This Day, May 2, In Jewish History

May 2 In Jewish History

693: The Sixteenth Council of Toledo, which had opened on April 25, met for the last time. Among its other accomplishments, the council took further steps in the on-going, ever more vicious, suppression of the Jews by the Christian Visigoth. The law code, which granted “tax freedom to Jewish conversos” now transferred the tax obligation to Jews who had not converted. Also, the council ruled that “converts were allowed to trade with Christians, but not until” they had proven themselves “by recitation of creeds and eating of non-kosher food. The council also enacted penalties against Christians who entered into business transactions “with unconverted or unproven Jews.”

907: King Boris I of Bulgaria died. At the time of his death, Boris was actually a monk having abdicated his throne in 889. During his reign, Bulgaria continued to provide a refuge for Jews fleeing from Byzantine persecution. According to some reports, there was an attempt to convert the pagan Bulgars to Judaism. True or not, Christianity would become the state religion.

1108 (20th of Iyar): Solomon Ibn-Farussal was murdered shortly before the forces of Islam defeated the Christians at the battle of Ucles. Yehuda Halevi composed an elegy upon hearing of Ibn-Farrusal’s murder. Ibn-Farussal reportedly was “in the service of a Christian prince” who had sent him as an emissary to the Spanish city of Murcia. The “Christian prince” may well have been Alfonso VII, the monarch who led the Spaniards to defeat at Ucles.

1160: In the Montpellier region of southern France, an agreement was concluded according to which every priest who stirred up the people against the Jews should be excommunicated. The Jews in return pledged to pay four pounds of silver every year on Palm Sunday

1194: In one his first acts after returning from his imprisonment in Austria, King Richard I of England gave Portsmouth its first Royal Charter. Richard had been held prisoner until a ransom had been paid. The Jews had paid a disproportionate share of that ransom. The 5,000 marks the Jews were compelled to pay was triple that paid by the citizens of London. There is no record of any Jews having lived in Portsmouth during the Middle Ages, though there were a scattered few in nearby Bosham, Chichester and Southampton, and an important community in Winchester. The first Portsmouth Jews, attracted by the opportunity of trading with the fast-growing Royal Navy in its home port and possibly by a sense of kinship with the new German-speaking monarchs of these isles, settled in Oyster Street in the 1730s - Jacob Thulman signed in Hebrew in the Borough Sessions in 1736 - but soon moved out of Old Portsmouth to Portsea, in the heart of the city’s commercial district. The first recorded mention of a Jewish community in Portsmouth is the purchase of the thousand-year lease of a plot of land by Lazy Lane (now Fawcett Road) for use as a Jews’ burial ground in December 1749. The lessees were Benjamin Levi (engraver), Mordechai Samuel (jeweler), Lazarus Moses (chapman) and Mordechai Moses (chapman). Fawcett Road cemetery was still in use until it became full in the early 1990s. [Editor’s Note-The word “chapman” probably meant that these men were merchants or peddlers.]

1293(Iyyar, 5053): Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg passed away. The last of the Tosophists, he was the leading Rabbi in Germany. Convinced that there was no future in Germany, he agreed to lead a large contingent of families to Eretz-Israel. While waiting for the other families, he was seized by the Bishop of Basel. The Emperor ordered him held in prison as a lesson to any of "his Jews" who would try to leave Germany and thus cause him a financial loss. He refused to be ransomed, saying that it would serve as an impetus for further extortion's. He died in a prison near Colmar, and his body was held there until it was ransomed some years later.

1481: The Pope called upon all Christian princes to send back to Spain the Jews who had fled from the Inquisition.

1605: Massacre of the Jewish community of Bisenz, Austria.

1611: The King James Bible is published for the first time in London, England, by printer Robert Barker. For many Jews (as well as non-Jews) the language of the King James Bible is the only version of the TaNaCh they know.

1670: King Charles II of England grants a permanent charter to the Hudson's Bay Company to open up the fur trade in North America. “The first known Jew to settle in what is now Canada was Ferdinande Jacobs, a fur trader with Hudson's Bay Company who came to Manitoba in 1732.” (Jewish Virtual Library)

1713(6 of Iyar, 5473): Josep Josel Wertheimer, father of Rabbi Samson Wertheimer, passed away today at the age of 87.

1729: Birthdate of Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great, Czarina of Russia. Regardless of how history views this German princess who replaced her husband on the throne of Russia, she was responsible for Russia acquiring most of its Jewish population. Under her reign, Russia acquired much of Poland and its large Jewish population. Her record of treatment of the Jews, is mixed to negative. As a follower of Voltaire, she could not help but be swayed by his low opinions of the Jews. Her policies led to the creation of what would be called the Pale of Settlement.

1718(1 Iyar 5478): Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch ben Yaakov Ashkenazi passed away. Born in Moravia in 1656, he was “known as the Chacham Tzvi (after responsa by the same title). He served rabbi of Amsterdam and “was a resolute opponent of the followers of the false messiah, Sabbatai Zevi. He had a chequered career, owing to his independence of character. He visited many lands, including England, where he wielded much influence. His responsa are held in high esteem. He was the grandson of Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chelm.” Elijah Ba'al Shem was a sixteenth century “Polish rabbi who studied under Rabbi Solomon Luria and later became the Chief Rabbi of Chełm. He was a co-signer of the Agunah laws and, according to legend, was able to create a Golem creature with Kabbalah. Many legends surround his life in regards to this creation. Because of his mastery over the names of God, he was the first Rabbi to be given the Baal Shem title. Not only was he the grandfather of Rabbi Tzvi Ashkenazi, he was also the great grandfather of Jacob Emden.

1791: In Prussia “Daniel Itzig and his family received the first Naturalisationspatent, which granted them full citizenship. A year later the solidarische Haftung (collective responsibility and liability of the Jewish community for non-payment of taxes and crimes of theft) was abolished.”

1844: Birthdate of Aaron Wise, the Hungarian born American rabbi was the son of Rabbi Joseph Hirsch Weiss, and father of Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise.

1853: The Argentine Constitution promised freedom of religion and immigration. Argentina had already shown itself to be a hospitable place for Jewish settlement when it abolished the Inquisition in 1813 which contributed to an influx of Jewish immigrants from Western Europe and North Africa. The country’s first “Jewish wedding” would take place in 1860 and the Jewish community of Buenos Aires dates its start from 1862.

1856: The New York Times reported that Lord Derby’s government could not long survive because it was led by “a dilettante Jew whose only stary is self, and who has no care either for the national honor or glory…” The “dilettante Jew” had to be a reference to Disraeli, who not for the first time would be wrongly identified as a Jew. And the references were inavariably used as a slur.

1860: Birthdate of Theodor Herzl. Born in Hungary, Herzl's family moved to Vienna. He was raised in an "enlightened Jewish home" and trained as a lawyer. Herzl pursued a career as a journalist and writer. Although he had encountered anti-Semitism, his views on the role of the Jews changed radically when he covered the Dreyfus Trial in 1894. If anti-Semitism could thrive in enlightened France, then the Jews were not safe any place except in a nation of their own. He electrified many with his book the Jewish State and he organized the World Zionist Organization. The six congresses that he chaired set much of the tone and program for the modern Zionist movement. Herzl died in 1904 at the age of 44. In 1949, his body was taken to Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem for its final resting place. Herzl is the embodiment of Hillel's most famous wisdom statements and proof that one person can make a difference. “Herzl coined the phrase ‘If you will, it is no fairytale,’ which became the motto of the Zionist movement. Although at the time no one could have imagined it, Zionism led, only fifty years later, to the establishment of the independent State of Israel.”

1863: During the American Civil War, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson was wounded by friendly fire while returning to camp after reconnoitering during the Battle of Chancellorsville. Among the units fighting at Chancellorsville that tried to stop the advance of Jackson’s troops was a regiment from Illinois under the command of Frederick Hecker that included a company made up of ( and supplied by) Jews from Chicago, Illinois.

1867: The Weekly Clarion of Jackson reported today: “We are gratified that measures are in progress for the erection of a place of worship in this city by our fellow citizens of the Hebrew descent.” The newspaper item referred to the purchase of property at the corner of South State and South streets on which the Beth Israel Congregation would soon erect a small, wood-frame building which they would use as a school and a house of worship. This was the first building erected in Jackson designed to serve as a house of worship for the Jews living in around the city that was the capital of the state of Mississippi.

1871: The second trial of, Antoine Maurer indicted for the murder of Joachim Feurter, “a German of the Hebrew faith” commenced here today, before the Court of Oyer and Terminer for Rockland County. Maurer had been found guilty in the first trial, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality.

1873: The Jewish Messenger issued an appeal for financial support to send poor Jewish children on summer excursions. Among those who would benefit from some sea-side recreation are youngsters under the care of the Hebrew Benevolent Society and Free School Association. If these two groups cannot raise sufficient funds, then the paper will organize a Messenger Excursion Fund.

1877: A delegation of the Board of Delegates of the American Israelites, led by Benjamin F. Peixotto met with President Rutherford B. Hayes to discuss the persecution of the Jews of Roumania. The delegation presented a written account of “the recent barbarities” inflicted on the Jews of Glurgevo, Romania. The President expressed his sympathy and concern over the treatment of the Jews. He referred the group to Secretary of State William Evarts whom he requested to take such as this dire situation may require.

1877: On the advice of President Hayes, a delegation of the Board of Delegates of the American Israelites, led by Benjamin F. Peixotto met with U.S. Secretary of State William Evarts to discuss steps that could be taken to relieve the suffering of the Jews of Romania. The delegation “urged the Secretary of State to cable” the U.S. ministers “at Vienna, Constantinople and St. Petersburg asking them to act in conjunction with the representatives of those powers in endeavoring to repress further atrocities. Mr. Evarts took the subject under consideration” [This was part of an on-going series of attempts to relieve the suffering of the Jews of Romania. The Great Powers thought they had resolved the matter at the Congress of Berlin, but Romanian anti-Semitism would trump their efforts. The best hope for Romanian Jews would be found in leaving for the United States where they became part of the mass of immigrants who flooded this country in the years leading up to World War I. This would not be the first or last time that a U.S. President’s sympathy for the plight of the Jews would not be translated into a policy bring about their salvation. Most of us do not recognize the name of Benjamin Peixotto. In his day, he was one of the most influential Jews in the United States. He was a successful lawyer and journalist who was active in the affairs of the Republican Party and the Jewish community. Sic Transit Gloria.]

1878: Birthdate of Sir Henry Francis Goldsmid, who "after receiving careful instruction, was to the Bar in Hilary term, 1833 being the first Jew who ever obtained that distinction in Great Britain.

1893(16th of Iyyar, 5653): Johann Schnitzler a Hungarian-Austrian Jewish laryngologist who was a native of Nagy Kanizsa (today part of Hungary) passed away. He was the father of famed playwright Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) and Julius Schnitzler. In 1860 he earned his medical doctorate at the University of Vienna, where from 1863 to 1867 he worked as an assistant to Johann von Oppolzer (1808-1871). In 1880 he was appointed associate professor of laryngology at the University of Vienna, and later became director of its policlinic. Schnitzler was a pioneer of modern laryngology, and author of numerous works on diseases of the throat and larynx. His best known written work was Klinischer Atlas der Laryngologie (Clinical Atlas of Laryngology), which was published posthumously in 1895. In 1860 with Philipp Markbreiter (1810-1882), he founded the Wiener Medizinische Presse, a publication of which he remained as editor until 1886Schnitzler is credited with coining the term "spastic dysphonia" for a vocal disorder known today as spasmodic dysphonia

1895: Birthdate of Lorenz Hart. Born of Jewish-German immigrants, Hart was a highly productive lyricist for Broadway musicals and films. He is the Hart in the team of Rogers and Hart. Some of the tunes you might recognize are Blue Moon, The Lady is a Tramp, and The Most Beautiful Girl in the world. He passed away in 1943.

1896: Harold Frederic reports from London on the financial consequences of the recent demise of Baron Hirsch. Members of the British government are expecting a windfall to the Exchequer from the death duties that will have to be paid. They are projected to exceed the amount collected from the estate of another prominent Jew, Sir Julian Goldsmid. On the other hand, the Prince of Wales is quite concerned over how he shall back the considerable sums that he had borrowed from the Baron. Rumor has it that the future King need not worry since there is a clause in the Baron’s will that absolves the Prince of Wales of his debts.

1907: Birthdate of Pinky Lee host of the 1950’s children’s television program, Pinky Lee Show

1908: “Take Me out to the Ballgame”, one of the most popular song’s connected with baseball was copyrighted today. The music for this American classic were written by a Jew named Albert Von Tilzer.

1911: Dr. Solomon Schechter, the President of the Jewish Theological Institute arrived on the Berlin tonight marking his return from an 11 month long vacations.

1912: Birthdate of Axel Springer German newspaper magnate. Springer was honored by numerous organizations included the Weizmann Institute, Hebrew University, and The New York Leo Baeck Institute for his work to preserve German Jewish Culture and History and his support of Israel. It was not just a personal commitment. His editorial policies stated that the organization was to promote "the reconciliation of Jews and Germans and support for the vital rights of the State of Israel."

1919(2nd of Iyyar, 5679): Gustav Landauer, German anarchist and pacifist, passed away.

1919: Birthdate of “Jacob Bigeleisen, a chemist who worked on the development of the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project and helped discover new ways of analyzing chemical reactions…”

1921: Riots in Jaffa, Palestine causes the deaths of 40 Jews and 200 wounded. Martial law was put in effect after Jewish stores were looted.

1922: Birthdate of journalist Abraham Rosenthal. Known professionally as A.M. Rosenthal, he rose to through the management ranks of the New York Times. When he left, he was the executive editor of the Times. He later became a columnist for the New York Daily News

1922: In New York City, Samuel Untermyer made a vigorous attack on critics of the Zionist cause at a meeting tonight sponsored by the Washington Heights Congregation. Other speakers were Nahum Sokolow, Colonel J.H. Patterson and Vladimir Jabotinsky, who appealed for contributions to the Palestine Foundation Fund that needs three million dollars to meet its budgetary goals. Untermyer said the funds were going to aid those seeking to “escape from the hate, persecutions, pogroms and massacres of the crazed, bigoted and Jew-baiting peoples of Eastern and Southeastern Europe.” Furthermore, the funds would only be used to develop the land including programs to buy land, build houses and finance public works projects.

1924: Birthdate of multi-talented performer, Theodore Bikel. Born in born in Vienna, Bikel's family took him to Palestine during the 1930's. Bikel supported himself as a musician and appeared in several stage productions of Habimah, the Israeli theatre. He honed his stage acting skills in London. Ironically, one of his first American film roles was as a German naval officer in The African Queen. It was one of many times he would play German and Russian characters. In a linguistic tour de force, he played a southern sheriff in the Defiant Ones, a part for which he received an Oscar nomination. Bikel's most famous role on the American stage was the male lead in the Sounds of Music, playing opposite Mary Martin. Bikel is multi-lingual and a skilled guitarist. This has made a favorite among folk music followers. Bikel has been outspoken labor activist in the film and theatre industries. And, he is an ardent Zionist.

1927: Louis Zabar, who created Zabar’s the icon of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, married Lillian Teitlebaum. The future Mrs. Zabar had been living in Philadelphia before she moved to New York where she met Zabar whom she had originally known from the Ukrainian village in which they had both lived. They had three children – Saul, Stanley and Eli. She passed away in 1995.

1927: Birthdate of Amos Kenan the Tel Aviv native who was an Israeli columnist, painter, sculptor, playwright and novelist. He was known as a critic of Israeli policy.

1929: Tel Aviv celebrated its 20th anniversary today at an afternoon tea party. One of the highlights of the event was the the congratulatory speech by Major J.F. Campbell, District Commissioner of Southern Palestine which was delivered entirely in Hebrew. “This was the fist time in the history of the country since the British occupation that a high British official has delivered a public address entirely in Hebrew.” The first child born in Tel Aviv, who is now twenty years old, “welcomed the guests in the name of the city’s young people.”

1932: Jack Benny's first radio show premiered on the NBC Blue Network, The color coding was to differentiate the two NBC networks from one another, not a reference to off-color material. This was one of the milestones in Benny's career which included vaudeville, films and television

1933: The United Committee for the Settlement of German Jews is organized to aid immigrants.

1933: The polarization between the labor Movement (Histadrut and Mapai) and the Revisionists intensify and reach their peak after the assassination of Chaim Arlozoroff.

1934: Congressman Louis T. McFadden delivers an anti-Semitic speech on the floor of the United States House of Representatives.

1934: The defense in the trial of three revisionist Zionists for the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff obtained admissions today from men employed by the police to make plaster casts of the footprints of the accused that some of the casts did not fit. While cross-examining Inspector Riggs of the Palestine Police, defense counsel Horace Samuel attempted to establish the fact that the police had “hushed up the confession of Abdul Megid and his accomplice, Isa that they had murdered” the Zionist leader.

1935: Joseph Budko becomes director of the new Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem. Born in1888, he left Germany in 1933 and settled in Palestine. He passed away in 1940.

1935: As Palestine endures a heat wave, temperatures reach 104 degrees “in the shade.” The average temperature for May is 65 degrees.

1935: With Canada Dry Ginger Ale as a sponsor, Jack Benny came to radio on The Canada Dry Program on the NBC Blue Network

1936: Sixty-second running of the Kentucky Derby. “The Kentucky Derby was, in effect, a Jewish "sweep." Bold Venture was the winner, owned by Morton Schwartz, trained by Max Hirsch and ridden by Ira Hanford. All the human beings involved in this horse racing victory were Jews. Sometimes we suspect that Bold Venture was Jewish that day, too”

1936: Birthdate of violinist Michael Rabin. Rabin is part of long list of distinguished Jewish violinists that runs from A to Z; from Joseph Achron and to Paul Zukofsky. He passed away in 1972.

1938: “The British partition commission began its tour of inquiry this morning, driving from Jerusalem to Jaffa and Tel Aviv.” Tel Aviv Mayor Israel Rokach took the commissioners on a tour of Tel Aviv harbor. The commissioners expressed a great deal of interest in the harbor facilties in Tel Aviv and nearby Jaffa. They were surprised to learn that the Jews of Tel Aviv supplied most of that city’s funding for the harbor and that Jewish taxpayers of Tel Aviv paid to support the educational and health services in Jaffa. Residents of Jaffa made no such contribution to Tel Aviv.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that six Arab constables were killed when a gang of Arab terrorists attacked a police post near Kalkilya. Several casualties were suffered by the attackers who retreated with horses and rifles of their victims. Arab terrorists fired at the Jewish quarter of Safad and at Rosh Pina. They tampered with railway tracks, cut telephone wires and carried other acts of sabotage.

1941: In Nazi occupied Netherlands Jewish journalists are laid off.

1943(27th of Nisan, 5703): Four thousand Jews from Miedzyrzec Podlaski, Poland are murdered at the Treblinka death camp.

1943(27th of Nisan, 5703): At Luków, Poland, 4000 Jews are killed

1945: In Germany, the SS guards at the Neustadt-Glowen, labor camp near Lübeck fail to report for morning roll call, giving freedom to Jewish women who have been brought from Ravensbrück and Breslau, Germany, to dig defensive trenches and anti-tank ditches.

1945: Berlin surrendered to the Soviet Army. Out of a pre-war Jewish population of 33,000, only 162 survived

1945: The Central Board of the Charity Institution for Aged Needy People (at Athens) attempted to make the elderly Jews comfortable in their last years. In a letter to the Central Board of Jewish Communities of Greece, they wrote: "Honorable Sirs, The Central Board of the Charity Institution for Aged Needy People deeply sympathize with the martyrdom of the so terribly persecuted Jewish race by the wild and barbaric conqueror."

1946: Birthdate of musician Lesley Gore

1946: A funeral service is held in Kraków, Poland, for seven Jews who were murdered on April 30 by anti-Semitic thugs at Nowy Targ, Poland.

1947(12th of Iyyar, 5707): Henry Monsky, international president of B'nai B'rith and chairman of the interim committee of the American Jewish Congress passed away today in the Hotel Biltmore at the age of 57, while attending a meeting of the future organization committee of the conference.

1949: Arthur Miller won the Pulitzer Prize for "Death of a Salesman." “Death of a Salesman” went on to be a successful film as well. Born in 1915, Miller's long career has included plays on a variety of topics including “The Crucible,” which used the Salem Witch Trials to challenge the Right Wing reactionaries including the followers of Senator Joe McCarthy during the 1950's.

1950: “A United Nations plane flying southward over Israeli territory was forced down at Lydda Airport today after Israeli Army fighters had fired across its nose. The plane was permitted to continue on to an Arab field at Kallandia, in Jordan after an official check.”

1951: Prime Minister David Ben Gurion left Israel for a private visit in the United States, accompanied by Chaim Herzog. During the trip he will meet with President Truman, as well as with young leaders from both political parties. One of them is Congressman John F. Kennedy. Ben Gurion will also vit Israeli air force students in California and a company manufacturing aircraft parts. The plant belongs to Al Schwimmer, a former American volunteer in the War of Independence.

1951: Syrian forces took positions in Tel Mutilla, in the demilitarised zone between Israel and Syria, and Meir Amit was ordered to dislodge them. Leading his Golani infantry brigade - he had become its commander in 1950 - Amit pressed the attack for four consecutive days, compelling the Syrians to withdraw. But with 40 of his soldiers killed in action and many others wounded, he faced serious criticism from senior officers and was called to defend his actions.

1951: For the only time in major league history, a Jewish batter faced a Jewish pitcher whose battery mate was also Jewish. Detroit Tiger Pitcher Saul Rogovin was on the mound. Catcher Joe Ginsberg was behind the plate. Lou Limmer, the Philadelphia Athletics’ first baseman was at bat. Limmer hit the first pitch into the stands.

1968: Israeli television began broadcasting.

1975: The American Jewish Committee announced publication of a guidebook by Gladys Rosen suggesting ways to recognize Jewish contributions to the United States during the Bicentennial celebrations.

1976: Agudath Achim, the Orthodox congregation in Little Rock, AR, dedicates its newest building. This is the third home for the congregation; the first one that is not in the downtown section of the city.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the U.S. President, Jimmy Carter, told the visiting Premier, Menachem Begin, that the U.S. will "never waiver" in its "absolute commitment to the Israeli security," even though "we may, from time to time, have a transient difference with the people of Israel". Some 150 American rabbis participating in the White House reception given to honor the Prime Minister Menachem Begin, presented the U.S. National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, with a petition protesting the proposed Middle Eastern arms embargo, which would directly affect Israel.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that despite the U.S. State Department's official objections, the Palestine Liberation Organization opened an information office in Washington, under the management of Hatem Husseini, a Palestinian citizen of Jordan.

1980(16th of Iyyar, 5740): Arab terrorists kill 6 Jews and injure 17 at Hebron. Israeli military authorities order the deportation of the mayors of Hebron and the nearby village of Halhoul for incitement to violence. The mayors appeal to Israeli courts, which affirm the order. In December, they will be deported to southern Lebanon.

1981: A police sapper was moderately injured by an explosive charge that had been placed in a trash can near Cafe Alno in Jerusalem.

1990: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher addressed the Women’s International Zionist Organization at its Centenary Lunch

1991(18th of Iyyar, 5751): Lag B’Omer

1991(18th of Iyyar, 5751): Leib Lensky, an actor who appeared in plays, films and television programs and performed in English, Yiddish and Hebrew, passed away today at Beth Israel Hospital at the age of 82. He died of liver cancer, a friend, Rabbi Mayer Moskowitz, said. Mr. Lensky, who was born in Poland, was a striking if diminutive figure who had roles in the films "The Pawnbroker" and "Hester Street," among others, and in the television series "The Naked City." During a 17-year residence in Paris that ended with his move to New York in the 1940's, Mr. Lensky, who was a leading actor in the Paris Yiddish Art Theater, also appeared in the Jean Renoir film "Grand Illusion." He was also seen onstage in Hebrew-language productions in Israel. In New York, he took the stage in various presentations of the Habimah Haktana in Manhattan. One of his longest-running performances was at the annual observance of Sholom Aleichem's death, attended by the author's family, friends and admirers. For dozens of years, Mr. Lensky opened the ceremonies by reading, in Yiddish, the writer's unusual will in which he gave guidelines for the relaxed gatherings at which he wanted to be remembered. Last month, Mr. Lensky was too ill to attend, but he sent a message of best wishes to those who did.

1992(29th of Nisan, 5752): Dr. Lee Salk passed away. Born in 1926, Salk gained famed as a “baby doctor" and author on family matters. He died of cardiac arrest at the age of 65.

1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Israel and Europe: An Appraisal in History” by Howard M. Sachar and “The Majors: In Pursuit of Golf's Holy Grail” by John Feinstein.

2000: Israeli jet fighters turn back an Egyptian civilian aircraft from the Gaza airport

2001: The New York Times reported that Israel had arrested an ex-general as a spy for “spilling old secrets.” Itzhak Yaakov, 75, a retired brigadier general who once oversaw weapons development for the Israeli military, is at the center of a supposed spy story that may turn out to be more Kafka than le Carré. For more than a month Mr. Yaakov, an Israeli-American with dual citizenship who has lived in Manhattan for the last two decades, has been in an Israeli prison on charges of ''high espionage'' that carry a maximum penalty of life behind bars. On March 28th,Mr. Yaakov, known here as the father of the Israeli technology industry, was quietly taken into custody by a special security division of the Defense Ministry. That was four days after his 75th birthday was celebrated in the wealthy town of Savyon outside Tel Aviv by a who's who of Israeli political and economic leaders who regaled him as ''Mr. Security.'' Mr. Yaakov was arrested at Ben-Gurion Airport after he finished checking in for a flight to Istanbul. His case was sealed and an order was issued barring the principals from speaking to the press, so his friends thought at first that he was simply away, enjoying himself as planned on vacation in Turkey. Then on April 22, The Sunday Times of London reported Mr. Yaakov's detention and added that he was being questioned about his ''relationship with a Russian woman who may have had access to his work'' from the time when he is said to have played a role in the development of Israel's nuclear industry. With the secrecy of his arrest broken, Israeli courts partly lifted the order withholding information from the press, and state attorneys made public some of the charges. Mr. Yaakov is accused of passing confidential information to ''unauthorized individuals'' with the intention of ''compromising the security of the state.'' The indictment says that despite warnings from security officials, he divulged classified information he had obtained during his service in the Israeli military, which ended 27 years ago. His wife, Tatiana Mendoza, is a Russian-born American, but a ''relationship with a Russian woman'' does not appear to be a factor in the case, despite the initial report, which set the country buzzing about an aging Mata Hari. Despite the accusations, Maj. Gen. Amos Yaron, director general of the Defense Ministry, said on Israel Radio on Monday, ''We are not talking about a spy case.'' He called the incident ''very unfortunate'' and referred to Mr. Yaakov as a ''man with a history of admirable deeds.'' Nonetheless, General Yaron obliquely said that the authorities had had ''no choice'' but to arrest Mr. Yaakov for distributing sensitive information. Friends, who call Mr. Yaakov by his nickname, Yatza, say they believe that his only offense was speaking to an Israeli reporter during a series of recent interviews in New York. They say that he felt compelled to tell his story, making a case for his own contributions to Israeli history, after an incident that hurt him: he was disqualified, or so he believed, as a potential nominee for the state's highest honor, the Israel Prize, because he was an expatriate. Mr. Yaakov came from Israel's pioneer generation, and his personal history is interwoven with the state's. He was born in Tel Aviv in 1926 and attended the same elementary school as Yitzhak Rabin, several years behind the future prime minister. He served in the Palmach, a paramilitary branch of the Haganah, the Jewish underground self-defense force before independence, and commanded an important company during the 1947 war. He graduated as an engineer from Technion in Haifa. From 1955 to 1973 he served in the Israeli military, heading a weapons development unit for a decade. During that time he is believed to have played a role in the nuclear program. It is unclear to what extent the charges against Mr. Yaakov concern Israel's nuclear weaponry. Israel is considered by experts to have the sixth-largest nuclear arsenal in the world, but it has maintained a policy of ''deliberate ambiguity'' about its nuclear program for decades. Israeli military censorship, which has loosened considerably in recent years, is still almost airtight on nuclear arms. Mr. Yaakov's information would be very dated, older than the detailed revelations of Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear technician who blew the whistle on Israel's nuclear arsenal in 1986 and was convicted of treason in 1988. Much is now known about Israel's nuclear capacity, and Mr. Yaakov's friends said they doubted that he had fresh or detailed inside information. After two decades as a businessman in the United States, where nuclear arms are discussed more freely, Mr. Yaakov may have lost the keen Israeli sense of the subject as taboo, his friends said. Still, he was not supposed to talk, regardless of his motives, which the authorities acknowledge publicly do not involve sharing secrets with an enemy of Israel. An Israeli critic of the state's opacity on nuclear policy said, ''There is a state within a state'' on the nuclear issue. ''The myth that this issue stands apart allows them to justify all sorts of outrageous behavior,'' the critic said. ''It appears they are using a 75-year-old man to send a message to a generation of people that they should die with their secrets, even if they are such old secrets that they're not of much value anymore in intelligence or military terms.'' Mr. Yaakov left the military a week before the Arab-Israeli war of 1973. He went to work for Israel's Trade Ministry as chief scientist, nurturing the research and development companies that blossomed into Israel's lucrative technology industry. He emigrated to the United States in the late 1970's, largely for personal reasons. Last year he retired as chairman of Constellation 3D, a company that develops advanced data storage products, with offices in New York, Florida and California and laboratories in Israel and Russia. The birthday extravaganza for Mr. Yaakov was given by two technology entrepreneurs. Before the party, Mr. Yaakov gave a series of interviews to Ronen Bergman of the daily Yediot Ahronot for an article that was supposed to be published in conjunction with the gala. He asked Mr. Bergman to sign a written contract pledging that he would submit the article to the military censor first. Friends of Mr. Yaakov say he would not have insisted on that condition if his intent had been to harm state security as the indictment alleges. Mr. Bergman complied, the friends said, and the censor killed the entire article, a magazine-length piece of some 7,500 words. Not long afterward, the arrest warrant for Mr. Yaakov was issued. General Yaron suggested that Mr. Yaakov had done more than talk to Mr. Bergman. He referred to a ''manifesto,'' which some officials believe to be memoirs that Mr. Yaakov was preparing for publication. Mr. Yaakov's lawyers say there is no manifesto; friends say he was working on a novel that might have been partly autobiographical. An American official said Mr. Yaakov had declined assistance from the American authorities. Friends say he is too proud and embarrassed to turn to his second country for help in dealing with the authorities in the homeland in which he used to be an authority. The United States offered help twice, but he declined. Mr. Yaakov, who recently recovered from two heart operations, is confined in a prison hospital in Ramle. In a hearing on Wednesday, his lawyers plan to request that he be moved to house arrest, although he does not have a home in Israel. His wife, who is staying at a Tel Aviv hotel, cried when a reporter located her and asked her about her husband. ''It would be very unwise for me at this point to say anything,'' she said. ''I can't afford to talk now. I would love to shout, but I cannot do this now. He is not well.'' Mr. Yaakov's lawyers and several legal commentators here have asked why Israeli officials chose to file charges of aggravated espionage against him when they are saying publicly that his alleged offenses cannot be considered spying in the classic sense. The legal experts said lesser charges exist relating to unauthorized dissemination of confidential information. They have also criticized the director of the internal Defense Ministry security agency for what they see as overzealousness, and lamented the secrecy around the case. ''This type of secret arrest has no place in a democracy,'' the newspaper Haaretz said. One columnist said, ''The idea that Israel, in this day and age, can have such X-files is cause for concern.'' State Attorney Edna Arbel protested the contention that Mr. Yaakov had ''disappeared.'' ''People do not disappear in Israel,'' she said. ''This is not Russia or Latin America. He was accompanied by four lawyers and his wife when he was arraigned.'' Jack Chen, one of his lawyers, said: ''We see this as a very sad story of a person who dedicates his life to the security of Israel and ends up caught in a huge story that gets blown out of proportion and jeopardizes his reputation, his career, his legacy, everything. It's a huge shock for him, but he's sure that eventually the truth will come out.''

2001: A meeting between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to discuss the Egyptian-Jordanian peace initiative ends with little advancement.

2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of "Gulag: A History" by Anne Applebaum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning study that maintains that the Soviet concentration-camp system was equal to the Nazi killing machine, and supports Solzhenitsyn's assertion that the gulag was not a Stalinist aberration but an integral part of Lenin's Socialist dream.

2004(11th of Iyyar, 5764) A pregnant mother and her four daughters are shot dead by terrorists as they drive on the Kissufim road in the Gaza Strip.

2004: Vowing to fight for coexistence and mutual respect among mankind around the world, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger lays the cornerstone of Jerusalem's Museum of Tolerance on Sunday and pays tribute to the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. The Governor concludes his speech with the Hebrew saying, "Am Yisrael hai" – (the nation of Israel lives) – gives the crowd a thumbs-up sign, and adds his signature movie line, "I'll be back."

2004: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon hopes that an internal Likud referendum will cement support for his Gaza Strip pullout plan.

2004: Natan Sharansky, the Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs, and the World Zionist Organization, launch the new "Combating Anti-Semitism" Kit.

2006(4th of Iyyar, 5766): Yom Hazikaron – Israel Remembrance Day. On the day before celebrating its independence, Israel remembers the human cost. In the past year, 138 members of the security forces have been killed in the line of duty, bringing the total of men and women killed defending the state since 1860 to 22,123. This does not count the thousands of innocent bystanders who died in everything from terrorist attacks on Jerusalem pizza parlors to the sinking of ships filled with immigrants bound for Palestine in defiance of the infamous British White Paper.

2007: The Jewish Center for History and the Leo Baeck Institute in New York present “Hannah Arendt Rediscovered” a program “featuring the distinguished philosopher Richard Bernstein and author Jerome Kohn.”

2007:(14th of Iyar) Pesach Sheini

2008: As part of the PEN World Voices, Israeli author Yael Hedaya participates in a panel discussion entitled Writing Sex and Sexuality. Yael Hedaya was born in Jerusalem in 1964. She has worked as a screenwriter for the acclaimed Israeli TV drama series Betipul (In Treatment), which was adapted for the United States and currently airs on HBO. She is the author of Dramatis Persona, Housebroken, and Accidents, which was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in 2006. Her latest novel, "Eden", will be published in 2008. Yael Hedaya teaches creative writing at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa Friday evening services Temple Judah are dedicated to bidding Muriel and Fred Rogers a fond farewell. Fred and Muriel have been mainstays of the Jewish community and while we are all glad that they are enjoying a long, healthy life, we will miss them as they return to their Chicago roots.

2008: “One of a Kind,” a play that Yossi Vassa co-wrote with Shai Ben Attar about his family’s flight from Ethiopia in the mid-1980s opens at The New Victory Theater in New York City. “One of a Kind,” which deals with conflicts in Vassa’s family around the decision to leave Ethiopia, is dedicated to the playwright’s grandmother, who died in Sudan before the rest of the family emigrated via Operation Moses, the covert effort in which thousands of Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel. The play has already had a three-year run in Israel, where it won multiple theater awards. It was recently translated into English, and the original cast members, all of whom were born in Ethiopia, are taking it to America and Canada.

2008: “Imaginary Coordinates” featuring the Spertus Institute’s collection of Holy Land maps, which date back to the 16th century as well as contemporary Israeli and Palestinian women artists’ works that take up the question of regional borders opens at the Spertus in Chicago, Il.

2009: The Lincoln Center presents Orient- Occident: A Dialogue of Cultures as part of the Jordi Savall Jerusalem Series.

2009(8th of Iyar, 5769): Alfred Appel Jr., a scholarly expert on Vladimir Nabokov, whose lecture course he attended at Cornell, and the author of wide-ranging interpretive books on modern art and jazz, died today in Wilmette, Illinois at the age of 75. “One of the first academic Nabokovians, Mr. Appel (pronounced a-PELL) turned the extraordinary experience of attending Nabokov’s lectures on literature into a scholarly cottage industry of articles, books and an essay collection. In “The Annotated Lolita,” first published in 1970 and reissued in a revised edition in 1991, he explicated, virtually line-by-line, the myriad allusions, multilingual puns and sly jokes in Nabokov’s most famous novel. “Nabokov’s Dark Cinema” (1974) explored the influence of cinematic scenes and techniques on Nabokov’s fiction. Mr. Appel later turned his attention to modern art in all forms but most importantly jazz, in several sweeping cultural studies. The best known of these was “Jazz Modernism: From Ellington and Armstrong to Matisse and Joyce” (2002), an attempt to place jazz in the larger context of the modern movement in 20th-century art. Mr. Appel was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Great Neck, on Long Island. He enrolled at Cornell but after serving in the Army (and buying a copy of “Lolita” in France, where he was stationed), he transferred to Columbia University. He earned a doctorate in English literature in 1963, writing his dissertation on Eudora Welty. He taught at Columbia for several years, then accepted a position at Northwestern University in 1968 and remained there until retiring in 2000. With Simon Karlinsky, he edited “The Bitter Air of Exile: Russian Writers in the West, 1922-1972” (1977). He also edited, with Charles Newsman, “Nabokov: Criticism, Reminiscences, Translations and Tributes” (1970). In addition to writing his book on jazz, Mr. Appel published two works on modern art, “Signs of Life” (1983) and “The Art of Celebration: The Expression of Joy in 20th Century Art, Literature, Photography and Music” (1992). At his death he was working on two books, an artistic portrait of the United States in the years leading up to World War II and a study of Louis Armstrong. Speaking at a memorial service for Nabokov in Manhattan in 1977, Mr. Appel recalled telling him about an antiwar protest at Northwestern during which a student had called Mr. Appel a eunuch. Nabokov said quickly, “Oh no, Alfred, you misunderstood him. He called you a unique.”

2009: Wayne L. Horvitz, a longtime labor relations mediator and the son of David Lyon Hurwitz, discusses and signs "What's the Beef?: Sixty Years of Hard-won Lessons for Today's Leaders in Labor, Management, and Government" at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.

2010(18th of Iyyar, 5770): Lag B'Omer

2010(18th of Iyyar, 5770): Inna Hecker Grade, the widow and a translator of the great Yiddish novelist and poet Chaim Grade, who earned her own literary niche for her zealous guardianship of her husband’s legacy, died today at the age of 85 in the Bronx, New York City. She died without a will and with no survivors. Mrs. Grade (pronounced GRAH-duh) made it her mission to ensure that her husband’s work was properly translated and adapted. But she seemed equally animated by her deep antagonism toward his chief rival for the Yiddish writers’ crown, Isaac Bashevis Singer. Singer had peopled the Eastern European world of his imagination with imps and dybbuks, swindlers, rakes and wanton women, and he drew the ire of critics like Mrs. Grade, who felt he had distorted and betrayed the world destroyed in the Holocaust. “I despise him especially because he is dragging Jewish literature, Judaism, American literature, American culture back to the land of Moab,” she said in an interview with The New York Times in 2004 for the Singer centennial, referring to the biblical land that was the scene of a bacchanalian outburst against the authority of Moses. “I profoundly despise all those who eat the bread in which the blasphemous buffoon has urinated.” Those who knew her said she repeatedly declared that translations of her husband’s writing failed to do justice to the vitality of his language and the breadth of his cultural insights. Many in the small interwoven Yiddish intellectual world felt that her intense protectiveness after he died in 1982 made it difficult for his work to be published. Ruth R. Wisse, a professor of Yiddish literature at Harvard and a translator of a Grade novel, “The Well,” recalled that in the 1980s she, Irving Howe and Khone Shmeruk were assembling a collection of verses by 40 Yiddish poets for Penguin, including a Grade epic about yeshiva students. But after Grade died, his widow refused to let them use his poem. “The story she gave out was that she was trying to protect his reputation,” Dr. Wisse said. “But what she actually managed to do was ensure that his work not be published, that no work was translated and nobody could get to do work on him. She discouraged a small industry of Grade research and publication.” In recent days, questions have circulated over what might happen to manuscripts and other papers that Chaim Grade left behind in their apartment in the Amalgamated Housing Cooperative in the north Bronx. Inna Hecker was born in 1925 in Russia. She met Grade during World War II. He had grown up in Vilna, now Vilnius in Lithuania, and fled east when the Germans occupied the city, leaving his first wife and mother behind in the common delusion that Germans would persecute only the men. Both women perished in the Holocaust, and Grade seemed riddled with guilt long after. In 1948, Inna and Chaim Grade emigrated to the United States, where Mrs. Grade studied literature and received a master’s degree from Columbia. The couple had no children. An erudite woman who comfortably quoted Jung and Baudelaire, she was one of the translators on her husband’s acclaimed memoir “My Mother’s Sabbath Days,” and his collection of novellas “Rabbis and Wives.” But Dr. Ralph Speken, a psychiatrist who befriended Mrs. Grade in her last year, said she felt that other translations, like that of his two-volume novel “The Yeshiva,” bore the same relation to the original that the movie version of “The Brothers Karamazov” bore to the Dostoevsky masterpiece.” (From NYT)

2010: Silvia Planas and Manuel Forcano are scheduled to discuss "A History of Jewish Catalonia" their book that traces the rich and fertile history of the Jews in Catalonia from the earliest references, that is, from the time of the late Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages, until the drastic decree of expulsion by the Catholic Monarchs in a program sponsored by The American Sephardi Federation

2010: As part of the third annual program in memory of Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter, Prof. Eugene Orenstein of McGill University is scheduled to speak on the topic, "Ber Borokhov: A Revolutionary of Yiddish Philology" followed by Prof. Joshua (Shikl) Fishman who is scheduled to speak about Dr. Schaechter.

2010(18th Iyar, 5770): Rabbi Moshe Hirsch, a leader of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect that opposes the existence of the Israeli state and a longtime adviser to the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, died today at his home in Jersusalem. He was 86. Rabbi Hirsch was the son-in-law of Rabbi Aharon Katzenelbogen, founder of the anti-Zionist sect Neturei Karta. Created in 1938 in what was then Palestine, Neturei Karta (“guardians of the city” in ancient Aramaic) has several thousand members in Israel, the United States and Canada. They believe that according to the Torah, Jews were exiled from Israel because they sinned and that God has forbidden the formation of a Jewish state until the Messiah arrives. Even ultra-Orthodox Jews who share its theological views have distanced themselves from Neturei Karta because of its actions. In 2006, Neturei Karta leaders traveled to Tehran (it could not be determined whether Rabbi Hirsch was among them), where they posed for pictures with the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a conference where the Holocaust was denied. Rabbi Hirsch became a confidant of Arafat in the 1980s, while Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization chairman, was in exile in Tunis.

2011: Branko Lustig, 78, two-time Oscar winner for “Schindler’s List” and “Gladiator,” is scheduled to celebrate his bar mitzvah today at Auschwitz, in front of barrack No. 24. “He missed his rite of passage as a 13-year-old because at the time he was a prisoner in the very same barrack, having been deported from his Croatian hometown to the death camp when he was 10. “To mark the belated bar mitzvah, Lustig will be accompanied by some 10,000 participants in the March of the Living, nearly all teenagers. “Lustig’s life story from child prisoner to successful Hollywood producer seems so implausible that even he and his good friend Steven Spielberg might hesitate to put it in front of an audience. When the Nazis and their Croatian puppet regime started to round up Jews, his father joined a partisan unit while Branko and his mother were arrested and sent to Auschwitz. Upon arrival at the concentration camp, mother and son were separated. Although Branko was only 10, he was quite tall and escaped immediate death by passing himself off as a 16-year-old and therefore fit for labor. He was sent to a nearby coal mine and got lucky again to be assigned the job of ladling out water to other prisoners, leading a white horse pulling a cart with the water tank. In the closing months of the war, the boy was transferred to Bergen-Belsen where, miraculously, he was reunited with his mother. His father did not survive the war. Lustig was lying on a camp bunk, emaciated, ravaged by typhus and covered with lice, when he suddenly heard some strange musical notes. “I thought I had died and was in heaven,” Lustig recalled. Actually, the music came from a Scottish bagpiper, heralding the arrival of a company of British liberators. After recovering, Lustig returned to Croatia and eventually joined a local film production company. When the ABC TV miniseries “The Winds of War” did some filming work in Croatia, Lustig signed on as associate producer. He moved to the United States in 1988 to work on the sequel, “War and Remembrance.” Shortly after his arrival stateside, Lustig was introduced to Spielberg. Three years later, the famed director, then planning the production of “Schindler’s List,” invited Lustig to a short meeting. The two men chatted for a while before Spielberg got to the point. “You are my producer,” he told Lustig. The moment marked the beginning of an enduring professional and personal relationship. “Schindler’s List” won the Best Picture Oscar in 1993, along with six other Oscars. During the ceremony, Lustig joined Spielberg and associate producer Gerald Molen on the stage. Few who watched are likely to forget the first line of Lustig’s acceptance speech. “My number was A3317. I am a Holocaust survivor.” Besides his Hollywood credits on such films as “Sophie’s Choice,” “Black Hawk Down,” and “American Gangster,” Lustig also organizes an annual festival of films on Holocaust and Israel themes in Zagreb, the Croatian capital. A few months ago, Lustig was approached by Phil Blazer, Lustig’s partner in their Six Point Films production company and president of the Blazer Media Group, which includes the Jewish Life Television (JLTV) network. Last year, JLTV broadcast live highlights of the March of the Living – the annual event that brings some10,000 participants, predominantly high school juniors and seniors from 40 countries, to Poland and Israel -- and is doing so again this year. Blazer suggested that Lustig participate in the march and, at the same time, celebrate the bar mitzvah he had missed 65 years earlier. Lustig thought it was a great idea. In the meantime, like any bar mitzvah boy, Lustig has been working on his speech. He plans to recall his pledge, as the youngest prisoner in his Auschwitz barrack, to tell the world about the fate of his elders who did not survive. Lustig says he will conclude with these words: “The message I want to share today is the most important one I learned from my years in the concentration camps. It is the message of tolerance. We must all get along. We must strive to respect and love one another, so that the horrific days of the Holocaust will never visit us again. Tolerance is my bar mitzvah wish today, and ‘Never Again’ is my hope and my dream for always.” (As reported by JTA)

2011: The Consultation on Conscience, Reform Judaism's flagship social justice conference is scheduled to continue with a reception featuring guest host Richard Dreyfus at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

2011: The 17th Annual Rocky Mountain Jewish Historical Society Heritage Award Dinner is scheduled to take place in Denver. The 2011 Heritage Award Dinner will salute early Colorado Jews in the Arts and will feature the premiere of a film called "Civilizing the West: Early Colorado Jews in the Arts."

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

This Day, May 1, In Jewish History

May 1 In Jewish History

305: Due to age and ill health and a desire to provide stability for the Roman Empire Diocletian resigned as Emperor of Rome. Relatively speaking, Diocletian’s reign was a positive period for the Jews. Diocletian was not overly concerned with his Jewish subjects since he was much concerned about controlling the Christians whom he regarded as a source of major instability in the Empire. From his point of view their contempt for Roman state religion and zealous proselytizing made them enemies of the empire. The Jews posed no such threat. Therefore, he exempted them from the requirement to include national sacrifices in their services. The decrees of Diocletian are actually recorded in the Talmud. According to some Diocletian lived in Palestine as a youth and was a swineherd. As Emperor he visited Palestine at which time enemies of the Jews told him that he was mocked by the Jews for working with pigs. When confronted with this, the Jewish leaders allegedly told him that while they may have made jokes about swineherds (something they regretted) they never made jokes about an Emperor. This must have assuaged Diocletian’s anger because no reprisals were taken against the Jews. It should be noted that Palestine suffered economically during this time, but that was as a result of the general impoverishment of the region and not as a result of anti-Jewish policies. Diocletian looks especially good when you remember that the reign of Constantine is just over the horizon.

1160: Bishop William of Beziers, France, who was appalled by the custom of beating of Jews during Palm Sunday, issued an order excommunicating Priests who did so. Beziers was the home to many Albigensians and was one of the more liberal, open cities in France. The Albigensians would be labeled heretics by the Roman Catholic Church. Some times during the Middle Ages, areas that were hospitable to those quarreling with Rome provided some sort of comfort for Jews who might have otherwise been subject to persecution.

1707: The Act of Union joins the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. While Jews had been expelled from England in 1290 and readmitted under Cromwell in the middle of the 17th century, Jews had been living in Scotland without interruption, possibly since Roman Times, but certainly since the 12th century. According Jewish-Scottish scholar David Daiches “ there are grounds for saying that Scotland is the only European country which has no history of state persecution of Jews.” By the time that the Act of Union became law, Jews were attending and teaching at Edinburg University. Within a decade and a half after the Act of Union, there were 20,000 Jews living in Glassgow.
http://www.scojec.org/resources/files/scotlands_jews.pdf

1769: Birthdate of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. Wellington’s claim to fame is his victory over the French. It was in this role that he found the Jews most helpful since Nathan Rothschild had provided the financial backing for the Iron Duke’s campaign against the French in Spain at a time when nobody else would risk the funds. Few people remember that the Duke, like other war heroes entered politics, serving as Prime Minister in the 1820’s and 1830’s. It was here that betrayed those Jews who had supported him by defeating the attempts at Jewish emancipation first when he served in the House of Commons and then, even more viciously when he served in the House of Lords. The Duke had been able to support a bill emancipating seven million English Roman Catholics but he could not bring himself to do the same for thirty thousand English Jews.

1808: Birthdate of Sir Henry Francis Goldsmid, who "after receiving careful instruction, was called to the Bar in Hilary term, 1833 making him the first Jew who ever obtained that distinction in Great Britain.”

1849(9th of Iyar, 5609): Isaac Bernays, Chief Rabbi in Hambrug, passed away. Born in 1792 at Mayence he completed his studies at the University of Würzburg, where he had been also a disciple of the well known Talmudist R. Abraham Bing. Then he went to Munich as private tutor in the house of Herr von Hirsch, and afterward lived at Mayence as a private scholar. In 1821 he was elected chief rabbi of the German-Jewish community in Hamburg, to fill a position where a man of strictly Orthodox views but of modern education was wanted as head of the congregation. After personal negotiations with Lazarus Riesser (father of Gabriel Riesser), who went to see him in Mayence, Bernays accepted the office on characteristic terms; namely, that all the religious and educational institutions of the community were to be placed under his personal direction; he wanted to be responsible to the government only. Besides this he required a fixed salary, independent of incidental revenues, and wished to be called "clerical functionary" or "ḥakam," as the usual titles, "moreh ẓedeḳ" or "rabbi" did not seem to him highly esteemed at that time. (Based on an article in the Jewish Encylopedia)

1852: In Great Britain, the Court Exchequer fined Mr. Salomons, the elected Member of Parliament from Greenwich, was fined for voting against the law that excluded the Jews from sitting in the House of Commons. Apparently he was found guilty of three separate violations since the court imposed three separate fines, of 500 pounds each.

1853: Birthdate of Jacob Michailovitch Gordin “a Russian-born American playwright active in the early years of Yiddish theater” who was “known for introducing realism and naturalism into Yiddish theater.”

1855: The New York Times reported that the American Hebrew Christian Assoication had issued a public invitation to all converted Jews to attend a meeting at the Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church in Manhattan on the evening of May 10th.

1855: Students at the Union Theological Seminary began taking their final exams today. One of the subjects in which they will be tested during the next week is the Hebrew Language.

1858: According to reports published today the Jews of Philadelphia have established a Permanent Hebrew Relief Association.

1860: Today’s “City Intelligence” column reported that Giacomo Meyerbeer is a favorite of New York opera goers. His principal works have been received with enthusiasm, and although inordinately expensive to produce -- when compared with others of the Italian repertoire equally celebrated -- have never failed to pay a handsome dividend to the enterprising manager who produced them.” Meyerbeer was German-Jewish opera composer.

1860: Today’s “City Intelligence” column described the performance of Fromental Halévy’s “La Juive” (The Jewess) at the Winter Garden Theatre. After providing a detailed description of each act the reviewer concluded “It is seldom that a work of such pretension receives fair treatment on a first night, and we do not assert unqualifiedly that even in this instance it did so, but there cannot be a doubt that in all the essentials of good management and liberal desire to praise, there was successful effort, and a most cordial response. If incessant applause means anything, it surely guarantees a long run for the "Jewess." A triumph more complete, in all that makes a triumph pleasing, has never been put on record.”

1863: Jews joined in observing a Day of National Prayer as proclaimed by President Lincoln during the Civil War.

"In common with the rest of their fellow-citizens, the Israelites assembled in their respective places of worship and carried out the precepts of the President's Proclamation. Most of the Synagogues were opened and he Psalms appointed to be read on penitential days, read on the occasion. A very eloquent address was delivered by Rabbi Morris J. Raphal, at the Greene-street Synagogue. He remarked that it was a curious coincidence that on this, a fast day appointed by their own religious observances, they met in compliance with the Proclamation of the President of the United States, to fast and pray. He had been in this country fourteen years. During the first ten years no public proclamation had ever directed their thoughts and feelings to humiliation and fasting. Once in every year the highest functionary in every State proclaimed a day of general thanksgiving, and with that the debt of national gratitude was supposed to be paid. But now the rulers of the nation come year after year and call upon the people to weary Heaven with fruitless professions of a penitence they did not feel, and of a humility they did not practice. These proclamations fast days, on which no one fasts, are but the repetition of those so strongly reproved by the prophet Isaiah; and, though the people dare not put his questions, "Wherefore do we fast and Thou seest it not? Afflict our souls and Thou will not notice it!" -- since in reality the people do neither -- still the answer would stand good. "Because while you profess humiliation, you persist in your arrogance and your extortions do not cease." If ever a people needed to humble itself before God -- if ever fasting and prayer, sack cloth and ashes were to be worn -- it was by the people of these United States. Like our fathers, the Israelites of old, for whom pious Nekeiniah made such fervent supplication, the people of this country are justly amenable to his confession made for Israel: "In their dominions, in all the great prosperity Thou didst bestow upon them, and throughout the large and rich land which Thou gavest unto them, they did not serve Thee, neither turned they from their evil deeds." The preacher then drew a parallel between the sins of the Israelites, which called forth the reproof of the preacher, and the past conduct of this nation, which was equally amenable to the words of the inspired prophet.

What were they to say for the citizens of the United States who already and so long possess the two greatest earthly blessings, Education and Freedom, and yet make so bad a use of both. Education should be the guardian of freedom and of virtue, it was the birthright of every American, bestowed on all and withheld from none. But what principles did it actually inculcate -what virtues did it really teach? Did it inculcate respect for free institutions? Answer, ye place-hunters, ye ballot-box stuffers, ye shoulder-hitters, who reduce self-government to a disgusting farce. Did it teach patriotism? Answer, ye spoils-men, ye office-teekers and holders, who cement party lines with the cohesive force of public plunder. Did it teach common honesty? Answer, ye peculators and speculators, who fatten on the blood of the hard-worked masses, and who dignify roguery by the name of smartness. His heart ached as he spoke to them of the effects of perverted education; it would ache still more were he to direct attention to the bitter fruits of abused freedom. He need not remind them that while the best men North and South had long been driven aloof from the affairs of the country, demagogues, fanatics and a party Press had so managed matters that they found themselves in the third year of a destructive but needless sectional war, which has armed brother against brother, consigned hundreds of thousands to an untimely grave, and to ruin and devastation tens of thousands of square miles of flourishing and happy land; and what was worse than all this, while humanity weeps we must suppress our sympathy. However, our hearts may yearn for peace and brotherly love, our reason convinces us that the present is not the time to expect, or even to hope for the cessation of blood. On the contrary, though we may detest the cause and course of events, it is our duty loyally to stand by our section of the country, to maintain her quarrel and defend her rights, while we have the consolation to know that our side did not begin the fray, and that the cause of Union was the worthiest in the field. The preacher concluded his address with a fervent prayer."

1864: In an article entitled, “The City Cars and General Goods Delivery,” the author’s complaints about the about the crowded, smelly conditions on the city’s public include the statement that “immediate contact with a huge pile of superannuated Hebrew clothing stock is not desirable at any time: it is most undesirable in overheated and overcrowded cars.” The author then goes on to compare the aroma with that found in packages of partially dried codfish and, strangely enough, joints of half cured pork.

1870: The New York Times reported that the late Dr. George Frick, a resident of Baltimore, bequeathed $1,000.00 to the Hebrew Society of Baltimore.

1870: According to a report published today, Michael Isaacs and Isaac Goldstein, two Jewish packpeddlers who had been indicted on charges of rape were found guilty and sentenced to ten years in prison by the Suffolk County court in New York.

1876: Establishment of Children of Israel Synagogue in the eastern part of Des Moines, Iowa.

1879: Birthdate of David M. Bressler, the son of Julius and Sarah Rothenberg Bressler, who attended City College, JTS and the New York Law School. He was widely known for his activities in Jewish, State and municipal relief and in charity organizations. His work with the Removal Office was aimed at diverting the flow of Jewish immigrants from eastern cities to areas in the South and the Mid-West and providing them funds and training to acclimate them to their new homes.

1886: The Moses Montefiore Congregation bought property at 160 East One Hundred and Sixteenth Street which was the site of a Baptist Church. Plans to use the structure for a synagogue came to naught when it was determined that the building was unsuitable for that purpose and that it would be too small for the number of congregants who would be using the synagogue.

1886: The American Federation of Labor, led by it’s newly elected President, Samuel Gompers, strikes on a nationwide basis in an attempt to secure an eight hour day.

1900: In Konitz, a county in the province of Prussia, Germany, a blood accusation occurred after the death of a local student. Wolf Israelski was accused and arrested, while Count Plucker promoted riots against the Jews. After Israelski was proven innocent, two others, Adolf Levy and Rosenthal, were arrested on the same charge. Rosenthal was acquitted and Lewy sentenced on a perjury charge to four years.

1900: Dutch Zionist leader Jacobus Kann resigns as director of the Bank designed to finance the purchase of land in Eretz Israel and help settlers make Aliyah.

1903: In his poem "Tale of the Slaughter," the famous Jewish poet Chiam Nachman Bialik chastised the Jews for not defending themselves in the Pogrom at Kishinev that had taken place in April, 1903. Herzl was also affected by the massacre and he decided to visit Russia and give consideration to the Uganda Plan. The Uganda plan would be rejected but it would cause a painful split in the infant Zionist movement. The massacre also provided the impetus in America to lay the groundwork for the American Jewish Committee, casting American Jewry into international prominence. There would be another pogrom in Kishinev in 1905 with more loss of life.

1905: Birthdate of movie director Henry Koster. A refugee from Nazi Germany, Koster directed numerous famous films. But he is best remembered as the man who discovered Abbott & Costello. He saw their comedy act and convinced Universal Studios to sign them to a contract. He directed their first film in which all of America heard the “Who’s On First” routine for the first time.

1909: “During a worker’s demonstration in Buenos Aires, a Jewish anarchist murdered a local police chief. Rioters responded by attacking and sacking the city’s predominately Jewish small retail business quarter.”

1909: The Jewish anarchist, Simon Radowitzki, attempted to assassinate Ramon Falcon, the Argentinean chief of police.

1910: The Sunday New York Times published “‘Icy Italy As Seen: by Israel Zangwill’ the fourth in a series of ‘Italian Fantasies’ written by this well known author.”

1913: Birthdate of comic Louis Nye. Born Louis Neistat to Yiddish speaking immigrant parents, Nye was one of a stable of comedians who first gained national notice on the “Steve Allen Show.”

1913: Birthdate of Czech born British conductor Jay Walter Susskind.

1913: As the investigation into the death of Mary Phagan continues, E.F. Holloway, the pencil factory’s day watchman saw Jim Conley, the pencil factory’s janitor washing a dirty shirt. At first Conley tried to hide the shirt and then claimed the stains were rust from the overhead pipe on which he had hung the shirt. Detectives examined it for blood, found none and returned it. [Conley would later testify against Leo Frank. Decades later, Conley would be exposed as the person who had murder Mary Phagan.]

1914: Nissim Mazliach is appointed to the Turkish Chamber for Smyrna.

1916: Labor activist Bessie Abramowitz and Amalgamated president Sidney Hillman announced their engagement while marching at the head of the clothing workers' contingent of the Chicago May Day Parade.

1919: The rabbis of Palestine hold a first conference. Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook is asked to serve as chief rabbi.

1920: Young anarchist Mollie Steimer began a 15-year prison term for distributing leaflets opposing American intervention in the Russian Revolution. She was later deported.

1921: Not for the first or last time, Arabs resort to violence to try and stop the growth of the Jewish community. In this case riots began in Jaffe resulting in the death of forty Jews and the wounding two hundred others. The riots soon spread to Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva, Kfar Saba, Hadera and Rehovot. Though casualties were relatively light, the British decided to appease the Arabs and "redefined" the borders of the Balfour Declaration. This was neither the first time nor the last time that the British would violation the terms of the Mandate. It was also one of the many examples in which the British sought to curry favor with the Arabs, even if it meant betraying the Jews.

1923: Birthdate of author Joseph Heller who created "Catch-22," the literary masterpiece that gained additional fame as a film.

1928: A large number of workers in Palestine heeded the call of the Worker’s Councils for a general strike. In other May Day activities, Arab and Jewish workers held mass meetings in several towns including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where police dispersed the gatherings after arresting several demonstrators some of whom would later be labeled as “communists.”

1932: According to reports by John Martin published today, famed ballerina Belle Didjah has set sail from New York to begin her European Tour which will include performances in Tel Aviv and other communities in Palestine. The performances are being sponsored by the Cultural Committee of Histadruth.

1934: Julius Streicher's Nazi periodical, Der Stürmer--one of Germany's most popular periodicals and a favorite of Hitler--reminded its readers that during the Middle Ages, the Jews were accused of committing ritual murder of Christian children and of using their blood for religious ritual purposes

1934: The Rassenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP (Racial Policy Office of the National Socialist German Workers Party) was established by Hitler's friend and secretary, Rudolph Hess

1938: Following the Anschluss, Austrians forced Jewish men and women to scrub the streets with small brushes and with the women's fur coats.

1939: In Hungary, discriminatory laws were passed against Jews engaged in law and medicine. Jewish participation in the economy was restricted to six percent.

1940: Polish and Baltic-area Jews began to escape across the Soviet Union to Japan, the Dutch East Indies, Australia, Canada, the United States and, in a few instances to Eretz Israel. In all, only a few thousand Jews from the region manage to escape.

1940: The Lodz Ghetto is closed. At the outbreak of the war, Lodz was the second largest Jewish community in Europe, Warsaw being the largest. When the Ghetto was sealed, it imprisoned over 230,000. Those who did not die of starvation, pestilence, etc. ended up being transported to the Chelmno death camp. There were less than 900 Jews left alive when the Soviets liberated the ghetto in January, 1945.

1940(23rd of Nisan, 5700): One hundred forty Palestinian Jews died as German planes bombed their ship

1940: Rudolf Höss, adjutant at the Sachsenhausen, Germany, concentration camp, was ordered to turn the former Polish army barracks at Auschwitz, Poland, into an extermination camp.

1940: From today through December 1940 thousands of Polish Jews are sent eastward as forced laborers to construct fortifications along the new Soviet frontier.
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1941: Thousands of Jews who had fought in the French Foreign Legion against Germany in 1940 are deported to slave-labor camps in the Sahara to build railroads.

1941(4th of Iyyar, 5701): In Bucharest, Romania 120 Jews are slain in the streets during anti-Semitic violence

1941: Jewish cemeteries, synagogues, and businesses in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, are destroyed

1941: A concentration camp is established at Natzweiler, Alsace, Germany.

1941: Gross-Rosen, formerly a satellite camp of Sachsenhausen, Germany, becomes an independent camp.

1942: From today through the 31st of the month, more than 3600 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto die of starvation. Nazis force their way into Jewish apartments in Warsaw, shoot and club the residents, and throw the bodies from windows.

1942: During May a slave-labor camp opens near Minsk, Belorussia.

1942: During May small groups of Jewish youths manage to escape into the woods outside Lida and Stolpce, towns in Belorussia.

1942: During May, in the Eastern Galicia region of Poland, Jews aged 14 to 60 are driven to isolated spots and killed by hand grenades and machine guns after being forced to dig their own graves. Other victims of this Aktion include orphans, residents of old-age homes, and women in the streets.

1942: During May inmates at Auschwitz-Birkenau are put to work as slave laborers at the camp itself and at a synthetic-oil and rubber plant at nearby Monowitz.

1942: During May, Jewish women at Auschwitz-Birkenau are selected for medical experiments. A Jewish inmate at a labor camp at Schwenningen, Germany, is buried in earth up to his shoulders as punishment for having an attack of diarrhea outside a barracks; after more than ten hours in the ground, the man dies.

1942: During May, a slave-labor camp opens at Maly Trostinets, Byelorussia

1942: During May in Holland, a collaborationist auxiliary police unit, Vrijwillige Hulp-Politie (Volunteer Auxiliary Police), is established. It is charged with the roundup of Dutch Jews for deportation to the East.

1942: During May, Communist Jews in Paris initiate organized armed resistance to the Nazi occupiers.

1942: During May, The Bund (Jewish Labor Organization of Poland) appeals to the Polish government-in-exile in London to persuade the Allied governments to warn the German government about the consequences of the murder of the Polish Jews. The Bund's appeal contains detailed information concerning the systematic mass murder of Jews. It reports that 700,000 Polish Jews have already been executed.

1942: In early May, 260 Luxembourg Jews, some of whom who had converted to Christianity, are sent to Chelmno.

1942: In early May, Jewish Council members at Bilgoraj, Poland, are executed after refusing to compile a list of candidates for deportation.

1942: More than 1750 Jews are deported from Tripoli, Libya, to forced-labor sites at the Libyan cities of Benghazi, Homs, and Derna. Hundreds perish from heat and hunger, and others die during Allied bombings after being forbidden to use air-raid shelters

1942: In that part of North Africa occupied by the Axis Powers (Germany and Italy), 2600 Libyan Jews are deported to a forced-labor camp at Giado, Libya, to build roads for the military.

1942(14th of Iyyar, 5702): Approximately 1000 Jews are murdered at Dvinsk, Latvia. Only about 450 Jews are left in Dvinsk, down from 16,000 from the previous year.

1942: In its daily broadcast, Radio Orange issued a call to defy the order to wear the "Jewish star." During World War II, Radio Orange was the name given to the broadcasts by the Dutch government-in- exile which were carried by the B.B.C.

1942: Trucks began transporting the Jews out of the Dvinsk ghetto. Dvinsk was a town in the Baltic state of Latvia. Before the war, there were 16,000 Jews living in Dvinks. At the end of the war, only 500 had survived.

1943: SS-Gruppenführer Jürgen Stroop completes his official written chronicle of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto which is entitled “The Stroop Report.”

1943: The first of four trains carrying nearly 11,000 Jews arrive at Auschwitz from Salonika, Greece. This would mark the next step in the end of this ancient Jewish community that lives on in their unique music including that which is used in chanting Psalm 118.

1943: The Axis send the first of what would total 5000 Sephardic Jews from Occupied Tunisia to labor camps near North African battle zones.

1943: The Warsaw Ghetto uprising had lasted eleven days. By now, the Jews knew that the Polish Underground would not come to their aid. The Jews fought on even as they awaited the inevitable. Among the those who died at this time were Abrasha Blum, an organizer of armed resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto and a member of the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organizations> He was shot by Germans after enduring confinement and torture

1943: German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, reacting to the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto revolt, notes in his diary: "Heavy engagements are being fought there which led even to the Jewish Supreme Command's issuing daily communiqués. Of course, this fun won't last very long. But it shows what is to be expected of the Jews when they are in possession of arms."

1943: Jewish writers and artists, inspired by the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, gather in the Vilna (Lithuania) Ghetto for an evening of poetry, with the hopeful theme "Spring in Yiddish Literature."

1943(26th of Nisan, 5703): Many members of the Jewish community in Brody, Ukraine, are killed at the Majdanek death camp.

1944: An internal memo from the United States Government War Refugee Board states that as of late March: "All registered Jews in Athens are said to have been placed in a concentration camp; registered Jews from the provinces were subsequently added."

1944: An internal memo of this week from the United States Government War Refugee Board states that a small group of Jews in Greece claimed to be Portuguese nationals.

1944: Christian Wirth, SS-Sturmbannführer and commandant of the Belzec, Poland, death camp, is assassinated by partisans in Fiume, Yugoslavia.

1944: Starting today the Nazis begin the liquidation of the Lodz (Poland) Ghetto.

1944(8th of Iyyar, 5704): As mass deportations of Jews from Hungary to death camps begin, hundreds of Hungarian Jews at Sátoraljaújhely and Miskolc are shot after refusing to board trains destined for Auschwitz.

1944: Between today and the 31st of May, 33,000 Jews from Munkács, Hungary, are killed at Auschwitz.

1945: After 68 months of war, just one of every ten of Poland's prewar Jewish population of 3.3 million is alive

1945(18th of Iyyar, 5705): Lag B’Omer

1945(18th of Iyyar, 5705): A Jew in a group of laborers from the camp at Sonneberg, Germany, chants and dances with joy upon word of Hitler's death. A German guard calmly shoots the man dead.

1945: The concentration camp at Stutthof, Poland, is liberated by the Red Army. Just 120 inmates remain alive.

1945: The Death Marches to Mauthausen continued even as the U.S. Army approached, and even though Hitler committed suicide the prior day. The Jews were being marched to Mauthasan in Austria from the various death camps and concentration camps that had fallen in the wake of Allied and Soviet advances. Hundred more Jews would die during the marches from exhaustion. Approximately 200,000 people were imprisoned at Mauthausen. Not until May 3, would the Nazi guards give up and slip away trying to hide among the general mass of refugees.

1946(30th of Nisan, 5706: Rosh Chodesh Iyyar

1946(30th of Nisan, 5706): Former Jewish partisan leader and Red Army officer Eliyahu Lipszowicz is murdered by an anti-Semitic Pole at Legnica, Poland.

1946: In a draft of a letter to British Prime Minster Clement Atlee, Winston Churchill reiterated his belief in Partition as the only realistic was for settling the conflict in Palestine.

1946: The English-American Commission on the Jewish Refugee Problem in Europe recommended the immediate entry of 100,000 Jews into Eretz Israel. The British continued to maintain the blockade keeping the Jews out of Palestine. It was at this time that Golda "proposed a hunger strike by fifteen Zionist leaders" as means of forcing the British to change their policy. When the Mrs. Meir asked the head of the British government in Palestine if the hunger strike would make a difference he ask asked her,"...do you think for a moment that His Majesty's government will change its policy because you are not going to. She replied, "No, I have no such illusions. If the death of six million didn't change government policy, I don't expect that my not eating will do so. But it at least it will be a mark of solidarity" with those Jews being turned away by the British military.

1947: Leonard Bernstein introduces his "Jeremiah" symphony in the Edison Cinema in Jerusalem.

1948: “The Arabs opened a large scale attack on Ramot Naphtali in the northern hills near Lebanon.” The settlement was the key to a Jewish victory in the Galilee. If the Arabs could take the settlement, they would be able to keep the Palmach from sending reinforcements Safed. In the end, the settlers held and Jewish forces were able to take control of Safed after an extremely difficult battle later in the month.

1948: Abba Eban makes his maiden speech in the U.N. General Assembly.

1948 (22 Nissan 5708): Israeli forces liberate the Qatamon neighborhood of Jerusalem.

1949: An article published in “Harefuah”, a medical journal published by the Israel Medical Association, described how Aaron Valero first observed the outbreak of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever in Palestine.

1950: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s attempts to form a new government suffered a setback tonight when the executive committee of the General Zionist Party decided not to join the coalition. The party, which is more conservative than those represented by the labor movement, had been offered the Commerce and Industry ministries as an enticement to join the new government but the leadership felt that Ben Gurion had not made a strong enough commitment to adopt some of their economic and educational reform policies.

1950: “South Pacific,” the famous musical by Rogers and Hammerstein wins the Pulitzer Prize as the best original American Play.

1955: Birthdate of Julien Mark Wiener “a former Australian cricketer who played in six Tests and seven one-day internationals from 1979 to 1980. A right-handed opening batsman and a very occasional off spin bowler, he is the only known Jewish Australian to represent his country at cricket…Wiener's mother and father, Vella and Sasha, were Polish and Austrian Jews respectively, and both escaped the concentration camps of Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. The surname Wiener came from Vienna, the home of Sasha. His parents married in 1947 in Paris, before coming to Australia as refugees on the famous Dunera ship in 1947. Wiener's father ran a successful textile business, which allowed him to send Wiener to the private Brighton Grammar School. Wiener's father had early sporting success in table tennis, which Wiener applied to his cricket, playing for Prahran in Melbourne grade cricket. He subsequently completed his university education at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in business management, before moving to England to pursue his cricket career.”

1956: The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public. For all those who like to talk about greedy Jews, considering the following. Salk refused to take out a patent on his vaccine. Some things, he said, were more important than making money.

1956: Moshe Dayan, the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, made a speech at the funeral of a young settler, Ro'i Roitberg, killed in a clash with Palestinian infiltrators from the Gaza Strip

1959: Birthdate of Lawrence Seeff the Johannesburg native who was a South African First-class cricketer. “He played with Western Province and Transvaal and was one of the South African Cricket Annual's Cricketers of the Year in 1981. He opened the batting for Western Province with his brother Jonathan Seeff.”

1962: Birthdate of actress Maia Morgenstern. A native of Bucharest, Morgenstern played the Virgin Mary in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ.

1967: Birthdate of Yael Arad Israel, an Israeli judoka who won a silver medal at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992.

1967: The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Bernard Malamud for his novel, The Fixer. Born in 1914, Malamud wanted to be thought of as great writer, not just a great Jewish writer. In other words, even though he often used Jewish themes and motifs, he was writing about the human condition. The success of The Natural, a book about a baseball player was an example of that desire. "Malamud explicated the tragic role of the Jew in many of his stories, including The Fixer (1966), which won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and later was adapted into a motion picture. That novel was based on the true story of Mendel Beilis, victim of the Kiev Blood Libel of 1913." He passed away in 1986.

1979: Elton John became the first pop star to perform in Israel.

1981: President Ronald Reagan issued a proclamation today declaring the week starting on May 3, 1981 as Jewish Heritage Week. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=43771#axzz1Kxu92zHU

1985: Today, the American Jewish World Service (AJWS) was established in Boston when Larry Phillips and Larry Simon, together with a group of rabbis, Jewish communal leaders, activists, businesspeople, scholars and others came together to create the first American Jewish organization dedicated to alleviating poverty, hunger and disease among people across the globe.

1987: Birthdate of Shahar Pe'er, Israeli female professional tennis player.

1987: Pope John Paul II beatified Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Born Edith Stein, she became a Carmelite nun. She was arrested by the Nazis in Holland when the Germans were rounding up Jews who converted to Catholicism. She was gassed at Auschwitz. For those who question the role of the Pope during the Holocaust, the fate of Edith Stein, and others who had converted to Catholicism before World War II, raises an interesting dilemma. There are those who can understand why the Pope did not move to save the Jews, but wonder why he did not move to save Jews who had become Catholics. In the end, did he not consider them real Catholics? This is something for use to ponder at this season of the year which often coincides with Yom Hashoah.

1990: At an Arab summit meeting held in Baghdad, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq threatens to use "weapons of total destruction" in response to an Israeli attack against Arabs. The main item on the summit agenda is immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel, which is denounced as a grave threat to Arab security. Syria and four other Arab states do not attend the meeting.

1990: Greece establishes full diplomatic relations with Israel.

1990: Opening night of the Israel Film Festival attended by two of the most famous mayors in Jewish history - Teddy Kollek and Ed Koch

1994: Israeli and PLO delegates opened a final round of talks in Cairo leading to an agreement on PLO self-rule. The resulting entity, the Palestine Authority would sink under the weight of Arafat’s corruption and unwillingness to do the things necessary to create a viable, responsible government.

1996(12th of Iyyar, 5756): Asher Wallfish journalist for the Jerusalem Post passed away at the age of 67

1996: In an article entitled “Moises Ville Journal: Sun Has Set on Jewish Gauchos, but Legacy Lives,” Calvin Sims describes the fate of Argentina’s rural Jews.

There are four synagogues in this remote farming town of 2,000 residents. The bakery sells Sabbath bread and cookies. Many buildings have Hebrew lettering and the Star of David on their facades. Children playing in the street use Yiddish words like "shlep" and "shlock." But there are only about 300 Jewish residents left in Moises Ville, an agricultural community founded by European Jews who came to Argentina a century ago, fleeing pogroms and other persecution in their homeland. While Jews once accounted for 90 percent of the population of Moises Ville, they now represent 15 percent and are rapidly declining. Most left the pampas decades ago seeking education and fortune in Argentina's big cities. "This is one of the few places in the world where Jewish culture has remained dominant despite the fact that we are a small minority of the residents," said Ava Rosenthal, director of the town's museum. "No matter where you go in Moises Ville, it is very evident who was here first." Moises Ville, in fertile Santa Fe Province, was the birthplace of a new breed of Argentine cowboy, the Jewish gauchos, who introduced new crops and started the country's first agrarian cooperatives. Jewish immigrants learned to ride, herd cattle, shoot and shelter themselves against the elements. They also maintained their own customs, building synagogues, libraries and cultural centers, including a Yiddish theater where groups from Europe and the United States performed. Today, few if any Jewish gauchos ride the range, and most of the land surrounding Moises Ville and other Argentine Jewish communities has been sold to non-Jews, and gentiles do the farming on land still owned by Jews. But nowhere is the legacy of the Jewish gaucho so deeply entrenched as it is in Moises Ville, which still shuts down for Jewish holidays even though few residents celebrate them. The library is filled with volumes in Yiddish and Hebrew, and some elderly non-Jewish residents still remember prayers and blessings they learned as youths. "Years after the last Jewish resident dies, the people of Moises Ville will still be eating gefilte fish and taking Yom Kippur as a holiday," said Pablo Trumper, 76, a retired schoolteacher whose grandfather was one of the original Jewish settlers.
Omar del Beno, Moises Ville's first non-Jewish Mayor, said that although most residents are Roman Catholic, like a majority of Argentines, the town observes many Jewish cultural traditions because "they are what we grew up with and have become accustomed to." "We are such a close-knit community that people here don't even think about what's Jewish and what isn't," Mr. del Beno said. "We just live." While Argentina is well known for having opened its doors to Nazis after World War II, at the turn of the century it welcomed large numbers of Jews, who formed colonies like Moises Ville in the interior of Argentina. Moises Ville was founded in 1889 by Russian Jews who were fleeing the pogroms. With the help of a French philanthropist, the Jewish colonists bought land in Santa Fe Province and named their new settlement "town of Moses."
Ana Weinstein, director of the Mark Turkow Center for Information and Documentation of Argentine Judaism, based in Buenos Aires, said that while gauchos taught the Jewish colonists how to survive in the wild and how to work the land, the settlers in turn introduced new crops like rice and sunflowers and Argentina's first farming cooperatives. "Jews who founded Moises Ville and other agrarian colonies came from Russia and brought with them progressive socialist ideas that led them to establish agrarian cooperatives," Mrs. Weinstein said. "These were different from the Israeli kibbutz because here people didn't share the earnings of production in equal parts."
Instead, the colonists pooled their resources to buy seed and tools or to sell grain or cattle. But individuals earned according to their production, Mrs. Weinstein said. Moises Ville's cooperative caught the attention of neighboring communities. In the Moises Ville museum, there are letters from nearby towns seeking information about the cooperative. Today, Argentina has some 300,000 Jews, the largest population in Latin America. In recent years, after the bombing of Israeli Embassy and a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, many Argentine Jews have started making annual pilgrimages here to celebrate their roots. "Coming here is like going to Israel except it's a lot less expensive and much closer to home," said Pablo Barenboim, a pharmaceutical salesman who drove seven hours from Buenos Aires to visit the town's museum and historic buildings. "I feel renewed and will definitely come back." Martha Levisman de Clusellas, a renowned architect whose grandparents were among the founders of Moises Ville, said the town has always provided her with a sense of relief and comfort from Argentina's big cities, where she said there is anti-Semitism. "For me Moises Ville is a place where I go to heal myself," she said. "It's like a treasure chest that once opened is unending because there is a part of us all in there." But as Moises Ville's Jewish population dwindles, many worry that the traditions will not be maintained. Dr. Juan Kazneietz, director of the hospital, said that most Jewish residents are over 50 and that there is about one Jewish birth in Moises Ville only every three or four months. "Demographics are not on our side," Dr. Kazneietz said. Indeed, only one of the town's four synagogues is open, and it has not had a full-time rabbi for years. Weekly services are often postponed because there is no quorum. The cemetery, which cannot be entered without the head covered in the Jewish tradition, has 5,000 graves. Students at the Jewish seminary say that while they feel pride being from Argentina's first Jewish settlement, they can't wait to graduate so they can go to college in bigger cities. "We've been taught all our lives that education is important and that we have to become professionals, but what opportunities are there here for us?" asked Diego Kanzepolsk, 17. Fanny Trumper, 92, who was born in Moises Ville, said she remembers a town "100 percent free" of the anti-Semitism that she said exists in major cities of Argentina. "It was a beautiful experience growing up in a community where everyone was Jewish, the doctor, lawyer, the mayor, and no one looked down on us because we were different," Mrs. Trumper said. "This is the most important place for Jews in Argentina, and we need to preserve it because it is the only one made entirely with Jewish hands."

1997: The Jerusalem Post reported that American spy, Jonathan Pollard, petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice to order the Prime Minister to declare that he had been an agent of Israel. Pollard also requested a temporary injunction ordering the Government of Israel to reveal who had been in charge of his case and what steps had been taken to secure his release from the American prison. The petition queried the official Israeli position, according to which Pollard had been part of a rogue operation. It called for a temporary injunction outlining what he was paid for his services. The High Court issued a temporary injunction, apparently at the request of the security services, forbidding the publication of Pollard's petition. This ban was lifted following an appeal by the "Yediot Aharonot" newspaper.

1997: The Jerusalem Post reported that Mr. Norman Spector assumed the post of the President and Publisher of The Jerusalem Post.

1997: The transfer of the ownership of The Chattanooga Times from the four grandchildren of Adolph S. Ochs, who bought the paper in 1878 and remained its publisher until 1935, to his 13 great-grandchildren is scheduled to be completed today.

2000: Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails begin a hunger strike to draw attention to their poor conditions.

2000: After almost seventeen months in prison, the trial of the 13 Jews opened in the Revolutionary Court in Shiraz. Hearings were held every Monday and Wednesday until May 29. The thirteen defendants were brought to the courtroom in shifts over the five-week trial.

2001: Former government intern Chandra Levy disappears.

2002: Yasser Arafat's five-month imprisonment in his Ramallah headquarters draws to an end as the Palestinians hand over six high-profile prisoners to Anglo-American custody.

2004: Noa (Achinoam Nini) and Gil Dor, together with the noted Israeli rhythm and dance troupe Mayumana, gave a joint performance between the two final games of the Euroleague basketball championship, broadcast to thousands of television viewers around the world.

2004: Maccabi Tel Aviv crushes Italy's Skipper Bologna 118-74 to become European champions for the fourth time in the club’s history.

2004: Rabbi Sir Jonathan Henry Sacks begins serving as Rabbi and Spiritual Leader, Western Marble Arch Synagogue London.

2005 22nd of Nisan, 5765): 8th day of Pesach

2005 22nd of Nisan, 5765): Rene Rivkin an Australian entrepreneur, investor, investment adviser, and stockbroker passed away. He was a well-known stockbroker in Australia for many years until his conviction for insider trading.

2005: The New York Observer features a review of “The Treehouse: Eccentric Wisdom From My Father on How to Live, Love, and See” by Naomi Wolfe

2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including "Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis' Final Gamble" by Roger Cohen, "Given Up For Dead: American GI's in the Nazi Concentration Camp at Berga" by Flint Whitlock and the recently released paperback editions of "Conspirator" by Michael Andre Bernstein and "Madame Secretary" by Madeline Albright with Bill Woodward, an “insightful memoir that focuses as much on Albright’s voyage of personal discovery (she belatedly learned of her Jewish heritage) as on her years as President Clinton's secretary of state.”

2007: Hilary Koprowski was awarded the Albert Sabin Gold Medal by the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Baltimore. Koprowski was one of three Jews (the others being Salk and Sabin) who played a key role in developing a vaccine against polio.)

2007: May is celebrated as Jewish Heritage Month by proclamation of the President of the United States.

2008: In New York City, PEN World Voices, a festival of international literature presents “Conversations Between A. B. Yehoshua and Leon Wieseltier” an event during which “Yehoshua discusses a lifetime in literature, fact in fiction, writing politics and atonement with Leon Wieseltier, Literary Editor of The New Republic and author of Kaddish.”

2008: Local elections are held in Great Britain. Community organizations have come together to encourage the British Jewish community to vote in these local elections being held across the country because of a fear of gains that could be made by for the ultra-nationalist British National Party (BNP). The Board of Deputies of British Jews - working with the London Jewish Forum and Community Security Trust - had launched a new campaign, with the slogan, "Your Voice or Theirs," to raise awareness of the importance of first registering to vote and then voting in the May 1 local elections. The BNP has enjoyed some electoral success which alarms the Jewish community as well as ant-fascists organizations and other minority groups. BNP literature is described as anti-Semitic and the party is viewed by some as latter day Nazis.

2008 (26 Nisan): Yom Hashoah – Eastern Iowa observes Holocaust Remembrance Day. In Cedar Rapids The Holocaust Memorial Fund (created and endowed by Dr. David and Joan Thaler) and the Jewish-Christian Dialogue are sponsoring Yom Hashoah Service at Westminster Presbyterian Church at 7:00 PM. Rabbi Stephanie Alexander will be the speaker. In Iowa City, in recognition of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Timofeyev Ensemble will be celebrating the achievements of Eastern European Jewry by putting on a free Klezmer concert at the Art Building West. Nearly lost, the music was rediscovered in the seventies and is now thriving in Europe and America. The UI student band, Kosher Tom, will also be performing.

2009: In Alexandria, Va., Pulitzer Prize-winning illustrator Jules Feiffer reads and discusses “Which Puppy” a children’s picture book he recently co-authored with his daughter Kate.

2009: The American Society for Jewish Music and the American Jewish Historical Society present a lecture by Rabbi Jeffrey A. Summit of Tufts University entitled “The Participating Observer: Fieldwork in Jewish Settings.”

2009: In an article entitled “Roosevelt and the Jews: A Debate Rekindled,” Patricia Cohen reviews Refugees and Rescue: The Diaries’ and papers of James G. McDonald, 1935-1945.

2009(12th of Iyar, 5769): Sam Cohn, whose nearly endless client roster of top actors, writers and directors and imaginative engineering of deals for them made him the most powerful talent broker in theater and film during the 1970s and 1980s and a progenitor of the Hollywood superagent passed away today at the age of 79. “Mr. Cohn was a principal figure in the 1974 birth of I.C.M., which for the next decade and a half played puppet master to more projects in the movies, theater and publishing than perhaps any other corporate entity. Mr. Cohn was the lead puppeteer, putting clients together with collaborators and negotiating deals with producers and studios to maximize his clients’ artistic freedom. In the 1980s he arranged for Woody Allen to make 10 movies for Orion Pictures without studio interference as long as Mr. Allen adhered to an agreed-upon budget. Mr. Cohn also made sure that ownership of the pictures eventually reverted to Mr. Allen. In 1982, in a profile in The New Yorker, one competing agent was quoted as saying that Mr. Cohn’s involvement in moviemaking was as significant “as the role the studio pioneers played in the early days.” The previous year, 10 movies and 9 Broadway or Off Broadway plays opened with Sam Cohn clients as writers, directors or stars. Many involved more than one: the 1981 movie thriller “Eyewitness” was written by one client (Steve Tesich) and directed by another (Peter Yates) and starred three more (Sigourney Weaver, Christopher Plummer and Irene Worth).An abbreviated list of those he represented includes the actors Paul Newman, Meryl Streep, Robin Williams, Liza Minnelli, Lily Tomlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Roy Scheider, Hume Cronyn, Zero Mostel, Jackie Gleason and Macaulay Culkin; the directors Robert Altman, Robert Benton, Mike Nichols, Bob Fosse, Arthur Penn, Nora Ephron and Louis Malle; the writers Peter Maas, John Guare, Arthur Miller and E. L. Doctorow; and the songwriters Elizabeth Swados, John Kander and Fred Ebb. “The first superagent of the modern age,” Time magazine called Mr. Cohn in 1993. Mr. Doctorow, a client since the mid-1970s, said Mr. Cohn’s distinction as an agent was that “he worshiped creative people, was in awe of creative minds.” “It wasn’t just a money thing for him,” Mr. Doctorow said. “It was about the quality of the project and its potential. I wrote a play called ‘Drinks Before Dinner’ and Sam got Mike Nichols to direct, and Chris Plummer signed on. We did it at the Public Theater and it was all Sam’s work. He was virtually the producer of the play.” Mr. Cohn cut a unique figure in the entertainment business. For one thing he was a confirmed New Yorker who hated Los Angeles, avoided traveling there whenever possible and, when he could not avoid it, got out as soon as possible. For another, he loved theater and did not think of it as merely something an actor or director did between movies. He conformed to none of the agent stereotypes: not the oily, luv-ya-baby baloney-meister; not the meek and solicitous Danny Rose-like sycophant; not the sleekly groomed, power-hungry packager. He dressed with indifference — sweaters often worn at the elbows, jackets rumpled and trousers soiled — and he could be shy socially. He had a regular lunch table at the Russian Tea Room, but grew to abhor the show business instinct for the limousine and even the taxicab; he preferred the subway. Exceedingly selective about whose phone calls he would take and even more so about whose he would return, he was known to frustrate a lot of people. But he was a whirlwind of ideas, both impulsive and contrived, and spoke with a staccato fervor and needling advocacy on behalf of his clients. He was a virtuoso of the conference call and the pitch meeting and a sly negotiator who understood the businesses of studios and producers as well as he understood his own. His most notorious tic was that he often absently nibbled on paper. “This is the quintessential thing about Sam,” Nora Ephron said in a telephone interview. “You’d be having a perfectly serious conversation with him, and he starts chewing his napkin.” Samuel Charles Cohn was born on May 11, 1929, in Altoona, Pa., where his grandfather, father and uncle operated a business marketing refined oil products. When the company was bought out by Standard Oil, young Sam was assured of a life of plenty. As a teenager he was sent to a military school in Indiana, and he eventually graduated from Princeton, majoring in English and German literature. He began law school at Yale but after three months joined the Army, serving at the end of the Korean War in Japan, where his duties included running an officers’ club. After finishing law school in 1956, he joined the legal department at CBS. He subsequently worked as a television producer and as a lawyer representing Goodson-Todman, the company that produced “The Price Is Right” and many other hit game shows. He also became the lawyer for a small talent agency, General Artists Corporation. After Mr. Cohn arranged for its purchase by a group of investors, they installed him as one of the managers. In 1968 General Artists merged with a larger agency, Creative Management Associates, run by David Begelman and Freddie Fields (who would both become major studio executives). During the next six years Creative Management helped put together several television series, including “All in the Family,” and movies, including “The Sting,” with Paul Newman. In 1974 the agency was bought out by Marvin Josephson Associates, which controlled a television production company, a concert booking firm and a talent agency, the International Famous Agency. It was the merger of Creative Management and International Famous that created I.C.M. I.C.M.’s power in the movie business began to wane in the early 1990s as that of the Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles, under the leadership of Michael Ovitz, grew. Mr. Cohn lost a number of clients. Still, he remained active in the agency until not long before his death, often helping to arrange financing for difficult projects, as he did for Tim Robbins’s films “Bob Roberts” (1992) and “Dead Man Walking” (1995) and Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park.” (2001). Ms. Ephron said that she, like many others, owed Mr. Cohn for her career. It was Mr. Cohn, she said, who put forward her name to write “Silkwood,” the 1983 Meryl Streep film, directed by Mr. Nichols. The script, based on the true story of a whistle-blower at a plutonium plant, became her first screenwriting credit. Several years later Mr. Cohn represented her when she directed her first film, “This Is My Life” (1992), in which one character is a talent agent who eats paper.“Sam killed himself to get that movie made,” Ms. Ephron said. “When he got behind you, it was like an army of thousands.”

2010: Jewish American Heritage Month began today as proclaimed by President Barak Obama. The proclamation read as follows:

In 1883, the Jewish American poet Emma Lazarus composed a sonnet, entitled “The New Colossus,” to help raise funds for erecting the Statue of Liberty. Twenty years later, a plaque was affixed to the completed statue, inscribed with her words: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free….” These poignant words still speak to us today, reminding us of our Nation’s promise as a beacon to all who are denied freedom and opportunity in their native lands. Our Nation has always been both a haven and a home for Jewish Americans. Countless Jewish immigrants have come to our shores seeking better lives and opportunities, from those who arrived in New Amsterdam long before America’s birth, to those of the past century who sought refuge from the horrors of pogroms and the Holocaust. As they have immeasurably enriched our national culture, Jewish Americans have also maintained their own unique identity. During Jewish American Heritage Month we celebrate this proud history and honor the invaluable contributions Jewish Americans have made to our Nation. The Jewish American story is an essential chapter of the American narrative. It is one of refuge from persecution; of commitment to service, faith, democracy, and peace; and of tireless work to achieve success. As leaders in every facet of American life—from athletics, entertainment, and the arts to academia, business, government, and our Armed Forces—Jewish Americans have shaped our Nation and helped steer the course of our history. We are a stronger and more hopeful country because so many Jews from around the world have made America their home. Today, Jewish Americans carry on their culture’s tradition of “tikkun olam”—or “to repair the world”—through good deeds and service. As they honor and maintain their ancient heritage, they set a positive example for all Americans and continue to strengthen our Nation. NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 2010 as Jewish American Heritage Month. I call upon all Americans to observe this month with appropriate programs, activities, and ceremonies to celebrate the heritage and contributions of Jewish Americans. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of April, in the year two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.
[Editor’s Note: … President Obama has made a subtle, symbolic gesture that some would say demonstrates uncommon sensitivity to the Jewish community. Thanks to the New Jersey Jewish News for this story, which reports that President Obama removed the standard phrase “in the year of our Lord” from a proclamation welcoming May as Jewish Heritage Month. As the newspaper reports, previous similar proclamations — by Obama, George Bush, and Bill Clinton — all included the standard line affixed at the end, pegging the missive’s date to the birth of Jesus Christ … Obama, in praising Jews for their unique contributions to American culture, took the extra step of taking it out this time. This may not sit well with “the our-country-is-a-Christian-nation crowd” and it may seem like a small thing, but it shows a certain level of sensitivity if not outright political courage. There are those who think that Jewish community should be more outspoken in acknowledging this, and in voicing appreciation.”]

2010: At The Library of Congress an exhibition entitled “Herblock!" highlighting the life and works of the great political cartoonist is scheduled to come to a close.

2010 A Secret, a film adapted from the award-winning autobiographical novel by Philippe Grimbert, is scheduled to be shown tonight at the Northern Virginia International Jewish Film Festival.

2010: Achinoam Nini, the world famous Israeli performer known as Noa, is scheduled to appear in concert tonight at East Brunswick (NJ) Performing Arts Center.

2011: The Cedar Rapids community is scheduled to mark Yom Hashoah with “”Lest We Forget,” A Service in Memory of the Victims of the Shoah sponsored by The Jewish Christian Dialogue Group and The Thaler Holocaust Memorial Foundation. (See "The Story of History" which provides background information on the Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund which was co-founded by David and Joan Tahler)

2011: Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to present “Growing Up Jewish in Montreal” a panel discussion during which “four distinguished scholars reflect on their formative years in one of North America's most vibrant Jewish communities.”

2011: “Recipes Remembered: A Celebration of Survival” by June Feiss Hersh is scheduled to go on sale today at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

2011: A memorial service for Maj. Gen. Orde Wingate, who trained members of the Haganah, is scheduled to take place today at the Arlington National Cemetery. The ceremony is being held under the auspices of the Jewish War Veterans Association of the United States of America.

2011: Reform Judaism’s flagship social justice conference, the Religious Action Center’s Consultation on Conscience is scheduled to open in Washington, DC.

2011: Start of Jewish American Heritage Month

2011: The New York Times featured reviews of book by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World” by William D. Cohan, “Iphigenia in Forest Hills: Anatomy of a Murder Trial” by Janet Malcolm that is set against a backdrop of the “Bukharin Jewish immigrant community in Queens” and the recently released paperback edition of “Crossing Mandelbaum Gate Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978” by Kai Bird

2011(27th of Nisan): Yom Hashoah – observance of the holiday will take place in many places tomorrow “to avoid adjacency with Shabbat).

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