This Day, September 1, In Jewish History

September 1 In Jewish History

September is an auspicious month in terms of Jewish History. Like most things in the world of Jews, it is a mixed bag-- a combination of the bitter and the sweet.
Today we mark the anniversary of the start of World War II. By the end of the war, the world of European Jewry would lie in ruins. After two thousand years of growth and contribution, that civilization would cease to exist as we had known it.
September also marks the anniversary of the beginning of the Jewish community in the United States. From twenty-three stormed tossed refugees has come one of the most dynamic civilizations in Jewish history.

1199: Maimonides wrote to Samuel Ibn-Tibbon, who as translating the "Guide to the Perplexed from Arabic into Hebrew. The letter included advice on how to do this as well as plea that Ibn-Tibbon not undertake his planned trip from France to Egypt to visit him. The distance was too great and he would be too busy since to see him for more than an hour since each day except Shabbat he must travel from Fostat to Cairo where he spends half a day ministering to the Sultan and his court. Then he travels back to Fostat where he is besiged by Jews, Moslems, et al all seeking his medical skill and advice.

1267: Ramban (Moses Nachmanides or Moses ben Nachman) arrived in Jerusalem. Born in 1194, Nachmanides was a famed commentator on the Torah and Talmud and a major communal leader in Spain. He also was the court physician to King James of Aragon (a part of Spain). King James forced him to defend Judaism in a public debate with Pablo Christiani, a Jew who had converted to Catholicism. To make a long story short, Nachmanides vigorous defense angered the Dominican friars and Nahcmanides was forced to flee. He gave life to a Jewish community in Jerusalem that had fallen on such hard times that it had trouble gathering a minyan. Among other things he built a synagogue in Jerusalem that was the sole such building for several centuries to come. Nachmanides moved to Acre in 1268 where he led that community until 1270.

1577: Pope Gregory XIII, reconfirming the Bull off Pope Nicholas III, decreed that one hundred and fifty Jews must hear conversion sermons in Rome every week.

1584: Gregory XIII issued Sancta Mater Ecclesia, a Papal Bull concerning the obligatory preaching of Christian sermons to Jews. The Bull required that 100 men and 50 women be sent every Saturday to listen to conversion sermons delivered in a church near the ghetto.

1592: Archbishop Salikowski ordered the Jews to build a church in Lvov Poland marking a period of increasing persecution.

1614: Vincent Fettmich expelled the Jews from Frankfurt-on-Main, Germany.

1749: The delegates of the Hungarian Jews, except those from Szatmar County, assembled at Pressburg and met a royal commission, which informed them that they would be expelled from the country if they did not pay this tax. The frightened Jews at once agreed to do so; and the commission then demanded a yearly tax of 50,000 gulden. This sum being excessive, the delegates protested; and although the queen had fixed 30,000 gulden as the minimum tax, they were finally able to compromise on the payment of 20,000 gulden a year for a period of eight years. The delegates were to apportion this amount among the districts; the districts, their respective sums among the communities; and the communities, theirs among the individual members. The queen confirmed this agreement of the commission, except the eight-year clause, changing the period to three years, which she subsequently made five.

1715: King Louis XIV of France dies after a reign of 72 years. The Sun King’s record in dealing with the Jewish people was never good, but it got really awful just before his death. Seized with the deathbed religious fervor the debauched, he came fully to accept the position of the Church and the Jesuits when he banned all Jews from Marseilles Toulon and the rest of Provence in 1710. “The Jews were ordered, in his words, ‘to leave the kingdom without any belongs’ and local officials were told to take any and all means to expel the Jews ‘because that is our wish.’”

1752: The Liberty Bell arrived in Philadelphia. The Bell is inscribed with words from the 25th chapter of Leviticus, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. It is but one of many examples of how Jewish culture and values had an impact on Western civilization in general and, in this case, early American culture specifically.

1763: Catherine II of Russia endorses Ivan Betskoy’s plans for a Foundling Home in Moscow. Betskoy was an educational reformer and accepting his plan was in keeping with Catherine’s self-image of being “a child of the Enlightenment.” This happened a year after Catherine came to the throne in a period when her hold on the office was still shaky due to the way she had gained her crown. At this time, Catherine was also gingerly working her way around the anti-Jewish laws of her late mother-in-law “quietly” allowing “useful” Jews such as doctors, contractors and businessman to work in St. Petersburg. Catherine’s accepting view of her Jewish subjects would change during the last years of her reign, when the limitations she place on them began the creation of what would become the Pale of Settlement.

1805: During the dispute sparked by the publication of ‘Emeḳ ha-Shaweh (Vale of the Plain), Rabbi Moses Münz summoned two rabbis to come to Óbuda to form with him a tribunal before which would hear the case against the author, Rabbi Aron Chorin.

1822: Brazil declared its independence from Portugal. Soon after this declaration of independence many Spanish Jews from Morocco migrated to the area. By 1879 Sephardim had settled all the way down to the Amazon rain forest area.

1832: Birthdate of Yosef Chaim, the Baghdad native who is also known as Ben Ish Chai which is the name of his seminal work on halachah. Ben Ish Chai is Hebrew for “son of man who lives,” a term that harkens back to Ezekiel and the Valley of the Dry Bones (Son of Man, can these bones live?).

1836 Reconstruction begins on the “Synagogue of Rabbi Judah Hasid” in Jerusalem.

1853: The New York Times reported that civil unrest continues to rock Venezuela. “At Barcelona, the government of General Monagas has published a ‘warning”” aimed at foreigners in general and Jews in particular accusing them of being the instigators of the unrest. After a delegation of Jews and other foreigners sought help from the Dutch Consul at Caracas, a Dutch man-of-war sailed to Barcelona where it could offer protection to those who have been threatened.

1855: Mademoiselle Rachel, the great French Tragedienne, is scheduled to make her New York debut today. Mademoiselle Rachel is Elizabeth Rachel Felix, the daughter of a German-Swiss Jew named Felix and his wife Esther Haya.

1857: The New York Times reported that a decision has been made to carry the question of admitting Jews to Parliament has been carried over to the next session much to the relief of Lord Russell.

1858: The New York Times published a report today that Pierre Soule has arrived in Washington. Mr. Soule was described as “a man of power” who “possesses undoubted influence over public affairs.” The article also reported that if Soule decided to run for the Senate he could defeat John Slidell. Furthermore, the article reported that like Judah P. Benjamin, the Senator from Louisiana, “Mr. Soule is a Jew, and the Hebrew element is a rising one in the aggregate intellect of the country.” [Editor’s note – If Soule were in fact Jewish, the author is saying that Louisiana would be the first state in the Union to be represented in the U.S. by two Jews.]

1861: Thomas Jordan General Beauregard’s Assistant Adjutant-General sent a letter on behalf of the Confederate Commander to Rabbi M.I. Mechelbacker of Richmond denying his request to grant furloughs to Jewish Soldiers starting on September 2nd and lasting through September 15th so that might attend services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The Confederate generals are sure that Jews in and out of the army will understand given the military situation which finds Southern forces “bivouacked in full view of the capitol of the late United States.” Jordan assured the Rabbi that the God who “released your people from Egypt bondage” will understand. (Like many Southerners, Jordan did not see the irony of the side that was fighting to preserve slavery invoking the liberation from Egyptian bondage.)

1867(1st of Elul, 5627):Rosh Chodesh Elul

1873: A Jewish peddler named Samuel Bendtersar was arrested this morning in Flushing on charges of having assaulted Johanna Fatsner.

1876: Sir Julius Vogel completed his services as Prime Minister of New Zealand. Vogel was the first Jew to hold this position.

1878: It was reported today that 200 delegates attended the opening session of the Pan-Jewish Conference in Paris. Adolph Cremieux presided over the meeting at which it was reported that the organization had 24,000 members and had collected 111,000 francs in the past year. The delegates sought ways to improved the moral, intellectual and political conditions of the Jews living in various parts of the world.

1878: It was reported today that there were those in England who claimed Disraeli would play the ultimate joke when he died by renouncing his youthful conversion to Christianity and being buried next to his Jewish father. Others claimed that Disraeli would do no such thing, choosing to be buried next to his wife.

1878: It was reported today that among the donations made to help those suffering from the Yellow Fever Epidemic in the Deep South was $100 from the Hebrews of the St. Joseph Mission earmarked for the Howard Association in Memphis, Tenn.

1887: The San Diego Union noted that congregants at Beth Israel were talking of building a synagogue estimated to cost $20,000.

1889: The formal dedication of the new Sephardic synagogue to be used by the Moses Montefiore Congregation was scheduled to take place today.

1894(30th of Av, 5654): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1900: Mose Levi the Hahambashi of Turkey presented an address to Sultan Abdul Hamid on the occasion of his 25th anniversary of his accession to the throne. The term Hahambashi means Head of Rabbis and is the appellation for the Grand Rabbi of Turkey. The Hebrew term for "wise man" Chacham has been adopted in Turkish to mean "Rabbi." This is to avoid the use of the word "Rabbi" since in Arabic the word "Rab" is one of the names of God and may not be applied to a human.

1905: Alberta became the eighth province of Canada. Two brothers, Jacob and William Diamond were among the first Jewish people to settle in Alberta, in 1888 and 1892, respectively. They made the long journey from their home in Lithuania. The Diamond brothers went on to be successful merchants in Alberta, and, perhaps, more notable, they organized for a High Holy Day service attended by other Jewish Albertans who had arrived. Unlike the Diamond brothers, early Jewish immigrants came to Alberta to establish farm colonies, settling in central and southern Alberta, near places such as Pine Lake, Trochu, Medicine Hat and Lethbridge. This first attempt at farming was not overly successful. Many of those who came were city-dwellers who had grown up in the cities of Europe. A Jewish relief agency in London England raised $400 to distribute the destitute Jewish pioneers. Because of the difficult conditions in Alberta and the Jewish people’s inexperience in farming, many of the immigrants left Alberta soon after, some going to the United States. By 1906, the community had largely reestablished itself in Calgary.

1905: Saskatchewan became the ninth province of Canada. Six Jewish farming communities were formed in Saskatchewan between 1886 and 1906. The first of these colonies was a novelty and evoked considerable curiosity in the district. Locals dubbed the colony "The New Jerusalem." Due to inadequate winter shelter against sub-zero temperatures, wind, driving snow, drought, etc., this settlement lasted only six years. Another colony, Hirsch, Saskatchewan was founded in 1892. Landau enlisted the assistance of the French financier-philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch. Hirsch regarded the creation of a Jewish state as a fantasy; however, he took a great interest in Jewish agricultural colonization. Baron de Hirsch established the Jewish Colonization Association to facilitate mass emigration of Jews from Russia and the establishment of agricultural colonies in North and South America. Hirsch was the only Jewish farm colony in Canada that was directly organized and funded by the Jewish Colonization Association. Hirsch favored colonization of Argentina rather than Canada. Edenbridge was founded in 1906. It no longer exists, but some of the members of the founding families live in the area. The Beth Israel Synagogue, built by the settlers in 1908, still stands today. It is a wooden structure similar to many Russian churches of that period. The synagogue served as a place of worship until 1964. Today it is a Saskatchewan historic site. The Saskatchewan Wildlife Association maintains the synagogue building, the adjacent cemetery, and the 40 - 100 acres of wooded lands. The settlers of Edenbridge were Lithuanian Jewish refugees who had temporarily settled in South Africa. They were lured to Canada by a federal government promise of 160 acres of farmland for only $10. Charles Vickar, whose father settled Edenbridge in 1906, stated that owning land was everything to the Lithuanian Jews. When the refugees were assured that they could freely practice their religion they jumped at the opportunity. They had no knowledge of farming. They did not know how to use a plough or an axe. They were Talmudic students and petty tradesman. These Lithuanian Jews took the Canadian Railroad as far west as it went at the time. When they arrived at the end of the line, the Jewish pioneers opted to go north where they heard there was more wood and water. The farther north you go in Saskatchewan the more woods there are. Instead of joining some of the established farming communities in the level open country, they picked a spot by the Carrot River. The name, Edenbridge, means Jew's bridge. The settlers devised the town name in 1907, when a bridge was constructed over the Carrot River. The Jewish farm population in Canada reached a peak of 2,568 by 1921. Sixty-nine percent of Jewish farmers lived in Western Canada with the majority residing in Saskatchewan. By 1939, it was estimated that one out of every 16 Jews who were working on the Canadian prairies made his livelihood on the farm. Most of the Jewish farming colonies lasted to the mid-point of this century. Jewish farm colonies disappeared as a result of the great drought and depression.

1911: The headquarters of the Zionist Movement was transferred from Cologne to Berlin

1911: Herr Wolfsthal was appointed Attorney-General at Frankenthal, making him the first Jew to hold such a position in Bavaria.

1911: As part of the celebration of its 500th Anniversary, the University of St. Andres conferred an honorary degree on Dr. Georg Brandes, the Danish born Jew who served as Professor of Literature at the University of Copenhagen and Professor Raphael Meldola, the British chemist and entomologist.

1919: Rabbi Abraham I. Kook arrived in Palestine today to assume his role as Chief Rabbi.

1921: With delegates and visitors from every part of the world in attendance, the International Zionist Congress opened its sessions in the ancient drill hall at Carlsbad, Czechoslovakia.

1926: Birthdate of Eugene Jules Colan “a towering figure among comic-book artists, whose depictions of some of the best-known characters in the genre were lauded for their realism, expressiveness and painterly qualities.” According to Margalit Fox, the family’s name had been Cohen before changing it to Colan.

1927: The Weizmann Administration, the Palestine Government and the British Government as the mandatory power were severely criticized on the second day of the Fifteenth Zionist Congress which is in session here. Criticism came from several sources including Isaac Greenbaum, a member of the Polish Parliament and Dr. Stephen S. Wise, leader of the American Zionists.

1929: Amir el-Hussein, Grand Mufti and President of the Supreme Moslem Council warned of “a grave national revolt” by 60 million Muslims if Great Britain persists in enforcing the Balfour Declaration.

1929: A crowd numbering more than 15,000 attending a meeting at London’s Albert Hall protested against Arab violence and urged the British government to restore order, punish the guilty while making reparations for the loss of Jewish life and property.

1929: The British High Commissioner said that he would enforce the Jewish right of access to the Western Wall despite violent Arab opposition.

1931: Birthdate of Frank Magid. Frank Newton Magid was born in Chicago and served in the Army during the Korean War. He graduated from the University of Iowa and received a master's degree there in 1956 in the fields of social psychology and statistics. After teaching at Iowa's Coe College and the University of Iowa, Mr. Magid launched his company in 1956. His first client was a bank; his fourth was WMT-TV, now KGAN-TV, in Cedar Rapids. By creating careful surveys and polling random samples of a population, Mr. Magid and his employees were able to provide highly accurate data that gave television its first serious consumer research. The work paid off for the Iowa station, and the station's manager recommended Mr. Magid for a job at Time-Life's newly acquired KOGO-TV in San Diego. That, too, was successful, and it led to a contract for all the Time-Life stations. "And that really was our launching pad because they were very kind to us and began to do some considerable amount of advertising to the trades, talking about how they were listening to the public through this rather new, and at that time quite unique, kind of research,'' Mr. Magid told Electronic Media. His firm, from which he retired in 2002, also advised AM radio stations to get into the FM field, and urged broadcasters to invested in cable TV. He helped identify viability of direct broadcast satellite television and did the first research that determined the viability of digital video recorders. Now based in Minneapolis, the privately-held company has about 200 employees and advises all kinds of media, including The Washington Post, through its MORI Research division.

1933: The Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden, the central representative body of German Jews emphasizing education, is established; it is led by Otto Hirsch and Rabbi Leo Baeck. It is the only organization officially allowed to represent German Jews.

1934: In Denmark, a collaborationist SS organization, National Socialistike Ungdom (National Socialist Youth), is established.

1935(3rd of Elul, 5695): Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook passed away today at the age of 69. His distinguished career was capped off by his appointment as Chief Rabbi of Palestine in 1919.

1935: The problem of who is to be president of the World Zionist Organization was dramatically settled in Lucerne, Switzerland, early today when Dr. Chaim Weizmann, noted scientist and internationally famous Zionist leader, announced his readiness to assume the full leadership of the Zionist movement.

1935: “A world conference of Jewish doctors opened in Lucerne tonight to discuss Jewish health problems and to consider the advisability of convoking a world Jewish medical conference in Tel Aviv.”

1935: Currently Jerusalem, Jaffa and Tel Aviv have ordinances in effect similar to those in several European cities that limit and/or ban the honking of horns in the late night hours. Police in Palestine have adopted the slogan of “Don’t use your horn. Use your brains.”

1936(14th of Elul, 5696): Dr. Isaac Max Rubinow passed away. Rubinow really had two careers. He was a medical doctor, who among other things played a key role in developing health services in Palestine immediately after World War I. He went back to school and earned a Ph.D. in Economics which provided him with a platform to deal with the issues of health care and its finances. He was a co-founder and the first president of the organization now known as Casualty Actuarial Society. In 1934, he published the Quest for Security which pre-dated and greatly influence the creation of the New Deal social net including Social Security.

1937: Four Arab villagers were shot and killed by unknown persons, apparently Jews, near Hadera. The authorities suspected that Jewish extremists were involved and carried out many arrests. The National Committee for Palestine Jewry (Val'ad Leumi) issued an appeal for national discipline.

1938: On the Island of Rhodes, newspapers carried the announcement of anti-Jewish laws. Ritual slaughter was banned and all Jews who had come to Rhodes after 1919 were told they had to leave.

1938: A concentration camp is established at Neuengamme, Germany.

1938: Mussolini canceled civil rights of Italian Jews and expelled all foreign-born Jews.

1939: Leading Jewish-German jurist Gerhard Leibholz, stripped of his position at the University of Göttingen in 1936, escapes to Switzerland with his wife and two daughters

1939: This date marked the beginning of World War II with the German attack on Poland. German forces overrun western Poland, instigating World War II. Three thousand Jewish civilians die in the bombing of Warsaw. German troops enter Danzig, trapping more than 5000 Jews. Throughout Germany and Austria, Jews may not be outside after 8:00 p.m. in the winter and 9:00 p.m. in the summer Out of the 3,351,000 Jews in Poland, 2,042,000 came under Nazi rule while 1,309,000 came under Soviet rule. Remember, the Soviets invaded Poland from the west after the Nazis had begun their blitz from the West. Within two days the British and French declared war on Germany. During the war a million and a half Jews fought on the side of allied forces: 555,000 for the USA; 500,000 for the Soviet Union; 116,000 for Great Britain (26,000 from Palestine and 90,000 from the British Commonwealth); and another 243,000 for other European nations.

1939: As of this date, there were “185,000 Jews in ‘integral’ German, together with 70,000 in Austria and 190,000 in Czechoslovakia.”

1939: From September 1 to October 25, 1939 Operation Tannenberg, carried out by SS Einsatzgruppen (mobile kill squads), leads to the murders of Polish Jews and Catholic intellectuals and to the burnings of synagogues in Poland.

1939: General George C. Marshall is named Chief of Staff of the United States Army. Marshall is the unsung hero of World War II. He was a critical force in convincing a reluctant Congress to accept peace time conscription in 1940 so that America was not completely unprepared for war when it came to America at Pearl Harbor. He was the architect who managed a war that raged across the entire globe in day before the e-mail, the internet and computers. He won the Nobel Prize for Peace for the Marshall Plan. It is most unusual for a top military leader to have this award. The only chink in Marshall’s armor was his opposition to the creation of the state of Israel. He feared that American support of the Jewish state would destroy American stature among the Arabs and open the way to Soviet domination of the Middle East. He also did not believe that the Israelis could defeat the Arabs and feared the slaughter that would follow. There is no record of how his views may have changed once the Israelis proved they could survive without the need of American military support.

1940: Polish underground officer Witold Pilecki penetrates the main camp at Auschwitz with the intention of organizing secret resistance groups inside the camp.

1940: Soviet authorities order Japanese Consul Sempo Sugihara to leave Kovno, Lithuania, where he has issued 3500 exit visas to Jews

1941: Birthdate of Tzvi Gal-Chen a sabra who would gain fame for his work in retrieval of wind and thermodynamic variables from a single Doppler radar.

1941: In Hungary, Einsatzkommandos, with the help of some Hungarian militia, murdered 11,000 Jews. In August, Hungary had pushed 17,000 stateless Jews across the border to Kamenets-Podolski in the Ukraine. The German army protested that the large number of refugees interfered with the war effort and Hungary took a few thousand back as slave laborers, leaving the rest in the hands of the Germans. There were no survivors.

1941: Wearing the yellow star became obligatory for all Jews in the Reich.

1941: The Ukrainian newspaper Volhyn carried the following - "The element that settled our cities (Jews). . . must disappear completely from our cities. The Jewish problem is already in the process of being solved.”

1941: Birthdate of Tzvi Gal-Chen father of author Rikva Galchen. Tzvi grew up as an Israeli Sabra on a collective farm. He served in the Israeli Army. He earned a B. Sc. and M. Sc. in 1967 and 1970, both from Tel Aviv University, with specialization in applied math and physics which he used in his studies of wind and thermodynamic variables.

1942: As Daniel Schwarzwald jumped from the window in the Lvov Ghetto he was shot by the Germans.

1942: Moshe Skoczylas and Michael Majtek formed Jewish partisan units at Dzialoszyce, Poland.

1942: Fourteen thousand Jews are taken to gravel pits at Piatydni, Ukraine, and machine-gunned.

1942: German troops reach the Caucasus and begin exterminations of indigenous Jews.

1942: SS chief Heinrich Himmler suggests that camp inmates be put to work in on-site arms factories. Armaments chief Albert Speer objects, offering a compromise accepted by Hitler: Himmler's inmates will be made available to Speer for labor in conventional arms factories.

1942: New York Congressman Emanuel Celler submits legislation to allow French Jews about to be deported to their deaths in Eastern Europe to immigrate to the United States. The bill is killed by the House Committee on Immigration.

1942: As Jews are being deported from France to their deaths in the Third Reich, the Vichy Ministry of Information urges the press to remember "the true teaching of Saint Thomas and the Popes...the general and traditional teaching of the Catholic Church about the Jewish problem."

1942(19th of Elul, 5702): An SS guard on a deportation train headed for the Belzec death camp shoots and kills Jadzia Beer, a Polish girl from Jaworów, after her skirt becomes caught in a railcar window and she dangles helplessly from the window.

1942: Thousands of Jews from Stry, Ukraine, are murdered at the Belzec death camp.

1942: A German shepherd that licks the face of a Jewish baby at the Treblinka extermination camp is savagely beaten by its SS master before the guard tramples the baby to death
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1942: Security forces raid five hospitals in the Lódz (Poland) Ghetto, evacuating and slaughtering patients. Babies are thrown out of an upper-story windows, some bayoneted before they hit the ground.

1942: In the town Wlodzimierz Wolynski, the Germans asked the Jewish Council to gather 7,000 Jews for transport. Jocob Kogen a member of the council committed suicide because he did not want to bear the responsibility of sending people to their death. Wlodzimierz Wolynski was in eastern Poland at the start of World War II. This was the part of Poland that Hitler had ceded to Stalin as part of the price for their infamous Non-Aggression Pact. In 1941, the Germans seized the town as they moved forward with the plan to conquer the Soviet Union. Some Poles rationalized the slaughter of the Jews by claiming that they had collaborated with the Soviets during their occupation of the town. These same sources also said the Jews had earned their death because they had lived so much better than the Poles before the war. To understand the success of the Holocaust, one must understand the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism in European society.

1943: Germans send a Polish labor battalion into the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto to flatten any walls and other structures still standing following the German assault of the previous spring. Most survivors of the April-May "liquidation" die during this demolition.

1943: The American Council for Judaism declares that Jewishness exists in a religious sense only, and that attempts to establish a Jewish homeland would be disloyal to the homeland nations of individual Jews.

1943: Jews at the Sobibór death camp attack SS guards with stones and bottles. All attackers are killed.

1943: Jewish women and children, as well as the elderly and the sick, left on the island of Rab after deportation from Dalmatia, Serbia, are transferred to a concentration camp at Zemun, Yugoslavia, and killed. Others remain on the island and are protected by partisans.

1943: Hundreds of Jews escape from Vilna, Lithuania, and head east toward the Soviet front line.

1943: Vilna-based partisan Vitka Kempner blows up an electrical transformer located in the city. A day later, she enters the labor camp at Keilis, near Vilna, and smuggles several dozen prisoners to safety. Still later, she travels with five other partisans to Olkiniki, Poland, where she helps torch a turpentine factory.

1943: In Paris, three Jewish partisans ambush and assassinate Karl Ritter, aide to Nazi slave-labor Chief Fritz Sauckel.

1943: After refusing for months, the Hungarian government accedes to German demands for Jews to be used as slave labor at copper mines at Bor, Yugoslavia.

1943: There was an uprising in Vilna, Lithuania. After the disaster of July and the death of Yitzhak Wittenberg, many of those in the underground decided to flee the city. The German entry into the ghetto was a surprise and there was no time to organize. Forty fighters led by Yechiel Scheinbaum fought until they were all killed. Approximately 200 more left the ghetto and joined the partisans. A second Aktion on September 23 marked the end of the ghetto

1944: Birthdate of orchestra conductor Leonard Slatkin.

1944: Five thousand women and 500 men are evacuated from Auschwitz north to Stutthof, Germany. Three thousand interned women are evacuated from Auschwitz northwest to Neuengamme, Germany.

1944: Following American bomber hits on factories at Auschwitz, the SS gives wounded inmates excellent medical attention as well as flowers and chocolate--a propaganda ploy for the benefit of German media. Once recovered, the inmates are exterminated.

1944: The Gestapo and SS men in Przemysl, Poland, execute eight members of a non-Jewish Polish family and a little Jewish girl after discovering the group playing together in a courtyard.

1944: Despite the objections of Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, Prime Winston Churchill finally ordered the creation of a Jewish Brigade of Palestinian Jews in the British Army. Churchill had long supported the creation of such a unit.

1944: Birthdate of composer Leonard Slatkin.
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1945: Ichud (Unity), a Jewish political organization, is established by the leadership of the Landsberg displaced-persons (DP) camp. It initially acts as an intermediary between DPs and the United States Army in negotiations for DP immigration to Palestine.

1945(23rd of Elul, 5705): Yaakov Waldman, a survivor of a 1942 death march, is murdered by Poles in Turek

1947: Date on which UNSCOP is scheduled to provide its findings to the U.N. General Assembly

1950: Today, Israel charged Jordan with “’full and absolute responsibility for continual acts of aggression’. A government spokesman said Jordon condoned murder and sabotage by allowing infiltrators and criminals to cross the border into Israel and by taking no action to discourage or punish these criminals.

1951: Birthdate of singer-songwriter Steven D. Grossman.

1951: The Union of American Hebrew Congregations, parent body of Reform Judaism in the United States and Canada, moved into its new $1,000,000 headquarters at Fifth Avenue and Sixty-fifth Street

1952: The Israeli government announced that extra rations for meat and poultry would be available for the High Holy Days. Those people who only know of then comparatively affluent society of present day Israel should remember that life during the early years of the Jewish state were quite grim. Between the austerity of the land, the in-gathering of the exiles and the attacks from surrounding Arab states, life in Israel was more akin to living on the American frontier than a modern Western state.

1955(14th of Elul, 5715): Actor Philip Loeb passed away. Loeb played the role of Jake in the early television sitcom “The Goldbergs.” The show starred actress Molly Goldberg and revolved around the life of an obviously Jewish family living in Brooklyn. Loeb was 61 at the time of his death.

1965: Outfielder Richie Scheinblum made his major league début with the Cleveland Indians.

1962: Jack Benny’s latest contract with CBS takes effect. Benny is 68 and the contract is for two years which means the famed tightwad will have a source of income until he is 70.

1967: British poet and author Siegfried Sassoon passed away. His father was Alfred Sassoon, a member of the wealth and distinguished Indian –Jewish Sassoon family. His mother was an Anglo Catholic. The family disinherited the elder Sassoon when he married her and Sassoon was not raised as a Jew.

1969: Pitcher Lloyd Allen made his major league début with the California Angels.

1970: Shimon Peres begins serving as Communications Minister of Israel.

1970: Palestinian terrorists attack King Hussein of Jordan’s motorcade in a failed attempt to assassinate him and bring an end to the Hashemite Kingdom. Hussein was a complex figure whose whole kingship was influenced by the assassination of his grandfather by fanatics who thought he was going to make peace with Israel. In the end, Hussein’s vision overcame his fears and he signed a peace treaty with Israel.

1971(11th of Elul, 5731): Mordechai Ofer passed away at the age of 47. An Israeli politician, he served as a member of the Knesset for the Alignment and Labor Party from 1965 until his death. Born in Kraków in Poland in 1924, Ofer made aliyah to Mandate Palestine the following year. He joined the Mandate-era Jewish Police force, and served in the IDF during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. After being demobilized in 1950 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, he began working for Egged. He became a member of the co-operative's board, and from 1961 until his death, served as director of its Finances department. In 1965 he was elected to the Knesset on the Alignment list. He was re-elected in 1969, but died in office while still in office and his seat was taken by Moshe Shahal

1977: The Prime Minister Menachem Begin won a flat “No” on the subject of the recognition of what he described as ‘the murder organization called the PLO.’ The Knesset vote was 92 to four.
1977: Birthdate of actress Shoshana Elise Bean.

1982: Washington announces the “Reagan Plan” that included the principle of self-government for the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank in association with Jordan. The Americans saw it as the next step after the Camp David Accords. The Begin government would reject the plan because it was not prepared to give up control of what it called Judaea and Samaria.

1983: Henry "Scoop" Jackson Democratic Senator from Washington passed away at the age of 71. Jackson was an outspoken supporter of Israel and the Jews in the Soviet Union. In 1974, Jackson co-sponsored the Jackson-Vanik amendment with Charles Vanik, which denied normal trade relations to certain countries with non-market economies that restricted the freedom of emigration. The amendment was intended to allow refugees, particularly religious minorities, specifically Jews, to escape from the Soviet Bloc. Jackson and his assistant, Richard Perle also lobbied personally for some people, who were affected by this law — among them Natan Sharansky.

1989: In Warsaw, Leonard Bernstein conducted concert commemorating outbreak of World War II.

1991: Uzbekistan declares independence from the Soviet Union. Depending upon which version of history you believe Jews have been living in what is now Uzbekistan since the period following the destruction of the first Temple or the period of Persian domination of Judea. At the time of the declaration there were approximately 15,000 Jews living in the country centered in four major population centers.

1991: Rabbi Sir Jonathan Henry Sacks was appointed Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth

2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster.

2005: In Israel approximately 1,700,000 pupils begin the new school year.

2005: In Hong Kong, Nancy Ann Kissel was found guilty of murdering her husband Robert Kissel, a senior banker with Merrill Lynch. First she gave him a milkshake laced with sleeping medications and crushed his skull. Then she wrapped his body in a carpet and stuffed into a moving box. The jury did not believe that Mrs. Kissel had acted in self-defense. The scandalous murder trial sent shock waves through the financial communities in Hong Kong and New York as well as the Jewish community in Hong Kong. It included everything from Mrs. Kissel’s extramarital affair to a multi-million dollar New York real estate fraud involving the descendant’s brother Andrews Kissel. Who says Jews are only good for stories about Talmud and Accounting?

2006: In a strange twist of fate, two Moslem countries are making plans to send troops to serve as part of the UN peacekeeping force designed to maintain peace along Israel’s border with Lebanon. Turkey's government submitted a resolution to parliament to send peacekeepers to Lebanon despite public opposition to the deployment. Israel has dropped its objections to Indonesia joining the UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, and discussions are underway as to when Jakarta would send a planned contingent of 1,000 troops

2006: An Orthodox Jewish man was removed from an Air Canada Jazz flight in Montreal for praying.

2007: In Jerusalem, Larry Fogel and Moni Arnon perform "Simon and Garfunkel" music. The duo provides an authentic rendition of the famed Americans’ acousitc harmonies in their performance at the Bible Lands Museum tent.

2007: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, the traditional Shabbat morning service at Temple Judah (a reform congregation with just over 100 families as members) attracted sixteen congregants confounding critics who are always predicting the demise of the American Jewish Community.

2007: The Cedar Rapids Gazette featured an article entitled “Kosher gardening shows Jewish law in practice.”

2007: (Elul 18) Birthdates of the Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Schneur Zalman Liadi, founder of Chabad-Lubavitch.

2007: A Des Moines rabbi who was named Friday in online media reports as planning to marry two gay men said he didn't know of the plan. Rabbi David Kaufman of Temple B'nai Jeshurun in Des Moines said today that he couldn't have married Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan because neither man was Jewish. The pair were married Friday before a ban on same-sex unions was reinstated. Kaufman said he would have referred the couple to Unitarian Minister Mark Stringer, who performed the ceremony. Following is Kaufman's statement on the events: “Someone who knew that I would be willing to perform same sex ceremonies evidently decided that I was going to do one for two gay friends of hers and let the press know about it. Neither of the men was Jewish. I didn't know anything about the plan, much less participated in it, and couldn't do a wedding this morning (Friday) anyway, since I was otherwise committed. I wouldn't have done this particular ceremony because neither was Jewish in the first place. Instead I would have referred them to Rev. Mark Stringer of the Unitarian Church, who I know is a strong proponent of civil marriage and same sex ceremonies and who eventually did the marriage anyway. I commend him for so doing. In the meantime, it was posted for a while on the DM Register website that I was doing the ceremony and the news media, including national news media with multiple TV cameras, showed up at the Temple. The phone was ringing off the hook for about two hours. Meanwhile, I wasn't even in the building and had another life cycle event to perform at the time that the media was gathered. For those interested, I both support Civil Marriage and I would do a same sex commitment ceremony, but my requirements for so doing would be exactly the same as for a non-homosexual couple. Someone has to be Jewish and the couple must either be prepared to raise their children as Jews or have discussed it or not decided. I do not act as "Justice of the Peace" in a secular capacity. When I do weddings of any kind, I represent the Reform Jewish tradition in general and my beliefs as a Reform Jewish Rabbi in particular. I am there as a Rabbi, not as Justice of the Peace. Meanwhile, let me offer a hearty Mazal Tov to Sean and Tim."

2008: A busy day in Israel on a variety of fronts as 1.4 millions pupils ended their summer vacation and began the 2008/09 school year

2008: Athletic mogul Arkadi Gaybamak sacked the entire Betar management team

2008: The WUJS Arad program relocates from the southern desert town to the Central region. The program moves to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for the fall session, which is expected to draw 50 participants from overseas. The five-month program will be extended by a month for that term.

2008(1st of Elul, 5768): Rosh Chodesh Elul Rosh; Begin blowing the Shofar at Shacharit

2008: Deadline for submitting entries to the D.C. Jewish Community Center's third annual writing contest entries for which must come from residents of the Washington Metro area and must consist short essays or stories that illuminate how humor has been helpful in difficult times -- is looking for entries.

2008 (1 Elul, 5768): Oded Schramm, who melded ideas from two branches of mathematics into an equation that applies to a multitude of physics problems from the percolation of water through rocks to the tangling of polymers, died in a fall at Guye Peak near Snoqualmie Pass in Washington State. He was 46. The death of Dr. Schramm, an avid and experienced hiker, was confirmed by the King County Sheriff’s Department. Dr. Schramm’s equation analyzes behavior in two-dimensional systems near “phase transitions” when order suddenly appears out of disorder, like tiny magnets that suddenly line up in the same direction. Physicists had worked out rough answers to the problems, but Dr. Schramm was able to provide rigorous, exact calculations.“It was a revelation to both mathematicians and physicists,” Jennifer Tour Chayes, who hired Dr. Schramm for Microsoft Research’s theory group in 1999, said of Dr. Schramm’s insights. For that work, published in 2000, Dr. Schramm received an array of accolades and prizes. If Dr. Schramm had been born three weeks and a day later, he would almost certainly have been one of the winners of the Fields Medal, perhaps the highest honor in mathematics, in 2002. But the Fields Medals, which honor groundbreaking work by young mathematicians, are awarded only once every four years and only to mathematicians who are 40 or under. Dr. Schramm was born on Dec. 10, 1961; the cutoff birth date for the 2002 Fields was Jan. 1, 1962. Wendelin Werner, a younger mathematician who collaborated with Dr. Schramm on follow-up research, won a Fields in 2006. Born in Jerusalem, Oded Schramm received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science from Hebrew University in 1986 and a master’s in mathematics a year later. Moving to the United States, he completed his doctoral degree in mathematics at Princeton in 1990. After working at the University of California, San Diego, and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, Dr. Schramm joined the theory group of Microsoft Research, an arm of Microsoft dedicated to basic science akin to the old Bell Laboratories. “He was the most theoretical in the theory group,” said Yuval Peres, the current head of the theory group. For his doctoral thesis, Dr. Schramm worked in the mathematical field of complex analysis. Then, unlike most mathematicians who specialize in a niche, he jumped between varied branches of mathematics. He took an equation first developed in 1923 by the mathematician Charles Loewner in a field known as conformal geometry and added ideas from probability theory. Dr. Schramm added random, or stochastic, variables to Dr. Loewner’s equation and called the result stochastic Loewner evolution. The approach was unique and proved applicable to a range of physics problems. “He brought together two branches of mathematics that were previously unrelated: conformal geometry and probability theory,” Dr. Chayes said. “Any time you can relate two different fields obviously there is huge excitement about that. It just opens up all kinds of new horizons in mathematics.” His awards included the Clay Research Award in 2002, the Henri Poincaré prize in 2003, the Polya Prize in 2006 and the Ostrowski Prize last year. He was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences this year.

2008: The fifth AICE Israeli Film Festival opened on today at the Palace Como, South Yarra. More than 400 people attended the Opening Night of the Festival, officially launched by The Ambassador of Israel, H.E. Yuval Rotem. Other speakers on the evening included Tony Lupton MP, Cabinet Secretary of Victoria and Evan Thornley MP, Deputy Cabinet Secretary (both of whom represented the Victorian Premier, John Brumby), guest of the Festival Gal Zaid, leading member of the Aboriginal community, Warren Mundine, Founder and Chairman of AICE, Albert Dadon AM and AICE Executive Director, Keith Lawrence. Australian actress Kerry Armstrong, international jazz pianist Joe Chindamo, Sir Zelman and Lady Anna Cowen, Melbourne Film Festival director Richard Moore, award-winning film and television producers Sue Maslin and Ros Tatarka were just some of the guests at the opening night. The opening film was the multi-award winning 'The Secrets', written, directed and produced by Avi Nesher, whose previous film, 'Turn Left at the End of the World' opened the festival in 2005. Awards include Best Film and Best Script at the 2008 Jackson Hole International Film Festival and nominations for 8 Israeli 'Ophirs' (including Best Film).

2009: During a breakfast reception at the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia, Governor Tim Kaine provides a briefing on his recent trip to Israel highlighting visits with top elected officials and business leaders. The Virginia Israel Advisory Board hosted Governor Kaine's Israel mission with support from the JCRC.

2009: In Israel, the start of the 2009-2010 school year

2009: At Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park, Madonna appears at the first of two concerts that are the last stop on her “Sticky and Sweet” tour. She first appeared at Hayarkon Park 16 years ago as part of her Girlie Tour, and also visited Israel in 2006 during the Jewish High Holidays along with 2,000 other students of Kabbalah.

2009: Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky told Jewish students at the Lipman Jewish Day School in Moscow today how much has changed in their country since he fought for the rights of Jews in the Soviet Union and spent nine years as a political prisoner. He entertained the teenage students with tales of how he used a toilet to practice his Hebrew with other Jewish dissidents in prison. He described how pleased he was to see a new generation of Russian Jews free to attend Jewish schools and visit Israel. But hanging over his visit was the persistence of anti-Semitism in Russia today. "There is anti-Semitism in everyday life, and a lot of it," the school's deputy director Irina Sukhalinskya said. Sharansky praised Russian authorities for combating anti-Semitism and improving ties with Israel. Galina Kozhevnikova, deputy director of the Moscow-based Sova hate crimes watchdog, said the level of anti-Semitism is stable and "has not changed in years." The number of attacks on Jews and cases of vandalism against Jewish cemeteries and synagogues is declining, however, she said.

2009, A special "Winton train" set off from the Prague Main railway station. The train, consisting of an original locomotive and carriages used in the 1930s, headed to London via the original Kindertransport route. On board the train were several surviving "Winton children" and their descendants, who were to be welcomed by Nicholas Winton in London. Sir Nicholas George Winton organized the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport. Winton found homes for them and arranged for their safe passage to Britain

2010: Meiron Reuven is scheduled to begin serving as Israel’s new ambassador to the UN.

2010: President Barack Obama is scheduled to host a dinner attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and former British Prime Minister Tony Balir this evening prior to the start of peace talks which are scheduled to begin tomorrow.

2010(22nd of Elul): 25th Yahrzeit of Joseph B. Levin, of blessed memory; Husband of Deborah, father of Judy Rosenstein of blessed memory, David Levin and Mitchell Levin. You wouldn’t be reading this if it hadn’t been for him and that statement is true in more ways than one!

2010: Today Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke about yesterday’s fatal terror attack in Kiryat Arba, promising that "the IDF will do everything possible to quickly bring the perpetrators to justice, to prevent the possibility of a wave of terror attacks from developing, to prevent other terror missions from disrupting the fabric of relationships and relative quiet which has been created in the area in recent years and even the intent to harm the coming peace talks."
At a meeting with IDF OC Central Command, Barak called upon the settlements, the heads of settlements, and the heads of Beit Hagai, to demonstrate discretion, responsibility and steadfastness. "We are in long struggle over our right to leading secure and peaceful lives and reaching a peace agreement with our neighbors."

2010: Kol Shira performed at a Taste of the Market- Iowa City's Farmers Market

2010: President Obama today began the arduous process of coaxing and pressing the main Middle East participants to define and embrace a comprehensive peace settlement, declaring that “the status quo is unsustainable.” In a statement this afternoon in the Rose Garden, he said that the goal of the direct negotiations between the core participants, the first in 20 months, is “the emergence of an independent, democratic and viable Palestinian state, living side by side in peace and security with a Jewish state of Israel and its other neighbors.” Earlier in the day Mr. Obama joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in strongly condemning a fatal attack on the West Bank yesterday and declaring solemnly, “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

2010: Archaeologists in Jordan have unearthed a 3,000-year-old Iron Age temple with a trove of figurines of ancient deities and circular clay vessels used for religious rituals, officials said today. The head of the Jordanian Antiquities Department, Ziad al-Saad, said the sanctuary dates to the eighth century B.C. and was discovered at Khirbat 'Ataroz near the town of Mabada, some 20 miles (32 kilometers) southwest of the capital Amman. The Moabites, whose kingdom ran along present-day Jordan's mountainous eastern shore of the Dead Sea, were closely related to the Israelites, although the two were in frequent conflict. The Babylonians eventually conquered the Moabites in 582 B.C.

2011: The Ohr Chadash Academy, a new Modern Orthodox day school is scheduled to open at Park Heights Jewish Community Center in Baltimore, Maryland.

2011; The family of Nahum Itzkovich, Jerusalem district psychologist of the Israel Employment Service and husband of The Jerusalem Post’s veteran health and science reporter Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, sits shivah for the last time today.

2011: The school year is scheduled to begin today in Israel.

2011: Between the Lines a novel written by Marv Levy is scheduled to be published today by Ascend Books.

Created and Edited by Mitchell Levin Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com

Copyright; August, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin

This Day, August 31, In Jewish History

August 31 In Jewish History

12 CE: Birthdate of Gaius Caligula, Roman Emperor. Caligula was crowned in 37 and murdered in 41. Life for Jews during his reign was part of the downward spiral that would result in three rebellions by the Jews over the next one hundred years. Caligula was crazy. Unfortunately his insanity had additional negative impact on the Jews. Caligula thought he was divine and insisted on his statue being placed in the Temple at Jerusalem. His efforts were twice thwarted and his untimely death prevented him from taking vengeance against his Jewish subjects.

38 CE: Riots broke out in Alexandria, Egypt after the Jews spurned an order by the Roman Prefect Flaccus to place a statue of Emperor Caligula in the local synagogue. This was an outgrowth of antagonism between the Jews of Alexandria and some of their pagan neighbors. The pagans were angered by the Jews celebrating Caligula’s decision to restore Agrippa, a descendant of the Hasmoneans to the Jewish kingship in Palestine. They knew that the Jews could not worship a statue so by forcing a statue of Caligula into the synagogue, Apion, the pagan leader knew he was asking for trouble. The violence ended and Flaccus was recalled to Rome. But this was not the end of the trouble much of which was rooted in the fact that some pagans begrudged the Jews their commercial success and wished to do away with them as competitors. This would not be the last time that those who sought to oust the Jews from commercial ventures did so under the guise of religion.

161; Birthdate of Commodus, the Roman Emperor who reigned while Judah ha-Nasi was compiling and editing the Mishna

1056: Byzantine Empress Theodora becomes ill, dying suddenly a few days later, without children to succeed the throne ending the Macedonian dynasty. This was a period of relative calm for the Jews of the Byzantine Empire. The last official persecution had taken place at the end of the 10th century. Conditions would not seriously deteriorate until the arrival of the waves of Crusaders that began at the end of the 11th century.

1801: Birthdate of Pierre Soulé was a United States politician and diplomat from Louisiana during the mid-19th century. He is best known for his role in writing the Ostend Manifesto, which was written in 1854 as part of an attempt to annex Cuba to the United States. The Manifesto was roundly denounced, especially by anti-slavery elements, and Soulé himself came under severe attack. According to an article published in the New York Times, Soule was Jewish.
1834: Birthdate of Simon Kayserling, a German educator and writer; who was the principal teacher and inspector of the M. M. David'sche Freischule from 1861, and taught for several years in the Jewish teachers' seminary in Hanover.

1862: This afternoon the Congregation Baith Israel dedicated their new synagogue to public worship. The synagogue, which is a very handsome brick structure, stands upon the lot at the corner of State and Boerum streets, Brooklyn, and cost in the neighborhood of $10,000. Rabbis Raphael and Isaacs entered the sanctuary which was packed with congregants leading a procession that carried the synagogues “sacred scrolls.” They were greeted by Baith Israel’s spritiual leader, Rabbi Joel Alexander “who said or rather intoned the sacred welcome "Boruch habo" -- when the choir, which was composed of several beautiful black-eyed Hebrew maidens led by Felix Sanger, and accompanied by Sanger's brass band, sang with strange effect one of their quaint and sacred songs. The procession then marched around the room seven times, the Rabbis successively chanting an appropriate song to which the choir responded with the proper chorus. The eternal fire was lighted, the sacred rolls were deposited behind the altar, the Synagogue was irrevocably dedicated to the worship of God, the Father; and after other songs were given, Rabbi Raphael delivered the consecration sermon. [Editor’s Note - Baith Israel was also known as Baith Israel Anshei Emes and is now known as the Kane Street Synagogue, , the oldest continually running synagogue in Brooklyn. Among the congregations Bar Mitzvah “boys” was Aaron Copland.]

1864: The New York Times reviews a new translation of the Book of Job by J.M. Rodwell, “an eminent Oriental scholar who has lately published the first readable English version of The Koran, in which the chapters are chronologically arranged, and the poetical portions rendered metrically.” His translation of the Book of Job, “the most sublime of the Hebrews scriptures” follows the same pattern. Instead of following the normal pattern of chapters and verses, Rodwell’s translation “divides the book according to the stages of the narrative, arranging the text in couplets of measured prose, that represent the simple energy of the original. "

1864: The Union Army under General William T. Sherman began the final assault on Atlanta. Among those leading the way was Frederick Knefler, an immigrant from Hungary who rose to the rank of Major General in the Army of the Cumberland.

1865: A writer who simply signs his letter to the editor of the New York Times “A Subscriber” took issue with Max Maretzee’s description of his dispute with the New York Herald. In defending The Tribune, the unnamed letter writer accuses Max of using “all the cunning of his Jewish origin.” Max Maretzee probably refers to the German born composer and impresario Max Maretzek

1875: The New York Times published a detailed description of Sir Moses Montefiore’s visit to Jerusalem in the last weeks of July, 1875.

1876: After only three months on the throne, Ottoman sultan Murat V is deposed and succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid II. During his reign, the Jews celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of their arrival from Spain. Abd-ul-Hamid II is the first Sultan to meet with Herzl. Unfortunately, this meeting does not result in approval for Herzl’s plan to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine as part of the Ottoman Empire.

1877: The recently re-built synagogue of Washington Hebrew Congregation was dedicated this evening. President Rutherford B. Hayes who was supposed to attend the service sent a message expressing his regret that official business kept him from fulfilling his obligation. Rabbi Benjamin Szold of Baltimore’s Temple Oheb Shalom preached the sermon at the service. [Rabbi Szold was the father of Henrietta Szold.]

1878: As the Yellow Fever Epidemic continues in the Deep South,The Young Men’s Hebrew Association of New York City has received an appeal for aid from those living in New Orleans
1878: Albert Chapsky who died of Yellow Fever in St. Bernard Parish was buried today in the Hebrew Cemetery in New Orleans, LA. [In Louisiana, the term Parish as used here refers to a county and is not a religious designation.]

1879: Birthdate of Alma Mahler. She passed away in 1969.

1879: William Price died in a freak accident while driving a wagon filled with the bodies of three children who were to be interred in the Hebrew Cemetery at Cypress Hills.

1879: It was reported today that Mme. Caroline Bertrand, the daughter of Samson Bertrand has written a placed called “Le Noveau Juif Errant” or in English, “The New Wandering Jew.”

1879: In New York, Judge Van Brunt was satisfied that Rebecca Cohen, a 15 year Jewish girl, was legally married to Thomas Fallon, a Roman Catholic and vacated the write of habeas corpus that he had previously issued. The writ had been granted when the girl’s father, Lowenthal Cohen, came before the court and claimed that his daughter had been taken against her will or had been deceived into going off with Fallon.

1879: It was reported today that the world’s population includes 8 million Jews. Other reports have placed this number anywhere from 3,500,000 to 15,000,000. The claim that there are only 73,000 Jews living in the United is thought to be low since it commonly assumed that the U.S. Jewish population is approximately 150,000. The European portion of the Russian Empire has the largest Jewish population (2,61,179) followed by Austria with 1,600,000. Surprisingly, Asia, not counting Turkey is reported to have a total Jewish population in excess of 2,000,000 while Canada has one of the smallest number of Jews ranging anywhere between 1,500 and 7,000. Spain and Scotland are reported to have the fewest number of Jews of all the places surveyed.

1879: At the Essex Market Police Court, Justice Smith decided that Henry O’Brien was justified in hitting Harris Goldstein in the face with a shovel and breaking his nose. O’Brien had tricked Goldstein into eating a piece of pork and then tried to escape from him by taking refuge in his apartment. The judge felt Goldstein had earned his punishment for letting his temper get the better of him and for breaking into O’Brien’s apartment. The judge the sent both of the boys on their way.

1886: An earthquake kills 100 in Charleston, South Carolina. The earthquake occurred in the same year that members of Sheartih Israel reunited with members of Congregation Beth Elohim, Charleston’s (and the nations) oldest continually functioning Reform Temple.

1887: Birthdate of Austrian born, British scientist Friedrich Adolf Paneth. Paneth was a Protestant but his parents were Jewish. Knowing what he did of Hitler’s racial rules and being opposed to his politics, Paneth did not return from a speaking tour during the 1930’s and remained in Britain where he studied and worked.

1897: In Basel, The Second Zionist Congress comes to an end. Herzl's father was among the delegates.

1898: Major Henry, one of those who helped frame Dreyfus, commits suicide in his prison cell.
1903: Herzl's last meeting with German nobleman Grossherzog Friedrich of Baden on the island of Mainau. Herzl presents his difficult dilemma between East Africa and Palestine. "We would be glad to renounce the good land of East Africa for the poor land of Palestine. I in particular would see an honorable rescue for our poor Jews if this exchange could be made."

1902: Mrs. Adoph Landenburg introduces the split skirt for riding horseback.

1905(30th of Av, 5665): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1905: Birthdate of Dore Schary, American screenwriter, playwright, producer and director. The son of immigrant Russian parents, Schary’s first name came from shortening the original which was Isadore. Shary provided the Oscar winning script for the film “Boys Town.” He also produced another all-American film, “Lassie come Home.” Shary was part of that gaggle of first generation American Jews who created the cinematic version of the American Myth. Shary’s greatest success came late in his career when he wrote the script for “Sunrise At Campobello” the popular play and film that focused on FDR’s fight with polio. Shary was active in numerous Jewish organization including the Anti- Defamation League. He passed away in 1980.

1905: Birthdate of Sanford Meisner, American actor, teacher and creator of the Meisner Technique

1909: Nobel laureate Paul Ehrlich began the first chemotherapy when with his assistant Sahachiro Hato, a rabbit infected with syphilis was injected with "Preparation 606." This number marked the 606th chemical devised and tested by Ehrlich's team at his Frankfort laboratory. The compound was so successful that the sores on the rabbit promptly healed. The term "chemotherapy" was coined by Erhlich.

1907: Birthdate of William Shawn, editor of the New Yorker magazine.

1916: Birthdate of broadcast journalist Daniel Schorr. To the current generation, Schorr is the wild old political voice on NPR. To an earlier generation, he is one of the journalist who made Richard Nixon’s infamous “Enemies List.” To an even older generation, Schorr was the voice of CBS news from Moscow during the coldest days of the Cold War in the 1950’s. The Soviets finally go disgusted with Schorr that they expelled. This gave Schorr the singular distinction of antagonizing the Communist Russians and the ant-Communist Nixon.

1918: The Australian Corps under the command of Sir John Monash crossed the Somme River tonight of and broke the German lines at the Battle of Mont St. Quentin and the Battle of Péronne.

1918: Birthdate of Alan Jay Lerner, American librettist and lyricist for stage and screen. Lerner was yet another of a myriad of Jews who created and refined that most original American art form – the Broadway musical. One of his most famous contributions was “My Fair Lady.” He passed away in 1986

1919: Thirty five members of the Jewish Defense Organization were disarmed and shot after the Ukrainian National Army recaptured Kiev from the Bolsheviks. As an organized unit, the Jews had played an important role in the defense of Kiev. This was part of massacre of the Jews at Kiev.

1924: Birthdate of actor and comedian Buddy Hackett.

1926: Robert and Lillian Mulwitz gave birth to their daughter Ruth at Port Chester New York. The family changed their name to Roberts and it was as Ruth Roberts that she gained fame as the “songwriter best known for her cheerful and durable baseball anthem ‘Meet the Mets.’”

1927: Dr. Leon Motzkin presided over today's session of the Fifteenth Zionist Congress in Basel.

1929: Bedouins attacked nearly a dozen Jewish settlements in the northern Galilee pillaging the houses and burning the crops.” According to at least one report, at least 22 Jews were wounded in the attacks. “In Jerusalem, houses of Georgian Jews located near the Damascus Gat which were reportedly left open by police during their unsuccessful search for weapons were looted by Arab marauders.

1929: A party of thirty-seven Jewish settlers left for Palestine today on the steamer Carnaro bound for Jaffa. Dr. A. Kligler of the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, Professor Roth, the Palestine labor leader Ben Gurion, Dr. Benzion Mossensohn, director of the Hebrew High School at Tel Aviv, and other Palestinian Jewish leaders sailed on the same steamer

1932(29th of Av, 5692): Moyshe-Leyb Halpern died of a heart attack in New York City. Born in 1886, he was a Yiddish-language modernist poet raised in a traditional Jewish household in Zlotshev, Galicia and brought to Vienna at the age of 12 in 1898 to study commercial art. Halpern began writing modernist poetry n German while living in Vienna. Upon returning to his hometown in 1907, he switched to writing in Yiddish. In 1908, Halpern emigrated to New York City in order to avoid the military draft. There he became associated with a group of Yiddish poets called Di Yunge (The Young Ones). He published his first book of poetry in 1919, In nyu york (In New York). That same year, he married. He had a son in 1923. His second book, Di goldene pave (The Golden Peacock), was published in 1924. Halpern also wrote for satirical magazines and Frayhayt (Freedom), a communist Yiddish newspaper.

1933: Rabbi Joseph Zvi Dushinsky becomes the Chief Rabbi of the Agudath Israel in Jerusalem.

1933: The Jiidische Rundschau is permitted to reappear. The popular Jewish weekly, which had been published since 1902, had been forced to suspend publication for producing editorials that had challenged Nazi charges against the Zionists. The magazine would be forced to close in 1938

1933: The eighteenth World Zionist Congress adopted a resolution providing for sending a commission to Palestine to investigate charges of terrorism in connection with the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, the Zionist leader who had been killed in Tel Aviv.

1933: Professor Selig Brodetsky told members of the World Zionist Congress that Zionist organization has inaugurated conversations with Arab leaders of Syria and other neighboring lands for the extension of Jewish colonization.

1933: The Council of the Warsaw Jewish Community sends a protest to the Zionist Congress against agreements for exchange of goods between Nazi Germany and Palestine.

1933(9th of Elul, 5693): Nazi agents murdered Theodore Lessing in Marienbad, Czechoslovakia. Lessing was an anti-Nazi Jewish philosopher and Zionist who had taught at Hanover Technical High School. He had moved to Czechoslovakia because he feared for his safety.

1935(2nd of Elul, 5695): Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook known as Rav Kook passed away. Rabbi Kook was the first Chief Rabbi Ashkenazic of Palestine, serving from 1921 until his death in 1935. Born in Russia in 1865, Kook was a child prodigy and star student at the famed yeshiva in Volozhin He served as a Rabbi in several communities in Europe before moving to Eretz Israel in 1904 where he served as a rabbi in Jaffa as well as for the new Zionist settlements. "Kook was the outstanding leader and thinker of the religious Zionist movement at a time when the great majority opposed of Orthodox Jewry Zionism. He endeared himself to the nonreligious elements in Israel by sympathy and support for the secular sector, particularly in the agricultural settlements." He regarded all who made Alyiah, "regardless of their beliefs to be inspired by holy sparks "since they were laying the foundation for the ultimate messianic redemption."

1935(2nd of Elul, 5695): Herman Bernstein an American journalist, writer, translator, and diplomat, passed away. Herman Bernstein was born in 1876, at Vladislavov which was on the Russo-German border to David and Marie Bernstein. In 1893, he emigrated to the United States, where he completed his education and married Sophie Friedman on December 31, 1901. “His first stories were published in 1900. He contributed to the New York Evening Post, The Nation, The Independent, and Ainslee's Magazine. He was the founder and editor of The New London Day and an editor of the Jewish Tribune and of the Jewish Daily Bulletin. As a correspondent of the New York Times, Bernstein regularly travelled to Europe. In 1915, he went to Europe to document the situation of Jews in the war zones. He documented the Russian Revolution in 1917 for the New York Herald, which led him to both Siberia and Japan with the American Expeditionary Forces. He also covered the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 for the same newspaper. In 1921 Bernstein published a book History of a Lie, an account of the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. According to GPU agent Pavlovsky (Yakshin), arrested in Germany in 1929, Bernstein worked for both GPU and Comintern, arranging pro-Soviet coverage in American press. One of his main goals was to describe White army and White emigres as anti-Semitic instigators of pogroms and suppress coverage of pogroms by units of the Red Army and other forces allied to Bolsheviks during the Russian civil war. GPU supplied Bernstein with forged documents for publication. In 1921 Bernstein received 17 000 gold rubles for his services.

1936: Dr. Alexander Rosenfeld, vice president of the Tel Aviv Sports Organization received a cable today saying that the Maccabees Palestine Soccer team is scheduled to arrive in New York on September 14.

1937: The violence orchestrated by Arab leaders that was designed to end Jewish immigration and land purchases continued with seven Arab attacks on Jews in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Karkur. Three Jews and four Arabs were killed and there were many wounded. Moshe Goldenberg, the mukhtar (village elder) of Beit Alfa, had a narrow escape when shot at in Beit Shean. (Yes, this is the same Beit Shean where the bodies of Saul and his sons were taken as described in the Book of Samuel.) Jewish and Arab leaders were summoned by district commissioners who appealed for the restoration of law and order.

1938: Moslem terrorists sought to extend their power by killing other Arabs. “Tewfik Shantin an Arab broker was shot dead in the waiting room of an Arab doctor in Jaffa” while an unnamed Arab village chieftain was shot to death while walking with a friend in the Old City of Jerusalem.

1938(4th of Elul, 5698): Mordecai Leznick, a Jewish policeman riding on an Arab owned bus traveling between Lydda and Jaffa was shot to death by an Arab passenger.

1938(4th of Elul, 5698): In Tel Aviv Schmuel Weiner died from wounds sustained when he was stoned last Friday while riding through Ramleh.

1939: The last day of peace in Europe before the outbreak of World War II. Every one waited to see if the Poles would cave into German demands. Every one waited to see if the British would betray the Poles as they had the Czechs in 1938. What the world did not know was that Hitler issued Directive no.1, 1939 ordering the attack on Poland to begin at dawn the following day. Already, 1,500,000 German troops were poised to enact Case White, the invasion of Poland, The plan to create a fake attack by Polish troops on a German transmitter was about to be enacted. By noon the next “Polish casualties” (actually the corpses of concentration camp inmates) would provide Hitler’s proof of Polish perfidy and the Blitz of Poland would be on its way.

1939: Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on Gleiwitz radio station giving them an excuse to attack Poland the following day, starting World War II.

1941: Churchill received 17 reports of the shooting of Jews and Russians in numbers ranging between 61 and 4,200. These reports covered the two month period beginning with June, 1941 when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union and the special Killing Squads began their work.

1941: In response to a Jewish reprisal raid on a German patrol, all Jews were confined to their homes. That evening the "action" commenced. The entire Jewish section of Vilna was raided. As a result 2,019 women, 864 men, and 817 children were taken away to pits in Ponar forests and all shot dead. This event is notable for two reasons. First it is unusual because it includes the report of Jewish resistance. Second it is unusual because the Nazis supplied a specific reason for killing Jews other than their usual anti-Semitic drivel.

1942: By the end of August SS officer Kurt Gerstein has failed in his attempt to publicize his knowledge of the mass gassings of Jews. He is rebuffed in his approach to the German papal nuncio, Cesare Orsenigo

1942: In Ternopil, western Ukraine, at 4.30 am, German SS organize the first deportation of Jews from Ternopil ghetto to death camp in Belzec, about 5,000 Jews were deported to face death in Belzec. When the Germans captured Ternopil, about 18,000 Jews lived in the city.

1943: By the end of August, 47 Jewish women and 50 Jewish men are executed after being discovered in the "Aryan" section of Warsaw.

1944: Jews liberated from the Novaki labor camp joined the battle for Banska Bystrica. Four weeks later Eichmann exacted revenge for the Slovak Uprising by deporting 8,975 Slovak Jews to Birkenau where most met their deaths.

1944: Over the next four days Jews formerly interned at the Nováky labor camp fight in a Slovakian uprising against the Germans. In all, more than 1500 Jews join 16,000 Slovak soldiers and partisans. One partisan battalion commander, a Jewish woman named Edita Katz, covers the retreat of her men with a machine gun and hand grenades until she is killed by Germans and the Hlinka Guard. Another Jewish partisan, Tibor Cifea, is shot by Germans and left hanging for three days.

1944: A photograph was taken of a small group of survivors from the Kovno, a town in Lithuania that had been liberated on August 1. At the start of the war there were approximately 40,000 Jews living there. There were only 2,000 still alive at when the Soviets liberated the city.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/august/14.asp

1945: The Liberal Party of Australia is founded by Robert Menzies. During the Parliamentary elections in August, 2010, The Liberal Party sought the support of the Jewish community by picturing itself as being a better friend of Israel than the Labor Party.

1945: President Truman endorsed a proposal for 100,000 Jews to be immediately admitted to Palestine and so informed the British Prime Minister. Mr. Atlee was, to say the least, not pleased.

1945: Birthdate of Itzhak Perlman. Born in Tel Aviv, Perlman was stricken with polio. He triumphed over the adversity to become one of the world’s greatest violinists.

1945: Lt. Col. Louis Geffen, a judge advocate in the US Army who was sailing across the Pacific to his new duty station was allowed to use an area on the bow of the ship for Kabbalat Shabbat services.

1947: UNSCOP, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, published its report. Under the plan, Palestine was to be partitioned into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. Jerusalem was to be a demilitarized, neutral city governed as an international trusteeship under the United Nations.

1948: Birthdate of screenwriter Lowell Ganz

1950: Business leaders, Cabinets members and leading representatives from the Knesset held an all day session to discuss Israel’s worsening economic coniditons. “The economic troubles stem mainly from the fact that the expansion of production is unable to keep up with the growth of the population, which increased in 27 months from 655,000 to 1,125,000.”

1952: The final draft of the Reparations Agreement signed at The Hague was sent to Bonn. It was still waiting for the West German government's formal approval. The UN submitted to Bonn for special consideration a list of more than 380 survivors of the Nazi scientific experiments conducted in concentration camps. More than 200 such victims were still living in Germany.

1961: Those “sons of Moses,” the Sherry brothers, combined their efforts to give the Dodgers a 5 to 2 victory over the Cubs. Norm Sherry hit a two-run homer for the Los Angeles Dodgers today and Larry Sherry pitched well enough in relief to get credit for the “save.”

1962: Trinidad and Tobago become independent. The Jewish community dates back to the 18th century. At the time of independence there were approximately 700 Jews living in the two islands.

1967(25th of Av, 5727): Ilya Ehrenberg, Soviet author, journalist, apologist and political survivor par excellence, passed away.

1977: US Undersecretary of State Philip Habib assured Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz that the US would block any Arab attempt to change UN Security Council Resolution 242. This UN Resolution included a guaranteed of the right of Israel to exist and was part of the diplomatic efforts surrounding the Six Day War. Various Arab leaders have erroneously claimed that this resolution required Israel to return to the truce lines that existed in June, 1967.
1981(1st of Elul, 5741): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1981(1st of Elul, 5741): Prof. Elias J. Bickerman, a historian and authority on the influence of the Greeks in the Middle East at the time of Jesus and before, died today in Tel Aviv, where he was on vacation. He was 85 years old and lived in Manhattan.

1990: Rabbi Bonnie Koppell, the first female Jewish chaplain in the U.S. military, was profiled in the Omaha "Jewish Press"

1994(24th of Elul, 5754): Harry Rosenblatt, one of the last survivors of the Jewish Legion of World War I, which fought with the British against the Turks in Palestine, passed away. He was 101 years old. A native of Rovno, Ukraine, he came to New York at the age of 17. He joined the British Army after hearing a speech in Union Square by Vladimir Jabotinsky in 1916 in which the Zionist leader called for volunteers to join in the fight to help the British wrest control of the Palestine from the Ottoman Empire. “Mr. Rosenblatt was among the troops entering the city, and his picture and biography are on display in the Museum of the Israeli Defense Forces.” After the war, “he returned to New York, became a U.S. citizen and opened a tailor shop which he kept open until he turned 90.”

1997: The New York Times featured a review of Private Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life by Janna Malamud Smith the daughter of Bernard Malamud.

2000(30th of Av, 5760): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2001: An exhibition entitled “Moritz Daniel Oppenheim: Jewish Identity in 19th-Century Art” comes to a close at Yeshiva University Museum in Manhattan. Oppenheim was one of the first Jewish artists to become successful in the 19th century. His “chief claim to fame was as a portraitist to the Rothschild family. He was called ‘the painter of the Rothschilds, and the Rothschild of painters.’” In the following article entitled “Out of the Jewish Ghetto and Into the Mainstream,” Grace Glueck reviews the exhibition while providing an interesting portrait of this Jewish artist.

For complex reasons, you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of Jewish artists who made it in Europe in the early 19th century. One of the first was Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1800-82), whose chief claim to fame was as a portraitist to the Rothschild family. (He was called ''the painter of Rothschilds, and the Rothschild of painters.'') He was also known for his biblical paintings and narrative scenes of 19th-century Jewish life. Born in the ghetto of Hanau, Germany, Oppenheim studied in Munich, Paris and Rome as a youth. In 1825 he settled permanently in Frankfurt, where he built a thriving career and became a pillar of the city's artistic and intellectual community. What was unusual about his path was that from the Middle Ages Jewish artists had been confined to the ghetto, kept from studying in professional art schools or with prominent artists. They could work only in their own Jewish communities. Thanks in part to the gradual liberalization of German ethnic laws (although Oppenheim could not become a citizen of Frankfurt until 1852), and also to his own skills at painting and politicking, Oppenheim was the first Jewish artist to be in touch with mainstream currents of his own era. Born a generation earlier than the better-known Dutch Jewish artist Josef Israéls, Oppenheim is said to have been the first Jewish painter to receive major academic training, and the first to make his Jewishness a subject of his work. Although his name has largely been forgotten in Germany, in recent years his hometown museum in Hanau has begun to build up a substantial Oppenheim collection. And to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth, it collaborated with the Jewish Museum of Frankfurt last year to mount an Oppenheim retrospective in Frankfurt. A rich slice of that show, unlyrically titled ''Moritz Daniel Oppenheim: Jewish Identity in 19th-Century Art,'' is now on view at the Yeshiva University Museum (which moved last June from the campus of Yeshiva University to handsome new quarters at the Center for Jewish History on 16th Street). The exhibition includes more than 90 paintings and 14 works on paper, many of them confiscated by the Nazis but recovered after World War II. A talented painter with solid grounding in technical skills, Oppenheim was by no means an innovator. More important to him than style was the content of his work, and artistic movements and trends passed him by. He identified with the upper classes, wanting to assert himself on several fronts: as an artist, a citizen and a Jew. Much of his work depicted representatives of the up-and-coming Jewish bourgeoisie: intellectuals, politicians, businessmen and artists. Rooted in Jewish tradition but challenged by political emancipation, they claimed their right to full participation in German society. One of Oppenheim's first self-portraits, done at the age of 16, shows a self-confident youth in elegant clothes with a kerchief around his neck, holding a palette in one hand and a mahlstick in the other. Two years later, at the Munich Academy, he asserted his Jewishness by doing a powerful life-size portrait of Moses in a toga, holding the Tablets of the Law, his first ''invented'' painting aside from portraiture. Later, studying in Rome, Oppenheim gravitated, oddly, to the Nazarenes, a brotherhood of Austrian and German artists centered in Italy whose goal was to restore meaning and vitality to Christian art. He admired their color-drenched Pre-Raphaelite romanticism. But although he also did New Testament subjects like ''The Virgin and St. Anne in the Garden'' (1821-22), he concentrated on Jewish themes, among them ''Abraham and His Family'' (1821-22; shown in this exhibition as an oil sketch because of the loss of the original painting). By 1825, Oppenheim had established himself as a freelance painter in Frankfurt and was beginning to turn out portraits, genre scenes and landscapes for the well-heeled families of the city. One of his major early efforts on view is ''Mary Stuart and Elizabeth'' (1829), a dramatically painted episode from a popular play by Schiller, in which Queen Elizabeth arrogantly rejects her cousin, the Scottish queen, who kneels at her feet in a plea for reconciliation. The painting was probably commissioned by the du Fays, a prominent merchant family in Frankfurt. Considered lost, it came to light when its current owners attended the Frankfurt retrospective last year and told curators of its existence. Oppenheim's efforts to obtain portrait commissions from the Rothschild family, rooted in Frankfurt, began early; in 1821 he succeeded in painting a portrait of James de Rothschild in Paris. During his stay in Italy, three of his religious tableaux were bought by Carl Mayer von Rothschild, who directed the family banking operation in Naples. Von Rothschild's commissioning of a fourth painting, ''Susanna and the Elders,'' gave a real boost to the artist's reputation. His success at portraiture in Frankfurt (his sitters included the poet Heinrich Heine, for whom he had unflattering words) brought more Rothschild commissions. His likenesses of the five sons of the banking fortune's founder, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, done from 1836 on, helped create a public image for the family bank. Of the number of works on view here of the sons and their sons, the most engaging is that of Nathan Mayer (1836), founder of the London branch. In a black suit and proper white cravat, his bald head gleaming, he wears a knowing, slightly amused smile, befitting a man owed by the crowned heads of Europe. In 1836 Oppenheim also painted a pair of elegant but warm portraits of a Rothschild bridal couple: Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, who was the son of Nathan Mayer and also the first Jewish member of the British Parliament, and his cousin Charlotte, whom he married when she was 17. Each is seated in a lavish fantasy landscape. During World War II, the paintings were taken by the Gestapo from a home for the elderly in Frankfurt that Rothschilds founded and were not reclaimed until after the war. Although his subjects were by no means restricted to Jewish life, Oppenheim repeatedly returned to the theme as his career developed, producing works like ''The Return of the Volunteer'' (1833-34). It depicts a young soldier in the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon who has defied Sabbath travel prohibitions to visit his family. Showing the emancipated son as he clasps the hand of his tradition-observing father, Oppenheim touches on the conflict between the demands of religion versus new responsibilities of Jews as citizens. Oppenheim's most popular work, begun in his later years, was a lithograph cycle of scenes from traditional Jewish life. Probably suggested to the artist by a book publisher or a rabbi, they were modeled on the well-loved genre scenes of other ethnic groups then current in Europe. Because color reproduction was not yet technically available, Oppenheim painted the works in grisaille (gray and white). The first edition of six was received enthusiastically when it appeared in 1866, and it sparked additional works and further editions. In 1882, ''Scenes From Traditional Jewish Family Life'' was issued as a bound volume with 20 plates, a number of which are shown here. Depicting such rites and occasions as Passover, a wedding, a Purim celebration, Sabbath observances and so on, they are schmaltzy souvenirs through which an increasingly emancipated Jewish public could hang on to the good old days.

2003: Luis Sandoval and two unidentified co-conspirators went to Cafe Bazel, a chic restaurant popular with expatriate Israeli artists in the Encino area, and fatally shot a man suspected of stealing 76 kilograms of Ecstasy tablets from Moshe Malul and Itzhik Abergil. This hit appears to have been the high point of the Israelis' collaboration with the Vineland crew.

2003: The Sunday New York Times book section includes a review of Off With Their Heads:
Traitors, Crooks and Obstructionists in American Politics, Media and Business by Jewish political consultant Dick Morris.

2004(14th of Elul, 5764): Palestinian suicide bombers blew up two buses in Beersheba, Israel, killing 16 passengers.

2004: The Philadelphia Inquirer featured a review of a biography of Jewish born violinist Efrem Zimbalist entitled Efrem Zimbalist: A Life by Roy Malan.

2005(26th of Av, 5765): Sir Joseph Rotblat passed away at the age of 96. The physicist was the only scientist who quit working on the development of the atomic bomb for “moral reasons.” The Polish born scientist awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to him and the Pugwash conferences in 1995 for their work in trying to limit and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons.

2005: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russian born Jewish oligarch and businessnman, announced that he would run for parliament

2006: A mass rally calling for the release of the three kidnapped IDF soldiers, Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser attracted thousands to Tel Aviv Rabin's Square.

2006(7th of Elul, 5766): Bernard J. Wohl passed away at the age of 76. An advocate for New York’s poor and homeless; he served as Executive Director of the Goddard Riverside Community Center for 26 years.

2007: In Jerusalem, clarinetist Karl-Heinz Steffens joins members of the Jazz Faculty of the Israel Conservatory of Music for a Jazz Concert.

2007: The ZF conference entitled “Israel at 60” opens in London.

2007: In an address given at the annual meeting of the Islamic Society of North America Rabbi Eric Yoffee, president of the Union for Reform Judaism “pleaded with American Muslims to transcend the differences that have their people for decades and Join Jews to confront the extremist factions and prejudice that plague both religious traditions.”

2007: Today, Rabbi Israel Rubin took his students on an unusual field trip. They went to Barn 70 on the backside of Saratoga Race Course on Friday morning to see a trainer about a horse. The trainer was Bob Baffert, and the horse, Maimonides, was a fast one, who just may capture the Kentucky Derby next May. Maimonides cost $4.6 million at last year’s Keeneland September Sale, and last month he appeared as if he was worth every penny when he won his debut by 11 ½ lengths. He is one of the favorites Monday to win the Grade I $250,000 Hopeful Stakes, a seven-furlong sprint for 2-year-olds. None of that, however, interested Rubin or his charges. He does not attend horse races or gamble. In fact, upon hearing about the colt, Rubin thought long and hard before arranging to take his students here. “Some may think this is sacrilegious,” he said. Ultimately, however, the rabbi and his students were drawn here from the Maimonides Hebrew Day School in Albany for what is in a name. The school and the colt are named for Moses Maimonides, who lived more than 800 years ago and is considered among the greatest Jewish philosophers. He was the chief rabbi of Cairo and the physician to the sultan of Egypt. “He blended religious study and intellect with worldly manners to heal the sick and guide the healthy,” Rubin said. “He was respected and honored by both Jews and Arabs. This is especially relevant now in our life and times.” Maimonides is owned and was named by Ahmed Zayat, an Egyptian now living in New Jersey. He did not know about Rubin’s visit, and, indeed, was flying back from San Diego and Del Mar on Friday morning. When told of the smiles of the youngsters petting the nose of his expensive colt, however, Zayat was beyond gratified. He is a Muslim who grew up in a suburb of Cairo and had put much time and effort into bestowing the name Maimonides on his prize purchase.“ He was a very special man who was highly regarded by all people, regardless of faith,” Zayat said of Maimonides. “What has happened with Sept. 11, Iraq, and what’s going on in the region is contrary to the way I grew up. If this horse was going to be a superstar, I wanted an appropriate name. I wanted to say something with the tool I had, which was a horse. I wanted it to be pro-peace, and about loving your neighbor.” When Zayat tried to register the name Maimonides with the Jockey Club, however, he discovered that it had been reserved for more than nine years by Earle I. Mack, a New York real estate investor and a former ambassador to Finland. In 1997, Mack, then the chairman of the board for the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, was instrumental in bringing King Juan Carlos I of Spain to New York to accept the school’s Democracy Award. Mack had been moved by the king’s remarks about how much Spain’s culture had lost when the country expelled its Jews in 1492 as part of the Inquisition. The king mentioned Maimonides, who was born in Córdoba, Spain, in 1135, and who, with his family, was forced out of the country while Spain was ruled by Muslims. “I was just waiting for a horse good enough to deserve the name,” Mack said. He has owned and bred horses for more than 40 years, and knew that Zayat’s colt, a son of Vindication, was bred to be special. Each also understood the other’s good intentions. Zayat donated $100,000 to Cardozo to commemorate the king’s visit there, and to promote tolerance. Mack released his claim to the name Maimonides. “He had the right horse, and the right motives,” Mack said. “We are all after the same thing: to touch people across cultures.” Zayat and Mack know that horse racing is an unpredictable business, and a thoughtfully named horse hardly guarantees future fame and fortune. When Eli O’Brien, 14, patted Maimonides between the ears and promised to say some prayers for him, Baffert nodded enthusiastically. “We’ll take anything you can give us,” Baffert said.

2008: The Sunday New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Still Alive! A Temporary Condition: A Memoir by Herbert Gold and two books by Adam Krisch; Invasions and The Modern Element: Essays on Contemporary Poetry.

2008: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Man in the Dark by Paul Auster, Dough: A Memoir by Mort Zachter, issued in paperback and Norman Mailer's Miami and the Siege of Chicago, now reissued for the 40th anniversary of those groundbreaking 1968 presidential conventions.

2008: At Yeshiva University Museum, an exhibition entitled “The Six Day War Series: Painting by Ira Moskowitz” comes to an end. “Eight oil paintings gifted to the Museum Collection by the family of Ira and Ann Moskowitz in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem. This series depicts emotionally powerful scenes after the Six-Day War in June 1967. Artist Ira Moskowitz (1912-2001) employs vivid color and expressive brushwork to convey the euphoria of this victorious moment in Israel's history. Born in Poland and educated in Prague, Moskowitz studied at the Art Students League and spent extended periods in Israel.”

2008: Dr. Andrew G. Bostom, author of The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History a book that describes what it was like living as Jew under Moslem rule, was interviewed on Israel National Radio's Tamar Yonah Show. During the interview he “shared the dramatic account of a young Moroccan Jewess in her teens who lived in the 1800's, named Sol Hachuel. Falsely accused on charges of "apostasy" from Islam, she was offered riches and special rights if she embraced Islam - or prison, torture and death if she did not. Sol Hachuel chose to be imprisoned, starved, tortured and then decapitated in the town square rather than give up her Judaism. "I was born a Jew, and I shall die a Jew," she boldly stated to the Islamic court, according to Bostom's accounts. On the show, Bostom read her historic speech that inspired the Fez Jewish community to remain committed to their Judaism despite the hardships of constant false charges, unfair heavy taxes, violence and murder.”

2009: Opening night of the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival.

2009 The Education Ministry announced this evening that an agreement to enroll Ethiopian students initially banned from some of the city's schools had been reached following a meeting between Petah Tikva Mayor Yitzhak Ohayon, Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar (Likud) and other Education Ministry officials.

2010: An exhibition, The Works of Mordechai Rosenstein, on display at the Fine Family Art Gallery and the Katz Family Mainstreet Gallery of the MJCCA is scheduled to come a close today in Atlanta, GA.

2010: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his negotiating team took off for Washington on this morning, ahead of the relaunch of peace talks with the Palestinians. The prime minister will meet with US President Barack Obama tomorrow, before attending a dinner hosted by Obama with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordanian King Abdullah and Quartet envoy Tony Blair. He is expected to hold separate talks with each of the other leaders as well.

2010: Four Israelis were shot dead in their car today near the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba less than a day before Israeli and Palestinian leaders meet in Washington for a summit to announce the resumption of direct peace talks. The attack, for which Hamas has claimed responsibility, shattered years of relative calm in the West Bank. The victims are a couple from the settlement of Beit Hagai and two residents of Kiryat Arba. One of the dead was a woman believed to have been pregnant. The Beit Hagai couple has been identified as Yitzhak and Tali Ames, 45 and 47. They are survived by six children, the oldest 24 and the youngest 5. Just six months ago, the Ames couple celebrated the birth of their first granddaughter. Tali worked as an account manager in various offices in the area and Yitzhak was a tour guide who accompanied groups to the Temple Mount area every Wednesday. Beit Hagai, a tiny settlement in the South Hebron Hills, is home to 100 families. A spokesman for Hamas' military wing, the Iz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, announced Tuesday that members of the organization carried out the shootings. A Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri, said the Islamist group praises the attack and considers it a natural response to "the crimes of occupation." Another Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, said the attack was meant to highlight the failure of the security cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. A senior PA official who is in Washington for today's official launch of direct peace talks with Israel expressed outrage over the attack and accused Hamas of attempting to thwart the negotiations. The Fatah-dominated Palestinian security forces in the West Bank launched their own investigation into the incident in an effort to track down the gunmen. The South Hebron Hills, where the attack took place, is considered an area in which Hamas cells have heightened their presence. The commander of the West Bank division, Brig. Gen. Nitzan Alon, said the authorities believe that Hamas is telling the truth in claiming the attack. After the incident, Israeli troops and police were stationed at major checkpoints and junctions along West Bank roads in an effort to track down the gunmen. In addition, the police's operations branch has issued instructions to officers throughout the country to stay alert. The Israel Defense Forces said it had located the gunmen's car. IDF sources said there had been no indications that an attack was imminent. Defense officials now believe that Palestinian terrorist organizations may seek to sabotage the peace negotiations. The authorities are also worried that far-right settlers may try to provoke unrest as well. At around 7:30 P.M. this evening, gunshots were heard near the Bnei Naim junction just south of Kiryat Arba. A preliminary investigation revealed that the gunmen drove alongside the car and opened fire. Authorities believe it is possible that after the driver was shot and the car was forced off the highway, the gunmen approached the vehicle to ensure that all the car's passengers had been killed. Guy Gonen, a Magen David Adom paramedic who arrived at the scene, told Channel 2 that his crew saw "a car that was pierced with dozens of bullets and inside there were four bodies. There was absolutely no chance of helping." Defense Minister Ehud Barak was briefed on the attack by IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin. Barak conferred by telephone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was on his way to Washington. He also spoke with Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, who is serving as acting prime minister while Netanyahu is abroad. "Unfortunately we are once again witness to the fact that while we are working to find ways to co-exist and create a reality of peace, there are those who continue to take the path of terror and are busy killing innocents," said Shalom. "Today it is clearer more than ever that the real obstacle to peace is terrorism and the extremists who will do anything to send the entire region up in flames. It is incumbent on the Palestinian Authority to fulfill its obligations in the territories that are under its purview," Shalom said. "We are giving full backing to the prime minister during the talks in the United States." According to Barak, "This apparently is an attempt by depraved terrorists to harm efforts to move the diplomatic process forward and to try to harm the chances of peace talks that are beginning in Washington." The attack prompted sharp reactions from West Bank settler leaders, who were quick to draw a link between the killings and the peace talks that are set to get underway. "It's about time that the leaders of Israel wake up from their delusions of an imaginary peace," said Zvi Bar Hai, the head of the South Hebron Hills regional council.

2011(1st of Elul, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2011: Rami Feinstein, “a widely popular Israeli artist who has developed a diverse and devoted following over the last seven years” is scheduled to perform at the Bitter End in New York City

Created and Edited by Mitchell Levin Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com

Copyright; August, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin