This Day, July 18, in Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

July 18

64: During the reign of Emperor Nero, the Great Fire begins in Rome.  After the fire, Nero avoided the initial inclination to blame the blaze on the Jews.  Instead, he targeted the nascent Christian sect which had recently become active in the city.  Possibly Nero who saw himself as a god felt personally threatened by Christianity which also worshipped a Divinity who had come to earth in human form.

392: “Emperors Valentinian II, Theodosius I, and Arcadius order that anyone who disturbs the Catholic faith must be exiled.” This edict is actually not aimed at the Jews but at those Christians who deviate from accepted religious principles.  Of course, this use of state power to protect Catholicism is one more indication of the “second class” status that the Jews are having to do deal with.

1100: Godfrey of Boullion, one of the leaders of the First Crusade, “the first crusader installed ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem who “in 1906 had collected tribute from Jews in Mainz and Cologne” as the Crusaders made their way down the Rhine Valley, passed away today.

1195: The Moslem Almohads (‘Proclaimers of the Unity of Allah’) score a great victory over the Christian Catilian King Alfonso VIII at the Battle of Alacros.  The Almohads were a sect of Moslem fundamentalists who invaded the Iberian Peninsula from North Africa.  They were determined to defeat the Christian forces fighting to take Iberia back from the Moslems.  As part of their agenda, the Almohads also punished the Moslems living in Spain for having become ‘soft’ and moderate in their views on Islam.  They also punished the Jews of Spain who lived among the Moslems for being agents of their corruption. Many Jews would flee Spain as the Almodhades consolidated their power, thus marking the end of the Golden Age.  One of those departing because of the Almodhades was Maimonides and his family.

1216: Honorius III, who in 1230 would issue an ordering the Jews of Mayence to pay 1,620 marks if they wanted to avoid being excluded from business dealings with Christians, began his papacy today.

1283: German Talmudist Judah ben Asher began his journey that would end in Toledo, Spain.

1290: Edward I (England), pressured by his barons, the Church and possibly by his mother, announced the expulsion of all the Jews. The expulsion came on Tisha B’Av, adding to that day’s list of Jewish sorrows. By November approximately 4000 had fled. The Jews had to pay their own passage, mostly to France. They were allowed to take movables (i.e. clothing). A number of Jews were robbed and cast overboard during the voyage by the ship captains. The Jews did not return to England until 1659. This was the first national expulsion of the Jews.

1494: In a will dated with today’s date a Pilsen “there is a reference to a string of beads given as a pledge by the testator to the Jew Mekl” the son of Jontoffa who lived a house number 263, “for a loan of 4 schocks.

1577(4^th of Av, 5337): R' Moshe Gershon Altschuler, the Czech born son of Avraham Avir Altschuler and the husband of Chana Altschuler passed away today in Krakow.

1658: Leopold I, who relied on the services of Samuel Oppenheimer to help finance his war against the Turks, began his reign as Holy Roman Emperor and King of Germany.

1716: A decree banishing Jews from Brussels was issued today; but it was not enforced: a gift to the crown overcame all difficulties. A similar decree issued forty years later had the same result. Several Jews received the right of citizenship in Brussels. Among them was one named Philip Nathan, who, in 1783, requested the government to assign a place for a new cemetery for the Jews; the old one, situated near the Porte de Namur, having disappeared in consequence of the dismantling of the fortress1860: A report of the bankruptcy case of Lord William Godolphin Osborne includes a list of his creditors among whom was a “Jew money lender.” 

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1541&letter=B

1775: Birthdate of Karl von Rotteck, the German politician and author who opposed Jewish emancipation saying that “the Jew had to be de-Jewified.”

1784: In New York, the Trustees of Shearith Israel met to discuss the expansion of the Jewish cemetery.  After he was re-elected as Chairman, Myer Myers informed his colleagues  that, “Mr. Hayman Levy and Mr. Solomon Simson had bargained with Mr. Isaac Roosevelt for the ground adjacent to the Burying place for eighty pounds, one half to be paid on delivery of the deed, and the other half in twelve months or sooner." “The board voted to purchase the land.”

1793(9^th of Av, 5553): On the first anniversary of the death of Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones, Jews observed Tsh’a B’av

1799: In Amsterdam, Cantor Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto,  and Judith van Samuel Peixotto gave birth to Dr. Daniel Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto , the husband of Rachel Lopes Mendes Peixotto

1799: Birthdate of Indiana political leader Judah Samuel, the first Jewish trained lawyer to graduate from what is now Rutgers University, the son Dr. Benjamin S. Judah and the husband of Harriet Brandon.

1800: Birthdate of Daniel Levy Maduro Peixotto.  Born at Amsterdam, this eldest son of Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto gained fame as an American “physician, scholar, author, and philanthropist.”  . He was educated in Curaçao under the direction of Professor Strebeck. He accompanied his father to New York and graduated from Columbia College at the age of sixteen, receiving the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1819. He was a member of the old Philolexian Society of the college, the membership of which society still includes the names of his descendants. Prior to taking his degree he had entered the office of Dr. David Hosack, at one time physician to George Washington. Peixotto was one of the editors of the "New York Medical and Physical Journal" and of "Gregory's Practice" (1825-26) and was a frequent contributor to the periodicals and newspapers of the day. Later on he edited "The True American," advocating the election of Gen. Andrew Jackson, and he was also connected with the "New York Mirror." Among the many offices held by him were the following: secretary of the Academy of Medicine (1825); physician to the City Dispensary (1827); and president of the New York Medical Society (1830-32); he was also one of the organizers of the Society for Assisting the Widows and Orphans of Medical Men. The title of Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine and Obstetrics was given him in 1836, and in the same year he was elected to honorary membership in the Medical Society of Lower Canada. Having accepted the appointment of president of the Willoughby Medical College, he removed to Cleveland, Ohio, where he was dean of the faculty for a number of years. Returning to New York, he resumed his practice there, and continued it until his death in 1843. He married Rachel M. Seixas, the daughter of Benjamin Seixas, March 19, 1823.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=158&letter=P#ixzz1L3nS5V1h

1811: In Pennsylvania, Judith and Isaiah Nathans gave birth to Moses Nathans, the father of Benveneda Nathans Potsdamer Ella Cornelia Nathans Thalman and Laura Augusta Nathans Sonneborn, and the husband of the former Benveneda Valintina Solis who he had married in 1831 after breaking tradition and negotiating directly with her father in 1830 over his desire for the wedding, passed away today in Philadelphia after which he was buried at Mt. Sinai Cemetery in Philadelphia, PA.

1812(9^th of Av, 5572): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish’a B’Av

1812: In New York City, Judith and Moses Benjamin Seixas gave birth to Jacob Levy Seixas,, the husband of Hortensia Seixas, who was a member of a Jewish “Clan” that was prominent in both New York and Newport” and supporters of the Patriot Cause.

1824: Birthdate of German native Mary Griessman Rothschild, the wife of Samson Rothschild and the mother of Jacob, Simon and Martin Rotschild.

1813: In Aarhuus; Jutland, Hartvig Philip Rée and Thamar (Terese) Rée gave birth to Bernhard Philip Rée the editor of the "Aalborg Stiftstidende and husband of Julie Ree and Anna Marie Elisabeth Ree.

1815: In Charleston, SC, Rebecca Phillips and Isaiah Moses gave birth to Cecilia Moses, the wife of Abraham Alexander Solomons who she married in 1843 at Charleston and with whom she had eight children.

1820: One day after he had passed away, Philip Moses was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1826: London born Michael Meir Myers and Rebecca Jacobs gave birth to Rachel Myers.

1829(17^th of Tammuz, 5589): Parashat Balak

1829: Birthdate of Babette Steinhardt the native of Dresden who will become Babette Seligman following her marriage to Joseph Seligman

1836: A day after she had passed away, “Julia Lazarus the wife of Eleazer Lazarus” with whom she had three children – Isaac, Nathan and Solomon – was buried today at the Exeter Jewish Cemetery.

1838: “In reaction to various political revolts that have given freedom to Jews, Pope Gregory XVI issues an edict critical of how Catholic measures against Jews have fallen by the wayside in recent years.” The Pope wrote: "The unfortunate political events that recently afflicted the Pontifical dominions have produced among other disorders the failure to observe Apostolic Constitutions and the other Edicts regarding the Jews." (As reported by Austin Cline)

1839: Thirty-two-year-old Marcus and Theresia Lobl gave birth to David Lobl.

1841: A day after she had passed away, 56 year old Rachel Hendricks, the wife of Lewis Emanuel, with whom she had two children – David and Abraham – was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1844(2^nd of Ave, 5604): Poznan, Poland native Hyman Hurwitz whose “close friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge” led to him becoming the “first professor of Hebrews Language and Literature at University College, London” passed away today after which “he was buried in the Brady Stret Cemetery…”

https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Hebrew-Language-Hyman-Hurwitz/dp/1167041569

1850(9^th of Av, 5610): Tish’a B’Av observed for the first time during the Presidency of Millard Fillmore who had been Vice President until the death of President Zachary Taylor who had passed away on July 9.

1853: In Baltimore, MD, Elkan Bamberger, the German born “son of Isaak Jakob Bamberger and Gela Caroline Bamberger” and his wife Theresa Bamberger gave birth to Rosa Hammerslough the “wife of Isadore Hammerslough and the mother of Carrie Heims and Stella Schaap.”

1854: Fanny and Ferdinand Reichenheim gave birth to Ernst Reichenheim.

1854: London born Sophia Goldsmid and David De Stern gave birth to Edward De Stern, the husband of the former Constance Jessel.

1854: Samuel Gluckstein and Hannah Joseph gave birth to Montague Gluckstein, the husband of London born Matilda Franks.

1859: Birthdate of Trieste, Austria native Irene-Luzzatto Cohen “a member of the Sephardic Jewish Luzzatto family,” the wife of Achille Luigi Carlo La Guardia and mother of famous New York political leader Fiorello La Guardia.

1859: In Cincinnati, Ohio, Lewis Block and Caroline Walther gave birth to Cincinnati Law School graduate Leon Black, the husband of Carrie Hyman who moved to Kansas City, MO in 1886 where he continued practicing law and was the President of Congregation B’nai Jehudah

1861: In Lithuania, Keize and Yakov Horwich gave birth to Bernard Horwich, the successful banker and businessman who was “the first President of the Federated Jewish Charities of Chicago” and an early, ardent who “worked closely with Chaim Weizmann, Nahum Sokolow and Shmarya Levin” and who raised five children with his wife Mamie Horwich. 

1862: It was reported today that the will of Isidor Bemlord, which has now been admitted to probate, leaves $500 to the Jews' Hospital in New York City.

1864: In Ulm, Germany, “Leopold M. and Amalie (Bing) Bernheimer” gave birth to Charles L. Bernheimer, the graduate of Thudichum’s College, Geneva, Switzerland and American businessman whose career was capped by serving as Chairman of the Board Bear Mill Manufacturing Company who was a leader of the “fusion movement” in New York that led to the election of Mayor John P. Mitchell while raising his family with the former Clara Silberman.

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Bernheimer%2C%20Charles%20L.%20(Charles%20Leopold)%2C%201864-1944

1864: A review of The History of Friedrich the Second, Called Friedrich the Great by Thomas Carlyle reports that “a closely printed chapter of twenty-two pages is devoted to M. Voltaire’s ‘powerful Jew law-suit,’ a wretched and obsolete stock-jobbing squabble.”

1868: In Richmond, VA, Isabelle Rosenbaum, the Richmond born daughter of Caroline and Joesph Myers and her husband Michael Rosenbaum gave birth to Joseph Marx Rosenbaum, the husband of Sara Mina Rosenbaum.

1869(10^th of Av, 5629): Tish’a B’Av

1869: In Minsker, Asher Abrich gave birth to Abraham Abrich who in 1891 came to the United States where he eventual formed the Rhode Island Paper Stock Company in Providence, RI, married Ida Taber with whom he had eight children while serving as “a member of the Hebrew Free Loan Society” and a financial supporter of the Denver Hospital.

1870: The First Vatican Council decrees the dogma of papal infallibility. The First Vatican Council had been summoned by Pope Pious IX  who repealed certain laws aimed at limiting occupations open to Roman Jews and opened the doors of the Ghetto and yet was also known as the Pope who refused to return Edgardo Mortara and insisted on him being raised as a Catholic.

1871: Birthdate of German chemist Karl von Hirsch, who despite his nobility would die in the Holocaust at Theresienstadt.

1871: At Weimer, under the leadership of Ludwig Barnay, those attending the “stage-congress” “organized the alliance of German stage associates under the name of "Genossenschaft Deutscher Bühnenangehöriger," which welded into one body the hitherto semi-antagonistic players, authors, and managers.”

1873(23^rd of Tammuz, 5633): Sixty-three-year-old “German violin virtuoso and composer Ferdinand David” passed away today.

http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/c.asp?c=C2912

1873(23^rd of Tammuz, 5633): Edwin Moses, the four month old son of Dr. Montefiore and Rosetta Moses passed away tody.

1873(23rd of Tammuz, 5633): Sir David Salomons, 1st Baronet, a leading figure in the 19th century struggle for Jewish emancipation in the United Kingdom passed away. . He was the first Jewish Sheriff of the City of London and Lord Mayor of London, and one of the first two Jewish people to serve in the British House of Commons.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=89&letter=S

1874: In Thibodeaux, LA, Henrietta Levy and Lehman Meyer gave birth to University of Cincinnati graduate and HUC ordained rabbi, Julius Henry Meyer, the husband of Mabel Bloch who began serving Congregation Emanu-El in Milwaukee, WI in 1900.

1875: In Pittsburgh, department store own Max and Sidonie Rosenbaum gave birth to Walter Rosenbaum, the secretary-treasurer of Rosenbaum Company, the department store that employs over 2,000 workers who is the husband of Eva Heymann with whom he had three children – Stanley, Madeline and Ruth.

1876: At today’s opening session of the American Philological Society in New York, Dr. George R. Entler read a paper on “The Origin of the Hebrew Article” that disputed “the theory that the Hebrew article ‘ha’ has the same origin as the Arabic ‘al.’” According to Entler, “in Hebrew both the article and the conjunction ‘vav’ are derived from the substantive ‘avah’ and connected with the demonstrative pronoun ‘hu.’”

1877(8th of Av, 5637): Erev Tish'a B'Av

1877: Rabbi H. P. Mendes of Manchester, England, officiated at Tisha B’Av services this evening at the synagogue on West 19^th Street in New York City.  The only light in the sanctuary came from “four candles on the reading desk and the little tapers” with which the worshippers were provided.  Rabbi Mendes is the newly appointed assistant for Rabbi J.J. Lyons

1877: Judge Hilton denied reports that he was weakening or wavering in what he termed as his ban on “Seligman Jews” from the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs, NY.

1877: An article published today described the role of M.A. Shaffenburg  a German Jew who had been serving as U.S. Marshal for the Territory of Colorado, in the election of Jerome B. Caffee to the U.S. Senate from Colorado.

1878(17^th of Tammuz, 5638): Tzom Tammuz

1878: It was reported today that Isaac Schwartz who owned a dry goods store on 3^rd Avenue in New York filed for bankruptcy today.  He showed liabilities of $10,029 with no assets.

1879: In Augustovo, Suwalk, Russia, Jacob Weislander and Hinda Lewin gave birth to English educated American Communist Rose Harriet Pastor Stokes, the wife of a J.G. Phelps, a millionaire member of New York’s elite social groups who “was a founding member of the Communist Party of Party.

http://spartacus-educational.com/USAWstokes.htm

1879: Pavel Borisovich Axelrod, the Jewish Menshevik who died in exile while opposing the Bolshevik Revolution and the former Nadezhda Ivanovna Kaminer gave birth to their second child Alexander.

1880(10th of Av, 5640): Since the 9^th of Av fell on Shabbat, Tish'a B'Av is observed today.

1880: Lionel Goldsmid married Catherine Hart today in the United Kingdom.

1881: Sixty-five-year-old Anglican churchman Arthur Stanley, author of the History of the Jewish Church a three volume work that appeared in 1863, 1865 and 1881, passed away today.

1882: Samuel Obreight, a young Jew who became the subject of a sanity hearing after he married Mary Myers, a Christian, appeared in court today.  The judge decided to release him in the custody of his wife until he can make a final ruling.

1882: Rudolpha Leischinsky, a young Jewish woman recently arrived from Europe, is scheduled to be transferred to the Emigrant Insane Asylum on Ward’s Island today.  She had originally been taken to Bellevue after a failed suicide attempt.

1882: Birthdate of Cracow native Harry Baum the graduate of CCNY “a volunteer settlement worker on the Lower East Side became one of basketball's greatest coaches during the early decades of the 20th Century.

1882: It was reported that Rebecca Gold, the wife of a Russian Jew committed suicide last night in Athens, GA. The death remains a mystery but she left a mirror and two knives in a cradle by the side of her young infant.

1882: The striking freight handlers continued their efforts to keep foreign born workers away from the docks.  While Italian workers were fed sandwiches, the Russian Jews were getting three meals including a dinner consisting of boil meat prepared by a Jewish cook.  Both groups will be getting $.25 a day as an additional incentive not to cross the picket line.

1883: Birthdate of Polish native Jacob Dunn who in 1902 came to the United States, settling in New York City he was an active member of the Federation of American Zionists and the ZOA.

1883: Birthdate of David “Dave” Fleisher the creator of several iconic cartoon characters and co-owner of Fleischer Studios passed away

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/29/archives/dave-fleischer-film-animator-created-popeye-and-betty-boop.html

https://www.biography.com/people/max-fleischer-082515

1883: In Hungary, the court that is trying several Jews on charges that they murdered a Christian girl, Esther Salomossy, went to Tisza Ezlar today where Moritz Scharf was forced to look through the key-hole in the door of the synagogue through which he claims to have seen the murder committed. It was obvious that the witness could have only seen one person at a time and that it was impossible to have seen a group of people.  [In early reports, Scharf claimed that his testimony came only after he had been abused and threatened.]

1884: Four families of Jewish immigrants who are being held at Castle Garden have sent a request of the Commissioners of Emigration to be allowed to “join their friends’ in New York City who are willing to support them so that they will not become “public charges.”

1885(6^th of Av, 5645): Parashat Devarim: Shabbat Chazon

1885: Birthdate of Providence, R.I native and attorney Phillip J. Feinberg who served as Democrat in the Massachusetts State Legislature.

1885: Rebecca Marcus who owns a grocery store on Broome Street charged Solomon Schulman, a Russian born rabbi with larceny in Essex Market Court.  She claimed he came into her store and stole $31.  He denied the charge and said he was in the store to collect the $8 she owed him for tuition.

1886: “In Gartz on the Oder, Rudolf Grobba, a nurseryman, and Elise Grobba gave birth WW I veteran and German diplomat Fritz Konrad Ferdinand Grobba who after Hitler came to power developed a network of officers in Iraq known as the “Golden Square” and who in 1941 played a key role in laying the groundwork for the coup known as the Farhud  which turned into a pogrom claiming the lives of at least 180 Jews.

1887: It was reported today that the Hebrew Standard has declared that “a diet of crabs and lobsters is not only un-Jewish” it is also unhealthy.

1888: Birthdate of Alvah T. Meyer the silver medal winning track star who was one of the Jewish members of the Irish American Athletic Club

1888: At the bride’s home in St Kilda, Australia, the future Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs married 18-year-old Deborah (Daisy), daughter of Isaac Jacobs, a tobacco merchant who had been president of the St Kilda Hebrew Congregation and in 1889-90 was to be president of the Chamber of Manufactures.

1889(19^th of Tammuz, 5649): Sixty-two year old attorney and member of the Reichstag Wolf Frankenberg passed away today.

1890: As of today, the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children has received $5,132.25 to be used for summer excursions.

1890: “The Secretary of the United Hebrew Charities has learned that the family of Solomon Rasinkoff” which was mistakenly sent back to Europe by the Hamburg Line several weeks ago is now in Russia.  The steamship company has offered to bring the family back to New York if the Hebrew Charities can raise the funds to get them from Russia to the port of Hamburg.

1891: The twenty-three Jews who arrived from Rotterdam aboard the Massadam will be returned to that port by the ship that brought them to the United States. Five other Jews who had arrived from Glasgow will suffer a similar fate.  (This method is part of the government’s plan to make the trafficking in pauper immigrants a losing business proposition for the shipping lines.)

1891: “A dozen or Russians” attacked a Jewish farming settlement four miles from “Veile” burning fourteen of the residents before the remaining victims armed themselves and chased them away.

1891: In a letter to the Washington Star, Simon Wolf explained decision of the Democratic National Convention at Cleveland to adopt a plank for its platform “regarding the Czar’s treatment of the Jews in Russia.”

1892: The governor of Pennsylvania has issued the papers seeking the extradition from Canada of two Jewish peddlers named Harris and Charley who are accused of killing another peddler in Wyoming County

1892(23^rd of Tammuz, 5652): Twenty-three-year-old Ludwig Beer, a native of Germany passed away today in China after which he was buried at the Happy Valley Jewish Cemetery in Hong Kong.

1892: In his quest to create an anti-cholera vaccine, Dr. Waldemar Haffkine, a Russian born Jew, risked his own life by testing his vaccine for the first time on himself.

1892: Arthur Richard of New York inspected the Jewish colony at Chesterfield, CT.  The colony which is home to forty families and contains hat factory as well as a creamery plant, is the first such colony funded by Baron Hirsch in New England.

1892: “Russian Cruelty In Politics” published today contained Simon Wolf’s explanation “of the appearance in the Democratic platform adopted at Cleveland of the plank regarding the Czar’s treatment of the Jews in Russia.”

1893: Following numerous incidents of Russian Jews attacking and robbing their co-religionists  Alter Shapiro, the Vice President of the Hebrew Protective Society and Solomon Dore allowed themselves to be robbed by the gang and then signaled the police who were waiting to arrest them.

1893: The manager of the Thalia Theatre at 46 Bowery “has declared vengeance” against those who vandalized his theatre on July 15.  The vandals acted in response to a boycott against Isidor Lindemann and his Windsor Theatre by the Hebrew Trade Unions that had spread to the Thalia.

1894: Birthdate of Odessa native Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel a survivor of the Pogroms of 1905 who would go on to become a journalist and author in the Soviet Union before being arrested by Stalin who sent him to Siberia where he died in 1940. 

1894: Two days after she had passed away Sophie Mayer, “the daughter of Pauline and Felix Mayer” was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery/

1894: “Sectarian Appropriations” published today provided a breakdown of the excise money collected that had been collected in 1893 and distributed to different charitable organizations including $178, 275 that went to Protestant and Jewish institutions as compared with $609,748.32 to Catholic institutions.

1895: “Col. Waring’s Little Helpers” published today described the formation of a children’s street clean brigade which was formed during a meeting at the Hebrew Institute.

1896(8^th of Av, 5656): Shabbat Chazon; in the evening, Tish’a B’av fast begins

1896(8^th of Av, 5656): Despite the fact that he had been sick for several weeks and just come from the hospital, 55 year old Charles Liebhaber insisted on fasting as Tish’a B’av began.

1896: First and only meeting between Herzl and Baron Edmond de Rothschild, whose financial sponsorship the Zionist leader was seeking.

1897: “Women Here and There” published today includes a description of a club named after Louisa Mae Alcott located in Boston that was started by Jewish women to provide educational and cultural programs for young Jewish girls including concerts, workshops and “talks on various subjects…of the most elevating tendencies.

1898: After three months of service, 2nd Lieutenant B. Albert Lieberman was honorably discharged today.

1898: Those who became soldiers in the Army when the 15^th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry was mustered into the United State Service were Private Jacob W. Kaufman of Wheaton, Corporal Charles M. Schloss of Minneapolis, Corporal Louis S. Fredenberg of Willmar, Private Aaron Jacobson of Willmar and Privates Robert Pinkus and Joe Schwabacher of St. Paul.

1898: During the Spanish-American war, the Spanish were defeated by the U.S. Navy at the Third Battle of Manzanillo where Adolph Marix the first Jewish graduate from the United States Naval Academy who was serving on the USS Maine when she blew up, commanded the USS Scorpion with such skill that he was cited by Congress for “eminent and conspicuous conduct.”

1898: The will of the late Jacob Berk was filed for probate in the Surrogate’s office today.

1898: In Philadelphia, PA, Mr. and Mrs. Hiram H. Hirsch gave birth to attorney Sylvan Hobson Hirsch, the holder of BS in economic from the University of Pennsylvania where he was the head cheerleader in 1919 who was a member of the USNR and the husband of Ruth Bulter, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hyman Henry Butler.

1898: “For Jewish Publications” published described the work of the JPS which includes the recent publications of Dreamers of the Ghetto by Israel Zangwill and “an index volume of Graetz’s History the Jews as well as the upcoming publication of Jewish Services in the Synagogue and the Home by L.N. Dembitz.

1899: Birthdate of Punxsutawney, PA native Abraham Gerson Carmel the University of Cincinnati and University of Pennsylvania trained surgeon, proctologist and WW I veteran who was the husband of Cyrilla Carmel.

1900: In Lithuania, “Sholem Moshe Rabinovitz and Chaya-Leah Levy” gave birth to Arthur Mordechai Rabinovitz, the husband of Anna Dorothy Silverstone with whom he had three children.

1901: In Vlagtwedde, Netherlands, Louis Sachs, the “son of Jacques Löehman Sachs and Rebekka de Jonge” and his wife Emma Sachs gave birth to Joseph Sachs.

1901: MP Arthur Straus who crossed the aisles from Conservative to Labour parties and his wife gave birth to George Strauss who was a Labour MP for 46 years.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-lord-strauss-1490546.html

1902: Birthdate of Phillip Hickman the Anglo-Jewish “professional bantam/featherweight/lightweight” who boxed under the name of “Johnny Brown.”

1902: Birthdate of Denver, CO, native Esther Greenblatt Quiat, the wife of Denver University trained lawyer, Ira Louis Quiat and mother of Marshall and Gerald Quiat.

1902: Mark Matveyevich Antokolski, the Litvak who became a world class sculptor was buried in St. Petersburg today.  The train carrying his body from Paris where died made a special stop in his native Wilno before reaching its final destination.

1903: Wenzel von Plehv, the Czar’s Minister of the Interior, and like many of his class and nationality, an active anti-Semite, was ready to see Theodor Herzl today.

1903: Moses Alexander, “the second elected Jewish governor of a U.S. state” and the 11^th governor of Idaho completed his second term as Mayor of Boise, Idaho

1903: In Morristown, NJ, Addie Wolff Kahn and Otto Hermann Kahn gave birth Princeton trained investment bank and patron of the arts Gilbert W. Kahn, the WW II Navy veteran and partner in Kuhn, Loeb and Company who was the thrice married husband of “the former Polly Stover” and father of Maud, Margaret and Roger Kahn

https://www.nytimes.com/1975/12/16/archives/gilbert-w-kahn-art

1903: Birthdate of Viktor David Grünbaum the Austrian architect who came to America after the Anschluss and gained fame as Victor Gruen, the founder of Victor Gruen Associates, who designed shopping malls and created “master plans” for several major metropolitan areas.

1904: “IN MEMORY OF DR. HERZL” published today described the meeting where the two divisions of Judaism, orthodox and reform, were united at the memorial mass meeting held in honor of Dr. Theodor Herzl, in Carnegie Music Hall, under the direction of the Zionist Council of Greater New York where a crowd of more than six thousand people heard speeches by Dr. Harry Friedenwald, Rabbi A.M. Raddin and Rabbi Isidor Myers.

1905: New York Congressman Henry Mayer Goldfogle said today that “he has given up of ever recover the watch and fob which were stolen from him several weeks ago” because “no pawnbroker in this city would dare make a loan on the watch after all the publicity about the robbery.”

1906: “The court, all chambers united, gave its judgment. After a lengthy review of the case it declared unanimously that the whole accusation against Dreyfus had been disproved, and it quashed the judgment of the Rennes court-martial sans renvoi. The explanation of the whole case is that Esterhazy and Henry were the real culprits; that they had made a trade of supplying the German government with military documents; and that once the Bordereau was discovered they availed themselves of the anti-Jewish agitation to throw suspicion on Dreyfus” (As reported by Global Security.org)

1906: In Philadelphia, “Louis Odets (born Gorodetsky) and Pearl Geisinger, Russian- and Romanian-Jewish immigrants” gave birth to Clifford who began his theatre career by leaving school at the age of 17 to become an actor. After a series of small parts working in the theatre and on radio, Odets helped form the Group Theatre in New York. Members held left-wing political views and wanted to produce plays that dealt with important social issues. Odets, who joined the American Communist Party in 1934, had his first play produced, Waiting for Lefty, in 1935. The play that dealt with trade union corruption was an immediate success. With his next two plays, Awake and Sing! and Till the Day I Die, Odets established himself as a champion of the underprivileged. After the production of Paradise Lost (1935), Odets accepted a lucrative offer to become a film screenwriter and while in Hollywood met and married the actress, Luise Rainer. However, he continued to write plays and with Golden Boy (1937) he had his greatest commercial success. This was followed by Rocket to the Moon (1938), Night Music (1940), Clash By Night (1941), The Big Knife (1949), and The Country Girl (1950). Investigated by Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953, Odets argued that he had never been under the influence of the American Communist Party and his work had been based on his deep sympathy for the working classes. Unlike many writers and actors who had been members of the party, Odets was not blacklisted and continued to work in Hollywood. This included the screenplay for the acclaimed, Sweet Smell of Success (1957). Clifford Odets died on 18th August 1963.

1907: In Harrogate (UK), Rose Samson Hart and Simeon Hart gave birth to Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart (H.L.A. Hart) who became a Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford and authored numerous legal tomes including The Concept of Law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concept_of_Law#/media/File:The_Concept_of_Law.jpg

1908(19^th of Tammuz, 5668): Parashat Pinchas

1908 Birthdate of New York City native and University of Virginia graduate Eugene Pumpian-Mindlin, the University of Zurich trained psychiatrist who served on the faculties of both USC and UCLA.

http://texts.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb1199n68c;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00079&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=oac4

1908: “Count Puckler, Germany’s notorious Jew baiter, who a few months ago was officially declared has his private affairs withdrawn from his control and place in the charge of a conservator.”

1909(29^th of Tammuz, 5669): Fifty-seven-year-old Maude Phillipa, the daughter of Edward Salomon and Henrietta Levien who were early members of the Jewish community in Australia passed away today.

1909: It was reported today that “that the work in the interest of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children is doing invaluable good” as can be seen by the twice a week free excursions and the special excursion held “for the benefit of the poor mothers and babies of the east side of New York.

1910: Today, “The New York American broke the story that a combination of Wall Street bankers would be working for Woodrow Wilson, the man who appointed the first Jew to the Supreme Court, thus paving the way for all future non-traditional appointees to the court,to be the Democratic Party nominee for President in 1912

1911(22nd of Tammuz, 5671): Rabbi Dr. Hermann Adler CVO, the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire from 1891 to 1911 passed away. The son (and successor as Chief Rabbi) of Nathan Marcus Adler, the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica writes that he "raised the position [of Chief Rabbi] to one of much dignity and importance. “Born in Hanover, like his father, he had both a rabbinical education and a university education in Germany, and like him he subscribed to a modernized Orthodoxy. He attended University College School in London from 1852-54. He graduated at Leipzig; he later received honorary degrees from Scottish and English universities, including Oxford. He was head of a congregation in Bayswater during his father's lifetime, and his father's assistant from the time his father's health began to deteriorate in 1879, before succeeding him on his death in 1891.In 1909 he was appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. Adler wrote extensively on topics of Anglo-Jewish History and published two volumes of sermons. He was a vigorous defender of his co-religionists and their faith, as well as their sacred Scriptures.

1912: In Minneapolis, Beatrice Hirshler (née Tuchman) and Isadore Henry Levin gave birth to literary critic Harry Tuchman Levin, the namesake of the Harry Levin Literary Prize.

https://web.archive.org/web/20061004194841/http://www.acla.org/levinandwellek.html

1913: Birthdate of Vienna native Erich Pollak, who gained fame as actor Eric Pohlman who, in one of those great stories of love and fidelity “followed his fiancée and later wife, Jewish actress Lieselotte Goettinger into exile in London” where the two took jobs a cook and butler before being able to resume their careers in the United Kingdom after the War

1913: “Because of rumors that Pinkerton detectives involved in the case believe that Conley was the murderer, and not Leo Frank, a grand jury convenes to consider indicting Conley. Solicitor Dorsey refuses to allow Pinkerton detectives to interview Conley and opposes indicting Conley. (Three days later, the grand jury decides to postpone an indictment.)”

1913(13th of Tammuz, 5673): Edward Selig Salomon “a German immigrant to the United States who served as a Union brigadier general in the American Civil War and later became governor of Washington Territory and a California legislator” passed away. In an unusual twist, Salomon fought with Union Armies in the East and the West. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Gettysburg where he had two horses shot out from under him.  He then led his regiment in Sherman’s victorious campaign that led to the capture of Atlanta.  Salomon was appointed to his post as territorial governor of Washington by President Grant which provides further proof that the latter was not an anti-Semite.

1914(24^th of Tammuz, 5674): Parashat Pinchas

1914: Rabbi A. L. Weinstein of Davenport, IA conducted Shabbat morning services for those vacationing at Lake Harbor, Michigan.

1914: On Saturday morning, Rabbi Jacob D. Schwarz of Cincinnati conducted services for those vacationing at Cedar Lake, Wisconsin.

1915: “The doctors completed the sewing up of the wound in Leo Frank’s throat at 1;15 this morning” that was inflicted on him last night by William Green, a prisoner who was trying to murder him.

1915: Dr. H.J. Rosenberg, the family physician of Leo Frank and the Frank family, arrived at the State Prison Farm, from Atlanta with two nurses and said that while Frank’s “condition was serious he had a good chance at life.

1915: The wife of Leo Frank is in Milledgeville the site of the State Prison Farm where she has come to visit her husband.

1915: Georgia Governor Nat E. Harris who has urged that “a thorough investigation of the attempt to murder Leo M. Frank in order to determine whether” prisoner William “Creen acted on his own initiative or as the tool of confederate” said he had “tried today to get in touch with members of the Prison Commission but failed to reach any of them.”

1916(17^th of Tammuz, 5676): Tzom Tammuz

1916: “As a reward for his political services,” Abram Elkus was nominated by President Wilson to serve as United States Ambassador to Turkey, a position that Henry Morgenthau Sr. had held until his resignation.

1916: Committees representing the Conference of National Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Congress Organization reached an agreement tonight that “two committees will submit identical reports to their organizations which, if accepted, will settle their differences and unite the Jews of the United States in the campaign to demand full civil, religious and political rights for their co-religionists in lands where laws discriminating against them now exist.”

1916: “The House unanimously adopted a Senate resolution requiring the President “to designate a day on which the citizens of this country may give expression to their sympathy by contributing to the funds now being raised for the relief of Armenians in the belligerent countries” – a resolution patterned after the one adopted in January to help the Jews of Europe.

1917: A draft of what would become the Balfour Declaration was submitted to Lord Balfour.

1917: The Chicago Hebrew Institute Band is scheduled to “give their initial concert of this summer’s series this evening…on the grounds of the institute.”

1917: It was reported today that the Joint Distribution Committee expressed regret “over the death of Samuel I. Hyman who had been selected by the committee to visit Russia to supervise the relief work in that country.”

1917: It was reported today the former Abram I. Elkus, the former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey who has recently arrived in New York has said that “the relief work for the Jews in Turkey and Palestine was being carried on with great success” and that “the funds collected in” the United States “were being utilized exactly as intended by the Joint Distribution Committee.”  (Reports from Elkus stand in stark contrast to the reality of Jews being forced to leave Palestine in such a state that many of them enlisted to fight with the British against the Turks)

1918(9^th of Av, 5678): Tish’a B’Av

1918: After the death of his first wife, Lena Hanles, in 1916 today, Rabbi Bernard Michael Kaplan, the Lithuanian born son of Michael Sheftel and Feigel (Mayor) Kaplan who had been serving as the leader of the Bush Street Temple in San Francisco married Ray L. Steinman today.

1918: Dr. Hyman Gerson Enelow, the Rabb who served as Chairman of the Overseas Commission of the Jewish Welfare Board arrived in France today.

1918: Today, Montreal native Nathan Lang enlisted in the Jewish Legion in which he served in Palestine along with his brother before he was discharged in October 1919 after he which moved to New York in 1925, married in 1926 and returned to his hometown in 1935.

1918: In Lead, SD, Ernest R. "Cap" Graham and Florence Morris gave birth to Phillip Graham, the son-in-law of Eugene Meyer and the husband of Katherine Meyer Graham who helped turn the Washington Post into one of the leading newspapers in the United States. (Graham was not Jewish but his wife’s family was)

1919(20^th of Tammuz, 5679): Jacob Simon, the son of Hannah Simon and the brother of “Hattie, May, Jennie and Sol Simon” passed away today in Chicago.

1919(20^th of Tammuz, 5679): Henrietta Cert, the wife of Henry Cerf with whom she had had six children, passed away today in Chicago.

1919: Rabbi Julius is scheduled to lead Friday evening services at Beth El Temple in Chicago.

1919: Rabbi Julius Gussfeld is scheduled to lead Friday evening services at Temple Beth Israel on Lawrence Avenue in Chicago.

1920: In the Bronx, “Isidore Bernstein and the former Rebecca Axelrod, Yiddish-speaking immigrants from Eastern Europe” gave birth to Lester Bernstein “a former editor of Newsweek magazine who also wrote for The New York Times, was a foreign correspondent for Time magazine and, as a vice president of NBC in 1960, helped arrange America’s first televised presidential debates.” (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/28/nyregion/lester-bernstein-former-newsweek-editor-dies-at-94.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

1921: It was reported today from Detroit, that after years of waiting, Bernard Schwartz, head of the recently incorporated Bernard Schartz Cigar Corporation is about to launch “a large national advertising and sales campaign.

1921(12^th of Tammuz, 5681): Sixty-four-year-old Annette Joseph, the London born daughter of Henry and Rosetta Pinto, the wife of Montefiore Joseph and the “other of Abraham Pinto Joseph; Irene Rachel Wolff; Edward Cecil Joseph; Kenneth (Kalman) de Sola Joseph and Rosetta Joseph” passed away today in Quebec,

1921: In Brooklyn, Solomon Goldman, a jeweler, and the former Sarah Goldstein, who had immigrated from Russia gave birth to “Jacob E. Goldman, a physicist who as Xerox’s chief scientist founded the company’s vaunted Palo Alto Research Center, which invented the modern personal computer…” (As reported by John Markoff)

1922(22^nd of Tammuz, 5682): Eighty-two year old Jacob Moser, the Danish born British textile merchant who served as Lord May of Bradford, founded the Bradford Reform Synagogue and was an early support of the Zionist cause passed away today.

1922:  Birthdate of American academic and philosopher, Thomas Samuel Kuhn.

1922: Birthdate of Abraham Joseph Chayes who followed in the footsteps of his parents both of whom were lawyers by graduating first in his class from Harvard Law and become a leading expert in the field of international law.

1923(5th of Av, 5683): Quebec native Alfred Benjamin, the first vice president of the Abernathy Furntiure Store in Kansas City who “became president of the United Jewish Charities in 1905 and who was a member of Temple B’Nai Jehudath passed away today

https://pendergastkc.org/article/biography/alfred-benjamin

https://kchistory.org/islandora/object/kchistory%3A115474

1923: Birthdate of William M. Birenbaum, the product of the Waterloo, Iowa school system who became the nationally known university administrator who helped rescue Antioch College from looming insolvency during his tenure as president there in the 1970s and ’80s. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1924; Birthdate of Boris Lurie, the Russian born American artist who survived the Holocaust and “cofounded the NO!Art movement.

1925(26^th of Tammuz, 5685): Parashat Matot-Masei

1925: Playwright Arthur Richman, the New York City born son of Jenny Swann and William Reichman whose works included “Not So Long Ago,” “The Awful Truth” and “A Proud Woman” and who began serving as President of the Society of American Dramatists in 1925” married Madeline Marshall today in London.

1925(26^th of Tammuz, 5685): Fifty-one year old “Ephraim Moses Lilien an art nouveau illustrator and printmaker particularly noted for his art on Jewish themes who is sometimes called the "first Zionist artist” whose works included a photograph of Herzl taken 1901https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephraim_Moses_Lilien#/media/File:Herzl_Basel_1901.jpg and “The Queen of Sabbath” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephraim_Moses_Lilien#/media/File:Juda_13.jpg passed away today

1925:  Adolf Hitler published his personal manifesto Mein Kampf.

1926: “The Plastic Age” a silent film produced by B.P. Schulberg was released in New York today by Preferred Pictures.

1927(18^th of Tammuz, 5687): Sixty year old Paul Davidson, the East Prussian born son of Moritz Davidson, who went from being a “commercial traveler” to being a movie producer who worked with such famous directors as Ernst Lubitsch “committed suicide” today after UFA, the production company, had canceled his contract earlier in the year.

1928(1^st of Av, 5688): Rosh Chodesh Av observed for the last time during the Presidency of Calvin Coolidge.

1929: In Brooklyn, truck driver Joseph Elfin and homemaker “Bessie (Margolis) Elfin” gave birth to award winning journalist and “Washington bureau chief for Newsweek” who raised one child, Dana Elfin, with his wife “Margery (Lesser) Elfin.” (As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/25/obituaries/mel-elfin-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1930: “A five-hour secret meeting between member of the Wailing Wall Commission and Jewish and Moslem representatives broke down today” because of the “refusal of the Moslesms to concede the Jews had more than the mere right to visit the wall.”

1931 (4^th of Av, 5691): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon

1931: In Paris, the campaign against Jewish students from Rumania studying in France reached its climax today when “in accordance with a decision of the ministry of education announced today, Rumanian medical students in French universities will no longer be able to receive state certificates of doctorate. (JTA)

1932: “Thirteen Jewish students were injured when National Democratic students attack a Jewish student camp at Poronin near Zakopane, Poland today.”

1933: Birthdate of Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko who broke with the standard Soviet narrative about the Holocaust when “in1961 he wrote what would become perhaps his most famous poem, Babiyy Yar, in which he denounced the Soviet distortion of historical fact regarding the Nazi massacre of the Jewish population of Kiev in September 1941, as well as the anti-Semitism still widespread in the Soviet Union.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/01/world/europe/yevgeny-yevtushenko-dead-dissident-soviet-poet.html?_r=1

1934: The Jewish National Fund Council for Greater New York is sponsoring this evening’s farewell dinner for Bronx dentist and JNF activist Dr. Solomon Deutsch at the Farm Food Vegetarian Restaurant. Dr. Deutsch and his family are making Aliyah. (As reported by JTA)

1934: In one of several efforts by Zionist leaders to reach a compromise with the Arabs, David Ben-Gurion and Dr. Magnes met with Auni Abdul Hadi, the leader of the movement devoted to Palestinian Arab independence.

1934: Today, in England, “a day after shooting had been completed on ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’” Peter Lorre, the Hungarian born Jewish American actor and his wife “boarded a Cunard liner in Southhampton” so they could sail to the United States thanks to the their newly gained “visitor’s visas.”

1934: A lengthy article in a Nazi newspaper attacked Egyptian Jews. The Germans stated some Jewish boys insulted the Swastika flag on the German Consul's car. The paper stated the boys were arrested.

1935: “Anti-Jewish outbursts occurred again tonight in Berline when howling youths attacked customers coming out of a large Jewish ice cream plant in the northern section of” Berlin.

1936: “Representative William I. Sirovich conferred for an hour today with President Miguel Gomez and presented a proposal that Cuba open her doors for at least 100,000, perhaps more, persecuted German Jews for whom American Jewry and international humanitarians of all creeds are seeking to find permanent homes in countries where immigration restriction do prove to be a bar.”

1936: Irving “Reis was the creator of Columbia Workshop, the experimental anthology program on the radio, and its initial broadcast took place” today.

1936: “At least twenty persons were hurt in a clash between Arabs and Jews” at Rabat, French Morocco, today.

1937(10^th of Av, 5697): Tisha B’Av observed because the 9^th of Av fell on Shabbat.

1937: Fear gripped the hearts of Jews in Baghdad after two days of violence where “tens of thousands of Moslems marched through the streets of Baghdad in an anti-Jewish protest after mid-day prayer” on Friday and two Jewish merchants who had taken refuge in their shops “were killed by a mob that been told by agitators that the British had given control of a Moslem holy are in Jerusalem to the Jews.” (Editor’s note – the more things change, the more they stay the same.

1937: The funeral for “well-known writer and Zionist,’ “Dr. Abram Coralnik, the associate editor of the Jewish Day” which has been organized by the Jewish Writer’s Club is scheduled to take place this morning at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society Building” followed by interment “in the Jewish National Workers Alliance Plot at the Montefiore Cemetery in Queens.

1937: In Złoczew, Poland Hillel Safran and Clara Hoffman gave birth to American chemist Roald Hoffman who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1981.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1981/hoffmann-bio.html

1938: Eight days after he passed away, Otto Eisler, the husband of Alice Eisler and the brother of Rudolf and Paul Eisler was buried today in Vienna.

1938: “The Cunard White Star liner Queen Mary” arrived in New York “from Southampton via Cherbourg with 1,225 passengers among whom were 55 Jewish refugees from German and Austria.”

1938: “The heavy Jewish liquidations caused by ‘Aryanizations’ and the numerous restrictions imposed on Jewish businesses, together with the sudden exclusion of Jewish brokers from the Stock Exchange” and the anti-Jewish excesses in Vienna which contributed to a slump in foreign trade” are two of the reasons given for German Stock Exchanges having today suffered ‘their worst day since Hitler came to power”

1939(2^nd of Av, 5699): Seventy-eight year old Columbia professor and founder of the American Economic Association Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman, the son of banker Joseph Seligman and Babette Steiner and husband of Caroline Beer who earned a B.A. Ph.D. and LL.B from Columbia University and who became the head of the faculty of economics and sociology at his alma mater while authoring numerous works that works were “translated into French, Italian and Japanese” including The Economic Interpretation of History passed away today.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2143501?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edwin-Robert-Anderson-Seligman

1939: Fifty-two-year-old Flossye Kolhman passed away after which she was buried at the Springhill Avenue Temple Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama.

1939: Filming of “Babes in Arms” based on the Rogers and Hart musical produced by Arthur Freed was completed today.

1939: The entire Jewish community of Palestine, regardless of political persuasion, participated in a general strike aimed at protesting Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald’s announcement that Jewish immigration would be banned for the next six month.

1940: Birthdate of Bronx native and award-winning author on “lesbian and LGBT history Lillian Faderman, the daughter of a single mother working in the garment industry who has been with her “partner Phyllis Irwin for forty years and raised her son Avrom in such a manner that he earned a Ph.D from Stanford.

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt1580333s/entire_text/

1940: Chiune Sugihara “a Japanese diplomat who served as Vice-Consul for the Empire of Japan in Lithuania” began issuing life-saving visas to Polish and Lithuanian Jews in violation of instructions from his superiors.

1940: In France, Herschel Feibel Grynszpan, the Jewish refugee who assassinated Ernst vom Rath was delivered to SS Major Karl Bömelburg at the border of the Occupied Zone, driven back to Paris, flown to Berlin, and locked up in the Gestapo's headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse.

1940: “The Boys from Syracuse,” a film “based on the 1938 stage musical by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart” and produced by Jules Levey was released today in Syracuse, NY.

1940: The Florence Times described plans for the arrival of Dr. Leopold Wallach from Stuttgart, Germany who will become the Rabbi at Temple B’Nai Israel in Sheffield, Alabama

1941: “The first news of the Eastern killings reached England through intercepted German police messages which told of the mass shooting of ‘Jews, Jewish plunderers, Jewish bolshevists’…in numbers ranging from a hundred to several thousand at a time.”

1942: SS Captain Theodor Dannecker inspected Camp Gur, the internment facility in southwestern France and order the inmates to prepare for transportation to Eastern Europe.  Unbeknownst to them, this meant Auschwitz.

1942: Nine hundred Jews fled to the woods near Szarkowszczynzna as the Germans entered the town. Six hundred of them did not make it to safety and were killed

1943(15th of Tammuz, 5703): Two hundred slave laborers are murdered at Miedzyrzec, Poland.

1943(15^th of Tammuz, 5703): Seventy-four-year-old Max Meyer Blumenthal, M.D., the German born son of Selig and Juliane Blumnethal and the husband of Martha Elkus died today in the Theresienstadt  Ghetto.

1943: Charles L. Bernheimer, the Ulm, Germany, born son of “Leopold M. and Amalie (Bing) Bernheimer”, the graduate of Thudichum’s College, Geneva, Switzerland and American businessman whose career was capped by serving as Chairman of the Board Bear Mill Manufacturing Company who was a leader of the “fusion movement” in New York that led to the election of Mayor John P. Mitchell while raising his family with the former Clara Silberman celebrated his 79^th birthday today.

1943(15^th of Tammuz, 5703): Sixty-three-year-old Leopold Einstein was murdered today at Terezin.

1943: One thousand Jews are deported to Auschwitz from Paris

1944(27^th of Tammuz, 5704): Eighty-year-old Caroline Bamberger Fuld, the widow of successful merchants of Louis Frank and Felix Fuld, who used her fortune for several philanthropic and educational endeavors including the creation of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9507E2DB163FEE3BBC4152DFB166838F659EDE

1944: The Jews living on the island of Rhodes were ordered to assemble for what would become a transport of Hungary. The community dated back to 1492, the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.

1945: Birthdate of Canadian born, American educated political leader Stephen Mandel who has served as Mayor of Edmonton and Minister of Health in the Government of the Province of Alberta.

1945: In Cortland, NY attorney Joshua J. Nasaw and Beatrice “Bea” Kaplan Nasaw, a schoolteacher, gave birth to their oldest son historian David Nasaw, the  Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Professor of History at City University of New York.

1946: According to The Catcher in the Rye, the novel by J.D. Salinger who was raised as a Jew but became a follower of Zen, today “was the date that Holden Caulfield's younger brother, Allie, died of leukemia.”

1947: The British seized the SS Exodus carrying 4000 "illegal" immigrants. Its defiance of the British navy and its ultimate return to Germany formed one of the most dramatic episodes in post-war Jewish history. This was only one of many ships seized, turned around or actually sunk as the Jews defied the British blockade and tried to make their way to Palestine.  This episode gained additional fame because it provided the core for the famous novel and film Exodus.

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/16.asp

1947: Dr. Joshua Cohen was among those on board the SS Exodus when it was seized by the British. “With limited medical equipment, Cohen” had “set up impromptu clinics on every deck to care for more than 4,500 passengers, including 655 children.”  Following the seizure of the ship, After the British had seized the ship, Cohen negotiated with the British doctors to have many of the wounded sent by ambulance to Haifa.  Following his experience on the Exodus, Cohen returned to the UK, only to be recruited by the British Army. He eventually returned to Israel and served for four years in the Israeli Medical Corps. Later, he was director general of the Poriya Hospital outside Tiberias, as well as deputy director of Rambam Hospital in Haifa.

1947: Mordechai (Motke) Eldar who had survived Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen and Gunskirchen and his sisters were among the passengers on the Exodus whom the British would forcibly ship back to Hamburg.   Eldar returned to Tel Aviv a year later. He joined the IDF where he served for thirty years reaching the rank of Colonel.

1948: The HMCS Norsyd, a flower class corvette was re-commissioned today as the INS Haganah

1948: On the final day of Operation Dekel, Israeli forces take the villages Sh’ab and Al-Birwa.

1948: Benjamin (Ben) Dunkelman, a Jewish veteran of the Canadian Army, commanded the 7^th Brigade and its supporting units throughout Operation Dekel that came to an end today.

1948: As part of Operating Death to the Invader, Israeli continued their offensive in the Negev attacking Egyptian invaders at Hatta and Karatiyya. After initial Israeli success, the Egyptians counter-attacked with tanks.  An Israeli soldier named Ron Feller risked his life in a successful effort to destroy two of the tanks using a hand held anti-tank weapon for which he had only two rounds. He received the Hero of Israel Citation for his bravery.

1948:  A fourth and final attack by Israelis on the fortress of Latrun failed.  Latrun would remain in the hands of Jordan’s Arab Legion until 1967. 

1948: Israeli forces take Ayin Karem ending the threatened Egyptian invasion of Jerusalem.

1948: Canadian Benjamin "Ben" Dunkelman, who fought with The Queen’s Own Rifles during WW II was the commander “of the 7^th Brigade” Israel’s “best-known armored brigade” during Operation Dekel which came to an end today.

1948: During the War of Independence, after ten days of fighting (July 8- July 18), a second truce went into effect.

 

1948: As of today, the entire lower Galilee from Haifa Bay to the Sea of Galilee was under Israeli control.

1948:  Over the next thirty-six hours, Dr. Stanley Levin, a volunteer surgeon from South Africa “performed 28 successive surgeries” without stopping for a break.

1948: Today, “at 17:30, on the last day of the summer offensive, Modi Alon led Syd Antin and Rudy Augarten who was flying his first combat mission in Israel, from Herzliya in three S-199s to attack an Egyptian armored column at Bir Asluj, west of Beersheva”  “where they dropped their bombs and made three strafing runs.”

1948: Modi Alon scored his third aerial victory today when he shot down a Royal Egyptian Air Force Spit fired piloted by Wing Commander Said Afifi al-Janzuri.  The Spitfire had been the backbone of the RAF during the Blitz in 1940.  Alon had served in the RAF during the war but had flown the American made P-51.

1948: Birthdate of Graham Spanier who was forced to resign as President of Penn State University for his role in the school’s sex abuse scandal.

1949: Today “after a five hour meeting at Mishmar hay Yarden” Israel and Syria “initialed an armistice agreement today and agreed to sign it on” July 20.

1949: Today in Copenhagen, Denmark an appeals court commuted the death sentence of Dr. Werner Best, the High Commissioner for the Reich in Denmark who “was accused of having taken the initiative in mass deportation of Danish Jews, to a sentence of five years imprisonment.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1949/07/19/86776449.html?pageNumber=11

1950(4^th of Av, 5710): Sixty-nine-year-old Julius Levin, the husband of Etta Karesh Levin and the father of Sidney L. Levin passed away today and was later buried in KKBI Cemetery in Charleston, SC.

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that while the Knesset voted for equal rights for women, the word ba'al (the word for husband which literally means also a master) was replaced with ish (man, meaning husband as well). The Women's Equal Rights Bill was unanimously opposed at the annual conference of four Israeli kadis (Moslem religious officials), held in Jerusalem. The kadis, however, eased the divorce laws for separated wives. Henceforth Israel's Arab women whose husbands were abroad would become eligible to remarry, if they wished to press divorce proceedings.

1952: “Don’t Bother to Knock” a film noir with a script by Daniel Taradash and with music by Lionel Newman was released in the United States today.

1952(25^th of Tammuz, 5712) Sixty-seven-year-old Ben-Zion Poljakoff passed away in Helsinki, Finland.

1953: “Doctors completed’ the fifth attempt in the United States to ward off the crippling effects of of polio with mass inoculations of gamma globulin, “a serum which is made in Israel.”

1954(17^th of Tammuz, 5714): Tzom Tammuz

1955: “Governor Harriman of New York saw from the air today the dredging operation by which Israel is reclaiming prehistoric Hula swamp and creating a rich farm area.”

1955: It was reported today that “a shipping agreement between Israel and the Soviet Union which help Israel to increase trade with Moscow has been signed by the Israelis Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.”

1957: “Silk Stockings” a screen adaptation of George Kaufman and Abe Burrows play produced by Arthur Freed (Arthur Grossman), featuring Peter Lorre, George Tobias and Jules Munshin and edited by Harold F. Kress was released today in the United States.

1957(19^th of Tammuz, 5717): Isidore Rabinowitz, the Grodno born “son of Libbie and Shimon Rabinowitz” and the “husband of Rebecca Rosen Rabinowitz” with whom he had had three children passed away today in Brooklyn.

1958(1^st of Av, 5718) Rosh Chodesh Av

1961(8^th of Av, 5721): Seventy-four-year-old Chaim Gutman, famous Yiddish writer and satirist, known under his nom de plume of “Der Lebediger” who “had been a member of the editorial staff of the Day-Morning Journal in New York since 1953” passed away today at Miami Beach. (As reported by JTA)

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/gutman-chaim

1962: “Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man” produced by Jerry Wald “with a cast that included by Eli Wallach, Paul Newman, Susan Strasberg and Baruch Lumet with music by Franz Waxman” was released by 20^th Century Fox in the United States today.

1964(9^th of Av, 5724): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish’a B’Av

1964(9^th of Av, 5724): Cecilia Goldman, the wife of Morris Goldman and the mother of Samuel, Mortimer and Leslie Goldman passed away today.

1965(18^th of Tammuz, 5725): Tzom Tammuz

1967(10^th of Tammuz, 5727): Eighty-one year old “Mrs. Minnie Greenfield Cohen, the widow the former picture editor of the New York Times, Israel Cohen, who had passed away in 1952, died today at Kings Highway Hospital in rooklyn.

1967: Germaine Ribière, a French Catholic member of the Resistance born in 1917 “was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/ribiere.asp

1969(3^rd of Av, 5729): Seventy-four-year-old Birth Control pioneer Fania Mindell passed away today in Mexico City.

https://jwa.org/thisweek/oct/26/1916/fania-mindell-arrested-for-distributing-birth-control-material

1969: During the War of Attrition, “Egyptian commandos attacked Israelis military installations in the Sinai.

1969: Today, “The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine bombed the Oxford Street store of Marks & Spencer in London.”

1969: “The Appointment” a psychological drama directed by Sidney Lumet was released today in Finland.

1970: Menahem Eini was taken prisoner when his F-4E Phantom II was shot down during the War of Attrition.

1970(14th of Tammuz, 5730): Shmuel Hetz was killed when his F-4E Phantom II was shot down during the War of Attrition.

1973: Birthdate of Christine Demter whose murder for hire was the subject of By Persons Unknown: The Strange Death of Christine Demeter by Jewish authors George Jonas and Barbara Amiel.

1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that during his electoral campaign, Jimmy Carter, the US presidential candidate, announced that he believed strongly that "Israel made enough concessions, and it was time that Arabs made some." In Montreal, an angry walkout by most large African nations scarred the opening of the biggest, costliest and most controversial Olympic Games in history. The African nations pulled out after the International Olympic Committee rejected their demand to bar New Zealand because of its sporting links with South Africa. Taiwan also pulled out from the Olympics after Canada ruled that it could not take part under the name of the "Republic of China." extensive readership survey

1976: Eight Israelis and three Palestinians were injured today when a bomb was exploded aboard a bus in Tel Aviv today.

1977: “Israel’s newly announced anti‐inflation program spurred organized labor today to its first confrontation with the Government of Prime Minister Menahem Begin since he took office last month” as “The General Federation of Labor, or Histadrut, called on all Israeli wage earners to protest the 25 percent increases in the prices of basic foods and fuels that the Government decided upon as a means of draining purchasing power,”

1978: Egyptian & Israeli officials begin 2 days of talks.

1978: John Gunther Dean completed his service as U.S. Ambassador to Denmark,

1979: A fifteen-day conference co-sponsored by Sarah Lawrence, the Women's Action Alliance and the Smithsonian Institution, began on this date at Sarah Lawrence College. Intended for female leaders, it was attended by a diverse range of participants representing 43 different women's organizations. The institute was organized by Sarah Lawrence professor Gerda Lerner One of the pioneers of women's history, Lerner hoped to introduce a diverse group of varied backgrounds to the possibilities of women's history. Lerner described the 15-day course as equivalent to a semester-long seminar. In addition to ongoing afternoon workshops and evening cultural events, each morning's program featured one lecture by the seminar instructors. Joining Lerner as the principle instructors were Alice Kessler-Harris and Amy Swerdlow, both pioneering feminists and women's historians.

1980: “The Big Red One” a WW II combat movie directed by Samuel Fuller and filmed by cinematographer Adam Greenberg was released in the United States today by United Artists.

1981: “Israeli jets today bombed a densely populated area of Beirut containing Palestinian guerrilla headquarters and, in wide raids in southern Lebanon, knocked out three more bridges”

1981: “Palestinian gunners, continuing their rocket attacks on northern Israeli towns for the third day, reportedly hit a maternity hospital in Nahariya, wounding four women who were patients there.”

1982(27th of Tammuz, 5742): Eighty-five-year-old “Roman Jakobson, an internationally known authority on Slavic languages and literatures” passed away today at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, which was not far from his home  in Cambridge, Mass.  Best known as the founder of phonology, the study of abstract properties of the sounds of speech, Dr. Jakobson was Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fields of linguistics and philosophy and was the Samuel Hazzard Cross Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and General Linguistics Emeritus at Harvard University.  He was Thomas G. Masaryk Professor of Czechoslovak Studies at Columbia University before he joined the Harvard faculty in 1950. Harvard called the appointment a major step in the expansion of the university's Slavic studies. In 1957, Dr. Jakobson was invited to join M.I.T.'s faculty, and he taught at both institutions. He retired from Harvard in 1967 and from M.I.T. in 1970.  Dr. Jakobson could read 25 languages, and in one of his works he analyzed poetry in 16 languages. His study of phonology was only a facet of his work, which continued until his death. In 1981-82, he added to the list of his publications two books and 15 articles, the last of about 500 he produced in his lifetime.  One of his last books, ''Dialogues,'' consisting of conversations between him and his wife, Krystyna Pomorska, professor of Russian literature at M.I.T., will be published by M.I.T. in September

1982: The first congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies opened today at Herford College Oxford.

1982: Neve Daniel was established today on the site of The Cohen Farm “which had been founded on September 6, 1935, on lands purchased from Arab residents of Bethlehem, that were transferred to the Jewish National Fund in 1943 and which had been abandoned during the Arab riots, and remained under Jordanian control until 1967.”

1983(8th of Av, 5743): Erev Tish'a B'Av

1984(18^th of Tammuz, 5744): Eighty-eight-year-old Russian born English Zionist and a member of the Rothschild family Flora Solomon who “was the mother of Peter Benenson, the founder of Amnesty International” passed away today.

http://spartacus-educational.com/Flora_Solomon.htm

1984(18^th of Tammuz, 5744): Seventy-four-year-old Polish born, NYU graduate and holder of a doctorate from Dropsie University Dr. Irving Abraham Argus, the husband of the former Tema Gerber with whom he had two children – Aharon and Rachel – the “professor emeritus of history at Yeshiva University's Bernard Revel Graduate School and an authority on Jewish life in the Middle Ages” whose works included “Urban Civilization in Pre-Crusade Europe, in which he held that the concept of town government originated with Jewish communities of the 10th and 11th centuries” and The Heroic Age of Franco-German Jewry, which traced the contributions to Jewish cultural life of a small group of Franco-German Jews who survived the Crusades and became the progenitors of Ashkenazic Jewry” passed way today.

1985: James D. Ellison, 38 years old, founder and spiritual leader of the Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord, described by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a survivalist, white supremacist group “ was convicted in Federal District Court today of racketeering charges related to fires at a Jewish Community Center in Bloomington, IN and a homosexual church and the bombing of a natural gas pipeline.”

1986: “Aliens,” a sci-fi film featuring Jeanette Goldstein and Paul Reiser was released in the United States today by 20^th Century Fox.

1986: “Pirates,” an adventure comedy directed by Roman Polanski who co-authored the script and starring Walter Matthau was released in the United States today.

1987:  “A banned Soviet film which presents a sympathetic portrait of Soviet Jews was shown to restricted audiences at a Moscow film festival, and officials have promised its eventual release.”

1989(15th of Tammuz, 5749): Twenty-one-year-old model and actress Rebeca Schaeffer was murdered by an “obsessed fan who had been stalking her for three years.”

1990(25^th of Tammuz, 5750): Seventy-two year old Johnny Wayne, the “Wayne” of the Canadian comedy team “Wayne and Shuster” passed away today.

1992(17^th of Tammuz, 5752) Parshat Balak

1992: “British solicitor and Labour party leader” Victor Mishcon, the Brixton born so of Rabbi Arnold Mishcon and Quennie Mishcon completed his service as “Shadow Lord Chancellor.”

1992(17^th of Tammuz, 5752): Eighty-four-year-old Norfolk, VA native Elsie Nusbaum Hofheimer, the University of Pennsylvania education wife of Henry Clay Hofheimer II with whom she had three children passed away today after which she buried in the Jewish section of Forest Lawn Cemetery in Norfolk.

1994: George Gershwin’s “The Man I Love which had been “recorded by Kate Bush for Larry Adler's The Glory of Gershwin tribute album was released today as a single.”

1994(10th of Av, 5754): In Buenos Aires a car bomb exploded outside the building housing the AMIA, the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, or AMIA) building killing 85 people and wounding more than 200 others in what remains the deadliest anti-Semitic incident anywhere since World War II and came two years after 29 people died in a similar attack on the Israeli Embassy in Argentina.

1995: Ehud Barak succeeded David Libai as Interior Minister.

1995: “Three teenagers were crushed to death by a falling gate during a farewell concert by the popular band Mashina” at the Hebrew Music Festival in Arad.

1997(13th of Tammuz, 5757): Sir James Goldsmith, a flamboyant British-French financier who maintained three families, homes in four countries and used his billions to fight the European Union, passed away today at the age of 64 after having battled pancreatic cancer for four years.  His father was Jewish.  His mother was not. Sir James made his fortune as a highly successful corporate raider before turning to politics. He formed his own Referendum Party in Britain with the single mission of combatting further European integration while maintaining a seat from France in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Although his party polled over 800,000 votes in the British elections in May, it did not win a single seat in the House of Commons. Born into a prosperous banking family, Sir James went on to amass a personal fortune estimated at up to $2.5 billion. Having frequented luxurious hotels in his youth, he briefly flirted with the idea of working in one, but soon turned to finance, excelling in the art of taking over troubled companies. He was a brilliant investor of his profits too and accurately forecast the American stock market crash of 1987, turning his assets into cash just before the market plunged. In the United States, he was best known for his 1986 raid on the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, which became an issue in Congressional hearings on takeovers.

1998(24^th of Tammuz, 5758): Parashat Pinchas

1998(24^th of Tammuz, 5758): Seventy-five-year-old Dr. Henry C. Zingher passed away today “in his home in Vernon Hills.”

1999: The New York Times reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Spinoza: A Life” by Steven Nadler.

1999: In “Lives; Pandora’s Idiot Box” published today David Rakoff described what it was like to own his first television set.

2000: “The United States and Germany approved a $5 billion agreement to compensate forced laborers like him from the Nazi era.”

2001: Daniel C. Kurtzer presented his credentials as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

2002(9^th of Av, 5762): Tish’a B’Av

2002(9^th of Av, 5762): Eighty-year-old New York born, Julliard trained violinist and WW II veteran Seymour Solomon, who with his brother Maynard founded Vangaurd Records, a must label for folk music lovers in the 1950’s and 1960’s passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/19/arts/seymour-solomon-80-record-label-founder.html

2002(9^th of Av, 5762): Twenty-one year old Yocheved Ben-Hanan of Emmanuel died today of wounds she suffered when a terrorist attacked Dan bus #189.

2002: Eric Moonman, the former Laborite Member of Parliament, university professor, Zionist leader and author of The Violent Society appeared as “a terrorism expert” appeared for the first time “on a Channel Five Lunchtime Bulletin…after which he appeared dozens of times on UK television.

2003: “Bad Boys II” directed by Michael Bay, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, with a script co-authored by Jerry Stahl and music by Trevor Rabin” was released today in the United States by Columbia Pictures.

2004: After 101 performances at Studio 54, the curtain came down on a revival of “Assassins,” a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

2004: At the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma,  the fifth and final performance of the Biblical opera "Nabucco" by Giuseppe Verdi in which acclaimed Israeli theatre and opera director Jacobo Kaufmann,  directs and designs the scenery. He is the first Israeli ever to be hired to direct an opera in Italy.

2004: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of “In Praise of Nepotism:: A History of Family Enterprise From King David to George W. Bush” by Adam Bellow, the son of novelist Saul Bellow, who succeeds in canvassing much of Western history (not to mention Confucian and Hindu traditions) to argue that kinship is ''both natural and necessary.''

2004: With President Néstor Kirchner looking on, Argentine Jewish leaders today marked the 10th anniversary of a deadly anti-Semitic attack here by delivering blistering attacks on his predecessors and European institutions they say have blocked efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice.

2005: The second in the three part National Geographic Special based Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond aired tonight on PBS.

2005: Rabbi Aaron Sherman officially assumes the pulpit at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 

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: Andrei Zelinsky, 36, of Nahariya.

2006: In “Hunker Down With History” published today, Richard Cohen began his column on the Middle East by writing "The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now".

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/17/AR2006071701154.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

2007: The 93^rd annual national Hadassah Convention comes to an end.

2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, weather permitting, Temple Judah is scheduled to celebrate Friday night Shabbat Services in the new Silber Family Outdoor Sanctuary.

2008: Arad police, in a rare incident, shot dead a man threatening to kill his ex-wife with a knife

2008: In an article entitled “The Floods of 2008,” George C. Ford describes the impact of the worst natural disaster in the history of Cedar Rapids on the Siegel family, who has been prominent members of the business community for over six decades and pillars of the Jewish community.

Sixty-eight years after Siegel’s Jewelry & Loan opened in downtown Cedar Rapids, the business was forced to relocate following last month’s flooding. Ken Siegel and his brother, Jary, who operated the store at 105 Third Ave. SE, signed a lease for a vacant store at 3525 First Ave. SE within days after learning the extent of the damage to their business. “When we were finally allowed back into downtown to check our business on June 16, we found the windows were broken and blackened,” Ken Siegel said. “Looking inside the store, we saw the walls were buckled in, display cases had been flipped upside down and torn apart and there was really complete devastation.” Although Jary Siegel and store employees had moved merchandise like plasma televisions and guitars from the basement to the top of the showcases on the first floor, the floodwaters destroyed virtually everything but jewelry stored in two safes. “All of our retail jewelry and diamonds were stored in the safes,” Ken Siegel said. “Unfortunately, the safes had digital locks that were shorted out by the floodwaters and we were stuck for about a week. We looked all over the country for someone to get the safes open until Jeremy at John’s Lock & Key in Cedar Rapids was able to get them open.” Siegel said more than 3,000 envelopes containing diamonds and other jewelry had to be opened by hand. “We had between 10 and 12 people cleaning the jewelry, matching the diamonds with certificates, creating new paperwork and cataloging each item,” he said. “We also had about 3,000 or 4,000 DVDs in our inventory. We were able to recover about 2,000, but we had to throw away the cases because they were submerged. “We literally lost thousands of items. I would estimate that we lost at least $250,000 worth of merchandise.” Cy Christenson, 92, who has repaired watches at Siegel’s since 1976, lost all of his tools as well as “enough parts and crystals for five shops,” according to Siegel. “We’re still recovering customers’ watches left for repair.” Siegel said getting the business up and running was a priority. “We’re in essence like a bank, so if a bank closes, customers get upset when they can’t get their money,” he said. “We’re also a loan institution as well, so we had hundreds of people calling to find out if they could get their merchandise.” Siegel said customers who pawned merchandise other than jewelry likely will not be able to redeem their items.
 “The national pawn contract says that we’re not responsible for catastrophic events like fire and floods,” he said. “We have insurance for everything but flooding.” Siegel said customers who pawned merchandise usually were loaned anywhere from 50 percent to 60 percent of the value when it was pawned. “Most of the customers we have talked with have been very understanding,” he said. Asked if the business will return to the building it bought in 2005 after being a tenant for 65 years, Siegel does not have an answer. “We’re trying to rescue a $500,000 investment,” he said. “We would like to go back downtown. We love the downtown area, but we will have to see what develops over the next few years.”

2008: In “Using Bombs to Stave Off War” published today historian Benny Morris described what he sees as the consequence of the military option in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat.

2009: Fifteenth anniversary of the AMIA bombing attack.  The following was sent to us by an anonymous Argentine Jew whose pain has not been dimmed by the passing of time.

The AMIA Bombing was an attack on the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, or AMIA) building in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994, that killed 85 people. Carried out under Carlos Menem's presidency (1989-1999), it was Argentina's deadliest bombing. Argentina is home to a Jewish community of 200,000, the largest in Latin America. It was one of the Largest Attacks against Jews after the holocaust. I'm an Argentine Jew, not only I've lost people close to my life in this attack but our lives as Jews in Argentina changed forever, we lost everything we had, including our voices. As we continue to hear the silence of the international community and the lack of care of our own community. Now isn’t it sad to read the level of ignorance that the Jewish community worldwide has about this. I have questioned myself every year, why? Why would people care so little about this? They attacked us for not only being Jews but as they see us as a way to attack Israel, so at least for that basic reason, even if you don't care about the Jews in Argentina, don't you care about an attack towards Israel? Even if Israelis didn't die.. We died due to that... As every year not only I ask tons of people if they know about this day, and obviously they are totally ignorant, Do you think you might have a little place in your heart to remind yourselves that we as well represent the Jewish population, that 85 people died and 300 severely injured and put this solemn day of remembrance in your little calendar... I'd say just for respect. Just at least for respect even if you don't care....I'm the daughter of a holocaust survivor... the same way I remember all of my family and all of the victims of the holocaust, I as well make a very special place in my heart to remember the AMIA and the Bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina. And we still don't have support, and we still don't have justice, and still the world continues to ignore our cries of help....Shame shame, shame on ignorance... shame that people just don't care.

[Ed. Note; We hope that by publishing this as it was written, we have in some small way atoned for previous failure to note this tragic event in our people’s history.  Zachor – Remember and remember we will.]

2009: The Jerusalem Film Festival features a screening of Harlan-In the Shadow of the Jew Suss. “

2009(26th of Tammuz, 5769): Eighty-four-year-old Anglo-Jewish  actress Jill Balcon passed away today.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jul/20/jill-balcon-obituary

2010: In Bethlehem, PA, table games began today at a casino owned by Sheldon Adelson

2010: “Controlled Chaos and Brawny Braininess Watcha Clan with Charming Hostess” are scheduled to appear on the final day of the 25^th Annual Jewish Music Festival in San Francisco.

2010:  The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including   Where I Live: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010 by Maxine Kumin, the Phildelphia born Jewish poet.

2010: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leaves for Egypt today to discuss with President Hosni Mubarak the possibility of launching direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is also due to meet with Mubarak in Cairo.

2010: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today said he opposes the conversion bill proposed by Yisrael Beiteinu, which would give sole authority over Israel's conversions to the Chief Rabbinate, saying it will "tear apart the Jewish people."

2011: In “Roseanne’s New Reality” published today, the aging Jewish born comedian reveals that “every Friday night for Shabbat from sundown until 2 a.m., she gets high, drinks red wine, and does a meditation Rav Berg taught her.”

2011: “Egypt’s Rising Power” published today examined the career of Amr Moussa the leading candidate to be the next President of Egypt. What his “supporters love most “about him “is his long and vocal history of anti-Israel diatribes.”  Moussa insisted that he would honor the treaty despite his opposition to Sadat’s peace moves.

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/07/10/why-amr-moussa-is-egypt-s-presidential-frontrunner.html

2011: A 50-year-old Jewish man from the Beit Zayit suburb of Jerusalem was arrested by police today afternoon on suspicion of being responsible for the forest fire in Jerusalem on Sunday

2011: The Malaysian government-backed newspaper said in an editorial that foreign Jewish groups will try to use a current push for reform to interfere in the country.

2012: Center for Jewish History and American Jewish Historical Society are scheduled to present screenings of “Hester Street” and “Sweatshop Cinderella.”

2012: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to present “A Magical Eve with James Conlon” during which the Music Director of the Ravinia Festival and Executive Director of the OREL Foundation. Maestro Conlon will share insights about his "Breaking the Silence" series featuring music from composers whose work had been silenced by the Nazis. Musical accompaniment will be provided by Janai Brugger and Miah Im

2012: One year from today, on July 18, 2013, the Maccabiah Games are scheduled to open in Jerusalem

2012: In New Orleans, a three-week program of continuing education styled “The World of Fiddler on the Roof” is scheduled to begin tonight with “Marc Chagall’s World.”

2012(28^th of Tammuz, 5772): One hundred two year old Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv passed away today. (As reported by Matti Friedman)

http://www.timesofisrael.com/rabbi-elyashiv-a-relentless-torah-scholar-whose-strict-rulings-sought-to-resist-modernity/

2012(28^th of Tammuz, 5772).Seven people were killed and 32 injured when a bomb exploded on an Israeli tourist bus at the airport of the Bulgarian city of Burgas today, the 18th anniversary of the Iran-sponsored attack on the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Six of the victims died on the spot, and the seventh in the hospital following the attack, Bulgarian officials confirmed. Two of the victims were said to be Bulgarian -- the bus driver and tour guide.(As reported by Yaakov Katz, Herb Keinon, Yaakov Lappin)

2012: Seven people have been killed, and 30 injured — including three critically — by a bomb that exploded on a bus carrying an Israeli tour group from its plane to the terminal inside Bulgaria’s Bourgas airport this evening.

2013: In Waukee, Iowa is scheduled to sponsor “Keeping The Homeland Safe: Israel and Iowa Together” featuring Sheriffs Paul A. Fitzgerald, Ted Kamatchus and Bill McCarthy.

2013: The Maccabiah Games are scheduled to officially open this evening at Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/higher-faster-stronger-jewishly/

http://www.timesofisrael.com/history-in-the-making-at-the-19th-maccabiah-games/

2013: The late André Tchaikowsky's opera The Merchant of Venice is scheduled to be premiered at the Bregenz Festival,[

2013: In New Orleans, “The World of Fiddler on the Roof” a three part program sponsored by Reform Congregation Gates of Prayer and Orthodox Congregation Beth Israel is scheduled to begin this evening with “Marc Chagall’s World.”  For more see Crescent City Jewish News the place to go for news about the Jewish community of Greater New Orleans

2013: A U.S. State Department official said today there are no plans to announce a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks after the Israeli government denied that it agreed to base new talks on the 1967 lines. (As reported by Lazar Berman)

2013: The Israeli Antiquities Authority issued a press release announcing the “discovery” of archaeological remains identified as King David’s Palace.

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/news/king-david%E2%80%99s-palace-at-khirbet-qeiyafa/

2013: The 19th quadrennial Maccabiah Games started in grand fashion at Teddy Kollek Stadium tonight, bolstered by tens of thousands of enthusiastic spectators, and more than 9,000 of the most talented Jewish athletes in the world. (As reported by Daniel K. Eisenbud)

http://www.jpost.com/Sports/Worlds-largest-Jewish-sporting-event-kicks-off-in-Jerusalem-320350

2014: The Historic 6^th & I Synagogue is scheduled to a host the “6^th Street Minyan” followed by ice cream, challah and wine.

2014: As of this morning, Israeli time, the IDF has begun a limited incursion into Gaza designed to destroy a series of tunnels and other terrorist infrastructure.

2014(20^th of Tammuz, 5774): At 3:00 A.M. “First Sargent Eitan Barak, a 20-year-old fighter from Herzliya in the Nahal Brigade, was mortally wounded in north Gaza” as the IDF sought to put an end to the terrorist threat.

2014: “A second, massive volley of rockets was aimed at central Israel from the Gaza Strip just after 9pm this evening, even as IDF ground grounds operated in the Gaza Strip in a bid to stem the attacks. At least two rockets were reportedly intercepted in the Tel Aviv area. (As reported by Ilana Curiel)

2014: Following yesterday’s attempted infiltration of Israel by 13 terrorists through an underground tunnel, the Israeli military said it had already uncovered 10 tunnels with 22 exit points and that there were “dozens” more “terror tunnels” spread around Gaza. (As reported by Isabel Kershner)

2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host an “end of season” “Double Concerti” featuring the works of Bach and Vivaldi.

2015: Israeli-born jazz guitarist Gilad Hekselman is scheduled to perform at the Cornelia Street Café in NYC.

2015: “Songs from the Second Floor” and “42^nd Street” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2015: In Amherst, MA, at the Yiddish Book CenterTrombonist/keyboardist Brian Bender of the Yiddishkeit Klezmer Ensemble, Little Shop of Horas, and the Wholesale Klezmer Band is scheduled to lead an instrumental workshop for aspiring teen and adult klezmer musicians as part of Yidstock.

2016(12^th of Tammuz, 5776): Sixty-nine year old Uri Coronel, “the chairman of the Israelite Portuguese Community of the Netherlands” died today “after he collapsed at gym while exercising. (JTA)2016(12^th of Tammuz, 5776):  In Israel, 89 year old psychologist Blome Evers, the survivor of Auschwitz known as “the unofficial queen of Jewish Amsterdam” and the mother of six including Rabbi Raphael Evers passed away today. (JTA)

2016: “War Paint,” a “musical that focuses on the lives of and rivalry between 20th-century female entrepreneurs Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein” opened today at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.

2016: The Republican National Convention is scheduled to open in Cleveland without attendance by Republican Jewish fund raisers including Charlie Spies and Yitz Applebaum, Bush administration alumni Noam Neusner, Tevi Troy and Jay Zeidman and Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, the highly regarded Orthodox rabbi in New York who oversaw Ivanka Trump's conversion to Judaism  but who changed his mind about accepting the opportunity to lead a prayer when he came to the conclusion that the appearance would be divisive and run counter to his goal of community unity.

2017: Today “during a press conference in the Hungarian parliament following meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Prime Minister Viktor Orban expressed regret that his country had neglected to protect its Jewish citizens during the Holocaust” saying that “at an earlier time, the government of Hungary made a mistake, moreover, committed a sin when it did not protect its citizens of Jewish heritage…”

2017: Today, Deadline reported that “On the Basis of Sex,” a biopic about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that Felicity Jones would play the Justice and Mimi Leader would be the director.

2017(24^th of Tammuz, 5777): Eighty-nine-year-old Herbert Needleman, the doctor who was the driving force behind removing lead contamination from the world of children, passed away today, (As reported by Benedict Carey)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/science/herbert-needleman-dead-lead-poisoning-in-children.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2017: Today “Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate visited the site of a former Nazi concentration camp at Stutthof in Poland, where they met with two British survivors of the facility where 28,000 Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.”

2017: The 20^th Maccabiah Games are scheduled to come to an end today.

2017: “God’s Own Country” and “On the Beach at Night Alone” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2017: In London, JW3 is scheduled host a film starring Richard Gere “as a relentless Jewish-American macher.”

2018(6^th of Av, 5778): Eighty-seven year old Nobel Prize for Physics winner Burton Richter, the Brooklyn born son of textile worker Abraham Richter and “Fanny (Pollack) Richter” and the father of Elizabeth and Matthew Richter whom he raised with his wife Laurose passed away today. (As reported by Kenneth Chang)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/obituaries/burton-richter-a-nobel-winner-for-plumbing-matter-dies-at-87.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2018: Today pitcher Dean Kremer “the first Israel drafted by a Major League Baseball team” was traded to the Baltimore Orioles after which “he was assigned to the Bowie Baysox of the Double-A Eastern League.”

2018: YIVO is scheduled to present “The Essence of Yiddish Theatre, a theatrical introduction to Yiddish language and Yiddish theatre.”

2018: In Cedar Rapids, IA, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to discuss Survivors Club: The True Story of a Very Young Prisoner of Auschwitz by Michael Bornstein and Debbie Bornstein Holinstat

2018: “Batsheva – The Young Ensemble is scheduled to perform Ohad Naharin's Bessie Award-winning dance, Naharin's Virus” at The Joyce Theatre in New York City.

2018: “Odd Mom Out's Jill Kargman and the Unorthodox podcast hosts” are scheduled to “screen a new short film about the persistence of the "JAP" (Jewish American Princess) stereotype”  followed by “a discussion with guests including Tovah Feldshuh, Judith Rosenbaum and Bat Sheva Marcus” at the Marlene Meyerson JCC in Manhattan.

2019: Twenty-fifth anniversary of the AMIA bombing attack. 

2019: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present a lecture in Yiddish by Daniel Soyer, a “professor of history and Jewish studies at Fordham University” on “Yiddish New York.”

2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the final screen of “The Matchmaker” directed by Avi Nesher and “Why the Jews” directed by John Curtin.

2019: In Palo Alto, CA, the Oshman Family JCC is scheduled to host “The Code” during which “Margaret O’Mara talks about her new book, subtitled Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America, with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Kornblut”

2019: “Judge Richard Berman”…is scheduled “to issue a ruled whether to grant Jeffrey Epstein bail” today.

2019: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to open this evening with a screening “A Miracle of Miracles,” the documentary that “tells the story behind Broadway musical "Fiddler on The Roof" and its creative roots in early 1960s New York” and “includes interviews with the Broadway show’s Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning lyricist Sheldon Harnick, legendary producer Hal Prince, original cast members, such as Austin Pendleton, as well as rare archival footage of choreographer Jerome Robbins.”

2020(26^th of Tammuz, 5780): Parashat Matot-Masay;

2020: Day 3 of the four-day Cinegogue Summer Days film festival is scheduled to including 2020 documentary “They Ain’t Ready for Me” about a Black rabbinical student in Chicago, followed by Q&A including the film’s subject, a 2020 documentary “Michael Tilson Thomas: Where Now Is” followed by a Q&A with Tilson Thomas and producer Peter Stein and 1919 silent film about a Jewish girl falling in love with a non-Jewish boy, “Broken Barriers,” with Sascha Jacobson Quartet performing a newly composed score live online.

2020: In Pepper Pike, OH, B’nai Jershurun Congregation is scheduled to host via Zoom “Starbucks, Bread and Torah Online.”

2020: The Boston Workers Circle is scheduled to present online a “Discussion on Shimon Dzigan” during which “Miriam Isaacs she talks about her current project translating the works of the beloved Yiddish comedian Shimon Dzigan”

2020: Israelis are scheduled to observe Shabbat with a series of new restrictions in response to the spike in Coronavirus cases which mean “people will be allowed to leave their homes this weekend but malls, shops, pools, zoos and museums would shut from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning…”(YNET)

2021(9^th of Av, 5781): Tish’A B’Av;

2021: In Palo Alto, CA, the Oshman Family JCC is scheduled to host an “in-person gathering on Tisha B'Av to mourn the destruction of the temples in Jerusalem and reflect on our world as the pandemic eases that includes singing, chanting, guided meditation and poetry.”

2021: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of The Bohemians: The Lovers Who Led Germany’s Resistance Against the Nazis by Norman Ohler.

2021: In Atlanta, at the Bremen Museum, Rabbi Joe Prass, director of the Weinberg Center for Holocaust Education will be giving tours of the Holocaust Gallery.

2021: The London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to host Dr Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz who will be leading a special virtual tour to help deepen our understanding of this fast, and bring to life the people who lived through the destruction of the second Temple” which will include virtual visits to the British Museum, Pergamon Museum and Bible Lands Museum in order to recreate this lost world and see the human side of this seismic event.”

2021: Urban Adamah is scheduled to host a virtual “Tish’a B’Av Meditation retreat with “spiritual leaders Norman Fischer and Rabba Dorothy Richman who will discuss and lead Jewish meditation, prayer and learning on the day marking the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem.

2022: The Americans and the Holocaust traveling exhibition is scheduled to open at The Americans and the Holocaust traveling exhibition is scheduled to open at Marshalltown Public Library (Marshalltown, IA),University Libraries, Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA) and Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library (Bismarck, ND).

2022: Lockdown University is scheduled to host a webinar with Jason Greenblatt lecturing on “Understanding’s Today Changed Middle East.

2023: The Construction of the Tabernacle by Ephraim Epstein, which provides “a detailed study of the construction of the Tabernacle, the portable sanctuary used by the Israelites during their exodus from Egypt. Drawing on biblical and archaeological sources” was published toda.

2023: The Summer Institute on “Teaching the Holocaust”  sponsored  by the Iowa Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to continue for a second day.

2023: Lockdown University is scheduled to host a lecture by Jeremy Rosen on “The Jew Bill of 1753.”

2023: The Ackman and Ziff Family Genealogy Institute is scheduled to present “In the Shadow of Auschwitz: How JCC Krakow is Rebuilding Jewish Life in Poland and Supporting Ukrainian Refugees.”

2023: The Winter Family which occupies a special place in the French and Israeli artistic scene is scheduled to appear at the Sultan Room in Brooklyn.

2023: In New Orleans, the National Council of Jewish Women is scheduled to hold its board meeting.

2023: YIVO is scheduled to present a lecture by Dr. Avi Blitz  “the ‘Tsenerene,’ the most popular Yiddish book in history.”

2023: Lockdown University is scheduled to host a lecture by Trudy Gold on “Israel Zangwill, the ‘Jewish Dicken’ and the Kilburn Wanderers.

2024: YIVO is scheduled to present a lecture in Yiddish by Marion Aprtoot on “Isaac Wetzlar’s Call for Reform of Jewish Society and Education.”

2024: The Museum at Eldridge Street’s “Senior Manager for Education and Accessibility, Scott Brevda—historian, museum educator, and Senior Manager for Education and Accessibility at the Museum at Eldridge Street— is scheduled to present  a special verbal description tour of the Synagogue's stained-glass windows and explore their role in one of the most historic synagogues in the United States.

2024: The final screening of “June Zero,” for which Jake Paltrow and acclaimed Israel filmmaker Tom Shoval co-wrote the script for this film, which takes place in 1961 Israel and unfolds the story of Eichman's trial from three very unexpected points of view.

2024: Those touring Poland with David Bernstein and Jeffrey Saks are scheduled to “take a short walk to the restored 18th-century shul and add their voices to the centuries of Lancut Jews who prayed there” followed by a “drive to Tarnow, a city that was 50% Jewish before the war, for a walking tour including a Bima that remains from the Alta Shul, built in the 1600s.

2024: The National Library of Israel is scheduled to host lecture by Profess Liora Halperin on “In Search of the 'Bnei ha-Yishuv': Excavating Forgotten Pasts in the David Tidhar Archive.”

https://www.nli.org.il/en/visit/events/liora-halperin?_atscid=3_2269_208004503_10394945_0_Txtatteftwshuhhw2hc&utm_source=activetrail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=%20English%20Newsletter%20-%2011.07.2024

2024: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to open with a screening of “Shari & Lamb Chop,” a documentary about the late ventriloquist Shari Lewis and her sheep sock puppet.

2024: Muskha Cohen from Chabad New Orleans is scheduled to lead “a women's centered discussion centered around a fusion of the physical and spiritual realms of Judaism.”

2024:Lockdown University is scheduled to host a lecture by David Herman on “A.B. Yehoshua and the Generation of the State.”

2024: On the anniversary of King Edward’s decree expelling the Jews from England, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “All The King’s Jews” which was a “BBC program, produced and aired in 1990, that explores the events that led to the Jews’ banishment as well as England’s little-discussed contribution to the invention of antisemitism as we know it today: it is, after all, the place where Jews were first falsely accused of ritual killings of Christian boys, and from which they were eventually methodically deported.”

2024: As part of Goodness Week, the family of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin is commissioning the writing of a new Torah that will being with a procession that is scheduled to begin at the Bnei Baka branch and end at the Baka Community Center.

2024: In Coralville, Agudas Achim’s Synagogue Seniors is schedule to host a lecture by Tom Gelman on “Common Misconceptions of Estate Planning.”

2024: As July 18th 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 286 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.)