May 23
142 BCE (23rd of Iyar): Simon
the Hasmonean drove the Syrians and their allies out the citadel which was
their last stronghold in Jerusalem.
1052: Birthdate of Philip I, King of France who
passed away in 1108. Philip’s life overlapped that of Rashi
(1040-1105). In his day, Philip certainly was more powerful than the
wine merchant of Troyes. But how many people study Philip today and how many
Rashi read. Philip was the king during the First
Crusade. However, he was not allowed to participate because Pope
Urban II had excommunicated him. This may account, to some extent, why the Jews
of France did not suffer in the same as did their Germanic co-religionist
during what turned out to be the start of one of the deadliest periods of
Jewish history.
1275: King Edward I of England ordered the
cessation of persecution of Jews of Bordeaux, France. This was at a
time when English kings still had holdings in France and dreams of sitting on
the French throne. This is the same Edward who will eventually banish the Jews
from England after draining them of all of their wealth.
1420: Albert V (Austria) accused a rich Jew,
Israel of Enns, of purchasing a wafer in order to desecrate it. All the Jews in
the territory were jailed, dispossessed of their property, separated from their
families and then subjected to attempts at forced conversion.
1420: At the behest of the Church, Duke
Albrecht ordered the forcible conversion of the Jews of Austria. Those that had
not converted or escaped or been sent off in the boats were burned at the stake
on March 12, 1421, and their beautiful synagogue destroyed.
1421: Those Jews still remaining in Austria
were imprisoned and/or expelled.
1423: Benedict XIII, the Avignon-based
"antipope" known for his relentless persecution of the Jews died
today.
1498: Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican monk who
was a violent opponent of the comparatively philo-Semitic Pope Alexander VI was
convicted as a heretic and burned at the stake on the Piazza della Signoria in
Florence.
1510: Emperor Maximilian of Germany rescinded a
previously issued order to burn all Hebrew books.
1524: Ismail I, Shah of Persia and founder of
the Safavid dynasty passed away. Conditions for the Jews of Persia declined
under the Safavids when they adopted Shia Islam as the state religion. “Shi'ism
assigns importance to the issues of ritual purity ― tahara. Non-Muslims,
including Jews, are deemed to be ritually unclean ― najis. Any physical contact
would require Shi'as to undertake ritual purification before doing regular
prayers. Thus, Persian rulers, and the general populace, sought to limit physical
contact between Muslims and Jews. Jews were excluded from public baths used by
Muslims. They were forbidden to go outside during rain or snow, as an
"impurity" could be washed from them upon a Muslim.”
1533: The marriage of King Henry VIII to
Catherine of Aragon is declared null and void. As a condition to their
marriage, Henry’s father promised Catherine’s Spanish parents that Jews would
never be allowed to settle in England. When Henry decided to divorce
Catherine he claimed that the marriage had taken place in violation of biblical
law. He sought the support of Italian rabbis in making this
claim. The Rabbis did not support the English monarch, probably
figuring that there was no reason to antagonize the Pope (who was a lot closer)
than a distant English monarch.
1536: In Portugal, Pope
Paul III acting upon the petition of King John III, issued a
Bull providing for the establishment of the inquisition based on the Spanish
archetype. It lasted until September 1774 with the last auto da fe held in October
1765.
1552: Sebastian Munster, the first Christian to
publish a complete edition of the Bible in Hebrew passed away.
1555: Paul IV began his Papacy during which he
issued Dudum postquam, the papal bull that expanded a 10-ducat tax on Jewish
synagogues to help finance catechumen houses in Rome and Cum Nimis Absurdum,
the papal bull that “ordered the creation of a Jewish ghetto in Rome.”
1568: Netherlands declared independence from
Spain. Protestant Dutch rebels led by Louis of Nassau, brother of William I of
Orange, defeat Jean de Ligne, Duke of Aremberg and his loyalist troops in the
Battle of Heiligerlee, opening the Eighty Years' War. The conflict combined
politics and religion as Protestant Dutchmen rebelled against Catholic
Spain. Holland had provided a haven for Sepharidic Jews escaping the
Spanish Inquisition. A community of Portuguese merchants had settled
in Amsterdam prior to the outbreak of hostilities. The Protestant
clergy were not exactly thrilled about the Jews settling in the country and it
took several decades for the Jews of Holland to gain full acceptance.
1572 (18 Iyar 5332): On Lag B’Omer Moses
Isserles, also known as the Rama passed away Born sometime between
1520 and 1525, he was the son of Israel Isserles, “ a wealthy leader of the
Cracow community who, in 1553, received royal dispensation to build a synagogue
in memory of his wife which is known as the Ream Synagogue.” Moses
Isserles served as Rosh (Head of the) Yeshiva in Krakow. His main work was
called Mappah Hashulchan ("The Tablecloth") which adapted
Caro’s Shulchan Aruch to the needs and customs of Ashkenazi
Jewry, It was called the “The Tablecloth” because it “covered” the Shulchan
Aruch which is translated as “the prepared table.” In other words he
covered Caro’s Sephardic Table with an Ashkenazic Tablecloth. An
earlier work, Darke Moshe Hakatzar (The Ways of Moses Abridged) was
written in response to Caro’s comprehensive book on Jewish law called Beit
Yoseph. He was known as well for the almost 100 Responsa he published.
Isserles tried to strengthen the stature of many customs, elevating them almost
to the level of Halachah (Jewish Law). On the other hand he was very lenient
when it came to cases of stress or financial loss.
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111847/jewish/Rabbi-Moshe-Isserles-The-Remo.htm
1578: The Ottoman Sultan rescinded the order to
deport the wealthy Jews of Safed to the island of Cyprus. He did this because
the Jews of Safed were said to be paying taxes which were used to help maintain
the Dome of the Rock.
1618: In Prague, an assembly of Protestants
threw three Catholic officials out of the window after they had found them
guilty of violating a law concerning religious expression. This
event precipitated the Thirty Years War, so called because it lasted from 1618
to 1648. Much of the war was fought in the Germanic
principalities. During the war Jews suffered at the hands of both
sides with pogroms taking place in Frankfort, Worms and Jena.
1633: The French government issues an edict
allowing only Catholics to settle in Canada. The target of the ban
was the Huguenots but it applied to the Jews as well. Jews would not
be able to settle in Canada until after the British were victorious in what
Americans call the French-Indian War
1637(28th of Iyar): Seven Jews,
including Rabbi Abraham ben Isaac, were murdered today in Cracow.
1638: Today, in Hungary, “Sabbatarian believers
were tortured and their writings confiscated in Kolozsvár and Marosvásárhely”
1708(4th of Sivan): Rabbi Solomon ben David de
Oliveria, author of “Ez Hayyim” and the son Portuguese scholar David Israel de
Oliveyra passed away today at Amsterdam.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11688-oliveyra-solomon-de
1749(7th of Sivan, 5509):
Second Day of Shavuot
1749(7th of Sivan, 5509):
Abraham ben Abraham, who had been a Polish noble named Count Valentine
Potocki before he converted to Judaism, was burned at the stake
because he had renounced Catholicism and becoming a practicing Jew.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12317-potocki-pototzki-count-valentine-abraham-b-abraham
1764: Esther Etting and David Barrack Hays, the
parents of Bedford, NY native Charity Hays and the in-laws of Jacob da Silva
Solis were married today.
1768(7th of Sivan, 5528):
Second Day of Shavuot; Yizkor
1769: Jonah Phillips and Rebecca Machado
Phillip gave birth to Philadelphia resident Sarah Phillips, the
great-granddaughter of Dr. Samuel Nunez
1773: Distinctions between Old Christians and
New Christians were banned in Portugal. It was said this was because of a huge
bribe from the Jews, but either way, this ban became law.
1788: South Carolina becomes the eighth state
to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Thanks to John Locke who wrote South
Carolina’s original constitution Jews, along with heathens and dissenters were
guaranteed “freedom of conscience.” Jews began voting in the colony’s elections
in 1702. By 1750, there were enough Jews in the colony to warrant
the building of the first synagogue in Charleston “which called itself “Beth
Elohim” (House of God). Francis Salvador was the most prominent Jewish
leader when the Revolution began in 1775. In 1790, South Carolina
enacted legislation that was intended to abolish religious discrimination.
1794: Birthdate of Isaac Moscheles the native
of Prague who gained fame as composer and pianist Ignaz Moscheles, one of many
of his era who found a trip to the baptismal font to be a stepping stone on the
ladder of upward social mobility.
1799(18th of Iyar, 5559): Lag
B’Omer
1799: Aaron Worms married Rachel Lamart at the
Great Synagogue in London delivered a speech in favor Reform legislation “at
the Westminster anniversary reform dinner.”
1806(6th of Sivan, 5566):
Shavuot observed as Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Exploration continue to
work their way towards the Pacific Ocean.
1814: In Germany, Sophia “Sarah” Lowenstein
gave birth to future Lancaster, Pennsylvania resident Levi Rosenstein, the
husband of Caroline “Carrie” Straus Rosentein whom he married in 1825 and the
father of Albert, Rosalie, Henrietta, Emma, Morris and Isaac Rosenstein who was
in the “shoe business" with a shop on West King Street, a Democrat and “an
early reader for Congregation Shaarai Shomayi.
1822: Influential 19th economist
David Ricardo the son of Anglo-Sephardic Jews who became a Unitarian when he
married Priscilla Anne Wilkinson
1825(6th of Sivan, 5585): First
Day of Shavuot
1825: Alexander Jacobs, the son of Israel
Jacobs and the former Elizabeth Abrahams was circumcised today in London.
1830: Moses Nathan Levy, the Hamburg, Germany
born son of Jette and Nathan Levy and his wife Hannchen Levy gave birth to
Roschen “Rosen” Levy who died when she was eight months old.
1833(5th of Sivan, 5593): Erev
Shavuot
1834(14th of Iyar, 5594):
Pesach Sheni
1834: Birthdate of Thalia Reicheubach
1835: In Cincinnati, OH, Alexander Lewis, the
Charleston born son of David and Rachel Benjamin Lewis and his wife Rebecca
Lewis gave birth to Sarah Essenheim the mother of Joseph Essenheim.
1837(18th of Iyar, 5597): Lag
B’Omer celebrated 10 days after the New York banks suspended specie payments
which touched off the Panic of 1837, the worst financial crisis the United
States would face until the Great Depression of 1929
1838: In Moravia, during what appeared to be an
internal conflict in the Jewish community, the government issued a decree
canceling the chief rabbi’s “privilege of proposing candidates’ to serve as
rabbis at local congregations.
1838: Birthdate of Emile Worms, the French
jurist born in Luxemburg, “educated at the University of Heidelberg” who earned
his Dr. of Laws at the University of Paris in 1864 before becoming an assistant
professor of law at his alma mater and professor of law at the University of
Rennes.
1844(6th of Sivan, 5604): Erev
Shavuot observed on the same day that “the Báb announced that He was a new
divine Messenger sent to herald a new age for humanity and to prepare the way
for Bahá’u’lláh, the universal Messenger of God expected by people of all
religions.”
1845: Samuel Henry Gluckstein and Hannah Joseph
were today at the Great Synagogue in London.
1846: In Fürth, Bavaria, Joel and Babette
(Elsasser) Krakauer gave birth to Adolph Krakauer who came to
New York in 1865 and then to Texas where became a successful
merchant and leading businessman in San Antonio and El Paso, Texas before his death
in 1914.
1847: Levy Zachariah was buried today at the
Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1848: Birthdate of Otto Lilienthal
German born aviation pioneer. He died in 1896 after one of his
gliders failed to work properly.
1849: In London, Betsey Philips married 27 year
old Montague “Myer” Gluckstein and became Betsey Gluckstein.
1851: Richard Lalor Sheil an Irish writer,
orator, and Member of Parliament passed away. Jews should remember Sheil as a
supporter of measures to allow Jews to sit as members of Parliament in the
United Kingdom. Following the Rothschild’s election to the House of Commons
Sheil delivered a speech entitled “On Disabilities of the Jews” that began
included these words in the opening paragraph, “A British subject ought in
every regard to be considered a British citizen; and inasmuch as the professors
of the most ancient religion in the world, which, as far as it goes, we not
only admit to be true, but hold to be the foundation of our own, are bound to
the performance of every duty which attaches to a British subject, to a full
fruition of every right which belongs to a British citizen, they have, I think,
an irrefragable title. A Jew born in England cannot transfer his allegiance
from his sovereign and his country; if he were to enter the service of a
foreign power engaged in hostilities with England and were taken in arms he
would be accounted a traitor. Is a Jew an Englishman for no other purposes than
those of condemnation? I am not aware of a single obligation to which other
Englishmen are liable from which a Jew is exempt; and if his religion confers
on him no sort of immunity it ought not to affect him with any kind of
disqualification.”
1852(5th of Sivan, 5612): Erev
Shavuot observed for the last time during the presidency of Millard Fillmore
1854: In NYC, Henrietta Rosenbaum, and David
Mayer gave birth to NYU trained laryngologist Eil Mayer, the husband of Louise
Blume and “medical veteran of WW I” who was a surgeon in the throat
department of the New Yok Eye and Ear Infirmary and the chief of
clinic throat and ear departments of the Mt. Sinai Hospital.
1855(6th of Sivan, 5615):
Shavuot observed on the same day that the Daily Ohio Statesman reprinted a
speech by Senator Henry Clay in which he defended the “American System” and
praised “the immigrants who daily arrived on America’s
shores.” (Editor’s note - the defense of immigrants (including Jews)
by a prominent national leader when the Known-Nothing Party mentality was on
the rise was a an act of political bravery)
1855: Birthdate of Jacob David Mamor, the
Russian “son of Solomon Marmor, the Rabbi of the Lieranten Schule” who one of
the few Jews to hold a diploma from the St. Petersburg Imperial Conservatory of
Music and who began serving as the cantor at the Baltimore (MD) Hebrew
Congregation in 1899.
1856(18th of Iyar, 5616): On
the day after Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Senator Charles
Sumner in the halls of Congress over the issue of slavery and the day before
Pottawatomie Massacre, which also tied to the fight over slavery, the Jews
observed Lag B’Omer
1856: Birthdate of Congressman Henry Mayer
Goldfogle who urged President Wilson to “designate January 27, 1916 as the date
for collecting funds for the relief of suffering Jews in Europe.”
https://bioguideretro.congress.gov/Home/MemberDetails?memIndex=G000260
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/henry-mayer-goldfogle
1856: Birthdate of Cracow native Leopold
Zinsler who came to the United States in 1883 where he served as the rabbi at
“the Bohemian Congregation in Newark,” “Congregation Shahre Zedek” and
“Congregation Anshe Emeth.
1858: Birthdate of Isaac Tuck, the native of
New York’s Old Seventh Ward and “pioneer in fruit trade journalism who “was one
of the founders of the Fruit Trade Journal and Produce Record” and
the Fruit and Produce Trade Association of New York City as well as a member
“of the South Brooklyn Board of Trade and the Twelfth Assembly District
Democratic Club.”
1859: Two Polish Jews, Philip Moses and Samuel
Preiss filed a complaint today claiming that a tailor name William Meyer had
attacked Preiss and stolen his watch while Preiss was in his store. The two
plaintiffs gave such contradictory stories that it led the Judge to believe
that Meyer was actually the victim of blackmail attempt. He charged
Moses and Preiss with attempted blackmail and filing a false police
report. The two complaining witnesses are now defendants and since
they could make bail they are awaiting trial in the city jail. [So, all of our
ancestors weren’t Kohanim or psalmists, so what?]
1863(5th of Sivan, 5623):
Parashat Bamidbar; Erev Shavuot
1863: Ferdinand Lasalle formed the General
German Workers ’Association (ADAV), Germany’s first labor party
today. He also began serving as its President, a position he would
hold until his death in August of 1863.
1865: In London’s East End, “Joel Joel (a
London tavern keeper of the King of Prussia), and Kate Isaacs, who was a sister
of Barnett Isaacs (Barney Barnato) gave birth to Solomon “Solly” Barnato Joel
the brother of Jack and Woolf Joel with whom he made a fortune in the South
African diamond mining trade and the husband of actress Ellen Nellie Ridley.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joel-solomon-barnato
1866: Birthdate of Edgar James Banks, the
oriental language professor and amateur archeologist who climbed Mount Ararat
“in search of Noah’s Ark” and who sold the clay tablet that became known as
Plimpton 322 which provided a window into the world of Babylonian mathematics
and linguistics passed away today.
1866: Today in Brooklyn, twenty-seven-year-old
New York banker Walther Luttgen, the German born son of Carl and Johanne
Luttgen and a valued member August Belmont Company married Amelia Victoria
Bremeyer with whom he had two daughter – Florence and Gertrude.
1867(18th of Iyar, 5672): Lag
B’Omer observed on the same that Jesse James and his gang “robbed a bank in
Richmond, MO, killing two and getting away with four thousand dollars.
1870: The annual meeting of the Board of
Delegates of American Israelites was held this evening at Temple Shaaray Tefila
in New York City. The report of the Executive Committee included a
comprehensive look at conditions of Jews in a various communities. The
committee reported that the Governor of Syria had agreed to allow the purchase
of land for a Jewish agricultural school. Construction will begin as
soon as the government at Constantinople gives its
approval. Romanian Jews, including those living in Bucharest, Vacco
and Salatz have been the victims of violent attacks. Jews continued
to suffer in Russia and they continue to subject to laws prohibiting them from
living near the frontier. Halevy has not begun his trip to China where he is to
gain information on the condition of the Jews living there. At its recent
meeting in Paris, the Universal Alliance reported that it had 12,000 members
around the world. The committee urged that other states adopt laws similar to
the one in New York that allows Jews who observe the Sabbath to work on Sunday,
despite the existence of “Blue Laws.” The committee urged the Jewish population
to support Maimonides College. The committee credited “the good
sense of the American public” that organizations attempting to Christianitize
the U.S. Constitution had meant with little success.
1871: An Imperial Ukase (proclamation) has been
issued order the Jews of Poland to change their appearance by doing away with
their long black coats and trimming their beards and side-curls.
1873: Birthdate of Rabbi Leo Baeck. His most
famous work was The Essence of Judaism. He believed in ethical
monotheism as part of the core of Judaism. Unlike contemporary rationalists, he
also acknowledged that the mystery of God was also essential to Jewish belief.
He saw the need for the experiencing God at the emotional level. This experience
would lead to the ethical behavior. Also, Baeck saw the need for ritual as an
affirmation of the concept of people hood. Baeck chose not to leave Germany. He
was imprisoned at Terezienstadt. His faith survived the experience. He passed
away in 1956.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/baeck.html
1874(7th of Sivan, 5634):
Second Day of Shavuot, Yizkor
1874: Birthdate of “Ephraim Moses Lilien an art
nouveau illustrator and printmaker particularly noted for his art on Jewish
themes who is sometimes called the "first Zionist artist” whose works
included a photograph of Herzl taken 1901https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephraim_Moses_Lilien#/media/File:Herzl_Basel_1901.jpg and
“The Queen of Sabbath” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephraim_Moses_Lilien#/media/File:Juda_13.jpg
https://streetsofisrael.wordpress.com/2014/01/
1875: In Essen, Germany, Isaac Simon
Hirschland, the son of Son of Simon Hirschland and Marianne Hirschland and his
wife Henriette Hirschland gave birth to London resident Agatha
Gruenebaum, the wife of Ernest Gruenebaum and mother of Ludwig Gruenebaum;
Kaethe Weinberg; Erich Otto Grunebaum; Kurt Hermann Gruenebaum and Charlotte
Hackett
1875: “An Interesting Jewish Ceremony”
published today described the conversion ceremony of Henrietta Held at which
Rabbi Marx Cohn officiated.
1875: “Michel Levy: The Life of a
Great French Publisher” published today described the shock in Paris at the
death of this 54 year old literary leader and provided a detailed account of
his life and accomplishments.
1877: In Paterson, NJ, Judge Barkalow will
begin to hear evidence in divorce case involving Moses Fananholz (or Tananholz)
originally from Chicago and his wife the former Rachel Blumenthal from
Montreal. The wife claims that her husband only married her for her
money; that she that the ceremony was only for a betrothal under Jewish custom
and not a marriage ceremony; and that since she was under the age of 18 (the
age of consent) when the ceremony was performed the marriage was illegal.
1877: At Buffalo, NY, in the Episcopal Church
of the Ascension, architect Cyrus Lazelle Warner Eidlitz the son of architect
Leopold Eidlitz married Jennie Turner Dudley.
1879: Proposed Hebrew Convention” published
today described the preparations that are being made for the upcoming meeting
in New York of delegates representing the “various branches of the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations. Agenda items will include a report on
charitable activities and a report on the activities at the college the Union
controls which trains young men to serve as rabbis. One major topic
of discussion will be the proposed to change Jewish Sabbath services from
Saturday to Sunday.
1879(1st of Sivan, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1879: In Milwaukee, WI, Carrie Strauss and
Isaac Friend gave birth to Harvard trained attorney Arthur S. Friend, the
husband of Fanny Hartz and “head of the A.S. Friend Companies engaged in the
construction and operation of a chain of theatre located in New England” who
had begun his “theatrical career as general counsel to Jesee L Lasky Feature
Play Company after which he produced several motion pictures starring George
Arliss.
1880: In Jerusalem, Joseph Raphael, the chief
justice of the Sephardi community of Jerusalem and president of the community
council and his wife gave birth to Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel “the Sephardi chief
rabbi of Mandatory Palestine from 1939 to 1948, and of Israel from 1948 until
his death in 1953.”
1881: Birthdate of Russian native and labor
editor for The Jewish Morning Journal William Post who in 1905 came to the
United States where he was “a charter member and vice president of the Jewish
Writers Union and an author who used the Nome de plume William Pohotsky as well
as the husband of of Pauline Post and the father of Nathan Post.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1945/08/02/88272179.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1882(5th of Sivan, 5642): Erev
Shavuot
1882: In Cleveland, OH, 41-year-old Isaac
Alsbacher and 31 year old Rebecca Klein gave birth to Dr. David Darwin
Alsbacher, the fourth of their sixth children.
1883: In Denver, CO, 49-year-old Pennsylvania
native Hezekiah Charles Ullman, the son of German-Jewish immigrants Lazarus
Ullman and Lydia Abrahams and Ella Adelaide gave birth to Douglas Elton Thomas
Ullman who gained fame as “swashbuckling” movie star Douglas Fairbanks.
1884: As the May Laws took effect “Jews who had
served in the army encountered difficulties, at the expiration of their terms
of service, in resettling in the villages in which they had dwelt.”
1885(9th of Sivan, 5645)
Parashat Nasso
1885(9th of Sivan, 5645):
Marcus Simon Rosenbacher, the Sulzbach, Germany born son of Simon Aron
Rosenbacher and Libussa Rosenbacher, husband of Franziska (Fanni) Anna
Rosenbacher and Henriette Rosenbacher and father of Emanuel Rosenbacher; Marie
Lobethal; Therese Michael; Wilhelm Rosenbacher and Dr. Arnold Rosenbacher, a
leader of the Jewish community in Prague and “Hebrew scholar” who was the
president of the Union of Bohemian Jewish Congregation and vice-president of
the Union of Austrian Jews passed away today in Hamburg, Germany.
1886(18th of Iyar, 5646): Lag
B’Omer
1886: Birthdate of Moshe David Drabkin known as
David Remez the native of Belarus who made Aliyah in 1913 with his wife Liba.
At the end of his long, rich career he was one of those who signed the
Declaration of Independence in 1948 and served as cabinet minister in
Ben-Gurion’s first two governments.
1886: Rachel Montefiore was buried today at the
Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1886: Ninety-year old German historian Leopold
von Ranke who described Mosaic monotheism and “its revolt against nature
worship” as the “principle on which is built a civil society which is alien to
every abuse of power” in his Universal History, passed away today.
1887: Oscar S. Straus, the new United States
Minister to Turkey and his family arrived in Constantinople
today. They had been expected ten days earlier but were delayed when
their daughter became ill in Vienna.
1889: Birthdate of New York native Louis brand
who played basketball for CCNY from 1907 through 1909.
1890: It was reported today Mrs. Charles
Peterson claims an unnamed Jewish peddler had pitched her nine month old
daughter into a tub of water. The mother claims she “was absent at
the time” and has not offered a basis for the claim.
1890: All of the children of the late Herman
Frohman “applied for and secured from the Court of Common Please a writ de
lunatic” which will force their mother, Mary Frohman, to answer charges that
she is “a lunatic.” This is part of a dispute over the estate of the
deceased Jewish butcher.
1891: A fire broke early today at tenement
house at 38 Ludlow Street which is home to 18 Jewish families.
1892: In New York City, “Selig and Goldie
(Feigen) Peshkin gave birth to Dr. Morris Murray Peshkin, the Fordham graduate
and husband of Lillian Rapaport who served as the clinical professor of
medicine and pediatric allergies at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the
national president of the Asthmatic Children’s Foundation.
1892: “A resolution of sympathy for the Jews of
Russia was introduced and passed” at today’s session of a conference of
Methodist leaders being held in Omaha, Nebraska. “The resolution declared that
it was the sense of the conference that the Jews in Russia were being
unmercifully persecuted” and that “it was the hope of the conference that
Russian Jews would soon enjoy the same rights as other people.”
1893: It was reported today there are only two
Jewish murderers imprisoned at Sing Sing Prison in New York. Sixty year old
Adolph Reich is serving a life sentence for having killed his
wife. He had been sentenced to death, but the Governor commuted his
sentence. Charles Lovitz was found guilty of murder in the second degree after
having shot his wife.
1894: On the second day of the First American
Conference of Hebrew and Christian Workers for Israel, Reverend James Adler
delivered a talk on “Dry Bones” which included a recitation of his problems in
trying to convert Jews.
1894: “Congress of Liberal Religionists”
published today described meetings being held at Temple Sinai in Chicago,
Illinois that include representatives of Reform Movement and other
denominations such as the Unitarians and the Ethical Cultural Movement with the
hope “of securing closer cooperation between the denominations of liberal
religious societies.” The congress is an outgrowth of the Parliament
of Religions which was held in Chicago during the World’s Fair.
1895: It was reported today that Max Casten,
alias “Jew Sam” has been arrested in St. Louis, MO, on charges of stealing
$2,500 worth of diamonds
1895:Birthdate of Maryland native Kate
Markowitz who gained fame as Kate Weinberg the wife of Baltimore clothing
manufacturer Harry E. Weinberg, the mother of Selma Ruth Weinberg and the
daughter-in-law of Gittel and Shmul Yakov Weinberg
1898: Martin Beir, the Rochester fire insurance
agent, was in New York on business today
1898: “Patriotism of the Jews” published today
included a declaration by Rabbi Rudolph Grossman that the United States war
with Spain “was of Divine ordering” and that Spain’s kingdom in the western
hemisphere is “finished
1898: It was reported today that there one
thousand Jewish officers in the Austro-Hungary Army, that one further of the
officers in the French Army are Jews and that there were 10,000 Jews in the
Union Army.
1898: During the Spanish-American War, Corporal
Leo Witkovski of Tampa, FL serving in Company M of the 1st Florida
Volunteer Infantry was among those mustered into federal service today.
1899: Charles Latimer who has been accused of
being one of the men who attacked Leopold Levy is being held by
police. Levy has died of from the wounds that Latimer and his
unknown compatriots inflicted on the 49 year old salesman.
1900: In Kiev, Bella and Nachum D. Petchersky
gave birth to New York real estate executive and philanthropist Solomon N.
Petchers, who served on the board of the American Association for Jewish
Education and helped to fund the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the
Central Library for the Blind in Jerusalem.
1900: Birthdate of Franz Leopold Neumann “a
German-Jewish left-wing political activist and labor lawyer, who …is considered
to be among the founders of modern political science in the Federal Republic of
Germany.”
1900: Herzl seeks support at a meeting with
Ernest von Koerber, Austrian political leader who served as Prime Minister from
1900 to 1904.
1901(5h of Sivan, 5661): Erev Shavuot
1901: According to the petition of Bushrod M.
Watts of Baltimore City by Isaac Lobe Straus, which today Watts “caused to be
served by personal service upon Republican Samuel Affelder, a Baltimore City
Councilman, a notice of contest for said seat in the First Branch of the City
Council of Baltimore City from the Fourteenth Ward…”
1902: In the North, South and West Ends of
Boston all of the Solomont kosher meat stores were operating today after
“disturbances occurred among the Hebrews yesterday” in front the
establishments.
1903: In Buffalo, NY, a special committee
submitted a resolution to the American Baptist Missionary Union condemning “the
recent massacre of the Jews in Russia.”
1903: Following the Kishinev Pogrom Wenzel von
Plehve, Russian Minister of the Interior “rebuffed a Jewish delegation that
asked for a condemnation of the massacre and relaxation of anti-Jewish rules.”
1903: Herzl writes to Wenzel von Plehve,
Russian Minister of the Interior and to Konstantin Pobiedonostzev asking them
to arrange an audience with the Czar. Herzl also turned to Bertha von Suttner
and asks for her assistance in this matter. Von Sutter was an Austrian writer,
pacifist and the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Peace.
1904: In Cincinnati, 37-year-old “lawyer and
stockbroker Alfred Holzman and 31 year old Rachel Florence Workum Hlozman gave
birth to University of Cincinnati graduate Elizabeth Lloyd Holzman the Blues
singer and actress who gained fame as Libby and who at her death was known as
“Mrs. Libby Holman Reynolds Schanker, widow of a Reynolds tobacco heir and the
wife of artist Louis Shanker.
1905(18th of Iyar, 5665): Lag
B’Omer
1905: It is believed that the speech Feodor
Chaliapin gave today to workingman at Karkoff “in which he urged the audience
not to molest the Jews who after all he were their brothers, prevented another
Jewish massacre.
1906: New Atlantic Hall was crowded” tonight
“with pushcart peddlers who are members of the East Side Pushcart Peddlers
Association” who contend “that for two years the Bureau of Licenses has refused
to issue peddler’s licenses to Jews” and “that every pushcart license held by a
Jew on the east side represents ‘graft’ paid to someone whom they call a
‘politician.’”
1907: In Albany, NY, State Senator Martin Saxe
introduced a bill “which provides for important amendments to the Civil Rights
Act” which was prompted by the refusal of the Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel in
Atlantic City to rent rooms Mrs. Bertha Rayner-Frank and her nieces
because they were Jewish.
1907: “Apology to Mrs. Frank” published today
described events surrounding the Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel’s refusal of
service to Mrs. Bertha Rayner Franks and her two nieces because they were
Jewish and the subsequent apology by Josiah White & Sons, the Atlantic City
hotel’s owner.
1908: Birthdate of architect Max Abramovitz two
of his most famous designs were Lincoln Center and the UN building.
1909: New York City native Dr. Bernard
Drachman, a graduate of Columbia University and the University of Heidelberg is
scheduled to be installed today as the rabbi at “Chab Zedek Congregation” on
West 116th Street.
1908: Birthdate of Linda Mathews Watkins, the
wife Gabriel Lorie Hess and attorney for Will Hays and the Motion Picture
Producers and Distributors of America whom he married divorcing his first wife
Helen Baer Stamm and the mother of Adam Hess.
1909(3rd of Sivan, 5669): Elias Solomon, an
Australian politician, passed away. Born in 1839, in London, England, he
migrated to Australia as a child. He had no formal education, but in 1868
became a clerk and auctioneer in Fremantle in Western Australia. In 1877 he was
elected to the Fremantle City Council. In 1892, he was elected to the Western
Australian Legislative Assembly as the member for South Fremantle, where he
remained until 1901. In that year, he transferred to federal politics, winning
the Australian House of Representatives seat of Fremantle for the Free Trade
Party. He was defeated by Labor's William Carpenter in 1903.
1910(14th of Iyar, 5670):
Pesach Sheni
1910: Celebration of the Geiger Centenary.
1910: Birthdate Arthur Jacob Arshawsky in New
York, who became a popular "big
band" bandleader Artie Shaw whose hits included "Come'on
my House".
1911: Dedication ceremony of the New York
Public Library. Over the next century, the library would provide
countless generations of Jews a variety of cultural and educational
opportunities. The library’s “Dorot Jewish Division is one of the
great collections of Judaica in the world and the most accessible for both
scholarly and personal use. While the collection offers commentary on all
aspects of Jewish life it also includes Hebrew and Yiddish-language texts on
general subjects.”
1912(7th of Sivan, 5672):
Second Day of Shavuot, Yizkor
1912: “The remains of the late General Morris
Horkheimer” who died yesterday at Atlantic City “accompanied by his family” are
scheduled to arrive in Wheeling, West Virginia “at 9:30 this morning…and will
be removed to the family home at 800 Main Street and arrangements for the
funeral.
1912: Tonight, at a meeting of the American
Immigration and Distribution League at the Hotel Manhattan, Montefiore G. Kahn,
Acting Secretary of the organization, announced that he would give the league
13,000 acres of farming and clay lands in New Jersey, valued by the donor at
more than $2,600,000. The land was to be parceled out free to deserving
immigrants who desire to become farmers.
1912: Today, The Hamburg-American Line under
the leadership of general director Albert Ballin launched the SS Imperator,
which at that time was reported to be “the world’s largest Ship.
1913: In New York founding of the American
Society for the Control of Cancer, now known as the American Cancer Society
which helps in the fight against a disease with Jews have a unique history.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15516840
1914: Birthdate of actor and critic Leo Lerman,
author and editor for style setting magazines including Mademoiselle, Vogue and Vanity
Fair.
1915: “The Illinois Equal Suffrage Association,
Political Equality League and Women’s Club” are among the organizations
supporting the gathering of “Chicago women…in the big banquet hall of the
Auditorium Hall” scheduled to take place this afternoon to protest the
execution of Leo M. Frank.
1915: In response to questions about clemency
for Leo Frank, the Governor-elect’s views published today state that “You can
just say for Nat Harris that if the matter of dealing executive clemency to the
condemned man is to be considered by him, the entire outside world will not be
taken into consideration one it. It is entirely a Georgia matter.”
1915: “A report telling of the relief work for
the benefit of war sufferers in Palestine was issued today by the Provisional
Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs” chaired by Louis D. Brandeis.
1915: In New York, “the local Kehillah, or
Jewish community meeting in the Concert Hall of Madison Square Garden today,
endorsed the idea of holding a conference of delegates from Jewish
organizations throughout the country to consider the plight of European Jews
and to determine what could be done for the amelioration of their condition
after the war.”
1915: “In remarks preceding his sermon this
morning,” Dr. Madison C. Peters of the North Baptist Church on West Eleventh
Street said, “I know the people of Georgia and it is unfair to judge all by
those who are clamoring for the life of a man who by common consent I not
innocent, has never had a fair trial. The outcries of the mob
against the defendant were not against Leo Frank – it was a cry against the
Jew.”
1915: In New York this afternoon “at a meeting
of the Alliance Israelite Universelle…a resolution was adopted after being
seconded by Professor Richard Gottheil of Columbia to prepare a protest in the
name of the Jews of the United States against the execution of Leo Frank”
because those at “the meeting took the stand that the Frank verdict was the
result of race prejudice…”
1915: “A letter from Leo Frank was received
today by Harry A. Lipsky of the Daily Jewish Courier” in which the condemned
man expresses his appreciation for the support of the Chicago community and
stating “I am well and putting up as good a fight as I know how.”
1915: It was reported today that ex-Congressman
William W. Howard of Augusta has been chosen to argue the case to grant
clemency in the case of Leo M. Frank before Governor Slaton should the appeal
to the State Prison Commission fail.
1916: Isidore Hershfield an attorney “who went
to the war zone last October to represent the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant
Aid Society,” “visited all of the battles fronts and distributed relief to Jews
in the war area” is expected to arrive in New York today aboard the New
Amsterdam.
1916: The last in a series of notes were
exchanged between the Russians, French and British which finalized the terms of
the Sykes-Picot Agreement which effectively “divided” the Ottoman Empire among
the Allies while the outcome of WW I was still in doubt.
1916: Henry Morgenthau, the former U.S.
Ambassador to Turkey is scheduled to address the Illinois Manufacturers
Association at noon today after which he will leave for St. Louis and Kansas
City “where he will continue his pleas for aid for the war sufferers.”
1916: A resolution was unanimously adopted by
1,400 at the convention of the Independent Order of B’rith Abraham requesting
that the Governor of New York institute a public investigation of “the charges
made by Max J. Klein that, because he was a Jews, he was barred from the Second
Field Artillery, National Guard of NY by Captain Howard E. Sullivan of Battery
D.
1916: At the concluding session of the 13th annual
convention of the Independent Order of B’rith Abraham at the Amsterdam Opera
House the following officers were elected: Grand Master – Leon Sanders; Deputy
Grand Masters: Gustave Hartman, Abraham Rosoff, Max H. Schoen, Emil Zuker, Dr.
George Sulton, Phillip P. Levy, Otto S. Hirsch, Hyman Winick, Jacob Zuckerman
and Jacob Eaton; Grand Secretary – Max Hollander; Grand Treasurer – David
Goldberg; Grand Trustee – Benjamin Eherenfeld and Counsel of the Order – Adolph
Stern.
1916: “The organization of the first Kehillah
on Washington Heights was completed at a meeting of of about 500 Jews” tonight
in the Washington Heights Synagogue” on 161st Street where the
speakers included Rabbi Judah L. Magnes, Chairman of the Kehillah of New York,
Emanuel Hertz, and Dr. Elias Margolies.
1917: Funeral services are scheduled to be held
this afternoon at Temple Jehosuah for fifty-eight-year-old Fannie Schwager, the
wife of Morris Schwager
1917: This evening, “the workers of the Central
Jewish Institute” hosted “a farewell banquet to mark the departure of Rabbi
Herbert S. Goldman” for his new venture to improve life in the Jewish district
centered on 116th Street which he called the “hell” of the city
of New York.
1917: Funeral services are scheduled to be held
this afternoon for Mrs. Abe Siegel, the mother of Lawrence Siegel at Free Son’s
Cemetery in Chicago.
1917: The annual meeting of the Jewish Home
Finding Society of Chicago of which Mrs. Adolph Kurz is Secretary is scheduled
to take place this evening at the Standard Club.
1917: The joint Foreign Committee of the Board
of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association, “two of the most
influential bodies of British Jewry” issued a statement opposing “Jewish
resettlement in Palestine, as planned by the Zionist organizations.”
1918: White Russia native Leon Cheifitz, a
resident of “Canada at the age of 9” and a member of “Poale Zion at the age of
15, left for camp after having joined the Jewish Legion in which he would rise
to the rank of Sergeant before being demobilized in 1921.
1918: It was reported today that “a dispatch
from Paris states that the Jewish National Council has issued a protest against
the atrocities committed upon the Jewish population in occupied Russia” while
also charging “that pogroms have been organized by the German authorities who
have aroused the peasants against the Jews.”
1919: Dr. Emil G. Hirsch and Julius Rosenwald are scheduled to be two of the
guests of honor at luncheon hosted this afternoon by The Council of Jewish
Women at the La Salle Hotel in Chicago.
1920(6th of Sivan, 5680):
Shavuot observed for the last time during the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson
1921: “The biennial Council of the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations and the Fourth Assembly of the Federation of
Temple Sisterhoods was formally convened tonight with services in Temple Beth
Zion” where Dr. A.L. Meyer of San Francisco gave the council sermon and “the
delegates were greeted by Rabbi Louis J. Kopald…”
1922: Premier of "Abie's Irish
Rose." This was the first of over 2,500 performances seen by an
estimated fifty million attendees.
1922: Birthdate of New York native, Julliard
trained violinist and WW II veteran Seymour Solomon, who with his brother
Maynard founded Vangaurd Records, a must label for folk music lovers in the
1950’s and 1960’s.
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/19/arts/seymour-solomon-80-record-label-founder.html
1923: Birthdate of Bessarabia native Boris
Dorfman who authored about 1000 articles on Jewish issues in Yiddish, Russian,
Ukrainian, Polish and German for publications including Birobidzhaner Shtern,
who was one of the founders of Shofar, the first Jewish newspaper in the former
USSR and the father of American publicist Michael Dorfman.
1924: In Poughkeepsie, NY, Eva Nadel and tailor
shop owner Isadore Prutinsky gave birth to Seymour Herman Prutinsky, who gained
fame as Sy Presten the husband of Joanne Presten and press agent
known for supplying “gags and gossip to newspaper columnists for so long —
three-quarters of a century — that he finally became his own best material…”
(As reported by Alex Traub who apparently did not know his subject was Jewish)
1924: Police in Chicago pursued the
investigation into the murder of Bobby Franks, whom they now knew was not being
held for ransom since his corpse had been discovered.
1925: Birthdate of photographer Henry Wolf,
owner of Henry Wolf Productions and the 1976 recipient of the American
Institute of Graphic Arts Medal for Lifetime Achievement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/16/business/media/16wolf.html
1925: Esther Goldenbaum Schulman Lederberg and
Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Lederberg gave birth to Dr. Joshua Lederberg “an American
molecular biologist who is known for his work in genetics, artificial
intelligence, and space exploration. He was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in
1958 for his research in genetic structure and function in microorganisms. The
other half of that year's prize was shared by Edward Lawrie Tatum and George
Wells Beadle. In addition to his contributions to biology, Lederberg did
extensive research in artificial intelligence. This included work in the NASA
experimental programs seeking life on Mars and the chemistry expert system
Dendral. Lederberg’s parents had moved to the United States from Palestine in
1924. His father was an Orthodox Rabbi. Fortunately for the world of
science when Lederberg was Bar Mitzvahed in 1938 he received a copy of
Bodansky's” Introduction to Physiological Chemistry,” a book that
he said had a tremendous impact on his scientific development.
1926: Birthdate of Amos Degani, the Tel Aviv
native whose political career included serving as an MK from 1957 to 1969.
1926: Birthdate of Yossel Mashel Slovo, the
native of Lithuania who as Joe Slovo became a leader in the anti-Apartheid
movement while serving as a leader of the South African Communist Party and the
African National Congress.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-joe-slovo-1566935.html
1926: In Wilno Max Weinreich and Regina Szabad
gave birth to linguist Uriel Weinreich.
1926: The United Jewish Campaign in New York is
scheduled to come to an end today.
1927: Birthdate of Dieter Hildebrandt, the
German non-Jew who directed the Academy Award nominated documentary “The Yellow
Star – The Persecution of the Jews in Europe 1933-45.”
1928: Having delivered an address last night in
which he called “upon the Zionist of America to ‘refrain from fratricidal war’”
Dr. Chaim Weizman is scheduled to leave today for London
1928: In speech given tonight at a meeting of
the Samuel Tichner Society, Supreme Court Justice Peter J. Schmuck “praised the
society as one of the oldest of the New York Jewish orders” having begun as “a
boy’s social club on the lower east side that began in 1875.
1929: Birthdate of Marvin J. Chomsky who won
Emmy Awards for his direction “Holocaust” in `978 and “Inside the Third Reich”
in 1982.
1929: “The Crown,” a play by David Calderon
premiere in Tel Aviv in a production directed by Alesksei Dikiy.
1929: In Palestine, the leaders of Ahdut
HaAvoda and Hapoel HaTzair, the two major labor parties sign an
agreement that will merge the two parties into one. The merger is
slated to take place on July 25.
1930: After having earned his LL.B in February
and passed the New York State Bar Exam, Chicago White Sox Catcher Moe Berg, who
had injured his knee during an exhibition game with the Little Rock Travelers,
“returned to the starting line-up” today.
1930: “Westfront 1918,” a German movie about
World War I featuring Wladimir Sokoloff was released in Germany today.
1930: In Brooklyn, David and Eva Kellman gave
birth to Dr. Charles D. Kelman, the clinical professor of ophthalmology and
“father of phacoemulsification.”
1931(7th of Sivan, 5691):
Second Day of Shavuot and Shabbat.
1931: “Albert Ottinger, chairman of the New
York campaign for $1,000,000 for the aid of Jews in Eastern and Central Europe,
issued a statement today attacking Adolf Hitler and his German Fascist
followers for their alleged anti-Semitic campaign” saying that “the Hitlerites
have sponsored propaganda against the Jews in forty magazines and sixty
newspapers and have caused to be print cartoons picturing the Jews as the
enemies of Germany.”
1932(17th of Iyar, 5692):
Eighty-year-old textile manufacturer and philanthropist James Simon who
provided funding for several archaeological digs passed away today.
http://www.meaus.com/109-james-simon-memorial.htm
1932: “The Tenderfoot,” a film based on George
S. Kaufman’s play “The Butter and Egg Man” as released today in the United
States.
1933: It was reported today that detectives who
had questioned Waxy Gordon (born Irving Wexler) about the murders of Max Hassel
and Max Greenberg “got the impression that he might welcome a jail sentence”
for federal income evasion “since rival gunmen are said to be out to murder him
and his associates.”
1933: Birthdate of Alvin Ira Malnik, the St.
Louis born businessman “with long-lasting business and personal relationships
with members of the Rat Pack” who “purchased and remodeled The Forge restaurant
in Miami Beach” with the late Jay Weiss.
1933: Birthdate of Paris native Rabbi Aharon
Lictenstein who uniquely received semicha from Yeshiva
University after which he earned “a PhD in English Literature from
Harvard” where he met his future wife Tova, the daughter of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.
https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/2014/04/who-is-aharon-lichtenstein/
http://www.timesofisrael.com/renowned-rabbi-aharon-lichtenstein-dies-at-81/
1933: The all-Jewish Platoon of the Shanghai
Volunteer Corps was expanded to an all-Jewish company under the command of
Captain Noel S. Jacobs. While the unit’s chaplain was Rabbi Mendel Brown, the
leader of the Sephardic community, most of the members were Russian Jews
1934: The Palestine Jewish National Assembly
orchestrated a general strike against the immigration ban that was scheduled to
last from noon until 7 p.m. this evening. During the strike, fifty Jewish
strikers in Tel Aviv were wounded in clashes with the police. Twenty of the
wounded were described as being in serious condition.
1934(9th of Sivan, 5694): Sixty-six-year-old
Harvard trained lawyer Simon Louis Adler a judge of the United States court for
the western district of New York, died of a heart attack today after which he
was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, NY.
1934(9th of Sivan, 5694):
Fifty-seven-year-old composer and arranger Gustave Salzer who served as the
musical director for several Broadway shows including “Animal Crackers,” “Sweet
Adeline” and “The Dubarry” passed away today.
1935: Joseph "Yosky" Toblinsky
participated in the hijacking of a truck while driving through Sullivan County
today escaping with $8,000 worth of pharmaceutical drugs. He also
kidnapped the driver and his assistant. Born in 1879, Toblinsky “was
a New York City racketeer who, as head of an independent gang on East Side
Manhattan, was involved in extortion and poisoning horses with the Yiddish
Black Hand during the early 1900s. He was… sent to Sing Sing Prison for cruelty
to animals in 1902.”
1936: As Arab violence continued, “on the
Jaffa-Jerusalem road, just outside of Jerusalem, two light tanks and two trucks
carrying troops were fired upon from the Arab Village of Ainkarem.”
1936: Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes
is scheduled to deliver an address which will broadcast this evening from the
Astor Hotel where the New York United Palestine Appeal is hosting a dinner to
mark the start of it drive to raise $1,500,000 for the aide of European Jews
seeking settlement in Palestine.
1936: “Night riders of the Black Legion, a
terroristic secret society” whose “prospective members are asked if they will
take arms against Jews, Negroes and Catholics” are the leading suspects in the
murder of a 32 year old Works Project Administration (WPA) worker in Detroit.
1936: Declaring that German refugees in France,
Holland, Czechoslovakia and other European countries were in a ‘precarious’
condition the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee announced” today
“emergency appropriations were being made to meet the needs of the victims”
over and above the five thousand dollars sent monthly to Holland, the ten
thousand dollars sent to Czechoslovakia and the more than twelve thousand
dollars sent to Austria.
1937(13th of Sivan, 5697):
Sixty-eight-year-old German born, and University of Bonn trained
medical doctor, Gustave Lippman the husband of Alice Drey Lippmann and
son-in-law of Albert and Marie Drey who in 1894 moved to St. Louis where he
practiced pediatrics and served on the faculty of St. Louis University passed
away today.
1937: Birthdate of Jerome Rosenberg who would
hold the dubious distinction of being the longest serving prisoner in New York
State when he died.
1937: “In accordance with the proclamation of
Dr. Stephen S. Wise declaring today as National Shekel Day, 10,000 volunteers”
conducted “a house-to-house canvass seeking 250,000 members for the 1937
enrollment of American Zionists.
1937: Ninety-seven-year-old John D. Rockefeller
passed away. To the world at large, he was the founder of Standard
Oil, one of the robber barons, etc. But he was also the founder of
the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/rockmuseum.html
1938(22nd of Iyar, 5698):
Fifty-three-year-old Richmond physician and vice president of the ZOA Dr.
Lazarus Karp the Latvian born son of decorated war hero Israel Joseph Karp and
father of Columbia University graduate Mina Karp passed away today.
1938: As Arab violence continued
unabated, The Palestine Post reported that Yitzhak Yitzhaki,
55, was attacked and stabbed to death by two Arabs near the Beit Vegan quarter
of Jerusalem. Ezekiel Muncik, 25, a supernumerary constable from Kfar Yona was
shot and killed during one of the Arab attacks on Hanita. Another young
settler, Abraham Katz was severely wounded only one hour later and it was
impossible to Ctake him to hospital. A police sergeant, injured in an earlier
attack, died of his wounds in the Haifa hospital. Two Arabs were injured by a
bomb explosion in Tiberias.
1939(5th of Sivan, 5699): Erev
Shavuot
1939: Following the adoption of the infamous
MacDonald White Paper which all but put an end to Jewish immigration in
Palestine, Winston Churchill, who was still a political outcast, spoke in
favor of Jewish immigration telling the House of Commons, "So far
from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and
multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry
could lift up the Jewish population. Now are being asked to decree that
all this is to come to an end. We are now asked to submit, and this is
what rankles most with me, to an agitation which fed with foreign money and
ceaselessly inflamed by Nazi and by Fascist propaganda." (According
to Martin Gilbert, Churchill was right. "Between 1922 and 1939 more Arabs
had entered Palestine than Jews." Many of these immigrants were
drawn to Palestine by the improving economic conditions which were often a
product of Jewish settlement. Ironically, these Moslems who came from a
variety of North African and Middle Eastern countries would be counted among
the "Palestinian refugees" that are with us to this date.)
1939: During a debate on the Peel Commission’s
White Paper, Winston Churchill defends the Balfour Declaration and criticizes
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain for betraying the Zionists and turning his
back on a document he had so ardently supported twenty years
before. “They (the Jewish settlers) have fulfilled his (Chamberlain)
hopes. How can he find it in his heart to strike them this mortal
blow?” Upon hearing of the speech, Weizmann telegraphed Churchill” “Your
magnificent speech may yet destroy this policy. Words fail me to
express thanks.”
1939: The Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Long,
criticized the McDonald White Paper in a speech in the House of Lords.
1939: In Palestine, on the eve of the Shavuot
holiday, seven new settlements are established simultaneously. In all, twelve
new settlements are established in May, expressing the faith that even in the
grim new circumstances of the White Paper, settlement was one of the essential
means of fighting for the Zionist aim.
1939: Isaac Nachman Steinberg a Russian born
Zionist who was a leader of the “Territorialist Movement” arrived in Perth,
Australia and began trying to gain support for the “Kimberly Scheme” – a plan
in which “75,000” Jews fleeing Europe would be settled in the western part of
Australia.
1940: In what may be one of the strangest
meetings in the history of the Roosevelt White House, FDR met with Louis E.
Krstein, Chairman of Feline’ Department Store.
1940: Archibald Henry Maule Ramsay the
anti-Semitic, pro-fascist Member of Parliament was arrested and lodged in
Brixton Prison on an order under Defence Regulation 18B
1940: As French forces fled from the attacking
German Army, Margaret and Hans Rey returned to Paris from Normandy.
1940: The Broadway production of “Keep Off the
Grass,” “a musical revue produced by Lee Shubert and J.J. Shubert” opened today
at the Broadhurst Theatre where it “ran for a total of 44 performances.
1940: Frustrated by "illegal"
immigration into Palestine, British High Commissioner for Palestine Sir Harold
MacMichael insists that Hungary accept the return of two Jews who had left
Hungary and settled in Palestine in 1934 on tourist visas. The Hungarian
government replies that there are an "excessive" number of Jews in
their country and the government's aim is "that as many as possible should
be encouraged to emigrate."
1940: Lord Lloyd, the Secretary of State for
Colonies expressed his opposition to Prime Minister Churchill’s plan to arm the
Jews of Palestine so that he could bring the 20,000 British troops stationed in
Palestine home to defend against a possible German invasion. Lloyd
feared the reaction of the Arabs to what Churchill saw as a way of providing
for self-defense while meeting the Nazi menace.
1941: Birthdate of Zalman King
Lefkowitz who as Zalman King gained fame as “a filmmaker who mixed
artistic aspiration, a professed empathy for female sexuality and gauzy
photography to bring soft-core pornography to cable television — particularly
with his Showtime series “Red Shoe Diaries” in the 1990s…´(As reported by
Douglas Martin)
1942(7th of Sivan, 5702): Second Day of
Shavuot
1942(7th of Sivan, 5702): After
having been tortured by the Nazis for at least two months, George Politzer was
murdered by a firing squad.
1942: The Nazis deported the Jews from Stopkov,
Slovakia, including the Findling family today and sent them to Auschwitz
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/may/08.asp
1942: “Grand Central Murder” produced by B.F.
Zeidman and featuring Same Levene “as Inspector Gunther” was released in the
United States today.
1943(18th of Iyar, 5703): Lag
BaOmer
1943: Nazi Aktionen kill
thousands of Ukrainian Jews at Przemyslany and Lvov.
1943: U.S. premiere of “Mission to Moscow” a
film treatment of the memoir of the former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union
directed by Michael Curitz, with a script by Howard Koch and a musical score by
Max Steiner.
1944(1st of Sivan, 5704): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1944: In New York, Rabbi Samuel Belkin was
inaugurated as President of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and
Yeshiva College. An honorary degree of Doctor of Law was conferred upon Supreme
Court Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone and an honorary degree of Doctor of
Divinity was conferred on Rabbi Isaac Rubinstein, former Chief Rabi of Vilna
and a twenty-six-year member of the Sejm (the Polish Senate.)
1944: In Peekskill, NY, June and David Polis
gave birth to Susan Polis who gained fame as Susan Polis Schultz an American
poet, producer of greeting cards founder of Blue Mountains Art and the mother
of Colorado Congressman Jared Polis.
1945: Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler committed
suicide.
1945: “Acting on SHAEF's orders and with the
approval of the Soviets, American Major General Rooks summoned Dönitz aboard
the Patria and communicated to him that he and all the members of his
Government were under arrest, and that their Government was dissolved.”
1945: Two weeks after the German surrender,
Chaim Weizmann writes to Prime Minister Winston Churchill appealing for an end
to the White Paper and restrictions on Jewish immigration to Eretz
Israel. The appeal would fall on deaf ears.
1946: In “Harrow, north London…Jewish
hairdressers” gave birth to Stephen Anthony Solomon Marks who gained game as
Stephen Marks, “a British fashion retailer and founder, chairman and chief
executive of the French Connection brand.”
1946: “The Devil’s Mask” directed by Henry
Levin, with music by Irving Getz and featuring Ludwig Donath as “Dr. Karger”
was released in the United States today.
1946: James Work was elected president of the
National Farm School, after having served “as Acting President for many months
during the illness of President Louis Nusbaum. The school was the creation
Joseph Krauskoph, a leading American Reform Rabbi.
1946: A mob of rioting Poles attacked Zypora
Frank and her family today which was Zypora’s birthday. According to Mrs.
Frank, ''They threw stones, they were yelling, 'You take our coal and give us
the Jews,' and somebody threw a grenade.'' Two people were killed, one right
next to the 11-year-old girl, spattering her birthday dress with
blood. Following another pogrom in July, Mrs. Frank’s parents would
decide to send their children to Palestine. They were sure that the Poles would
finish what the Germans had begun.
1946(22nd of Iyar, 5706):
Lithuanian born anarchist and translator William Wess aka Woolf Wess passed
away today in London.
1946(22nd of Iyar, 5706):
Sixty-three-year-old New Jersey State Highway Commissioner Abraham Jellin, the
Russian born son of Reichel Levine and Max Jellin, the husband of Bessie Ida
Slonimsky Jellin and father of Jerome Kalman Jellin who in 1889 came to the United
States with his parents where he was “a road and bridge contractor” before
serving as Street Commissioner and Tax Assessor in New Brunswick, NJ passed
away today.
1947: The British intercepted a three-masted
Italian schooner today off the shore of Palestine containing 1,457 Jews who
were trying to enter the country. The Jews, most of whom were
Polish, Russian or Hungarian, had been on the ship for over two
weeks. They had named the vessel Mordei Hagetaoth (Ghetto Fighters)
and placed a sign on the deck, written in English proclaiming “From the ruins
of the ghetto to our own country – our only refuge – Open the gates.
1947: It was reported today the “Zwi Brik, the
former director of the Palestine Office in Lithuania” “the first Jewish refugee
to be given a visa for Cyprus” “where more than 13,000 visaless Jews are
confined” has set sail from Naples bound for the British controlled Island.
1948(14th of Iyar, 5708):
Pesach Sheni
1948: Thomas C. Wasson, the Consul General for
the United States in Jerusalem, died today after having been shot in an alley
“by a .30 caliber rifle.”
1948: Today “New York Times reported that
Thomas Wasson "on his death bed stated that Arabs had shot him," but
two weeks later retracted this statement.’
1948: Independent producer Harry Popkin
disclosed he had “purchased two new stories for his program of ten pictures for
United Artists”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1948/05/24/86901739.html?pageNumber=23
1948: The only advance of the Arab Legion
beyond the Old City walls into "Jewish Jerusalem" was halted in front
of Notre Dame. The commander of the Arab Legion, Sir John Bagot Glubb (Glubb
Pasha), considered that battle to be the worst defeat suffered by the legion
throughout the war.
1948: Israeli forces take control of Ramat
Rahel
1948(14th of Iyar, 5708): Rabbi
Yitzchak Avigdor Orenstein, the Western Wall’s first rabbi and his wife were
killed today during the shelling of Jerusalem by the Jordanian forces trying to
seize the entire city for its King.
1948(14th of Iyar, 5708): “An
Air Transport Command C-46 Curtiss Commando aircraft which flew from
Czechoslovakia to Israel with the fuselage and engine of the first S-199 to be
assembled in Israel, crashed as a result of heavy fog which covered Tel Nof and
Sde Dov airfields. The navigator Moshe (Moses Aaron) Rosenbaum was killed. Ed
Styrack the radio operator was badly injured, and both the aircraft and its
cargo were destroyed.”
1948: The settlement of Allonei Abba was
established by Holocaust survivors from Czechoslovakia, Romania and Germany.
Even as the war with the Arabs was heating up, Jewish settlements were being
started. When you consider the conditions in Israel at the time,
this hast to make the Jews “the eternal optimists” in the truest sense of the
term. The name of the settlement came from two Hebrew
words. Allonei is a form of the Hebrew word Allon, meaning Oak which
served as a reminder of the Tabor Oaks that grew nearby. Abba was
the first name of Abba Berdichev. Berdichev had parachuted into
Czechoslovakia in 1943 with orders to assist British clandestine forces and aid
Jews trapped in Hitler’s death trap. Like so many of the others sent
on such missions, Abba Berdichev was captured and killed.
1948: Egyptian forces began its attack on the
Jewish settlement of Negba with an artillery barrage. The Egyptian force
consisted of 2,000 well-armed troops as well as support from the Egyptians Air
Force. The Jewish force at Negba consisted of 70 soldiers from the
Haganah and 75 members of the settlement. They lacked artillery, air
cover and pretty much anything else that a modern might need. Negba
had to be held to keep the Egyptians from reaching Tel Aviv. The
fight would last for nine days.
1949: The Federal Republic of Germany (also
known as West Germany) is established. There was a great deal of
apprehension among Jews around the world to see an independent German nation
rise four years after Hitler’s defeat. During the 1950’s West
Germany would pay reparations to the Jews and the state of
Israel. Additionally, Germany would provide military and economic
support to the Jewish state despite pressure from a wide array of Arab
states.
1949: In the UK, release date for “The Perfect
Woman,” featuring David Hurst in his first film role as “Wolfgang Winkel.
1950(7th of Sivan, 5710): Second Day of Shavuot
1950(7th of Sivan, 5710:
Six-eight-year-old author and journalist Joseph Gollomb, the
Columbia graduate and St. Petersburg born son of Julius and Rachel Gollomb who
was the uncle of actress Judy Holiday suffered a fatal heart attack today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1950/05/24/132818552.html?pageNumber=29
1951:Twenty-year-old Hyman “Hy’ Cohen who would
make to the Majors for seven games in 1955, pitched a shutout while playing for
the Des Moines (IA) Cubs.
1952: Birthdate of Tehran native and B.A. Pace
University graduate Fred Ohebshalom who in 1964 where he became a real estate
mogul and philanthropist sitting on the boards of the Iranian American Jewish
Committee and of the Bet Hadassah Iranian Jewish Center while raising four
children, two of whom work in their father’s real estate empire, with his wife
Yovonee.
1954: “Patriot and President” published today
provided a review of John Adams: Independence Forever illustrated
by Jacob Landau.
1958: Birthdate of Mitch Albom
1960(26th of Iyar): Rabbi
Joshua Chaim Kasovsky, editor of “Mishnah Concordance” passed away.
1960: Prime Minister David
Ben Gurion announces in the Knesset that Adolf Eichmann, an Nazi SS officer,
was abducted from Buenos Aires, Argentina, by Israeli agents and flown to
Israel to stand trial for crimes against the Jewish people.
1960: In an article published in Life magazine,
cartoonist Al Capp wrote "The secret of how to live without resentment or
embarrassment in a world in which I was different from everyone else was to be
indifferent to that difference.
1964: The former Betsy Eichler and Arthur
Milliman gave birth to Judith Jay Millman who is named in honor of maternal
grandmother Julian Jay Eichler.
1965: In New York, filmmaker Hava Kohav Beller
gave birth to author and editor Thomas Beller.
http://www.therestlessconscience.com/interview.html
1966(4th of Sivan, 5726):
Seventy-five-year-old Lazarus Joseph the NYU basketball player, New York State
Senator, New York City comptroller and active champion for the “rehabilitation
of Jewish survivors of Nazism” whose son Jacob, a U.S. Marine died during the
Battle of Guadalcanal, passed away today.
1966(4th of Sivan, 5726:
Eighty-three-year-old, patron of the arts Minnie Guggenheimer the New York born
daughter Samuel Shafer, “a member of Shafer Brothers, a banking firm that was
founded in 1860 and granddaughter of man who made a fortune in the
California gold rush which made it possible to set up his sons in business and
the wife of attorney Charles S. Guggenheimer whom she married in 1903 and whose
father was at one time the president of the N.Y.C. Board of Alderman and acting
mayor.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/minnie-guggenheimer
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/05/24/82441700.html?pageNumber=1
1967: Egypt closes the Straits of
Tiran and blockades the port of Eilat at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba
to Israeli shipping, laying the foundations for the Six Day War. A
blockade like this is an act of war under international law. In
addition to which, it was a violation of the U.N. agreements that had ended the
Suez Crisis in 1956-57. After the Six Day War, there was a lot of
nit-picking about whose planes attacked first i.e. who fired the first shot. The
fact of the matter is that this blockade was an act of war and anything the
Israelis did afterwards was an act of self-defense.
1968: Birthdate of Los Angeles native Laura
Allison Wasser, the Loyola Law School trained attorney who is called by some
the “Queen of Divorce Lawyers.”
https://www.kveller.com/jewish-divorce-lawyer-laura-wasser-is-the-queen-of-celeb-splits/
https://forward.com/schmooze/350455/8-things-about-angelina-jolies-a-list-jewish-divorce-lawyer/
1968(25th of Iyar, 5728):
Eighty-two-year-old Morris Haft, the Russian born son of Jennie and Max H. Haft
and “a major figure in the garment industry” whose ladies coat and suit
company, “Morris W. Haft and Bros. was known for many years on Seventh Avenue
as ‘the General Motors’ of the industry because of its size” and who was active
in New York politics, a major art collector and such a supporter of Israel that
the city of Herzliya named a street in his honor passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/05/24/77102682.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1969(6th of Sivan, 5729): Shavuot is celebrated
for the first time during the Presidency of Richard M. Nixon.
1969: As Israelis were celebrating Shavuot,
Israeli security forces arrested numerous terrorists as they foiled attacks in
on both sides of what had been the Green Line.
1970: Birthdate of Yigal Amir, the coward who
murdered Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
1971(28th of Iyar, 5731): Yom
Yerushalayim
1971(28th of Iyar, 5731): Sarah
Alpert Kolko, the daughter of Isaac S. Alpert and the wife of Nathan Kolko
passed away today after she was buried at the Britton Road Cemetery in Monroe
County, NY.
1972: Thomas Paul Malone began serving as
Canadian Ambassador to Israel.
1973: Funeral services are scheduled to be held
this morning for 89-year-old NYU law school trained attorney and former senior
officer of the C. I. T. Financial Corporation Edwin C. Vogel the law partner of
his brother Martin Vogel, a trustee of Mount Sinai Hospital and the Federation
of Jewish Philanthropies.
1976: Twenty-year-old Amy Alcott won the LPGA
Classic in Jamesburg, NY.
1977(6th of Sivan, 5737): First Day of Shavuot
1977(6th of Sivan, 5737):
Eighty-year-old former major leaguer Sam Bohne, the San Francisco born son of
Louis Coen who named his Samuel Arthur Cohen who played second from 1916 to
1926 for the Cardinals, Reds and Brooklyn Robins passed away today.
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported
that the Army Ombudsman, Rav-Aluf (Res.) Haim Laskov, complained that the cruel
harassment of recruits by their non-commissioned officers and officers was
still a recurrent phenomenon in Israel Defense Forces.
1979(26th of Iyar, 5739): Three
people were killed and thirteen more were injured when a bomb was detonated at
a bus stop in Petach Tikva.
1979: Joseph Brodsky Russian born Jewish poet
and essayist who would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987 and
would be chosen Poet Laureate of the United States (1991-1992) was inducted as
a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
1980: “Die Laughing,” a comedy co-produced,
co-written and co-starring Robby Benson was released today in the United
States.
1981(19th of Iyar, 5741): Entertainer George
Jessel passed away.
1981(19th of Iyar, 5741): Russian-born Canadian
lawyer and political leader David Lewis passed away. His son is an official
with the UN dealing with AIDS in Africa and his grandson Avi Lewis is a
broadcast journalist.
1981: Syria claimed that it had shot two
Israeli drones while Israel admitted the loss of only one pilotless
plane. The aircraft which were flying a recon mission over eastern
Lebanon fell victim to Syrian missile batteries stationed in the Syrian
occupied portion of that country.
1981: U.S. Presidential envoy Philip Habib
arrived in Beirut on a mission designed to keep the situation on the
Syrian-Lebanon –Israel border from exploding into war.
1981: Rabbi Ronald B. Sobel, senior rabbi of
Temple Emanu-El officiated at the wedding of Sheryl E. Israel and Barry J.
Spiegel. The bride’s father is Kenneth M. Israel, president of Cinema Shares
International Television Ltd., and chairman and chief executive officer of the
Excel Video International Corporation,
1982(1st of Sivan, 5742): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1982: The New York Times featured
a review of Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood by Kate
Simon who “grew up Jewish in the Tremont Avenue section of the Bronx, having
been brought there by her young immigrant parents direct from the Warsaw
Ghetto, with only a brief stopover on the Lower East Side.”
1982: At Cannes, premiere of “Pink Floyd – The
Wall” starring Bob Geldoff, the grandson of “Amelia Falk, an English Jew from
London and with music by Bob Ezrin and Michael Kamen
1983: “One Day At A Time” starring Bonnie
Franklin completed its 8th season.
1984: At the Cannes Film Festival, premiere of
“Once Upon a Time in America” the crime film based on The Hoods the novel by
Harry Grey (born Herschel Goldberg) the tells the tale of Jewish boys from the
Lower East Side who grow up to be big time hoods.
1985: Ronald Reagan awarded Sydney Hook the
Presidential Medal of Freedom.
1987: As part of the IPO’s 50th anniversary
celebration, James Levine conducts the orchestra for a second time.
1988(7th of Sivan, 5748): Second Day of
Shavuot; Yizkor
1988(7th of Sivan, 5748):
Seventy-three-year-old former French speaking CBS Paris correspondent David
Schoenbrun, one of “Murrow’s Boys” who brought us the news in the golden age of
foreign reporting passed away today.
1989(18th of Iyar, 5749): Lag
B’omer celebrated for the first time during the Presidency of George Bush.
1990(28th of Iyar, 5750): Yom Yerushalayim
1990: Today “Eusébio da Silva Ferreira —
considered by many to be one of the greatest soccer players of all time — took
a short trip to the Jewish section of Vienna’s central cemetery to pray by the
grave of the late Béla Guttmann, a Hungarian Jew and soccer legend, buried
there in 1981.” (As reported by JP O’Malley)
1993: In “Remembering Irving Howe” published
today Leon Wieseltier examined the life of his co-religionist and author known
to many for his seminal work World of Our Fathers was
published today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/23/books/remembering-irving-howe-1920-1993.html
1994: In “Richard Avedon” published today,
Paula Chin examined the career of the famous photographer who "as the only
son of Jacob Israel Avedon, a Russian-Jewish immigrant who started a successful
retail dress business on Fifth Avenue.”
https://people.com/archive/richard-avedon-vol-41-no-19/
1995(23rd of Iyar, 5755): Rabbi
Yehuda N. Mandelbaum of the Torah Institute of Baltimore passed away today.
1995: ABC broadcast the final episode of “Full
House” a sitcom starring Bob Sage
1996(5th of Sivan, 5756): Erev Shavuot
1999: “Michael Landon, the Father I Knew,” a
biopic written and directed by Michael Landon, Jr. the son of the actor best
known as the father on “Little House on the Prairie” was broadcast for the
first time on CBS.
1999: The Chicago Jewish Historical Society is
scheduled host “Preserve Your Family and Community History” an Oral History
Workshop at the Spertus Institute.
1999(8th of Sivan, 5759):
Eighty-eight-year-old “Edith Lewin, who with her husband, Bernard, amassed the
largest privately owned collection of Mexican modernist art and then gave it
away” passed away today.
1999: The New York Times featured
reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including Another Life: A Memoir of Other People by
Michael Korda.
2000(18th of Iyar, 5760): Lag
B’Omer
2000: “Proof” the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award
winning drama starring Ben Shenkman as “Ben” premiered off-Broadway today.
2001(1st of Sivan, 5761): Rosh
Chodesh
2001(1st of Sivan, 5761):
“Asher Iluz, 33, of Modi'in was killed outside Ariel en route to supervise a
road paving in the area, when Palestinian gunmen opened fire in an ambush.”
(Jewish Virtual Library)
2001: Broadcast of the final show of series
three of “Felicity” created by J.J. Abrams, starring Greg Grunberg as ‘Sean
Blumberg.”
2002: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon replaced Eli
Yishai as Minister of Internal Affairs.
2002: David Azulai completed his services as
Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs.
2002: An Hamas detonated bomb at the Pi Glilot
gas depot north of Tel Aviv failed to set off a catastrophic explosion.
2003: After premiering at the Sundance Film
Festival in 2001, “Manic” starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt was released today in
the United States.
2004: The New York Times featured
reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including ''Still Life With Bombers: Israel in the Age of Terrorism'' by David
Horovitz and ''How Israel Lost: The Four Questions” by Richard Ben Cramer.
2004: “Regarding the Torture of Others” by
Susan Sontag was published today in the New York Times Magazine.
http://jwa.org/thisweek/may/23/2004/susan-sontag
2004(3rd of Sivan, 5764):
Eighty-nine year old historian, sociologist and orientalist Maxime Rodinson,
whose parents were murdered at Auschwitz, passed away today.
2005: Today, “President George W. Bush
nominated Rod Rosenstein to serve as United States Attorney for the United
States District Court for the District of Maryland
2006: “In Israel, New Reflections on Holocaust”
published today, The New York Times reported on evolving
Jewish methods of remembering the Shoah. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/world/middleeast/23holocaust.html?_r=0
2006: Release date of “Blue Alert,” an album
co-written by Leonard Cohen.
2007(6th of Sivan, 5767): First Day of Shavuot.
2007: The two day Tel Aviv Poetry Festival
comes to an end.
2007: Amy Barrett and novelist Jonathan Lethem
whose mother was Jewish gave birth to Everett Barrett Latham.
2007: Today tennis player Jesse Levine “lost
his first college match in the quarter-finals in the NCAA Men’s Singles.”
2008: Norman Finkelstein was denied entry to
Israel today “because, according to unnamed Israeli security officials, of
suspicions that ‘he had contact with elements 'hostile' to Israel"
including’ a top Hezbollah commander in Lebanon.” Finkelstein “visited south
Lebanon and met with Lebanese families during the 2006 Lebanon War.” While ther
he said: “Hizbullah represents the hope. They are fighting to defend their
homeland, they are fighting to defend the independence of their country, they
are defending themselves against foreign marauders, vandals and murderers and I
consider it to be genuinely to be an honor to be in their presence.”
2008(18th of Iyar, 5768): Lag B’Omer.
2008: Bradlee Birchansky leads Friday Night
Services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa as part of his Bar Mitzvah
weekend.
2008: In Plymouth (UK), police
detained two men linked to the bombing of a Giraffe’s restaurant that had taken
police yesterday. According to authorities, 22-year-old Nicky Reilly, a recent
convert to Islam who police said had a history of mental illness, was wounded
when a bomb went off in the Giraffe restaurant at a shopping center in Exeter,
Devon. Giraffe, which has 25 restaurants around the UK, is owned by Jewish
partners.
2008: “Synechdoche, New York,” directed,
written and co-produced by Charlie Kaufman premiered today at Cannes.
2008: In a story entitled “Public allowed rare
chance to view Dead Scrolls,” The Columbia Dispatch reports on
the public display of the 2,100 year old 24 foot scroll with the text of the
bible’s book of Isaiah at the Israel Museum. Israel put the Dead Sea scroll
containing the Book of Isaiah on display for the first time since 1967. The
calfskin parchment was locked away because of deterioration. It will be
available to the public for three months as part of the 60th anniversary of the
founding of the Jewish state.
2009(29th of Iyar, 5769): On Shabbat, start
reading the Bamidbar, Book of Numbers.
2009: Day 2 of “Conference 2009” hosted by the
Philadelphia Kehilla For Jews at Aracadia University in Glenside, PA.
2009: A 24-year-old man was diagnosed with the
swine flu on today, becoming the eighth person in the Jewish State to come down
with the virus. He had recently returned from the United States and was
presumed to have contracted the illness there. A second man had also been
hospitalized due to concerns that he may have the virus as well.
2009: Franklin H. Littell, a father of
Holocaust studies who traced his engagement with the subject to the revulsion
he felt as a young Methodist minister while witnessing a big Nazi rally in
Nuremberg in 1939, died today at his home in Merion Station, Pa., outside
Philadelphia today at the age of 91. Dr. Littell also became an enthusiastic
supporter of Israel, in part because he believed that its very existence
refuted theologies that foresaw or favored the withering away of the Jewish
people. He rejected the theology of some Christian backers of Israel that Jews
must ultimately become Christian…” (NYT)
2010: “Dancing Alfonso” and “Ida’s Dance Club”
are scheduled to be shown at the Israeli Film Night sponsored by Magen David
Sephardic Congregation in Rockville, MD.
2010(10th of Sivan,
5770): Irwin Rosten, an award-winning documentary filmmaker perhaps best
known for "The Incredible Machine," which took PBS viewers on a revolutionary
voyage inside the human body in 1975, passed away today at the age of
85., http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/arts/04rosten.html
2010(10th of Sivan, 5770):
David Ginsburg, a liberal lawyer and longtime Washington insider who helped
found the Americans for Democratic Action and led the presidential commission
on race relations whose report, in 1968, warned that the United States was “moving
toward two societies — one black, one white, separate and unequal,” died today
at his home in Alexandria, VA at the age of 98 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/us/25ginsburg.html
2010: Despite gray skies that threatened
rain, tens of thousands of people turned out for a massive celebration of
Israel today, at the annual Salute to Israel Parade on Manhattan’s Fifth
Avenue.
2011: The Ellis Island Old World Folk Band
is scheduled to perform at the Reutlinger Community for Jewish Living in
Danville, CA
2011: Phyllis Newman, who was married to
Adolph Green for over four decades is scheduled to take part in program
entitled “Carried Away: Being Comden and Green” that highlights the work of the
team of Adloph Green and Betty Comden that created such hits as “On the Town,”
“ Wonderful Town,” “ Bells are Ringing” and “Singin' in the Rain.”
2011: For the first time HBO broadcast “To Big
to Fail,” a cinematic treatment of “Andrew Ross Sorkin's non-fiction book Too
Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save
the Financial System—and Themselves”, co-starring Edward Asner and
featuring Evan Handler.
2011: El Al flight 027 carrying 279
passengers landed safely at Ben Gurion Airport this morning after it was forced
to make an emergency landing when a technical fault was found in one of its
left wheels. The plane took off en route to New York late last night but was
forced to turn back and perform an emergency landing when the pilots noticed
that one of the left wheels had become jammed.
2012: Dr. Leo Hershkowitz, Adjunct Professor of
History at New York University and CUNY Queens College (ret.) is scheduled to
deliver a lecture about the early history of Jews in New York City at the NYC
Department of Small Business Services
2012: In London, The Wiener Library is
scheduled to host a screening of “SS-3: The Assassination of Reinhard
Heydrich,” a film about the British inspired plan to kill the ruthless ruler of
Bohemia, person favorite of Hitler and a key planner of the Final Solution
2012: Film critic Aviva Kempner who was the
founder of the Washington DC Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to deliver a
lecture on a documentary film on which she is working that traces the life of
Jules Rosenwald, the man who led Sears, Robebuck & Co during its glory days
and was one of the nation’s leading philanthropists.
2012: Filming began for “Iron Man 3” a film
based on characters created by Stan Lee and co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow.
2012: Nancy Margulies, the daughter of Joan
Thaler – the doyen of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community- is scheduled to
perform her one-woman show “Deaf Poets Society” at Coe College in Cedar Rapids,
Iowa. Her most recent book, a spook entitled Klassic Koalas: The
Koala Museum of Modern Art Catalogue is on sale at the Cedar Rapids Museum of
Art.
2013: Nineteen-year-old Corporal Roi Alphi was
killed when a landmine exploded in the Golan Heights laid to rest tonight
in the military section of the cemetery of his hometown, Gan Yavne.
2013: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is
scheduled to present 'Jews, You Should Fight to the Bitter End:' Bogoraz's
Literary Response to the Gomel' Pogrom
2013: The Israel Festival, an annual showing
drama, theatre, dance and music is scheduled to open in Jerusalem.
2013(14th of Sivan, 5773):
Seventy-nine-year-old singer/songwriter Giuseppe Mustacchi the son of Sephardic
Jews from Corfu, passed away today
2013: A sketched map of Israeli prime
minister Ehud Olmert’s land-for-peace offer to Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas in 2008 — hurriedly drawn up by Abbas after a meeting with Olmert
that December, and made public for the first time today — suggests that Israel
was prepared to withdraw to borders very similar to the pre-1967 lines and swap
areas of northern and southern Israel in return for maintaining the larger
settlement blocs.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/hand-drawn-map-shows-what-olmert-offered-for-peace/
2013: The Louvre Museum in Paris opened its
first-ever Israeli exhibit today, displaying a 1,700-year-old mosaic floor that
was recovered from a garbage dump near Lod in central Israel.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/from-lod-to-the-louvre/
2014: “Jewtopia” is scheduled to be shown at
noon-time in Mason, Ohio, as part of Jewish American Heritage Month.
2014: “Donald Sterling has agreed to surrender
his stake in the Los Angeles Clippers to his estranged wife, and she is moving
ahead with selling the team, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told
The Associated Press today.
2014: A revised version of Assi Dayan’s “The 92
Minutes of Mr. Baum” is scheduled to open today in the United States.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/an-israeli-remake-heads-to-hollywood/
2014: On the final morning of the 4th International
Writers’ Festival, Etgar Keret and musician Shlomi Saban are scheduled to sing,
read and chat in a one-off event. (As reported by Jessica Steinberg)
2014: “With the words of the Kaddish and a
sprinkle of earth over his remains, Avner Less, the Israeli official who
interrogated Adolf Eichmann was reburied today in Berlin’s Wannsee
neighborhood, not far from the house where the senior Nazi who helped organize
the Holocaust outlined his genocidal plans in 1942.” (As reported by David
Rising)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/eichmanns-interrogator-reburied-in-germany/
2015: Parsha Bamidbar
2015(5th of Sivan,
5775): In the evening, Erev Shavuot
2015: The JCC Manhattan is scheduled to host
“The Paul Fieg Tikkun Leil Shavuot.”
2015: Today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
thanked President Barak Obama for blocking a UN moved at forcing Israel to come
clean on its nuclear capabilities en route to a Middle East zone free of
nuclear weapons.” (As reported by Times of Israel)
2015: In Cedar Rapids, IA, Temple Judah is
scheduled to celebrate Shavuot and the Confirmation of Jessica Heeren, Ben
Sarasin and Gabrielle Thalblum
2015: According to an article published today
in Rai al-Youm, “a London-based Arab newspaper,” “Saudi Arabia recently
rejected an Israeli offer to provide it with Iron Dome rocket defense
technology.”
2016: Professor Todd Endelman of the University
of Michigan is scheduled to speak on “The Emotional Toll of Antisemitism and
its Consequences” at Birbeck, University of London, Bloomsbury.
2016: In Des Moines, IA, Congregation Beth El
Jacob is scheduled to offer “Chevra Kadisha Training.”
2017: According to information supplied “by
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office,” President Trump is scheduled to
“arrive at Yad Vashem at 1 p.m.” and to begin his speech at the Israel Museum
at 2:00 p.m.
2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is
scheduled to host “a delicious 3 course meal and a group discussion.”
2017: At sundown events marking a Jerusalem Day
that is special because it marks the 50th anniversary of the
reunification of the Jew are scheduled to begin.
2017: The Vancouver Jewish Film Centre is
scheduled to host a screening “The History of Love.”
2017: ELI Talks, “a nonprofit organization
devoted to nurturing and transmitting inspired Jewish ideas is scheduled to
host an evening Beth Huppin, a Jewish Education from Seattle, Macy B. Hart,
President and Founder, Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life
(ISJL) and Sam Novy a “social entrepreneur” from Baltimore, MD.
2018: In Lyndurst, Ohio, Oheb Zedek-Cedar Sinai
Synagogue is scheduled to host a screening of “Big Sonia.”
2018: A “Drop-In Tour” of Temple Tifereth
Israel Gallery at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage is scheduled to take
place this afternoon.
2018: A photographic exhibition “Elderly Jews
and Holocaust Survivors in Dimona” is scheduled to come to an end today at the
Streicker Center.
2018: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is
scheduled to a book launch of Hasidism: A New History by David Biale and Samuel
Heilman
2018: “The Labor of Life” by Hanoch Levin is
scheduled to open to a sold-out house at the 14th Street Y
2019: In Alberta, Canada, the Edmonton Jewish
Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Tel Aviv on Fire.”
2019: The Center for Jewish History and the
American Jewish Historical Society are scheduled to host “A Dad’s Mission After
Parkland” in ABC News Chief National Correspondent Matt Guttman talks to Fred
Guttenberg whose “14 year old daughter Jamie was one of 17 people killed by a
gunman at Marjory Stoneman Dough High School” about his crusade “for stricter
gun control and public safety laws.”
2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the
final two screenings ‘The Testament.”
2019: As part of the “Music of Remembrance”
program, the San Francisco Conservatory is scheduled to host the world premiere
of “The Parting” and “chamber works by three Hungarian Jewish composers whose
lives were cut short by Nazi persecution.”
2019: As part of Jewish American Heritage
Month, the National Archives is scheduled to host an evening author Dr. Pamela
Nadella she talks a variety of American Jewish women including “Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg, Barbie inventor Ruth Handler, poet Emma Lazarus, labor
organizer Bessie Hillman, and convicted spy Ethel Rosenberg.”
2019(18th of Iyar, 5779): Lag
B’Omer
2019(18th of Iyar, 5779): The
former Edith Graff, the mother of “Iris Morse and Ellen Graff” and the wife of
Columbia University Historian Henry F. Graff whose translation of intercepted
messages provided key information for the Allies before D-Day and the imminent
surrender of Japan after the dropping of the Atomic Bomb.
2020(29th of Iyar, 5779):
Parashat Bamidbar. For more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2020: On line, Temple Israel of Boston is
scheduled to present “Clergy Havdalah, Cocktails and Mocktails”
2020 Rodef Sholom@Home is scheduled to fill
Shabbat with the look and feel of the real thing with Torah Study, followed by
Shabbat Services and a Havdalah experience designed to “enrich our souls
and lift us as we begin a new week.”
2020: Aliya Institute in Crown Heights which
had shut down voluntarily on March 10 and which held a daily minyan yesterday
is scheduled to have services this morning.
2020: In Bexley, OH the scheduled Bat Mitzvah
of Rachel Levin was “short-circuited” by the Pandemic, but a virus was no match
for the bright, talented, accomplished young lady who found a way to share her
Haftarah and D’var Torah. (Editor’s note – Rachel makes the words
l’dor v’dor more than just a few words in the Prayer Book. Thanks to
her determination and hard work, she is the fourth generation of her family to
be called to the Torah in the United States keeping alive the dreams of Litvak
tailor who came to the United States in the 19th century. In so
many ways, she makes us all so proud.)
2021: Writer-filmmaker Rebecca Pierce is
scheduled to talk “about how racism and antisemitism are linked, how the system
pits minorities against one another and other related issues.”
2021: Kerem Shalom of Concord is scheduled to
present online, “Shtetl to Ellis: The Untold Story”
2021: The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth
Count (NJ) is scheduled to present via Zoom, Rabbi Michael Klein lecturing on
“Famous Jews You Never Heard of” including Shabbetai Tzvi and Ada Yonath.
2021: 2LIFE COMMUNITIES is scheduled to present
online “L’Chaim, 2Life: Enjoy “Fiddler on the Roof” in Yiddish.”
2021: The New York Times reviews
books by Jewish authors or of special interest to Jewish readers
including Love Like Water, Love Like Fire by Mikhail Iossel
and An Apprenticeship Or The Book of Pleasures by Clarice
Lispector
2021: Author Anna Solomon is scheduled to
talk about her novel, The Book of V, which retells the Book of
Esther via three characters’ stories in different time periods that overlap
2021: The Contemporary Jewish Museum series
“Sunday Stories” is scheduled to travel back to the first half of the 20th
century, when Old Country Jewish immigrants raised chickens in a progressive
community at Petaluma.
2021: Jews around the world brace for more
anti-Semitic attacks as groups as varied as thugs in NYC engage in anti-Semitic
violence and an official of the Pakistan government talks about a Jewish cabal
controlling the media, a classic anti-Semitic trope.
2021: The Jewish Federation of the Corridor is
scheduled to present via Zoom “an introduction to Genealogy.”
2021: Live from Jerusalem, Torah scholar Avivah
Zornberg is scheduled “to delve into her 2016 book Moses A Human Life which
analyzes Moses’ vexing personality, uncertain origins, struggles with speaking
and turbulent relations with his own people.
2022: the 34th annual William
and Irene Weinberg Baltimore Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host the
initial screenings of “The Conductor” and “A Radiant Girl.”
2022: Based on an announcement made last week
by Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, the mandate obliging travelers to wear a
mask on international flights will not be extended by today.
2023: YIVO is scheduled, live and via Zoom, a
lecture by Roy Ginsberg on “POETICS OF ARRIVAL OR RETURN?: LAYING THE PATH
TOWARD INDUSTRIAL UTOPIA IN PERETZ MARKISH’S, 'DER FERTSIKYERIKER MAN'.”
2023: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host
the final session of Naomi Miller Beginners’ Yiddish: Shopping, Cooking
Inviting and Easting for the Jewish Holidays.”
2023: The JDC Archives is scheduled present a
webinar “Yiddishkeit and JDC’s support for Jewish Education in Communist
Poland,” featuring Dr. Anna Sommer Schneider which will be the fifth
program in the JDC series “Young Lives in Turmoil and Transformation: JDC’s
Work with Children in the Twentieth Century.”
2023: The Center for Jewish History is
scheduled to present Marian B. Wood, the experienced speaker,
blogger, and author on genealogical methods, who will teach teach workshop
attendees how to organize and store their genealogical materials,
curate their collection, write a "genealogical will," and share their
family history.
2023: Having agreed “to boost
funding for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students and their families by up to NIS
250” Prime Minister Netanyahu is scheduled to figure out a way of meeting the
Otzma Yehudit’s demands for “more funder for tis priorities” in his
quest to gain the necessary votes to pass his budget.
2024: Tickets are available at ANU (Museum of
the Jewish People) for those wishing to view “The Codex Sassoon” – the
earliest, most complete edition of the TaNaCh.
2024: As part of Jewish American Heritage
Month, the National Museum of America Jewish History is scheduled to host
“Antisemitism, USA: A Conversation with Zev Eleff, Kristen Fermaglich, Sarah
Ihoff, Lincoln Mullen, Mark Oppenheimer, Britt Tevis and John Turner.”
2024: As May 23rd begins in
Israel, an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism sweeps the United States and the Hamas
held hostages begin day 230 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.)
2025: In Sudbury, MA, Congregation Beth El is
scheduled to present “May Fourth Friday Shabbat,” “an evening designed to
celebrate all the bright things emerging from the earth and from those around
us” “at a chaotic time in the world.”
2025: JPNOLA (Jewish Pride New Orleans)is
scheduled to host a pride prom at the Hyatt Regency in New Orleans
2025: Lockdown University is scheduled to host
a lecture by Rabbi Jonathan Shippel on the final readings from Vayikra
2025: According to Google A-I, The New
York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to open with the film "Northern
Lights".
2025 : Day 23 of Jewish American Heritage Month; Read The
Jewish South: An American History by Shari Rabin. For more see
https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/the-jewish-south-an-american-history
And
https://thisdayinjewishhistory.blogspot.com/;
2025: As May 23nd begins in Israel, an
unprecedented wave of ant-Semitism sweeps across the globe and the United States where a Hamas supporter has proved that words lead to deeds as he murdered two Jews on the streets of Washington, D.C., the reality is that the remaining Hamas held
hostages begin day 595 in captivity (Editor’s note: this situation is too fluid
for this blog to cover so we are just providing a snapshot as of the posting at
midnight Israeli time
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