This Day, July 13, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
July 13
100 BCE:
Birthdate of Julius Caesar. When Caesar
and Pompey fought for control of the Empire, the Jews supported Caesar because
of the evil Pompey had done to the Jewish people including desecrating the
Temple and shipping thousands of Judeans to Roman slave markets. Caesar returned Jaffa to Judean control and
allowed the walls of Jerusalem to be rebuilt. The Jews of Rome were allowed to
organize as a community and Jews living on the Italian peninsula were able to
improve their economic condition.
982: Kalonymos
da Lucca, “the second Jew mentioned in the annals of Germanic history” “saved
the life of Emperor Otto II” “who rewarded him with a house and citizenship in
the city of Main where he could live safely as a Jew under the protection of
the archbishop.” (As described by Leo Sievers)
1024: Henry
II, the Holy Roman Emperor whose expulsion of the Jews from Mayence was
lamented in dirges composed by the poet Simon ben Isaac and of which Gershom
ben Yehuda said, “Thou hast made those who despise They Law to have dominion
over Thy people…” passed away today.
1105(29th
of Tammuz, 4865: On the secular calendar Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac also known as
Rashi passed away. Rashi is a Hebrew acrostic for Rabbi Shlmoh ben Isaac. Born
in 1040 he was the leading rabbinic commentator in his day on the TaNaCh and
Talmud. His work is so basic to Jewish study, that it is said when we study
Torah we must study Rashi. Rashi lived at the time of the Crusades. He passed
away five years before the birth of that other great medieval sage, Maimonides.
(See the attachment for a fuller treatment of his life.) While there is much to
be learned from the teachings of Rashi, there are also lessons that we can
learn from his life. While he studied with the greatest teachers in Germany, he
lived in a French town with a comparatively small Jewish population. For those
living in small towns this should serve as a reminder that living in small town
is no reason not to study. Rashi was a Rabbi. He was also a successful
businessman. He was a wine merchant who was able to care for his family and support
students and yeshivas. In other words, just because most of us have to work for
a living, we can still find time for study. Rashi had three daughters and no
sons. Unlike the example of the mythical Tevye, Rashi’s daughters were all
educated scholars. According to the stories told about them, all five wore
tefillin. In other words, for Rashi, women were not to be "barefoot,
pregnant and in the kitchen." His example means we should be providing a
full Jewish education for all of our community, regardless of sex.
(See Maggie Anton’s books about Rashi’s daughters for more about this)(www.rashisdaughters.com)
1148:
Anti-Jewish riots take place in Cordova, Spain.
1204:
Archbishop of Canterbury Hubert Walter, the son of Sir Hervey Walter and Matilda de Valognes, who had gone on
the Third Crusade with Richard the Lionheart where they failed to liberate
Jerusalem and who “also oversaw the establishment of a new system that
supervised, recorded and regulated moneylending by England's Jews” as part of
the efforts to meet Richard’s seemingly insatiable demand for funds to
prosecute his foreign adventures, passed away today.
1391: The richest Jew in Valencia, “the great
Don Samuel Abravalla,” was baptized to in the palace of En Gasto. He is now known as Alfonso Ferrandes de
Villanueva.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=630&letter=A#ixzz1BA9z84oK
1564: In Brest
Litvosk (Lithuania), Abraham, the son of a wealthy and envied Jewish tax
collector was accused of killing the family's Christian servant for ritual
purposes. He was tortured and executed. King Sigmund Augustus forbade the
charge of ritual murder.
1608:
Birthdate of Ferdinand III the Holy Roman Emperor who awarded the Jewish
community their own banner in recognition for their services in the defense of
Prague during the Thirty Years War.
1756:
Birthdate of artist and caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson a non-Jew who born in
Old Jewry, a street that takes its name from the fact that it was part of a
Jewish quarter that had first existed at least as far back as the 13th
century.
1786(17th
of Tammuz, 5546): Tzom Tammuz observed on the birthdate of General Winfield
Scott whose subordinates included Captain Alfred Mordecai.
1787:
According to the “Kaisers Patent” bearing today’s date issued by Austrian
Emperor Josef II, Jews “were forced to send their children to Christian schools
and take German names.”
1787: The Continental Congress enacts the Northwest
Ordinance establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory. It is
important to note that there were no religious qualifications to settling in
the area, owning land or taking part in political activities. This openness encouraged Jews to settle the
lands west of the Allegheny Mountains.
It also forced some of the east coast states to remove their remaining
religious qualifications for participating in state government
1788(4th
of Shevat, 5548): Leah Ancona, the daughter of Moses Ancona and Hannah
Montefiore passed away today in London.
1793(4th
of Av, 5553): Parashat Devarim, Shabbat Chazon
1793(4th
of Av, 5553): Rebecca Hart Myers, the daughter of Joseph Hart Myers and Leah
Jacobs passed away today in the UK.
1796: When
French forces renew their bombardment of Frankfurt this evening, fire breaks
out in the city including the area known as the Judengasse.
1798:
Birthdate of Warder Cresson, the Quaker born Philadelphian who changed his name
to Michoel Boaz Yisroel ben Avraham when he converted to Judaism. After
surviving a sanity hearing, Cresson became an ardent supporter of Jewish
settlement in Palestine moving to Jerusalem where he married a Sephardic women,
raised a family and eventually passed away.
https://journals.psu.edu/pmhb/article/viewFile/42734/42455
1800: In
Bavaria, Samuel Joseph Arjeh Landauer and Rebecca Breindl Landauer gave birth
to Seligman Ben Schemmel Landauer, the husband of Zirle Landauer.
1809: In
Philadelphia, Zalegman Phillips, the Philadelphia born so of Jonas Philips and
Rebecca Mendez Machado and his wife Arabella Phillips gave birth to future South
Carolina resident, Catherine Moses, the wife of Montgomery Moses and the “mother
of Meyer B. Moses, Zalegman Phillips Moses, Franklin J. Moses; Arabella
Phillips Moses; Henry Claremont Moses; Rebecca Phillips Moses; Altamont Moses;
Catherine Esther Werber and Rachel Moses.
1813:
Birthdate of Lazar Isidore who served as chief rabbi of France from 1867 until
his death in 1888.
1816:
Birthdate of German novelist Gustav Freytag who was married to a Jew but who
authored Debit And Credit the popular anti-Semitic six volume novel that
featured he Jewish Ehrenthal family who are money-lenders and speculators and
their criminal employee Veitel Itzig and promoted negative stereotypes of Jews.
1815: Future
President John Q. Adams wrote in a letter: 'The Hebrews have done more to
civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, I should still
believe fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for
civilizing the nations.'
1823:
Birthdate of French poet Eugène Manuel, the son of Parisian Jewish doctor.
1823:
Birthdate of Bavarian native Louis Sloss, the husband of “Philadelphia-native
Sarah Greenbaum” with whom he had five children – Bella, Leon, Louis, Jr,
Joseph and Marcus – who in 1845 came to the United States where he eventually
co-founded the Alaska Commercial Company while also serving on the Board of
Regents on the University of California and President of Congregation B’nai
Israel in Sacramento, CA.
http://www.americanjerusalem.com/characters/lewis-gerstle-1824-1902-and-louis-sloss-1823-1902/24
1824(17th
of Tammuz, 5584): Tzom Tammuz observed that the Marquis de Lafayette set sail
from France for the United States where he would be the guest of President
Monroe.
1841:
Birthdate of Austrian architect Otto Wagner. Budapest's Rumbach Synagogue,
built in the 1870s, was his first major work. There seems to be some dispute as
to whether or not Wagner himself was Jewish.
We post his name because of the synagogue construction since we have not
been able to verify whether or not he was Jewish.
1848: Arnold
Blum, Jr., the “son of Abraham Levi Blum and Jeanette (Schienle) Blum” and his
wife “Rosina (Rosa) Blum” gave birth to Justine Blum who became Justine Spiegel
when she married Morris Spiegel.
1852: In New
York, the Board of Alderman approved placing gas lamps in front of the
synagogue on Greene Street.
1854(17th
of Tammuz, 5614): Tzom Tammuz observed on the same day that “the U.S. warship
Cyane bombarded San Juan del Norte (Greytown) in Nicaragua, partly in revenge
for an alleged insult against diplomat Solon Borland of Arkansas, who had
arrived in Managua in September 1853 and immediately started causing trouble.”
1855(27th
of Tammuz, 5615): One-year-old Fanny Weil, the daughter of Jacob and Therese
Weil passed away today in Untermerzbach, Bavaria.
1859: Sir
Moses Montefiore was informed that in an interview Mr. Odo Russell, a British
diplomat, had with Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, a senior Vatican official
closely associated with the Pope, the latter said that the issue of Edgardo
Mortara was “a closed question.” In
other words, Vatican was standing fast on the seizure of the Jewish child and
had no intention of returning him.
1861(6th
of Av, 5621): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon
1861: In
Nevada, Israel ben Joseph Benjamin, a German-Jewish traveler who was a
passenger on one of the first scheduled daily overland stagecoaches passed
through Jacobs Well “a foundling way station for changing horses or mules on
the Daily Overland Mail stage.”
1863: During
the Draft Riots which began today in New York City, mobs came down the street
where the Hebrew Orphan Asylum was located but passed the building without
attacking.
1863: In
London, Rabbi Samuel Marcus Gollancz, the cantor of the Hambro Synagogue,
London, and his wife, Johanna Koppell gave birth “to the sixth of their seven
children, English literature professor Sir Israel Gollancz who married Alide
Goldschmidt in 1910.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Gollancz#/media/File:Sir_Israel_Gollancz_by_Elliott_%26_Fry.jpg
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Times/1930/Obituary/Israel_Gollancz
1865:
"Russia: Extensive Fires" published today describe a fire has
destroyed 108 houses in Gerdok most of which belonged to Jews. Two children
died in the fire. A fire in the Jewish
quarter at Grodno destroyed eighty-two houses. The Synagogue in Borisoff was
among the buildings that fell victim to the flames when fire swept the town.
1866(1st
of Av, 5626): Rosh Chodesh Av
1866(1st
of Av, 5626): Maria Louisa Jacobs passed away today after which she buried at
the West Ham Jewish Cemetery in London.
1869:
Birthdate of Mikhail Osipovich Gershenzon, the Russian scholar and author who
was not able to get a teaching position because he was Jewish.
https://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/islandora/object/tulane:p16313coll59
1869: In
Natchez, Mississippi, Isaac Lowenburg, the German born son of Fanny and Samuel
Lowenburg and his wife Ophelia Lowenberg gave birth to Helen Samuels, the wife
of Emanuel Samules.
1871: The
Corporation Act of 1661 which “belonged to the general category of test acts,
designed for the express purpose of restricting public offices in England to
members of the Church of England” which had the effect of barring Roman
Catholics and Jews from public office was repealed today.
1871: In Ulm,
Germany, Rudolf Hirsch, the German born son of Leopold Hirsch and Therese
Tölzele Hirsch (Wormser) and his wife Pauline Hirsch gave birth to Julie Lina
Moos, the husband of Richard Moos who died at Theresienstadt.
1872: In Newark,
NJ, Bella Bloch and Gustav Kussy gave birth to New York Law School trained
attorney and member of the Jewish Community Council of Essex County (NJ0 Nathan Kussy, the husband of Tennie Levi with
whom he had two daughter and the author of “a number playlets that were performed
in Army camps” during World War I and of at least three books Grinmar, The
Abyss and The Victor who served on the Newark Board of Education on
was the assistant city attorney for Newark from 1917 to 1921.
1872:
According to reports published today, The Jewish Messenger endorsed the
proposal of the New York Times that poor and orphaned children in New York
should be able to enjoy at least one excursion during the month of July. In urging its readers to contribute to this
cause the Messenger reminded that among the beneficiaries would be at
least four hundred Jewish children.
1873(18th
of Tammuz, 5633) Tzom Tammuz observed because the 17th of Tammuz
fell on Shabbat.
1873:
“Cleanliness Versus Godliness” published today took issue with the contention
of the historian Eusebus that the Apostle James never took a bath. “The assertion is most improbable, for not
only were all the apostles strict Jews, but St. James, the Bishop or Jerusalem,
could least of all have afforded to despise so sacred a Jewish habit as
cleanliness” since James “was held in
the highest esteem by the Judaizing
party in the Church.
1874: Jewish
leaders from all over the United States are gathering in Cleveland, Ohio for
tomorrow’s meeting of the Council of the American Union of Hebrew
Congregations.
1875:
Representatives from a group of Jewish congregations from across the United
States held their second annual meeting in Buffalo, NY. Joseph Cohn of
Pittsburg, PA was elected President; Henry Brock of Buffalo was elected Vice
President; Lippman Levy of Cincinnati was elected Secretary; S. J. Lowenstein
of Evansville, Indiana was elected Assistant Secretary.
1876: Judge
Abraham Jesse Dittenhoefter described the meeting in which New York Governor
Samuel J. Tilden was told that he had
been nominated by the Democratic Party as their candidate for President. He
then read a sample of letters from those supporting this candidate of reform.
(Tilden is the “Tilden” of the famous Hayes-Tilden electoral stalemate)
1877: The New York Times featured a review of Poet
and Merchant by Bethold Auerbach, “a Jewish romance” in which all but a
couple of the characters are Jews.
1878: At the
conclusion of the Congress of Berlin, the European powers sign the Treaty of
Berlin designed to officially the end of the Russo-Turkish War. One of the issues settled by the treaty was
the question of independence for Romania.
The Romanians promised that they would improve the treatment of the Jews
living in Romania. Rather than trust the
Romanian leaders, the authors of the treaty bowed to pressure from influential
European Jews and insisted “that Romania must guarantee Jewish political emancipation
before her sovereignty could be recognized.”
The requirement was incorporated into the Treaty of Berlin under Article
62.
1878: Isaac
Asher Isaacs, the son of Asher and Esther Isaacs, and his wife Hannah (Annie)
Isaacs gave birth to David Isaacs.
1879: A
delegation of Rabbis from congregations across the United States, including
both Reform and Orthodox came to house of Rabbi David Einhorn and presented him
with a resolution enumerating his various accomplishments as his decade’s long
career. The 72 year old native of
Bavaria is retiring as the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth-El with a
pension of $3.500.
1879: An
article published today based on information from The Saturday Review, a London weekly magazine, examined the life of
the late Lionel Rothschild. Rothschild
was held in high esteem for his philanthropies that included an unexpectedly
large donation for the relief of those who suffered during the Irish Famine in
the 1840’s. Rothschild was praised for
being more than “nominally a Jew” and for taking a leading role in the affairs
of the Jewish community. Rothschild was
“too rich too powerful and too socially important to be tempted to seek to rise
by a calculated conversion.” On a
personal level, one of Rothschild’s crowning moments came when he won the Epsom
Derby in 1879 thanks to the efforts of “Sir Bevys.” Much of the prejudice that Jews have
experienced in England has dissipated due, in part, to the example of the
Rothschilds which includes the unique Jewish trait of “setting as much store on
the attainment of high education and the development of business faculties in
the women as in the men.”
1881: It was
reported today that a resolution was introduced at the 8th annual
council of the Union of American Hebrew congregations calling upon the Union to
the steps that would lead to the abolition of the Religious Department of the
Census Bureau. Those in favor of the
proposal felt that the “Church and State were separated by a wide gulf” and
that the government did not have any right to ask Americans about their
religious beliefs. Those who were
opposed to the proposal felt that the Hebrew Union did not have the right to
interfere with the operations of the government. The latter view prevailed, and the motion was
withdrawn.
1882:
President Lotte of Cincinnati presided over a meeting of the Executive Board of
the Union of American Hebrew Congregations at Saratoga, NY. The Board represents 15 congregations.
1882(26th
of Tammuz, 5642): Thirty-nine year old Sigmund Ferdinand Strauss, the brother
of MP Arthur Isidor Strauss and Heinrich Alphons Strauss passed away today in
Paris.
1883: It was
reported today that the expenses of the Hebrew Union College have exceeded
income by $18,200. The shortfall was covered by money taken from the Sinking
Fund. In order to avoid further
financial problems the Union will collect a head tax of one dollar for each
congregant belonging to the congregations across the country.
1883: In
Poland, Rebekah and Abraham Simcha (Simon) Flashtiq gave birth to Joseph
Flashtiq, the husband of Ida Flashtiq and father of Reginald Flashtiq
1884:
Birthdate of Gustav Rosenthal who in was transported from Prague to
Terezinwhere he was murdered in 1942.
1885: Marcus
Berheimer delivered a welcoming address to the delegates from the United Hebrew
Relief Associations from the principle cities in the United States who had
gathered in St. Louis to form a union of the Hebrew Charities into a national
organization.
1887: At 14th
annual meeting of the leaders of the Hebrew Congregations of America, leaders
of the Reform Movement expressed their disgust with the treatment of
Jewish-American citizens doing business with, or visiting, Russia. The group wants changes made to the
Russo-American Treaty that will guarantee American Jews will be treated with
same respect as is shown to American Catholics and Protestants.
1888:
Birthdate of Isaac Nachman Steinberg, the Russian born lawyer and political
leader who served with Lenin but then was forced to flee to the West in the
1920’s when the political winds of the Bolsheviks blew in another direction.
1889: “Harlem
Club and Senator Cantor” published today described attempts to minimize the
action of club members. They claimed
that the Jewish political leader had not been blackballed; merely postponed. While it was thought that a majority of the
members would vote in favor of membership, the “blackball system” would keep
that from happening.
1890: Rabbi
Sabato Morais of Philadelphia, PA is giving a lecture this morning entitled
“Some Hebrew Grammarians” at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
1891:”
Russians Facing Famine” published today described the effects of the worst food
shortage since the earliest days of the Romanov dynasty including the suffering
of the Jews especially those living at Rovnopol where they “are practically
dying of hunger.” During a tour of the area, the governor saw the Jews
“destitute of bread and corn” and “several families living together in one hut
for the sake of warmth generated by propinquity.”
1892: The
assailant who attacked Gustave Berkowitz, an old Jewish peddler, escaped from
custody today.
1893: Among
the people who were killed in today’s train wreck at Newburgh, NY was
“an unknown woman, apparently thirty-four years old, of Hebrew cast of
countenance” (In other words she looked like a Jew). Among the injured were five members of the
family of Leopold Michael, a retired diamond merchant on his way to spend the
summer in the Catskills.
1893:
Birthdate of Volochisk native David Vardi the Yiddish and Hebrew actor and
director who enjoyed a successful career in Europe and the United States.
http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/yt/lex/V/vardi-david.htm
1893: The
decision by the family of Captain Dreyfus not to accept a jewel sword which a
group of American Jews plan to purchase in his honor and the decision by Emile
Zola not to accept an engraved gold pen from the same group was made public
today. The plan to buy these items had split the Jewish community with the
editors of the Forwards being most
vocal in their opposition.
1893: “Soon To
Have A New Temple” published today provides a detailed description of Shaaray
Tefilla’s home located on 82nd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam
Avenues
1894:
Birthdate of Isaak Babel Russian short-story writer and dramatist, known by
many as the author of "Red Calvary." Babel’s artistic career ended
when he was arrested by the Soviet secret police in one of those periodic
purges brought on by Stalin’s paranoia. Babel was shot after a secret trial
proved he was a traitor.
1894: In
Baltimore, MD, “Sam and Merla (Freidenwald) Thalheimer” gave birth to Alvin Thalheimer, the holder of an A.B from Harvard and PhD
from Johns Hopkins who became “a vice president of the American Trading and
Production Corporation and chairman of the Maryland Welfare Board” while
raising a son, Herbert, with his wife Fanny Blausten Thalheimer.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1965/07/10/96706051.pdf
1894: Albert
Mortiz was promoted from Assistant Engineer to Past (First) Assistant Engineer
today in the United States Navy.
1894: A day
after she had passed away, 74-year-old Rachel Sampson, the widow of Simon
Sampson was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery on Buckingham Road.
1894: Even
though Eugene Debs said it was his decision, the Knights of Labor blamed Samuel
Gompers for calling off the planned strike intended to show support for the
Pullman workers.
1895: In the
United Kingdom, the General Election that would see Harry Marks emerge
victorious in his campaign to represent St. George, Tower Hamlets, began.
1895: On
Shabbat, Dr. Samuel Sale of St. Louis, MO will deliver the sermon at the annual
Central Conference American Rabbis meeting in Rochester, NY.
1895: “A
Jewish Confession of Faith” published today listed the ten point formula “for
the reception of proselytes being considered by the Reform movement.
1895: It was
reported today that a new translation of Conventional Lies of Our
Civilization by Max Nordeau is being published in London that will replace
the one that appeared in Chicago ten years ago.
1896: “Bugs,
Worms and Beetles” published today described the history and impact of these
critters including the fact that the “Jews of Morocco regard male grasshoppers
as unclean” and that they only eat the females “which have peculiar markings on
their bodies” which are said to be Hebrew letters that “make it lawful to
devour the animals bearing them.” (No shrimp or lobster; but we can eat female
grasshoppers in Morocco – such a deal)
1896:
Birthdate of Israeli painter Mordecai Ardon. Born in Poland when it was
part of the Russian Empire, Ardon later moved to Germany where he was a student
at the "Bauhaus" School from 1920 to 1925. This was the period
in German history known as the Weimar Republic. Ardon moved to
Jerusalem in 1933. He had his first American exhibition at the Jewish
Museum in New York in 1948. There are numerous websites where you can view his
works. He passed away in 1992. One of his most famous is the "Ardon
Windows" in the Jewish National and University Library
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/european/Mordechai-Ardon.html
1896: Herzl
meets with representatives of Hovevei Zion Britain.
1897: Louis
Leblois, lawyer for Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, informed Senator
Auguste Scheurer-Kestner in detail about the Dreyfus Affair – the first step in
a journey that would lead to his involvement in the ultimate re-habilitation of
the French Jewish officer.
1898: When the
3rd Nebraska Volunteer Infantry was mustered in today at Omaha,
those taking the oath included Sergeant Herbert L. Stern, Corporal George
Steinbach, and Privates Henry H. Lyons, Sam Orlofsky and Bert Polsky, all from
Lincoln as well as Omaha Musician Harry C. Lyon.
1898:
Birthdate of Bialystok native and future Floridian Joseph Berger, the husband
of Sadie Cohn Berger whom he married in
1924 and whom he had three children – Sylvia, Adolf and Bernice – and who was a
member of Temple Beth El in Broward County
1898: When the
6th Missouri Volunteer Infantry was mustered in today at Jefferson
Barracks, those taking the oath included Bernhardt K. Stunberg, Hospital
Steward; Captain John H. Goldman, Company A; Private Harry H. Rosenberger,
Company C; Musician Oscar Bennewitz and Private Levi Harris, Company D; Private
Louis Bleistein, Company G;
1899: The
Knights of Zion, a Jewish fraternal organization, was incorporated today at
Albany, NY.
1899: Moses
Alexander completed his service as the 19th Mayor of Boise, Idaho.
1900: In New
York City Jozue Perla and Fannie Herzruecken Perla gave birth to Dr. David
Perla the Columbia Medical School graduate who served as “associate pathologist
and immunologist at Montefiore Hospital” from 1927 until his death in 1940 and
was a “leading investigator and writer on the mechanism of immunity to
infection in the human body.”
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9C06E0DE123EE432A25756C1A9609C946193D6CF
1901: In
Okopy, Poland, Esther Ben Dor gave birth to “Immanuel Ben-Dor, an archeologist
and professor of Biblical Archaeology at Emory University in Atlanta, GA.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/06/26/78353840.pd
1901:
Birthdate of Myrtle Ehrlich, the Brooklyn native who became the successful
American businesswoman, Tillie Ehrlich Lewis, “the tomato queen.”
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,857087-1,00.html
1902:
Birthdate of Labour Party leader Maurice Orbach, “a self-proclaimed Labour
Zionist” who was the father of psychotherapist Susie Orbach and Laurence
Orbach, the former chairman and CEO of The Quatro Group.
1903: Moses
Alexander began servings as the 21st Mayor of Boise, Idaho
1903: "
The Jewish Teacher and the Religious School " “was the subject discussed
to-day by the Jewish Chautauqua Society's Seventh Summer Assembly “meeting in
Atlantic City.
1904(1st of
Av, 5664): Rosh Chodesh Av
1904(1st
of Av, 5664): Forty-seven-year-old English soprano and actress Giulia Warwick
(born Julia Ehrenberg) passed away today.
http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/whowaswho/W/WarwickGiulia.htm
1905: “Their
Only Hope” published today in The American Israelite described conditions in
Russia following the defeat by Japan including plans of the government to hold
on to power by sacrificing “the Jews of Russia to the bitter hatred of their
enemies” – “the hierarchy of the Russian
Church and members of the business community who see the Jews as competitors
-- and concludes with a plea to “great
Jewish financers” to use their power “to save five million men, women and
children – their coreligionist – from impending destruction.
1905: Sir
Reginald Francis Douce Palgrave, the Clerk of the House of Commons passed
away. His father was Sir Francis
Palgrave, born Francis Ephraim Cohen, who converted and changed his name so
that he could marry Elizabeth Turner.
1905: The
Ninth Summer Assembly of the Jewish Chautauqua Society continued for a sixth day in Atlantic City, NJ.
1906: Today,
“after making an examination of the left eye of Mrs. Samuel Greenbaum, the wife
of the New York state supreme court, which had been struck yesterday by a golf
ball, “Dr. Charles H. May of New York declared today that “his “examination
revealed the fact that the eyeball is comparatively free of blood clots and
apparently intact” which means her “sight can be restored.”
1907(2nd
Av, 5667): Parashat Matot-Masei
1907:
Birthdate of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author George Anthony Weller
who interviewed a German P.O.W. who when asked if Germans were aware of the
Lublin Massacres said. “All the ordinary German knows is that that the secret
police come and get the Jews” and “where they go they do not know, and nobody
dares ask.”
1908: Samuel
Gompers, the President of the American Federation of Labor met with William
Jennings Bryan the Democratic nominee president today during which the labor
leader pledged the support of the working people represented by his
organization which must have been doubly pleasing to Bryan because he had been
accused of some of harboring anti-Semitic views after his “Cross of Gold”
speech in 1896.
1909(24th of
Tammuz, 5669): Jacob Bettelheim, the Viennese born dramatist and author passed
away in Berlin.
1910: Fire
destroyed 21 buildings in the Jewish quarter of Salonica, damage near 600,000
Francs.
1910:
Birthdate of Swiss philosopher and Einstein Medal winner Jeanne Hersch.
http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jun/08/local/me-38976
1911(17th of
Tammuz, 5671): Tzom Tammuz
1911(17th
of Tammuz, 5671): New Yorker Gustav Mehringer who made “bequests of $2,584.52
each to Mt. Sinai Hospital, the Montefiore Home, the United Hebrew Charities
and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum” and a bequest of $2,000 to Temple Emanu-El passed
away today.
1911:
Birthdate of Brooklyn native WW II Army veteran Hyam Plutzik, the graduate of
Trinity College and holder of a master’s degree from Yale and Professor of
English at Rutgers whose “awards for Poetry included Yale’s Albert S. Cook
Prize in Poetry, an award from the National Institutes of Arts and Letters and
a Lillian Fairchild Award” and who was the husband of the former Tanya Roth
with whom he had four children – Roberta, Deborah, Alan and Jonathan.
http://www.hyamplutzikpoetry.com/
1912(28th
of Tammuz, 5672): Parashat Matot-Masei
1912: “Pushcart
Markets A United Demand” described how New York City officials and leaders of
Catholic and Hebrew charities have express their “approval of the proposal to
concentrate all pushcart peddlers into pushcart marts on vacant city property”
with Commissioner of Education Joseph Barondess, a leader of the Jewish
community that “the pushcarts have become more than ever an economic necessity
in view of the general high prices nowadays” and the establishment of these
marts provides the “sole remedy of many of the intolerable evils that have been
developed by present system.
1913(17th
of Tammuz, 5671): Tzom Tammuz
1913: As the
wars continue in the Balkans, the Turks capture the Greek city of Didymoteikhon
which is ruled by the Bulgarians.
Unfortunately for the Jews, who had suffered property losses when the
Bulgarians took the city in 1912, the economy continued to deteriorate under
Ottoman rule.
1914: As the
Europe stood on the precipice of what would become WW I, “the Austrian
investigation into the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria
reported to Vienna there was little evidence to support the Serbian government
in general was accessory to the plot” which, if made public would mean there
was no reason for the Austrians to punish Serbia by invading that Slavic
nation.
1914(19th
of Tammuz, 5674): In Chicago, funeral services are scheduled to be held for
Josephine Netter Israel, the mother of two daughters and one son, Harry N.
Israel.
1914: Thirty-nine-year-old
Yale graduate Ira Nelson Morris, the Chicago born son of Nelson Morris and the
former Sarah Vogel and husband of Constance Lily Rothschild was appointed U.S.
Minister to Sweden today.
1914(19th
of Tammuz, 5674): Julian Schloss, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Lee L. Schloss passed
away today in Chicago.
1915: Abram I.
Elkus, the President of the Jewish Chautauqua Society was reported today to
have said that he was “discouraged” because “the American Jewish Relief
Committee and all constituted agencies” are being overwhelmed by the demands to
help Jews in the war zone and “with all the efforts that have been made, all
the Jews” in the United States “have not given $1,000,000 where millions are
needed.”
1915: Rabbi
Jacob Massel, the Belarus born son of Gittel and Jehuda Massel, and Mildred
Massel gave birth to Menachem “Michael” Zvi Massel
1916: At
Paramount Corporation's annual board meeting, William Wadsworth Hodkinson found
himself ousted from the presidency and replaced by Hiram Abrams, who won the
seat by a single vote after which he announced to the board, "On behalf of
Adolph Zukor, who has purchased my shares in Paramount, I call this meeting to
order."
1917: Peter
von Ustinov, who was serving with Army Air Service of the German Army and who
was the brother of Jaffa native Jona Von Ustinov who worked with MI5 in WW II,
was killed in action today.
1917:
“Announcement was made at today’s meeting of the Joint Distribution Committee
of the Funds for Jews War Sufferers held at the office of the Chairman, Felix
M. Warburg, that following negotiations with the State Department carried on
since the entrance of the United States into the war, arrangements have just
been completed for sending Jewish Relief Funds into all those countries
occupied by foreign armies.”
1918(4th
of Av, 5678): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon
1918(4th
of Av, 5678): Twenty-two-year-old Private Robert P. Friedman the son of Mr. and
Mrs. Samuel Friedman and a graduate of CCNY while serving with Company A of the
102nd Engineers lived for “only two hours after a shell severed his
spinal cord.”
1918: It was
reported today that in Finland, the Senate justified the decision to expel all
the Jews from the country “on the ground that Jewish financiers placed funds at
the disposal of the Red Guards” – a charge denied by the Jews who said “they
were forced by the Red Guards to give them large sums of money.”
1919:
Birthdate of Eliot Asinof whose journalistic re-creation of the 1919 Black Sox
scandal, Eight Men Out became a classic of both baseball literature and
narrative nonfiction. Eliot Tager Asinof was born in Manhattan and grew
up in Manhattan and Cedarhurst, N.Y. His grandfather Morris, a Russian
immigrant, was a tailor who eventually opened a men’s store in Manhattan. Eliot’s
father, Max, worked there, and when young Eliot went to work there as well, it
was a tenet that he had to sew a suit before he would be allowed to sell one.
The dexterity he developed served him well. Mr. Asinof was an accomplished
amateur pianist and sculptor. He was also a carpenter who in 1985, with his
son, built the Ancramdale house he lived in for the rest of his life. He shot
his age on a golf course for the first time at 79. After graduating from
Swarthmore, Mr. Asinof played baseball briefly in the minor leagues — he was a
first baseman in the Philadelphia Phillies organization — before he joined the
Army. When he returned, his son said, the Phillies invited him to return, but
he pulled a muscle during his first practice, and that was it for his sports
career. He turned to writing. He also had a gift for finding the company of
other gifted people. A compact man with a gravelly voice and a New York accent,
he was gregarious and shrewdly charming. “A writer whose shrewdness and insight trumped his style, which
was plainspoken and realistic, Mr. Asinof was productive and versatile. He
wrote more than a dozen books, including a novel, Final Judgment that is
set on a college campus and concerns a protest to keep President Bush from
delivering a commencement address, and is to be published in September by Bunim
& Bannigan. Weeks before his death, his son said, Mr. Asinof
completed a memoir of his World War II service in the Army Corps on Adak Island
in the Aleutians. Seven Days to Sunday his 1968 account of a week in the
life of the New York Giants football team as it prepared for a game, was an
early if not groundbreaking enterprise of journalistic embedding in the world
of sports. His first novel, Man on Spikes published in 1955 and based on
a longtime friend who spent years in the minor leagues, was a prescient
condemnation of baseball’s feudal control over the players. That system was not
dissolved until 1975 with the abolition of the so-called reserve clause in
standard contracts, which allowed teams to retain in virtual perpetuity the
services of players in their employ. Mr. Asinof also wrote for
television and the movies, although his published credits were limited,
probably because he was among the many writers who were blacklisted in the
1950s. In his case, he once wrote after he got hold of his F.B.I. file, the
blacklisting came about because “I had at one time signed a petition outside of
Yankee Stadium to encourage the New York Yankees to hire black ballplayers.”
But he is best known for “Eight Men Out,” published in 1963, and for the
1988 movie of the same title. The book is an exhaustively reported and slightly
fictionalized account of how eight members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox
allowed their anger at the parsimonious team owner, Charles Comiskey, to
corrupt their integrity, leading them to welcome the overtures of gamblers, who
persuaded them to throw the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. A seminal
event in the history of the game, it led to the appointment of the first
baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Mr. Asinof spent nearly three
years researching the book, including interviewing the two members of the team,
Joe Jackson and Happy Feltsch, who were still alive. In the end, “Eight Men
Out” was a book that made plain the connection between sport and money and
between sport and the underworld. “Here is the underbelly of baseball vividly
dissected,” said Fay Vincent, the former baseball commissioner. In the
Camelot of the Kennedy 1960s, the book also made plain, if only by inference,
the unsavory potential in American culture, a theme that ran throughout Mr.
Asinof’s work. Twenty-five years later, “Eight Men Out” was made into a popular
film directed by John Sayles, with a script by Mr. Sayles and Mr. Asinof.” He passed away at the age of 88 in June,
2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/sports/baseball/11asinof.html?_r=0
http://www.thenation.com/article/remembering-eliot-asinof#axzz2YsEw5WIp
1919: London Jewish Hospital opened for out-patients.
1920: Birthdate of Anna Schuman who gained fame as dance pioneer Anna
Halprin, the wife of landscape architect Lawrence Halprin
http://jwa.org/thisweek/jun/23/1997/anna-halprin
1921: In
Vienna, Elisabeth Stransky and Gustav Goldner
gave birth to Ernst Sigmund Goldner, who gained fame as Ernest Gold,
composer of the score from the hit film “Exodus” for which he won an Oscar.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006104/
http://archives.lib.byu.edu/repositories/14/resources/11292
1921: In Ross,
CA, Frank Moore Cross, Sr. and his wife gave birth to Frank Moore Cross, Jr.
“an influential Harvard biblical scholar who specialized in the ancient
cultures and languages that helped shape the Hebrew Bible and who played a
central role in interpreting the Dead Sea Scrolls.” (As reported by William
Yardley)
1921(7th of
Tammuz, 5681): Jonas Ferdinand Gabriel Lippmann a Franco-Luxembourgish
physicist and inventor, and Nobel laureate in physics for his method of
reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference,
later known as the Lippmann plate passed away.
1922: In the
Netherlands, William Charles Aalsmeer and Margaretha Schwarz gave birth to Hans
Arthur Aalsmeer.
1923(29th
of Tammuz, 5683): Birmingham, Alabama native David L. Baumgarten, the former
Vice President of Durell Brothers Shoe Company who was elected to the House of
Representatives from the second Congressional District of Ohio in 1917, a
President of the United States and China Company passed away today.
1923: At
Inwood Country Club, which was “a so-called Jewish club” Bobby Jones led a
field of golfers as the teed off at the opening of the 1923 U.S. Open.
1923: In
Brazil, Isaac Israel Benchimol and Nina "Lili" Siqueira gave birth to
Samuel Isaac Benchimol, the economist whom the Brazilian government honored by
establishing the Benchimol Prize and who was the father of Jaime Samuel
Benchimol,
1924:
Birthdate of Gyorgy Deutsch the native of Hungary and Holocaust survivor who
gained fame as “George Lang, a restaurateur and cookbook writer who in the
1970s transformed Café des Artistes into one of New York’s most romantic,
beloved dining spots and in the 1990s helped restore the historic Budapest
restaurant Gundel to its former glory.” (As reported by William Grimes)
1925:
Flo Ziegfeld and his Ziegfeld Follies begin the creation of what would
become an American Icon. Comedian W.C. Fields went home to attend
his mother's funeral. In a last minute desperate move, a comparatively
unknown cowboy from Oklahoma named Will Rogers began his comedic career.
1926:
Birthdate of composer Meyer Kupferman.
1926: In
Strasbourg, France “writer Bernard Klieger” and his wife gave birth Auschwitz
survivor and journalist Noah Klieger. (Wikipedia shows the date as July 31 but
all other sources show July 13)
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5425424,00.html
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/256173
1927: In Nice,
France, André Jacob, an architect, and the former Yvonne Steinmetz gave birth
Simone Jacob, the youngest of their four children, who survived the Shoah
gained fame as French lawyer and political leader Simon Veil.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/world/europe/simone-veil-dead.html
1928: In
Cricklewood, Hertfordshire, Rachel and Hersch Lauterpacht gave birth to Sir
Elihu Lauterpacht CBE QC LLD a British academic and lawyer, specializing in
International Law.
1929(5th
of Tammuz, 5689): Parashat Korach
1929: While
reporting on his visit to the Near East, Reverend Ray C. Knox the chaplain of
Columbia University said that “Jews and Moslems are seeking a wholesome spirt
of unity in Palestine” and that Dr. Judah Magnes, president of the Hebrew
University had told him “of the many ways in which the Jews are exemplifying in
the Zionist movement the Americans principle of tolerance and good-will.
1930: Robert Sarnoff, head of RCA (Radio Corporation of America) tells
the in New York Times "TV would
be a theater in every home." Okay,
so it is not Micah or Jeremiah, but it is a Jew providing prophecy in one sense
of the term.
1930:
Birthdate of Naomi Shemer one of
Israel's most important and prolific song writers. During her lifetime, she was
hailed as the "First Lady of Israeli Song." Born Naomi
Sapir, Shemer did her own songwriting and composing, as well as setting
famous poems to music, such as those of the Israeli poet, Rachel, and adapting
well-known songs into Hebrew, such as the Beatles songs "Hey Jude"
and "Let it Be" ("Lu Yehi"). Israeli songwriter Naomi
Shemer's grave on the shores of the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret)]. The stones were
left by visitors, in keeping with an ancient Jewish custom Naomi Shemer was
born and raised in Kevutzat Kinneret, a kibbutz that her parents had helped to
found, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. In the 1950s she served in the
Israeli Defense Force's Nahal entertainment troupe and studied music at the
Rubin Academy in Jerusalem. She married Mordechai Horowitz and had two
children, Lali and Ariel. In 1983, Shemer received the Israel Prize
for her contribution to Israeli culture. Several of Shemer's songs have the
quality of anthems, striking deep national and emotional chords in the hearts
of Israelis. Her most famous song is "Yerushalayim shel zahav"
("Jerusalem of Gold"). She wrote it in 1967, before the Six Day War,
and added another stanza after Israel captured East Jerusalem and regained
access to the Western Wall. In 1968, Uri Avnery, then a member of the Israeli
parliament, proposed that "Jerusalem of Gold" become the Israeli
anthem. The proposal was rejected, but the nomination itself says something
about the power of Shemer's songs.
Shemer continued to write and perform until her death. She died of
cancer in 2004 at the age of seventy-three.
1931: Fifty-three-year-old University of
Georgia trained attorney and Congressman Charles Gordon Edwards who 1911
introduced a resolution that “would direct the Secretary of War and the
Secretary of the Navy to ‘institute an immediate investigation to ascertain how
far and what discriminations are operating against Jews’ in the Army, Navy,
Marine Corps, Naval Academy, Military Academy and all branches of the services”
passed away today.
1932: It was reported
today that “according to the view of
Chancellor” von Papen, “Jewish citizens need not fear the curtailment of their
civic rights no matter what the Nazis say.”
1933(19th
of Tammuz, 5693): Sixty-year-old William Dick Sporborg, “the son of the late
Joseph and Clara Dick Sporborg,” the husband of the former Constance Amberg of
Cincinnati, and graduate of Harvard where “he was a member of the baseball
team” who graduated from the Columbia University Law School and served as
Treasurer of the Port Arthur Jews Center passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/07/14/105399355.html?pageNumber=17
1933: In
Germany, Nazism was declared the sole German party.
1934(1st
of Av, 5694): Rosh Chodesh Av
1934(1st of Av, 5694): Cornell
trained physician Morris Hirsch Kahn who practiced at Mount Sinai Hospital
where he worked with Dr. Max Kahn with whom he co-authored Functional
Diagnosis originally published in 1920.passed away today.
1935: On her
34th birthday, Tillie Lewis opened the first Flotill cannery in Stockton,
California. By 1951, Flotill Products, later known as Tillie Lewis Foods, Inc.,
was earning $30 million per year, making it one of the five largest canning
companies in the country. In the same year, Lewis was named "businesswoman
of the year" by the Associated Press. In 1952, the company introduced a
line of diet foods using low-calorie sweeteners and known as Tasti-Diet. Tillie
Lewis Foods was eventually bought by the Ogden Corporation, which made Lewis
one of its directors. Lewis died in 1977, but the Italian Pomodoro tomatoes she
introduced to the U.S. are still a staple of American agriculture. (As reported
by Jewish Women’s Archives)
1935(12th
of Tammuz, 5695): Parashat Cukat-Balak
1935(12th
of Tammuz, 5695): Sixty-one-year-old Edgard K. Frank, the son of Samuel Frank
of Pittsburgh and U.S. Navy veteran of the Spanish-American War who was “head
of cotton converting business” passed away today in New York City.
1936: As the
Arab attacks in Palestine continued, the Emir Abudllah said today in
Trans-Jordan that he did not “know how much long he could hold them” –
referring to his Bedouins who want to cross the Jordan and joint in the fight.
1936:
Birthdate of Ontario native Sandor Stern, who began writing “stage plays while
attending the University of Toronto,” the author of the screenplay for “Fast
Break, winner of the 1979 NAACP Image Award for best screenplay and who along with his wife Kandy Stern “co-wrote
and co-produced the NBC movie Deception.”
1936: In an
interview given tonight, “John D.M. Hamilton chairman of the Republican
National Committee laid at the door of the Democrats responsibility for
spreading rumors that he was anti-Semitic and that Jews who had been prominent
in other national Republican campaigns were to be kept out of important
positions in the” Presidential campaign of Governor Alf Landon.
1936: After
meeting with Republican Presidential candidate Alf M. Landon at Topeka, George
N. Peek, the former head of the Export-Import Bank offered his views on
numerous topics to newspaper reporters including the observation the “Jewish
influence” on the policies of the Roosevelt administration had helped to cost
the country two successive sales of more than 800,000 bales of cotton to
Germany. “The administration has not been particularly sympathetic to Hitler
and Hitler hasn’t been particularly sympathetic to the Jews” was the way he
described the situation.
1936:
Following the death of Reverend S. Parkes Cadmen yesterday, Rabbi Israel H.
Levinthal, the former President of the Rabbinical Association of America said,
“The Jews of America feel heavily the sorrow of his passing because they had in
him an understanding friend and an unselfish champion” whose “heart beat with
love and sympathy for all mankind regardless of race, color or creed.”
1936:
The Palestine Post reported that two
Jews were seriously injured by Arabs in Jerusalem. Figures prepared by this
newspaper indicated that 41 Jews had been killed and over 150 seriously injured
since the outbreak of the Arab disturbances on April 19. British forces lost five
men. The estimated damage to Jewish property was over 100,000 pounds. The Tel
Aviv Port jetty had been lengthened to 200 meters.
1936:
According to some sources, today marks the start of the Spanish Civil War (I
have found at least two other dates)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/photos-fete-jewish-fight-against-fascism/
http://www.mahj.org/en/3_expositions/expo-The-Mexican-Suitcase-Capa-Taro-Chim.php?niv=2&ssniv=1
1937(5th
of Av, 5697): Edgard Cattaui, the son of Moise Cattaui and Ida Ross and the
husband of Lia Cattaui passed away today in Cairo.
1937: “Marry
the Girl,” a “romantic comedy with a screenplay co-authored by Sig Herzig was
released today in the United States.
1937: In what
has to have been one of the most erroneous predictions of the pre-WWII period,
Dr. Carol Joachim Friedrich of Harvard predicted “in an address at the Summer
Institute for Social Progress at Wellesley today” that “sooner or later the
German people will overthrow the Nazi regime” adding the he would be “surprised
if the Hitler dictatorship lasts twenty years, that is to 1953.”
1938:
Declaring that the maintenance of a proper Supreme Court was of paramount
concern to the country, Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg urged in a speech here
tonight that an extra session of the Senate be called before the Supreme Court
convened in October to confirm or reject President Roosevelt's nominee to fill
the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo
1938: The
immediate transfer to Palestine of "tens of thousands of Jewish children
now trapped in Germany, Austria and Poland" was urged by Hadassah, the
women's Zionist organization of America, in a message sent today to the London
executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine for transmission to the
Intergovernmental Refugees Committee, meeting in Evian, France. The message was signed my Mrs. Moses P.
Epstein, president of the organization and sent on behalf of Hadassah’s 70,000
members.
1939: Producer
and screen writer Milton Sperling married Betty Warner, the daughter of movie
mogul Harry Warner and the younger sister of Doris Warner.
1939(26th
of Tammuz, 5699): Seventy-four-year-old Baltimore, MD native and Baltimore
University School of Law trained attorney Benjamin H. Hartogensis, the 1886
graduate of Johns Hopkins University whose classmates included Woodrow Wilson,
who was an associate editor of The Jewish Exponent and president of the
Baltimore branch of the Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Hebrew Education
Society passed away today.
1939: U.S.
premiere of “The Man in the Iron Mask” co-starring Joseph Schildkraut as
Fouquet
1940: Hitler
told OKW to start preparing for an invasion of England by the army based on the
“assumption that the navy could provide safe transport – an assumption based on
the Luftwaffe being able to control the skies.
1940: “My Love
Came Back” directed by Curtis Bernhardt and directed by Hal B. Wallis was
released by Warner Bros. Pictures in the United States.
1941(18th
of Tammuz, 5701): Tzom Tammuz because the 17th fell on Shabbat.
1941: In “Of Sam H. Harris” published today,
George M. Cohan recalled the life of times of his Jewish partner Sam Harris of
whom he wrote “Aside from being an outstanding figure in the theatre world, Sam
Harris was one of the wittiest men I’ve ever known.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1941/07/13/105158651.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1941: Birthdate of Ehud Manor “an Israeli
songwriter, translator, and radio and TV personality.”
1942: French
police arrested author Irene Nemirovsky, as “a foreign Jew.” She was shipped to Auschwitz where she died
five weeks later at the age of 39. She
gained famed in the 21st century with posthumous publication of two
newly discovered manuscripts, Suite Francaise and Fire in the Blood.
1942: Five
thousand Jews of Rovno (Polish Ukraine) were executed by the Nazis.
1942: In
Sevastopol, approximately 1,200 Jews who had been held at the Dinamo Stadium
were “shot to death outside the city” by the Nazis and “another group was
murdered by gas vans near the city prison.
1942: The
Einsatzkommando returned to daily actions of murder. Seven thousand Jews were
rounded up in Rowne ghetto. Over the next two days, the SS would slaughter
5,000 of them.
1943:
Alexander Schmorell and Kurt Huber, members of the White Rose resistance
movement, are beheaded with a guillotine by the Nazi government. (Everybody
remembers the killers and those who remained silent. This is a chance to those made the final
sacrifice when the world was plunged into darkness) (As reported by Austin
Cline)
1943: Father
Marie Benoît traveled to Rome today to seek the help of Pope Pius XII in
transferring Jews to northern Italy. A meeting was arranged between Father
Benoît and the pope. When Father Benoit explained that the police in Vichy
France were acting against the Jews, Pius XII was surprised, saying, "Who
could ever expect this from noble France?" He promised to diligently deal
with the situation. However, the North African plan was eventually foiled when
the Germans occupied northern Italy and the Italian-occupied zone of France
1943: Thirty-five-year-old
Gerda Baier was deported from Prague to Theresienstadt. Eventually she would be
shipped to Auschwitz where the Nazi murdered her.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/13.asp
1943: In New
York City, “Aaron and Fruma Zlotowitz, immigrants from Lithuania” gave birth to
their youngest child “Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz who took a small wedding-invitation
print shop and turned it into ArtScroll Mesorah, the leading publisher of
prayer books and volumes of Torah and Talmud in the expanding Orthodox Jewish
world, books notable for their easily readable typography, instructions and
translations. (As reported by Joseph Berger)
1944: The Red
Army liberated Vilna, Lithuania. Eight
thousand Nazis and their allies had been killed during the five-day fight. The legions of the Red Army included the
Jewish partisans led by Abba Kovner and his two closest associates, Vita
Kempner and Ruzka Korczak. On this day, the Jewish partisans first met Ilya
Ehrenburg, “a Jew from Russia, a writer and poet whose dispatches from the
front had been a tremendous inspiration” for these and other partisans fighting
in the woods and marshes of Eastern Europe.
Ehrenburg took pictures of the Jewish brigade and was the first to tell
their story to a wide, non-Jewish audience.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/14.asp
1945: In
Berlin at the Rykestrasse Synagogue Soviet City Commander Nikolai Berzarin
attended the first Shabbat eve service which was organized by Erich Nehlhans a
Shoah survivor who was the new president of Jüdische
Gemeinde zu Berlin
1945:Birthdate
of Ilan Shlagi, an Israeli political leader who served in the Knesset and held
several cabinet positions including Minister of the Environment and Minister of
Science & Technology.
1945(3rd
of Av, 5705): Sixty-six-year-old Russian born American actress Alla Nazimova
passed away today in Los Angeles.
https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-alla-nazimova/
1946(14th of
Tammuz, 5706): Eighty-two-year-old Alfred Stieglitz the first-born son of German Jewish immigrant
parents who became one of Americas most famous and prominent photographers and
who was also instrumental in promoting modernist art to the American mainstream
public, passed away.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/stgp/hd_stgp.htm
1947: Emil
Andsrom and two his UNSCOP colleagues held a secret meeting with the leaders of
the Haganah in the Jerusalem suburb of Talipot.
They wanted to know if the Haganah had the means and the will to protect
the Jewish areas against Arab attack in the event of the establishment of a
Jewish state. The six Haganah
representatives, including Yigael Yadin, made a strong case in the
affirmative. Their arguments were based,
in part on their zeal, in part on their determination and, in part, their
ability to artfully dodge the questions being asked.
1948: During the War of Independence Abba Eban
spoke before the U.N. Security Council.
He questioned why the Arabs had rejected the U.N. request to extend the
cease fire between the Arabs and the Israelis for another ten days. Using the majestic tones of a Cambridge
graduate he asked, “What are the ambitions which rest upon so flimsy a moral
foundation that they cannot endure tend days and nights of peace?”
1948: During the War of Independence, Israeli
forces continued their efforts to widen the corridor between Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem. To that end, they captured
the village of Tsora – the birthplace of the Biblical figure Samson – from the
Egyptians. This gave the Israelis control over another section of the railway
running between the coast and the City of David.
1948(6th
of Tammuz, 5708): Sixty-two-year-old U.C. Berkeley trained architect Samuel Lightner
Hyman, the Hawaii born son of Morris and Augusta “Gussie” Lightner Hyman who “is
especially known for designing the Jewish Community Center, Hebrew Home for the
Aged, and Sinai Memorial Chapel Mortuary, all in San Francisco and the
mausoleum called Portals of Eternity at Hills of Eternity Memorial Park in
Colma” passed away today.
https://www.askart.com/artist/Samuel_Lightner_Hyman/11004519/Samuel_Lightner_Hyman.aspx
1948: During
the War of Independence, an Irgun unit began a night attack on Malah that
lasted into the early hours of July 14.
“Seventeen Irgunists were killed including Nathan Cahsman, from London,
who had arrived in Israel on the ill-fated Atalena.
1949: The
first “talkie” version of “The Great Gatsby” produced by Richard Maibum who
also co-authored the script and featuring Shelly Winters and Howard Da Silva as
Myrtle Wilson and George Wilson was released today in the United States.
1950: At
Boston’s Suffolk Downs, a three-year-old named Tel Aviv runs in the Fourth
Race, a six furlong claiming event.
1950: In
discussing the guiding principles of Israel’s foreign policy, Moshe Sharett
said “that in the ideological struggle between the democratic and communist
social orders Israel had definitely chosen democracy…Israel is most eager to
promote friendly relations with all nations, regardless of their internal
regimes. Yet it was impossible to ignore
the fact that it only in democratic countries that Jewish communities enjoyed
freedom of organization, expression and independent activity.”
1951(9th of
Tammuz, 5711): Seventy-six-year-old
Arnold Schoenberg passed away. Born in Vienna in 1874, Schoenberg enjoyed a
brilliant musical career. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, he was
dismissed from his post as a director of a school for musical composition at
the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. His response was a formal, public
return to the Jewish faith, which he had left early in life. America offered a
haven and became his home. He wrote numerous works using Jewish themes
including the Holocaust and the birth of the state of Israel.
http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/arnold-schoenberg-345.php
1951:
Birthdate of Edith Bernstein who morphed into Didi Conn, an actress who has
appeared in film on the stage, and in television who was the wife of David
Shire.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that 128,000
immigrants entered Israel during the first half of 1951 (one every two
minutes). Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion presided over the meeting of the
government-Jewish Agency's Coordination Board responsible for the newcomers'
housing, employment and the state of sanitation in transit camps. "The
attainment of freedom and security often takes precedence over personal
convenience," David Ben-Gurion told a large audience in Beersheba.
1953(1st
of Av, 5713): Rosh Chodesh Av
1953(1st
of Av, 5713): Eighty-six-year-old “businessman, banker, entrepreneur, and
venture capitalist involved in the electrification of California” Mortimer
Fleishhacker, the San Franciso born son of Delia Stern and Aaron Fleishhacker,
the husband of Florence Bella Gerstle whom he married in 1904 and with whom he
had two children passed today after which he “buried in Home of Peace Cemetery
and Emanu-El Mausoleum, San Mateo, California.”
https://www.fleishhackerfoundation.org/about/history
1954(12th
of Tammuz, 5714): Sixty-three-year-old Pittsburgh born, Harvard grad Irving
Pichel whose career as an actor and director included performing in the 1930’s
film version of An American Tragedy and serving as the narrator for the Western
classic “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.”
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Irving-Pichel
1954(12th of
Tammuz, 5714): Mexican painter Frida Kahlo who claimed that her father Carol
Wilhelm Kahlo was Jewish, a claim which has been challenged by at least one
biographer passed away today.
http://www.frida-kahlo-foundation.org/biography.html
1955: The
Beaux Arts Trio featuring pianist Menahem Pressler debuted at the Berkshire
Music Festival.
1955: After having
opened in New York on the first of the month, The House of Bamboo, directed by
Samuel Fuller who co-wrote the screenplay with Harry Kleiner and produced by
Buddy Adler opened in Los Angeles today.
1955:
Birthdate of Ehud Havazelet an award-winning American novelist and short story
writer who was born in Jerusalem. His father, Meir Havazalet, a rabbi and
professor at Yeshiva University immigrated to the United States in 1957. He
graduated from Columbia University in 1977 and received an M.F.A at the
University of Iowa Writers Workshop in 1984. He became a Jones Lecturer at
Stanford University, from 1985 to 1989, and a Wallace Stegner Fellow. He taught
creative writing at Oregon State University from 1989 to 1999. Since 1999, he has
taught creative writing at the University of Oregon.
1956(5th
of Av, 5716): Seventy-six-year-old Johns Hopkins trained physician and lecturer
Charles Robert Austin, the Baltimore born son of Isabella Bernei and Robert
Ausrian and the husband of Janet Austrian with whom he had two children,
Florence and Robert, passed away today.
https://medicalarchives.jhmi.edu/collection/charles-robert-austrian-collection/
https://portraitcollection.jhmi.edu/portraits/austrian-charles-robert
1957(14th
of Tammuz, 5717): Parashat Pinchas
1957: The
President of the New York County Lawyers Association announced a list of its
standing committees for 1957-58 which included I. Howard Lehman as chairman of
the Judiciary Committee.
1960: “The
Lost World” a cinematic treatment of the novel of the same name directed by
Irwin Allen who co-produced and co-wrote the script was released today in the
United States.
1960: Forty-five-year-old
Joy Davidman the “child prodigy” and American author who converted to
Christianity and whose marriage to C.S Lewis was a joining of two intellects
passed away today.
http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/node/31
1962: Former
Connecticut Governor Abraham “Abe” Ribicoff completed his service as the United
Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) today.
1962:
“Photographer and photojournalist” George Barris took what proved to be the
last picture of Marilyn Monroe today while they were “collaborating on a book
titled Marilyn: Her Life In Her Own Words.”
http://www.georgebarrisphotos.com/
1963:
Birthdate of Shari Springer Berman, the Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wesleyan
University who has teamed with her Italian husband Robert Pulcini to create
several acclaimed projects including the Oscar nominated “American Splendor”
and “the Enemy-winning ‘Cinema Verite.’”
1963(21st
of Tammuz, 5723): Parashat Pinchas
1963(21st
of Tammuz, 5723): Eight-four-year-old Riga born Albert Abramowitz, the artist
who came the United States in 1916 after studying at the Russian Imperial
Academy in Odessa passed away today. (JTA)
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/abramowitz_albert.html
1963: Israel
adopted a law prohibiting the raising of pigs in Jewish settlements.
1965:
Birthdate of New York native, Canadian resident and University of California,
Berkley trained journalist Vince L. Beiser whose The World in a Grain: The
Story of Sand and How it Transformed Civilization is a must read.
1966: “How to
Steal a Million” directed by William Wyler who also served as co-producer, with
a script by Harry Kurnitz and co-starring Eli Wallach was released today by 20th
Century Fox today in the United States.
1968:
“Psychoanalyst Herman Roiphe and noted feminist Anne (née Roth) Roiphe” gave
birth to Princeton University Ph.D. author Katie Roiphe, the one-time husband
of attorney Harry Chernoff, the mother of Violet and creator of the non-fiction
The Moring After: Fear, Sex and Feminism.
1969: This
morning, “south of the Sea of Galilee, Arabs fired four Soviet-made rockets
across the Jordan River at Beit Yosef.
1969(29th
of Tammuz, 5729): Fifty-eight-year-old Grace, Mississippi native David Danzig,
the holder of degrees from CCNY and University Pennsylvania and “associate
professor of Social Work at the Columbia University School of Social Work” who
married “the former Maxine Friedman” with whom he had two children passed away
today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/07/14/78355718.html?pageNumber=35
1969(29th
of Tammuz, 5729): Eighty-eight-year-old Robert
Isaac, the German born son of banker Leo Isaac who came to the United
States in 1915 and who worked with Eugene Meyer before going on to the
“investment firm of Halle and Stieglitz and husband of the “former Lucile
Martin” passed away today in Little Lake, NY.
1969: Today,
the International Red Cross informed the Israelis that twenty-year-old Corporal
Batuch Shabashi, who had been captured last week by Egyptian commandos during
their cross-Suez Canal raid “had died of his wounds.
1969: “Me,
Natalie” produced by Stanley Shapiro who also wrote the script co-starring
Martin Balsam as Uncle Harold, Bob Balaban as Morris and Milt Kaman as the
Plastic Surgeon was released today by National General Pictures in the United
States.
1969: The New York Times featured a review of
The Story of Masada by Yigael Yadin; retold for young readers by Gerald
Gottlieb.
1971: Max
Moses Heller who “with the help of Mary Mill a young Christian from Greenville,
SC obtained a visa that made it possible for him to leave his native Austria
after the Anschluss” became the “29th Mayor Greenville” today after which he “desegregated all municipal
departments and commissions.”
1971: “The
Panic in Needle Park” directed by Jerry Schatzberg was release today by 20th
Century Fox in the United States.
1972: Carroll Rosenbloom, owner of the Baltimore
Colts, traded teams with the owner of the Los Angeles Rams. Rosenbloom was now
the owner of the Los Angeles Rams, which became the St. Louis Rams.
1972: The
Democratic Convention came to end having chosen a candidate and adopted certain
platform planks that would lead some Jews to do what they had not thought of
doing – voting for Richard Nixon in the fall election.
1973: Birthdate
of Jelena Đurovic (also transliterated as Djurović; Serbian Cyrillic: Јелена a
Montenegrin journalist, writer and political activist of a Jewish-Montenegrin
origin, based between Podgorica, Montenegro and Belgrade, Serbia who was a
founder and Vice President of the Jewish Community of Montenegro and was the closest associate of the president of
the Jewish Community of Montenegro, late Jasha Alfandari.
1975(5th
of Av, 5735): Fifty-six-year-old Queens native Judith Graham Pool, the daughter
of Nellie (Baron) Graham, a schoolteacher, and Leon Graham, a stockbroker” and
the physiologist whose scientific discoveries revolutionized the treatment of
hemophilia” passed away today.
http://biography.yourdictionary.com/judith-graham-pool
https://www.nytimes.com/1975/07/15/archives/dr-judith-g-pool-hemophilia-expert.html
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/pool-judith-graham
1976: In a
letter dated today, the Supreme Commander's Staff of the Imperial Iranian Armed
Forces praised the Israeli commandos for the mission and extended condolences
for "the loss and martyrdom" of Netanyahu
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin told the Knesset, at the special festive session marking
the US bicentennial, that a strong and confident America was needed to assure
freedom, democracy and peace. The Knesset sent a special, congratulatory message
to the US Congress.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that in
London, the British minister of state announced that there was little doubt
that Mrs. Dora Bloch was dead and that the Ugandan government must bring those
responsible to justice. Britain regarded all Ugandan explanations as
"totally unacceptable."
1978: Alexander
Ginzburg, Soviet poet and political dissident was sentenced by a Soviet court
to 8 years in prison. Although he was a practicing Russian Orthodox Christian,
he adopted his mother's Jewish family name as a young man to protest Stalin's
anti-Semitic campaigns.
1979: A 45-hour siege began at the Egyptian Embassy
in Ankara, Turkey. Four Palestinian guerrillas killed two security men and
seized 20 hostages. Now that Egypt was at peace with Israel, she was fair game
for attack by Palestinian terrorists.
1979: “The
Wanderers” a gang movie set in the Bronx directed by Philip Kaufman who wrote
the script along with Rose Kaufman and featuring Alan Rosenburg was released in
the United States today.
1980(29th
of Tammuz, 5740): Sixty-eighty-year-old New York native and WW II PT boat
commander Dr. Abbot Kaplan, “the first president of the State University of New
York at Purchase, NY and a leading educator in the performing arts” who was the
“American Joint Distribution Committee’s director for France and the husband of
the former Beatrice Dreshler, passed away today.
1981: It was
reported today that Prime Minister Begin compared the rescue mission at Entebbe
with the bombing of Iran’s Osirak nuclear reactor saying that the former
rescued hundreds of Jews while the latter resulted in “the rescue of an
infinite number of Jews.”
1982(22nd
of Tammuz, 5742): Fifty-one-year-old Hillary Lois “Sis” Bass Harte, the
daughter of Ruth Cohen and Samuel bass passed away today after which she was
buried in the Waldheim Jewish Cemetery in Forest Park, IL.
1982(22nd
of Tammuz, 5742): Seventy-four-year-old Michael Blankfort the screen writer and
author whose “novels dealt with the clash of traditional Jewish values with the
current cultural and social milieu” passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1982/07/16/obituaries/michael-blankfort-74-novelist-screenwriter.html
1983(3rd
of Av, 5743): Two days after he had passed away, funeral services are scheduled
to be held today at Shaara Tefilia for “Fifty year old Brooklyn born Harvard
undergrad and Yale trained “Dr. Richard K. Gershon, professor of pathology,
immunology and biology at the Yale University School of Medicine and a leader
in the exploration of the immune system” who was the husband of “the former
Robyn Mione” and the father of one daughter, Alexandra..
1985(24th
of Tammuz, 5745): Parashat Pinchas
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/15/nyregion/rabbi-edward-klein-activist.html
1986(6th
of Tammuz, 5746): Eighty-seven-year-old photographer and pioneer in the field
of documentary films Ralph Steiner passed away today.
http://www.valley.net/~townsend/Steiner/Point.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Steiner#/media/File:Steiner_%26_lorentz.jpg
1987: “The
Brave Little Toaster” an animated musical with a score by David Newman and
featuring the voice of Jon Lovitz was released in Los Angeles today.
1989:
Thirteenth Maccabiah comes to an end.
1989: At six
o’clock in the evening al public transport in Jerusalem stopped for one minute
in memory of a terrorist attack that had taken place on July 6 that targeted
bus 405 that ran between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
1992: David
Levy steps down as Israel’s Foreign Minister.
1992: Yithak
Rabin replaced Moshe Arens as Minister of Defense.
1992: Ovadia
Eli completed his term as Deputy Minister of Defense.
1992: Binyamin
Ben-Eliezer “was appointed Minister of Housing and Construction in Yitzhak
Rabin's government.
1992: Rafael
Pinhasi finished his term as Israel’s Communication Minister. Born in Kabul in
1940, Pinhasi made Aliyah in 1950. A member of Shas, he has held a variety of
positions in local and national governmental positions.
1992: Binyamin
Ben-Eliezer was appointed Minister of Housing and Construction in Yitzhak
Rabin's government.
1992: Moshe
Shahal replaced Roni Milo as Minister of Public Security
1992: Moshe
Shahal begins serving as Israel’s Communication Minister. Born in 1934 in Iraq,
he made Aliyah in 1950. After graduating
with a law degree from Tel Aviv University, he began a political career that
included a variety of governmental positions and membership in the Alignment
and Labor Parties.
1992: Yitzhak
Shamir completed his second term as Prime Minister of Israel.
1993: “Jews
decry 'slap in face' from academy Big alumni event scheduled for Yom Kippur
holy day” published today” described the reaction to the Naval Academy
celebrating Homecoming on the Day of Atonement.
1996(26th
of Tammuz, 5756): Parashat Matot-Masei
1996(26th
of Tammuz, 5756): Ninety-one-year-old Pandro Samuel Berman, Pittsburgh born son
of Harry and Julie Berman, the winner of the 1976 Irving G. Thalberg Memorial
Award and producer of six Oscar nominated films passed away today.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-pandro-s-berman-1329133.html
https://www.geni.com/people/Pandro-Berman/6000000009487972908
1997: In
“Israel Games Draw Westchester Athletes,”
published today Chuck Slater provided a graphic portrait of Lorin
Ambinder, Nina Zeitlin, Matthew Deutsch and Scott Grayson, the four
young athletes from Westchester County who are in Israel to represent the
United States in the 15th Maccabiah Games, opening tomorrow.
1997: The Sunday New York Times book section
features a review of The Sense of
Reality: Studies in Ideas and Their History by Isaiah Berlin and Man
Without A Face the autobiography of East Germany’s spymaster Markus Wolf,
the German Jew, who while head of Stasi, provided training camps for the PLO in
East Germany where they could master the use of guns, explosives and guerilla
tactics. Yes, Isaiah Berlin and Markus Wolf are both Jews which raises the
question, “what is a typical Jew?”
1998: Silvan
Shalom succeeded Michael Etian as Minister of Science and Technology.
1998(19th
of Tammuz, 5778): One day after the observance of Tzom Tammuz, 79-year-old Ben
Zion Abba Shaul, the Jerusalem born son of Eliyahu and Benaya Abba Shaul and
husband of Hadassah, the daughter of Rabbi Yosef
Shaharbani, who for the last 15 years of his life was “the rosh yeshiva of
Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem” passed away today after which “an estimated
200,000 people attended his funeral.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080704052058/http://www.torahcenter.com/bios/bension.htm
1998: Today,
on C-Span, Robert Caro discussed his work on the third volume of his
multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson which would be published as Master
of the Senate in 2002.
1999: Detroit
Catcher Bradley David "Brad" Ausmus is one of the reserve players on
this American League All Star team which played the National League tonight.
2000: Jan
Karski, a liaison officer of the Polish underground who infiltrated both the
Warsaw Ghetto and a German concentration camp and then carried the first
eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust to a mostly disbelieving “West,” died in
Washington.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/karski.asp
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/karski.html
2000: Ezer
Weizman completed his term as the 7th President of Israel.
2001(22nd
of Tammuz, 5761)”: Forty-nine-year-old Yehezkel (Hezi) Mualem, father of four
from Kiryat Arba, was shot and killed between Kiryat Arba and Hebron.
2001(22nd
of Tammuz, 5761): Seventy-nine-year-old Jerome Margareten, the New York born
son of Mary and Frederick Margareten and the grandson of Ignatz Margareten and
Regina (Horowitz) Margareten, known as “the Matzah Queen” and the “matriarch of
the kosher food business.”
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/margareten-regina
2001: U.S.
premiere of “Legally Blonde” an American comedy co-starring Selma Blair and
Victor Garber.
2002: A
production of “Pacific Overtures,” “a musical written by Stephen Sondheim and
John Weidman” set in Japan when the Americans were arriving in 1853 was
performed for the final time at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.
2003: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to
Jewish readers including Absolutely American: Culture War at West Point
by David Lipsky and the recently released paperback edition of King of the
Jews by Leslie Epstein, a Holocaust novel that focuses on the morally
ambiguous politics of survival of a Judenrat, forced to collaborate with the
Nazis in a Polish ghetto.
2004: Jacobo Kaufmann, Israeli acclaimed theatre and
opera director, directs and designs the scenery of the Biblical opera
"Nabucco" by Giuseppe Verdi at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, opening
at the world famous Terme di Caracalla. He is the first Israeli ever to be
hired to direct an opera in Italy.
2004:
Yosef Paritzky completed his term as Minister of Energy and Infrastructure.
2005: The government of Israel sealed the borders
with the West Bank and Gaza following a Tuesday night suicide bombing at
Netanya. Netanya is the site of the
Maccabiah Games. No athletes were
victims of the attack and all had vowed to stay for the rest of the
competition.
2005: Stephen
Schwartz’s musical “Wicked” opened at Chicago’s Ford Center-Oriental Theatre.
2006: In a
debate broadcast today on the BBC's This Week, Maureen Lipman argued that
"human life is not cheap to the Israelis, and human life on the other side
is quite cheap actually, because they strap bombs to people and send them to
blow themselves up."
2006(17th of
Tammuz, 5766): Fast of the 17th of Tammuz. The solemnity of the day is heightened by
reports that Hezbollah terrorists have kidnapped two members of the IDF on the
border of Lebanon. In addition to which,
eight members of IDF have fallen during the terrorist attack and/or as part of
the military action aimed at rescuing them.
2006: In “The
Risks of Israel’s Two-Front War” published today Scott Macleod examines the
risk of a return to the conditions of 20 years ago.
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1213591,00.html
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 were killed in
the Israel-Hizbullah war: Monica Lehrer Zeidman, 40, of Nahariya; Nitzo Rubin,
33, of Safed.
2006(17th of
Tammuz, 5766): Eighty-seven-year-old Oscar winning actor Red Buttons (born
Aaron Chwatt) passed away. (As reported by Mervyn Rothstein)
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE2D91E30F937A25754C0A9609C8B63
2007: In
Jerusalem, "Performances in Nature" presents Yarok Ad (Evergreen)
performing Irish music at Ein Chemed
2008: After
having premiered at the Moscow International Film Festival in June, “For My
Father,” an Israeli film directed by Droro Zahavi was released in Israel today.
2008: Abbas and Olmert were expected to discuss the status of the
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks on the sidelines of a conference hosted by
French President Nicolas Sarkozy to boost cooperation between the European
Union, Middle Eastern and North African countries.
2008: The 94th
Hadassah Annual Convention opens in Los Angeles.
2008: The Washington Post features reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Prague
in Danger: The Years of German
Occupation, 1939-45: Memories and History, Terror and Resistance, Theater and
Jazz, Film and Poetry, Politics and War by Peter Demetz who was a boy living in Prague as a “first
degree half-Jew” (his mother was Jewish) during the war, Lady Liberty by
Doreen Rapport, a noted author of children’s books including The Secret
Seder and In the Promised Land: Lives of Jewish Americans and The Owner
of the House: New and Collected Poems 1940-2001 by Louis Simpson who mixes
the warmth of memories of his Jewish ancestry with the grim realities that
brought it to an end; "In my grandmother's house there was always chicken
soup/And talk of the old country -- mud and boards,/Poverty,/The snow falling
down the necks of lovers. But the Germans killed them./I know it's in bad taste
to say it,/But it's true. The Germans killed them all."
2008: The New York Times features
reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World by David
Maraniss, Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Glachen, and As Good As
Anybody: Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s
Amazing March Toward Freedom by Richard Michelson.
2008: Ofira Henig, makes her directorial debut
at the Weill Auditorium in Kfar Shmaryahu when the curtain rises on “Yerma”
written by Spanish playwright and poet Federico Garcia.
2009: “Prosecutors charged John Demjanjuk who
was guard at Sobibor with 27,900 counts of accessory to murder.
2009: The 18th Maccabiah Games, which draw Jewish
athletes from around the world as well as Israeli citizens, both Jewish and
Arab, opens today in Israel
2009: Kolech, a modern Orthodox women's organization,
will hold its sixth international conference entitled "The Woman and Her
Judaism."
2009: As part of the Noontime Lecture Series: “Balance of
Power in the Persian Gulf” The National Museum of American Jewish Military
History presents “Iraq vs. the United States, Gulf War I” in which Dr. Jeffrey Greenhut will show how
the Iraqi seizure of Kuwait was a direct outcome of the Iran-Iraq War, and then
how the United States, under the leadership of President George H. W. Bush,
formed a vast international coalition that was able to liberate Kuwait in one
of the most effective military campaigns since World War II. Dr. Jeffrey
Greenhut is the former Program Director of the US Army Center of Military
History.
2009: It was announced today that Britain's
chief rabbi, Dr. Jonathan Sacks, has been made a life peer
2010: Mothers Circle, an education and support
group for non-Jewish women raising Jewish children, is scheduled to meet at the
Historic 6th & I Synagogue in Washington, D.C.
2010: “A Jewish Girl In Shanghai” is scheduled
to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
2010: The Libyan organizers of an aid ship trying to
breach Israel's blockade the Gaza Strip said today that an Israeli military
vessel had confronted the ship and ordered it to change course for the Egyptian
port of el-Aris..
2010: U.S. President Barack Obama today nominated Deputy
Secretary of State Jacob (Jack) Lew, a religious Jew, as his new director of a
budget that suffers from a budget deficit approaching $1.3 trillion.
2010: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on
Jewish organizations TIDAT to assist in securing the release of a
Jewish-American government contractor who has been held in Cuba for seven
months without charge. Alan P. Gross, a USAID government contractor, was
arrested on suspicion of espionage by Cuban authorities while he was on the
Caribbean island helping to set up a communications center for the local Jewish
community.
2010: Tzachi “Hanegbi was convicted of
perjury, and subsequently was fined 10,000 NIS, and moral turpitude was added
to the offense.”
2010: Canadian businessman Paul Godfrey became
President and CEO of Postmedia Network.
2011: It was announced today that an investment group that included David S.
Blitzer, Art Wrubel, Adam Aron, Martin J. Geller and managing partner Joshua
Harris planned to purchase the Philadelphia 76ers.
2011: In Las Vegas, Nevada, Hadassah is
scheduled to hold the second and final day of its 2011 National Business
Meeting.
2011: Nirvana, dance show from Korea, which is
based on ancient ritual Buddhist dances is scheduled to be performed at the
Karmiel Amphitheater.
2011: In Vienna, the 13th European
Maccabiah Games are scheduled to come to an end.
2011: An arrest for tax evasion in the Mea
Sha’arim neighborhood of Jerusalem degenerated into violence this morning, when
hundreds of ultra Orthodox protesters threw rocks, steel bars, and Molotov
cocktails at the municipality officials and police. Police were accompanying
the officials on their raid of the poultry slaughterhouse belonging to Yoelish
Krois, the unofficial 'operations officer' of the Eda Haredit, the small
anti-Zionist extreme haredi group.
2011: The Prime Minister's Office issued a statement
saying that Benjamin Netanyahu is categorically opposed to a bill allowing the
Knesset to have the authority to vet – and if need be veto - Supreme Court
candidates.
2012: The Vertigo Dance Company, which was
founded in Jerusalem in 1992,is scheduled to make its debut performance at the
Durham (NC) Performing Arts Center
2012: CNN is scheduled to broadcast the first
of its “Green Pioneers” program. “CNN has named Yosef Abramowitz, president and
cofounder of the firm responsible for Israel’s first solar field, as one of six
global “Green Pioneers.”
2012” ConAgra has until today to officially
respond to the complaint filed by 11 plaintiffs who are seeking unspecified
damages and restitution for ConAgra’s “deceptively and misleading mislabeling
Hebrew National products as strictly 100% kosher, when they are not,” (As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)
2012: Dr Daniel Wildmann is scheduled to
deliver a lecture entitled ‘Desired Bodies': Leni Riefenstahl, the Berlin
Olympics 1936 and Aryan Masculinity at the Wiener Library in London.
2012: A brushfire broke out tonight in Park
Snir between Kibbutz Maayan Baruch and Kibbutz HaGoshrim in the North. Large
forces of fire fighters and police were called to the scene and managed to
extinguish the fire after several hours.
2012: In two separate incidents along Israel's
southern borders today, IDF forces fired upon Palestinians trying to infiltrate
into the country, killing two and wounding one.
2012: IDF troops killed a Palestinian terrorist
who opened fire on their patrol, near the Erez crossing, on the Gaza border
this afternoon. According to Army Radio, the soldiers returned fire at the
terrorist after they spotted him approaching the border and opening fire on
them. No casualties were reported on the Israeli side. (As reported by Ron
Friedman)
2012(23rd of Tammuz, 5772): Sixty-five-year-old
Shlomo Bentin an Israeli neuropsychologist and recipient of the 2012 Israel
Prize in psychology was killed in a traffic accident while riding a bicycle
near the University of California, Berkeley. (As reported by Asher Zeiger)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-prize-winner-shlomo-bentin-killed-while-bicycling-in-california/
2013: Tatiana Rubina, the Russian pianist, is
scheduled to perform today at the Eden-Tamir Music Center.
2013: “Valentine Road” and “A Man Vanishes” are
two of the films scheduled to be shown at the 30th Jerusalem Film
Festival
2013: The works of Jerusalem native Tamar Ettun
are among those to be shown at LMCC’s Open Studios in New York City.
2013: This evening, Temple Judah’s very own
Jared Roach is scheduled to throw out the opening pitch this as the Cedar
Rapids Kernels square off against the Bowling Green Hot Rods
2013: “Social justice protesters blocked the
northbound lanes of the Ayalon Freeway from the La Guardia exit to the Shalom
exit in Tel Aviv tonight.”
2014(15th of Tammuz, 5774): Ninety-year-old
South African author and Nobel Prize Winner Nadine Gordimer passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/books/nadine-gordimer-novelist-and-apartheid-foe-dies-at-90.html
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/14/nadine-gordimer-dies-90-johannesburg-nobel-prize
2014(15th of Tammuz, 5774):
Eighty-four year old former child prodigy, music director and conductor Lorin
Maazel passed away today.
2014: Shir Chadash, the Conservative
congregation in Metairie, LA, a New Orleans suburb is scheduled to begin is
“Nearly New Sale.” (Editor’s Note – This
Congregation gave me my first teaching job when I was a student a Tulane so I
take a personal note of pleasure in seeing how it has grown and prospered.)
2014: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and
Education Center a screening of “A Song for You,” a film about the escape of
George and Gisela Karp and their infant daughter from the Nazis that took them
across the Pyrenees and the impact of their experiences on the next generation.
2014: Jewish Federation leaders are scheduled
to arrive in Israel where they will visit “a number of areas targeted by
rockets, including the “Yaelim” absorption center in Beersheba, Kibbutz Or
Ha’Ner, a resilient center in Sderot with Talia Levanon, the director of the
Israel Trauma Coalition followed by visits to the towns of Ashkelon, Sderot and
the Gaza border region.”
2014: Hamas gains popularity as it fires
another 130 rockets into Israel today one of which reached Ariel, over fifty
miles away.
2014: A rocket fired from Gaza cut the power
lines that left 70,000 Palestinians without electricity tonight – a situation
that Israeli repairmen will rectify immediately due the ongoing violence that
that could get them killed.
2014: Anti-Israel protesters trapped hundreds
of Jews in Paris synagogue.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/clashes-in-paris-as-thousands-march-against-israel-offensive/
2015: Collaborative Artists LTD, in association
with English National Theatre of Israel, are scheduled to present the Israeli
premiere of “You won't succeed on Broadway, if you don't have any Jews”
celebrating 80 years of Broadway's greatest Jewish success stories.
2015: Thirty-three-year-old Yoga instructor
pleaded not guilty to 18 misdemeanor counts at a hearing in Scottsdale City
Court stemming from her behavior at post Bar Mitzvah party.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/yoga-teacher-denies-indecent-exposure-at-bar-mitzvah/
2015: “My Friend Raffi” and “42nd
Street” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
2015: Thirty “Holocaust survivors whose bar
mitzvah or bat mitzvah fell during World War II” finally celebrated the even
today at the Kotel. (As reported by Jonathan Beck)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/30-holocaust-survivors-mark-barbat-mitzvahs-in-jerusalem/
2016(7th of Tammuz, 5776): Seventy
year old “Argentine-born Brazilian film director, screenwriter, producer and
actor” Héctor Eduardo Babenco passed away today.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/brazilian-film-director-hector-babenco-dies-at-70/
2016: Border Police officers opened fire on a
Palestinian vehicle that tried to run them over near A-Ram just north of
Jerusalem, in an incident occurring in the early hours of this morning
2016: Dr. Suzanne Schneider of the Brooklyn
Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present the second session of
“Primo Levi: Memory, Meaning and the Holocaust.”
2016: The Mateh Asher and Partnership2GETHER
Delegation are scheduled to make their first visit in celebration of the West
Des Moines – Mateh Asher Sister Cities Partnership.
2016: “Ben-Gurion Epilogue” and “Zero Days” are
scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
2016: In Paris, pro-Palestinian attacked two
synagogues -- the Synagogue de la Roquette and The Synagogue de la rue des
Tournelles – today.
2017: “The ancient streets of Jaffa” are
scheduled to “come alive with open galleries, local artist exhibition and speed
dating events” as part of the Maccabiah social event “Street Party TLV.”
2017: In Winston-Salem, NC, the Aperture Cinema
is scheduled to host the final screening of “Letters from Baghdad,” a
documentary that tells “the true story of Gertrude Bell and Iraq.”
2017: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater
Washington is scheduled to host a lecture by author Clare Lise on “Jewish
History in Montgomery County” which will feature several leaders including • Albert Small and the Silver Spring
Shopping Center; Isadore Gudelsky and Montgomery Arms; Sam Eig and the Jewish
Community Center; Morton Luchs and Luxmanor and Abraham Kay and Indian Spring
Club Estates
2017: “Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe
Ya’alon called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “corrupt” today and said he
should resign over a possible conflict of interest related to the purchase of
German submarines. (As reported by Stuart Winer)
2017: Today “a federal appeals court overturned
the conviction on corruption charges of former New York state assembly speaker
Sheldon Silver, saying the jury was improperly instructed on the legal aspects
of the case.” (As reported by JTA)
2017(19th of Tammuz, 5777): Thirty-eight-year-old
William Sachs Goldman, “an assistant professor at the University of San
Francisco” and “the grandson of San Francisco philanthropist Richard and Rhoda
Goldman and Levi Strauss heir” died today in a plane crash.
2018: The Bennett Career Institute in
Washington, D.C. is scheduled to host a screening of “Rosenwald” written,
produced and directed by Aviva Kempner.
2018: A “Tel Aviv pillow fight is scheduled to
take place at Namal Tel Aviv, North Port, Light Club at Hangar 23” this
afternoon.
2018: The weeklong Museum Teacher Fellowship
Program is scheduled to end today at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington,
D.C.
2018(1st of Av, 5778): According to
tradition, on this date on the Hebrew Calendar, anniversary of the “death of
Elazar, son of Aaron, the second high priest.”
2018(1st of Av, 5778): Rosh Chodesh Av
2019: In Catskill, NY, the Lumberyard Center
for Film and Performing Arts is scheduled to “kick off its Summer with Israeli-born Ephrat Asherie Dance's
work-in-progress showing of UnderScored (working title), a dance theater piece
created and performed by members of the company with special guest artists from
New York City's underground scene.”
2019: In Oakland, CA, the Transmission Gallery
is scheduled to host “Beauty and Terror,” during which “Robin Bernstein
discusses her exhibit reflecting upon the Holocaust.”
2019: In Cotati, CA, Congregation Ner Shalom is
scheduled to host “An Evening with the Riccardis,” a fund raiser featuring
Sandy and Richard Riccardi, “the cabaret duo known for their politically
satirical songs
2019: In New Orleans, as the city braces for
what could be unprecedented flooding, Gates of Prayer, the congregation hosting
Summer Time Services for all three of the city’s Reform congregations has
“decided to cancel and Torah study for his weekend” “out of a concern for
everyone’s safety.
2019(10th of Tammuz, 5779): Parashat
Chukat;
2020: The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience
and E'eleh BeTamar are scheduled to present “The Yemenite Torah” with Rabbi Dr.
Bentzion Barami
2020: Open Circle Jewish Learning presents
online “Jewish Myth-Buster” where attendees will learn the truth about burying
Jews with tattoos in a Jewish cemetery and “other such myths.”
2020: The Jewish Federation of Greater Des
Moines is scheduled to host “A Conversation About Racism and Racial Identity”
with Dr. Spencer Crew, Acting Director, National Museum of African American
History and Culture and JFNA’s Rabbi Isaiah Rothstein.
2020: UK Jewish Film is scheduled to host the
last screening of “Autonomies.”
2020: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is
scheduled to host virtually “Somebody Feed Phil: A Love Affair with Israeli
Food.”
2020: The YIVO institute is scheduled to host
live on Zoom “Abraham Cahan’s Early Experiments in Yiddish Journalism.”
https://programs.cjh.org/event/rafol-naaritsokh-2020-07-13
2021: The Tel Aviv Arts Council is scheduled to
present “Birth of the Present: Israeli Art Between 1948 and 1967” an evening
event during which “leading art history lecturers in-English, taking a journey
through the culture, society and creativity of Israel.”
2021: Amy Schwartz is scheduled to deliver a
lecture on “Strangers in a Strange Land: Jews and Refugess, Past and Present.
2021: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and
Education Center is scheduled to host a virtual program on the “Possibilities
and Challenges for Refuge in Latin American During the Holocaust.”
2021: Base Boston is scheduled to present the
first session of “My Jewish Year: An Exploration of the Jewish Calendar which
will examine “Tisha B’Av.”
2021: The Streicker Center is scheduled to
present “Daniel Silva in conversation with Katty Kay about his new book, The Cellist.
2021: The 7th Global Forum for
Combating Ant-Semitism is scheduled to open today in Jerusalem.
2022: LSJS is scheduled to present “When
Halacha is Forgotten,” the third session of Why Rabbis Argue: The genesis and
genius of the Oral Law.
2022: JHMOMC is scheduled to present a
screening of The Land Was Theirs: Jewish Farmers in the Garden State which is
based on the 1992 book by the late Gertrude Wishnick Dubrovsky, which aired as
a PBS documentary in 1993.
2022: President Biden is scheduled to begin a
trip to the Middle East including visits to Israel, the West Bank and Saudi
Arabia.
2023: “Yid-Sock,” the festival of new Yiddish
Music” is scheduled to open today.
2023: “Rite of Passage” by Izzy Salant is
scheduled to premier at the Windhover Center for the Performing Arts.”
2023: YIVO is scheduled to present a lecture by
Chaya Nove who holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the Graduate Center at City
University of New York on “Between Tradition and Trend: Popular Culture and
Langue Use Among American Hasidim.”
2023: The ADL and the National Constitution
Center are scheduled to host the 24th annual Supreme Court Review
which is designed to provide a deeper understanding of the High Court’s most
recent rulings.
2023: Temple Judea is scheduled to host the
morning minyan with Rabbi Feivel and Cantor Abbie followed by Modern Mussar
with Michael Ross.
2024: “Even a Single Flower, a solo exhibition by
painter Amir Shefet, presents a selection from Shefet’s extensive body of work
created over the past five years, during which the artist focused exclusively
on painting flowers, using diverse painterly languages is scheduled to close today at the Gordon
Gallery.
2024: The Eden Tamir Center is scheduled to
host an evening of chamber music featuring Saida Bar Lev, violin; Simca Heled,
cello; and Michael Zartsekel, piano performing “From Russia in Love” – the works
of Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.
2024: “Illinois Holocaust Museum &
Education Center, the Islamic Community of North American Bosniaks, and the
Congress of Bosniaks of North America are scheduled to present a
first-of-its-kind commemoration on U.S. soil in honor of the 29th anniversary
of the genocide in Srebrenica, where war crimes and crimes against humanity all
around Bosnia and Herzegovina culminated in the systematic murder of more than
8,000 Bosniak men and boys.”
2024: Lockdown University is scheduled to host
a lecture by Professor David Peimer on “Portrayals of Golda Meir in Film.”
2024: Director Ofir Raul Grazier is scheduled
to attend the screening of “America” this evening at the Lumiere Cinema in Los
Angeles.
2024(7th of Tammuz, 5784): Parashat Chukat
for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2024: As July 13th 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 281 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.)
