Saturday, May 25, 2024

This Day, May 26, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

May 26

1096(1st of Sivan): The Crusaders massacred the Jews of Neuss, Germany

1135:  Alfonso VII of León and Castile was crowned in the Cathedral of Leon as Imperator totius Hispaniae, "Emperor of all of Spain". At the start of his reign, he curtailed “the rights and liberties which his father had granted the Jews. He ordered that neither a Jew nor a convert might exercise legal authority over Christians, and he held the Jews responsible for the collection of the royal taxes.” After a few years, he adopted a more positive policy towards his Jewish subject.  He restored the rights granted by his father and then granted new ones including the granting of a special fuero (charter) in 1136 that permitted the Jews of Guadalajara to outfit themselves like the Christian Knights of his kingdom. Judah ben Joseph ibn Ezra (Nasi) was one of the King’s most influential advisors.  After the conquest of Calatrava in 1147, the king placed Judah in command of the fortress, later making him his court chamberlain. The king held Judah ben Joseph stood in such high esteem that he granted Judah’s request to let the Jews who had fled from the Almohades to settle in Toledo.  The reigns of Alfonso and his father are proof that Jews prospered, and suffered, under both Catholic and Moslem rule, depending upon the ruler and the time period.

1171: The first ritual murder accusation in Europe occurred in Blois, France. Fifty-one Jews were burned, seventeen of them women. As they were burning, they chanted the hymn 'Aleinu' (composed in Talmudic times). Rabbenu Tam declared a day of fasting and prayer in England, France and the Rhineland. One of those killed was Pulcinella (Puncelina), a favorite of Count Theobald, who tried to use her position to convince the count to release the Jews. The count decided to expel all the Jews left in his county but "allowed" himself to be persuaded to change his mind by a payment of 2000 pounds.

1232: Pope Gregory IX began the Inquisition in Aragon

1352: After Jewish leaders promised the City Council in Nuremberg that if they were allowed to return to the city as citizens, “they would remit all debts the citizens owed them, would sell all houses held in pawn; agreed to settle only where the citizens permitted, asking merely to be protected against the nobility” an imperial edict was issued permitting the Jews to settle in the city.

1512: Bayezid II, the Ottoman Sultan who welcomed the Jews to his realm after the expulsion from Spain passed away. He not only sent a fleet under the command of Admiral Kemal Reis to evacuate the Jews, he sent a firman to all provinces telling the leaders to welcome the Jews.  When you consider the large swath of territory he controlled (including much of southeastern Europe) this was quite gift. His Jewish subjects included Mordecai Comtino, Solomon ben Elijah Sharbit ha-Zahab, Shabbbethai ben Malkiel Cohen and poet Menahem Tamar.

1552: Sixty-four-year-old “Christian Hebraist” Sebastian Münster, “a disciple of Elias Levita “who edited the Hebrew Bible accompanied by a Latin translated” and who “in 1537 published a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew which he had obtained from Spanish Jews he had converted” passed away today.

1566: Birthdate of Sultan Mehmed III. During the reign of Sultan Mehmed III, Gabriel Buonaventura was appointed ambassador and established contacts with Spain. Solomon Eskenazi, Doctor Benveniste and Doctor Moshe Korina held positions at the palace. In 1597 Solomon Abenyaes (Marrano Name: Alvaro Mendez) prepared a treaty that was intended to ally the Ottoman Empire with England in the fight against king Philip of Spain.

1615(27th of Iyar): Abraham Samuel Bacharach, a leading Rabbi in Worms, passed away. Born in the Grand Duchy of Hesse in 1575, he had married Eva Bacharach, the daughter of Isaac ben Simson ha-Kohen and the granddaughter of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel.  She was the mother of Rabbi Moses Samson Bacharach and the grandmother of Rabbi Yair Bacharach, author of “Hawwot Yair.”

1648: As the Cossack uprising continued to gain momentum a force of Cossacks and Crimean Tatars attacked and defeated Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth forces at the Battle of Korsun. The defeat of the Polish-Lithuanian forces followed the pattern seen at the battle at Zhovti Vody. The Poles retreated and the Cossacks continued moving westward gaining support as they went The slaughter of the Jews was about to begin in earnest.

1697(16th of Sivan, 5457): The British colony of South Carolina issued naturalization papers to Simon Valentine.

1712: The leaders of the Dutch Jewish community decided to dismiss Tzvi Hirsch ben Yaakov Ashkenazi as the Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazi congregation of Amsterdam at the end of the three year term described in the letter of appointment he had been given in January of 1710. Ashkenazi vowed to fight the dismissal which apparently had been orchestrated by Aaron Polak Gokkes.

1724: Beginning of the papacy of Benedict XIII, the pope who issued “Emanavit nuper,” a Papal Bull, dealing with “the necessary conditions for imposing Baptism on a Jew.”

1744(15th of Sivan, 5504): Moses Abraham passed away today after he which he was buried at the “Hoxton Old Jewish Burial Ground” where the tombstone shows the Hebrew calendar date.

1751(2nd of Sivan, 5511): Lob Minden ben Moses the chazzan at Minden-on-the Weser who was the author of Shire Yehuda, a collection of “Hebrew songs with German translations” passed away today.

1753: In Zhitomir, the castle court under the influence of Bishop Solik of Kiev sentenced 33 Jews to death for the "ritual murder" of a Christian child. The entire evidence was based on the "confessions" of the innkeeper and his wife which had been made after being tortured, although they later retracted their statements. Thirteen of them were released upon converting. Many others, including the local Rabbi, were quartered alive. One couple converted on the spot and was granted a beheading.

1754(5th of Sivan, 5514): Erev Shavuot

1757(7th of Sivan): Rabbi Jacob Daniel of Ferrara author of “Eden Arukh” passed away.

1758(18th of Iyar, 5518): Lag B’Omer

1762: In New York City, Abraham Andrews and his wife gave birth to Cayle Abrahams.

1765(6th of Sivan, 5525): Shavuot

1775(26th of Iyar, 5535): Veitel-Heine Ephraim, the husband of Elke Fraenkel who had passed away in 1769, the “Jeweler to the Prussian Court and Mint Master under the Prussian Kings Frederick William I and Frederick the Great” passed away today in Berlin

1779: In London, Daniel Cohen D'Azevedo, the son of Haham Moses Cohen d'Azevedo and Sara de Haham Moses Cohen D'Azevedo married Ester Rodriques Cohen D'Azevedo

1786: In Baltimore, Md, Catherine Bush and Myer Solomon who were married in 1778 gave birth to Baltimore, MD native Arabella Solomon  the wife of Zalegman Phillips whom she married in 1805 and with she had eleven children.

1790: Abigail Lopez, the daughter of Aaron Lopez married Isaac Gomez, Jr. today

1792(5th of Sivan, 5552): Parashat Bamidbar ; erev Shavuot is celebrated as George Washington was finishing his first term as the first President of the United States.

1796(18th of Iyar, 5556): Lag B’Omer is celebrated as Jefferson and Adams vie to become the successor to George Washington.

1799: Friedrich Wilhelm Grantzow, a tailor's apprentice in Berlin and great-grandfather of Oswald Spangler “married a Jewish woman named Bräunchen Moses whose parents, Abraham and Reile Moses, were both deceased by that time and who was baptized shortly before the wedding ceremony.”

1812(15th of Sivan, 5572): Beile Sibilla Duelken, the wife of Markus Duelken passed away today.

1818: Birthdate of Baden, Germany native and future Baltimore resident Lemuel Benjamin Oppenheimer, the husband of Henrietta Mansbach Oppenheimer whom he married in 1846 and the father of Michael, Ameilia, Mary and Bessie Oppenheimer who spent most of his adult life working “in the clothing business.”

1820: Birthdate of Dr. Samuel Kristeller, the native of Posen who graduated from the University of Berlin in 1844.

1822(6th of Sivan, 5582): Shavuot is observed as Rothschild and others work to deal with “the deplorable Frankfort Jewish matter.”

1827(29th of Iyar, 5587: Parashat Bamidbar

1832(26th of Iyar, 5592): Parashat Bamidbar

1838(2nd of Sivan, 5598): Parashat Bamidbar

1841(6th of Sivan, 5601): Shavuot

1847: Hyam Hyams married Amelia Abrahams at the Great Synagogue in London.

1848: As part of its policy to force the Jews to assimilate, the Russian government issued a decree providing for the establishment of a rabbinical committee to be attached to the Ministry of Interior who “was one of the founders of the Medical and Gynecological Society of Berlin.”

1849(5th of Sivan, 5609): Parashat Bamidbar; Erev Shavuot

1850: In Cleveland, Ohio, founding of Tifereth Israel, a reform congregation created after Rabbi Isidor Kalisch and 47 families left Anshe Chesed, the city’s orthodox synagogue and whose most famous leader was Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver who played a major role in gain U.S. support for the creation of Israel.

http://www.ttti.org/

http://www.clevelandjewishhistory.net/silver/temple.html

1853(18th of Iyar, 5613): Lag Baomer.

1853: George Joel Marks married Elizabeth Samuels at the Hambro Synagogue.

1854: Birthdate of Samuel Morais Hyneman a Philadelphia born lawyer who “was a member of the board of managers of Mikve Israel congregation, a member of the board of trustees the  Jewish Theological Seminary at New York, and of the board of trustees of Gratz College, Philadelphia. He also served as president of the Young Men's Hebrew Association in Philadelphia and served as an officer of The Hebrew Education Society in Philadelphia.

1858: Birthdate of Philadelphia native and Jefferson Medical College trained physician Joseph B. Potsdamer the head of the Pediatrics Department at the Jewish Hospital from 1884 until 1925, a founding member of he James Meigs Medical Society and the father of Louis S. Postdamer.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1947/02/17/88758500.html?pageNumber=18

1858: Eighty-one-year-old Sarah Levy, the wife of Jonas Levy was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1860(5th of Sivan, 5620): Parashat Bamidbar: erev Shavuot observed at a time when southern firebrands are plotting to make secession a reality if the results of the presidential election do not put an end to talk of freeing the slaves.

1860: It was reported today that “diligent efforts are put forth to establish the Church Mission to the Jews” in New York City “upon a firm basis” under the leadership of “Rev. John C. Jacobi and Israelite by birth” who became a Baptist.

1861: In Karlsruhe, Germany, “Fanny and Josef Jesses Weil” gave birth to Ferdinand Weil, the “husband of Hella Weil.”

1863: Rebecca Simon, the wife of Isaac Simon, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1865(1st of Sivan, 5625): Rosh Chodesh Sivan

1867: In Hoboken, NJ, Edward Stieglitz and the former Hedwig Ann Werner gave birth to Leopold Stieglitz who “was attracted to medicine” and his twin brother chemist Julius Stieglitz who were the younger brothers of photographer Alfred Stieglitz.

http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/stieglitz-julius.pdf

1868(5th of Sivan, 5628): Erev Shavuot

1868: Daniel Angel, the husband of Rachel Angel and the father of Morris, Jane, Josephine, Philip and Edward Angel was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1869: Mark and Priscilla Collins were married today at Maiden Lane Synagogue.

1869: Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. BU was founded by three Methodist businessmen who had been active in the abolitionist movement. “From the day of its opening, Boston University has admitted students of both sexes and every race and religion.”  According to one source, BU has the second largest enrollment (by percentage) of any private university in the United States.  According to the Hillel Foundation, which has a chapter on campus, three thousand of the school’s twenty thousand undergrads are Jewish and five hundred of the ten thousand grad students are Jewish. The school offers approximately thirty Jewish studies courses.  The school offers both a major and a minor in Jewish Studies.

1871(6th of Sivan, 5631): First Day of Shavuot

1871: An article entitled “The Pentecost Festival” published today in the secular press gives an amazingly detailed description of the Jewish festival of Shavuot.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C02E5DA173AE63BBC4E51DFB366838A669FDE

1871: The New York Times reported that “the feast of Pentecost, in Jewish parlance,” Shavuot, “or, as the German Jews call it” Shavuos, “began last evening and will be observed in all Jewish houses of prayer today.

1877: In New York City, David and Sarah Brickner gave birth Bienvenida Solis Davis, the wife of Goodman Richard Davis and the mother of Walter Alan Davis and Goodman Richard Davis, Jr.

1874: Judge P.J. Joachimsen presided over the annual meeting of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites which was being held tonight at New York’s Temple Shaaray Tefillah. The Executive Committee recommended sending funds to aid the Jews of Romania and to support an agricultural school in Jaffa. (The funds for Romania reflected the concern of western Jewry for the worsening conditions of their co-religionists in that newly independent eastern European country.  Funding for the school in Jaffa is one of the earliest examples of American Jewish support for what became the Zionist movement).

1875: In Mobile, AL Herman and Mollie Kaufman  gave birth to Lottye Kaufman who became Lotty Loeb when she married Leopold Loeb.

1876: It was reported today that at a recently adjourned meeting of delegates representing Hebrew congregations from various U.S. cities the possibility was discussed  of establishing a seminary that would teach Jewish theology and the Hebrew language while preparing students to become Rabbis.

1878(23rd of Iyar, 5638): One day before his 67th birthday Dutch jurist Abraham de Pinto who had been president of the Sephardic congregation passed away at the Hague

1881: In Breslau, Germany, Max and Fanny Landau Braun gave birth to “composer, conductor and voice teacher” Leo Braun who in 1903 cam to the United States where he “wrote secular and sacred instrumental and vocal music, including a Sabbath service, ‘Shir Yisrroel,’ dedicated to Rabbi Max Meyer, spiritual leader of the Free Synagogue” and served as the choir master for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum while being married to “the former Helen Donhoe with whom he raised three sons – Alan, Richard and Robert.

1881(27th of Iyar, 5641): Jakob Bernays a German philologist and philosophical writer passed away. The native of Hamburg German was born in 1824. His father, Isaac Bernays the first orthodox German rabbi to preach in the vernacular (German) his brother, Michael Bernays, was also a distinguished scholar. “Jakob studied from 1844 to 1848 at the University of Bonn, whose philological school, under Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker and Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl was the best in Germany. In 1853 he accepted the chair of classical philology at the newly founded Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, where he formed a close friendship with Theodor Mommsen. In 1866, when Ritschl left Bonn for Leipzig, Bernays returned to his old university as extraordinary professor and chief librarian. He remained at Bonn until his death.”

1881: Birthdate of Washington, DC native and Cornell trained surgeon Dr. Harry E. Isaacs, “founder of the American Jewish Physicians Committee, an affiliate of the American Friends of the Hebrew University and the Chief of Surgery at Beth El Hospital.

1881: Birthdate of Sophie Munk, who gained fame as Austrian-American therapist and write Sophie Lazarsfeld, the wife of attorney Robert Lazarsfeld and the mother of Paul Lazarsfeld.

1882: In Galicia, theatre director Chaim “Charles” Treitler and Taube Treitler gave birth to actress Malvina Lobel, the wife of New York City physician Julius Broder who settled in Dorchester, MA.

https://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/yt/lex/L/lobel-malvina.htm

1882(8th of Sivan, 5642): Seventy-six-year-old John Mayer, the German born son of Simon Levy and Johanetta Mayer whose birth name was Meyer Levy, and who was the husband of Janette Ries Mayer passed away today after which he was buried on “Jewish Hill” in the Natchez, MS, Cemetery.

1885: Australian political leader Simeon Phillips, the “son of Solomon Phillips and Caroline Solomon” and his wife Rosetta gave birth to Maurice Lewis Phillips today

1885: Birthday of Berditchev native and journalist Nathan Lynder who in 1904 came to the U.S. where he served on the staff of The Day.

1886: Birthdate of Asa Yoelson, better known as Al Jolson.  Jolson's father was a cantor at B'nai Israel Synagogue at Fifth and Eye Street in Washington, D.C.  Instead of following in his father's footsteps, Jolson ran away to New York where he began his career in show business.  His greatest claim to fame was his starring role in The Jazz Singer, the first talking motion picture.  Although Jolson never served in the Army (he was turned down when he tried to enlist during the Spanish American War for being too young) Jolson was an active participant in Bond Drives during subsequent wars.  He also entertained the troops during World War I and Korea.  In fact, he died after a trip to Korea in 1950. 

1888: In Darlington Town, SC, Abram Weinberg, the Charleston born son of Fannie ad Bendix Weinberg and his Rosa Weinberg gave birth to Amelia Weinberg who died sixteen days before her first birthday.

1889: Birthdate of Warsaw native Jacques Maliniac, the American plastic surgeon.

https://www.nytimes.com/1976/03/06/archives/jacques-maliniac-a-plastic-surgeon.html

1890(7th of Sivan, 5650): Second Day of Shavuot

1890: Founding of the Samuel Kristeller Fund which aimed “to assist young Jews who wish to learn a trade and to help Jewish mechanics” trying to establish themselves. It was named for the Berlin physician who “was a member of the executive committee also of the Society for Propagation of Handicrafts Among the Jews

1890: In New York City, “Dr. Abram Brothers, a well-known surgeon who was also a writer, an actor, and a violinist” and Minnie Epstein Brothers gave birth to Viola Brothers who gained fame as writer Viola Brothers Shore.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/Shore-Viola-Brothers

1890(7th of Sivan, 5650): Hirschel Eliazer Kann, one of the co-founders of  the Dutch banking house Lissa & Kann passed away today.

1890: “New Publications” published today included a detailed review of Jeremiah and His Times by Dr. T.K. Chenye a Professor at Oxford.  He divided his work into two parts: “Judah’s Tragedy Down to the Death of Josiah” and “The Close of Judah’s Tragedy.”

1890: It was reported today that Rabbi Kaufman Kohler will be officiating at the upcoming confirmation services for the students at the Hebrew Free School.

1890: At a dinner held this evening by the Grand Army of the Republic in Lowell, MA, General Benjamin Butler delivered a speech in which he claimed that during the Civil War the soldiers had been paid “in depreciated currency while Jew bankers were paid in gold with interest.” During the Civil War, Lincoln had tolerated Butler as a general because he needed his political support.  He was a politician, not a general as could be seen by his inept performance in the field.

1891(18th of Iyar, 5651): Lag B’Omer

1891: Birthdate of Washingtonian Dr. Harry E. Isaacs, “founder of the American Jewish Physicians Committee, an affiliate of the American Friends of the Hebrew University and the former Chief of Surgery at Beth El Hospital>

1891: In Budapest, “Mária (née Zilahy) and János Lukács, an advertising executive” gave birth to Pál Lukács” who gained fame as Paul Lukas who an Oscar for Best Actor for his role in WW II film “Watch on the Rhine.”

1891: “Russia Home Policy” published today described the various aspects of the Czar’s anti-Semitic policies.  Police are being sent throughout St. Petersburg with orders to arrest an Jews they find and ship them back to the Pale. Conditions are so bad in Kiev that even Jews who have a legal right to live there are allowing themselves to be expelled.  The governor of Kiev has said “I will make Kiev too hot for the whole brood of rascals, rights or no rights.”

1892: Opposition was expressed today in the House of Representatives to an appropriation for the upcoming World’s Fair since exhibits would be open on Sunday in violation of the Christian Sabbath.  No such concern was expressed for being open on Saturday.

1892: “Rome and the Hebrews” published today described the recent meeting that Jesse Seligman and Dr. O’Connell rector of the American College had with Cardinal Rampolla, Papal Secretary of State.  In response to a request for protection of the Jews by the Catholic Church, Rampolla said that “the Popes…had always been the protectors of the Jews.”  (Considering the behavior of the Popes following the revolts of 1848, this statement can best be described as, at best, “disingenuous”

1893: According to Israel Schwartz, a 13 year old boy who has been living at the Ladies’ Deborah Nursery for the last 9 years, he made up his mind to run away after having been called into Superintendent Engel’s office where he was beaten after having refused to write to his father and tell him about his “bad conduct” which ad consisted of talking to other boys in class which is against the rules.

1893: “Paulus Meyer Arrested” published today described the arrest of Paulus Meyer a Jewish convert and ex-Russian Talmudist “who asserted that he was an eyewitness to a terrible massacre of Jews in Russia.  He was arrested at the request of the German Supreme Tribunal at Leipzig.

1893: Birthdate of Viennese native and movie producer Isadore Goldsmith, who like so many of his generation fled the Nazis living first in Britain and then the United States where he met his wife, novelist and fellow screenwriter Vera Caspary.

1894: Emanuel Lasker became a World Champion chess player.  Born in Germany, Lasker’s father was a cantor who feared that his son’s love of chess would take him away from his studies.  Lasker won the championship when he was 26 which made him the youngest champion of his time.

1894: Theodore Seligman who is one of the executors of the will of his father, the late Jesse Seligman, filed “a statement of the condition of the estate” and “an itemized list of the bequests to the family and charitable societies in the Surrogate’s Office.

1894: Birthdate of Bessarabia native and University of Pennsylvania graduate Harry Viteles who worked with Joint Distribution Committee before moving to Palestine to serve as bank general manager while serving with the United Hebrew Charities of Philadelphia.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/03/archives/harry-vitele-77-in-coop-movement.html

1894: In Hermanville, Mississippi, “Solomon W. and Caroline S. (Herman Bodenheim) gave birth to thrice married poet and author Maxwell Bodenhiem who “co-founded The Chicago Literary Times” with another Jewish author and later Zionist activist Ben Hecht.

https://poets.org/poet/maxwell-bodenheim

1895: Three days after she had passed away, 71 year old Matilda Jacobs, the daughter of John and Frances Nathan and the wife of Myer Jacobs was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1895: Esther Walenstein delivered the opening remarks at the dedication of Hebrew Infant Asylum on Mott Avenue and 149th Street in the Bronx after which the board presented with a portrait of herself which she could see every day for the next 8 years during which ran the institution.

1895: “In The World Of Art” published today acknowledgement is made of the generosity of the men who arranged the East Side Art Exhibition in the auditorium of the Hebrew Institute which attracted a large throng of the less fortunate for whom this was the first opportunity to see such works.

1895: Birthdate of Professor Salo Wittmayer Baron, the author of a sweeping multivolume history of the Jews who “was undoubtedly the greatest Jewish historian of the 20th century…” (As reported by Peter Steinfels)

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/26/obituaries/salo-w-baron-94-scholar-of-jewish-history-dies.html?scp=2&sq=Salo+Wittmayer+Baron&st=cse&pagewanted=print

1895: Rabbi Joseph Silverman is scheduled to deliver the opening prayer at today’s ceremony dedicating the new Hebrew Infant Asylum. Following remarks by New York City Mayor Strong, Rabbi Kaufman Kohler and N.S. Rosenau will address the attendees. Cecilia Goldsmith is among those responsible for providing refreshments at the end of the event.

1896: Eben Israel Cemetery, the Jewish Cemetery in Cedar Rapids that served both the Orthodox Beth Jacob and Reform Temple Judah congregations opened.  Max Oshman was one of the founders of the cemetery which is still in use at the start of the 21st century.

1896: Nicholas II becomes Tsar of Russia.  Nicholas was the last of the Tsars.  He was a weak man who lacked the skill to rule.  He was also totally out of touch with what was going on in his country.  The fact that he had three rabbis at his coronation did not mean that his views about Jews were any different from those of his predecessors.  There were Pogroms both before and after the first uprising against the Tsar in 1905.  The Tsar spent a great deal of money on anti-Semitic literature including mass distribution of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  He also supported the trumped up charges in the Bellis Case, the scandalous trumped charges in one of the last “Ritual Murder” of the 20th century.  During his reign, the Tsar declared,” During my reign Jews in Russia will not enjoy equal rights.” 

1898: The Chicago Jewish Courier opened a drive to help defray the expenses of a newly formed Jewish military organization that is volunteering to serve in an Illinois Regiment that will probably join the fight against Spain.

1898; One day after he had passed away, seventy-year-old Joel Woolf, the Middlesex born son of Jane and Isaac Woolf was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.

1898: During the Spanish American War Sergeant George M. Klein and Corporal Isaac Bradfield of Company A of the 1st Mississippi Volunteer Infantry were among those mustered into federal service in Jackson, Mississippi.

1898: Three days after he had passed away, 70 year old Joel Woolf, the son of Isaac and Jane Woolf and the husband of Helen Solomons was buried today in London at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery.”

1899: The Hebrew Union Veterans’ Association held its annual memorial service tonight at Temple Emanu-El.  The event, which was well attended, began with the veterans marching en masse to house of worship by a drum and bugle corps.

1899: A list published today of the institutions receiving aid from the state of New York and the amount they are getting included: Sanitarium for Hebrew Children - $5,080; Hebrew Benevolent Society - $100,000; Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society - $99,500;

1899: Isaac Wallach, the President of the Mt. Sinai Hospital Association said today that “the land on which the hospital will be built consists of thirty city lots situated between one Hundred and One Hundred and First Streets and Madison and Fifth Avenues” which cost about $400,000 and that buildings will cost one million dollars of which $750,000 “has already been subscribed.”

1899: As of today, the officers of the Judaens are Dr. Henry M. Leipziger, President; Professor Gottheil, Vice President; Philip Cowen, Secretary; Albert Ulmann, Treasurer; and Samuel Greenbaum, Samson Lachman and Cyrus L. Sulzberger, Directors.

1900: Samuel Elfenbein, the “son of Moses and Rosa Elfenbein” and Celia Elfenbein gave birth today to Maurice Elfenbein.

1901(8th of Sivan, 5661): Eighty-year-old Ludwig Lewysohn, the native of Posen who served as the rabbi Frankfort-on-Oder, Worms and Stockholm passed away today in the Swedish city.

1901: “For the first time in its history Lafayette Post, a famous Grand Army of the Republic post held its memorial services tonight at a Jewish congregation; in the case Temple Beh-El on Fifth Avenue where Chaplain Wilbur Fiske Wood who said “ I feel a peculiar pleasure in celebrating this memorial in a Jewish place of worship.”

1902: The Nożyk Synagogue which “would be the only surviving prewar Jewish house of prayer in Warsaw” “was officially opened to the public” today.

1902: After having graduated from NYU Law School in 1901, future Congressman Isaac Siegel, “was admitted to the bar” today.

1902: Twenty-two-year-old New York City native and NYU trained attorney Isaac Siegel, the Republican leader who served in Congress was admitted to the bar today.

1902: “Russia’s Treatment of American Jews” published today described a speech Unitarian minister Thomas R. Slicer in which he declared that he “would not have been a Christian but for the teachings of the Hebrews” and that while “the Russians are nominally Christians with a strong prejudice against the Jews and it is impossible to reason against prejudice.”

1903: Herzl meets the Portuguese ambassador in Vienna to ask for a territory habitable and cultivable by Europeans.

1903: In Newport News, VA, Charles Friedlander and Blanche Peyser gave birth to Mark Peyser Friedlander who would be buried in Washington, D.C’s Hebrew Cemetery.

1904:  Interior Minister de Plehve “proposed to the Council of the Empire an important project for the repeal of the law under which Jews are forbidden to reside with thirty-two miles of the frontier.”

1905(21st of Iyar, 5665): French banker Mayer Alphonse de Rothschild passed away.  Born in 1827, Alphonse was the son of James, the founder of the French branch of the House of Rothschild.  He succeeded his father just before the Franco-Prussian War.  After the French were defeated, Alphonse arranged the financing to pay for the indemnity the Germans extracted from the French as part of the peace settlement.  The loan was a key to the re-emergence of France as a major European power.  Rothschild also served as head of the French Jewish Community and was famed for his generous philanthropy.  As a patron of the arts, he donated major works of art to over two hundred museums and galleries throughout France.

1905: A pogrom broke out in Minsk, Russia.

1906(2nd of Sivan, 5666): Parashat Bamidbar

1906: “The Black Hundreds are attempting to invite the people to attack the Jews by the circulation of false paper money purporting to have been issued by an alleged Jewish republic in Tula Province…”

1907: “Jacob H. Schiff was the principal speaker at a dinner given tonight in the Tuxedo, Fifty-ninth Street and Madison Avenue, by the local members of District Grand Lodge 1, Independent Order B'nai B'rith, to members of the lodge from out of town who had been attending the lodge's convention” in New York.

1908: Birthdate of Viennese native Otto Kurz who” fled to London from the Nazis, where was Librarian at the Warburg Institute, 1944–65 and Professor of the History of Classical Tradition with special reference to the Near East, University of London, 1965–75. He was Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford for 1971–72.

1908: At Masjid-al-Salaman in southwest Persia (Iran), the first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made. The rights to the resource are quickly acquired by the United Kingdom.  The connection between the oil strike the quest to establish a Jewish homeland in Eretz Israel is too obvious to have to explain.

1909(6th of Sivan, 5669): Shavuot

1909(6th of Sivan, 5669): Jacob Meyberg, the son of Jonas and Emma Kornick Meyberg passed away today after which he was at the New Mount Sinai Cemetery in Affton, MO.

1909: Birthdate of Richard Maibum, the New York City native, who came to the University of Iowa in 1930 where he studied in the Speech and Dramatic Arts Department, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1931, earning a Master’s in 1931 and who gained fame “for his screenplay adaptations of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels.”

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/09/obituaries/richard-maibaum-screenwriter-for-james-bond-films-dies-at-81.html

1910: Birthdate of Adolph Ignatievich Rosner, the native of Berlin who gained fame as jazz musician Eddie Rosner.

http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=ba13d322ff1efbe114aeb6779&id=727854ab29&e=632ced0f1f

1910: Political trailblazer Belle Moskowitz wins passage of bill regulating New York dance halls

1911: In the Bronx, Gittle “Gussie” Weinstein and Yithak Asher “Isaac” Ephron gave birth to Henry Ephron.  While he was a noted playwright, screenwriter and producer, his greatest claim to fame may be that he was the father of four daughters – Nora, Dilia, Hallie and Amy – who became famous writers in their own right.

1911: In Wilkes-Barre, PA, Jacob and Bessie Kushner gave birth to Aid Kushner, the Oak Park, Michigan, resident “who for many years…constructed models of famous synagogues from around the world including the state of Michigan as well as a model of President Truman’s home in Independence and an early British fort built at Detroit before it became part of the United States.

1912: The annual meeting of the Jewish Publication Society of America was held this evening at Keneseth Israel Temple in Philadelphia, PA.  Edwin Wolfe, the president of the society, called the meeting to order.  Oscar Solomon was the only member from Cedar Rapids, IA.

1912: Services were this morning “in the synagogue of the Montefiore Congregation in the Bronx when a window dedicated to the memory of Isidor Straus and his wife Ida Straus” who had died on board the Titanic “was unveiled by Edward Lauterabch in the presence of several members of the Straus family.”

1913: Today, “after intense questioning, Jim Conley admits that he wrote the notes found next to Mary’s body, but claims that he wrote them at the order of Leo Frank.”

1913: The annual meeting of the Home for Jewish Friendless and Working Girls of which Jennie Mandel is the secretary is scheduled to take place this evening at the Standard Club.

1914: Anglo-Jewish art dealer said today “that dispatches from New York were his first intimation that a syndicate of dealers heady by Duveens would hold a sale of the Morgan art treasures in London.”  He said that in his opinion, “the story is false.”

1915: Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel, began serving as Postmaster-General under Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith.

1915: It was reported today that former Governor Richard Yates was among the thousands of people who had attended a mass meeting in Springfield, Illinois where speeches were delivered calling for clemency for Leo M. Frank.

1915: Former Congressman W. M. Howard who is in charge of Leo Frank’s appeal to the State Prison Commission announced today that Leo Frank’s wife, who was not allowed to testify at his trial under Georgia law, will submit an affidavit at the hearing and that Frank himself appear in person.

1915: In Boston, Mayor James M. Curley, ex-Governor Eugene N. Foss, Dr. John W. Coughlin, a member of the Democratic National Committee and Dr. Samuel Goodman of Atlanta were among the speakers at tonight’s meeting in Faneuil Hall protesting against the execution of Leo M. Frank.

1915: Today, the American Jewish Relief Committee of New York received word from Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan that “American Ambassador at Constantinople cables as follows” There are approximately 1,500 Jews from Gallipolis and Dardanelles who have been obliged to leave their homes.  They are quartered at Pauderma, Rodosto and Constantinople and they are in absolute want.  The Grand Rabbi and committee beg for prompt assistance for them and for indigent Jews in Constantinople who number about 5,000.”

1915: The text of a letter from “the Board of Governors, the Georgia Society of the State of New York, Inc., an association in New York City whose membership is composed exclusively of Georgians, the descendants of Georgians and person who have been educated in Georgia or have married a Georgian” to the Prison Commission of Georgia calling for the commutation to Leo M. Frank’s sentence, was published today.

1915: “Louis Marshall, President of the American Jewish Committee received a letter from the State Department in regard to the numerous inquiries from men in this country as to the unfortunate condition of their wives and children who were caught in Galicia when the war broke out and have been unable to come to this country.”

1916: The Zion Mule Corps was disbanded after the end of the Gallipoli Campaign.  The disbanding of this Jewish group did not represent a failure.  The British were impressed with the bravery and diligence of the Jews and this led to the formation of a Jewish combat force in the British Army later in World War I.  This was one more of the halting steps that would lead to the creation of the modern IDF.

1916: It was reported today that Adjutant General Louis Stotesbury who opened a public investigation in charges made by Maurice Simmons, Chairman of the Kehillah Committee for the Protection of the Good Name of Immigrant Peoples, that anti-Semitism exists in the New York National” said that now is the time for “any evidence of the exclusion of any man physical and morally qualified for sever in the National Guard on account his religious belief” to be presented.

1916(Iyar 23): Judah Leib Kantor, editor of Ha-Yom, passed away.

1917(5th of Sivan, 5677): Parashat Bamidbar; erev Shavuot

1917: “Shabuoth Festival Today” provides a secular newspapers description of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9401EFD8123AE433A25755C2A9639C946696D6CF

1917: “A Word About Our Schools” published today provides a sketch of various  Jewish institutions of higher education including Hebrew Union College, Jewish Theological Seminary, The Rabbinical College of America, The Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning and The Gratz College

1917: It was reported today that Tulane University has a total enrollment of 2,708 students of whom 54 or 2% are Jewish.

1918: The Georgian Republic declared its independence. With independence came freedom of speech, press, and organization, which improved the economic situation of the Jews of Georgia.

1918: Following the Russian Revolution, “the Georgian Republic declared its independence” today which led to “improved economic conditions for the Jews of Georgia” – a situation that would come to an end when the Red Army invaded Georgia in 1921 “prompting a mass exodus” of between 1,500 and 2,000 Georgian Jews.

1918: The New York Chapter of Hadassah which “is preparing to a send a complete medical unit to Palestine” sent out a public appeal for an additional $1,000 to pay for a truck which is the only piece of equipment that has not been acquired.

1918: Henry Morgenthau, the former Ambassador to Turkey; “Dr. Boris Bogen of the Joint Distribution Committee of the Jewish War Relief Funds; Jacob Billikopf, Executive Chairman of the American Jewish Relief Fund and Rabbi Nathan Krass were the featured speakers this “afternoon at a luncheon at the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark, NJ,” “where 150 prominent Jews from all parts of New Jersey” gathered to express their support for the 1918 campaign that was raising “funds for the relief of Jews in the war-stricken countries of Europe.”

1919: The Conference of Jewish Women’s Organizations is scheduled to meet this afternoon at the Congress Hotel in Chicago.

1919: Birthdate of New York native and WW II veteran Donald Samuel, an investment company exctuive and a trustee of the Jewish Family and Children Services.

1919: La La Lucille, a George Gershwin musical opened on Broadway today at Henry Miller’s Theatre.

1920: Dr. H. Pereira Mendes resigns as Rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York after 43 years.

1920: Birthdate of Jan Wiener, a Czech Jew who fought in the British air force during World War II after fleeing Nazis in Germany and Czechoslovakia.

1920(9th of Sivan, 5680): Julius J. Lyons, the son of the late Rabbi Jacques J Lyons, who had served as Director and legal counsel to the State Bank passed away at San Diego, CA.  He was born in New York in 1843 and was active in several Jewish institutions including the Montefiore Home, Mount Sinai Hospital and the Hebrew Technical Institute.  He had gone to California a year ago to stay at the ranch of his son Edwin where he had hoped to regain his health.

1921(18th of Iyar, 5681): Lag B'Omer

1921: In what was then Breslau, Germany, overalls manufacturer Fritz Laqueur and “homemaker Elsa (Berliner) Laqueer gave birth to Walter Ze'ev Laqueur the American historian who escaped his native Prussia for Palestine but whose parents were trapped and died in the Holocaust. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/obituaries/walter-laqueur-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1922: “A resolution directing Secretary of State Hughes to make immediate inquiry of the French government as to the correctness of reports concerning the imposition of a twenty-year sentence upon Charles R. Crane by a French military court was introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Adolph Joachim Sabath, the Czech born Jewish Congress from Illinois.

1923(11th of Sivan, 5683): Dr. Hugh L. Wintner, the native of Kortvelyek, Hungary who came to the United States in 1863 and “officiated at various congregations in the western and southern United States” before coming to “Brooklyn in 1878 to serve as the Rabbi at Temple Beth Ehlohim,” “the oldest synagogue in Brooklyn which celebrated its golden jubilee in 1901,” passed away today.

1923: Thirty-four-year-old Columbia trained physician Isidor Cherniac Brill, the Russian born son of Abraham and Deborah Brill, who served overseas as first lieutenant with the Medical Corps during WW I and who has an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Oregon Medical School since 1919 today married Ruth Lowengart at Portland, OR.

1924(22nd of Iyar, 5684): Forty-three-year-old St. Louis native Aaron Hoffman, “one of the most prolific writers for the American stage, the author of a score of play and countless vaudeville sketches” and the husband of Minna Z. Hoffman with whom he had one child, Phyllis, passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1924/05/28/104252367.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1924(22nd of Iyar, 5684): Eighty-four-year-old Rosa Bloom, the daughter of Lob and Bina Oppenhimer and husband of Simon Marx and Isidor Bloom passed away in New York City.

1924: The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, and Asian Exclusion Act which was “vigorously opposed” by Congressman Emanuel Cellar and severely limited the number of Jews who could enter the United States was enacted today.

1925: In Bayonne, NJ, Isaac and Lillian Goodman Cohen gave birth to Robert B. Cohen whose chain of Hudson News shops at airports, bus terminals and railroad stations across the country offered untold numbers of people a respite from the tedium of travel…(As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

1925: The Camden, NJ, Section of the Council of Jewish under the leadership of Mrs. Philip Wendkos held a banquet this even in the Beth-El auditorium which will mark the end of the organization’s business year.

1926: “Ten students received their degrees tonight at the first graduation exercises of the Jewish Institute of Religion founded four years ago by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise as the only liberal Jewish theological seminary in New York.”  Honorary degrees were conferred on Calude G. Montefiore, nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore and Chaim Nachman Bialik.

1926: Shalom Schwarzbard traveled from the Ukraine to Paris to avenge his parents' death at the hands of S. V. Petlura.  He was responsible for the Ukrainian anti-Jewish riots of 1919-1920. After days of stalking, Shalom confronted Petlura, shot him and surrendered to the police. He was acquitted by the court of Assizes on all charges. The court may have been influenced by the fact that S.V. Petlura, and his followers were responsible for 493 pogroms in which 50,000 Jews lost their lives.

1927: It was reported today that Sir Alfred Davis, the British educator, told a meeting of the New York Chapter of Hadassah that he took issue with Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick’s statement “that conditions in Palestine were unpromising for agriculture and this was doubtful if the  colonies there could ever be self-supporting.”

1927: In New York City, Alice Manheim, Jacob Kaplan, rabbi’s son, who “dropped out of school in the eighth grade, made a fortune in South America in the molasses business and later bought out the owners of Welch’s Grape Juice” gave birth to Joan Kaplan who gained fame as “Joan Kaplan Davidson, a preservationist and philanthropist who set projects in motion that upgraded the quality of life…” (As reported by Enid Nemy)

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/11/nyregion/joan-kaplan-davidson-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

https://www.socialsciencesinstitute.org/news/2023/8/15/in-memoriam-joan-kaplan-davidson-1927-2023

1928(7th of Sivan, 5688): Second Day of Shavuot including recitation of Yizkor for the last time during the Presidency of Calvin Coolidge.

1929: Approximately four hundred delegates attending today’s 21st annual convention of the Federation of Polish Jewish In America at the Yorkville Temple heard an address by John J. Goldstein of the Joint Distribution Committee.

1930: “The revocation by the British Colonial Office of more than 3,000 labor certificates after they had been approved by the High Commissioner on the basis of the economic needs of the country is a violation of the letter and spirit of Article VI of the Palestine mandate specifically charging the mandatory power with the facilitation of Jewish immigration, according to resolutions adopted” tonight “by delegates of the Zionist Organization of New York” at a meeting held at the Hotel Pennsylvania over which former city magistrate Bernard Rosenblatt served as presiding officer.

1931: Elections began today in forty-five countries in Europe to selected delegates for the World Zionist Congress to be held in June.

1931: “A large attendance is expected the garden party to be held” this “afternoon at Willowpond, the country place of Mrs. Harold Lehman in Tarrytown, NY, for the benefit of the compaign for fund of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/05/25/98332950.html?pageNumber=25

1932(20th of Iyar, 5692): Five days after celebrating his 82nd birthday German-Jewish banker Hermann Frankel passed away.  Ironically, he owned the Wannsee Villa, which ten years later would be the site of the conference that would establish the metrics for the final act of the Final Solution. 

1933(1st of Sivan, 5693): Rosh Chodesh Sivan

1933: Helen Dora Cohen married fellow student and future bookstore owner Louis Schucman “in a ten minue ceremony in a local rabbi’s office” today.

1934: In Tel Aviv, the third biennial Levant Fair comes to an end.

1935: Edmond I. Jabes, who was born in 1912 was married today “in Zamalek, Cairo.”

1935: Egyptian Chief Rabbi Haim Nahum officiated at services in the Ashkenazi Synagogue of Cairo. He was there to lead a memorial service for the Polish Jews of Egypt, who were honoring Marshal Josef Piludski. The respected Russian revolutionist and Polish nationalistic military leader had died May 12, 1935 and was buried in Lithuania.

1935: In Tel Aviv a group of Yiddish authors sponsored a lecture in observance of the 70th birthday of Dr. Chaim Zhitlowski, social critic, political activist and author who was a “Yiddishist.” Members of Betarim, “a young military Revisionist-Zionist group” were responded violently to the fact that the lecture was conducted in Yiddish instead of Hebrew.  They cut off the electricity, pelted members of the audience with stones and were so disorderly that police had to break up the meeting.

1935: It was reported today that in Cedar Rapids, IA, “Mrs. Raymond Klass has been unanimously re-elected president of the local chapter of the Senior Hadassah” while Mrs. A.W. Basss was elected Vice President, Mrs. Nathan Greenberg was elected recording secretary, Mrs. Jack Yager was elected recording secretary and Mrs. Ted Yarowsky was elected treasurer.”

1936: For the first time ever, the Mandatory government in Palestine today mobilized Jewish settlers for self-defense as an open Arab revolt swept the country. Settlers at Rehoboth were armed and prepared to repel further assaults by Arabs after two days' of their marauding had resulted in the destruction of various “agricultural enterprises.”

1936: In London, “Emanuel List, a naturalized American singer who is now appearing at Covent Garden has…declined an invitation to attend a function at the German Embassy” saying “I left after the Nazi regime came in. My mother is a Jewess.  I could not there remain in a country where not only Jews members of other religions are so cruelly treated.

1936: “The first mass attack on a Jewish settlement took place” today “at Kfar Tabor at the foot of Mount Tabor in the Galilee district” when “a band of hundreds of Bedouins began firing at” the Jews “but police supported by the young Jewish farmers, repelled the attackers without casualties.

1936: After a lumber yard was set on fire and nine bombs were tossed by Arab attackers in Nevei Shalom, Jewish settlers fled to Tel Aviv.

1936(5th of Sivan, 5696): Erev Shavuot; in Jerusalem, the British relaxed the curfew in the Jewish section of the city delaying its start from 7 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. so that the Jews could gather to observe the start of the festival.

1936: British women and children were evacuated tonight from the troubled town of Nablus in an atmosphere made increasingly tense by bold Arab terrorists. They were sent to Jerusalem where it was thought they would be safe from Arab attacks.

1936: “Malcom MacDonald, Secretary for the Dominions announced in the House of Commons tonight that order had been restored at Gaza and that in addition to other measures the High Commission for Palestine had taken steps to restrict the movements of agitators and strike leaders.”

1936: Premiere of “Kid Galahad” directed by Michael Curitz, produced by Samuel Bischoff, Hal B. Wallis and Jack L. Warner, with music by Max Steiner and starring Edward G. Robinson.

1937: Birthdate of composer Yehuda Yannay

1938: Birthdate of West Philadelphia native and a Haverford and Harvard trained linguist, author and teacher Richard Lederer whose “Jewish parents from Poland and Germany” saw to it that he had a bar mitzvah.

1938:  The House Un-American Activities Committee met for the first time.  HUAC would become the tool of right-wing political leaders who would use it attack “the Communist Conspiracy,” something that many of them equated with a Jewish conspiracy.

1939(8th of Sivan, 5699): Rabbi Ya'akov Meir, Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Palestine, passed away. Jacob Meir was born in Jerusalem in 1856 when it was part of the Ottoman Empire. Born to a notable merchant of the community, Mercad Meir, young Jacob grew to be a merchant who worked in Yaffa. He worked as a merchant for over ten years, then in his thirties wealthy Jew he knew talked him into going into the rabbinate. After becoming a rav he traveled to countries raising funds for those in Jerusalem. From the mountains of Bokhara to the deserts of Tunis and Algeria he collected charity funds, and in Jerusalem acted as civil assessor to the Bet Din. On the death in 1906 of his friend and advisor Chief Rabbi Saul Eliasher, Rav Jacob Meir, age 50, was unanimously chosen to fill his place. Soon after a dispute arose, and resigned to accept a "call" to the large Jewish community at Salonica. In years later when the Sultan of Turkey visited Salonica, he presented Meir with a gold watch emblazoned with the royal arms as a mark of esteem. In 1920 Meir was appointed by Sir Herbert (later Lord) Samuel to be head of the Spanish Jewish Community of Palestine and soon after received the Commander of the Order of the British Empire award for service to the British. Herbert Samuel was appointed as the first British High Commissioner of Palestine in 1920. He was Jewish and also a Zionist. Under his direction, thousands of Jewish immigrants settled in the land. In each of the years between 1920 and 1923, about 8,000 Jews entered Palestine. In 1924 the number jumped to 13,000 and the following year to more than 33,000. Sadly, many Jewish people came to Palestine because they could go nowhere else. America closed its doors to mass immigration in 1924. After he died, over 10,000 Jewish residents of Jerusalem, representing all sections of the population took part in his funeral. The Blue and white colors hung from half-mast from the offices of all Sephardic associations and other Jewish public institutions. His body was brought to the large synagogue at the Sephardic orphanage on Yaffa Road. Around his coffin which stood on the stage gathered members of the Chief Rabbinical Council, other rabbis, and groups of youths in the uniforms of their organizations, acting as honor guards.

1940(18th of Iyar, 5700): Lag B’ Omer is celebrated on the same day that “Anthony Eden told General Lord Gort, Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the BEF, that he might need to "fight back to the west", and ordered him to prepare plans for the evacuation” in what would become known as “Dunkirk,” Jews

1940: Today James Rosenman and Samuel I. Rosenman were FDR’s “houseguests” at the White House.

1941: Approximately one thousand people attended a tea at the Hotel Commodore sponsored by “the metropolitan branch of the Women’s League of the United Synagogue of America where attendees heard national president Mrs. Samuel Spiegel said that seven thousand dollars has been raised “in supported of the Cyprus Adler Scholarship Fund.”

1941: “Jews and gypsies were forbidden today to participate in press, theatre, film and radio activity in Serbia by order of the German military commander.”

1942: Belgian Jews were required by Nazis to wear a Jewish star.

1943(21st of Iyar, 5703): Sixty-seven-year-old Tufts Medical trained physician Isador Henry Coriat, the Philadelphia born son of Clara Einstein and Hyram Coriat and the husband of Etta, who was a pioneer in the field of psychoanalysts passed away today.

1943: Jews rioted against Germany in Amsterdam.

1943(21st of Iyar, 5703): Seventy-one year old Jennie Mannheimer, the New York City born daughter of Hebrew Union College Professor Sigmund Mannheimer and Prague born author Louise Hershman Mannheimer, “the sister of two rabbis” and “one of the first two women to earn a bachelor’s degree in Hebrew Letters from HUC, who gained famed as “Jane Manner, the “acting coach and teacher of speech and drama” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/05/28/88538424.pdf

1943(21st of Iyar, 5703): Tosia Altman, who smuggled weapons into the Warsaw Ghetto and served as messenger once the uprising began was captured by the SS died today “injuries she sustained while on the run.” (As reported by Robert Philpot)

1944: In Bogota, Columbia, Polish refugees Rifka and Israel Joseph Lederman gave birth to David Mordechai Lederman, the doctor “who led the team of scientists that developed the first fully implantable artificial heart.”  (As reported by David Hevesi)

1944: Mordechai and Yehuda Eldar arrived at Auschwitz.  Mordechai Adler was slated to die in October but through a fluke received a reprieve when he was one of 50 prisoners chosen to work in “Canada,” the warehouse operation where the Nazis greedily stored the belongings of their Jewish victims. In 1947, Eldar and two of his sisters (the only surviving members of his extended family) sailed to Palestine on the SS Exodus.  Sent back to Hamburg by the British, he returned to Tel Aviv in June of 1948.  He joined the IDF and served for 30 years before retiring as a colonel in 1978.

1944: Birthdate of Jan Schakowsky, Congresswoman representing the 9th District of Illinois.

1945(7th of Sivan, 5705) Second Day of Shavuot

1945: “After showing concern over the alleged intentions toward Palestine of the newly form Arab League, leaders of Jewish organizations voiced satisfaction today over ‘safeguards’ which, they said the United Nations Conference was erecting around the rights, notonly ofp resent Jewish inhabitants of Palestine but of those who  might emigrate there in the post-war years to set up a national home.”

1946(25th of Iyar, 5706): Sixty-eight year old Galcian born “Sigmund Thau, the founder and president of the Mutual Lamp Manufacturing Company and leader of the Jewish community as can be seen by his service as “treasurer of the JNF” and founder and director of the Jewish Settlement House of the East Side who married Rose Thau after the death of his first wife Devorah and who was the father of Sophie and Morris Thau passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1946/05/27/94052727.pdf

1946: “Demands that governmental and intergovernmental agencies assume full responsibility for basic assistance to Jewish survivors abroad and permit voluntary agencies to concentrate on supplementary aid and rehabilitation were made” in Atlantic City, NJ “tonight at the opening session of the four-day National Conference of Jewish Social Welfare.”

1947(7th of Sivan, 5707): Second Day of Shavuot

1947(7th of Sivan, 5707): Seventy-two-year-old Louis Satenstein, the Kovno born son of Harris Satenstein and the former Pauline Schaffer and husband of the former Harriet Johnson with whom he raised five children while serving as “president, treasurer and chairman of the board of American Book-Stratford Press and President of the Jewish maternity hospital passed away today.

1947: Gershon Hirshon, a spokesman for the Jewish Agency that “there has been no split in the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine” when David Ben-Gurion “had said that a Jewish state in the areas populated principally by Jews, in addition to the barren desert, might be acceptable in lieu of a Jewish state in all Palestine” because the Chairman was merely expressing his personal views.

1948: At the United Nations, the Arabs “indicated a willingness to stop the fighting on condition that the Jews would regard the proclamation of statehood as null and void and that no further Jewish immigration would be accepted.  Abba Eban responds publicly; “If the Arab states want peace with Israel, they can have it.  If they want war, they have that, too.  But whether they want peace or war, they could have only with the sovereign independent state of Israel.”

1948: Esther Cailingold, the British born daughter of Jews from Poland who had gone to Jerusalem to teach in 1946 who stayed to fight in defense of the city in 1948 had her spine severed when the building she was in collapsed following an explosion.

1948: The position of Jewish forces in the Old City was beyond desperate.  "There was nothing to eat; nothing to shoot with..."  One hundred Haganah troopers had been killed with even more wounded as the Arab Legion pressed its attack on all sides.

1948: As part of a plan to avoid fighting among different military forces that had been established during the Mandate, the newly formed government of Israel asserted its control over military force with the issuance of “Defense Army of Israel Ordinance No. 4” that “established the Israel Defense Forces, which would be comprised of "land forces, a navy and an air force".

1949: “Tulsa” a drama set in the oil fields produced by Walter Wagner was released in the United States today.

1950: The United States, Great Britain and France announced a plan to regulate arms sales in the Middle East which would equalize sales between the Arab states and Israel. The three western powers also promised to see to it that the frontiers or armistice lines dividing the states would not be violated.

1950: The Israeli government announced that Aubrey S. Eban has been appointed as Israel’s Ambassador to the United States. [Yes, Aubrey Eban is the man whom we know as Abba Eban.]

1952: President Harry S. Truman addressed a dinner sponsored by the Jewish National fund.

1952: Emil Sachs, the Secretary of the Garment Workers’ Union of South Africa, and opponent of Apartheid appeared in court today following his arrest at mass meeting “on the steps of the Johannesburg City Hall.”

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Dr. Dov Joseph, the Acting Minister of Finance, introduced in the Knesset a Bill on "Income Tax Advances for Relief Works" and described the scheme which was expected to provide 2,650,000 work days for the country's unemployed for the next six months.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the rationing of potatoes came to an end and potatoes were put on the free market sale for the first time in four years. Over 250 immigrants were expected to arrive from Iran.

1954: Meir Har-Zion was part of ten-man squad “from the newly formed 890th Paratroop Battalion led by Ariel Sharon which carried out a raid near Khirbet Jinba” today.

1954(23rd of Iyar, 5714): Eighty-year-old Marguerite F. Falk, the wife of Gustave Falk passed away today after which she was buried with her husband at Hebrew Rest Cemetery#2 in New Orleans.

1954(23rd of Iyar, 5714): Joseph Titlebaum passed away today after which he was buried in the Mt. Sinai Cemetery in Philadelphia.

1955(5th of Sivan, 5715): Erev Shavuot

1955: New York City premiere “Love Me or Leave Me” directed by Charles Vidor, Produced by Joe Pasternak with a script by Daniel Fuchs and Isobel Lennart.

1956: In London, “Jonathan Charkham, an adviser to The Bank of England and economist, and Moira Elizabeth Frances Salmon, daughter of Barnett Alfred and Molly Salmon” gave birth to Fiona Sara Charkham who gained fame English Solicitor Fiona Sara Shackleton, Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia known as the Steel Magnolia.”

1957: “In the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago…Edward Wasserman, a psychoanalyst, and the former Eileen Kronberg, a homemaker” gave birth to “historian and filmmaker Suzanne Wasserman.” (As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/nyregion/suzanne-wasserman-dead.html

1958(7th of Sivan, 5718): Second Day of Shavuot, Yizkor

1958(7th of Sivan, 5718): “Four Israeli police officers were killed in a Jordanian attack on Mount Scopus, in Jerusalem.”

1958: “At 1654 Local time Lieutenant-Colonel Flint of the Mixed Armistice Commission was killed apparently by a single sniper round while trying to evacuate the dead and wounded Israelis from an Israeli police patrol.”

1959(18th of Iyar, 5719): Lag B’Omer

1960: Birthdate of Amnon Shashua an Israeli computer scientist and businessman who is the Sachs Professor of Computer Science at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem as well as Senior Vice President at Intel Corporation and President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Mobileye and co-founder of OrCam.

1960(29th of Iyar, 5720): Seventy-year-old Esther Cohen Belsky the Russian born daughter of Moshe Kaplan and Frieda Goldberg and the  wife of Charles Eizia Belsky passed away today in Holyoke, MA after which she was buried at the Rodephy Sholom Cemetery in Chicopee, MA.

1960(29th of Iyar, 5720): Pittsburg born Abraham Oseroff, the holder of BS from the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters from the University of Pittsburg who was a veteran  of WW I and a hospital administrator in Pittsburgh, New York City and Philadelphia passed away.

1964 The third AFC Asian Cup football (what Americans call soccer) tournament opened in Israel today.

1964: Birthdate of musician Lenny Kravitz

1964: Sylvia Rothschild’s novel “Sunshine and Salt” was released today

1965(24th of Iyar, 5725): Eighty-three-year-old Dr. Solomon Ullman, the native of Hungary who became the Belgian Chief Rabbi and Chief Jewish Chaplain of the Belgian Army passed away today in Brussels. (As reported by JTA)

1965: “Mirage” a thriller based on a novel by Howard Fast co-starring Walter Matthau was released today in the United States.

1966: Fifty-nine year old of director and screenwriter Edmond T. Greville who based “on 23andMe genetic testing of his daughter and grandson in 2017,  was in fact Ashkenazim Jewish from the likely area of Odessa, a fact never known to him during his life time passed away today.

1967: As the crisis that would result in the Six Day War intensified, President Nasser of Egypt declared, “the battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel.”  While President Johnson worked to develop an international response that would open the Straits of Tiran, the Soviet Union let the members of the Security Council know that Moscow would veto any proposal that was not in accord with the wishes of Syria and Egypt.

1967: As the crisis that will lead to the Six Days War worsens, Military intelligence chief Aharon Yariv tells the Israeli cabinet that “the roots of the current situation are connected to the active Soviet regional initiative” that began “over a year ago.”

1968(28th of Iyar, 5728): Yom Yerushalayim

1968: A funeral service is scheduled to be held this afternoon at Temple Emanu-El for eighty-two-year-old Morris Haft, the Russian born son of Jennie and Max H. Haft and “a major figure in the garment industry” whose ladies coat and suit company, “Morris W. Haft and Bros. was known for many years on Seventh Avenue as ‘the General Motors’ of the industry because of its size” and who was active in New York politics, a major art collector and such a supporter of Israel that the city of Herzliya named a street in his honor passed.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/05/24/77102682.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1968: Eighty-two-year-old “Austrian ethnologist, ancient historian, and archaeologist, and a grandnephew of poet Heinrich Heine” Robert von Heine-Geldern passed away today

http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle/10125/19123/AP-v13n1-obit.pdf?sequence=1

1969: Abdel el Rahman el Latifi, a 65-year-old Jerusalem Arab who stabbed a soldier outside the Damascus gate last year, was sentenced today to 10 years' imprisonment by the district court here. There was no apparent reason for the act, but the court rejected the defense plea of insanity.

1970: In Manhattan, Joan and Morton I. Hamburg gave birth to screenwriter and director John Hamburg

1971: In Huston, “economics professor Gerald Whitney Stone and Sheila Lois Belasco” who was Jewish gave birth to cartoonist Matt Stone co-creator of South Park,

1971: “Man From La Mancha” with music by Mitch Leigh moved to the Mark Hellinger Theater (named in honor of the Jewish theatre critic) for the last month of its original Broadway run of 2,329 performances.

1973: The BBC broadcast the first episode of “That’s Life!” a mixture of news and satire featuring Esther Rantzen as Presenter.

1973: The IDF announced a state of emergency today “and reserve troops were called up in response to a movement of Egyptian troops. The state of emergency was cancelled when it became clear that this was only an exercise. This event had a major impact on the General Staff, as it led them to believe that the Egyptian forces were not preparing for war, later that year, on Yom Kippur. After the war however, it became apparent that these frequent maneuvers carried out by the Egyptians were part of an elaborate ruse meant to induce complacency in the Israelis regarding the true intentions of Egyptian troop movements at the time the actual attack took place.”

1974: “Mr. and Mrs. Max Gerstein: announced the engagement of their daughter New Yorker magazine fiction department employee Nancy Ellen Gerstein to Lawrence Kudlow in what might described as clothing merger since the bride’s mother “is presient of Petrie Stores Corpoation, a retail chain of women’s clothing store” and the groom’s father, Irving H. Kudlow “is a partner of Sondra Incorporated, manufacturer of textiles for men's clothing.”

1975: Lisa Selesner, the model and actress known as Lisa S, was born in Monaco to a French father and a Jewish American mother today.

http://www.alivenotdead.com/lisas

1976: “Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood” directed by Michael Winner, written by Arnold Schulman and co-starring Madeline Kahn, Phil Silvers and Ron Leibman was released in the United States today.

1976: German philosopher Martin Heidegger passed away.  Although considered a major force in the world of philosophy by some, Heidegger was a member of the Nazi Party and remained in Germany during the war.  Strangely enough, Heidegger had several extramarital affairs, including two very important ones with Jewish women who were his students, Hannah Arendt and Elisabeth Blochmann. Apparently Arendt knew more about Nazis than she let on when she was writing about “the banality of evil.”

1977: The fourth of the Nixon Interviews which were arranged by Swifty Lazar and produced by Bob Zelnick was broadcast today.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported how John Henry Weidner, 65, a Dutchman now living in U.S. led so many groups of Jews, allied pilots and other victims of the Nazi persecution across the border of the German-occupied France into Switzerland that he knew the way "blindfolded." He was awarded the Righteous Gentile Medal by the Yad Va'shem Chairman, Gideon Hausner, who told him: "You are a soldier of humanity in the world's darkest years."

1980: An Israeli police officer was injured in a stabbing attack at Hebron

1980: In Monaco, Gary and Peggy Selesner gave birth to Lisa Selesner, the international model known as “Lisa S.”  Her mother was Jewish, her father was not

http://www.alivenotdead.com/lisas/blog.html

1981: After receiving a knighthood in 1980, Max Beloff “was created a life peer, taking the title Baron Beloff, of Wolvercote in the County of Oxfordshire” today.

1982(4th of Sivan, 5742): Cantor Adolph Block passed away today.

1983(14th of Sivan, 5743): Ninety-year-old Louise Weiss the daughter of Protestant mining engineer Paul-Louis Weiss and Jeanne Javal a member of an Alsatian Jewish family gave birth to “who was an influential voice in French and international affairs from the 1920s” passed away today.

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/weiss-louise

1983: Amnon Rubenstein completed his term as Communications Minister in Israel.

1985(6th of Sivan, 5745); Shavuot

1985(6th of Sivan, 5745): Seventy-seven-year-old Oscar award winning producer Harold Hecht passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/28/movies/harold-hecht-film-producer-and-a-burt-lancaster-partner.html

1987(27th of Iyar, 5747): Seventy-three-year-old psychiatrist, entrepreneur and philanthropist Arthur Sackler passed away. (As reported by Grace Glueck)

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/27/obituaries/dr-arthur-sackler-dies-at-73-philanthropist-and-art-patron.html

1987: Amnon Rubinstein completed his service as Communications Minister.

1990: After three years, Fox network broadcast the last episode of “The Tracey Ullman Show” whose creators included James L. Brooks, Jerry Belson and Heide Perlman.

1991: Fund Guides Jobless Soviet Immigrants,” published today Kathleen Teltsch describes the challenges facing the Baron de Hirsch Fund in helping the latest wave of Jewish immigrants from Russia “make new lives in America.”  The fund was created in 1891 by Baron Maurice De Hirsch, a prosperous German Jewish financier who wanted to help Jewish families fleeing Czarist Russia make a fresh start by becoming farmers. Thousands came to the United States at the turn of the century and became poultry farmers, mainly in southern New Jersey.” This latest influx of refugees from the Soviet Union will be looking for help in fitting into the urban environment including jobs in the health care and construction industries.

1991: In New York City, at the Plaza Rabbi Amy Wallk and Cantor Kurt Silberman officiated at the wedding of Nancy Gail Samson, a graduated of the University of Pennsylvania and the public relations director of the Oklahoma City 89ers,  and Joshua William Cohen, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/27/style/nancy-g-samson-weds-j-w-cohen.html?searchResultPosition=8

1992: Harvard graduate Michael Boudin, the son of Jean Roisman and attorney Leonard Boudin and the sister of terrorist Kathy Boudin began serving as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

1993(6th of Sivan, 5753): Shavuot is observed for the first time during the Presidency of Bill Clinton

1994: “A streamlined Off-Broadway revival” of “Merrily We Roll Along,” a Stephen Sondheim musical “based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart” opened today “at the York Theatre in St. Peter’s Church where it ran for 54 perfromaces.

1995(26th of Iyar, 5755): Eighty-seven-year-old Mordechai Surkis, the veterans of the Haganah and the Jewish Brigade who was the first mayor of Kfar Saba passed away today.

1995(26th of Iyar, 5755): Eighty-nine-year animator Friz Freleng, the man behind such icons as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Yosemite Sam to name but a few, passed away today

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-friz-freleng-1621602.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/28/obituaries/isadore-friz-freleng-dies-creator-of-cartoons-was-89.html

1996(8th of Sivan, 5756):  Resistance fighter and politician Halka Grossman passed away at the age of 76.

1998(1st of Sivan, 5758): Rosh Chodesh Sivan

2000: After premiering a week ago in Malaysia, “Shanghai Noon” the first in series of buddy films produced by Roger Birnbaum, Gary Barber and Jonathan Glickman and with music by Randy Edelman was released today in the United States.

2000: Two days after she lost her battle with breast cancer, funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning for Sandra Zuckerman Rothstein, the “adored wife of Edward” Zuckerman, in Woodbury, LI.

2001: In “Latest Disaster Tests Resiliency of Jerusalem's Residents,” published today Deborah Sontag describes how the residents of Israel’s capital city are coping with the latest wave of Arab terror

2001: At the Tribeca Rooftop, Rabbi Joshua Davidson officiated at the marriage of Dr. Debra Baron Nevas, a clinical psychologist, and Dr. Jonathan Todd Abrams, an anesthesiologist.

2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of “O’Neill: Life With Monte Cristo” by Arthur and Barbara Gelb.

2002: An exhibition of the work of 18th century New York silversmith Myer Myers came to a close at the Skirball Cultural Center.

2003: According to “Battle of Brooklyn” published today Ari Taub has received the  Best New Director award at the Brooklyn International Film Festival for his new film “Letter from the Dead” which “focuses on a doomed unit of German and Italian soldiers” fighting in Italy in 1944.

2004(6th of Sivan, 5764): First Day of Shavuot

2004: What is believed to be the largest cheesecake in the world has been baked in Haifa for Shavuot. The cake measured more than three yards in diameter and was more than one yard high.

2004: A five-foot tall safe belonging to Brooklyn’s Kane Street Synagogue founded in 1856 was opened with a crowbar today and officials “discovered the seven books and assorted loose leaf papers written in the terse shorthand common to meetings minutes” which revealed some of the challenges faced by the congregation in the 19th century (As reported by Jake Mooney)

2004: As the controversy surrounding Judith Miller’s coverage of the Iraq war continues to grow “a New York Times editorial acknowledged that some of the paper's coverage in the run-up to the war had relied too heavily on Ahmed Chalabi and other Iraqi exiles, who were bent on regime change” and “expressed "regret" that "information that was controversial [was] allowed to stand unchallenged."

2005: Closing session of Biotech-Israel 2005

2005(17th of Iyar, 5765): Ninety-year-old journalist and political activist Israel Epstein passed away in Beijing, China (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/02/international/asia/02epstein.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1491973/Israel-Epstein.html

2005: In his, joint press conference welcoming Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to the White House, President Bush said “The imminent Israeli disengagement from Gaza, parts of the West Bank, presents an opportunity to lay the groundwork for a return to the road map.... To help ensure that the Gaza disengagement is a success, the United States will provide to the Palestinian Authority $50 million to be used for new housing and infrastructure projects in the Gaza.” But he also said, “Any final status agreement must be reached between the two parties, and changes to the 1949 Armistice lines must be mutually agreed to. A viable two-state solution must ensure contiguity of the West Bank, and a state of scattered territories will not work. There must also be meaningful linkages between the West Bank and Gaza. This is the position of the United States today, it will be the position of the United States at the time of final status negotiations.”

2005: Percussionist, composer and Grammy nominee Roberto Rodriguez, brings his signature blend of Latin rhythms and Jewish melodies to the Skirball Cultural Center’s World Mosaic series.  In 2002 Rodriguez recorded his first album “El Danzon de Moies” or “The Dances of Moses.”  The cover of the album combines Latin and Jewish images.  It is the red, white and blue of Cuba but the Star of David replaces the star usually found on the Cuban flag.

2006(28th of Iyar, 5766):  Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Reunification Day

2006: In Congress today, Representative Rahm Emanuel delivered a speech in recognition of the contributions of Joel M. Capr who is retiring “from the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago after almost thirty years of service.”

2006:  The Jerusalem Post reported that Holocaust victims' names may remain in Mormon database.

2007: Ryan Braun hit his first major league home run with the Milwaukee Brewers.

2007: As part of an escalating wave of violence, a Border Policeman and an Israeli security guard were moderately to seriously wounded this evening when two Palestinian gunmen opened fire on an Israeli roadblock near the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Saad. The security forces - two security guards and two Border Policemen - were manning the roadblock on the Jerusalem bypass road when they were ambushed by militants. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

2007(9th of Sivan, 5767):: British foreign correspondent Edward Behr, the Parisian native who was the son of Russian Jewish refugees passed away at the age of 81. His wide travels and reporting experiences inspired a number of books, including The Algerian Problem(1961), The Last Emperor (1987), Hirohito: Behind the Myth (1989) and Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite (1991) about the now-fallen Romanian dictator and his wife .He provided a telling look at his own trade with Anyone Here Been Raped and Speaks English? (1981), a query reportedly called out by a British reporter looking for sources during a crisis in Congo.

2008: Today, Texas Rangers All Star second baseman Ian Kinsler knocked one out of the ballpark in a game against the Tampa Bay Rays, in the process slugging the 2,500th home run by a Jewish player in the game’s history, according to Jewish Major Leaguers, Inc.

2008(21st of Iyar, 5768): Sydney Pollack, a Hollywood mainstay as director, producer and sometime actor whose star-laden movies like "The Way We Were," "Tootsie" and "Out of Africa" were among the most successful of the 1970s and '80s, passed away today at the age of 73.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/movies/26cnd-pollack.html?_r=0

2008: Tensions rose between Egypt and Israel when 45 elderly Jews, most of whom were born in Egypt, were forced to cancel their four-day trip to Egypt

2008: Memorial Day observed. The National Museum of American Jewish Military featured a Memorial Day tribute to those Jewish servicemen and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. http://www.nmajmh.org/docs/jahm08/May%2026%20Memorial%20Day.pdf

2009: The 92nd Street Y presents “Women’s Prominence, Women’s Femininity: From Biblical Times to Today” during which Israeli novelist Eva Etzioni-Halevy, the author of the novels “The Song of Hannah,” “The Garden of Ruth” and “The Triumph of Deborah,” and Maggie Anton, the author of the Rashi’s Daughters series, engage in a spirited conversation about Biblical women who broke through the glass ceiling and the lessons we can learn from them today. Maggie Anton is the award-winning author of “Rashi’s Daughters, Book I: Joheved,” “Rashi’s Daughters, Book II: Miriam,” and for younger readers, “Rashi’s Daughter: Secret Scholar.

2002: Michael Sandel  gave the Reith Lecture on “A New Citizenship” at Newcastle upon Tyne.

2009: For the first time since its founding, the Knesset is officially marking today as Yiddish Language and Culture Day. A Yiddish-Hebrew Knesset lexicon was released for the occasion. The date for the parliamentary nod to Yiddish, a language once spoken by more than 12 million Jews, was selected to mark 150 years since the birth of the Yiddish author Shalom Aleichem. This past week was also the 20th anniversary of the founding of Yiddishshpiel, Tel Aviv's all-Yiddish theater. The day's events include a joint meeting of the Knesset's Absorption, Immigration and Diaspora Committee and the Education and Culture Committee to discuss Yiddish culture. The Knesset is also holding a special session to discuss the place of Yiddish in modern Israeli society. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Deputy Minister of Pensioners Affairs Leah Ness are delivering the main speeches of the session. Ahead of the unique Knesset session, a lexicon of the Yiddish translations of several key phrases often used by Israeli parliamentarians was distributed to all Knesset members. A few key phrases from the lexicon that veteran MKs may find useful include:


Ich hob eich nisht geshtert, toshter nisht mir! - "I didn't interrupt you, don't interrupt me!"

Ich ruf eich tzum seder dus ershte mol.... - "I am calling you to order for the first time...."

Ordners, derveitert im fun zal! - "Ushers, remove him from the hall!"

Vehr siz far, zol veilen 'far'. Vehr siz keigen, zol veilen 'keigen'. - "Whoever is in favor, vote 'in

favor'. Whoever is opposed, vote 'opposed'."

2010(13th of Sivan, 5770): Eighty-three year old author Arthur Herzog III, who may best known for writing the novel that inspired the sci-fi thriller “The Swarm” the son of song-writer Arthur Herzog Jr and the husband of Leslie Mandel Herzog passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/arts/09herzog.html

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20100605032429/http://www.t2conline.com/news-room/headliners/550-writer-arthur-herzog-dies


2010: Zemer Chai, Washington, DC’s premier Jewish Choir is scheduled to present a concert entitled “Psalm Enchanted Evening” at Ohr Kodesh Congregation in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

2010: The STS-132 mission that included two space walks by Garret Reisman came to an end today.

2011: “The Great Kugel Throwdown” is scheduled to take placed at the Washington State Historical Society in Seattle, Washington.

2011: Congress decided tonight that a memorial commemorating US Jewish chaplains who died in battle will be erected at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia,. “This memorial will be a fitting commemoration of 13 chaplains who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their nation,” bill sponsor Sen. Charles Schumer said.

2011: "Jews, Slavery, and the Civil War" is scheduled to have its final sessions in Charleston, South Carolina. 

2011: The JCC in Manhattan is scheduled to present an evening with Eran Zur& Korin Alal, two of the freshest musical voices in Israeli culture.

2011: Gail Barnum, daughter of Joel and Amy Barnum, Natalee Birchansky, daughter of Lee and Cyndie Birchansky and Marissa Carson, daughter of Bill and Laura Carson, each of whom is part the Temple Judah “family” are scheduled to graduate from Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, IA this evening.

2011: Benjamin Levin, son of David R. Levin graduated from Harvard Law School making him the third generation of Levin Lawyers!

2011(22nd of Iyar, 5771): Eighty-nine year old dental expert Irwin D. Mandel passed away. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/nyregion/dr-irwin-d-mandel-expert-on-dental-chemistry.html

2011: The New York Mets announced that David Einhorn had agreed to buy a minority share of the baseball team for $200 million

2011: David Einhorn called for Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, to step down after Microsoft had been passed by both IBM and Apple in market value

2011: Elaine’s the restaurant that the late Elaine Kaufman turned into a New York icon will close tonight.

2011: Vermont Governor Peter Elliot Shumlin “signed a bill to establish a state health care exchange under the Affordable Care Act and to develop future universal insurance coverage for all residents, making Vermont the first state to initiate a plan for single-payer health care.”

2012(5th of Sivan, 5772): Erev of Shavuot

2012(5th of Sivan, 5772): “Award-winning author, teacher, mentor and fierce fighter for social justice, Ellen Levine” passed away today.

http://mediaroom.scholastic.com/press-release/award-winning-author-ellen-levine-1939-2012-dies-age-73

2012: The Chabad Center of Rechavia, 8 Ramban Street is scheduled to host a traditional all-night learning session as part of the Shavuot celebration. 

2012: Can Bonomo “placed seventh” singing “Love Me Back” as Turkey’s representative in the Eurovision Song Contest of 2012.

2012: The Carlebach Minyan of the Old City is scheduled to offer an all-night Shavout learning session.

2012(5th of Sivan): Tessa Cohen, Curtis Litow and Sarah Maikon were confirmed tonight at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2012(5th of Sivan, 5772): Eighty-six year old educator Irving I. Lipskind passed away today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/irving-i-lipskind-elementary-principal/2012/06/07/gJQA1NhhLV_story.html

2013:Threshold to the Sacred: The Ark Door of Cairo's Ben Ezra Synagogue” is scheduled to come to an end at the Walters Museum in Baltimore, MD.

http://thewalters.org/events/eventdetails.aspx?e=2568

2013: The final performance of “Sherlock Holmes” by the late Greg Kramer is scheduled to come to an at The Segal Centre for the Performing Arts.

2013: The IPO is scheduled to perform a special concert with violinist Itshak Perlman

2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Hollywood and Hitler: 1933-1939 by Thomas Doherty, The Guns At Last Light” The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 by Rick Atkinson and ‘Til Faith Do Us Part: How Interfaith Marriage Is Transforming America by Naomi Schaefer Riley 

2013: Hundreds gathered at Ammunition Hill in the capital this evening to witness the swearing-in of the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, the only haredi (ultra-Orthodox) unit in the IDF. The battalion, currently numbering close to 1,000, is responsible for military operations in and around Jenin

http://www.jpost.com/Defense/IDFs-only-ultra-Orthodox-battalion-sworn-in-314443

2013: A rocket was fired from south Lebanon towards Israel today, Lebanese residents and security sources said, but it was not clear where the rocket landed and there were no immediate reports of damage inside Israel.

http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Report-Rocket-fired-from-south-Lebanon-towards-Israel-314448

2014: Hubbard Street Dance Chicago 12 days of performance at the Joyce Theatre, which included two programs that feature Three to Max, a work by Ohad Naharin, the Artistic Director of Israel's Batsheva Dance Company, and Too Beaucoup by choreographer Sharon Eyal, a former company dancer” is scheduled to come to an end.

2014(26th of Iyar, 5774): Ninety-one-year-old actress Anna Berger passed away today. (As reported by Daniel E. Slotnik)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/arts/anna-berger-an-actress-with-a-gift-for-matriarchs-dies-at-91.html?hpw&rref=obituaries

2014: A “500-page report authored by historians Martin Kukowski and Rudolf Boch and published today, revealed that German car giant Audi’s predecessor company used slave labourers from concentration camps during World War II on a massive scale, a new report has found.”

2014: Pope Francis is scheduled to visit the Grand Mufti, the Dome of the rock, the Western Wall, Mount Herzl Cemetery, Yad Vashem, Rabbis Yitzhak Yosef and David Lau, President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several priests and Christian leaders before departing for Rome this evening.

2014: “The Palestinians will demand that Israel be suspended from soccer’s international association unless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recognizes the status of the Palestinian Football Association, PFA Chairman Jibril Rajoub threatened today.” (As reported by Avi Isaacharoff)

2014: Pope Francis spent today in Israel visiting the Temple Mount, Yad Vashem, a terror victims’ memorial and other sites, as well as holding meetings with Israeli leaders and others. Throughout the day the pontiff prayed and urged for peace in the region.

2015: “The world premiere of the 30 minute musical history of Jews in Rock and Roll by Ben Sidran, musician and author of There was a Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream” is scheduled to take place at City Winery in New York

http://jewsrockandroll.com/#info

2015: “Air raid sirens sounded in towns across southern Israel this evening at 9:02 p.m, as the IDF confirmed that at least one Grad rocket fired from Gaza struck near the community of Gan Yavneh, near Ashdod.” (As reported by Ari Soffer)

2015: “Journeys” is scheduled to open at the Jewish Museum in London.

http://jewishmuseum.org.uk/journeys

2015: Ruth Porat, the former chief financial officer of Morgan Stanely is scheduled to begin serving as Google’s CFO today.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/new-google-cfo-ruth-porats-family-a-mirror-of-american-jewry/

2016(18th of Iyar, 5776): Lag b’Omer

2016(18th of Iyar, 5776): Seventy-six year old photographer John Margolies passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/03/arts/john-margolies-photographer-of-whimsical-architecture-dies-at-76.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

2016: Lubavitch of Arkansas is scheduled to host its annual Lag B’omer Bar Bar-B-Que Festival – an event which was the first public celebration hosted by Rabbi Pinchas Ciment when he brought the torch of “the lamplighter” to Little Rocks more than twenty years ago!

2016: Tunisian Jews who traveled “to the island of Djerba…the historic home of an ancient community of Jewish priestly families” to celebrate Lag B’Omer did so despite “a severe travel advisory” that had been issued by Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau.”

2016: Yeshiva University Museum, The Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought and the Center for Israel Studies are scheduled to present a lecture in which “Rabbi Meir Soloveichik  reflects on the relationship between Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik - the Rav - and Israel, and the significance the Rav's views on Israel have for future generations.

2016: Barnes & Noble Bookstore is scheduled to host Peter Doran who will discuss Breaking Rockefeller: The Incredible Story of the Ambitious Rivals Who Toppled an Oil Empire in which he “traces Marcus Samuel, Jr.'s rise into the British aristocracy, Henri Deterding's conquest and Rockefeller's collapse.”

2016: Producer and actor Yaniv “Nev” Schulman the younger brother of “actor and filmmaker” Ariel "Rel" Schulman became engaged today.

2016: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host the Midwest premiere of “Munich ’72 and Beyond” the “new documentary film that provides a fresh perspective on the story of the 11 Israeli athletes killed during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.”

2016: The Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies at Portland State University is scheduled to present “author Ayelet Waldman who will be giving the 2016 Sara Glasgow Cogan Memorial Lecture, "There's No Business Like Shoah Business: Why Is a Nice Jewish Girl from New Jersey So Obsessed With her People's Greatest Tragedy?"

2017: “Norway’s foreign minister today condemned the Palestinian Authority for naming a women’s center in the West Bank, funded in part by the Scandinavian country, after a female terrorist.”

2017(1st of Sivan, 5777): Rosh Chodesh Sivan

2017: “The Women’s Balcony,” “#1 film of the year in Israel” is scheduled to open at the Lincoln Plaza and Quad cinemas.

2017: In Jerusalem, the Bible Lands Museum is scheduled to host a lectures on “Who Were You, Bar Kochva?”

2017: David Orlowski, the son of Miriam Winter is scheduled to sign copies of Trains, his mother’s memoir, at the US Holocaust Museum.

http://www.miriamwinter.com/reviews.htm

2018(12th of Sivan, 5778): Parashat Naso; 2018: In honor of Shabbat, admission is free today at the Jewish Museum in NYC.

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled Shabbat service followed by lunch, Mincah and Seudah Shlishit

2018: This evening the 14th St Y is scheduled to host the penultimate performance of Hanoch Levin’s “The Labor of Life.”

2018 (12th of Sivan, 5778): After having “suffered a severe head injury when an Arab terrorist threw a marble block at his head,” twenty-year-old Sergeant Ronen Luvarski, a Rehovot resident succumbed to his wounds and died today.

2019: In Atlanta, GA, the Breman Museum is scheduled to host “Magic in the Death Camp,” an interview with Holocaust survivor Werner Reich who “was captured and imprisoned when he was 15 years old and spent time in three different concentration camp” including Auschwitz where “he saw a magician--the Great Nivelli--do a card trick, and this spawned a lifelong interest in magic.”

2019: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis by Jared Diamond and  Feast Your Eyes by Myla Goldberg.

2019: In Iowa City, a memorial service is scheduled to be held at Oaknoll for Gusti Kollman who made her way to Iowa after escaping the Nazis and built a long, fulfilling life.

https://www.lensingfuneral.com/obituaries/Gusti-Kollman?obId=4263536#/obituaryInfo
2019: A screening of “The Tobacconist” is scheduled to part of the closing night of the Washington Jewish Film Festival.

2019: In Amsterdam “the Arts and Dialogue Foundation” and the “Menasseh ben Israel Institute” are scheduled to present a screening of “From Cairo to the Cloud,” that tells the story of the “World of the Cairo Geniza.

2020: Alone Together, part of the Covid-19 Concert Series, the Eli Degibri Quartet, led by the Israeli jazz saxophonist is scheduled to showcase “four incredible musicians.”

2020: Live on Zoom, the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Rescue the Surviving Souls: The Great Jewish Refugee Crisis of the 17th Century.”

2020: The Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action is scheduled to present online “Schmoozefest: Social Justice Conversation, Music and Comedy.”

2020: The ASF’s Institute of Jewish Experience is scheduled to present “The Global Nação’s

Western Sephardi Synagogues Tour with Joshua Mendes.”

2020: The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host a virtual poetry writing workshop inspired by Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus.”

2020: The London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to present “Whole In One” during which Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis will address the meaning of Shavuot today “and give us advice about how we can personally maintain and renew our connection to the Torah, the central text of Judaism.”

2020: S.F. JFCS Holocaust Center is scheduled to co-present a virtual talk by Warsaw Ghetto escapee George Elbaum, author of the Holocaust memoir Neither Yesterdays Nor Tomorrows

https://neitheryesterdays.com/about/

2021: The Consulate General of Israel to New England is scheduled to host a screening of “Marry Me However” followed by a panel discussion.

2021: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL. Temple Judea another  Lunch and Learn with Rabbi Feivel Strauss lecturing on Sir Moses Montefiore as part of the Great Jewish Leaders series.

2021: Russian literature scholar Julie Zigoris is scheduled to lead a Jewish Community Library discussion of Paul Goldberg’s 2016 satirical, madcap novel, The Yid, “about a ragtag band that tries to assassinate Stalin.”

2021: As part of Jewish American Heritage Month, the National Museum of American Jewish History and Jews of All Hues are scheduled to present “The Torah of Bluces with Rabbi Sandra Lawson and Jeron Blindboy Paxton https://www.nmajh.org/events/the-torah-of-blues/

2022: The Wiener Holocaust Memorial Library is scheduled to host a hybrid book talk with Lord Daniel Finkelstein and Karina Urbach author of Alice’s Book.

2022: The 2022 Annual Campaign Dinner for Major Donors of the Jewish Federation is scheduled to take place in New Orleans.

2022: The Weitzman National Museum of American History is scheduled to host in-person and online the Joey Weisenberg Album Release Cocert..

2022: The Steicker Center is scheduled to present “Anti-Semitism, Then and Now: Is Hatred of the Jews Eternal?” with Abe Foxman and Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, Managing Director of the American Jewish Committee for Europe.

2023: This afternoon “JCC East Bay in partnership with more than 20 partner organizations is scheduled to offer dozens of classes on myriad topics, plus programs for preschool through 5th grade.

2023: Illinois Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to host a “free admission day” so that visitors can explore “the newly opened exhibition, The Girl in the Diary: Searching for Rywka from the Łódz Ghetto, a teenage girl's story of never giving up hope during the Holocaust.”

2023: This evening in Santa Rosa, CA, the Chabad Jewish Center is scheduled to host a “family-friendly Shavuot celebration with dairy buffet, ice cream party and reading of the 10 Commandments.

2023(6th of Sivan, 5783): Shavuot;

2024: The New York Times “6 New Books We Recommend This Week list includes New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West by David E. Sanger the grandson of Elliot E. Sanger, the Jewish co-founder of WQXR-FM and Eleanor Naumburg, grandniece of Elkan Naumburg, the Bavarian born Jewish founder of E. Naumburg & Co, a major rival of Goldman Sachs.

2024: In Los Angeles, the Der Nister Downtown Jewish Center is scheduled to host a Yiddish Sing-Along with Cindy Paley

2024: The Great Lag B’Omer Parade is scheduled to take place today in Postville, IA followed by a Community BBQ at the Beis Chaya Mushka School Playground.

2024: The Berkley Moshav is scheduled to host a Lag B’Omer Picnic where attendees can celebrate and “lean how to join this vibrant Jewish community.

2024(18th of Iyar, 5784): Today’s usual Lag B’Omer joy is turned upside down by the IDF’s revelation that “the three deceased hostages −Hanan Yablonka, Michel Nisenbaum and Orion Hernandez Radoux −  who were kidnapped near Mefaslim were recovered in a joint operation by the army and the intelligence services in northern Gaza,”

2024: As May 26th  begins in Israel, an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism sweeps the United States and the Hamas held hostages begin day 233 in captivity.  (Editor’s note: this situation is too fluid for this blog to cover so we are just providing a snapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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