This Day, July 22, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

July 22

1099: During the First Crusade, in what has to be one of the most ironic moment of the Middle Ages, Godfrey of Bouillon, one of the leaders who had extorted money from the Jews in Mainz and Cologne and had participated in the killing of the Jews of Jerusalem was elected first Defender of the Holy Sepulcher of The Kingdom of Jerusalem. 

1209: Forces that included the fanatical monk, Arnold of Citeaux, stormed the city of Beziers as part of the war aimed at destroying the Albigensians.  The destruction of the Jewish community, including the murder of two hundred Jews, was "collateral damage

1263: The “Barcelona Disputation” – a debate between Pablo Christiani, “a converted Jew” and Moses ben Nachman ordered by King James of Aragon continued for a third day

1306 (10th of Av): Philip the Fair of France arrested all the Jews, confiscated their property, and expelled them from his lands.

1306: “When the Jews of France were expelled today, Estoria Farhi, the native of Florenza, Spain who had studying astronomy at Montpellier with Jacob ben Makir “went to Perpignan” and then moved on to Palestine in 1312 where he wrote various philosophical works as well as a study of the “history, geography, fauna, flora and antiquities” of the country until his death which “probably” occurred in 1357.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6017-farhi-parhi-estori

1320: King James II of France – in reaction to the excesses in southern France, proscribed support for the Jewish survivors, including an exemption on taxes. At the same time he refused to allow forcibly baptized children to be returned to their parents

 1444 Federico da Montefeltro began his reign as Duke of Urbino during which he protected his Jewish subjects.

1454: The Reign of Henry IV as King of Castile, during which “the condition of the Spanish Jews was one of comparative peace and comfort, began today.

1456: During the Ottoman attempts to expand its power in Europe John Hunyadi, Regent of Kingdom of Hungary defeats Mehmet II of Ottoman Empire during the Siege of Belgrade.  Mehmet’s reign was friendly to the Jewish people including opening his empire to refugees from Christian Europe.  On the other hand, John Hunyadi enjoyed the support of the Italian Monk Jean de Capistrano who had previously convinced King Ludwig of Bavaria to expel his Jewish subjects.

1472: “Menahem ben Nethaneel Raphael Trabot” a member of family scholars living in Italy during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries “purchased Codex Turin A. vii. 18” today.

1489: In Soncino, printer Joshua Solomon Soncino produced the first copy Talmud Bavil, Tractate “Niddah.”

1559: Today, Richard Curteys, who had had Joachim Gans, the Hebrew speaking first Jew to settle in that part of North America controlled by the English brought before the officials of Bristol to face charges of blasphemy, “was appointed Senior Fell of of St. John’s College Cambridge.

1570: During the war with Venice, Ottoman forces lay siege to Nicosia, Cyprus. The Jews had been living on Cyprus since Roman times.  Following the conquest by the Ottomans, Cyprus would become a haven for Jews fleeing from the Spanish Inquisition.

1587: Governor John White stopped at the Roanoke Colony, which Joachim Gans “the first recorded Jew in Colonial America” reported played a role founding, and found none of the settlers alive.

1588: After one of action, the English fleet prepares to take on the Spanish Armada off the coast of Plymouth.

1598; The Merchant of Venice is licensed for printing.  However, it would be two years before the play featuring Shylock would be printed for the first time.

1604: King James I sent a letter to Archbishop Bancroft that effectively permitted the English translation of the Bible.  For most people, Jews included, the poetic tones of the King James Bible are the sounds of the TaNaCh that they readily know.

1648: Ten thousand Jews of Polannoe were killed in the Chmielnicki massacres.

1686: Albany, New York is formally chartered as a municipality by Governor Thomas Dongan. Public records indicate the presence of Jews as early as 1658. Asser Levy owned property, obtained burgher's rights, and lived in Albany in the 1650s. Other early Jewish merchants and traders who resided in Albany included Jacob Lucena, Hayman Levy, Jonas Phillips, Asher Levy, Levi Solomons and Levi Solomons   Albany’s most famous Jewish resident was Isaac Mayer Wise who began what would become the Reform Movement while serving as a Rabbi in New York’s capital city. 

1676: Clement X, the Pope who prohibited the custom of chasing Jews through the streets during the carnival, passed away.

1706: By the time the details of the Treaty of Union which joined Scotland and England were worked out, at least one Jew, David Brown was living in Edinburgh.

1735: New York native Samuel Ricardo married Ribca Israel today in Amsterdam.

1785(15th of Av, 5545): Tu B’Av observed on the same day that John Jay wrote to Richard Henry Lee about commerce with the French West Indies which very favorable to the most valuable ally that the United States had had in the American Revolution.

1787: In Kuttenplan, Bohemia, Benedikt Baruch Veith and Bräumel Veith gave birth to Johann Emanuel Veith who became “a Bohemian Roman Catholic Priest.

1798: The day after Napoleon defeated the Mamluks ending their control over Egypt the leaders of Cairo offered the French General who would take his army to Palestine eventually, control of the city.

1801 In Friedland, Saxony, Salomon Moses and Henriette (Jette) Marcus Levin gave birth to Marcus (Moses) Mosse, a German medical doctor.

1801: Abigail Dias, the London born daughter of Haham Moses Cohen d'Azevedo and Sara de Haham Moses Cohen D'Azevedo and her husband Isaac Haim de Abraham de Jacob Dias gave birth to Sarah Dias

1809(9th of Av, 5569): Parashat Devarim; Erev Tish’a B’Av observed as Sir Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington) prepared to meet the French Army at Talavara.  in what was part of his success campaign to dislodge the French from Spain during the Napoleonic Wars.

1817: Birthdate of Lazare Eliezer Wogue the French rabbi from Fontainebleau who was director and editor-in-chief of the "Univers Israélite,"

1823: Birthdate of Louis Raphael Bischoffsheim the Dutch born French banker who founded the Nice Observatory.

1823: Birthdate of Barbados native Esther Brandon who became Esther Abecasis when she married Aaron Abecasis.

1823: Birthdate of Ludwig Bamberger “political economist” and confidant of Otto von Bismarck.

1826: In Arnhem, Netherlands, Benjamin Philip Haas and Christina Haas gave birth to future New Yorker Henry Bernard Haas, the husband of Sarah Haas.

1832: A day after she passed away, Ann Lazarus, the wife Lewis Lazarus was buried at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1833: In the United Kingdom, Daniel Levy and Amelia Jacobs gave birth to Henry Levy and Lewis Levy.

1833: the House of Commons passed a bill for the emancipation of the Jews of England. The House of Lords would reject the bill.

1839: Birthdate of August Wunsche, “the German Christian Hebraist” who “devoted his attention almost exclusively to rabbinic literature as can be seen by a work published in 1878 which was one of “the most complete collection of the parallel passages of the Talmud and the New Testaments as well as his translations into German of the Midrash Rabbah, portions of the Jerusalem Talmud and Babylonian Talmud.

1842(15th of Av, 5602): Tu B’Av observed on the same day that Representative John Minor Botts introduced a proposal to impeach President John Tyler which was the first time such a motion had been introduced in American History.

1847(9th of Av, 5607): Tish’a B’Av observed on the same that most of the Mormons arrived in Utah’s Great Salt Lake Valley.

1848: Michel Goudchaux, the newly appointed French Minister of Finance who was in charge of putting the nation’s ailing finances in order “presented a statement of the country’s financial situation to the Assembly in which he said there would a deficit of 209 million” which could only be ended by the unpopular measure of “restoring tax that had been abolished too quickly.

1849: In New York, the former Esther Nathan and Moses Lazarus gave birth to poet Emma Lazarus who became famous as the author of "The New Colossus" written in 1883, four years before her death. This poem appears at the base of the Statue of Liberty and is a celebration of America as the land of the immigrant. To give one a sense of the times in which she lived the New York Times described her not as a Jew, but as who belonged "to one of the best known and oldest Hebrew families of the city..."

1850: In New Orleans, the cornerstone is laid for a new Synagogue, Shangaray Chassed.

1850: Today, during the dedication of the new synagogue building of Temple Beth El, “Rabbi S.M. Isaacs of New York” delivered the “dedicatory sermon” which was the first English language sermon ever delivered in a Jewish house of worship in Buffalo.”

1853: In a sign of how quickly Jews were accepted into pre-Civil War American society an article published today describing events surrounding Columbia College’s upcoming commencement exercises reported that while most of the college’s trustees have been Episcopalians, members of other religious denominations have served in that capacity including one or more Jews.

1853: In Darmstadt, banker Simon Messel and his wife gave birth to his third son, architect Alfred Messel whose works include the “Wertheim department store on Leipziger Platz and the Pergamon Museum in Berlin” and who converted in 1899.

1854(26th of Tammuz, 5614): Parashat Matot-Masei

1854: In Newark, NJ. Louisa Roos and Charles Leppert gave birth to St. Louis furrier Charles Joseph Leppert the president of the Leonhard Roos Fur Company and husband of Ida D. Strauss with he had one daughter, Lillian.

1859: In “Aldgate, London,” Jacob Aarons and Abigail Jacobs gave birth to Abraham Aarons, the husband of Miriam Solomons.

1860: In Copenhagen, Philip August Fischer  and Gustafva Albertina Svedgren  gave birth painter Paul Gustav Fischer

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gustav_Fischer#/media/File:Paul_Fischer_-_Knippelsbro_da_jeg_var_dreng_-_1924.png

1861(15th of Av, 5621): Tu B’Av

1861: In New York City, Gustavus Speyer and Sophie (Rubino) Speyer gave birth James Joseph Speyer, the German educated banker who was part of “The House of Speyer” which before WW I was the “third largest investment banking firm” and whose philanthropies included founding the Museum of the City of New York and the University Settlement Society of New, “the first settlement house in the United States.”

http://archives.nypl.org/mss/2845

https://www.nypl.org/sites/default/files/archivalcollections/pdf/speyer.pdf

1864: In Ihringen, Baden, Germany, Samuel Wile and Mathilde Block gave birth to Herman Wile, the president of Herman Wile and Company, the Buffalo Clothiers’ Association and Temple Beth Zion and the husband of Elka Hochstetter with whom he lived in Buffalo, NY.

1864: Two days after he passed away, Abraham Alexander, the son of Isaac Alexander and Esther Barnard, was buried at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1864: In Minsk, Rose Kaufman and Noah Zelenko gave birth clothing manufacture and contractor Joseph Zelonko who came to the United States in 1882 where he served on the board of Beth Israel Hospital and married Fannie Weinstein in 1885.

1864: During the Civil War Union forces under General Sherman defeat the Confederates at the Battle of Atlanta which was actually one of series of clashes that would lead to the fall of the South’s major transportation and manufacturing center. Among those serving with Sherman was Edward S. Salomon whose distinguished service at the Battle of Gettysburg earned him the rank of Brevet Brigadier General.

1865: Philadelphia native Henry Z. Lazarus who had “enlisted in a New York Regiment at the beginning of the Civil” before transferring to a Pennsylvania regiment in 1864” and who suffered a “broken collar-bone” earlier in the year completed his military service today.

1866(10th of Av, 5626): Tish’a B’av

1866: “A Jewish fruit importer at Spitalfields” and his wife gave birth to Godfrey Charles Joseph Isaacs, the brother of Rufus Isaacs, the 1st Marquess of Reading, the husband of Lea Constance Perelli with whom he had two sons – Marcel and Dennys  -- and, starting in 1910, the “Managing Director of Marcon’s Wireless Telegraph Company” which led to his involvement in an insider trading scandal known as “the Marconi Scandal of 1912.

1867: Birthdate of Lafayette, IN native and University of Pennsylvania trained attorney Clinton Orth Mayer, one of the founders of the Federation of Jewish Charities of Philadelphia, the treasure of the Mercantile Club and the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Association who raised three children with his wife Cora.

1870: The St. Louis Democrat reported that a property dispute between two Jewish congregations in St. Louis that stretches back to the 1840’s has resulted in civil litigation.  B’nai El Congregation is suing the trustees of Emanuel Congregation over the transfer of property that the plaintiffs contend the Respondents have never completed

1872: The New York Herald published an editorial “that deplored the widely held opinion ‘that American Jews would remain forever content to study Hebrew and German for the sake of Worshipping God in those languages…Give them religious as well as secular instruction in their vernacular and there will not be much cause to complain of empty pews and neglected synagogues.’”  The editorial was written in response to a “report that the English speaking rabbis of Temple Emanu-El and Congregation B’nai Jeshurun had resigned their pulpits and that the congregations were having great difficulty in finding replacements.” The Herald had previously published an editorial praising plans for the creation of a seminary at Cincinnati to train rabbis for the American Jewish community.  The Herald believed that if services were conducted in English, Jewish throngs would fill their congregations.  What is amazing is the fact that a leading secular paper would involve itself in this issue.

1873: In London, Asher Ezra Wertheimer, the son Henrietta and Samson Yechiel Wertheimer and his wife Flora Wertheimer gave birth to Edward Wertheimer.

1873: In Ukraine, Joseph and Bessie (Sitkin) Kotinsky gave birth to Rutgers University trained entomologist Jacob Kotinksky, one of the original officers of the Hawaiian Entomological Society and the husband of Sara Levin.

https://www.amazon.com/Books-Jacob-Kotinsky/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AJacob+Kotinsky

1874(8th of Av, 5634): Erev Tish'a B'Av observed on the same day that Lt. Col. George Custer (of Little Big Horn  fame or infamy) arrived in the Black Hills at a time when accompanying civilians searched for gold, setting of one of the most ill-fated gold rushes in American History.

1876: In Philadelphia, Isabella Polock and Morris Rosenbach gave birth University of Pennsylvania educated Dr. Abraham Simon Wolf Rosenbach, the nephew of published Moses Polock whose accomplishments included founding, along with his brother, the Rosenbach Museum and Library.

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/23/travel/a-library-where-rare-is-common.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM7MVQ_Dr_A_S_W_Rosenbach_1876_1952

1877: “Heine’s Love, Apostasy and Agony” published today described the two most painful events in the German poet’s life.  The first was his star-crossed love affair with Amalie Heine. The second was his decision to convert to Christianity so that he could gain favor with his Prussian patrons.  The conversion failed to bring the acceptance he sought.  These frustrations led him to write “I often get up in the night, and stand before the glass and curse myself.”

1877: “The Hebrew Controversy” published today presented a fulsome account of the controversy created by Judge Hilton’s ban on Jewish guests at his hotel in Saratoga Springs that includes correspondence that reveals much about the attitude and values of those involved in the matter. 

1878: Birthdate of Janusz Korczak, Polish born Jewish pediatrician who used the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit as an author of children’s book. 

http://www.timesofisrael.com/court-confirms-janusz-korczak-was-killed-in-treblinka/

1879: Mr. Austin Corbin, President of the Manhattan Beach Railway Company, says that Jews, as a class, have made themselves offensive to those who patronize his railroad and hotel on Coney Island.”  He said “that they are vulgar and unclean…and that he will leave nothing undone to get rid of them in order to save his business from ruin.  While no official action has been taken by the Board of Directors to support Corbin’s position, “many stockholders agree with him.

1879: Prominent Jews have condemned Austin Corbin’s derogatory comments, calling him “a narrow-minded bigot whose proper country is Romania.”  Abram Dittenhoefer, the former judge and leader of the Jewish community, said Corbin “has not insulted the Jews, but all Americans who are opposed to intolerance.

1880: Michael Gernsheim, a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Co is scheduled to leave for Europe today aboard the SS Scythia.  He plans to be gone for four months.

1881: I.A. Engelhardt was elected President of the Society for Improving the Sanitary Conditions of Poor Israelites in New York at its meeting today.  The society seeks to improve “the sanitary conditions” of the city’s poor Jews “by providing them with the necessary information” regarding housing, including the enforcement of sanitary regulations and the means of eradicating the causes and sources of disease from their homes.

1881: Based on information supplied by the Daily News, an English paper, it was reported today that England, Austria, Holland, and possibly some other European powers are planning on sending a joint communique to Russia express their concern over that nation’s “harsh laws against the Jews.”

1882: “The Vicar of Bray,” a comic opera by Anglo-Jewish composer and conductor Edward Solomon opened at the Globe Theatre in London.

1883: It was reported today that Julius Hallgarten, a Jewish Philanthropist has established a trust in the amount of $5,000 to support the Art Schools of the National Academy of Design.  Dr. Felix Adler is among those who have been appointed to serve as trustees to manage the gift.

1883: “Not Fond of Israelites” published today described a lawsuit Louis Batist has filed a suit against the Manhattan Railway Company seeking $5,000 in damages after a conductor pushed him back so that he could not board the elevated train after saying “You are a Jew! We don’t permit Jews on this train.”

1884: Rabbis Wise and Huebsch are scheduled to officiate at the funeral retired merchant Mayer Schutz who passed away in his 80th year while vacationing at Coney Island.

1884: Birthdate of Rochester, NY native Elmer Adler, the former Andover Academy and Harvard student co-founder of Pynson Printers, “The Colophon, a quarterly dedicated to the interests of booklovers” and co-founder of Random House who was the “curator of graphic arts at Princeton University” and he brother of Max A. Adler and Eugenia Cohen.

https://rbsc.princeton.edu/collections/elmer-adler-papers

1884: Philanthropist and financier Daneil Guggenheim, the Philadelphia born son of Barbara Myers and Myer Guggenheim married Florence Schloss in Philadelphia.

1885(10th of Av, 5645): Seventy-four year old Philadelphia born publisher Abraham Hart who later went into the manufacture of “button-hole” machines after marrying Rebecca Cohen Isaacks and who was President of Congregation Mikvah Israel, passed away today in Long Branch, NJ.

1886: It was reported today that 40 Russian Jews who had arrived in the United States yesterday will be sent back to Europe on the next State Line Steamer because they are destitute and “had no definite ideas as to how they were to earn a living.”

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9900EEDB1030E533A25751C2A9619C94679FD7CF

1887(1st of Av, 5647): Rosh Chodesh Av

1887: Birthdate of Gustav Hertz. This German-born quantum physicist won the Nobel Prize in 1925.

1888: “Hearing the New Rabbi” published today described the first sermon of Rabbi Jacob Joseph as being delivered in “a language which is a mixture of Hebrew, German and Polish.” The younger members of the audience complained that they “had difficulty in understanding…the language” he used.  [It would appear that the sermon was delivered in Yiddish which would have had a strange sound to those used to hearing such talk in German.]

1888: Approximately 1,500 Jews living on the Lower East Side, including a large number of children took an excursion boat to Raritan Beach.  The trip was sponsored by a liquor dealer named Ehrlich.  According to eyewitness accounts, Ehrlich, who had the drink concession, salted the drinking water, forcing mothers to buy beer and soda to slake the thirst of their children.

1888: Rabbi De Sola Mendes, of New York’s 44th Street Synagogue officiated at ceremonies dedicating The House of Miriam, the new synagogue in Long Branch, NJ. S.T. Meyer of New York contributed the land and several wealthy New York Jews who spend their summers at the New Jersey resort defrayed the cost of Construction. [The congregation exists today as Beth Miriam, a Reform Temple.]

1888: In Nova Pryluka, which is now in Ukraine, Fradia (London) and Jacob Waksman gave birth to Albert Lasker Award winning researcher Selman Abraham Waksman who “was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1952 "for his discovery of streptomycin, the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis."

http://www.jewoftheweek.net/?s=Selman+Abraham+Waksman+&submit=Search

1889: “Pilgrims by the Sea” published today described the thriving ocean resort scene in New York and New Jersey including the presence of Jewish guests at Brighton Beach Hotel.  Mr. Breen, one of the new managers of the hotel said that reports that Jewish guests were unwelcomed and had been excluded were false.  They had been circulated by a disgruntled former employee.  The hotel admitted guests strictly on the basis of their behavior and not ethnicity.

1889: In Boston, MA, Rabbi Raphael Lasker officiated at the funeral of Count L.B. Schwab.  The burial took place at the cemetery of the Union Park Street temple.  Among the pallbearers were Nathan Waxman and George Adams of the Hebrew Benevolent Society; Alexander Simons and James H. Cohen of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association; and Isaac Young and Usher Hyman of Adath Israel.

1890: Plans for the next free excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children were published today.

1890: In Cincinnati, “Bernard Goodman, a Jewish tailor from Chorsel, Poland, and Pauline Louise Françoise de Coppet” gave birth to Theodosia Goodman who gained fame as Theda Bara, one of the first movie stars of the 20th century.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/bara-theda

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1955/04/08/93801192.html?action=click&contentCollection=Archives&module=ArticleEndCTA&region=ArchiveBody&pgtype=article&pageNumber=21

1890: As the Cloakmakers Strike continued “a Russian Jew named Germain Oxehandler” was arrested for attacking a clerk and labor leader Joseph Barondees went around “repeating vague remarks about ‘streets flowing in gore.’”

1890: “A Jewish Settlement” published today described the growth of Alliance over the last eight years fo acres of wild brush in Salem County, NJ to a flourishing village of 612 Jewish immigrants from Russia.  The Hebrew Aid Society helped them by the land which at the time sold for $12 per acre but is now valued at more than $100 per acre thanks to the efforts of the Jews.

1891: It was reported today that Jesse Seligman and A.S. Solomons, Trustees of the Baron de Hirsh Fund have told authorities that the apparently impoverished Jewish Immigrants they are holding are in fact honest hard workers who were “robbed of all of their money’ at the Russian border.

1891: NYU Medical College trained physician Dr. George Moses Price,  the native of Poltava married Anna Kopkin after which he served as Health Department inspector in New York for nine yers.

1892: Birthdate of Russian born New York lawyer and CPA, Morris Talbot, the graduate of CCNY who “worked with aliens for the Board of Education.”

 1892: “The Vicar of Bray, “a comic opera by Edward Solomon…opened at the Globe Theatre in London…for a run of only 69 performances.”  “An 1892 revival at the Savoy Theatre” last for 143 performances.

1892: Having been thwarted in his first attempt to assassinate the manager of U.S. Steel, anarchist Alexander “Berkman checked into a hotel under the name Rakhmetov, his role model from What Is to Be Done?”

1893: A reporter for the New York Times visited the home of 32 year old Adolf Bruckman, whose grandfather had been the chief rabbi at a city in Russian Poland and his family at a tenement on Ludlow Street. The destitute family had been forced to leave Russia because of imperial decrees that denied Bruckman of a chance to earn a living.

1894: “In Berg, Kingdom of Bavaria, master baker Max Graf and his wife Therese (née Heimrath) gave birth to author Oskar Maria Graf who was not Jewish but who was the husband of “Mirjam Sachs, sister of Manfred George and cousin of Nelly Sachs.

1894: In Merkine, Lithuania Harris Abelow and Hannah Sarah Abeloff Abelow gave birth to Brooklyn attorney Solomon Abelow, the husband of Anna R. Abelow.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C00E2DD1F3EEE3BBC4E51DFB466838E649EDE

1894: Josephine and Henry Morgenthau, Sr. gave birth to Ruth Naumburg Knight

1894: “Jews at Buckingham Palace” published today described a visit by the Austrian Archduke to England where he was greeted by fifty of his subjects the royal home, forty of here were Jewish.  This should have come as no so surprise since it is believe “that in Vienna there are no fewer than 2,500 persons bearing the Jewish name of Kohn.”

1895: Wolf Silverman was accompanied by his counsel Abraham Joseph when he was arraigned on charges of having attempted to swindle the Empire Life Insurance Company.

1895: Seventy-eight year old Rudolf von Geist, the Protestant leader of the Berlin society fighting anti-Semitism who signed the Declaration of 75 Notables against Antisemitism in 1880, passed away today.

1896: Fourteen year old Julius Henry had a fight with his 16 year old sister Dora following which he told their parents of her secret marriage to George Webb, a twenty year old non-Jew.  Dora’s mother asked Webb to give her a divorce and when he refused, her husband Isaac had him arrested on charges of abduction.

1896(12th of Av, 5656): Julia Frank-Zeckendorf the native of Hanover whose marriage to William Zeckndorf spawned a multi-generational real estate empire.

http://swja.arizona.edu/content/julia-frank-zeckendorf-1840-july-22-1896

1896: In Baltimore, “Jacob I. and Lillie (Panitz) Levy gave birth to University of Maryland trained attorney who began serving as “Assistant Attorney General of Maryland” in 1923.

1896: Herzl visits Karlsbad, where he obtains an audience with Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria. The prince is a well-connected “royal” who will actually sit on the Bulgarian throne.  This appears to be one more attempt on Herzl’s part to use influence and connection to create the Jewish homeland.

1897(22nd of Tammuz, 5657): Seventy-five year old Lewis May, President of Temple Emanu-El passed away this morning at Dobbs Ferry.

1897:  In a very emotional manner, Vice President James Seligman announced at special meeting of the Board of Trustees of Temple Emanu-El that their President, Lewis May had passed away following which resolutions of expressing condolence to the family were adopted by the Board.

1899: It was reported today that Oscar S. Straus, the Minister to Turkey, is a member of the United States Section of The International Congress of History.

1899: Austrian-born German film producer Heinrich Nebenzal and his wife gave birth to American-born German film producer who was forced to flee Germany along with his father when the Nazis came to power and who “produced 46 films between 1927 and 1961.”

1899: Joseph Reinach writes from Paris to explain that while the story of Captain Dreyfus appears to be complicated, it is really quite simple because “it confines itself to the manner in which the bordereau the work of Esterhazy has been attributed to Dreyfus.”

1900(17th of Tammuz, 5662): Tzom Tammuz

1900: Birthdate of Frankfurt native Maurcie Dossenhim Isenberg who came to the United States in 1925 where he worked as radiologist and served as President of the St John X-Ray service.

1901(6th Av, 5661): According to some sources, in Nachod, Bohemia, seventy-seven year old textile manufacturer Isaac Mautner passed away today.

1901: In Denver, CO, “Juda Eisten Lasky” and “Ida Grossman Lasky” gave birth to mining engineer Samuel Grossman Lasky, a graduate of the Colorado School Mines and the holder of an MS from Yale.

1902: Herzl and Wolffsohn leave for Constantinople with hopes that the Sultan will support a Jewish Homeland in the Ottoman Empire.  The trip did not go well as can be seen when Herzl writes his conclusions when the visit ends on August 5.

1903: “Plehve Threatens the Jews” published today described a meeting today between representatives of the Jewish population of Kishinev who had just suffered a pogrom and Russian Minister of the Interior and Vyacheslav von Plehve who said that “If we find he anti-Government movement among the Jews does not cease…we shall be obliged to get rid of you” and “we shall facilitate your emigration” by excluding “all Jews from the schools” thus rendering your “lives in Russia impossible.”

1903: Francis Lewis Cardozo, the first African American to hold statewide office in South Carolina passed away today.  The son Isaac Cardozo, a Sephardic Jew working in the customhouse in Charleston and Lydia Weston, a free black woman, Cardozo’s life reads more like a novel than anything else.  He was raised as a Christian and is the “Cardozo” in Washington, DC’s Cardozo Senior High School.

1904: Birthdate of New Yorker Pincus “Pinky” match the All-American CCNY basketball player.

1904: Today, in a second day of violence in Ostrovetz, “300 factory hands entered the town to follow up the fight, the police directed the Jews to remain indoors which did not keep the workmen from stoning the houses of the Jews of whom they wounded ten and killed one.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1904/08/17/100475050.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1905(19th of Tammuz, 5665): Parashat PInchas

1905: In Vilnius, Sarah and Benjamin Hurtwitz gave birth to Yehsiva University professor Abraham B. Hurwitz, the holder of bachelor’s from CCNY, an MA from Columbia and Ph.D. from NYU and city recreation director under Mayor La Guardia “who entertained more than a million people as New York City’s official magician” and who raised to daughters with “his wife, the former Ann Ritz of Hallandale…”

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/01/obituaries/abraham-hurwitz-dead-at-76-new-york-s-official-magician.html

1905: It was reported today that “three books dealing with the Jews” – The Hebrew Prophet by Loring W. Batten, The Religion of Israel: A Historical Sketch by the Reverend R.L. Otley and The Jewish Spectre by George H. Warner—are scheduled “to appear shortly in the United States.

1906: Today Jews in Odessa are braced for another outbreak of violence after a drunken Cossack who had “wandered through the Jewish quarter brandishing his sabre, shouting ‘death to the Jews,’ and actually striking “an old Jews” was killed in the ensuing melee which led the authorities to “charge the entire Jewish population with premediated murder.”

1907(11th of Av): Rabbi Isaac Blaser, leader of the Musar movement and the author of Peri Yizhak, passed away

1908: Officials of the symphony orchestra in Pittsburgh said that Walter Damrosch of the New York Symphony had been one of those who had raided their organization and succeeded in getting violinist Victor Kolar to join his organization.

1909: The Republic of Paraugay, whose Jewish population was bolstered by Sephardi Jews emigrating from Palestine before World War I, “enacted its first compulsory education law” today.

1910: The City of Tracy, CA was incorporated today.

https://www.recordnet.com/article/20031219/A_NEWS/312199963

1911(26th of Tammuz, 5671): Parashat Matot-Masei and the Jews complete the reading of the book of Numbers as the “summer season” in France is threatened by an outbreak of Cholera

1912(8th of Av, 5672): Erev Tish’a B’Av

1912:  The Summer Olympics in which Abel Kiviat “won a silver medal in the 1500 meter race” came to a close today in Stockholm.

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/26/sports/abel-kiviat-runner-dies-at-99-held-world-1500-meter-record.html

1912: The Summer Olympics, during which Jacques Ochs whose teammates included fellow Jew Gaston Salomon, won a gold medal in the team épée event came to an end today in Stockholm.

1913(17th of Tammuz, 5673): Tzom Tammuz

1913: Two days after he had passed funeral services are scheduled to be held for Abram A. Rich at his home in Sound Beach, CT.

1913: Two days after she had passed, funeral services are scheduled to be held for Amailia Shongut, the widow of William Shongut and mother of New York Coroner Jacob Shongut with interment at Mt. Nebo Cemetery.

1914: “The first co-operative conference of Jewish farmers ever held in New York State” opened today at Utica, NY.

1914: Before the visit of his daughter Anna to Britain, which was to be chaperoned by Ernest Jones, Sigmund Freud wrote, “She does not claim to be treated as a woman, being still far away from sexual longings and rather refusing man. There is an outspoken understanding between me and her that she should not consider marriage or the preliminaries before she gets two or three years older". “A tentative romance between Anna” and Jones who became Freud’s official biographer, “did not survive” Freud’s “disapproval.”

1915: State prison authorities believe that Leo M. Frank’s condition is “steadily improving” and that he “practically out of danger.”

1915: At Milledgeville, GA, “Charles Miller, a convict from Atlanta was stabbed across the abdomen by Frank Reid, a life from Columbus” it what was rumored to be “a quarrel over the Leo Frank case.”+

1915: According to reports published today J.W. Creen, the man who tried to murder Leo Frank at the state prison camp “reads incessantly…does not like to be disturbed and smokes constantly.”

1915(11th of Av, 5675): Eighty-four year old Abraham S. Adler, “a Baltimore merchant” passed away today after which he was interred at the Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery in Baltimore MD.

1915: “Our Betters” by Somerset Maugham, “the first manuscript of a play to come from the war zone was received by the Charles Frohman Company” today after having been “passed by the center” and sent on to New York because Charles Frohman had contracted for the play before he passed away.

1916: Dr. Leon Motzkin addressed “an enthusiastic crowd” tonight that had gathered to honor the memory of Dr. Theodor Herzl at Cooper Union at meeting organized by the Zionist Council of Greater New York, which is led by its President, Morris Rothenberg.

1916: “Details of the proposed Congress of Jews were discussed by committees representing the Jewish Congress Organization and the Conference of American National Jewish Organizations at an executive session” today but no agreement was reached on date to hold the meeting the Congress of Jews.

1917(3rd of Av, 5677): Sixty-nine year old Henry Bachrach, the Baltimore born son of Aaron and Augusta Straus Bachrach, who worked in Washington, D.C., Wheeling, W.Va. and Chicago before opening Kaufman and Bachrach, a highly successful clothing store in Decatur, Illinois where he and his wife, the former Matilda Hamburger raised three sons – John, Louis and Charles who became a physician – passed away today in “Charlevioix, Michigan” after which he was buried in Decatur, Illinois.

1917(3rd of Av, 5677): Clifton, UK, native Alfred Mosely, “one of the earliest settlers in Kimberly, SA” who provided aide “for the sick and wounded” during the Boer War and who led a study examining “the American methods of education” passed away today in London.

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Mosely%2C%20Alfred%2C%201855-1917

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03057876480000041

1917: In Russia, Kerensky, the Jewish former Minister of War became the premier. After the Czar abdicated, he took over the Russian government and formed a liberal provisional government, which lasted four months. Although well intentioned, he was not a strong leader and couldn't negotiate between the subversive forces between right and left. His government would be ousted by Lenin, ending Russia’s brief flirtation with Western style democracy.

1917: Today, at a meeting of the Foreign Jews’ Protection Committed, resolutions were adopted that stated, “in view of the announced intention of the British Government to refuse facilities to families of Russian subjects of military age to accompany them to Russia” these men will refuse to leave their families behind or be forced to serve in the Russian Army.”

1917: As of today, Chaim Weizmann had left Great Britain “on a secret mission to Spain on behalf of the British government in order to meet Henry Morgenthau former American Ambassador to Turkey” who was “heading East in order to implement a plan he has conceived to ‘remove Turkey from the war.’”

1918: Today CCNY graduate Louis Maurice Josephthal, the New York born son Theresa Wise and Moritz Josephthal and the husband future husband of Edyth Guggenheim began serving as assistant to the Supply officer at the fleet supply based of the United States Nave.

1918: British General Allenby approved a town-planning scheme for Jerusalem complete with an expanded road network, new parks and municipal and residential buildings. 

1918(13th of Av, 5678): Bernard Selling who was a member of a Special Committee Appointed by the Association of the Bar of the City of Detroit in 1916 passed away today in Detroit.

1918(13th of Av, 5678): Rachel Goldberg passed away today in New York.

1919: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today in Chicago for “Mrs. Bertha Jones,” the “mother of Louis J. and Aaron J. Jones.”

1919: Bernard Richards, the Secretary of the delegation from American Jewish Congress to the Peace Conference who had “expressed his satisfaction with the work done in Paris for the protection of Jewish rights” was on the third day of his trip back to New York aboard the SS Loraine.

1920: This evening, in London, Justice Brandeis of the United States chaired the closing session of the Zionist Conference

1920: Establishment of Keren Hayesod (Palestine Foundation Fund)

1921: Winston Churchill, Lloyd George and Lord Balfour met with Chaim Wiezmann at Balfour’s House in London in an attempt “to reassure Wiezmann that British policy in support of the Balfour Declaration and the Jewish home in Palestine had not changed.”

1921: Birthdate of Phillip Burgher, a native of Niles, Illinois who served in World War II.

1921(16th of Tammuz, 5681): Artist Helena Horwitz passed away today in London. (She is not to be confused with the Shoah survivor of the same name)

https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Helena-Horwitz/6AF03F2A9A4918C9?test_related_artists=1&utm_expid=.stXbDAerRp2zt3YOasRDbg.1&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D14%26ved%3D0ahUKEwjNgoTLqZnVAhUGTCYKHYOuCbwQFghOMA0%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.mutualart.com%252FArtist%252FHelena-Horwitz%252F6AF03F2A9A4918C9%26usg%3DAFQjCNGN6paQZ3MO9MjT9JT-X9rlW9cMcw

1922: Birthdate of Jack Weiner, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants who enlisted in the Army “despite being excused from the draft” and reached the rank of Staff Sergeant while serving as a navigator with the 345th Bombardment Group of the USAAF.

1922: The League of Nations Council confirmed the British Palestine Mandate. The Balfour Declaration is part of the terms of the mandate.

1922: “The most notable reaction” to the assassination of Walther Rathenau “was the enactment of the Republikschutzgesetz (Law for the Defense of the Republic)” which took effect today.

1923(9th of Av, 5683): Tisha B”Av is observed for the last time during the Presidency of Warren Harding.

1924: The Olympics which featured the victories by runner Harold Abrahams continued today in Paris.

1925: Birthdate of Benjamin Kahane, the husband of Lorelle Kahane and father of Debbie who served in WWII and was the Sr. Vice President of Industrial Relations at MGM.

1925: In the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, Jewish Ukrainian refugees Harry and Diana (Drozdik) Sandler gave birth to “Irving Sandler, an art critic who drew on his extensive relationships with living artists to compile authoritative histories of Abstract Expressionism and the artistic movements that followed…” (As reported by William Grimes)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/02/obituaries/irving-sandler-dead-art-critic.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1925: “Sympathy with the Jews of America in their efforts to erect a monument to the memory of Hyam Salomon, one of the America Revolution,” is scheduled to “be expressed in a resolution to be introduced at the first session of the convention of the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Ancient Order of Hibernian” which opens this morning in Atlantic City.

1926: Cantor Moshe Nathanson, the son of Rosa and Nachum Nathanson, and his wife Zipporah Nathanson gave birth to Yaron Gary Nathanson, a World War II army veteran, holder of two degrees from the University of Wisconsin who “enjoyed a long career in the theatre.

1926: Jacob Fishman, managing editor of the “Jewish Morning Journal,” is supposed to be one of the attendees at the Zionist Action Committee Meeting scheduled to start today in London.1927:

1927(22nd of Tammuz, 5687): Thirty-seven year old Julius Drachsler the Czech born son of Jacob and Charlotte Newgeboren Drachsler, who, at the age of 14 came to the United States where he earned a BS at CCNY and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia after which he became an Assistant Professor of Sociology and CCNY and wrote Democracy and Assimilation and Intermarriage in New York City passed away today after which he was interred at the Riverside Cemetery in Saddle Brook, NJ>

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/253331

https://www.nytimes.com/search?endDate=19270730&query=Julius%20Drachsler&sort=best&startDate=19270720

 1927: The convention of Palestine Jewish Labor Federation which had been meeting in Tel Aviv for the past fortnight comes to an end.  The convention adopted several resolutions including ones calling for greater freedom for Jews to immigrate to Palestine and more aggressive government action to deal with the problems of unemployment.

1927: Birthdate of Israeli Mathematician Michael Bahir Maschler known for his contributions to the field of game theory

1928: As rumors swirl around Dr. Harris and his intention to resign as the New York City Health Commission, he denied that “he was contemplating a journey to Palestine, as a special high commissioner of the Zionist organization.

1929: The Hebrew University at Jerusalem is being assisted by Julian Clarence Levi, New York architect, in its building program.  

1930(27th of Tammuz, 5690): Fifty-four-year-old New York native, veteran of WW I and Columbia trained surgeon Walter Max Brickner passed away today.

https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Brickner%2C%20Walter%20M%2E%20%28Walter%20Max%29%2C%201875%2D1930

1931: The 27th annual convention of the Progressive of the West is scheduled to open today at the Jefferson Hotel in St. Louis.

1931(8th of Av, 5691): As Jews prepared to observe Tisha’ B’Av a seven power conference in London that was reviewing the crumbling economic conditions in Germany (which would lead to the rise of Hitler) continued to meet for a third day.

1931: Today, the government informed the union of bus owners and chauffeurs “that the Secretary of State for the Colonies had been requested to approve proposals for the relief of the  Palestine transportation industry including the missions of taxes.”

1932: The funeral for Hannah Aronson, the wife of Dr. Samuel Aronson and mother of Jesse and Lester Aronson is scheduled to take place this afternoon at Flatbush Memorial Chapel.

1932: The funeral for Max Warley Platzek, the former Justice of the New York Supreme Court is scheduled to take place this after at the Universal Funeral Parlors on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.

1932: The funeral of Esther Strauss, the mother of Benjamin and Jacob Strauss, is scheduled to take place this morning in New York City.

1933: A report issued today by Isaac L. Asofsky, the general manager of the HIAS showed an increase in activities during the six months ended June 30 which are attributed to the Nazi rise to power in Germany.

1933(28th of Tammuz, 5693): Parashat Mataot-Masei

1934(10th of Av, 5694):Tish'a B'Av observed

1934: Dr. Solomon Deutsch, a Bronx Dentist and a leader of the JNF, and his family are scheduled to set sail today for Palestine where they plan on settling at Netanya. (As reported by JTA)

1936: The Palestine Post reported that the insurrection of Monarchists and Fascists in Spain was gaining momentum and was seriously threatening the democratic regime. Arabs killed Abraham Donagi, a watchman at Even Yehuda, and severely wounded Abraham Bauer in Jerusalem. Bombs exploded in Jaffa and the Iraqi Petroleum Co. pipeline was severely damaged. All this was part of the on-going Arab Riots aimed at destroying the Jewish community in Palestine.

1936: Maurice P. Davidson, the “former chairman of the City Fusion Party called attention to a typographical error in a statement by him which should have read “The good intentions of the Republicans are not to be doubted.” (The original quote left out the “not.”)

1936: A British soldier was killed in an Arab ambush near Tulkarm. Arab attacks were reported from Ein Harod and Kfar Yehezkel. Arabs celebrated the 100th day of their insurrection with demonstrations, calls for prayer and donations. But the Arab Nashashibi Party proposed that the Arab Higher Committee should resign as a protest against the non-fulfillment of their promises and leave the people to decide the fate of their prolonged general strike by themselves.

1937: “The Toast of New York” a fictionalized biopic about two 19th century robber barons based in part on Robber Barons by Mathew Josephson with music by Nathaniel Shilkret and featuring Thelma Leeds as “Fleurique” was released in the United States today.

1937: Today, “Mayor La Guardia accepted an invitation from Dr. Anna W. Hochfelder, the President of the Brooklyn division of the American Jewish Congress” to attend the division’s outing being held in August.

1937:”A protest against the possible transfer of American Jews from their present homes in Palestine to other parts of the country by British decree was made on the floor of the Senate” today by Illinois Senator J. Hamilton Lewis.

1938: Radio station WABC is scheduled to broadcast an episode of “The Goldbergs” at one o’clock this afternoon.

1938: Executive director Zelig Tygel announced today that “A total of 99,909 zlotys, or nearly $20,000 was received by the Jewish cooperative loans in Poland during June from the special ‘iron fund’ sent to Poland by the American Committee Appeal for the Jews in Poland” an organization whose “purposes are to strengthen Jewish cooperative loan funds and help establish new cooperatives.”

1938: Radio Station WHN is scheduled to broadcast services from Temple Emanuel for an hour this evening starting at 5:15.

1939(6th of Av, 5699): Seventy-one year old Vilna born Rabbi Louis Lazerow, the “founder of Congregation Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol on Rutgers Street in New York” and author of “32 religious works” including “The Voice of Judea” and “The Jewish Speaker” who was the husband of “the former Sarah Kaplan” and the father of three daughters and two sons – Samuel and Elihu, “a high school teacher in Brooklyn” passed away today

1939(6th of Av, 5699): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon

1939(6th of Av, 5699): Forty-seven year old Dr. I.E. Greenberg the Long Island College Hospital trained surgeon and the Captain in the Medical Corps who during WW I “had charge of Evacuation Hospital 21 at the front and of an American Base Hospital in Paris who was the husband of Hattie Mahler Greenberg and the father of Barbara Greenberg passed away today.

1939: Eichmann’s Central Office for Emigration, (of Jews) in Prague, officially opened.

1939: In Petah-Tikva Max Alexandrowitz, a Jewish immigrant from Germany who was killed by an Arab sniper while working as a policeman in Haifa and his wife Chaya, whose entire family would perish in the Holocaust gave birth to Gila Alexandrowitz who gained fame as Gila Almagor the actress and author “known as the ‘Queen of the Israeli cinema and theatre.’”

1940: Birthdate of “Judith Walzer Leavitt, the Rupple Bascom and Ruth Bleier Professor of History of Medicine, History of Science, and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.”

https://medhist.wisc.edu/faculty/leavitt/index.shtml

1940: In France, the Deputy Secretary of State at Vichy “created a committee to review 500,000 naturalizations give since 1927” which “resulted in 15,000 people having their French nationality revoked, of whom 40% were Jews” preparing the way for the first round of deportation of Jews living in France to “the East.”

1941: Fifty-one year old Russian born and Kiev University graduate Solomon Cutler, the director of the budget department of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies of New York passed away today.

1941(27th of Tammuz, 5701): Sixty-five year old Isaac Ipp, “a dress manufacturer, president of Henry Dress, Inc. and longtime Zionist who was “chairman of the Boro Park United Palestine Appeal Committee, founder and a director of the Israel Zion Hospital in Brooklyn and President of Temple Emanu-El of Boro Park.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1941/07/23/104296987.html?action=click&contentCollection=Archives&module=ArticleEndCTA&region=ArchiveBody&pgtype=article&pageNumber=18https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1941/07/23/104296987.html?action=click&contentCollection=Archives&module=ArticleEndCTA&region=ArchiveBody&pgtype=article&pageNumber=18

1941: “Fregattenkapitän Dr. Hans Kawelmacher the German naval commandant in Liepāja sent a telegram to the German Navy's Baltic Command in Kiel, which stated that he wanted 100 SS and fifty Schutzpolizei ("protective police") men sent to Liepāja for "quick implementation Jewish problem" which meant the “accelerated killing” of the Jews.

1941 France's Vichy government adopted an ordinance requiring the “registration of ‘Jewish’ businesses.”

1941: France’s Vichy government adopted an ordinance completely excluding “Jews from commerce and industry.”

1941: France’s Vichy government adopted an ordinance excluding those of “Jewish heritage” from serving as administrators.

1942: In Tashkent, “the great Uzbex singer Yunus Rajabi” and his wife gave birth to “Khassan Rajabi, the singer who “directs the museum dedicated to his father” and who is the brother of Tohir Rjaby.

https://www.last.fm/music/Yunus+Rajabi/+wiki

1942:  On the day before Tisha B’Av German authorities and Ukrainian and Latvian guards in SS uniforms surround the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto. Six thousand Warsaw Jews were told to gather for deportation. Over the next seven weeks as many as 300,000 Jews would be sent by train to the three gas chambers of Treblinka. The railway master at Treblinka was notified of a shuttle line being set up between Warsaw and its railroad station for "Settlers.” THIS WAS THE LARGEST SLAUGHTER OF ANY SINGLE COMMUNITY DURING THE HOLOCAUST. From July 22 through September 12, 1942: 4,000 Warsaw Jews per day would be gassed in Treblinka. Only those with special cards stamped with ‘Operation Reihnard', an eagle and the swastika were saved from deportation. Resisters or those taking flight would be shot on the spot by Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians and German SS officers. Orphanages, children homes, hospitals, were all emptied. Each train was comprised of sixty cars. Each car was packed with human cargo.

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/12.asp

1942: “When (Gerhard) Richter obtained Mihai Antonescu's assent to the deportation of the Jews to the extermination camps in Poland, the clandestine Jewish Council immediately learned of the details of the deportation program and used personal contacts to achieve the repeal of the agreement.” (Jewish Virtual Library)

1942: Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot George Beurling, who would die while flying for the Israeli Air Force in 1948, lost his best friend in Malta, French-Canadian Pilot Jean Paradis

1943: Because the U.S. State Department continues to delay any action on the Riegner Plan to save 70,000 Jews, American Rabbi Stephen Wise pleads with President Franklin Roosevelt to support the plan. Roosevelt allows the plan to be killed because of "strenuous British objections."

1944: German troops withdraw from Parczew Forest, Poland, the site of numerous Nazi searches for Jewish fugitives and partisans.

1944: Survivors of a July 13 mass execution of Jewish slave laborers at Bialystok, Poland, reach Red Army lines after crawling for nine nights.

1944: Samuel Klein, who had been “transported to Auschwitz” escaped, spending “the night in the fields, where some Christian Poles, also fugitives, helped him flee.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-founder-of-brazils-largest-retail-chain-dies/

1944: The Red Army occupied Chelm. The 68,000 Jews left in Vilna hope the Soviets will arrive before the Nazis can finish them off.

1944: During the so-called “Blood for Goods” negotiations Edmund Veesenmayer a member of the SS sent a cable to the German Foreign Office stating that Joel Brand and Andor Grosz had been sent to Turkey on the orders of Himmler

1945: Birthdate of award winning British biochemist Sir Philip Cohen.

1946: The Irgun bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The King David was the headquarters of the British civil and military administration. Ninety people, including Jews, lost their lives. The Irgun, led by Menachem Begin, claimed that they had called ahead to warn of the bombing. The British denied receiving any such call. The Jewish Agency, the de facto government of the Jews in Palestine and other Jewish leaders, denounced the attack. There was a "moment of mourning" on July 23 as the Jewish community paused to honor the dead. The attack marked a split between the recently agreed to alliance between the Haganah and the Irgun. What is amazing about the response of the Jewish community was that in the weeks prior to the bombing the British had imprisoned all a couple of the leaders of the Jewish Agency and seized its records in an attempt to squelch the Zionist movement. However terrible the British occupation was, the terrorism of the Irgun was not to be the Jewish answer.

1947: “Crossfire,” “a 1947 film noir drama film which deals with the theme of anti-Semitism” based on The Brick Foxhole by Richard Brooks, featuring Sam Levene as “Joseph Samuels “premiered at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City” today.

1947: “In Beverly Hills, California, Thelma Leeds (née Goodman), a singer and actress, and Harry Einstein, a radio comedian who performed on Eddie Cantor's radio program and was known as Parkyakarkus gave birth to Albert Lawrence Einstein who changed his name to Albert “Al” Brooks after leaving college in the late 1960’s to become a comedian, director and actor who was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the “nebbish newsman” in Broadcast News. His performance in “Concussion” was a tour de force in which he played a role totally different role than normally associated with his comedic skills.

1947: “Among the passengers boarding the” British “prison ship Empire Lifeguard at Cyprus” were “American sailors from the Hatikvah and a Palestinian with an unassembled bomb.” (Editor’s note – at this time the term Palestinian applied to the Jews living the territory that would become the state of Israel a year later.)

1948: The Israelis opened the refineries at Haifa.  They had been closed since the British shut them down on April 26 in the waning days of the Mandate.

1949: U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas today revealed here that he was “converted to Zionism” by the late Justice Louis D. Brandeis saying in Haifa that “I pledge to continue my sympathies for Israel and to do whatever I can for its welfare.” (As reported by JTA)

1949: In New York dentist Norman Menkin and his wife Judith gave birth to composer Alan Irwin Menken who won Academy Awards for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Pocahontas.

1950(8th of Av, 5710): Parashat Devarim; Erev Tish’a B’Av

1950(8th of Av, 5710: Eighty-four-year-old Mrs. Mary Joseph, the widow of Henry Joseph and mother of Jacob, Lewis, Irving, Benjamin and Sidney Joseph who was a founder and former president of the Hebrew Ladies Aid Society of Greenpoint passed away today.

1950: Captain Moshe Idelovitch, Assistant Superintendent of Police in Israel said that “Arab infiltration of Israeli territory could be stopped within twenty-four hours if Jordan cooperated.” Captain Idelovitch is commander of the Petah Tigva area, where most of the border marauders and murderers penetrate.

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that 69-year-old King Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was assassinated inside al-Aksa Mosque in the Jordanian-held Old City of Jerusalem. Emir Naif, his second son, was declared regent. King Abdullah was known for his efforts to reach an Arab-Israeli peace settlement. In his memoirs he wrote: "I have been astonished at what I saw of the Jewish settlements: They have colonized sand dunes, drawn water from them, and transformed them into paradise..."

1951: As ceremonies were being planned for the burial of King Abdullah of Jordan in Amman, the Arab Legion turned the Jordanian-occupied Old City of Jerusalem into an armed camp in pursuit of the suspected Palestinian assassins.

1951: Israel observed the 47th anniversary of Theodore Herzl's death with a solemn ceremony held on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

1951: White Sox pitcher Marv Rotblatt appeared in his last major league game.

1951: Eighty-four year old of Dr. Edward Alsworth Ross, who had been fired by Stanford University for his racist views when it came to Chinese and Japanese immigration and who stirred up similar controversy at the University of Wisconsin when wrote magazine articles attacking the Jews including “Jews of Eastern Europe in America” which contained the charge that Jews in America “are the greatest criminals” passed away today. 

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9802E5D71638E633A25754C0A9669D946596D6CF

1952: In Washington, DC David Brinkley and his wife gave birth to Joel Graham Brinkley, the Jerusalem bureau chief for the New York Times from 1988 to 1991.

1954: Premiere of “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’ directed by Stanley Donen with music co-authored by Saul Chaplin.

1954: In Brooklyn, bookkeeper “Dora Hart and Sam Seidenberg, a garment worker” gave birth to Miachel Richard Seidenbergm, the husband of Nicky Roe and founder of “Brazenhead Books” (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/books/michael-seidenberg-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1955: The Empire Lifeguard, a Royal Navy Castle-class corvette that had been part of the ships that kept Jewish immigrants from entering Palestine in 1947 arrived at Antwerp today where she was to be scrapped.

1955: It was reported today Connecticut Governor Abraham had “seriously considered eliminating the boxing commission the Nutmeg State.”

1957: Birthdate of Jonathan Michael "Jon" Lovitz, the native of Los Angeles whose big break came when appeared on Saturday Night Live from 1985 to 1990.

1959: “At Fort Sheridan, in Highland Park, Illinois,Sonya Lee (née Edelman) and Army psychiatrist Mark Weiss Shulkin gave birth to Dr. Mark Shulkin, an M.D. specializing “in health care management and President Trump’s choice to serve as the 9th United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs who is married “to dermatologist Merle Bari with whom he had two children – Daniel and Jennifer, the winner of “a gold medal in squash at the 2009 Maccabiah Games.”

1960: The movie version of the Broadway comedy “the Tunnel of Love” produced by Martin Meclcher and

Joseph Fields who also wrote the script was released today in France.

1964: “Marnie” a Hitchcock mystery co-starring Diane Baker and Martin Gabel with a score by Bernard Herrmann was released in the United States by Universal Pictures.

1965(22nd of Tammuz, 5725): Sixty-six-year-old Isaac Aronoff, the “founder of the Airequipt Company and the Joel and Aronoff Embroidery Company” who was the husband of Miriam Aronoff, the father of David Aronoff and “a supporter of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovoth” passed away today while a patient at Mount Sinai Hospital.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1965/07/23/101557737.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1965: It was reported today that Aryeh Louis Pincus, the fifty-three native of South Africa who has been named to serve as the acting chairman of the Jewish Agency following the death of Moshe Sharett, is expected to be named to permanent chairman “when the General Zionist Council meets in about six months.”

1966: “After being nominated by President Lyndon Johnson to a new seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit created by 80 Stat. 75 Irving Loeb Goldberg was confirmed by the United States Senate today “and received his commission the same day.”

1967(14th of Tammuz, 5727): Parashat Pinchas

1967(14th of Tammuz, 5727: Eighty-one year old Ontario, Canada born, NYU trained lawyer, Jonah Goldstein who began his political career as a secretary for Al Smith and rose to become a Judge of the General Session Court while raising a family with “former Harriet B. Lowenstein” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/07/23/93868758.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1967:  Poet Carl Sandburg passes away.  Sandburg was not Jewish.  In 1999 a group of previously unknown Sandburg poems was published.  The collection included a poem entitled “To Jacob M. Loeb” that contains the same raw power of such poems as “Chicago” – the one that begins:

“Hog Butcher for the World

Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat...”

 

“To Jacob M. Loeb” has that same kind of elemental power, but takes on the form of a letter challenging Loeb.  Before reading it, a little background is in order courtesy of the Chicago Jewish Historical Society.  Loeb was a real person.  He was born in Chicago to German-Jewish parents who had enjoyed economic success.  Loeb himself went into the insurance business where he too was quite successful.  The Loeb’s were active in the community giving both of their time and their money.  Loeb’s mother worked a B’nai Brith type organization that provided educational and recreational opportunities for the children of Chicago’s immigrant (largely eastern European) population.  Along with the famous Julius Rosenwald, Loeb helped to found the Jewish Institute and followed Rosenwald in the presidency.  Loeb was a major fund raiser in the fight to aid the Jews of Europe during and after World War I.  Loeb was also active in the civic affairs of the city of Chicago.  In 1914 he was appointed to School Board and later became President of that body.  And that is the source of the conflict described in the poem.  During Loeb’s time on the board, the school teachers went on strike for the right to unionize.  Loeb led the successful fight to give the board the right to fire any teacher who joined the union.  Sandburg could not understand how a Jew, whose people had a history of being part of the downtrodden, could turn on the working class once they had money and power.  He saw Loeb’s behavior as a betrayal of his Jewish origins.  The poem is not anti-Semitic.  There were plenty of Jews among the ranks of the teachers and the poem sites by name several Jewish labor leaders.  The conflict between the teachers and the school district highlighted an anomaly of Jewish history that was seen most often in the garment industry.  The owners were Jewish (usually Germans who arrived earlier) and the workers were also Jewish (eastern Europeans.)  The strike at Hart, Shaftner and Marx had pitted Jewish owners against Jewish garment workers.  The poem highlights this dichotomy.  Sandburg wanted to believe that Jews, of all people, would, once they had power and influence, support the less fortunate and not, in his view “sell out.”  He was expressing the same kind of outrage that other generations of Jews have expressed over southern Jews owning slaves.  How could the descendants of Pharaoh’s chattel take other human beings as chattel.  Since the purpose of these little daily exercises is to provide some context as well as raw information about Jewish history, you will find the poem quoted in its entirety below.  Those who know me, know that I am a fan of Sandburg’s so this poem took on special meaning for me.   

 

“To Jacob M. Loeb:

You are one of the Jews sore at Georgia for the way

they hanged Leo Frank and called him a damned Jew

there in Atlanta.

And you’re talking a lot about liberty and the rights

of school children.

You came from Kovno in Russia and you ought to

know something about liberty;

And how school boards, police boards, military

boards and czars have gone on year after year

To choke the Jews from having societies,

organizations, labor unions,

Shoving bayonets into the faces of the Jews and

driving them to the ghettoes.

You know what I mean. You know these European

cities where they call the Jews a despised race;

And anybody who spits in a Jew’s face is not

touched by the police.

D’ye get me? I’m reminding you what you already

know.

You’re the man who is leading the school board

fight on the Teachers’ Federation.

And you forget, your memory slips, your heart

doesn’t picture

How you and your fathers were spit upon in the

face.

And how the soldiers and police misused your

women––

Just because they were Jews, and in Kovno

Anybody could get away with what they did to a

Jew woman or a Jew girl;

And now you, a Jew stand up here in Chicago and

act proud

Because you have in effect spit in the faces of

Chicago women, accused them, belittled them.

First you tried to cut their wages, back here in May,

a seven-and-a-half per cent cut,

And now you’re going to make it a law that teachers

can’t have a labor union;

And they got to take what you and Rothmann and

Myer Stein hand ‘em.

I don’t think you’ll get away with it.

Sam Gompers, an English Jew, will speak tonight at

the Auditorium,

And Jacob LeBosky and Sam Alschuler and other

Jews in this town

Are against the game of shackling the teachers and

repeating Kovno and Kiev and Odessa here in Chicago.

In fact, five hundred Jews are already in revolt at

your Kovno trick

Of slamming the door on the free speech at the

Hebrew Institute.

These five hundred are the real blood of the Jew

race

That give it a clean flame of heroism.

You belong with the trash of history, the oppressors

and the killjoys.

 

1970(18th of Tammuz, 5730): Seventy-eight year old Austrian actor and director Fritz Kortner who spent the Nazi era in the United States but returned to Germany after the war to pursue his career passed away today in Munich.

http://forward.com/the-assimilator/163533/the-jewish-actor-who-would-not-be-intimidated/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fritz-Kortner

1970(18th of Tammuz, 5730): Forty-eight-year-old Eugene Gurkoff, the WW II veteran and manufacturing executive who was the husband of Louis Buch Gurkoff passed away today after which he was buried in his hometown of Harrisburg, PA.

1972: Follies, a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman, opened at the Shubert Theatre in Century City, CA.

1972(11th of Av, 5732): Shabbat Nachamu

1972(11th of Av, 5732): Sixty-nine year old Max Aub, the Parisian born author whose shifting citizenship from French to Spanish to Mexican mirrored his changing literary and political fortunes passed away today.

http://www.albavolunteer.org/2010/03/max-aub%E2%80%99s-civil-war-in-english/

1973(22nd of Tammuz, 1973): Ninety-five year old Zvi Nishri the native of Russia who began teaching physical education in Palestine in 1908 and as a founder of the Maccabi movement passed away today.

1974(3rd of Av. 5734): Seventy-two year old actress, the Hungarian born daughter of “Alexander and Berta (Freiberger) Darvis who performed on the stage and in films in Europe and the United States who may be best remembered for co-starring as the grandmother in the “Long Distance Call,” an episode of “The Twilight Zone” passed away today.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/lili-darvas

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/july-23-in-twilight-zone-history-remembering-actress-lili-darvas-long-distance-call

1975: “The Presidents Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations and National Conference on Soviet Jewry issued a joint statement opposing changes in the Jackson-Vanik Amendment without parallel improvement in the USSR’s restrictions on emigration.”

1975: “The Speaker of the Netherlands Parliament Edward van Thijn, returning from a visit to Moscow, confirmed the use of conscription in the Soviet campaign against Jewish emigration.”

1976: The visiting governor of the Bank of Spain, Luis Coronel del Palma, expressed hope of "a considerable improvement of relations between Spain and Israel."

1976: According to American experts the recent events in Lebanon and the Syrian intervention there threatened the total dismemberment of the PLO and the demise of Yasser Arafat who had lost control of all his forces.

1976: Mossad hit teams were reported to have been waging a concerted assassination program against all Palestinian terrorists who murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympiad. For those who consider the Israeli behavior "cold blooded" remember what happened.  The Munich Olympics went on almost as if the terrorists had not struck.  The response of the world community was to invite Yassar Arafat, complete with is pistols, to address the UN General Assembly.  And for good measure the UN passed the Zionism is Racism Resolution. 

1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Ministry of Agriculture had decided to enforce the law against squatting to counter the widespread increase in the illegal Arab settlement on state lands. The popular TV show Kolbotek was suspended following the discovery of irregularities in connection with one of its programs. The Mossad was reported to have informed Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan of Arab plans to attack Israel two days before the outbreak of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, but this information was disregarded.

1977(7th of Av, 5737): “Martin Diamond, a political scientist and professor at Georgetown University, collapsed today moments after he testified before a Senate subcommittee.”

https://contemporarythinkers.org/martin-diamond/biography/

1979(27th of Tammuz, 5739): Ninety-one year old immunologist Reuben Leon Kahn who developed a test for syphilis passed away in Miami.

1980(9th of Av, 5740): Tish'a B'Av

1980(9th of Av, 5740): Fifty-eight year old Rutgers University graduate and World War II Army Air Forces veteran Bernard D. Kahn “the former executive vice president and creative directory of Grey Advertising and husband of “former Helen Kennedy,” the fashion director of Foote, Cone and Belding as well as the father of two children from his first marriage – David and Antonia – suffered a fatal heart attack today “in his East Side apartment.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1980/07/23/113949238.pdf

1980: Funeral services are scheduled tobe  held today in Manhattan for 59 year-old “community developer and real estate investor Henry Epstein, the husband of “former Dasha Amsterdam, a theatrical producer” with whom he had two children – Robert and Danielle.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1980/07/21/113021252.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

https://barnard.edu/news/way-back-wednesday-dasha-amsterdam-epstein-55

1980: The Knesset voted by ninety-nine votes to fifty-one to annex east Jerusalem declaring that ‘Jerusalem, complete and undivided, is the capital of Israel.’

1981: Immanuel Jakobovits, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth “was created a life peer in 1988, as Baron Jakobovits, of Regent's Park in Greater London, becoming the first rabbi to receive this honor.”

1982: Marigold Merlyn Baillieu Myer, the daughter of Merlyn and Sidney Myer married Sir Robert Southey.

1983: “The Wicked Lady” directed and edited by Michael Winner, who co-authored the screenplay and produced by Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan was released in the United States today.

1984: The second convention of The European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS) opened today at Hertford College under the presidency of Geza Vermes.

1985: “Sweden-based Palestinian terrorists” were among those who planted a bomb that exploded “near the Great Synagogue in Copenhagen and a Jewish nursery home and kindergarten.

1992: A year and half after opening in the United Kingdom, “Captain Marvel,” a film based on the Marvel Comics superhero created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, produced by Menahem Golan and Stan Lee and with music by Barry Goldberg, the nephew of former Secretary of Labor and Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldber, was released today in the United States.

1993: Israeli Supreme court Justice, Aharon Barak, was present at Yad Vashem to watch seventy-six-year-old Ceslovas Rakevicius plant a tree.  Rakevicius had saved the eight year old Barak, his brother and his parents and more than twenty other Jewish families by smuggling them out of the Kovno Ghetto in 1944. 

1997(17th of Tammuz, 5757): Tzom Tammuz

1999(9th of Av, 5759): Tish'a B'Av

1999(9th of Av, 5759): David N. Myers of Cleveland, OH who died at the age of 99. He was a dedicated leader and benefactor of the Jewish and secular communities. As a long-time supporter of American Friends of the Hebrew University, he supported numerous programs and established the David Meyers Skin Laboratory and David and Inez Meyers Scholarship Endowment at The Hebrew University.

1999: Major league baseball player Bruce Ausmus and his wife Liz gave birth to their second child Abigail.

2000: “The Israeli peace delegation's mood shifted from dire to hopeful today as officials outside Camp David said Prime Minister Ehud Barak believed that the chances for the summit meeting's success had improved.” (As reported by Deborah Sontag)

2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including ''Regarding Film'' by Stanely Kauffmann and “Walking the Bible” by Bruce Feiler.

2002: Israel “assassinated” Salah Shahade, the Commander-in-Chief of Hamas’s military arm, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

2003: “With little progress in the Middle East peace effort, Palestinian and Israeli leaders set out today on separate diplomatic missions, and both sides focused on talks with President Bush set for later this week and next week.” (As reported by Greg Myre)

2004: Eighty-seven year old George Kidd, “the first Canadian ambassador to Israel” passed away today.

2004(4th of Av, 5764): Eighty-three year old, the Canadian born McGill University graduate and WW II veteran Elie Abel who was a standout foreign journalist with the New York Times and NBC before becoming Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism who married Charlotte Hammond Page Dunn after his first wife “the former Corrinne Adelaide Prevost” had passed away succumbed to the effects of pneumonia in Rockville, MD. (Editor’s note – there is no way to do him justice in this simple blog.  His work was elegant, informed and real journalism which is a far cry what the world of “news” has become in the 21st century)

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/24/us/elie-abel-newsman-and-teacher-dies-at-83.html

https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf1n39n4q2/entire_text/

2005: In the evening, with the start of Shabbat, Rabbi Aaron Sherman officiates at his first service as the new spiritual leader of the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Jewish Community.

2006: Israel ousted Hezbollah guerrillas from a stronghold just inside Lebanon after several days of fierce fighting, the army said, as it bombarded targets across the south of the country. Israel Defense Forces ground forces commander Major-General Benny Gantz said troops took the hilltop village of Maroun Ras, where four soldiers were killed last Thursday, inflicting dozens of casualties on Hezbollah. IDF troops took positions in the vicinity of Maroun Ras, in southern Lebanon, on Saturday and carried out operations to detect rocket launchers and underground bunkers where Hezbollah militants are holed up.

2006:  At least 100 Katyusha Rockets fired by Hezbollah forces in Lebanon land in northern Israel.  At least nineteen Israeli civilians are reported injured.  In his weekly radio address, President Bush blames Hezbollah and its supporters – Iran and Syria – for the latest round of violence in the Middle East.  In the meantime Israeli forces continue operations in Gaza in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and the launching of rockets by Hamas. 

2007: Sharon Fichman was the runner-up in today’s tennis tournament in Hamilton, Canada.

2007: The Sunday New York Times book section featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and or of special interest to Jewish readers including The House that George Built With a Little Help From Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty by Wilfrid Sheed describing a musical era dominated by George Gershwin “and a few of his friends” and POP! Why Bubbles Are Great for the Economy by Daniel Gross whose earlier writings included “Can the Jews Save Christmas: Chanukah is Late this Year. Will this help retailers?”

2007: Brad Ausmus “recorded his 100th career stolen base today, becoming the 21st catcher all time to record that many steals

2007: Campbell Brown, who had converted to Judaism prior to her marriage to Daniel Senor in 2006 “announced today, on Weekend Today, that she would be leaving NBC News after 11 years to devote time to her family and expected baby.”

2008(19th of Tammuz, 5768):Eighty-four year old award winning actress Estelle Getty who was best known for her last role on the sitcom “Golden Girls” passed away today.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2008/jul/24/television.television

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/arts/television/23getty.html

2008: The Karmiel Dance Festival opens. This year, this most Israeli of festivals celebrates the country's 60th birthday via a retrospective of Israeli dance from 1948 to the present day, yet the central event - Let Us Grow in Peace - is a poignant reminder that for most of those 60 years, our land has known conflict.

2008. Senator Barack Obama begins his visit to Israel where he is expected to meet the country's top leaders: President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu. The publicity of this trip is a far cry from the comparatively anonymous trip the Senator made to Israel in 2006 when he visited the town of Fassouta,

2008: For the second time in three weeks, an Arab bulldozer driver from east Jerusalem rammed his construction vehicle into a city bus and several cars on a central thoroughfare in the capital wounding 15 people before being shot dead by a Druse border police officer and a civilian passerby.

2009(1st of Av, 5769): Rosh Chodesh Av

2009(1st of Av, 5769: Lynn Pressman Raymond, a leading toy manufacturing executive, passed away today at the age of 97. (As reported by William Grimes

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/business/02pressman.html

2009: U.S. congressman Henry Waxman discusses his new book, “The Waxman Report: How Congress Really Works,” at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue,

2009: The Randi & Bruce Pergament Jewish Film Festival features a screening of “Holyland Hardball,” which describes what happens “when a Boston baker with no sports management experience wanted to form the Israel Baseball League”

2009: Israeli fashion model Esti Ginzburg who would later appear in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue “began her compulsory military service in the Israel Defense Forces” today.

2009: Gen. Norton Schwartz, the chief of staff of the Air Force and the first Jewish commander of the U.S. Air Force completed a four-day visit to Israel.

2010: In Metro-Detroit, MI, The Jean and Theodore Weiss Partners in Torah Program is scheduled to sponsor a program entitled "Life After Death," which will cover such topics as: The journey of the soul, a study of scriptural passages referencing the World to Come, the eternal nature of the soul, a look at testimonials of near death experiences, the relevance of the soul.

2010: The Israel Navy went on high alert today amid forecasts that a flotilla of two vessels from Lebanon was preparing to depart for the Gaza Strip in an effort to break the blockade by the end of the week.

2011(20th of Tammuz, 5771): Yahrzeit of “Rabbi Na'eh best known for his halachic works Ketzot ha-Shulchan and Shiurei Torah ("measurements of the Torah"), in which he converted archaic halachic measurements into modern terms.” He passed away on the 20th of Tammuz (July 21) 1954.

2011: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to sponsor its Shabba bakery which will give children a chance roll and braid their own challah which they can take home and bake.

2011: Jailed Jewish-American aid contractor Alan Gross told Cuba's Supreme Court today he had no intentions of hurting the Cuban government or its people.

2011: At least 200 medical students from all departments staged a protest outside of Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv today, demanding improvements in Israel's healthcare system and pledging support for the months long battle being waged by doctors and residents across the country.

2011: David “Leonhardt was appointed as chief of the Washington bureau of The New York Times” today.

2012: In Sandy Springs, GA, Rabbi Rachel M. Bregman is scheduled to officiate at the graveside service for Laura Lynn Becker, a very accomplished Atlanta defense attorney for the past 30 years. A native of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Ms. Becker was the daughter of Harold Becker and Arlene Gabert Becker of blessed memory.

2012: The Center for Jewish History and American Jewish Historical Society are scheduled to present screenings of “Radio Days,” “Broadway Danny Rose” and “Annie Hall.”

2012: The 12th Annual Summer Institute for Synagogue Musicians, Mifgash Musicale is scheduled to begin today on the HUC-JIR campus in Cincinnati, OH.

2012: In Columbus, Ohio, Tifereth Israel is scheduled to sponsor a HAZAK lox and bagel brunch that will included a tour of Motts Military Museum

2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age by Martha C. Nussbaum

2012: Complaining that the Olympic movement is still ignoring their pain, Israelis marked the 40th anniversary of the Munich massacre t0day with a modest service in the atrium of a London apartment block

2012(3rd of Av, 5772): Ninety-year old “Dr. Warren Winkelstein Jr., a physician and researcher whose groundbreaking studies connected unprotected sex between men to AIDS, smoking to cervical cancer and air pollution to chronic lung disease” passed away today. (As reported by Denise Grady)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/health/dr-warren-winkelstein-jr-dies-at-90.html?hpw

http://www.epi.umn.edu/cvdepi/bio.asp?id=85

2012(3rd of Av, 5772): Eighty-nine year old urban legend and art collector Herbert Vogel passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/24/arts/design/herbert-vogel-postal-clerk-and-modern-art-collector-dies-at-89.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/herbert-vogel-unlikely-art-collector-and-benefactor-of-national-gallery-dies-at-89/2012/07/22/gJQANqOf2W_story.html

2012: The world’s intelligence community is on the alert for terror attacks at the London Olympics, and Israel knows only too well that it can be targeted at such events, Defense Ministry Ehud Barak said this morning (As reported by Gabe Fisher)

2012: Gunmen opened fire on today at a bus of Israeli soldiers that was traveling near the Israel-Egypt border. The bus was hit when it was on Route 10 near Har Sagi, southwest of Mitzpe Ramon. No casualties were reported but damage was done to the bus.

2013: The annual Madridanza festival at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv is scheduled to come to a close.

2013: Amos Phinhasi is scheduled to perform “Mediterraneo” at the Between the Seas Festival.

2013: The second of two billboards sponsored by the pro-Israel group StandWithUs is scheduled to go up today at Helena, the capital of Montana. “The StandWithUs billboards read, “The U.S.-Israel Relationship Creates Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs in America” and “Israel Celebrates Diversity.”

2013(15th of Av): Tu B’Av – Jewish Valentine’s Day

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/tubav.html

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/53680/jewish/15th-of-Av.htm

http://www.israeldailypicture.com/

2013: “A new report from the Anti-Defamation League has found a 14 percent decline in recorded anti-Semitic incidents across the United States, the organization said today.The audit of 2012 records identified 17 physical assaults, 470 cases of harassment or threat, and 440 cases of vandalism in which the target was Jewish and the motive allegedly hatred.” (As reported by Michael Wilner)

2013: Former MVP Ryan Braun, the left field for the Milwaukee Brewers known as “the Hebrew Hammer” was “suspended by MLB commissioner Bud Selig for the remainder of the 2013 season for violating the league's drug policy.;”

2014: Israeli-American violinist Gil Shaham is scheduled to join the National Youth Orchestra of America when it makes it Carnegie Hall debut with a program that begins with Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story.”

2014: Sun Kil Moon is scheduled to perform at the Historic 6th & I Synagogue.

2014: (24th of Tammuz, 5774): Eighty year old Irish director Louis Lentin whose works included “Grandfather, speak to me in Russian” a “docudrama” in which he “reconstructs the life of his paternal grandfather, Kalman Solomon Lentin who came to live with his family in Ireland in 1936” passed away today.

http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/dear-daughter-producer-louis-lentin-dies-1.1875643

2014: For a second time, UNRWA announced that rockets had found in their schools in Gaza.

2014: Premiere of “Food Fighters” NBC’s “American reality based cooking television series hosted by Adam Richman.”

2014: In Las Vegas, Hadassah is scheduled to hold the second day of its 97th annual convention.

2014: The Washington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to open with a “Coen Brothers” double feature.

2015: In Philadelphia, the National Museum of Jewish History is scheduled to host a screening of “The Candidate” as part of its “70’s Summer Cinema” program.

2015: At the Museum of Jewish Heritage, “a living memorial to the Holocaust” Father Leo O'Donovan (former President of Georgetown University), Rabbi Elie Weinstock (Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun), and David Strathairn are scheduled to discuss "Heroes and the Holocaust.”

2016: “Kind Words,” a comedy about three Jewish Israeli siblings is scheduled to be shown in Coral Gables as part of the Miami Jewish Film Festival.

2016: PININA featuring the choreography is scheduled to open Sally-Anne Friedland as Steps On Broadway.

2016:  Terrorists attacked a mall tonight that was built on the site of the 1972 Munich Olympic Village where Palestinian Arab Terrorists murdered Israeli athletes – an outrage that did not bother the world but which presaged the Modern Terrorist Era of the 21st century.

2016: “In an email leaked today by Wikileaks, Brad Marshall, the DNC’s chief financial officer suggested the part should ‘get someone to ask” Bernie Sanders about “his religious beliefs” which would draw attention reports that the Senator is an atheist.

2017(28th of Tammuz, 5777): Parashat Mattot-Mas’ey marking the end of the reading of the Book of Numbers. 

2017: New York born producer and actor Yaniv “Nev” Schulman and Laura Perlongo got married today.

2017: President Donald Trump “formally commissioned” the USS Gerald Ford, the new supercarrier who Jewish crewman will be able to use a Torah given in memory of “World War II veteran Jacob Kamaras.”

2017: HIAS CEO Mark Hetfield, Jewish Family & Community Services East Bay's Amy Weiss and activist Subhi Nahas are scheduled to host a conversation on the current refugee and immigration crisis and the role filmmaking plays in raising awareness at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2017: “The Beguiled” and “Frames” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2018(10th of Av, 5778): Tisha B’Av observed since the 9th day of Av fell on Shabbat

2018: The motif of Tisha B’Av becomes even more mournful as all decent people lament the death of 21 year old Staff Sgt. Avi Levi who was murdered by a sniper during one of Hamas’ “peaceful protests” on the border between Gaza and Israel.

2018: JW3 is scheduled host a screening of “Keep the Change” this evening in London.

2018: The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that “an international operation to rescue more than a hundred Syrian aid workers and their families” that took them to Israel and Jordan had been carried out due to “an immediate threat” posed by the forces of President Bashar al-Assad.

 2018: Temple Israel is scheduled to host a screening of “The Last Suit” which tells the story of an aging tailor’s quest to find “the man who same him from Auschwitz.”

2018: In Memphis, “Temple Israel member and Holocaust Survivor Dr. Charles Blatteis” is scheduled to read from the Book of Lamentations and share his story of survival as part of the Tisha B’Av observance.

2019: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “City of Joel” and “Echo.”

2019: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to host Dr. Edna Nahshon, a professor of Jewish Theater and Drama at The Jewish Theological Seminary and a senior fellow at Oxford University's Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies as she lectures in English on the “Yiddish Theatre In America – An Overview.”

2019: The Workmen’s Circle is scheduled to host the penultimate session of “The Real Tevye” in which Leyzer Burko helps students get to know the hero of Sholem-Aleichem's novel, as well as his later incarnations in the stage and film adaptations.”

2019: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a Walking Tour celebrating the 170th birthday of Emma Lazarus.

https://bpt.me/4279242?bblinkid=164623722&bbemailid=14160698&bbejrid=1093448904

2020: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “From the Inquisition to the Mishiguene Restaurant: The Latin American Jewish Food Story” - Live on Zoom, featuring Jayne Cohen, culture writer and cookbook author.

July 22, 2020(1st of Av, 5870): Rosh Chodesh Av;

2020: As Israelis awake this morning, they can await response to yesterday’s call by the Foreign Minister for the IDF to take the lead in stopping the spread of the coronavirus epidemic which came on the same day that Professor Dov Schwartz said “a renewed nationwide lockdown appears to be the only way to slow the rapid spread of coronavirus in Israel and avoid a health disaster.”

2020: The 11th Annual Axelrod Israel Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a live stream screening of “Crescendo.”

2020: “The Mandel Jewish Community Center FilmFest is scheduled to host a virtual question-and-answer event with Jesse Eisenberg, the star of “Resistance” this afternoon.

2020: Dr. Shari Rabin, assistant professor of Religion and Jewish Studies at Oberlin College, is scheduled to discuss online via Zoom Jewish immigration to the United States around the turn of the 20th century and its ramifications on contemporary American life

2020: Taube Jewish Heritage Tours is scheduled to present a virtual talk about the 1,000-year history of Jews in Poland by Antony Polonsky (author of “The Jews in Russia and Poland”) and Marcin Wodziński (“The Historical Atlas of Hasidism”).

2020: The Jewish Museum of Maryland is scheduled to host live stream on Zoom Marvin Pinkert, JMM Executive Director and Tracie Guy-Decker, JMM Deputy Director as he lectures on “Why History Matters: Especially the Difficult Parts.”

July 22, 2020: The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host a Virtual Poetry Salon to mark the 171st anniversary of the birth of Emma Lazarus who was born “in the middle of a Cholera Epidemic.” For more see

https://ajhs.org/programs

2021: “Misha and the Wolves” is scheduled to be the opening film shown at the “Virtual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.”

2021: The Contra Costa JCC is scheduled to sponsor “a talk about the Ottoman Empire aligning with the losing side in World War I, how this led to the creation of the modern Middle East and a Jewish Palestinian spy ring in WWI-era Palestine.”

2021: “Misha and the Wolves,” the dramatic tale of a woman whose Holocaust memoir too the world by storm” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2021: The exhibition “Shanghai: Safe Haven During the Holocaust” is scheduled to open at the Illinois Holocaust Museum.

2021: “Michael Shnayerson is scheduled to lead fascinating discussion about Bugsy Siegel, who rose from desperate poverty to ill-gotten riches, from an early-twentieth-century family of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side to a kingdom of his own making in Las Vegas” sponsored by the Park Avenue Synagogue.

2021: The Kindertransport Exhibit is scheduled to open in Minneapolis, MN.

https://www.lbi.org/news/kindertransport-exhibit-travels-to-minneapolis/

2021: The Museum of Jewish Heritage is scheduled to host a screening of “Love It Was Not.”

https://mjhnyc.org/events/love-it-was-not/

2021: In preparation for Tu B’Av, the North Suburban Jewish Community Center is scheduled to present online “Chocolate Trivia,” that will “a chocolate goodie bag for pickup from the NSJCC before the event.”

2021: Livermore Shakespeare Festival and East Bay Holocaust Education Center are scheduled to present an in-person reading of Jennifer Le Blanc’s fictionalized play about the Kindertransport.

2022: In Berkley, CA  Shefa: Jewish Psychedelic Support and Center for Medicinal Mindfulness is scheduled to present a weekend workshop that includes professionally facilitated cannabis-guided experiences framed by Jewish spiritual traditions.

2022:Hamusika is scheduled to broadcast the final Young Artists Concert on Kan Kol.

2022: The S.F. Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to  present “Perfect Strangers,” a 2021 Israeli drama about seven longtime friends whose innocent game evolves into a “conflagration of earth-shattering revelations.”

2022: Thanks to what the Defense Minster described as the professional and decisive actions by  the security forces, there are no longer any “illegal outposts” which had been created by Nachala.

2023: In Berkeley, CA, Peet’s Theatre is scheduled to host “Out of Character,” a “one-man-show written and performed by Ari’el Stachel about his life and career as an Israeli American of Yemeni Jewish descent, exploring the intersections of race, mental health and survival.

2023: Jewish Baby Network and Congregation Sherith Israel is scheduled to present a dance, singing and play gathering for parents and children ages 5 and younger.

2023(4th of Av, 5783): Shabbat Chazon; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/