This Day, May 31, In Jewish History

May 31 In Jewish History

1279 BCE: Ramses II (The Great) (19th dynasty) becomes pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. If you accept the contention that Moses lived from 1391–1271 BCE, Ramses would be the Pharaoh who came to power after the Exodus. During his reign he reasserted Egyptian power over the area that would have included Canaan during the period of the Judges. However, the Bible talks about the Canaanite tribes and Philistines as being the Israelites’ enemies and not the Egyptians.

70 C.E.: The Jewish defenders of Jerusalem surrendered the first wall of the city to the Romans.

942 (26 Iyar 4702): Sa'adia ben Joseph (Rav Saadia Gaon) passed away. Born in Egypt in 882, he moved to Babylon in 928 to head the Academy at Sura. He revived the waning influence of the Academy and wrote on many subjects including grammar, Halachah and philosophy. As one of the foremost opponents of Karaism, he wrote the exposition "Emunot Vedeot", which became very popular. A grave conflict arose between Sa'adia and the Exilarch, David ben Zaccai when he refused to endorse a judgment of the Exilarch's court in which Ben Zaccai was an interested party. The issue was not settled for many years and demonstrated S'aadia's unyielding defense of his principles. He was subsequently expelled and moved to Baghdad. On Purim 937, the opponents were reconciled, and a few years later Sa'adia adopted Ben Zaccai's orphan grandchildren.

1593: The Jews were barred from living in Riga and Livonia.

1665: Sabbeti Zevi proclaimed himself Messiah. The most famous of all the False Messiahs, Sabbeti Zevi enthralled tens of thousands of Jews. His message was accepted across all social and economic classes. His followers were to be found throughout Jewish communities in Europe and the Orient. Turkish authorities became alarmed at his growing popularity and had him arrested. The Sultan gave him the choice of proving his claims or suffering the death penalty. The would-be Messiah gave up the game, accepted a minor governmental position in Turkey and converted to Islam. The whole episode might be written off as a farce if it were not for the fact that so many had believed in him and were disillusioned by the outcome. In addition, charges of being a secret supporter of his beliefs would tear at the fabric of Jewish society for decades to come.

1666: One of the dates given for the death of Jacob Lumbrozo, the Portuguese born physician who became the first Jewish resident of Maryland when he moved there in 1656.

1740: Frederick William I passed away. As a result of his death, recently passed legislation that would have led to the end of the Jewish community in Berlin was not enforced.

1747 (26 Iyar 5507): Moses Hayyim Luzzatto passed away. Born in 1707 at Paua, Italy, this great poet and mystic became an unfortunate victim of the reaction to Shabbetaianism. His writings were burned and he tragically died soon after his arrival to Eretz-Israel. His most lasting achievements were his use of Hebrew in secular poetry and his ethical work, Mesilat Yesharim (Path of Righteous). Luzzatto also wrote two Hebrew dramas, Migdal Oz (tower of Strength) and La-Yisharim (Praise to the Righteous).

1776(13th of Sivan, 5536): At a wedding celebration on an upper floor of a building in the Jewish Ghetto of Venice, 65 people, including the bride, were killed when the building collapsed under the strain of the celebration.

1776(13th of Sivan, 5536): Two weddings were held today in the same building in Mantua, Italy. During the celebration, the building collapsed killing 28 women, including one of the brides, and 3 men. The Jews of Mantua were not allowed to expand their housing beyond the ghetto walls. This forced them to build vertically, resulting in unstable buildings which led to deaths like these.

1800(7th of Sivan, 5560): Second Day of Shavuot

1862: In today's issue of The Israelite, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise responded to criticism by Reverend Moncure D. Conway that the Israelite had not spoken out on the importance of preserving the Union. Wise said that "he never preached on politics." He said that this would be "a misapplication of the Sabbath and the pulpit" and that there were plenty of other opportunities for patriotic speeches.

1865(6th of Sivan, 5625): Jews celebrate the first Shavuot since the end of the Civil War.

1873: The New York Times published an article appealing for money to be sent to the “Children’s Fund” which would be used to provide summer time excursions for poor Jewish youngsters living in New York City.

1872: An article entitled “Turkey” described the bloody anti-Jewish riots that have
been taking place in Smyrna. The riots began after reports that a Greek child was lying in the morgue, having been killed by Jews who need its blood for their annual Passover sacrifice.

1874: According to reports published today a Jew from Chicago named Henry Greenbaum donated five hundred dollars to a Chicago church whose pastor is Professor Swing, the controversial Presbyterian minister who has been labeled as a heretic by his co-religionists

1884(7th of Sivan, 5644): Second Day of Shavuot

1891: Birthdate of Erich Walter Sternberg the Berlin-born Israeli composer who was one of the founders of Israeli art music, Sternberg had a profound impact on the musical life of Palestine and Israel during the 1930s and 1940s. He passed away in 1974.

1896: Today, The New York Times published an excerpt from an article in a British publication, The Quarterly Review, which compared the accomplishments of Disraeli and Gladstone in the field of foreign affairs. The author is cautiously optimistic when describing Disraeli’s policy designed to thwart Russian attempts to expand at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. He gives Disraeli high marks for his performance during the conference held at Berlin and for his purchase of the shares in the Suez Canal. In the end, regardless of how things play out, “this much is certain…Disraeli upheld the traditions of his …country at a time when a foreign critic of our policy uttered the well-known sneer that the only persons left who cared for the honor of England were an old woman and a Jew.” The old woman is Queen Victoria. The Jew is Disraeli proving that the nature of his birth out-weighed the impact of his forced youthful trip to the baptismal font.

1901: Herzl travels to Paris to begin the raising of the money, which is to be the first step toward the obtaining of the Charter. The negotiations in Paris are fruitless.

1901: Bella Weretnikow, who became the first Jewish woman lawyer in Washington State, graduated from the University of Washington Law School.

1906(7th of Sivan, 5666): Second Day of Shavuot

1912: Birthdate of Senator Henry M "Scoop" Jackson. Jackson was not Jewish, but he was a man of character of principle, a liberal in the best sense of the term. A Democrat from the state of Washington, Jackson supported legislation intended to force the Soviets to improve the treatment of their Jewish citizens and to allow them to leave the country if they so desired.

1911: Birthdate of multi-talented Ruth Hagy Brod. Born in New York and raised in Chicago, Ruth Hagy Brod had a varied career that took her from the newsroom to Latin America and from the mainstream press to offbeat publishing. As a child, Brod excelled in music, giving public recitals at age six and earning a bachelor's degree in music at age 18. She soon left music behind, however, and turned to journalism, going first to Hollywood, where she worked as an editor for movie and radio magazines. Moving to Philadelphia in 1938, she wrote features for the Philadelphia Ledger. Later, she would write for newspapers in Chicago and New York City as well. During the 1930s, she also worked as a radio reporter and documentary filmmaker. A decade later, she became women's editor of the Philadelphia Bulletin; while at the Bulletin she developed a program that became the "College News Conference," a weekly show where college students questioned prominent political figures. In the 1960s, she began to travel widely, producing a Peace Corps documentary on Colombia and a television series on Asian women. She worked as a newspaper correspondent in Southeast Asia and a Far East correspondent for NBC Radio, at a time when it was unusual for women to hold such roles. While making the Peace Corps documentary, she also served as an educational television advisor to the Colombian government. Brod first entered public service during World War II, when she served as publicity director for the United War Chest campaigns and as a member of the women's advisory board executive committee for the U.S. Savings Bond division of the U.S. Treasury. Upon returning to New York from her overseas travels, she became involved in New York City politics. In the mid-1960s, she was appointed as director of public information for JOIN (Job Orientation in Neighborhoods), which worked with the U.S. Department of Labor to provide job training and placement services to young high school drop-outs. Later that decade, Brod served as a special assistant to Mayor Robert Wagner, and in 1967 she was the founder-director of the Mayor's Coordinating Council under Mayor John Lindsay. The Council functioned as a central volunteer coordinator for the city, recruiting some 6,000 volunteers in its first year. In the 1970s, Brod embarked on yet another career, turning to publishing. She published two books of her own (both co-authored), Ena Twigg, Medium (1972) and The Edgar Cayce Handbook of Health Through Drugless Therapy (1975). She also worked as a literary agent, with clients that included Allard Lowenstein, a civil rights activist who was later assassinated, and James Hoffa, the Teamsters Union leader. Brod died of cancer in 1980.

1915: The American Jewish, Central and Peoples' Relief Committees gave $190,282 to Jews living in Palestine, $4,000 to Jews living in Alexandria and $59,500 to Jews living in Greece and Turkey.

1919: The partly decomposed corpse of Rosa Luxemburg was found in one of the locks of Berlin’s Landwehr Canal.

1921: Churchill explains to the members of the Cabinet that he “had decided to suspend the development of representative institutions in Palestine ‘owing to the fact that any elected body would undoubtedly prohibit further immigration of the Jews.’”

1925: Birthdate of Julian Beck “an American actor, director, poet, and painter.”

1926: The entire Jewish Sejm delegation voted for Josef Pilsudski for President of Poland.

1928: Official birthdate of Jacob Lateiner, “a Cuban/US pianist. He was actually born on March 31, 1928, but his father did not get around to registering his birth until May 31 the same year. He is the brother of violinist Isidor Lateiner.”

1933(6th of Sivan, 5693): First Day of Shavuot

1935 Jews are banned from the German Armed Forces.

1936: The New York Times reported that the proceeds of the upcoming annual “Give or Get Luncheon” sponsored by the Mizrachi Women’s Organization will be used to provide for the needs of young girls in Palestine, including both the native-born and refugees from Europe.

1938: German legislation outlaws "decadent art." All decadent artists weren’t Jewish but all Jewish artists were decadent.

1938: Birthdate of Peter Yarrow, “The Peter” in Peter, Paul and Mary

1939: As violence aimed at Arabs in response to the White Paper, increased, British authorities in Palestine began arresting Revisionists including Dr. Bukshpan, chairman of the Revisionist Palestine Executive Committee. At the same, at least one Jewish newspaper in Palestine published a report from Warsaw, Poland “that Dr. Vladimir Jabotinsky, head of the Revisionist party was openly opposed to any Jewish rebellion on the ground that in the present state of international affairs the Jews must and cannot fight against Britain when all democracies are grouping themselves” for a fight with Nazi Germany.

1939: Even though it placed strict limitations on Jewish immigration, Arab leaders rejected the White Paper today because it allowed for Jewish immigration and for the possibility of a Jewish home in Palestine. The Arab High Committee rejected any role for Jews in Palestine and asserted that the creation of an Arab state is the solution to the problem.

1942: Auschwitz III opened up. It was a massive labor camp for the construction of synthetic oil and rubber.

1942: In the Warsaw Ghetto, 3,650 Jews had died of starvation since the first of May. The Germans opened a new death camp on the outskirts of Minsk, in the village of Maly Trostenets. Spring brought on soft ground which meant it was easy to dig massive graves again.

1943: At a Meeting of the General Government ministers in Cracow, Lieutenant General Kruger noted that "on the Fuhrer's orders it is necessary for the (slaughter of the Jews) from the standpoint of European interests."

1943 A Nazi prison administrator in Minsk, Byelorussia, reports that 516 German and Russian Jews have been killed in late May, their gold crowns and fillings taken from their mouths before their deaths.

1943(26th of Iyyar, 5703): Today, the Nazis murdered Berta and Munio Kremnitzer, the parents of Rama Reis-Kremnitzer and the grandparents of Brig. Gen. Itai Reis, the commander of Palmahim air force.

1944: In Budapest, German representative, SS General Edmund Veesnmayer reported that 60,000 more Hungarian Jews had been deported in the last six days. The total for the past 16 days stood at 204,312. This day 42 dead bodies were removed from the Berkenau bound trains.

1944 (9th of Sivan, 5704): The Jewish community of Khonia, Crete, which traced its history back to Roman times, came to an end when the ship Danai, into which all the Jews had been herded, was towed out to sea and sunk

1944: A Hungarian deportation train stops near the German border so 42 corpses could removed.

1944: At the Auschwitz rail junction, German soldiers who encounter a sealed deportation train carrying Hungarian Jews to the Birkenau death camp defy threats of SS guards and give water and food to pleading prisoners. (Could this be a reference to scene in the film “Schinlder’s List” where Schindler provides water for a group of Jews trapped in box cars?)

1944: An SS man and a Jewish girl with whom he has fallen in love are executed. The German has hidden the girl for months, keeping her from the gas chambers.

1948: Birthdate of Rhea Perlman. The Brooklyn born actress, created the character of Carla on Cheers and Zena in the television comedy “Taxi. “

1948: Representatives of the Protestant and Catholic faiths joined more than 500 Reform Jewish leaders from a score of States at a testimonial dinner at the Netherlands Plaza Hotel in honor or Dr. Julian Morgenstern, who is retiring as president of Hebrew Union College.

1948: “In further moves to relieve pressures on the coastal strip and to ward off disaster two columns of Israeli armored cars were advancing to on Jenin.” One column was advancing from Afula while the other was coming from Megiddo which was the scene of a counter-attack by Trans-Jordan’s Arab Legion. In the south, the Arab Legion was reported to have massed two hundred armored vehicles at Rameleh which will be used in the fight to keep the road from Jerusalem to the Coast Plain from being opened to Jewish convoys. At the same time the Egyptians have amassed 500 armored vehicles twenty miles south of Jaffa as part of a what appears to be another move against Tel Aviv.

1948: An Order of the Day, signed by David Ben Gurion, which included the following statement, was issued. “On the establishment of the State of Israel, the Haganah has emerged from the underground and has become a regular army…Without the Haganah’s experience, plan, skill in operation and command, its devotion and valor, the Yishuv could not have held it ground on the dreadful trial of arms it had to face during these six months and we would not have attained the State of Israel.”

1957: Playwright Arthur Miller is convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to denounce writers with alleged Communist views to the House Un-American Activities Committee

1962: Adolf Eichmann, head of the Jewish department of the Gestapo, the first Nazi to be condemned by the Jewish state, was hanged.

1963: Birthdate of Canadian comedian Jeremy Hotz.

1964: Birthdate of Canadian lawyer and media magnate, Leonard Asper, Brandeis U. alum and son of the late Isadore Asper.

1967: With the announcement of the alliance between Egypt and Jordan, Israel was faced with the possibility of having to fight a war on three fronts – the Sinai, the Golan and the West Bank – Egypt, Syria and Jordan

1967: Contingents of the Iraqi Army arrived in Egypt with plans to join in the upcoming war with Israel.

1967: The government of Egypt declared that Eilat, Israel’s southern port, had been illegally occupied by Israel. With Egyptian troops stationed a few miles away at Taba, the Israel felt even more threatened.

1967: At Nasser’s insistence, Ahmed Shukeiry, head of the PLO, flew back to Jordan with King Hussein. He then went to Jordanian occupied portion of Jerusalem where he promises the Jews of Israel that after the war they will either have not survived or will be ‘repatriated.’

1974: After Kissinger conducted a feverish round of shuttle diplomacy between Damascus and Jerusalem, the separation of forces agreement between Israel and Syria was signed in Geneva. This marked the formal end the hostilities known as the Yom Kippur War.

1990(7th of Sivan, 5750): Second Day of Shavuot

1994(21st of Sivan, 5754): Trumpeter Emmanuel "Manny" Klein passed away.

1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including "The Commissioners: Baseball's Midlife Crisis" by Jerome Holtzman and "Two Lucky People: Memoirs" by Milton Friedman and Rose D. Friedman

1998(6th of Sivan, 5758): First Day of Shavuot

2000: U.S. President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met at Clinton's Lisbon hotel in the latest effort to jump-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

2001: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon comes under increasing pressure to end a unilateral cease-fire with the Palestinians, as violence continues in the Middle East.

2002: Israeli troops enter the West Bank city of Nablus, while the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is reported to have signed a law reform package which is a framework for a Palestinian constitution.

2003: While visiting Auschwitz today, President Bush said, ““This site is a sobering reminder that when we find anti-Semitism, whether it be in Europe or anywhere else, mankind must come together to fight such dark impulses. And this site is also a strong reminder that the civilized world must never forget what took place on this site. May God bless the victims and the families of the victims, and may we always remember.”

2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including "Sontag & Kael" by Craig Seligman, "Teammates" by David Halberstam and "Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared)" by Franz Kafka; translated by Michael Hofmann, a new translation of Kafka's novel about a young man's humiliations after being banished for his part in a scandal strives to stay close to the author's rough drafts.

2005: Israeli TV Channel 2 starts broadcasting "Yoman Masa" - "Diary of a Journey" ("Land of the Settlers") filmed by Channel 1 news anchor man Chaim Yavin.

2005: Mikhail Khodorkovsky was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to nine years in prison. The sentence was later reduced to 8 years.

2006: In Jerusalem, closing session of Biomed 2006.

2007: The JCC of Manhattan presents “Tizmoret’s Spring Sing.” Tizmoret is the Queens College Hillel chapter’s Professional A Cappella Choir.

2008 (5768): Begin Book of Numbers.

2009: In New York City, the annual Salute to Israel Parade swings down famed 5th Avenue. The main theme of this year's parade is "Past, Present, Future – Tel Aviv Celebrates 100 Years."

2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including "Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball From Itself" by Michael Shapiro and the recently released paperback edition of "Dictation" by Cynthia Ozick.

2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including "Alger Hiss and the Battle For History" by Susan Jacoby

2009: A five-day civil defense exercise, simulating an attack on the country, started today. Named Turning Point 3, the drills will be the most extensive ever held and practice new measures to safeguard civilians.

2010: An exhibition entitled “One Foot in America: The Jewish Emigrants of the Red Star Line and Eugeen Van Mieghem” at the YIVO Institute is scheduled to come to a close. This exhibit tells the story of the Red Star shipping line, focusing on the lives of emigrants--the reasons they fled, their arrival in Antwerp and their experience with the city's Jewish community, their living conditions onboard the ships, and their hopes and dreams. The exhibit also features the Flemish artist and Antwerp native Eugeen Van Mieghem (1875-1930), whose work depicts the emigrants and the life of the port.

2011: Final day of Jewish American heritage Month

2011: The 2011 award ceremony for the Sami Rohr Prize in fiction for Jewish Literature is scheduled to be held in New York City today.

2011; World Policy Journal editor David A. Andelman is scheduled to moderate a town-meeting style conversation entitled “Beyond the Stage: On Henry Kissinger” at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.


Created, Compiled & Edited by Mitchell Levin Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com
Copyright; May, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin