This Day, June 17, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

JUNE 17 In Jewish History

1025: Boleslaw I the Brave, first king of Poland, passed away. There were reports of Jews living in Poland during the time Mieszko I, Boleslaw’s father. Jews were reported to have been living in Gniezno, Poland’s first capital during the 10^th and 11^th century which included the reign of Boleslaw.

1239:  Birthdate of King Edward I.  Known as “Longshanks” Edward is famed for the “Model Parliament.”  He is known to American filmgoers as the King who tortured and killed William Wallace.  In Jewish history, he is the monarch who expelled the Jews from his realm in 1290, having extracted every economic advantage from them that was possible.  Jews would not return as a community until the final days of the Tudors.

1242: At the decree of Pope Gregory IX and King Louis, all copies of the Talmud were confiscated in Paris. Declaring that the reason for the stubbornness of the Jews was their study of the Talmud, the Pope called for an investigation of the Talmud that resulted in its condemnation and burning. Twenty-four cartloads of Hebrew manuscripts were publicly burned. Rabbi Meir was an eyewitness to the public burning of the twenty-four cartloads of Talmudic manuscripts (and he bewailed this tragedy in his celebrated "Kina" Shaali serufah (שאלי שרופה) which is still recited on Tisha B'Av.

1244: According to one source the above captioned happened Erev Shabbat Chukath, 5004

1462: Vlad III the Impaler attempted to assassinate Mehmed II forcing him to retreat from Wallachia. Fortunately for the Jewish people, the attempt on his life failed. When Mehmed conquered Constantinople he was warmly greeted by the city’s Jews.  Over the years, he welcomed Jews fleeing from Europe and urged them to settle in his domain.  The Jews were so grateful that they even formed a regiment called “The Sons of Moses” to fight under Mehmed’s banner.

1501: John I Albert (or Olbracht in Polsih) passed away. In 1495 King Jan I Olbracht transferred Krakow Jews to the nearby royal city of Kazimierz, which gave rise to its once bustling Jewish quarter and a major European center of the Diaspora for the next three centuries. With time it turned into virtually separate and self-governed 34-acre Jewish Town, a model of every East European shtetl, within the limits of the gentile city of Kazimierz. As refugees from all over Europe kept coming to find the safe haven here, its population reached 4,500 by 1630.

1696: John III Sobieski, King of Poland, passed away.  John III Sobieski is best remembered as commander who defeated the Turks at Vienna.  According to tradition, the first bagels were baked by Jewish bakers in Vienna to commemorate the victorious charge by the Polish cavalry.  The bagel was shaped to look like a stirrup (key equipment for cavalrymen) and one of the first one baked was given to John III.  Modern day scholarship has challenged the legend, but the legend lives on.

1731: At an auto-de-fe in Lisbon four men and eight women were condemned. A majority of the 12 were burnt at the stake. On this particular Sunday four men and eight women were present at the auto-de-fe of Lisbon. A majority of them were burned alive. A total of 71 other persons were sentenced at this event. Duarte Navarro, an 83 year old New Christian, was among those condemned for Judaizing.

1775:  The Battle of Bunker Hill (which actually took place at Breed’s Hill) fought on this date shows that American troops can stand against British professionals. Aaron Solomon was among the volunteers braving the British assaults.  In 1823, prominent Bostonians established a committee to build a monument to honor the American “moral” victory.  It would take twenty years to raise the funds and actually build the Bunker Hill Monument.  Famed Jewish businessman, veteran of the Battle of New Orleans, and philanthropist, Judah Turo donated the amazing large sum (for the early 19^th century) of ten thousand dollars to this effort.

1807: M.J. Bing writes to Nathan Rothschild asking that Nathan deal directly with him and not through his father.

1811: Mordechai Manuel Noah (a Sephardi) accepted the appointment as American Consul General at Tunis, "supported as I should with the wealth and influence of forty-thousand residents." Noah was the first Jew to be appointed to a diplomatic post by an U.S. President.  The President was James Madison.

1825(1^st of Tammuz, 5585): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1829: Birthdate of German rabbi and historian. Meyer Kayserling. Born in Hanover, He was educated at Halberstadt, Nikolsburg (Moravia), Prague, Würzburg, and Berlin. He devoted himself to history and philosophy. Encouraged in historical researches by Leopold von Ranke, Kayserling turned his attention to the history and literature of the Jews of Iberia. n 1861 the Aargau government appointed him rabbi of the Swiss Jews, which office he held until 1870. During his residence in Switzerland he argued in favor of civil equality for his coreligionists, both then and later facing the charges brought against them. In 1870 he accepted a call as preacher and rabbi to the Jewish community of Budapest. Kayserling was a member of the Royal Academy in Madrid, of the Trinity Historical Society, and others. He died at Budapest in 1905.

1832: Birthdate of Abraham Cohn, the native of Prussia who was an American Civil War Union Army Sergeant Major and recipient of the Congressional  Medal of Honor “for having distinguished himself at the Battle of the Wilderness, Virginia …and the Battle of the Crater, Petersburg, Virginia…”

1834: After three days, a pogrom in Safed came to an end leaving much of the Jewish “homeless, distraught” and impoverished.

1847: Grace Aguilar, her brother Emanuel and their mother Sara left to catch a steamer that would take them to Ostend where her brother had arranged for her to seek medical treatment for her depression and headaches.

1852(30^th of Sivan, 5612): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1856: An article entitled “Who are Jews?” explained that whenever the term Jew is used “in our police reports or elsewhere in the Times” it is not a reference to the religion of those described but “solely the designation of their nationality.”

1856:  The Republican Party opens its 1st national convention in Philadelphia.  The Republican Party included a strong abolitionist strain; the party adopted a stance of opposing the expansion of slavery into the Western territories.  The party nominee was John C. Fremont and the party slogan was free soil, free men, Fremont.  Many Jews were drawn to the party because of its anti-slavery stance including Moritz Prinner who edited a German-language abolitionist paper in strife torn Kansas.  Prinner was joined at the 1860 Republican convention by other Jews including Lewis Naphtali Dembitz, uncle of future Supreme Court Justice Louis Dembitz Brandies who nominated Lincoln and Sigismund Kaufman of New York. Abraham Jonas of Illinois was another early member of the Republican Party and served as one of Lincoln’s campaign managers in 1860.

1877: The Jews in Turkey The Jewish element in the population of Turkey is strongly represented in Macedoma, probably because it is the richest quarter of the empire; and as they form a very important element among Turkish subjects, I will offer my reader a short description of this interesting people.

1879: It was reported today that young Richard J.H. Gotthell read an essay at the commencement ceremony of the Temple Emanu-El Preparatory School of the Hebrew College that were being over-seen by his father, the rabbi, Dr. Gottheil.

1882(30^th of Sivan, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1882: Lewis and Rose Barnet were seriously injured when the fell down the equivalent of 3 stories when the fire escape in their tenement gave way.  The two Austrian born Jews lived on the 5^th floor of a building that housed Kenneseth Israel, a congregation of Polish and Russian Jews.  Supposedly the building had been fully inspected and passed without any problems.  [Unfortunately, accidents like this were all too typical on the lower East Side and were the result of a combination of shoddy construction and graft.]

1882: Josiah Cohen, a Jewish lawyer living in Pittsburgh, will probably be selected to be the Republican nominee for an at-large Congressional seat. He is the candidate of the reformers.

1883: It was reported today that that the Czars coronation is being celebrated with balls and galas in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In Kiev and Rostov on the Don the celebrations have taken another form – serious disturbances including attacks on the Jews of the area.

1885: “The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, arrives in New York harbor aboard the she Isere.” “The Jewish American poet Emma Lazarus saw the statue as a beacon to the world. A poem she wrote to help raise money for the pedestal, and which is carved on that pedestal, captured what the statue came to mean to the millions who migrated to the United States seeking freedom, and who have continued to come unto this day.”

1886: It was reported today that Levi P. Morton has been chosen as Chairman of the Republican County Committee despite his previous statement refusing to accept the position even if he were chosen to fill it. Friends of the Jewish community leader hope to be able to convince him to change his name.

1887: It was reported today that Justice Rhinehart has reserved his decision in the suit brought by Samuel Colman against Charles Frank, a matrimonial agent who had promised to help him woo and win a young Jewess named Wolf and a counter-suit brought by Frank against Colman for money owed for providing him help in this matter. [Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match]

1888: It was reported today that Mrs. Katie Levy, the wife of Albert Levy, has filed an alienation of affection suit against her mother-in-law, Mrs. Pauline Levy in which she is seeking $50,000 in damages.  The younger Mrs. Levy is a Roman Catholic who claims that her mother-in-law has interfered with her marriage because she wanted her son to marry a rich Jewish girl.

1888: it was reported today It was reported today that Rabbi Gottheil of Temple Emanu-El described the later Emperor Wilhelm of Germany as a “noble soul” who was “an ideal ruler…loved by all men.”  He saw him as a friend of the Jewish people since he said that “Germany has lost an Emperor…the oppressed a champion and Israel a true friend. [For those who grew equating Germany with Nazis and the Holocaust, this positive view of Germany and German leaders might come as a bit of a surprise.]

1889: Among the items found inside a chest with a false-bottom that was being inspected by government agents as it was being unloaded from Hamburg American steamship Gellert were “23 fine seamless woolen shirts” like those worn by Orthodox Jews.”  (Who would have guessed there was such a market?)

1897: Herzl moves the Zionist Congress to Basel.

1898: Birthdate of German professor of crystallography Carl Hermann.  Hermann was a Quaker and a man of rare courage. “When the Nazi Party rose to power, he refused their political restrictions on academic positions, leaving to take a position as a physicist with industrial dye firm I.G. Farbenwerke at Ludwigshafen, where he continued his crystallographic research and studied symmetry in higher-dimensional spaces. During the war that followed, he and his wife Eva helped many Jews hide and escape persecution and death, for which he himself spent much time in prison and was sentenced to death. As he was an eminent scientist with influential friends, the sentence was never carried out, and he survived.

1901(30th of Sivan, 5661): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1903: Herzl writes to Lord Rothschild that there is a chance to get a good piece of land from the Sultan

1905: Fire destroys 130 houses in Constantinople inhabited by Jews. 400 families rendered homeless.

1908:  Birthdate of Trude Weiss-Rosmarin who became a major commentator on the nature of American Jewish life.

1914: Birthdate of author John Hersey. Hersey was not Jewish. In fact he was born in China, the son of missionaries. Jews should remember as the author of The Wall, which was a gripping account of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the events that led up to it. What makes this book even more of a standout was that Hersey wrote it in 1950 long before the Holocaust genre became an acceptable literary topic and motif for Jewish authors, let alone non-Jewish authors. Hersey passed away in 1993 after a long and distinguished career.

1915: Birthdate of Dr. Bernard Lander, the Orthodox rabbi who was one of the founders of, and first president of Touro College

1917: In Nevada, Jewish community leaders met and formed a committee to raise funds for the construction of Reno's first Synagogue.

1930: Police Captain F.M. Scott was stabbed in Jaffa during a clash with an Arab crowd following the execution of three Arabs at Acre.

1930: During a recording session” today, “just after completing Chopin's E major Scherzo, pianist” Leopold Godowsky “suffered a severe stroke which left him partially paralyzed. Godowsky's remaining years were overshadowed by the event, leaving him deeply depressed.”

1933: German Jews were shocked by news of the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff in Tel Aviv. During a recent trip to Berlin, Arlosoroff had outlined a plan for settling German Jews in Palestine; a plan that they feared would die with the Zionist leader.

1935: Birthdate of Frederick Delano Newman who became an eccentric gadfly in the world of New York politics.

1936: Himmler was put in charge of the S.S. as Chief of the German Police. This vicious little man was the architect of evil, the person who actually ran the killing machine that was known as the Holocaust. Several of the SS officers on the Eastern Front held Himmler in contempt. It seems that on the one visit he made to watch the Killing Squads at work, he could not stand the sight and vomited. He was also stupid enough to believe at the end of the war that he could negotiate a separate peace with the Western Allies and get them to join the Nazis sans-Hitler in a war against the Soviets.

1936: As Arab violence intensified, The Palestine Post reported that Jacob Gerson, the lorry driver ambushed on the Kastel bends of the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road, became the 32nd Jew to be killed by Arabs since April 19. Scores of Arab leaders and agitators were interned at Sarafand. The Yishuv launched a Relief and Consolidation Fund to assist all those who suffered through the disturbances. The government announced a new scheme for the opening and improving the Old City of Jaffa.

1936(27th of Sivan, 5696): “Dr Julius Brodnitz, attorney and President of the Central Union of Jews in German passed away” today in Berlin at the age of 68.  Born in Posen, Dr. Brodnitz came to Berlin in 1894 where he pursued a successful legal career and become a leader in Jewish communal affairs.  Although he had not originally been a Zionist, his views changed after the Nazis came to power.  He visited Palestine in April and was no longer opposed to Jewish immigration to Eretz Israel.

1937: Marx Brothers' "A Day At The Races" opens in New York

1938: Royal S. Copeland who served as Republican Senator from Michigan and then as a Democratic Senator from New York passed away.  In the spring of 1933, Copeland spoke out against the abuse of the Jews by the Nazis on the floor of the U.S. Senate. In 1936, during the Arab Uprising, he was part of delegation of U.S. Senators who went to Palestine to get a first-hand view of what was going on and how the British were administering the mandate. Upon his return, he introduced a resolution on the floor of the Senate condemning the British attempts to unilaterally modify the mandate especially as it pertained to attempts to limit Jewish immigration and purchase of land.

1939: After being denied access to Cuba and the United States, the German refugee ship St. Louis docks in Antwerp, Belgium. Belgium offers to take 214 passengers, the Netherlands 181, Britain 287, and France 224. Ultimately, the Nazis will murder most of the passengers except for those accepted by Great Britain.

1940: As the Nazis sweep through the low countries and France, Edmond Michelet distributed leaflets calling for a continuation of the war.  This was considered to be the first act of French Resistance during WW II coming one day before De Gaulle’s appeal to the French nation.

1941: Reinhard Heydrich briefs Einsatzgruppen commanders on the implementation of the "Final Solution."

1941: French priests in the Lyon diocese publicly protest the Vichy government's anti-Jewish policies.

1944: In Budapest, SS General Veesenmayer notified Berlin that from April 29, 1944 until this date 340,000 Hungarian Jews had now been deported to the death camps. Among them was the family of Nobel Prize Winner Elie Wiesel.

1944: For the next seven days, the Jews of Budapest, Hungary, are confined to specially marked "Jewish buildings."

1946: Birthdate of Barry Manilow. Born Barry Alan Pincus, in Brooklyn, he was the son of Edna Manilow and Harold Pincus. Apparently somebody thought his mother’s less ethnic name would lead to greater fame. No less an arbiter of pop culture than Rolling Stones named him "Showman of the Generation."

1946: In an unusual turn of events Haganah launched attacks on railways and bridges in Eretz Israel.  “Haganah united launched the most daring attack of their underground campaign by blowing up ten of the eleven bridges connecting Palestine with surrounding nations.”

1947: Al Langer opened Langer’s Deli in Los Angeles.  The MacArthur Park eatery would stand the test of time.  Tragically, Mr. Langer passed away at the age of 94, a week after his signature deli celebrated its 60^th anniversary. 

1950: According to reports published today, peace talks resumed this week between Israel and King Abdullah of Jordan.  The talks centered on creating a corridor that will give Jordan access to the Mediterranean possibly at Gaza which is held by Egypt.  The Egyptians might agree to the deal, according to these same reports, if the Jordanians and Israelis would take responsibility for the quarter of million refugees in Gaza whom the Egyptians are controlling with a military garrison.

1951: Central system of Israel's underground water supply was dedicated in Northern Negev. This was the start of a project dear to the heart of David Ben Gurion. He saw the Negev as vital to the growth of the new Jewish State. He was determined to bring water to this arid region and make the "Desert Bloom."

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that only 40 per cent of the electorate voted in the Zionist Congress elections. In Tel Aviv Mapai scored 45, Herut 20, and Mapam 16 percent of the vote; the rest was divided among small parties. In Jerusalem Mapai scored 54, Herut 17, Hapoel Hamizrahi 16, Mapam 8 and Progressives 4 percent of the vote, the rest being divided among small parties.

1951: Left-wing labor leaders called a one-hour strike in Tel Aviv harbor today to block loading of a cargo of citrus juice concentrates which was a gift from the Republic of Korea, also known as South Korea which was engaged in a bitter war with communist North Korea.

1952: “A home for 75 girls donated by the Goodwin Welfare League of Brooklyn was dedicated this afternoon as part of the Children’s City build around the Ponievez Talmudic College at B’nai Brak, a suburb of Tel Aviv.

1953: Supreme Court Justice William O Douglas issued an order staying the executions for convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg which are scheduled for the next day.  The Rosenbergs were part of a plethora of Jews who were involved in both sides of this famous spy case.  However, the anti-Semites who sought to use the Rosenberg case as proof of Jewish perfidy never talked about he Jews who prosecuted the case of the Jewish judge who imposed the death sentence.

1956: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion names Golda Meir to replace Moshe Sharett as Foreign Minister.

1961(3rd of Tamuz, 5721): Actor Jeff Chandler passes away at the age of 40 due to complications from surgery.  Born Ira Grossel in Brooklyn, New York, handsome matinee idol gained his greatest fame and Oscar nomination playing the role of the Apache Chief Cochise in “Broken Arrow,” a western depicting attempts to establish a truce between the Indians and the white settlers on the Arizona Frontier. 

1963: The United States Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against allowing the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools.  As is so often the case in litigation involving separation of church and state,, the plaintiffs were not Jewish.  In this case they were Unitarians.  The opinions of the Justices clearly state the importance of religion in America, but they also are quite clear that it does not belong in public venues such as schools.

1967: Moshe Dayan ordered the responsibility for the Haram, which had been under Israeli military control for a week, to be restored to the Muslims.  He also insisted that all Muslims, whether living in Israel or the West Bank be allowed to pray at the Haram.

1967: Barbra Streisand performed “A Happening in Central Park.”

1968(21st of Sivan, 5728): Sir Andrew Benjamin Cohen KCMG KCVO OBE, who served as Governor of Uganda from 1952 to 1957 passed away. Born in 1909, Sir Andrew was “a descendant of Levi Barent Cohen, the founder of the oldest Ashkenazi family in Britain.”

1970: Birthdate of actor Michael Showalter

1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that the US Ambassador to Lebanon Francis Meloy, his Economic Counselor Robert Waving and their Lebanese driver were kidnapped and later found murdered in a Muslim area of Beirut.

1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that King Hussein of Jordan, on the eve of his visit to the Soviet Union, said that he was ready to purchase Russian missiles even if it angered the U.S.

1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that the citizens of Tel Aviv were promised a complete restoration of their beach-front promenade to its former glory.

1984: In “God the Implausible Kinsman,” Arthur A. Cohen reviewed Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. by David G. Roskies

1996(30th of Sivan, 5756): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1996(30th of Sivan, 5756): Thomas Samuel Kuhn, who wrote and taught about the history and philosophy science, passed away.  A Guggenheim Fellow, Kuhn won the George Stanton Medal for his work in the history of science.

2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Does American Need A Foreign Policy? by Henry Kissinger and Borrowed Tides by Paul Levinson.

2005:  Jean Perron, coach of the Israeli Men’s Hockey Team, and other Israeli hockey officials ran a one day tryout camp in Mississauga, Ontario for the senior and junior players.  Almost forty North American players, mostly from Canada, who had some kind of tie to Israel, took part in the tryouts.

2005: Ken Feinberg, the man who served as “Special Master of the U.S. government's September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and …the Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation,”  “was honored by his hometown of Brockton by having a road named after him: Attorney Ken Feinberg Way.”

2006:  The Israeli national soccer team may not have made it to the World Cup Finals, but the Israeli flag did. John Pantsil, a Ghana defender who plays professionally for Hapoel Tel Aviv, pulled a blue-and-white flag out from his sock following both of his team's goals against the Czech Republic as the "Black Stars" pulled off the tournament's most significant upset.

2007: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is scheduled to meet United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York today

2007(1^st of Tammuz, 5767): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

2007: The Sunday New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers The Gravedigger’s Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates whose main character is Rebecca Schwartz the daughter of Jacob and Anna Schwartz, German-Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Germany and Volume One of A Young People’s History of the United Sates: Columbus to the Spanish-American War by Howard Zinn.

2007: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including 15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall by Stanley Weintraub, a book that examines three of the generals who played key roles in the winning of World War II.

2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that “aid embargo on the Palestinian Authority is set to be lifted.”

2008: The Jerusalem Post reported that “more US Jews today are "uncoupled" in two senses of the term -unmarried and unconnected to organized Jewry - according to the latest study by researchers Steven Cohen and Ari Kelman, who call this data "disturbing," though not for the reasons one might expect. In 1990, 33 percent of non-Orthodox Jews aged 25-39 were single. By 2000-01, the number had grown to 50%. In fact "never in Jewish demographic history have we seen so many young adults unmarried, or 'uncoupled,'" the study says. That in itself is not surprising, because Americans as a whole are getting married much later. The good news is that single Jews are as interested as ever in connecting Jewishly. The bad news is that they shy away from available Jewish institutions in part because synagogues, Jewish community centers and federations "remain geared to the conventional family unit," the study claims. As many as 67 percent of non-Orthodox singles say they are "proud to be a Jew," slightly surpassing the 66% of in-married (Jews married to Jews) who agree. Given the high level of Jewish interest and low rate of communal and ritual involvement among young adult, single Jews, this uncoupled population represents the "greatest opportunity and the greatest risk" of Judaism in the United States, the study claims. "Single Jews are akin to 'swing voters'- they can go either way," the two sociologists suggest. "How they 'vote,' how they make Jewish (or non-Jewish) choices, will determine the future of Jews, Judaism and Jewishness in the United States." Important to note is that single Jews practice religion in lower numbers than in-married Jewish couples: Just 19% of singles belong to synagogues as opposed to 51% of the in-married, and only one-third of singles are "somewhat attached" to synagogues. A total of 20% of singles visit Jewish community centers, as opposed to 44% of in-married; 15% of singles contribute to UJA/Federation campaigns compared to 32% of in-married; and 8% of singles volunteer with a Jewish organization compared to 28% of in-married. On the surface, the unmarried appear "fairly distant" from Jewish life, the study suggests. But other markers point to single Jews still being connected. Of single Jews aged 25-39, 42% claim that half or more of their friends are Jewish, and of those making that claim, 51% said they talk to their friends about "Jewish matters." They read Jewish-oriented books in higher numbers than the in-married, are more eager to learn more Jewishly, and more regularly read Jewish blogs. When it comes to Israel, 79% agreed that "Caring about Israel is a very important part of my being a Jew," compared to 83% of the in-married. And 67% of singles said they feel "proud" of Israel, compared to 62% of in-married. The challenge facing Jewish leaders today was to find ways to foster and build opportunities for engagement that speak to this population of Jews in America, the study urges. Given the new demographic reality, Jewish organizations such as synagogues and JCCs that cater primarily to families would not be able to draw younger Jews, the study warns. Instead, Cohen and Kelman urge leaders to focus on creating and supporting organizations created by and for this younger demographic.

2008: The New York Times reported that Michael R. Bloomberg, NYC’s Jewish mayor, remains as popular as ever despite “an overall sense the city headed down the wrong path according to the newspaper’s latest polling data.

2009: At the DCJCC, Nextbook DC presents an evening with Lucette Lagnado author of “The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World.” Leon Lagnado was a successful Jewish Egyptian businessman, making deals and trades around Cairo dressed in his signature white sharkskin suit. After the rise of the Nasser dictatorship, the Lagnado family lost everything and was forced to trade their life of luxury in Cairo for one of hardship, entering any country that would have them. A vivid, heartbreaking and powerful inversion of the American dream, her unforgettable memoir is a sweeping story of family, faith, tradition, tragedy and triumph set against the stunning backdrops of Cairo, Paris and New York. Lucette Lagnado is an award-winning investigative reporter for The Wall Street Journal and received the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.

2009: The Montreal International Yiddish Theater Festival opens at the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts.

2009: The Museum of History of Polish Jews launched a bilingual Polish-English website called the Museum of the History of Polish Jews "Virtual Shtetl", listing 1,240 towns with maps, statistics and picture galleries.[5] The new portal intends to collect and provide essential information about Jewish life in Poland prior to Second World War and the Holocaust in Poland.

2010: The Biennial Scholars' Conference on American Jewish History is scheduled to come to an end.

2010: In Cedar Rapids, IA, Temple Judah is scheduled to hold its Annual Congregational Meeting.

2010: The Museum of History of Polish Jews launched a bilingual Polish-English website called the Museum of the History of Polish Jews "Virtual Shtetl", listing 1,240 towns with maps, statistics and picture galleries.

2010: After a day which brought weeks of tensions between Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community and the state to a climax, 35 fathers of students at the Emmanuel Beit Ya’acov girls school began two-week jail terms for contempt of court over discriminatory practices at the school, and their hassidic community hailed them as heroes for “choosing Torah” over the secular court system. Over 100,000 haredim in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak had gathered under the glaring sun earlier today in a powerful show of support for the Emmanuel parents, and to voice their protest over what they perceived as the High Court’s intervention in their educational values and show of disrespect for their rabbis.

2011: In New York, Sotheby’s is scheduled to auction Marc Chagall’s sketchbook.

2011: An exhibition entitled “In the Footsteps of My Grandparents, A Photographic View of Israel” by Talya Arbisser is scheduled to come to a close at the Deutser Art Gallery

2011: Defense Minister Ehud Barak thinks there is a 50-50 chance that Israel and the Palestinians will return to the negotiating table before September but that Israel cannot stop settlement construction, he told France 24 in an interview today. "I hope that it's at least 50-50, probably more than 50-50," the defense minister answered when asked what chances are that peace talks will resume between Israel and the Palestinian Authority before Palestinians plan to ask the UN for recognition of statehood in September.

2011: A Holocaust exhibit has disappeared from a subway station in Romania for the second time in a week, its creators said today. Austrian journalist Emil Rennert and Israeli photographer Shani Bar-On said 12 out of 24 panels depicting Romania’s Jewish heritage and the Holocaust were missing from the Piata Unirii Station in Bucharest. The incident came several days after all 24 panels of the original exhibit were taken down from the station on Sunday, less than 24 hours after they were put up. The Romanian embassy in Israel said in response to the first incident that cleaners had accidently removed the exhibit and that it was not an act of anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, Bar-On and Rennert hung a reprint of their exhibition at Priata Unirii on Wednesday. By today, half of the new panels were missing, Bar On and Rennert said. The spokeswoman of the Romanian embassy in Israel said she would investigate the incident. The Israeli embassy was closed today because of the Jewish Sabbath.

2012: “I Shot My Love” is scheduled to shown at the London Israeli Film & Television Festival.

2012: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Guy Delisle's Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City

2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including End This Depression Now! by Paul Krugman

2012: “Ours to Fight For: American Jews in the Second World” an exhibition that explores and celebrates the achievements of Jewish men and women who were part of the American war effort on and off of the battlefield is scheduled to have its final showing at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center

http://www.ilholocaustmuseum.org/pages/special_exhibitions/21.php

Copyright; June, 2012; Mitchell A. Levin melech3@mchsi.com