This Day, May 27, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

May 27

1096 (3rd of Sivan): Count Emicho and the Crusaders entered Mayence, Germany. The Jews took refuge in the Episcopal Palace and committed mass suicide rather than convert. One Jew by the name of Isaac, his two daughters and a friend called Uriah allowed themselves to be baptized. Within a few weeks Isaac, who was remorseful of his act killed his daughters burned his own house. He and Uriah went to the local synagogue locked themselves in and burned it down. A large part of the city was destroyed.

1199: Coronation of John as King of England. The conditions of the Jews worsened under the hapless rule of Richard’s younger brother.  He squeezed the Jewish community for funds, including the dowry for his daughter.  He also signed the Magna Carta which dealt specifically with the issue of borrowing from Jews and debts owed to Jews by the survivors of deceased Englishmen.

1234: Today religious zealot Margaret of Provence married King Louis IX whose own religious zealotry including a self-serving anti-Semitism  as can be seen by his using wealth stolen from Jews whom he then expelled  to finance his failed crusade and ingratiating himself with the Pope Gregory by burning 12,000 copies of Jewish texts.

1332: Birthdate of Ibn Khaldun, the Tunisian historian who was the first to contend that the Jrāwa, were a Berber Zenata tribal confederacy that had converted to Judaism and were led by Dihya whom Arab historians described as a “Jewish sorcerer.”

1679: The Pope suspended the Portuguese Inquisition due to its severe treatment of Marranos.

1328: Philip VI is crowned King of France. Phillip’s attempts to take back territory that England held in France in 1337 is marked as the start of the Hundred Years War. This period would mark the further impoverishment of the kingdom’s Jews who had only been recently re-admitted to the realm.  The Black Plague would also arrive in Europe in the middle of the 14th century, so it is difficult to say how much of the suffering of the Jews of Europe was the result of the ravages of the war and how much was the result of the plague and the anti-Semitic behavior that rose with it. 

1462: Coronation of Louis XII who “ordered the final expulsion of the Jews from Provence in 1501” and who levied a special tax on all the Jews who converted to compensate for the loss of revenue.

1508: Fifty-five-year-old Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan who “expelled all the Jews from the duchy on December 3, 1490 passed away today.

1529: Thirty Jews of Posing, Hungary, charged with blood-ritual, were burned at the stake.

1564: John Calvin, the religious reformer whose doctrine came to be called Calvinism passed away today. Among his writings was “Response to Questions and Objections of a Certain Jew.”

http://www.reformedinstitute.org/documents/GSPak.pdf

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0004_0_03871.html

1647: Peter Stuyvesant was inaugurated as Director-General of New Netherland. It was while serving in this position, that Stuyvesant would greet the first group of Jews to settle in what would become New York City.  After failing to force them out, he did what he could to treat them like second class citizens.  While Stuyvesant had a somewhat distinguished career as soldier and political leader, the irony is that the group that has the strongest memory of him is the one whom he sought to harm – the Jewish people. 

1682: Sir Christoper Packe, the son of Catherine and Tomas Packe and former Lord Mayor of London “who in 1656 joined with the merchants in London in opposing the readmission of Jews” passed away today.

1703:  Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint Petersburg. Given Peter’s stated views in 1698 that no Jew should live in Russia, one would assume that no Jews would live in his new capital.  It is possible that two Jews named Meyer and Lups who “assisted the Tsar in his financial operations” may have at least visited Peter’s new city.  By 1714, at least one Jew was known to be living in St. Petersburg.  Jan da Costa “a versatile linguist descended from Portuguese Marranos” who had previously lived in Hamburg, arrived in St. Petersburg where he was appointed court Jester by Peter in 1714.  Of course, by then Peter’s realm was no longer free Jews since his annexation of the Baltic territories and conquests in the Ukraine had had the unintended consequence of bring him untold number of Jewish subjects.

1724: Beginning of the papacy of Benedict XIII, the pope who issued Emanavit nuper, a Papal Bull, dealing with “the necessary conditions for imposing Baptism on a Jew.”

1730: The leaders of the Berlin community paid 4,500 marks to replace Moses Aaron of Lemberg with another rabbi which resulted in Aron being “forced” to become the rabbi at Frankfort-on-the Oder

1754(6th of Sivan, 5514): Shavuot observed as British forces under the command of George Washington prepared to fight a French-Canadian force on the morrow in what would be the opening battle of the French and Indian War.

1758(19th of Iyar, 5518): Parashat Bechukotai chanted as British troops prepare to attack Fort Carillon during the Seven Years War.

1759: In New York, Moses Benjamin Franks, the son of Rachel and Benjamin Franks and his wife Sarah Franks gave birth to Isaac Franks who fought with the Continental Army from 1776 until he was forced to resign due to ill health in 1782.

1765(7th of Sivan, 5525): Second Day of Shavuot; Yizkor observed on the same day that Philadelphia businessman and future delegate to the Continental Congressman Samuel Wharton wrote to Benjamin Franklin about several matters including the “insurrection in Cumberland County” led “by a number of Irish Presbyterians.”

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-12-02-0071

1773(5th of Sivan, 5533): Erev Shavuot observed as Sejm dealt with matters that would lead to the first of the three partitions of Poland with all that that would mean for this large Jewish community.

1790: Joachim Edler von Popper, the “Court Jew” of the Habsburgs “was ennobled as the first ‘Elder von Popper’ making him the second Jew to be ennobled proving that you did not convert to attain this honor.

1792(6th of Sivan, 5552): Shavuot observed during the French Revolution on the day when the French Assembly passed laws limiting the power of the King’s Guard which reputedly opposed to the revolution.

1799: In Paris, Cantor Élie Halfon Halévy and his wife gave birth to Fromental Halévy the French composer whose most famous work maybe the opera La Juive (The Jewess)

1804: In South Carolina, Rabbi Solomon Hart officiated at the marriage of Solomon Levy, a Charleston merchant and Mrs. Hannah Levy, the widow of the late Samuel Levy.

1808: The Polonies Talmud Torah of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York became the first Jewish day school in the United States when it modified its curriculum to include both religious and secular studies.1811: Birthdate of Abraham de Pinto, the native of the Hague who was awarded a gold medal when he earned his LL.D. in 1835, the same year in which he became editor in chief of the “Weekblad voor het Recht.”

1811: Mendel Samuel married Amelia Emanuel today at the Hambro Synagogue.

1811: Birthdate of Abraham de Pinto, the native of The Hague who became a leading Dutch jurist.

1814: Today the Emperor of Austria “wrote to one of his ministers” complaining about reports that “Viennese Jews” had circumvented the law by buying “homes in the name of Christians” and stating that this “would not be tolerated.

1822(7th of Sivan, 5582): Second Day of Shavuot and Yizkor

1823: Birthdate of David Rosin, the German born theologian and teacher who became a professor at the Rabbinical Seminary in Breslau. He was a contemporary and friend of Rabbi Michael Sachs.

1834(18th of Iyar, 5594): Lag B’Omer

1834: Simeon and Reizecha Collins were married today at the Western Synagogue.

1835: “At Headley Rectory, Surry, the Reverend Ferdinand Faithful and Elizabeth Marry Harrison” gave birth to “women’s rights activist” Emily Faithful, the author of Three Visits to America published in 1884, wrote that twenty-seven year old Leonard Montefiore, who had “died at Newport, RI” in 1879 “was visiting the United States in order to see for himself what could be learned from the political and social condition of the people” and that “the world can ill afford to los men of such deep thought and energetic action.”

1837(22nd of Iyar, 5597): Parashat Bechukotai

1837(22nd of Iyar, 5597): One month old Eliza Emory Cohen, the daughter of Kitty Etting and Benjamin I Cohen who were married in 1819 passed away toay.

1838: Joseph David and Jeanetta Mallan were married today in the United Kingdom.

1839: John Solomons and Louisa Pass were married today at the Great Synagogue in London.

1841(7th of Sivan, 5601) 2nd day of Shavuot, Yizkor

1842: The Voice of Jacob in Sidney, Australia reported on the conflagration at Smyrna: There was an additional series of offerings to the fund in aid of the sufferers on the Day of Atonement in the Great Synagogue..."

1848: In Baltimore, MD, Aaron and Augusta Straus Bachrach gave birth to Henry Bachrach who worked in Washington, D.C., Wheeling, W.Va. and Chicago before opening Kaufman and Bachrach, a highly successful clothing store in Decatur, Illinois where he and his wife, the former Matilda Hamburger raised three sons – John, Louis and Charles who became a physician.

1849(6th of Sivan, 5609): Shavuot

1849: Birthdate of Adolph Lewisohn, a German-Jewish immigrant born in Hamburg who became a New York City investment banker, mining magnate, and philanthropist.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19380818&id=kN9PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wVQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5275,4299389

1849: Birthdate of Moriz Benedikt, the native of Krasice, who was the editor of Neue Freie Presse.

1852: Lionel de Rothschild issued an address to the “independent electors of London” in which he thanked them for their support and for twice electing him to the House of Commons, even though he has been denied the right to assume his position.  He went to thank them for supporting the effort to make it possible him to serve in Parliament and asking for their support in his third bid to be elcted to the House of Commons.

1853: The author of an article entitled “The Word ‘Selah’” which was published today sought to provide a meaning for the Hebrew word “Selah” which is used in its untranslated form throughout the Bible especially  in the Book of Psalms.  In searching for the meaning, he states that “the Targums and most of the Jewish commentators give the word, meaning eternally forever. Rabbi Kinchi regards it as a sign to elevate the voice.”  He concludes by saying that “selah” may be an abridged version of Higgaion Selah.  [Editor’s Note – what makes this amazing is that this learned article with all of these Jewish references appeared in the New York Times.]

1855: Reverend Joseph P. Thompson who has just returned from the Holy Land is scheduled to give a talk this afternoon based on his visit to Jerusalem.

1857: Hermann Goldschmidt discovered Asteroid 44 Nysa.

1860(6th of Sivan, 5620): In the United States, Jews on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line celebrate Shavuot for the last time as “brethren.”

1863: In Vienna, Aurelia and David Schwarz gave birth to Mathilde Saphir, the wife of Joseph Saphir and “mother of Heinrich Saphir; Thekla Müller; Friedrich Fritz Saphir; Armin Saphir; Bernardo Saphir; Paul Saphir; Dr. Richard Saphir; Dr. Otto Saphir; Dr. Dr. William Saphir and Dr. Erich Eric Saphir,”

1863:In Hungary Eliyahu Menachem Goitein and Amalia Mahala Goitein gave birth to Rabbi Hirsch Zvi Goiten who settled in Copenhagen, Denmark.

1864: The 79th Indiana under the command of Colonel Frederick Knefler took part in the Battle of Pickett’s Mill, one of the Union victories that marked General Sherman’s campaign that led to the capture of Atlanta, GA.  The campaign was a daring military action that was a key to Union victory over the Confederacy.  Knefler, who would rise to the rank of General before the end of the war, was one of the highest ranking Jews to serve in the Union Army.

1866: The New York Times reported that one of the ancient aqueducts which supplies Jerusalem with water is formed of blocks of stone so keyed together as to form a perfect syphon.

1866: In Washington, DC, Leopold Luchs, the Bavarian born      

son of Seligmann Pinchas Luchs and Judith Marx Luchs and his wife Hannah Luchs gave birth to Clara Kaufman.

1868(6th of Sivan, 5628): Shavuot observed for the last time during the Presidency of Andrew Johnson

1870: In New York’s “old Seventh Ward,” “Gerson Hyman, a well-known Talmudist who emigrated to” the United States “from Wirballen, Poland” and his wife gave birth to Samuel I Hyman, the founder and head of S.I. Hyman & Brothers and leader of the Jewish community who “is a member of the Executive Committee of the Kahilla, a delegate to the Jewish Congress and a trustee of the Distribution Committee of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies.

1870: It was reported today that Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum has been designated by a recent act of the state legislature as one of the recipients of a pro rata share of $150,000.

1870: In Lithuania, David and Rebecca Davidson gave birth to Columbia PhD Israel Davidson, the husband of Carrie Dreyfuss and Professor at JTS who was a guest lecturer at Hebrew University in 1926.

1871(7th of Sivan, 5631): Shabbat and Second Day of Shavuot

1871: Myer Asch, who had reached the rank of Colonel while serving with the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War was re-elected as Senior Vice Commander of the George G. Meade Post of the Grand Army of the Republic.

1874: Birthdate of Wetzlar, Germany native Max Rosenthal, a partner with Israel Cass in Cass and Rosenthal, a manufacturer of clothing for infants and children.

1876: Birthdate of Dusseldorf native Wilhelm Levison, the German medievalist who was forced to retire from his professorship at Bonn University because of the Nuremberg Laws” and “fled Nazi Germany in the spring of 1939, taking a position at Durham University” in the United Kingdom.

 

1877: The New York Times featured a review of "The Life, Work and Opinions of Henrich Heine" a two-volume work written by William Stigand.

1878: It was reported today that John Bright, who ranks with Disraeli and Gladstone as a leading English statesman is reported to have Jewish ancestry. According to several publications including The Examiner, one of Bright’s Quaker forbearers married “a very pretty Jewess named Martha Jacobs…Mr. Bright’s brother, what has a seat in the House of Commons is called ‘Jacob’ after the ‘pretty Jewess.’” This report should not be construed as being informational or complimentary since it also includes the information that Jacob Bright “has a nose duly fitted to the Anglo-Jewish role.”  (The hooked nose Jew was a classic staple of 19th century anti-Semitism.

1879(5th of Sivan, 5639): Erev of Shavuot

1879: In New York, Judge Gildersleeve has ordered the sons of Fanny Solomon to pay $4.50 per week for her support. “Mrs. Fanny Solomon an aged and infirm Hebrew lady” had “instituted proceedings to compel her sons Leopold, Felix and Alfred to support her.”  The Solomon brothers own a factory that manufactures paper-boxes.  Mrs. Solomon contended that she destitute and that her sons had refused to provide with “the necessities of life” even though they were wealthy enough to have done so.  The sons claimed that she was not destitute since she had savings of her own.  They also said that she had refused their offers to come and live with them. Based on the decision, the Judge was not impressed by the brothers’ claims.

1879: In Montreal, Canada, Rabbis De Sola and Levy officiated at the weeding of Joseph H. Loryea of Charleston, SC and Rosabel L. Hyman, the “third daughter of William Hyman of Montreal.”

1880: Twenty-four-year-old New York born composer and theatrical manager Rudolph Aronson opened his new concert-hall at 41st Street and Broadway today.

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1811-aronson-rudolph27

1880: Moses Bruhl set sail from New York aboard the steamship Gallia bound for Liverpool. Bruhl was a New York businessman and philanthropist who created The Betty Bruhl Prizes, awards for outstanding students at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum named in honor of his late wife.

1883:  Alexander III crowned Czar of Russia.  Alexander pursued some of the most anti-Semitic policies of all the Romanovs, which is saying something given their miserable track record.

1884: Birthdate of Prague native and novelist Max Brod, the husband Elsa Taussig, who is best known for his friendship with Franz Kafka.

1884: Josephine Sykes and Henry Morgenthau Sr. gave birth to their daughter Helen Fox.

1886: Birthdate of Galveston, TX native Max Geller, “the first native Texan to become an Orthodox  Rabbi who served Congregations Beth Jacob and Congregation Adath Israel.

1887: Birthdate of University of Michigan chemistry professor Dr. Kasimir Fajans the holder of a Ph.D. from Heidelberg University who raised two sons – Stefan and Edgar – with his wife Salome. https://lsa.umich.edu/chem/about/department-history/kasimir-j--fajans---1887-1975-.html

1888: In New York City, “English-born antiques dealer and auctioneer Henry B. Herts” and his wife gave birth to Columbia School of Architecture graduate Benjamin Russell Herts who along with his brother Isaac founded Herts Brothers, the firm of designers and architects whose clients included yachtsman William Astor, Jr and the Knickerbocker Hotel.

1888 Birthdate of Morris J. Clurman, the husband of Lena Shimshak and the father of Bernice and Herman Clurman.

1889: In New York City, “Nathan and Lina (Gutherz) Straus gave birth to Princeton graduate and R.H. Macy partner Nathan Straus, Jr. the husband of Helen E. Sachs who served as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy during WW I and a New York State Senator while serving as a director of the Palestine Economic Corporation and the Palestine Development Council as being an active member of the Free Synagogue and the “Temple Beth-El Clubs.

1890: Mary Frohman, the widow of Herman Frohman, is scheduled to appear in court today to respond to a claim brought by her children that she is a “lunatic.”  Frohman died without a will and since most of his property was in his wife’s name she is now in control of it; a situation that her four children seem determine to change.

1890: In Clevedon, Somerset, UK, “grocer George Edward Gedye” and his wife gave birth to George Eric Rowe Gedye who served as a foreign correspondent for a dozen years in the 1920’s and 1930” and was the author the 1939 tome Betrayal in Central Europe which was highly critical of Prime Minister Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement and who provided an eyewitness of the “brutalities and persecutions” of Jews in Austria.

1890: “The inquest by Coroner Joseph Rosesh and a jury into the murder of Samuel Hutch a Jewish peddler who is a member of the congregation at Roundout is still in progress tonight at Middletown, NY.

1890: It was reported today that Temple Beth-El will host the upcoming confirmation exercises for students enrolled by the Hebrew Free School Association.

1891: While being interviewed in Paris today Baron Hirsch said “The measures now enforced against the Hebrews in Russia are equivalent to a wholesale expulsion of the race from the Russian Empire.”

1892: “ ‘Cranks’ And The World’s Fair” an editorial published today takes issue with attempts in the U.S. House of Representatives to tie funding for the World’s Fair to a promise to close the exhibitions on Sunday so as not to violate the “Sabbath.”  “It is only a very small proportion of Christians who are so rigid Sabbatarians as the Jews.  The orthodox Jews in every country make considerable sacrifices, eager as for money as they are supposed to be, in order to observe the Sabbath.  Yet no Jewish exhibitor at a World’s Fair that we know of has refused to allow his exhibit to be shown along with the rest on Saturdays.”

1893: While on his way to the synagogue this morning thirteen-year-old Israel Schwartz ran away from the Ladies’ Deborah Nursery and went to the Gerry Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children where he was examined by Dr. Travis Gibb who found “the boy had been brutally beaten.”

1893: “The Second Mrs. Tanqueray,” a play by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, the grandson of Sephardic Jews.

1894: “Columbus and the Jews” published today provides a detailed review of Christopher Columbus and the Participation of the Jews in the Spanish and Portuguese Discoveries by Dr. Meyer Kayserling and translated by Charles Gross.

1894: “The Capital of Bosnia” published today described the “bewildering sights and sounds” of Sarajevo including the presence of “hoary Spanish Jews, any one of whom might sit as a model for a portrait of King Solomon.”

1894: It was reported today that Samuel Montagu, “the well-known banker and philanthropist” and almost the only important Jew who did not desert Prime Minister Gladstone “on the Irish Question”  has been made a Baronet by Queen Victoria.

1894: “Bequests of Jesse Seligman” published today included a lengthy list of those institutions benefiting from the largesse of the late millionaire some of which were the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum, $5,000; Mount Sinai Hospital, $2,500; United Hebrew Charities the City of New York, $1,000 and the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, $1,000. (And that was only the tip of the iceberg of his generosity)

1895: Birthdate of Arthur Seymour Lyons, the brother of Sam Lyons with whom he formed the theatrical agency firm of Lyons and Lyons whose best known client was Jack Benny.

1897: In Rovno, which at the time was part of Ukraine, “Levia and Miriam (Shearer) Smolar gave birth to Ber (Boris) Smolar, the a staff member of the Warsaw Jewish Daily who in 1921 came to the United States where he studies journalism at Northwestern, the University of Chicago and Columbia while pursuing a career with several publications in the Jewish Forward in Chicago and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency where he served for as the editor.

1897(25th of Iyar 5657): Eighty-two-year-old “painter, photographer, author and companion of explorer John C. Fremont”  Solomon Nunes Carvahlo, the Charles born son of Sephardic Jews Sarah Cohen D’Azevedo and David Nunes Cavalho, the husband of Sarah Miriam Solis whom he married in Philadelphia and father of Charity and David Carvahlo “the famous paper, ink and handwriting analyst” passed away today in Pleasantville, NY after which he was buried in Beth Olom Cemetery in Ridgewood, NY.

https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/story/art-and-life-solomon-nunes-carvalho

https://www.jewishmag.com/185mag/solmon_carvalho/solmon_carvalho.htm

1898(6th of Sivan, 5658): As the Spanish-American War enters into its second month, celebration of Shavuot

1898: “Montefiore Country Home” published today described plans for the upcoming “formal opening of the country sanitarium of the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids.”

1898: Simon Cook who had been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in the Navy in 1893 was assigned to the U.S.S. Princeton today.

1898: The members of the Hebrew Union Veterans’ Association assembled at Yorkville Court on the corner of 3rd Avenue and 57th Street and marched to Temple Emanu-El where the Civil War veterans held their annual memorial service.

1898: “Chicago’s Jewish Guardsman” published today described the formation of the “Guards of Zion” which is made up of approximately 190 of the younger members of the Zion Association of Chicago.  The unit will be designated as Companies I and M of an Illinois Volunteer Regiment under the command of Colonel McGrath. (Editor’s Note – this was part of the patriotic response that was sweeping the country during the Spanish-American War)

1899(18th of Sivan, 5759): Ninety-five-year-old Jonas Hecht passed away in Norfolk. He moved there in 1863 after having served as a rabbi in New York for 22 years.  He was one of the original ten men who found B’nai B’rith.

1899: David Wolffsohn reports that the minimum funding for the Jewish Colonial Bank has been finally assured.

1899: “New Mount Sinai Hospital” published today descried plans for the new building for which the Jews of New York have provided all of the funding even though “the institution is non-sectarian…and the appointments on the house staff, medical staff and the admission of patients are made without regard to religious faith.”

1899: Birthdate of Bernard Joseph the Montreal, Canada native who became known as Dov Yosef, the Israeli political leader who served as military governor of Jerusalem during the War for Independence in 1948.

1899: “From Russia to America” published today described the decision of Israel Zangwill to write a foreword to From Plotzk to Boston by Mary Antin. Mr. Zangwill sees this collection of letters written in Yiddish by an eleven-year-old Russian immigrant provides a view of the little known “inner feelings of the people themselves” and helps us understand “what magic vision of free America lures them on to face the great journey to other side of the world.

1899: W.B. Clarke Company has announced that it will print “a second and much larger edition of Mary Antin’s From Plotzk to Boston which was first produced by a printer in New York.  An error was made in creating the title.  Antin was from Polotsk, but in the process of translation and printing it was changed to Plotzk.

1900: Pianist Leopold Godowsky and his wife gave birth to violinist Leopold Godowsky who helped to created Kodachrome.

1901: It was reported today that “Memorial services were by the E.D. Morgan Post of the Grand Army of the Republic at Temple Rodeph Shalom in Manhattan” where “the veterans were welcomed to the Temple by Assistant District Attorney Maurice B. Blumenthal” and Rabbi Rudolph Grossman after which they heard a speech by Congressman H.M. Goldfogle.

1902: Today, “Orthodox religious leaders, who had mostly remained on the sidelines, formally endorsed the” boycott of kosher meat led by angry housewives on the east side who had seen the price of meat jump from 12 to 18 cents.

1903: Birthdate of Indianapolis native and University of Illinois trained engineer Russell David Levy, an executive with the Zeckendorf Corporation.

1903: Senator Boise Penrose who in 1911 described “discrimination by the Russian Government against American Hebrews as an assault on American principles and traditions” and assured a delegation of Jews from Philadelphia “that he agreed with their contention that the violation of their treaty rights as American citizens was not a proper subject for an arbitration tribunal but should result in the passing of a resolution by Congress denouncing the present treaty” with Russia began serving as Chairman of the Republican State Committee of Pennylvania..

1903: At Carnegie Hall, New York May Seth Low presided over a mass meeting protesting the Kishinev Pogrom which was addressed by former President Grover Cleveland.

1904(13th of Sivan, 5664): Forty-four-year-old “Henry M. Hendricks, a junior member of the firm of Hendricks Brothers, the oldest metal house in the United States (dating back to 1764) dropped dead in the waiting room of the Christopher Street Ferry this morning” while on his way to Hoboken, NJ to meet his 19 year old daughter Aimia.

1904: It was reported today that that in Russia, “the Emperor considered the present time auspicious for the inauguration” of a reform that will repeal the law under which Jews are forbidden to reside within 32 miles of the frontier since it “will materially relieve the situation of the Jews who are  crowded along the western borders.

1905: Birthdate of forensic psychiatrist and author Dr. Henry A. Davidson, the Newark, NJ born son of physician and husband of “the former Adelaide Heyman with whom he had two children – Laurence and Ellen.

1905: “Thirty-three men met today at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association where they agreed to form “a congregation known as the Temple of Truth (Congregation Beth Emth) which “held its first services at 504 Market Place” and was the beneficiary of the generosity of D.L. Levy who purchased a Torah for the congregation’s use.

1906: It was reported today that “the Black Hundreds are attempting to invite the people to attack the Jews by the circulation of false paper money purporting to have been issued any an alleged Jewish republic in Tula Province, with Max Gorky as president.”

1906: Congregation Temple Adath Israel “dedicated its new house of worship on 169th near Third Avenue” this afternoon.

1906: “The Sabbath was rigidly observed today” in Louisville with all saloons being closed “except one in a park kept by a Jew who had observed Saturday as the Sabbath” and who “was arrested but was allowed to continued selling throughout the day’ while doing “a lively business when the news spread.”

1907: “Society to Teach Jewish Deaf-Mutes” published today described the founding “of a society for the instruction of Jewish deaf-mutes” the aim of which is “to provide instructors to into Jewish homes and teach parents how to develop the throat and mouth muscles of their deaf-mute children who are below school age; to provide instruction for deaf-mute children in day schools and to establish places of religious instruction and worship for Jewish deaf mutes of all ages.”

1908: Birthdate of Newark, NJ of Jefferson Medical College and University of Pennsylvania trained psychiatrist, a World War II veteran a leading forensic psychiatrist who served as superintendent of one of the nation’s largest mental health facilities, Overbrook Hospital while raising two children – Ellen and Laurence – with his wife, “the former Adelaide Heyman.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/08/24/archives/dr-henry-a-davidson-is-dead-a-psychiatrist-and-author-68.html

1908: Birthdate of Harold Rome the Hartford, CT native and Yale University graduate who turned his back on a career in architecture to become a composer and lyricist.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/rome-harold-jacob

1908: Birthdate of Reform Rabbi Elmer Berger, the Cleveland, Ohio native who used the American Council for Judaism as a platform to promote his anti-Zionist beliefs.

1909(7th of Sivan, 5669) 2nd day of Shavuot, Yizkor

1909: Tonight, the Jewish Morning Journal “gave out a special cable dispatch from Constantinople saying that the Turkish Government had invited the Jews of   Russia and Romania to settle in Turkey, agreeing to remove all restrictions and to grant full citizenship to them.”

1910(18th of Iyar, 5670): Lag B’Omer

1910: It was reported today that “the exodus of Jewish families from Kieff has commenced”  with 300 proscribed families belonging exclusively to the poorest classes having already been forced to leave the city.

1911: Birthdate of Hubert Humphrey, reform mayor of Minneapolis, U.S. Senator from Minn. and Vice President of the United States.  Humphrey was a courageous supporter of civil rights including banning religious discrimination.  Humphrey supported the state of Israel in the difficult days of the 1950’s.  A visitor to his Washington, D.C. office would find a JNF Tree Certificate displayed proudly on the wall for all to see.

1911:  Birthdate of Teddy Kollek, mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 till 1993. Born Theodor Kollek to a Jewish family in Nagyvaszony near Budapest, Austria-Hungary, and named after Theodor Herzl, Kollek shared his father Alfred's enthusiasm for Zionist ideas. He grew up in Vienna. In 1935, three years before the Nazis seized power in Austria, the Kollek family immigrated to Palestine -- this was still the time of the British Mandate. Kollek was eager to help build a new society and, in 1937, was one of the co-founders of Kibbutz Ein Gev near Lake Galilee. In the same year he married Tamar Schwarz, who gave birth to two children, Amos (born 1947) and Osnat. During the Second World War, Kollek tried to represent Jewish interests in Europe on behalf of the Haganah At the outbreak of the war he succeeded in persuading Adolf Eichmann to release 3,000 young Jewish concentration camp inmates and transfer them to England. Kollek became a close ally of David Ben-Gurion; working for the latter's government from 1952 till 1965. In 1965 Teddy Kollek succeeded Mordechai Ish Shalom as Mayor of Jerusalem. He served six terms of office -- a total of 28 years, being re-elected in 1969, 1973, 1978, 1983, and 1989. It has generally been agreed that during his tenure Jerusalem was turned into a modern city, especially after its reunification in 1967. In 1993 Kollek, aged 82, again ran for Mayor but was defeated by Likud candidate Ehud Olmert who went on to become Prime Minister in 2006

http://www.jerusalemfoundation.org/teddy-kollek-digital-archives.aspx

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/teddy-kollek

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/world/middleeast/03kollek.html

1912: It was reported today that a window dedicated to Isidor Straus and his wife Ida Straus who perished on the Titatinic has been dedicated “in the synagogue of the Montefiore Congregation in the Bronx.

1913(20th of Iyar, 5673): Sixty-five-year-old May Maier, a rabbi from Portland, Oregon, passed away today at San Francisco.

1913: Elections are scheduled to be held today for the directors of Michael Reese Hospital – positions for which Edward Morris, Alfred Oppenheimer, Gustav Fruend and Eli M. Straus have been nominated.

1914(2nd of Sivan 5674): Fifty-one-year-old coffee merchant Solomon A. Cohn passed away today in New York City.

1915: In the Bronx, “Esther (née Levine) and Abraham Isaac Wouk, Jewish emigrants from what is today Belarus” gave birth to Herman Wouk, the famous Pulitzer prize winning who has written several books using Jewish themes and is living proof that you can be a literary success and a mensch.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/obituaries/herman-wouk-dead.html

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/17/468790231/herman-wouk-the-jackie-robinson-of-jewish-american-fiction-dies-at-103

 1915: Birthdate of Arieh Handler who was one of the founders of the Religious Zionist movement in the United Kingdom

1915: “A number of women made speeches to a crowd on behalf of Leo M. Frank on the corner of 126th Street and Seventh Avenue tonight” and “obtained many signatures on a petition” asking the Governor of Georgia to show clemency in the case.

1915: Today “additional Georgia jurists” including Spencer R. Atkinson, ex-Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court and Judge E.C. Konitz of Atlanta “joined in the plea to the Prison Commission to commute the sentence” of Leo M. Frank.

1915: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and Louis Marshall are among the speakers scheduled to speak at a mass meeting sponsored by the League of Foreign Born Citizens at P.S. 91 where appeals for justice for Leo M. Frank who is sentenced to die next month will be made.

1915: It was reported today that Eugene N. Foss, the former Governor of Massachusetts, who had employed Leo Frank in 1906 “said it was very evident that the unfortunate man has not had a fair trial” and that “every gentile, as well as every Jew…was interested in this case, because it be his turn next to be the victim of ‘public sentiment.’”

1915: The partial text of a letter urging clemency for Leo Frank from Reverend Alfred K. Glover, the rector of St. James Episcopal Church and “a recognized authority on the laws and customs of the Jews” being sent to the Governor of Georgia published today said that “Neither man nor beast has ever been known to have been strangled by a Jews.”

1915: A copy of a letter from the Grand Rabbi of Turkey to the American Jewish Relief Committee in New York published today said that “nearly 5,000 individuals are without any support and this number is increasing daily.  My least resource is to implore you to intervene on behalf of our community with Jews in America.”  (Editor’s note:  While many Jews know about the suffering of the Shoah, they are unaware of the suffering of their co-religionist during WW I especially in the Ottoman Empire and on the Eastern Front including Russia and the Autro-Hungarian Empire.)

1915: Mrs. Nina Stevens who would tell a judge “that she had made an affidavit in Atlanta to show that Leo Frank was a degenerate” was arrested today in New York on a warrant “charging her with maintain a disorderly resort in a house on West Fifty-Second Street.

1915: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Anna Rhodes, Louis Marshall, L.W. Fehr and William J. Burns are among those scheduled to speak at a mass meeting sponsored by the League of Foreign Born Citizens in New York where “appeals for justice for Leo Frank” who is “sentenced to die next month for the murder of Mary Phagan” will be made.

1916: The Federation of Rumanian Jews of America opened its ninth annual convention at the Hebrew Technical School for Girls in New York tonight where in his opening address Chairman Solomon Suffrin “to exception to allegations that there was something lacking the Americanism of the Jew in America, saying “In regard to the address six days ago by an eminent co-religionist of us Jews, we will assure him that if this country should be called to arms we would respond.”

1917(6th of Sivan, 5677): American Jews observe Shavuot for the first time as combatants in World War I.

1917: In New York, “at Temple Beth-El Dr. Samuel Schulman preached a sermon on the Russian Revolution.

1917: In New York, “at the Free Synagogue Dr. Stephen S. Wise spoke on ‘Israel’s Youth and the Youth of Israel.’”

1917: On Shavuot, in New York, “at Temple Emanu-El, Dr. Joseph Silverman delivered a patriotic” sermon.

1917: Florence Cohen and Pearl Decker were among those confirmed today at Temple Sholom at a service led by Rabbi Abram Hirschbirg.

1917: Harold Blitz and Gertrud Cohn were among those confirmed today at Beth El Temple at a serviced led by Rabbi Julius Rappaport.

1917: At Chicago’s Temple Sinai, Dr. Emil G. Hirsch officiated at Confirmation Services this morning.

1917: Rabbi Gerson B. Levin led Confirmation Services this morning at Congregation B’nai Sholom Temple Israel on Michigan Avenue.

1917: Rabbi Tobias Schanfarber led Confirmation Services this morning at Congregation K.A.M. Chicago’s oldest Jewish congregation.

1917: “Persecute Jews of Jaffa” published today described the plight of the 8,000 to 9,000 Jewish residents of the Mediterranean coastal city who “have been expelled by Turks” and facing economic ruin as they camp out of doors “without shelter” and food.

1917: It was reported today that the American Jewish Relief Committee for the Suffers from the War of which Louis Marshall is Chairman and Herbert H. Lehman is Treasurer has $10,000 from the Minneapolis Committee, $404 from the Lake Charles, LA Committee, $800 from the Oklahoma City Committee and $170 from the Las Vegas Committee.

1917: It was reported today that the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering through the War of which Harry Fischel is Treasurer has received $750 from The Day and $101 from I. Rokeach and Sons.

1918: Nathan Straus, Adolph Lewisohn and Major C. Brooman White of the British Recruiting Mission were among those who attended a dinner last night at Beethoven Hall given by the Jewish Actors’ Club for the “500 members of the Jewish Legion for Service in Palestine…on the eve of their departure” for the Holy Land where they will join the other 2,000 members of the Legion.

1919: Dorothy Engel and Herman Maltz were married in New York after which they lived at the Hotel Cumberland before moving to California in 1920 where Herman went into the wholesale shoe business which led to his opening West Coast Furniture in partnership with William Weiss.

http://home.earthlink.net/~nholdeneditor/by_julie_maltz_borman.htm

1919: Harold E. Foreman, Nelson Morris, Walter S. Bauer and Samuel Rosenthal are scheduled to be elected as directors of Michael Reese Hospital

1919: Birthdate of New York City businessman Joseph Puro the president of the Purofield Down Products Corporation, “a leading pillow and comforter producer” and philanthropist who served on the board of Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/24/archives/joseph-puro-51-president-of-down-products-corp.html?_r=0

1920: Jewish veterans took part in a Memorial Festival “presented at Madison Square Garden under the auspices of the People’s Liberty Chorus.

1920: Psychologist Schachne Isaacs, the Cincinnati born son of Rachel Friedman and Abraham Isaacs and instructor at Johns Hopkins who taught at the Baltimore Hebrew College and Training School and who served in the U.S. Air Service Medical Research Laboratory during WW I married France Dollinger today in New York City.

1921: “Shattered,” a “silent kammerspielfilm” with a script by Carl Meyer and director/producer Lupu Pick was released today in Germany.

1922(29th of Iyar, 5682): Parashat Bamidbar

1922: “The so-called Zionist resolution has been further changed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee so that “instead of speaking of ‘the’ national home for the Jewish people, the proposal now is for on a ‘national home.’”

1923: In “Furth, Bavaria, Germany” schoolteacher Louis Kissinger and homemaker Paula (Stern) Kissinger gave birth to Heinz Alfred Kissinger who gained fame Harvard Professor, national security advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

https://www.henryakissinger.com/

1923: In Boston Belle (née Ostrovsky) and Michael Rothstein, the owner of the “Northeast Theatre Corporation” and “the Boston branch of the Latin Quarter Nightclub gave birth to Harvard trained attorney Sumner Murray Redstone, the electronic media mogul who among other things was Chairman and CEO of Viacom, Inc.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/obituaries/sumner-redstone-dead.html?searchResultPosition=5

1924: Jules Stein founds Music Corporation of America in Chicago, Illinois.  MCA began as a booking agency for bands.  Over time it grew and eventually morphed in Universal Studios in 1996.

1924(23rd of Iyar, 5684): Forty-three-year-old St. Louis born vaudeville comedian and Broadway playwright passed away today.

http://archives.nypl.org/the/18893

1925: At luncheon today at the Hotel Astor, Adam L. Gimbel, the Vice President of the Saks Company announced that 120 of the leading businessman are going to be asked to pledge themselves to contribute six hundred dollars a year for the next three years to the National Farm School located near Philadelphia that was founded by Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf.

1926: It was reported today that “Chaim Nachman Bialik was given the degree of Doctor of Hebrew Literature on the occasion of the first graduation exercises of the Jewish Institute of Religion, when ten rabbis were graduated” and “a similar degree was given to Claude G. Montefiore, nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore and England’s foremost Jewish scholar.” (JTA)

1927: Birthdate of Zvi Malchin, who gained famed Mossad Chief of Operations Peter Zvi Malkin, who played a key role in bringing Eichmann to justice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/03/obituaries/peter-zvi-malkin-israeli-agent-who-captured-adolf-eichmann-dies.html?_r=0

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/peter-z-malkin-527099.html

1927: Birthdate of Galicia native Solomon David “Sam” Kimelman, the Holocaust survivor who made a life for himself in Winnipeg, Canada.

https://passages.winnipegfreepress.com/passage-details/id-250778/KIMELMAN_SOLOMON

1927: “In the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City “the former Clara Gordon” and “Rabbi Bernard Birstein of the Actor's Temple” gave birth to Ann Judith Birstein the author and one-time wife of Alfred Kazin with whom she had a child, Cathrael Kazin. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/29/books/ann-birstein-dead-novelist-and-wife-of-alfred-kazin.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

https://web.archive.org/web/20160601153938/http://www.annbirstein.com/bio.htm

1927: Birthdate of Polish native and Mossad agent Peter Zvi Malkin who “was part of the team that captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960 and brought him to Israel to stand trial for crimes against humanity.”

1927: National Jewish Book Week, which had the unanimous endorsement of the Chicago Rabbinical Association, is scheduled to come a close.

1928: In retaliation, for a vote of no confidence by Hadassah in its President, the Zionist National Executive Committee, threatened to discipline the women's organization

1928(8th of Sivan, 5688): Seventy-five-year-old German mathematician Arthur Moritz Schoenflies “known for his contributions to the application of group theory to crystallography” passed away today. (I won’t even pretend to try and explain what he worked on)

1929: “Contributions amounting to $20,000” which included a donation of $3,000 from Mrs. Jacob Schiff “were presented to the Ort, the Society for the Promotion of Technical and Agricultural Trades among the Jews of Eastern Europe, by the women’s committee of the Ort Campaign…today at a tea at the home of Mrs. Henry Zuckerman.”

1930: Nobel Prize Winner Dr. Otto Meyerhoff is one of the department chairmen at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Medicine, a facility modeled after the Rockefeller Institute, which is opening today in Heidelberg, Germany.

1931: “Results from the elections in Palestine for delegates to the Zionist Congress next month showed today that the Jewish Labor party took 15,000 of the 25,000 votes” with the Revisionists gaining 5,000 votes and the General Zionists getting 2,000 votes.

1931: The 44th Street Theatre is schedule to host a matinee performance of Billy Rose’s “Crazy Quilt,” a revue starring Fanny Brice

1932: Birthdate of Linda Pastan who was Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1991 to 1995.

1932: Birthdate of Brooklynite actor Stephen Robert “Steve” Franken, the cousin comedian and U.S. Senator Al Franken.

http://abc7.com/archive/8792889/

1933(2nd of Sivan, 5693): Karl Lehburger, a Jewish businessman, was murdered in Dachau.

1933(2nd of Sivan, 5693): James Loeb, a Jewish-German-American banker and philanthropist, passed away.  Born in New York in 1867, he “was the second born son of Solomon Loeb and Betty Loeb.James Loeb joined his father at Kuhn, Loeb & Co. in 1888 and was made partner in 1894, but he retired from the bank in 1901 due to severe illnesses. In memory of his former lecturer and friend Charles Eliot Norton, in 1907 Loeb created The Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship. In 1911 he founded and endowed the Loeb Classical Library, and founded the Institute of Musical Art, which later became part of the Juilliard School of Music.”

1934: “A children’s review” is scheduled to be held this after at Union Temple on Eastern Parkway “in an effort to help the Brooklyn Federation in its cureen $500,000 twenty-fifth anniversary campaign.”

1934: Bernhard J. Stern and Isidore Begun were among those attending a conference of teachers in New York which had been called by “the Teachers’ Anti-War Committee” which is scheduled to end today.

1934: In Reisterstown, Mr. and Mrs. A. Ray Katz and Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Lansburgh, the daughters and sons-in-law of philanthropist Jacob Epstein will present a memorial bust of their father to the Mount Pleasant Jewish Tubercular Sanatorium at ceremony where Dr. Edward L. Israel, the rabbi of Temple Har Sinai will deliver the invocation “and lead in the recitation of the prayer for the dead at the close of services.” (JTA)

1935: New York City women led by activist Clara Shavelson, picketed Manhattan butcher shops to demand a reduction in the price of meat. http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/shavelson-clara-lemlich

1935: In a landmark case, The Supreme Court of the United States declares the National Industrial Recovery Act to be unconstitutional in the case A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, (295 U.S. 495). The challenge to the National Industrial Recovery Act came from the most unlikely source, a Jewish chicken producer. Joseph Schechter operated Schechter Poultry Company, and Martin, Alex and Alan Schechter operated A.L.A. Schechter Company, both of which were slaughterhouses selling chickens to kosher markets in New York City.  Brandies and Cardozo, the two Jewish justices joined the majority in this opinion proving that for these men of principle the law trumped political beliefs.

1936(6th of Sivan, 5696): First Day of Shavuot

1936: In New York, Congregation Emanu-El is scheduled to hold its confirmation exercises this morning at 10 o’clock.

1936: In New York, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun is scheduled to hold its confirmation exercises this morning at 10:30.

1936: In New York, Rabbis are scheduled to use their Shavuot sermons “to make appeals…for the aide of destitute Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe.

1936(6th of Sivan, 5696):  On Shavuot, the British would not allow Jews to hold services at the Western Wall because of the on-going attacks by Arabs.

1936: “In Jaffa, hooligans” broke “streetlamps while approximately “400 orange trees were uprooted in the vicinity of Peach Tikva” and “Arab demonstrators…continued aimless shooting at Jewish” settlers.

1937: Birthdate of Chicago native Allan Solomon who gained famed as Northwestern University alum Allan Carr who went from running the talent agency Allan Carr Enterprises to a successful career as a screenwriter and a producer who “was named Producer of the Year by the National Association of Theatre Owners.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/01/arts/allan-carr-62-the-producer-of-grease-and-la-cage.html

1938(26th of Iyar, 5698): Seventy-two-year-old Dr. Flora Pollack passed away today in her hometown, Baltimore, MD.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that a British constable was murdered near Ramat Hakovesh (formerly Juara) in the vicinity of the spot where two American pioneers, Ephraim Tiktin, 24, formerly of Detroit, Michigan, and Eliezer Korngold, formerly of Toronto (Ontario) were murdered on April 8, 1938. Supernumerary policemen successfully defended the Arab attack on Tel Adashim and wounded several attackers. Ze'ev Alianevsky, the driver of a Hamekasher bus in Jerusalem who was stoned and injured by Arabs in Romema, defended himself with his licensed revolver, hit and wounded an Arab woman. He was taken out of Hadassah hospital to the Central Jerusalem Prison for investigation.

1939: Two weeks after 19-year-old George Jellinek and the family of Peter Gay arrived in Cuba aboard the SS Iberia the SS St. Louis arrived in Havana, Cuba and was denied use of the docking areas because the Cuban government “had retroactively invalidated the land permits” of most of the Jewish passengers – a fact of which they were not aware.

1939(9th of Sivan, 5699): Forty-four-year-old Galician native Joseph Roth whose works included “his family saga Radetzky March about the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, his novel of Jewish life, Job and his seminal essay "Juden auf Wanderschaft” translated into English in “The Wandering Jews” died today in Paris where he had gone to escape the Nazis.

https://www.lbi.org/digibaeck/results/?qtype=pid&term=121485

1940: As the British fought off attacks by the Germans at Dunkirk, members of “the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf machine-gunned 97 British and French prisoners near the La Bassée Canal”

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/le-paradis-massacre-outraged-even-nazis.html

1940: In Brooklyn builder Lawrence Gallin and Florence Gallin gave birth to Albert Samuel Gallin, the Boston University graduate better known as “talent manger” Sandy Gallin who played a key role in the careers of such notables as Dolly Partin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/arts/sandy-gallin-76-talent-manager-adored-by-stars-dies.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1941: In New York City, grocer Louis Berlin and “Sylvia (Lebwohl) Berlin, a homemaker turned business manager for Ralph Lauren gave birth to University of Wisconsin trained historian Dr. Ira Berlin. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/obituaries/ira-berlin-groundbreaking-historian-of-slavery-dies-at-77.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1941: After staying in Luxembourg for “as long as he could” Robert Serebrenik, the Chief Rabbi of Luxembourg “left on one of the last convoys out of the Nazi occupied country.

1942: As of today, “compulsory wearing of the yellow badge” was enforced in Belgium.

1942: Three Jewish families living in the remote Ukrainian village of Chaplinka are killed.

1942: General Reinhard Heydrich was fatally shot in Prague by two Czech patriots. The man responsible for the formal initiation of Hitler's Final Solution, a man synonymous with terror, would die within the next eight days. The Holocaust still had three more years of death ahead of it. SS General Globocnik begins preparation for ‘Operation Rienhard', in honor of the slain general. Operation Reienhard was the deportation of Jews to meet immediate death at Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor. Goebbels wanted to make the Jews pay for Heydrich's death. According to at least one account, the attack on Heydrich was orchestrated by the British and had nothing to do with his role in the Final Solution

1943: The Jews of Sokal, Ukraine, are deported to the Belzec death camp.

1943(22nd of Iyar, 5703): While serving with the 42nd Bomber Squadron of the 11th Bomber Group, Staff Sergeant Frank Glassman, the son of Russian immigrants Peter and Sadie Glassman, died today when his B-24, nicknamed the Green Hornet was ditched and lost in the Pacific Ocean

1943:  Three thousand Jews are killed at Tolstoye, Ukraine.

1943:  Birthdate of actor Bruce Weitz who played Sgt. Mick Belker on the NBC television police drama Hillstreet Blues.

1944: Two Jews escaped from Birkenau. Arnost Rosin of Czechoslovakia and Czeslaw Mordowicz of Poland had witnessed the first ten days of the Hungarian arrivals. They were able to tell the West the truth about the tragedies they survived through.

1944: Joel Brand “sent his wife a telegram” telling her about interim agreement that had been reached to swap $4,000 for each Jewish emigrants to Palestine and one million Swiss francs for each 1,000 Jewish emigrants to Spain, “hoping she would tell Eichmann and that this might delay the deportations” of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz.

1944: Rudolf Kastner was taken into custody by the Hungarian Arrow Cross in Budapest.

1945: “A conference of 300 delegates from twenty nations called to devise a world-wide program for the rehabilitation of Jewish life in Poland and to press for action to safeguard Jewish security opened today at the Hotel Roosevelt under the sponsorship of the American Federation for Polish Jews.”

1946: Concentration Camp survivor Gerda Weissmann was reunited with her “liberator” Kurt Klein whom she married and gained fame as author Gerda Weissmann Klein

1946: Birthdate of Jerusalem native and Weizmann Institute of Science graduate Eliezer Rabinovici the theoretical physicist who “is emeritus Professor of Physics (Leon H. and Ada G. Miller Chair) at The Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, working on theoretical high-energy physics, in particular quantum field theory and string theory.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20210928052201/https://www.sharing-knowledge.org/biographie/eliezer-rabinovici-2/

1947: Ben Gurion drew up his first summary of the Yishuv’s military position. He wrote in his diary, “There is not sufficient training even in the brigade (Palmach).  There is a shortage of commanders, and those we have are not adequate [in standard].  There is no attempt at action, the planning defective; the structure of the budget is not directed at the target.  The most serious fault is that the experience and human military material [those demobilized from the British army] have not been utilized.  The equipment has not been adapted. For many years, a central idea has been missing: What is the duty [of the Haganah organization]?

1948(18th of Iyar, 5708): Lag B’Omer

1948: In Brooklyn, George Lerner, who worked “as a fisherman and antiques dealer and Blanche Lerner gave birth to actor Ken Lerner, the brother of Michael Lerner and son of Sam Lerner.

1948: The Israel Defense Army (Zahal) was established. Prior to the creation of the state there had been several armed groups including Haganah, Palmach, Irgun and the Stern Gang.  Ben Gurion understood that there could only be one army and that that army had to be under the control of the national government. He acted decisively and overcame considerable opposition to achieve this goal.

1948: In Jerusalem, the hospital in which the mortally wounded Esther Cailingold came under enemy fire forcing officials to move her and the other casualties to “a safer area.”

1948: In Jerusalem, troops of the Arab Legion “raised their flag on the roof of the Huvra Synagogue, the main synagogue of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City and then set it on fire.  The Hebrew word Huvra means ruin and the synagogue was so named because the Moslems had destroyed it twice since it was first built in 1705.  The dome of Huvra had been a major landmark for almost one hundred years.  The Huvra was in the same category for Jews as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was for Christians.  Of course the Church remained unharmed and nobody in the international community then or since expressed any dismay over the destruction of a Jewish house of worship that was also a civic treasure.  

1948: Vitka Kempner and Abba Kovner gave birth to their first son Michael.  At the time of the boy’s birth, his father was fighting with the IDF during the War of Independence. Kempner had proven her martial mettle as a resistance fighter serving alongside her famous husband during WW II.

1949: “The American President liner General W.G. Gordon, the last large U.S. passenger ship to leave Shanghai before the city fell to the Communists” arrived in San Francisco carrying refugees included Jews “who had found wartime refuge” in the city among whom were “Dr. Michael Lowe-Levai, the former foreign editor of the Berliner Lokal Anzeiger whose son Eric A. Harris lives in Los Angeles.”

1949: The United Service for New Americans, “which aids displaced Jews” in the United States reported that there were still 1,500 Jewish refugees stranded in Shanghai.

1950(11th of Sivan, 5710): Parashat Naso

1950(11th of Sivan, 5710): Sixty-four-year-old Harvard educated “investment banker, chase player and philanthropist Maurice Wertheim, the Hartford, CT born son of Jacob Wertheim and Hannah Frank, the founder of Wertheim and Company and husband of Alma Morgenthau with whom he ha three children Josephine Pomerance, Anne Werner and Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian Barbara Tuchman, passed aa toda.

https://hum11c.omeka.fas.harvard.edu/exhibits/show/cultural-space/maurice-wertheim--investment-b

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Jordanian marauders carried out three simultaneous attacks on three new immigrant villages of Beit Naballa, Beit Arif and Beit Arif Bet, all of them near Beit Shemen. At Beit Naballa they threw a grenade into the house of David Namdar, killed his wife, Tamar, 30, and wounded two of his seven children. They also looted whatever was possible. At Beit Arif they detonated three kg. of TNT under the house which was completely destroyed, and at Beit Arif Bet they did the same to three houses. Seven people were injured in both explosions.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the General Zionists had resigned from the Cabinet coalition. They resigned because the Labor majority turned down their request for the exclusive use of a National Flag and anthem in schools, to the exclusion of red flags, traditional to the Labor movement.

1954:  In St. Louis, Kate and Sol Firestone gave birth to Tirzah Firestone “an American analytical psychotherapist, author, and Jewish Renewal rabbi who was the founding rabbi of Congregation Nevei Kodesh, a Jewish Renewal synagogue in Boulder, Colorado and sister of writer and feminist activist Shulamith Firestone.

1955(6th of Sivan, 5715): Shavuot

1955: In Bethesda, MD, Charlotte Schiff, “a television and publishing executive and Edward Schiff, a real estate lawyer” gave birth CCNY graduate Richard Schiff, the actor and director who married Sheila Kelly in 1996.

1956: Dr. Leo Jung, Rabbi Max Kirshblum and Rabbi Maurice Wohlgerlertner officed at the wedding Shulamtih Heller, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Tobias Heller and Ira David Stavish, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Emanuel Stavish.

1956: Birthdate of Brooklyn born, NYU trained attorney Lewis Fidler, the New York City Councilman who raised two children with his wife Robin.

https://council.nyc.gov/district-46/

https://nypost.com/2019/05/05/former-city-councilman-lew-fidler-dead-at-62/

1956: In Winnipeg, Canadian attorney and political leader Israel Harold “Izzy” Asper “married Ruth Miriam ‘Babs’ Asper at Shaarey Zedek” today.

1957: “Screaming Eagles” directed by Charles F. Haas was released today in the United States.

1957: Thirty-seventh and final broadcast of “Producers’ Showcase” a television anthology series that featured the music of Sammy Cahn and Moose Charlap and included shows produced by Sol Hurok and Anatole Litvak.

1957: Birthdate David Chester Itkin, who “served as music director and conductor of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra from 1993 to 2010.”

1958(8th of Sivan, 5718): Seventy-eight year old Dr. Meno Lissauer, the Lubeck born son of Frieda and Abraham Adolph Moses Lissauer, who was the founder and chairman of the Associated Metals and Minerals Corporation and who made his way from Nazi occupied Holland via Lisbon to the United States where he became “a director of the American Federation of Jews in Central Europe and established a scholarship and endowment at Brandeis while raising a son and daughter – Franz and Hannah – with his wife Meta passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/05/28/82695526.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 

1958: Birthdate of Margate native Dr. Robin Mundill the historian and author whose work included The King’s Jews: Money, Massacre and Exodus in Medieval England

http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-dr-robin-mundill-phd-ma-shoolmaster-and-historian-1-3836886

http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1077

1960: Henriette von Shirach, “Hitler’s private secretary” wrote ‘a letter to a senior Bavarian official” begging for art works” which in reality had been confiscated from Gottlieb and Mathilde Kraus by the Gestapo in 1941” be returned to her.

1961: “The Last Time I Saw Archie,” a comedy featuring Louis Nye, Robert Strauss and Harvey Lembeck was released in the United States today.

1963(4th of Sivan, 5723): Eighty-six-year-old “Louis Lipsky, noted Zionist leader, journalist and author” who “had three sons: David Lipsky, a theatrical press agent, Eleazar Lipsky, a novelist, and Joel Carmichael, a historian, passed away today.

https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/3/resources/15570

1963(4th of Sivan, 5723): Jacob Elie Safra, the Aleppo born of the Safra banking family who married his cousin Sarah with whom he had eight children passed away today in São Paulo, Brazil.

1964: Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru dies in office.  Nehru opposed the creation of the state of Israel.  Given India’s large Moslem population and the conflict with Pakistan at the time of India’s re-birth, this is not surprising.  What was disappointing was the lengths that Nehru went to isolate the Jewish state after its creation.  In recent years, India has turned its back on Nehru’s view of Israel.

1966: “The Wrong Box” a comedy written by Larry Gelbart was released in the United Kingdom today.

1967: “The Israeli Cabinet met to decide whether or not to take military action against Egypt” based on the continued blockade of the Straits of Tiran. The Cabinet appeared to be evenly divided between those who were ready to take action and those who were willing to wait and see if the international community would end the crisis.  During the Cabinet session, Abba Eban arrived from Washington and his meetings with President Johnson. Eban reported that Johnson was working to assemble an international flotilla of warships that would open the Straits.  The Cabinet decided to hold off on military action in an effort to give Johnson a chance to bring his plan to fruition.  A significant segment of the Israeli populace did not understand the reason for waiting. The country had been on alert for some time and the strain was taking its toll.  The fear was that waiting would only strengthen the Arabs militarily and led to defeat for the Jewish state.  Furthermore, they mistrusted the United States because of its support of Nasser in 1956 and 1957.  The Cabinet’s decision to wait was based, in part, on a political calculation.  If they waited and Johnson succeeded, then the crisis would be ended without war.  If they waited and Johnson failed, then the Israelis would have the support of the United States in the upcoming conflict.  If they did not give a Johnson to avert a war, the Israelis would end up fighting the Arabs without any international support.  Based on the experience of 1956, they knew that in the long run, this was not where they wanted to be. 

1967: The US production “Eh?” starring Dustin Hoffman as “Valentine Brose” which “was the first major critical success in his career, garnering him a Theatre World Award and Drama Desk Award for his performance” closed today after 233 performances.

1969: Terrorist fired a bazooka this morning at an Israeli patrol in the Beisan Valley near Kfar Ruppin.

1970: “The Grasshopper” written by Jerry Belson was released today in the United States.

1970(21st Iyar, 5730): Seventy-one year old Colonel Richard Gimbel, USAF (ret), the New York born son of Ellis and Minnie Gimbel and the grandson of the founder of Gimbels who left the family business in the 1930’s and pursued a military career in the 1940’s before becoming the “curator of aeronautical literature at his alma mater Yale while raising seven children with his wife “the former Julia de Fernex Millhiser, passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/28/archives/col-richard-gimbel-dies-at-71-flier-was-yale-library-curator-donor.html

1970: “Watermelon Man,” a comedy “inspired by Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis was released in the United States today.

1971: In Detroit, final performance of an “updated” version of La Périchole an opéra bouffe in three acts by Jacques Offenbach with a libretto co-authored by Ludovic Halévy

1973(25th of Iyar, 5733): Seventy-three-year-old Federated Department Store president, Fred Straus, Jr, the Columbus, OH born son of Fred and Rose Lazarus and husband of Meta Marx Lazarus passed away today after which he was buried at Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus, OH.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fred-Lazarus-Jr

1973: The IDF announced a state of emergency and reserve troops were called up in response to a movement of Egyptian troops. The state of emergency was cancelled when it became clear that this was only an exercise

1974(6th of Sivan, 5734): Shavuot

1974: Simon Veil began her first term as French Minister of Health.

1975: Anatoly Malkin, who had already lost his position “for filing for emigration to Israel,” was arrested today for “evasion of military service.”

1975:  Sender Levinson, of Bendery in Soviet Moldavia, went on trial today.

1977: In Manchester, CT, Rabbi Neil Kominsky officiated at the wedding of Nan Elizabeth Rypins Malkin, a psychiatric social worker at the Center for Mental Health of the Manchester (Conn.) Memorial Hospital, and Dr. Donald L. Shapiro, the medical director of the center…”

1979: “Dummy,” a docudrama brought to the screen by Executive Producer Frank Konigsberg was screened in CBS for the first time.

1980: “The United States today rejected an Israeli request to renew a five-year agreement that would give Israel preferential access to the American strategic stockpile including the right to buy industrial diamonds at a negotiated price.”

1981: The premiere performance of “Halil” took place today at the Sultan’s Pool in Jerusalem with Jean-Pierre Rampal as the soloist and Leonard Bernstein conducting the Israel Philharmonic. “Halil is a work for flute and chamber orchestra composed by Leonard Bernstein composed in 1981. The work is sixteen minutes in length. Bernstein composed Halil in honor of a young Israeli flutist Yadin Tanenbaum who was killed at the Suez Canal in during the 1973 Yom Kippur war.”

1982(5th of Sivan, 5742): Erev Shavuot

1984: Seth Mydans reviewed “The Revolt of Job,” a film that tells the story of “one Jewish couple's attempt to defeat their family's extinction in the Holocaust by adopting a non-Jewish boy, a child who would survive to carry on their line.”

1984(25th of Iyar, 5744): Seventy-one-year-old Gallitzin, PA native and U of Michigan trained labor lawyer Walter J. Isaacson, “an officer in the lawyers’ divison of the UJA-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and husband of “the former Edith Lipsig Hebald” passed away today.

1985(7th of Sivan, 5745): Second Day of Shavuot

1985: Birthdate of Dmitry Bukhman,a Russian-born Israeli entrepreneur who together with his brother Igor Bukhman,  founded the online gaming company Playrix, which is best known for its mobile-app games such as Homescapes and Fishdom.

1986(18th of Iyar 5746): Lag B’Omer

1987(28th of Iyar, 5747): Yom Yerushalayim

1987: Daniel Barenboim is scheduled to serve as conductor for the IPO at a concert which is part of its 50th anniversary celebration.

1990: After three weeks, the curtain came down Playwrights Horizons Off-Broadway original production of Lynn Ahren’s “Once on This Island.”

1993(7th of Sivan, 5753): Second Day of Shavuot

1993: The official opening of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology and the Jill Sackler Sculpture Court and Garden at Peking University is scheduled to take place today.

1995: “A Walk in the Clouds” produced by David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, filmed by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and co-starring Debra Messing was released in Japan today.

1997(20th of Iyar, 5757): One hundred-year-old Ralph Hoween, the Harvard and Chicago Cardinals football player whose career had been interrupted when he volunteered to serve with U.S. Navy during World War I passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/29/sports/ralph-horween-100-the-oldest-ex-nfl-player.html

1999(12th of Sivan, 5759): Eighty-two-year-old Big Band vocalist Leah Ray Werblin, the wife of Sonny Werblin passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/04/sports/leah-ray-werblin-singer-82.html

2000: At Brown University noted scholar and feminist Alice Shalvi speaks on the effects of feminism on Judaic life in Israel and the world beyond as part of the Stephen A. Ogden Jr. Memorial Lectureship.

2001(5th of Sivan, 5761) Erev Shavuot

2001: The New York Times featured books by Jewish writers and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Dying Animal by Philip Roth.

2001: The PFLP claimed responsibility for today’s Jerusalem Center bombing

2001: Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for today’s Jaffa Road bombing in which 30 people were injured.

2001: “Sister Mary Explains It All For You” a controversial film about Catholicism directed by Marshall Brickman was broadcast by Showtime for the first time.

2002: The Al-Aqsa Martyrs, Brigades claimed credit for today’s bombing in a mall at Petah Tivka

2002(16th of Sivan, 5762): Eighty-five-year-old weightlifter David Mayor who in 1937 “won the U.S. heavyweight champion with a total lift of 835 pounds and was named "America's Strongest Man” passed away today.

2003: The parents of Chandra Levy hold a private graveside for their daughter.

2004(7th of Sivan, 5764): Second Day of Shavuot

2004: Cruel Sister is a composition for string orchestra by the American composer Julia Wolfe. was first performed by the Munich Chamber Orchestra today

2004: On the day after the New York Times “mea culpa editorial” related to the reporting about he Iraq war by Judith Miller, an article in Salon quoted her as saying "You know what ... I was proved fucking right. That's what happened. People who disagreed with me were saying, 'There she goes again.' But I was proved fucking right.”

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

2005:  The Washington Post reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared from Jerusalem, “that her meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders convinced her that both sides share a commitment to ensuring Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza takes place smoothly and peacefully.”  At the end of the same article the Post reported that “Coinciding with Rice’s visit, Palestinians…attacked Israelis…in the southern Gaza Strip killing one Israeli and wounding two others…The attack was the second major assault on Israeli targets in recent days.”  Islamic Jihad and a group affiliated with Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement took credit for the attack.  As head of the PLA, Abbas is one of those Palestinian leaders whom Secretary Rice said was committed to a smooth and peaceful Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

2005(18th of Iyar, 5765):  Morris Cohen, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who helped to transform the field of metallurgy into the modern discipline of materials science and engineering, passed away at his home in Swampscott, Mass. He was 93.

2005(18th of Iyar, 5765):  Celebration of Lag B’Omer, Thirty-Third Day of the Omer. 

2005(18th of Iyar, 5765):  Observance of the Yahrzeit Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. Born in 100 C.E., Shimon studied with the great Rabbi Akiva and was one of only two scholars ordained by Akiva. Shimon is quoted in the Palestinian Talmud as saying “To honor one’s parents is more important than honoring God.”  This belief did keep him from openly disagreeing with his considering the Rebellion against Rome.  Shimon was an outspoken supporter of Akivah and Bar Kochba while his father believed in appeasing the Romans.  According to legend, Shimon hid from the Romans with his son in a cave for thirteen years livings on dates and carob. Shimon was a great scholar who is quoted in the Talmud frequently both on matters of Halakah and ethics.  Judah the Prince, the compiler of the Mishnah was one of his students.  His greatest claim to fame among some is based on the mythical belief that he wrote the Zohar (The Book of Splendor).  Although he was a mystic, there is no proof that he was the author of the text.  Regardless, starting in the 16th the Chasidim who are his followers gather at his grave in Meron which is located near Safed on the 33rd day of the Omer and commemorate his passing by lighting bonfires and dancing by torchlight as they express their joy in his teachings.

2006(29th of Iyar, 5766): Ninety-five-year-old actress Thelma Bernstein and mother of comedy writer Albert Brooks passed away.  (As reported by Dennis McLellan)

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/may/31/local/me-bernstein31

2007: Tony Eprile, novelist and faculty member at the University of Iowa’s Writer's Workshop, discusses his prize winning novel, The Persistence of Memory that describes apartheid in South Africa through the eyes of a shy, overweight Jewish boy from Johannesburg's wealthy northern suburbs. He also discusses his just completed trip to Syria with other writers.     

2007: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Tranquil Star: Unpublished Stories by Primo Levi, translated by Ann Goldstein and Alessandra Bastagli, City of Oranges: An Intimate History of Arabs and Jews in Jaffa, by Adam LeBor, My Holocaust by Tova Reich and The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Freres & Co. by William D. Cohan. 

2007 (10 Sivan 5767): Oshri Oz a 35-year-old, resident of Hod Hasharon, was killed when a Qassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit the car in which he was driving in the western Negev town of Sderot.

2008: In Chicago, as a prelude to the CSO's production of Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater, Spertus is proud to host Chicago music critic Andrew Patner in a discussion with Michael Tilson Thomas, who will vividly illustrate through projected images his grandparent's fascinating history, their starring roles in the American Yiddish Theater, and its enormous contribution to the American cultural life.

2008: Public sales of Chasing Harry, the third novel by Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada began today.

2009: Center for Jewish History and Untitled Theater Company #61 present: Golem Stories, A staged reading retelling the legend of a clay man in 16th century Prague created by Rabbi Loew to defend the Jews.

2009: Fred Hochberg began serving as Chairman and President of the Export-Import Bank.

2009 (4 Sivan): On the Jewish calendar, 2nd Yahrzeit for Shir-El Friedman the thirty five year old woman who was killed by a Hamas rocket fired into Sderot.

2009: William Lanouette, the author of Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, the Man Behind the Bomb (written with Bela Silard) and Martin J. Sherwin, the author (with Kai Bird) of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer take part in a discussion entitled, Building the Bomb, Fearing Its Use: Nuclear Scientists, Social Responsibility and Arms Control, 1946-1996, at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

2009: As part of the Tel Aviv Centennial Celebration a statue of Meir Dizengoff, the first mayor of Tel Aviv, riding his horse will be placed in front of his home at 16 Rothschild Boulevard. The address has become one of the most important landmarks in Israeli history: in his will, Dizengoff designated his house to be the home of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (the museum later moved to its current address on Shaul Hamelech Boulevard). On May 14th 1948, it was the site in which David Ben Gurion and the Provisional National Council declared Israel's independence.

2009: Thousands of Israelis from far and wide flocked to Rothschild Boulevard in central Tel Aviv on Wednesday night, as the city held its annual "White Night" event, with parties, music and street theater lasting until the wee hours.

2010: In Paris, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended a ceremony marking Israel’s official joining the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

2010: Professor Menahem Milson a professor of Arabic Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a co-founder of The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Arabic and Islamic Anti-Semitism Today” at the Historic 6th & I Synagogue in Washington, D.C.

2010: The first-ever Jewish America Heritage Month celebration was held today at the White House.

2011: The National Museum of American Jewish Military History, the Jewish War Veterans, and the Sixth & I Synagogue are scheduled to host the first annual national service honoring the Jewish fallen heroes of Iraq and Afghanistan. The service, which is scheduled to be conducted by Cantor Larry Paul and musician Robyn Helzner, will open with remarks by NMAJH President David Magidson and will feature the reading of the names of the more than 40 Fallen Heroes in solemn remembrance and prayer.

2011: In Cincinnati, Ohio, Rockdale Temple is scheduled honor Jewish American Heritage Month with a Rock Shabbat service highlighting American-composed liturgical music.

2011: A week-end long celebration marking the 25th anniversary of the ordinations of Rabbi Jonathan Rubenstein and Rabbi Linda Motzkin is scheduled to begin this evening in Saratoga Springs.

2011: The annual conference of the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations (CSJO) is scheduled to open at Humber College in Toronto, Canada.

2011: Limmud Colorado’s Fourth Annual Conference is scheduled to begin at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, CO.

2011: Group of Eight leaders had to soften a statement urging Israel and the Palestinians to return to negotiations because Canada objected to a specific mention of 1967 borders, diplomats said today

2011: US President Barack Obama today travelled to Poland where he honored the memories of those killed in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising during the Holocaust. He was heard telling a Holocaust survivor that the US would be there for Israel. During a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw Obama told one elderly man that the memorial was a "reminder of the nightmare" of the Holocaust in which millions of Jews were killed, The Associated Press reported.

2012(6th of Sivan, 5772): First Day of Shavuot

2012(6th of Sivan, 5772): Seventy-five-year-old Dr. David L. Rimoin, the medical geneticist who did research into Tay-Sachs disease passed away today. (As reported by Denise Grady)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/health/research/david-l-rimoin-expert-on-dwarfism-dies-at-75.html?_r=2&hpw

2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of The Arrogant Years: One Girl’s Search for Her Lost Youth, From Cairo to Brooklyn by Lucette Lagnado and Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman.

2012: The Paul Feig Tikkun Leil Shavuot at The JCC in Manhattan which began last night is scheduled to end at 5 am.

2012: The Cedar Lake Ballet’s two week engagement at the Venue which has included the New York premiere of “Violet Kid,” by Israeli choreographer Hofesh Shechter is scheduled to come to a close

2013: During “The Patron Trip to Israel” the IPO is scheduled to perform a concert featuring conductor and violinist Pinchas Zuckerman.

2013: A conference opened in Riga to discuss “Holocaust commemoration in post-communist Eastern Europe.”

2013: Deputy Transportation Minister Tzipi Hotovely married Or Alon an Israeli attorney.

2013: Egyptian-French singer-songwriter Georges Moustaki was buried today according to Jewish rites in a family vault at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris a few meters from the grave of his former amour Édith Piaf.”

2013: US Secretary of State John Kerry held separate surprise meetings in Jordan today with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, as he intensified his efforts to revive the peace process.

2013: Amos Oz won the Franz Kafka Prize today in the Czech Republic.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-author-amos-oz-wins-czech-kafka-prize/

2013: Memorial Day observed in the United States.  Jews have fought in every war since the American Revolution and served in all branches of the military. They have served as generals and warriors who have earned the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Ironically, one of the Jews who had the most effect on America’s defense was one who did not see combat – Admiral Hyman Rickover.  As the “father of the nuclear navy” (and more specifically nuclear-powered submarines) he provided the United States with its primary deterrent in dealing with the Soviets which kept the Cold War from turning into the hot war of World War III

http://magazine.discoverjcc.com/jews-history-in-u-s-military/

2014: Father Francis Wahle, the Kindertansportee, whose father had converted but whose mother had not is scheduled to tell his story at the Weiner Library in the UK.

2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled a lecture by Meki Tate entitled “Warriors in Blue: Soldiers, Seders and Solidarity” which “explores the experiences and contributions of the 7,000 Jewish servicemen who fought in the Union Army during the Civil War.”

2014: European Parliament Speaker Martin Schultz, French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi joined Belgium’s Elio Durpo in a “paying home to the vicitims of  last weekend’s attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels  when they met Jewish leaders outside the museum and bowed their heads in tribute to a rabbi’s prayer.

2014: Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Rabbi Zvi (Herschel) Schachter, Rabbi Yehoshua Yeshaya Neuwirth (deceased) and Rabbi Zalman Nehemiah Goldberg – the receipients of the Katz Awared which is , bestowed upon individuals and enterprises engaged in the application of Halacha, or Jewish law, to modern life  -- were honored at a ceremony in Jersualem today. (Times of Israel

2014: “A rare monastic lead seal dating from the Crusader era has been positively identified, over a year after it was discovered at an archaeological site in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Bayit Vegan, the Israel Antiquities Authority said today. “ (As reported by Gavriel Fisk)

2015: The First Division Museum at Cantigny is scheduled to host “Liberation: Looking Back 70 Years” that includes a conversation between Holocaust survivor and George Brent and Arthur Sheridan who was one of the first infantrymen to enter Dachau.

2015: “The militant group Hamas used last summer’s war with Israel in the Gaza Strip to carry out extrajudicial killings of at least 23 Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel and to torture dozens of others, including political rivals, Amnesty International charged in a report issued early today.” (As reported by Isabel Kershner and Jodi Rudoren)

2015: Following yesterday’s rocket attack from Gaza on southern Israel the Gan Yavne Council order bomb shelters to be opened and “unprotected schools in Ashdod are to remain closed today.”

2015: Pulitzer Prize winning author Herman Wouk who is living proof that you can be a success in America while still being an practicing Jew and a mensch of the first order turns one hundred today.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=herman+wouk+is+still+alive

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/10/herman-wouk-lawgiver-simon-schuster

http://www.hermanwouk.com/

http://www.biography.com/people/herman-wouk-20631823#synopsis

2016: In Battle Creek, Michigan, the multi-dimensional Holocaust Remembrance exhibit that began in April is scheduled to come to an end today.

https://sites.google.com/a/lakeviewspartans.org/holocaust-remembrance/

2016: Barnes & Nobel is scheduled to host a presentation by Sarah Fader, “a reform Jew still searching for her Jewish identity” who is the author of Stigma Fighters Anthology.

2016: Today in Tel Aviv, “a Christian Arab-Israeli ballet dancer, 21 year old Ta’alin Abu Hanna, was named “Miss Trans Israel” at “Israel’s first-ever transgender beauty pageant.”

Read more: http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/341509/transgender-israeli-arab-wins-historic-tel-aviv-pageant/

2016: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a concert in “memory of Bracha Eden on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of her death.”

2016: Today, Anthony Graziano of New Jersey “was convicted of terrorism for vandalizing and firebombing Jewish temples and a rabbi’s home, and is now facing a possible life sentence.”

2016: Herman Wouk whose latest work is Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-Year-Old Author turns 101.

2017: In “Ruth Madoff” Living Quietly Inside the Glare” published today Robert Marchant described the life Ruth Madoff, the wife of Bernard Madoff has created for herself in the “high end community” of Greenwich, CT.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/msn/ruth-madoff-living-quietly-inside-the-glare/ar-BBBzBxV?ocid=spartandhp

2017(2nd of Sivan, 5777): Parashat Bamidbar – begin the fourth book of the Torah.

2017: Friends, family, fans and all who love a “well told yarn” are scheduled to celebrate the 102nd birthday of Herman Wouk.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/05/08/arguable-wouk-and-remembrance/6ZWcDE2qsq9GbhciyF9vEM/story.html

2017: “In the East Hampton hamlet of Springs, New York, the Leiber Collection is scheduled to welcome the public with an Opening Celebration Garden Celebration Garden Tea Party” where they can see “Magnificent Obsession: Fashion Passion and Collection” which “display highlights five Leiber collectors at the namesake gallery” Judith Leiber “shares with her husband’s paintings and prints.

2017: In at testament to the vitality to a small town Jewish community, friends and family are scheduled to gather to celebrate the graduation of Jessica Herrin.

2018(13th of Sivan, 5778): Eighty-one-year-old lesbian activist Connie Kurtz passed away today. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/obituaries/connie-kurtz-gay-rights-leader-dies-at-81.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2018: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest Jewish readers including The Optimistic Decade by Heather Abel.

2018: Shiva begins for “twenty-year-old Sergeant Ronen Luvarski, a resident of Rehovot who died yesterday after having suffered a severe head injury when an Arab terrorist threw a marble block at his head.

2018: UK Jewish Film is scheduled to host a screening of “Scaffolding” directed by Matan Yair.

2018: At part of the “Home: Lens on Israel” series, the Temple Emanuel Streicker Center is scheduled to open the photographic exhibition “Bedouin and Arab Israeli Communities in the Negev.”

2018: In Des Moines, Rabbi Emily Barton and Harlan Jacobs are scheduled to lead a discussion following a screening of “Bal Ej: The Hidden Jews of Ethiopia.”

2018: In New Orleans the curtain is scheduled to come down on the final performance of “An Act of God.” (As reported by Crescent City Jewish News, the source for everything Jewish in Cajun Country)

2018: Herman Wouk turns 103 having outlived the number superlatives that can be applied to a man who proved you can be a great author and mensch!

https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/herman-wouk/201831/

https://www.biography.com/people/herman-wouk-20631823

2019: In Canada, the Edmonton Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Leona,” a story about young Jewish from Mexico City.

2019: In Atlanta, the Breman Museum is scheduled to “remember and honor those who died in active military servicing including Aaron Dreizin who died along with the rest of the crew of his B-17 during WW II.

2019: “The Comedy for Koby” tour is scheduled to open today in Haifa.

2019(22nd of Iyar, 5779): Sixty-year-old Pulitzer Prize winning author the son of Dr. Norman Horwitz, a neurosurgeon, and Elinor (Lander) Horwitz, a writer and the husband of Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Geraldine Brooks passed away today.

https://tonyhorwitz.com/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/obituaries/tony-horwitz-dead.html

2019 (22nd of Iyar, 5779): Ninety-three year old WW II Army veteran and Yale University graduate Roger Overholt Hirson a prominent writer for live television in the 1950s and ’60s who collaborated with the composer Stephen Schwartz on the hit Broadway musical “Pippin” passed away today.(As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/obituaries/roger-hirson-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Outdoors,” named the “Best Screenplay of the Haifa International Film Festival”

2019: Memorial Day observed as Americans remember those who made the supreme sacrifice for the United States and her citizens.

https://kaplancenter.org/memorial-day-and-united-jewish-people

http://forward.com/news/135331/profiles-of-our-fallen/#ixzz1DeAMPaIh

http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/07/18/jews-in-the-military/

2019: The birth of Herman Wouk is celebrated for the first time in over a century with the author not present.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/obituaries/herman-wouk-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

2020: Rabbi Moshe Bryski and Cantor Aryeh Leib Hurwitz are scheduled to officiate at the Chabad

Pre-Shavuot Yizkor Program.

2020: Live on Zoom, YIVO is scheduled to present “Yiddish in Israel: A History” during which Rachel Rojanski in conversation with Rachel Brenner, Shachar Pinsker, and Sunny Yudkoff discuss Yiddish in Israel: A History.

2020: Rabbi Ariel Root Wolpe, founder of Ma’alot, a Jewish outreach organization in Atlanta, is scheduled to talk, virtually about the relationship between prophecy and singing and leads a niggun

2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a live pre-Shavuot reading of the Book of Ruth over Zoom which will largely be done by women.

2020: The Vilna Shul is scheduled to host “Milk and Honey: A Shavuot Cheese-Making Workshop” you can participate in “from your house.”

2020: In Cedar Rapids, IA, three days after she had passed a memorial service is scheduled to held this morning for ninety-one year old Bertie Schneider at the Temple Judah Silber Outdoor Sanctuary where social distancing will be observed.

2020: Thanks to an order signed by Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, restaurants and bars are scheduled to open today in Israel.

2020: One hundred and fifth anniversary of the birth of Herman Wouk whose names and works you should know and if you don’t, today would be a good day to begin.

https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/05/26/herman-wouk-and-the-jew-in-the-public-square/?utm_content=blog1&utm_medium=daily_email&utm_campaign=email&utm_source=internal/

2021: The Hillel of Silicon Valley is scheduled to present “a panel discussion about the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s 2016 definition of antisemitism and why it needs to be adopted on college campuses across the country.

2021: The Day of Action Against Anti-Semitism, a virtual rally, is scheduled to take place today.

2021: The Tabue Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford University is scheduled to present “historian Peter E. Gordon talking his new book Migrants in the Profane.

2021: JWA's Book Club is scheduled to present A Special Quarantine(ish) Book Talk with Tovah Feldshuh

2021: The Center for Jewish History and LBI are scheduled to present a conversation with Leah Garrett, the author of X: Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II.

https://programs.cjh.org/event/x-troop-2021-05-27

2021: National Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled to present “Let My People Go! Lessons of the Soviet Jewry Movement for Today” with Nathan Sharansky.

2021: The Jewish Heritage Center is scheduled to present online “Using the Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center Archives for Family History Research.”

2021: The Contra Costa JCC and Congregation B’nai Shalom are scheduled to present Under One Tent program director Riva Gambert talks about President Harry Truman’s response to the newly independent state after World War II.

2021: Israel’s cinemas are finally scheduled to reopen today after a 14-month, pandemic-induced hiatus. (As reported by Ina Toker)

2022: The Riverway Project is scheduled to host its monthly “Neighborhood Shabbat” where it take it take Shabbat out of the shul and brings it right to members of the community.

2022: Beth Menachem Chabad is scheduled to host a Musical Tot shabbat and Challah Bake in Newton, MA.

2022: The international Conference on Multidisciplinary Social Studies, Anthropology and Archaeology is scheduled to begin today in Jerusalem.

2023: In Lisbon, IA, home of Temple Judah active member Becky Bunting, the Lisbon Iowa Alumni Association is scheduled to host the Lisbon Alumni Banquet this evening.

2023: The Eden Tamir Music is scheduled to present the Israel Haydn  String Quartet with Tal Haim Samnon.

2023: In Stamford, CT, “Gateways Shavuos 2023” is scheduled to come to an end.

2023: The Oshman Family JCC, Peninsula JCC and Jewish Silicon Valley are scheduled to present “Home Sweet Shavuot,” a “night of learning with eight sessions, some in English and some in Hebrew, hosted in homes in Hillsborough, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Saratoga and San Jose followed by Havdalah.

2023: Israel braces for another of what has become a weekly event – a protest against the proposed judicial reform legislation.

2023(7th of Sivan, 5783): Second Day of Shavuot; Yizkor;

2024: Memorial Day observed as Americans remember those who made the supreme sacrifice for the United States

https://reformjudaism.org/beliefs-practices/celebrating-secular-holidays/5-jewish-readings-memorial-day

https://www.exploringjudaism.org/holidays/memorial-day/remembering-and-observing-united-states-memorial-day/

https://www.jwv.org/programs/in-your-area/memorial-day/

https://kaplancenter.org/memorial-day-and-united-jewish-people

http://forward.com/news/135331/profiles-of-our-fallen/#ixzz1DeAMPaIh

http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/07/18/jews-in-the-military/

2024; At Mishkan Theater, HaPalmach 2A, Raanana, The Koby Mandell Foundation is scheduled to host fundraiser featuring Jann Karam, Buddy Lewis and John Roy - hosted by Avi Liberman.

2024: The Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum is scheduled to be open on Memorial Day so visitors “can explore the Jewish history of the national capital region” and “savor the national and local story of the Jewish deli and its impact on tradition, culture, and the community.”

2024: Dana Berger “one of the best and most respected singers and creators in Israel is scheduled to perform at the City Winery in New York City.

2024: As May 27th  begins in Israel, an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism sweeps the United States and the Hamas held hostages begin day 234 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.)