This Day. November 9, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z":L
November 9
694: Opening meeting of the Seventeenth Council of Toledo
during which the Visigoth Catholic monarch, King Egica publicly charged
the Jews with planning to "exterminate and [destroy] their
homeland." This charge was the excuse for the enactment of some of
the most stringent laws aimed at the Jews of Iberia. The Jews and
their property essentially became the possession of the crown, allowing the
King to dispose of them as he saw fit. Furthermore, any Christian found
helping Jews would be punished. These laws represented the climax of more
than a century's worth of anti-Jewish laws. Is it any wonder that the
Jews greeted the Moors with open arms when the invaded Spain in 711?
1382: Publication
date for the Cambridge Yiddish Codex, “the oldest surviving document written in
Yiddish.”
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cambridge-Yiddish-Codex
https://jewishcurrents.org/november-9-oldest-yiddish-story
1389: Consecration of Boniface IX who gave the Jews of
Rome the legal right to observe Shabbat, protection from local oppressive
officials, a reduction in their taxes, and assurance that they would be treated
as Roman citizens.
1491: Azriel Günzenhäuser printed “Avicenna Canon” at
Naples Italy. Azriel Günzenhäuser was a 15th century German printer
who was also known as the “Ashkenazi.”
1494:
The Family de' Medici expelled as rulers of Florence. According to Rebecca
Weiner, “The fate of the Jewish community was tied to the fate of the Medici
family in Florence. Lorenzo il Magnifico defended the Jewish community from
expulsions and from the aftermath of vitriolic sermons given by Bernardino da
Feltre. A Catholic theocracy was installed in the 1490's under the Dominican
friar Girolama Savonarola, who decreed that both the Jews and the Medici family
be expelled from Florence. A loan from the Jewish community to the republic
postponed the expulsion for a short period of time. The Medicis returned to
power in 1512 and the Jewish ban was lifted, until the next Medici expulsion in
1527. Alessandro de Medici regained influence as a duke, in 1531, and abolished
anti-Jewish acts. In 1537 Cosimo de’Medici gained power in the Florentine
government. He sought the advice of Jacob Abravanel, a Sephardic Jew living in
Ferrara. Abravanel convinced Cosimo to guarantee the rights and privileges of
Spanish and Portuguese Jews, and other Levantines who settled on his borders.
This was the start of the growth of the Sephardic Jewish community in Florence.
Refuge was given to Jews from other papal states who left due to Pope Paul IV’s
anti-Jewish measures, which were not enacted in Florence. Once Cosimo received
the title of grand duke of Tuscany, his policies toward the Jews changed for
the worse. He forced Jews to wear badges in 1567, closed the Tuscan border to
non-resident Jews in 1569, shut down Jewish banks in 1570 and established a
ghetto in 1571
1526: The Jews were expelled from Hungry after being
falsely accused of aiding the Turks in the war against Hungary. This is an example of the Jews being caught
up in the cross currents of European Religious Wars. Most of Hungary had come under the control of
the Turks (yes the Islamic Ottoman Empire penetrated that far into central
Europe a fact not lost on radical Islamists today). The Hungarians were all that stood between
the Turks and the Germanic Holy Roman Empire.
But Charles V, the Emperor was not supplying aide for reasons of his
own, so the Jews ended up being scapegoats for the newly enthroned Hungarian
King’s inability to dislodge the Turks.
1526:
The Jews of Pressburg (now Bratislava) left the city a month to the day after
it had received permission from Queen Maria to expel the Jews “living within
its territory.”
1571(21st
of Cheshvan): Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Abi Ziimra (Radbaz) passed away
1621:
A 16-year-old New Christian, Moses Simonson (or Symonson) arrived in Plymouth,
Massachusetts on the ship Fortune. He came from Leyden, Holland.
1656(21st
of Cheshvan): Rabbi Moses ben Isaac Judah Levy, author of Helkat Mehokek passed
away
1683:
Birthdate of King George II for whose coronation Handle wrote “Zadok the
Priest,” an anthem based on Kings 1:38-40 which has been sung at every
coronation since 1727.
1713:
Rabbi Tzvi Ashkenazi and Moses Hagiz, the son of Jacob Hagiz were “formally
placed under a ban” by the Portuguese community in Amsterdam.
1720: The Rabbi Yehuda Hasid Synagogue in Jerusalem,
which later became known as the Hurva Synagogue was set afire. Rabbi Yehuda Hasid and a small group of a few
hundred followers arrived in Eretz Israel. The rabbi purchased the courtyard in
the Old City for the synagogue, and construction of the facility was started
after his death, but was never completed. Due to the non-payment of a loan
taken by Jews from Arabs for the construction of the synagogue, Arabs burned
down the site, desecrating its 40 Torah scrolls. The destruction wrought at the
time became the root of the name of the "Hurva" (ruin) synagogue, and
building recommenced in the late 1830s, by Perushim followers of the Vilna
Gaon. After its completion in 1864, the Hurva loomed as a cultural and
religious symbol in Eretz Israel and Jerusalem. The Hurva retained its status
as Jerusalem's leading synagogue, and public gatherings and celebrations were
held in it. Among other events, a prayer gathering to mark the coronation of
King George V was held at the Hurva. Two days after the Jewish Quarter fell to
Jordanian legionnaires during the 1948 war; the Jordanians blew up the Hurva.
The Jordanian commander on the scene reported to his superiors: "For the
first time in 1,000 years, there's not a single Jew left in the Jewish Quarter,
and not a single building that hasn't been damaged. This will make the return of
Jews here impossible." After the 1967 Six-Day War, the Hurva became a
memorial to the fall of the Jewish Quarter in 1948. A large square was created
around the site of the Hurva; and visitors could measure the dimensions of the
synagogue which once stood at the locale. An arch was built at the site which
rose to about half the height of the destroyed building, which is as high as
the top of the synagogue's dome. In 2002, the Israeli government adopted a
1757:
The local bishop at Kamienice who had side with the Sabbatians and was
responsible for the burning of “huge numbers of copies of the Talmud” being
burned starting in October died today, which “which the rabbinic Jews
recognized as divine vengeance” but which struck such “fear in the hearts of
the Sabbatians” “that many of them fled to Turkey.
1780:
Birthdate of Nicolai Wergeland, the Norwegian anti-Semite who sought to ban
Jews from his country because “it would be incompatible with Judaism to deal
honestly with Christians.”
1787:
In the Netherlands, Levie Emanuel Goudsmit, the son of Emanuel Salomons and
Esther Levie and his wife Magdalena
Hartog Goudsmit gave birth to Salomon Levie Goudsmit.
1788:
In Charleston, SC, Rebecca Moses and Solomon Harby gave birth to Isaac Harby,
the husband of Rachel Mordecai and father of Octavia, Armida, Solomon, Samuel,
Julian and Horace Harby and who gained fame as the
editor of the Charleston Mercury and playwright whose “Alberti”
premiered with President Monroe in the audience.
1792:
Birthdate of German native Rosein Loeb, the wife of Elias Kohlberg and mother
of Friederike Kohlberg.
1794:
In Black Mingo, SC, Sarah Judah and Lizer Joseph gave birth to Eleanor Joseph,
the wife of Israel Solomons with she had nine children.
1794:
In Bavaria, Sara Asscher and Gabriel Hirsch Benda, gave birth to Sigismund
Benda and the husband of Fanny Emden with whom he had eight children.
1803:
Nathan Joseph Magnus married Simony Solomon today.
1812:
Birthdate of Aaron Bachrach the Baltimore businessman who in 1839 married
Augusta Straus Bachrach with whom had six children including Decatur, Illinois
clothing merchant Henry Bachrach
1815:
Birthdate of Anton Ree, the son of a Hamburg banker who started as a teacher at
the Jewish Free School in 1838 and became its director in 1848.
1816:
The report on the state of the Ordinance Department in Ireland written by
Robert Plumer Ward, the London born son John Ward and his wife Rebecca Raphael,
a member of “a Sephardic Jewish family from Genoa and political ally of Prime
Minister William Pitt, was published today.
1820:
In London, Rebecca Phineas Romanel and Joseph “Moses” Talano gave birth to
Rachel Tolano, the husband of Joseph Belasco with whom she had eleven children.
1828:
In Philadelphia, PA, Isaac Phillips and his wife, the former Sarah Moss, the
daughter of John Moss gave birth to Barnet Phillips, a graduate of the
University of Pennsylvania, husband of Jospehine Myers of Savannah and a writer
for the New York Times starting in
1872 who also wrote several books including The Struggle and Burning
Their Ships. (Isidor Levi shows the
birthdate as November 7, 1827)
1828:
In Charleston, SC, Elias P. and Rachel E. Levy gave birth to Charles Ferdinand
Levy, the husband of Laura Louise Levy.
1829(13th
of Cheshvan, 5590): Sixty-five-year-old Rebecca Levy, the wife of Solomon Levy
and the daughter of Uriah and Eva Esther Hendricks passed away today.
1832: One day after she had passed away, 6-year-old
“Rita b Hayim” was buried today at the “Ipswich Old Jewish Cemetery.”
1835:
Seligman Ben Schemmel Landauer, the Bavarian born son of Samuel and Rebecca
Landauer and his wife Zirle (Cilli) Landauer gave birth to twin sons, Joseph
and Salomon Landauer.
1836:
In New York, Montague M. Hendricks, the New York born son of Francis and Harmon
Hendricks, and his wife Rachel Siexas Nathan gave birth to Harmon Hendricks,
not to be confused with the copper merchant of the same name.
1837: British philanthropist Moses Montefiore, 52,
became the first Jew to be knighted in England. Montefiore was a banking
executive who devoted his life to the political and civil emancipation of
English Jews.
1841:
The Creole, a brig whose cargo of slaves had seized the ship sailed into the
harbor at Nassau in what would be the next “act” in an international
incident that would result in litigation in which Judah P. Benjamin
“represented insurance companies being sued.”
1843: Birthdate of Joseph Kahn who was buried
in the Jewish Cemetery in Schweich, Germany
1845: The
original Jewish Publication Society was established in Philadelphia today.
Abraham Hart was its first president. The society owed its existence to Isaac
Leeser. It published eleven works, including two by Grace Aguilar.
1846: Henry Emanuel Goldsmith, the Dutch born son of
Emanuel Levie Goldsmith and Alijda Joseph Joel Goldsmith and Anna Goldsmith
gave birth to Mary Goldsmith, the wife of Solomon Frank.
1847:
Birthdate of Edward
1849:
In Mulbach, Germany, Pauline and Aron Fleischer gave birth to Samuel Fleischer,
the husband of Emilie Fleischer with whom he had four children – Bernhard,
Paula, Julius and Arthur.
1849:
Daniel Webster wrote a letter to M. M. Noah today expressing his regrets that
he will not be able to attend the anniversary dinner of the Hebrew Benevolent
and German Hebrew Benevolent Society to be held later this month in New York
City. In the letter he expressed his
on-going "respect and sympathy" for the Jewish people whose
"scriptures I regard as the fountain from which we draw all we know of the
world around us, and of our own character and destiny as intelligent, moral and
responsible beings." What Webster
did not say in the letter that he had to turn down the invitation due to health
problems.
1850:
Birthdate of Louis Lewin, the German pharmacologist who “published the first
methodical analysis of the Peyote cactus.
1851:
In Berlin, Ezekiel and Caroline (Lowenstein) Eckmann gave birth to Max Eckmann
who in 1874 emigrated to the United States, where he married Marie Slupecki in
1875, became a manufacturer of novelties, helped organized the Independent
Order of B’rith Abraham and served as a Republican in the New York State
Assembly.
1853:
Moses Moss married Sophia Levy at the Great Synagogue today.
1853:
“Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews” published today described the “first in a series
of lectures on the Sacred Poetry of Hebrews” delivered by Rabbi Morris Jacob
Raphill of B’nai Jeshurun also known as the Greene Street Synagogue in which
among other things he “divided the poetry of the Hebrews into four periods” –
“antediluvian” through the Joseph; “Moses to David;” “David to the death of
Solomon; “the Prophetic Poetry from the subdivision of the Hebrew Monarchy down
to the return after the Babylonian captivity.”
1854: Morris Simeon Oppenheim, the London born of “son
of Simeon Oppenheim, secretary of the Great Synagogue” “was admitted as a
student to the Middle Temple” today which was the first step to his being
“called to the bar in1858.”
1855:
Rabbi Nathan Adler founded Jew’s College
1856: In Pittsburgh, Congregation Rodef Shalom was
charted today listing among its primary objectives “the furtherance of
the cause of Religion” and “the establishment of a good school in which the
young shall be instructed in the principles of the Hebrew Religion as well as
general branches of knowledge.”
1858:
“Abduction of a Christian Duty” published today traces the history of the
Mortara Affair in which an Italian Jewish boy was effectively kidnapped by the
Pope himself. According to the article,
the Pope’s behavior puts him at odds with many of the governments of Europe and
jeopardizes the rights of all Protestants (as well as Jews and Moslems) that
visit any of the papal domains.
1859:
In London, Rachel Lewis and Henry Harris gave birth to Rabbi Maurice Henry
Harris, the husband of Kitty Green, the holder of three degrees of Columbia and
founder of Hand in Synagogue in Harlem which later became Temple Israel who was
“a pioneer in the settlement house movement” and President of the Central
Conference of American Rabbis.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1930/06/25/96161672.html?pageNumber=18
1861:
In New York City, Pauline Sondheim and Emanuel Lehman, the co-founder of Lehman
Brothers gave birth to Philip Lehman, the husband of Carrie Lauer and father of
Robert and Pauline Lehman who gained fame as investment banker and art
collector.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9406E1DB173CE13BBC4A51DFB566838C659EDE
1862:
In Warsaw, Pauline and Feibisch Jolles gave birth to Dr. Adolf Jolles
1864:
Phillip Levy, who risen to rank of Sergeant in Company G of the 193rd
Regiment completed his military service today
1865:
Philadelphian Herman completed twenty-four months of service with the 152nd
Regiment of the Third Artillery where he had risen to the rank of Sergeant”
after which he served “in Company A of the Fourth United States Cavalry.”
1865:
In Vincennes, Indiana, Adam Gimble who had come to the U.S. from Bavaria in
1835 and his wife gave birth to Ellis A. Gimbel, Sr. the department store
owner, co-founder of the Pennsylvania Broadcasting Company and philanthropist
1865:
Simon P. Jacoby who had begun serving in December of 1863 completed his service
as a member of Batter E of the 152nd Regiment.
1866:
In Salt Lake City, Mary Goldsmith and Conrad Prag gave birth to Florence Pag
Kahn. Six years after the passage of the 19th amendment, Calvin Coolidge was in
the White House, prohibition was still on the books, and newly widowed Florence
Prag Kahn became the first Jewish woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress on
February 17, 1925. As the wife of the U.S. Congressman from San Francisco, Kahn
had developed her own public voice by writing a column for her hometown
newspaper about Washington doings. When her husband died in 1925, she won a special
election that made her only the fifth woman to serve in Congress. Kahn served
twelve years until 1937, a strong Republican voice for Bay Area public works
projects and the rights of Chinese women and Native Americans. The next Jewish
woman to serve in Congress was New York's Bella Abzug who was elected in 1970.
Kahn argued that "there is no sex in citizenship and there should be none
in politics." She made this point in a slightly different way in the
context of a newspaper interview that noted her refusal to lose weight or tend
to her hair in order to please others. When asked later in the interview why it
was that she received more than twice as many votes as her late husband ever
got, she responded, "sex appeal!"
1867:
In Albion, NY, Mina and Simon Landauer gave birth to Jacob “Jake” Landuaer, the
husband of Eva Landuer who was one of Albion’s leading merchants and who was
elected three times as Democrat to sever as the mayor “in a community that has
been predominately Republican.”
1869:
In Salt Lake City, Utah, Mary Goldsmith and Conrade Prag gave birth to San
Francisco high school teacher, the wife of Congressman Julius Kahn whom she
succeeded her husband in the House of
Representatives.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/kahn-florence-prag
1869:
Birthdate of New York native and NYU and University of Wisconsin trained dental
surgeon Samuel Hess who passed away in 1956.
1871:
Birthdate of Florence Rena Sabin an American medical scientist. As a
pioneer for women in science she was the first woman to hold a full
professorship at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the first woman elected to
the National Academy of Sciences, and the first woman to head a department at
the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. In her retirement years, she
pursued a second career as a public health activist in Colorado, and in 1951
received a Lasker Award for this work. She passed away in 1953.
1873:
Three days after he had passed away, 73 year old “watch and clockmaker” Lewis
Lyon, the husband of Mary Phillips with whom he had nine children, was buried
today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”
1874(29th of Cheshvan, 5635): Israel Bak, the man who created the first
Hebrew printing press,
passed away. Israel Bak was a native of Berdichev in the
Ukraine who came to Safed in 1831. In his native city, he had published some
thirty books. He reestablished his publishing operations in Safed. First off
the press, in 1832, was a Sefardi prayer book, the first Hebrew book printed in
the Holy Land after a hiatus of 245 years. This was followed in 1833 by the Book
of Leviticus, with the commentaries of Rashi and Hayim Joseph David Azulai,
a favorite of Sefardi Jews. No traces remain of either Genesis or Exodus, if indeed they were ever
published, but it is possible that they were destroyed during the peasant
revolt against Muhammad Ali in 1834, in which Bak's press was destroyed and Bak
himself was wounded. More likely only Leviticus was published, the first
of a projected five-volume edition of the Pentateuch, because it was the custom
to begin instruction of the Chumash
in the schools not with Genesis but with Leviticus. The school
year began in the spring, when the Book of Leviticus was being read in the
synagogue, and it made good sense to synchronize Bible study in the school with
Bible reading in the synagogue. Bak turned to agriculture but continued
printing, even after the earthquake of 1837 devastated his shop. The Druze
revolt in 1838 destroyed both his farm and press, and Bak departed for
Jerusalem where, in 1841, he once again established his press, the first Hebrew
press in Jerusalem.
1875:
In Williamsport, PA, Jennie May and Henry J. Messing gave birth to Washington
University trained attorney who served as the real estate editor of the St.
Louis Star and “news editor of the Chicago Examiner.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/03/30/83913597.html?pageNumber=21
1878(13th of Cheshvan, 5639): Abraham
Dob Bär Lebensohn passed away. Born in Vilinius between 1789 and 1794, he was a
rabbi known for his poetical works including Shir Habibim. He was the
father-in-law of Rabbi Joshua Steinberg, who worked with the Russian government
as an educator and who wrote works in English, Hebrew and German.
1879:
The service at Temple Beth-El in memory of the late Rabbi David Einhorn began
at 4 o’clock this afternoon. The
sanctuary was completely filled and late arrivals had to be turned away. Rabbis Kohler, Gottheil, Hirsch and Jacobs
delivered eulogies. Einhorn’s funeral
had taken place on November 6.
1879:
Professor Felix Adler delivered a lecture today entitled “Struggle of Free
Religion in the United States” which was “a glowing and eloquent tribute” to
the late Rabbi David Einhorn, even though it did not specifically mention the
Jewish leader by name.
1879(23rd
of Cheshvan, 5640): Abraham Aub passed away.
He has served as President of the Orphan Asylum of Cleveland since it
was established by the B’nai Brit and is a past President of the Jewish Hospital
and Hebrew Relief Association.
1880:
At today’s meeting of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment funds were
allocated to a variety of charities including $1,898.28 to the Hebrew
Children’s Guardian Society
1880:
David Belasco using the stage name of “Walter Kingsley” opened with the cast of
“The Legion of Honor” when it opened at the Park Theatre in New York City.
1880:
In Leadville, David May and Rosa Shoenberg who were married today received a
“china chamber set” as wedding gift from Jacob Schloss and his son-in-law
Morris D. Altman both whom were “prominent merchants in the liquor business”
and leaders in the Jewish community.
1881:
Specifications were filed today at the Bureau of Inspection of Buildings for a
new building to be occupied by the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews.
1881:
In Paris, “The Eleventh Correctional Chamber finished up today the first act of
a suit for swindling” in which “the plaintiffs are a couple of Dutch Jews”
named Vandenborg who are in the business of buying and selling old clothes as
well as moneylending. (This combination
of businesses was not unusual, as those successful in the first often leveraged
into the latter.)
1881:
It was reported today that the Jewish “bears” have lost three hundred thousand
francs on speculation surrounding the Union General.
1882:
“Co-Operation In Alms-Giving” published today described efforts to promote
cooperation among charities in New York City including the participation of all
Jewish congregations in the United Hebrew Charities.
1883:
“Sir Moses Montefiore’s Birthday” published today described the celebrations of
the distinguished Anglo-Jewish philanthropist who Rabbi Kaufman Kohler said
“was the same kind of benefactor to Jewish people that Peter Cooper had been to
the American people.”
1883:
“The Duel At Temesvar” published today described the duel fought between Dr.
Jules Rosenberger, a prominent Jewish Hungarian lawyer and Comte Etienne de
Battyany over the love of a woman – Hona de Schossberger. Rosenberger, the young woman’s husband,
mortally wounded his royal rival when the Count refused to end the duel when he
was wounded during the first round of gunfire.
1884:
A fire broke out today at a building on Cannon Street in Manhattan that house
the workshops of several Jewish tailors and cigar-makers
1884:
In Galatz, Romania, “Lipa and (Rosenbluth) Berger gave birth to New York
trained dentist Ilie L. Berger, the husband of Anna Berger and active member of
the Jewish community who served as Chairman of the Board of Temple Beth Israel,
Vice President of the New England Zionist Region and vice chairman of the
United Palestine Appeal.
1884:
It was reported today that John H. Bird will play Shylock, the Jew, in an
upcoming performance of the “Merchant of Venice.”
1885:
The Auckland Synagogue was opened today
1886:
Aron Mendel Michelson to Berl and Betti (Frank) Michelson, a Jewish family
living in Liepāja, Latvia gave birth to David Pablo Boder, the American
professor of psychology who “traveled Europe in 1946 to interview Holocaust
survivors.
https://voices.library.iit.edu/david_boder
1886:
In Philadelphia, Minnie Green and Bohemian born milliner Joseph Leopold gave
birth to Isaiah Edwin Leopold who gained fame as Ed Wynn, one of a long list of
Jewish entertainers who enjoyed successively successful careers in vaudeville,
film, radio and television. Wynn starred
on comedy variety programs during the 1950’s.
One of his signature props was a piano that was configured as part of
tricycle. Others remember him for his
portrayal as one of the zany characters in the Disney film Mary Poppins. He passed away in 1966. Ironically, having
had to hide the fact he was Jewish, he received a nomination for an Academy
Award for Best Support Actor for his role as Mr. Dussell in “The Diary of Anne
Frank.”
1888:
“Verestchagin’s Paintings” published today described the wide variety of
canvases produced by the “globe-trotting” Russian painter Vasily Vasilyevich
Vereshchagin whose works included pictures of Palestine and local Jews.
1888: In Campbellsville, KY, Isaac and Hannah (Bloomfield) Jablow gave birth
to University of Louisville trained physician and Dallas, TX resident Harry B.
Jablow, who served as Lt. in the Medical Department of the United Sates Navy
from 1917 to 1919 and was a director of Temple Brotherhood at Temple Emanu-El
and the Jewish Federation for Social Service.
1889:
It was reported today that the Harlem Glee Club will be performing at an
upcoming benefit concert that is a fundraiser for the Hebrew Sheltering
Guardian Society.
1889:
It was reported today Professor Edwin R.A. Seligman of Columba College will
address an upcoming meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1890:
“Austrian society” is impressed by the Prince of Wales’ weeklong visit to Baron
Maurice de Hirsch. Given the
view of Jews in European High Society, the idea that the heir to the British
throne would travel such a great distance to spend a week with a Jew was almost
beyond their comprehension. The Baron is
the son of a Bavarian banker and is now worth above 20,000,000 English pounds.
1890:
Annie Stein, who had been erroneously advised by a Roman Catholic priest that
her marriage to her Jewish husband Morris Stein was not valid and had left him
for that reason, has returned to him now that the Judge has explained to her
that in the eyes of the law she was indeed married and she had been given bad
advice.
1891(8th
of Cheshvan, 5652): Sixty-eight year old Simon Bacher the Hungarian poet who
wrote in Hebrew and whose son posthumously published “a selection of his works”
“under the title Sha’ar Shim’on.
1891:
In Brooklyn, violinist Mark N. Isaacson and Amelia Isaacson gave birth to
Charles David Isaacson, the nephew of Barney Isaacson, a court violinist to
Queen Victoria, who was a newspaper music critic, opera company manager and a
radio broadcasting pioneer serving as the innovative director at Stations WRNY
and WGL.
1892:
After helping build the main line of the Jaffa to Jerusalem railroad, engineer
George Franjieh today proposed a tramway in Jerusalem, which would connect it
to Ein Kerem and Bethlehem—only six weeks after the line's official opening.
1892:
Birthdate of Berlin native and German philologist Erich Auerbach, the author of
Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, who fled to
Turkey after the rise of the Nazis before settling in the United States where
he taught at Penn State before being appointed Professor Roamce Philology at
Yale University.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/09/the-book-of-books
1893:
Lewis May presided at tonight’s “mass meeting” of young Jews at the building
belonging to the Retail Grocers’ Union where plans were made to raise money to
build a new home for the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1893:
The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band performed at the Lenox Lycuem.
1893:
The will of the late Louis Arnheim was filed for probate today.
1894:
In New York under the consolidated charter, the Hebrew Benevolent Society
receives $79,000 and the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society receives $32,000
for the year.
1894:
The American Hebrew celebrated its 15th
anniversary today by printing a special memorial issue.
1896:
Julius Harburger, the Excise Commissioner of New York City, addressed a meeting
of the Boston chapter of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel, of which
he is a Grand Master.
1896:
Four days after she had passed away, eighty year old Rachel, Countess d’Avigdor
, “the second daughter of Sir Isaac Lyon and Isabel Goldsmid, the wife of Count
Salamon Henri d'Avigdor, son of the d'Avigdor who was a member of the Great
Sanhedrin assembled by Napoleon, with whom she had three sons and one daughter
was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1896:
In St. Louis, MO, Morris Garfinkle, the son of Abraham Garfinkel, and his wife
gave birth to Tillie Garfinkel who became Tillie Silver when she married Albert
J. Silver.
1896:
In St. Louis, Rose and Benjamin Agruss gave birth to Aaron Harry Agruss, the
husband of Sue Wise.
1896:
Dr. Wendell C. Phillips will deliver a lecture on “Prevention of Germ Diseases”
tonight at the Hebrew Institute which is sponsored by the Education Alliance.
1897:
The Apprenticing Committee of the Jews’ Hospital and Orphan Asylum is scheduled
to meet this morning at Hamilton House in London.
1897:
The Library Sub-Committee of Jews’ College is scheduled to at the office of the
Chief Rabbi at Finsbury Square.
1897:
In what was one of the major events of the social season, Dr. Joseph Silverman,
the assistant Rabbi at Temple Emanu-El officiated at the weeding Miss Ray
Baumgartern, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Moses Baumgarten to Adolph Levy at
the Madison Square Garden Concert Hall
1897:
Police believe today that a cousin of Captain Dreyfus and his American born
wife Rebecca Fortado Abraham committed suicide by inhaling charcoal fumes. In a letter addressed to his business partner
and his mother-in-law, Dreyfus wrote that “It is better for the children to die
with their parents, as their mother has also elected to commit suicide” which
would seem to be the justification for their killing their three young
daughters.
1898:
Theodore Herzl began his two-day
journey to Naples aboard the "Regina Margherita".
1898:
Birthdate of Holocaust survivor Mortiz Sternfeld who moved to Bocholt. German
in January of 1936.
https://www.ushmm.org/online/hsv/person_view.php?PersonId=4113736
1898(24th
of Cheshvan, 5659): Private George C. Hahn, from Putnam who had been serving
with Company G of the 1st Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry
passed away today.
1898:
Reliable sources were saying tonight that Richard Croker was one of the Tammany
district leaders who would be replaced in the wake of the electoral defeat
because he had failed to deliver the Jewish vote in New York County.
1899:
Birthdate of New York City and Fordham trained attorney Neil Merrill Leiblich
the president of Young Israel; an officer
League for Jewish Education, and an executive director Council of Zionists.
1899:
Texan Andrew Moses who had been serving as 2nd Lieutenant in the 7th
Artillery was promoted to the rank of 1st Lieutenant in the 3rd
Artillery
1900:
“Bible Teacher’s College” published today described the three hundred lectures
to be offered at the Bible Teacher’s College in Montclair, N.J. including “ten
studies of Isaiah by Professor Ira M. Price of the University of Chicago.
1901:
Charles Frank Levy, the New Orleans born son of L.H. and Regina E. Levy who
went from a partnership with his father in the Olive Street Furniture to
founding the Hub Furniture today married Dorothy Watson who whom he had two
children, Charles, Jr. and Regina.
1901:
Seven thousand dollars was raised today on what was the first observance in the
United States of Shekel Day “which has been observed for several years in
Europ.
1902:
This evening, “The Rev. Dr. George C.
Lorrimer, in the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, preached on the subject,
"The Debt of the World to the Jew” and said that the persecution of the
Jewish race had been one of the great crimes of the ages and that the survival
of the Jew was nothing short of a miracle.
1903:
Birthdate of Dr. Gregory Goodwin Pincus: Father of "The Pill." Dr.
Pincus and Dr. M.C. Chiang, his collaborator, developed the first practical
oral contraceptive birth-control pill after being persuaded to do so by
Margaret Sanger, a leader in the American birth-control movement, and Katherine
Dexter McCormick, an heir to the International Harvester fortune.
1904: Philadelphia born attorney Joseph Leon Buttenwieser “sold
the Grand American Hall formerly known as the Germania Assembly Rooms and a
five story tenement at 233 West 27th Street in New York.
1904:
Anglo-Jewish banker Sir Ernest Cassel was met today by Jacob Schiff as he
disembarked from the White Star liner Oceanic.
1905:
The National Committee for the Relief of Suffers by Russian Massacres met at
the United Hebrew Charities Building to organize relief efforts for those who
have suffered during the last ten days of violence in Russia. While most of the victims were Jews, it was
decided that aid would be distributed to all who have suffered regardless of
their religious affiliation
1905:
An appeal for aid for the suffering Jews in Russia entitled “To the Jews of
America” published today read in part “The victims of the awful riots and
massacres in Russia re not all numbered with the dead. The living, starving survivors who have lost
their breadwinners and the maimed mutely appeal to a pitying world for
aid. Therefore each community is hereby
requested to organize at once and without further notice for the purpose of
raising fund to aid these destitute living victims. Funds when collected by may
forewarned to Mr. Jacob H. Schiff of New York for proper distribution.
1905:
“It is reported from St. Petersburg that” “the Jewish population is
panic-stricken” because “there are signs in that city of preparations to
massacre the Jews.”
1906:
Today, President Teddy Roosevelt, who appointed the first Jewish cabinet
secretary and who contributed a portion of his Nobel Prize money to Jewish
charity “went to Panama to view the progress on the building of the Panama
Canal.
1907(3rd
of Kislev, 5668): Parashat Tolodot
1907:
Tennessee coached by George Levene tied Kentucky State College today.
1907:
In St. Thomas, Isaac and Rebecca Kushner Paiewonsky gave birth to Ralph Moses
Paiwonsky, “the second person of Jewish heritage to serve as the governor of
the Virgin Islands.
1907:
In New York City Eugene E. Sperry and Rosalie Stanton Bloomingdale gave birth
to Lucy Bloomingdale Sperry.
1908:
“Pastor Otto Eberhard, “one of the leading experts on the modern cultural state
of Palestine’ is scheduled to give a lecture today under the auspices of The
Executive Committee of the Zionist chapter Hamburg-Altona.
https://jewish-history-online.net/article/weber-christian-friends-zionism
1908:
It was reported today that Rabbi Samuel Schulman of Temple Beth El has
suggested that the memory of” Percival S. Menken who passed away last May
“should be perpetuated by the building of other city branches of the Young
Men’s Hebrew Association” which had been part on Mr. Menken’s “own plans.”
1909(25th
of Cheshvan, 5670): Forty-year-old Miss Chasse Stikan passed away today.
1909(25th
of Cheshvan, 5670): Rabbi Joseph Mayor Asher, Professor at the Jewish
Theological Seminary, an “erudite Talmudic scholar” and Rabbi at Or Chayim
Synagogue since 1906 passed away at the age of 37.
https://kevarim.com/rav-yosef-mayor-asher/
1909:
The week-long meeting of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, “which was
founded by the late Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, is scheduled to open this evening
“with a public meeting at Temple Beth-El on Fifth Avenue and Seventy-Sixth
Street.
1910:
In Baltimore, MD, Jacob Silverman, the son of Shlomo Silverblatt and his wife
Rachel Silverman, gave birth to his first child born in America, Shirley
Silverman Rosen, the wife of Meyer Rosen and the mother of Eli Rosen and Iris
Levy.
1910:
President William Howard Taft, who was so highly thought by the Jews of
Cincinnati that they planted a forest in his honor in Israel and who was the
first President to attend a Seder but who wrote a letter opposing the
appointment of Brandeis to the Supreme Court because he was a Jew, prepared to
set sail on trip that would take him to Panama where he could examine progress
on the building of the canal.
1911:
I.N. Bloom of Louisville, KY, was appointed by the Governor to serve on the
committee arranging the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial Building in
Hodgeville, KY.
1911:
In Antwerp, Jacob Querido, and Anna Heilbron gave birth Elisabeth Querido who
married Israel Aandagt and as Elisabeth Aandagt was murdered by the Nazis in
Poland.
1912(29th
of Cheshvan, 5673): Parashat Toldot
1912(29th
of Cheshvan, 5673): Isaac Levy, a merchant, passed away today in Columbus,
Ohio.
1912:
It was reported today that “the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland has awarded
this year’s gold medal for highest marks at their license examinations to Mr.
Joel Green of Dublin.”
1912:
It was reported today that “Dr. Meyer has been appointed senior tuberculosis
officer by the municipality of Hull, England.”
1912:
It was reported today that “a son of the editor of the Hebrew paper Haor,
published daily in Jerusalem, has been arrested for having written an article”
that spoke “of the Turkish government in unfavorable terms.”
1912:
In New York City, Adolph and Rose Brodkin gave birth to the youngest of their
six children, Herbert Brodkin who produced shows for the high quality dramatic
television program “Playhouse 90.” (As reported by Eleanor Blau)
1913:
Arnold Schönberg “completes the orchestral song "Seraphita", op. 22,
No. 1.
1914:
Birthdate of William Lewis Abramowitz, the 1935 MIT graduate and “plastics
company executive” who was the husband of “the former Lena Epstein, with whom
he had four children – Kenneth, Susan, Ava and Gail.
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/25/archives/william-abramowitz.html
1914(20th
of Cheshvan, 5675): Sixty-three-year-old Julius Hamburger, the Tammany
political leader, former Coroner of New York County and Sherriff of New York
County passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1914/11/10/100112819.html?pageNumber=11
1914:
In Vienna, Lemberg born bank director Emil Kiesler and pianist Gertrud
Lichtwitz gave birth to Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler who would gain fame as actress
Hedy Lamarr.
1914:
When Liberal MP Herbert Samuel asked Sir Edward Grey about a homeland for the
Jewish people, the Foreign Secretary replied “that the idea had alwas had a
strong sentimental appeal to him and he would be prepared to work for it if the
opportunity arose.”
1914:
Four days after Britain’s declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire “Zionism was
first discussed at a British Cabinet meeting” after which David Lloyd George,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer (and future Prime Minister) assured fellow cabinet
member Herbert Samuel that "he was very keen to see a Jewish state
established in Palestine."
1914:
In Beten, Poland, “Ya’akov-Yizhak Lubetkin”
and his wife the former “Hayyah Zilberman” gave birth to Ziva Lubetkin
one of the founders of the ZOB (Jewish National Committee) who survived the
Warsaw Ghetto and settled in Palestine after the war.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/zivia-lubetkin
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lubetkin-zivia
1915:
Joseph Kornfeld of Columbus, Ohio, was re-elected member of the Board of
Education.
1915:
“7,000,000 Jews Starving” published today included the description by Louis Brandeis
of the plight the Jews in war-torn Europe as well as “the success of the Jewish
colony in Palestine which…is becoming stronger and stronger every day.
1915:
“Correspondence of the Frankfurter Zeitung from Jerusalem says…twenty thousand
Russian Jews requested Turkish citizenship which was granted without the
payment of the ordinary taxes.
1915:
“A plea for Americanism as above Zionism was made by Jacob H. Schiff before a
large audience at the joint meeting of the Eastern Council of Reform Rabbis and
the Jewish Religious School at Temple Emanu-El” tonight during which he
“denounced Zionism or any other movement that tended to emphasize the question
of race or nationalism as foreign to the best interests of the Jewish people,”
1916:
It was reported today that victory of Meyer London, the Socialist candidate
running for the House of Representatives from the 12th Congressional
District was due to large support among Jewish voters but the large Jewish vote
for President Wilson was not enough for him to carry Manhattan.
1917: During World War I, Australian and New
Zealand forces under the command of General Allenby were within twenty miles of
Latrun which is the western entrance to the hills on the road to
Jerusalem. Yes, this is the same Latrun
that Jewish forces tried to seize during the War for Independence to open the
road from the coast to Jerusalem.
1917:
British aircraft continued to bomb and strafe Turkish forces retreating from
Beersheba.
1917:
In London, the British Government made public the letter sent a week earlier
which is known as the Balfour Declaration.
Herbert Samuel spoke at a thanksgiving rally at Covent Garden in which
he finished by intoning, in Hebrew, the age old declaration, “Next Year in
Jerusalem.” The declaration was published in the Jewish Chronicle. According
to one source, the government had deliberately delayed the public announcement
so that it would appear for the first time in a Jewish paper.
1917:
“A German aircraft was shot down in flames near the Wadi Hesi, as Australian
aircraft attacked Ottoman and German installations and ammunition dumps
1918:
“Oppose Zionist Plan” published today described a meeting of 500 Syrians at a
Brooklyn hotel where they adopted a resolution calling on the Allies to oppose
any settlement by Jews in Palestine – an opposition may have been more of the
desire for the development of “Greater Syria” which was a goal of some Arab
leaders following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.
1918:
As World War I was coming to an end Prince Max Baden, the Chancellor, announced
the abdication the Kaiser and then later that day found himself forced to
resign – creating the chaos that would later lead to the “stabbed in the back
myth.”
1918:
As Germany falls into social and political chaos at the end of World War I,
Kurt Eisner, Provisional National Council Minister-President, declares Bavaria
to be a republic. Kurt Eisner was born at Berlin on May 14 1857, of Jewish
parents, his parental name being Kamonowsky. Eisner was the name he took when
he began to write, and that name he adopted in his work for Social-Democracy.
1918(5th
of Kislev, 5679): Sixty-nine year old Vilna born, German trained Reform Rabbi
Herman Eliassof who led Congregation Beth-El in Chicago while editing The
Occident and several history books including The Jews of Chicago and The
Jews of Illinois.
ttps://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/eliassof-herman]
1918:
Birthdate of Brooklyn native Columbia trained cellist and composer Hoard
Shanet, the husband of Bernice Grafstein and father Laurence Paul Shanet who served om the Pacific during WW II, was a
conductor of Columbia’s orchestra and chaired its Music Department.
1918(5th
of Kislev, 5679): Sixty-one-year-old Albert Ballin, the owner and manager of
the Hamburg America Line passed away.
1919: It was reported today that The Story Books of the
Early Hebrews by Charles Reynold, the Dean of the School of Religion at Yale
University is available for purchase.
1919: “After spending five years in Galicia where he
witnessed much of the recent fighting, Simon Margulies” a New York City cigar
maker walked into the offices of the Ukrainian National Committee, 30 East
Seventh Street, with a large bundle of letters from Galician Ukrainians to
their relatives in the United States “concerning conditions in their native
land” where he said that after the Austrian Empire had fallen apart, the first
act of the liberated Poles was to swoop down upon Lemberg where they massacred
800 Jews{ including the “four hundred who driven into a synagogue” which the
Poles then set on fire.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/11/10/118180371.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1920:
In Denver, CO, The Triennial Convention of Jewish Women continued to meet for a
third day at the Brown Hotel.
1920:
In Baltimore, MD, the seventh annual convention of the Mizrachi Organization of
the United States and Canada continued for a second day.
1920:
This evening Dr. Edwin Slosson of Columbia University, the author of Major
Prophets of Today and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is scheduled
to deliver an address on “Jewish Achievement in Science” to members “of the
Auxiliary of Central Synagogue.”
1921:
Samuel Lewin lost his game today in the Metropolitan pocket billiard
championship tournament being planed at the Broadway Billiard Academy.
1922:
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards Albert Einstein the Nobel Prize
for Physics.
1922:
Two days after he had passed away in Atlantic City, funeral services were held
today at Rodeph Sholom in Philadelphia for seventy-two year old Jacob Gimbel
the Vincennes, IN, born son Fridolyn Khan-Wheeler and Adam Gimbel who had
“resigned the Presidency of Gimbel Brothers two years ago due to ill health”
1923:
After Nationalists paraded through the streets in parts of the Ruhr in an
“attempt to drive the out the Jews and declare a pogrom” the Jews “fled in
great numbers toward Cologne this morning, fearing further anti-Semitic riots.”
1923:
In responding to reports that Henry Ford was considering a run for the Presidency,
Rabbi I.L. Brill told the Both Israel congregation at the Jewish community
centre tonight that "there is a distinct difference between running the
United States and operating an automobile factory: and Cabinet Ministers” since
Senators and Congressmen cannot be driven like machine workers at $6 a
day."
1924:
In Zurich, Switzerland, Rosa and Hermann Frank gave birth to cinematographer
and photographer Robert Frank.
1924:
Today, Russian born violinist Mischa Mischaoff “played the Tchaikovsky concerto
with the New York Symphony under Walter Damrosch at Aeolian Hall” in what “may
have been his first solo appearance in the U.S.”
http://pronetoviolins.blogspot.com/2012/08/mischa-mischakoff.html
1924:
“He Who gets Slapped” a silent drama produced by Irving Thalberg and
co-starring his future wife Norma Shearer was released in the United States
today.
1925:
In Kurenets, Belarus, Miriam Kremer and Mendel Kremer who would be murder by
the Nazis in 1943 gave birth to Emma Eshke Greisdorf.
1926:
“A resolution calling upon the Central Rabbis’ Organization of America to
consider the sponsoring of a national Jewish movement for establishment of
five-day work week, so that Saturday may be more widely observed as a day of
worship, was adopted at the final session today of the Mizrachi Organization of
America” which has been meeting in Washington, D.C.
1926:
Today, in Philadelphia, Rabbi Abram Siman of Washington was elected Chairman of
the Synagogue Council of America at its first meeting as a permanent
organization while other officers chosen were Rabbi Bernstein, Secretary; Rabbi
J.B. Pollak, Assistant Secretary; Ben Altheimer, Treasurer, and Captain N.T.
Phillips and Dr. Elias Solomon, Vice Chairmen, all of New York.”
1927:
Birthdate of Salo Linder the native of Berlin whose family made Aliyah in 1933
and as Shlomo Lahat rose to the rank of Major General in the IDF and served for
terms as Mayor of Tel Aviv.
1928:
CCNY basketball star Nat Krinsky and his wife Hilda gave birth to Paul L
Krinsky, the honor graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Company who served at
sea with both the Merchant Marines and Navy who pursued a career that led to
serve as the “Superintendent of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy with the rank
of Rear Admiral.
1928:
In Chicago, “Dr. Schmarya Levin, a member of the World Zionist Executive Board
and head of the largest Hebrew publishing house in Palestine today expressed
sharp disagreement with Julius Rosenwald, the Chicago capitalist and
philanthropist on the experiment of colonizing Jews in Russia.”
1929:
Birthdate of Hungarian Holocaust survivor Imre Kertesz recipient of the 2002
Nobel Prize in Literature.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2002/press.html
1929(6th
of Cheshvan): “Rabbi Joseph Leib Bloch, dean of the Yeshivah at Telz passed
away.
1930:
In St. Louis, MO, “with an audience of 4,000 crowding Moohlah Temple and other
thousands clamoring for entrance, Zionist and non-Zionist joined today in
denouncing the British White Paper on Palestine and demanding its immediate and
unequivocal withdrawal.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1930/11/10/92118316.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1930:
“Resolutions expressing profound disappointment with the British Government's
future policy in Palestine and the hope that the government would reverse its
attitude were adopted today at the annual meeting of the American Jewish
Committee…”
1931:
Birthdate of Marvin Kessler, the Brooklyn native “who spent more than half a
century in basketball as a player, a coach, a scout and, most prominently, a
camp instructor who molded young athletes like Patrick Ewing and Stephon
Marbury…” (As reported by Richard Goldstein)
1932:
One hundred teachers invaded the offices of the Jewish Agency Executive this
morning, occupied them, stationed guards at the exits, and announced that they
would permit no member of the Executive to leave the building until arrears in
salary from May to August were paid.
1932:
In Des Moines, IA, Harry and Bessie Stein gave birth to Arnold “Arny” Davidson,
a graduate of the University of Iowa and husband of Brenna Persellin who “was
the owner and president of Globe Financial Services in Iowa City where he was a
member of Agudas Achim.
1933:
It was reported today that “all existing Jewish organizations in Germany have
this week been placed under a strict and direct control by the secret police in
connection with the special Jewish department established here by the secret
police.”
1933:
“Opposition to the second proposal to celebrate German day in this city was
abandoned today by Major Julius Hochfelder, counsel for the Jewish War Veterans
of the United States, who were instrumental in inducing Mayor O'Brien to
prohibit the first celebration two weeks ago.”
1934:
After the government had revoke the citizenship “of Jews naturalized after the
World War and ousted Jewish professionals from state and municipal
institutions, today “a new trade law which will completely ruin Jews engaged in
commerce and industry in Austria was promulgated” by the government.
1934:
In Brooklyn, Sam Sagan, an immigrant garment worker from Russia and Rachel
Molly Gruber gave birth to Carl Sagan, American astronomer and television
personality – a man who brought science to the mass American audience.
1934:
“Holiday Land,” one of the nominees for the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film,
produced by Charles Mintz was released in the United States today.
1934:
Birthdate of Tel Aviv native and award winning Israeli novelist and playwright
Sulamit Lapid, the wife of Tommy Lapid and the mother of Yair Lapid.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/lapid-shulamit
1934:
“Woman in the Dark” a film version of a short story directed by Phil Rosen and
filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released in the United States
today.
1934:
In Cape Town, South Africa, Isobel (née Pepper) and
Isaac Horwitz gave birth to Ronald Horwitz who moved to London in 1951 to
pursue his acting career where he changed his surname to Harwood and gained
fame as Ronald Harwood the author of “The Dresser” a play which he turned into
an Oscar winning movie.
1934: In Brooklyn, “Samuel Sagan, an immigrant worker”
and housewife Rachel Molly Gruber gave birth to America’s most famous
astronomer Carl Sagan.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Sagan
https://www.planetary.org/about/our-founders/carl-sagan.html
1935: As the Nazis continue to take control of German
society “the sixteen Nazis who died in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch were
re-interred in the newly constructed Ehrentempel (honour temples) commemorating
the failed coup attempt.”
1935:
Charles and Hylda Wolfson gave birth to David Wolfson, the future Baron Wolfson
of Sunningdale
1936:
Josef Beck, the Foreign Minister of Poland is scheduled to begin two days of
meetings with Sir Anthony Eden where he plans to bring up the subject of Jewish
immigration from his country to Palestine.
1936:
In Warsaw, “several Jews were beaten, one seriously, in street fighting on the
anniversary of battles between Jews and Polish university students” last year.
1936:
Four days after he had passed away, the will of Julius Garfinckel “was filed
for probate, leaving the bulk of his $6,000,000 estate to charity and
employees.”
1936:
Birthdate of folk singer Mary Travers, the Mary of Peter, Paul and Mary.
1937(5th
of Kislev, 5698): Five members of the Gordonia group working on a Jewish
National Fund afforestation project near Kiryat Anavim were ambushed and
murdered by Arabs.
1937:
“Mrs. Otto A. Rosalsky, widow of the General Sessions judge, today in the
Felony Court withdrew a charge of suspicion of grand larceny against Mrs.
Dorothea Kulkin, 40 years old, of 400 West End Avenue, owner of a jewelry
establishment at 1 West Forty-seventh Street.
1938:
Funeral services are scheduled to be held today in Paris for sixty-sixty year
old Dr. Leo Motzkin the “noted Jewish statesman who “fought earnestly for his
conception of the Jews as a national minority with their religious and cultural
development safeguarded by international treaties and obligations.” (As
reported by JTA)
1938:
British troops and Arabs clashed twice in revolt-torn Palestine today. Two
soldiers were killed and five were injured. Arab casualties were not learned.
“Troops were ambushed on the Tel Aviv-Haifa road and Arabs staged a surprise
attack on a garrison at a village near Tul Karm.
1938:
In Great Britain, the Woodhead Report which opposed the creation of independent
Jewish and Arab states in Palestine was submitted to Parliament
1938: Hitler mentions to Hermann Göring that he
would like to see all German Jews forcibly resettled on the island of
Madagascar. Opportunistically chosen by the Nazi leadership, the date of the
pogrom is of great symbolic importance. It coincides with two important
national holidays, the Nazi Blood Witness Day of November 9 and Martin Luther's
birthday of November 10. Blood Witness Day commemorates the Nazi
"martyrs" who died for their cause. Martin Luther advocated the
destruction of Jewish homes and synagogues as well as the impoverishment,
forced labor, exile, and death of Jews.
1938:
Ernst von Rath, the third secretary to the German embassy in Paris died from
wounds inflicted by Hershel Grynszpan,
a seventeen year old Jewish refugee on November 7. Grynszpan's parents were
among the 12,000 Polish-Jewish refugees who had been living in Germany who were
transported to the Polish frontier a month earlier. The killing was a protest
against the harsh treatment of these suffering, stateless Jews at the hands of
the Nazis.
1938: Kristallnacht (Night of Broken
Glass) occurs across Germany and Austria. Ninety-one Jews are killed; others
are beaten. Thirty thousand male Jews are sent to concentration camps, though
most will be released in a few weeks. 267 synagogues are desecrated and
destroyed (almost all of the synagogues of Germany and Austria). SS Security
Service chief Reinhard Heydrich instructs security agencies to burn the
synagogues unless German lives or property are endangered. Jewish businesses
are looted and destroyed.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/04.asp
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/05.asp
1938:
“During the November Pogrom” known as Kristallnacht, in Berlin, “the Neue
Synagogue was broken into, Torah scrolls desecrated, furniture smashed and
other combustible furnishings piled up and set on fire.
1938:
During Kristallnacht, the Leipzig synagogue which had been “built in 1855 by
the German Jewish architect Otto Simonson was destroyed tonight.
1938: On Kristallnacht, “the Jewish men of
Karlsruhe including Opa Oppenheimer,” the grandfather of future Monuments Men
Harry Ettlinger “were rounded up and put in Dachau and the hundred year old
Kronenstrasse Synagogue “was burned to the ground.”
1938:
In Vienna, two Gestapo agents entered the apartment of 17 year old Roy Rogers
with the intent of arresting his father who was not at home. When asked how old he was, his mother lied
about his age thus saving the future British soldier from a trip to a
concentration camp.(As reported by Ed Lion)
1938:
Twelve days after all of the Polish Jews living in Karlsruhe were forced to go
to the Polish border for deportation; the synagogues in this southwestern
German city were destroyed.
1938(15th of Cheshvan, 5699): On what would become
known as Kristallnacht,
Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister called von Rath's murder "a Jewish
conspiracy" and the German government organized a nation-wide pogrom. Fifty thousand Jews were arrested and taken
to concentration camps; five hundred synagogues were destroyed, and the Jewish
community was forced to pay one billion Reich marks ($4,000,000) for the
damage. In point of fact, Kristallnacht
was part of the Nazi effort to redistribute wealth in Germany without impacting
the German upper classes.
1938:
In “Why did Nazis protect rabbi on Kristallnacht?” published today, Nadav
Shragai explores the unique story of Rabbi Avraham Kuperstock and an
alternative theory as to the origin of Kristallnacht
On
the night between November 9 and 10, 1938 - Kristallnacht - while synagogues
across the German Reich were set ablaze and Jews and their property became
victims of state-initiated pogroms, a strange sight took place in the heart of
Berlin. German police rushed to 25 Mintz Street, where they used their bodies
as shields to protect the synagogue housing the yeshiva headed by Rabbi Avraham
Kuperstock from rioters seeking to harm the rabbi, his family, students or
property. This remarkable story was brought to light by Prof. Meier Schwarz,
83, a researcher who lost his entire family in the Holocaust and today runs
"Ashkenaz House," a Jerusalem-based organization dedicated to
conducting research and preserving the heritage of German Jewry. Kuperstock and
his synagogue were saved thanks to the assistance he provided German
authorities during World War II. But his story begins much earlier, in 1914
Warsaw, when the city was still under Russian control. The Russians were
recruiting young people across the region, Jews and Poles alike. Among those
conscripted were some of the rabbi's yeshiva students. Two of them deserted the
army, were caught and sentenced to death and were hung by the Russians in the
city square to deter other students from following their example. Kuperstock
was made to stand beside the gallows while the grim sentence was carried out.
The rabbi never forgot the experience and vowed to one day avenge the injustice
the Russians had visited upon his yeshiva. As World War II dragged on, Germany
fought on two fronts, to the West against the British, Americans, Canadians and
their allies and, to the East, against the Soviet Union. The Third Reich
diverted the bulk of its resources toward the eastern front, but struggled
against the tough topographic conditions and the Russians' sophisticated line
of virtually impenetrable fortifications. In 1941, in Operation Barbarossa, the
German army suddenly penetrated the Soviet lines, smashing through its
adversary's fortifications and paving a path to the East. In his research Prof.
Meier Schwarz found that Kuperstock, as revenge for the death of his two
students, had transferred intelligence to the Germans on the Russian
fortification system, including secret pathways allowing the bulwarks to be
breached. The revelation was confirmed by Kuperstock's neighbors, who had heard
of the arrangement from the rabbi himself. They said in exchange for the
information, Kuperstock was granted the status of "protected Jew,"
and during the darkest days of the Holocaust sold the Germans leaven his community
had thrown out during Passover. Additional confirmation came from a relative of
the rabbi now living in Australia. What remains unclear, however, is how was
Kuperstock able to obtain the Russian documents, and whether he had acted
alone. While the war was in full swing, Kuperstock and his students were
transferred to East Berlin, where the authorities provided them with
accommodations for living, praying and studying on Mintz Street. The rabbi was
promised a pension for the rest of his life, German citizenship and financial
support of the yeshiva. When President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf
Hitler chancellor in 1933, the rabbi's special status was registered. Unlike
other Polish Jews residing in Germany, Kuperstock and his students were not transferred
to Poland, but in 1941, after the rabbi died, his students were sent to the
death camps in the East. Last year Ashkenaz House published a study on the
events leading up to Kristallnacht. Key among these was the assassination of
German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old German Jew
of Polish extraction. The traditional account of the shooting holds that
Grynszpan acted after his family and 17,000 other Jewish families with Polish
roots were ordered to leave Germany for Poland. However, Prof. Schwarz believes
vom Rath was actually killed by an envoy of Adolf Hitler himself. "The
Germans, and not Grynszpan, were the ones who murdered vom Rath, but they
blamed the Jews. Vom Rath, who seemed to have been seriously wounded, was transferred
to hospital, where he was 'treated' by Hitler's personal doctor, who made sure
he died," he said. "Kristallnacht had been planned two months before
the second week of November 1938."
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/05.asp
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/04.asp
1938: Al Capp, the Jewish cartoonist of Lil' Abner
creates Sadie Hawkins Day.
1939:
Five hundred Jewish families were deported from Lublin, Poland.
1939:
Lodz was officially annexed to the Reich, a step followed by an intensification
of the German terrorization of the Jews and Poles.
1939:
“Life With Father,” produced by Oscar Serlin opened today “at the Empire
Theatre” and ran for 3,213 performances.” (Editor note – NYT says the 9th. Wiki says the 8th)
1939:
Today, “Georg Elser rigged a bomb meant to kill Hitler on November 9, 1939, but
the device exploded 13 minutes after Hitler leaves the hall.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32160816
1939:
MGM released “Ninotchka” produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch, with a script
by Billy Wilder, co-starring that Georgia (USA) born Jew, Melvyn Douglas.
1940(8th
of Cheshvan, 5701): Parashat Lech-Lecha
1940:
It was reported today that in the last two weeks “more than 10,000 Jews” have
been forcibly evacuated “from the southwest German Provinces of Baden and the
Palentine” and interned “in concentration camps in southern unoccupied France”
creating a conditions that can be described as a humanitarian crisis.
1941:
A photograph was taken of Jews working in Bakery #3 in the Lodz Ghetto.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/07.asp
1941:
Having finished murdering the Jews of Minsk on November 6, the Nazis began
moving thousands of German Jews into the town.
1941
(19th of Cheshvan): Rabbi Abraham Zevi Kama, head of the Yeshivah of Mir, was
among the 1,500 Jews of Mir killed by the Nazis today.
1942:
While serving with Escort Scouting Squadron Twenty-nine aboard the U.S.S.
Santee, an escort carrier, today Lt. Cmdr. Arthur M. Ershler, “distinguished
himself today when at grave risk to his personal safety he attacked a hostile
convoy of trucks during which his plane was materially damaged by gunfire
leaving him nauseated from the gasoline fumes which did not keep him from
flying “to a hostile airdrome where he scored a direct hit on a hangar, damaged
several planes on the ground and strafed numerous machine gun emplacements.
1942:
Following yesterday’s Allied landings at Algiers which were facilitated by Jose
Aboulker and his predominately Jewish resistance group, “the
XIXth Army Corps of the Vichy Government tried to mobilize to oppose the Allied
landings, but concentrated its efforts on the Resistance fighters led by
Aboukler and others who decided to evacuate their positions since their mission
had been accomplished and they wanted to avoid having Frenchman fight
Frenchman.
1942:
More than 700 Greek born Jews from Salonica living in Paris were deported.
1942:
It was reported today that “Columbia has signed Zoltan Korda, brother of
Alexander Korda, and director of his United Artists productions, "The Four
Feathers," "Drums," "The Thief of Bagdad" and
"The Jungle Book," to direct a newly scheduled Melvyn Douglas
vehicle, "Sahara," which will deal with the present Libyan campaign
by the United Nations against General Rommel.”
1942:
Germans deport Jews from Paris to Birkenau death camp. These Jews were Greeks
from Salonica who went to France thinking it would be a safe haven.
1942: The Nazis opened another death camp named
Majdanek Four thousand Lublin Jews already deported to two other concentration
camps, were sent to open Majdanek. Majdanek joined Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobibor
and Belzec as factories of death.
1943: Two hundred Jews from Venice, Italy, are
deported to Auschwitz. Four hundred Jews from Florence and Bologna, Italy, are
deported to Auschwitz.
1943: At the Theresienstadt, the Council of
Elders head Jacob Edelstein and three other Jews are accused of saving 55 of
the ghetto's Jews from deportation by falsifying population reports.
1943: U.S. Senator Guy Gillette, Representative
Will Rogers, Jr. (son of the great comedian and social commentator) and Representative
Joseph Baldwin introduce a resolution into Congress calling upon the president
to establish "a commission of diplomatic, economic, and military experts
to formulate and effectuate a plan of action to save the surviving Jewish
people of Europe." This resolution will serve as the basis of the War
Refugee Board (WRB).
1943:
Four hundred Jews were deported from Florence and Bologna to Birkenau.
1944:
German troops holding Walcharen Island which was the key barrier to the Allies
being able to take the much needed port of Antwerp surrendered today.
1945(4th
of Kislev, 5706): Sarah Lavanburg Straus the widow of Oscar Straus passed away
today.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/straus-sarah-lavanburg
1945:
Birthdate of Zevulun Orlev, an Israeli politician and a former leader of the
National Religious Party. He was Minister of Welfare & Social Services
(March 2003 - November 2004), and is currently a Member of the Knesset for the
The Jewish Home party. Orlev is a decorated war hero who received the Medal of
Distinguished Service in the Yom Kippur War.
1945:
“The House I Live In,” “a ten-minutes short film written by Albert Maltz, and
directed and produced by Mervyn LeRoy” “made to oppose anti-Semitism at the end
of World War II” which “received an Honorary Academy Award and a special Golden
Globe award in 1946” was released in the United States today by RKO.
1946(15th
of Cheshvan, 5707): Parashat Vayera
1946:
“Using the Potomac Shipwrecking Co. of Washington, D.C. as its agent, the
Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah bought SS President Warfield from the WSAand transferred control of it to
Hamossad Le'aliyah Bet, the branch of the Haganah that organized Aliyah Bet
activities.” The Warfield would gain fame as the SS Exodus.
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 a booby-trap bomb exploded while they were searing a house for
hidden explosives.
1946:
“Mr.Hex” a Bowery Boy comedy starring Leo Gorcey and featuring his brother
David Gorcey was released in the United States today.
1946:
Warner Bros. released “Never Say Goodbye,” a romantic comedy based on a story
by Ben and Norma Barzman with a script co-authored by I.A. L. Diamond featuring
famed character actor S.Z. Sakall as “Luigi”/
1947:
In Pittsburg, PA, “Robert N. Nathan, the former chairman of the planning
commission of the War Production Board, told 135 Jewish communal leaders here
today that the resettling in Palestine of 150,00 Jews from European camps of
displace person in the next two years would cost about $400,000,000.”
1948: During the War of Independence Operation Yoav
comes to a successful close. Operation
Yoav was part of the campaign to secure the Negev from the invading Egyptian
forces. Yigal Allon one of the true
heroes of the creation of the Jewish state was the commander of the venture.
1948:
The IDF launched Operation Shmone to capture the Tegart fort in the village of
Iraq Suwaydan. The fort's Egyptian defenders had previously repulsed eight
attempts to take it, including two during Operation Yoav. Israeli forces
bombarded the fort before an assault. After breaching the outlying fences
without resistance, the Israelis blew a hole in the fort's outer wall,
prompting the 180 Egyptian soldiers manning the fort to surrender without a
fight. The defeat prompted the Egyptians to evacuate several nearby positions,
including hills the IDF had failed to take by force. Meanwhile, IDF forces were
met with stiff resistance in Iraq Suwaydan itself, losing 6 dead and 14 wounded
1948:
Israeli forces ended the Arab siege of Negbah
1948:
Leon Frankel, one of the American volunteers who helped create and flew with
Israel’s air force during the War for Independence returned to the United
States today.
1948:
“101 Squadron moved south to Chatzor to take a position closer to the southern
front, where it flew most missions. One advantage of the more southerly
location was that it was further along the route that the daily shuftikite flew
and so gave more time for an intercept.”
1948:
Joseph Zaritsky chose “an abstract still life” to show at the “New Horizons”
exhibition that opened today in Tel Aviv.
1949:
“Yigael Yadin was appointed as the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense
Forces, succeeding Yaakov Dori.”
1949:
The biennial convention of the American Jewish Congress opened in New York City.
1949: Democrat Herbert H. Lehman defeated
Republican John Foster Dulles, the future Secretary of State who back Nasser
over Israel in 1956 in a special election for a seat in the Senate which would
later be filled by Jacob Javits who was a liberal, Jewish, Republican. (Don’t make those anymore)
1949(17th
of Cheshvan, 5710): Eighty-year-old New York born attorney and Zionist Isidore
Hirschfield, the general council for HIAS passed away today in Washington, DC.
1949:
Yaakov Dori completed his terms as the first Chief of Staff of the Israel
Defense Forces (IDF). Born Yakov Dostrovsky in the present day Ukraine in 1899,
his family emigrated to Ottoman Palestine following the anti-Jewish pogrom in
Odessa in 1905. Upon completing high school at the Hebrew School in Haifa, he
enlisted in the Jewish Legion of the British Army during World War I. He later
joined the Haganah and adopted the underground name of "Dan". In
Haganah he was the commander of the Haganah Forces of Haifa. In 1939, Dori was
appointed Chief of Staff of the Haganah, a position he held until 1946. As
Haganah’s Chief of Statt, it was Yaakov Dori's duty to take the Haganah from a
diffuse self-defense organization to a model army. From 1946 to 1947 he also
headed the Palestinian Jewish delegation sent to purchase arms in the United
States. When the IDF was formed, Dori took over as its first Chief of Staff.
Yet, despite his good command and organizational skills, he was already
suffering from failing health, and had difficulty commanding his troops during
Israel's War of Independence, and was forced to rely heavily on his deputy,
Yigael Yadin. After he completed his term as Chief of Staff, Dori retired from
the military. He was succeeded by his deputy, Yadin. Even after his release
from the army, however, he continued to wear the officer's pin he was awarded
when he first became a second lieutenant. Upon leaving the IDF, Dori was
appointed chairman of the Science Council, attached to the Prime Minister's
office. He was later made president of the Technion in Haifa, a position he
held until 1965. He passed away in 1973.
1950: Birthdate of Dr. Yosi Ben-Dov, the Haifa, who
after a successful career in business “became the Headmaster and managing
director of The Hebrew Reali School in Haifa.”
1951:
An instrumental version of “Charmaine" co-composed by Lew Pollack reached
the top spot on Billboard today.
1951(10th
of Cheshvan, 5712): Sigmund Romberg
passed away in New York City. Born Romberg
Zsigmond in Hungary, Romberg gained fame as the creator of numerous operettas
including The Student Prince and The Desert Song.
http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/bio/C69
1952(21st of Cheshvan, 5713): Chaim Weizmann First President of Israel and
Zionist statesman passed away. There is no way that any blurb here could do
justice to one of the giants of the Zionist cause. Would there have been an
Israel had there been no Weizmann? Who
knows? The creative chemist pursued
Herzl’s dream with unparalleled zeal, playing a key role in the issuance of the
Balfour Declaration, creating the Yishuv after World War I and lobbying
American leaders including Harry Truman for their vital support of the unborn
Jewish state. To paraphrase Shakespeare,
while others of his generation were abed enjoying the material rewards of the
scientific genius, he was in the field fighting for the creation of Eretz
Israel at a time when it was not “the in thing to do.”
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1127.html
1952: Yosef Sprinzak began serving as interim
President, a post he would hold until the inauguration of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi
thirty days later.
1953: Ibn Saud, the Saudi King who expressed his
disdain for the Jews when he met with President Roosevelt in 1945, who declared
war on Israel in 1948 and who squandered his nation’s oil wealth rather than
use it to help his less fortunate “Arab brothers” in other lands died today.
1954: “The Divided Heart” a movie about three year
old boy in Germany during WW II filmed by cinematographer Otto Heller and
starring Yvonne Mitchell was released in the United Kingdom today.
1956: Sixty-one year old Hildebrand Gurlitt, the
Nazi art thief passed away having survived the war with a secret stash of art
that he had acquired for his fellow Nazis.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10811916/Cornelius-Gurlitt-obituary.html
1958(26th of Cheshvan, 5719): Seventy-two-year-old Rabbi
Ferdinand Kilsheimer Hirsh, the Hamilton, OH born son of Isaac and Minnie
Kilshemer Hirsh and husband of Nellie L. Hirsh who was a graduate of Hebrew
Union College and the University of Georgia Law School and who served as the
rabbi at the “Children of Israel Congregation in Athens, GA and Temple B’nai
Israel in Monroe, LA passed away today.
http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0264/ms0264.html
1959: “A Month in the Country” produced by Lewis
Freedman and Henry Weinstein co-starring Luther Adler was broadcast as The Play
of the Week.
1959: “I, Don Quixote,” a non-musical play to which
Mitch Leigh would add music and make “Man of La Mancha” was broadcast on CBS
television tonight.
1962:”They Came From Everywhere: Two Who Helped
Modern Israel” by Robert St. John went on sale today.
1962: Birthdate of Amy Beth Aronson, the Columbia
trained Ph.D. and “Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Fordham
University” who is married to “sociologist Michael Kimmel” with whom she had
one child, Zachary.
https://books.google.com/books?id=jWj5OBvTh1IC&pg=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
1962: In Philadelphia, architect Louis Kahn and
Harriet Pattison gave birthdate to filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn whose works include
“Two Hands” and “My Architect,” a film about his father.
1964(4th of Kislev, 5725): Eighty-year-old
Louis Lazarus, the Romanian born son of Morris and Rebbeca Lazarus, the husband
of Rose Lazarus and father of Anna Weiner passed away today in Philadelphia
after which he was buried at the Mount Sharon Cemetery in Springfield, PA.
1964(4th of Kislev, 5725): Felix Weltsch passed away
Born in 1884 he was a German-speaking Jewish librarian, philosopher, author,
editor, publisher and journalist. A close friend of Max Brod and Franz Kafka,
he was one of the most important Zionists in Bohemia.
1965: A funeral service for New York realtor and
leader of the Jewish community Leopold
Philipp is scheduled to be held this morning at Temple Israel which is
“now meeting in All Souls Unitarian Church” in Manhattan.
1965:
Lionel I. Pincus, the president of Lionel I. Pincus & Co., Inc., financial
consultants was named to the board of the investment banking house of E. M.
Warburg & Co., Inc.
1965: The New
York Times features a review of Biography of An Idea: Memoirs of Public
Relations Counsel Edward L. Bernays by Edward L. Bernays.
1966:
It was reported today that “a Vienna jury court” has sentenced “two brothers,
Johann and Wilhelm Mauer, former SS officers to prison terms at their second
trial on charges of mass murders of Jews in occupied Poland.”
1967:
“Custer of the West” a biopic about the 19th cavalry officer
directed by Robert Siodmak was released in the United States today.
1967:
In the first issue of Rolling Stone published today critic Jon Landau “compared
Jimi Hendrix and his debut album, Are You Experienced, to Eric Clapton and
Cream's debut album, Fresh Cream.”
1968(18th
of Cheshvan, 5729): Parashat Vayera
1970: Charles De Gaulle, former French President and
leader of the Free French during World War II passed away. The imperious De
Gaulle told the Israelis not strike first against the Arabs in 1967. After the June War, De Gaulle made derogatory
remarks about the Jewish state; withheld military equipment from the IDF that
Israelis had paid for and pursued an unabashedly pro-Arab line. Those who remembered De Gaulle as the lone
French voice willing to stand against the Nazis in World War II shook their
collective heads and opined that some men stay in the public eye beyond their
days of mental competence.
1972: Avraham Lanir scored his second aerial kill
today, downing a Syrian MiG-21 while flying Mirage 72
1973: Ofer Tsidon was killed in action when his F-4E
Phantom Jet was shot down by an Egyptian SAM.
1973: Gideon Shefer was taken prisoner today when
his F-4E Phantom Jet was shot down by an Egyptian SAM.
1973: “Piano Man,” “the second studio album by American
recording artist Billy Joel” was released today by Columbia Records.
1973: “The Mackintosh Man,” “a cold war spy movie” starring Paul Newman and
featuring Wolfe Morris as “Malta Police Commissioner” was released today in the
United Kingdom.
1974: Materials about the persecution of Jews in
Minsk, letters of the Jews to various state institutions, and notebooks which
were discovered when Anatoly Sharansky and Anatoly Malkin were detained in
Minsk were confiscated by authorities.
1974: Birthdate of Detroit native, University of
Michigan graduate and Northwestern trained attorney Richard Bernstein, an
Associate Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.
1974: Vladimir Davidov was detained in Sverdlovsk
following which documents describing the situation of Jews in Novosibirsk and
notebooks were taken.
1975: Today, because of deteriorating health, Mindy
“Rudolph officially ended his career as a referee in the NBA, in which he
officiated more games (2,113) than any official in league history at the time
1976(16th of Cheshvan 5737): Ninety-six
year old pianist Rosina Lhévinne, the Ukrainian born daughter of Jacques and
Maria (Katz) Bessie and the wife of fellow musician Josef Lhévinne who
dedicated her teaching career, which included working at Julliard and U.S.C, to
his memory passed away today
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lhevinne-rosina
1977: The Tony Award winning production of the
Broadway revival of “The Royal Family” by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber “was
telecast on the PBS series Great Performances” today.
1977:
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat startled the world by announcing his intention
to go to Jerusalem.
1979:
“The Rose” a biopic about Janis Joplin directed by Mark Rydell, produced by
Aaron Russo, with a screenplay by Bo Goldman and music by Paul A Rothchild was
released in the United States today.
1980(1st
of Kislev, 5741): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1980(1st
of Kislev, 5741): Eighty-one-year-old silent movie star Carmel Myers passed
away.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/myers-carmel
1984: “No Small Affair,” comedy directed by Jerry
Schatzberg and featuring Jeffrey Tambor was released in the United States
today.
1986(7th of Cheshvan, 5747): Seventy-three-year-old
A. James Speyer, the Pittsburg born “son of Stella (Tillie) Speyer and
Alexander C. Speyer and graduate of Carnegie Institute of Technology who was
one of the “leading experts on contemporary American and European art” passed
away today.
1988: “Child’s Player” a horror film featuring Dinah
Manoff was released in the United States today.
1988(29th of Cheshvan, 5749): Ninety-two-year-old
Jacob “Jake” Friedman, the native of Bridgeport who played three games for the
Hartford Blues, an early NFL team passed away today.
1989: Today, Sony Corporation acquired Guber-Peters
Entertainment Company, which up until September of 1989 had been known as
Barris Industries, Inc. an American game show production company that was
founded by Chuck Barris
1991(2nd of Kislev, 5752): Parashat Toldot
1991(2nd of Kislev, 5752): Ralph Moses
Paiwonsky, “the second person of Jewish heritage to serve as the governor of
the Virgin Islands passed away on his eighty-fourth birthday.
1992;
Two days before the nationwide PBS broadcast of “Liberators,” the world
premiere was held at New York City’s Lincoln Center before an audience of
prominent Jewish and black Americans, including Mayor David Dinkins, Lena
Horne, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Harvey Meyerhoff, the chairman of the US
Holocaust Memorial Council. The event was sponsored by WNET/Channel 13, the
film’s chief financial backer and PBS’s affiliate in New York City, and the
Holocaust Council, the federal organization established in 1980 to build and
operate the nation’s Holocaust Museum in Washington. (As reported by Mark
Schulte)
1992(13th
of Cheshvan, 5753): Eighty-three-year old Rabbi Stanley Rosenbaum Brav, the
Philadelphia born son of Herman and Hattie Mitchell Brav and the husband of
Ruth England Brav passed away today in Florida after which he was buried at the
Clifton United Jewish Cemetery in Cincinnati, OH.
1993(25th
of Cheshvan, 5754): Salman 'Id el-Hawashla, age 38, an Israeli Bedouin of the
Abu Rekaik tribe who was driving a car with Israeli plates, was killed by three
armed terrorists driving a truck hijacked from the Gaza municipality, in a
deliberate head-on collision
1994(6th
of Kislev, 5755): Eighty-four-year-old New Orleans native Louis Boasberg, a
member of the 1931 Tulane football team that went 11-0 in the regular season
and barely lost to USC in the Rose Bowl and founder of the New Orleans Novelty
Company passed away today.
1995:
Illinois native and Ivy League educated (Dartmouth and Cornel) financier Lewis
Michael Eisenberg, the co-founder of Granite Capital International Group “was
elected chairman of the board of Commissioners of the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey” today.
1997:
The New York Times featured reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison:
Inside Oracle Corporation by Mike Wilson.
1997:
Thirty-seven year Douglas Sills, the Detroit born son Archie and Rhoda Nemeth Sills, opened in his
first Broadway show today.
2000:
In Germany, “The government has decided to ask the Constitutional Court to ban
the far-right National Democratic Party for its suspected links to extremist
violence” because “Interior Minister
Otto Schily has said there was enough evidence
to justify outlawing the group, which the government says has rallied youths
for attacks on foreigners, Jews and Jewish buildings.”
2001(23rd
of Cheshvan, 5762):Hadas Abutbul, 39, of Mevo Dotan in northern Samaria was
shot and killed by Palestinian terrorists on Friday afternoon as she drove from
work in nearby Shaked.
2002(4th
of Kislev, 5763): Sgt.-Maj. Madin Grifat, 23, of Beit Zarzir was killed when a
mine exploded during a routine patrol northeast of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip.
The Givati Brigade company commander was wounded. The Islamic Jihad claimed
responsibility for the attack.
2003: The
New York Times features
reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interest
including Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel's Wars by
Yaacov Lozowick, The Case For Israel by Alan Dershowitz and Horse
People: Scenes From the Riding Life by Michael Korda
2004:
Chabad filed its lawsuit against the Russian Federation, the Russian Ministry
of Culture and Mass Communication, the Russian State Library, and the Russian
State Military Archive, asserting violations of international law and seeking
the return of its collection of sacred, irreplaceable religious books and
manuscripts.
2004:
Today “after Ariel Sharon declined the NRP's demand to hold a national
referendum regarding the disengagement, Zevulun Orlev and the party resigned
from the coalition and the government, vowing to pursue general elections in an
effort to replace Sharon with a right-wing prime minister.
2005:
Amir Peretz, the former chairman of the Histadrut trade union federation,
defeated Shimon Peres in the primary elections for the Labour leadership today.
2005:
On Election Day voters chose Jewish political leader Loretta Weinberg to serve
the remaining portion of Jewish New Jersey State Senator Byron Baer's four-year
term of office, which ends in January 2008.
2005:
“Joyeux Noël” a cinematic treatment of the Christmas truce in 1914 (which is
fully described in Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce
by Stanley Weintraub) one of whose major character is “Lt. Horstmayer, the
German Jewish officer of the 93rd Infantry” and featured Dany Boon
was released today. (Editor’s Note – Personally I think this is a marvelous,
must-see film.)
2005:
Hussam Fathi Mahajna, 36, an Israeli Arab businessman from Umm al-Fahm, was
among 57 people murdered and 300 wounded in simultaneous attacks by suicide
bombers in Amman, Jordan at three luxury hotels. Mahajna was a guest at a
wedding held at the Radisson Hotel, known to be popular with Israeli tourists.
Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attacks.
2005: Kristallnacht Remembrance Day.
2005: In New York, Novel Jews monthly literary
series presents a Henry Roth Tribute.
2006: The 10th Annual UK Jewish Film
Festival comes to a close.
2006(18th of Cheshvan, 5767): Eighty-three-year-old
East German spymaster Markus Wolf, the son Friedrich Wolf, the politically
active physician who took his family to Moscow when the Nazis came power,
passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/world/europe/10wolf.html
2006: As “Jews throughout Germany mark the 68th
anniversary of Kristallnacht” the Munich Jewish community dedicated “a major
new synagogue that symbolizes the city’s ongoing effort to realize the elusive
goal of normalcy in its relationship with the Jewish community…The synagogue is
part of a larger complex of three Jewish communal buildings that includes a
Jewish museum and community center, complete with a day school, a library and a
kosher restaurant” that will be known as
the “Jakobsplatz Jewish Center.” Munich is home to Germany’s second largest
Jewish community. German businessman Herbert Burda contributed $1.3 million to
building the community center. Burda’s
father was a Nazi who profited from “The War Against the Jews.” Herbert Burda
has “received the Leo Baeck Prize in recognition of his efforts to repair the
wrongs committed by the preceding generation.
2006: An exhibit of photographs by Julian Voloj,
titled “Forgotten Heritage: Uncovering
New York’s Hidden Jewish Past” opened at the Bronfman Center for Jewish
Life at New York University.
2007: Premier of Joel and Ethan Coen’s ‘No county
for Old Men.’
2007: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Friday
Evening services are dedicated to a Remembrance of Kristallnacht with a talk by
Fred Rogers a former resident of Frankfurt who was spared from the Shoah. Fred is long time, leading member of the
Jewish community. When he speaks, we
hear the voices of all the Fred Rogers’ who did not survive. When he speaks, we hear the voices of all the
future Fred Rogers’ that were lost in the smoke of The Night. When he speaks,
we hear the voice of a mensch. When he
speaks, “the Murder of the Six Million” takes on the dimension of personal
loss.
2007: “Birds,” an exhibition of the paintings of
Audrey Berner, on display at the Bernard Gallery in Tel Aviv comes to a close.
2007: U.S. premiere of “Lions for Lambs” co-starring
Andrew Garfield and Peter Berg.
2007: IDF troops shot two Palestinians who were
crawling near the security fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel on
Friday night, apparently planting an explosive device, the army said.
2007: Natavia Lowery is arrested and charged with
the killing of Linda Stein, the 62-year-old New Yorker who had gone from manager
of punk rock musicians to real estate broker.
2008: In New York City, the 92nd Street Y
presents “Neil Gaiman in Conversation with Chip Kidd: Sandman 20th-Anniversary
Celebration” during which “The New York Times best-selling Jewish born
author, Neil Gaiman, discusses Sandman, the acclaimed comic book series
widely considered to be one of the most original and artistically ambitious
series of the modern age. Sandman is a rich blend of modern myth and
dark fantasy in which contemporary fiction, historical drama and legend are
seamlessly interwoven. Gaiman is the author of children’s and adult titles
including, The Graveyard Book, American Gods, Coraline,
Neverwhere and Stardust. (Editor’s note:
Considering the Jewish origins of Superman, one would wonder if the evening’s
presentation might include an inquiry to any special relationship between Jews
and Comic Books.)
2008: Final Chicago area performance of Jake Ehrenreich’s “A Jew
Grows in Brooklyn at the North Shore Center For the Performing Arts.
2008: The 20th meeting of the International
Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee of the Holy See’s Commission for Religious
Relations with the Jews opened today in Budapest.
2008: Three days after she had passed away, funeral services are
scheduled to be held today in Salem, MA for 98-year-old Gertrude G. Gam the
daughter of Celia (Shube) Gam and Minsk born Rabbi Wolfe Gam
2008: “God On Trial,” the made-for-TV movie that depicts a trial
at Auschwitz in which God is charged with Breach of Contract for allowing the
Nazis to torture and murder Jews aired on PBS.
2009: Kristallnacht Remembrance
2009:
At the Hudson Institute, Norman Podhoretz, a former
editor in chief of the journal Commentary, discusses and signs his
newest book, Why Are Jews Liberals?
2009:
Israel and Jordan conducted a joint earthquake drill
today in the Beit She'an Valley, practicing techniques in evacuation and
treatment procedures, according to IDF Army Radio.
2009: The recent decision of Mahmoud Abas not to seek re-election
as President of the Palestine Authority was one of the main topics of
discussion in today’s meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu held at the White House.
2010: The New York Times featured a review of Brute: The
Life of Victor Krulak, U.S. Marine by Robert Coram. Unbeknownst to most people the famous general
was the son of Russian Jews. “He lied
about this heritage, claiming he was raised an Episcopalian. Perhaps he was
only attending to reality. At the time, the author points out, the Marine Corps
was “a veritable witches’ brew of racism and discrimination.” But General
Krulak went further than he had to, essentially disavowing his parents and
family back home in Denver for the rest of his life.
2010: Publication of the paperback edition of Lauren Grodstein’s A
of the Family today.
2010: Toronto’s 30th Annual Holocaust Education Week
which began on November 1 is scheduled to come to an end today.
2010: Rodale Publishing released America the Edible: A Hungry
History from Sea to Dining Sea by Adam Richman.
2010: Kristallnacht Remembrance Day is observed at a time when
word comes that Samuel Willenberg and Kalman Taigman, 87-year-old Israelis, who
are believed to be the last two survivors of the most chillingly efficient
killing, machine of the Nazi Holocaust: the Treblinka extermination camp in
occupied Poland are now devoting their final years trying to preserve the
memory of the 875,000 people who were systematically murdered at Treblinka in a
one-year killing spree at the height of World War II.
2010:
Yeshiva University Museum and YIVO Institute for
Jewish Research are scheduled to present a program entitled “16mm Postcards:
Home Movies of American Jewish Visitors to 1930s Poland.”
2010: Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested
several suspects charged with defrauding a German government fund that had been
established to provide help to survivors of Nazi persecution. Over 16 years,
the suspects used fake identification documents, doctored government records
and a knowledge of Holocaust history to defraud the fund of more than $42
million, according to an indictment unsealed today by the United States
attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara. In all, 17 people were indicted.
2011:
Ellen Futterman is scheduled to moderate the Fiction
Panel at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival.
2011: The 31st Annual Holocaust Education Week
sponsored by Toronto’s Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre is
scheduled to come to end. The theme for
Holocaust Education Week
2011 has been “Accountability” in commemoration of the 50th
anniversary of the trial of Adolf Eichmann and the 65th anniversary of the
first Nuremberg Trials.
2011: Kristallnacht Remembrance
2011: A conference focusing on Romania's Holocaust-era war crimes
in Ukraine and Moldova called on Romania to acknowledge and apologize for the
murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews.
The conference, which ended today, on the anniversary of Kristallnacht,
was convened to bring the full scope of World War II Romania’s fascist
state-sponsored genocide to light.
2011:
The Palestinian Authority said today that it was
weighing its next steps in wake of reports that the UN Security Council has
failed to reach consensus on the Palestinian application for membership in the
international organization.
2011: The Penn State Board of Trustees announced tonight that
Graham Spanier had resigned and head football coach Joe Paterno had been
fired--in both cases, effective immediately as part of the child sex abuse
scandal brought on by Jerry Sandusky.
2011: Israeli-American psychologist Daniel Kahneman “was awarded
the Talcott Parsons Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2012(24th of Cheshvan, 5773): Seventy-six-year Isaiah
Sheffer passed away. (As reported by Douglas Martin
2012: John Gaultier, a member of the 71st Division
Infantry Division and one of the soldiers who liberated Gunskirchen Lager
Concentration Camp is scheduled to speak this evening at Temple Judah’s Shabbat
eve services commemorating Kristallnacht and celebrating Veteran’s Day.
2012: In Greensboro, NC, Temple Emanuel is scheduled to host the
URJ Southern Region Shabbaton
2012: As Israel prepared for a stormy, wintry weekend, the airport
in Eilat, the country’s usually sunny southernmost city, was closed this
afternoon due to heavy rains which caused flooding on its landing strips. As a
result, two flights from Eilat to Tel Aviv were delayed.
2012: The New York Times
featured a review of Poems 1962-2012 by Louise Glück
2012: “Unidentified persons uprooted 11 memorial plaques
commemorating local victims of Nazism in the German city of Greifswald today,
the 74th anniversary of Kristallnacht, The Jews of Greifswald were among those
targeted throughout Germany on Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass, on
November 9, 1938. Synagogues and businesses were destroyed, and Jews throughout
the country were murdered and arrested en masse.” (As reported by Jerusalem
Post staff)
2013: “Open House Jerusalem” is scheduled to come to a close.
2013: Marion Grodin, author of Standing Up: A Memoir of a Funny
(not Always) Life and
Fred Stoller author of Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Life of a
Perennial TV Guest Star are scheduled to speak at the San Diego Jewish Book
Fair.
2013:
75th anniversary of Kristallnacht. While remembering the evil it is
good to remember the righteous such as Ernst Leitz, the head of the Leica
Camera Company his daughter Elsie Kuehn-Leitz who saved hundreds of Jews with
the Leica Freedom Train.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKxGbNXt_Is
2013:
According to a statement issued released by IsraAID today, the team that it is
sending to the Philippines to help in the aftermath of a powerful typhoon that
hit the multi-island nation yesterday “will work primarily in Tacloban City in
Leyte. (As reported by Times of Israel staff)
2013:
Former deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon said today that while he respected
the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court unanimous decision to acquit former foreign
minister Avigdor Liberman of fraud and breach of trust charges, the “truth
doesn’t always come out” in courts of law.
2013:
Sampson Gordon "Sam" Berns, an American who suffered from progeria
and helped raise awareness about the disease, “dropped the ceremonial first
puck” as a guest of the Boston Bruins.
2014:
At Melbourne, “Transit and “Night Will Fall” are scheduled to be shown at the
Jewish International Film Festival.
2014:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a conference on “World War I
and the Jews.”
2014(16th
of Cheshvan): Yarhrzeit of Rabbi Elazar M. Shach, dean of the Ponevitch Yeshiva
in Bnei Brak.”
2014:
General Assembly of the Jewish Federation is scheduled to begin today
2014:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host
“Kristallnacht Remembered” and a screening of “A Voice Among the Silent: The
Legacy of James G. McDonald.”
2014:
“A ministerial committee gave the go-ahead today for a bill that would force
the IDF’s Central Command to issue military directives for Israelis in the West
Bank that match civil laws passed in the Knesset.” (As reported by Tamar
Pleggi)
2014:
“An Israel Navy ship fired at a suspicious Palestinian vessel returning to the
Gaza Strip from the Sinai Peninsula late tonight.” (As reported by Lazar
Berman)
2014:
“World War and the Jews” a conference marking the centenary of the start of
World War One opened today at the Center for Jewish History.
2014:
The New York Times features reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate by Naomi
Klein, Gabriel: A Poem by Edward Hirsch and In Real Life by Cory
Doctorow.
2014:
“According to the Channel 2 TV documentary Uvda (“Fact”), portions of which
were broadcast tonight” “there is an ‘unprecedented
rift’ between the Shin Bet and the IDF” over the amount of warning given before
the most recent war in Gaza. h
2015:
“The Romance and Tragedy of Soviet Yiddish Culture” a four week long course is
scheduled to come to an with a lecture “From Heymland to a Non-Jewish Jewish
Autonomous Region (1953-present)” presented by David Shneer, the Louis P.
Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History at the University of Colorado Boulder.
2015:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to arrive in Washington, DC
today.
2015:
“A painting of an outstretched nude woman by the early-20th-century Jewish artist
Amedeo Modigliani sold tonight for $170.4 million.” (As reported by Robin
Pogrebin and Scott Reyburn)
2015:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a reception marking the
opening of a new exhibition “After the War: Recovery, Relief and Return,
1945-1949” during which “Atina Grossmann, author of Jews, Germans, and
Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied Germany will discuss the varied
experiences of the surviving remnant of European Jewry in the immediate postwar
period.”
2015:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host
citywide memorial “Kristallnacht: The Spark That Ignited the Holocaust” that
will feature “5 distinguished cantors: Benjamin Warschawski, Pavel Roytman,
Rachel Rosenberg, Faryn Rudnick, Laurie Akers, Cantorial Soloist
2015:
In Toronto, Holocaust Education is scheduled to come to an end with an
exploration “of how synagogues destroyed during Kristallnacht are brought to
life in contemporary Germany through digital media” and “a candle-lighting
ceremony commemorating the 77th anniversary of Kristallnacht.”
2015(27th
of Cheshvan, 5776): Ninety-five-year-old American fencer Byron Lester Krieger
who represented the United States in the 1952 and 1956 Olympics passed away
today.
2016:
Seventy-eighth anniversary of Kristallnacht.
2016:
Holocaust
historian and author of the award-winning book FDR and the Jews, Richard
Breitman, is scheduled to speak at the Kristallnacht Memorial Service sponsored
by the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center where he will examine the
U.S. government response to the November Pogrom.
2016:
Hannah Lessing, the Secretary General of the National Fund of the Republic of
Austria and the General Settlement Fund for Victims of National Socialism, as
well as the Fund for the Restoration of the Jewish Cemeteries in Austria who is
also the daughter of Holocaust survivor and photographer Erich Lessing is
scheduled to speak on “Bringing the Rimonim Home: A Personal Restitution
Journey” at the closing event of HEW (Holocaust Education Week) in Toronto.
2016:
Beit Sefer is scheduled to present “Kristallnacht Remembrance at Tifereth
Israel Synagogue in Des Moines, Iowa.
2016:
“Germans and Jews” and “Family Commitments” are scheduled to be shown at the 20th
UK International Jewish Film Festival.
2017:
“The 9th of November,” by Rachael Cerrotti was published today in Commentary.
http://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2017/11/09/kristallnacht-trump-rachael-cerrotti
2016:
“Alda’s Secrets” and Return to the Fatherland” are scheduled to have their
Chicago premier at the Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema.
2017:
The 21st UK International Jewish Festival is scheduled to begin
today “at venues across the United Kingdom.”
2017:
The 37th Annual Neuberger Holocaust Education Week” came to an end
in Toronto at the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre.”
2017:
The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host a screening of “From
Brooklyn to Beirut, in which Rola Khayyat explores the landscape of belonging
for the community of Lebanese Jews in New York – along with the fragilities and
complexities associated with a politicized identity.”
2017:
In Des Moines, IA, the Jewish Federation is scheduled to co-host “The Moment
That Changed Everything,” “a community program for Kristallnacht.”
2017:
The Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, Jewish
Community Relations Council Community Partners are scheduled to co-host
“Commemoration: Kristallnacht A Night of Broken Glass, Shattered Dreams.”
2017:
Yeshiva University Museum, the Center for Jewish History and the American
Sephardi Federation are scheduled to present a lecture by Rav Amedeo
Spagnoletto on “Traditions of Roman Jews: Life and Religion.”
2018:
In Coralville, Iowa, following Friday night services Agudas Achim is scheduled
to host a lecture by Ari Ariel on “Becoming Yeminitie/Becoming Israel.”
2018:
The UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “An Act of
Defiance.”
2018:
Eightieth Anniversary of Kristallnacht
https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/kristallnacht
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-of-kristallnacht
https://www.holocaust.cz/en/history/events/kristallnacht/
2018(1st of Kislev, 5779): Rosh
Chodesh Kislev;
2019(11th of Cheshvan): Parashat
Lech-Lecha;
2019:
81st anniversary of Kristallnacht
2019:
The Aviva Kempner Film, “The Spy Behind Home Plate” is scheduled to be shown at
the Alexandria Film Festival in Alexandria, VA.
2019:
“The Other Story” are scheduled to be shown at the Rutgers University Jewish
Film Festival.
2019:
In Metairie, LA, at Congregation Gates of Prayer,Rabbis David Gerber and Lexi
Erdheim are scheduled to officiate at Shabbat morning serving that will include
a salute to veterans presented by The Ben Katz Post #580 of the Jewish War
Veterans.
2019:
In Berkeley, CA, Urban Adamah is scheduled to host “1980s Dance Party &
Havdalah Bonfire”
2019:
In Palo Alto, CA, the Oshman Family JCC is scheduled to host “former Knesset
member Ruth Calderon as she discusses the future of Israel’s Jewish identity.”
2019:
At Oxford, as part of Interfaith Week, Chaplain Rabbi Michael Rosenfeld-Schueler
will deliver a talk followed by a Q&A “in the Faust Hall.”
2019:
“Leona” is scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.
2020:
March of the Living UK and the Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre in
partnership with LSJS are scheduled to present Professor Shirli Gilber who will
explore the November pogroms followed by testimony from survivor Eve Kugler
talking about Kristallnacht.
2020:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host Martin Kaufman as he delivers the
fourth lecture on “The Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in
Jerusalem.”
2020:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host a Kristallnacht
Commemoration marking the 82 anniversary of the Night of Broken Glass that will
featuring a closing address by Laurence Tribe on “The Nuremberg Principles:
Lessons for Today.”
2020:
The JCC Literary Consortium and JCCs across the United States are scheduled to
host “Esther Safran talking about her post-Holocaust memoir I Want You to
Know We’re Still Here preceded by a Kristallnacht commemoration led by
Rabbi Brian Glusman.
2020:
CCJCC and Congregation B’nai Shalom are scheduled to host an online streaming
presentation of “A Call to Spy.”
2020:
This year’s Monna and Otto Weinmann Annual Lecture is scheduled to “explore
three case studies involving everyday objects the Third Reich took from Jewish
families or that concentration camp prisoners made featuring a talk by Leora Asuland, the Arthur
and Joann Rasmussen Professor in Western Civilization and Professor of Modern
European Social History at the University of Chicago
2020: Eighty-second anniversary of Kristallnacht
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kristallnacht
https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/kristallnacht
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-of-kristallnacht
2021: The JDC Archives is scheduled to host a webinar on “Chief
Rabbi Dr. Moses D. Rosen's Leadership in Romania under Communism and
Afterwards: Two Perspectives”
2021: The S.F. based Farkas Center for the Study of the
Holocaust in Catholic Schools is scheduled to present online a “Kristallnacht
Commemoration: The Rose that Grew from Concrete” during which “Dan Grunfeld,
former Stanford and Israeli pro basketball player, and his grandmother,
Holocaust survivor Lily Grunfeld, will talk
about stories of love and loss across generations
2021In remembrance of Kristallnacht, former Corcoran Chair
Mark Oppenheimer is scheduled to speak about his latest publication Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the
Soul of a Neighborhood as part of event presented by the
Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College.
2021: The three-day Now Is Never Summit sponsored by the
ADL is scheduled to come to an end today.
2021: The Schusterman Center for Israel Studies is
scheduled to present online “War of Shadows”: Driving the Nazis From the Middle
East featuring War of Shadows author Gershom
Gorenberg in conversation with professor Jonathan D. Sarna and professor
Yehudah Mirsky.
2021: Kennesaw State University Baily School of Music and
The Breman Museum are scheduled to present a Special Live Kristallnacht
Commemoration featuring “Fugitive Footsteps” by Laurence Scherr and Poetry by
Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Nelly Sachs as well as the display of the
exhibition
“Words, Music,
Memory: (re) Presenting Voices of the Holocaust”.
2021: Eighty-third anniversary of Kristallnacht
On
the night of November 9, 1938, violent anti-Jewish demonstrations broke out
across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Nazi
officials depicted the riots as justified reactions to the assassination of
German foreign official Ernst vom Rath, who had been shot two days earlier by
Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year old Polish Jew distraught over the deportation of
his family from Germany. Over the next 48 hours, violent mobs, spurred by
anti-Semitic exhortations from Nazi officials, destroyed hundreds of
synagogues, burning or desecrating Jewish religious artifacts along the way.
Acting on orders from Gestapo headquarters, police officers and firefighters
did nothing to prevent the destruction. All told, approximately 7,500
Jewish-owned businesses, homes, and schools were plundered, and 91 Jews were murdered.
An additional 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
Nazi officials immediately claimed that the Jews themselves were to blame for
the riots, and a fine of one billion reichsmarks (about $400 million at 1938
rates) was imposed on the German Jewish community. The Nazis came to call the
event Kristallnacht (“Crystal Night,” or, “The Night of Broken Glass”),
referring to the thousands of shattered windows that littered the streets
afterward, but the euphemism does not convey the full brutality of the event.
Kristallnacht was a turning point in the history of the Third Reich, marking
the shift from anti-Semitic rhetoric and legislation to the violent, aggressive
anti-Jewish measures that would culminate with the Holocaust. (As described by
the Breman Museum)
2022:
In Palm Beach Gardens, Temple Judea is scheduled to a lunch and learn with
Rabbi Feivel on “Get to know the Jewish Innovators: George Gershwin.”
2022:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a virtual conversation with Benjamin
Netanyahu and Dan Senor, co-author of the Start-up Nation.
2022:
LBI is scheduled to present a lecture by Marc Grellert (TU Darmstadt) on his
decades of work creating virtual reconstructions of synagogues destroyed during
the Nazi period which began after the 1994 firebombing of a Lübeck synagogue,
the first racist attack on a Jewish house of worship in Germany since 1945.
2022:
Holocaust Education in Florida which is held annually the second November which
coincides with the anniversary of Kristallnacht is scheduled to continue today.
2022:
The Edin-Tamir Music is scheduled to a host “a special concert in memory of
Benny and Ruthie Mushkin.”
2022:
The 2022 Jewish Writers’ Conference sponsored by the Jewish Book Council is
scheduled to come to an end today.
2022:
Philip L. and Ellen V. Glass Holocaust Commemorative Series is scheduled to
present an On-Site Commemoration: Kristallnacht 84 Years Later: Special
Performance of The Suitcase.
2022:
In commemoration of Kristallnacht, the American Society for Jewish Music, YIVO,
the Leo Baeck Institute, and the Center for Jewish History, are scheduled to
present their annual program which will feature the Trio Serenade, Song of
Authum, and Rapsodia Notturna by Karol Rathaus, a Piano Trio by Hans Gál, and
the Suite Polonaise by Simon Laks, three composers who were forced to restart
their promising young careers in as immigrants in new countries.
2022:
Eighty-fourth
anniversary of Kristallnacht
2023:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host an on-site commemoration of the
85th anniversary of the "Night of Broken Glass" with an evening of
remembrance and reflection, featuring remarks from Deputy Consul General
Delphine Gamburg, Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest, and Consul General
Michael Ahrens, Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in
Chicago.”
2023:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a conversation with Joan Baez and
Patti Smith who will talk about art, activism, movies and moving on.
2023:
Jewish Art Salon, Jerusalem Biennale, Dr. Bernard Heller Museum, and American
Sephardi Federation are scheduled to present the Jerusalem Biennale in New York.
2023:
The final screening “A Pocketful of Miracles” is scheduled to take place at the
Avalon Theatre in Washington, DC.
2023:
Ninety-five-year-old Holocaust survivor Esther Bash who
2023:
JWI is scheduled to host “an online workshop to learn about the rule and the
rulemaking process, and how to submit comments supporting the rule and urging
the ATF to also address the definition of ‘dating relationship.’” was born in the
Carpathian Mountains and on her 16th birthday on May 28, 1944, was sent in a cattle car to the Auschwitz
death camps is scheduled to speak at the Solon Chabad.
2023:
The UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to begin in cinemas today.
2023:
The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled to host
online “Paths of the Righteous: Conversation with Jewish Allies” with Olga
Meshoe Washington and Lt Aston Bright moderated by Ari Mittleman.
2023:
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency is scheduled to host The Pen and the Sword:
Contemporary Israeli Writers on Israel's Future.”
2023:
As part of the Jewish Women’s Archive online history course Elisheva Baumgarten
is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Men's Instructions, Women's Deeds: Gender
and Religious Practice in Medieval Ashkenaz.”
2023:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Heerville: A New Jewish
Musical, based on the Hereville graphic novels by Barry Deutsch.
2023: Eighty-fifth anniversary
of Kristallnacht as the Hamas hostages begin their 34th day in
captivity.
2024:
Lockdown University is scheduled to host a lecture by Professor David Peimer on
Napoleon
and Hitler in Feature Film
2024((8th of Cheshvan): Yahrzeit of Avraham Elimelch
ben Yosef Dov, whose nickname was Melech and whose English name was Abraham
Levin and the Hebrew namesake of Mitchell A. Levin and the father of Joseph B.
Levin
2024(8th
of Cheshvan) Lech-Lecha (Get thee out); for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2024: The National Museum of American Jewish Museum is scheduled
to host Lunar’s
co-creator and producer Gen Xia Ye Slosberg and cast member Maya Katz-Ali for a
screening and conversation
2024
The Eden Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a concert of chamber music – A
Viennese Morning with Saida Bar Lev, violin ; Yoni Gotlibovich, cello; Assaf
Sommer, piano
2024: Kristallnacht Shabbat marking the 86th anniversary
of the night of evil which was replayed on October 7, 2023
2024:
As November 9th 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, sweeps the United States and the
Hamas held hostages begin day 400 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)
November
9aa
694: Opening meeting of the Seventeenth Council of Toledo
during which the Visigoth Catholic monarch, King Egica publicly charged
the Jews with planning to "exterminate and [destroy] their
homeland." This charge was the excuse for the enactment of some of
the most stringent laws aimed at the Jews of Iberia. The Jews and
their property essentially became the possession of the crown, allowing the
King to dispose of them as he saw fit. Furthermore, any Christian found
helping Jews would be punished. These laws represented the climax of more
than a century's worth of anti-Jewish laws. Is it any wonder that the
Jews greeted the Moors with open arms when the invaded Spain in 711?
1382: Publication
date for the Cambridge Yiddish Codex, “the oldest surviving document written in
Yiddish.”
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cambridge-Yiddish-Codex
https://jewishcurrents.org/november-9-oldest-yiddish-story
1389: Consecration of Boniface IX who gave the Jews of
Rome the legal right to observe Shabbat, protection from local oppressive
officials, a reduction in their taxes, and assurance that they would be treated
as Roman citizens.
1491: Azriel Günzenhäuser printed “Avicenna Canon” at
Naples Italy. Azriel Günzenhäuser was a 15th century German printer
who was also known as the “Ashkenazi.”
1494:
The Family de' Medici expelled as rulers of Florence. According to Rebecca
Weiner, “The fate of the Jewish community was tied to the fate of the Medici
family in Florence. Lorenzo il Magnifico defended the Jewish community from
expulsions and from the aftermath of vitriolic sermons given by Bernardino da
Feltre. A Catholic theocracy was installed in the 1490's under the Dominican
friar Girolama Savonarola, who decreed that both the Jews and the Medici family
be expelled from Florence. A loan from the Jewish community to the republic
postponed the expulsion for a short period of time. The Medicis returned to
power in 1512 and the Jewish ban was lifted, until the next Medici expulsion in
1527. Alessandro de Medici regained influence as a duke, in 1531, and abolished
anti-Jewish acts. In 1537 Cosimo de’Medici gained power in the Florentine
government. He sought the advice of Jacob Abravanel, a Sephardic Jew living in
Ferrara. Abravanel convinced Cosimo to guarantee the rights and privileges of
Spanish and Portuguese Jews, and other Levantines who settled on his borders.
This was the start of the growth of the Sephardic Jewish community in Florence.
Refuge was given to Jews from other papal states who left due to Pope Paul IV’s
anti-Jewish measures, which were not enacted in Florence. Once Cosimo received
the title of grand duke of Tuscany, his policies toward the Jews changed for
the worse. He forced Jews to wear badges in 1567, closed the Tuscan border to
non-resident Jews in 1569, shut down Jewish banks in 1570 and established a
ghetto in 1571
1526: The Jews were expelled from Hungry after being
falsely accused of aiding the Turks in the war against Hungary. This is an example of the Jews being caught
up in the cross currents of European Religious Wars. Most of Hungary had come under the control of
the Turks (yes the Islamic Ottoman Empire penetrated that far into central
Europe a fact not lost on radical Islamists today). The Hungarians were all that stood between
the Turks and the Germanic Holy Roman Empire.
But Charles V, the Emperor was not supplying aide for reasons of his
own, so the Jews ended up being scapegoats for the newly enthroned Hungarian
King’s inability to dislodge the Turks.
1526:
The Jews of Pressburg (now Bratislava) left the city a month to the day after
it had received permission from Queen Maria to expel the Jews “living within
its territory.”
1571(21st
of Cheshvan): Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Abi Ziimra (Radbaz) passed away
1621:
A 16-year-old New Christian, Moses Simonson (or Symonson) arrived in Plymouth,
Massachusetts on the ship Fortune. He came from Leyden, Holland.
1656(21st
of Cheshvan): Rabbi Moses ben Isaac Judah Levy, author of Helkat Mehokek passed
away
1683:
Birthdate of King George II for whose coronation Handle wrote “Zadok the
Priest,” an anthem based on Kings 1:38-40 which has been sung at every
coronation since 1727.
1713:
Rabbi Tzvi Ashkenazi and Moses Hagiz, the son of Jacob Hagiz were “formally
placed under a ban” by the Portuguese community in Amsterdam.
1720: The Rabbi Yehuda Hasid Synagogue in Jerusalem,
which later became known as the Hurva Synagogue was set afire. Rabbi Yehuda Hasid and a small group of a few
hundred followers arrived in Eretz Israel. The rabbi purchased the courtyard in
the Old City for the synagogue, and construction of the facility was started
after his death, but was never completed. Due to the non-payment of a loan
taken by Jews from Arabs for the construction of the synagogue, Arabs burned
down the site, desecrating its 40 Torah scrolls. The destruction wrought at the
time became the root of the name of the "Hurva" (ruin) synagogue, and
building recommenced in the late 1830s, by Perushim followers of the Vilna
Gaon. After its completion in 1864, the Hurva loomed as a cultural and
religious symbol in Eretz Israel and Jerusalem. The Hurva retained its status
as Jerusalem's leading synagogue, and public gatherings and celebrations were
held in it. Among other events, a prayer gathering to mark the coronation of
King George V was held at the Hurva. Two days after the Jewish Quarter fell to
Jordanian legionnaires during the 1948 war; the Jordanians blew up the Hurva.
The Jordanian commander on the scene reported to his superiors: "For the
first time in 1,000 years, there's not a single Jew left in the Jewish Quarter,
and not a single building that hasn't been damaged. This will make the return of
Jews here impossible." After the 1967 Six-Day War, the Hurva became a
memorial to the fall of the Jewish Quarter in 1948. A large square was created
around the site of the Hurva; and visitors could measure the dimensions of the
synagogue which once stood at the locale. An arch was built at the site which
rose to about half the height of the destroyed building, which is as high as
the top of the synagogue's dome. In 2002, the Israeli government adopted a
1757:
The local bishop at Kamienice who had side with the Sabbatians and was
responsible for the burning of “huge numbers of copies of the Talmud” being
burned starting in October died today, which “which the rabbinic Jews
recognized as divine vengeance” but which struck such “fear in the hearts of
the Sabbatians” “that many of them fled to Turkey.
1780:
Birthdate of Nicolai Wergeland, the Norwegian anti-Semite who sought to ban
Jews from his country because “it would be incompatible with Judaism to deal
honestly with Christians.”
1787:
In the Netherlands, Levie Emanuel Goudsmit, the son of Emanuel Salomons and
Esther Levie and his wife Magdalena
Hartog Goudsmit gave birth to Salomon Levie Goudsmit.
1788:
In Charleston, SC, Rebecca Moses and Solomon Harby gave birth to Isaac Harby,
the husband of Rachel Mordecai and father of Octavia, Armida, Solomon, Samuel,
Julian and Horace Harby and who gained fame as the
editor of the Charleston Mercury and playwright whose “Alberti”
premiered with President Monroe in the audience.
1792:
Birthdate of German native Rosein Loeb, the wife of Elias Kohlberg and mother
of Friederike Kohlberg.
1794:
In Black Mingo, SC, Sarah Judah and Lizer Joseph gave birth to Eleanor Joseph,
the wife of Israel Solomons with she had nine children.
1794:
In Bavaria, Sara Asscher and Gabriel Hirsch Benda, gave birth to Sigismund
Benda and the husband of Fanny Emden with whom he had eight children.
1803:
Nathan Joseph Magnus married Simony Solomon today.
1812:
Birthdate of Aaron Bachrach the Baltimore businessman who in 1839 married
Augusta Straus Bachrach with whom had six children including Decatur, Illinois
clothing merchant Henry Bachrach
1815:
Birthdate of Anton Ree, the son of a Hamburg banker who started as a teacher at
the Jewish Free School in 1838 and became its director in 1848.
1816:
The report on the state of the Ordinance Department in Ireland written by
Robert Plumer Ward, the London born son John Ward and his wife Rebecca Raphael,
a member of “a Sephardic Jewish family from Genoa and political ally of Prime
Minister William Pitt, was published today.
1820:
In London, Rebecca Phineas Romanel and Joseph “Moses” Talano gave birth to
Rachel Tolano, the husband of Joseph Belasco with whom she had eleven children.
1828:
In Philadelphia, PA, Isaac Phillips and his wife, the former Sarah Moss, the
daughter of John Moss gave birth to Barnet Phillips, a graduate of the
University of Pennsylvania, husband of Jospehine Myers of Savannah and a writer
for the New York Times starting in
1872 who also wrote several books including The Struggle and Burning
Their Ships. (Isidor Levi shows the
birthdate as November 7, 1827)
1828:
In Charleston, SC, Elias P. and Rachel E. Levy gave birth to Charles Ferdinand
Levy, the husband of Laura Louise Levy.
1829(13th
of Cheshvan, 5590): Sixty-five-year-old Rebecca Levy, the wife of Solomon Levy
and the daughter of Uriah and Eva Esther Hendricks passed away today.
1832: One day after she had passed away, 6-year-old
“Rita b Hayim” was buried today at the “Ipswich Old Jewish Cemetery.”
1835:
Seligman Ben Schemmel Landauer, the Bavarian born son of Samuel and Rebecca
Landauer and his wife Zirle (Cilli) Landauer gave birth to twin sons, Joseph
and Salomon Landauer.
1836:
In New York, Montague M. Hendricks, the New York born son of Francis and Harmon
Hendricks, and his wife Rachel Siexas Nathan gave birth to Harmon Hendricks,
not to be confused with the copper merchant of the same name.
1837: British philanthropist Moses Montefiore, 52,
became the first Jew to be knighted in England. Montefiore was a banking
executive who devoted his life to the political and civil emancipation of
English Jews.
1841:
The Creole, a brig whose cargo of slaves had seized the ship sailed into the
harbor at Nassau in what would be the next “act” in an international
incident that would result in litigation in which Judah P. Benjamin
“represented insurance companies being sued.”
1843: Birthdate of Joseph Kahn who was buried
in the Jewish Cemetery in Schweich, Germany
1845: The
original Jewish Publication Society was established in Philadelphia today.
Abraham Hart was its first president. The society owed its existence to Isaac
Leeser. It published eleven works, including two by Grace Aguilar.
1846: Henry Emanuel Goldsmith, the Dutch born son of
Emanuel Levie Goldsmith and Alijda Joseph Joel Goldsmith and Anna Goldsmith
gave birth to Mary Goldsmith, the wife of Solomon Frank.
1847:
Birthdate of Edward
1849:
In Mulbach, Germany, Pauline and Aron Fleischer gave birth to Samuel Fleischer,
the husband of Emilie Fleischer with whom he had four children – Bernhard,
Paula, Julius and Arthur.
1849:
Daniel Webster wrote a letter to M. M. Noah today expressing his regrets that
he will not be able to attend the anniversary dinner of the Hebrew Benevolent
and German Hebrew Benevolent Society to be held later this month in New York
City. In the letter he expressed his
on-going "respect and sympathy" for the Jewish people whose
"scriptures I regard as the fountain from which we draw all we know of the
world around us, and of our own character and destiny as intelligent, moral and
responsible beings." What Webster
did not say in the letter that he had to turn down the invitation due to health
problems.
1850:
Birthdate of Louis Lewin, the German pharmacologist who “published the first
methodical analysis of the Peyote cactus.
1851:
In Berlin, Ezekiel and Caroline (Lowenstein) Eckmann gave birth to Max Eckmann
who in 1874 emigrated to the United States, where he married Marie Slupecki in
1875, became a manufacturer of novelties, helped organized the Independent
Order of B’rith Abraham and served as a Republican in the New York State
Assembly.
1853:
Moses Moss married Sophia Levy at the Great Synagogue today.
1853:
“Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews” published today described the “first in a series
of lectures on the Sacred Poetry of Hebrews” delivered by Rabbi Morris Jacob
Raphill of B’nai Jeshurun also known as the Greene Street Synagogue in which
among other things he “divided the poetry of the Hebrews into four periods” –
“antediluvian” through the Joseph; “Moses to David;” “David to the death of
Solomon; “the Prophetic Poetry from the subdivision of the Hebrew Monarchy down
to the return after the Babylonian captivity.”
1854: Morris Simeon Oppenheim, the London born of “son
of Simeon Oppenheim, secretary of the Great Synagogue” “was admitted as a
student to the Middle Temple” today which was the first step to his being
“called to the bar in1858.”
1855:
Rabbi Nathan Adler founded Jew’s College
1856: In Pittsburgh, Congregation Rodef Shalom was
charted today listing among its primary objectives “the furtherance of
the cause of Religion” and “the establishment of a good school in which the
young shall be instructed in the principles of the Hebrew Religion as well as
general branches of knowledge.”
1858:
“Abduction of a Christian Duty” published today traces the history of the
Mortara Affair in which an Italian Jewish boy was effectively kidnapped by the
Pope himself. According to the article,
the Pope’s behavior puts him at odds with many of the governments of Europe and
jeopardizes the rights of all Protestants (as well as Jews and Moslems) that
visit any of the papal domains.
1859:
In London, Rachel Lewis and Henry Harris gave birth to Rabbi Maurice Henry
Harris, the husband of Kitty Green, the holder of three degrees of Columbia and
founder of Hand in Synagogue in Harlem which later became Temple Israel who was
“a pioneer in the settlement house movement” and President of the Central
Conference of American Rabbis.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1930/06/25/96161672.html?pageNumber=18
1861:
In New York City, Pauline Sondheim and Emanuel Lehman, the co-founder of Lehman
Brothers gave birth to Philip Lehman, the husband of Carrie Lauer and father of
Robert and Pauline Lehman who gained fame as investment banker and art
collector.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9406E1DB173CE13BBC4A51DFB566838C659EDE
1862:
In Warsaw, Pauline and Feibisch Jolles gave birth to Dr. Adolf Jolles
1864:
Phillip Levy, who risen to rank of Sergeant in Company G of the 193rd
Regiment completed his military service today
1865:
Philadelphian Herman completed twenty-four months of service with the 152nd
Regiment of the Third Artillery where he had risen to the rank of Sergeant”
after which he served “in Company A of the Fourth United States Cavalry.”
1865:
In Vincennes, Indiana, Adam Gimble who had come to the U.S. from Bavaria in
1835 and his wife gave birth to Ellis A. Gimbel, Sr. the department store
owner, co-founder of the Pennsylvania Broadcasting Company and philanthropist
1865:
Simon P. Jacoby who had begun serving in December of 1863 completed his service
as a member of Batter E of the 152nd Regiment.
1866:
In Salt Lake City, Mary Goldsmith and Conrad Prag gave birth to Florence Pag
Kahn. Six years after the passage of the 19th amendment, Calvin Coolidge was in
the White House, prohibition was still on the books, and newly widowed Florence
Prag Kahn became the first Jewish woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress on
February 17, 1925. As the wife of the U.S. Congressman from San Francisco, Kahn
had developed her own public voice by writing a column for her hometown
newspaper about Washington doings. When her husband died in 1925, she won a special
election that made her only the fifth woman to serve in Congress. Kahn served
twelve years until 1937, a strong Republican voice for Bay Area public works
projects and the rights of Chinese women and Native Americans. The next Jewish
woman to serve in Congress was New York's Bella Abzug who was elected in 1970.
Kahn argued that "there is no sex in citizenship and there should be none
in politics." She made this point in a slightly different way in the
context of a newspaper interview that noted her refusal to lose weight or tend
to her hair in order to please others. When asked later in the interview why it
was that she received more than twice as many votes as her late husband ever
got, she responded, "sex appeal!"
1867:
In Albion, NY, Mina and Simon Landauer gave birth to Jacob “Jake” Landuaer, the
husband of Eva Landuer who was one of Albion’s leading merchants and who was
elected three times as Democrat to sever as the mayor “in a community that has
been predominately Republican.”
1869:
In Salt Lake City, Utah, Mary Goldsmith and Conrade Prag gave birth to San
Francisco high school teacher, the wife of Congressman Julius Kahn whom she
succeeded her husband in the House of
Representatives.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/kahn-florence-prag
1869:
Birthdate of New York native and NYU and University of Wisconsin trained dental
surgeon Samuel Hess who passed away in 1956.
1871:
Birthdate of Florence Rena Sabin an American medical scientist. As a
pioneer for women in science she was the first woman to hold a full
professorship at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the first woman elected to
the National Academy of Sciences, and the first woman to head a department at
the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. In her retirement years, she
pursued a second career as a public health activist in Colorado, and in 1951
received a Lasker Award for this work. She passed away in 1953.
1873:
Three days after he had passed away, 73 year old “watch and clockmaker” Lewis
Lyon, the husband of Mary Phillips with whom he had nine children, was buried
today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”
1874(29th of Cheshvan, 5635): Israel Bak, the man who created the first
Hebrew printing press,
passed away. Israel Bak was a native of Berdichev in the
Ukraine who came to Safed in 1831. In his native city, he had published some
thirty books. He reestablished his publishing operations in Safed. First off
the press, in 1832, was a Sefardi prayer book, the first Hebrew book printed in
the Holy Land after a hiatus of 245 years. This was followed in 1833 by the Book
of Leviticus, with the commentaries of Rashi and Hayim Joseph David Azulai,
a favorite of Sefardi Jews. No traces remain of either Genesis or Exodus, if indeed they were ever
published, but it is possible that they were destroyed during the peasant
revolt against Muhammad Ali in 1834, in which Bak's press was destroyed and Bak
himself was wounded. More likely only Leviticus was published, the first
of a projected five-volume edition of the Pentateuch, because it was the custom
to begin instruction of the Chumash
in the schools not with Genesis but with Leviticus. The school
year began in the spring, when the Book of Leviticus was being read in the
synagogue, and it made good sense to synchronize Bible study in the school with
Bible reading in the synagogue. Bak turned to agriculture but continued
printing, even after the earthquake of 1837 devastated his shop. The Druze
revolt in 1838 destroyed both his farm and press, and Bak departed for
Jerusalem where, in 1841, he once again established his press, the first Hebrew
press in Jerusalem.
1875:
In Williamsport, PA, Jennie May and Henry J. Messing gave birth to Washington
University trained attorney who served as the real estate editor of the St.
Louis Star and “news editor of the Chicago Examiner.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/03/30/83913597.html?pageNumber=21
1878(13th of Cheshvan, 5639): Abraham
Dob Bär Lebensohn passed away. Born in Vilinius between 1789 and 1794, he was a
rabbi known for his poetical works including Shir Habibim. He was the
father-in-law of Rabbi Joshua Steinberg, who worked with the Russian government
as an educator and who wrote works in English, Hebrew and German.
1879:
The service at Temple Beth-El in memory of the late Rabbi David Einhorn began
at 4 o’clock this afternoon. The
sanctuary was completely filled and late arrivals had to be turned away. Rabbis Kohler, Gottheil, Hirsch and Jacobs
delivered eulogies. Einhorn’s funeral
had taken place on November 6.
1879:
Professor Felix Adler delivered a lecture today entitled “Struggle of Free
Religion in the United States” which was “a glowing and eloquent tribute” to
the late Rabbi David Einhorn, even though it did not specifically mention the
Jewish leader by name.
1879(23rd
of Cheshvan, 5640): Abraham Aub passed away.
He has served as President of the Orphan Asylum of Cleveland since it
was established by the B’nai Brit and is a past President of the Jewish Hospital
and Hebrew Relief Association.
1880:
At today’s meeting of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment funds were
allocated to a variety of charities including $1,898.28 to the Hebrew
Children’s Guardian Society
1880:
David Belasco using the stage name of “Walter Kingsley” opened with the cast of
“The Legion of Honor” when it opened at the Park Theatre in New York City.
1880:
In Leadville, David May and Rosa Shoenberg who were married today received a
“china chamber set” as wedding gift from Jacob Schloss and his son-in-law
Morris D. Altman both whom were “prominent merchants in the liquor business”
and leaders in the Jewish community.
1881:
Specifications were filed today at the Bureau of Inspection of Buildings for a
new building to be occupied by the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews.
1881:
In Paris, “The Eleventh Correctional Chamber finished up today the first act of
a suit for swindling” in which “the plaintiffs are a couple of Dutch Jews”
named Vandenborg who are in the business of buying and selling old clothes as
well as moneylending. (This combination
of businesses was not unusual, as those successful in the first often leveraged
into the latter.)
1881:
It was reported today that the Jewish “bears” have lost three hundred thousand
francs on speculation surrounding the Union General.
1882:
“Co-Operation In Alms-Giving” published today described efforts to promote
cooperation among charities in New York City including the participation of all
Jewish congregations in the United Hebrew Charities.
1883:
“Sir Moses Montefiore’s Birthday” published today described the celebrations of
the distinguished Anglo-Jewish philanthropist who Rabbi Kaufman Kohler said
“was the same kind of benefactor to Jewish people that Peter Cooper had been to
the American people.”
1883:
“The Duel At Temesvar” published today described the duel fought between Dr.
Jules Rosenberger, a prominent Jewish Hungarian lawyer and Comte Etienne de
Battyany over the love of a woman – Hona de Schossberger. Rosenberger, the young woman’s husband,
mortally wounded his royal rival when the Count refused to end the duel when he
was wounded during the first round of gunfire.
1884:
A fire broke out today at a building on Cannon Street in Manhattan that house
the workshops of several Jewish tailors and cigar-makers
1884:
In Galatz, Romania, “Lipa and (Rosenbluth) Berger gave birth to New York
trained dentist Ilie L. Berger, the husband of Anna Berger and active member of
the Jewish community who served as Chairman of the Board of Temple Beth Israel,
Vice President of the New England Zionist Region and vice chairman of the
United Palestine Appeal.
1884:
It was reported today that John H. Bird will play Shylock, the Jew, in an
upcoming performance of the “Merchant of Venice.”
1885:
The Auckland Synagogue was opened today
1886:
Aron Mendel Michelson to Berl and Betti (Frank) Michelson, a Jewish family
living in Liepāja, Latvia gave birth to David Pablo Boder, the American
professor of psychology who “traveled Europe in 1946 to interview Holocaust
survivors.
https://voices.library.iit.edu/david_boder
1886:
In Philadelphia, Minnie Green and Bohemian born milliner Joseph Leopold gave
birth to Isaiah Edwin Leopold who gained fame as Ed Wynn, one of a long list of
Jewish entertainers who enjoyed successively successful careers in vaudeville,
film, radio and television. Wynn starred
on comedy variety programs during the 1950’s.
One of his signature props was a piano that was configured as part of
tricycle. Others remember him for his
portrayal as one of the zany characters in the Disney film Mary Poppins. He passed away in 1966. Ironically, having
had to hide the fact he was Jewish, he received a nomination for an Academy
Award for Best Support Actor for his role as Mr. Dussell in “The Diary of Anne
Frank.”
1888:
“Verestchagin’s Paintings” published today described the wide variety of
canvases produced by the “globe-trotting” Russian painter Vasily Vasilyevich
Vereshchagin whose works included pictures of Palestine and local Jews.
1888: In Campbellsville, KY, Isaac and Hannah (Bloomfield) Jablow gave birth
to University of Louisville trained physician and Dallas, TX resident Harry B.
Jablow, who served as Lt. in the Medical Department of the United Sates Navy
from 1917 to 1919 and was a director of Temple Brotherhood at Temple Emanu-El
and the Jewish Federation for Social Service.
1889:
It was reported today that the Harlem Glee Club will be performing at an
upcoming benefit concert that is a fundraiser for the Hebrew Sheltering
Guardian Society.
1889:
It was reported today Professor Edwin R.A. Seligman of Columba College will
address an upcoming meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1890:
“Austrian society” is impressed by the Prince of Wales’ weeklong visit to Baron
Maurice de Hirsch. Given the
view of Jews in European High Society, the idea that the heir to the British
throne would travel such a great distance to spend a week with a Jew was almost
beyond their comprehension. The Baron is
the son of a Bavarian banker and is now worth above 20,000,000 English pounds.
1890:
Annie Stein, who had been erroneously advised by a Roman Catholic priest that
her marriage to her Jewish husband Morris Stein was not valid and had left him
for that reason, has returned to him now that the Judge has explained to her
that in the eyes of the law she was indeed married and she had been given bad
advice.
1891(8th
of Cheshvan, 5652): Sixty-eight year old Simon Bacher the Hungarian poet who
wrote in Hebrew and whose son posthumously published “a selection of his works”
“under the title Sha’ar Shim’on.
1891:
In Brooklyn, violinist Mark N. Isaacson and Amelia Isaacson gave birth to
Charles David Isaacson, the nephew of Barney Isaacson, a court violinist to
Queen Victoria, who was a newspaper music critic, opera company manager and a
radio broadcasting pioneer serving as the innovative director at Stations WRNY
and WGL.
1892:
After helping build the main line of the Jaffa to Jerusalem railroad, engineer
George Franjieh today proposed a tramway in Jerusalem, which would connect it
to Ein Kerem and Bethlehem—only six weeks after the line's official opening.
1892:
Birthdate of Berlin native and German philologist Erich Auerbach, the author of
Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, who fled to
Turkey after the rise of the Nazis before settling in the United States where
he taught at Penn State before being appointed Professor Roamce Philology at
Yale University.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/09/the-book-of-books
1893:
Lewis May presided at tonight’s “mass meeting” of young Jews at the building
belonging to the Retail Grocers’ Union where plans were made to raise money to
build a new home for the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1893:
The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band performed at the Lenox Lycuem.
1893:
The will of the late Louis Arnheim was filed for probate today.
1894:
In New York under the consolidated charter, the Hebrew Benevolent Society
receives $79,000 and the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society receives $32,000
for the year.
1894:
The American Hebrew celebrated its 15th
anniversary today by printing a special memorial issue.
1896:
Julius Harburger, the Excise Commissioner of New York City, addressed a meeting
of the Boston chapter of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel, of which
he is a Grand Master.
1896:
Four days after she had passed away, eighty year old Rachel, Countess d’Avigdor
, “the second daughter of Sir Isaac Lyon and Isabel Goldsmid, the wife of Count
Salamon Henri d'Avigdor, son of the d'Avigdor who was a member of the Great
Sanhedrin assembled by Napoleon, with whom she had three sons and one daughter
was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1896:
In St. Louis, MO, Morris Garfinkle, the son of Abraham Garfinkel, and his wife
gave birth to Tillie Garfinkel who became Tillie Silver when she married Albert
J. Silver.
1896:
In St. Louis, Rose and Benjamin Agruss gave birth to Aaron Harry Agruss, the
husband of Sue Wise.
1896:
Dr. Wendell C. Phillips will deliver a lecture on “Prevention of Germ Diseases”
tonight at the Hebrew Institute which is sponsored by the Education Alliance.
1897:
The Apprenticing Committee of the Jews’ Hospital and Orphan Asylum is scheduled
to meet this morning at Hamilton House in London.
1897:
The Library Sub-Committee of Jews’ College is scheduled to at the office of the
Chief Rabbi at Finsbury Square.
1897:
In what was one of the major events of the social season, Dr. Joseph Silverman,
the assistant Rabbi at Temple Emanu-El officiated at the weeding Miss Ray
Baumgartern, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Moses Baumgarten to Adolph Levy at
the Madison Square Garden Concert Hall
1897:
Police believe today that a cousin of Captain Dreyfus and his American born
wife Rebecca Fortado Abraham committed suicide by inhaling charcoal fumes. In a letter addressed to his business partner
and his mother-in-law, Dreyfus wrote that “It is better for the children to die
with their parents, as their mother has also elected to commit suicide” which
would seem to be the justification for their killing their three young
daughters.
1898:
Theodore Herzl began his two-day
journey to Naples aboard the "Regina Margherita".
1898:
Birthdate of Holocaust survivor Mortiz Sternfeld who moved to Bocholt. German
in January of 1936.
https://www.ushmm.org/online/hsv/person_view.php?PersonId=4113736
1898(24th
of Cheshvan, 5659): Private George C. Hahn, from Putnam who had been serving
with Company G of the 1st Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry
passed away today.
1898:
Reliable sources were saying tonight that Richard Croker was one of the Tammany
district leaders who would be replaced in the wake of the electoral defeat
because he had failed to deliver the Jewish vote in New York County.
1899:
Birthdate of New York City and Fordham trained attorney Neil Merrill Leiblich
the president of Young Israel; an officer
League for Jewish Education, and an executive director Council of Zionists.
1899:
Texan Andrew Moses who had been serving as 2nd Lieutenant in the 7th
Artillery was promoted to the rank of 1st Lieutenant in the 3rd
Artillery
1900:
“Bible Teacher’s College” published today described the three hundred lectures
to be offered at the Bible Teacher’s College in Montclair, N.J. including “ten
studies of Isaiah by Professor Ira M. Price of the University of Chicago.
1901:
Charles Frank Levy, the New Orleans born son of L.H. and Regina E. Levy who
went from a partnership with his father in the Olive Street Furniture to
founding the Hub Furniture today married Dorothy Watson who whom he had two
children, Charles, Jr. and Regina.
1901:
Seven thousand dollars was raised today on what was the first observance in the
United States of Shekel Day “which has been observed for several years in
Europ.
1902:
This evening, “The Rev. Dr. George C.
Lorrimer, in the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, preached on the subject,
"The Debt of the World to the Jew” and said that the persecution of the
Jewish race had been one of the great crimes of the ages and that the survival
of the Jew was nothing short of a miracle.
1903:
Birthdate of Dr. Gregory Goodwin Pincus: Father of "The Pill." Dr.
Pincus and Dr. M.C. Chiang, his collaborator, developed the first practical
oral contraceptive birth-control pill after being persuaded to do so by
Margaret Sanger, a leader in the American birth-control movement, and Katherine
Dexter McCormick, an heir to the International Harvester fortune.
1904: Philadelphia born attorney Joseph Leon Buttenwieser “sold
the Grand American Hall formerly known as the Germania Assembly Rooms and a
five story tenement at 233 West 27th Street in New York.
1904:
Anglo-Jewish banker Sir Ernest Cassel was met today by Jacob Schiff as he
disembarked from the White Star liner Oceanic.
1905:
The National Committee for the Relief of Suffers by Russian Massacres met at
the United Hebrew Charities Building to organize relief efforts for those who
have suffered during the last ten days of violence in Russia. While most of the victims were Jews, it was
decided that aid would be distributed to all who have suffered regardless of
their religious affiliation
1905:
An appeal for aid for the suffering Jews in Russia entitled “To the Jews of
America” published today read in part “The victims of the awful riots and
massacres in Russia re not all numbered with the dead. The living, starving survivors who have lost
their breadwinners and the maimed mutely appeal to a pitying world for
aid. Therefore each community is hereby
requested to organize at once and without further notice for the purpose of
raising fund to aid these destitute living victims. Funds when collected by may
forewarned to Mr. Jacob H. Schiff of New York for proper distribution.
1905:
“It is reported from St. Petersburg that” “the Jewish population is
panic-stricken” because “there are signs in that city of preparations to
massacre the Jews.”
1906:
Today, President Teddy Roosevelt, who appointed the first Jewish cabinet
secretary and who contributed a portion of his Nobel Prize money to Jewish
charity “went to Panama to view the progress on the building of the Panama
Canal.
1907(3rd
of Kislev, 5668): Parashat Tolodot
1907:
Tennessee coached by George Levene tied Kentucky State College today.
1907:
In St. Thomas, Isaac and Rebecca Kushner Paiewonsky gave birth to Ralph Moses
Paiwonsky, “the second person of Jewish heritage to serve as the governor of
the Virgin Islands.
1907:
In New York City Eugene E. Sperry and Rosalie Stanton Bloomingdale gave birth
to Lucy Bloomingdale Sperry.
1908:
“Pastor Otto Eberhard, “one of the leading experts on the modern cultural state
of Palestine’ is scheduled to give a lecture today under the auspices of The
Executive Committee of the Zionist chapter Hamburg-Altona.
https://jewish-history-online.net/article/weber-christian-friends-zionism
1908:
It was reported today that Rabbi Samuel Schulman of Temple Beth El has
suggested that the memory of” Percival S. Menken who passed away last May
“should be perpetuated by the building of other city branches of the Young
Men’s Hebrew Association” which had been part on Mr. Menken’s “own plans.”
1909(25th
of Cheshvan, 5670): Forty-year-old Miss Chasse Stikan passed away today.
1909(25th
of Cheshvan, 5670): Rabbi Joseph Mayor Asher, Professor at the Jewish
Theological Seminary, an “erudite Talmudic scholar” and Rabbi at Or Chayim
Synagogue since 1906 passed away at the age of 37.
https://kevarim.com/rav-yosef-mayor-asher/
1909:
The week-long meeting of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, “which was
founded by the late Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, is scheduled to open this evening
“with a public meeting at Temple Beth-El on Fifth Avenue and Seventy-Sixth
Street.
1910:
In Baltimore, MD, Jacob Silverman, the son of Shlomo Silverblatt and his wife
Rachel Silverman, gave birth to his first child born in America, Shirley
Silverman Rosen, the wife of Meyer Rosen and the mother of Eli Rosen and Iris
Levy.
1910:
President William Howard Taft, who was so highly thought by the Jews of
Cincinnati that they planted a forest in his honor in Israel and who was the
first President to attend a Seder but who wrote a letter opposing the
appointment of Brandeis to the Supreme Court because he was a Jew, prepared to
set sail on trip that would take him to Panama where he could examine progress
on the building of the canal.
1911:
I.N. Bloom of Louisville, KY, was appointed by the Governor to serve on the
committee arranging the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial Building in
Hodgeville, KY.
1911:
In Antwerp, Jacob Querido, and Anna Heilbron gave birth Elisabeth Querido who
married Israel Aandagt and as Elisabeth Aandagt was murdered by the Nazis in
Poland.
1912(29th
of Cheshvan, 5673): Parashat Toldot
1912(29th
of Cheshvan, 5673): Isaac Levy, a merchant, passed away today in Columbus,
Ohio.
1912:
It was reported today that “the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland has awarded
this year’s gold medal for highest marks at their license examinations to Mr.
Joel Green of Dublin.”
1912:
It was reported today that “Dr. Meyer has been appointed senior tuberculosis
officer by the municipality of Hull, England.”
1912:
It was reported today that “a son of the editor of the Hebrew paper Haor,
published daily in Jerusalem, has been arrested for having written an article”
that spoke “of the Turkish government in unfavorable terms.”
1912:
In New York City, Adolph and Rose Brodkin gave birth to the youngest of their
six children, Herbert Brodkin who produced shows for the high quality dramatic
television program “Playhouse 90.” (As reported by Eleanor Blau)
1913:
Arnold Schönberg “completes the orchestral song "Seraphita", op. 22,
No. 1.
1914:
Birthdate of William Lewis Abramowitz, the 1935 MIT graduate and “plastics
company executive” who was the husband of “the former Lena Epstein, with whom
he had four children – Kenneth, Susan, Ava and Gail.
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/25/archives/william-abramowitz.html
1914(20th
of Cheshvan, 5675): Sixty-three-year-old Julius Hamburger, the Tammany
political leader, former Coroner of New York County and Sherriff of New York
County passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1914/11/10/100112819.html?pageNumber=11
1914:
In Vienna, Lemberg born bank director Emil Kiesler and pianist Gertrud
Lichtwitz gave birth to Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler who would gain fame as actress
Hedy Lamarr.
1914:
When Liberal MP Herbert Samuel asked Sir Edward Grey about a homeland for the
Jewish people, the Foreign Secretary replied “that the idea had alwas had a
strong sentimental appeal to him and he would be prepared to work for it if the
opportunity arose.”
1914:
Four days after Britain’s declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire “Zionism was
first discussed at a British Cabinet meeting” after which David Lloyd George,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer (and future Prime Minister) assured fellow cabinet
member Herbert Samuel that "he was very keen to see a Jewish state
established in Palestine."
1914:
In Beten, Poland, “Ya’akov-Yizhak Lubetkin”
and his wife the former “Hayyah Zilberman” gave birth to Ziva Lubetkin
one of the founders of the ZOB (Jewish National Committee) who survived the
Warsaw Ghetto and settled in Palestine after the war.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/zivia-lubetkin
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lubetkin-zivia
1915:
Joseph Kornfeld of Columbus, Ohio, was re-elected member of the Board of
Education.
1915:
“7,000,000 Jews Starving” published today included the description by Louis Brandeis
of the plight the Jews in war-torn Europe as well as “the success of the Jewish
colony in Palestine which…is becoming stronger and stronger every day.
1915:
“Correspondence of the Frankfurter Zeitung from Jerusalem says…twenty thousand
Russian Jews requested Turkish citizenship which was granted without the
payment of the ordinary taxes.
1915:
“A plea for Americanism as above Zionism was made by Jacob H. Schiff before a
large audience at the joint meeting of the Eastern Council of Reform Rabbis and
the Jewish Religious School at Temple Emanu-El” tonight during which he
“denounced Zionism or any other movement that tended to emphasize the question
of race or nationalism as foreign to the best interests of the Jewish people,”
1916:
It was reported today that victory of Meyer London, the Socialist candidate
running for the House of Representatives from the 12th Congressional
District was due to large support among Jewish voters but the large Jewish vote
for President Wilson was not enough for him to carry Manhattan.
1917: During World War I, Australian and New
Zealand forces under the command of General Allenby were within twenty miles of
Latrun which is the western entrance to the hills on the road to
Jerusalem. Yes, this is the same Latrun
that Jewish forces tried to seize during the War for Independence to open the
road from the coast to Jerusalem.
1917:
British aircraft continued to bomb and strafe Turkish forces retreating from
Beersheba.
1917:
In London, the British Government made public the letter sent a week earlier
which is known as the Balfour Declaration.
Herbert Samuel spoke at a thanksgiving rally at Covent Garden in which
he finished by intoning, in Hebrew, the age old declaration, “Next Year in
Jerusalem.” The declaration was published in the Jewish Chronicle. According
to one source, the government had deliberately delayed the public announcement
so that it would appear for the first time in a Jewish paper.
1917:
“A German aircraft was shot down in flames near the Wadi Hesi, as Australian
aircraft attacked Ottoman and German installations and ammunition dumps
1918:
“Oppose Zionist Plan” published today described a meeting of 500 Syrians at a
Brooklyn hotel where they adopted a resolution calling on the Allies to oppose
any settlement by Jews in Palestine – an opposition may have been more of the
desire for the development of “Greater Syria” which was a goal of some Arab
leaders following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.
1918:
As World War I was coming to an end Prince Max Baden, the Chancellor, announced
the abdication the Kaiser and then later that day found himself forced to
resign – creating the chaos that would later lead to the “stabbed in the back
myth.”
1918:
As Germany falls into social and political chaos at the end of World War I,
Kurt Eisner, Provisional National Council Minister-President, declares Bavaria
to be a republic. Kurt Eisner was born at Berlin on May 14 1857, of Jewish
parents, his parental name being Kamonowsky. Eisner was the name he took when
he began to write, and that name he adopted in his work for Social-Democracy.
1918(5th
of Kislev, 5679): Sixty-nine year old Vilna born, German trained Reform Rabbi
Herman Eliassof who led Congregation Beth-El in Chicago while editing The
Occident and several history books including The Jews of Chicago and The
Jews of Illinois.
ttps://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/eliassof-herman]
1918:
Birthdate of Brooklyn native Columbia trained cellist and composer Hoard
Shanet, the husband of Bernice Grafstein and father Laurence Paul Shanet who served om the Pacific during WW II, was a
conductor of Columbia’s orchestra and chaired its Music Department.
1918(5th
of Kislev, 5679): Sixty-one-year-old Albert Ballin, the owner and manager of
the Hamburg America Line passed away.
1919: It was reported today that The Story Books of the
Early Hebrews by Charles Reynold, the Dean of the School of Religion at Yale
University is available for purchase.
1919: “After spending five years in Galicia where he
witnessed much of the recent fighting, Simon Margulies” a New York City cigar
maker walked into the offices of the Ukrainian National Committee, 30 East
Seventh Street, with a large bundle of letters from Galician Ukrainians to
their relatives in the United States “concerning conditions in their native
land” where he said that after the Austrian Empire had fallen apart, the first
act of the liberated Poles was to swoop down upon Lemberg where they massacred
800 Jews{ including the “four hundred who driven into a synagogue” which the
Poles then set on fire.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/11/10/118180371.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1920:
In Denver, CO, The Triennial Convention of Jewish Women continued to meet for a
third day at the Brown Hotel.
1920:
In Baltimore, MD, the seventh annual convention of the Mizrachi Organization of
the United States and Canada continued for a second day.
1920:
This evening Dr. Edwin Slosson of Columbia University, the author of Major
Prophets of Today and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is scheduled
to deliver an address on “Jewish Achievement in Science” to members “of the
Auxiliary of Central Synagogue.”
1921:
Samuel Lewin lost his game today in the Metropolitan pocket billiard
championship tournament being planed at the Broadway Billiard Academy.
1922:
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards Albert Einstein the Nobel Prize
for Physics.
1922:
Two days after he had passed away in Atlantic City, funeral services were held
today at Rodeph Sholom in Philadelphia for seventy-two year old Jacob Gimbel
the Vincennes, IN, born son Fridolyn Khan-Wheeler and Adam Gimbel who had
“resigned the Presidency of Gimbel Brothers two years ago due to ill health”
1923:
After Nationalists paraded through the streets in parts of the Ruhr in an
“attempt to drive the out the Jews and declare a pogrom” the Jews “fled in
great numbers toward Cologne this morning, fearing further anti-Semitic riots.”
1923:
In responding to reports that Henry Ford was considering a run for the Presidency,
Rabbi I.L. Brill told the Both Israel congregation at the Jewish community
centre tonight that "there is a distinct difference between running the
United States and operating an automobile factory: and Cabinet Ministers” since
Senators and Congressmen cannot be driven like machine workers at $6 a
day."
1924:
In Zurich, Switzerland, Rosa and Hermann Frank gave birth to cinematographer
and photographer Robert Frank.
1924:
Today, Russian born violinist Mischa Mischaoff “played the Tchaikovsky concerto
with the New York Symphony under Walter Damrosch at Aeolian Hall” in what “may
have been his first solo appearance in the U.S.”
http://pronetoviolins.blogspot.com/2012/08/mischa-mischakoff.html
1924:
“He Who gets Slapped” a silent drama produced by Irving Thalberg and
co-starring his future wife Norma Shearer was released in the United States
today.
1925:
In Kurenets, Belarus, Miriam Kremer and Mendel Kremer who would be murder by
the Nazis in 1943 gave birth to Emma Eshke Greisdorf.
1926:
“A resolution calling upon the Central Rabbis’ Organization of America to
consider the sponsoring of a national Jewish movement for establishment of
five-day work week, so that Saturday may be more widely observed as a day of
worship, was adopted at the final session today of the Mizrachi Organization of
America” which has been meeting in Washington, D.C.
1926:
Today, in Philadelphia, Rabbi Abram Siman of Washington was elected Chairman of
the Synagogue Council of America at its first meeting as a permanent
organization while other officers chosen were Rabbi Bernstein, Secretary; Rabbi
J.B. Pollak, Assistant Secretary; Ben Altheimer, Treasurer, and Captain N.T.
Phillips and Dr. Elias Solomon, Vice Chairmen, all of New York.”
1927:
Birthdate of Salo Linder the native of Berlin whose family made Aliyah in 1933
and as Shlomo Lahat rose to the rank of Major General in the IDF and served for
terms as Mayor of Tel Aviv.
1928:
CCNY basketball star Nat Krinsky and his wife Hilda gave birth to Paul L
Krinsky, the honor graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Company who served at
sea with both the Merchant Marines and Navy who pursued a career that led to
serve as the “Superintendent of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy with the rank
of Rear Admiral.
1928:
In Chicago, “Dr. Schmarya Levin, a member of the World Zionist Executive Board
and head of the largest Hebrew publishing house in Palestine today expressed
sharp disagreement with Julius Rosenwald, the Chicago capitalist and
philanthropist on the experiment of colonizing Jews in Russia.”
1929:
Birthdate of Hungarian Holocaust survivor Imre Kertesz recipient of the 2002
Nobel Prize in Literature.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2002/press.html
1929(6th
of Cheshvan): “Rabbi Joseph Leib Bloch, dean of the Yeshivah at Telz passed
away.
1930:
In St. Louis, MO, “with an audience of 4,000 crowding Moohlah Temple and other
thousands clamoring for entrance, Zionist and non-Zionist joined today in
denouncing the British White Paper on Palestine and demanding its immediate and
unequivocal withdrawal.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1930/11/10/92118316.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1930:
“Resolutions expressing profound disappointment with the British Government's
future policy in Palestine and the hope that the government would reverse its
attitude were adopted today at the annual meeting of the American Jewish
Committee…”
1931:
Birthdate of Marvin Kessler, the Brooklyn native “who spent more than half a
century in basketball as a player, a coach, a scout and, most prominently, a
camp instructor who molded young athletes like Patrick Ewing and Stephon
Marbury…” (As reported by Richard Goldstein)
1932:
One hundred teachers invaded the offices of the Jewish Agency Executive this
morning, occupied them, stationed guards at the exits, and announced that they
would permit no member of the Executive to leave the building until arrears in
salary from May to August were paid.
1932:
In Des Moines, IA, Harry and Bessie Stein gave birth to Arnold “Arny” Davidson,
a graduate of the University of Iowa and husband of Brenna Persellin who “was
the owner and president of Globe Financial Services in Iowa City where he was a
member of Agudas Achim.
1933:
It was reported today that “all existing Jewish organizations in Germany have
this week been placed under a strict and direct control by the secret police in
connection with the special Jewish department established here by the secret
police.”
1933:
“Opposition to the second proposal to celebrate German day in this city was
abandoned today by Major Julius Hochfelder, counsel for the Jewish War Veterans
of the United States, who were instrumental in inducing Mayor O'Brien to
prohibit the first celebration two weeks ago.”
1934:
After the government had revoke the citizenship “of Jews naturalized after the
World War and ousted Jewish professionals from state and municipal
institutions, today “a new trade law which will completely ruin Jews engaged in
commerce and industry in Austria was promulgated” by the government.
1934:
In Brooklyn, Sam Sagan, an immigrant garment worker from Russia and Rachel
Molly Gruber gave birth to Carl Sagan, American astronomer and television
personality – a man who brought science to the mass American audience.
1934:
“Holiday Land,” one of the nominees for the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film,
produced by Charles Mintz was released in the United States today.
1934:
Birthdate of Tel Aviv native and award winning Israeli novelist and playwright
Sulamit Lapid, the wife of Tommy Lapid and the mother of Yair Lapid.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/lapid-shulamit
1934:
“Woman in the Dark” a film version of a short story directed by Phil Rosen and
filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released in the United States
today.
1934:
In Cape Town, South Africa, Isobel (née Pepper) and
Isaac Horwitz gave birth to Ronald Horwitz who moved to London in 1951 to
pursue his acting career where he changed his surname to Harwood and gained
fame as Ronald Harwood the author of “The Dresser” a play which he turned into
an Oscar winning movie.
1934: In Brooklyn, “Samuel Sagan, an immigrant worker”
and housewife Rachel Molly Gruber gave birth to America’s most famous
astronomer Carl Sagan.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Sagan
https://www.planetary.org/about/our-founders/carl-sagan.html
1935: As the Nazis continue to take control of German
society “the sixteen Nazis who died in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch were
re-interred in the newly constructed Ehrentempel (honour temples) commemorating
the failed coup attempt.”
1935:
Charles and Hylda Wolfson gave birth to David Wolfson, the future Baron Wolfson
of Sunningdale
1936:
Josef Beck, the Foreign Minister of Poland is scheduled to begin two days of
meetings with Sir Anthony Eden where he plans to bring up the subject of Jewish
immigration from his country to Palestine.
1936:
In Warsaw, “several Jews were beaten, one seriously, in street fighting on the
anniversary of battles between Jews and Polish university students” last year.
1936:
Four days after he had passed away, the will of Julius Garfinckel “was filed
for probate, leaving the bulk of his $6,000,000 estate to charity and
employees.”
1936:
Birthdate of folk singer Mary Travers, the Mary of Peter, Paul and Mary.
1937(5th
of Kislev, 5698): Five members of the Gordonia group working on a Jewish
National Fund afforestation project near Kiryat Anavim were ambushed and
murdered by Arabs.
1937:
“Mrs. Otto A. Rosalsky, widow of the General Sessions judge, today in the
Felony Court withdrew a charge of suspicion of grand larceny against Mrs.
Dorothea Kulkin, 40 years old, of 400 West End Avenue, owner of a jewelry
establishment at 1 West Forty-seventh Street.
1938:
Funeral services are scheduled to be held today in Paris for sixty-sixty year
old Dr. Leo Motzkin the “noted Jewish statesman who “fought earnestly for his
conception of the Jews as a national minority with their religious and cultural
development safeguarded by international treaties and obligations.” (As
reported by JTA)
1938:
British troops and Arabs clashed twice in revolt-torn Palestine today. Two
soldiers were killed and five were injured. Arab casualties were not learned.
“Troops were ambushed on the Tel Aviv-Haifa road and Arabs staged a surprise
attack on a garrison at a village near Tul Karm.
1938:
In Great Britain, the Woodhead Report which opposed the creation of independent
Jewish and Arab states in Palestine was submitted to Parliament
1938: Hitler mentions to Hermann Göring that he
would like to see all German Jews forcibly resettled on the island of
Madagascar. Opportunistically chosen by the Nazi leadership, the date of the
pogrom is of great symbolic importance. It coincides with two important
national holidays, the Nazi Blood Witness Day of November 9 and Martin Luther's
birthday of November 10. Blood Witness Day commemorates the Nazi
"martyrs" who died for their cause. Martin Luther advocated the
destruction of Jewish homes and synagogues as well as the impoverishment,
forced labor, exile, and death of Jews.
1938:
Ernst von Rath, the third secretary to the German embassy in Paris died from
wounds inflicted by Hershel Grynszpan,
a seventeen year old Jewish refugee on November 7. Grynszpan's parents were
among the 12,000 Polish-Jewish refugees who had been living in Germany who were
transported to the Polish frontier a month earlier. The killing was a protest
against the harsh treatment of these suffering, stateless Jews at the hands of
the Nazis.
1938: Kristallnacht (Night of Broken
Glass) occurs across Germany and Austria. Ninety-one Jews are killed; others
are beaten. Thirty thousand male Jews are sent to concentration camps, though
most will be released in a few weeks. 267 synagogues are desecrated and
destroyed (almost all of the synagogues of Germany and Austria). SS Security
Service chief Reinhard Heydrich instructs security agencies to burn the
synagogues unless German lives or property are endangered. Jewish businesses
are looted and destroyed.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/04.asp
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/05.asp
1938:
“During the November Pogrom” known as Kristallnacht, in Berlin, “the Neue
Synagogue was broken into, Torah scrolls desecrated, furniture smashed and
other combustible furnishings piled up and set on fire.
1938:
During Kristallnacht, the Leipzig synagogue which had been “built in 1855 by
the German Jewish architect Otto Simonson was destroyed tonight.
1938: On Kristallnacht, “the Jewish men of
Karlsruhe including Opa Oppenheimer,” the grandfather of future Monuments Men
Harry Ettlinger “were rounded up and put in Dachau and the hundred year old
Kronenstrasse Synagogue “was burned to the ground.”
1938:
In Vienna, two Gestapo agents entered the apartment of 17 year old Roy Rogers
with the intent of arresting his father who was not at home. When asked how old he was, his mother lied
about his age thus saving the future British soldier from a trip to a
concentration camp.(As reported by Ed Lion)
1938:
Twelve days after all of the Polish Jews living in Karlsruhe were forced to go
to the Polish border for deportation; the synagogues in this southwestern
German city were destroyed.
1938(15th of Cheshvan, 5699): On what would become
known as Kristallnacht,
Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister called von Rath's murder "a Jewish
conspiracy" and the German government organized a nation-wide pogrom. Fifty thousand Jews were arrested and taken
to concentration camps; five hundred synagogues were destroyed, and the Jewish
community was forced to pay one billion Reich marks ($4,000,000) for the
damage. In point of fact, Kristallnacht
was part of the Nazi effort to redistribute wealth in Germany without impacting
the German upper classes.
1938:
In “Why did Nazis protect rabbi on Kristallnacht?” published today, Nadav
Shragai explores the unique story of Rabbi Avraham Kuperstock and an
alternative theory as to the origin of Kristallnacht
On
the night between November 9 and 10, 1938 - Kristallnacht - while synagogues
across the German Reich were set ablaze and Jews and their property became
victims of state-initiated pogroms, a strange sight took place in the heart of
Berlin. German police rushed to 25 Mintz Street, where they used their bodies
as shields to protect the synagogue housing the yeshiva headed by Rabbi Avraham
Kuperstock from rioters seeking to harm the rabbi, his family, students or
property. This remarkable story was brought to light by Prof. Meier Schwarz,
83, a researcher who lost his entire family in the Holocaust and today runs
"Ashkenaz House," a Jerusalem-based organization dedicated to
conducting research and preserving the heritage of German Jewry. Kuperstock and
his synagogue were saved thanks to the assistance he provided German
authorities during World War II. But his story begins much earlier, in 1914
Warsaw, when the city was still under Russian control. The Russians were
recruiting young people across the region, Jews and Poles alike. Among those
conscripted were some of the rabbi's yeshiva students. Two of them deserted the
army, were caught and sentenced to death and were hung by the Russians in the
city square to deter other students from following their example. Kuperstock
was made to stand beside the gallows while the grim sentence was carried out.
The rabbi never forgot the experience and vowed to one day avenge the injustice
the Russians had visited upon his yeshiva. As World War II dragged on, Germany
fought on two fronts, to the West against the British, Americans, Canadians and
their allies and, to the East, against the Soviet Union. The Third Reich
diverted the bulk of its resources toward the eastern front, but struggled
against the tough topographic conditions and the Russians' sophisticated line
of virtually impenetrable fortifications. In 1941, in Operation Barbarossa, the
German army suddenly penetrated the Soviet lines, smashing through its
adversary's fortifications and paving a path to the East. In his research Prof.
Meier Schwarz found that Kuperstock, as revenge for the death of his two
students, had transferred intelligence to the Germans on the Russian
fortification system, including secret pathways allowing the bulwarks to be
breached. The revelation was confirmed by Kuperstock's neighbors, who had heard
of the arrangement from the rabbi himself. They said in exchange for the
information, Kuperstock was granted the status of "protected Jew,"
and during the darkest days of the Holocaust sold the Germans leaven his community
had thrown out during Passover. Additional confirmation came from a relative of
the rabbi now living in Australia. What remains unclear, however, is how was
Kuperstock able to obtain the Russian documents, and whether he had acted
alone. While the war was in full swing, Kuperstock and his students were
transferred to East Berlin, where the authorities provided them with
accommodations for living, praying and studying on Mintz Street. The rabbi was
promised a pension for the rest of his life, German citizenship and financial
support of the yeshiva. When President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf
Hitler chancellor in 1933, the rabbi's special status was registered. Unlike
other Polish Jews residing in Germany, Kuperstock and his students were not transferred
to Poland, but in 1941, after the rabbi died, his students were sent to the
death camps in the East. Last year Ashkenaz House published a study on the
events leading up to Kristallnacht. Key among these was the assassination of
German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old German Jew
of Polish extraction. The traditional account of the shooting holds that
Grynszpan acted after his family and 17,000 other Jewish families with Polish
roots were ordered to leave Germany for Poland. However, Prof. Schwarz believes
vom Rath was actually killed by an envoy of Adolf Hitler himself. "The
Germans, and not Grynszpan, were the ones who murdered vom Rath, but they
blamed the Jews. Vom Rath, who seemed to have been seriously wounded, was transferred
to hospital, where he was 'treated' by Hitler's personal doctor, who made sure
he died," he said. "Kristallnacht had been planned two months before
the second week of November 1938."
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/05.asp
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/04.asp
1938: Al Capp, the Jewish cartoonist of Lil' Abner
creates Sadie Hawkins Day.
1939:
Five hundred Jewish families were deported from Lublin, Poland.
1939:
Lodz was officially annexed to the Reich, a step followed by an intensification
of the German terrorization of the Jews and Poles.
1939:
“Life With Father,” produced by Oscar Serlin opened today “at the Empire
Theatre” and ran for 3,213 performances.” (Editor note – NYT says the 9th. Wiki says the 8th)
1939:
Today, “Georg Elser rigged a bomb meant to kill Hitler on November 9, 1939, but
the device exploded 13 minutes after Hitler leaves the hall.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32160816
1939:
MGM released “Ninotchka” produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch, with a script
by Billy Wilder, co-starring that Georgia (USA) born Jew, Melvyn Douglas.
1940(8th
of Cheshvan, 5701): Parashat Lech-Lecha
1940:
It was reported today that in the last two weeks “more than 10,000 Jews” have
been forcibly evacuated “from the southwest German Provinces of Baden and the
Palentine” and interned “in concentration camps in southern unoccupied France”
creating a conditions that can be described as a humanitarian crisis.
1941:
A photograph was taken of Jews working in Bakery #3 in the Lodz Ghetto.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/07.asp
1941:
Having finished murdering the Jews of Minsk on November 6, the Nazis began
moving thousands of German Jews into the town.
1941
(19th of Cheshvan): Rabbi Abraham Zevi Kama, head of the Yeshivah of Mir, was
among the 1,500 Jews of Mir killed by the Nazis today.
1942:
While serving with Escort Scouting Squadron Twenty-nine aboard the U.S.S.
Santee, an escort carrier, today Lt. Cmdr. Arthur M. Ershler, “distinguished
himself today when at grave risk to his personal safety he attacked a hostile
convoy of trucks during which his plane was materially damaged by gunfire
leaving him nauseated from the gasoline fumes which did not keep him from
flying “to a hostile airdrome where he scored a direct hit on a hangar, damaged
several planes on the ground and strafed numerous machine gun emplacements.
1942:
Following yesterday’s Allied landings at Algiers which were facilitated by Jose
Aboulker and his predominately Jewish resistance group, “the
XIXth Army Corps of the Vichy Government tried to mobilize to oppose the Allied
landings, but concentrated its efforts on the Resistance fighters led by
Aboukler and others who decided to evacuate their positions since their mission
had been accomplished and they wanted to avoid having Frenchman fight
Frenchman.
1942:
More than 700 Greek born Jews from Salonica living in Paris were deported.
1942:
It was reported today that “Columbia has signed Zoltan Korda, brother of
Alexander Korda, and director of his United Artists productions, "The Four
Feathers," "Drums," "The Thief of Bagdad" and
"The Jungle Book," to direct a newly scheduled Melvyn Douglas
vehicle, "Sahara," which will deal with the present Libyan campaign
by the United Nations against General Rommel.”
1942:
Germans deport Jews from Paris to Birkenau death camp. These Jews were Greeks
from Salonica who went to France thinking it would be a safe haven.
1942: The Nazis opened another death camp named
Majdanek Four thousand Lublin Jews already deported to two other concentration
camps, were sent to open Majdanek. Majdanek joined Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobibor
and Belzec as factories of death.
1943: Two hundred Jews from Venice, Italy, are
deported to Auschwitz. Four hundred Jews from Florence and Bologna, Italy, are
deported to Auschwitz.
1943: At the Theresienstadt, the Council of
Elders head Jacob Edelstein and three other Jews are accused of saving 55 of
the ghetto's Jews from deportation by falsifying population reports.
1943: U.S. Senator Guy Gillette, Representative
Will Rogers, Jr. (son of the great comedian and social commentator) and Representative
Joseph Baldwin introduce a resolution into Congress calling upon the president
to establish "a commission of diplomatic, economic, and military experts
to formulate and effectuate a plan of action to save the surviving Jewish
people of Europe." This resolution will serve as the basis of the War
Refugee Board (WRB).
1943:
Four hundred Jews were deported from Florence and Bologna to Birkenau.
1944:
German troops holding Walcharen Island which was the key barrier to the Allies
being able to take the much needed port of Antwerp surrendered today.
1945(4th
of Kislev, 5706): Sarah Lavanburg Straus the widow of Oscar Straus passed away
today.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/straus-sarah-lavanburg
1945:
Birthdate of Zevulun Orlev, an Israeli politician and a former leader of the
National Religious Party. He was Minister of Welfare & Social Services
(March 2003 - November 2004), and is currently a Member of the Knesset for the
The Jewish Home party. Orlev is a decorated war hero who received the Medal of
Distinguished Service in the Yom Kippur War.
1945:
“The House I Live In,” “a ten-minutes short film written by Albert Maltz, and
directed and produced by Mervyn LeRoy” “made to oppose anti-Semitism at the end
of World War II” which “received an Honorary Academy Award and a special Golden
Globe award in 1946” was released in the United States today by RKO.
1946(15th
of Cheshvan, 5707): Parashat Vayera
1946:
“Using the Potomac Shipwrecking Co. of Washington, D.C. as its agent, the
Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah bought SS President Warfield from the WSAand transferred control of it to
Hamossad Le'aliyah Bet, the branch of the Haganah that organized Aliyah Bet
activities.” The Warfield would gain fame as the SS Exodus.
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 a booby-trap bomb exploded while they were searing a house for
hidden explosives.
1946:
“Mr.Hex” a Bowery Boy comedy starring Leo Gorcey and featuring his brother
David Gorcey was released in the United States today.
1946:
Warner Bros. released “Never Say Goodbye,” a romantic comedy based on a story
by Ben and Norma Barzman with a script co-authored by I.A. L. Diamond featuring
famed character actor S.Z. Sakall as “Luigi”/
1947:
In Pittsburg, PA, “Robert N. Nathan, the former chairman of the planning
commission of the War Production Board, told 135 Jewish communal leaders here
today that the resettling in Palestine of 150,00 Jews from European camps of
displace person in the next two years would cost about $400,000,000.”
1948: During the War of Independence Operation Yoav
comes to a successful close. Operation
Yoav was part of the campaign to secure the Negev from the invading Egyptian
forces. Yigal Allon one of the true
heroes of the creation of the Jewish state was the commander of the venture.
1948:
The IDF launched Operation Shmone to capture the Tegart fort in the village of
Iraq Suwaydan. The fort's Egyptian defenders had previously repulsed eight
attempts to take it, including two during Operation Yoav. Israeli forces
bombarded the fort before an assault. After breaching the outlying fences
without resistance, the Israelis blew a hole in the fort's outer wall,
prompting the 180 Egyptian soldiers manning the fort to surrender without a
fight. The defeat prompted the Egyptians to evacuate several nearby positions,
including hills the IDF had failed to take by force. Meanwhile, IDF forces were
met with stiff resistance in Iraq Suwaydan itself, losing 6 dead and 14 wounded
1948:
Israeli forces ended the Arab siege of Negbah
1948:
Leon Frankel, one of the American volunteers who helped create and flew with
Israel’s air force during the War for Independence returned to the United
States today.
1948:
“101 Squadron moved south to Chatzor to take a position closer to the southern
front, where it flew most missions. One advantage of the more southerly
location was that it was further along the route that the daily shuftikite flew
and so gave more time for an intercept.”
1948:
Joseph Zaritsky chose “an abstract still life” to show at the “New Horizons”
exhibition that opened today in Tel Aviv.
1949:
“Yigael Yadin was appointed as the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense
Forces, succeeding Yaakov Dori.”
1949:
The biennial convention of the American Jewish Congress opened in New York City.
1949: Democrat Herbert H. Lehman defeated
Republican John Foster Dulles, the future Secretary of State who back Nasser
over Israel in 1956 in a special election for a seat in the Senate which would
later be filled by Jacob Javits who was a liberal, Jewish, Republican. (Don’t make those anymore)
1949(17th
of Cheshvan, 5710): Eighty-year-old New York born attorney and Zionist Isidore
Hirschfield, the general council for HIAS passed away today in Washington, DC.
1949:
Yaakov Dori completed his terms as the first Chief of Staff of the Israel
Defense Forces (IDF). Born Yakov Dostrovsky in the present day Ukraine in 1899,
his family emigrated to Ottoman Palestine following the anti-Jewish pogrom in
Odessa in 1905. Upon completing high school at the Hebrew School in Haifa, he
enlisted in the Jewish Legion of the British Army during World War I. He later
joined the Haganah and adopted the underground name of "Dan". In
Haganah he was the commander of the Haganah Forces of Haifa. In 1939, Dori was
appointed Chief of Staff of the Haganah, a position he held until 1946. As
Haganah’s Chief of Statt, it was Yaakov Dori's duty to take the Haganah from a
diffuse self-defense organization to a model army. From 1946 to 1947 he also
headed the Palestinian Jewish delegation sent to purchase arms in the United
States. When the IDF was formed, Dori took over as its first Chief of Staff.
Yet, despite his good command and organizational skills, he was already
suffering from failing health, and had difficulty commanding his troops during
Israel's War of Independence, and was forced to rely heavily on his deputy,
Yigael Yadin. After he completed his term as Chief of Staff, Dori retired from
the military. He was succeeded by his deputy, Yadin. Even after his release
from the army, however, he continued to wear the officer's pin he was awarded
when he first became a second lieutenant. Upon leaving the IDF, Dori was
appointed chairman of the Science Council, attached to the Prime Minister's
office. He was later made president of the Technion in Haifa, a position he
held until 1965. He passed away in 1973.
1950: Birthdate of Dr. Yosi Ben-Dov, the Haifa, who
after a successful career in business “became the Headmaster and managing
director of The Hebrew Reali School in Haifa.”
1951:
An instrumental version of “Charmaine" co-composed by Lew Pollack reached
the top spot on Billboard today.
1951(10th
of Cheshvan, 5712): Sigmund Romberg
passed away in New York City. Born Romberg
Zsigmond in Hungary, Romberg gained fame as the creator of numerous operettas
including The Student Prince and The Desert Song.
http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/bio/C69
1952(21st of Cheshvan, 5713): Chaim Weizmann First President of Israel and
Zionist statesman passed away. There is no way that any blurb here could do
justice to one of the giants of the Zionist cause. Would there have been an
Israel had there been no Weizmann? Who
knows? The creative chemist pursued
Herzl’s dream with unparalleled zeal, playing a key role in the issuance of the
Balfour Declaration, creating the Yishuv after World War I and lobbying
American leaders including Harry Truman for their vital support of the unborn
Jewish state. To paraphrase Shakespeare,
while others of his generation were abed enjoying the material rewards of the
scientific genius, he was in the field fighting for the creation of Eretz
Israel at a time when it was not “the in thing to do.”
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1127.html
1952: Yosef Sprinzak began serving as interim
President, a post he would hold until the inauguration of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi
thirty days later.
1953: Ibn Saud, the Saudi King who expressed his
disdain for the Jews when he met with President Roosevelt in 1945, who declared
war on Israel in 1948 and who squandered his nation’s oil wealth rather than
use it to help his less fortunate “Arab brothers” in other lands died today.
1954: “The Divided Heart” a movie about three year
old boy in Germany during WW II filmed by cinematographer Otto Heller and
starring Yvonne Mitchell was released in the United Kingdom today.
1956: Sixty-one year old Hildebrand Gurlitt, the
Nazi art thief passed away having survived the war with a secret stash of art
that he had acquired for his fellow Nazis.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10811916/Cornelius-Gurlitt-obituary.html
1958(26th of Cheshvan, 5719): Seventy-two-year-old Rabbi
Ferdinand Kilsheimer Hirsh, the Hamilton, OH born son of Isaac and Minnie
Kilshemer Hirsh and husband of Nellie L. Hirsh who was a graduate of Hebrew
Union College and the University of Georgia Law School and who served as the
rabbi at the “Children of Israel Congregation in Athens, GA and Temple B’nai
Israel in Monroe, LA passed away today.
http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0264/ms0264.html
1959: “A Month in the Country” produced by Lewis
Freedman and Henry Weinstein co-starring Luther Adler was broadcast as The Play
of the Week.
1959: “I, Don Quixote,” a non-musical play to which
Mitch Leigh would add music and make “Man of La Mancha” was broadcast on CBS
television tonight.
1962:”They Came From Everywhere: Two Who Helped
Modern Israel” by Robert St. John went on sale today.
1962: Birthdate of Amy Beth Aronson, the Columbia
trained Ph.D. and “Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Fordham
University” who is married to “sociologist Michael Kimmel” with whom she had
one child, Zachary.
https://books.google.com/books?id=jWj5OBvTh1IC&pg=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
1962: In Philadelphia, architect Louis Kahn and
Harriet Pattison gave birthdate to filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn whose works include
“Two Hands” and “My Architect,” a film about his father.
1964(4th of Kislev, 5725): Eighty-year-old
Louis Lazarus, the Romanian born son of Morris and Rebbeca Lazarus, the husband
of Rose Lazarus and father of Anna Weiner passed away today in Philadelphia
after which he was buried at the Mount Sharon Cemetery in Springfield, PA.
1964(4th of Kislev, 5725): Felix Weltsch passed away
Born in 1884 he was a German-speaking Jewish librarian, philosopher, author,
editor, publisher and journalist. A close friend of Max Brod and Franz Kafka,
he was one of the most important Zionists in Bohemia.
1965: A funeral service for New York realtor and
leader of the Jewish community Leopold
Philipp is scheduled to be held this morning at Temple Israel which is
“now meeting in All Souls Unitarian Church” in Manhattan.
1965:
Lionel I. Pincus, the president of Lionel I. Pincus & Co., Inc., financial
consultants was named to the board of the investment banking house of E. M.
Warburg & Co., Inc.
1965: The New
York Times features a review of Biography of An Idea: Memoirs of Public
Relations Counsel Edward L. Bernays by Edward L. Bernays.
1966:
It was reported today that “a Vienna jury court” has sentenced “two brothers,
Johann and Wilhelm Mauer, former SS officers to prison terms at their second
trial on charges of mass murders of Jews in occupied Poland.”
1967:
“Custer of the West” a biopic about the 19th cavalry officer
directed by Robert Siodmak was released in the United States today.
1967:
In the first issue of Rolling Stone published today critic Jon Landau “compared
Jimi Hendrix and his debut album, Are You Experienced, to Eric Clapton and
Cream's debut album, Fresh Cream.”
1968(18th
of Cheshvan, 5729): Parashat Vayera
1970: Charles De Gaulle, former French President and
leader of the Free French during World War II passed away. The imperious De
Gaulle told the Israelis not strike first against the Arabs in 1967. After the June War, De Gaulle made derogatory
remarks about the Jewish state; withheld military equipment from the IDF that
Israelis had paid for and pursued an unabashedly pro-Arab line. Those who remembered De Gaulle as the lone
French voice willing to stand against the Nazis in World War II shook their
collective heads and opined that some men stay in the public eye beyond their
days of mental competence.
1972: Avraham Lanir scored his second aerial kill
today, downing a Syrian MiG-21 while flying Mirage 72
1973: Ofer Tsidon was killed in action when his F-4E
Phantom Jet was shot down by an Egyptian SAM.
1973: Gideon Shefer was taken prisoner today when
his F-4E Phantom Jet was shot down by an Egyptian SAM.
1973: “Piano Man,” “the second studio album by American
recording artist Billy Joel” was released today by Columbia Records.
1973: “The Mackintosh Man,” “a cold war spy movie” starring Paul Newman and
featuring Wolfe Morris as “Malta Police Commissioner” was released today in the
United Kingdom.
1974: Materials about the persecution of Jews in
Minsk, letters of the Jews to various state institutions, and notebooks which
were discovered when Anatoly Sharansky and Anatoly Malkin were detained in
Minsk were confiscated by authorities.
1974: Birthdate of Detroit native, University of
Michigan graduate and Northwestern trained attorney Richard Bernstein, an
Associate Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.
1974: Vladimir Davidov was detained in Sverdlovsk
following which documents describing the situation of Jews in Novosibirsk and
notebooks were taken.
1975: Today, because of deteriorating health, Mindy
“Rudolph officially ended his career as a referee in the NBA, in which he
officiated more games (2,113) than any official in league history at the time
1976(16th of Cheshvan 5737): Ninety-six
year old pianist Rosina Lhévinne, the Ukrainian born daughter of Jacques and
Maria (Katz) Bessie and the wife of fellow musician Josef Lhévinne who
dedicated her teaching career, which included working at Julliard and U.S.C, to
his memory passed away today
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lhevinne-rosina
1977: The Tony Award winning production of the
Broadway revival of “The Royal Family” by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber “was
telecast on the PBS series Great Performances” today.
1977:
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat startled the world by announcing his intention
to go to Jerusalem.
1979:
“The Rose” a biopic about Janis Joplin directed by Mark Rydell, produced by
Aaron Russo, with a screenplay by Bo Goldman and music by Paul A Rothchild was
released in the United States today.
1980(1st
of Kislev, 5741): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1980(1st
of Kislev, 5741): Eighty-one-year-old silent movie star Carmel Myers passed
away.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/myers-carmel
1984: “No Small Affair,” comedy directed by Jerry
Schatzberg and featuring Jeffrey Tambor was released in the United States
today.
1986(7th of Cheshvan, 5747): Seventy-three-year-old
A. James Speyer, the Pittsburg born “son of Stella (Tillie) Speyer and
Alexander C. Speyer and graduate of Carnegie Institute of Technology who was
one of the “leading experts on contemporary American and European art” passed
away today.
1988: “Child’s Player” a horror film featuring Dinah
Manoff was released in the United States today.
1988(29th of Cheshvan, 5749): Ninety-two-year-old
Jacob “Jake” Friedman, the native of Bridgeport who played three games for the
Hartford Blues, an early NFL team passed away today.
1989: Today, Sony Corporation acquired Guber-Peters
Entertainment Company, which up until September of 1989 had been known as
Barris Industries, Inc. an American game show production company that was
founded by Chuck Barris
1991(2nd of Kislev, 5752): Parashat Toldot
1991(2nd of Kislev, 5752): Ralph Moses
Paiwonsky, “the second person of Jewish heritage to serve as the governor of
the Virgin Islands passed away on his eighty-fourth birthday.
1992;
Two days before the nationwide PBS broadcast of “Liberators,” the world
premiere was held at New York City’s Lincoln Center before an audience of
prominent Jewish and black Americans, including Mayor David Dinkins, Lena
Horne, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Harvey Meyerhoff, the chairman of the US
Holocaust Memorial Council. The event was sponsored by WNET/Channel 13, the
film’s chief financial backer and PBS’s affiliate in New York City, and the
Holocaust Council, the federal organization established in 1980 to build and
operate the nation’s Holocaust Museum in Washington. (As reported by Mark
Schulte)
1992(13th
of Cheshvan, 5753): Eighty-three-year old Rabbi Stanley Rosenbaum Brav, the
Philadelphia born son of Herman and Hattie Mitchell Brav and the husband of
Ruth England Brav passed away today in Florida after which he was buried at the
Clifton United Jewish Cemetery in Cincinnati, OH.
1993(25th
of Cheshvan, 5754): Salman 'Id el-Hawashla, age 38, an Israeli Bedouin of the
Abu Rekaik tribe who was driving a car with Israeli plates, was killed by three
armed terrorists driving a truck hijacked from the Gaza municipality, in a
deliberate head-on collision
1994(6th
of Kislev, 5755): Eighty-four-year-old New Orleans native Louis Boasberg, a
member of the 1931 Tulane football team that went 11-0 in the regular season
and barely lost to USC in the Rose Bowl and founder of the New Orleans Novelty
Company passed away today.
1995:
Illinois native and Ivy League educated (Dartmouth and Cornel) financier Lewis
Michael Eisenberg, the co-founder of Granite Capital International Group “was
elected chairman of the board of Commissioners of the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey” today.
1997:
The New York Times featured reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison:
Inside Oracle Corporation by Mike Wilson.
1997:
Thirty-seven year Douglas Sills, the Detroit born son Archie and Rhoda Nemeth Sills, opened in his
first Broadway show today.
2000:
In Germany, “The government has decided to ask the Constitutional Court to ban
the far-right National Democratic Party for its suspected links to extremist
violence” because “Interior Minister
Otto Schily has said there was enough evidence
to justify outlawing the group, which the government says has rallied youths
for attacks on foreigners, Jews and Jewish buildings.”
2001(23rd
of Cheshvan, 5762):Hadas Abutbul, 39, of Mevo Dotan in northern Samaria was
shot and killed by Palestinian terrorists on Friday afternoon as she drove from
work in nearby Shaked.
2002(4th
of Kislev, 5763): Sgt.-Maj. Madin Grifat, 23, of Beit Zarzir was killed when a
mine exploded during a routine patrol northeast of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip.
The Givati Brigade company commander was wounded. The Islamic Jihad claimed
responsibility for the attack.
2003: The
New York Times features
reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interest
including Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel's Wars by
Yaacov Lozowick, The Case For Israel by Alan Dershowitz and Horse
People: Scenes From the Riding Life by Michael Korda
2004:
Chabad filed its lawsuit against the Russian Federation, the Russian Ministry
of Culture and Mass Communication, the Russian State Library, and the Russian
State Military Archive, asserting violations of international law and seeking
the return of its collection of sacred, irreplaceable religious books and
manuscripts.
2004:
Today “after Ariel Sharon declined the NRP's demand to hold a national
referendum regarding the disengagement, Zevulun Orlev and the party resigned
from the coalition and the government, vowing to pursue general elections in an
effort to replace Sharon with a right-wing prime minister.
2005:
Amir Peretz, the former chairman of the Histadrut trade union federation,
defeated Shimon Peres in the primary elections for the Labour leadership today.
2005:
On Election Day voters chose Jewish political leader Loretta Weinberg to serve
the remaining portion of Jewish New Jersey State Senator Byron Baer's four-year
term of office, which ends in January 2008.
2005:
“Joyeux Noël” a cinematic treatment of the Christmas truce in 1914 (which is
fully described in Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce
by Stanley Weintraub) one of whose major character is “Lt. Horstmayer, the
German Jewish officer of the 93rd Infantry” and featured Dany Boon
was released today. (Editor’s Note – Personally I think this is a marvelous,
must-see film.)
2005:
Hussam Fathi Mahajna, 36, an Israeli Arab businessman from Umm al-Fahm, was
among 57 people murdered and 300 wounded in simultaneous attacks by suicide
bombers in Amman, Jordan at three luxury hotels. Mahajna was a guest at a
wedding held at the Radisson Hotel, known to be popular with Israeli tourists.
Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attacks.
2005: Kristallnacht Remembrance Day.
2005: In New York, Novel Jews monthly literary
series presents a Henry Roth Tribute.
2006: The 10th Annual UK Jewish Film
Festival comes to a close.
2006(18th of Cheshvan, 5767): Eighty-three-year-old
East German spymaster Markus Wolf, the son Friedrich Wolf, the politically
active physician who took his family to Moscow when the Nazis came power,
passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/world/europe/10wolf.html
2006: As “Jews throughout Germany mark the 68th
anniversary of Kristallnacht” the Munich Jewish community dedicated “a major
new synagogue that symbolizes the city’s ongoing effort to realize the elusive
goal of normalcy in its relationship with the Jewish community…The synagogue is
part of a larger complex of three Jewish communal buildings that includes a
Jewish museum and community center, complete with a day school, a library and a
kosher restaurant” that will be known as
the “Jakobsplatz Jewish Center.” Munich is home to Germany’s second largest
Jewish community. German businessman Herbert Burda contributed $1.3 million to
building the community center. Burda’s
father was a Nazi who profited from “The War Against the Jews.” Herbert Burda
has “received the Leo Baeck Prize in recognition of his efforts to repair the
wrongs committed by the preceding generation.
2006: An exhibit of photographs by Julian Voloj,
titled “Forgotten Heritage: Uncovering
New York’s Hidden Jewish Past” opened at the Bronfman Center for Jewish
Life at New York University.
2007: Premier of Joel and Ethan Coen’s ‘No county
for Old Men.’
2007: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Friday
Evening services are dedicated to a Remembrance of Kristallnacht with a talk by
Fred Rogers a former resident of Frankfurt who was spared from the Shoah. Fred is long time, leading member of the
Jewish community. When he speaks, we
hear the voices of all the Fred Rogers’ who did not survive. When he speaks, we hear the voices of all the
future Fred Rogers’ that were lost in the smoke of The Night. When he speaks,
we hear the voice of a mensch. When he
speaks, “the Murder of the Six Million” takes on the dimension of personal
loss.
2007: “Birds,” an exhibition of the paintings of
Audrey Berner, on display at the Bernard Gallery in Tel Aviv comes to a close.
2007: U.S. premiere of “Lions for Lambs” co-starring
Andrew Garfield and Peter Berg.
2007: IDF troops shot two Palestinians who were
crawling near the security fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel on
Friday night, apparently planting an explosive device, the army said.
2007: Natavia Lowery is arrested and charged with
the killing of Linda Stein, the 62-year-old New Yorker who had gone from manager
of punk rock musicians to real estate broker.
2008: In New York City, the 92nd Street Y
presents “Neil Gaiman in Conversation with Chip Kidd: Sandman 20th-Anniversary
Celebration” during which “The New York Times best-selling Jewish born
author, Neil Gaiman, discusses Sandman, the acclaimed comic book series
widely considered to be one of the most original and artistically ambitious
series of the modern age. Sandman is a rich blend of modern myth and
dark fantasy in which contemporary fiction, historical drama and legend are
seamlessly interwoven. Gaiman is the author of children’s and adult titles
including, The Graveyard Book, American Gods, Coraline,
Neverwhere and Stardust. (Editor’s note:
Considering the Jewish origins of Superman, one would wonder if the evening’s
presentation might include an inquiry to any special relationship between Jews
and Comic Books.)
2008: Final Chicago area performance of Jake Ehrenreich’s “A Jew
Grows in Brooklyn at the North Shore Center For the Performing Arts.
2008: The 20th meeting of the International
Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee of the Holy See’s Commission for Religious
Relations with the Jews opened today in Budapest.
2008: Three days after she had passed away, funeral services are
scheduled to be held today in Salem, MA for 98-year-old Gertrude G. Gam the
daughter of Celia (Shube) Gam and Minsk born Rabbi Wolfe Gam
2008: “God On Trial,” the made-for-TV movie that depicts a trial
at Auschwitz in which God is charged with Breach of Contract for allowing the
Nazis to torture and murder Jews aired on PBS.
2009: Kristallnacht Remembrance
2009:
At the Hudson Institute, Norman Podhoretz, a former
editor in chief of the journal Commentary, discusses and signs his
newest book, Why Are Jews Liberals?
2009:
Israel and Jordan conducted a joint earthquake drill
today in the Beit She'an Valley, practicing techniques in evacuation and
treatment procedures, according to IDF Army Radio.
2009: The recent decision of Mahmoud Abas not to seek re-election
as President of the Palestine Authority was one of the main topics of
discussion in today’s meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu held at the White House.
2010: The New York Times featured a review of Brute: The
Life of Victor Krulak, U.S. Marine by Robert Coram. Unbeknownst to most people the famous general
was the son of Russian Jews. “He lied
about this heritage, claiming he was raised an Episcopalian. Perhaps he was
only attending to reality. At the time, the author points out, the Marine Corps
was “a veritable witches’ brew of racism and discrimination.” But General
Krulak went further than he had to, essentially disavowing his parents and
family back home in Denver for the rest of his life.
2010: Publication of the paperback edition of Lauren Grodstein’s A
of the Family today.
2010: Toronto’s 30th Annual Holocaust Education Week
which began on November 1 is scheduled to come to an end today.
2010: Rodale Publishing released America the Edible: A Hungry
History from Sea to Dining Sea by Adam Richman.
2010: Kristallnacht Remembrance Day is observed at a time when
word comes that Samuel Willenberg and Kalman Taigman, 87-year-old Israelis, who
are believed to be the last two survivors of the most chillingly efficient
killing, machine of the Nazi Holocaust: the Treblinka extermination camp in
occupied Poland are now devoting their final years trying to preserve the
memory of the 875,000 people who were systematically murdered at Treblinka in a
one-year killing spree at the height of World War II.
2010:
Yeshiva University Museum and YIVO Institute for
Jewish Research are scheduled to present a program entitled “16mm Postcards:
Home Movies of American Jewish Visitors to 1930s Poland.”
2010: Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested
several suspects charged with defrauding a German government fund that had been
established to provide help to survivors of Nazi persecution. Over 16 years,
the suspects used fake identification documents, doctored government records
and a knowledge of Holocaust history to defraud the fund of more than $42
million, according to an indictment unsealed today by the United States
attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara. In all, 17 people were indicted.
2011:
Ellen Futterman is scheduled to moderate the Fiction
Panel at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival.
2011: The 31st Annual Holocaust Education Week
sponsored by Toronto’s Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre is
scheduled to come to end. The theme for
Holocaust Education Week
2011 has been “Accountability” in commemoration of the 50th
anniversary of the trial of Adolf Eichmann and the 65th anniversary of the
first Nuremberg Trials.
2011: Kristallnacht Remembrance
2011: A conference focusing on Romania's Holocaust-era war crimes
in Ukraine and Moldova called on Romania to acknowledge and apologize for the
murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews.
The conference, which ended today, on the anniversary of Kristallnacht,
was convened to bring the full scope of World War II Romania’s fascist
state-sponsored genocide to light.
2011:
The Palestinian Authority said today that it was
weighing its next steps in wake of reports that the UN Security Council has
failed to reach consensus on the Palestinian application for membership in the
international organization.
2011: The Penn State Board of Trustees announced tonight that
Graham Spanier had resigned and head football coach Joe Paterno had been
fired--in both cases, effective immediately as part of the child sex abuse
scandal brought on by Jerry Sandusky.
2011: Israeli-American psychologist Daniel Kahneman “was awarded
the Talcott Parsons Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2012(24th of Cheshvan, 5773): Seventy-six-year Isaiah
Sheffer passed away. (As reported by Douglas Martin
2012: John Gaultier, a member of the 71st Division
Infantry Division and one of the soldiers who liberated Gunskirchen Lager
Concentration Camp is scheduled to speak this evening at Temple Judah’s Shabbat
eve services commemorating Kristallnacht and celebrating Veteran’s Day.
2012: In Greensboro, NC, Temple Emanuel is scheduled to host the
URJ Southern Region Shabbaton
2012: As Israel prepared for a stormy, wintry weekend, the airport
in Eilat, the country’s usually sunny southernmost city, was closed this
afternoon due to heavy rains which caused flooding on its landing strips. As a
result, two flights from Eilat to Tel Aviv were delayed.
2012: The New York Times
featured a review of Poems 1962-2012 by Louise Glück
2012: “Unidentified persons uprooted 11 memorial plaques
commemorating local victims of Nazism in the German city of Greifswald today,
the 74th anniversary of Kristallnacht, The Jews of Greifswald were among those
targeted throughout Germany on Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass, on
November 9, 1938. Synagogues and businesses were destroyed, and Jews throughout
the country were murdered and arrested en masse.” (As reported by Jerusalem
Post staff)
2013: “Open House Jerusalem” is scheduled to come to a close.
2013: Marion Grodin, author of Standing Up: A Memoir of a Funny
(not Always) Life and
Fred Stoller author of Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Life of a
Perennial TV Guest Star are scheduled to speak at the San Diego Jewish Book
Fair.
2013:
75th anniversary of Kristallnacht. While remembering the evil it is
good to remember the righteous such as Ernst Leitz, the head of the Leica
Camera Company his daughter Elsie Kuehn-Leitz who saved hundreds of Jews with
the Leica Freedom Train.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKxGbNXt_Is
2013:
According to a statement issued released by IsraAID today, the team that it is
sending to the Philippines to help in the aftermath of a powerful typhoon that
hit the multi-island nation yesterday “will work primarily in Tacloban City in
Leyte. (As reported by Times of Israel staff)
2013:
Former deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon said today that while he respected
the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court unanimous decision to acquit former foreign
minister Avigdor Liberman of fraud and breach of trust charges, the “truth
doesn’t always come out” in courts of law.
2013:
Sampson Gordon "Sam" Berns, an American who suffered from progeria
and helped raise awareness about the disease, “dropped the ceremonial first
puck” as a guest of the Boston Bruins.
2014:
At Melbourne, “Transit and “Night Will Fall” are scheduled to be shown at the
Jewish International Film Festival.
2014:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a conference on “World War I
and the Jews.”
2014(16th
of Cheshvan): Yarhrzeit of Rabbi Elazar M. Shach, dean of the Ponevitch Yeshiva
in Bnei Brak.”
2014:
General Assembly of the Jewish Federation is scheduled to begin today
2014:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host
“Kristallnacht Remembered” and a screening of “A Voice Among the Silent: The
Legacy of James G. McDonald.”
2014:
“A ministerial committee gave the go-ahead today for a bill that would force
the IDF’s Central Command to issue military directives for Israelis in the West
Bank that match civil laws passed in the Knesset.” (As reported by Tamar
Pleggi)
2014:
“An Israel Navy ship fired at a suspicious Palestinian vessel returning to the
Gaza Strip from the Sinai Peninsula late tonight.” (As reported by Lazar
Berman)
2014:
“World War and the Jews” a conference marking the centenary of the start of
World War One opened today at the Center for Jewish History.
2014:
The New York Times features reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate by Naomi
Klein, Gabriel: A Poem by Edward Hirsch and In Real Life by Cory
Doctorow.
2014:
“According to the Channel 2 TV documentary Uvda (“Fact”), portions of which
were broadcast tonight” “there is an ‘unprecedented
rift’ between the Shin Bet and the IDF” over the amount of warning given before
the most recent war in Gaza. h
2015:
“The Romance and Tragedy of Soviet Yiddish Culture” a four week long course is
scheduled to come to an with a lecture “From Heymland to a Non-Jewish Jewish
Autonomous Region (1953-present)” presented by David Shneer, the Louis P.
Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History at the University of Colorado Boulder.
2015:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to arrive in Washington, DC
today.
2015:
“A painting of an outstretched nude woman by the early-20th-century Jewish artist
Amedeo Modigliani sold tonight for $170.4 million.” (As reported by Robin
Pogrebin and Scott Reyburn)
2015:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a reception marking the
opening of a new exhibition “After the War: Recovery, Relief and Return,
1945-1949” during which “Atina Grossmann, author of Jews, Germans, and
Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied Germany will discuss the varied
experiences of the surviving remnant of European Jewry in the immediate postwar
period.”
2015:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host
citywide memorial “Kristallnacht: The Spark That Ignited the Holocaust” that
will feature “5 distinguished cantors: Benjamin Warschawski, Pavel Roytman,
Rachel Rosenberg, Faryn Rudnick, Laurie Akers, Cantorial Soloist
2015:
In Toronto, Holocaust Education is scheduled to come to an end with an
exploration “of how synagogues destroyed during Kristallnacht are brought to
life in contemporary Germany through digital media” and “a candle-lighting
ceremony commemorating the 77th anniversary of Kristallnacht.”
2015(27th
of Cheshvan, 5776): Ninety-five-year-old American fencer Byron Lester Krieger
who represented the United States in the 1952 and 1956 Olympics passed away
today.
2016:
Seventy-eighth anniversary of Kristallnacht.
2016:
Holocaust
historian and author of the award-winning book FDR and the Jews, Richard
Breitman, is scheduled to speak at the Kristallnacht Memorial Service sponsored
by the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center where he will examine the
U.S. government response to the November Pogrom.
2016:
Hannah Lessing, the Secretary General of the National Fund of the Republic of
Austria and the General Settlement Fund for Victims of National Socialism, as
well as the Fund for the Restoration of the Jewish Cemeteries in Austria who is
also the daughter of Holocaust survivor and photographer Erich Lessing is
scheduled to speak on “Bringing the Rimonim Home: A Personal Restitution
Journey” at the closing event of HEW (Holocaust Education Week) in Toronto.
2016:
Beit Sefer is scheduled to present “Kristallnacht Remembrance at Tifereth
Israel Synagogue in Des Moines, Iowa.
2016:
“Germans and Jews” and “Family Commitments” are scheduled to be shown at the 20th
UK International Jewish Film Festival.
2017:
“The 9th of November,” by Rachael Cerrotti was published today in Commentary.
http://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2017/11/09/kristallnacht-trump-rachael-cerrotti
2016:
“Alda’s Secrets” and Return to the Fatherland” are scheduled to have their
Chicago premier at the Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema.
2017:
The 21st UK International Jewish Festival is scheduled to begin
today “at venues across the United Kingdom.”
2017:
The 37th Annual Neuberger Holocaust Education Week” came to an end
in Toronto at the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre.”
2017:
The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host a screening of “From
Brooklyn to Beirut, in which Rola Khayyat explores the landscape of belonging
for the community of Lebanese Jews in New York – along with the fragilities and
complexities associated with a politicized identity.”
2017:
In Des Moines, IA, the Jewish Federation is scheduled to co-host “The Moment
That Changed Everything,” “a community program for Kristallnacht.”
2017:
The Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, Jewish
Community Relations Council Community Partners are scheduled to co-host
“Commemoration: Kristallnacht A Night of Broken Glass, Shattered Dreams.”
2017:
Yeshiva University Museum, the Center for Jewish History and the American
Sephardi Federation are scheduled to present a lecture by Rav Amedeo
Spagnoletto on “Traditions of Roman Jews: Life and Religion.”
2018:
In Coralville, Iowa, following Friday night services Agudas Achim is scheduled
to host a lecture by Ari Ariel on “Becoming Yeminitie/Becoming Israel.”
2018:
The UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “An Act of
Defiance.”
2018:
Eightieth Anniversary of Kristallnacht
https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/kristallnacht
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-of-kristallnacht
https://www.holocaust.cz/en/history/events/kristallnacht/
2018(1st of Kislev, 5779): Rosh
Chodesh Kislev;
2019(11th of Cheshvan): Parashat
Lech-Lecha;
2019:
81st anniversary of Kristallnacht
2019:
The Aviva Kempner Film, “The Spy Behind Home Plate” is scheduled to be shown at
the Alexandria Film Festival in Alexandria, VA.
2019:
“The Other Story” are scheduled to be shown at the Rutgers University Jewish
Film Festival.
2019:
In Metairie, LA, at Congregation Gates of Prayer,Rabbis David Gerber and Lexi
Erdheim are scheduled to officiate at Shabbat morning serving that will include
a salute to veterans presented by The Ben Katz Post #580 of the Jewish War
Veterans.
2019:
In Berkeley, CA, Urban Adamah is scheduled to host “1980s Dance Party &
Havdalah Bonfire”
2019:
In Palo Alto, CA, the Oshman Family JCC is scheduled to host “former Knesset
member Ruth Calderon as she discusses the future of Israel’s Jewish identity.”
2019:
At Oxford, as part of Interfaith Week, Chaplain Rabbi Michael Rosenfeld-Schueler
will deliver a talk followed by a Q&A “in the Faust Hall.”
2019:
“Leona” is scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.
2020:
March of the Living UK and the Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre in
partnership with LSJS are scheduled to present Professor Shirli Gilber who will
explore the November pogroms followed by testimony from survivor Eve Kugler
talking about Kristallnacht.
2020:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host Martin Kaufman as he delivers the
fourth lecture on “The Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in
Jerusalem.”
2020:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host a Kristallnacht
Commemoration marking the 82 anniversary of the Night of Broken Glass that will
featuring a closing address by Laurence Tribe on “The Nuremberg Principles:
Lessons for Today.”
2020:
The JCC Literary Consortium and JCCs across the United States are scheduled to
host “Esther Safran talking about her post-Holocaust memoir I Want You to
Know We’re Still Here preceded by a Kristallnacht commemoration led by
Rabbi Brian Glusman.
2020:
CCJCC and Congregation B’nai Shalom are scheduled to host an online streaming
presentation of “A Call to Spy.”
2020:
This year’s Monna and Otto Weinmann Annual Lecture is scheduled to “explore
three case studies involving everyday objects the Third Reich took from Jewish
families or that concentration camp prisoners made featuring a talk by Leora Asuland, the Arthur
and Joann Rasmussen Professor in Western Civilization and Professor of Modern
European Social History at the University of Chicago
2020: Eighty-second anniversary of Kristallnacht
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kristallnacht
https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/kristallnacht
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-of-kristallnacht
2021: The JDC Archives is scheduled to host a webinar on “Chief
Rabbi Dr. Moses D. Rosen's Leadership in Romania under Communism and
Afterwards: Two Perspectives”
2021: The S.F. based Farkas Center for the Study of the
Holocaust in Catholic Schools is scheduled to present online a “Kristallnacht
Commemoration: The Rose that Grew from Concrete” during which “Dan Grunfeld,
former Stanford and Israeli pro basketball player, and his grandmother,
Holocaust survivor Lily Grunfeld, will talk
about stories of love and loss across generations
2021In remembrance of Kristallnacht, former Corcoran Chair
Mark Oppenheimer is scheduled to speak about his latest publication Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the
Soul of a Neighborhood as part of event presented by the
Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College.
2021: The three-day Now Is Never Summit sponsored by the
ADL is scheduled to come to an end today.
2021: The Schusterman Center for Israel Studies is
scheduled to present online “War of Shadows”: Driving the Nazis From the Middle
East featuring War of Shadows author Gershom
Gorenberg in conversation with professor Jonathan D. Sarna and professor
Yehudah Mirsky.
2021: Kennesaw State University Baily School of Music and
The Breman Museum are scheduled to present a Special Live Kristallnacht
Commemoration featuring “Fugitive Footsteps” by Laurence Scherr and Poetry by
Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Nelly Sachs as well as the display of the
exhibition
“Words, Music,
Memory: (re) Presenting Voices of the Holocaust”.
2021: Eighty-third anniversary of Kristallnacht
On
the night of November 9, 1938, violent anti-Jewish demonstrations broke out
across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Nazi
officials depicted the riots as justified reactions to the assassination of
German foreign official Ernst vom Rath, who had been shot two days earlier by
Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year old Polish Jew distraught over the deportation of
his family from Germany. Over the next 48 hours, violent mobs, spurred by
anti-Semitic exhortations from Nazi officials, destroyed hundreds of
synagogues, burning or desecrating Jewish religious artifacts along the way.
Acting on orders from Gestapo headquarters, police officers and firefighters
did nothing to prevent the destruction. All told, approximately 7,500
Jewish-owned businesses, homes, and schools were plundered, and 91 Jews were murdered.
An additional 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
Nazi officials immediately claimed that the Jews themselves were to blame for
the riots, and a fine of one billion reichsmarks (about $400 million at 1938
rates) was imposed on the German Jewish community. The Nazis came to call the
event Kristallnacht (“Crystal Night,” or, “The Night of Broken Glass”),
referring to the thousands of shattered windows that littered the streets
afterward, but the euphemism does not convey the full brutality of the event.
Kristallnacht was a turning point in the history of the Third Reich, marking
the shift from anti-Semitic rhetoric and legislation to the violent, aggressive
anti-Jewish measures that would culminate with the Holocaust. (As described by
the Breman Museum)
2022:
In Palm Beach Gardens, Temple Judea is scheduled to a lunch and learn with
Rabbi Feivel on “Get to know the Jewish Innovators: George Gershwin.”
2022:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a virtual conversation with Benjamin
Netanyahu and Dan Senor, co-author of the Start-up Nation.
2022:
LBI is scheduled to present a lecture by Marc Grellert (TU Darmstadt) on his
decades of work creating virtual reconstructions of synagogues destroyed during
the Nazi period which began after the 1994 firebombing of a Lübeck synagogue,
the first racist attack on a Jewish house of worship in Germany since 1945.
2022:
Holocaust Education in Florida which is held annually the second November which
coincides with the anniversary of Kristallnacht is scheduled to continue today.
2022:
The Edin-Tamir Music is scheduled to a host “a special concert in memory of
Benny and Ruthie Mushkin.”
2022:
The 2022 Jewish Writers’ Conference sponsored by the Jewish Book Council is
scheduled to come to an end today.
2022:
Philip L. and Ellen V. Glass Holocaust Commemorative Series is scheduled to
present an On-Site Commemoration: Kristallnacht 84 Years Later: Special
Performance of The Suitcase.
2022:
In commemoration of Kristallnacht, the American Society for Jewish Music, YIVO,
the Leo Baeck Institute, and the Center for Jewish History, are scheduled to
present their annual program which will feature the Trio Serenade, Song of
Authum, and Rapsodia Notturna by Karol Rathaus, a Piano Trio by Hans Gál, and
the Suite Polonaise by Simon Laks, three composers who were forced to restart
their promising young careers in as immigrants in new countries.
2022:
Eighty-fourth
anniversary of Kristallnacht
2023:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host an on-site commemoration of the
85th anniversary of the "Night of Broken Glass" with an evening of
remembrance and reflection, featuring remarks from Deputy Consul General
Delphine Gamburg, Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest, and Consul General
Michael Ahrens, Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in
Chicago.”
2023:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a conversation with Joan Baez and
Patti Smith who will talk about art, activism, movies and moving on.
2023:
Jewish Art Salon, Jerusalem Biennale, Dr. Bernard Heller Museum, and American
Sephardi Federation are scheduled to present the Jerusalem Biennale in New York.
2023:
The final screening “A Pocketful of Miracles” is scheduled to take place at the
Avalon Theatre in Washington, DC.
2023:
Ninety-five-year-old Holocaust survivor Esther Bash who
2023:
JWI is scheduled to host “an online workshop to learn about the rule and the
rulemaking process, and how to submit comments supporting the rule and urging
the ATF to also address the definition of ‘dating relationship.’” was born in the
Carpathian Mountains and on her 16th birthday on May 28, 1944, was sent in a cattle car to the Auschwitz
death camps is scheduled to speak at the Solon Chabad.
2023:
The UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to begin in cinemas today.
2023:
The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled to host
online “Paths of the Righteous: Conversation with Jewish Allies” with Olga
Meshoe Washington and Lt Aston Bright moderated by Ari Mittleman.
2023:
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency is scheduled to host The Pen and the Sword:
Contemporary Israeli Writers on Israel's Future.”
2023:
As part of the Jewish Women’s Archive online history course Elisheva Baumgarten
is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Men's Instructions, Women's Deeds: Gender
and Religious Practice in Medieval Ashkenaz.”
2023:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Heerville: A New Jewish
Musical, based on the Hereville graphic novels by Barry Deutsch.
2023: Eighty-fifth anniversary
of Kristallnacht as the Hamas hostages begin their 34th day in
captivity.
2024:
Lockdown University is scheduled to host a lecture by Professor David Peimer on
Napoleon
and Hitler in Feature Film
2024((8th of Cheshvan): Yahrzeit of Avraham Elimelch
ben Yosef Dov, whose nickname was Melech and whose English name was Abraham
Levin and the Hebrew namesake of Mitchell A. Levin and the father of Joseph B.
Levin
2024(8th
of Cheshvan) Lech-Lecha (Get thee out); for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2024: The National Museum of American Jewish Museum is scheduled
to host Lunar’s
co-creator and producer Gen Xia Ye Slosberg and cast member Maya Katz-Ali for a
screening and conversation
2024
The Eden Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a concert of chamber music – A
Viennese Morning with Saida Bar Lev, violin ; Yoni Gotlibovich, cello; Assaf
Sommer, piano
2024: Kristallnacht Shabbat marking the 86th anniversary
of the night of evil which was replayed on October 7, 2023
2024:
As November 9th 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, sweeps the United States and the
Hamas held hostages begin day 400 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)
November
9aa
694: Opening meeting of the Seventeenth Council of Toledo
during which the Visigoth Catholic monarch, King Egica publicly charged
the Jews with planning to "exterminate and [destroy] their
homeland." This charge was the excuse for the enactment of some of
the most stringent laws aimed at the Jews of Iberia. The Jews and
their property essentially became the possession of the crown, allowing the
King to dispose of them as he saw fit. Furthermore, any Christian found
helping Jews would be punished. These laws represented the climax of more
than a century's worth of anti-Jewish laws. Is it any wonder that the
Jews greeted the Moors with open arms when the invaded Spain in 711?
1382: Publication
date for the Cambridge Yiddish Codex, “the oldest surviving document written in
Yiddish.”
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cambridge-Yiddish-Codex
https://jewishcurrents.org/november-9-oldest-yiddish-story
1389: Consecration of Boniface IX who gave the Jews of
Rome the legal right to observe Shabbat, protection from local oppressive
officials, a reduction in their taxes, and assurance that they would be treated
as Roman citizens.
1491: Azriel Günzenhäuser printed “Avicenna Canon” at
Naples Italy. Azriel Günzenhäuser was a 15th century German printer
who was also known as the “Ashkenazi.”
1494:
The Family de' Medici expelled as rulers of Florence. According to Rebecca
Weiner, “The fate of the Jewish community was tied to the fate of the Medici
family in Florence. Lorenzo il Magnifico defended the Jewish community from
expulsions and from the aftermath of vitriolic sermons given by Bernardino da
Feltre. A Catholic theocracy was installed in the 1490's under the Dominican
friar Girolama Savonarola, who decreed that both the Jews and the Medici family
be expelled from Florence. A loan from the Jewish community to the republic
postponed the expulsion for a short period of time. The Medicis returned to
power in 1512 and the Jewish ban was lifted, until the next Medici expulsion in
1527. Alessandro de Medici regained influence as a duke, in 1531, and abolished
anti-Jewish acts. In 1537 Cosimo de’Medici gained power in the Florentine
government. He sought the advice of Jacob Abravanel, a Sephardic Jew living in
Ferrara. Abravanel convinced Cosimo to guarantee the rights and privileges of
Spanish and Portuguese Jews, and other Levantines who settled on his borders.
This was the start of the growth of the Sephardic Jewish community in Florence.
Refuge was given to Jews from other papal states who left due to Pope Paul IV’s
anti-Jewish measures, which were not enacted in Florence. Once Cosimo received
the title of grand duke of Tuscany, his policies toward the Jews changed for
the worse. He forced Jews to wear badges in 1567, closed the Tuscan border to
non-resident Jews in 1569, shut down Jewish banks in 1570 and established a
ghetto in 1571
1526: The Jews were expelled from Hungry after being
falsely accused of aiding the Turks in the war against Hungary. This is an example of the Jews being caught
up in the cross currents of European Religious Wars. Most of Hungary had come under the control of
the Turks (yes the Islamic Ottoman Empire penetrated that far into central
Europe a fact not lost on radical Islamists today). The Hungarians were all that stood between
the Turks and the Germanic Holy Roman Empire.
But Charles V, the Emperor was not supplying aide for reasons of his
own, so the Jews ended up being scapegoats for the newly enthroned Hungarian
King’s inability to dislodge the Turks.
1526:
The Jews of Pressburg (now Bratislava) left the city a month to the day after
it had received permission from Queen Maria to expel the Jews “living within
its territory.”
1571(21st
of Cheshvan): Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Abi Ziimra (Radbaz) passed away
1621:
A 16-year-old New Christian, Moses Simonson (or Symonson) arrived in Plymouth,
Massachusetts on the ship Fortune. He came from Leyden, Holland.
1656(21st
of Cheshvan): Rabbi Moses ben Isaac Judah Levy, author of Helkat Mehokek passed
away
1683:
Birthdate of King George II for whose coronation Handle wrote “Zadok the
Priest,” an anthem based on Kings 1:38-40 which has been sung at every
coronation since 1727.
1713:
Rabbi Tzvi Ashkenazi and Moses Hagiz, the son of Jacob Hagiz were “formally
placed under a ban” by the Portuguese community in Amsterdam.
1720: The Rabbi Yehuda Hasid Synagogue in Jerusalem,
which later became known as the Hurva Synagogue was set afire. Rabbi Yehuda Hasid and a small group of a few
hundred followers arrived in Eretz Israel. The rabbi purchased the courtyard in
the Old City for the synagogue, and construction of the facility was started
after his death, but was never completed. Due to the non-payment of a loan
taken by Jews from Arabs for the construction of the synagogue, Arabs burned
down the site, desecrating its 40 Torah scrolls. The destruction wrought at the
time became the root of the name of the "Hurva" (ruin) synagogue, and
building recommenced in the late 1830s, by Perushim followers of the Vilna
Gaon. After its completion in 1864, the Hurva loomed as a cultural and
religious symbol in Eretz Israel and Jerusalem. The Hurva retained its status
as Jerusalem's leading synagogue, and public gatherings and celebrations were
held in it. Among other events, a prayer gathering to mark the coronation of
King George V was held at the Hurva. Two days after the Jewish Quarter fell to
Jordanian legionnaires during the 1948 war; the Jordanians blew up the Hurva.
The Jordanian commander on the scene reported to his superiors: "For the
first time in 1,000 years, there's not a single Jew left in the Jewish Quarter,
and not a single building that hasn't been damaged. This will make the return of
Jews here impossible." After the 1967 Six-Day War, the Hurva became a
memorial to the fall of the Jewish Quarter in 1948. A large square was created
around the site of the Hurva; and visitors could measure the dimensions of the
synagogue which once stood at the locale. An arch was built at the site which
rose to about half the height of the destroyed building, which is as high as
the top of the synagogue's dome. In 2002, the Israeli government adopted a
1757:
The local bishop at Kamienice who had side with the Sabbatians and was
responsible for the burning of “huge numbers of copies of the Talmud” being
burned starting in October died today, which “which the rabbinic Jews
recognized as divine vengeance” but which struck such “fear in the hearts of
the Sabbatians” “that many of them fled to Turkey.
1780:
Birthdate of Nicolai Wergeland, the Norwegian anti-Semite who sought to ban
Jews from his country because “it would be incompatible with Judaism to deal
honestly with Christians.”
1787:
In the Netherlands, Levie Emanuel Goudsmit, the son of Emanuel Salomons and
Esther Levie and his wife Magdalena
Hartog Goudsmit gave birth to Salomon Levie Goudsmit.
1788:
In Charleston, SC, Rebecca Moses and Solomon Harby gave birth to Isaac Harby,
the husband of Rachel Mordecai and father of Octavia, Armida, Solomon, Samuel,
Julian and Horace Harby and who gained fame as the
editor of the Charleston Mercury and playwright whose “Alberti”
premiered with President Monroe in the audience.
1792:
Birthdate of German native Rosein Loeb, the wife of Elias Kohlberg and mother
of Friederike Kohlberg.
1794:
In Black Mingo, SC, Sarah Judah and Lizer Joseph gave birth to Eleanor Joseph,
the wife of Israel Solomons with she had nine children.
1794:
In Bavaria, Sara Asscher and Gabriel Hirsch Benda, gave birth to Sigismund
Benda and the husband of Fanny Emden with whom he had eight children.
1803:
Nathan Joseph Magnus married Simony Solomon today.
1812:
Birthdate of Aaron Bachrach the Baltimore businessman who in 1839 married
Augusta Straus Bachrach with whom had six children including Decatur, Illinois
clothing merchant Henry Bachrach
1815:
Birthdate of Anton Ree, the son of a Hamburg banker who started as a teacher at
the Jewish Free School in 1838 and became its director in 1848.
1816:
The report on the state of the Ordinance Department in Ireland written by
Robert Plumer Ward, the London born son John Ward and his wife Rebecca Raphael,
a member of “a Sephardic Jewish family from Genoa and political ally of Prime
Minister William Pitt, was published today.
1820:
In London, Rebecca Phineas Romanel and Joseph “Moses” Talano gave birth to
Rachel Tolano, the husband of Joseph Belasco with whom she had eleven children.
1828:
In Philadelphia, PA, Isaac Phillips and his wife, the former Sarah Moss, the
daughter of John Moss gave birth to Barnet Phillips, a graduate of the
University of Pennsylvania, husband of Jospehine Myers of Savannah and a writer
for the New York Times starting in
1872 who also wrote several books including The Struggle and Burning
Their Ships. (Isidor Levi shows the
birthdate as November 7, 1827)
1828:
In Charleston, SC, Elias P. and Rachel E. Levy gave birth to Charles Ferdinand
Levy, the husband of Laura Louise Levy.
1829(13th
of Cheshvan, 5590): Sixty-five-year-old Rebecca Levy, the wife of Solomon Levy
and the daughter of Uriah and Eva Esther Hendricks passed away today.
1832: One day after she had passed away, 6-year-old
“Rita b Hayim” was buried today at the “Ipswich Old Jewish Cemetery.”
1835:
Seligman Ben Schemmel Landauer, the Bavarian born son of Samuel and Rebecca
Landauer and his wife Zirle (Cilli) Landauer gave birth to twin sons, Joseph
and Salomon Landauer.
1836:
In New York, Montague M. Hendricks, the New York born son of Francis and Harmon
Hendricks, and his wife Rachel Siexas Nathan gave birth to Harmon Hendricks,
not to be confused with the copper merchant of the same name.
1837: British philanthropist Moses Montefiore, 52,
became the first Jew to be knighted in England. Montefiore was a banking
executive who devoted his life to the political and civil emancipation of
English Jews.
1841:
The Creole, a brig whose cargo of slaves had seized the ship sailed into the
harbor at Nassau in what would be the next “act” in an international
incident that would result in litigation in which Judah P. Benjamin
“represented insurance companies being sued.”
1843: Birthdate of Joseph Kahn who was buried
in the Jewish Cemetery in Schweich, Germany
1845: The
original Jewish Publication Society was established in Philadelphia today.
Abraham Hart was its first president. The society owed its existence to Isaac
Leeser. It published eleven works, including two by Grace Aguilar.
1846: Henry Emanuel Goldsmith, the Dutch born son of
Emanuel Levie Goldsmith and Alijda Joseph Joel Goldsmith and Anna Goldsmith
gave birth to Mary Goldsmith, the wife of Solomon Frank.
1847:
Birthdate of Edward
1849:
In Mulbach, Germany, Pauline and Aron Fleischer gave birth to Samuel Fleischer,
the husband of Emilie Fleischer with whom he had four children – Bernhard,
Paula, Julius and Arthur.
1849:
Daniel Webster wrote a letter to M. M. Noah today expressing his regrets that
he will not be able to attend the anniversary dinner of the Hebrew Benevolent
and German Hebrew Benevolent Society to be held later this month in New York
City. In the letter he expressed his
on-going "respect and sympathy" for the Jewish people whose
"scriptures I regard as the fountain from which we draw all we know of the
world around us, and of our own character and destiny as intelligent, moral and
responsible beings." What Webster
did not say in the letter that he had to turn down the invitation due to health
problems.
1850:
Birthdate of Louis Lewin, the German pharmacologist who “published the first
methodical analysis of the Peyote cactus.
1851:
In Berlin, Ezekiel and Caroline (Lowenstein) Eckmann gave birth to Max Eckmann
who in 1874 emigrated to the United States, where he married Marie Slupecki in
1875, became a manufacturer of novelties, helped organized the Independent
Order of B’rith Abraham and served as a Republican in the New York State
Assembly.
1853:
Moses Moss married Sophia Levy at the Great Synagogue today.
1853:
“Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews” published today described the “first in a series
of lectures on the Sacred Poetry of Hebrews” delivered by Rabbi Morris Jacob
Raphill of B’nai Jeshurun also known as the Greene Street Synagogue in which
among other things he “divided the poetry of the Hebrews into four periods” –
“antediluvian” through the Joseph; “Moses to David;” “David to the death of
Solomon; “the Prophetic Poetry from the subdivision of the Hebrew Monarchy down
to the return after the Babylonian captivity.”
1854: Morris Simeon Oppenheim, the London born of “son
of Simeon Oppenheim, secretary of the Great Synagogue” “was admitted as a
student to the Middle Temple” today which was the first step to his being
“called to the bar in1858.”
1855:
Rabbi Nathan Adler founded Jew’s College
1856: In Pittsburgh, Congregation Rodef Shalom was
charted today listing among its primary objectives “the furtherance of
the cause of Religion” and “the establishment of a good school in which the
young shall be instructed in the principles of the Hebrew Religion as well as
general branches of knowledge.”
1858:
“Abduction of a Christian Duty” published today traces the history of the
Mortara Affair in which an Italian Jewish boy was effectively kidnapped by the
Pope himself. According to the article,
the Pope’s behavior puts him at odds with many of the governments of Europe and
jeopardizes the rights of all Protestants (as well as Jews and Moslems) that
visit any of the papal domains.
1859:
In London, Rachel Lewis and Henry Harris gave birth to Rabbi Maurice Henry
Harris, the husband of Kitty Green, the holder of three degrees of Columbia and
founder of Hand in Synagogue in Harlem which later became Temple Israel who was
“a pioneer in the settlement house movement” and President of the Central
Conference of American Rabbis.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1930/06/25/96161672.html?pageNumber=18
1861:
In New York City, Pauline Sondheim and Emanuel Lehman, the co-founder of Lehman
Brothers gave birth to Philip Lehman, the husband of Carrie Lauer and father of
Robert and Pauline Lehman who gained fame as investment banker and art
collector.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9406E1DB173CE13BBC4A51DFB566838C659EDE
1862:
In Warsaw, Pauline and Feibisch Jolles gave birth to Dr. Adolf Jolles
1864:
Phillip Levy, who risen to rank of Sergeant in Company G of the 193rd
Regiment completed his military service today
1865:
Philadelphian Herman completed twenty-four months of service with the 152nd
Regiment of the Third Artillery where he had risen to the rank of Sergeant”
after which he served “in Company A of the Fourth United States Cavalry.”
1865:
In Vincennes, Indiana, Adam Gimble who had come to the U.S. from Bavaria in
1835 and his wife gave birth to Ellis A. Gimbel, Sr. the department store
owner, co-founder of the Pennsylvania Broadcasting Company and philanthropist
1865:
Simon P. Jacoby who had begun serving in December of 1863 completed his service
as a member of Batter E of the 152nd Regiment.
1866:
In Salt Lake City, Mary Goldsmith and Conrad Prag gave birth to Florence Pag
Kahn. Six years after the passage of the 19th amendment, Calvin Coolidge was in
the White House, prohibition was still on the books, and newly widowed Florence
Prag Kahn became the first Jewish woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress on
February 17, 1925. As the wife of the U.S. Congressman from San Francisco, Kahn
had developed her own public voice by writing a column for her hometown
newspaper about Washington doings. When her husband died in 1925, she won a special
election that made her only the fifth woman to serve in Congress. Kahn served
twelve years until 1937, a strong Republican voice for Bay Area public works
projects and the rights of Chinese women and Native Americans. The next Jewish
woman to serve in Congress was New York's Bella Abzug who was elected in 1970.
Kahn argued that "there is no sex in citizenship and there should be none
in politics." She made this point in a slightly different way in the
context of a newspaper interview that noted her refusal to lose weight or tend
to her hair in order to please others. When asked later in the interview why it
was that she received more than twice as many votes as her late husband ever
got, she responded, "sex appeal!"
1867:
In Albion, NY, Mina and Simon Landauer gave birth to Jacob “Jake” Landuaer, the
husband of Eva Landuer who was one of Albion’s leading merchants and who was
elected three times as Democrat to sever as the mayor “in a community that has
been predominately Republican.”
1869:
In Salt Lake City, Utah, Mary Goldsmith and Conrade Prag gave birth to San
Francisco high school teacher, the wife of Congressman Julius Kahn whom she
succeeded her husband in the House of
Representatives.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/kahn-florence-prag
1869:
Birthdate of New York native and NYU and University of Wisconsin trained dental
surgeon Samuel Hess who passed away in 1956.
1871:
Birthdate of Florence Rena Sabin an American medical scientist. As a
pioneer for women in science she was the first woman to hold a full
professorship at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the first woman elected to
the National Academy of Sciences, and the first woman to head a department at
the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. In her retirement years, she
pursued a second career as a public health activist in Colorado, and in 1951
received a Lasker Award for this work. She passed away in 1953.
1873:
Three days after he had passed away, 73 year old “watch and clockmaker” Lewis
Lyon, the husband of Mary Phillips with whom he had nine children, was buried
today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”
1874(29th of Cheshvan, 5635): Israel Bak, the man who created the first
Hebrew printing press,
passed away. Israel Bak was a native of Berdichev in the
Ukraine who came to Safed in 1831. In his native city, he had published some
thirty books. He reestablished his publishing operations in Safed. First off
the press, in 1832, was a Sefardi prayer book, the first Hebrew book printed in
the Holy Land after a hiatus of 245 years. This was followed in 1833 by the Book
of Leviticus, with the commentaries of Rashi and Hayim Joseph David Azulai,
a favorite of Sefardi Jews. No traces remain of either Genesis or Exodus, if indeed they were ever
published, but it is possible that they were destroyed during the peasant
revolt against Muhammad Ali in 1834, in which Bak's press was destroyed and Bak
himself was wounded. More likely only Leviticus was published, the first
of a projected five-volume edition of the Pentateuch, because it was the custom
to begin instruction of the Chumash
in the schools not with Genesis but with Leviticus. The school
year began in the spring, when the Book of Leviticus was being read in the
synagogue, and it made good sense to synchronize Bible study in the school with
Bible reading in the synagogue. Bak turned to agriculture but continued
printing, even after the earthquake of 1837 devastated his shop. The Druze
revolt in 1838 destroyed both his farm and press, and Bak departed for
Jerusalem where, in 1841, he once again established his press, the first Hebrew
press in Jerusalem.
1875:
In Williamsport, PA, Jennie May and Henry J. Messing gave birth to Washington
University trained attorney who served as the real estate editor of the St.
Louis Star and “news editor of the Chicago Examiner.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/03/30/83913597.html?pageNumber=21
1878(13th of Cheshvan, 5639): Abraham
Dob Bär Lebensohn passed away. Born in Vilinius between 1789 and 1794, he was a
rabbi known for his poetical works including Shir Habibim. He was the
father-in-law of Rabbi Joshua Steinberg, who worked with the Russian government
as an educator and who wrote works in English, Hebrew and German.
1879:
The service at Temple Beth-El in memory of the late Rabbi David Einhorn began
at 4 o’clock this afternoon. The
sanctuary was completely filled and late arrivals had to be turned away. Rabbis Kohler, Gottheil, Hirsch and Jacobs
delivered eulogies. Einhorn’s funeral
had taken place on November 6.
1879:
Professor Felix Adler delivered a lecture today entitled “Struggle of Free
Religion in the United States” which was “a glowing and eloquent tribute” to
the late Rabbi David Einhorn, even though it did not specifically mention the
Jewish leader by name.
1879(23rd
of Cheshvan, 5640): Abraham Aub passed away.
He has served as President of the Orphan Asylum of Cleveland since it
was established by the B’nai Brit and is a past President of the Jewish Hospital
and Hebrew Relief Association.
1880:
At today’s meeting of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment funds were
allocated to a variety of charities including $1,898.28 to the Hebrew
Children’s Guardian Society
1880:
David Belasco using the stage name of “Walter Kingsley” opened with the cast of
“The Legion of Honor” when it opened at the Park Theatre in New York City.
1880:
In Leadville, David May and Rosa Shoenberg who were married today received a
“china chamber set” as wedding gift from Jacob Schloss and his son-in-law
Morris D. Altman both whom were “prominent merchants in the liquor business”
and leaders in the Jewish community.
1881:
Specifications were filed today at the Bureau of Inspection of Buildings for a
new building to be occupied by the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews.
1881:
In Paris, “The Eleventh Correctional Chamber finished up today the first act of
a suit for swindling” in which “the plaintiffs are a couple of Dutch Jews”
named Vandenborg who are in the business of buying and selling old clothes as
well as moneylending. (This combination
of businesses was not unusual, as those successful in the first often leveraged
into the latter.)
1881:
It was reported today that the Jewish “bears” have lost three hundred thousand
francs on speculation surrounding the Union General.
1882:
“Co-Operation In Alms-Giving” published today described efforts to promote
cooperation among charities in New York City including the participation of all
Jewish congregations in the United Hebrew Charities.
1883:
“Sir Moses Montefiore’s Birthday” published today described the celebrations of
the distinguished Anglo-Jewish philanthropist who Rabbi Kaufman Kohler said
“was the same kind of benefactor to Jewish people that Peter Cooper had been to
the American people.”
1883:
“The Duel At Temesvar” published today described the duel fought between Dr.
Jules Rosenberger, a prominent Jewish Hungarian lawyer and Comte Etienne de
Battyany over the love of a woman – Hona de Schossberger. Rosenberger, the young woman’s husband,
mortally wounded his royal rival when the Count refused to end the duel when he
was wounded during the first round of gunfire.
1884:
A fire broke out today at a building on Cannon Street in Manhattan that house
the workshops of several Jewish tailors and cigar-makers
1884:
In Galatz, Romania, “Lipa and (Rosenbluth) Berger gave birth to New York
trained dentist Ilie L. Berger, the husband of Anna Berger and active member of
the Jewish community who served as Chairman of the Board of Temple Beth Israel,
Vice President of the New England Zionist Region and vice chairman of the
United Palestine Appeal.
1884:
It was reported today that John H. Bird will play Shylock, the Jew, in an
upcoming performance of the “Merchant of Venice.”
1885:
The Auckland Synagogue was opened today
1886:
Aron Mendel Michelson to Berl and Betti (Frank) Michelson, a Jewish family
living in Liepāja, Latvia gave birth to David Pablo Boder, the American
professor of psychology who “traveled Europe in 1946 to interview Holocaust
survivors.
https://voices.library.iit.edu/david_boder
1886:
In Philadelphia, Minnie Green and Bohemian born milliner Joseph Leopold gave
birth to Isaiah Edwin Leopold who gained fame as Ed Wynn, one of a long list of
Jewish entertainers who enjoyed successively successful careers in vaudeville,
film, radio and television. Wynn starred
on comedy variety programs during the 1950’s.
One of his signature props was a piano that was configured as part of
tricycle. Others remember him for his
portrayal as one of the zany characters in the Disney film Mary Poppins. He passed away in 1966. Ironically, having
had to hide the fact he was Jewish, he received a nomination for an Academy
Award for Best Support Actor for his role as Mr. Dussell in “The Diary of Anne
Frank.”
1888:
“Verestchagin’s Paintings” published today described the wide variety of
canvases produced by the “globe-trotting” Russian painter Vasily Vasilyevich
Vereshchagin whose works included pictures of Palestine and local Jews.
1888: In Campbellsville, KY, Isaac and Hannah (Bloomfield) Jablow gave birth
to University of Louisville trained physician and Dallas, TX resident Harry B.
Jablow, who served as Lt. in the Medical Department of the United Sates Navy
from 1917 to 1919 and was a director of Temple Brotherhood at Temple Emanu-El
and the Jewish Federation for Social Service.
1889:
It was reported today that the Harlem Glee Club will be performing at an
upcoming benefit concert that is a fundraiser for the Hebrew Sheltering
Guardian Society.
1889:
It was reported today Professor Edwin R.A. Seligman of Columba College will
address an upcoming meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1890:
“Austrian society” is impressed by the Prince of Wales’ weeklong visit to Baron
Maurice de Hirsch. Given the
view of Jews in European High Society, the idea that the heir to the British
throne would travel such a great distance to spend a week with a Jew was almost
beyond their comprehension. The Baron is
the son of a Bavarian banker and is now worth above 20,000,000 English pounds.
1890:
Annie Stein, who had been erroneously advised by a Roman Catholic priest that
her marriage to her Jewish husband Morris Stein was not valid and had left him
for that reason, has returned to him now that the Judge has explained to her
that in the eyes of the law she was indeed married and she had been given bad
advice.
1891(8th
of Cheshvan, 5652): Sixty-eight year old Simon Bacher the Hungarian poet who
wrote in Hebrew and whose son posthumously published “a selection of his works”
“under the title Sha’ar Shim’on.
1891:
In Brooklyn, violinist Mark N. Isaacson and Amelia Isaacson gave birth to
Charles David Isaacson, the nephew of Barney Isaacson, a court violinist to
Queen Victoria, who was a newspaper music critic, opera company manager and a
radio broadcasting pioneer serving as the innovative director at Stations WRNY
and WGL.
1892:
After helping build the main line of the Jaffa to Jerusalem railroad, engineer
George Franjieh today proposed a tramway in Jerusalem, which would connect it
to Ein Kerem and Bethlehem—only six weeks after the line's official opening.
1892:
Birthdate of Berlin native and German philologist Erich Auerbach, the author of
Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, who fled to
Turkey after the rise of the Nazis before settling in the United States where
he taught at Penn State before being appointed Professor Roamce Philology at
Yale University.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/09/the-book-of-books
1893:
Lewis May presided at tonight’s “mass meeting” of young Jews at the building
belonging to the Retail Grocers’ Union where plans were made to raise money to
build a new home for the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1893:
The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band performed at the Lenox Lycuem.
1893:
The will of the late Louis Arnheim was filed for probate today.
1894:
In New York under the consolidated charter, the Hebrew Benevolent Society
receives $79,000 and the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society receives $32,000
for the year.
1894:
The American Hebrew celebrated its 15th
anniversary today by printing a special memorial issue.
1896:
Julius Harburger, the Excise Commissioner of New York City, addressed a meeting
of the Boston chapter of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel, of which
he is a Grand Master.
1896:
Four days after she had passed away, eighty year old Rachel, Countess d’Avigdor
, “the second daughter of Sir Isaac Lyon and Isabel Goldsmid, the wife of Count
Salamon Henri d'Avigdor, son of the d'Avigdor who was a member of the Great
Sanhedrin assembled by Napoleon, with whom she had three sons and one daughter
was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1896:
In St. Louis, MO, Morris Garfinkle, the son of Abraham Garfinkel, and his wife
gave birth to Tillie Garfinkel who became Tillie Silver when she married Albert
J. Silver.
1896:
In St. Louis, Rose and Benjamin Agruss gave birth to Aaron Harry Agruss, the
husband of Sue Wise.
1896:
Dr. Wendell C. Phillips will deliver a lecture on “Prevention of Germ Diseases”
tonight at the Hebrew Institute which is sponsored by the Education Alliance.
1897:
The Apprenticing Committee of the Jews’ Hospital and Orphan Asylum is scheduled
to meet this morning at Hamilton House in London.
1897:
The Library Sub-Committee of Jews’ College is scheduled to at the office of the
Chief Rabbi at Finsbury Square.
1897:
In what was one of the major events of the social season, Dr. Joseph Silverman,
the assistant Rabbi at Temple Emanu-El officiated at the weeding Miss Ray
Baumgartern, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Moses Baumgarten to Adolph Levy at
the Madison Square Garden Concert Hall
1897:
Police believe today that a cousin of Captain Dreyfus and his American born
wife Rebecca Fortado Abraham committed suicide by inhaling charcoal fumes. In a letter addressed to his business partner
and his mother-in-law, Dreyfus wrote that “It is better for the children to die
with their parents, as their mother has also elected to commit suicide” which
would seem to be the justification for their killing their three young
daughters.
1898:
Theodore Herzl began his two-day
journey to Naples aboard the "Regina Margherita".
1898:
Birthdate of Holocaust survivor Mortiz Sternfeld who moved to Bocholt. German
in January of 1936.
https://www.ushmm.org/online/hsv/person_view.php?PersonId=4113736
1898(24th
of Cheshvan, 5659): Private George C. Hahn, from Putnam who had been serving
with Company G of the 1st Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry
passed away today.
1898:
Reliable sources were saying tonight that Richard Croker was one of the Tammany
district leaders who would be replaced in the wake of the electoral defeat
because he had failed to deliver the Jewish vote in New York County.
1899:
Birthdate of New York City and Fordham trained attorney Neil Merrill Leiblich
the president of Young Israel; an officer
League for Jewish Education, and an executive director Council of Zionists.
1899:
Texan Andrew Moses who had been serving as 2nd Lieutenant in the 7th
Artillery was promoted to the rank of 1st Lieutenant in the 3rd
Artillery
1900:
“Bible Teacher’s College” published today described the three hundred lectures
to be offered at the Bible Teacher’s College in Montclair, N.J. including “ten
studies of Isaiah by Professor Ira M. Price of the University of Chicago.
1901:
Charles Frank Levy, the New Orleans born son of L.H. and Regina E. Levy who
went from a partnership with his father in the Olive Street Furniture to
founding the Hub Furniture today married Dorothy Watson who whom he had two
children, Charles, Jr. and Regina.
1901:
Seven thousand dollars was raised today on what was the first observance in the
United States of Shekel Day “which has been observed for several years in
Europ.
1902:
This evening, “The Rev. Dr. George C.
Lorrimer, in the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, preached on the subject,
"The Debt of the World to the Jew” and said that the persecution of the
Jewish race had been one of the great crimes of the ages and that the survival
of the Jew was nothing short of a miracle.
1903:
Birthdate of Dr. Gregory Goodwin Pincus: Father of "The Pill." Dr.
Pincus and Dr. M.C. Chiang, his collaborator, developed the first practical
oral contraceptive birth-control pill after being persuaded to do so by
Margaret Sanger, a leader in the American birth-control movement, and Katherine
Dexter McCormick, an heir to the International Harvester fortune.
1904: Philadelphia born attorney Joseph Leon Buttenwieser “sold
the Grand American Hall formerly known as the Germania Assembly Rooms and a
five story tenement at 233 West 27th Street in New York.
1904:
Anglo-Jewish banker Sir Ernest Cassel was met today by Jacob Schiff as he
disembarked from the White Star liner Oceanic.
1905:
The National Committee for the Relief of Suffers by Russian Massacres met at
the United Hebrew Charities Building to organize relief efforts for those who
have suffered during the last ten days of violence in Russia. While most of the victims were Jews, it was
decided that aid would be distributed to all who have suffered regardless of
their religious affiliation
1905:
An appeal for aid for the suffering Jews in Russia entitled “To the Jews of
America” published today read in part “The victims of the awful riots and
massacres in Russia re not all numbered with the dead. The living, starving survivors who have lost
their breadwinners and the maimed mutely appeal to a pitying world for
aid. Therefore each community is hereby
requested to organize at once and without further notice for the purpose of
raising fund to aid these destitute living victims. Funds when collected by may
forewarned to Mr. Jacob H. Schiff of New York for proper distribution.
1905:
“It is reported from St. Petersburg that” “the Jewish population is
panic-stricken” because “there are signs in that city of preparations to
massacre the Jews.”
1906:
Today, President Teddy Roosevelt, who appointed the first Jewish cabinet
secretary and who contributed a portion of his Nobel Prize money to Jewish
charity “went to Panama to view the progress on the building of the Panama
Canal.
1907(3rd
of Kislev, 5668): Parashat Tolodot
1907:
Tennessee coached by George Levene tied Kentucky State College today.
1907:
In St. Thomas, Isaac and Rebecca Kushner Paiewonsky gave birth to Ralph Moses
Paiwonsky, “the second person of Jewish heritage to serve as the governor of
the Virgin Islands.
1907:
In New York City Eugene E. Sperry and Rosalie Stanton Bloomingdale gave birth
to Lucy Bloomingdale Sperry.
1908:
“Pastor Otto Eberhard, “one of the leading experts on the modern cultural state
of Palestine’ is scheduled to give a lecture today under the auspices of The
Executive Committee of the Zionist chapter Hamburg-Altona.
https://jewish-history-online.net/article/weber-christian-friends-zionism
1908:
It was reported today that Rabbi Samuel Schulman of Temple Beth El has
suggested that the memory of” Percival S. Menken who passed away last May
“should be perpetuated by the building of other city branches of the Young
Men’s Hebrew Association” which had been part on Mr. Menken’s “own plans.”
1909(25th
of Cheshvan, 5670): Forty-year-old Miss Chasse Stikan passed away today.
1909(25th
of Cheshvan, 5670): Rabbi Joseph Mayor Asher, Professor at the Jewish
Theological Seminary, an “erudite Talmudic scholar” and Rabbi at Or Chayim
Synagogue since 1906 passed away at the age of 37.
https://kevarim.com/rav-yosef-mayor-asher/
1909:
The week-long meeting of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, “which was
founded by the late Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, is scheduled to open this evening
“with a public meeting at Temple Beth-El on Fifth Avenue and Seventy-Sixth
Street.
1910:
In Baltimore, MD, Jacob Silverman, the son of Shlomo Silverblatt and his wife
Rachel Silverman, gave birth to his first child born in America, Shirley
Silverman Rosen, the wife of Meyer Rosen and the mother of Eli Rosen and Iris
Levy.
1910:
President William Howard Taft, who was so highly thought by the Jews of
Cincinnati that they planted a forest in his honor in Israel and who was the
first President to attend a Seder but who wrote a letter opposing the
appointment of Brandeis to the Supreme Court because he was a Jew, prepared to
set sail on trip that would take him to Panama where he could examine progress
on the building of the canal.
1911:
I.N. Bloom of Louisville, KY, was appointed by the Governor to serve on the
committee arranging the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial Building in
Hodgeville, KY.
1911:
In Antwerp, Jacob Querido, and Anna Heilbron gave birth Elisabeth Querido who
married Israel Aandagt and as Elisabeth Aandagt was murdered by the Nazis in
Poland.
1912(29th
of Cheshvan, 5673): Parashat Toldot
1912(29th
of Cheshvan, 5673): Isaac Levy, a merchant, passed away today in Columbus,
Ohio.
1912:
It was reported today that “the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland has awarded
this year’s gold medal for highest marks at their license examinations to Mr.
Joel Green of Dublin.”
1912:
It was reported today that “Dr. Meyer has been appointed senior tuberculosis
officer by the municipality of Hull, England.”
1912:
It was reported today that “a son of the editor of the Hebrew paper Haor,
published daily in Jerusalem, has been arrested for having written an article”
that spoke “of the Turkish government in unfavorable terms.”
1912:
In New York City, Adolph and Rose Brodkin gave birth to the youngest of their
six children, Herbert Brodkin who produced shows for the high quality dramatic
television program “Playhouse 90.” (As reported by Eleanor Blau)
1913:
Arnold Schönberg “completes the orchestral song "Seraphita", op. 22,
No. 1.
1914:
Birthdate of William Lewis Abramowitz, the 1935 MIT graduate and “plastics
company executive” who was the husband of “the former Lena Epstein, with whom
he had four children – Kenneth, Susan, Ava and Gail.
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/25/archives/william-abramowitz.html
1914(20th
of Cheshvan, 5675): Sixty-three-year-old Julius Hamburger, the Tammany
political leader, former Coroner of New York County and Sherriff of New York
County passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1914/11/10/100112819.html?pageNumber=11
1914:
In Vienna, Lemberg born bank director Emil Kiesler and pianist Gertrud
Lichtwitz gave birth to Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler who would gain fame as actress
Hedy Lamarr.
1914:
When Liberal MP Herbert Samuel asked Sir Edward Grey about a homeland for the
Jewish people, the Foreign Secretary replied “that the idea had alwas had a
strong sentimental appeal to him and he would be prepared to work for it if the
opportunity arose.”
1914:
Four days after Britain’s declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire “Zionism was
first discussed at a British Cabinet meeting” after which David Lloyd George,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer (and future Prime Minister) assured fellow cabinet
member Herbert Samuel that "he was very keen to see a Jewish state
established in Palestine."
1914:
In Beten, Poland, “Ya’akov-Yizhak Lubetkin”
and his wife the former “Hayyah Zilberman” gave birth to Ziva Lubetkin
one of the founders of the ZOB (Jewish National Committee) who survived the
Warsaw Ghetto and settled in Palestine after the war.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/zivia-lubetkin
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lubetkin-zivia
1915:
Joseph Kornfeld of Columbus, Ohio, was re-elected member of the Board of
Education.
1915:
“7,000,000 Jews Starving” published today included the description by Louis Brandeis
of the plight the Jews in war-torn Europe as well as “the success of the Jewish
colony in Palestine which…is becoming stronger and stronger every day.
1915:
“Correspondence of the Frankfurter Zeitung from Jerusalem says…twenty thousand
Russian Jews requested Turkish citizenship which was granted without the
payment of the ordinary taxes.
1915:
“A plea for Americanism as above Zionism was made by Jacob H. Schiff before a
large audience at the joint meeting of the Eastern Council of Reform Rabbis and
the Jewish Religious School at Temple Emanu-El” tonight during which he
“denounced Zionism or any other movement that tended to emphasize the question
of race or nationalism as foreign to the best interests of the Jewish people,”
1916:
It was reported today that victory of Meyer London, the Socialist candidate
running for the House of Representatives from the 12th Congressional
District was due to large support among Jewish voters but the large Jewish vote
for President Wilson was not enough for him to carry Manhattan.
1917: During World War I, Australian and New
Zealand forces under the command of General Allenby were within twenty miles of
Latrun which is the western entrance to the hills on the road to
Jerusalem. Yes, this is the same Latrun
that Jewish forces tried to seize during the War for Independence to open the
road from the coast to Jerusalem.
1917:
British aircraft continued to bomb and strafe Turkish forces retreating from
Beersheba.
1917:
In London, the British Government made public the letter sent a week earlier
which is known as the Balfour Declaration.
Herbert Samuel spoke at a thanksgiving rally at Covent Garden in which
he finished by intoning, in Hebrew, the age old declaration, “Next Year in
Jerusalem.” The declaration was published in the Jewish Chronicle. According
to one source, the government had deliberately delayed the public announcement
so that it would appear for the first time in a Jewish paper.
1917:
“A German aircraft was shot down in flames near the Wadi Hesi, as Australian
aircraft attacked Ottoman and German installations and ammunition dumps
1918:
“Oppose Zionist Plan” published today described a meeting of 500 Syrians at a
Brooklyn hotel where they adopted a resolution calling on the Allies to oppose
any settlement by Jews in Palestine – an opposition may have been more of the
desire for the development of “Greater Syria” which was a goal of some Arab
leaders following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.
1918:
As World War I was coming to an end Prince Max Baden, the Chancellor, announced
the abdication the Kaiser and then later that day found himself forced to
resign – creating the chaos that would later lead to the “stabbed in the back
myth.”
1918:
As Germany falls into social and political chaos at the end of World War I,
Kurt Eisner, Provisional National Council Minister-President, declares Bavaria
to be a republic. Kurt Eisner was born at Berlin on May 14 1857, of Jewish
parents, his parental name being Kamonowsky. Eisner was the name he took when
he began to write, and that name he adopted in his work for Social-Democracy.
1918(5th
of Kislev, 5679): Sixty-nine year old Vilna born, German trained Reform Rabbi
Herman Eliassof who led Congregation Beth-El in Chicago while editing The
Occident and several history books including The Jews of Chicago and The
Jews of Illinois.
ttps://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/eliassof-herman]
1918:
Birthdate of Brooklyn native Columbia trained cellist and composer Hoard
Shanet, the husband of Bernice Grafstein and father Laurence Paul Shanet who served om the Pacific during WW II, was a
conductor of Columbia’s orchestra and chaired its Music Department.
1918(5th
of Kislev, 5679): Sixty-one-year-old Albert Ballin, the owner and manager of
the Hamburg America Line passed away.
1919: It was reported today that The Story Books of the
Early Hebrews by Charles Reynold, the Dean of the School of Religion at Yale
University is available for purchase.
1919: “After spending five years in Galicia where he
witnessed much of the recent fighting, Simon Margulies” a New York City cigar
maker walked into the offices of the Ukrainian National Committee, 30 East
Seventh Street, with a large bundle of letters from Galician Ukrainians to
their relatives in the United States “concerning conditions in their native
land” where he said that after the Austrian Empire had fallen apart, the first
act of the liberated Poles was to swoop down upon Lemberg where they massacred
800 Jews{ including the “four hundred who driven into a synagogue” which the
Poles then set on fire.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/11/10/118180371.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1920:
In Denver, CO, The Triennial Convention of Jewish Women continued to meet for a
third day at the Brown Hotel.
1920:
In Baltimore, MD, the seventh annual convention of the Mizrachi Organization of
the United States and Canada continued for a second day.
1920:
This evening Dr. Edwin Slosson of Columbia University, the author of Major
Prophets of Today and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is scheduled
to deliver an address on “Jewish Achievement in Science” to members “of the
Auxiliary of Central Synagogue.”
1921:
Samuel Lewin lost his game today in the Metropolitan pocket billiard
championship tournament being planed at the Broadway Billiard Academy.
1922:
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards Albert Einstein the Nobel Prize
for Physics.
1922:
Two days after he had passed away in Atlantic City, funeral services were held
today at Rodeph Sholom in Philadelphia for seventy-two year old Jacob Gimbel
the Vincennes, IN, born son Fridolyn Khan-Wheeler and Adam Gimbel who had
“resigned the Presidency of Gimbel Brothers two years ago due to ill health”
1923:
After Nationalists paraded through the streets in parts of the Ruhr in an
“attempt to drive the out the Jews and declare a pogrom” the Jews “fled in
great numbers toward Cologne this morning, fearing further anti-Semitic riots.”
1923:
In responding to reports that Henry Ford was considering a run for the Presidency,
Rabbi I.L. Brill told the Both Israel congregation at the Jewish community
centre tonight that "there is a distinct difference between running the
United States and operating an automobile factory: and Cabinet Ministers” since
Senators and Congressmen cannot be driven like machine workers at $6 a
day."
1924:
In Zurich, Switzerland, Rosa and Hermann Frank gave birth to cinematographer
and photographer Robert Frank.
1924:
Today, Russian born violinist Mischa Mischaoff “played the Tchaikovsky concerto
with the New York Symphony under Walter Damrosch at Aeolian Hall” in what “may
have been his first solo appearance in the U.S.”
http://pronetoviolins.blogspot.com/2012/08/mischa-mischakoff.html
1924:
“He Who gets Slapped” a silent drama produced by Irving Thalberg and
co-starring his future wife Norma Shearer was released in the United States
today.
1925:
In Kurenets, Belarus, Miriam Kremer and Mendel Kremer who would be murder by
the Nazis in 1943 gave birth to Emma Eshke Greisdorf.
1926:
“A resolution calling upon the Central Rabbis’ Organization of America to
consider the sponsoring of a national Jewish movement for establishment of
five-day work week, so that Saturday may be more widely observed as a day of
worship, was adopted at the final session today of the Mizrachi Organization of
America” which has been meeting in Washington, D.C.
1926:
Today, in Philadelphia, Rabbi Abram Siman of Washington was elected Chairman of
the Synagogue Council of America at its first meeting as a permanent
organization while other officers chosen were Rabbi Bernstein, Secretary; Rabbi
J.B. Pollak, Assistant Secretary; Ben Altheimer, Treasurer, and Captain N.T.
Phillips and Dr. Elias Solomon, Vice Chairmen, all of New York.”
1927:
Birthdate of Salo Linder the native of Berlin whose family made Aliyah in 1933
and as Shlomo Lahat rose to the rank of Major General in the IDF and served for
terms as Mayor of Tel Aviv.
1928:
CCNY basketball star Nat Krinsky and his wife Hilda gave birth to Paul L
Krinsky, the honor graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Company who served at
sea with both the Merchant Marines and Navy who pursued a career that led to
serve as the “Superintendent of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy with the rank
of Rear Admiral.
1928:
In Chicago, “Dr. Schmarya Levin, a member of the World Zionist Executive Board
and head of the largest Hebrew publishing house in Palestine today expressed
sharp disagreement with Julius Rosenwald, the Chicago capitalist and
philanthropist on the experiment of colonizing Jews in Russia.”
1929:
Birthdate of Hungarian Holocaust survivor Imre Kertesz recipient of the 2002
Nobel Prize in Literature.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2002/press.html
1929(6th
of Cheshvan): “Rabbi Joseph Leib Bloch, dean of the Yeshivah at Telz passed
away.
1930:
In St. Louis, MO, “with an audience of 4,000 crowding Moohlah Temple and other
thousands clamoring for entrance, Zionist and non-Zionist joined today in
denouncing the British White Paper on Palestine and demanding its immediate and
unequivocal withdrawal.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1930/11/10/92118316.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1930:
“Resolutions expressing profound disappointment with the British Government's
future policy in Palestine and the hope that the government would reverse its
attitude were adopted today at the annual meeting of the American Jewish
Committee…”
1931:
Birthdate of Marvin Kessler, the Brooklyn native “who spent more than half a
century in basketball as a player, a coach, a scout and, most prominently, a
camp instructor who molded young athletes like Patrick Ewing and Stephon
Marbury…” (As reported by Richard Goldstein)
1932:
One hundred teachers invaded the offices of the Jewish Agency Executive this
morning, occupied them, stationed guards at the exits, and announced that they
would permit no member of the Executive to leave the building until arrears in
salary from May to August were paid.
1932:
In Des Moines, IA, Harry and Bessie Stein gave birth to Arnold “Arny” Davidson,
a graduate of the University of Iowa and husband of Brenna Persellin who “was
the owner and president of Globe Financial Services in Iowa City where he was a
member of Agudas Achim.
1933:
It was reported today that “all existing Jewish organizations in Germany have
this week been placed under a strict and direct control by the secret police in
connection with the special Jewish department established here by the secret
police.”
1933:
“Opposition to the second proposal to celebrate German day in this city was
abandoned today by Major Julius Hochfelder, counsel for the Jewish War Veterans
of the United States, who were instrumental in inducing Mayor O'Brien to
prohibit the first celebration two weeks ago.”
1934:
After the government had revoke the citizenship “of Jews naturalized after the
World War and ousted Jewish professionals from state and municipal
institutions, today “a new trade law which will completely ruin Jews engaged in
commerce and industry in Austria was promulgated” by the government.
1934:
In Brooklyn, Sam Sagan, an immigrant garment worker from Russia and Rachel
Molly Gruber gave birth to Carl Sagan, American astronomer and television
personality – a man who brought science to the mass American audience.
1934:
“Holiday Land,” one of the nominees for the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film,
produced by Charles Mintz was released in the United States today.
1934:
Birthdate of Tel Aviv native and award winning Israeli novelist and playwright
Sulamit Lapid, the wife of Tommy Lapid and the mother of Yair Lapid.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/lapid-shulamit
1934:
“Woman in the Dark” a film version of a short story directed by Phil Rosen and
filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released in the United States
today.
1934:
In Cape Town, South Africa, Isobel (née Pepper) and
Isaac Horwitz gave birth to Ronald Horwitz who moved to London in 1951 to
pursue his acting career where he changed his surname to Harwood and gained
fame as Ronald Harwood the author of “The Dresser” a play which he turned into
an Oscar winning movie.
1934: In Brooklyn, “Samuel Sagan, an immigrant worker”
and housewife Rachel Molly Gruber gave birth to America’s most famous
astronomer Carl Sagan.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Sagan
https://www.planetary.org/about/our-founders/carl-sagan.html
1935: As the Nazis continue to take control of German
society “the sixteen Nazis who died in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch were
re-interred in the newly constructed Ehrentempel (honour temples) commemorating
the failed coup attempt.”
1935:
Charles and Hylda Wolfson gave birth to David Wolfson, the future Baron Wolfson
of Sunningdale
1936:
Josef Beck, the Foreign Minister of Poland is scheduled to begin two days of
meetings with Sir Anthony Eden where he plans to bring up the subject of Jewish
immigration from his country to Palestine.
1936:
In Warsaw, “several Jews were beaten, one seriously, in street fighting on the
anniversary of battles between Jews and Polish university students” last year.
1936:
Four days after he had passed away, the will of Julius Garfinckel “was filed
for probate, leaving the bulk of his $6,000,000 estate to charity and
employees.”
1936:
Birthdate of folk singer Mary Travers, the Mary of Peter, Paul and Mary.
1937(5th
of Kislev, 5698): Five members of the Gordonia group working on a Jewish
National Fund afforestation project near Kiryat Anavim were ambushed and
murdered by Arabs.
1937:
“Mrs. Otto A. Rosalsky, widow of the General Sessions judge, today in the
Felony Court withdrew a charge of suspicion of grand larceny against Mrs.
Dorothea Kulkin, 40 years old, of 400 West End Avenue, owner of a jewelry
establishment at 1 West Forty-seventh Street.
1938:
Funeral services are scheduled to be held today in Paris for sixty-sixty year
old Dr. Leo Motzkin the “noted Jewish statesman who “fought earnestly for his
conception of the Jews as a national minority with their religious and cultural
development safeguarded by international treaties and obligations.” (As
reported by JTA)
1938:
British troops and Arabs clashed twice in revolt-torn Palestine today. Two
soldiers were killed and five were injured. Arab casualties were not learned.
“Troops were ambushed on the Tel Aviv-Haifa road and Arabs staged a surprise
attack on a garrison at a village near Tul Karm.
1938:
In Great Britain, the Woodhead Report which opposed the creation of independent
Jewish and Arab states in Palestine was submitted to Parliament
1938: Hitler mentions to Hermann Göring that he
would like to see all German Jews forcibly resettled on the island of
Madagascar. Opportunistically chosen by the Nazi leadership, the date of the
pogrom is of great symbolic importance. It coincides with two important
national holidays, the Nazi Blood Witness Day of November 9 and Martin Luther's
birthday of November 10. Blood Witness Day commemorates the Nazi
"martyrs" who died for their cause. Martin Luther advocated the
destruction of Jewish homes and synagogues as well as the impoverishment,
forced labor, exile, and death of Jews.
1938:
Ernst von Rath, the third secretary to the German embassy in Paris died from
wounds inflicted by Hershel Grynszpan,
a seventeen year old Jewish refugee on November 7. Grynszpan's parents were
among the 12,000 Polish-Jewish refugees who had been living in Germany who were
transported to the Polish frontier a month earlier. The killing was a protest
against the harsh treatment of these suffering, stateless Jews at the hands of
the Nazis.
1938: Kristallnacht (Night of Broken
Glass) occurs across Germany and Austria. Ninety-one Jews are killed; others
are beaten. Thirty thousand male Jews are sent to concentration camps, though
most will be released in a few weeks. 267 synagogues are desecrated and
destroyed (almost all of the synagogues of Germany and Austria). SS Security
Service chief Reinhard Heydrich instructs security agencies to burn the
synagogues unless German lives or property are endangered. Jewish businesses
are looted and destroyed.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/04.asp
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/05.asp
1938:
“During the November Pogrom” known as Kristallnacht, in Berlin, “the Neue
Synagogue was broken into, Torah scrolls desecrated, furniture smashed and
other combustible furnishings piled up and set on fire.
1938:
During Kristallnacht, the Leipzig synagogue which had been “built in 1855 by
the German Jewish architect Otto Simonson was destroyed tonight.
1938: On Kristallnacht, “the Jewish men of
Karlsruhe including Opa Oppenheimer,” the grandfather of future Monuments Men
Harry Ettlinger “were rounded up and put in Dachau and the hundred year old
Kronenstrasse Synagogue “was burned to the ground.”
1938:
In Vienna, two Gestapo agents entered the apartment of 17 year old Roy Rogers
with the intent of arresting his father who was not at home. When asked how old he was, his mother lied
about his age thus saving the future British soldier from a trip to a
concentration camp.(As reported by Ed Lion)
1938:
Twelve days after all of the Polish Jews living in Karlsruhe were forced to go
to the Polish border for deportation; the synagogues in this southwestern
German city were destroyed.
1938(15th of Cheshvan, 5699): On what would become
known as Kristallnacht,
Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister called von Rath's murder "a Jewish
conspiracy" and the German government organized a nation-wide pogrom. Fifty thousand Jews were arrested and taken
to concentration camps; five hundred synagogues were destroyed, and the Jewish
community was forced to pay one billion Reich marks ($4,000,000) for the
damage. In point of fact, Kristallnacht
was part of the Nazi effort to redistribute wealth in Germany without impacting
the German upper classes.
1938:
In “Why did Nazis protect rabbi on Kristallnacht?” published today, Nadav
Shragai explores the unique story of Rabbi Avraham Kuperstock and an
alternative theory as to the origin of Kristallnacht
On
the night between November 9 and 10, 1938 - Kristallnacht - while synagogues
across the German Reich were set ablaze and Jews and their property became
victims of state-initiated pogroms, a strange sight took place in the heart of
Berlin. German police rushed to 25 Mintz Street, where they used their bodies
as shields to protect the synagogue housing the yeshiva headed by Rabbi Avraham
Kuperstock from rioters seeking to harm the rabbi, his family, students or
property. This remarkable story was brought to light by Prof. Meier Schwarz,
83, a researcher who lost his entire family in the Holocaust and today runs
"Ashkenaz House," a Jerusalem-based organization dedicated to
conducting research and preserving the heritage of German Jewry. Kuperstock and
his synagogue were saved thanks to the assistance he provided German
authorities during World War II. But his story begins much earlier, in 1914
Warsaw, when the city was still under Russian control. The Russians were
recruiting young people across the region, Jews and Poles alike. Among those
conscripted were some of the rabbi's yeshiva students. Two of them deserted the
army, were caught and sentenced to death and were hung by the Russians in the
city square to deter other students from following their example. Kuperstock
was made to stand beside the gallows while the grim sentence was carried out.
The rabbi never forgot the experience and vowed to one day avenge the injustice
the Russians had visited upon his yeshiva. As World War II dragged on, Germany
fought on two fronts, to the West against the British, Americans, Canadians and
their allies and, to the East, against the Soviet Union. The Third Reich
diverted the bulk of its resources toward the eastern front, but struggled
against the tough topographic conditions and the Russians' sophisticated line
of virtually impenetrable fortifications. In 1941, in Operation Barbarossa, the
German army suddenly penetrated the Soviet lines, smashing through its
adversary's fortifications and paving a path to the East. In his research Prof.
Meier Schwarz found that Kuperstock, as revenge for the death of his two
students, had transferred intelligence to the Germans on the Russian
fortification system, including secret pathways allowing the bulwarks to be
breached. The revelation was confirmed by Kuperstock's neighbors, who had heard
of the arrangement from the rabbi himself. They said in exchange for the
information, Kuperstock was granted the status of "protected Jew,"
and during the darkest days of the Holocaust sold the Germans leaven his community
had thrown out during Passover. Additional confirmation came from a relative of
the rabbi now living in Australia. What remains unclear, however, is how was
Kuperstock able to obtain the Russian documents, and whether he had acted
alone. While the war was in full swing, Kuperstock and his students were
transferred to East Berlin, where the authorities provided them with
accommodations for living, praying and studying on Mintz Street. The rabbi was
promised a pension for the rest of his life, German citizenship and financial
support of the yeshiva. When President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf
Hitler chancellor in 1933, the rabbi's special status was registered. Unlike
other Polish Jews residing in Germany, Kuperstock and his students were not transferred
to Poland, but in 1941, after the rabbi died, his students were sent to the
death camps in the East. Last year Ashkenaz House published a study on the
events leading up to Kristallnacht. Key among these was the assassination of
German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old German Jew
of Polish extraction. The traditional account of the shooting holds that
Grynszpan acted after his family and 17,000 other Jewish families with Polish
roots were ordered to leave Germany for Poland. However, Prof. Schwarz believes
vom Rath was actually killed by an envoy of Adolf Hitler himself. "The
Germans, and not Grynszpan, were the ones who murdered vom Rath, but they
blamed the Jews. Vom Rath, who seemed to have been seriously wounded, was transferred
to hospital, where he was 'treated' by Hitler's personal doctor, who made sure
he died," he said. "Kristallnacht had been planned two months before
the second week of November 1938."
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/05.asp
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/04.asp
1938: Al Capp, the Jewish cartoonist of Lil' Abner
creates Sadie Hawkins Day.
1939:
Five hundred Jewish families were deported from Lublin, Poland.
1939:
Lodz was officially annexed to the Reich, a step followed by an intensification
of the German terrorization of the Jews and Poles.
1939:
“Life With Father,” produced by Oscar Serlin opened today “at the Empire
Theatre” and ran for 3,213 performances.” (Editor note – NYT says the 9th. Wiki says the 8th)
1939:
Today, “Georg Elser rigged a bomb meant to kill Hitler on November 9, 1939, but
the device exploded 13 minutes after Hitler leaves the hall.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32160816
1939:
MGM released “Ninotchka” produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch, with a script
by Billy Wilder, co-starring that Georgia (USA) born Jew, Melvyn Douglas.
1940(8th
of Cheshvan, 5701): Parashat Lech-Lecha
1940:
It was reported today that in the last two weeks “more than 10,000 Jews” have
been forcibly evacuated “from the southwest German Provinces of Baden and the
Palentine” and interned “in concentration camps in southern unoccupied France”
creating a conditions that can be described as a humanitarian crisis.
1941:
A photograph was taken of Jews working in Bakery #3 in the Lodz Ghetto.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/07.asp
1941:
Having finished murdering the Jews of Minsk on November 6, the Nazis began
moving thousands of German Jews into the town.
1941
(19th of Cheshvan): Rabbi Abraham Zevi Kama, head of the Yeshivah of Mir, was
among the 1,500 Jews of Mir killed by the Nazis today.
1942:
While serving with Escort Scouting Squadron Twenty-nine aboard the U.S.S.
Santee, an escort carrier, today Lt. Cmdr. Arthur M. Ershler, “distinguished
himself today when at grave risk to his personal safety he attacked a hostile
convoy of trucks during which his plane was materially damaged by gunfire
leaving him nauseated from the gasoline fumes which did not keep him from
flying “to a hostile airdrome where he scored a direct hit on a hangar, damaged
several planes on the ground and strafed numerous machine gun emplacements.
1942:
Following yesterday’s Allied landings at Algiers which were facilitated by Jose
Aboulker and his predominately Jewish resistance group, “the
XIXth Army Corps of the Vichy Government tried to mobilize to oppose the Allied
landings, but concentrated its efforts on the Resistance fighters led by
Aboukler and others who decided to evacuate their positions since their mission
had been accomplished and they wanted to avoid having Frenchman fight
Frenchman.
1942:
More than 700 Greek born Jews from Salonica living in Paris were deported.
1942:
It was reported today that “Columbia has signed Zoltan Korda, brother of
Alexander Korda, and director of his United Artists productions, "The Four
Feathers," "Drums," "The Thief of Bagdad" and
"The Jungle Book," to direct a newly scheduled Melvyn Douglas
vehicle, "Sahara," which will deal with the present Libyan campaign
by the United Nations against General Rommel.”
1942:
Germans deport Jews from Paris to Birkenau death camp. These Jews were Greeks
from Salonica who went to France thinking it would be a safe haven.
1942: The Nazis opened another death camp named
Majdanek Four thousand Lublin Jews already deported to two other concentration
camps, were sent to open Majdanek. Majdanek joined Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobibor
and Belzec as factories of death.
1943: Two hundred Jews from Venice, Italy, are
deported to Auschwitz. Four hundred Jews from Florence and Bologna, Italy, are
deported to Auschwitz.
1943: At the Theresienstadt, the Council of
Elders head Jacob Edelstein and three other Jews are accused of saving 55 of
the ghetto's Jews from deportation by falsifying population reports.
1943: U.S. Senator Guy Gillette, Representative
Will Rogers, Jr. (son of the great comedian and social commentator) and Representative
Joseph Baldwin introduce a resolution into Congress calling upon the president
to establish "a commission of diplomatic, economic, and military experts
to formulate and effectuate a plan of action to save the surviving Jewish
people of Europe." This resolution will serve as the basis of the War
Refugee Board (WRB).
1943:
Four hundred Jews were deported from Florence and Bologna to Birkenau.
1944:
German troops holding Walcharen Island which was the key barrier to the Allies
being able to take the much needed port of Antwerp surrendered today.
1945(4th
of Kislev, 5706): Sarah Lavanburg Straus the widow of Oscar Straus passed away
today.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/straus-sarah-lavanburg
1945:
Birthdate of Zevulun Orlev, an Israeli politician and a former leader of the
National Religious Party. He was Minister of Welfare & Social Services
(March 2003 - November 2004), and is currently a Member of the Knesset for the
The Jewish Home party. Orlev is a decorated war hero who received the Medal of
Distinguished Service in the Yom Kippur War.
1945:
“The House I Live In,” “a ten-minutes short film written by Albert Maltz, and
directed and produced by Mervyn LeRoy” “made to oppose anti-Semitism at the end
of World War II” which “received an Honorary Academy Award and a special Golden
Globe award in 1946” was released in the United States today by RKO.
1946(15th
of Cheshvan, 5707): Parashat Vayera
1946:
“Using the Potomac Shipwrecking Co. of Washington, D.C. as its agent, the
Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah bought SS President Warfield from the WSAand transferred control of it to
Hamossad Le'aliyah Bet, the branch of the Haganah that organized Aliyah Bet
activities.” The Warfield would gain fame as the SS Exodus.
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 a booby-trap bomb exploded while they were searing a house for
hidden explosives.
1946:
“Mr.Hex” a Bowery Boy comedy starring Leo Gorcey and featuring his brother
David Gorcey was released in the United States today.
1946:
Warner Bros. released “Never Say Goodbye,” a romantic comedy based on a story
by Ben and Norma Barzman with a script co-authored by I.A. L. Diamond featuring
famed character actor S.Z. Sakall as “Luigi”/
1947:
In Pittsburg, PA, “Robert N. Nathan, the former chairman of the planning
commission of the War Production Board, told 135 Jewish communal leaders here
today that the resettling in Palestine of 150,00 Jews from European camps of
displace person in the next two years would cost about $400,000,000.”
1948: During the War of Independence Operation Yoav
comes to a successful close. Operation
Yoav was part of the campaign to secure the Negev from the invading Egyptian
forces. Yigal Allon one of the true
heroes of the creation of the Jewish state was the commander of the venture.
1948:
The IDF launched Operation Shmone to capture the Tegart fort in the village of
Iraq Suwaydan. The fort's Egyptian defenders had previously repulsed eight
attempts to take it, including two during Operation Yoav. Israeli forces
bombarded the fort before an assault. After breaching the outlying fences
without resistance, the Israelis blew a hole in the fort's outer wall,
prompting the 180 Egyptian soldiers manning the fort to surrender without a
fight. The defeat prompted the Egyptians to evacuate several nearby positions,
including hills the IDF had failed to take by force. Meanwhile, IDF forces were
met with stiff resistance in Iraq Suwaydan itself, losing 6 dead and 14 wounded
1948:
Israeli forces ended the Arab siege of Negbah
1948:
Leon Frankel, one of the American volunteers who helped create and flew with
Israel’s air force during the War for Independence returned to the United
States today.
1948:
“101 Squadron moved south to Chatzor to take a position closer to the southern
front, where it flew most missions. One advantage of the more southerly
location was that it was further along the route that the daily shuftikite flew
and so gave more time for an intercept.”
1948:
Joseph Zaritsky chose “an abstract still life” to show at the “New Horizons”
exhibition that opened today in Tel Aviv.
1949:
“Yigael Yadin was appointed as the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense
Forces, succeeding Yaakov Dori.”
1949:
The biennial convention of the American Jewish Congress opened in New York City.
1949: Democrat Herbert H. Lehman defeated
Republican John Foster Dulles, the future Secretary of State who back Nasser
over Israel in 1956 in a special election for a seat in the Senate which would
later be filled by Jacob Javits who was a liberal, Jewish, Republican. (Don’t make those anymore)
1949(17th
of Cheshvan, 5710): Eighty-year-old New York born attorney and Zionist Isidore
Hirschfield, the general council for HIAS passed away today in Washington, DC.
1949:
Yaakov Dori completed his terms as the first Chief of Staff of the Israel
Defense Forces (IDF). Born Yakov Dostrovsky in the present day Ukraine in 1899,
his family emigrated to Ottoman Palestine following the anti-Jewish pogrom in
Odessa in 1905. Upon completing high school at the Hebrew School in Haifa, he
enlisted in the Jewish Legion of the British Army during World War I. He later
joined the Haganah and adopted the underground name of "Dan". In
Haganah he was the commander of the Haganah Forces of Haifa. In 1939, Dori was
appointed Chief of Staff of the Haganah, a position he held until 1946. As
Haganah’s Chief of Statt, it was Yaakov Dori's duty to take the Haganah from a
diffuse self-defense organization to a model army. From 1946 to 1947 he also
headed the Palestinian Jewish delegation sent to purchase arms in the United
States. When the IDF was formed, Dori took over as its first Chief of Staff.
Yet, despite his good command and organizational skills, he was already
suffering from failing health, and had difficulty commanding his troops during
Israel's War of Independence, and was forced to rely heavily on his deputy,
Yigael Yadin. After he completed his term as Chief of Staff, Dori retired from
the military. He was succeeded by his deputy, Yadin. Even after his release
from the army, however, he continued to wear the officer's pin he was awarded
when he first became a second lieutenant. Upon leaving the IDF, Dori was
appointed chairman of the Science Council, attached to the Prime Minister's
office. He was later made president of the Technion in Haifa, a position he
held until 1965. He passed away in 1973.
1950: Birthdate of Dr. Yosi Ben-Dov, the Haifa, who
after a successful career in business “became the Headmaster and managing
director of The Hebrew Reali School in Haifa.”
1951:
An instrumental version of “Charmaine" co-composed by Lew Pollack reached
the top spot on Billboard today.
1951(10th
of Cheshvan, 5712): Sigmund Romberg
passed away in New York City. Born Romberg
Zsigmond in Hungary, Romberg gained fame as the creator of numerous operettas
including The Student Prince and The Desert Song.
http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/bio/C69
1952(21st of Cheshvan, 5713): Chaim Weizmann First President of Israel and
Zionist statesman passed away. There is no way that any blurb here could do
justice to one of the giants of the Zionist cause. Would there have been an
Israel had there been no Weizmann? Who
knows? The creative chemist pursued
Herzl’s dream with unparalleled zeal, playing a key role in the issuance of the
Balfour Declaration, creating the Yishuv after World War I and lobbying
American leaders including Harry Truman for their vital support of the unborn
Jewish state. To paraphrase Shakespeare,
while others of his generation were abed enjoying the material rewards of the
scientific genius, he was in the field fighting for the creation of Eretz
Israel at a time when it was not “the in thing to do.”
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1127.html
1952: Yosef Sprinzak began serving as interim
President, a post he would hold until the inauguration of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi
thirty days later.
1953: Ibn Saud, the Saudi King who expressed his
disdain for the Jews when he met with President Roosevelt in 1945, who declared
war on Israel in 1948 and who squandered his nation’s oil wealth rather than
use it to help his less fortunate “Arab brothers” in other lands died today.
1954: “The Divided Heart” a movie about three year
old boy in Germany during WW II filmed by cinematographer Otto Heller and
starring Yvonne Mitchell was released in the United Kingdom today.
1956: Sixty-one year old Hildebrand Gurlitt, the
Nazi art thief passed away having survived the war with a secret stash of art
that he had acquired for his fellow Nazis.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10811916/Cornelius-Gurlitt-obituary.html
1958(26th of Cheshvan, 5719): Seventy-two-year-old Rabbi
Ferdinand Kilsheimer Hirsh, the Hamilton, OH born son of Isaac and Minnie
Kilshemer Hirsh and husband of Nellie L. Hirsh who was a graduate of Hebrew
Union College and the University of Georgia Law School and who served as the
rabbi at the “Children of Israel Congregation in Athens, GA and Temple B’nai
Israel in Monroe, LA passed away today.
http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0264/ms0264.html
1959: “A Month in the Country” produced by Lewis
Freedman and Henry Weinstein co-starring Luther Adler was broadcast as The Play
of the Week.
1959: “I, Don Quixote,” a non-musical play to which
Mitch Leigh would add music and make “Man of La Mancha” was broadcast on CBS
television tonight.
1962:”They Came From Everywhere: Two Who Helped
Modern Israel” by Robert St. John went on sale today.
1962: Birthdate of Amy Beth Aronson, the Columbia
trained Ph.D. and “Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Fordham
University” who is married to “sociologist Michael Kimmel” with whom she had
one child, Zachary.
https://books.google.com/books?id=jWj5OBvTh1IC&pg=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
1962: In Philadelphia, architect Louis Kahn and
Harriet Pattison gave birthdate to filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn whose works include
“Two Hands” and “My Architect,” a film about his father.
1964(4th of Kislev, 5725): Eighty-year-old
Louis Lazarus, the Romanian born son of Morris and Rebbeca Lazarus, the husband
of Rose Lazarus and father of Anna Weiner passed away today in Philadelphia
after which he was buried at the Mount Sharon Cemetery in Springfield, PA.
1964(4th of Kislev, 5725): Felix Weltsch passed away
Born in 1884 he was a German-speaking Jewish librarian, philosopher, author,
editor, publisher and journalist. A close friend of Max Brod and Franz Kafka,
he was one of the most important Zionists in Bohemia.
1965: A funeral service for New York realtor and
leader of the Jewish community Leopold
Philipp is scheduled to be held this morning at Temple Israel which is
“now meeting in All Souls Unitarian Church” in Manhattan.
1965:
Lionel I. Pincus, the president of Lionel I. Pincus & Co., Inc., financial
consultants was named to the board of the investment banking house of E. M.
Warburg & Co., Inc.
1965: The New
York Times features a review of Biography of An Idea: Memoirs of Public
Relations Counsel Edward L. Bernays by Edward L. Bernays.
1966:
It was reported today that “a Vienna jury court” has sentenced “two brothers,
Johann and Wilhelm Mauer, former SS officers to prison terms at their second
trial on charges of mass murders of Jews in occupied Poland.”
1967:
“Custer of the West” a biopic about the 19th cavalry officer
directed by Robert Siodmak was released in the United States today.
1967:
In the first issue of Rolling Stone published today critic Jon Landau “compared
Jimi Hendrix and his debut album, Are You Experienced, to Eric Clapton and
Cream's debut album, Fresh Cream.”
1968(18th
of Cheshvan, 5729): Parashat Vayera
1970: Charles De Gaulle, former French President and
leader of the Free French during World War II passed away. The imperious De
Gaulle told the Israelis not strike first against the Arabs in 1967. After the June War, De Gaulle made derogatory
remarks about the Jewish state; withheld military equipment from the IDF that
Israelis had paid for and pursued an unabashedly pro-Arab line. Those who remembered De Gaulle as the lone
French voice willing to stand against the Nazis in World War II shook their
collective heads and opined that some men stay in the public eye beyond their
days of mental competence.
1972: Avraham Lanir scored his second aerial kill
today, downing a Syrian MiG-21 while flying Mirage 72
1973: Ofer Tsidon was killed in action when his F-4E
Phantom Jet was shot down by an Egyptian SAM.
1973: Gideon Shefer was taken prisoner today when
his F-4E Phantom Jet was shot down by an Egyptian SAM.
1973: “Piano Man,” “the second studio album by American
recording artist Billy Joel” was released today by Columbia Records.
1973: “The Mackintosh Man,” “a cold war spy movie” starring Paul Newman and
featuring Wolfe Morris as “Malta Police Commissioner” was released today in the
United Kingdom.
1974: Materials about the persecution of Jews in
Minsk, letters of the Jews to various state institutions, and notebooks which
were discovered when Anatoly Sharansky and Anatoly Malkin were detained in
Minsk were confiscated by authorities.
1974: Birthdate of Detroit native, University of
Michigan graduate and Northwestern trained attorney Richard Bernstein, an
Associate Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.
1974: Vladimir Davidov was detained in Sverdlovsk
following which documents describing the situation of Jews in Novosibirsk and
notebooks were taken.
1975: Today, because of deteriorating health, Mindy
“Rudolph officially ended his career as a referee in the NBA, in which he
officiated more games (2,113) than any official in league history at the time
1976(16th of Cheshvan 5737): Ninety-six
year old pianist Rosina Lhévinne, the Ukrainian born daughter of Jacques and
Maria (Katz) Bessie and the wife of fellow musician Josef Lhévinne who
dedicated her teaching career, which included working at Julliard and U.S.C, to
his memory passed away today
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lhevinne-rosina
1977: The Tony Award winning production of the
Broadway revival of “The Royal Family” by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber “was
telecast on the PBS series Great Performances” today.
1977:
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat startled the world by announcing his intention
to go to Jerusalem.
1979:
“The Rose” a biopic about Janis Joplin directed by Mark Rydell, produced by
Aaron Russo, with a screenplay by Bo Goldman and music by Paul A Rothchild was
released in the United States today.
1980(1st
of Kislev, 5741): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1980(1st
of Kislev, 5741): Eighty-one-year-old silent movie star Carmel Myers passed
away.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/myers-carmel
1984: “No Small Affair,” comedy directed by Jerry
Schatzberg and featuring Jeffrey Tambor was released in the United States
today.
1986(7th of Cheshvan, 5747): Seventy-three-year-old
A. James Speyer, the Pittsburg born “son of Stella (Tillie) Speyer and
Alexander C. Speyer and graduate of Carnegie Institute of Technology who was
one of the “leading experts on contemporary American and European art” passed
away today.
1988: “Child’s Player” a horror film featuring Dinah
Manoff was released in the United States today.
1988(29th of Cheshvan, 5749): Ninety-two-year-old
Jacob “Jake” Friedman, the native of Bridgeport who played three games for the
Hartford Blues, an early NFL team passed away today.
1989: Today, Sony Corporation acquired Guber-Peters
Entertainment Company, which up until September of 1989 had been known as
Barris Industries, Inc. an American game show production company that was
founded by Chuck Barris
1991(2nd of Kislev, 5752): Parashat Toldot
1991(2nd of Kislev, 5752): Ralph Moses
Paiwonsky, “the second person of Jewish heritage to serve as the governor of
the Virgin Islands passed away on his eighty-fourth birthday.
1992;
Two days before the nationwide PBS broadcast of “Liberators,” the world
premiere was held at New York City’s Lincoln Center before an audience of
prominent Jewish and black Americans, including Mayor David Dinkins, Lena
Horne, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Harvey Meyerhoff, the chairman of the US
Holocaust Memorial Council. The event was sponsored by WNET/Channel 13, the
film’s chief financial backer and PBS’s affiliate in New York City, and the
Holocaust Council, the federal organization established in 1980 to build and
operate the nation’s Holocaust Museum in Washington. (As reported by Mark
Schulte)
1992(13th
of Cheshvan, 5753): Eighty-three-year old Rabbi Stanley Rosenbaum Brav, the
Philadelphia born son of Herman and Hattie Mitchell Brav and the husband of
Ruth England Brav passed away today in Florida after which he was buried at the
Clifton United Jewish Cemetery in Cincinnati, OH.
1993(25th
of Cheshvan, 5754): Salman 'Id el-Hawashla, age 38, an Israeli Bedouin of the
Abu Rekaik tribe who was driving a car with Israeli plates, was killed by three
armed terrorists driving a truck hijacked from the Gaza municipality, in a
deliberate head-on collision
1994(6th
of Kislev, 5755): Eighty-four-year-old New Orleans native Louis Boasberg, a
member of the 1931 Tulane football team that went 11-0 in the regular season
and barely lost to USC in the Rose Bowl and founder of the New Orleans Novelty
Company passed away today.
1995:
Illinois native and Ivy League educated (Dartmouth and Cornel) financier Lewis
Michael Eisenberg, the co-founder of Granite Capital International Group “was
elected chairman of the board of Commissioners of the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey” today.
1997:
The New York Times featured reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison:
Inside Oracle Corporation by Mike Wilson.
1997:
Thirty-seven year Douglas Sills, the Detroit born son Archie and Rhoda Nemeth Sills, opened in his
first Broadway show today.
2000:
In Germany, “The government has decided to ask the Constitutional Court to ban
the far-right National Democratic Party for its suspected links to extremist
violence” because “Interior Minister
Otto Schily has said there was enough evidence
to justify outlawing the group, which the government says has rallied youths
for attacks on foreigners, Jews and Jewish buildings.”
2001(23rd
of Cheshvan, 5762):Hadas Abutbul, 39, of Mevo Dotan in northern Samaria was
shot and killed by Palestinian terrorists on Friday afternoon as she drove from
work in nearby Shaked.
2002(4th
of Kislev, 5763): Sgt.-Maj. Madin Grifat, 23, of Beit Zarzir was killed when a
mine exploded during a routine patrol northeast of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip.
The Givati Brigade company commander was wounded. The Islamic Jihad claimed
responsibility for the attack.
2003: The
New York Times features
reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interest
including Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel's Wars by
Yaacov Lozowick, The Case For Israel by Alan Dershowitz and Horse
People: Scenes From the Riding Life by Michael Korda
2004:
Chabad filed its lawsuit against the Russian Federation, the Russian Ministry
of Culture and Mass Communication, the Russian State Library, and the Russian
State Military Archive, asserting violations of international law and seeking
the return of its collection of sacred, irreplaceable religious books and
manuscripts.
2004:
Today “after Ariel Sharon declined the NRP's demand to hold a national
referendum regarding the disengagement, Zevulun Orlev and the party resigned
from the coalition and the government, vowing to pursue general elections in an
effort to replace Sharon with a right-wing prime minister.
2005:
Amir Peretz, the former chairman of the Histadrut trade union federation,
defeated Shimon Peres in the primary elections for the Labour leadership today.
2005:
On Election Day voters chose Jewish political leader Loretta Weinberg to serve
the remaining portion of Jewish New Jersey State Senator Byron Baer's four-year
term of office, which ends in January 2008.
2005:
“Joyeux Noël” a cinematic treatment of the Christmas truce in 1914 (which is
fully described in Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce
by Stanley Weintraub) one of whose major character is “Lt. Horstmayer, the
German Jewish officer of the 93rd Infantry” and featured Dany Boon
was released today. (Editor’s Note – Personally I think this is a marvelous,
must-see film.)
2005:
Hussam Fathi Mahajna, 36, an Israeli Arab businessman from Umm al-Fahm, was
among 57 people murdered and 300 wounded in simultaneous attacks by suicide
bombers in Amman, Jordan at three luxury hotels. Mahajna was a guest at a
wedding held at the Radisson Hotel, known to be popular with Israeli tourists.
Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attacks.
2005: Kristallnacht Remembrance Day.
2005: In New York, Novel Jews monthly literary
series presents a Henry Roth Tribute.
2006: The 10th Annual UK Jewish Film
Festival comes to a close.
2006(18th of Cheshvan, 5767): Eighty-three-year-old
East German spymaster Markus Wolf, the son Friedrich Wolf, the politically
active physician who took his family to Moscow when the Nazis came power,
passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/world/europe/10wolf.html
2006: As “Jews throughout Germany mark the 68th
anniversary of Kristallnacht” the Munich Jewish community dedicated “a major
new synagogue that symbolizes the city’s ongoing effort to realize the elusive
goal of normalcy in its relationship with the Jewish community…The synagogue is
part of a larger complex of three Jewish communal buildings that includes a
Jewish museum and community center, complete with a day school, a library and a
kosher restaurant” that will be known as
the “Jakobsplatz Jewish Center.” Munich is home to Germany’s second largest
Jewish community. German businessman Herbert Burda contributed $1.3 million to
building the community center. Burda’s
father was a Nazi who profited from “The War Against the Jews.” Herbert Burda
has “received the Leo Baeck Prize in recognition of his efforts to repair the
wrongs committed by the preceding generation.
2006: An exhibit of photographs by Julian Voloj,
titled “Forgotten Heritage: Uncovering
New York’s Hidden Jewish Past” opened at the Bronfman Center for Jewish
Life at New York University.
2007: Premier of Joel and Ethan Coen’s ‘No county
for Old Men.’
2007: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Friday
Evening services are dedicated to a Remembrance of Kristallnacht with a talk by
Fred Rogers a former resident of Frankfurt who was spared from the Shoah. Fred is long time, leading member of the
Jewish community. When he speaks, we
hear the voices of all the Fred Rogers’ who did not survive. When he speaks, we hear the voices of all the
future Fred Rogers’ that were lost in the smoke of The Night. When he speaks,
we hear the voice of a mensch. When he
speaks, “the Murder of the Six Million” takes on the dimension of personal
loss.
2007: “Birds,” an exhibition of the paintings of
Audrey Berner, on display at the Bernard Gallery in Tel Aviv comes to a close.
2007: U.S. premiere of “Lions for Lambs” co-starring
Andrew Garfield and Peter Berg.
2007: IDF troops shot two Palestinians who were
crawling near the security fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel on
Friday night, apparently planting an explosive device, the army said.
2007: Natavia Lowery is arrested and charged with
the killing of Linda Stein, the 62-year-old New Yorker who had gone from manager
of punk rock musicians to real estate broker.
2008: In New York City, the 92nd Street Y
presents “Neil Gaiman in Conversation with Chip Kidd: Sandman 20th-Anniversary
Celebration” during which “The New York Times best-selling Jewish born
author, Neil Gaiman, discusses Sandman, the acclaimed comic book series
widely considered to be one of the most original and artistically ambitious
series of the modern age. Sandman is a rich blend of modern myth and
dark fantasy in which contemporary fiction, historical drama and legend are
seamlessly interwoven. Gaiman is the author of children’s and adult titles
including, The Graveyard Book, American Gods, Coraline,
Neverwhere and Stardust. (Editor’s note:
Considering the Jewish origins of Superman, one would wonder if the evening’s
presentation might include an inquiry to any special relationship between Jews
and Comic Books.)
2008: Final Chicago area performance of Jake Ehrenreich’s “A Jew
Grows in Brooklyn at the North Shore Center For the Performing Arts.
2008: The 20th meeting of the International
Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee of the Holy See’s Commission for Religious
Relations with the Jews opened today in Budapest.
2008: Three days after she had passed away, funeral services are
scheduled to be held today in Salem, MA for 98-year-old Gertrude G. Gam the
daughter of Celia (Shube) Gam and Minsk born Rabbi Wolfe Gam
2008: “God On Trial,” the made-for-TV movie that depicts a trial
at Auschwitz in which God is charged with Breach of Contract for allowing the
Nazis to torture and murder Jews aired on PBS.
2009: Kristallnacht Remembrance
2009:
At the Hudson Institute, Norman Podhoretz, a former
editor in chief of the journal Commentary, discusses and signs his
newest book, Why Are Jews Liberals?
2009:
Israel and Jordan conducted a joint earthquake drill
today in the Beit She'an Valley, practicing techniques in evacuation and
treatment procedures, according to IDF Army Radio.
2009: The recent decision of Mahmoud Abas not to seek re-election
as President of the Palestine Authority was one of the main topics of
discussion in today’s meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu held at the White House.
2010: The New York Times featured a review of Brute: The
Life of Victor Krulak, U.S. Marine by Robert Coram. Unbeknownst to most people the famous general
was the son of Russian Jews. “He lied
about this heritage, claiming he was raised an Episcopalian. Perhaps he was
only attending to reality. At the time, the author points out, the Marine Corps
was “a veritable witches’ brew of racism and discrimination.” But General
Krulak went further than he had to, essentially disavowing his parents and
family back home in Denver for the rest of his life.
2010: Publication of the paperback edition of Lauren Grodstein’s A
of the Family today.
2010: Toronto’s 30th Annual Holocaust Education Week
which began on November 1 is scheduled to come to an end today.
2010: Rodale Publishing released America the Edible: A Hungry
History from Sea to Dining Sea by Adam Richman.
2010: Kristallnacht Remembrance Day is observed at a time when
word comes that Samuel Willenberg and Kalman Taigman, 87-year-old Israelis, who
are believed to be the last two survivors of the most chillingly efficient
killing, machine of the Nazi Holocaust: the Treblinka extermination camp in
occupied Poland are now devoting their final years trying to preserve the
memory of the 875,000 people who were systematically murdered at Treblinka in a
one-year killing spree at the height of World War II.
2010:
Yeshiva University Museum and YIVO Institute for
Jewish Research are scheduled to present a program entitled “16mm Postcards:
Home Movies of American Jewish Visitors to 1930s Poland.”
2010: Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested
several suspects charged with defrauding a German government fund that had been
established to provide help to survivors of Nazi persecution. Over 16 years,
the suspects used fake identification documents, doctored government records
and a knowledge of Holocaust history to defraud the fund of more than $42
million, according to an indictment unsealed today by the United States
attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara. In all, 17 people were indicted.
2011:
Ellen Futterman is scheduled to moderate the Fiction
Panel at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival.
2011: The 31st Annual Holocaust Education Week
sponsored by Toronto’s Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre is
scheduled to come to end. The theme for
Holocaust Education Week
2011 has been “Accountability” in commemoration of the 50th
anniversary of the trial of Adolf Eichmann and the 65th anniversary of the
first Nuremberg Trials.
2011: Kristallnacht Remembrance
2011: A conference focusing on Romania's Holocaust-era war crimes
in Ukraine and Moldova called on Romania to acknowledge and apologize for the
murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews.
The conference, which ended today, on the anniversary of Kristallnacht,
was convened to bring the full scope of World War II Romania’s fascist
state-sponsored genocide to light.
2011:
The Palestinian Authority said today that it was
weighing its next steps in wake of reports that the UN Security Council has
failed to reach consensus on the Palestinian application for membership in the
international organization.
2011: The Penn State Board of Trustees announced tonight that
Graham Spanier had resigned and head football coach Joe Paterno had been
fired--in both cases, effective immediately as part of the child sex abuse
scandal brought on by Jerry Sandusky.
2011: Israeli-American psychologist Daniel Kahneman “was awarded
the Talcott Parsons Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2012(24th of Cheshvan, 5773): Seventy-six-year Isaiah
Sheffer passed away. (As reported by Douglas Martin
2012: John Gaultier, a member of the 71st Division
Infantry Division and one of the soldiers who liberated Gunskirchen Lager
Concentration Camp is scheduled to speak this evening at Temple Judah’s Shabbat
eve services commemorating Kristallnacht and celebrating Veteran’s Day.
2012: In Greensboro, NC, Temple Emanuel is scheduled to host the
URJ Southern Region Shabbaton
2012: As Israel prepared for a stormy, wintry weekend, the airport
in Eilat, the country’s usually sunny southernmost city, was closed this
afternoon due to heavy rains which caused flooding on its landing strips. As a
result, two flights from Eilat to Tel Aviv were delayed.
2012: The New York Times
featured a review of Poems 1962-2012 by Louise Glück
2012: “Unidentified persons uprooted 11 memorial plaques
commemorating local victims of Nazism in the German city of Greifswald today,
the 74th anniversary of Kristallnacht, The Jews of Greifswald were among those
targeted throughout Germany on Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass, on
November 9, 1938. Synagogues and businesses were destroyed, and Jews throughout
the country were murdered and arrested en masse.” (As reported by Jerusalem
Post staff)
2013: “Open House Jerusalem” is scheduled to come to a close.
2013: Marion Grodin, author of Standing Up: A Memoir of a Funny
(not Always) Life and
Fred Stoller author of Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Life of a
Perennial TV Guest Star are scheduled to speak at the San Diego Jewish Book
Fair.
2013:
75th anniversary of Kristallnacht. While remembering the evil it is
good to remember the righteous such as Ernst Leitz, the head of the Leica
Camera Company his daughter Elsie Kuehn-Leitz who saved hundreds of Jews with
the Leica Freedom Train.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKxGbNXt_Is
2013:
According to a statement issued released by IsraAID today, the team that it is
sending to the Philippines to help in the aftermath of a powerful typhoon that
hit the multi-island nation yesterday “will work primarily in Tacloban City in
Leyte. (As reported by Times of Israel staff)
2013:
Former deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon said today that while he respected
the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court unanimous decision to acquit former foreign
minister Avigdor Liberman of fraud and breach of trust charges, the “truth
doesn’t always come out” in courts of law.
2013:
Sampson Gordon "Sam" Berns, an American who suffered from progeria
and helped raise awareness about the disease, “dropped the ceremonial first
puck” as a guest of the Boston Bruins.
2014:
At Melbourne, “Transit and “Night Will Fall” are scheduled to be shown at the
Jewish International Film Festival.
2014:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a conference on “World War I
and the Jews.”
2014(16th
of Cheshvan): Yarhrzeit of Rabbi Elazar M. Shach, dean of the Ponevitch Yeshiva
in Bnei Brak.”
2014:
General Assembly of the Jewish Federation is scheduled to begin today
2014:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host
“Kristallnacht Remembered” and a screening of “A Voice Among the Silent: The
Legacy of James G. McDonald.”
2014:
“A ministerial committee gave the go-ahead today for a bill that would force
the IDF’s Central Command to issue military directives for Israelis in the West
Bank that match civil laws passed in the Knesset.” (As reported by Tamar
Pleggi)
2014:
“An Israel Navy ship fired at a suspicious Palestinian vessel returning to the
Gaza Strip from the Sinai Peninsula late tonight.” (As reported by Lazar
Berman)
2014:
“World War and the Jews” a conference marking the centenary of the start of
World War One opened today at the Center for Jewish History.
2014:
The New York Times features reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate by Naomi
Klein, Gabriel: A Poem by Edward Hirsch and In Real Life by Cory
Doctorow.
2014:
“According to the Channel 2 TV documentary Uvda (“Fact”), portions of which
were broadcast tonight” “there is an ‘unprecedented
rift’ between the Shin Bet and the IDF” over the amount of warning given before
the most recent war in Gaza. h
2015:
“The Romance and Tragedy of Soviet Yiddish Culture” a four week long course is
scheduled to come to an with a lecture “From Heymland to a Non-Jewish Jewish
Autonomous Region (1953-present)” presented by David Shneer, the Louis P.
Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History at the University of Colorado Boulder.
2015:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to arrive in Washington, DC
today.
2015:
“A painting of an outstretched nude woman by the early-20th-century Jewish artist
Amedeo Modigliani sold tonight for $170.4 million.” (As reported by Robin
Pogrebin and Scott Reyburn)
2015:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a reception marking the
opening of a new exhibition “After the War: Recovery, Relief and Return,
1945-1949” during which “Atina Grossmann, author of Jews, Germans, and
Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied Germany will discuss the varied
experiences of the surviving remnant of European Jewry in the immediate postwar
period.”
2015:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host
citywide memorial “Kristallnacht: The Spark That Ignited the Holocaust” that
will feature “5 distinguished cantors: Benjamin Warschawski, Pavel Roytman,
Rachel Rosenberg, Faryn Rudnick, Laurie Akers, Cantorial Soloist
2015:
In Toronto, Holocaust Education is scheduled to come to an end with an
exploration “of how synagogues destroyed during Kristallnacht are brought to
life in contemporary Germany through digital media” and “a candle-lighting
ceremony commemorating the 77th anniversary of Kristallnacht.”
2015(27th
of Cheshvan, 5776): Ninety-five-year-old American fencer Byron Lester Krieger
who represented the United States in the 1952 and 1956 Olympics passed away
today.
2016:
Seventy-eighth anniversary of Kristallnacht.
2016:
Holocaust
historian and author of the award-winning book FDR and the Jews, Richard
Breitman, is scheduled to speak at the Kristallnacht Memorial Service sponsored
by the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center where he will examine the
U.S. government response to the November Pogrom.
2016:
Hannah Lessing, the Secretary General of the National Fund of the Republic of
Austria and the General Settlement Fund for Victims of National Socialism, as
well as the Fund for the Restoration of the Jewish Cemeteries in Austria who is
also the daughter of Holocaust survivor and photographer Erich Lessing is
scheduled to speak on “Bringing the Rimonim Home: A Personal Restitution
Journey” at the closing event of HEW (Holocaust Education Week) in Toronto.
2016:
Beit Sefer is scheduled to present “Kristallnacht Remembrance at Tifereth
Israel Synagogue in Des Moines, Iowa.
2016:
“Germans and Jews” and “Family Commitments” are scheduled to be shown at the 20th
UK International Jewish Film Festival.
2017:
“The 9th of November,” by Rachael Cerrotti was published today in Commentary.
http://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2017/11/09/kristallnacht-trump-rachael-cerrotti
2016:
“Alda’s Secrets” and Return to the Fatherland” are scheduled to have their
Chicago premier at the Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema.
2017:
The 21st UK International Jewish Festival is scheduled to begin
today “at venues across the United Kingdom.”
2017:
The 37th Annual Neuberger Holocaust Education Week” came to an end
in Toronto at the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre.”
2017:
The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host a screening of “From
Brooklyn to Beirut, in which Rola Khayyat explores the landscape of belonging
for the community of Lebanese Jews in New York – along with the fragilities and
complexities associated with a politicized identity.”
2017:
In Des Moines, IA, the Jewish Federation is scheduled to co-host “The Moment
That Changed Everything,” “a community program for Kristallnacht.”
2017:
The Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, Jewish
Community Relations Council Community Partners are scheduled to co-host
“Commemoration: Kristallnacht A Night of Broken Glass, Shattered Dreams.”
2017:
Yeshiva University Museum, the Center for Jewish History and the American
Sephardi Federation are scheduled to present a lecture by Rav Amedeo
Spagnoletto on “Traditions of Roman Jews: Life and Religion.”
2018:
In Coralville, Iowa, following Friday night services Agudas Achim is scheduled
to host a lecture by Ari Ariel on “Becoming Yeminitie/Becoming Israel.”
2018:
The UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “An Act of
Defiance.”
2018:
Eightieth Anniversary of Kristallnacht
https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/kristallnacht
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-of-kristallnacht
https://www.holocaust.cz/en/history/events/kristallnacht/
2018(1st of Kislev, 5779): Rosh
Chodesh Kislev;
2019(11th of Cheshvan): Parashat
Lech-Lecha;
2019:
81st anniversary of Kristallnacht
2019:
The Aviva Kempner Film, “The Spy Behind Home Plate” is scheduled to be shown at
the Alexandria Film Festival in Alexandria, VA.
2019:
“The Other Story” are scheduled to be shown at the Rutgers University Jewish
Film Festival.
2019:
In Metairie, LA, at Congregation Gates of Prayer,Rabbis David Gerber and Lexi
Erdheim are scheduled to officiate at Shabbat morning serving that will include
a salute to veterans presented by The Ben Katz Post #580 of the Jewish War
Veterans.
2019:
In Berkeley, CA, Urban Adamah is scheduled to host “1980s Dance Party &
Havdalah Bonfire”
2019:
In Palo Alto, CA, the Oshman Family JCC is scheduled to host “former Knesset
member Ruth Calderon as she discusses the future of Israel’s Jewish identity.”
2019:
At Oxford, as part of Interfaith Week, Chaplain Rabbi Michael Rosenfeld-Schueler
will deliver a talk followed by a Q&A “in the Faust Hall.”
2019:
“Leona” is scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.
2020:
March of the Living UK and the Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre in
partnership with LSJS are scheduled to present Professor Shirli Gilber who will
explore the November pogroms followed by testimony from survivor Eve Kugler
talking about Kristallnacht.
2020:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host Martin Kaufman as he delivers the
fourth lecture on “The Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in
Jerusalem.”
2020:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host a Kristallnacht
Commemoration marking the 82 anniversary of the Night of Broken Glass that will
featuring a closing address by Laurence Tribe on “The Nuremberg Principles:
Lessons for Today.”
2020:
The JCC Literary Consortium and JCCs across the United States are scheduled to
host “Esther Safran talking about her post-Holocaust memoir I Want You to
Know We’re Still Here preceded by a Kristallnacht commemoration led by
Rabbi Brian Glusman.
2020:
CCJCC and Congregation B’nai Shalom are scheduled to host an online streaming
presentation of “A Call to Spy.”
2020:
This year’s Monna and Otto Weinmann Annual Lecture is scheduled to “explore
three case studies involving everyday objects the Third Reich took from Jewish
families or that concentration camp prisoners made featuring a talk by Leora Asuland, the Arthur
and Joann Rasmussen Professor in Western Civilization and Professor of Modern
European Social History at the University of Chicago
2020: Eighty-second anniversary of Kristallnacht
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kristallnacht
https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/kristallnacht
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-of-kristallnacht
2021: The JDC Archives is scheduled to host a webinar on “Chief
Rabbi Dr. Moses D. Rosen's Leadership in Romania under Communism and
Afterwards: Two Perspectives”
2021: The S.F. based Farkas Center for the Study of the
Holocaust in Catholic Schools is scheduled to present online a “Kristallnacht
Commemoration: The Rose that Grew from Concrete” during which “Dan Grunfeld,
former Stanford and Israeli pro basketball player, and his grandmother,
Holocaust survivor Lily Grunfeld, will talk
about stories of love and loss across generations
2021In remembrance of Kristallnacht, former Corcoran Chair
Mark Oppenheimer is scheduled to speak about his latest publication Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the
Soul of a Neighborhood as part of event presented by the
Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College.
2021: The three-day Now Is Never Summit sponsored by the
ADL is scheduled to come to an end today.
2021: The Schusterman Center for Israel Studies is
scheduled to present online “War of Shadows”: Driving the Nazis From the Middle
East featuring War of Shadows author Gershom
Gorenberg in conversation with professor Jonathan D. Sarna and professor
Yehudah Mirsky.
2021: Kennesaw State University Baily School of Music and
The Breman Museum are scheduled to present a Special Live Kristallnacht
Commemoration featuring “Fugitive Footsteps” by Laurence Scherr and Poetry by
Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Nelly Sachs as well as the display of the
exhibition
“Words, Music,
Memory: (re) Presenting Voices of the Holocaust”.
2021: Eighty-third anniversary of Kristallnacht
On
the night of November 9, 1938, violent anti-Jewish demonstrations broke out
across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Nazi
officials depicted the riots as justified reactions to the assassination of
German foreign official Ernst vom Rath, who had been shot two days earlier by
Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year old Polish Jew distraught over the deportation of
his family from Germany. Over the next 48 hours, violent mobs, spurred by
anti-Semitic exhortations from Nazi officials, destroyed hundreds of
synagogues, burning or desecrating Jewish religious artifacts along the way.
Acting on orders from Gestapo headquarters, police officers and firefighters
did nothing to prevent the destruction. All told, approximately 7,500
Jewish-owned businesses, homes, and schools were plundered, and 91 Jews were murdered.
An additional 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
Nazi officials immediately claimed that the Jews themselves were to blame for
the riots, and a fine of one billion reichsmarks (about $400 million at 1938
rates) was imposed on the German Jewish community. The Nazis came to call the
event Kristallnacht (“Crystal Night,” or, “The Night of Broken Glass”),
referring to the thousands of shattered windows that littered the streets
afterward, but the euphemism does not convey the full brutality of the event.
Kristallnacht was a turning point in the history of the Third Reich, marking
the shift from anti-Semitic rhetoric and legislation to the violent, aggressive
anti-Jewish measures that would culminate with the Holocaust. (As described by
the Breman Museum)
2022:
In Palm Beach Gardens, Temple Judea is scheduled to a lunch and learn with
Rabbi Feivel on “Get to know the Jewish Innovators: George Gershwin.”
2022:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a virtual conversation with Benjamin
Netanyahu and Dan Senor, co-author of the Start-up Nation.
2022:
LBI is scheduled to present a lecture by Marc Grellert (TU Darmstadt) on his
decades of work creating virtual reconstructions of synagogues destroyed during
the Nazi period which began after the 1994 firebombing of a Lübeck synagogue,
the first racist attack on a Jewish house of worship in Germany since 1945.
2022:
Holocaust Education in Florida which is held annually the second November which
coincides with the anniversary of Kristallnacht is scheduled to continue today.
2022:
The Edin-Tamir Music is scheduled to a host “a special concert in memory of
Benny and Ruthie Mushkin.”
2022:
The 2022 Jewish Writers’ Conference sponsored by the Jewish Book Council is
scheduled to come to an end today.
2022:
Philip L. and Ellen V. Glass Holocaust Commemorative Series is scheduled to
present an On-Site Commemoration: Kristallnacht 84 Years Later: Special
Performance of The Suitcase.
2022:
In commemoration of Kristallnacht, the American Society for Jewish Music, YIVO,
the Leo Baeck Institute, and the Center for Jewish History, are scheduled to
present their annual program which will feature the Trio Serenade, Song of
Authum, and Rapsodia Notturna by Karol Rathaus, a Piano Trio by Hans Gál, and
the Suite Polonaise by Simon Laks, three composers who were forced to restart
their promising young careers in as immigrants in new countries.
2022:
Eighty-fourth
anniversary of Kristallnacht
2023:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host an on-site commemoration of the
85th anniversary of the "Night of Broken Glass" with an evening of
remembrance and reflection, featuring remarks from Deputy Consul General
Delphine Gamburg, Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest, and Consul General
Michael Ahrens, Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in
Chicago.”
2023:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a conversation with Joan Baez and
Patti Smith who will talk about art, activism, movies and moving on.
2023:
Jewish Art Salon, Jerusalem Biennale, Dr. Bernard Heller Museum, and American
Sephardi Federation are scheduled to present the Jerusalem Biennale in New York.
2023:
The final screening “A Pocketful of Miracles” is scheduled to take place at the
Avalon Theatre in Washington, DC.
2023:
Ninety-five-year-old Holocaust survivor Esther Bash who
2023:
JWI is scheduled to host “an online workshop to learn about the rule and the
rulemaking process, and how to submit comments supporting the rule and urging
the ATF to also address the definition of ‘dating relationship.’” was born in the
Carpathian Mountains and on her 16th birthday on May 28, 1944, was sent in a cattle car to the Auschwitz
death camps is scheduled to speak at the Solon Chabad.
2023:
The UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to begin in cinemas today.
2023:
The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled to host
online “Paths of the Righteous: Conversation with Jewish Allies” with Olga
Meshoe Washington and Lt Aston Bright moderated by Ari Mittleman.
2023:
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency is scheduled to host The Pen and the Sword:
Contemporary Israeli Writers on Israel's Future.”
2023:
As part of the Jewish Women’s Archive online history course Elisheva Baumgarten
is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Men's Instructions, Women's Deeds: Gender
and Religious Practice in Medieval Ashkenaz.”
2023:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Heerville: A New Jewish
Musical, based on the Hereville graphic novels by Barry Deutsch.
2023: Eighty-fifth anniversary
of Kristallnacht as the Hamas hostages begin their 34th day in
captivity.
2024: Lockdown University is scheduled to host a lecture by Professor David Peimer on "Napoleon and Hitler in Feature Film."
2024(8th of Cheshvan): Yahrzeit of Avraham Elimelch
ben Yosef Dov, whose nickname was Melech and whose English name was Abraham
Levin and the Hebrew namesake of Mitchell A. Levin and the father of Joseph B.
Levin
2024(8th
of Cheshvan) Lech-Lecha (Get thee out); for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2024: The National Museum of American Jewish Museum is scheduled
to host Lunar’s
co-creator and producer Gen Xia Ye Slosberg and cast member Maya Katz-Ali for a
screening and conversation
2024:
Following yesterday’s anti-Semitic riot in Amsterdam, Jews the world over
wonder where the next outbreak will occur.
2024:
In Israel, this marks the end of a volatile week which began with the firing of Minister
of Defense Gallant.
2024
The Eden Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a concert of chamber music – A
Viennese Morning with Saida Bar Lev, violin ; Yoni Gotlibovich, cello; Assaf
Sommer, piano
2024: Kristallnacht Shabbat marking the 86th anniversary
of the night of evil which was replayed on October 7, 2023
2024:
As November 9th 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, sweeps the United States and the
Hamas held hostages begin day 400 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)
