Sunday, December 1, 2024

This Day, December 3, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

December 3

311: Sixty-sixty-year-old Emperor Diocletian passed away.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0005_0_05240.html

1368: Birthdate of Charles VI, the French king who would order the expulsion of the Jews from his realm in 1394. Unlike the orders of expulsion issued by some of his predecessors this one remained in force with Jews not returning to France until the 17th century.

1447: Birthdate of Bayezid II the Sultan who in 1492, issued a formal invitation to the Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal and sent out ships to safely bring Jews to his empire.

1490: Lodovico Maria Sforza expelled all Jews from the duchy of Milan today.

1656: First entry in the diary of Thomas Burton which recorded the activities of Parliament during the era of Oliver Cromwell and provided a written record of “the assurance of the right of Jews to remain in England. “The Jews, those able and general intelligencers whose intercourse with the Continent Cromwell had before turned to profitable account, he now conciliated by a seasonable benefaction to their principal agent [Carvajal] resident in England.”

1659(28th of Kislev, 5420): Diarist Samuel Pepys wrote to Edward Montague that that he was in the “Jewish Synagogue in London” where he “heard many lamentations by Portugal Jews” for merchant Anthony Fernandez Carvajal who passed away on November 12.

1685: King Charles XI of Sweden ordered the governor-general of the capital to see that no Jews were permitted to settle in Stockholm, or in any other part of the country, "on account of the danger of the eventual influence of the Jewish religion on the pure evangelical faith."

1670: Thomas Lynch, who as Governor Barbados opposed the expulsion of the Jews and “paid a striking tribute to the Jews of the colony” was knighted today at Whitehall Palace.

1747: Sir Alexander Schomberg, the son of Meyer Löw Schomberg a German-Jewish doctor who settled in England, and who was able to pursue a naval career only after converting so he could comply with The Test Act passed his examination for lieutenant today.

1754: In Philadelphia, Tabitha Mears and Mathias Bush gave birth to Samuel Bush.

1771(26th of Kislev, 5532): Second of Chanukah

1771: In a letter written today, Moses Mendelssohn described Johann Jacob Rabe, as a patient, “strong Talmudist” who “has translated into German the first three parts of the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud” which are “ready for the printer” but for which no publisher can be found.

1779(24th of Kislev, 5540): Kindle the first Chanukah Candle

1779: Native New Yorker Zipporah Levy and Benjamin Mendes Seixas, a native of Newport, RI, gave birth to Abigail Seixas.

1788: Birthdate of the infant son of Marks Lazarus who would only live for nine days.

1790(26th of Kislev, 5551): Second Day of Chanukah

1791: Based on account that appeared in the Newcastle Courant, today “a marriage was celebrated at Sunderland according to the rites and ceremonies of the Jews between Lyon Hermann, dentist, of Edinburgh and Mrs. H. Pollock, widow of the late Mr. Pollock, a merchant in London.”

1792: One day after she had passed away, “Miriam bat Joseph” was buried today at the “Alderney Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1798(25th of Kislev, 5559): First Day of Chanukah observed on the same day that Federalist Robert Wain began serving as a member of the House of Representatives.

1800: Birthdate of Émile  Péreire who along with his brother Isaac were leading French financiers who, among other things created the Crédit Mobilier bank and were considered the Sephardi equivalents of the Rothschilds.

1802: Last will and testament of Emanuel Abrahams, a “Jewish resident of Charleston, SC.”

1807: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Jacob Suares officiated at the wedding of Hyam Moise to Cecilia Woolf, the daughter of the late Solomon Woolf.

1807: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Jacob Suares officiated at the wedding of Aaron Moise to Sarah Cohen the daughter of the late Gershon Cohen.

1807: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Jacob Suares officiated at the wedding of Nathan Hart to the eldest daughter of Daniel Hart.

1809(25th of Kislev, 5570): First Day of Chanukah

1809(25th of Kislev, 5570): Birthdate Samuel Adler “a leading German-American Reform rabbi, Talmudist, and author” passed away. He was also the father of Felix Adler, the well-known founder of the Society for Ethical Culture.” Born at Worms in 1809, he came to the United States to serve as Rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in New York; a position he held for seventeen years before accepting the position as Rabbi Emeritus. He was an outspoken opponent of slavery and a staunch supporter of Abraham Lincoln.  One of the happiest moments of his life came when saw Major Anderson, the Union officer who had defended Fort Sumter, in his congregation.  After service “he laid his hands on the soldier’s head and pronounced…the anciently priestly blessing…”

1811: In Berlin, Fanny Eleonore Bendemann née von Halle, a daughter of the Jewish banker Joel Samuel von Halle and banker Anton Heinrich Bendemann gave birth to painter Eduard Julius Friedrich Bendemann

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Bendemann#mediaviewer/File:Eduard_Bendemann_1811_-_1889_Selbstbildnis_1859.jpg

1817(24th of Kislev, 5578): Kindle the first Channukah light

1818: Isaac Gompertz married Charlotte Florence Wattier today.

1818: Illinois becomes the 21st state admitted to the Union. “John Hays was the first Jewish pioneer in Illinois.  He served as county sheriff and collector of internal revenue before the territory became a state. German Jews built the first synagogue in 1851 in Chicago calling it the Congregation of the Men of the West. By the end of the decade Polish Jews had started their own congregation and a group of Reform Jews had split away from “the Men of the West” to form their own synagogue called Sinai Congregation.  The Jewish population of Illinois was large enough to provide over 1,100 volunteers to fight in the Union Army. 

1819: Birthdate of Daniel Abramovich Chwolson, the native of Vilna who became a distinguished Orientalist and defender of the Jews from the rampant anti-Semitism of Czarist Russia.

1821: Birthdate of Stryria, Austria native and medical doctor Ernest Krackowizer who came to United States in 1857 after taking part in the failed Revolutions of 1848, helped to found what is now Lenox Hill Hospital and was a supporter of Lincoln and the Union during the Civil War.

1827: Moritz Gottlieb Saphir “founded the Tunnel über der Spree literary society.”

1828(27th of Kislev, 5589): Third Day of Chanukah observed as Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, and Virginia have their elections and choose their Presidential Electors in the closely contested presidential race between John Q. Adams and Andrew Jackson.

1830: Today, “the Alsatian Deputy Pierre Andre stated that before the Revolution, Jews had not been allowed to open vocational schools” which was contradicted by others “at the same time who said “that before the Revolution the Alsatian leader Cerberr of Medelsheim and Berr-Isaac Berr of Nancy found agricultural colonies in order to mitigate the charge that Jews were not productive.”

1830: Two days after he had passed away, 72-year-old Lyon Phillips, the husband of Elizabeth Phillips and the father of Joseph Phillips was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.

1831(28th of Kislev, 5592): Shabbat Shel Chanukah; Parashat Miketz

1831(28th of Kislev, 5592): Forty-eight-year-old Morocco native Solomon Ben Masud Ben Abraham Sebag, the husband of Sarah Goldsmid and “the father of Sir Joseph Sebag-Montefiore and Jemima Sebag-Montefiore passed away today in London

1831: Birthdate of German humor writer Julius Sttenheim.

1831: Birthdate of James Graham Fair, the Irish born American mining engineer who made a fortune in Nevada silver mines and served as United States and then left a $25,000 bequest “to the Hebrew asylums” in San Francisco.

1832: While serving in the South Carolina legislature, attorney and War of 1812 veteran Chapman Levy wrote to President Andrew Jackson.

https://www.loc.gov/item/maj012963/

1833: In Canterbury, Kent, Elizabeth Benjamin and Zvi ben Aharon gave birth to “Henry Jones”

1836: In Vienna, Ignatz Lieben and his wife gave birth to Austrian Chemist Adolf Lieben.

1839: Phillip Fama married Charlotte Lambert at the Great Synagogue today.

1839: In Charleston, SC, Marx E. Cohen and Armida Harby Cohen gave birth to Max E. Cohen, Jr who “died on the battlefield at Bentonsville, NC” during the Civil War.

1840: In West Derby, Edward Little who was a partner of shipping magnate Gustave Schwabe, the German born Jew whose family was converted to Lutheranism, passed away today.

1842(30th of Kislev, 5603): Rosh Chodesh Tevet; 6th day of Chanukah

1842: Birthdate of Susan Joshua the wife of Edward Ferdinand Sichel.

1842(30th of Kislev, 5603): Seventy-four-year-old Samuel Levin Egers, who was appointed the Rabbi of Brunswick in 1809 and who did not “relax his labors” after losing his sight in 1836, passed away today.

1844(22nd of Kislev, 5605): Fifty-six-year-old Hamburg native Georg Hartog Gerson, the third generation of German-Jewish doctors and a member of  the 5th Line Battalion, King's German Legion who saw action in the Peninsula, in Southern France, the Lowlands and at the Battle of Waterloo” passed away today.

http://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/the-mild-agressor-the-unsung-jewish-hero-of-waterloo/

1845: Samuel Samuel married Elizabeth Mordecai today.

1846: Two days after she had passed away, “Sarah Kate Jacob (nee Simons)” the daughter of Samuel Simons and Rose Moses and the wife of Jacob Jacob wth whom she had had four children, was buried today at the “Falmouth Jewish Cemetery.”

1847(25th of Kislev, 5608): Chanukah on the same that Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany launched the abolitionist The North Star newspaper.

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/north-star-newspaper-launched/

1847: In Kovno, Rachel and Bernard Mark gave birth to Bessie Mark, one of the “first Jewish citizens to settle in St. Paul, MN and founder of the Jeiwsh Home for the Aged of the Northwest and the Jewish Shelter Home of St. Paul who laid the cornerstone for Temple Aaron which was named for her deceased husband Aaron Mark.

1850(28th of Kislev, 5611): Fourth day of Chanukah

1850: In Padua, Samuel David Luzzatto and his wife gave birth to Beniamino Luzzatto, the Italian physician who became chief of the propaedeutic clinic of Padua University.

1852: The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Benjamin Disraeli, delivered a major address today in the House of Commons on the subject of taxation.  The speech, which was well received, contained proposals to change the Tea Duties and the Income Tax.

1854(12th of Kislev, 5615: A German-born Jew, Edward (Teddy) Thonen was killed today when troops stormed the stockade during the goldfields uprising at Ballarat, Australia.

1857: In Bohemia, Wilhelmine Rosenbaum and Leopold Koller gave birth Dr. Carl Koller, the husband of Laura J. Blum and the American ophthalmic surgeon whose introduction of cocaine as a surface anesthetic in eye surgery (1884) inaugurated the modern era of local anesthesia. He was a colleague of Sigmund Freud, who in 1884 was interested in the use of cocaine to cure morphine addiction. Koller noticed cocaine had a numbing effect on the tongue and, after experimenting with animals, introduced it as a local anesthetic in ophthalmology. It was also quickly adopted for nose and throat surgery and for dentistry. He died in 1944. Koller was one of the so-called Vienna Trio made up of three Jewish doctors - Carl Koller (1857-1944), Sigmund Lustgarten (1857-1911) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). All three are characterized by several interesting similarities. In their early achievements in medical research they were pathfinders of the first successful local anesthetic: cocaine. All three became later victims of anti-Semitism.

1857: In Neustadt, Prussia, Josef Pinkus and Auguste Fränke gave birth to Max Pinkus, the husband of Hedwig Pinkus.

1858: After purchasing “a considerable number of Arabic and Hebrew manuscripts on behalf of the Bibliothèque Nationale” and being “elected secretary of the Consistoire Central des Israélites de France” today Salomon Munk “was elected a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres” after which “he was appointed professor of Hebrew at the Collège de France.”

1859: At the Green-street Synagogue in NYC, Rabbi S.M. Isaacs “delivered a stirring appeal to his congregation on behalf of the Jews who have fled from Morocco and taken refuge at Gibraltar. Their suffering co-religionist were forced to take flight because of the fighting between the natives and Spain. Issacs acknowledged the help rendered by the British who had provided the refugees with tents and food.  He also expressed thanks for support from the local Christian population.  But he still urged his congregants and the rest of the Jewish community to come to the aid of some 29,000 Jews who had been living along the Barbary Coast.

1860: Abraham Jonas “an Illinois businessman and politician” who had first me Lincoln “around 1843” wrote a letter to him today warning of an assassination plot.

1861(30th of Kislev, 5622): Rosh Chodesh Tevet

1861: In Iowa, Jacob Jacobson, who would be wounded at the Battle of Shiloh, enlisted today in Company B of the Sixteen Regiment.

1862: Michael Hahn, a Unionist Democrat began serving as a member of the U.S. House of Representative from Louisiana’s 2nd congressional district.

1862: First Lieutenant Herman Hamburger, who would see action at the Battle of Gettysburg while serving as Assistant-Adjutant General of the First Brigade, of the Third Division began his service today with the 18th Cavalry today.

1863(22nd of Kislev, 5624): Thirty-four-year-old Walter Samuel, the Liverpool, England, born of Harriet and Moses Samuel, the husband of Harriet Samuel and the father of Evelyn, Arthur, Florence, Samuel and Lucille Samuel passed away today in his hometown.

1863: In Cincinnati, OH, Moses and Sarah Waldheim gave birth to Aaron Waldheim, the manager of St. Louis “outlet of May-Stern, a retail furniture store he started with David May and Harry Stern that was so successful it enabled him to become one of the city’s leading philanthropists.

1866(25th of Kislev, 5672): Channukah observed on the same day that President Andrew Johnson delivered his second annual message to Congress

https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-3-1866-second-annual-message

1869: Birthdate of “Russian-born American Yiddish publisher and author Jacob Marinoff who “was one of the founders of New York satirical weekly Der Groyser Kundes and the sister actress of Fania Marinoff.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/marinoff-jacob

1870(9th of Kislev, 5631): Parashat Vayetzei

1870(9th of Kislev, 5631): Seventy-seven-year-old War of 1812 veteran Levi Charles Meyers Harby, who served in the “Texas Navy” during its war for independence and in the Confederate Navy during the Civil War while finding time to marry “Leonora Rebecca De Lyon, a member of the prominent Jewish family from Savanah with whom he had three children passed away today.

https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/view/Military.aspx?pid=1347201850&vid=867db4a3-6e14-4e95-904f-ffa15404553e&tid=807361

1871: In Martinsburg, W. VA, Newton Diehl Baker Sr. and Mary Ann (Dukehart) Baker gave birth to Newton D. Baker, Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of War who supported the nomination of Felix Frankfurter to the Supreme Court and was the 1930 recipient of the American Hebrew Medal for the Promotion of Better Understanding Between Christian and Jew in America.

1871: The annual meeting of the B’nai Jeshurun Ladies’ Benevolent Society and Home for Aged Hebrews took place today the 34th Street Synagogue.  Following the reading of the annual report the following officers were elected: Mrs. Henry Leo, President; Mrs. H. B. Hertz, Vice President; Mrs. Zion Bernstein, Treasurer; Judge P.J. Joachimsen, Honorary Counsel; Dr. Simeon U. Leo, Physician

1871(20th of Kislev, 5632): Sixty-four-year-old Jonas Königswarter who “in recognition of his public services, was decorated with the Order of the Iron Crown of the third class, and elevated to the knighthood; and in 1870 received the decoration of the second class of the same order, and was raised to the baronetage” passed away today.

1871: Charles Hart was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1872: Prime Minister William Gladstone was among those who heard George Smith read “his translation of the Chaldean account of the Great Flood” at today’s meeting of the Society of Biblical  Archaeology. Known as the Epic of Gilgamesh, this is another version of Noah’s Flood.

1873: The Oratorio Society, a choral music society founded by Leopold Damrosch gave its first concert today.

1873: Birthdate of Hungarian native Charles Gelman who in 1892 came to the United States where he settled in Glens Falls, NY where owned and operated “the dry goods firm of Merkel and Gelman” while raising his two daughters Elsa and Babette.

1873: In Lithuania Isaac Margolis and Hinde Margolis, the daughter of David Aryeh Leib Zirilstein and Kaila Bernstein gave birth to Bertha Barnett

1874: Birthdate of Vienna native Jacob Leon Wolff who gained fame as “pianist and composer Erich Jaques Wolff.”

1875: Birthdate of Father Bernhard Lichtenberg German clergyman, anti-fascist and outspoken defender of the Jews of Germany. For example, after Kristallnacht while the German churches kept their silence in face of the vicious attack upon the Jews, Lichtenberg was the only Church man to raise his voice publicly and fearlessly against Nazi brutality. “We know what happened yesterday, we do not know what lies in store for us tomorrow. But we have experienced what has happened today: Outside burns the temple. This is also a place of worship.” From that evening until his arrest in 1941, Lichtenberg continued to pray daily from his pulpit in the St Hedwig Cathedral for both the Jews and Jewish Christians as well as other victims of the regime. Following his two-year imprisonment, Lichtenberg turned the Gestapo’s offer to leave him alone if he would stop speaking out against the regime.  Lichtenberg asked to be allowed to accompany the Jews and Jewish Christians being sent to the Ghetto at Lodz, Poland.  The Church refused his request because of his failing health. Instead, the Gestapo ordered him to be sent to Dachau. The sixty-seven-year-old priest died on November 5, 1943 while waiting to be shipped to the concentration camp.

http://victimsfamiliesforthedeathpenalty.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-blessed-bernhard-lichtenberg.html

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/lichtenberg.asp

1876: It was reported today that the “Czar has written a private letter to” Queen Victoria “in which he does not disguise his resentment at the treatment which he has received at the hands of her Prime Minister” Lord Beaconsfield better known as Benjamin D’Israeli.  (One cannot but wonder if part of the ruler of the anti-Semitic realm greatest resentment comes from having to deal with the son of London Jew.)

1876: “Touching the Jew” published today described a visit by an American journalist to the home of “a strict family of the chosen people” (Orthodox Jews) where they discussed the novel Daniel Deronda of which the Jews said the title character was “a weak visionary” and the character “Mordecai was a common madman.”  “And as for that wild notion which so many of you Christians entertain about Jerusalem, one of the Jews said let us “disabuse your mind of it.  The Jews don’t want to go Jerusalem; they wouldn’t if they could.”  “The very idea” of “being compelled to live in Jerusalem…is enough to make one shudder.”

1877(27th of Kislev, 5638): Third Day of Channukah

1878: Settlers arrive at Petach Tikvah in what is now Israel.  Petach Tikvah is Hebrew for Gateway of Hope. The land was purchased by Jews living in Jerusalem from a Greek landowner after the Sultan of Turkey had thwarted their efforts to buy land near Jericho.  The village they built was in an area prone to malaria outbreaks.  In 1882, the settlers gave up the village, due in part to poor harvest.  At the time only 66 people were living in ten houses.

1879: William Lovenstein, the first-born son of Mary Wasserman and Solomon Lovenstein began serving as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from the city of Richmond.

1880: The Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society “purchase the Devlin property at 10th Avenue, the Boulevard and 136th to 138th Streets for $138,000” with the intention of constructing a facility at this location.

1880: At Gottingen University, a group of students is preparing a statement for the Rector protesting the distribution of Court Chaplain Adolph Stocker’s “petition against the Jews.

1881: “Some Minor Foreign Facts” published today include estimates of the Jewish population that “have been prepared in Rome showing that there are 6,568,000 Jews in the world, 5,500,000 of whom live in Europe, 240,000 in Asia, 500,000 in Africa and 308,000 in America.

1881: After having been closed for Shabbat, the fair sponsored by Temple Israel in Brooklyn reopened tonight.

1882: “Notes On Art” published today described the discovery of  a“grotesque wall painting” called ‘The Judgment of Solomon,’ a veritable caricature of the famous Biblical  story” in a house at Pompeii that had been built by merchants from ancient Alexandria, a city “well acquainted with Jewish lore” which would have accounted for the artistic creation.

1884(15th of Kislev, 5645): Sixty-six-year-old Babette (Braeunle) Oppenheimer, the “ife of Jakob Rothschild and Meier (Maier) Oppenheimer and mother of Hirsch Rothschild; Babette David; Leopold Oppenheimer; Heinrich / Naphtali Herz Oppenheimer; Moses Oppenheimer; Fanny Bodenheimer; Jeanette Oppenheimer; Elise Oppenheimer; Regina Oppenheimer; Feis Oppenheimer; Ricke Lina Metzger; Stillborn Oppenheimer; Rebeka Oppenheimer; Adelheid Oppenheimer; Isidor Oppenheimer; Ida (Pfaelzer) Oppenheimer; Ferdinand Oppenheimer and (Son of Maier) Oppenheimer passed away today after which she was buried in Hemsbach, Rhein-Neckar-Kreis, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

1884: On the day before he committed suicide in the New York park near the Farragut Monument, Jacob Asch, a Jewish native of Prussia who had operated a millinery story in Chicago where he had left his wife and family, met with Adolph Schwab and gave back to him the lace goods which Schwab had given to him sell on commission.

1885(25th of Kislev, 5646): Chanukah

1885: Birthdate of German born American Chess champion Edward Lasker who had been trained as an engineer and was a close friend of fellow chess champion and distant relative Emanuel Lasker passed away today in New York.

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/03/26/obituaries/dr-edward-lasker-is-dead-at-95-5-time-us-open-chess-winner.html

1885: “Lighting A Candle Each Day” published today described the celebration of Chanukah, a “festival that last eight days” where “at the beginning of each day the orthodox Hebrew family lights a candle until they eight candles burning.”

1886: In Cincinnati, OH, Herman and Carolina (Sommer) Joseph gave birth to Columbia grad and Phi Beta Kappa Member David Herman Joseph who went from teaching English in Secondary Schools to a career in journalism which led him to serving as the City Editor of the New York Times for 21 years, while also being a member of Temple Ansche Chesed

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/08/27/83546040.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1886: Twenty-three-year-old Leon Harrison was installed as the new rabbi at Temple Israel in Brooklyn “which claims to be the only unorthodox synagogue in the city.”

1886: A wealthy Jew named Altmayer who was serving time for embezzlement has escaped from the Mazas Prison using a “forged letter of release.”

1887: In New York City, Caroline and Jacob Solomon gave birth to Cornel University Medical School trained psychiatrist and neurologist Solomon Meyer, the Assistant Professor of neurology at the Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery who served as in the U.S Army Medical Corps during WW I and married Sadie Spielberger in 1921.

1887: In New York, Judge Barrett has displayed Solomon in deciding “that the child about whose ownership the mulattoes William and Jennie Lee and the Russian Jews Bertha and Harris Brodsky have each been contesting is Nellie Lee and not Yetta Brodsky and has order the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children to deliver her to the Lees.  The unanswered question is, what has become of the missing Yetta Brodsky

1888(29th of Kislev, 5649): Fifth Day of Chanukah

1888: Supporters of Boulanger rallied in Paris today shouting for an end to the Republic and chanting “Down with the Jews!”  (French anti-Semitism was a subset of right-wing hostility towards the Third Republic)

1888: In Łomża, Poland, the son of Liba Miriam (Cyrowicz) and Joel Leib Herzog gave birth to Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog who was the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland, serving from 1921 to 1936 and then began servings as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of the British Mandate of Palestine and of Israel until his death in 1959

1889: “In Wandsbek, which was then a town in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein (now a district of the city of Hamburg), Julius and Henriette (née Hirsch) Levy gave birth to Paul Levy who gained fame as American screenwriter, director and producer who was an assistant to his fellow co-religionist and movie maker Irving Thalberg.

http://www.moviemoviesite.com/articles/events/only_a_comedy.htm

1889: A party of fifty Jews from several cities including Ogden, Utah and Chicago, Illinois, passed through Pittsburgh, PA today on their way to Jerusalem.

1890(21st of Kislev, 5651): Leonard Arnheim, the four year old son of Ida and Lewis Arnheim, passed away.  Lewis Arnheim served in the Georgia State Legislature as a representative from rural Dougherty County and was the son-in-law of David Mayer of Atlanta. A native of Germany, he made a career in the law before taking an active role in state politics.

1890: Seventy-six-year-old Philadelphia native Louisa Elizabeth Hart Lyons, the wife of Jacob Cohen Lyons and mother of Isaac, Rachel, Isabelle, Hymen, Theodore, Lucien, Randolph and Charles Lyons was buried today at the Mikveh Israel Federal Street Cemetery in Philadelphia.

1891: The residence of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews are scheduled to enjoy a free evening of musical entertainment.

1891(2nd of Kislev, 5652): Ninety-year-old Abraham Alexander Wolff, the German born Rabbi who spent most of his life leading the congregation in Copenhagen and as “the father of Danish homiletics” delivered approximately 5,000 sermons during his “career of 65 years” passed away today.

1892: The Moscow Chamber Commerce resolved “to exclude all Jews from the list of city merchants unless they” convert and become Greek Orthodox.

1892: In Chattanooga, TN, Harry Clay Adler and Ada Ochs gave birth to Julius Ochs Adler, the publisher of The Chattanooga Times and general manager of The New York Times who had a distinguished military career in both World Wars.

https://nmajmh.org/education/individual-profiles/julius-adler/

1892: Judith Solis-Cohen began a ten year stint as the editor for “the weekly ‘Womanknd’ column in the Jewish Exponent.” (As reported by the Jewish Women’s Archives)

1893(24th of Kislev, 5654): Kindle the first Chanukah Candle

1893: “A Practical Charity” published today described the work of the East Side Relief Committee whose members included Mr. Spectorsky of the Hebrew Institute and is an example of what can happen when “Catholic, Protestant and Hebrew religious societies” work together.

1893: “Professor Felix Adler spoke” to “the usual large audience” “in Carnegie Music Hall this morning on the idea of God and the futurity as taught in the Old Testament.”

1893: “Jewish President of Each Board” published today described the lack of anti-Semitism in Lexington, KY a city of 30,000 that includes about one hundred Jews where a Jew was chosen to service as the President of the Boards of Alderman and the Boards of Councilmen.

1893: Much to consternation of French anti-Semites, David Raynal began serving as Minister of the Interior.

1894: In Hamburg, Bernhard Bästlein, Sr. of Thuringia and Cornelia Bästlein, née Kock, of East Friesland Bernhard Bästlein a leader of the anti-Nazi resistance who was executed “at Brandenburg-Görden Prison. (He was not Jewish.  But we do have an obligation to “Remember” those who stood against the Evil of the Darkest Night.”

1894: In Baltimore, MD, Jacob and Hilda (Kaplan) Sobeloff gave birth to Simon Sobeloff who served as Solicitor General of the United States and Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth District.

1894: Glass dealer Benjamin Rosenthal was assaulted by a gang of boys hollering “Sheeny, sheeny” at 34th Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan.

1894: “A Philosophy And Not A Creed” published today described the views of Rabbi Joseph Silverman on Judaism stating that it “is not a system of creeds but a philosophy”  Unlike other religions, “Judaism has no symbol” but maybe it should adopt the question mark as one since “Judaism is an everlasting searcher after truth.” 

1895: Birthdate of Anna Freud, Austrian-born English psychoanalyst and daughter of Sigmund Freud. She was the founder of child psychoanalysis and one of its foremost practitioners. She also made fundamental contributions to understanding how the ego, or consciousness, functions in averting painful ideas, impulses, and feelings. She diverged from her father in emphasizing the role of the ego (as opposed to id forces) in psychological functioning. Her book The ego and mechanisms of defense (1936) laid the groundwork for ego psychology. She was one of the first psychoanalysts to work primarily with children. She passed away1982.

1895:” Vienna’s Anti-Semitic Mobs” published today described the response of the ant-Semites to the Emperor’s rejection of Dr. Luger as Burgomaster of Vienna which included “insulting and threatening passers-by and other persons in the cafes and shops whom they regarded as being Hebrews.”

1895: Birthday of Roxbury, Massachusetts native Fanny Baron Cohen who settled in Brooklyn and served as the “alternate delegate to the nongovernment organizations of UNESCO.”

1895: Birthdate of Jaujard Jacques, “the man who save Mona Lisa.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-frenchman-who-saved-the-mona-lisa/

1896: Birthdate of Mihály Maurice Bergsmann, the son of a practicing physician in Budapest who converted to Unitarian Christianity and gained fame as psychoanalyst Michael Balint.

1896:Louise Maurice Josephthal, the New York born son of Theresa Wise and Moritz Josephthal, “one of the organizers of the Naval militia and the state of New York, became Paymaster Yeoman” today.

1896: Birthday of Nashville, TN native Rose Horwitz, the first wife of English born and Stanford University trained attorney Maurice E. Blumenthal who lived in Douglas, AZ where he combined the practice of law with the life of an amateur musician.

1897: Starting today and for the next ten years Judith Solis-Cohen “edited the weekly “Womankind” column in the Jewish Exponent. In these columns, which covered such topics as “What Women Can Earn,” “Coeducation,” “Women Zionists,” “The Woman Suffrage Movement,” and “The Council of Jewish Women.” (As reported by the Jewish Women’s Archives)

1897: On the Lower East Side, Harry and Jenny Gropper “impoverished Jewish immigrants” gave birth to “William Gropper, a widely known radical cartoonist and leading artist of the American “social realist” school who “was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/01/08/archives/william-gropper-artist-79-dies-wellknown-leftwing-cartoonist.html?searchResultPosition=1

1898: In “Zhyomyr, Haim Bardinstein and Miryam Bardinstein gave bortj to Shlomo H. Bardin the husband of Roth Bardin, with whom he had two sons – David and Hillel – “who studied at the University of Berlin, University College and Columbia University after which “he founded the Haifa Technical High School and Haifa Nautical School.

https://www.nytimes.com/1976/05/17/archives/dr-shlomo-bardin-77-dies-founded-brandeis-institute.html

1900: In Great Britain, The Court of Appeal has rendered a decision upholding that of a Divisional Court in the suit of the Attorney General vs. the Jewish Colonization Association. The Crown claimed estate and succession duty upon the death of Baron Maurice de Hirsch. This victory means the Crown gains upwards of 1,250,000 English pounds.

1901(22nd of Kislev, 5562):Forty-one-year-old Bernard “Ben” Rosenwald, the Talladega, AL born “son of Samuel Rosenwald and Augusta Rosenwald, the husband of Celia Rose Rosenwald and the father of Milton Ignatz Rosenwald; Edward Clarence Rosenwald and Harold Raymond Rosenwald” passed away today in Chicago.

1901: It was reported today that J.H. Cohen, C.L. Sulzberger and Otto Horowtiz were among the creditors appointed to serve on a committee of creditors of “The Metropolitan” the bankrupt Binghamton, NY department store.

1902(3rd of Kislev, 5663): of Solomon Hirsch, “one of the early leaders of Portland, Oregon’s Jewish Community who “with Jacob Mayer and Louis Fleischner, Hirsch was one of the founders of Fleischner, Mayer and Co., the largest wholesale dry goods company on the West Coast” and the “Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Ottoman Empire from 1889–1892” passed away today,

1902: The Convention of the National Council of Jewish Women is scheduled to continue for a second day in Baltimore, MD at the Eutaw Place Synagogue.

1902: Birthdate of American artist Louis Leon Ribak, the husband of artist Beatrice Mandelman, who passed away at Taos, NM in 1979

http://www.mandelman-ribak.org/

1903(14th of Kislev, 5664): In Vilna, Deborah Romm who “took an active interest in the affairs” of the Romm Publishing House after her husband David died in 1860, passed away today.

1903:  Birthdate of mathematician John von Neumann.  Born in Hungary, von Neumann brilliant career included work on the project to build the hydrogen bomb as well and development of logical design.  This work was critical in the development of the modern computer.  He won the Medal of Freedom in 1956 a year before his death.

1903: Birthdate of Abe Pollin future owner of the National Basketball Association's (NBA) Washington Wizards, the National Hockey League's (NHL) Washington Capitals and Women's National Basketball Association's (WNBA) Washington Mystics. Pollin would use his own money to build a home for the Wizards that would revitalize a large section of downtown Washington, D.C.   He would also support a number of civic and charitable efforts that would do everything from rewarding public school teachers to feeding starving children in Africa. If the first question asked of a soul by the heavenly court is “How did you conduct yourself when doing business?” Pollin will pass with flying colors.

1904(25th of Kislev, 5665): Chanukah

1904: In St. Louis, MO, Charles and Rose Ellman Weissman gave birth to Ben Weisman, the husband of “Esther Polinsky Weisman” with whom he had two children – Harry and Sandra.

1904: Henry Marcus Leipziger delivered an address at the Cooper Institute

1904 (25th of Kislev, 5665): Rabbi Chaim Chizkiah Medini, the author of the Halachic encyclopedia Sdei Chemed passed away.

1905: In Minsk, “a hooligan disguised as a Jew is” supposed “to fire on a holy image in a religious procession” which is then to be followed by the killing of Jews; an act that will be made easier because the houses of the Jews “are to be marked with white crosses.”

1905: In Posen | Poznań, Greater Poland Voivodeship, Germany now Poland, Hugo Kantorowicz and Betty Kantorowicz gave birth to Ruth Margot Stein, the wife of Dr. Siegfried Fritz Stein and other of Ernst Wolfgang Stein; Heinz Thomas Stein and Uriel Michael Adolf Stein

1906: Following the reports given by Isidor Straus and Mrs. Morris Loeb, the President of the Women’s Auxillary at tonight’s annual meeting of the Educational Alliance and Women’s Auxiliary Samuel B. Hamburger, Adolf Lewisohn, Marcus Marks, Julius M. Mayer, William C. Popper, Solomon Schechter, Solomon Sulzberger, Felix M. Warburg, Louis Wiley and August Goldsmith were re-elected as directors serving a new three year term.

1906: William Greenstan of the Hebrew Harlem Butchers’ Association told meeting of 500 women attending a meeting protest against the high price of meat that “the butchers are not to blame” but instead blamed it on “the turst” which is forcing them to pay ten cents a pound “for the chuck steak” the butch are selling to their customers.

1907(27th of Kislev, 5668): Third Day of Chanukah

1907: Professor Franklin Giddings of Columbia who was lecturing on “The Jews in America” at the People’s Institute at Cooper Union was asked “whether the recent movement by the Jews to keep Christian ceremonies out of the schools was justified.

1908: “The Jewish Morning Journal announced” tonight “that it had received a cable dispatch from Russia by way of London announcing that the Council of the Government of Ekaternoslva, a province in Russia, had confiscated all the land of the Jewish agriculture colonists who had left for the Argentine Republic.”

1909: In Russia, Mary Sacks and Zangwell Mednick gave birth to Israel Mednick.

1909(20th of Kislev, 5670): Fifty-two-year-old Troy, NY and Williams College and Gottingen University educated historian Dr. Charles Gross, the Harvard professor who has “been regarded as one of the leading authorities on the history of early English institutions and constitutional history” passed away today at the Stillman infirmary.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1909/12/04/106123140.pdf?

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43057858?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

1910(2nd of Kislev, 5671): Parashat Tolodot

1910(2nd of Kislev, 5671): Forty-seven year old Ida Dolce Foa Ghiron, the daughter of Giuseppe and Annetta Foa and the wife of Pacifico Ghiron passed away today after which she was buried next to her father in Piemonte, Italy.

1911: In Calgary, Canada, those attending a meeting at Tabor Hall there was a “protest against religious education in public schools.”

1912: Mrs. Mark A. Cohen performed a vocal solo accompanied by pianist Mrs. Justin Levin at “the third regular meeting of the Ladies’ Society of B’nai Sholom Temple Israel which took place this afternoon in Chicago.

1913: In New York City, Dr. Alexander Marx, the German born son of Georg and Gertrude Marx, and his wife Hannah Marx gave birth to Jakob (Jack) Marx.

1914:  In Boston, George and Charlotte S. Friedman Fine gave birth to composer Irving Gifford Fine.

https://www.irvingfinesoc.org/

https://www.loc.gov/collections/irving-fine/about-this-collection/

1914: The American Jewish Committee appropriates $2,500 for an orphan asylum in Sophia, Bulgaria due to orphans of the Balkan War. This was at the request of the Chief Rabbi, Dr. M. Ehrenpreis.

1914: “Solomon Rabinowitz Here” published today described the arrival in New York of the 54-year-old  author from Kiev called the “Jewish Mark Twain” who like Twain writes under a pen name which in this case is Sholom Aleichem

1914: It was reported today that Solomon Rabinowitz, who writes under the pseudonym “Shalom Aleichem” “was at a health resort near Berlin when Germany declared war on Russia” following which he was arrested and sent to Berlin under guard along with the Russian Minister of Education” and then 24 hours later was put on a train for Denmark.” (This is event has all of the irony of a Shalom Aleichem tale since the Germans did not see any irony in treat the Jewish author as a Russian – a view of his persona not shared by the Czar who ruled over him,)

1914: Among those listed today as contributor to the American Jewish Relief Committee were the Central Jewish Council of Denver, CO; Congregations Sons of Jacob, Galesburg, Il; Committee of Orthodox Jews, Lafayette, IN; Jewish Conference of Minneapolis MN; Jewish War Veterans Committee of Omaha Nebraska; Temple Mount Sinai, El Paso, TX and Alexander Joske, San Antonio, TX who may have been related to Julius Joske who founded Joske’s the San Antonio based department store chain.

1915: Seventy-year-old Theodor Kohn, the seventh Archbishop of Olomouc whose grandfather was Jewish making him the first person of Jewish origins to hold the post passed away today.

1915: “Ford Has A Rival” published today described the plan of Representative Meyer London for mediating a peace in Europe which he will have presented to Congress before Henry Ford’s peace ship can reach Europe.”  (Did this loss of face tied to a Jewish legislator help to fuel Ford’s anti-Semitism?)

1915: In describing the hardships and challenges facing Russia’s war effort, Ernest P. Horrwitz wrote today that “it is not feasible to replace coal” with “timber which is abundant in the Russian forests because the timber trade is almost exclusively in the hands of the Jews and they have been decimated by the most cruel pogroms or expelled from the west and northwest which is the great forest land of Russia.”

1916: “The campaign to raise the final half million of the two million dollars need for the work of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies began” tonight “with a rally at the Thirty-ninth Street Theatre” where Dr. Moses Hyamson delivered the opening prayer, music was provided by the Russian Trio of Eugene, Michael and Arthur Bernstein and hundreds of the attendees responded positively “to the appeal of Leo Arnstein who asked for 2,000 volunteer workers to enlist 20,000 more subscribers in the course of this week.”

1916: Following three years of fundraising, the new annex on St. Mark’s Place of the National Orphan House opened today with a dedication ceremony that included remarks by Judge Gustave Hartman, President of the Israel Orphan Asylum who said that while Jews appreciated the efforts of Christians to care for Jewish orphans “it was incumbent upon the Jews to care for their own people and bring them up in the Jewish faith.”

1916: General Joffre, the commander-in-chief of the French army, who had “raised to the rank of corps commander, two Jewish generals, Cohen and Hyman” and conferred upon General Cohen, who had been wounded 27 times since the start of the war, the order of the Legion of Honor was replaced today by General Robert Nivelle.

1917(18th of Kislev, 5678): In Pine Bluff, AR, eighty-two-year-old Gabe Meyer who had served on the City Council and the School Board passed away today.

1917(18th of Kislev, 5678): Fifty-five-year-old Justine Dreyfus Levy passed away today after which he was buried in the Jewish Cemetery at Natchitoches, LA.

1917: In Austria, Rudolf and Helena Brasse gave birth to Wilhelm Brasse, the unwilling creator of the part of the photographic record of the Holocaust. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/world/europe/wilhelm-brasse-dies-at-94-documented-auschwitz.html?hpw&_r=0

1917: At Temple Emanu-El, Dr. Joseph Silverman, assisted by Rabbi Simon Shlager and Dr. H.G. Enelow officiated at the funeral of “Dr. Henry M. Leipziger, “the founder of the public school lecture courses” in New York City” during which Daniel P. Hayes delivered the eulogy followed by an internment in Bayside Cemetery.

1917: Contrary to some reports the Ottomans had not abandoned their positions outside of Jerusalem as could be seen when the British suffered 300 casualties and were forced to withdraw from the Wadi Zeit because the Turks held the high ground.

1917: “The members of the forty-six teams of men and women who are working to obtain five million dollars before the end of next week for Jewish war relief in Europe and welfare work in the army and navy met at tea” this “afternoon in the Berkeley Arcade” on West 44th Street to review the two days of effort which has raised $1,120,418.50.

1918: Felix Warbrug, the chairman of the Campaign Committee of the Joint Distribution Committee of the American Fund for Jewish War Sufferers announced tonight that the “official information gathered in Europe by the Food Administration is to be turned over to the Jewish War Relief for use in apportioning the fund of five million dollars now being” raised in New York City.

1919: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the French artist who painted “Alice and Elisabeth Cahen d’Anvers” (most commonly referred to as Pink and Blue) passed away.  The painting portrayed the 2 daughters of the banker Louis Raphael Cahen d'Anvers, the blonde, Elisabeth, born in December 1874, and the younger, Alice, in February 1876, when they were respectively six and five years old. The artist produced many portraits for the families of the Parisian Jewish community at the time. Renoir was commissioned to paint many portraits for this family, which he had met through the collector Charles Ephrussi, proprietor of the "Gazette des Beaux-Arts."

1920: Sir Mathew Nathan, the second son of Jonah and Miriam Nathan began serving as the 13th Governor of Queensland (Australia)

1920: Premiere of “Anna Boleyn” German historical film directed by Ernst Lubitsch starring Henny Porten who would refuse to divorce her Jewish husband when the Nazis came to power, as Anne Boleyn

1921(2nd of Kislev, 5682): Parashat Toldot

1921: It was reported today that “compensation of $57,500 has been awarded to Abraham S. Gilbert as special master in the Consolidated Gas case by Judge Julius M. Mayer of the United States Circuit Court, his former law partner.”

1921: Samuel Greenbaum, a Justice of the Supreme Court was among the speakers at a banquet tonight marking a continuation of the Temple Israel’s celebration of its golden jubilee held at the Hotel Astor where an additional $400,000 was raised for the congregation’s building fund.

1922: Birthdate of Henry Anatole Grunwald, an Austrian-born Jewish-American journalist and diplomat perhaps best known for his position as managing editor of TIME magazine and editor in chief of Time, Inc.

1922: Birthdate of Len Lesser, a veteran character actor best known for his recurring role in the 1990s as Uncle Leo on the hit NBC-TV comedy "Seinfeld."

1922: Ethel Jacobs is scheduled to present a paper on Upstream by Ludwig Lewinsohn followed by Aileen Paradise’s piano solo at the meeting of the Young Peoples Congregation of Temple Mizpah’s Studay circle this afternoon.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015005382380;view=1up;seq=3

1922: Silent movie, Hungry Hearts produced by the Goldwyn Company and based on a book of the same name written by Anzia Yezierska opened in Los Angeles. In her short stories and novels, author Anzia Yezierska focused on the challenges faced by young Jewish women trying to navigate between their immigrant families and their desire to become part of America. After a long period of struggling to attain a public voice, Yezierska published Hungry Hearts, a book of short stories, in 1920. Once the book found public attention, it attracted interest from Hollywood. The Goldwyn Company paid $10,000 for the film rights and brought Yezierska to Los Angeles as a $200 per week screen writer. This was the first financial security Yezierska had ever experienced. Despite the excitement of finally being rewarded for her work as a writer, Yezierska was overwhelmed by her portrayal in the popular press as a “sweatshop Cinderella.” She also felt unable to draw upon authentic immigrant experience while ensconced in Hollywood luxury. She returned to New York after a few months. The film Hungry Hearts is notable for its attempts to portray the struggle of immigrant life and for its street scenes that were actually filmed on the Lower East Side. Still many reviewers and Yezierska, herself, objected to the sentimentality of the final script and to a tacked-on happy ending (described by the New York Times as “incredible and mushy”). In Hungry Hearts and her later stories and novels (e.g. Breadgivers, 1925), Yezierska was the first author to present the struggles of immigrant women to a broader American audience. Persea Books began publishing reprints of Yezierska's work in 1975.

https://jwa.org/thisweek/dec/03/1922/anzia-yezierska

1923: In Pittsburgh, PA, Rabbi Wolf Leiter and his wife gave birth to photographer Saul Leiter.

http://www.gallery51.com/index.php?navigatieid=9&fotograafid=15

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/28/arts/saul-leiter-photographer-with-a-palette-for-new-york-dies-at-89.html

1923(25th of Kislev, 5684): Chanukah

1923(25th of Kislev, 5684): Seventy-five-year-old French historian and academic Gustave Blochwho was a professor of Roman history at the Faculté des lettres in Paris” and the father of historian Marc Bloch passed away today.

1923: Today President Calvin Coolidge “remitted the sentence of Controller Charles L. Craig who had been sentenced to “imprisonment for sixty days in jail for contempt of court by Judge Julius M. Mayer” whose ruling was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

1923: In New Jersey, the next entrance examination for the State Normal Schools is scheduled to take place today, which is a Monday, instead of the previously scheduled Saturday because the Jews throughout the state had objected to exams being given on a day which was their Sabbath.

1924: Today, “the United States and Great Britain entered into a convention with respect to Palestine” that “provided that no modification should be made in the League of Nation Mandate unless such modification had been assented to by the United State” and that “the mandate recited ‘the solemn pledge…to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.

1925: George Gershwin's “Piano Concerto in F” is premiered at Carnegie Hall.

1925(16th of Kislev, 5686): Rabbi Kyman Friedman who worked as a Hebrew Teacher and Shochet passed away today.

1926(27th of Kislev, 5687): Third Day of Chanukah

1926(27th of Kislev, 5687): Forty-five-year-old “German writer and theatre critic Siegfried Jacobsohn passed away today.

1927: It was reported today that “Rabbi Zirelson who represented the Bessarabian Jewish community in the Rumanian Senate by virtue of his officed resigned from the Senate following his remarkable address in which he attacked the leaders of the Rumanian anti-Semitic movement.”

1927: Birthdate of “Canadian novelist, humorist and lawyer” whose works include The Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick and who is the father of actress of Sarah Torgov.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/morley-torgov/

1927: Flyweight Pinky Silverberg lost a ten round unanimous decision in a non-title bout at the State Armory, in Bridgeport, CT shortly after which the NBA stripped of his Flyweight Championship making it “the only time that in boxing history that a champion was short of a legitimately won championship do to a poor performance in a non-title bout.”

1928: In Atlantic City, it was Jew versus Jew as featherweight Harry Blitman scored a victory over Wilbur Cohen’

1928: It was reported today that the Schuberts are the producers for “Make Boom Boom” a musical comedy that will begin its pre-Broadway tryouts in Wilmington, Delaware.

1929(1st of Kislev, 5690): Rosh Chodesh Kislev

1929(1st of Kislev, 5690): Seventy-four-year-old Moses Blau passed away today in Hungary.

1929: In London, Moe Mizler fought his 35th bout which he won by KO’ing his opponent.

1930: Rodgers and Hart's musical "Evergreen" premiered in London.

1930: Dr. Nathan Krass officiated at the wedding of “Barbara Wechsler Schiff, daughter of Mrs. Gustave Henry Schiff of New York and the late Mr. Schiff to Frederick Mason Mack.

1931: The list of “Who’s Who” selected by The American Hebrew made public today included “several members of other religious denominations including Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin of the Union Theological Seminary, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., attorney George Gordon Battle, columnist Heywood Broun, Columbia University Professor Carlton J. H. Hayes and George Britt.

1931(23rd of Kislev, 5692): Seventy-eight-year-old Abraham Erlanger the Berman born son of Simon and Rosine Reele Erlanger and the husband of Berth Bela Erlanger passed away today in Lucerne after which he was buried in Maurenu, Switzerland.

1932(4th of Kislev, 5693): Parashat Tolodot

1932: Final performance of Clear All Wires written by Bella and Sam Pewack which had premiered in September on Broadway at Times Square Theatre.

1932(4th of Kislev, 5693): Eighty-three-year-old Max (Gitelman) Silverman, the Russian born son of William and Feiga Rubenstein Gitelman and the husband of Sarah Rifka Skolvsky Silverman who he married in 1904 after the death of his first wife Sima Rivka Plotka Silverman passed away today in Providence, RI after which he was buried in the Lincoln Park Cemetery.

1932: In Lwow, Poland, following a series of anti-Semitic outbreaks, Colleges in the city were reopened today, “but Jewish students did not attend classes.”

1932: Thirty-four students were arrested in Lwow today following “the smashing windowpanes in several newspaper offices and Jewish shops.”

1933(15th of Kislev, 5694): Seventy-four-year-old  Lublin native Emile Meyerson the “author of a philosophical explanation of the Einstein theory of relativity” who had come to Paris in 1882 to work in industrial chemistry before “becoming associated with the Agence Havas French news agency in 1888 passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/12/04/105825119.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1933: Today, Dr. Walther Darre, Reich Minister of Agriculture told a huge gathering of peasants at Hamm, Westphalia that “Jews and Free Masons are arch enemies of the Germany peasantry.”

1934(26th of Kislev, 5695) Second Day of Chanukah

1934: In what is said to be the first clinical conference in medical history devoted to chronic diseases opened this morning at the Montefiore Hospital for Chronic Diseases, Gun Hill Road, the Bronx, and will continue through the week. The conference is the chief scientific feature of the observance of the hospital's fiftieth anniversary.  The hospital was named in honor of the great British born Jewish philanthropist and the original funding was largely raised by the Jewish community.

1935:  Four days after his 68th birthday Horace “Harry” Harris Loeb, the Philadelphia born son of Henrietta and Marx Loeb was buried today.

1935: “Two more ‘German-blooded’ men – to use the new Nazi term for ‘Aryan’” – were sentenced to prison today “for intimate relations with Jewish women.”

1936: “Thomas Mann, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929…was deprived of his citizenship tonight by Dr. Wilhelm Frick, Minister of Interior because “he has repeatedly cooperated in demonstrations of international, generally Jewish-influence, societies whose attitude of enmity to Germany is well known…”

1936: In Atlanta, GA, social worker Arlene (Fox) Uhry and “furniture designer and artist” Ralph K. Uhry gave birth to Brown University alum Alfred Fox Uhry, who “received an Academy Award, two Tony Awards and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for dramatic writing for Driving Miss Daisy.”

1937: Birthdate of British attorney and businessman Stephen Rubin. The founder of Pentland, he struck it rich with Reebok and Adidas.

1937: The Palestine Post reported that a large police unit accompanied by a detachment of Transjordanian Frontier Force, scoured Galilee in pursuit of Arab terrorists that had murdered two Arab policemen and apparently sought to escape to Syria. In London, Major C.S. Jarvis, the former British governor of Sinai, said that after he had seen what the Jewish settlers had done in various arid areas of Palestine, he would strongly recommend a large Jewish settlement of the entire Negev, which ought to be included in the Jewish state in any partition negotiations.

 

1937: The Palestine Post reported that the total official population of Palestine was given at the end of September 1937 as 811,347 Moslems, 389,504 Jews, 108,433 Christians and 11,588 others.

1938: The German government decrees that all Jewish industries, shops, and businesses must be forcibly "Aryanized."

1938: At the Ambassador Theatre, the curtain came down on “You Can't Take It with You” a comedic play in three acts by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart that won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Drama after 838 performances.

1939: In Brooklyn, “Jack and Sylvia Israel” gave birth to  Leonore Carol Israel who gained fame as forger Lee Israel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/arts/lee-israel-a-writer-proudest-of-her-literary-forgeries-dies-at-75.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

http://time.com/5391193/can-you-ever-forgive-me-true-story/

1939: Among the patents issued this week was one issued to Rudoph Feige of Tel Aviv for “a tropical hat with a crown separated from the brim to provide and air circulating slot around the hat…”

1940: Heads of educational institutions and other prominent persons were among the 3,000 attending a funeral service for Rabbi Bernard (Dov) Revel, one of the founders of Yeshiva College which became Yeshiva University.

1940:  Debut of Bugs Bunny with the voice supplied by Mel Blanc. Bugs Bunny was not Jewish but Mel was.

1941: Amidst the misery of the Lodz Ghetto, a newly arrived Viennese Pianist, Leopold Birkenfeld held a concert for his fellow Jews. He played Shubert, Liszt and Beethoven brilliantly.

1942(24th of Kislev, 5703): In the evening, kindle the first Chanukah candle.

1942(24th of Kislev, 5703): The Nazis shot three young girls who had escaped from Poznan labor camp

1942(24th of Kislev, 5703): One thousand Jews from Plonsk, Poland, are killed at Auschwitz.

1942(24th of Kislev, 5703): Salomon Malkes, an official of the Lódz Ghetto, commits suicide after becoming despondent over the deportation of his mother.

1942: Herbert Henry Lehman completed his service as the 45th Governor of New York.

1942: An unknown photographer took a picture of Jews in the Drancy assembly and detention camp which was the departure point for sending French Jews to Auschwitz.  The picture is part of the Yad Vashem Photo Archives.

http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/december/07.asp

1942: In Chatham, NJ, Eleanor and Guy Emery K. Shipler gave birth to Dartmouth graduate David K. Shipler “an American author who won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction in 1987 for Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land who is the husband of Deborah I. Shipler with whom he had three children.

1943: At a meeting with the German ambassador Francisco Franco said, “’Thank God a clear appreciation of dangers caused by Jews led our catholic Kings to insure ‘we have for centuries been relieved of that nauseating burden.’” Oddly enough, Franco actually protected that ‘nauseating burden’ from the clutches of the Final Solution.

1943: Popular American singer Dinah Shore (Frances Rose Shore) the graduate of Vanderbilt University where she was a member of AEPhi, the Jewish sorority, married her first husband today.

1944: Hungarian death march of Jews ends

1944: Beginning of the Greek Civil War in which pro-Soviet Communist forces attempt to destroy the pro-Western government.

1945: Abdul Azzam Bey, Arab League secretary general, announces that member states will boycott all Jewish-produced goods from Palestine beginning January 1, 1946.

1946: Today “The Joint Committee of Jewish Organizations, whose membership includes representatives of nine groups, praised the adoption of clauses by the Council of Foreign Ministers insuring restoration of rights and restitution of property to Jews in Hungary and Rumania in the proposed peace treaties.”

1947(20th of Kislev, 5708): While Jewish workers were evacuating undamaged goods from the Centre a group of Arabs attacked them, killing Yitzhak Penzo,

1947: Broadway Premiere of “A Streetcar Named Desire” which would be revived in London in 1974 with Claire Bloom playing “Blanche DuBois” – a portrayal that led the play’s author to state “I declare myself absolutely wild about Claire Bloom.”

1947: Arab violence continues with an attack on a synagogue in the Old City. Following threats by Arab gangs to burn their dwellings, “Eight Jews living in a house in the Musrara Quarter outside the Damascus Gate were forced to leave their homes”

1947: The Motion Picture Association of America issued The Waldorf Statement, a response to the contempt of Congress charges against the so-called "Hollywood Ten" drafters of which included Louis B. Mayer, Harry Cohn, Nicholas M. Schenck, Barney Balaban, Samuel Goldwyn, Albert Warner, William Goetz, Dore Schary and Mendel Silbergberg.

1948: Mission of the UN Mediator on the Palestine Disaster Relief Project meets with volunteer agencies. Dr. Pierre Descooeudres, chief of mission, reports that refugees in camps do not have good living conditions. More supplies are needed as well as a better system of transporting them. Refugees tend to feel frustrated and isolated, although the goal of the camps is to build a sense of social consciousness.

1949(12th of Kislev, 5710): Parashat Vayetzei

1949(12th of Kislev, 5710): “Yiddish actor, director and producer” Misha Fishzon, who was associated with “Maurice Schwartz’s Yiddish Art Theatre” passed away today in New York

1950(24th of Kislev, 5711): In the evening, Kindle the first Chanukah Candle

1950: Bessarabian born Opera singer Isa Kremer who included Yiddish songs in her repertoire appeared for the last time at Carnegie Hall today before retiring to Argentina to be with her husband, Buenos Aires psychiatrist Dr. Gregorio Bermann.

1951(4th of Kislev, 5712): Sixty-four year old Kovno born and JTS trained rabbi, C. David Matt, “the former president of the Philadelphia Board of Rabbis” and “former associate editor of The American Jewish World” who was the husband of Lena Matt and the father of J. Leonard, Joseph, Hershel, Zelda and Beulah Matt passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/12/04/89473281.pdf

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/matt-c-david

1952: At Rutgers University, “the Special Faculty Committee issued a reported stating that there should be no charges” brought against Moses Finley who had invoked the Fifth Amendment when called to testify before the House Un-American Activity Committee (HUAC) “and that the university should take no further action.”

1952(15th of Kislev, 5713): Rudolph Slansky, former secretary-general of the Czech Communist Party, Rudolf Margolius and 9 of their co-defendants were hanged after a show trial aimed at purging alleged Zionist conspirators.

1952: The Jerusalem Post reported the Israeli denial that its troops crossed the armistice lines in the vicinity of Jerusalem and tried to lay mines in Jordanian-occupied territory. The Israeli spokesman complained, however, that Jordan failed to control the scores of infiltrators who crossed the armistice lines every night in order to rob and murder. Only a week earlier, infiltrators killed two Israeli watchmen in the Jerusalem 'corridor' and escaped over the lines to Jordan. At the UN Mexico urged Arab states to consider seriously the recent Israeli peace offer. The Mexican delegate, Dr. Luis Quintamilla, pointedly asked why the Arabs always 'see evil' and automatically reject any Israeli proposal in which there might be at least some good for all concerned.

1953(26th of Kislev, 5713) Second Day of Chanukah

1953(26th of Kislev, 5713): Seventy-two year old Charleston native and U. of West Virginia graduate and the Naval Academy Commander Hugo Frankenberger who was a classmate of Admiral Chester Nimitz and a veteran of both World Wars passed away today.

1954: Birthdate of Bronx native and New York State Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz

1956: As part of the end of the Suez Crisis England and France pull troops out of Egypt.  Israeli forces remain in the Sinai.

1956(29th of Kislev, 5717): Fifth day of Chanukah

1956(29th of Kislev, 5717): Sixty-five-year-old “painter, sculptor, designer and photographer” Alexander Rodchenko passed away today.

http://www.all-art.org/art_20th_century/rodchenko1.html

1956(29th of Kislev, 5717): Seventy-eight-year-old German Jewish mathematician Felix Bernstein who went to the United States during the Hitler period passed away today in Zurich.

1957: A recording of  “Catch a Falling Start” written by Lee Pockriss was released today

1957: “The Naked Truth” a British comedy co-starring Peter Sellers with music by Stanley Black was released in the United Kingdom today by J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors.

1958: Rabbi Ya’akov Moshe Toledano was appointed Minister of Religions.

1958(21st of Kislev, 5719): Terrorist killed one and injured thirty-one others in an attack on Gonen, a kibbutz in northern Israel in the Upper Galilee.

1959: “I Married A Woman” an American comedy directed by Hal Katner with a script by Goodman Ace was shown for the first time in Sweden.

1960: Lerner and Loewe’s musical hit Camelot opens for the first of 873 performances at the Majestic Theatre in New York City

1961(25th of Kislev, 5722): Chanukah for the first time during the Presidency of JFK.

1961: The Beetles meet their future agent Brian Epstein.

1962: “25,000 Mourners At Kotler’s Rites” published today described the funeral for Rabbi Aaron Kotler.

1964: Three days after he had passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning for ninety-four-year-old pediatrician Sidney Valentine Haas, the Columbia trained doctor who made great strides in the treatment of celiac disease.

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/12/01/dr-sidney-valentine-haas-dies.html

1966(20th of Kislev, 5727): Parashat Vayeshev

1966(20th of Kislev, 5727): Eighty-six-year-old Morton David Cahn, the son of Joseph and Miriam Cahn and the husband of Julia Elizabeth Cahn passed away today in his native Chicago.

1967: Surgeons in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christian Barnard, performed the first human heart transplant. Louis Washkansky lived 18 days with the new heart.  Washkansky was a Jew who had been born in Lithuania. 

1967(1st of Kislev, 5728): Seventy-eight-year-old Julius Bernstein, the Leeds born son of Leah Harris and Aaron George Bernstein, the husband of Nellie Levi and brother of Felix, Joseph and Roland Bernstein who reached the rank of Warrant Officer 2nd Class while serving with the Royal Fusiliers passed away today

1968: Hunter Hawker Jets of the Royal Jordanian Air Force attack IAF craft as they bomb PLO terror camps in Jordan.

1969(23rd of Kislev, 5730): Vilna born researcher and journalist “Mortkhe (Mordecai) Kosover passed away today in New York.

http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2019/02/mortkhe-mordecai-kosover.html

1970: The world of detectives took on Jewish look when The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, written by I.A.L. Diamond and directed and produced by Billy Wilder appeared in theatres in the United Kingdom for the first time.

1970(5th of Kislev, 5731): Seventy-eight-year-old Myrtle Gernsbacher Brav, the New Orleans born daughter of Helena and A.H. Gernsbacher and wife of Louis Brav, who was the Rabbi at Temple Sinai in Lake Charles, LA and a Professor of Romance Languages at Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin passed away today after which she was buried at the Adath Jeshurun Cemetery in Philadelphia.

1971: The funeral of Tilda Hirtenstein, the wife of Max Hirtenstein and the former President of Sisterhood of the Jamaica Jewish Center is scheduled to take place at Schwartz Brother Forest Park Chapel.

1972(27th of Kislev, 5733): Third Day of Chanukah

1972: Today Miss Florence Phillis Beechler married Dr. Louis Jerome Steinfelder, the son of Dr. Jacob Steinfelder who had served “as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Medical Reserve Corps and was the “inspiration for the book Family Doctor.”

1974(19th of Kislev, 5735): Rosh Hashanah of Chassidism

1974(19th of Kislev, 5735): Netherlands native Cecile J. Seiberling, the daughter of Jacobus and Alice Berlage and the wife of Maurice Wertheim passed away today.

1974: As to the Soviet crackdown on all dissidents including refusniks, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was deported from the U.S.S.R. and stripped of his citizenship.

1974: Birthdate of “French journalist and television personality” Marie Drucker the daughter of television executive Jean Drucker and the niece of television journalist Michel Drucker.

1975(29th of Kislev, 5736): Fifth Day of Chanukah

1975(29th of Kislev, 5736): Ninety-two year old Solon De Leon, the son of labor leader Daniel De Leon, whose “most lasting contribution was The American Labor Who's Who which is a registry or directory of people involved in the American Labor Movement” passed away today in Ellenville, NY.

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_092/

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=De%20Leon%2C%20Solon%2C%201883-

1976: After premiering in New York in November, “Rocky” the boxing movie produced by Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff was released in the United States today.

1977: Six people were injured when terrorists set off a bomb in a Jerusalem market.

1977: President Tito of Yugoslavia began a two day tour of Romania during which he said "Israel exists for many years as a genuine fact, is recognized by the UN and is a member of it; any other view would be unrealistic. Thus, all the Arab states must recognize Israel as a state."

1978: In Yonkers, the Greystone Actors Studio is scheduled to perform “Light Up the Sky,” a comed by Moss Hart.

1979(13th of Kislev, 5740): Seventy-three-year-old of Minnesota trained physician and WW II veteran Stewart Theodore Ginsberg, the St. Paul born son of Jacob and Mollie (Balkind) Ginsberg who was the “Clinical professor of psychiatry at Emory University and husband of Ada Leach Leach with whom he raised three children – Barbara, Janet and Mark – passed away today.

1981: Edward Roy Becker who authored the decision on Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia v. Chester County, ruling that the display of Ten Commandments outside of a courthouse of Chester County did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, was confirmed as Judge of the United States Court of Appeals in the Third Circuit.

1981: Birthdate of Plainfield, NJ native and Brown University graduate Stephen Levin, a distant relative of Michigan political leaders Carl and Sander Levin who began serving as a New York City Councilman in 2010.

1983(27th of Kislev, 5744): Parashat Miketz and Shabbat shel Channukah

1984(9th of Kislev, 5745): Sixty-five-year-old Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin one of the leading Soviet mathematicians, working in the fields of topology, geometry and ergodic theory passed away.

1985: Michael Dekel and Weizman Shiry began serving as Deputy Ministers of Defense.

1985: Jack Anderson described the work of Zwi Kanar, a mime who survived 6 concentration camps.

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/03/arts/mime-zwi-kanar.html?pagewanted=print

1985(20th of Kislev, 5746): Eighty-four-year-old Rabbi Phillip S. Bernstein who worked to settle displaced Jews after WW II, passed away today.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1985-12-05/news/8503240224_1_rabbi-emeritus-jewish-institute-golda-meir

1988: Five Soviet hijackers seized a bus full of schoolchildren, exchanged their hostages for a cargo plane and more than $3 million in ransom, then flew here today and surrendered to Israeli authorities.

1989: Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama, From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas L. Friedman, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East 1914-1922 by David Fromkin and The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick are among the thirteen books chosen by the New York Times Book Review as the best books published in the country during the preceding year

1990(16th of Kislev, 5751): One Israeli was killed and five were wounded today in a stabbing attack aboard a bus in Israel, officials said. The police said three West Bank Palestinians climbed aboard the bus just outside Tel Aviv this morning, rode a few stops sitting in the back, then got up screaming "Allah Akhbar," or God is great, as they drew knives and stabbed four Jewish passengers. One of the Israelis, a 24-year-old student at a religious school, died in a hospital a short time later.

1990: Birthdate of Canadian professional tennis player Sharon Fichman.

1992: The SEC filed a complaint against Salomon Brothers trader Paul Mozer “for filling false bids.”

1993: “A Dangerous Woman” a film version of the novel of the same name with a screenplay by Naomi Foner, co-starring Debra Winger and Barbara Hershey and featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jake Gyllenhaal was released in the United States today.

1994(30th of Kislev, 5755): Rosh Chodesh Tevet and Shabbat Chanukah – three Torah scrolls

1994(30th of Kislev, 5755): Seventy-three year old German born Anglo-Jewish historian Sir Geoffrey Elton who specialized in the Tudors passed away today.

http://www.ucc.ie/chronicon/elton.htm

1995(10th of Kislev, 5756): Matityahu Shmuelevitz, a close aide to the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin, passed away today at the age of 75.  Yehiel Kadishai, a longtime Begin spokesman, said that doctors at Tel Aviv's Tel Hashomer Hospital, where Mr. Shmuelevitz was taken after he collapsed on Saturday, reported that the cause of death was a blood clot. From 1980 to 1983, Mr. Shmuelevitz served as chief of the Prime Minister's office under Mr. Begin. The Polish-born Mr. Shmuelevitz immigrated to Palestine, then ruled by Britain, in 1938 and joined the Lehi, a right-wing Jewish underground group that was also known as the Stern gang. He was imprisoned by the British in 1940, escaped in 1943 and was wounded and recaptured in 1944. He was sentenced to death for firing at a British officer and carrying illegal arms. His sentence was commuted to life, but he escaped from jail in February 1948. He was a businessman for many years afterward.

1995: Zola: A Life by Frederick Brown, Sabbath’s Theatre by Philip Roth Overcoming Law by Richard A. Posner are among the twelve books chosen by the New York Times Book Review to the best books published in the country during the preceding year.

1995(10th of Kislev, 5756): Seventy-year-old Max Posin, the owner of Posin’s Delicatessen, a Washington, DC landmark whose bagels, bialys and fresh bake onion rolls were an integral part of the author of this blog’s childhood passed away today.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1995/12/05/max-posin-dies/44e332e0-bf0d-4725-8266-bde007ca684f/

http://jewishfoodexperience.com/posins-legen-dairy-dc/

 1997(4th of Kislev, 5758): Eighty-eight-year-old CCNY all-star basketball player Louis “Lou” Spindell who went onto play professionally in the American Basketball League in the 1930’s passed away today.

1997(4th of Kislev, 5758): Eighty-eight-year-old Russian-born American “social activist” Abraham Bluestein, who finally married his longtime “companion” Selma Cohen, passed away today. (As reported by Robert McG. Thomas, Jr.)

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/14/nyregion/abraham-bluestein-88-dies-an-advocate-of-anarchism.html

1997: Michael Abraham Levy, Baron Levy made his maiden speech in the House of Lords.

1998: U.S. premiere of “Shakespeare in Love” co-produced by Harvey Weinstein and Edward Zwick and co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow.

1999(24th of Kislev, 5760): In the evening, kindle the first light of Chanukah

1999: “The End of the Affair” a cinematic version of the novel by the same name featuring Jason Isaacs with music by Michael Nyman was released today in the United States.

1999(24th of Kislev, 5760): Actress and comedian Madeline Kahn passed away.

http://jwa.org/discover/infocus/comedy/kahn.html

1999(24th of Kislev, 5760): Sixty-seven-year-old “Lebanese Brazilian Jewish banker” Edmond J. Safra passed away in Monaco.

http://www.edmondjsafra.org/

2000: The New York Times list of the Best Books of 2000 contains the following works about Jewish related subjects or by Jewish authors including The Human Stain by Phillip Roth and One Palestine Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate by Tom Segev.

2001(18th of Kislev, 5762): Ninety-year-old Gerhart Moritz Riegner theWorld Jewish Congress official who was the first to warn an incredulous world that Nazi Germany had formally decided at the highest levels to annihilate Europe's Jews” passed away in Geneva today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/05/obituaries/05RIEG.html

2001: After having received information about an impending government raid on the Holy Land Foundation, Judith Miller telephone the organization for a comment following which the New York Times published an article about it in the late edition.

2001: In the wake of bombings that killed 26 Israelis, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared war on terror.

2002(28th of Kislev, 5763): Fourth Day of Chanukah

2002: Following predictions by Israeli officials of a new tide of violence “coinciding with the end of Ramadan” today Israeli troops killed a terrorist who was wearing an Israeli Army uniform” and “carrying
an automatic rifle and grenades.”

2002: Graveside services are scheduled to be held day at Beth Israel Cemetery in Woodbridge, NJ for Robert M. Wolfe, the husband of Rita Winokur Wolf.

2003: A party was held in honor of Abe Pollin's 80th birthday at the Verizon Center. A slideshow was presented about the history of Abe's career as owner of the Bullets/Wizards. Tony Bennett also performed there as the guest entertainer.

2004: “The Merchant of Venice” a cinematic version of the famous play directed by Michael Radford was released today in the United Kingdom.

2004(20th of Kislev, 5765): Chaim Madar the chief rabbi of Tunisia's Jewish community, passed away today in Jerusalem.  His funeral services were held at the Beit Mordekhai Synagogue in La Goulette, Tunis, and the El Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba where he lived for most of his life. Among those extending their condolences was Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. According to some, the Jewish community dates back to the time of the destruction of the First Temple.

2005: Sharon Fichman was the runner-up in today’s tennis tournament at Rama HaSharon, “home to the Israel Tennis Center.

2005: Today, Israel reiterated threats made last week to block Palestinians from access to the Karni and Erez crossings if the flow of terrorists into Gaza continues.

2006: (12 Kislev): Yahrzeit for Rabbi Solomon Shechter. Schechter’s life is too richly textured to do more than just hit the highlights in this short blurb.  He was born in 1847 and died at the age of 68 in 1915 in New York City.  He gained fame in 1896 because of his work with the opening of the Genizah attached to the ancient Egyptian Ben Ezra Synagogue. In 1902 he moved to the US to head the new Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, which became the home of Conservative Judaism. He turned the struggle Rabbinic school into a first rate academic institution.  In 1913, he founded the United Synagogue of America, the umbrella organization of the Conservative Movement. By the time he died in New York in 1915, he had changed the face of American Judaism in attempting to find a middle road between Reform and Orthodox while raising the educational and cultural level for all Jews regardless of their level of observance or involvement.

2006: The Washington Post’s selections for best non-fiction in 2006 include: Sweet and Low: A Family Story, by Rich Cohen, The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977, by Gershom Gorenberg, The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East, by Sandy Tolan, Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide, by Jeffrey Goldberg,The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, by Daniel Mendelsohn; Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After the Holocaust, by Jan T. Gross, My Father Is a Book: A Memoir of Bernard Malamud, by Janna Malamud Smith.

2006: The Israel Cancer Research Funds’ “Celebration of Life-Tower of Hope Ball” is held at the Pierre Hotel.

2007: An exhibition styled “The Art of Rabbi Shnoi Labowitz” presented by The Jewish Museum of Florida comes to an end.

2007: “The Farnsworth Invention” a play by Aaron Sorkin about how David Sarnoff stole the original invention that made possible the transmission of television signals opened on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre with Hank Azaria in the role of Sarnoff.

2007:  Sixty-one years after he was buried at a cemetery in southeast Washington, the exhumed remains of Stephen Theodore Norman, the only grandchild of Theodor Herzl will be flown to Israel following services at Adas Israel in Washington, D.C.

2008: Nicholas F. Tabman completed his service as the United States Ambassador to Romania.

2008: At Princeton. N.J., The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs presents "Israel and Palestine at a Crossroad" - A panel discussion with Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al-Quds University; former US ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer of Princeton University; and Itamar Rabinovitch, former Israeli ambassador to the US.

2008: In New York, The American Sephardi Federation presents a showing of Jews of Lebanon (Le Petite Histoire des Juifs du Liban) a film that recounts the demise of the Lebanese Jewish community over the last four decades when it went from a community of 8,000 in the 1960’s to a mere 60 at the start of the of the 21st century with most of its members now in “exile to many countries.”

2008: Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, a leading Orthodox thinker and an early champion of women's rights, who passed away on Monday at the age of 98 was buried in Jerusalem.

 

2009: Activist Greg Mortenson, author (with David Oliver Relin) of "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time," reads from and discusses his new book, "Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan," at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.

 

2009: The Israel-America Chamber of Commerce presents “US & Israel: Confronting Challenges,” a daylong “symposium” that will identify current challenges in order to secure our economic future.”

 

2009: The Israel-America Award is presented to Kenneth J. Bialkin, Chairman, America-Israel Friendship League, for his continuous support of the State of Israel and his outstanding contribution to the economic growth between the US and Israel.

 

2009: Opening of the 20th Washington Jewish Film Festival.

 

2009: Alan Gross was taken into custody by Cuban authorities.  Although not formally charged, the Cubans reportedly are claiming that he is linked to espionage activities involving the Cuban Jewish community.

 

2010: As part of the 21st Washington Jewish Film Festival British filmmaker Rex Bloomstein is scheduled to present a program entitled “Humor, Identity and the Holocaust”

 

2010: At the 92nd Street Y Light the menorah and Shabbat candles, eat latkes and challah, and celebrate Hanukkah and Shabbat at the same time!

2010: “Is Greed Godly?” published today, David E.Y. Sarna examines the relationship between white-collar crime and Jewish law.

http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/is-greed-godly/

2010: As Alan Gross prepares to mark the first anniversary of captivity at the hand of Cuban authorities, the leaders of Cuba’s  two main Jewish groups both denied having worked with a jailed American contractor whose family says he was on the island to hand out communication equipment to Jewish organizations. 

2010: The Carmel fire was spreading late tonight from the direction of Haifa University towards the neighborhood of Denya in the city.

2010(26th of Kislev, 5771): Eighty-one-year-old “Elaine Kaufman, who became something of a symbol of New York as the salty den mother of Elaine’s, one of the city’s best-known restaurants and a second home for almost half a century to writers, actors, athletes and other celebrities” passed away today (As reported by Enid Nemy)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/04/nyregion/04kaufman.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

2010: A Princeton student referendum on whether to ask the university’s dining services to provide an alternative brand of hummus to Sabra was defeated. Some 1,014 students voted against the referendum and 699 students were in favor during the three days of voting last week, according to results announced today

 public officials and tax evasion,” Jack Abramoff was released from prison today after which “he wrote the autobiographical book Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From America's Most Notorious Lobbyist which was published in November 2011.

2011: The first weekend of this year’s Hamshoushalayim is scheduled to come to an end.

2011: “Kaddish for a Friend” is one of four movies scheduled to be shown tonight at the 22nd Washington Jewish Film Festival.

2011: The JNF is scheduled to present “Modifying Afforestation Practices in Adaptation to Climate Change,” a program that demonstrates the techniques of JNF and Israel use to keep forests healthy in semi-arid regions, particularly when the regions encounter disasters such as last year’s Carmel fire.

2011: The traditional minyan at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA is to celebrate “Jewish Book Month Shabbat” with special honor to Living Jewish Literary Legends – Sir Martin Gilbert and Herman Wouk.

2011: Israel Police and the Knesset Guard assigned Meretz MK Zehava Gal-On a bodyguard today, following threats on her life.

2011: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on today that Iran is getting closer to developing a nuclear bomb, and that new and more crippling sanctions should be imposed on the Islamic Republic.

2012:The Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation is scheduled to sponsor a speech by Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post columnist and Professor of Public Affairs and International Relations at George Mason University entitled “ The Voters Have Spoken: What Is Our Economic Policy Now?”

2012(19th of Kislev, 5773): Yud-Tet-Kislev sometimes referred to as the Rosh Hashanah of Chassidism” celebrating the release Rabbi Schneur Zalman Liadi, the found of Chabad Chassidism from the prison of the Czar

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/335659/jewish/19-Kislev-The-New-Year-of-Chassidism.htm

2012(19th of Kislev): Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Dov Ber ben Avraham, the Maggid of Mezeritch who followed the Baal Shem Tov as the leader of the Chassidim.

2012: Bob Filner begins serving as the 35th Mayor of San Diego, CA.

2012: The Broadway cast of Stephen Sondheim’s “Assassins” “reunited for a special benefit performance.

2012: 2012: Australia’s largest natural gas and oil company, Woodside Petroleum, has taken a 30 percent stake in Israel’s Leviathan off-shore gas drilling operation, it was announced today. Located in the Mediterranean 130 km. west of Haifa, Leviathan is estimated to contain up to 17 trillion cubic feet of usable natural gas, making it one of the largest fields in the world.

2012: Israeli security forces continue to foil Arab road terror attempts, including an attempted axe-murderer and a briefcase bomb under a bridge.

2013(30th of Kislev, 5774): Rosh Chodesh Tevet

2013: “New Israeli ambassador to America Ron Dermer presented his credentials this afternoon to US President Barack Obama, officially taking over the role as the Jewish state’s top US envoy.” (As reported by Lazar Berman)

2013: A letter was written today to Ontario MPP Peter Shuman admonishing him “for claiming mileage from his Niagara-on-the-Lake home to Toronto as an expense, something specifically cleared by the Legislative Finance Department.”

2013: Rabbi Yonah Grossman of the Chabad Jewish Center of North Dakota shows that he takes the appellation “lamplighter” literally at Grand Forks where he is scheduled to lead the community in the lighting of a Menorah in the Lincoln Drive Park Warming House.

2013: “Life of the Jews in Palestine: 1913,” documentary about First and Second Aliyah, is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.

2013: French forensic tests have concluded that former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat did not die of poisoning, as had been suggested by an earlier report, a source who saw the conclusions of the report said today.

2013(30th of Kislev, 5774): Sixty-six-year-old actor and comedian Sefi Rivlin passed away today.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/174778#.Up5uaJuA2po
2014: Dr. Brian Horowitz, the chairman of the Tulane University Jewish Studies Department is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Jabotinsky: The Final Years” tonight in New Orleans.

2014(11th of Kislev, 5775): Eighty-four-year-old psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden who was a partner of Ayn Rand’s in more ways than one passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/us/nathaniel-branden-ayn-rands-collaborator-and-paramour-dies-at-84.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
2014: The Museum of the City of New York is scheduled to host Jeffrey Shandler speaking on “Coming of Age in Poland: Jewish Life Stories from the 1930’s.”

2014: “Palestinian teen stabbed two people and was shot by an off-duty security guard at a West Bank supermarket this afternoon in what Israeli police said was an apparent terror attack.” (As reported by Lazar Berman)

2014: “Knesset members voted overwhelmingly in favor of dissolving the current Knesset in a premliminary vote today.”

2014: “Congress was poised to give its final approval this afternoon to a bill that supporters say will create a unique status for Israel and serve as a framework for increased partnership in a number of key sectors, particularly energy and defense

2014: The bris and baby naming ceremony for the son of Arik and Samarya Shalom is scheduled to take place at the Chabad Jewish Center in Little Rock under the leadership of Rabbi Pinchas Ciment.

2015: Toronto Blue Jays President and CEO Mark Shapiro selected the sixth person to serve as the team’s general manager.

2015: Sixty-year-old Monte Hanson a Jewish Montana man who had pleaded guilty to shoot a bartender and killing his dog because he was served a non-kosher drink (a beverage containing clam juice) was sentenced to 20 years in state prison today. (JTA)

2015: A trio consisting of “pianist Evgeny Kissin, violinist Itzhak Perlman, and cellist Mischa Maisky” is scheduled to perform at Carnegie Hall in Manhattan.

2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Chronicling a Dead City: The Fate of the Dubovo Shtetl in 1919” in which” Elissa Bemporad (Queens College, CUNY) examines the fate of the Ukrainian shtetl of Dubovo during the Russian Civil War in a micro study of one shtetl that sheds light on future conditions for Soviet Jewry, and the Holocaust in Ukraine.

2015: In New York, the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is scheduled to host a lecture by Dr. Jehuda Reinharz on “Statesman Without a State: The Case of Chaim Weizmann.”

2015: In New Orleans, LA, the Jewish Children’s Regional Service, one of the most worthwhile agency of its kind in the United States, is scheduled to host “Latkes With a Twist” featuring the cooking of Chef Daniel Esses and the singing of Israeli Eleanor Tallie.

2016(3rd of Kislev, 5777): Shabbat Toldot;

2016(3rd of Kislev, 5777): Eighty-eight-year-old U.S. Federal Judge Leonard B. Sand passed away today in Sleepy Hollow, NY.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/nyregion/judge-leonard-sand-dead-yonkers-housing.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2016: In Atlanta, GA, The William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum is scheduled to celebrate its 20th anniversary with a gala dinner honoring Jarvin Levison “whose work with Elinor and Bill Breman was instrumental in the founding of the Breman Museum.”

2016: The 10th Annual Other Israel Film Festival is scheduled to host a panel discussion on “The Power of Film at the JCC Manhattan followed by a screening of “The Writer.”

2016: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to host “an Educator Workshop on Elie Wiesel’s Night from the internationally-renowned Holocaust education curriculum, Echoes and Reflections.”

2017: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson, Annie Leibovitz: Portraits 2006-2016 by Annie Leibovitz, Ali by Jonathan Eig, Sense of Occasion by Harold Prince, Bad Rabbi And Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press by Eddy Portnoy and Jewish Comedy: A Serious History by Jeremy Dauber.

2017: In Coralville, IA, Dr. Robert Cargill is scheduled to lecture on “The Wisdom of Ben Sira:

Ethnical Reflections in Early Judaism” as part of the series examining “ancient books dropped from the Tanakh ‘in peer review.’”

2017: Fiona Murphy, the director of “Remember Baghdad” and Edwin Shuker a member “of Baghdad’s once flourishing Jewish community are scheduled to participate in “a Q and A at the Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley.

http://rememberbaghdad.com/

2017: The Jewish Genealogical Society of Georgia is scheduled to meet at the Breman Museum,

2017: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present The Jew of Malta, by Christopher Marlowe, “performed in a staged-reading version, adapted by and starring David Serero as Barabas and featuring Sephardi songs sung by the baritone opera star.”

2017: Jewish Book Month, an annual event that provides us with a chance to contemplate Jewish books and the lives of authors such as Frederic Raphael whose works included A Jew Among Romans: The Life and Legacy of Flavius Josephus continues today.

2018(25th of Kislev, 5779): First Day of Chanukah

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/recipes-for-chanukah-orange-dreidel-biscuits/

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/recipes-for-chanukah-crispy-avocado-wedges/

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/recipes-for-chanukah-mini-cheese-arancini-balls/

2018: According to a “poll conducted by the Jewish People Policy Institute,” “73% of Israeli” Jews will be lighting their Chanukah menorahs.

2018: The Center Jewish History, the Jewish Studies Program of Cornell University and YIVO are scheduled to present a musical adaptation of I.L. Peretz’s “Monish” with “a score created by Sanford Margolis.

2018: In Chevy Chase, MD, Ohr Kodesh is scheduled to host the first session of “Well Red-Hebrew Poetry and Wine” where attendees “will discuss poems by Agi Mis'hol and Yehuda Amichai,”

2019: Today, actress and comedian Tiffany Haddish became a bat mitzvah on her 40th birthday.

https://jwa.org/thisweek/tiffany-haddish-becomes-bat-mitzvah

2019: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a “Dine and Discuss led by the Chaplains” who will lead a discussion on “Tikkun Olam.”

2019: In Metairie, LA, the Chabad Jewish Center is scheduled to offer the class “Worrier to Warrior: Jewish Secrets to Feeling Good However You Feel.”

2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Marriage Story” directed by Noah Baumbach.

2020: The Illinois Holocaust Museum in partnership with Pritzker Military Museum and Library is scheduled to host a virtual lunch and learn on “Pearl Harbor – The Surprise Military Strike That Led The US To War.”

2020: Tradition Kitchens and The Breman Museum are scheduled to present Carol Nemo as she teaches us how to make her delicious Toffee Matzah Crunch (Yum!) -- a winter holiday treat inspired by tradition!

2020: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to host the “Minyan with Cantorial Soloist Abbie Strauss.

2020: Co-founder Evan Bloom is scheduled to show how to make kimchi latkes and shares ideas for Hanukkah-oriented toppings in a video chat with S.F. Chronicle’s Janelle Bitker

2020: Live on Zoom, the Ackman and Ziff Geology Insitute and Yad Vashem are scheduled to host “Family History Today: What’s New on Yad Vashem’s Shoah Names Database.”

2020: The New England Conservatory is scheduled to present an online concert, “Forbidden Songs: Jewish Voices Uncensored.”

2020: The first virtual event in the Library of Congress Behind the Book series is scheduled to begin with a focus on Great American Editors featuring legendary editor Robert Gottlieb in conversation with one of his best-known writers, Robert A. Caro, author of the critically acclaimed biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson.

2020: Via Zoom Tiffany Harris, the Chief Program officer of the Moishe House is scheduled to present “The Colors of Jews: Being a Minority in a Minority.”

2020: NFTY is scheduled to present “NFTY East Area Open Space Youth Professionals.”

2020: The Other Israel Film Festival is scheduled to begin today online.

2020: It would appear today that Israel is teetering on the brink of another political crisis following yesterday’s approval by the Knesset of “a bill to dissolve itself” which could lead to the fourth parliamentary election in less than two years.

2021: As part of the Young Artists in Concert series, the Eden Tamir Center is scheduled to host Singers of the “Meitar” Opera Studio of the Israel Opera which will include an “operatic journey from Rossini to Puccini with a Neapolitan desert.

2021: Following services, The Chabad of the Tri-Valley is scheduled “a Greek Shabbat Hanukkah Dinner,” that includes fish a la spetsiota, avgolemeno, moussaka, baklava, halvah, sufganiyot, wine and more.

2021: The Jewish Arts Collaborative is scheduled to present online “artists Emily Bhargava and Tova Speter, the creators behind “Brighter Revealed,” part of the JArts Hanukkah 2021 celebration” who share the process of working with students across the Greater Boston area in creating this project.

2021: Lockdown University is scheduled to host a webinar on the Parsha of the Week with Rabbi Shippel.

2021: In partnership with Menemsha Films, The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County is scheduled to host a screening of “The Crossing” as part of the Hanukah Film Festival.

2021: Temple Emanu-El is scheduled to host “a special Festival of Lights Shabbat service that will feature a performance of Chanukah songs, as well as “Sabbath Prayer” and “Sunrise, Sunset,” by Steven Skybell, who played Tevye in the recent National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene production of Fiddler on the Roof, Jennifer Babiak, who portrayed Golde and Lauren Jeanne Thomas, der fidler.”

2021(29th of Kislev, 5782):  Fifth Day of Chanukah

2022: Tulane University, the home of the Tulane Jewish Studies Department, is scheduled to play for the championship of the American Athletic Conference on ABC which could lead to a bowl bid.

2022: The Eden-Tamir Center is scheduled to present a chamber music concert featuring “The Three B’s” – Beethoven, Brahms and Bach.

2022: In New Orleans, PJ Library kids and the adults who love them are scheduled to attend a Pajama Havdalah Concert by renowned musical entertainer Rabbi Cantor Judy Caplan Ginsburg

2022(9th of Kislev, 5783): Parashat Va-yaytzay (lit "left")

2023: The New York Times features reviews of books and audiobooks by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Jezebel by Megan Barnard.

2023: The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host the opening an exhibition “On the Lower East Side: Twenty-Eight Remarkable Women….and One Scoundrel” featuring the works of artist of Adrienne Ottenberg.

2023: The exhibition “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” is scheduled to come to an end at the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC.

2023: The Jewish National Fund-USA planned Global Conference for Israel which has turned into a weekend of solidarity is scheduled to come to an end.

2023: The JWI Leadership Conference is scheduled to take place today.

2023: The New York Times “Eight New Books to Read List” includes Everywhere An Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood by David Mametn.

2023: The New York Times list of “ten best books of 2023” included The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Johnathan Rosen.

2023: As December 3 begins in Israel, based on yesterday’s attacks, Israeli civilians prepare to deal with more rocket attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah, stories concerning the barbaric conditions under which the hostages were held that include “the branding of children” are made public while the rest of the Hamas held hostages begin day 58 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)

2024: The Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation Authors’ Series, honoring Theodore and Caroline Newhouse and Susan Newhouse are scheduled to sponsor a presentation by novelist Roxana Robinson

2024: The World Jewish Congress - North America, American Sephardi Federation, the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations, Israel’s Consulate General at New York, and the Moise Safra Center are scheduled to present: “Remembering The Forgotten Jewish Refugees: The Next Generation.’

2024: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host: “THE "JEW-HUNT" POGROM IN AMSTERDAM AND BEYOND: IT COULD HAPPEN HERE” WITH JONATHAN GREENBLATT

AND BRET STEPHENS.”

2024: The American Jewish Historical Society with the Glucksman Ireland House and the Kansas City Irish Center are scheduled to present, Opening Doors: The Unlikely Alliance Between the Irish and the Jews in America with author Hasia R. Diner in conversation with Terry Golway.:

2024: As December 3rd  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, demonstrations at a high school production of “The Diary of Anne Frank” and the beating of a college student in Chicago sweeps the United States and the Hamas held hostages begin day 424 in captivity while Israelis brace for more rocket attacks by Hezbollah, Iran and terrorists based in Iraq  (Editor’s note: this situation is too fluid for this blog to cover so we are just providing a snapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time)

 

 

 

 

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