Sunday, July 14, 2024

This Day, July 16, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

July 16

622: The Prophet Mohammed begins his Hijra from Mecca to Medina. This marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar.  The importance of this to Jewish history should require no explanation.

1099: As the Crusaders sacked Jerusalem, they burned an untold number of Jewish scrolls and books.  According to Matti Friedman, the Christian soldiers spared  some of the texts with the hope that Jews in other communities would ransom them.  Among these books was the Aleppo Codex. [For more on this topic see The Aleppo Codex by Matti Friedman]

1212: In Spain, an Almohades Army was defeated by a coalition of Catholic forces at The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa,. The Almohades were a puritanical Moslem sect that had taken control of the southern portion of the Iberian Peninsulas. As can be seen by their attack on the Jewish community of Castille during which they seized the Codes Hilleli, a 600 year old Biblical manuscript considered to be the oldest Hebrew copy of the Bible in Spain and the decision of the family of Maimonides to leave Spain rather than live under their rule, the Almohades did not practice the policies of religious acceptance attributed to other Islamic sects at this time.  At the time the Christian victory seemed liked a plus for the Jews of Spain.  However, this proved to be illusory since the victory was a major step in The Reconquista – the uniting of Spain under Christian monarchs which would culminate with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.

1216: Pope Innocent III, a prelate who had an inimical effect on the Jewish people died. He presided over the Fourth Lateran Council which among other things which enacted a series of anti-Semitic canons including those that required the Jews to wear a distinctive badge on their clothing and to pay for unfunded Christian tithes. Other banned Jews from holding public office and denied Jews who had converted to Christianity the right to return to the faith of their fathers.  In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council, called by Pope Innocent III, decreed that, on the basis of Numbers 15:37-41, Jews should wear distinctive dress (a restriction also applied to Saracens and later to heretics, prostitutes and lepers. In addition, a distinctive mark was imposed on their clothing -- centuries before the Nazis' Yellow Star -- the badge of shame, the shape and color of which varied from country to country. The badge of shame made Jews social outcasts, exposing them to both physical and verbal abuse.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/innocent3_letterjews.html

1391: Valencia's King Pedro IV ordered that all Jews who had hidden in Christian houses were to be allowed to return to their homes unmolested. Furthermore he decreed that synagogues were not to be turned into churches. This did not prevent him from personably confiscating all the property of those Jews who had either been murdered or fled.

1547: Pope Paul II issued Meditatio Cordis a Bull that brought the Inquisition to Portugal establishing offices in Lisbon, Evora, Coimbra, and even in Goa. (From The History of the Jewish People)

1588: Negotiations between the Spanish and the English broke off and the English fleet at Plymouth prepared to do battle against the Spanish Armada as soon as its location could be ascertained.  Victory for the Spanish would be a disaster for the Jews since it would mean an end to the haven in Protestant Holland and the spread of the Inquisition to the British Isles.

1663: In San Miguel, Spain Felipe Nieto, the son of Phinehas Nieto and brother of David Nieto the Haham of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue community in London  and his wife Maria Flores Viya  gave birth to Giusepe Nieto Viya.

1666: Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham, under whose leadership a group of Sephardic Jews migrated to Suriname in 1652 and “settled in the Jodensavanne area” passed away today.

1707: “Dixit Dominus,” “a psalm setting by George Frideric Handel based on Psalm 110 was performed for the first time today.

1775: Marie Elizabeth Louise Dubois, a native of Canada, and Ezekiel Solomon gave birth to Ezekiel Solomon, Jr.

1781: A letter was sent to Mordecai Sheftall instructing him to “deliver to Colonel William Few One Thousand Silver Dollars out of the money in your hands belonging to the State of Georgia…

1782: First performance of Mozart's opera The Abduction from the Seraglio. Seventeen eighty-two also marked the beginning of  the relationship between Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte, the son of a Jewish convert who had trained as a priest. Together, they co-produced such classics as "The Marriage of Figaro", "Don Giovanni" and "Cosi fan tutte".

1785(9th of Av, 5545): Parashat Devarim; Erev Tish’a B’AV

1790: In Philadelphia, Jacob de Leon and his wife gave birth to Abraham de Leon “who served as a surgeon’s mate in the War of 1812” and “practiced medicine in Charleston, SC” while being Married Isabella Nones of Philadelphia.

1790: The District of Columbia is established as the capital of the United States after the signing of the Residence Act. Isaac Pollock, the grandson of one of the founders of the Newport Jewish community, reportedly arrived in D.C. in 1795 making him the city’s first Jewish resident. [For more information about the Washington Jewish Community see Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington http://www.jhsgw.org/ ]

1793(7th of Av, 5553): Catherine “Kitty” Solomons who was married in the Great Synagogue in 1792 passed away today.

1798: Birthdate of Daniel Lope, the Charleston, SC born son of David Lopez who died almost three months exactly after his birth.

1804(8th of Av, 5564): Erev Tish’a B’Av

1815: Birthdate of Wolf Alois Meisel, the native of Roth-Janowitz who became a leading Hungarian rabbi despite his father’s conversion to Christianity.

1823(8th of Av, 5583): Erev Tish’a B’Av

1823: Birthdate of Gerson Wolf, the native of Holleschau, Moravia, the “Austrian historian and educator” whose involvement in the political upheavals of 1848 and 1849 almost cost him his career.

1825(1st of Av, 5585): Rosh Chodesh Av

1825(1st of Av, 5585): Ephraim Hart, one of the founders of the New York Stock Exchange, passed away today.  Born in Furth, Bavaria, he served as a private in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. While living in Philadelphia, he joined Mickvé Israel in 1782 and married Frances Noah, sister of Manuel Noah in the following year.  By 1787, he had moved to New York where his success as a businessman led to him being one of the founders of the Board of Stock Brokers in 1792.

1828(5th of Av, 5588): Sixty-one-year-old Mose Levy Maduro Peixotto, the Curacao born of “son of Samuel Levy Maduro and Leah Maduro, the husband of Rachel de Isaac Peixotto and Judith van Samuel Peixotto and the father of Leah Moses Jessurun; Samuel Peixotto; Dr. Daniel Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto; Raphael Peixotto; Sarah Mozes Levi Maduro Naar; and Grace Peixotto “who came with his father from Curacao to New York in 1807 and who “in 1820 gave up his business and was elected as the Hazan of the Portuguese Congregation Shearith Israel’ passed away today.

1829: Birthdate Graziadio Isaiah Ascoli, a native of Austria who was the “godfather” of all Italian philologists.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1901-ascoli-graziadio-isaiah

1831: Birthdate of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, the King of Persia who employed Jakob Eduard Polak as his personal physician for 5 years.

1832: Henry Clay, the Senator from Kentucky, wrote a letter to Solomon Etting a Jewish businessman from Baltimore, MD.  Etting had written a letter to Clay complaining about the Senator’s derogatory use of the term “Jew.”  In his letter, Clay apologized since his use of the term Jew was intended to describe one person name either Moses Meyers or Meyer Moses and was not used to cast aspiration on the Jewish people. Clay claimed that he judged people as individuals and he was sure that there were individual Jews, Christians and Moslems who were bad people.  Furthermore, Clay claimed to have many Jewish friends and acquaintances including the Gratz’s of Lexington, KY who are relatives of the Gratz family of Philadelphia, PA.

http://books.google.com/books?id=4foqAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=Henry+Clay+and+Solomon+Etting&source=bl&ots=SY54v6GhuL&sig=D7rPSmVZ7cmKoDWpvE-STDXwSaA&hl=en&ei=1i4JTrDLEIa20AGm9dWcAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Henry%20Clay%20and%20Solomon%20Etting&f=false

1836: Birthdate of German physiologist Isidor Rosenthal.

1837: In Vienna, Jonas Königswarter and his wife gave birth to Moritz Königswarter the banker whose services to the Emperor earned him “the cross of the Order of Francis.

1841(28th of Tammuz): Moshe Teitelbaum, the Rebbe of Ujhely in Hungary passed away today.  Born in 1759 he also was known as the Yismach Moshe,(Moses Rejoiced)  which was also the name of text containing homilies on the Torah which was first published in 1849. Some of his descendants became leaders of the Satmar Chassidim.

1842(9th of Av, 5602): Parashat Devarim; Erev Tish’a B’Av

1842: Yechezkel Shraga Halberstam (aka The Rebbe of Shineva), the son of Admor Chaim Halberstram and his second wife Devorah Halberstram gave birth to Rabbi Moshe Halberstram, the husband of Esther Mindel Halberstram.

1843(18th of Tammuz, 5603): Tzom Tammuz observed

1847:  In Baltimore Amalie and William Solomon Rayner gave birth to philanthropist Bertha Rayner Frank, the wife of Dr. Samuel Leon Frank whom she married in 1869 and who “became the epicenter of a national debate on anti-Semitism when she forced an Atlantic City hotel to publicly apologize for refusing to serve Jews.”

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/frank-bertha

1848: Today, the Hebrew Education Society of Philadelphia was formally organized, with Solomon Solis as its first president.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=479&letter=H

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=258&letter=P&search=Rabbi%20Leon%20H.%20Elmaleh

1853: Birthdate of Hechingen, Germany native Berthold Baruch who moved to St. Louis at the age of seventeen where he was an executive with the Mercantile Library before moving on to Los Angeles where he helped to organize the Capitol Milling Company and served on the Board of Directors of Congregation B’nai B’rith while being married to Rose Wile of Laporte, IN.

1855(1st of Av, 5615): Rosh Chodesh Av observed on the same day that the United States signed the Treaty of Hellgate

1856: Samuel Belasco married Hannah Isaacs at the Bevis Marks Synagogue today.

1858: "Progress of Liberal Ideas in England" published today stated that The Jew Bill, which has so often met its fate at the portals of the House of Lords, has at last managed to secure a majority of forty-six on a second reading, and all doubt as to its ultimate triumph may now be considered at an end. No measure, since the Reform bill, has met with so many reverses, and has had so little reason arrayed against it.

1859: In Albany, Oregon, Bohemian natives Jacob Fleischner and Fanny Nadler gave birth to Isaac Newton Fleishner,  an 1878 graduate of St. Augustine’s College, a partner in Fleischner, Mayer & Company, “the largest wholesale dry goods house on the Pacific coast” and President of the local B’nai B’rith Lodge who married Tessie Goslinsky with whom he had two daughters.

1859: Moses and Esther Lazarus gave birth to the their Annie Lazarus who would become Annie Humphrey Johnston when she married John Henry Johnstone

1861(9th of Av, 5621) Tish’a B’Av observed on the same day that General Irwin McDowell departed Washington with an army of 35,000 men who were moving to dislodge a Confederate Army at Manassas Junction that was a threat to the Nation’s Capitol in an action that would come to be known as the First Battle of Bull Run, a staggering defeat for the Union cause.

1861: In Russia, Eva and Levi Isaac Haft gave birth to future New Yorker, Max H. Haft, the husband of Jennie Haft.

1862: In Bielitz, Austria, Bertha Joeger and Soloman Bloomfield gave birth to Fanny Bloomfireld who became Fanny Bloomfield Zeisler when she married Sigmund Zeisler

1862: After having lived in England for 25 years, Louis Lowe a father of five who “had presided over the Board School for Jewish Boys since 1861” “wore the Oath of Allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.”

1863: In Birmingham, England, Benjamin and Charlotta Bernard gave birth to the American actor and vaudevillian Sam Bernard, the husband of Florence Deutsch who began his career at the age of 13 in “the Grand Duke’s Theatre.”

1863: “In Bielitz, Austrain Silesia, Bertha Jager and Salomon Blumenfeld, gave birth to their youngest child concert pianist Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, the wife of Sigmund Zeisler, the graduate of the Northwestern University School of Law who served as “co-counsel in the trial of the Haymarket Riot ‘anarchists.’”

http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0587/ms0587.html

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1927/08/21/110040327.pdf

1863: During the Civil War, the New Draft Riots, during which “General William Mayer” performed “heroic service for which he received” a letter of thanks from President Lincoln, came to an end.

1863: During the American Civil War, Jacob C. Cohen who was serving with the 27th Ohio Infantry wrote to the Jewish Messenger from Memphis, Tennessee.

1865: In Carlsbad, Austria, Alexander and Cecilie (Oesterrich) Pam gave birth to Max Pam who came to the United State in 1858 where served as counsel to U.S. Steel and was a benefactor of both to a Catholic University (Notre Dame) and Hebrew University.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9C07E6D7133AEF3ABC4D52DFBF66838E639EDE

1865: Rabbi Samuel Marx Levi (Mordechai) and Eva (Chaje) Moses Lewuw gave birth to Esther Marx, the wife of businessman Gabriel Kosel and the aunt of Karl Marx.

1865: Philadelphian Samuel Kauffman completed his service with Company A of the 46th Regiment.

1866: During the Third Italian war of Independence Lt. Colonel Enrico Guastalla (Isaac Michael Benedict) and “deputy chief of the General Staff of the Italian Volunteer Corps” served with such distinction at the Battle of Condino today that he “was decorated with the Cross of the Order of Savoy.

1868: In England, “Joseph Simmons Belasco and Sarah Belasco gave birth to Rabbi George S. Belasco, a product of “the Spanish and Portuguese Congregational Schools” and founder of “the Jewish Communal League who was the “husband of Cordeilia Jane Belasco” with whom he had seven children.

1869: In Hungary, Ruchla Laja Glik and Ignacz Chaim Yitzock Brav gave birth to future Pennsylvanian Herman Allan Brav, the husband of Henrietta Mitchell and the father of Stanley and Ernest Brav.

1871: In Luck Bohemia, Anna Pick and Wolf Schiller gave birth to University of Prague trained physician Heliodor Schiller, the husband of Corrine Hart and member of Chicago’s Sinai Congregation who was the chief-surgeon at Rothschild Hospital and the “author of numerous articles, chiefly on gynecolcogy.”

1874: In Cleveland, Ohio, the Council of American Hebrews heard the report of the Committee on Theological Institute which presented the laws for the organization and governance of an institution of higher learning which will be called the Hebrew Union College which is “to be permanently located in Cincinnati.”

1876: In San Francisco, Fannie Worms and Jacob Goldman gave birth librarian Belle A. Goldman, the chief cataloguer of the San Francisco and Superintendent of the San Francisco branch libraries who was a member of Temple Emanuel in San Francisco.

1879(25th of Tammuz, 5639): Italian politician and journalist Giacomo Dina passed away.  Born into poverty in 1824 at Turin, he became a teacher before founding Opinione, a journal that he edited for 30 years and used as a springboard to serving in the Parliament as deputy from Imola, Bologna.

1880: In Toledo, OH, Amelia Epstein and Isaac Levison gave birth to University Michigan graduate and medical doctor Louis A. Levison, the husband of Edith Bloom who was a captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during WW I, a professor of medicine at Toledo Medical College and a member of the Collingwood Avenue Temple.

1880: It was reported today that the National Rabbinical Association has elected Dr. Max Lilienthal as its President and chosen Chicago as the location for its meeting in 1881.

1880: “Not A Hebrew After All” published today described the confusion over the ethnic origins of an unidentified body found on the Newark, NJ Turnpike near Hackensack. Since the undertaker reported him to be Jewish, the Jews of Hoboken, NJ took up a collection to provide him with a decent burial.  After finding out that this was not the case, the Jews asked the undertaker to return the money. He refused and told them that they would have to sue him.

1882: “Trouble in a Synagogue” published today described the impact of the addition of some prayers in English at the St. Constant Street Jewish Synagogue in Montreal.  Police were stationed in the synagogue during services after some members who were upset by the change threatened to cause trouble.

1882: As of today, there were 250,000 Jews living in the United States.  Sixty thousand of them live in New York and another 14,000 live in Brooklyn.  San Francisco, with a population of 16,000 and St. Louis with a population of 6,500 are the only two cities found in a list of 20 cities with the largest Jewish populations.  New Orleans, with a population of 5,000 Jews is the only Southern city found in this same list. Cincinnati, the home of Reform Judaism has a Jewish population of 8,000. With a total population of over 80,000, New York State had the largest population while at the other end of the spectrum, the Dakota Territories were home to only 19 Jews.

1882: In  New York City, Therea Bablove and Frank Goldman gave birth to Albert Goldman, the Commissioner of Plant and Structures in New York City who went on to become “the first Jewish postmaster of New York City.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/05/06/83592568.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmaster_of_New_York_City

1882: A young Jewish woman named Rudolpha Leischinsky who had come to New York from Europe several months again was taken to the Castle Garden Hospital today shortly before she had attempted to commit suicide by cutting her throat.

1882: As the Freight Handler’s Strike continues in New York, five hundred dollars will be given to the Jews today who have stopped working and joined the strikers.

1882. The Committee of Persuasion, made up of striking freight handlers sent out representatives to various ethnic groups, including the Jews, to convince them to join the strikers.  The representatives are fluent in the language to the particular group to which they are appealing.

1884: Lazarus Lemisch, his wife and five children arrived in New York aboard the SS Amerique. Their passage had been paid for by the Hebrew Relief Society of Paris.

1884: Russian Jewish Markus Holz, Gerson Selkowitz, Adolph Lazarus and Samuel Rasenzweig and their family members who arrived from Hamburg yesterday are being held Ward’s Island from which they will be shipped back to Europe because they do not meet the requirements to show they will not become public charges.

1884: It was reported today that a young un-named Jew has openly embraced Christianity at the Boston Industrial Home.  This is believed to the first time in the history of Boston that a Jew has responded directly to conversion attempts by Christian missionaries. [The Boston Industrial Home may refer to a rescue mission]

1885: The will of Edward J. King was admitted to probate today.  Among the bequests were $2,000 to Mount Sinai Hospital; $1,000 in cash and $2,000 in bonds to the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum; $2,000 to the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews of New York; $2,000 to the United Hebrew Charities; $500 to Congregation B’nai Jeshrun; $500 to be held in trust by the congregation, the income of which is used to pay the expenses to maintain the testators cemetery plot.  The bulk of the estate went to King’s wife, sons and son-in-law.

1885: Birthdate of Austrian historian and archaeologist Robert von Heine-Geldern, a grandnephew of Heinrich Heine.

1886: In Russia, David and Zena (Weiss) Trager gave birth to University of Pennsylvania trained physician and National Guard Captain Herman Trager, the husband of Bertha Grossman.

1886: Birthdate of Salt Lake City native Clarence Bamberger, the husband of Marie Bamberger and father Clarence “Click” Bamberger, who was part of “a pioneering Utah mining and railroad family” and the nephew of Utah governor Simon Bamberger, the first non-Mormon to hold the position.

1887: As of today, the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children had raised $1,944 to provide free summer excursions for poor Jewish children and their mothers.

1887: Berthold Riese was being held in the Jefferson Market Police Court on charges of abandoning his wife.  Riese, who is Jewish, claimed that he had never married the woman because she had never divorced her first husband, John T. Kennedy.  The woman in question is a Catholic who claims they were married by a Lutheran minister as an act of religious compromise.

1887: In New York, Simon Kleber and Judah Waser, two Jewish peddlers, have filed a complaint against Frederick Timme, a police officer stationed at the 14th Precinct.  According to the complaint the two men were attacked by a bartender when they went into a liquor store to sell their wares.  When they were driven into the street, they called out to the policeman for help.  He responded by clubbing them and driving them away.  This was not the first complaint filed against this police officer. [Note – charges of police brutality by immigrants are something that have survived into the 21st century; the only change is in the immigrant group.]

1888(8th of Av, 5648): Erev Tish’a B”av observed for the last time during the Presidency of Grover Cleveland.

1889(17th of Tammuz, 5649): Tzom Tammuz

1889(17th of Tammuz, 5649):  Seventy-nine-year-old John Dyte, the Middlesex born son of Hannah Lazarus and “David M Dyte who prevented an assassination attempt on King George III at Drury Lane theatre on 15 May 1800” passed away today.

1890: It was reported today that as part of the Russian government’s new “stringent measures against the Jews, the newspaper Novosti has been “suppressed” and the editor has been ordered to leave the country

1891: The large number of Russian Jews who arrived in Montreal yesterday have been found to be “poor people in a sickly condition.”

1892: The School of Applied Ethics under the leadership of Dr. Felix Adler is holding classes today at the Old High School Building on Main Street in Plymouth, MA.

1893: It was reported today that “the story about the Grand Duke Michael personally saving the Jews of the Caucasus from expulsion may be dismissed as apocryphal” since the Grand Duke has little influed with the Czar and this region has been “exempted from the anti-Jewish edicts” enforced in other parts of the empire.

1893: It was reported today that while the number of anti-Semites in the Reichstag has been growing, in a strange twist, a Jew has been elected to the Town Council of Rostock which was one of the last cities in Germany “to abrogate the medieval laws against the Jews.”

1893: Between July 3 and today, “nearly 2,000 mothers and children” have enjoyed “a day’s outing at the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children at Rockaway Park.

1893: At the Essex Market Police Court, Police Justice Ryan “remitted the ten dollar fine he had imposed on 25 year old Morris Goodman’ who had been arrested on charges “obstructing the sidewalk” and assault, after he delivered a talk on his view of Jews whom he feels do not respect the law and the rights of Christians.

1893: The Jew of Yalta “refused to obey the decree to” leave the Crimean city and move to the Pale.

1893: The delegates from the Hebrew Typographical Union complained that Joseph Barondess and Samuel Gompers had tried to get some of their members from an office where they were working as printers.

1894: Two days after he had passed away, 54 year old Henry Silver, the son of Samuel and Priscilla Silver and the husband of Sarah Nathan with whom he had seven children – Pricilla, Kate, Hannah, Sam, John, Lewis and Fanny – was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemtery.

1894: It was reported today that Herman Ahlwardt has composed a pamphlet while serving time in prison that is “so rabidly anti-Semitic as to suggest the insanity of the author.”

1894: The Baltimore Sun reported today that a Judge Dennis has signed a decree giving Jacob and Henry Herman to the right to remove the bodies of their parents from the cemetery of Shearith Israel so that they could be re-interred at the cemetery of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation.

1894: “Mr. Straus Has A New Plan” published today described the success of the 14 depots selling low-cost sterilized and modified milk and the benefit that sick children have enjoyed from drinking the sterilized beverage.  Nathan Straus is so pleased with the results that he has commissioned plans for a year-round depot for which construction will begin this fall.

1897: Herzl publishes his article "Protest rabbiner" - "Protest Rabbis" in the German newspaper, “"Die Welt.”  The Protest Rabbis refers to western Rabbis who were opposed to Zionism. 

1897(16th of Tammuz, 5657): Emanuel Rich, co-founder of Rich’s Department Store, passed away.

1897(16th of Tammuz, 5657): Sixty-eight year old German jurist and lawyer Levin Goldschmidt passed away today.

1898: The 121st New York State Legislature whose members included Julius Harburger met for the last time today.

1898: “The Numbering of Houses” published today described the role of the Jews in the introduction of house numbers in London.

1899: “Slavonic and Semitic Books” published today described the growth of the Jewish Department of the New York Public Library which now contains over 4,000 volumes in modern and ancient languages including Yiddish.”

1899(9th of Av, 5659): Tish'a B'Av

1899: “The Marquise de Mores has addressed an appeal to the Criminal Chamber of the Cour de Cassaction” in which she charges that there were serious errors made in the investigation of the death of her husband Marquis de Mores by the Court in Algiers. Her husband, an officer in the French Army, was a vocal anti-Semite who had befriended those who framed Dreyfus and instigated duels in which he killed at least one Jewish officer.  Ironically, the Marquise’s maiden name was Mendora von Hoffman, the daughter of Louis von Hoffman a prominent Jewish banker.

1899: “Contribution to a Poor Family” published today described the efforts of the United Hebrew Charities of the City of New York to raise $400 settle a family of four in the country because the husband and wife have become “chronic invalids through overwork in the city.”

1899: Birthdate of comedian and movie director Larry Semon who appeared with Laurel and Hardy and in the 1920’s directed the silent screen version of “The Wizard of Oz.”

1900: Today in Pittsburgh, Dr. Milton J. Rosenau married philanthropist Myra Frank Rosena, the Detroit born daughter of Bertha Blitz and Himan Frank  and Bryn Mawr graduate who was president of the Boston Section, Council of Jewish Women and  active member of the Federated Jewish Charities, the Sisterhood of Temple Israel and the Hecht Neighborhood House.

1900: It was reported today that “it is estimated that no less than 16,000 Jews have left Romania during the last six months and their way in small band of forty to eighty across the Austro-Hungarian on their way to seaports” because “the anti-Semitic population of Romania, encouraged by the anti-Semitic legislation of the Government have combined” to deprive the Jews of the means of earning a livelihood.  

1901: Birthdate of Austrian born composer and conductor Frtiz Mahler, the son of a “professor of Oriental Languages who was also a cousin of composer of Gustav Mahler.

http://archives.nypl.org/mus/20282

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/06/19/archives/fritz-marler-72-conductor-dead-led-erie-philharmonic-and-the.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20070712204303/http:/www.nypl.org/research/lpa/mus/pdf/MUSMAHLE.pdf

1902(11th of Tammuz, 5662): On the Jewish calendar yahrzeit of Rabbi Mordecai Dayan ( 5615)

1902: In Kazan, Roman Albertovich Luria who "worked as a professor at the University of Kazan” and was the founder of the Kazan Institute of Advance Medical Education and the former Evgenia Viktorovna Haskin who “became a practicing dentist after finishing college in Poland gave birth to neuropsychologist Alexander Luria.

http://luria.ucsd.edu/bio.html

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/07/16/on-this-day-in-1902-alexander-luria-was-born-a66435

1903: The British Foreign Office sent a second telegram to Herzl informing him that his idea to establish a Jewish settlement in the Sinai as first step towards establishing a Jewish homeland in Eretz Israel was not practical.

1904(4th of Av, 5664): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon

1904: In response to the calls by Dr. Harry Friedenwald the President of the Federation of American Zionists, to take note of the recent passing of Theodor Herzl, many Jewish congregations offered up special prayers.

1904: Twenty-eight-year-old Harvard grad and Boston University trained attorney Philip Davis, the Russian born son of “Dave ben and Rachel (Chemerinsky” Davis, the “motion picture producer and distributor” who “directed and personally supervised special educational pictures such as Jack Spruce, Life in the Northern Woods, “married Belle Shomer today in Philadelphia.

1905: Twenty-six-year-old Long Island Hospital College trained physician Philip L. Bereano, the Rumania born son of Leon and Rachel (Rubin) Bereano and a member of both the Jewish National Fund and the Palestine Foundation Fund married Clara Danzis today in New York City.

1905: Sixty-one-year-old Major General Sir Henry Trotter, who as the General Officer Commanding the Home District attended a “public display” in 1909 of the Jewish Lads Brigade, “the UK’s oldest Jewish youth movement founded by Colonel Albert E.W. Goldsmid” with a goal, in part of helping the children of poor immigrants assimilate into British society passed away today.

1905: When Commander Robert Peary left New York today aboard the SS Roosevelt, in the latest attempt to reach the North Pole, his crew included the surgeon Dr. Louis J. Wolff of Silverton, Oregon who had given up his work at the Cornell Dispensary and the Bellevue Dispensary to serve as the medical officer for the expedition.

1906(23rd of Tammuz, 5666): Fifty-three-year-old Hamburg native Alried Beit who made his fortune in the gold and diamond fields of South Africa and whose philanthropies included the creation of what is now the “Beit Professor of History of the British Commonwealth” at Oxford passed away today.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/5088230

1906: Birthdate of Abraham Orovitz, the native of Vienna, who gained fame as director and actor Vincent Sherman.

1907: The will of the late Isidor Worsmer was filed with the Surrogate today.  Among the bequests left by the successful banker were $5.000 to Temple Emanu-El; $2,500 to both the Mount Sinai Hospital and the United Hebrew Charities Association; $1,000 to the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum, the Montefiore Home, the Hebrew Technical Institute, the Educational Alliance and the Tuskegee Institute.  The rest of the sizable estate was left to family members and employees of I & S Wormser.  [Contributions to non-Jewish institutions were par for the course.  The surprise here is the contribution to Tuskegee, the newly established institution for African-Americans headed by Booker T. Washington in rural Alabama.]

1908(17th of Tammuz, 5668): Tzom Tammuz

1908: It was reported today that thanks to the “learned and enlightened class of Russia” imperial clemency has been granted to “murders, the convicted inciters of the massacre of the Jews, for fomenting the pogroms” at Nicolaief in October of 1905.

1909: “Condemns Russian Attitude” published today described a speech given Congressman Burton Harrison on “Our Duty to Our Citizens abroad in which he spoke “on the attitude of the Russian government toward Jews, both naturalized and American born and the efforts that have been made through diplomatic channels to obtain recognition of their rights as American citizens.”

1910(9th of Tammuz, 5670): Parashat Balak

1910: At a mass meeting designed to show sympathy for the striking garment workers sponsored by the United Socialists of America, Edward Cassidy, the former candidate for Mayor of New York, told the crowd “that most of the strikers were Jewish” and then added “I can remember when the Jewish people were looked down upon and spurned but I hope to see the day when the Jews shall down upon those who spurned them and do likewise” because “they deserve it.”

1911: Eighty-five Jews from Shiraz, Persia appeal for assistance to go live in Palestine.

1912: Harry Horowitz and three other Jewish gangsters gunned down bookmaker Herman Rosenthal two days after he had complained that that “his illegal casinos had been badly damaged by the greed of New York City Police Lt. Charles Becker and his associates

1913: Today, in Paris, at the opening session of the Sixth International Congress on Religious Progress, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, the rabbi of the Free Synagogue in New York delivered an address in which he “declared that among much that he found dispiriting in the course of his recent visit to the Holy Land nothing was more so than the want of religious fellowship between Jew, Christian and Moslem” and “he proposed that the next triennial session of the congress” which would meet in 1916 “be held in Jerusalem…”

1914(22nd of Tammuz, 5674): Fifty-six year old “Finsbury, London” native Mathilde Tuck, the wife of Herman Tuck and the mother of David and Rosina Tuck passed away today

1914: Dr. Schmarja Levin of Berlin who was a member of the first Russian Duma is scheduled to speak in Brooklyn, NY, tonight.

1915(4th of Av, 5675): Eighty-three year old Hesse-Darllstadt native Abraham Hart who came to the United States at the age of eighteen, rose to the rank of Captain in the Union Army before being discharged due to a disability while raising six children with his Bertha Swope Hart whom he married in 1855.

1915: It was reported today that Alfred S. Engel, the son of Tammany leader and “Silver Dollar” Smith ally Martin Engel “will inherit a comfortable fortune.”

1916(15th of Tammuz, 5676): Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov Russian microbiologist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1908 passed away.

1916: Eighty nine delegates from 26 Jewish organizations including the United Synagogues of America (Conservative), the Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform), the American Jewish Committee, the Council of Jewish Women, the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel, the National Workmen’s Committee on Jewish Rights, the Order of B’rith Abraham and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations attended the conference of the American Jewish Committee today at the Astor Hotel in New York where they  adopted a proposal for the meeting of a congress with the object of obtaining full rights for the Jews of all lands and the abrogation of all laws discriminating against them.

1916: Among the donations to The Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War of which Harry J. Fischel is treasurer are $24 from the Daughters of Jacob of Manchester, New Hampshire and $32 from the Relief Committee of Yarmouth, Canada.

1916: It was reported today that “Paul E. Kretzman has contributed the Library of Educational Methods a monograph entitled ‘Education Among the Jews’” that “deals with the years running from the earliest of times to the end of the Talmudic Period in 500 A.D.”

1916: Among the donations to the American Jewish Relief Committee of which Felix M. Warburg is treasurer are $1,000 dollars from the committee in Des Moines, Iowa and $2,000 from the Committee in New Orleans, Louisiana.

1916: “Will Immigration Tide Rise After the War?” published today provided the views of Frederic C. Howe, the United States Commissioner of Immigration on this topic including the observation that “the Jews have suffered more than any one from the war, they always do.  In Russia and Rumania, they are not permitted to own real estate; they are kept within a pale, and whenever opportunity offers are subjected to oppression.  So I expect more Jews than ever to turn to the United States when the war is over.”

1917: As the Kerensky government tries the impossible – staying the war while dealing with the economic and social dislocation brought on by Revolution – “armed anti-government demonstrations erupted in Petrograd which would lead to anti-Semitic attacks throughout the tottering empire.

1917: Harry Cutler began serving as Chairman of the Jewish Welfare Board.

1918: The Second Annual Zionist Summer Course sponsored by the Intercollegiate Zionist Association continued today for a second day.

1918: Birthdate of New York City native and CCNY and Columbia alum Irving Joseph Gitlin, the WW II Marine who gave up a career in education to become an award-winning broadcasting journalist while raising three children – Peter, Betty Ann and Barbara Jane – with his wife “the former Louise Ziskind.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/12/13/84922044.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1918: The execution of Czar Nicholas II brought an end to a dynasty guilty of many crimes against Jews. Unfortunately, the regime that replaced it was no better for the Jews.

1918: “Jews Lean to the Allies” published today described the feeling among Austrian Jews that the Entente powers are prepared to do more for “the Israelites” while the Central Powers promise to do less and less which reportedly has led to a decision by them “to abandon their neutrality an forcibly renounce our rights as citizens…” (Editor’s note – this seeming act of disloyalty stands in stark contrast to the participation of Jews in the Army fighting under Franz Joseph)

1919: “The Most Rev. Dr. Platon, the Metropolitan of Kherson and Odessa…who is visiting New York” took issue with the way the press had portrayed his view of Jews saying that while it is true that “Jews participate in the Bolshevist movement in Russia” he also has said that “the Jewish people cannot be held responsible for the participation of its individual members in the Bolshevist movement” and that “the best elements of the Russian Jewry participate actively in the great movement head by the All-Russian Government in Omsk.”

1919: NYU Law School graduate and Columbia University trained radiologist Lt. Colonel Leopold Jaches, the Latvian born son of Minna Gelhaar and Phillip Jaches who had been serving as senior consultant in roentgenology for the AEF was honoraby discharged today at Camp Dix, NJ>

1919: Birthdate of McKeesport, PA native and Seattle Washington resident Lillian Kaplan, the wife of Dr. Charles Kaplan who were founding members of Temple Beth Am.

1920: “Erroneous information given to The New York Times and printed yesterday stated that Max Manschewitz, a Cincinnati Zionist was bringing five million dollars to Palestine for economic development”  when in fact according to Adolph B. Landau, his New York representative, Mr. Manschewitz, who has contributed a great deal of his money to the Zionist cause believes that the wealthy Jews in the United States should as a group, make contributions totaling five million dollars.

1921(10th of Tammuz, 5681): Parashat Chukat chanted on the same day that the Internal Women’s Congress opened in Vienna. o

1922: German born American Jewish inventor and businessman Emil Berliner and his son Henry Berliner demonstrated a working helicopter for the United States Army.  Berliner had moved from Hanover, Germany and settled in Washington, D.C. where he is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery.

1923(3rd of Av, 5683): Yahrzeit on the Jewish calendar of Shiye Mordecai Lifshits, “the father of Modrn Yiddishism who died in 1878

1924: In the Bronx, Louis and Bella Myerson gave birth to “the second of three daughters,” Bess who was crowned the first Jewess to be crowned Miss America. When Bess Meyerson won the crown in 1945, it demonstrated a certain level of acceptance of Jews in the general American culture. She went on to a successful career that included hosting daytime game shows in the 1950’s.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/nyregion/bess-myerson-miss-america-and-new-york-official-tarnished-in-scandal-dies.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

1925: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Stanley Shapiro the screenwriter whose scripts included the WW II comedy “Operation Petticoat.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/24/obituaries/stanley-shapiro-65-pillow-talk-script-won-him-an-oscar.html

1926: Birthdate of German native and RAF and Palmach veteran Stef Wertheimer, the MK who was the patriarch of one of “Israel’s richest families as of 2013.”

https://www.forbes.com/profile/stef-wertheimer/?sh=48c5b4787030

1926: In Brooklyn, “Harry Royze, who operated a flooring business, and the former Ella Greenwald” gave birth to chemist and Nobel Prize Winner, Irwin Rose.  When Rose won his Nobel Prize in 2004, five out of the six winners of Nobel Prizes in the sciences were Jewish.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/science/irwin-rose-nobel-winning-biochemist-dies-at-88.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1927: An out of court settlement was announced today in the defamation suit that Aaron Sapiro had brought against Henry Ford, Sr. after The Dearborn Independent had published claims that Sapiro and a group of Jewish bankers and merchants were seeking to control the nation’s wheat farming. Ford would eventually close his anti-Semitic newspaper and apologize for his role in published The International Jew. Those who thought this demonstrated a change in Ford’s hatred of Jews were disabused of that notion when Ford accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle from the Nazis in 1938. (As reported by the Jewish Virtual Library)

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/ford.html

1928: In London, “Newson Bruckner, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, and Maude Schiska, a singer whose father had emigrated from Poland and founded a tobacco factory” gave birth to their only child, “art historian and award-winning author” Anita Brookner. (As reported by Alan Cowell)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/arts/international/anita-brookner-hotel-du-lac-obituary.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&moduleDetail=inside-nyt-region-3&module=inside-nyt-region&region=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region&_r=0

1928: Birthdate of Baku born Soviet-American pianist Bella Mikhaylovna Davidovich who emigrated to the United States in 1978 and became a naturalized citizen.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bella-davidovich-mn0000067264#biography

1929: Victor Luitpold Berger, the first member of the Socialist Party to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives suffered a fracture skull today when he was hit by streetcar in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The injury would prove to be fatal.

1930: Civilization and its Discontents by Sigmund Freud is published for the first time in the United States.

1931: Based on decisions made yesterday at Basle, the World Zionist Organization is now governed by a new executive committee whose members include Berl Locker, Chaim Arlosoroff, Selig Brodetsky, Heschel Farbstein and Emanuel Neumann.

1932: “Skyscraper Souls” featuring Gregory Ratoff as Mr. Vinmont and Jean Hersholt as Jacob Sorenson with music Nathaniel Shilkret was released by MGM in the United States today.

1933: In an interview with a deputation of representatives of the Jewish Community of Briinn, Czech President Thomas G. Masaryk declares that the waves of anti-Semitism “will not overflow into the country's borders”.

1934: The body of Chaim Nachman Bialik arrived in Tel Aviv today.  Tens of thousands of Jews from all walks of life and from all parts of the political spectrum were on hand to mark this historic moment. It was the largest funeral in the history of the Jewish homeland.  While there was no lack of notables in attendance, at the request of the widow, no speeches were delivered.

1934: Morris Rothenberg, President of the ZOA, presided over the memorial service for Chiam Nachman Bialik held at New York’s Carnegie Hall.  The near capacity crowd heard a wide spectrum of speakers and then listened to Canter David Putterman of the Park Avenue Synagogue chant the Hazkarah and Jewish actress Miriam Elias recite two of Bialik’s poems including “When I am Dead.”

1935(15th of Tammuz, 5695): Lithuanian born  Bentsien-Zundl Hersh “the younger brother of Peysekh-Libman Hersh who moved in 1891 with his parents to South Africa where he pursued a career in journalism that began with writing for the Johannesburg Yiddish weekly Hakokhav (The star), editing  Yisroel-Mikhl Troyb passed away today.

https://congressforjewishculture.org/people/4856/Hersh,%20Bentsien-Zundl%20(1883%E2%80%93July%2016,%201935)

1935: In London, Erwin and Elisabeth Rosenthal (née Marx), refugees from Nazi Germany gave birth to publisher Thomas Gabriel Rosenthal.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10590405/Tom-Rosenthal-obituary.html

1936: The Palestine Post reported that British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden declared that the British Mandate in Palestine would not be relinquished. Two British officers and a Jewish driver were wounded near Nablus when Arabs opened fire on a military patrol. Shots were fired on a train near Lydda. The High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope, visited the new Tel Aviv port. He hoped that over a million cases of citrus would be handled there in the next season. The Manchester Guardian wrote that Jewish immigration to Palestine had never been allowed to keep pace with the "absorptive capacity." The Arab population had increased from 500,000 in 1922 to 850,000 in 1936, because Palestine became more attractive by the Jewish influx

1936: Among those visiting Governor Landon, the Republican nominee for President, in Topeka, Kansas today were Eugene Myer former Chairman of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors and the owner/publisher of the Washington Post, Rabbi Samuel Mayerberg of Kansas City, the past regional President of B’nai B’rith and Joseph Cohen the Kansas City attorney “who has been active in Jewish fraternal association work.”

1936: In Bucharest, Romania, the eight members of the “anti-Semitic Iron Guards” which had murdered Premier Ion Duca four years ago fired forty bullets into the body of Michael Stalescus who “recently violently attacked the Iron guards for mass attacks on Bucharest Jews” as he lay “in his hospital bed…awaiting an operation for appendicitis.”

1936: At a meeting in the Hotel New Yorker, Rose Schneiderman was elected vice chairman of the New York State Labor Party. The newly formed party declared its support for President Franklin Roosevelt and New York Governor Herbert Lehman, but called on all working people to desert the two established parties and join in a new coalition. The party's platform, developed during the same meeting, supported New Deal legislation and called for the extension of Social Security, further economic reform, and unemployment relief. The platform also defined the party's purpose as "to mobilize the political power of labor and the progressive forces of the people everywhere, in the cities and on the farms, against reaction and for freedom, against economic oppression and for recovery and democracy. "When she was elected to the vice chairmanship of the New York State Labor Party, Schneiderman was already president of the National Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) and an established figure in labor activism. Born in Poland in 1882, Schneiderman left school at thirteen to help support her siblings and widowed mother by taking a job as a salesclerk at a New York City department store. After three years, she found a higher-paying job as a cap maker, and immediately became involved in union politics. In 1903, she organized the workers in her shop, and the following year, she became involved with the New York WTUL. The WTUL was a mostly middle-class organization that hoped to gain credibility with workers by bringing women like Schneiderman on board. For the next two decades, Schneiderman worked alternately for the WTUL and the working-class International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), gaining a national reputation as "the Red Rose of Anarchy," and becoming a central figure in both labor and feminist politics. It was through the WTUL that Schneiderman became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt, and when Franklin Roosevelt became President in 1933, he named Schneiderman as the only woman on the National Labor Advisory Board. In that role, Schneiderman had a profound influence on New Deal legislation, writing the labor codes for every industry that had a predominantly female work force. She also helped to shape Social Security and the Fair Labor Standards Act. In 1937, though she had publicly called for laborers to leave the Democratic Party for the new Labor Party, she was named secretary of labor for New York State under the Democratic governor. In that post, she supported unionization efforts and equal pay campaigns. Later, she was active in efforts to rescue and resettle European Jews. Schneiderman retired from public life in 1949. In her later years, she wrote her memoirs and spoke occasionally on the radio and to union groups. She died on August 11, 1972. At the time of her death, large numbers of American women were beginning to take up the fight for equal pay in the workplace and recognition of women's labor in the home, causes in which Schneiderman was a pioneer. While there is still no independent Labor Party in U.S. politics, the workers' protections that Schneiderman helped to create are now an integral part of U.S. law.

http://jwa.org/thisweek/jul/16/1936/rose-schneiderman

1936: “Meet Nero Wolf” directed by Herbert Biberman, produced by B.P. Schulberg and co-starring Lionel Stander was released by Columbia Pictures Corporation in the United States today.

1937(8th of Ave, 5697): Fifty-four-year-old “Dr. Abraham Coralnik …the veteran writer for The Day, a New York Yiddish newspaper” passed away this morning at Mt. Kosco, NY.

https://www.jta.org/1937/07/18/archive/dr-a-coralnik-journalist-dies-of-heart-attack-at-54

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/07/17/94401563.pdf

1937: The Buchenwald concentration camp opens when the first 300 inmates arrive the installation outside of Weimar.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005198

1938: After 500 performances at the Cort Theatre, the curtain came down on the original Broadway production of “Room Service” which was “basis for the Marx Brothers film of the same title” and which featured Alexandro Asro and Sam Levene

1938(17th of Tammuz, 5698): Parashat Balak

1938: “A special prayer composed by the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, Dr. Joseph Herman Hertz” which “spoke of the spirt of perverseness which has come over a renowned nation whose rulers have proclaimed an idolatry of race and blood” was recited this morning as part of weekend in which “Catholics and Protestants joined with Jews in special services throughout the British and Dominions in behalf of the persecuted Jews in all countries, particularly in Germany and Austria.”

1938(17th of Tammuz, 5698): Seventy-five-year-old Moses Jacob Mandelbaum the thrice married Cleveland businessman and philanthropist who was the son of Jacob and Amelia (Lehman) Mandlebaum passed away today.

https://case.edu/ech/articles/m/mandelbaum-maurice-j-moses

1938: “In commenting on the conference at Evian, France, to assist refugees from Germany, the Westfaelische Landeszeitung” asserted “that the United States ‘is interested primarily in rich Jews’ and in the ‘possibility of doing business – naturally at Germany’s expense.”

1938: “Aspect of intergroup cooperation will be discussed this afternoon at the opening of a two-day conference on intercultural education for teachers” being held “under the sponsorship of the National Jews and Christians” which will be attended by more than “500 religious education, visiting teachers and college leaders.”

1939: In “New Bach Arrangement,” published today Dr. Peter Gradenwitz describes a performance by the Palestine Symphony Orchestra in Tel Aviv of Bach’s “Art of the Fugue” using a new orchestration by Swiss composer Roger Vuataz.  The orchestra performed under the baton of Dr. Hermann Scherchen the famous German musician who left his native land in protest over the policies of the current régime.

1940: Paul Schulman, the son of Columbia trained lawyer Herman Shulman and his wife Rebecca passed his physical for entrance into the United States Naval Academy which was a critical step on his path to serving the USN and playing an active role in Israel’s nascent naval force in 1948.

1940: “The Man Who Talked Too Much” directed by Vincent Sherman was released today in the United States

1941(21st of Tammuz, 5701): Seventy-five-year-old Alfred Weinberg, the son of Pauline and Aaron Abraham Weinberg and the husband of Bertha Stern was murdered by the Nazis in Gurs, France.

1941: The Final Solution came to Bar, when the Germans occupied the town in the Ukraine.

1941: Today, Fregattenkapitän Dr. Hans Kawelmacher, who would call for a “quick implementation of the Jewish problem” was appointed the German naval commandant in Liepāj

1941: Vichy continued to mirror the anti-Semitism of the Third Reich by banning Jews from the legal profession.

1942: The first train with Jews from Holland left for a killing camp.

1942: On order from Pierre Laval, the Prime Minister of the Vichy French government, between 13,000 and 20,000 Jews living in Paris were rounded up by the French police for deportation. This was known as “La Grande Rafle” or the Big Sweep. The group of Jews in this round up is primarily German and Austrian born Jews who were living in the French capital.  The first one thousand would be deported three days later on a so-called "Eichmann Train." There were no protests from the Parisians.

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/01.asp

1942(2nd of Av, 5702): A large number of Jews were killed in Molxzadz.

1943: In Vilna, Lithuanian police raided a meeting of the United Partisan Organization attended by the head of the Jewish Council. Jewish partisans rescued the head of the resistance.

1943: Flight Commander Lydia Litvyak who was already an “Ace” shot down “a bomber and shared a victory with a comrade” but took a hit from the Germans that forced her to make a belly landing.

1943: Theophil Wurm, bishop of the Evangelical Church in Württemberg, Germany, sends a letter to Berlin in which he asks that the persecution of "members of other nations and races" be halted immediately.

1943(13th of Tammuz, 5703): Sixty-one-year-old pioneer pathologist Dr. Avrum Herman Zeiler, the native of Poland who came to the United States 56 years ago and whose son Lt. Meyer Zeiler followed in his footsteps when he joined the U.S. Army Medical Corps passed away today in Los Angeles.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/07/17/85110445.pdf

1943: Birthdate of Stan Gebler Davis, the native of Dublin “who belong to a breed of rake-hell, rumbustious very rumbustious, very Irish journalist of great charm…” (As reported by John Calder)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-stan-gebler-davies-1424755.html

1943(13th of Tammuz, 5703): Eighteen-year-old Dutch diarist Helga Deen was murdered today at Sobibór extermination camp.

 http://www.mibba.com/Articles/Biographies/2577/The-Diary-of-Helga-Deen-Written-at-Vught-Concentration-Camp/

1943(13th of Tammuz, 5703): Thirty-six-year-old resistance fighter Yitzhak Wittenberg died today.

http://www.geni.com/people/Yitzhak-Wittenberg/6000000016355083827

1943: Itzik Wittenber (the Communist commander of the Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye (FPO), the United Partisans Organization, the ghetto’s underground resistance movement), whether on his own accord, or compelled, or something in between, met with Jacob Gens (the de factor head of the Vilna Ghetto) near the Judenrat building, where a car was waiting” which took him to the Gestapo headquarters, a couple kilometers outside the ghetto on the day before his death. (Editor’s note – the tumultuous events of that day are part of “Today is the Sixteenth of July,” a poem by Abba Kovner.

1943: Today Pravda reported: that “popular actor and director of the Moscow Jewish State Theatre” Solomon Mikhoels who was chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and Itizk “Feffer received a message from Chicago that a special conference of the Joint initiated a campaign to finance a thousand ambulances for the needs of the Red Army."

1944: Today, in New York, Mr. and Mrs. Irving J. Lewin announced that their daughter Suzanne Helene Lewin had married Private First Class Leonard Epstein of Atlantic Beach, L.I. in a ceremony at the Jefferson Davis Hotel in Montgomery, AL.

1944: The first five thousand Brazilian Expeditionary Force (BEF) soldiers, the 6th Regimental Combat team that had left on July 2nd arrived in Italy. Among the members of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force was Salomao Nauslausky who served so courageously that he was “mentioned in dispatches.”

1945: The United States successfully tested an atomic bomb at the Trinity sit near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The Jewish involvement in the decision to build and the actual construction of the bomb is a well-documented fact. Thanks to these Jews, America beat Germany in the race to build the bomb. Regardless of how some may view the decision to use the bomb against Japan, the fact is that a lot of Allied service men lived through the war because there was no invasion of Japan. The estimated casualties for the invasions and pacification were in the million plus category.

1946: Birthdate of Ann Kathryn Turkel, the New York model who went to an acting career starting with an appearance than the sport comedy film “Paper Lion.”

1946: “The Jewish National Council called on the Jewish community of Palestine today to engage in a one-day general strike tomorrow in sympathy with the 1,600 men detained at Rafa, who have gone on a hunger strike.”

1947: Today, in Jerusalem, the delegates from United Nations inquiry committee “were invited to Government House for an informal discussion with British High Commissioner Lt. Gen. Sir Alexander Committee” where for the first time, “the committee as a group” would hear his views on the issues in Palestine

1947: “After an appeal by Jerusalem Jewish newspaperman to the United Nations’ Secretary General, Trygve Lie, the secretariat of the United Nations’ inquiry committee interved with the Lebanese consul general today in an effort to obtains entry into Lebanon for six correspondents of the Hebrew press who wish to attend the committee’s hearings there.”

1948: After fierce fighting, the Israelis successfully took Nazareth.

1948: The Irgun planned to make one more attempt to re-take the Old City, “a day before the second cease-fire” was set to begin.

1948: The Arab Liberation Army completed its evacuation of Ein Kerem, a village which would be incorporated into the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem.

1948: During Operation Dekel, the Israeli 7th Armored Brigade took the villages of Amqa, al-Damun and Lubya.

1948: Operation Death to the Invader, an Israeli military operation designed “to link Jewish villages in the Negev with the rest of Israel” began this evening.

1948: David Ben Gurion noted in his diary today the arrival of three B-17’s in Israel “and mentioned that they had already been used for several bombing runs in Egypt.  These were the only “heavy bombers” the Israelis had.  Known as 69 Squadron they had been obtained by Charles Winters who was known as “the godfather of the Israeli air force.”

1948: While Israel was waging its War of Independence (and survival) world-renowned violinist Pinchas Zukerman was born in Tel Aviv.

1948 Premiere of Key Largo, the truly dark film noir produced by Jerry Wald, with a script co-authored by Richard Brooks, co-starring Lauren Bacall and Edward G. Robinson.

1949(19th of Tammuz, 5709): Parashat Pinchas

1949: After having already opened in Los Angeles, “Calamity Jane and Sam Bass,” produced by Leonard Goldstein and Aaron Rosenberg, with a script co-written by Melvin Levy and filmed by cinematographer Irving Glassberg premiered in Los Angeles.

1949: After 157 performances at the Cort Theatre, the curtain came down on the original Broadway production of “Two Blind Mice,” a comedy written by Samuel and Bella Spewack.

1950: Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett declined to commit himself today on Israel's answer to the request of United Nations Secretary General Trygve Lie for aid in the Korean War. He said that the matter would be considered by the Cabinet this week, but implied that Israel's defense needs must be considered

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that thousands of apartment-seeking Israelis registered for the government's popular housing scheme. There were long queues for domestic ice delivery in Jerusalem. Shoe sales increased considerably after 17 new shoe ration points went into effect.

1951: Birthdate of Philadelphia native Daniel Singer “Dan” Bricklin, “the American co-creator of the VisiCalc spreadsheet program” known as “the Father of the Spreadsheet.”

http://www.bricklin.com/bontech/

1951: J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye was published. Jerome David Salinger was born in New York in 1919.  His father was Jewish.  His was mother was Irish-Catholic.  This genealogy according to some critics was the source of some of Salinger's inner-conflict that came out in his writings and in his decision to become the most famous literary hermit of the century.

1952: “Zombies of the Stratosphere” featuring Leonard Nimoy in one of his earliest film roles, was released by Republic Pictures in the United States today.

1953: Eighty-two-year-old French born English author Hilaire Belloc, the author of The Jews a book in which he describes them “aliens,” “foreigner” and “parasites.”

https://media.christendom.edu/1986/08/peace-to-israel-hilaire-belloc-and-the-jewish-question/

1954: “The Seagram group of companies” led by its president, Victor A. Fischel is scheduled to hold the concluding session of four-day sales meeting.

1954(15th of Tammuz, 5714): Sixty-four-year-old Bernard K. Marcus, the husband of Libby Phillips Marcus and the father of Robert P. Lloyd and James Marcus, the “financial wizard” who went to prison after the collapse of the Bank of United States during the depression died of heart attack while horseback riding.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1954/07/18/83342783.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1955(26th of Tammuz, 5715): Parashat Matot-Masei

1955(26th of Tammuz, 5715): Eight-five-year-old Dora Messing Meyerberg, the Indianapolis born daughter of Rabbi Mayer Messing  and Rika Messing and wife of attorney Mitchel Scott Meyberg with who she had three children -- E .James, Leonard and Dorothy – who was the first President of Hadassah Women's Zionist Organization of America,  vice-president of B'nai B'rith Sisterhood. and a member of the National Council of Jewish Women as well as the president of the Music and Art Foundation” passed away today after which she was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery.

1955: Birthdate of Zohar Argov “a popular Israeli singer” who provided “a distinctive voice in the Mizrahi music scene.”

1956(8th of Av, 5716): Erev Tish’a B’Av

1956(8th of Ave, 5716): Eighty-five-year-old Riga, Latvia native and American sheet metal worker Israel Getzel Gerber known by his new legal name Julius Gerber who “became secretary of the Socialist Party in 1895 and served throughout the period when the great Eugene V. Debs was its leader while being married to Lena Sacht with whom he had five sons and three daughters passed away today

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/07/18/86650082.pdf

1956(8th of Av, 5716): Seventy-six-year-old Maurice P. Davidson the son of Philip and Rebecca Davidson and NYU trained attorney who was the “founder of the City Fusion Party” which played a key role in the election of Mayor La Guardia and the husband of “the former Blanche Reinheimer and father of Robert, John, Alfred, Harold and Frank Davidson passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/07/17/88463041.html?action=click&contentCollection=Archives&module=ArticleEndCTA&region=ArchiveBody&pgtype=article&pageNumber=23

1956: Birthdate of Anthony Robert Julius the British lawyer whose clients included Diana, Princess of Wales.

1956: In New York, Sylvia (née Deutscher), a bassoonist, and William David Kushner, a clarinetist and conductor gave birth Lake Charles, LA and Columbia educated Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Tony Kushner whose most notable works was “Angels in America.”

1957(17th of Tammuz, 5717): Tzom Tammuz

1958: “Rock-A-Bye Baby” comedy produced by Jerry Lewis who was also the star with music by Sammy Cahn and Walter Scharf premiered in Los Angeles.

https://www.google.com/search?ei=kx8tXf_lNZKuswX386j4DQ&q=george+sidney+Hellman&oq=george+sidney+Hellman&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i160.140954.149402..150486...0.0..0.141.2029.14j7......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i67j0i131j0i131i67j0j0i10j0i22i30j0i22i10i30j33i299.vKfCnZdmWEs

1959: The movie version of the Broadway comedy “the Tunnel of Love” produced by Martin Meclcher and Joseph Fields who also wrote the script was released today in London.

1963: In New York City, Lily Cates and Joseph Cates (born Joseph Katz) “a major Broadway producer” who also helped to create the amazingly popular quiz show, The $64,000 Question, gave birth to actress Phoebe Belle Cates who became Phoebe Cates Kline when she married fellow thespian Kevin Klin.

1964: “Circus World” produced by Samuel Bronston, with a script by Ben Hecht and music by Dimitri Tiomkin was released by Paramount Pictures in the United States today.

1965: “Eve of Destruction,” written by P.F. Sloan was with Sloan on guitar and Hal Blaine on drums was released

1965: “The State Senate majority leader, Joseph Zaretski, and the Speaker of the Assembly directed the Joint Legislative Committee on Banks yesterday to "put our state banks in shape."

1965(16th of Tammuz, 5725): Sixty-two-year-old German born Brazilian pianist composer Henry Jolles, the son of “Dr. Oscar Jolles and his wife, Gertrude (née Sternberg), a student of Kurt Weil the German-Jewish composer with whom he wrote at least one composition before 1933 who left Germany because of the rise of the Nazis, passed away today.

1966(28th of Tammuz, 5726): Parashat Matot-Masei

1966(28th of Tammuz, 5726): Eighty-two-year-old Abraham Balaban, the Russian born husband of Tillie Adamofsky Balaban passed away today after which he was buried in the Beth Israel Cemetery in West Springfield, MA.

1967: A young Kibbutznik got out of his jeep at Aalleiqa, an abandoned Syrian Army base on the Golan Heights, and became the first settler in the Golan.  He would be joined by other secular Jews in the next few days and they would form the kibbutz now known as Merom Golan.

1968: “Gutman Gives $1.1 Million To Ed Library” published today reports that “a gift of $1,130,000 to the Harvard Graduate School of Education Library-Research Campaign has been made by Monroe C. Gutman, 82-year-old New York City banker and philanthropist, which is the largest single gift to the building fund drive so far and brings the total of gifts and pledges to $2.8-million toward the project's estimated $6-million cost.”

1969: While “there had be no casualties, several head of cattle were reportedly killed today when “an Israeli patrol crossed the border with Lebanon and “blew up three deserted houses in a forest in a village” approximately sixty miles from Beirut.

1970(12th of Tammuz, 5730): Haim-Moshe Shapira, an Israeli political leader who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1948 passed away.  Born in Grodno in 1902, he was a founder of Young Mizrachi who made Aliyah in 1925. He was Israel’s first Minister of Health and Minister of Immigration. 

1970: Avner-Hair Shaki entered the Knesset as a replacement for Haim-Moshe Shapira of blessed memory.

1970: Golda Meir replaced the late Haim Moshe Shapira as Minister of Internal Affairs.

1970: Yosef Goldschmidt completed his first term as Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs.

1971: Record producer Bob Feldman and cocktail waitress Sheila Feldman gave birth to actor Corey Feldman.

1971: Funeral services are scheduled to be held to for 75 year old Cornell Medical College trained pediatrician Dr. Samuel Zachary Levine, “the pediatrician who was called in by the White House in August, 1963, in an effort to save the life of Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, the son of” President John Kenney and Jacqueline Kennedy and who was the husband of “the former Bella Morell” with whom he had three children – Robert, Ted and Muriel.

1973: During the Watergate Scandal former White House aide Alexander P. Butterfield informs the United States Senate of the existence of heretofore unknown recording system that taped all conversations that took place in the White House’s Oval Office.  The system had been installed by President Nixon.  The tapes would prove to be Nixon’s undoing and lead to his leaving office.  The tapes all revealed a nasty anti-Semitic streak in President Nixon.  They also revealed anti-Semitic remarks by the Reverend Billy Graham.

1975(8th of Av, 5735): Erev Tish’a B’av

1975: Dr. Abbot Kaplan, the first Jewish president of “the State University of New York College at Purchase” responded to charges of bias against Italians because of the school only offered a limited number of Italian language courses by saying that the “Foreign language requirements no longer exist, so classes are elective and given only when interest is shown…”

1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel and the US were pleased at the outcome of the UN Council's debate in which a resolution censuring Israel for the raid on Entebbe failed to receive the necessary nine votes. It was in effect an acknowledgement of "Israel's right to act in the way it did."

1976: Birthdate of Russian born, Israeli tennis player, Anna Smashnova.

1979: Funeral services are scheduled to held today in Tel Aviv for sixty-two-year-old for Andre Joseph Narboni, “the head of the Sephardi and Oriental Diaspora Department of the Jewish Agency and a member of the World Zionist Organization Executive” who “immigrated to Israel from Algeria in 1962…” (JTA)

1981: The large-scale operation to conquer West Beirut to achieve the eviction of the PLO which had been submitted to Prime Minister Begin two days by Sharon and Eitan and had been approved by Begin, “was rejected today by the full Israeli cabinet, out of concern for heavy loss of life.’

1983(6th of Av, 5743): Shabbat Chazon

1983(6th of Av, 5743): Mutli-dimensional author Samson Raphaelson who wrote a story called “The Day of Atonement” based on the youth of Al Jolson which then became the successful play “The Jazz Singer” which then became the first talking picture the star of which was Al Jolson.

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/17/obituaries/samson-raphaelson-author-of-the-jazz-singer-is-dead.html

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/archives/rbml/Raphaelson/

1985: “An exhibition of Al Hirschfeld’s caricatures” including “several dozen of his works dating from the 1920’s to the 1980’s” opened today “on the second floor of London’s National Theatre” marking the first time such a showing had taken place in the United Kingdom.

1985: In Seligman, an Arizona named after Jesse Seligman “one of the founders of J.W. Seligman Co. who helped finance railroad line” that made the town economically viable, formation of the Seligman Historical Society.

1985: Funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue for seventy-two-year-old Newark, NJ born and NYU grad, Rabbi Edward E. Klein, the husband of Ruth Klein the father of Rabbi Stephen Klein and Barbara Hillman who was “the longtime spiritual leader of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue and community activist” passed away today. (As reported by Robin Toner)

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/15/nyregion/rabbi-edward-klein-activist.html

1986(9th of Tammuz, 5746): Ninety-one-year-old Boston University trained attorney Raphael Phillip Boruchoff, the son of Rabbi Dov Ber Boruchoff and Bessie (Pessa Golde) Boruchoff and husband of Celia H. Boruchoff passed away today in Florida after which he was buried in North Reading, Massachusetts.

1988(2nd of Av, 5748): Parashat Maot-Masei

1988(2nd of Ave, 5748): Eighty-eight-year-old “Samuel Ruben, a scientist who had no formal education beyond high school but whose inventions led to more than 300 patents, including the alkaline battery” who was the husband of the former Rena Koch with whom he had one son passed away today.

https://othmerlib.sciencehistory.org/record=b1025886~S6

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/20/obituaries/samuel-ruben-88-an-inventor-noted-for-electrochemical-work.html

1994: The Sisters Rosensweig, a play by Wendy Wasserstein that focuses on three Jewish-American sisters and their lives comes to a close after 556 performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

1994(8th of Av, 5754): Julian Schwinger winner of the 1965 winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics passed away.

http://www.nobel-winners.com/Physics/julian_seymour_schwinger.html

1995(18th of Tammuz, 5755): Since the 17th of Tammuz fell on Shabbat today is Tzom Tammuz

1995(18th of Tammuz, 5755): Eighty-six-year-old poet and author Stephen Spender was appointed the seventeenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the United States Library of Congress in 1965, passed away.(As reported by Eric Pace

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/18/obituaries/stephen-spender-poet-of-melancholic-vision-and-social-conscience-dies-at-86.html

1995(18th of Tammuz, 5755): Lt. Gen. Mordechai "Motta" Gur, former Chief of Staff of the IDF passed away.  He is best remembered as the commander of the brigade that liberated the Old City of Jerusalem in June, 1967.(As reported by Joel Greenberg)

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/17/obituaries/mordechai-gur-is-dead-at-65-army-chief-and-entebbe-planner.html

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/mordechai-motta-gur

1997: Premiere of “George of the Jungle” the movie version of the television cartoon show featuring music by Marc Shairman and directed by Brandeis graduate Sam Weisman.

1998: In “Musical Plays on the Hebrew Stage” published today, Dan Almagor described the history and the growth of “mahazemer.”

http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/mfa-archive/1998/pages/musical%20plays%20on%20the%20hebrew%20stage.aspx

1999: Fifty-six-year-old UNC graduate and Harvard trained lawyer Stuart E. Eizenstat ended his service as Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs began serving as the United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton.

1999: Morocco's King Hassan II passed away. The king's father, Mohammed V, is widely credited with having saved Morocco's Jews from deportation during World War II, and Hassan continued the philo-Semitic policies of his father. Although there was an outbreak of anti-Jewish incidents following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Jewish community was generally safe under the protection of both Mohammed and Hassan, who proudly considered the Jews "Moroccans of Jewish origin." “Hassan was considered a moderate in the Middle East. During his 38-year reign, he at first discreetly, then openly, promoted ties with Israel at a time when most of the rest of the Arab world rejected such contact. His efforts helped pave the way for the 1978 Camp David accord between Israel and Egypt. King Hassan also played a role in preparing for the 1991 Madrid peace conference and welcomed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in September 1993, making Morocco the first Arab nation outside of Egypt to officially receive an Israeli leader. In 1994, Hassan hosted the first Middle East regional economic conference, which included Israel, in the Moroccan city of Casablanca. After the euphoria of the 1993 Oslo accords between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel was allowed to establish a consular office in Rabat, and an estimated 40,000 Israeli tourists visited Morocco in 1995 and 1996.” “The Moroccan Jewish community in Israel observed a seven-day period of mourning for the late king.”

1999: “Eyes Wide Shut,” an “erotic drama film directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, based on Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Traumnovelle (Dream Story) and co-starring Sydney Pollack was released today in the United States.

2000: “Music; Still a Sly Wit, Now Mostly for Himself” published today described the career of Tom Lehrer, the Harvard mathematician who has entertained generations of listeners with his satirical, musical wit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/16/arts/music-still-a-sly-wit-now-mostly-for-himself.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

2000: The New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including My Love Affair With America: The Cautionary Tale of a Cheerful Conservative by Norman Podhoretz and The Harold Letters,1928-1943: The Making of an American Intellectual by Clement Greenberg

2000: Premiere of “Nuremberg” a “docudrama, based on the book Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial by Joseph E. Persico, that tells the story of the Nuremberg Trials.”

2001: In Jerusalem, more than 2,000 Jewish athletes from 43 countries marched in the opening ceremony of the Maccabiah games today.

2001: Opening of the 16th Macaabiah

2001(25th of Tammuz, 5761): Twenty-year old Staff Sergeant Avi Ben-Harush and nineteen year old Corporal Hanit Arami both of Zikhron Ya’akov were killed when a suicide bomber struck near the Binyamina  Railway Station.

2002: Simon and Garfunkel released the album "Live In New York City."

2002(7th of Av, 5762):Nine people, including an eight-month-old infant, were killed and 20 injured in a terrorist attack on Dan bus #189 traveling from Bnei Brak to Emmanuel in Samaria. An explosive charge was detonated next to the bullet-resistant bus. The terrorists waited in ambush, reportedly wearing IDF uniforms, and opened fire on the bus. While four terror organizations claimed responsibility for the attack, it was apparently carried out by the same Hamas cell which carried out the attack in Emmanuel on Dec 12, 2001. The victims: Galila Ades, 42, of Emmanuel; Yonatan Gamliel, 16, of Emmanuel; Keren Kashani, 29, of Emmanuel; Sarah Tiferet Shilon, 8 months, of Emmanuel; Gal Shilon (her father), 32, of Emmanuel; Zilpa Kashi (her grandmother), 65, of Givatayim; Ilana Siton, 35, of Emmanuel. The premature infant delivered after its mother, Yehudit Weinberg, was seriously injured, died of her injuries overnight. Yocheved Ben-Hanan, 21, of Emmanuel, who was critically wounded, died on July 18.

2002: The New York Times reports in an obituary: "The American Sephardi Federation joins with all Sephardim of the world in mourning the loss of the eminent Chief Rabbi David Asseo, the spiritual leader of the vital Jewish community of Turkey. We recall his warmth, his grace and words of wisdom on the many occasions he received our delegations from America.

2003: Sixty-first anniversary of the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup (Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv) when the government of Vichy France ordered “the mass arrest of 13,152 Jews who were held at the Winter Velodrome in Paris before being deported to Auschwitz.” 

2004: “A Cinderella Story” featuring future “Big Bang” star Simon Heldberg as “Terrence” was released today in the United States.

2004: After its premier nine days ago in Los Angeles, “I, Robot” a sci-fi thriller based on the work by Isaac Asimov, with a screenplay co-authored by Akiva Goldsman and featuring Shia LaBeouf was released in the United States today.

2005: The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that Professor Chanan Eshel, an archeologist from Tel Aviv’s Bar Ilan University, had announced the discovery of two scroll fragments near the Dead Sea.  “The two small pieces of brown animal skin inscribed I Hebrew with verses from the book of Leviticus, are from the “refugee” caves in Nachal Arugot, a canyon near the Dead Sea where Jews hid from the Romans in the second century…The scrolls are being tested by Israel’s Antiquities Authority” to determine their authenticity and era in which they were written.  In a repeat of history, the fragments were discovered by a Bedouin who may have been looking for artifacts in the area.  If the documents prove to be authentic, they will be the first scrolls discovered in the Judean Desert since the 1960’s.

2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Full Swing: Hits, Runs and Errors in a Writer's Life by Ira Berkow and the recently released paperback edition of Salonica, City Of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950 by Mark Mazower. “For over half a millennium Salonika, a port city in northern Greece, was a place where Europe met the Middle East. Mazower, a professor of history at Columbia University, sets the history of Salonika and its Orthodox Greeks, Egyptian merchants and Spanish Jews within a "single encompassing historical narrative." He reconstructs this once vibrant city as it thrived under the Ottoman Empire (1430-1912), reverted to Greek control after World War I, and saw its Jewish population deported en masse by the Nazis in 1943

2006(20th of Tammuz, 5766): “During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict train service to the station was suspended after a Hezbollah Katyusha rocket hit a train depot in Haifa today killing eight Israel Railways workers.”

2006:  In “Marching as to War,” published today, The Washington Post reported on the efforts of Mikey Weinstein, graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and the father of an academy graduate, to stop the missionary work of Christian ministers at the Air Force Academy.  In particular he is targeting the Officer’s Christian Fellowship who says its goal is a “spiritually transformed military with ambassadors for Christ in in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit.”

2006: The following were among a total of 43 Israeli civilians (including four who died of heart attacks during rocket barrages) and 116 IDF soldiers were killed in the Israel-Hizbullah war: Eight railway workers in Haifa: Shmuel Ben-Shimon, 41; Asael Damti, 39; Nissim Elharari, 43; David Feldman, 28; Dennis Lapidus, 24; Rafi Hazan, 30; Reuven Levy, 46; and Shlomo Mansura, 35.

2006: “INS Hanit Suffers Iranian Missile Attack” published today

http://www.defense-update.com/2006/07/ins-hanit-suffers-iranian-missile.html

2007: Ryan Kalish suffered a season ending injury when he “was hit by a pitch which broke the hamate bone in his right (non-throwing) wrist” at a time when he was leading the league in both stolen bases and runs scored, and batting .368 with a .471 on-base percentage and a .540 slugging percentage.”

2007: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Israel and the Palestinian Authority for her first visit to the region since Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip.

2007(1st of Av, 5767): Rosh Chodesh Av.

2007(1st of Av, 5767): Forty-six-year-old Lyn Pilowsky, a “Psychiatrist renowned for her research into schizophrenia” passed away today.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/sep/20/guardianobituaries.health

http://www.smh.com.au/news/obituaries/her-work-eased-burden-for-the-mentally-ill/2007/09/30/1191090936668.html

2007: On the first anniversary of the Hezbollah-Israel War a “Free the Soldiers Rally” takes place in New York City. It commemorates the one long year has passed since Israel Defense Forces soldiers Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev were kidnapped by Hamas and Hezbollah.” 

2007: A group representing thousands of children of Holocaust survivors filed a class-action lawsuit against the German government demanding that Germany pay for their psychiatric care.

2008: In Los Angeles, Hadassah’s 94th Annual Convention comes to an end.

2008: The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress sponsors a lecture, "The Moral Conscience of the World: The United Nations and Palestine in 1947," by William Roger Louis, a professor of English history and culture at the University of Texas at Austin.

2008:  Dr. Rory Miller, senior lecturer at King’s College in London gave a presentation at the Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs as part of its fourth annual series of lectures on changing Jewish communal policies and attitudes in which he said that “the future of the Jewish community in Ireland is bleak as its committed members age and the young immigrate to other European countries and Israel.” 

2008: At the WorkShop Theatre, as part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival, the world premiere of “Yom Kippur,” Meri Wallace’s new drama based on the 1973 war.

2009: At the 18th Maccabiah Games, in Rugby, South Africa plays Australia, Israel plays Canada and the USA plays Chile.

2009: Julian “Edelman signed a four-year contract with the Patriots that included a $48,700 signing bonus.”

2010: Taglit-Birthright Israel alumni and young professionals plan to gather at the Historic 6th & I Synagogue for “Shabbat Hoppin’: Summer Style.”

2010: The Boston Museum of Fine Arts Announces Curatorship for Judaica

http://jwa.org/thisweek/jul/16/2010/judaica-curatorship-at-boston-mfa

2010: South African Justice Albie Sachs “was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of the University of York for his contribution to the construction of post-apartheid South Africa, in particular for his involvement in the creation of the Constitution.”

2010: It was announced today that seventy-one year old Harvey Golub was resigning as chairman of the American International Group (AIG).

2011: The work of Tel Aviv native Dana Levy is scheduled to be part of the Art Omni Weekend which is scheduled to open today.

2011: The Jerusalem Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end this evening.

2011: A group of closed to 800 ultra-Orthodox protestors tried to block a central Jerusalem thoroughfare today, in an attempt to prevent what they consider the desecration of Shabbat.

2011: An IDF spokeswoman confirmed that an aerial attack was launched today under cover of darkness against Gaza terrorists preparing to fire a rocket into Israel, from near Gaza City. The IDF said 16 rockets fired from Gaza have struck Israel this month some of which damaged buildings. Israel said it responded to shooting two days ago with aerial strikes on tunnels dug beneath Gaza's border with Egypt. 

2012 Director Dan Cohen is scheduled to discuss “An Article of Hope,” his documentary about Israeli astronaut Illan Ramon after a noon-time showing at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. 

2012: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to meet with top Israeli leaders in Jerusalem to discuss panoply of issues.

2012(26th of Tammuz, 5772): Ninety-year-old William Asher, a pioneer in creating television sit-coms including “I Love Lucy” and “Bewitched” whose father was Jewish passed away today.

2012: A memorial service will be held today for Alex Okrent, the 29 year old Evanston native who has been working for President Obama since his senatorial campaign in 2004, at the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston.

2012: Thousands of ultra-Orthodox children took to the streets of Jerusalem this evening to protest the possible inclusion of yeshiva students in the military draft.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/ultra-orthodox-children-rally-in-jerusalem-against-universal-draft/

2012: A 43-year-old woman started a fire at a National Insurance Institute branch in today. The woman lit the fire in protest of what she called a lack of financial help from the Institute, Army Radio reported.(As reported by Greg Tepper)

2012: Australian and New Zealand premiere of “The Dark Night Rises” based on story co-authored by David S. Goyer and co-starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

2012: A man tried to set himself on fire at the entrance of the Beersheba municipality building today. The man, who is known to the welfare services, was not injured in the incident as a security guard and passersby at the scene prevented him from starting the fire. The man was taken into police custody. The incident is the second self-torching attempt since a man set himself on fire at a protest in Tel Aviv. Moshe Silman is still in critical condition with burns over 94% of his body. Yesterday Ynet reported, a man entered a branch of the Orange cellphone company in Petah Tikva with a bottle of flammable liquid and threatened to set himself ablaze in protest over a bill for NIS 20,000. Security guards overpowered the man before he could carry out his threat and held him until police arrived. (As reported by Stuart Winer)

2012: “Parents of Dead Billionaire Heiress Eva Rausing Want Jewish Burial” published today described the efforts of her parents to have her buried in South Carolina in accordance with Jewish law.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/07/16/parents-of-dead-billionaire-heiress-eva-rausing-want-jewish-burial/

2013(9th of Av, 5773): Tisha B’Av.  Since Jews do not partake of food for the body we may want to partake of food for the mind by reading about the Destruction of the First Temple as described in Chapter 36 of Chronicles II; by reading about the Destruction of the Second Temple in Rome and Jerusalem or The Ruling Class of Judaea both by Martin Goodman; or by reading about the fall of Betar in Bar Kochba: The rediscovery of the legendary hero of the second Jewish Revolt against Rome by Yigael Yadin. 

2013(9th of Av, 5773): Eighty-five-year-old Marvin “Marv” Rotblatt a south-paw with the White Sox for three seasons passed away today.(As reported by Richard Goldstein)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/sports/baseball/marv-rotblatt-pitcher-celebrated-through-softball-marathon-dies-at-85.html?hpw&_r=0

2013: The annual Madridanza festival is scheduled to open at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv.

2013: Doubleday published Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish: A Novel by David Rackoff

2013: Mortar fire from inside war-torn Syria hit the Israeli part of the Golan Heights today, an IDF spokeswoman said. "Several mortar rounds fired from Syria exploded in northern Golan without causing any damage or casualties," the spokeswoman told AFP (As reported by Gil Ronen)

2013: Ryan Giley provides a look at “Simon Rich: The Funniest Man in America.”

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/jul/16/simon-rich-last-girlfriend-on-earth

 2013: Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish, the late David Rakoff’s, first and only novel, has been released by Doubleday today. (As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)

http://www.timesofisrael.com/for-writer-david-rakoff-a-posthumous-debut/

2014: Seventieth Anniversary of the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup – a remembrance “marking the mass arrest of over 13,000 Jews in Paris and their shipment to Auschwitz where they met their death.

2014: Eric Rubin, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs and  Mark Levin, Executive Director of National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry (NCSJ) are scheduled to “discuss the current situation in Ukraine and how it is affecting the Jewish community” at a noon time luncheon in Washington, DC.

2014: Four hundred new immigrant from France made Aliyah today as they landed at Ben Gurion Airport.

2014: “Women's Wear Daily' reported that Macy’s had stopped the renovation of its Brooklyn flagship while it considered possibly selling the property, which could be worth $300 million (~$380 million in 2023) from a developer looking to turn it into condominium apartments. It had also been reported that Macy's was considering building a new Downtown Brooklyn store.”

2014: “Israel announced today that it would halt all military operations against targets in the Gaza Strip for a period of five hours in order to allow humanitarian agencies to transfer food and medical supplies into the Hamas-controlled coastal enclave.”

2014: Variety reported today that “Tyrant” the television drama which co-created by Israeli writer Gideon Raiff will move production from Tel Aviv to Istanbul due to the on-going attacks by Hamas. (JTA)

2014: The DCJCC is scheduled to host a concert by Flory Altarač Jagoda featuring the Ladino.

2014: UNRWA announced today that rockets had been found in their schools in Gaza.

2015: YIDSTOCK 2015 which “will bring the best in klezmer and new Yiddish music” is scheduled to open on the stage at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts.

2015: “Knight of Cups” and “The Memory of Justice” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2015: MP Susan Veronica Kramer began serving as the “Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for the Treasury” today.

2015: “Rocket alert sirens rang out early” this “morning in towns near the Gaza Strip after a missile was from the Palestinian territory” followed hours later by an IAF mission against the terrorists.

2015: “A law from the year 2000 defines today as ‘a French national day of memory for racist and anti-Semitic crimes and day of homage to the righteous of France.’” (As reported by Elhanan Miller)

2015: In Memphis, Temple Israel is scheduled to host its “Trivia Night.”

2016(10th of Tammuz, 5775): Chukat

2016: In Memphis, TN, Temple Israel is scheduled to offer congregants an opportunity to combine beating the southern heat with Jewish ritual with a “Wet Havdalah” – outdoor water play “followed by a family Havdalah service and pizza dinner.”

2016: Thirty-eight year old Waheed Borsh, the United Nations humanitarian aid worker who confessed he had used his position to aid Hamas was arrested by Shin Bet and the Israel Police today.

2016: “A new Israeli documentary, ‘Down the Deep Dark Web’” premiered today at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2016: “Schneider vs Bax” and “Death in Sarajevo” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2017: “In what observers said was an unprecedented statement from the leader of France in support of the Jewish state” today “French president Emmanuel Macron condemned anti-Zionism as a new form of anti-Semitism.”

2017: The North American Jewish Choral Festival, sponsored by the Zamir Choral Foundation is scheduled to open today at Kerhonkson, NY.

2017(22nd of Tammuz, 5777): Ninety-year-old Clarence Sigal, the Chicago born son of “labor organizers,” WW II Army veteran, blacklist victim and award winning author  passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/books/clancy-sigal-dead-author-of-going-away.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

https://www.amazon.com/Going-Away-Report-Clancy-Sigal-ebook/dp/B00DZEJSZG

2017: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Stars in Our Eyes: The Famous, the Infamous and Why We Care Way too Much About Them by Julie Klam as well as an interview of with Allegra Goodman.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/books/review/allegra-goodman-by-the-book.html?ref=headline&nl_art=&te=1&nl=book-review&emc=edit_bk_20170714 and a list of recommended books including Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky.

2017: “1917: How One Year Changed The World” is scheduled to come to an end at the National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia,

2017: “Camille Pissarro: Le premier des impressionnistes an exhibition at the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, is scheduled to come to an end today.

2017: At the Maccbiah games, in basketball the Israel and Russia are scheduled to play in 35+ finals and Israel and the United States are schedule to play the 45+ finals/

2017: Chassida Shmella Ethiopian Israeli Jewish Community in collaboration with the American Sephardi Federation are scheduled to co-sponsor “From Sinai to Ethiopia: The Halachic and Conceptual World of Ethiopian Jewry” presented by Rabbi Sharon Shalom and Susan Pollack.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/you-are-invited-to-a-talk-and-discussion-with-rabbi-dr-sharon-shalom-and-susan-pollack-on-sunday-tickets-35733382509

2018: The North Carolina Museum of Art is scheduled to a performance by the Dana Ruttenberg Dance Group.

2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the screening of the final episodes of the Israeli television drama “Your Honor.”

2018: “The Cakemaker” and “An Israeli Love Story” are scheduled to be shown at the 9th annual Axelrod Israel Jewish Film Festival.

2018: As Israelis greet a new day, they look to the skies to see if yesterday’s cease fire “between Israel and Hamas” will hold.

2019: In Danville, CA, the Reutlinger Community Center is scheduled to host the opening reception for the exhibit ““Israeli Street Life: Through the Lens of Dick Hyman” which will include an appearance by the photographer, Dick Hyman.

2019: In Berkley, CA. the Aquarian Minyan is scheduled to host “author, columnist and educator Lorelai Kude who will be discussing Jewish astrology.

2019: In Coralville, IA, Congregation Agudas Achim is scheduled to host a presentation by Gamaliel, “a Chicago-based community organizing initiative” as attendees “discuss a faithful response to the increase in white nationalism”

2019: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host “an evening with Daniel Silva” as the author discusses he work “with his wife, CNN Special Correspondent Jamie Gangel.”

2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “The Matchmaker” directed by Avi Nesher.

2020: AJC is scheduled to host “a virtual conversation between President Fernández and Dina Siegel Vann, Director of AJC's Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs, to pay tribute to the 85 victims of the AMIA attack and raise our collective voices against terrorism and antisemitism in all its forms on the 26th Anniversary of the AMIA attack.”

2020: The Jewish Museum of Maryland is scheduled to Rabbi Dr. Eli Yoggev lecturing on “Are We Alone and Does It Matter? – Jewish Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life.”

2020: The S.F. JFCS Holocaust Center Book Club is scheduled to host an online discussion on The Night Eli Wiesel’s 1960 book about his experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald and his disgust with humanity.

2020: Live on Zoom, YIVO Institute is scheduled to host “Chaim Zhitlovsky and His Philosophy of Yiddishism.”

2020: The ADL is scheduled to present online “Glass Leadership Virtual Happy Hour and Info Session.”

2020: Case Western Reserve University is scheduled to host “Nazis on the Silver Screen” where attendees “will consider the history behind four well-known films about Nazism and the Holocaust: “Triumph of the Will” (1935), “The Great Dictator” (1940), “Das Boot” (1981) and “Life is Beautiful” (1997).

2020: The JWA Book Club is scheduled to host a virtual author talk with “Natasha Diaz, author of Color Me In, a coming-of-age story about a half Black, half Jewish girl trying to find her place in the world

2020: As Israelis awaken this morning, they must deal with yesterday’s report that 22,704 people are “battling the coronavirus” and that “four more people have died from the virus bringing the total number of fatalities from COVID-19 to 375

2021: In San Francisco, the Contemporary Jewish Museum is scheduled to present “A Lifetime of Levi’s”

2021: Rabbi David Freelund is scheduled to lead in-person Shabbat services at Cape Cod synagogue.

2021: Value Culture is scheduled to host its first “in person Shabbat experience in 2021, with legendary Hollywood director Tony Kaye at a historic, legendary San Francisco venue in conversation with Value Culture Founder, Executive Director Adam Swig and special guests.”

2021: The new restrictions requiring “that all travelers, including those vaccinated and recovered from COVID-19, would be required to self-isolate for up to 24 hours upon arrival to the country” are scheduled to go into effect today.

2022: President Biden’s trip to the Middle East which has included visits to Israel and Saudi Arabia, where the government has pledged to “open its airspace to all air carriers, paving the way for more overflights to and from Israel” is scheduled to come to an end today.

2022: In Jerusalem, the Eden-Tamir Center is scheduled to host “the season’s final concert” which is a “Bach Fest.”

2022: The Quad Cinema in New York is scheduled to host the final screening of “My Name Is Sara” which tells the true-life story of 13-year-old Sara Góralnik whose family was killed by Nazis in September of 1942.

2022(17th of Tammuz, 5782): On the Jewish Calendar, celebration of Independence Day since July 4, 1776 fell on the 17th of Tammuz)

2022(17th of Tammuz, 5782): Fast of Tammuz observance delayed until tomorrow because today is Shabbat.

2022(17th of Tammuz, 5782): Parashat Balak

2023: Yidstock: The Festival of New Yiddish Music at the Yiddish Book Center is scheduled to come to an end today.

2023: ASCAP award winning flutist and composer, Hadar Noiberg, who  has come a long way since moving to NYC from Israel at 21 is schedule to perform at Room 31 at Arlo NoMad in NYC.

2023: The Museum at Eldridge is scheduled to host a walking tour in which participants “follow in the footsteps of Ella, Henny, Sarah, Charlotte, and Gertie, the beloved sisters depicted in Sydney Taylor’s children’s classic All-of-a-Kind Family.”

2023: In Atlanta, GA, as part of Something Special Sundays. Marilyn Ginsberg Eckstein is schedule to present “Dance Talk: In Step with Baryshnikov.”

2023: The weekly scheduled cabinet will be postponed at least for twenty-four while the Prime Minister remains in the hospital after having been admitted due the effects of dehydration.

2023: The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host “Eldridge Street Explorers,” a special program designed for “children five and up.”

2023: Craig Newmark and Jodi Rudorren are scheduled to have a conversation about “The Role of Journalism in Combating Antisemitism.”

2023: The exhibition “Convergence: Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian Calligraphy in Conversation” which has been on view in the Leon Levy Gallery at the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to come to an end today.

2024: The Streicker is scheduled to host the first lecture by Dr. Eric Goldan on “The Jewish Paul Mazursky.”

2024: Lockdown University is scheduled to host lectures by Hagai Segal on the “Legacy of the War of Independence” and by Noam (Norman) A. Stillman on “The Origins, Evolution, and Spread of Anti-Semitism in the Arab World.”

2024: In Metairie, LA, YAS (Young Adults at Shir Chadash are scheduled to host a short Torah Study session with Rabbi David Cohen-Henriquez and Rabbinical Student, David Kaplinsky preceded by “a couple of drinks at Wrong Iron.

2024: A two-day baseball camp led by the veterans of Team Israel’s historic participation at the Tokyo Olympics is scheduled to take place at Povich Field, named in honor of Washington Post’s legendary columnist Shirley Povich.

2024: As part of the “Week of Goodness” members of Tifereth Israel in Columbus, OH ae scheduled to “help assemble and distribute blessing bags to those in need.”

2024: The second day of  the David Bernstein’s and Jeffrey Saks “Tour Jewish Life, Literature and Learning: Poland 2024 is scheduled to begin with a walking tour of the Warsaw Ghetto area that will include a visit to Mila 18 followed by “a scenic drive takes us to the shtetl of Tykocin, which the Jews, who made up a majority of the town, called Tiktin.”

2024: As July 16th begins in Israel, an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism that has included Hamas supporters calling for Zionist passengers on a New York subway to raise their hands, sweeps the United States and the Hamas held hostages begin day 284 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.)

 

 

 

 

 

No comments: