This Day, February 5, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
February 5
517/519:
Alcimus Avitus, the Archbishop of Vienne in Gaul who in 576 on Easter
temporarily succeeded in calming a crowd angered when a recent convert to
Christianity was doused with oil. Four days later local Christians burned down
the synagogue and began attacking Jews. The Bishop offered the Jews a choice
baptism or exile, he reported that 500 Jews accepted conversion. The rest fled,
mostly to Marseilles. Many of those who ostensibly converted managed to
eventually return to practicing Judaism.” (As reported by “The History of the
Jewish People)
1191: King
Richard I (the Lionheart) whose coronation touched off anti-Semitic riots and
Tancred, the King of Sicily, the island where Jews had been living since the
first century met today at Catania.
1258: “The
Mongols under Chinese general Guo Kan laid siege to” Baghdad today as part of a
successful invasion Persia which led to the abolishment of “the inequality of
dhimmis” which meant that all religions, including that of the Jews “were
declared equal.”
1265: Clement
IV began his papacy during which he “authorized the Spanish Inquisition to
investigate the live of Jewish people, especially those who had chosen to join
the Catholic Church.”
1428: King
Alfonso V ordered Sicily's Jews to attend conversion sermons.
1523(20th
of Shevat, 1523): On February 5, the first printed edition of Zeror ha-Mor, a
popular commentary on the Pentateuch by Rabbi Abraham Sebag was published in
Venice by Daniel Bomberg. Bomberg was not Jewish, and he was a contemporary of
the Soncino family. According to some
sources he was responsible for printing over two hundred Jewish and was the
first non-Jew to print Hebrew books. In
other words, Bomberg, the non-Jew, gave a renewed meaning to calling the Jews,
“the people of the book,” or in this case books.
https://www.virtualjudaica.com/Listing/Details/1042994/Zeror-haMor-R-Abraham-Saba-Venice-1523
1576:
Henry of Navarre, who will become Henry IV, converts to Roman Catholicism
in order to ensure his right to the throne of France. Although there were no
Jews living in France at this time, Henry reportedly was acquainted with one, a
man named Manuel Pimentel whose Jewish name was Isaac Abenacar whom the French
king called the “king of players.” Pimentel or Abenacar would be the
first person to be buried at the Jewish cemetery in Ouderkerk, near Muiderberg,
not far from Amsterdam.
1600: “When the
Jews of Vienna, who numbered in all thirty-one families, were not able, in
1599, to pay the 20,000 florins demanded of them, an order was issued, today,
that they should leave Vienna and Austria within fourteen days.”
https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14699-vienna
1631:
Roger Williams emigrated to Boston. A believer in religious toleration,
Williams would be forced to leave Boston which populated by the intolerant
Puritans. In Rhode Island, Williams would practice the religious
toleration that became part of the American fabric and would make the United
States a unique experience for the Jews.
1678(13th of
Shevat): Yuspi Shammah of Worms passed away
1705: Seventy
year old German theologian Phillip Spener who differed from his fellow
Lutherans because he did not believe that “the expectation of the conversion of
the Jews” was a “prelude to the triumph of the Church” – an expectation
1718: Adriaan
Reland the professor of Oriental languages at the University of Utrecht who
“taught Hebrew Antiquities passed away today. He was a contemporary of Willem
Surenhuis another Dutch Hebraist who published a completed Latin translation of
the Mishnah from 1698 to 1703.
1775: In
Savannah, GA, Sarah and Levi Sheftall gave birth to Rebecca Sheftall.
1776(15th
of Shevat, 5536): Tu B’Shevat
1778: During
the American Revolution South Carolina became the first state to ratify the
Articles of Confederation, which was the first document of national
governance for the newly created United States of America which was still
fighting Great Britain to gain its independence. Francis Salvador, who had
served as a delegate to the Provincial Council that had voted for independence
was not present for this vote since had been killed by Indians while fighting
against the British. But most of the Jews, including David Cardozo and Joseph
Solomon who were members of a “Jewish company” were probably quite supportive
of the ratification since they supported the cause of American Independence.
1781: Two days
after capturing St. Eustatius, Admiral Rodney “asked for an inventory of all
merchants and their nationality” followed a week later by an order from Rodney
that “all male Jews report to the weigh house for deportation at which time he
“extorted a total of 8000 ponds in cash from some 250 males.”
1790: Newport,
RI native Hannah Isaacks and London native Jacob Phillips gave birth to Frances
Phillips, the husband of Isaac M. Goldsmith.
1791: As the
Jews worked to gain full citizenship in Hungary, Judge Stephen Atzel read the
following at today’s session of the Diet: “In order that the condition of
the Jews may be regulated pending such time as may elapse until their affairs
and the privileges of various royal free towns relating to them shall have been
determined by a commission to report to the next ensuing Diet, when his Majesty
and the estates will decide on the condition of the Jews, the estates have
determined, with the approval of his Majesty, that the Jews within the
boundaries of Hungary and the countries belonging to it shall, in all the royal
free cities and in other localities (except the royal mining-towns), remain
under the same conditions in which they were on Jan. 1, 1790; and in case they
have been expelled anywhere, they shall be recalled."
1782: The
Spanish defeated British garrison on Minorca and captured the island. When
Minorca had become an English possession in 1713, the English willingly offered
“asylum to thousands of Jews” who responded in large enough numbers to justify
the building of at least one synagogue. However, when the English left the
island after this defeat, the Jews left too. After all, Spain was still the
land of the Inquisition.
1793:
Birthdate of Hesse-Cassel native Henry Isaac Weil the son of Isaac Weil and the
husband of Matilda Marks with whom he had four children – Isaac, Edward, Clara
and Sarah.
1793:
Birthdate of Brendle Weil, the wife of Marx Pfeiffer Rothschild and mother of
Frommet, Juettle, Simon, Wolf and Samuel Rothschild.
1795(16th
of Shevat, 5555): Joseph Abrahams, the who arrived in Savannah, GA in 1785 and
Married Judith de Lyon, the widow of Moses Cohen in 1791 passed way today.
1799(30th of
Shevat, 5559): Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1801: In
Frankfurt, Benedikt Moses Worms and Schönche Jeannette Rothschild gave birth to
Salomon Benedikt Worms the grandson of Mayer Amschel Rothschild who became
a leading member of the Anglo-Jewish community as the 1st Baron de
Worms.
1812: In
Amsterdam, Jacob Abraham, “the Levite” “took the family name Rabbie and became
Jacob Abraham Rabbie
1817: “The
Rothschilds took up a Prussian loan of 1,500,000 gulden at 5 per cent.”
1817: Moses
and Dinah Meyer were married to at the Western Synagogue.
1817: In
Philadelphia, Sarah and Daniel da Silva Solis gave birth to Hannah “Ann” Solis
who became Hannah Solis Levy when she married Isaac Abraham Levy.
1819:
Birthdate of Rabbi Bernhard Gotthelf who served as a Chaplain in the Union Army
during the Civil War.
1836: Rosa and
Benjamin Vallentine gave birth to Zilah Deborah Vallentine.
1840: The
Damascus Affair started with the disappearance of Father Thomas, a Franciscan
superior. The French consul accused the Jews of ritual murder and extracted a
"confession" by torture in which one of the victims died. The consul
then requested permission from Mahemet Ali to kill the rest of his suspects.
Others, including sixty children, were arrested and starved to convince their
parents to confess. Sir Moses Montefiore, Adolphe Cremieux and Salomon Munk
intervened on behalf of the Jews and the charges were dropped.
1844(15th
of Shevat, 5604): Tu B’Shevat
http://all-biographies.com/soldiers/charles_e_etting.htm
1848(30th of
Shevat, 5608) Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1848: In
Brandenburg, Germany, Leo and Ida Eloesser gave birth to Arthur Eloesser, the
“husband of Molly Helen Eloesser with whom he had four children.
1850: Emanuel
Deifuss, the German born son of Aron and Breunia Dreifuss and his wife Friederika
Dreifuss gave birth to Aaron Dreifuss, the husband of Chalotte Dreifuss and the
ather of Sigmund Dreifuss; Frieda Blum and Mina Durlacher.
1851: David
Davis married Esther Hart at the Great Synagogue at the Great Synagogue.
1852: “Otto
Goldschmidt married the world-famous soprano Jenny Lind. To please his wife, he
converted to Protestantism.”
1852(15th of
Shevat, 5612): Tu B'Shevat
1855: French
artist Eugène Delacroix wrote the following description of the deteriorating
condition of Fromential Halevy, the French composer who was the son of a
cantor. “I went on to Halévy’s house, where the heat from his stove was
suffocating. His wretched wife has crammed his house with bric-a-brac and old
furniture, and this new craze will end by driving him to a lunatic asylum. He
has changed and looks much older, like a man who is being dragged on against
his will. How can he possibly do serious work in this confusion? His new
position at the Academy must take up a great deal of his time, and make it more
and more difficult for him to find the peace and quiet he needs for his work.
Left that inferno as quickly as possible. The breath of the streets seemed
positively delicious.”
1857: Rabbi
Philipp Ehrenberg and Julie Ehrenberg gave birth to German economist Richard
Ehrenberg.
1857: In
Philadelphia, PA, Leopold Sulzberger and Sophia Lindauer gave birth to Solomon
Sulzberger the husband of Clara Frank who moved to Chicago in 1876 where he
served as a Director of Michael Reese Hospital, a Director of the National
Paint, Oil and Varnish Association of Chicago and Chairman of the Relief
Committee of the United Hebrew Charities.
1858: In
London, Sophia Goldsmid and David De Stern gave birth to an infant daughter who
died eleven days later.
1859:
Birthdate of Jakob Allschoff, who was transported from Prague to Terezin where
he was murdered in 1942.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6827-gottheil-william-s
1859:
Wallachia and Moldavia are united under Alexander John Cuza as the United
Principalities, an autonomous region within the Ottoman Empire, which ushered
the birth of the modern Romanian state. When the Jews failed to provide
financial support for Cuza, he “inserted in his draft of a constitution a
clause excluding from the right of suffrage all who did not profess
Christianity.”
1861:
Birthdate of history Julius Aronius, the native of Rastenburg whose most famous
work was a study of the “history of the Jews in Germany during the Middle Ages”
which he was not able to complete before his death.
1861:
Birthdate of Limehouse native Mary Ann Farrant the wife of Henry Levi with whom
she had six children.
1862: In Maco,
Hungary, Betty Rosenberg and Gustav Englesman gave birth to CCNY Instructor in
Classics Gabriel Englesman, the holder of a Ph. D from the University of Vienna
and husband of Celestine Bader who had served as the private secretary to Dr.
Adolf Jellinek and assistant foreign editor of the New York Herald.
1864(28th
of Shevat, 5624): Fifty-three-year-old Mortiz Veit the “author, publisher and
politician who was chairman of the Association of German Booksellers and leader
of the Jewish community in Berlin passed away today.
1864;
“Physician, children’s health advocate, and community activist Dr. Zemach
Szabad was born today in Vilna. Szabad began his career as a doctor providing
care and support to Jews whose shtetlach were devastated by World War One. When
the war ended, Szabad played an active role in public life, quickly becoming
one of the most prominent figures in the city, working to improve the health of
the Jewish community—especially children and women—and participating in
numerous cultural projects and organizations.” (As reported by Yiddishkayt)
1864:
Birthdate of “Physician, children’s health advocate, and community activist Dr.
Zemach Szabad” who served in the Senate of the Second Polish, was a co-founder
of YIVO and who was the father of Regina Weinreich, the father-in-law of Max
Weinreich and the grandfather of Uriel and Gabriel Weinreich
1865(9th
of Shevat, 5625): Fifty-nine-year-old Joseph Schwarz the native of Bavaria
whose devotion to the history and geography of Palestine led him to move there
passed away today in Jerusalem.
118
1866: Barbe-bleue
an opéra bouffe, or operetta, in three acts (four scenes) by Jacques Offenbach
with a libretto co-authored by Ludovic Halevy was first performed at the
Théâtre des Variétés, Paris where it played for five months.
1866: Three
days after he had passed away, 69 year old Philip Joseph Salomons, the husband
of Cecilia Samuels with whom he had had five children was buried today at the
“Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”
1867 (30th of
Shevat, 5627): In a decree from the Sultan, brought about by the intervention
of Moses Montefiore, the Jews of Morocco were ordered not to be harmed, and to
be treated in accordance of the laws of Allah. However, it was reported many
Jews became "arrogant and reckless" after hearing this ruling,
especially the Westernized Jews who worked the ports.
1867 (30th of
Shevat, 5627): Salomon Munk, German-born French Orientalist passed away. Born
in 1803, Munk had a thorough Jewish education before pursuing secular
interest. He was unique among Europeans and Jews of his time because he
was fluent in Arabic. Munk “devoted himself to the study of the
Judæo-Arabic literature of the Middle Ages and to the works of Maimonides, more
especially the latter's Moreh Nebukim or Guide to the Perplexed."
This enabled him to publish his three volume Arabic edition of the Moreh
in the years from 1856 to 1860. This accomplishment is all the more
amazing because it was done after Munk had lost his eyesight in 1850 while
cataloguing manuscripts written in Hebrew and Sanskrit. Munk was a leader
of the French Jewish community. His position of prominence in the
community along with his Arabic linguistic skills enabled him to serve as one
of the three Jewish leaders who went to Egypt to deal with the Damascus Affair.
Munk’s Yahrzeit should help us to remember that Maimonides was a Jewish scholar
who belonged to the Arab world as well.
1868: Sir George Grey, who
hired Samuel Joseph, an Anglo-Jew from London as his interpreter” completed his
second term as the Governor of New Zealand.
1872: In
Delhi, NY, “Benedict Mendel, a merchant born in Aufhausen, Germany in 1833, and
Pauline Ullman, born in Eschenau, Germany” who emigrated to the United States
in 1870 gave birth to Yale and Sheffield Scientific School educated biochemist
Lafayette Benedict Mendel, one of the cofounders of “the science of nutrition,
and the Sterling Professor of Physiological Chemistry at Yale who was the only
Jew among the first twenty professors to be “designated a Sterling professor
and who married Alice R. Friend in 1917;
http://www.bookrags.com/biography/lafayette-benedict-mendel-wob/#gsc.tab=0
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lafayette-Benedict-Mendel
1873(8th
of Shevat, 5633): Ike Rothschild, the seven-day old son of Sophie and Nathan
Baruch Rothschild passed away today in Ravenstein, Germany.
1875)30th
of Shevat, 5635): Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1879: Samuel
Fleischer, the Muhlbach born son of Pauline and Aron Fleisher and his wife
Emilie Fleischer gave birth to Bernhard Fleischer.
1879(12th of
Shevat, 5639): Moses S. Cohen passed away unexpectedly today at the age of
70. A prominent New Yorker, he had served as President of B’Nai Israel on
Stanton Street and as Master Mason. A native of Holland, he had lived in the
United States for almost fifty years.
1880: Four
days after she had passed away, Sarah Abraham, the wife of Abraham Abraham was
buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1880: Emma
Godefron, the daughter of Edward and Rosetta Micholls and the wife of Salomon
Godefron with whom she had had four children was buried today at the “Balls
Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1881: Phoenix,
Arizona is incorporated. Jews played a prominent part in the development of the
Arizona Territory in general and Phoenix in particular from early pioneer
times. For example, Michael Wormser, the poor son of a butcher, who made his
fortune in the Arizona territory donated the land for the Phoenix Beth Israel
Cemetery before his death in 1898. Sol Lewis and Martin Kaltes established the
National Bank of Arizona in Phoenix. The Goldwater family is the Jewish family
many think of when they hear of Phoenix. From a Jewish point of view,
this is not such a point of pride since the most “famous son” was Barry
Goldwater. Senator Goldwater was raised as a member of the Episcopal Church.
1881: In Lodz,
Poland, Michael and Beatrice Oshner Winter gave birth to Benjamin Winter, Sr.,
who in 1901 came to the United States where he went from painting apartment
buildings to becoming a real estate mogul who lost forty million dollars while
going bankrupt during the Depression and then making it all back and more just
before his death while raising four children – Marvin, Beatrice, Ethel and
Natalie – with his wife “the former Dora Nissel” and serving as the President
of the Federation of Polish Jews.
1881: Thomas
Carlyle passed away. While many remember him as the historian who chronicled
the French Revolution and the life of Frederick the Great others remember him as
“Negro hating,” anti-Semite who believed in the superiority of the Teutonic
Race. T. Peter Park examined Carlyle’s anti-Semitism in an article entitled
“Thomas Carlyle and the Jews.”
1882: In
Cumberland County, VA, Maria Jane Addleman and Ephrim Henry Addleman gave birth
to Samuel William Addleman.
1883(28th
of Shevat, 5643): Seventy-four-year-old Jonathan-Raphaël Bischoffsheim a member
of Bischoffsheim dynasty who co-founded the bank of Bischoffsheim &
Goldschmidt and the National Bank of Belgium while also serving as a Liberal
member of the Belgium Parliament where he was an advocate for public education,
passed away in Brussels.
1885: In
Philadelphian, PA, The Young Women's Union which “was originally a branch of
the Hebrew Education Society, “was organized today through the efforts of Mrs.
Fanny Binswanger. “The object of the union was to educate the younger children
of immigrant Jews. It maintained a kindergarten, day-nursery, sewing-school”
and other such programs under the Presidency of Mrs. Julia Friedberger Eschner.
1887(11th
of Shevat, 5647): Eighty-year-old Asher Sammter who served as the rabbi in
Liegnitz (Prussia) from 1837 to 1854 and who moved to Berlin in 1869 where he
pursued a career of literary scholarship passed away today.
1888:
Birthdate of Abraham Belsky who married Caroline Dickerson in 1917 at New York
City.
1888:
Birthdate of Morris Michael Edelsein, the Polish born graduate of “Brooklyn Law
School of St. Lawrence University” who as a Member of the U.S. House of
Representatives from New York’s 14th District spoke out against
“Mississippi Congressman John Rankin,” the notorious bigot who sought to make
peace with Nazi Germany and blamed the Jews for trying to get the U.S. to fight
the Axis during WW II.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/morris-michael-edelstein
https://www.c-span.org/person/?morrisedelstein
1888:
Birthdate of Austrian native Rabbi Ezekiel Landau, the “spiritual director of
HIAS” and the husband of “the former Helen Greenberg with whom he had three children
– Siegfried, Sol and Lotti.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1965/08/20/101562643.pdf
1888: In
Louisville, KY, founding of Congregation Beth Hamidrash Hagodel whose members
include S. J. Nathan, Samuel Cooper and Abraham Jacobstein, holding daily
services at 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. while holding Religious School six days a week
and owning a cemetery on “7th Street beyond the city limits.”
1889:
Birthdate of Zeev (Wolf) Gold, the son of Mariampol Rabbi who lived in the
United States from 1907 to 1924 where he served as Preside of the Mizrachi in
the United States and Canada before moving to Israel in 1924 where he lived
until his death in 1956
1889: Cecilia
Michaels, the wife of Henry Michaels with whom she had had seven children was
buried today at the “Willesden Jewish Cemetery.”
1890(15th
of Shevat, 5650): Tu B’Shevat
1890: Rabbi
Zeev Yavet, one of the founders of the Misrachi movement, took his students to
plant trees at Zichron Yaakov. The Jewish Teachers Union adopted this
custom in 1908. This is also the origin of the JNF Tree Planting Drive
which is tied to the modern observance of Tu B’Shevat.
1890: Based on
information that appeared in the 15th annual report of the New York
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children during 1889, the Hebrew
Sheltering Guardian Society provided care for 149 children that the New York
Society had placed with them.
1890: It was
reported today that Jesse Seligman, J.H. Schiff, Simon Schafer and Henry Rice
were among the prominent members of the Jewish community who have bought boxes
for the upcoming Purim Ball, a major fund-raising event.
1891(27th
of Shevat, 5651): Forty-seven-year-old Nehemiah Brüll the native of Moravia who
served as the rabbi at Frankfurt am Main and was a leader of the Reform
movement as well as a scholar whose “reading in Jewish literature was”
unparalleled and who “who evinced a peculiar acumen found in no other scholar
in modern times” passed away today.
1891: In New
York City, Albert and Rebecca (Schwarzkopf) Baumann gave birth to
“physiological chemist” Emil J. Baumann, the CCNY grad and holder of a Yale Ph.
D who taught at Yale and the University of Toronto Medical School before going
to work as a chemist at Montefiore Hospital in New York in 1919.
1892: In
Buffalo, NY, Mary and Edward Goetz gave birth to Dorothy Goetz who have gained
fame as Dorothy Goetz Berlin, the first wife of composer Irving Berlin, who
died of typhoid which contracted while they were on their honeymoon in Cuba in
1912.
https://www.buffaloah.com/a/forestL/berlin/index.html
1892: It was
reported today the late Benjamin Russak made bequests of $500 each to Mount
Sinai Hospital, the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society, Home for Aged
and Infirm Hebrews, United Hebrew Charities, Montefiore Home for Chronic
Invalids and the Hebrew Technical Institute. He made bequests of $250 each to
B’nai Jershurun, the Bikur Cholem Society, and the Hebrew Free School.
1892: As the
Chamber of Commerce made plans to raise funds to help alleviate those suffering
from the famine in Russia, Jacob H. Schiff, said, “he belonged to the race
which had suffered so much at the hands of the Czar’s government” and while the
Jews would be generous in supporting the effort, they would not support any
effort that sent money to the Russian government. The money must go
directly to those who were suffering.
1892: Samuel
J. Cohn was arraigned this morning on charges of fraud. Specifically, he
solicited funds while falsely claiming to be a collector for the United Hebrew
Charities.
1892:” Mr.
Bigelow Talks on Russia” published today included a description of a dispute
that broke between Poulteney Bigelow and a Russian Jew named Coplik. When
describing the persecution of the “Christian Jews” in Russia, Bigelow described
the Czar as a kindly man, Coplik rose from the audience and said that “the Czar
was a savage tyran and went on to prove it” by providing several anecdotes to
support his statement.
1893: The
first of the series of Sunday Grand Opera Concert’s at Oscar Hammerstein’s
Manhattan Opera House is scheduled to take place today.
1893: In New
York City, the Central Labor Union endorsed several resolutions including one
that called upon the state legislature “to take action in regard to alleged
misuse of the Baron Hirsch Fund by the United Hebrew Charities.”
1894: The
Cincinnati Enquirer described the marriage ceremony of Maurice Bear and Miss
Bertha Levy of Birmingham, Alabama at her home. The bride and the groom,
who is a successful businessman, are each about four feet tall.
1894: In
Manchester, Dora and Nathan Robinson gave birth to Merchant Navy Wireless
Telegraphist and WW I veteran Leonard Robinson, the husband of Ada Robinson.
1895: Four
days after she had passed away, Miriam Mocatta, the daughter of Abraham Jacob
Mocatta nd Miriam Brandon and the wife of Samuel Mocatta with whom she had had
six children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1899: In
Harrisburg, PA, founding today of the Jewish Literary and Musical Society which
meets on the first Sunday of each month and whose members included Mrs. George
Rosenthal and J.S. Lowengard.
1899: In the
Ukraine, Peter J. Schweitzer and his wife gave birth to Louis J. Schweitzer who
came to the United Sates at the age of four and eventually used the family
fortune to work for reforms in the penal and judicial systems.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9506E2DD1F3FE63ABC4951DFBF66838A669EDE
1899: It was
reported today that Senor Castelar, the Spanish Republican political leader has
expressed his concern with the political situation in France including what he
sees as “as a tendency…to go back to the barbarous old-time expulsions of the
Jews” “when Jews have to be protected from massacre by the armed
intervention of the Government…”
1899: It was
reported today that in defending the Zionism, Professor Richard Gottheil has
stated that “Palestine is the place where we can live that Jewish life we are
called upon to live and only there can we take up the greater work for
preparing for the Messianic time….We Zionists are the most ideal of all Jews
because we want to prepare the basis upon which the building, seen by our
prophets in visions may be reared.” (What may make this sound surprising to
some is that Gottheil was a professor at Columbia and the son of on America’s
most prominent Reform Rabbis.)
1900: Four
days after he had passed away, 69-year-old David Bauman, the husband of Sarah
Bauman with whom he had had eleven children was buried today at the “Balls Pond
Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1901: In
Chicago, Nettie Green Sheekman and Charles Grover Sheekman gave birth to Arthur
Sheekman the brother of Edith and Harvey Sheekman the writer whose big break
came while collaborating with the Grouch Marx.
1901(16th
of Shevat, 5661): Fifty-one-year-old Rebecca Klein the wife of Isaac Alsbacher
with whom she had six children -- Moses, Harry, Sidney, David, Jessie and Rena –
passed away today.
1901: Herzl
met with the French banker Reitlinger in Paris and discussed the idea of buying
the Turkish Public Debt as a way to negotiate for the Charter for a Jewish
Homeland in Eretz Israel.
1902: Herzl
begins a trip Constantinople where he is scheduled to arrive on the 14th
so that he may begin negotiations for the creation of Jewish homeland.
1902: Washington
University trained physician Alfred Sydenham Jaeger, the New York born son of Caroline
Reiss and Adolph S. Jager, who settled in Indianapolis, IN where he practiced
obstetrics, served on the Indiana State Board of Health and was a member of
B’nai B’rith married Blanche Dorothy Keifer today.
1903: The
Grand, a white stone Renaissance structure at the corner of Chrystie and Grand
Streets built by and for the Grand Theatre Company which is “first theatre in
New York ever erected expressly and exclusively for foreign-speaking Jewish
patronage of the better class is scheduled to open its doors tonight.
1903:
Birthdate of John Michael Cohen, the Cambridge graduate who gave up a career in
the family furniture business to become a teacher, translator and author whose
“works included The History of Western Literature, The Penguin
Dictionary of Quotations and a biography of Ludwig Mond.
1903: Funeral
services were to be held this morning for Morris Tuska at his home in Manhattan
followed by burial in Salem fields. A native of Hungary, the
seventy-two-year-old Tuska passed away two days ago. He found success in
a wholesale upholstery supply business which he operated from 1857 until
1871. He was a co-founder of the United Hebrew Charity Organization,
founder of the Hebrew Technical Institute, President of the Hebrew Benevolent
and Orphan Asylum and an active member of Temple Emanu-el for 45 years.
1903: The
Grand, “the first theatre in New York ever erected expressly and exclusively
for foreign-speaking Jewish patronage of the better class” and which is owned
by The Grand Theatre company under the management of Louis S. Gottlieb who said
the purpose of the stock is to provide entertainment for the better class of
east side Jews, is scheduled to open its doors tonight
1904: One day
after he had passed away, 69-year-old Herman Rosenheim, a native of Germany and
the husband of Laura Rosenheim with whom he had had six children was buried
today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1904:
Sixty-three-year-old “French microbiologist and chemist” Émile Duclaux who
was “a vocal supporter of Alfred Dreyfus” passed away today.
1905:
Birthdate of Mirra Komarovsky, the Russian born American Sociologist.
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/01/us/mirra-komarovsky-authority-on-women-s-studies-dies-at-93.html
1906: As of
today, “many Jews” in Kiev” have received by mail sentences of death in the
name of the Pan Russian League in Defense of the Holy Cross.”
1906:
Birthdate of Frankfurt, Germany native Richard Ettinghausan, “one of the
world’s leading authorities on Islamic Art, the husband of “the former
Elizabeth Sgalitzer and the father of two sons, Stephen and Thomas.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3249538
1907: In
Portland, OR, the former Lillian Gluckman and Meyer Simon gave birth UC
Berkeley dropout Norton Simon, the founder of Hunt’s Food and the
philanthropist responsible for the Norton Simon Museum.
https://www.nortonsimon.org/about/about-norton-simon/
https://www.infoplease.com/biographies/society-culture/norton-simon
1907: “Wants
Secular Schools” published today described Newark, NJ, Rabbi Solomon Foster’s
advocacy for “strictly secular public schools” at a meeting of the Newark
Ministerial Association where the pastor of the Park Presbyterian Church
“referred to Rabbi Foster as having a ‘chip on his shoulder’” and the pastor of
the Third Presbyterian Church “said that America was…established on Christian
principles and ideas…”
1908: In
Brooklyn. Isaac and Anna Kesten Streisand gave birth Emanuel “Manny” Streisand,
the husband Dina Ida Rosen Streisand whom he married in 1930 and the father of
actress and singer Barbra Streisand.
1908: At
Setatt, Morocco two days of riots and killings riots and massacres have
devastated the Jewish community.
1908: In
Bridgeport, CT, music store own Joseph Gilman and Rebecca Ives Gilman gave
birth to Yale Medical School graduate and pharmacologist Alfred Zack Gilman,
Sr.
http://theinfolist.com/php/SummaryGet.php?FindGo=Alfred
Gilman, Sr.
1909: “Rights
of Jews Involved” published today described how Montgomery Schuyler, Jr.,
Secretary of the American Embassy” in St. Petersburg, has brought concerns
about the need to modify the treaty of 1832 between the United States and
Russia to the attention of Foreign Minister Iswolsky in light of “regulation
excluding from Russia Hebrews of all nationalities” including American Jews.
1910(26th
of Shevat, 5670): Parashat Mishpatim
1910: After
the candidates “from the Jewish districts” for the census enumerator positions
refused to appear for the examinations today on the grounds that it would be “a
violation of the Sabbath,” the supervisor in charge “arranged a special
examination for them to be taken at 7:30 this evening at the High School of
Commerce.
1911: “The
thirty-sixth annual report of the United Hebrew Charities” showed that the
organization had provided relief to 929 widows with 1,579 children under 14
years of age at a cost of $66,930” and provided a total of $32,575 to 526
families where tuberculosis was present.
1911: It was
reported today that “the New York section of the Council of Jewish Women has
been formed to affiliate with the Council of Jewish Women of the United States,
the International Council and with the National Conference of Jewish Charities”
with Sadie American serving as “president of the local section” assisted by
Mrs. Julius Beer, Mrs. A.N. Cohen, Mrs. Daniel Guggenheim, Mrs. Adolph Lewsohn
and Mrs. Jacob H. Schiff.”
1912: It was
reported today that when Herbert E. Clark who was the American Vice-Consul in
Jerusalem for eighteen” was asked “what are the Zionists doing the colonies
they have established in Palestine? “ he responded that “the old Zionist who
came first have returned to their own country” because they had no knowledge of
farming or living away from large cities while the colonies that traced their
origins to the funding provided by Baron Rothschild seven years ago “are now in
a prosperous condition and the Zionists own their own farms.”
1913(28th
of Shevat, 5673): Fifty-one-year-old Baltimore merchant Isaac L. Kemper passed
away today.
1913: New York
attorney Harry Newburger was “appointed Third Deputy Police Commissioner”
today.
1913: At the
Hotel La Salle in Chicago, Dr. Joseph Stoltz officiated at the marriage of
Samuel Lee Dinkelspiel of Louisville, KY and Lilian R. Phillipson, the daughter
of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Phillipson.
1913: “A
dispatch received” today “at St. Petersburg” reported “that a crowd of roughs
invaded the Jewish quarter” and beat a number of the inhabitants, several whom
are believed to have been fatally injured” while also “sacking a number of
stores.
1914: Hyman J.
Reit presided over today’s special meeting of “the Executive Committee of the
Federation of Jewish Organizations of New York State” where arrangements were
made “for sending a memorial and resolutions to President Wilson and Congress
protesting against the Burnett Immigration bill…and against other pending
legislation restricting immigration.”
1914:
Birthdate of Sol Libsohn, the New York native and CCNY graduate who became a
noted photographer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/25/arts/sol-libsohn-86-photographer-who-captured-ordinary-life.html
1915: After
Herbert Samuel had “submitted a Zionist memorandum entitled ‘The Future of
Palestine’ to the British cabinet” in January, today “Samuel had another
discussion with Foreign Minister Lord Grey: who said that “it might be possible
to neutralize the country (Palestine) under international guarantee ... and to
vest the government of the country in some kind of Council to be established by
the Jews.
1915:
Birthdate of Robert Hofstadter, American atomic physicist and winner of the
Nobel Prize in 1961.
1915(21st
of Shevat, 5675): David Cahn the native of Cracow who in 1872 came to the
United States where he served as the cantor at numerous New York Congregations
in Temple Shar Hashomayim and Temple Rodeph Sholem passed away today.
1915: In
“Turks Near Armageddon” published today described the encampment of the fourth
Turkish army near “the historic highway connecting three continents” which “is
passed through daily by Jews and Christians fleeing to the seacoast.”
1915(21st
of Shevat, 5675): David Cahn, who was born in Cracow in 1852 and came to the
United States in 1871 where he served as a Cantor passed away today.
1916: Albert
Lucas, the Chairman of the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering
the War received word from Secretary of the Navy Daniels” today “that space
allotment for the consignment of medicines” bound Palestine has been made on
the naval collier Sterling which will probably set sail from New York within
the next ten days.
1916: In
“Brandeis,” published today Felix Frankfurter described the impact of the
nomination of this distinguished lawyer to the Supreme Court.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/brandeis
1917:
Birthdate of Rephoel Baruch Sorotzkin, the native of Lithuania who was the son
of Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin and became the Rosh Yeshiva of Cleveland’s Telz
Yeshiva.
1917(13th of
Shevat, 5677): Paul Alfred Rubens an English born song writer who found success
in composing works for musical comedies in the UK and the USA passed away today
at the age of 41.
http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/british/composers/rubens.html
1917: The
Congress of the United States overrode President Wilson’s veto of the
Immigration Act of 1917, which contains a literacy test, making the act the law
of the land. This override marked the end of a twenty yearlong battle
that had begun in 1897 when President Grover Cleveland vetoed an immigration
act passed by Congress. President Taft vetoed a similar bill in
1913. Jewish groups opposed the act, especially the literacy test,
because they saw it as a thinly veiled way to exclude Jewish immigrants from
eastern and southern Europe from coming to the United States. Jewish
immigration to the United States peaked in 1906 when 150,000 Jews made their
way to the United States. In 1914, even with the war having broken out
in, 140,000 Jews came to the United States. By 1917, only 14,000 Jews
were admitted to the United States.
1917: The news
that President Wilson had broken off diplomatic relations with Germany over
that country’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare and had seized German
auxiliary cruisers in American ports was greeted with joy by the British, fear
for how American diplomats in Germany might be mistreated and concern that the
result of all of this would U.S. entry into the war which would make it that
much harder to provide aid to the Jews trapped in eastern Europe and the
Ottoman Empire.
1918: Rabbi
Wise, the Chairman of the Provisional Zionist Committee, provided a list of the
name of European statesman “who had approved the plan for the Jewish State in
Palestine.
1918: This
evening, the UB-77, a German submarine, torpedoed the S.S. Tuscania, a U.S.
troopship that sank with a loss of life that included at least eight Jewish
servicemen.
1919: In New
York City, Jewish immigrants Sophie (née Baker) and Michael Chwatt gave birth
to Aaron Chwatt who gained fame as comedian and actor Red Buttons.
Buttons got his first name from the color of his hair. The last name was
a reference to the shiny buttons on the coat he wore as waiter while waiting
tables before his career took off. Bronx New York NY, comedian/actor (Sayonara,
Poseidon Adventure).
1919: Charlie
Chaplin joined three other Hollywood stars in starting United Artist Studios,
one of the early giants of the motion picture industry. It was unique,
because as its name indicates, this studio was owned and controlled by the
creative people.
1919: Today,
Julius Kahn, the Jewish Congressman from California expressed his “regret…that
President Wilson had come out openly in favor of a” proposal for an independent
Jewish state because “consideration of this question should place at the peace
table” and because “one of the great dangers of Zionism is the face that the
non-Jew will begin to look upon the American Jew as always having a lurking
desire to return to the so-called Jewish homeland and the Jew will be accused
by the non-Jew of being merely a sojourner in the United States.”
1920: Office
and members of the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society will be attending the funeral
for Rabbi Isaac C. Noot, the father of Kittie Lazarus, Simon, George and Louis
Noot which is scheduled to be held this morning at the family’s residence.
1920(16th
of Shevat, 5680): Twenty-seven-year-old Marjorie Goodhart, the New York born
daughter of Florence and William Israel Walter and wife of Howard Lehman
Goodhart passed away today.
1921: Forty-year-old
Columbia University graduate and tobacco merchant Leonard A. Cohn, the New York
City born son of Abraham and Maimie (Einstein) Cohen married Marion Angelo
today in New York.
1921: The
“second annual reception and dance” sponsored by “the Bronx Free Synagogue” is
scheduled to be held today at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan.
1922: “Jews to
Celebrate The Tree’s New Year” published today described plans for celebrating
the upcoming holiday of Tu B’shevat including “a special program that been
arranged for the Bronx Y.M.H.A. under the leadership of Rose Ephraim and Mamie
Goldsmith of the League of Jewish Youth.”
1923: Maurice Duplessis who as Premier of the Province of
Quebec issued the warrant which empowered the provincial police to raid “the
cultural section of the Canadian Labor Circle, a Jewish fraternal organization”
during which they removed “eight hundred books of the 950 volume library
maintained by Jewish cultural circle” today began serving as MNA (Member
National Assembly) for Trois-Rivières.
1924: In Vienna, furrier Isadore Kleinfield who spent four
months in Dachau in 1938 and milliner Regina Reich gave birth Hedda Kleinfeld,
the refugee from Nazi German who gained fame as “Hedda Kleinfeld Schachter, who
with her husband, Jack, built the empire of tulle and satin known as
Kleinfeld’s, the bridal superstore that for decades drew women from all over
the world to the unlikely locale of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn…” (As reported by
Penelope Green)
1924: In Greece, the Athens City Council “conferred
honorary citizenship on Henry Morgenthau” and “changed the name of a prominent
street to America Street.”
1925(11th of
Shevat, 5685): Julius Fleischmann, the son of Charles Louis Fleischmann and
mayor of Cincinnati, passed away.
1925: In
Stamford, TX, Edith Violet Schwarz and Charles H Strauss gave birth to Bear
Stearns Sr. Managing Director Theodore Henry Strauss, the husband Dallas Mayor
Annette Strauss and the brother of Democratic party leader Robert S. Strauss.
1925: Four
days after he turned 77, British author Arnold Henry White who went from
blaming the Jews for the problems in East End to being a “virulent anti-Semite”
who opposed Jewish immigration to the United Kingdom passed away today.
https://archive.org/details/modernjew01whitgoog
1926: In New
York City, Arthur Hays Sulzberger and Iphigene Bertha Ochs gave birth
to Arthur Sulzberger, Sr., Chairman of the Board of the New York Times
from 1965 to 1991.
1927:
Birthdate of Marshall Rosenbluth, the American plasma physicist who won the
National Medal of Science.
1927: After
premiering in Tokyo, “The General” a film that
included “gags and bits of business” by Al Boasberg was released today in New
York City.
1927: Launch
of the USCGC Northland, which after a twenty years of service would be sold for
scrap, acquired by Zionists who renamed it the Jewish State and used the ship
for bringing European refugees to Palestine before the creation of the state of
Israel.
1928: It was
reported to that “seventy-five Zionists exiled from Russia have been permitted
to enter Palestine by order of the British Colonial Office.”
1928: While
“praising both Louis Marshall and Dr. Stephen S. Wise for their efforts on
behalf of the Jews of Rumania,” Bennett E. Siegelstein, the newly elected
President of the United Rumanian Jews of America and Canada expressed the wish
they would combine their efforts as his 50,000 member organization worked to
protect the rights Jews in Rumania and “other European countries.
1929: In
Holyoke, MA, “Jewish immigrants Meyer and Rose Belsky gave birth to Harold
Simon Belsky, who gained fame as “drummer and session musician” Hal Blaine who
can be heard on innumerable hits including recordings by the Beach Boys and
Simon and Garfunkel.
https://www.facebook.com/HalBlaine/
1929: “The
Sidewalks of New York” a film “made by animation pioneers Max Fleischer and
Dave Fleischer was re-released today as part of the Fleischer’s new series
Screen Songs.
1929: Pianist
Mischa Levitzki is scheduled to begin his eleventh American tour today “under
the management of Daniel Mayer, Inc.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/01/31/91750654.html?pageNumber=20
1930:
Fifth Aliyah begins. The Fifth Aliyah, which some sources say actually started
in 1929, marked a ten-year period when approximately 250,000 Jews settled in
pre-War Palestine. This new wave of Jewish immigration was sparked by a
number of causes including the restrictions on immigrations adopted by the
United States in the 1920’s, the end of the Arab Uprising of the 1920’s and the
rise of Hitler which brought a wave of German immigrants to the Jewish
homeland. The arrival of the Germans changed the nature of the Jewish
community, because unlike the previous immigrants they were not from Russia and
they were not committed Zionists eager for life on the Kibbutz.
1930: After a
half-hour’s deliberation the death sentence was imposed today upon the Jewish
Constable, 22-year-old Simcha Hinkas. The jury had found him guilty of the
premeditated murder of an Arab family in the August,1929. “Not more than ten
minutes after the verdict was pronounced, large crimson printed notices
appeared pasted on trees and signboards at Tel Aviv where the accused lived and
where a spirit of deep mourning now prevails…Meir Dizengoff, Mayor of Tel Aviv
said today: ‘When I contrast the death sentence imposed on this Jewish
policeman with the acquittal of twelve Arabs accused of murdering seven Jews at
Macleff House in Motzah, it makes me weep. What? Is this human justice?’”
1931:
Eddie Cantor appeared on The Fleischmann’s Yeast Hour starring Rudy Vallee
which “led to a four-week tryout with NBC’s The Chase and Sanborn Hour.
(Cantor and Fleischmann were Jewish; Vallee was not)
1931: “The Man
in Search of His Murderer” a comedy directed by Robert Siodmak, with a script
by Curt Siodmak and Billy Wilder and music Franz Waxman was released in Germany
today.1933: In Germany All Communist Party buildings and printing presses were
expropriated by Hitler’s new Nazi government. Hitler would equate his war
against the Communists with his war against the Jews.
1932: After
merging with the New York Jewish Tribune, the American Hebrew
appeared today as the American Hebrew and Jewish Tribune
1933: Rabbi
H.G. Enlow is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Is There a Jewish Mentality?”
this morning at Temple Emanu-El.
1933: Rabbi
Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Revolution to Be the
Answer?” at the Free Synagogue worshipping in Carnegie Hall.
1933: Rabbi
Israel Goldstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Sinclair Lewis’s Ann
Vickers” at Temple B’nai Jeshurun.
1933: Rabbi
Morris Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Life as a Business” at
the Jewish Science Society.
1934: It was reported
today that 1,000 delegates from Jewish organizations attending an emergency conference
at the Hotel Pennsylvania organized under the auspices of the Council of Jewish
Organizations on Palestine “voted to raised two million dollars to be used for
the settlement of German-Jewish Refugees in Palestine and to start a special
drive for forty thousand dollars to provide for the colonization and maintenance
in Palestine of more than five hundred refugee children.”
1934: David T.
Wilenz was appointed Attorney General of New Jersey today.
1935: Louis J.
Cohen, Assistant Attorney General announced tonight that the State Department
of Banking and Insurance would participate in the appeal of a decision by the
Circuit Court declaring the Reorganization Act of March, 1933 unconstitutional.
1935: Following
“the terrific storms that have been raging throughout Palestine in the past few
days” “railway communication has been resumed between Jerusalem and Haifa but
the road is still impassable.”
1936: Charlie
Chaplin’s first “talkie,” “Modern Times", was released.
1936: On the
closing day of its two-day meeting in Louisville, KY, the Executive Board of
the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods denounced “compulsory military
training” and endorsed the Nye-Kvale Bill.
1936: In
Manhattan, Gustave Silverman, “a builder and plumber who invested in real
estate and eventually bought the Hotel Wales on Madison Avenue,” and the former
Bessie Goldberger gave birth to Kenneth Silverman, who won both the Bancroft
Prize and the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Cotton Mather.
1936: Sir
Herbert Samuel, who is in the United States to raise funds and gain public
support for the settling of 100,000 Jewish refugees in Palestine and is the
honorary president of the Biriths Friends of the Hebrew University in Palestine
was the guest of honor at a reception hosted by Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach.
1936: Hugo
Blumenthal, President of the Board of the School Nursing, presided over the 53rd
annual commencement ceremonies at Mt. Sinai Hospital where 33 new nurses
received their degrees.
1936: Bernhard
Rust, the Minister of Culture and Education, today “forbade non-Jewish
university students” from employing Jewish tutors because it was “contrary to
academic dignity.”
1937: “The
Holy Terror” a comedy featuring Joe E. Lewis and Leah Ray, the future wife of
Sonny Werblin was released in the United States today.
1937: U.S.
premiere of “Outcast” a murder drama produced by Emanuel Cohen, photographed by
cinematographer Rudolph Mate and music by Ernst Toch.
1937: In an
article published in the Evening Standard, Winston Churchill “continued
to issue his warnings about the growing menace of Nazi tyranny.” The
Baldwin government would ignore him and Europe would continue on the path that
led to the Holocaust.
1938(4th
of Adar I, 5698): Parashat Terumah
1938: Rabbi
William F. Rosenblum is scheduled to deliver a sermon “God Save the Family” at
Temple Israel.
1938: Rabbi
Louis I Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Don Isaac Abrabanel of
Spain: a 500th Anniversary Tribute” today at Temple Rodeph Sholom.
1938: Rabbi
Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver the sermon at Temple Emanu-El this
morning.
1938: “No Time
to Marry” co-starring Lionel Stander, featuring Jay Adler and produced by
William Perlberg was released today in the United States.
1938: Rabbi
Hyman Judah Shachtel is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Jews’
Contribution to Civilization” at West End Synagogue.
1938: Five
hundred protestors who gathered at Columbus Circle this afternoon for a meeting
sponsored by the New York State Committee Communist Party protested “the
Fascist wave of terror aimed at the 900,000 Jews of Rumania” and adopted a
resolution demanding “that the Government of Rumania put an end to the
oppression of Jews and other national minorities.”
1938(4th
of Adar I, 5698): Thirty-four-year-old Hans Achim Litten the Jewish lawyer who
cross-examined Hitler for three hours during a trial in 1931 committed suicide
in Dachau after years of incarceration and torture.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0146fs2
1939: Today,
on Sunday, Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon “It Is
Later Than You Think at Temple Emanu-El.
1939: James
Waterman Wise is scheduled to deliver an address on “Hitlerism Invades America:
How To Defeat It” at the Free Synagogue meeting in Carnegie Hall.
1939: At a
forum hosted by the West End Synagogue Stanley High is scheduled to deliver an
address on “What’s Ahead of the Democracies?” at 11 A.M.
1939: Ludwig
Lewisohn is scheduled to deliver an address on Confessions of a Novelist” at
Temple B’Nai Jeshurun.
1939: It was
reported today that “five Haydn symphonies varied as the work of the Austrian
master by Dr. Alfred Einstein” who has restored them “to their original form”
“will be played probably for the first time since the composer himself led
their performance at a concert series beginning later this month at Carnegie
Hall.
1939:
Professor Albert P. Martin, the former head of the Quaker Committee in Berlin
is scheduled to deliver an address on “The Message of Quakers in a Troubled
World” this morning at Temple Rodeph Sholom.
1939: The Fort
Washington Synagogue, led by Rabbi Alexander Segel, hosted a meeting of the
Junior League today.
1939: Mrs.
Tehilla Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver an address on “Religion and Evolution
– a Message of Optimism for Today” at the Jewish Science Society in New York.
1939: The
Central Synagogue is scheduled to host the first in a series of lectures on
“The History of the Jews” delivered by Rabbi Jonah B. Wise who will speak on
“Jews on the Roman Empire.”
1940: Former
municipal court justice Leopold Prince leased “an apartment at 65 Central Park
West” today.
1940: Tonight,
in Tampa, FL, at the closing of its annual meeting, the executive committee of
B’nai B’rotj voted to appropriate $2,500 to aid in transferring Jewish children
from European lands to Palestine.”
1941: “A
diplomatic note from Chinune Sugihara” the Vice-Consul for the Empire of Japan
in Lithuania, “to Japan's then Foreign Minister Yōsuke Matsuoka” states that
“he issued 1,500 out of 2,139 transit visas to Jews and Poles.” This was
only part of the picture of a man who should be called “a Japanese Schindler.”
1941: The
first week-day religious school sessions under the Coudert-McLaughlin Law
passed last spring at Albany, permitting students to be released from public
school classes an hour a week for religious training, were held on this
date. The law was passed in response to the wishes of certain Catholic
leaders, not Jewish educators.
1942: In
Brooklyn, Arnold Wechsler, a stockbroker and Miriam (Steinberg) Wechsler who
volunteered at the Brooklyn Museu gave birth to NYU and Yale educated Gil
Wechsler, “who with innovative lighting designs helped bring to life more than
100 productions at the Metropolitan Opera, translating the visions of some of
opera’s best-known directors while also contributing to a more modern look for
the Met’s stagings” (As reported by Neil Genslinger)
1942: In a
letter today, Martha Dodd “told her Soviet contacts that her husband should be
brought into their network.” Dodd was the daughter of William Dodd, the
first U.S. Ambassador to Germany who tried to warn America about the menace of
Hitler. Martha’s husband was Alfred Stern, the investment broker who had
been married to the daughter of Julius Rosenwald. Dodd, like many during
this period, saw the Soviets as allies in the fight against Fascism.
1943(30th
of Shevat, 5703): Rosh Chodesh Adar 1
1943(30th
of Shevat, 5703: Sigmund Freud’s sister Esther Adolfine (Dolfi) died at
Theresienstadt
1943:
For 14 hours the Jews of Birkenau stood in place, in the snow, during a roll
call. Then each was beaten, chased or sent to the gas chamber.
1943: For one week,
Germans are greeted with an armed uprising as they try to deport the final
group of Bialystok Jews. By February 12th, 18,000 were in hiding. Another
10,000 would end up in Treblinka.
1943: In
Chicago, grocers Esther and Jack Mann gave birth to Oscar nominated director,
producer and writer Michael Mann.
1943: Rutka
Laskier, a fourteen-year-old living in Bedzin, Poland wrote in her diary: “The
rope around us is getting tighter and tighter. Next month there should already
be a ghetto, a real one, surrounded by walls. In the summer it will be
unbearable. To sit in a gray locked cage, without being able to see fields and
flowers. Last year I used to go to the fields; I always had many flowers, and
it reminded me that one day it would be possible to go to Malachowska Street
without taking the risk of being deported. Being able to go to the cinema in
the evening; I'm already so "flooded" with the atrocities of the war
that even the worst reports have no effect on me. I simply can't believe that
one day I'll be able to leave the house without the yellow star. Or even that
this war will end one day ... If this happens, I will probably lose my mind
from joy. But now I need to think about the near future, which is the ghetto.
Then it will be impossible to see anyone, neither Micka, who lives in Kamionka C,
nor Janek, who lives in D, and not Nica, who lives in D. And then what will
happen? Oh, good Lord. Well, Rutka, you've probably gone completely crazy. You
are calling upon God as if He exists. The little faith I used to have has been
completely shattered. If God existed, He would have certainly not permitted
that human beings be thrown alive into furnaces, and the heads of little
toddlers be smashed with butts of guns or be shoved into sacks and gassed to
death ... It sounds like a fairy tale. Those who haven't seen this would never
believe it. But it's not a legend; it's the truth. Or the time when they beat
an old man until he became unconscious, because he didn't cross the street
properly. This is already absurd; it's nothing, as long as there won't be
Auschwitz ... and a green card ... The end ... When will it come? ...”
1943: Morris
A. Wainger, a member of a panel of attorney who have volunteers their service
to the government was one of two lawyers who heard the first case under “a new
procedure in pleasure driving cases under which persons not officially
connected with the OPA sit in judgment on accused motorists.”
1944(11th
of Shevat, 5704): Parashat Beshalach
1944: Today,
Rabbi Israel Goldstein of Temple B’nai Jeshurun expressed supported for the
“resolution now before Congress urging” the United States “to use its offices
to open the doors of Palestine for free entry of Jews.”
1944: In New
York, at Temple Israel, Rabbi William F. Rosenblum “hailed the positive
declaration of Archbishop Spellman that bigotry is not only un-American but
that anti-Semitism is un-Catholic.”
1945:
Twenty-three-year-old Violette Szabo who played an active role in fighting the
Nazis as a member of the SOE was executed by the Germans today at Ravensbruck
concentration camp.
1945(22nd
of Shevat, 5705): Twenty-nine-year-old Paris born Jewess Denis Bloch who served
with British Special Operations Executive (SOE) was executed at Ravensbruck
after which her body was “disposed of in the crematorium.
1946: George
Arliss passed away. Arliss was not Jewish, but he won an Oscar for
portraying Disraeli in a film of the same name. For many people of that
era, the Arliss portrayal was synonymous with Disraeli and with English Jews.
1947: In Schwäbisch
Hall, Germany, Felek and Chana Gebotszrajber (Fred and Ann Gilbert) gave birth
to Yankel Gebotszjraber (Jack Gilbert), the brother of Lena R. Gilbert, who
came to the United States in 1949 where he lived in Cedar Rapids before
graduating with honors, from California Polytechnic State University in San
Louis Obispo.
1948(25th
of Shevat, 5708): Sixty-eight-year-old Belorussian born Columbia graduate
Simeon Strunsky who began as an editor for the New International
Encyclopedia before eventually joining the editorial staff of the New
Yok Times in 1924 passed away today.
1948: Dr.
Alexander Marx will be the guest of honor at dinner being held at the Jewish
Theological Seminary in New York to recognize his 45 years of service to JTS as
a teacher and librarian.
1948: In
Hollywood, Melrose (née Moore) a Presbyterian from Arkansas and Arnold Nathan
Herzstein, a Jewish horse racing columnist gave birth to Barbara Lynn Herzstein
who gained game as actress Barbara Hershey.
1949:
“Tarzan’s Magic Fountain” the fifth in the series of Tarzan films directed by
Lee Sholem, produced by Sol Lesser and with a script co-authored by Curt
Siodmark was released today in the United States
1953: The
Jerusalem Post reported that the cabinet held an extraordinary meeting,
under the chairmanship of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, to consider the
recent frequent outbreaks of violence and infiltration across the Jordanian
border, including the derailing, of a goods train near Kalkilya.
1955: Today “a
60-minute version of the play aired on the CBS Television series The Best of
Broadway” with Peter Lorre reprising his famous role as “Dr. Einstein.
1956: “A
musical before for the benefit of the Children to Palestine Organization” is
scheduled to be held this evening at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Arnold at 101
Central Park West, under the leadership of Mrs. Arnold, Mrs. Murray Silverstone
and Miss Anne Chisholm.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/01/29/98361810.html?pageNumber=83
1956:
Birthdate of Weizman Shiry. A native of Beersheba, this son of Iraqi Jews
served in the Knesset as a member of the Labor Party.
1956:
“Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” a classic American horror film made famous by
the “Pod People” directed by Don Siegel and produced by Walter Wagner was
released in the United States.
1956: Claire
Herman, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Herman married Sanford Weisberg
the son of Dr. and Mrs. Irving Weisberg at the West End Synagogue.
1958: United
Artists released “The Quite American,” the cinematic version of the novel of
the same name which was written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and
featured Fred Sadoff as “Dominguez.”
1958 Birthdate
of Judith Deborah Feldman the first wife of entertainment lawyer Jack
Schwartzman and the mother of Stephanie and John Schwartzman, the Oscar
nominated cinematographer.
1959:
“Redhead,” a musical with music composed by Albert Hague and lyrics by Dorothy
Fields, who with her brother, Herbert, along with Sidney Sheldon wrote the
libretto opened on Broadway at the 46th Street Theatre.
1959(27th
of Shevat, 5719): Sixty-seven-year-old Berlin born American musicologist Curt
Sachs who had been forced to leave his homeland when the Nazis came to power
passed away today.
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Sachs-Curt.htm
https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01616569/document
1960:
“University of New Mexico coach Marv Levy is named head football coach at the
University of California, Berkley.” (As reported by Bob Wechsler)
1961(19th
of Shevat, 5721): Seventy-one year old Prague born and Prague University
trained attorney Dr. Hugo Feigl, the veteran of the Austro-Hungarian Army and
art critic and art gallery operator who in 1939 came to the United States where
he found the Feigel Art Gallery while raising a daughter, Marion, with his wife
Greta, passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1961/02/06/118898429.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1961(19th
of Shevat, 5721): Fifty-six-year-old Lithuanian born Dr. Koppel S. Pinson the
holder of Ph.D. from Columbia and “a specialist in Jewish and German history”
passed away today.
https://www.jta.org/1961/02/07/archive/professor-koppel-pinson-historian-and-educator-dead-was-56
1962: In
Hollywood Jewish thespians Vic Morrow and Barbara Turner gave birth to Jennifer
Leigh Morrow who gained famed as actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.
1964: “Man in
the Middle” a film based on a novel by Howard Fast, featuring Sam Wanamaker and
Al Waxman was released in the United States today.
1965(3rd
of Adar I, 5725): Eighty-three-year-old Riga born, New York College of Dentist
graduate Dr. Isadore Hirschfeld who in 1890 came to the United States where he
became “an authority in treating gum diseases” as served as “chairman of
committees of Jewish dentists who collected dental equipment for the Israeli
Army and raised funds for dental schools in Israel” while raising two children
with his wife the former Pauline Steinberg, passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1965/02/06/95530323.html?pageNumber=25
1966(15th
of Shevat, 5726): Shabbat Shirah; Tu B’Shevat
1967:
Ninety-two-year-old Martin Saxe, who when a New York State Senator responded to
Bertha Rayner Frank having been turned away from a New Jersey hotel because she
was Jewish that would have banned such behavior in the state of New York.
1967(25th
of Shevat, 5727): Fifty-one-year-old Brooklyn native Joel Edward Saltzman the
“vice president and director of Twayne Publishers who attended NYU and Columbia
and was the husband of Hilda Kluger Saltzman with whom he had two children –
Roslyn and Lawrence – passed away today.
1968(6th
of Shevat, 5728): Seventy-eight-year-old Abraham Handelman, the Ukrainian born
son “of Joseph Yussel Handelman and Dobrish (Dora) Handelman” and the husband
of Anna (Boorstein_ Handelman with whom he had two children – Lillian and
Arnold – passed away today in New York.
1970(27th
of Tevet, 5730): Eighty-one-year-old refugee from Nazi Germany and Corpus Christi
Professor of Latin at Oxford Edward Mortimer Frankel, the Berlin born son of
wine merchant Julius Frankel and Edith Heimann, nephew of Social Democratic
political leader Hugo Heimann and the cousin of linguist Leo Frankel passed
away today. (Editor’s Note: there is no way this simple blog can begin to
describe his academic achievements)
1971:
Seventy-eight-year-old Hungarian communist politician who repudiated his Jewish
faith passed away today.
1972: Paul
Simon’s “Mother and Child Reunion” was released as a single today after which
it reached “No. 1 in South Africa and No. 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 Chart.”
1972: “When
Michael Calls” a horror film starring Michael Douglas, Marian Waldman and Al
Waxman and with music by Lionel Newman premiered today on ABC.
1973: The
Society for the Promotion of New Music which had been founded “in January 1943 in
London by composer Francis Chagrin,” the Bucharest born Jew “to promote the
creation and performance of new music in the UK by young and unestablished
composers” “celebrated its 30th anniversary with a concert at the
Queen Elizabeth Hall” today.
1973: “Foreign
Minister Mario Gibson Barboza of Brazil called on President Zalman Shazar this
morning at the start of his four-day office visit to Israel,” after which he
“held a working session with Foreign Minister Abba Eban” where they discussed
“Israel’s quest for reciprocal air landing rights” that would open Rio de
Janeiro to El Al flights.
1974: “On his
way home from Cuba Brezhnev told representatives of Canadian Jewish Community
of St. Johns at Gander airport, Newfoundland that the real figure of Soviet
Jews wanting to emigrate was 3,500 and not 500,000 quoted by the group” and the
he refused “to intervene in the case of Sylva Zalmanson, who is currently
serving 10 year labor camp sentence.”
1974: “The
Lovell Beach House located on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach,
California” which “was completed in 1926 and is now recognized as one of the
most important works by Austrian born Jewish architect Rudolf Schindler” “was
listed as a Registered Historic Place in California” today.
1975(24th
of Shevat, 5735): Seventy-seven-year-old movie producer Lawrence Weingarten who
produced two Hepburn-Tracy films – Adam’s Rib and Pat & Mike – and who
won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award passed away today.
1975(24th
of Shevat, 5735): Seventy-five-year-old Tulane University Medical School
trained pediatrician Dr. Abraham Tow, the husband of Elsa Two and the father of
William Tow passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1975/02/11/archives/abraham-tow-pediatrician-at-polyclinic-hospital-75.html
1975: The
movie version of Report to the Commissioner with a screenplay co-authored by
Abby Mann, music by Elmer Bernstein and featuring Yaphet Kotto and Bab Balaban
was released today in the United States.
1977(17th of
Shevat, 5737): Swedish physicist, Oskar Klein passed away.
1977: (17th of
Shevat, 5737): Russian born chess player Izaak Boleslavski passed away at the
age of 67
1980: The
Egyptian Parliament voted to end the boycott of Israel. This was one of
the “fruits” of the Camp David Peace Accords.
1983: Former
Nazi Gestapo official Klaus Barbie was brought to trial today.
1984(2nd
of Adar I, 5744): Two days after her 100th birthday, Hanover native
Selma Maier, one of the first Jews to be certified as a nurse by the German
government and the head nurse at Shaare Zedek and the colleague of the
“founding director Dr. Moshe Wallach” passed away today in Jerusalem.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/mair-selma
1984 (2nd of
Adar I, 5744): Seventy-eight-year-old Manès Sperber
an Austrian-French novelist, essayist and psychologist born in Austrian Galicia
in 1905, passed away today in Paris. (As reported by Herbert Mitgang)
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/07/obituaries/manes-sperber-78-novelist.html
1984(2nd
of Adar I, 5744): Michael Kogan the Russian born businessman who survived most
of WW II living in Japan and who founded Taito Corporation in 1953 passed away
today.
1987: An
Italian prosecutor's report contends that a 1985 airport attack here was
planned in Syria and carried out by the Abu Nidal organization, according to
senior judicial officials. The report says the four gunmen in the attack
intended to seize an Israeli airliner and blow it up over Tel Aviv, but were
foiled when Israeli security men opened fire, the officials said. The report
does not charge direct Syrian involvement although it notes evidence of links
with the Abu Nidal group, the officials said.
1988: In Los
Angeles, Donald E. Sanford Jr. and Debra Blair gave birth to sprinter Donald
Sanford who “took up Israeli citizenship after marrying Israeli basketball
player Danielle Dekel, who he met when they were both students at Central
Arizona College.”
1988: U.S.
premiere of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” directed by Philip Kaufman who
co-authored the script, produced by Paul and Saul Zaentz and starring Daniel
Day-Lewis.
1988(17th
of Shevat, 5748): Eighty-five-year-old Hungarian-born screenwriter, director
and producer Emeric Pressburger who fled to Great Britain as the Nazis began to
take over Europe passed away today.
http://www.powell-pressburger.org/Reviews/Emeric/LaDoaS.html
1989 (30th
of Shevat): “Charles Z. Offin, an artist, publisher and art patron, died today
in Mount Sinai Hospital. He was 90 years old and lived in Manhattan. A gallery
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is named for Mr. Offin in recognition of his
gifts to the museum. He also gave grants to the Brooklyn, Guggenheim and Tel
Aviv museums and endowed arts projects at universities. Mr. Offin was art
editor of The Brooklyn Eagle and editor and publisher of the magazine Pictures
on Exhibit. He also was director of the Etchers Guild. In World War II, he
worked for the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the Central
Intelligence Agency.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/08/obituaries/charles-z-offin-90-artist-and-art-patron.html
1989: The
New York Times features a brief review of Past Continuous by Yaakov
Shabtai, translated by Dalya Bilu.
1990: Ninety-four-year-old
Père Marie-Benoît a Capuchin Franciscan friar who helped smuggle approximately
4,000 Jews into safety from Nazi-occupied Southern France passed away. He
had been named as one the “Righteous Among the Nations.”
1990: The
Israeli Army said its troops had killed five heavily armed Arab guerrillas in
the western Negev region of Israel after chasing them for a short distance. The
army said the guerrillas had crossed into Israel from Egypt through the Sinai
and apparently had timed the infiltration to coincide with the second
anniversary of the Palestinian uprising. But it was not clear then to which
organization the guerrillas belonged.
1990: Prime
Minister Shamir will face nine different parliamentary motions of no
confidence, from both left- and right- wing opponents today in Jerusalem.
1992(1st of
Adar I, 5752): Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1992(1st
of Adar I, 5752): Eighty-year-old New Jersey native Walter Wallace “Walt”
Singer the Syracuse and NFL football player who played college baseball with
his twin broth Milton passed away today.
1993: “3 Arts
Entertainment a Beverly Hills–based talent management and television/film
production company founded by Erwin Stoff in 1991” today released its first
movie, “Loaded Weapon 1.”
1993(14th
of Shevat, 5753): Ninety-four year old media mogul Sidney Lewis Bernstein the
son of Alexander and Jane Bernstein who was elevated to the peerage as Baron
Bernstein passed away today.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-lord-bernstein-1471201.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/07/obituaries/lord-bernstein-94-of-granada-television.html
1993: “The
Vanishing” an American re-make of a Dutch film by the same name produced by
Larry Brezner and directed by George Sluizer who “was accused by Israeli
officials of a 'modern blood libel' for his claims – which in 2010 finally
achieved front page level publicity in Israel – that he had witnessed the then
Defense Minister Ariel Sharon personally shooting two Palestinian children from
close range near the Sabra-Shatilla refugee camp in 1982” was released in the
United States today.
1993 (14th of
Shevat, 5753): Joseph L Mankiewicz, director and writer, passed away at the age
of 83. (As reported by Peter Flint)
1993 (14th of
Shevat, 5753): Hans Jonas, who fled Nazi Germany and became an influential
philosopher, passed away at his home in New Rochelle, N.Y. at the age of
89. (As reported by Eric Pace)
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/06/nyregion/hans-jonas-influential-philosopher-is-dead-at-89.html
1994(24th
of Shevat, 5754): Seventy-four-year-old Czarna
(née Zielinski) Levy, the native of Poltusk and wife of
Reuven Levy passed away today in Tel Aviv.
1996(15th
of Shevat, 5756): Tu B’Shevat
1997:
The so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a
$71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families.
1999(19th of
Shevat, 5759): Ninety-three-year-old Wassily Leontief Russian born American
Nobel Prize winning economist, passed away.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1973/leontief-bio.html
1999: The
Times of London features a review of The World’s Banker: The history of
the House of Rothschild by Niall Ferguson
1999:
“The Last Day” an Oscar winning documentary that ‘tell the story of five
Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust” was released today in the United States.
2000(29th
of Shevat, 5760): Parashat Mishpatim
2000:
After confirming that ''Madonna and Child in a Landscape,'' by Lucas Cranach
the Elder, a German Renaissance artist, “one of its most prized paintings had
been stolen by the Nazis during World War II from an Austrian Jewish art
collector, the North Carolina Museum of Art announced plans to give the
painting back to its rightful owners, two sisters in Austria.”
2001:
“Einstein and Freud were among the holders of 21,000 dormant Swiss bank
accounts posted on the Internet today in an effort to identify accounts that
belonged to Holocaust victims.”
2002:
As part of a “blood feud” that has nothing to do with the Israelis, a mob of
Palestinians stormed a makeshift courtroom here today and executed three
Palestinian men convicted of murdering a popular lieutenant of the Palestinian
security forces.”
2003: Ernst
Zündel, “A German publisher infamously known for his Holocaust denial” was
detained by local police in the US and deported to Canada, where he was
detained for two years on a Security Certificate for being a foreign national
considered a threat to national security pending a court decision on the
validity of the certificate.”
2003: In
“Murder In Monaco” David Kohn provides information about the death of Edmond
Safra.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/murder-in-monaco-05-02-2003/
2004(13th
of Shevat, 5764): Eighty-five-year-old “Samuel M. Rubin, who was known as
"Sam the Popcorn Man" for making popcorn almost as popular in New
York City movie theaters as jokes and kisses,” passed away today. (As reported
by Douglas Martin)
2004:
"Leha'amin" (To Believe) song David D’Or co-wrote with Ehud Manor
“was chosen in voting during the program "Israel Selects a Song,"
held during a break in a televised Maccabi Tel Aviv Euroleague basketball game
in Tel Aviv at which videos of four songs sung by D'Or were shown” to represent
Israel in the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest.
2004: Five
weeks before opening in Israel, “Walk on Water” premiered today at the Berlin
International Film Festival.
2005: The
London revival of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd closed today at the Ambassadors
Theatre.
2006: Irwin
Cotler completed his term as Minister of Justice in Canada.
2006: The
New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest
to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of Tattoo
for a Slave, Hortense Calisher's elliptical memoir that stretches across
two centuries, and wrestles with a grim legacy as she comes to believe that her
family — Southern, German and Jewish — may have been slaveholders.
2006: The
Pittsburgh Steelers for whom punter Josh Miller had played from 1996 through
2003, defeated the Seattle Seahawks for whom Sam McCullum had played wide
receiver from 1976 through 1981, in Super Bowl XL an event for which Rabbis
Kasriel Shemtov and Yudi Mann of The Shul in West Bloomfield created the
“Chabad Jewish Center at the Super Bowl”.
http://crownheights.info/general/1495/chabad-at-the-super-bowl-xl/
2007: Defense
officials told settlers that it was still likely that the security fence would
be constructed in the Judean Desert, even though work there had been halted
last month due to environmental concerns.
2007: The
board of NBC Universal named Jeff Zucker as the company’s chairman and chief
executive officer.
2008: In
New York, the 92nd St Y sponsors The Beir Lecture Israel at 60
featuring Michael B. Oren who discusses the 60-year history of Israel and its
quest for peace.
2008: Three
Kassam rockets were fired at southern Ashkelon this evening.
2008: Pope
Benedict has ordered changes to a Latin prayer for Jews at Good Friday services
by traditionalist Catholics, deleting a reference to their
"blindness" over Christ, the Vatican said today.
2008: A
Simchah - Eli Sherman arrives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Mother and father
are doing fine. Rabbi and Rabbi are doing fine as well.
2009(11th
of Shevat, 5769): Eighty-nine year old Canadian director, producer and writer
Leo Orenstein passed away today.
2009: Opening
of the 13th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival
2009(11th
of Shevat, 5769): Seventy-eight-year-old Rabbi Yisrael Noah Weinberg, the
founder of Aish HaTorah passed away today in Jerusalem.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/834580/jewish/The-Rosh-Yeshivah-and-the-Shliach.htm
2009: The Yale Initiative
for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism presents a lecture by
Professor Jeffrey Herf, Department of History; University of Maryland entitled
"Nazi Propaganda in and towards the Middle East during World War II and
the Holocaust"
2009; The CUNY
Graduate Center and the European Union Center of NY present a lecture and
presentation marking 50 years of Israel's relations with the European community
by Benjamin Krasna, Deputy Consul General of Israel entitled "Israel and
Europe: An Insider's Perspective"
2009: The UN
staff discovered five rockets north of the southern Lebanese town of Nakoura
which ready to be launched against Israel. Milos Strugar, a UNIFIL spokesman,
said the rockets were discovered along with a launching pad by a patrol of
peacekeepers near Nakoura, where the UN force is headquartered.
2009: David
Miliband “made a statement to the House of Commons concerning Guantanamo Bay
detainee and former British resident Benyam Mohammed.
2009: Today
British actress and ardent supporter of Israel Maureen Lipman “appeared in the
third series of teen drama Skins, in the episode entitled "Thomas" as
Pandora Moon's Aunt Elizabeth.”
2010: David
Samuel Goyer announced he would be stepping down as FlashForward showrunner to
focus on feature films and directing
2010: “Eyes
Wide Open,” a film set in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox community, is scheduled to
have its New York debut at the Cinema Village in Manhattan.
2010: Deputy
Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon arrived in Munich for an annual security meeting
which was also attended by Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki al-Faisal.
2010: British
Prime Minister Gordon Brown today called the record number of anti-Semitic
incidents across the United Kingdom last year "deeply troubling",
urging Britons to exercise greater vigilance. more
2010(21st of
Shevat, 5770): Harry Schwarz, a South African Jewish leader and lawmaker who as
an attorney defended Nelson Mandela, has died. Schwarz, who escaped the Nazis
and came to South Africa from Germany in 1936, died today following a short
illness. He was 86. As an opposition member of Parliament from 1974 to 1989, he
was among the most vociferous campaigners against apartheid, according to a
statement from the South Africa Jewish Board of Deputies. Schwarz in Parliament
forcefully denounced the government's racial policies and spoke out strongly
against anti-Semitism, the statement said. From 1990 to 1994, although still in
the opposition, Schwarz served as South Africa's ambassador to the United
States. As an attorney, he served on the defense team of Nelson Mandela and
other anti-apartheid activists during the1963-64 Rivonia Trial. For his
services to South Africa, he was awarded the Order for Meritorious Service:
Class 1, Gold. Schwarz was active in Jewish communal affairs, serving from 1983
to 2000 on the National Executive, Management Committee and Gauteng Council of
the Jewish Board of Deputies. He served as a navigator in the South African Air
Force during World War II
2010(21st of
Shevat, 5770): Beth Shulman, 60, a lawyer, author and union leader who fought
for improving conditions for low-wage workers throughout her career, died today
of complications from brain cancer at Georgetown University Medical Center. (As
reported by Patricia Sullivan)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/08/AR2010020803776.html
2010:
Chancellor Arnold Eisen sent an e-mail today that The Jewish Theological
Seminary is eliminating the position of dean of its cantorial school as part of
a major reorganization and consolidation at Conservative Judaism’s flagship
seminary. Chancellor Arnold Eisen said that the restructuring would take place
in lieu of closing the cantorial school — the course of action recommended by
an outside consultant.
2010(21st of
Shevat, 5770): Frank N. Magid, 78, the television "news doctor" whose
survey research and advice to local television stations in the 1970s resulted
in co-anchors who chatted between stories, fast-paced graphics, sports tickers
and live shots, and a heavy reliance on both crime coverage and feel-good
segments, died of lymphoma today at Santa Barbara [Calif.] Cottage Hospital.
(As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/us/14silberman.html?_r=0
2011: Yoav
Gal’s “Mosheh,” an opera loosely based on the life of Moses, is scheduled to
have its last performance tonight in New York City.
2011(1st
of Adar I, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Adar I
2011(1st
of Adar I, 5771): Eighty-six-year-old Charles E. Silberman, a journalist whose
books addressed vast, turbulent social subjects including race, education,
crime and the state of American Jewry, died today in Sarasota, Fla, He was 86.
(As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/us/14silberman.html?_r=0
2011(1st
of Adar I, 5771): Sixty-one year old “Miriam Hansen, a scholar of cinema who
studied not only film itself but also the early 20th-century creation known as
the film audience” passed away today in Chicago. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/arts/13hansen.html
2011: In Cedar
Rapids, IA, the traditional minyan at Temple Judah celebrates Super Bowl
Shabbat
2011: The
Quartet – the UN, the US, the EU and Russia – “refused to heed the Palestinian
call for unilateral statehood and instead continued to throw its support behind
a negotiated solution, when it met today in Germany. ‘Unilateral actions by
either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations and will not be
recognized by the international community,’ the group said in a statement it
issued after the meeting.”
2011: Ed Sabol,
the founder of NFL Films who helped to turn the professional game into
America’s leading form of sports entertainment was elected to the Professional
Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio today.
2012: The Leo
Baeck Institute is scheduled to present a recital by The Loewenberg Piano Trio
2012: The
New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including “Thinking the Twentieth Century”
by Tony Judt with Timothy Snyder, “No One Is Here Except All Of Us by Ramona
Ausubel and the recently released paperback edition of J.D. Salinger: A
Life” by Kenneth Slawenski
2012: The
Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including “What We Talk About When We
Talk About Anne Frank” by Nathan Englander
2012: Home Front Defense Minister Matan Vilnai is today expected
to call for increased investment to protect Israel's cities and national
infrastructure.
2012: Amid growing reports that Israel is planning to attack
Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and increased economic sanctions, Iran will
attack any country whose territory is used by "enemies" of the
Islamic state to launch a military strike against its soil, the deputy head of
Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards told the semi-official Fars news agency today
2012:
Israel has not and is not interfering in the political crisis in Syria, Vice
Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon said today, adding
that he did not think radical Islam would take over the country in case Syrian
President Bashar Assad is ousted.
2012:
At Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Robert Kraft’s New England Patriots lost
to the New York Giants which were co-owned by Steve Tisch in Super Bowl XLVI.
2013: Rabbi Riccardo Shmuel Di Segni, M.D., Chief Rabbi of Rome,
Italy is scheduled to deliver an address entitled "The Jews of Italy, the
Jews of Europe: an Overview and Update" Congregation Magen David in
Rockville, MD.
2013:
The American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (AAJLJ) are scheduled to
host an Israeli Wine-Tasting Reception in Washington, D.C.
2013: Bulgaria’s Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said today
two individuals with links to Lebanon’s Shi’ite group Hezbollah were involved
in a bomb attack on a bus in the Bulgarian resort of Burgas that killed five
Israeli tourists last July and a Bulgarian national.
2013: The IDF stationed a third Iron Dome air defense battery in
northern Israel today, amid escalated tensions following last week's reported
air strikes in Syria.
2013:
The New York Review of Books “began its year-long celebration of its 50th
anniversary with a presentation by Robert Silvers at The Town Hall in New York
City.
2013:
Six incoming members of the 19th Knesset will have to have given up
their foreign citizenship by today, the day when new MK’s are scheduled to be
sworn as members of Israel’s parliament.
2013:
“Obama Plans Visit to Israel This Spring” published today described the plans
of President Obama to make his first visit to Israel since moving into the
White House although he had visited the country while he was a United States
Senator.
2013:
Based on information supplied Chabad today marks the start of 32nd
round of studying the 982 chapters of The Mishne Torah.
2014: Virginia
Jewish Advocacy Day is scheduled to take place in Richmond, VA today.
2014: The
Haifa Symphony Orchestra of Israel is scheduled to make its debut appearance in
the United States at Bergen, NJ.
2014: Evelyn
Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston is scheduled to “Woman to Woman:
The Power of the Arts to Transform Lives.”
2014: The
Jerusalem District Attorney's Office filed charges in the city's District Court
today against three Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem who planned a sadistic
murder spree at a banquet hall. Anas Awisat, Basel Abidat, Ahmed Srur and Amru
Abdu of Jabel Mukabar, aged 19 to 21, were charged with conspiring to assist
the enemy in wartime. (As reported by Gil Ronen)
2014: Two air
force fighter pilots have been handed short prison sentences and 12 others were
tried for breaching military security protocols, after top-secret information
was found on their smartphones, Army Radio reported today. (As reported by
Itmar Sharon)
2014: Today
the leadership of the Conservative movement responded to MK David Rotem’s
statement yesterday that “The Reform movement is not Jewish…they are another
religion” in a statement lamenting “the utter lack of leadership that makes
these outrages so frequent and undermines the very aspirations that are the
foundations of Judaism and the Jewish state.” Saying ‘The Jewishness of the
Reform Movement is beyond question and in no need of defense,” the statement
called on the government of Israel to censure Rotem and remove him from
leadership roles.
2015(16th
of Shevat, 5775): Eighty-five year old Holocaust survivor turned scam-artist
Herman Rosenblat passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
2015: Sir
Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill and the author of
80 books on a wide range of topics including World War II, the Holocaust,
Israel, to name but a few and who passed away on February 3 is scheduled to be
buried today at Eretz HaChaim Cemetery in Beit Shemesh, Israel. In
addition to having the writing style of a novelist, Sir Martin was kind enough
to answer repeated questions from amateur historians. For those of you
who think 80 books are a lot, consider that before illness stilled his pen he
was working on a comprehensive history of the Jews of the United Kingdom.
Our hearts go out to Lady Gilbert who was his steadfast companion during these
thirty-four months when he fought back against the effects of hypoxia of the
brain.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/sirmartingilbert.html
2016:
Professor Paul Dilley is scheduled to speak on “The Rabbis and the Persian
Empire” in Coralville, IA.
2016(26th
of Shevat, 5776): Eighty-three-year-old veteran New York Times correspondent
Arnold Lubasch passed away today.
2016(26th
of Shevat, 5776): Eighty-six-year-old federal Judge Miriam Cedabaum who is best
known for her role in the Martha Stewart case passed away today.
2016: The
Hadassah Mission to Jerusalem and the Blooming Desert led by Marlene Post, Past
National President of Hadassah is scheduled to come to an end today.
2016: “Carvalho’s Journey”
which tells the exciting story of the trailblazing of the American West in
1853.is scheduled to have its San Diego premiere at that city’s 26th
annual Jewish Film Festival.
2017(9th
of Shevat, 5777): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Eliezer Silver, the President of the Union
of Orthodox Rabbis who helped to organize the March of the Rabbis in 1943.
2017: The New York Times featured reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The
Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower by Yaakov
Katz and Amir Bohbot, The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping by Aharon
Appelfeld, This Close to Happy: A Reckoning With Depression by Daphne
Merkin and The New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back by Kay
S. Hymowitz
2017: When the
Robert Kraft’s New England Patriots take the field against Arthur Blank’s
Atlanta Falcons it will be the first time since 2012 that both Super Bowl teams
will be owned by Jews but regardless of whom fans favor in Super Bowl LI, they
can all enjoy Sabra, the official dip of the National Football League.
2017: Robert
Kraft’s New England Patriots, featuring the play of Julian Edelman defeated
Arthur Blank’s Atlanta Falcons.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/patriots-star-julian-edelmans-5-most-jewish-moments/
2017(9th
of Shevat, 5777): Eighty-five-year-old producer, arranger and composer David
Axelrod passed away today.
https://www.discogs.com/artist/5451-David-Axelrod
2017: The
Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies and the London Partnership Minyan are
scheduled to a shiur by Rabbi Zvi Hirschfield.
2017: “John
Singer Sargent’s Mrs. Carl Meyer and Her Children” is scheduled to come to a
close at the Jewish Museum.
http://thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/john-singer-sargent-mrs.-carl-meyer-and-her-children
2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to
host guest speaker Rabbi Binyamin Miller, the native of Philadelphia and IDF
veteran who is the director of the Alisa Flatow International Program.
2018: At the University of Virginia, the Brody Jewish
Center is scheduled to host the “4th Year Seminar” Judaism and Post
College Life” as well as a screening of “Rosenwald.”
2018: The YIVO Institute is scheduled to present “the launch of a new book of
Isaac Babel translations with readings by translator Val Vinokur and discussion
with Isaac Babel expert, YIVO’s Executive Director Jonathan Brent.”
2018: The American Sephardi Association is scheduled to
present “The IV International Shashmaqam Forever Concert dedicated to Yunus
Rajabi (1897-1976), a composer, musician, and scholar who collected,
systematized, and transcribed more than a thousand songs and pieces from the
Shashmaqam repertoire.”
2018: Two days after she had passed away funeral services
are scheduled to be held at Shir Chadash Synagogue in Metairie, LA for
102-year-old Bogalusa, LA native and Tulane School of Social work, Sara Benson
Stone, the philanthropist and wife of Saul stone with whom she had four
children – David, Richard, Harvey and Carol.
https://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/article_2b6cb56a-095f-11e8-8634-3bf63a73513b.html
2018(20th of Shevat, 5778): Twenty-nine-year-old
Rabbi Itamar Ben-Gal, the father of four was stabbed today in a terrorist
attack.
2018: “The German government has agreed to recognize some
25,000 Jewish Algerians as Holocaust survivors eligible for compensation, and
they will be able to apply for a one-time grant later this year, a survivor’s rights
organization announced today.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)
2018: Some of “today’s great Broadway stars” are scheduled
to perform “an extraordinary cavalcade of brilliant and beloved songs by our
most illustrious Jewish American composers and lyricists” as part of the Great
Jewish American Songbook at the Streicker Center.
2019: President Donald Trump is scheduled to deliver the
State of the Union which will be boycotted by Representative Steve Cohen, the
Tennessee Democrat who did not attend last year’s address saying that “I'll
come to the House Chamber for the State of the Union the next time I can hear
from a president who will tell the truth about the State of the Union.”
2019: The Herbert and Eileen Bernard Museum of Judaica is
scheduled to host a “processional of over 50 Torah scrolls from tri-state-area
synagogues to complement the first-ever New York gathering of scrolls from
Czechoslovakia that survived the Holocaust, in partnership with Memorial
Scrolls Trust of London.”
2019: This afternoon, in Amherst, MA, the Yiddish Book
Center is scheduled to host a screening of “Itzhak.”
2019: The Wiener Library, in partnership with the
Association of Jewish Refugees, German Embassy, Jewish Museum London, and the
Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain” is scheduled to offer a workshop that will provide “advice on how
people can search for German heritage to check eligibility to apply for
European citizenship post-Brexit.
2019(30th of Shevat, 5779): Rosh Chodesh Adar I;
2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to
host a “lunch and learn” with Rabbi Eryn London, JOFA's UK scholar in residence
speaking about death and bikur cholim based on her experiences working as a
medical chaplain.
2020: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to
host Sheila Nevins, Executive Producer at MTV Documentary Films, who will
screen the award-winning documentary, Gay Chorus Deep South, and discuss its
impact.”
2020: In Cincinnati, OH, The Mayerson JCC Jewish and
Israeli Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “The Passengers,” a
tale centering around Jewish refugees from Ethiopia.
2020: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present
“Family History Today: Jewish Students, Medical Globetrotters and Persevering
Women” during which Andrew Zalewski , a former professor of medicine at Thomas
Jefferson University in Philadelphia discusses the impact of Galician and
Lithuanian students going to other parts of Europe to pursue their medical
education.
2020: In Berkley, CA, as part of “A Multi-Faith Response to
Climate Crisis” Rabbi Arthur Waskow (Shalom Center) is scheduled to join “a
pastor and an Earth activist to speak about the intersection of climate
activism and spirituality.”
2021: A family members only funeral service is scheduled to
be held this after at Temple Judah for “former member, Rochelle Jacobson Weiss,
daughter of Oscar and Freda Jacobson, who died February 1st in St. Paul, MN at
the age of 85.”
2021: In Ohio, Temple Emanu El is scheduled to host a Wine
and Cheese Reception via Zoom prior to Friday Night Services.
2021: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled
to host “Shabbat Under the Stars, an person worship experience in the Temple
Judah parking lot.
2021: NFTY Northeast is scheduled to host the first day of
the three-day NFTY Convention 2021.”
2021: The Jewish Film Institute is scheduled to present a
streaming showing of “The Vigil,” “a supernatural horror film set over the
course of a single evening in Brooklyn’s Hasidic Borough Park neighborhood.”
2021: Based on information made public yesterday, as of
today, Israel is making progress in the Pandemic Battle because “vaccination
of Israelis over the age of 60 has reduced the rate of that age group getting
COVID-19 by almost half and the number of serious cases in that cohort by more
than a quarter in the last two weeks.”
2022: Congregation Beth El of
the Sudbury River Valley is scheduled to present online the “Myth of the
Vanishing Jew” which is “a talk and discussion with Leonard Saxe, an
expert on socio-demography of American Jewry.”
2022: Kan Kol Hamusika is scheduled to broadcast live a
concert, “Singers of Meitar Opera Studio of the Israel Opera.
2022: Temple Israel of Boston
is to present “an evening of listening, learning and discussion as attendees
screen the documentary about Wyner Lecturer Cantor Jonathan Comisar’s original
cantata, “To Bigotry No Sanction,” based on George Washington’s letter to the
Jews of Newport, Rhode Island.”
2022: Based on previously
published warnings from The Environmental Protection and Health ministries “that
due to extreme air pollution across Israel, sensitive populations, including
heart and lung patients, the elderly, children, and pregnant women are advised
to avoid strenuous physical activity outside today.
2022(4th of Adar I,
5782): Parashat Teruma;
2023: The National Library of
Israel is scheduled to host a zoom lecture by Professor Dan Rabinowitz on
“Climate Change, Israel, and the Middle East.”
2023: At the Center for Jewish
History curator Ivy Weingram is scheduled to lead a one-hour in-person tour in
which she addresses these meaningful questions in the special exhibition, How
Jews Became Citizens: Highlights from the Sid Lapidus Collection.
2023: In New Orleans, the
Schoenbaum Family Foundation is scheduled to sponsor the “Annual phonathon
event to raise funds for the 2023 campaign.”
2023: After three day respited
heavy rainfall and other wintry conditions are scheduled to return to Israel
today. (As reported by Danny Roup, Israel Moskovitz, Eitan Glickman, Raanan
Ben-Zur, Gilad Carmeli)
2023: The Museum at Eldridge
Street is scheduled to host “Eldridge Easts, which includes a visit to the
Lower East site and nosing on rugelach, pickles, knishes and dumplings.
2023: The Jewish Heritage
Museum of Monmouth County is scheduled to welcome back registered dietitian and
genealogist Caryn Alter and genealogist Dr. Steven Cohen for a program called
Gleaning Genealogical Clues from Jewish Foods.
2023: Sinai Brookline is
scheduled to present a celebration of Tu B’Shevat with a Jewish Poetry
Festival.
2023: The Parntership2gether
Book Club is schedule to discuss The Rise of David Levinsky by Abraham Cahan.
2023: In Cedar Rapids, Temple
Judah is scheduled to host Tu B’Shevat Seder that will include a variety of
congregant created homemade soups.
2023: The Boston Synagogue is
scheduled to present The Shtetel Trio performing “Never-Before-Heard-Klezmer
Music.”
2023: The New York Times
features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to
Jewish readers including Rikers: An Oral History co-authored by Reuven
Blau.
2023: One day after he had
passed away, funeral services are scheduled to take place this afternoon for Shevah
Weiss, a Holocaust survivor and former Knesset speaker who was on stage with
prime minister Yitzhak Rabin minutes before Rabin was assassinated.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/former-knesset-speaker-ambassador-to-poland-shevach-weiss-dies-at-87/
2024: The Mandel Jewish Community Center of Cleveland is scheduled
to host a free information session about the annual summer Maccabi Games at 7
p.m.
2024: The National Council of Jewish Women is scheduled to
hold its board meeting at the Uptown JCC in New Orleans.
2024: Lockdown University is scheduled to host a lecture by
Judge Dennis Davis in which he explains the International Court of Justice's
Decision Against Israel.
2024: “In another lecture in the online lecture series
"The Other Side of the Wall", participants are scheduled to talk with Dr. Yahil Zabanabout neighbors in
children's stories through a study of two masterpieces - "Apartment for
Rent" and "Coward in the Closet".
2024: The Center For Jewish History is scheduled to present
Jarrett Ross, creator and host of the YouTube series GeneaVlogger and
Professional Genealogist Reacts, who will provide a preview of what lies ahead,
covering emerging trends in artificial intelligence, facial recognition
software, OCR software, and genetic genealogy.
2024: YWIN's National Book Club is scheduled to host a
conversation with Lynda Cohen Loigman about her book The Matchmaker’s Gift!
2024: As of February
5th, begins in Israel, the Hamas held hostages begin
day 122 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.)
