June 2 In Jewish History
876 BCE (28 Iyar 2884): This is the traditional date of death of Samuel, prophet and priest (born 2832).
455: The Vandals entered Rome and plundered the city. Among the treasures they took with them were the spoils of the Second Temple that had been brought to Rome by Titus.
1098: During the First Crusade, the first Siege of Antioch ends as Crusader forces take the city marking one more step on their rode to Jerusalem that would mean more death and destruction for the Jewish people
1453: In Breslau, John of Capistrano led a mock trial of alleged desecrations of the host. The Rabbi of the community hanged himself and urged other Jews to commit suicide. Forty-one Jews were burned, their property confiscated, and all children under seven were forcibly baptized.
1485: The Jews of Toledo plan an attack designed to kill the Inquisitors and then lock the city gates. The plan did not come to fruition after it was betrayed. The Jews of the city suffered later the following winter at the hands of the Inquisitors.
1821: Birthdate of Frederick A. Johnson the first Jewish child born in Cincinnati. He was the son of David Israel and Eliza Johnson.
1830: Rabbi Isaac Lesser delivered his first sermon in English at Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia.
1835: Birthdate Pius X, who as Pope granted an audience to Theodore Herzl. Herzl failed in his attempt to enlist the Pope’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Pope was polite but firm in his rejection.
1840: As the furor over the Damascus Affair increases, French Prime Minister Adolphe Thiers defended the behavior of Benoit Laurent-Francois, Count de Ratti-Merion, the French Consul in Damascus during a debate in the Chamber of Deputies. Thiers attributed the uproar to the Jews whom he described as being “more powerful in the world than they have pretensions to be.”
1840: Birthdate of Thomas Hardy. The rest of the world the world may remember him as a British author, but for Jews he was a supporter of a homeland in Palestine as can be seen by the fact that in February of 1919, “he signed a declaration of sympathy with the Jews in support of a movement for ‘the reconstitution of Palestine as a National Home for the Jewish People.’”
1857: The body of Isaac Jackson was discovered on a farm near Westfield, MA and Charles Jones was arrested on charges of having murdered him. Jackson was Jewish. Jones wasn’t.
1864: Moroccan Jews and Jews from Gibraltar residing in Haifa requested a written ruling from the British Consul for permission to pray. "The Turkish authorities here made no objection to our thus assembling for prayer till quite lately; when they declared that we cannot meet together without being possessed of a firman from Constantinople."
1870: “Religious Bigotry in Turkey – Massacre of Jews by Christians” published today described “a horrible massacre of Jews by Christians in the Turkish province of Romania.” According to the article, on Sunday, May 29, the Christians had attacked the Jews living in all of the “principle towns” butchering “without mercy” thousands of Jews without regard to age or sex.
1870: “Mr. Disraeli’s Health”, an article published today, reported that the British Prime Minister’s health had improved the extent that he could visit the Foreign Ministry and dine with two American diplomats.
1870: Based on dispatches received today in Washington, the Jews of Louisville, KY have sent telegrams to their co-religionists in cities throughout the West urging them to contact their Congressmen with a request that they do all they can to prevent further attacks on the Jews of Romania which have been described as a massacre.
1870: As American Jews respond to the worsening conditions of their co-religionists in Romania, in Washington, D.C., Simon Wolf receives the following telegram from M.S. Isaacs, Secretary of the Jewish Board of Delegates of the United States “Ask the President to instruct the Minister at Constantinople to help the Jews of Roumania.”
1870: As American Jews respond to the worsening conditions of their co-religionists in Romania, in Washington, D.C., Simon Wolf receives the following telegram from Henry Greenbaum, a leading Chicago banker “Please ask my personal friends in Congress to cooperate with you in representations to the President or otherwise, that the persecution and butchery of our brethren in Roumania be stopped.”
1870: A New York Times writer marvels at the fact that those who have most recently escaped from the effects of religious persecution are the most likely to persecute others for their religious beliefs. The case in point is the persecution of the Jews by the Christians of Roumania, who have so recently been “released from the fear of oppression” by the Moslems. The atrocities are reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition and are a reminder that the “problems of the darkest ages” are still found in the 19th century.
1877: Samuel Morais Hyneman was admitted to the bar in Philadelphia, PA. Hyneman played an active role in Jewish communal affairs serving as the President of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Philadelphia and serving on the board of trustees of both the Jewish Theological Seminary and Gratz College.
1878: Eliza Miller and Ralph Cohen were the receptients of this year’s “Betty Bruhl Prizes” where where presented during “a gala event” that was held this evening at Hebrew Orphan Asylum. The event also marked the third anniversary of the distribution of the “Betty Bruhl Prizes.” Four years ago, Moses Bruhl presented the asylum with $2,500.00 with the stipulation that the interest on the amount was to be presented annually to tow orphans – one boy and one girl – not older than 15 years of age. The money (which now totals $50 per award) is to be invested with the principle and interest being given to the winner when the leave the asylym. The award is named after Mr. Bruhl’s late wife who “was a parton of the…asylum.”
1879: The New York Times published a review of "The Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews" translated and critically acclaimed by Michael Heilprin. The reviewer attributed the content and style of the book to the possibility that Heilprin might be Jewish. In fact Michael Heilprin was a Jewish supporter of Kossuth who came to the United States after the revolt failed. His father Phineas Mendel Heilprin was a noted Jewish scholar who had also supported Kossuth and had moved to the United States. The younger Heilprin supported the Union and was opposed to slavery. He was a Jewish scholar and supporter of Jewish causes.
1879: As a result of Russian mistreatment of Jewish American businessmen, the U.S. House of Representatives requested the President to have all international treaties which impair the rights of American citizens because of religion amended to secure equal rights.
1895: French railroad tycoon and philanthropist Baron Moritz de Hirsch meets Theodore Herzl in Paris. Herzl hopes to convince Hirsch to take the money he had been spending to settle Jews in agricultural communities in places like Argentina and spend it instead on the creation of a Jewish homeland in Eretz Israel.
1896: The Neue Freie Presse mentions Herzl's "Der Judenstaat" for the first time.
1897(2nd of Sivan, 5657): Abraham Cohn, “an American Civil War Union Army Sergeant Major and recipient to the highest military decoration for valor in combat — the Medal of Honor — for having distinguished himself at the Battle of the Wilderness, Virginia passed away in New York.
1901: Birthdate of producer Michael Todd producer who gained fame for the cinematic system called Todd A-O and for such film hits as Around the World in 80 Days.
1901: Commencement exercises were held today at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum on Amsterdam Avenue. Prizes consisting of engraved certificates and $50 in cash were awarded to the outstanding boy and girl at the institution. The prizes were created by the late Moses Bruhl as a way to honor the memory of his wife, Bettie Bruhl.
1903(7th of Sivan, 5663): Second Day of Shavuot
1909: Alfred Deakin became Prime Minister of Australia for the third time. At one time, Deakin had been a political ally of the Jewish Australian politician Isaac Isaacs who he appointed to the position of Attorney General in 1906.
1909: Birthdate of Benzion Netanyahu an Israeli historian and Zionist activist who is also known for being secretary to the father of the Revisionist Zionism movement Ze'ev Jabotinsky as well as the father of Yonatan Netanyahu, former commander of Sayeret Matkal, who was killed in Operation Entebbe and Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu
1911: The Sultan of Turkey conferred th Order of Medjidie, Fourth Class, on Isaac Jessua Bey of Salonica. He was the secretary to the Inspector General of the Gendarmerie of the vilayet.
1919: Birthdate of American painter Nat Mayer Shapiro
1920: Birthdate of Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Polish-born German critic.
1921: Birthdate of Sir Sigmund Sternberg, the Hungarian native who came to the UK in 1939 where he went on to become a “philanthropist, businessman and Labour Party donor.”
1922: New Yorker Bernard A. Rosenblatt who is a member of the Zionists Executive left New York to arrange for the underwriting of the first Jewish municipal bond issue in history.
1922: In Camden, NJ, Congregation Beth-El held Confirmation Services which were led by Cantor Jacob Mickelman.
1926: Birthdate of Dr. Raul Hilberg, the Austrian born American Holocaust scholar.
1932(27th of Iyyar, 5692): Simcha Gutman a Hebrew poet and novelist who wrote under the pen name Ben Zion passed away at the age of 62
1936: During the Arab Riots, the Irgun defied the Jewish Agency’s call for restraint by killing nine Arabs with an explosion at the Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that the Arab Higher Committee denounced the anticipated Royal (Peel) Commission's proposal for the partition of Palestine.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that the new Central Railway Station opened in Haifa.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that the an Arab who for £10 attempted to smuggle a Baghdadi Jew, Maji Shlomo Jarjana, from Syria to Palestine was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment. Jarjana got a two weeks jail sentence and deportation.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that the in the Polish town of Bransk Jews were beaten and injured, their stalls demolished, windows were smashed in their homes and at the synagogue.
1937: Information published from Venezuela indicated there is an Ashkenazi community of 100 members, most from Romania, and an indigenous Sephardic community between 700 and 800 members, who have "no relations" whatsoever with the Ashkenazim.
1939: The Christian Science Church attacks Jewish refugees as causing their own troubles, a position reportedly taken by many important Protestant journals of the time.
1940: The concentration camp at Neuengamme, Germany, is upgraded to primary-camp status
1941: French law called for ‘administrative arrest' for all Jews.
1942: Four hundred volunteers from the Jewish Brigade under the command of Major Liiebmann fought at the Battle of Bir-el Harmat in Libya which began today and lasted until June 11.
1942: Three thousand, four hundred Jews from Hurbieszow were sent to Sobibor, where eventually all but 12 were gassed.
1942: Fred Traum’s parents, Elias Israel Traum and Gitel Sara Traum left Vienna by train and reportedly were murdered by the Nazis three to five days later when the train reached Minsk.
1942: Viennese Jews are deported to the Minsk (Byelorussia) Ghetto. One woman, Elsa Speigel, decides to leave her 51/2-month-old son, Jona, behind. The baby will eventually be sent to the camp/ghetto at Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, where he will survive the war.
1942: The BBC reports that 700,000 Jews have been exterminated. Its information comes from a report smuggled out of Poland by the Jewish Bund in Warsaw.
1942: Birthdate of producer Berry Levinson.
1944: Itzhak Gruenbaum, the chairman of the Rescue Committee of the Jewish Agency, requests the bombing of rail lines that lead to Auschwitz.
1944: The Allies begin a bombing operation (Operation Frantic) in the Balkans, the goal of which is to distract the Germans from upcoming Allied landings in France. Bombing routes overfly the railway lines leading from Hungary to Auschwitz. The operation lasts for four months, during the deportation of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. The railway lines carrying the Jews are never targeted
1944: Birthdate of composer and pianist Marvin Hamlisch.
1947: Bernard M. Baruch, former United States member of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, said today that it would be "sheer suicide and sheer madness if we didn't adopt the compulsory military training plan just recommended by the Advisory Commission on Universal Training."
1947: The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) elected its Chairman, Emil Sandstrom, a Swedish Supreme Court Judge and set sail for Palestine.
1948: Viktor Brack, who was Hitler's supervisor of the installation of gas chambers in Poland, was executed.
1948: An Israeli attack on Egyptian positions at Ashdod marked the turning point in the war between Israel and Egypt.
1949: The Kingdom of Transjordan was renamed The Kingdome of Jordan. The kingdom had been named Transjordan because it was across (trans) the Jordan river. In 1948, Jordan's army crossed the Jordan River and seized the eastern portion of Jerusalem and the territory now called the West Bank. Since the country was now on both sides of the Jordan River, it was no called Jordan. This name change proved that the government of Jordan planned to remain permanently on the west bank of the Jordan River and there was no intention to create a Palestinian State.
1948: The Golani and Carmeli brigades attacked Jenin today.
1949: Birthdate of New York Times Columnist Mark Rich
1950: Plans to build a village in Israel bearing the name of President Truman to be called Kfar Truman were announced at the White House.
1950: Violinist Jascha Heifetz, who is on a concert tour in Israel, said today that he founded Israeli audiences to be “a little too sophisticated but quite wonderful.” In the 12 performances to date, he has enjoyed enthusiastic audience response.
1952: Birthdate of Gary Bruce Bettman, the commissioner of the National Hockey League.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that according to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, and contrary to persistent rumors, no definite reparation offer had yet been received from Western Germany.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that an Israeli mother, who drowned her sick and handicapped five-year-old child in the sea, received a one year prison sentence. The judge pointed out that there was a waiting list of more than 300 handicapped children waiting for proper treatment.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that prospective emigrants were ordered to give up their ration books before leaving Israel.
1959: Allen Ginsberg wrote his poem "Lysergic Acid," in San Francisco.
1961(18th of Sivan, 5721): Famed playwright George S. Kaufman passed away.
1961: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, “accompanied by his Private Secretary, Yitzhak Navon (later President of Israel) and the Israeli Ambassador to London, Aruthur Lourie” meet with Winston Churchill in London. During their conversation, Ben-Gurion outlines his views on the situation in Iraq, the stability of the Jordanian monarchy and the threat posed by Egypt which now possessed twenty or more MIG-19 air craft which were better than anything the Israelis possessed.
1962: On Shabbat, during his sermon today, Rabbi Bernard J. Bamberger told congregants at Shaaray Tefila in New York, “that the current discussion of medical care for the aged had been confused by warnings of ‘the danger of socialized medicine.’”
1962: Dr. Kurt Klappholz, the Rabbi at Congregation and Talmud Torah Tifereth Israel, an Orthodox synagogue in Brooklyn delivered a sermon today in which he was highly critical of the Central Conference of American Rabbis for urging the government of Israel to spare Eichmann’s life four hours before he was to be hung. The Klappholz family was wiped out by the Nazis.
1965: The United Synagogue which was established for charitable purposes by the Jewish United Synagogues Act of 1870 was formally registered as a charity today in the United Kingdom.
1973: Birthdate of David Bezmozgis, Latvian born Canadian author
1974: Abba Eban completes his service Foreign Minister.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported from Washington that the US and Israel fundamentally disagreed over the Arab willingness to live in peace with a secure Israel. US officials believed that Arabs were ready to accept Israel within the pre-1967 borders, but Israeli leaders doubted Arab moderation.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that Kennan Moss, a new immigrant from South Africa, was held for allegedly crossing into Jordan where he betrayed important Israeli security secrets.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Shippers’ Council sued the Marine Officers Union for losses caused by the recent, prolonged marine strike.
1979(7th of Sivan, 5739): Second Day of Shavuot
1988: The New York Review of Books publishes the letter signed from Natan Zach and Nissim Calderon in which they resign as members of the advisory committee of the International Poetry Festival due to take place in Israel as part of the country’s 40th anniversary celebration.
1989: Israeli journalist Eric Silver wrote an article in the London Jewish Chronicle describing life in Jerusalem for Arabs and Jews; a life marred by violence and suspicion. Responding to Arab claims that “Jews are afraid’ Silver writes, “The Jews say it is not so much fear as prudence. Why risk a knife in the back, a rock through the windscreen? Who needs it?”
1991: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Chutzpah by Alan Dershowitz.
1996(15th of Sivan, 5756): Amos Tversky, Israeli psychologist passed away.
2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Sunday Jews': Proudly Half and Half by Emily Barton and Firehouse by David Halberstam.
2003: The National Foundation for Jewish Culture, the leading advocate for Jewish cultural creativity and preservation in America, hosts a gala ceremony at the Plaza Hotel in New York where it presents today the honorees for the fourteenth annual Jewish Cultural Achievement Awards. The event is chaired by Morris W. Offit and Merryl H. Tisch, and hosted by Tony Award-winning actor Ron Leibman. The awards seek to recognize artists or cultural institutions who demonstrate a significant body of work or consistent achievement, excellence on the highest standards of the discipline as well as significant contributions to Jewish life and culture in America. This year, the awards are distributed in five categories: Patron of the Arts, Media Arts, Performing Arts, Literary Arts and Visual Arts. The honorees include:- Lynn Korda Kroll, philanthropist and chairman of the board of the NFJC (Patron of the Arts); David Isay, radio producer (Media Arts); Leonard Nimoy, actor, author and photographer (Performing Arts); Adrienne Rich, author, poet and educator (Literary Arts) and Mierle Laderman Ukeles, conceptual and installation artist (Visual Arts).
2005: The San Diego Jewish Times, published the following article by Donald H. Harrison entitled “Yossi Harel tells Exodus Story From the Commander's Perspective.”
I was surprised after Yossi Harel finished speaking that the 40-50 people invited by the Tel Aviv Foundation to hear him May 15 at Reina and David Shteremberg’s home in La Jolla didn’t jump to their feet as one to give him a standing ovation. Harel’s stirring story is the kind that makes your heart swell with gratitude that God made you a Jew. Perhaps the more restrained response was because Harel, today an octogenarian, seems so shy, and so modest about himself that people didn’t want to embarrass him by their effusions. The simplicity of the man—measured against his deeds—reminded me of the time I toured the historic home of Paula and David Ben-Gurion in Tel Aviv. To pass between their kitchen table and the cabinets, one practically had to turn sideways. Such an unassuming home for someone as important to the Jewish people as Ben Gurion! But he was not a man of large possessions, rather he was a man of big deeds. So too might it be said about Harel. Harel was a youngster in the pre-Israel Independence Haganah underground forces when he was directed to study coastal navigation—study that led to him being named the post World War II commander of the effort to smuggle immigrants past the British blockade and into Palestine. Most people of my generation know his story very well; as it was fictionalized in the movie Exodus starring Paul Newman. The real Exodus was among the ships under Harel’s command. The captain of that ship, Ike Arianne, coincidentally is coming to San Diego to speak June 5 to the Alpine Jewish Connection and June 8 to Congregation Beth Israel about his experiences. In describing the journey of the Exodus and other immigrant ships, Harel emphasized three major points: the awesome sense of responsibility he felt trying to ferry people from the camps of Europe, especially for the youth who had survived the Holocaust, and the dangers that the clandestine ships faced along the way. Harel remembers the children the most vividly. On one ship, he remembers a boy who used to dig tunnels from a nazi-guarded ghetto to the city outside. His father wanted him to sneak his sister out, but the sister wouldn’t leave the parents. So the boy’s father told the boy to leave the ghetto on his own, and not to come back. The father knew the nazis eventually would take them all away. The boy did as he was told, later telling Harel “I never again saw my father, my mother, my sister; they went to heaven through the chimneys of Auschwitz.” To his La Jolla listeners, Harel reflected; “You listen to this story and you begin to understand what is the command you got.” On that particular ship, there were 4,000 passengers, and “everyone had an equivalent story.” It gave rise to the determination that while the British might be successful in stopping some ships from disembarking its passengers in Palestine, it couldn’t stop all of them. At one of the Displaced Persons camp from which Exodus passengers were chosen, he remembered a girl who held a little boy’s hand tight. Was she the older sister, he wondered? No, he learned from the camp’s Haganah commander. She had been sent by her Jewish parents to a monastery where she posed as a Catholic. The little boy came later, but was too young to understand what was required of him. At night, he cried in Yiddish for his mother—dangerous because the Gestapo would yank such children from the monastery and execute them. The girl hushed him, taught him how to make the sign of the cross and other prayers, and remained his protector to that very day. The immigrant ships navigated waters that under normal circumstances were treacherous; let alone when the ships sat deep in the water because they were overloaded with passengers. They were short on food, fuel and water, often having to cut rations as they neared their destination. On one ship, a Greek captain and senior crew member began making the sign of the cross on their chests as they looked at the rocks of Peloponese. “When you see the captain and the chief do that, you know something is wrong,” Harel recalled, his understatement prompting laughter from his La Jolla listeners. The strong waves were driving the 50-year-old ship toward the rocks, and the heavy-in-the-water vessel had insufficient power to counteract their force. Six miles from the rocks, than five miles, then four miles… “I could see that the ship was going to wreck,” he said. “We didn’t have a single lifeboat, what can we do? So you sit on the bridge, and you watch, and all of a sudden you see the waves parallel to the coast beginning to change direction. The winds changed! Slowly we passed by maybe 200-300 yards offshore. We had 4,000 people aboard. Maybe the supplication of the captain helped!” On another occasion, a ship had to be navigated through the Bosporus—but to get to the straits, it needed to first sail through waters that the Russians had mined during World War II. A Russian pilot refused to sail at night, so a Haganah member was assigned to read the charts and get the ship through. “It was the longest night of my life,” said Harel. “Overall,” Harel said, “we brought 100,000 people but this was the bloodiest war we ever had. In the War for Independence, we had 600,000 Jews, and we lost 6,000 – one percent.” Running the blockade, he said, “we lost over 3,000 people drowned in the Black Sea—three percent… “With all these casualties, they kept coming, they didn’t stop,” he marveled. “A nation destroyed was coming back to life.”2006
2006(6th of Sivan, 5766): First day of Shavuot
2006(6th of Sivan, 5766): Sol W. Cantor, an early proponent of discount retailing featuring warehouse style stores passed away at the age of 95. He was a major philanthropist who supported the UJA, ADL and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.
2007: In Cedar Rapids, Melanie Abzug becomes a Bat Mitzvah at Temple Judah.
2007: The Cedar Rapids Gazette features an article entitled “Mitzvahs Swell in Summer” by Molly Rossiter describing the Bar and Bat Mitzvah Ceremonies and the way they are practiced at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids and Agudas Achim in Iowa City.
2007(16th of Sivan, 5767): Martin Meyerson, former president of the University of Pennsylvania who briefly led the University of California at Berkley during the tumultuous 1960’s passed away at the age of 84. “He was the first Jewish head of a major research university, and he and John Kemeny of Dartmouth College were the first Jewish presidents in the Ivy League. A reporter once called Mr. Meyerson ‘the Jackie Robinson of Jewish academia.’”
2008: AIPAC Policy Conference opens in Washington, D.C.
2008 ((28th of Iyar, 5768): Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Reunification Day. This marks the celebration of the 41st anniversary of the re-establishment of Jewish control over the entire “City of David.”
2008: At the Spertus in Chicago, the fourth and final session of “A Short History of Anti-Semitism.” Taught by historian Dr. Dean Bell, the course covers anti-Judaism in the classical world, the Crusades and expulsions in the Middle Ages, tolerance and restrictions in the early modern period, and racial anti-Semitism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dean Bell is Dean and Chief Academic Officer at Spertus. He earned his BA at the University of Chicago and MA and PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught at Berkeley, DePaul University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Hebrew Theological College.
2008: In an article entitled “Holocaust survivors passing memories to young people,” The Chicago Tribune describes the “Generation to Generation” program sponsored by the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie which is designed to enable Holocaust survivors to tell their story with a young recipient to ensure that the personal memories are not lost.
2009: The National Capital Mikvah offered a class on "The Fourth Trimester: Childbirth and Beyond." During an interactive lecture Rebbetzin Sharon Freundel led a discussion on childbirth and post-childbirth issues for Orthodox women including niddah after childbirth and when to return to the mikvah, how to schedule a brit for both term and pre-term boys, and other laws and customs.
2009(10th of Sivan, 5769): A gunman killed one person, seriously wounded a second and said he tried to hit a third in an apparent shooting spree in central Jerusalem early this morning, police said. Yoel Almog Dazhinishvilli shot and killed Amjad Abu Hadar, 33, and seriously wounded a Jewish yeshiva student who passed by moments later. Police say Danishvilli also tried to wound a third man, but failed. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said investigators thought Dazhinishvilli had psychological problems and did not think his attacks had a political motivation. Rosenfeld said he did not know if Dazhinishvilli had a history of psychological problems. Both men were shot at close range. Danishvilli, 48, had a permit to carry the weapon for his job as a security guard. He was arrested shortly after a man was found with bullet wounds to the chest on Hanevi'im Street in central Jerusalem at around 3 A.M. Rosenfeld said the gunman told police he had been meditating in the square at around 3:30 A.M. when the Arab man approached him. The gunman told police that he had opened fire when he felt threatened, and had shot the second man he asked him for a cigarette.
2009: A rising and falling siren sounded this morning at 11 A.M. for a minute and a half as part of this year's Home Front Command national exercise, with all citizens encouraged to practice entering their protected rooms. The exercise was meant to raise the public's preparedness for possible missile attacks on the country. The drill, named Turning Point 3, was run by the Home Front Command and the National Emergency Authority. It was the largest ever emergency exercise the nation has undertaken. Today's siren and secure room drill tested the national system of 2,300 sirens. In addition to the Home Front Command's request for all citizens to enter their secure rooms for 10 minutes, all educational institutions also participated in the drill. All students were instructed to enter their schools' designated secure rooms, shelters or other protected spaces, and afterward the students were shown a special broadcast prepared by the command specifically for them. In addition, all Israel Defense Forces soldiers practiced the protected space drill, and all workplaces were requested to prepare protected areas for all employees to participate in the drill, if possible. Israelis were asked to prepare a secure room, shelter or other protected space in advance of the drill. Essential services continued to function despite the exercise. The Home Front Command's instructions stated, "If there is an unreasonable disruption to your routine, you may continue with your regular activity. In any case, the location of the protected space must be known and clearly marked." Vehicular traffic, including public transportation and private cars, continued as usual even during the sounding of the siren. Today's drill is only one part of the national exercise, which started Sunday and will continue through Thursday. During the first two days government offices, rescue services and emergency authorities were primarily tested. Tuesday, local authorities are joining the exercise. In particular, many municipalities in the center of the country will practice putting thousands of emergency volunteers to work in their neighborhoods, and a number of schools will practice hosting those who would need to be evacuated from their homes. The Home Front's rescue battalions will also take part in the exercise, practicing rescuing victims from a building that was demolished especially for the event. In Eilat, emergency forces will simulate a mass disaster caused by a chemical weapons attack on a school. Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai, who is responsible for the exercise, said Monday, "Every citizen in Israel should know that in every place in the country, at any time, an emergency can happen."
2010: The YIVO is scheduled to present a lecture entitled “Empire of Charity: American Jews and the Rebuilding of Polish Lithuania, 1919-1939” which “focuses on the role Jewish émigrés and their philanthropy played in reshaping political, social, and economic life in Brisk and Vilna, the two historic intellectual centers of Lithuanian Jewry.”
2010: In an article published today entitled “A Viennese District Is Reborn” Kimberly Bradley described the rebirth of the Karmeliterviertel, or Carmelite Quarter as a center for Jewish culture. “Over the last decade or so the area has become one of the few places in the world outside of Brooklyn and Tel Aviv where bohemians stroll alongside groups of Orthodox Jews — the former buying chutney from Slow Food Vienna’s booth at the market, the latter munching on matzo and hummus from Kosherland.”
2011: The Masada Opera Festival is scheduled to “kick off with a celebratory opera evening featuring works by Verdi, Puccini and Rossini performed by Svetla Vasileva and the orchestra of Arena di Verona”.
2011: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to present “Israeli Wines: Talk and Tasting” a program offering a virtual tour of several vineyards as well as a look at the unique Israeli wine-making process facilitated by Udi Kadim, CEO of Yarden, one of the nation's leading importers of quality wines.
Created, Compiled & Edited by Mitchell Levin; Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com
Copyright; June, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
This Day, June 1, In Jewish History
June 1 In Jewish History
987: Hugh Capet was elected King of France making him the first of the Capetians. During this period, power lay with the nobles and the leaders of the Church. Among other things this meant that the kings were unable to do anything to protect the Jews against the anti-Semitic teachings of the clergy and the resulting hostile actions of the ordinary people against the Jews. To make matters worse, when Hugh Capet was stricken with a mystery malady a Jewish physician was summoned to treat him. Unfortunately, the King died and the Jews were accused of killing him.
1204: King Philip Augustus of France conquered Rouen, the historic capital of Normandy which had been operating under a charter that allowed for self-government. Considering how poorly the French king treated his Jewish subject, his seizure of Rouen could not have been good news for the city’s Jewish population which numbered 6,000 and was strong enough to support its own Yeshiva. During the second half of the twelfth century, whenRouen was governed under the terms of a charter that allowed for self-government, the town was home to 6,000 Jews (approximately 20% of the population) and was the site of yeshiva. the site of a yeshiva. At that time, about 6,000 Jews lived in the town, comprising about 20% of the population. In addition, there were a large number of Jews scattered about another 100 communities in Normandy. The well-preserved remains of the yeshiva were discovered in the 1970s under the Rouen Law Courts and the community has begun a project to restore them. In 1215, Rouen would be the site of the Fourth Lateran Council which adopted a panoply of ant-Semitic measures.
1252: Alfonso X is elected King of Castile and León. Known as El Sabio (The Learned One) the well educated Christian monarch set out to “to create a Christian culture in the north of Spain that as equal in glory to Moorish culture in the South…He ordered both the Koran and the Talmud to be translated into Latin.” One of the most prominent scientists in his realm was the Jewish astronomer, Yehuda ben Moses Cohen.
1764: The Sejm abolished the Council of the Four Lands. Supposedly this was not an act aimed to harm the Jews. Rather it was part of a plan to re-organize the tax system.
1434: King Wladislaus II of Poland passed away. During his reign, persecution of the Jews intensified and Wladislaus did nothing to protect them or reinforce the rights that had been granted to them by his predecessors Instead he actually took steps to limit their business activities by issuing an edict limiting their right to lend money.
1656: The Jews of New Amsterdam are allowed to practice their religion, after reminding the Dutch West India Company that Jews "in quietness" were allowed to practice in Holland and other Dutch colonies.
1775: Abraham Solomon “enlisted in Col. John Glover’s Regiment, known as the Marbleheaders, to take part in the glorious Battle of Bunker Hill. Later he was shifted with his company to Cambridge. When the soldiers received their pay, they had to sign for it on the company’s muster roll. Solomon’s fellow soldiers, many of whom could not write, were allowed to make their Xs. But Solomon could write — just not in English — so he was allowed to sign his name in Hebrew. It is believed that this is the only Revolutionary War muster roll to be signed in Hebrew.”
1790: Birthdate of Solomon Judah Löb Rapoport the Galacian born rabbi and scholar.
1792: Kentucky admitted as the 15th state of the United States. Benjamin Gratz, one of the son’s of the famous Michael Gratz family of Philadelphia, who was a lawyer and veteran of the American Revolution was one of the earliest Jewish settlers of Kentucky, Louisville, Kentucky would become home to the state’s first congregation, Adath Israel which was incorporated in 1842. While serving as a delegate from Kentucky at the Republican Convention, Louis Naphtali Dembitz was one three who placed Lincoln’s name in nomination. He was the uncle of Kentucky’s most famous Jew, Supreme Court Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis.
1796: Tennessee admitted as the 16th state of the United States. The first Jews settled in upper East Tennessee in the 1770s and to Middle Tennessee by the 1820s. The Nashville Jewish community dates from the 1790’s with enough Jews living there to hold services in the 1840’s and establish a burial society in the decade before the Civil War.
1828(19th of Sivan, 5588): Raphael Meldola passed away. Born in Leghorn in 1754, he was one of the most prominent members of the Meldola family. He received a thorough university training, both in theological and in secular branches, and displayed such remarkable talents that when only fifteen years old he was permitted to take his seat in the rabbinical college. He was preacher in Leghorn for some years, and in 1803 he obtained the title of rabbi. In 1805 Meldola was elected haham of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Great Britain, and proved a worthy successor of Sasportas and Nieto. His name will ever be indissolubly associated with that of Bevis Marks Synagogue. Possessed of a remarkably virile mind, he was a dominant factor in the British Jewry of his generation. He was the author of Korban Minhah, Kuppat Hatanim (1796), and Derekh Emunah, published by his son after his death. He left several other works in manuscript. His scholarship attracted around him a circle in which were many of the most distinguished men of his day, including Benjamin Disraeli and Isaac Disraeli and it is noteworthy that he opposed the policy which produced the famous rupture between the latter and the mahamad. He maintained a literary correspondence with many of the most prominent Christian clergymen and scholars of his time; and his acquaintance with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Canon of Windsor led to his being received by King George III. Meldola married Stella Bolaffi (Abulafia), by whom he had four sons and four daughters.
1845: Birthdate of Caroline von Gomperz-Bettelheim “a Hungarian-Austrian court singer and member of the Royal Opera, Vienna” who was the older sister of Anton Bettelheim.
1853: The New York Times describes an attack by Greek on the Jews of Smyrna during Easter. Russian agents may have incited the violence which was put down by the Turks.
1853: The New York Times reported that the issue of Jewish Disabilities continues to be a problem in Parliament. In response to a question from Mr. Milner Gibson on this topic, Lord Russell responded that he did not think a measure that dealt only with this and that he would be submitting a measure that would dealt with the general question of Oaths to be taken by Members of Parliament.
1857: Isaac Jackson who was either 17 or 18 years old was shot and killed today by Charles Jones. Jackson is one of four Jewish brothers who own a stored in Westfield, MA. Young Jackson was driving a wagon of merchandize on the road between Westfield and Russell when he was attacked.
1869: Isidore Loeb “was appointed secretary of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, a position he held until his death.”
1873: In an article published today entitled Whitsuntide: A Hebrew and a Christian Festival - Curious Customs and Interesting Ceremonies, the author compares the Jewish festival of Pentecost with the Christian Whitsuntide. Pentecost, signifying the fiftieth, is the second of the great festivals of the Hebrews, held fifty days after the Passover, or feast of the unleavened bread. The time of the festival is calculated from the second day of the Passover, the 16th of Nisan.
1879: An article entitled “Can’t You Wait?” published today reminds the reader of two famous examples of” hasty identification” that turned out be erroneous. First was the case of a papyrus that surfaced at Leyden which contained a “report of a scribe” sent to his superior serving King Ramses II that said “he had ‘distributed the rations among the soldiers and likewise among the Apuirui, or Aperiu, who carry the stones to the great city of King Ramses.’” While most Egyptologists thought this referred to “the Hebrews who built…the City of Ramses” Dr. Heinrich Brugsh, showed “clearly that these Aperiu were not Hebrews but an “Erythraean people…mentioned long before in an inscription of Thutmes III as cavalry in the Kings Service.” The second example took place when a picture found in one of the tombs at Beni-Hassan (an ancient Egyptian cemetery) was first identified as being representional “of the arrival of the children of Israel” until the same Dr. Brugsh set the record straight. [Were these really errors or was this an example of a German Egyptologist who had difficulty acknowledging the antitquity of the Jewish people?]
1882: Birthdate of Jacob Billikopf the native of Vilna who gained fame in the United States for his career in social work, “Jewish philanthropy and labor arbitration.”
1894: In Rochester, NY, Congregation Berith Kodesh dedicated its new house of worship. The building which cost $130,000 “was designed by Leon Stern, a member of the congregation and was built on the corner of Gibbs and Grove streets
1898: Birthdate of actress Molly Picon. Two of her more famous roles were in “Milk & Honey” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”
1903(6th of Sivan, 5663): First Day of Shavuot
1903(6th of Sivan, 5663): Montifore Isaacs, “one of the best known and most popular bachelors in New York Society” and the nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore passed away.
1904: Three French Army Officers are arrested in connection with the Dreyfus Affair. However, the verdict would not be overturned for two more years when Dreyfus would finally be released from prison.
1906: In Trier, Italy, after the Jews were attacked by a mob and threatened with death, Bishop Egelbert offered to save those who were willing to be baptized . Most chose to drown themselves instead.
1906: A pogrom broke out in Bialystok, Russia.
1910: During a debate Turkish Minister of Interior Talaat Bey stated, "Some deputies have spoken on behalf of Muslim, Greek and Armenian hospitals, but I note with regret no one has a word for the Jewish hospital, which renders great services. It admits all persons sent to it by the police without distinction of race and religion."
1911: Birthdate of Bernard Rothman better known as Benny Rothman a UK political activist, most famous for his leading role in the Mass trespass of Kinder Scout in 1932. He passed away in 2002.
1916: The nomination of Louis D. Brandeis of Boston to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States was confirmed by the Senate in executive session this afternoon by a vote of 47 to 22. Only one Democrat voted against confirmation.
1917: A memorandum is published describing the distress of the Jews in Belgrade. According to the document, “communities are destroyed, thousands are ruined and compelled to leave their homes.”
1918: The Ninth annual convention of the Kehillah opens at Carnegie Hall in Manhattan.
1920: Birthdate of David Samuilovich Kaufman, “one of the most important Russian poets of the post-World War II era.”
1926: Bernard Flexner, President of the Palestine Economic Corporation, announced that the organization’s primary activity will be to help provide financing for the hydroelectric station on the Jordan River and the necessary transmission lines to connect the existing Diesel engine power stations at Tel-Aviv, Haifa and Tiberias. The Palestine Economic Corporation was organized in February, 1925.
1928: Attorney General Albert Ottinger’s investigation of complaints by the Hebrew Religious Protective Association against certain cemeteries was resumed today when Assistant Attorney General Robert S. Conklin questioned Philip Gresner, Superintendent of the Baron Hirsch Cemetery at Port Richmond, Staten Island, about complaints by plot owners that charges were increased without warning and that even “funeral processions had been halted to demand payment in arrears.:
1926: Birthdate of actress Marilyn Monroe. Born Norma Jean Baker, Monroe converted to Judaism before she married playwright Arthur Miller.
1930: Birthdate of Jo Amar. Jo Amar, a Moroccan-born Jewish singer whose melding of Andalusian and Israeli musical influences would make him a star in Israel and a popular performer in Jewish communities around the world. He passed away in 2009 at the age of 79.
1933(7th of Sivan, 5693): Second Day of Shavuot
1933: The League of Nations approves The Bernheim petition which is a protest aimed at Nazi anti-Jewish legislation in German Upper Silesia.
1933: Germany introduces the Law for Reduction of Unemployment, which provides for marriage loans and other incentives to genetically “fit” Germans. (Jewish Virtual Library)
1933: American modernist writer Gertrude Stein published her autobiography, ironically titled The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,
1936(11th of Sivan, 5696): As Arab attacks continue, snipers fired on two buses near Jerusalem, killing one Jewish rider and wounding two others. In the evening, a Jewish constable in Givat Shaoul was shot at by unknown assailants. This is the same district of Jerusalem where another Jews was killed yesterday.
1936: Leaders of the current Arab uprising reportedly have sent letters to wealthy Arabs “threatening their lives and homes unless they” provide economic support for the uprising. In response, the targets of the demands are “fleeing to Egypt, Lebanon and Europe.
1937: Birthdate of Yisrael Meir Lau, the Polish born rabbi whose father died at Treblinka, who became the Chairman of Yad Vashem and Chief Rabbi of Tel Avi.
1938: Superman created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian artist Joe Shuster made his first appearance in D.C. Comics’ Action Comics Series issue #1 which sold for 10 cents.
1941: In Baghdad, Pro Axis Rashid Ali, began his revolution against the British by attacking the Jewish community. Approximately 150 Jews were murdered and 800 injured during two day of rioting. British troops stationed outside the city did not intervene. The pogrom is known as the Farhood.
1941: The Battle of Crete comes to an end with German victory. There were fewer than four hundred Jews living in Crete at this time. “It was not until June of 1944, and almost as an afterthought, that the Jews of Crete were arrested and sent to Herakleion, where they were put on the ship Tanais, together with some 600 Greek and Italian prisoners. For some years the details of the last hours of the Tanais and the fate of its crew and human cargo was not clear. What was known is that the ship had been sunk and that all had perished. Evidence has now appeared through the Foreign Office in London that in fact the Tanais had been sighted by a British U-Boat and was given two torpedo broadsides and sank within 15 minutes.”
1941: The deportation of Bosnian Jews to regional concentration camps begins. By November, 14,000 Jews will have been deported to these camps.
1941: Birthdate of Dr. Stanley I. Greenspan, a psychiatrist who invented an influential approach to teaching children with autism and other developmental problems.
1942: The story of a young Jew, Emanuel Ringelblum, (who escaped from the Chelmno death camp after being forced to bury bodies as they were thrown out of the gas vans), was published in the underground Polish Socialist newspaper Liberty Brigade. The West now knew the "bloodcurdling news ... about the slaughter of Jews," and it had a name-Chelmno.
1942: The World Jewish Congress, based in New York, announces at a press conference that Eastern Europe is being turned into "a vast slaughterhouse for Jews." As with the Sudan and Dafur sixty years later, the world “does not hear.”
1942: Between June 1 and June 30 more than 23,000 Jews are gassed at the Belzec and Sobibór death camps
1942: During June, Auschwitz is ravaged by an epidemic of typhus.
1942(16th of Sivan, 5702): Germans invade Jewish hospitals in Sosnowiec, Poland, murdering newborns and tearing patients from operating tables. Ambulatory patients are sent to Auschwitz and gassed.
1942: A young Sosnowiec Jew named Harry Blumenfrucht is captured and endures two weeks of Nazi torture. He refuses to name his co-conspirators in a scheme to steal weapons. His suffering ends when he is hanged.
1942 (16th of Sivan, 5702 Jews from Dabrowa Tarnowska, Poland, led by Rabbi Isaac and gathered in a Jewish cemetery, defy their Nazi captors when they hold hands, dance, and drink "to life." The enraged Germans shoot and disembowel the entire group.
1942: At Lutsk, Ukraine, Jewish resistance is led by Joel Szczerbat
1942: Starting in the first week of June, three thousand Jews at Pilica, Poland, are deported to Belzec, but several hundred manage to escape before the journey is complete
1942: In Norway, Jews are given identity cards stamped with the letter "J."
1942(16th of Sivan, 5702): Mordecai Gebirtig, a Kraków carpenter whose songs of freedom are sung throughout Poland, is executed at Belzec.
1942: During the first week in June, Polish Jews are deported from Hrubieszów to the Sobibór death camp. Another 500 will be deported the following week
1942: Starting in June, Warsaw's underground newspaper, Liberty Barricade, published by the Polish Socialist Party, reveals Nazi gassing activity at the Chelmno death camp
.
1942: I.G. Farben's Buna-Monowitz synthetic-rubber and oil works opens near Auschwitz
1942(16th of Sivan, 5702): Between today and the 7th of June seven thousand Jews from Kraków, Poland, are murdered at the Belzec extermination camp.
1942: First mention ever in the press, in this case the underground Warsaw newspaper "Liberty", of the ‘bloodcurdling news coming out of Chelmno.' Seven Thousand Jews were sent from Cracow to Belzec. On this day tracks began to be built connecting to a new death camp, Treblinka. Treblinka had been prepared for the Jews of central Poland.
1943(27th of Iyyar, 5703): Jews of Dalmatia, Serbia, are transferred to the island of Rab, which is off the coast of Croatia.
1943(27th of Iyyar, 5703): Starting today and lasting throughout the first two weeks in June 10,000 Jews from Lvov lose their lives in a combination of street assaults and killings at Janówska, Ukraine,
1943(27th of Iyyar, 5703): During liquidation of the ghetto at Sosnowiec, Poland, which began on June 1 and ended on June 6, a spirited resistance is led by Zvi Dunski. Ill-armed Jews fight back as deportations proceed
1943(27th of Iyyar, 5703): The liquidation of the Jewish ghetto at Buczacz, Ukraine begins. It will end on June 6. Some Jews resist and escape
1943(27th of Iyyar, 5703): Actor Leslie Howard dies when the civilian plane he is flying on from Lisbon to England is shot down by German fighters. The reason for the attack remains shrouded in the cloak and dagger world of W.W.II. Born Leslie Howard Stainer in 1893, Howard’s parents were Hungarian Jews. He served in WW I and gained fame in both English and American films. He is best remembered for his portrayal of Ashley Wilkes, the classic cavalier in “Gone With the Wind.”
1944: An American public opinion poll indicates that 57 percent of Americans anticipate "a widespread campaign in this country" against Jews.
1944: From today through June 30, 13,500 Jews are deported from Miskolc, Hungary, to Auschwitz.
1944: With 55,000 unused United States quota slots from Occupied Europe, President Franklin Roosevelt agrees to allow only 1000 Jewish refugees into the United States. They will be housed at Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York
1945: Displaced Jews at Buchenwald, Germany establish Kibbutz Buchenwald, an agricultural training center designed to help young Jews succeed at kibbutz (communal) life
1945: Public-opinion polls taken during June indicate that Americans consider Jews a far greater threat to America than they consider German or Japanese Americans.
1945: Kibbutz Nili is established on the former estate of Nazi big-wig Julius Streicher, near Pleikershof, Germany, to train Jewish displaced persons in agriculture and provide schooling for Jewish boys and girls.
1946: Following the murder of two Jews in Biala Podlaska, Poland, the town's remaining Jews began leaving the country during June.
1946: Ion Antonescu, the anti-Semitic former dictator of Romania, is executed after being convicted of war crimes.
1948: The Arab states and Israel agreed to a cease-fire. After two weeks of fighting, the Arabs realized that pushing the Jews into the sea would not be such an easy matter after all.
1964: Estelle Sommers got her start in the dance world when she transformed her first husband's Cincinnati piece-goods retail store into a dancewear specialty shop.
1967: Having seen its plans to organize an international flotilla to break the blockade of the Straits of Tiran come to naught, the United States government shifts its policy. Previously, President Johnson cautioned Israel not to fire the first shot in even of war. On this day, when Secretary of State Rusk was asked if the U.S. would restrain Israel from taking precipitate actions, he replied, “ I do not think it is our business to restrain anybody.” On this same date, Abba Eban realized that diplomacy would not work and that war looked like the only viable option. However, the months of diplomatic negotiation had earned Israel the support of the U.S. government, support it would need in the coming weeks when the Soviet Union sought to reverse Israel’s military successes.
1967: In response to the mounting tensions and popular demand, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol forms a government of national unity with membership from the total spectrum of Israeli political. Moshe Dyan is named Defense Minister and meets with Chief of Staff Rabin who outlines the military’s plans. Dyan approves that which had already been prepared.
1968: Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson", theme for the hit movie “The Graduate,” was number one on the charts.
1979(6th of Sivan, 5739): First Day of Shavuot
1980: Actress and singer Barbra Streisand appeared at an ACLU Benefit in California
1984: Susan Weidman Schneider published Jewish and Female: Choices and Changes in Our Lives Today
1987: Meir Rosenne ends his term as Israeli Ambassador to Washington.
1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Rothschild Gardens by Miriam Rothschild, Kate Garton and Lionel de Rothschild, and the recently released paperback edition of Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen.
2005: The Jewish Family Service (JFS) of Los Angeles holds its annual gala. The honorees are CAA agent Rick Kurtzman; his brother, Fox business affairs executive Howard Kurtzman; and their brother-in-law, William Morris Agent David Lonner (married to their sister Janet).
2006: Archaeologists Ofer Bar-Yosef of Harvard University and Mordechai E. Kislev and Anat Hartmann of Bar-Ilan University report that they have found evidence that ancient people grew fig trees some 11,400 years ago, making the fruit the earliest domesticated crop. Remains of the ancient fruits were found at Gilgal I, a village site in the Jordan Valley north of ancient Jericho,. Gilgal was abandoned more than 11,000 years ago. Figs that are edible do not produce seeds and are propagated by planting shoots. Bar-Yosef said that ''In this intentional act of planting a specific variant of fig tree, we can see the beginnings of agriculture. This edible fig would not have survived if not for human intervention.''
2006: The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, in conjunction with the Instituto Cervantes and the Spanish Consulate in New York paid tribute to Diplomat and Savior of the Holocaust, Eduardo Propper de Callejón at the Instituto Cervantes in New York City. The event had a tremendous turnout with approximately 180 people in attendance. Propper's son, Felipe Propper de Callejón, spoke about how his father used his diplomatic office to administer special visas that would enable Jews and other persecuted people to escape the Nazi regime under the protection of the Spanish flag. Despite his father's heroism, he was stripped of his title and transferred to Consulate of Larache in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco and was never able to regain his title or attain recognition for his heroic acts before his death. Ana Salomon, the Special Ambassador for Relations with Jewish Organizations of the Foreign Ministry of Spain, and Abigail Tenembaum, the Vice President of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation also spoke at the event. The tribute featured an exhibition of photos, legal documents, and Propper's own notes and correspondences written while serving as First Secretary. This was the IRWF's second tribute to Spanish diplomat saviors. The first honored eight saviors in Argentina in 2004. The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation is a non-profit organization that seeks to promote solidarity and civic courage, which are ethical cornerstones of the saviors of the Holocaust
2007: Hadassah national president June Walker’s appointment to head the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations goes into effect. The Presidents' Conference is the umbrella group that represents 50 American Jewish organizations on issues of national and international concern.
2007: Michel Graber, the magistrate who has been overseeing the investigation into the fire that damaged Geneva’s largest synagogue on May 24 said that it was a criminal act which he described as arson. But he said there had been no indication that it was set by extremists. The May 24 blaze raised fears among Geneva's Jewish community that the fire might have been an anti-Semitic attack.
2007: On the same day when three more Kassam rockets struck Israel, the IAF killed a member of an Islamic Jihad Kassam cell in an air strike.
2008: Washington, D.C,. Manhattan, NYC and Boston all host celebrations honoring Israel at Sixty.
2008: Mrs. Jacob (Betty) Levin gathers with her family and friends for the unveiling of the Matzevah of Dr. Jacob Levin (of blessed memory). Of course, his real Matzevah is impact he made on the lives of his loving family and devoted friends.
2008: In Chicago, the Spertus sponsors a book signing for “Louis Zukofsky The Modernist Poet as Jew” by Dr. Mark Scroggins. As the unbelieving child of immigrants, Louis Zukofsky (1904 – 1978) sought to study his way out of his father’s Lower East Side sweatshop and to write his way into Western literary history. He did so by placing himself among the "high modernist" poets, whose conception of culture was often covertly or explicitly anti-Semitic. Dr. Mark Scroggins’ new book explores Zukofsky’s growth into one of his century’s most fascinating and complex poets, growth paralleled by his navigation of poetry and Jewishness, and his discovery of Jewish-inflected modernist poetics, which continue to influence and inspire contemporary poets. Mark Scroggins holds an MFA and PhD from Cornell University and teaches literature and creative writing at Florida Atlantic University. A widely published author of poetry, essays and reviews, he has written on a broad range of writers, including extensive writing on poet Louis Zukofsky.
2008: The Chicago Sun Times features a review of “The Dream” by ninety-eight year old Harry Bernstein. “The Dream” follows “The Invisible Wall” as the second in a trilogy that traces the life of the immigrant son of Yankel and Ada Bernstein.
2008: The Washington Post features a review of “1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War” by Benny Morris as well as listings for “Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy”, by Natan Sharansky, “Golda” by Elinor Burkett,” A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel” by Gudrun Krämer, “Jerusalem: City of Longing” by Simon Goldhill and The Story of Israel: From Theodor Herzl to the Roadmap for Peace” by Martin Gilbert.
2008(27th of Iyyar, 5768): Yosef (Tommy) Lapid passed away at the age of 76. Born in Yugoslavia in 1931, Lapid and his mother (his father died in the Holocaust) made Aliyah in 1948 where he became a successful journalist and political leader.
2008(27th of Iyyar, 5768): In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Penny Binger a student of Chasidic Judaism and devote of Shlomo Carlbach passed away.
2008: In front page article entitled “Baghdad Jews Have Become a Fearful Few” The New York Times describes the plight of one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities.
2009: Final showing of Sol LeWitt’s “Wall Drawing #260(1975)” at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
2009: Sports Illustrated magazine features a review of Bill Russell’s “Red and Me” which focuses on the close, unique relationship between the all-star center and coach and Red Auerbach, Russell’s coach and mentor. Between the two of them, they changed the game and made a unique social statement. “Russell writes that they were drawn together by a mutual hardheadedness, united y the ‘tribulation of our tribes’: Russell was an African American who grew up in the Jim Crow South and the Oakland projects, Auerbach a street-savvy urban Jews.” While everybody knows about the alliance between African-Americans and Jews that helped to make the Civil Rights Revolution, fewer people are aware of this unique Black-Jewish Alliance which created its own revolution.
2009: During “Turning Point 3” the government’s emergency headquarters will discuss coordination measures
2009: Security forces uprooted the outpost of Nahalat Yosef today and arrested several activists who protested the destruction. Among those arrested was MK Michael Ben-Ari. Following those events, security forces converged on Ramat Gilad, where residents are concerned at the prospect of a confrontation but say they will resist any attempts to evict them from the area.
2009: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak began a round of meetings with top U.S. officials today in a bid to head off an increasingly sharp dispute between the United States and Israel over the expansion of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory.
2009: The Saul Steinberg: Illuminations travelling exhibition, which displays original Steinberg works comes to a close in Hamburg, Germany.
2010: Mothers Circle, an education and support group for non-Jewish women raising Jewish children is scheduled to have its first meeting for the summer at the Historic Sixth & I Street Synagogue.
2010: In the wake of naval action off the coast of Gaza, Prime Minister Netanyahu does not meet with President Obama as originally scheduled.
2010: An Islamic militant group in the Gaza Strip said three of its members had been killed in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza. The Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group said its fighters were killed shortly after firing two rockets into southern Israel. Israeli authorities said the rockets landed in open areas and caused no injuries. The IDF confirmed it had carried out an airstrike today, and Gaza's chief medical examiner said there were three deaths. Earlier on today, two would-be Palestinian terrorists were killed on the Gaza border as the IDF foiled an infiltration attempt. No casualties were reported among the troops. "Two Palestinian terrorists were identified infiltrating into Israel from the southern Gaza Strip earlier this morning. The soldiers on the scene exchanged fire with the terrorists, killing them both," the IDF Spokesperson said of the event in a statement released later in the day. Two AK-47 rifles, ten magazines and five grenades were found on the infiltrators' bodies.
2011: The Masada, Dead Sea and Jerusalem Opera Festival is scheduled to begin.
2011: Final session of Hebrew Literacy: Aleph, Bet, and Beyond is scheduled to take place today at the Historic Sixth & Synagogue in Washington, DC
2011: In Washington, DC, Adas Israel is scheduled to hold its Annual Meeting and honor the 2011 Yad Kakavod recipient, David Bickart.
2011(28th of Iyar, 5771): Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Reunification Day
Created, Compiled & Edited by Mitchell Levin; Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com
Copyright; May, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin
987: Hugh Capet was elected King of France making him the first of the Capetians. During this period, power lay with the nobles and the leaders of the Church. Among other things this meant that the kings were unable to do anything to protect the Jews against the anti-Semitic teachings of the clergy and the resulting hostile actions of the ordinary people against the Jews. To make matters worse, when Hugh Capet was stricken with a mystery malady a Jewish physician was summoned to treat him. Unfortunately, the King died and the Jews were accused of killing him.
1204: King Philip Augustus of France conquered Rouen, the historic capital of Normandy which had been operating under a charter that allowed for self-government. Considering how poorly the French king treated his Jewish subject, his seizure of Rouen could not have been good news for the city’s Jewish population which numbered 6,000 and was strong enough to support its own Yeshiva. During the second half of the twelfth century, whenRouen was governed under the terms of a charter that allowed for self-government, the town was home to 6,000 Jews (approximately 20% of the population) and was the site of yeshiva. the site of a yeshiva. At that time, about 6,000 Jews lived in the town, comprising about 20% of the population. In addition, there were a large number of Jews scattered about another 100 communities in Normandy. The well-preserved remains of the yeshiva were discovered in the 1970s under the Rouen Law Courts and the community has begun a project to restore them. In 1215, Rouen would be the site of the Fourth Lateran Council which adopted a panoply of ant-Semitic measures.
1252: Alfonso X is elected King of Castile and León. Known as El Sabio (The Learned One) the well educated Christian monarch set out to “to create a Christian culture in the north of Spain that as equal in glory to Moorish culture in the South…He ordered both the Koran and the Talmud to be translated into Latin.” One of the most prominent scientists in his realm was the Jewish astronomer, Yehuda ben Moses Cohen.
1764: The Sejm abolished the Council of the Four Lands. Supposedly this was not an act aimed to harm the Jews. Rather it was part of a plan to re-organize the tax system.
1434: King Wladislaus II of Poland passed away. During his reign, persecution of the Jews intensified and Wladislaus did nothing to protect them or reinforce the rights that had been granted to them by his predecessors Instead he actually took steps to limit their business activities by issuing an edict limiting their right to lend money.
1656: The Jews of New Amsterdam are allowed to practice their religion, after reminding the Dutch West India Company that Jews "in quietness" were allowed to practice in Holland and other Dutch colonies.
1775: Abraham Solomon “enlisted in Col. John Glover’s Regiment, known as the Marbleheaders, to take part in the glorious Battle of Bunker Hill. Later he was shifted with his company to Cambridge. When the soldiers received their pay, they had to sign for it on the company’s muster roll. Solomon’s fellow soldiers, many of whom could not write, were allowed to make their Xs. But Solomon could write — just not in English — so he was allowed to sign his name in Hebrew. It is believed that this is the only Revolutionary War muster roll to be signed in Hebrew.”
1790: Birthdate of Solomon Judah Löb Rapoport the Galacian born rabbi and scholar.
1792: Kentucky admitted as the 15th state of the United States. Benjamin Gratz, one of the son’s of the famous Michael Gratz family of Philadelphia, who was a lawyer and veteran of the American Revolution was one of the earliest Jewish settlers of Kentucky, Louisville, Kentucky would become home to the state’s first congregation, Adath Israel which was incorporated in 1842. While serving as a delegate from Kentucky at the Republican Convention, Louis Naphtali Dembitz was one three who placed Lincoln’s name in nomination. He was the uncle of Kentucky’s most famous Jew, Supreme Court Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis.
1796: Tennessee admitted as the 16th state of the United States. The first Jews settled in upper East Tennessee in the 1770s and to Middle Tennessee by the 1820s. The Nashville Jewish community dates from the 1790’s with enough Jews living there to hold services in the 1840’s and establish a burial society in the decade before the Civil War.
1828(19th of Sivan, 5588): Raphael Meldola passed away. Born in Leghorn in 1754, he was one of the most prominent members of the Meldola family. He received a thorough university training, both in theological and in secular branches, and displayed such remarkable talents that when only fifteen years old he was permitted to take his seat in the rabbinical college. He was preacher in Leghorn for some years, and in 1803 he obtained the title of rabbi. In 1805 Meldola was elected haham of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Great Britain, and proved a worthy successor of Sasportas and Nieto. His name will ever be indissolubly associated with that of Bevis Marks Synagogue. Possessed of a remarkably virile mind, he was a dominant factor in the British Jewry of his generation. He was the author of Korban Minhah, Kuppat Hatanim (1796), and Derekh Emunah, published by his son after his death. He left several other works in manuscript. His scholarship attracted around him a circle in which were many of the most distinguished men of his day, including Benjamin Disraeli and Isaac Disraeli and it is noteworthy that he opposed the policy which produced the famous rupture between the latter and the mahamad. He maintained a literary correspondence with many of the most prominent Christian clergymen and scholars of his time; and his acquaintance with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Canon of Windsor led to his being received by King George III. Meldola married Stella Bolaffi (Abulafia), by whom he had four sons and four daughters.
1845: Birthdate of Caroline von Gomperz-Bettelheim “a Hungarian-Austrian court singer and member of the Royal Opera, Vienna” who was the older sister of Anton Bettelheim.
1853: The New York Times describes an attack by Greek on the Jews of Smyrna during Easter. Russian agents may have incited the violence which was put down by the Turks.
1853: The New York Times reported that the issue of Jewish Disabilities continues to be a problem in Parliament. In response to a question from Mr. Milner Gibson on this topic, Lord Russell responded that he did not think a measure that dealt only with this and that he would be submitting a measure that would dealt with the general question of Oaths to be taken by Members of Parliament.
1857: Isaac Jackson who was either 17 or 18 years old was shot and killed today by Charles Jones. Jackson is one of four Jewish brothers who own a stored in Westfield, MA. Young Jackson was driving a wagon of merchandize on the road between Westfield and Russell when he was attacked.
1869: Isidore Loeb “was appointed secretary of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, a position he held until his death.”
1873: In an article published today entitled Whitsuntide: A Hebrew and a Christian Festival - Curious Customs and Interesting Ceremonies, the author compares the Jewish festival of Pentecost with the Christian Whitsuntide. Pentecost, signifying the fiftieth, is the second of the great festivals of the Hebrews, held fifty days after the Passover, or feast of the unleavened bread. The time of the festival is calculated from the second day of the Passover, the 16th of Nisan.
1879: An article entitled “Can’t You Wait?” published today reminds the reader of two famous examples of” hasty identification” that turned out be erroneous. First was the case of a papyrus that surfaced at Leyden which contained a “report of a scribe” sent to his superior serving King Ramses II that said “he had ‘distributed the rations among the soldiers and likewise among the Apuirui, or Aperiu, who carry the stones to the great city of King Ramses.’” While most Egyptologists thought this referred to “the Hebrews who built…the City of Ramses” Dr. Heinrich Brugsh, showed “clearly that these Aperiu were not Hebrews but an “Erythraean people…mentioned long before in an inscription of Thutmes III as cavalry in the Kings Service.” The second example took place when a picture found in one of the tombs at Beni-Hassan (an ancient Egyptian cemetery) was first identified as being representional “of the arrival of the children of Israel” until the same Dr. Brugsh set the record straight. [Were these really errors or was this an example of a German Egyptologist who had difficulty acknowledging the antitquity of the Jewish people?]
1882: Birthdate of Jacob Billikopf the native of Vilna who gained fame in the United States for his career in social work, “Jewish philanthropy and labor arbitration.”
1894: In Rochester, NY, Congregation Berith Kodesh dedicated its new house of worship. The building which cost $130,000 “was designed by Leon Stern, a member of the congregation and was built on the corner of Gibbs and Grove streets
1898: Birthdate of actress Molly Picon. Two of her more famous roles were in “Milk & Honey” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”
1903(6th of Sivan, 5663): First Day of Shavuot
1903(6th of Sivan, 5663): Montifore Isaacs, “one of the best known and most popular bachelors in New York Society” and the nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore passed away.
1904: Three French Army Officers are arrested in connection with the Dreyfus Affair. However, the verdict would not be overturned for two more years when Dreyfus would finally be released from prison.
1906: In Trier, Italy, after the Jews were attacked by a mob and threatened with death, Bishop Egelbert offered to save those who were willing to be baptized . Most chose to drown themselves instead.
1906: A pogrom broke out in Bialystok, Russia.
1910: During a debate Turkish Minister of Interior Talaat Bey stated, "Some deputies have spoken on behalf of Muslim, Greek and Armenian hospitals, but I note with regret no one has a word for the Jewish hospital, which renders great services. It admits all persons sent to it by the police without distinction of race and religion."
1911: Birthdate of Bernard Rothman better known as Benny Rothman a UK political activist, most famous for his leading role in the Mass trespass of Kinder Scout in 1932. He passed away in 2002.
1916: The nomination of Louis D. Brandeis of Boston to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States was confirmed by the Senate in executive session this afternoon by a vote of 47 to 22. Only one Democrat voted against confirmation.
1917: A memorandum is published describing the distress of the Jews in Belgrade. According to the document, “communities are destroyed, thousands are ruined and compelled to leave their homes.”
1918: The Ninth annual convention of the Kehillah opens at Carnegie Hall in Manhattan.
1920: Birthdate of David Samuilovich Kaufman, “one of the most important Russian poets of the post-World War II era.”
1926: Bernard Flexner, President of the Palestine Economic Corporation, announced that the organization’s primary activity will be to help provide financing for the hydroelectric station on the Jordan River and the necessary transmission lines to connect the existing Diesel engine power stations at Tel-Aviv, Haifa and Tiberias. The Palestine Economic Corporation was organized in February, 1925.
1928: Attorney General Albert Ottinger’s investigation of complaints by the Hebrew Religious Protective Association against certain cemeteries was resumed today when Assistant Attorney General Robert S. Conklin questioned Philip Gresner, Superintendent of the Baron Hirsch Cemetery at Port Richmond, Staten Island, about complaints by plot owners that charges were increased without warning and that even “funeral processions had been halted to demand payment in arrears.:
1926: Birthdate of actress Marilyn Monroe. Born Norma Jean Baker, Monroe converted to Judaism before she married playwright Arthur Miller.
1930: Birthdate of Jo Amar. Jo Amar, a Moroccan-born Jewish singer whose melding of Andalusian and Israeli musical influences would make him a star in Israel and a popular performer in Jewish communities around the world. He passed away in 2009 at the age of 79.
1933(7th of Sivan, 5693): Second Day of Shavuot
1933: The League of Nations approves The Bernheim petition which is a protest aimed at Nazi anti-Jewish legislation in German Upper Silesia.
1933: Germany introduces the Law for Reduction of Unemployment, which provides for marriage loans and other incentives to genetically “fit” Germans. (Jewish Virtual Library)
1933: American modernist writer Gertrude Stein published her autobiography, ironically titled The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,
1936(11th of Sivan, 5696): As Arab attacks continue, snipers fired on two buses near Jerusalem, killing one Jewish rider and wounding two others. In the evening, a Jewish constable in Givat Shaoul was shot at by unknown assailants. This is the same district of Jerusalem where another Jews was killed yesterday.
1936: Leaders of the current Arab uprising reportedly have sent letters to wealthy Arabs “threatening their lives and homes unless they” provide economic support for the uprising. In response, the targets of the demands are “fleeing to Egypt, Lebanon and Europe.
1937: Birthdate of Yisrael Meir Lau, the Polish born rabbi whose father died at Treblinka, who became the Chairman of Yad Vashem and Chief Rabbi of Tel Avi.
1938: Superman created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian artist Joe Shuster made his first appearance in D.C. Comics’ Action Comics Series issue #1 which sold for 10 cents.
1941: In Baghdad, Pro Axis Rashid Ali, began his revolution against the British by attacking the Jewish community. Approximately 150 Jews were murdered and 800 injured during two day of rioting. British troops stationed outside the city did not intervene. The pogrom is known as the Farhood.
1941: The Battle of Crete comes to an end with German victory. There were fewer than four hundred Jews living in Crete at this time. “It was not until June of 1944, and almost as an afterthought, that the Jews of Crete were arrested and sent to Herakleion, where they were put on the ship Tanais, together with some 600 Greek and Italian prisoners. For some years the details of the last hours of the Tanais and the fate of its crew and human cargo was not clear. What was known is that the ship had been sunk and that all had perished. Evidence has now appeared through the Foreign Office in London that in fact the Tanais had been sighted by a British U-Boat and was given two torpedo broadsides and sank within 15 minutes.”
1941: The deportation of Bosnian Jews to regional concentration camps begins. By November, 14,000 Jews will have been deported to these camps.
1941: Birthdate of Dr. Stanley I. Greenspan, a psychiatrist who invented an influential approach to teaching children with autism and other developmental problems.
1942: The story of a young Jew, Emanuel Ringelblum, (who escaped from the Chelmno death camp after being forced to bury bodies as they were thrown out of the gas vans), was published in the underground Polish Socialist newspaper Liberty Brigade. The West now knew the "bloodcurdling news ... about the slaughter of Jews," and it had a name-Chelmno.
1942: The World Jewish Congress, based in New York, announces at a press conference that Eastern Europe is being turned into "a vast slaughterhouse for Jews." As with the Sudan and Dafur sixty years later, the world “does not hear.”
1942: Between June 1 and June 30 more than 23,000 Jews are gassed at the Belzec and Sobibór death camps
1942: During June, Auschwitz is ravaged by an epidemic of typhus.
1942(16th of Sivan, 5702): Germans invade Jewish hospitals in Sosnowiec, Poland, murdering newborns and tearing patients from operating tables. Ambulatory patients are sent to Auschwitz and gassed.
1942: A young Sosnowiec Jew named Harry Blumenfrucht is captured and endures two weeks of Nazi torture. He refuses to name his co-conspirators in a scheme to steal weapons. His suffering ends when he is hanged.
1942 (16th of Sivan, 5702 Jews from Dabrowa Tarnowska, Poland, led by Rabbi Isaac and gathered in a Jewish cemetery, defy their Nazi captors when they hold hands, dance, and drink "to life." The enraged Germans shoot and disembowel the entire group.
1942: At Lutsk, Ukraine, Jewish resistance is led by Joel Szczerbat
1942: Starting in the first week of June, three thousand Jews at Pilica, Poland, are deported to Belzec, but several hundred manage to escape before the journey is complete
1942: In Norway, Jews are given identity cards stamped with the letter "J."
1942(16th of Sivan, 5702): Mordecai Gebirtig, a Kraków carpenter whose songs of freedom are sung throughout Poland, is executed at Belzec.
1942: During the first week in June, Polish Jews are deported from Hrubieszów to the Sobibór death camp. Another 500 will be deported the following week
1942: Starting in June, Warsaw's underground newspaper, Liberty Barricade, published by the Polish Socialist Party, reveals Nazi gassing activity at the Chelmno death camp
.
1942: I.G. Farben's Buna-Monowitz synthetic-rubber and oil works opens near Auschwitz
1942(16th of Sivan, 5702): Between today and the 7th of June seven thousand Jews from Kraków, Poland, are murdered at the Belzec extermination camp.
1942: First mention ever in the press, in this case the underground Warsaw newspaper "Liberty", of the ‘bloodcurdling news coming out of Chelmno.' Seven Thousand Jews were sent from Cracow to Belzec. On this day tracks began to be built connecting to a new death camp, Treblinka. Treblinka had been prepared for the Jews of central Poland.
1943(27th of Iyyar, 5703): Jews of Dalmatia, Serbia, are transferred to the island of Rab, which is off the coast of Croatia.
1943(27th of Iyyar, 5703): Starting today and lasting throughout the first two weeks in June 10,000 Jews from Lvov lose their lives in a combination of street assaults and killings at Janówska, Ukraine,
1943(27th of Iyyar, 5703): During liquidation of the ghetto at Sosnowiec, Poland, which began on June 1 and ended on June 6, a spirited resistance is led by Zvi Dunski. Ill-armed Jews fight back as deportations proceed
1943(27th of Iyyar, 5703): The liquidation of the Jewish ghetto at Buczacz, Ukraine begins. It will end on June 6. Some Jews resist and escape
1943(27th of Iyyar, 5703): Actor Leslie Howard dies when the civilian plane he is flying on from Lisbon to England is shot down by German fighters. The reason for the attack remains shrouded in the cloak and dagger world of W.W.II. Born Leslie Howard Stainer in 1893, Howard’s parents were Hungarian Jews. He served in WW I and gained fame in both English and American films. He is best remembered for his portrayal of Ashley Wilkes, the classic cavalier in “Gone With the Wind.”
1944: An American public opinion poll indicates that 57 percent of Americans anticipate "a widespread campaign in this country" against Jews.
1944: From today through June 30, 13,500 Jews are deported from Miskolc, Hungary, to Auschwitz.
1944: With 55,000 unused United States quota slots from Occupied Europe, President Franklin Roosevelt agrees to allow only 1000 Jewish refugees into the United States. They will be housed at Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York
1945: Displaced Jews at Buchenwald, Germany establish Kibbutz Buchenwald, an agricultural training center designed to help young Jews succeed at kibbutz (communal) life
1945: Public-opinion polls taken during June indicate that Americans consider Jews a far greater threat to America than they consider German or Japanese Americans.
1945: Kibbutz Nili is established on the former estate of Nazi big-wig Julius Streicher, near Pleikershof, Germany, to train Jewish displaced persons in agriculture and provide schooling for Jewish boys and girls.
1946: Following the murder of two Jews in Biala Podlaska, Poland, the town's remaining Jews began leaving the country during June.
1946: Ion Antonescu, the anti-Semitic former dictator of Romania, is executed after being convicted of war crimes.
1948: The Arab states and Israel agreed to a cease-fire. After two weeks of fighting, the Arabs realized that pushing the Jews into the sea would not be such an easy matter after all.
1964: Estelle Sommers got her start in the dance world when she transformed her first husband's Cincinnati piece-goods retail store into a dancewear specialty shop.
1967: Having seen its plans to organize an international flotilla to break the blockade of the Straits of Tiran come to naught, the United States government shifts its policy. Previously, President Johnson cautioned Israel not to fire the first shot in even of war. On this day, when Secretary of State Rusk was asked if the U.S. would restrain Israel from taking precipitate actions, he replied, “ I do not think it is our business to restrain anybody.” On this same date, Abba Eban realized that diplomacy would not work and that war looked like the only viable option. However, the months of diplomatic negotiation had earned Israel the support of the U.S. government, support it would need in the coming weeks when the Soviet Union sought to reverse Israel’s military successes.
1967: In response to the mounting tensions and popular demand, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol forms a government of national unity with membership from the total spectrum of Israeli political. Moshe Dyan is named Defense Minister and meets with Chief of Staff Rabin who outlines the military’s plans. Dyan approves that which had already been prepared.
1968: Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson", theme for the hit movie “The Graduate,” was number one on the charts.
1979(6th of Sivan, 5739): First Day of Shavuot
1980: Actress and singer Barbra Streisand appeared at an ACLU Benefit in California
1984: Susan Weidman Schneider published Jewish and Female: Choices and Changes in Our Lives Today
1987: Meir Rosenne ends his term as Israeli Ambassador to Washington.
1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Rothschild Gardens by Miriam Rothschild, Kate Garton and Lionel de Rothschild, and the recently released paperback edition of Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen.
2005: The Jewish Family Service (JFS) of Los Angeles holds its annual gala. The honorees are CAA agent Rick Kurtzman; his brother, Fox business affairs executive Howard Kurtzman; and their brother-in-law, William Morris Agent David Lonner (married to their sister Janet).
2006: Archaeologists Ofer Bar-Yosef of Harvard University and Mordechai E. Kislev and Anat Hartmann of Bar-Ilan University report that they have found evidence that ancient people grew fig trees some 11,400 years ago, making the fruit the earliest domesticated crop. Remains of the ancient fruits were found at Gilgal I, a village site in the Jordan Valley north of ancient Jericho,. Gilgal was abandoned more than 11,000 years ago. Figs that are edible do not produce seeds and are propagated by planting shoots. Bar-Yosef said that ''In this intentional act of planting a specific variant of fig tree, we can see the beginnings of agriculture. This edible fig would not have survived if not for human intervention.''
2006: The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, in conjunction with the Instituto Cervantes and the Spanish Consulate in New York paid tribute to Diplomat and Savior of the Holocaust, Eduardo Propper de Callejón at the Instituto Cervantes in New York City. The event had a tremendous turnout with approximately 180 people in attendance. Propper's son, Felipe Propper de Callejón, spoke about how his father used his diplomatic office to administer special visas that would enable Jews and other persecuted people to escape the Nazi regime under the protection of the Spanish flag. Despite his father's heroism, he was stripped of his title and transferred to Consulate of Larache in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco and was never able to regain his title or attain recognition for his heroic acts before his death. Ana Salomon, the Special Ambassador for Relations with Jewish Organizations of the Foreign Ministry of Spain, and Abigail Tenembaum, the Vice President of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation also spoke at the event. The tribute featured an exhibition of photos, legal documents, and Propper's own notes and correspondences written while serving as First Secretary. This was the IRWF's second tribute to Spanish diplomat saviors. The first honored eight saviors in Argentina in 2004. The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation is a non-profit organization that seeks to promote solidarity and civic courage, which are ethical cornerstones of the saviors of the Holocaust
2007: Hadassah national president June Walker’s appointment to head the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations goes into effect. The Presidents' Conference is the umbrella group that represents 50 American Jewish organizations on issues of national and international concern.
2007: Michel Graber, the magistrate who has been overseeing the investigation into the fire that damaged Geneva’s largest synagogue on May 24 said that it was a criminal act which he described as arson. But he said there had been no indication that it was set by extremists. The May 24 blaze raised fears among Geneva's Jewish community that the fire might have been an anti-Semitic attack.
2007: On the same day when three more Kassam rockets struck Israel, the IAF killed a member of an Islamic Jihad Kassam cell in an air strike.
2008: Washington, D.C,. Manhattan, NYC and Boston all host celebrations honoring Israel at Sixty.
2008: Mrs. Jacob (Betty) Levin gathers with her family and friends for the unveiling of the Matzevah of Dr. Jacob Levin (of blessed memory). Of course, his real Matzevah is impact he made on the lives of his loving family and devoted friends.
2008: In Chicago, the Spertus sponsors a book signing for “Louis Zukofsky The Modernist Poet as Jew” by Dr. Mark Scroggins. As the unbelieving child of immigrants, Louis Zukofsky (1904 – 1978) sought to study his way out of his father’s Lower East Side sweatshop and to write his way into Western literary history. He did so by placing himself among the "high modernist" poets, whose conception of culture was often covertly or explicitly anti-Semitic. Dr. Mark Scroggins’ new book explores Zukofsky’s growth into one of his century’s most fascinating and complex poets, growth paralleled by his navigation of poetry and Jewishness, and his discovery of Jewish-inflected modernist poetics, which continue to influence and inspire contemporary poets. Mark Scroggins holds an MFA and PhD from Cornell University and teaches literature and creative writing at Florida Atlantic University. A widely published author of poetry, essays and reviews, he has written on a broad range of writers, including extensive writing on poet Louis Zukofsky.
2008: The Chicago Sun Times features a review of “The Dream” by ninety-eight year old Harry Bernstein. “The Dream” follows “The Invisible Wall” as the second in a trilogy that traces the life of the immigrant son of Yankel and Ada Bernstein.
2008: The Washington Post features a review of “1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War” by Benny Morris as well as listings for “Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy”, by Natan Sharansky, “Golda” by Elinor Burkett,” A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel” by Gudrun Krämer, “Jerusalem: City of Longing” by Simon Goldhill and The Story of Israel: From Theodor Herzl to the Roadmap for Peace” by Martin Gilbert.
2008(27th of Iyyar, 5768): Yosef (Tommy) Lapid passed away at the age of 76. Born in Yugoslavia in 1931, Lapid and his mother (his father died in the Holocaust) made Aliyah in 1948 where he became a successful journalist and political leader.
2008(27th of Iyyar, 5768): In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Penny Binger a student of Chasidic Judaism and devote of Shlomo Carlbach passed away.
2008: In front page article entitled “Baghdad Jews Have Become a Fearful Few” The New York Times describes the plight of one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities.
2009: Final showing of Sol LeWitt’s “Wall Drawing #260(1975)” at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
2009: Sports Illustrated magazine features a review of Bill Russell’s “Red and Me” which focuses on the close, unique relationship between the all-star center and coach and Red Auerbach, Russell’s coach and mentor. Between the two of them, they changed the game and made a unique social statement. “Russell writes that they were drawn together by a mutual hardheadedness, united y the ‘tribulation of our tribes’: Russell was an African American who grew up in the Jim Crow South and the Oakland projects, Auerbach a street-savvy urban Jews.” While everybody knows about the alliance between African-Americans and Jews that helped to make the Civil Rights Revolution, fewer people are aware of this unique Black-Jewish Alliance which created its own revolution.
2009: During “Turning Point 3” the government’s emergency headquarters will discuss coordination measures
2009: Security forces uprooted the outpost of Nahalat Yosef today and arrested several activists who protested the destruction. Among those arrested was MK Michael Ben-Ari. Following those events, security forces converged on Ramat Gilad, where residents are concerned at the prospect of a confrontation but say they will resist any attempts to evict them from the area.
2009: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak began a round of meetings with top U.S. officials today in a bid to head off an increasingly sharp dispute between the United States and Israel over the expansion of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory.
2009: The Saul Steinberg: Illuminations travelling exhibition, which displays original Steinberg works comes to a close in Hamburg, Germany.
2010: Mothers Circle, an education and support group for non-Jewish women raising Jewish children is scheduled to have its first meeting for the summer at the Historic Sixth & I Street Synagogue.
2010: In the wake of naval action off the coast of Gaza, Prime Minister Netanyahu does not meet with President Obama as originally scheduled.
2010: An Islamic militant group in the Gaza Strip said three of its members had been killed in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza. The Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group said its fighters were killed shortly after firing two rockets into southern Israel. Israeli authorities said the rockets landed in open areas and caused no injuries. The IDF confirmed it had carried out an airstrike today, and Gaza's chief medical examiner said there were three deaths. Earlier on today, two would-be Palestinian terrorists were killed on the Gaza border as the IDF foiled an infiltration attempt. No casualties were reported among the troops. "Two Palestinian terrorists were identified infiltrating into Israel from the southern Gaza Strip earlier this morning. The soldiers on the scene exchanged fire with the terrorists, killing them both," the IDF Spokesperson said of the event in a statement released later in the day. Two AK-47 rifles, ten magazines and five grenades were found on the infiltrators' bodies.
2011: The Masada, Dead Sea and Jerusalem Opera Festival is scheduled to begin.
2011: Final session of Hebrew Literacy: Aleph, Bet, and Beyond is scheduled to take place today at the Historic Sixth & Synagogue in Washington, DC
2011: In Washington, DC, Adas Israel is scheduled to hold its Annual Meeting and honor the 2011 Yad Kakavod recipient, David Bickart.
2011(28th of Iyar, 5771): Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Reunification Day
Created, Compiled & Edited by Mitchell Levin; Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com
Copyright; May, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin
Saturday, May 28, 2011
This Day, May 31, In Jewish History
May 31 In Jewish History
1279 BCE: Ramses II (The Great) (19th dynasty) becomes pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. If you accept the contention that Moses lived from 1391–1271 BCE, Ramses would be the Pharaoh who came to power after the Exodus. During his reign he reasserted Egyptian power over the area that would have included Canaan during the period of the Judges. However, the Bible talks about the Canaanite tribes and Philistines as being the Israelites’ enemies and not the Egyptians.
70 C.E.: The Jewish defenders of Jerusalem surrendered the first wall of the city to the Romans.
942 (26 Iyar 4702): Sa'adia ben Joseph (Rav Saadia Gaon) passed away. Born in Egypt in 882, he moved to Babylon in 928 to head the Academy at Sura. He revived the waning influence of the Academy and wrote on many subjects including grammar, Halachah and philosophy. As one of the foremost opponents of Karaism, he wrote the exposition "Emunot Vedeot", which became very popular. A grave conflict arose between Sa'adia and the Exilarch, David ben Zaccai when he refused to endorse a judgment of the Exilarch's court in which Ben Zaccai was an interested party. The issue was not settled for many years and demonstrated S'aadia's unyielding defense of his principles. He was subsequently expelled and moved to Baghdad. On Purim 937, the opponents were reconciled, and a few years later Sa'adia adopted Ben Zaccai's orphan grandchildren.
1593: The Jews were barred from living in Riga and Livonia.
1665: Sabbeti Zevi proclaimed himself Messiah. The most famous of all the False Messiahs, Sabbeti Zevi enthralled tens of thousands of Jews. His message was accepted across all social and economic classes. His followers were to be found throughout Jewish communities in Europe and the Orient. Turkish authorities became alarmed at his growing popularity and had him arrested. The Sultan gave him the choice of proving his claims or suffering the death penalty. The would-be Messiah gave up the game, accepted a minor governmental position in Turkey and converted to Islam. The whole episode might be written off as a farce if it were not for the fact that so many had believed in him and were disillusioned by the outcome. In addition, charges of being a secret supporter of his beliefs would tear at the fabric of Jewish society for decades to come.
1666: One of the dates given for the death of Jacob Lumbrozo, the Portuguese born physician who became the first Jewish resident of Maryland when he moved there in 1656.
1740: Frederick William I passed away. As a result of his death, recently passed legislation that would have led to the end of the Jewish community in Berlin was not enforced.
1747 (26 Iyar 5507): Moses Hayyim Luzzatto passed away. Born in 1707 at Paua, Italy, this great poet and mystic became an unfortunate victim of the reaction to Shabbetaianism. His writings were burned and he tragically died soon after his arrival to Eretz-Israel. His most lasting achievements were his use of Hebrew in secular poetry and his ethical work, Mesilat Yesharim (Path of Righteous). Luzzatto also wrote two Hebrew dramas, Migdal Oz (tower of Strength) and La-Yisharim (Praise to the Righteous).
1776(13th of Sivan, 5536): At a wedding celebration on an upper floor of a building in the Jewish Ghetto of Venice, 65 people, including the bride, were killed when the building collapsed under the strain of the celebration.
1776(13th of Sivan, 5536): Two weddings were held today in the same building in Mantua, Italy. During the celebration, the building collapsed killing 28 women, including one of the brides, and 3 men. The Jews of Mantua were not allowed to expand their housing beyond the ghetto walls. This forced them to build vertically, resulting in unstable buildings which led to deaths like these.
1800(7th of Sivan, 5560): Second Day of Shavuot
1862: In today's issue of The Israelite, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise responded to criticism by Reverend Moncure D. Conway that the Israelite had not spoken out on the importance of preserving the Union. Wise said that "he never preached on politics." He said that this would be "a misapplication of the Sabbath and the pulpit" and that there were plenty of other opportunities for patriotic speeches.
1865(6th of Sivan, 5625): Jews celebrate the first Shavuot since the end of the Civil War.
1873: The New York Times published an article appealing for money to be sent to the “Children’s Fund” which would be used to provide summer time excursions for poor Jewish youngsters living in New York City.
1872: An article entitled “Turkey” described the bloody anti-Jewish riots that have
been taking place in Smyrna. The riots began after reports that a Greek child was lying in the morgue, having been killed by Jews who need its blood for their annual Passover sacrifice.
1874: According to reports published today a Jew from Chicago named Henry Greenbaum donated five hundred dollars to a Chicago church whose pastor is Professor Swing, the controversial Presbyterian minister who has been labeled as a heretic by his co-religionists
1884(7th of Sivan, 5644): Second Day of Shavuot
1891: Birthdate of Erich Walter Sternberg the Berlin-born Israeli composer who was one of the founders of Israeli art music, Sternberg had a profound impact on the musical life of Palestine and Israel during the 1930s and 1940s. He passed away in 1974.
1896: Today, The New York Times published an excerpt from an article in a British publication, The Quarterly Review, which compared the accomplishments of Disraeli and Gladstone in the field of foreign affairs. The author is cautiously optimistic when describing Disraeli’s policy designed to thwart Russian attempts to expand at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. He gives Disraeli high marks for his performance during the conference held at Berlin and for his purchase of the shares in the Suez Canal. In the end, regardless of how things play out, “this much is certain…Disraeli upheld the traditions of his …country at a time when a foreign critic of our policy uttered the well-known sneer that the only persons left who cared for the honor of England were an old woman and a Jew.” The old woman is Queen Victoria. The Jew is Disraeli proving that the nature of his birth out-weighed the impact of his forced youthful trip to the baptismal font.
1901: Herzl travels to Paris to begin the raising of the money, which is to be the first step toward the obtaining of the Charter. The negotiations in Paris are fruitless.
1901: Bella Weretnikow, who became the first Jewish woman lawyer in Washington State, graduated from the University of Washington Law School.
1906(7th of Sivan, 5666): Second Day of Shavuot
1912: Birthdate of Senator Henry M "Scoop" Jackson. Jackson was not Jewish, but he was a man of character of principle, a liberal in the best sense of the term. A Democrat from the state of Washington, Jackson supported legislation intended to force the Soviets to improve the treatment of their Jewish citizens and to allow them to leave the country if they so desired.
1911: Birthdate of multi-talented Ruth Hagy Brod. Born in New York and raised in Chicago, Ruth Hagy Brod had a varied career that took her from the newsroom to Latin America and from the mainstream press to offbeat publishing. As a child, Brod excelled in music, giving public recitals at age six and earning a bachelor's degree in music at age 18. She soon left music behind, however, and turned to journalism, going first to Hollywood, where she worked as an editor for movie and radio magazines. Moving to Philadelphia in 1938, she wrote features for the Philadelphia Ledger. Later, she would write for newspapers in Chicago and New York City as well. During the 1930s, she also worked as a radio reporter and documentary filmmaker. A decade later, she became women's editor of the Philadelphia Bulletin; while at the Bulletin she developed a program that became the "College News Conference," a weekly show where college students questioned prominent political figures. In the 1960s, she began to travel widely, producing a Peace Corps documentary on Colombia and a television series on Asian women. She worked as a newspaper correspondent in Southeast Asia and a Far East correspondent for NBC Radio, at a time when it was unusual for women to hold such roles. While making the Peace Corps documentary, she also served as an educational television advisor to the Colombian government. Brod first entered public service during World War II, when she served as publicity director for the United War Chest campaigns and as a member of the women's advisory board executive committee for the U.S. Savings Bond division of the U.S. Treasury. Upon returning to New York from her overseas travels, she became involved in New York City politics. In the mid-1960s, she was appointed as director of public information for JOIN (Job Orientation in Neighborhoods), which worked with the U.S. Department of Labor to provide job training and placement services to young high school drop-outs. Later that decade, Brod served as a special assistant to Mayor Robert Wagner, and in 1967 she was the founder-director of the Mayor's Coordinating Council under Mayor John Lindsay. The Council functioned as a central volunteer coordinator for the city, recruiting some 6,000 volunteers in its first year. In the 1970s, Brod embarked on yet another career, turning to publishing. She published two books of her own (both co-authored), Ena Twigg, Medium (1972) and The Edgar Cayce Handbook of Health Through Drugless Therapy (1975). She also worked as a literary agent, with clients that included Allard Lowenstein, a civil rights activist who was later assassinated, and James Hoffa, the Teamsters Union leader. Brod died of cancer in 1980.
1915: The American Jewish, Central and Peoples' Relief Committees gave $190,282 to Jews living in Palestine, $4,000 to Jews living in Alexandria and $59,500 to Jews living in Greece and Turkey.
1919: The partly decomposed corpse of Rosa Luxemburg was found in one of the locks of Berlin’s Landwehr Canal.
1921: Churchill explains to the members of the Cabinet that he “had decided to suspend the development of representative institutions in Palestine ‘owing to the fact that any elected body would undoubtedly prohibit further immigration of the Jews.’”
1925: Birthdate of Julian Beck “an American actor, director, poet, and painter.”
1926: The entire Jewish Sejm delegation voted for Josef Pilsudski for President of Poland.
1928: Official birthdate of Jacob Lateiner, “a Cuban/US pianist. He was actually born on March 31, 1928, but his father did not get around to registering his birth until May 31 the same year. He is the brother of violinist Isidor Lateiner.”
1933(6th of Sivan, 5693): First Day of Shavuot
1935 Jews are banned from the German Armed Forces.
1936: The New York Times reported that the proceeds of the upcoming annual “Give or Get Luncheon” sponsored by the Mizrachi Women’s Organization will be used to provide for the needs of young girls in Palestine, including both the native-born and refugees from Europe.
1938: German legislation outlaws "decadent art." All decadent artists weren’t Jewish but all Jewish artists were decadent.
1938: Birthdate of Peter Yarrow, “The Peter” in Peter, Paul and Mary
1939: As violence aimed at Arabs in response to the White Paper, increased, British authorities in Palestine began arresting Revisionists including Dr. Bukshpan, chairman of the Revisionist Palestine Executive Committee. At the same, at least one Jewish newspaper in Palestine published a report from Warsaw, Poland “that Dr. Vladimir Jabotinsky, head of the Revisionist party was openly opposed to any Jewish rebellion on the ground that in the present state of international affairs the Jews must and cannot fight against Britain when all democracies are grouping themselves” for a fight with Nazi Germany.
1939: Even though it placed strict limitations on Jewish immigration, Arab leaders rejected the White Paper today because it allowed for Jewish immigration and for the possibility of a Jewish home in Palestine. The Arab High Committee rejected any role for Jews in Palestine and asserted that the creation of an Arab state is the solution to the problem.
1942: Auschwitz III opened up. It was a massive labor camp for the construction of synthetic oil and rubber.
1942: In the Warsaw Ghetto, 3,650 Jews had died of starvation since the first of May. The Germans opened a new death camp on the outskirts of Minsk, in the village of Maly Trostenets. Spring brought on soft ground which meant it was easy to dig massive graves again.
1943: At a Meeting of the General Government ministers in Cracow, Lieutenant General Kruger noted that "on the Fuhrer's orders it is necessary for the (slaughter of the Jews) from the standpoint of European interests."
1943 A Nazi prison administrator in Minsk, Byelorussia, reports that 516 German and Russian Jews have been killed in late May, their gold crowns and fillings taken from their mouths before their deaths.
1943(26th of Iyyar, 5703): Today, the Nazis murdered Berta and Munio Kremnitzer, the parents of Rama Reis-Kremnitzer and the grandparents of Brig. Gen. Itai Reis, the commander of Palmahim air force.
1944: In Budapest, German representative, SS General Edmund Veesnmayer reported that 60,000 more Hungarian Jews had been deported in the last six days. The total for the past 16 days stood at 204,312. This day 42 dead bodies were removed from the Berkenau bound trains.
1944 (9th of Sivan, 5704): The Jewish community of Khonia, Crete, which traced its history back to Roman times, came to an end when the ship Danai, into which all the Jews had been herded, was towed out to sea and sunk
1944: A Hungarian deportation train stops near the German border so 42 corpses could removed.
1944: At the Auschwitz rail junction, German soldiers who encounter a sealed deportation train carrying Hungarian Jews to the Birkenau death camp defy threats of SS guards and give water and food to pleading prisoners. (Could this be a reference to scene in the film “Schinlder’s List” where Schindler provides water for a group of Jews trapped in box cars?)
1944: An SS man and a Jewish girl with whom he has fallen in love are executed. The German has hidden the girl for months, keeping her from the gas chambers.
1948: Birthdate of Rhea Perlman. The Brooklyn born actress, created the character of Carla on Cheers and Zena in the television comedy “Taxi. “
1948: Representatives of the Protestant and Catholic faiths joined more than 500 Reform Jewish leaders from a score of States at a testimonial dinner at the Netherlands Plaza Hotel in honor or Dr. Julian Morgenstern, who is retiring as president of Hebrew Union College.
1948: “In further moves to relieve pressures on the coastal strip and to ward off disaster two columns of Israeli armored cars were advancing to on Jenin.” One column was advancing from Afula while the other was coming from Megiddo which was the scene of a counter-attack by Trans-Jordan’s Arab Legion. In the south, the Arab Legion was reported to have massed two hundred armored vehicles at Rameleh which will be used in the fight to keep the road from Jerusalem to the Coast Plain from being opened to Jewish convoys. At the same time the Egyptians have amassed 500 armored vehicles twenty miles south of Jaffa as part of a what appears to be another move against Tel Aviv.
1948: An Order of the Day, signed by David Ben Gurion, which included the following statement, was issued. “On the establishment of the State of Israel, the Haganah has emerged from the underground and has become a regular army…Without the Haganah’s experience, plan, skill in operation and command, its devotion and valor, the Yishuv could not have held it ground on the dreadful trial of arms it had to face during these six months and we would not have attained the State of Israel.”
1957: Playwright Arthur Miller is convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to denounce writers with alleged Communist views to the House Un-American Activities Committee
1962: Adolf Eichmann, head of the Jewish department of the Gestapo, the first Nazi to be condemned by the Jewish state, was hanged.
1963: Birthdate of Canadian comedian Jeremy Hotz.
1964: Birthdate of Canadian lawyer and media magnate, Leonard Asper, Brandeis U. alum and son of the late Isadore Asper.
1967: With the announcement of the alliance between Egypt and Jordan, Israel was faced with the possibility of having to fight a war on three fronts – the Sinai, the Golan and the West Bank – Egypt, Syria and Jordan
1967: Contingents of the Iraqi Army arrived in Egypt with plans to join in the upcoming war with Israel.
1967: The government of Egypt declared that Eilat, Israel’s southern port, had been illegally occupied by Israel. With Egyptian troops stationed a few miles away at Taba, the Israel felt even more threatened.
1967: At Nasser’s insistence, Ahmed Shukeiry, head of the PLO, flew back to Jordan with King Hussein. He then went to Jordanian occupied portion of Jerusalem where he promises the Jews of Israel that after the war they will either have not survived or will be ‘repatriated.’
1974: After Kissinger conducted a feverish round of shuttle diplomacy between Damascus and Jerusalem, the separation of forces agreement between Israel and Syria was signed in Geneva. This marked the formal end the hostilities known as the Yom Kippur War.
1990(7th of Sivan, 5750): Second Day of Shavuot
1994(21st of Sivan, 5754): Trumpeter Emmanuel "Manny" Klein passed away.
1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including "The Commissioners: Baseball's Midlife Crisis" by Jerome Holtzman and "Two Lucky People: Memoirs" by Milton Friedman and Rose D. Friedman
1998(6th of Sivan, 5758): First Day of Shavuot
2000: U.S. President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met at Clinton's Lisbon hotel in the latest effort to jump-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
2001: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon comes under increasing pressure to end a unilateral cease-fire with the Palestinians, as violence continues in the Middle East.
2002: Israeli troops enter the West Bank city of Nablus, while the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is reported to have signed a law reform package which is a framework for a Palestinian constitution.
2003: While visiting Auschwitz today, President Bush said, ““This site is a sobering reminder that when we find anti-Semitism, whether it be in Europe or anywhere else, mankind must come together to fight such dark impulses. And this site is also a strong reminder that the civilized world must never forget what took place on this site. May God bless the victims and the families of the victims, and may we always remember.”
2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including "Sontag & Kael" by Craig Seligman, "Teammates" by David Halberstam and "Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared)" by Franz Kafka; translated by Michael Hofmann, a new translation of Kafka's novel about a young man's humiliations after being banished for his part in a scandal strives to stay close to the author's rough drafts.
2005: Israeli TV Channel 2 starts broadcasting "Yoman Masa" - "Diary of a Journey" ("Land of the Settlers") filmed by Channel 1 news anchor man Chaim Yavin.
2005: Mikhail Khodorkovsky was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to nine years in prison. The sentence was later reduced to 8 years.
2006: In Jerusalem, closing session of Biomed 2006.
2007: The JCC of Manhattan presents “Tizmoret’s Spring Sing.” Tizmoret is the Queens College Hillel chapter’s Professional A Cappella Choir.
2008 (5768): Begin Book of Numbers.
2009: In New York City, the annual Salute to Israel Parade swings down famed 5th Avenue. The main theme of this year's parade is "Past, Present, Future – Tel Aviv Celebrates 100 Years."
2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including "Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball From Itself" by Michael Shapiro and the recently released paperback edition of "Dictation" by Cynthia Ozick.
2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including "Alger Hiss and the Battle For History" by Susan Jacoby
2009: A five-day civil defense exercise, simulating an attack on the country, started today. Named Turning Point 3, the drills will be the most extensive ever held and practice new measures to safeguard civilians.
2010: An exhibition entitled “One Foot in America: The Jewish Emigrants of the Red Star Line and Eugeen Van Mieghem” at the YIVO Institute is scheduled to come to a close. This exhibit tells the story of the Red Star shipping line, focusing on the lives of emigrants--the reasons they fled, their arrival in Antwerp and their experience with the city's Jewish community, their living conditions onboard the ships, and their hopes and dreams. The exhibit also features the Flemish artist and Antwerp native Eugeen Van Mieghem (1875-1930), whose work depicts the emigrants and the life of the port.
2011: Final day of Jewish American heritage Month
2011: The 2011 award ceremony for the Sami Rohr Prize in fiction for Jewish Literature is scheduled to be held in New York City today.
2011; World Policy Journal editor David A. Andelman is scheduled to moderate a town-meeting style conversation entitled “Beyond the Stage: On Henry Kissinger” at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.
Created, Compiled & Edited by Mitchell Levin Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com
Copyright; May, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin
1279 BCE: Ramses II (The Great) (19th dynasty) becomes pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. If you accept the contention that Moses lived from 1391–1271 BCE, Ramses would be the Pharaoh who came to power after the Exodus. During his reign he reasserted Egyptian power over the area that would have included Canaan during the period of the Judges. However, the Bible talks about the Canaanite tribes and Philistines as being the Israelites’ enemies and not the Egyptians.
70 C.E.: The Jewish defenders of Jerusalem surrendered the first wall of the city to the Romans.
942 (26 Iyar 4702): Sa'adia ben Joseph (Rav Saadia Gaon) passed away. Born in Egypt in 882, he moved to Babylon in 928 to head the Academy at Sura. He revived the waning influence of the Academy and wrote on many subjects including grammar, Halachah and philosophy. As one of the foremost opponents of Karaism, he wrote the exposition "Emunot Vedeot", which became very popular. A grave conflict arose between Sa'adia and the Exilarch, David ben Zaccai when he refused to endorse a judgment of the Exilarch's court in which Ben Zaccai was an interested party. The issue was not settled for many years and demonstrated S'aadia's unyielding defense of his principles. He was subsequently expelled and moved to Baghdad. On Purim 937, the opponents were reconciled, and a few years later Sa'adia adopted Ben Zaccai's orphan grandchildren.
1593: The Jews were barred from living in Riga and Livonia.
1665: Sabbeti Zevi proclaimed himself Messiah. The most famous of all the False Messiahs, Sabbeti Zevi enthralled tens of thousands of Jews. His message was accepted across all social and economic classes. His followers were to be found throughout Jewish communities in Europe and the Orient. Turkish authorities became alarmed at his growing popularity and had him arrested. The Sultan gave him the choice of proving his claims or suffering the death penalty. The would-be Messiah gave up the game, accepted a minor governmental position in Turkey and converted to Islam. The whole episode might be written off as a farce if it were not for the fact that so many had believed in him and were disillusioned by the outcome. In addition, charges of being a secret supporter of his beliefs would tear at the fabric of Jewish society for decades to come.
1666: One of the dates given for the death of Jacob Lumbrozo, the Portuguese born physician who became the first Jewish resident of Maryland when he moved there in 1656.
1740: Frederick William I passed away. As a result of his death, recently passed legislation that would have led to the end of the Jewish community in Berlin was not enforced.
1747 (26 Iyar 5507): Moses Hayyim Luzzatto passed away. Born in 1707 at Paua, Italy, this great poet and mystic became an unfortunate victim of the reaction to Shabbetaianism. His writings were burned and he tragically died soon after his arrival to Eretz-Israel. His most lasting achievements were his use of Hebrew in secular poetry and his ethical work, Mesilat Yesharim (Path of Righteous). Luzzatto also wrote two Hebrew dramas, Migdal Oz (tower of Strength) and La-Yisharim (Praise to the Righteous).
1776(13th of Sivan, 5536): At a wedding celebration on an upper floor of a building in the Jewish Ghetto of Venice, 65 people, including the bride, were killed when the building collapsed under the strain of the celebration.
1776(13th of Sivan, 5536): Two weddings were held today in the same building in Mantua, Italy. During the celebration, the building collapsed killing 28 women, including one of the brides, and 3 men. The Jews of Mantua were not allowed to expand their housing beyond the ghetto walls. This forced them to build vertically, resulting in unstable buildings which led to deaths like these.
1800(7th of Sivan, 5560): Second Day of Shavuot
1862: In today's issue of The Israelite, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise responded to criticism by Reverend Moncure D. Conway that the Israelite had not spoken out on the importance of preserving the Union. Wise said that "he never preached on politics." He said that this would be "a misapplication of the Sabbath and the pulpit" and that there were plenty of other opportunities for patriotic speeches.
1865(6th of Sivan, 5625): Jews celebrate the first Shavuot since the end of the Civil War.
1873: The New York Times published an article appealing for money to be sent to the “Children’s Fund” which would be used to provide summer time excursions for poor Jewish youngsters living in New York City.
1872: An article entitled “Turkey” described the bloody anti-Jewish riots that have
been taking place in Smyrna. The riots began after reports that a Greek child was lying in the morgue, having been killed by Jews who need its blood for their annual Passover sacrifice.
1874: According to reports published today a Jew from Chicago named Henry Greenbaum donated five hundred dollars to a Chicago church whose pastor is Professor Swing, the controversial Presbyterian minister who has been labeled as a heretic by his co-religionists
1884(7th of Sivan, 5644): Second Day of Shavuot
1891: Birthdate of Erich Walter Sternberg the Berlin-born Israeli composer who was one of the founders of Israeli art music, Sternberg had a profound impact on the musical life of Palestine and Israel during the 1930s and 1940s. He passed away in 1974.
1896: Today, The New York Times published an excerpt from an article in a British publication, The Quarterly Review, which compared the accomplishments of Disraeli and Gladstone in the field of foreign affairs. The author is cautiously optimistic when describing Disraeli’s policy designed to thwart Russian attempts to expand at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. He gives Disraeli high marks for his performance during the conference held at Berlin and for his purchase of the shares in the Suez Canal. In the end, regardless of how things play out, “this much is certain…Disraeli upheld the traditions of his …country at a time when a foreign critic of our policy uttered the well-known sneer that the only persons left who cared for the honor of England were an old woman and a Jew.” The old woman is Queen Victoria. The Jew is Disraeli proving that the nature of his birth out-weighed the impact of his forced youthful trip to the baptismal font.
1901: Herzl travels to Paris to begin the raising of the money, which is to be the first step toward the obtaining of the Charter. The negotiations in Paris are fruitless.
1901: Bella Weretnikow, who became the first Jewish woman lawyer in Washington State, graduated from the University of Washington Law School.
1906(7th of Sivan, 5666): Second Day of Shavuot
1912: Birthdate of Senator Henry M "Scoop" Jackson. Jackson was not Jewish, but he was a man of character of principle, a liberal in the best sense of the term. A Democrat from the state of Washington, Jackson supported legislation intended to force the Soviets to improve the treatment of their Jewish citizens and to allow them to leave the country if they so desired.
1911: Birthdate of multi-talented Ruth Hagy Brod. Born in New York and raised in Chicago, Ruth Hagy Brod had a varied career that took her from the newsroom to Latin America and from the mainstream press to offbeat publishing. As a child, Brod excelled in music, giving public recitals at age six and earning a bachelor's degree in music at age 18. She soon left music behind, however, and turned to journalism, going first to Hollywood, where she worked as an editor for movie and radio magazines. Moving to Philadelphia in 1938, she wrote features for the Philadelphia Ledger. Later, she would write for newspapers in Chicago and New York City as well. During the 1930s, she also worked as a radio reporter and documentary filmmaker. A decade later, she became women's editor of the Philadelphia Bulletin; while at the Bulletin she developed a program that became the "College News Conference," a weekly show where college students questioned prominent political figures. In the 1960s, she began to travel widely, producing a Peace Corps documentary on Colombia and a television series on Asian women. She worked as a newspaper correspondent in Southeast Asia and a Far East correspondent for NBC Radio, at a time when it was unusual for women to hold such roles. While making the Peace Corps documentary, she also served as an educational television advisor to the Colombian government. Brod first entered public service during World War II, when she served as publicity director for the United War Chest campaigns and as a member of the women's advisory board executive committee for the U.S. Savings Bond division of the U.S. Treasury. Upon returning to New York from her overseas travels, she became involved in New York City politics. In the mid-1960s, she was appointed as director of public information for JOIN (Job Orientation in Neighborhoods), which worked with the U.S. Department of Labor to provide job training and placement services to young high school drop-outs. Later that decade, Brod served as a special assistant to Mayor Robert Wagner, and in 1967 she was the founder-director of the Mayor's Coordinating Council under Mayor John Lindsay. The Council functioned as a central volunteer coordinator for the city, recruiting some 6,000 volunteers in its first year. In the 1970s, Brod embarked on yet another career, turning to publishing. She published two books of her own (both co-authored), Ena Twigg, Medium (1972) and The Edgar Cayce Handbook of Health Through Drugless Therapy (1975). She also worked as a literary agent, with clients that included Allard Lowenstein, a civil rights activist who was later assassinated, and James Hoffa, the Teamsters Union leader. Brod died of cancer in 1980.
1915: The American Jewish, Central and Peoples' Relief Committees gave $190,282 to Jews living in Palestine, $4,000 to Jews living in Alexandria and $59,500 to Jews living in Greece and Turkey.
1919: The partly decomposed corpse of Rosa Luxemburg was found in one of the locks of Berlin’s Landwehr Canal.
1921: Churchill explains to the members of the Cabinet that he “had decided to suspend the development of representative institutions in Palestine ‘owing to the fact that any elected body would undoubtedly prohibit further immigration of the Jews.’”
1925: Birthdate of Julian Beck “an American actor, director, poet, and painter.”
1926: The entire Jewish Sejm delegation voted for Josef Pilsudski for President of Poland.
1928: Official birthdate of Jacob Lateiner, “a Cuban/US pianist. He was actually born on March 31, 1928, but his father did not get around to registering his birth until May 31 the same year. He is the brother of violinist Isidor Lateiner.”
1933(6th of Sivan, 5693): First Day of Shavuot
1935 Jews are banned from the German Armed Forces.
1936: The New York Times reported that the proceeds of the upcoming annual “Give or Get Luncheon” sponsored by the Mizrachi Women’s Organization will be used to provide for the needs of young girls in Palestine, including both the native-born and refugees from Europe.
1938: German legislation outlaws "decadent art." All decadent artists weren’t Jewish but all Jewish artists were decadent.
1938: Birthdate of Peter Yarrow, “The Peter” in Peter, Paul and Mary
1939: As violence aimed at Arabs in response to the White Paper, increased, British authorities in Palestine began arresting Revisionists including Dr. Bukshpan, chairman of the Revisionist Palestine Executive Committee. At the same, at least one Jewish newspaper in Palestine published a report from Warsaw, Poland “that Dr. Vladimir Jabotinsky, head of the Revisionist party was openly opposed to any Jewish rebellion on the ground that in the present state of international affairs the Jews must and cannot fight against Britain when all democracies are grouping themselves” for a fight with Nazi Germany.
1939: Even though it placed strict limitations on Jewish immigration, Arab leaders rejected the White Paper today because it allowed for Jewish immigration and for the possibility of a Jewish home in Palestine. The Arab High Committee rejected any role for Jews in Palestine and asserted that the creation of an Arab state is the solution to the problem.
1942: Auschwitz III opened up. It was a massive labor camp for the construction of synthetic oil and rubber.
1942: In the Warsaw Ghetto, 3,650 Jews had died of starvation since the first of May. The Germans opened a new death camp on the outskirts of Minsk, in the village of Maly Trostenets. Spring brought on soft ground which meant it was easy to dig massive graves again.
1943: At a Meeting of the General Government ministers in Cracow, Lieutenant General Kruger noted that "on the Fuhrer's orders it is necessary for the (slaughter of the Jews) from the standpoint of European interests."
1943 A Nazi prison administrator in Minsk, Byelorussia, reports that 516 German and Russian Jews have been killed in late May, their gold crowns and fillings taken from their mouths before their deaths.
1943(26th of Iyyar, 5703): Today, the Nazis murdered Berta and Munio Kremnitzer, the parents of Rama Reis-Kremnitzer and the grandparents of Brig. Gen. Itai Reis, the commander of Palmahim air force.
1944: In Budapest, German representative, SS General Edmund Veesnmayer reported that 60,000 more Hungarian Jews had been deported in the last six days. The total for the past 16 days stood at 204,312. This day 42 dead bodies were removed from the Berkenau bound trains.
1944 (9th of Sivan, 5704): The Jewish community of Khonia, Crete, which traced its history back to Roman times, came to an end when the ship Danai, into which all the Jews had been herded, was towed out to sea and sunk
1944: A Hungarian deportation train stops near the German border so 42 corpses could removed.
1944: At the Auschwitz rail junction, German soldiers who encounter a sealed deportation train carrying Hungarian Jews to the Birkenau death camp defy threats of SS guards and give water and food to pleading prisoners. (Could this be a reference to scene in the film “Schinlder’s List” where Schindler provides water for a group of Jews trapped in box cars?)
1944: An SS man and a Jewish girl with whom he has fallen in love are executed. The German has hidden the girl for months, keeping her from the gas chambers.
1948: Birthdate of Rhea Perlman. The Brooklyn born actress, created the character of Carla on Cheers and Zena in the television comedy “Taxi. “
1948: Representatives of the Protestant and Catholic faiths joined more than 500 Reform Jewish leaders from a score of States at a testimonial dinner at the Netherlands Plaza Hotel in honor or Dr. Julian Morgenstern, who is retiring as president of Hebrew Union College.
1948: “In further moves to relieve pressures on the coastal strip and to ward off disaster two columns of Israeli armored cars were advancing to on Jenin.” One column was advancing from Afula while the other was coming from Megiddo which was the scene of a counter-attack by Trans-Jordan’s Arab Legion. In the south, the Arab Legion was reported to have massed two hundred armored vehicles at Rameleh which will be used in the fight to keep the road from Jerusalem to the Coast Plain from being opened to Jewish convoys. At the same time the Egyptians have amassed 500 armored vehicles twenty miles south of Jaffa as part of a what appears to be another move against Tel Aviv.
1948: An Order of the Day, signed by David Ben Gurion, which included the following statement, was issued. “On the establishment of the State of Israel, the Haganah has emerged from the underground and has become a regular army…Without the Haganah’s experience, plan, skill in operation and command, its devotion and valor, the Yishuv could not have held it ground on the dreadful trial of arms it had to face during these six months and we would not have attained the State of Israel.”
1957: Playwright Arthur Miller is convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to denounce writers with alleged Communist views to the House Un-American Activities Committee
1962: Adolf Eichmann, head of the Jewish department of the Gestapo, the first Nazi to be condemned by the Jewish state, was hanged.
1963: Birthdate of Canadian comedian Jeremy Hotz.
1964: Birthdate of Canadian lawyer and media magnate, Leonard Asper, Brandeis U. alum and son of the late Isadore Asper.
1967: With the announcement of the alliance between Egypt and Jordan, Israel was faced with the possibility of having to fight a war on three fronts – the Sinai, the Golan and the West Bank – Egypt, Syria and Jordan
1967: Contingents of the Iraqi Army arrived in Egypt with plans to join in the upcoming war with Israel.
1967: The government of Egypt declared that Eilat, Israel’s southern port, had been illegally occupied by Israel. With Egyptian troops stationed a few miles away at Taba, the Israel felt even more threatened.
1967: At Nasser’s insistence, Ahmed Shukeiry, head of the PLO, flew back to Jordan with King Hussein. He then went to Jordanian occupied portion of Jerusalem where he promises the Jews of Israel that after the war they will either have not survived or will be ‘repatriated.’
1974: After Kissinger conducted a feverish round of shuttle diplomacy between Damascus and Jerusalem, the separation of forces agreement between Israel and Syria was signed in Geneva. This marked the formal end the hostilities known as the Yom Kippur War.
1990(7th of Sivan, 5750): Second Day of Shavuot
1994(21st of Sivan, 5754): Trumpeter Emmanuel "Manny" Klein passed away.
1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including "The Commissioners: Baseball's Midlife Crisis" by Jerome Holtzman and "Two Lucky People: Memoirs" by Milton Friedman and Rose D. Friedman
1998(6th of Sivan, 5758): First Day of Shavuot
2000: U.S. President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met at Clinton's Lisbon hotel in the latest effort to jump-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
2001: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon comes under increasing pressure to end a unilateral cease-fire with the Palestinians, as violence continues in the Middle East.
2002: Israeli troops enter the West Bank city of Nablus, while the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is reported to have signed a law reform package which is a framework for a Palestinian constitution.
2003: While visiting Auschwitz today, President Bush said, ““This site is a sobering reminder that when we find anti-Semitism, whether it be in Europe or anywhere else, mankind must come together to fight such dark impulses. And this site is also a strong reminder that the civilized world must never forget what took place on this site. May God bless the victims and the families of the victims, and may we always remember.”
2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including "Sontag & Kael" by Craig Seligman, "Teammates" by David Halberstam and "Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared)" by Franz Kafka; translated by Michael Hofmann, a new translation of Kafka's novel about a young man's humiliations after being banished for his part in a scandal strives to stay close to the author's rough drafts.
2005: Israeli TV Channel 2 starts broadcasting "Yoman Masa" - "Diary of a Journey" ("Land of the Settlers") filmed by Channel 1 news anchor man Chaim Yavin.
2005: Mikhail Khodorkovsky was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to nine years in prison. The sentence was later reduced to 8 years.
2006: In Jerusalem, closing session of Biomed 2006.
2007: The JCC of Manhattan presents “Tizmoret’s Spring Sing.” Tizmoret is the Queens College Hillel chapter’s Professional A Cappella Choir.
2008 (5768): Begin Book of Numbers.
2009: In New York City, the annual Salute to Israel Parade swings down famed 5th Avenue. The main theme of this year's parade is "Past, Present, Future – Tel Aviv Celebrates 100 Years."
2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including "Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball From Itself" by Michael Shapiro and the recently released paperback edition of "Dictation" by Cynthia Ozick.
2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including "Alger Hiss and the Battle For History" by Susan Jacoby
2009: A five-day civil defense exercise, simulating an attack on the country, started today. Named Turning Point 3, the drills will be the most extensive ever held and practice new measures to safeguard civilians.
2010: An exhibition entitled “One Foot in America: The Jewish Emigrants of the Red Star Line and Eugeen Van Mieghem” at the YIVO Institute is scheduled to come to a close. This exhibit tells the story of the Red Star shipping line, focusing on the lives of emigrants--the reasons they fled, their arrival in Antwerp and their experience with the city's Jewish community, their living conditions onboard the ships, and their hopes and dreams. The exhibit also features the Flemish artist and Antwerp native Eugeen Van Mieghem (1875-1930), whose work depicts the emigrants and the life of the port.
2011: Final day of Jewish American heritage Month
2011: The 2011 award ceremony for the Sami Rohr Prize in fiction for Jewish Literature is scheduled to be held in New York City today.
2011; World Policy Journal editor David A. Andelman is scheduled to moderate a town-meeting style conversation entitled “Beyond the Stage: On Henry Kissinger” at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.
Created, Compiled & Edited by Mitchell Levin Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com
Copyright; May, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
This Day, May 30, In Jewish History
May 30 in Jewish History
70: During the Siege of Jerusalem, Titus and his Roman legions breach the Second Wall of Jerusalem. The Jewish defenders retreat to the First Wall. The Romans build a circumvallation, cutting down all trees within fifteen kilometres.
1096: In one of the few instances of individual courage, the local Bishop of Cologne and some of the local Burghers offered the Jews protection in their own houses. The Bishop later escorted them to towns under his protection. Crusaders reached Cologne and found the gate to the city closed by order of the bishop. Of all the Jewish communities in the path of the Crusaders, Cologne's Jews were the only ones to escape total destruction.
1252: Saint Ferdinand III, the King of Castile and King of Galicia and Leon passed away. The King must have been both courageous and practical. He stood up to the powerful Catholic Church when refused the Pope’s demand that Jews be forced to wear special badge and clothing. He was afraid that the requirement would force the Jews to leave for Muslim Granada which would had a disastrous effect on revenue collections for his kingdom.
1574: Henry III becomes King of France on the death of his brother, Charles IX. Henry had been serving as the King of Poland at the time of his brother’s death. He owed his selection as ruler Poland to a Jew named Solomon Ashkenazi who was an advisor to the Turkish Sultan.
1635: During what will be known as the Thirty Years War (it started in 1618 and ended in 1648) the Peace of Prague is signed marking the start of the end of hostilities. The war will finally end with the Peace of Westphalia. The war was between pitted Protestants against Catholics with Jews caught in the middle For example the Jews of Vienna suffered as a result of the occupation of the city by Imperial soldiers in 1624 when Emperor Ferdinand II confined the Jews to a ghetto. The fighting centered around Germany, Austria, France and the Netherlands and throughout many towns in Germany and Moravia, the Jewish population was expelled, which resulted in thousands of refugees fleeing to Cracow and other Polish cities. These Jews would get caught up in the uprisings that took place in Polish dominated Ukraine. The good news is that the end of the Thirty Years War would mark the rise of a flourishing Protestant Netherlands that would prove a home to European Jews.
1762: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Emden, Prussia.
1778: Voltaire French philosopher and author passed away. Voltaire is generally regarded as a great thinker. However, as can be seen from his own words, he was a rabid anti-Semite. He described Jews as being “small, ignorant and crude people.” Voltaire did not base his anti-Semitism on the Jews adherence to their religion. Cure them of their religion, he wrote and there is still the problem of their in-born character.
1796: Birthdate of Philip Salomons, the eldest son of London financier and leader of the Jewish community, Levi Salomons.
1800(6th of Sivan, 5560): First Day of Shavuot
1806: Joseph David Sinzheim was among those attending an Jewish Assembly of Notables convened by Napoleon I.
1839: Birthdate of Hermann Adler , the Hanover born Rabbi who succeeded his father as Chief Rabbi of the British Empire a position he held from 1891 until his death in 1911.
1868: In London, famed actress, Adah Isaacs Menken, gives in her last theatrical performance. She would die three months later in Paris, possibly from tuberculosis and/or peritonitis. Little is definitively known about the private life and early history of actress Adah Isaacs Menken. She seems to have been born in Louisiana, either in New Orleans or in nearby Milneburg, in 1835, but other sources place her birth in Tennessee. She always claimed to have been born into a Jewish family, but some scholars contend that she was raised Catholic and converted to Judaism with her first marriage. If her early life is obscure, Menken made sure her later life was exactly the opposite. With four marriages in seven years, a flamboyant stage career, and a command of self-promotion, Menken rose quickly to notoriety. At a time when women were expected to be quiet, domestic, self-effacing, and out of the public spotlight, Menken smoked cigarettes, cropped her hair, and played provocative stage roles. Of all her exploits, it was Menken's role in the melodrama Mazeppa that brought her the most lasting fame. In this adaptation of a Lord Byron piece, which opened in Albany, New York, in 1861, Menken appeared in a flesh-colored body stocking which gave the illusion that she was nude. Moreover, she appeared strapped to the back of a horse, which galloped down a ramp in the direction of the audience. The fact that Menken was an accomplished equestrian and the horse a tame one did nothing to dispel the illusion of danger. She later performed the same role in London, and this and other roles in Paris, Vienna, and all over the U.S. Although she fed the cult of personality that grew up around her by, for example, placing photographs of herself in shop windows, Menken also aspired to recognition off the stage, primarily as a poet. Several of her poems were published in the Cincinnati-based Israelite when she lived in Ohio from 1857-59; later poems were published in the New York Sunday Mercury (1860-61). Walt Whitman encouraged her writing, and she developed friendships with Mark Twain, Bret Harte, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. She was rumored to be involved, at different times, in affairs with Alexandre Dumas and with Algernon Swinburne. A collection of her poems, Infelicia, was published in London within days of her death; a new edition, with some uncollected poems and essays, was published in a critical edition by Broadview Press in 2002. Menken gave her last stage performance, in London, on May 30, 1868. She fell ill shortly thereafter, and died in Paris on August 10, 1868. The cause of death was most likely peritonitis, tuberculosis, or the combined ravages of both. She was buried in the Jewish section of the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.
1870: Jim Levy, an Irish Jew, survived his first gunfight in Pioche, Nevada. Levy shot it out with a local thug named Michael Casey. After an earlier gunfight, Levy contradicted Casey’s claim that he acted in self-defense. An angry Casey challenged the unarmed Levy to a gunfight. Levy had to borrow a gun before he could answer the challenge. Levy fired a single shot which mortally wounded Casey. Contrary to the popular image in Western Movies, the gunfight was not a one-on-one combat. Dave Neagle, a friend of Casey, fired a shot at Levy while he was facing Casey. The shot hit Levy in the jaw but did not prove to be life threatening. The episode changed Levy’s lifestyle as he went from peaceful miner to leading the life of a gambler and “professional regulator” – a polite term for a fast gun for hire.
1873: The Jewish Messenger published an appeal for funds to support a program of summer excursions for Jewish children in New York including those at the Orphan Asylum and those attending “Free Schools.”
1876: A week before his death, Ottoman sultan Abd-ul-Aziz is replaced by his nephew Murat V. As can be seen from the items below, Abd-ul-Aziz’s reign was a net plus for the Jewish people. Several Jews served in prominent governmental positions. Sultan Abdul Aziz allocated the "Alliance Israelite Universelle" 2600 dunams of land east of Jaffa for the establishment of a school of agriculture and also granted permission for importing all kinds of tools and machinery free of taxes and customs. As Ben Gurion, said: "I doubt that the Israeli dream would have been realized if the farm school of Mikveh Israel had not existed." Upon recurrence of blood libel accusations, Sultan Aziz issued a firman taking the Jews under his protection. Thanks to this firman the Greek Orthodox patriarchate had to issue encyclicals to all churches, forbidding such practices. Murat passed away three months after reaching the throne, leaving no legacy for the Jews or any of his other subjects.
1876: Judge McAdam is scheduled to render a decision today in a case involving a can-can dance named Katie Forest and her Jewish partner, a jewelry salesman named Solomon Care.
1876(7th of Sivan, 5636): Second Day of Shavuot
1884(6th of Sivan, 5644): First Day of Shavuot
1899: Birthdate of Irving Thalberg, American film producer.
1892: The Free School at Jefferson Street and East Broadway, which was funded by Baron de Hirsch, was the scene of a unique Memorial Day celebration. The school was awash with patriotic paraphernalia including little American flags and red, white and blue bunting. Visitors to the school were treated to four hundred recently arrived Jewish children from Russia singing “My Country Tis of Thee” in faultless English followed by a recitation of “Our Flag Shall Float” and climaxed by these same youngsters singing The Star Spangled Banner. This program is an example of the Americanization activities that are an integral part of the immigrant children’s education.
1901: Herzl meets Grossherzog Friedrich of Baden, who tries to get him an audience with the Czar.
1903: Herzl informs Zadoc Kahn and Lord Rothschild about the failure of the El-Arish Project.
1906(6th of Sivan, 5666): First Day of Shavuot
1908: Birthdate of Mel Blanc. The San Francisco native was the voice for a several cartoon characters including Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd and Porky Pig.
1908: Birthdate of Dr. Abraham Stone Freedberg, a Harvard cardiologist who developed an early treatment for angina and whose pioneering work in identifying the bacteria that cause stomach ulcers was initially all but ignored. However, he was vindicated when two Australian physicians won a Nobel Prize for work based on his discovery.
1909: Reuben Siegel laid the cornerstone for the first home in Tel-Aviv
1909: Birthdate of Benny Goodman. Born in Chicago, Goodman gained fame as a clarinetist and bandleader. During the Big Band Era, he was known as the King of Swing
1910: Birthdate of German actress Inge Meysel. Meysel’s mother was Danish and her father was Jewish. According to one source, she was banned from acting during the Nazi period. She resumed her career in the German city of Hamburg and continued working until her death in 2004.
1912: Birthdate of dramatist and playwright Joseph Stein. His most famous effort was Fiddler on the Roof
1912: Birthdate of American biochemist Julius Axelrod who won the Nobel Prize Physiology or Medicine in 1970.
1913: The Balkan war, which had started in October, 1912 officially came to an end with the signing of the Treaty of London. As a result of this Albania became an independent state. Jews had lived in Albania since Roman times. The false messiah, Shabbetai Zevi spent his final years in Albania and died there. At the time that Albania gained its independence from Turkey, there were probably only a couple of hundred Jews living in the country.
1919: A national Jewish association is founded in Constantinople under the auspices of the Jewish association Amicale, and with cooperation of the B'nai Brith Lodge. Among its many goals, are establishment of an autonomous Jewish homeland in Palestine, and support for the communal administration of Jewish philanthropic groups in Turkey.
1920: “The 21st conference of the English Zionist Federation of London passed a resolution ‘expressing gratitude to the Supreme Council for incorporating the Balfour declaration in the treaty with Turkey and for granting the mandate for Palestine to Great Britain.’”
1930: At a meeting in Tel Aviv, the Vaad Leumi, the Jewish National Council called for a national strike to begin next week to protest the British government’s order suspending Jewish immigration pending an inquiry into land and immigration problems by Sir John Simpson.
1933(5th of Sivan, 5693): Erev Shavuot
1933: The League of Nations held the first of two days of debate about the persecution of the Jews in Germany.
1936: The Palestine (British) Government today warned all mukhtars (chieftains) that their villages would be subject to collective punitive measures unless the cutting of telephone wires, bomb explosions, attempts to demolish railway lines and other acts of brigandage ceased.
1938: The Palestine Post published the full text of the letter, written by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, addressed to the High Commissioner for Palestine. The letter was accompanied by the Annual Jewish Agency's memorandum prepared for the League of Nations Mandates Commission. The Agency accused the Palestine Government that 1937 was a year of an artificially limited immigration and a "chequered development". The Jewish economic structure had shown strength and resilience in the face of the Arab terror. Exports increased, but there was insufficient Government aid for industry and control of imports.
1941: Germany seizes the Greek island of Crete. The Germans would leave the Jews of Crete alone until 1944. In 1944, the Germans loaded the Jews of Crete on to a ship called the Tanais along with a mixed bag of Greek and Italian prisoners. The ship was sunk as it headed for the mainland. It is unclear whether a German U-boat or a British submarine sank the Tanais.
1941: At ten o'clock in morning, Yunis al-Sabawi, the newly self-appointed pro-Nazi Military Governor of Baghdad "summoned the Chief Rabbi, Sasson Hedouri to his office and ordered him to instruct the Jews to go to their homes and stay there until noon. He was also supposed to tell them to pack a suitcase for each family member because they were being taken to detention camps 'for their own safety." In the mean time, Sabwai "instructed the broadcasting station to issue a call to the Baghdad public to massacre the Jews." The broadcast was to be made at noon. (In Ishmael's House by Martin Gilbert.
1941: At meeting with the Mayor of Baghdad, Arshad al-Umari, The Chief Rabbi, Sasson Khedouri asked him to thwart the plans of Yunis Al-Sabawi for the destruction of the city's Jewish population.
1941: Yunis Al-Sabawi, the pro-Nazi governor of Baghdad, took refuge in Persia when the Mayor of Baghdad, Arshad al-Umari, took control of the city and ended the threatened massacre of the Jewish population.
1946: In a play that anticipates a scene in "The Natural" by Brooklyn-native Bernard Malamud, the Braves' Bama Rowell smashes a double in the 7-run 2nd inning of the second game of a doubleheader at Ebbets Field. The ball shatters the Bulova clock high atop the right-field scoreboard at 4:25 P.M., showering glass down on the Dodgers' Right Fielder Dixie Walker. An hour later the clock stops.
1948: At dawn this morning forces of the Irgun captures Ras el Ein near Petah Tikva the source of Jerusalem’s water supply. By nightfall, the Jewish troops had to give up their hard won victory because of counterattacks from a larger force of Iraqi soldiers.
1948: In the skies above Israel, Arab aircraft were on the attack striking at Jewish forces in several locations including Zirin, a village near Jenin, Kinereth near Timeria, Rebovoth, near Ramleh, Merchavia and Afula which was the target for incendiary bombs. The newly-minted Israeli air force struck at Tel el Kasser on the Trans Jordan border and at an area near Isdud where Egyptian forces were assembling to move on Jaffa. The Israelis lost one plane in the attack.
1948: “Israel’s last remaining dissident organization, the Stern Group, announced tonight that it had been incorporated into the regular Israeli army.” (Ed. Note: This was part of Ben Gurion’s determined effort to create a modern state with only military. This was not a popular effort and it meant with resistance from a wide spectrum of political opinion. If Ben Gurion had not pushed forward with his plan the Jewish community of the day would have looked Gaza in the 21st century.)
1949: Birthdate of Charles Samuel Shapiro “an American diplomat and a former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela. He went on to become Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary at the State Department from 2007 to 2009, and now heads its free trade agreement task force. Some supporters of president Hugo Chavez accuse Shapiro of having supported the 2002 coup d'état, including a meeting with interim president Pedro Carmona Estanga one day after the coup. Shapiro and other US sources have denied this and claim that he urged Carmona to reinstitute the dissolved national assembly. Shapiro has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Georgia State University, and served in the United States Coast Guard.
1951: Birthdate of Dallas native Stephen Tobolowsky, character actor whose most famous role might be that of Ned Reyerson, the obnoxious insurance salesman in Groundhog Day.
1951: Austrian born author Hermann Broch passed away. Broch was imprisoned in a concentration camp after the Anschluss. During his imprisonment he began writing the most important of his three major works, The Death of Virgil. Broch’s influential friends including James Joyce obtained his release and got him into the United States. He converted to Roman Catholicism prior to his death in 1951.
1958: Sarah Churchill writes to her father describing the ceremony opening the Churchill Auditoriums at the Technion. “They love you very much and the auditorium was designed to honor your achievements…”
1960(4th of Sivan, 5720): Boris Pasternak, author of Dr. Zhivago passed away
1961: Prime Minister David Ben Gurion met with President John F. Kennedy in the Presidential suite at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. The meeting lasted for an hour and a half. The two leaders discussed the sale of HAWK missiles to Israel, the reactor at Dimona and need to make some sort of conciliatory gesture concerning the Palestinian refugees.
1961(15th of Sivan, 5721): Binyamin Mintz passed away. An Israeli politician who served as Minister of Postal Services From July 1960 until his death. Born in Łódź in the Russian Empire (today in Poland), Mintz studied in a Hasidic Ger school and was a member of Young Agudat Israel. He made aliyah to Mandate Palestine in 1925, and worked in construction and as a printer. In 1933 he joined Agudat Israel Workers, and was later a member of the Provisional State Council. In 1949 he was elected to the first Knesset on the list of the United Religious Front (an alliance of the four main religious parties). Re-elected in 1951, 1955 and 1959, he was appointed Minister of Postal Services by David Ben-Gurion in 1960. The village of Yad Binyamin, established in 1962, was named in his honor.
1964(19th of Sivan, 5724): Famed nuclear physicist Leo Szilard passed away. Born in Hungry, Szilard sounded the early warning about Nazi plans to build an atomic bomb and the need for the Western Powers to do it first. His efforts led to the famous letter from Einstein, the Manhattan Project and the successful building of the Atomic Bomb Hungarians/US nuclear physicist1966: Birthdate of Stephen Malkmus indie-rock musician who played with a band called Silver Jews.
1967: King Hussein of Jordan visited Cairo. “At the meeting Nasser produced a file containing the Syrian-Egyptian defense pact” King Hussein was, in his own words “so anxious to reach agreement” that told Nasser to give him another copy of the agreement, “replace the word Syrian with the word Jordan” so that he could join the alliance without delay. Apparently, Hussein was not the reluctant participant he would later claim to have been. This was part of Arab efforts to create a united military front in what would become the Six Day War which would begin a week later. When the war broke out, the Israelis sent word to the Jordanians asking them to stay out of the fight. The Israelis assured the Jordanians that they had not intention of attacking them. The Jordanian response was to starting shelling Israel. It was this action by the Jordanians which led the Israelis to the Green Line and drive the Jordanians out of east Jerusalem.
1967: As “the Arab noose” seems to be tightening around the Israeli neck, Meir Amit was sent to Washington to check the American response if Israel launched pre-emptive strikes at Egypt. He told the defense secretary Robert MacNamara: "All we want is three things: One, that you refill our arsenal after the war. Two, that you will help us in the UN. Three, that you will isolate the Russians from the arena." MacNamara said to Amit: "I read you loud and clear."
1968: Martin Noth, German Old Testament scholar, passed away. Noth was the first authority to note that “First and Second Kings” contained virtually no mention of the classic prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos and Hosea.
1969: Palestinian terrorists blew up the oil pipeline which passes through the Golan Heights. Thousands of tons of crude oil polluted the river-beds, but were blocked before they could reach Lake Kinneret.
1970 "Minnie's Boys" a play about the Marx Brothers closed at Imperial Theater in New York City closed after 80 performances
1972: Final exams are scheduled to be held today at The Bernard M. Baruch College of the City University of New York. The exams had originally been scheduled to given on May 19 which coincided with the celebration of Shavuot. The date of the exams was changed following protests led by Hillel, the Anti-Defamation League and individual students.
1972: In Tel Aviv, members of the Japanese Red Army carry out the Lod Airport Massacre, killing 24 people and injuring 78 others.
1973(28th of Iyyar, 5733):Yom Yerushalayim
1976: Birthdate of child star Omri Katz
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that in his inaugural Knesset address the new, fifth President of Israel, Yitzhak Navon, called upon Egypt to renew peace negotiations and urged other Arab leaders to follow suit. Knesset members were so pleased with Navon's appearance that they broke a cardinal rule and spontaneously burst into applause. The Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, looking pale after several days of fever, turned up despite reports that his health might preclude his appearance.
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Tadiran gave a sneak preview of its miniature, remotely-controlled pilotless reconnaissance aircraft, the Mastiff.
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that according to Yigal Hurwitz, the Minister of Commerce and Industry, only huge budget cuts of some four to five billion pounds, accompanied by a drastic reduction of manpower in the service sector, could save Israel from the fast growing inflation.
1990(6th of Sivan, 5750): First Day of Shavuot
1990: Good luck as much as any other factor helped foil a potentially disastrous attack by heavily armed seaborne terrorists on Israeli civilians today. Air, ground and naval forces engaged the intruders, killing four and capturing 12 before they could cause casualties or damage. Meanwhile, a full-scale inquiry has been opened at Israel Defense Force General Headquarters, in order to seek answers to many questions being asked by officers, politicians and the public at large over the defensive operation conducted by the IDF. Chief of Staff Gen. Dan Shomron and his senior officers admitted they took a calculated risk by not clearing the beaches as soon as the attackers were detected. An important consideration was not to create panic, they said. They also withheld fire until it was certain the approaching boatloads of men were enemies. Two apparently well-planned and coordinated assaults were attempted by Palestinian terrorists traveling in fast fiberglass motorboats from a "mother ship" cruising more than 100 miles off the Israeli coast. In addition, more numerous landing attempts were aborted by mechanical difficulties. Responsibility for the operation, believed to have been launched from Libya, is being claimed by the Palestine Liberation Front. The PLF, headed by Mohammed (Abul) Abbas, is the group responsible for the 1985 attack on the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and the subsequent killing of Leon Klinghoffer. Initial targets were beaches north and south of Tel Aviv, where the assailants knew thousands of Israelis would be spending the Shavuot holiday sunbathing and swimming. Maps and documents found on the terrorists made clear their targets also included hotels and the center of Tel Aviv, which could be expected to be crowded with civilians. The armaments carried by the terrorists included cannons, heavy machine guns, assault rifles, side arms, grenades and explosives. The attempted landings were at Ga'ash, a beach north of Tel Aviv, and Nitzanim, a beach between Ashkelon and Ashdod to the south. More than three hours separated the two assaults. Military and civilian leaders agreed that the timing of the Shavuot attack had nothing to do with the slaying of seven Palestinians by a reputedly deranged Israeli gunman near Rishon le-Zion on May 20, though the PLF claimed it was in revenge. Experts pointed out that the attack, which included a mother ship and 16 armed men riding six speedboats, must have been planned weeks or months in advance. Israelis also admit the element of chance did much to prevent a massacre. The engine of one boat would not start when it was put into the water. Three others, including one used as a refueling tanker, broke down shortly afterwards. If all six assault boats had reached beaches or deserted areas on the coast, the outcome might have been different. In addition to the Ga'ash and Nitzanim beaches, targets circles on the terrorists' maps included Tel Aviv's beachfront hotels, the Migdal Shalom Tower, Israel's tallest office building; and Malchei Yisrael Square outside Tel Aviv City Hall. A mystery surrounds the mother ship, which was 124 miles off the Israeli coast when it dropped the speedboats. According to the IDF, it sailed from Benghazi, Libya, on Sunday and headed for Port Said, Egypt, after the attack. The Egyptian authorities were alerted but the vessel has not been found. The police anti-terrorist unit, under IDF command, took an active part in the operation, but despite official praise for IDF-police cooperation, Police Commissioner Ya'acov Terner stated publicly that he learned of the Nitzanim landing from a private citizen who telephoned him. According to news reports, the first warning of trouble was received at 6:45 a.m. local time when navy radar picked up the blips of speedboats about 26 miles off shore heading toward Ga'ash. A Dabour-class gunboat on routine patrol off Tel Aviv was sent to investigate. It intercepted the speedboat and ordered its five occupants to jump into the sea without their weapons. They were promptly captured and taken ashore. Air force spotter planes, attack helicopters and other naval vessels were immediately put on alert. But it was not until 10 a.m. local time that a second suspicious-looking speedboat was seen making for shore near Nitzanim. A Dabour gunboat gave chase but was outrun. Seven gunmen were put ashore and took cover under bushes on the sand dunes. Cobra attack helicopters rushed to the scene but had to make sure the invaders were indeed terrorists and not IDF soldiers or civilians before they opened fire. In the event, four terrorists were fatally shot by helicopter gunners or soldiers of the Givati Brigade sent to the scene Former Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin told Israel Radio that intelligence reports received about five months ago indicated that Abbas was in Libya planning a seaborne assault on Israel.
1998(5th of Sivan, 5758): Sam Aaronvitch, British economist, academic, working class intellectual and senior member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, passed away
1998: Tonight, Erev of Shavuot, Jonathan Eisenthal and as many as 150 other members of Mt. Zion Hebrew Congregation will be studying Exodus 19, the biblical passage in which God first approaches the Israelites to become partners in a divine covenant, and, through Moses, gives them the Torah. Traditionally observant Jews stay up the whole first night of Shavuot studying texts related to revelation, the giving of the Torah and the Book of Ruth. But among Reform Jews like Eisenthal, staying up the whole night, or even part of it, to study is a relatively new practice. Eisenthal is doing just what the head of the Reform movement, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, hopes to inspire among more of his constituents. Last November, in his first speech as president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the umbrella organization for Reform synagogues, Yoffie declared that "Torah is at the center" of his movement. Hebrew literacy, and a knowledge of core Jewish texts, was, he said, to be the focus of a new campaign.
2001: President Bush welcomes Israeli President Moshe Katsav to the White House for a working dinner with Jewish leaders and senior Administration officials.
2001: A car bomb explodes outside a school in Netanya. Eight people are injured.
2003: (28th of Iyar, 5763) Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Reunification Day
2005: Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar decides to recognize the members of India's Bnei Menashe community as descendants of the ancient Israelites. Amar also decides to dispatch a team of rabbinical judges to India to convert the community members to Orthodox Jews. Such a conversion will enable their immigration to Israel under the Law of Return, without requiring the Interior Ministry's authorization.
2005: President Moshe Katsav arrives in Germany to mark 40 years of diplomatic relations during a three-day visit in which he is to address the German parliament.
2007: An exhibition, ''Sisters by Color'' comes to a close at the Hebrew University. The exhibition, featuring works of art by sisters Rachel Ziv and Gila Elyashar Stolisky, opened on April, 12, 2007, in the presence of the Lithuanian Ambassador to Israel Asta Skaisgiryte Liauskiene.
2007: As the missile attacks continue, a Qassam rocket hit a high-voltage electricity pole and landed on a building in the western Negev city of Sderot this evening. The house sustained some damage, but the residents of the home had been secured inside a protected room and remained unharmed.
2008: On Friday night, Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa celebrates the third and final Special Musical Sabbaths for this year.
2008: In article entitled “A Class For All Traditions,” the Chicago Tribune reports on The Chicago Jewish Day School on its fifth anniversary.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/content/education/chi-relig_jewishschoolmay30,0,6624247,print.story
2009(7th of Sivan, 5769: Second Day Shavuot – Yizkor
2009: Stephan M. Silverman, a clinical and school psychologist and Jacqueline S. Iseman, a clinical psychologist specializing in children and adolescents lead a discussion of “School Success for Kids With ADHD” at Borders Books in Rockville, MD.
2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish of authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including "The Invisible Bridge" by Julie Orringer and "Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law" by Gabriel Schoenfeld.
2011: Limmud Colorado’s Fourth Annual Conference is scheduled to come to an end.
2011: Israeli Homeland Security Minister Matan Vilna'i and his Russian counterpart Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu are scheduled to sign an agreement to increase Israeli-Russian cooperation in emergency situations during a ceremony at the Knesset today.
2011(26th of Iyar, 5771): Yahrzeit Moshe Chaim Luzzatto. Born in 1707 he “was a prominent Italian Jewish rabbi, kabbalist, and philosopher.” Known by the Hebrew acronym RaMCHaL (or RaMHaL, רמח"ל), he passed in 1746
Created, Compiled & Edited by Mitchell Levin Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com
Copyright; May, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin
70: During the Siege of Jerusalem, Titus and his Roman legions breach the Second Wall of Jerusalem. The Jewish defenders retreat to the First Wall. The Romans build a circumvallation, cutting down all trees within fifteen kilometres.
1096: In one of the few instances of individual courage, the local Bishop of Cologne and some of the local Burghers offered the Jews protection in their own houses. The Bishop later escorted them to towns under his protection. Crusaders reached Cologne and found the gate to the city closed by order of the bishop. Of all the Jewish communities in the path of the Crusaders, Cologne's Jews were the only ones to escape total destruction.
1252: Saint Ferdinand III, the King of Castile and King of Galicia and Leon passed away. The King must have been both courageous and practical. He stood up to the powerful Catholic Church when refused the Pope’s demand that Jews be forced to wear special badge and clothing. He was afraid that the requirement would force the Jews to leave for Muslim Granada which would had a disastrous effect on revenue collections for his kingdom.
1574: Henry III becomes King of France on the death of his brother, Charles IX. Henry had been serving as the King of Poland at the time of his brother’s death. He owed his selection as ruler Poland to a Jew named Solomon Ashkenazi who was an advisor to the Turkish Sultan.
1635: During what will be known as the Thirty Years War (it started in 1618 and ended in 1648) the Peace of Prague is signed marking the start of the end of hostilities. The war will finally end with the Peace of Westphalia. The war was between pitted Protestants against Catholics with Jews caught in the middle For example the Jews of Vienna suffered as a result of the occupation of the city by Imperial soldiers in 1624 when Emperor Ferdinand II confined the Jews to a ghetto. The fighting centered around Germany, Austria, France and the Netherlands and throughout many towns in Germany and Moravia, the Jewish population was expelled, which resulted in thousands of refugees fleeing to Cracow and other Polish cities. These Jews would get caught up in the uprisings that took place in Polish dominated Ukraine. The good news is that the end of the Thirty Years War would mark the rise of a flourishing Protestant Netherlands that would prove a home to European Jews.
1762: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Emden, Prussia.
1778: Voltaire French philosopher and author passed away. Voltaire is generally regarded as a great thinker. However, as can be seen from his own words, he was a rabid anti-Semite. He described Jews as being “small, ignorant and crude people.” Voltaire did not base his anti-Semitism on the Jews adherence to their religion. Cure them of their religion, he wrote and there is still the problem of their in-born character.
1796: Birthdate of Philip Salomons, the eldest son of London financier and leader of the Jewish community, Levi Salomons.
1800(6th of Sivan, 5560): First Day of Shavuot
1806: Joseph David Sinzheim was among those attending an Jewish Assembly of Notables convened by Napoleon I.
1839: Birthdate of Hermann Adler , the Hanover born Rabbi who succeeded his father as Chief Rabbi of the British Empire a position he held from 1891 until his death in 1911.
1868: In London, famed actress, Adah Isaacs Menken, gives in her last theatrical performance. She would die three months later in Paris, possibly from tuberculosis and/or peritonitis. Little is definitively known about the private life and early history of actress Adah Isaacs Menken. She seems to have been born in Louisiana, either in New Orleans or in nearby Milneburg, in 1835, but other sources place her birth in Tennessee. She always claimed to have been born into a Jewish family, but some scholars contend that she was raised Catholic and converted to Judaism with her first marriage. If her early life is obscure, Menken made sure her later life was exactly the opposite. With four marriages in seven years, a flamboyant stage career, and a command of self-promotion, Menken rose quickly to notoriety. At a time when women were expected to be quiet, domestic, self-effacing, and out of the public spotlight, Menken smoked cigarettes, cropped her hair, and played provocative stage roles. Of all her exploits, it was Menken's role in the melodrama Mazeppa that brought her the most lasting fame. In this adaptation of a Lord Byron piece, which opened in Albany, New York, in 1861, Menken appeared in a flesh-colored body stocking which gave the illusion that she was nude. Moreover, she appeared strapped to the back of a horse, which galloped down a ramp in the direction of the audience. The fact that Menken was an accomplished equestrian and the horse a tame one did nothing to dispel the illusion of danger. She later performed the same role in London, and this and other roles in Paris, Vienna, and all over the U.S. Although she fed the cult of personality that grew up around her by, for example, placing photographs of herself in shop windows, Menken also aspired to recognition off the stage, primarily as a poet. Several of her poems were published in the Cincinnati-based Israelite when she lived in Ohio from 1857-59; later poems were published in the New York Sunday Mercury (1860-61). Walt Whitman encouraged her writing, and she developed friendships with Mark Twain, Bret Harte, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. She was rumored to be involved, at different times, in affairs with Alexandre Dumas and with Algernon Swinburne. A collection of her poems, Infelicia, was published in London within days of her death; a new edition, with some uncollected poems and essays, was published in a critical edition by Broadview Press in 2002. Menken gave her last stage performance, in London, on May 30, 1868. She fell ill shortly thereafter, and died in Paris on August 10, 1868. The cause of death was most likely peritonitis, tuberculosis, or the combined ravages of both. She was buried in the Jewish section of the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.
1870: Jim Levy, an Irish Jew, survived his first gunfight in Pioche, Nevada. Levy shot it out with a local thug named Michael Casey. After an earlier gunfight, Levy contradicted Casey’s claim that he acted in self-defense. An angry Casey challenged the unarmed Levy to a gunfight. Levy had to borrow a gun before he could answer the challenge. Levy fired a single shot which mortally wounded Casey. Contrary to the popular image in Western Movies, the gunfight was not a one-on-one combat. Dave Neagle, a friend of Casey, fired a shot at Levy while he was facing Casey. The shot hit Levy in the jaw but did not prove to be life threatening. The episode changed Levy’s lifestyle as he went from peaceful miner to leading the life of a gambler and “professional regulator” – a polite term for a fast gun for hire.
1873: The Jewish Messenger published an appeal for funds to support a program of summer excursions for Jewish children in New York including those at the Orphan Asylum and those attending “Free Schools.”
1876: A week before his death, Ottoman sultan Abd-ul-Aziz is replaced by his nephew Murat V. As can be seen from the items below, Abd-ul-Aziz’s reign was a net plus for the Jewish people. Several Jews served in prominent governmental positions. Sultan Abdul Aziz allocated the "Alliance Israelite Universelle" 2600 dunams of land east of Jaffa for the establishment of a school of agriculture and also granted permission for importing all kinds of tools and machinery free of taxes and customs. As Ben Gurion, said: "I doubt that the Israeli dream would have been realized if the farm school of Mikveh Israel had not existed." Upon recurrence of blood libel accusations, Sultan Aziz issued a firman taking the Jews under his protection. Thanks to this firman the Greek Orthodox patriarchate had to issue encyclicals to all churches, forbidding such practices. Murat passed away three months after reaching the throne, leaving no legacy for the Jews or any of his other subjects.
1876: Judge McAdam is scheduled to render a decision today in a case involving a can-can dance named Katie Forest and her Jewish partner, a jewelry salesman named Solomon Care.
1876(7th of Sivan, 5636): Second Day of Shavuot
1884(6th of Sivan, 5644): First Day of Shavuot
1899: Birthdate of Irving Thalberg, American film producer.
1892: The Free School at Jefferson Street and East Broadway, which was funded by Baron de Hirsch, was the scene of a unique Memorial Day celebration. The school was awash with patriotic paraphernalia including little American flags and red, white and blue bunting. Visitors to the school were treated to four hundred recently arrived Jewish children from Russia singing “My Country Tis of Thee” in faultless English followed by a recitation of “Our Flag Shall Float” and climaxed by these same youngsters singing The Star Spangled Banner. This program is an example of the Americanization activities that are an integral part of the immigrant children’s education.
1901: Herzl meets Grossherzog Friedrich of Baden, who tries to get him an audience with the Czar.
1903: Herzl informs Zadoc Kahn and Lord Rothschild about the failure of the El-Arish Project.
1906(6th of Sivan, 5666): First Day of Shavuot
1908: Birthdate of Mel Blanc. The San Francisco native was the voice for a several cartoon characters including Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd and Porky Pig.
1908: Birthdate of Dr. Abraham Stone Freedberg, a Harvard cardiologist who developed an early treatment for angina and whose pioneering work in identifying the bacteria that cause stomach ulcers was initially all but ignored. However, he was vindicated when two Australian physicians won a Nobel Prize for work based on his discovery.
1909: Reuben Siegel laid the cornerstone for the first home in Tel-Aviv
1909: Birthdate of Benny Goodman. Born in Chicago, Goodman gained fame as a clarinetist and bandleader. During the Big Band Era, he was known as the King of Swing
1910: Birthdate of German actress Inge Meysel. Meysel’s mother was Danish and her father was Jewish. According to one source, she was banned from acting during the Nazi period. She resumed her career in the German city of Hamburg and continued working until her death in 2004.
1912: Birthdate of dramatist and playwright Joseph Stein. His most famous effort was Fiddler on the Roof
1912: Birthdate of American biochemist Julius Axelrod who won the Nobel Prize Physiology or Medicine in 1970.
1913: The Balkan war, which had started in October, 1912 officially came to an end with the signing of the Treaty of London. As a result of this Albania became an independent state. Jews had lived in Albania since Roman times. The false messiah, Shabbetai Zevi spent his final years in Albania and died there. At the time that Albania gained its independence from Turkey, there were probably only a couple of hundred Jews living in the country.
1919: A national Jewish association is founded in Constantinople under the auspices of the Jewish association Amicale, and with cooperation of the B'nai Brith Lodge. Among its many goals, are establishment of an autonomous Jewish homeland in Palestine, and support for the communal administration of Jewish philanthropic groups in Turkey.
1920: “The 21st conference of the English Zionist Federation of London passed a resolution ‘expressing gratitude to the Supreme Council for incorporating the Balfour declaration in the treaty with Turkey and for granting the mandate for Palestine to Great Britain.’”
1930: At a meeting in Tel Aviv, the Vaad Leumi, the Jewish National Council called for a national strike to begin next week to protest the British government’s order suspending Jewish immigration pending an inquiry into land and immigration problems by Sir John Simpson.
1933(5th of Sivan, 5693): Erev Shavuot
1933: The League of Nations held the first of two days of debate about the persecution of the Jews in Germany.
1936: The Palestine (British) Government today warned all mukhtars (chieftains) that their villages would be subject to collective punitive measures unless the cutting of telephone wires, bomb explosions, attempts to demolish railway lines and other acts of brigandage ceased.
1938: The Palestine Post published the full text of the letter, written by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, addressed to the High Commissioner for Palestine. The letter was accompanied by the Annual Jewish Agency's memorandum prepared for the League of Nations Mandates Commission. The Agency accused the Palestine Government that 1937 was a year of an artificially limited immigration and a "chequered development". The Jewish economic structure had shown strength and resilience in the face of the Arab terror. Exports increased, but there was insufficient Government aid for industry and control of imports.
1941: Germany seizes the Greek island of Crete. The Germans would leave the Jews of Crete alone until 1944. In 1944, the Germans loaded the Jews of Crete on to a ship called the Tanais along with a mixed bag of Greek and Italian prisoners. The ship was sunk as it headed for the mainland. It is unclear whether a German U-boat or a British submarine sank the Tanais.
1941: At ten o'clock in morning, Yunis al-Sabawi, the newly self-appointed pro-Nazi Military Governor of Baghdad "summoned the Chief Rabbi, Sasson Hedouri to his office and ordered him to instruct the Jews to go to their homes and stay there until noon. He was also supposed to tell them to pack a suitcase for each family member because they were being taken to detention camps 'for their own safety." In the mean time, Sabwai "instructed the broadcasting station to issue a call to the Baghdad public to massacre the Jews." The broadcast was to be made at noon. (In Ishmael's House by Martin Gilbert.
1941: At meeting with the Mayor of Baghdad, Arshad al-Umari, The Chief Rabbi, Sasson Khedouri asked him to thwart the plans of Yunis Al-Sabawi for the destruction of the city's Jewish population.
1941: Yunis Al-Sabawi, the pro-Nazi governor of Baghdad, took refuge in Persia when the Mayor of Baghdad, Arshad al-Umari, took control of the city and ended the threatened massacre of the Jewish population.
1946: In a play that anticipates a scene in "The Natural" by Brooklyn-native Bernard Malamud, the Braves' Bama Rowell smashes a double in the 7-run 2nd inning of the second game of a doubleheader at Ebbets Field. The ball shatters the Bulova clock high atop the right-field scoreboard at 4:25 P.M., showering glass down on the Dodgers' Right Fielder Dixie Walker. An hour later the clock stops.
1948: At dawn this morning forces of the Irgun captures Ras el Ein near Petah Tikva the source of Jerusalem’s water supply. By nightfall, the Jewish troops had to give up their hard won victory because of counterattacks from a larger force of Iraqi soldiers.
1948: In the skies above Israel, Arab aircraft were on the attack striking at Jewish forces in several locations including Zirin, a village near Jenin, Kinereth near Timeria, Rebovoth, near Ramleh, Merchavia and Afula which was the target for incendiary bombs. The newly-minted Israeli air force struck at Tel el Kasser on the Trans Jordan border and at an area near Isdud where Egyptian forces were assembling to move on Jaffa. The Israelis lost one plane in the attack.
1948: “Israel’s last remaining dissident organization, the Stern Group, announced tonight that it had been incorporated into the regular Israeli army.” (Ed. Note: This was part of Ben Gurion’s determined effort to create a modern state with only military. This was not a popular effort and it meant with resistance from a wide spectrum of political opinion. If Ben Gurion had not pushed forward with his plan the Jewish community of the day would have looked Gaza in the 21st century.)
1949: Birthdate of Charles Samuel Shapiro “an American diplomat and a former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela. He went on to become Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary at the State Department from 2007 to 2009, and now heads its free trade agreement task force. Some supporters of president Hugo Chavez accuse Shapiro of having supported the 2002 coup d'état, including a meeting with interim president Pedro Carmona Estanga one day after the coup. Shapiro and other US sources have denied this and claim that he urged Carmona to reinstitute the dissolved national assembly. Shapiro has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Georgia State University, and served in the United States Coast Guard.
1951: Birthdate of Dallas native Stephen Tobolowsky, character actor whose most famous role might be that of Ned Reyerson, the obnoxious insurance salesman in Groundhog Day.
1951: Austrian born author Hermann Broch passed away. Broch was imprisoned in a concentration camp after the Anschluss. During his imprisonment he began writing the most important of his three major works, The Death of Virgil. Broch’s influential friends including James Joyce obtained his release and got him into the United States. He converted to Roman Catholicism prior to his death in 1951.
1958: Sarah Churchill writes to her father describing the ceremony opening the Churchill Auditoriums at the Technion. “They love you very much and the auditorium was designed to honor your achievements…”
1960(4th of Sivan, 5720): Boris Pasternak, author of Dr. Zhivago passed away
1961: Prime Minister David Ben Gurion met with President John F. Kennedy in the Presidential suite at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. The meeting lasted for an hour and a half. The two leaders discussed the sale of HAWK missiles to Israel, the reactor at Dimona and need to make some sort of conciliatory gesture concerning the Palestinian refugees.
1961(15th of Sivan, 5721): Binyamin Mintz passed away. An Israeli politician who served as Minister of Postal Services From July 1960 until his death. Born in Łódź in the Russian Empire (today in Poland), Mintz studied in a Hasidic Ger school and was a member of Young Agudat Israel. He made aliyah to Mandate Palestine in 1925, and worked in construction and as a printer. In 1933 he joined Agudat Israel Workers, and was later a member of the Provisional State Council. In 1949 he was elected to the first Knesset on the list of the United Religious Front (an alliance of the four main religious parties). Re-elected in 1951, 1955 and 1959, he was appointed Minister of Postal Services by David Ben-Gurion in 1960. The village of Yad Binyamin, established in 1962, was named in his honor.
1964(19th of Sivan, 5724): Famed nuclear physicist Leo Szilard passed away. Born in Hungry, Szilard sounded the early warning about Nazi plans to build an atomic bomb and the need for the Western Powers to do it first. His efforts led to the famous letter from Einstein, the Manhattan Project and the successful building of the Atomic Bomb Hungarians/US nuclear physicist1966: Birthdate of Stephen Malkmus indie-rock musician who played with a band called Silver Jews.
1967: King Hussein of Jordan visited Cairo. “At the meeting Nasser produced a file containing the Syrian-Egyptian defense pact” King Hussein was, in his own words “so anxious to reach agreement” that told Nasser to give him another copy of the agreement, “replace the word Syrian with the word Jordan” so that he could join the alliance without delay. Apparently, Hussein was not the reluctant participant he would later claim to have been. This was part of Arab efforts to create a united military front in what would become the Six Day War which would begin a week later. When the war broke out, the Israelis sent word to the Jordanians asking them to stay out of the fight. The Israelis assured the Jordanians that they had not intention of attacking them. The Jordanian response was to starting shelling Israel. It was this action by the Jordanians which led the Israelis to the Green Line and drive the Jordanians out of east Jerusalem.
1967: As “the Arab noose” seems to be tightening around the Israeli neck, Meir Amit was sent to Washington to check the American response if Israel launched pre-emptive strikes at Egypt. He told the defense secretary Robert MacNamara: "All we want is three things: One, that you refill our arsenal after the war. Two, that you will help us in the UN. Three, that you will isolate the Russians from the arena." MacNamara said to Amit: "I read you loud and clear."
1968: Martin Noth, German Old Testament scholar, passed away. Noth was the first authority to note that “First and Second Kings” contained virtually no mention of the classic prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos and Hosea.
1969: Palestinian terrorists blew up the oil pipeline which passes through the Golan Heights. Thousands of tons of crude oil polluted the river-beds, but were blocked before they could reach Lake Kinneret.
1970 "Minnie's Boys" a play about the Marx Brothers closed at Imperial Theater in New York City closed after 80 performances
1972: Final exams are scheduled to be held today at The Bernard M. Baruch College of the City University of New York. The exams had originally been scheduled to given on May 19 which coincided with the celebration of Shavuot. The date of the exams was changed following protests led by Hillel, the Anti-Defamation League and individual students.
1972: In Tel Aviv, members of the Japanese Red Army carry out the Lod Airport Massacre, killing 24 people and injuring 78 others.
1973(28th of Iyyar, 5733):Yom Yerushalayim
1976: Birthdate of child star Omri Katz
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that in his inaugural Knesset address the new, fifth President of Israel, Yitzhak Navon, called upon Egypt to renew peace negotiations and urged other Arab leaders to follow suit. Knesset members were so pleased with Navon's appearance that they broke a cardinal rule and spontaneously burst into applause. The Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, looking pale after several days of fever, turned up despite reports that his health might preclude his appearance.
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Tadiran gave a sneak preview of its miniature, remotely-controlled pilotless reconnaissance aircraft, the Mastiff.
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that according to Yigal Hurwitz, the Minister of Commerce and Industry, only huge budget cuts of some four to five billion pounds, accompanied by a drastic reduction of manpower in the service sector, could save Israel from the fast growing inflation.
1990(6th of Sivan, 5750): First Day of Shavuot
1990: Good luck as much as any other factor helped foil a potentially disastrous attack by heavily armed seaborne terrorists on Israeli civilians today. Air, ground and naval forces engaged the intruders, killing four and capturing 12 before they could cause casualties or damage. Meanwhile, a full-scale inquiry has been opened at Israel Defense Force General Headquarters, in order to seek answers to many questions being asked by officers, politicians and the public at large over the defensive operation conducted by the IDF. Chief of Staff Gen. Dan Shomron and his senior officers admitted they took a calculated risk by not clearing the beaches as soon as the attackers were detected. An important consideration was not to create panic, they said. They also withheld fire until it was certain the approaching boatloads of men were enemies. Two apparently well-planned and coordinated assaults were attempted by Palestinian terrorists traveling in fast fiberglass motorboats from a "mother ship" cruising more than 100 miles off the Israeli coast. In addition, more numerous landing attempts were aborted by mechanical difficulties. Responsibility for the operation, believed to have been launched from Libya, is being claimed by the Palestine Liberation Front. The PLF, headed by Mohammed (Abul) Abbas, is the group responsible for the 1985 attack on the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and the subsequent killing of Leon Klinghoffer. Initial targets were beaches north and south of Tel Aviv, where the assailants knew thousands of Israelis would be spending the Shavuot holiday sunbathing and swimming. Maps and documents found on the terrorists made clear their targets also included hotels and the center of Tel Aviv, which could be expected to be crowded with civilians. The armaments carried by the terrorists included cannons, heavy machine guns, assault rifles, side arms, grenades and explosives. The attempted landings were at Ga'ash, a beach north of Tel Aviv, and Nitzanim, a beach between Ashkelon and Ashdod to the south. More than three hours separated the two assaults. Military and civilian leaders agreed that the timing of the Shavuot attack had nothing to do with the slaying of seven Palestinians by a reputedly deranged Israeli gunman near Rishon le-Zion on May 20, though the PLF claimed it was in revenge. Experts pointed out that the attack, which included a mother ship and 16 armed men riding six speedboats, must have been planned weeks or months in advance. Israelis also admit the element of chance did much to prevent a massacre. The engine of one boat would not start when it was put into the water. Three others, including one used as a refueling tanker, broke down shortly afterwards. If all six assault boats had reached beaches or deserted areas on the coast, the outcome might have been different. In addition to the Ga'ash and Nitzanim beaches, targets circles on the terrorists' maps included Tel Aviv's beachfront hotels, the Migdal Shalom Tower, Israel's tallest office building; and Malchei Yisrael Square outside Tel Aviv City Hall. A mystery surrounds the mother ship, which was 124 miles off the Israeli coast when it dropped the speedboats. According to the IDF, it sailed from Benghazi, Libya, on Sunday and headed for Port Said, Egypt, after the attack. The Egyptian authorities were alerted but the vessel has not been found. The police anti-terrorist unit, under IDF command, took an active part in the operation, but despite official praise for IDF-police cooperation, Police Commissioner Ya'acov Terner stated publicly that he learned of the Nitzanim landing from a private citizen who telephoned him. According to news reports, the first warning of trouble was received at 6:45 a.m. local time when navy radar picked up the blips of speedboats about 26 miles off shore heading toward Ga'ash. A Dabour-class gunboat on routine patrol off Tel Aviv was sent to investigate. It intercepted the speedboat and ordered its five occupants to jump into the sea without their weapons. They were promptly captured and taken ashore. Air force spotter planes, attack helicopters and other naval vessels were immediately put on alert. But it was not until 10 a.m. local time that a second suspicious-looking speedboat was seen making for shore near Nitzanim. A Dabour gunboat gave chase but was outrun. Seven gunmen were put ashore and took cover under bushes on the sand dunes. Cobra attack helicopters rushed to the scene but had to make sure the invaders were indeed terrorists and not IDF soldiers or civilians before they opened fire. In the event, four terrorists were fatally shot by helicopter gunners or soldiers of the Givati Brigade sent to the scene Former Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin told Israel Radio that intelligence reports received about five months ago indicated that Abbas was in Libya planning a seaborne assault on Israel.
1998(5th of Sivan, 5758): Sam Aaronvitch, British economist, academic, working class intellectual and senior member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, passed away
1998: Tonight, Erev of Shavuot, Jonathan Eisenthal and as many as 150 other members of Mt. Zion Hebrew Congregation will be studying Exodus 19, the biblical passage in which God first approaches the Israelites to become partners in a divine covenant, and, through Moses, gives them the Torah. Traditionally observant Jews stay up the whole first night of Shavuot studying texts related to revelation, the giving of the Torah and the Book of Ruth. But among Reform Jews like Eisenthal, staying up the whole night, or even part of it, to study is a relatively new practice. Eisenthal is doing just what the head of the Reform movement, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, hopes to inspire among more of his constituents. Last November, in his first speech as president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the umbrella organization for Reform synagogues, Yoffie declared that "Torah is at the center" of his movement. Hebrew literacy, and a knowledge of core Jewish texts, was, he said, to be the focus of a new campaign.
2001: President Bush welcomes Israeli President Moshe Katsav to the White House for a working dinner with Jewish leaders and senior Administration officials.
2001: A car bomb explodes outside a school in Netanya. Eight people are injured.
2003: (28th of Iyar, 5763) Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Reunification Day
2005: Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar decides to recognize the members of India's Bnei Menashe community as descendants of the ancient Israelites. Amar also decides to dispatch a team of rabbinical judges to India to convert the community members to Orthodox Jews. Such a conversion will enable their immigration to Israel under the Law of Return, without requiring the Interior Ministry's authorization.
2005: President Moshe Katsav arrives in Germany to mark 40 years of diplomatic relations during a three-day visit in which he is to address the German parliament.
2007: An exhibition, ''Sisters by Color'' comes to a close at the Hebrew University. The exhibition, featuring works of art by sisters Rachel Ziv and Gila Elyashar Stolisky, opened on April, 12, 2007, in the presence of the Lithuanian Ambassador to Israel Asta Skaisgiryte Liauskiene.
2007: As the missile attacks continue, a Qassam rocket hit a high-voltage electricity pole and landed on a building in the western Negev city of Sderot this evening. The house sustained some damage, but the residents of the home had been secured inside a protected room and remained unharmed.
2008: On Friday night, Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa celebrates the third and final Special Musical Sabbaths for this year.
2008: In article entitled “A Class For All Traditions,” the Chicago Tribune reports on The Chicago Jewish Day School on its fifth anniversary.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/content/education/chi-relig_jewishschoolmay30,0,6624247,print.story
2009(7th of Sivan, 5769: Second Day Shavuot – Yizkor
2009: Stephan M. Silverman, a clinical and school psychologist and Jacqueline S. Iseman, a clinical psychologist specializing in children and adolescents lead a discussion of “School Success for Kids With ADHD” at Borders Books in Rockville, MD.
2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish of authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including "The Invisible Bridge" by Julie Orringer and "Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law" by Gabriel Schoenfeld.
2011: Limmud Colorado’s Fourth Annual Conference is scheduled to come to an end.
2011: Israeli Homeland Security Minister Matan Vilna'i and his Russian counterpart Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu are scheduled to sign an agreement to increase Israeli-Russian cooperation in emergency situations during a ceremony at the Knesset today.
2011(26th of Iyar, 5771): Yahrzeit Moshe Chaim Luzzatto. Born in 1707 he “was a prominent Italian Jewish rabbi, kabbalist, and philosopher.” Known by the Hebrew acronym RaMCHaL (or RaMHaL, רמח"ל), he passed in 1746
Created, Compiled & Edited by Mitchell Levin Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com
Copyright; May, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin
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