This Day, November 17, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
November 17
9CE: Birthdate of Titus Flavius
Vespasianus, better known as Vespasian, who as a Roman General and then Emperor
put down the Judean Revolt which included the destruction of the Second Temple.
284: Diocletian is proclaimed emperor by his soldiers. “According to Jewish
tradition, in his youth Diocletian had been a swineherd and when he went past
the Beis Midrash the children would beat him.” After he became Emperor,
Diocletian spent time in Tiberias where enemies of the Jewish people said they
disrespectfully referred to him as ‘the swineherd.’ Angered by the charges, the
emperor demanded that Jewish leaders come to Tiberias and answer for their
slanderous remarks. The rabbis conceded
that they had acted badly towards Diocletian the swineherd but they had never
been disrespectful towards Diocletian, the emperor. The Emperor accepted their argument and
apology. Based on this experience the
Jerusalem Talmud cautions Jews against treating any Roman disrespectfully, no
matter how low his station in life, since one never knew how high he might
rise. In an attempt to bring unity to the empire, Diocletian ordered all of his
subjects to accept his divinity and to offer sacrifices to his cult.
Fortunately, he exempted his Jewish subjects from this decree. Diocletian’s reign was a comparatively
favorable period for the Jewish people especially when one remembers the fate
they would suffer in the next century at the hands of Constantine and his
successors.
331: Birthdate of Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus. Known by some as Julian
the Apostate, Julian reigned from 361 until his death in 363. Ironically, he was the nephew of Constantine
the Great, the man who made Christianity the state religion of the Roman
Empire. For some unknown reason, Julian repealed many of the harsh laws that
had been promulgated against the Jews by his predecessors. While Julian believed that his paganism was
superior to Judaism, he felt that the Jews had suffered unnecessarily at the
hands of Rome for the last four centuries and he sought to redress the
imbalance. Julian announced plans to
rebuild the Temple and Jerusalem. He
ordered the local Roman officials to help with the project. Jews returned from as far away as Persia and
even built a small synagogue near the Temple Mount in anticipation of this
monumental project. Unfortunately,
Julian died while on a military campaign before work could begin. Rumor had that he had been killed by a
Christian Arab in the pay of those who disliked his support of the Jews. This brief window of hope closed, and the
Christian Religion joined hands with the power of the Roman state to embitter
the lives of the Jews.
473: The future Zeno I is named associate emperor by Emperor Leo I. Leo was
the Byzantine Emperor from 457 until 474. Leo was determined to wed the power
of the Empire to the Christian Church. In 468 Leo issued a decree banning
everyone but Christians from practicing law. Jews were persecuted with
combinations of imperial decrees and church canon. Leo, in his desire to outlaw
Judaism and force Christianity upon Jewish people, declared in Constitution LV
(55) of the Constitutions of Leo,
"Therefore We, desiring to accomplish what Our Father failed to effect, do
hereby annul all the old laws enacted with reference to the Hebrews, and We
order that they shall not dare to live in any other manner than in accordance
with the rules established by the pure and salutary Christian Faith. And if
anyone of them should be proved to, have neglected to observe the ceremonies of
the Christian religion, and to have returned to his former practices, he shall
pay the penalty prescribed by the law for apostates." Leo's Constitution
became part of the Justinian's Civil Law. Now Jews had to pretend they were
Christians and observe Christian ceremonies. The penalties that could be
inflicted on Jews included loss of real estate and/or personal possessions,
loss of testamentary rights, exile and, in some case, loss of life.
1278: Edward I of England arrested all the
Jews for alleged coin clipping and counterfeiting. 680 were arrested, jailed
and put on trial. The judges were given prior instructions clearly biased
against the Jews. Although many Christians were accused, many more (ten times
as many) Jews were hanged than Christians (269 Jews and 29 Christians). Edward
received 16,500 pounds from the property of the executed Jews and the fines of
those charged. At that time Jews comprised 1% of the English population. 16,500
pounds was almost 10% of the exchequer's national income.
1278: “Among the Jews arrested today were
Benedict fil’ Licoricia, a prominent Jew of Winchester, and the affluent woman
financier Belaset of Lincoln whose house is still standing in Steep Hill.”
1333 Ibn Batuta, the Arab traveler, visits
Jewish communities in India
1326: Today following a month spent in Mecca,
Ibn Battuta, a Maghrebi traveler, explorer and scholar whose travels took him
to the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza, Hebron, Jerusalem and Bethlehem and some of whose
travels mirrored those taken by Benjamin of Tudela, the 12th century
Jewish author of The Travels of Benjamin, the Hebrew language text,
which provided “a description of Jewish communities” but also was a
reliable source about the geography and ethnography of the Middle Ages which
“some modern historians credit Benjamin with giving accurate descriptions of
everyday life in the Middle Ages, joined a large caravan of pilgrims returning
to Iraq across the Arabian Peninsula.
1370: Coronation of King Louis I “who initially
had shown toleration to the Jews” expelled them from Hungary after he failed to
convert them to Catholicism.
1494: Thirty-one-year-old Pico De Mirandola,
Count Giovanni Frederico, a student of the Kabbalah and one of the first
Italian nobles to collect Hebrew books and who translated the Hokamt ha-Nefesh
into Latin passed away today.
1494: Thirty-one-year-old Italian Renaissance
philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola who “was convinced that the
literature of Kabbalah was the true transcript of what Moses heard at Sinai ,
that Christianity and Judaism were one with Kabbalah as the point of connection
and that the differences between Judaism and Christianity were superficial”
passed away today in Florence.
1558: With the death of Queen Mary King Phillip
II, “who was a symbol of ‘Tyranny’ in Spinoza’s Political Writings” and who
expelled the Jews from Milan, ended his reign as “jure uxoris King of England
and Ireland.”
1558: The Protestant monarch Elizabeth I
assumed the throne of England following the death of her Catholic half-sister
known to history as “Bloody Mary.” During her reign the Jewish community was
limited to small groups of Marranos living in London and Bristol. Jews did play a part in the realm foreign
affairs. “Don Solomon Aben-Jaish, an adviser to the Sultan of Turkey
established ties with Lord Burleigh, one of Elizabeth’s closest advisors. The two men were and their two countries were
drawn together by their common foe, Philip II, the Catholic King of Spain. In
1588 England faced the threat of the Spanish Armada. A Morrano, Dr. Hector
Nunes provided the English with invaluable intelligence on the progress of the
Armada as it sailed north towards England.
This information enabled Drake and the other English Sea Dogs to
position their ships to best advantage.
On a more negative note, Dr. Roderigo Lopez, who served as one of Elizabeth’s
physicians, was accused of plotting to poison the monarch. Lopez was caught in
political contest between two of Elizabeth’s advisors – The Earl of Essex and
Sir Robert Cecil. Essex provided
evidence of Lopez’s guilt; Cecil
proclaimed his innocence. Given the
tenor of the times, and the numerous plots on her life, Elizabeth had the
unfortunate doctor executed. His ordeal
provided the impetus for Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta and William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice
featuring the famous Shylock.
1720(10th of Cheshvan): Rabbi Jehiel Michel
Teimer, author of Seder Gittin passed away today
1742: In New York, Rachel Franks Levy and Isaac
Mendes Seixas gave birth to Abigail Seixas the wife of Hillel Judah with whom
she had eleven children.
1755: Birthdate of King Louis XVIII of France.
Following the defeat of Napoleon, Louis was restored as the Bourbon King of
France. As such, he is seen as a figure
of reaction seeking to undo the legacy of the French Revolution, including the
rights gained by the Jews of France. The
facts speak otherwise. As Napoleon
became more and more an Emperor and less and less of a Republican he chipped
away at the rights of the Jews. Under
the Infamous Decrees of 1808, Napoleon placed severe restrictions on Jewish
businessmen. These decrees remained in
effect until 1818, when the restored Louis refused to renew them.
1757: Rebecca Judah and Isaac Hays gave birth
to Regina Hays who passed away in Philadelphia in 1835.
1757: Bishop Dembowski's violent death that led to a
reversal of fortune in conflict between the Frankist and Talmudists in
Poland. The persecution of the Talmudists immediately came to an end. The
Frankist found themselves declared outlaws subject to persecution and
imprisonment.
1762(1st of Kislev, 5523): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1764: David Mendez Machado and his wife may have given
birth to Rebecca Machado, the husband of Jonas Phillips.
1765: In Swansea, RI, Judith Rachel Mears and Moses
Isaacks gave birth to Abraham Isaacks, the husband of Rebecca Simson and the
father of Moses and Jochebed Isaacks.
1778: In York, PA, Shinah Solomon and Elijah Etting gave
birth to Joseph Etting, not to be confused with Joseph Etting of Lancaster, PA
who was the son of Solomon Etting.
1781(1st of Kislev, 5542): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1785: Birthdate of German native Kobritsch Marx, the wife
of Elias Lazarus Ottenheimer with whom she had eight children.
1785: In Amsterdam, Eva Woudhuijsen and Levie Hartog gave
birth to Daniel Levie Woudhuijsen, the husband of Eva Koster.
1790 In the 18th century, the Italian name Forti is
recorded as a Jewish family name on a 'ketubbah' from Tunis today, of Rachel,
daughter of Isaac Forti, and her husband Moise Hai, son of Solomon Khalfon.
1795: In Frankfurt am main, Gutle Schott and Moses Yantof
Oppenheim gave birth Aron Opppenheim, the husband of Adelhied Moselli with whom
he had six children.
1800: In Paris, Beer Léon Fould, a
successful Jewish banker, and his wife gave birth to Achille Fould, French
financier and statesmen who was a close advisor to Louis Napoleon and the
grandson of wine merchant Jacob Bernard Fould.
1805: The wife of Ephraim Mosely, with whom she had three
children, was buried today in the UK.
1814: One day after he had passed away, 57-year-old Lyon
Levy was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.
1818: Elias Abrahams, the English born son of Judith and
Emanuel Abrahams and his wife Catherine Abrahams gave birth to Alexander
Abrahams.
1819: Louis Samuel married Henrietta Israel at the Hambro
Synagogue.
1822: Löbl Strakosch and Julia Schwarz gave birth to
their second child and second son, Israel.
1823: Löbl Strakosch and Julia Schwarz gave birth to
their third child and first daughter, Rachel
1830: Barnett Boam married Fanny Phillips today at the
Great Synagogue.
1831 In Germany, Rabbi Ruben Simon Cohn, the Hamburg born
Cohn son of Simon Cohn Glogau and Zippora Cohn Glogau and his wife Deiche/Doris
Cohn gave birth to Naphtali Hertz Cohn, the “husband of Rosetta Cohn and
Johanna Cohn and “father of Caecilie Oppenheim; Schönchen Jenny Heimann; Ruben
Cohn; Recha Stein and Bernhard Cohn.’
1838: In Germany, Jette Ottenheimer and Simon Marx gave
birth to Elias Marx, the husband of Fanny Ottenheimer with whom he had nine
children.
1839: Rosetta Cohen and Michael Meir Myers gave Hannah
Myers.
1830: Birthdate of Joseph Londoner who settled In
Leadville
http://www.jewishleadville.org/londoner.html
1843: In Bavaria, Susanna Freiberg and Lazarus Fels gave
birth to Abraham Fels who settled in London.
1846: A welfare society, the Chevra Mevaker
Cholim, was organized today in Montgomery, Alabama by 12 German Jewish
immigrants including Emanuel *Lehman, uncle of Herbert H. *Lehman. The society
conducted services, purchased a cemetery, and on June 3, 1849, with 30 members,
transformed itself into Congregation Kahl Montgomery. The mobility of immigrant
Jews and the tentativeness of their settlement is indicated by the
constitutional provision of Kahl Montgomery that "four members shall be
sufficient to continue the Society, but should there be only three members, the
Society shall be dissolved." The congregation is now called Temple Beth
Or, and its first building, built in 1862 with seed money from Judah Touro, is
the oldest synagogue building in the state. It now houses a church.
1852: In New York City, the members of the
German Hebrew Benevolent Society celebrated the organizations 9th
anniversary with a dinner in the City Assembly Rooms. From September 1, 1851, to September 1, 1852
the society had raised $2,325.50 and spent $2,148.52 in meeting the needs of
the poor and the indigent.
1853: The Five Academies comprising the Institute of
France held their annual meeting today. Among the presenters was M.
Holely of the Academy of Fine Arts, composer of the "Wandering Jew"
who read "an interminable discourse on Frohberger, a German organist whom
no one ever heard of, and whom the writer himself acknowledged was snuffed out
by Handel.
1856: Founding of the Bradford Festival Choral Society
whose conductors would include Sir Frederic Hymen Cowen
1858: The New York Times reported that
the Pope is back in Rome, “safer than ever…since he assumed the Triple
Crown.” The Pope “is disgusted with
political reform but deeply interested in infant Jews.” By infant Jews, the reporter was referring to
the Morata Affair, which involved the kidnapping of a Jewish child who was
secretly baptized by a maid and turned over to the Catholic Church for
safe-keeping.
1859: Birthdate of Bruno Borchardt the native
of Bromberg and physicist who turned to a career in journalism after being
forced to give up his teaching position because of his political beliefs.
1860(22nd of Tevet, 5620):
Eighty-eight-year-old Isaac-Lyon Goldsmid, the English born Portuguese baron
and husband of Isabel Goldsmid, the daughter of Abraham Goldsmid passed away
today.
1862(24th of Cheshvan, 5623): Seventy-eight-year-old
Gotthold Salomon the German Jewish rabbi who continued with the work pioneered
by Moses Mendelssohn which led him to be the first Jew to translate the TaNaCh
into High German.
1862: In Memphis, TN, Jane “Johanna” Pleschner
and James “Jacob” Eschner gave birth to Jefferson Medical College trained
physician Agustus Adolph Eshner, the husband of Julia Friedberger Eshner and
the father of Juliet and Anette Eshner and a member of the faculty of the
Philadelphia Polyclinic.
1865: In Szaky, Hannah Frida Heshinovitz and
Abraham Jacob Bloch gave birth Konigsberg trained physician Clement Bloch, the
husband of Lizzie Maud Dreyfus, after having been denied citizenship in Germany
because he was Jewish came to the United States in 1890 where he became a
doctor in the Throat and Ear Department of Mt. Sinai Hospital and a member of
the New York City Board of Health.
1867(19th of Cheshvan, 5628): Seventy-five-year-old
Hannah Isaacs, the New York City born daughter of Joshua Isaacs passed away
today in her hometown.
1869: The Suez Canal opens creating a direct
water route from Europe to the Orient. The canal is controlled by the French
with the Egyptians as minority stockholders British imperialists wanted control
of the canal since it was the gateway to India, the pride of the Empire. In
1875 Benjamin Disraeli bought the Egyptians shares using money borrowed from
the Rothschilds. Protecting the Canal was the primary goal of British policy in
the East from that day until the middle of the twentieth century. The British wanted the mandate over Palestine
to protect the East Bank of the Canal. Hence their willingness to betray the
promises of the Balfour Declaration because they saw Arab violence as being a
threat to English control of the waterway to Inida. The British gave up the Mandate in 1947 which
resulted in the creation of Israel because India was gaining its
independence. The Suez Crisis of 1956,
which led to the Six Day War in 1967 which has led today’s stalemate, was
triggered by British vestigial feelings for the Canal.
1871: It was reported today that the Jewish
Messenger approves of the recent defeat of the Tammany Machine in local
city elections. The Messenger
gives credit to the New York Times for informing the public about the
great abuses and agrees with the Times that this was not a victory of
party but of principle.
1871: It was reported today that the Jewish
Messenger does not think that appealing to the Russian government for a redress
of the conditions of the Jews of Russia will do much to improve conditions. The
primary source of misery comes from “petty sources” that no government can
control in such a vast expanse as Czarist Russia. [To most of us, this view
Jewish life in Russia, is unique]
1871: In Mako, Rabbi Enoch Fischer and his wife
gave birth to Emil Maki the Hungarian poet who also wrote “a Biblical drama”
entitled “Absalom.”
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Makai_Emil
1872: Charles August Lauff, the German native
and California businessman, and his wife, Maris J. Sebran, the daughter of
Gregorio and Ramono Briones, gave birth to George Lauff.
1872: In Baltimore, MD, Caroline Seliger and
Emanuel Greenbaum gave birth to Johns Hopkins undergraduate and University of
Maryland Law Department trained attorney Leon E. Greenbaum, the city attorney
of Baltimore.
1873: In Suvalky, Poland, Isaac H. and Esther
Wolk gave birth Sol Wolk who in 1889 came to the United States where he lived
in New York and Pittsburg before settling in Des Moines, IA in 1903 where he
founded a major “clothing house,” married Sarah Cohen with whom he had one
child, Louisa, joined Tiffereth Israel and became a Republican after gaining
U.S. citizenship.
1874: Birthdate of Samuel Platt, the native of
Carson City, Nevada who graduated from Stanford University who became one of
the state’s leading lawyers and Republican Party leaders who was also active in
B’nai B’rith.
http://www.onlinenevada.org/articles/samuel-platt
1877: The Chicago Tribune reported “there was a
report of a possible grand jury indictment of businessman Henry Greenbaum for
“unspecified reasons” in what some saw was part of a political vendetta.
1877: Gilbert and Sullivan’s two act comic
opera “The Sorcerer” for which Giulia Warwick (born Julia Ehrenberg) “created
the role of Constance” opened in London today.
1878: Eighty-five-year-old Betsy Jonas was
buried today at Exeter Jewish Cemetery.
1878: “Ancient and Modern Gymnastics” published
today commented on the recently published findings of Dr. Schaible in which he
traces the history of physical training among various ancient people. According to Schaible, “the Jews ‘paid but
little attention to exercises for the body.’ If this were true, it would that
the nation which possesses the most inexhaustible vitality” (the Jews) “ is
that which has taken the least trouble about training.” The article challenges
Schaible’s view of Jewish physicality.
Not only does the Bible contain numerous accounts of a people who were
physically strong enough to win and hold their lands by the swords. But in modern times, the number of successful
Jewish boxers in the UK would tend to refute his contentions.
1878:“The Jews and the Keys of Jerusalem”
published today described two unusual customs practiced by the Jews living
under Ottoman rule in Palestine The first concerns “small squares of brass-foil
stamped with the Hebrew words meaning visiting the sick.” Nobody is sure of the origin of this
unsanctioned (by the Turkish government) coinage but it is used for commercial
among the Jews in the local bazaars. The other custom has to do with acquiring
the great keys to Jerusalem when each Sultan passes away. After a mysterious religious ritual, the Jews
return the keys to authorities for used by the incoming Sultan. The local Turkish authorities see it as
harmless activity that enriches them since the Jews have to pay a bribe to get
the keys.
1879: “Hearts of Oak” a play co-authored by
David Belasco opened at Hamlin’s Theatre today in Chicago, Illinois.
1881: Birthdate of Lasi, Romania native and NYU
trained attorney Solomon Sufrin, a member of the Progressive Party who began
his career as a member of the New York State Legislature by defeating co-religionist
Solomon Sufrin, a fellow native Lasi, Romania in November of 1913.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/04/04/102222801.html?pageNumber=16
1881: Julius J. Frank delivered a lecture
entitled “The Jew” Has he Still a Mission” at a meeting sponsored by the Young
Men’s Hebrew Association.
1882: Birthdate of Rakel Glick, the Norwegian
factory owner who was arrested in Trondheim and shipped to Auschwitz where he
was murdered.
1882:Birthdate of Austrian native Joseph Hecht,
the husband of Rose(Loewy) Levy and the father of Oscar winning producer Harold
Hecht.
1884: “A Good Old Philanthropist” published
today provides a detailed review of Sir Moses Montefiore: A Centennial
Biography by Lucien Wolf
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/december/index.asp
1884: Plans for an upcoming fund raiser to be
held at the Thalia Theatre “for the benefit of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian
Society” were published today.
1884: It was reported today that Mount Sinai
Hospital currently has 168 patients. The
hospital has a capacity to serve 185 patients and serves them regardless of
race, creed or financial condition. The
hospital has a fund of $175,000 and owes no money on its building or
furnishings.
1885: “Hebrews in Convention” published today
described events at a conclave of 35 Reform rabbis at which Rabbi Kaufmann
Kohler presented his plans for changing the practice of Judaism in the United
States. Among them is the rejection of
the traditional belief that all Jews are going back to Palestine and the
elimination of reading those sections of the Scriptures “which referred to
certain subjects not fit to be read in public or placed in the hands of
children.” He also “denounced the rite
of circumcision as a relic of barbarism.” (As can be seen from Kohler’s
proposals, the rift between Reform and Jewish traditionalists was about a lot
more than just serving shell food at a banquet in Cincinnati)
1885(9th of Kislev, 5646): Twenty-five-year-old
Joshua I. Cohen, the unmarried son of Cecilia E. Levy and Israel Cohen passed
away today.
1887(1st of Kislev, 5648): Rosh
Chodesh Kislev
1887: “Dancing for Charity’s Sake” published
today provided a full description of the 9th annual charity ball
held by the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum. The event opened at ten o’clock when
President and Mrs. Ernst Nathan and Vice President Samuel Goldstein and his
daughter Sara led the promenade. Mayor Whitney and Mayor-elect Chapin attended
the event which raised $6,000.
1889: “Modern English Jews” published today
traces the history the Jewish community in the British Isles from its earliest
days until the end of the present time when Sir Henry Isaacs is about to be
named Lord Mayor of London.
1891(16th of Cheshvan, 5652): Fifty-seven-year-old
author and teacher Jacob Egers who “was for more than twenty years a master at
the Training-School for Teachers in Berlin” passed away today.
1891: In New York, Regina Horowitz and Ignatz
Margareten gave birth to CCNY graduate and Kosher food manufacturer Frederick
Margareten, the husband of Mary Margareten with whom he had four children –
Celia, Muriel, Jerome and Renee.
1892: “Indignant Russian Hebrews” published
today described the anger friends of the late Louis Krabitz expressed when
Israel Ronginsky was released following a coroner’s inquest. Both men were
Jewish immigrants from Russia who worked as peddlers.
1892: In Brooklyn Rose Schaeffer and Abraham
Tropper gave birth NYU educated accountant and attorney Morris Carlton Tropper who spent forty years
working on issues related to Jewish refugees, the most famous of which was the
attempt to save the passengers on board the St. Louis in 1993.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/11/18/118441826.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1893: Having lost their courtroom battle with
landlord Alexander Grant, 33 Russian Jewish families were reported today to
have three days to move out of their tenements and find other housing.
1895: At Temple Emanu-El, Rabbi Gustav Gottheil
“began a series of sermons on ‘Womanhood’ the first of which was entitled ‘The
Birthday of a Great Woman.’”
1895: Birthdate of Polish born poet Ayzik Platner who lived and worked in
the United States “from 1927 until 1932” which moved to the Soviet Union passed
away today after which he was buried in Minsk.
http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2018/07/ayzik-platner.html
1895: “The Charity of the Jews” published today
described Rabbi Joseph Silverman’s view on the generosity of his co-religionist
which included his view “that Israel was always noted for her charity, and, in
fact was the first nation to make public charity and benevolence prevalent
among its people so that a landed aristocracy could hold no footing in the
nation.”
1895: It was reported today that Temple
Emanu-El’s Joseph Silverman has “paid tribute to the liberal spirit of the
Emperor of Austria for his firm stand against the anti-Semitic fanaticism that
recently broke out in Vienna.”
1895: “Queer Marriage Customs” published today
described marital rituals in ancient times and non-European societies including
“Talmudic prohibitions” requiring “that the male must not be under fourteen
years and a day and the female under thirteen years and a day.” During the
Middle Ages the Jewish wedding banquet featured “a dressed hen and a raw egg”
which “were placed before the bride as a way of urging her to be prolific when
it came to children.
1896: Mrs. Sophie C. Axman of Kansas City delivered
a lecture on “Child Life” at the Convention of the National Council of Jewish
Women which is now in its third day.
1896: Birthdate of Russian psychologist Lev
Vygotsky
1897: The Emigration Committee of the Board of
Guardians met in London this afternoon
1897: In Atlanta, GA, Ada Brady the Savannah,
GA born daughter of Isaac Abram and Isabel Abrahams Brady married Auburn
University alum Isaac Isaiah Moses Sr, the Columbus, GA born son of Isaac
Isaiah Moses and Mary Alice Moses and editor and publisher of the Phenix-Girard
Journal who was in the concrete business and alderman in Phenix City
1898: Dr. Dillingham, the assistant Sanitary
Inspector of the Health Department was reported today to have said that the two
cases of measles and three cases of scarlatina have been taken care of and
there is no public health problem at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
1898: In New York Sarah Feigel Silver and Davis
(David) Silver gave birth to Edward Sholom Moses Silver, the husband of Regina
Silver with whom he had three children – David, Sarah and Benjamin.
1899: In Boston, MA, Sara Wolfenstein and Leo
Bieringer gave birth to Harvard graduate and executive vice president of the
Plymouth Rubber Company Walter H. Bieringer, the husband of Ananabelle Kaplan “who
as president of the United Service for New Americans in the 1950's helped
resettle European Jews in the United States…”
Walter
Bieringer, 90; Helped War Refugees - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
1899: In Odessa, Tatiana Berman and Samuel
Seidel gave birth to Russian trained violinist Toscha Seidel who made his
American debut at Carnegie Hall in 1918 and became the star of CBS’s The Toscha
Seidel Program before going on to a career in Hollywood.
1900: Birthdate of Polish native and Cooper
Union educated electrical engineer Jacob Katzman who in 1917 came to the United
States where did postgraduate studies at Brooklyn Poly Tech, worked as a
consulting engineer and was an active Zionist.
1900: In Manhattan, “Israel Silberkleit and
Julia Wink” who came to the United States in 1885 and were wed in 1888 gave
birth to their youngest child Louis Horace Silberkleit, “the co-founder of
Archie Comics.”
https://www.pulpartists.com/Silberkleit.html
1901: “Real Revelation” published today let
readers know that “The Carmel Wines and the Carmel Cognacs” which are imported
from Palestine” are “highly delicious,” “absolutely pure” and moderately priced
and sold by the Carmel Wine Company in New York City.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1901/11/17/117977041.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1902: Birthdate Laurette Eugen Wigner. Wigner was a Hungarian-born American
physicist who was the joint winner of the 1963 Nobel Prize for Physics (with
Maria Goeppert Mayer and Johannes Hans Jensen) for his insight into quantum
mechanics, for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the
elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of
fundamental symmetry principles. He made many contributions to nuclear physics
and played a prominent role in the development of the atomic bomb and nuclear
energy.
1903: “Jews Massacred in Morocco” published today reported that “a hundred
Moorish Jews from Tesa” arrived at Marina and said that while the Sultan’s
troops were occupying Tesa, they “massacred many Jews and assaulted women and
girls.”
1903: The Vienna corresponded of The Times (of London) said today that a
Russian nobleman passing through Vienna “after visiting his family estates near
Moscow…described a dangerous fermentation among the peasantry and artisans” and
that “he apprehended” that “extensive massacres of Jews” would be taking place.
1904: Abraham Fisher Sergie, the husband of Fanny Mann with whom he had six
children and the son-in-law of Bernard Mann and Sophia Berman was buried today
at the “Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern, Ireland.”
1904: Birthdate of Dallas native and Missouri trained lawyer Irving Fane who
was the attorney for the Sport’s Authority in Kansas City.
1904: In New York City, Saul and Sarah Bernstein gave birth to Columbia
trained journalist Theodore Bernstein who was “an assistant managing editor of The
New York Times, a journalism education and an authority on the use of the
English language.”
1905: Today, on the same day that the
government presented revolutionaries with a new constitution “a rumor was
spread that orders had been given to attack the Jews, followed by an attack
abated by soldiers and Cossacks during which the mob smashed windows, broke
down doors, broke locks, put booty in their pockets and “grievously” beat men,
women and children while shouting “Money, gave us your money.”
1905: Two weeks of massacres began in Zhitomir, Ukraine.
1905: As of today, $302, 678.39 has been collected to help the suffering
Jews of Russia and has been sent to Baron Gunsberg in St. Petersburg.
1905: Jacob Schiff, the Treasurer of the Nation Relief committee to raise
funds for the sufferers by the Massacres in Russia received a cablegram from
Lord Rothschild in London which states in part “Russian catastrophe, according
to details from Russia today, far greater than expected; outrages and whole
robber and incendiarism in eighty-four town, so relief fund has huge take to
grapple with.”
1905: It was decided today to form a National Self-Defense Association of
Jews in Russia which will necessitate sending “delegates to the Czar’s
dominions.”
1905: Meetings were held tonight at Ottawa and Montreal which were attended
by several members of the Dominion Parliament to protest the attacks on the
Jews of Russia and to raise money for their relief.
1906: Birthdate of Mischa Ounskowsky, the native of St.
Petersburg who gained fame as American actor Mischa Auer.
1907: In New York City, Louis and Rose Feld Gurfein
gave birth to Phi Beta Kappa Columbia undergrad and Harvard trained attorney
Murray Irwin Gurfein who as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals
rejected the Nixon Administration’s attempt to bar the New York Times from
publishing The Pentagon Papers in 1971.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1979/12/18/111213308.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1907(11th of Kislev, 5668): Aba Ascher Levin
the father of eight sons and six daughters, passed away today in Baltimore
after which he was buried at B’nai Israel Congregation Cemetery.
1907: Lord Lionel Rothschild has tentatively agreed to send two of his
motorboats to the United States to take place in a series of race scheduled to
take place during 1908.
1908: Today, Macy’s was in the “Third
Week of its 6th Anniversary Sales” and advertised men’s broadcloth
coats starting in priced at $52.50 and “suits-to-measure” for $25.00 marked down
from $30 and $35.00.
1909: Birthdate of Alter Mojze
Goldman a Polish Jew who was active in the French Résistance during
World War II
1909(4th of Kislev, 5670): Rabbi Nissim Moche Amon, President of the
Constantinople Bet Din (religious court) passed away at the age 72.
1910: Birthdate of future Pensacola, FL resident Eulalie Turner, the wife of
Lewis Kenneth Cahn, the mother of Leah Cahn and daughter-in-law of Nettie Kahn
and Solomon Cahn.
1910: “Oscar S. Straus, the Ambassador to Turkey” delivered a speech on “The
Growth of American Prestige” which “was a notable account of the advances made
by” the United States “in recent years in respect to foreign relations at the annua
meeting lof the Chamber Commerce of the State of New York at the
Waldorf-Astoria.
1911: “Christian and Jewish lawyers refuse to appear in any future cases”
which are to be heard by a magistrate in Sanok Galicia who is known for his
anti-Jewish outbursts.
1911: In Great Britain, the King followed the recommendation of the Home
Secretary and appointed Londoner Israel A. Symmons as a metropolitan Police
Magistrate.
1911(26th of Cheshvan, 5672): Eighty-five-year-old Jacob Aarons
passed away today after which he was buried at the Plashed Jewish Cemetery in
London.
1911: Celebration of the 70th anniversary of the London Jewish
Chronicle.
1911: Joseph Weinberg, the father of “billionaire businessman Harry
Weinberg” “came to Baltimore” from Galicia today “on the S.S. Breslau” after
which he sent for his wife Sarah and their four children who “arrived in
August, 1912 aboard the S.S. Koln.”
1911: The Jewish Community of Sydney, Australia, expressed their support for
a “movement among the city’s largest to close all workshops and business houses
on Saturdays.”
1911: In New York City, vaudeville monologist and movie character actor
Julius Tannen and his wife gave birth to actor William Tannen best known for
his long-running supporting role in television western “Wyatt Earp.”
http://www.playbill.com/person/william-tannen-vault-0000043873
1912(7th of Kislev, 5673): Henry Thalsheimer, the New Orleans
merchant who in 1908 built a new dry goods store at a cost of “about $12,000”
passed away today in the Crescent City.
1912: In Chicago, dedication of the Marks Nathan Jewish Orphan Home.
1912: In Pueblo, CO, “Samuel Cohen and the former Dora Inger” gave birth to
Rosie Cohen who gained fame as actress and performer Connie Sawyer. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
1913: In Paris, attorney Louis Destroches and Madeleine Giron gave birth to
renowned Egyptologist Christian Desroches Noblecourt who returned to Paris in 1940 and joined the
Resistance, helping to move the Egyptian relics from the Louvre to areas not
controlled by the Nazis. (Editor’s note:
it is important to remember who resisted during the European Night)
1913: Amidst a controversy over using
Hebrew as a language of instruction in the schools in Palestine, the German
Counsel in Haifa warned Berlin that use of Hebrew would heighten Arab
suspicions about Jewish intentions while exacerbating inter-communal conflicts
among the Jews.
1914: In Újfehértó, Hungary, Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Teitelbaum, author of Atzei
Chaim, the previous Sigheter Rebbe Bracha Sima who hailed from the prominent
Halbershtam family gave birth to their second son Moshe Teitelbaum, the older brother of Yekusiel
Yehuda Teitelbaum and husband of Leah Teitelbaum with whom he had three
children all of whom were murdered at Auschwitz and who after surviving the Holocaust
married Pessel Leah, the daughter of Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum of Volovo and
became “the world leader of Satmar Hasidim.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/nyregion/rabbi-moses-teitelbaum-is-dead-at-91.html
https://www.chareidi.org/archives5770/mattos/MTS70arebteitlbm.htm
1914: American Jewish relief agencies sent “twenty cases of clothing to
Belgian Jewish refugees in England” after they sent another forty cases “to the
Jews of Galicia.
1915: The Turkish Embassy in Washington, DC made an announcement today, that
“in an effort to draw within their border Jews no in territory ceded away by
the Ottoman Empire as a result of the last Balkan war, the Turks have decided
to grant the same benefits and exemptions” to the Jews which “heretofore were
accorded only to Mohammedans.”
1915(10th of Kislev, 5676): Russia native Leah Horowitz Abrahams,
the wife of Emanuel Abrahams and mother of Morris, Betsy, Max, Herman and Celia
Abrahams passed away today in New York
1915: Today “omitting any references to the failure and insuffiency of
supplies, the military censor willingly permitted the Zemlya” to explain “the
Russian reverses” by writing “If it were not for the Jews the war with Germany
would not have been accompanied by the unpleasant features which contributed so
strongly to the success of the enemy.
1916: After “rejoining his battalion in France in March 1916 and taking part
in the fighting at Pozières, today Australian Leonard Keysor was transferred to
the 42nd Battalion
1916: General Sir Ian Standish Hamilton, the commander of the Mediterranean
Expeditionary Force during the Gallipoli Campaign wrote to Jabotinsky today
from his home at 1 Hyde Park Gardens” about the Zion Mule Corps saying that ‘The men have done extremely well,
working their mules calmly under heavy shell and rifle fire, and thus
showing a more difficult type of bravery than the men who were constantly
in the trenches and had the excitement of combat to keep them going’ (Jewish
Virtual Library)
1916: Birthdate of author and Civil War historian Shelby Foote. Foote grew up in Greenville,
Mississippi. His maternal grandfather
was a Viennese Jew who immigrated to the United States and settled in
Mississippi. According to an interview
found in Confederates in the Attic, Foote’s mother took him to Saturday
services in Greenville until he was eleven years old. Foote did not say why she stopped taking him.
However, he did say that he did not experience any anti-Semitism while growing
up in Greenville. He soon found out that the rest of the world was not as
accepting. As a student at UNC in Chapel Hill, Foote was blackballed from a
fraternity being pledged by his friends because of his religion. As Foote said
in an interview, “’I knew all the trouble I’d have down the line,’ he said of
his Jewish heritage. “I was always not
wanting to take on that kind of trouble.
It just added one more problem, an added awkwardness to life.’” So,
while in his twenties, Foote was Baptized and confirmed as an Episcopalian.
Foote passed away in 2005.
1916: “Dr. Judah L. Magnes made public in statement issued” tonight "an
idea, the details of which have not yet been worked out…which contemplates a
gigantic loan, the largest in the world’s history and without interest, to the
Jews of Europe” that will help them to “rehabilitate themselves and their
devastated lands at the end of the European War.”
1916: Until today, “the hostility of the authorities against the Jews”
particularly in Poland “found expression in well-known laws and in
uninterrupted persecutions and oppressions of the Jewish community as well as
in the fact that a religious body to which 14 per cent of the population of
Poland belongs was deprived of all uniform organizations.”
1916: The Jews of Poland received a “grant of new rights” under which “the
members of the Jewish religion will be permitted to reorganize as a religious
body” and a “guarantee is given that no religious tendency can be suppressed by
the majority of the population.”
1916: German General von Besseler, the Governor General at Warsaw made
public today an ordinance that “provides for the creation of an organization of
the heretofore unorganized and unrecognized Jewish religious communities”
1917(2nd of Kislev, 5678): Parashat Tolodot
1917: Rabbi Tobias Schanfarber is scheduled to lead Saturday morning
services at K.A.M. Temple in Chicago.
1917: Rabbi Julius Rappaport is scheduled to lead services at Beth El Temple
in Chicago.’
1917: The Russian Civil War which pitted the Whites against the Reds – which
would come to mean the Red Army led by Leon Trotsky – began today.
1917: It was reported today that New York Samuel A. Lewisohn, the son of
Adolph Lewisohn is engaged to Margaret V. Seligman, the daughter of the late
Isaac N. Seligman.
1917: It was reported today that that Isaac B. Bergson has replaced Herbert
S. Goldstein as the director of activities for the Central Jewish Institute in
New York.
1917: In Munich, Major Franz Carl Andres “in an address delivered under
Zionist auspices and sanctioned by the imperial (the Kaiser) authorities
intimated that Germany will support Zionist aims in Palestine. (Note – this
speech comes two weeks after the issuance of the Balfour Declaration and would
seem to be a bid by the Germans to hold on to Jewish support)
1917: During World War I, General Allenby’s forces entered the Hills of
Jerusalem. The German General on whom
the Turks were depending left Jerusalem and headed for Nablus. He had no intention of fighting by the side
of his Ottoman compatriots as the Allies made their way towards the City of
David.
1917: “The battle of Nebi Samwil which was the first attempt by the forces
of the British Empire to capture Jerusalem” began today.
1917: Birthdate of Helen Gavronsky the
Germiston, South Africa native who would gain fame as activist and Nobel
Prize Winner Helen Suzman
1917: In Brookline, MA, Rose and Myron Helpern gave birth to David Moses
Halpern, “the business side of the husband-and-wife apparel design team known
as Joan & David…” (As reported by Paul Vitello)
1918(13th of Kislev, 5679): Seventy-five-year-old Captain Joseph B. Greenhut
passed away today in Peoria, Illinois.
Born at Bishop-Purnitz, Austria, in 1843, lived in Mobile, Alabama
before moving to North prior to the Civil War.
He was the second man in Chicago to respond to President Lincoln’s call
for volunteers. As a Sargeant in the 12th
Illinois Infantry he fought at Fort Donelson where he was wounded and then
promoted to the rank of Captain. His
fought in most of the major battles of the war including Fredericksburg,
Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Missionary Ridge, Lookout Mountain and the Battle
Above the Clouds. His valor earned him
the brevet rank of Colonel. He served on
the state of Edward S. Salomon, one of the Jewish soldiers to reach the rank of
General in the Union Army. After leaving
the Army, Greenhut settled in Peoria where he was a successful businessman for
over thirty years. His membership in the Grand Army of the Republic and the B’nai
Brith bespeak his pride in being an American and a Jew.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F00716F83B55157A93CAA8178AD95F4C8185F9
1918: Rabbi Hyman Gerson Enelow
delivered a sermon today “at the temple of the Liberal Union of Paris” entitled
“The War and the Future of Religion.”
1918: Birthdate of New York native Herbert S. Landsman, WW II
U.S. Navy Commander and Ivy League educated executive vice president of
Federated Department Stores who raised four children – John, Herbert, Jr,
Margaret and Julie – with his wife “the former Madeline R. Stricker”
1918: In New York City Nathan M. and
Sara (Damsky) Landsman gave birth to Ivy League (Dartmouth BA, Harvard MA)
educated businessman Herbert Samuel who began his career with “Wm. Filene’s
Sons Company in Boston and who married Madeline Rollman Stricker after his
first wife Claire Zimmerman passed away.
1919: Birthdate of composer and
arranger Hershy Kay.
1920:
A fund-raising drive sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of
Louisville, KY is scheduled to continue for a second day.
1921:
“Nasal Hemorrhage,” by Vilna native and Tufts University Medical School
graduate , Dr. Joseph Prenn was published today in the “New England Journal of
Medicine.”
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM192111171852005
1921: Winston Churchill demands that Sir Herbert Samuel, the High
Commissioner, move forcefully to collect the fines from Arab rioters who had attacked
Jews and destroyed their property in Jaffa.
1922: Birthdate of Stuart Schulberg, the son of producer and studio
executive B.P. Schulberg and younger brother of novelist/screenwriter Budd
Schulberg,
1922: Sarah (Apfel) Berlinger, the wife of Moses Berlinger with whom she had
two children, was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.
1923(9th of Kislev, 5684): Parashat Vayetzei
1923: “Captain Alexander Aaronsohn, D.S.O., an American officer who fought
with the army of General Allenby in Palestine, speaking at the Town Hall today
before the League of Political Education on "The Jew," assailed
Israel Zangwill for his recent attacks on America.”
1924: Release date for a Rudolph Valentino melodrama “A Sainted Devil
produced by Jesse Lasky and Adolph Zukor.
1924: Forty-eight-year-old Detroit College of Law trained attorney Louis
James Rosenberg, the son of Abraham and Zelda Rosenerg married Mildred Simons
today in Detroit.
1925(30th of Cheshvan, 5686): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1925: Reports on the social, civic and welfare activities of the National
Council of Jewish Women were made today at the second session of the four-day
conference of the Board of Managers in progress this week at the Hotel
Commodore” during which “Mrs. Leo H. Herz of New York, National Chairman of the
Department of Farm and Rural Work, reported that the Jewish farm population of
the United States was 75,000.”
1925: “Bankers and brokers, importers and exporters and businessmen of
allied groups held an enthusiastic dinner in the Hotel Pennsylvania tonight to
wind up the second day of the four-day campaign to raise $4,000,000 for the
Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies.”
1926: In Sioux City, IA, Harry and Toni (Merlin) Ratner, “Jewish immigrants
from Russia who ran a grocery store” gave birth to UCLA graduate Harriet Mae
Ratner who gained fame as “Harriet Glickman who in 1968 persuaded Charles M.
Schulz, the creator of “Peanuts,” to add an African-American character to his
roster of Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the gang…” (As reported by
Daniel E. Slotnik)
1927(22nd of Cheshvan, 5688): Fifty-eight-year-old Constance
Nathan, the unmarried daughter of Charleston native Eudora Hart and Gratz
Nathan passed away today in New York City.
1927: Birthdate of Stanley Cohen, “an American biochemist who shared the
1986 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his research on epidermal
growth factor (EGF), a substance produced in the body that influences the
development of skin tissues. With the nerve growth factor (NGF) studied by
Levi-Montalcini, these were the first of many growth-regulating signal
substances to be discovered and characterized. The discovery of NGF and EGF
opened new fields of widespread importance to basic science and increased
understanding of many disease states such as developmental malformations,
degenerative changes in senile dementia, delayed wound healing and tumor
diseases.”
1927: In Boston, the Boston Symphony Orchestra is scheduled to perform
Alexander Tansman's Symphony no. 2 in A minor which will mark its first
performance in the United States.
1928: Dr. Zemach Feldstein, the Director of the Hebrew Gymnasium of Kovno
was among the speakers who addressed the opening meeting of the first national
convention of the Federation of Lithuanian Jews in America that opened tonight
at the Mecca Temple in New York City.
1929: Justice Joseph M. Proskauer of the Appellate Division of the Supreme
Court spoke to the crowd of nearly one thousand people “who attended the laying
of the cornerstone of the new $2,500,000 Y.M.H.A building at 92nd
Street and Lexington Avenue this afternoon.
1929:Yan Gamarnik, born in Zhytomyr in a Jewish family as Jakov Tzudikovich
Gamarnik began serving as a member of “the
15th Orgburo of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) which was elected by
the 1st Plenary Session of the 15th Central Committee, in the immediate
aftermath of the 15th Congress.
1930: University of Pennsylvania trained legal scholar Philip Amram, the son
of David Werner Amram, and his wife gave birth to acclaimed composer David
Amram III, one of the most eclectic, versatile, and unpredictable American
musicians of the 20th–21st centuries, who has given equal attention throughout
his life thus far to contemporary classical art music, ethnic folk music, film
and theater music, and jazz. The Boston Globe has saluted him as
"the Renaissance man of American music," and The New York Times
noted that he was "multicultural before multiculturalism existed."
Yet Amram's so-called multiculturalism has not been
political—"correct" or otherwise—but rather a function of his genuine
interest in a variety of musical traditions and practices. "Music is one
world," he has declared. Amram was born in Philadelphia, but he spent his
childhood on the family farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where the family
moved shortly before his seventh birthday. His father had been a farmer before
becoming a lawyer, and—like David Amram to this day—he continued to farm in
addition to his professional pursuits. Since there was little Jewish population
in that farming region, young David grew up without the benefit of a Jewish
community, but his grandfather (David Werner Amram, for whom he was named), who
had been active in early American Zionist circles and had spent considerable
time on a kibbutz in Palestine, taught him basic Hebrew; and his father
conducted Sabbath services in their home. His father also introduced him to
recordings of cantorial music and to his own amateur piano renditions of
European classical pieces. His uncle was a devotee of jazz, introducing David
to recordings of such artists as Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong—and then
taking him to hear some of those performers in person. Those three
traditions—jazz, classical, and Jewish liturgical music—were thus somehow
interrelated for him from childhood, in terms of both emotional and
improvisational aspects.
1930: “Sweet and Low,” a musical revue produced by Billy Rose whose stars
included George Jessel and Fanny Brice opened on Broadway at Chanin’s 46th
Street Theatre.
1931: Montefiore Kahn, vice president of Oil Shares, Inc., is scheduled to
make a court appearance today related to the theft of $100,000.
1931: “Kameradschaft” a German made film with social protest overtones
co-starring Jewish actor Alexander Granach premiered in Germany today.
1932: The resignation of Lewis French as director of the Palestine
development scheme, which presages “significant changes in the policies of the
Palestine Government” is scheduled to be announced in the Official Gazette
today.
1933: “The Right to Romance” written by Sidney Buchman was released today by
RKO in the United States.
1933: It was reported today that “Jewish schools throughout Palestine” have
reopened after a three year compromise which settled “long controversy over
salary arrears and guarantees future salaries” was agreed to.
1934(10th of Kislev, 5695): Parashat Vayetzei
1934: Jews in the Free City of Danzig observed the last Shabbat before the
victory of the Nazis in that city’s elections
1935: Seventy-three-year-old Edward Shortt, who while serving as Home
Secretary told Lt. Col Malone, in a session of Parliament that he feared that
law conferred no powers upon him to allow for the suppression of the pamphlet
“The Jewish Peril.”
1936: At Ramat Gan, Levi, “a Jewish engineer from Russia” and Michal, a
school teach gave birth to award winning “Israeli poet, translator and peace
activist” Dahlia Ravikovitch.
1936: In Budapest, Hungary, “anti-Semitic student demonstrations at the
University of Budapest which had ceased during the visit of the Italian Foreign
Minister were resumed today.”
1937: As the Arab terrorist war
against the Jews of Palestine continued, The Palestine Post reported
that 45 Jews were arrested under the new emergency regulations. The Jewish
Agency stated, in reference to the revolting murder of five Jewish pioneers at
Ma’aleh Hahamisha, and an apparent dissidents’ retaliation during which six
Arabs were killed in Jerusalem, that it would oppose to the utmost any attempts
at revenge on innocent persons. The agency was confident that all responsible
Jewish bodies would stamp out dissidents from their midst. British troops
killed three Arab terrorists in Galilee.
1938(23rd of Cheshvan, 5699): Seventy-three-year-old Austrian
born welfare worker Mrs. Bessie Wiesen, “the director and trustee of the
Johanna Aid Society, the Hebrew Children Hoe and the Y.M.H.A. Synagogue of
Washington Heights” who was the widow of Elias Wiesen with whom she raised five
daughters, and two sons passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1938/11/18/503880032.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1938: U.S. premiere of “The Cowboy and the Lady” a western comedy produced
by Samuel Goldwyn with a script by S.N. Behrman and music by Alfred Newman.
1938: Birthdate of Peter Kassovitz, the native of Budapest who left Hungary
during the 1956 Revolution and whose directorial credits include one of the
most unique Holocaust movies – Jakob the Liar.
1938: Mussolini adopted an Italian anti-Semitic Code patterned after the
German Nuremberg Laws. Was Mussolini an
anti-Semite? This is the subject of The
Contract: Mussolini, the Publisher of Hitler by Giorgio Fabrre, recently
released in English translation and reviewed by the New York Times on November 7.
This book explores the murky relationship between the two fascist
dictators including the fact that Mussolini paid an exorbitant sum for the
rights to publish Mein Kampf in Italy.
Apparently the money was really a secret campaign contribution from
Mussolini to Hitler. Prior to the
enactment of this code, Mussolini had already moved against the Jews of Italy
including his former mistress who was Jewish. The most immediate impact of the
code was to force many Jews out of Mussolini’s Fascist Party. This controversial book has forced many
Italians to re-examine this dark chapter in their history.
1938: Sheik Abdul Rahman el Khatib was shot and seriously wounded while
walking on a street here this morning. There is little hope for his recovery.
His Arab assailant escaped.
1938: As Arab violence continues for a second straight year, “A Jew was
fatally shot this morning by an Arab near Sharona, a Christian German colony
near Tel Aviv.”
1938: Ernst von Rath whose murder by Herschel Grynszpan was the excuse for
Kristallnacht, “was given a state funeral in Düsseldorf, which was attended by
Hitler and Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop who in his funeral oration
described the shooting as an attack by the Jews on the German people.”
1939: Nazis destroy all
of the synagogues in Lódz, Poland.
1939: Abraham Kaplan, the author of Conduct of Inquiry, married child
psychologist Iona Judith Wax; a union which produced two children -- Karen Eva
Kaplan Diskin and Jessica Aryia Kaplan Symonds.
1939: Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's "Very Warm for May,"
premieres in New York City.
1939(5th of Kislev, 5700): Boruch Ber Leibowitz passed away. Born at Slutsk (Belarus) in 1864, he was
Talmudic prodigy who studied under Rabbi Chaim Brisker before becoming head of
the Kneseth Beis Yitzchak Yeshiva in Slobodka which he was forced to re-locate
and reconstitute in different locales based on the vicissitudes of World War I
and the ensuring violence that gripped Eastern Europe. Tragically, death came to him in Vilna the
last location of his Yeshiva.
http://www.tzemachdovid.org/gedolim/jo/tworld/rlebowitz.html
1940: The Lodz Ghetto Archive was established today, by order of the
Chairman of the Judenrat, Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/october/15.asp
1940: In Tel Aviv, a conference of 300 communal representatives formed a
“United National Front” dedicated to carrying out the reform program championed
by Pichas Rutenberg. “This united front
has the support of many middle class Jews” who have been concerned by the
breach growing between “socialists affiliated with the General Jewish Labor
Federation and Zionist Revisionists.”
1940: In Berlin, Lieutenant Colonel
Kazys Skirpa, former Lithuanian ambassador to Germany, established the Lietuviu
Aktyvistu Frontas (Lithuanian Activist Front), a collaborationist Fascist
organization dedicated to nationalism and anti-Semitism.
1941: Birthdate of Arlington, VA,
native James Steven “Jim” Bregman “a member of the first American to compete in
judo in the Summer Olympics.”
1941: The Hitch-Hiker a radio play written by Lucille Fletcher featuring a
score written and conducted by Bernard Herrmann, Fletcher's first husband was
broadcast of the Orson Welles Show on CBS Radio for the first time.
1941: Proceeds from tonight’s
performance of the play “Theatre” at the Hudson Theatre featuring Cornelia Otis
Skinner will go to the Women’s League for Palestine and help the league raise
funds for the construction of a center for refugees in Jerusalem.
1941: Eight Jews executed for
going outside the Warsaw ghetto without permission. Six were women.
1941: In France, the Vichy government expanded the Aryanization rules to
exclude Jews from any employment beyond menial labor.
1942: Rabbi Levi Yitzchak
Horowitz “married Rachel Unger Leifer of Cleveland, Ohio, daughter of Rabbi
Naftali Unger, av beis din of Neumarkt
and a descendant of Rabbi Naftali Tzvi of Ropshitz.”
1942: It was reported today that two chapters “Blood and Banquets: A Berlin
Social Diary” by Bella Fromm have appeared in Harper’s Magazine. [Bella Fromm was a German Jewish
correspondent for the Ullstein newspapers and the Times. She risked her life by
staying in Germany during the 1930’s so that she could report on events
surrounding the Hitler régime. She
finally fled to the United States where her reportage became the inspiration
for this first-hand account of events in the land of the Nazis.]
1942: The headline in today’s edition of Haaretz announced that
"The Eretz-Israeli residents that have been exchanged have arrived from
the Reich." According to the Jewish
daily, “There’s been much commotion at the Afula station in preparation for the
arrival of 114 women and children, relatives of Eretz-Israeli and British
residents, who've come from Germany. They were exchanged for German women and
children from Eretz Israel, who were allowed to travel to Germany."
1943: Nine hundred
ninety-five Jews from Holland were sent to Birkenau where 531 were gassed,
including 166 children.
1943: Max Sievers, who was forced to
return to Europe in 1939 because he could not get a visa that would have
allowed him to say in the United State was sentenced to death by the Nazis.
1943: General Antonescu, the Rumanian dictator warned the cabinet against
giving into Hitler's demands for the Jews. Hundreds of thousands still survived
in camps and ghettos. "We will take them away from here." Four
thousand, four hundred orphans were the first to be repatriated, followed by
15,000 others.
1943: The director-general of the BBC, Robert Foot, issued a policy
directive . . . 'that we should not promote ourselves or accept any propaganda
in the way of talks, discussion, features with the object of trying to correct
the undoubted anti-Semitic feeling which is held very largely throughout the
country.'
1944(1st of Kislev, 5705): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1944(1st of Kislev, 5705): Just eleven days after her 62nd
birthday, Jennie Maas Flexner, the Louis born daughter of pharmacist Jacob Aaron Flexner and “Rosa
(Maas) Flexner” who was the original and innovative readers’ adviser at the New
York Public Library passed away today.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/flexner-jennie-maas
1944: Rachel “Didi” Roos (later known by her married name Harel) who had
joined the Dutch Resistance by pretending to be a “Christian” farmer who “was
arrested by the Germans” managed to destroy the letters she was carrying after
which she was shot while trying to escape but somehow avoided execution because
the Nazis did not know she was Jewish.
1944: “The Princess and the Pirate” produced by Samuel Goldwyn, with music
by David Rose and screenplay co-authored by Mel Shavelson was released today in
the United States.
1944: In Palestine, Florence Becker and Henry Abraham Lipowitz gave birth to
Lorne Lipowitz, the Canadian raised television producer known as Lorne Michaels
the driving force behind “Saturday Night Live.”
1945(12 of Kislev, 5706): Parashat Vayetzei
1945(12th of Kislev, 5706): Seventy-year-old Moritz “Moshe”
Speier, the son of Bertha and Nathan Speier and the husband of Jeanette Speier
passed away today in Baltimore, MD.
1945: A delegation from the American League for Free Palestine headed by
former Senator Guy Gillette arrived in London tonight. The delegates are supposed to hold
discussions with British leaders about the situation in Palestine and payment
of reparations to those living in DP camps in Germany.
1945: As the British government sought to enforce the White Paper and clamp
down on Jewish resistance activities, “British paratroopers carried twenty
expectant mothers to hospitals in armored cars today. A baby born in one of the armored cars was
named Shalom by his mother.
1946: As part of growing wave of terror caused by Britain failing to honor
its war time promise to allow Jewish immigration to Eretz Israel and increasing
repressive measure aimed at the Jews of the Yishuv, four British policemen were
killed when their truck was blown up outside Tel Aviv.
1946: In New York premiere of “The Chase” with a screenplay by Philip Yordan
1946: Freedom Fighters for Israel (FFI) also known as Lehi or the Stern
group operatives detonated a mine that killed four and wounded several others;
over the course of the month, FFI gunmen sabotaged rail lines, shot at trains,
blew up military vehicles, destroyed international telegraph lines, attacked
police stations, robbed Barclays Bank in Tel Aviv, and set off an explosion at
a British military base.
1946: Eighty-six-year-old archaeologist Max von Oppenheim whose
accomplishments included the excavations at Tell-Halaf passed away today.
http://tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/141788/hitler-jews-oppenheim
http://tabletmag.com/scroll/143626/parsing-max-von-oppenheims-legacy
1947: Eighteen-year-old Yeruham Ben-Issar Jacob Krubelnik and sixteen-year-old
Mordehai Zeev Sofar “went on trial today before the Jerusalem military court on
suspicion of having caused an explosion under the Cairo-Haifa express” which
resulted in the death of the engineer who was Jewish and the derailing of five
coaches.
1947: “From the over-all standpoint of interest, attendance, team and
school, morale and final results, the City College football team which
completed its 1947 campaign Saturday showed more progress than any Beaver
eleven since 1940. Dr. Sam Winograd, C.C.N.Y.'s faculty manager of athletics,
said” today.
1947: “Unidentified robbers gagged and bound a Tel Aviv diamond merchant in
his home and escaped with jewels valued at $8,000.”
1947: Members of the “Stern Gang…announced that they were ready to resume
their truce pledge.”
1947: Today “a prominent Arab source said differences of between King
Abdullah of Transjordan and the exiled Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin
el-Husseini, had ruled out a coordinated invasion by Arabs opposed to a
partition of the Holy Land.”
1947: In Palestine, the departing British administration plans to sell
state-owned real estate along the Haifa waterfront and to invest in England
money from bonds sold to Palestinians.
1947: A Liverpool jury needed only 13 minutes of deliberation to find
newspaper editor James Caunt not guilty of charges of “seditious libel against
the Jews in Britain.” Caunt had written
an editorial in The Visitor criticizing “British Jews for not doing more to
prevent Zionist killing of British troops in Palestine, describing Jews as ‘a
plague on Britain’ and encouraging violence against them.
1947: Today, while the National Conference of the CDE was still conducting
its business, Dr. William Filderman resigned from the leadership of the UER,
and after a short time, succeeded in leaving Romania clandestinely. This
decision had to be made, because it was discovered that the Romanian
authorities were preparing a plot in which he would be accused of being a spy
for Great Britain.
1948: King Abdullah of Transjordan hopes for a “real peace" to replace
"semi-peace." He suggests that "the Israelis should be more
reasonable "and the Arabs "should accept the logical." (Abdullah
was a complex figure who wanted to rule Jerusalem. He announced that no land
under the control of the Jordanian army would be turned over to what are called
today the Palestinian Arabs.)
1949: Charles "Charlie" Thompson Winters was released today after
spending 18 months in prison for violating the Neutrality Act of 1939 in
conspiring to smuggle three bombers via Czechoslovakia to Palestine.
1949: “The first of the military’s dead – the remains of those who fought in
Latrun, in Kfar Etzion and the Convoy of 35, along with those buried in Sheikh
Bader – some 300 people in all – were buried in a communal grave in the
military cemetery on Mt. Herzl. (As reported by Mitch Ginsburg)
1950: Soprano Roberta Peters, the twenty-year-old daughter of Ruth and Sol
Peterman debuted at the Metropolitan Opera when she replaced a colleague on six
hours’ notice. https://jwa.org/thisweek/nov/17/1950/roberta-peters
1950(8th of Kislev, 5711): Fifty-eight-year-old Baku born editor
and French translator Jaques Schiffrin, the husband of Youra Guller with whom
he had two children and “brother of film producer Simo Schiffrin” whose
literary connections with some of France’s most prominent writers and editors
and service in the French Army did not keep from having to flee to the United
States after the passage of the 1940 anti-Jewish Laws after which he founded
“the Patheon Books editions with Helen and Kurt Wolff.
1950(8th of Kislev, 5711): Eight-eight-year-old Rabbi Zvi Hirsch
Cohen, dean of the Canadian Rabbinate and president of the Montreal Council of
Orthodox Rabbis” passed away today.
1952(29th of Cheshvan, 5713): Sixty-five-year-old Jacob
Silverblatt, the father of Edith Silverblatt Mendelsohn and father-in-law of
Morris Aaron Mendelsohn passed away today after which he was buried at Beth
Shalom Cemetery in Sahler Township, PA.
1953 (17 Kislev): Eighty-three-year-old Isser
Zalman Meltzer passed away. Born in
1870, he was a famous Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi, Rosh Yeshiva and pose. He is
also known as the "Even HaEzel", after the title of his commentary on
Rambam's Mishne Torah.
1953: Anna Meingest, who had been Stefan Zweig’s secretary in Salzburg for
twenty years during the inter-war years passed away today.
1954(21st of Cheshvan): Hebrew poet Yizhak Lamdan passed away
1954: “Désirée” a movie version of the novel by the same name, directed by
Henry Koster, produced by Julian Blaustein and written by Daniel Taradash
1956: The Sharkfighters an American adventure film produced by Samuel
Goldwyn, Jr with music by Jerome Mose, the son of Jewish immigrants Samuel
Moross and Mollie Greenberg was released today in the United States.
1958: Syrian terrorists killed the wife of the British air attaché
in Israel, who was staying at the guesthouse of the Italian Convent on the Mt.
of the Beatitudes.
1959: NBC broadcast “The Big Time” starring George Burns, Jack
Benny, Eddie Cantor and George Jessel which was the seventh episode of
Startime,
1960: “Morgan the Pirate” produced by Joseph E. Levine was
released today in Italy.
1960: “A charter membership drive of the newly formed Brooklyn
chapter of the Women’s Division of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine” is
scheduled to take place today at the Unity Club in Brooklyn under the
leadership of its president Mrs. Bernard Greenberg.
1960:
Birthdate of Mandy Yachad a former South African
cricketer and field hockey player who represented the South African national
team in both sports.
1961: Birthdate of history professor and author Jonathan Zimmerman
https://scholar.gse.upenn.edu/zimmerman
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/170290
1961: “A Proper God” published today reviews Paddy Chayefsky’s
“Gideon” a play “drawn from 3 chapters of the Book of Judges” that “explores
the relationship of an ordinary man to God.”
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,939335,00.html
1962: “Little Me” a Broadway “musical written by Neil Simon with
music by Cy Coleman and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh opened at the Lunt-Fontanne
Theatre.
1962: “More Language That Needs Watching” by Theodore M.
Bernstein, the assistant managing editor of the New York Times is scheduled to
be published today. This is Bernstein’s second book on linguistics. “Watch Your
Language” provided examples “of words gone wrong – incorrect usage – and inept
sentence structure” as well as selections of “bright and incisive writing.”
1962:
In his sermon delivered today, Dr. Israel Margolies said that laws that prevent
the abortion of deformed babies are barbarous. The New York City rabbi has been
quoted as saying “that the truly civilized mind would be hard pressed to devise
a greater sin than to condemn a helpless infant to a life of permanent
deformity, or to the twilight world of the slum and orphanage, or to an
unwelcome home.”
1962(20th of Cheshvan, 5723): John Shubert who had taken over as
head of operations from his father Jacob in the 1950’s “passed away
unexpectedly” today.
1963: “Mr. and Mrs. Joe Leventhal announce the engagement of their daughter,
Pennie Sue, to Stephen H. Deutsch, the son of Mrs. and Mrs. Milton Deutsch of
the Bronx.”
1964(12th of Kislev, 5725): Chaim Mordechai Katz the Rosh Yeshiva
of the Telshe Yeshiva in Cleveland, suffered a massive, fatal heart attack
today.
1964: Seventy-eight-year-old General Sir George James Giffard who served as
General Officer Commanding British Forces in Palestine and Trans-Jordan from
1940 to 1941 passed away today.
1965: “The War Lord” a medieval war movie with a score by Jerome Moross was
released in the United States today.
1966: Woody Allen’s “Don’t Drink the Water” premiered on Broadway today.
1967: “Former concentration camp guard Erwin Busta, Gestapo official Ernst
Sander and chief of security for the V-weapons program Helmut Bischoff went on
trial before the District Court at Essen, West Germany on charges that included
“summary executions of prisoners who had attempted to escape or were accused of
sabotage.”
1968: Two days after he had passed away, funeral services are scheduled to
be held at the Westchester Jewish Center for Seventy-two year old Polish born,
WW I U.S Navy veteran, Sidney Cannol, the founder and chairman of the Manhattan
Electric Cable Corporation and “organizer of the electrical division of the
Federation of Jewish Philanthropies who had passed away aboard the Oceanic
while “returning from a cruise to Nassau.”
1968(26th of Cheshvan, 5729): Ninety-four-year-old Vicksburg native Sidney
N. Scharff, the son of Nicholas Scharff and Carrie Bernheimer passed away today
in St. Louis
1968: In what became known as the “Heidi Game” NBC cut away from the last
minute of football game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets so
viewers could see the children’s classic, Heidi. Given the closeness of the game, NBC’s
switchboard was lit up with calls from irate fans. The Jets were owned by two Jews, Sonny
Werblin and Leon Hess and the Raiders were owned by another Jew, Al Davis.
1969: African-American writer Alice Walker and Jewish-American civil rights
lawyer Mel Leventhal, gave birth to Rebecca Walker.
https://jwa.org/thisweek/nov/17/1969/rebecca-walker-born
1969: NBC broadcast “Friend of the Earth” the 11th episode of “My
World and Welcome to It” created by Melville Savelson, produced by Sheldon
Leonard and Danny Arnold and co-starring Harold J. Stone today.
1969: An F-4E Phantom Jet manned by Ehud Hankin and Shaul Levi fell victim
to Jordanian anti-aircraft fire.
1970(18th of Cheshvan, 5731): Seventy-five-year-old NYU trained
attorney Irving Warshaw, the husband of the “former Hilda Nurenberg” with whom
he had three children and who “helped found the Hebrew University of Jerusalem”
passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1970/11/18/archives/irving-warshaw-75-law-partner-here.html
1971(29th of Cheshvan, 5732): Seventy-six-year-old “Yehuda Leib
Levin, the chief rabbi of Moscow’s Central Synagogue passed away today.
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,841356,00.html
1971(29th of Cheshvan, 5732): Eighty-one-year-old actress and art
patron Fania “Fanny” Marinoff, the Odessa born daughter of Leah and Mayer
Marinoff and wife of photographer and writer Carl Van Vechten passed away
today.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/marinoff-fania
1972: “They Call Him The Mechanic” a “crime thriller directed by Michael
Winner, produced by Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler with music by Jerry
Fielding was released in the United States today.
1973: Mother Mirra Alfass, “a revered spiritual leader, holy figure, and
yogic guru in India, founding multiple ashrams, a school, and an intentional,
self-sustaining community” who “was born in Paris to a Turkish Jewish father
and an Egyptian Jewish mother” passed away today.
https://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/21/1878/birth-mirra-alfassa-spiritual-leader-and-holy-figure
1973: NPR broadcast the first episode of “The National Lampoon Radio” whose
stars included Gilda Radner, Harold Ramis and Richard Belzer.
1975: “The Sharkfighters” produced by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr. and with music by
Jerome Moross was released today in the United States.
1976(24th of Cheshvan, 5737): Eighty-eight-year-old Dr. Charles
G. Eichel, the husband of Sophie H. Eichel with whom he had two children – Lenore
and Albert – and the former principal of P.S. 202 in Brooklyn who was the
co-founder of the Jewish Teacher’s Community Chest passed away today.
1976(24th of Cheshvan, 5737): Eighty-one-year-old Meyer Loshie
Casman the Russian born son of Mr. and Mrs. Louis Casman, who attended the
University of Pennsylvania Law School and West Point which him to a career as
“a lawyer, engineer and prosecutor during the Nuremberg Trials passed away
today after which he was buried in the Mount Lebanon Cemetery.
1977: Egyptian
President Sadat formally accepts invitation to visit Israel. This is the start
of a historic process that will result in the peace treaty between Egypt and
Israel. While Sadat may have been the
leader of the sneak attack that started the Yom Kippur War, he is worth
remembering as an Arab Nachson, a man who was brave enough to plunge into the
unknown for the greater good. He
literally paid for peace with his own blood.
1977: Colonel Menachem Milson, the Israeli officer named to serve as
aide-de-camp to Anwar Sadat during his upcoming visit to Israel met with the
committee coordinating preparation for the historic visit.
1978(17th of Cheshvan, 5739): Eighty-two-year-old Chicago native
Mildred Rosenkranz, “the daughter of Emil Firth and Benvenida Solis” and the
wife of Elias Victor Rosenkranz passed away today in Beverly Hills today.
1978: Publication of Faggots, a novel by Larry Kramer.
1978: Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal” premiered today at Lyttelton Theatre &
Royal National Theatre in London
1979(27th of Cheshvan, 5740): Parashat Chayei Sara
1979(27th of Cheshvan, 5740): Eighty-four year old psychiatrist
and author Immanuel Velikovsky, the Lithuanian born so of Beila Grodensky and
Shimon Velikovskey who played “a role in the founding of Hebrew University
whose argument “that the conventional chronology of the Near East and classical
world, based upon Egyptian Sothic dating and the king lists of Manetho, was
wholly flawed” gave rise to what is known as “The Velikovsky Affair” passed
away today.
http://www.ruthvelikovskysharon.com/immanuel.html
1980: Bella Abzug and Grace Paley were among the thousands of women who
participated in today’s Women’s Pentagon Action.
1980: In a move that reinforced the concept of separation of church &
State, the Supreme Court today decided in Stone v Graham, that “a Kentucky
statute requiring the posting of a copy of the Ten Commandments purchased with
private contributions on the wall of each public classroom in the State is
unconstitutional”
1980: “Pope John Paul II delivered a speech to the Jews of Berlin in which
he discussed his views of Catholic-Jewish relations” in which he “claimed that
Catholics must embrace the Hebrew Bible as being equally valid as the New
Testament” and “asserted that God's Old Covenant with the Jewish people was
never revoked which meant, as Darcy O'Brien wrote, that the pope had indicated
that the Catholic Church had abandoned its mission to proselytize the Jews and
has embraced the Jews' salvation.”
1982(1st of Kislev, 5743): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1982(1st of Kislev, 5743): Russian violinist Leonid Borisovitch Kogan passed
away.
1983: Birthdate of Milwaukee Brewers MVP Ryan Braun.
1985: “Art View; The Best and Biggest In Pittsburgh” published today
described the 49th Carnegie International Exhibition which included
works by Lucian Freud and Mel Bochner.’
1985(4th of Kislev, 5746): Eighty-one-year-old Jimmy Ritz, one of
the Ritz Brothers, passed away today after he was buried with his brothers at
the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.”
1986: Birthdate of Cardiff, Wales native and Welsh professional footballer
Joseph Mark Jacobs and the brother of Sam Jacobson whose “family attends the
Cardiff United Synagogue” and who played for the Wycombe Wanderers.
1988: Neil Simon's "Rumors," premieres in New York City.
1988: ABC broadcast the fourth episode of “War and Remembrance,” “an
American miniseries based on the novel of the same name written by Herman Wouk”
1989: “The Little Mermaid” an animated musical with a score by Alan Menken
was released in the United States today.
1990(29th of Cheshvan, 5751): Robert Hofstadter passed away. Hofstadter was
an “American scientist who was a joint recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics
in 1961 for his investigations in which he measured the size of the neutron and
proton in the nuclei of atoms. He revealed the hitherto unknown structure of
these particles and helped create an identifying order for subatomic particles.
He also correctly predicted the existence of the omega-meson and rho-meson. He
also studied controlled nuclear fission. Hofstadter was one of the driving
forces behind the creation of the Stanford Linear Accelerator. He also made
substantial contributions to gamma ray spectroscopy, leading to the use of
radioactive tracers to locate tumors and other disorders. (He shared the prize
with Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer of Germany.)”
1992: In the wake of last year’s riots in Crown Heights, “New York Governor
Mario Cuomo gave the Director of Criminal Justice Services, Richard H.Girgenti,
the authority to investigate the rioting and the trial” of Lemrick Nelson, Jr
who was identified by Yankel Rosenbuam as his attacker before he succumbed to
his wounds.
1993: Judith Rodin was named the president of the University of Pennsylvania
making her the first woman to head an Ivy League University. Serving as Penn's
president until 2004, Rodin guided the university through the largest capital
construction period in its history and increased its U.S. News and World
Report ranking from 16 in 1994 to 5 in 2003. Rodin is a faculty member of
Penn's psychology department and in its School of Medicine. Widely published,
her research focuses on the complex relationships between mind and body. Rodin
attended Penn as an undergraduate and spent 22 years on the faculty of Yale
University, where she served as provost from 1992 to 1994. In addition to her
academic work, she chaired the board of Innovation Philadelphia and the Knowledge
Industry Partnership. She serves on the steering committee of college
presidents for America Reads and the executive committee of the
Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. Rodin also served on President Clinton's
Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology. Rodin was not a token, but a
trailblazer. When she retired in 2004,
she was followed by another Jewish woman, Amy Gutman. Gutman would gain a measure of notoriety when
she was photographed with a student dressed as a suicide bomber at a Halloween
Costume Party in 2006.
1993(3rd of Kislev, 5754): Sgt. 1st Cl. Chaim Darina, age 37, was stabbed by
a Gazan terrorist while seated at the cafeteria at the Nahal Oz road block at
the entrance to the Gaza Strip. The terrorist was apprehended. The Islamic
Jihad claimed responsibility for the murder.
1994: Irish Labor Party member Mervyn Taylor completed his service as
Minister for Equality and Law Reform.
1994: “Sunset Boulevard,” a musical based on “Billy Wilder’s Oscar winning
film of the same name” oped today on Broadway at the Minskoff Theatre.
1995: “It Takes Two” a comedy starring Steve Guttenberg was released in the
United States State.
1996: In New York, the complete list of candidates for landmark status and
their architects suggested by Robert A. M. Stern includes the Henry L. Moses
Research Institute, Montefiore Hospital, East Gun Hill Road, Bronx
1998: Israel's parliament overwhelmingly approved the Wye River
land-for-peace accord with the Palestinians.
1999: U.S. premiere of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” produced by Scott
Rudin, with music by Danny Elfman and filmed by cinematographer Emmanuel
Lubezki.
2000: Mathew Freud, the great-grandson of Sigmund Freud and Elizabeth
Murdoch gave birth to their first child Charlotte Emma Freud.
2001: In New Jersey, Bat Mitzvah of Jamie Shulman, the daughter of Lori and
Mark Shulman, “a disaster inspector, fire prevention and risk consultant for
Marsh & McLennan in New York” who died on 9/11.
http://www.legacy.com/sept11/story.aspx?personid=147312
2001: Daniel Saul Goldin finishes serving as Administrator of NASA. Goldin was the first Jew to hold the
post. He held the position longer than
any of his predecessors, serving under three different Presidents.
2002
(12th of Kislev, 5763): Abba Eban passed away.
(Editor’s note: This entry is a
little on the lengthy side, but the subject is well worth the time. There is a prejudice at work here. As youngster growing up in Washington during
the 1950’s I heard Eban speak several times. His round Churchillian tones along
with his sharp, lucid comments made one swell with pride. I was further amazed to think that Israelis
sounded just like Winston Churchill [boy was I in for a surprise]. But in the early days of the state, when
Israel was not a popular cause, Ambassador to the U.S. and the U.N., Abba Eban
bucked the odds, conducting a one-man diplomatic and public relations offensive
against the well-heeled American oil lobby and the Arab governments to provide Israel
with a positive image in the United States at a time when the survival of the
state hung in the balance on daily basis. He will always be remembered as one
of the statesmen who helped persuade the world to approve creation of Israel
and dominated Israeli diplomacy for decades.)
Abba Eban, orator, Israeli statesman and diplomat, Foreign Minister from
1966 to 1974, was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and brought up in England.
He studied oriental languages and classics at Cambridge University, England,
where he was a lecturer in Arabic from 1938 to 1940. He was already a public
speaker of caliber and renowned for his presence at debates on the Middle East.
During World War II he served in the British Army in Egypt and Mandate
Palestine, becoming an intelligence officer in Jerusalem, where he coordinated
and trained volunteers for resistance in the event of a German invasion. In
1946, the Jewish Agency appointed him political information officer in London,
where he participated in the negotiations with the British government and the
UN concerning the establishment of the State of Israel. When Israel became
independent in 1948, he was appointed its first Ambassador at the UN. From 1950
until 1959 Eban was both Israel's ambassador in Washington, D.C., and chief
delegate to the UN. On his return to Israel in 1959, Eban was elected to the
Knesset as a member of the Mapai party, and served under David Ben-Gurion as
Minister of Education and Culture from 1960 to 1963. From 1963 to 1966, he was
deputy to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. He was also president of the Weizmann
Institute at Rehovot from 1959 to 1966. As Israel's Foreign Minister from
February 1966 to 1974, Eban tried to strengthen relations with the United
States and to associate Israel with the European Economic Community. During and
after the Six-Day War of June 1967, he led Israel's diplomatic struggle in the
UN. Following the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, Abba Eban helped bring about
a disengagement of Egyptian and Israel forces in Sinai. Eban continued to
serve in succeeding sessions of the Knesset, but outside the ministerial
sphere, as a member and later as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee, until he retired from politics in 1988. He was widely admired for
his brilliant oratory outside Israel and his statesmanship at the UN on
Israel's behalf, including some dramatic oratory. He wrote a scathing article
on the infamous UN "Zionism=Racism" Resolution in 1975. A
figure of multiple accomplishments, Eban was fluent in ten languages, with the
dual vocation of statesman and erudite academic. Throughout his career, he
found time to publish meticulous and detailed historical works based on his
vast knowledge and personal experience. His books include Voice of Israel (1957); My People (1969); My Country (1972), and Personal Witness (1992), as well
as An Autobiography.
After his retirement, he was able to dedicate more time to writing and
lecturing, including essays and books The
New Diplomacy and Diplomacy
for the Next Century (1998), but his major landmarks were his
involvement in the creation of three major historical television documentary
series about the Jewish People and Israel, in which his remarkable voice rings
throughout the narration with elegance and confidence. The first two were for
Israel Television: Heritage: Civilization and the Jews; Personal
Witness: A Nation is Born; and The Brink of Peace was produced with
PBS. In 2001, Abba Eban was awarded the Israel Prize for his lifetime
achievement, but his wife received the prize on his behalf, as he was too ill
to attend the ceremony. He also held twenty honorary doctorates and was a
member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
2002: The New York Times
book section features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of
special Jewish interest including Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the
Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg, Media and Her Children by
Ludmila Ulitskaya, translated by Arch Tait and The Terrorist Next Door: The
Militia Movement and the Radical Right by Daniel Levitas.
2003: “During a visit to Rome, the
Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, said today that he might meet the
Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, "in the next few days” (As
reported by James Bennet)
2003: “Turkish officials said today
that they were close to identifying the suicide bombers who attacked two
synagogues here on Saturday, killing 24 people and wounding more than 300
others.”
2004: Premiere of the French comedy “The Grandsons,” directed, produced and
written by Ilan Duran Cohen.
2005(15th of Cheshvan, 5766): Ninety-six year old Waterloo, IA
native Maurice Zimm whose career included writing radio and television scripts
as well as serving as Peace Corps administrator as whowas he brother of talent
agent Mike Zimgring, the father of criminologist Franklin Zimring and he
grandfather of comedian Dan Lewis and historian Carl Zimgring passed away
today.
http:/articles.latimes.com/2005/nov/24/local/me-passings24.3
2005: Ira Glass’ “This American Life celebrated its tenth anniversary.”
2005: Haaretz reported on the three-day visit of Israel’s President Moshe
Katsav to Italy. On the second day of
the trip, Italy’s prime minister said that Israel should be admitted to the
European Union. This appears to be
further evidence of the end of a period in which Israel was isolated from
western democracies. Katsav also
announced his plans to invite the new Pope to visit Jerusalem.
2005: Conrad M Black was indicted for his alleged role in stealing $51.8
million dollars from Hollinger International, the giant international newspaper
publisher he helped create. His
publishing empire included The Jerusalem
Post. Black is Catholic but he is
married to the conservative columnist Barbara Amiel, who is Jewish.
2006: William Shattner, the actor best known for his role as Captain Kirk of
the Starship Enterprise appears in a commercial on the History Channel
proclaiming that he is a Jew while wishing Mazel Tov to the Pilgrims. The commercial is promoting an upcoming
television telling the untold story of the Pilgrims travels to America in 1620.
2006: “For Your Consideration” a comedy with a script co-authored by Eugence
Levy who co-starred in the film along with Bob Balaban was released today in
the United States.
2006: Pierre Lellouche, the Tunisian born French Jewish political leaders
completed his term as President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
2006: Jessica Savitch, of blessed memory, was inducted into "The
Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia's Hall of Fame"
2007: The International Oud Festival presents "Peace on Earth" at
the Jerusalem Theater. The ensemble put together by Dinkjian for our Festival
this year is comprised of some of the finest musicians from Greece, Turkey and
Israel, Christians, Muslims and Jews, who will improvise together and play a
selection of works by composers of the different faiths.
2007: As part of the Australia
Festival of Jewish Cinema “The Vow” is shown in Melbourne, Australia and “The Cantor’s Son” is shown in Sydney, Australia.
2007: Omer Golan scored the winning
goal for Israel against Russia, handing England a lifeline in their
qualification group for Euro 2008,
2007: Haaretz reported that “the
Jewish poverty rate in the United States is higher than that in Israel. In Israel
24 percent of the population is considered poor, but about half is not Jewish…The
poverty line for a family of three is set at an annual income of $15,000 but in
New York and other large cities it is adjusted to the higher cost of living and
set at $22,530.”
2008: The Jewish Community Center of
Chicago holds its annual Hall of Fame Dinner, this year honoring Edward Fox
followed by a benefit concert featuring Itzhak Perlman with members of the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
2008: As part of the Meet the Author
series, the
2008(19th of Cheshvan, 5769): Ali Ashtari was hanged today after being
sentenced to death on June 30 by a revolutionary court in Teheran. It was the
country's first known conviction for espionage linked to Israel in almost a
decade.
2008: Moshe Ya'alon announced that he was joining Likud and that he would
participate in the primaries which would determine the Likud candidates for the
2009 elections. Ya’alon had served as IDF Chief of Staff from 2002 through
2005.
2009: At Acre, the second workshop sponsored by UESCO on the subject of
“Protecting Heritage Sites from Disaster” comes to an end.
2009: Opening of The Fifth International Water Technologies and
Environmental Control Exhibition - WATEC Israel 2009 at the Trade Fair and
Convention Center in Tel Aviv.
2009 (30th of Cheshvan, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
2009: Noralee Frankel discusses and signs Stripping Gypsy: The Life of
Gypsy Rose Lee at noon as part of the Books & Beyond series at the
Library of Congress.
2009: A former SS sergeant who worked unnoticed for decades as a
train-station manager was charged with 58 counts of murder today after a
student doing undergraduate research uncovered his alleged involvement in a
massacre of Jewish forced laborers. University of Vienna student Andreas
Forster was working on a project about the slaying in a forest near the
Austrian village of Deutsch Schuetzen when he stumbled across Adolf Storms'
name in witness testimony
2010: In New York City, the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to
present: Journeying to the Jews: Literary Ethnography along the Eastern Front,
1914-1918.2010: In New York City, Jaimy
Gordon was the surprise winner of the National Book Award for fiction.
https://jwa.org/thisweek/nov/17/2010/jaimy-gordon
2010: It was announced today that A Holocaust survivor who teaches children
the value of citizenship is among those who will be honored by President Obama
with a Medal of Freedom. Gerda Weissman Klein, who survived the notorious death
march at the end of the war designed by Nazis to keep Jews from being rescued,
recently founded Citizenship Counts, “an organization that teaches students to
cherish the value of their American citizenship,” the White House said
2010: Today Israel approved the withdrawal of troops from the northern half
of a divided village that straddles the border with Lebanon — a step that would
end its four-year presence in the volatile area.
2010: Jean-François Copé began serving his term as President of the Union
for a Popular Movement (UMP) Group in the French National Assembly.
2011: The Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and The Skirball Center
for Adult Jewish Learning at Temple Emanu-El are scheduled to present “Gender,
Power, and Authority in Jewish Life: Challenges and Opportunities in North
America and Israel” featuring Renana Pilzer, head of the Beit Midrash at the
Shalom Hartman Institute Midrashiya Girls High School and Rabbi Joanna Samuels,
Director of Strategic Initiatives,Advancing Women Professionals and the Jewish
Community
2011: Jeremy Cowan author of “Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah: How it took 13 years,
extreme Jewish Brewing and Circus sideshow freaks to make Schmaltz Brewing
Company an International Success” is scheduled to appear at the JCC in St.
Louis, MO.
2011: Rabbi Jeff Portman is scheduled to begin teaching a five-session
course “The Simpsons and the 10 Commandments” at Kirkwood Community College.
2011: “The Young Zionist of Dror in Morocco” a film that documents Jewish
life in Morocco during the 1950’s is scheduled to be shown today at the Jewish
Eye World Jewish Film Festival.
2011: Israel has reached its lowest poverty levels since 2003, according to
the 2010 poverty report released today, but still faces significant problems in
wealth disparity and impoverished children.
2011: Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch said today that medical
residents who were resigning en mass in protest over pay and conditions were
“taking the law into their own hands.”
2012(3rd of Kislev, 5773): Ninety-four-year-old “Leah Gottlieb,
who started with a single sewing machine in a refugee camp in the new
nation-state of Israel and rose to become one of the world’s most renowned
designers of women’s bathing suits” passed away at her home in Tel Aviv today.”
(As reported by Douglas Martin)
2012: “Süskind,” a cinematic treatment of the life the Jewish manager of the
Jewish Council in Amsterdam in 1942, is scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish
Film Festival.
2012: The Jerusalem International Oud Festival is scheduled to come to an
end.
2012: The World Union For Progressive Judaism is scheduled to host the 2012
International Humanitarian Awards Dinner in NYC.
2012: Flory Jagoda, Aaron Shneyer, Hannah Spiro, Freida Enoch, Jessi Roemer,
Jill Sege and Jonathan Tucker are scheduled to perform at Congreation Tifereth
Israel as part of the Jewish Folk Arts Festival.
2012: As Jews around the world observe Shabbat the words “Oseh shalom
bimromav hu ya'aseh shalom aleynu v'al kol yisrael vimru amen” (He who makes peace in his high places, he
shall make peace upon us and upon all Israel and say amen) take on a special
poignancy as terrorist rockets are fired at Jerusalem and Israeli soldiers
prepare to risk their lives to preserve the Jewish state.
2012: As Israel entered the fifth day
of Operation Pillar of Defense, an eerie silence washed over the south, with
the familiar sound of red alerts and booms of rockets giving way to rumors of a
ceasefire.
2012: The Iron Dome intercepted two Iranian-made Fajr-5 missiles aimed at
Tel Aviv today. The missiles marked the third attack on the heavily populated
central city in as many days, after Palestinian terrorists from Gaza fired four
missiles toward the financial capital yesterday and the day before yesterday,
prompting red alert air raid sirens to sound in the city
2013:
The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including The Map and The Territory:
Risk, Human Nature and the Future of Forecasting by Alan Greenspan, Jews
In Gotham: New York Jews in a Changing City, 1920-2010 by Jeffrey S.
Gurock, The Rise of Abraham Cahan by Seth Lipsky, Hanukkah in
America: A History by Dianne Ashton, Jews and the Military: A History
by Derek Penslar and The Boy
Detective: A New York Childhood by Roger Rosenblatt.
2013:
In Australia, the annual Jewish International Film Festival is scheduled to
come to an end.
2013:
“The Fading Valley” and “Good Garbage” are scheduled to shown at the “Other
Israel Film Festival” in New York City.
2013:
France favors an interim agreement with Iran over the Islamic Republic’s
nuclear program, French President Francois Hollande said today in Israel, but
such an agreement would only be signed if Tehran would abandon its ambition to
acquire a nuclear weapon. (As reported by Raphael Ahren and Adiv Sterman)
2013:
According to reports published in the London Sunday Times the Saudis have
agreed “to let Israel use its airspace in a military strike on Iran and
cooperate over the use of rescue helicopters, tankers and drones.” (As reported
by the Times of Israel staff)
2013(14th
of Kislev, 5774): Seventy-seven-year-old Syd Field author of Screenplay: The
Foundations of Screenwriting, the “bible of screening passed away today.
(As reported by William Yardley)
2014:
In Melbourne, “The Last Mentsch” and “Regarding Susan Sontag” are scheduled to
be shown at the Jewish International Film Festival.
2014:
“The Last Mentsch” and “Natan” are scheduled to be shown at the 18th
UK Jewish Film Festival
2014:
The funeral of Charley J. Levine is scheduled to take placed this afternoon at
4 p.m. at Har Menuchot in Givat Shaul in Jerusalem.
2014:
Twenty-three-year-old Yonatan Souid, a French Jew will be formally charged
today after being arrested yesterday for scalling the Brookly Birdige,
apparently in an attempt to take some photographs.
2014:
“As tensions within the fractured government reached new levels” of crisis,
Prime Minister Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Lieberman met today “to discuss
solutions for the crisis in the coaltion over the state budget. (As reported by
Moran Azulay)
2014:
“Many Palestinian bus drivers in Jerusalem did not show up for work today after
an Arab bus driver was found hanged last night in what was classified as
suicide following an autopsy. (As reported by Marissa Newman)
2014(24th
of Cheshvan, 5775): Ninety-five-year-old Victor Elmaleh the Morooccan-born
American Jewish businessman who, ironically, was one of the first to import
German made VW’s into the United States passed away today.
2015:
“Partner with the Enemy” and “April Fool’s” are scheduled to be shown in Los
Angeles at the 29th Israel Film Festival.
2015:
“Deli Man” and “The Physician” are scheduled to be shown in Sydney at the
Jewish International Film Festival.
2016:
The ADL is scheduled to host “Never Is Now!” its “groundbreaking summit on
anti-Semitism today in New York City.
2016:
The American Jewish Historical Society and the American Society for Jewish
Music are scheduled to host the Ted Rosenthal Quintet performing “The Great
Jewish American Songbook” – “an evening of jazz interpretations of famous
Jewish composers including George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Harold Arlen, and
Jerome Kern, and a post-performance talk by Ted Rosenthal about the Jewish
immigrants contributions to the American jazz repertoire of the 20th century”
2016(16th
of Cheshvan, 5777): Photo-journalist Ruth Gruber, who shepherded a boat load of
Jews to safety to the United States passed away today at the age of 105. (As
reported by Robert D. McFadden)
2016:
“In Search of Israeli Cuisine” and “Natasha” are scheduled to be shown at the 20th
UK International Jewish Film Festival.
2016:
“Twenty mayors from around the world who are part of a delegation visiting
Israel expressed opposition to two recent UNESCO resolutions that omitted
Jewish and Christian links to Israeli holy sites in Jerusalem.”
2016:
“Cloudy Sunday” and “Alone in Berlin” are scheduled to be shown at Sydney as
part of the International Jewish Film Festival.
2017:
The 21st UK International Jewish Film Festival goes dark Erev
Shabbat.
2017:
The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host two services –
Orthodox and Egalitarian followed by a Shabbat evening meal.
2017:
After being viewed at several film festivals, including Festival du Nouveau
Cinéma. “Holy Air” was released today in the United States.
2017:
Jewish Book Month, an annual event that provides us with a chance to
contemplate Jewish books and the lives of authors such Jewish Michael Korda who
is not a revisionist but whose Alone and With Wings Like Eagles
provide highly readable, and unique views of Dunkirk and The Battle of Britain.
2018:
“The Last Suit,” “Memoir of War,” “The Prince and the Dybbuk” and “Inside the
Mossad” are scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival.
2018:
“Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas” is scheduled to be shown on the final night of
the Gershman Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival.”
2018:
Dina Pruzhansky a Russian-Israeli
pianist and composer is scheduled to perform this afternoon in New York.
2018:
Award winning author Dori Weinstein is scheduled to lead children’s services at
Tefereth Israel in Des Moines, IA.
2018(9th
of Kislev, 5779): Parashat Va-yaytzay;
2019:
The Rutgers Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end this evening
with a screening of “The Song of Names.”
2019:
The UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “It Must
Schwing! The Blue Note Story.”
2019:
The Yeshiva Museum is scheduled to host “Philistines-Rehabilitating a Biblical
Foe” where a group of international scholars examine the foes of the ancient
Israeltes.
2019:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host “Bella, Bella – The Play” with a
“special Talkback with Harvey Fierstein.
2019:
The Jewish Military Association is scheduled to host the 85th annual
ceremony and parade at The Cenotaph in Whithall.
2019:
The New York Times features reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including And The Bride Closed The Door by Ronit Matalon, Ecstasy and
Terror: From the Greeks to “Game of Thrones” by Daniel Mendelsohn, We
Stand Divided: The Rift Between American Jews and Israel by Daniel Gordis
and Saving America’s Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban
America in the Suburban Age by Lizabeth Cohen
2020(1st
of Kislev, 5781) Rosh Chodesh Kislev;
2020(1st
of Kislev, 5781) : On the Jewish calendar Yahrtzeitz for Juda Etting who passed
away in 1773 “at sea” while on his way to Suriname from New York City.
2020:
The JCCSF is scheduled to present, virtually, “Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader,
and Statesman” during which “former Israeli ambassador and biographer Itamar
Rabinovich will speak with former State Department legal adviser Abraham Sofaer”
2020:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to present
“Witness” Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom.”
2020:
Live on Zoom, the American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host “Live
from the Archives: A Pinch of Tradition and a Dash of Imagination - Stories
from the AJHS Cookbook Archives.”
2020:
The Gershman Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screenings
of “Transkids” and “Broken Mirrors.”
2020:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to present Dr. Pierre Birnbaum and Dr.
Maurice Samuels discussing “Understanding Anti-Semitism in France, from Dreyfus
to Today.”
2020:
In Columbus, OH, Teferith Israel is scheduled to host “dinner, drinks and
drash: during which Rabbi Skolnik leads a discussion on “rosh chodesh in
liturgy and tradition.”
2020:
The S.F .Jewish Community Library is scheduled to co-present SFSU Jewish studies
professor Vered Weiss talking about “Juda,” the Israeli TV show that addresses
antisemitism and boundaries through vampires.
2020:
The Maine Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host the final screening of “The
Tobacconist” and the first screening of “Every Mother’s Son.”
2020:
The UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host online a screening of “The
Prophet” followed by a panel discussion.
2021:
The Holocaust Museum of LA and JIMENA are scheduled to present “Living the
Farhud: The Holocaust in Iraq.”
2021:
YIVO is scheduled to present “Nazism, Neo-Nazsim and Music,” a panel discussion
that examines how Nazis and neo-Nazis “have used different kinds of music in
various ways.”
2021:
The Museum on Eldridge Street is scheduled to host “longtime New York Times
reporter Joseph Berger on Zoom to discuss the hit TV series Shtisel.”
2021:
The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present Professor Yolande
Cohen and Associate Professor David Koffman discussing their new book No
Better Home?: Jews, Canada and the Sense of Belonging.
2022:
UK Jewish Film is scheduled to host screenings of “Perfect Strangers” and
“SHTTL.”
2022:
NCJW/Cleveland's 20th annual Lois Zaas Advocacy event
is scheduled to be held this evening at
The Temple-Tifereth Israel at 26000 Shaker Blvd. in Beachwood, OH.
2022: In Iowa, The Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines is
scheduled to present Alina Spaulding “the international speaker and author who
will talk about a Dream Fulfilled—from Refugee to Humanitarian: a story of
love, hope, community, and inspiration” who is able to tell her tale, thanks in
no small part to the financial contributions made by Jewish federations to her
family in Ukraine during the 1970’s.
2022: As part of its Book Talks series, JWA is scheduled to host a
program on One Hundred Saturdays that shares the remarkable story of Stella
Levi, whose conversations with writer Michael Frank bring to life the world of
Jewish Rhodes, the deportation to Auschwitz that extinguished most of her
community, and the resilience of the woman who lived to tell the tale.
2022:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum and the JCC Chicago Jewish Film Festival are
scheduled to host New York Times bestselling author Tom Clavin as he makes his
literary return to the aerial battlefields of WWII in a harrowing and
unforgettable story of heroism and human endurance with his book, Lightning
Down: A World War II Story of Survival.
2022:
Today’s orchestrated Led Zeppelin Symphonic rock extravaganza in Tel Aviv is
scheduled “to celebrate one of the
greatest rock bands of all time with all the classic hits that are surely gonna
make you sweat, gonna make you groove.”
2022:
DOC NYC — which bills itself as America’s largest documentary film festival —
and included a screening of “Closed
Circuit,” the Israeli documentary that tracks the harrowing 2016 terror attack
in Sarona Market in Tel Aviv is scheduled to come to an end today.
2023:
In Columbus, OH, Tifereth Israel is scheduled to host an evening “Celebrating
Sepharid and Mizrahi Culture” Shabbat.
2023:
Kan Kol Hamusika is scheduled to broadcast a Young Artists Concert.”
2023:
In Little Rock, AR, Chabad led by Rabbi Pinchas and Estie Ciment is scheduled
to hos an “Oneg Shabbos,” complete with a warm and engaging Shabbat meal
complete with “song, story and great friendship.”
2023:
The Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of
“Solomon and Gaenor.”
https://phillyjfm.org/event/solomon-and-gaenor/
2023:
Rabbi Kushner is scheduled to lead Friday night services at Sons of Jacob
Synagogue in Waterloo, IA.
2023:
As November 17, begins in Israel, Israel faces the threat of war on “fourth
front” following yesterday’s declaration by Esmail Qaani, head of the Quds
Force that “Iran will do whatever it takes to assist Hamas in its war against
Israel,” all decent human beings mourn the death of Yehudit Weiss, who was
abduced by Hamas on October 7 and whose body was found by the IDF in building
near the Shifra Hospital and the Hamas held hostages
begin day 42 in captivity.
(Editor’s
note: this situation is too fluid for this blog to cover so we are just
providing a snapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time)
2024:
The Global Conference for Israel in Dallas which began on November 14 is
scheduled to come to an end today.
2024:
The Museum of the Bible is scheduled to present
“The
Afghan Liturgical Quire Speaker Series”, a special speaker series that explores
the oldest Hebrew codex in the world and discuss three major topics related to
the Afghan Liturgical Quire (ALQ) with museum curators, leading scholars, and
influential leaders in the Afghan Jewish community.
2024:
Today On the Global Day of Jewish Learning the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
is scheduled to host LearningFest 2024.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DCMZV9ax-km/
2024:
“The Jewish Heritage Museum is scheduled to present Bette Midler: From Hawaii to
Stardom, an illustrated talk by Musical Theatre Historian John Kenrick.”
2024:
Kindertransport – Rescuing Children on the Brink of War an exhibition
that showcases the astonishing rescue effort that, in only nine months,
brought thousands of unaccompanied children from Nazi Europe to the United
Kingdom is scheduled to close today at the Illinois Holocaust Museum.
2024:
Altie Kaper and Joni Sussman are scheduled to provide the Keynote Con versation
at the opening session of the 2024 Jewish Writers’ Conference.
2024:
The Center for Jewish History, the Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization
and the American Jewish Historical are among those scheduled to present the exhibition
“Translating Jewishness: Culture and Civilization” which focuses on the range
of Jewish expression—from mystical visions to political thought, cookbooks to
literary criticism, modernist poetry to vaudeville— in the years between 1880
and 1918.
2024:
The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host a “New Walking Tour of
Jewish New Amsterdam that will include a “stroll through Manhattan’s Financial
District that will trace the steps of the first Jewish settlers who arrived in
New Amsterdam in the mid-17th century!
2024:
In the last lecture in the series of online lectures "Dying Cow, Pale
Stars", Dror Bursteinwill is scheduled to read Deborah Baron's story
"Fragile" and followed by a discussion of the relationship between
man and cow.
2024:
The UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Best of British
Shorts including Seed of Doubt, The !0th Man, The Ballad of Squeaky Clean
Mo, Wallpaper, and The Last Cowboy in Salford.
2024:
The Atlanta Jewish Storytelling Festival is scheduled to come to an end today.
2024:The
first one thousand enlistment orders are scheduled to be sent to self-styled ultra-Orthodox
Israelis today which leaves six thousand more enlistment orders to be sent to
this same population group which has been avoiding service in the military while
demanding greater financial support from the government.
2024:
The New York Times list of “recommended books” includes Letters
by Oliver Sacks, Cricklewood, London, England, born to Jewish parents - Dr/ Samuel Sacks, a Lithuanian and Muriel
Elsie Landau, “one of the first female surgeons in England.”
2024:
As November 17th begins in Israel, an unprecedented wave of
anti-Semitism that has included Hamas supporters calling for Zionist passengers
on a New York subway to raise their hands, demonstrations at a high school production
of “The Diary of Anne Frank” and the beating of a college student in Chicago sweeps
the United States and the Hamas held hostages begin day 408 in captivity while
Israelis brace for more rocket attacks by Hezbollah, Iran and terrorists based
in Iraq (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)
