This Day, July 2, In Jewish History

JULY 2 In Jewish History

419: Birthdate of Valentinian III, the Roman Emperor who issued a decree prohibiting Jews from practicing law and holding public office.

1029: Birthdate of Caliph Al-Mustansir of Cairo. He was the grandson of the third Fatimid caliph, al-Hakim founder of the *Druze sect who promulgated a variety of ant-Jewish and anti-Christian decrees which he later he rescinded. His grandson ruled in this more liberal environment in which the Jews were able to propser. A Jewish merchant named Abu Sa’ad or in Hebrew Abraham ben Yashar and his brother Abu Nasr Hesed were two leaders of the Jewish community during Mustansir’s reign.

1298: Albert I of Habsburg defeated Adolf of Nassau-Weilburg at the The Battle of Göllheim serving to cement the dominant position of the Habsburgs in the Germanic states of central Europe. As is the case with so many Christian monarchs, Albert’s treatment of his Jewish subjects was a mixed bag. In 1298 he 1 endeavored to suppress riots based on the blood libel that were sweeping the Rhineland and imposed a fine on the town of St. Poelten. But in1306, “he punished the Jews in *Korneuburg on a charge of desecration of the Host.”

1389: The Pope issued a bull condemning the attacks on the Jews of Bohemia that had begun on Easter Sunday, April 18, 1389. The mobs ignored the Pope and Emperor Wensceslaus refused to protect his Jewish subjects claiming that they deserved to suffer since they should not have been out of their houses on Easter Sunday.

1490: A Chumash with commentary by the Ramban was published for the first time. The Ramban is Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman also known as Nachmanides. He was a Spanish physician and noted Torah scholar who lived during the 13th century. He is not to be confused with the Rambam, Moses Maimonides who was also born in Spain and who was an even greater Torah scholar. The Ramban was born after the Rambam had already passed away.

1494: Spain ratified The Treaty of Tordesillas which divided all new found lands outside of Europe between Portugal and Spain. This was bad news for the Jews since it meant they would be banned from a wide swath of land including the Americas and the spice islands off the coast of Asia. Fortunately, Protestant countries like England and Holland would not feel bound by this absurd piece of paper and Jews would be able to settle and prosper in the lands that would be “discovered” and colonized over the next two centuries.

1566: Nostradamus passed away. His grandfather was Jewish but his father converted to Catholicism. According to one source Nostradamus was thought to have been a descendent of the lost Jewish tribe of Issacher, a tribe that was noted to be knowledgeable in astrology and the mystical arts.

1776: The Continental Congress resolved "these United Colonies are & of right ought to be Free & Independent States." This marked the actual declaration of independence by the thirteen colonies. While there were some Jews who were Loyalist, most favored the cause of Independence and supported it with the lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.

1778: Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau passed away. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Rousseau took a comparatively view of the Jewish people. Among other things he wrote, “We shall never know the inner motives of the Jews until the day they have their own free state, schools and universities where they can speak and argue without fear. Then, and only then, shall we know what they really have to say.”

1816(6th of Tamuz, 5576): Gershom Mendez Seixas passed away. Born at New York City in 1745, he was the son of Isaac Mendez Seixas and Rachel Levy, daughter of Moses Levy, an early New York merchant. For almost half a century Seixas served as the Rabbi of Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese congregation in New York City. He was an ardent patriot and supporter of the American Revolution.

1853: The Russian Army invades Turkey, beginning the Crimean War. The British and the French both sided with the Turks, assisting them in the defeat of the Russians. The Paris Treaty of 1858, concluding the war, granted Jews and Christians the right to settle in Palestine, forced upon the Ottoman Turks by the British for their assistance in the war effort. This decision opened the doors for Jewish immigration to Palestine.

1854: Jews living in Los Angeles, having recognized the necessity of organizing in order to provide for religious services, a Jewish cemetery and Jewish welfare needs, met today and formed the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Los Angeles, the first charitable group to be founded in the city. Samuel K. Labatt was elected president, not only because he had the language facility of a native-born American, but also because he had similar experience in New Orleans. The following year, the Hebrew Benevolent society established a Jewish cemetery in Chavez Ravine. This society still exists, now over 145 years old under the name of Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles having been active longer than any other such group in Southern California. As the first president, Samuel K. Labatt was responsible for local efforts in defending the fair name of Jewry against the 1855 anti-Semitic attack by William Stow in the California State Assembly.

1855: In a letter written today, Thomas Hugo, Senior Curate of St. Botolph, described “The Thieves Exchange” in London which is populated by 15,000 individuals including “Jews of the lowest grade.” “But the great majority are nominally Christians.”

1861: Alfred Mordecai, Jr., was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Army. He was the son of Major Alfred Mordecai, one of the most prominent Jewish soldiers in the U.S. Army at the outbreak of the Civil War. Major Mordecai, who was a southerner by birth, could not bring himself to fight against those among whom he had grown up. Yet, unlike others, he was honorable enough not to be able to fight against the Union, so he resigned. His son had no such qualms and served throughout the war with distinction, eventually rising to the rank of Brigadier General.
1870: It was reported today that the Jewish Messenger has strongly ridiculed the efforts of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews.” The Messenger proudly noted that the Society had spent $200,000 last year and had only been able convert 4 adults and “nine infants.” With such meager results, the Messenger suggests that the millions that have been over the past 63 years in an attempt to convert Jews would have been spent to improve the lot of the many indigent and needy Christians. Furthermore, if the Jews have held fast to their faith over the centuries when faced with the threat of fire and sword, why would anybody think that they would convert now that they were living in a society where they enjoyed comparative peace and the rights of citizenship.

1871: It was reported today that the Jewish Times has “severely” denounced pronouncements made at the recent conference of American Rabbis held at Cincinnati, Ohio, as not being “representative of Judaism. The Times took issue with the presenter who “repudiated” the concept of a personal God, “denied that the belief in a personal God was taught in biblical Judaism and said that the God of the Bible was “implacable,” capable only of meting out punishment and that “the idea of personal and pardoning God had its origin in Christianity.” The Times also took issue with another speaker who agreed that there was no personal God which made an “absurdity” out of the concept of offering a prayer to God. The Times was alarmed by the fact that nobody took issues with these and other similar speakers and that one of these speakers had been selected to develop a new prayerbook. The Times wondered if the leaders would ultimate wish to remain “within the pale of Judaism.”

1871: Victor Emmanuel II of Italy entered Rome after its conquest from the Papal States making it the capital of the newly unified nation of Italy. Jews had played an active role in the various acts that led to the creation of modern Italy. For once, the Jews were not disappointed at the outcome as Italy became one of the most hospitable places for Jews to live until the 1930’s.

1871: The Anglo-Jewish Association was established in London based on the principles of the French Alliance Israelite. It was soon imitated in Germany in the form of the Lifaverein der Dutchen Juden.

1872: The cornerstone was laid this afternoon at the corner of Lexington & 63rd for a new synagogue to house Ansche Chesed which has outgrown its current facility on Norfolk Street near Houston. When finished, the building, which will cost a quarter of a million dollars will have space for 1,400 congregants as well as classrooms and offices for the staff. Rabbi Mielziner officiated at the ceremony which included a speech about the history of the congregation by its leader, President Herman who placed an artifact filled box into the cornerstone. Rabbi Vidaver, of Congregation B’nai Jeshrun gave a sermon in English and ceremonies were closed with the singing of the 150th Psalm.

1873: In what has become an annual summer event, 432 children from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and the Hebrew Free Schools of New York enjoyed a day-long outing that included a barge trip from Manhattan to Long Island, plenty of fun and fresh air as well as a goodly supply of food and drink including fresh milk. The group left at 8:30 in the morning and arrived home at 7 in the evening. The committee responsible for the event included Lewis S. Levy, Chairman, Asher T. Meyer, Treasurer and Julius Rosenbaum, Secretary. More such trips are planned for later in the summer.

1879: The New York Times published the terms of the will of the late Baron Lionel de Rothschild. The estate is valued at 2,700,000 pounds. His sons, Sir Nathaniel and Mr. Alfred were named as executors.

1896: Theodor Herzl began a trip to England that would last until July 20.

1901: Jacob Saphirstein begins printing The Jewish Morning Journal the first Yiddish daily morning newspaper established in New York. “Its staff of writers includes Jacob Magidoff (city editor), Ḥayyim Malitz, A. M. Sharkansky, M. Seifert, I. Friedman, and Peter Wiernik. While professedly Orthodox and Zionistic, it is the most secular of the Yiddish papers in America, and is an ardent advocate of the Americanization of the Russian immigrants who form the bulk of its readers.”

1906: Delegates at today’s session of the Federation of American Zionist meeting responded enthusiastically to a letter from Max Nordau that contained “a strong appeal for support of the Jewish institutions in Palestine.”

1906: Birthdate of Nobel Laureate in Physics Hans Bethe.

1909: At the end of a successful seven week strike, “triumphant bakers marched though the Lower East of Manhattan carrying a loaf of bread five wide and fifteen feet long” which was emblematic of their hard won victory. Most of the bakers involved in the strike were Jewish.

1918: Pitcher Ed Corey made his major league debut with the Chicago White Sox.

1921(26th of Sivan, 5681): Jacob A. Cantor, a leader of the New York Democratic
Party for forty years, passed away. The son of immigrants from London, Cantor served in numerous positions including President of the Borough of Manhattan, President of the New York State, and member of the United States House of Representatives.

1923: “The first coupons to fall due on the bonds” issued by the municipality of Tel Aviv “are paid at the offices of the Guaranty Trust Company.” Although the bonds were issued in pounds, they will be redeemed in dollars for the convenience of the American bondholders. Meyer Dizengoff, the Mayor of Tel Aviv, is present for the redemption ceremony.

1927: The Rothschild Hospital in Jerusalem is partially destroyed as an earthquake hits Palestine.

1931: Tempers flared at today’s meeting of the World Zionist Congress as New Yorker Berl Locker, leader of the Paole Tzion likened the Revisionists led by Valdmir Jabotinsky to the “Hitlerites.” Locker relented and apologized for his remarks. Jabotinsky responded with an impassioned speech demanding a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan and assailing the leadership of Chaim Weizmann. Ben Gurion responded in defense of Weizmann and his efforts to negotiate with the British. He ridiculed the Revisionists as “easy Zionist” who ignored the reality of the situation in Palestine. American Zionist leaders expressed their support for Weizmann. The conflict between the two wings of the Zionist movement is driven by the restrictions of the Passfield White Paper and the obvious fact that the British government is reneging on the Balfour Declaration.

1933: In Chicago, Mayor Kelly addresses the ZOA at the formal opening of its convention.

1933: Chaim Weismann is the guest of honor at Jewish Day at A Century of Progress Exposition aka, The Chicago World’s Fair.

1935: Birthdate of pianist and educator Gilbert Kalish. Kalish has been the pianist for the Boston Symphony Chamber Players since 1969. He is the Leading Professor and Head of Performance Activities at SUNY, Stony Brook. He was also on the faculty at Tangelwood Music Center for 30 years.

1936: The Palestine Post reported that Yitzhak Glazer, a local watchman, was shot dead by Arab terrorists in Hadera. Another guard, Jacob Bahar, was severely injured by Arab fire at Motza. Arab terrorists, interned at the detention camp at Sarafand, went on a hunger strike, as a protest against the camp's conditions. Arab "tree-killers" cut down about 40 old, fruit-bearing olive trees in Zichron Ya'acov.

1936: The Palestine Post reported that Dr. Paul Zubek from Vienna was to be deported after police found a large quantity of Nazi literature in his flat in Tel Aviv.

1939(15th of Tamuz, 5699): In Haifa, an unidentified killer murdered Abraham Joseph Cohen, “one of the few surviving members of the tiny Samaritan Jewish community in Nablus.”

1941: Nazi-instigated pogrom claimed many Jewish lives in Lvov.

1941 (7th of Tammuz, 5701): A German cavalry unit on patrol in Lubieszow, Volhynia, Ukraine, murders Jewish resisters.

1942 (17th of Tammuz, 5702): The Jewish community from Ropczyce, Poland, is murdered at the Belzec death camp.

1942: The New York Times reported on the "slaughter of 700,000 Jews" in German-occupied Poland.

1943(29th of Sivan, 5703): Helena Nordheim, later Helena Kloot- Nordheim, was gassed today. Nordheim was one of five Jewish members of the 1928 Dutch Ladies’ Gymnastic Team that placed first ahead of teams from Italy and Great Britain.

1944: Salomao Nauslausky was among the first five thousand members of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (BEF) that left Brazil for Europe aboard the USNS General Mann. While serving with the BEF in Italy, Nauslausky served with such distinction that “he was mentioned in dispatches.

1944: As the Red Army closed in on the Lithuanian city of Vilna, the Germans seized 1800 Jews from their work in the factories and took them to Ponar where they were shot.

1944: Responding to Allied threats that he would be held personally responsible for war crimes, Regent Miklos Horthy order “a halt to all further deportations of Jews and Eichmann was advised to return to Germany.”

1946: Birthdate of Ron Silver, Tony-award winning actor and political activist.

1946: At eight o'clock this evening, radio station WEVD will broadcast the news in Yiddish.

1946: At 8:15 pm radio station WEVD will broadcast a program called "The Jewish Philosopher"

1946: Dr. Nahum Goldman, Rabbi Stephen Wise, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver and Louis Lipsky are scheduled to meet with President Truman today "to describe the situation in Palestine and to talk over the implementation of the Presidential recommendation for entrance of 100,000 Jews into the territory."

1947: Birthdate of Larry David. This actor, writer and producer is best known for his work on Seinfeld" and his own HBO show.

1948: Birthdate of German born (his parents were really Poles) Canadian cinema actor Saul Rubinek.

1950: The Government of Israel came out tonight in full support of the United Nations measures seeking to end the war in Korea. This is stark contrast with stand of several Arab states including Egypt, which have come out in favor of “neutrality” in responding to what the Israeli government recognized as acts of aggression on the Korean Peninsula.

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that China accepted the US bid for peace in Korea.

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the first issue of Omer, the vowelized daily newspaper for new immigrants in simple Hebrew, had appeared on newsstands. It included a glossary in Spanish, French, Arabic and Yiddish.

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that a young man was killed by an Arab Legion sniper in the Musrara quarter of Jerusalem.

1959: Ogden R. Reid officially presented his credentials as the United States Ambassador to Israel.

1961: American author Ernest Hemingway took his own life. Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, featured a Jewish character, Robert Cohn. Cohn was a friend of the novel’s protagonist, Jake Barnes. Cohn is not only insecure, he is an insecure Jew. While attending Princeton, his sense of insecurity is heightened by his brushes with anti-Semitism. In the best of tradition of Hemingway, Cohn compensates for his Jewishness and insecurity by becoming a boxer. The Jewish jock, especially the Jew as a boxer may have resonated well with readers of the time, since Jews held a number of boxing titles during the 1920’s and 1930’s. Although Hemingway was not Jewish, his books were featured at Nazi book burnings where the works of Einstein, Freud, et al were consumed by the flames.

1962: The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas. Over the year’s Wal-Mart would prove to be a useful place to shop for Jews living outside of major metropolitan areas who were observing the dietary laws. Not only did Wal-Mart carry numerous Kosher items, but many of its affordable house-brands carried the Hechser as well.

1964: President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Jewish political leaders played a major role in passing this piece of landmark legislation. Congressman Cellar, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was the driving force in getting the bill through the House of Representative. Today we take the provisions of this anti-discrimination law for granted. It is difficult to believe how controversial it all this was almost fifty years ago. It is also difficult to believe what an act of political it took to support this law. And in the case of President and Ladybird Johnson it was an act of personal courage as well since there would attempts on their lives during the upcoming election campaign. Although thought of as a law to end racial discrimination, the law banned discrimination based on several criteria including sex amd religion. Oddly enough, one of the opponenets of the bill was Senator Barry Goldwater, the son of a Jewish merchant who would be the Republican Presidential candidate in the fall.

1969: As hostilities heated up along the Suez, Israeli paratroops conducted their second deep penetration of Egyptian territory in less than a week, killing thirteen, taking 3 prisoners and gathering additional intelligence for the IDF.

1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel began proceedings, through the French government, for the release of 98 Israelis held by hijackers in Entebbe, Uganda. The hijackers extended their deadline for three days and released 101 hostages. The remaining hostages included 98 Israelis and other Jews of dual nationality, as well as a crew of 12.

1977: Russian born writer Vladimir Nabokov passed away. Nabokov was not Jewish but his wife’s family was. More importantly, his father had a champion of Jewish rights in the days of Czarist Russia. Nabokov was living in France in 1940. Because of these aforementioned “Jewish connections” a Jewish welfare organization helped get him out of the country when the Nazis marched into Paris.

1984: Small arms fire directed at an Israeli car in Jerusalem wounded several children.

2000: The New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including "MacArthur’s War: Korea and the Undoing of an American Hero" by Stanley Weintraub and "The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America" by Jeffrey Rosen.

2001: Doctors at Jewish Hospital in Louisville implanted the first AbioCor heart replacement in a seven hour long operation. Unlike earlier artificial hearts such as the Jarvik-7 the AbioCor has no wires or tubes that stick out of the chest and connect to a big compressor. The battery-powered, plastic-and-titanium device is the size of a softball.

2005(25th of Sivan, 5765): Cinema screenwriter Ernest Lehman passed away. Born in 1915 Lehman was nominated for six Oscars. He was responsible for the scripts for such hits as “The Sweet Smell of Success,” “The Sound of Music,” and “North by Northwest.” He gained additional fame as the director of “Portnoy’s Complaint.”

2006. Rabbis Stephanie Alexander and Aaron Sherman celebrate their wedding anniversary

2006: Rabbi Stephanie Alexander celebrates her birthday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2006: West Magazine published “How Hollywood Really Operates” by Leonard Mlodinow.

2006: Israel continued its military efforts to gain the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit. An Israel Air Force attack helicopter launched a missile before dawn striking the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza City. Also before dawn, the IAF struck the headquarters of a Palestinian Authority security organization founded by Hamas in Gaza, killing one of the group's operatives and injuring another, Israel Radio reported.

2007: The Verbatim section of Time Magazine quotes the words of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as he withdraws from the Republican Party. “Real results are more important than partisan battles, [and] good ideas should take precedence over rigid adherence to any particular political ideology.” According to some, Bloomberg’s switch to Independent presages a run for the Presidency in 2008 which would make him the first viable Jewish candidate to ever seek the top job in America.

2007: In Jerusalem, "Life in Film," a series focusing on the Jewish communities around the world as captured in film, features "Judaism in Iran - Past and Present." The event includes a meeting with Orly Rachmian from Ben Gurion University and Machon Ben-Zvi and selections from a documentary about the lives of Jews in Iran.

2007: President George Bush commuted the sentence of convicted government official “Scooter” Libby. Mr. Libby was an aide to Vice President Cheney and one of the Jews serving in the Bush administration.

2007(16th of Tamuz, 5767): Famed soprano Beverly Sills passed away at the age of 78.

2007(16th of Tamuz, 5767): Hy Zaret, one of the last of the Tin Pan Alley lyricists, whose most indelible work was the oft-recorded 1955 hit “Unchained Melody” but whose oeuvre ranged from jingles to songs about science to ballads of love and war passed away at the age of 99.

2008: In a news conference held today by Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the terrorist group called Hezbollah, held a news conference during which he stated that his group conducted a detailed investigation into the fate of Ron Arad, the missing Israeli navigator. He declined to reveal the information unearthed during the investigation, claiming that he had turned over the results to the United Station

2008: Majdi Halabi’s family received a telephone call from an inmate in Damon Prison who claimed that Halabi had been abducted and was being held in the vicinity of Nablus in the West Bank

2008: General Robert Magnus completes his tour as the 30th Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps.

2008: “Leisure Time in Israel” featuring the works of Israeli photographer Orit Siman-Tov opens at the JCC in Manhattan.

2008(29th of Sivan, 5768): Three Israelis were killed and dozens more wounded when a Palestinian construction worker driving a bulldozer plowed deliberately into a crowded bus and a string of cars in downtown Jerusalem. Jerusalem residents Bat Sheva Unterman, 33, Elizabeth Goren-Friedman, 54, and Jean Raloy, were named as the fatalities in the attack. Unterman was a resident of Jerusalem's Rehavia neighborhood, and worked as a nanny in a religious kindergarten in the city's Har Homa quarter. She was killed when the car she was driving was crushed by the oncoming bulldozer. Unterman's 6-month-old daughter, Efrat, was evacuated from the car just before the vehicle was hit.Her husband, Ido, was notified only hours after the attack that his wife had been killed.Unterman was the daughter of Rifka and James Lubenstein, immigrants from Holland. Her husband, Ido, is the grandson of Rabbi Isser Yehuda Unterman, who served as chief rabbi of Liverpool and of Tel Aviv, and also as chief rabbi of Israel from 1964-1973.The Unterman couple had tried for years to have children, but managed only with the birth of Efrat last year. Bat-Sheva had extended her maternity leave by a few months, returning to work last week with her daughter to celebrate the end of the year party. Unterman's friend, Meira Schwartz, described her as a person filled with faith, who never gave up her dream of having children, even after having to go through countless procedures. "Until Efrat was born, the children in the kindergarten were like her own, and she was a nanny of the highest excellence, with exemplary patience for each and ever child," said Schwartz. Unterman will be laid to rest at 11:30 P.M. in the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem. Elizabeth Goren-Friedman, originally from Austria, was a resident of Katamon who worked as a teacher in a school for the blind. She was laid to rest at 10:30 P.M. in Givat Shaul. Goren-Friedman was divorced and the mother of three children: Yael, 16, Issachar, 19, and Zvi, 23. Both of her sons were students at the Horev hesder yeshiva in Jerusalem. Her friends described her as a "wonderful person," who volunteered regularly at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. Rachel Sakrovish, who worked with Goren-Friedman, said her colleague was an excellent teachers. "It's hard to speak about her in the last tense. Lili was a wonderful person. There was not a student that she did not help progress on a personal, educational, and rehabilitative level. We knew that if a student was retreated or having difficulties, Luly was the teacher who would do the fundamental work to help him advance.""When I think of her, I remember the phrase, 'a woman of valor, who can find,'" she said. Jean Raloy, an air-conditioner technician who lived in the Gilo neighborhood, was the third person killed in the terrorist's murder spree. His nephew said "the first thing with Jean was his family." Raloy, who was born in Iran, was married to Hanna and the father of two daughters and a son, and was to become a grandfather in about a month.

2008: The Jerusalem Post reported that a London university made history this week when it appointed the country's first professor of Israeli studies. The University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) named Dr. Colin Shindler, reader in Israeli and Modern Jewish Studies and chair of the Center for Jewish Studies, as the first professor of Israeli studies in the UK. "This is a real advance for Israeli Studies in this country," Shindler said. "SOAS is the natural and appropriate institution for this chair. This is a great honor for me personally." SOAS is one of the UK's top schools and notorious for having an anti-Israel atmosphere on campus. The university's Palestinian Society annually hosts controversial events such as "Israel Apartheid Week" and this year's two-day conference on the "one-state" solution. Last year, posters on campus advertising the launch of a book written by Shindler, entitled What Do Zionists Believe?, were daubed with swastikas. Shindler joined the Department of Languages and Cultures of the Near and Middle East at SOAS in 1998. He convenes both the BA and MA programs in Hebrew and Israeli studies, and lectures on an array of subjects such as Zionist ideology, and "Israel and the Arab World and the Palestinians." His professorship comes as a direct result of his efforts and commitment to developing the Israeli Studies Department at SOAS, the university said. Each year, his classes are filled to capacity with students from an array of backgrounds and ethnic origins. A number of his students now provide young, dynamic leadership for several Jewish communal organizations such as the Zionist Federation, BICOM, World Jewish Relief and the Israeli Embassy. "This is a welcomed and well-deserved appointment for Dr. Shindler, who is very popular on campus with a wide range of students," said Gavin Gross, a former Middle Eastern studies MA student and currently director of public affairs at the Zionist Federation. "He covers Israeli and Zionist history in a very intellectual, thoughtful and level-headed manner, which is sadly not always the case with other academics and certainly not in the SOAS Student Union. I enjoyed my academic work there and would encourage others to consider studying Israel and the Middle East at SOAS." Shindler is the author of seven books and an authority on the Revisionist Zionist movement and the origins and emergence of the Israeli Right. Cambridge University Press recently published his book The History of Modern Israel to mark Israel's 60th anniversary. Active in Jewish affairs since the 1960s, Shindler was one of the originators of the campaign for Soviet Jewry in the UK, and in the 1970s served as political secretary of the World Union of Jewish Students. In 1982, he helped found the British Friends of Peace Now, of which he continues to be a patron. He served as editor of Jewish Quarterly and Judaism Today and has written for an array of think tanks, journals and publications, including The Jerusalem Post. Shindler remains at the forefront of higher education issues related to Israel, speaking out against the proposed boycott of Israeli academia and facilitating Israeli and Palestinian students in the Olive Tree program at London's City University.

2009: Today the fourth annual week devoted to the cooperation of the IDF and the Israel Antiquities Authority in preserving the country's environment and antiquities comes to an end with this last day focusing primarily on current archeological issues.

2009: The Randi & Bruce Pergament Jewish Film Festival features a screening of “Goyband,” a campy comedy that’s a cross between “Dirty Dancing” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” in which a fading teen idol is booked to perform at a kosher Catskills hotel-casino and a romance ensues between the hotel owner’s already engaged daughter and the boy band icon.

2009: The Washington Post featured a review of "The Sweet Science and Other Writings: The Sweet Science, The Earl of Louisiana, The Jollity Building, Between Meals, The Press" by A.J. Liebling.

2010: An exhibit of the paintings of Israeli, award-winning, artist Liron Sissman is scheduled to open at the prestigious National Arts Club in Manhattan.

2010: A southbound lane of traffic on Highway 4 south of Beit Leed was closed to traffic this morning because of the march on behalf of of abducted soldier Gilad Shalit. It's the sixth day of the march to Jerusalem from the Shalit family's home in the westen Galilee.

2010: The Health Ministry removed its warning about bathing at beaches in Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv, today following checks of water quality. The public was warned at the beginning of the week not to go into the water at a number of the beaches because of the flow of sewage into the sea.

2011: In a rare musical treat, Cantor Joel Caplan, son of Richard and Ellen Caplan, and father of Ilan Caplan is scheduled to lead services at Agudas Achim in Iowa City, Iowa.

2011: Rabbi Raphael Bensimon and Rabbi Feivel Staruss are scheduled to lead services in Cedar Rapids, Iowa during which the congregation will participate in Feivel’s Aufruf. Rabbi Strauss is the fiancée of Abbie Silber, daughter of Laurie and Dr. Bob Silber, a mensch in the truest sense of the term.

2011: Hani Skutch is scheduled to appear at the Off the Wall Comedy Club in Jerusalem this evening.

2011(30th of Sivan): Rosh Chodesh Tamuz

Created and Edited by Mitchell Levin Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com
Copyright; June, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin

This Day, July 1, In Jewish History

JULY 1 In Jewish History


69: Tiberius Julius Alexander orders his Roman legions in Alexandria to swear allegiance to Vespasian as emperor. This consolidate of Vespasian’s imperial power helped to seal the fate of Jerusalem since the destruction of the Jewish capital was his way of proving that law and order would prevail in the empire.

70 C.E.: Titus set up battering rams to assault the walls of Jerusalem.

985: In Barcelona, several Jewish residents were killed by the Moslem leader Al-Mansur. Many of them were land owners who left no heirs. According to the law, all their lands were given over to the Count of Barcelona. In Spain at this time it was not uncommon for Jews to own vineyards and other lands.

1224: Duke Frederick II granted a charter to all Jews under his control which “became the model by which the status of the Jews of Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, Silesia, and Poland was regulated.”

1388: Jews of Lithuania received a Charter of Privilege.

1581: Gregory XIII issued “Antiqua judaeorum improbitas,” a Papal Bull that “authorized the Inquisition directly to handle cases involving Jews, especially those concerning blasphemies against Jesus or Mary, incitement to heresy or assistance to heretics, possession of forbidden books, or the employment of Christian wet nurses.” (Jewish Virtual Library shows the date as June 1, 1581)

1569: The Union of Lublin joins The Kingdom of Poland and the Great Duchy of Lithuania into a united country called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or the Republic of Both Nations. This had to be an improvement in the situation for the Jews of Lithuania who were governed by statutes that read in part, "The Jews shall not wear costly clothing, nor gold chains, nor shall their wives wear gold or silver ornaments. The Jews shall not have silver mountings on their sabers and daggers; they shall be distinguished by characteristic clothes; they shall wear yellow caps, and their wives kerchiefs of yellow linen, in order that all may be enabled to distinguish Jews from Christians." During the 15th and 16th centuries the Jews of Poland enjoyed an increasing amount of political autonomy and economic well being which would come to a crashing end with the Ukrainian uprisings in the 17th centuries.

1651: Poland was victorious over the Cossacks. The Jews were allowed to return to their lands but the society that they had built was gone forever.

1776: First Jew lost his life in the American Revolution.

1798: In Switzerland, special taxes on the Jews were finally abolished.

1805(4th of Tamuz, 5565): Pinchas Horowitz, a rabbi and Talmudist who was born at Chortkiv in 1731 died today at Frankfort-on-the-Main

1810: The reign of Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, as King of Holland, came to an end. Bonaparte sought to improve the condition of the Jews. Among other things he abolished the “Oath More Judaico” and opened military service to Jews by creating two battalions made up exclusively of Jewish soldiers and officers.

1857: According to the New York Times, there are 1,500,000 Jews living in Russia out of a population estimated at 63,000,000.

1858: The House of Lords took up the question of admitting Jews into Parliament. Lord Derby expressed a willingness to end his opposition to the measure as a way of avoiding a major collision with the House of Commons. [Editor’s note – The issue of Jewish emancipation was not strictly a “Jewish issue.” It may also be seen as part of a larger power struggle between the Establishment as represented by the Lords and the changing economic and social milieu as represented by the Commons. The issue of Jewish Emancipation was but one of many issues over which this battle was fought with the Commons ultimately emerging victorious.]

1862: Russian Jews were granted permission to print Jewish books

1863: First day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Just as the war pitted brother against brother, so it pitted Jew against Jew. At Gettysburg, Prussian born Major Adolph Proskauer of Mobile led the 12th Alabama against the Army of the Potomac which included Lieutenant Abraham Cohn, a native of East Prussia, who fought with the 6th New Hampshire Volunteers. Cohn fought in 11 battles and won the Congressional Medal of Honor. Proskauer did not survive his service with the Rebel Army.
For more information about Jews in the Civil War see http://www.jewish-history.com/civilwar/default.htm

1867: With the passage of the British North America Act, Great Britain officially recognizes the Dominion of Canada as an independent country. Jews had been living in Canada since the British took it from France in the 17th century. There were enough Jews living in Montreal to allow for the creation of a synagogue called Shearith Israel. While most members of the small Jewish community lived in various towns in the eastern part of the country enough Jews arrived in British Columbia during the Gold Rush that a synagogue was constructed in Victoria in 1862. At the time that Britain recognized the independence of Canada there were about 1,000 Jews living in “our neighbor to the North.” This number would explode shortly thereafter with the beginning of the immigration of Russian Jews.

1873: Prince Edward Island joins the Canadian Confederation. Apparently, Jews did not start settling in Prince Edward Island until the first decade of the 20th century with the arrival of Louis, Israel and Abie Block. The three brothers were from Riga and may have been the Jews who were described in 1908 newspaper article as having celebrated Passover in this part of Canada.

1874: “Ivanhoe or, Rebecca, the Jewess,” a “dramatization” of Sir Walter Scott’s famous novel opened tonight at Niblo’s Theatre in New York City. The play, which presents a sympathetic depiction of Isaac of York and his daughter was well received by the audience. [Editor’s Note – The positive response of the audience to Jewish characters stands at odds at with the outbreak of genteel anti-Semitism that is soon about to infect polite society in New York and elsewhere.]

1877: It was reported today that people in Bucharest were quite surprised to learn that Jewish citizens in the United States had presented a petition to Secretary of State William Evarts asking him to intervene on behalf of their co-religionists in Romania and Turkey. According to the reports, the Jews of the region were even more surprised than the gentiles to hear of this request for intervention by the government of President Rutherford B. Hays.

1877: Wilhelm Bacher “was appointed by the Hungarian government to the professorship of the newly created Landesrabbinerschule of Budapest.”

1878: At the insistence of Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck the Congress of Berlin incorporated into the Treaty of Berlin an article intended to provide the Jews of Romania with the opportunity for full citizenship. Unfortunately, the Romanians evaded the article and only a hand full of Jews would gain citizenship.

1880: (12th of Tammuz): Birthdate of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok who would become the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe. The Rebbe would overcome a terrifying imprisonment at the hands of Stalin’s henchmen in the 1920’s. Later, he would escape the clutches of the Nazis and settle in Brooklyn where he revived the cause of Chabad-Lubavitch. The Rebbe would launch, what would become under his son-in-law who was the Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, one of history’s most successful Jewish outreach programs.

1898: In the Spanish-American War Teddy Roosevelt & his Rough Riders charged up San Juan Hill in Cuba. The Rough Riders was a cavalry unit recruited by Roosevelt that drew on every strata of American life from Western cowboys to Yankee Bluebloods. Several Jews served with the united including Jacob Wilbusky, the first Roughrider killed in action. The Roughriders were forced to leave their horses back the United States so the famous charge was made on foot.

1899: The Conference of the English Zionist Federation comes to an end.

1900: Herzl turns to Prime Minister Koerber and asks him to use his influence with the Sultan to permit the Rumanian Jews to immigrate into Turkey and to receive him, in order to discuss the question of colonization and settlement.

1902: Birthdate of Oscar winning director Billy Wyler. Wyler directed many classics including the World War II tear-jerker Mrs. Miniver. Ironically, his greatest hit was The Best Years of Our Lives, a film that described the return of four veterans to civilian life after World War II. Once again, the Jews played a major role in crafting the cultural myths of Middle American Culture.

1907: Birthdate of famed sportscaster Bill Stern.

1907: The SS Cassel entered the port of Galveston, Texas with 87 Russian Jews aboard, heralding the start of the Galveston Movement - an organized attempt to bring Jews to less populated parts of the US.

1908: Birthdate of Estee Lauder. Lauder was born Josephine Esther Mentzer, the daughter of Hungarian Jewish immigrants. She married Joseph Lauter who changed the family named to Lauder in the late 1930’s. Mrs. Lauder was CEO of Estee Lauder’s Cosmetics. . She was one of several Jewish women who found fame and fortune in the cosmetics business. She was the only woman on Time magazine's 1998 list of the 20 most influential business geniuses of the 20th century. She passed away in 2004 at the age of 97.

1909: Birthdate of Antonina Pirozhkova, the common-law widow of Russian literary giant Isaac Babel who wrote a well-received memoir that provided a rare glimpse of the persecuted writer's final years in the 1930s.

1916: Birthdate of landscape architect Lawrence Halprin who died in October of 2009

1920: Sir Herbert Samuel, a British statesman was appointed High Commissioner of
Eretz-Israel. His first official act was to grant amnesty to political prisoners including Jabotinsky. He governed the British Mandate for five years. Sir Herbert governed as a British official, not as a Jew and there were clashes between him and some Zionist leaders.

1921: Dr. Thomas G. Allen, Secretary of the Oriental Institute announced today that the thanks to a $60,000 grant by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. the University of Chicago will excavate the site of Armageddon or Megiddo.

1923: Fast of the 17th of Tammuz

1927: (12th of Tammuz): Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok is liberated from his death sentence and imprisonment in the Soviet Union. With the outbreak of World War II, the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe would make his way to New York where he would establish the headquarters of Chabad-Lubavitch in Crown Heights. From there, he would launch what would become a highly successful world-wide outreach program designed to educate Jews and heighten their awareness of their heritage.

1930: At the morning session of the International Wailing Wall Commission, Rabbi Ben Zion Meyer Uziel, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, described Jewish prayer rituals conducted at the Wall declaring that the High Commissioner’s recent ban on the use of the Torah Scroll, Lulav, tefillin and tallit was unacceptable. While questioning Rabbi Uziel, Arab leader Abdul Auni implied that the Zionists were using bogus claims of the right to worship at the Wall as a form of propaganda to recruit Jews to settle in Palestine. At this afternoon's meeting of the International Wailing Wall Commission, the three commissioners watched a movie filmed in 1911 showing Jewish men and women praying at the wall, Jewish worshippers sitting on benches and Jewish women kissing the stones of the Wall. The commissioners pronounced the film as authentic and thus it became further evidence of the long standing connection of the Jewish people to the Wall. The International Wailing Wall Commission was established by the League of Nations after Arab rioters violently denied Jews access to the Western Wall

1930: Birthdate of Carol Doris Schatz, the Philadelphia native who would marry Noam Chomsky in 1949 and gain fame in her own right as a linguist and educator. Mrs. Chomsky passed away at the age of 78 in December of 2008.

1932: Over the next 11 months (June 1, 1933), the ZOA will clear the cases of 1,622 people wishing to settle in Palestine.

1932: Birthdate of Ze’ev Schiff, the French born Jew who gained fame as an Israeli journalist and military correspondent for Haaretz.

1933: With a message of "cordial greetings and best wishes" from President Roosevelt and a declaration that "the calamity that has overtaken the 600.000 Jews in Germany has cast a shadow over everything else in Jewish life," the Zionist Organization of America opened its convention today in Chicago. Five thousand delegates and observers attended this meeting which was described as being the largest in the history of the ZOA. At this evening’s opening session at the Palmer House, Moriss Rothenberg, President of the ZOA reported that 20,000 Jews had entered the National Home in the last 18 months and that during 1932 12 million dollars in new investments had been made in Palestine. While Rothenberg had words of praise for the British High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Grenfeel Wauchope, he was highly critical of the Mandatory Government (the British) for not increasing the allotment of immigration certificates in light of the events in Germany.

1933 The German government states that "Reich Chancellor Hitler still belongs to the Catholic Church and has no intention of leaving it."

1934: Birthdate of director Sydney Pollack. His hits have included Tootsie and Presumed Innocent.

1934: Erich Gans was murdered in Dachau. It was the last such murder for ten months. The Jewish population at Dachau was almost non-existent at the time since most had been killed or released by end of 1933.

1934: The New York Times reviews "From Nebuchadnezzar to Hitler" by Danish author Peter Hemmer Gudme. In this sympathetic study of the Zionist movement which the reviewer is sure will be translated into English, the non-Jewish Gudme traces the ancient connection of the Jewish people with their homeland before describing modern efforts beginning with Pinsker, Hess and Herzl to create a modern Jewish home in Palestine. Gudme will die at the hands of the Nazis in Copenhagen in 1945.

1934(18th of Tamuz, 5694):Tzom Tammuz

1935( 30th of Sivan, 5695):Rosh Chodesh Tamuz

1935(30th of Sivan, 5695):In London, Sir Francis Abraham Montefiore passed away. Montefiore was the head of the London Portuguese community and was a great philanthropist

1936: The Palestine Post reported from London that the House of Commons discussed the question of the composition of the proposed Royal Commission for Palestine. The Colonial Secretary, Mr. Ormsby-Gore, explained that the appointment of women members to the commission was undesirable, due to the sensitivities of the Moslems and Orthodox Jews.

1936: As Arab violence continued to intensify, The Palestine Post reported that the Christian communities of Beit Jala and Kafr Kana were warned by Arab terrorists that they must deliver 60 young men as volunteers for their ranks, or face the consequences. There were sporadic shootings, bombs thrown and trees uprooted throughout the country. Two British soldiers were hurt by flying debris during the demolition of houses in the old quarter of Jaffa.

1937: The Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition of "unacceptable" artwork by Jews and others opens in Munich. A concurrent event of "approved" art held nearby attracts far fewer people than the Entartete Kunst

1937: Pastor Martin Niemöller's anti-Semitism does not prevent the Nazis from arresting him because of his opposition to Hitler

1938: Birthdate of Diane Silvers Ravitch, a historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and former United States Assistant Secretary of Education who became a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

1938: Under a proposal called the Sosua Project, the Dominican Republic offers to accept 100,000 European Jewish refugees, to be settled in an area near Santo Domingo, in return for payment of millions of dollars from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). (Under the plan the Dominican Republic actually admitted on only about 500 Jews by 1940 when immigration was halted)

1939: Fourteen year old Rudolf Wessely arrives in London from Prague. Wessely was the son of Charles Wessely, a successful Czech businessman and civil servant. The British could find room for the son but not his 43 year old father or 38 year old mother.

1940: A war emergency program to aid in the defense of the 500,000 Jews in Palestine was adopted unanimously by the convention of the Zionist Organization of America meeting today in Pittsburgh, PA.

1940: The America First Committee is formed. It is the most significant American isolationist group, and it is also infiltrated by Nazis, who are working to prevent American intervention in Europe. Several prominent Americans speak in support of the committee. Many in Congress attack the Jews of Hollywood as attempting to involve America in opposition to Hitler.

1940: Bloody anti-Jewish riots erupt in cities throughout Romania

1940: In a letter to German Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, Bishop Theophil Wurm, head of the provincial Lutheran Church at Württemberg, Germany, objects to "euthanasia" killings at the nearby Grafaneck crippled-children's institution; See September 5, 1940.

1940: In Holland, a collaborationist propaganda group, Nederlandse Unie (Netherlands Union), is established.

1940: A Jewish ghetto is established at Bedzin, Poland.

1941 (6th of Tammuz, 5701): The first day of a three day killing spree in Drohobych, during which Ukrainians, assisted by Whermacht soldiers killed three hundred Jews.

1941: A Pogrom in Jassy, the cradle of Rumanian anti-Semitism claimed 5000 Jewish lives.

1941: Birthdate of Dr. Alfred G. Gilman recipient of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

1941: British code breakers monitoring radio traffic coming from German troops in the Soviet Union become aware of Nazi massacres of Soviet Jews.

1941: Two thousand members of Minsk, Belorussia's intelligentsia are executed by German troops in a nearby forest.

1941 (6th of Tammuz, 5701): More than 2500 Jews are slaughtered at Zhitomir, Ukraine.

1941 (6th of Tammuz, 5701): During an Einsatzkommando Aktion (murder operation) at Mielnica, Ukraine, a Jew named Abraham Weintraub hurls himself on a German officer and shatters the officer's teeth. Weintraub is immediately shot.

1941: In the Bialystok region of Poland, Nazis murder 300 members of the Jewish intelligentsia.

1941: German killing squads begin to murder Jews remaining in Kishinev, Romania.

1941: The Hungarian government undertakes a mass roundup of almost 18,000 Jewish refugees for deportation to Kamenets-Podolski, Ukraine.

1941: Twenty-two-year-old Jew Haya Dzienciolski finds a pistol, leaves Novogrudok, Ukraine, and helps to organize a group of young partisans in nearby forests.

1941 (6th of Tammuz, 5701): One hundred Jews are murdered at Lyakhovichi, Belorussia.

1941 (6th of Tammuz, 5701): Hundreds of Jews are killed at Plunge, Lithuania.

1941 In the Ukrainian town of Koritz, Nazi troops begin what would become a three day murder spree. The Jews are forced to prepare three burial pits, one each for men, women, and children. For sport, a man's corpse is propped atop one of the pits, in which some Jews have been buried alive.

1941: Members of the Einsatzgruppen, the Wehrmacht, and Esalon Special, a Romanian unit, begin murdering the Jews of Bessarabia in eastern Romania. By August 31st, they will have killed more than 150,000 Jews.

1942: Hundreds of German Jews are deported to the ghetto/camp at Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia. In Paderborn, Germany, all Jewish orphans are deported to Theresienstadt.

1942: Seven trains of Jewish deportees leave Westerbork, Holland, for the Auschwitz death camp

1942: At Kleck, Belorussia, a few dozen Jews break out and join partisans.

1942 (16th of Tammuz, 5702): The Jewish community at Gorodenka, Ukraine, is wiped out.

1942: Extermination activities at the Sobibór death camp are temporarily halted for railway construction and enlargement of the camp's gas chambers.

1943: In an American radio broadcast, U.S. Congressman Emanuel Celler excoriates the U.S. government for its continuing silence on Nazi treatment of European Jews. This is the same Congressman Celler whom Senator Bilbo of Mississippi will refer to as a “kike” while giving a speech in the Upper Chamber; a reference that brings no response from those who hear it and who will guide the 1964 Civil Rights Act to a successful in the House of Representatives.

1943: The American Women's International League for Peace and Freedom estimates that millions of Jews have already been murdered by the Germans in Poland, and that the American government and people share in the guilt for these atrocities because they are complacent cowards covered "with a thick layer of prejudice."

1944: During the month of July, Jewish-Soviet partisans from Poland and Lithuania are active behind the lines at Lublin, Poland, and Kovno, Vilna, and Siauliai, Lithuania, as Soviet troops approach from the east.

1944: The Red Army liberates Lvov, Ukraine.

1944: The SS completes the evacuation of the death camp at Majdanek

1944: The SS evacuates the concentration camp at Kovno, Lithuania

1944: Neutral Switzerland ends long-standing, restrictive Jewish-immigration standards and admits all Jewish refugees who wish and are able to enter.

1944: Jewish-American Lieutenant Colonel Murray C. Bernays is assigned by the U.S. Army Civil Affairs Division to collect evidence of war crimes committed against American servicemen. Bernays begins to formulate his concept of Nazism as a criminal conspiracy, which will be central to the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1945-46.

1944: As the war put additional strains on the German labor force, 1,000 Jews were taken from Birkenau and put to work within Germany.

1944: “There were still 185 Jews living in Magdeburg, mainly partners of mixed marriages, who managed to survive the war.” The Magdeburg Jewish community was one of the oldest in Germany dating back to 965.

1946: It was reported today that "Palestine Jews were considering a campaign of passive resistance" aimed at the British while the Irgun was threatening to kill three British hostages.

1946: As American businessmen, labor leaders, and consumers adjusted to the first day without the existence of the OPA, "Israel Sachs, president of Sachs Quality Stores, announced that" his stores "would raise prices." "At the same time he "appealed to Congress to enact immediately 'intelligent, workable price legislation.'" At the same time, "Victor A. Fishcell, vice president and general sales manager of Seagram-Distillers Corporaton announced that Seagram was continuing its shipments at regular OPA ceiling prices."

1946: During an interview given today at the New York office of the United Jewish Appeal, Rabbi Leopold Neuhaus that "Jews returning from concentration camps owned nothing but cast-off army clothing and were living under 'infinitely worse considitons' than the Germans. Rabbi Neuhuas, the "former Chief Rabbi of Hessen and liaison officer with the American Military Government in Germany" said that "the situation of the Jews in Europe is growing more critical, with displaced persons embittered by their 'no-man's land' status and the renewal of anti-Semitic outbursts in many countries."

1946: "Dr. Nahum Goldman, a member of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, said at a press conference today that Great Britain's latest program was a provocation to war, not only to the Palestinian Jews but to those all over the world. Dr. Goldman described as a 'breach of faith'...the arrest of 2,000 Jews in Palestine. 'If Britain persists in her present aggressive policy against the Jewish population in Palestine and its officially recognized leaders and bodies, she will create a state of permanent hostility against Britain on the part of Jews everywhere.' Dr. Goldman denied statements that the" British "government had informed" the United States government of its plans to crack down on the Jews of Palestine, including a massive round-up of Jewish leaders.

1946: "Three hundred persons attended a funeral service today at the Free Synagogue, 40 West Sixtyeighth Street, for Dr. Emanuel Libman, noted diagnostician, who died on Friday at the age of 73." During the service, Dr. Stephen S. Wise praised his friend of sixty years, Dr. Libman, for his efforts to train medical professionals and for his work on behalf of Mt. Sinai Hospital and the medical facilities at "the Jewish University of Jerusalem."

1946: The Fair Employment Practices Commission issued a final report as it was forced to close down due to Congress' failure to enact legislation that it would have extended its existence. The report warned that "Wartime gains of Negro, Mexican-American and Jewish workers are being los through an 'unchecked revival' of discriminatory practices." The report also said that "a survey of job seeking by Jews since V-J Day conducted in fifteen cities, showed a marked rise of discrimination against all Jewish applicants and that 'Jews who had fought for their country fared no better than those who had not.'"

1946: The Mayor’s Committee on Unity headed by Charles Evans Hughes, Jr. recommend to that the Board of Regents conduct an investigation “into racial and religious discrimination in the admission of students to intuitions of higher learning…” The committee contended that “there could not long be any reasonable doubt that racial and religious discrimination was practiced by” colleges and universities “in New York and elsewhere” usually through the employment of some kind of quota system. According to the committee’s findings, this discrimination is directed at “Jewish, Negro, Catholic and Italian students.” While Medical Schools seem to be the prime practitioners of this discriminatory behavior, “it exists in other graduate and undergraduate schools as well.”

1948: On the night of July 1 - 2, the first shipment of arms to be used by the Jewish forces arrived from Czechoslovakia by air. The arms were landed in a single DC-4 trans-port. The twin engine plane delivered 200 rifles, 40 machine guns and 150,000 rounds of ammunition. In an act of daring, the plane landed at an abandoned British air field which was illuminated by intermittent flashes of light so that the British forces would find out what was happening. The Jewish state was still six weeks way from reality and at this point in time, the British were doing all they could to disarm the Jews even as the Arab attacks grew bolder and more deadly. The weapons would be used in Operation Nachshon, the desperate attempt on the part of the Yishuv to open the road from the coast to Jerusalem, thus ending the Arab siege of Jerusalem.

1950: Dr. Serge Koussevitzky, the 75 year old conduct emeritus conductor of the Boston Symphony is scheduled to conduct at the Tanglewood Music Festival in the Berkshire Hills.

1951: Six Arab terrorists were killed in two engagements with security forces in Emek Hefer, Israel. A number of other infiltrators fled into the Jordanian-occupied territory across the border.

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that six Arab terrorists were killed in two engagements with security forces in Emek Hefer. A number of other infiltrators fled into the Jordanian-occupied territory across the border.

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel presented to the US State Department a detailed aide-memoire urging the settlement of Israel's $1.5 billion restitution claim against Germany. The police had so far examined 150 war-crimes cases since the Knesset passed the War Crimes Law, directed at persons who cooperated with the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. The experience of the first few cases had raised some doubts as to the possibility of obtaining convincing evidence against the accused.

1958: Birthdate of Brooklynite Nancy Lieberman.

1971: In one of those ironies of “progress,” while bagel production and consumption soared to new heights, Local 338, the fabled bagel bakers local, ceased to exist and Local 3 acquired a Bagel Division.

1973(1st of Tamuz, 5733): Rosh Chodesh Tamuz

1973(1st of Tamuz, 5733): A few minutes before 1 A.M. Col.Yosef (Joe ) Alon and his wife Dvora returned to their home in a quiet Washington, D.C., suburb. Alon, the air attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, had been at a farewell party for an Israeli diplomat. They parked the car. Dvora went into the house and then heard five gunshots. She rushed outside, saw her husband lying in a pool of blood, and glimpsed a white car driving away. She and her daughter Dalia, then 17, tried to help him. The other two girls, 14-year-old Yael and 6-year-old Rachel woke up. Joe tried to mumble something. An ambulance rushed him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. (The murder remains unsolved. As reported by Yossi Melman)

1976: Terrorists in Entebbe, Uganda, still held 200 hostages from the Air France jet, hijacked four days earlier on a flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. They threatened to kill all remaining hostages and blow up the plane if their ransom demands were not met by two o'clock. A special Air France plane carrying 47 hostages, released earlier, arrived in Paris.

1984(1st of Tammuz, 5744): Moshe Feldenkrais passed away. Born in the Ukraine in 1901, Feldenkrais moved to Palestine in 1918 where he continued his education. After living in France before World War II and serving with the British Navy in World War II he returned to Israel. He was a renowned physicist and judo expert, who developed a method of education and self-awareness training called The Feldenkrais method.

1987: ''Portraits of an Era: Photographs by Irv Kline'' opens Bishopsgate Institute Foyer as part of this summer's Jewish East End Celebration.

1991(19th of Tammuz, 5751): Michael Landon, born Eugene Horowitz, passed away at the age of 54. Landon gained fame for his portrayal of Little Joe on the television western, Bonanza. He gained additional fame for his work in front and behind the camera in another television hit, Little House on the Prairie.

1993: Anne Lapidus Lerner became Vice Chancellor of the Seminary, the first woman to hold that post. As Vice Chancellor, Lerner was one of the highest-ranking women in all of American Jewish institutional life. In that role, she devoted her energy to adult education, working to bring Jewish education to the lay community. After earning bachelor’s, master's, and doctoral degrees from Harvard, Anne Lapidus Lerner joined the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) in 1969, becoming the first American-born woman to hold a full-time position there. JTS trains rabbis and cantors for the Conservative movement and offers a range of masters and doctoral degree programs. Today, Lerner is an assistant professor in the Department of Jewish Literature at JTS, where she teaches courses in Hebrew and American Jewish poetry, modern Jewish literature, and the portrayal of women in Jewish literature. In addition, she is the director of the JTS Jewish Women's Studies Program, which she also founded, and Director of the Jewish Feminist Research Group. In 2001-02, she was a visiting lecturer at the Harvard Divinity School. Lerner has published two books and is at work on a third. In Passing the Love of Women: A Study of Gide's "Saül" and Its Biblical Roots Lerner examines how the Biblical book of Samuel inspired a novel by French author André Gide. In Who Has Not Made Me a Man: The Movement for Equal Rights for Women in American Judaism Lerner discusses the interaction between Judaism and the modern American feminist movement. A new book on the image of Eve in Jewish literature is due to be completed soon. In addition, Lerner has published a range of articles, and sits on the editorial boards of the journals Women's League Outlook, Hadassah, Judaism, Nashim, and Lilith.

1993 (12th of Tammuz, 5753): Olga Khaikov a Jewish immigrant from Russia and the mother of an 11 year old daughter was killed when terrorists tried to seize a bus near French Hill in Jerusalem.

1993: Gil Stein’s term as President of the NHL came to an end. the duties of the president were given to the commissioner. Stein then served as advisor to the commissioner for over three months, retiring from the league in October.

1994: PLO chairman Yasser Arafat drove from Egypt into Gaza, returning to Palestinian land after 27 years in exile.

1997(26th of Sivan, 5757): Sir Joshua Abraham Hassan, GBE, KCMG, LVO, QC passed away. Born in 1915, he “was a Gibraltarian politician, and first Mayor and Chief Minister of Gibraltar, serving two terms as Chief Minister for a total of 17 years. He is seen as the key figure in the civil rights movement in Gibraltar, and played a key role in the creation of the territory's institutions of self-government.”

1998: First Lady Hillary Clinton, her daughter Chelsea and Secretary of State
Madeline Albright visited the Ohel Rachel Synagogue in Shanghai, China, accompanied by Rabbi Schneier. In a speech on this date the First Lady commented, "So, for [the Ohel Rachel Synagogue] to be restored, I think, is a very good example of respect for religious differences and an appreciation for the importance of faith in one's life."

2000(28th of Sivan, 5760): Actor Walter Mattheau passed away. Born Walter Matthow in 1920, Mattheau began work at the age of 11 selling candy and playing bit parts in a Yiddish theatre on the Lower East Side. Years later he claimed that his birth name was Matasschanskayasky. According to his son, his father did this as a prank. However, the myth has become accepted as fact by many sources. Mattheau had a long, successful career playing in films some of the best of which paired him with Jack Lemmon. These included, "The Fortune Cookie," a re-make of "Front Page," and that greatest of hits, "The Odd Couple."

2000: Publication of Haviva Ner-David's book, "Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Toward Traditional Rabbinic Ordination." The book, which is part memoir and part halakhic commentary, tells the story of Ner-David's integration of feminism and Orthodox Judaism over a lifetime and argues for the ordination of women as Orthodox rabbis. Haviva Ner-David was born and raised in a modern Orthodox family in the New York City suburbs, attending traditional day schools where girls and boys sat separately for daily prayer and boys were taught to recite the traditional blessing thanking God "for not having made me a woman." Though raised with a love of Jewish tradition, she also struggled to accept traditional teachings about women's limitations. Study at New York's Drisha Institute and a subsequent move to Jerusalem left Ner-David with a thorough education in Jewish law and the conviction that new roles and opportunities for women could be found within tradition. Her book explores both her personal journey and many of the specific halakhic issues that have been taken on by feminist Jews. Throughout the book, Ner-David also reflects on what she will teach her sons and daughters about Judaism, feminism, and the roles of men and women. In Jerusalem, Ner-David found a teacher who was receptive to her desire for ordination. Like his student, Rabbi Aryeh Strikovsky believes there are precedents in Jewish history for Orthodox women rabbis. On the eve of Passover 2006, Ner-David was ordained as a rabbi in Jerusalem. Rabbi Strikovsky signed her ordination, but did not give Ner-David the title of Rabbi, noting that it is the role of the community to determine her official title. Two other Orthodox women, Mimi Feigelson and Eveline Goodman-Thau, claim to have been privately ordained, but their ordinations are not recognized by any Orthodox seminary, synagogue, or official body.

2000: The judge in the Revolutionary Court in Shiraz announced the verdicts on the 13 Jews on trial for spying for Israel. The harsh verdicts against 10 of the defendants range from 4 to 13 years. The three defendants, who had been out on bail since February, were acquitted. The international community, Jewish groups around the world and human rights groups vocally condemned this verdict and expressed outrage at the lack of due process throughout the trial.

2001: Caesarea-Pardes Hanna Railway Station was opened today “as a suburban station on the newly inaugurated Tel Aviv – Binyamina Suburban Service. The station was constructed to provide a railway link for the area's growing population as well as encourage rail commuting to the industrial zone in the vicinity.”

2003(1st of Tamuz, 5763):Rosh Chodesh Tamuz

2004: Actor Marlon Brando passed away. No, Brando was not Jewish. But he did have this to say about Jews. “Marlon Brando…once told an interviewer that, per capita ‘Jews have contributed more to American…culture than any other single group.’ Without them, the actor claimed, ‘we wouldn’t have music,’ ‘we wouldn’t have much theater,’ and we wouldn’t have “all the songs that you love to sing.’”

2005: The New York Times reported that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had moved decisively to deal with killing of a African-American man by two white males in Howard Beach. The Times favorably compared Bloomberg’s swift action with the city’s reaction to a racially inspired killing in the same neighborhood in 1986.

2005: The New York Times reported that Time’s editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine made the decision to follow a court order and turn over a reporter’s documents to a grand jury investigating a leak of a CIA operative’s identity. Pearlstine wrestled with the compelling issues – freedom of the press versus the need to submit to the rule of law – and he came down on the side of the latter. The decision was not an easy one for a man who was a lawyer as well as the head of one of America’s flagship communication corporations.

2005: The New York Times reported that Bank of America had agreed to buy MBNA. MBNA was founded by Alfred Lerner who passed away in 2002. Learner supported numerous philanthropies including the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous. The JFR seeks out to fulfill the age old injunction to seek out and recognize
righteousness. In particular, the JFR works to help aged and indigent righteous gentiles who helped save Jews during the Shoah.

2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Din In the Head: Essays by Cynthia Ozick.

2006(5th of Tamuz, 5766): Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs, who founded the British branch of the Conservative Movement and was voted the greatest Jew in the history of Britain's Jewish community last year, passed away at the age of 86 after fighting a losing battle with cancer. Rabbi Louis Jacobs, an internationally renowned scholar of Judaism whose seemingly clear path to the post of chief rabbi of the British Commonwealth was blocked by the Orthodox establishment more than 40 years ago. The controversy over his blocked appointment is still alive among British Jewry and Orthodox scholarly circles worldwide. The Jewish Chronicle, a London-based weekly, often called Rabbi Jacobs "the greatest chief rabbi we never had." In a survey conducted by the paper last year, readers selected Rabbi Jacobs as the "greatest British Jew of all time," beating out all the chief rabbis as well as two formidable 19th-century figures, Benjamin Disraeli and Moses Montefiore. Rabbi Jacobs wrote more than 50 books on a wide range of subjects, including theology, the Talmud, kabbalah, ethics, Hasidism and holidays. Although they often dealt with complicated subjects, the books were praised for their clarity and accessibility. It was one of the rabbi's books that first got him into trouble with arbiters of Orthodoxy. In 1957, Rabbi Jacobs wrote a work of theology, "We Have Reason to Believe," in which he challenged the traditional view that the first five books of the Bible, known as the Torah, were dictated by God, word by word, to Moses on Mount Sinai. Rabbi Jacobs argued that in light of 19th-century scholarship and archaeology such a belief was no longer tenable. Instead, he argued, the Torah was revealed over time to divinely inspired human beings. He often pointed out that his thesis was well known among scholars; what he was doing was bringing it to public attention. The book seemed to have no effect on his early career. He had impeccable Orthodox credentials, having been a star student at Britain's rabbinical seminaries, and he rose to be the rabbi of the large and prestigious New West End Synagogue in London. In 1961, Rabbi Jacobs was nominated to be principal of Jews' College, which trained rabbis and teachers for British Jews. The position was also regarded as a way station for Britain's future chief rabbis. The appointment, however, was blocked by the chief rabbi at the time, Israel Brodie, who announced that Rabbi Jacobs was unfit for the post, citing "his published views." Rabbi Brodie then prohibited Rabbi Jacobs from returning to his post at the New West End Synagogue or from preaching at any congregations affiliated with the chief rabbinate's organization, the United Synagogue. The incident became widely known as the Jacobs Affair, and it continues to reverberate, rating a significant mention in the entry for England in The Encyclopedia Judaica. In a retrospective in The Guardian in 2004, Simon Rocker wrote: "For some, the Jacobs Affair marked the Orthodox establishment's descent into religious intolerance. For others, the sacrifice of Jacobs was the price the United Synagogue had to pay to remain part of Orthodoxy." Louis Jacobs was born on July 17, 1920, in Manchester to a working-class Jewish family. At 14 he was apprenticed to a printer, but he pleaded with his parents to let him return to school. He finished Manchester Central High School, then went to the Manchester Talmudical College, where he received his rabbinic ordination. It was not until he was working as a rabbi that he attended a university, eventually getting a Ph.D. in history from University College London. After Rabbi Jacobs was barred from the Orthodox rabbinate, several members of the New West End Synagogue established a new congregation, the New London Synagogue, which was unaffiliated with United Synagogue. Rabbi Jacobs served there until he retired in 2000. Rabbi Jacobs, with his beard and modest dress, was committed to Orthodox religious practice, including observance of the Sabbath and the kosher laws. He said he never intended to start a religious movement, but one grew up around him. It is known as Masorti, Hebrew for traditional, and it is similar to the Conservative branch of Judaism in the United States, but much smaller. In addition to being a widely read author, Rabbi Jacobs was a popular lecturer who laced his talks with anecdotes, erudition and wit. He was as comfortable with Maimonides and the Baal Shem Tov as he was with Shakespeare and Shaw. He was a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School from 1985 to 1986 and was a visiting professor at Lancaster University beginning in 1987.

2006: Arnie Eisen assumed the office of Chancellor-elect of the Jewish Theological Seminary

2007: Arnie Eisen, who took office as Chancellor-elect of the Jewish Theological Seminary on July 1, 2006, assumed the position full time.

2007: The Opening Day game of the Israel Baseball League is broadcast on a delayed basis on PBS in major US markets.

2007: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of "American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville" by Bernard-Henri Lévy and "The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope" by Jonathan Alter.

2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section featured a review of a collection of here-to-for unpublished stories by Primo Levi entitled "A Tranquil Star." According to the review, those who think of Levi only in terms of being a “Holocaust writer” will be pleasantly surprised by the wide ranging topics and unique style displayed in this posthumously published tome.

2007: Avraham Hirschson resigned as Israel’s Minister of Finance following an investigation of an alleged embezzlement in which he was allegedly involved.

2008: Lauren Weisberger, author of the bestselling novel The Devil Wears Prada, reads from and signs her new book, Chasing Harry Winston, at a Borders Books in suburban Virginia.

2009: In Cedar Rapids, IA, meeting of the Hadassah book club discusses Courtesan, a novel by Dora Levy Mossanen.

2009: After 29 years of serving as supporting character alongside Marvel greats like the Incredible Hulk and the X-Men, Sabra, the alias of Ruth-Bat Seprah, mutant superhero and former agent, makes her first headlining print appearance in the Marvel anthology Astonishing Tales #6. Sabra's first solo appearance is the work of Matt Yocum, who by day serves as the US Air Force's representative to the Israeli government and by night writes comic books. Yocum, who is not Jewish, has long been involved with the State of Israel. His first visit to the country was in 1992 with the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and he spent four weeks living on Kibbutz Beit Ha'emek, close to the coastal city of Nahariya. In 2002 he found himself in Israel again, this time as an exchange officer doing engineering for the Israeli government. Based on his previous experience in the country, Yocum was selected to come for a third time in 2006 to work in the attaché office for the US Air Force. Using three elements unique to his life in Israel, Yocum created a story about a member of the Air Force at a diplomatic reception in Israel, which sums up his existence here. "I wanted to take the experience I had in Israel and bring it to the people who don't live here," he explains. "The vast majority of the people who read the story will not have been to the country, and they will not realize that there are things we take for granted here - one being that everyone has to serve in the army. In the US, less than one percent of the population serves, and here it's part of a natural dialogue with a high-schooler." "At the end of the day, I don't think it's going to change any ideas about Israel," he says. "It shows a piece of what it's like to live in the country and what it's like to serve here."

2009: Today President Shimon Peres invited Saudi King Abdullah to come to Jerusalem, or meet him in Riyadh, to initiate discussions that would enable the implementation of a comprehensive peace between Israel and all the Arab states. Peres spoke at an interfaith conference in Kazakhstan, addressing some 150 religious leaders from around the world, including a large delegation of imams, calling on King Abdullah to meet with him in Jerusalem, in Riyadh or in any other place "in order to fulfill his prayer for peace between all people, without differences of religion." He praised a 2002 Arab peace initiative, which offers Israel full normalization in return for a withdrawal from territory conquered in the 1967 Six Day War, a Palestinian state and an equitable solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. Peres quoted Jordanian King Abdullah II as calling the plan "a readiness for peace between the State of Israel and 57 Arab and Muslim states." The president also spoke about Islamist terrorism. "Thousands, if not millions of Muslims, have lost their lives at the hands of extremists that call the name of Allah," Peres said. "In the Twin Towers of New-York, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and atheists, all lost their lives as one." Meanwhile, Iranian delegates stormed out of the opening session of the interfaith conference as Peres began to deliver his address to the forum. The delegates returned to the conference hall after Peres finished speaking. One said the president was a repulsive Zionist figure whose "place was not here in a religious meeting." "[Peres] plunders land and occupies, and we are not willing to hear him," an Iranian delegate added. The move recalled a similar scene at a United Nations-sponsored conference in Geneva in April, when dozens of Western representatives walked out in protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's address to the forum. The diplomats rose from their chairs and quit the hall as Ahmadinejad launched a tirade against Israel, which he called a racist entity. About 80 delegations participated in the summit, representing different faiths and sects from 35 countries. Israel's Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Yona Metzger, also attended the conference, during which he urged Hamas to let a cleric visit abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. "I'm holding in my hands a picture of my brother, a son of my country who was kidnapped. We don't know anything about him; his father and mother aren't receiving any information on him," Metzger said. He urged the religious leaders present "to call for a representative of the abductee's faith to be able to visit him and give him sustenance."

2009: A Chabad-sponsored Women's Empowerment Rally is held at Tel Aviv's Nokia Stadium.

2009: Romanian Jewish leaders met in Bucharest today to address allegations that medical students have been using the remains of Holocaust victims for research.

2010: Yeshiva University Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art are scheduled to present “As it is Written: Lectures on the Art of Hebrew Manuscripts and Books” in New York City.

2010: The Wall Street Journal reported today that Tehran has equipped Damascus with a sophisticated radar system to help thwart a surprise Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. The move would also help bolster the defenses of Syria and Hezbollah against Israel, the newspapers quoted U.S. and Israeli officials as saying. According to both the Israeli and U.S. officials, the weapons transfer occurred sometime in mid-2009 as part of increased military coordination between Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah. The transfers is in violation of UN resolutions.

2011: Cantor Joel Caplan, son of Richard and Ellen Caplan, and father Ilan Caplan is scheduled to lead a Shabbat evening program called “Shabbat Spirit” that includes guitar, keyboard and PowerPoint projections of all the songs that will be sung.

2011: At Shabbat Eve Services at Temple Judah a baby naming is to take place for Natanel, the son of Chavah and Stephen Rosenbaum of Jerusalem and the grandson of Kathe & Gary Goldstein of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2011: Abbie Silber, daughter of Laurie and Dr. Bob Silver (pillars of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community) and Rabbi Feivel Strauss are scheduled to receive a blessing at Shabbat Eve services as they prepare for their upcoming nuptials.

2011: This Day In…In Jewish History makes its first appearance on http://shtetl.ca/ a must read website for anybody interested in the comings and goings of the Canadian Jewish community.

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

This Day, June 30, In Jewish History

JUNE 30 In Jewish History


713 CE: In Spain, Visigoth nobility which had held out against the invading Moslem forces, throughout the winter of 712 finally surrendered to the Arabs. A majority of the remaining Goths and Hispano-Roman people who lived in the newly acquired areas eventually converted to Islam. The Jews, who had been persecuted by the ruling Goths, proved to be the exception. They kept their religious identity and flourished under the new rulers.

1294: The Jewish community of Berne, Switzerland forfeited all financial claims against non-Jews, and then was expelled from the country.

1298: The Jewish community of Morgentheim, Austria was massacred.

1470: Birthdate of Charles VIII, King of France. In 1494, Charles invaded Italy leading to the occupation of the Kingdom of Naples in 1495. Charles conquest led to increased persecutions of the Jewish population which lead to their expulsion in 1510, two years after his death.

1522: Johann Reuchlin “a German humanist and a scholar of Greek and Hebrew” who “for much of his life… was the real centre of all Greek and Hebrew teaching in Germany, passed away. “In 1510, Reuchlin was drawn into a bitter controversy with the Jewish-Dominican convert Johannes Pfefferkorn, who had convinced the emperor to confiscate and burn copies of the Talmud and other Jewish books. Asked for his opinion on the issue, Reuchlin urged the preservation of this literature and recommended the establishment of a chair of Hebrew in each of the major universities. As a result of his efforts, the order to destroy the Jewish books was rescinded. However, his enemies persisted, and Reuchlin had to face charges from the Inquisition. He was able to deflect the accusations for a time and returned to teaching …. Reuchlin is considered a hero in the history of European Judaism.”

1651: During the Khmelnytsky Uprising, Polish forces prevailed at the Battle of Beresteczko. The victory only provided a brief respite. The Cossack Revolt would continue with thousands of more Jews dying in what would be the worst loss of life until the Holocaust.

1680: In Madrid, an Auto de Fe was held in honor of the marriage of Carlos II to Louis Marie d’Orleans. It took place in the Plaza Mayor and lasted 14 hours. Over 50,000 spectators came to see 118 accused sentenced to prison or burned. It marked the last time that a "royal" auto was held since Carlos’ successor, Philip V, refused the "honor." took place in the Plaza Mayor

1713: Nehemiah Chiya Chayun arrived at Amsterdam and requested permission of the Portuguese congregation to circulate his writings, which had been published at Berlin.

1785: James Oglethorpe, the founder of the colony (and later the state) of Georgia passed away. Georgia had been created by Oglethorpe as an alternative to Debtor’s Prison. However, when a boatload of Sephardic Jews arrived in the colony a month after its founding, Oglethorpe welcomed them as he did a subsequent arrival of German Jews who came a year later. Oglethorpe did this despite the opposition of the trustees which surely endeared him to this remnant of the House of Israel.

1838: The Swedish government abolished discrimination against Jews. Unfortunately due to public objections it was repealed. Another 30 years were to pass before Jews were given the right to vote.

1866: Today, in Romania, Jews were attacked maimed and robbed. The Bucharest Synagogue was desecrated and demolished. As a result of the violence Article 6 of the 1866 Constitution was replaced by Article 7. Article 6 declared that "religion is no obstacle to citizenship"; but, "with regard to the Jews, a special law will have to be framed in order to regulate their admission to naturalization and also to civil rights". Article 7 read that "only such aliens as are of the Christian faith may obtain citizenship". All this came to pass when Charles von Hohenzollern took the throne as Carol I and was forced to deal with a riot against the Jews in his capital city.

1870(1st of Tamuz, 5630): Rosh Chodesh Tamuz

1874: It was reported today that two days of fires in the Berditchev, a Ukranian city in the Russian “inhabited most by Jews” have destroyed over 600 houses and left thousands homeless. [Berditichev was a major center of Jewish life in the Ukraine, home to Mittnagdim and Chasidim, the famous of which were the Berditchiver Hasidim and their Rebbe, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev

1878: According to today’s Foreign Notes column, before departing for the meeting of heads of state in Berlin, the Earl of Beaconsfield received a letter from Lionel de Rothschild in which he asked Disraeli to do everything he could to get them to endorse measures that would put all religions on an equal footing in each of their countries. Rothschild made a special point of asking Disraeli to intervene on behalf of the suffering Jews of Romania and Serbia. Disraeli replied that he would do all that he could in this matter.

1893: Birthdate of Harold Joseph Laski “an English political theorist, economist, author, and lecturer, who served as the chairman of the Labour Party during 1945-1946.”
1902: Herzl began a journey to London seeking support for his plans for a Jewish homeland. The journey lasted until July 17.

1904: Herzl suffers a severe bronchial catarrh, which turns into pneumonia. Oskar Marmorek proceeds to Edlac with two doctors.

1905: Albert Einstein publishes the article "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" where he introduces special relativity.

1911: A Jew, Abraham Benrubi, former President of the Tribunal of Commerce at Cavalla (Turkey) was appointed Judge of the Court of Appeal in Jerusalem.

1915: The convention of the Federation of American Zionists came to a close this evening with the election of national officers. Dr. Harry Friedenwald of Baltimore was elected President. Other officers chosen were Chairman of Executive Committee, Louis Lipsky of New York; Honorary Secretary, Bernard A. Rosenblatt of New York, and Treasurer, Louis Robison of New York. The delegates to the convention received a pleasant surprise at this closing session when it was announced that Nathan Starus, the famed philanthropist had turned over his private yacht, valued at between $35,000 and $50,000, to the Zionists to help them deal with the looming financial shortfall.

1917: Birthdate of Bernard “Buddy” Rich. Born in Brooklyn, Rich is best remembered as one of the greatest drummers of all times. Later in his career he was the leader of his own group – The Buddy Rich Band. According to one legend, when on his deathbed a nurse asked him if anything was bothering him, Rich replied, “Yes, country music.

1921: Jonas and Pauline Bernanke arrived at Ellis Island today. The 30 year old Bernake listed his occupation as “clerk.” The Bernakes eventually moved to Dillon, South Carolina, where they ran a drug store and raised a son named Ben.

1922: The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the Reform movement's professional organization, meeting in Cape May, N.J., voted 56 to 11 to affirm in principle the right of women to become rabbis.

1920: Sir Herbert Samuel the first high commissioner for Palestine arrives in Jaffa and is received with a military ceremony. Samuel served in the position for five years. He was the son of Edwin Louis Samuel, a successful Anglo-Jewish banker. Samuel had been raised as an Orthodox Jew and although according to at least one source, he ceased to be a practicing Jew but remained active in Jewish affairs.

1922: A joint resolution of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the "Mandate for Palestine," confirming the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine - anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea:
" Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected." (As described by Dr. Yitzchok Levine)

1924(28th of Sivan, 5684): Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael De Haan, a Dutch born Jew who was a leader of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community opposed to Zionism was shot outside of the synagogue moments after finishing his evening prayers. De Haan was scheduled to lead a delegation of ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist Jews to London where he planned to make their case to the British government. His killer was rumored to be a fellow Jew. The Jewish community of Jerusalem, regardless of political affiliation was shocked by the killing and 20,000 people turned out for his funeral. Forty years after the crime took place a 1970 broadcast on Israeli radio revealed that the killer had been a member of Haganah who had killed De Haan because he was viewed as a traitor.

1925: Birthdate of Samuel M. Ehrenhalt, “a poet of percentages who for 15 years as a regional commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics transformed colorless wage and employment figures into small, brightly lighted windows onto New Yorkers’ daily lives.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1926: Birthdate of Paul Berg, co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1980.

1927: Henry Ford retracted and apologized for the publication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

1934: Night of the Long Knives: Hitler ordered the execution of some of the SA (Sturm Abteilungen) leaders of whose absolute loyalty he questioned including Ernst Roehm. Until then the SS under Himmler was subordinate to the SA. The SS now became independent and was given charge of the concentration camps.

1936: Gretel Bergmann matched a German high jump record today. Two weeks later the young Jewess would be kicked off the German Olympic Team.

1936: Polish Jews strike to protest anti-Semitism

1937: “A tower and stockade kibbutz was established at Tirat Zevi (Zevi’s Castle) 6 miles south-east of Beisan and less than a mile from the Jordan border.”

1937: Under the auspices of the Bialiki Association, Chiam Nachman Bialik’s house was opened to the public. The public display included: the archives of Bialik’s manuscripts and that of other writers, Bialik’s private library and a museum with the poet’s personal possessions.

1939: Tel Aviv attorney M. Seligman was released on bail, pending his appeal of a conviction on charges of conspiring to assist in the illegal immigration of Jews into Palestine which carried a six month term of imprisonment. “He was acquitted of 18 other charges including brigery and corruption of Palestine Government officials.”
1941: Ninety Jews are murdered at Dobromil, Ukraine.

1941: German troops enter Lvov, Ukraine, and beat hundreds of Jews to death after running them ragged at gunpoint.

1941: Two death trains left Iasi, Romania after a pogrom. One of them stopped in Podu Iloaiei and the 1,194 Jews who died along the way from thirst and heat exhaustion were buried there in a mass grave.

1941 Three hundred young Jews are deported from Amsterdam, Holland, to stone quarries at the Mauthausen, Austria, concentration camp. All will eventually perish.

1941: American radio commentator Father Charles Coughlin celebrates Hitler's invasion of Russia as "the first strike in the holy war on communism" and attacks "the British-Jewish-Roosevelt war on Germany and Italy."

1941: The Germans entered Lvov, Soviet Union, cite of the third largest Jewish Community after Warsaw and Lodz. Thousands of Jews would be tortured and slaughtered at the hands of rampaging mobs.

1941: In Amsterdam, 300 Jews were deported to work camps.

1941: In Denmark, a collaborationist SS organization, Freikorps Danmark (Danish Free Corps), is established.

1941: In Belorussia, a guerrilla collaborationist organization, Belaruskaya Narodnaya Partizanka (Belorussian National Guerrillas), is established.

1941: In Latvia, Viktor Arajs establishes the Perkonkrusts (Thunder Cross), a collaborationist paramilitary unit.

1941: Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, tells Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, that Hitler has ordered that the "Jewish question" be solved once and for all and that the SS is to implement that order. Auschwitz is the death camp that is to carry out the greater part of the Jewish extermination. Mass gassings, not shootings, are determined to be the most effective means to exterminate the large numbers of Jews.

1942: A headline in the London Daily Telegraph reads: "MORE THAN 1,000,000 JEWS KILLED IN EUROPE."

1942: Three-year-old Jewish twins in Sosnowiec, Poland, Ida and Adam Paluch, are spirited away from Gestapo agents by their aunt and sent to live with separate Catholic families

1944: By now, more than 500 Jews are being secretly protected by industrialist Oskar Schindler.

1944: Joel Brand and Rudolf Kasztner working together with the Jewish Agency and the War Refugee board concluded a deal with and Adolph Eichmann. It became known as “Blut fuer Ware” ("Blood for Goods"). This date marked the first of three transports from Hungary to Switzerland. A total of 3344 Jews were sent on a special transport at a price of $1,000 per head. The deal was the subject of a great amount of controversy and later even resulted in a defamation trial, which reached the Israeli Supreme Court in June of 1955.

1944: One thousand, seven hundred, ninety-five Jews arrived from Corfu arrived at Birkenau.

1944: The crematoria at Auschwitz are working at full capacity when 2044 Jews from Corfu and Athens, Greece, arrive. At day's end, lightning rods on crematoria chimneys are warped from the heat generated by the furnaces.

1945: "Lest We Forget," an exhibition of death-camp photography organized by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Washington Evening Star began a tour in Boston, Massachusetts, and then on into Midwest. By tours end nearly 90,000 Americans will have viewed this testament of the Holocaust.

1946: “Irgun Zvai Leumi…issued an ultimatum tonight saying it would kill three British hostages if the British executed two Irgun members condemned to death.”

1946: British soldiers and police officers rushed into the Tel Aviv business district when pamphlet bombs exploded in this predominately Jewish city. They snatched the pamphlets from “the hands of the jeering populace. “The pamphlets, signed by Irgun, said, ‘All this, and what will follow, will not change our dtetermination to take the lives of these three if our two die.’ The pamphlets referred to the three of the five British soldiers kidnapped by Irgun two weeks ago. Two of the British soldiers have already been released in response to pressure from the Haganah.

1946: “Despite the detention of 2,000 “ Jews “in the largest mass arrest ever made in Palestine, the secreted radio of the Jewish resistance movement announced tonight that its leadership and general staff had not been ‘silenced’ by the campaign that British forces opened against’ Jewish forces “yesterday morning.

1946: As the British continued to wage war against the Jews of Palestine, the city of Haifa was placed under a curfew tonight following a spontaneous demonstration that had taken place earlier in the day. According to unofficial reports, four people were wounded when the British fired on the demonstrators.

1946: As the British crack down on the Yishuv, there are reports that the Mandatory Government will cease to recognize the Jewish Agency and replace it a variety of local councils. Moshe Shertok had already expressed the view that withdrawal would not mean the end of the Jewish Agency since it was supported the community in Palestine.

1948: The last British armed forces left Israel.

1948: An Israeli convoy led by commandos arrives at the isolated settlement of Kfar Darom, south of Gaza. The convoy brought food for the Jews and was supposed to evacuate the wounded and the women. The Egyptians were able to prevent the convoy from departing which meant that the commandos and the defenders would now be forced to share the meager supplies as they wait for relief from the outside.

1952: Guiding Light, a soap opera created by Irna Phillips, debuted on television on. It is one of the longest-running daily television programs.

1953: Between May 15, 1948 and June 30, 1953, the Jewish population of Israel doubled from 640,000 to 1.3 million.

1956: Between May 15, 1948 and June 30, 1956, the Jewish population of Israel tripled from 640,000 to 2.1 million.

1959(24th of Sivan, 5719): American composer Lazare Saminsky passed away at Port Chester, NY. Born in Russian in 1882 he was a pupil of Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov at the St Petersburg and Moscow conservatories from 1906 until 1910. He moved in 1920 to New York, where in 1923 he was a founder of the League of Composers. He was musical director of Temple Emanu-El from 1924 until 1956 and author of several books. Saminsky wrote Jewish liturgical music and drew on Jewish sources for his five symphonies, choral music and songs.

1962: LA Dodger Sandy Koufax pitches another no-hitter. This time he beat the Mets 5-0.

1966: The National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded at a meeting in Betty Friedan's hotel room.

1970: During the War of Attrition Yitzhak Peer was taken prisoner when his F-4E II Phantom was shot down by an Egyptian SAM.

1970: During the War of Attrition, Rami Harpaz and Eyal “Los” Ahikar were taken prisoner when their F-4E II Phantom was shot down by an Egyptian SAM. (Israel’s existence comes at a very high price.)

1971(7th of Tamuz, 5731): Herbert Biberman, screenwriter, director and part of the Hollywood Ten, passed away

1976: Catcher Jeff Newman made his major league debut with the Oakland Athletics.

1984(30th of Sivan, 5744):Playwright Lillian Hellman passed away.

1984(30th of Sivan, 5744):Rosh Chodesh Tamuz

1985: In an article entitled “Yuppies with Fetlocks” Jean Franco reviews “The Centaur in the Garden by Moacyr Scliar.; translated by Margaret A. Neves. “This novel…is reminiscent of the Chagall paintings in which the scenes of everyday Jewish life are tenderly and oddly transmuted into fantasy. ''The Centaur in the Garden'' is set..on a farm in southern Brazil, in one of the colonies of Jewish immigrants established there at the beginning of this century by the German-Jewish philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch…One Jewish family's struggle to make a living in these unfamiliar and lonely surroundings is thwarted by the birth of the youngest child, Guedali, who is a centaur.

1992: Prosecution of East European Nazi collaborators who had gained entry to the country posing as innocent refugees from Communism by Australia's "Special Investigations Unit" met with failure and the prosecution effort for all practical purposes was shut down on this date.

1994: Catcher Mike Lieberthal made his major league debut with the Philadelphia Phillies.

1996: An article entitled “New Museum Traces 2 Paths Into Jewish History in Atlanta” appears in the New York Times

Visitors standing in the high-ceilinged foyer of the new William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum here have a choice. They can begin their journey through time and history by entering a portal on the left marked "The Holocaust" or one on the right labeled "Creating Community: The Jews of Atlanta from 1845 to the Present." Once inside, the two sections of the 50,000-square-foot museum flow into one another, but the choice at the beginning, said the museum's director, Jane Leavey, is the real point. The only place in the school curriculums here where they talk about Jews is with regard to the Holocaust, and that is Jews as victims," said Ms. Leavey in a preview tour this week of the museum that is to open on Sunday. "Here we have an opportunity to say there was a Jewish community here long before Hitler and one long after Hitler." The design and rationale of the Atlanta museum is part of what James Young, a professor of Judaic studies and English at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, sees as part of an increasingly common but still controversial effort to "contextualize and expand Jewish history" memorials in the United States. American Jews, especially in communities with significant numbers of survivors of the death camps, Professor Young said, have been moving very gingerly over the years to broaden the Jewish identity in the memorials and museums while not losing sight of the significance of the Holocaust. In some cases, he said, the "muted debate" over the pivotal role of the Holocaust has led to bifurcation of museums and memorials. That is the case, he said, in Los Angeles and San Francisco, where the Holocaust is memorialized at one site and Jewish heritage is celebrated at another across town. But increasingly, the idea is to combine the two, Professor Young said. "This is an altogether healthier approach to Jewish history," he said, noting that it embraced the tensions of assimilation, achievement and community that are part of the immigrant experience generally, along with events that had contributed to immigration. "With vicariously remembered catastrophes such as the massacre of native Americans, the enslaving of African-Americans and the Holocaust," Professor Young said, "history can be reduced to competing catastrophes, and that reduces its richness. Three thousand years should not be collapsed into 12 calamitous years." Indeed, said Miles Lerman, chairman of the board of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, the juxtaposition and coexistence of the darkness that was the Holocaust and the relative light that was the evolution of Atlanta's Jewish community serve to "make clearer the contrast between evil and goodness" in Jewish history. With this idea in mind the new museum here, 13 years in the making, was created by the Atlanta Jewish Federation. The museum, named for a local philanthropist, has exhibits dating to 1733, when Jews first settled in Georgia as part of the largely Methodist settlement of James Oglethorpe in Savannah. It is presumed that the first Jews to arrive in Atlanta came from that settlement. In 1845, two peddlers, Jacob Haas and Henry Levi, moved to Atlanta where they opened a dry goods store. Census data show that after 10 years there were 26 Jews among Atlanta's 2,572 residents and by 1870, when the first synagogue was opened, barely 300. According to projections from population surveys, Ms. Leavey said that there are now about 75,000 Jews among the Atlanta metropolitan area's 2.4 million people. The Jewish heritage exhibit presents a primer on Jewish religion and culture and then a glimpse at the religion's key rituals before going on to document the role of Jews in the city's development through artifacts, photographs, newspaper clippings and official records. A significant portion of the exhibit focuses on the 1917 lynching of Leo Frank by an anti-Semitic mob in nearby Marietta, where he was held after being wrongly accused of the rape and murder of a young woman, and the 1958 bombing that damaged the city's main synagogue and shattered some of the community's illusions of comfortable assimilation. The Holocaust portion of the museum draws on the memories and videotaped histories, photographs and artifacts of Atlantans who were survivors of Nazi death camps or who, as children, were spirited out of Germany by family members who did not survive. Designed by one of those children, Benjamin Hirsch, a local architect, the space uses floor and wall treatments to suggest changes in time and circumstances -- from the quaint cobblestones of an old European city to the stark concrete of Nazi Germany. There is a reproduction of the 11-foot wall of the Warsaw ghetto and the weathered wooden slats of box cars, suggesting the span from Hitler's rise to power in 1933 to the horrors of the Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps. In one hallway, leading to a wall-size color photograph of a stretch of railroad tracks going into Birkenau, the walls are covered with the wooden siding of the box cars. Bolted to the ceiling are rail tracks, seeming to reflect the tracks running up to the Birkenau gate. They are the actual rails and wooden ties from the Treblinka death camp, said Ms. Leavey, who recalled being puzzled by this part of the exhibit and observing to Mr. Hirsch that it did not make any sense. "His response was that neither did the Holocaust," Ms. Leavey said.

1996: In an article entitled “A Question of Conscience” appearing in the New York Times, Eugen Weber reviewed "The Statement" by Brian Moore. The German occupation of France and its factious fallout provide the raw material of Brian Moore's powerful new novel. Between 1940 and 1944, more than one in four of the 330,000 Jews living on French territory were deported. The majority were identified, arrested and shipped off by French administrators and the French police, without whose zealous cooperation German forces in France would have been unable to carry out the job. In a time of want, fear and national humiliation, few of the French cared about what happened to the Jews. While many individuals helped them (otherwise three in four would not have survived), many also denounced, pursued and robbed them. The drumbeat of official Vichy propaganda presented Jews as noxious parasites, and the church went along, fearing godless Communists more than godless Nazis. Some bishops -- and, in their wake, some priests -- denounced such injustice, but most Roman Catholics had other priorities. Objectively, the church, like its Vichy allies, shared in the vicious anti-Semitic policies of those dark years. After 1944, when liberation brushed Vichy aside, a significant portion of the ecclesiastical establishment discovered treasures of Christian charity that had lain dormant in the preceding years. For them and many others, Communism was a greater crime than collaboration, and a lot of bloodstained thugs were sheltered and hidden, or smuggled out of the country. The moral quagmire that resulted provides tantalizing material not only for the historian but for the novelist -- particularly a novelist like Mr. Moore, who has spent his career exploring the complex and contradictory nature of religious and political devotion. Mr. Moore's attention has been caught by the real-life situation of a man named Paul Touvier. While still in his 20's, Mr. Touvier had headed the murderous militia's intelligence and operations unit for the Savoy and Rhone departments, fighting the Resistance and tormenting Jews. After the war, although convicted of treason and sentenced to death in absentia, he received priestly protection that enabled him to have a family and earn a living. In 1971, he was pardoned by President Georges Pompidou in the name of national reconciliation. But the pardon raised a national outcry that affected not only "the torturer of Lyons" but more important figures: high officials who served the Fourth and Fifth Republics as they had served Vichy. One of these was Rene Bousquet, who as Secretary General for Police presided over Vichy's Jewish policy. Another was Maurice Papon, who had done well under Vichy and worked efficiently as General Secretary of the Gironde department to intern and deport Jews. Bousquet prospered as a banker, industrialist and supporter of Francois Mitterrand. Papon, inducted into the Legion of Honor in 1948 "for 18 years of public service," became the police prefect of Paris. Compared with such men, Mr. Touvier was in the minor leagues. While they grew respectable, rich and powerful, he lived on faked papers, passed counterfeit bills, traded on the black market, informed for the police -- and became a groupie of Jacques Brel. But in June of 1944 Mr. Touvier had selected seven Jews to be shot as hostages, and this qualified as a crime against humanity, something that could not be wiped out by a presidential pardon. After dilatory court procedures and further years in hiding, Mr. Touvier was rearrested in 1989, tried, retried, convicted and finally sentenced to life in prison. This is the background of the fascinating story told by Mr. Moore in "The Statement," a roman a clef that can be read with equal suspense by those who know the context and those who don't. "The Statement" is Mr. Moore's 18th novel. All are good, some are superb, and this is certainly one of the most engrossing. Its antihero is Pierre Brossard, an old man on the run -- less from the police than from mysterious assassins. As time passes, Brossard's places of shelter grow fewer, his protectors more dubious, his escapes more narrow. Are the pursuers Jewish terrorists out to avenge past crimes or are they cat's-paws of more devious foes? Will Brossard outrun them? Can he outrun fate? It is as if Mr. Moore has decided to flesh out a phrase the philosopher Joseph de Maistre wrote nine score years ago, in the aftermath of the French Revolution: "There is often in the circumstances that betray the most cunning scoundrels something so unexpected, so surprising, so unforeseeable that men who follow this kind of affair come to believe that human justice is not entirely without some supernatural assistance in seeking out the guilty." The action never flags; the local color rings true throughout. And for readers like me, who often distrust the justice meted out by courts of law, Mr. Moore even manages a satisfying end. But what makes his thriller so thrilling is the fact that it pauses to re-create the self-examination and self-deception of its Catholic characters as they set about rationalizing, equivocating and justifying their actions -- as they try to reason their way through mazes of faith, responsibility and hypocrisy. Mr. Moore has always been good with still, small voices, as well as with the shriller questions of evading or facing obligations. This time his plunge into a host of troubled consciences cuts to the quick. "The Statement" is a book to be read in one sitting. A straightforward shocker, a psychological thriller, a chase and travelogue through France, a religio-political conundrum -- any way you take it, this is first-class fare.

2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including 'Masters of Death': Himmler's Willing Executioners” by Richard Rhodes and ''Trains of Thought,'' by Victor Brombert
2003(30th of Sivan, 5763): Rosh Chodesh Tamuz

2003(30th of Sivan, 5763): Comedian Buddy Hacket passes away at the age of 68

2006: In the evening, Jonathan Michael Kerbis participates in Friday Night services as part of becoming a Bar Mitzvah.

2006: Ismar Schorsch, the sixth Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, retired. For more information about the life of this famed Jewish scholar and author see the following JTS sponsored website. http://www.jtsa.edu/progs/his/isschorsch/index.shtml

2007: Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank, officially resigns his position.

2008: In New York, the 92nd Street Y presents “Debra Winger in Conversation with Arliss Howard” during which Arliss Howard interviews his actress wife who was raised as an Orthodox Jew in Cleveland Heights, spent time on a Kibbutz in Israel and was called to the Torah during her son’s Bar Mitzvah in 2000.

2009: In New York, Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman of Presidents Major American Jewish Organizations delivers the Fourth Annual Gershon Jacobson Memorial Lecture, with an address entitled “The Media and Silencing the Support for Israel.”

2009: In the Czech Republic the Holocaust Era Assets Conference comes to an end.

2009: Phoebus Energy is scheduled to unveil its first hybrid water heating system at the Gilo community center in Jerusalem today.

2009: Israel’s defense minister Ehud Barak is scheduled to meet with George Mitchell, the special envoy to the Middle East, in Washington, D.C. today.

2009: A concert featuring 100 cantors from the world is scheduled to take place in Warsaw at The Grand Opera which is less than a kilometer from Tlomackie Synagogue which the Nazi blew up during World War II.

2009: Al Frankin was declared winner of the U.S. Senate election in Minnesota. The number of Jewish senators does not change since he defeated Norm Coleman who was also Jewish.

2009: Six weeks after authorities foiled an alleged bomb plot against two Bronx synagogues, the Department of Homeland Security has allocated $1.83 million to boost safety at Jewish institutions in another part of the city. More than two dozen Jewish organizations in Brooklyn, including yeshivot, synagogues and a children's museum, will receive funds as part of the program, an effort to offset security costs at non-profit institutions considered particularly high-risk by officials.

2010: Humanity in Action: Resistance and Rescue in Denmark, a powerful photography exhibition that explores the history of the rescue of Danish Jewry in 1943 and provides a striking narrative of individual and collective resistance, has its final showing in Washington, D.C.

2010: Gaza terrorists attacked the Western Negev this morning with a Kassam rocket before workers arrived, but it heavily damaged a packing house that was knocked out of operation. Workers who had not yet arrived at work remained in their homes in the Sdot Negev area, south of Ashkelon. The explosion occurred around 4 a.m., seconds after the Color Red early-warning system shattered pre-dawn silence.

2010: American Eagle Outfitters Inc. has signed a multiyear franchise agreement to open a series of stores in Israel by the spring of 2012. The teen retailer signed a franchise agreement on today with Fox-Wizel Ltd., which operates more than 170 FOX stores in Israel as well as 250 outlets outside of Israel

2011: The Galilee Music Festival is scheduled to open.

2011: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present a lecture by Rebecca Margolis entitled “ Yiddish Culture in Montreal: Yesterday and Today” that “ will examine the origins and development of Yiddish culture in Montreal and discuss the changing place of Yiddish from the era of mass Jewish immigration in the early 1900s through today. The lecture is scheduled to be followed by a book-signing of Margolis' new book, “Jewish Roots, Canadian Soil: Yiddish Culture in Montreal, 1905-1945.”

2011: Tel Aviv “the city that never sleeps,” is scheduled to host its annual White Night (Layla Lavan). “Since 2003, when Tel Aviv was declared the White City by UNESCO, the municipality has been marking the honor by offering a host of special events for the benefit of the residents and visitors of Tel Aviv. Here is a selection of this year’s hottest music, food and cultural events taking place throughout the city.”

Created and Edited by Mitchell Levin Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com
Copyright; June, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin