This Day, February 4, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

February 4

211: The reign of Septimius Servus, the Roman emperor who outlawed conversions to both Judaism and Christianity in an attempt to unify his crumbling empire, came to an end.

362: Roman Emperor Julian promulgates an edict that recognizes equal rights to all the religions in the Roman Empire. Known as Julian the Apostate, Julian effectively undid the edicts of Constantine that had made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. He brought back the old religions of the Empire including those that were tied to Hellenism, the spiritual path that he favored.  Julian was sympathetic to the Jewish people and was prepared to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.  Unfortunately, he was murdered by a Christian Arab soldier who may have been angered by Julian’s decision to deny state support to Christianity.

1194: Richard The Lion Hearted bought his freedom by paying his ransom to Leopold, an Austrian Duke.  In collecting the ransom, the Jews were forced to pay 5,000 marks.  They were taxed at three times the rate as that paid by their Christian countrymen. 

1428(17th of Shevat): Purim of Sargosa

1594: Sussex’s Men, an Elizabethan acting company performed Marlow’s “The Jew of Malta” today.

1616(16th of Shevat 5376): Samuel Pallache, a Moroccan Jewish merchant passed away in The Hague while serving as the diplomatic representative of the sultan Zidan Abu Maali in negotiations with the Dutch Republic designed to establish an alliance to fight their common enemy – Spain. Born in Fez in 1550, he was the son of a rabbi from Cordoba whose family had fled Spain following the Reconquista.

1657: Oliver Cromwell granted the right of residence in England to a Jew, Antonio Fernandez Carvajal. According to some, this is the earliest official British act of tolerance in favor of the Jews.

1657: Thomas Burton, an MP who was a comrade of Cromwell and kept a diary on the proceedings of Parliament wrote today that "The Jews, those able and general intelligencers whose intercourse with the Continent Cromwell had before turned to profitable account, he now conciliated by a seasonable benefaction to their principal agent [Carvajal] resident in England."

1683: Birthdate Judah Monis, the son of Portuguese conversos born in Algeria who would become the first college Hebrew instructor in North America and the author of the first Hebrew textbook published in North America.  The price of his position at Harvard would be conversion to Christianity; a price many others, such as James Schlesinger, would pay for academic advancement.

1689(14th of Shevat, 5449): Jerusalem Chief Rabbi Moses ben Jonathan Galante, the grandson of Moses Galante and the grandfather of Moses Hagis passed away today.

https://upclosed.com/people/moses-ben-jonathan-galante/

http://ascentofsafed.com/Stories/Stories/5760/103-03.html

1738(14th of Shevat, 5498): Joseph Süß Oppenheimer, a noted banker and court Jew was led to the gallows. He had been falsely accused of a variety of crimes and only “confessed” after being tortured. Even as he faced death by hanging, he refused to convert to Christianity, a move that might have saved his life. “Hanging inside a human-size cage, surrounded by a huge crowd of spectators, his last words - while a rope was tied around his neck - were those of the central prayer of Judaism, ‘Shema Yisrael.’"

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11740-oppenheimer-joseph-suss

1753: In Bordeaux, France, Rachel and Abraham Benjamin Nones gave birth to Ester Nones.

1757: In New York City, Moses Lopez and his wife gave birth to Aaron Lopez.

1758(26th of Shevat, 5518): Parashat Mishpatim

1758(26th of Shevat, 5518): English poet and dramatist Moses Mendes, the London born son of stockbroker James Mendes and grandson of Fernando Menes whose “first effort was the ballad opera ‘The Double Disappointment’” passed away today at Old Buckenham, Norfolk.

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10672-mendes-mendez-moses

1770: One day after he had passed away, Abraham ben Uri Shraga “an upright and proper man…all his days” was buried at the Alderney Road Cemetery today.

1782: Jewish physicians in Galicia were granted permission to treat Christian patients.

1788(24th of Tevet, 5548): Avrahom bar Baruch passed away today in the United Kingdom.

1789 (8th of Shevat, 5489): George Washington was unanimously elected first President of the United States. Washington was no stranger to Jews. He had employed a Jewish doctor, Dr. John de Sequeyra, in an unsuccessful attempt to save the life of his stepdaughter and Lt. Colonel David Franks served on Washington’s staff during the Revolutionary War. But he is best remembered for his letter to the Jews of Newport in which he offered assurances to American Jews that they would enjoy full rights as citizens of the new republic where every man will sit under his fig tree and “none shall make him afraid.” Because he was the first President, Washington’s actions set the tone for the new nation and for his successors. 

1792:  George Washington is unanimously elected to a second term as President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College. Washington’s treatment of the Jews set a national tone that would help make the Jewish experience in America a unique one.

1799: Birthdate of Angelique Jacobine Vilhelmine Marie Petzhold, the wife of Ludwig Lewin Jacobson, the Danish surgeon who refused to convert to Christianity to further his career

1800: Lewis Aarons married Abigail Barah at the Great Synagogue today.

1807: In France, The Great Sanhedrin, a creation of Napoleon Bonaparte, met at the Hotel de Ville in the City Hall of Paris.

1810(30th of Shevat): Rabbi Reuben Horowitz author of Dudaim ba-Sadeh passed away

1810: The Royal Navy seized Guadeloupe.  At this time there were no Jews living on the Island. Jews were first recorded living in Guadeloupe in the late 14th century. In 1391, in a surge of anti-Jewish riots that began in Spain, most of the Jews were murdered. The community, however, began to revive during the mid-15th century. In 1485, the local inquisitor, Nuño de Arévalo, forbid all Jews from living in Guadeloupe. Prior to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal in 1492, the Jewish community sold the land of the old cemetery to the local bishop. Many Jews were forced into converting to Christianity; the Conversos in Guadeloupe lived together in a specified street in the former Jewish quarter. In 1489, two monks Diego de Marchena and García Capata, were burned at the stake for converting to Judaism. In 1654, three shiploads of Jewish refugees from Brazil settled in Guadeloupe. During that time, the Jews were welcomed by the French owner of the island. Even the capital of Guadalupe, Pointe-a-Pitre was named after a Brazilian Jew, called Pietre who started a fish processing plant in the city. The Jews established sugarcane plantations, which ultimately became the country’s leading export. In 1685, however, King Louis XIV issued “The Black Code” expelling all Jews from Guadeloupe.  During the latter part of the 20th century, many Jews began to arrive from North Africa and France. In 1988, the Jewish community consecrated the first synagogue in Guadeloupe, Or Sameah. Later the congregation added a Talmud Torah, community center, kosher store, and Jewish cemetery. Today, approximately 50 Jews live in Guadeloupe.

1815(24th of Shevat, 5575): Seventy-one-year-old Italian poet Solomon Fiorentino, the father of Angiolo Fiorentino passed away today at Florence.

1815: Copper manufacturer Harmon Hendricks, the son of Uriah Henricks, one of the founders of Congregation Shearith Israel and his Frances Isaacs, the daughter of Joshua and Brandy Isaacs gave birth to Emily Grace Hendricks.

1816: In Trieste Isacco Morpugro and Regina Parente gave birth to the banker Giuseppe Morpurgo the husband of Elisa Morpurgo.

1822: In London, Sarah and Eleazer Hart gave birth to Kate Hart the wife of Nathan Benjamin whom she married in 1844 and the mother of Mark, Sarah and Benjamin Nathan.

1823: In Charleston, SC, Isaac and Rachel Mordecai Harby gave birth to Octavia Harby Moses, the wife of Andrew Jackson Moses and the mother of Joshua, Rebecca, Isaac, Perry, Horace, Andrew, Octavian Armida, Cecelia, Octavia, Henry, Walter, Albert and Janes Moses.

1825: In London, Frances Cohen and Joel Benjamin gave birth to Joseph Benjamin.

1827(7th of Shevat, 5587): Sixty-seven Josiah Lunn, the Hilltown, PA born son of Alice and Joseph Josiah Lunn who first married Rachel Lunn and then Mary Lunn passed away today in New Britain, PA.

1829: Michael Coleman married Harriet Phillips at the Great Synagogue today.

1835: In Charleston, SC, Dr. B.A. Rodrigues married Cecilia Solomon this evening.

1836: Dade County, Florida is formed. According to 2000 census data, Dade County, which includes Miami, had a Jewish population in excess of 125,000 souls. The vibrant Jewish community there has far too many institutions, organizations and cultural events to list here. 

1838: Together with a dedicated group of Philadelphia Jewish women, Rebecca Gratz established the first Jewish Sunday School.

http://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/04/1838/rebecca-gratz

1842: In Portsea, Julia Moss and Emanuel Emanuel gave birth to Barrow Emanuel.

1842: In New York, Dr. Daniel Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto and Rachel Lopes Mendes Peixotto gave birth to Miriam Maduro Davis, the wife of Michael Marks Davis and the mother of Constance Miriam Mordecai; Eva L. Davis; Alice Gertrude Menken; Miriam Davis; Estelle Goldsmith; Goodman Richard Davis and Michael Marks Davis, Jr.

1842:  Birthdate of George Morris Cohen Brandes, influential Danish literary critic and historian.  “Poor is the power of the lead that becomes bullets compared to the power of the hot metal that becomes type.”

1844(14th of Shevat, 5604): Seventy-six-year-old Judith Moses Myers, the New York born daughter of Rachel and Moses Michael Hayes, the wife of Samuel Myers and the mother of  of Samuel Hays Myers; Gustavus Adolphus Myers; Henry Myers, M.D.; Agnes Myers; Rebecca Hays Myers; Ella C. Myers and Rachel Hays Myers passed away today in Richmond, VA.

1847: Birthdate of Philadelphia native and University of Pennsylvania graduate Charles Henry Hart, the lawyer turned art expert and author who married New Orleans native Anita Beatriz Arabe in 1912 after the death of his first wife Armine Nixon in 1897.

https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/charles-henry-hart-papers-9656

1848(30th of Shevat, 5608): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1850: In Mount Washington, KY, Alsace native Agatha Schwab and Bavarian born Maier Ochs gave birth Mathilda Ochs, the wife of Louis Tachau whom she married in Louisville, KY.

1852: Over eight hundred people attended the annual Ball of the Jew’s Hospital that was held this with the proceeds of the event providing funds to maintain this medical facility.

1854:  It was today reported that the population of Cape Town, South Africa, totaled 30,000 of which 3,000 were either Jews or Moslems.

1855: Nahum J. Steiner, "a converted Jew who has been laboring for several years among the Jews" of New York City was scheduled to give an address tonight at the Stanton Street Baptist Church entitled "Israel's Return and The Future Glory of the Messiah."  [Early attempts to convert Jews in America to Christianity were largely unsuccessful.  For those who did not want to remain Jewish, it was easy enough in America's fluid environment to just being a Jew without taking any formal action.]

1855:  Soldiers shot Jewish families in Coro, Venezuela.

1857: One day after she had passed away, 69 year old Esther Cohen, the wife of Moshe Cohen, was buried to at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.

1859: The Codex Sinaiticus is discovered in Egypt. The Codex was one of several ancient texts or resources discovered starting at the end of the 18th century and continuing into the 20th century including the Rosetta Stone, the Cairo Genizah and the Dead Sea Scrolls that shed light on ancient civilizations. They gave Jewish scholars a better understanding of the ancient Israelites and the Biblical text which are the cornerstone of Jewish faith and culture.

1863(15th of Shevat, 5623): Tu B’Shevat

1863: During the Civil War, three Jews went on trial before Judge Peabody in New Orleans, LA.  They had been seized by Union authorities while crossing Lake Pontchatrain headed to Rebel held territory in a boat loaded with medicines and letters from several leading citizens in New Orleans.  The Judge delayed passing sentence on the accused until the letter writers had been arrested per the order of General Nathanial Banks.

1864: Twenty-six-year-old Lyon Levy Emanuel, the native of Philadelphia and brother of Dr. Louis Manly Emanuel, began serving as a Captain with Company of the 88th Regiment.

1864: Union General Benjamin Butler, one of those chosen for his political clout and not his military acumen, replied to a complaint from N.S. Isaacs over the general’s use of the term “Jews” when describing the capture five people trying to smuggle supplies to the Rebels.  The General said that he used the term without thinking and was merely dictating from the dispatches submitted by his subordinate. He used the term Jews as he would Germans, Italians or Irish men i.e. a term of nationality not religion. While appearing to defend himself of a charge of being an anti-Semite the General wrote, I “have always considered the Jews a nationality, although possessing no country. The closeness with which they cling together, the aid which they afford each other, on all proper, and sometimes improper occasions, the fact that nearly all of them pursue substantially the same employment, so far as I have, known them -- that of traders, merchants, and bankers -- the very general obedience to the prohibition against marriage with Gentiles, their faith, which looks forward to the time when they are to be gathered together in the former land of their nation, -- all serve to show a closer the of kindred and nation among the Hebrews, and a greater homogeneity than belongs to any other nation, although its people live in closer proximity. So that while I disclaim all indention of any reflection upon, their national religion, which was the foundation and typical of that of the Christian World, and, holding to the doctrines of Christianity with reverence for the Savior, no one can stigmatize all Jews -- yet one may be reasonably permitted in speaking of that nation, to suppose there may be in all the Jaws of the South, two of whom certainly are in the Confederate Cabinet, at least five, who might attempt to carry on a contraband trade. Because it may be reverently remembered that when, the Savior, aided by Omniscience, undertook to choose twelve confidential friends from among that nation, he got one that "was a thief and had a devil." 

1870: In London, L.B. Abrahams, the Welsh born Head Master of the Jews’ Free School and his wife gave birth to Bertram Abrahams the University College graduate, Assistant Physician at Westminster Hospital and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians wh wrote “The Principles of Pathology.”

1871(13th of Shevat, 5631): Parashat Beshalach

1871(13th of Shevat, 5631): Mary Pivany Morningstar, the Hungarian born daughter of Anna Morgenstern Pivany and the wife of Charles Morningstar passed away today in Brooklyn after which she was buried in the Green-Wood Cemetery.

1871: Eighty-five-year-old Hermann, Fürst von Pückler-Muskau who met Rabbi Moses Sachs in Tunis in 1835 and was so impressed with him and his plan to settle Jews in Palestine that he arranged for him to meet with Baron Salomon Mayer von Rothschild of Vienna passed away today.

1874(17th of Shevat, 5634): Yakir Gueron, the sixth member of his family to serve as the rabbi in Andrianpole who had resigned his position two years ago passed away today in Jerusalem.

1874: It was reported today that the Hebrew Young Ladies’ Charitable Union will sponsor a dramatic performance at the Lyceum Theatre in New York in order to raise funds for the Home of Aged Hebrews.

1875: The Downtown Hebrew Ladies’ Benevolent Society – Mothers of Israel – will sponsor its first annual festival ball this evening at Turner Hall in New York City.

1876: In Kings County, New York, the trial of P.N. Rubenstein who has been charged with murdering his cousin Sara Alexander heard testimony from several witnesses including the defendant’s brother, Louis.

1877: It was reported today that the in New York, the Purim Association will celebrate the festival this year with a Calico Masked Reception at Delmonico’s.  The event is a fund raiser and attendance will be limited by the number of tickets available.

1877: It was reported today that the Ladies’ Bikur Cholim Society of the School of Industry will host an event on February 15th at Ferrero’s Assembly Rooms in New York. [Editor’s Note – Bikur cholim refers to the mitzvah of visiting the sick.  Societies to further that goal have been a part of Jewish communal life since the Middle Ages.]

1877: “Compassionate Israel” published today described the manner in which the Jewish community cares for the less unfortunate including the creation of the Hebrew United Charities, the building of the Jew’s Hospital now known as Mt. Sinai and the opening of the Aged and Infirm Hebrews on the grounds of what used to be the Astor estate.

1877: Four days after he had passed away, 85-year-old Samuel Isaacs, the husband of Ann Isaacs with whom he had had ten children, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1879: William Henry Waddington, who had expressed his support “large-scale Jewish settlement in Palestine” in a letter to the Sultan began serving as French Prime Minister.

1879(11th of Shevat, 5639): Henry Zvi Defries, the London born of Daniel (Gedalia) Defries and Charlotte Defries and the husband of Elizabeth Defries and Mary Miriam Defries passed away today.

1879: It was reported today that among the private institutions caring for New York’s impoverished orphans that are receiving public funds as proscribed by law is the Hebrew Orphan Asylum which is scheduled to received $32,450 to help toward the care of 295 youngsters.

1882(15th of Shevat, 5642): Parashat Beshalach and Tu Bishevat

1883: Three days after he had passed, Samuel Stiebel, the German-born son of Isaac Daniel Stiebel and Vogel Heinemann and the husband of Jane Stiebel with whom he had had six children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1884: Leaders of the New York Jewish community met at the Nineteenth-Street Jewish Synagogue to discuss plans for commemorating the upcoming 100th birthday of Sir Moses Montefiore with a permanent monument.  Projects under consideration including building housing for poor Jews, a reformatory and a mission designed to provide education for recent Russian immigrants.

1887: Birthdate of Morris Pozen, the native of Elizabethgrad who came to the United States where earned a BS and PhD from George Washington University after which he pursued a career in the fields of “brewing and food-chemistry.”

1888: Birthdate of New York native Nathan Peyser, the holder of a Ph.D. from NYU who served as Principal of P.S. in Easter Harlem and P.S. 181 in Brooklyn who championed having the public schools serve as “center of the community” in the fight to prevent delinquency among the city’s youth.

1890: In Omaha, Nebraska, Abraham and Betsy Monsky gave give birth to Creighton University trained attorney whose active role in the Jewish community included serving as vice president of the Jewish Community Center of Omaha and the Jewish Welfare Federation of Omaha who married Sadie Lesser in San Francisco.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/monsky-henry

1890: Birthdate of Chicago native Beatrice Josephi who became Mrs. Ely Jacques Kahn when she married the architect Ely Jacques Kahn after the death of her first husband Leo Sulzberger and who was present the 1933 B’nai B’rith award on behalf of the work done by the National Council of Jewish Women.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/08/23/83513837.html?pageNumber=29

 

1890: The sale of boxes for the 29th annual ball sponsored by the Purim Association which will be held next month took place this evening at Temple Emanu-El in New York City.

1891: In Worcester, MA, “Franz Boas, regarded by many as the father of modern anthropology” and the former Marie Krackowizer gave birth to Columbia trained physician Dr. Ernst Phillip Boas who served as the Captain in Medical Corps of the U.S. Army during WW II before becoming the Director of the Montefiore Hospital for Chronic Diseases starting in 1921 while raising three children – Barbara, Donald and Norman – with his wife “the former Helen Sisson” whom he married in 1917.

1891: The trustees of the fund which was created with money donated by Baron de Hirsch met at the home of Jesse Seligman where they re-elected their old officers and finalized the method for gaining access to the Baron’s largesse which help Jewish immigrants to pursue occupations other than peddlers such as mechanics or farmers.

1892: During an address by American author and journalist Poultney Bigelow on the persecution of “Christian Jews” in which he described the Czar as “a kindly man” a Russian Jew named Copik rose from the audience and said, “that the Czar was a savage and a tyrant” and went to provide several examples based on his personal experience.

1892: The will of the late Benjamin Russak was filed for probate in the Surrogate’s office in New York City.  “The estate is valued at about a million dollars.”

1892: The Chamber of Commerce met today in New York City in an attempt to raise funds to alleviate the Russians who are suffering through a famine.  Jewish members expressed their support for raising the money but expressed concern that raising such funds would express approval for the government of the Czar which was persecuting their Russian co-religionists.

1893: It was reported today that the late Simon Davidson has bequeathed $500 to Mount Sinai Hospital.  He also “returned six buildings and the loan bonds for $1,000 which he held against” the Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Asylum to that institution.

1894(28th of Shevat, 5654): Louis Lewandowski, the first Jew to be admitted to the Berlin Academy of Arts passed away

1894: It was reported today, that after police drove 250 unemployed Jews from the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, they regrouped at Trafalgar Square, “where an impromptu meeting was held.”

1895: Birthdate of University of Missouri trained attorney Samuel Halpern Liberman.

1898: During the Dreyfus Affair, the French Army High Command brings an action of criminal libel against Emile Zola for his accusations of knowing collaboration on the part of the French general staff in convicting Dreyfus based on false information.

1899: Among the 150,000 forces present to suppress the Insurrection that began today in the Philippine’s is Joseph M Heller who was assigned as a surgeon to a battalion of the 24th U.S. Infantry

1899: Birthdate of Lower East Side native Harry Halpern, the holder of a BA from CCNY, an MA from Columbia, two degrees from the Brooklyn Law School and a DHL from Jewish Theological Seminary, who was a powerhouse in the Conservative rabbinate as he served the East Midwood Jewish Center in Brooklyn for almost half a century.

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/12/obituaries/harry-halpern-82-jewish-leader-dies.html

1889: Twenty-one-year-old Republican party leader and Washington University graduate Louis P. Aloe, the St. Louis born son of Albert S. and Isabelle (Prince) Aloe who would serve as acting mayor of St. Louis during World War and Vice President of the Federation of Jewish charities married Edith Rosenblatt today.

1899: In New York, the Shaaray Tefila Young People’s Association hosted an evening of entertainment in the lecture room of the congregation located on West 82nd Street.

1900: “The Jewish Historical Society of England created an ‘Education and Publication Committee’” today.

1900(5th of Adar I, 5660): Rabbi Jacob Aron Mendes Chumaceiro of Amsterdam passes away at the age of 67.

1900: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for Bavarian born Abraham Michelbacher, “the last surviving charter member of Temple Emanu-El who in 1839 came to New York where he went into the dry goods business and was “a patron of every Jewish organization” In New York including the Zion Lodge of B’nai B’rith of which he was a charter member.

1900(5th of Adar I, 5660): Rabbi Israel Benamozegh at Leghorn passed away at the age of 76.

1901(15th of Shevat, 5661): Tu Bishvat

1901(15th of Shevat, 5661): Jacob Plautt of Hamburg who passed away today in Nice “left 20,000 francs for the benefit of police officers” injured in the line of duty, 10,000 francs each to the Jewish Refuge at Plessis Piquet, the Alliance Israelite and the School Elisa Lemonnier and 5,000 francs to the Jewish Philanthropic Union.

1902: In San Francisco, Linda Esther Salz and Palatinate, Germany native David Hirschler gave birth to University of California educated department store executive. Frederic Hirschler, the husband of Marjorie Kahn Manheim and the father of Carol Hirschler.

1902:  Birthdate of Charles Lindbergh, the “Lone Eagle,” the first person to fly across the Atlantic from New York to Paris.  Unfortunately, Lindbergh’s skill as an aviator surpassed his political aptitude. “As World War II began, Lindbergh became a prominent speaker in favor of non-intervention, going so far as to recommend that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Germany during his January 23, 1941 testimony before Congress. At an America First rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on September 11, 1941, he made a speech titled "Who Are the War Agitators?" in which he claimed that Americans had solidly opposed entering the war when it began, and that three groups had been "pressing this country toward war" -- the Roosevelt Administration, the British, and the Jews, and complained about what he insisted was the Jews' "large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government." He made clear however his opposition to anti-Semitism, stating that "All good men of conscience must condemn the treatment of the Jews in Germany", further advising "Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way for they will be among the first to feel its consequences. Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastation."

1902: Fifty-six-year-old Hermann Wolf passed away in Berlin.

http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Hermann_Wolff

1903:  Birthdate of famed mathematician Sir Alexander Oppenheimer. Interestingly enough, even though Oppenheimer was born in Salford, Lancashire it is reported that his first language was Yiddish. After graduating from Oxford in 1927, he earned PhD from the University of Chicago in 1930. After a year of lecturing at Edinburgh University, he accepted a professorship at the Raffles College, Singapore. During the war he was a prisoner at the Changi camp. After the war he returned to Raffles College, retiring in 1967. He then became a professor at Reading University (1966-68) and head of the mathematics departments of the University of Ghana (1968-73) and Benin, Nigeria (1973-77). He passed away in 1997.

1903: Birthdate of Alexander Imich “a Polish born American chemist, parapsychologist, and writer, who was the president of the Anomalous Phenomena Research Center in New York City

http://www.jewishpress.com/sections/features/meeting-alexander-imich-111-years-old/2014/02/28/

1904: Three days after he passed away funeral services are scheduled to held for seventy-two-year-old Hungarian born and California Gold Rush participant Morris Tuska who in 1857 “established himself in the wholesale upholstery business” in New York where “he was instrumental in the founding of the United Charity Organization” and the Hebrew Technical Institute while being an active member for 45 years of Temple Emanu-El and raising one daughter and two sons with his wife.

1905(29th of Shevat, 5665): Parashat Mishpatim

1905: Harris Elias, a well-to-do merchant and Trustee of Beth Israel” lies near death after have been struck in head with a “stove lighter” wielded by John O. Grady.

1906:  Today, Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, the founder and President of the National Farm School said, "Happiness is never a product of external treasure. It can only spring from within, from a clean heart, from a pure conscience."

1906: In Manhattan, Isidore Rabinowitz, the Grodno born son of Shimon Simon Rabinowitz and Libbie Robinowitz Rabinowitz and his wife Rebecca Rosen Rabinowitz gave birth to Dr. Archie Robbins

1906: During his lecture on “Liberty” at Cooper Union, Rev. Dr. Thomas R. Slicer said “It is a foolish thing for Russian Jews in America and England to be should for freedom for their people at home when a rich Jew lends money to Russia for a war loan.”

1907: “Solomon Foster, the rabbi of Temple B’nai Jershurun of Newark, NJ, created much supries at a meeting of the Newark Ministerial Association” today be expressing his supported “strictly secular schools, “declaring that the Jews should have equal rights with Chrisitians.”

1908: Birthdate of trumpeter Emmanuel "Manny" Klein.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/manny-klein-mn0000539790/biography

1909(13th of Shevat, 5669): Sixty year old Polish born Adolph M. Radin who served as the rabbi of a congregation in Elmira, NY and Congregation Gates of Hope in NYC before assuming the pulpit at the People’s Synagogue passed away today.

1909: In Chicago, Alfred Samuel Alschuler, Sr. and his wife, the former Rose Haas, the noted child education and Zionist, gave birth to Marian Frances Despres.

1910: A decision handed down today by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court reversing the ruling of Columbia Law School graduate Justice Samuel Greenbaum, the London born sone of Rachel Schlesinger and Louis Greenbuam and husband of Selina Ullman, in dismissing the action brought by the city last year against the Alhambra Theatre, in Harlem, has reopened the whole agitation regarding Sunday theatrical performances, and dealt the Sunday theatres a severe blow.

1910: Dr. Joseph P. Solomon, “a chiropodist” asked the State Board of Charities for permission to start a “People’s Pedicure Clinic.”

1910: Isaac Stern of the Jewish Communal Institutions told the State Board of Charities “that when Mount Sinai’s two new stories and its additional $80,000 improvements were finished, it would be able to take care of all of the upper east side poor who apply to it.”

1911: The Sentinel, a weekly Yiddish paper co-founded by Abraham L. Weber and Louis S. Berlin who was the “editor and longtime publisher” was published for the first time today.

1912: Birthdate of Norfolk, VA, native and Carnegie Ph.D. Julius Halpern, the physicist who helped to develop radar on WW II and who was the husband of “the former Phyllis E. Melnick” and father of Sydney Ann and Paul J. Melnick.

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/16/archives/julius-halpern-physigist-was60-professor-at-pennsylvania-who-worked.html

1912: In Vienna Ludwig Julius and Charlotte Loebl Leinsdorf gave birth to conductor Erich Leinsdorf.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/12/obituaries/erich-leinsdorf-81-a-conductor-of-intelligence-and-utility-is-dead.html

1913: The Executive Committee of New Jersey Conference of Charities and Correction to which Newark Rabbi, Solomon Foster had been re-elected to as a member came to a close today at Plainfield, NJ.

1913: Former Harvard football coach and U.S. Congressman Lucius Nathan Littauer “and his brother William were convicted of smuggling and conspiracy to defraud after he admitted to importing valuable jewels from Venice worth in excess of $40,000 without paying the necessary duty.”

1913: Nora Funkenstein is scheduled to play a piano solo at today’s meeting of the Ladies Society of B’nai Sholom Temple Israel.

1914(8th of Shevat, 5674): Fifty-five-year-old Romanian born Yiddish comedian and actor Sigmund Mogulesko passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F0DE4D71F3BE633A25756C0A9649C946596D6CF

1915(20th of Shevat, 5675): Fifty-year-old David Blutreich, the Secretary of the 50,000 member Federation of Galician Jews in America who came to the United States ten years ago passed away from heart disease while at his office at 273 East Houston Street.

1915:  Dr. Joseph Goldberger began his experiments on prison volunteers in Jackson, Mississippi in order to find the cause of the deadly disease pellagra.  He proved that pellagra is caused by poor diet and launched the biological age of nutrition research which linked diseases with a lack of essential vitamins.

1915:  Turkish troops attempt to cross the Suez Canal as part of plans to start an anti-British uprising in Egypt and close the vital waterway connecting India with the British Isles.  The seriousness of the attack will lead to an aggressive campaign that will ultimately end with the British in control of Eretz Israel.

1915: “To Send Food to Palestine” published today described the work of The Provisional Executive Committee for General Affairs is doing to arrange for sending “a shipload of food to Palestine” after receiving a cable from the American Ambassador at Constantinople describing a report from the American Counsel at Jerusalem “that it is impossible to obtain coffee, tea, sugar, rice or flour at any price.”

1915: “Tells of Russian’s Murder of Jews” published today, provides information first appearing in The American Hebrew from “Dr. Arthur Levy, a rabbi serving with the German in the campaign against Russia who sets for in great detail a list of pogroms and murders, with many deeds of unmentionable outrage which, he says, were committed by the Russians against the Jewish population in recent weeks of war”

1916: Among the contributions reported today by the American Jewish Relief Committee were $100 from Congregation Beth Israel in Washington, DC; $100 from the Dubuque, Iowa, Hebrew Relief Association, $100 from the American Jewish Relief Committee in Chattanooga, TN and $240 from Hirsch Manischewitz of Cincinnati, Ohio.”

1916: Felix Warburg the Treasurer of the American Jewish Relief Committee “received a check for $835.50, the amount collected by Miss Esther Labold and Mrs. Shapiro of Portsmouth, Ohio” which was “entirely collected” from “non-Jews.”

1916(30th of Shevat, 5676): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1916: While serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps, Hyman Lightstone of Montreal, received he Military Cross today.

1916: The People’s Relief Committee which “is raising funds for the relief of the millions of Jews made destitute through the war in Europe” “announced today that it would hold a bazaar and fair” next month.

1916: The committee raising funds for the Jewish war suffers announced today that the demand for seats at the upcoming mass meeting in Brooklyn has been so great “that the music hall of the Brooklyn Academy of Music has been engaged for an overflow meeting.”

1917: It was reported today that according to a report received from Abram I. Elkus, the American Ambassador at Constantinople, the Jewish Orphanage at Chichli has received £25 for shoes and clothing.

1917: The campaign of the Brooklyn Jewish Volunteer Relief Committee which has a goal of raising $200,000 for the relief of Jews in war-torn Europe is scheduled to come to an end tonight.

1917: J. Shreve Durham, the General Superintendent of the Home Visitation Committee expressed his approval of the cooperation shown by Catholics, Protestants and Jews who took part in today’s effort to compile figures for a religious census in New York City.

1918: The American Jewish Relief Committee announced today that it has received almost $15,000 in additional contributions for its $10,000,000 fund.

1918: Today the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith met for the final day of its annual convention during which it passed resolutions supporting the government’s war aims and calling upon all members to support the conservation measures that are part of the war effort.

1918: A Cincinnati firm that supplies about 65% per cent of the Jews in America with Matzah, today asked Food Administrator Herbert Hoover “to permit bakers of unleavened Passover bread to get sufficient flour to meet the requirements of the Jews.”

1918: The Palestine Restoration Fund announced that to date it has raised almost $700,000, including a $25,000 contribution of $25,000 from Albert H. Loeb of Chicago.

1919: While the world waits for a final peace settlement ending the World War the Imperial Ottoman Banks Bank of London is preparing to resume payments who are “not enemies or who are not the allies of enemies” to “residents in those portions of Palestine and Syria” that are under control of the British Imperial forces.

1919: It was reported today that a $20,000 check from the Phelps-Dodge Corporation was “the first contribution from a New York corporation” made to the Committee for Relief in the Near East which is working to proving “immediate relief to the sufferers in the Holy Land” i.e. Palestine.

1920(15th of Shevat, 5680): Tu B’Shevat

1920(15th of Shevat, 5680): Sixty-seven-year-old Hulda Levi Lasker, the husband of Samuel Lasker whom she married in 1877 with whom she had six children – Meyer, Helen, Isaac, Rose, Tillie and Selma – passed away today after which she was buried in the Union Field Cemetery in Ridgewood, NY.

1920(15th of Shevat, 5680): Fifty-nine-year-old William J. Berkowitz, the Kansas City, MO businessman, founder of Berkowitz and Company Printers and a “delegate to the National Conference of Jewish Charities and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations” who married Emilie Block with whom he had three children – Eugene, Estelle and Walter --, the grandchildren of Louis and Henrietta Berkowitz, passed away today.

https://postalmuseum.si.edu/americasmailingindustry/Tension-Corporation.html

1920: The funeral of Louis Seide, a member of the Knights of Pythias is scheduled to take place at the Rothschild’s Chapel on Lenox Avenue this morning.

1920: The funeral of Mae Reichman, the wife of Samuel Reichman is scheduled to take place this afternoon at the home of her parents Mr. and Mrs. Goldberger on East 165th Street.

1921: At a conference in Salonica, Greek Zionists adopt a resolution stating that Jewish education at the Alliance Israelite Universelle schools is not in tune with their national views and aspirations.

1921: It was reported today that “during the month of January, the papers on ‘Judaism and Our Youth’ by Mrs. Max L. Margolis of Philadelphia and on ‘Social Effort in America for Assimilation of the Immigrant’ by Mrs. W.D. Sporborg of New York were read the regular meeting of the Baltimore and San Francisco sections” of the Council of Jewish Women.

1921: Birthdate of Betty Naomi Goldstein, the Jewess from Peoria, Illinois, who would gain fame as Betty Friedan author of The Feminine Mystique.

1922: In Manhattan, Max and Bella (Portnoy) Kalb gave birth to award winning broadcast journalist Bernard Kalb, the older brother of Marvin Kalb with whom he co-authored a book on Henry Kissinger and who resigned as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs “to protest what he called "the reported disinformation program" conducted by the Reagan Administration against the Libyan leader Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/08/business/media/bernard-kalb-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

 

1922: Birthdate of Jew’s College graduate Rabi Bernard Hooker, the husband of Eileen Hooker and “the youngest Jewish Chaplain to serve the British Armed forces who “moved to the non-Orthodox sec

tor which led to him serving the Birmingham Liberal Jewish Synagogue and the North London Progressive Synagogue.

1922: “Radio Operators Hear a Good Concert” published today in the Bridgeport (CT) Telegram described a recent radio broadcast that included songs sung by Eddie Cantor.

1923: Louis “Gruenberg conducted the American premiere of Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg as a member of the International Composers' Guild.”

1923(18th of Shevat, 5683): Cantor Israel Litman passed away today in New York City.

1923: The Turks “interrupted” the conference at Lausanne, Switzerland, where the Allies and Ottomans were meeting to bring a formal end to World War I.

1924: In the same year that he founded Sam Ash Music Corporation, 27-year-old Sam Ash married 21 Rose Dinn

1925: In Brooklyn, Harry and Henriette Koeppel Karnow gave birth to Stanley Karnow, “the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist who produced acclaimed books and television documentaries about Vietnam and the Philippines…” (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/arts/television/stanley-karnow-historian-and-journalist-dies-at-87.html

1926: “A delegation of well known Jews of New York, headed by Rabbi Stephen Wise, appeared before the House Committee on Immigration today to urge favorable action on the Wadsworth-Periman bill proposing amendments to the Immigration law that would admit wives, husbands and other near relatives of American citizens as non-quota immigrants.”

1927: In Basel, Marcus Cohn, a leader of the Swiss Zionist movement and his wife gave birth to Oscar award winning movie producer Arthur Cohn, the grandson of Arthur Cohn, the chief rabbi of Basel.

1927: “The Jazz Singer,” the first talking motion picture, starring Al Jolson, was released.

1927: In Manhattan Joseph Schultz, at attorney and Isabelle Schultz gave birth to acclaimed television producer Barbara Ann Schultz, (By Katharine Q. Seelye)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/obituaries/barbara-schultz-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1927: Twenty-four-year-old bantam weight Charley Phil Rosenberg won his 15 round championship bout today but lost the title because he was over the weight for his class.

1928(13th of Shevat, 5688): Parashat Beshalach

1928: It was reported today that Yale University will undertake the excavation of part of the ancient city of Jerash in Palestine in cooperation with the British School of Archaeology.

1928: It was reported today that in London in responses to the case of Michael Hirsch and Samuel Cohen versus the Protestant School Board of Montreal, the Privy Council “has affirmed the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada that the Jews of Montreal, as ‘protestants’ had no right to representation on the Protestant School Board of that city” and has “amended the Supreme Court’s decision by declaring that there was nothing in the act whereby Jewish children have the right to attend Protestant schools to prevent a Jew from serving on the board it appointed.

1929: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Stanley Drukcer, the long-time principal clarinetist with the New York Philharmonic.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/20/arts/music/stanley-drucker-dead.html

1929: “The Man with the Frog” a silent film with much by Artur Guttman was released in Germany today.

1930: “The Yeshiva of Bensonhurst has secured the services of Charles A. Cowen, a noted Jewish leader, as Executive Director, according to an announcement made today by David Freiberger, President of the Yeshiva. Mr. Cowen who has been associated with various Jewish communal affairs during the past twenty-five years, has been a leader in the Zionist movement ever since 1914, when he was a member of the Provisional Zionist Committee with Justice Louis D. Brandeis as chairman. He has also been active in Jewish relief and cultural work.”

1930: “People on Sunday,” a silent film “directed by Curt and Robert Siodmak with a screenplay by Billy Wilder and Robert Siodmak which was produced by Edgar G. Ulmer was released in Germany today.

1931: In Philadelphia, PA, David and Rose Feinstein gave birth to Barry Feinstein, “a photographer who chronicled the lives of seminal rock ’n’ roll stars of the 1960s, and who was perhaps best known for the stark portrait of Bob Dylan on the cover of the 1964 album “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” (As reported by Paul Vitello)

https://barryfeinsteinphotography.com/

1931: It was reported today that a stock presentation of “An American Tragedy,” a dramatization of the novel by the same names produced by Jules Leventhal is scheduled to open at the Waldorf Theatre on February 16.

1932: The 1932 Winter Olympics, in which speed skater Irving Jaffee would win two gold medals, opened today in Lake Placid.

1932(27th of Shevat, 5692): Sixty-five-year-old Max Leopold Margolis passed away today.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0013_0_13280.html

http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/1933_1934_5_SpecialArticles.pdf

1933: Eighty-seven-year-old Archibald Henry Sayce, the Professor of Assyriology at Oxford whose works included The Chronology of the Bible Connected with Contemporaneous Events in the History of Babylonians, Assyrians and Egyptians, Introduction to the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, The Life and Times of Isaiah, Patriarchal Palestine, The Egypt of the Hebrews and Herodotus, Early History of the Hebrews and Israel and the Surrounding Nations, passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9D0DE1D7173EEF33A25751C2A9629C94659ED7CF

1933: In Tel Aviv, Eliyahu Golomb, one of the early leaders of the Haganah and his wife gave birth to David Golomb, Israeli political leader and Knesset member. 

1934: In New York, at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, Dr. Israel Goldstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon “A Roosevelt Anniversary and a Hitler Anniversary – Is Humanity Moving Forward or Backward?”

1934: “United action to provide a refuge in Palestine for Jews of Germany was urged today at an emergency conference of more than 1,000 delegates of Jewish organizations in the Hotel Pennsylvania.”

1935(1st of Adar I, 5695): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1935(1st of Adar I, 5695): Fifty-five-year-old, Nathan Mileikowsky, the Lithuanian born rabbi who made Aliyah in 1920 and was the patriarch of the Netanyahu clan that included his son historian Benzion and grandsons Benjamin and Yonatan of blessed memory, passed away today.

1936: In Philadelphia, PA, vaudevillian Louis Brenner and his wife gave birth to comedian David Brenner.

http://news.yahoo.com/comedian-david-brenner-tonight-favorite-dies-222814425.html

1936: Bronislaw Humberman, a prominent Polish violinist announced this afternoon that a symphony orchestra is being formed in Palestine that will be known as the Palestine Orchestra Association. Many of those in the orchestra will be residents or former residents of Germany who cannot work that Nazi nation.  Huberman reported $25,000 has already been contributed to help the orchestra with its initial organizational activities.

 1936: David Frankfurter, a Jewish Yugoslav medical student, killed the Swiss Nazi Gauleiter Wilhelm Gustoff. Though the German government demanded the death penalty, he was sentenced to eighteen years. Some historians believe that his action served as a model for Hershel Grynzpan whose assassination was used by the Nazi party for an all-out attack on Jewish property and synagogues known as Kristallnacht.

1937: “White Cargo” directed by Robert Siodmak, produced by Seymour Nebenzal and with music by Paul Dessau was released in France today.

1938: Two months after premiering at the Cathay Circle Theatre, Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” which animator David Hilberman helped to create was released today in the rest of the United States.

1938: Tonight, in Vienna, Nazis youths smashed windows in shops owned by Jews and “threw a burning gasoline container” into a synagogue while people were attending services.

1938: New income tax regulations issued by the German government today ended the income tax reduction for Jewish children while keeping the reduction for Aryan families.

1938: “The Goldwyn Follies” produced by Samuel Goldwyn, written by Ben Hecht, co-starring the Ritz Brothers, with music by George Gershwin was released in the United States today.

1938: “Everybody Sing” a musical comedy co-starring Fanny Brice, produced by Harry Rapf and photographed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released today in the United States.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that Mordechai Nahman, a Jewish guard at the Shell Bridge in Haifa, was stabbed and badly injured by two Arabs, who succeeded in escaping.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that Dr. Chaim Weizmann, upon his departure for England, stressed the Yishuv's and world Jewry need for unity, and said that some people "can only succeed in placing obstacles on our path, but they will never stop our work."

1939: Abraham Lewis, an African-American from Louisiana one of the last of the members of the International Brigade, a large percentage of whom were Jewish, to leave Spain after the Civil War returned to the United States on board the SS President Harding today.

1939: Martha and Waitstill Sharp set sail for Europe today in the first step of their plan to help rescue Jews in Europe.  The behavior of these two quintessential WASPS (he was a Unitarian minister who traced his lineage back to the original settlers of New England) defies logic and serve as a reminder of the good truly religious people can in the world.  They have been honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

1939(15th of Shevat, 5699): Parashat Beshalach and Tu B’Shevat

1939: Rabbi Nathan A. Peulman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “How Israel Can Survive the World” at Temple Emanu-El.

1939: Rabbi William F. Rosenblum is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Jewish Life” this morning at Temple Israel.

1939: Rabbi Louis I. Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Hitler’s Speech and Democracy’s Answer” this morning at Temple Rodeph Sholom.

1939: As part of the “observance of the Jewish New Year of the Trees” that coincided with Shabbat today, Rabbi Alexander Segel is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Blessed Be the Planters” at the Fort Washington Synagogue.

1939: Rabbi Harold H. Maischioff is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “A Prelude to Freedom” at the Temple of the Covenant.

1939: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Tree and Its Maker” at the Central Synagogue.

1939(15th of Shevat, 5699): Fifty-five-year-old Edward Sapir, the son of a rabbi who gained fame as an anthropological linguist while teaching at the University of Chicago and Yale passed away today.

https://biography.yourdictionary.com/edward-sapir

1940(25th of Shevat, 5700): Eighty-year-old “civic leader and philanthropist” Isaac Gans who came to Washington, DC from Baltimore in 1882 and had earned the praise of “Protestant, Episcopal and Catholics” leaders passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1940/02/06/94793337.pdf

https://www.jta.org/1940/02/06/archive/isaac-gans-friend-of-presidents-dead-in-washington-at-80

1940: It was learned today that “the emigrant ship Sakarya with about 2,200 Jewish refugees from Czecho-Slovakia, Austria and Rumania on board has left the Black Sea port of Sulina, on the Danube delta” after the refugees have spent six weeks aboard the ship where they have survived on donations from Jewish charities.

1940(25th of Shevat, 5700): Seventy-year-old Newton, NJ born Columbia University graduate Charles M. Myers the attorney and counsel for the New Board of Education who was member of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun and the husband of Bertha Simmons Myers, passed away tonight in the Newark Memorial Hospital.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1940/02/06/94793345.html?pageNumber=27

1941: As they made their way to Palestine, artist Marcel Janco who co-invented Dadaism and his family arrived in Turkey having left Romania following the Bucharest Pogrom of January, 1941.

1941: In response to a request from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide morale and recreation services to uniformed military personnel six civilian agencies including the National Jewish Welfare Board formed the United Service Organization popularly known as the USO.

1942: Reverend Chait of the Army Jewish Chaplaincy visited Isidore Newman who was in the hospital recovering from the effects of having broken a leg during SOE parachute training in Scotland.

1943(29th of Shevat, 5703): The Germans killed Eberson, Buber, Kimmelman, and Chigier four of the remaining 12 members of the Jewish Council of Lvov. Six others were sent to Janawska concentration camp.

1944: Today, William Green, the President of the American Federation of Labor pledged his organizations support “for the Wagner-Taft resolution asking the government to aid in keeping Palestine open for the free entry of Jews” going forward from today into the “post-war period.”

1945: This afternoon, a British constable was seized by a shark while he was swimming in the Mediterranean off the coast of Tel Aviv.  “A passing RAF pilot saw the commotion in the water beneath him and dipped down to investigate.  The roar of the motors frightened the shark away and the constable swam to shore safely.”

1946: The Anglo-American Palestine Inquiry Commission is scheduled to leave for Germany today to begin a month’s study of the Jewish situation in Europe. 

1946: Garson Kanin’s “Born Yesterday” starring Judy Holliday premiered on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre.

1947(14th of Shevat, 5707): Forty-five-year-old Manhattan native and NYU trained attorney Herman M. Albert, the Democratic Party leader who served as an Assemblyman and Bronx County Register passed away today in the Montefiore Hospital.

1947: “My Brother Talks to Horses” directed by Fred Zinneman and produced by Samuel Marx was released in the United States today.

1948: It was learned today that “Trygve Lie, Secretary General of the United Nations, will throw the full weight of his influence behind the Palestine Commission’s demand for an international armed force which is intended to enforce the Partition Plan adopted by the United Nations.

1948: Today, 73-year-old Dr. Chaim Weizmann, “the former president of the World Zionist Organization” said that “reports of Communist agents” being on board the “Pan York and Pan Crescent are malicious nonsense.”

1949: After premiering last month in Los Angeles, “Criss Cross,” the film version of the book by the same title direct by Robert Siodmak was released today in the rest of the United States.

1949: At a public meeting David Ben-Gurion stressed the need for a ‘partnership’ between the state of Israel and the Jews of the Diaspora.

1950: The Andrews Sisters version of “I Can Dream, Can’t I?,” “a popular song written by Sammy Fain with lyrics by Irving Kahal completed its run as the “U.S. Billboard Best Sellers in Stores number-one single.”

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that a train was derailed north of Kalkilya, as the result of a carefully planned operation by Jordanian saboteurs who blew up a section of track opposite Tulama village. The line was later repaired and reopened, but only after military attaches of foreign embassies visited the site. Israel submitted another complaint on Jordanian infiltration to the Mixed Israeli-Jordanian Armistice Commission.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that a Farm Settlement Bill passed its first reading in the Knesset.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that The High Court upheld the Interior Ministry's order closing the Communist daily Kol Ha'am for 10 days for endangering the public peace by publication of articles justifying the current Soviet anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli propaganda, lies and fabrications.

1954(1st of Adar I, 5714): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1954(1st of Adar I, 5714): Eighty-five-year-old author and lecturer Chapman Cohen, the Leicester, England born son “Enoch Cohen, a confectioner and Deborah Barnett and the husband of Celia Cohen with whom he had two children – Raymond and Daisy – passed away today in Brentwood, Essex, England.

https://heritage.humanists.uk/chapman-cohen/

1956: Birthdate of Kati Marton “an American author and journalist. Her career has included reporting for ABC News as a foreign correspondent and National Public Radio, where she started as a production assistant in 1971 in her 20s, as well as print journalism and writing a number of books. She is the former chairwoman of the International Women's Health Coalition, and a director (former chairwoman) of the Committee to Protect Journalists and other bodies including the International Rescue Committee, Human Rights Watch and the New America Foundation. She has received several honors for her reporting, including the 2001 Rebekah Kohut Humanitarian Award by the National Council of Jewish Women, the 2002 Matrix Award for Women Who Change the World, the George Foster Peabody Award (presented to WCAU-TV, Philadelphia in 1973) and the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary—the country's highest civilian honor. Marton is also a recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence. Marton was born in Hungary, the daughter of UPI reporter Ilona Marton and award-winning AP reporter Endre Marton. Her parents survived the Holocaust of World War II but never spoke about it. Her parents served nearly two years in prison on false charges of espionage for the U.S. and Kati and her older sister were placed in the care of strangers. Raised a Roman Catholic, she only learned late in life and by accident from a third party that her grandparents were Jews who were murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp. Among the many honors her parents received for their reporting on the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was the George Polk Award. The family ultimately fled Hungary following the revolution and settled in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where Marton attended Bethesda Chevy Chase High School.

1956(22nd of Shevat, 5716): Parashat Yitro

1956: Sixty-eight-year-old Savielly Tartakower the Polish and French chess grandmaster whose parent were killed in a pogrom in Rostov-on-Dov despite having converted t0 Christianity, passed away today.

1957: “Miss Peach” a comic strip created by Mell Lazarus appeared in the New York Herald Tribune for the first time today.

1957: Reinhold Niebuhr expressed his views on the Jewish state in “Our Stake in the State of Israel” which was published today.

http://www.newrepublic.com/book/review/our-stake-in-the-state-israel

1958: Record executive Emanuel Sacks wrote “Broadway columnist” Louis Sobel at the Journal American expressing his hope that he will soon be over his “illness” and able to return to NBC “which is going to look like paradise.”

1959: For the first times since ancient times, Israel began exporting copper ore from the King Solomon mines.

1959: In Camden, NJ, the Beth-El Men’s Club presented a musical program honoring Cantor Louis J. Herman that included a performance by the Beth-El Choral group accompanied by pianist Mrs. Herbert Solomon.

1959: “Black Orchard” a love story directed by Martin Ritt was released in the United States today.

1960: Birthdate of Los Angeles native Jenette Elise Goldstein, the actress best known for her role in the sci-fi thriller “Aliens.”

1962: Birthdate of Ethan Berkowitz, a leader of the Democratic Party in Alaska.

1962: Eighty-nine-year-old French historian Daniel Halévy, the son Ludovic Halevy who had converted to Christianity and who went from being a supporter of Dreyfus to a supporter of Petain’s pro-Nazi Vichy government passed away today.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25086922?sid=21105777943973&uid=2129&uid=70&uid=2&uid=4

1964(21st of Shevat, 5724): Seventy-eight-year-old German born Arabist Alfred Wiener, the holder of an Iron Cross 2nd class earned in WW I whose first wife Margarete “died shortly after being released from Bergen-Belsen” and who was “founder and long-time director of the Wiener Library” passed away today.

1966: In Tel Aviv, the offices of Zim Shipping Company on Rothschild Boulevard “burned down in of the biggest fires in Israeli history.”

1966: “The Ugly Dachshund” starring Suzanne Pleshette premiered in the United States today.

1966: Angélique et le Roy (Angelique and the King) featuring Sami Frey was released at multiple locations in western Europe today.

1966: Abba Eban, Israel’s new Foreign Minister and Ambassador Michael Comay, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations are scheduled to have lunch today with United Nations Secreatry-General U-Thant.

1967(24th of Shevat, 5727): Czech born Stephen Roth Jewish cartoonist passed away

http://www.cartoons.ac.uk/artists/stephenroth/biography

https://www.google.com/search?q=stephen+roth+cartoonist&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=AP7uUqjmCImuyQGK_4GQBg&ved=0CEAQsAQ&biw=922&bih=496

http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/Wit's_End

1968: At sundown, Israeli forces ended their search for the INS Dakar.

1968: A month before his seventieth birthday, “international lawyer and diplomat” Fritz E. Oppenheimer, the Berlin born son of Ernst and Amalie Friedlander Oppenheimer and husband of “the former Elsbeth Kaula with whom he had two children – Ernest and Ellen – who had the unique distinction of being wounded and winning the Iron Cross while fighting in the German Army during WWI and rising to the rank of Lt. Colonel in the United States Army during WW II where “he was in charge of reforming the German law and court system” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/02/06/77300128.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

https://www.northjersey.com/story/life/2021/01/15/we-can-hope-history-wont-repeat-itself-but-fritz-oppenheimers-experience-warning/6620107002/

1968(5th of Shevat, 5728): Eighty-nine-year-old Judge Jacob Panken passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=980CE6DF1138E134BC4D53DFB4668383679EDE

http://www.jta.org/1968/02/06/archive/judge-jacob-panken-pioneer-in-jewish-labor-movement-dead-at-89

1969: Birthdate of Leah Gloldstein, the native of Vancouver who moved to Israel where she spent 9 years in the Israeli commandos and secret police, won the 1989 World Bantamweight Kickboxing Championship, and was Israel's Duathlon champion.

http://leahgoldstein.com/

1969: Yasser Arafat takes over as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Arafat was committed to a Palestinian state from the “River to the Sea.”  Despite all of the grins and handshakes associated with the Oslo Agreements, Arafat’s behavior at and after the Camp David Peace Talks sponsored by President Clinton proved that he really never deviated from this goal.

1970: “Start the Revolution Without Me” a comedy set in the French Revolution directed and produced by Bud York and starring Gene Wilder was released in the United States today.

1971(9th of Shevat, 5731): Ninety-year-old Rumanian native Mois H. Avram, the NYU trained engineer who in 1899 came to the United Sates where as President of Fox Brothers International Corporation “took part in planning the reconstruction of the Port of Versailles” wrote several books including Patenting and Promoting Inventions while raising a son and two daughters with his wife Ernestine passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/06/archives/oi-ayra-90-lob6-an-engineer-onsultant-to-governments-and-companies.html

https://www.amazon.com/Launching-Enterprise-Avram-Mois-Herban/dp/1313273597

1971(9th of Shevat, 5731): Seventy-six-year-old Tasmanian born American sculptor Betty Lewis, the wife of Julius Lewis passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/05/archives/betty-l-saacs-sculptor-and-magistrates-wife-76.html

https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/3426

https://www.google.com/search?q=Betty+Lewis+Isaacs&tbm=isch&source=hp&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-zams2qDgAhXRqYMKHd3lD_MQsAR6BAgGEAE&biw=1010&bih=633#imgrc=fgomZ32bojOGxM:

1973(2nd of Adar, 5733): Forty-three-year-old CCNY and Columbia alumnus Shmuel Lapin, the son of Fanya and Beryl Lapin, “the Yiddish poet” and the husband of Khave Lapin with whom he had had three children – Dov, Avrum and Hayim – passed away today while serving as the “executive secretary of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.”

https://www.jta.org/1973/02/06/archive/shmuel-lapin-yivo-official-dead-at-43

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/02/06/archives/shmuel-lapin-43-expert-on-yiddish-specialist-in-jewish-history-and.html

1973(2nd of Adar, 5733): Eighty-two-year-old department store executive Robert Lazarus, the son of Fred and Rose Lazarus, the husband of Hattie Weiler Lazarus and father of Charlotte, Babette, Jean, Robert and Nancy Lazarus, passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/02/06/archives/robert-lazarus-sr-executive-of-federated-stores-dies-at-82.html

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/84523505/robert-lazarus

1973: Israel unveiled the Reshef, its newest missile boat.

1975(23rd of Shevat, 5735): Fifty-eight-year-old New Bedford, MA native Boris Young who was an executive with the American Friends of Tel Aviv and active in the UJA passed away today in San Francisco.

1975(23rd of Shevat, 5735): Eighty-one-year-old Bessie Cushing Sachs, the New York born daughter of Rebecca and Benjamin Cushing and the wife of Benjamin Sachs with whom she had two children – Tikvah and Baruch – passed away today in Boston after which she was buried in Beth El Cemetery at West Roxbury, MA

1976: U.S. premiere of “Next Stop Greenwich Village,” a film about “a young Jewish boy from Brooklyn who has dreams of stardom” written, directed and produced by Paul Mazursky, co-starring Shelly Winters and Ellen Greene and featuring Jeff Goldblum.

1984(1st of Adar I, 5744): Parashat Terumah; Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1984(1st of Adar I, 5744): Eighty-year-old New York City born banker, and chess master Albert Pinkus who also took part in “series of ten expeditions to the jungles of British Guiana and Venezuela to collect zoological and botanical specimens” passed away today.

https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.person.bm000390318

 

1985(13th of Shevat, 5745): Seventy-two-year-old nuclear physicist, Frank Friedman Oppenheimer, the New York born son of Julius Oppenheimer and Ella Friedman who worked with his more famous brother J. Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/04/us/frank-oppenheimer-nuclear-physicist-dies.html?searchResultPosition=1

https://www.exploratorium.edu/about/history/frank

 1986: Israeli fighters intercepted a Libyan passenger plane.

1971: In Los Angeles, former D.A. Gil Garcetti and Sukey Roth, daughter of Harry Roth, a Jewish immigrant from Russia who founded the clothing brand Louis Roth& amp; Co gave birth to Eric Garcetti, the 42nd Mayor of Los Angeles.

1979: Birthdate of Topeka, Kansas native and MacArthur Fellow Benjamin “Ben” Lerner, the poet and English professor at Brooklyn College.

1983: “The Entity” a horror film starring Barbara Hershey was released today in the United States.

1984(1st of Adar I, 5744): Rosh Chodesh Adar I; Parashat Terumah

1984(1st of Adar I, 5744): Eighty-year-old South African explorer, stockbroker and chess champion Albert Sidney Pinkus passed away today in New York City.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/06/obituaries/albert-s-pinkus-80-40-s-chess-champion.html

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=39243

1984(1st of Adar I, 5744): Sixty-five-year-old Dr. Henry S. Kapan the Chicago native, U. of Chicago grad and Rush Medical College trained physician and cancer specialist who raised two children – Ann and Paul – with his wife Leah passed away today.

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

1987: Marcel Marceau performed before a crowd of 2,074 fans in Iowa City, IA.

1988: Jozef Gierowski, the scholar, who heads the Research Center of Jewish History at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, said at a dinner tonight that Poland will soon acknowledge ''political error'' in 1967-68, when thousands of Jews were purged from the Communist Party.

1988: A four-day conference, sponsored by the Hebrew University Center for Research on the History and Culture of Polish Jews attended by 300 scholars including more than 80 Polish scholars came to an end. The 150 presentations given during the conference encompassed the entire history of the Polish Jews, covering subjects ranging from Jewish literature and philosophy to relations with the Roman Catholic Church and Jewish political organizations. The main presentation was about ethical problems concerning the Holocaust and Poland.

1989: After 644 performances, the curtain came down on the West End production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies” at the Shaftesbury Theatre.

1989: France won the doubles and took an unbeatable 3-0 lead over Israel today in Davis Cup play. Guy Forget and Yannick Noah defeated Amos Mansdorf and Shahar Perkis, 6-3, 6-7, 3-6, 6-3, 13-11, in a match that lasted three and a half hours. Forget and Noah staved off three match points in the fifth set, which lasted 1 hour 20 minutes.

1990: Ten Israeli tourists were murdered near Cairo. Israeli military officials speculated this evening that the attackers of an Israeli tourist bus near Cairo were members of a guerrilla organization that sent assassins across the Egyptian border into Israel in December.

1991: Mayor David N. Dinkins is scheduled to return to New York today after having made “a lightning visit to” Israel. Dinkins had said that the visit served “to reaffirm our historic solidarity with the State of Israel, our concern for the safety of the people of the Middle East who are caught up in this conflict, and of course, our support for the men and women in uniform who are risking their lives for freedom."

1992(30th of Sh'vat, 5752): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1992: Israel's Ambassador, Zalman Shoval, returned to Washington today with what Israeli officials described as pragmatic counterproposals to an American position stated by Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d on January 24 concerning $10 billion in loan guarantees The Bush Administration had told Israel that it would consider its request for $10 billion in loan guarantees that are to be used for the construction of housing in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

1994: “Romeo Is Bleeding” a crime film directed by Hungarian-born British director Medak was released in the United States today.

1994: “Death Machine” featuring Rachel Weisz was released today.

1995: In the following article David Gonzalez describes the growing involvement of Orthodox Jewish women in advanced graduate level Jewish Studies which could be a harbinger of further change in the role that Orthodox women play in communal life.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19950211&id=dN4eAAAAIBAJ&sjid=hHwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5552,1062424

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1995-03-03/lifestyle/9503020410_1_jewish-studies-orthodox-jewish-jewish-education

1997: En route to Lebanon, two Israeli Sikorsky CH-53 troop-transport helicopters collide in mid-air over northern Galilee, Israel killing 73.

1997: Secretary of State Madeline Albright announced she had just discovered that her grandparents were Jewish.

2000: “A day after fining Beth Israel Medical Center and ordering it to hire an outside monitor to oversee its quality of care, the State Department of Health said today that it was investigating another case in which a patient had been harmed in the hospital.”

2000: It was reported today that “Israeli and Palestinian leaders ended a summit meeting in frustration, still bogged down in disagreement over interim issues and far from bridging gaps on the thorny final issues that stand between them and a permanent peace.”

2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Bible Unearthed Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World? 3000 BC-AD 1603 by Simon Schama and Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy by Susan Zuccotti

2002: Ann F. Lewis was appointed National Chair of the Democratic Party's Women's Vote Center.

2003: Standing up before television cameras tonight, Eliezer Wolferman, the father of Colonel Ilan Ramon Israel's first astronaut opened his mouth as if to begin speaking” but inside sighed saying  that ''It is very difficult for me to speak here under these circumstances,''

2004: Mark Zuckerberg “launched Facebook from his Harvard dormitory room.”

2005: It was reported today that “Israel agreed to release 900 Palestinian prisoners and to pull back troops gradually from West Bank cities in moves that improve the overall climate in advance of next week's meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.”

2006: “The founder of the concierge service WhatShouldWeDo” and producer Arielle Tepper the granddaughter of philanthropists Philip J. and Janice H. Levin married Ian Madvoer which she was known as Arielle Tepper Madover.

2006 (6th of Shevat, 5766): Betty Friedan passed away on her 85th birthday. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/national/05friedan.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

2007: An exhibition entitled “The ‘Jewish’ Rembrandt” closes at Amsterdam’s Jewish Historical Museum. The ‘Jewish’ Rembrandt is part of the key programs designed for the Rembrandt-400 celebrations, a national festival organized by museums and public bodies to celebrate the 400th birthday of the Dutch painter Rembrandt.

2007: A review of Matters of Honor by Louis Begley entitled “A Jew at Harvard” appeared in Sunday New York Times book section.  In Begley’s seventh novel, the author describes the attempts of Henry White, a/k/a Henryk Weiss from Krakow, “to navigate in a culture where the term “Jew” is used “with restraint,” where it’s “an embarrassing word to utter in polite company. ... not unlike ‘homosexual.’ ”

2007(17 Shevat 5767): Kurt Schubert, the founder of Austria's first Jewish museum after 1945 passed away at the age of 83. Schubert died after a long illness, according to a statement posted on the Web site of the Austrian Jewish Museum in Eisenstaedt that he founded in 1972.

2007: Roni Bar-On withdrew his candidacy for the position of Justice Minister

2008: (28th Shevat): On the 28th of Shevat, 134 BCE, Antiochus V abandoned his siege of Jerusalem and his plans for the city's destruction. According to the “Megilat Taanit,” this day was observed as a holiday in Hasmonean times.

2008: At the Community Synagogue in New York, The New Yiddish Rep presents “The Essence,” an overview of Yiddish Theater from Abraham Goldfaden to the present day created by Allen Rickman, performed by Allen Rickman, Yelena Shmulenson and Steve Sterner.

2008: “The Knesset, including Arab MK Ahmed Tibi, agreed to consider the bill put forth by MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union-National Religious Party) proposing the evacuation of the Palestinian residents of Hebron in 2008.” (As reported by Shahar Ilan)

2008 (28 Shevat 5768): A Palestinian suicide bomber killed one woman and wounded 11 other people when he blew himself up in a crowded mall in the southern Israeli city of Dimona at 10:30 A.M.  (8:30 A.M. GMT). A second suicide bomber was killed by a policeman before he could detonate his explosives belt. The woman killed in the attack was 74-year-old Razdolskya Lyobov, a Dimona resident from the former Soviet Union. One of the wounded, a man, was in "critical condition."

Hamas claims responsibility for Dimona suicide bombing (france24.com)

2009: The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism presents a lecture with Dr. Mordechai Kedar entitled "Islamism, Genocidal Anti-Semitism and the Place of the Other."

2009: At Columbia University, the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies presents a lecture entitled, "Statecraft in the Middle East," with Ambassador Dennis Ross

2009: Dutch Police on Wednesday found two bullet holes from a shooting aimed at a mental health clinic run by the Amsterdam Jewish community, in what may be a further escalation in anti-Semitic attacks in the Netherlands since Israel launched an operation in Gaza in December.

2009: The 9th Annual Herzliya Conference comes to a close.

2010: A staged concert version of Harold Rome’s musical “Fanny” opened at City Center.

2010: The 14th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to open in New York City.

2010: Maggie Anton, author of the trilogy about Rashi’s Daughters is scheduled to speak at Congregation B'nai Tzedek in Cincinnati, Ohio.

2010: Heavy snow was falling on Mount Hermon and on the higher areas in the Upper Galilee and Golan Heights today, while rains, hailstorms and strong winds were felt from Israel's North to the Negev

2011: “Wandering Eyes” a documentary that tells the story of “Gabriel Belhassan …the next big thing in the rock music world, former Orthodox Jew and recently diagnosed manic depressive directed by Ofir Trainin is scheduled to be shown at the “REELABITLITIES FILM FESTIVAL” in New York City.

2011: Hadassah Attorneys Ladies Who Lunch! Gather at Eli’s, a kosher restaurant in Washington, D.C.

2011(30th of Shevat, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

2011: Mass flash flooding triggered by Cyclone Yasi caused severe damage to Jewish community buildings in Melbourne. Wild floods stormed through several suburbs heavily populated by Melbourne’s 50,000-strong Jewish community this prompting the closure of the Sephardi Synagogue on Shabbat. At least two Jewish schools were also flooded, with Bialik College – one of the largest Jewish schools in the country – reportedly closing for two days this week due to damage. The offices of the Australian Jewish News were also partially flooded, according to Yossi Aron, the newspaper’s religious affairs editor.

2011: Deborah “Solomon stepped down from writing her weekly column” for the New York Times Magazine “to write in house and continue her biography of Norman Rockwell.”

2011: “The Other Woman,” a film version Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelete Waldman, co-staring Natalie Portman, Lisa Kudrow and Scott Cohen was released today in the United States after having premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.

2011: Alan Gross was charged by the government of Cuba today with "acts against the independence and territorial integrity of the state," a charge that carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence. The U.S. State Department identified Gross as a U.S. government contractor who was in Cuba to assist Cuban Jews in learning how to communicate with other Jewish communities using the Internet. (As reported by JTA)

2012: Professor James Kugel is scheduled to deliver two lectures at Shearith Israel – “Why Did Moses Do Wrong? The Mystery, and History, of Massah and Meribah” and “How Our Ancient Interpreters Understood the Song at the Sea”

2012: In Little Rock, the Jewish Federation of Arkansas is scheduled to present President Bill Clinton with the Tikkun Olam Lifetime Achievement Award at an event marking its 100th anniversary celebration dinner.

2012: Electile Dysfunction: The Kinsey Sicks For President! (Because Sometimes It's Hard Being a Republican) is scheduled to open at Theatre J in Washington, DC.

2012: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Temple Judah Traditional Minyan takes on a triple header – Super Bowl Shabbat, Shabbat Shirah and Four Chaplains Shabbat

2012: In Iowa City, Defunct Books is advertising a first ever for that college town – a poetry reading featuring Yiddish poetry. Well known Cedar Rapids poet and playwright Murray Wolfe will be reading some of his own original works as well as reciting from the works of Avrom Sutskever

2012: A shell from the British Mandate era was discovered this morning during construction work at Tel Aviv University.

2012: As reports about the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure continue to escalate, Iran's oil minister said the Islamic state would not retreat from its nuclear program even if its crude oil exports grind to a halt, the official IRNA news agency reported today.

2013: In Rockville, MD, Magen David Congregation is scheduled to host a presentation by Professor Anat Berko entitled “A Smarter Bomb; Women and Children as Suicide Bombers.”

2013: The 16th Annual Miami Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come a close.

2013: In Florida, “Nicky’s Family,” a film that “pays tribute to” Sir Nicholas Winton who has been dubbed “Britain’s Schindler” is scheduled to be shown at the 13th annual Broward County Jewish Film Festival

2013: Funeral services for  Ed Koch, the former Mayor of New York City are scheduled to be held at Temple Emanu-El in New York City.  Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Israeli consul general are among those scheduled to speak at the funeral.  Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to attend as the representative for President Barak Obama.

2013: New research published today found that “school textbooks in both Israel and the Palestinian Authority largely eliminate one another’s existence in maps, although the Israeli curriculum is more balanced and self-critical than the Palestinian.

2013: Israeli threats to strike Iran's nuclear program and send shock waves throughout the world are "unhelpful," and Jerusalem should lower its profile on the issue, director of the Institute for National Security Studies, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, said today.

 2013: The IDF has arrested a number of senior Hamas figures in the West Bank, Palestinian sources said today.

2013: Mark Dreyfus began serving as Attorney-General for Australia and Minister for Emergency Management.

2014: Graveside services for Jacob L. Horowitz, the son of Miriam Landsman and Steven Horowitz are scheduled to take place this afternoon at Agudas Achim Cemetery in Iowa City, IA.

2014: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host an evening of Israeli Dance with instructor Ethan Halpern.

2014: Keren Katz is scheduled to discuss Israeli cartoonists as part of the New York Comics & Picture –story Symposium.

2014: Professor Ezra Zohar, the 92-year-old physician who was one of the founders of the School of Medicine at Tel University and who passed away yesterday is scheduled to be laid to rest at Mt. of Olives Cemetery this afternoon.

2014: The funeral for Captain Tl Nahman who was accidently killed yesterday in a “friendly fire” episode is scheduled to be buried this afternoon at the cemetery in Nes Ziona.

2014: “The Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) revamped their Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library today.” (As reported by Tova Dvorin)

2015: “The Encores! Staged a concert version of the George and Ira Gershwin musical ‘Lady, Be Good’”.

2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present Kathleen D. Roe speaking on the importance of archives and “why ‘archives matters.’”

2015: Ari Shavit is scheduled to discuss his latest work, My Promised Land at Temple Emanu-el followed by a book signing.

2015(15th of Shevat, 5775): Tu B’Shevat

2016: “The Price of Sugar” is scheduled to be shown on the opening night of the 26th San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2016: In Nice, a two-day celebration of the life of Angelo Donati who worked to save Italian Jews living in France that “included the unveiling of a commemorative plaque on the Promenade des Anglais” came to an end.

2016: All decent people mourned as 19-year-old Hadar Cohen was laid to rest today after having been murdered by terrorists in Jerusalem yesterday.

2016: The Skirball Center is scheduled to host “An Evening With Frédéric Brenner” the French photographer best known for his masterpiece Diaspora, a 25-year project spanning 40 countries resulting in a stunning visual record of the Jewish Diaspora.

2016: The Jewish Historical Society is scheduled host an evening with Lawrence Douglas, author of The Right Wrong Man: John Demjanjuk and the Last Great War Crime

2017(8th of Shevat, 5777): Parashat Bo

2017: “A police officer removed swastika stickers from the front of the Loop Synagogue in Chicago” where services went on as usual despite the vandalism which has been labeled a hate crime.

2017: This evening in Chicago, Dr. Daniel Greene, a curator from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to lead a “conversation on Americans and the Holocaust” – what did they know about it when it was happening?

2017: Shiva is scheduled to come to an end this evening for Gloria Mound “who devoted almost four decades of her life to researching the history, dispersion and fate of Jews exiled from Spain in 1492.”

http://casa-shalom.com/content/view/5/26/

http://www.casa-shalom.com/Gloria%20Mound%20CV.pdf

2017: The Batsheva Dance Company is scheduled to perform “Last Work” for the final time at BAM.

2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Menashe” which is a rarity since it is a full-length feature film in Yiddish.

2018: Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the grand opening of “Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World” at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie, Illinois.

2018: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Saboteur: The Aristocrat Who Became France’s Most Daring Anti-Nazi Commando by Paul Kix, L’Appart: The Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home by David Lebovitz, Munich by Robert Harris and To Fight Against This Age: On Fascism and Humanism by Rob Riemen

2018: The exhibition “Codebreakers and Groundbreakers” that includes “documents and photos showing how World War Two codebreaker Alan Turing sponsored two Jewish refugee children from Austria and helped educate them in the UK have been put on show in Cambridge” is scheduled to come to an today at King’s College, Cambridge.

2018: “In celebration of Black History Month, ACCESS, the young professional’s group of the American Jewish Committee - Washington Regional Office, and Thursday Network, the young professionals auxiliary of the Greater Washington Urban League, are scheduled to host a February Black - Jewish Relations Panel - Recounting the Past, Examining the Present and Envisioning the Future.”

2018: Betty Moore and Helen Stone are scheduled to be installed today when the Greater New Orleans Chapter of Hadassah holds its annual installation and brunch today. (As reported by CCNJ, the source for Jewish news in Cajun Country)

2018: Led by Gregory Locke and Jared Nied, a group of commuters spontaneously scrubbed ant-Semitic graffiti from a New York subway train this evening.

2019: At the Streicker-Center Henry Finder, the Editorial Director at the New Yorker is scheduled to serve as the moderator of a presentation by his brother, Joseph Finder, the author of fifteen “nail biting” novels.

2019(29th of Shevat, 5779): Ninety-year-old Israel Goodman Young the Lower East Side born son of Philip and Pola Young who gained famed as Greenwich Village folklorist Izzy Young, the man responsible for Bob Dylan’s first New York concert passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/obituaries/izzy-young-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

2019: According to Miri Shalem, the split between Tzipi Lvni and Avi Gabbay “reveals a profound process that Israeli politics is undergoing, the key being the fact the Right has triumphed even before Israeli cast their ballot.

2019: It remains to be seen today, if the international community will have a different view of clashes on Israel’s northern border following yesterday’s tour by “dozens of United Nations ambassadors at a site near Metula where the IDF discovered a Hezbollah terror tunnel during Operation Northern Shield.”

2019(29th of Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit of Rabbi Noson Tzvi Finkel.

http://www.aish.com/dijh/Shevat_29.html

2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a dinner and a discussion of “the different elements of Jewish prayer and how these distinct characteristics shape a spiritual practice for many Jewish people today” which is “free for student participants” and requires “no previous Jewish prayer experience.

2020: In Roslyn Heights, NY, Temple Beth Sholom is scheduled to host “Rosh Chodesh – Cultivating the Uniqueness of Women’s Leadership.

2020: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Echo.”

2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled to present “Calculating Risks” with Amb. Dennis Ross and David Makovsky

2020: In San Francisco, the Contemporary Jewish Museum is scheduled to host a screening of the Gene Wilder comedy, “The Frisco Kid.”

2020: “The Vilna Shul, Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture” is scheduled to host a discussion on “Confronting Israel’s Security Challenges in an Ange of Disruption and Instability.”

2020: The YIVO Institute is scheduled to host “scholar and musician Jeremiah Lockwood” and Cantor Yoel Kohn as they seek to answer the question “What is the Cantorial ‘Golden Age’?”

2021: The San Francisco based Jewish Community Federation’s annual one-day day is scheduled to go virtual with the program “Using Humor and Levity to Repair Our Communities” featuring Jennifer Aaker and Naomia Bagdonas, authors of Humor, Seriously: Why Humor is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life.

2021: In London, the Highgate United Synagogue is scheduled to host online, a “Piano Concert with Yali Zaken, a sixteen-year-old student at Hassanda playing Mozart: Fantasie in C Minor KV 475 Bach: English Suite no. 2 - Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande Brahms: Piano Pieces op.118, nos. 1-3 and Mendelssohn: Serious Variations op. 54.

2021 The Breman Museum is scheduled to host historians Mark Bauman, Leonard Rogoff and Diane Vecchio “as they discuss the legacy of Jewish women’s activism in Atlanta and the region.”

2021: The Hadassah Brandeis Institute is scheduled to present online “Israeli in the Spanish-Speaking Media” “with Leah Soibel, Fuente Latina founder and CEO, and Susanne Althoff, journalist and author of Launching While Female.”

2021: Berkeley Institute’s Program on Jewish Law, Thought and Identity and Berkeley Center for Law and Tech are scheduled to present online the first session of “Defining and Combating Antisemitism and Hate Online.”

2021: The Breman is scheduled to present “Jews and Jazz III”  with vocalist Rita Graham, pianist Kevin Bales and trumpet player Dr. Gordon Vernick telling “stories about the significant roles Jews played in the Jazz world.”

2021: Contra Costa JCC, Congregation B’nai Shalom and Jewish club at Rossmoor are scheduled to present online “An Encirclement of Hate” which is” an examination of antisemitism in 21st century led by Gloria Greenfield, director-producer of “The Case for Israel” and other documentaries.

2022: Kerem Shalom of Concord, MA is scheduled to host “a special Shabbat service in honor of Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month.”

2022: As part of Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month,”  The Jewish Federations of North America are scheduled to co-host “A Culture of Belonging: How the JCC Movement is Leading the Way on Equality and Inclusiveness.”

2022: Based on previously published data, 755 people in Israel who were alive on January 1 are not able to observed Shabbat this evening due to Covid

2022: In Columbus, OH, Congregation Tifereth Israel the Book Group is scheduled to discuss via Zoom, Moses: A Human Life by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg

2023: HIAS observe its 5th annual Refugee Shabbat

2023: Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife Sara are scheduled to stay at the Hotel du Collectionneur in Paris during a trip in which he is set to meet with “French business chiefs and leaders of the French Jewish community and during which he can review yesterday’s warning from JPMorgan “of a growing risk of investing in Israel due to the new government’s far-reaching plans for overhauling the judicial system.” (As reported by Ash Obel)

2023: In Columbus, OH, Dr. Michael Raucher is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Be Fruitful and Multiply: Reproduction in Israel” as part of Terferith Israel’s scholar in residence weekend.

2023: Eden Tamir is scheduled to host a special concert, “The Art of the Lied”

2023: Temple Judea is scheduled to host its “Beach Havdalah with Rabbi Yaron and Cantor Abbie.”

2023: In Coralville, IA, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its New Member Welcome Shabbat” completed with a dairy lunch after morning services.

2023(13th of Shevat, 5783): Shabbat Shirah, the Sabbath of the Song; Beshalach (When he had sent away); 13:17-17:16 Shemot (Exodus)

2024: In Brookline, MA, Center Makor is scheduled to host a screening of “The Lost Brothers,” a documentary film by Haim Etgar in Hebrew with English subtitles that tells “a touching story about two brothers who found each other 72 years after World War II.”

2024: In Brookline, MA, Temple Sinai is scheduled to host its annual Jewish Poetry Festival.

2024: Agnon House is scheduled to a lecture by Dr. Yahil Zaban on “Mysterious Tenants: Neighbors in Children’s Literature.”

2024: The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host a walking tour of the Lower East Side so participants can see “places that inspired Sydney Taylor to write the beloved classic, All-of-a-Kind Family, featuring Ella, Henny, Sarah, Charlotte, and Gertie.”

2024: As part of its Annual Winter Jewish Film Festival, the Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County is scheduled to host a screening of “Where Life Begins.”

2024: Members of Temple Emanu-El are invited to join together at performance of the new musical “Harmony,” with music by Barry Manilow and lyrics by Bruce Sussman.

2024: As of February 4th, begins in Israel, the Hamas held hostages begin day 121 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.)