This Day, January 1, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
630: Prophet Muhammad sets out
toward Mecca with the army that will capture it bloodlessly. At first Mohammed “had hoped to find is main
supporters among the Jewish tribes” of Arabia.
This can be seen in his early adoption of certain laws regarding fasting
and facing Jerusalem during prayer. When
the Jews refused to accept him as the final line of prophets that had included
Abraham and Moses, he turned against the Jews “in a cruel war of extermination.” Mohammed would die two years after the
conquest of Mecca but his legacy lives on to this very day.
1430: The Jews of Sicily were no longer required to attend
“conversionist services.”
1431: Birthdate of
Valencia native Rodrigo de Broja who as Pope Alexander VI employed Bonet de
Lattes, a Jewish born rabbi from Provence and “the inventor of an astronomical ring-dial by means of which
solar and stellar altitudes can be measured and the time determined with great
precision by night as well as by day” as his physician.
1438: Albert II of Habsburg is
crowned King of Hungary. Albert confirmed the privilegium of Béla IV. In 1251
Béla had granted a privilgium to his Jewish subjects which was essentially the
same as that granted by Duke Frederick II the Quarrelsome to the Austrian Jews
in 1244, but which Béla modified to suit the conditions of Hungary.
1484: “In Wildhaus, in the Toggenburg Valley of Switzerland,” Ulrich
Zwingli and his wife gave birth to Huldrych Zwingli, the leader of the Reformation in Switzerland who at a
minimum “studied and admired the Hebrew language, used it to some advantage” in
his work and “took over some Hebraic teachings while evincing little concern
for contemporary Jews.”
1515: Louis XII who
ordered the final expulsion of the Jews from Provence in 1501 and who
introduced a tax in 1512 on the remaining Jews there, who had accepted baptism
known as the "tax of the neophytes," passed away today.
1515: King Francis, I
succeed to the French throne. Francis did not have any Jewish subjects since
they had been expelled by Charles V at the end of the 14th century
and they would not return until 1675 when Louis XIV would grant permission to
the Jews living in Alsace and Lorraine, his two newly acquired provinces, to
remain in their ancestral homes. For some strange reason Francis showed an
interest in the Hebrew language. He invited August
Justiniani, the Bishop of Corsica who was reputed to be a serious student of
Hebrew literature to move to France. He also invited Elias Levita, the
renowned Hebrew grammarian and poet, to move to France and accept a
professorship in the Hebrew language. Levita declined the offer for obvious
reasons.
1515: Jews were expelled from Laibach, Austria.
1527: Croatian nobles
elect Ferdinand I of Austria as king of Croatia in the Parliament on Cetin.
There were no Croatian Jews in attendance since the Jews had been expelled and
there was no record of any Jews living in Croatia after 1526.
1549(2nd of Shevat,
5309): Elia Levita also known as Elijah Levita, Elias Levita, Eliahu Bakhur
("Eliahu the Bachelor") a Renaissance-period Hebrew grammarian, poet
and one of the first writers in the Yiddish language passed away. Born in 1469,
he “was the author of the Bovo-Bukh the most popular chivalric romance
written in Yiddish, which, according to Sol Liptzin, is ‘generally regarded as
the most outstanding poetic work in Old Yiddish.’”
1559: Frederick II, who
moved to keep Jews out his realm by ordering ‘that all foreigners in Denmark
had to affirm their commitment to 25 articles of faith central to Lutheranism
on pain of deportation, began his reign as King of Denmark and Norway today.
1565: A papal decree
issued today order that “the fines levied on Jews for possessing scrip
certificates of indebtedness, lending money on interest, or engaging in certain
occupations were to go to the support” of Houses of Catechumens, “a Roman
institution for converting Jews to Catholicism.”
1577: Today, Pope
Gregory XIII decreed that all Roman Jews, under pain of death, must listen
attentively to the compulsory Catholic conversion sermon given in Roman
synagogues after Friday night services.
1578: Today, Pope
Gregory XIII signed into law a tax forcing Jews to pay for the support of a
“House of Conversion” to convert Jews to Christianity.
1581: Today, Pope
Gregory XIII ordered his troops to confiscate all sacred literature from the
Roman Jewish community. Thousands of
Jews were murdered in the campaign.
1594: Rodrigo Lopez, a
Marrano who was serving as physician to Queen Elizabeth, was arrested on
charges of trying to poison the English Monarch
1627 (13th of Tevet,
5387): A press belonging to Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel published a prayer book,
which was the first work produced by this Hebrew particular printing press.
1651: Coronation of
King Charles II of Scotland who as King Charles of II of England would issue
several proclamations guaranteeing the rights of the fledgling Jewish community
in the British Isles.
1714(25th of
Tevet,5474: Leffmann Behrends, the son of Issachar Barmann and the grandson of
Isaac Cohen of Borkum, who was a leading German financier who used his
influence to protect his co-religionists passed away today.
1715: Birthdate of Leah
Tobias, the wife of Joseph Tobias and the mother of Joseph, Jr., Masdad, Rinah,
Jacob and Judith Tobias.
1743: In Copenhagen,
Abraham Ben Joseph Guggenheim, the Vienna born son of Joseph Juda Loeb
Guggenheim and Frumet Guggenheim and his wife Vogel Guggenheim gave birth to
Joseph Guggenheim.
1748: Birthdate of Major-General
Sir Henry Johnson, 1st Baronet, who in 1782 married Rebecca Franks, the
daughter of Philadelphia businessman and loyalist David Franks, who as can be
seen from the upbringing of her children may have been loyal to the crown but
not the faith of her fathers.
1763(16th of
Tevet, 5523): Parashat Vayehci
1766: Charles Edward
Stuart the leader of Jacobite forces whose invasion had caused panic among many
of London’s financiers, except most notably Sampson Gideon” who provided the
government with money and support, that led to the crown’s victory at the
Battle of Culloden which ended a major threat to the Hanovarian English
monarchy began his “pretendence today.
1767(1st of
Shevat, 5527): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1768: In London, David
Manuel and his wife gave birth to the future New Yorker Catherine Manuel, the
wife of Levy Solomons.
1773: In Pennsylvania,
Miriam Simon and Michael Gratz gave birth to Simon Gratz, the husband of Mary
Smith and the father of Louisa, Caroline, Edward, Simon, Jr., Mary, Theodore,
David and Elizabeth Gratza.
1774: In London, Joseph
Moss and his wife gave birth to John Moss, who settled in Philadelphia where he
married Rebecca Lyons with whom he had nine children.
1777:
Twenty-one-year-old Isaac Franks, the New York born son of Moses and Sarah
Franks, who rose to the rank of Colonel in Washington’s Army began the second
part of his military service which would last until 1780.
1778(2nd of
Tevet, 5538): As the world ushers in the New Year, Jews observe the Eighth and
final day of Chanukah.
1781: In New York City,
Reyna Malcha Hays and Isaac Touro gave birth to Nathan Touro.
1784: Sara Rodrigues
Alvares and Abraham Furtado, President of the Assemblee des Notables gave birth to their daughter Anne Emilie
1788: Birthdate of
Catherine Judah, the New York born daughter of Samuel Judah and younger sister
of Cary Judah.
1790: Birthdate of
Alsace-Lorraine, France native Michelette Lazard, the husband of Paul Godchot
with whom she had seven children, five of whom died in the United States as
adults.
1793 Birthdate of
Bertha Morgenstern, the native of Russia who came to New York City in 1842 with
her children and husband.
1798: The first Jewish censor was appointed by the
Russian government to censor all Hebrew books printed in Russia or imported
from other countries. As you can see
from the next comment about life under Communism, the Czars and the Commissars
agreed on the need to censor Jewish books.
However, sometimes, the outcome could be a bit on comical side. “Yosef Mendelovitch tells that when he was
being transferred from one Russian prison to another, he was in temporary
possession of his Chumash that had been confiscated when he was first
imprisoned. He would have to give it up
again upon arrival at the new prison. Also in his possession was a collection
of selected speeches by Brezhnev translated into Yiddish. This book was officially passed by the censor
(which is why I'm relating this story). He separated content from covers in
both books, which happened to be of the same size, got rid of the speeches, and
pasted (with well-chewed bread) the Chumash into the censor-approved
cover. His Chumash passed cursory
inspection at his new prison and was his unfailing companion during his
incarceration.”
1799: In Suffolk, MA
Samuel Myers, the New York born son of Myer and Elkaleh Myers Myers and Judith
Moses Meyers gave birth to Samuel Hays Myers, the husband of Eliza Kennon
Myers.
1799: Birthdate of
Samuel Hays Myers, the son of Samuel Myers, the husband of Eliza Kennon
Mordecai and the father of Caroline and Edmund Myers.
1802: In a letter written to the Danbury, CT
Baptist Association, Thomas
Jefferson coined the metaphor, "a wall of separation between Church and
State." (Editor’s note: Many think this term originated in 1947,
when the "wall of separation" concept gained acceptance as a
constitutional guideline. It obviously dates back to the Founding Fathers. Contrary to the nonsense being passed around
by various demagogues today, separation of Church and State was a basic concept
in the founding of the United States. The
assault on Jefferson’s “Wall of Separation” could be styled as an attempt by
modern day radicals to undo the work of the American Revolution.)
1803(7th of
Tevet, 5563): Parashat Vayigash
1803(7th of
Tevet, 5563): On his sixtieth birthday, Joseph Guggenheim, the Copenhagen born
son Abraham Ben Joseph Guggenheim and Vogel Guggenheim, the husband of
Elisabeth Guggenheim and the father of Moses Guggenheim; Abraham Guggenheim;
Simon Guggenheim and Nathan Guggenheim passed away today in his hometown.
1803: In Jamaica,
Solomon Isaacs and his wife gave birth to their fifth son Soloman Isaac, the
husband of Charlotte Jame Thornthwaite and the father of Arthur, Ernest,
Gertrude, Charles, Agnes and Percy Isaacs all of whom lived in London.
1804: As a result of the slave revolt of Toussaint
L’Ouverture French rule ends in Haiti making Haiti the first black republic and
first independent country in the West Indies.
“Unfortunately, “during the slave revolt, much of the Jewish community
was murdered or expelled from Haiti. A
few years later, many Polish Jews arrived in Haiti due to civil strife in
Poland.”
1805: Coronation of
King Frederick of Württemberg who in a decree in 1806 stated that "in view
of the various services that the Kaulla family has rendered to the country in
critical periods", he had conferred upon Jacob and a number of his immediate
relatives and their descendants of both sexes all rights of citizenship in
Württemberg.
1807: Birthdate of
German rabbi Asher Sammter
1807: Birthdate of
Abraham Kohn, the Chief Reform Rabbi of Lemberg.
1808: Several
restrictions on Jewish ownership of land went into effect in Russia.
1809: In Frankfurt am
Main, Jacob Hirsch Kahn, the son of Miriam and Isaac Jacob Kahn and his wife
Jetta Kahn gave birth to Babette Kann.
1811: Today Lübeck was
annexed to France. This meant an end to all anti-Jewish discrimination
including an abolition of the special taxes of the "Schutzjuden.” This
change brought an influx of Jews who entered the town from surrounding areas
including Moisling. All this would come to an end when the French left and the
Germans again took control. :
1812: In Brighton,
Sussex, Hannah Benjamin and Levi Emanuel Cohen gave birth to Australian
newspaper man Abraham Cohen.
1815: Birthdate of
German author Boas Eduard who passed away in June of 1853.
1816(20th of
Kislev, 5576): Rosh Chodesh Tevet; Sixth Day of Chanukah combined with
celebration of New Year’s Day.
1818(23rd of
Tevet, 5578): Sixty-two-year-old Moses Nunez Cardozo, the New York born son of
Aaron Nunez Cardozo and the husband of Gitleh Moses passed a way today in
Richmond, VA.
1826: In Frankfurt am
Main Zerlinr and Meyer Levin Beyfus gave birth to Marie Beyfus.
1827(2nd of
Tevet, 5587): Last of Day of Chanukah coincides with the First Day of the New
Year.
1829: One day after he
had passed away, Levy Abrahams was buried at the “Brady Street Jewish
Cemetery.”
1831: In Lancashire,
Henrietta Israel and Louis Samuel gave birth to Adelaide Samuel
1834: Gustav Schwabe, a
Jewish native of Hamburg whose family was forced to convert when he was 6 years
old, became a partner at Boustead and Company was renamed Boustead, Schwabe and
Company.
1834: In Blieskastel,
Salomon Oppenheimer and Johanetta Kahn gave birth to their fourth son David
Oppenheimer, who married Julia Walter in 1883 after the death of his first wife
Sarah and who eventually settled in
Vancouver, BC where he became a successful businessman and served as the city’s
second mayor.
http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id_nbr=6346
1834: Birthdate of
Salomon Stricker, the native of Waag-Neustdadt which was part of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire at that time who became a note pathologist and histologist.
1834: Birthdate of Ludovic Halévy, a member of the famed Halevy clan
whose artistic and social activities spanned at least three centuries starting
in 1760. Halevy was prominent in the
musical theatre of 19th century France. One of his most famous works was the libretto
for the opera “Carmen.” Halevy is an example
of the fate of European Jews. His father
had converted in order to marry the daughter of the architect Louis-Hippolyte
Lebas and this enabled him in 1831 to become assistant professor of French
literature at the Ecole Polytechnique, where there was some discrimination
against Jews.
1837: Earthquake in the
Tzfat-Tiberias area of Eretz Israel killed between two thousand and four
thousand people, mostly Jews. Many
monuments and archaeological sites were damaged. The quake is also called The
Galilee Earthquake of 1937 and the Safed Earthquake.
1837(24th of
Tevet, 5597): Nissim Zerahiah Azulai “editor and annotator of Shabbethai
Cohen's "Shulḥan ha-Ṭahor" (The Pure Table), a treatise on the 613
commandments, perished in the earthquake at Safed”
1838: In Sumter
District, SC, Jane McClean, an Episcopalian and Franklin J. Moses, Sr. the
scion of “prominent Jewish family from Charleston” gave birth to attorney and
Confederate officer Franklin Moses, Jr who sided with the Republicans during
reconctrustion which led to him being elected Speaker of the House in SC, Chief
Justice in SC and finally governor of the Palmetto state.
https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/moses-franklin-j-jr/
https://www.nga.org/governor/franklin-j-moses/
1844: In Austrian
Galicia, Wolf Neumann, a Hebrew and Talmudic scholar and his wife gave birth to
Moses Newman who came to the United States in 1897 and was active in the Jewish
Galician Federation.
1845: In Odenbach,
Germany, Freda Hart and Jacob A. Felsenthal
gave birth to Henrietta (Yetta) Felsenthal who settled in Chicago where she gave birth
to three children – Samuel, David and Jane – with her husband Simon
1845: In Charleston,
SC, A.J. Brady of Athens, GA, married Adeline Moses, the “youngest daughter of
Isaiah Moses.
1847: In “Parramatta,
New South Wales, Australia,” Solomon and Caroline Phillips gave birth to jeweler turned political leader Simeon
Phillips who served in the legislature and as Mayor of Dubbo and was the
husband of Rosetta Phillips.
1849: Birthdate of
Alois Epstein, the native of Bohemia who graduated from the University of
Prague with an M.D. in 1873 and became a leading Austrian podiatrist.
1854: Solomon Nunes
Carvalho, a South Carolina native of Portuguese and Sephardic Jewish descent,
who had the good or bad fortune to join John C. Fremont's 1853-54 mapping
expedition to the Rocky Mountains, served a dessert of blanc mange “to the
‘satisfaction and astonishment of the whole party,’ a fitting climax to a meal
of horse soup and horse steaks fried in buffalo tallow.”
http://historytogo.utah.gov/people/ethnic_cultures/the_peoples_of_utah/jewsinzion.html
1854(1st of Tevet,
5614): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1858(15th of
Tevet, 5618): Eighty-year-old Isaac Pinto, the son of Jacob and Abigail Pinto
and the husband of Maria Pinto passed away today in Chillicothe, Ohio.
1858: French author
Mario Uchard exchanged New Year's greetings with the famed Franco-Jewish
actress Rachel Félix in which the latter seemed to be bidding Uchard "an
eternal adiu. However, her doctor
assured Uchard that "she would live some days longer.
[Editor’s Note: The
following is not an error. There were
two different letters.]
1859: The New York
Times published a copy of the letter “The Executive Committee of the
Representatives of the United Congregations of Israelites of the City of New
York” had sent to President James Buchanan in November of 1858 concerning the
Mortara Case. Their letter included a reference to the letter sent by The
London Committee of Deputies of British Jews “to their brethren in the United
States” seeking their support in having the boy who was kidnapped in Bologna
returned to his family. The letter informed
the President of the support being offered by several European nations and of
plans to hold a public meeting to enlist public support in the United States.
The committee reminded President Buchanan of the prompt action taken by
President Van Buren in 1840 when he was asked to intervene to aid the
persecuted Jews of Damascus and expressed the hope that he would do the same.
1859: The New York
Times published a copy of the letter
The Executive Committee of the Representatives of the United Congregations of
Israelites of the City of New York had sent to President James Buchanan in
December of 1858 which described a public meeting held on December 4 in which
Jews and non-Jews gathered to demand the return of Edgardo Mortara to his
parents. Those attending the meeting
also petitioned the President to join with the several European nations who
were protesting the kidnapping of the youngster by representatives of the
Pope.
1860: Rabbi Dr. Aaron Albert Siegfried Bettelheim the son of Samuel
Bettelheim and Chava Eva Bettelheim, and Anna Henrietta (Yetta) Bettelheim gave
birth to Esther Adler the wife of Aaron Arnold Adler.
1861: In St. Joseph, MO, Max and Bertha Eppstein gave birth to Seraphine
Eppstein who gained fame as Seraphine Pisklo after marrying Denver businessman
Edward Pisko in 1878 at the age of seventeen and who played an active
leadership role at the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives in Denver from
1911 until her retirement in 1938.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/pisko-seraphine-eppstein
1861: Birthdate of London native Samuel Isaac Cohen who served as a
“communal secretary”
1861: In Riddleville, GA Charles Wessolowsky and Johanna Wessolowsky gave
birth to Morris Weslosky the husband of Julia Weslosky.
1862: Jacques Van Praag married Rebecca Levy today in Holland.
1862: Birthdate of Polish native Dorothea “Dora” Grauman, the wife of
Phillip Grauman and mother of Jefferson
School of law trained attorney Lawrence Samuel Grauman who “is perhaps best
known for the special hearing he conducted with Muhammad Ali in 1966 at the
request of the Department of Justice, where he recommended that Ali’s claim as
a conscientious objector be upheld” and who was the husband of Katherine Grauman.
1863(10th of Tevet, 5623): Asara B’Tevet
1863: In Slutz, Russia, Cima and
Henry L. Davidson, gave birth to Sioux City, IA merchant the husband of Sara
Frank who with his brother Benjamin owned and operated Davidson Bros. Co,
Davidson Realty and the Davidson Building Company while serving as the
president of Mt. Sinai Synagogue.
1863: Birthdate of Galicia native and University of Cracow trained
physician and professor of physiology Adolf Beck who in 1889 “was appointed
assistant in the physiological laboratory at the university of Cracow after
which he was appointed as a professor of the medical department at the
university of Lemberg.
BECK, ADOLF - JewishEncyclopedia.com
1863: In Poland, Abraham Jacob Bauer and his wife gave birth to Sol H.
Bauer who served as the rabbi at several Chicago Congregations including Moses
Montefiore Congregation, The First Hungarian Congregation and Congregation
Anshe Emeth.
1863: Edward Rosewater, a member of the United States Telegraph Corps
serving at the White House telegraph office, was responsible sending out
President Abraham Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” today. Rosewater was
born to a Jewish family in Bohemia and moved to the United States in 1854
1863: During the Civil
War, Confederate forces recaptured Galveston, Texas with assistance from
Rosanna Dyer Osterman. As recounted in Jewish Women in America: An Historical
Encyclopedia, Rosanna Dyer Osterman, a native of Germany, was living
in Galveston, Texas, in 1862 when Union forces captured the city. She had come to Texas in 1838 to help her
husband run his mercantile business.
Eventually, she became a leading member of the Jewish community, helping
to bring the first rabbi to Texas in 1852.
When the Civil War broke out, Osterman, by then a widow, remained in
Galveston. While many others left for
the mainland, she stayed to nurse the sick and wounded, turning her home into a
hospital. After the city was captured by Northern troops, she provided military
information to Confederate officers in Houston. This information helped them to
successfully recapture Galveston on January 1, 1863. Just three years later, Osterman was killed
in a steamboat explosion on the Mississippi River. In her will, she left her considerable
fortune, over $200,000, to a host of Jewish and benevolent institutions. Gifts
went to Jewish hospitals in New York, New Orleans, and Cincinnati, and enabled
the establishment of a Hebrew Benevolent Society in Galveston, which cared for
poor and sick people of all faiths.
Osterman's bequests also funded synagogues in Houston and Galveston, a
Home for Widows and Orphans and a Sailors’ Home in Galveston, and a Jewish
Foster Home in Philadelphia. In an
obituary, the Galveston News lauded Osterman for her "unselfish
devotion to the suffering and the sick" and said that "the history of
Rosanna Osterman is more eloquently written in the untold charities that have
been dispensed by her liberal hands than any eulogy man can bestow."
1864: In Woodbury, PA,
A.L. and Rebecca (Goldshmidt) Bechhoefer gave birth to University of Michigan
trained attorney, Charles Bechhoefer who began serving as a Judge of the Strict
Court in Ramsey County, MN in 1923
1864: In Hoboken, NJ,
Edward Stieglitz, a lieutenant in the Union Army and the former Hedwig Ann
Werner gave to Alfred Stieglitz considered by some to be “the father of modern
photography.”
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-stieglitz-alfred.htm
1864: Corporal Philip
A. Barnet began serving with Company B of the 51st Regiment.
1864: In Bonn, Ludwig
Philippson and his wife gave birth “German geologist and geographer” Alfred
Philippson.
1864: Corporal Moses Bahney
began his service with Company B of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment.
1864:
Philadelphian August Solomon began his service with Company B of the
Ninety-Third Regiment.
1866: Birthdate of Kishinev native Adolf Alter Muhulman and
husband of Marie Bernfield who combined a career as an opera singer as can be
seen his years with the Met and the Royal Opera with a cantorial career at
Temple Mizpah in Chicago . (There are several variables in the “facts” about
him so I am sharing the websites)
https://mahlerfoundation.org/mahler/contemporaries/adolph-muhlmann/
https://www.geni.com/people/Adolf-Alter-Nisilew-M%C3%BChlmann/6000000075343548824
1867: Samuel Fields and his wife gave birth to Lew
Fields, the New York native who was part of the Weber and Fields, one of the
most successful vaudeville acts of their time, who went on to become one of the most influential producers in New
York while helping to raise daughter, songwriter Dorothy Fields who enjoyed a
successful Broadway career in her own right.
1867: Rabbi Isaac
Leeser of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, presided over the first Jewish wedding in
Atlanta, which joined Emilie Baer to Abraham Rosenfeld in the holy bonds of
matrimony. He used the occasion to encourage the creation of a congregation to
replace the short-lived one begun in 1862.
The Hebrew Benevolent Congregation received a charter four months later
and began constructing a synagogue in 1875.
1867: Following the
retirement of Joseph Herzfeld, Hallgarten & Herzfeld, changed its name to
Hallgarten & Co, the investment bank co-founded by Lazarus Hallgarten.
1868: In Reading, PA,
Congregation “Aheb Sholem” is seeking to hire a teacher and shochet by today.
1869: In Philadelphia, Nathan Rosenau and Mathilda
Blitz gave birth to University of Pennsylvania Medical School graduate Milton
J. Rosenau, who married Myra B. Frank in 1900 and who played a crucial role in
the long, contentious campaign to make milk supplies pure and safe in the
United States. As researcher, health official, and educator, Rosenau put
medical science to work in the service of preventive medicine and public
health. The Philadelphia native received his medical degree from the University
of Pennsylvania in 1889. In 1890, he joined the United States Marine Hospital
Service (MHS). He served as quarantine officer in San Francisco from 1895-1898
and in Cuba in 1898. During 1899-1909, he directed the MHS Hygienic Laboratory,
transforming a one-person operation into a bustling institution with divisions
in bacteriology, chemistry, pathology, pharmacology, zoology, and biology.
Rosenau conducted his most important medical research during his 10 years at
the Hygienic Laboratory, publishing many articles and books, including The Milk
Question (1912) and Preventive Medicine and Hygiene (1913), which quickly
became the most influential textbook on the subject. From early in his career,
campaigns to reduce milkborne diseases occupied Rosenau's attention. As he
stated in his textbook, "Next to water purification, pasteurization is the
most important single preventive measure in the field of sanitation." A
Public Health Service study in 1909 reported that 500 outbreaks of milkborne
diseases had occurred during 1880-1907. By 1900, increasing numbers of children
drank pasteurized milk, but raw milk remained the norm partly because the
high-temperature process then in use imparted a "cooked milk" taste.
In 1906, Rosenau established that low temperature, slow pasteurization (140 F
[60 C] for 20 minutes) killed pathogens without spoiling the taste, thus
eliminating a key obstacle to public acceptance of pasteurized milk. However,
securing a safe milk supply nationwide took another generation. By 1936, pasteurized,
certified milk was the standard in most large cities, although over half of all
milk in the United States was still consumed raw. In 1913, Rosenau became a
Harvard University Medical School professor and a co-founder of the Harvard and
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School for Health Officers. When Harvard
established a school of public health in 1922, Rosenau directed its
epidemiology program until 1935. In 1936, he moved to the University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, to help establish its public health school (1940), where
he served as dean until his death in 1946. Rosenau was a dedicated teacher and
advocate for improved training in preventive medicine, but he is better
remembered for his textbook than his pioneering epidemiologic work. This is as
he expected: "We find monuments erected to heroes who have won wars, but
we find none commemorating anyone's preventing a war. The same is true with
epidemics." As can be seen from his membership on the Executive Committee
of the American Jewish Committee, Rosenau was active in the affairs of the
Jewish Community in the United States.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12834-rosenau-milton-joseph
1872: Naval Academy and
future Rear Admiral Edward David Taussig was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant
today.
1873: Birthdate of St.
Petersburgh native Louis Antoville, the art dealer, co-founder of The Jewish
Daily Forward and the father of Solomon and Dr. A.A. Antoville.
1873: Julie Judith
Bamberger and Isaac Bamberger gave birth to Shimon Simcha Bamberger.
1874: Frederick de Sola
Mendes assumed his duties as of Rabbi at Shaaray Tefillah congregation (later
known as the West End Synagogue) in New York City.
1874: As part of the
New Year’s Day celebration, 200 children at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum partook of
an excellent dinner. Afterwards, they
marched to the homes of Meyer Stern and Mrs. Max Herzog, President of the Ladies’
Sewing Society, where they paid their respects.
1874: Three days after
she had passed away Sarah (Lazarus) Emden, the wife of Lewis Israel Emden was
buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1875: In New York,
Hirsch & Mayer, a firm dealing in woolen goods, was reported “to have a
stock of goods wholly paid for” and to be owed $30,000.
1875: Jacob Schiff,
Solomon Loeb's son-in-law, joined the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.
1876: As of today, the
Independent Order of B’nai B’rith has a total of $550,000 in its treasury.
1876: As of today, the
Independent Order Free Sons of Israel has a total of $58,350 in its treasury
1876: As of today, the
Improved Order Free Sons of Israel has a total of $25,500 in its treasury.
1876: Birthdate of
Milwaukee native Aimee Mack Alay, the Milwaukee Female College alum and wife of
Max B. Alay,
1876: In London, Hannah
and Solomon Goldstein gave birth to Australian businessman Hyman Goldstein.
1876: In New York,
Hirsch & Mayer was found to be insolvent.
The insolvency touched off 20 civil suits and criminal charges aimed at
Benjamin Mayer, a young, well-connected man, from a prominent Jewish New York family.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9B00E1DA133EE63BBC4850DFB3668382669FDE
1878: In Louisville, KY, David Henry and Selma
Franko Goldman a professional pianist gave birth to Edwin Franko Goldman. At the age of nine, Goldman studied cornet
with George Weigand at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York. In 1892, after winning a scholarship, he
attended the National Conservatory of Music, where he studied music theory and
played trumpet in the Conservatory orchestra. In 1893 he became a professional
trumpet player, performing in such organizations as the Metropolitan Opera
House orchestra and with his uncle Nahan Franko, a famous trumpet player. Goldman soon founded the New York
Military Band, which is known today as the famous Goldman Band. The band played
in many summer band concerts throughout New York, especially The Green at the
Columbia University and then The Mall in Central Park. They were also heard on many radio
broadcasts. Goldman was known
for his very congenial personality and dedication to music. He was very close
to city officials and earned three honorary doctorates. Eventually in 1929, he founded the American
Bandmasters Association and served as Second Honorary Life President after John
Philip Sousa. In his lifetime, Goldman composed over
150 works. He was also the composer of
many cornet solos and other short works for piano and orchestra. Goldman's works are known for their pleasant
and catchy tunes, as well as their fine trios and solos. He also encouraged audiences to whistle/hum
along to his marches. This has become a
tradition with his most famous march "On the Mall".
1878: After completing
his legal studies today, Louis Marshall “joined the law firm of William C.
Ruger in Syracuse, NY.”
1878: Leopold Ullstein
converted the Berliner Tageblatt into
the Berliner Zeitgung (B.Z.)
1879: Birthdate of Regine Bernfeld wo was departed to Auschwitz
in 1942
1879: Birthdate of
Alfred Ernest Jones, the official biographer of Sigmund Freud.
1879: In Tolcsva,
Hungary, Michael Fuchs and Hannah Fried gave birth to Wilhelm Fuchs who gained
fame as “American motion picture executive” William Fox who “founded the Fox
Film corporation in 1915” and raised two daughters - Mona and Isabella – with
his wife Eva Leo Fox.
http://www.filmreference.com/Writers-and-Production-Artists-Ei-Gi/Fox-William.html
1879: Brooklyn Hebrew
Orphan Asylum opened its facility today with four children.
1880: David Joël,
brother of Manuel Joël, assumed his duties as professor of the Talmudic
branches, with the title of "Seminarrabbiner", at The Jewish
Theological Seminary of Breslau
1880: Alonozo B.
Cornell began serving as the 27th Governor of New York during which
term he appointed Myer S. Isaacs, the son of the late Rabbi Samuel M. Isaacs, as
Justice of the Marine Court.
1881: Hallgarten &
Company became a member of the New York Stock Exchange.
1882(10th of
Tevet, 5642): Asara B’Tevet
1882: A magic act
presented by Professor Leon is part of the scheduled entertainment to be
presented tonight at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
1882: The New York Times published a detailed
review of The Mendelssohn Family, 1729-1847 by Sebastien Hensel
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=950DEED8113CEE3ABC4953DFB7668389699FDE
http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Mendelssohn_family_1729_1847.html?id=4E20AAAAIAAJ
1882: In Corning, NY, Jennie Bach Ansorge and Mark Perry Ansorge gave
birth to Columbia Law School trained attorney and Republican politician Martin
C. Ansorge who served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives during
which he “nominated the first African-American to the U.S. Naval Academy.”
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/martin-charles-ansorge
1882: Leon Pinsker
anonymously published “Auto-Emancipation,” a pamphlet whose subtitle
was Mahnruf an seine Stammgenossen, von einem russischen Jude (Warning
to His Fellow People, from a Russian Jew) in which he urged the Jewish people
to strive for independence and national consciousness.
1883: It was reported
today that Marcus Marx has been elected Chairman of a committee to consider the
merger of B’nai B’rith, the Free Sons of Israel, and Kesher Shel Barzel since
half of the members of the latter two organizations are members of B’nai B’rith.
1883: In what is now
Dnipro, Ukraine, Theresa Nissenson and Nehemiah Mosessohnm, “ the one time
chief rabbi of Odessa” gave birth to University of Oregon trained attorney
David N. Mosessohn who in 1888 came to the United States where he became the
editor the of the Jewish Tribune and the creator of and executive chairman of
the Associated Dress Industries of America.
1884: As of today, the two-story
frame building used by the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids housed 30
patients
1884: Birthdate of
Moses “Mosey” King, the New England lightweight boxer and longtime Yale boxing
coach who “was Connecticut’s’ first boxing commissioner.”
1885: As of today, the
Russian Imperial Government will begin its monopoly pawnbroking in an attempt
to add to the misery of its Jewish subjects which it believes are the only
people engaging in this form of moneylending.
1885: “An English
Society for the Conversion of the Jews” announced that during 1884 it had
converted “four Jews at an average cost of about $21,000 each.”
1885: As of today, the
Hebrew Technical Institute enrollment has risen from 27 to 45.
1885: This month
marking the founding of The Chicago Israelite, “an American weekly newspaper
devoted to Jewish interests” under the “editorship of Leo Wise who wrote the
“Notes and Comments” column along with Dr. Emil G. Hirsch, Levi A. Eliel and
Dr. Julius Wise “who wrote under the pen-name of ‘Nickerdown.’”
1886: Birthdate of
Homona, Hungary native Louis Lefkowitz, the founder “of Louis Lefkowitz and
Brother, manufacturers of leather belts” who came to the United States in 1902
where he married Sadie Leah Weiss in 1915 and a leading member of Congregation
Ohab Zedek.
1886: Birthdate of Clara Lemlich Shavelson who was a leader of the Uprising of
20,000, the massive strike of shirtwaist workers in New York's garment
industry in 1909. Later blacklisted from
the industry for her union work, she became a member of the Communist Party and
a consumer activist. In her last years
as a nursing home resident she helped to organize the staff. Clara Lemlich Shavelson was already a
confirmed radical when she arrived in New York City in 1905. Raised in a religious household in Ukraine,
she had defied her parents to learn Russian, traded folk songs for volumes of
Tolstoy, and borrowed revolutionary tracts from a sympathetic neighbor. In New York, she found work in a Lower East
Side garment shop, and soon began organizing the workers. She quickly became an influential member of
the new International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), where she protested
the virtually all-male leadership's habit of ignoring female union
members. In 1909, Lemlich burst onto a
larger political stage when her speech in New York's Cooper Union Hall
galvanized young, predominantly Jewish, working girls and set off what became
known as the Uprising of the 20,000.
Though the strike was only partially successful, the speech marked the
beginning of Lemlich Shavelson's long career in political activism. Her next project was women's suffrage; she
helped to found the Wage Earners League for Women's Suffrage, a group
distinguished by its working-class membership at a time when most suffrage
organizations were composed of more moderate middle-class members. Although Lemlich Shavelson's radicalism
eventually cost her a paid organizing position with the suffrage league, she
remained an outspoken activist, leading the kosher meat boycotts of 1917 and
the New York City rent strikes of 1919.
After her 1913 marriage and a move to Brooklyn, some of Shavelson's
colleagues in the trade union movement felt that she had sold out to middle-class
ideals by raising children in the suburbs.
However, Shavelson redirected her energies without moderating her
radicalism, joining the Communist Party in 1926, and founding the United
Council of Working-Class Housewives and then, in 1929, the United Council of
Working-Class Women (UCWW). The UCWW
argued that consumption was integrally tied to production and that housewives,
as consumers, could be an integral part of the class struggle. The Council led meat, milk, and bread
boycotts, marched on Washington, and staged rent strikes and sit-ins, winning
periodic victories that addressed some of the most pernicious threats to the
economic survival of many families during the depression. In addition, Shavelson's insistence on the
importance of women's labor in the home laid the groundwork for the later
feminist movement's emphasis on gender politics and personal power relations
within the family. After the Second
World War, Shavelson became a peace activist, working as an organizer for the
American League Against War and Fascism, which opposed nuclear weapons. She also worked for a time in a garment shop,
and renewed her activism in the ILGWU, from which she finally retired in
1954. Although she is still hailed as a
founder of that union, she was never granted a union pension. At age 81, Shavelson moved into the Jewish
Home for the Aged in Los Angeles, where she spent her time convincing the
administrators to honor grape and lettuce boycotts, and organizing a union
among the orderlies.
1887: In Helena, Montana, founding of Temple
Emanuel which held services on Friday evening and Saturday, with a Religious
School that met on Sunday and enjoyed the support of a Ladies’ Auxiliary
Society founded three years later.
1887: Birthdate of William Canaris, the Admiral
in charge of the Abewhr, a German intelligence organization during WW II who
was executed in 1945 for his opposition to Hitler. (Editor’s note: It was the
Abewhr under Admiral Canaris that continued to use an unchanged Enigma code for
so much of the war which gave the Allies an edge that among other things,
helped them to win the Battle of Britain.
Was the failure of Canaris to change codes arrogance or his way of helping
to bring down Hitler?)
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/canaris.html
1887: Henry M. Stanley was back in London
preparing the expedition that is designed to rescue Emin Pasha, the governor of
Equatoria who is besieged by forces of Muslim fanatics. Emin Pasha was a
Silesian born Jew named Isaak Eduard Schnitzer who successively converted to
Christianity and Islam.
1887: The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society of
New York is scheduled to move into its new home “in the building formerly
occupied by the Home and School for the Children of Soldiers and Sailors on 11th
Avenue near 151st Street in New York where it will continue to care
for over 400 children.
1888: Barnett and Dora Kriss Feinberg gave
birth to Dr. Moses Feinberg
1888: “The People of Israel” published today
provides a detailed review of Histoire Du Peuple D’Israel (Volume I) by
Ernest Renan.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F10A1EF73E5413738DDDA80894D9405B8884F0D3
1899: Birthdate of Bialystok native Simon
Raphael Krinsky who in 1923 came to the United States where he settled in
Wilmington, DE where he taught and edited The Jewish Voice
http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2019/04/shmuel-rifoel-krinski-simon-raphael.html
1889: In St. Petersburg, Russia, Anna Rosovski
Samallens and her husband gave birth to CCNY graduate and Institute Of Musical
Art trained musical director Alexander Smallens who in 1924 began director of
the Philadelphia Civic Opera Company and a guest conductor of the Philadelphia
Symphony.
1890: In Louisiana, any Jews remaining in
Alsatia, East Carroll Parish faces the threat of being driven out by
“lead.” (That’s mean guns for the
uninitiated)
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9506E2DE163AE532A25755C1A9679D94689FD7CF
1890: A fair being held under the auspices of the
People’s Free School Association, is scheduled to come to an end today. This is
a fundraiser sponsored by the Executive Council of the Hebrew Fair Association.
1890: “A mass meeting of down-town” Jews held
this evening at the Pythagoras Hall on Canal Street to discuss the construction
of a new hospital to be built on the Lower East Side. The up-town hospitals cannot accommodate the
influx of sick Jewish immigrants.
1890: According to H.I. Goldsmith, the Grand
Secretary of Grand Lodge, No. 1 of the Independent Order of the Free Sons of
Israel, there is $295,027.33 in “the degree benefit, an increase over the last
year of $7,608.94.
1890: In Jacksonville, FL, Aaron and Theresa
Budwig Zacharias gave birth to Rear Admiral Ellis Mark Zacharias, the husband of “the former Clara Miller” with
whom he raised two sons –Gerald and Ellis M Jr. – who graduated from the U.S.
Naval Academy in 1912, skippered the cruiser Salt Lake City at the start of WW
II when “participated in the first United States counter-strikes against Wake
and the Marshall Island and came to public attention “as a practitioner of
psychological warfare” in the fight against Japan” passed away today. (Editor’s
note – There is no way that this blog can do justice to his long, distinguished
and exciting career.)
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1961/06/29/118043378.pdf
1890: As today, the Hebrew Technical Institute
had a balance on hand of a little more than six thousand dollars.
1890: In Elizabeth City, Russia, Hill and Ruth
Chernoff gave birth to chemist Lewis H. Chernoff the holder of a Ph. D from
Yale, and husband of Sophie Lovins who was a professor of Chemistry and Physics
at the College of Charleston, a chemist with the Department of Agriculture and
a contributing investigator at the National Jewish Hospital in Denver.
1890: The terms of Messrs. Tuska, Thalmessinger
and Bloomingdale as trustees for the Hebrew Technical Institute were scheduled
to come to an end today.
1891: In Newark, NJ, founding of “Bet
Hamidrosch Hagodol Ansche Warschaw” which owns a cemetery on Grove Street and
whose members included Louis Marx, Sam Cohn, Morris Berkowitz and Abraham Cohn.
1891: Birthdate of Lomza, Poland native and
Harvard Medical School trained cardiologist Samuel Albert Levine who is the
namesake of “The Levine scale, Levine's sign and Lown–Ganong–Levine syndrome,”
1892(1st of Tevet, 5652): Rosh
Chodesh Tevet and 7th day of Chanukah
1892: Roswell P. Flower, who would appoint
Edward Jacobs as Loan Commissioner, began serving as Governor of New York.
1892: Simon W. Rosendale began serving as New
York State Attorney General.
1892: The SS
Masilia whose passengers include a large number of Russia Jews whose
passage had been paid by the Baron Hirsch Fund left Marseilles today for a four
week voyage to New York
1892:
Birthdate of Bertha Solomon, one of the first women’s rights activists in South
Africa.
1892: The Ellis Island
Immigrant Station in New York opened.
Millions of mostly eastern European Jews would pass through Ellis Island
on their way to New York’s Lower East Side or other such urban locations.
1892: Birthdate of Kiev
native Boris Mirkin-Getzevich, the Russian jurist fluent in several languages
including Yiddish who wrote under the pen name Boris Mirsky who daughter Vitia
married Stéphane Hessel the member of the French Resistance who survived the
concentration camps to become a diplomat and author.
1892: The Society of
the Hebrew Sheltering Home has received $2,005 in the last twelve months.
1892: Colonel John
Weber, the first Commissioner of Immigration at the port of New York, gave a
$10 gold Liberty coin to the first immigrant processed at Ellis Island.
1893:
Twenty-nine-year-old Schepsel Scaffer became the “rabbi of Shearith Israel in
Baltimore, MD.
1893: In Chalcis on the
island of Euboea, Romaniote Jews Jacob and Iopi Frizis gave birth to Athens
University trained attorney and Hellenic Army trained officer Mordechai Frizis
who served in WW I and the Graeco-Turkish War after which he rose to the rank
of Colonel and died while rallying his men during Italian attack on the bridge
of the Thyamis River during the Greek war with Italy which was a “sideshow” in
the shadow of WW II.
1893: The new sliding
scale dues structures based on age adopted by the Grand Lodge District No 1 of
the Order of B’nai B’rith to encourage younger Jews to join went into effect
today.
1893: Joseph K. Toole,
who laid the cornerstone when construction began on Temple Emanu-El in Helena
Montana, completed his first terms as Governor of Montana.
1893: St. Louis
resident Joseph M. Levi, the Memphis born son of Rosa Meyer and Marx Levi and
the husband of Evelyn Eiseman began his career in real estate with the firm of
Levi and Epstein.
1893: It was reported
today that Darkest Russia, “the organ
of the English Jewish community” had suspended publication on the assurance if
it did so Russia “would modify her persecution” of the Jews would resume
publishing since things have actually gotten worse.
1894: Thirty-six-year-old
Heinrich Hertz, the German physicist for whom the hertz, the SI unit of
frequency, is named and was born to a Jewish family that had converted to
Christianity passed away today in Bonn.
1894: Simon W.
Rosendale completed his service as New York State Attorney General.
1894: As of today, the
United Hebrew Charities has spent an additional $64,900 in the last three
months (October 1) to provide a variety of services including medical,
educational and vocational to aid those suffering during the worst economic
depression to hit the United States until 1929 and 2008.
1895: In Cincinnati,
Ohio formation of Council No. 13 of the National Council of Jewish Women was
formed with Miss Clara Bloch as President and Miss Mathilda Bettman as
Secretary.
1895: “Louis Marshall
was a framer of Article 14, the "Forever Wild" clause, in the New
York State constitutional Amendment to the New York State Constitution, which
went into effect” today.
1895: Birthdate of
Nathaniel Shilkret, American composer and conductor. For many years he was "director of light
music" for the Victor Talking Machine Company. His best-known popular composition was
"The Lonesome Road", which has been recorded by more than one-hundred
artists, including Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. He passed away in 1992.
1895: In Kansas City,
MO, Robert and Bessie White Ginsberg gave birth to University of Missouri
graduate and University of Pennsylvania trained cardiologist A. Morris
Ginsberg, the husband of Zora Tasman Ginsberg and the father of P. Mortimer
Ginsberg who passed away without reaching his third birthday.
https://www.geni.com/people/Dr-A-Ginsberg/6000000071722390295
1896: Birthdate of
“English pianist, composer, music publisher and musical festival judge” Maurice
Jacobson who “was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
in 1971.”
https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Jacobson-Maurice.htm
1896: “Destroying the
Old Relic” published today described the destruction of the Rolls House which
had originally been “built by Henry III as a House of Maintenance for converted
Jews” but was converted to other uses by Edward III when the supply of Jewish
converts ran out.
1896: Birthdate of Songwriter,
author and dentist Nathanial Lief, the NYU trained dentist and veteran of both
world wars whose Broadway scores included. "Luckee Girl",
"Greenwich Follies of 1928" and "Pleasure Bound", and songs
for "Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1931", "Third Little Show",
"Shoot the Works" and "Grand Street Follies."
1896: As of this date,
there were 43, 658 Jews living in Minsk.
There were forty synagogues along with numerous less formal “houses of
prayer.” The city boasted a large number of Yeshivot including Blumke’s
Yeshivah, the Little Yeshivah and the Yeshivah at the Synagogue of the Water
Carriers. At this time Minsk was also
home to a Jewish Trade School that offered training for locksmiths and
carpenters as well as providing instruction in Hebrew and Religion. The Jewish hospital had accommodations for 70
patients and the Jewish poorhouse had beds for 80 indigent patrons.
1897: Frank Black, who
appointed Jewish political leader and philanthropist to the state board of
charities began serving his term as the 32nd Governor of New York.
1897: A fundraiser for
the Hebrew Technical School for Girls was held at the Carnegie Lyceum.
1897: The Ladies Fuel
and Aid Society led by Mrs. Hershfield, president and Mrs. J. Cohen, treasurer
is scheduled to hold its annual ball today at the Lexington Avenue Opera House.
1897: Birthdate of
Newark State Normal School graduate and Pert Amboy insurance agent Isadore
Jacobson who was an officer of B’nai B’rith and a director of the YMHA.
1897:
Twenty-nine-year-old Otto Kahn, the Mannheim born so of Emma Eberstadt and Bernhard Kahn and the husband of Addie
Wolff joined the firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Company as a partner today.
1897: Birthdate of
Austrian poet Theodore Kramer who fled to England after the Anschluss and whom
Thomas Mann called “one of the greatest poets of the young generation.”
1898(7th of
Tevet, 5658): Parashat Vayigash
1898: In Silesia,
Maximillian Ullman and his wife, two Jews who had converted to Catholicism,
gave birth to “composer, conductor and pianist” Viktor Ullman. Their conversion
and did not save this musical genius who was imprisoned at Theresienstadt and
murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
http://orelfoundation.org/index.php/composers/article/viktor_ullmann/
1898: “Do People Read
the Bible Nowadays?” by Amos Kidder Fiske, author of “The Jewish Scriptures”
and “The Myths of Israel” was published today.
1898:” Miracles and
Dilettantism” published today disputes the version of the conversion of Abbe
Ratisbonne to Catholicism as described in The Life of Cardinal Wiseman
by Wilfred Ward.
1898: The real estate
firm of Levi and Epstein which had been founded in 1893 by Joseph M. Levi, the
Memphis born son of Rosa and Marx Levi and the husband of Evelyn Eiseman was
dissolved today in St. Louis.
1898: Dr. Joseph
Silverman delivered an address entitled “The Religious and Ethical
Possibilities of Greater New York” at Temple Emanu-El in New York City.
1899: A building that
had been built because of the “munificence of the late Baroness de
Hirsch-Gereuth” was opened today at the Baron de Hirsch Trade School in Nw York
1899(19th of
Tevet, 5669): Fifty-three-year-old Agnes Henricks, the New York City born
daughter of Rachel Seixas Nathan and Montague M. Hendricks, the wife of Aaron
Wolff and mother of Lillian Hendricks Wolff passed away today in NYC.
1899: “Dr. Baar’s New
Year Address” published today described Dr. Hermann Baar’s what is his last
address to the children at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum since he has announced his
retirement as Superintendent of the organization.
1899: Birthdate of
Elazar Menachem Man Shach, (Eliezer Schach) the Lithuanian born Haredi rabbi
who became a leader in Bnei Brak.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elazar_Shac
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/elazar-shach
1899: Leopold Cohn sent
a letter to President McKinley concerning the anti-Semitic prejudice that
exists in Brooklyn and Manhattan which is manifested by “acts of violence”
aimed the poor Jews of these cities.
Cohn, a former Rabbi, converted to Christianity and now is a missionary
for the Baptist Church.
1899: “A Benevolent
Society’s Jubilee” published today described plans for the upcoming celebration
of the Noah Benevolent Widows and Orphans’ Association 50th
anniversary celebration. The association
was originally formed by German Jews in the 1840’s.
1899: Mrs. Bertha
Morgenstern observed New Year’s Day and her 106th birthday at the
Hebrew Sheltering House in NYC.
1899: It was reported
today that Aaron Baerlein is President of the Noah Benevolent Widows and
Orphans’ Association, a fraternal and benevolent order formed by German Jews in
New York before the Civil War.
1899: As of today, not
counting officers, there eighty-two Jews serving in the British Army and
forty-six serving in the militia.
1899: In Rochester, NY,
founding of “Temple Kitchen Garden” “under the auspices of the Sisterhood of
Berith Kodesh and the Council of Jewish Council” and funded by “the Sisterhood
and the Hebrew Ladies’ Aid Society.
1900(1st of
Shevat, 5660): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1900(1st of
Shevat, 5660): Vilna native Joshua Ḥayyim b. Mordecai ha-Levi Epstein,
“familiarly known as "Reb Joshua Ḥayyim the Sarsur" (money-broker)”
passed away today.
1900: Birthdate of
David William Pearlman, the native of Mezeritch who came to the United States
1904 after which he eventually earned a master’s degree from Columbia and
became a Reform Rabbi after being ordained at the Jewish Institute of Religion.
1900: In Natchez,
Mississippi, founding of the Jewish Relief Association which would be managed
by Rabbi S.G. Bottigheimer.
1900: Starting today
The Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) “restructured the way in
which the colonies received financial and managerial support, with the effect
of making them more profitable and independent.”
1900:
In Rzhaventsy, Zastavna Raion, “Yoel and Ita” gave birth to Ester Rosenzweig,
the Russian revolutionary known as Elizabeth Zarubina who spied for the Soviet
Union in the United States under the name of Elizabeth Zubilin.
1900:
Birthdate of NYU trained attorney and Judge of the Hudson Country District
Court David Berman, the “chairman of the building fund committee of the
Bayonne, NJ, Jewish Center who was the husband of Mary Berman with whom he had
two children – Edward and Iris,
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/08/25/80546223.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1900:
Birthdate of Samuel “Sam” Berger, the native of Ottawa, who was a successful
attorney before he became the owner of two CFL teams – the Ottawa Rough Riders
and the Montreal Alouettes.
1900: Birthdate of
Chiune Sugihara “ a Japanese diplomat who served as Vice-Consul for the Empire
of Japan in Lithuania who risked his
career and life by issuing travel documents to thousands of Jews so that they
could escape the Nazis by appearing to be traveling to Japan.
1901: As of today, the
city of Warsaw “had a population of 711,988 inhabitants” of whom 400,395 were
Poles, 36,659 were Russians and 254,712 were Jews meaning that the Jews were 36
per cent of the city’s population and that it has the largest Jewish
population.
1901(10th of
Tevet, 5661): Asara B’Tevet
1901: In Mobile, AL,
the club house for the Fidelia Club which was founded seventeen years ago this
month and is located at the southeast corner of Government and Conception
Streets is scheduled to be completed today.
1901: Birthdate of
Russian born American sculptor and watercolorist Eugenie Gershoy.
1902: Birthdate of Hans
von Dohnányi, the German jurist, anti-Nazi who rescued Jews including “two
Jewish lawyers from Berlin, Friedrich Arnold and Julius Fliess.”
1902(22nd of
Tevet, 5662): Solomon Lyons, the 6th son of Rose and Henry Lyons of
Birmingham, UK “accidently drowned in Jersey” today.
1902: Jacob Cantor
began serving as the 3rd Borough President of Manhattan.
1903(2nd of
Tevet, 5663): Eighth Day of Chanukah
1903: Herzl begins a
trip to Elach, Austria, his hometown.
1903: In Gorbals, a
section of Glasgow, Morris Galpern, a cabinetmaker, and Anna Talisman gave
birth to Labour MP and Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons Myer Galpern who
was knighted in 1960.
1904: Birthdate Louis
Kerzner, who gained fame Louis Cohen a New York mobster who murdered labor
racketeer "Kid Dropper" Nathan Kaplan and was an associate of labor
racketeer Louis "Lepke" Buchalter.
1905: Thirty-year old
research engineer David Basch, the Roundout, NY born son of Julius and Jenny
(Voss) Basch married his first wife, Ruby Garcia Chapman today who would pass
away before he married Marian Willard in 1917
1905: It was reported
today “victory will crown the efforts of the United States to secure
recognition of American passports without distinction to religion” because the
Passport Committee meeting in St. Petersburg is going to recommend “that the
Jews have complete freedom of travel and residence in their zone without
passports which will only be required when traveling in other parts of Russia.”
1906: In Mabgate, Leeds
Abram Rozenkopf and Chaja Nagacz who “came from adjacent villages in Poland and
were married in Leeds in 1905 where they anglicized their name gave birth to
Louis Rosenhead the British mathematician who served as a “Head of Department
at Liverpool University from 1933 to 1973.”
1906: The Educational
Alliance which has depleted its treasury because of the demands made to aid the
Jews suffering massive anti-Semitic violence in Russia hopes to be able to stop
borrowing from the members of its Board of Directors as of today.
1906: During the
dispute about establishing a temporary Jewish homeland in a place other than
Palestine, Winston Churchill wrote to his constituent Dr. Joseph Dulberg,
leader of the Manchester Jewish community, describing the difficulties in
establishing “a self-governing Jewish colony in British East Africa” not the
least of which was the division between the Territorialists and the “Palestine
or bust” faction.
1907: Birthdate of
Albany, NY native Norman C. Armitage, the sabre fencer who fenced at Columbia
and competed in six Olympics from 1928 to 1956 while earning a law degree from
NYU and carving out a career as chemical engineer and patent attorney.
1907: Herman “Kid”
Landfield was knocked in the 8th round today while fighting the
world lightweight champ – a defeat that led to his retirement later in the
year.
1908: In New York City,
Meyer Barnett, the “son of Harris and Gittel Baran” and his wife Sarah Barnett
gave birth to Lillian Nell Barnett, who became Lillian Nell Berg after she had
married Ralph Emanuel Berg.
1908: “An administrative
decree issued” in Paris on September 30 that “provides for the separation of
Church and State in Algeria” thus placing Jews on an equal footing with
Catholics, Protestants and Muslims” is scheduled to go into effect today.
1909(8th of
Tevet, 5669): Louis A. Heinsheimer passed away. Born in 1859, he was a partner
in the investment banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. from 1894 to 1909.
Heinsheimer was the nephew of one of the Firm's founders, Solomon Loeb.
Heinsheimer's estate in Far Rockaway, New York, was called Breezy Point (not to
be confused with the Breezy Point neighborhood on the western tip of the
Rockaway Peninsula) and stood until 1987. Heinsheimer's mansion was owned and
used for several years by the Maimonides Institute for Exceptional Children
until it burned down. The mansion site is now a part of Bayswater Point State
Park.
1909: Birthdate of
Barry Goldwater, Republican Senator from Arizona and godfather to what has
become the dominate right wing of the Republican Party. Goldwater was not Jewish. His father was Jewish but he raised his son
as an Episcopalian for the obvious advantages it brought to him. However, some of Goldwater’s critics did not
let him forget his Jewish origins. When
he ran for President, his running-mate was William Miller, a Catholic member of
the House of Representatives. Bigots
referred to the ticket as the Arizona Israelite and his fellow-traveler from
the Vatican.
1909: As of today,
agents of the Baron Hirsch Fund have purchased several hundred acres of farm
land four miles west of Millville, New Jersey for the purpose of establishing a
colony. Forty families are ready to move
into the houses once they are built.
Each family will receive 25 acres of cleared ground to work.
1910(20th of
Tevet, 5670) Parashat Shemot
1910: The first issue
of Das Yiddishe Levben, an “English
and Yiddish monthly” which was an “organ of the United Hebrew Charities was
published today.
1910: Isabel Hyams, an
1888 MIT graduate and a trustee of the Boston Consumptive Hospital, began an
experimental “Penny Lunch” program in a Boston elementary school.
http://jwa.org/thisweek/jan/01/1910/isabel-hyams
1911: On New Year’s
Day, in New York City, an Austrian immigrant who “worked designing women’s
clothing in the garment industry on the Lower East Side” and his wife gave
birth to Joe “Shikey” Gotthoffer the James Monroe High School basketball player
who went on to a successfully career with the Philadelphia SPHAS, followed by
WW II stint working as “a supervisor at Wright Aeronautics in New York where
her built engines for B-21s.” (As
reported by Douglas Stark)
1911(1st of
Tevet, 5671): Rosh Chodesh Tevet; Seventh Day of Chanukah
1911: An observance of
Chanukah is scheduled to be held at the Herald Square Theatre where Dr.J.L.
Magnes will deliver an address on “The Maccabeans – Old and New” and Leon
Zolotkoff, the editor of The Jewish Daily News will speak on the “The Spirit of
Chanukah.”
1911: In Łódź, Poland,
Slanislava (Vinaver) and Adam Totenberg gave birth to Roman Totenberg, the
child prodigy violinist who is the father of NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg,
Judge Amy Totenberg and businesswoman Jill Totenberg.
1911: Edward Lazansky
the native of Brooklyn who “was a Justice of the New York State Supreme Court
from 1917 to 1926, and a Justice of the Appellate Division from 1926 to 1943”
and who “was a founder and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the
Brooklyn Jewish Hospital” began serving as Secretary State of New York today.
1911: The Sunday
Magazine Section of the New York Times
described the debate between Dr. Solomon Schechter of the Jewish Theological
Seminary and Dr. G. Margoliouth of the British Museum over the interpretation
of a document entitled “A Document on the Sectaries” which had been found in
the Cairo Genizah.
1911: Birthdate of Hammering Hank Greenberg Hall-of-Fame first baseman for the Detroit Tigers.
http://www.jewsinsports.org/profile.asp?sport=baseball&ID=4
1912: Birthdate of
Brooklyn native and Harvard and Columbia trained economist Moses Abramovitz the
husband of painter and sculptor Carrie Glasser.
https://news.stanford.edu/pr/00/abramovitz1213.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20070609121742/http://www-econ.stanford.edu/abramovitz/abramovitzm.html
1912: As of today,
“according to official statistics” there 11,817,783 Jews in the world of which
1,894,400 live in America while only 53,000 Jews live in Jerusalem.
1912: As of today,
there were 94 people residing at the Orthodox Jewish Home for the Aged.
1912(11th of
Tevet, 5672): Seventy-year-old German native Mrs. Lina Kahn Baldauf, the wife
of Morris Baldauf and mother of Cora, Leon, Minnie and Julius Baldauf passed
away today in Lexington, KY after which she was buried in The Temple Cemetery
in Louisville, KY.
1913: A commercial
treaty between the United States and Russian which had been “denounced by
Congress…became inoperative” today “because it was interpreted by Russia as
permitting the exclusion of American Jews from her dominions.”
1913: Birthdate of ABA
Bantamweight and ABA Lightweight Champion Harry Mizler who represented Great
Britain in the 1932 Olympics and was the younger brother of boxer Moe Mizler.
1913: A treaty of
commerce and navigation and commerce between the United States and Russia
“became inoperative” today “because it was interpreted by Russia as permitting
the exclusion of American Jews from her dominions.
1913: American
journalist James Creelman, who “had toured Russia investigating the persecution
of the Jews” resigned today from the New York Civil Service Commission.
1914: In New York,
Morris Cahan, the Russian born son of Simon and Yetta Cahan, and his wife Anna
Cahan gave birth to Dr. Amos William Cahan.
1914: In an attempt to
obliterate loan sharking and enable American wage earners to borrow money
easily, cheaply, and under self-respecting conditions, Julius Rosenwald of
Chicago, announced plans to create “industrial loan banks that could make small
loans at a low rate of interest - loans so trifling in character that the
ordinary bank would not consider them - to workingmen whose means are too
insignificant to give them any standing with banks. These industrial loan banks “shall require no
collateral but simply an endorsement from some fellow wage-earner.” Loans will be made only after the bank has
ascertained that the money is to be used for legal activities. By making these loans, Rosenwald and his
supporters plan to teach the working class the proper use of credit while
keeping them out of the clutches of loan sharks and predatory lenders. “The inspiration for the idea came from one of
Mr. Rosenwald’s eminent European co-religionist, Signor Jusotti, the Italian
Minister of Finance, who is the founder of a system of banks in Italy which
lend sums as low as $10 to workingmen, small tradesmen, farmers and other who
have no credit at the banks.”
1914: The sons of
Leopold Ullstein purchased the Vossische
Zeitug, “a liberal newspaper with a tradition dating back to the 1617.”
1914: Cooper Union
Institute graduate and NYU Law School trained attorney Louis DeWitt Gibbs, the
Lodz, Poland born son of Pauline Greenbaum and Isadore Gibbs and the husband of
Anna White began serving as a Judge of the County of Bronx, NY today.
1915: “Before the Law”,
“a parable contained in The Trial by Franz Kafa was published for the
first time in the New Year’s Edition of the independent Jewish weekly Selbstwehr./
1915: Leo M. Frank
wrote to the editor of the New York Times
from his prison cell, “In assuring you of my deep appreciation of the stand you
have taken in my case, for the cause of justice, may I not extend to yo my
heartiest good wishes for a Happy New Year/”
1915: “Texans Make Plea
For Leo M. Frank” published today described a petition signed by over three
hundred “Gentile citizens:” from Waco, TX sent to the Governor of Georgia
listing the reasons why he should stay the execution of Leo Frank and free him
if the evidence warrants such a conclusion.
1915: Charles Whitman,
who after being elected promised to appoint at least one Jew to each of New
York’s hospital boards began serving as the state’s 41st governor.
1915: Jews of Laibach Austria
were expelled.
1915: Nathan D. Perlman
began serving as a member of the New York State Assembly form the 6th
district from New York County.
1915: Today, in St.
Louis, MO, Dr. Kaplan Kaplansky of The Hague, the General Secretary of the
Jewish National Fund said today that “one third of Palestine could now be
bought for restoration as the home of the Jewish people if the funds were
available.”
1916: It was reported
today that “every steamer from Japan brings a considerable number” Russian Jews
to Seattle “who have fled across Siberia” and whom the Hebrew Sheltering and
Immigrant Society of America will urge “to remain on the Pacific Coast.
1916: It was reported
today that the Jews of Rochester, NY expect to raise $25,000 for the American
Jewish Relief Committee that is collecting funds to aid the Jews suffering in
war torn Europe and Palestine.
1916: As of today, the
Hebrew Free Burial Association had a balance of $457 in the treasury and “had
liabilities on cemetery lots amounting to $9,500.”
1916: The Knights of
Zion are meeting for the second day of their 19th annual convention
in Chicago.
1916: Dr. Max Goldfarb,
the Secretary of the National Workmen’s Committee for Jewish Rights announced
today that three Socialists including Morris Hillquilt “will request that
President Wilson take steps to insure the political freedom of the Jews in Europe
after the war.”
1917(7th of
Tevet, 5677): Seventy-five-old Rosetta Moses the daughter of Martha and Joseph
Jonas and the wife of Dr. Montefiore Mosses passed away today.
1917: Simon Bamberger
became Utah’s fourth elected Governor making him the first non-Mormon to hold
the office.
1917: The Temple, a monthly publication which
was the “organ of Congregation B’nai B’rith” was established today in Denver,
CO.
1917: As of today, the
Independent Western Star Order which was founded in 1894 and has its offices in
Chicago, Illinois had 17,924 members.
1918: In Columbus, OH,
Dr. Morris B. Lhevine and Sarah Piatagorski Lhevine, gave birth to Marie
Lhevine, the Columbia University trained attorney who became Marie Lhevine
Aries after she married Dr. Leon J. Airies, the Chicago surgeon with whom she
raised “three daughters – Jane, Elizabeth and Nancy.”
1918: During an
afternoon session of a Zionist convention that drew delegates from Ten Mid-West
States at the Hotel LaSalle, “more than $60,000 was pledged” to “be used for
the reclamation of Palestine.”
1919: Prince Faisal
“submitted a formal memorandum to the Supreme Council of the Peace Conference
outlining his vision for Arab nationalism throughout the Middle East. It was
not monolithic or pan-Arab. It sought only one territory: Syria.”
1919: Today marks the
“official birthdate of Homl, Belarus native Marek Edelman the cardiologist and
husband of “Alina Marogolis-Edelman” with whom he raised two children,
“Aleksander and Anna” who is best known as the “last surviving leader of the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/6259900/Marek-Edelman.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/world/europe/03edelman.html
1919: (29th
of Tevet, 5679): Sixty-nine-year-old David Lubin, the Polish born American
“merchant and agriculturalist” who played a pivotal role “in founding the
International Institute of Agriculture” passed away today.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F40A10FD395511738DDDAA0894D9405B898DF1D3
1919: Birthdate of J.D.
Salinger who is as famous for being a recluse as he is for being the author of Catcher
in the Rye. “Salinger was born in
1919 in New York City. His mother was
Irish Catholic and his father was Jewish. And because many people in the early
half of the 20th century were often openly racist toward Jews, being
half-Jewish was hard on Salinger’s psyche.
What also hurt
Salinger’s relationship with his father was the fact that he wanted him to take
over the family meat business. Salinger
was initially unopposed to the proposition.
However, after taking a trip to his father’s native land of Poland and
seeing the slaughterhouses, Salinger lost respect for his father and his
profession. Salinger then became a
devout vegetarian. What probably had the strongest effect on the mental makeup
of Salinger was his experience in World War II.
Salinger was in one of the most dangerous regiments of the entire war,
as he saw as many as 200 of his fellow soldiers die in a day. Plus, he is also believed to be one of the
first soldiers to see the Nazi concentration camps. This probably greatly affected him because of
his Jewish ancestry.” Salinger, who passed away in 2010, became a Buddhist who
only would eat organic foods.
1920(10th of
Tevet, 5680): Asara B’Tevet
1920: Albany Law School
graduate Isadore Bookstein, the Albany born so of Lillian Gallup and Hyman
Bookstein was appointed today to serve as Assistant District Attorney of Albany
County.
1920: Arnold
"Arnie" Horween kicked the PAT that provided the margin of victory as
Harvard won the Rose Bowl.
1920: Fiorello La Guardia whose father was a Catholic from Italy
and whose mother was Jew from Trieste, and was fluent in Yiddish, began his
service as the 10th President of the New York City Board of Alderman
1921: Featherweight
Danny Frush scored a victory when he fought his 40th bout today.
1921: Jacob A. Dolgenas
began serving as the Rabbi at Congregation Gates of Prayer in Brooklyn.
1922(1st of Tevet,
5682): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1922: Arthur Benjamin
Cohen, the St. Louis born son of Henry and Anna Cohn, married Louise Cohn, the
mother of Arthur B. Cohen.
1923: Birthdate of
Daniel Gorenstein, American mathematician.
1923: Isadore
Bookstein, the Albany, NY born son of Hyman and Lillian Bookstein and the
husband of Edith Friedman who was the Valedictorian of his Albany Law School
Class completed his service as County of Judge of Albany Country, NY.
1924: Cleveland Law
School trained attorney Mary Belle Grossman a member of Hadassah and the Temple
Women’s Association who had been elected to the Municipal Bench in Cleveland
took office today.
1925: Today Greece
mandated a national day of rest, in disregard to any religion thus forcing the
Jews to work on the Sabbath, which the Jew as a move on the government's part
to get rid of them.
1925: Former New York
state legislator Louis D. Gibbs, a member of Temple Emanu-El began serving “as
a member of the New York Supreme Court” today,
1925: Albert Ottinger
began serving as New York State Attorney General.
1926: Pacific Novelty
Company which had been founded in 1891 by Joseph Gutman, the German born son of
Jette Schloss and Hirsch Gutman and husband of Emma A. Haas merged today with
Du Pont Viscoloid Company
1926: Lazar Kaganovich
completed his first term as a member of the Orgburo (The Central Committee of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union)
1927: Birthdate of
Canadian political leader Shelia Finestone.
1927: Middleweight
Seymour ‘Cy” Schindel won his bought today leaving him with a record of 10 wins
and 2 losses.
1928: Sixty-five-year-old
theatrical dancer Loie Fuller whose rumored engagement to Jacob Cantor helped
lead to his defeat when he ran for a seat in Congress representing New York’s
15th district, passed away today.
1929(19th of
Tevet, 5689): Forty-three-year-old Pittsburgh born Harvard trained attorney
Allan Davis, the president of the Menorah Society passed away today in his home
town.
1929: “Queen Kelly” a
silent film directed and produced by Erich von Stroheim was released in the
United States today
1929: During the Rose
Bowl, University of California half Benny Lom, a future Jewish Hall of famer
attempted to stop one of his teammates from running the wrong way which led to
the touchdown that gave Georgia Tech one of the strangest victories in college
football history.
1929: Herbert Lehman
began serving as Lieutenant Governor of New York
1929: Republican Albert
Ottinger completed his service as New York State Attorney General.
1929: The Labor Party
has been defeated in the elections for the Municipal Council of Tel Aviv. Labor had controlled the council for the past
three years but had only won five of the fifteen seats on the council in this
year’s election. It would appear that
the United Centre Party has captured a majority of the seats which means that
Meir Dizengoff will return as Mayor of the Jewish metropolis since the council
elects the mayor. Dizengoof had resigned
three years ago in a dispute with the Laborites.
1930(1st of Tevet,
5690): Rosh Chodesh Tevet, Sixth Day of Chanukah
1930(1st of
Tevet, 5690): Victor (Avigdor) Schonfeld, the native of Sutto, Hungary who
arrived in Britain in 1909 “as Rabbi and Librarian of the North London Beth
Hamedrash” and who founded the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations in 1926
by which time he become active in the Mizrachi movement passed away today.
1930: Twins: Heredity and Environment by Nathaniel
D. Mttron Hirsch was published today.
1931: In an interview
published in today’s edition of the Santa Fe New Mexican, newly inaugurated
Governor Arthur Governor expressed the regret that his parents Don and Dona
Seligman, whom “the older generations of Spanish-Americans” spoke of “with a
friendliness and sincerity that that borders on reverence” “could not have
lived to have witnessed” his inauguration “and to have shared with me the
happiness that I enjoy.”
1931: The undefeated
Alabama Crimson Tide led by All-American Tackle Fred Sington, a member of ZBT,
won the 17th Rose Bowl today
1933: Herbert Lehman
began serving as the 45th Governor of the state of New York.
1933: A pastoral letter of
Austrian Bishop Gfollner of Linz states that it is the duty of all Catholics to
adopt a "moral form of anti-Semitism."
1933: In Berlin, Max Gruenbuam and his wife gave
birth to Marion Adler, the wife of Milton Adler.
1934: In New York City,
Henry G. Schanko “took office as a Justice of the City Court” today.
1934: The Nazis remove
Jewish holidays from the official German calendar.
1934: Birthdate of
Chicago native Alan Harrison Berg, the Denver radio talk show host who was
gunned by members of “The Order,” a white supremacist group.
1934: German laws
allowing sterilization of the "unfit," which were passed in July
1933, are promulgated.
1934: The paperback
edition of The Jewish Problem: How to Solve It by Louis D. Brandeis was
issued today.
1934: In a move that
will upset the balance of power in Europe and therefore threaten the well-being
of the Jewish people, Hitler orders the German government to undertake a
building program that will produce 4000 aircraft by October 1935. (As reported
by the Jewish Virtual Library)
1934: Fiorello La Guardia whose father was a Catholic from Italy
and whose mother was Jew from Trieste, and was fluent in Yiddish, began his
service as the 99th Mayor of New York City.
1934: In Miami, lineman
Henry Weinberg helped lead Duquesne to 33 – 7 to victory over the University of
Miami in the Palm Classic which a year later became known as the Orange Bowl.
1935: “Israel Amicam,
former official of the Posts and Telegraph Department of the Palestine
government, who waged a determined war with the government to force
transmission of telegrams in Hebrew characters, today sent the first message in
Hebrew characters over Palestine’s telegraph wires.” (JTA)
1936: Section 3 of the
Nuremberg Laws – “Jews will not be permitted to employ female citizens under
the age of 45, of German or kindred blood, as domestic workers” – went into
effect.
1936: Sioux City, Iowa,
native Herb Baumstein quarterbacked the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss)
today in the second annual Orange Bowl.
1936: Birthdate of
Actress Zelda Rubinstein.
1936: In a New Year’s
message made today by the United Palestine Appeal, “Dr. Chaim Weizmann,
president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine declared that there was room in
Palestine for Jews and Arabs and both peoples could live in harmony.”
1937: One day after its
premiere in New York City, “One in a Million” with an all-star cast including
the Ritz Brothers and Borrah Minevitch was released in the rest of the United
States today.
1937: The New York
Times describes the very successful performance in Tel Aviv of the
Palestine Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arturo Toscanini. The site of an Italian maestro conducting a
Jewish orchestra in front of a predominately Jewish orchestra is proof to the
Times of “how completely forgiven and forgotten is the serious
misunderstanding between the two peoples that arose under Titus and Hadrian a
couple of thousand years ago.”
1937: Marcel “Bloch's
aircraft factories were nationalized by the Société Nationale de Constructions
Aéronautiques de Sud-Ouest (S.N.C.A.S.O.), one of six state-controlled
aeronautic factories,” after which he “was retained as a civil servant and
invested the compensation he received for his company in a variety of North
American securities which led to the founding of a new aircraft company which
later produced the highly successful Bloch 152 fighter.
1937: Georg Wertheim
head of Wertheim’s one the four largest department store chains in Germany
writes in his diary, “The store is declared to be ‘German.’” This marked the end to his involvement in the
family business begun by his parents in 1875.
Wertheim died in 1939.
1938(28th of
Tevet, 5698): Parashat Vaera
http://www.jmaw.org/rabbi-zielonka-el-paso-texas/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43058494?seq=1/analyze
1938: Today, Bert Adler
left his position as deputy sanitation commissioner in New York to the join the
newly created Depart of Public Works
1938: During January,
the concentration camp at Dachau, Germany, is enlarged.
1938: The
Namensänderungsverordnung went into effect today forcing 87 year old German
mathematician Alfred Pringsheim to legally change his
name to Alfred Israel Pringsheim
1938: During January, a
collaborationist organization, National-Socialistische Vrouwen
Organisatie (National Socialist Women's Organization), is established
in Holland.
1939: The Palestine Post expressed world-wide
Jewish disgust for Sir Horace Rumbold after he had publicly referred to the
Jews of Palestine as an “alien race.”
1939: “By today, in
Cologne, all the Jews were excluded from the economic life and constrained to
forced labor.”
1939: It was reported
today that “Doubleday, Doran and Company have signed a contract with Peter
Mendelsohn” “a descendant of the composer” Felix Mendelsohn “for a novel
dealing with the plight of exiled Austrian Jews which would be fitting follow
up to “his latest novel, All That Matters” which was based on “his experiences
in a German Concentration Camp.”
1939: “Simon and
Schuster have signed a contract with Dr. Abraham Flexner” the “director of the
Institute for Advanced Learning at Princeton University” “for the publication
of his memoirs.
1939: As of today, the
licenses of the Jewish cattle traders in Laupheim, Germany were revoked.
1939: In an infamous
prophecy delivered in a speech to the Reichstag, Hitler threatened that if
“international Jewry” started “another” world war, such a war would not end in
the extermination of the Aryan race but rather in the extermination of the “Jewish
race.”
1939: In Germany, The
Decree for the Elimination of Jews from German Economic Life took effect. This was part of what was known as the
compulsory Aryanization process in which all Jewish retail businesses were to
be eliminated. All stock was forbidden
to be traded on the free market, but it had to be "sold" to a German
competitor or association. This edict
was signed just a month earlier by the Economic and the Justice ministries.
1939: By the end of January "Illegal
immigration" from Germany to Palestine has begun. 27,000 Jews will illegally immigrate by the
end of 1940.
1939: As decreed on
August 17, 1938, Jewish men in Germany must adopt the middle name of
"Israel"; Jewish women must take the middle name "Sara."
1939: Jews are
eliminated from the German economy; their capital is seized, though some Jews
continue to work under Germans.
1939: At the
Buchenwald, Germany, concentration camp, Deputy Commandant Arthur Rödl orders
several thousand inmates to assemble for inspection shortly before midnight. He
selects five men and has them whipped to the melody played by the inmate
orchestra. The whipping continues all
night.
1940(20th of Tevet,
5700): Hugo Herrmann a Zionist author and publisher, one of the founders of the
Jewish student organization Bar Kochba in Prague who worked for the Keren
Hayesod and settled in Jerusalem in 1934 where he published descriptions of his
extensive travels in Palestine passed away today.
1940: The Nazis shot
Dr. Cooperman in Warsaw for being out after eight o'clock.
1940: Nazis prohibited
Jews from gathering in shuls or private homes for prayer.
1940: Gustav Schröder,
the captain of the MS St. Louis on
its ill-fated journey in 1939 and whom Yad VAshem “honored with with the title
of ‘Righteous Among the nations “slipped past allied patrols and reached
Hamburg today” marking his final voyage during the Third Reich.
1941(2nd of
Tevet, 5701): 8th and final day of Chanukah
1941: In the Bronx,
“Lester Bluestein, an embroiderer” and “the former Beatrice Wargon” gave birth
to Maurice Bluestein the mechanical engineer who perfected the weather measure
known as “the wind chill factor.”
1941: In La Plata,
Argentina, Catalina and Simon Portugheis gave birth to pianist Alberto
Portugheis.
1942: U.S premiere of “The Man Who Came to Dinner” the film version of
the play of the same name by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman with a script by
Julius and Philip G. Epstein produced by Jerry Wald.
1942: In the U.S., the Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) is established to
investigate and arrest suspected Nazi war criminals.
1942: Fifty-nine-year-old Max Kohn who had been transported from Prague
to Terezin was transported to Riga today where he was murdered.
1942: Birthdate of
Democratic politician Martin Frost who represented the 24th
Congressional District in Texas from 1979 until 2004.
1943: Republican
Nathanial L. Goldstein began serving the first of three terms as New York State
Attorney General.
1943: In Greensboro,
NC, Ruth (née Caplan) and Raymond G. Perelman “who controlled the American
Paper Products Corporation gave birth to American investor and businessman
Ronald Perelman.
1943(24th of
Tevet, 5703): Moshe Gurevich, a 1941 graduate of the Novosibirsk Institute for
Military Transport Engineering and the son of Shimon (Simon) and Feige Roneh, who
was recruited into
the Red Army where he served
in railway troops during WW2, died in a military hospital today and was buried
in a common grave in Tver Region, Russia.
https://shl2gur.tripod.com/Chislavichi/Moshe_Gurevich.pdf
1943 (24th of Tevet,
5703): Arthur Ruppin passed away today in Jerusalem at the age of 67. “Born in Germany, Mr. Ruppin came to
Palestine in 1908 to direct the first Palestine office of World Zionist
Organization in Jaffa. He was one of the
founders of Tel Aviv.” Dr. Ruppin was
considered an authority on all facets of the economic situation in Palestine
and was a strong fighter against those who claimed that limits must be placed
on Jewish immigration because the country could not sustain anything more than
a marginal growth in population.
http://www.zionism-israel.com/bio/Arthur_Ruppin.htm
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/ruppin.html
1944: Publication of Your
Digestive System by University of Maryland trained physician Louis Winfield
the gastroenterologist who did post-graduate work at Johns Hopkins and who rose
to become the chief of the gastro-intestinal clinic at Lebanon Hospital in NYC
1944: Operation
Halyard, one of the largest Allied airlift operation behind enemy lines of
World War II in which Yugoslav Partisans (a multi-ethnic resistance force that
included Bosnian Muslims and Jews) played a key role, began today.
1945: Americans All:
Jews in the Making of Glorious America by Oscar Leonard was published
today.
1945: On the same day
that Hitler broadcast his last New Year’s Day address, the Red Army launched
the Oder-Neisse offensive, the start of the last push that would in Berlin.
1946: In Tel Aviv,
police found a large arms cache today that contained a both heavy and light
automatic weapons, various chemicals of the type used for detonating explosives
and a number of military uniforms.
1947: The State Stove
Company of Hamilton, OH which Lucian L. Kahn served as vice president and
treasurer was sold today to the Noma Electric Corporation.
1947: A British
Military Court sentenced Dov Bela Gruner to be hanged for his part in the
attack on the police station at Ramt Gan.
Gruner, a 33-year-old veteran of the British Army, is a member of the
Irgun and claimed that he should have been treated as a prisoner of war and not
a criminal.
1948: After the “Pan
York” and the “Pan Crescent”, two ships each carrying “7,500 people from
Romania, Bulgaria and Transylvania” arrived in Cyprus having been forced to go
there by British ships trying to keep Jews from Palestine, crew member Gedda
Schochat, Dave Lowenthal, Teddy Vardi and Avi Livney were taken thrown into “a
jail cell of the Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry” where, based on their
appearance the following day, they were beaten. (As reported by Avi Livney)
1948: Thousands of
“illegal” Jewish refugees who had been trying to reach Palestine disembarked in
Cyprus where the British interned them in DP camps.
1949(30th of
Kislev, 5709): Parashat Miketz; Rosh Chodesh Tevet; Sixth Day of Chanukah
1949: As promised by
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, Israeli troops began withdrawing from the
Sinai Peninsula.
1949: Today, Joseph
Klein began serving as the Rabbi at Temple Emanuel Sinai in Worcester, Mass – a
position he would fill for so long that he became the congregation’s longest
serving Rabbi.
1950: In Guyana, Janet
Rosenberg Jagan and her husband formed the People’s Progressive Party (PPP)
which she served as General Secretary until 1970.
1950: Levi Olan,
“reform rabbi who had just left Worcester, MA to take over the pulpit at Temple
Emanu-El in Dallas left the Cotton today wondering “what a liberal like would
be able to accomplish in a conservative city like Dallas.
1951: Birthdate of
Portsmouth, VA native and MIT grad Radia Joy Perlman who “s most famous for her
invention of the spanning-tree protocol (STP), which is fundamental to the
operation of network bridges…”
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/lan-switching/spanning-tree-protocol/5234-5.html
https://www.computerhope.com/people/radia_perlman.htm
1952(3rd of Tevet,
5712): Either late last night or early this morning Leah Feistinger was raped
and murdered. “The Mixed Armistice Commission (MAC) investigating officer,
Major Loreaux, reported that the body of the girl, Leah Feistinger, had been
found hidden in a cave about a mile from the Jordan border, the girl had been
raped and murdered her face had been mutilated. While it was believed by Israeli
police that this atrocity had been committed by Jordanians, they did not find
evidence of an infiltration. The case had not been discussed by the Commission.
Major Loreaux expressed the opinion that the Israeli police would have a better
chance of finding the killer than the Arabs would.”
1952: In Jerusalem,
“shooting attack by terrorists during a home invasion.”
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel
continued to protest against the increased British, French and US arms sales to
the belligerent Arab states, at least until they agreed to negotiate
peace. While Britain, threatened by the
Egyptian guerrilla war against its forces stationed at Suez, had temporarily
suspended her arms shipments there, France and the US had no such problem and
continued to arm Israel¹s neighbors without any restrictions.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the
government presented the oil-importing companies with IL 3,800,000 financial
guarantees, covered by funds earmarked under the German Reparations Agreement
for this purpose.
1953: The Jerusalem
Post reported that the number of unemployed in 1952 was 16,500. This number, however, did not include Israeli
Arabs, residents of immigrant transit camps, and others who had not registered
with the Labor Exchange for employment.
1954: “The Story of Pesach,” a pamphlet by I. Chaim
Pomerantz was issued today.
1955(7th of Tevet, 5715): Parashat Vayigash
1955: After having served in the Army during the Korean war
and spending “two frustrating semesters at the Philadelphia Museum School of
Art” and less than successful stint in Chicago, today, Dave Heath moved to
Chicago where he gained fame as an award-winning photographer.
1955: Republican Nathaniel L. Goldstein completed his third
and final term as New York State Attorney General.
1955: Arthur Leavitt, Sr begins serving as New York State
Comptroller, a position he will hold for a record 24 years.
1955: Jacob K. Javits begins serving as the 58th
New York State Attorney General.
1956: In an open-the-flap book titled See the Circus
published today H. A. Rey illustrated a man who looks very much like the Man
with the Yellow Hat wearing a blue and white polka-dotted kerchief. The caption
for the page reads, "Ted has a tricycle, so very small, He cannot ride it,
because he's so tall. If you want to find out WHO the rider will be, just open
the flap, and then you will see." Opening the flap reveals two monkeys
riding a tricycle.”
1957: Today, British Reform Rabbi Hugo Gabriel Gryn married
Jacqueline Selby with whom he had four children – Gaby, Naomi, Rachelle and
David.
1957: Arthur E. Manheimer, the Harvard educated attorney
and WW I veteran who was the husband of Ruth Manheimer and father of William
and Kent Manheimer retired today from the presidency of the Hampden Watch
Company which he had founded in 1940.
1957: Louis Lefkowitz began serving as Attorney General of
the State of New York.
1958(9th of Tevet, 5718): Joseph Porton, the
native of Neshvis, Lithuania, who established a printing business in Leeds,
England and wrote Bible Stories and Jewish Ideals and Thoughts and
Ideas passed away today.
1959: Publication of the Bibliography of Sephardic
Proverbs by Henry V. Besso.
1959: Publication of the paperback edition of Good to Be a
Jew by Eugene Kohn.
https://www.amazon.com/Good-Be-Jew-Eugene-Kohn/dp/0935457232
1959: As the Castro forces took over Cuba, casinos owned by
Meyer Lansky were looted.
1959: Caroline Klein Simon was sworn in as New York's
Secretary of State as part of the administration of newly elected Governor
Nelson Rockefeller.
http://jwa.org/thisweek/jan/01/1959/caroline-klein-simon
1960(1st of Tevet,
5720): Rosh Chodesh Tevet; the first day of the year coincides with the first
day of the month and, in the evening, the kindling of the candles for the 8th
day of Chanukah
1960(1st of Tevet,
5720): Seventy-seven-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate Sydney Davis,
the chemist turned real estate broker and “president of the Brotherhood of
Temple B’nai Jershurun of Newark who was the husband of Saide Davis with whom
he had one daughter passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/01/02/99282223.pdf
1961: Funeral services are
scheduled to be held today of Isadore Abraham following by burial at Baron
Hirsh Cemetery on Staten Island
1961: Sid Gillman’s Los Angeles
Chargers came out on the short of the score of the first American Football
League Championship Game.
1961: “Mr. and Mrs. Leon Bloom
announced the engagement of their daughter Dara Leslie Bloom to Ralph Howard
Bernstein.”
1961: Birthdate of Grammy Award
nominee David Rosenthal “an American keyboardist, musical director, music
producer, synthesizer programmer, orchestrator, and songwriter, mostly known
for working with the hard rock band Rainbow and Billy Joel”
1962: Abe Beam began serving as
the 36th New York City Comptroller.
1963(5th of Tevet, 5723) A fire
broke out at the Telshe Yeshiva claiming the lives of two students.
1963: Al Davis met with the
owners of the Oakland Raiders and negotiated a deal that made him coach and
general manager.
1964: Publication of the third
edition of A History of the Jews of England by Cecil Roth.
1965: Palestinian al-Fatah terrorist organization forms.
1965(27th of Tevet, 5725): Seventy-one-year-old
decorated WW I hero and Corporal in the11th Battalion of the Northumberland
Fusiliers Felix Bernstein, the Yorkshire born son of Leah Harris and Aaron
George Bernstein who lost a leg and earned the Victory Medal, the British War
Medal and the 1914-star passed away today.
1966: Simon & Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence"
reaches #1.
1966: “Dr. Manfred George 72, Dies” published today
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9804EEDD103BEF34BC4953DFB766838D679EDE
1967: A month-long exhibition of the paintings of Isser
Arnovici, opened at the Elizabeth Street Gallery.
1967: “Code Name: Heraclitus” with a musical score by
Johnny Mandel was released today in the United States.
1968(30th of Kislev, 5728): Rosh Chodesh Tevet;
6th day of Chanukah
1968(30th of Kislev, 5728):
Seventy-nine-year-old Philadelphia restaurateur Samuel Feld, the husband of
“the former Edna Rosenfeld” with whom he raised three children including the
actor Norman Fell passed away today afer which he was buried at the Montefiore
Cemetery.
1968: During a reception today, “President de
Gaulle…assured the Grand Rabbi of France that it was from his intention to
insult the Jews when he called them an ‘elite people, sure of itself and
domineering.’”
1968: Louis Begley who would eventually go on to become a
successful, award winning author was named partner in the law firm now known as
Debevoise & Plimpton today
1968(30th of Kislev, 5768): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
and 6th day of Chanukah
1968(30th of Kislev, 5768): Ruth L. Sherman, the
daughter of Elias and Fanny Pofcher and the wife of Charles Sherman passed away
today after which she was buried in West Roxbury, Mass.
1969: Isidore Dollinger begins serving as a justice of New
York Supreme Court, from the first judicial district.
1969: M.S. Agwani’s review of Bernard Lewis’ The
Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam which “traces the history of the secret
Islamic sect” was published today.
1969: According to The
Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History birthdate of Sophie Okonedo,
the London born actress was nominated for an Oscar as the best supporting
actress for her role in Hotel Rwanda.
1970: Abe Beame began serving as the 38th New
York City Comptroller.
1970: In Jerusalem, five people were injured by a terrorist
grenade
1970: BBC began broadcasting “The Six Wives of Henry VIII”
featuring Wolfe Morris of “Thomas Cromwell” one of the villains in the series.
1970: In Hebron, two Arabs were “killed by a grenade thrown
at an Israeli army vehicle.
1970: Jack J. Dreyfus Jr., one of Wall Street's leading
financiers, is scheduled to retire today “from Dreyfus Co. to devote full time to
studying and working with a drug that he believes may have broad implications.”
1971: U.S. premiere of “Something Big” with music by Marvin
Hamlisch and a title song by Burt Bacharach.
1972: After 505 performances at the Lunt-Fontaine Theatre,
the curtain came down on the original Broadway production of “The Rothschilds a
musical with a book by Sherman Yellen, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and music by
Jerry Bock” starring Hal Linden as Mayer Rothschild.
1972: After 1,281 performances at the Shubert Theatre, the
curtain comes down on the original Broadway production of “Promises, Promises”
a musical with a score by Burt Bacharach, lyrics by Hal David and a book by
Neil Simon.
1973: University of Michigan trained attorney Charles Levin
began serving as Associate Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.
1973(27th of Tevet, 5733): Lou Halper, the New
Jersey Welterweight Champion of 1932 and member of the New Jersey Boxing Hall
of Fame who was President of Halper Brothers Paper Company passed away today
1973: Birthdate of Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times executive David
Leonhardt.
1974: “The Way We Were,” “the fifteenth studio album
recorded by American vocalist Barbra Streisand. was released today by Columbia
Records
1974: Abraham “Abe” Beame began serving as the 104th
Mayor of New York City.1975: Chuck Schumer began serving as a “member of the
New York State Assembly from the 45th District” today.
1975: Harvard Law School graduate and U.S. Army veteran
Franz Sigmund Leichter, the Vienna horn son of Otto Leichter and Kathe Liechter
“a leading sociologist and feminist” who “was arrested by the Gestapo in 1938
and killed at Ravensbruck in 1942” began serving as a member of the New York
State Senate.
1975(18th of Tevet, 5735): Seventy-one-year-old
Victor Alphonse Sachse, Jr., the LSU trained attorney and husband of Janice
Rubenstein Sachse who was the father attorney and Korean War Veteran Victor
Alphonse Sachse III, passed away today and was buried at the Jewish Cemetery in
Baton Rouge, LA.
1977: Following the death of his first wife “Sara Zwilling”
in 1975, movie maker Boris Sagal married his second wife, “Marge Champion”
today.
1977: Jerry Nadler began serving as a member of the New
York State Assembly from the 69th district.
1978: The Jerusalem
Post reported that the Egyptian negotiators in Cairo demanded that Israel
liquidate her settlements on the West Bank and in Gaza as a pre-condition for
the Palestine Arabs¹ self-determination.
Israel suggested that under the proposed peace plan, the prospective
Sinai settlers would pay taxes to Egypt.
1978: Ed Koch begins serving as the 105th mayor
of New York City.
1978: The Jerusalem
Post reported that US President Jimmy Carter, who concluded his talks with
the Shah of Iran and King Hussein of Jordan, was expected to arrive in Cairo
for talks with President Anwar Sadat and a possible active participation in
Israeli-Egyptian peace negotiations.
1978: The Jerusalem
Post reported that the Israeli population toward the end of 1977 stood at
3,650,000 3,076,000 Jews and 574,000 non-Jews.
1979(2nd of Tevet, 5739): Eighth Day of Chanukah
1979(2nd of Tevet, 5739): Seventy-year-old Baton
Rouge native and LSU trained attorney, Victor A. Sachse, Jr. the husband Janice
Rubenstein and the father of attorney Victor A Schase III passed away today.
1979: Robert Abrams began serving as Attorney General of
New York State.
1979: “A car bomb was found opposite Cafe Atara on the
pedestrian mall and was neutralized about half an hour before it was to have
blown up.”
1980(12th of Tevet, 5740): Eighty-two-year-old
London born American Oscar winning composer Adolph Deutsch passed away today.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/adolph-deutsch-mn0000497873/biography
1980: After 32 years, German born American aviation
engineer who played a major role in the aerospace manufacturing industry
retired from General Electric where he had helped to develop among other
things, the fanjets that power a significant number of all civilian and
military aircraft.
1981: It was reported today that “889 Jews had left the
Soviet Union in December, 1980.”
1981: Pulitzer prize winning journalist Linda Joyce
Greenhouse married Eugene R. Fidell “in a Jewish ceremony.
1983(16th of Tevet, 5743) : Parashat Vayechi
1983(16th of Tevet, 5743): Eighty-nine-year-old
Brooklyn born theatrical agent Karl N. Bernstein who began his career as a
vaudeville critic of The Morning Telegraph before going on to promote Broadway
shows produced by George Gershwin, Frank Loesser and Julie Styne passed away
today.
1983: Moshe Levy was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant
General and appointed IDF Chief of General Staff.
1984: The funeral for Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer, author of What
Is a Jew? is scheduled to be held in Toronto today.
1984: At the Roayle Theatre, the curtain came down on a
Broadway revival of “You Can’t Take It With You,” a three act comedy written by
George Kaufman and Moss Hart which had begun in April of 1983.
1985: Carolyn Leigh was inducted into the Songwriters Hall
of Fame today.
http://jwa.org/thisweek/jan/01/1959/caroline-klein-simon
1985: Louis Silverstein, the longtime Art Director of The
New York Times, retired today.
1986(20th of Tevet, 5746): Ninety-six-year-old
basketball player and coach Max “Marty” Friedman passed away today.
http://interalliedgames.org/athletes/max-marty-friedman/
1986: Jerry Abramson began serving as the 47th
mayor of Louisville, KY.
1986(20th of Tevet, 5746): Ninety-year-old
Samuel Gitlow, the Belarus born son of Elke and Hershcel Gitlow and the husband
of Esther Gitlow with whom he had four children passed away today in Spring
Valley, NY>
1987(30th of Kislev, 5747): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1988(11th of Tevet, 5748): Seventy-nine-year-old
German born American “character actor” whose “Jewish descent” made him a target
for the Nazis during the Holocaust passed away today
1989: As new measures, imposed by the Federal Aviation
Administration in response to the bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet over Scotland
on December 21 take effect, Senator John D. Rockefeller 4th, a West Virginia
Democrat who was en route from Israel to the United States and was transferring
to a Pan Am flight in Paris, said the security was tighter than usual, but not
as heavy as that which he had experienced at Ben-Gurion Airport outside Tel
Aviv. ''They opened everything, and that's excellent,' he said of his
early-morning departure. Security officers gave every passenger ‘a very
diplomatic, but careful grilling,'' asking questions like: Do you have anything
new? Are you carrying anything for anyone? One security officer, he said, told
him bluntly: ''Get nothing between here and the airplane. Go straight to the
plane.''
1989: Stephen Engelberg and Michael Gordon of The New
York Times are the first to report in detail about West German
participation in the design and construction of the vast chemical plant
designed to produce poison gas at Rabta in Libya along with facts about French
aid in refueling bombers that would make possible the quick delivery of
poison-gas bombs to Tel Aviv residents who are descendants of those forced to
breathe Cyclon-B at Auschwitz.
1990: Elizabeth Holtzman became the 40th
Comptroller of New York City.
1990: A reprint of Torchbearers of the Middle Ages which “outlines the
contributions of important Jews of the Middle Ages including Anan Ben David,
Chasdai Ibn Shaprut, Gershom Ben Judah and Solomon Ib Gabirol” was issued
today.
1990: Stephen Breyer began servicing as Chief Judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
1991: WW II veteran and Queens College graduate Warren H.
Phillips, the New York born son of Abraham Phllips and the former Juliette
Rosenberg and husband of Barbara Anne Thomas, stepped down as CEO of Dow Jones
& Company, a position he had held since March of 1975.
1991: Bruce Sundlun began serving as the 21st
governor of Rhode and the second Jew to hold this position.
1992: In “Frank Binswanger - Philadelphia's Golem -
Remembered Fondly He Was Constantly Exhorting Philadelphians To Join His
Pursuit Of Impossible Dreams” published today Dan Rottenberg provides a
personal picture of this descendant of Rabbi Judah, the 16th century
creator of the Golem.
1992: A suspicious fire
broke out in the basement of a synagogue in Brooklyn, severely damaging the
building and forcing the removal of several torahs. . Flames rushed through the
basement of Congregation Hisachbis Yirieim at 902 Avenue L, near East Ninth
Street, at 4:02 P.M. It was under
control at 4:47 P.M., Fire Marshal Glynn said. Fire department officials said
that the fire “is being considered as suspicious” in origin.
1994: Abraham M. Lackman is scheduled to begin serving as
budget director under new mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani
1994: Alan Hevesi began serving as the 41st
Comptroller of New York City
1994: Gabriel Oliver Koppell began serving as the 61st
New York State Attorney General.
1995(29th of Tevet, 5755): Eugene Wigner, winner of the
Nobel Prize for Physics in 1963 passed away.
1995: The full text of report compiled by the Agranat
Commission, except for 48 pages, was made public today.
1995: “The final phase of the Free Trade Agreement was
fully implemented today when Israel and the United States completely eliminated
all duties and tariffs on manufactured goods.”
1995: Norman Pearlstein began serving as editor in chief of
Time Inc.
1997: “No Names on the Doors,” the third in Nadav
“Levitan’s trilogy about Kibbutzim” was released in Israel today.
1997: Eighty-eight-year-old James Bennett Pritchard, the
University of Pennsylvania archaeologist whose work included six expeditions
that unearthed and examined the remains of the Biblical city of Gibeon passed
away today.
1998: Share prices on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange closed
higher today, on optimism that the Government would pass its 1998 budget and
that there would be a cut in interest rates as early as February. The TA-100
index of the shares with the highest market capitalization rose nine-tenths of
1 percent, to 293.74, an increase of 2.68 points. The Maof index of the 25
blue-chip shares gained seven-tenths of 1 percent, to 305.92, a jump of 2.11
points. The TACT index of continuously traded shares rose 1 percent, to 98.06,
a gain of 0.92 points. Trading volume was 121 million shekels ($34.30 million).
Stockbrokers said the relatively low volume was attributable to the closing of
foreign markets for New Year's Day.
1998: Jack Weinstein, the future Deputy Chief of Staff for
Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration, was promoted to the rank of Lt.
Colonel today.
1999: After 13 years, Jerry Abramson completed his final
term as mayor of Louisville, KY.
1999: The Times of
London features a review of Athens In Jerusalem: Classical antiquity and
Hellenism in the making of the modern secular Jew by Yaacov Shavi;
translated from the Hebrew by Chaya Naor and Niki Werner.
1999: Eliot Spitzer became the 63rd New York
Attorney General.
1999: Eric Schneiderman began serving as a member of the
New York Senate from the 30th district.
2000: David Hurlbut moved into the Harmony Club in Selma,
Alabama. It had originally been built as a social club by a group of prominent
Jewish businessmen in 1909.
2000: Barbra Streisand completed a two night concert series
at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas which generate more than $18 million in
revenue.
2000(23rd of Tevet, 5760): Jeshajahu Weinberg, the first
director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here and one of the
principal forces behind its creation, died today in Ichilov Hospital in Tel
Aviv. He was 81. Mr. Weinberg served as the museum's director from its
beginning in 1989 until 1995, as it became one of Washington's leading tourist
attractions. He also helped create museums in Israel and Europe. Walter Reich,
who succeeded Mr. Weinberg as director of the Washington museum, said today
that Mr. Weinberg's interests in it went from inducing a British television
documentary maker to design the exhibitions to worrying about the impact that a
museum depicting the Nazi horrors might have on children who visit it and
curators who work there. Mr. Weinberg, whose first name was pronounced
yuh-shah-YAH-who but who was known as Shaike (pronounced SHY-kuh), was born in
Warsaw and educated in Germany until his family fled to Palestine in the 1930's
with the rise of Hitler. Mr. Weinberg served from 1935 to 1948 in the Jewish
underground army, the Haganah, and from 1942 to 1946 in the Jewish Brigade of
the British Army, although the Haganah and the British Army were frequently at
odds. He fought in Italy while in the British Army and became a sergeant.
Martin Smith, the documentary filmmaker who designed the exhibitions, said from
his home in Bristol, England, that Albert Abramson, one of the museum's
founders, had suggested to Mr. Weinberg that Mr. Smith would make the ideal
designer of the museum. ''I wasn't Jewish, I wasn't museum inclined, and I
wasn't American,'' Mr. Smith said, but Mr. Weinberg was persuasive. ''He
encouraged me to look at how the techniques of documentary filmmaking could be
used in a museum setting,'' Mr. Smith said. The museum's architect, James I.
Freed, also described how Mr. Weinberg had driven the design and construction
of the museum. After a section had been built, Mr. Freed said, ''Shaike was
insistent -- he wanted a railroad freight car to be included. We had to change
the building to accommodate it. He never accepted 'no.' '' Mr. Freed added that
Mr. Weinberg worked to bring together competing constituencies that wanted to
make sure their groups' sufferings were not ignored. The groups included
European Jews, Gypsies and other ethnic groups as well as members of dissenting
religions and political parties, homosexuals and the physically and mentally
handicapped. Mr. Weinberg was also an official of the Israeli government and
director of the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv. He helped create the Beth
Hatefutsoth Museum of the Jewish Diaspora in Tel Aviv, where he served as
director, and the Museum of the History of the City of Jerusalem. At his death,
even while slowed by vascular illness, Mr. Weinberg was working on the design of
Jewish museums in Warsaw and Berlin. (As reported by Irvin Molotsky)
2001: A car bomb rocked the commercial heart of the Israeli
coastal city of Netanya today wounding more than 30 people, at least one
seriously.
2001: Yasir Arafat left Gaza shortly after midnight today
for a hastily arranged meeting with President Clinton to discuss the
Palestinian leader's reservations about an American blueprint for a final peace
deal.
2001: Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu belatedly
endorsed Ariel Sharon in his bid to become Prime Minister.
2002: Michael Bloomberg became the 108th Mayor
of New York City.
2002: Gabriel Oliver Koppell began serving as a member of
the New York City Council from the 11th District.
2002: Michael Applebaum began serving as Borough mayor for
Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and Montreal City Councilor
2002(17th of Tevet, 5762): Fifty-seven-year-old
film producer Julia Phillips passed away. (As reported by Bernard Weinraub)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1740091.stm
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/03/arts/julia-phillips-57-producer-who-assailed-hollywood-dies.html
2002: Gabriel Oliver Koppell began serving as member of the
New York City Council from the 11th District.
2003: Het Parool “an Amsterdam based daily newspaper” that
got its start “as a resistance paper during the German occupation” took a
financial bailout today to save it from the consequences of failing circulation
and revenue.
2003: Alan Hevesi began serving as the 53rd
Comptroller of New York
2003: Eric Schneiderman began serving as a member of the
New York Senate from the 31st district.
2004: Louis Begley retired from Debevoise & Plimpton
2005: Jessalyn Sarah Gilsig and Bobby Salomon were married
today in “a traditional Jewish wedding.
2005: Isaac Perlmutter became the CEO of Marvel Comics
today.
2006: Jack Lebewohl, the new owner of the 2nd
Avenue Deli which was located at its original location in the East Village,
closed the famed eatery after a rent increase and a dispute over back rent that
the landlord had said was due.
2006: Daniel C. Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel
and Egypt, assumes the position of S. Daniel Abraham Visiting Professor in
Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton University.
2006: Eric Garcetti began serving as President of the Los
Angeles City Council
2006: The New York
Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special
interest to Jewish readers including Kafka: The Decisive Years by Reiner Stach, Savage Shorthand The Life and Death of Isaac Babel by
Jerome Charyn, Siegfried Sassoon: A
Life by Max Egremont and Why She Married Him Myriam Chapman’s first novel based on her
grandmother's recently discovered manuscript describing a childhood in
turn-of-the-century czarist Russia, close escapes from its brutal pogroms and
life as a Jewish émigré in Paris.
2006(1st of Tevet, 5766): Henry Samuel Magdoff passed away. He was a prominent American
social commentator who held several administrative positions in government
during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt and later became co-editor of
the Monthly Review.
2007: As a result of “the incident in which the Hanit Navy
ship was struck by an Iranian missile launched by Hizbullah during the second
Lebanon war” “IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Dan Halutz announced today
that the two Navy officers at the rank of colonel would be reprimanded
following the incident, and that the ship's commander, a lieutenant colonel,
would also be punished by the Navy commander, and his next position would be at
the headquarters and not a commanding position.” (As reported by Hanan
Greenberg)
2007: Eliot Spitzer became the 54th governor of
New York
2007: Under Commissioner David Stern, the NBA switched back
to the leather ball.
2007: Jane Doe Buys a Challah and Other Short Stories,
the first publication of Ang-Lit Press, a newly established English publishing
house based in Tel-Aviv goes on sale in Israel.
The book is the first ever anthology of short stories by Israeli Anglo
writers.
2008: Lieutenant General Moshe Levy, who had served at the
12th Chief of Staff of the IDF, suffered a massive stroke.
2008: At the Museum of Jewish Heritage and closing day of
an exhibition entitled The
Other Promised Land: Vacationing, Identity, and the Jewish-American Dream. “Set
against the backdrop of the seashore, the mountains, or the countryside,
vacations have always been a meaningful part of American Jewish life. American
Jews chose their own distinctive destinations - Florida, the Catskills,
Atlantic City, sites of Jewish heritage - to join with friends or in response
to being excluded at other venues, creating temporary communities of
like-minded people. Some vacations were pursuits of luxury and abundance, while
others emphasized Jewish beliefs and traditions, but all expressed the
excitement and promise of America. The history of Jewish vacationing provides a
glimpse into Jewish values, past and present.”
2009: In a move that bodes well for Israel, The Czech
Republic takes over the presidency of the European Union from France.
2009: Todaym Norman “Podhoretz became editor of Commentary magazine.
2009: Haaretz
reported that according to a story published by the Belgian daily La
Derniere Heure published earlier this week Jewish-French philosopher
Bernard Henri-Levy was listed by a Belgium-based Islamist group as a target for
assassination alongside other leading Jewish personalities in Europe.
2009 (5 Tevet 5769): Helen Suzman, the internationally renowned anti-apartheid
campaigner who befriended the imprisoned Nelson Mandela and offered an often
lonely voice for change among South Africa’s white minority, died in
Johannesburg at the age of 91. (As
reported by John F. Burns and Alan Cowell)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/world/africa/02suzman.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
2009: “Teapacks, an Israeli band
that formed in 1988 in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, officially
disbanded today.
2009: After almost five years as Chief
Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan,
Bernard A. Friedman became the Senior Judge of the same court.
2009(5th of Tevet, 5769): Polish
writer Henryk Halkowski, one of Poland's most notable contemporary Jewish
personalities, died suddenly today just days after celebrating his 57th
birthday. (As reported by JTA)
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2009/01/04/1001969/halkowski-noted-polish-writer-dies
2010: Starting at noon,
Congregation Tikvat Israel in Rockville, Md., is hosting a sale of used books
about Judaism.
2010: In a case of Jew vs Jew
Lionel Perez replaced Saulie Zajdel as Montreal City Councillor for Darlington.
2010: In Israel the
Water Authority is supposed to be implementing a price hike. If the price
increase does not go through, several water corporations - including those
servicing the Galilee - will not have the funds to buy water from Mekorot, the
national water company.
2010: In Jerusalem
Hama'abada and The Visual Theatre present a unique collaboration: "Snow
Will Fall Tonight" including the following three shows:
"Pollyamoria" by Ma'ayan Moses, Pets" by Anat Arbel--tragi-comic
dance theatre and "To Raise You Wild"--by Shai Persil.
2010: The Aksa Martyrs
Brigades claimed responsibility today for firing two Grad-type rockets at the
Netivot area from Gaza last night.
2010: Two mortar shells
hit open areas in southern Israel this evening.
2010: Michael Bloomberg is sworn
in for this third term as Mayor of New York.
2010: Birthdate of Nathan Zachary
Silber son of David and Rebecca Silber and grandson of Dr. Robert “Bob” and
Laurie Silber, pillars of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community and all around
great guys.
2011: András Schiff “published a
letter in the Washington Post
questioning whether "Hungary is ready and worthy to take on" the
rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, as it did that day,
because of "racism, discrimination against the Roma, anti-Semitism,
xenophobia, chauvinism and reactionary nationalism," and "the latest
media laws."
2011: Eric Schneiderman began
serving as the 65th Attorney General of New York.
2011: Frederick
Lawrence, 54, is scheduled to become Brandeis University’s eighth president
today succeeding President Jehuda Reinharz
2011: With snow falling and
temperatures well below freezing, the Traditional Minyan at Temple Judah in
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, ushered in the New Year.
In keeping with the bowl games that dominate the day, Deb Levin and Amy
Barnum provided a football themed Kiddush complete with pizza, munchies and a
whole lot more.
2011: Arab terrorists launched a
mortar attack near Sderot this evening. One woman was treated for shock. The
IDF noted that 6,500 residents live in the immediate area, which includes
several kibbutzim. The IDF retaliated by bombing a terrorist base and a weapons
factory in northern and central Gaza later that night.
2011: Two female
soldiers managed to escape a would-be attacker tonight. The two were attacked
by a Palestinian Authority man with a knife as they left their base in Gush
Etzion, south of Jerusalem. The two reported the incident immediately, and
Border Police began searching the area. They found the PA man nearby, and he
admitted to having attempted to stab soldiers at the base. He was arrested and
taken in for questioning.
2011: An earthquake hit
northern Israel on this evening, being felt most strongly in the region of Beit
Shean and Afula; residents of Tzfat reported feeling motion as well.
2011(25th of Tevet,
5771): Abdallah Simon, called one of America's "most powerful" wine
executives for decades and a philanthropist, died today at the age of 88.
Simon, a Baghdad native, was the developer of the Seagram's Chateau &
Estate Wines Company and helped craft America's taste for fine French wines. In
a 1988 article, The New York Times described Simon as a "superpower"
in the world of fine French wines and said his yearly visits to Bordeaux were
"probably more important than those of the president of France."
Simon, who was known as "Ab" to both the American and Bordeaux wine
industries, attended private school in England and American University in
Beirut, but left Iraq for New York after a pro-Nazi regime came to power there
in 1941. Simon's wine career began in 1952 when he tasted a 1929 Chateau Latour
Bordeaux, a prominent First Growth wine, on the Queen Mary while sailing to
Europe. He joined Seagram in 1974. With $2 million staked by Seagram, Simon
turned the division into a leading force in the wine industry. Simon bypassed
the middlemen, called negociants, and struck deals with chateau owners that
allowed him to influence prices and deliver large quantities of fine wine to
the U.S. market. In 1980, France made Simon a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor
for service to that nation’s wine industry. Simon's philanthropy in retirement
included the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv Foundation, which
said upon his death that his "generosity and friendship will be missed but
his contributions to Tel Aviv's future generations will live on for all
time."
2011: As a result of the
2010 Congressional Elections, the following is a list of the 39 Jewish members
— 12 senators and 27 representatives — who are expected to serve in the 112th
U.S. Congress, which is set to convene in January:
U.S. SENATE
Richard Blumenthal
(D-Conn.)*
Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)**
Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.)
Dianne Feinstein
(D-Calif.)
Al Franken (D-Minn.)
Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.)
Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.)
Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.)
Carl Levin (D-Mich.)
Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.)
Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)**
Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)**
(Sen. Michael Bennet
(D-Colo.), who is projected to win his re-election bid, does not identify a
religion, but notes that his mother is Jewish and a Holocaust survivor.)
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.)
Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.)
Howard Berman (D-Calif.)
Eric Cantor (R-Va.)
David Cicilline (D-R.I.)*
Stephen Cohen (D-Tenn.)
Susan Davis (D-Calif.)
Ted Deutch (D-Fla.)
Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.)
Bob Filner (D-Calif.)
Barney Frank (D-Mass.)
Gabrielle Giffords
(D-Ariz.)
Jane Harman (D-Calif.)
Steve Israel (D-N.Y.)
Sander Levin (D-Mich.)
Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.)
Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.)
Jared Polis (D-Colo.)
Steve Rothman (D-N.J.)
Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)
Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.)
Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)
Brad Sherman (D-Calif.)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
(D-Fla.)
Henry Waxman (D-Calif.)
Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)
John Yarmuth (D-Ky.)
*Elected to House or Senate
for the first time in 2010 midterms
**Senators who were
re-elected in 2010 midterms (As reported by JTA)
2012: Simon Greer will become the president and CEO at the Nathan Cummings
Foundation after serving in the same roles at Jewish Funds for Justice. He
succeeds Lance Lindblom.
2012: A memorial service was held to honor the late
Yiddish singer Adrienne Cooper at Congregation Ansche Chesed while shiva was
held at her daughter’s apartment in New York City.
http://jfrej.org/2011-12-28/remembering-adrienne-cooper-zl
2012: The New York
Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special
interest to Jewish readers including “Gossip: The Untrivial Pursuit” by Joseph
Epstein and “Some of My Lives: A Scrapbook Memoir” by Rosamond Bernier whose
mother was English and whose father was an American Jew.
2012(6th of Tevet, 5772): Venerated Israeli singer
Yafa Yarkoni died at the age of 86 at Reut Medical Center in Tel Aviv today,
after years of suffering from Alzheimer's disease. (As reported by Isabel
Kershner)
2012: Today, University of California and Harvard Business School graduate
Laurence M. Baer, the play-by-player announcer turned baseball executive, who
along with his wife Pamela is a member of Congregation Emanu-El, became the CEO
of the San Francisco Giants.
2012: Israeli politicians responded to last night‘s ultra-Orthodox
demonstration in Jerusalem’s Kikar Hashabbat (Sabbath Square), with Defense
Minister Ehud Barak and Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni expressing outrage over
protesters use of Holocaust symbolism to protest what they termed the exclusion
of Haredim.
2012: Gaza terrorists resumed 11
years of aerial attacks on Israel late this morning, firing two mortars shells
on the western Negev.
2013: After having announced his intentions in September, today Thomas
Edgar Rothman’s resignation as Chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment
became effective today.
2013: The works Janusz Korczak the pediatrician who wrote under the pen
name Henryk Goldszmit and who famously
went to the death camps with his orphans, would be available in the public
domain as of 1 January 2013.[
2013: Paul Shapiro's Ribs and Brisket Revue is scheduled to host a special
Klezmer Brunch for the New Year.
2013: Thomas Edgar Rothman’s resignation as “chairman and chief executive
of the Fox Filmed Entertainment” which had been tendered in September, became
effective today.
2013: “The Looper” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film
Festival.
2013: Starting today, female and
male models who have a body mass index (BMI) of less than 18.5 may not be shown
in the media or on Israeli websites or go down the catwalk at fashion shows
2013: After coming under fire from right-wing Israeli politicians for a
series of statements he made over the past few days regarding the peace process
and the prospect of talks with Hamas, President Shimon Peres was subjected to
an unexpected tongue lashing — from a top Palestinian Authority official today.
2013: The ascendant head of the
Jewish Home party, Naftali Bennett, continued to make political waves, after
supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-Yisrael Beytenu list
released an Internet ad featuring Holocaust-era imagery that implied that the
national religious party aspires to take the country’s Orthodox citizens back
to “the ghetto.”
2014: Professor Gal
Kaminka, of Bar-Ilan University’s Department of Computer Science and Gonda
(Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, one of Israel’s, and the
world’s, leading contributors to intelligent robotics – the science of using artificial
intelligence to make robots “smarter” – is scheduled to receive Landau Prize
for Arts and Sciences in the robotics category for his outstanding
contributions to the advancement of science today (As reported by David Shamah)
2014: Rabbi David
Ellenson completed his term as President of HUC-JOR
2014: “The Escape” and
“Omar” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2014: Former Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon's condition continues to worsen, Sheba Hospital in Tel
HaShomer reported today to Channel 10. (As reported by Tova Dvorin)
2014: Andrew Cohen
began serving as a Member of the New York City Council from the 11th
District.
2014: A memorial
service for the 69 sailors of the INS Dakar was held at Mount Herzl today,
marking 46 years since it sank into the Mediterranean. (As reported by Tova
Dvorin)
2014: In Switzerland,
“the former municipality of Unterendingen merged into the municipality of
Endingen” which “the 18th and 19th century, was one of few villages in which
Swiss Jews were permitted to settle” as can be seen by the fact that “old
buildings in Endingen have two doors – one for Jews and one for Christians” and
that. Endigen's synagogue and Jewish cemetery are listed as a heritage site of
national significance.”
2015: “The IDF is
scheduled to withdraw its security forces from Israeli communities near Gaza
that are not adjacent to the border effective today.”
2015: Jody Geron is
scheduled to join Universal Music Publish Group today Chariman/CEO, replacing
Zach Horowitz who has led the company for the past two years.”
2015: “Heartburn” and
Foxcatcher” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2015(10th of
Tevet, 5775): Fast of the 10th Tevet
2015(10th of
Tevet, 5775): Yahrzeit of Judith Sharon Levin Rosenstein, known to one and all
simply as Judy.
2015: Jerusalem Mayro
Nir Barkat announced today that the “The Jerusalem
Unity Prize has been established in memory of three Israeli teens -- Gil-ad
Shaar, Eyal Yifrach, and Naftali Fraenkel, a dual American and Israeli citizen
who were kidnapped and murdered by Palestinian terrorists last June.”
2015: “Ayala Shapira, the 11-year-old Israeli girl who was
critically wounded in a firebomb attack in the West Bank last week,
awoke from a medically induced coma today.” (As reported by Lazar
Berman)
2015: “Palestinians
threw three Molotov cocktails at building in a Jewish neighborhood on the Mount
of Olives on the first night of 2015. (As reported by Lazar Berman)
2015: Todd Kaminsky
began serving as a member of the New York State Assembly from the 20th
District.
2016(20th of
Tevet, 5776) On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of Maimonides.
http://www.aish.com/dijh/Tevet_20.html
2016: Today, Cantor
Sherwood Goffin officially retired as the Chazan of the Lincoln Square
Synagogue where he was giving the title of “Founding Chazan.”
http://sherwoodgoffin.com/about-me/cantorial-biography
https://yucommentator.org/2019/04/sherwood-goffin-renowned-cantor-and-educator-dies-at-77/
2016: The copyright
that a Swiss foundation holds to The Diary of Anne Frank was scheduled
to end today until litigation was brought which may extend the copyright to
2050 or beyond.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/anne-franks-diary-to-be-published-online-in-challenge-to-copyright/
2016: During the day,
we say Happy New Year and in the evening we say Shabbat Shalom.
2017(3rd of
Tevet, 5777): Eighth Day of Chanukah and New Year’s Day
2017(3rd of
Tevet, 5777) Seventy-seven-year-old Tel Aviv born veteran of the Golani Brigade
and University of Jerusalem and NYU trained lawyer, Yaakov Neeman, the former
Minister of Justice and Minster of Finance passed away today in Jerusalem.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/former-justice-minister-yaakov-neeman-dies-at-77/
2017: Russ and
Daughters Kosher location at the Jewish Museum is scheduled to be open for New
Year’s.
2017: “Through the
Wall” is scheduled to be shown at JW3 in London.
2017: “The new state broadcasting
corporation established by a 2014 Knesset law to replace the cash strapped
Israel Broadcasting is scheduled to be launched today. (As reported by Sue
Surkes)
2017: “Islamic
authorities managing the Temple Mount attempted to have a veteran Israeli
archaeologist ejected from the Jerusalem flashpoint holy site today for using
the term “Temple Mount” in a lecture to American students.”
2017: The New York Times features books by
Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Against
Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion by Paul Bloom, The Glass
Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the
Stars by Dava Sobe, the recently released paperback editions of On The
Road by Gloria Steinem and The Improbability of Life by Hannah
Rothschild as well as a “conversation with Bernard-Henri Lévy, the author of The
Genius of Judaism and the report that one of the books that will appear in
March is Ariel Levy’s The Rules Do Not Apply, “a memoir that builds on
her powerful 2013 essay in The New Yorker
about a miscarriage she suffered during a reporting trip to Mongolia.”
2018: Deadline for
accepting application for the 2018 Graduate Research Fellowship competition
sponsored by the US Holocaust Memorial “Museum’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel
Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies.”
2018(14th of Tevet, 5778): Ninety-seven-year-old
Robert Mann, “the founding first violinist of the Julliard String Quarter
passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
2018: For those planning on celebrating the New Year with a
combination of Culture and Kosher Cuisine Russ & Daughters is scheduled to
open this morning at its café in the Jewish Museum.
2018: “As of today, the Simon Dubnow Institute, then
Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture – Simon Dubnow (DI), will be
accepted as member of the Leibniz Association.”
2018: “In a generational changing of the guard”, 37-year-old
Arthur Gregg Sulzberger is scheduled to replace his father, Arthur Ochs
Sulzberger as the publisher of the New
York Times today.
2019: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to
attend the inauguration of Brazil’s President-elect Jair Bolsonaro today in
Brasilia. (As reported by C.H. Gardiner)
2019: Thanks to the wonder of modern communication, the
University of Iowa is scheduled to play in the Outback Bowl under the watchful
eyes of Hebrew Hawkeyes Joel Barnum, Fred Goldstein and Bob Silber who are in
three different cities.
2019: JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Budapest
Noir” this evening in London
2019(24th of Tevet, 5779): On the Jewish
calendar, “Yahrzeit of Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler.”
http://www.aish.com/dijh/Tevet_24.html
2019:
In an example of a “Diminutive David” living in a world of “Great
Goliaths” This Day…In Jewish History is listed among the “Top 50 Jewish Blogs,
Websites and Newsletters to Follow in 2019.” (Editor’s note – We have no idea
how this ranking is created. Obviously,
we do not do this for placement on a list. But it is a hoot to be listed with
these Heavy Hebrew Hitters.)
2020: Mount Carmel
Cemetery which interred its first deceased Jew on December 28, 1906 is
scheduled to be open for visitation today.
2020: The Jerusalem
Theatre is scheduled to host “It’s All Mozart” with Nofar Yacobu abd the
Jerusalem Symphony.
2020: This Day…In
Jewish History is rated #16 on the list of the “Top 50 Jewish Blogs and
Websites to Follow in 2020. (Editor’s Note – Unfortunately, Deb Levin Z”L is
not with us to see the fruits of her labor)
2021: In Cleveland,
Temple Emanu El is scheduled to host a virtual Wine and Cheese Reception prior
to Shabbat Services via zoom.2
2021: In Columbus,
OH, starting today, “Tifereth Israel members in good standing are eligible for
15% of the cost of cemetery plots.”
2021: Kerem Shalom
is scheduled to present online Erev Shabbat Services with Wendy Humphreys;
2021: The Office of
Cultural Affairs of the Consulate General of Israel in New York and the JCC
Manhattan are scheduled to host “a viewing and discussion of Dani Menkin’s
documentary telling the story of Aulcie Perry, the American who became a
basketball legend in Israel.”
2021: As of today,
This Day…In Jewish History is rated #14 on the list of the Top 70 Jewish Blogs
and Websites to follow. (Editor’s note – Without fear of contradiction we know
that this site has the smallest staff of the 13 sites above it.)
2021: The JCC
Manhattan hosted a viewing and
discussion of Dani Menkin’s documentary telling the story of Aulcie Perry, the
American who became a basketball legend in Israel which was co-hosted by the
Office of Cultural Affairs, Consulate General of Israel in New York.
2022: In Berkley, CA, Saul’s Restaurant and Delicatessen
is scheduled to host an “outdoor concert with community klezmer orchestra to
celebrate New Year’s Day.”
2022(28th of Tevet, 5782): Parashat Vaera;
2022: New Year’s Day celebration is scheduled to be marked
by Iowa’s appearance in the Citrus Bowl much to the delight of the three Hebrew
Hawkeye amigos – Bob, Fred and Joel.
2022: Based on a report prepared by the IDF, “the
normalization agreements signed with a number of Arab States” hopefully will
continue to contribute to a relatively security situation.”
2022: As of today, despite temporary shut-down brought by
a derecho and surgery, This Day…In Jewish History is still on the list of the Top 70 Jewish Blogs and
Websites to follow. (Editor’s note – Without fear of contradiction we know that
this site has the smallest staff of all of the other sites.)
2022: The New York Times included reviews of books
by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Traces in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of
Cryptocurrency by Andy Greenberg and Saxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins by Aidan Levy
2023: As of today, the Illinois Holocaust Museum is
scheduled to open after closing early on the last day of 2022
2024:
The University of Iowa is scheduled to
play in the Cheez It Bowl which arguably may be the only Kosher game of the
bowl season, since its namesake snack cracker is officially Kosher Dairy.
2024: As January,1 begins in Israel,
the Hamas held hostages begin day 87 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
