This Day, March 30, In Jewish History by Mitchell A or Deb Levin Z"L
March 30
1135: On the secular calendar, birthdate of Maimonides (Moses Ben Maimon) in Cordova, Spain. According to Jewish tradition he was born Erev Pesach. "From Moses to Moses there was none like Moses.' This folk saying sums up the greatness of the man. There is not space enough to do justice to his amazing life. Such were his intellectual capabilities that one person said, if you did not know that Maimonides was the name of the man you would think that it was the name of a university. He is most noted for his codification of Jewish Law called the Mishneh Torah (Review of the Torah) and his philosophic work Moreh Nevuchim (Guide To The Perplexed). But for some the true measure of the man is the lesser known Letter of Consolation and Letter on the Sanctification of God. He wrote both of these to reassure the Jews of Fez that to encourage them in their steadfastness to Judaism and to emphasize the fact that God hears our prayers and that our sins do not detract from our good deeds. He wrote a great deal more including medical books. Maimonides refused to "make a profit from the crown of the Torah" so while he served as the leader of the Jewish community in Egypt; he earned a living as a leading physician. Maimonides died in Egypt in December, 1204 or Tevet, 4965. He is buried in Tiberias and many make a point of visiting the grave of this sage. If you do the math this is the 870th anniversary of the birth of Maimonides. This would make this an especially auspicious year for Jews to devote study time to this sage who has influenced non-Jews as well as Jews eight centuries.
http://www.amazon.com/Maimonides-Biography-Abraham-Joshua-Heschel/dp/0374517592
http://huc.edu/faculty/faculty/marmur/Heschel's%20Two%20Maimonides.pdf
1191: King Philip II of France set sail from Sicily to begin his campaign against Saladin in what is called the Third Crusade. Throughout his reign, Philip persecuted his Jewish subjects by variously holding them hostage for ransom, releasing Christians from paying their debts to the Jews and expelling them so he could seize all of their property and assets.
1218: Henry III of England enforced the Yellow Badge Edict. The badge was a piece of yellow cloth in the shape of the Tablets of the Law and was worn above the heart by every Jew over the age of seven.
1296: Edward I sacks Berwick-upon-Tweed, during armed conflict between Scotland and England. This is the same King who expelled the Jews from England in 1290. He expelled them so that he could finance his various wars against the French, the Welch and the Scots.
1432: Birthdate of Mehmed II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed’s reign was a positive period for the Jews. After he conquered Constantinople in 1453, he allowed Jews from today's Greek Islands and Crete to settle in Istanbul. His declaration of invitation said, in part, "Listen sons of the Hebrew who live in my country...May all of you who desire come to Constantinople and may the rest of your people find here a shelter". After fighting off a crusade led by Jean de Capistrano, Mehmed invited the Ashkenazi Jews of Transylvania and Slovakia to the Ottoman Empire. The invitation may have been as a sign of appreciation for fighting prowess of a Jewish regiment called “the Sons of Moses.” Mehmed ordered that various synagogues that had been damaged by fire should be repaired and several Jews held positions at Court.
1492: King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella signed a decree expelling the Jews from Spain.
1526: In Antwerp, Belgium, Emperor Charles V issued a general safe-conduct to the Portuguese "New Christians" and Marranos allowing them to live and work there. Although they still had to live under cover they were safe from the Inquisition.
1581: Pope Gregory XIII issued a Bull banning the use of Jewish doctors. This did not prevent many popes from using Jews as their personal physicians.
1690: Alexander VIII issued “Animarum Saluti,” a papal relating to the neophytes in the Indies.
1739(20th of Adar II): Rabbi Moses Meir Perles of Prague, author of Megillat Sofer passed away.
1766(20th of Nisan 5526): Sixth Day of Pesach
1767: Silesian born architect Johann Christoph Glaubitz who “reconstructed the Great Synagogue of Vilna” passed away today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Synagogue_of_Vilna#/media/File:Great_synagogue_of_vilna.jpg
https://www.ynetnews.com/travel/article/byvxbshbt
1741: In Charleston, SC, the “Right Worthy and Amicable Order of Ubiquarians” whose members included Moses Solomon was established today.
1771(15th of Nisan, 5531): Pesach and Shabbat
1771: In New York City, Abraham Isaac Abraham and his wife gave birth to “Feglah” Abrahams who died in infancy.
1771: Today, King William V attended that marriage of Sarah Teixeira and Jacob Franco Mendes at the Hague.
1773: In Newport, Ezra Stiles, the future President of Yale invited Hebron born Rabbi Chaim Isaac Caregal and Aaron Lopez to his home for a meeting that would be the beginning of strong friendship that lasted for the next 6 months when the Rabbi left town to continue his travels.
1774(18th of Nisan, 5534): Fourth Day of Pesach
1774: In Eppingen, Germany, Kursche Karoline Maier and Laemmle (Asher) Heinsheimer gave birth toe Maier Heinsheimer, the husbad of Bela Furth with whom he had ten children.
1794: In London, Julie Asher and Joseph Raphael HaCohen gave birth to Lewis Raphael, the husband of Rachel Mocatta and the father of Jeanette, Edward, Henry, Emily and George Raphael.
1790(15th of Nisan, 5550): Pesach
1799(23rd of Adar II, 5559): Parashat Shimini; Shabbat Parah observed for the last time in the 18th century.
1801(16th of Nisan, 5561): Second day of Pesach; The Omer is counted for the first time during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson.
1804(18th of Nisan, 5564): Fourth Day of Pesach
1804: Birthdate of Salomon Sulzer the Austrian Chazan and composer whose "Shir Tziyyon" a work in two volumes that “established models for the various sections of the musical service—the recitative of the cantor, the choral of the choir, and the responses of the congregation—and contained music for Sabbaths, festivals, weddings, and funerals which has been introduced into nearly all the synagogues of the world.”
1804: Birthdate of Austrian Chazan and composer Salomon Sulzer who so successful “as an interpreter of Schubert” that he was made “a knight of the Order of Francis Joseph I and a maestro of the Reale Accademia di St. Cecilia in Rome.”
1805(29th of Ada II, 5565): Parashat Tazia; Shabbat HaChodesh
1808: In New York, Naphtali Phillips, the Son of Pvt. Jonas Phillips and Rebecca Mendez Machado and his wife Rachel Phillips gave birth to Lavina (Haya) Phillips.
1809: In London, Rachel and Moses Zechariah Foligno gave birth to their youngest daughter, Rose Foligno.
1811(5th of Nisan, 5571): Parashat Vayikra
1812(17th of Nisan, 5572): Third Day of Pesach; Second Day of the Omer
1812: On Gibraltar, Rabbi Samuel Conquy and Rica Conquy gave birth to Solomon Conquy.
1815: In Basel, Isaac Dreyfus, the Alsace born son of Jacob Drefyus and his wife Gertrude “Julie” Dreyfus gave birth to Nanette Dreyfus.
1816(1st of Nisan, 5576): Parashat Vayikra; Rosh Chodesh Nisan
1816: In Moravia, Jacob Steinschneider and his wife gave birth to Moritz Steinschneider “a Bohemian bibliographer and Orientalist who passed away in 1907.
1819: In German Beier Grunebuam and David Jacob Felsenthal gave birth to Hermann Felsenthal. (not to be confused with the German born American banker of the same name who settled in Chicago)
1820(15th of Nisan, 5580): As Americans enjoy political season of “good feelings” Jews observe Pesach
1827: Rachel Gomez and John Meseena gave birth to Rebecca Meseen the wife of Prussian native William Flatau and the other of Ruben Flatau.
1829: Birthdate of German native Sigmund Leibman Leopold, the husband of London born Emma Leopold and the father of Isaac, Theresa, Bertha, Lewis and Florence Leopold each of whom was born on the Jersey Channel Islands.
1831(16th of Nisan, 5591): In Mayence, Rabbi Samuel Bondi and Sophie Sueschen Bondi gave birth to Marcus Meir Bondi.
1833(10th of Nisan, 5563): Parashat Tzav; Shabbat Hagadol
1833: On the same day the Jews observed the last Shabbat before Pesach, today’s issue of The Lancet published the “Lectures on Medical Pathology” which had been delivered at the University of Paris.
1839(15th of Nisan, 5599): Pesach and Shabbat
1840: Jonas Ellis married Sarah Jacobs at the New Synagogue today.
1842(19th of Nisan, 5602): Fifth Day of Pesach observed on the same day American physician and pharmacist Crawford Long administers an inhaled anesthetic (diethyl ether) to facilitate a surgical procedure (removal of a neck tumor)
1844(10th of Nisan, 5604): Parashat Tzav; Shabbat HaGadol
1844: As the Jews observed the last Shabbat before Pesach, today, during the Dominican War of Independence, at the Battle of Santiago, “Dominican troops, that were part of the Army of The North and led by General José María Imbert, defeated Haitian Army troops led by General Jean-Louis Pierrot”
1845: Leopold Solomon Bernheimer, the Baden, German born son of Ella and Salomon Bernheimer aned is wife Fanny Weil-Bernheimer gave birth to Henrich (Henr) Bernheimer who died when he was 25 months old.
1849: In New York, Isidor Bush published the first edition of Israel’s Herald, “the first Jewish weekly in the United States” that folded after only 3 months.
1849: Today’s Issue of Israel’s Herald provided a contemporaneous account of the settling of St. Louis when it reported that “ten or twelve Jews have established themselves in a distant place in the West” where worrying “about providing for their daily bread” and “unavoidable difficulties…prevent them from adhering strictly to religious practices.”
1851: Thirty-year-old Prussian born cigar dealer Samuel Gluckstein the son of Lehman Meyer Gluckstein and Helena Horn who had come to Britain ten years ago was now living at 9, Freeman Street, Tower Hamlets, London.
1851: In Sulzburg, Leopold Dukas, the son of Sara and Baruch Benedikt Dukas and his wife Magdalena Madel Dukas gave birth to Sara Kahn, the wife of Rabbi Dr. Leo Lippmann Elieser Kahn and other of Jenny Löwenthal; Leah Bamberger; Rosa Wyler; Klara Nussbaum; Brendine Kahn; Mathilde Kahn and Isaak Kahn.
1853: Simon ben Moses married Elkla bat Joseph at the Great Synagogue today.
1853: Birthdate of Cincinnati, OH native Gustavus Henry Wald the Dean of the University of Cincinnati Law School.
1853: Samuel Cohen married Rosetta Menser at the New Synagogue today.
1856: In Hoboken, NJ, Henry and Sophie Waldstein gave birth to Charles Waldstein, the native of New York who became a leading Anglo-American archaeologist who was knighted in 1912 and changed his name to Walston in 1918 so he became known as Sir Charles Walston, husband of Florence Seligman.
https://www.jta.org/1927/03/25/archive/sir-charles-walston-noted-anglo-jewish-scholar-dies-at-71
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Appletons%27_Cyclopædia_of_American_Biography/Waldstein,_Charles
1856: The Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Crimean War. One of the stranger aspects of the conflict that most remember for “The Charge of the Light Brigade” was the creation of Mickiewicz’s Jewish Legion. A Polish nobleman and nationalist who was living in exile in Paris at the start of the war, Mickiewicz went to Constantinople where he and Armand Levy organized a military unit made up of Jews from Poland and Palestine. The group was also called the Hussars of Israel. Mickiewicz died before he could lead them into action.
1856: The attempts of the Turkish sultan, Abed Almagid, to ally his kingdom with the west came to fruition today when the Ottoman Empire “was officially included among the European family nations’ today during the Congress of Paris. Abed Almagid had showed his support for the cause of the Jews when he issued a decree in 1840 absolving the Jews of Rhodes from the charges of having killed a Christian child so his blood could be used in making matzah.
1858: Printer Hyman Lipman, a Philadelphia Jew who played a key role in the early development of the postal card patented the lead pencil.
1861(19th of Nisan, 5621): Fifth Day of Pesach and Shabbat observed as the Confederate besiege Fort Sumter
1862: In Brooklyn, Congregation Beth Elohim dedicated its new facility on Pearl Street which gave rise to its nickname “the Pearl Street Synagogue.”
1863: During the Civil War, President Lincoln issued a proclamation proclaiming Thursday, April 30, 1863 as a National Day of Fasting.
1864(22nd of Adar II, 5624): Seventy-six-year-old Moses Asher Goldsmid, the husband of Eliza Salomons, the second daughter of Levy Salomons with whom he had two children, Annie and Julie and after she died married Sarah Montefiore, the sister of Sir Moses Montefiore and daughter of Joseph Montefiore, passed away today.
1864: Birthdate of German- born sociologist Franz Oppenheimer, the father of Hillel Oppenheimer, a professor of botany at Hebrew University. After a distinguished career in Germany, Oppenheimer passed away as a refugee in Los Angeles in 1943.
1865: In Antrim, Northern Island, Caroline Spiers and Hermann Boas gave birth to Dora Rosetta Boas.
1866(14th of Nisan, 5626): Ta’ant Berachot; Erev Pesach
1867: In what was then Lötzen, East Prussia and is now Giżycko, Poland, Mortiz Davidson and his wife gave birth to movie producer Paul Davidson.
1868: In Salford, Greater Manchester, Edward Micholls Henriques, the Bloomsbury born son of Rebecca and David Quixano Henriques gave birth to Reginald Quixano Henriques, the husband of Annie Henriques.
1869(18th of Nisan,5629): Fourth Day of Pesach at time when 12 when twelve states had voted to ratify the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
1873: Birthdate of West Prussia native Hermann Brasch the husband of Bertha Meyer who came to New York City in 1891 where he practiced law
1873(2nd of Nisan. 5633): Eighty-eight-year-old Count Abraham Camondo passed away. Born in Istanbul, he “was a Jewish Ottoman-Italian financier and philanthropist and the patriarch of the Camondo family.”
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3949-camondo
1875: Charles Weil, the Bavaria born son of Therese and Jacob Weil and his wife Caroline Weil gave birth to Thérèse Estelle Filene, the wife of A. (Abraham) Lincoln Filene, the son of Filene’s Department store who was a social reformer and mother of Catherine Shouse and Helen Ladd
1875: In Frankfurt, Germany, Stella Rothschild, the German born daughter of Leopold Schott and Sara Randegger and her husband Wilhelm Benjamin Rothschild gave birth to David Rothschild.
1877(16th of Nisan, 5637): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer
1877: In Romania, Esther and Moses Aaron Auslander gave birth to American architect Alfred Uscher Auslander the husband of Rougea Auslander and father of Caroline Friedman; George Auslander; Donald Auslander and Stanley Ernest Auslander
1878: In Towanda, PA, “Simon and Rachel (Hyman) Gomez, Frumberg gave birth to birth NYU trained lawyer Abram Morgan Furmberg, the husband of Lillian Nebenzahl, and member of the Missouri Bar Association who was a member of B’nai B’rith, Y.M.H.A and Temple of Israel
1879: “Egyptian Influence on Hebrew Names” published today described the work of Dr. Brugsh that there is no Hebrew derivation for the names Moses, Aaron or Miriam but they do contain Egyptian roots. Also, the name Pinchas (the famed slayer in the Book of Numbers) comes from an Egyptian term for “the Negro” which was applied to dark-skinned men in Egypt.
1879: In London, Rabbis Green and Adler consecrated the New West Synagogue, an offshoot of the Bayswater Synagogue.
1879: At meeting held today in Davenport, IA, Congregation B’nai Israel “decided to join the Union of American Hebrew Congregation and to all inaugurate all changes as deemed preferable by the Reform leaders” which to John Ochs who had served as presiding officer starting in 1875 to resign from the congregation.
1880(18th of Nisan, 5640): Fourth Day of Pesach
1880: It was reported today that a new opera, “The Queen of Sheba” by Goldmark has been successfully performed in several German cities.
1881: In Leadville, CO, the liquor business owned by the Schloss family was determined to have sustained $250 in damages in a fire that began last night.
1882: Birthdate of Austrian-born English psychoanalyst and child psychologist Melanie Klein. Klein developed methods of play technique and play therapy in analyzing and treating child patients. She passed away in 1960.
1883: Birthdate of Jo Davidson, the Lower East Side son of Russian Jewish immigrants who went on to become one of the most famous sculptors of his time passed away today in Tours, France.
https://www.fdrfourfreedomspark.org/jo-davidson
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jo-davidson
1883: Two days after he had passed away, 63-year-old Nathan Mayer Montefiore, the son of Abraham Joseph Montefiore and Henrietta Rothschild, the husband of the former Emma Goldsmid and the father of Alice, Leonard, Charlotte and Claude Montefiore was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery in what must have been a gathering of some of England’s most prominent Jews since it involved the Montefiores, Rothschilds and Goldsmids.
1883: Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom, Westmount, a Reform synagogue in Westmount, Quebec, the oldest “Liberal” or “Reform” synagogue in Canada, was incorporated today.
1884: In Kozlov, Czech Republic, Adolf Neubauer, the son of Karl and Theresia Neubauer, and his wife Karla gave birth to Ida Neubauer who became Ida Simon when she married Carl Simon.
1885(14th of Nisan, 5645): Fast of the first born; erev Pesach
1888(18th of Nisan, 5684): Fourth Day of Pesach
1888: In Trock, Poland, “Hyman Ely and Sarah (Rodberg) Cohen gave birth to Samson Kalmon Cohen the husband of Mildred Ruth Park and MIT trained engineer Samson Kalmon Cohen who was commended by Col. George Goethals for his work in building the Panama Canal, served with the Engineers in WW I and was an active member of Temple Israeli in Boston.
1888(18th of Nisan, 5648): Forty-one-year-old “German Jewish physician and Arctic explorer” Dr. Emil Bessels suffered a stroke today and passed away in Stuttgart, Germany.
1890: Ida Levy of New York will marry Henry Naftal of Asbury Park today.
1890: Authorities concluded that Morris Eising, German-Jewish immigrant who had been found dead in his rooming house had died by his own hand. Apparently, he was despondent over the loss of his job which meant he could not send money back to his wife in Bavaria.
1890: This morning Rabbi Gustav Gottheil is scheduled to officiate at the funeral Emanuel Bernheimer, “one of the owners of the Lion Brewery” and one of the oldest brewers living in New York. Born in 1817, he learned his craft in his native Germany before coming to the United States in 1844. In 1850 he and August Schmid formed the Constanz Brewery and in 1860 they took over and enlarged the Lion Brewery. Bernheimer was one of the oldest members of Temple Emanu El and a patron of several charities including Mount Sinai Hospital, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids. After the funeral, Dr. Silverman will officiate at the burial in the Salem Field Cemetery.
1890: “The Theatrical Week” published today provides highlights of current and upcoming productions including “The Shatchen,” a new play by Charles Dickson and Harry Dobbin whose protagonist is Myer Petooksy a peddler who also works as “an unlicensed marriage broker.”
1891: “New Books” published today contains a complete review of The Persecution of the Jews in Russia that includes an “appendix containing a summary of special restrice laws, a map showing the pale of Jewish settlements.”
1892: It was reported today that Prague after police quelled a riot by a mob upset by the Imperial authority’s refusal to allow a celebration of the anniversary birth of a medieval educational reformer, John Comenius. When the rioters were thwarted by authorities, they cried “Let’s make for the Jews!” followed by calls to head for the Jewish quarter where they could “vent their fury on the inoffensive Hebrews.” The mounted policemen wanted an end to the rioters and drove them from the streets including those in the Jewish quarter. (Yes, this mindless anti-Semitic attack took place in the supposedly civilized confines Prague. The anti-Semitic outburst that consumed Paris during the Dreyfus affair was really not such an aberration after all.)
1892: A cable was received today in Toronto from London describing the death of sixty nine year old Canadian Jew Mark Samuel
1892: In Hanover Arnord and Caecilie (Solling) Panofsky gave brirth to Erwin Panofsky, the husband of Dorothea (Dora) Mosse, the German art historian who was forced to pursue his career in the United States after the rise of the Nazis
https://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/panofsky-erwin-1
.https://dictionaryofarthistorians.org/panofskye.htm
1894: Birthdate of Samson Raphaelson the New York born graduate of the University of Illinois whose extensive writing career included creating a short story based on an episode in the life of Al Jolson which he then he expanded into the Jazz Singer, a successful Broadway play and the first “talkie.”
1895: Birthdate of Pierre Péteul, who as the Capuchin Franciscan friar Père Marie-Benoît saved approximately 4,000 Jews from the Shoah. He was was honored with the Medal of the Righteous among the Nations and was known as Père des juifs (Father of the Jews.
1896(16th of Nisan, 5656): Second Day of Pesach; First Day of the Omer
1896: Benjamin Kossman completed more than five years of service with the U.S. 6th Cavalry.
1896(16th of Nisan, 5656): Citizens are required to return their census papers in London. While most citizens are required to return their census papers today in London, the Jews have been given an extension and do not have to return them until tomorrow since today is the second day of Passover and the English respect the need to observe the holiday.
1896(16th of Nisan, 5656): Fifty-one-year-old Rabbi Aaron Wise who had gone to Rodelph Sholom to officiate at Passover Services this morning, complained of being ill and went home after consulting with Benjamin Blumenthal without preaching lay down on a longue in the basement dining room as passed away before medical help could arrive.
Born in Hungary in 1844, Wise was educated in the Talmudic schools of Hungary, including the seminary at Eisenstadt, where he studied under Dr. Hildesheimer. Later he attended the universities of Leipzig and Halle, receiving his doctorate at the latter institution. He assisted Bernard Fischer in revising the Buxtorf lexicon and was for several years a director of schools in his native town. He was for a time identified with the Haredi party in Hungary, acting as secretary to the organization Shomere ha-Datt, and editing a Judaeo-German weekly in its support. In 1874 Wise emigrated to the United States, and became rabbi of Congregation Baith Israel in Brooklyn; two years later he was appointed rabbi of Temple Rodeph Shalom in New York, which office he held until his death. Wise was the author of Beth Aharon, a religious school handbook; and he compiled a prayer-book for the use of his congregation. He was for some time editor of the Jewish Herald of New York, and of the Boston Hebrew Observer; and he contributed to the yearbooks of the Jewish Ministers' Association of America, as well as to other periodical publications. He was one of the founders of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and the first vice-president of its advisory board of ministers. Wise founded the Rodeph Shalom Sisterhood of Personal Service, which established the Aaron Wise Industrial School in his memory. He was the son of Chief Rabbi Joseph Hirsch Weiss, and father of Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise.
1897: Colonel Goldsmid asks Herzl to stay away from the Zionist Congress in order to prevent a split in the ranks of the Hovevei Zion.
1897: Dr. Adler, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, and Moritz Güdemann, Chief Rabbi of Vienna, led anti-Zionist attacks. They were known as the "Protestrabbiner" - "Protest Rabbis".
1897: “In Memory of General Grant” published today described the units that will be marching in the parade to honor the late President and Civil War hero including a contingent from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Cadets under the command of Major Martin Cohen and Adjutant Max Saltzman.
1897: In New York City’s Lower East Side, Bessie and Jakob Riskin gave birth to “screenwriter and playwright Robert Riskin who won an Oscar for the timeless comedy “It Happened on Night” as well as “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” – an example of the American cultural myth actually created by Jewish immigrants and their children in Tinsel Town.
1898: Liebe Blond and her four children who had arrived in the United States were put on a ship bound for Europe after authorities refused to let her husband who has been working here see her or listen to his entreaties to let them stay in the United States.
1899(19th of Nisan,5659): Fifth Day of Pesach
1899(19th of Nisan, 5659): Rabbi Hayyim Leib Tiktinski, head of the Mir Yeshivah for 49 years passed away
1899: It was reported today that when Baron Hirsch passed away, he left a fortune estimated at 125 million dollars, most of which was tied to railroad companies. Both before and after his death, Hirsch had given large sums to the poor including 10 million dollars for the Jewish Colonization Association of the United States.
1899: It was reported today that since the death of her husband, Baroness Hirsch has been very generous in providing aid to the poor including $1,500,000 to the need of Paris and an even large amount to the Educational Alliance which assists the Russian Jews.
1899: Birthdate of movie producer Irving Thalberg. Thalberg was an early pioneer in the film industry. His brief career (he died of pneumonia at the age of 37) left such a mark on the world of cinema that a year after his death the Academy of Motion Picture Artists created a special award in his name that is given annually at the Oscar Presentations. Thalberg was the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Last Tycoon. In explaining why his name did not appear in the film credits, Thalberg said, “if you’re in a position to give yourself credit, you don’t need it.”
1900: In Princeton, NY, “Classics professor Charles A. Robinson” and his wife gave birth to
Charles A. Robinson, Jr. the Professor of Classic at Brown University who married Celia Sachs, the daughter of art historian Paul J. Sachs who played a key role in planning to save and retrieve works of art in World War II.
1901(10th of Nisan, 5661): Parashat Tzav; Shabbat HaGadol
1901: Birthdate of Sydney David Piece the member of the Canadian track and field team at the 1924 Paris Olympics and McGill University graduate who served as “Canada’s ambassador to Brazil, Belgium and Luxembourg.”
1902: Joseph Goldner, the Galician born son of Leah Goldner and the brother of Benjamin Goldner with whom he formed the wholesale grocery concern of Goldner Brothers in New York where he was a member of the Independent Order of B’rith Abraham married Ida Weise today after which he had three children – Albert, David and Jacob.
1902: In expressing his opposition to attempts make the public system school denominational Alexander Harvey, whose letter was published today, wrote that “When in their earliest and most impressionable years Protestants, Catholics and Jews go to the same schools, learn the same lessons, play the same games and are forced in the rough and ready democracy of boy life to take each at his true worth, it is impossible later to make the disciples of one creed persecute those of another” which means that “America is free” “from the evils of religious persecution. (Editor’s note – his words are as true today as they were then)
1903: Birthdate of Sol C Siegel, journalist turned movie producer who helped to create such hits as “High Society,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” “No Way to Treat a Lady,” “Alvarez Kelly” “Three Coins In A Fountain” and “A Letter to Three Wives” the last two which were nominated for Oscar’s as Best Picture.
1903: As part of negotiations to secure land for a Jewish homeland, Carton de Wiart talked to a lawyer with the Egyptian government who recommends that the concession should be in the form of a lease, not a freehold. Herzl demands a 99-year lease.
1904(14th of Nisan, 5664): Ta’anit Bechorot; erev Pesach
1904: It was reported today that the children of the late Mayer Lehman, who was a Director of Mount Sinai Hospital for 19 years, have given $93,000 to cover the cost of constructing the Dispensary Building which is to be dedicated in memory of their father.
1904(14th of Nisan, 5664): At Ellis Island, three hundred Jewish immigrants who “have been detained while awaiting inspection” held a Seder on the first night of Passover. The meal was served on dishes that were brand new having been brought straight from the storeroom. All of the utensils used in the kitchen were also brand new and the meal was prepared under the supervision of the Jewish immigrants. The meal included chicken soup, roast goose, apple sauce, mashed potatoes, black tea, oranges and, of course, Matzah and ground horseradish.
1904: Alice Weinberg, the twelve-year-old daughter of Max Weinberg was reported missing by her father. The girl had gone to play with her friends this morning while her family prepared for tonight’s Seder. The family called off its Passover celebration so it could search for Alice.
1905: Birthdate of St. Louis’ native and Princeton graduate Phillip W. Habertnan, the Columbia trained lawyer and member of the legislative investigation team led by Judge Samuel Seabury that ended the career of Mayor Walker who was a Republican, a partner in the firm of Proskauer, Rose, Goetz & Mendelsohn and the husband of Helen Habertnan with whom he had two children – Charles and Norma.
1906: Birthdate of Belarus native Morris Adler, the husband of Goldie Adler, and the leading Detroit Rabbi who was mortally wounded by a congregant during Shabbat services
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/my-grandfathers-assassin-and-me/
1907(15th of Nisan, 5667): Pesach and Shabbat
1907: As of today, in Washington, Secretary of State Root had received a number of appeals from Jewish organizations” in the United States” for the exercise of the good offices of this Government for the protection of the Jews in Romania who are suffering from the excesses of the rebellious peasantry in that country.”
1908: Lightweight Leach Cross (Louis Charles Wallach) fought is third bout in the month of March and his 29th career bout today.
1909(8th of Nisan, 5669): Mrs. Michla Shilotzdky passed away this morning at the age of 106. The cause of death was pneumonia. Mrs. Esther Davis, 115 years old; Mrs. Rosei Aaronwald, 108 years old; and Mendel Diamond, 107 years old were at her bedside at the Daughters of Jacob Home in New York.
1909: Official opening of the Queensboro Bridge which two Jewish boys from Queens named Simon and Garfunkel would immortalize in the 1960’s hit "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)"
1909: A special report to The London Times from Teheran says that anti-Jewish riot occurred at Kermanshah” and “that the rioters sacked 170 houses.”
1910: The Mississippi Legislature founds The University of Southern Mississippi at Hattiesburg, Mississippi. At the time of the founding of USM, there was a small Jewish population in Hattiesburg including Maurice Dreyfus who operated a sawmill and Frank Rubenstein who opened a department store called “The Hub.”
1911: Birthdate of Vienna born American “art critic and author” Alfred Werner an editor for the Jewish Encyclopedia editor who came to the United States after spending a year at Dachau, the husband of Lis Werner, who was preceded in death by his first two wives – Trudy and Judith.
https://www.nytimes.com/1979/07/16/archives/alfred-werner-critic-and-author.html
1911: After a year, Luigi Luzzatti completed his service as the 20th Prime Minister of Italy.
1912: Clark University educated mathematician Herman Lester Slobin, the Russian born son of
“Joseph and Anna (Leuchtiger) Slobin” married Alice Levy in Minneapolis, MN.
1913: B’nai Israel Congregation was founded in Greensburg, PA.
1913(21st of Adar II, 5673): Seventy-two-year-old merchant Bernard Wolf passed away today in Chicago.
1913: Ahavas Achim Congregation was founded in Buffalo, NY.
1914: Today, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Asbury Park, NJ made public a letter to the Reverend Dr. Aaron E. Ballard, the President of the Ocean Grove Association, protesting again reflections on Jews in a public letter by Dr. Ballard and condemning his remarks as tending to create racial differences and prejudice.”
1915(15th of Nisan, 5675): Pesach
1915: Rabbi Aaron Elseman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “America the Hope of Humanity” this morning at Temple Beth Israel in Manhattan.
1915: The 300 Jewish soldiers and sailors who attended last night’s Seder sponsored by the Army and Nay Y.M.H.A. which also provided a night’s lodging at the Hotel Roland are scheduled to worship at Temple Beth Israel at Lexington and 72nd Street.
1915: The Secretary of War, the Governor of New York and the Mayor of New York City have been invited to attend tonight’s Seder sponsored by the Army and Navy Young Men’s Hebrew Association for the benefit of 300 of the 8,000 Jews serving in the military which is being held at Vienna Hall on Lexington and 58th Street.
1916: Mr. Boris Hambourg, violoncellist, gave a recital this afternoon in Aelian Hall in which he brought forward several unusually interesting pieces of old music by such composers as Galliard, Galeotti, and Lanzetti.
1916: Dr. Henry Moskowitz introduced former President Teddy Roosevelt to the crowd attending the Jewish Bazaar at the Grand Central Plaza where the former Rough Rider “delivered an address in which he urged both rich and poor to contribute to help the victims of the European War.”
1917: It was explained today by those who had formed the Jewish League of American Patriots “that in mobilizing ‘the forces and resources of the Jewish race in America’ no attempt would be made to separate the Jews a unit of patriotism but arouse Jews to full co-operation with other Americans.”
1917: President Wilson’s telegram to Julius Rosenwald published today read, in part “Your contribution of $1,000,000 to the $10,000,000 fund for the relief of Jewish war suffers serves the democracy as well as humanity…Your gift lays an obligation even while it furnishes inspiration.”
1917: Those listed as being the largest contributors (and the amount of their contributions) to the Hadassah medical that will soon be on its way to Palestine included Mrs. Julius Rosenwald ($1,000), Mrs. Daniel Guggenheim ($500), Mrs. Nathan Straus ($500), Rosie Bernheimer ($500) Mrs. Max Richeter ($250) and Mrs. Robert Hirsch ($250).
1917(7th of Nisan, 5677): Eighty-one-year-old Gertrude Hyman Felsentahl, the German born wife of Herman Felsenthal and mother of Eli, Judith, Flora, Hannah and Emily Felstenthal passed away today after which she was buried at the Rosehill Cemetery and Mausoleum in Chicago.
1918(17th of Nisan, 5678): Shabbat Pesach
1918: As part of the appeal to raise funds for the Third Liberty Loan a special appeal was sent to the Jewish community signed by several leaders including Dr. Solomon T.H. Hurwtiz of the Rabbinical College of American and editor of the Jewish Forum, Rabbi Henry Guiterman of Scranton, PA, and Dr. Samuel Buhler, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Jewish Ministers’ Assoication.
1919: Birthdate of Oscar Benjamin “Ossie” Schectman the Queens born son of Jewish immigrants who won the NIT while playing basketball for Long Island University and “is credited with having scored the first basket in what became the National Basketball Association.
1919: Simon Wolf, Dr. Joseph Silverman, Daniel P. Hays and Dr. Nathan Krass were among those who spoke at Temple Emanu-El this evening at ceremonies marking the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Isaac Mayor Wise, leader in America of Reform Judaism and the founder of the Hebrew Union College and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
1919: “The Ceremony of Conferring Rabbinical Degree to five students of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanah Theological Seminary today at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue.
1920: A British soldier digging a trench in Syria uncovered ruins of Dura Europus which would include the discovery a synagogue that dated back to 244 “making it one of the oldest synagogues in the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dura-Europos_synagogue
1920: In Baranovichi, Poland, Brakha née Sokolovsky and Shraga (Feivel) Tunkel gave birth to Yaakov Tunkel who would gain fame as Yaakov Banai, a leader of Lehi also known as the Stern Gang.
1921: The body of Richmond native Sir Moses Jacob Ezekiel, the graduate of VMI and Confederate veteran who became “a world-famous sculptor and died in Rome in 1917” is scheduled to be brought to the National Cemetery at Arlington, VA today for final interment.
1921: “In Lindau, Bavaria, physiotherapist “Ella (Norden) Kalischer” and psychoanalyst Hans Kalischer gave birth to Clemens Kalischer, the American photographer whose skill raises the question “What is there about Jews and cameras?”
http://forward.com/articles/175376/photographer-clemens-kalischer-survived-holocaust/?p=all
1921: Churchill visits Tel Aviv where he delivers a speech praising what the Jews have accomplished in the last twelve years since the city was first founded.
1921: Winston Churchill visited the “39-year-old agricultural colony of Rishon le-Zion where he spoke approvingly of the accomplishments of the Zionists and the positive affect their activities have had on the surrounding Arab population.
1921: British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill completes his fact finding trip to Palestine and leaves Jerusalem for Egypt.
1922: “A Jewish delegation from Massachusetts, accompanied by the Speaker of the House called on Senator Henry Cabot Lodge today and presented the resolution passed unanimously by both Houses of the Massachusetts Legislature urging the Government of the United States of America formally to recognize and approve the yearning desire of the Jewish people for a national home in Palestine, the land of their forefathers.”
1923: American Jewish actors Jacob Kalich and Molly Picon who were the principles of in the Jewish Theatre of Bucharest which was closed today by the Government appealed to the American Minister to use his good offices to have the closing order rescinded.
1924: It was reported today that “the American Jewish Foundation has been organized to take over the work which up until now has been carried on by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.”
1924: Rabbi Maruice Harris and Adolph S. Ochs are scheduled to be two of the speakers at “a memorial service for Daniel Peixotto Hays on the best-known Jewish philanthropists” which will be held this evening at Tempe Israel in New York City.
1924: A.W. Binder is scheduled to “lecture on ‘Jewish Music’ at the Stuyvesant Neighborhood House” this evening.
1925: Birthdate of Edward Sidney Finkelstein, the native of New Rochelle, NY, “a master merchandiser who turned Macy’s into one of the nation’s smartest, fastest-growing department store chains.”
1925: Time magazine published the following account Rabbi Solomon Goldman’s attempt to make changes at his synagogue in Cleveland, Ohio.
In spite of generations of prophets and reformers, Jewish ritual with all its shrilly "orthodox" punctilio has lived with few radical changes. In Cleveland, Ohio, some months ago, Rabbi Solomon Goldman, spiritual head of the local "Jewish Center," proposed to rid his congregation of some bits of orthodoxy. In particular, he decided that men and women might sit in the same pews. Here was reform indeed! Not since Solomon built his great temple had the thoroughly orthodox Jewess sat with the thoroughly orthodox Jew at worship. She had been relegated to one side of the temple, or to the gallery, or to a seat in the rear behind a curtain. It was custom not merely Jewish, but Pan-Asiatic. Muhammadan women do not squat with men folk in the pit of the Mosque. And even in the new Christian Churches in China, Japan and elsewhere, women have always, until very recently, sat in a special section railed or curtained off for them. Now Rabbi Goldman of Cleveland has changed all this in his congregation. At once A. A. Katz, one of Rabbi Goldman's flock, cited him to appear before the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of America to answer for his ecclesiastical liberality. Rabbi Goldman refused to appear. In this, he was supported by his congregation. When the week ended, it was still the turn of the Jewish Fundamentalists to move. It should be noted that departure from Jewish orthodoxy is not equivalent to becoming a Reformed Jew. The latter class, whose most prominent leader is Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, disregards many customs from which Rabbi Goldman is not likely to depart, among which are:
Blessing - At each service, men are called up before the congregation to say a blessing before and after portions of the Torah, which is read— on all Sabbaths and holidays. In congregations where Jewish customs are meticulously observed, this privilege is auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Music - No instrumentation is permitted. Weird half-shouted chants, led by a slippered cantor, are the only melodies.
Costume - Both men and women must wear hats. The enthusiastically orthodox wear skullcaps, shawls. Men also wear the talis, a fringed scarf, draped over the shoulders.
1926(15th of Nisan, 5686): Pesach
1926: Birthdate of Warsaw native Eugenia Rotsztejn, the Holocaust survivor who became Eugenia Unger when she married David Unger and emigrated to Argentina in 1949 where she was bat matizvahed in 2017.
1926: “Our Daily Bread” a silent drama directed by Constantin J. David and written by Hans Behrendt and Mutz Greenbaum who also served as cinematographer was released in Germany today.
1926: In Manhattan, “Harold K. Guinzburg, the publisher and co-founder of Viking Press” and his wife gave birth to Thomas Guinzburg, an editor and publisher who helped create The Paris Review, and who later became president of Viking Press, the publishing house founded by his father.
1926: In New York, “many rabbis devoted their sermons to appeals in behalf of their suffering co-religionists in Eastern Europe” and asked their congregants “to support the United Jewish campaign of Greater New York, of which William Fox is Chairman and Louis Marshall and Felix M. Warburg are Honorary Chairmen.”
1927: At luncheon at the Astor Hotel, Utah Senator William H. King told the members of the Brooklyn Women’s Division of the United Palestine Appeal “that he favored the United States severing diplomiatic relations with any country which failed because of anti-Semitism to protect its Jewish nationals.”
1928: While serving in the final year of her term as President of Hadassah Irma Levy Lindheim the American women's Zionist organization, declared that the administration of the ZOA was "not an effective instrument for the achievement of world Zionist aims for the up-building of Palestine." In so doing, she asserted her opposition to the leadership of ZOA President Louis Lipsky. Although Lindheim was careful to note that she spoke as an individual and that Hadassah had no quarrel with the World Zionist Organization led by Chaim Weizmann, she came under attack for her comments from both ZOA leadership and other Hadassah members. During her presidency, Hadassah was in frequent conflict with the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), which wanted to control and dispense the funds raised from the Hadassah membership. The Hadassah-ZOA conflict had roots dating back to 1918, when Hadassah (founded in 1912) first joined the umbrella organization, giving up some of its organizational authority. Seven members of the Hadassah board had been expelled in 1920 when the organization's Central Committee refused to raise money for the ZOA fund Keren Hayesod. Despite Hadassah's loss of autonomy, the organization's membership steadily increased even as general ZOA membership declined.
https://jwa.org/thisweek/mar/30/1928/irma-levy-lindheim
1928: Birthdate of American Jewish author Carl Solomon.
1929: U.S. premiere of “Chinatown Nights” based on the story “Tong War” by Samuel Ornitz and produced by David O. Selznick.
1929: In New York City “Clair and Dr. Abraham George Sheftel gave birth to Judy Sheftel who became Judy Feiffer when she married Jules Feiffer.
https://www.mvtimes.com/2016/07/06/judy-feiffer/
1929(18th of Adar II, 5689): Shabbat Parah
1929(18th of Adar II, 5689): Sixty-nine-year-old Maximillian “Max” Heller who served as Rabbi at Temple Sinai in New Orleans from 1887 until 1829 passed away today.
http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Rabbi-Max-Heller,870.aspx
1929: Birthdate of actress Shirley Stoler, the Brooklyn born daughter of “Russian Jewism immigrant owners of a used furniture store who appeared on Broadway, in films and on day-time soaps passed away today.
1929: It was reported today that Hadassah has acquired a portrait of Nathan Straus painted by Eward Salzan which will be hung in the Straus Health Center currently under construction in Tel Aviv.
1930: Birthdate of Gene Selznick, the native of Los Angeles who helped to make volleyball the popular sport in southern California.
http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me-gene-selznick-20120612,0,4439222.story#axzz2x2Jxl7y2
1930: “David Alper, president of the Hebrew Alliance” is scheduled to preside at “the formal dedication o the New Jewish Synagogue-Center on Fishkill Avenue” during which former Congressman Isaac Siegel “will deliver the principal address…” (JTA
1930: It was reported today that if the government’s case against New York’s Century Club ever reaches the Supreme Court on appeal, Justice Benjamin Cardozo would be one of the one the judges who would have to recuse himself because he had been a member of the exclusive New York social organization.
1930: A citrus tree was planted on the 140 acre plot purchased in 1926 under the direction of Mrs. Ada Maimon marking the official founding Ayanot, a women’s farm that took its name from the two springs located on the acreage. For the next two years, the women workers lived in Ness Ziona and came to Ayanot every day to cultivate the soil. In 1932, Ada Maiomon and ten girls would begin living on a cowshed on the property.
1931: Dr. Judah L. Magnes, the chancellor of Hebrew University at Jerusalem was the guest of honor tonight at a reception given by the provost of the University of Pennsylvania.
1932: Birthdate of A. J. (Arie) Zuckerman, Dean of the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine. Zuckerman’s area of expertise is the study of hepatitis.
1933: “The anti-Semitic economic boycott in Germany was the subject of a conference at the State Department this afternoon between Under-Secretary Phillips and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, honorary president; Bernard S. Deutsch, president of the American Jewish Congress, and Max Rhoade, Washington legal representative.”
1934(14th of Nisan, 5694): Fast of the First Born; erev Pesach
1934: “Blue Moon” a classic popular song written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart was “registered for copyright as an unpublished work” today.
1935(25th of Adar II, 5695): Parashat Shmini
1935(25th of Adar II, 5695): Thirty-nine-year-old Jessie Lee Hellman Alexander, the Natchez, Mississippi born daughter of Moritz and Beulah Benjamin Hellman and the wife of Benjamin Mortimer Alexander passed away today in San Antonio after which she was buried at the Laredo Cemetery in Laredo, TX.
1935: The celebration of the 800th anniversary of the birth of Moses Maimonides, Jewish philosopher, who was born on March 30, 1135, in Cordova, Spain began internationally today.
1936: Among the teams competing for a slots to represent the United States at the Olympics are Temple which has three Jews in its starting line-up and the Hollywood Universals which has two Jews – a fact that seems at odd with the determination of some Jews to boycott the “Hitler” Olympics.
1936: Twenty-eight-year-old Walter Sievers “was sentenced to death today for having killed a Jewish tradesman name Zirpkowski in his shop last July” as the court dismissed his claim that he had shot the victim “in a moment of political excitement” finding instead “that the crime had been committed in cold blood with the purpose of robbery.”
1936(7th of Nisan, 5696): Seventy-year-old David Eder, a British psychoanalyst who treated soldiers for mental problems during World War I and served as President of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain passed away today.
1936: “The first words heard from the Palestine broadcasting station which was opened” today “by the High Commissioner “This is Jerusalem calling.”
1937: In Chicago, “the former Dorothy Gurevitz” and her husband, electrician Max Hirsch gave birth to Charles Sidney Hirsch, the graduate of the University Of Illinois College Of Medicine in Chicago and “the New York City chief medical examiner who raced to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and returned to the morgue with every rib broken to face the monumental forensic challenge of identifying the 2,753 victims of the attacks…”
1937: Based on information that first appeared in Juedische Rundschau, “a journal of the Zionist Federation in Germany” relying on a study prepared by Ernst Karn, “996 teachers and professors have left Germany” since the Nazis came to power with “239 of them settling in the United States” where 21 are working at Harvard and 12 are at Yale.
1937: According to a press announcement “principals of the Jewish School of Music in Pinsk face court proceedings because students sang “the first act of Puccini’s opera ‘Tosca’ which takes place in a Catholic Covent” in Yiddish “outraged Christian feelings and profaned religion.”
1938: Mrs. Joseph Stroock, a member of the national Youth Aliyah committee of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America announced that a total of $20,000 was contributed last night to the Youth Aliyah (immigration) fund of Hadassah to remove children from Austria as well as Germany and Poland.
1939: “A convocation said to be unprecedented in this country was held today in the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue with more than 250 rabbis taking part in prayers and traditional chants for the deliverance of oppressed Jews overseas.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1939/03/31/archives/250-rabbis-pray-for-oppressed-join-in-an-unprecedented-service-to.html?searchResultPosition=4
1940: At today’s meeting of its stockholders, The Workers Bank, Ltd. Of Tel Aviv, the central bank of the cooperatives in Palestine, declared the tenth annual dividend of 4 per cent on its common stock.
1940: President Roosevelt met with Victor Perlmutter today at the White House from 1:23 to 1:27 after which he dined alone.
1941: Two thousand people who “attended dedication exercises” today “for the New Msifta Building of the Heshivah Torah Voadath, a Jewish parochial school heard speeches by Rabbi Isaac Herzog, the Chief Rabbi of Palestine, State Supreme Court Justice Philip M. Kleinfled and Rabbis Morris Horowitz, Judah Sltzes, Moses Yoshor, Philip Mendelowitz, Solomon Heinan and M.A. Kaplan.
1941: At the Hotel Chelsea, in Atlantic City, the five hundred delegates attending the closing session of the seventeenth annual convention of the Young People’s League of the United Synagogue of America adopted a resolution calling “upon Great Britain to open Palestine to refugee Jews and give freedom and citizenship to those Jews now held in concentration camps” controlled by the British.
1942: After being open for only two weeks, the Belzac Concentration Camp has processed 15,000 Jews most of whom were from the Liviv Ghetto.
1943: Senate Majority Leader Barkley and House of Representatives Minority Leader Joseph Martin, Jr. were among the speakers at tonight’s “Voice of Washington” meeting where attendees called for the establishment of sanctuaries in the United States, Palestine and neutral countries” for the Jews who have escaped the “atrocities which have already taken a toll or more than two million Jewish men, women and children and which threaten death to the rest of Jews in Europe.”
1943: “The German-controlled Vichy radio asserted today that Hungarian Jews who thus far have been subject to labor service would be called up,” starting in April “for military duty for the first time.”
1944: Moshe Sertok, the head of the international department of the Jewish Agency, asked Oliver Stanley, the Colonial Secretary to allow any Jew reaching Istanbul from Nazi-occupied Europe to be admitted to Palestine.
1945(16th of Nisan, 5705): SS Sergeant Adolf Storms reportedly shot “a Jew who could no longer walk during a forced March in from Deutsch Shuetzenn to the village of Hartberg.”
1945(16th of Nisan, 5705): Nine women tried to escape from Ravenbruck. They were caught and executed.
1946: “St. Louis Woman,” a Harold Arlen musical opened its Broadway run at the Martin Beck Theatre
1946: Birthdate of Lesley Sue Goldstein who gained fame as recording star Lesley Gore.
1947: Benjamin Teller, who is managing the Hapoel’s American Tour announced today that the soccer team is scheduled to fly out of Tel Aviv on April 6 and arrive in New York on April 10.
1947: The Rabbinical Council of Palestine called on the terrorists to halt their actions and “issued a strong denunciation of terrorism as ‘completely contrary to Jewish religious feeling.’”
1947: The 18 Americans who made up most of the crew of the SS Ben Hecht, formerly the Abril, boarded the Marine Carp, an American ship headed for New York. The British had declined to press charges against the crew.
1948: Because no supply convoys have reached Jerusalem from the Tel Aviv area with commodities since March 24 because of attacks by Arab troops, there has been a “growing shortage of fresh food for the Jewish inhabitants of the city resulting in the “introduction” today “of bread rationing and the restricting of the amount of butter given to children.
1948: In pre-state Israel, in response to Arab aggression, the Yishuv extended the call to active duty to “men and single women” between the ages of 26 and 25.
1949: Husni al-Za'im who had become Commander-in-Chief of the Syrian Army in May 1948, seized power today in a bloodless coup that would de-stabilize Syria with ramifications that have lasted into the 21st century for both Israel, the region and the world as a whole.
1949: Yigal Yadin and Walter Eytan returned to King Abdullah’s villa at Shuneh to try and reach final armistice terms with the Jordanians.
1950: In Ottawa, Canadian attorney and CFL owner Sam Berger and his wife gave birth to Canadian MP David Berger.
1950(12th of Nisan, 5710): Ta’anit Bechorot
1950(12th of Nisan, 5710): Seventy-seven-year-old Léon Blum French, the former French premier, passed away. Leon Blum was born in Paris, France, on April 9, 1872. The son of Jewish parents, he studied law at the Sorbonne. He became active in politics as result of the Dreyfus Affair. Blum became a leader of the Socialist Part. He was part of a group of left-wing parties in France known as the Popular Front that opposed Hitler in the 1930's. As leader of the Popular Front and head of the Socialist Party, Blum became Prime Minister of France, the first Jew to hold that position in the history of France. Blum lost his post before the outbreak of the war over the issue of the Spanish Civil War. After the Germans invaded France, Blum was arrested by the Petain Government which tried him along with other officials of the Third Republic on charges of betraying France. He was found guilty in 1942 and held by the Germans until 1945. Blum briefly returned to public life after the warhttp://jbuff.com/c031110.htm
For more see Leon Blum: From Poet to Premier by Richard Stokes
1951: Louis “Lou” Lipman, the Army veteran and star Long Island University basketball player
1951: Neve Shalom, a new synagogue, was dedicated in Istanbul,.The building holds more than 1,000 people, and the 400,000 Lira it cost to be built was raised by the Jewish community of Galata, Pera, and Chichli.
1953(14th of Nisan, 5713): Ta'anit Bechorot; erev Pesach
1953: “Jeopardy” a film noir with music by Dimitri Tiomkin, based on “A Question of Time,” “a radio play by Hebrew Hawkeye Maurice Zimm” was released in the United States today.
1953(14th of Nisan, 5713): Yiddish novelist and poet Abraham Reisen passed away “was arrested in connection with a point-shaving scandal that had gripped college basketball” and eventually received a suspended sentence “for violating New York penal code #302 in connection with tossing a game against Duquesne in January, 1949”
1953: Albert Einstein announced his revised unified field theory.
1954(25th of Adar II, 5714): Sixty-seven-year-old Austrian born Dr. Solomon Gandz, the former librarian and Professor of Arabic and Medieval Hebrew at Yeshiva, passed away today while serving as “Research professor in the History of Semitic Civilization at Dropsie College” in Philadelphia.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/gandz-solomon
1957: "The Libyan government began to enforce a law forbidding any individual or corporation in Libya 'to make personally or indirectly an agreement of any nature whatsoever with institutions or persons residing in Israel.' The penalty was eight years in prison and a heavy fine."
1957(27th of Adar, II, 5717): Parashat Shmini; Shabbat Parah
1957(27th of Adar II, 5717): Fifty-eight-year-old Smith College cum laud graduate and “immediate past president of the National Council of Jewish Women” Katherine A. Engle the wife of attorney Irving M. Engle, the President of the American Jewish committee and mother of Mrs. Richard W. Levy of New Orleans, who had been chairman of the board of HIAS and a member of the board of governors of the Hebrew University passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/03/31/90785342.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1957: In New York City, Helen and Sam Reiser gave birth to Paul Resier whose credits include “My 2 Dads,” “” Diner, “Aliens” and “Mad About You.”
1958: In a double simcha, tonight “the Boro Pak division of the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital I Brooklyn” is schedule to celebrate its thirtieth anniversary at the same dinner that “will also mark the tenth anniversary o the founding of the Bluma Korman League.”
1958: Syrian forces attack Israelis at Lake Hula.
1958: “Strong Men Face to Face” published today provided a highly negative review of Edna Ferber’s latest novel Ice Palace which is described as a plot that is “absent minded to the point of being ramshackle” and which readers who have an “affection for fiction” will regret to find this work “billed as a novel.”
1962(24th of Adar II, 5722): Seventy-one-year-old Boston born, NYU trained career educator Harold Fields, the WW I veteran and executive director of the National League For American Citizenship who raised a son, Arthur, with his wife Edith passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/03/31/83493361.pdf
1962: “It’s Trad, Dad!” a musical comedy directed by Richard Lester, produced by Max Rosen and Milton Subotsky, who also wrote the screenplay and starring Helen Shapiro was released today in the United Kingdom.
1962: “Delousing of Harry Bogen” published today reviewed “I Can Get It for You Wholesale” starring Elliot Gould as Harry Bogen and introducing Barbra Streisand as Miss Marmel-stein.
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,895977,00.html
1964(17th of Nisan, 5724): Third Day of Pesach
1964(17th of Nisan, 5724): Seventy-five-year-old Jeanette Goodman Brill, the widow of attorney Abraham Brill and “the second woman to be appointed a magistrate in New York and to the first to be appointed a magistrate in Brooklyn passed away today.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/brill-jeanette-goodman
1965: In Los Angeles “Mission Impossible” stars Martin Landau and Barbara Bain gave birth to actress Juliet Rose Landau
1966: Sixty-six-year-old Joseph Mortimer Lichtenauer, the husband of Irma Lena Kaufrman Lichetenauer who “received the President’s prize for design for mural decorations and whose “portraits and decorative pictures were exhibited at the St. Louis Exposition” passed aay today.
1966: In Hartford, CT, Rabbi and Mrs. Abraham N. AvRutick announced the engagement of their daughter Naiomi to Harold L. Rosenbaum, the graduate of Yeshiva University who is enrolled at the New Jersey College of Medicine.
1967(18th of Adar II, 5727): Linguist Uriel Weinreich of whom Dovid Katz said, "Though he lived less than forty-one years, Uriel Weinreich ... managed to facilitate the teaching of Yiddish language at American universities, build a new Yiddish language atlas, and demonstrate the importance of Yiddish for the science of linguistics” passed away today.
1970: “Applause,” the Tony Award musical “with a book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Charles Strouse and starring Lauren Bacall (Betty Joan Perske) in her Tony Award winning portrayal of “Margo Channing” and featuring Bonnie Franklin opened on Broadway today.
1971(4th of Nisan, 5731): Seventy-two-year-old Rabbi Albert N. Mandelbaum, the Jerusalem born son of Rabbi Simcha and Esther Mandelbaum and former chairman of the executive board of the Rabbinical Council of America who was educated at the University of Nebraska, the University of Louisville, and Yeshiva University who was the husband of "the former Lea Gordon” with whom he had two sons and one daughter passed away today.
1972(15th of Nisan 5732): Pesach
1972: Larry Blyden began playing the role “Hysterium” in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” for which he earned the “Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical.
1973(26th of Adar II, 5733): Sixty-nine-year-old Harvard trained and Lasker Award winning physician, Dr. Sidney Farber, the “director of research at the Children’s Cancer Research Foundation” who was the husband of “the former Norma C. Holzman” with whom he had three children – Ellen, Stephen and Thomas – passed away today.
1973: Birthdate of Adam Michael Goldstein, the native of Philadelphia known as DJ AM who found fame and fortune in Los Angeles.
1973(26th of Adar II, 5733): On the day before his 73rd birthday Berlin born, Hamburg University educated physicist Immanuel Estermann, the long-time professor at Carnegie Tech and member of the Manhattan Project team and husband of the former Rose Chwolles with whom he raised two professors – Hannah and Eva – suffered a fatal heart attack today in Haifa.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/estermann-immanuel
1975(18th of Nisan, 5735): Fourth Day of Pesach
1975(18th of Nisan, 5735): Eighty-three-year-old Nancy Cullen the wife of Selfton Louis Cullen, the sister of Marjorie Cohen and the daufhter of Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs and Lady Deborah Isaacs passed away in Sydney, Australia.
1975: Agudas Achim, the Orthodox congregation in Little Rock, AR, breaks ground for its new building which is located in western Little Rock.
1976: Israeli Arabs hold their first Land Day which was public held a protest strike against the expropriation of lands in the Galilee "for purposes of security and settlement."
1976: Five Israeli Arabs were killed by security forces during mass protests in Nazareth, Israel. As a result of this deadly incident congregants of Mishkan Israel, a synagogue in New Haven, raised $10,000 so that their rabbi, Bruce M. Cohen, could go to Israel to promote peace. Three weeks later, while giving a speech in Jerusalem, Rabbi Cohen was approached by a young Israeli Arab, Farhat Agbaria, who shared his dream. Together they founded Interns for Peace.
1976: The first season of “One Day At A Time” starring Bonnie Franklin ended tonight.
1977: In Vienna, the annual International meeting of Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee whose theme had been “Mission and Witness of the Church” came to an end.
1979: “The Silent Partner” a crime film starring Elliot Gould was released in the United States today.
1979: Birthdate of Berkley, CA, native and currnt Oakland, CA resident Michael David Lukas, the holder of an MFA from the University of Maryland and author of The Oracle of Stamboul whose other works include The Watchman of old Cairo, “The Hypocrisy of Hanukkah” and “From Cairo to Kolkata.” (Editor’s note – he might be worth the read since he appears to be an author who sees Judaism as culture thousands of years old which is more than just a three-legged stool of Anti-Semitism, Israel and the Holocaust, as important as those things might be)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/opinion/sunday/the-hypocrisy-of-hanukkah.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/travel/jewish-history-cairo-tunis-kolkata.html
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-399-18116-0
1980: Yakov Kreizberg made one of his first public appearances as conductor today, when he led an orchestra at the Marble Collegiate Church in a performance of Haydn's Symphony no. 88.
1981: In the United Kingdom, premiere of “Chariots of Fire” based, in part on the life of Harold Abrahams with a score conducted by Harry Rabinowitz.
1981: In his review of ‘Woman of the Year” published today Frank Rich praised the work of Lauren Bacall whom she said, “is a natural mutual musical-comedy star.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/03/30/theater/stage-lauren-bacall-in-woman-of-year.html?pagewanted=all
1981: “The Geha Interchange which is the confluence of Highway 4 and Road 481 in Israel,” which “is named after the Geha Mental Health Center” and which “frms the border between Petah Tikva to Bnei Brak” was opened to traffic today.
1982(6th of Nisan, 5742): Seventy-four-year-old Austrian born, California grocery store chain owner Theodore Cummings, the political ally of Ronald Reagan passed away today while serving as U.S. Ambassador to Austria.
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/01/obituaries/te-cummings74-envoy-to-austria.html
https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/cummings-theodore-e
1983(16th of Nisan, 5743): Second Day of Pesach
1983(16th of Nisan, 5743): Seventy-six year of Austrian born American high-profile photographer passed Lisette Model, away today. (As reported by Walter H. Waggoner)
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/31/obituaries/lisette-model-a-photographer-is-dead-at-76.html
1984: “Misunderstood” a movie version of the novel by the same name directed by Jerry Schatzberg was released today in the United States.
1984: In Albuquerque, NM, Sam and Jackie Bregman, both of whom are lawyers gave birth to Alex Bergman, who played baseball for LSU before signing with the Houston Astros.
1985: NBC broadcast the final episode of “Double Trouble” a sitcom starring Jean and Liz Sagal.
1987(29th of Adar, 5747): Perry E. Nussbaum the Toronto born son of Adela Newman and Esig Nussbaum, the husband of Arene Talpis and the father of Leslie Irene Rubenstein who is best known for his role in the civil rights movement in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1950’s when that was a real act of courage passed away today.
https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/nussbaum-perry/
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nussbaum-perry
1984: Arthur Miller’s “Death of Salesman,” starring Dustin Hoffman as “Willy Loman,” sold 5,401 tickets “for a gross of $179, 200” today.
1988: U.S. premiere of the Geffen Film Company’s “Bettlejuice,” costarring Winona Ryder with music by Danny Elfman.
1991(15th of Nisan, 5751): First Day of Pesach and Shabbat
1993: The International Monetary Art Forum featuring the works of Fritz Ascher opened today in Washington D.C.
1993: Simone Veil completed almost fourteen years of service a Member of the European Parliament for France today.
1994: The two terrorists who attacked Yitzhak Rothenberg, age 70, of Petah Tikva with axes yesterday were arrested today.
1994: In Albuquerque, NM, attorney Jackie and Samuel Bergman (“the chair of the Democratic Party ) gave birth to Houston Astros third-baseman Alexander “Alex” David Bregman who said in his bar mitzvah speech at Congregation Albert “I want to be a professional athlete who plays for the love of the game, never quits trying to give my best, and is a good role model for all of the kids who look up to baseball players.:
1995(28th of Adar II, 5755): Fifty-nine record producer Paul A. Rothchild passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/03/obituaries/paul-rothchild-record-producer-59.html
http://www.examiner.com/article/remembering-paul-rothchild
1996(10th of Nisan, 5756): Parashat Tzav; Shabbat HaGadol
1997: The New York Times includes a review of "The Vanishing American Jew: In Search of Jewish Identity for the Next Century" by Alan M. Dershowitz
2000: At least 23 Israeli and Palestinian Arabs were injured in clashes with Israeli security forces during an annual day of protests.
2000: In Great Britain, Channel Four broadcast the first episode of “Da Ali G Show, a British satirical television series created by and starring English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.”
2001: “Someone Like You,” a comedy based on a novel by Laura Zigman, directed by Tony Goldwyn and featuring Ellen Barkin and Peter Friedman was released in the United States today.
2002(17th of Nisan, 5762): Border Policeman Sgt.-Maj. Constantine Danilov, 23, of Or Akiva was shot and killed in Baka al-Garbiyeh, during an exchange of fire with two Palestinians trying to cross into Israel to carry out a suicide attack. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility.
2002: Al Aqsa terrorists took credit for today’s bombing of an Allenby Street coffee shop in Tel Aviv.
2002: Joelle Fiasham, a member of the CPUSA, was among those who endorsed the call today for a national holiday honoring Cesar Chavez.
2003: Het Parool, which began “as a resistance paper during the German occupation of the Netherlands” “became the first newspaper in the Netherlands to switch from broadsheet to tabloid format.”
2003: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of interest to Jewish readers including "The New Face of War: How War Will Be Fought in the 21st Century" by Bruce Berkowitz and the newly released paperback edition of SOROS: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire by Michael T. Kaufman.
2003: Secretary of State Colin Powell addresses the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee’s Policy Conference
2003: A suicide bombing in the pedestrian mall entrance of a cafe in Netanya wounded more than 40 people. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack, calling it a “gift to the Iraqi people.”
2004: “Response to Benny Morris’ ‘Politics by other means’ in the New Republic” published today provided Ilan Pappe’s response to the views of this long time Israeli historian.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/response-benny-morris-politics-other-means-new-republic/5040
2005: Release date of “Live and Become” a French film about an Ethiopian Christian boy who disguises himself as a Jew to escape to Israel was directed by Romanian born Jewish director Radu Mihăileanu
2005(19th of Adar II, 5765): Ninety-one-year-old high hurdler record holder Milton Green who protested against Hitler by not participating in the 1936 Olympics passed away today.
http://www.jewishsports.net/BioPages/MiltonGreen.htm
2005: Eli Aflalo began serving as Deputy Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor.
2005: Ruhama Avraham, a member of Kadima began serving as Deputy Internal Affairs Minister.
2006(1st of Nisan, 5766): Three Israelis were killed when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated explosives in a car after nightfall at the entrance to Kedumim, located west of Nablus.
2006: Lisa Kron's sparkling autobiographical play "Well” opened on Broadway when it premiered tonight at the Longacre Theater.
2006: Haaretz reported on how a piece of a Torah scroll passed from a former Nazi offer to a “holy man.” Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman was sitting yesterday in his home in Migdal Ha'emek and touching, for the umpteenth time, the parchment cut over 60 years ago from a Torah scroll in an Eastern European synagogue. Although the piece of parchment has been in his possession for several days, apparently it is still a source of great excitement for him. This parchment was cut by an officer in the German air force, the Luftwaffe, during World War II, from a Torah scroll; he used it as a cover for his officer's ID document. Now it has come into the hands of the rabbi of Migdal Ha'emek, head of the Migdal Ohr youth village and an Israel Prize laureate. Rabbi Grossman says Moti Dotan, the head of the Lower Galilee Regional Council, recently came to his house with a notebook in hand. Dotan had returned from a ceremony in honor of the 25th anniversary of the twin cities pact between the regional council and the Hanover district in Germany. Dotan said that at the conclusion of a festive evening, a member of the Hanover district council approached him and asked to speak to him. "My father, Werner Herzig, died a few weeks ago," said the man. "Before his death he said he wanted to speak to me, and he told me he had participated in the war and been involved in crimes. 'It's important for me to tell you this, because today there are Holocaust deniers,' [said the Herzig senior]." Dotan says Herzig added that his father told him he had participated in the burning of a synagogue on the Russian front. According to Dotan, Herzig junior gave him the ID document and asked him to find a holy man in the Lower Galilee and give it to him. "I thought that Rabbi Grossman did holy work, and he was the most suitable person to receive the notebook," says Dotan. "When I came to him and gave him the document, I told him the story, he held the parchment and began to cry," recalls Dotan. He says that Rabbi Grossman symbolizes all that is good in Judaism, and will make proper use of the item. Rabbi Grossman turns over the piece of parchment and reads from the text. The parchment is from the book of Deuteronomy, from the weekly portion "Ki Tavo." The rabbi reads: "...and distress wherewith thy enemy shall distress thee in thy gates ... then the Lord will make thy plagues remarkable, and the plagues of thy offspring, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and severe sicknesses, and of long continuance ... also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this Torah, them will the Lord bring upon thee, until thou art destroyed. And you shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of the heaven for multitude" (Deuteronomy 28, 57-62). The rabbi is convinced that this is a "supreme message, with personal supervision. After 60 years, this notebook arrives in Israel, wrapped in these words of reproof, and is calling on us 'to awaken.' After all, the German could have cut the parchment from other books, from any of the Five Books of Moses, and he specifically cut out the section that speaks of redemption," said the rabbi. In recent days, Rabbi Grossman has shown the notebook to young people whom he met in the city, and according to him, it is causing a great deal of excitement. "It's a tangible thing, which you can see with your own eyes. You can see here the embodiment of evil, how after the destruction of a synagogue, this man had the daring to enter and to cut from the Torah scroll, only because he thought that the parchment was a suitable way to preserve his document." The rabbi promises to visit schools and young people with the notebook and to show it to them.
2007: “After the Wedding” a Danish movie nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film directed by Susanne Bier who co-authored the script was released in the United States today.
2008: In Jerusalem, as part of the Contemporary Music Concert at the Jerusalem Music Centre The Israeli Contemporary Players perform music by Josef Bardanashvili, Tristan Murail and Arnold Schoenberg.
2008: The Sunday New York Times featured a review of "The End of the Jews" by Adam Mansbach.
2008: In Washington, D.C., Aaron David Miller, a 20-year veteran of the State Department (most recently as the senior advisor for Arab-Israeli negotiations), discusses his new book, The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace at Politics and Prose Bookstore.
2008: Wolfie Cohen's Rascal House, a Jewish delicatessen located at the intersection of 172nd Street and Collins Avenue in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, which opened in 1954 and closed today. Sporting a large neon sign in the front, the building was designed in the 1950s "MIMO" style (Miami Modern) which is common too much of the northern precincts of the Miami-area beaches. The neon sign makes a brief appearance at the beginning of the video for "Night Fever" by the Bee Gees. Wolfie Cohen's Rascal House was not the same as the original Wolfie's, another famous Jewish deli and restaurant in Miami Beach, also started by Wolfie Cohen, on the corner of 21st Street and Collins Avenue (closer to South Beach). For several years, Wolfie's featured a sign that read "The only thing that needs to come dressed is our chickens!" (meaning dining was casual, not clothing optional). That restaurant closed in 2001. Cohen also founded a third Jewish deli, Pumpernik's, at 67th Street and Collins Avenue, which also closed. (Personal note: One of the great joys of my childhood was eating at Wolfie's and Pumperniks - especially the latter. It was billed as the home of the pumpernickel bagel which for lovers of dark bread was indeed a delight)
2009: Reuven Rivlin was chosen to serve as the Speaker of the Knesset when he got 90 out of the 120 possible votes.
2009: George Washington University graduate and Yale Law School trained attorney, Daniel Kagan the son of Margaret and Joseph Kagan, (AKA Baron Kagan, the inventor of Gannex) “Lithuanian Jews who met during the Holocaust” began serving today as a member of the Colorado House of Representatives from the 3rd district.
2009: Yeshiva University hosts the first day of the Israel and India International Conference styled “A Relationship Comes of Age" which includes the following presenters: Nathan Katz (Florida International University), Amit Kapoor (Management Development Institute, India), Efraim Inbar (Bar-Ilan University), Shlomo Mor-Yosef (Hadassah Medical Organization), Maina Chawla Sing (University of Delhi), P R Kumaraswamy (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi), Gadi Ariav (Tel Aviv University).
2009(5th of Nisan, 5769): Fifty-two-year-old Frank Stein, 'the face of Australian Jewry in Israel passed away today. (As reported by Raphael Ahren)
2010: 80th anniversary of the founding of Ayanot
2010(15th of Nisan, 5770): First Day of Pesach
2010: A Chabad house in Budapest was stoned during a Passover Seder.
2011: “The Matchmaker” and “Seven Minutes in Heaven” are two of the movies scheduled to be shown at the Hartford Jewish Film Festival.
2011: James Steinberg completed his term as the 16th United States Deputy Secretary of State.
2011: “Norman Mailer: The American” and “The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground” are two of the films scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2011: A memorial service for George Einstein is scheduled to be held at the Sandestin Beach Club in Sandestin Resort, Fl.
2011: Today the World Jewish Congress lauded Colombia’s decision not to recognize a Palestinian state, saying it showed courage in the face of pressure from neighboring countries.
2011: “The United States District Court in Lower Manhattan dismissed a case brought by Steven’s ex-wife Patricia Cohen based on charges of racketeering and insider trading.
2011: “Israel Air Force jets struck a group of Palestinian militants in southern Gaza, killing one gunman and wounding another as they rode a motorcycle.
2012: One World One People, an exhibit of the works of renowned photographer Arnold Newman, is scheduled to come to an end at the Jewish Museum of Milwaukee.
http://www.jewishmuseummilwaukee.org/index.php
2012: “The Kid With a Bike,” “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” and “Footnote” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Film Festival.
2012: Shabbos Zingt - A Bay Area Yiddish ensemble that has created a new kind of Shabbos service, with Yiddish melodies and a Klezmer feel – is scheduled to appear at Shir Hadash in San Francisco.
2013: In Coralville, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host Shabbat Yeladim
2013: An ensemble consisting of violinists Anna Ioffe and Alina Keitlin and harpsichordist Natilie Rosenberg is scheduled to perform at the Edin-Tamir Music Center.
2013: Natural gas flow from the Tamar natural gas field began flowing this afternoon
2013: In Memphis, TN “Paul Goldenberg, the burly former cop who runs the Secure Community Network, the security arm of the national Jewish community” has played a key role with the Jewish community including Cantor Rick Kampf in preparing for today’s scheduled rally by the KKK. (As reported by JTA)
2014: “Thousands of French Jews attended an information fair today in Paris about moving to Israel amid an unprecedented spike in immigration to the Jewish state and a wave of anti-Semitic attacks.”
2014: The musical “If/Then” starring Idina Menzel as “Elizabeth” is scheduled to official open on Broadway at the Richard Rogers Theatre.
2014(28th of Adar II, 5774): Seventy-one-year-old Rivka Haut, a founder of the Women at the Wall and fighter for the rights of women within traditional Judaism passed away today.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new-york/rivka-haut-71-champion-agunot
2014: “Quality Balls: The David Steinberg Story” is scheduled to be shown on the last night of the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.
2014: “The Sturgeon Queens” is scheduled to be shown at the Pittsburg Jewish Film Festival and the New Jersey Film Festival.
2014: “If/Then,” a musical starring Idina Menzel as “Elizabeth Vaughn” opened on Broadway at the Richard Rogers Theatre.
2014: “The Jews of Ioannnia gathered…to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the destruction of the community by the Nazis.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/greeces-romaniote-jews-face-extinction-70-years-after-auschwitz/
2014: The 6th annual Gesher Jewish Day School Used Book Sale is scheduled to come to an end in Fairfax, VA.
2015: “The Muses of Isaac Bashevis Singer” is scheduled to be shown at the Gershman Y in Philadelphia, PA.
2015: The University of Connecticut is scheduled to host a faculty colloquium featuring historian Elisha Russ-Fishbane on “Maimonidean Controversies in Egypt.”
2015: Dr. Derek Penslar is scheduled to speak on “Dreyfus Was Not Alone: Jewish Military Officers in the Modern World” at FIU.
2015: At the Center for Jewish History, Jeffrey S. Gurock, author of The Holocaust Averted is scheduled to deliver a lecture that asks the question “What might have happened to the Jewish community in the United States if the Holocaust had never occurred?
2015: Carolyn Starman Hessel is scheduled to retire as Director of the Jewish Book Council.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-book-councils-oprah-turns-the-page/
2015: The festive opening of The Gazelle Valley Urban Wildlife Park took place this afternoon with birdwatching workshops, music and theater, and art projects.
2015(10th of Nisan): “According to the Book Of Joshua” that date on the Jewish calendar “of the first-ever mass Aliyah with the Biblical narrative relating that the Israelites crossed the Jordan River” today “ending their 40 years of wandering in the desert.” (As reported by Deborah Kamin)
2016: Yosef Garfinkel, Shalom Holtz and Lawrence Schiffman are scheduled to lead a discussion about the excavations and discoveries at Khirbet Qeiyafa (Elah Fortress) near Jerusalem and what they suggest about the era and figure of King David and our understanding of the Bible presented by the American Jewish Historical Society.
2016: Na’ama Gold is scheduled to facilitate Café Ivrit at the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia.
2016: The Hadassah Humanitarian Mission to Cuba is scheduled to come to an end today.
2016: The Museum of Jewish Heritage is scheduled to host the final performance of “Dudu Fisher in Jerusalem.”
2016(20th of Adar II, 5776): Eighty-eight-year-old USC law school alum and entertainment ‘super lawyer” Seymour Lazar passed away today.
2016: Rabbi Rachel Cowan is scheduled to moderate “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” at the Skirball Center.
2016: Geoff “Schwartz signed a one-year contract with the Detroit Lions.
2017(3rd of Nisan, 5777): Eighty-six year old Emerson College grad, successful businessman and philanthropist Ted Cutler passed away today.
2017: The biannual conference of Jewish Voice for Peace which will feature a speech by convicted Palestinian terrorist Rasmeach Odeh is scheduled to open in Chicago.
2017: The Counsellor to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, Mr. André Azoulay, is scheduled to receive the American Sephardi Federation’s Pomegranate Award for Lifetime Achievement on the opening night of
The 20th Annual New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival.
2017: “False Flag” and “The Origin of Violence” are scheduled to be shown at the Seattle Jewish Film Festival.
2017: Louis Black is scheduled to bring his unique brand of humor to the Paramount Theatre in Cedar Rapids, IA.
2018: In Tel Aviv, Pele is scheduled to host what some consider an oxymoron --- A Vegan Seder.
2018: France J. Pruitt is scheduled to talk about her book Faith and Courage in a Time of Trouble “a memoir of a Belgian-Jewish girl and her family who were saved during the Nazi occupation of France through the compassion and heroism of French peasants from the southern part of the country” this afternoon at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.
2018: Due to delays announced by Israel Railways “multitudes of Jews” will not be traveling to Jerusalem “this Passover” as promised by Transportation Minister Israel Katz.
2018: In New Orleans, LA, Temple Sinai is scheduled to host the Young Professionals Seder.
2018(14th of Nisan, 5778): Fast of the First Born; erev Pesach
2018(14th of Nisan, 5778): Ninety-four year old Herbert Kaiser, the Brooklyn born son of Nettie Slavititski and house painter Max Kaiser, the WW II Navy Veteran, Swarthmore College graduate and Foreign Service Officer who in retirement raised millions of dollars for training medical personnel in South Africa passed away today. (As reported by Bart Barnes and Neil Genzlinger)
2018(14th of Nisan, 5778): Eighty-four-year-old Michael Applebaum, the Newark born student of violinist of Efrem Zimbalist who reportedly had him change his name to Michael Tree, the name under which he founded the Guarneri String Quartet passed away today. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/obituaries/michael-tree-a-founder-of-the-guarneri-quartet-dies-at-84.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
https://www.violinist.com/blog/scottslapin/20184/25758/
2018(14th of Nisan, 5778): Eighty-four-year-old “corporate raider and philanthropist” Samuel Belzberg, the Calgary born son of Polish monger and the husband of Frances Belzberg with whom he had four children – Marc, Lisa, Wend and Sherry – passed away today. (As reported by Brooks Barnes)
http://www.jewishindependent.ca/remembering-sam-belzberg/
2019: In a week marked by the final end of the ISIS hold on territory in Syria and President Trump’s declaration that the Golan Heights is part of Israel, the question arises as to what impact this will have on President Assad, the Russian puppet ruler of the state that provides a home to Hezbollah.
2019(23rd of Adar II, 5779): Parashat Shmini; Shabbat Parah
2019(23rd of Adar II, 5779): Ninety-eight year old Leonid Bernstein, “a highly decorated anti-Nazi fighter; who sabotaged Nazi train transports and located the German V2 rocket production facility enabling its precise bombing by the Soviets” passed away today “in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Alat.”
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5488013,00.html
2019: In New Orleans, the Jewish Children’s Regional Service is scheduled to host the Jewish Roots of Fashion Gala.
https://jcrs.org/events/jewish-roots-annual-gala/
2020: Rabbi Lawrence Kushner of Emanu-El in San Francisco is scheduled to lead “Getting a Head Start on Passover” via Zoom this afternoon.
https://www.jweekly.com/event/virtual-getting-a-head-start-on-passover/2020-03-30/
2020: On-line this afternoon, Hebrew College is scheduled to present “Facing Your Fears: A Passover Teaching on Transforming Anxiety Into Understanding.”
2020: In keeping with the tradition of “esn, esn meyn kinder esn,” through the wonders of modern technology, the Streicker Center is scheduled to host “Immune-Boosting Meals” with Anna Gershenson.
2020: As part of a 3 month trial, scheduled to start today “The Bellamy’s restaurant in the House of Commons will offer kosher and halal food
2020(5th of Nisan, 5780): On the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit for fifty-four-year-old Amy Barnum, the wife of Joel Barnum with whom she raised three daughters – Emma, Sasah and Gail – and daughter Jack and Bette Kozlen of Omaha who was a pillar, in the truest sense of that term, of the Jewish community in Cedar Rapids and a driving force behind the Traditional Services at Temple Judah whose untimely passing can only be described as a tragic loss for all of us.
https://www.cedarmemorial.com/Obituary/2017/Apr/Amy-M-Barnum/
2021(17th of Nisan, 5781): Third Day of Pesach; Second Day of the Omer
2021: Temple Beth Advodah is scheduled to present “The Great Afikoman Hunt, a challenging scavenger hunt around the temple grounds” which is a self-run activity that will challenge your mind and body as you follow clues to find the afikoman.
2021: JCCSF is scheduled to present a virtual “Klezmer Accordion Concert” with “accordionist Jim Rebhan and soprano Barbara Hollinger, a husband-and-wife duo, play a variety of new and old Passover songs and lively klezmer.”
2021: The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston is scheduled to present online “a discussion with Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu and Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed, director of the Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation at the Arava Institute, about the current challenges of climate change and equity in climate policy.”
2021: Anna Orbaczewska, a painter and multimedia artist based in Poland represented by lokal_30 gallery in Warsaw, and Rotem Reshef, an action painter based in Tel Aviv and New York, and currently artist in residence at RU” are scheduled to “discuss their engagement with feminist activism as women and artists, and how it impacts their participation, position, and presentation of their work in Poland, Israel, the U.S. (respectively) and across borders.
2021: In New Orleans, the National Council Of Jewish Women is scheduled to hold it Executive Committee Meeting.
2021: Based on reports published yesterday, President Reuven Rivlin will not begin consultations this week with Israel's political rivals that are designed to break the country's post-election deadlock.
2021: Based on reports published yesterday, Israelis planning to travel this Spring and Summer because of the improved Pandemic outlook will have to reconsider their plans do threats by Iranian backed terrorists groups.
2021: For the first time, Clevelanders driving down Triskett Road this morning will on Triskett Road will be able to see the historical marker “A Modern-Day Exodus” honoring Beth Israel-The West Temple.
2022: Today, “in the wake of recent deadly terror attacks in Israel,” the World Organization of Orthodox Communities and Synagogues called for congregations to take precautions against possible attack including recommendations that worshippers should arrive at services armed, and a cellular phone should be left on in the building during Shabbat services while the gabbais must ensure a first-aid kit is permanently stationed at the synagogue and community heads must locate the professionals trained to provide first aid so that they are on alert and able to handle the provision of care to victims when necessary.
2022: “A Classic Novel Reappears, Just in Time to Narrate a Novel of Its Own” published today provides a review of The Pages by Hugo Hamilton which finds its “central voice” in Joseph Roth’s 1924 novel Rebellion.
2023: Michal Shapira (NC ’95) is scheduled to be the Keynote Speaker at Women Making Waves 2023 at the Tulane University Uptown Campus.
2023: c.a.t.a.m.o.n a collaborative dance group and cultural organization based in Jerusalem is scheduled to perform at CPR – Center for Performance Research, Brooklyn today.
2023: The Museum at Eldridge Street Is scheduled to host “Poetry, Memoir and the Art of Remembering.”
2023: The Illinois Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to host a live staged reading of Calvin Alexander Ramsey’s award-winning play, The Green Book, which illustrates commonalities between Jewish and Black American experiences.
2023: JWA’s book club is scheduled to present a “poetry panel featuring Ann Bookman (Blood Lines, interrogating the tension between fate and randomness), Irena Klepfisz (Her Birth and Later Years, the first collection of this trailblazing lesbian poet and Holocaust survivor’s work), and Joy Ladin (Shehkinah Speaks, giving voice to the immanent, feminine aspect of the divine).”
2023: Lockdown University is scheduled to host a webinar by Dr. Helen Frys on “Spies and Diplomats who Saved Jews.”
2023: LBI, the Center For Jewish History, YIVO and the American Society for Jewish Music are scheduled to present program commemorating the 80th anniversary of the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews.
2023: Lockdown University is scheduled to host a webinar featuring Trudy Gold lecturing on “The Case of Chaim Arlosoroff.”
2023: Thanks to yesterday’s successful launch of an “Ofek-13 spy satellite,” today Israel’s military are able to enjoy better-quality images which improve its “advanced intelligence-gathering capabilities.” (As reported by Emanuel Fabian)
2024: As March 30th begins in Israel, the Hamas held hostages begin day 176 in captivity. (Editor’s note: this situation is too fluid for this blog to cover so we are just providing a snapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time.)
2024: The annual Red Sarachek tournament the country's most prestigious tournament for Jewish high school basketball teams which was named for Bernard “Red” Sarachek, the longtime basketball coach and director of athletics at Yeshiva University will not be played today because of Shabbat but is scheduled to resume tomorrow
2024: Eden Tamir Center is scheduled to host “The Glorious Sound of the Piano,” featuring the piano duo of Shir Semmel and Dror Semmel.
2024: Temple Judea is scheduled to host a “Beach Havdalah” (weather permitting) with Rabbi Yaron and Cantor Abbie.
2024(20th of Adar II, 5784): Shabbat Parah; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
