May 26
1096(1st of
Sivan): The Crusaders massacred the Jews of Neuss, Germany
1135: Alfonso VII of León and Castile was crowned
in the Cathedral of Leon as Imperator
totius Hispaniae, "Emperor of all of Spain". At the start of his reign,
he curtailed “the rights and liberties which his father had granted the Jews.
He ordered that neither a Jew nor a convert might exercise legal authority over
Christians, and he held the Jews responsible for the collection of the royal
taxes.” After a few years, he adopted a more positive policy towards his Jewish
subject. He restored the rights granted
by his father and then granted new ones including the granting of a special
fuero (charter) in 1136 that permitted the Jews of Guadalajara to outfit
themselves like the Christian Knights of his kingdom. Judah ben Joseph ibn Ezra
(Nasi) was one of the King’s most influential advisors. After the conquest of Calatrava in 1147, the
king placed Judah in command of the fortress, later making him his court
chamberlain. The king held Judah ben Joseph stood in such high esteem that he
granted Judah’s request to let the Jews who had fled from the Almohades to
settle in Toledo. The reigns of Alfonso
and his father are proof that Jews prospered, and suffered, under both Catholic
and Moslem rule, depending upon the ruler and the time period.
1171: The
first ritual murder accusation in Europe occurred in Blois, France. Fifty-one
Jews were burned, seventeen of them women. As they were burning, they chanted
the hymn 'Aleinu' (composed in Talmudic times). Rabbenu Tam declared a day of
fasting and prayer in England, France and the Rhineland. One of those killed
was Pulcinella (Puncelina), a favorite of Count Theobald, who tried to use her
position to convince the count to release the Jews. The count decided to expel
all the Jews left in his county but "allowed" himself to be persuaded
to change his mind by a payment of 2000 pounds.
1232: Pope
Gregory IX began the Inquisition in Aragon
1352: After
Jewish leaders promised the City Council in Nuremberg that if they were allowed
to return to the city as citizens, “they would remit all debts the citizens
owed them, would sell all houses held in pawn; agreed to settle only where the
citizens permitted, asking merely to be protected against the nobility” an
imperial edict was issued permitting the Jews to settle in the city.
1512: Bayezid
II, the Ottoman Sultan who welcomed the Jews to his realm after the expulsion
from Spain passed away. He not only sent a fleet under the command of Admiral
Kemal Reis to evacuate the Jews, he sent a firman to all provinces telling the
leaders to welcome the Jews. When you
consider the large swath of territory he controlled (including much of
southeastern Europe) this was quite gift. His Jewish subjects included Mordecai
Comtino, Solomon ben Elijah Sharbit ha-Zahab, Shabbbethai ben Malkiel Cohen and
poet Menahem Tamar.
1552: Sixty-four-year-old
“Christian Hebraist” Sebastian Münster, “a disciple of Elias Levita “who edited
the Hebrew Bible accompanied by a Latin translated” and who “in 1537 published
a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew which he had obtained from Spanish Jews he had
converted” passed away today.
1566:
Birthdate of Sultan Mehmed III. During the reign of Sultan Mehmed III, Gabriel
Buonaventura was appointed ambassador and established contacts with Spain.
Solomon Eskenazi, Doctor Benveniste and Doctor Moshe Korina held positions at
the palace. In 1597 Solomon Abenyaes (Marrano Name: Alvaro Mendez) prepared a
treaty that was intended to ally the Ottoman Empire with England in the fight
against king Philip of Spain.
1615(27th
of Iyar): Abraham Samuel Bacharach, a leading Rabbi in Worms, passed away. Born
in the Grand Duchy of Hesse in 1575, he had married Eva Bacharach, the daughter
of Isaac ben Simson ha-Kohen and the granddaughter of Rabbi Judah Loew ben
Bezalel. She was the mother of Rabbi
Moses Samson Bacharach and the grandmother of Rabbi Yair Bacharach, author of
“Hawwot Yair.”
1648: As the
Cossack uprising continued to gain momentum a force of Cossacks and Crimean
Tatars attacked and defeated Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth forces at the
Battle of Korsun. The defeat of the Polish-Lithuanian forces followed the
pattern seen at the battle at Zhovti Vody. The Poles retreated and the Cossacks
continued moving westward gaining support as they went The slaughter of the
Jews was about to begin in earnest.
1697(16th
of Sivan, 5457): The British colony of South Carolina issued naturalization
papers to Simon Valentine.
1712: The
leaders of the Dutch Jewish community decided to dismiss Tzvi Hirsch ben Yaakov
Ashkenazi as the Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazi congregation of Amsterdam at the
end of the three year term described in the letter of appointment he had been
given in January of 1710. Ashkenazi vowed to fight the dismissal which
apparently had been orchestrated by Aaron Polak Gokkes.
1724:
Beginning of the papacy of Benedict XIII, the pope who issued “Emanavit nuper,”
a Papal Bull, dealing with “the necessary conditions for imposing Baptism on a
Jew.”
1744(15th
of Sivan, 5504): Moses Abraham passed away today after he which he was buried
at the “Hoxton Old Jewish Burial Ground” where the tombstone shows the Hebrew
calendar date.
1751(2nd
of Sivan, 5511): Lob Minden ben Moses the chazzan at Minden-on-the Weser who
was the author of Shire Yehuda, a collection of “Hebrew songs with German
translations” passed away today.
1753: In
Zhitomir, the castle court under the influence of Bishop Solik of Kiev
sentenced 33 Jews to death for the "ritual murder" of a Christian
child. The entire evidence was based on the "confessions" of the
innkeeper and his wife which had been made after being tortured, although they
later retracted their statements. Thirteen of them were released upon
converting. Many others, including the local Rabbi, were quartered alive. One
couple converted on the spot and was granted a beheading.
1754(5th
of Sivan, 5514): Erev Shavuot
1757(7th of
Sivan): Rabbi Jacob Daniel of Ferrara author of “Eden Arukh” passed away.
1758(18th
of Iyar, 5518): Lag B’Omer
1762: In New
York City, Abraham Andrews and his wife gave birth to Cayle Abrahams.
1765(6th
of Sivan, 5525): Shavuot
1775(26th of
Iyar, 5535): Veitel-Heine Ephraim, the husband of Elke Fraenkel who had passed
away in 1769, the “Jeweler to the Prussian Court and Mint Master under the
Prussian Kings Frederick William I and Frederick the Great” passed away today
in Berlin
1779: In
London, Daniel Cohen D'Azevedo, the son of Haham Moses Cohen d'Azevedo and Sara
de Haham Moses Cohen D'Azevedo married Ester Rodriques Cohen D'Azevedo
1786: In
Baltimore, Md, Catherine Bush and Myer Solomon who were married in 1778 gave
birth to Baltimore, MD native Arabella Solomon
the wife of Zalegman Phillips whom she married in 1805 and with she had
eleven children.
1790: Abigail
Lopez, the daughter of Aaron Lopez married Isaac Gomez, Jr. today
1792(5th
of Sivan, 5552): Parashat Bamidbar ; erev Shavuot is celebrated as George
Washington was finishing his first term as the first President of the United
States.
1796(18th
of Iyar, 5556): Lag B’Omer is celebrated as Jefferson and Adams vie to become
the successor to George Washington.
1799:
Friedrich Wilhelm Grantzow, a tailor's apprentice in Berlin and
great-grandfather of Oswald Spangler “married a Jewish woman named Bräunchen
Moses whose parents, Abraham and Reile Moses, were both deceased by that time
and who was baptized shortly before the wedding ceremony.”
1812(15th
of Sivan, 5572): Beile Sibilla Duelken, the wife of Markus Duelken passed away
today.
1818: Birthdate
of Baden, Germany native and future Baltimore resident Lemuel Benjamin Oppenheimer,
the husband of Henrietta Mansbach Oppenheimer whom he married in 1846 and the father
of Michael, Ameilia, Mary and Bessie Oppenheimer who spent most of his adult
life working “in the clothing business.”
1820:
Birthdate of Dr. Samuel Kristeller, the native of Posen who graduated from the
University of Berlin in 1844.
1822(6th
of Sivan, 5582): Shavuot is observed as Rothschild and others work to deal with
“the deplorable Frankfort Jewish matter.”
1827(29th
of Iyar, 5587: Parashat Bamidbar
1832(26th
of Iyar, 5592): Parashat Bamidbar
1838(2nd
of Sivan, 5598): Parashat Bamidbar
1841(6th
of Sivan, 5601): Shavuot
1847: Hyam
Hyams married Amelia Abrahams at the Great Synagogue in London.
1848: As part
of its policy to force the Jews to assimilate, the Russian government issued a
decree providing for the establishment of a rabbinical committee to be attached
to the Ministry of Interior who “was one of the founders of the Medical and
Gynecological Society of Berlin.”
1849(5th
of Sivan, 5609): Parashat Bamidbar; Erev Shavuot
1850: In
Cleveland, Ohio, founding of Tifereth Israel, a reform congregation created
after Rabbi Isidor Kalisch and 47 families left Anshe Chesed, the city’s
orthodox synagogue and whose most famous leader was Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver
who played a major role in gain U.S. support for the creation of Israel.
http://www.clevelandjewishhistory.net/silver/temple.html
1853(18th
of Iyar, 5613): Lag Baomer.
1853: George
Joel Marks married Elizabeth Samuels at the Hambro Synagogue.
1854:
Birthdate of Samuel Morais Hyneman a Philadelphia born lawyer who “was a member of the board of managers of
Mikve Israel congregation, a member of the board of trustees the Jewish Theological Seminary at New York, and
of the board of trustees of Gratz College, Philadelphia. He also served as
president of the Young Men's Hebrew Association in Philadelphia and served as
an officer of The Hebrew Education Society in Philadelphia.
1858: Birthdate of Philadelphia native and Jefferson
Medical College trained physician Joseph B. Potsdamer the head of the
Pediatrics Department at the Jewish Hospital from 1884 until 1925, a founding
member of he James Meigs Medical Society and the father of Louis S. Postdamer.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1947/02/17/88758500.html?pageNumber=18
1858: Eighty-one-year-old Sarah Levy, the wife of Jonas
Levy was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1860(5th of Sivan, 5620): Parashat Bamidbar:
erev Shavuot observed at a time when southern firebrands are plotting to make
secession a reality if the results of the presidential election do not put an
end to talk of freeing the slaves.
1860: It was reported today that “diligent efforts are
put forth to establish the Church Mission to the Jews” in New York City “upon a
firm basis” under the leadership of “Rev. John C. Jacobi and Israelite by
birth” who became a Baptist.
1861: In Karlsruhe, Germany, “Fanny and Josef Jesses
Weil” gave birth to Ferdinand Weil, the “husband of Hella Weil.”
1863: Rebecca Simon, the wife of Isaac Simon, was buried
today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1865(1st of Sivan, 5625): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1867: In Hoboken, NJ, Edward Stieglitz and the former
Hedwig Ann Werner gave birth to Leopold Stieglitz who “was attracted to
medicine” and his twin brother chemist Julius Stieglitz who were the younger
brothers of photographer Alfred Stieglitz.
http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/stieglitz-julius.pdf
1868(5th of Sivan, 5628): Erev Shavuot
1868: Daniel Angel, the husband of Rachel Angel and the
father of Morris, Jane, Josephine, Philip and Edward Angel was buried today at
the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1869: Mark and Priscilla Collins were married today at
Maiden Lane Synagogue.
1869: Boston
University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. BU was founded by
three Methodist businessmen who had been active in the abolitionist movement.
“From the day of its opening, Boston University has admitted students of both
sexes and every race and religion.”
According to one source, BU has the second largest enrollment (by
percentage) of any private university in the United States. According to the Hillel Foundation, which has
a chapter on campus, three thousand of the school’s twenty thousand undergrads
are Jewish and five hundred of the ten thousand grad students are Jewish. The
school offers approximately thirty Jewish studies courses. The school offers both a major and a minor in
Jewish Studies.
1871(6th of
Sivan, 5631): First Day of Shavuot
1871: An
article entitled “The Pentecost Festival” published today in the secular press gives
an amazingly detailed description of the Jewish festival of Shavuot.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C02E5DA173AE63BBC4E51DFB366838A669FDE
1871: The
New York Times reported that “the feast of Pentecost, in Jewish parlance,”
Shavuot, “or, as the German Jews call it” Shavuos, “began last evening and will
be observed in all Jewish houses of prayer today.
1877: In New
York City, David and Sarah Brickner gave birth Bienvenida Solis Davis, the wife
of Goodman Richard Davis and the mother of Walter Alan Davis and Goodman
Richard Davis, Jr.
1874: Judge
P.J. Joachimsen presided over the annual meeting of the Board of Delegates of
American Israelites which was being held tonight at New York’s Temple Shaaray
Tefillah. The Executive Committee recommended sending funds to aid the Jews of
Romania and to support an agricultural school in Jaffa. (The funds for Romania
reflected the concern of western Jewry for the worsening conditions of their
co-religionists in that newly independent eastern European country. Funding for the school in Jaffa is one of the
earliest examples of American Jewish support for what became the Zionist
movement).
1875: In
Mobile, AL Herman and Mollie Kaufman
gave birth to Lottye Kaufman who became Lotty Loeb when she married
Leopold Loeb.
1876: It was
reported today that at a recently adjourned meeting of delegates representing
Hebrew congregations from various U.S. cities the possibility was
discussed of establishing a seminary
that would teach Jewish theology and the Hebrew language while preparing
students to become Rabbis.
1878(23rd
of Iyar, 5638): One day before his 67th birthday Dutch jurist
Abraham de Pinto who had been president of the Sephardic congregation passed
away at the Hague
1881: In
Breslau, Germany, Max and Fanny Landau Braun gave birth to “composer, conductor
and voice teacher” Leo Braun who in 1903 cam to the United States where he
“wrote secular and sacred instrumental and vocal music, including a Sabbath
service, ‘Shir Yisrroel,’ dedicated to Rabbi Max Meyer, spiritual leader of the
Free Synagogue” and served as the choir master for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum
while being married to “the former Helen Donhoe with whom he raised three sons
– Alan, Richard and Robert.
1881(27th of
Iyar, 5641): Jakob Bernays a German philologist and philosophical writer passed
away. The native of Hamburg German was born in 1824. His father, Isaac Bernays
the first orthodox German rabbi to preach in the vernacular (German) his brother,
Michael Bernays, was also a distinguished scholar. “Jakob studied from 1844 to
1848 at the University of Bonn, whose philological school, under Friedrich
Gottlieb Welcker and Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl was the best in Germany. In 1853
he accepted the chair of classical philology at the newly founded Jewish
Theological Seminary of Breslau, where he formed a close friendship with
Theodor Mommsen. In 1866, when Ritschl left Bonn for Leipzig, Bernays returned
to his old university as extraordinary professor and chief librarian. He
remained at Bonn until his death.”
1881:
Birthdate of Washington, DC native and Cornell trained surgeon Dr. Harry E.
Isaacs, “founder of the American Jewish Physicians Committee, an affiliate of
the American Friends of the Hebrew University and the Chief of Surgery at Beth
El Hospital.
1881:
Birthdate of Sophie Munk, who gained fame as Austrian-American therapist and
write Sophie Lazarsfeld, the wife of attorney Robert Lazarsfeld and the mother
of Paul Lazarsfeld.
1882: In Galicia,
theatre director Chaim “Charles” Treitler and Taube Treitler gave birth to
actress Malvina Lobel, the wife of New York City physician Julius Broder who
settled in Dorchester, MA.
https://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/yt/lex/L/lobel-malvina.htm
1882(8th
of Sivan, 5642): Seventy-six-year-old John Mayer, the German born son of Simon
Levy and Johanetta Mayer whose birth name was Meyer Levy, and who was the
husband of Janette Ries Mayer passed away today after which he was buried on
“Jewish Hill” in the Natchez, MS, Cemetery.
1885:
Australian political leader Simeon Phillips, the “son of Solomon Phillips and
Caroline Solomon” and his wife Rosetta gave birth to Maurice Lewis Phillips
today
1885: Birthday
of Berditchev native and journalist Nathan Lynder who in 1904 came to the U.S.
where he served on the staff of The Day.
1886:
Birthdate of Asa Yoelson, better known as Al Jolson. Jolson's father was
a cantor at B'nai Israel Synagogue at Fifth and Eye Street in Washington,
D.C. Instead of following in his father's footsteps, Jolson ran
away to New York where he began his career in show business.
His greatest claim to fame was his starring role in The Jazz Singer, the first
talking motion picture. Although Jolson never served in the Army (he
was turned down when he tried to enlist during the Spanish American War for
being too young) Jolson was an active participant in Bond Drives during
subsequent wars. He also entertained the troops during World War I
and Korea. In fact, he died after a trip to Korea in 1950.
1888: In
Darlington Town, SC, Abram Weinberg, the Charleston born son of Fannie ad
Bendix Weinberg and his Rosa Weinberg gave birth to Amelia Weinberg who died sixteen
days before her first birthday.
1889:
Birthdate of Warsaw native Jacques Maliniac, the American plastic surgeon.
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/03/06/archives/jacques-maliniac-a-plastic-surgeon.html
1890(7th
of Sivan, 5650): Second Day of Shavuot
1890: Founding
of the Samuel Kristeller Fund which aimed “to assist young Jews who wish to
learn a trade and to help Jewish mechanics” trying to establish themselves. It
was named for the Berlin physician who “was a member of the executive committee
also of the Society for Propagation of Handicrafts Among the Jews
1890: In New
York City, “Dr. Abram Brothers, a well-known surgeon who was also a writer, an
actor, and a violinist” and Minnie Epstein Brothers gave birth to Viola
Brothers who gained fame as writer Viola Brothers Shore.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/Shore-Viola-Brothers
1890(7th
of Sivan, 5650): Hirschel Eliazer Kann, one of the co-founders of the Dutch banking house Lissa & Kann
passed away today.
1890: “New
Publications” published today included a detailed review of Jeremiah and His
Times by Dr. T.K. Chenye a Professor at Oxford. He divided his work into two parts: “Judah’s
Tragedy Down to the Death of Josiah” and “The Close of Judah’s Tragedy.”
1890: It was
reported today that Rabbi Kaufman Kohler will be officiating at the upcoming
confirmation services for the students at the Hebrew Free School.
1890: At a
dinner held this evening by the Grand Army of the Republic in Lowell, MA,
General Benjamin Butler delivered a speech in which he claimed that during the
Civil War the soldiers had been paid “in depreciated currency while Jew bankers
were paid in gold with interest.” During the Civil War, Lincoln had tolerated
Butler as a general because he needed his political support. He was a politician, not a general as could
be seen by his inept performance in the field.
1891(18th
of Iyar, 5651): Lag B’Omer
1891:
Birthdate of Washingtonian Dr. Harry E. Isaacs, “founder of the American Jewish
Physicians Committee, an affiliate of the American Friends of the Hebrew
University and the former Chief of Surgery at Beth El Hospital>
1891: In
Budapest, “Mária (née Zilahy) and János Lukács, an advertising executive” gave
birth to Pál Lukács” who gained fame as Paul Lukas who an Oscar for Best Actor
for his role in WW II film “Watch on the Rhine.”
1891: “Russia
Home Policy” published today described the various aspects of the Czar’s
anti-Semitic policies. Police are being
sent throughout St. Petersburg with orders to arrest an Jews they find and ship
them back to the Pale. Conditions are so bad in Kiev that even Jews who have a
legal right to live there are allowing themselves to be expelled. The governor of Kiev has said “I will make
Kiev too hot for the whole brood of rascals, rights or no rights.”
1892:
Opposition was expressed today in the House of Representatives to an
appropriation for the upcoming World’s Fair since exhibits would be open on
Sunday in violation of the Christian Sabbath.
No such concern was expressed for being open on Saturday.
1892: “Rome
and the Hebrews” published today described the recent meeting that Jesse
Seligman and Dr. O’Connell rector of the American College had with Cardinal
Rampolla, Papal Secretary of State. In
response to a request for protection of the Jews by the Catholic Church,
Rampolla said that “the Popes…had always been the protectors of the Jews.” (Considering the behavior of the Popes
following the revolts of 1848, this statement can best be described as, at
best, “disingenuous”
1893:
According to Israel Schwartz, a 13 year old boy who has been living at the
Ladies’ Deborah Nursery for the last 9 years, he made up his mind to run away
after having been called into Superintendent Engel’s office where he was beaten
after having refused to write to his father and tell him about his “bad
conduct” which ad consisted of talking to other boys in class which is against
the rules.
1893: “Paulus
Meyer Arrested” published today described the arrest of Paulus Meyer a Jewish
convert and ex-Russian Talmudist “who asserted that he was an eyewitness to a
terrible massacre of Jews in Russia. He
was arrested at the request of the German Supreme Tribunal at Leipzig.
1893:
Birthdate of Viennese native and movie producer Isadore Goldsmith, who like so
many of his generation fled the Nazis living first in Britain and then the
United States where he met his wife, novelist and fellow screenwriter Vera
Caspary.
1894:
Emanuel Lasker became a World Champion chess player. Born in Germany, Lasker’s father was a cantor
who feared that his son’s love of chess would take him away from his
studies. Lasker won the championship
when he was 26 which made him the youngest champion of his time.
1894:
Theodore Seligman who is one of the executors of the will of his father, the
late Jesse Seligman, filed “a statement of the condition of the estate” and “an
itemized list of the bequests to the family and charitable societies in the
Surrogate’s Office.
1894:
Birthdate of Bessarabia native and University of Pennsylvania graduate Harry
Viteles who worked with Joint Distribution Committee before moving to Palestine
to serve as bank general manager while serving with the United Hebrew Charities
of Philadelphia.
https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/03/archives/harry-vitele-77-in-coop-movement.html
1894:
In Hermanville, Mississippi, “Solomon W. and Caroline S. (Herman Bodenheim)
gave birth to thrice married poet and author Maxwell Bodenhiem who “co-founded
The Chicago Literary Times” with
another Jewish author and later Zionist activist Ben Hecht.
https://poets.org/poet/maxwell-bodenheim
1895:
Three days after she had passed away, 71 year old Matilda Jacobs, the daughter
of John and Frances Nathan and the wife of Myer Jacobs was buried today at the
“Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1895:
Esther Walenstein delivered the opening remarks at the dedication of Hebrew
Infant Asylum on Mott Avenue and 149th Street in the Bronx after
which the board presented with a portrait of herself which she could see every
day for the next 8 years during which ran the institution.
1895:
“In The World Of Art” published today acknowledgement is made of the generosity
of the men who arranged the East Side Art Exhibition in the auditorium of the
Hebrew Institute which attracted a large throng of the less fortunate for whom
this was the first opportunity to see such works.
1895:
Birthdate of Professor Salo Wittmayer Baron, the author of a sweeping
multivolume history of the Jews who “was undoubtedly the greatest Jewish
historian of the 20th century…” (As reported by Peter Steinfels)
1895:
Rabbi Joseph Silverman is scheduled to deliver the opening prayer at today’s
ceremony dedicating the new Hebrew Infant Asylum. Following remarks by New York
City Mayor Strong, Rabbi Kaufman Kohler and N.S. Rosenau will address the
attendees. Cecilia Goldsmith is among those responsible for providing
refreshments at the end of the event.
1896:
Eben Israel Cemetery, the Jewish Cemetery in Cedar Rapids that served both the
Orthodox Beth Jacob and Reform Temple Judah congregations opened. Max Oshman was one of the founders of the
cemetery which is still in use at the start of the 21st century.
1896: Nicholas
II becomes Tsar of Russia. Nicholas was
the last of the Tsars. He was a weak man
who lacked the skill to rule. He was
also totally out of touch with what was going on in his country. The fact that he had three rabbis at his
coronation did not mean that his views about Jews were any different from those
of his predecessors. There were Pogroms
both before and after the first uprising against the Tsar in 1905. The Tsar spent a great deal of money on
anti-Semitic literature including mass distribution of the Protocols of the
Elders of Zion. He also supported the
trumped up charges in the Bellis Case, the scandalous trumped charges in one of
the last “Ritual Murder” of the 20th century. During his reign, the Tsar declared,” During
my reign Jews in Russia will not enjoy equal rights.”
1898: The Chicago Jewish Courier opened a
drive to help defray the expenses of a newly formed Jewish military
organization that is volunteering to serve in an Illinois Regiment that will
probably join the fight against Spain.
1898; One day
after he had passed away, seventy-year-old Joel Woolf, the Middlesex born son
of Jane and Isaac Woolf was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in
London.
1898: During
the Spanish American War Sergeant George M. Klein and Corporal Isaac Bradfield
of Company A of the 1st Mississippi Volunteer Infantry were among
those mustered into federal service in Jackson, Mississippi.
1898: Three
days after he had passed away, 70 year old Joel Woolf, the son of Isaac and
Jane Woolf and the husband of Helen Solomons was buried today in London at the
“Plashet Jewish Cemetery.”
1899: The
Hebrew Union Veterans’ Association held its annual memorial service tonight at
Temple Emanu-El. The event, which was
well attended, began with the veterans marching en masse to house of worship by
a drum and bugle corps.
1899: A list
published today of the institutions receiving aid from the state of New York
and the amount they are getting included: Sanitarium for Hebrew Children -
$5,080; Hebrew Benevolent Society - $100,000; Hebrew Sheltering Guardian
Society - $99,500;
1899: Isaac
Wallach, the President of the Mt. Sinai Hospital Association said today that
“the land on which the hospital will be built consists of thirty city lots
situated between one Hundred and One Hundred and First Streets and Madison and
Fifth Avenues” which cost about $400,000 and that buildings will cost one
million dollars of which $750,000 “has already been subscribed.”
1899: As of today,
the officers of the Judaens are Dr. Henry M. Leipziger, President; Professor
Gottheil, Vice President; Philip Cowen, Secretary; Albert Ulmann, Treasurer;
and Samuel Greenbaum, Samson Lachman and Cyrus L. Sulzberger, Directors.
1900: Samuel
Elfenbein, the “son of Moses and Rosa Elfenbein” and Celia Elfenbein gave birth
today to Maurice Elfenbein.
1901(8th
of Sivan, 5661): Eighty-year-old Ludwig Lewysohn, the native of Posen who
served as the rabbi Frankfort-on-Oder, Worms and Stockholm passed away today in
the Swedish city.
1901: “For the
first time in its history Lafayette Post, a famous Grand Army of the Republic
post held its memorial services tonight at a Jewish congregation; in the case
Temple Beh-El on Fifth Avenue where Chaplain Wilbur Fiske Wood who said “ I
feel a peculiar pleasure in celebrating this memorial in a Jewish place of
worship.”
1902: The
Nożyk Synagogue which “would be the only surviving prewar Jewish house of
prayer in Warsaw” “was officially opened to the public” today.
1902: After
having graduated from NYU Law School in 1901, future Congressman Isaac Siegel,
“was admitted to the bar” today.
1902: Twenty-two-year-old
New York City native and NYU trained attorney Isaac Siegel, the Republican
leader who served in Congress was admitted to the bar today.
1902:
“Russia’s Treatment of American Jews” published today described a speech
Unitarian minister Thomas R. Slicer in which he declared that he “would not
have been a Christian but for the teachings of the Hebrews” and that while “the
Russians are nominally Christians with a strong prejudice against the Jews and
it is impossible to reason against prejudice.”
1903: Herzl
meets the Portuguese ambassador in Vienna to ask for a territory habitable and
cultivable by Europeans.
1903: In
Newport News, VA, Charles Friedlander and Blanche Peyser gave birth to Mark
Peyser Friedlander who would be buried in Washington, D.C’s Hebrew Cemetery.
1904: Interior Minister de Plehve “proposed to the
Council of the Empire an important project for the repeal of the law under
which Jews are forbidden to reside with thirty-two miles of the frontier.”
1905(21st
of Iyar, 5665): French banker Mayer Alphonse de Rothschild passed away. Born in 1827, Alphonse was the son of James,
the founder of the French branch of the House of Rothschild. He succeeded his father just before the
Franco-Prussian War. After the French
were defeated, Alphonse arranged the financing to pay for the indemnity the
Germans extracted from the French as part of the peace settlement. The loan was a key to the re-emergence of
France as a major European power.
Rothschild also served as head of the French Jewish Community and was
famed for his generous philanthropy. As
a patron of the arts, he donated major works of art to over two hundred museums
and galleries throughout France.
1905: A pogrom
broke out in Minsk, Russia.
1906(2nd
of Sivan, 5666): Parashat Bamidbar
1906: “The
Black Hundreds are attempting to invite the people to attack the Jews by the
circulation of false paper money purporting to have been issued by an alleged
Jewish republic in Tula Province…”
1907: “Jacob
H. Schiff was the principal speaker at a dinner given tonight in the Tuxedo,
Fifty-ninth Street and Madison Avenue, by the local members of District Grand
Lodge 1, Independent Order B'nai B'rith, to members of the lodge from out of
town who had been attending the lodge's convention” in New York.
1908:
Birthdate of Viennese native Otto Kurz who” fled to London from the Nazis,
where was Librarian at the Warburg Institute, 1944–65 and Professor of the
History of Classical Tradition with special reference to the Near East,
University of London, 1965–75. He was Slade Professor of Fine Art at the
University of Oxford for 1971–72.
1908: At
Masjid-al-Salaman in southwest Persia (Iran), the first major commercial oil
strike in the Middle East is made. The rights to the resource are quickly
acquired by the United Kingdom. The
connection between the oil strike the quest to establish a Jewish homeland in
Eretz Israel is too obvious to have to explain.
1909(6th
of Sivan, 5669): Shavuot
1909(6th
of Sivan, 5669): Jacob Meyberg, the son of Jonas and Emma Kornick Meyberg
passed away today after which he was at the New Mount Sinai Cemetery in Affton,
MO.
1909:
Birthdate of Richard Maibum, the New York City native, who came to the
University of Iowa in 1930 where he studied in the Speech and Dramatic Arts
Department, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1931, earning a Master’s in 1931 and
who gained fame “for his screenplay adaptations of Ian Fleming's James Bond
novels.”
1910:
Birthdate of Adolph Ignatievich Rosner, the native of Berlin who gained fame as
jazz musician Eddie Rosner.
http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=ba13d322ff1efbe114aeb6779&id=727854ab29&e=632ced0f1f
1910:
Political trailblazer Belle Moskowitz wins passage of bill regulating New York
dance halls
1911: In the
Bronx, Gittle “Gussie” Weinstein and Yithak Asher “Isaac” Ephron gave birth to
Henry Ephron. While he was a noted
playwright, screenwriter and producer, his greatest claim to fame may be that
he was the father of four daughters – Nora, Dilia, Hallie and Amy – who became
famous writers in their own right.
1911: In
Wilkes-Barre, PA, Jacob and Bessie Kushner gave birth to Aid Kushner, the Oak
Park, Michigan, resident “who for many years…constructed models of famous
synagogues from around the world including the state of Michigan as well as a
model of President Truman’s home in Independence and an early British fort
built at Detroit before it became part of the United States.
1912: The
annual meeting of the Jewish Publication Society of America was held this
evening at Keneseth Israel Temple in Philadelphia, PA. Edwin Wolfe, the president of the society,
called the meeting to order. Oscar
Solomon was the only member from Cedar Rapids, IA.
1912: Services
were this morning “in the synagogue of the Montefiore Congregation in the Bronx
when a window dedicated to the memory of Isidor Straus and his wife Ida Straus”
who had died on board the Titanic “was unveiled by Edward Lauterabch in the presence
of several members of the Straus family.”
1913: Today, “after
intense questioning, Jim Conley admits that he wrote the notes found next to
Mary’s body, but claims that he wrote them at the order of Leo Frank.”
1913: The
annual meeting of the Home for Jewish Friendless and Working Girls of which
Jennie Mandel is the secretary is scheduled to take place this evening at the
Standard Club.
1914:
Anglo-Jewish art dealer said today “that dispatches from New York were his
first intimation that a syndicate of dealers heady by Duveens would hold a sale
of the Morgan art treasures in London.”
He said that in his opinion, “the story is false.”
1915: Herbert
Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel, began serving as Postmaster-General
under Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith.
1915: It was
reported today that former Governor Richard Yates was among the thousands of
people who had attended a mass meeting in Springfield, Illinois where speeches
were delivered calling for clemency for Leo M. Frank.
1915: Former
Congressman W. M. Howard who is in charge of Leo Frank’s appeal to the State
Prison Commission announced today that Leo Frank’s wife, who was not allowed to
testify at his trial under Georgia law, will submit an affidavit at the hearing
and that Frank himself appear in person.
1915: In
Boston, Mayor James M. Curley, ex-Governor Eugene N. Foss, Dr. John W.
Coughlin, a member of the Democratic National Committee and Dr. Samuel Goodman
of Atlanta were among the speakers at tonight’s meeting in Faneuil Hall
protesting against the execution of Leo M. Frank.
1915: Today,
the American Jewish Relief Committee of New York received word from Secretary
of State William Jennings Bryan that “American Ambassador at Constantinople
cables as follows” There are approximately 1,500 Jews from Gallipolis and
Dardanelles who have been obliged to leave their homes. They are quartered at Pauderma, Rodosto and
Constantinople and they are in absolute want.
The Grand Rabbi and committee beg for prompt assistance for them and for
indigent Jews in Constantinople who number about 5,000.”
1915: The text
of a letter from “the Board of Governors, the Georgia Society of the State of
New York, Inc., an association in New York City whose membership is composed
exclusively of Georgians, the descendants of Georgians and person who have been
educated in Georgia or have married a Georgian” to the Prison Commission of
Georgia calling for the commutation to Leo M. Frank’s sentence, was published
today.
1915: “Louis
Marshall, President of the American Jewish Committee received a letter from the
State Department in regard to the numerous inquiries from men in this country
as to the unfortunate condition of their wives and children who were caught in
Galicia when the war broke out and have been unable to come to this country.”
1916: The Zion
Mule Corps was disbanded after the end of the Gallipoli Campaign. The disbanding of this Jewish group did not
represent a failure. The British were
impressed with the bravery and diligence of the Jews and this led to the
formation of a Jewish combat force in the British Army later in World War
I. This was one more of the halting
steps that would lead to the creation of the modern IDF.
1916: It was
reported today that Adjutant General Louis Stotesbury who opened a public
investigation in charges made by Maurice Simmons, Chairman of the Kehillah
Committee for the Protection of the Good Name of Immigrant Peoples, that
anti-Semitism exists in the New York National” said that now is the time for
“any evidence of the exclusion of any man physical and morally qualified for
sever in the National Guard on account his religious belief” to be presented.
1916(Iyar 23):
Judah Leib Kantor, editor of Ha-Yom, passed away.
1917(5th
of Sivan, 5677): Parashat Bamidbar; erev Shavuot
1917:
“Shabuoth Festival Today” provides a secular newspapers description of the
Jewish holiday of Shavuot.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9401EFD8123AE433A25755C2A9639C946696D6CF
1917: “A Word
About Our Schools” published today provides a sketch of various Jewish institutions of higher education
including Hebrew Union College, Jewish Theological Seminary, The Rabbinical
College of America, The Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning and The
Gratz College
1917: It was
reported today that Tulane University has a total enrollment of 2,708 students
of whom 54 or 2% are Jewish.
1918: The
Georgian Republic declared its independence. With independence came freedom of
speech, press, and organization, which improved the economic situation of the
Jews of Georgia.
1918:
Following the Russian Revolution, “the Georgian Republic declared its
independence” today which led to “improved economic conditions for the Jews of
Georgia” – a situation that would come to an end when the Red Army invaded
Georgia in 1921 “prompting a mass exodus” of between 1,500 and 2,000 Georgian
Jews.
1918: The New
York Chapter of Hadassah which “is preparing to a send a complete medical unit
to Palestine” sent out a public appeal for an additional $1,000 to pay for a
truck which is the only piece of equipment that has not been acquired.
1918: Henry
Morgenthau, the former Ambassador to Turkey; “Dr. Boris Bogen of the Joint
Distribution Committee of the Jewish War Relief Funds; Jacob Billikopf,
Executive Chairman of the American Jewish Relief Fund and Rabbi Nathan Krass
were the featured speakers this “afternoon at a luncheon at the Robert Treat
Hotel in Newark, NJ,” “where 150 prominent Jews from all parts of New Jersey”
gathered to express their support for the 1918 campaign that was raising “funds
for the relief of Jews in the war-stricken countries of Europe.”
1919: The
Conference of Jewish Women’s Organizations is scheduled to meet this afternoon
at the Congress Hotel in Chicago.
1919:
Birthdate of New York native and WW II veteran Donald Samuel, an investment
company exctuive and a trustee of the Jewish Family and Children Services.
1919: La La
Lucille, a George Gershwin musical opened on Broadway today at Henry Miller’s
Theatre.
1920: Dr. H.
Pereira Mendes resigns as Rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New
York after 43 years.
1920:
Birthdate of Jan Wiener, a Czech Jew who fought in the British air force during
World War II after fleeing Nazis in Germany and Czechoslovakia.
1920(9th
of Sivan, 5680): Julius J. Lyons, the son of the late Rabbi Jacques J Lyons,
who had served as Director and legal counsel to the State Bank passed away at
San Diego, CA. He was born in New York
in 1843 and was active in several Jewish institutions including the Montefiore
Home, Mount Sinai Hospital and the Hebrew Technical Institute. He had gone to California a year ago to stay
at the ranch of his son Edwin where he had hoped to regain his health.
1921(18th of
Iyar, 5681): Lag B'Omer
1921: In what
was then Breslau, Germany, overalls manufacturer Fritz Laqueur and “homemaker
Elsa (Berliner) Laqueer gave birth to Walter Ze'ev Laqueur the American
historian who escaped his native Prussia for Palestine but whose parents were
trapped and died in the Holocaust. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
1922: “A
resolution directing Secretary of State Hughes to make immediate inquiry of the
French government as to the correctness of reports concerning the imposition of
a twenty-year sentence upon Charles R. Crane by a French military court was
introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Adolph Joachim
Sabath, the Czech born Jewish Congress from Illinois.
1923(11th
of Sivan, 5683): Dr. Hugh L. Wintner, the native of Kortvelyek, Hungary who
came to the United States in 1863 and “officiated at various congregations in
the western and southern United States” before coming to “Brooklyn in 1878 to
serve as the Rabbi at Temple Beth Ehlohim,” “the oldest synagogue in Brooklyn
which celebrated its golden jubilee in 1901,” passed away today.
1923: Thirty-four-year-old
Columbia trained physician Isidor Cherniac Brill, the Russian born son of
Abraham and Deborah Brill, who served overseas as first lieutenant with the
Medical Corps during WW I and who has an assistant professor of medicine at the
University of Oregon Medical School since 1919 today married Ruth Lowengart at
Portland, OR.
1924(22nd
of Iyar, 5684): Forty-three-year-old St. Louis native Aaron Hoffman, “one of
the most prolific writers for the American stage, the author of a score of play
and countless vaudeville sketches” and the husband of Minna Z. Hoffman with
whom he had one child, Phyllis, passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1924/05/28/104252367.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1924(22nd of
Iyar, 5684): Eighty-four-year-old Rosa Bloom, the daughter of Lob and Bina
Oppenhimer and husband of Simon Marx and Isidor Bloom passed away in New York
City.
1924: The
Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins
Act, and Asian Exclusion Act which was “vigorously opposed” by Congressman
Emanuel Cellar and severely limited the number of Jews who could enter the
United States was enacted today.
1925: In
Bayonne, NJ, Isaac and Lillian Goodman Cohen gave birth to Robert B. Cohen
whose chain of Hudson News shops at airports, bus terminals and railroad
stations across the country offered untold numbers of people a respite from the
tedium of travel…(As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1925: The
Camden, NJ, Section of the Council of Jewish under the leadership of Mrs.
Philip Wendkos held a banquet this even in the Beth-El auditorium which will
mark the end of the organization’s business year.
1926: “Ten
students received their degrees tonight at the first graduation exercises of
the Jewish Institute of Religion founded four years ago by Rabbi Stephen S.
Wise as the only liberal Jewish theological seminary in New York.” Honorary degrees were conferred on Calude G.
Montefiore, nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore and Chaim Nachman Bialik.
1926: Shalom
Schwarzbard traveled from the Ukraine to Paris to avenge his parents' death at
the hands of S. V. Petlura. He was
responsible for the Ukrainian anti-Jewish riots of 1919-1920. After days of
stalking, Shalom confronted Petlura, shot him and surrendered to the police. He
was acquitted by the court of Assizes on all charges. The court may have been
influenced by the fact that S.V. Petlura, and his followers were responsible
for 493 pogroms in which 50,000 Jews lost their lives.
1927: It was
reported today that Sir Alfred Davis, the British educator, told a meeting of
the New York Chapter of Hadassah that he took issue with Dr. Harry Emerson
Fosdick’s statement “that conditions in Palestine were unpromising for
agriculture and this was doubtful if the
colonies there could ever be self-supporting.”
1927: In New
York City, Alice Manheim, Jacob Kaplan, rabbi’s son, who “dropped out of school
in the eighth grade, made a fortune in South America in the molasses business
and later bought out the owners of Welch’s Grape Juice” gave birth to Joan Kaplan
who gained fame as “Joan Kaplan Davidson, a preservationist and philanthropist
who set projects in motion that upgraded the quality of life…” (As reported by
Enid Nemy)
https://www.socialsciencesinstitute.org/news/2023/8/15/in-memoriam-joan-kaplan-davidson-1927-2023
1928(7th
of Sivan, 5688): Second Day of Shavuot including recitation of Yizkor for the
last time during the Presidency of Calvin Coolidge.
1929:
Approximately four hundred delegates attending today’s 21st annual
convention of the Federation of Polish Jewish In America at the Yorkville
Temple heard an address by John J. Goldstein of the Joint Distribution
Committee.
1930: “The
revocation by the British Colonial Office of more than 3,000 labor certificates
after they had been approved by the High Commissioner on the basis of the
economic needs of the country is a violation of the letter and spirit of
Article VI of the Palestine mandate specifically charging the mandatory power
with the facilitation of Jewish immigration, according to resolutions adopted”
tonight “by delegates of the Zionist Organization of New York” at a meeting
held at the Hotel Pennsylvania over which former city magistrate Bernard
Rosenblatt served as presiding officer.
1931:
Elections began today in forty-five countries in Europe to selected delegates
for the World Zionist Congress to be held in June.
1931: “A large
attendance is expected the garden party to be held” this “afternoon at
Willowpond, the country place of Mrs. Harold Lehman in Tarrytown, NY, for the
benefit of the compaign for fund of the American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/05/25/98332950.html?pageNumber=25
1932(20th
of Iyar, 5692): Five days after celebrating his 82nd birthday
German-Jewish banker Hermann Frankel passed away. Ironically, he owned the Wannsee Villa, which
ten years later would be the site of the conference that would establish the
metrics for the final act of the Final Solution.
1933(1st of
Sivan, 5693): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1933: Helen
Dora Cohen married fellow student and future bookstore owner Louis Schucman “in
a ten minue ceremony in a local rabbi’s office” today.
1934: In Tel
Aviv, the third biennial Levant Fair comes to an end.
1935: Edmond
I. Jabes, who was born in 1912 was married today “in Zamalek, Cairo.”
1935: Egyptian
Chief Rabbi Haim Nahum officiated at services in the Ashkenazi Synagogue of
Cairo. He was there to lead a memorial service for the Polish Jews of Egypt,
who were honoring Marshal Josef Piludski. The respected Russian revolutionist
and Polish nationalistic military leader had died May 12, 1935 and was buried
in Lithuania.
1935: In Tel
Aviv a group of Yiddish authors sponsored a lecture in observance of the 70th
birthday of Dr. Chaim Zhitlowski, social critic, political activist and author
who was a “Yiddishist.” Members of Betarim, “a young military
Revisionist-Zionist group” were responded violently to the fact that the
lecture was conducted in Yiddish instead of Hebrew. They cut off the electricity, pelted members
of the audience with stones and were so disorderly that police had to break up
the meeting.
1935: It was
reported today that in Cedar Rapids, IA, “Mrs. Raymond Klass has been
unanimously re-elected president of the local chapter of the Senior Hadassah”
while Mrs. A.W. Basss was elected Vice President, Mrs. Nathan Greenberg was
elected recording secretary, Mrs. Jack Yager was elected recording secretary
and Mrs. Ted Yarowsky was elected treasurer.”
1936: For the
first time ever, the Mandatory government in Palestine today mobilized Jewish
settlers for self-defense as an open Arab revolt swept the country. Settlers at
Rehoboth were armed and prepared to repel further assaults by Arabs after two
days' of their marauding had resulted in the destruction of various
“agricultural enterprises.”
1936: In
London, “Emanuel List, a naturalized American singer who is now appearing at
Covent Garden has…declined an invitation to attend a function at the German
Embassy” saying “I left after the Nazi regime came in. My mother is a Jewess. I could not there remain in a country where
not only Jews members of other religions are so cruelly treated.
1936: “The
first mass attack on a Jewish settlement took place” today “at Kfar Tabor at
the foot of Mount Tabor in the Galilee district” when “a band of hundreds of
Bedouins began firing at” the Jews “but police supported by the young Jewish
farmers, repelled the attackers without casualties.
1936: After a
lumber yard was set on fire and nine bombs were tossed by Arab attackers in
Nevei Shalom, Jewish settlers fled to Tel Aviv.
1936(5th of
Sivan, 5696): Erev Shavuot; in Jerusalem, the British relaxed the curfew in the
Jewish section of the city delaying its start from 7 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. so that
the Jews could gather to observe the start of the festival.
1936: British
women and children were evacuated tonight from the troubled town of Nablus in
an atmosphere made increasingly tense by bold Arab terrorists. They were sent
to Jerusalem where it was thought they would be safe from Arab attacks.
1936: “Malcom
MacDonald, Secretary for the Dominions announced in the House of Commons
tonight that order had been restored at Gaza and that in addition to other
measures the High Commission for Palestine had taken steps to restrict the
movements of agitators and strike leaders.”
1936:
Premiere of “Kid Galahad” directed by Michael Curitz, produced by Samuel
Bischoff, Hal B. Wallis and Jack L. Warner, with music by Max Steiner and
starring Edward G. Robinson.
1937:
Birthdate of composer Yehuda Yannay
1938:
Birthdate of West Philadelphia native and a Haverford and Harvard trained
linguist, author and teacher Richard Lederer whose “Jewish parents from Poland
and Germany” saw to it that he had a bar mitzvah.
1938: The House Un-American Activities Committee
met for the first time. HUAC would
become the tool of right-wing political leaders who would use it attack “the
Communist Conspiracy,” something that many of them equated with a Jewish
conspiracy.
1939(8th of
Sivan, 5699): Rabbi Ya'akov Meir, Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Palestine, passed
away. Jacob Meir was born in Jerusalem in 1856 when it was part of the Ottoman
Empire. Born to a notable merchant of the community, Mercad Meir, young Jacob
grew to be a merchant who worked in Yaffa. He worked as a merchant for over ten
years, then in his thirties wealthy Jew he knew talked him into going into the
rabbinate. After becoming a rav he traveled to countries raising funds for
those in Jerusalem. From the mountains of Bokhara to the deserts of Tunis and
Algeria he collected charity funds, and in Jerusalem acted as civil assessor to
the Bet Din. On the death in 1906 of his friend and advisor Chief Rabbi Saul
Eliasher, Rav Jacob Meir, age 50, was unanimously chosen to fill his place.
Soon after a dispute arose, and resigned to accept a "call" to the
large Jewish community at Salonica. In years later when the Sultan of Turkey
visited Salonica, he presented Meir with a gold watch emblazoned with the royal
arms as a mark of esteem. In 1920 Meir was appointed by Sir Herbert (later
Lord) Samuel to be head of the Spanish Jewish Community of Palestine and soon
after received the Commander of the Order of the British Empire award for
service to the British. Herbert Samuel was appointed as the first British High
Commissioner of Palestine in 1920. He was Jewish and also a Zionist. Under his
direction, thousands of Jewish immigrants settled in the land. In each of the
years between 1920 and 1923, about 8,000 Jews entered Palestine. In 1924 the
number jumped to 13,000 and the following year to more than 33,000. Sadly, many
Jewish people came to Palestine because they could go nowhere else. America
closed its doors to mass immigration in 1924. After he died, over 10,000 Jewish
residents of Jerusalem, representing all sections of the population took part
in his funeral. The Blue and white colors hung from half-mast from the offices
of all Sephardic associations and other Jewish public institutions. His body
was brought to the large synagogue at the Sephardic orphanage on Yaffa Road.
Around his coffin which stood on the stage gathered members of the Chief
Rabbinical Council, other rabbis, and groups of youths in the uniforms of their
organizations, acting as honor guards.
1940(18th
of Iyar, 5700): Lag B’ Omer is celebrated on the same day that “Anthony Eden
told General Lord Gort, Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the BEF, that he might
need to "fight back to the west", and ordered him to prepare plans
for the evacuation” in what would become known as “Dunkirk,” Jews
1940: Today
James Rosenman and Samuel I. Rosenman were FDR’s “houseguests” at the White
House.
1941:
Approximately one thousand people attended a tea at the Hotel Commodore
sponsored by “the metropolitan branch of the Women’s League of the United
Synagogue of America where attendees heard national president Mrs. Samuel
Spiegel said that seven thousand dollars has been raised “in supported of the
Cyprus Adler Scholarship Fund.”
1941: “Jews
and gypsies were forbidden today to participate in press, theatre, film and
radio activity in Serbia by order of the German military commander.”
1942: Belgian
Jews were required by Nazis to wear a Jewish star.
1943(21st
of Iyar, 5703): Sixty-seven-year-old Tufts Medical trained physician Isador
Henry Coriat, the Philadelphia born son of Clara Einstein and Hyram Coriat and
the husband of Etta, who was a pioneer in the field of psychoanalysts passed
away today.
1943: Jews
rioted against Germany in Amsterdam.
1943(21st
of Iyar, 5703): Seventy-one year old Jennie Mannheimer, the New York City born
daughter of Hebrew Union College Professor Sigmund Mannheimer and Prague born
author Louise Hershman Mannheimer, “the sister of two rabbis” and “one of the
first two women to earn a bachelor’s degree in Hebrew Letters from HUC, who
gained famed as “Jane Manner, the “acting coach and teacher of speech and
drama” passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/05/28/88538424.pdf
1943(21st
of Iyar, 5703): Tosia Altman, who smuggled weapons into the Warsaw Ghetto
and served as messenger once the uprising began was captured by the SS died
today “injuries she sustained while on the run.” (As reported by Robert
Philpot)
1944: In
Bogota, Columbia, Polish refugees Rifka and Israel Joseph Lederman gave birth
to David Mordechai Lederman, the doctor “who led the team of scientists that
developed the first fully implantable artificial heart.” (As reported by David Hevesi)
1944:
Mordechai and Yehuda Eldar arrived at Auschwitz. Mordechai Adler was slated to die in October
but through a fluke received a reprieve when he was one of 50 prisoners chosen
to work in “Canada,” the warehouse operation where the Nazis greedily stored
the belongings of their Jewish victims. In 1947, Eldar and two of his sisters
(the only surviving members of his extended family) sailed to Palestine on the
SS Exodus. Sent back to Hamburg by the
British, he returned to Tel Aviv in June of 1948. He joined the IDF and served for 30 years
before retiring as a colonel in 1978.
1944:
Birthdate of Jan Schakowsky, Congresswoman representing the 9th
District of Illinois.
1945(7th
of Sivan, 5705) Second Day of Shavuot
1945: “After
showing concern over the alleged intentions toward Palestine of the newly form
Arab League, leaders of Jewish organizations voiced satisfaction today over
‘safeguards’ which, they said the United Nations Conference was erecting around
the rights, notonly ofp resent Jewish inhabitants of Palestine but of those
who might emigrate there in the post-war
years to set up a national home.”
1946(25th
of Iyar, 5706): Sixty-eight year old Galcian born “Sigmund Thau, the founder
and president of the Mutual Lamp Manufacturing Company and leader of the Jewish
community as can be seen by his service as “treasurer of the JNF” and founder
and director of the Jewish Settlement House of the East Side who married Rose
Thau after the death of his first wife Devorah and who was the father of Sophie
and Morris Thau passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1946/05/27/94052727.pdf
1946: “Demands
that governmental and intergovernmental agencies assume full responsibility for
basic assistance to Jewish survivors abroad and permit voluntary agencies to
concentrate on supplementary aid and rehabilitation were made” in Atlantic
City, NJ “tonight at the opening session of the four-day National Conference of
Jewish Social Welfare.”
1947(7th
of Sivan, 5707): Second Day of Shavuot
1947(7th
of Sivan, 5707): Seventy-two-year-old Louis Satenstein, the Kovno born son of
Harris Satenstein and the former Pauline Schaffer and husband of the former
Harriet Johnson with whom he raised five children while serving as “president,
treasurer and chairman of the board of American Book-Stratford Press and
President of the Jewish maternity hospital passed away today.
1947: Gershon
Hirshon, a spokesman for the Jewish Agency that “there has been no split in the
Executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine” when David Ben-Gurion “had said
that a Jewish state in the areas populated principally by Jews, in addition to
the barren desert, might be acceptable in lieu of a Jewish state in all
Palestine” because the Chairman was merely expressing his personal views.
1948: At the
United Nations, the Arabs “indicated a willingness to stop the fighting on
condition that the Jews would regard the proclamation of statehood as null and
void and that no further Jewish immigration would be accepted. Abba Eban responds publicly; “If the Arab
states want peace with Israel, they can have it. If they want war, they have that, too. But whether they want peace or war, they
could have only with the sovereign independent state of Israel.”
1948: Esther
Cailingold, the British born daughter of Jews from Poland who had gone to
Jerusalem to teach in 1946 who stayed to fight in defense of the city in 1948
had her spine severed when the building she was in collapsed following an
explosion.
1948: The position of Jewish forces in the Old City was
beyond desperate. "There was nothing to eat; nothing to shoot
with..." One hundred Haganah troopers had been killed with even more
wounded as the Arab Legion pressed its attack on all sides.
1948: As part of a plan to avoid fighting among different
military forces that had been established during the Mandate, the newly formed
government of Israel asserted its control over military force with the issuance
of “Defense Army of Israel Ordinance No. 4” that “established the Israel
Defense Forces, which would be comprised of "land forces, a navy and an
air force".
1949: “Tulsa” a drama set in the oil fields produced by
Walter Wagner was released in the United States today.
1950: The
United States, Great Britain and France announced a plan to regulate arms sales
in the Middle East which would equalize sales between the Arab states and
Israel. The three western powers also promised to see to it that the frontiers
or armistice lines dividing the states would not be violated.
1950: The
Israeli government announced that Aubrey S. Eban has been appointed as Israel’s
Ambassador to the United States. [Yes, Aubrey Eban is the man whom we know as
Abba Eban.]
1952:
President Harry S. Truman addressed a dinner sponsored by the Jewish National
fund.
1952: Emil
Sachs, the Secretary of the Garment Workers’ Union of South Africa, and
opponent of Apartheid appeared in court today following his arrest at mass
meeting “on the steps of the Johannesburg City Hall.”
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Dr. Dov
Joseph, the Acting Minister of Finance, introduced in the Knesset a Bill on
"Income Tax Advances for Relief Works" and described the scheme which
was expected to provide 2,650,000 work days for the country's unemployed for
the next six months.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the
rationing of potatoes came to an end and potatoes were put on the free market
sale for the first time in four years. Over 250 immigrants were expected to
arrive from Iran.
1954: Meir
Har-Zion was part of ten-man squad “from the newly formed 890th
Paratroop Battalion led by Ariel Sharon which carried out a raid near Khirbet
Jinba” today.
1954(23rd
of Iyar, 5714): Eighty-year-old Marguerite F. Falk, the wife of Gustave Falk
passed away today after which she was buried with her husband at Hebrew Rest
Cemetery#2 in New Orleans.
1954(23rd
of Iyar, 5714): Joseph Titlebaum passed away today after which he was buried in
the Mt. Sinai Cemetery in Philadelphia.
1955(5th
of Sivan, 5715): Erev Shavuot
1955: New
York City premiere “Love Me or Leave Me” directed by Charles Vidor, Produced by
Joe Pasternak with a script by Daniel Fuchs and Isobel Lennart.
1956: In
London, “Jonathan Charkham, an adviser to The Bank of England and economist,
and Moira Elizabeth Frances Salmon, daughter of Barnett Alfred and Molly
Salmon” gave birth to Fiona Sara Charkham who gained fame English Solicitor
Fiona Sara Shackleton, Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia known as the Steel
Magnolia.”
1957: “In
the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago…Edward Wasserman, a psychoanalyst, and
the former Eileen Kronberg, a homemaker” gave birth to “historian and filmmaker
Suzanne Wasserman.” (As reported by Richard Sandomir)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/nyregion/suzanne-wasserman-dead.html
1958(7th
of Sivan, 5718): Second Day of Shavuot, Yizkor
1958(7th
of Sivan, 5718): “Four Israeli police officers were killed in a Jordanian
attack on Mount Scopus, in Jerusalem.”
1958: “At
1654 Local time Lieutenant-Colonel Flint of the Mixed Armistice Commission was
killed apparently by a single sniper round while trying to evacuate the dead
and wounded Israelis from an Israeli police patrol.”
1959(18th
of Iyar, 5719): Lag B’Omer
1960:
Birthdate of Amnon Shashua an Israeli computer scientist and businessman who is
the Sachs Professor of Computer Science at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem
as well as Senior Vice President at Intel Corporation and President and Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) of Mobileye and co-founder of OrCam.
1960(29th
of Iyar, 5720): Seventy-year-old Esther Cohen Belsky the Russian born daughter
of Moshe Kaplan and Frieda Goldberg and the wife of Charles Eizia Belsky passed away today
in Holyoke, MA after which she was buried at the Rodephy Sholom Cemetery in
Chicopee, MA.
1960(29th
of Iyar, 5720): Pittsburg born Abraham Oseroff, the holder of BS from the
University of Pennsylvania and a Masters from the University of Pittsburg who
was a veteran of WW I and a hospital
administrator in Pittsburgh, New York City and Philadelphia passed away.
1964 The
third AFC Asian Cup football (what Americans call soccer) tournament opened in
Israel today.
1964:
Birthdate of musician Lenny Kravitz
1964: Sylvia
Rothschild’s novel “Sunshine and Salt” was released today
1965(24th
of Iyar, 5725): Eighty-three-year-old Dr. Solomon Ullman, the native of Hungary
who became the Belgian Chief Rabbi and Chief Jewish Chaplain of the Belgian
Army passed away today in Brussels. (As reported by JTA)
1965: “Mirage”
a thriller based on a novel by Howard Fast co-starring Walter Matthau was
released today in the United States.
1966:
Fifty-nine year old of director and screenwriter Edmond T. Greville who based
“on 23andMe genetic testing of his daughter and grandson in 2017, was in
fact Ashkenazim Jewish from the likely area of Odessa, a fact never known to
him during his life time passed away today.
1967: As the crisis
that would result in the Six Day War intensified, President Nasser of Egypt
declared, “the battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to
destroy Israel.” While President Johnson
worked to develop an international response that would open the Straits of
Tiran, the Soviet Union let the members of the Security Council know that
Moscow would veto any proposal that was not in accord with the wishes of Syria
and Egypt.
1967: As the crisis
that will lead to the Six Days War worsens, Military intelligence chief Aharon
Yariv tells the Israeli cabinet that “the roots of the current situation are
connected to the active Soviet regional initiative” that began “over a year ago.”
1968(28th of Iyar,
5728): Yom Yerushalayim
1968: A
funeral service is scheduled to be held this afternoon at Temple Emanu-El for
eighty-two-year-old Morris Haft, the Russian born son of Jennie and Max H. Haft
and “a major figure in the garment industry” whose ladies coat and suit
company, “Morris W. Haft and Bros. was known for many years on Seventh Avenue
as ‘the General Motors’ of the industry because of its size” and who was active
in New York politics, a major art collector and such a supporter of Israel that
the city of Herzliya named a street in his honor passed.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/05/24/77102682.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1968: Eighty-two-year-old
“Austrian ethnologist, ancient historian, and archaeologist, and a grandnephew
of poet Heinrich Heine” Robert von Heine-Geldern passed away today
http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle/10125/19123/AP-v13n1-obit.pdf?sequence=1
1969: Abdel el Rahman
el Latifi, a 65-year-old Jerusalem Arab who stabbed a soldier outside the
Damascus gate last year, was sentenced today to 10 years' imprisonment by the
district court here. There was no apparent reason for the act, but the court
rejected the defense plea of insanity.
1970: In
Manhattan, Joan and Morton I. Hamburg gave birth to screenwriter and director
John Hamburg
1971: In
Huston, “economics professor Gerald Whitney Stone and Sheila Lois Belasco” who
was Jewish gave birth to cartoonist Matt Stone co-creator of South Park,
1971: “Man
From La Mancha” with music by Mitch Leigh moved to the Mark Hellinger Theater
(named in honor of the Jewish theatre critic) for the last month of its
original Broadway run of 2,329 performances.
1973: The BBC
broadcast the first episode of “That’s Life!” a mixture of news and satire
featuring Esther Rantzen as Presenter.
1973:
The IDF announced a state of emergency today “and reserve troops were called up
in response to a movement of Egyptian troops. The state of emergency was
cancelled when it became clear that this was only an exercise. This event had a
major impact on the General Staff, as it led them to believe that the Egyptian
forces were not preparing for war, later that year, on Yom Kippur. After the
war however, it became apparent that these frequent maneuvers carried out by
the Egyptians were part of an elaborate ruse meant to induce complacency in the
Israelis regarding the true intentions of Egyptian troop movements at the time
the actual attack took place.”
1974:
“Mr. and Mrs. Max Gerstein: announced the engagement of their daughter New
Yorker magazine fiction department employee Nancy Ellen Gerstein to Lawrence
Kudlow in what might described as clothing merger since the bride’s mother “is
presient of Petrie Stores Corpoation, a retail chain of women’s clothing store”
and the groom’s father, Irving H. Kudlow “is a partner of Sondra Incorporated,
manufacturer of textiles for men's clothing.”
1975:
Lisa Selesner, the model and actress known as Lisa S, was born in Monaco to a
French father and a Jewish American mother today.
http://www.alivenotdead.com/lisas
1976:
“Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood” directed by Michael Winner, written
by Arnold Schulman and co-starring Madeline Kahn, Phil Silvers and Ron Leibman
was released in the United States today.
1976: German
philosopher Martin Heidegger passed away.
Although considered a major force in the world of philosophy by some,
Heidegger was a member of the Nazi Party and remained in Germany during the
war. Strangely enough, Heidegger had
several extramarital affairs, including two very important ones with Jewish
women who were his students, Hannah Arendt and Elisabeth Blochmann. Apparently
Arendt knew more about Nazis than she let on when she was writing about “the
banality of evil.”
1977: The
fourth of the Nixon Interviews which were arranged by Swifty Lazar and produced
by Bob Zelnick was broadcast today.
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported how John
Henry Weidner, 65, a Dutchman now living in U.S. led so many groups of Jews,
allied pilots and other victims of the Nazi persecution across the border of
the German-occupied France into Switzerland that he knew the way
"blindfolded." He was awarded the Righteous Gentile Medal by the Yad
Va'shem Chairman, Gideon Hausner, who told him: "You are a soldier of
humanity in the world's darkest years."
1980: An
Israeli police officer was injured in a stabbing attack at Hebron
1980: In
Monaco, Gary and Peggy Selesner gave birth to Lisa Selesner, the international
model known as “Lisa S.” Her mother was
Jewish, her father was not
http://www.alivenotdead.com/lisas/blog.html
1981: After
receiving a knighthood in 1980, Max Beloff “was created a life peer, taking the
title Baron Beloff, of Wolvercote in the County of Oxfordshire” today.
1982(4th
of Sivan, 5742): Cantor Adolph Block passed away today.
1983(14th
of Sivan, 5743): Ninety-year-old Louise Weiss the daughter of Protestant mining
engineer Paul-Louis Weiss and Jeanne Javal a member of an Alsatian Jewish
family gave birth to “who was an influential voice in French and international
affairs from the 1920s” passed away today.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/weiss-louise
1983: Amnon
Rubenstein completed his term as Communications Minister in Israel.
1985(6th
of Sivan, 5745); Shavuot
1985(6th
of Sivan, 5745): Seventy-seven-year-old Oscar award winning producer Harold
Hecht passed away today.
1987(27th
of Iyar, 5747): Seventy-three-year-old psychiatrist, entrepreneur and
philanthropist Arthur Sackler passed away. (As reported by Grace Glueck)
1987: Amnon
Rubinstein completed his service as Communications Minister.
1990: After
three years, Fox network broadcast the last episode of “The Tracey Ullman Show”
whose creators included James L. Brooks, Jerry Belson and Heide Perlman.
1991:
“Fund Guides Jobless Soviet
Immigrants,” published today Kathleen
Teltsch describes the challenges facing the Baron de Hirsch Fund in helping
the latest wave of Jewish
immigrants from Russia “make new
lives in America.” “The fund was created in 1891 by Baron
Maurice De Hirsch, a prosperous German Jewish financier who wanted to help
Jewish families fleeing Czarist Russia make a fresh start by becoming farmers.
Thousands came to the United States at the turn of the century and became
poultry farmers, mainly in southern New Jersey.” This latest influx of refugees from the Soviet Union will be looking
for help in fitting into the urban environment including jobs in the health
care and construction industries.
1991: In New York City, at the Plaza Rabbi Amy Wallk
and Cantor Kurt Silberman officiated at the wedding of Nancy Gail Samson, a graduated
of the University of Pennsylvania and the public relations director of the
Oklahoma City 89ers, and Joshua William
Cohen, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/27/style/nancy-g-samson-weds-j-w-cohen.html?searchResultPosition=8
1992: Harvard
graduate Michael Boudin, the son of Jean Roisman and attorney Leonard Boudin
and the sister of terrorist Kathy Boudin began serving as a Judge of the United
States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
1993(6th of
Sivan, 5753): Shavuot is observed for the first time during the Presidency of
Bill Clinton
1994: “A
streamlined Off-Broadway revival” of “Merrily We Roll Along,” a Stephen
Sondheim musical “based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman
and Moss Hart” opened today “at the York Theatre in St. Peter’s Church where it
ran for 54 perfromaces.
1995(26th
of Iyar, 5755): Eighty-seven-year-old Mordechai Surkis, the veterans of the
Haganah and the Jewish Brigade who was the first mayor of Kfar Saba passed away
today.
1995(26th
of Iyar, 5755): Eighty-nine-year animator Friz Freleng, the man behind such
icons as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Yosemite Sam to name but a few, passed away
today
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-friz-freleng-1621602.html
1996(8th of Sivan, 5756): Resistance fighter and politician Halka
Grossman passed away at the age of 76.
1998(1st of Sivan, 5758): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
2000:
After premiering a week ago in Malaysia, “Shanghai Noon” the first in series of buddy
films produced by Roger Birnbaum, Gary Barber and Jonathan Glickman and with
music by Randy Edelman was released today in the United States.
2000: Two days
after she lost her battle with breast cancer, funeral services are scheduled to
be held this morning for Sandra Zuckerman Rothstein, the “adored wife of
Edward” Zuckerman, in Woodbury, LI.
2001: In “Latest Disaster Tests Resiliency of Jerusalem's Residents,” published
today Deborah Sontag describes how the residents of Israel’s capital city are
coping with the latest wave of Arab terror
2001:
At the Tribeca Rooftop, Rabbi Joshua Davidson officiated at the marriage of Dr.
Debra Baron Nevas, a clinical psychologist, and Dr. Jonathan Todd Abrams, an
anesthesiologist.
2002:
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 “O’Neill: Life With
Monte Cristo” by Arthur and Barbara Gelb.
2002:
An exhibition of the work of 18th century New York silversmith Myer
Myers came to a close at the Skirball Cultural Center.
2003:
According to “Battle of Brooklyn” published today Ari Taub has received
the Best New Director award at the
Brooklyn International Film Festival for his new film “Letter from the Dead”
which “focuses on a doomed unit of German and Italian soldiers” fighting in
Italy in 1944.
2004(6th of Sivan, 5764): First Day of Shavuot
2004: What is believed to be the largest
cheesecake in the world has been baked in Haifa for Shavuot. The cake measured
more than three yards in diameter and was more than one yard high.
2004: A five-foot tall safe belonging to
Brooklyn’s Kane Street Synagogue founded in 1856 was opened with a crowbar
today and officials “discovered the seven books and assorted loose leaf papers
written in the terse shorthand common to meetings minutes” which revealed some
of the challenges faced by the congregation in the 19th century (As
reported by Jake Mooney)
2004: As the controversy surrounding
Judith Miller’s coverage of the Iraq war continues to grow “a New York Times
editorial acknowledged that some of the paper's coverage in the run-up to the
war had relied too heavily on Ahmed Chalabi and other Iraqi exiles, who were
bent on regime change” and “expressed "regret" that "information
that was controversial [was] allowed to stand unchallenged."
2005: Closing
session of Biotech-Israel 2005
2005(17th
of Iyar, 5765): Ninety-year-old journalist and political activist Israel
Epstein passed away in Beijing, China (As reported by Douglas Martin)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/02/international/asia/02epstein.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1491973/Israel-Epstein.html
2005: In his,
joint press conference welcoming Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to the White
House, President Bush said “The imminent Israeli disengagement from Gaza, parts
of the West Bank, presents an opportunity to lay the groundwork for a return to
the road map.... To help ensure that the Gaza disengagement is a success, the
United States will provide to the Palestinian Authority $50 million to be used
for new housing and infrastructure projects in the Gaza.” But he also said,
“Any final status agreement must be reached between the two parties, and
changes to the 1949 Armistice lines must be mutually agreed to. A viable
two-state solution must ensure contiguity of the West Bank, and a state of
scattered territories will not work. There must also be meaningful linkages
between the West Bank and Gaza. This is the position of the United States
today, it will be the position of the United States at the time of final status
negotiations.”
2005:
Percussionist, composer and Grammy nominee Roberto Rodriguez, brings his
signature blend of Latin rhythms and Jewish melodies to the Skirball Cultural
Center’s World Mosaic series. In 2002
Rodriguez recorded his first album “El Danzon de Moies” or “The Dances of
Moses.” The cover of the album combines
Latin and Jewish images. It is the red,
white and blue of Cuba but the Star of David replaces the star usually found on
the Cuban flag.
2006(28th
of Iyar, 5766): Yom Yerushalayim –
Jerusalem Reunification Day
2006:
In Congress today, Representative Rahm Emanuel delivered a speech in
recognition of the contributions of Joel M. Capr who is retiring “from the
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago after almost thirty years of
service.”
2006: The
Jerusalem Post reported that Holocaust victims' names may remain in Mormon
database.
2007:
Ryan Braun hit his first major league home run with the Milwaukee Brewers.
2007:
As part of an escalating wave of violence, a Border Policeman and an Israeli
security guard were moderately to seriously wounded this evening when two
Palestinian gunmen opened fire on an Israeli roadblock near the East Jerusalem
neighborhood of Sheikh Saad. The security forces - two security guards and two
Border Policemen - were manning the roadblock on the Jerusalem bypass road when
they were ambushed by militants. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed
responsibility for the attack.
2007(9th
of Sivan, 5767)::
British foreign correspondent Edward Behr, the Parisian native who was the son
of Russian Jewish refugees passed away at the age of 81. His wide travels and
reporting experiences inspired a number of books, including The Algerian
Problem(1961), The Last Emperor (1987), Hirohito: Behind the Myth
(1989) and Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite (1991) about the now-fallen
Romanian dictator and his wife .He provided a telling look at his own trade
with Anyone Here Been Raped and Speaks English? (1981), a query
reportedly called out by a British reporter looking for sources during a crisis
in Congo.
2008: Today, Texas Rangers All Star second baseman Ian Kinsler
knocked one out of the ballpark in a game against the Tampa Bay Rays, in the
process slugging the 2,500th home run by a Jewish player in the game’s history,
according to Jewish Major Leaguers, Inc.
2008(21st
of Iyar, 5768):
Sydney Pollack, a Hollywood mainstay as director,
producer and sometime actor whose star-laden movies like "The Way We
Were," "Tootsie" and "Out of Africa" were among the
most successful of the 1970s and '80s, passed away today at the age of 73.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/movies/26cnd-pollack.html?_r=0
2008: Tensions rose between Egypt and Israel when 45
elderly Jews, most of whom were born in Egypt, were forced to cancel their
four-day trip to Egypt
2008:
Memorial Day observed. The National Museum of
American Jewish Military featured a Memorial Day tribute to those Jewish
servicemen and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. http://www.nmajmh.org/docs/jahm08/May%2026%20Memorial%20Day.pdf
2009: The 92nd Street Y
presents “Women’s Prominence, Women’s Femininity: From Biblical Times to Today”
during which Israeli novelist Eva Etzioni-Halevy, the
author of the novels “The Song of Hannah,” “The Garden of Ruth” and “The
Triumph of Deborah,” and Maggie Anton, the author of the Rashi’s Daughters
series, engage in a spirited conversation about Biblical women who broke
through the glass ceiling and the lessons we can learn from them today. Maggie
Anton is the award-winning author of “Rashi’s Daughters, Book I: Joheved,”
“Rashi’s Daughters, Book II: Miriam,” and for younger readers, “Rashi’s
Daughter: Secret Scholar.
2002: Michael Sandel gave the Reith Lecture on “A New Citizenship”
at Newcastle upon Tyne.
2009: For the first
time since its founding, the Knesset is officially marking today as Yiddish
Language and Culture Day. A Yiddish-Hebrew Knesset lexicon was released for the
occasion. The date for the parliamentary nod to Yiddish, a language once spoken
by more than 12 million Jews, was selected to mark 150 years since
the birth of the Yiddish author Shalom Aleichem. This past week was also the
20th anniversary of the founding of Yiddishshpiel, Tel Aviv's all-Yiddish
theater. The day's events include a joint meeting of the Knesset's Absorption,
Immigration and Diaspora Committee and the Education and Culture Committee to
discuss Yiddish culture. The Knesset is also holding a special session to
discuss the place of Yiddish in modern Israeli society. Foreign Minister
Avigdor Lieberman and Deputy Minister of Pensioners Affairs Leah Ness are delivering
the main speeches of the session. Ahead of the unique Knesset session, a
lexicon of the Yiddish translations of several key phrases often used by
Israeli parliamentarians was distributed to all Knesset members. A few key
phrases from the lexicon that veteran MKs may find useful include:
Ich hob eich nisht geshtert, toshter nisht mir! - "I didn't interrupt you,
don't interrupt me!"
Ich ruf eich tzum seder dus ershte mol.... -
"I am calling you to order for the first time...."
Ordners, derveitert im fun zal! -
"Ushers, remove him from the hall!"
Vehr siz far, zol veilen 'far'. Vehr siz
keigen, zol veilen 'keigen'. - "Whoever is in favor, vote 'in
favor'. Whoever is opposed, vote
'opposed'."
2010(13th of Sivan, 5770):
Eighty-three year old author Arthur Herzog III, who may best known for writing
the novel that inspired the sci-fi thriller “The Swarm” the son of song-writer
Arthur Herzog Jr and the husband of Leslie Mandel Herzog passed away today. (As
reported by Dennis Hevesi)
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/arts/09herzog.html
2010: Zemer Chai, Washington, DC’s premier Jewish Choir is scheduled to present
a concert entitled “Psalm Enchanted Evening” at Ohr Kodesh Congregation in
Chevy Chase, Maryland.
2010: The STS-132 mission that included two
space walks by Garret Reisman came to an end today.
2011: “The Great Kugel Throwdown” is
scheduled to take placed at the Washington State Historical Society in Seattle,
Washington.
2011: Congress
decided tonight that a memorial commemorating US Jewish chaplains who died in
battle will be erected at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia,. “This
memorial will be a fitting commemoration of 13 chaplains who have made the
ultimate sacrifice for their nation,” bill sponsor Sen. Charles Schumer said.
2011: "Jews, Slavery, and the Civil
War" is scheduled to have its final sessions in Charleston, South
Carolina.
2011: The JCC in Manhattan is scheduled to
present an evening with Eran Zur& Korin Alal, two of the freshest musical
voices in Israeli culture.
2011: Gail Barnum,
daughter of Joel and Amy Barnum, Natalee
Birchansky, daughter of Lee and Cyndie Birchansky and Marissa Carson, daughter
of Bill and Laura Carson, each of whom is part the Temple Judah “family” are
scheduled to graduate from Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, IA this
evening.
2011: Benjamin Levin,
son of David R. Levin graduated from Harvard Law School making him the third
generation of Levin Lawyers!
2011(22nd
of Iyar, 5771): Eighty-nine year old dental expert Irwin D. Mandel passed away.
(As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/nyregion/dr-irwin-d-mandel-expert-on-dental-chemistry.html
2011: The New York
Mets announced that David Einhorn had agreed to buy a minority share of the
baseball team for $200 million
2011: David Einhorn
called for Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, to step down after Microsoft had
been passed by both IBM and Apple in market value
2011:
Elaine’s the restaurant that the late Elaine Kaufman turned into a New York
icon will close tonight.
2011: Vermont
Governor Peter Elliot Shumlin “signed a bill to establish a state health care
exchange under the Affordable Care Act and to develop future universal
insurance coverage for all residents, making Vermont the first state to
initiate a plan for single-payer health care.”
2012(5th
of Sivan, 5772): Erev of Shavuot
2012(5th
of Sivan, 5772): “Award-winning author, teacher, mentor and fierce fighter for
social justice, Ellen Levine” passed away today.
2012:
The Chabad Center of Rechavia, 8 Ramban Street is scheduled to host a
traditional all-night learning session as part of the Shavuot celebration.
2012:
Can Bonomo “placed seventh” singing “Love Me Back” as Turkey’s representative
in the Eurovision Song Contest of 2012.
2012:
The Carlebach Minyan of the Old City is scheduled to offer an all-night Shavout
learning session.
2012(5th
of Sivan): Tessa Cohen, Curtis Litow and Sarah Maikon were confirmed tonight at
Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2012(5th
of Sivan, 5772): Eighty-six year old educator Irving I. Lipskind passed away
today.
2013: “Threshold to the Sacred: The Ark
Door of Cairo's Ben Ezra Synagogue” is scheduled to come to an end at the
Walters Museum in Baltimore, MD.
http://thewalters.org/events/eventdetails.aspx?e=2568
2013: The final
performance of “Sherlock Holmes” by the late Greg Kramer is scheduled to come
to an at The Segal Centre for the Performing Arts.
2013: The IPO is
scheduled to perform a special concert with violinist Itshak Perlman
2013: The New York
Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to
Jewish readers including Hollywood and Hitler: 1933-1939 by Thomas
Doherty, The Guns At Last Light” The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 by
Rick Atkinson and ‘Til Faith Do Us Part: How Interfaith Marriage Is
Transforming America by Naomi Schaefer Riley
2013: Hundreds gathered at Ammunition
Hill in the capital this evening to witness the swearing-in of the Netzah
Yehuda Battalion, the only haredi (ultra-Orthodox) unit in the IDF. The
battalion, currently numbering close to 1,000, is responsible for military operations
in and around Jenin
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/IDFs-only-ultra-Orthodox-battalion-sworn-in-314443
2013: A rocket was
fired from south Lebanon towards Israel today, Lebanese residents and security
sources said, but it was not clear where the rocket landed and there were no
immediate reports of damage inside Israel.
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Report-Rocket-fired-from-south-Lebanon-towards-Israel-314448
2014: Hubbard Street
Dance Chicago 12 days of performance at the Joyce Theatre, which included two
programs that feature Three to Max, a work by Ohad Naharin, the Artistic
Director of Israel's Batsheva Dance Company, and Too Beaucoup by choreographer
Sharon Eyal, a former company dancer” is scheduled to come to an end.
2014(26th
of Iyar, 5774): Ninety-one-year-old actress Anna Berger passed away today. (As
reported by Daniel E. Slotnik)
2014: A “500-page
report authored by historians Martin Kukowski and Rudolf Boch and published
today, revealed that German car giant Audi’s predecessor company used slave
labourers from concentration camps during World War II on a massive scale, a
new report has found.”
2014: Pope Francis is
scheduled to visit the Grand Mufti, the Dome of the rock, the Western Wall,
Mount Herzl Cemetery, Yad Vashem, Rabbis Yitzhak Yosef and David Lau, President
Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several priests and Christian
leaders before departing for Rome this evening.
2014: “The
Palestinians will demand that Israel be suspended from soccer’s international
association unless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recognizes the status of
the Palestinian Football Association, PFA Chairman Jibril Rajoub threatened
today.” (As reported by Avi Isaacharoff)
2014: Pope Francis spent today in
Israel visiting the Temple Mount, Yad Vashem, a terror victims’ memorial and
other sites, as well as holding meetings with Israeli leaders and others.
Throughout the day the pontiff prayed and urged for peace in the region.
2015:
“The world premiere of the 30 minute musical history of Jews in Rock and Roll
by Ben Sidran, musician and author of There was a Fire: Jews, Music and the
American Dream” is scheduled to take place at City Winery in New York
http://jewsrockandroll.com/#info
2015:
“Air raid sirens sounded in towns across southern Israel this evening at
9:02 p.m, as the IDF confirmed that at least one Grad rocket fired from
Gaza struck near the community of Gan Yavneh, near Ashdod.” (As
reported by Ari Soffer)
2015:
“Journeys” is scheduled to open at the Jewish Museum in London.
http://jewishmuseum.org.uk/journeys
2015:
Ruth Porat, the former chief financial officer of Morgan Stanely is scheduled
to begin serving as Google’s CFO today.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/new-google-cfo-ruth-porats-family-a-mirror-of-american-jewry/
2016(18th of Iyar, 5776): Lag b’Omer
2016(18th of Iyar, 5776): Seventy-six year old
photographer John Margolies passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
2016: Lubavitch of Arkansas is scheduled to host its
annual Lag B’omer Bar Bar-B-Que Festival – an event which was the first public
celebration hosted by Rabbi Pinchas Ciment when he brought the torch of “the
lamplighter” to Little Rocks more than twenty years ago!
2016: Tunisian Jews who traveled “to the island of
Djerba…the historic home of an ancient community of Jewish priestly families”
to celebrate Lag B’Omer did so despite “a severe travel advisory” that had been
issued by Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau.”
2016: Yeshiva University Museum, The Straus Center for
Torah and Western Thought and the Center for Israel Studies are scheduled to
present a lecture in which “Rabbi Meir Soloveichik reflects on the relationship between Rabbi
Joseph B. Soloveitchik - the Rav - and Israel, and the significance the Rav's
views on Israel have for future generations.
2016: Barnes & Noble Bookstore is scheduled to host
Peter Doran who will discuss Breaking Rockefeller: The Incredible Story of the
Ambitious Rivals Who Toppled an Oil Empire in which he “traces Marcus Samuel,
Jr.'s rise into the British aristocracy, Henri Deterding's conquest and
Rockefeller's collapse.”
2016: Producer and actor Yaniv “Nev” Schulman the younger
brother of “actor and filmmaker” Ariel "Rel" Schulman became engaged
today.
2016: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center
is scheduled to host the Midwest premiere of “Munich ’72 and Beyond” the “new
documentary film that provides a fresh perspective on the story of the 11
Israeli athletes killed during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.”
2016: The Harold Schnitzer Family Program
in Judaic Studies at Portland State University is scheduled to present “author
Ayelet Waldman who will be giving the 2016 Sara Glasgow Cogan Memorial Lecture,
"There's No Business Like Shoah Business: Why Is a Nice Jewish Girl from
New Jersey So Obsessed With her People's Greatest Tragedy?"
2017: “Norway’s foreign minister today condemned the
Palestinian Authority for naming a women’s center in the West Bank, funded in
part by the Scandinavian country, after a female terrorist.”
2017(1st of Sivan, 5777): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
2017: “The Women’s Balcony,” “#1 film of the year in
Israel” is scheduled to open at the Lincoln Plaza and Quad cinemas.
2017: In Jerusalem, the Bible Lands Museum is scheduled to
host a lectures on “Who Were You, Bar Kochva?”
2017: David Orlowski, the son of Miriam Winter is
scheduled to sign copies of Trains, his mother’s memoir, at the US Holocaust
Museum.
http://www.miriamwinter.com/reviews.htm
2018(12th of Sivan, 5778): Parashat Naso; 2018:
In honor of Shabbat, admission is free today at the Jewish Museum in NYC.
2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled
Shabbat service followed by lunch, Mincah and Seudah Shlishit
2018:
This evening the 14th St Y is scheduled to host the penultimate
performance of Hanoch Levin’s “The Labor of Life.”
2018
(12th of Sivan, 5778): After having “suffered a severe head injury
when an Arab terrorist threw a marble block at his head,” twenty-year-old
Sergeant Ronen Luvarski, a Rehovot resident succumbed to his wounds and died
today.
2019:
In Atlanta, GA, the Breman Museum is scheduled to host “Magic in the Death
Camp,” an interview with Holocaust survivor Werner Reich who “was captured and
imprisoned when he was 15 years old and spent time in three different
concentration camp” including Auschwitz where “he saw a magician--the Great
Nivelli--do a card trick, and this spawned a lifelong interest in magic.”
2019:
The New York Times featured reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis by Jared
Diamond and Feast Your Eyes by
Myla Goldberg.
2019:
In Iowa City, a memorial service is scheduled to be held at Oaknoll for Gusti
Kollman who made her way to Iowa after escaping the Nazis and built a long,
fulfilling life.
https://www.lensingfuneral.com/obituaries/Gusti-Kollman?obId=4263536#/obituaryInfo
2019: A screening of “The Tobacconist” is scheduled to part of the closing
night of the Washington Jewish Film Festival.
2019:
In Amsterdam “the Arts and Dialogue Foundation” and the “Menasseh ben Israel
Institute” are scheduled to present a screening of “From Cairo to the Cloud,”
that tells the story of the “World of the Cairo Geniza.
2020:
Alone Together, part of the Covid-19 Concert Series, the Eli Degibri Quartet,
led by the Israeli jazz saxophonist is scheduled to showcase “four incredible
musicians.”
2020:
Live on Zoom, the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Rescue the
Surviving Souls: The Great Jewish Refugee Crisis of the 17th Century.”
2020:
The Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action is scheduled to present online
“Schmoozefest: Social Justice Conversation, Music and Comedy.”
2020:
The ASF’s Institute of Jewish Experience is scheduled to present “The Global
Nação’s
Western
Sephardi Synagogues Tour with Joshua Mendes.”
2020:
The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host a virtual poetry
writing workshop inspired by Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus.”
2020:
The London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to present “Whole In One”
during which Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis will address the meaning of Shavuot
today “and give us advice about how we can personally maintain and renew our
connection to the Torah, the central text of Judaism.”
2020:
S.F. JFCS Holocaust Center is scheduled to co-present a virtual talk by Warsaw
Ghetto escapee George Elbaum, author of the Holocaust memoir Neither
Yesterdays Nor Tomorrows
https://neitheryesterdays.com/about/
2021:
The Consulate General of Israel to New England is scheduled to host a screening
of “Marry Me However” followed by a panel discussion.
2021:
In Palm Beach Gardens, FL. Temple Judea another
Lunch and Learn with Rabbi Feivel Strauss lecturing on Sir Moses
Montefiore as part of the Great Jewish Leaders series.
2021:
Russian literature scholar Julie Zigoris is scheduled to lead a Jewish
Community Library discussion of Paul Goldberg’s 2016 satirical, madcap novel,
The Yid, “about a ragtag band that tries to assassinate Stalin.”
2021:
As part of Jewish American Heritage Month, the National Museum of American
Jewish History and Jews of All Hues are scheduled to present “The Torah of
Bluces with Rabbi Sandra Lawson and Jeron Blindboy Paxton https://www.nmajh.org/events/the-torah-of-blues/
2022:
The Wiener Holocaust Memorial Library is scheduled to host a hybrid book talk
with Lord Daniel Finkelstein and Karina Urbach author of Alice’s Book.
2022:
The 2022 Annual Campaign Dinner for Major Donors of the Jewish Federation is
scheduled to take place in New Orleans.
2022:
The Weitzman National Museum of American History is scheduled to host in-person
and online the Joey Weisenberg Album Release Cocert..
2022:
The Steicker Center is scheduled to present “Anti-Semitism, Then and Now: Is
Hatred of the Jews Eternal?” with Abe Foxman and Simone Rodan-Benzaquen,
Managing Director of the American Jewish Committee for Europe.
2023:
This afternoon “JCC East Bay in partnership with more than 20 partner
organizations is scheduled to offer dozens of classes on myriad topics, plus
programs for preschool through 5th grade.
2023:
Illinois Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to host a “free admission day”
so that visitors can explore “the newly opened exhibition, The Girl in the
Diary: Searching for Rywka from the Łódz Ghetto, a teenage girl's story of
never giving up hope during the Holocaust.”
2023:
This evening in Santa Rosa, CA, the Chabad Jewish Center is scheduled to host a
“family-friendly Shavuot celebration with dairy buffet, ice cream party and
reading of the 10 Commandments.
2023(6th
of Sivan, 5783): Shavuot;
2024:
The New York Times “6 New Books We Recommend This Week list includes New Cold
Wars: China’s
Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West by David E.
Sanger the grandson of Elliot E. Sanger, the Jewish co-founder of WQXR-FM and Eleanor
Naumburg, grandniece of Elkan Naumburg, the Bavarian born Jewish founder of E.
Naumburg & Co, a major rival of Goldman Sachs.
2024:
In Los Angeles, the Der Nister Downtown Jewish Center is scheduled to host a Yiddish
Sing-Along with Cindy Paley
2024:
The Great Lag B’Omer Parade is scheduled to take place today in Postville, IA
followed by a Community BBQ at the Beis Chaya Mushka School Playground.
2024:
The Berkley Moshav is scheduled to host a Lag B’Omer Picnic where attendees can
celebrate and “lean how to join this vibrant Jewish community.
2024(18th
of Iyar, 5784): Today’s usual Lag B’Omer joy is turned upside down by the IDF’s
revelation that “the three deceased hostages −Hanan Yablonka, Michel Nisenbaum
and Orion Hernandez Radoux − who were
kidnapped near Mefaslim were recovered in a joint operation by the army and the
intelligence services in northern Gaza,”
2024:
As May 26th begins in Israel,
an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism sweeps the United States and the Hamas held hostages begin day 233 in captivity. (Editor’s note: this situation is too fluid
for this blog to cover so we are just providing a snapshot as of the posting at
midnight Israeli time.)
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