Abraham Arnold gave birth to Behle Arnold, the wife of Mendel Seligmann Dettelbacher and the mother of Seligman and Voegele Dettelbacher.

1794(18th of Adar): Rabbi Alexander Suskind of Horodno author of Yesod ve-Shoresh ha-Avodah passed away

1799: Bachu native Rebecka Obernauer and Wurtemberg native Ruppert Einstein gave birth to Hirsch Einstein the husbad of Babet Barbara Beer.

1804:  Ohio University founded in Athens, Ohio where today approximately 10% of its 17,000 students are Jewish including Jacob Levin, a mensch and a scholar, and there are an on-campus  Chabad and Hillel Chapter.

1810(14th of Adar I, 5570): Purim Katan

1813: Emancipation of the Jews of Mecklenberg, Germany

1816: Birthdate of Maurice Block the Berlin born statistician and economist who moved to Paris in the 1840’s to work for the French ministry of agriculture.

1819: Today Isaac Franks whose portrait was painted by Gilbert Stewart,and is now in the Gibson Collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia was made prothonotary of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and held that position until his death three years later

1831: In Charleston, SC, Isabella Cowen and Isaac Tobias gave birth to Colleeton Harby Tobias.

1832: In South London, merchant Isaac Levi and his wife who “was a first cousin of Moses Montefiore gave birth to Georges Montefiore-Levi “a Belgian politician, industrialist and inventor who created the first phosphorus bronze.”

1833: Birthdate of Warsaw native Henry (Hayyim Gerson) Vidaver who served as the Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregation in St. Louis from 1865 through 1867.

1835: Benjamin Woolfe Franklin married Maria Levy today at the Great Synagogue.

1835: Birthdate of Bernhard Goldman, husband of Henrietta “Jette” Siegel Goldman with whom he had four daughters – Helen, Caroline, Sara and Jeannette.

1839: Birthdate of Zadoc Kahn, the Alsatian native who became Chief Rabbi of France.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0011_0_10603.html

1839: Birthdate of Charles S. Baker who while serving as Congressman from New York in 1890 submitted a resolution “protesting…the enforcement by Russia of the edicts of 1882 against the Jews” and requesting the President to submit a protest to the Czar’s government.

1840: Sultan Abdul Mejid I issued a royal decree absolving the Jewish community on the island of Rhodes of charges “of having killed a gentile child” so that his blood could be used in baking matzoth. The day was celebrated as The Purim of Rhodes.  The Sultan was a reformer who was trying to make the Ottoman Empire a modern nation as can be seen by his attempts to replace the turban with the fez, introduce the use of banknotes and the issuing of a patent so that a telegraph system could be built in Turkey.

1843(18th of Adar I, 5603): Parashat Ki Tisa

1843(18th of Adar I, 5603): Sixty-two-year-old Sarah Naar, the London born daughter of Daniel Cohen D'Azevedo and Ester Rodriques Cohen D'Azevedo and wife of Hazan Joshua Naar passed away today at St. Kitts.

1844: In Lamar County, Alabama, Samuel Jefferson and Martha Louisa "Tarrant" Mordecai gave birth to their eldest child Nancy Priscilla “Nannie” Mordecai Cash the wife of Wesley Shepard Cash.

1846: Beginning of the Galician peasant revolt.  At this time Galicia was a province of the Austrian Empire.  The revolt was one of many that would sweep Europe during the late 1840’s. By 1851, once the revolts in Galicia had been suppressed, the Reform Constitution would be revoked and, among other things, Jews would lose their newly won right to purchase land in Galicia,

1848(14th of Adar I, 5608): Purim Katan

1848: In Pozsony, Gregor Steinbach and Therese Steinbach gave birth to Dr. Gustav “Itzig” Steinbach the father of Leonore Steinbach and father of Karl Steinbach and Theresa Risa Lohr.

1850: In Budapest, Karl Ullmann and his wife gave birth to Alexander de Erény Ullmann the political economist who served in the Hungarian Parliament from 1884 to 1892.  His father who was born in 1809 and passed away in 1880 founded the first Hungarian Insurance Company.  Alexander passed away in 1897.

1850: Birthdate of German native Isidor Georg Henschel who gained fame as Sir George Henschel “the British baritone, pianist, conductor and composer.

http://dictionary.sensagent.com/George%20Henschel/en-en/

1850 In New York Abigail Kursheedt (nee Judah) and Asher Kursheedt gave birth to Serena Kursheedt

1851(16th of Adar I, 5611): Forty-six-year-old Car Gustav Jacob Jacobi, “the first Jewish mathematician to be appointed professor at a German university” passed away today in Berlin

1852: According to reports published today, a juror named Shubal Hubbard claimed that Alexander Christallar, a witness for the defendant, had tried to engage him in inappropriate social contact during a break in the trial.  In his deposition, Hubbard claimed that Christallar was a Jew and that he was President of a Williamsburg Synagogue.  He also claimed that Christallar had invited him to a celebration at which Oysters would be served.

1853: August Belmont, the Jewish banker and Democratic political leader, and Caroline Slidell gave birth to August Belmont, Jr. who was raised as a Christian.

1856: Full civil rights are granted to Turkish Jews under the terms of the “Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856.”

1857: William Meir Barack married Fanny Abraham today in the United Kingdom

1858: Lord Palmerston who as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had come to the defense of David Pacifico which led him to make a celebrated speech which concluded that all British subjects ought to be able to say, as did citizens of ancient Rome, "Civis Romanus sum" ("I am a citizen of Rome"), and thereby receive protection from the British government” completed his first term as Prime Minister today.

1859(14th of Adar I, 5619): Purim Katan

1859: Abraham Myers Cohen, the son of Solomon Myers Cohen passed away today.

1859(O.S): In Russia, Menachem-Nukhem Rabinovich, a “rich merchant” who lost it all and his wife Chaye-Esther gave birth to Solomon Rabinowitz who became famous under the penname of Sholem Aleichem.  Born in Russia, Sholem Aleichem first wrote in Hebrew and only later turned to writing in Yiddish.  He moved from Russia to Denmark, to Switzerland and ultimately moved to the United States at the outbreak of World War I.  Unfortunately, he only lived in America for two years and he passed away in 1916.  Known as the Yiddish Mark Twain, Sholem Aleichem is most famous for creating Tevya and all of the wonderful characters who lived with him in the shtetels of the Pale.  He used humor to portray both the joy and the suffering of his co-religionists.  He became famous among generations of Jews who had thought they had escaped from all of that "Yiddish stuff" and gentiles as well with the production of Fiddler on the Roof.  Some of his famous lines include: "In the mud, but not of the mud."  "When a Jew eats a chicken one of them was sick." "A bachelor is a man who comes to work each morning from a different direction." "Gossip is nature's telephone." "Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor." "No matter how bad things get you got to go on living, even if it kills you." "The rich swell up with pride, the poor from hunger." Some of his works that have been translated into English include Tevye's Daughters, The Adventures of Menahem-Mendel, The Best of Sholom Aleichem and The Great Fair which is his autobiography.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/shalom-aleichem

1860(25th of Shevat, 5620): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1860: Birthdate of Bombay, India native Elia Hayeem Jospeh who was buried in Hong Kong’s Happy Valley Jewish Cemetery.

 1861: With the Italian unification almost complete, King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont, Savoy and Sardinia assumes the title of King of Italy.  Jews were active participants in the fight to unify Italy and the newly unified Italian nation was certainly hospitable to its Jewish citizens.  Historian Elliot Rosenberg cites a quote from his fellow historian Howard Morely Sacher to capture what the new Italian nation meant to the Jewish people.  “In 1848, there had been no European country save Spain where the restrictions placed upon Jews were more galling and more humiliating than in Italy.  After 1860, there was no country on the continent of Europe where conditions were better for Jews.”

1863: Julius Sax married Rachel Abrahams today at the Albion Hotel in Aldersgate.

1865: Birthdate of Hungary native Solomon Ulmer who in 1874 came to the United States where he became a mortgage banker and Zionist living in Cleveland.

1866: Birthdate of Samuel Krauss, a professor at the Jewish Teachers' Seminary in Budapest and the Jewish Theological Seminary in Vienna who was a contributor to the Jewish Encyclopedia.

1866: Today, in Philadelphia, The Free Sons of Israel instituted two additional lodges – Manasseh Lodge 17 and Moses Lodge 18.

1868: Birthdate of Rockford, Illinois native Albert Henry Loeb, the husband of Anna Bohnen with whom he had four sons – Alan, Ernest, Thomas and Richard (of Leopold and Loeb fame) – and who practiced law in Chicago before becoming an executive with Sears, Roebuck and Company.

https://flps.newberry.org/article/5418474_11_1375/

1870: State Supreme Court Justice Cardozo denied a motion for an injunction in an action styled the Mayor of New York City vs. the Beach Pneumatic Transit Company.

1870: In Long Branch, NJ, Mortimer M. Hendricks, the Son of Montague M. Hendricks and Rachel Seixas Nathan and his wife Jessie Justina Brandly Hendricks gave birth to Lucien Hendricks.

1871(27th of Shevat, 5631): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1871(27th of Shevat, 5631): Charleston native Esther Levy, who married Henry Nathan in 1815 passed away today in New Orleans.

1871: Rabbi Wise delivered the first in a series of lectures on the “Origin of Christianity” at Steinway Hall in New York City.  Reverend O.B. Frothingham introduced the Rabbi.

1872: In “Libau, Latvia, Chaim Nathan and Yetta (Nieburg) Aronstam gave birth Noah E. Aronstam, the Michigan College of Medicine trained doctor and professor of dermatology and urology who served as the associate editor of both the Indianapolis Medical Journal and the Jewish Tribune while finding time to write the Manual on Sexual and Venereal Diseases and The Jewish Dietary Laws from a Scientific Standpoint and marry the former Sarah D. Blumenthal in Detroit in 1899.

1873: Birthdate of Theodore Albert Peyser the native of Charleston, West Virginia who worked in Cincinnati before moving to New York where he was eventually elected to Congress from New York’s 17th Congressional District.

1873: Birthdate of Charleston, W.Va.., native Theodore A. Peyser, the Cincinnati based traveling salesman who settled in New York where he “represented New York’s 17th Congressional District.”

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000281

1874(1st of Adar, 5634): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1874: Birthdate of Junction City, Kansas native Saul Henry Ganz, the “president and Treasurer of D. Lisner and Company, wholesalers and importers of jewelry,” the husband of Ruth Ganza and the father of Paul and Victor Ganz.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1953/10/10/110067724.pdf

1874: Ida Morgenthau, the daughter of Lazarus Morgenthau married William J. Erich.

1874: Lazarus Morgenthau founded a society that would provide dowries for orphan Jewish girls.

1875: Max Eckmann, the Berlin born son of Ezekiel and Caroline (Lowenstein) Ekemann who in 1874 emigrated to the United States, where he became a manufacturer of novelties, helped organized the Independent Order of B’rith Abraham and served as a Republican in the New York State Assembly married Marie Slupecki today.

1876: In Slovakia, 37-year-old Herman Ehrenthal and Veron Ehrenthal gave birth do Roazlia Ehrenthal who became Rozalia Fleischmann.

1876: In Maryland, Circuit Court Judge Pinkney, ruled that the City of Baltimore did not have the right give public funds to a variety of charitable organizations including the Hebrew Hospital.

1876: Ferdinand Falk and Jeannette Levy Falk gave birth to Gustave Falk, the husband of Marguerite R. Falk.

1877(6th of Adar, 5637): Carolyn (Norris) Horowitz, the wife of Phineas Jonathan Horowitz, the native of Baltimore and graduate of Jefferson Medical College who rose through the ranks of the Navy to become Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, passed away today seven years before her husband retired.

1878: Birthdate of Baltimore native Sidney Lansburgh, “an official of American General Corp, the husband of Martha Epstein, “the daughter of Jacob Epstein” the founder of the Baltimore Bargain House and the father of Richard Landsburgh, who became President of Raleigh Stores, a high end, preppy clothing emporium.

1880: Mr. Moses Levinson of New Rochelle sued the New Haven Railroad today in United States Circuit Court for “exemplary damages.”  Levinson contended that he had been wrongfully put off one of the New Haven’s trains when the conductor claimed he had not paid for his ticket.  Levinson sought $5,000 in damages.  The jury awarded him $750.

1881: In Lithuania, Yaakov and Pearl Premesky gave birth to Rabbi Eliezer Premseky, the husband of Esther Premesky with whom he had three children who had became the “spiritual leader of the Bronx Tremont Hebrew School, a member of the presidium of the Rabbinical Board of New York” and executive vice President of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada.Most important of all, he was among those who marched in Washington in 1943 in a public demonstration demanding government action to “help save the Jews of Europe.”

1882: Birthdate of Frank Angone the native of New York who gained fame as featherweight Benny Yanger, nicknamed The Tipton Slasher.

1882(29th of Shevat, 5642): Parashat Mishpatim, Shabbat Shekalim

1882: “The Russian War on the Jews” published today described the renewed attacks to which the Jews of Kiev have been subjected and Count Totleben’s refusal to intervene without special instructions from the government at St. Petersburg.

1882: In Philadelphia, PA, the old passenger station belong to the Pennsylvania Railroad, has been configured to provide temporary accommodations for the Jewish refugees who will arrive in the city after having escaped from the recent round of pogroms in Russia.  A supply of food has been gathered for the refugees and Dr. Thomas G. Morton is the head of a group of doctors who will be available to take care of their medical needs.  In the meantime, an Employment Committee will make every effort to find jobs for the new arrivals.

1883: Birthdate of Nice native Jacques Ochs, the Belgian artist and fencer who won a gold medal in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.

1884: In Hampstead, Kingston, Jamaica natives Celia Morrice and Eugene Alberga gave birth to Ella Hortense Alberga.

1886: In Poland Yaakov and Pearl Predmesky gave birth to Louis Predmesky who came to New York City in 1922 where he served as a rabbi in the Bronx and was among those who marched in Washington in 1943 in a public demonstration demanding government action to “help save the Jews of Europe.

1886: Birthdate of Madison, SD, native Clare Stephen Jacobs who won a bronze medal for pole vaulting in the 1908 Summer Olympics.

1888(6th of Adar I, 5648): Seventy-two-year Lazar Zweifel a “prolific writer and one of the first to use Talmudic and idiomatic Hebrew for the modern poetry which he frequently composed, stanzas being interspersed throughout his works” passed away today.

1887: In New York, the Hebrew Technical Institute moved from its location on Crosby Street to its new school building at 34 and 36 Stuyvesant Street. Founded in 1884, the school provides vocational training to young Jews most of whom are the children of recent immigrants.

1888: Birthdate of John U. “Jack” Zuta the Chicago gangster who had the unique distinction of working for both Al Capone and Bugs Moran and whose death unearthed records that helped put away several crooked politicians.

1889: Two days after he had passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held for seventy-three-year-old Charleston, SC native and Mexican-American War veteran Julian Harby, the husband of “Josepah Solis” who passed away in 1865, today in San Francisco, CA.

1890: Birthdate of Jassy native Irving Haim, who relocated to Philadelphia.

1890: Ida Cohen (nee Kuhn) and Eduard Cohen gave birth to Albert Cohen.

1890:  In Moscow, according to the Gregorian calendar, Leonid Pasternak, a professor at the Moscow School of Paint, Sculpture and Architecture and concert pianist Rosa Kaufman gave birth to Boris Pasternak, the author of Doctor Zhivago

1890: Four days after he had passed away, 76-year-old Michael Angelo Rosselli, a native of Leghorn, Italy, the husband of Amina Rosselli and the father of James, Joseph, Jeanette and Ernest Rosseilli was buried today at the “Balls Pond Roach Jewish Cemetery.”

1891: Bernard and Ida (Levin) Appelbaum gave birth to Columbia University trained Civil Engineer Samuel Bernard Applebaum, the husband of Juliette Bursch and inventor of patented “Backwash Control.”

1891: Birthdate of Polish born Yiddish actor Ludwig Satz (Editor’s note- some sources show him being born on this date in 1895)

http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/yt/lex/S/satz-ludwig.htm

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=23149236

http://www.jta.org/1944/09/03/archive/ludwig-satz-star-of-yiddish-stage-dies-in-new-york-was-53

1893: “Regulators in Louisiana” published today described “the existence of an oath-bound organization having for its object the banishment of Jewish merchants…and Negroes from Tangipahoa Parish.”  Among those threatened was David Stern, a leading merchant in Amity, LA.

1893: Seventy-year-old Gerson von Bleichröder the second-generation German-Jewish banker who provided his services to Bismarck and Prussia passed away today.

1894: It was reported today that George Eliot had told American author Charles Godfrey Leland “that in order to write Daniel Deronda she had read through 200 books.” Leland wrote that he “longed to tell her that she had better have learned Yiddish and talked with 200 Jews and been taught, as Iwas by my friend Solomon the Sadducee, the art of distinguishing Fraulein Lowenthal of the Ashkenazim from Senorita Aguado of the Sephardim by the corners of their eyes.” (Daniel Deronda is the philo-Semitic novel written by Mary Anne Evans who used the penname, George Eliot.  At the time of this entry, Leland was doing research on gypsies.)

1894: “All Fools’ Day” published claimed that 17th century antiquarian John Brand attributed the origin of April Fool’s Day to the Jews.  According to Brand, Noah sent the dove out of the ark before the waters had abated on a day which corresponds to April 1.  The celebration of fools on this date reminds of the original “fool’s errand” on which Noah sent the Dove.

1894: It was reported today that the late Albert S. Rosenbaum passed away as a result of heart disease which probably does not offer any comfort to the widow and five children who survived him.

1895: Birthdate of biochemist Zacharias Dische who developed simple methods for determining the amount of sugars present in tissues, such as his diphenylamine assay, the Dische test, which is used to distinguish DNA from RNA and who fled Austria for American following the Anschluss and whose mother, sister and grandmother died in concentration camps.

http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/deceased-members/56289.html

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0300908420303011

 

1896: Birthdate of Edith Leschzine who tragically as Edith Hirschberg was transported to Auschwitz were se died.

1897: In Chicago, Il, Joseph and Ida (Rosin) Levin gave birth to University of Detroit Law School trained attorney, the husband of Rohda Katzin, the father of Charles, Joseph, Daniel and Mimi Levin and the chief Judge of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, President of the Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit and vice president and director of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds.

1897: In Paris, French author Emil Zola was attacked by a mob on his way home from the court where his case was being heard.  The police were forced to intervene to prevent a lynching.  The frustrated mob then “made a rush for the Jews threatening to throw them into the Seine.”

1900: “The 37th Convention of District No. 4 of the Independent Order of B’Nai B’rith opened today in San Francisco.

1901: Winston Churchill made his maiden speech in the House of Commons at a time when he was a member of the Conservative Party serving as an MP for Oldham.  In 1904, the Conservatives at Oldham would tell Churchill that they could no longer support him.  This would force Churchill to seek a new constituency which would be Manchester North-West where a third of the voters were Jewish.  This change in political fortune would force Churchill to deal with Jewish political issues for the first, but not the last time, in his career.  For more on this topic you should Sir Martin Gilbert’s highly readable Churchill and the Jews.

1902(11th of Adar I, 5662): Sixty-five-year-old West Prussia native, University of Berlin trained surgeon and recipient of the Iro Cross Julius Wolf a veteran of three wars in which Prussia emerged victorious and the chief surgeon of the newly founded orthopedic dispensary at the u=University of Berlin passed away today.

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14990-wolff-julius

1902: The Arbitration Committee of the Thirty-six which was appointed by the National Civic Federation at its last convention whose members included Oscar Straus and Samuel Gompers held “its first regular meeting in the Mission Building.

1903(21st of Shevat, 5663): Seventy-four-year-old Moses Mielziner, the Prussian born American rabbi who had been President of the Hebrew Union College since 1900 passed away today and was succeeded by Gotthard Deutsch who filled the position of “acting President.”

1903: The all-black musical “In Dahomey” opened at the New York Theatre where George Washington Lederer, the Wilkes-Barre, PA born Jew was the manager.

1904(2nd of Adar. 5664): Seventy-nine-year-old composer and pianist Emanuel Abraham Aguilar, the husband of Sarah Aguilar and the brother of novelist Grace Aguilar passed away today in his native city of London.

http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php?topic=4174.0

1904: Four days after he had passed away, Barrow Emanuel, the son of Emanuel and Julia (Moss) Emanuel and the brother of Edward Emanuel was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1904: In Florence, Italy, Gilda Borghi and Mario Mordechai Pacifici who descended “from an ancient Sephardic and religious Jewish family of Spanish origin and of rabbinical tradition settled in Tuscany (first in Leghorn, then in Florence) in the 16th century gave birth to Riccardo Pacifici, an Italian rabbi who would be murdered at Auschwitz.

1904: Birthdate of Aubrey Louis Goodman who led Baylor to a SWC championship before leading the University of Chicago to a Big-Ten Championship giving him the unique distinction of being one of the few players to play a key role in winning two different major football championships.

1905: Birthdate of Jean S. Greene, the wife of Philp M. Greene who was buried in Durham, NC when she passed away in 1992.

1906(23rd of Shevat, 5666): Henry Defries, the London born son Elizabeth and Henry Zvi Defries, the husband of Hannah Defries and the father of Henry Defries; John Defries; Daniel Defries; Rebecca Mills; Alfred (Alf) Abraham Defries; Mary Defries; Elizabeth Jacobs; Adelaide Levy; Maria Rosenthal; Ann Defries; Michael Defries; Richard Defries; George Defries; Isaac Defries; Henrietta Defries and Harry Defries passed away today in the London Borough of Hackney.

1906: Dr. Thomas R. Slicer delivered the last of a series of lectures on “Fraternity” at the People’s Institute in Cooper Union, an organization that is unique because its membership includes Jews as well as “Catholic, Protestant, agnostics, atheists and Christian Scientists.”

1906: It was reported today that Carl Stettauer of London who had gone to Russia as a representative of the Jewish Relief formed by Jews in the United States and Great Britain told a reporter for the Times during an interview at the Waldorf Astoria that the two things that had impressed him while touring Kieff and Odessa, sites of some of the worse violence against the Jews, were “that no conditions arose that the local authorities not have prevented
 and that “it was plain the police had assisted the mob.”

1907: State Express 111 through State Express a cigarette brand created by London tobacco merchant Sir Albert Levy were all “registered under UK Registration No.290529” today.

1908: Today, contractor Emanuel M. Krulewtich is building “a row of houses at St. Nicholas and Covenant Avenues…under police protection from the Carpenter’s and Joiners’ Union despite his having agreed to walking delegate Henry W. Blumberg that he “employ Jewish workmen on half of the job.”

1909: In New York, “plans have been filed for remodeling the four-story dwelling at the corner of Madison and 48th Street, owned by Mrs. Fannie Cohen, into a seven-story building with bachelor apartments on the upper floors.

1910: In Lithuania, Rabbi Moshe Yom Tov Wachtfogel gave birth to Nosson Meir Wachtfogel who became known as the Lakewood Mashgiach.

1911(20th of Shevat, 5671) Parashat Yitro

1911: Dr. Gerson B. Levi scheduled to deliver a sermon this morning a Congregation B’nai Sholom-Temple Israel in Chicago.

1911: Die geschiedene Frau (The Divorcée), “an operetta in three acts with a libretto by Victor Léon, was performed for the first time in Paris as La divorcée

1912: “Kadimo Hebrew School” was dedicated today in Baltimore, MD.

1913: During the Third Republic, when real power was held by the Prime Ministers, Raymond Poincaré becomes President of France. Along with General Pershing (commander of the AEF), Poincare opposed the Armistice contending that Allied armies needed to penetrate deeper into Germany lest the German people not realize that their army had been beaten.  Their view did not prevail.  The German Army marched back into Germany giving rise to the “stabbed in the back” myth that helped Hitler come to power.  During the 1920’s, Poincare intervened on behalf of the Jews of Poland when he convinced the Polish government to refrain from adopting legislation that would have discriminated against her Jewish citizens.

1913(11th of Adar I, 5673): Eighty-year-old Mortiz Loth the author and pioneer notion merchant who “in 1873 issued a call to the Jewish congregations which resulted in the establishment of “the Union of American Hebrew Congregations” and the Hebrew Union College passed away today in Cincinnati, OH.

1913: Birthdate of Rabbi Leslie Hardman, “the young chaplain” who was with the British 11th Armoured Division when it liberated Bergen-Belsen.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/oct/13/secondworldwar-judaism

1913(11th of Adar I, 5673): Isaac Radinski, a Chicago merchant, passed away today.

1913: “The Prisoner of Zenda” the film version of the novel by the same name produced by Adolph Zukor was released in the United States today.

1914: Charles Edward Sebag-Montefiore and Muriel Alice Ruth de Pass gave birth to Denzil Charles Sebag-Montefiore

1914: In Philadelphia, PA, “Jacob Loeb Langsdorf and Louise Silberman Langsdorft” gave birth to Blanche Loeb Langsdorf who became Balance Loeb Sundheim when she married Harry G. Sundheim, Jr.

1915: As of today, the fund of the American Jewish Relief Committee for Sufferers from the War has collected $482, 952.13.

1915: The American cruiser Tennessee arrived in Alexandria carrying refugees “from the coast of Syria” and Palestine who were escaping from the Ottomans.

1915:  The Red Cross Fund which Jacob H. Schiff serves as treasurer increased its total by $1,112.80 bring the total collected to $460, 060.47.

1915: “The development of the educational and social life of Jewish young people and the improvement of the economic conditions through the operation of 200 schools under the auspices of the Alliance Israelite Universelle of Paris were partly described at a memorial meeting” tonight “the founder of the organization, Narcesse Leven.

1916(14th of Adar I, 5676): Purim Katan

1916(14th of Adar I, 5676): Morris Quasha, the son of Hyman Quasha and Sara Coburn passed away today after which he was buried at the Mount Zion Cemetery in Masepth, NY.

1916: Birthdate of Maria Victoria Bloch-Bauer, who as Maria Altmann gained fame for her “successful, five decades long fight to regain five Gustav Klimt paintings owned by her family that had been stolen by the Nazis during World War II.

1916: “The Joint Distribution Committee of the Jewish Relief Fund issued a report” today that showed that $2,900,000 has been sent to aid the Jews suffering in the war zones including $1,285,000 to Russia, $860,000 to Poland and Lithuania, $610,000 to Austria-Hungary and $142,000 in Palestine.

1917: Dr. Samuel Schulman is scheduled to speak on “The Problem of American Judaism” this morning at Temple Beth-El.

1917: At the Free Synagogue meeting in Carnegie Hall, Rabbie Wise is scheduled to speak on “Does the Soul Survive?”

1917: Dr. Silverman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Martrydom of the Jews” this moring at Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue.

1917: It was reported today that the American Jewish Relief Committee had received the following contributions from local committees: $1,039, Baltimore; $1,000, Indiana of which $18 came from Wabash; $35, Champagne, Illinois.

1918: Twenty-five-year-old Aaron Maiberg, a native of Russia who emigrated to Canada in 1912 enlisted today and served with the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers which was part of “the Jewish Legion.:

1918: Morris Rothenberg, Chairman of the Zionist Committee of New York, presided over the memorial service held in honor of the late Jechiel Tchlenow, the Russian born doctor who passed away in London only months after having participated in the negotiations that produced the Balfour Declaration.

1919: Three days after he had passed away, 34-year-old Mark Abrahams was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1919: In Chicago, on the final evening of the Zionist Convention, Meyer Abrams is scheduled to chair a special session at the Hebrew Institute where all of the papers including The Jewish State,” “The Zion Commonwealth” and “The Jerusalem Printing Works” will be presented in the Hebrew language.

1920: The Jewish Court of Arbitration held its first session

1921: It was reported today that following complaints from local Jewish sources and Professor Simon Askenazy, the Polish Ambassador to Great Britain concerning the expulsion of Jewish refugees from Austria, the Council of the League of Nations will take up the issue at its next meeting on February 24.

1922(20th of Shevat, 5682) Parashat Yitro

1922: According to an announcement made today, “some of the most eminent Jews” in the United States will be attending the biennial convention of the Union of American Congregations and the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods which will be held in New York in January where “ways by which Judaism can be preserved in the United States will be discussed.”

1923: Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein of the Institutional Synagogue along with Rabbis M.S. Margolies and Philip Klein officed at the wedding of Rose Fischel and Albert Wald which took place at Congregation Kehillath Jershurun on East 85th Street.

1923: Birthdate of Robert (Bob) Sonné Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Physics at Boston University and cofounder of the BU Center for Philosophy & History of Science.

https://www.bu.edu/cphs/about/robert-cohen/

 1924: Birthdate of Canadian born actress Bessie Hope Wolfe Garber who “hosted the Canadian television show, At Home with Hope Garber.

1925: Birthdate of Groningen native and Holocaust Survivor Timotheus Aiking.

1925: “Palestine Pianist Here” published today described the concert given by Arie Aeliah the “head of of the music school in Tel Aviv” who has come to the United States to report on the progress of the fulfillment of the musical aspirations of the Jewish community in Palestine.

1926: It was reported today that the White Star Line has received a radio message from Captain Arthur Holme which said that the Homeric has left Constantinople and is on schedule for its arrival in Haifa.

1926(4th of Adar, 5686): Ninety-seven-year-old Mrs. Mary Golden, “one of the organizers of the Machzike Talmud Torah School and “active supporter of the Hebrew Free Loan and several hospitals” whose last words were “I wish I could live to continue to do good to others” passed away in New York City.

1926: A Bill of particulars filed in he Brockton, MA, blasphemy case was characterized tonight as “exaggerated and ridiculous” by defendant Anthony Bimba, the editor of a Communist paper who has written “Here we are organizing among the Lithuanians among the Lithuanians, Poles among Poles, the Jews among the Jews and so on, to overthrow the capitalistic government by revolution in the same way they did in Russia…”

1927: Two days after he had passed away, 78-year-old Jacob Press was buried today at the “Streatham Jewish Cemetery.”

1927: Birthdate of Michael “Mike” Harari, the sabra who became an officer in Mossad.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/28/world/middleeast/michael-harari-israeli-agent-likened-to-james-bond-dies-at-87.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

 1927: The London Gazette reported from Whitehall that “Letters Patent have passed the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, granting the Dignity of a Baronet of the said United Kingdom to the undermentioned gentlemen and the heirs male of their respective lawfully begotten: Sir Joseph Duveen, of Millbank in the City of Westminster”

1928: “Orient,” a silent movie filmed by cinematographer Mutz Greenbaum was released today in Germany.

1929: First Academy Awards are announced. “Broadway Melody” produced by Irving Thalberg was named Best Picture for 1928 – 1929. “All Quiet on the Western Front” directed by Lewis Milestone was named Best Picture of 1929-1930.

1929: Israel Joseph Winkel, the husband of Phoebe Winkel and the father of Joseph, Solomon, Kate, Sarah and Leah Winkel was buried today at the “East Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1929: In Brooklyn, Lena and Max Weinrib gave birth to Jerome Weinrib, the retired chairman of ABC Carpet.

http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/local-obituaries/jerome-weinrib-abc-carpet-chairman-dies/PiZUMURMn5cDSFVpTAnQfP/

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/17/business/jerome-weinrib-abc-carpets-old-school-proprietor-dies-at-86.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1930: Birthdate of St. Louis native James Leslie “Jimmy” Jacobs the multi-talented athlete who concentrated on handball and managing boxers – a passion which to him co-founding the production companies “The Greatest Fights of the Century” and “Big Fights, Inc.”

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/24/obituaries/jim-jacobs-tyson-s-co-manager-and-handball-titlist-dies-at-58.html

1930: In Brooklyn, Emil Lackow, the manufacturer of leather goods and Mildred Prozan gave birth to Pauline Bernice Lackow who gained famed as “Pauline Bart, a second-wave feminist sociologist who wrote with rigor and dark wit about depression among 1950s-era housewives, gender inequities in health care and violence against women…” (As reported by Penelope Green)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/30/us/pauline-bart-dead.html?searchResultPosition=3

1930: Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's "Simple Simon" premieres in New York

1931(1st of Adar, 5691): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1931:  Over 1,500 people attended funeral services for Louis Mann at Temple Emanu-El which were opened with a reading by Rabbi H.G. Enelow and included a eulogy delivered by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and a rendition of a Bach aria by violinist Mischa Elman.

1931(1st of Adar, 5691): Fifty-year-old Russian born American actor Louis Wolheim who gave a memorable performance in “All Quiet on the Western Front” passed away today.

1931: King Levinsky fought a four-round exhibition with former Heavy Weight Champion Jack Dempsey. Levinsky the scion of a Jewish family from Chicago that had a fish business on Maxwell Street

1932:  Birthdate of Czech born film director Milos Forman.  Forman’s father was Jewish but his mother was not.  They died in the camps.

1932: O.R. Miller of Albany, “an official of the New York Civic League” was reported today to be one of those wishing to testify against the confirmation of Judge Benjamin N. Cardoza who has been nominated by President Hoover to serve as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

1933: Marinus van der Lubbe, the man who will be accused of setting the Reichstag Fire, arrived in Berlin. There are those who contend the fire was really set by the Nazis.  Regardless, they used it as tool to consolidate their power weeks after Hitler became Chancellor.

1933: “The Mystery of the Wax Museum” a horror film directed by Michael Curtiz was released in the United States today.

1934(3rd of Adar, 5694): “Dr. Heinrich York Steiner, Hungarian Jewish writer, friend of Dr. Theodore Herzl” and one of the founders of the Zionist movement passed away today at the age of 75.  Dr. York-Steiner, who was born in Hungary, spent most of his life in Vienna.  Known as a novelist, critic and dramatist, he became friendly with Dr. Herzl as a young man and worked closely with him to form Zionist groups. He played an important part in the creation of the World Zionist Organization.”

1935: Nineteen days after premiere in New York City, “The Good Fairy,” a comedy directed by William Wyler and produced by Carl Laemmle, Jr. was released in the United States today.

1936: As a result of the assassination of Swiss Nazi leader Wilhelm Gustloff on February 4, today, “the Swiss Federal Council ordered…the immediate suppression of all central or regional German Nazi organizations in Switzerland.”

1936: New York Governor Herbert H. Lehman was among the speakers at tonight’s fellowship dinner sponsored by the National Committee for Religion and Welfare Recovery where he told attendees “that something seemed to be wrong with the social as well as the economic order of the nation” and “called upon Protestants, Catholics and Jews to join in a new spiritual awakening…”

1936: Invitations were sent today to forty national leaders asking them to attend a meeting in Cincinnati called by Felix Warburg where plans will be made for raising the three and a half million dollars that the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee has promised to provide assistance  to refugees from Eastern and Central Europe.

1936: In a reorganization of the League of Nations High Commission for Refugees Coming From Germany, for now, Norman Bentwich, the director of the High Commission, a professor at the Hebrew University and former Attorney-General of Palestine will be responsible for providing economic assistance to the refugees.

1937: It was reported today that German born composer Walter Damrosch who would be classified as Jew if he had stayed in his homeland has expressed this opposition to a bill introduced by Congressman Samuel Dickstein, a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, designed “to protect the artistic and earning opportunities in the United States for American actors, vocal musicians, operatic singers, solo dancers, solo instrumentalists and orchestral conductors.”

1937: The prosecution rested in the restaurant racket trial today that involved a payment of $21,000 to Dutch Shultz, the son. of “German-Jewish immigrants Herman and Emma Flegenheimer” who had named their son Arthur

1938: The Palestine Post reported that owing to German influence there had been in recent months a concentrated Italian drive against the appointment of Jews to leading positions in the economic and political life of the state.

1938: “The Baroness and the Butler” a romantic comedy featuring J. Edward Bromberg and Joseph Schildkraut was released in the United States today.

1938: “A Yank At Oxford” produced by Michael Balcon was released in the United States today.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that there were three successive Arab attacks on the Rana police post, near Acre. Some 150 Arab villagers in the Tulkarm area were arrested in connection with a number of recent railway sabotages.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that Maestro Toscanini had withdrawn from participating in the Nazi-dominated Salzburg Festival and announced his intention to come and conduct the Orchestra in Palestine.

1938(17th of Adar I, 5698): Seventy-three-year-old Vilna native “Joseph Polstein, a retired builder, a former president of Congregation Kehilath Jershurum in Manhattan and a director of Yeshiva College died today of pneumonia in his home” today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1938/02/19/98099682.pdf

1939(29th of Shevat, 5699): Parashat Mishpatim and Shabbat Shekalim

1939: Rabbi B. Benedict Glazer is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Brotherhood, Is It a Delusion?” at Temple Emanu-El today.

1939: The Central Synagogue in Manhattan is scheduled to hold its “annual Youth Service in honor of the eleventh annual convention of the New York State Federation of Young Folks’ Leagues” that will include a sermon by Saul B. Applebaum on “Youth’s Aged Problems.”

1939: In observance of “Brotherhood Sabbath,” Rev. C. Jeffares McCombe, pastor of the Methodist Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Common Task of Christian and Jew” at Temple Rodeph Sholom.

1940: In Warsaw, two Jewish girls were raped by two German sergeants.

1941: United Sates Representative Martin L. Sweeney testified in Federal Court” today, in “his suit for $250,000 damages, based on allegations that he was libeled in” Drew Pearson’s Washington Merry-Go-Round Column that “he never at any time felt or manifested prejudice against Jews or other persons because of race or faith” and that he had not joined with the notorious Father Coughlin to oppose a nominee for a federal judgeship.

1941: The seizure in the port of Jaffa over the weekend of a motor launch transporting nearly a ton of opium and hashish valued at fifty thousand pounds” is believed today by authorities “to have broken up a gigantic plot.”

1942(1st of Adar, 5702): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1942 (1st of Adar, 5702: Fifteen-year-old Eduard Bondy, the “son of Pavel and Franziska Bondy” died today in the Lodz Ghetto during the Holocaust.

1942: Birthdate of Maurice Lévy, the Moroccan born French businessman who became “chief executive officer of Publicus.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/publicis-extends-maurice-levys-term-as-ceo-1410852508

1943: A group of 1,220 Jewish refugees from Poland arrived in Israel from Tehran where they had found refuge in 1942

http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205872.pdf

1943: Joseph Goebbels gave his Total War speech which should have put an end to any later claims that the Allies were wrong in pursuing a policy of Unconditional Surrender when fighting the Axis.

1943: The occupying Japanese authorities declared a "Designated Area for Stateless Refugees" and ordered those who arrived after 1937 to move their residences and businesses within it by May 18, three months later.

1943(13th of Adar I, 5703): Seventy-four-year-old Dutch trade unionist Henri Polak who was President of the General Diamond Workers’ Union of the Netherlands died of pneumonia in Laren following which his wife Milly was shipped to Westerbrork where she died.

1943(13th of Adar I, 5703): Seventy-four-year-old Odessa born American Socialist Sergius Ingerman, a graduate of “the medical school at the University of Berne, co-founder of the Socialist Party of America with Eugene V. Debs and Morris Hilliquit and the husband of Dr. Anna Ingerman passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/02/19/85084470.pdf

1943: The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement which was an anti-Nazi movement inspired by German students.  It is important to remember that there were those in Germany who opposed Hitler and were willing to risk their lives to express that opposition. 

1944: “Action in Arabia” directed by Leonide Moguy and with a script co-authored by Herbert Biberman was released today in the United States.

1944: Lightweight Al Davis scored his last victory over “a name fighter” today.

1945: The last of six convoys of deportees arrived at The Langenstein-Zwieberge, an under-camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp. 

1945: In “Alfred Einstein’s Study of Mozart” published today, Roger Session said of Mozart, His Character, His Work by Alfred Einstein that “a new book by Alfred Einstein is in itself an event of first-rate importance in the world of musical scholarship” and that this “present volume on Mozart is not only an event but a predestined one.”

1945(5th of Adar, 5705): Fifty-five-year-old Arne Laurin the graduate of the “Technical Academy of Prague,” the editor-in-chief of Prager Presse, a German language newspaper regarded as the mouthpiece of the Czech government who was forced to flee because of opposition to the Nazis and who “took charge of the index department of the Czechoslovak Information Service” after arriving in New York in 1939 with his wife “Olga Weiss Laurinova” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1945/02/19/84628244.pdf

1946: A clandestine radio transmitter known as the “Voice of Free Israel” that is reportedly operated by the Stern Gang was seized in Tel Aviv after “a house-to-house search by British Soldiers and police officers.”

1946(17th of Adar I, 5706): Eighty-one-year-old Siegfried Wachsmann, the  Glewitz Germany native and University of Berlin trained physician who in 1901 came to the United States where he served on the faculties of Fordham and Columbia universities and the Medical Director of the Montefiore Home and Hospital for Chronic Diseases on Gun Hill Road passed away today in Middleton, NY<

1946: Clemens August Galen was named as a Cardinal.  During World War II, while serving as the Bishop of Munster (Germany), he opposed the Nazis.

1947: Birthdate of Eliot Engel, Congressman representing New York’s 17th District.

1947: “A Flag is Born” was scheduled to open in Boston, MA.

1948: “Mr. Roberts” featuring Steven Hill, Larry Blyden and Sam Lembeck as “Sam Insigna” opened on Broadway today.

1948(8th of Adar I, 5708): Sixty-five-year-old George Washington University trained physician Samuel Haberman, the Russian born son of Dora and Joseph Meir who specialized in chest diseases and raised four children while being active in Republican politics passed away today in Massachusetts.

1949: Eamon de Valera resigns as Taoiseach (head of government) of Ireland. The controversial Irish leader was rumored to have been the illegitimate son of a Portuguese Jew, a rumor he vehemently denied. However, de Valera was not an anti-Semite as can be seen by his support in 1937 for a provision in the Irish Constitution that explicitly recognized the existence and rights of the Jewish community in Ireland.

1950(1st of Adar, 5710): Parashat Mishpatim; Rosh Chodesh Adar

1950(1st of Adar, 5710): Sixty-eight-year-old Lithuania native Charles Katz, “the President and a founder Polan, Katz and Company, Inc. an umbrella manufacturer located in Baltimore and a leader of the Jewish community who served a director of the Associated Jewish Charities of Baltimore and a director of the United Synagogue of America while raising two daughters and on son, Lawrence with his wife “the former Fannie Elfant” passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1950/02/19/archives/charles-katz-dead-umbrella-maker-68.html?searchResultPosition=3

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Knesset approved, by 79 votes to 16, the government's statement on the ruptured relations with the Soviet Union. The resolution upheld the role the Soviet Union played in the establishment of Israel in 1948 but found no justification for the Soviet role in breaking off the diplomatic relations between the two countries now. Mass meetings in New York asked the Soviet Union to "Let My People Go!"

1953(3rd of Adar, 5713): Seventy-five-year-old Columbia University trained mining engineer Leon Gilbert Simon, “a special agent of the Equitable Life Assurance Society and the author of books on insurance and taxation passed away today while returning to his New York home after “delivering a series of lectures at Tulane University in New Orleans.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that in London the House of Commons backed the British government's decision to continue selling jet fighters to Arab nations to the exclusion of Israel.

1954: “The Long, Long Trailer” a comedy produced by Pandro S. Berman was released in the United States today.

1955: Pinchas Lavon’s resignation as Defense Minister is accepted.

1955: David Ben Gurion agrees to come out of retirement and serve as Defense Minister.  Four months later he will also agree to serve as Prime Minister.

1957(17th of Adar I, 5717): “Two civilians were killed by landmines, next to Nir Yitzhak, on the southern border of the Gaza Strip.”

1959(11th of Adar I, 5719): Fifty-three-year-old Viennese composer Erich Zeisl who came to New York via Paris after the Anschluss passed away today.

http://www.zeisl.com/

http://orelfoundation.org/index.php/composers/article/eric_zeisl/

1961: Today, Bertram W. Kornd delivered an address on “Jews and Negro
Slaver in the Old South: 1789-1865” at the 59th Annual Meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society at the Jewish Museum of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43059130

1962: It was reported today that, on the eve of Brotherhood Week, Rabbi William Berkowitz had presented Congregation B’nai Jershurun’s award for being a champion of human rights to Reverend Ralph W. Sockman, the minister of emeritus of Christ Church (a Methodist Congregation) who was hailed as “one of the leaders who has brought the spiritual dimension into the community, the nation and the world.”

1963 After premiering in London in January, “Summer Holiday” a musical with a score by Stanley Black was released in the rest of the UK today.

1963(24th of Shevat, 5723): Shlomo-Yisrael Ben-Meir began serving as serving as a Deputy Speaker and the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs

1965(15th of Adar I, 5725): Eight-six-year-old Paul Sachs, the Assistant Director of the Fogg Art Museum and founding member of The Museum of Modern Art who played a key role in making plans for protecting American art during WWII and retrieving art from war torn Europe as described in The Monument Men passed away today.

http://harvardmagazine.com/2002/09/portrait-of-the-artist-a.html

http://www.moma.org/learn/resources/archives/EAD/Sachsf

1966(28th of Shevat, 5726): Fifty-seven-year-old Robert Rossen, the director of the Oscar winning picture “All the King’s Men” passed away today.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USArossen.htm

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/02/19/79292897.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1967(8th of Adar I, 5727): Sixty-two-year-old physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project and the father of the Atomic Bomb passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0422.html

1969: The PLO attacked El-Al plane in Zurich Switzerland.  Long before 9/11, the Israelis were forced to deal with a level of vicious terrorism aimed at strangling their avenues of commerce and tourist industry.  As a result of the PLO attacks, the Israelis were the first to put sky marshals on their flights and to do in depth pre-screening of all passengers.  And yes, the head of the PLO was Yassar Arafat, the "partner for peace." 

1969(30th of Shevat, 5729): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1969(30th of Shevat, 5729): Mieczyslaus Zagajski, a native of Poland who came to the United States during WWII after which he became an industrialist and “collector  of Jewish ceremonial objects’ passed away today in Palm Beach, FL.

1969: BBC2 broadcast a dramatization of The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov

1970:  The Chicago Eight, including Abbe Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, were found not guilty of charges relating to the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention held in Chicago.

1971(24th of Shevat, 5731): Just seventeen days after celebrating his 50th birthday Brooklyn College graduate and Merchant Marine veteran Joseph Dames, an executive with the American Jewish Committee’s Appeal for Human Relations and the husband of Lucile Dames with whom he raised two daughter – Tamar and Lisa – passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/19/archives/joseph-dames-dies-jewish-appeal-aide.html

1973: A headline in the New York Times read "Half Baghdad's Jews Said to Apply to Leave; Property Seized."  "Half the members of the tiny Jewish community in Baghdad have applied for passports to leave Iraq in recent weeks in the face of a crackdown by Iraqi authorities, according to a first day account.

1973: In Montreal's Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, Naim Kattan, an Iraqi-born Jew spoke at a memorial and protest rally for nine more Jews who had been murdered in Baghdad.  (page 300 for the dead)

1974: Valery Panov was threatened with further punishment unless he left the Soviet Union “immediately without his wife.”

1976(17th of Adar I, 5736): Seventy-seven-year-old John Barsha, the native of Russia originally known as Abraham Barshofsky who played basketball and football for Syracuse University before turning pro while in law school passed away today.

1976: In Brussels, the Second World Conference of Jewish Communities on Soviet Jewry continued for a second day.

1976(17th of Adar I, 5736): Fifty-eight-year-old Milton Cohen, vice president and general manager of Hertz System Inc., a licensee company that rents and leases cars and trucks in affiliation with the Hertz Corporation, and the husband of Anne Cohen with whom he had two children, Richard and Janet, passed away today in Vancouver.

1980(1st of Adar, 5740): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1980(1st of Adar, 5740): Seventy-two-year-old Maxwell Goldstein, the son of Bessie and Louis Goldstein and the Johns Hopkins trained electrical engineer who was a leader in developing anti-submarine technology during WW II passed away today.

https://ethw.org/Maxwell_K._Goldstein

1980: In Moscow, Ilya Spektor, is a photographer and amateur violinist and Bella Spektor, a professor in a Soviet college of music gave birth to singer-songwriter and pianist Regina Spektor.

http://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/18/1980/this-week-in-history-singer-songwriter-regina-spektor-is-born

1981(14th of Adar I, 5741) Purim Katan

1981: Today “Yosef Mendelevich, 34, the last of the nine Jews jailed in the Leningrad trial, arrived in Israel.

1981: Israel's 60,000 teachers, who earn an average of $110 a week, staged a one-day strike today to press for a wage increase promised by the Government. The Government's decision in principle last month to grant the raise brought the resignation of Finance Minister Yigal Hurvitz, which resulted in the Government coalition losing its majority in Parliament. Negotiations, however, have continued.

1982(25th of Shevat, 5742): Ninety-two-year-old multi-talented musician Nathaniel Shilkret passed away today.

http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Shilkret-Nat.htm

http://www.collateralworks.com/linernotes/natshilkret.html

1982(25th of Shevat, 5742): Seventy-year-old New York born violinist and conductor Sol Babitz, the husband of Mae Laviolette with whom head two daughters, Eve and Miriam, passed away today.

http://www.maebabitz.com/about/sol-babitz/

1983(5th of Adar, 5743): Eighty-two-year-old Leopold Godowsky, Jr. the American violinist who held to create Kodachrome passed away.

http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/233.html

1983: Two months after its release in Iceland, “The King of Comedy” co-starring Jerry Lewis, Tony Randall and Sandra Berhnhard was released in the United States today.

1983: For the final time Stage 23 at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles for the taping of an episode of “Taxi.”

1983: “Lovesick” a comedy featuring “the ghost of Dr. Sigmund Freud” with a cast that included Ron Silver, Alan King, Selma Diamond and Larry Rivers was released in the United States today.

1986(9th of Adar I, 5746): Sixty-three-year-old decorated WW II veteran and owner of the Westland Market Samuel H. Keyser, the husband of Eva Keyser and a member of Beth David Synagogue passed away today

1988(30th of Shevat, 5748): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1990: Dozens of supporters are planning to lie down across the road here in front of Ariel Sharon's northern Negev ranch this morning to stop him from driving to Jerusalem for the Cabinet meeting where he plans to resign. But as the former general sees it, by resigning as Industry and Trade Minister he is not leaving; he is simply opening a new front. And the goal of this new campaign, he said in an interview, is to be Israel's next prime minister replacing Yitzhak Shamir.

1992(14th of Adar I, 5752): Purim Katan

1994(7th of Adar, 5754): Forty-nine-year-old Ruth Adler, a Devon born daughter of “two German Jewish lawyers, Charlotte Kissinger and Rudolf Oppenheimer, who was a campaigner for human rights and children welfare passed away today.

http://womenofscotland.org.uk/women/ruth-margaret-adler

1994: “On Deadly Ground,” directed and produced by the film’s star Steven Seagal, the son of Russian Jewish father and featuring Irvin Kershner was released today in the United States.

1995: Actor Bodhi Elfman, the “only child of filmmaker Richard Elfman” got married today.

1995(18th of Adar I, 5755): Parashat Ki Tisa

1995(18th of Adar I, 5755): Seventy-year-old Rosa Lee Blumthanal, the wife of former delegate Charles Blumenthal (D-Oxon Hill) with whom she had four children – George, Anne, Rosemary and Cheryl --  and a Prince George's County Democrat who had served in the House of Delegates from 1986 to 1994 who “had served on the Judiciary Committee and had sponsored legislation dealing with victims' rights, grandparents' visitation rights, rehabilitation of chronic juvenile offenders and grant funds for family day-care providers” passed away today.

1997: Janet Yellen began serving as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton.

1997(11th of Adar I, 5757): Ninety-two-year-old Emily Hahn, the St. Louis born author best known for her writings about China passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/19/arts/emily-hahn-chronicler-of-her-own-exploits-dies-at-92.html

http://www.susanbkason.com/2015/04/05/emily-hahn/#.WKZpKluQx9A

1999(2nd of Adar, 5769): Ninety-two-year-old Paris born photographer Adnreas Feininger, the “eldest son Julia Berg, a German Jew” and painter Lyonel Feiningerg, who was best to many for his work in Life magazine passed away today. (As reported by Andy Grunberg)

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/20/arts/andreas-feininger-92-dies-portrayed-new-york-in-photos.html

1999(2nd of Adar, 5759): Comedic actor and director Noam Pitlik passed away.

2000: “The Whole Nine Yards” a really off-beat comedy featuring Kevin Pollak and with music by Randy Edelman was released today in the United States.

2001: The New York Times published an op-ed essay explaining the pardon of Marc Rich which did not mention the donations of almost two million dollars that Denise Rich had made to the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton’s senatorial campaign or the Clinton Library.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/opinion/18CLIN.html?ex=1180238400&amp;en=ddafe39be7a1b417&amp;ei=5070&amp;pagewanted=all

2002(6th of Adar I, 5762): Ahuva Amergi (30), Maj. Mor Elraz (25), St.-Sgt. Amir Mansouri and unidentified woman were murdered today by members of Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Brigade who opened fire on the car driven by the woman and then hit the two soldiers who came to her aid.

2003(16th of Adar I, 5763) Isser Harel, head of Mossad from 1952 until 1963 and was in charge of the operation that brought Eichmann to Israel to stand trial passed away today.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/isser-harel

https://spartacus-educational.com/COLDharel.htm

2004: “President Bush, helping to inaugurate a new American television network in the Middle East, said in an interview broadcast today that the United States would continue to press its plan for a Palestinian state and for democracy in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other Arab countries.”

2004: It was reported today that according to Rabbi Berel Karniol, the director of an angency In Monsey, NY that certifies kosher kitcher “some of the most observant Hasidic communities in the United States claim large followings of restaurant avoiders” and that these “Jews so punctilious in their observance of the food laws that even kosher restaurants get the thumbs down.”

2005(9th of Adar I, 5765): Lee Kahn passed away at the age of 101. She was one of the siblings of Helen Reichert, all of whom were centenarians.

2006(20th of Shevat, 5766): Parashat Yitro

2006: “A new Palestinian parliament dominated by the militant group Hamas was installed  today, and immediately President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas lawmakers set out on a collision course over the need to honor existing agreements with Israel and conduct negotiations with it to achieve Palestinian statehood.”

2007: The 23rd International Book Fair opens in Jerusalem

2007: The Sunday New York Times book section featured a review of French Seduction: An American’s Encounter With France, Her Father, and the Holocaust by Eunice Lipton.

2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section “Poet’s Choice” by Robert Pinksy features a commentary on "The Amen Stone" and The Jewish Time Bomb" that appeared in Yehuda Amichai's last collection of poems, Open Closed Open.

2007: The Sunday Chicago Tribune book section included a review of Amanda Vaill's Somewhere, a biography of Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz who came to be known as Jerome Robbins the man who “conquered--and in many ways defined--both the musical and modern American ballet, a genius by nature…” 

2008: Three days after being released on the Continent "New Soul" a song by the French-Israeli R&B/soul singer Yael Naïm, was released today in the United Kingdom.

2008: In New York, Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Drior Baitel performs his graduation recital at Mannes Concert Hall. 

2008: In the United States, FBI domestic terror squads remain on the alert for any threats against synagogues and other potential Jewish targets in the United States after the assassination of the top Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah and the movement's leader threatened to attack Israeli and Jewish institutions around the world.

2009: In, Manhattan’s East Village, the fourth and final part of a four part series The Comedy and Kabbalah of Relationships featuring Rabbi YY Jacobson

2009: At New York University, Professor Yoram Peri, head of the Chaim Herzog Institute for Media, Politics and Society at Tel Aviv University delivers a public lecture entitled "New Leadership in Israel and the Peace Process."

2009: Today, the IDF announced that apples grown by Israeli farmers in the Golan Heights will be exported to Syria.

2009: The New York Times reported that the American Tennis Channel will not televise the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships this week to protest the United Arab Emirates' refusal to grant an entry visa to Israeli player Shahar Peer

2009: Holocaust survivors voiced criticism of Yad Vashem's announcement that it will bestow its highest honor on Wilm Hosenfeld, a Nazi officer who helped save a Polish Jew, whose story became the basis for the film The Pianist.

2010: The 92nd St Y is scheduled to present another in the series Spiritual Journeys: Feminine Reflections on the Rhythms of Our Lives entitled “Adar: Increasing Joy” with   Rabbi Joyce Reinitz.

2010: Today, while the media is filled with stories about supposed Israeli responsibility for the death of Hamas leader in Dubai, Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer advanced to the semifinals of the Dubai Championship, after beating 10th seed Na Li in the quarterfinal match

2010: An IDF soldier was lightly wounded today by a bomb which exploded near a patrol unit on the security fence near the central Gaza Strip.

2010: Terrorists hurled a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli bus in Gush Etzion yesterday evening. There were no casualties, but the bus was damaged.

2010: The Washington Post features a review of Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time by Kristin Swenson in which the reviewer recommends “Robert Alter’s books…as well as the exhilarating Richard Elliot Friedman’s Who Wrote the Bible?

2011: Einsatzgruppen The Death Brigades, the “harrowing two-part documentary meticulously details the Nazi killing squads charged with destroying entire Jewish populations in occupied Eastern Europe during WWII” is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: A Small Act is scheduled to be shown at the 21st Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2011: The Portland Jazz Festival is scheduled to start today. “This year's theme is 'Bridges and Boundaries', which refers to bridging the two minority communities of Jewish Americans and African Americans.”

2011: A German prosecutor said today that he has opened a murder investigation against a key witness in the trial of alleged Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk.

2011: Friends and family celebrate the birthday of Joel Barnum, an un-presupposing pillar of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community.

2011: The United States used its veto this afternoon to block a Security Council resolution declaring Israel’s settlement construction in the West Bank illegal. (As reported by Neil MacFarquhar)

2011: In “Auschwitz Shifts From Memorializing to Teaching,” Michael Kimmelman described the changing role of the site of the worst of the Death Camps.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/arts/19auschwitz.html?pagewanted=all

2012: Shabbat Shekalim, 5772

2012: “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldbeerg is scheduled to be shown at Beth El Temple Center in Belmont, MA

2012: “Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray” is scheduled to be shown at Congregation Beth-El Jewish Film Festival in Fort Worth, TX!

2012: In Iowa City, Hillel is scheduled to present a concert by University of Iowa School of Music faculty members, Uriel Tsachor and Rachel Joselson.

2012: Palestinian terrorists in Gaza took advantage of stormy weather conditions to fire rockets towards large southern cities in Israel. A Grad-type rocket was launched in the direction of the Negev's largest city, Beersheba, today triggering air raid sirens.

2012: British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that Iran is clearly trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability, and if it succeeds it will set off a dangerous round of nuclear proliferation across the Middle East while the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Martin Dempsey said that an Israeli strike on Iran "wouldn’t achieve its long-term objectives" and would be "destabilizing."

2013: In London, Professor Neil Gregor is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Mockery as Politics: The Degenerate Art Exhibition, 1937” in which he examines how the Degenerate Art Exhibition of 1937 was used to prepare people intellectually for the Holocaust

2013: Hadassah’s National Center for Attorneys’ Councils and the Greater Washington Area Chapter Attorneys’ Council are scheduled to host a dinner honor those who are to be sworn into the U.S. Supreme Court

2013: At Tulane University, the second and final day of “Jewish Secular Utopias and Distopias in Central and Eastern Europe” co-sponsored by Dr. Brian Horowitz and Dr. Andrew Solin

2013: At Brandeis University, a two-day conference “Zionism in the Twenty-First Century” is scheduled to come to an end.

2013: “Religious Studies and Rabbinics” a conference designed to promote dialogue between the fields of religious studies and rabbinics is scheduled to open at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va.

2013: President Shimon Peres today announced that he will present his American counterpart with the Presidential Medal of Distinction during his March stay in Israel.

2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today sent Pope Benedict XVI a letter of appreciation on behalf of the State of Israel, a week after the pontiff announced his imminent resignation from office. Benedict said he would step down as head of the Catholic Church at the end of February.

2013(8th of Adar, 5773): Eighty-three-year-old legal scholar Alan F. Westin passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/alan-f-westin-scholar-who-defined-right-to-privacy-dies-at-83.html?hpw&amp;_r=0

2014: The Skirball Center is scheduled to present another in the series of lectures by Dr. Daniel Rynhold entitled “Rav Kook and the Heroism of the Holy.”

2014: “The Zigzag Kid” is scheduled to be shown at the David Posnack Jewish Community Center’s Jewish Film Festival.

2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “American Jerusalem: Jews and the Making of San Francisco.”

2014: Friends and family celebrate the natal day of Joel Barnum, one of those quite “pillars” of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community.

2014: “Hungarian rabbi said today he had uncovered 103 Torah scrolls stolen from Hungarian Jews during World War Two and stashed in a Russian library, adding he planned to restore and return them to the Jewish community.”

2014: “Two rockets fired from war-torn Syria struck the Golan Heights in northern Israel today, shortly after a secret visit to the area by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the army said.”   

2014: A three-day long on-line marathon brainstorming session sponsored by the Israeli government to Plan the Future of the Jewish People is scheduled to come to an end.

2015: In Buenos Aires, a group of prosecutors are scheduled to hold a march in memory of Alberto Nisamn the prosecutor who died “mysteriously” while “seeking to charge President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with shielding Iranians from responsibility over the 1994 bombing of Jewish community center.

2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present a performance of “"Don't Cry, We'll All Meet on the Other Side," explores the story of Jewish Life in Communist Romania in the aftermath of the Holocaust

2015: Cellist Elad Kabilio is scheduled to “a musical journey through Modeling the Synagogue – from Dura to Touro.”

2015: “Above and Beyond” is scheduled to be shown at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.

http://www.ojmche.org/experience/film-2015-02-18-above-and-beyond

 2016: In Jerusalem Ariel Ben Abraham is scheduled to discuss his book God’s Love, a book inspired in the Chassidic approach to God's love.

2016(9th of Adar I, 5776): Twenty-one-year-old Tuvia Yanai Weissman, “an IDF soldier” was stabbed terrorists in a supermarket today.

2016: The exhibition Operation Finale: The Capture & Trial of Adolf Eichmann, opened at the Maltz Museum today.

2016: The Estonian Israeli Music Festival is scheduled to begin in Tel Aviv. 

2017(22nd of Shevat, 5777): Parashat Yitro

2017(22nd of Shevat, 5777): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/rabbi-menachem-mendel-of-kotzk

2017: “Wounded Land” and “Kapo in Jerusalem” are scheduled to be shown at the 27th Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2017: As part of their visit to Israel, a group of players from the National Football League (NFL) are scheduled to play players from the Israeli Football Association in an exhibition game today.

2017: At the second day of Limmud NY, following a wide variety of Shabbat morning services, Efraim Chalamish is scheduled to lead a discussion on “The Chinese Revolution and the Jewish State in 2016” and “David Gedzelman is scheduled to lead a discussion on “Constructing a News Zionism for the 21st Century on Old Foundations: What Do Gordon, Kaplan and Buber Have to Teach Us?”

2017: This evening, in Jerusalem, Eliah Zabaly is scheduled to perform a “piano solo recital dedicated to Aldo Ciccolini” who passed away in 2015.

2017: As Shabbat came to an end, the lights came on at Turner Stadium as Hapoel Beer Sheva owned by Alona Barakat, “the only woman to own a professional soccer team in Israel,” prepared for another match

2018: Friends and family celebrate the natal day of Joel Barnum, a mesnsh in the truest sense of the word, a “great” grandfather and one of the few people who can put the mysteries of technology into understandable English.

2018: The University of Iowa Hillel is scheduled to an outing “at the boutique Southport Lanes bowling alley in Chicago.

2018(3rd of Adar, 5778): Eighty-five Brooklyn born Lee Harris Pomeroy, the quintessential New York architect passed away today. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/obituaries/lee-harris-pomeroy-85-dies-architect-revived-subway-stations.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2018: In New Orleans, The JCC Uptown Classic 5 K and Family Fun Run are scheduled to start at 8:30 at Audobon Park.

2018: “Russian Jews Part Two: 1918-1948,” “the second part of a documentary trilogy that charts the fascinating and complex history of the Jewish community in Russia throughout the centuries” is scheduled to be shown at Cineworld Didsbury in Manchester.

2018: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution by Marci Shore, The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World by Bart D. Ehrman and Baby Monkey, Private Eye by Brian Selznick and David Serlin

2019: Director Steve Spielberg’s family are scheduled to reopen “The Milky Way” the kosher restaurant that his mother Leah Adler who passed away in February of 2017, had operated for forty years.

2019: JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Forgotten Soldier,” a documentary about Dutch businessman Sally Noach.

2019: In conjunction “Pioneers to the Present,” an exhibit about Jews in Richmond, the Richmond Museum of History is scheduled to host “Bubbe Reads” with “Jewish grandmothers reading stories for local youngsters.”

2019: In Rockville, MD, the Haberman Institute is scheduled to host Professor Paul Root Wolpe of Emory University as he discusses “Contemporary Ethical Challenges” including the “disproportionate Jewish representation in the field of ethics and the reason for this.”

2019: Presidents’ Day observed in the United States (Editor’s note- As Jews consider their unique experiences with the Chief Executive starting with George Washington and his letter to the community in Newport, RI and ending with Donald Trump, the first occupant of the White House to have a Jewish child and Jewish grandchildren, they might want to look at the recently published The Elected and the Chosen by Denis Brian.)

2019: Finally, today is that rarity - day in Cedar Rapids without a forecast of snow which must be a result of all the warmth generated by the celebration of Joel Barnum’s birthday.

2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host “The Photos” in which Adrienne Aurichio the wife of Award-winning Life magazine photographer Bill Eppridge shares the photographic record of the life of Barbra Streisand.

2020: The Greater Phoenix Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host the second and final screening of “City of Joel.”

2020: In Berkley, CA, the Bancroft Hotel is scheduled to host a talk by Rutgers Professor Yael Zerubavel “about nature, Israeli settlements, mythical stories, tourism and security concerns over the past century.”

2020: O Brookline, MA, the Kolbo Fine Judaica Gallery is scheduled to host National Jewish Book Award finalist Rabbi Laura Geller as she reads from her newest book Getting Good at Getting Older.

2020: The YIVO Institute is scheduled to present a lecture by Dr. Vladimir Levin on “Jewish Brcik and Mortar in the Russian Capital” in which he considers “the uneasy relationship between the architectural oeuvre of the Jewish community and the capital city of the Russian Empire.”

2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host Rabbi David Wolpe as he lectures on “Chasidic Mystics:  Rabbi Nahman of Breslov and Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev.”

2021: In Palm Beach Garden, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to host via zoom Herb Keinon lectuinr on “U.S.- Israel Ties Under Biden, Israel’s new accords with Bahrain and the Redrawing of the Middle East Map.”

2021: The Israel Office of Cultural Affairs is scheduled to host a discussion with Sigal Avin, Ayelet Zurer and Lihi Kornowski about the creation of “Losing Alice,” which has been named “Apple’s best drama series yet.”

2021: In honor of Black History Month, The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans is scheduled to host a presentation by Rabbi Rachel Mikva, author of Dangerous Religious Ideas, on “Jew and Race” during which she will explore biblical and rabbinical ides on this topic…”

2021: In Pepper Pike OH, Rabbi Josh Foster is scheduled to deliver the first in a series about “Synagogues Around the World.”

2021: “The Colors of Jews: Being a Minority in a Minority an event is co-sponsored by Temple Emanu El, The Temple-Tifereth Israel, and Edot: The Midwest Regional Jewish Diversity Collaborative is scheduled to take place this evening online via Zoom.

2021: The Malki Foundation and the Bushey United Synagogue are scheduled to host an evening, via Zoom with Baroness Ros Altman, talking about “What Might Bexit and COVID-19 mean for the Economy, Investments and Pensions?”

2021: In Palm Beach Garden Cantorial Soloist Abbie Strauss is scheduled to lead the morning minyan at Temple Judea.

2021: “Despite officials' warnings to the government that Iranian hackers will attempt to strike and poison Israel's water infrastructure, the country's water facilities are far from prepared for such a scenario, according to a report seen by Ynet.”

2021: New England Region of BBYO is scheduled to present online “Fighting Stigma with Effective Storystelling” with “comedian Pamela Rae Schuller” who help attendees to learn the tools to find and craft their own stories.

https://pamelacomedy.com/about/

2021: Kung Pao Kosher Comedy’s Lisa Geduldig is scheduled to present “the latest edition of her monthly show, this one with stand-up comedians Jackie Hoffman, Elvira Kurt and Bernadette Luckett, plus Lisa’s 89-year-old mom in Florida.”

2022: A double portion of Nachas – erev Shabbat combined with the Celebration of Joel Barnum’ natal day.

2022: Yefim Bromfman who has performed with Isaac Stern, Leonard Bernstein and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is scheduled to perform at Carnegie Hall.

2022: After yesterday’s downing of a Hezbollah’s UAV, Israel and her supporters are reminded that she continues to face the twin threat of COVID 19 and the real possibility of renewed attacks by those committed to her destruction.

2023 The Palm Beach Jewish Virtual Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end today.

2023: In Waterloo, IA, Sons of Jacob Congregation is scheduled to hold its final Shabbat service in its long-time home at 411 E. Mitchell Ave.

2023: The Eden-Tamir Center is scheduled to present “Ensemble Millennium/Toscanini Quartet, Ensemble in Residence and Friends.”

2023:  Police are reportedly on heightened alert in the “heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood” of Los Angeles following two shooting incidents where Jewish men were attacked by a suspect with “a known animus towards the Jewish community.”

2023(27th of Shevat, 5783): Shabbat Shekalim

2024: In Cleveland, OH, Nice Jewish Runners is scheduled to meet at 8:30 a.m. at La Place and Run for Their Lives is scheduled to meet at La Place for an 18-minute walk.

2024: The Breman Theatrical Outfit is scheduled to present the final performance of “Remember This: The Lesso of Jan Karski,” the “dazzling, tour de force solo performance that tells the story of Jan Karski, a Polish diplomat and freedom fighter during WWII who battled his way across Europe to bring evidence of the Holocaust to Western governments.”

2024: The Jewish War Veterans Atlanta Post 112 is scheduled to celebrate today World War II Combat Veteran and Liberator Hilbert “Hibby” Margol’s 100th Birthday at its Monthly Meeting.

https://www.atlantajewishtimes.com/wwii-liberator-combat-veterans-100th-birthday/

2024: The S.Y. Agnon House is scheduled to host the first in a four-week Zoom class in which Professor Wendy Zierler will look at “Sorrow Song: Hebrew Women’s Poetry in a Time of War.”

2024: Martin Cohen, Yiddishkayt and Topa Institute are schedule to present Yiddish Women in Song and Dance “Featuring Berlin-based co-founders of Ensemble Lebedik , vocalist Sasha Lurje and violinist Craig Judelman, plus special guests Cantor Sarah Myerson and accordionist Ilya Shneyveys.”

2024: JNFuture Volunteer Mission is scheduled to begin today.

2024: The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to conducting walking tour of “the Jewish Lower East Side.”

2024: The Weinberg Center for Holocaust Education at The Breman Museum and community partner Eternal Life-Hemshech are scheduled to Holocaust survivor and Breman Museum speaker Bebe Forehand as she presents her remarkable story.

2024: As February 18th, begins in Israel, the Hamas held hostages begin day 135 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.)