This Day in Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

May 12

940: Sixty-two you are old Eutychius of Alexandria, the Greek who wrote Nazm al-Jauhar, a history, of what some may consider of dubious accuracy that began with Creation and ran through the 10^th century which included a description of the Great Revolt in 70 passed away today.

1191: Richard I of England marries Berengaria of Navarre. This was an arranged marriage to the extreme.  Richard was already leading the Third Crusade in the Holy Land when it came to marry Berengaria.  Richard had to break off his fight and come to Cyprus to marry his queen.  Richard spent most of his reign outside of the British Isles which was unfortunate for the Jews because he was not given to the ant-Semitic behavior of his English counterparts.

1243: Sir Hubert de Burgh, a contemporary of Isaac Norwich “one of the richest Englishmen of his day” under whose service as the Chief Justicar of England and Ireland “the lot of the Jews remained bearable” passed away today.

1258: In Valladolid, Alfonso X and Yolanda, the daughter of James I Aragon gave birth to Sancho IV of Castile, who treated the story of the affair between Rahel la Fermosa, a Jewish woman from Toledo, and King Alfonso VIII as fact and not fable, began his reign today.

1267: A large group of church leaders, including most of the German churchmen, met in Vienna under the leadership of the papal legate Gudeo.  They confirmed every canonical law that Innocent III and his successors had pass for the branding of the Jews.  Jews were not allowed to have any Christian servants, were not admissible to any office of trust, and were not to associate with Christians in ale-houses or bars.  Christians were not permitted to accept any invitation from Jews or to enter into discussion with them. 

1267: A special session of the city council of Vienna decided to force all Jews to wear a cone-shaped headdress in addition to the badge. It was called the Pileum cornutum and was to become distinctive attire which is prevalent in many medieval woodcuts illustrating Jews.

1393: The Jews of Sicily were forbidden to display any funeral decorations in public.

1540: Paul III issued “Licet Judaei,” a papal bull “clearing the Jews Of the charge that they practiced blood rituals.”

1670: Birthdate of Augustus II the Strong for whom Issacher Berend Lehman served as “the Court Jew.”

1700(5^th of Sivan, 5460): Joseph Athias, the native of Cordoba who served as a rabbi in Amsterdam where he published two editions of the Hebrew Bible passed away today.

1728(4^th of Sivan, 5488): The brothers Hayyim and Joshua Reizes of Lemberg, famous for their piety and scholarship, were tortured and executed on charges of influencing the apostate Jan Filipowicz to return to Judaism.

1780: During the Carolina campaign, as of today Abraham Alexander was serving  in the Revolutionary War as a Lieutenant in Burns Troop, Wade Hampton’s Regiment of Light Dragoons, Sumter’s brigade.

1786(14^th of Iyar, 5546): Pesach Sheni was observed on the same day the Thomas Jefferson, the American Ambassador to France and future President of the United States wrote John Jay, the U.S Secretary for Foreign and future Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court about Denmark’s desire to negotiate a treaty of commerce with the United States, another sign of European recognition of the reality of the success of the American Revolution.

1797(16^th of Iyar, 5557): Seventy-eight year old Rachel Franks Levy, the London born wife of Isaac Mendes Seixas passed away today in New York City.

1800(Iyar 17): Rabbi Moses Hayyim Ephraim of Sadilkov, author of “Degel Mahaneh Ephraim” passed away

1804: Lyon Israel Samuel married Fleurette Baruch Weil today at “Remiremont, Vosage, France.”

1805: Birthdate of German-Jewish orientalist Julius Furst who works included Cultural and Literary History of Jews in Asia.

1807: Rothschild’s “official” balance sheet shows that his assets on this day totaled 1,973,192 gulden. His assets had quadrupled since 1797.

1811: Hayim ben Moses married Leah bat Phineas Zelig at the Western Synagogue today.

1811: An article published in The Star described the dedication of a new synagogue. "On Friday last a new Synagogue was consecrated at Sheerness, which was very numerously attended, and the service performed by Messers Leos and Phillips, who went from London for that purpose. The music was composed by one of the Mes. Leos, and was perhaps as grand as has been witnessed, as Mr. Leo led the band in a most excellent manner. Several persons of distinction were admitted to see the ceremony performed."

1815: Jacob Baruch and G.G. Uffenheim wrote a petition today addressed to Prince Hardenberg on behalf of the Jews of Frankfort.

1816(14^th of Iyar, 5576): Pesach Sheni is observed on a day in the Year without Sun” when “waves of frost capture Quebec City, “waves of cold air cross the St. Lawrence from Canada and fall on New England” and “snow and sleet fall on towns and fields closed to London.”

1820: Birthdate of Florence Nightingale who gained fame for her nursing work with British forces during the Crimean War which had its roots in Christian competition for control over the “Holy Places” in Palestine and whose ranks included Henry Jessel, the decorated corporal who live until he was 98.

1824(14^th of Iyar, 5584): Pesach Sheni is observed for the last time during the Presidency of James Monroe of “Monroe Doctrine” fame.

1835: Robert le diable (Robert the Devil) an opera in five acts composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer was performed for the first time in the United States “at the Théâtre d'Orléans in New Orleans.”

1838: In London, Dinah Levy and Jacob Farjeon gave birth to British writer Benjamin Leopold Farjeon.

1840: In England, the Brighton Railway Station designed by David Mocatta “opened for trains to Shoreham” today.

1842: Birthdate of Amos Kidder Fiske the author of The Great Epic of Israel: The Web of Myth, Legend, History, Law, Oracle, Wisdom and Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews and The Jewish Scriptures: The Books of the Old Testament in Light of their Origin and History1844(23rd of Iyar, 5604): Daniel Levy who had become “a member of the bar in Philadelphia” in 1791 passed away today.

1850: Birthdate of Henry Cabot Lodge, United States Senator from Massachusetts. Lodge led the fight to defeat the Versailles Treaty and to keep the United States out of the League of Nations. The failure of the United States to join the League of Nations was one of the root causes of World War II, a war that destroyed European Jewry.  Lodge was more interested in wounding President Wilson than he was creating a new way for nations to solve their disputes peacefully. Lodge was the co-sponsor “of the 1922 joint Congressional resolution (known as the Lodge-Fish resolution) that endorsed the creation a Jewish national home.  The bill commended the ‘building up of new and beneficent life in Palestine’ as an act of ‘historic justice’ and ‘an undertaking which will do honor to Christendom and give to the House of Israel its long-denied opportunity to reestablish a fruitful Jewish life and culture in it ancient land.’”  Elihu D. Stone, the leading Zionist in Boston “persuaded Lodge to present the resolution to Congress on the eve of” Passover in 1922, since in Stone’s word “this too was to an act of freedom for the Jewish people…”  Lest anybody thing the Lodge had become an ardent had become an ardent Zionist at least one historian makes the strong case that the resolution, which was non-binding, was an attempt to mollify Jews who were upset with the Republican supported anti-immigration that had been passed the year before. (As described in The Jews of Boston edited by Jonathan D. Sarna, et al)

1851: Moses and Esther Lazarus, gave birth to Eleazar Frank Lazarus, one of the brothers of poet Emma Lazarus.

1851: Birthdate of Joseph Kemp Toole who while Governor of Montana laid the cornerstone for Temple Emanu-El

1854(14^th of Iyar, 5614): Pesach Sheni

1857(18^th of Iyar, 5617): Lag B’Omer

1857: David John Davis married Sophia Hart at the Great Synagogue today, the first day, according to traditionalists that Jews can marry since the start of the counting of the Omer.

1858: Sixty-nine year old Protestant Hebraist J.G.B. Winer passed away today.

1859: In Vienna, Eleanor and Josef pick gave birth to Maximillian Pick

1859: In the United Kingdom due to nationwide scare over the possibility of war with France, today the War Office gave sanction for the formatting of volunteer corps out of concern for home defense to which Lazarus Simon Magnus responded. This would lead to the formation of the Kent Voluntary Artillery, a 19^th century version of the Home Guard that would be formed to face Hitler in 1940.

1860: The Rhode Island Republican described the early development of Newport which benefited from the introduction of the first chandlery factory in America by Jewish immigrants from Portugal. 

1861: Three weeks after Rabbi David Einhorn, a leading abolitionist had escaped to Philadelphia, a delegation from Har Sinai asked him to return to Baltimore.  While they were sympathetic with his views, they said the request was conditional on his promise not to speak out on slavery, secession or the war.

1862: Second Lieutenant Charles Leo of Company H and the Regimental Adjutant resigned today after six months of service.

1864: In Munich, Germany, “Simon and Regina (Levinger) Steinhardt” gave birth Frank Maximilian Steinhardt, the husband of Alice Florence Ledden who joined the U.S Army in 1882, served as Chief Clerk under Generals Schofield, Crook, Terry Miles and Ruger and, starting in 1898 as chief clerk of the First Army Corps before transferring to Cuba “as chief clerk of the military government and final serving as the agent of the War Department “with residence in Cuba.”

1865: In Kovno, Rabbi Abraham and Beth-Sheba (Libshitz) Levinthal gave birth to Rabbi Bernard Louis Levinthal the husband of Minna Kleinberg, who 1891 came to the United States where he succeeded his father as the leader “of the United Orthodox Hebrew Congregation of Philadelphia” and helped to found several Philadelphia institutions including the Hebrew Free Schools, the Free Burial Society and the Kosher Meat Association.

1866: In Elgin, Illinois, Leopold and Rose Adler gave birth to Manasseh Max Adler, the concert violinist who became an executive with Sears Roebuck and Co after marrying Sophie Rosenwald, the sister of Julius Rosenwald which gave him the where-with-all to pursue a life of philanthropy including the building of Chicago’s Adler Planetarium.

1868: In Dornum, Germany, Fanny and Levi or Louis Schoenberg gave birth to Abraham Elieser Adolph Schönberg who gained fame Al Shean, one half of the famous vaudeville team of Gallagher and Shean who was an uncle of the famous Marx Brothers.

https://www.marx-brothers.org/marxology/shean.htm

1869: In Dornum, Germany, Fanny and Levi Schoenberg gave birth to Abraham Elieser Adolph Schönberg who gained fame as Al Shean half of the vaudeville team Gallagher and Shean, and as the uncle of the Marx Brothers

1869: Nathan Woolf Jacobson married Rebecca Levy at the Great Synagogue today.

1870: The Manitoba Act was given the Royal Assent, paving the way for Manitoba to become a province of Canada on July 15, 1870. According to a census taken the following year there were only 1,115 Jews living in Canada, most of whom were found in the major metropolitan areas in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. Jewish settlement in western Canada began in earnest under the aegis of the Baron de Hirsch Foundation and the Jewish Colonial Association in 1890. The Association financed a series of agricultural settlements including those at New Hirsch and Narcisse in Manitoba.

1871: The American Christian Society for Promoting Christianity in the city of New York and elsewhere held their first anniversary meeting at Cooper Institute. The society has one branch – in Somerset, Iowa. According to the society there are 65,000 Jews living in New York and 250,000 in the whole United States.

1872: Birthdate of Eleanor Florence Rathbone an independent British Member of Parliament and long-term campaigner for women's rights. She was a member of the noted Rathbone family of Liverpool. In the House of Commons, the courageous Eleanor Rathbone attacked the British government for the defeatist attitudes expressed at the Bermuda Conference and noted that the Allies are responsible for the deaths of any Jews if they refuse to help.

1872: Benjamin Novra, the son of George Novra and Rebecca Abrahams, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1873(15^th of Iyar, 5633): Forty-three year old Emanuel Oscar Menahem Deutsch, the Orientalist trained by his uncle David Deutsch who promoted Semitic studies while working at the British Museum passed away today at Alexandria, Egytp.

1875: In Philadelphia, The Young Men's Hebrew Association was organized today with Mayer Sulzberger as president. This new organization replaced a predecessor, The Hebrew Association. The object of the association is "to promote a higher culture among young men".  The organization would grow to over 1,000 members, under the presidency of Adolph Eichholz.

1876(18^th Iyar, 5636): Lag B’Omer is celebrated for the last time during the Presidency of U.S. Grant, the first American president to make a cash contribution of a synagogue.

1877: Birthdate of Mezeritz, Poland native Walter Aronstein who in 1895 came to the United States where he went into the cap manufacturing business with N.H. Bornstein before establishing W. Aronstein and Brothers, the manufactures of ladies hats in New York which was so successful that the he was known as The Morgan (as in J.P. Morgan) of the Millinery Industry.

1877: According to Russian Interior" published today a revolt has broken out in the Crimea and the "Jews of Jassy have been warned that if they continue prayers in their synagogues for the success of the Turks they will be severely punished."

1878: An article published today entitled “Works of the Rabbis: The Talmud and other Jewish Books; A Supposed Dangerous Work and What Was Done to Suppress It – The Great Change it Wrought by Time - How The Talmud Originated and of What It Consists – The Ten Targums or Interpretations of Scripture – The Principal Commentaries on the Bible – The Masora and Cabala” provides a comparative lengthy and detailed history of Jewish writings and the various attempts to suppress or destroy them.

1880: Birthdate of Baltimore native and Syracuse undergrad Aaron Morton Sakolski, the holder of a Ph.D. from John Hopkins and Professor of Economics at NYU and CCNY who was a prolific author and a member of the Jewish Historical and the Civic and Judeans clubs.’

1884: France expanded its colonial empire in North Africa by forcing Tunisia to become a French protectorate.  The Jewish community of Tunisia dated back to Biblical times and by the middle of the 18^th century, they made up about one sixth of the population and had access to 27 synagogues. (Jewish Virtual Library)

1884(17th of Iyar, 5644): Czechoslovakian composer Bedrich Friedrich Smetana passed away.  The melody for Hatikvah was written by Samuel Cohen who based his composition on a musical theme found in Smetana's "Moldau."  During the Mandate, when the British forbade the playing of Hatikvah, many Jews would play records of the piece by Smetana.  The words for Hatikvah which means Hope were written by Naphatali Herz Imber an English poet born in Bohemia.

1885: Birthdate of Paltiel Daykan, a Russian born Israeli Jurist who was awarded the Israel Prize in 1957.

1885: “Samuel and Ida (Soloway) Sweddler, gave birth to Brooklyn Law School trained attorney Nathan Sweedler, the husband Ada L. Meyer, the director of the Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Charities and founder of the Brooklyn Jewish Chronicle.

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/38399552/obituary-for-nathan-sweedler-aged-75/

1886: Birthdate of Max Adler.  A native of Elgin, Illinois, this son of German-Jewish immigrants gave up a career as a concert violinist to become a vice president of Sears Roebuck & Co after he married Sophie Rosenwald, the sister of Julius Rosenwald.  Adler retired in 1928 to pursue a life of philanthropy that included the creations of the Adler Planetarium, the first planetarium built in the Western Hemisphere.  He passed away in 1952.

1887: Samuel and Ida Solaway Sweedler gave birth to Brooklyn Law School trained attorney and Judge of the Sixth District Court in Brooklyn, Nathan Sweedler, the husband of Adar Meyer Sweedler with whom he had two children – Lenore and Edward – who served as the president of the Hebrew Educational Society of Brooklyn and as trustee of the Federation of Jewish Philantrhopies.

1888: In Cincinnati, Ohio, Max and Sarah Hexter gave birth to Maurice Beck Hexter

1888: In Hungary, Sarah Weinstein and Joseph Friedman gave birth to University of Hungary graduate and Yeshiva of Pressburg trained rabbi Edward  Friedman the husband of Esther Westchester who became the executive secretary of the Hebrew Theological College in Chicago after having led a congregation in Monessen, PA.

1889:  Birthdate of Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank.

1889: Today, “when the Bayswater Synagogue had been in existence for twenty-six years, illuminated addresses were presented to the three Ministers, who had been in office since the establishment.”

1890: “The Shatchen” by Henry Doblin and Charles Dickson featuring the character “Meyer Petowsky” as the marriage broker premiered at the Star Theatre in New York City tonight.

1890: The list of the newly elected officers of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrew published today included Charles L. Bernheim, President; Mrs. Henry Gitterman, Vice President; Charles Sternbach, Treasurer.

1891: “Russia and the Jews” published today stated that the object of the Czar’s government “apparently is the banishment of a million Jewish families, or, at a low estimate 5,000,000 Jews, men women and children” with the effect of creating suffering that “is literally appalling.”

1892: It was reported today that behavior of Polish strikers show “a blind hatred for all Jews and a brutal delight in murdering Jews…”  Anti-Semitism is so endemic to the general population that “if Russia were…under a constitutional Government, there is no reason to believe that the Jews would be any more decently treated than they are under the Government of the Czar.”  (Events in the 20^th century would prove these words to be prophetic.)

1892: “Polish Rioters Punished” published today described the ongoing labor violence at Lodz “and the attendant Jew baiting.”

1892: Birthdate Fritz Nathan Kohn, the native of Vienna, who gained fame as Fritz Kortner, Austrian stage and film actor gained performing in Germany. He played Alfred Dreyfus in the 1930 film “Dreyfus” based on a novel by Bruno Weil. He fled Germany in 1933 for the United States but returned to Germany in 1949 where he gained additional fame for his directorial skills in the “legitimate theatre.”  He passed away in 1970.

1892: “Better Teachers Wanted” published today described the efforts to improve the quality of the Jewish Sunday Schools in New York.  According to Miss Julia Richmond of the Hebrew Free School Association and a leading public school educator, most of the teachers are “willing and intelligent” but lack the proper training.  Her solution is to create a two year program that would include course in Hebrew, Bible and ancient history mixed with actual classroom experience.  A committee composed of Rabbis Kohler, Kohut, Isaacs, Silverman, Harris and De Sola Mendes and Miss Richmond has been formed to pursue the matter.

1893: One thousand immigrants, most of whom were Russian Jews arrived at Ellis Island today aboard the steamship Dania.

1893: A number of Polish Jews were aboard the SS Lahn which arrived in England today.

1894: During a court hearing in Glogua, Count Walter Puckler-Muskau, the “German anti-Semitic agitator declared that the use of such terms “beat the Jews,” “ crack their skulls,”  “kick them out” and “thrash them” were figurative and meant no harm to the Jews”

1894: In Chicago, Lillia Sager and Phillip Hattis gave birth to University of Illinois graduate Robert Elijah Hattis, the husband of Victoria Hattis with whom he had three children and who was “a designer  of electrical and mechanical equipment.”

1895(18^th of Iyar, 5655): Lag BaOmer

1895: It was reported today during the last year, the expenses for operating Mt. Sinai Hospital exceeded all sources of income by $6,000.despite several sources of revenue including generous bequests by the late Sarah Burr, the last of which totaled $35,000.  The board headed by President Hyman Blum and Vice President Isaac is working to remedy the situation.

1895: “Through With Their Studies” published today described the season ending activities of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association which “will open it twenty-second season next fall with a membership of over 500.”  In addition to its other activities, the Association will continue to operate a school that offers courses in Jewish history and stenography.

1895: In Springfield, OH, “Rabbi Mendel and Tillie Kagen Finkelstein” gave birth to the fifth child and only son Rabbi Joseph Lionel Fink and the husband of Janice Gutfruend.

http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0105/ms0105.html

1895: Zene Barkuskie and Vincent Oustra form Jersey City and Mr. and Mrs. Tony Stelitzka of Kingston, NY, all of whom are Polish Jews are waiting on Commissioner Shields to take action following their arrest yesteray on charges of counterfeiting.

1895: Selma Kurz “made her début in the title role of Ambroise Thomas's opera Mignon at the Hamburg Stadttheater” today.

1895: “Golden Wedding Tablets in a Temple” published today described the two tablets that Amalie and William S. Rayner donated to Congregation Har Sinai in Baltimore in honor of their golden wedding anniversary.  The two marble tablets which are six feet by 3 feet by 3 feet were created by William A. Gualt.  They are inscribed with two Hebrew statements and their English translations which are “Hear Israel! The Eternal is God; The Eternal is One” and “Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbor as Thysef.”

1896(29^th of Iyar, 5656): Seventy-eight year old French physician Germain Sée who “specialized in the study of lung and cardiovascular diseases” passed away today.

1897: Birthdate of Dvinsk native Max A. Oboler, the Armour Institute trained electrical engineer who lived in Chicago.

1897: Herzl decides to create a Zionist paper. ("Mit allem war ich gleich im reinen, nur mit dem Titel nicht" - "I saw everything clearly right away - except for the name.")

1898: Hammerstein’s Lyric Theatre is scheduled to host this afternoon’s benefit performance featuring members of the Professional Woman’s League.

1898: New Yorker Samuel Feldman, an enlisted man serving aboard the S.S. New York was injured today “in an attack on the fortifications of San Juan, P.R.” during the Spanish-American War

1899(3^rd of Sivan, 5659): Sixty-six year old Nathan Jacobs, the father of Micah and Judith Jacobs passed away today at Bath

1899: Roswell P. Flower, the Governor of New York who appointed Edward Jacobs, a member of the Buffalo, NY, Jewish community to serve as Loan Commissioner, passed away today.1899: Birthdate of Tulane University Medical School trained pediatrician Dr. Abraham Tow, the husband of Elsa Two and the father of William Tow.

1899: The court at Glogau accepted the plea of Count Puckler-Muskau, the “anti-Semitic agitator” that “his appeals to violence were figurative and meant no harm to the Jews.”

1900:  Birthdate of German born actress Helene Weigel, wife of Bertholt Brecht. Her father was Jewish; her mother was not.  She died in East Berlin in 1971.

1900: In a letter to the New York Times, Jacob Schiff expresses his opposition to the “project of the Baron and Baroness de Hirsch Monument Association.  A long-time friend of the Baron, Schiff believes that he and his wife would not want a monument built in their honor preferring instead that their good works serve as their memorial.  Schiff did not question the good intentions of those wishing to build the monument but did challenge the project as being totally inappropriate.

1900(13^th of Iyar, 5660): Italian author and member of Parliament Attilio Luzzato a member of family from Udine province that traces its origins back to the 17^th century when two Luzzato brothers came there from Venice passed away today.

1901: In Chicago, “Isidor Sam and Ethel (Sher) Bernstein” gave birth to Armour Institute of Technology graduate Jack Bernstein, who rose from being a draftsman to working in building design and civil engineering while being a member of the Young Men’s Jewish Charities in Chicago

1901: In Great Britain, “Solomon Greenbaum, a tailor of Polish origins gave birth to Hyam Greenbaum  an accomplished violinist, film score arranger and conductor for several BBC orchestras.  https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095906257

1902: “The boycott on beef by the Jewish residents of the east side, in sympathy with the butchers of that race who are fighting the wholesalers, in keeping their shops closed until the price of the kosher meat is reduced, assumed larger proportions today when it was announced that the boycott had spread to all the boroughs.”

1903: In Dallas, TX, “at a public mass meeting at Temple Shaareth Israel a resolution was adopted condemning the outrageous acts on the Jewish communities at Kishineff” and a “committee was elected to raise funds for the relief of the sufferers.”

1904: The liners Lorraine and Deutschland will sail from New York today carrying a record nine million dollars in gold, $1million of which is from Lazard Freres and $1.5million is from Goldman, Sachs and Co.

1905: Theatre owner Sam Shubert was injured in train wreck at Harrisburg, PA in which he sustained injuries that would end his life.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/broadway/stars/shubert-brothers/

1906(17^th of Iyar, 5666): Parashat Emor

1906: While defending the expulsion for Russians today in the Prussian Landtag today, Minister of the Interior Bethmann Hollwegg said “that most of the Russians who settled in Prussia were Jews” and while “he did not desire to emphasize the religious aspect of the matter, no one could his eyes to the part the Jews had taken in in the Russian revolution” or deny that “the expulsion of these impecunious aliens was necessary in view of the depressed condition of the labor market.”  (Editor’s note – Pure anti-Semitism years before the defeat in WW I which was the rationale offered by some for the Rise of Hitler)

1907:  The Hawthorne School of the Jewish Protectory and Aid Society, which “will be used as a reformatory for the Jewish boys who have been sentenced in the Children's Court,” was formally opened today in the assembly hall of the school at Hawthorne, Westchester County.

1908: Birthdate of Leavenworth, KS native and Washburn University trained attorney Irvine Ungerman, the husband of Hanna Ungerman who settled in Tulsa, OK where he was active with the Tulsa Hebrew School and who was the father of  Maynard Ivan Ungerman.

1908: Dr. Francis Brown, “one of the most distinguished Hebrew Scholars in America” who is now in Jerusalem serving as “the Director of the American School for Oriental Study and Research in Palestine” was elected was elected President of the Union Theological Seminary in New York this afternoon.

1909: “Finn Elections Help Jews” published today described how the change in the makeup of the Landtag will help the Jews because the majority will work to get the Jews the vote and amend or rescind the anti-Jewish legislation adopted the party referred to as “the Old Finns.”

1910: It was reported today that “the Carl Schurz prize essay on technical education had been readby Abraham Weinstein at the recent graduation ceremonies of the Hebrew Technical Insitute.”

1911: “The provincial governor of Yekaterinoslov, Russia, gave orders for the expulsion of all Jews who did not possess permits of residence from the villages of the province” and threatened to severely any police man who failed “to discover those subject to expulsion.”

1912:  In Leeds, UK, the Shehitah Board met and rendered a decision “that Jewish butchers may no long slaughter for non-Jewish trade by any other than Jewish methods.”

1913: Eighty-four year old Joseph Unger, the “Austrian jurist and statesman” who had converted to Christianity, passed away today in Vienna.

1913(5th of Iyar, 5673): In London, Rabbi Abraham Rosenberg passed away today.

1914: “Wants Primary Advanced” published today described several amendments introduced by Assemblyman Sulzer designed to ensure ‘an honest primary election next Fall” included a resolution calling “for the shifting of the primary election this year from September 29, the dated provided for in the law, to September 22 on the ground that the Jewish Feast of Atonement” falls on September 29 “and thus thousands of Jews would be barred from voting in the primaries.”

1915: More than 5,000 letters arrived at the headquarters of the Leo M. Frank Committee in Chicago chaired by Lester L. Dauer joining 80,000 others that have coming to the office “asking for the commutation of the death sentence of Leo M. Frank to life imprisonment.”

1915: “The commencement exercises of the Hebrew Technical Institute on Stuyvesant Street which currently has 295 pupils are scheduled to held this evening at Cooper Union” under the leadership of President Joseph L. Buttenweiser, Vice Presidents Irving Lehman and Eugene Speigelberg and Treasuer Mortimer L. Schiff.

1915: It was reported that Govern Edward F. Dunne has been asked to speak at Leo Frank Day on May 16 – a day devoted to gathering tens of thousands of signatures for a petition demanding clemency for Frank from the Governor of Georgia.

1915: Following a tempestuous (for Victorians) competition of suitors Venetia Stanley wrote to Prime Minister Asquith that she had finally accepted Edwin Samuel Montagu’s proposal of marriage – a relationship that would be consummated in July after her conversion to Judaism.

1915 It was reported today that the 15,000 petitions asking for clemency for Leo Frank that were collected “by Miss Eleanor Post, a writer on a Cincinnati paper” weighing seventy-five pounds joined another 25,000 letters asking for clemency that were sitting in the reception room of the Governor of Georgia.

1915: It was reported today that Evangelist Billy Sunday has said that “If I were Governor of Georgia, (Leo) Frank would go free tomorrow.”

1916: Date of death shown on the tombstone of Shalom Aleichem. Actually it said “12a). He died on May 13. But he suffered from triskaidekaphobia, which is a showboating way to say that he had a fear of the number 13. He used 12a in numbering the pages of his manuscripts. (As reported by Clyde Haberman)

1916(9^th of Iyar, 5676): Sixty-nine year old Morris Shaprio who had passed away today, was buried at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1916: On behalf of the Secretary of State, Alvey A. Adee, the Second Assistant Secretary, wrote to Simon Wolf saying that he “is in receipt of a telegram dated May 11^th from the American Ambassador at Petrograd stating that the Russian Easter has passed without incident.”  i.e. attack s on the Jews

1917: It was reported today that the Isaac L. Rice Memorial Fountain was formally dedicated last week in Brooklyn, NY.

1917: Birthdate of Amsterdam native and historian Mozes Himan Gans

1917: It was reported today that “the late Julius Robertson, a trustee of the Montefiore Home left an estate worth over a million and a quarter dollars of which he bequeathed $33,500 to various local charities.

1917: Twenty-six year old Harvard trained attorney Herbert B. Ehrmann, the Louisville born son of Hilam and Ernestine Ehrmann who was the author of The Untried Case, the story of his service as the defense lawyer for Sacco and Vanzetti married Sara Rosenfeld today in Rochester, NY.

https://www.amazon.com/Herbert-Brutus-Ehrmann/e/B0034QAP0M

1917: It was reported today that “the East-West Players” are scheduled “to end their season of Yiddish plays in English this week.”

1917: A mass meeting is scheduled to be held this evening in the Bronx to raise funds to equip “a Jewish medical unit for Palestine

1917: The late “Samuel Hirsh, of the Hebrew Technical Institute left $100,000 to the United Hebrew Charities, $10,000 to the Hebrew Technical Institute, $50,000 to the Council of Jewish Women and an additional $15,000 to other local charities.

1918: The Jewish drive for the relief fund came to an end tonight with the people of Baltimore having raised $500,000 which exceeded the goal of the drive by $150,000.

1918: The Provisional Zionist Committee distributed a letter from David Lubin, the American delegated to the International Institute of Agriculture in which he expressed a change in his view about Zionism because now that it would have the protection and guidance of England as opposed to being un Turkish control he was in full support of their goal.

1918: Birthdate of Julius Rosenberg.  Rosenberg and his wife would become the centerpiece in a spy ring that gave Atomic secrets to the Soviets.  The Rosenbergs were executed for treason in 1953.

1919: Thirty-eighth anniversary of the laying of a corner stone at the synagogue in Oran, Algeria. At its peak, the Jewish population was about 2,000.  After Algeria gained its independence in 1962, the Jewish community left for France and Israel.

1920: David Kessler, “one of the leading Yiddish actors in the United States” who also managed Kessler’s  Second Avenue was taken to the hospital tonight “after being stricken with a severe intestinal ailment during a performance at the Lyric Theatre” where he was appearing in “Jacob Gordin’s dramatization of Tolstoy’s ‘Kreutzer Sonata.’”

1920: Charles Edward Sebag-Monteifiore and Muriel Alice Ruth de Pass gave birth to Hugh William Montefiore

1920: Birthdate of Vilém Flusser the Czech born Jewish philosopher and author who was a long time resident of Brazil before finally settling in France.

1921: In New York County a judgement was filed today in favor of the Jewish Art Theatre Corporation.

1921: In New York County, a judgement filed in favor of Sol Krause and against Max Marx, Inc.

1922(14^th of Iyar, 5682): Pesach Sheni

1922: In the Bronx, cabdriver Irving Gerhenzwit and his wife Ellen gave birth to Morris Gershenwit who would gain fame running “a used record store in Los Angeles” that was really “an international archive of more than 300,000 records.”

1922: In New York, playwright and author David Freedman and his wife Beatrice (née Rebecca Goodman) gave birth to Noel Freedman who gained fame as David Noel Freedman the Presbyterian convert and minster and biblical scholar who “was one of the first Americans to work on the “Dead Sea Scrolls.”

1922: Birthdate of Paul Milstein, the prominent businessman and philanthropist  who used profits from the family flooring business to build a real estate empire in New York City, distinguished by major projects begun in uncertain neighborhoods and totaling 50,000 apartments, 8,000 hotel rooms and 20 million square feet of office space.”

1923: In Poland, Jewish physicians issued a protest against the memorandum published by the Medical Faculty of the Krakau University justifying the demand for a percentage norm against the Jewish medical students on the ground that the Jewish physicians have "low moral standards". The Jewish doctors demanded a retraction. (As reported by JTA)

1923: The Joint Distribution Committee announced that it has decided to continue its support for Hebrew Schools operated by the Tarbut Organization. “Tarbut was a Zionist network of Hebrew-language educational institutions founded in 1922, when the first Tarbut conference was held in Warsaw.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tarbut_poster.jpg

1923: "Kaufman Kohler Sabbath" was observed by Reform Synagogues throughout the United States today in celebration of the eightieth birthday last Thursday of Dr. Kaufman Kohler. The 80 year old Rabbi expressed his concern that “idealism has given way to materialism and opportunism.”  He believes that “the world is passing from a disturbed phase of thought to a higher plane” and that he sees women as playing a vital role in the spread of religious values.

1924: “In Chicago, Richard Cooper, a General Electric distributor and his wife Gladys gave birth to actress Maxine Cooper Gomberg, the wife of screenwriter and producer Sy Gomberg.

https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-maxine-cooper15-2009apr15-story.html

1924: Otto Frank, the future father of Anne Frank turned 35 today.

1925(18^th of Iyar, 5685): Lag B’Omer

1925: Edith Hoolander married Otto Frank today at a synagogue in Aachen. (Editor’s note – was their choice of a wedding date driven by the custom of Lag B’Omer, the thirty-third day of the counting of the Omer, being the first time people could celebrate joyous occasions such as wedding during the season of counting the Omer?)

1926: JTA reported that in Great Britain many public functions of Jewish bodies and societies will have to be postponed if the general strike does not come to an end this week including the scheduled monthly meeting of the Board Jewish Deputies.

1926: It was reported today that Lord Allenby's unveiling of the Jewish World Memorial at the synagogue in Stepney, has been postponed as result of the General Strike that is gripping the United Kingdom.

1926: The role of Sir Herbert Samuel, former High Commissioner of Palestine and chairman of the British Royal Coal Commission, in the settlement of the general strike, the first event of that nature in Western Europe, was disclosed today in the official statement issued by the Trades Union Congress. It appears that Sir Herbert played the main part as the mediator between the strikers and the government. Immediately upon his return to London from a vacation, Sir Herbert made efforts toward mediation, as chairman of the Royal Commission, with a view toward settlement. He obtained the memorandum of the Trade Unions which was accepted by the government. (As reported by JTA)

1926: "No attempt toward the economic reconstruction of European Jewries will succeed unless we stem the anti-Semitic wave," declared Dr. William Filderman, president of the Union of Rumanian Jews, on the eve of his departure for Europe on the Berengaria today. "There is no use educating Jewish artisans if anti-Semitic prejudice deprives them of any market for their products," he explained.

1927: “Jacob Landau, Managing Director of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, on his way back from Palestine was held at the Rumanian port, Constanza, by the Rumanian authorities and was not permitted to enter the country in consequence of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's having circulated throughout the world press the reports concerning the continuous anti-Jewish excesses in Rumania.”

1927: “Steward Hanley, attorney for Henry Ford in the manufacturer’s defense against the libel suit of Aaron Sapiro made public today the correspondence in which he declined to accept the suggestion of the Detroit board of Commerce that Mr. Ford and Mr. Sapiro arbitrate their dispute” despite the fact that Sapiro had agreed to arbitrate the matters in the suit that grew out of Ford’s anti-Semitic newspaper.

1928: In Kansas City, MO, Irma M. (née Freeman) and Mark Bertram "Bert" Bacharach, a well-known syndicated newspaper columnist” gave birth to Grammy and Oscar winning son writer Burt Bacharach.

http://bacharachonline.com/

https://www.songhall.org/profile/Burt_Bacharach

1929: Birthdate of Newark, NJ native and Rutgers University educated pharmacist Bernard Marcus, the co-founder of The Home Depot.

1929: In St. Louis, MO, Mark and Ida Edison gave birth to Harvard graduate Julian I. Edison, the Chairman of Edison Brothers Stores and the husband of Hope Rabb Edison with whom he raised two sons Mark and Aaron.

https://www.stljewishlight.com/life_cycle/obituaries/julian-i-edison-former-shoe-executive-philanthropist-dies-at/article_303a5d3c-3f10-11e7-b063-9bf78f8ab380.html

1930(14^th of Iyar, 5690): Pesach Sheni

1930: During this evening’s annual meeting of the American Jewish Physicians' Committee, Dr. Nathan Ratnoff, president of the organization announced, that “$100,000 would be raised this year for an administration building for the proposed medical college at the Hebrew University of Palestine.  The medical school will be erected on land bought by the committee in 1922 located on Mt. Scopus in Jerusalem.

1931: Today, Albert Ottinger, the New York chairman for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee announced plans for “a campaign to raise one million dollars for the relief of Jews in Eastern and Central Europe.

1931(25^th of Iyar, 5691): Rabbi Philip Friedlander passed away today.

1931: The board of directors of the Palestine Economic Corporation announced today that Julius Simon has been selected to replace Herman Flexner as president following Flexner’s resignation on May 11.

1932(6^th of Iyar, 5692): Eighty-five year old Moravian native Rosa Sonneschein, the wife of Rabbi Solomon Sonneschein , leader of the St. Louis Jewish community and the “editor of the American Jewess, the first English-language periodical targeted to American Jewish women” passed away today in St. Louis

http://americanjewisharchives.org/publications/journal/PDF/1980_32_02_00_porter.pdf

http://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9823733/

1932: The 32^nd annual convention of he Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America which is being held at the seminary on 122^nd Street and Broadway is scheduled to continue for a second day.

1933: Zeppo Marx and his wife who left Los Angeles yesterday are traveling today by train to take the body of Sam Marx to New York where his sons Groucho, Harpo are waiting to bury their father.

1934: World Peace and Goodwill week which has the support of several Jewish rabbis including Rabbi Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to begin today.

1935: Today “Four cities in various part of the United States led by the Jewish community which has a quota of $200,000 will launch their fundraising efforts on behalf of the UJA, which represents the Joint Distribution Committee and the American Palestine Campaign in a national effort to raise $3,250,000 for the relief of the Jews of Germany and other lands for the settlement of Jews in Palestine.” (JTA)

1935: Polish dictator Jozef Pilsudski dies. From here on Jews will experience more anti-Semitism in Poland. The government and most Polish political parties will call for discrimination, economic boycott, expulsion, and physical violence against Jews. The Polish Catholic Church, most priests, the Catholic press, and schools will sanction discrimination and/or violence against the Jews.

1936: It was reported today that New York Governor Lehman responded to the death Judge Otto A. Rosalsky with a telegram to his wife that began “I have just learned with very great sorrow of the passing of your distinguished husband” while Felix Warburg telegraphed, with Judge Rosalsky’s “passed a splendid patriot, a Jew of wonderful qualities and I feel that I have lost a valuable friend” and Irving Lehman wrote, “the community has lost a great leader and I have lost a dear friend.”

1937(2nd of Sivan, 5697): Fifty-four year old petroleum geologist Leon J. Pepperberg passed away today.

http://archives.datapages.com/data/bull_memorials/021/021007/pdfs/970.htm

1937(2^nd of Sivan, 5697): Sixty-eight-year-9od Chaim Elazar Shapiro “known as the Munkaczer wonder rabbi” who headed a Chassidic sect numbering thousands of followers in and outside of Czechoslovakia, passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/05/13/94375820.html?pageNumber=25

1938: The Palestine Post reported the Jewish Labor declaration that the Arab terror will merely strengthen the determination of the Jewish people in their development of uninhabited areas and other up building tasks.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that an armed Arab gang robbed and burned the tents of the Ghazzabiya Bedouin tribe near Beit Shean after its demands failed to be met. Bodies of Arabs kidnapped from the neighboring villages by Arab terrorist gangs were found near Safed.

1939: Filming of Babes in Arms the film version of the 1937 Rogers and Hart musical began today with Arthur Freed as the producer.

1939(23rd of Iyar, 5699): Sixty-nine year old Cäcilie Epstein the older sister of mathematician Paul Epstein passed away today, three months before he passed away.

1940: On this day the German blitzkrieg (lightning war) breached the French defenses. At the time Sousa Mendes was the General Consul of Portugal to Bordeaux, France. Thanks to Mendes' actions it is believed that around 30.000 refugees were saved, among them 10.000 Jews avoided death in the Reich’s death camps. It was said Mendes was descendant from Jewish family.

1941(15^th of Iyar, 5701): Two days after having been “injured at Crutch Friars,” 33 year old Abraham Lewis, “a Fireman in the A.F.S” and the husband of Rita Lewis died today after which he was buried in Raiham Jewish Cemetery.

1941: Two days after Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess parachuted into Scotland on what he claimed was a “peace mission,” the Nazi issued a statement blaming his behavior on “mental illness” and Hitler ordered the arrest of any one who had helped him

1941: Following the nighttime bombing Buckingham Palace and the Commons Chambers, the House of Commons met today in the House of Lords in a sign of defiance during the Blitz.

1942(25th of Iyar, 5702): Four days after the Ghetto at Radun was sealed off, 3,400 Jews were marched to the outskirts of town and shot, row-by-row, into ditches dug by other Jews.

1942: Fifty-six-year-old Ludmila Pickova was transported today from Prague to Terezin.

1942(25th of Iyar, 5702): One thousand, five hundred Jews from Sosnowiec are gassed in Auschwitz. Another 2,750 Jews from Turobin, joining several other thousands of Jews were crammed into railway box cars and deported to Sobibor to meet their extermination

1943: The remains of the Warsaw Ghetto go up in flames.

1943: In New York thousands of Jews attended the funeral of Dr. Chaim Zhitlowsky, the Russian born intellectual who had passed away in Calgary (As reported by JTA)

1943 (7th of Iyar, 5703): Seventeen-year-old Frania Beatus, active in the Warsaw Ghetto underground, commits suicide rather than surrender to the Nazis.

1943 (7th of Iyar, 5703): Another round up of Jews who escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto during the uprising were caught and executed.

1943 (7th of Iyar, 5703): In London, Shmuel Zygielbogm committed suicide. He was one of two Jewish representatives of the Polish-Government-In-Exile in London. His final letter was a cry of agony and despair.  He was crushed that the world would do nothing to save the Jews.  His wife and son perished in the Ghetto.  He felt his life had been a failure and hoped that his death might shock the world into action.  At one point he wrote that he could not live ‘when the remnant of the Jewish people in Poland . . . is being steadily annihilated.'

1943: The first Aliyah to the Negev began with the establishment of Kibbutz Gevulot. The first three settlements, Gevulot, Revivim, and Bet Eshel, were experimentally established in 1943 to determine the feasibility of permanent settlements in the Negev. As a result of the information gathered in the experimental stage, eleven new settlements were established in the Negev in 1946, and an additional seven in 1947. These settlements served also as strong-points to defend the Yishuv from attack by an enemy advancing from the south. The Egyptian army suffered its first defeat at Nirim, one of the settlements established in 1946, on the anniversary of the first Aliyah to the Negev.

1944: In London, “Dorothy Mary (née Creagh), a dress designer, and Morris Kestelman, an artist” from a family of Jewish immigrants from Russia gave birth to actress Sara Kestelman

http://www.filmreference.com/film/46/Sara-Kestelman.html

1944: “Cobra Woman” a South Seas melodrama directed by Robert Siodmak was released today in the United States.

1945: During battle for Okinawa, the USS Bunker Hill was successfully attacked by two Kamikazes in a thirty second interval.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/military/ww2/photos/images/ww2-52.jpg

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/military/ww2/photos/images/ww2-67.jpg

1945: Sam Gilbert took a photo of “Some of the bodies being removed by German civilians for decent burial at Gusen Concentration Camp, Muhlhausen, near Linz, Austria.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/military/ww2/photos/images/ww2-180.jpg

1945: As mopping up operations continued today, German units of Army Group Centre surrendered to the Russians.

1945: Birthdate of Dermot Keogh author of Jews In Twentieth Century Ireland: Refugees, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust which was awarded the 1999 James S. Donnelly Sr. Prize by the American Conference for Irish Studies in the history/social science category.

1946: In Łódź, Poland, Shoah survivors Dora and Nachman Libeskind gave birth to Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind who “won the competition to be the master plan architect for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan.”

1947: Today, at Lake Success, NY, “Dr. Fadhel Jamah of Iraq” told “the Political and Security Committee of the General Assembly” that “any support of Jewish national aspirations in the Holy Land” is “very clearly a declaration of war, and nothing less.”

1947: Today, at Lake Success, NY, Moshe Shertok, “the head of the Jewish Agency’s political department” reminded “the Political and Security Committee of the General Assembly” that the Arab Higher Committee of Palestine is led by “Haj Amin el Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who spent the war years in Berlin” and who “was directly involved…in the Nazi policy of the extermination of European Jews.”

1948: Bet-Shean was captured by the Haganah; specifically the 13^th Battalion of the Golani Brigade.  Bet-Shean is one of the oldest cities in the world having been first built in the fifth century B.C.E.  The bodies of King Saul and Jonathan were hung from its walls after their defeat at Mt. Gilboa.  Bet-Shean is in the eastern portion of Israel, in the Jezreel Valley.  After the war thousands of Moroccan Jews settled there.  It has been the site of a great deal of archeological discovery. One of the battalions was commanded by Avraham Yoffe

1948: U.S. Secretary George Marshall “appealed to Ben-Gurion to hold off a decision for independence.  Courteously, but firmly the appeal was refused.” Marshall told Moshe Sharett head of the Jewish agency’s U.N. delegation to ignore the the assurance of Jewish military leaders that they can win out against the Arabs.  He advised him to put off the declaration of independence and accept a UN trusteeship.  This marked the high point in the clash between Marshall and Truman over the recognition of the Jewish state.  Marshall had even threatened to resign over the matter.  Marshall’s opposition was based on what he considered the realities of the geo-political situation in the Middle East.  Fortunately for all concerned, Marshall remained at his post and the team of Truman and Marshall continued to work together as America dealt with challenges of Soviet Imperialism.

1948: Yigael Yadin, the Haganah's chief of operations, put the odds of the nascent Jewish state surviving the onslaught by the Arab armies at 50-50

1948: David Ben-Gurion convened an emergency meeting of the Provisional Council, the governing body of the unborn Jewish state. The issue at hand was a proposal that there should be a delay in declaring statehood.  According to one report as much as half of the council wanted to postpone the declaration and accept some sort of cease-fire with the Arab forces already fighting the Jews.  The news the council was not good.  Mrs. Meir reported on the failure of the talks with the Jordanians.  She later reported that she was relieved to see that her report did not dissuade Ben-Gurion from deciding that the Jewish state would be born when the British mandate ended in forty-eight hours.  The Council also heard from Yigal Yadin, the military leader who brought the negative reports about the pending destruction of the Etzion Bloc of settlements.  Ben-Gurion closed the debate by outlining all of the risks.  In the end, the Council voted by six to four to reject the offer of a cease fire and push forward with the declaration of statehood. 

1948(3rd of Iyar, 5708): Pianist and composer Isidor Achron passed away. Born in Warsaw in 1892, Achron came from a musical family.  His older brother Joseph was a famed violinist.  Achron's early musical career was interrupted by a three year stint in the Czar's Army during World War I.  After the war, he came to the United States where he served as the principal accompanist for Heifitz for ten years.  During the 1930's and 1940's he created his own compositions while pursuing a career as a soloist at such venues as Carnegie Hall. He passed away suddenly at the age of 55.

1948: Having withstood the onslaught of the Arab Legion during the fight for Mishmar Ha-Emek, Lehi launched a successful operation on five villages directly to the west the Kibbutz.

1948: U.S. premiere of “The Iron Curtain” produced by Sol C. Siegel with music by Alfred Newman.

1949: “Home of the Brave” the movie version of the play by Arthur Laurents who co-authored the script with Carl Foreman, directed by Mark Robson, produced by Stanley Kramer and with music by Dimitri Tiomkin was released in the United States today.

1950: As of today, doctors in Israel are “exhausting supplies of the drug Aureomycin in an attempt to curb the worst polio epidemic in” the history of the Jewish state.

1950: The Government of Israel said today that farmers in the Hebron area had "extended the cultivation of lands" within Israel, but denied that this had been done under the guns of heavily armed troops.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel agreed to review the acute border infiltration problem in high level talks with Jordan.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that The Special Commission which studied the problems of the Jerusalem Municipality severely criticized the staff, and recommended that the Mayor should be deprived of all executive and fiscal powers, which should be rendered to an appointed City Manager.

1954: In Washington Heights, “novelists Jose Yglesias and Helen Yglesias”gave birth novelist and screenwriter Rafael Ygelsias, the husband of Margaret Joskow and the father of “journalist Matthew Ygelsias and novelist Nicholas Yglesisas.

1957(11th of Iyar, 5717): Erich von Stroheim passed away.  As a director, von Stroheim ranks up there with D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille.  As an actor he was noted for playing Germanic characters.  His most famous role was that of the loyal servant Max von Mayerling, in Billie Wilder’s cinema noir classic Sunset Boulevard.

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/186040%7C48342/Erich-von-Stroheim/

1958: Birthdate of Yitzhak Vaknin a member of Shas who has been an MK since 1996.

1959: For its time, a celebrity bombshell was dropped as two Jewish entertainers, Liz Taylor and Eddie Fisher were married -she for the fourth time and he for the second time after ending his all-American marriage to Debbie Reynolds.

1959 4th of Iyar, 5719): Yom HaZikaron

 

1960: The Yossele Shumacher affair makes headlines when the child's ultra-Orthodox grandfather, Nahman Shtarks, is arrested on suspicion of abducting him from his parents.

1960: Today in Liberty, NY, at the 60^th annual convention of the Rabbinical Seminary, “Dr. Louis Finkelstein, chancellor of JTS urged the members “to work for a summit meeting at which there would be ‘hope for a permanent peace, rather than merely a cessation of the cold war.’”

1961(24^th of Iyar, 5721): Fifty-six year old Cleveland born Lloyd H. Feder, the husband of Lillian Feder and father of Suzie Bloom of Louisville, KY passed away today in his home town.

1963(18th of Iyar, 5723): Lag B'Omer

1963: Bob Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman, walked off the Ed Sullivan (television variety) Show.

1963: Final broadcast of the “Dinah Shore Chevy Shoe,” starring Dinah Shore (AKA Frances Rose Shore)

1964(1^st of Sivan, 5724): Rosh Chodesh Sivan

1964: Barbra Streisand won the Grammy for Best Female Vocalist for “The Barbra Streisand Album.”

1964: U.S premiere of “What A Way To Go” a comedy with a screenplay by Adolph Green and Betty Comden starring Paul Newman as “Larry Flint” and featuring Holocaust survivor Marcel Hillaire as “a French Lawyer.”

1965(10^th of Iyar, 5725): Sixty-seven year old Franz Josef Kallman ,the German born “son of Marie (née Mordze / Modrey) and Bruno Kallmann, who was a surgeon and general practitioner”  who fled to the United States in 1936 and “was one of the pioneers in the study of the genetic basis of psychiatric disorders” passed away today in New York

1965:  Israel and West Germany exchange letters beginning diplomatic relations.  For Jews in general, and Holocaust survivors in Israel, this was and is a sensitive topic.  The issue of whether or not to trade with Germany, to enter into arms agreements and/or accept reparation payments for the Holocaust touched off major political debates in Israel. 

 

1966: In Seattle, Washington, Temple Beth Am published Statement of Principles that declared “...let our congregation be religious, democratic, creative, relevant and learned...”

 

1966: Birthdate of Louis Phillip Spector and Garry Phillip Spector, twin brothers adopted by Phil Spector.

1967: Oded Kotler wins the Best Actor Award in the Cannes Film Festival for his leading role in the Israeli film: "Three Days and a Child

1967: In Moscow, an Egyptian parliamentary delegation including Anwar Sadat was told to expect “an Israeli invasion of Syria immediately after Independence Day, with the aim of overthrowing the Damascus regime.”

1968(14^th of Iyar, 5728): Pesach Sheni

1968: Three days after he had passed away, funeral service as scheduled to be held in New York for seventy-three year old producer, director and author Albert Lewin, the holder of an MA from Harvard who, with the support of Irving Thalberg, “produced his first picture, ‘The Kiss,” which was Greta Garbo’s last silent film”

1968: Israel defeated Hong Kong in a 1968 AFC Asian Cup match at Amjadieh Stadium in Tehran, Iran.

1970: Birthdate of Israeli-American musician Ifar "Eef" Barzelay

https://myspace.com/eefbarzelay

1972(28^th of Iyar, 5732): Yom Yerushalayim

1972: Birthdate of Matthew Hiltzik the graduate of Cornell and Fordham Law School, founder of Hiltzik Strategies who has worked on the campaigns of Chuck Shumer, Eliot Spitzer and Hillary Clinton while contributing to Jewish culture with several activities including producing the marvelous documentary “Paper Clips.”

1973(10^th of Iyar, 5733): Sixty-four year old Austrian born British photographer and Soviet spy Edith Tudo-Hart passed away today

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/9897504/Edith-Tudor-Hart-the-Soviet-spy-with-a-conscience.html

1974: At the Center 55^th Street Theatre, the curtain came down on the final performance of “Music! Music,” “a cavalcade of American music with footnotes by Alan Jay Lerner.”

1975: In Boulder, Colorado, Stephen Schutz and Susan Poli Schutz gave birth to Democratic Congressman Jared Schutz Polis.

1976: The Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Agreements – “The Helsinki Monitoring Group in the USSR” is formed in Moscow, led by dissident Yuri Orlov.

1977: Birthdate of Kfar Uria native and ballerina Gilat Einav, the IDF education officer who gained fame as Gila Bennet, the wife of Prime Minister Naftali Bennet.

1977: The second of the five part “Nixon Interviews” which were a product of Swifty Lazar’s “hustle” and produced by Marvin Intoff were broadcast tonight.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that on the occasion of Israel's 30th anniversary, the Chief of Staff, Rafael Eytan, declared that Zahal will be unable to defend Israel without the West Bank, and urged both his soldiers and civilians to "stop being naive about the subject." He was thus countering the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's declaration made at the same time in New York, which demanded that Israel returns the Gaza Strip to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan.

1980: Birthdate of award winning Israeli actress Maya Maron.

1980: Sixty-nine year old Lilian Roth, the movie start who had converted to Catholicism in 1948 passed away today.

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/roth-lillian

 1985: In “Garden Where Biblical Plants Come To Life,” published today Matthew Nesvisky describes Israel's Neot Kedumim Biblical Landscape Reserve.

1985: Thirty year old Amy Eilberg was ordained in New York as the first female Conservative Rabbi which must have been a source of pride to her husband Louis E. Newman “the John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies, and Associate Dean of the College and Director of Advising at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.”

http://www.jewishannarbor.org/page.aspx?id=210056

http://louisnewman.net/

1987: NBC broadcast the final episode of “Gimme A Break” a sitcom created by Mort Lachman and Sy Rosen and co-starring Jonathan Silverman.

1987: James Angleton, a senior officer with the CIA from its earliest days in 1947 passed away today at the age of 69.  Angleton was best known for his counter-intelligence work but Angleton also “handled one of the agency's most sensitive relationships with an allied intelligence service, its ties to the Israelis. Mr. Angleton handled ''the Israeli account'' as it was termed in C.I.A. argot, for more than a decade. Indeed, Mr. Colby, the agency director who forced his resignation, earlier insisted that Mr. Angleton relinquish his control over Israeli matters.” (As reported by Stephen Engelberg)

1989: “Night Visitor” a horror film starring Elliot Gould and Allen Garfield was released today in the United States.

1991(28^th of Iyar, 5751): Yom Yerushalayim

1993: ABC broadcast the final episode of “The Wonder Years” starring Fred Savage and narrated by Daniel Stern.

1994(2^nd of Sivan, 5754): Ninety-one year old Erik Homberger Erikson, the German-American psychoanalyst passed away today. (As reported by Morton Schatzman)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-professor-erik-erikson-1436255.html

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2002/03/erik-erikson/

1994(2^nd of Sivan, 5754): Eighty-three year old Helen Marion Levin Eichenbaum, the wife of architect Howard Samuel Eichenbaum, the mother of Lee Eichenbaum and a member of Congregation B’nai Israel passed away today after which she was buried in the Oakland and Fraternal Historic Cemetery Park in Little Rock, AR.

1994: Peter Mandelson “chose to back (Tony) Blair for the leadership” of the Labor Party “in his contest with Gordon Brown.

1995: “Crimson Tide” a movie that confronts the issue of accidental nuclear warfare and command responsibility produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and with music by Hans Zimmer was released in the United States today.

1995: While visiting the Ukraine, President and Mrs. Clinton go to Babi Yar.  Escorted by a Chasidic Rabbi, they pay homage to the 30,000 Jews of Kiev who were massacred by the Nazis with the help of the local populace in 1941.

1995(12th of Iyar, 5755): Movie director Arthur Lubin passed away.  Lubin was an actor during the 1920's, moving behind the camera in the 1930's when he started working with Abbot and Costello.  His re-make of Phantom of the Opera with Claude Raines is considered a classic.  Lubin is credited for two of the most famous talking animals.  He directed the Francis the Talking Mule films and then moved over to television with Mr. Ed.  Lubin passed away at the age of 95.

1996(23rd of Iyar, 5756): Eighty-six year old German jazz pianist who escaped the Nazis by going to the Netherlands but eventually ended up at Theresiendstadt where he and his “Jazz Swingers” were forced to play in a propaganda film before being ship to Auschwitz passed away today.

1997(5^th Iyar, 5757): Yom HaAtzma’ut

1997:”The Ice Storm” the film version of the novel of the same name with a screenplay by James Schamus, the Detroit bornson of Clarita (Gershowitz) Karlin and Julian John Schamus” and husband of Nancy Kricorian

1999(26th of Iyar, 5759): Saul Steinberg Romanian born cartoonist and illustrator whose work graced numerous issues of The New Yorker passed away at the age of 85. After coming to the United States in 1942, he did 85 covers and 642 illustrations for what was, in its day, the nation’s most sophisticated weekly.

https://saulsteinbergfoundation.org/

2000: After premiering in Los Angeles on May Day, “Gladiator” the Roman epic with music by Hans Zimmer was released today in the United Kingdom.

2000(7^th of Iyar, 5760): Fifty-nine-year-old Charles Katz, the grandfather of Jeremy, Sarah and Jennifer, passed away today.

2001: “Sing America” which was co-written by Dr. Sherwin Kaufman the son of Sholom Aleichem was played at the Ellis Island Medals of Honor Awards Gala,. As an invited guest at this black-tie event, he “heard the song played at the beginning of festivities and then as a musical background during a video of the ceremony.”

2002: The New York Times featured books by Jewish writers and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “'Hester Among the Ruins” by Binnie Kirshenbaum and “Somebody's Gotta Tell It'' by Jack Newfeld

2002(1^st of Sivan, 5762): Rosh Chodesh Sivan

2002(1^st of Sivan, 5762): Forty-three year old Nisan Dolinager of Pe’at Sadeh was shot and killed today by a Palestinian laborer.

2002:  “The Golem” “…a new English version of the Yiddish classic” based on the legend surrounding a 17^th century Rabbi living in Prague was performed for the last time today.

2003: The body of the second terrorists who had helped to blow up Mike’s Place “washed ashore” on the beach at Tel Aviv.

2004: After his father’s leg had been amputated because of complications from diabetes David D’Or returned to Istanbul to perform today at the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest.

2004: Two days after she had passed away,funderal services were held today for Ruth Gruber, the widow of Frank Gruber  and a member of Temple Israel in Great Neck, NY

2004: It was reported today that Salama Hamad of Hamas said that they were holding “parts, bodies and brains” of Israeli soldiers killed in an ambush: and Islamic Jihad were holding “what they called the head of an Israeli soldier” which the Arabs plan on exchanging for Palestine prisoners held by the Israelis.”

2005: A revival production of Jerry Bock’s musical “The Apple Tree” staged by the Encores opened today

 2005: Observance of Yom Ha'atzma'ut (יום העצמאות yom hā-‘aṣmā’ūṯ), Israeli Independence Day, which commemorates the declaration of independence of Israel in 1948.

2006(14^th of Iyar, 5766): Pesach Sheni

2006: In Israel, events begin marking the start of the 15th annual Historic Site Preservation Week, an initiative of the Society for Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites (SPIHS)

2006: Harvey Sheldon launched for the first time in the world, WORLD JEWISH NETWORK on the internet. The format will be 24 hours a day, 7 days a week of nothing but popular Jewish and Israeli music, that you can listen to and dance.

http://www.harveysheldontv.com/

2007: In Detroit, Michigan, Ayal Mendelsohn, son of Mr. and Mrs. David Mendelsohn, is called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah.

2007: In an article styled “Women add to Torah Dialogue,” the Cedar Rapids Gazette reports on a Torah commentary written by female rabbis and female Jewish scholars that will be published in the autumn of 2007.

2007: The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports on labor troubles at Agriprocessors in Postville, Iowa.  Agriprocessors is controlled by the Rubashkin family and is the largest kosher slaughtering operation in the United States.

2008: The Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies presents “A Short History of Anti-Semitism,” the second of four lunchtime session taught by historian Dr. Dean Bell that covers anti-Judaism in the classical world, the Crusades and expulsions in the Middle Ages, tolerance and restrictions in the early modern period, and racial anti-Semitism in both the nineteenth century and early twentieth century.

2008: In article entitled “Wage the Warrior: David Mamet tackles mixed martial arts,” Sports Illustrated reviews “Redbelt,” Mamet’s latest cinematic effort.  “Redbelt” is set in the world of mixed martial art which seems a far cry from the world of the man who wrote The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-hatred and the Jews. On the other hand, the sixty year old man of letters and motion pictures is “a serious jiu-jitsu practitioner.”

2008: The prestigious Turin Book Fair which is honoring Israel on the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state's creation comes to an end.

2008: More than 300 people here have already been arrested at Postville, Iowa, in what is being called the largest operation of its kind in Iowa, federal officials said this afternoon.

 2008: In a front page article entitled “Time To Go” appearing in The Cedar Rapids Gazette Kathy Goldstein, the Musical Voice of Temple Judah and a Clinton supporter expresses her views on Hillary Clinton’s exit strategy. “The race is over, and I think she should go out in grace and style,” said Katherine Goldstein of Cedar Rapids.

2008(7th of Iyar, 5768): An elderly woman was killed by a Kassam rocket that scored a direct hit on a western Negev community, hours after Israeli leaders said they were leaning toward accepting an Egyptian cease-fire deal with Hamas. Shlomit Katz, 75 of Kibbutz Gvar'am, was killed while visiting Moshav Yesha in the Eshkol Regional Council. The deadly attack came four days after a mortar shell barrage killed Jimmy Kedoshim, 48, a father of four, as he stood in the yard of his house in Kibbutz Kfar Aza in the Negev.

2008: Irena Sendler - a Polish social worker who helped save some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto and giving them false identities - has died today at the age of  98. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

2009 (18 Iyar): Lag B’Omer – 33^rd Day of the Omer

2009: As part of its Centennial Celebration, Tel Aviv hosts a special conference on education attended by prominent educators, academics and researchers who will address the key educational and pedagogic issues facing the city's future generations, as well as educational policy and curriculum unique to Tel Aviv-Yafo.

2009: Today U.S. President Barack Obama declared May Jewish American Heritage Month, saying that the "United States would not be the country we know without the achievements of Jewish Americans.

2009: Today the Freie Universitat in Berlin launched a project that will give high school students across Germany access to more than 50,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors and witnesses. "

2010(28th of Iyar, 5770) Yom Yerushalayim

2010: The story of Russ & Daughters is scheduled to be featured in the premiere episode of New York Originals, a documentary series profiling “classic one-of-a-kind shops and mom-and-pop businesses that have stood the test of time.”

2011: An Israeli delegation of religious leaders is going to present Syrian opposition members to Chief Rabbi of Holon Avraham Yosef, the son of Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and a member of the rabbinate’s council, will be one of the more high-profile religious leaders in the group that took off from Israel yesterday – one week after the original delegation was postponed.

2011: Former concentration camp guard John “Demjanjuk was convicted as an accessory to the murder of 27,900 Jews and sentenced to five years in prison.”

2011: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present The 2011 Spring Concert as part of the Sidney Krum Young Artists Concert Series.

2011: The National Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled to present a screening of “Jewish Soldiers in Blue & Gray” “a …documentary that reveals the little-known struggles that faced Jewish-Americans both in battle and on the home front during the Civil War” including the 7,000 who fought for the Union, the 3000 who fought with the Rebels and the “five Union Jewish soldiers received the Congressional Medal of Honor.”

2011(8^th of Iyar, 5771): Ninety-seven-year-old Chicago native and Harvard educated television director Charles Friedman Haas who directed episodes for a long list of popular television shows including “Perry Mason,” “Bonanza,” “Maverick and “77 Sunset Strip” passed away today.  (Editor’s note – if you grew up in the middle of the 20th century in America, these names should be quite meaning to you.

2011(8^th of Iyar, 5771): Seventy-nine year old Jay D. Fischer, the attorney “who negotiated a monetary settlement with the Palestine Liberation Organization on behalf of the family of Leon Klinghoffer after his murder during a 1985 hijacking” passed away today.

2011(8^th of Iyar, 5771): Seventy-six year old Jack Keil Wolf, an engineer and computer theorist whose mathematical reasoning about how best to transmit and store information helped shape the digital innards of computers and other devices that power modern society passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

2012: Jan Kasoff is scheduled to deliver a talk based on his 36 years as an NBC cameraman entitled Behind the Scenes at SNL and NBC!! at the JCC of Northern Virginia

2012: Those living in the Washington Metropolitan area have a chance to party to a unique mix of Israeli hip-hop, bhangra, baile funk, radio remixes, 80s freestyle and a live performance by Israeli-American emcee and rapper Kosha Dillz as part of the Washington Jewish Music Festival.

2012: Jazzrael - A Festival of Israeli Jazz & World Music: Israeli Jazz/World Music Concert is scheduled to take place at Temple Israel in NYC.

2012: Mendy Cahan, founder of Yung Yiddish in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv is scheduled to lead an interactive workshop about the craft of presenting Yiddish song for contemporary audiences at the Workman’s Circle in New York City. 

2012: Thousands rallied in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square this evening, and in cities around the country, in the largest “social justice” protest held since last summer’s wave of cost-of-living demonstrations. (As reported by Ben Hartman and Melanie Lidman)

2013: The Maccabeats are scheduled to perform at the Jewish Federation of Princeton in Princeton, NJ.

2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Business of Baby by Jennifer Margulis, Tirza by Arnon Grunberg and the recently released paperback edition of Thinking, Fast And Slow by Daniel Kahneman.

2013: A 1500 year old Byzantine era mosaic floor was discovered under the fields of Kibbutz Beit Kama in the Negev, the Antiquities Authority announced today. The mosaic was discovered by the authority prior to the imminent paving of the southern extension of Highway 6, the Trans-Israel Highway.

2013: A Foreign Ministry economic plan for 2013-2014, to be submitted for cabinet approval this week, revealed that Israel has established a diplomatic mission in an unnamed state in the Persian Gulf, one of 11 new diplomatic missions set up in various states around the world since 2010.

2014: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host an evening with Susan Abrams who will lead a discussion on the future of the center and the development of “a truly global human rights culture.

2014: The Fountainheads, an energetic group of young Israeli singers, musicians and dancers, is scheduled to headline the upcoming Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) celebration at the Uptown Jewish Community this evening. (As reported by the Crescent City Jewish News, the source for all things Yiddishkeit in Cajun Country)

2014: Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch is scheduled to visit several site in Yokne’am which were recently subject to ‘price tag’ attacks and to meet with the mayor to discuss the surge in hate crimes in the city. (As reported by Ilan Ben Zion

2014: In honor of American Jewish Heritage Month the Cedar Village Retirement Community in Mason, OH, is schooled to host “Broadway Musicals: The Jewish Legacy…Jews revere the site as the tomb of King David, which is on the ground floor of the same building.”

2014: “Israeli President Shimon Peres was met by political anger and protests over his country’s policies in the West Bank during a visit to Norway today.”

2014: Today, at the Jaffa Salon of Art in Warehouse 2 at the Jaffa Port Israelis will be able to view pictures of “the face of war” as captured by Jean Mohr at a new exhibition, “War from the Victim’s Perspective,” being launched to mark the 150th anniversary of the First Geneva Convention.

2014: Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered today near the reputed scene of Jesus’s last supper in Jerusalem demanding that Israel keep sovereignty over the site where Pope Francis will celebrate mass.

2015(23rd of Iyar, 5775): Seventy-six year old Belda Lindenbahm, a co-founder of Midreshet Lindenbaum who served “as president of the board of the Drisha Institute for Women and president of the American Friends of Bar Ilan University” passed away today.

2015: Gary Shteyngart is scheduled to join Professor Sasha Senderovich for a conversation and reading from Little Failure: A Memoir, a candid account of Shteyngart’s experiences as a Jewish-Russian immigrant in New York, his haphazard college pursuits, and his initial forays into a literary career at the National Museum of American Jewish History.

2015: The Jewish Historical Society of England is scheduled to host a lecture on “Jewish Settlements in Palestine in the Century before 1948as seen by an Ephemerist & Postal Historian” by Dennis van der Velde.

2015: “Welcome to Kutsher’s” is scheduled to be shown at the Borscht Belt Film Festival this morning.

2016(4^th of Iyar, 5776): Yom Ha’atsma’ut – Israel Independence observed because the fifth of Iyar falls erev Shabbat.

2016: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to a “Community Discussion” on “The Ethics of Photography.”

2016: As of today, Goldie Michelson “became the oldest living person in the United States – a title she would hold for less than two months due to her demise in July.

https://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/3378751/sc/fb/jewish/Goldie-Michelson-the-Oldest-American-Passes-Away-at-Nearly-114.htm

2016: The Iowa City Jewish Federation is scheduled to sponsor the Yom Ha’atzmaut Dinner at Agudas Achim this evening.

2016: “Metal-Man – The Story of Sculptor Victor Ries” a film “that takes us through his early life in Germany, fleeing Nazis for Palestine in 1933, emigration to America during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and beginning his American career as a founding member of the legendary Pond Farm art school/cooperative in Guerneville, California” is schedule to be shown in Woodland Hills, CA as part of Jewish American Heritage Month.

2016: In a talk entitled "Women of the Bible: Paintings of The House of Abraham and The House of David," artist Richard McBee is scheduled to discuss his paintings that explore the narratives of Sarah, Hagar, Tamar, and Lot’s Daughters at the Biederman Library in the Bronx.

2017: LIMMUDFSU NY is scheduled to begin today

2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host the Vice Chancellor at its Shabbat dinner.

2017: In “A Moving Holocaust Memoir for Younger Readers, and Older Ones Too” published today Ruth Sepetys reviewed Survivors Club: The True Story of a Very Prisoner of Auschwitz by Michael Bornstein.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/books/review/survivors-club-auschwitz-michael-bornstein-debbie-bornstein-holinstat.html

2017: As American Jews prepare to welcome the Sabbath Queen they may be contemplating a week’s worth of stories that began with Nicole Meyer courting Chinese investors and ended with Rod Jay Rosenstein, “the nation’s longest serving U.S. attorney” and newly appointed United States Deputy Attorney General, the number 2 man at the DOJ.

2018: As part of its Mother’s Day weekend celebration, the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to admit all Moms free of admission today.

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a full day of Shabbat activities including morning services, lunch, mincha and Seduah Shlisit.

2018: “The Hero” and “The Cakemaker” are scheduled to be shown at the Washington Jewish Film Festival.

2018: “Today I Am A Fountain Pen” and “The Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick” are scheduled to be shown at the 26^th Toronto Jewish Film Festival.

2018: Final two portions of Viykra (Leviticus) -- Behar and Bechukotai;

2018: Princeton graduate and billionaire hedge fund manager Steven Feinberg, a Donald Trump loyalist assumed office today the Chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.

2018: In Silver Springs, MD, the AFI Silver Theatre is scheduled to host a screening of “From Cairo to the Cloud.”

2019: The Illinois Holocaust Museum is schedule to host Marguerite Mishkin as part of its Survivor Speaker series.

2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “The Keeper.”

2019: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century by George Packer, Maybe You Should Talk To Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb, Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy by Michael J. Mazarr and The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks.

2019: Today’s celebration of Mother’s Day takes on a whole new meaning as friends and family of Sandee Levin, mother of Phillip and Laura Levin, wife of Larry Levin gather to celebrate her milestone natal day.

2020(33^rd day of the Omer): Lag B’Omer

2020: Today is a double Simcha as the friends and family of Sandee Levin prepare to celebrate her natal day on Lag B’Omer

2020: In honor of Lag B’Omer at 7:30 a.m. CST, The London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to host a “Virtual Tour of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.”

https://www.lsjs.ac.uk/lag-baomer-virtual-tour-of-the-national-gallery-in-trafalgar-square-1122.php

2020: “Teaching poets and contributors to the 92nd Street Y's #ANewColossus poetry festival, are scheduled to host a virtual poetry workshop that will delve into the construction and techniques used in writing “The New Colossus,” and place Lazarus' poem side by side with work by contemporary poets that is “descended” from, or inspired by, the original poem.”

2020: ASF IJE Travels in Jewish History is scheduled to present “Virtual Lag Ba’Omer” as Diarna Geo-Museum Tours digitally transports pilgrims to shrines in multiple countries, including Iran, Iraq, Tunisia, and Morocco.

2020: The Riverway Project is scheduled to celebrate Lag B’Omer, the 33rd day of the Omer, with a roaring (virtual) fire, campfire songs” combined with “viewers own homemade s’mores.”

2020: Via Zoom, the Streicker Center is scheduled to host Traffy Brodesser-Akner as she discusses her best-selling novel Fleishman is in Trouble.

2020: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present live on Zoom “Jewish Thought and Messianism in the Colonial Puritan Imagination: The Case of Judah Monis”

2020: In San Rafael, CA, Congregation Rodef Sholom is scheduled to host a virtual “Borschtfest” where Rabbi Elana Rosen-Brown leads a session on cooking a borscht that includes lots of garlic.”

2020: In Iowa, Jewry makes the news as Governor Reynolds goes into “modified quarantine” because of her exposure to those who came to Iowa including Vice President who had been exposed to V.P. Press Secretary Katie Miller, wife of Stephen Miller and reports are published that the Republican Jewish Coalition will support a primary challenger to Representative Steve King which seems sort of problematic since King is a political ally of Governor Reynolds and many of his ideas are representative of the views of the state’s Republicans.

2020: Burt Bacharach turns 92.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/margiegoldsmith/2020/02/20/burt-bacharach-strong-at-92-still-writing-hit-songs/#364b683e463e

2021: Temple Emanu El Brotherhood is scheduled to host “Broadway Comes to TEE Brotherhood" during which “Mary Illes, accomplished Broadway actress, will discuss her Broadway career and highlight her original role of Golde in Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish.”

2021: Iranian American poet-author is scheduled to talk about “Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran” in a Stanford series on Jews of the Modern Middle East/North Africa, co-sponsored by Taube Center for Jewish Studies.

2021: The Asiyah Jewish Community is scheduled to present online Rabbi David Curiel as he discusses “Pirkei Avot: Living Ancestral Wisdom.”

2021: The Jewish Family and Children’s Service is scheduled to present online, a “Leadership Giving Society Reception.”

2021(1^st of Sivan, 5781): Rosh Chodesh Sivan; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

2021: The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Diversity Program is scheduled to host  a virtual Jewish American History Month celebration spotlighting Dr. Misha Galperin, CEO, National Museum of American Jewish History.

2021: The Jewish Federation of the Corridor (Eastern Iowa) and the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines are scheduled to sponsor “Jewish Identities: Iowa Jewish Scholars Discuss Jewish Identity in the Diaspora,”  a conversation with Katya Gibel Mevorach (Grinnell College), Inbal Mazar (Drake University), Leah Kalmanson (Drake University), and Laura Cesarco Eglin (Simpson College).

2021: The Streicker Center is scheduled to present Julianna Margulies as she discusses her “candid new memoir, Sunshine Girl: An Unexpected Life.

2021 The Home Front Commander has announced that schools will be closed throughout Isreal today , due to the escalating attacks from Gaza, and the education system is preparing for several days of remote learning.

2021: Aviv Kempner is scheduled to take place in a Q and A following a screening of Rosenwald sponsored by the JCC of Harrison, NY, the Community Synagogue of Rye New York and Congregation KTI in Port Chester, NY.

2022: UK Jewish Films is scheduled to present the first screening of “Promised Lands.”

2022: LBI is scheduled to present Helen Epstein and Ariana Neumann as they discuss “Writing the Story: Exploring the Family Holocaust Memoir” which is a unique literary genre.

2022: The Streicker Center is scheduled to present “The Zabars: From a Ukrainian Shtetl to the Epicurean Mount Olympus which tracing the “empire building” of Louis Zabar.

2022: KlezCalifornia and more than 20 other organizations are scheduled to co-sponsor online “Tsvelf far Ukraine” where “Artists from around the world perform in a 12-hour klezmer/Yiddish music and spoken word concert as a fundraiser for Ukraine aid.

2022: Julie Klam, the author of The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters is scheduled to be the speaker for the JWA book club event.

2022: Gary Shteyn¬gart and Claire Stan¬ford are scheduled to have a conversation about what happiness is in today's fragmented world, and what the future of happiness will be as technology advances which is the final Unpacking the Book Event/

2022: As part of the “Three Communities, Three Jewish Stories” series LSJS is scheduled to host “From Yemen to Tanzania: Missionaries and a Man on a Mission.”

2023: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present a “Family History Today: Walking Tour – Exploring Jewish Harlem.

2023: Kan Kol Hamuski is scheduled to broadcast a Young Artists Concert featuring “outstanding young soloists and ensembles.”

2023: At Temple Judea, after a pre-oneg, the dynamic Strauss duo – Rabbi Fievel and Cantor Abbie – is scheduled to lead Shabbat services.

2023: The friends and family of Gila Bennet are scheduled to enjoy a double moment of Nachas as they light the Shabbat candles and celebrate her birthday.

2023: The Israeli Chamber Project is scheduled to end its  season on a lighter note, with effervescent music for two violins and piano with Kobi Malkin, Carmit Zori, and Assaff Weisman.

2023: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, the names of  two cousins Aviel Hadad, 30, a Tunisian citizen living in Netivot, Israel, and Benjamin Haddad, 42, lived in France who were murdered in attack orchestrated by a local security officer while participating in festivities at El Ghriba synagogue are scheduled to be added to the list of names read before the recitation of Kaddish.

https://www.jta.org/2023/05/10/global/5-killed-including-2-jewish-pilgrims-in-shooting-attack-on-historic-tunisian-synagogue