This Day, May 7, in Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
May 7
833 BCE (2 Iyar 2928): Traditional date on which King Solomon began building the Temple in Jerusalem.
351:
Gallus, who had been appointed “Caesar” of the East by his cousin, the Emperor
Constantius II arrived in Antioch. Antioch was the capital of his domain which
included Palestine. At the time of his arrival a revolt broke out among the
Jews of Sepphoris, a town in Palestine and spread to the Galilee and
Lydda. According to different sources,
the revolt was led by Isaac who came from Sepphoris and a little known figure
named Patricus. The revolt was not
anti-Christian even though Constantius II had given the Church free reign in a
campaign of persecution aimed at the Jews and other non-Christians. The revolt
may have been aimed at the corrupt rule by Gallus. Or it may have been a last gasp effort by the
Jews in Palestine to gain freedom from Rome.
This was a period of great instability in the Empire and the Jewish
leaders may have been encouraged by reports of Imperial defeats in the western
part of the Empire. They also may have
thought that the Persians, who were enemies of the Roman Empire, would come to
their aid. The revolt lasted only a year
and was put down by Uriscinnus, one of Gallus’ more seasoned commanders who
probably defeated the Jewish forces at a battle near Acco. The Romans moved south laying waste to
Tiberia, Sepphoris and Lydda, each of which was rebuilt after the fighting
stopped. [Editor’s Note: Considering the
fact that this revolt took place 280 years after the Great Revolt and 215 years
after the Bar Kochba Revolt, it would seem to indicate that there was a
sizeable Jewish population still living in Palestine, that the population was
made up of a handful of scholars, that the Nasi did not control all aspects of
Jewish life, that Jews make lousy subjects and that Jews do not seem to learn
from their “mistakes.”]
538:
The Third Council of Orleans, “a synod of the Catholic bishops of France expressed
its concern “about Christians adopting Jewish religious customs” by warning the
faithful against Jewish "superstitions” and establishing that ‘the bishop
must redeem a Christian slave in the service of a Jew if he takes refuge in the
church” opwnws rosy.
962:
Pope John XII crowns Otto I, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Among his
subjects is Gershom ben Judah, who will gain fame as Rabbeinu Gershom Me'Or
Hagolah ("Our teacher Gershom the light of the exile") had been born
two years earlier in Metz. Mainz, the city he would move to as an adult,
was already the center of Talmudic learning in this part of the Holy Roman
Empire with Yehuda ben Meir serving as its leading scholar at this time.
973:
Emperor Otto the First passed away. Under Otto Jews “were regarded as
possessions of the Emperor.” In 965,
Otto “gave the Bishop of Magdeburg jurisdiction over all merchants and Jews for
taxation purposes. In general, the Jews were not expelled or forcibly converted
and were considered the personal property of the King. In the individual towns
the Jews were offered privileges, usually through a contract whereby they would
be protected by the crown in return for financial fealty.” (As reported by The
History of the Jewish People)
1205:
Coronation of King Andrew II of Hungary. At first during his reign of King
Andrew II appointed Jews to serve as Chamberlains and mint-, salt-, and
tax-officials. The nobles of the country, however, induced the king, in his
Golden Bull (1222), to deprive the Jews of these high offices. When Andrew
needed money in 1226, he farmed the royal revenues to Jews. This led to an
outcry from his Christian subjects. Pope
Honorius III excommunicated him. In 1233, he took an oath promising the papal
ambassadors that he would enforce the decrees of the Golden Bull directed
against the Jews and the Saracens. In addition to which he would enforce the
new pope’s decrees that forced Jews to wear badges of identification and forbid
them from buying or keeping Christian slaves.
1312:
As he entered Rome today, Emperor Henry VII was hailed as a ‘deliverer” by the
citizens including the Jews who can be seen in illustrations in the Codex Balduini Trevirensis welcoming the
ruler.
1342:
Clement VI, whose reign took place during the Black Death began his papacy
today. When pogroms erupted in Europe in response to the belief that the Jews
were responsible for the plague, Clement issued two bulls condemning the belief
and the violence and urged the Catholic clergy to take steps to protect the
Jews. (Editor’s note – I can find no
reason for this unusual Papal behavior but it does stand out against the
anti-Semitism that was so dominant in much of the Continent.)
1348:
Charles University in Prague (Universitas Carolina/Univerzita Karlova) is
established as the first university in Central Europe. Starting sometime during
the last two decades of the 18th century Jews, as well as
Protestants, were allowed to attend the University. In 1911, Einstein was appointed to a full
professorship at the school; a position he held until 1914. Today the CIEE Center at Charles University
offers courses in Jewish Though and Jewish History including one styled
“The History of the Jews in Bohemia and Central Europe” and another
styled “Torah, Modern Jewish Religious Thought, and Czech Literature.”
1355:
Twelve hundred Jews of Toledo Spain were killed by Count Henry of
Trastamara. The Jews were caught between the opposing forces in a fight
between King Peter and Count Henry, his half-brother who sought the throne
for himself. The events surrounding this dynastic
quarrel marked the beginning of the decline of the Jewish community
in Spain.
1634:
William Prynne, an opponent Jews settling in England was pilloried for the
first time as part of his punishment for opposing the production of plays.
1680:
An attempt to keep the Jews of Corfu from practicing law made in 1679 ended
today when the Jews were granted that right today.
1718:
The city of New Orleans is founded by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. In
1724, the French adopted The Code Noir which dealt primarily with the issue of
slaves but also mandate the expulsion of the Jews from the city. The arrival of
Isaac Rodrigues Monsanto in 1757 provides the first recorded evidence of Jewish
settlement in the Crescent City. The
real birth of the Jewish community dates from the time of the Louisiana
Purchase when the Americans took over and did away with the Black Code.
1727:
Two years after the death of Peter Great, Jews were expelled from Ukraine
by his widow, Empress Catherine I of Russia. Catherine was merely
following the wishes of her late husband who had stated that he did not
want any Jews living in Russia. Daniil Pavlovich Apostol, the Hetman of
the Cossacks, “was the first one to apply to the senate to modify the harsh
law.” Eighty years ago, the Cossacks had driven the Jews from their lands. Since then, they had found out “that they
could not get along very well without Jewish merchants” because they were
indispensable when it came to facilitating commerce between the Ukraine and the
Polish and Lithuanian provinces.
1762(14th
of Iyar, 5522): Pesach Sheni
1762:
In New York City, Sarah and Moses Benjamin Franks gave birth to Rachel Ritzel
Franks who married David Heilron after the death of her first husband, Haym
Moses Salomon, the Jewish merchant who bankrupted himself with his support of
the American Revolution.
1769(30th
of Nisan, 5529): Nathaniel Weil passed away at Rastatt. Born in 1687, this son
of Naphtali Zvi Hirsch Weil was a noted Talmudist who served as a rabbi in
Karlsruhe and was the author Korban Netan’el
1773(14th
of Iyar, 5533): Pesach Sheni
1785:
In the Netherlands Liepman Benjamin de Vries and Henderina Miejer|Meijers Bons
Reindorp gave birth to Benjamin Wolf Liepman de Vries.
1786:
“The Russian Senate published a decree defining the economic and civil rights
of the Jews of White Russia.” For much of its history, Russia had been almost
free of Jews due to the exclusionary and anti-Semitic policies of a succession
of Czars. As an example of the law of unintended consequences, Russia acquired
a large Jewish population following the partitions of Poland at the end of the
18th century. This move by
the senate was the first in a series of official attempts to deal with this
“Jewish problem.” Throughout the 19th
century, Russian policy would vacillate regarding its Jews; but in the end
anti-Semitism and bigotry would win the day. (As reported by Abraham
Bloch)
1789:
The Judenordnung provided for the abolition of discriminatory laws enacted
against the Jews of Galicia
1802:
Birthdate of Edinburgh, Scotland native and future resident of St. Louis, Nancy
Hart Aloe, the wife of Sidney Zadoc Aloe with whom she had three children –
Selina, Janet, Francie, Albert and Sarah.
1804:
Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar, “the Acre based Ottoman governor of Sidon” who forced
Napoleon to retreat from Palestine thus making null and void his promises to
the Jews and included among his advisors Haim Farhi passed away today.
1807:
Lieutenant-General George FitzRoy, 2nd Baron Southampton and Frances Isabella
gave birth to Henry Fitzroy the British politician. In 1839, he married Hannah, the daughter of
Nathan Mayer Rothschild by whom he had two children Arthur Frederic FitzRoy and
Blanche FitzRoy.
1811:
Seventy-nine-year-old Richard Cumberland, the British dramatist who wrote “The
Jew” passed away today. “The Jew” which
was premiered in May of 1794 is the first play written for the English theatre
that portrayed a Jewish moneylender as a heroic figure.
1812:
In London, Sarah Anna (née Wiedemann) and
Robert Browning gave birth to Robert Browning the author of “Rabbi ben Ezra”
that begins with the immortal lines, “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be…” He was a friend of
Emma Lazarus and “both his verse and private correspondence show that he kept
an interest in the” persecution of the Russian Jews. There are those who
contend that Browning was of Jewish descent. His father was a clerk in the
employ of the Rothschilds at a time when their bank “employed scarcely any but
Jews.” The name “Bruning” (a Germanic
form of Browning) was very common among Jewish families in North Germany.”
1815:
Birthdate of Marco Mortara, the Italian rabbi from Viadana who was a “disciple”
of Samuel David Luzzatto.
1815:
Isaac Solomon married Ann Barnett at the Hambro Synagogue today.
1817:
In The Hague, Leonardus Levy Abraham Verveer and Caroline Elkan to Mauritz
Leonardus Verveer, “the Dutch 19th Century artist whose work has
been featured in exhibitions at the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam
https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Maurits-Verveer/E67CA0DF45D797B8
1823:
In London, Meyer Solomon, a
Leghorn hat manufacturer and his wife Catherine gave birth to British painter
Abraham Solomon, the older brother of painter Simeon Solomon.
1824:
German rabbi Lazarus Jacob Riesser and his son Gabriel began a correspondence
today that would include 20 letters before it ended.
1826:
Moses Henry Myers married Sarah Abrahams to at the Hambro Synagogue.
1830(14th
of Iyar, 5590): Pesach Sheni
1830:
Today, in one of its first formal forays into the Middle East, the United
States signed a treaty of commerce and navigation with the Ottoman Empire whose
American diplomatic representatives have included Oscar S. Straus, Solomon
Hirsch, Henry S. Morgenthau, Sr. and Abram I. Elkus whose territory included
Palestine.
1833(18th
of Iyar 5593): Lag B’Omer
1833:
Samuel Michael Emanuel married Sarah Jacobs today which, according to some Jews
is the first time since the start counting the Omer on which weddings could
take place.
1834:
In Savanah, GA, in what must have seemed liked a joining of dynasties, thirty
seven year old Philadelphia born ophthalmologist Isaac Hays, a member of the
distinguished Gratz family married Sarah Ann “Sally” Minis, the daughter of
Isaac and Divinah (Cohen) Minis, descendants of the Minis family who “were
among forty-one Jewish settlers who departed England in 1733” to settle in
Georga.
1839:
Hyman Levy Seixas, the New York born Son of Benjamin Mendes Seixas and Zipporah
Mendes Seixas and his wife Abigail Nunez Seixas gave birth to Abraham H.
Seixas.
1842(27th
of Iyar, 5602): Today’s earthquake in Haiti “killed the only daughter of French
diplomat Frédéric Cerfberr who would die from injuries sustained today as he
sailed back to France.
1844(18th
of Iyar, 5604): Lag B’Omer which according to some Jews is the first day since
the start of the counting of the Omer on which Jews can wed as can be seen by
the two entries that follow.
1844:
Benjamin Woolf married Rachel Hart at the Great Synagogue today.
1844:
Elias Mocatta married Rachel Goldsmid today at Bloomsbury, London, UK.
1844:
Today, in Presburg, Archduchess Maria Dorothea attended the inaugural
ceremonies for a primary school for which Austrian financier and philanthropist
Herman Todesco had paid 25,000 gulden
1844:
Founding of New York State Normal School, now known as the Sate University of
New York at Albany which according to a poll taken in 2015 ranks 17th
on a list of the “top 60 Public Universities by Jewish Population.”
http://www.hillel.org/college-guide/list/record/university-at-albany
1844:
Joshua Barnett married Nancy Benjamin today at the Great Synagogue.
1847:
Birthdate of Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, 1st Earl of
Midlothian who in 1878 married Hannah, the only child of Baron Mayer de
Rothschild. She was one of the
wealthiest women of her time since she was the primary heir of her father who
had passed away in 1874.
1848:
Birthdate of William J. Stone, the U.S. Senator from Missouri who as Chairman
of the Foreign Relations Committee had held hearings on the resolution to
create Jewish Relief Day in 1916 – a proposal which he supported – and who was
one of only six senators to vote against the U.S. declaration of war on
Germany.
1849(15th
of Iyar, 5609): Eighty-nine-year-old banker Olry-Hayem Worms, one of those who
attended the Grand Sanhedrin of Napoleon in 1807 passed away today in Paris.
1850:
Caroline Goldsmid married Nathaniel Montefiore today after which they had two
son, Leonard and Claude-Joseph.
1852(18th
of Iyar, 5612): Lag Ba Omer observed for the last time during the Presidency of
Millard Fillmore the only “Know Nothing” to reach the White House.
1854:
In Baltimore, MD, Lemuel and Henrietta Mansbach Oppenheimer gave birth to
Amelia Oppenheimer.
1854:
In Cincinnati, OH, “Eva and William Solomon Milius” gave birth to George
Washington Milius, the husband of Pauline Milius with whom he had four children
– Evelyn, William, Dorothy and Helen.
1855:
Birthdate of Max Schloss, the husband of Rose Sheuerman Shloss and father of
Irma Shloss Mannheimer.
1857:
In New York “Nathan and Ernestine (Erdmann) Cohen gave birth to Dartmouth
graduate William Nathan Cohen, the Columbia trained attorney who served as a
“Justice of the New York State Supreme Court.”
1861:
It was reported that a man known as “Dollar Scott” because of “his smart transactions
in Mexican dollars” but who in fact is “a gentleman of fortune belonging to one
of the most distinguished families in England” and is “in point of fact a
Jewish money-lender’ was badly beaten by Lord Seymour in Naples while Scott was
seeing as an office in Garibaldi’s army.
1863:
In Kovno, Abraham Goldberg and his wife gave birth to Samuel Louis Goldberg,
the “Cantor of Congregation Ansche Nehen Nussach Ho-Ari” in Baltimore, MD.
1863(18th
of Iyar, 5623): Lag B’Omer is observed one day after the Union Army’s
disastrous defeat at Chancellorsville during which Sergeant Henry Hiller had
fought with such distinction that he earned the Congressional Medal of Honor
and Lt. Col. (later General) Edward Solomon led the forces of the 82nd Illinois
which contained an all Jewish company from Chicago.
1864:
Birthdate of Henriette Levy, the wife of Lehman Berr and the mother of Captain
Maixme Beer who was killed at the of age of 28 during WW I.
1865:
In New York, City, Francis Littman and Rubin R. Rosenthal gave birth to City
College graduate Rabbi Frank Lewis Rosenthal, the husband of Tillye Hollander
who began his career at B’nai Israel Congregation in Hot Springs, AR and began
serving as the spiritual leader of Congregation B’nai Israel in Columbus, GA in
1907.
1865:
The Vicar-General of Velletri issued an order permitting Jews to remain in the
town for ten days if they are conducting “lawful and honest business.” While in
town they must return to their lodgings by one o’clock in the morning. They are forbidden to approach all
monasteries, academies and other “pious places under Episcopal jurisdiction.
When having any contact or conversation with Christians, the Jews “are to
refrain from familiarity. The violation of any of these regulations will be
punished by imprisonment and a fine of five crowns.
1867(2nd
of Iyar, 5627): Twenty-four-year-old Sophie Neymarck the wife of Bordeaux native
Elie Camille Espir and the mother of Ferdinand and Daniel Lucien Espir who had lived
in London pass away today in Paris.
1870:
In Lithuania, Nachum and Freida Leah Hurwitz gave birth to future New Yorker
Ezra Hurwitz, the husband of Bertha Hurwitz.
1870:
In New York City, Ida Lowenstein and Herman Loew gave birth to theatre owner
and film company executive, Marcus Loew, , who became involved with films at
the turn of the century when he opened his first "penny
arcades." Later he converted a penny arcade in Cincinnati into a
movie theatre that drew an unheard of 5,000 customers on its first day.
Loew began converting other penny arcades into movie theaters which became a
national chain bearing the owner's name. In the 1920's, he and Louis B.
Mayer joined forces to create the MGM Movie Studio. Loew needed the
studio to fill the public's demand for movies at his theatres. Loew died
of a heart attack at the age of 57, one of the many Jews who revolutionized the
American (and the world's) entertainment industry.
1872:
Julian Henriques, the son of Jacob Quixano Henriques and Elizabeth Waley, was
buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1872:
Two days after he had passed away, 82-year-old Isaac Salaman, the son of Aaron
Solomon and the husband of the former Jane Raphael with whom he had had five
children, was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”
1874: Rabbi Sounescheim was one of the speakers at
tonight's session of the Unitarian Conference which is being held in St. Louis,
MO.
1876: Frank Keenan, the future father-in-law of Ed Wynn
“made his debut” today “as a spear carrier at the Tremont Street Opera House.
1876:
In Leicester, Amy Foulds and Robert Gee gave birth to Captain Robert Gee, the
husband of Elizabeth Dixon whom he married in 1902 and the father of Edith and
Amy Gee who as a member of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers
who served at Gallipoli and was awarded the Military Cross for service at the
Battle of the Somme, the Vitoria Cross for service at the Battle of Cambrai after
which he “ran for Parliament in Woolwich East” as a member of the Conservative Party.
1876:
The French government has ordered part of its Navy to sail to Salonica, a
Mediterranean seaport which is part of the Ottoman Empire and which has been
the site of recent outbreaks of violence between Christians and Moslems. This is in keeping with the French
government’s view of itself as the protector of Christians throughout the
Middle East i.e. those living under Ottoman rule. Salonica is home to 20,000
Jews and their well-being is threatened any time there is an outbreak of
violence among different groups of non-Jews.
In this case, the Christians are primarily Greeks and the Greeks have
attacked the Jewish community in Salonica in the past. The presence of the French will serve to
pacify the situation, thus helping to protect the Jewish population.
1878(4th
of Iyar, 5638): Samuel Jefferson,”
“a farmer in the Mud Creek community of
Lamar Co., AL who was “the second
of three sons born to Isaac and Zipporah Mordecai, the husband of the former
Martha Louisa Tarrant with whom he had ten children and the great-grandson of
Rabbi Mordecai Moses Mordecai, passed away today.
1879(14th
of Iyar, 5639): Pesach Sheni observed today as Californians went to the polls
and adopted the new constitution “by a vote of 77,959 to 67,134.
1881:
The Symphony Society which had been co-founded by Leopold Damrosch in 1877
“reached its climax” today “in the great musical festival held in the armory of
the 7th regiment in New York City
1881:
Clara Levine, the New York born son of Elizabeth and Moses Cohen and her
husband Julius Levine gave birth to Albert Julius Levine, the husband of Julie
Adelaide Oppenheimer Levine and the father of John Henry Levine; Edward Albert
Levine Lawrence and Albert Julius Levine Jr.
1882(18th
of Iyar, 5642): Lag B'Omer
1882:
Gustave and Louisa Nelson Harrison gave birth to Gertrude Harrison Lilienthal,
the wife of Harry Lilienthal.
1884(12th
of Iyar, 5644): Judah P Benjamin passed away. "Born in the West
Indies in 1811 to observant Jewish parents, Benjamin was raised in Charleston,
South Carolina. A brilliant child, at age 14 he attended Yale Law School and,
on graduation, practiced law in New Orleans. A founder of the Illinois Central
Railroad, a state legislator, a planter, Benjamin was elected to the U.S.
Senate from Louisiana during the 1850's. When the South seceded,
Benjamin joined the Confederate government serving as Attorney-General,
Secretary of War and Secretary of State. He was called "old
brains" by his admirers and an "Israelite in Egyptian
clothing" by his detractors. After the war, Benjamin sought refuge
in England where he began life again as a barrister and writer. His only
offspring was a daughter who had him buried in a Parisian cemetery.
1884(12th
of Iyar, 5642):Dov Ber Goldberg, the native of Poland who gained fame as the
French scholar who “devoted himself to the publication of editions of Jewish
manuscripts in European libraries passed away today in Paris.
1885:
In New Orleans, Wilhelmina Kock and railway engineer Julius Kruttschnitt gave
birth to Yale graduate and mining executive Julius Kruttschnitt, the husband of
Edna May Roger whom he married after the death of his first wife Marie Rose
Pickering who made his mark in Australia where among other things he “was a
member of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission's advisory committee on
uranium mining and was a board-member of the faculty of engineering at the
University of Queensland.’
https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kruttschnitt-julius-7001
1886:
In “Baranovka, Russia,” “Jacob and Brucha (Cantor) Gusman gave birth who in
1901 came to the United States where he worked in a factory “making
pocketbooks,” before rising to the Presidency of Import Drug Specialties and
then becoming a banker in Cleveland where he lived with his wife Hanna C.
Epstein served as Treasurer of the Cleveland United Palestine Appeal and
President of B’nai B’rith.
1887: Birthdate Benjamin Glazer, the Belfast born born director and Oscar
winning writer who “was one of the founding members of the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences passed away today.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-10680141.html
https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt4z09n74z/
1888:
Sixty-six-year-old Leone Levi passed away.
Born in Italy, as soon as he arrived in Liverpool, he applied for
British citizenship and gave up Judaism for membership in the Presbyterian
Church. He may have seen this as the
only path to a successful legal career.
1889:
In Charleston, SC, William Cecil Cohen married Agnes McKee.
1891:
“Jewish Persecution Suspended” published today described the sudden decision of
the Russian government to suspend the expulsion of the Jews from Moscow.
1892:
In Glencoe, IL, Scottish-born Andrew MacLeish, a founder of the Chicago
department store Carson Pirie Scott and Martha Hillard, a college professor and
who had served as president of Rockford College gave birth to Yale and Harvard
graduate and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Archibald MacLeish author of ‘J. B.,’ a play in verse based on the biblical
story of Job that “represents Archibald MacLeish’s responses to the horrors he
saw during two world wars, including the Holocaust and the bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/j-b
1893
In Ashville, North Carolina founding of Congregation
Beth Ha Tephilla (House of Prayer) that owned a cemetery on Riverside Drive.
1893:
“Tales The Rabbis Told” published today provides detailed review of Stories
From The Rabbis by Abram S. Isaacs, the Professor of Hebrew at the
University of the City of New York
1893:
Based on cablegram from Harold Frederic, its London correspondent, the New York
Times reported that in February the Russian government had issued an edict of
expulsion that will affect each of the 1,500,000 Jews living in Poland. For two months, the Russians kept the edict
of expulsion a secret. Word only leaked
out as the Jews began to approach the borders of various European countries. Today’s story in The Times was the first
report of the expulsion to be published in an American newspaper. The report has fallen like a “thunderclap
among the Jews of New York.”
1893:
“Polish Jews Thrust Out” published today verified that that “a wholesale
expulsion of Jews has begun in the Kingdom of Poland.” There are approximately
a million and half Jews in Poland, “about four times the number affected by the
Passover edicts of 1891 in Russia.”
1894(1st
of Iyar, 5654): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1894(1st
of Iyar, 5654): “A Jew-baiting” mob attacked the Jewish section of Grajewo,
Poland “looting the shops and houses, beating the men and insulting the women”
before setting fire to several stores.
1895:
Seth Low and Isidor Straus opened the East Side Free Art Exhibition at the
Hebrew Institute on East Broadway and Jefferson.
1895:
William Jack of Scotland received $600 as part of the Hebrew Fellowship awarded
during the Commencement exercises of the Princeton Theological Seminary in
Princeton, NJ
1896:
Dr. Walter T. Scheele “who is a fierce and aggressive Jew hater” attacked the
Jews at Kruger’s Saloon” and was then “forced to leave the place” and “run for
his life.”
1896:
Birthdate of Joe Jacobs, the manager of Max Schmeling.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jacobs-joe
1897: Eighty-year-old Ion Ghica “who was Prime
Minister of Romania five times” and who “was a valuable ally for Yiddish
theatre in Bucharest” having obtained, in 1881, for the National Theater the
costumes that had been used for a Yiddish pageant on the coronation of King Solomon,
which had been timed in tribute to the actual coronation of Carol I of Romania”
passed away today
1898:
As the opening lecture in his series on “What Christendom Owes to the Jew” Dr.
Madison C. Peters has chosen to talk on “The Jew as a Patriot.”
1898:
Birthdate of Maclyn F. “Mac” Baker the NYU basketball star whose career was
interrupted by two years of military service in World War who decided not play
professional baseball to pursue a career a medical career as a surgeon and a
team doctor for Seton Hall University.
1898:
Birthdate of Minsk native Samuel Leaf who “started various candy companies
beginning in the 1920’s” and who founded Leaf Brands in Chicago in 1947 when he
merged his various candy making operations.
https://leafbrands.com/about-us/
1898:
Captain Albert Steinhauser of New Ulm and Privates Joseph Abel and Henry Heller
of Winona were among those who were mustered into the service today as members
of the 12th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry.
1898:
Private Samuel O. Abrams of Minneapolis and Privates Herman E. Heller and Frank
H. Wesenberg both of St. Paul were among those who were mustered into the
service today as members of the 13th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry.
1899:
Thanks to the efforts of the Mt. Zion Hospital Association the new Jewish
hospital in San Francisco began accepting patients today including “poor person
who are admitted regardless of creed or color.
1899:
Punch and Judy visited the Hebrew Infant Asylum this afternoon and “entertained
the youngsters with their antics.”
1899:
Sargent George M. Appel completed his service with the First United States
Volunteer Engineers.
1899:
Dr. Felix Adler is scheduled to “deliver an address on ‘More Light’” this
morning in the Music Hall.
1899:
“The last Sunday service for this season” is scheduled to be held this morning
at Temple Beth-El “when Rabbi Samuel Schulman will preach on the subject of
‘Youth.’”
1899:
“The East Side Physician” published today described the desperate conditions of
druggists and physicians (some of whom get paid only five cents for patient
visit) who are working on the lower East
Side where the population is predominately Jewish.
1899:
According to a summary of their April report published today, the United Hebrew
Charities received 2,510 applications for aid that impacted 8,637 individuals.
1899:
Tonight, the Rev. Dr. Madison C. Peters of the Bloomingdale Reformed Church
began a series of Sunday evening lectures on "What Christendom Owes to the
Jew." Dr. Peters took for his subject "The Jew as a Patriot." He
said: "One of the gravest charges ever brought against the Jew is that he
is not and cannot be a patriot.
1900:
In Cincinnati, OH “at a joint meeting of the Executive Board of American Hebrew
Congregations, the Board of Governors of the Hebrew Union College and of the
Alumni Association of the Hebrew College an appeal was issued “to the Jews of
the United States” asking for their support “of the efforts now being made to
create an endowment fund for the permanent support and maintenance of the
Hebrew Union College to be known as the Isaac M. Wise Memorial Fund.”
1901(18th
of Iyar, 5661): Lag B’Omer
1901: Herzl finally receives an audience with the
Sultan.
1902:
It was reported today that plans have been filed “for the new building to be
erected for the Jewish Theological Seminary” and that name of Jacob H. Schiff,
who has helped to endow the institution, “appeared as owner in connection of
the plans” that were filed for the three story building designed by A.W.
Brunnner which is projected to cost $75,000.
1903:
Today, at the 135th annual meeting of the New York Chamber of
Commerce, August Blemont was named to serve on the Finance and Currency
Committee.
1904(22nd
of Iyar, 5664): Parashat Behar-Bechukotai
1904:
Paintings by J. Campbell Phillips, including “many from Palestine” are on
display at the new Hogarth Head art gallery.
1904:
“A Biblical Story” published today provides a review of In Old Egypt by H.
Pereira Menes which “is as the subtitle indicates a story about the Bible but
not in the Bible.”
1905:
Anti-Jewish violence broke out today in Zhitomir, the capital of Volhynia,
Russia.
1906(12th
of Iyar, 5666): Fifty-four-year-old Max Judd passed away. Born in Galicia, he came to the United States
in 1862 where he became a successful cloak manufacturer who found the St. Louis
Chess Club. President Cleveland refused
to bow to Austrian anti-Semitism and insisted on appointing Judd as U.S.
Counsel to that kingdom.
1906:
Birthdate of Sydney Harry “Syd” Cohen, the brother of New York Giants second
baseman Andy Cohen who pitched for three years during the 1930’s with the
Washington Senators where his teammates included Buddy Myer, Fred Sington and
the most mysterious baseball player of all times – Moe Berg!
1907:
Today, the representatives of Jewish aid associations of Berlin, Frankfort,
Paris and Bucharest who are meeting in Vienna, decided that they did not have
the funds available to aid the thousands of Romanian Jews who are fleeing the
anti-Semitic violence in that country and sent letters to “Jewish associations”
in New York and London apprising them of the situation.
1908
(6th of Iyar, 5668): Adolf Arthur Abrahams, the one-year-old son of
Fannie Danovitch and Max Abrahams passed away today a Riverside Hospital after
which he was buried in Beth El Cemetery in Queens.
1908:
French author and playwright Ludovic Halévy passed away. His pedigree is not that unusual a tale for
European Jewry in the period between Waterloo and Sarajevo. His father was Jewish. He converted so that he could marry a
Christian woman.
1908(6th
of Iyar, 5668): Fifty-three-year-old Bohemian born “Arabist and archeologist”
Eduard Glaser who made three separate expeditions to Yemen passed away today in
Munich where his grave “contained the words ‘The greatest and the best man of
all has left us.’”
https://www.wdl.org/en/item/16771/
1909:
Birthdate of Leo Henryk Sternbach, the Polish chemist who escaped Hitler’s
Europe in 1941 and continued his career in the United States where he
discovered benzodiazepines.
1909:
Birthdate of Edwin H Land. Born in Bridgeport, Conn., this Harvard
dropout contributed to scientific advances in the fields of photography and
human optics. His most famous invention was in the field of instant
photography. In 1947, he unveiled an instant imaging
camera. Within two years, Polaroid was producing the camera and
it became a commercial success. Land passed away in March of 1991.
1910:
Birthdate of Philadelphia native, Saul Nathan Lev, and the University of
Pennsylvania trained electrical engineer.
1911:
Porfirio Diaz, under whose Presidency (or dictatorship) the Jewish community
began to grow because of their connection with is call for foreign investors to
come to the country issued a manifesto giving the terms under which he would
leave office.
1912:
Columbia University approved plans for awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several
categories. The award was established by Joseph Pulitzer. When he
died in 1911, Pulitzer left $2 million for the establishment of a school of
journalism at Columbia University and a fund that established annual prizes for
literature, drama, music and journalism. Since 1922 Pulitzer Prizes have also
been awarded to cartoonists. Yes, the highest award in "American
Letters" was started by a German-Jewish immigrant.
1913:
In Salt Lake City, Utah, Clara (Trestman) and Benjamin Ramo gave birth to Simon
Ramo who played a leading role in developing the ICBM and the founding of what
became TRW.
1913:
Mrs. Charlotte E. Rubel sang for those attending the 17th annual
meeting of the Isaiah Women’s Club which Mrs. Victor Frankenstein was elected
President and Mrs. Abraham Weil was elected Vice President
1914:
Today, at the resumption of the hearing into charges that bribery was used to
obtain affidavits exonerating Leo Franks of the murder of Mary Phagan the
defense “will introduce some new evidence bearing on the Epps, Isom and Allen
affidavits” before closing its case.
1915:
It was reported today that Jewish Publication Society has announced “the
forthcoming publication of a new English translation of the Bible, the annual
American Jewish Year Book and Max Radin history of the Jews among the Greeks
and Romans.”
1915:
The RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by
“The German U-boat U-20” off the coast of Ireland “causing the deaths of 1,198
passengers and crew” and helping to pave the way for the entrance of the United
States into the war on the Allied side two years later. (For more read Dead
Wake: The Last Crossing of the RMS
Lusitania by Erik Larson which is available in both hardback and paperback)
http://www.sdjewishworld.com/2016/04/03/jewish-library-dead-wake/
1915(23rd
of Iyar, 5675): A month and a week before his 59th birthday,
American theatrical producer Charles Frohman died when the RMS Lusitania was
torpedoed by “The German U-boat U-20”
off the coast of Ireland.
http://www.rmslusitania.info/people/saloon/charles-frohman/
1915:
It was reported today that “among the many petitions” “received daily” by the
Governor of Georgia asking “for a commutation Leo Frank’s sentence” was one
“signed by the members of the Cornell Alumni Association of Western
Pennsylvania attesting to the character of Frank who was an alum of the
university.
1915:
In Chicago, “plans for a ‘Leo M. Frank Day’ on which hundreds of women of all
nationalities equipped with petitions will ask citizens to sign protests
against Leo Frank’s execution are being completed by the Leo M. Frank
Committee.”
1916:
“Jews, Greeks, Romans” published today provides a review of The Jews Among the
Greek and Romans by Max Radin which starts “at the time of Alexander when the
Jews as one of the Mediterranean nations began to come into closes contact with
Greek civilization” and ends at with the beginning of the dominance of
Christianity.
1916:
In Philadelphia, PA, Jacob H. Schiff is scheduled to deliver the address this
evening at the annual meeting of the Jewish Publication Society of America with
Henry Miller Serving as President and Henry Fernberger as Treasurer.
1916:
Supreme Court Justice Hugo Pan of Illinois spoke on “Preparedness and the Jews”
at tonight’s dinner sponsored by the Federation of Jewish Charities of Brooklyn
which was attended by more than 1,000 people including Rabbi Nehemiah Boynton
and Justice Luke B. Stapleton of Brooklyn.
1916:
As of today, The Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the
War of which Harry Fischel is Treasurer has collected “more than $1,080,000
1916:
In Peekskill, NY Louis and Gussie Rubenfield gave birth to the eldest of their
six children, Leonard Rubenfeld, a graduate of the University of Alabam and
Fordham Law School and WW II Army combat veteran who held a variety of legal
and judicial positions in and around Peekskill and Westchester Country.
1917:
The mandate of Music Publisher’s Protective Association (NMPA) whose founders
included Harry Von Tilzer to put an “end to the practice of publishers having
to pay vaudeville theatres for performing their music” went into effect today.
1917:
Three days after she had passed away, 78-year-old Rosa (Esther) Salomons the
daughter of Rueben Salomons and Sarah Hurwitz was buried today at the “Balls
Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1917:
“Rabbi Stephen S. Wise came to Simsbury and delivered an address on “The World
War for the Liberation of Humanity” to a standing room only crowd. So many
people turned out to hear him that his lecture was delayed as chairs were sent
for to accommodate the standing crowd at the rear of the hall. ‘It was the most
successful mass meeting held in Simsbury’, wrote Julia E. Pattison, League
Secretary. There is a story attributed to Rabbi Wise that upon meeting a rather
aloof New England gentleman with ancestors that he wore on his sleeve the man
announced that his antecedent had signed the Declaration of Independence. Rabbi
Wise paused and replied that his ancestors had signed the Ten Commandments.
1917:
It was reported today that Russian Cantor Josef Rosnblatt is making a tour of
thirty American cities where his concerts are intended to raise part of the ten
million dollars that the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering
Through the War needs to reach its goal for this year.
1917:
In London, the Jewish Chronicle
provides further details based on eyewitness accounts of the plight of Jews
living in Palestine, which is under the control of the Ottoman Empire. According to these accounts, the evacuation
of the civil population of Jaffa that had been ordered by the Turks as a
military measure was aimed against the Jews since all Jews including those of
Turkey’s allies – Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire – were forced to
leave while Mohammedans and Christians, regardless of nationality, were allowed
to stay. In all, 8,000 Jews were forced
from their homes in Jaffa. The homes of the Jews of Jaffa and neighboring Tel
Aviv were looted by mobs as the authorities looked on without taking any action. Two Jews were hanged at the entrance to Tel
Aviv as a warning to those who might resist and an ad hoc unit of Jewish guards
was arrested and imprisoned. The deportations stretched to the ancient Jewish
community in Jerusalem where three hundred Jews were deported “amid
circumstances of the utmost cruelty.”
1917(15th
of Iyar, 5677): Retired stockbroker Agil Cantor, the “brother of former Borough
President Jacob A. Cantor of Manhattan” passed away today in his 63rd
year.
1917:
It was reported today that “preparations for the election of delegates of the
American Jewish Congress are no proceeding and all through this week meetings
will be held here to stimulate enthusiasm and interest in this week.
1917:
“The Annual meeting of the local section of the Council of Jewish Women took
place today at Temple Emanu-El.
1918:
During their convention in Philadelphia, The Mizrachi Zionist Organization
adopted the single tax plan of land control “as the best system under which the
Jews can return to take possession of Palestine under the protection of the
Allies.” The plan is based on the
concept that “the land be assessed and valued at the figures at which it stood
before the war in 1914, making allowances for improvements.”
1919:
Birthdate of Boris Slutsky, a Russian poet, whose work incorporated Jewish
themes, including Jewish tradition, anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic phenomena in
the Soviet society and the Holocaust. He translated the works of Kvitko,
Verghelis, Galkin, Shvartzman, Y.Sternberg and others from Yiddish into
Russian.
1919:
President George Kurtzon declined re-election at Temple Judea’s annual meeting
this evening in Chicago.
1919:
During the peace negotiations at Versailles, “when faced with conditions
dictated by the victors, including the “War Guilt Clause” Foreign Minister
Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau the head of the German delegation told the Allied Leaders – Clemenceau, Lloyd
George and Woodrow Wilson - "We
know the full brunt of hate that confronts us here. You demand from us to
confess we were the only guilty party of war; such a confession in my mouth
would be a lie.” This treatment of the
Germans at Versailles, contributed to the lack of support for the treaty and
would serve to strengthen the hand of the Hitlerites in their quest to destroy
the Weimar Republic.
1920:
“Jewish Actors In ‘Naomi’” published today described the debut performance “Naomi,”
a new play by “a new playwright Mark Arnstein and introducing a new star,
Henrietta Schnitzer” that included performances by Gerson Rubin, Bira Abramovitz,
Jehiel Goldsmith, Ida Feldman and Lucy German.
1920:
“More than $600,000 was added today to the total contributions thus far
received toward the $7,500,000 sought as New York's quota of a giant fund for
the relief of Jewish war sufferers in Central and Eastern Europe.”
1921(29th
of Nisan, 5681): Parashat Achrei Mot
1921(29th
of Nisan, 5681): After a week of riots came to an end in Jaffa with 48 Arabs
and 47 Jews killed and 73 Arabs and 140 Jews wounded.
1922:
In Michigan, Samuel and Celia Kaufman gave birth to Donald Bruce Kaufman, the
husband of “Glorya Kaufman.”
1923(21st
of Iyar, 5683): Eighty-three year old Adolf Neubauer, the son of Karl and
Theresia Neubauer and husband of Klara Neubauer passed away today in what is
now the Czech Republic.
1923:
Just days before her death, Mrs. Gussis Goldberg was taken to the Rockaway
Beach Hospital with an injured hip. The 106-year-old
widow and mother of Joseph Goldberg, was “believed to the oldest resident of
Far Rockaway.” (As reported by JTA)
1924:
“Dr. Chaim Weismann, President of the World Zionist Organization starts for
home today the Cunard vessel Aquitania.”
1924:
In Upper Sielsia, David Lustiger and his wife gave birth to Arno Lustiger
Holocaust survivor, businessman and amateur historian who document “the history
of Jewish resistance under Nazi rule.”
1925:
Birthdate of Norfolk, VA native and
Virginia Polytechnic Institute graduate Stanley Ragone, the president of
Virginia Electric and Power Company who raised three children with his wife
Bertha with whom he died in a traffic accident in 1980.
1926:
Birthdate of Joseph Ehrenkranz, the native of Newark, NJ. who served as rabbi
of Congregation Agudath Sholom in Stamford, CT and “who played a leading role
in Jewish Catholic dialogue.”
1927:
In Cologne, Germany Marcus and Eleanora gave birth to Ruth Prawer who gained
fame as Ruth Prawer Jhabvala award winning novelist and Academy Award winning
screenwriter. She won Oscars for “Room
with a View” and “Howards End.”
1928:
In Philadelphia, Frieda Stern “a musician and homemaker” and “Jacob Siegel, an
overcoat manufacturer who had immigrated from Romania” gave birth to Lehigh
University graduate ‘Herbert J. Siegel, a maverick investor who became a
billionaire entertainment-industry mogul most notable for finally enabling the
merger of Warner Communications and Time Inc. in 1989 and for selling 10
television stations to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in 2000” who married
Jeanne Sorenson after the death of “Ann Levy whose father Isaac D. Levy had
been an organize of CBS.” (As reported by Sam Roberts)
1928:
There is in New York State no spirit of intolerance that would prevent
elevation of one of Jewish faith to the highest office, former Representative
Isaac Siegel asserted tonight, at the eleventh anniversary dinner of the
Institutional Synagogue” where attendees also heard speeches by Attorney
General Albert Ottinger and Dr. Herbert S. Goldstein, the rabbi of the
Institutional Synagogue.
1929:
The Flonzaley Quartet which had played the String Quartet No. 1 by Erin
Schulhoff “broadcast their farewell concert over radio station WEAF” today.
1930:
Birthdate of Totie Fields. Born Sophie
Feldman, in Hartford Connecticut, Ms. Fields switched from mildly unsuccessful
singer to highly successful comedienne.
Her pudgy physique was her comedic “shtick” as made fun of her weight,
appearance and the diet industry. She
died from health problems. “I went on a
diet for two weeks and all I lost was fourteen days.”
1931:
Today, “Alfred M. Cohen, international president of B’nai B’rith wired
Secretary of State Stimson urging him to protest against the alleged
mistreatment of Jews in Mexico City” following reports of ill-treatment of
Jewish vendors in Mexico City that included the claim that a 12-year-old Jewish
boy had been killed.
1932(1st
of Iyar, 5692): Parashat Kedoshim; Rosh Chodesh observed for the last time
during the President of Herbert Hoover.
1933(11th
of Iyar, 5693): Thirty-four-year-old Nelly (nee Bamberger) Neppach the husband of
architect and producer Robert Neppach and “the first German female tennis player
to establish an international reputation” committed suicide after she “was
forced out of the sport” by the German federation which had announced in April “that
Jewish players were no longer allowed to play international tournaments.”
1933:
In Savannah, GA, a large crowd of Jews and Christians attend a ceremony at
Congregation Mickve Israel to mark the 200th anniversary of the
arrival of Jews in what was then the colony of Georgia.
1934:
The district of Birobidzhan in Russia was established as a Jewish
Autonomous Region which was to cover an area of 36,000 sq. km. Its official
language would be Yiddish. Within two years Stalin had a change of
heart and its Jewish socialist leaders were liquidated. Although a library and
theater were established, it never reached a population of more than 18,000,
less than one-fourth of the total population of the region, partly due to its
primitiveness and remoteness.
1935:
“In the presence of the entire Board of Estimate except Mayor La Guardia, who
spoke by telephone from Washington, Bernard S. Deutsch, President of the Board
of Aldermen, was honored tonight as a public leader and a Jewish champion by
1,000 friends at a dinner at the Hotel Commodore.”
1936:
Despite the High Commissioner's warning Arab leaders at a general conference
held in Jerusalem representing all Arab towns unanimously called for a campaign
of civil disobedience by all Arabs in Palestine including the refusal to pay
taxes and “a boycott of everything Jewish.” Jerusalem Mayor Khalidi has become
so active in the Arab cause that he did not attend the meeting of the Jerusalem
City Council; an absence which was condemned by the six Jewish councilors.
1936:
In Romania, “approximately 2,000 students belong to the Iron Guard” “assaulted
Jews in the streets today and attempted to prevent professors and other
students from entering buildings” at the “Bucharest University.”
1936:
“A cheap diamond ring, said to have been pledged in a transaction involving
$200 led” today “to the arrest of Miss Mary Berd, 36 year old secretary of
Rabbi Zeida Schmellner” whose arrived in the United States from Rumania in 1925
was an important enough event to rate a reception hosted by the Mayor
1936:
Anti-Semitic students who had been arrested for assaulting Jews issued “a
manifesto” from their jails today saying that “Rumanian students are prepared
to die for their fatherland to free the country from corruption and
degeneration and wipe out these tools of Jews and Free Masons.” (Editor’s note – another clue as to why the
Germans had so much success in murdering six million Jews.)
1936:
After 169 performances the curtain came down on “Jubilee” a musical comedy with
a book by Moss Hart at the Imperial Theatre.
1937:
“Café Metrople” a drama written by Gregory Ratoff who also appeared in the role
of “Paul” was released in the United States today.
1937:
During the Spanish Civil War, The German Condor Legion, arrived in Spain to
provide air cover for the fascist forces of Francisco Franco. The Germans used the Spanish Civil War as a
training ground for its forces which accounted for some of their early
successes starting in 1939. The failure of the western liberal regimes to
counter the German efforts was one more step on the road to the war that would
lead to the Holocaust. Hitler thought
that the Spanish should have become active members of the Axis alliance as
payment for his help.
1938: Today
Ohio St. alum Sidney Bernard Finn, the award winning Harvard trained dentist
who was the married Irma Harriet Rubens with whom he had two children –
Catherine and Andrew.
1938(6th
of Iyar, 5698): “Moses Phillip Ginzburg, founder and publisher of the Daily Jewish Courier and a leader of
Chicago’s Jewish community for more than half a century passed away today at
the age of 75.” Born in Poland, Ginzburg
came to Chicago in 1883. Five years
later he founded the Jewish daily which would play a major role in his and his
wife, Feige Rachel Levin’s, lives. A
month before his death, the couple was honored at a dinner attended by 1,500
guests who celebrated their golden wedding anniversary.
1938:
Birthdate of Gordon Davidson, the Brooklyn born electrical engineer who became
a Tony Award winning director.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/gordon-davidson-moses-of-las-theater-scene-dies-at-83/
1939(18th
of Iyar, 5699): Lag B’Omer
1939:
In Montreal, “Ray (Arlin), a
textile worker, and Victor Altman, a grocer” gave birth to Sidney
Altman, the Sterling Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental
Biology and Chemistry at Yale University who shared in the Nobel Prize for
Chemistry in 1989.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1989/altman/biographical/
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/sidney-altman
1940:
President Roosevelt me with Nathan Straus, the Administrator of the U.S.
Housing Authority this morning at the White House.
1940(29th
of Nisan, 5700): Seventy-one-year-old Homanna, Hungary native Morris Newfield
who in 1894 came to the United States
where graduated from Hebrew Union College, became the rabbi at Temple
Emanu-El, married Leah Ullman, the daughter of Samuel Ullman, with whom he
raised four children, Emma, Mayer, Lena and John Newfield passed away today.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/newfield-morris
http://americanjewisharchives.org/publications/journal/PDF/2007_59_01_02_doc_langston.pdf
1941: As Arab continued their violent attacks on the Jews
of Iraq, "a number of Arabs youths burst into a circumcision ceremony,
knives in hand, murdering a young boy and wounding his brother." (In
Ishmael's House by Martin Gilbert)
1942:
Nazi decree orders all Jewish pregnant women of Kovno Ghetto executed
1943:
During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Pawel Burskin led a group of Jewish fighters
through the sewers to the "Aryan ‘sector. They were ambushed by
German troops, captured and shot.
1943:
“About 860 men, women and children categorized as “gypsies and gypsy
half-breeds” arrived at the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz near
the Polish city of Oświęcim, to where they were deported from Moravia and the
"gypsy camp" Lety u Písku in Bohemia, by then “Protectorate of
Bohemia and Moravia”. On this occasion, and to commemorate their fates, we
publish a text by the historian Michal Schuster on the history of the “gypsy
camp” in Auschwitz-Birkenau.”
1943:
Sephardic-Jewish homes in Tunisia are ransacked and looted by departing German
troops.
1944(21st
of Iyar, 5704): Pesach Sheni
1944(21st
of Iyar, 5704): Twenty-three-year-old Philadelphia born Flying Officer Elmer
Oscar Aaron (RCAF) who had enlisted in 1942, received his commission in 1943
and flown 14 mission was killed while “participating in a raid on Tours,
France.
1944:
During WW II, one month before the Normandy invasion, 1,500 bombers from the
U.S, 8th Air Force attacked Berlin today.
1945:
Hitler makes the cover of Time Magazine again but this time with a giant X
across the cover.
http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19450507,00.html
1945:
Under the headline “Foreign News: Dachau” published today, Time magazine
gave its readers the following description of the German concentration camp.
When
all other German prison camps are forgotten the name of Dachau will still be
infamous. It was the first concentration camp set up for Hitler, and its mere
name was a whispered word of terror through all Germany from the earliest days
of Nazi control. It was one of the largest of the camps to which opponents of
Naziism were sent. And here, too, was concentrated the flower of Nazi sadists
whose business was torture and death. Last week the U.S. Seventh Army entered
Dachau and liberated 32,000 of its still living inmates. With them went TIME
Correspondent Sidney Olson. His report: Beside the highway into Dachau there
runs a spur line off the Munich railroad. Here a soldier stopped us and said:
"I think you better take a look at these box-cars." The cars were
filled with dead men. Most of them were naked. On their bony, emaciated backs
and rumps were whip marks. Most of the cars were open-top cars like American
coal cars. I walked along these cars and counted 39 of them which were filled
with these dead. The smell was very heavy. I cannot estimate with any
reasonable accuracy the number of dead we saw here, but I counted bodies in two
cars and there were 53 in one and 64 in another. The main entry road runs past
several largish buildings. These had been cleared; and now we began to meet the
liberated. Several hundred Russians, French, Yugoslavs, Italians and Poles were
here, frantically, hysterically happy. They began to kiss us, and there is
nothing you can do when a lot of hysterical, unshaven, lice-bitten, half-drunk,
typhus-infected men want to kiss you. Nothing at all. You cannot hit them, and
besides, they all kiss you at the same time. It is no good trying to explain
that you are only a correspondent. A half-dozen of them were especially happy
and it turned out they were very proud: they had killed two German soldiers
themselves. Skeleton Stacks. We went on, and the great size of the establishment
of Dachau began to open before us. Buildings and barracks spread on and on.
Outside one building, half covered by a brown tarpaulin, was a stack about five
feet high and about 20 feet wide of naked dead bodies, all of them emaciated.
We went on around this building and came to the central crematory. The rooms
here, in order, were: 1) the office where the living and the dead were passed
through and where all their clothing was stripped from them; 2) the Brausebad
(shower) room, where the victims were gassed; and 3) the crematory. In the
crematory were two large furnaces. Before the two furnaces were hooks and
pulleys on rafters above them. Here, according to a number of Frenchmen, the SS
men often hanged prisoners by the necks or by the thumbs or whatever their
fancy dictated. From here the victims could watch while being whipped and
tortured as their comrades were slid into the furnace. Each of these pitiful,
happy, starved, hysterical men wanted to tell us his home country, his home
city, and ask us news and beg for cigarets. The eyes of these men defy my
powers of description. They are the eyes of men who have lived in a super-hell
of horrors for many years, and are now driven half-crazy by the liberation they
have prayed so hopelessly for. Again & again, in all languages, they called
on God to witness their joy. Heart of Darkness. But though we were tired from
the long journey, we were lured on and on and on, from building to building.
What lured us was a sound which at first we had thought was the wind in the
pines of Dachau. Then after a while we knew it was cheering — the sound of
thousands of men cheering and cheering again. At last we came to a high wooden
wall and went through the gates'. Before us stretched the great prison compound
of Dachau. This must be at least one square mile in extent. In & out of
this vast stretch of open compound studded with low barracks were swarming the
liberated men of Dachau. I cannot pre tend to estimate the number with any
exactness. But there were many thousand. These men, cheering as hard as their
feeble strength would permit, tore them selves getting through the barbed wire
to touch us, to talk to us. Some of them were nearly mad with joy. Here were
the men of all nations whom Hitler's agents had picked out as prime opponents
of Naziism; here were the very earliest Hitler haters. Here were German social
democrats, Spanish survivors of the Spanish Civil War, a correspondent for the
Paris Soir, who cried so hard I could not get his name. Joy in the Inferno. We
went into one barracks after another. So many men were sick and possibly dying
of starvation and beatings that they merely lay or leaned or sat shoulder to
shoulder, too weak to do more than grin glassily. It was here that we even
found some Hindus. All this time the cheering went on, and we were being
forcibly mobbed by hundreds of men strong as only the half-insane can be,
kissed and kissed again by men who stank like the inferno, obviously sick
toward death of all kinds of illnesses. One giant Russian held me for at least
30 seconds while he kissed all over the U.S. insignia on my coat. They shouted
in all languages but sometimes in American phrases; one little Pole ran beside
us until he dropped flat, shouting desperately: "Hello, boys!"
1945:
At 02:41 in the morning at SHAEF headquarters in Reims, France, the
Chief-of-Staff of the German Armed Forces High Command, General Alfred Jodl,
signed the unconditional surrender documents for all German forces to the
Allies. The surrender would go into effect on the following day, May 8, 1945
which would mean the end of the Holocaust.
1945(24th
of Iyar, 5705): Hungarian novelist Andor Endre Gelleri, age 38, dies at
the Mauthausen, Austria, slave-labor camp two days after liberation.
1945:
One day before her 21st birthday Gerda Weissman Klein, “a
Polish-born American writer and human rights activist whose autobiographical
account of the Holocaust, All but My Life was adapted for the 1995 short
film, One Survivor Remembers, which received an Academy Award” met her future
husband Lieutenant Kurt Klein, whose parents had been murdered at Auschwitz and
whose part of the force liberating in Volary, Czechoslovakia..
1946:
Birthdate of English author Michael Rosen.
1946:
“A rise in discrimination against Jews, including veterans of the war, was
reported today in the regular monthly bulletin of the National Community
Relations Advisory Council following a survey of employment conditions in
fifteen major industrial centers.”
1947:
“Observance of the second anniversary of V-E Day must be tempered by the
realization that most of Europe's Jews "still know no peace," leaders
of the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York said” today in statement signed
by Mrs. David M. Levy, Barney Balaban, Samuel Hausman, Herbert H. Lehman and
Edward M.M. Warburg, “the five co-chairman of the local drive for $65 million
which is part of a national campaign for $170 million.
1948:
“American opposition to the partition of Palestine is blocking the hopes of
Arabs and Jews alike for freedom from ‘colonial oppression’ the Moscow radio
charged in an English-language broadcast tonight.”
1948:
“The Arabs agreed today to a cease-fire in all Jerusalem beginning at noon
tomorrow, and the Jews said they would comply if the Arabs actually halted
their firing.”
1948:
“Berta Gersten will be co-starred with Ver a Rosanko in ‘The Jolly Gang,’ a new
Yiddish musical comedy by Israel Rosenberg and Philip Laskofsky which” is
scheduled to open this evening at the Clinton Theatre.
1949(8th
of Iyar, 5709) Parashat Achrei Mot-Kedoshim
1949:
Two thousand Jews who have escaped from Communist Hungary are getting to spend
their first celebrated their first Shabbat in the free city of Vienna.
1949:
Officials of the American Jewish Committee, reported today at the opening
session of the spring meeting of its executive body, that only permanent peace between the Arab
nations and Israel could assure the solution of Israel's pressing economic and
rehabilitation problems.
1950:
“The Damned Don’t Cry,” an “American film noir crime-drama directed by Vincent
Sherman” who also co-authored the script, produced by Jerry Wald and edited by
Rudi Fehr
1950:
In the Terrace Room at Hotel Thayer, Rabbi Maurice Bloom of Newburgh officiated
at the wedding of Phyllys Shapiro and Donald G. Weiss.
1950:
The government is scheduled to send its formal reply to the United Nations
concerning “the Palestine Conciliations Commission’s proposal for peace
negotiations.” Israel is willing to send
delegates to a meeting that is held without pre-conditions while the Arab
states have announced that they will only come if the “return of Palestine
refugees is the first item on the agenda.”
1952:
A cheering crowd of 5,000 greeted Haifa’s Mayor Abba Khoushy and New York’s
Mayor Impellitteri at official ceremonies at City Hall. Speakers at City Hall
and a luncheon that followed at the Waldorf-Astoria “emphasized Israel’s
devotion to democratic concepts and the need to consolidate the nation’s
economic position as a bulwark of democracy in the Middle East.”
1953:
Birthdate of Boston native James Braidy “Jim Steinberg, the Harvard and Yale
Law School graduate who has served Democratic presidents in a variety of
foreign policy positions including United States Deputy Secretary of State.
1954:
Birthdate of movie director Amy Heckerling, the Bronx native whose first
commercial success was “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
1955(15th
of Iyar, 5715): Parashat Emor
1955(15th
of Iyar, 5715): Eighty-four-year-old Sophie Adle, the Springfield, IL born daughter
of Samuel Rosenwald and Augusta Rosenwald, the wife of Manasseh Max Adler and mother
of Cyrus Max Adler; Robert Samuel Adler; Lois Maxine Feingold and Rosebud
Sperry passed away today in Beverly Hills.
1956:
In the suburbs of South Manchester, UK, “barrister Benet Hytner and his wife
Joyce gave birth to director Sir Nicholas Robert Hytner.
1958:
Today
Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion
rejected a request by B’nai Brith that Ze’ev Jabotinsky be reinterred in Israel
explaining
in a letter written B’nai Brith Vice President, Joseph Lamm,
that
"Israel does not need dead Jews, but living Jews, and I see no blessing in
multiplying graves in Israel." Could Ben Gurion’s
refusal to grant what was a wish contained in Jabotinsky’s last will and
testament been nothing more than a measure of revenge exacted against the
Revisionist leader whose followers would become the Irgun. With the approval of Levi Eshkol, Jabotinsky
and his wife were finally laid to rest in Jerusalem at Herzl Cemetery in 1964.
1958: U.S. premiere of “The Left Handed Gun” starring
Paul Newman as “Billy the Kid.”
1959: Paul Newman and Joan Woodward gave birth to Eilinor
Teresa Newman who “runs Newman’s Own Organics.”
1960:
After only 21 performances the curtain came down on the original Broadway
production of “From A to Z” a musical revue with a book by Woody Allen.
1960:
Los Angeles Dodger Catcher Norm Sherry hits an 11th inning homerun to
give his brother, Pitcher Larry Sherry, a 3 to 2 victory over
the Phillies. At the time, the Sherry brothers were the first and
only Jewish battery (pitcher and catcher) in major league baseball. From
1959 to 1962 the Dodgers had three Jewish players on their roster (the other
was Sandy Koufax) which some felt made them the "Jewish" baseball
team.
1960:
Birthdate of Adam Bernstein, the native of Brooklyn who “won a Primetime Emmy
Award for Outstanding Comedy Series” and who “married actress Jessica Hecht in
1995.”
1960:
Larry Blyden appeared for the last time in the role of “Sammy Fong” in Flower
Drum Song; a portrayal for which he received a Tony Nomination for Best Actor
in a Musical.
1960(10th
of Iyar, 5720): Seventy-six-year-old Charles Edward Sebag-Montefiore passed
away.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F00B16FC3E5916738DDDA00894DD405B808AF1D3
1962:
“Rabbi Moshe Yaffe, the executive director of the Chief Rabbinate at Jerusalem”
opened “a week-long ‘Festival of Israel’ in celebration of that country’s
anniversary was opened today at Sterling Forest Park, a botanical garden in
suburban Tuxedo” featuring daily programs “of costumed folk dancing and folk
singing by Zionist youth groups lectures on and about modern Israel,
photographic displays and exhibits of Israeli books, postage stamps and Israeli
exports
1963(13th
of Iyar, 5723): Theodore von Kármán, a Hungarian-American engineer and
physicist who was active primarily in the fields of aeronautics and
astronautics passed away.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jplhistory/learnmore/lm-vonkarman.php
1964: Birthdate
of Elliot Perlman, an
Australian author and barrister.
1965(5th
of Iyar, 5725): Seventy-five-year-old Samuel Lewin-Epstein the Jerusalem born
son of Eliyahu Ze'ev (Wolf) Lewin-Epstein and Judith Lewin-Epstein, the husband
of Madeline Lewin-Epstein and “the father of Professor Jacob Lewis-Epstein and
Noah Lewin-Epstein” passed away today in “Rechovot, Israel.”
1965:
Funeral services are scheduled to be held at the Riverside Chapel for Martin
Anenberg, the husband of Violet Anenberg who was a member of Temple Beth El in
Cedarhurst.
1967(27th
of Nisan,5727): Eighty-one-year-old London born Alfred e. Lyon, the “former
chairman of the board and president of Philip Morris passed away today in
Connecticut.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/05/09/89663586.html?pageNumber=46
1968:
Sixty-seven-year-old English actress Olga Lindo, the daughter of Jewish actor
Frank Lindo and his non-Jewish wife passed away today.
1968:
Premiere of “Where It’s At,” a comedy directed by Garson Kanin co-starring Don
Rickles.
1970:
NBC broadcast the final episode of “Daniel Boone” a television series based on
the American frontiersman produced by Aaron Rosenberg and Barney Rosenzweig
with a theme song co-authored by Lionel Newman.
1972:
“Jeremiah Johnson,” an off-beat western directed by Sydney Pollack premiered
today at Cannes.
1973(5th
of Iyar, 5733): Yom HaAtzma’ut
1973(5th
of Iyar, 5733): Sixty-four-year-old Egon Hostovský a Czech author and distant
relative of Stefan Zweig who was memorialized by the creation of the Egon
Hostovsky (Literary) Prize passed away today.
1973:
Liora Reich became the first woman to win the International Bible Quiz
1973: Carl Bernstein shares in the Pulitzer Prize
for his reporting on the Watergate Scandal.
1973:
Maxine Kumin won the Pulitzer Prize for her volume of poetry entitled Up Country: Poems of New England.
https://jwa.org/thisweek/may/07/1973/maxine-kumin
1974(15th
of Iyar, 5734): Seventy-five-year-old Inez M. Hellman Lasky, the Natchez, MS
born daughter of Moritz and Beulah Benjamin Hellman and the wife of Frederick
W. Feibelman passed away today in Indianapolis after which she was buried in
the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation South.
1975: “The Day of the Locust” a film version of
Nathaniel West’s novel by the same name, directed by John Schlesinger, produced
by Jerome Hellman and featuring Natalie Schafer as “Audrey Jennings” was
released today in the United States.
1977: The musical version of Happy End, a play by
Kurt Weill who was Jewish and Elisabeth Hauptman and Berolt Brecht who were refugees
from the Nazis premiere today on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre.
1978(30th of Nisan, 5738): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1978(30th of Nisan, 5738): Sixty-three-year-old
Mortimer “Mort” Weisinger ” an American magazine and comic book editor best
known for editing DC Comics' Superman during the mid-1950s to 1960s” passed
away today.
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Mort_Weisinger
1978: “Stamps” by Samuel Tower published today
described Israel’s philatelic offers in honor of her 30th
anniversary including the issuance of five stamps honoring “five heroes of the
Israeli Underground Movement including Abraham Stern, Yitzhak Sadeh, David
Raziel, Dr. Moshe Sneh and Eliyahu Golomb
1981(3rd of Iyar, 5741): Yom HaAtzma’ut
1981: Jewish Heritage Week came to an end.
1981: A revival of Lillian Hellman’s “The Little
Foxes” opened at the Martin Beck Theatre with Elizabeth Taylor as “Regina.”
1981(3rd of Iyar, 5741): Yom HaAtzma’ut
1982: “Paradise” a romantic adventure film starring
Phoebe Cates and featuring Yosef Shiloach as “Ahmed” which was filmed by
cinematographer Adam Greenberg was released today.
1982: “Death Valley” a horror film written by
Richard Rothstein was released today in the United States.
1983: At Cannes, premiere of “War Games” one of the first movies to center
around computer hacking produced by Leonard Goldberg, featuring Maury Chaykin
and with music by Arthur B. Rubinstein
1983: Today a recording of “It Might Be You” which
was performed in “Tootsie” starring Dustin Hoffman “with music written by Dave
Grusin, and lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman” which “was nominated
for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1983” hit the number 25 spot on
the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
1984(5th of Iyar, 5744): Yom HaAtzma’ut
1984(5th of Iyar, 5744): Painter and art director
Marvin Israel passed away today.
1985:”Memory of the Camps,” a documentary dealing
with “Dachau and other Nazi concentration camps” was broadcast during season
three of “Frontline.”
1986: John Corry reviewed “The Precious Legacy of
Czech Jews” a film directed by Dan Wiessman and co-produced by Weissman and
Nelson E. Breen.
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/07/arts/the-precious-legacy-of-czech-jews.html
1987: NBC broadcast the final episode of Season 3
of “The Cosby Show” co-created by Ed Weinberger.
1986: Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein’s “La Cage
aux Folles” had its West End premiere at the London Palladium today with the
same creative team as the Broadway production.
1988(20th of Iyar, 5748): Parashat Emor
1988(20th of Iyar, 5748): Centenarian
Columbia trained attorney Saul B. Ackerman, “a founding partner of Ackerman,
Salwen and Glass” passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/10/obituaries/saul-b-ackerman-lawyer-100.html
1989(2nd of Iyar, 5749): Just 23 three days before
his 76th birthday CCNY basketball star Moe Goldman who went on to
play professionally for the Philadelphia Spa and pursue a career as a New York
City school teacher passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/09/obituaries/moe-goldman-ex-basketball-player-75.html
1990:
Solomon Blatt, Jr. the son of Solomon Blatt, Sr who was speaker of the South
Carolina House of Representatives became
Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the District of South
Carolina.
1992:
The Chicago Sun Times reports that
Eddie Schwartz is leaving WGN for WLUP.
1994(27th
of Iyar, 5754): Seventy-three-year-old Aharon "Aharale" Rabinovich
Yariv passed away. The Moscow native made Aliyah at the age of 15 and then
pursued a career in the military and politics that included service in the
Knesset.
1994(27th
of Iyar, 5754): Clement Greenberg, the most famous American art critic since
Bernard Berenson who was born in 1909 to a Yiddish-speaking socialist family
and was brought up in Brooklyn and the Bronx passed away today. (As reported by
Raymond Hernandez)
1994(27th
of Iyar, 5754): Haim Bar Lev, the IDF's Chief of General Staff from 1968 to
1971, passed away. Bar Lev played a key role in the Yom Kippur War., He came
out of retirement and served as the Chief of the Southern Command at the
request of Prime Minister Meir. He
provided the steadying influence and keen perception that was necessary to halt
the Egyptian advance and snatch victory from the apparent jaws of defeat. (As
reported by Joseph Finkleston)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-ltgen-haim-barlev-1434903.html?printService=print
1998:
Un crisantemo estalla en cinco esquinas (A Chrysanthemum Bursts in
Cincoesquinas) with a screenplay Daniel Burman who also served as director was
released in Argentina today.
1998:
The 6th Annual Toronto Jewish Film Festival began today.
1999: “Rabbi Jacob Lustig and five others from
his Kneseth Israel Congregation stood side by side as they entered the pleas in
Hamilton County Common Pleas Court” in what prosecutors describe as a “massive
fraud” involving instant bingo games throughout Greater Cincinnati. (As
reported by Dan Horn)
1999: “The Mummy” a classic horror film
co-starring Rachel Weisz and music by Jerry Goldsmith was released in the
United States today.
2000(2nd of Iyar, 5760): Eighty-three-year-old
Holocaust survivor and champion “Race Walker” Henry Laskau passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/09/sports/henry-laskau-race-walker-is-dead-at-83.html
2000: The
New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including “The Human Stain” by Philip Roth and the recently published
paperback edition of “A Journey to the End of the Millennium: A Novel of the
Middle Ages”
A. B. Yehoshua’s novel about a North African Jewish merchant “who travels to
Europe with his two wives and his Muslim partner in the year 999 explores the
gaps between Jews and Christians, Jews and Muslims and men and women.”
2000: The curtain came down on a revival of
Arthur Laurents “The Time of the Cuickoo” at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre.
2000: ABC broadcast “Geppetto” “a made for
television musical” version of Pinocchio starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus today for
the first time.
2000: Bruce Fleisher won The Home Depot
Invitational.
2000: “War and Love,” a Malayalam language film
filmed by cinematographer Adam Greenberg was released today in India.
2001: Dalia Rabin-Pelossof joined “One Israel”
which later became Labor Meimad.”
2001: IDF naval commandos captured the
Santorini, a fishing boat used for smuggling weapons into Gaza that included
Katyusha rocket launchers, surface-to-air (SAM-7) anti-aircraft missiles and
rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
2002: Israeli Prime Minister met with President
George Bush at the White House.
2002:
Psychologist Carol Gilligan published "The Birth of Pleasure"
2002:
Perhaps the moment that signaled open season for Jews on campuses occurred
today at San Francisco State University when “Muslim students and their leftist
supporters launched a mini-pogrom against pro-Israel Jewish students.” (As
reported by Caroline B. Glick)
2002(25th
of Iyar, 5762): Hamas claimed responsibility for today’s bombing at Rishon
LeZion where 15 people were killed and another 55 were wounded.
Pnina
Hikri (60), Sharuk Rassan (42), Shoshana Magmari (51), Anat Temporush (36),
Haim Rafael (64), Daliah Massah (64), Nir Lobatin (31), Avi Biaz (26), Rahamim
Kimche (58), Edna Cohen (61), Yisrael Shikar (45), Yitzhak Bablar (58), Esther
Bablar (54), Regina Malka Boslan (62), Nawa Hinawi (51)
2003(5th
of Iyar, 5763): Yom HaAtzma’ut
2003:
In Tel Aviv, Mike’s Place re-opened after suffering a suicide bombing attack on
April 30.
2004(16th
of Iyar, 5764): Twenty-six-year-old Nicholas Evan “Nick” Berg was decapitated
by Islamist terrorists in Iraq today.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25401-2004May13.html
2005(28th
of Nisan, 5765): Parashat Kedoshim
2005(28th
of Nisan, 5765): Eighty-seven-year-old Brooklyn native and CCNY grad Harry
Minkoff, the veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, founder of Gift-Pax and
husband of Ruth Minkoff with whom he raised three children – Jane, Larry and
George – and who was an active member of Temple Beth El in Great Neck and the
UJA Federation of New York passed away today.
2006:
Jacobo Kaufman delivered a major address at the "Colloquium in Memory of
Antonio José da Silva (the Jew)", on the occasion of this great Portuguese
playwright´s 300th anniversary celebration at Bar Ilan University.
The event was supported by both Portugal and Brazil whose ambassadors attended
the event.
http://www.jewish-theatre.com/visitor/article_display.aspx?articleid=1819
2006: Israel disappeared…from the news and opinion
sections of the New York Times. In one of those rare Sundays, the Jewish
state was not a subject of any news stories in the Times.
2006:
The New York Times featured
reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including “Everyman” by Phillip Roth and “The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the
Settlements, 1967-1977” by Gershom Gorenberg.
2006:
The World Zionist Organization announce the 2006 winners of the third annual
Herzl Award, initiated by the Department for Zionist Activities to commemorate
the Centenary of Herzl's passing. The
winners are Owen Kevin Futeran, South Africa, Andrea Uzan, Denmark, Ted
Ekeroth, Sweden, Adrian Gluck, Argentina, Moises Mitrani, Mexico, Stanislav
Skibinski, Germany, Nathan Feldman, Mexico, Phil Koningham, New Zealand and Stephen Rosenthal, United Kingdom
2006: In Los Angeles, a community-wide celebration
of Israel’s 58th Independence ‘day
is kicked off by the LA County Sheriff Department Golden Stars Skydiving
team floating into Woodley Park while the Tampa Jewish Community Center brings
Israel to downtown Tampa for the first time with independence day activities featuring Israeli
vendors, an Israeli rock band and Israeli cuisine.
2007:
Time Magazine featured an article
entitled “The End of a Zionist Idyll.” The article reported on the Israeli
reaction Degania’s announcement that it was giving up its socialist ideals and
going private. In the future, members could
own homes and earn salaries based on how hard they worked. Degania was the
first Kibbutz to be founded during the Second Aliyah. It was the paradigm for the new Jew and the
new Jewish way of life. This
announcement represents the closing of a chapter in Jewish and Israeli history.
2007:
Newsweek Magazine featured a review
of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon.
2007(19th
of Iyyar, 5767): Donald Ginsberg a physicist who became a leading expert on the
production and functioning of superconductors passed away at the age of 73 in
Urbana, Illinois.
2008(2nd
of Iyar, 5768): Yom Hazikaron – Israel Remembrance Day. A two-minute memorial
siren sounds at 11 a.m. Wednesday, followed by official ceremonies at 43
military cemeteries. The Defense Ministry said that since 1860, when the first
Jewish settlers began establishing Jewish neighborhoods outside the Jerusalem
city walls, 22,437 men and women have been killed in defense of the Land of
Israel. Sixteen Israeli civilians were killed in terrorist attacks in the first
four months of the year, bringing the total of civilian terror-related deaths
to 1,634 since the creation of the state 60 years ago. Remembrance Day draws to
a close Wednesday night at 8 p.m. with the traditional torch-lighting ceremony
at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl marking the sudden transition from sadness to joy
with the start of Israel's 60th Independence Day.
2008:
As Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary, the population nears 7.3
million with 76% of the population being Jewish On the eve of its independence
day, Israel's population numbers 7,282,000, 75.5 percent of which is Jewish,
and 20.1 percent Arab, Central Bureau of Statistics show. The remaining 4.4
percent is made up largely of immigrants and their children who are not
registered as Jews in the Interior Ministry's population rolls. By 2030, the
projected population will be some 10,000,000.Over the past year, 156,400 babies
were born in Israel. At present, some 69 percent of the Jewish population is
made up of native-born Israelis, as opposed to only 35 percent in 1948. About
18,000 people immigrated to Israel over the past year. The figure for total
population does not include foreign nationals in Israel, whose number, in 1996,
was found to be 186,000.
2008: Elie Wiesel is the guest speaker at a fund raising dinner designed to
benefit the new Padres Katz Special Education campus of Aleh, an organization
dedicated to helping disabled children in Israel.
2008:
Release date for “Waves of Freedom,” a film that “is a reminder of the American
Jewish sailors who braved British soldiers and the high seas to transport
Holocaust survivors and refugees from Europe to the shores of prestate
Palestine.”
2009:
Ruth Reichl, a former restaurant critic and now the editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine, discusses and signs
“Not Becoming My Mother: And Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way” at
Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C.
2009:
The Jacob’s ladder Spring Festival opens. http://jlfestival.com/index.asp
2009:
After Etan: The Missing Child Case that Held America Captive by Lisa
Cohen was published by Grand Central Publishing. A native of Manitoba, Cohen is a graduate of
the University Pennsylvania who has made a career in electronic journalism with
stints at ABC and CBS news.
2009,
Madoff Bankruptcy Trustee, Irving Picard filed a lawsuit against J. Ezra Merkin
seeking to recover almost $500 million withdrawn from Madoff accounts in the
last six years
2010:
In Tel Aviv, the three-day Good Life Festival is scheduled to come to an end.
2010(23rd
of Iyar, 5770): Bernard Schoenbaum, who in hundreds of cartoons in The New
Yorker needled the relatively affluent, the media-conscious, the irony-besotted
and the socially competitive — in other words, the readers of The New Yorker
passed away today at the age of 89.
(As reported by Bruce Weber)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/books/18schoenbaum.html?pagewanted=print
2010:
In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah is schedule to host a Potluck Dinner before
Friday Night Services where Samuel Horowitz of the Jewish Federation is
scheduled to be the guest speaker.
2011:
In Potomac, MD, Congregation B’Nai Tzedek is scheduled to hosts theSpring Gala
which will feature The “Second City” from Chicago.
2011:
Bruce Raynor is scheduled to resign as president of Workers United and as
executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union.
2011:
“The Matchmaker” is scheduled to be shown at the Israel Film Festival.
2011:
The Traditional Minyan at Temple Judah is scheduled to host its annual
“Mother’s Day Shabbat.”
2012:
Israeli pianist Roman Rabinovich, Israeli violinist Itamar Zorman and the
Jupiter musicians will perform are scheduled to perform at the Good Shepherd
Church in New York City.
2012:
James Carroll, author of Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews is
scheduled to deliver an address entitled “The Church and the Jews: A Personal
Journey and Assessment” as part of the Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation
Spring Speaker Series.
2012:
Jews and the Left, a two-day conference sponsored by the YIVO Institute for
Jewish Research with
American
Jewish Historical Society, is scheduled to come to an end.
2012:
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson is
scheduled to be among the community leaders attending this evening’s Jewish
American Heritage Month Celebration at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage.
2013:
Pamela Weisberger (President and Research Coordinator, Gesher Galicia) is
scheduled to speak on “Unique & Unusual Resources in Galician Genealogy” at
the Weiner Library in London.
2013:
“Street Labs” an outdoor exhibition featuring Israel’s top Sci-Tech students
presenting their award winning inventions is scheduled to play at Union Square
Park.
2013:
San Jose City Hall is scheduled to celebrate the history of Jewish
contributions to American culture and the Jewish American heritage that has
helped shape the San Jose community with the raising of the Israeli flag at
City Hall followed by a kosher lunch.
2013:
A “Garden of Ellie" that contains a statue of Ellie Greenwich was placed
next to Hofstra University's music school. The sculpture was commissioned by
Greenwich's family and created by Peter Homestead
2013:
According to Image Books, On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family
and the Church in the 21st Century, will be available today in the United
States and Canada. “The book is the transcript of wide-ranging conversations
between then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina and Rabbi Abraham Skorka,
the rector of the Latin American Rabbinical Seminary. Topics include God,
atheism, abortion, the Holocaust, same-sex marriage, fundamentalism and
globalization. Francis previously has published 11 books, all in Spanish.
Francis, who was elected pope last week, has referred to Skorka as his “brother
and friend.” As the archbishop of Buenos Aires, he attended services at
Skorka’s synagogue and also arranged for Skorka to receive an honorary
doctorate from the Catholic University of Argentina. The two also shared
billing on an Argentinian TV talk show on religious issues.” (As reported by
JTA)
2013:
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has ordered a freeze in tenders for West Bank
settlement construction amid a US push to renew the Israeli-Palestinian peace
process, Army Radio reported today.
2013:
Seventy years ago the Jewish people could not protect itself and had to plead
for others to “save them.” Today that is no longer the case, Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu said today, just days after allegations that Israeli war
planes attacked weapons depots near Damascus.
2013:
Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky presented his proposal on the Women of
the Wall to the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women today
Read
more: http://forward.com/articles/176123/confusion-reigns-as-women-plan-monthly-prayer-at-w/#ixzz2SeO5uTUx
2014:
The Center for Jewish History and American Jewish Historical Society is
scheduled to present “Native Genius,” “a night of entertainment celebrating the
history of the Jewish contributions to American Theatre from 1800-1860.
2014:
President Obama “will be honored by Stephen Spielberg as Ambassador for
Humanity at the USC Shoah Foundation’s 20th anniversary gala event”
which is scheduled to take place in Los Angeles today.
2014:
“Over the Ocean,” a film about a Canadian family contemplating Aliyah is
scheduled to shown at the Israel Film Festival sponsored by Agudas Achim in
Coralville, Iowa.
2014:
In honor of Jewish American Heritage Month “A Call to Serve: Florida Jews and
the U.S. Military is scheduled to be shown in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
2014:
“Rock the Casbah” is scheduled to be shown at The National Center for Jewish
Film’s 17th Annual Film Festival.
2014:
The 16th annual Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to
come to an end in West Bloomfield, Michigan.
2014:
“Amid a spate of violent altercations between IDF soldiers and settlers from
Yitzhar in the northern West Bank, an Israeli report said today that residents
of the radical settlement were mulling the legality — according to Jewish law —
of attacking, and even killing, IDF soldiers “under certain circumstances.” (As
reported by Yifa Yaakov)
2014:
Mark Lewis is scheduled to discuss his prizewinning book, The Birth of the
New Justice, a history of international criminal courts and new
international criminal laws from the end of World War I to the beginning of the
Cold War at The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide in
London.
2015:
As voters in the U.K. are scheduled to go to the polls today, Laborite Ed
Miliband seeks to become the nation’s first Jewish Prime Minister.
2015:
Joan Adler, Executive Director of the Straus Historical Society is scheduled to
discuss her latest work For the Sake of the Children, The Letters Between Otto
Frank and Nathan Straus Jr., at The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education
Center
2015:
In Atlanta, GA, Israeli-Ethiopian singer Ester Rada is scheduled to present
“The Birth of Ethio-Soul.”
2015:
Dr. Jonathan Sarna is scheduled to lead a discussion about his newest book
Lincoln and the Jews: A History at the National Archives.
2015:
“À la Vie (To Life)” is scheduled to be shown at 18th Annual Film
Festival of the National Center for Jewish Film’s
2015:
The Washington Jewish Music Festival kicks is scheduled to start its 16th year
to with Neshama Carlebach the Glory to God Baptist Choir
2015:
As part of Jewish American Heritage Month, the Spertus Institute in Chicago is
scheduled to host cartoonist Liana Fink who will talk about the creative
process behind "A Bintel Brief: Love and Longing in Old New York,"
2015:
At the National Museum of American Jewish History Simon Malkes, author of The
Righteous of the Wehrmacht is scheduled to tell the amazing true story of
how a Nazi officer helped save the lives of a hundred Jews, including Simon and
his family during the Holocaust
2015:
In keeping with a tradition that began with his arrival in Little Rock more
than two decades ago, Chabad, under the leadership of Rabbi Pinchas Ciment is
scheduled to host its “BBQ Festival” complete “with all of the trimmings.”
2015(18th
of Iyar, 5775): Lag B’Omer
2016:
As we get ready for the “Run for the Roses’ this afternoon, we remember the
Kentucky Derby of 80 years ago (1936) which was won by the “Sons of Moses.” The
winning horse was Bold Venture, owned by Morton Schwartz, trained by Max Hirsch
and ridden by Ira Hanford. All of the human beings involved in this equestrian
event were Jewish. And even though it was Shabbat, some say that for the day
Bold Venture was Jewish too.
2016:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host an
“Interactive Survivor Experience” featuring Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter.
2016(29th
of Nisan, 5776): Machor HaKodesh;
2016(29th
of Nisan, 5576): Ninety-two-year-old Holocaust survivor and fundraiser Ernest
Michel passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
2016(29th
of Nisan, 5576): Eighty-six year old Howard Garfinkel the high school
basketball scout who had an impact on the careers of such stars as Michael
Jordan, LeBron James and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/sports/basketball/howard-garfinkel-who-discovered-and-groomed-top-basketball-talent-dies-at-86.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
2017:
The New York Times featured books written by Jewish authors and/or of special
interest to Jewish readers including Stranger in a Stranger Land: Searching
for Gershom Scholem and Jerusalem by George Prochnik, The Ideas of
Industry by Daniel W. Drezner, All
the Rivers by Dorit Rabinyan and recently published paperback editions of Black
Hole Blues: And Other Songs From Outer Space by Janna Levin and In
Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and Its Ironies by David Rieff.
2017:
At the Breman Museum, Eugen Schoenfeld is scheduled to tell how he survived
Auschwitz and Dachau, refused to kill one of the brutes guarding him and rose
to become the Chair of the Department of Sociology at Georgia State University.
2017:
Natan Sharansky is scheduled to speak at the Hirsch Theatre this evening on
Eliyahu Shama Street in Jerusalem.
2017:
“German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid a solemn visit to Jerusalem's
Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial” today.
2017:
The Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to host a lecture by Eric Goldman
entitled “Lens on Israel: A Society Through Its Cinema.”
2018:
The Center for Jewish History and YIVO are scheduled to “five-time space
shuttle astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman” who will discuss “his experiences as a Jew
in orbit who brought a Torah, a tallis, a dreidel, and other Judaica on his
trips into space.”
2018:
The Yerushalmi Theatre Group is scheduled to present “Good Morning Mr. Heimer,”
“a theatrical adaption of the work by Amnon Shmoosh “at Beit Mazia.”
2018: As part of the 25th anniversary
observance, the U.S. Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host “a discussion about
the complexities of Holocaust history with leading scholars.”
2018:
“In cooperation with the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington, New
York University professor Hasia Diner is scheduled to present a lecture titled
“Roads Taken: Jewish Peddlers and their American Journeys.”
2018:
“GI Jews: Jewish Americans in World War II” is scheduled to be shown this
evening at the Washington Jewish Film Festival.
2018:
“Libya: The Last Exodus” is scheduled to be shown at the 26th
Toronto Jewish Film Festival.
2018:
The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to co-host an “interfaith
discussion of scripture from the perspectives of Judaism, Christianity and
Islam.”
2019:
In Walnut Creek, CA, Congregation B’nai Shalom is scheduled to host an Israel
Memorial Day program featuring a talk by “Lt. Col. (IDF Retired) Amos Guiora on
‘The Role of the IDF in Israel.’”
2019:
The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans and the Jewish Children’s Regional
Service are scheduled to participate in “GiveNOLA Day!”
2019:
In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Above and Beyond” produced
by Nancy Spielberg (Elusive Justice) and directed by Roberta Grossman (Blessed
Is the Match), that tells the story of the pilots who risked their lives to
create Israel’s air force at the time of the creation of the state in 1948.
2019:
The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law That Kept Two Generations
of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America by Daniel
Okren is scheduled to go on sale today.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Guarded-Gate/Daniel-Okrent/9781476798035
2020:
Virtually using Zoom, the Streicker Center is scheduled to host Amy-Jill Levine
as she lectures on “Jesus and the Jews.”
2020:
Temple Emanuel of Newton is scheduled to present a virtual “Paper Mosaic ‘Tree
of Life’ Workshop.”
2020:
The Neiman Marcus Group, Inc filed for bankruptcy today “due to high debts.”
2020:
The Vilna Shul is scheduled to host a virtual lecture by Layah Kranz Lipsker as
she discusses “Unorthodox,” the newly released four-part series on Netflix” and
“the Chassidic world of her childhood and answer questions about the
authenticity of this series and others like it.”
2020:
The National Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled to host via
Facebook Live the first lecture in its Scholar Series as part of JAHM.
2020:
Via Zoom, Rabbi Roger Klein of Temple Terfieth Israel is scheduled to host an
hour of poetry readings and interactive discussion of this art form.
2020:
Israelis are scheduled to make alternative plans for celebrating Lag B’Omer
following yesterday’s approval by the government to ban “all traditional
bonfires.”
2020:
Prime Minister Netanyahu appears to be able to forward today following the High
Court of Justice found that Netanyahu's unity government deal with his election
rival Benny Gantz does not violate the law, dismissing arguments that it
unlawfully shields him in a corruption trial.”
2020:
The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host “a live streamed program from
the home of pianist Roman Rabinovich in Canada; featuring works that include
Haydn’s B Minor and E-flat Major sonatas, a new piece by Israeli composer Matan
Porat, and a Sonatina by Rabinovich himself.
2020:
The San Francisco Fringe festival is scheduled to host a virtual performance of
“Marla,” “Ali Littman’s play about the 2002 Hebrew University bombing that
killed nine people, including 24-year-old UC Berkeley graduate Marla Bennett.”
2020:
In Cedar Rapids, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to a social hour over
Zoom.
2020:
Today marks the deadline for Hillel at the University to raise $25,000 during
the Global Giving Week.
2021:
As Israelis prepare for Shabbat Yesh
Atid leader Yair Lapid is busy using the 28 days he has he has to form a new
government following Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure “to form a coalition that
would have allowed him to hang onto power.”
2021:
“The Human Factor,” a “documentary that tells the saga of a US-led Middle East
flops” is scheduled to open at the Embarcadero Center Cinema in San Francisco
today.
2022:
Lockdown University is scheduled host webinar with Professor David Peimer
lecturing on the “Portrayal of Jesus in Film.’
2022:
Eden Tamir Center is scheduled to “The Best of Chamber Music” with pianist
Emanuel Krasovsky and violinist Vera Vaidman.
2022:
The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County is scheduled to co-host a
screening of “Born In Jerusalem and Still Alive.”
2022:
Value Culture, Taube Philanthropies, JCCSF, J. and others are scheduled to
present “Krakow’s Jewish Culture Festival Pop-Up in S.F.” which is “A mini
version of the huge Jewish festival in Poland”
2022:
Brandeis University is scheduled to present a “Benefit Concert to Launch
Initiative on Antisemitism With Boris Berman.”
2022(6th
of Iyar, 5782): Parashat Kedoshim and Pirke Avot chapter two; for more 2023:
Menorah Park’s annual run and walk fundraiser which originally was a Montefiore
event to support operating costs is scheduled to take place this morning at
Ursuline College in Pepper Pike, OH.
2023:
The Partnership2gether Book Club is scheduled to host a discussion of Beauty
Queen of Jerusalem by Sarit Yishai-Levi.
2023: Tikvah’s 2023 Leadership Mission trip to
Israel is scheduled to come to an end.
2023:
The 25th ASF New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to
begin today at the Center for Jewish History.
2023:
In Coralville, IA, Congregation Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its Kids’
Shavuot complete with ice cream, a petting zoo and a fire pit.
2023:
In Columbus, OH, the Tifereth Israel Birding Club is scheduled to meet this
evening
2023:
The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host a workshop where children
can learn about the history in the
historic Eldridge Street Synagogue.
2024:
the JDC Archives and the Brandeis University Initiative on the Jews of the
Americas is scheduled to host an in-person lecture exploring JDC’s current role
in Latin America during which “Sergio Widder will discuss JDC’s recent history
of rescue in Latin America and its partnerships with Jewish communities across
the region to accomplish sustainability and renewal programs.’
2024:
In honor of the release of Haim Be’er’s new book Before the Curtain,
Agnon House is scheduled to host Be’er “in a new series of online lectures,
during which we will read the beloved novel Tamul Yesterday
2024:
YIVO is scheduled to host “a concert exploring Yiddish and Hebrew songs of the
Weimar Republic.”
2024:
As May 7th begins in Israel, an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism sweeps the
United States and the Hamas held hostages begin day
214 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.)
