Monday, January 29, 2024

This Day, January 30, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

January 30

1349(10th of Adar, 5109): The Jews of Freilsburg Germany were massacred.

1592: Clement VIII began his papacy during which he enacted numerous anti-Jews moving including the issuance of Cum Saepe Accidere, a papal bull that “forbade the Jewish community of the Comtat Venaissin of Avignon, a papal enclave, to sell new goods, putting them at an economic disadvantage”  and Caeca et Obdurata, a papal bull that “banned Jews from living in the Papal states outside the cities of Rome, Ancona, and Avignon” which among other things had the effect of expelling the Jews from Umbria and Bologna. Last but not least, he issued Cum Hebraeorum militia a papal bull that “forbade the reading of the Talmud.”

1648: Spain and the United Netherlands sign The Treaty of Münster and Osnabrück marking the end of the eighty yearlong Dutch revolt against Spanish rule.  The treaty guarantees the independence of the Protestant Netherlands from the rule of Catholic Spain and the Holy Roman Empire.  It means that the Jewish community in the Netherlands, which includes many Sephardic refugees and Marranos, will be able to grow and flourish.

1649: King Charles I was beheaded.  One of those who took part in the trial was Isaac Dorislaus, the son of Dutch Reform minister who has been misidentified by some as being Jews. There was a “converso community” living in England but the Jews would not be formally re-admitted until after Oliver Cromwell came to power following the King’s death.

1667: The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceded Kiev, Smolensk, and left-bank Ukraine to the Tsardom of Russia in the Treaty of Andrusovo. According “to the treaty...arranged with John the Jews, who then lived in the towns and districts that became Russian territory, were permitted to remain "on the side of the Russian czar," under Russian rule, if they did not choose to remain under Polish rule. Jewish wives of Greek Orthodox Russians were permitted to remain with their husbands without being forced to change their religion.

1723: Ester Alvares and Bordeaux native Daniel Nones gave birth to Raphael Nones.

1764: Philadelphia native Rebecca Judah and Isaac Hays gave birth to Samuel Hays, the husband of Richea Gratz with whom he ten children.

1766: Birthdate of Judith Baierthaler, the daughter of Abraham Baierthaler and wife of Samuel S. Strauss with whom she had five children

1767(30th of Shevat, 5527): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1767: Birthdate of German explorer Ulrich Jasper Seetzen who was one of the early European explorers of Jordan, Palestine and Sinai Peninsula whose writings were published by the British Palestine Association whose members sought “to promote the study of the geography, natural history, antiquities and anthropology of Palestine and the surrounding areas, "with a view to the illustration of the Holy Writings.”

1770: In England Rabbi David Segal and his wife gave birth to Aaron Levy (Aaron ben David Segal Levi)

1771(15th of Shevat, 5531): Tu B’Shevat

1790(15th of Shevat, 5550): Shabbat Shirah; Tu B’Shevat observed on the same day that Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, who reportedly was of Jewish parentage wrote to Otho Williams “informing him of regulations on payment of invalid pensions.”

1795: Birthdate of Muenster, Germany native Rosetta Nathan Eisendrath, the daughter of Nathan Baruch Eisendrath and wife of Elias Levi Rosenheim with whom she had seven children.

1805: Maria Magnus married Emanuel Isaacs today at the Great Synagogue in London

1808: In London, Sam Elias, the professional boxer known as Dutch Sam, and his wife gave birth to Young Dutch Sam who followed in his father footsteps and became “a welterweight champion in the 1820’s.”

https://www.jewishsports.net/BioPages/Samuel-Evans.htm

https://www.lookandlearn.com/history-images/XE222137/Samuel-Evans-Young-Dutch-Sam

1805: Emmanuel Isaacs married Maria Magnus at the Great Synagogue today.

1807: Sir Robert Grant was “called to the bar” and began the practice of law. This was but one step on the ladder that led to Grant’s successful career as a member of the House of Commons.  Grant was not Jewish.  Robert Grant was a strenuous advocate for the removal of the disabilities of the Jews, and twice carried bills on the subject through the House of Commons. They were, however, rejected in the Upper House, which did not yield on the question until 1858, twenty years after Grant’s death. 

1811(5th of Shevat, 5571): Twenty-year old Sarah Isaacsm the daughter o Abraham Isaacs, Jr. and the wife of Abraham L.Phillips who she had married in 1810 passed away today in New York.

1817: Nine days after he had passed away, Israel Israel, the husband of Polly Israel and father of Henrietta and Harriet Israel, was buried today.

1817(13th of Shevat): Rabbi Yom Tov Netel, author of Tehor Ra’ayonim passed away

http://thefoundationstone.org/en/bible/161-portion-of-the-week/2650-tehor-raayonim-beshalach.html

1823: Birthdate of Ida Warburg the future wife of Eduard Wolf.

1818: Brussels native Sara Rebecca Daniels and Solomon Jones gave birth to Alexander Jones.

1825: Isaac Barnett married Sarah Joseph today at the Great Synagogue.

1827: “L’artisan” (The Craftsman) “an opéra comique by Fromental Halévy, was staged at the Opéra-Comique, in Paris

1831: In Paris Edmond Rochefort and his wife gave birth to Victor Henri Rochefort allied himself with anti-Semite Edouard Drumont and the infamous Hubert-Joseph Henry during the campaign to convict Dreyfus and then to destroy as much of the Jewish community as possible.

1834: In Elllerstadt, Germany, Salomon Weil, a local merchant and the former Helena Lea Meyer gave birth to Abraham Weil who served “as a royal Bavarian tax collector.”

1835: In London, Frances Cohen and Joel Benjamin gave birth to Rachel Benjamin.

1836: At Vinnitza, in the government of Podolia, banker Samson Bernstein and his wife gave birth to “Polish bibliophile” and author Ignacy Berncy, the husband of Eliza von Mises who moved to Warsaw and was responsible for the founding of a library at the Great Synagogue at Warsaw.

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3141-bernstein-ignacy

1839(15th of Shevat, 5599): Tu B’Shevat

1839: In Charleston, SC, Jacob Levin of Columbia, SC married Ann Sampson, “the eldest daughter of the late Samuel Sampson.”

1842: Solomon Nathan married Hannah Abrahams at the Great Synagogue today

1842(19th of Shevat, 5602): Sixty-five year old Branca Brendel Bernisse Hartog Kann the daughter of Jacob Hirsch Pinto and Levia Leonora Liebe Pinto and the wife of Hirschel Eliazer Kann passed away today in Nederland.

1846: In Richmond, VA Catherine de Castrol and Jacob Ezekiel gave birth to Henry Clay Ezekiel, the husband of Jessie Myers who served in the Civil War and settled in Cincinnati where he was a merchant and auctioneer.

1846: Two days after he had passed away, 56 year old Abraham Levy was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”

1852: The horribly mutilated body of Jacob Lehman was found today in the Delaware River. Lehman was the son of Aaron Lehman, a German Jewish peddler living in Philadelphia.  When last seen, Jacob had in his possession $200 worth of watches, jewelry and other items that constituted most of his father's inventory. 

1852: A jury in Philadelphia rendered the following verdict: "That the lad Jacob Lehman came to his death at the hand or hands of some person or person to the Jury unknown."  Lehman was the son of a German Jewish peddler whose gruesomely dismembered body had been found floating in the Delaware River

1853: In Liverpool, “German Jewish parents gave birth to Matilda Beatrice Samuel, who became Matilda Beatrice de Mille when she defied her family by marrying Christian actor Henry DeMille with whom she had two famous movie-making son Cecil B. and William C. DeMille and a daughter Agnes who after her husband’s death gained fame as a playwright, movie script writer and a developer of talent in the early days of the movie industry.

1854(1st of Shevat, 5614): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1854: Seventy-four-year-old Anglican clergyman John Oxlee whose studies of rabbinical and Hebrew literature led to “conclusions at odds with both Christianity and Judaism” and who was the author the three volume The Christina Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation contended that “the concept of the trinity could be found in the Talmud” passed away today.

1854: In Kozim, Prussia Raphael Tuck and the former Ernestine Lissner, the daughter of David Lissner gave birth to Sir Adolph Tuck, the husband of Jeanetta Flatau and father of Sir William Gladys, Sybil, Desmond and Mariel Tuck, the Chairman of the Board of Raphael Tuck and Sons, the firm best known for introducing the standard sized picture post card who “was created a baronet in 1910.

1854: In Riga, Eleazar Frommer and his wife gave birth to Jacob Frommer the Rabbi of Congregation Bikur Cholim Bnay Abraham, New Haven, CT.

1855: Henry Fitzroy, the husband of Hannah Rothschild and the son-in-law of Nathan Mayer Rothschild completed his term as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department.

1856(23rd of Shevat, 5616): Fifty-seven-year-old Nikolsburg, Moravia, native and disciple  of Mordecai Benet, Rabbi Solomon Quetsch who “succeeded Samson Raphael Hirsch” as the rabbi at Nikolsburg passed at today.

1857: The will of Marcus Cone was offered for probate today. Included in the will were instructions for establishing Cone's German Human Benevolent Society of New York, Cone's German Human Benevolent Society of Syracuse and Cone's German Human Benevolent Society of Albersweiller, the Germany city in which he was born.  Cone wanted to establish the two societies in the United States because neither of these cities had any organized way to provide aid for their indigent Jewish citizens.

1860: It was reported today that "In England, astonishment is expressed” that Emperor Napoleon has not appointed the Duc de Persigny to the Foreign Ministry. Unbeknown to the public M de Persigny will not join the cabinet because he refuses to serve with Achille Fould, the Minister of State. M Fould is a favorite of the Empress who “absolutely clings” to him “as the only man competent to” serve as “Minister of State and of the Household of the Emperor.” Furthermore, M Fould is Jewish, a millionaire and is connected to “other rich Jews” through his banking connections. (“Nearly all the millionaires of Paris at this moment are Jews.”) The Emperor is reportedly “afraid to offend so important” a component needed to ensure the stability of his government.  “There are people malicious enough to suggest that the Empress' wish in the matter goes for very little, however, and that she is made to bear the blame because that is more convenient in these personal matters than a reason of State.”

1861: In Gollantsch, Germany, Meyer Rosentreter and his wife gave birth to David Rosentreter, the President of the Washington Bank National of St. Louis who was the first treasurer of the St. Louis Jewish Hospital association and the founder of the Jewish Farmers’ Colony in Washington County, MO.

1862: In Breslau, Silesia, Helene von Heimburg, a former opera singer, and the conductor Leopold Damrosch who were Lutherans gave birth to Walter Damrosch, the composer and conductor who played a key role in the founding of Carnegie Hall and whose paternal grandparents were Jewish. (A trip to the baptismal fountain was an easy way that many 18th 19th century Jews thought would lead to acceptance – a thought that was proved so wrong in the 20th century.)

1863: In Philadelphia, Pauline Kayser and David Allman gave birth wallpaper manufacturer Herbert David Allman, the husband of Mildred Carvahlo Nunez and the President of the National Farm School.

https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Unique_Institution.html?id=7SgXAAAAIAAJ

1863(10th of Shevat, 5623): Phineas Mendel Heilprin passed away today in Washington, D.C.  Born at Lublin in 1801, he moved to Hungary in 1842 and then left in 1848 when the revolutionary movement failed.  He arrived in the United States where he gained a reputation as a scholar and author.  His son Michael, who was born in 1823 came to the United States after the failure of the Kossuth led revolution.  On the eve of the Civil War, he refuted Rabbi Raphall’s position on slavery in the United States describing it as being immoral and contrary to the teachings of Judaism. He continued to espouse liberal cause until his death in 1888.

1863: In Philadelphia, PA, Polish born “painter, lithographer, draftsman and etcher” Max Rosenthal and Helene Caroline Rosenthal gave birth to Albert Rosenthal the American artist who was the husband of Henryetta Rosenthal.

http://www.artistsandart.org/2010/05/albert-rosenthal-1863-1939-american.html

1863: In Warsaw, Talmud scholar Marcus Jastrow and his wife gave birth to American psychologist Joseph Jastrow.

http://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2012/10/americas-first-pop-psychologist.html

1864: In New York, Nannie Bayer and Ludwig A. Freund gave birth to the University of Heidelberg trained attorney Ernst Freund, the holder of Ph.D. in political science from Columbia who taught political science at the University of Chicago before becoming a law professor whom Justice Felix Frankfurter “described as one of the most distinguished all legal scholars in the whole history of the legal professoriate.”

https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.FREUND

1865: Philadelphian Morris Schlesinger began serving as Adjutant of the 210th Regiment.

1865(3rd of Shevat, 5625): Sixty-two-year-old Elizabeth Holtz, the daughter of Margaret and John Gettinger passed away today after which she was buried at the Fountain Cemetery in Fostoria, OH,

1867: Two days after he had passed away, 38-year-old Rosetta (Benjamin) Joseph, the wife of Raphael Joseph and the mother of Sarah, Mark and Elizabeth Joseph was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1867(24th of Shevat, 5627): In Bristol, UK, Joseph Abraham the London born son of Moses Abraham and the brother of John Abraham with whom he worked as a wine merchant and who served as both the President of the Bristol Hebrew Congregation and Mayor of Bristol passed away today.

1868: In Middlesex, Alice and Simon Cantor gave birth to Florence Caroline Cantor.

1870: Birthdate of Amsterdam native Moses Alvares Vega the husband of Sara Teresa Ameringen and the father of Abraham Moses Alvares Vega.

1871: Birthdate of Pressburg Yeshiva graduate Aaron Tanzer, the holder of a Ph.D. from the University of Berlin and the “chief rabbi of Tyrol and Vorarlberg who served as Jewish Chaplain on the Eastern Front with the German Army during WW I.

1872: Birthdate of Eduard Bloch the native of Frauenberg who “until 1907 was the physician of Adolf Hitler’s family.”

1873(2nd of Shevat, 5633): “French shipbuilder and philanthropist Jacques Isaac Altaras, a native of Aleppo who tried to help settle Russian Jews in Algeria and who “founded a school for Jewish children at Marseilles, passed away today.

1874: Nine days after he had passed away in Nice, France, Daniel Joseph Jaffe, the wife of Friederike Jaffe with whom he had had four children including Sir Otto Jaffe, was buried today at the Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern Ireland.

1875: The London Punch has a cartoon of Disraeli shaking hands with Gladstone and saying: "Sorry to lose you. I began with books; you’re ending with them. Perhaps you're the wiser of the two." Disraeli is Benjamin Disraeli the English Prime Minister who began as an author.  Gladstone was his political opponent who held the post of Prime Minister.]

1876: It was reported today that Jews had joined with Gentiles to raise twelve thousand dollars for the Woman’s Christian Home in St. Louis, MO. 

1876: It was reported today that a Jewish synagogue has been opened in Toronto, Canada.

1877: The Downtown Hebrew Benevolent Society is scheduled to host a ball tonight as part of the New York City 1876-1877 Ball Season.

1877: In London, Julia Myers and Flavien Lexard gave birth to Louis Flavien Lexard, the husband of Netta Lezard and the father of Julien Joseph Lezard.

1877: In Chicago, Albert and Carrie (Stettheimer) Harzfeld gave birth to Northwestern University trained attorney Jacob Albert Harzfeld who served as a Captain in the U.S. Army during WW I in Russia and settled in Kansas City, MO where he was a member of B’nai B’rith, Y.M.H.A. and B’nai Yedhuda Congregation.

http://www.vintagekansascity.com/menwhomadekc/harzfeld_jacob_albert.html

1878: In Russia, Clara Litwin and Louis Nelson gave birth to Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery trained urologist and dermatologist Abraham Wilson Nelson, the husband of Helen Sebel who was President of the Cincinnati Urological Association and a member of B’nai B’rith.

1878: It was reported today Marcuse Woodle has been elected President of the Literary Society of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and Samson Lachman has been elected Vice President.

1879(6th of Shevat, 5639): Fifty-nine-year-old Abraham Treunefels the son of Rachel and Gershon Hirsch Treuenfels passed away today.

1880: Birthdate of New York native and Boston attorney H. Murray Pakulski, a “delegate to the Democratic National Convention from Massachusetts in 1908 and 1912 and the husband of Ada S. Feldman whom he married in 1904.

1882: Birthdate of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States.  Roosevelt’s New Deal created a variety of career opportunities for a whole generation of newly college educated generation of Jewish professionals. For several generations of Jews, FDR was a near-saint.  Starting in the 1970’s, questions were raised about Roosevelt’s failure to do more to rescue the Jews of Europe.  The problem with criticizing Roosevelt is the need to come to grips with the level of anti-Semitism that existed before, during and after the war.  This reality played a part in Roosevelt’s dealing with the furor of the Holocaust.

1883: In Lübeck, Esther Adler, the daughter of the former rabbi of Lübeck, Rabbi Alexander Sussmann Adler and Lübeck's then Rabbi Salomon Carlebach gave birth to their eighth child Joseph Hirsch (Tzvi) Carlebach who married “his former pupil Charlotte Preuss” in 1919 and despite his service in the German Army during WW I was murdered at “the Nazi concentration camp Jungfernhof.”

1884: In Hesse, Germany, Jakob and Ida Edelchen Baruch gave birth to Siegmund Salomon Baruch, the husband of Helene Baruch and father of Inge Baruch and Ellen Orenstein.

 

1885: Twenty-one-year-old pianist Fannie Bloomfield-Zeiser, the Silesian born daughter of Solomon and Bertha Blumenfield and future wife of Sigmund Zeisler made “made her New York debut performing with the New York Orchestra.”

1886: Birthdate of Bloomington native and 1908 graduate of the University of Indiana Howard Kahn, the “crusading editor in St. Paul who “received the Cosmopolitan International’s Distinguish Service Medal” for his work in ending the corruption in that city”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/03/30/89785885.pdf

1886: In New York City, Frederick and Matilda (Ottenreuter) Gilman Gutter gave birth to Hunter College graduate Blanche Gutter, who became President of the National Jewish Women’s Organization of Greater New York while married to her first husband, David Goldfarb , the father of Stanley Goldfarb and who became Blanche Gilman after she married paper manufacturer Isaac Gilman after which she continued her works with “the New York chapter of the American Red Cross, the Federation of Jewish Women's Organizations, the Federation of Jewish, Philanthropies, the Federation of Temple Sisterhoods and the Women's Board of Temple EmanuEl while serving as chairman of the New York State Commission for the Blind. (Editor’s Note:  Gilman, VT which was named after her husband was the home of George L. Fox, the Methodist minister of “Four Chaplains” fame.)

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/gilman-blanche

https://www.nytimes.com/1976/07/10/archives/blanche-gilman-90-led-state-commission-for-blind.html?searchResultPosition=1

1889: In Kiel, Germany, Jewish businessman and communal leader Julius Frankenthal and his wife Cäcilie, née Goldmann., gave birth to Käte Frankenthal who gained fame as a psychiatrist and a socialist political leader who served on the Berlin City Council and in the Prussian State Parliament during the days of the Weimar Republic.

1889: Crown Prince Rudolph who had previously promoted the career of his Jewish mistress Eleconore Kolmann committed suicide today.

1890: Birthdate of Lodz native Edward Jaloff, the Los Angeles resident who was an office of the Federatio of Polish Jews of America.

http://www.yivoarchives.org/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=33383

https://archives.cjh.org/agents/corporate_entities/37470

1892: The SS Massilia arrived in New York with “250 Russian Jews among her steerage passengers.”  After having been expelled from Russia they sailed to Palestine where the Ottoman authorities issued orders banning them from landing at Jaffa.  A Jewish society then paid for their passage to America.  The Superintendent of immigration said that the refusal of the Turks to let them land would not influence his decision as to whether or not they can enter the United States.

1893: Birthdate of Rabbi Yitzhak-Meir Levin a Haredi, politician, member of the Kensett and one of 37 people to sign the Israeli declaration of independence.

1893: Charles Barton’s production of “The Outsider,” a play whose villain is a Cockney Jew, is scheduled to open at the Park Theatre in New York.

1893(13th of Shevat, 5653): Fifty-one year old Albert Sidney Aloe, the Edinburgh, Scotland born son of Nancy Hart Aloe and Sidney Zadoc Aloe the husband of Isabella Prince Aloe with whom he raised four children – Sidney, Louis, David and Alfred – who was the found A.S. Aloe, Company, opticians, passed away today in St. Louis after which he was buried at New Mount Sinai Cemetery and Mausoleum in Afton, MO.

1894: Isidor Straus began serving “as a U.S. Congressman from New York’s 15th congressional district” today.

1894(23rd of Shevat, 5654): Eighty-six-year-old mathematician Moritz Abraham Stern, “the first Jewish full professor at a German university” who worked with “Ferdinand Eisenstein in formulating a proof of the quadratic reciprocity theorem” passed away today.

1894: In Pennsylvania, Isadore Engel and Emelia (Molly) Schwartz gave birth to Dorothy Engel, the future wife of Herman Maltz who owned and operated Maltz Furniture Store in Los Angeles.

1894: Samuel Gompers and Henry Weisman are scheduled to address a mass meeting at Madison Square Garden sponsored by the Trades and Labor Conference.

1894: When his father passed away today Yissachar Dov Rokeach became the third Belzer Rebbe,

1894: Members of the Hebrew Typographical Union No. 317 are among those who will join in a march led by the E.H. Wade Post of the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic, whose members were all Civil War veterans) which is scheduled to held this evening in New York City to call attention to the plight of the unemployed during the worst economic depression to hit the United States that started in 1893.

1895: Hermann Gustloff and his wife gave birth to Wilhelm Gustloff, the found of the Swiss Nazi Party whose murder was one of the excuses for Kristallnacht.

1895: Birthdate of Vienna native William Isaiah Teichner who in 1913 came to the United States where he studied engineering at Brooklyn Polytech and CCNY, became “an engineer for the New York Board of Transpiration and the Transit Authority” and “vice president of the Sea Gate Jewish Congress which raising his son Dr. Victor J. Tecihner with “his wife Sonya.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/09/06/99794504.pdf

1896(15th of Shevat, 5656): Tu B’Shevat

1896(15th of Shevat, 5656): Thirty-two-year-old Blanched Langsdorf, the Pennsylvania born daughter of Max and Henrietta Loeb and the wife of Isadore Langsdorf passed away today in Philaldelphia.

1896: “What’s In A Name” published today described campaign being conducted by the sister of the late Abraham Hayward to disprove “the damnatory suspicion” that the two of them have “some mixture of Jewish blood.”  The efforts which have included a letter writing campaign to the London Athenaeum are proof that there “is the existence of …prejudices in the British Islands.”

1896: In Philadelphia, President Oscar Straus is scheduled to preside over the opening session of the 4th annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society

1896: In New York City, Lena Abrams and David Louis Frank gave birth to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute trained engineer Jacob Frank, the resident of Newark, NJ amd the husband of Bernice Brodsky who was “engaged in the design and construction of (numerous) buildings” including “The Abitibi Pulp and Paper Mill Co., the St. Vincent’s Hospital and the Newark, N.J. YMHA.

1897: It was reported today that the Municipal Library at Leipzig has a manuscript entitled “The Tree of Life” written by Jacob Ben Judah.  The manuscript is date 1287 and “it contains the liturgy of the Jews in England and their hymns.

1897: Rabbi de Sola Mendes is scheduled to deliver a sermon at West End Synagogue entitled “The Truth About Jonah”

1897: Based on information that first appeared in The American Hebrew, it was reported today that Rodef Shalom has selected Dr. Rudolph Grossman to serve as it next Rabbi, a move “that seems strange for an old conservative congregation” since he was trained at the Hebrew Union College, the Cincinnati based school that trains Reform rabbis.

1898: It was reported today that police had to be called when a riot broke out following an anti-Jewish speech by Lucien Millevoye in Bordeaux.

1898: The Young Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Circle of the Auxiliary Society of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Social Orphan Asylum held its regular monthly meeting this afternoon.

1898: The Hebrew Infant Asylum Association held its third annual meeting this afternoon.

1898: It was reported today that next month’s Purim Ball sponsored by the Purim Association will be held at the Waldorf-Astoria

1898: Three days after he had passed away, 45 year old Isaac Feinstein was buried at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1898: Doctors Richards, Greenfield, Taubenhaus and Singer were among those who addressed a group of Jews in Brooklyn tonight as part of a campaign to gain support for the construction of a Jewish hospital in Brooklyn

1899: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil preached a sermon at Temple Emanu-El this morning in which he praised the value and role of daily newspapers.

1899: “The Jews in Palestine” published today provides a summary of the report submitted in December of 1898 by U.S. Consul General B. Bie Randal in which he said that “960 families, numbering 5,000 souls inhabit 22 Jewish colonies in Palestine which have been founded and subsidized by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, representing the Alliance Israelite Universelle..”  Jacob’s Memorial (Zikhron Ya'akon) is the largest of the colonies with a population of 1,600 people.  The colony includes a synagogue, a school with five teachers and 4,000 acres on which the settles are growing fruit, mostly grapes, honey and mulberry leaves which is part of a plan to raise silkworms. (More 2014)

1899: It was reported today that of the four bills introduced in the New York legislature seeking a exemption from property tax, on was seeking such relief for the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.

1899: Rabbi Isaac C. Noot, principal of the Hebrew Free Schools delivered a lecture today at Temple Beth-El on “Thou shalt not bear false witness against the neighbor.”

1899: In Ilford, Essex, UK, Alexander and Jane Bernstein gave birth to media mogul Sidney Lewis Bernstein who was elevated to the peerage as Baron Bernstein

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-lord-bernstein-1471201.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/07/obituaries/lord-bernstein-94-of-granada-television.html

1900: Birthdate of Russian composer Isaak Iosifovich Dunayevsky.

1901: Birthdate of London native and University of Manitoba graduate Lewis Samuel Booke who settled in Winston Salem, NC where he raised Lewis Samuel Booke, Jr. with his wife Anne.

1901: Birthdate of Yalowa (Grundow), Russian Poland native Oscar Serlin best known as the producer of Broadway hit “Life With Father.”

http://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/28/archives/ocarsbrlin-70-produger-isdead-stage-hit-life-with-father-i-made-him.html

1902: Birthdate of Philadelphia native Emanuel “Manny” Sacks, the executive at Columbia Records and RCA Victor, who played an integral role in the careers of such stars as Harry James and who played a major role in promoting the acceptance of the LP record.

http://www.totaltheater.com/?q=node/487

1902: Three days after he had passed away, Eleazer Tubb was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1902: Birthdate of Nikolaus Pevsner, the native of Leipzig who became a noted British expert on art and architecture.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/09/nikolaus-pevsner-life-harries-review

1903: Leopold Greenberg, Herzl's representative in London, left for Cairo to carry on political negotiations.

1903: Birthdate of Sziget, Hungary native and Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Columbia University John W. Gassner, the theatre critic, playwright and author whose twenty books included Theatre at the Crossroads and Masters of the Drama who was the husband of “the former of Mollie Kern” and whose academic career led him to becoming the Sterling Professor of Playwriting and Dramatic Literature at Yale University.

1903: In Poland, Albert and Ernestine (Rayner) Caro gave birth to Marcus Rayner Caro who in 1912 came to the U.S where he earned a B.S. in 1925 and a M.D. in 1927 and pursued a career in dermatology while being married to Adeline B. Cohen with whom he raised two children – Ethel and William.

1903: Birthdate of London native Victor J. Cohen, who in 1907 came to the United States where where he founded “two well-known real estate concerns” – Williams and Company, Inc. and Williams Real Estate --, married the “former Rae Oelbaum” with whom he ha son named Jerome and became “a Science Fellow of the Belfer Graduate School of Yeshiva University.”

1904: Herzl finished his visit to Italy.

1905: In “Disraeli and Gladstone” published today, Freeman Morris compared the careers of the two political rivals closing with the conclusion that “Mr. Gladstone spoke” while Lord Beaconsfield (Disraeli) “did.”

1905: An advertisement published today reminded readers that “the third and last installment of Disraeli’s Unfinished Novel” which is “the literary sensation of two continents will be available in next Sunday’s edition of The New York Times.

1906: This evening “the Choral Society for Ancient Hebrew Melodies” whose aims included the restoration of congregational singing in synagogues using “old Hebrew music” and the introduction of it “in the simpler forms in Sunday schools” is scheduled to hold its regular meeting this evening at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association

1906: In New York, the School Board for District Number 39 heard further testimony in the case of Frank F. Harding the Principal of P.S. 144, a school in a Jewish neighborhood, who is charged with having attempted to proselytize the students at last year’s Christmas entertainment.

1907(15th of Shevat, 5667): Tu B’Shevat

1907(15th of Shevat, 5667): Eighty-eight-year-old Joseph Hart Marks, the New York born son of Alexander and Esther Hetty Marks and the husband of Cecilia Marks passed away today in New Orleans.

1908: It was reported today that “Louis Stern, the merchant and banker, has resigned as a member of the Board of Trustees of Temple Emanu-El, at Forty-third Street and Fifth Avenue, the richest Jewish congregation in New York City, in consequence, it is understood, of the criticism of the marriage of his daughter Irma to a Roman Catholic, which he believed to have been implied in a recent sermon by the associate rabbi, the Rev. Dr. J.L. Magnus.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1908/01/30/104716578.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1908: Caught up in the dispute between the Territorialists and the Jews who will only settle for a homeland in Palestine, Churchill drafted a letter at the behest of British Zionist, Rabbi Dr. Moses Gaster.  Seeking not to offend either party, Churchill expressed his support for the Zionist dream of settling in Palestine while allowing that a temporary refuge may have to be found if such is the wish of the Jewish people.  The Territoralists were those Jews were willing to accept the British offer of a homeland in Uganda or Kenya as an immediate solution to the suffering of the Jews in Russia.  The Russian Jews were among those who were the strongest opponents of the solution.

1909:  Birthdate of activist and author Saul David Alinsky.

1910: In a talk before the Young Men's Hebrew Association today Jacob H. Sehiff, the banker, urged young men to relieve the Jewish congestion in this city by going to other parts of this country” saying  that the challenge “of persuading the Hebrews of this city to "build up the American empire in other parts of the country" had become a "hobby" with him.”

1911: The Supreme Court heard final arguments in “Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell, and Frank Morrison versus Bucks Stove and Range Company which grew out the imprisonment of Samuel Gompers and two others for contempt not obeying a court order injunction during a strike again the company.

1911: Birthdate of right-handed pitcher Robert Clyde “Bob” Katz who appeared in six games for the Cincinnati Reds in 1944.

1912: In response to an appeal by Dr. J. L. Magnes the New York City Jewish community announces subscriptions amounting to over sixty thousand dollars annually for five years for Jewish education in New York City.

1912: In Brooklyn, N. Y, The Atlantic Union Conference of the Seventh Day Adventist convention adopts resolutions protesting against the recent massacres of Jews in Russia and outbreaks of anti-Jewish feeling in so-called Christian countries as un-Christian and affirming their belief that the Jew is entitled to religious and civil rights.

1912: In New York City investment banker and philanthropist Maurice Wertheim and his wife Alma Morgenthau, the daughter of Henry Morgenthau, Sr. gave birth to Barbara Wetheim whom after she married Dr. Lester R. Tuchman was known as Barbara Tuchman a prolific popular historian who won a Pulitzer Prize for The Guns of August a book that President Kennedy urged people to read so that his generation might avoid the folly which led to World War I.  Ms. Tuchman won a second Pulitzer for Stillwell and the American Experience in China, a very readable tome that uses the experiences of Stillwell's career in Asia to explain the events that would ultimately lead to the victory of the Communist Chinese.  Although she was Jewish, Ms. Tuchman wrote only one book related to Jewish History - Bible and Sword (England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour).  Ms. Tuchman passed away in 1989 at the age of 77. Born in New York City, New York she is best known for her book The Guns of August (1962), a history of the outbreak of World War I, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China, (1970). She won Pulitzer Prizes for both books. Tuchman's father was a one-time owner and publisher of The Nation, as well as the founder of the Theatre Guild. Her maternal grandfather was the ambassador to Constantinople under President Woodrow Wilson, and her uncle was the Secretary of the Treasury under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She said, "The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard." Tuchman never went to graduate school, and never took a single course in writing. In deciding to write, she said, "The single most formative experience, I think, was the stacks at Widener Library where I was allowed to have as my own one of those little cubicles with a table under a window, queerly called, as I have since learned, 'carrels,' a word I never knew when I sat in one. Mine was deep in among the 940's (British History, that is) and I could roam at liberty through the rich stacks, taking whatever I wanted. The experience was marvelous, a word I use in its exact sense meaning full of marvels. It gave me a lifelong affinity for libraries, where I find happiness, refuge, not to mention the material for making books of my own.” Tuchman said, "Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library." She also said, "Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."

1913(22nd of Shevat, 5673): Eighty-eight-year-old Joseph Sanson, who had worked as an official court interpreter passed away today in Philadelphia, PA.

1913: Twenty-four-year-old University of Pennsylvania trained attorney Abraham David Wernick, the Russian born son of Myer and Bessie Wernick married Sadi Osteicher today in Philadelphia.

1914: In Columbus, OH, Fred and Metz Marx Lazarus gave birth to Ralph Lazarus, the husband of Gladys Lazarus who was “chairman of Federated Stores the owner of many chains including Bloomingdales, Filene’s and Foley’s.

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/20/obituaries/ralph-lazarus-74-ex-head-of-federated-stores.html

1914: “The Wedding of Valeni,” directed by Buchenwald survivor Jacob Fleck, was released today in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

1915: The Paris correspondent of the Manchester Guardian sent a dispatch to his paper today that includes a description of the treatment Jews by the Russian Government from The Bund Committee of the Lithuanian, Polish and Russian Jews

1915: Clara Michaelsohn, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Israel Michaelson of 383 Grand Street became engaged to Mitchell Fligel today.

1915(15th of Shevat, 5675): Tu B’Shevat

1915: In Atlanta, the defense rested this afternoon in the case of Dan S. Lehon, CC. Felder and Arthur Thurman who are on trial subornation of perjury in an effort to secure a new trial for Leo Frank who was convicted of murdering Mary Phagan.

1915: From Berlin, the Overseas News Agency reported that in Russia, “Jews ae being prosecuted officially and demonstrations against them are being organized by the government.”

1916: Miss Amy Schechter and her brother Frank were among the two thousand people who attended a memorial service for their father Dr. Solomon Schechter at the First Rumanian Congregation where Dr. Henry Moscowitz, the President of the Civil Service Commission, delivered the principal address.

1916: Assemblymen Nathan T. Perlman and Meyer Levy and State Senator Irving Joseph were among the hundreds of people who attended the dance sponsored by the Madison Republican Club at the New Harlem Casino which raised hundreds of dollars “for the benefit of war sufferers.”

1916: A report issued today by the American Jewish Committee signed by President Louis Marshall and Executive Committee Chairman Cyrus Adler described the suffering of the Jews in war-torn Eastern Europe, the need to provide them aid and the work that must be done to protect the civil and religious rights of the Jews while alleviating the consequences of persecution.

1916: Rabbi J.L. Magnes is scheduled to speak at a mass meeting in Philadelphia organized by Dr. Cyrus Adler where it is expected that $200,000 will be raised to provide relief for the Jews in war-torn Europe.

1916(25th of Shevat, 5676): Sixty-one-year-old Sydney native Joseph Jacobs, the “Australian literary and Jewish historian who was a writer for the Jewish Encyclopedia and a notable folklorist, creating several noteworthy collections of fairy tales passed away today.

http://www.mainlesson.com/displayauthor.php?author=jacobs

1916: The list of speakers published today for the upcoming “non-sectarian mass meeting” designed to raise funds “for the relief of Jews in the warring countries of Europe included Jacob H. Schiff, the Rev. Dr. S. Parkes Cadman, Louis Marshall, Rabbi J.L. Magnes, Rabbi Nathan Krass and Joseph Barondes.

1917: It was reported today the Brooklyn Jewish Volunteer Relief Committee is sending out 25,000 letters to Brooklynites as part of the campaign to raise two hundred thousand dollars that will go to the national fund being raised to aid the Jews of Europe.

1917(7th of Shevat, 5677): Seventy-eight-year-old John Goldhill, who is not to be confused with sponge maker John Isaac Goldhill, passed away today in London.

1917: It was reported that thirteen percent of the money sent to provide relief for the Jews of the Vilna District has to be turned over to the occupying German authorities and that in spite of all the aid American Jews have sent, unless a great deal more is done immediately, it will be increasingly difficult to keep the population “alive through the Winter.”

1918: As celebrations take place for the upcoming 70th birthday of Nathan Straus, it was announced that “in his honor 15 teams will start a special Nathan Straus birthday drive to raise $10,000 each in ten days for the Palestine Restoration Fund” of which he is the chairman.

1918: In New York City, Joseph Opatovsky, who gained fame as Yiddish author Joseph Opatoshu and his wife gave birth to David Opatovsky who gained fame as actor and screenwriter David Opatoshu.

1919(29th of Shevat, 5679): Meyer Benjamin, the husband of Henrietta Cohen Foster with whom he had three children, passed away today at Pittsburgh, PA following a surgical operation.

1919: The Versailles Conference decided that the Arab provinces should be wholly separated from the Ottoman Empire and the newly conceived mandate-system applied to them. This decision clashed with the expectation of Faisal's Arab delegation that his state would include Palestine, and the conditional understandings reached in the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement.

1919: Forty-one-year-old landscape painter Maurice Braun, the Hungarian born son of Ferdinand and Charlotte (Schlesinger) Braun married Hazel Boyer today in San Diego, CA.

1919: Louis Graftman, one of the first three students from Hebrew Union College “to enlist at the outbreak of” World War I who completed his training as a Marine at Paris Island and served at Guantanamo Bay was “was released from service” today at Galveston, TX.

1919: Thirty-one-year-old National Academy of Design trained landscape artist Maurice Braun, the Hungarian born son of Ferdinand and Charlotte Braun married Hazel Boyer in San Diego, CA.

1920: In Giessen, medical students “unanimously demand” “the expulsion of all Jews” from the local university.

1920(10th of Shevat, 5680): Henriette Goldschmidt, the wife of Rabbi Abraham Meyer Goldschmidt, who was a social worker, educator and one of the founders of the Women’s Educational Association passed away today in Leipzig.

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/goldschmidt-henriette

1921: Today’s annual meeting of the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives at Denver being held at the Cleveland Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio is of special importance because the attendees will elect a new president to replace the late Samuel Grabfelder.

1922(1st of Shevat, 5682): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1923: In Newark, NJ, Jacob Israel Gersten and Henrietta (Henig) Gersten gave birth to Bernard Gersten, the Executive Producer of Lincoln Center Theater.

1924: Birthdate of Kurt Rübner, the native of Brastislava who emigrated to Palestine in 1941 without his parents, sisters and grandparents all of whom were murdered by the Nazis and gained fame Tuvya Ruebner, the poet, editor, photographer and member of Kibbutz Merhavia.

https://www.poetrytranslation.org/poets/tuvya-ruebner

1925: “I Love You,” a silent film directed by Paul L. Stein, was released today in German

1926(15th of Shevat, 5686): Tu B’Shevat

1926: In Harrisburg, PA, Helen and Harry Harris Buch gave birth to Louise Grass, the wife of Eugene Gurfkoff, the Mechanisburg manufacturer and WW II veteran  and then Alexander Grass.

1927: Birthdate of Zeev (Heinz) Raphael, a native of Germany who escaped to safety in Sweden three days before the German invasion of Poland.

1927: Today, Rabbi Alexander Burnstein was elected to replace Rabbi Nochman S. Arnoff as the spiritual leader of Congregation Tifereth Israel in New Bedford, MA.

1927(27th of Shevat, 5687): Rabbi Joseph Israel Deutsch passed away today.

http://www.balassagyarmatizsidosag.hu/en/deutsch-jozsef-izrael

1928: Birthdate of Irwin Michnick who gained fame as Mitch Leigh, “an American musical theatre composer and theatrical producer best known for the musical Man of La Mancha.”

1928: In Manhattan, Blanche Stern and Harold Smith gave birth Harold Smith who gained fame as

Harold “Hal” Prince, Tony Award winning theatrical producer and director.

https://masterworksbroadway.com/artist/harold-prince/

1929: Pianist Mischa Levitzki arrived in New York today aboard the liner Ile de France after “being away on a European tour.”

1929: Temple Emanu El in Dothan, Alabama was charted today.

1930(1st of Shevat, 5690): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1930(1st of Shevat, 5690): “Prominent philanthropist in colonial India, Alice Edith Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading GBE, née Alice Edith Cohen the daughter of London merchant Albert Cohen, the first wife of Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading passed away today.

1930: Simcha Hinkas, a Jewish policeman, went on trial in Tel Aviv. He is accused of leading a crowd of Jews who reportedly killed five adults and wounded two children in an Arab family on August 25, 1929 during the Arab Uprising.  According to the government, while Hinkas was on duty at a crossroad on Herzl Street during the Arab riots he saw a truck filled with Jews fired on by Arabs who killed four and wounded five.  Hinkas allegedly went back to his barracks, got his rifle and led a Jewish mob in an attack on an Arab house.  A government witness identified the bullets in the dead Arabs as having come from a government issued rifle, but could not tie them to the gun belonging to Hinkas.  Two Arabs later identified Hinkas from a group of 13 Constables, but other Arabs identified different Constables.  Alfred Riggs, assistant superintendent of the police “declared that Hinkas was one of the mildest and best of the police” but, “for reasons of his own,” the British police official seemed certain that the Jewish policeman was guilty.

1930: Today, “Comzet, the government department for settling Jews on the land, announced that the government had cut the budget” which means that “the Jewish colonists in the Ukraine will not get a single penny from the Soviet government” during 1930.

1930): Today in Warsaw, “the famous Chasidic Rabbi ‘Chafetz Chaim’ presided at a great rabbinical assembly” which was attended by “Chassidic rabbis of Ger, Amschinow, Cracow, Tarnpole, Petrikov and other Polish cities” where the attendees discussed “the new law regulating the Jewish religious communities which the government is proposing.

1931: Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights" premieres at the Los Angeles Theater.

1931: In the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, Jules Weinberg, who “helped run his family’s newspaper distribution business” and the former Elka Heller gave birth to Linda Natalie Weinberg who gained fame as art historian Linda Nochlin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/obituaries/linda-nochlin-groundbreaking-feminist-art-historian-is-dead-at-86.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=region&region=region&WT.nav=region&_r=0

1932(22nd of Shevat, 5692): Parashat Yitro

1932: New Rochelle resident Arthur Metzger left the bulk of his estate to his wife Helen and his son Robert  but also allowed for a redistribution of his estate that would leave bequest to the Mount Sinai Hospital, Montefiore Hospital, the Federation of Jewish Charities and the New York Guild for Jewish Blind.

1933: Author Joseph Roth “left Germany when Adolf Hitler became Reich Chancellor today.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100923110558/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jroth.htm

1933: Nazi Machtergreifung or “Nazi seizure of power” took place today when President Paul von Hindenberg appointed Adolph Hitler to the Chancellorship of Germany and members of the Nazi Party were appointed to “several other high-ranking cabinet posts.”

1933: On the day that Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, Eli Boschwitz, a judicial abriter came home and told his wife, 'We are leaving Germany forever.'"  Boshwitz was the father of 5 year old Rudy Boschwitz the future Republican leader who would eventually serve 12 years as U.S. Senator from Minn. 

1933: Youth Aliyah opens its offices in Berlin. The previous year Recha Freier, a rabbi's wife decided it would be a good idea to send young people from Germany to Kibbutzim. She founded the Juedische Jugendhilfe organization to help facilitate the work. That same year it became a department of the World Zionist Organization under Henrietta Szold.  Five thousand adolescents were rescued before the war and another 15,000 after the war.

1933: “Symphony of Six Million” a film based on the “Night Bell” by Fannie Hurst which “concerns the rise of a Jewish physician from humble roots to the top of his profession and the social costs of losing his connection with his community, his family and with the craft of healing” produced by Pandro S. Berman and David O. Selznick, co-starring Gregory Ratoff with music by Max Steiner was released today in the United States.

1934: The American Economic Committee is scheduled to host a discussion on “Arab Benefirts from Jewish Enterprise in Palestine” following a dinner at the Royal Hotel.

1934: WEVD broadcast the first in a series of programs hosted by Herman Bernstein “o important current topics affect the lives of Jewish people.”

1934: Two days before he was scheduled to retire and become rabbi emeritus of Temple Emanu-El, Rabbi Hyman G. Enelow “sailed for the Mediterranean aboard the Empress of Australia.”

1934: Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Chasan of the Bronx announce the engagement of their daughter Shulamith Chasan to Theodore S. Chazin, son of Cantor and Mrs. Hirsch L. Chazin.  Mr. Chazin is a practicing attorney and the secretary of the Jersey City Zionist District.

1934: Moses Mendel Penn, the oldest patient ever cared for at Montefiore Hospital for Chronic Diseases, will observe his 109th birthday there today. He has partly recovered from a stroke that paralyzed one side of his body eight months ago. Mr. Penn entered the hospital on the application of the Bronx Young Men's Hebrew Association, of which he is the oldest living member.

1935: “Three Men on a Horse,” a comedy starring Garson Kanin and Sam Levene and produced by Alex Yoke opened on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre where it ran for 835 performances.

1935: Birthdate of Albert “Albie” Louis Sachs, the South African born son of Lithuanian Jews who fought against Apartheid and was appointed a Judge of the Constitutional Court by Nelson Mandela.

http://whoswho.co.za/albert-sachs-5369http://www.constitutionalcourt.org.za/site/judges/justicealbiesachs/index1.html

1936: At today’s session of its 16th annual convention, the Federation of Jewish Women’s Organizations adopted “resolutions approving the boycott of German products, opposing the sending of American athletes to the Olympics in Germany and urging a neutrality law that will keep” the United States out of war.  (Editor’s note – This is a leading national Jewish organization that is in effect supporting the isolationism of the 1930’s. All the critics of FDR, might want to consider this before rendering judgments on his behavior before Pearl Harbor.)

1936: At Long Beach, Long Island, Rabbi Stephen Wise announced plans for a “Boycott Day” to mark the third anniversary of “Hitler’s persecution of the Jews.”

1937: Rabbi Samuel Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Can Any One Be Rich?” at Temple Emanu-El

1937: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon comparing the four years under Hitler and Roosevelt at the Free Synagogue meeting in Carnegie Hall.

1937: Rabbi Israel Goldstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Hitler’s Anniversary, Roosevelt’s Inaugural and Poland’s ‘Superfluous Citizens’” at B’nai Jeshurun. (Editor’s note – 1937 was the first year that the Inauguration took place in January instead of March.  The Polish government had refused to its Jewish citizens as “superfluous.)

1937: At Rodeph Sholom, a guest speaker from Tel Aviv is scheduled to lecture on “Is there a Solution for the Jewish Problem?”

1937: Rabbi Morris Lichentenstein is scheduled to deliver the sermon at the Jewish Science Society.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that a Jewish constable, Mordechai Schwartz, who was charged with the premeditated murder of Police Constable Mustapha Khoury, was sentenced to death. The court refused to accept evidence that the previous murder by Arabs of two Jews in Karkur had influenced Schwartz to an immediate act of reprisal. Schwartz continued to claim his innocence.

1938: Rabbi Nathan A. Perilman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Protection From Our Friends” at Temple Emanu-El.

1938: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Five Tragic Hitler Years” at the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall.

1938: Seven hundred representatives of “many Jewish organizations” attending a meeting of the Council of the Fraternal and Benevolent Organizations heard a speech by I. Edwin Goldwasser who said “this is a time when the Jew, in his personal conduct, should consider himself not only an individual but a representative of his people.”

1938: George Gordon Battle was one of the speakers at tonight’s dinner at the Manhattan Opera House where the 400 attendees celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the Federation of Polish Jews in America.

1938: While addressing a meeting of the Middle Atlantic States Regional Conference in Atlantic City, David J. Schweitzer, European vice chairman of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, said that while anti-Semitism is being offered as a “cure-all for political and economic ills in many countries” including Poland and Rumania, in the end “when put into effect” these policies intensifies the problems “and causes additional suffering among the general population.”

1938: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “The Discovery of Scripture; We Wrote the Bible” at the Community House on East 62nd Street.

1938: Rabbi Louis L. Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Can Hitler Last Another Five Years in Germany? Will Cuza and Goga Last in Rumania?” at Temple Rodeph Sholom.

1938: Premier Octavian Goga today echoed King Carol’s assurance to the world that Rumania would strive to meet is Jewish problem “without inhumanities” but there has not been any “modification of the government’s anti-Semitic program.”

1938: Rabbi Morris Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “When Nerves Become Restless” at the Jewish Science Society.

1939: In response to the “rise of anti-Semitism in the United States after fascism took hold of much Europe in the late 1930’s” the Anti-Defamation Council, which changed its name to the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Philadelphia, was founded today.

1939(10th of Shevat, 5699): Sixty-seven-year-old ophthalmologist Edwin Milton Beery who was also a surgeon passed away today in Brooklyn.

 1939: Hitler, in his anniversary speech in Berlin, talked about the event of war, "The result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." Hitler also spoke in warm terms about its friendship with Poland.

1940: The Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA), a special committee created by the Joint Distribution Committee signed a contract with the Trujillo regime that was part of plan to settle Jewish refugees in that Central American country.

 1940: “At a conference today, it was decided that all 30,000 Romani living in Germany proper were to be deported to former Polish territory” which meant they would die alongside the Jews in the gas chambers of Treblinka.

1941(2nd of Shevat, 5701): “Metallurgical Engineer William Irving Sivitz, the son of Lithuanian native Rabbi Moses Sivitz and Matia Sivitz, and the brother of Jacob, Sam and Benjamin Sivitz passed away today after which he was buried in the B’nai Israel Cemetery in Penn Hills, PA.

1941: Having failed to bomb Britain out of the war in 1941 Germany upped the ante in its war to starve the Island nation that by announcing “any ship bringing goods to Britain would be sunk.”

1941: Hitler delivered his infamous “Speech at the Berlin Sports Palace.”

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hitler-speech-at-the-berlin-sports-palace-january-30-1941

1942: In a speech at the Sports Palace in Berlin, Hitler told of his confidence in victory and his hatred for the Jews. "The hour will come when the most evil universal enemy of all time will be finished, at least for a thousand years." By the spring, four labor camps would be converted to death camps for the purpose of extinguishing the Jews; joining Chelmno were Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz.

1942: In Cincinnati, “Catherine Eugenia (nee Talbot) Buchwald, who was an Episcopalian and Joseph Buchwald who was Jewish gave birth to Marty Jerel Buchwald who gained fame as Marty Balin of the Jefferson Airplane.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/obituaries/marty-balin-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1943(24thh of Shevat, 5703): Sixty-seven year old Patterson, NJ native Carl Florian Zittle, the son of Gustave and Bertha Zittle and the husband of the former Martha Beatrice Bernstein with whom he had two children – Madeline and Carl -- known as Zit who worked for a number of Hearst publications, “owned the Central Park Casino during the administration of Mayor Jimmy Walker” and published Zit’s Weekly, a show biz weekly, for over twenty years passed away.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/01/31/88513430.pdf

1943 (24th of Shevat, 5703): In Letychiv, Ukraine, German Gestapo commences mass shootings of Jews from Letychiv Ghetto. 200 surviving Jews from Letychiv slave labor camp were ordered to undress and were shot with machine-gun into a ravine. Some 7,000 Jews were murdered in Letychiv.  For those with a sense of irony, this was Shabbat and the Torah reading was Yitro.

1943: The SS Pierre Soule, a liberty ship, was launched today 45 days after its keel was laid. The ship was named after Pierre Soule a Louisiana political leader who was an ally of Judah P. Benjamin, and according to one story in the New York Times, was Jewish. 

1944: Seven hundred Jews are deported from Milan, Italy, to Auschwitz.

1945: Hitler gives his last ever public address; a radio address on the 12th anniversary of his coming to power.

1945: In Kehrson, two Holocaust survivors gave birth to Meir Hubermann, the grandson of Holocaust victim Ber Erlich Sloshny, whom they took to Israel in 1950 where he gained famed Meir Dagan, the Director of Mossad who according to uncredited sources played a key role in derailing the Iranian nuclear program. (As reported by Isabel Kershner)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/world/middleeast/meir-dagan-former-mossad-director-dies-at-71.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in Washington, D.C. continued its meetings today in London.

1947: Today, Port authorities in Le Harve “harbor police armed with machine guns” carried out the order of the authorities to impound an eight hundred ton “Honduran vessel bearing 600 Jewish refugees bound for Palestine.”

1948: Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist.  While Gandhi was a figure revered by many, some Jews have their reservations about this proponent of civil disobedience and non-violence no matter what the threat.  After Kristallnacht Gandhi wrote, "If the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary sacrifice, even the massacre I have imagined by Nazis could be turned into a day of thanksgiving that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of a tyrant...the German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted the latter to an appreciation of human dignity."  Apparently Ghandi lacked any concept of the evil that was Hitler.  But even after the war when the total horror was known, Gandhi said that the Holocaust was "the greatest crime of our time, but the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife.  They should have thrown themselves into the sea from the cliffs....It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany." 

1949: “Mark Ethridge, the United States representative on the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine” and publisher of The Louisville Courier-Journal left New York with the hope that his trip will “accomplish permanent peace and stability in the Middle East.”

1951: Birthdate of Harvard and Penn alum Laurence Jacob Kotlikoff, the economist who “is a William Warren Fair Professor at Boston University” and feels strong enough about his theories to have actually considered running for President in 2012.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/#4bc90ebe9bba

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/08/boston-university-economics-professor-laurence-kotlikoff-wants-to-change-your-retirement.html

1953(14th of Shevat, 5713): Eighty-nine-year-old geologist and geographer Alfred Philipson who survived 3 years in Theresienstadt, passed away today.

http://findingaids.cjh.org/?pID=475495

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported from Bonn that the West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, assured Israel that his country would pay the first installment of 47 million marks of the German-Israeli Reparation Agreement within the next two months.

1953: The DuMont Television Network broadcast the final episode of “Steve Randall” starring Melvyn Douglas.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that IDF patrols had beaten back two attacks by Jordanian marauders at two points along the armistice lines, inflicting heavy casualties. Jordan falsely claimed that a number of Israeli soldiers were killed in both encounters. Both sides complained to the UN Israeli-Jordanian Mixed Armistice Commission.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that traces of copper were found near Jenin.

1958: “Sunrise at Campabello” the play written by Dore Schary that provided a dramatic depiction of FDR’s struggle with Polio premiered at the Cort Theatre in New York City.

1961: “A motion of non-confidence in the Cabinet over Prime Minster David Ben-Gurion’s stand concerning the Lavon Affair was defeated today in the Knesset.” (JTA)

1961: Funeral services were held today for Loula Davis Lasker, the sister of philanthropist Albert D. Lasker and national vice president of Hadassah who “donated $600,000 to help the Lasker Rink in New York’s Central Park.”

1964(16th of Shevat, 4724): Writer and theatrical producer Allen A. Adler passed away today in New York City at the age of 47. Adler was part of a famous Jewish theatrical family.  His grandfather was actor and producer Jacob Adler.  His father was theatre manager and owner, Adolph Adler.  His uncle was Luther Adler and his aunt was Stella Adler.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FB0A17FB3E5415738DDDA80894DA405B848AF1D3

1966(9th of Shevat, 5726): Eighty-eight year old banker Rudolf Löb, who served as Chairman of Mendelssohn & Co before the Nazi broke up the bank passed away today in Boston, MA.

http://digifindingaids.cjh.org/?pID=480081

1966: At the Carlyle, Rabbi Charles E. Shulman officiated at the wedding of Judith Raices and David Novick.

1968(29th of Tevet, 5728): Seventy-nine-year-old former opera soprano Gladys Hettie Axman, the Boston born daughter of Emma and August Weil who had debuted at the Met in 1919 passed away today.

1969(11th of Shevat, 5729): Austrian born, American actress and singer Fritzi Massary passed away today.

http://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/fritz-massary.pdf

1969(11th of Shevat, 5729): Seventy-one year old Harvard trained lawyer and graduate of the Teacheers Institute of JTS, Mordecai Konowitz “the former Queens County assistant district attorney past preside of the Jamaica Jewish Center who raised two children – David and Judith – with his wife “the former Lillian Hirschman” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/02/01/90044940.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1970(23rd of Shevat, 5730): Marjan (or Maryan) Rawicz, one half of the piano duo of Rawicz and Landauer that played together for forty years passed away today.

1971: Carole King's “Tapestry” album is released. This recording by Brooklyn born Jewess Carol Klein would become the longest charting album by a female solo artist and sell 24 million copies worldwide.

1971: “Abbie an' Slats” a comic strip created by Al Capp was published for the last time today.

1973: “Three Arabs were arrested in Italy at the border with Austria” thwarting “a planned attack on a transit camp in Austria for Jewish immigrants from Russia.”

1974: The Mayor and City of West Berlin hosted a reception to mark the 85th birthday of Dr. Kate Frankenthal. A psychiatrist and socialist political leader during the Weimar Republic she fled Germany in 1933 and settled in the United States in 1936 where she became a consultant to the Jewish Family Service of New York.

1974(7th of Shevat, 5734): Sixty-four-year-old Pittsburgh native and California trained lawyer Murray Chotiner, the original political mentor of Richard Nixon passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/01/31/archives/murray-chotiner-nixon-mentor-dies-campaign-aide-since-46-and.html

https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKchotiner.htm

1974: PBS broadcast a performance of “June Moon” co-authored by George S. Kaufman.

1975: The final part of the Agranat Commission’s report was published today. The commission had been set up after the Yom Kippur War to find out why the IDF had failed to perform as expected prior to, and during, the hostilities.

1976: NBC broadcast the first episode of “The Practice” co-starring Didi Conn with music by David Shire.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that US President Jimmy Carter sent a sharp note to Prime Minister Menachem Begin, complaining over the plan to establish Shilo, a new West Bank settlement.

1978(22nd of Shevat, 5738): Fifty-two-year-old Bucharest born Israeli pianist Mindru Katz passed away today in Istanbul.

http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Katz-Mindru.htm

1978: Larry King (Lawrence Harvey Zeiger, the son of Jewish immigrants from Belarus) “began broadcasting a nightly coast-to-coast program on the Mutual Broadcasting System.”

1978(22nd of Shevat, 5738): Mordechai Yehuel, 27, of Ramat Gan was stabbed and killed in Ramallah.

1979: The civilian government of Iran announced it had decided to allow Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to return from exile in France. The subsequent Islamist revolution would end the reign of the Shah, a regime which was much friendlier to Israel than the government that would follow. In retrospect, one can draw a straight line between the French decision and the Iranian nuclear threat that the West and Israel face in the 21st century.

1979: Max Moses Heller completed his term in office as the 29th Mayor of Greenville, SC.

1979: “The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal” a film about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire directed by Mel Stuart and co-starring Stephanie Zimbalist and Tovah Felshuh was released in the United States today.

1980: Birthdate of Albany Law School grad and U.S. Army veteran Lee Zeldin who served in the New York State Senate before being elected as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives from New York’s 1s District.

1981: “The Incredible Shrinking Woman” directed by Joel Schumacher and co-starring Charles Grodin was released in the United States today.

1982: U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig “filed a reported with President Reagan that revealed” his “fear that Israel might, at the slightest provocation, start a war against Lebanon.”1990: The Israeli Government said today that it had no official policy of settling Soviet Jewish immigrants in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir dismissed the debate over the issue as an ''artificial storm'' created by panicked Arab leaders.

1983(16th of Shevat, 5743): Eighty-year-old Austrian born American economist Fritz Machlup who taught at several U.S. universities including’s Johns Hopkins and Princeton after fleeing the Nazis and who best known at the author of The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States passed away today.

1984(26th of Shevat, 5744): Seventy-six-year-old Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser, “the spiritual leader for fifty years of the Forest Hills Jewish in Queen” and the author of such books as Judaism: Profile of a Faith and Jews, Judaism and the State of Israel who was the husband of Kallia Halpern Bokser with whom he had two children – Miriam and Baruch – passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/02/obituaries/ben-zion-bokser-76-a-rabbi-and-professor.html

1986(20th of Shevat, 5746): One police officer was killed and two civilians were wounded when terrorists began shooting today in Jerusalem.

1987: “Outrageous Fortune,” a comedy directed by Arthur Hiller and co-starring Bette Midler was released today in the United States.

 

1987: Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold,” a movie version of the novel produced by Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan was released today in the United States..

 

1990: After having originally premiered at the Tokyo International Film, “Unsettled Land” an “Israeli drama directed by Uri Barbash” was released in France today.

1991(15th of Shevat, 5751): Tu B'Shvat

1991: The New York Times reviews The Smile of the Lamb by David Grossman; translated by Betsy Rosenberg.

1991: In Amman, around 3,000 Jordanians demonstrated in favor of Iraq, burned American and Israeli flags and urged Mr. Hussein to fire chemical weapons at Israel. The demonstration reflected Jordan's tilt toward Baghdad throughout the gulf crisis. "O Saddam, hit, hit Tel Aviv!" some chanted. "With chemical weapons, O Saddam!" others replied. Jordan's population is more than half Palestinian, and many have voiced support for the Iraqi leader as a champion who will lead them to statehood.

1991: The Young Professionals of the American Friends of Tel Aviv University is sponsoring a black-tie cocktail party and dance, at Stringfellows to benefit the Adopt-a-Student Endowment Fund at the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University.

1992: Publication date of “Hideous Kinky, an autobiographical novel by Esther Freud, daughter of British painter Lucian Freud and great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud.

1992: "ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD," by Tom Stoppard, adapted by Yosef Brodski, staged by Yevgeny Arye and featuring the Gesher Theater Company is scheduled to be performed in Brooklyn, NY.

1992: As Israel presses the United States for loan guarantees to cope with a projected huge influx of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, officials here said today that the immigrant flow this month had sunk to its lowest in almost two years and could dwindle even further

1993 “During fiscal 1992” which ended today, Younkers which had been founded by Lipman, Samuel and Marcus Younker in Keiokuk, IA in 1856 “had net earnings of $17.6 million on net sales of $473.4 million.”

1997: Kalman Ruttenstein, the fashion director of Bloomingdale’s who had outsized impact on women’s apparel suffered a major stroke today.

1998: Premier performance of Paul Simon's "The Capeman."

1998: U.S premiere of “Zero Effect” a detective move directed and written by Jake Kasdan.

1998: Evelyn Lieberman, “the first woman to serve as deputy chief of staff to a president” “testified before a special grand jury” today that Monica Lewinsky “had displayed ‘immature and inappropriate behavior,’ was ‘spending too much time around the West Wing,’ and was ‘always someplace she shouldn’t be’” which had led her to decide “to get of her because of the appearance that it was creating” and not be because “she had heard…rumors linking the president and Ms. Lewinsky.”

1999: At Temple Israel of Great Neck, NY Rabbi Mordecai Waxman officiated at the wedding of “Dr. Tracy Shevell and Dr. Brian Jonathon Hines, both of whom are residents in obstetrics and gynecology at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York…”

1999(13th of Shevat, 5659): Ninety-three-year-old Professor Mirra Komarovksy the Russian born daughter of “Zionists and land-owning Jews” who came to the United States where she became a leading authority in the field of Women’s Studies passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/01/us/mirra-komarovsky-authority-on-women-s-studies-dies-at-93.html

2000: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Einstein’s German World by Fritz Stern and The Greenspan Effect: Words That Move the World's Markets by David B. Sicilia and Jeffrey L. Cruikshank.

2001: Two people were injured during at the Tayibe Bridge bombing for which Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

2001(6th of Shevat, 5761): Eighty-five year old pioneer neurosurgeon Joseph Ransohoff,  passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/12/nyregion/joseph-ransohoff-a-pioneer-in-neurosurgery-dies-at-85.html

2001: Prime Minister Ehud Barak saw 20 immigrants' representatives inside his Jerusalem office and then presided tonight over a modest support rally at the city's convention center as he continued his campaign against Ariel Sharon.

2002: “Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with aides to discuss a plan to ring Jerusalem with barriers following two Palestinian attacks there within six days that killed three Israelis and wounded scores more.”

2003: In “A Burst of Light Provides Privacy,” published today Elaine Louie discusses the work of Ayala Sefaty of Tel Aviv who designed her own underwater restaurant in Eilat.

2003: “The Israeli experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia has accomplished its goals of studying the effects of dust storms on weather and recording electrical phenomena atop storm clouds, scientists said today.

2004: Airing of the 13th episode of “Boston Public” co-starring Fyvush Finkel, Michael David Rapaport, Anthony Heald, Jessalyn Gilsig and Joey Slotnick following which it was announced that the series would be cancelled due to low ratings.

2004(7th of Shevat, 5764): Eighty-four-year-old Polish born dental student Bronek Jakubowicz, better known as Benjamin Jacobs, who survived Auschwitz thanks to his skill with dental tools that he carried in “a bright red box” which he called “his passport to survival and who described his experiences during the Holocaust including the bombing by the British of his prison ship in 1995 memoir The Dentist of Auschwitz passed away today.

https://www.doullbooks.com/product/122307

2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Lot’s Daughters: Sex, Redemption, and Women's Quest for Authority by Robert M. Polhemus and the newly released paperback editions of Growing Up Fast by Joanna Lipper and Oracle Night by Paul Auster

2005: In “The Observant Reader,” Wendy Shalit provides a prescient synopsis of the varying ways in which Orthodoxy is portrayed in contemporary literature.

2005: A Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Pacific Overtures” which had opened at Studio 54 in 2004 closed today

2005: In “The Nation; One Clear Conscience, 60 Years After Auschwitz,” published today Roger Cohen tells the story of Miecyslaw Kasprzyk, an unsung hero of the Holocaust.

2006(1st of Shevat, 5766): Playwright Wendy Wasserstein, author of the Heidi Chronicles and The Sisters Rosensweig passed away at the age of 55.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/theater/31wasserstein.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

2007: It was announced today that Michael Abraham Levy who had been named Baron Levy, had been “arrested by police on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice regarding the cash for peerages investigation and immediately released on bail” Six months later he would be cleared of charges related to a scandal regarding charges of granting life peerages in exchange for political contributions.

2007: “The hardcover edition” of The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, a distant relation of David O. Selznick, was released today.

2007: “Farce of the Penguins,” an American direct-to-video parody of the 2005 French documentary film March of the Penguins with the two main characters voiced by Bob Saget (who also wrote and directed the film) and Lewis Black” was released today in the United States.

2007(11th of Shevat, 5767): Eighty-nine-year-old former supermarket executive Benjamin Saget, the father of Bob Saget, passed away today.

2007(11th of Shevat, 5767): Eighty-nine-year-old novelist Sidney Shelton passed away today in Ranch Mirage, CA.

http://web.archive.org/web/20061231180647/http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/features/sidneysheldon/meet_ss.html

2007: The House of Love and Prayer, a new multi-lingual musical based on the life of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, had its final performance at the JCC in Manhattan

2007: In Derby, UK, as part of Holocaust Memorial Day observances a screening of 'Into the Arms of Strangers,” for students from the Millennium Centre, with a Q&A session to follow with Steven Mendelsson who traveled on the “Kindertransports.”

2008: Today, “the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied John Demjanjuk’s request for a review” as he continued to fight the 2006 decision order his deportation.

2008: In Manhattan, the 92nd St Y presents Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in debating “Does God Exist?” Two of today’s most provocative voices as debate the ultimate religious question: Is there a God? Best-selling authors Christopher Hitchens and Shmuley Boteach pull no punches as they discuss organized religion and its place in American life.

2009: Maira Kalman started a new illustrated blog in the New York Times called “And the Pursuit of Happiness” about American democracy today

2009: Lillian Hellman’s “Scoundrel Time” opens at the City Lit Theatre in Chicago.

2009:Batsheva Dance Company, one of the most inspirational and sought-after companies in the dance world, presents its acclaimed production, ‘Three’ at the Performing Arts Center in Purchase, New York. 

2009: A swastika was discovered today at Congregation Shaarey Tphilohan Orthodox synagogue in Portland, Maine which claims to be Portland's oldest Jewish congregation.

2009 (5th of Shevat 5769: Milton Parker, who brought long lines and renown to the Carnegie Deli in Manhattan with towering pastrami sandwiches and a voluble partner who kibitzed with common folk and celebrities alike, passed away today at the age of 90. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/nyregion/05parker.html?_r=0

2010: The Museum of Modern Art is scheduled to present a musical event featuring Israeli pianist Menahem Pressler with the New York Chamber Soloists.

2010: The JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly, NJ, is scheduled to observe Tu B’Shevat with a program  of stories and songs led by Miki Rahav, of Kibbutz Yagur entitled “Celebrating 100 years of Kibbutz Life with Stories and Songs.”

2010(15th of Shevat, 5770): Tu B’Shevat

2010(15th of Shevat, 5770): Eighty-seven-year-old British historian Jack Richon Pole, the son of Ukrainian Jews who had found refuge in the UK, whose most famous work was Political Representation in Britain and the Origins of the American Republic passed away today.

2010(15th of Shevat, 5770): Aaron Ruben, who was a producer, writer and director for some of the most popular television comedies of the 1960s and ’70s, notably “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.” and “Sanford and Son,” passed away today at his home in Beverly Hills, at the age of 95. (As reported by William Grimes)

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2010/02/04/aaron_ruben_tv_producer_for_andy_griffith/

2010: Joëlle Alexis won the World Cinema Documentary prize for Editing tonight at Sundance for her work on Yael Hersonski's “A Film Unfinished.”  The movie examines an unfinished Nazi propaganda film about life in the Warsaw ghetto.

2011: Blood Relation, a documentary film by Noa Ben Hagai is scheduled to shown on the final day of the Seventh Annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival.

2011:  At the 92nd Street Y Drawing on a compendium of more than 600 New York Times articles on the Civil War, Harold Holzer and Craig L. Symonds are scheduled to discuss revelations about America’s great conflict that are still affecting Americans today.

2011: Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit is scheduled to sponsor Super Sunday, the community wide telethon to benefit the Federation's 2011 Campaign.2011: “Return to Haifa” is scheduled to have its last performance at the Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater, Washington DCJCC

2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Neoconservative Persuasion: Selected Essays, 1942-2009 by Irving Kristol, Panorama by H.G. Adler and Zero-Sum Future: American Power in an Age of Anxiety by Gideon Rachman

2011: Cyprus has recognized a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said on today, following similar recent declarations coming mostly from South American states.

2011(25th of Shevat, 5771): Eugene Lubin, whose men and boys clothing store in suburban New York provided bar mitzvah suits for decades, and who was a longtime leader in Jewish organizations, passed away today at the age of 88. The store, Lubin's Men's World, has operated in several locations throughout Westchester County, just north of New York City. In 2010 it opened an operation within Rothman’s, an upscale men’s clothier in Scarsdale. “What happens when upscale specialty men’s clothier Rothman’s invites Lubin’s, the 56-year-old young men’s clothing institution (it has dressed generations of bar mitzvah boys), to move into his Scarsdale shop? Y-chromosome clothing kismet. From boys to men, all are suitably attired here at this brilliant -- and stylish -- pairing of retail roomies,” a Westchester magazine raved. Eric Schoen, who is active with the Jewish Council of Yonkers, said that “Gene Lubin was a man who cared greatly about the city of Yonkers and was involved in its business, civic, religious and philanthropic community." But, like others, Schoen also returned to Lubin’s bar mitzvah suits. "He also cared that bar mitzvah boys and anyone celebrating a special occasion looked perfect," Schoen said. "People traveled far and wide to get that perfect fit." Lubin was a former president of the Westchester Jewish Council and was a member of the Yonkers citizen budget commission in 1993. (As reported by the Eulogizer)

2011(25th of Shevat, 5771): Meyer O'hayon Tapiero, a Morocco native who was among the founders of the new Jewish community of Marbella in Andalusia, Spain, passed away at the age of 94. Tapiero and and his wife came to the resort town of Marbella in 1955 on a holiday from their home in Casablanca, where they had a successful men’s clothing business, and decided to set up their home and family in the Spanish region because he “felt the political change coming in Morocco and decided to look at new prospects beyond its borders.” His wife had come to Morocco from Berlin, which she fled in 1942. Tapiero convinced two brothers to join him in Spain, and they and other family members from Morocco built a synagogue and helped redevelop the community, which had been devoid of Jews since the Inquisition. The community is now a popular destination for Jewish tourism and has a Chabad house and other Jewish services (As reported by the Eulogizer)

2012: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host “Terezin Between Celebration and Investigation” a frank and challenging discussion about the dual function of the art of Terezín led by Hanna Arie-Faifman and Michael Beckerman.

2012: The Israel Prisons Service parole board decided today to reduce the sentence of former minister Shlomo Benizri, a member of the Shas party who was recently sentenced to four years in prison for bribery and other offenses. The parole board decided to cut Benizri's sentence down by a year and four months, so the former minister is due to be released in April.

2012: The Jewish Federation of Arkansas announced today that President Bill Clinton will receive the Tikkun Olam Lifetime Achievement Award of the Jewish Federation of Arkansas a February 4 ceremony in Little Rock marking its 100th anniversary celebration dinner.

2013: The Library of Congress is scheduled to host a presentation on the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design featuring Professor Ezri Tabari, the founder and former chair of the Bezalel MA degree program in industrial design

2013: Jori Slodki is scheduled to teach a two-hour class “Oy Vay! A History of Yiddish” at (of all places) Kirkwood Community College in Iowa City, Iowa.

2013: The ORT Braude Academic College of Engineering in Karmiel is scheduled to host the opening session of “From There to Here,” a month-long event that will give 15 Oleh artists living in northern Israel showcase their works.

2013: Yeshiva University Museum with YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and Jewish Theological Seminary are scheduled to present a panel discussion featuring David G. Roskeis and Naomi Diament, the co-authors of the newly published Holocaust Literature: A History & Guide

2013: Former Representative Gabby Giffords gave a brief emotiaonal opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee that was holding hearings on gun violence.

2013: Israeli forces attacked a convoy on the Syrian-Lebanese border today, sources told Reuters, after Israelis warned their Lebanese enemy Hezbollah against using chaos in Syria to acquire anti-aircraft missiles or chemical weapons.

2013: Beitar Jerusalem soccer club welcomed Muslim Chechen players Zaur Sadayev and Gabriel Kadiev to the team in a press conference today attended by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and dozens of foreign reporters.

2014: “Nazi-looted paintings recovered by the Allies platoon known as the Monuments Men are scheduled to be sold at auction in New York” today. The four lots will go on the block at Sotheby’s in New as part of a sale of Old Master paintings and sculpture. Some of the works were owned by the Rothschild family. Two of the family’s paintings to be auctioned were placed in the private collection of Nazi leader Hermann Goering, Reuters reported.” (As reported by JTA)

2014: Joan Dodek (Past President, Washington Committee for Soviet Jewry) and Marcia Weinberg (Former Chair, Soviet Jewry Committee of Jewish Community Council) are scheduled to discuss their daring trips to visit refuseniks in the Soviet Union and involvement in the struggle to free Soviet Jewry at Washington Hebrew Congregation.

2014: In New York, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host an evening of entertainment “featuring a live performance by Mirah” to mark the upcoming closing of “Chagall: Love, War and Exile.

2014: Rocket launched from the Gaza Strip hit in an open area in the Sdot Negev Regional Council. No injuries or damage were reported.

2014: Oxfam accepted actress Scarlett Johansson’s resignation as a global ambassador, calling the role “incompatible” with her work for the Israeli company SodaStream. (As reported by JTA)

2014: The editors of an ultra-Orthodox daily newspaper today accused the State of Israel of encouraging anti-Semitism throughout the world, claiming that lax religious adherence in the nation and “harassment” of the Haredi community were to blame.

2015: Today, “after a week of intense political pressure and dwindling support, Sheldon Silver submitted his resignation as Speaker, effective February 2, while retaining his position as Assembly Member and vowing to fight the charges against him.”

2015: Ernst Lutisch’s “Angel” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Cinematheque

2015: “Born Yesterday” is scheduled to be shown at the 92nd St Y as part of the Women on Top series.

2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present “Piano Games” featuring Ariel Halevi, Dror Semmel and Michaek Serzekel.

2016: “Over 3500 selflessly committed and highly talented women including 4 from Arkansas are scheduled to spend Shabbat in New York, as part of the annual Chabad-Lubavitch International Kinus Hashluchos (conference of Chabad women representatives and their guests) which is held each year, at this time on the calendar, in conjunction with the yahrzeit of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson, wife of the Rebbe whose yahrzeit is the 22nd of Shevat.”

2016: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present “The Best of Chamber Music - Essence of Piano Trios” featuring the Alexander Trio.

2016: The first of the two-part annual exhibition Illustrators 58 being held at the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators featuring the work of Merav Salomon is scheduled to come to an end today.

2016: Shabbat Yitro – reading of the Ten Commandments

2017(3rd of Shevat, 5777): Eighty-eight-year-old “art historian and critic” Dorea Ashston, the daughter of Dr. Ralph Shapiro and Newark News reporter Sylvia Smith, passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/arts/design/dore-ashton-art-critic-who-embraced-and-inhabited-modernism-dies-at-88.html

http://www.artnews.com/2017/02/02/in-memorian-dore-ashton-1928-2017/

2017(3rd of Shevat, 5777): Ninety-five-year-old Holocaust surviving pianist Walter Hautzig passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/arts/music/walter-hautzig-dead-flee-nazis.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2017(3rd of Shevat, 5777): Ninety-year-old Tulane Graduate Harold Rosen, the engineer responsible for what has become our modern communication network passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/business/harold-rosen-dead-engineer-satellite.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2017: In Boca Raton, FL, supporters of US Holocaust Memorial Museum from South Florida are scheduled to hold their annual luncheon where “Wendy Holden, author of Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope, will interview Eva Clarke, one of the infant survivors whose mothers are featured in the book.”

2018: As part of the observance of Holocaust Memorial Day, the Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to “Women in the Holocaust, “a talk by Holocaust historian Dr. Zoe Waxman, the author of Writing the Holocaust: memory, testimony, representation (2006), Anne Frank (2015), and Women in the Holocaust: A Feminist History of the Holocaust (2017), as well as numerous articles relating to the Holocaust and genocide who teaches in the Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University of Oxford.

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Tu B’Shevat Seder this evening.

2018: Professor Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University is scheduled to lecture on “Anti-Semitism Past and Present” as part of the History Matters “a new lecture series at the Center for Jewish History.”

2018: Leonard Stein is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Jewish Spain in American Tongue: The Sephardic Return of Emma Lazarus” at the Center for Jewish History.

2018: As part of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration “Father Sam Argenziano of Winnipeg’s Holy Rosary Parish Church is scheduled to speak on the role the Catholic Church played during the Holocaust.

2018(14th of Shevat, 5778): Ninety-one-year-old cardiologist and author Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/obituaries/dr-isadore-rosenfeld-high-profile-cardiologist-dies-at-91.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2019(24th of Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar, date on which “the prophet Zechariah predicted the rebuilding of Zion.”

http://www.aish.com/dijh/Shevat_24.html

2019: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to host an “evening featuring former CIA analyst and renowned scholar Kenneth Pollack, the author of Armies of Sand in conversation with Algemeiner editor-in-chief Dovid Efune” during which they will discuss the “changing Arab military threat to Israel.”

2019: In Memphis, members of Temple Israel are scheduled to “with the Community Shlicah Meitave” for a conversational Hebrew class that will help attendees build on their “existing foundation of Hebrew while exploring contemporary news, music and other aspects of Israeli culture.”

2019: In Cedar Rapids, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to discuss Not Our Kind: A Novel by Kitty Zeldis.

2019: Observance of National Croissant Day.  Oddly enough the croissant and the bagel – two signature “breads” – are connected to the same event in history.  According to legend when the Ottomans were laying to siege in Vienna in 1683, “the bakers of Vienna, who worked in the basement storerooms, heard the sound of Turks digging tunnels and alerted the” military authorities. For their vigilance, the bakers received high honors and thanks for their assistance in outwitting the Turks. In celebration, they baked their bread in the shape of a crescent moon—the symbol of the Ottoman Empire. After the Turks were defeated, it became custom to serve morning coffee with the crescent-shaped pastry!

According to another legend , bagels were invented during the same siege by a Viennese baker trying to pay tribute to the King of Poland, Jan Sobieski” who “had led Austria (and hence Poland as well, since it was part of the empire) in repelling invading Turkish armies. Given that the king was famous for his love of horses, the baker decided to shape his dough into a circle that looked like a stirrup -- or beugel in German. (As reported by Ari Weinzeig and “Days of the Year”)

Those living in Cedar Rapids who observe the dietary laws can take part in the observance those to Aldi’s and Trader Joe’s both of which carry kosher versions of the golden, flakey, delicacy.

2020: As National Croissant Day is scheduled to be observed, Jews can also contemplate the taste of its close relation – Rugelach.

https://blog.arousingappetites.com/rugelach-traditional-jewish-croissant-pastries-walnut-chocolate-filling-cream-cheese-dough/

2020: The JCCSF is scheduled to Dani Shapiro, as the author of Inheritance talks about her DNA test that uncovered family secrets and led to discoveries about her ancestry.

2020: In Walnut Creek, CA, Congregation B’nai Shalom is scheduled to host “Violins of Hope: Along the Trade Route” featuring four Bay Area violinists including Cookie Segelstein.

2020: The JCC of Greater Boston is schooled to a panel discussion “Can Faith and Politics Be Separated?”

2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host Dr. Jessica Marglin’s lecture on “The Jews of North Africa Under French Colonialism.

2020: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today in Marion, IA for businessman and pillar of the Jewish Community Bert Katz who was one of those brave men who came ashore with the first waves at Omaha Beach and led his men in all the major battles in the ETO as they fought to end Nazi tyranny.

2021: “Mass” co-starring English born Jewish actor Jason Isaacs premiered at the Sundance Film Festival today.

2021: Based on reports published yesterday, as Israelis celebrate Shabbat, they are confronted with the reality that a growing proportion of Israel’s middle class is being plunged into poverty because of job loss and “the burden of soaring expenses.”

2021: Israel’s foreign ministry has stepped up security at its embassies around the world in light of the explosion of bomb yesterday outside the Israeli embassy in New Delhi.

2021: Kehilat Sukkat Shalom is scheduled to host a full day of programming to embrace space for rest and reflection, and the kehilah’s favorite holiday – Tu B’Shvat, the Birthday of Trees.

2021(17th of Shevat, 7801): Parashat Beshalach; Shabbat Shirah; This is the same portion that was read on January 27, 1945, when Auschwitz was liberated. 

2022: The Alliance for Jewish Theatre is scheduled to host a “Theatremacher Event” planned by Alix Rosenfeld and Catherine Weingarten.

2022: The American Sephardi Federation, the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America, the Sephardic Foundation on Aging, and the Shearith Israel League Foundation are scheduled to present “Salud i Vida: The 5th Annual New York Ladino Day!”

2022: New Lehrhaus in partnership with KlezCalifornia is scheduled to present on line “Mickey Katz, Yinglish Comedy and the Continuity of Klezmer,” a “lecture by musicologist Uri Schreter of Harvard on the late comedic musician Mickey Katz, his music, its history and the meaning behind his humor.

2022: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including  The Book of All Books by Roberto Calasso, the subject of which is the Hebrew Bible and the recently released paperback edition of City Of A Thousand Gates by Rebecca Sacks.

2022: President Isaac Herzog and his wife Michael are scheduled to depart for the UAE early today for his first official visit to the Gulf nation at the invitation of Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed.

2023:  The Sir Martin Gilbert Centre is scheduled to host a lecture by Ula Madej-Krupitski, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Jewish Studies at McGill University, on “Polish Jews on Vacation: Leisure and Identity in the Interwar Period.”

2023: The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host a screening of “The Matchmaker,” directed by Avi Nesher followed by discussion with “film scholar Stuart Weinstock.”

2023: The Quad Cineman is scheduled to present the first screening of “The Everyday Absurd: ‘The Band Visit’ and More by Eran Kolirin”

2023: The Center for Jewish History and the Leo Baeck Institute are scheduled to present a lecture by Susanne Heim on “The Holocaust in the European Context.”

2023: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center is scheduled to host Israel’s 13th prime minister, Naftali Bennett, to “discuss the application of his 70/70 rule, which reflected the fact that around 70% of Israelis agree on 70% of the issues; his attempts to mediate with Presidents Zelensky and Putin; the fracture of his coalition and his fear that Israel’s internal divisions suggest chilling parallels to the falls of the First and Second Temples.”

2024: Mosaic is scheduled a podcast on “How David Ben-Gurion Bore the Burdens of Statesmanship, and How Israelis Can Today” with Neil Rogachevsky, Avi Shilon, and Ran Baratz

2024: The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host a “virtual tour of the Synagogues of the Lower East Side.”

2024: The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host online “Responding to Anti-Jewish Hate on College Campuses.”

2024: JWI is scheduled to present on Zoom “an exclusive event with the creators of the #MeToo_Unless_Ur_A_Jew initiative to learn about their upcoming testimony to the UK Parliament House of Lords. Ambassador Meryl Frank, one of the founders of UN Women, will unpack current challenges and explain what we should listen for during the visit to Israel by the UN special envoy on sexual violence.” 

2024: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present “The Blues and Resilience: A Concert in Honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day” featuring Israeli jazz musician Itamar Borochov.

2024: As January 30th begins in Israel, the Hamas held hostages begin day 116 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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