This Day, June 19, In Jewish History, by Mitchell A. and Deb Levin Z"L

JUNE 19

325: Promulgation of the Nicene Creed. The creed dealt with various splits among the various Christian groups and only dealt in a tangential manner with matters pertaining to Jews. The creed altered the method for selecting the date of Easter.  The change did not ban Easter from ever falling on the first day of Passover.  This change would be centuries away from being adopted. But by adopting even this change, the early Christian leaders showed the need to work very hard at separating their religion from Judaism.

1269: Louis IX (Saint Louis) of France, needing no urging from the Church, ordered all Jews found in public without a badge (yellow or red) to be fined ten livres of silver. The badge in France was usually a circle of red or yellow material and was known as a rouelle. The original badge was actually Moslem in origin (Caliph Omar II (717-20)) who decreed that both Jews and Christians wear a distinguishing mark. The "badge" took on different shapes colors and even dress (i.e. a hat or color of a dress) depending on the country.

1269: “King Louis IX of France …decrees that Jews found in public without a special badge will be fined ten livres of silver. Normally worn on the breast, the Jewish badge is either yellow or red and is designed to warn Christians when they are dealing with or simply near a Jew. Local officials around France repeat the requirement to better enforce the public segregation of Jews in this manner. The badges themselves are sold by the crown, so the government benefits financially two ways: first by selling them, and second by the fines when they aren't worn. (As reported by Austin Cline)

1286:Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg was imprisoned in a castle in Alsace, Lombardy.  At the time of his imprisonment, Reb Meir and his followers were trying to leave Germany following a new wave of persecution brought by Rudolph I.  “Tradition has it that a large ransom of 23,000 marks (approximately 15,144,900 U.S dollars today) was raised for him (by the ROSH), but Rabbi Meir refused it, for fear of encouraging the imprisonment of other rabbis. He died in prison after seven years. 14 years after his death a ransom was paid for his body by Alexander ben Shlomo (Susskind) Wimpen, who was subsequently laid to rest beside the Maharam.”  Reb Meir was also known by the term Maharam.  His erudition and piety earned him the appellation, ‘Light of the Exile.’ Meir was a leading commentator on Rashi’s explanations of the Talmud.  Such was his reputation that Ashkenazi communities in Italy, France and Germany looked to him for guidance when questions of law and/or custom arose.

1320: John XXII issued “Cum sit absurdum” a Papal Bull that stated that “Converted Jews need not be despoiled.”

1338: “In recognition of the good-will shown by the citizens of Vienna in time of distress, and in anticipation of its continuance, the Jews declared, in a document written in Hebrew and dated today in Vienna that they would lend to the citizens of Vienna, rich as well as poor, a pound of Vienna heller at a weekly interest of three heller.”

1565: Fifty year old Viennese cartographer Wolfgang Lazius who “suggested that after Babel the earliest Hebrews had migrated from Mesopotamia to German” and who found evidence of Hebrew in European languages passed away today.

1566: Mary, Queen of Scots, and her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley gave birth to James VI of Scotland, better known as King James I the first ruler of England, Scotland and Ireland, best known as the King James of King James Bible fame who insisted that experts in Hebrew be employed as part of the project.

1623: Birthdate of French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal.  Of the Jewish people Pascal wrote, “It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the Jewish people…. This people is not only of remarkable antiquity but has also lasted for a singularly long time… For where as the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago, these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians testify, and as can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell of years. They have always been preserved, however, and their preservation was foretold… My encounter with this people amazes me…."

1630: After having “issued the first letter of safe passage to a Jew whose name was Albert Dionis in 1619, he granted general amnesty “to all Jews permanently in residence in Glückstadt” which was then part of Denmark as well as the “right to travel freely throughout the Kingdom of Denmark which at that time included what is now Norway.

1747: Nāder Shāh Afshār, the founder of the Afsharid dynasty, passed away. During his reign he reversed the anti-Jewish policies and practices that had been put in place by the Safawid’s dynasty which had ruled during the previous century.

1750: Moses Mendes, the son of stockbroker James Mendes and the grandson of Fernando Mendes was created an M.A today at Oxford.

1768: At Uman, the Haidamak Army under the command of Maksym Zalizniak slaughtered thousands of Jews in the Gonta Massacres.  The slaughter came at the end of the siege of Uman in which Ivan Gonta had betrayed the Polish garrison which led to its defeat.  The Polish commandment had tried to “buy the lives” of the Poles by giving up the Jews; a ploy that failed.  Led by Leib Shargorodoski and Moses Menaker, the Jews put up a valiant but futile defense.  The number of dead Jews which totaled more than 2,000 was inflated by the number of refugees who had sought refuge in the town.

1772: Birthdate of Salomon Oppehneim Jr. the German Jewish banker from Bonn who at the age of 17 founded a “commissions and exchange house” that became Sal. Oppenheim Company.

1778: R’ Asher Gunzburg and Gitlé Loëw gave birth to Fogel Loew

1790: The Gazette of the United States, a newspaper published in New York City provides an account of correspondence between the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah, Georgia and the newly elected President of the United States, George Washington.  Washington’s letter to the Georgia Jews ends with the following sentiments. “May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of heaven and make the inhabitants of every denomination participated in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.”

1790(7th of Tammuz, 5550): Saul Lowenstam “a renowned Dutch rabbi and Talmudist” passed away.  Born at Rzeszów in 1717 he was the son of Rabbi Areyh Leib ben Saul, the son-in-law of Rabbi Abraham Kahana and the father of Rabbi Jacob Moses Lowenstam. His writings included Binyan Ariel and a Torah Commentary, HeChatzer HaChadasha.

1792(29th of Sivan, 5552): Eighteen month old Heba bat Jacob Levi passed away today in the United Kingdom.

1796(13th of Sivan, 5556): Fifty-one-year-old Lazard Elie Levy, the Metz born son of Elias Elie Nathan Levy and Minkle Minelet Oppenheim, the husband of Sara Mayence and the father of Aron and Pilte Levy passed away today in Metz, France.

1800: Abraham Michel married Leah Isaacs at the Great Synagogue in the United Kingdom.

1805: Joseph Hart married Lee Clara at the New Synagogue in the United Kingdom.

1810: Birthdate of Hamburg native Ferdinand David, “the violin virtuoso and composer” who was born in the same house where Felix Mendelssohn had been born a year earlier.

1811: In Philadelphia, John Moss and Rebecca Lyons gave birth to Samuel Lyons the husband of Isabelle Moss with whom he had seven children – Ernest, Edith, Ella, May, Alice, Walter and Harry.

1812: One day after Madison signed the congressional resolution declaring war on Great Britain, the public learned that the War of 1812 which resulted in Isaac Minis the son of Philip and Judith Minis serving as a private in a company of artillery that was part of the 1st Regiment of the Georgia Militia had begun.

1816: A year and a day after Wellington’s victory at Waterloo, Abraham Henry married Emma Lyon at the Hambro Synagogue.

1822: Aaron Hart married Rosa Harris at the Hambro Synagogue.

1826: Birthdate of Charles Loring Brace, author of The Unknown God; Or Inspiration Among Pre-Christian Races in which the author is impressed by the fact that there that are “so few evidences of Egyptian influence are found in the Hebrew faith.”  The thinkers and teachers of the Jews were visited by those higher and purer inspirations which have made them the greatest benefactors of mankind in ancient history.

1832: Birthdate of Frédéric Emile Baron d’Erlanger, the French banker whose family converted to Christianity.  Despite the family’s conversion, the Baron is often erroneously identified as being Jewish. Erlanger created one of the earliest “junk bonds” based on the cotton trade during the Civil War.  This has led to other incorrect reports that Jews were responsible for financing the Confederacy’s war effort.

1829: Moses David Hyams, the Charleston, SC born son of Rebecca and David Hyams and his wife Susanna Hyams gave birth to Isaac S. Hyams.

1833(2nd of Tammuz, 5593): Henry Solomon, the son Catherine Bush and Myer S. Solomon who had been married in 1778, passed away today in his mother’s hometown of Philadelphia, PA.

1843(21st of Sivan, 5603): Sixty-year old Austrian author and philosopher Ignaz Jeiteles who was working on a history of literature when he passed away today in Vienna.

1844: “The Rabbinical Conference of Brunswick “convoked by Levi Herzfeld and Ludwig Philippson” whose attendees included Solomon Formstecher, Samuel Hirsch, Mendel Hess, and Samuel Holdheim came to an end today.

1844: In Poland, Loebel and Henriette Grossman Schottlander gave birth to Salo Schottlander, the brother of Julius and Bruno Schottlander.

1844: Moses Botibol married Jessie Myers at the Bevis Marks Synagogue.

1846: Adam Spielman, the London born son of Michell and Lewin (Judah) Spielman and his wife Marian Spielman, the Liverpool born daughter of Henrietta and Louis Samuel, gave birth to Lionel Adam Spielman.

1846: In London, Elias Benjamin and Mary Lazarus gave birth to Benjamin Raphael educated at Jews’ Free School in London who earned a doctorate of Jewish Law for Australia in 1874 and served as the rabbi at the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, Mound Street Temple in Cincinnati and the Fifteenth Street Temple in New York City before becoming the Associate Rabbi of Temple Beth Elohim at Brooklyn, NY in 1902.

1849: Bavarian born Louis Loew Leopold Affelder and Regine Rosalia Affelder gave birth to Jette Affelder

1854: In Terre Haute, IN, Bernard Kuppeheimer and his wife gave birth to Jonas Kuppenheimer whose family, including brothers Louis and Albert moved to Chicago in 1870 where they established a clothing store that became one of the major men’s clothing brands in the United States. 

1857: The correspondent for the New York Times writes from London that the second reading of the Jew Bill has passed by an immense majority. Furthermore, the opposition seems to be waning and Rothschild is on his way to becoming “a Parliamentary saint” as opposed to an “unparliamentarily martyr.”

1865: Birthdate of Hanover native Alfred Hugenberg, the right-wing businessman and anti-Semite who thought he could use Hitler but instead turned out to be a steppingstone to the Nazi rise to legalized power.

1867: In Mobile, AL, “Samuel and Fanny (Wolf) Lyons” gave birth to University of Cincinnati and Hebrew Union College graduate Rabbi Alexander Lyons, the holder of advanced degrees from NYU and Columbia and husband of Ida Eisendrath who served congregations in Terre Haute and Albany before coming to the Eighth Avenue Temple in Brooklyn which he served for 37 years while founding “the Consumptives Jewish Aide Society of Brooklyn” and editing The Supplement, “a monthly magazine.’

1867: Ruthless beat out DeCourcey by a head over the old Jerome Park Racetrack to win the inaugural running of the Belmont Stakes and financed by August Belmont, Sr. for whom the race was named financed the building of the track.  The Belmont Stakes would move to its current home, Belmont Park, in 1905.

1871(30th of Sivan, 5631): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1871(30th of Sivan, 5631): Twenty-five-year-old Cambridge trained Mathematician Numa Edward Hartog, the son of Alfonse Hartog and Marion Moss whose denial to be admitted as a Senior Wrangler “led to the passage of the Universities Tests Act of 1871, which removed religious barriers to holding fellowships at Oxford and Cambridge” passed away today.

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7292-hartog-numa-edward

1871: In Nebraska, Edward Rosewater, a Jewish immigrant who supported abolition and served as a telegrapher in the Union Army published the first edition of the Omaha Bee

1877(8th of Tammuz, 5637): Rebbe Meir Horowitz of Dzhikov, the son of Rebbe Eliezer Horowitz of Dzhikov and the grandson of Rebbe Nattaliz Tzvi passed away today.

1877: As word of Judge Hilton’s decision to bar Joseph Seligman from the Grand Union Hotel because he was Jewish spread across the United States, hotel proprietors in Philadelphia said that banning patrons because they were Jewish was wrong.  Looking at it from strictly a financial point of view, they all agree that the money of “an Israelite” is as good as that “of a full-fledged American.”  Both Mr. Kingsley of the Continental and Mr. Ward of St. George, leading Philadelphia hotels, have had Seligman as a guest and would gladly do so again. While Judge Hilton’s action might have been permissible in New York, in Pennsylvania it would have been illegal.  Under that state’s law, hotel owners have to obtain a license that allows them “keep a hotel, inn or tavern and under the provisions of that license he cannot turn away any person from his hotel, unless he knows that such persons will cause great loss to his house and then he holds himself liable to a fine of $300 and three months imprisonment” as well as a suit for damages from the people who were denied rooms.

1877: At the popular resort of Long Branch, NJ, several hotel owners expressed their surprise that Joseph Seligman had been turned away from the Grand Union.  Even though he is Jewish, the hotel owners, some of whom had had him as a guest, said that he was a desirable guest.  However, many of them expressed the opinion that they did not want Jews staying at their hotels and were sympathetic with the stance taken by Judge Hilton.

1877: According to Edward Lauterbach, the attorney for Joseph Seligman, as of today hundreds of Jews have closed their accounts at the two stores owned by A.T. Stewart & Co which are controlled by Judge Hilton. This is but one example of Jewish support for Seligman whom Lauterbach declared is the leading Jew in the United States and is proudly acknowledged as such by his co-religionists.  Lauterbach said that Seligman might also pursue a case under the Civil Rights Law which would leave Hilton open to fines and imprisonment.

1877: The arrival of today’s New York Times at Saratoga Spring this afternoon has caused quite a stir with its report of the dispute between Judge Hilton and Joseph Seligman over the latter’s claim that he was not allowed to rent rooms at the Grand Union because he was Jewish.

1878: Birthdate of Yakov Mikhaylovich Yurovsky, the Bolshevik leader that some credit with overseeing the execution of the Czar after the Russian Revolution.

1879: The London News published an article describing the terms of the will of the late Baron Lionel de Rothschild.  The estate is valued  at 2,700,000 pounds. Sir Nathaniel de Rothschild and Mr. Alfred de Rothschild, the late Baron’s two sons, have been named as executors. 

1880: It was reported today that Sarah Bernhardt has signed a contract to give 60 performances at Booth’s Theatre in New York next winter. The contract calls for her to be paid 3,000 francs a night, one-third of the gross receipts, traveling expenses for herself and three companions and 3,000 francs a month for her hotel bill.  According to the great actress, she has had more lucrative offers but she accepted this because the 200,000 francs has been deposited at the Banque de France as a security bond.

1881(22nd of Sivan, 5641): Eighty-eight-year-old Richea Gratz Etting, the Pennsylvania born daughter of Rachel Gratz and Solomon Etting who has been married in 1791,  passed away today.

1882: It was reported today that the United States manager for Sarah Bernhardt has signed a contract with Henry Irving the actor/owner of London’s Lyceum Company to perform their full repertoire during an American tour.  Among other things, American audiences will be treated to The Merchant of Venice featuring Ellen Terry in her famed portrayal of Portia and Irving’s unique portrayal of Shylock.  His dignified portrayal of Shakespeare’s most famous Jewish character is a departure from the norm of his time.

1882: “The Polish Jewish Colony” published today provided a detailed sketch of life among the Jews living on New York’s lower east side.

1883: In, “Smolian, Russia,” “Joseph and Anna (Leuchtiger) Slobin gave birth to Clark University educated mathematician Herman Lester Slobin, the husband of Alice Levy and the Professor serving as the “head of the Mathematics Department at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH.

1883: The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society was among the private institutions devoted to the care of children that received a grant of funds from the Board of Estimate and Apportionment in New York City. The society received $1,810 out of a total of $30,255 in grants.

1884: Dr. Henry W. Schneeberger a Baltimore Rabbi was one of four people who signed a letter today addressed “to Sir Moses Montefiore, thanking him for his aid to the Russian Jews who had found a refuge in Baltimore. The letter continued to advise Montefiore that the Russian Jewish immigrants had established a school in honor of their benefactor. Dr. Schneeberger was one of the teachers in this school - teaching the immigrants in the daytime and also at night. Dr. Schneeberger also became their mentor in advising the Russian Jewish immigrants to become good American citizens and he cautioned against the radicalism of some in their midst.”

1884: After a rumor circulated through certain parts of the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod that a Jew had kidnapped a Christian child and taken it to a synagogue, a mob attacked the synagogue. During the riot 9 Jews were killed, six houses were wrecked and an untold number were plundered.

1886: Birthdate of Michael (Mihály) Fekete the Hungarian mathematician who made Aliyah in 1928 where he “was among the first instructors in the Institute of Mathematics at Hebrew University of Jersualem.

1886: The Manchester Guardian reported that the Visiting Committee of the Hebrew Congregations of Manchester and Liverpool has affected a "closer union between the Sephardic and Ashkenazic sections of the Jewish community."

1866: In Paducah, KY, Benjamin Bernnheim, the German born son of Leopold Solomon and Fanny Weil Bernheim, who became a wealthy Louisville distiller, and his wife Rosalie gave birth to Lynn Bernard Bernheim

1888: In New York, Rabbi Joseph Ziesler, the Hungarian born son of Josefine, and Eduard Ziesler and his wife Irma Ziesler gave birth to Flora Zeisler

1889: William E. Annin, the associate editor of the Omaha Bee wrote the following description today of Edward Rosewater, the Czech born Jew who was “the editor and publisher of the Omaha Bee.”

"Mr. Rosewater was par excellence the all-around man of the [Bee] establishment. He seemed to have obtained the secret of two of the attributes of Deity, he was omnipresent and apparently omniscient. He wrote heavy editorials and pungent editorial paragraphs; contributed local political news to the city page, clipped selections for the news columns, selected items for those startling chestnuts dubbed 'Connubial Bliss,' 'Peppermint Drops' and 'Honey for the Ladies,' regulated the business office a dozen times a day and took subscriptions on the streets and advertising contracts from the merchants. I used to think his only sorrow was that he had not in addition been born a steam engine so that he could run the presses. . . "In addition to his ordinary duties above named, he constantly developed strong interest in local politics, and always had a dozen fights and twice that number of ward politicians on his hands. On city or county election days, The Bee office was usually depopulated and every man, from editor down, after rushing in copy, early took a whirl at the polls. After a hard day's work on election day, followed by an all-night session in collecting returns, the editor would bob up serenely at 9 o'clock the next morning with his arm full of exchanges and his mouth full of suggestions about the paper, . . ."His indomitable energy, his uncompromising persistency and his invincible pluck were at once the wonder and admiration of the office. . . . Overworked himself, he took his own high tension as the norm of work, and found it difficult to understand why all of his employees could not endure cheerfully the same racking. This made him often very unpleasant as an employer

1890: In Goniondz, Russia, “Isaac and Libby (Rahver) Roback” gave birth McGill University alum Abraham Aaron Roback, the Harvard PhD and psychologist, the contributor to Yiddish journals and faculty member at several schools including Clark University, MIT, Radcliffe and Harvard.

1890: Police officers Oram and English waited in vain for “a short, stout, red whiskered Polish Jew” named Marcus Goldstein to come to the Gill Engraving printing where he was supposed to retrieve plates for making lottery tickets that were thought to be part of counterfeiting scheme. (more tomorrow)

1891: It was reported today that applications for the summer session of The Hebrew Technical Institute under the direction of Henry Leipziger may be made now at its building on Stuyvesant Street.

1891: Birthdate of Romania native and Sacramento, CA  insurance man Simon Gartler, the husband of Anna Gartler and father of Ruth Gartler  who served as President of the Federation of Rumanian Jews.

1891: Birthdate of New York City Mortimer Krause, the attorney who when running for Congress as a Republican in 1930 came out in support of anti-lynching legislation.

1891: The list of the graduates from Hebrew Technical Institute published today included Coleman Borwn, Jacob Brown, Joseph Elias, Morris Farkas, Joseph L. Gensler, Louis Gevertz, Arthur Gross, Philip Levenhal, Michale L. Levy, Marks Lisk, Joseph Mayer, Max Mayer, Mortimer L Newman, Hyman Rosensohn, Abraham Saruya, Rduolph Shack, August Schweitzer and Jacob Szabo.

1892: “Austrian Jew Baiters Thrashed” published today described an episode at Vienna’s Prater Restaurant, witnessed by a correspondent from the London Daily News during which three “Jew baiters” were thrashed by “a beardless youth” after enduring their taunts in silence. It turned out the young man was not Jewish but was in fact an English jockey who had several races at Vienna.

1892: It was reported today that Sarah “Bernhardt continues to play to big audiences in which is proving the most success of all her London seasons.

1892: Birthdate of Ironwood, MI native and Northwestern University attorney James Joseph Glassner who did post graduate work at Harvard and practiced law in Chicago.

1892: “Rejected at the Theatre Francais” published today includes a negative review of Le Prince d'Aurec, a satire on the nobility by Henri Lavedan that features a Jewish banker named de Horn as the villain.

1893: Henry Gottgetreu, the attorney for the late Samuel Adler, spoke of behalf of himself and the family when he denied any knowledge of financial problems that Adler had been facing since they assumed that his “fortune” was “at least a quarter of a million dollars.” Mr. Adler had been active in a number of Jewish organizations including the Sons of Israel, the Sons of Benjamin and B’nai B’rith.

1893: “Hebrew Printers at Odds” published today described conflict between Jewish workers including a declaration by the Central Labor Federation that “the Hebrew Typographical Union was the only true Hebrew printing union in New York” and a denunciation of the “Hebrew Typographical Union No. 317 as shoemakers, tailors and cloakmakers organized to fight Socialism.” (This small item gives a window into the internecine conflict of the Jewish working class; a conflict that was even more intense than the one with the businesses many of which were owned by Jews)

1893(5th of Tammuz, 5653): Fifty year old Adolph S. Jaeger, a prosperous cigar manufacturer who was, with his brother Morris S., co-owner of Jaeger Brothers, died today, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F70717FF3D5A1A738DDDA90A94DE405B8385F0D3

1893: It was reported today that the brass band from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum played at the reception marking the opening of the Lebanon Hospital.

1894: In New York City, Bertha and Max Kleinfeld gave birth to NYU trained attorney and New York State legislator Philip M. Kleinfeld, a member of the Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Charities and Congregation “Shomre Emuneh” in Boro Park.

https://history.nycourts.gov/biography/philip-m-kleinfeld/

1895: “Literary Notes” published today described the upcoming publication by G.P. Putnam of Israel Among the Nations, “as study of the Jews and anti-Semitism by Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu which has been translated into English by Frances Hellman

1895: In Vienna, Austria, Reuben Ben Mordechai Brainin and Marie (Masha, Mussa) Brainin gave birth to Joseph Brainin, a Corporal in the Jewish Legion who had enlisted while living in Montreal and after having served in Palestine was mustered out after which he married Salomea Newark and eventually served as executive Vice President of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute.

http://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/09/archives/joseph-brainin-is-dead-at-74-aide-of-weizmann-institute.html?_r=0

1896: “The Jews of Russia” published today describes the restrictive laws under which the Israelites have lived in the land of the Czars including the Ukase of 1727 that expelled the Jews from Russia, the Ukase of 1742 which did the same and the creation by Catherine II and Alexander I of special zone to which the Jews were to confine themselves.

1897: “The Talmud Again” published today provides an in-depth review of the two-volume New Edition of the Babylonian Talmud formulated and punctuated by Michael L Rodkinson which includes the original text and an English translation reviewed by Dr. Isaac W. Wise. Born in 1845, Rodkinson was the grandson of Aaron ha-Levi ben Moses, the son of Alexander Sender Frumkin and the half-brother of Israel Dov Bar Frumkin

1897: Among the gifts and contributions listed at the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Hebrew Technical Institute were $250 from Julius Goldschmidt for tools and physical instruments; a band saw from James Loeb; $500 from the late Bernard Cohen for lathes; $1,000 from the late Leopold Boscowitz for general supplies. (The nature of the contributions is consistent with vocational mission of the institute)

1897: “Articles of incorporation were filed” today “in the County Clerk’s office by the Sons of Abraham, a Hebrew benevolent society.”

1897: Mrs. Jennie Cohen who had been recently widowed and her four young children ranging in age from six years to four months arrived in New York from New Haven, CT and since they were destitute spent the night at the Hebrew Sheltering House Association at 210 Madison.

1897:  Birthdate of comedian Moe Howard who gained fame as one of the Three Stooges

1898: Two days after he had passed away, 37 year old Mordecai Park was buried today in London at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery.

1899: In Baltimore, MD, Dr. Richard Gottheil chaired the opening session of the second annual conference of the Federation of American Zionists.

1899: Thirty-year-old Harvard trained attorney Marcus Cauffman Sloss, the New York City born son of Louis and Saran (Greenbaum) Sloss married Hattie L. Hecht today in Boston after which he went to practice law in San Francisco where he also served a Judge of the Superior Court.

1899: As of today, the Federation of American Zionists has 10,000 members divided into “125 societies” with a total of $415.92 in its treasurer.

1899: This evening Rabbi Gustave Gottheil of New York’s Temple Emanu-El addressed a mass meeting in Baltimore in which “he delivered a bitter” indictment “against the injustice done Dreyfus.

1899: In his recent announcement of his resignation as pastor of the Calvary Presbyterian Church on West 116th Street in Manhattan, Reverend James Chambers predicted that the congregation would soon disband because of the changing nature of the neighborhood where “well-to-do residents of the Jewish faith…have crowded out their Christian neighbors.”

1900: “Russian Jewish immigrants Mikhail (Michael) Zametkin and Adella Kean Zametki” Cornell University graduate Laura Zametkin who gained fame novelist Laura Hobson, the author of Gentlemen’s Agreement and wife of Thayer Hobson with whom she had two children Michael and Christopher Hobson.

1900: Herzl and Wolffsohn settle their differences about the Trust's affairs. And Herzl asks his good dear "Daade" to address him by the familiar "Du" instead of the formal "Sie".

1901: 1903: In Halle, Germany, Irmgard (née Wüst) and Friedrich Litten who had converted to Lutheranism gave birth to Hans Achim Litten, the attorney who defended anti-Nazis during trials held in the last years of the Weimar Republic and actually cross-examined Adolf Hitler – a cross-examination that led to his imprisonment, torture and death at Dachau

1902: Henry Freeman, the Russian born son of Rhoda and Abraham Simon Freeman was buried today at the Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern Island.

1903: The British Foreign Office sends the first of two letters to Herzl rejecting his proposal to establish a Jewish colony in the Sinai.

1903: In Halle Irmgard (nee Wust) and Fritz Litten, “a Jews who converted to Lutheranism in order to further his career as a law professor” gave birth to Hans Litten, a lawyer who represented opponents of the Nazis – a role that ended him in Dachau where he died.

1904: Birthdate of New Yorker Lester Cole, the son of a union organizer in the garment district who was a co-founder of the Writers Guild of America and whose membership in the Communist Party led to his being blacklisted as a member of the “Hollywood Ten.”

1905: “Stick to Palestine Plan” published described the opening session of the 8th annual convention of the Federation of American Zionists in Philadelphia during which the 230 delegates “adopted a resolution to the effect that that the International Zionist Congress, to be held at Basel this Summer be asked to reaffirm the Basel program of 1897.”

1906: In Berlin, Margarete (née Eisner) and Michael Chain gave birth to German born and educated British chemist, Sir Ernst Boris Chain.  Chain left Germany when the Nazis came to power.  As an English citizen this leading biochemist won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1945 for his work on the effects of penicillin.

1907: Captain Johann Kock, the former Finnish army officer turned revolutionary who has found refuge in the United States was quoted today as saying the Czar “is an ordinary man” who “cannot comprehend the situation and believes that at the bottom of all the troubles as the Jews and nobody else.”

1908: After selecting William Howard Taft, who would become the first sitting President to attend a Seder, the Republican National Convention adjourned today in Chicago, Illinois.

1909: Birthdate of Maurice Zimring, the native of Waterloo, Iowa who gained fame as “Maurice Zimm, an American radio, television and film writer, whose most famous creation was the Creature from the Black Lagoon.”

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov/24/local/me-passings24.3

1910: Birthdate of Abe Fortas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Fortas was a close friend and advisor to Lyndon Johnson. There are several stories about Fortas providing Johnson with what we would call a "reality check." Fortas was reluctant to give up his lucrative law practice and accept the position on the high court. He did tell Johnson that the Jewish community would not consider him as the "Jewish Justice" in the sense of a Brandies or Goldberg since he was not a part of that community. In the end Fortas gave into Lyndon’s famed arm-twisting and the rest is history. Fortas ended up resigning from the court in 1969 after questions were raised about some of his business dealings. Fortas passed away in 1982 at the age of 71.

1911: Today, the police have informed another one thousand Jews that they have eight days to leave by Kiev.

1912: The Republican National Convention to which Samuel S. Koenig was a delegate opened today in Chicago.

1912: In Philadelphia, PA, Jewish immigrants Ruth (née Herzog) and Israel Gabel, a jeweler, gave birth to actor, director and producer Martin Gabel

https://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/23/obituaries/martin-gabel-actor-director-and-producer-is-dead-at-73.html

1913: In Chicago, The Temple Emanuel Woman’s Auxiliary is scheduled to hold its annual luncheon at the Bismarck Gardens this afternoon.

1913: When the Austrian Parliament met today Ignaz Kuranda, “a leader of the assimilations section of Austrian Jewry” spoke out against the riots at Vienna University which “embitter not only the Jews but every educated man” and through which “Austrian Nationalism will not gain in power” but which “the Jews will learn to appreciate the fact that anti-Semitism is growing in this country.”

1913: Abram I. Elkus addressed the graduates at the City College commencement ceremony.

1914: Louis D. Brandeis, special counsel to the Interstate Commerce Commission in the 5 per cent. advance rate case, to-day appeared before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce in opposition to the Rayburn Stock and Bond bill, which proposes to confer authority upon the commission to control and approve issues of securities by common carriers.

1914: In Palo Alto, CA, Carol (née Dixon) and William MacGregor Cranston gave birth to Senator Alan Cranston who as “a correspondent for INS before WW II thought a recently released “abridged English-language translation of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, was sanitized to exclude some of Hitler's anti-Semitism and militancy” published a different translation (with annotations) which he believed more accurately reflected the contents of the book and for which Hitler successfully sued him for “copyright violation.”

 1915: In the Bronx, Romanian-Jewish immigrants “Joseph and Bertha Schwartz to cartoonist Julius Schwartz who as an editor at DC Comics worked on Superman and Batman.

http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Julius_Schwartz

1915: Friends and family of Leo Frank, including his wife, father and mother visited him “in his cell in the Tower today” as they awaited word as to whether or not Governor Slaton would commute is sentence to life in prison.

1915: The Jews of Morocco suffered indignities under the French regime that were unknown while under the rule of the old sultans.

1916: The Adjutant General of the New York National guard “ended the public hearings…in the investigation to determine whether discrimination had shown against Jews in the National Guard” despite objections by Maurice Simmons “who has been presenting the case for the Jews.”

1916: It was reported today that “a gift of $165,000 to Mount Sinai Hospital has just been announced by the Guggenheim brothers of the American Smelting and Refining Company” which “supplements previous gifts of more than $500,000 already given by the Guggenheim brothers.”

1916: The delegates to the eighth annual convention of the Federation of Russian-Polish Jews of America are scheduled to meet for a second session tonight at seven o’clock at the Harlem Hebrew Educational Institute.

1916: It was reported today that Louis D. Brandies, Louis Edward Levy of Philadelphia and Dr. Harry Friedenwald are scheduled to be among the speakers at next week’s annual convention of the Federation of American Zionists which will be held at the Metropolitan Opera House in Philadelphia.

1917: In Alexandria, Egypt, Nelly Grün and Leopold Percy Hobsbaum gave birth to “Eric J. Hobsbawm, whose three-volume economic history of the rise of industrial capitalism established him as Britain’s pre-eminent Marxist historian.” (As reported by William Grimes)

1917: In Chicago, The Baron Hirsch Workers are scheduled “to hold a directors’ meeting this after at the Lincoln Park.

1917: Dr. Bernard Revel, President of the Faculty of the Rabbinical College of America opened “the first annual meeting of the Society of Jewish Academicians” in New York by delivering “an address on ‘The Place of Jewish Scholarship in America.’”

1917: Based on information from the American minister to Sweden, Abram I. Ilkus, the American Ambassador to Turkey has left Constantinople and is scheduled to arrive in Berne today.

1917: “The cornerstone of the new synagogue to be erected at 257-265 West Eighty-Eighth Street for the Congregation B’nai Jeshurun” one of the oldest congregations in New York “was set in place”

1917: Twenty-six year old Richmond, VA born dentist Harry Bear married Betty Gellman

1918: In Fitzgerald, GA, gave birth to “Sam Abram, a harness maker and storekeeper born in Romania, and the former Irene Cohen, the daughter of a doctor and a granddaughter of Rabbi Elias Eppstein, one of the first Reform rabbis in the United States gave birth to Morris Berthold Abram, the advocate for Civil Rights and President of Brandeis University. (As reported by William Honan)

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/17/us/morris-abram-is-dead-at-81-rights-advocate-led-brandeis.html

https://atlantajewishtimes.timesofisrael.com/honoring-the-legacy-of-a-small-town-jewish-boy1/

1918: Today Leopold and Johanna Bluethenthal received the kind of wartime telegram confirming the news that their son, Arthur, had died fighting for the Allied cause in Europe making him the first resident of Wilmington, NC, to die in combat during the First World War.

1919:  Birthdate of movie critic Pauline Kael.  As movie critic for the New York Times, Kael was one of the most influential influences in the world of cinema criticism.  With her high quality of writing and edgy style, she was a trend setter in an era when women were too often consigned to the style section and gossip columns.

1920: The first anti-Semitic article appeared in the Dearborn Independent, owned by Henry Ford who was a Jew hater part excellence.

1920: M.I.T. educated architect Albert Samuel Gottlieb, the Portchester, NY born son of Julia Rothschild and Samuel Gottlieb who specialized in designing in synagogues and temples included Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Newark, NJ married Catherine M. Welch today.

1921: “The Eighth Annual Flower Day of the Jewish National Fund” is scheduled to be observed today in Jewish communities throughout the United States.

1922: The National Association of Jewish Community Center Secretaries, whose goal “is to develop a scientific body of information for Jewish Community workers” is scheduled to continue its fourth annual conference today in Providence, RI.

1923: Today, “at a luncheon of the Business Men’s Council held at the Hostel Pennsylvania,” the organization’s president, Arthur Lehman announced plans to half a million dollars during the remainder of “1923 to wipe out the deficit in the current budget of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic  Societies.

1924: Today, Dr. Joseph Silverman, Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Emanuel, “has returned from a tour of the holy land.”

1925: In Detroit, Michigan, Morris Burros, “an unsuccessful furrier and inventor” and the former Clara Krellman gave birth to Marion Ann Burrow who gained fame as Marian Javits, the wife of Jacob Javits, the U.S. Senator from New York and a leader of the Republican Party’s liberal wing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/nyregion/marian-javits-dead.html?ribbon-ad-idx=3&rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article

1925: In a cave at Tabgha, near Jerusalem, archaeologists discover a primitive human skull that bears a close resemblance to the Neanderthal man previously discovered in Europe.

1926: Birthdate of New Jersey native Dr. Erna Schneider Hoover “an American mathematician notable for inventing a computerized telephone switching method which "revolutionized modern communication" according to several reports.”

1926: “Footloose Widows” a comedy filmed by cinematographer David Abel was released in the United States today.

1926: Birthdate of Luxembourg native Arno Joseph Mayer whose family fled to the United States after the Nazi invasion which led to his successful career that culminated in being named “Dayton-Stockton Professor of History, Emeritus, at Princeton University.”

https://history.princeton.edu/people/arno-mayer

1927(19th of Sivan, 5687): Sixty-eight year old Zippporah Alice DeCastro Lazaron, the New Orleans born daughter of Jacob Osoro DeCastro and Hannah Haim DeSola DeCastro , the husband of Atlanta, GA native Samuel Louis Lazaron and the mother of Savannah, GA native Rabbi Samuel Lazaron passed away today in Baltimore.

1928(1st of Tammuz, 5688): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1928: “A cross-fire of conflicting court orders obtain by Louis Lowenstein, President of the Nassau Smelting Company…and by his wife Ralphina…complicated the hearing on the husband’s merit directing his wife to show cause why she should not return their three children which was scheduled for this afternoon before Supreme Court Justice Valente.”

1928(1st of Tammuz, 5688): Just weeks short of his 61st birthday labor leader Joseph Baroness known as “the King of the Cloakmakers” passed away today.

http://www.jta.org/1928/06/22/archive/15000-pay-last-tribute-to-joseph-barondess-at-funeral-services

1929: Funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning for sixty-nine year old Columbia Unversity trained attorney Edgar J. Nathan, the New York City born son of Gershom and Rosalie Gomez, the scion of several the city’s oldest Sephardic families, and partner of Justice Benjamin N. Cardoza who was the husband of Sara N. Solis and the father of Edgar J. Nathan, Jr the Manhattan Borough President.

1929: “At a joint meeting of the Prague Chevra Kadisha…and the Kehillah board” “went on record as opposing the burial of the ashes of cremated bodies in the Jewish cemeteries” because that was a violation of “Jewish religious traditions.”

1930: Mrs. Samuel Halprin wrote to “American attorney, social worker, and philanthropist” Joseph C. Hyman.

1931: “A rabbi may legally issue a permit to consumers of sacramental wine if the latter are Orthodox Jews, even if the consumers are not members of the rabbi's congregation, Federal Judge Frank J. Coleman ruled today, ordering the government to return 500 gallons of sacramental wine seized  on April 13 during a raid on a branch store of the Fruit Industries, Ltd.”

1932(15th of Sivan, 5692): Ninety-one Myrtilla Eduora Mitchell, the Philadelphia born daughter Abraham Hart and Rebecca Cohen Hart and husband of Lewis Allen Mitchell with whom she had four children – Estelle, Irving, Percival and Clarence Mitchell passed away today Philadelphia.

1933(25th of Sivan, 5693): Fifty-one year old Ukrainian born chazzan Jose “Yossele” Rosenblatt passed away today in Jerusalem.

http://thejewniverse.com/2010/a-hazzan-in-the-opera-house/?utm_source=Jewniverse+Newsletter&utm_campaign=5c383a1f2c-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_03_13&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b48fb1c44e-5c383a1f2c-27129561

1933: On a day when he received an honorary degree from Brown University Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo of the United States Supreme Court delivered an address to the alumni of that Rhode Island institution of higher education in which he declared, “The day is past when problems of public law can be solved by pulling down the law books and marking without other aids the "signposts on the road,"

1933: Cardinal Pacelli issued a concordant known as the Hitler Concordant. Hitler described it as "unrestricted acceptance of National Socialism by the Vatican." Cardinal Pacelli later became Pope Pious XII.

1933:  “The annual convention of the Council of Young Israel Organizations” which was attended by “delegates from the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France and Poland” and is being held at “the Hotel Clarendon-Brunswick” in Asbury, NJ.is scheduled to come to an end today.

1934: American author Nathaniel West, the son of Litvak immigrants to the United States, published A Cool Million, the second of the three novels he created during his career which was cut short by an untimely death in an automobile accident.

1934(6th of Tammuz, 5694): Seventy-six German businessman Max Pinkus passed away at Neustadt, Germany.

1934:Tonight, in the ballroom of the Plaza Hotel, Dr. Bernard Revel, dean of Yeshivah College, Dr. Moses Hyamson of the faculty of JTS, Rabbi Mitchell S. Eskolsky and Cantor Aaron J. Caplow officiated at the wedding of Leah Friedman and Jacob Neustadter.

1934: It was reported today that the newly elected officers of the Central Conference of American Rabbis are Rabbi Samuel Goldenson of Temple Emanu-El in New York, President; Rabbi Felix A. Levy of Chicago, Vice President; Rabbi Samuel Gup of Columbus, OH and Rabbi Isaac E. Marcuson of Macon, GA, Secretaries; Rabbi Harry S. Margolis of St. Paul, MN, Treasurer.

1934: Hundreds of kosher butcher shops owners are scheduled to attend a meeting at Webster Hall sponsored by The Federation of Kosher Shop Owners in Greater New York, led by President Charles Cohen where they will decide whether or not to close their shops as a protest “against the high prices packers are forcing them to pay for their meats.”

1935: In Palestine, the German consulate advised Jews not to travel to Germany, not even if they are citizens and not even for short trips. According to the consul, Jews entering Germany are likely to be apprehended by the Gestapo and placed in a concentration camp.

1936: “Great Britain is determined to restore order in Palestine, ‘even if it means using inevitably harsh measures,’ Colonial Secretary William G.A. Ormsby-Gore told the House of Commons today at the end of a full-length debate on recent disturbances in the Holy Land.”

1936: Rabbi B.A. Tinner delivered the Friday night sermon at the Temple of the Covenant on West 180th Street in New York.

1936: “We Went to College” a comedy produced by Harry Rapf who co-authored the script along with Richard Maibaum was released in the United States today.

1936: Leopold S. Amery, the former Colonial Secretary told the House of Commons, “nothing could be more cruel than the position in which the German Jews are placed today.”

1936: This evening in New York Georg Bernhard, the German editor-in-chief of the Pariser Tageseitung who has been living in exile in Paris since Hitler came to power “gave a farewell address on “A World Jewish Question” in which he said that world was no longer interested in the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis” and that “consequently, the entire German Jewry is now exposed to torture and slavery.”

1936: Earl Winterton, former Under-Secretary for India told the House of Commons that he “thought the Jews had ‘behaved admirably on the whole’ and complimented them for what they had done in Palestine” adding that he loathed “the manner in which they have been treated in a certain country of Europe.”

1936: As Arab violence continues to sweep across Palestine, The Palestine Post reported that one Jew was killed and several deafened and injured by a primitive bomb which was thrown into a bus in Tel Aviv. Avraham Ben-Yehuda, one of the original founders of Atarot, died of injuries sustained when Arab snipers opened fire on a bus in Jerusalem. Trees were cut down and the aerodrome damaged at Lydda. The Jerusalem water pipe was damaged by a dynamite charge. Two Arabs injured themselves seriously while trying to blow up a road culvert near Nablus.

1937(10th of Tammuz, 5697): Parashat Chukat

1937: David Robert Altman, the twenty-four-year-old Milwaukee born son of Jeanette and Robert D. Atlman arrived in Spain where he would fight with the International Brigade.

1937: “Member of the National Democratic Party asked the Polish Government today to prevent Jews of Brzesc from receiving financial aid from American Jewry for reopening shops destroyed in anti-Semitic riots” because “Brzesc was an important military center should not be inhabited by Jews.”

1938: On the 22nd anniversary of the Battle of Verdun, “1,000 Jewish and non-Jewish veterans including General Andre Weller,” attending the “unveiling of a monument at Doumont”, honoring “6,500 French Jews and 2,000 Americans and British Jews of the Foreign Legion who fell in the war” heard “Deputy Caesar Campinchi, speaking on behalf of the French Government” condemning persecution and advising “Jews to remember history, to be patient and not to despair.

1939: The Mizrachi Women's Organization opened its first independent meeting in Atlantic City. Although it was the group's fourteenth annual meeting, it was the first conducted separately from a men's organization. Now the largest religious Zionist organization in the United States (under the name AMIT), the organization owes its creation to Freda Resnikoff.

1939: Governor Lehman addressed the delegates attending the convention of the Independent Order of B’rith Abraham in Convention Hall at Saratoga Springs, NY.

1939: In Palestine, eighteen Arabs--nine men, six women and three children-- were killed and twenty-four wounded by the explosion of a time bomb. In replying to accusations by the British that Jews were responsible for the violence, “Jewish communal leaders condemned the ‘dastardly murder of innocent Arabs, women and children.’”

1940(13th of Sivan, 5700): Zalman David Levontin passed away. Born in 1856, he was one of the first of the Hovevei Zion group and one of the founders of Rishon LeZion and Yesod Hamaaleh. In 1903, Levontin founded the Anglo Palestine Bank in Jaffa and acted as its manager until 1924.

1940: Leonard Canter, Edwin Newman and Nathan Segal are three of the “four members of the City College that is graduated tonight who will receive their degrees summa cum laude.”

1941: Today, the residents of Metulla, “a Jewish agricultural community” were recovering from the destruction from the French artillery attacks launched from Merdjayoun.” (It is assumed that these French forces were under the control of Vichy which shows to what extent the Petain, et al would go to serve their fellow fascists.”

1941: Rabbi Leo Jung, a Professor of Ethics, presided over “special services” marking the “150th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill Rights” which were held today prior to the 10th annual Commencement Exercises at Yeshiva University.

1942: Today, after being held in three different prisons,Titus Brandsma, a Carmelite priest who been arrested by German occupiers in Holland for speaking out against Nazism as a "lie" and "pagan” “arrived” at Dachau today where he was later murdered by lethal injection.

1942(4th of Tammuz, 5702): Jews revolt at Glebokie, Belorussia; 2500 are murdered in the Borek Forest.

1942: The family of famed historian Moses Schorr including his wife, his daughter Felicia and his grandchildren were “interned at Warsaw’s Pawiak Prison as citizens of a neutral state.”

1942: Birthdate of Jack Edward Oliver author of the “Swan Esther,” a 1982 musical based on the Megalith Esther.

1943: Today, while stationed at Camp Croft in Spartanburg, SC, twenty year old Private Henry Kissinger “became a naturalized citizen.”

1943: Joseph Goebbels announces that Berlin is free of Jews.

1944(28th of Sivan, 5704): Forty-four year old Lilli Jahn “a German-Jewish doctor and victim of the Nazism in Germany who gained international fame posthumously following the publication of her letters to her five children which she wrote during her imprisonment in the labor camp Breitenau after which she was deported to the concentration camp Auschwitz  where she was murdered today.

https://www.amazon.com/My-Wounded-Heart-Lilli-1900-1944/dp/B008SMX8W4

1944: Five hundred Jews were transferred from the death camp of Birkenau to the work camp at Dachau.

1945: Judge Irving Lehman, the brother of former Governor Herman Lehman, delivered the address of welcome at New York City's reception honoring General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who has returned from leading the Allies to victory over the Nazis.

1945: In Birmingham, Alabama, Rosemary (Loftus) and Arthur Samuels Wolff, an aeronautical engineer “from a Jewish background” gave birth to author Tobias Wolff who did not find out his “Jewish connection” until he was an adult.

1946: Today, in a memorandum to the State Department, the American Jewish Committee urged the “United States to recommend to the British government the immediate admission of 100,000 Jews to Palestine and indicated willing to assist in transferring these refugees.

1947: It was reported today that “The memory of 6,000,000 European Jews, including those who fell in the Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto and those who died by Nazi gas and guns in concentration camps, will be kept alive by a monument being designed by Jo Davidson, the sculptor, for Riverside Park at Eighty-fourth Street…”

1948: Panama and Costa Rica (recognized Israel.

1949: “Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, Acting United Nations Mediator on Palestine said tonight that he did not know of any recent sniping by Israeli soldiers of any Israeli preparations for an armed attack against the Laturun area.

1949: In Queens, NY, “Shirley and Arthur Canton, who worked in the film industry on marketing and publicity, e.g., for Lawrence of Arabia” gave birth to movie producer and Hollywood executive Mark Canton

1950: In Toronto, Ruth (née Burstyn), an interior designer, and comedian Frank Shuster gave birth to comedy writer, who during the 1970’s was the wife of Saturday Night Live’s creator Lorne MIchaels

1950: Israel apologized to the Swedish Government today for the assassination of Count Bernadotte, United Nations Mediator for Palestine, by terrorists on Sept. 17, 1948.

1951: For the first time, a Soviet citizen (Jewish) was issued an immigrant visa to Israel. The hoped-for easing of the Russian policy of not letting its citizens out would not materialize for decades to come.

1951(15th of Sivan, 5711): Fifty nine year old Polish born “painter and printmaker” Joseph Hecht passed a away today.

https://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/984/Hecht/Joseph

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Knesset passed the first reading of a bill empowering the government to sign an agreement with Bank Leumi Le'Israel, nominating the bank as the currency issue bank of Israel.

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the secretary of the Iraqi Jewish Community Council, Dr. Habasi, was detained by police in Baghdad together with seven other Jews, on charges of hiding "huge quantities of arms." All of the detained previously renounced their Iraqi citizenship and were waiting for emigration to Israel.

1952: CBS broadcast the first episode of the original version of “I've Got a Secret” created by Allan Sherman and produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman

1952: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion expressed satisfaction today that the Zionist Organization of America at its convention in New York this week had cleared up the misunderstanding about the right of foreign Zionists to participate in the shaping of Israel's policies.

1952: Birthdate of actress Carol Kane who played Simka on the television show Taxi.

1953(6th of Tammuz, 5713): Execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who had been convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage, relating to passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.

1954: In Flushing, NY, “Hy Pearlman, who ran a dry cleaning business, and Reenie Pearlman, a school lunchroom aide” gave birth to “music executive” Louis Jay "Lou" Pearlman, “the first cousin of Art Garfunkel. (As reported by Liam Stack)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/arts/music/lou-pearlman-dead.html?ribbon-ad-idx=2&rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article

1954: François Mitterrand, the future President of France, was named to serve as Minister of the Interior in the first government head by prime Minister Pierre Mendes France who served as his own Minister of Foreign Affairs.

1954: “Them!” a highly forgettable sci-fic flic whose only claim to fame was that it featured one of the first screen appearances by Leonard Nimoy was released in the United States today.

1957: Saul Rogovin pitched his last major league baseball game.

1959: The U.S. Senate rejected Ike's appointment of Lewis Strauss for Secretary of Commerce.  At a time when most Jews were Democrats, Strauss was a Republican. He was part of the liberal, internationalist wing of the party.  He had worked with Herbert Hoover on war relief during World War I.  Strauss made special efforts to see to that aid from the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee got to the Jews of Europe who were in dire straits.  He served in the Navy during World War II and became involved in atomic energy.  He was rejected because of his role in dealing with Robert J. Oppenheimer. 

1962:  In San Fernando, CA, Harry Abdul, a Syrian Jew raised in Brazil and the concert pianist Lorraine M. (née Rykiss), who grew up in one of the two Jewish families in Minnedosa, Manitoba in Canada gave birth to pop star Paula Abdul.

1962(17th of Sivan, 5722): Seventy-nine year old Arnold K. Israeeli the St. Petersburg born and educated lawyer who pursued a career in journalism and business that included serving as “advertising manager for General Motors in South American for five Years and the “director of information for the American Zionist Council” passed away today in Brooklyn.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/06/20/82046859.pdf

1963: After 304 performances at the Sheridan Square Playhouse, the curtain came down “The Days and Nights of BeeBee Fenstermaker” directed by Ulu Grosbard.

1963: “PT 109” a war movie about JFK’s days in the South Pacific featuring Norman Fell was released in the United States today.

1963: Today, at Kiamesha Lake, NY, on the final day of its four day convention, Brith Abraham, the national Jewish fraternal order elected Irving L. Hodes, a layer from Newark one time candidate for Congress as grand master succeeding “Samuel Goldstein, the former Assistant District Attorney of Brooklyn.”

1964: The United States Senate passed The Civil Rights Bill that would eventually become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This landmark legislation outlawed a variety of forms of discrimination including that based on religion. The bill, which was primarily aimed at ending racial segregation, had support from Jewish groups and Jewish legislators. In the House, the bill was managed by Congressman Cellar who helped bring it to victory in that body.

1965: A novella entitled "Hapworth 16, 1924", the last published work of J.D. Salinger appeared today in The New Yorker magazine

1966(1st of Tammuz, 5726): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1966(1st of Tammuz, 5726): Comedian Ed Wynn passed away. Born Isaiah Edwin Leopold in 1886 in Philadelphia, Wynn’s father was a successful milliner. He did not want his son to go into show business. When the son would not yield, his father asked him to at least change his name so as not to disgrace the family. He decided to split his first name "Edwin" into Ed Wynn. Wynn was a successful comic in vaudeville and the early days of show business. He had his own show, which won an Emmy. He would appear in baggy pants suits pedaling a tricycle fitted with a piano. When his brand of clown-like comedy lost its popular appeal, Wynn followed the advice of his son and turned to acting. He appeared in a wide variety of hits including Marjorie Morningstar, The Diary of Anne Frank and Mary Poppins attesting to his real skill as an actor.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0021_0_21135.html

1967: Prime Minister Levi Eshkol announced that "as an interim stage, a military situation will remain in the West Bank."

1967(11th of Sivan, 5727): Sixty-nine-year old Charles Gilman, Sr. the Chairman of the board of the Gilman Paper Company, the New York born son of Isaac Gilman, the founder of the  company and the husband of “the former Sylvia Phillips” with whom he had two sons – Howard and Charles, Jr. – passed away today “aboard the Michelangelo on his way home from Rome.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/06/21/83611833.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1967: “In a secret decision, the government of Levi Eshkol offered Syria ‘full peace on the basis of the international border,’ with adjustments for Israeli security needs.”

1967: “The Thomas Crown Affair” an elegant crime movie featuring Jack Weston and Yaphet Kotto and filmed by cinematographer Haskell Wexler was released today in the United States.

1970(15th of Sivan, 5730): Fifty-three-year-old Cornell grad, Yale trained attorney and WWII Navy veteran Henry Hofheimer, Jr. a member of the Jewish Guild for the Blind, passed away today in a bicycle accident.

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/06/21/archives/henry-hofheimer-scarsdale-lawyer.html

1970: Two days after he had passed away funeral services were scheduled to held for seventy-eight year old Herbert Brutus Ehrmann, the Louisville, KY born son of “Hilmar ‘Hillel’ Ehrmann and Erna Ehrmann” and Harvard trained attorney best known for his role in the defense of Sacco and Vanzettia who raised two sons Rabbi H. Bruce Ehrmann and Dr. Robert L. Ehrmann with “his wife, the former Sara Rosenfeld.”

1972(7th of Tammuz, 5732): Sixty-nine year old Long Island College Hospital trained pathologist Dr. William Antopol, the husband of “the former Bella Scholer” and father of Michael and Stephen Antopol who was serving as “director of laboratories and research at Beth Israel Medical Center” when he passed away today in San Francisco.

1972 New York City native Susan Stamberg co-hosted National Public Radio’s (NPR) All Things Considered for the first time.

1972: “One Is a Lonely Number” directed by Mel Stuart, produced by Stan Margulies, with a script by David Seltzer and co-starring Melvyn Douglas and Jonathan Lippe was released today in the United States.

1973: An attack on the El Al office in Athens was thwarted and the Palestinian terrorist was able to gain his freedom as part of a hostage negotiation conducted by local police.

1974: Seventy-three year old American molecular biologist Alfred Mirsky passed away.

http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/mirsky-alfred.pdf

1974: Vladimir Slepak, Anatoly Sharansky, Lev Kogan, Alexander Lunts, Yuli Kosharovsky and Zahar Tesker were among those arrested today in an attempt to silence an Jewish protest that might be planned for the upcoming visit to the Soviet Union by President Nixon.

1975(10th of Tammuz, 5735): Eighty-nine-year-old Russian born and trained artist Abbo Ostrowsky  who was a founder of the Educational Alliance Art School in 1917 and was its director from then until he retired in 1955, who paintings and etchings are found hanging at the Metropolitan Museum of Art passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/22/archives/abbo-ostrowsky.html?searchResultPosition=7

https://www.invaluable.com/artist/ostrowsky-abbo-q70j76fc7u/sold-at-auction-prices/

1977: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today in New York for David Kulock, “the Past President of the Insurance Fund of the Free Sons of Israel.

1977: “A monument to the memory of the late Bella Hoffman” is scheduled to be unveiled today.

1979: Today, Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan District Attorney announced that fifteen Manhattan residents including Julius Berkowitz and Albert H. Berntstein, had been “indicted on charges that they had paid bribes…to avoid jury duty.”

1979: Birthdate of Daniel Jonathan Sieradski “a Jewish American writer and activist” who was “the founding publisher and editor-in-chief of Jewschool, a popular left-wing Jewish weblog, as well as the weblogs Radical Torah and Orthodox Anarchist. He is also the creator of the synagogue listings and reviews website ShulShopper.”

1980: In Charleston, SC, the Greek Revival building housing Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue was designated as a National Historic Landmark. For those who think of American Jewry as being a New York or eastern creation, it comes as a surprise that this is the second oldest synagogue building in continuous operation in the United States.  Also, when this congregation adopted the Reform minhag in 1824 it became one of the founding forces of the Reform Movement in the United States – something most people connect with Cincinnati, Ohio.

1980: “Rough Cut” directed by Don Siegel, produced by David Merrick and with a screenplay by Larry Gelbart was released in the United States today.

1981: The United States Security Council adopted a resolution condemning Israel’s attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor being built near Baghdad.

1983(8th of Tammuz, 5743): Simcha Erlich, the native of Poland who made Aliyah in 1938 where he became a political ally of Menachem Begin under whom he served as Deputy Prime Minister passed away today.

1984(19th of Sivan, 5744): Seventy-five year old Lena Krasner, the Brooklyn born daughter of  “Russian Jewish immigrants “Chane (nee Weiss) and Joseph Krasner,who gained fame as abstract expression painter Lenore “Lee” Krasner, the wife and helpmate in the truest sense of that word, of Jackson Pollock passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/21/obituaries/lee-krasner-pollock-is-dead-painter-of-new-york-school.html

1984(19th of Sivan, 5744) Sixty-three year old, Egyptian anesthesiologist Jack Chalon, the son of William and Helen (Hirsch) Chalon and the husband of Barbara Elizabeth Coombs with whom he had two children – Mary and Jonathan – passed away today.

1987: Ben & Jerry Ice Cream founded by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield announce a new ice cream flavor, “Cherry Garcia.”

1988(4th of Tammuz, 5748): Seventy-four year old Ralph Lazarus, the Columbus, OH born son of Meta and Fred Lazarus, husband of Gladys Lazarus and “Chairman of Federated Department Stores, whose many divisions included such prominent chains as Abraham & Straus, Bloomingdale's, Bullock's, Filene's and Foley' passed away today in Cincinnati after which he was buried in his hometown.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-06-23-mn-7004-story.html

1989(16th of Sivan, 5749): Writer and social critic I(sidor) F(einstein) Stone passes away at the age of 81.

http://www.ifstone.org/

1992: In Palermo, the Fifth International Convention of Studies of "Italia Judaica" came to a close.

1993: Philosopher and movie star Bernard-Henri Levy married actress Arielle Bombasle.

1993(30th of Tammuz, 5753): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1993(30th of Tammuz, 5753): Seventy-five year old philosopher Abraham Kaplan passed away in Haifa where he had been living since 1972.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/24/us/abraham-kaplan-75-author-and-teacher.html

1994(10th of Tammuz, 5754): Sheina Chaya, the wife Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and the daughter of Rabbi Aryeh Levin passed away.

1994: The BBC broadcast the final episode of “That’s Life!” a mixture of news and satire featuring Esther Rantzen as Presenter.

1994: The New York Times published a review of History of Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Israel Gutman. "They refused to surrender, preferring instead to fight to the death and thus preserve their honor," Israel Gutman writes in Resistance, his account of the band of starving Jews who fought the Nazis in Poland in April 1943. Mr. Gutman, a Holocaust survivor who teaches modern Jewish history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is the director of the research center at Israel's national Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, intelligently outlines the elements that weakened the Jewish resistance movement in Warsaw. These included not only Nazi air attacks and arson, food and water shortages and the neglect of the Polish underground resistance movement, but also the abandonment of the ghetto by its most prominent political leaders and arguments among the many rival Jewish organizations over a course of action. One wishes that Mr. Gutman had recorded events chronologically rather than switching back and forth in time. One longs for more information about heroes like Mordecai Anielewicz, the brave underground leader who escaped Warsaw but returned to command the uprising, and Yitzhak Zuckerman, the uprising's deputy commander, who survived to write about it. Still, Resistance, which is published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, lucidly illustrates how a few hundred Jewish fighters with Molotov cocktails, homemade grenades and no military training twice forced the Germans to retreat from the ghetto and refused to go like lambs to the slaughter.

1995: The cartoon strip Rhymes With Orange appeared in syndication for the first time. With its debut, twenty-five-year-old cartoonist Hilary Price became the youngest woman ever to have a nationally-syndicated cartoon strip. (JWA)

1995: David Libai begins his term as Minister of Internal Affairs.

1995: Jean-François Copé began his first term as Mayor Meaux.

1996(2nd of Tammuz, 5756): G. David Shine passed away. Roy Cohn, the Chief Counsel, named Shine as investigator for the McCarthy Committee, which was supposedly exposing the Communist Conspiracy during the 1950’s. Shine was drafted and McCarthy claimed the drafting of his investigator was part of the Communist Conspiracy to thwart his efforts. He attacked the U.S. Army for being involved in the Communist Conspiracy. These charges led to the famous Army-McCarthy Hearings, which led to his downfall.

1996(2nd of Tammuz, 5756): Bessie Margolin the Russian born labor attorney who grew up at the Jewish Children’s Home in New Orleans before graduating from Sophie Newcomb College and Tulane Law School passed away today.

http://legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/bessie-margolin-1909-1996.html

http://www.marlenetrestman.com/Home_Page.html

1996: The Eldridge Street Synagogue was designated as a National Historic Landmark. Located at 12 Eldridge Street on New York’s lower east side, it was built in 1887 to meet the needs of the growing population of eastern European Jews. As demographics changed, the synagogue fell on hard times in the 1950’s.  In the 1980’s restoration projects began which reinvigorate and physically restore the synagogue.

1998(25th of Sivan, 5758): Eighty-nine year old New York native Dora Goldwater, the daughter of Pauline Meltsner and Joseph Goldwater passed away today in Florida.

2000: Debut of “The Passenger,” a fictional offering by Marisa Silver.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/06/19/debut-fiction-the-passenger

2001(28th of Sivan, 5761): Fifteen year old Yevgeniya Dorfman from Bat Yam died today from the injuries she suffered during the Dolphinarium discotheque suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.

2001(28th of Sivan, 5761): Seventy-nine year old Rabbi Bernard Mandelbaum, president from 1966 to 1971 of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the academic and spiritual center of Conservative Judaism, passed away today (As reported by Ari L. Goldman)

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/27/nyregion/rabbi-bernard-mandelbaum-79-president-of-jewish-seminary.html

2002(9th of Tammuz, 5762): Seven people were killed and 50 injured, three of them critically, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a crowded bus stop and hitchhiking post at the French Hill intersection in northern Jerusalem shortly after 7:00 P.M., as people were returning home from work. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. The victims: Noa Alon, 60, of Ofra; Gal Eisenman, 5, of Ma’ale Adumim; Michal Franklin, 22, of Jerusalem; Tatiana Igelski, 43, of Moldova; Hadassah Jungreis, 20, of Migdal Haemek; Gila Sara Kessler, 19, of Eli; and Shmuel Yerushalmi, 17, of Shilo

2003: In New York, The Israel Fest Foundation proudly presented Academy Award winning director Milos Forman with the 19th Israel Film Festival 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award and Israeli director Dina Zvi Riklis with the 2003 IFF Cinematic Award. The Award Ceremony is followed by the premiere of the hit romantic comedy Wisdom of the Pretzel directed by Ilan Heitner, starring Guy Loel, Osnat Hakim & Yoram Sachs.

2003: Rudy Giuliani led the U.S. delegation to the first Organization for Security and Cooperation conference on anti-Semitism being held in Vienna.  The conference came about, in part, because of the strong support from the Bush Administration.

2003(19th of Sivan, 5763): Avner Mordechai, 58, of Moshav Sde Trumot, was killed when a suicide bomber blew up in his grocery on Sde Trumot, south of Beit Shean. The suicide bomber was killed. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

2004(30th of Sivan, 5764): Parashat Korach; Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

2004: Thousands of additional Jews, including Lubavitchers and non-Lubavitchers are observing Shabbat in Crown Heights today in anticipation of the 10th anniversary of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh grand rebbe of the Lubavitch Hasidic movement which will begin on Monday evening according to Jewish law.

2005: Seventy-five year old foreign correspondent James Feron, who covered the Six Days War for the New York Times passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/nyregion/james-feron-75-times-veteran-of-westchester-and-the-world.html?_r=0

2005: Eric Edelman completes his service as United States Ambassador to Trukey.

2005: The Washington Post reported that meetings had been held over the weekend at Yifat, Israel in which Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres announced that he would seek the top spot in Israel’s government.  Despite the fact that he is now 81 and that he has failed to accomplish the goal in four previous attempts. Peres thinks that now is the time for him to finally reach his goal.

2005: The Washington Post reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared from Jerusalem, “that her meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders convinced her that both sides share a commitment to ensuring Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza takes place smoothly and peacefully.” 

2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently release paperback editions of Letters to a Young Lawyer by Alan Dershowitz and Sweet Land Stories by E.L. Doctorow.

2006: Haaretz reported on the Sderot's municipal council decision to seal off the city's entrance for a 24-hour period in protest of continuing Qassam rocket attacks by Palestinians against the western Negev city. “Sderot is going on strike and no one will enter or leave it," Sderot mayor Eli Moyal said. Kassam attacks have left five dead and dozens wounded over the past months.

2006: In Romania and France, premiere of “Them” a Franco-Romanian horror film starring Michaël Cohen as “Lucas.”

2006:  Jerusalem Finding 'Oxygen' In Revival of Creative Arts, published today describes the renaissance of the arts taking place in Jerusalem.  [Editor’s Note - What is even more amazing, this is article is devoid of the usual “stuff” that permeates almost all reporting on Israel and Jewish culture in the Middle East.]

2006: Israel's ambassador to Germany presented medals of honor on to relatives of five members of the first "European Union" - an anti-Nazi resistance group whose members hid and fed Jews during World War Two.

2006: Carol Vogel described the history of Gustav Klimt’s Adele Bloch-Bauer I in “Lauder Pays $135 Million, a Record, for a Klimt Portrait.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/arts/design/19klim.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=Maria%20Altmann&st=cse

2007(3rd of Tammuz, 5767): Seventy four year old Zeev Schiff, the dean of Israeli military correspondents, defense editor of the newspaper Haaretz and author of numerous books, died today in Tel Aviv.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/world/middleeast/21schiff.html?_r=0

2007: The second annual Jerusalem Jazz Festival opens in Israel’s capital city.

2007(3rd of Tammuz, 5767): Yahrzeit for the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.

2007: Rachel Elizabeth Levin, daughter of Michelle Levin and sister of Jacob Levin, arrives in Lubbock, Texas. 

2008: Hazak Week of Study comes to an end.

2008: At Temple Chai in Long Grove, Illinois, Israeli author Eva Etzioni-Halevy speaks about her latest biblical novel, “The Triumph of Deborah.”

2008: More than 100 Israeli political and cultural leaders from across the political spectrum have signed a petition to Yad Vashem that they present to Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev urging the Holocaust Museum to add material about the Holocaust rescue activists known as the Bergson Group to its exhibits.”

2008: The agreement for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip is to go into effect at 6A.M.

2008: The United Nations’ Children Fund (UNICEF) swore off any relationship with Israeli diamond mogul,

Lev Leviev because of his construction of settlements on the West Bank.

2009: Police officers, Holocaust survivors and employees of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum gathered at the Ebenezer AME Church on Allentown Road in Fort Washington today for the funeral services for security officer Stephen T. Johns who was slain last week in an attack at the popular Washington museum. 20024. Contributions can also be made by calling 877-918-7466.

2009: The funeral for Seymour “Sy” Brody author of Jewish Heroes of America and Jewish Heroes andHeroines in America is scheduled to take place today at Morris Plains, NJ.

2009: As her Bat Mitzvah weekend begins, Rachel Maikon helps to lead Friday evening services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2010: The Jewish National Fund is scheduled to host Shabbat in the Park at New York’s Central Park Zoo.

2010: In a unique way to say farewell to Shabbat, a pre-camp Havdallah and swim party for campers and their families is scheduled to be held at the 14th Street Y in New York City.

2011: “The People in the Picture” by Iris Rainer Dart has its final showing at the Round About Theatre.

2011: In San Diego, CA, The Used Book Sale to benefit the Samuel & Rebecca Astor Judaica Library is scheduled to come to a close.

2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish author and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture” by David Mamet and “House of Exile: The Lives and Times of Heinrich Mann and Nelly Kroeger-Mann” by Evelyn Juers

2011: Elbit, with headquarters in Haifa, announced that its subsidiary Elisra Electronic Systems Ltd. was awarded a contract valued at approximately €5 million to supply hundreds of units of its AN/PRC-684 Personal Locator Beacon to the French Ministry of Defense, equipping the French Air Force, Army, Navy and DGA (Direction Générale de l'Armement).

2011(17th of Sivan, 5771): Centenarian plus 2, Charlotte Bloomberg, the mother of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg passed away.

2011(17th of Sivan, 5771): Ninety year old Don Diamond passed away.  For those who watched television in the 1950’s and 1960’s, they saw him in many episodes of F-Troop and Zorro as well as later series as  “Newhart,” “L.A. Law,” “MacGyver,” “Dallas” and “Dynasty,” “Lou Grant,” “Chico and the Man” and “The Streets of San Francisco”

2011(17th of Sivan, 5771): Ninety-year old Holocaust survivor Samuil Manski passed away. Manski credited his survival to a transit visa issued to him by a Japanese diplomat name Chiune Sughira who risked his career by acting against the orders of his country.  At the time of his death, Manski was working to Sughira recognized as a Righteous Gentile.

2012: “When Israel Went Out,” a film that retraces the danger-filled route traveled by the Falasha during the 1980’s is scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan.

2012: Dr. Anthony Grenville, author of ‘Jewish Refugees from Germany and Austria in Britain’ and film director Dr. Bea Lewkowicz are scheduled to take part in a Q&A following a screening of “Double Exposure” at the Wiener Library in London. 

2012: The National Endowment for the Arts announced that Andy Statman would be awarded a National Heritage Fellowship, the nation's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts

2012: Hamas has launched a barrage of rockets toward southern Israel this afternoon, after months of restraint on behalf of the Gaza rulers.

2012: “As part of his plans to expand on hardware, today, Steve Ballmer revealed Microsoft's first ever computer device, a tablet called Microsoft Surface at an event held in Hollywood.”

2012: Ta'al MK Ahmed Tibi condemned plans to name a new space center in his north-central Arab village Taybeh after Israel's first and only astronaut, the late Ilan Ramon

2012(29th of Sivan, 5772): Eight-one year old futurist Anthony Weiner passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/27/us/anthony-j-wiener-forecaster-of-the-future-is-dead-at-81.html?_r=1&hpw

2013: In London, the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism scheduled to host the International Consortium for Research on Antisemitism and Racism.

2013: Leo Baeck Institute and Chelsea Music Festival are scheduled to present “From Pompeii to Fingal's Cave - A Mendelssohn Perspective.”

2013: “The New Catch Herring Season” is scheduled to begin Russ & Daughters.

2013: Ian Paul Livingston, Baron Livingston of Parkhead, “the fourth generation son of Polish-Lithuanian Jews who arrived in Scotland 120 years ago” “announced that he is leaving BT Group to become the Minister for Trade and Investment in the UK Government.

2013: Friends and family of Rachel Levin celebrate the birthday of the world’s greatest granddaughter.

2013: Four Jewish Israelis were arrested at the Temple Mount today after praying in the Jerusalem compound, considered Judaism’s holiest site.

2013: This morning Palestinians fired a rocket from the Gaza strip toward southern Israel, setting off alarms in the coastal city of Ashkelon and its environs.

2014: The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to host “a special creative writing workshop exploring the lives and contributions of refugees in their new country of residence led by facilitator Lynette Craig

2014: “Luis Moses Gomez: Pioneer Merchant in Colonial America” is scheduled to open at the Center for Jewish History

2014: “Magic Men” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan on the last night of the Israel Film Center Festival.

2014: “Charlotte Salomon: Life? Or Theatre?” an exhibition of the works of the 23 year old Jewish from Berlin who ended up in Auschwitz is scheduled to open today at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.

2014: All eyes are on Columbus Ohio for the celebration of the birthday of the amazing Rachel Levin.

2014: “The IDF arrested 30 Hamas men across the West Bank early today, as part of its ongoing large-scale operation to find the three Israeli teenagers – Naftali Frankel, Gil-ad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrach — who were kidnapped last week.

2014: U.S. Ambassador to Israel today visited the family of Naftali Frankel, one of three Yeshiva students kidnapped last week to offer the support of the U.S government as well as his own strong personal support.

2014: John Rubinstein, the original Pippin in 1972, replaced Terrence Mann in the role of Charles in Stephen Schwartz’s Tony Award-winning musical “Pippin.”

2014: “Former Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment today and fined half a million shekels ($145,000) for accepting bribes in the Holyland affair.”

2014(21st of Sivan, 5774): Seventy-five year old songwriter Gerry Goffin passed away today. (As reported by William Yardley and Peter Keepnews)

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/arts/music/gerry-goffin-prolific-pop-songwriter-is-dead-at-75.html

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jun/20/gerry-goffin

2014(21st of Sivan, 5774): Eighty-six year old Avraham Shalom, the former director of Shin Bet, passed away today

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/avraham-shalom-former-chief-of-israels-domestic-intelligence-agency-dies-at-86/2014/06/19/9a2724f0-f7d3-11e3-8aa9-dad2ec039789_story.html

http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Former-Shin-Bet-chief-Avraham-Shalom-dies-at-86-359903

2015: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host “Leavers’ Friday Night Dinner.”

2015(2nd of Tammuz, 5775): “A Palestinian group claiming affiliation with Hamas took responsibility for a cold-blooded terrorist attack” today in which a 25 year old electrical engineering student from Lod Israeli man was killed and a second Israeli was  injured.

2015:” WJC President Ronald S. Lauder presented the Helen Mirren with the WJC Recognition Award for her work in the film “Woman in Gold” in which she portrayed Maria Altmann, who fought the Austrian government for years to secure the return of five Gustav Klimt paintings stolen from her Jewish family during World War II.”

2015(2nd of Tammuz, 5775): Ninety year old author James Salter passed away today. (As reported by Helen T. Verongos)

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/20/books/james-salter-a-writers-writer-short-on-sales-but-long-on-acclaim-dies-at-90.html?_r=1

2015: In Columbia, MD, Beth Shalom Congregation is scheduled to host “From Dust to Dust? Shiva and Cremations” in which Rabbi Susan Grossman and Ira Levinson, of Sol Levinson and Brothers Funeral Home tackle such questions as “Why does Judaism prohibit cremation and what do we do when a loved one requests cremation? Can their ashes be buried in a Jewish cemetery? Can we sit shiva?”

2015: In Coralville, Iowa, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its annual Father’s Day Shabbat “that will include participation of fathers and their sons/daughters in the service, readings about fathers, and an Oneg Shabbat that will have a slide show of fathers…”

2015: “The Jewish Theological Seminary plans to sell a 1455 edition of the Book of Esther from a rare Gutenberg Bible at auction today, the latest sign that the school is grappling with a long-running financial crisis.” (As reported by Josh Nathan-Kazis)

2016(13th of Sivan, 5776): Twenty-seven year old Anton Viktorovich Yelchin, the Russian born American actor best for his playing “Pavel Chekov” in “three Star Trek films” died today in a freak automobile accident.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/19/entertainment/actor-anton-yelchin-killed/index.html

2016: “The Kind Words” and “Time to Say Goodbye” are scheduled to be shown at the Portland Jewish Film Festival.

2016: Final performance of “Camp David” at the Old Globe in San Diego, CA.

2016: “Wounded Land” is scheduled to be shown at the 13th annual Israeli Film Festival in Ottawa, Canada.

2016: “Inheritance is a 2006 documentary film about Monika Hertwig a.k.a. Monika Christiane Knauss, the daughter of Ruth Irene Kalder and Amon Goeth, Commandant of Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp” is scheduled to be shown at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center today.

2016: “Ruth Gruber, Photojournalist” an exhibition at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to come to an end today.

http://www.ojmche.org/experience/exhibit-2016-03-10-ruth-gruber-photojournalist

2016: Final performance of “Suddenly, A Knock at the Door” based on stories by Israeli author and filmmaker Etgar Keret at the Theatre for the New City is scheduled to take place this evening.

2016: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Money Cult: Capitalism, Christianity and the Unmaking of the American Dream by Chris Lehmann and an interview with A.B. Yehosua.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/books/review/a-b-yehoshua-by-the-book.html?ref=headline&nl=bookreview&emc=edit_bk_201606172017: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Dough.”

2017(25th of Sivan, 5777): Twenty-two year old Otto F. Warmbier, “the University of Virginia honors student” who was released in a coma after spending 17 months in a North Korean prison passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/us/otto-warmbier-north-korea-dies.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2017(25th of Sivan, 5777): Ninety-four year old Robert (Bob) Sonné Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Physics at Boston University and cofounder of the BU Center for Philosophy & History of Science passed away at his home in Watertown, MA today.

https://www.bu.edu/cphs/about/robert-cohen/

2017: Steve Eisenberg is scheduled to discuss the weekly Torah Portion followed by an informal “conversation” with Rabbi Mark Wildes in Manhattan.

2018: The Jerusalem Municipality sports department is scheduled to host a class in Kickboxing at the First Station complex

2018(6th of Tammuz, 5778): Ninety-one year old Harvard PhD Stanley Cavell, a descendant of a prominent Jewish and long-time professor at his alma mater passed away today. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/obituaries/stanley-cavell-prominent-harvard-philosopher-dies-at-91.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2018: “Numerous incendiary kites and balloons were flown by Palestinians” in Gaza “into Israel throughout the day” today.

2018: Dr. Dovid Gottlieb, the rabbi who was a Professor of Philosophy at John Hopkins University is scheduled to lecture on “Reason to Believe” this evening at the OU Israel Center in Jerusalem.

2018: In Manchester, UK, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Zuzana: Music is Life” that tells the story of “90-year-old Zuzana Ruzickova survived three concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and decades-long oppression and harassment under the totalitarian regime in her native Czech Republic to become a world-famous harpsichordist and the only musician to ever record all the keyboard works of Bach.”

2018: Steve “Levitan, along with Seth MacFarlane and Judd Apatow, announced he was considering leaving 20th Century Fox as protest of Fox News's reporting of Donald Trump's family separation policy which is at odds with Modern Family's programming.”

2018: “Israeli poet Amir Or” is scheduled to visit Bryant Park Reading Room for a celebration of “the publication of his latest collection, Wings, in an English translation by Seth Michelson.”

2018: From Ohio, to Oklahoma, to Iowa friends and family prepare to celebrate Rachel Levin’s natal day.

2019: In London. JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “The Samuel Project” co-starring Hal Linden.

2019: Uncommon Commonalities: Jews and Muslims” “a three-day scholarly cultural conference dedicated to exploring the uncommon commonalities shared by Moroccan Jews and Muslims” co-sponsored by the American Sephardi Federation’s Institute of Jewish Experience is scheduled to come to an end this evening.

2019: Three presentations – “Tax Issues and Solution for All Olim”; “The Alef, Bet of Making Aliyah”; “Intelligent Investing for Olim” -- designed to for those making Aliyah in the next twenty-four months are scheduled to be held this evening in Hendon, London.

2020, Rabbis Sandra Lawson and Isaama Goldstein-Stoll celebrated Juneteenth with a Kabbalat Shabbat service attended virtually by over 7,000 people around the world.

https://jwa.org/thisweek/jun/19/2020/rabbis-sandra-lawson-and-isaama-goldstein-stoll-lead-juneteenth-shabbat

2020: In a pre-pandemic world, The Israel Culinary Trip sponsored by The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center was scheduled to begin today.

2020: In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah is scheduled to live-stream Kabbalah Shabbat Service on Zoom while taking special note of the tragic passing of Andrew Nelson, the husband of Melissa Gasway Nelson

2020: Havurah on the Hill is scheduled to present “Kabbalat Shabbat With Author Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg.”

2020: The Eden Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host on Facebook, the next in its Pianists, Pedagogues and Young Artists Concerts series.

2020: Online Kehilla Community Synagogue is scheduled to host a 30-minute Shabbat ritual and sharing time, followed by movement, music, exploring themes of embodiment, Juneteenth and liberation.”

2020: A double Simcha as Jew prepare to celebrate Shabbat this evening friends and family celebrate the 13th birthday of Rachel Levin, the Bexley, OH daughter of Michelle Levin and brother of Jacob Levin who is a poised, talented young woman who would not be dissuaded by the pandemic from chanting her haftarah.

2021(9th of Tammuz, 5781): Parashat Chukat

 For more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

2021: A Triple Simcha – the fourteenth birthday of Rachel Levin the poised and talented young lady who is the delight of her mother Michelle Levin and all the rest of her clan, Shabbat and the anniversary of the natal day of Stephen Levin.

2021 Temple Emanuel of Newton is scheduled to present, in person, “Tot Shabbat on the Lawn.”

2021: Emmy Blotnick is scheduled to perform for the last time at the DC Improve in Washington, D.C.

2022: UK Jewish Film is scheduled to host a premiere screening of “Where is Anne Frank” at the Phoenix Theatre in London.

2022: The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience is scheduled to present “Bringing Jewish Law to the People: The Moroccan Approach.”

2022: The National Library of Israel is scheduled to host a conversation with Noa Yedlin an Israeli author, a recipient of the Sapir Prize and the Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Literary Works and author of the bestselling House Arrest, Stockholm, People Like Us and The Wrong Book.

2022: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy and Everything Else by Jordan Ellenberg.

2022: Most important event of the day – celebration of Rachel Levin’s birthday.  Go get ‘em gal (Editor’s note – excuse the grandfatherly exuberance)

2022: As Israelis begin the work week, they may be wondering if they will be dealing with more security problems following Friday’s attack on soldiers in Jenin and Saturday’s rocket attack from Gaza.

2023: UK Jewish Film is scheduled to host a final screening of “A Sense of Belonging, “ “plus a recorded discussion with director Paul Morrison, writer Howard Cooper, screenwriter David Schneider, and Professor Nathan Abrams.”

2023: Agnon House is scheduled to host a Joint reading of the story "Tzipori", an “online lecture with Bilha Ben-Eliyahu and Assaf Ofek.”

2023: The National Library of Israel is scheduled to present a lecture by Dr. Zvi Leshem & Baruch Weiss on “Lessons and Lineage: A Life of Learning.”

2023: A Triple Simcha – the birthday of Quinn Levin the poised and talented young lady who is the delight of her mother Michelle Levin and all the rest of her clan, Rosh Chodesh Tammuz and the anniversary of the natal day of Stephen Levin.

2023(30th of Sivan, 5783): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz