This Day, July 12, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

July 12

1191: The armies of the Third Crusade (1189-92), led by England's King Richard ('The Lionhearted'), captured the Syrian seaport of Acre.  The Third Crusade would end in failure for the Christian forces.  King Richard would be taken prisoner by the Austrians on his way home.  The Jews of England would be called upon to help pay the ransom of their monarch, who had left the kingdom under the control of his brother Prince John.

1216: Pope Innocent III who issued a Letter on the Jews in 1199 which prohibited the forced conversion of Jews passed away today.

http://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/primary-texts-from-the-history-of-the-relationship/263-pope-innocent-iii-on-the-jews-and-forced-baptisms-1199-and-1201

1290: The Jews were expelled from England by order of King Edward I. Edward gets reasonably high marks for setting up the "Model Parliament." American moviegoers know him as "Longshanks" the King who was the villain in the film "Braveheart." The banishment of the Jews from the kingdom was part of slow decline engineered by the English king for a variety of reasons. Before the final edict he found one more way to extract money from his Jewish subjects. In 1287, he arrested several prominent Jewish leaders and demanded the community produce a 12,000-pound ransom for their freedom. The date for the actual order of expulsion is given by some as July 12 and by others as July 18. Regardless, Edward gave the Jews three months to leave. After All-Saints Day, any Jew found in the realm was subject to death. The Jews would not officially return to England until 17th century and the era of Cromwell.

1349: In Germany, Strasbourg’s complete control of the assets confiscated (stolen) from the Jews was made completed by a deed of this date in which King Charles IV gave up his claims to any of their property.

1462: In Rinn, Austria, the mutilated body of Andreas Oxner was found by his mother which later gave rise to claims that Jews had killed the child in what was another example of the Blood Libel.

1536: Desiderius Erasmus, the Dutch writer and philosopher passed away. According to Elliot Rosenberg, Erasmus’ relations with the Jews presented a mixed bag.  Unlike Thomas More, “Erasmus spoke out in defense of the Jews and Judaism. ‘If it is Christian to hate the Jews, all of us are only too Christians.’  On the other hand he also write “Jews are very numerous in Italy; in Spain there are hardly any…I am afraid that when the occasion arises, that pest, formerly suppressed, will raise its head again.  Finally, Erasmus only provided lukewarm support when Johann Reuchlin took on “dogmatic Talmud-burners in Central Europe.”

1555: In his Bull Cum Nimis Absurdum, Pope Paul IV renewed all previous anti-Jewish legislation and installed a ghetto in Rome. Jews were forced to wear a given cap and forbidden to own real estate or practice medicine on Christians. Communities weren't allowed to have more than one synagogue and Jews in all the Papal States were forced to lock themselves into the confines of the ghettos each night.

1567(25th of Tammuz, 5327): Latest date on which Meir Ashkenzai was killed on a voyage from Gava to Dakhel while service as an envoy of the Tartar Kahan.

1655: Sir Thomas Pack, who surprisingly joined with merchants in London in opposing the readmission of Jews was appointed by Council of State to serve as a member of the committee on trade today.

1630: A Dutch man, Michael Paauw, acquires Gull Island from the Mohegan Indians renames it Oyster Island. At the time of the American Revolution, a New York merchant named Samuel Ellis purchased the island and renames it in honor of his family.  This is how the famous point of entry for millions of immigrants included an untold number of Jews came to be known as Ellis Island.

1667: Permission was granted today to establish a printing house at Dyhernfurth a town in Prussia Silesia which was home to the Jewish printer Shabbethai Bass.

1737: Jacob de Beer became an employee of the Dutch Est India Company.

1753: Birthdate of Moses Dobruška, a cousin of Jacob Frank, who convert to Catholicism and was guillotined in Paris on charges of treason and espionage.

1765: Samuel Judah gave birth to Rebecca Judah passed away in New York at the ripe old age of 81 and who is not to be confused with the Rebecca Judah who was the daughter of Hillel Judah and the wife of Isaac B. Seixas.

1771(1st of Av, 5531): Rosh Chodesh Av observed ironically on the birthdate of Joseph Smith, Sr, the founder of the Latter Day Saint Movement known as the Mormon religion.

1778(17th of Tammuz, 5538): Tzom Tammuz was observed on the same day that the representatives of France and the United States exchanged ratification of the treaty originally signed in Paris on February 6 which meant that France would provide the aid that would be so conclusive the Continental Army  victory over the British at Yorktown.

1779: During the American Revolution, the British issued “one of their periodic summonses to the Americans to return to their allegiance” to the King which Rachel Pinto responded to after Solomon Pinto was taken prisoner with the hope of being able to return to house on Duke Street in New York.

1789(18th of Tammuz, 5549): Tzom Tammuz observed

1789(18th of Tammuz, 5549): Haim Levy, the son of Benjamin Levy and the husband of Grace Mears whom he had married at Newport, RI in 1768, passed away today.

1790: In Philadelphia, PA, Miriam Marks and Benjamin Nones who married in 1782 gave birth to Esther (Hetty) Nones the wife of Solomon Jacobs whom she married in 1815 in Philadelphia.

1793:  Birthdate of Solomon David Lazarus, the son of Marks Lazarus.

1794: Hymen Cohen and Zipporah Isaacs gave birth to Judah Hyman Cohen who would pass away at the age of 61 in Brighton.

1796: French Revolutionary troops under Jean Baptiste Kléber besieged Frankfurt by shelling the city that including its Judengasse.

1789(18th of Tammuz, 5549): Tzom Tammuz observed because the 17th of Tammuz fell on Shabbat

1789(18th of Tammuz, 5549): Merchant Haim Levy, the sone of Benjamin Levy and husband of Grace Mears whom he married in 1768 passed aay today.

1803: Birthdate of Goldeline Levy, the daughter of Isaac Levy.

1804: Former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, whom according to some sources was born of a Jewish mother and who did attend a Jewish school in Nevis died today, a day after being shot in a duel.

1808(17th of Tammuz, 5568): Tzom Tammuz observed for the last time during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson.

1812: In “Denmark Court, The Strand, London,” Victor Abraham and Rebecca Levy gave birth to Abraham Abraham who emigrated to the United States.

1824: In Frankfurt-am-Main Zerline (Worms) Beyfus and Meyer (Mayer) Levin Beyfus gave birth to Wilhelm Beyfus.

1827(17th of Tammuz, 5587) Tzom Tammuz

1828: Birthdate of Count Iosif Gurko, who as military commander of the districts of Warsaw, Wilna and Kovno would seek royal permission to expel all of the population most of whom were Jews 60 versts or 40 miles from the border.

1825: Three days after she had passed away, Miriam (Mary) Proops was buried today.

1836: Mauriz Jacobsson and Carolina Weslig gave birth to Augusta Hortensia Jacobson the wife of August Abraham Josephson

1837: Isacks Straus, the son of Judith Baierthaler and Samuel Suss Strauss, married Babette Kusiel at Baden.

1840:  Birthdate of merchant Benjamin Altman, founder of B. Altman and Co.  He was the son of Bavarian Jews, who immigrated to America in 1835 and soon opened a small store.  Altman opened his first store in 1865 and, after thirty years of acquisition and growth formed B. Altman and Company.  Altman was one of a whole series of Jewish merchants and department store moguls who were tied to such famous American emporiums as Macy's, Neiman Marcus, Sears & Roebuck and Home Depot.  B. Altman met its corporate demise in 1989.  Altman, like so many other Jewish merchants, both large and small, was noted for his philanthropy. Shortly before his death in 1913, he established the Altman Foundation, of which $20,000,000 represented by his art collection, was given to the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

1841: The London & Brighton Railway began passenger service through the East Croydon Station which was designed by Anglo-Jewish architect David Mocatta.

1841: Joseph L. Friedlander who was salesman and a “dealer in second-hand clothes” was buried today at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Dresden, Saxony, Germany.

1841: In “Warrington Crescent, London,” Samuel Cowvan and Isabella Israel gave birth Therese Cowvan, the wife of Jacques Lange and the mother of James Lang.

1843: “Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement in the United States which practices the baptism of dead Jews, receives a revelation recommending polygamy.”

1845: Thirty-seven-year-old Norwegian author Henrik Wergeland who supported the ban on Jews settling in Norway passed away today.

1846(18th of Tammuz, 5606): Tzom Tammuz observed.

1846: In Upper Austria, Simon and Regina Fuchs gave birth to Cincinnati, OH “diamond and jewelry merchant” Solomon Fox the husband of Caroline Fox and member of the board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

1848: Archduke John, who helped in the presentation of the plan of Moses Sachs to settle “Jews as farmers in Palestine under Austrian protection to the Austrian government” was appointed Imperial Vicar today.

1848: Birthdate of Leopold Adler, the Prague native who worked with his younger brother and old brother Mortiz to develop his skills as a photographer.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/58646687@N08/11952366745

1857: Twenty-three-year-old Prussian born Louis Hirshfeld, a successful merchant in McGregor, IA where he was a member of “the McGregor Lodge I.O.B.B. Daniel No. 128” and a member of Chicago’s B’nai Shalom Congregation married Rosalia Summerfield today.

1857: In La Crosse, Wisconsin, a Congregational committee reported the purchase of one acre of land for a burial ground at $150.00 which the town’s first Jewish cemetery.

1858(1st of Av, 5618): Rosh Chodesh Av

1859(10th of Tammuz, 5619): Three-year-old Samuel Dreifuss, the son of Friederika and Emanuel Dreifus and the grandson of Araon and Breunia Dreifuss passed away today.

1859: Today “the cornerstone of the first Ashkenazic synagogue in British North America, Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, was laid at 41 St. Constant (now de Bullion Street), just below de la Gauchetière. It accommodated 150 men and 50 women. The building was 48 by 111 feet. The services were modeled after the Bayswater Synagogue in London, England.

1860: Commodore Uriah P. Levy saluted the Stars and Stripes and walked down the gangplank for the last time. Yet his country had use for him: President Lincoln apparently suggested to Gideon Welles, the Secretary of the Navy, that Levy's unique experience of the military justice system should not be wasted. The old sailor's last assignment has a distinctly Lincolnesque humor: President of the Naval Court-Martial Board.

1861: Michael Van Gelder was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery on Buckingham Road.

1862(14th of Tammuz, 5622): Parashat Tammuz

1862: The Medal of Honor was authorized by the United States Congress. The Medal of Honor is popularly known as the Congressional Medal of Honor.  It is the highest decoration military service personnel can earn.  From the Civil War through the Vietnam War, 18 Jews have won this honor.

1865: Corporal Levi K. Kauffman, who had been serving since November 1863 completed his service in Company H of the 52nd Regiment.

1865: Fifty-three-year-old Frederick David Goldsmid began serving as a Member of Parliament

1866: In Berlin, “Samuel and Therese (Rosenthal) Karger gave birth to American journalist Gustav J. Karger, the husband of Rachel Levison who was also a “member of the Republican State Central Committee in Ohio.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1924/11/17/104270059.pdf

1869: In New York City, Jacob A. Weil and Dina Lilienthal gave birth to Abraham Weil an art student at Cooper Union and the Academy of Design whose artwork for newspapers including daily cartoons for the New York Evening Telegram which he stopped in 1898 so he could illustrate books, design art calendars and create theatrical posters for various New York City lithographing firms.

1869: Birthdate of Bristol, England, Joseph Bernberg, the principal of the South London Jewish Studies and the secretary of the Jewish Branch of the Children’s Country Holiday Fund.

1870: Adolph Marix, the native of Germany who joined the U.S. Navy in 1864 while living in Iowa was promoted from Ensign to Master today.

1872: Birthdate of Bohemia native Emil Hacha, who as the last President of an “independent” Czechoslovakia bowed to personal pressure from Hitler and became the “State President of Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia” where, regardless of what else he did to help or combat the Nazis, signed “into law legislation modeled after the Nuremberg Laws that meant the Jews were no longer Czech citizens in any sense of that term.”

1872: Maurice and Johanna Kahn gave birth to Jacobus Henricus Kann the Dutch banker and partner of the banking house Lissa & Kann who was the co-founder of the Jewish Colonial Trust and who died at Theresienstadt in 1944.

1873: In Nashville, TN, Mary Friedman and Peter Cohen gave birth to Peter Iser Cohen who moved Cohen Bros. Mfg. Co. Inc, from Nashville to New York where it became the “largest dealers in knitted Goods who had served as an alderman in Nashville and was a member of B’nai Jeshurun Synagogue in Manhattan.

1873: Shah Nasr-ed-Din and Adolphe Cremieux met in Persia to discuss the problems of oppressive social and economic discrimination against the Jews. The shah agreed to encourage Jewish schools, and work to improve the Jewish condition. Unfortunately, despite his intentions, the government did little to prevent attacks against the Jewish population or to rescind many of the anti-Jewish regulations.

1876:  Birthdate of Max Jacob, French painter, poet and writer.  Jacob converted to Catholicism before World War I.  Unfortunately for Jacob, the Nazis and Vichy still saw him as a Jew.  His brothers, sister and brother-in-law died at Auschwitz.  Jacob was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944.  However, he died at the French concentration camp called Drancy before he could be shipped east for the Final Solution

1876: At the City Republican Meeting at Cooper Institute in New York, Judge Abraham Jesse Dittenhoefter read the letters of those regretting that they could not attend.

 

1876: In Moteleh, Russia, Rachel Leah Chemerinsky and Dave Ben Davis gave birth to Harvard graduate and Boston University trained lawyer turned movie producer and distributor” Philip Davis, the husband of Bellle Shomer and creator of “special educational pictures such as Jack Spruce Life in the Northern Woods and From Wool to Cloth.”

1877: In Grand Rapids, Hattie Houseman Amberg and David Moses Amberg gave to Melvin Amberg, the brother of Sophie and Julius Amberg.

1877: In Washington, IN, Sigmund and Lena Sternberger Eckhouse gave birth to Jane “Jennie” Eckhouse Kaufherr the wife of isadore J. Kaufherr whom she married in 1898.

1878(11th of Tammuz, 5638): Sophia Neuman Amberg, the wife of Moses Amberg with whom she had nine children passed away today after which she was buried in the Jewish Cemetery of Greater Lafayette in Lafayette, Indiana.

1878: Birthdate of Olga Bernfeld who was deported on May 20, 1942 and murdered at Maly Trostinec on May 26.

1879: Rabbi David Einhorn gave his final sermon at Congregation Beth-El in New York.  Einhorn proudly recalled his role in speaking out against slavery while serving as a rabbi in Baltimore at the outbreak of the Civil War. He was equally proud of his role in the Reform movement although he said he remained staunchly opposed to replacing Saturday with Sunday as the day for Jews to celebrate the Sabbath.  He also urged Jews to continue using German in their sermons and teachings because this was a key in remaining connected to the best in Jewish learning. 

1879: According to reports published today, Rabbi Gustav Koehler of Chicago will replace Rabbi David Einhorn as the leader of Congregation in Beth-El in New York. These same reports contend that Koehler plans on holding services on Sunday and will be delivering sermons in English.

1880(4th of Av, 5640): French financier Isaac Pereire passed away. Pereire and his brother were rivals of the House of Rothschild.  However, the Pereire brothers were Sephardic Jews while the Rothschilds were Ashkenazim. Born in 1806, Piereire and his brother Emile built the first railroad in France in 1835. For a brief period, he owned the Paris daily "La Liberté" and he was named a knight of the Legion of Honor for his many philanthropic efforts.

1880: It was reported today that a memoir written by Professor Daniel Chwolson the Jewish professor at the University of St. Petersburg which contains information about the newly discovered Hebrew eptipahs found in the Crimea is in the hands of the printers.

1881: The 8th annual conference of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations is scheduled to begin today in Chicago, Illinois.

1882: In Leeds, England, Becky Silverblatt and Abraham Singer gave birth to Washington University trained medical doctor Jacob Singer the husband of Flora Lowenstein and assistant professor of clinical medicine at Washington University Medical School who was a director of Shaare Emeth Temple in St. Louis and a member of B’nai B’rith.

1882: As the Freight Handlers’ Strike continued in New York Polish Jews were working in place of the Italians most of whom had been arrested by the police. 

1882: The attacks on the Jews and Italians who have replaced the striking freight handlers are reported to have become much more frequent.  It is reported that the attacks are the works of ruffians who are robbing the Jews and then blaming it on the strikers.

1883: In “Rostov,” “Samuel and Olga (Hurwitz) Dushman, gave birth to Saul Dushman, the holder of a Ph.D from the University of Toronto who married Anna Leff after the death of his first wife Amelia Gurofsky and who was one of the “most valuable researchers” at the General Electric Labs in Schenectady, NY.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/120/3122/686

https://sova.si.edu//record/NMAH.AC.0101

1883: The first free excursion of the season sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will leave from a pier at the foot of 5th Street at nine o’clock this morning

1883: At the third day’s meeting of the Hebrew Union Council the delegates will vote on the recommendation of the Committee on Agricultural Pursuits the Jewish organization work with the Cincinnati Agricultural Society which has already establish established a successful colony in Kansas.

1884:  Birthdate of Italian painter and sculptor, Amedeo Modigliani.  In 1906, Modigliani went to Paris to study where he was confronted with the anti-Semitism connected with retrial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus.  Modigliani signed his sketches "Modigliani - Jew."  Modigliani lived his life as the typical starving artist.  His paintings began to gain in financial worth in shows starting in 1919.  In November of that year Modigliani's health began to rapidly decline.  According to legend he sang the Kaddish for himself when he began spitting blood. He died two months later.  Since his death his paintings have soared in value.  In 1989 one of his paintings was sold for over eight million dollars.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amedeo_Modigliani_Photo.jpg

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/modigliani/

1884: In Prague, Jakob and Barbara Bondy gave birth to Anna Fischl

1884: In Minsk, Jacob Meir and Sarah Meltzer gave birth to Lazar Meir who gained fame as movie mogul Louis B. Meyer

https://www.biography.com/people/louis-b-mayer-9403666

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/louis-b-mayer

1884 (19th of Tammuz, 5664): In Tuscany, Eugénie Garsin, the descendant from Sephardic Jews from France and Flamino Modigliani gave birth to Italian painter and sculptor, Amedeo Modigliani.  In 1906, Modigliani went to Paris to study where he was confronted with the anti-Semitism connected with retrial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus.  Modigliani signed his sketches "Modigliani - Jew."  Modigliani lived his life as the typical starving artist.  His paintings began to gain in financial worth in shows starting in 1919.  In November of that year Modigliani's health began to rapidly decline.  According to legend he sang the Kaddish for himself when he began spitting blood. He died two months later.  Since his death his paintings have soared in value.  In 1989 one of his paintings was sold for over eight million dollars.  

1885: It was reported today that the Hebrew Standard has said “The meanest class of Jewish merchants are those who refuse to close half a day on the Jewish Sabbath.”

1885: Birthdate of Le Theil, Orne native and Holocaust victim Paul Berthier who was arrested in 1941.

1886: The children in the care of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society will leave for an excursion on the East River at 8 o’clock this morning.

1887: The 14th annual council of the Hebrew Congregations holds its opening meeting in Pittsburgh where Josiah Cohen was chosen Chairman of the Council, Adolph Freund of Detroit is chosen Vice President and Levi Lipman of Cincinnati is chosen as Secretary.  Dr. Stephen Wise gave the opening address where he reported on conditions at the Hebrew Union College.

1887: In Courland, Latvia, Hannah and Moses Lewin gave birth to future Massachusetts resident and attorney Charles Israel Isadore Lewin, the husband of Anna Lewin and the father of Betty Rena Buyer.

1889(13th of Tammuz, 5649): Isaac Phillips, the son of Naphtali and Rachel Mendez Phillips, a New York lawyer who served as an appraiser for the Port of New York and who was a member of Shearith Israel passed away today.

1889: In Austria Alfred Sachs, the son Babette and Eduard Elkan Sachs and his wife Therese Sachs gave birth to Dr. Rudolf Sachs.

1890: Mark Hambourg, the musical child prodigy whose career really flourished after the family move to Great Britain at the end of the 19th century and the Russian born son of pianist Michael Hambourg “made his debut today at the old Princess Hall in London.

https://www.hambourgconservatory.ca/bios/mark.html

1889: Birthdate of Marty Friedman, the defensive guard who played pro-basketball from 1908 to 1927 and who was half of the duo known as “The Heavenly Twins – the other half being fellow Jew Barney Sedran.

1890: In Philadelphia, Isadore and Pauline Jacobs Bien gave birth to baseball catcher Walter B. Bien, the husband of Minnie Cohen Bien and the brother of realtor Morris Bien.

1890: “City and Suburban News” published today provides a list of upcoming events in the New York area including plans for Rabbi Sabito Morais to deliver a talk at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

1891: Israel Pimkus, a sixty-year-old Russian Jew who has just arrived in the United States announced his intentions “of going West” and sending for his five brothers to join him once he gets settled.  Pimkus had escaped Russia with $17,500 that the Czar’s police had failed to find when they ransacked his family’s home.

1891: In Amsterdam, Geertruida (née Warradijn) and Wolf Mozes Goudeket, a wealthy diamond cutter, gave birth to Julie Henriette Goudeket who gained fame as silent movie start Jetta Goudal.

1891: “To Celebrate a Centennial” published today described upcoming plans to observe the 102nd anniversary of the fall of the Bastille and the 100th anniversary of the emancipation of the Jews of France which will take place in New York’s Lion Park.

1892: In Drohobych which was then part of Austrian Galicia and now is part of Ukraine, cloth merchant Jakub Schulz and Henrietta née Kuhmerker gave birth to author and painter Bruno Schulz, Polish author who will be killed by a Gestapo officer in 1942 under unusual circumstances.  A mural that he painted just before his death would become a point of contention between Ukrainian authorities and the officials at Yad Vashem in 2001

1892: An old Jewish peddler named Gustave Berkowitz was clubbed by a group of Italians who had been fighting among themselves on Thompson Street.

1893: Birthdate of Jersey City, NJ native and real estate attorney Benjamin E. Gordon the former national vice chairman of the ZOA and a founder of the Bergen County, NJ, Jewish Community Council who raised two daughters with his wife, “the former Regina Reitman.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/09/11/89372727.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

 

1893: In Manhattan, Morris and Celia (Weinstein) Berg gave birth attorney Julius S. Berg,  who was wounded at Arras, France in May of 1918 and went to serve in both houses of the New York state legislature while being married to Rose Schram.

1893: Mrs. Sarah Goldstein a widow with six children who lives at 181 Orchard Street “was served with a notice to vacate her apartments” because she had not paid her rent.  She had used her rent money to pay for medicine for five of her children who had contracted measles.

1894: Concerns about a general strike in New York City seem to have been unfounded as could be seen “at the headquarters of the American Federation of Labor on Clinton” where “there was nothing to indicate that there were even rumors of strikes”

1894: In New York, labor leader Patrick Murphy obtained a parade permit that will enable 15,000 union members including those belong to the United Hebrew Trades Union to take part in a parade tomorrow night.

1894: The members of the United Hebrew Trade Unions are scheduled to form up at Rutgers Square before joining up with members of other labor unions for a mass meeting at Union Square.

1894: Abram Cahan is scheduled to be one of the speakers at tonight’s mass meeting at Union Square sponsored by several labor unions in New York.

1894: In Plymouth, MA, The School of Applied Ethics with Felix Adler as Dean, opened its third annual session today.

1895: In New York City, “theatrical manager William Hammerstein,” who was Jewish and his first wife Alice Nimmo, who was not gave birth to lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, the Hammerstein of the team (Richard) Rogers and Hammerstein that produced a string of Broadway Musicals including "Oklahoma" and "Carousal” and who, when growing up “attended the Church of the Divine Paternity.

https://www.rnh.com/bio/154/Hammerstein-II-Oscar

1895: This evening, Dr. Joseph Adolph Moses of Louisville, KY is scheduled to address the annual Central Conference of American Rabbis meeting in Rochester, NY.

1895: In Rochester the most important subject discussed at this morning’s session of the Rabbinical Conference “was that touch upon by President Wise in his annual address – “What Is Our Relation in All Religious Matters to Our Post Biblical, our Patriotic Literature Including Talmud!”

1896: “About the Ancients” published today described Mr. Maspero’s confirmation of Mr. Flanders Petrie’s discovery of the work “Yisraal” on the Merenptah inscription and believes it to be the earliest mention of Israel so far found in Egypt…”

1896: “About the Ancients” published today described the work of Chabas who in 1864 when “studying the records of Ramses found the word ‘Apouriou’ and came to the hasty conclusion that ‘Apouriou’ meant Hebrew.” 

1896(2nd of Av, 5656): Moritz Kirstein, the native of Filehne who earned his M.D. in 1885 and was a member of the Berlin Board of Health, passed away today.

1896: “Art And Utility Linked” published today described The International Art Exhibition in Berlin which includes “Summer Evening In the Ghetto” by Ludwig Knaus that depicts “a centenary Hebrew…seated in a big armchair…attended by his granddaughter.”

http://www.superstock.com/preview.asp?image=1566-1228818&imagex=5&id=19927421&productType=3&pageStart=0&pageEnd=100&pixperpage=100&hitCount=5&filterForCat=&filterForFotog=

1896: Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet (Ribash) whose remains had been removed from his grave by orders of the government of Algiers was reinterred today. Sheshet was a Spanish Talmudic authority who had been born in 1326 and who had fled to Algeria in 1391 when the persecution of the Jews increased under the spell of the preaching of Fernandes Martinez. He passed away in 1408.  [For more about this sage see Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet and his times by Abraham Moses Hershman]

1896: Herzl attends a mass meeting at the workings-men's Club in the East End of London.  Working men’s clubs were designed to bring education and recreation for the members of Britain’s emerging working class at the end of the 19th century

1896: “An East Sided Romance” published today provides a detailed reviews of Yekl – A Tale of the New York Ghetto by Abraham Cahan.

http://blogcritics.org/book-review-yekl-a-tale-of/

1896: “New Plans for a Jewish State” published today described the creation of a chartered company to create a “Jewish autonomous state in Palestine” which the Turks “are to look favorably upon.”

1897: Forty Jewish families who arrived from Poland are being deported because it has been determined that “they are in a destitute condition” which means they are likely to become “public charges” which makes them ineligible for entry into the United States under the law.

1897: Birthdate of Sam Mintz, the native of Belarus the American writer who created almost 40 screenplays including “Skippy” which was nominated “in the category of Best Adapted Screenplay at the 4th Academy Awards.

1898: One day after she had passed away, 53-year-old “Fanny Levy, the widow of David Levy” was buried today at Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London

1899 (5th of Av): Seventy-nine-year-old German born Rabbi Israel Hildesheimer, the son of Rabbi Löb Glee Hildesheime and one of the founders of Modern Orthodox Judaism passed away.

http://israelphilately.org.il/en/catalog/articles/2228/Rabbi%20Azriel%20Hildesheimer

 1899: Maitre Demange, the counsel for Captain Alfred Dreyfus met with the President of the Court Martial regarding setting a date for the hearing and discussing the procedures to be followed.

1899: Attorney Maitre Demange met with Captain Dreyfus for two hours today.

1900: In Holyoke, MA, organization of Congregation Anshei Rodfei Sholem

1901: Birthdate of Benjamin Sonnenberg, the native of Brest-Litovsk whose “first work in the public relations field was writing stories for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/books/26sonnenberg.html

1902: Herzl submits a written outline of his plans and the need for financial support to Rothschild. “Aware of Rothschild’s aversion to settlement in Palestine, Herzl also told Rothschild about the settlement of European Jews in Mesopotamia proposed by the Sultan.

1903(17th of Tammuz, 5663): Tzom Tammuz

1903: “John B. Weber, ex-Commissioner of Immigration at the Port of New York and Chairman of the special commission authorized by Congress in 1888 to visit Europe and investigate the causes inciting immigration to the United States, spoke at Atlantic to-day before the Jewish Chautauqua on "The Status of the Jew in Russia."

1904: Birthdate of Pinchas Lavon, the native of Galicia who made Aliyah in 1929 and who is best known for his role in the Lavon Affair that occurred while he was serving as Minister of Defense.

1905: The Ninth Summer Assembly of the Jewish Chautauqua Society continued for a 5th day in Atlantic City, NJ.

1906: Birthdate of New York City native Henry Cohen the attorney who earned a BS at City College and a law degree at Harvard.

1906: In Lake Placid, NY, “Mrs. Samuel Greenbaum, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Greenbaum, was struck in the left eye by a golf ball today.

1906:  Colonel Alfred Dreyfus was finally pardoned, restored to his rank and returned to his regiment. The effects of the Dreyfus Affair did not end with the return of Dreyfus to active duty.  The Dreyfus Affair produced the modern Zionist political movement which in turn gave birth to the state of Israel.  The Dreyfus Affair also provided another dividing between the Left and the Right in both the French political and social scene and put another arrow in the quiver of right wing anti-Semites.  This would find full flower in the government at Vichy during World War II.

1906: The Central Conference of American Rabbis described today as “a day preceding closely the annual celebration of the victory of liberty in France” as “a red letter day in the history of Israel” because “it marks the triumph of righteousness in a cause which affected not just the individual (Dreyfus) but our whole people, the martyr people to which was assigned the mission ‘to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, and them that sit in darkness, out of the prison house.’”

1907: In Worcester, MA, Elias Harry Pofcher and Fanny G. Pofcher gave birth to Cecile Gwendolyn Pofcher who became Cecile Strauss when she married Harry Strauss.

1908:  In New York City, Moses Berlinger, “a paint and varnish salesman” and Sarah (Sadie) Glantz Berlinger gave birth to Mendel Berlinger who gained fame as Milton Berle, known to a whole generation of television as “Uncle Miltie” or Mr. Television, one of the first stars of the new medium in poster WW II America.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/mar/29/guardianobituaries

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Berle.html

http://www.miltonberle.com/about/biography.html

1908: It was reported that Dr. Moses Gaster has obtained an ancient copy of the Book of Joshua in Samaria.

1909: “Gertrude Hoffman returned to Broadway” tonight “ with her Salome dance which she “gave at Hammerstein’s Roof Garden.”

1909(23rd of Tammuz, 5669): On the Jewish calendar, yahrtzeit of Sir David Salomons, “the first Jewish Lord Mayor of London (5663)

1910: It was reported today that the striking members of the Cloakmakers Union, many of whose members were Jewish “marched across the plaza bridge” to the Jewish quarter” “where they invaded shop after shop and induced employees to join them.”

1910(5th of Tammuz, 5670): Hermann Armin Schuh, the husband of Vilma Schuh and the “father of Richard Schuh; Alice Rink and Walter Herbert Schuh” passed away today.

1911: In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the 15th annual summer assembly of the Jewish Chautauqua Society led by Chancellor Henry Berkowitz continued for a 6th day.

1911: Martin A. Marks of Cleveland, Ohio was “re-elected President of the Library Board” today.

1912: Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth (The Loves of Queen Elizabeth) a French silent film starring Sarah Bernhardt which was completed with funds from Adolph Zukor who “brought it to New York where it was released” today.

1913(7th of Tammuz, 5673): Parashat Balak

1913: During the Second Balkan War, DimitriI Auguelov, a wine merchant from Serres, who had been arrested on July 7 and was shut up in the school, escaped with a Jewish prisoner today and was concealed by Jews of the town.

1913: Birthdate of Mildred Cohn an American biochemist winner of the Garvan-Olin Medal the National Medal of Science and the first woman to become president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

1913: The National Conference of Charities and Correction which Simon I. Blum has been attending as a delegate from Illinois, is scheduled to come to an end today in Seattle, WA.

1913: It was reported today that Republican political leader Maurice J. Speiser, who had been serving as a member of the House of Representatives of the state of Pennsylvania has been appointed to serve as assistant district attorney.

1913: It was reported today that “Professor Nathan Slouschz has been made an officer of the Legion of Honor of Morocco by the Sultan in recognition of his services.”

1914(18th of Tammuz, 5674): Tzom Tammuz observed because the 17th fell on Shabbat

1914: As the Jews fasted, the world moved closer to war today when “Foreign Minister Leopold Berchtold presented the German foreign office with a draft of the ultimatum which would be presented to Serbia after the summit between French President Raymond Poincaré and Nicholas II of Russia.”

1914: Birthdate of Boston native Avery Berlow Cohan, the graduate of Cornell who earned a Ph.D. at Columbia before serving as a teaching fellow at Harvard and a professor of finance at the University of North Carolina at Chapel for twenty years.

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/02/23/archives/avery-berlow-cohan-62-a-professor-of-finance.html?searchResultPosition=1

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Cohan%2C%20Avery%20B%2E%20%28Avery%20Berlow%29%2C%201914%2D

1915(1st of Av, 5675): Rosh Chodesh Av

1915(1st of Av, 5675): Rabbi Abraham Baum passed away today at Augusta, GA.

1915: Opening of the Summer Session The Teacher’s Institute of the Hebrew Union College.

1915: In New York City, “the summer course in social service conducted by the Jewish Chautauqua Society opened today at the Free Synagogue House” with introductory remarks by Abram I. Elkus, President of the Society, followed by a speech by Dr. Henry Berkowitz, “the Chancellor of the Society.”

1915: There were approximately 125 delegates scheduled to attend the second day of convention of the United Synagogue of America being held at the Hotel Nautilus at Arverne, Long Island where they were expected to respond to Dr. Cyrus Adler’s call for the Jews of the United States “and Canada” to “make further efforts to help those of their race who were suffering in the countries at war.”

1916: One day after he resigned as Municipal Court Judge in Chicago, Joseph Sabath was appointed by the Governor of Illinois to as Judge of the Superior Court of Cook County.

1916: “When he did not receive the annuity granted to VC (Victoria Cross) recipients,” thirty-year old Leonard Maurice Keysor, the native of London today “wrote to the Military Secretary enquiring when he could expect to receive it.

1916: Thirty-one year old Budapest born Wheeling, W.VA liquor dealer and Cleveland, OH investment broker Samuel Ungerleider married Selma Dallet today.

1917: In Rutland, VT, Hyman Abramson, the “son of Abraham and Stella Abramson, and his wife Ada Abramson gave birth to Harry Abramson

1917(22nd of Tammuz, 5677): Forty-seven year old Samuel I. Hyman, the son of Polish born Talmudist Gerson Hyman, the husband of the former Tillie Endel with whom he had two children – Norma and George – and the founder of S.I. Hyman and Brother whose leadership in the Jewish community can be seen in his helping to build the 85th Street and the Far Rockaway synagogues and serving as “a member of the Executive Committee of the Kahila, passed away today.

1917: It was reported today from Russia that “after a consultation with Chief of Staff Aleksei Brusilov it was announced that the army would have Jewish chaplains in addition to orthodox priests” and that “Rabbi Jeffa of Tamboy” is the first person to be appointed with a total of thirty more to be named.

1918: According to reports from Copenhagen sent to the Exchange Telegraph in London today, “the Finnish Senate has decided to expel all Jews from Finland” which means that more than 300 Jewish families will be forced to leave the country.”  (Editor’s Note – While Finland may have gained its independence from Russia, it has clung to the anti-Semitism of the imperial domain.)

1918: “In a letter received by David Agramowski bearing today’s date, Hillel Agramwoski from Brooklyn who had been serving with the 9th Infantry since 1917 and was missing in action wrote his brother that “he had been cited in orders.

1918: In Manhattan, Helen Oppenheimer and clothing salesman Leonard Isaac gave birth to Doris Isaac who gained fame as “Doris Grumbach, who in novels, essays and literary criticism explored the social and psychic hardships of women trapped in repressive families or disintegrating marriages, and who, as modern feminism came of age in the 1970s and ’80s, portrayed lesbian characters and themes in a positive light that was then unusual in mainstream fiction.” (As reported by Robert McFadden)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/07/novelist-critic-doris-grumbach-dead/

https://www.nyswritersinstitute.org/post/doris-grumbach-a-remembrance

1919: Birthdate of George Weissman, “who helped transform Philip Morris from a midlevel tobacco company to a diversified conglomerate known for contributions to the arts, and who then led Lincoln Center for nearly a decade.”  “Baruch College's Weissman School of Arts and Sciences is named after him, and his wife Mildred.” Weissman had graduated from Baruch when it was the business school of the City College of New York

1919: Abraham Schrameck completed his service as Governor-General of Madagascar.

1920: In London, at Albert Hall, “ten thousand Jews, on the occasion of Great Britain’s acceptance of the mandate for Palestine…unanimously adopted resoltuions expressing their appreciations for “the illustrious services rendered to the Jewish nation by the statesman and peoples of the Allied and Associated Powers, particularly Great Britain” and adopted resolutions pledging “the Jews ‘to spare no effort or sacrifice for the rebuilding of Palestine as a Jewish national home, in collaboration with the inhabitants of the country.”

1920: Of the 62 winners of the state scholarships for Cornell University “in the Greater New York area” announced today, 26 were Jews.

1920: “An official dispatch arrived” in London stating that “Valdimir Jabotinsky and his comrades where were sentenced to prison for organizing a self-defense united during the” Arab riots in Jerusalem “have been freed.

1920: Today, “the Summer School of the Free Synagogue under the direction of Rabbi Sidney E. Goldstein began its second with a series of lectures by Professor F.J. Foakes Jackes of the Union Theological Seminary” which will be followed by a course taught be Rabbi Stephen S. Wise.

1920: The Lithuanian Wars of Independence with the signing of the Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty in which the Soviet Union recognized the independence of Lithuania. Over 3,000 Jews fought with the Lithuanian Army during the fight for independence.  Jewish support would be rewarded with a certain amount of autonomy and acceptance which erode with the growth of anti-Semitism in the 1930’s.

1920: Garolyi Huszar, the former Hungarian Premier whom the Federation of Hungarian Jews in American demanded be deported arrived aboard the SS Rotterdam in a first class cabin with a passport and not as a stowaway trying to sneak into the country.

1921: “New York banker Joseph L. Seligman, also known as J.L. Seligman reported the theft of his wife's jewels, valued at $25,000, while the couple was sailing from Europe to New York as first class passengers aboard the White Star Line, Olympic.”

1921: Sixty-nine-year-old Hungarian native Rabbi Joseph Zeisler, the son Edouard and Josefine Zeisler, the “husband of Mrs. Hermaine Kafka Zeisler and father of Eugene, Cornelius, Pauline and Florance Zeisle” who had led several congregations including San Bernardino’s Congregation Emanu El and Beth Ha-Tefilah in Ashville, NC, was buried today.

1922: “Major W.T. Blake, the British aviator who is attempting a flight around the world left Zisa, Palestine for Baghdad this morning.”

1922: David A. Brown, Chairman of the National Appeal for the Relief of Jewish Suffers, is spending his second day aboard the Cunard liner Berengaria as he heads for a meeting of the commission recently appoint by the American Jewish Relief Committee.

1923: On Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Louis Berger, a furrier, and his wife Rebecca gave birth to Seymour “Sy” Perry Berger, “the father of the modern-day baseball trading card.” (As reported by Richard Goldstein)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/15/sports/baseball/sy-berger-91-dies-created-the-modern-baseball-trading-card.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1923: In Ferndale, NY, Jack Feldman who “ran a Catskill resort known as the Queen Mountain House” and his wife gave birth to Fred Feldman who gained fame movie producer Freddie Fields,   the brother of bandleader of Shep Fields. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/arts/13fields.html

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/people/2007-12-12-freddie-fields-obit_N.htm

1923: The New York Times publishes a letter from Meyer Dizengoff, Mayor of Tel Aviv thanking everybody from the Mayor on down for the hospitality shown to him during his recent trip to New York.  He expressed his hope that the “first Jewish city” would benefit from the things shown him including the city’s public utility system.

1924(10th of Tammuz, 5684): Parashat Chukat

1924: “Rumors to the effect that the Russian government had decided to grant autonomy to the Jews living in a certain section of the Ukraine and Northern Crimea….seem to have been laid to rest as of today.

1925: “The Cabinet department having to do with regulations concerning minority populations had adopted a series of resolutions intended to give effect to the Government’s recent promise to improve conditions of the Jewish populations.”

1926: Jewish middleweight Abie Bain beat Jack McVey, “the Pride of Harlem due to a disqualification by McVey in the fifth round at Laurel Garden in Newark, NJ.

1927:  According to reports by the correspondent for the Daily Mail, Palestine is in shambles following the recent earthquake.  He reports riots, failed businesses and the plans for departure by many of the Jewish immigrants.  His description is at odds with those of Jewish leaders and agencies including Hadassah.

1928:  Joseph C. Hyman, the Secretary of the American Jewish Joint Agriculture Corporation declare that “recent statements coming from Europe that the Russian Government has decided to promote the settlement of individual Jews on the land among the general peasant population, instead of continuing the colonization of Jews in compact communities are untrue.”

1929: Having premiered at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on the west coast and in New York City on the east coast, “The Broadway Melody,” the first “talkie” to win an Oscar for Best picture produced by Irving Thalberg and Lawrence Weingarten, with music by Arthur Freed and starring Eddie Kane who would be buried at Mt. Sinai Cemetery in Los Angeles, was released throughout the United States today.

1929: In Greenpoint, Brooklyn Gertrude Edelstein and Fred Himmelbaum gave birth to “producer, director, writer and editor whose film credits included two Jack Nicholson Westerns, “The Shooting” and “Ride in the Whirlwind.”

1930(16th of Tammuz, 5690) Parashat Balak

1930: “Despite all measure taken by (Hungarian) authorities, anti-Semitic disturbances continue at Borza” where 1,500 anti-Semites advance on the village.”

1931: Fifty-two Revisionists delegates bolted the Zionist meet after their resolution favoring a Jewish State with a Jewish majority on both side of the Jordan River had been defeated.

1932: Helen Menken, who had divorced Humphrey Bogart married Dr. Henry T. Smith.

1933: Founding of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) whose early success was due in part to the friendship of its second President, Eddie Cantor with FDR.

1934: Memorial services are held at Carnegie Hall in honor of the late Hebrew poet laureate, Chaim Nachman Bialik whom Mrs. Samuel Halprin, President of Hadassah described as “the embodiment of Jewish life” whose “gifts were the apotheosis of Jewish creative life.”

1935: “The Murder Man,” a “crime drama” produced by Harry Rapf was released today in the United States.

1935(11th of Tammuz, 5695): Three decades after being exonerated of all charges, Colonel Alfred Dreyfus passed away at the age of 75.

http://www.zionism-israel.com/dic/Dreyfus_Affair.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Dreyfus

1935:  “Mad Love” a horror film directed by Karl Fruend, starring Peter Lorre with music by Dimitri Z. Tiomkin was released in the United States today.

1936: The Palestine Post reported that a Jewish mechanic, Dov Ben-Ammi, 30, was killed and several persons were injured when a bus overturned into a ditch as the result of an Arab ambush near Jenin. Four Arabs were killed in this incident and in an attempt to derail a train in the same neighborhood. Two watchmen, Zvi Lichtenberg and Dov Deitler, were injured in two separate Arab attacks on Jewish settlements.

1936: Following last night’s announcement by Chancellor Kurt Schusnigg of an agreement between Austria and Nazi Germany, it was reported that “the Jewish population is fearful” seeing this as being the opening “to rapid Nazification of Austria and the introduction of German methods of anti-Semitism.”

1936: It was reported today “Hitler is finally prepared to recognize, nominally at least, the independence of Austria but that he is unable “to alter his attitude” on the question of “Jews and Communists” whom are “to be exterminated.”

1936: An unnamed “young Jewish tailor walking in a Jewish residential quarter was fired on by Arabs who jumped from behind a wall.”

1936: As Arab violence continued in Palestine, “Isaac Cohen one of the leading merchants of Jerusalem was shot and seriously wounded” “while walking home from his store” which brought expression of “indignation” from “moderate Arabs” because Cohen “is an Oriental Jew counting more friends among the Arabs than among Jews.”

1936: Seventy-one-year-old Samuel Parkes Cadman the English born American Clergyman whose support of Jews can be measured by his appearance at a non-sectarian mass meeting in 1916 to raise funds for the relief of Jews in the war zones of Europe as well as by his support the 1935 UJA drive to raise funds for the “rehabilitation of Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe” and calls to boycott the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany passed away today.

1937: “Abbie an’ Slats” initially written by Al Capp appeared for the first time.

1937: A delegation from the American Jewish Congress led by its President, Dr. Stephen S. Wise gave Secretary of State Cordell Hull a memorandum describing the oppression and discrimination suffered by the Jews of Poland which led Hull to admit that he was aware of the conditions of the Jews but made no statement about any attempts to interfere in any way to aid “the most oppressed and perhaps the most desperate group of human beings.” (Editor’s note – Hull’s response was consistent with the isolationist mentality in the United States as well as the prevailing anti-Semitism at the Department and his fear of being philo-Semitic because of his wife’s Jewish origins.)

1938: In “commenting on a telegram sent from a group of Williams College undergraduate and Raymond Ingersoll, the Brooklyn  Borough  President, to the head librarian of the Austrian National Library offering to buy those ‘non-Aryan’ books that they suspect will be destroyed or removed, the Boersen Zeitgung,” a German newspaper today dismissed their concerns in an editor that ended by stating “that since academic circles in the United States are so preponderantly Jewish the object of the telegram may not have been so much the specific one mentioned as the mere desire to contribute to the wave of anti-German propaganda in the United States.”  (Editor’s Note – Guess the newspaper missed the book burnings in Germany)

1939: Malcolm MacDonald, the Colonial Secretary announced today that “the immigration of Jews into Palestine will be halted at the end of September and no new quota will be issued for the following six months because of the influx of illegal immigrants…”

1940: Today, twenty-seven-year-old Canadian composer John Jacob Weinzweig married Helen Tenenbaum who gained famed as author Helen Winzweig whose “novel Basic Black with Pearls won the Toronto Book Award in 1981.”

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/helen-weinzweig-toronto-author-of-surreal-fiction-dead-at-age-94/article1208661/

1940: A memorandum prepared by OKW describing the plans for Operation Sea Lion which if successful would bring the Holocaust to England, was issued today.

1940(6th of Tammuz, 5700): Sixty-nine-year-old Victor Rosewater, former editor of the Omaha (Nebraska) Bee and Republican political powerhouse, passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F10B11F7395A11728DDDAA0994DF405B8088F1D3

1941(17th of Tammuz, 5701): Parashat Balak

1941(17th of Tammuz, 5701): Controversial Russian born chess champion and author Charles Jaffe passed away today in Brooklyn.

1941; Following the start of Operation Barbarossa, today Sir Stafford Cripps, British Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs signed a pact pledging the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom “to cooperate in the war against Nazi Germany and not to make a separate peace with Germany.”

1941: “The Bride Came C.O.D.” a comedy featuring George Tobias with a script co-authored by Julius and Philip G. Epstein and music by Max Steiner was released in the United States today.

1942: Today “the remaining Jews of Sevastopol - men, women, children, and the elderly, were brought by policemen to the Dinamo Stadium where they were told to take with them provisions for three days on the pretext that they were going to be resettled.:

1942: The SS President Warfield, a ship belonging to the Baltimore Steam Pack Company that had been sailing between Baltimore, MD and Norfolk, VA since 1928 was acquired by the War Shipping Administration today.  The ship was converted into a military transport and was turned over to the British. The irony of this is that the Warfield would morph into the SS Exodus five years later in an attempt to run the British blockade of Palestine.

1942: While flying a Spitfire today, Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot George Beurling, who would die while flying for the Israeli Air Force in 1948, shot down two more enemy plane over Malta.

1943: On the back of a “picture of young Louis Loewe” an orientalist and companion of Moses Montefiore his 92 year old son James Lowe wrote cryptically “The original oil painting are today the property of the heirs of my sister Pauline Hirscfeld…”

1944: In New York City, Phoebe and Henry Ephron gave birth to Delia Ephron the multi­-talented writer whose work includes a marvelous off-beat film, “Michael” which gave John Travolta a chance to literally and figuratively spread his comedic wings.

1944:  Many of the 8000 Jews remaining in the Kovno (Lithuania) Ghetto are killed, and the ghetto is burned. Nearby, a Lithuanian carpenter named Jan Pauvlavicius shields at least eight Kovno Jews in a hiding place he has constructed in his cellar.

1944: In Baltimore, MD, bartender Joseph Rubin and Annette Rubin gave birth to Arlene Rubin who gained fame as Arlene Raven “a co-founder of numerous feminist art organizations in Los Angeles in the 1970s.”

1944: Birthdate of Michael Abraham Levy, “a Labour member of the House of Lords who was the chief fundraiser for the UK Labour Party and long-standing friend of former Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

1945: “The Polish military authorities in Palestine who are under the order of the former Polish Government in London have arrested Colonel Podwysock, the Polish commandant of Vilna at the outbreak of WW II who had planned on returning to Poland

1945: “Menuhin Plays In London” published today described a concert at Albert Hall which was a designed to raise funds for Jews in liberated Europe during which violinist Yehudi Menuhin proposed dedicating “this concert in memory of those of our people martyred at the hands of fascism.”

1946: “Twenty-two more Jews have been killed in fresh outbreaks of persecution, the Polish Government reports said today, and violence against Jews appeared to be spreading despite Government efforts at suppression.”

1947(24th of Tammuz, 5707): Parashat Pinchas

1947: “The willingness of the world Zionist movement to consider proposals for a partition of Palestine was repudiated today by the United Zionist Revisionists, who rejoined the movement last year.”

1948(5th of Tammuz, 5708): Ninety-one-year-old Dr. Solomon Solis Cohen, the son of Myer David Cohen and Judith Simha Solis who graduated from Jefferson Medical College and taught at Philadelphia Polyclinic and Dartmouth College while helping to found the YMHA of Philadelphia, the Jewish Publication Society of America and attending the Third Zionist Congress at Basel passed away today.

http://www.jta.org/1948/07/14/archive/dr-solomon-solis-cohen-dies-at-90-member-of-family-that-settled-here-in-colonial-days

1948:  During the War of Independence, Israeli forces took Ramle.  With the end of the truce, Israeli forces sought to strengthen their position in the area between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  The victory at Ramle, which had been preceded by the successfully seizure of the airport at Lod, was part of that plan which forced the Israelis to fight the Arab Legion, the name of the Jordanian Army which was an elite military force.

1948: Israeli forces defeated Iraqi troops at Rosh Ha-Ayin.  This village controlled the headwaters of the Yarkon River, the source of much of Jerusalem’s water supply.  Continued control of the Yarkon would have left Jerusalem at the mercy of the Arabs. 

1948: As part of Operation Danny, the Palmach began an attack on the village of Suba.

1948: As they renewed their drive on Tel Aviv, Egyptian forces attacked the settlement of Negba in the northern Negev. The Egyptians opened the attack with air attacks and artillery barrages.  The battle lasted for over seven hours with at least four thousand shells falling on Negba.  In the end, the 150 defenders hung on and the Egyptians withdrew. 

1948: Les Shagam of 101 Squadron north from the field at Herzliya to provide air cover over Mishmar HaYardan where he would Syrian AT-6s.

1949: “In a stuffy courtroom, one of the smallest in the Palais de Justice, Otto Abetz, Hitler's Ambassador to France during the Nazi occupation, went on trial today before a French military tribunal of six Army and Navy officers and a civil judge” facing a six-count indictment that included his role in “the deportation of Jews from France to Eastern Europe.” (Editor’s note – a polite euphemism for the death camps.)

1950: Syrian forces killed “one Israeli today and wounded another as they went to the aide of an Israeli police patrol boat whose propeller had become enmeshed in submerged nets along the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee.  Israel has lodged a strong complaint with the United Nations…”

1950: The Israeli Government clarified its position today on the proposed establishment of a new oil refinery in Haifa and the allocation of exploratory oil rights to independent American oil companies as recently reported. Bartley Crum is representing the interests of American companies while Finance Minister Kaplan and his Under-Secretary David Horowitz are negotiating on behalf of the Israelis.

1950: U.S. premiere of “Three Little Words” a musical biography based on the lives of Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar with a score by André Previn.

1951: In Los Angeles, Arlene Becker Grazer, who was Jewish and criminal defense attorney Thomas Grazer who was not gave birth to Oscar winning Producer and Screenwriter Brian Thomas Grazer, a business partner of Ron Howard’s and in 2007 one of Time's "100 Most Influential People in the World".[

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that seven marauders were killed and several others wounded in an engagement with an Israeli patrol on Jordanian border. Tel Aviv set up ice rationing to a fourth of a block per consumer daily. It was hoped that this ration would be increased to the third of a block on weekends.

1952(19th of Tammuz, 5712): Parashat Pinchas

1952(19th of Tammuz, 5712): Cora (Woodruff) Cukor, the wife of businessman Morris Cukor passed away today in Los Angeles.

1953: The Foreign Ministry of Israel transferred its offices from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

1953: Birthdate of Mexican human rights activist Andrés Roemer, who protested anti-Israel United Nations resolutions.

http://forward.com/news/world/353447/mexicos-jewish-envoy-slammed-by-all-sides-after-unesco-vote-drama/

1956:” Sidney Schwartz reached the semi-finals of the New York State clay court tennis championships” today.

1958: Harvard educated Washington lawyer and U.S. Air Force veteran, Ralph Isaac Petersburger  the Davenport, IA born sone of Bernice Klemperer and Richard Pertersburger married Helen Blackham today.

1960(17th of Tammuz, 5720): Tzom Tammuz observed for the last time during the Presidency of D.D. Eisenhower.

1960(17th of Tammuz, 5720): Fifty-four-year-old producer E. Maurice “Buddy Adler, the husband of Anita Louise Fernault, who was responsible for bring such classics as the Oscar winning “From Here to Eternity,” “Bus Stop” and “South Pacific” to the screen passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1950/04/16/132798832.html?pageNumber=247

1960(17th of Tammuz, 5720): Sixty-six-year-old Vilna born Reform Rabbi Joseph Louis Baron  who “taught at an extension of the University of Iowa and helped found Congregation Judah of Cedar Rapids, Iowa” passed away today.

http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0424/ms0424.html

https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=wiarchives;cc=wiarchives;view=text;rgn=main;didno=uw-whs-mil00173

1961(28th of Tammuz, 5721): Seventy-eight-year-old Palestine native Isaac Alpern, the founder and President of Alpern and Company, “the largest realty concern in Middlesex County, NJ,” the “former President of the Perth Amboy Trust Company and the Raritan Trust Company” who “was instrumental in promoting the construction of a Young Men’s Hebrew Association building in Perth Amboy” passed away today in Beverly Hills, CA.

1962(10th of Tammuz, 5722): Fifty-four-year-old Roger Wolfe Kahn, orchestra leader and aviation enthusiast, who was a son of the late Otto H. Kahn, the financier,” passed away this afternoon at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/07/13/81791687.html?pageNumber=23

https://syncopatedtimes.com/roger-wolfe-kahn-and-his-orchestra/

1963(20th of Tammuz, 5723): In Charlotte Amalie, Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, 78-year-old Lithuanian born merchant Isaac Paiwonsky, whose interests included everything from a distillery to a soft drink factory and with his wife Rebecca had four children including “Ralph Paiwonsky, the first St. Thomisan-born Governor of the Virgin Islands” passed away today after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage

1963: It was reported today that “a recording breaking total of $2,232,942 was raised at the annual “Country Club Day for CJA,” a fund raising even for the Combined Jewish Appeal of Metropolitan Chicago in which almost 1,000 golfers took part.

1964(3rd of Av, 5724): Hunter College educated painter, etcher and sculptor, Jessie Ansbacher, the Wilkes-Barre, PA born daughter of Rachel Schwab and Solomon Ansbacher whose work included a portrait of John Guggenheim hanging in the Corcoran Gallery, Girl with A Muff and Boy with an Apple and who was a member of Temple Emanu-El passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/07/14/archives/jessie-ansbacher-is-dead-a-painter-and-portraitist.html

1964: In France premiere of “Joy House” a mystery film with music by Lalo Schifrin

1967: As the sun rose this morning sailors aboard the INS Eilat and their comrades aboard two torpedo boats savored their victory over the Egyptian off the Rumani coast where they sank two enemy vessels without suffering any casualties.

1965: Recording of the best-known version of P.F. Sloan’s “Eve of Destruction” which was released by Dunhill Records began today.

1968: “A Lovely Way To Die” a crime movie starring Kirk Douglas and Eli Wallach was released today in the United States.

1968(15th of Tammuz, 5728): Seventy-three-year-old Hartford, CT born Charlotte S. Friedman Fine, the wife of Gorge Fine and the mother the late Prof. Irving FINE, former head of the Brandeis University Music Department passed away today after which she was buried in the Sharon Memorial Park, In Sharon, MA.

1969: First broadcast of “Doctor in the House” a British comedy series featuring Anglo-Jewish actor Jonathan Lynn as “medical student Danny Hooley.”

1969: It was reported today that Laurie Segel of Miami, Fred Turoff of Philadelphia, and Mark Cohn of Philadelphia, “the winner of the all-around championship in 1965” have been “named to represent the United States in gymnastics in the 8th World Maccabiah Games” to be held in Israel later this month.

1970(8th of Tammuz, 5730): Eighty-three-year-old Odessa born song writer Louis Wolfe Gilbert the husband of Rose Gilbert and member of Temple Israel in Hollywood whose first hit came in 1912 when he wrote the lyrics “Waiting for Robert E. Lee” and moved on to Hollywood in 1929 where wrote for “film, television and radio including the Eddie Cantor Show” and created the lyrics for the popular Hopalong Cassidy Television show passed away today.

1974: Confrontation: The Middle East and World Politics by Walter Laqueur, The Jews in Their Land, conceived and edited by David Ben-Gurion, translated by Mordechai Nurock and MIsha Louvish and Kabbalah by Gershom Scholem were on the “New Books” list published today.

1976: It was reported today that Idi Amin, President of Uganda had called Baruch Bar-Lev, a retired Israeli Lt. Col. who had served in Uganda.  Reportedly Amin asked Bar-Lev to tell Prime Minister Rabin that “he was finished with terrorists” which apparently meant that he would no longer deal with groups like the pro-Palestinian terrorists who had held Jewish hostages at Entebbe.  Amin also asked Bar-Lev if the Israelis would spare parts for his military equipment as it had when the two nations had diplomatic relations.

1976: The Jerusalem Post reported from Washington that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said that Israel considered Idi Amin and his Ugandan government responsible for the fate of Mrs. Dora Bloch, the 75-year-old woman of dual British and Israeli citizenship, left behind in a Ugandan hospital, following the rescue of more than 100 hostages at Entebbe airport. The Israeli Embassy in London expressed surprise that Britain sent condolences to Idi Amin on the death of the seven Ugandan soldiers killed during the raid.

1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that while fierce fighting went on in Lebanon between PLO leftist groups and Christians, over 1,700 Lebanese received medical attention at the Israeli army clinics set up on the border.

1977(18th of Tammuz, 5549): Sixty-nine-years-old William Adelman, the husband of “the former Doris Mensch” and father of Richard, Mark and Robert Adelman who was “executive director for 27 years of Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx” passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/07/14/archives/william-adelman-69-an-authority-in-healthcare-services-for-aged.html?searchResultPosition=1

1977: The 12th Maccabiah opens

1978(7th of Tammuz, 5738): Eighty-year-old Paul Parnes the son of Louis and Clara Asia Parnes and the husband of Fay Parnes with whom he had two children – Arlene and William -- passed away today in Hollywood, FL after which he was buried at Mt. Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, NY.

1978: In the Soviet Union, the trial of Natan Sharansky continued for a third day today.

1978: Louis H. Pollak began serving as a Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

1979(17th of Tammuz, 5739): Tzom Tammuz

1979(17th of Tammuz, 5739): Ninety-year-old Savannah, GA native and Bryn Mawr College graduate Zipporah “Zip” Szold, the fourth president of Hadassah and wife of labor lawyer and Zionist Robert Szold passed away today in New York City.

1981: “Prime Minister Menachem Begin today compared the June 7 attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor to the Israeli mission that recued more than 100 hostages in Entebbe, Uganda, on July 4, 1976” saying at a ceremony commemorating the fifth anniversary of the death of Lieut. Col. Yehonatan Netanyahu, the commander of the Entebbe raid “that both were "rescue operations."

1982(21st of Tammuz, 5742): Ninety-six-year-old “radical, activist Clara Lemlich Shavelson” whose daughter Rita Margules was one of many who believed “she changed the world” starting with the mass meeting that followed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory” passed away today

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/shavelson-clara-lemlich

1983: The Frank Memorial Synagogue a synagogue in Philadelphia, named after philanthropist Henry S. Frank, which “was built in 1901 on the grounds of the Jewish Hospital of Philadelphia, now the Albert Einstein Medical Center” “was added to the National Register of Historic Places today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_S._Frank_Memorial_Synagogue#/media/File:Frank_Synogue_Philly.JPG

1984: The Willis Eye Hospital non-profit eye clinic and hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where Isaac Hays practiced from its opening until 1854 was placed on the National Registry of Historic Places today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wills_Eye_Hospital#/media/File:Wills_Hospital,_Philadelphia,_by_Newell,_R.,_d._1897.jpg

1985: Thomas R. Pickering appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

1985: Lawrence Kasdan’s western “Silverado” co-starring Kevin Kline and Jeff Goldblum premiered in the United States.

1987(15th of Tammuz, 5747): Sixty-year-old Yale educated moviemaker and photojournalist Peter R. Gimble the New York City born son of Alva Bernheimer and Bernard Feustman Gimble the great-grandson of “merchant prince Adam Gimble whose famous photos of the wreck of the Adrea Doria were published in Life passed away today.

1988: Due to his disappointment with Mapam's policy towards the First Intifada, Muhammed Wattad left Mapam to join Hadash

1989: "When Harry Met Sally," with a screenplay by Nora Ephron, which would be nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award was released today in the United States.

1989(9th of Tammuz, 5749): Eighty-six-year-old conservative political philosopher Sidney Hook passed away today. (As reported by Richard Bernstein)

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/14/obituaries/sidney-hook-political-philosopher-is-dead-at-86.html

1989: In writing about the condition of Jewish Day Schools in New York, the Times said today that “the yeshivas combined vocational and spiritual training – Talmud above all, Torah, Hebrew language and Jewish history from eight to three” followed by training in “secular subjects in the afternoon until six or beyond in high school.”

1989: Today, in writing about Jewish educational practices, “Joseph Berger suggested that the teaching methods left something to be desired, since the rabbinical seminaries had ‘little forma training in education, a situation that is a legacy of the traditional forms of Jewish education” that had been prevalent “in the lost Jewish schools of Europe” where even if the teacher was less than competent, “the cohesiveness of the Jewish communities was such that even if the teach lacked magnetism or finesse, the lesson would eventually sink in.”

1990(19th of Tammuz, 5750): While serving as a member of the New York State from the 38th district Brooklyn born U.S. Navy veteran and Republican Party leader Eugene Levy, the husband of Geraldine Schack Levy and father of William and Felicia Levy who began his career by being elected to the New York State Assembly in 1968 and who  helped found Camp Venture, Rockland County's first day camp for mentally handicapped children passed away today.

1991(1st of Av, 5751): Rosh Chodesh Av

1991: Release date for “Regarding Henry” directed by Mike Nichols, co-produced by Mike Nichols with a script by J.J. Abrams.

1993: The “original West End production” of “Sunset Boulevard,” a musical based on Billy Wilder's Academy Award-winning 1950 film of the same title opened today at the Adelphi Theatre in London.

1994: “True Lies,” edited by Marc Goldblatt was released in the United States today.

1995: In “For MCA and Hollywood, a Generational Shit” published today, Bernard Weinraub described the impact of Lew Wasserman stepping down as Chairman of MCA, the entertainment giants owned by Seagram Company which Edgar Bronfman serves as president and CEO.

1996: Amschel Rothschild, the man who many people believed was in line to lead the Rothschild family's legendary banking dynasty, committed suicide this week, the company said today. Relatives of the 41-year-old Mr. Rothschild refused to give any details of his death, which was originally reported as having resulted from a heart attack. Amschel's grandfather Charles committed suicide in 1923 while suffering from encephalitis, a brain illness. "One has to realize the kind of pressure that someone who belongs to a family with that much money and that much in the public eye comes under," said Derek Wilson, author of "Rothschild: A Story of Wealth and Power."  "Some members thrive on it, and others don't. Some want to be quiet people, but as a Rothschild you can never be that." Mr. Rothschild, who is a member of the sixth generation of the family, entered the family business in 1988, rising to chairman of Rothschild Asset Management in 1990. Many experts said that put him in line to succeed Sir Evelyn, who is 64, as chairman of the entire bank. The most likely candidate to succeed Sir Evelyn now appears to be a French cousin, David Rothschild, though there is some question as to whether the City's British banking establishment would react well to working with a member of the French branch of the family. Amschel's brother, Lionel, is said to be a "gentleman farmer" who is not interested in being part of the banking business. Sir Evelyn's oldest son is considered too young for the job and is reported to have shown little interest in finance.

1996: Hazel Josephine Cosgrove (Lady Cosgrove) began serving as a Senator of the College of Justice making her the first woman to be appointed as a judge of Scotland’s Supreme Court.

1998(18th of Tammuz, 5758): Tzom Tammuz observed

1998: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness by Edward K. Kaplan and Samuel H. Dresner and Mrs. Einstein by Anna McGrail.

2000(9th of Tammuz, 5760): Eighty-year-old Alf James, the South African boxer born Alfred Abraham, passed away today in Pretoria.

2001: Daniel C. Kurtzer appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

2002: “Road to Perdition” starring Paul Newman with music by Thomas Newman the son of composer Alfred Newman was released today in the United States

2002(3rd of Av, 5762): Dr. Bertram Douglas Cohn, the husband of Rita Brettschneidr Cohn and “founding Chief of Pediatric Surgery at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn” passed away today.

2003(12th of Tammuz, 5763): Parashat Chukat Balak

2003 In “A Lawyer’s Mind Channels Moses, Ralph Blumenthal reviews Moses: A Memoir by Joel Cohen which is the “unauthorized sixth book of Moses” designed to follow the standard Five Books of Moses.

2004(23rd of Tammuz, 5764): Sergeant Maayan Naim, 19, was killed by terrorists in Israel.

2005: Rod Rosenstein, who would find himself caught up in the investigations regarding President Donald Trump, began serving as the United States Attorney for the District of Maryland during the Presidency of George W. Bush today.

2006: Today “the Alabama-Coushatta tribe filed a federal racketeering lawsuit against now-convicted Jack Abramoff and his cohorts.”

2006: Baron Michael Levy was arrested and questioned in connection with the "Cash for Honours" inquiry by the Metropolitan Police today, concerning the allegation that monies were paid to political parties in return for peerages. It would take a year for authorities to decide not to prosecute due to lack of evidence.

2006: Jerusalem's Confederation House, one of the premier venues for ethnic music in Israel, presents the first in a series of three concerts based on bakashot (requests), songs of supplication traditionally sung during the early hours of Shabbat morning in Middle Eastern Jewish communities.

2006: “In the presence of the living descendants of both Émile Zola and Alfred Dreyfus,” French President “Jacques Chirac held an official state ceremony marking the centenary of the official rehabilitation of Dreyfus” “in the same cobblestone courtyard of Paris's École Militaire where Captain Dreyfus had been officially stripped of his officer's rank.”

2006: The July War or Second Lebanon War began when Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon attacked IDF forces in Israel with rockets and mortars.  Besides killing IDF soldiers, Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers.  Apparently, they planned on using them as bargaining chips in some future action. Amir Peretz was the Defense Minister when the war began.

2006: Today, four years after “he had revealed that he Parkinson’s disease,” Michael Kinsley, “under went deep brain stimulation, a type of surgery designed to reduce its symptoms.”

2006(16th of Tammuz, 5766): Ninety-five-year-old “Sylvia Maibuam, the widow of screenwriter Richard Maibum who wrote 13 James Bond films” passed away today.

2006: The following were among a total of 43 Israeli civilians (including four who died of heart attacks during rocket barrages) and 116 IDF soldiers who were killed in the Israel-Hizbullah war: Sgt.-Maj. Shani Turgeman, 24, of Beit She'an; Sgt.-Maj Eyal Benin, 22, of Omer; Wasim Nazal, 27, of Yanuh-Jat; St.-Sgt. Alexei Kushnirski, 21, of Ness Ziona; Sgt. Yaniv Bar-On, 19, of Maccabim; Sgt. Nimrod Cohen, 19, of Kibbutz Mitzpe Shalem; Sgt.-Maj. St.-Sgt. Gadi Musiev, 20; St.-Sgt. Shlomi Yirmiyahu, 20

2007: In Rochester, N.Y., a screening of “The Cantor’s Son” at the Rochester Jewish Film Festival.

2007: In Jerusalem, at a concert "Libi Er," my heart is awake, performs songs, ballads, prayers, and original ethnic music at the Confederation House.

2007: The Conference on the Future of the Jewish People meeting in Jerusalem comes to a close.

2008: Day Two of the 25th annual Jerusalem Film Festival, which offers screenings of 200 local and international films highlighting a wide range of genres within categories such as new features, acclaimed documentaries, avant garde films, shorts, animation, retrospectives and classics. Special focus is placed on new directors, films that capture the Jewish experience and French cinema, among other areas of interest.

2008: In Melbourne, opening of the first Australian production of the Stephen Schwartz musical “Wicked.”

2009: As of today, Brad Ausmus “was third all-time among catchers in fielding percentage.”

2009: After over a century of being in business, all of the Gottschalks stores were closed for good. Emil Gottschalk, an immigrant Jew from Germany had opened the first of the stores to bear his name in 1904 in Fresno, California.  One of the Gottschalk stores had been located at Wasilla, Alaska, the town that Sarah Pallin would make famous.

2009: In Tel Aviv, Israel faces Russia in Day 3 of the Davis Cup Quarterfinals.

2009: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Attack on the Liberty: The Untold Story of Israel's Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship by James Scott.

2010: Israeli born cellist Yoed Nir is scheduled to perform at Bargemusic in Brooklyn, NY.

2010(1st of Av, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Av

2010: Major General (res) Giora Eiland presented the report of his committee which had examined the preparations for and actual boarding of, the Pro-Palestinian Gaza Flotilla.

2010: The chairperson of the Women of the Wall prayer group Anat Hoffman was released from police custody this afternoon, after being taken in for questioning for allegedly defying the High Court ruling outlawing women from reading from the Torah at the Western Wall. Women of the Wall Public Relations Director Michelle Handelman told The Jerusalem Post that Hoffman was not reading from the Torah, but only holding it, which is not against the law according to the ruling.

2010: Carmen Weinstein, the head of Egypt’s tiny Jewish community, was convicted of fraud by an Egyptian court today and may face time behind bars. Foreign Ministry officials confirmed Weinstein had been tried in court but refused to provide any further information on the matter. “From what we’ve gathered, we understand that [the affair] is related to a business dealing,” said Amira Oron, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry. “That’s all we’re willing to comment [on] at the moment.” Oron categorically denied earlier reports that Israel’s ambassador to Egypt, Yitzhak Levanon, had intervened on Weinstein’s behalf by sending a letter to authorities asking them to protect the Jewish community from “oppression and cruelty.” She said it was a private affair. According to local media reports, Weinstein was found guilty of swindling money from an investor to whom she allegedly sold property she did not own. They added that she could face a prison sentence of up to three years. A senior Israeli diplomat voiced his concern regarding the accusations against Weinstein “There are a couple of dozen Jewish women left; all the men are gone, and Weinstein is running what’s left,” the diplomat said. “The community has a few assets, and she rents it out – that’s how they get by. I hope they haven’t been duped by anyone.” Weinstein is the leader of a community that dates back to ancient times. At its peak in the 1920s, there were 80,000 Jews living in Egypt, belonging to Sephardi, Ashkenazi and Karaite congregations. However, following Egypt’s independence and the 1948 creation of the State of Israel, Jews left en masse due to persecution. Nowadays, only a handful of Jews remain in Cairo and Alexandria. Nevertheless, in an interview with a local paper in 2007, Weinstein was upbeat about the future of Egypt’s Jews “There have been Jews in Egypt since biblical times, the time of Moses, and I don’t see why there shouldn’t be Jews here until the end of time – sometimes less in number, sometimes more,” she was quoted as saying.

2010(1st of Av, 5770): Seventy-year old Harvey Pekar, whose autobiographical comic book “American Splendor” attracted a cult following for its unvarnished stories of a depressed, aggrieved Everyman negotiating daily life in Cleveland and became the basis for a critically acclaimed 2003 film, died today  at his home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. (As reported by William Grimes)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/arts/design/13pekar.html?_r=0

2010(1st of Av, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Av

2010(1st of Av, 5770): Eighty-eight-year-old Tuli Kupferberg, a poet and singer who went from being a noted Beat to becoming, in his words, “the world’s oldest rock star” when he helped found the Fugs, the bawdy and politically pugnacious rock group, died today in Manhattan. (As reported by Ben Sisario)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/arts/music/13kupferberg.html?_r=0

2010: As of today, Israeli professional tennis player Shahar Pe’er is ranked No. 16 in singles and No. 39 in doubles.

2011: “The Libelous Truth” published today provides a review of Alan Ackerman’s Just Words: Lillian Hellman, Mary McCarthy, and the Failure of Public Conversation in America that describes the television instigated confrontation between the two authors that began when Hellman heard that her literary nemesis had been asked, “What is dishonest about her?” and the response was “Everything” -- “every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and the.’”

https://newrepublic.com/article/91900/mary-mccarthy-lillian-hellman-libel-suit

2011: Hadassah is scheduled to open its 2011 Business Meeting in Las Vegas.

2011: Israel's most crucial tie to Egypt, an economic one, is deteriorating, National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau told Army Radio this morning.

2011: Saboteurs blew up an Egyptian gas pipeline distribution station in northern Sinai that supplies natural gas to Israel, the official MENA news agency reported. The explosion was the fourth attack this year on pipelines in Sinai that supply gas to Israel and Jordan.

2011: Fifth anniversary of the war with Lebanon that began with a Hezbollah attacked that killed Lt. Col. Dov (Berry) Harari.

2011: Days after Berlin announced plans to sell tanks to Saudi Arabia, German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere will arrive for his first visit to Israel today, during which he will meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak for talks expected to focus on the ongoing upheaval in the Middle East and the Iranian nuclear threat.

2012: In “Atomic Bombshell,” published today, Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez, the authors of Foxbats Over Dimona, examine “the allegations that Dr. Max Eitingon, an early student of Sigmund Freud and a financial sponsor of the early psychoanalytic movement, was also an agent of Soviet intelligence.”

http://www.tabletmag.com/author/isabella-ginor-and-gideon-remez

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/105954/atomic-bombshell/?print=1

 

2012: The Washington DCJCC is scheduled to present “Meghan McCain with America, You Sexy B**ch”

2012: Catherine Howell of the Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood is scheduled to lead the interactive workshop “Playing at war: an up-close look at childhood games of battle and conflict” at the Wiener Library on Russell Square in London, UK.

2012: In “The Reading Life: Harvey Pekar's Jewish question” published today David L. Ulin examines the contradictory legacy of the later Jewish author.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2012/07/the-reading-life-harvey-pekars-jewish-question.html

2013: “In Bloom” and “Our Nixon” are two of the films scheduled to be shown today at the Jerusalem Film Festival.”

2013: Rena Sherel Sofer appeared for the first time “in a newly created role of Quinn Fuller” on “the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.

2013: “Fill the Void” a film which “tells the story of an Orthodox Chassidic Family from Tel Aviv” is scheduled to open at the Drexel East 3 in Columbus, Ohio

2013: Ido Akov and Itai Meir, “two outstanding soloists from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance are schedule to perform at the Eden-Tamir Music Center.

2013: “Der Purimspieler” - a romantic comedy about a drifter who wanders from shtetl to shtetl. He finds brief happiness when he falls in love with a shoemaker’s daughter in a small Galician town. A likeable fantasy about s love triangle and man’s quest for the unobtainable – is scheduled to be shown as the first offering in the July Yiddish Film Festival at Agudas Achim following Shabbat eve services.

2013: In “Echoes From the Roman Ghetto” published today, David Laskin takes readers back to the Portico d’Ottavia which “half a millennium…has been the heart of Rome’s Jewish ghetto” but which 70 years ago became the scene in yet one more act in the Axis plan to create a Jew-Free World.

2014: A Czech film festival that earned the ire of the local Jewish community because it honored Mel Gibson who gained infamy with his “2006 drunken anti-Semitic rant” and created “The Passion of the Christ” “which some critics have called anti-Semitic.” (As reported by JTA)

2014: Illumination Music & Arts Festival, the creation of two Jewish students Dustin Stern and Jaime Rosenberg, is scheduled to come to an end “at a private campground in southwestern Ontario’s Grey County

2014: Israeli’s brace for another round of rocket attacks from terrorists in Gaza.

2014(14th of Tammuz. 5774): Ninety-three-year-old old Louis Herman “Red” Klotz who according to Dr. Ron Reider scored the final basket as a member of the Washington Generals the last team to beat the Harlem Globetrotters passed away today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2014/07/14/red-klotz-loser-of-thousands-of-games-to-the-harlem-globetrotters-dies-at-93/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/sports/basketball/red-klotz-beloved-foil-for-globetrotters-dies-at-93.html

2014: “Sirens sounded in Nahariya, Rosh Hanikra, Shlomi, Kabri and Hanita, along the border with Lebanon as rockets were fired from Lebanon by a Palestinian Lebanese terror group. A Lebanese security source told AFP at least one rocket was fired at around 10:20 pm (1920 GMT) from an area south of the port of Tyre, about a dozen kilometers from the border” (As reported by Gil Ronen)

2014: Chloe Valadry a senior at the University of New Orleans, who was one of the students assaulted by a pro-Palestinian mob calling Jews “Christ Killers”, pressed charges with the Boston Police Department against “a woman related to the incident.”

2014: Hamas fired dozens of rockets at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv

2015: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide by Michael Oren and KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Nikolaus Wachsmann

2015: The YIVO Institute for Jewish History and the Yiddish League are scheduled to host Annual Memorial in Honor of Mordkhe Schaechter during which Kenneth (Binyomen) Moss will deliver a talk in Yiddish on "Nationalism, the State and the New Antisemitism in Zionist, Diasporist and Territorialist Thought, 1929-1939,” followed by a musical program by Zhenya Lopatnik.

2015: One hundred-year-old historian Janusz Durko who hid 20 Jews during WW II was among “nearly elderly Christians Poles who saved Jews” who were honored by Jewish leaders today in Warsaw.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/christian-polish-heroes-honored-for-rescuing-jews-during-shoah/

2015: The Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America/ DC Department is scheduled to host a memorial ceremony in honor of British General Orde Wingate who “was a great soldier, lover of Zion and an admirer of the Jewish people” known during the days of the Mandate as “YaYedid – The Friend.”(As reported by David Levin)

2015: “Vita Activa, The Spirit of Hannah Arendt” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2016(6th of Tammuz, 5776): Seventy-six-year-old Department of Justice legend David Margolis passed away today. (As reported by Eric Lichtblau)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/us/david-margolis-a-justice-department-institution-dies-at-76.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

2016: The JDC Archives and the Center for Jewish History are scheduled to present “Rescue through Collaboration: The Rescue Activities of the Comité d’Aide aux Refugiés in Italian-Occupied Southeastern France, a lecture by Dr. Luca Fenoglio who will describe the rescue activities of the Comité Dubouchage  which helped Jews prior to the great roundup across Vichy France of August 1942.

2016: “A State Department grant intended to rally support for peace between Israel and Palestine also helped set up political infrastructure that was later used for a campaign opposing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2015, according to a bipartisan Senate investigative report released” today.

2016: “Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures” and “Little Men” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2017: In conjunction with the exhibition “500 Years of Treasures from Oxford,” the Center for Jewish History, Oxford University's Corpus Christi College & Yeshiva University Museum are scheduled to present a lecture by Lenn Goodman on “Oxford's Aleppo Connection: Edward Pococke (1604-91) from Humanism to Enlightenment via Hebrew and Arabic Learning.”

2017: In “I’m Blacklisted by Israel’s Rabbinate and Proud of It” published today, Rabbi Alexander Davis, the “senior rabbi of Beth El Synagogue in Minneapolis” described his feeling on being “one of the 160 rabbis…blacklisted by Chief Rabbi David Lau” – a move some might find reminiscent First Kings 12:16.

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/im-blacklisted-by-israels-rabbinate-and-proud-of-it-1.5493164

2017(18th of Tammuz, 5777): Ninety-two-year-old “comic-book artist,” graphic novelist and author of A Sailor’s Story, Sam Glanzman passed away today. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/books/sam-glanzman-dead-comic-book-artist-of-combat.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2017: The ceremony honoring member of the World Maccabi World Union who make the Maccabiah such a successful event is scheduled to take place this evening in the new wing of the Tel Aviv Museum.

2018: JW3 is scheduled to host two screenings today of episodes of seven through nine of “of the new Israeli binge-worthy thriller Your Honor.”

2018: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Family History Today: Genealogy Lecture for Sephardi and Mizrahi Families” this evening.

2018: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host “an evening walking tour for young professional of Jewish downtown Washington” that starts at the Carving Room “a Jewish inspired deli” (serves traif).

2018(29th of Tammuz, 5778): Richard Siegel, Director Emeritus of the HUC-JIR Zelikow School of Jewish Nonprofit Management, the husband of Rabbi Laura Geller '76, Senior Rabbi Emerita of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, and father their children, Andy, Ruth, Josh, and Elana passed away today.

http://huc.edu/news/2018/07/13/richard-siegel-director-emeritus-huc-jir-zelikow-school-jewish-nonprofit-management-zl

 

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/266525/richard-siegel-jewish-catalog?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=ef06b6f67a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_17_07_59&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-ef06b6f67a-206644398

 2018: “The Wedding Plan” is scheduled to be shown at the 9th Annual AXERLROD Israel Jewish Film Festival

https://sa1.seatadvisor.com/sabo/servlets/TicketRequest?eventId=1213352&presenter=JCC&venue=&event=&version=

2019: Forty-three-year-old CUNY math professor Ari Nagel, known as the Sperminator, and 18 year old Kaienja Garrick, an 18 year old living in an East Harlem Shelter are about to give birth to Nagel’s 50th child, each of whom was the product of his sperm donations.

https://nypost.com/2019/06/15/the-sperminators-50th-baby-mama-is-a-homeless-18-year-old-from-the-bronx/

https://forward.com/tag/ari-nagel/

2019: Following a weekly pattern of Friday violence that dates back to March 2018 and Hamas’ “Great March of Return” thousands of Palestinians” are scheduled to gather at the border of Gaza so they can hurl “rocks, firebombs and explosive devices at IDF troops” on the same day that Muslims recite “jumu’ah.”

2019: In San Francisco, Congregation Sha’ar Zahav is scheduled to hots “Millennial Shabbbat,” a “free meal for young professionals.

2019: In Memphis, the home of Rabbi Fievel and Cantor Abbie Strauss, the Studio on the Square is scheduled to host a screening of “The Spy Behind Home Plate.”

2020: The 20th Annual New Jersey Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of The Spy Behind Home Plate that includes a live zoom discussion with filmmaker Aviva Kempner.

2020: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Ballad of Feeling by Iowa City novelist Ari Braverman and  Artifact by Arlene Heyman

2020: “Due to COVID-19 restrictions issued by the state of New Jersey” the Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth Country is scheduled to hold its 2020 annual meeting via Zoom this morning.

2020: The Sephardic Heritage International, the Stroum Jewish Community of Greater Seattle, the JCC Mizel Arts and Culture in Denver and the Toronto Ashkenaz Festival are scheduled to present the livestreaming performance of “Israeli Ladino singer-songwriter Nani Noam Vazana.’

2020: The URJ Eisner Camp is scheduled to present online “Elana Arian in Concert.”

2020: The JCC of Contra Costa, Congregation B’nai Shalom and Chabad of the Tri-Valley are scheduled to sponsor via Zoom, a talk by Iong-time Israeli resident as she talks about her book The Lost Kitchen: Reflections and Recipes from an Alzheimer’s Caregiver

2021: HIAS is scheduled to host “a monthly program in which volunteers write letters of compassion and solidarity to people in immigration detention and participate in a short learning session that reflects on issues facing refugees and asylum seekers.”

2021: The Lapin Foundation is scheduled to present a family friendly celebration of Israeli culture on the Andover (Massachusetts) Town Common.

2021: Michael Simonson, archivist at the Leo Baeck Institute and Nancy Berliner, Wu Tung Senior Curator of Chinese Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston are scheduled to lecture on David Ludwig Bloch, the Jewish artist from Bavaria who found refuge in Shanghai in presentation sponsored by LBI and the Center for Jewish History.

2021: The Health Ministry is scheduled to  resume administering the first doses of the Pfizer vaccine this  morning, after they were halted for 24 hours following concerns of a looming shortfall.

2021: The London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to present “Adam Taub, a long time dedicated student of Rabbi Dr Irving Jacobs z"l (Principal of LSJS between 1991-1994), who will review some of Rabbi Jacobs's key ideas and try to capture the experience of being in a class with one of Anglo-Jewry's finest teachers.”

2022: The Museum on Eldridge Street is scheduled to host “Make Yourself at Home! Home, Exile, and Return in the Hebrew Bible,” a lecture by Scholar-in-Residence Dr. Regina Stein.

2022: As part of the Yiddish Civilization Lecture Series, The YIVO Institute is scheduled to present a lecture in Yiddish by Yitskhok Niborski, on the Theater of Arron Zeitlin”

2022: The Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines is scheduled to host a screening of “On Broadway” as part of its 2022 Summer Film Series.

2022: The ADL is scheduled to present, online, its 23rd annual Supreme Court Review.

2023: Andrew Silow-Carroll, managing editor for Ideas at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and editor at large at the New York Jewish Week, is scheduled to teach the third session of "Inside Jokes: Explore the Essence of Jewish Humor.”

2023: The Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to host Director Gabriel Goldstein for a guided tour of The Golden Path: Maimonides Across Eight Centuries, illuminating the life and impact of the multifaceted luminary and great Jewish sage across continents and cultures through rare manuscripts and books.

2023: In New Orleans the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans is scheduled to host a networking event with a wide range of professionals in the field of education.

2024: In Coralville, IA, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host an Ice Cream Sundae Bar Oneg.

2024: In Los Angeles is scheduled to host a screening of “America,” directed by Ofir Raul Graizer.

2024: In its final broadcast of the season Kan Kol Hamusika is scheduled to broadast a concert by “Outstanding Clarinetists.’

2024: As July 12th begins in Israel, an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism that has included Hamas supporters calling for Zionist passengers on a New York subway to raise their hands, sweeps the United States and the Hamas held hostages begin day 280 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.)