JUNE 6 In Jewish History
1242:
Two dozen wagonloads of Talmudic volumes and 200 other rabbinic manuscripts
were burned at Paris.
1247:
Pope Innocent IV contacts the king of Navarre. In a dispatch he requested the
king compel Christian debtors to pay off their debt to Jewish lenders.
1391:
Ferrand Martiniz of Seville incited a mob to attack the Jewish quarter. It soon
spread to all of Spain except for Granada. Over 10,000 Jews were killed; many
others chose conversion and became New Christians. Of these, many continued to
practice Judaism in secret, while paying lip service to the Church. This
eventually led to the Inquisitions. In Barcelona, the Jewish quarter, located
for over 400 years near the castle, was totally destroyed.
1487:
In Soncino, Italy, Joshua Solomon Soncino completed the printing of a Pentateuch
with a commentary by Rashi.
1490:
After being interrogated by the Vicar-general of the Bishopric of Astorga,
Benitor Garicia confessed to having secretly returned to practicing Judaism
five years ago and that he had encouraged two other conversos – a man named
Franco from Tembleque and Juan Juan de Ocaña, from La Guardia – to return to
Judaism. Eventually all three would be
put to death on charges of having participated in ritual murder of one who came
to be known as the Holy Child of La Guardia.
1506: Birthdate of King John III of Portugal. Persecution of Marranos and Conversos intensified during his reign with the arrival of the Inquisition. On the other hand he met with David Reubeini in 1525 and the two negotiated over the possibility of the King supplying this adventurer with as many as eight ships to use in a fight against the Moslem leader, Selim I. Since much of the life of Reubeni is shrouded in myth and half truths, we cannot be sure as to the reason the negotiations failed.
1539:
The Inquisition was introduced into Mexico.
1629
(14th of Sivan): Rabbi Joseph ben Benjamin Samegah author of Mikrae Kodesh
passed away
1716:
The SS Restoration arrived in
Massachusetts carrying several Jewish merchants who would help to form the core
of the Jewish community in the Bay Colony. (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch)
204
1775(28th
of Iyar): Leib Epsitein, author of Or ha-Shanim passed away
1808:
Birthdate of Jacob Raphael De Cordova, Texas land agent and colonizer. A native
of Jamaica, he settled in Philadelphia in the 1820’s with his father before
moving to Texas in 1839. Jacob and his
brother Phineas De Cordova operated one of the largest land agencies in Texas.
Jacob was one of three men who helped lay out Waco in 1848. He passed away in 1868.
1832:
English philosopher Jeremy Bentham passed away. For a detailed account of
Bentham’s complex view of the Jewish people see “Jerry Bentham: Critical
Assessments, Volume 4” starting on page 319.
1859:
In Australia, Queensland is established as a separate colony from New South
Wales. By 1865, there were enough Jews living in the Queensland city of
Brisbane that a congregation was formed that held services in a local Masonic
hall until 1886 when a sanctuary with a seating capacity of 400. In 1879, the
Jews of Toowoomba, Queensland, built a synagogue which, as the community shrunk
in size, was only used on the High Holidays.
1865:
Birthdate of Dr. Max Rosenthal, the son of Herman Rosenthal, the gynecologist
who served as House surgeon at St. Mark’s Hospital and the Montefiore Home in
New York City. His young brother George became the manager of the Edison
General Electric Company at St. Louis.
1870(7th
of Sivan, 5630): Second Day of Shavuot
1872:
It was reported today that “the Greeks in the Levant have hit on a
new mode of converting Jews.” After
hearing the “stale old fable…that a Christian child had been killed…by the Jews
so as to mix its blood with their bread at Passover” the Greeks have been
“inflamed…with a fine spirit of proselytism” that began with the seizure of
Polish Jew whose hair and beard they smeared with tar before setting it on
fire. After enough Jews were tortured in
a similar fashion, they sought shelter with the local Moslems.
1873:
Today’s Minor Topics column described the progress that Jews of England have
made during the 19th century. Thirty years ago a Jew could not sit in
Parliament. And now Sir George Jessel, who was appointed Solicitor General last
year, is about to named Master of the Rolls, a position so prestigious that is
just below the post of Lord High Chancellor.
1875:
Birthdate of Novelist Thomas Mann. Mann was not Jewish but in 1905 he married
Katia Pringsheim, daughter of prominent family of Jewish intellectuals. They had six children. Mann left Nazi German in 1933, four years
after having won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He lived in the United States for many
years. He died in Switzerland in 1955,
never having lived in his native land again.
1878(5th
of Sivan, 5638): Erev Shavuot
1878:
In article entitled “The Pentecost Festival” published today, the New York
Times reported that “The Festival of Pentecost, which will be celebrated this
evening at sunset by all the Jewish congregations in the world, is the second
of the three great feasts which mark the calendar of the Hebrew Church. These
are the Passover Festival, or Feast of Unleavened Bread; the Pentecost
Festival, or Feast of Weeks, and the Tabernacles.” The article traces the
history of the holiday from its origins as an agricultural festival to a
celebration of the giving of the Decalogue to its modern observance which
includes the ceremony of Confirmation.
1879: It was reported that the problems of the Jews in Romania are not a matter of religion but a matter of money. Supposedly until 1864 the Jews and the Romanians lived peacefully side by side. The Jews would lend money to the Romanians at exorbitant rates of interest which the Romanians gladly paid since they had no intention of paying off the loan. Furthermore, the loans were secured by mortgages; mortgages on which the Jews could never collect because they were not classified as citizens and only citizens could own real estate. That all changed when Napoleon III demanded that the Jews be made citizens. Reportedly, the Jews began foreclosing on the mortgages, expelling the Romanians from lands their families had held for centuries. This forced the Romanians to begin shooting and hanging the Jews or driving them from the country. The Jews were being persecuted but not for reasons of religion. At the same time, the Romanian government contended that it was not violating the edict of the Berlin Congress regarding the treatment of Romanian Jews because the Jews living in Romania were “foreigners” and not citizens of the country. [Editor’s note – people may run out of money but they never run out of rationalizations for cheating and killing Jews.]
1880:
In “Man Before Adam” the reviewer of Preadmites: The Existence of Man Before
Adam points that Dr. Alexander Winchell challenges several Biblical based
conventions including that creation took place 4,000 before our era, that Adam
was created on the 6th, that Eve was from Adam’s Rib, that Adam
lived for 930 years, that 1,656 after creation there was a great a flood that
destroy everybody except Noah, his family and the animals on the ark and that
the origin of the human species took place in Western Central Asia. [Winchell
was a Protestant minister. His book is
an example of the challenges to the literal reading of the Bible taking place
in the 19th century among many denominations. For Jews, this was a dominant motif of the
Reform movement and many German-Jewish biblical critics.]
1880:
It was reported today that The Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Harlem will be
hosting a strawberry festival later this month to raise funds for the organization.
1880:
It was reported today that the last religious census in France showed that
there were almost 36 million Roman Catholics in the country but only 50,000
Jews.
1880:
Rabbi Meisner of the Rivington Street Synagogue officiated at the wedding of
Miss Essie Pakulski and Louis Mendelson, the son of the synagogue’s
president The ceremony took place at
Irving Hall and followed the Reform ritual.
1882:
A festival to raise funds for Russian Jewish immigrants is scheduled to be held
this afternoon in the 23rd Ward Park in NYC. Speakers will include Algernon S. Sullivan
and Steward L. Woodford. The Philharmonic Society under the direction of Max
Maretzek will provide the musical entertainment. [Editor's note - As you can see from the names of the speakers, the cause of Russian Jewry was one that non-Jewish political took part in, in much the same way that non-Jews would become involved in the cause of Soviety Jewrty in the second half of the 20th century. Of course, in the interim, the U.S. would experience the Red Scare and the anti-immigrant movements that impacted those seeking refuge from the Czar.]
1883:
It was reported today that the cornerstone laying ceremony for the Hebrew
Orphan Asylum in Brooklyn will take place later this month.
1885(23rd
of Sivan, 5645)Bernard L. Jaworower, the agent of the United Hebrew Charities
serving at Castle Garden fell overboard while leaving the steamer George Starr at the Castle Garden
dock.
1885:
In Wilkes-Barre, PA, a fist fight broke during Shabbat services between two
Polish Jews – Abraham Rosenthal and Abraham Zubunsky – after “Rosenthal accused
Zubunsky of being more of a Christian than a Jew.” Both men left the synagogue and went to Justices
of the Peace and charged each other with assault and battery. Not much shalom in their Shabbat.
1887:
Testimony resumed today in the trial of Adolph Reich, the Hungarian Jew who has
been charged with murdering his wife.
1888:
Albert Levy sent a letter from San Francisco to his wife Katie in New York saying
the he had filed for a divorce and was going to Australia. [This correspondence came to light during an
alienation of affection suit that was brought by the Roman Catholic Katie Levy
against her Jewish mother-in-law, Pauline Levy.]
1889:
A meeting was held tonight at the Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue to discuss
plans for marking the upcoming 400th anniversaries of the expulsion
from Spain and the discovery of America by Columbus. Several of the attendees are descendants of
those who expelled in 1492.
1894:
Governor Davis H. Waite ordered the Colorado state militia to protect and
support the miners engaged in the Cripple Creek miners' strike. Famed financier
Bernard Baruch was one of those who got his start in the “strike it rich” world
of Cripple Creek. Arriving from the
east, Baruch bought shares of stock in the San Francisco mine. During the day he worked as a “mucker” and at
night he played at the roulette wheel in a local gambling joint where he was so
successful that he was barred by the owners.
Baruch took his winnings and headed back to New York where he gained
fame and fortune. Sam Butcher, a
Hungarian Jew, was one of the few Jews who actually made money in industrial
mining in Cripple Creek. Because many of
his fellow miners were blatant anti-Semites, Butcher “took pains to conceal his
identity” until he had gained financial success. Sam and Bertha Flax were one of the first,
if not the first Jewish couple to marry in Cripple Creek. They tied the knot in 1909. Sam was not much of a miner but he would
prove be a successful restaurant owner in Denver, Colorado.
1897(6th
of Sivan, 5657): First Day of Shavuot
1889(7th
of Sivan, 5649): Second Day of Shavuot
1900: Birthdate of Manfred Joshua Sakel, Polish
born neurophysiologist and psychiatrist.
Like so many others of his generation Sakel would leave Europe during
the Hitler period. He died in New York
City in 1957.
1901:
Bella Weretnikow, who became the first Jewish woman lawyer in Washington State,
was admitted to the Bar of Washington State.
1903:
Dr. Kaufmann Kohler, for twenty-four years rabbi of Temple Beth-EI, delivered
his farewell sermon this morning before going to his new duties as the head of
the Hebrew Union College of Cincinnati. At the conclusion of the service the
congregation individually bade farewell and Godspeed to the retiring rabbi.
1906:
Birthdate of David Kessler, the man who would play the leading role in making
the Jewish Chronicle one of the most respected Jewish weeklies in the world.
1907:
Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, a graduate school for biblical
and rabbinical studies, was chartered in Philadelphia.
1909:
Birthdate of David Kessler, the man most responsible for making the Jewish
Chronicle one of the most respected Jewish weeklies in the world
1912:
Julia Richman, superintendent of New York City Public Schools set sail for
France where she hoped to rest and improve her French language skills.
1917:
Birthdate of Selma Goldstone, who as Selma Goldstone Hirsch would become a
noted humanitarian and an author who would enjoy a long association with the
American Jewish Committee.
1921:
“It was stated tonight on high authority that President Harding” is planning on
naming Jewish advertising mogul Albert D. Lakser, President of the Lord and
Thomas Advertising Company of Chicago to be Chairman of the Shipping Board.
1925:
Birthdate of poet and novelist Maxine Kumin.
Kumin published her first collection of poetry, Halfway in 1961.
Influenced by the confessional style of poetry, it was followed in 1965 by The
Privilege and in 1970 by The Nightmare Factory, both of which explore her
Jewish identity and family. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1973.
1926:
Second baseman Andy Cohen makes his major league debut with the New York
Giants.
1926(24th
of Sivan, 5686): Meyer London, one of only two members of the Socialist Party
elected to Congress, As he was crossing Second Avenue at 15th Street, he was
caught in the middle of heavy automobile traffic passing in both directions.
London became confused and when he halted in the middle of the road he was
struck by a car, suffering internal injuries.[21] The driver rushed him to
Bellevue Hospital, where London’s daughter was an intern. When she saw her
father London’s only concern was that the driver not be punished. "It’s
not his fault", said London "and he is a poor man."[22] London
died at 10 o'clock that night at the age of 56, after physicians had labored
for 11 hours to save him.
1932(2nd
of Sivan, 5692): Dr. A.S. Waldstein who helped to found Paole Zion in the
United States in 1904 passed away in Tel Aviv at the age of 58.
1933:
The Council of the League of Nations conducted a second day of hearings on “the
persecution of the Jews in Germany” in official response to the Bernheim
Petition. “Many of the speakers severely censured Germany for the treatment of
its Jews and demanded that they be accorded minimum human rights.” At the end
of the hearing, the Council took the “bold step” of requesting Germany to
provide “information on further developments.”
1934:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Securities Act of 1933 into law,
establishing the Securities and Exchange Commission (S.E.C.) as part of the
fabled New Deal. One of the purposes of
the S.E.C. was to create a level playing field for all investors. The regulatory agency was created to end the
kind of stock fraud and manipulation that had been rampant in the 1920’s and
helped cause the Great Depression. Like
many other New Deal agencies, the S.E.C. provided employment for the college
educated offspring of Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States prior
to World War I. In the case of the
S.E.C., it gave several Jewish lawyers a chance to practice securities law, a
branch of the law to which they had limited access because of the WASP
dominated culture of the financial industry.
1936:
The British military commander of the Southern District published an order
prohibiting all Jewish motor traffic from entering or leaving Tel Aviv. This “blockade” of Tel Aviv, was in response
to the murder of an Arab kerosene vender who was shot while riding on a highway
between Tel Aviv and Petach Tikvah.
1937:
The Palestine Post military correspondent reported that according to reliable
sources, the number of British battalions present in the country depended
entirely on the security situation and the attitudes of the various sections of
the population. Britain had resolved not to take any more risks by reducing the
defense force of the land to a mere police force, as the situation existed
before the organized Arab troubles of 1936, which left such a bloody aftermath.
1937:
The Palestine Post reported that a mass meeting was held at the Tel Aviv's
Mograbi building during which the participants vowed active support for the
beleaguered Polish Jewry.
1939:
The Jewish city of Tel Aviv was virtually cut off from the outside world today
when, by order of the British military commander of the Southern District, all
Jewish motor traffic into or out of the city was prohibited until tomorrow
night. Only medical and milk transportation is permitted.
1942:
During his sermon today, Rabbi Israel Goldstein told the congregants of New
York’s Temple B’Nai Jeshurun that Japan's air raid on Dutch Harbor, Alaska, was
the "final shattering blow to the illusion of those who until recently
coddled themselves with the thought that oceans can protect us from air
attacks."
1942:
In his sermon today, Rabbi Jacob Katz of the Montefiore Synagogue “advised
parents to have their children trained in mechanical skills as well as in
cultural subjects.”
1942:
During his sermon today, Rabbi Hyman J. Schachtel urged the congregants of the
West End Synagogue to do their part in the war effort by signing up with the
civilian protective services.
1942:
During his sermon at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, Rabbi David de Sola
Pool said, “The first great challenge to the fuehrer concept was thrown down by
Moses…It is not without reason that the Fuehrer has singled out the people and
the religion of Moses for his most venomed hostility.”
1942:
In Cracow, Poland, thousands of Jews were rounded up for the second day in a
row for deportation. Eichmann, worried about appearances asks that the words
‘deportation to the East’ not be used, but instead, that ‘people are emigrated
elsewhere.'
1942: Adolf Eichmann insists via a telegram sent to
Gestapo officials that residents of a mental institution must be included in a
planned mass deportation of Jews from Coblenz, Germany, to Lublin, Poland.
1942: The Jewish ghetto at Kraków, Poland, is
liquidated; 6000 Jews from the city are murdered at Belzec.
1942:
The Nazis burned the village of Lidice Bohemia, as reprisal for killing
Heydrich.
1943:
Helga Deen saw 1,300 children leave Vught, a Dutch internment camp, for Sobibor
and Auschwitz. In her diary she wrote, “Transport. It’s too much. I’m destroyed and tomorrow again.” Deen would
later be shipped to Sobibor where she was murdered by the Nazis.
1943: Jacob Gens, the leader of the Jewish Council
in Vilna, argued that Vilna's Jews will have an improved chance of survival if
they demonstrate their usefulness as workers.
1943:
“We Will Never Die” was performed at the Boston Garden, with guest stars Ralph
Bellamy, Lionel Atwill, Howard Da Silva, Berry Kroger, and Jacob Ben-Ami in
prominent roles. The Boston Jewish Advocate reported: “This spectacle must have
impressed and stirred the imagination of the many who saw it to a degree
impossible to achieve through the printed word.” (Jewish Virtual
Library)http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/pageant.html
1943(3rd
of Sivan, 5703): Germans execute all 1000 Jews still remaining in the Rohatyn
(Poland) Ghetto after German authorities discover a plot of local Jewish
policemen to purchase weapons.
1944:
Allied forces led by the United States land on the beaches of Normandy. While no
exact figures exist for the number of Jews who took part in “The Longest Day”
the graves marked by Stars of David attest to the fact that Jews were not only
present but paid the last full measure.
According to one source 550,000 Jews served in World War II in the U.S.
military. Of those, 11,000 were killed, 40,000 were wounded, and 52,000 were
decorated for gallantry. Jews made up some 3.5 percent of the U.S. military
during the war.
1944:
Among the units landing at Normandy today were a contingent of the Ritchie
Boys. The Ritchie Boys was a special
U.S. Army intelligence unit of approximately 10,000 German speaking soldiers
most of whom were Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. Trained at Fort Richie, Maryland, they were
able to use their special language skills and intimate knowledge of the culture
to infiltrate behind German lines, capture and interrogate prisoners and
conduct disinformation campagaigns.
1944: Robert Capa is part of the first wave of troops to land at Omaha Beach. He went in with Company E armed with a Contax camera. After ninety minutes of shooting, he heads back to London with ten rolls of films that capture the first moments of the invasion. Due to mistakes made by the lab technician employed by Life Magazine, only 11 of the 106 pictures survive the development process.
1944:
Lt. Bert Katz is among those scrambling across Omaha Beach in what some call
“The Longest Day.” This is the same Bert Katz who returned to Cedar Rapids,
Iowa where he became a successful businessman, philanthropist and leader of
Temple Judah and the Jewish community.
1944:
When German authorities become aware that news of the Allied invasion is
circulating through the Jewish ghetto at Lódz, Poland, a search is mounted for
illegal radios. Six Jews are arrested. On the same day the Germans rounded up
all 1,795 Jews on the Greek Island of Corfu and deported them to Birkenau death
camp where 1,500 were murdered by gas upon arrival. The Germans also captured
260 Jews this day on the Island of Crete.
1944(15th
of Sivan, 5704): A German deportation ship with approximately 260 Canean Jews
aboard is sunk off the coast of Crete. Latter-day accounts conflict as to the
details: In one version, the ship carried the corpses of Jews murdered by
Nazis, who set the ship afloat and sank it to destroy evidence of the crime. In
another, the ship was bound for Auschwitz but was torpedoed and sunk by a
British submarine. Besides Jewish people, the ship may have carried 300 Italian
POWs and 400 Greek civilians.
1944(15th
of Sivan, 5704): In Poland, 150 police, all of whom were Nazi sympathizers
ambushed Jacob Allweiss and his two sons Zygie and Sol. Jacob is murdered. The two sons escape.
1944:
Two more Auschwitz inmates, Arnost Rosin and Czeslaw Mordowicz, arrived in
Zilina. They reported that trainloads of Hungarian Jews were being massacred.
1944:
In Corfu, Greece, the Germans rounded up 1,795 Jews. One thousand, five hundred
of them were then gassed at Birkenau.
1944:
Birthdate of Rene Rivkin, Australian entrepreneur, investor, investment
adviser, and stockbroker. He was a well-known stockbroker in Australia for many
years until his conviction for insider trading.
1945:
Robert Capa meets Ingrid Bergman for the first time. The meetings marks the beginning of
passionate love affair between the Jewish was photographers and the
Scandinavian cinema star. Their
relationship will be part of the plot for the Alfred Hitchcock thriller “Rear
Window.”
1946:
Birthdate of Tony Levin, bassist for King Crimson.
1950:
Mrs. Martha Sharp left New York tonight by plane to visit “her 20,000 children”
in Israel. “These thousands of Israeli boys and girls are Mrs. Sharp’s charges
by long-range adoption since she is a founder and national vice chairman of
Children to Palestine, Inc., an American organization that is bringing them out
of starved and fear-ridden backgrounds to a new life in a new land.” Mrs. Sharp
is the wife of a Unitarian minister in Chicago. In the next month she will help
some of them move into the only real homes they have ever known and watch
others learn to play children's games for the first time.
1952:
The Jerusalem Post reported on the ground- breaking ceremony for the projected
$10 million Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical School on the bare Judean hills,
west of Ein Kerem. Speakers declared that this construction did not mean the
abandonment of Hadassah facilities on Mount Scopus which were effectively under
Arab control in violation of existing U.N. guarantees
1954:
Birthdate of actor Harvey Fierstein
1955: Birthdate of actress Sandra Bernhard
1956:
David Marshall, Singapore's first Chief Minister resigns. David Saul Marshall
was born in Singapore in 1908 to a Jewish family that had originally come from
Iraq. He became a lawyer and a leading
leader of the left wing. In later years
he would serve in several diplomatic postiions before retiring after a dispute
with the Prime Minister of Singapore.
1957(7th
of Sivan, 5717): Second Day of Shavuot
1957:
The Soviet government informed the Jewish community that it would permit the
opening of a yeshiva in Moscow for the training of rabbis. The announcement was
made on Shavuot, probably to "impress" world Jewry that the USSR was
doing a wonderful thing for Jews and Judaism. It turns out that this was mostly
"smoke". The laymen's council of the yeshiva was dissolved in 1961.
The bulk of the students had come from Georgia. After Pesach of 1962, these
students were denied permits by the local government to return to Moscow. Thus
the yeshiva, reduced to a handful of students, could no longer hope to provide
rabbis for Russian Jewry.
1963:
Birthdate of Representative Eric Cantor serving from Virginia’s Seventh
District
1965(6th
of Sivan, 5725): First Day Shavuot
1967:
This marked the second day of Israel's Six Day War. Now that the Israelis had
control of the skies, their armor and infantry could begin advancing against
the numerically larger Arab armies. As accounts of the fighting will attest,
this was no cakewalk. The fighting in
Sinai involved some of the largest clashes between tanks since World War
II. And the Jordanians fought
tenaciously along the Green Line around east Jerusalem.
1967: At six o’clock in the morning the Supreme
Command of the Arab armed forces began broadcasting on the great lies that is
still believed to this day. Repeating a
report that Nasser had made to King Hussein the night before, the Arab military
leaders claimed that the Egyptian and Jordanian air forces had been demolished
on the first day of the war by U.S. planes attached to the Sixth Fleet and by
British warplanes flying from unspecified bases. This tale had not no basis in fact. It gave Nasser a chance to save face with the
Arab masses and to provide his Soviet patrons with an excuse for
intervening. The Cold War is already
becoming a distant memory to those living in the 21st century. However, the conflict between the U.S. and
the Soviet Union was very real in 1967.
The Soviets were actively looking for a way to gain control in the
Middle East and the Communist Bloc was Nasser’s patron, a factor that was part
of the military and political equation facing the Israelis.
1967:
Defense Minister Moshe Dyan still refused to allow any military action to be
taken along the Golan Heights. With
fighting raging in the Sinai to the South, he did not need additional military
worries. What did worry Dyan was that
the U.N. might impose a cease fire before Israeli forces could seize Sharm
el-Sheik, the choke-point held by the Egyptians that made it possible for them
to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. Dyan ordered Chief of Staff Rabin to move
with all speed to seize Sharm. Rabin
completed planes for a combined assault that was to be carried out the next
evening.
1967: Egyptian troops are ordered to fall back to
the Suez Canal. In the evening,
unbeknownst to the Israelis, Egypt evacuated the strategically important
position of Sharm el-Sheik.
1970:
Peggy and Dr. Milton D. Glick, who would eventually become President of the
University of Nevada, Reno, gave birth to their son David.
1982: Israeli troops enter Lebanon to drive out PLO. The PLO had
established itself as a "state within a state." The government
of Lebanon was incapable or unwilling to put an end to this source of terror so
the Israelis acted accordingly. The triggering event was the attempted
assassination of the Israeli ambassador in London. The invasion would
become a divisive and corrosive event for the Israelis that, to put it mildly,
was not one of their shining moments.
1974:
The Syrians returned the body of Colonel Avraham "Avi" Lanir to the
Israelis. The Syrians had held him
captive since October of 1973 when his plane was shot down. According to some, the Syrians tortured him
in an attempt to get classified information about Israel’s nuclear program. The Syrians did not say how he died.
1982:
Members of the famous Golani Brigade attacked Beaufort Castle which was held by
the PLO.
1985:
The grave of "Wolfgang Gerhard" is exhumed in Embu, Brazil; the
remains found are later proven to be those of Josef Mengele, Auschwitz'
"Angel of Death". Mengele is thought to have drowned while swimming
in February 1979.
1986(27th
of Nisan, 5746): Yom HaShoah
1988:
Pitcher Steve Rosenberg makes his debut with the Chicago White Sox.
1991: Stan Getz passed away. Born Stanley Gayetzky
in 1927, Getz was the leading tenor sax player of his time. Even people who did not like jazz enjoyed
listening to the smooth sound of Stan Getz.
1999:
The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback
editions of Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches From the Unfinished Civil War
by Tony Horwitz, Damascus Gate by Robert Stone and Tender at the Bone: Growing
Up at the Table by Ruth Reichl.
1999:
Deb and Mitchell Levin marry at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He moved up in class and she got an adult
child to try and housebreak. For those
who have not figured it out, she is the one who makes this daily work
possible. On top of being an Ayshish
Chayel in the truest sense of the word, she is also is great at everything from
creating blogs to making Matzah balls that float off your spoon and homemade
Kosher pizza!
2001:
An Arab suicide bomber massacred 21 young Jewish teenagers and injured a
hundred more outside a Tel Aviv discotheque.
2004:
First day of a Birthright trip to Israel - Towards a Sustainable Future for
Israel: An Environmental Leadership Seminar for Students and Young
Professionals – focused on the environment sponsored as a joint project of
COEJL, the Heschel Center for Environmental Leadership and Learning, the Jewish
Agency for Israel, and Hillel.
2004:
The New York Times featured reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including the recently released paperback edition of “Sloan-Kettering: Poems”
the Israeli poet and famed partisan Abba Kovner’s poetic chronicle of his
losing battle with cancer which he describes with ruthless honesty, even as he
celebrates his tenacious grip on the world he is leaving.
2004:
Avigdor Lieberman completed his term as Minister of Transport, National
Infrastructure and Road Safety
2005:
Majdi Halabi was officially listed as M.I.A. (missing in action).
2005
(28th of Iyar): Observance of Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day). Jerusalem
Reunification Day celebrates the reunification of Jerusalem on June 7, 1967
which was the 28th day of the month of Iyar.
The observance follows the Jewish calendar so it seems to “float” on the
secular calendar. On the 28th of Iyar,
soldiers of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) reunited the Old City of Jerusalem
which had been illegally occupied by the Jordanian Army since 1948 with what
was then referred to as the New City of Jerusalem. (Please note, there never was a city called
“East Jerusalem.” The term east Jerusalem is strictly geographic as in the
southeast side of Cedar Rapids.) This was the first time that all of Jerusalem
was under Jewish sovereignty since the days of the Second Temple.
2006:
The New York Times and The Washington Post reported that “the
C.I.A. knew where Eichman was hiding” and made no attempts to inform the
government of Israel, which was actively looking for him and other Nazi war
criminals. This revelation came to light
as large quantities of government documents describing U.S. relationships with
ex-Nazis after World War II were declassified.
While it had been known for some time that the U.S. and later the West
German government employed former Nazis in their intelligence agencies, these
documents show the depth and the folly of the involvement. Apparently many of these former Nazis turned
out to be double agents who working for the Soviets and who did a great deal of
harm to Western intelligence efforts during the Cold War.
2006:
British author Naomi Alderman has won the 2006 Orange Award for New Writers
with her debut novel Disobedience. The
novel is set in the Orthodox Jewish community of Hendon, London where Alderman
grew up.
2007:
Jack Markell officially launched his candidacy for Governor of Delaware
2007:
An exhibition styled “Image of His Soul" Max Liebermann – Works on Paper
opens at the Hecht Museum in Haifa.
2007:
The Sir Zelman Cowen Prize in medical research is awarded to Prof. Nir Friedman
at the Hebrew University's Board of Governors' meeting by fund trustee Michael
Dunkel, a member of the Board of Governors.
2008:
At the JCC in Washington, D.C. cantor, composer, arranger, choral conductor,
and director of the ensemble Vocolot, Linda Hirschhorn will co-lead a musical
Erev Shabbat service with Rabbi Robert Saks of Congregation Bet Mishpachah, the
event’s co-sponsor. Linda Hirschhorn will play the guitar during the service.
2008:
Opening of “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” starring Adam Sandler playing an
Israeli assassin turned hairdresser.
2009:
Alysa Stanton the first African-American female rabbi is ordained at Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. Stanton, a convert
and mother to an adopted 14-year-old daughter, is a trained psychotherapist who
specializes in trauma and grief. In August, she will become the spiritual
leader of Congregation Bayt Shalom in Greenville.
2009:
At Temple Judah, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Sophie Shiffman, daughter of Howard
Shiffman of Toronto, Ontario and Peggy and Don Aungst of Independence, IA is
called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah.
2009:
The Vatican says it has "taken action" to track down Jewish children
who were hidden by the Church and Catholic families during the Holocaust and
later disappeared. In a letter sent to Yad Le'Achim today, a haredi
anti-missionary organization, Archbishop Antonio Franco, the apostolic nuncio
in the Holy Land, wrote, "The matter of the fate of the Jewish families
during World War II is a very delicate and very complex one." "I know
that there has been action taken by the Holy See, but at this moment I cannot
be accurate in my information. I assure you that I will try to provide more
precise information and see if an appeal that the one you propose could be
made." Yad L'Achim said the letter marked the first time the Church had
publicly acknowledged the issue. Before Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Israel
last month, Rabbi Shalom Dov Lipshitz, who heads Yad L'Achim, asked that the
pope call on all members of the Catholic Church to reveal the identities of
Jews saved by the Church from the Nazis. "We believe that hundreds,
perhaps thousands of Jews and their offspring can be discovered if the pope
makes an unequivocal announcement while in Israel that every Catholic has an
obligation to reveal the Jewish roots of those saved from the Holocaust,"
Lipshitz said. He said Yad L'Achim had a list of about 2,000 names of children
believed to have been handed over to Catholic families, orphanages and other
Church institutions to hide them from the Nazis. A sample page from the list
was sent to The Jerusalem Post. It includes the names, dates and places of
birth and last known addresses of the individuals thought to be Jews. All of
the people on the sample page were from the Netherlands, and all were born
between 1920 and 1938. Lipshitz said Yad L'Achim's list, based on information
collected after the war, also included Jews from France, Italy and Belgium. He
added that his organization was working with the Conference of European Rabbis
to obtain more lists and track down the names that he already had. Yad L'Achim
and the conference plan to open an office in Europe to coordinate these
efforts. "Time isn't working in our favor and we must act quickly,"
Lipshitz said. "There is no doubt that the martyrs [Nazi victims], the
parents and grandparents of these orphans, most of whom don't even know they
are Jewish, won't find heavenly rest until their descendants return to the
religion of their fathers," he said.
2010:
The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including Alone With You by Marissa Silver
2010:
Members of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington are scheduled to
lead a special tour of Jewish sites in Old Town Alexandria that will include
visits to the sites of two former synagogues and several Jewish businesses.
2010:
The Washington Jewish Music Festival is scheduled to open with a screening of
the Jazz Baroness and a performance by Danny Sanderson.
2010(24th
of Sivan, 5770): Rabbi Jacob Milgrom passed away today in Jerusalem at the age
of 87. He was “considered by many the worlds’ foremost authority on the
biblical Book of Leviticus. Milgrom’s three-volume series on Leviticus,
interpreting Jewish dietary and purification rituals and the Bible’s position
on homosexuality, concluded that the ban on homosexuality applies only to
Jewish men.”
2011:
“Music and Healing” a program designed to acquaint attendees with
“contemporary, folk and traditional songs that can help them through times of
need and comfort is scheduled to take place at Tefereth Israel in Washington,
DC.
2011:
The Children of Israel Journeyed: Selections from the Chagall Bible Series, an
exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Milwaukee, “showcasing twenty-one hand-painted
etchings by Marc Chagall” and The Haggerty Museum’s massive Chagall Tapestry is
schedule to come to a close. The
Haggerty is part of Marquette University.
2011:
Israeli
military officials disputed today the casualty figures announced by Syria a day
earlier, after Israeli forces fired on protesters who had tried to breach the
Syrian frontier with the Israeli-held Golan Heights, the discrepancy in numbers
underlining the messages being conveyed by both sides. According to the Syrian
version of events, Israel shot to kill unarmed demonstrators who were trying to
reclaim their lost lands — whether in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured
from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war, or in historic Palestine. But Israel
said that the Assad government in Syria was exploiting the Palestinian issue by
sending unarmed protesters to the frontier in order to divert attention from
its own antigovernment uprising and the bloody attempts to put it down. In a
rare convergence of Israeli and Palestinian sentiment, that sense of
exploitation may at least in part explain the markedly muted reaction in the Palestinian
territories to yesterday’s deadly confrontation in the north.
2011:
Dominique Strauss-Kahn pleaded not guilty today in a New York court appearance.
2011:
New York Congressman Anthony Weiner admitted that his twitter account had not
been hacked and that he had been sending pictures of himself to at least six
female followers.
2011:
Eighty-five year old Zev Birger, the concentration camp survivor who
reinvigorated the Jerusalem International Book Fair passed away today.(As
reported by Isabel Kershner)
2012:
A Young Leadership Concert featuring Itamar Zora and the Salome Chamber
Orchestra is scheduled to take place at Congregation Shearith Israel (The
Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue)
2012:
The Los Angeles dance company BODYTRAFFIC is scheduled to perform the world
premiere of the latest work by Israeli choreographer Barak Marshall with guest
artist Margalit Oved at the Joyce in New York City.
2012:
In Chevy Chase, MD, Ohr Kodesh is scheduled to host a concert presented by
Zemer Chai.
2012:
The Wiener Library in the UK is scheduled to present ‘Target Heydrich: Laurent
Binet on HHhH’ in which the author will talk about her historical novel about
the two men who killed the man known as “Himmler’s Brain.”
2012:
It is lucky 13 for me as we celebrate our anniversary. And it is lucky for
anybody who reads this because if it weren’t for Deb none of this would exist!
Copyright; June, 2012; Mitchell A. Levin melech3@mchsi.com
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