May 24 In Jewish History
1218: The Fifth Crusade leaves Acre for Egypt. The
driving forces behind the crusade were two Popes who broke new ground in the
mistreatment of the Jews – Innocent III and his successor, Honorius III. One of their most infamous innovations was
the creation of “the Jew Badge,” which usually took the form of circle or
square of saffron yellow cloth. The
Crusade itself was a debacle and the forces of Islam continued to hold onto
Jerusalem. Given a choice, at this time,
for the Jews this outcome was the lesser of two evils. 1241(6th of Sivan, 5001):Shavuot
1241(6th of Sivan, 5001): The community of Frankfort-on-Main was attacked after Jews tried to prevent a child from being baptized. As a result, a number of townspeople were killed. Seeing no option the Jews set fire to their houses. The fire spread to the rest of the community destroying nearly half the city. One hundred and eighty Jews died while twenty-four agreed to be baptized.
1293 (5053): Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg passed away. Born circa 1225, he was the last of the Tosophists and the leading Rabbi in
1738: On a day now celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day, John Wesley is converted, essentially launching the Methodist movement. According to Building New Bridges in Hope the official statement of the United Methodist Church on Christian-Jewish relations, “Christians and Jews are bound to God though biblical covenants that are eternally valid… that God has continued, and continues today, to work through Judaism and the Jewish people
1749(7th of Sivan):Abraham Valentine Potocki was burned at the stake
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12317-potocki-pototzki-count-valentine-abraham-b-abraham
1776(6th of Sivan, 5536): As the Founding Fathers debate the question of declaring independence from Great Britain, Jews observe the first day of Shavuot.
1810: Birthdate of Rabbi Abraham Geiger. Born in
1825(7th of Sivan, 5585): Second Day of Shavuot
1856: Abolitionist John Brown and his men killed five slavery supporters at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas. Three of his followers - August Bondi, Jacob Benjamin and Theodore Weinter – have been identified as Jews according to the historian Rufus Learsi.
1861: Major Mordecai and his family left the arsenal at
Watervliet, NY. For reasons of personal safety they left in the evening
without any fanfare since there were those who felt that Mordecai had betrayed
his country. Mordecai was one of the most prominent Jewish officers serving
with the U.S. Army prior to the Civil War.
A Southerner by birth, he had tried to arrange a transfer to a post in
the West that would enable him to serve his country without having to actually
fight family and friends. When this
attempt failed, Mordecai resigned. But
unlike other Southerners, he refused all of the offers to join the Confederate
Army. He entered civilian life and never
wore a uniform again.
1864(18th of Iyar, 5624): As Grant perused Lee across northern Virginia in a series of battles called the Wilderness Campaign, Jews observed Lag B’Omer.
1868: A public meeting of Hebrew Christians was held at Room No. 24, Cooper Institute, this evening, for the purpose of presenting the claims of the Messiah to their inquiring brethren.[Editor’s Note – this is a 19th century version of the Jews for Jesus]
1870: Birthdate of Benjamin Cardozo. A legal scholar and jurist, Cardozo was the second Jew appointed as an American Supreme Court Justice. He served from 1932 until 1938. He passed away in July of that year.
1870:
A house at No. 215 West Seventeenth in
Manhattan was dedicated today as a Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews. It is the
first such institution in New York State. The home is for those over the age of 60 who,
for reasons beyond their control, are not able to receive care and treatment
anywhere else. When the Home opened, it cared for only three people. (By 1876
that number would grow to 57)/
1876: Delegates from fifteen congregations representing New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Baltimore and Brooklyn met in New York today to plan for the establishment of Jewish theological seminary or college. Mr. Lewis May was chosen to preside over the group and M.S. Isaacs served as secretary. Mr. May informed the group that Temple Emanuel had already voted to spend $2,000 a year to support any Jewish school that was established as a result of these meetings.
1876:
Today, at the sixth session of Presbyterian General Conference being held in
Brooklyn, the delegates adopted the recommendation that the “mission to English
speaking Jews” should be discontinued. This unique action came amidst a flurry
of other motions to continue or expand missionary efforts a wide group of
people including Native Americans and citizens of China.
1882(6th of Sivan,
5642): Shavuot
1882: A Pogrom began in Rostov, Russia (Timing is everything)
1891: Birthdate of archeologist and Bible scholar William F Albright. Albright was not Jewish. But much of what we know about the history of ancient
1895: Birthdate of Marcel Janco “a Romanian-born Israeli painter
and architect” who was “one of the founders of the Dada movement.”
1895: A written request for a meeting from Theodor Herzl is received by French railroad tycoon and philanthropist Baron Moritz de Hirsch.
1895: Birthdate of Samuel Irving Newhouse, American publisher and philanthropist. Some of his publications included Parade Magazine, Vogue and Glamour.
1896: The New York Times describes the various provisions of the last will and testament of the late Baron Hirsch. The big winner is his wife who is named as “universal heiress.” In one sense, the biggest loser is the Jewish Colonization Association which would have come into possession of the inheritance had the Baroness predeceased the Baron.
1904(10th
of Sivan, 5664): Myer
S. Isaacs, for years President of the Baron de Hirsch Fund and leader in many
other charitable and philanthropic movements of the Jewish people, died in the
Equitable Building, 120 Broadway, this afternoon from heart disease, a
condition that had afflicted him for an extended period of time. Born in 1841 at New York City, he was the
oldest son of Rabbi Samuel M. Isaacs. He
graduated from University of the City of New York in 1859 and graduated from
its law school in 1862. He passed the
bar exam on May 8, 1862. His successful business and legal career included
serving as vice President of the Real Estate Exchange (1867), serving as
Justice of the Marine Court (1880), Justice of the Superior Court (1891) and
State Supreme Court Justice (1895). He was active in Jewish affairs. In 1857, he and his father founded the Jewish
Messenger. He served as President of the Board of Delegates of American
Israelites and the Hebrews Free School Association. He also played a key role in establishing the
United Hebrew Charities, the Montefiore Home, the Hebrew Technical Institution
and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. He was preceded in death by his wife the former
Marie Solomon and is survived by 6 children including I.S. Isaacs and Louis
Isaacs
1911: The New York Public Library opened. Abraham Solomon Freidus was the first head of the library’s Jewish Division.
1912: Montefiore G. Kahn's mother publicly addresses her concern that the reports her son has given 13,000 to the American Immigration and Distribution League are not accurate. She fears that her son misspoke himself or was misunderstood.
1913: A murder indictment was returned against Leon Frank by a grand jury in the death of Mary Phagan.
1913: As the police continue to look for the person who had strangled Mary Phagan, Jim Conley, the pencil factory's janitor, who was a suspect in the case, continued to give conflicting testimony as to what had happened. By now, he was attempting to implicate Leo Frank in the murder
1914: Birthdate of
1917: The Turkish minister at The Hague, Netherlands, issued a statement regarding deportation of the Jews in Palestine and denied reports that they were being slaughtered..
1917: The Times of London published an anti-Zionist manifesto issued by the Conjoint Foreign Committee of British Jews. Lucien Wolf, historian, author and advocate for Jewish rights was a leading member of the Conjoint Foreign Committee of British Jews. He had already written to James de Rothschild, arguing against Zionism which he believes sees "Jews as aliens in foreign lands" thus making it similar to anti-Semitism in insisting that Jews will never be integrated into other cultures
1921: Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti began. Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter would play an active role in what would ultimately be their futile defense.
1923: Birthdate of Stanley H. Biber, the Des Moines, Iowa, native and graduate of the U of I Medical School who became the internationally renowned dean of sex-change surgery. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1923: In New York City, Albert Israel Becker and Miriam Rosner Becker gave birth to “David V. Becker, a pioneer in using radioactive materials to diagnose and treat thyroid disease and an expert on the thyroid damage caused by the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in 1986.” He passed away in 2010 at the age of 86.
1925: A law was put into force in Salonica demanding Sunday as a day of rest. The Jewish community formally disputed this, and in the end the Council of the Jewish Community at Salonica resigned to the governor general of Salonica.
1926: In an article in its Religion Section entitled “Jew and Jew”, Time Magazine describes the philanthropic activities of some of the America’s leading civic and business leaders.
Greek wars with Greek; Jew helps Jew ..." a procurator wrote to his Emperor, Trajan. He was not the first to observe what he expressed so pithily: the racial loyalty of the Jewish people, a loyalty that has kept them together, like a colossal freemasonry, while other nations light the world for a while, then crumble down. For some weeks past the Jews in various U.S. cities, animated by this tradition, have been working to raise money for the relief of the Jews in Eastern Europe. Felix Warburg, Louis Marshall, William Fox and other rich Jews are on the committee which, with headquarters in Biltmore Hotel, Manhattan, has sent its representatives and its publicity up and down the country — the most intense activity being in Greater New York. "There is one hope for the Jews in Eastern Europe," great posters state; "that hope is in the drive for fifteen million dollars. . . ." Speakers have outlined the purposes, the causes of the campaign: "Women and children are dropping dead of hunger on the streets in Bessarabia. Many others are found dead in their homes in Poland. A horrible scourge of typhus is sweeping over the Jews in both lands. . . Children eat what they can find in garbage cans . . . sleep in alleys, in cellars. . . . Hundreds are killing themselves . . . the Jews of America must respond. . . ." To emphasize this appeal, posters in streetcars, on the pillars of subway stations, the billboards of vacant lots, present the picture of a woman in a shawl. Her chin is pressed to the pivot of her wrist; her eyes are smeared with black. She might be any age, this sad, sharpened Jewess; the thing that has pointed her bones and thinned her flesh is not age but weariness; she is the incarnation of the most desolate of physical woes, fatigue. "Are You Tired of Giving?" asks the caption. "You Don't Know What It Is to Be Tired. . . ." Money came in fast. Felix Warburg gave $400,000, Herbert Lehman, Mrs. S. W. Straus, Mortimer Schiff gave $50,000 each; Louis Marshall, William Fox, Benjamin Winter made big contributions, and a disabled veteran sent $28 (government allowance for war wounds). Advertisers, art-goods makers, bag-makers, bankers, butter, egg, and dairy firms; chain stores, crockery companies, cloak and suit houses; the dental, the funeral, the grocery, the hosiery, the laundry, millinery, musical and neckwear trades; opticians, pawnbrokers, petticoat cutters, physicians, rubber-goods makers, rabbis, underwear and umbrella manufacturers — all were appraised for definite amounts, all came near to filling their quotas. Adolph S. Ochs, genius of the New York Times, by many revered as the greatest U. S. newspaper proprietor and the greatest U. S. Jew, swung into the campaign handsomely. His paper advocated the fund far more than any other Manhattan journal, exhorted, reported extensively, published stimulating daily lists of contributors. Nor were Jews the only people to help Jews. Onetime Ambassador James Gerard spoke at a meeting, and a bellboy contributed $5 that he had won on a baseball game. Senator James W. Wadsworth composed a plea, Governor Alfred Smith of New York sent a check by messenger, a Negro elevator man gave two dollars, and Thomas Burke, editor of the official organ of the Irish Temperance Society, wrote "I'm an Irishman . . . but I've advised my race to imitate the good qualities of yours." Meanwhile, reflective Jews and Gentiles asked: "What is the matter with the Jews in Eastern Europe? Are they any worse off than the Christians there? Do they really need 15 million dollars?" They do need their $15,000,000 and untold millions more.* Indeed, when the leaders of the Fund Campaign and of the cooperating organizations† realized that the sum fixed would be oversubscribed in the two weeks allotted (April 25 -May 9), they raised the goal to $25,000,000 and extended the formal collection period another week, well knowing that the donation momentum would continue. The whole country and Canada besides have contributed — not only the cities of close Jewish concentration — New York City, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia — but also the hamlets where a stray Jewish family persists in traditional pioneering. The whole $25,000,000 more than the original goal was not reached, yet was approximated. There will be no cessation of ingathering or of giving. Fertile lands, of high Jewish concentration appropriated after the War from Tsarist Russia by Romania. In the past $60,000,000 have been donated and spent for East European Jews.
1928: The resumption of State Attorney General Albert Ottinger's investigation into the conduct of certain Jewish cemeteries brought out testimony in support of charges that the Baron Hirsch Cemetery of Port Richmond, S.I. charged unjust fees, barred cars from the burial ground forcing mourners to walk to gravesites and fees for grass cutting had been raised from fifty cents to two dollars a lot.
1929: The Marx Brothers made cinematic history with the opening of their first film, The Cocoanuts
1933(28th
of Iyyar, 5693): Dr. Alfred Strauss was murdered at Dachau today.
1933:
Birthdate of Aharon Lichtenstein “a noted Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva."
1935: Birthdate of acclaimed screenwriter and director Joan Micklin Silver. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, on to Russian Jewish parents Maurice David and Doris (Shoshone) Micklin, she graduated from Omaha Central High School in 1952 and Sarah Lawrence College in 1956. Fresh out of college, she married Raphael D. Silver, son of Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver of Cleveland. The Silvers lived in Cleveland from 1956 to 1967 and raised three daughters there: Dina, Marisa, and Claudia. Two of the three daughters now work in film, Marisa as a director and Dina as a producer.
1939: After reading about Churchill’s speech opposing the White Paper, Nathan Laski wrote to him from Manchester: “May I congratulate you upon the great and statesmanlike speech you made on the Palestine questions last night. I think it is not exaggerating to say that you will get the blessings of millions of Jews all over the world.”
1940: Birthdate of the Russian born, American poet Joseph Brodsky. Brodsky won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987 and was U.S. Poet Laureate in 1991.
1941: Birthdate of Bob Dylan. Born Robert Zimmerman in
1942: Birthdate of Aron "Ali" Bacher, the native of Johannesburg who “is an administrator of the United Cricket Board of South Africa. He was born to Lithuanian-Jewish parents who emigrated to South Africa and got his nickname "Ali" at the age of seven from Ali Baba. Ali married Shira Teeger, and they have two daughters and one son. His nephew Adam Bacher played for South Africa in the 1990s. Ali started playing cricket while at school and represented Transvaal at the age of 17. He played in 12 Tests for South Africa, three against England and nine against Australia; he was captain in the last four. In a first-class match for Transvaal against the visiting Australian cricket team in 1966/67, he made a high score of 235 in the second innings. He captained the national team in only one series: in 1969/70 against Australia at home in which the South Africans won all the Tests in the four match series. He studied at the University of the Witwatersrand and became a general practitioner. In 1981 he had heart bypass surgery.”
1943: Birthdate of British conductor James Levine
1943: Dr. Josef Mengele arrived at
1943: A Jewish partisan group organized by Judith Nowogrodzka escapes from the
1944(11th of Sivan, 5770): At Auschwitz, Hungarian Jews being led to the gas chamber scatter but are shot down by the SS
1944: The deportations from Hungary to Birkenau are now averaging 13,000 Jews per day.
1947: Jewish underground fighters, believed to be Stern Gang members, raided two bridge clubs in the all-Jewish city of Tel Aviv early today and escaped with $3,200 in cash from one of them.
1947: The British loaded 1,457 Jewish refugees onto a ship that would take them to detention camps on Cyprus. According to the British, some of the Jews used crowbars in an attempt to break down the barbed-wire enclosures in the hold of the vessel but the Tommies were able to subdue them with water hoses and the firing of weapons in the air. The Jews had been caught the day before trying to enter Palestine in violation of the British blockade.
1948:
1948: The Egyptian army captured Yad Mordecai. Yad Mordecai was one of the kibbutzim blocking the road to Tel Aviv. The Egyptian army and air force had attacked Yad Mordecai on May 19. The Jewish force was the size of a company composed of farmers and handful of Haganah troops. For five days the Jews fought off the Egyptians. Before dawn, on May 24 the final Egyptian assault began with two infantry battalions, one armored battalion and one artillery regiment. That night, having used all of their ammunition, the defenders snuck through the Egyptian lines carrying their wounded with them. Four hundred Egyptian soldiers lay dead. More importantly the defenders of Yad Mordecai had bought the Israelis five precious days to strengthen their position at
1948: Yitzhak Rabin, commander of the Jewish forces in
1948: In the evening, the Seventh Brigade begins its attack on the fortress at Latrun that is blocking the road from Tel Aviv to
1950: “An authoritative source said today that Israel would pay an indemnity of $54,000 to the family of Count Folke Bernadotte, United Nations Mediator who was assassinated in Jerusalem in September, 1948.” Israel “was also expected to pay $3,000 to the United Nations as a special premium on war risk insurance carried by the Swedish mediator and other United Nations in personnel in Israel.”
1950: Foreign Minister Moshe Sharret leaves Israel today on a “good-will” mission to South African Jewry.
1950: According to Health Minister Moshe Shapiro the Polio outbreak continues to spread with 191 cases reported in May as opposed to 83 cases in April. The outbreak in Israel follows the pattern seen in nations in Western Europe and the United States.
1961: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion left Israel for a visit to the United States that would include his first meeting with President John Kennedy who had assumed office in January of 1961.
1963(1st of Sivan, 5723): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1967: CIA Director Richard Helms reports that there are no nuclear weapons in the eastern Mediterranean or the adjacent territory. The report was in error since the Soviets had ships in the area armed with nuclear weapons and instruction to use them against Israel if need be to support the Arabs.
1969(7th of Sivan, 5729): Second Day of Shavuot
1970: During the “War of Attrition” Abba Eban and Yitzchak Rabin meet with Nixon and Kissinger to discuss ways of ending the violence between Egypt and Israel.
1977(7th of Sivan, 5737): Second Day of Shavuot
1981: It was reported today that Ukrainian Jewish activist Kim Friedman was sentenced to year in prison for “parasitism.” He would be released in 1982 but would have to wait another six years before he could make Aliyah.
1982: Psychologist Carol Gilligan published In a Different Voice, the first book to argue that women's psychological development could not be understood by studying men.
1987: In an article entitled “An English Rainbow,” Annasue McCleave Wilson portrays the history of Exbury, the estate originally created by Lionel de Rothschild and describes the postwar rejuvenation undertaken by Major Edmund de Rothschild, which has turned the estate into one of the ten most visited properties in England.
1991:
1991:
During Operation Solomon a world record
was set for single-flight passenger load when an El Al 747 carried 1,122
passengers to Israel
1994(14th
of Sivan, 5754): Yehuda Mor-Mirkovsky Israeli kibbutz-founder passed away at
the age of 96.
1996(6th
of Sivan, 5756): First Day of Shavuot
1996: Jews praying in an egalitarian minyan at the Western Wall in the early hours of Shavuot morning were verbally and physically attacked by Orthodox men and boys, according to participants in the prayer group. The group of about 50 men and women, some of whom were from the Conservative and Reform movement's rabbinical seminaries in Jerusalem, had studied throughout the night, as is customary on Shavuot. Before dawn, they, along with thousands of other Jews, walked from other parts of Jerusalem to the Wall. Members of the egalitarian minyan began praying shortly after 5 a.m. in the rear right-hand corner of the plaza that fronts the wall, near the flagpoles that stand at the back. A few guys in tallitot stood in the front so that others could not see the women wearing tallitot and kipot and to prevent any possible problems. As they finished the morning prayer on Shavuot, the minyan swelled to about 125 people, and as they continued by reading the Book of Ruth, most of the minyan sat down. It was at that time that the trouble began as Haredi men soon walked up and began to curse and shout at members of the egalitarian minyan. An Orthodox woman who had been part of a prayer group next to the egalitarian minyan approached the haredi men to ask them to be quiet, because they were disturbing other prayers besides those of the mixed group. They spit on her and threw rocks at the man chanting haftarah.
1998: The New York Times featured reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Soldier
of Peace: The Life of Yitzhak Rabin, 1922-1995 by Dan Kurzman and Crossing the Jordan: Israel's
Hard Road to Peace
by Sameul Segev.
1998(28th of Iyar,
5758): Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Day
1999:
A joint U.S.–Israeli team which was searching for the remains of the INS Dakar
used information received from U.S. intelligence sources that led to the
detection a large body on the seabed between Crete and Cyprus, at a depth of
some 3000 meters (9800 ft). The team was led by subcontractor Thomas Kent
Dettweiler of the American Nauticos Corporation,
2000: Israeli troops leave southern
2005: IDF soldier Majde Halabi was reported missing. He was assumed to have been taken hostage or killed by Arab terrorist.
2005: Opening session of Biotech-Israel 2005
2006: An exhibit entitled “Dear Dr. Janzow” opened at the
2007(7th of Sivan, 5767): Second Day of Shavuot – Yizkor
2007: The three day Metula Poetry Festival comes to an end.
2007(7th of Sivan, 5767): Philip M. Kaiser, a retired diplomat and high-ranking Labor Department official who served as an ambassador to four nations, died of aspiration pneumonia at
2008: Bradlee Birchansky celebrates his Bar Mitzvah at Shabbat Morning Services at
2008 (5768): Finish Vayikra, Book of Leviticus
2008:
The Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School
2009(1st
of Sivan, 5769): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
2009:
The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including “One State, Two States:
Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict” by Benny Morris, “The
American Future: A History” by Simon Schama, “Rhyming Life and Death” by
Amos Oz; translated by Nicholas de Lange and “The Amos Oz Reader”
selected and edited y Nitza Ben-Dov; translated by Nicholas de Lange and
others.
2009: As he ended a four-day trip to Israel
today, Canada's minister of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism warned
against a "new anti-Semitism" that emanates from an alliance of
Western leftists and Islamic extremists is more dangerous than the "old
European" form of Jew-hatred."The existential threat faced by Israel
on a daily basis is ultimately a threat to the broader Western
civilization," said Jason Kenney, explaining the staunchly pro-Israel
positions of his government, led by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
"It's a threat that comes from profoundly undemocratic forces that don't
have the same conception of human dignity or freedom, and which abuse Israel as
a kind of representative of the broader West and Western liberal-democratic
values," said Kenney. "I also very acutely understand the nature of
the new anti-Semitism, and I think it's even more dangerous than the old
European anti-Semitism."Kenney said many anti-Israel attacks come from
adherents of a form of anti-Semitism that who appear to view a Jewish homeland
as illegitimate. "Israel is not perfect, obviously," Kenney said.
"Israelis should be the first to admit that. But we acknowledge that so
much of the criticism Israel faces is motivated by a dangerous form of
anti-Semitism that tries to hide behind anti-Zionism and is represented by a
coalition of the far left in the West with extreme currents of jihadi Islam
that seek the destruction of the Jewish nation. They seem to believe that the
Jewish people are the only people in the world that don't have a right to a
homeland." The 40-year-old, who earlier this month was elected Canada's
"Best Overall MP" by fellow parliamentarians, prides himself on being
responsible for his country's decision to shun the United Nations-sponsored
Durban II conference on racism, based on fears it would be misused as a
platform for unfair criticism of Israel. Canada was the first country to
announce its boycott of the meet, even ahead of Israel. Before coming to
Israel, Kenney visited Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, as Canada is home to many
immigrants from these countries, he said. After arriving Thursday, he visited a
Jewish Agency absorption center in Mevasseret Zion, outside Jerusalem, and met
with his Israeli counterpart, Immigration Minister Sofa Landver. He also spoke
to Minority Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman and Information and Diaspora
Minister Yuli Edelstein, who is also the former chairman of the
antiparliamentary Canada-Israel Friendship Group.
2010: Fifth anniversary of Majdi Halabi, the
druse IDF soldier who disappeared while hitchhiking from his home at Daliyat
al-Karmel to the military base where he was serving on active duty.
2010: In New York, the YIVO is scheduled to
present a lecture entitled “Coming to America?
Max Weinreich and the Making of YIVO in New York, 1939-41.”
2011: The AIPAC
Policy Conference is scheduled to come to a close in Washington, DC.
2011: In celebration of Jewish-American Heritage Month, the Frequency String Quartet is scheduled to perform a program entitled “Different Trains: Stories From the Holocaust Told Through Music” at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, OH.
2011: YIVO Institute
for Jewish Research is scheduled to present a lecture by Lecture Natan M. Meir,
Lorry I. Lokey Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies, Portland State University
entitled "A ‘Russian Zion,’ or a Jewish Nightmare?: Jewish Life in Tsarist Kiev.”
2011: "Jews, Slavery, and the Civil
War" a program sponsored by The Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Program, The
Center for Southern Jewish History at the College of Charleston and The Jewish
Historical Society of South Carolina is scheduled to open this evening with a
screening of “Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray.”
2011: "Marseille
Port", “a work by Romanian born artist Marcel Janco, one of the founders
of Dadaism who later in life moved here and established the Ein Hod artist
village, is the top lot in Bonhams Israeli Art & Judaica auction in London
which is scheduled to take place today.
The painting is estimated to sell for £120,000-180,000 at Bonhams. “Born
in 1895, Janco was among the principal founders of the Dada Movement which was
opposed to war, aggression and the changing world culture. Dadaist events
included poetry, avant-garde music, and mask wearing dancers in elaborate
shows, but the movement also tested cultural conventions about the role of art
in society and its apparent irreverence enraged audiences. Dada came as a
direct result of artists’ shock in view of the carnage of World War I but the
movement was not all nihilistic; Dadaist ideas evolved in the 1920s into
Surrealism, arguably one of the most influential streams in 20th century art. Janco
had an eclectic style which brilliantly combines abstract and figurative
elements, expressionist in nature. In 1941 he moved to Eretz Israel, seven
years before the establishment of the state. Here he painted idyllic watercolor
and oil images and was captivated by the exotic sights of his new surroundings.
Ein Hod was established in 1953 and the northern village now boasts the Janco
Dada Museum, dedicated to the artist’s work. In 1967 he was awarded the Israel
Prize for Painting. In the last years of his life he worked together with
friends to erect the museum, dying just ten months after its inauguration in
1984.
2011: “Jerusalem, City Center” a work painted
by Israel Hershberg in 1989-1990 is scheduled to go on sale at Bonham’s in
London. It is expected to sell for anywhere from £100,000 to £150,000.
Hershberg is an Israeli realist painter and who founded the Jerusalem Studio
School . He “was born in 1948 in a displaced persons camp in Linz, Austria. In
1949 he was brought to Israel but at the age of nine he immigrated to the
United States. Following an extensive program of studies in the US Hershberg
moved back to Israel with his wife and family in 1984. In 1991, he was awarded
the Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art and in 1998 the Tel Aviv Museum of Art Prize
for Israeli Art.
2011(20th of Iyar, 5771):
Eighty-two year old Arthur Goldreich, a native of South Africa who was an ally
of Nelson Mandela in the fight to end apartheid, passed away today in Tel Aviv.
(As reported by Douglas Martin)
2011: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
addressed a joint session of Congress this morning.
2012:
Israeli composer Guy Barash’s musical series “Eavesdropping” is scheduled to
return to The Tank in NYC.
2012:
Anouk Markovits, the author of I Am Forbidden, is scheduled to do a
reading at Corner Bookstore in New York.
Copyright; May, 2012; Mitchell A. Levin melech3@mchsi.com
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