This Day, November 21, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
November 21
456 BCE (20th of Kislev, 3306): On November 21, Ezra called together all the
men of Judah and Benjamin and told them that they would have to give up their
foreign born wives. This was part of an
attempt by the returning exiles to pur…
November 21
456 BCE (20th of Kislev, 3306): On November 21, Ezra called together all the
men of Judah and Benjamin and told them that they would have to give up their
foreign born wives. This was part of an
attempt by the returning exiles to purify and strengthen the House of Israel
even though some might say that it altered the definition of “who was a Jew” as
can be seen by the Book of Ruth which was written to portray a different point
of view.
164
1265: Abraham of Augsburg, who had converted to Judaism “died a martyr’s
death” today which was the subject of elegies by Mordecai ben Hillel and Moses
ben Jacob.
1272: Following Henry III of
England's death on November 16, his son Prince Edward becomes King of
England. As bad as Henry had been for
the Jews, Edward would prove to be even worse.
After squeezing all he could out of his Jewish subjects, Edward expelled
them in 1290. England would remain
officially Jew-free until for the next four centuries.
1384, Philip the Bold regulated the status of the Jews. He permitted
fifty-two families to settle in the towns of his domain on payment of an
entrance fee and an annual tax. He fixed the rate of interest; henceforth a Jew
was to be believed on his oath, and the evidence of a single apostate was
declared invalid. The chiefs of the Jews were called "masters of
law"; the Jewish cemetery was separated from the others, and a noble of
the court was instituted guardian of the Jews. The general expulsion of the Jews
from France in 1394 put an end to their presence in Franche-Comté. Israel Lévi
has proved that a certain number of well-known rabbis lived in this province in
the first half of the fourteenth century—for instance, Joseph b. Jacob Tournoy
and Joseph de Musidan.
1513: As Johann Reuchlin continued to oppose Johannes Pfefferkorn's drive
to confiscate all books belonging to the Jews, Pope Leo ordered the Bishops of
Speyer and Worms to hear the charge against Reuchlin. Reuchlin was a Christian German Scholar whose
field of study included Greek and Hebrew.
He had studied the Hebrew texts for the Emperor and found that most of
them did not speak ill of Christianity which meant that they should not be
destroyed. This thwarted the aim of
Pfefferkorn and his allies.
1616(5377): Moses Mordecai ben Samuel Margolioth, the
native of Posen who served as the head of the Yeshiva at Cracow for twenty
years starting in 1591 when Joseph Katz passed away, passed away today.
1619: Shah Abbasi (Sufi
Dynasty, Persia) intensified persecution against the Jews. Many Jews were
forced to live "Marrano-like" lives, outwardly practicing Islam. This
policy was continued by his son, Abbas II.
1654(11th of Kislev, 5415): Rachel Heller (Ashkenazi), the wife
of Tosfot Yom Tov and daughter of Aharon Moses Ashkenazi (Munk) and Nechama
Nechele Nechly Netile Ashkenazi passed away today.
1694: Birthdate of the French philosopher Voltaire. The great philosopher of the Enlightenment
was a vicious anti-Semite. Not only
that, he was an anti-Semite with a twist.
Other Enlightenment philosophers that once Jews were no longer
persecuted they would give up their religious trappings and meld into the
mainstream of European culture. Voltaire
believed that Jews were innately deformed and that they were beyond
reform. However, Voltaire was humane, and
he did not believe that they should be burned at the stake. In his own words he
described Jews as “an ignorant, and barbarous people who have long exercised
the most sordid avarice and detestable superstition, and an insurmountable hate
for all peoples who have tolerated and enriched them.
1746: In Reading, PA, David Mendez Machado and Zipporah Nunez gave birth to
Rebecca Menes Machado who became Rebecca Mendes Phillips when she married Jonas
Phillips and later became “one of the founding members of the Female
Association for Relief of Women and Children in Reduced Circumstance” and a “director
of the Female Benevolent Society, the first Jewish charity in America unrelated
to a synagogue."
1756: Today, Vital Ephraim, the born child of Viennese mother and Nathan
Veitel Ephraim, “the Altona-born jeweler and elder of the Jewish community, who
became the Ephraim the court jeweler of Friedrich II, “offered the king a
seignorage of 20% for leasing the Leipzig mint facility.”
1778: Savannah, GA native Abigail Sarzedas and Myer Polock gave birth to
David Polock
1784: In Savannah, GA, Judith Polock and Philip Minis, gave birth to Esther
Minis
1784: In Amsterdam, “of Abraham Salomon / Shabtay Cohen Kloot and Marretje /
Mata Mozes Tokie” gave birth to Leonardus Levy Abraham Verveer, the husband of
Caroline Elkan
1786: In Amsterdam, Beila Meijer Wolfe and Emanuel Levi Duitz gave birth to
a son.
1789: North Carolina ratifies the U.S. Constitution to become the 12th
state in the Union. North Carolina has
one of the oldest Jewish communities in the United States. The early history of
the Jews in North Carolina is a mixed.
In 1776, it was one the original thirteen colonies that could boast of
having an organized Jewish community. In
1852, the Jews of Wilmington, N.C, purchased land for a burial plot. However, the congregation was not organized
for another until 1867. This lengthy was
not unusual in the South. In other
ante-bellum communities, land was purchased for a cemetery, but with war clouds
gathering, Jews waited before building synagogues and temples. Further delay was caused by the Civil War and
the impoverishment that followed. In 1809, Jacob Henry was the first Jew
elected to the legislature in the state.
He accomplished this feat despite the state’s religious tests for office
holders. Strangely enough, the Tar Heel
state did not get around to removing religious tests until 1876. The Jewish
Community of North Carolina has made great strides over the years. According to the Glenmary Research Center,
which publishes Religious Congregations and Membership in the United States
Guilford County (which includes Greensboro and High Point) ranked 99th
on a list of the 100 counties in 2000 with the largest Jewish communities,
based by percentage of total population. The thirty thousand Jews comprise 0.3%
of the state’s population but pack enough clout to have gotten then Governor
Jim Hunt to support a state agency designed to stimulate economic and cultural
exchanges with the state of Israel.
1792: Abigail Dias, the London born daughter of Haham Moses Cohen d'Azevedo
and Sara de Haham Moses Cohen D'Azevedo and her husband Isaac Haim de Abraham
de Jacob Diasgave birth to Abraham Dias.
1792: Birthdate of Benoit Fould, the French banker who married Helena
Oppenheim whose dowry provided “part of the initial capital of the new bank
Foul-Oppenheim et Cie.
1800: Birthdate of “bare-knuckle boxer” Barney Aaron the native of Aldgate
who was nicknamed “The Star of the East” and who was the father “Young Barney
Aaron”.
1818: A petition written by Lewis Way, an English missionary, requesting the
restoration of an independent Jewish nation in Palestine was submitted by Czar
Alexander to the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle
1822(7th of Kislev, 5583): Eighty year old Lazarus Solomon passed away in
Jamaica today.
1823: Birthdate of Julius von Gomperzes, the Austrian industrialist who
brother of historian Theodor Gomperzes, and the uncle of philosopher Heinrich
Gomperzes.
1824: [Editors note: Contrary to popular misconception, the American Jewish
Community has deep, historic roots outside of New York and its immediate
environs.] The first Reform Congregation, Beth Elohim, was established in
Charleston, South Carolina. Beth Elohim congregation is the birthplace of
Reform Judaism in America and the oldest surviving Reform congregation in the
world. Its members have been eminent leaders in the city, state and nation.
Among them: Moses Lindo, who helped develop cultivation of indigo, and Joseph
Levy, the first Jewish military officer in America. The present beautiful Greek
revival temple at 90 Hasell Street (pronounced Hazel) was built in 1840. The
congregation began as a Sephardic group in 1749. George Washington wrote,
"May the same temporal and eternal blessings which you implore for me rest
upon your Congregation..." The Beth Elohim Coming Street cemetery is the
largest pre-Revolutionary Jewish cemetery in America. The congregation's first
rabbi, Moses Cohen, was the first person buried here, in 1762. Bernard Baruch's
great grandfather, Rabbi Hartwig Cohen, is one of several other Beth Elohim
rabbis here. Other noteworthy persons at this site are nine Charleston Jews who
took part in the American Revolution, six who fought in the War of 1812, eight
of the 180 Charleston Jews who fought in the Civil War, and three of the Jewish
Masons who founded the Scottish Rite here in 1801. The history of Charleston
Jewry is beautifully documented with ceremonial objects, records, paintings and
photographs at the Beth Elohim Archives Museum. A three-story house at 89-91
Church Street in Charleston was the model for Catfish Row, the centerpiece of
Porgy and Bess. George Gershwin wrote the opera while living in Folly Beach. As
it moves into the 21st century, the Jewish Community shows its
vibrancy through the construction of the College of Charleston, Yaschik/Arnold
Jewish Studies Center. Housed in a new three million dollar, 12,000 square foot
building, the center offers college credit Jewish studies courses serving the
entire community. The Robert Scott Small Library houses the largest archives of
South Carolina Jewish history. Last but
not least, Reuben Morris Greenberg has been Chief of Police in the city since
1982. He is the first African-American
Jewish police chief in the city’s history.
1831: Robert le diable (Robert the
Devil) an opera in five acts composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer premiered tonight at
the Academie Royale De Musique in Pars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_le_diable#/media/File:Robert_le_Diable_(Meyerbeer)_1831.jpg
1835: Twenty-three year old South Carolina native Adeline Moses, married
twenty-four year old Columbia, SC native Levy I. Moses in Charleston after
which they had nine children.
1835: In Philadelphia, PA, Rebecca and David Eytinge gave birth to American
stage star Rose Eytinge whose first husband was David M. Barnes, whose second
husband was George Harris Butler, the nephew of a prominent Massachusetts
Congressman, was appointed Consul General in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1870” and
whose third husband was Joseph Cyril Searle.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/eytinge-rose
1837: Birthdate of “Austrian literary historian Marcus Landau” the native of
Brody who “wrote over 700 essays, memoirs, and feuilleton articles in German
and Italian for newspapers and literary periodicals.”
1841: Jonas Jonas married Catherine Levy the Great Synagogue today.
1842: Sir Louise Loewe created a series of hand-drawn maps for Sir Moses
Montefiore showing the parts of Western and Eastern Europe through which they
would be traveling on their way to the Levant.
1848: In New York, the "B'nai Jeshurun Ladies' Hebrew Benevolent
Society," for the relief of indigent females was formed thanks to the
efforts of Mrs. Henry Leo, Mrs. A.H. Lissak and Mrs. David Samson.
1849: Birthdate of William A Gans, who practiced law with Samuel B Hamburger
for 35 years and who besides his involvement in numerous Jewish communal
organizations, served as a Captain in the Sixth Regiment of the National Guard
of New York.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1915/04/09/106126272.html?pageNumber=11
1851: In New York, Albert M. Gans and Julia Stransky gave birth to attorney
William A. Gans the graduate of NYU, the youngest ever appointed to serve in
the New York National Guard and active member of the B’nai B’rith who was
president of the Maimonides Library for twenty years., president of the Menorah
Publishing Company for five years and columnist for the American Hebrew who wrote the “On the Wing Column” using the nom de
plume “Argus.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1915/04/09/106126272.pdf
1852: Birthdate of Jeanette Schwerin, the native of Berlin who “was a
women’s rights activist and a pioneer social worker.
1854: Birthdate of Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa who as Pope
Benedict XV denounced anti-Semitism in response to a petition by American Jews
and who gave Nahum Sokolov an extended audience where he presented the case for
a Jewish state in Palestine to the Pontiff.
1857: In Zanesville, Ohio, Jacob Schumacher and his wife gave birth to
Gottlieb Schumacher, the future U.S. Consular Agent in Haifa.
1859: Simon F. Norton the future father-in-law of Henry Klein, who had
founded Norton’s Dry Goods at Los Angeles earlier this year became a
naturalized U.S citizen today.
1860: Phineas Solomons married Julia Myers at the Great Synagogue today.
1861: Confederate President
Jefferson Davis appointed Judah P. Benjamin Secretary of War. Before the Civil
War, Benjamin had been the second Jewish member of the United States. After the war, he would refuse to surrender
and would move to Great Britain where he became a barrister. Benjamin is always connected with Louisiana
and New Orleans. However, there is also
a strong connection with Charleston, South Carolina. Judah Philip
Benjamin attended the Hebrew Orphan Society School in Charleston, as a boy. The
building still stands at 88 Broad Street. High on the front is a Hebrew
inscription. The house of Judah Benjamin's father can be seen nearby at 35
Broad Street.
1864: In Kassa, Hungary Louise Frankel and Ignatz Fischer gave birth to CCNY
grad and Bellevue Medical College trained medical doctor Louis Fischer, the
bacteriologist and author who was the husband of Clara Robert with whom he had
two sons – Doctors Alfred and Robert Fischer.
1865: Abraham Shnerman and Bonetta Wiley gave birth to Rosa Shnerman who
married Max Shloss and became Rosa Shnermann Shloss, the name on her tombstone
in Emmanuel Cemetery in Des Moines, IA.
1866: Jacob Schiff was licensed as a broker today.
1869: In Charleston, SC, Hannah and Maier Triest gave birth to Fannie Triest
Goldsmith, the granddaughter of Joseph Triest, the wife of Isaac Alexander
Goldsmith and mother of Myrtle Goldsmith.
1870: In Vilna, leather merchant Osip Berkman and Yetta Berkman gave birth
to Ovsei Osipovich Berkman who gained famed as Alexander Berkman the anarchist
from of Emma Goldman who attempted to assassinate Henry Clay Frick during the
steel strike.
1871: “Railroad Travel” published today described the interaction between a
passenger traveling from Syracuse and New York City and what he described as
“Hebrew matron” weighing at least “250 pounds.”
1873: It was reported today that the Charity Committee of the Hebrew
Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society has issued an appeal to the Jewish
community to provide aid to their less fortunate co-religionists who are
suffering during the current economic depression which has resulted in a marked
increase in unemployment. Because of the
severity of the current economic crisis there is a large number of “industrious
laborers and artisans” who are suffering and are not used to seeking aid and
assistance. Contributions of money and clothing can be left at Number 6 Walker
Street in Manhattan.
1874(12th of Kislev, 5635): Birthdate of Rena L. Phillips.
1875: According to reports published today, Emanuel B. Hart, a member of New
York’s Jewish community will be in charge of entertainment at next month’s fund
raiser for Mount Sinai Hospital.
1877: Birthdate of Rudolf Löb, the native of Eberfeld, Prussia who was the
first non-family member to serve as chairman of the banking house of
Mendelssohn & Co.
1878: It was reported today that a copy of the “Kabbala Denudata” which was
published in Frankfort in 1684 has been sold at auction for $19.00. (This
probably refers to work entitled “The Kabbalah Unveiled” by Christian Knorr von
Rosenroth.]
1879: “An assignment for the benefit of creditors, by Abraham Lager to Max
Moses, with $,1850 preferences was filed in the County Clerk’s office” in New
York today.
1879: A report was published today describing the worsening situation of the
Jews in Germany. During the last month,
at least 30 anti-Semitic pamphlets have been published in Berlin. An "Antisemiten-Liga" (“League of
Antisemites”) has been formed the members of which are “many of the wealthiest
and most prominent citizens.” Riots have
taken place in which Jews have been not only insulted by severly maltreated. The origin of this commotion may be traced
back directly to that current of reaction, both in Church and State, which is
now setting in over all Germany.”
1879: The first edition of The
American Hebrew is published in New York. Phillip Cowen was the first
publisher of this weekly paper which was founded by F. de Sola Mendes.
1879: In Coffeeville MS, Abraham and Carrie Lichtenstadter Kory gave birth
to University of Cincinnati graduate and HUC trained rabbi Solomon Kory
Lysander, the husband of Katherine Braham Kory who was the spiritual leader of
Rabbi Anshe Chesed in Vicksburg, MS.
1880: Founding of the Hebrew Union Synagogue in Greenville, MS located on
Main Street with a cemetery on Poplar Street whose members included Charles
Hafter, Sam Blum and Henry Schall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Friedland
1880: The annual reception and ball sponsored by the William Rothschild
Association is scheduled to take place this evening in New York City’s Irving
Hall.
1880: It was reported today that the government faced stiff questioning
about the recent outbreak of anti-Semitism during a session of the lower house
of the Prussian Diet. Deputies
“denounced the revival of race hatred and pointed out the inconsistency” of a
country that “had taken diplomatic action in favor of the removal of
disabilities of the Jews in the Balkan Principalities” harboring such
sentiments.
1881: “Jewish Legends” published today provides a detailed review of The
Wandering Jew by Moncure Daniel Conway.
1881: Birthdate of Viennese banker Felix Somary who before the Anschluss
repeatedly tried to get Baron Louis Nathaniel de Rothschild to leave Austria
1882: Jehiel Brill left Rosinoi, Russian Poland, with eleven men—ten farmers
and a "melamed" (teacher)—today, and arrived at Palestine the
following month. The story of his journey and of its results is given in detail
in his work, Yesod ha-Ma'aleh (The Base of the Slope). Brill was
Russian journalist who had been chosen for his take by Rabbi Samuel Mohilever
and Baron Edmond de Rothschild. (As
reported by the Jewish Encyclopedia)
1883: It was reported today that Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Nathan led the opening
march at the charity ball hosted by the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
1883: In Franklin Falls, NY, Nathan Lamport, the son of Esther and Tsvi
Hirsch Lamport and Sarah Lamport gave birth to Arthur Lamport.
1883: Birthdate of Columbia and Harvard educated Dr. Jacques Jacob
Bronfenbrenner who in 1909 came to the United States where he eventually became
a Research Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the Bowman Gray School
of Medicine at Wake Forest University while raising two sons Dr. Martin and Dr.
Jack Bronfenbrenner with his wife “the former Alice Klein.”
1883: Birthdate of New York City native and Columbia Law School trained
attorney, George Zerdin Medalie, the Republican who lost the Senate race in
1932 but who was appointed to the NY Court of Appeals by Governor Dewey and who
was the father of tennis player Gladys Heldman, “the founder of World Tennis magazine.”
1884: In Odessa, Mordecai (Max) Podeell and Minnie Podell gave birth to
David Louis Podell, who came to the United States in 1893 where he became a
successful lawyer in New York, helped to draft the National Industrial Recovery
Act,served as a trustee for the Federation of Jewish Charities and the
Educational Alliance and was the husband of Sarah (Cissie) Podell
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1947/02/02/93786780.pdf
1884: Birthdate of Peoria native Doris Glixon Bernstein, the wife of
Gottfried D. Bernstein who was “active in the National Council of Jewish Women.
1885: At Parepa Hall on the corner of 86th Street and Third
Avenue “A charitable fair” sponsored by the Hebrew Ladies’ Benevolent Society
which is raising “funds to assist the poor without regard to creed, color or
nationality” is scheduled to come to an end this evening
1885: On Shabbat, Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes delivered a sermon at Shearith
Israel Synagogue “concerning the recent meeting” of a group of rabbis at
Pittsburgh “and their publication of a…declaration of the ideas of reformed
Judaism, ideas which” the rabbi said, “are totally different from European
reformed Judaism.
1886: Birthdate of Polish native and coloratura soprano Maria Maybarduk, the
wife of Peter Maybarduk and mother of Alexander P. Maybarduk who trained at the
Warsaw Conservatory and performed in Berlin before eventually migrating to the
United States.
https://adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Maybarduk-Gary-H.pdf
1886: Three days after she had passed away, 80 year old Rosetta (Rose)
Lazarus, the widow of Joseph Lazarus, with whom she had eight children, was
buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1886: In Kraza, Lithuania, Rebecca Wilensk and Joseph Preiss gave birth to
University of Berlin graduate and Berlin Rabbiner Seminar trained Rabbi, Samuel
Price who in 1907 came to the United States where her married Fanny Hailperin
and went from serving as religious director of the Baron de Hirsh Agricultural
School to leading Temple Beth El in Springfield, MA
1887: Birthdate date of Louise Pollak who married Julian Pollak in 1913
1887: “Something About Prejudice” published today highlights the views of
Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler on this subject. In his view, the Jews can do a great
deal “to totally annihilate” prejudice “by not exhibiting prejudice in their
turn.”
1888: It was reported today that Conrad Ausorge performed Schubert’s “Wander
Fanstasia” at the Metropolitan Opera House as part of concert that was a
fundraiser of the Aguilar Free Library which was founded in 188 and named for
Sephardic Jewish author Grace Aguilar.
1888: In Romania, Rabbi Ezekiel Paneth, the son of R' Moshe Paneth, Daszer
Rebbe and Malka Paneth and his wife Rebetzin Rivka Paneth gave birth to R'
Jacob Elimelech Paneth, A.B.D. Desh.
1890: After surviving a three day run the Finance Committee of the Citizens’
Savings Bank which had been so desperate to regain public confidence that it
had enlisted the services of a local rabbi, is scheduled to meet today to see
what can be done to salvage the financial institution that has large number of
poor Jewish depositors.
1890: Mark Koss, a tailor from Kiev, begged Agent Reinholz of the United
Hebrew Charities Society to help him recover his missing baby who had been
kidnapped by Sara Grimsburg, a former girlfriend whom he had known in Russia.
1891: A “Palestine Bazaar” a fund raiser held to provide additional funds
for the Louis Down-Town Sabbath and Daily comes to an end after three
days. The Bazaar had been closed on
Friday.
1891: Herzl's comedy "Prinzen aus Genieland" - "Princes from
Genius Land", is produced at the Carltheater in Vienna. It achieves only a
short run.
1891(20th of Cheshvan, 5652): In the U.K. 41 year old David
Crawcour who lived at 10 Mulcaster Street, passed away today.
1892(2nd of Kislev, 5653): Henry Murh, a prominent member of the
Philadelphia, PA Jewish community passed away.
A native of Bavaria, he established H. Murh’s Sons, a jewelry
manufacturing firm.
1892: Sándor Wekerle, the Prime Minister of Hungary appeared before the Diet
where he “promised that bills for State recognition of the Jewish religion”
would be introduced by his government.
1893: Dr. Joseph Silverman introduced Professor Charles Briggs at a meeting
of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association who lectured on “Modern Biblical
Criticism.”
1893: “A Sop for Jews in Russia” published today described a possible new
policy in Russia that will Jews to live in “Russo-Polish” villages owned by
noblemen who will “guarantee their lawful behavior” but will continue to forbid
Jewish settlement where such guarantees cannot be obtained.
1894: “The New Czar” published today held out little hope for an improvement
of the condition of the Jews, since “the cruel persecution of the Jews, was the
most popular part of the late Czar’s governmental program and that if a “really
representative Russian Parliament” were ever assembled it adopt even more
stringent regulations against the Jews.
1895: Several New York Jewish businessman expressed their “utter
indifference” with the announced plans of Dr. Ahlwardt , the German anti-Semite
and Jew baiter to visit the United States next month.
1895: Herzl arrives in London and holds conversations with Israel Zangwill.
Zangwill gives him the names of "several suitable men" with whom to
meet including Colonel Goldsmid, Rabbi Singer and Chief Rabbi Adler.
1896: Following the issuance of President Grover Cleveland’s Thanksgiving
Proclamation that asked for “a continuance of heavenly favor through the
mediation of Him who us how to pray, Rabbi Isaac M. Wise said that in invoking
the image of Jesus, “the President panders to the passions of those bigoted
sectarians who have been endeavoring to undermine the pure secularism upon
which this Government is based.”
1896: Birthdate of New York native and Harvard graduate Kassel Lewis, the
founder of Crown Fabrics Corporation, Naval veteran of both WW I and WW II and
an activist in the Jewish community as could be seen by his work with the UJA
and the Federation of Jewish Charities who was the husband of “the former
Sylvia Surut, with whom he had two children, Mrs. Gene Shalit and Anthony
Lewis, correspondent and columnist for the New York Times.
1896(16th of Kislev, 5657): Parashat Vayishlach
1896: The University of Wisconsin football team
led by first year head coach Philip King, a Jewish native of Washington, DC
defeated the University of Minnesota today for its sixth straight victory.
1896: Birthdate of New York native, Harvard
graduate and US Navy veteran of two world wars Kassel Lewis the husband of the
former Sylvia Surut, director of the YMHA and YWHA nursery school and the
father Mrs. Gene Shalit and New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis who founded
Crown Fabric Corporation with his brother in 1930.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/03/19/90071781.html?pageNumber=47
1897: The Chief Rabbi is scheduled to preach the sermon at today’s service
marking the celebration of the centenary of the founding of Western Synagogue
which will include a musical program under the direction of Orchestra conductor
Johann Davids and choir director D.M. Davis.
1897: Professor Felix Adler delivered an address “What is Religion?” at the
Carnegie Music Hall today.
1897: The Board of Deputies is scheduled to hold its monthly meeting this
morning at the Vestry room of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in London.
1897: Today, Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, the founder and President of the
National Farm school said, "It requires courage, moral courage, the
highest kind of courage to be honest: fairly, frankly, fully honest. If you are
honest, their lives not a man on earth who can humiliate you. If you have
honor, though very little else besides, you have more wealth, more glory, more
power, than all the hypocrites combined."
1897: Services were poorly attended today at Temple Emanu-El “owing to the
fact that it was not generally known that Sunday services were being held” and
that this only the second Sunday on which Sabbath services have been held. (The
Reform Movement would find that moving Shabbat Services from Saturday to Sunday
would not be a boon to attendance any more than the replacing Saturday services
with Friday Night Family Services would be.)
1898: In London, Sir Meyer Adam Spielman and Gertrude Emily Spielman gave
birth to Winifred Jessie Gertrude Speilmann who became Winifred Jessie Gertrude
Raphael when she married Ralph Oliver Raphael.
1898: After having identified the body Emanuel Wachenheim, William Wolf was
reported to have said he count imagine “why he killed himself” since he was “in
good circumstances,” had a wife and three children and was active in several
Jewish organizations including the Sons of Benjamin.
1898: According to a description published today the new Hebrew Infant
Asylum “building” which can accommodate 200 children “is a four story structure
of colonial design” that includes all the modern conveniences including “a
hospital for contagious disease.”
1899: Herzl submits a memorandum for the Czar to explain the Zionist plans
and to ask for an audience.
1899(19th of Kislev, 5660): Seventy-three year old A. L.
Freidland (Moshe Aryeh Leib Friedland) the husband of Hanna Keila Friedland and
the “donor of the Bibliotheca Friedlandiana to the Imperial Academy of
Sciences” passed away today in St. Petersburg, Russia.
1899: In Paris, “The Senate sitting as High Court for the trial of
conspiracy cases resumed the examination of” Jules Guérin “who insisted the
Anti-Semitic League of France” of which he is a leader ‘had not meddled with
politics but had merely ‘defended the working classes against the power of the
Jews and that he “had never plotted against the Republic.” (Anti-Semitism, including the Dreyfus case,
were part of a larger conflict between those who supported the Third Republic
and those who sought a rightist takeover.)
1899: Birthdate of Bohemian naïve Hans Goldman, the Prague trained award
winning Swiss ophthalmologist
http://ascrs.org/honorees/hans-goldmann-md
https://bjo.bmj.com/content/bjophthalmol/76/6/384.full.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322693931_Hans_Goldmann_1899-1991
1900: It was reported today that Miss Annette Kohn had delivered a paper on
“The Jewish Problem in New York” in which she began by saying that “to find
bond of union between the downtown and uptown Jews in the synagogue is perhaps
not immediately possible, but there is another bond” that joins them “the
social bond which implies the bond of face.”
1900: Birthdate of Galicia native and historian Emanuel Ringelblum, the
chronicler of the Holocaust best known for “Ringleblum Archive” and “Oyneg
Shabbos” which told the Jewish version of the Dark Night. (Editor’s note: This blog cannot justice to what this amazing man did so I recommend
reading the links below and Who Will Write Our History.
https://archives.jdc.org/exhibits/in-memoriam/emanuel-ringelblum/
https://www.yadvashem.org/education/educational-materials/books/who-will-write.html
1900: It was reported today that Miss Annette Kohn read a paper on “The
Jewish Problem in New York,” “a careful study of the sociological conditions
which have been claiming the leading Hebrew thinkers and philanthropists” in
New Yok at the monthly meeting of the Council of Jewish Women which was held in
the vestry of Temple Beth-EL
1901: The care of children was scheduled to be the topic at the second day’s
meeting of the Second New York State Conference of Charities and Corrections at
which time Rabbi Adolph M. Radin will be allowed to express his concern about
the treatment of Jewish children at the Juvenile Asylum including the lack of a
Rabbi to serve the children and the practice of taking Jewish children and
sending to live with Christian families who will raise the youngsters in that
faith.
1901: Birthdate of Harry Denberg.
1901: Reverend Lyman Abbot discussed the relations of the Christians and the
Jews in the east side, the if “there is dissension between the Christians and
the Jews” “the Christians are to blame for it” when they go to a Jew “with
clinched fists…”
1902: It was reported today $20,000 was contributed “to aid the need Jews of
Baltimore” following the last annual “banquet of the Hebrew Benevolent Society
held in Music Hall.”
1903: Birthdate of Warsaw native Isaac Chomski, “the official doctor to the
Israeli Consulate and United Nations Mission” in New York City.
http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2016/09/yitskhok-khomski-isaac-chomski.html
1904: In New York City, “Charles H. Israels, an architect and Belle Linder
who was a political advisor to Governor Al Smith gave birth to Carlos L Israels
the graduate of Amherst and Columbia University Law School, “a specialist in
securities law” and “ the president of the United Hias Service” who was the
husband of “the former Ruth Goldstein” with whom he had three children –
Charles, Michael and Elizabeth.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/07/26/81552662.pdf
1904(13th of Kislev, 5665): A month before his 62nd
birthday, Joseph Bernard Bloomingdale, the Bavarian born Jewish immigrant who,
along with his brother Lyman “founded Bloomingdales Department Store” or as it
is known to shopping aficionado’s
“Bloomies.”
http://genforum.genealogy.com/bloomingdale/messages/56.html
1905: Albert Einstein's paper, "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon
Its Energy Content?", is published in the journal "Annalen der
Physik". This paper reveals the relationship between energy and mass. This
leads to the famous equation e=mc².
1905: “In an interview on the ant-Jewish outrages Prince Urusoff, the new
Assistant Minister of the Interior said today that the Jews were to a certain
extent to blame on account of their open exultation over their new found
liberties.”
1905: Having already sent $600,000 to Sir Samuel Montagu which is to be
forwarded as quickly to Russia, Jacob H. Schiff, Treasurer of the National
Committee for the Relief of Sufferers by Russian Massacre is scheduled to send
$50,000 today to the Anglo-Jewish leader for their Russian co-religionists.
1905: In Chicago, “M.E. Greenbaum, Treasurer of the Jewish Relief
Association Committee, sent a check for $20,000 to Jacob H. Schiff of New York”
today bring the total sent from this city to $60,000.
1905: It was reported today that Miss Lillian D. Wald of the Nurses
Settlement and her co-workers have offered “to go to Russia and nurse the sick
and wounded.”
1905: Dr. Maurice Fishberg of the Jewish Daily News “received a letter from
Solomon Rabinowitz” the author known as Sholom Aleichem describing conditions
in Kiev in which he wrote “I, with my wife and children are cowering under a
storm of leaden bullets that are being fired over our heads so that we shall
remain powerless, useless, paralyzed.”
1905: In the Russian capitol, “an afternoon paper quotes a man who has just
arrived in St. Petersburg as saying that 10,000 Don Cossacks are marching from
Tashkent to St. Petersburg with the object of releasing the Emperor, whom they
believe to be a captive in the hands of the Jews.”
1905: “Speaking of the Jewish question a member of the Russian Cabinet said
today: “For the Cabinet there exists no Jewish question. It is not what should be done, but how to do it. We are absolutely of one mind that all the
restrictions on the Jews should be abolished.
But for the government to decree equality without action on the part of
the Duma would be full of danger” because anti-Semitism is so prevalent in the
country.
1906: It was reported today that in New York, the Fire Commissioner has
asked the Finance Committee of the Board of Alderman for an appropriation of
“$1,000 for a Hebrew interpreter.”
1906: Felix Adler, Oscar Straus, Isaac Stern and Professor E.R.A. Seligman
were among those who attended the Memorial Service for the late Carl Shurz
where the speakers included President Grover Cleveland.
1907: Birthdate of American artist Aaron Bohrod, the native of Chicago and “son
of an emigre Bessarabian-Jewish grocer” who is “best known for his trompe-l'œil
still-life paintings.”
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-aaron-bohrod-12310
1908(27th of Cheshvan, 5669): Parashat Chayei Sara
1908: The Kaiser's Government officially declined to take the initiative in
the approaching Balkan Congress with regard to the treatment of Jews in
Romania.
1909: In New York City, Pauline Meltsner and Joseph Goldwater gave birth to
Dora Goldwater the older sister of Sadie Goldwater.
1909(8th of Kislev, 5670): Mrs. Mariane Leibowitz passed away
today.
1910: Cyrus L. Sulzberger has declined reelection as President of the United
Hebrew Charities because “he felt that be could no longer devote the time to
the work of the institution which it needs.”
1911: “Ambassador Guild’s representations on behalf of American Jewish
citizens whose passports are rejected by the Russian Government have been
ignored” which comes as no surprise because the new Minister of the Interior is
an anti-Semite who “is now engaged in attacking those Russian Jews whose
educational diplomas entitle them to live outside of the Jewish pale.”
1912: In Palestine, Nehemiah Myer Cohen and his wife gave birth to Israel
Cohen, who left his father’s butcher shop business in Lancaster, PA during the
1930’s to combine forces with Samuel Lehrman to open the first of the grocery
stores that became the Giant Food store chain.
1912: The New York State Conference of Charities and Corrections which was
attended by delegates Samuel Untermyer, Mortimer L. Schiff, Simon Rosendale of
Albany, NY, William M. Rosendale, Rabbi Max Landsberg, Mrs. Albert Hessberg,
Samuel Gompers and Lee Frankel of New York City opened in Syracuse, NY was
scheduled to come to an end today.
1913: Supreme court Justice Seabury ordered the sale in foreclosure of the
Bijou Theatre property in a suit brought by Felix M Warburg, Isaac N Seligman,
Paul M. Warburg and Mortimer L. Schiff as trustees under the will of Alfred M.
Heinsheimer against the Bijou Real Estate Company. [Seabury was the only
non-Jew mentioned in this item.]
1914(3rd of Kislev, 5675): Parashat Toldot
1914(3rd of Kislev, 5675): George Zierger passed away today in
New York.
1914: Thirty-six year old Austrian lawyer Ernst Lanzer, a patient of Freud
was captured by the Russians today while serving in the Austrian army.
1914: “Contributions to the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews
suffering the war” as of today “amount to $1,845” with the amount deposited to
date in the Guaranty Trust Company of America totaling $23, 556.
1915: Funeral services for Dr. Solomon Schechter were held this morning at
the Jewish Theological Seminary. Four
hundred mourners, including a “who’s who” of the Jewish community, packed the
building while more than a thousand people stood outside waiting to pay homage
to the deceased sage and scholar.
1915: In response to a written, publicly published request by Ephraim Cohen,
their President, members of Congregation Kehilath Israel are among those
attending the funeral service Professor Solomon Schechter that start this
morning at 10:30 A.M.
1915: “In an address” today “before the Independent Order Free Sons of
Israel at Daniel Webster Hall, Maurice B. Blumenthal expressed the Jewish
fraternal organization’s opposition to the Gary Plan because of its “religious
features.”
1915: The funeral of New Yorker Isaac Aaron who passed on November 19 is
scheduled to be held today
1915: The tombstone of Abraham Weckstein was unveiled this afternoon at
Mount Zion Cemetery at Maspeth, L.I.
1916: Birthdate of BeatriceDenberg,
1916: Birthdate of Sid Luckman, legendary quarterback of the Chicago Bears.
1916: Emperor Franz Josef dies at the age of 85. He
is followed to the throne by his 29 year old great nephew, Archduke Charles.
Beginning with the start of regime of Franz Joseph I of Austria as the Emperor
of the Austria–Hungary Empire his Jewish subjects enjoyed an unprecedented
period economic, artistic and social success. “Emperor Franz Joseph I of
Austria bestowed on the Jewish population equality of rights saying, ‘the civil
rights and the country’s policy is not contingent in the people’s religion.’
The emperor was well liked by the Jewish population, which as a token of
appreciation wrote prayers and songs about him which were printed in Jewish
prayer books. In 1849 the emperor canceled the prohibition against the Jewish
population organizing within the community. In 1852 new regulations of the
Jewish community were set. In 1867 the Jewish population formally received full
equal rights. In 1869 the emperor visited Jerusalem and was greeted in great
admiration by the Jewish population there. The emperor established a fund aimed
at financing the establishment of Jewish institutions and in addition
established the Talmudic school for rabbis in Budapest. During the 1890s
several Jews were elected to the Austrian parliament.” But Franz Josef’s
greatest impact on the Jewish people was his role in the start of World War
I. The Emperor’s unwillingness to reach
any compromise with Serbia and his determination to punish his Slavic neighbor
unleashed the catastrophe that caused unprecedented suffering for the Jews of
eastern Europe who were caught between the opposing imperial armies for four
years, unleashed the forces that led to the Holocaust and led to the
destruction of the Ottoman Empire that results of which reverberate across the
Middle East as we approach the second decade of the 21st century.
1917:
“Heavy rainfall and cold weather” thwarted the advance of His Majesty forces
who were faced with 8,000 entrenched troops and their artillery which led to a
decision retire to Beit Ur el Foqa and wait for support from the 1 Squadron of
the Australian Flying Corps which would give them an edge as they continued to
advance towards Jerusalem.”
1917:
Dr. Anna White Sage is scheduled to deliver an address on “Morals on Social
Hygiene in War Time” at today’s “regular meeting of the Baron Hirsch Woman’s
Club” at the Sinai Social Center in Chicago.
1917: The Allied Forces (including Jewish soldiers) under General Allenby
were fighting the Turks on the slopes of Nebi Samwil, the traditional site of
the Tomb of the Prophet Samuel.
1917: Dr. Emil G. Hirsch led the Study Class of the Chicago Woman’s aid
which met this morning at the Sinai Center in Chicago.
1917: Nora Funkenstein is scheduled provide a piano selection and Dr. Anna
White Sage is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Morals on Social Hygiene in
War Time” at today’s regular meeting of the Baron Hirsch Woman’s Club at the
Sinai Social Center in Chicago.
1918: After the fall of the
Czar there was a strong movement in Ukraine
to establish an independent political entity. The Jewish parties voted against
the severance with Russia leading to direct attacks on the Jews in the form of
Pogroms (lasting 2 years). One of the first attacks was in Lvov where 72 Jews
were killed and 443 wounded.
1918: In Dorchester, MA, Solomon and Ray (Brooks) Prokesch gave birth to Dr.
Clemens Prokesch, the graduate of Yale, MIT and New York Medical College and
husband of Natilie Prokesch who practiced internal medicine after his discharge
from the U.S. Air Force.
http://www.neilanfuneralhome.com/obituary/Clemens-E.-Prokesch/New-London-CT/416809
1918: Otto Bauer began serving as the Foreign Minister of Austria.
1918: During the Polish-Ukrainian War, the Lwów or Lemberg Pogrom began.
1918: Polish soldiers organize a pogrom
against Jews of Galicia, Poland.
1919: Applications are now being received the offices of the Joint
Distribution Committee at 20 Exchange Place from men who will “serve in a unit
of expert relief and welfare workers to aid in the rehabilitation of Jews in
Poland.”
1919: After having commissioned as the first Jewish chaplain in the United
States Navy in 1917 with the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade, Rabbi David
Goldberg completed his services at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station today
where he had been serving since June of 1918.
1919(28th of Cheshvan, 5680): Eighty-one-year-old Leopold Luchs,
the Bavaria born son of Judith Marx Luchs and Seligman Pinchas Luchs and the
husband of Hannah Luchs with whom he had five children – Augusta, Morris,
Clara, Norman and Albert – who with his brother “ran a cigar import business”
and who “established Red Oak Spring Company to sell bottled water” which was a
response to the district’s typhoid fever problem, passe away today in
Washington, DC.
https://bygonebrookland.com/2016/09/23/before-the-arboretum/
1919: It was reported today that “Abraham Krotoshinsky , a private in
Company K of the 307 th Infantry , when his Battalion was surrounded in the
Argonne Forest and who saved The Lost Battalion when it was completely
surrounded in the Argonne Forest , is now a student at The National Farm School.
1919: In an interview with the Sultan, Hahambashi assures him that Jews will
never forget that when they were persecuted in other countries, Turkey welcomed
them and that, if they had reason for complaint in recent years, it was
directed rather against the regime which had been disastrous for all elements
of the population, than against the Turkish people.
1920: The annual meeting of Temple Israel of Harlem is scheduled to be held
today following by a banquet at the Hotel Astor.
1921: Dr. Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon this morning at
“What Does the Jew Believe About the Bible” at Carnegie Hall.
1921: Birthdate of Lev Lipschitz, the Moscow native who made Aliyah in 1924
and gained fame as Israeli political leader and MK Aryeh Eliav.
1921: In Los Angeles, Mordechai and Elsie Vickman gave birth to Robert “Bob”
Vickman, the WW II veteran of the USAAF who disappeared in July, 1948 while
flying a mission for Squadron 101, the first fighting unit of the infant
Israeli Air Force
1922: The first official meeting of the Lausanne Conference, which was
intended to deal with issues arising out of the dissolution of the Ottoman
Empire was held today with Lord Curzon serving as its President.
1922: Birthdate of New York native Lucille Maurer, the graduate of UNC and
holder of an M.A. from Yale and leader of the Democratic Party in Maryland who
was “the first woman Treasurer of Maryland.”
https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/08conoff/former/html/msa01557.html
1923: Birthdate Harry Zohn the native of Vienna who became a professor at
Brandeis University.
1924: In Baltimore Cantor Max Kotlowitz and his wife Debra gave birth to “Robert
Kotlowitz, a novelist and editor who reluctantly became a public television
executive in 1971 and went on to help shape a lineup of homegrown and imported
shows — including “The MacNeil/Lehrer Report,” “Live at the Met,” “Dance in
America” and “Brideshead Revisited” — that represent a high-water mark in
American television” (As reported by Paul Vitello)
1924: Today, the Febre Line vessel, SS Canada which is carrying the body of
the late Dr. Menachem Mendel Scheinkin set sail for Jaffa which is to be the
site for his burial.
1925(4th of Kislev, 5686): Parashat Toldot
1925: Stephen A. Wise announced today that “the five million dollar United
Palestine Funds Appeal, represent the greatest effort American Jews have ever
undertaken for the restoration of the Holy Land will be launched on November 29
at a National Palestine Conference in Baltimore, MD.”
1926: “President Coolidge's endorsement of the Jewish Education
Association's campaign for $500,000 to provide scholarships in religious
instruction for 10,000 children was contained in a letter read tonight at the
launching of the campaign at a dinner at the Hotel Astor.”
1926: “Speaking here today at the National Conference on Palestine, Nathan
Straus invited Henry Ford to select eight members of a committee of ten to
prove that he was misled in his "campaign of slander against the Jewish
people.”
1927: In Cherry Hills, NJ, Leo and Bella Adler gave birth to CPA Milton
Adler, the husband of Marion Adler.
1928: “Children to Aid Palestine Fund” published today described the plans
of Hadassah to “enlist the services of 125,000 children in” New York City
religious schools “in its campaign to raise $15,000 to provide luncheons for
school children in Palestine.”
1928: In Bavaria, Ferdinand Weil the German born son of Samuel and MIache
Weil and he is wife Sitti Weil gave birth to Alfred Wiel
1929: Birthday of Nahum Admoni the native of Jerusalem who served as Direct
of Mossad from 1982 to 1986.
1929: Birthdate of Brooklyn born comedian Stanley Myron Handelman. By the time he died on August 5, 2007 at the
age of 77 Handeleman had enjoyed a successful career as a television and
nightclub comedian.
1930: Birthdate of Melvin “Mel” Seeman “a 6'5" forward and center, who
played for three seasons with NYU after which he played one season the old
American Basketball Association.
1931: With Sid Gillman playing End, Ohio State defeated the
University of Illinois in the last home game of the season.
1932: In New York City, Gertrude and Abraham Kirschenbaum, an optometrist,
gave birth to Lois Kirshenbaum, the Brooklyn Dodgers fan and “one of New York’s
biggest and longest-standing opera buffs and a nightly staple at the opera
since the late 1950s, before Lincoln Center was built, when the Met was located
in Midtown.” (As reported by Corey Kilgannon)
1933: A delegation representing all elements of the Jewish community
including members of the Vaad Leumi, representatives of Agudath Israel, leaders
of the agricultural community and Israel Rokach, the Vice Mayor of Tel Aviv,
met with the High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope. They were protesting British immigration
policy including plans to deport Jews already living in Palestine as well as
the negative impact of that immigration policy on the economic well-being of
all those living in Palestine including the Arab populace.
1933: Henry G. Schackno resigned his seat in the New York State Senate
preparatory to filling one of the new Justice of the City Court positions to
which he had been elected on November 7.
1934: Dr. George Landauer and Dr. Martin Rosenbluth said today that “twenty
thousand German Jewish refugees have settled in Palestine and one-fifth of them
are engaged in agriculture.”
1935: U.S. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, NYC Mayor Fiorello La Guardia
and 800 others honored Rebekah Kohut's 50 years of communal work at a special
dinner. Chaired by the novelist Fannie Hurst, the dinner assembled a wide array
of political, cultural, and philanthropic notables who spoke of Kohut's varied
contributions and her efforts to apply scientific principles to charitable
work. Kohut was a notable activist in the Jewish and secular communities in the
areas of education, social welfare and women's organizational life. She came to
the United States from Hungary as a child, growing up in Richmond and San
Francisco where her father served as a rabbi. In her early twenties, she
married the traditionalist New York rabbi Alexander Kohut, a widower with 8
children, 6 under the age of 13. Rebecca devoted herself chiefly to these
children and to her husband's scholarly work until his death in 1894. In
succeeding years, Kohut immersed herself in the expanding world of Jewish
women's organizational life and in the financial support of her family. She was
the first president of the New York Section of the National Council of Jewish
Women, gave public lectures on Jewish subjects, and opened a private school in
cooperation with her stepchildren. During World War I, she became involved in
employment work, which led to her role as an advisor on unemployment to New
York governor Franklin D. Roosevelt in the early 1930s. Her efforts to bring
relief to devastated European Jewish communities after World War I led to her
leading role in convening the World Congress of Jewish Women in Vienna in 1923
and being elected as the organization's first president.
1935(25th of Cheshvan, 5696): Fifty-one year old “Bernard S.
Deutsch, the President of the Board of Alderman,” an NYU trained attorney and
president of the American Jewish Congress” who was the husband of “the former
Frances Weinstein” with whom he had “two daughters, Elinor and Dorothy Edith,”
died unexpectedly this evening.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1935/11/22/101515300.pdf
https://archives.yale.edu/agents/people/56611
http://judaism_enc.enacademic.com/5064
1936: It was reported today that Janien Berg, a Polish-Jewish student who
had once studied in Rome received money from Mussolini so that he could return
to Italy and finish his studies which had been stopped due to anti-Semitic
riots in Poland.
1936: “Three Men on a Horse” the movie version of the Broadway play directed
and produced by Mervyn LeRoy and featuring Same Levene in a reprise of his role
of “Patsy” was released today in the United States.
1936: At Temple Emanu-El Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a
sermon on “What Shall We Do About Our Fears?”
1936: At Temple Rodeph Sholom, Rabbi Louis I. Newman is scheduled to deliver
a sermon “The Brothers Ashkenazi.”
1936: At the Jewish Science Society, Rabbi Morris Lichtenstein is scheduled
to deliver a sermon on “Wake Up and Live.”
1937: Henri Caïn, who the libretto for “Le Juif Polonais” (The Polish Jew)
passed away today.
1937: Birthdate of Ingrid Pitt, the daughter of a Polish Jew who survived
the Stutthof Concentration Camp to become the first lady of British horror
cinema, who starring in sanguinary classics of the 1970s like “The Vampire
Lovers,” “Countess Dracula” and “The House That Dripped Blood.” (As reported by
Margalit Fox)
1938: The British House
of Commons objects to German persecution of minorities.
1938: Today “in an address to
the world's Catholics, the Pope rejected the Nazi claim of racial superiority,
and insisted instead that there was only a single human race”
1938: Birthdate of Sydney, Australia, native David John Alfred Clines, the
academic biblical scholar who “served as President of the Society for Old
Testament Study and the President Society of Biblical Literature” and who was
honored two books published in his honor Reading from Right to Left: Essay
on the Hebrew Bible and Interested Readers: Essays on the Hebrew Bible with
a contribution by Marc Zvi Brettler, the Brandeis trained Bernice and Morton
Lerner Professor in Judaic Studies at Duke University who won the National
Jewish Book Award in 2004.
1938(27th of Cheshvan, 5699): Pianist Leopold Godowsky passed away,
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F60914FF3C5F1B7A93C0AB178AD95F4C8385F9
1938: In the aftermath of Kristallnacht, Time published an article
entitled “German: These Individuals!”
"The
civilized world stands revolted by a bloody pogrom against a defenseless
people. Every instinct in us cries out in protest against the outrages which
have taken place in Germany during the last five years and which sank to new
depths in the organized frenzies of the last few days. . . . If you saw a gang
of cowardly ruffians set upon a helpless man in a public street and proceed to
beat him, you wouldn't long remain silent. If you saw a fanatical mob pillage
and burn a church or a synagogue you wouldn't long remain silent. If you saw a
brutal band drive helpless families from their own homes, you would speak out,
and promptly." Thus last week outspoke New York State's defeated
gubernatorial candidate, Republican Thomas E. Dewey, and was joined in vehement
indignation by Democratic Senator William H. King of Utah who proposed that the
U. S. forthwith break off diplomatic relations with the German Government.
Outspoke ex-U. S. President Herbert Clark Hoover: "The blame is squarely
up to the political agencies in power [in Germany]. These individuals are
taking Germany back 450 years in civilization to Torquemada's expulsion of the
Jews from Spain. They are bringing to Germany not alone the condemnation of the
public opinion of the world. These men are building their own condemnation by
mankind for centuries to come." One, Two, Three. But no active head of
State,* and no No. 1 official associates of any head of State chose to speak
out last week against "these individuals" who shocked an almost
shockproof world with a display of deliberate and unprovoked mass cruelty.
"These individuals" are four. Adolf Hitler is the World's No. 1
anti-Semite by temperament and conviction, whose intimate friend Julius
Streicher publishes Der Stunner, the grossly fanatical No. 1 anti-Semitic
newsorgan of the world. No. 3 Nazi Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels is a part-time
virtuoso of antiSemitism, using his Ministry for Propaganda & Public
Enlightenment alternately to incite and to calm German anti-Semitic mobs. And No.
2 Nazi Hermann Wilhelm GÖring is a ruthless German activist who signs the most
drastic anti-Semitic decrees and has them legally enforced by the courts, the
police and the army. "I Am Not A Dog!" The Führer was beside himself
last week because a Polish Jew, once a resident of Germany, had put two bullets
into Ernst vom Rath, third secretary to the Germany Embassy in Paris. Herr
Hitler immediately sent his personal physician, Dr. Brandt, to Paris
accompanied by the eminent German specialist, Professor Georg Magnus of the university
at Munich. Four blood transfusions failed to save Ernst vom Rath. He died in a
coma without being able to understand a message from the Führer promoting him
to First Class Embassy Counselor. The assassin, Herschel Grynszpan, meanwhile
told his French jailers: "Being a Jew is not a crime. . . . I hoped
President Roosevelt would take pity on us refugees. . . . I am not a dog. I
didn't mean to kill. I lost my head." "Mobs" and Mobs. Nazi
bigwigs have often said off the record that if a Jew should ever assassinate
the Fuhrer, "next day not a single member of the Jewish race would be left
alive in the Reich." Last week only a handful of Jews were reported killed
in the avenging of Ernst vom Rath. But in every part of Germany mobs smashed,
looted, burned Jewish property. The purpose was to wreak final ruin on a
section of the German population which had already been systematically
persecuted to the brink of ruin. Synagogues were everywhere fired or dynamited.
Numberless Jews of both sexes were beaten by mobs from the Baltic to the
Brenner and from Sudetenland to the North Sea. The complicity of the German
Government was proved by the fact that in most cases police made no effort to
restrain the so-called "mobs." These consisted mostly of young Germans
who drove up in cars. Heavy boots of the sort worn by party members when in
uniform gave a good clue to the identity of the window smashers and firebugs.
The synthetic "mobs" were in some cases joined by genuine mobs but
these were mostly Germans who simply grabbed what they could after Jewish shop
fronts had been smashed by the "mobs." Some mobsters tossed Jewish
goods out of smashed windows to passersby with guffaws and cries of: "Here
are some cheap Christmas presents. Get yours early!" Not all German Aryans
countenanced this depravity. Said an Aryan Berlin housewife despondently as she
watched Aryan children making off with the contents of a Jewish shop: "So
that is how they teach our children to steal!". A few poorly-clad men
jogged the elbow of a New York Times Berlin correspondent and whispered:
"The German people do not approve of such treatment of the Jews." Bad
Neighbor Policy. The harsh, explosive epithets in which the German language is
rich, were heaped, together with obscenities, upon Jewish men, women and
children in every part of the Reich. They were spat upon, cuffed, nose-jerked,
kicked and given black eyes. The atrocities stopped short of rape or firing
squads. Some Jews were so affected by the Nazi terror that, notably along the German-Netherlands
frontier, they pitifully got down on their knees and crawled some distance,
wailing and lamenting, to supplicate Dutch frontier guards to let them in.
These guards were adamant in every case, on instructions of Her Majesty's
Government, for The Netherlands has good reason to fear Bad Neighbor Germany.
Damage & Indemnity. In Germany, insurance companies reported damage claims
of more than $5,000,000 from Jewish policy holders in Berlin, more than
$4,000,000 in Vienna. The New York Times estimated that total damage to Jewish
property in Germany "may possibly reach one billion marks"
($400,000,000). The Times thought that the Jewish community this week, after
all depredations, still owned property in Germany worth perhaps four billion
marks ($1,600,000,000) and, before Hitler, may have owned 20 billions. But the
spoliation did not end with the three-day pogrom. At the Air Ministry in Berlin
last week, Air Minister Goring signed, as Economic Chief of the German
Four-Year Plan for Self-Sufficiency. decrees providing: 1) that Jews of German
citizenship as a community pay to the State a billion marks indemnity for the
assassination of Rath; 2) that the State confiscate whatever is payable to Jews
by insurance companies for damage done last week; 3) that Jewish owners of
damaged premises must repair them at their own cost; 4) that after Jan. 1, 1939
Jews be excluded from "operation of retail shops, mail-order houses and
independent exercise of handicrafts. . . . Jewish shops operated in violation
of this order will be closed by the police" [and presumably turned over to
Aryans]. He planned ultimately to move into ghettos all Jews who can or must
tolerate life in Germany. And Jews were also forbidden to go to theatres,
concert halls, art galleries, public schools, high schools, universities. In
Paris, when the assassin of Rath heard of these decrees, he vowed in anguish:
"I will pray every Monday for forgiveness for what I have done to my
people." In England meanwhile Lord Rothschild said that nothing short of
the execution of the Jews of Germany could be worse than what has now been
done. Let Jews Starve? In Frankfort, where the assassin once resided, every
male Jew between the ages of 18 and 60 was taken into custody. The same was
done in certain other German cities. With many Jewish breadwinners torn from
their families, with many of those families hungry, Der An griff, personal
organ of Dr. Goebbels, coldly noted: "Noticeably large is the number of
Jewish women with many children who ask for relief. . . . Our laws give even a
foreigner the right to relief. . . . [Jewish] progeny and their [obscene
synonym for "females"] become a burden on German funds." By
holding the Jewish community of Germany in a state of general inability to earn
a living wage, Nazis obviously hope to force the international Jewish community
to remit to Germany huge enough sums in "good money" to keep their
Jewish relatives in the Reich from going too hungry or too cold. The dollars,
pounds, francs to be secured by thus "shaking down the whole Jewish
race" (as some Nazis term it) are wanted to pay for such vital imports as
Germany cannot get by barter deals. The Schwarze Korps, influential Nazi
newsorgan of Adolf Hitler's personal Elite Guard and the Blackshirt Storm
Troops, has openly hinted at the burgeoning of this gangster-blackmail scheme
for several years. "Intellectual Originators." Referring to the
assassin, Der Angriff libelously insinuated: "It is no coincidence that
Grynszpan took the same line followed by Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden,
Alfred Duff Cooper and their associates!" Der Angriff went on with a long
list of "the intellectual originators of the crime'' which included,
strangely enough, certain French Rightists like Henri de Kerillis but not the
French Jewish Socialist on whom Nazis usually vent spleen, Leon Blum. Obvious
reason: Blum and his Socialists last week had not broken with French Premier
Edouard Daladier, one of the Munich "Big Four." In Paris the Jewish
aunt and uncle of the assassin were arrested and it was revealed that just
prior to the killing of vom Rath they were held under arrest for five days on
suspicion of harboring an undesirable alien. Their papers were seized and the
French Surete Generale probed to discover who really were the
"intellectual originators" of the crime—if any. Meanwhile, French
editors were not behind those of Britain and the U. S. in denouncing German
pogroms in the strongest possible language and showing they felt even that to
be inadequate. It was suggested that Charles Augustus Lindbergh and other
Aryans who have recently received high German decorations ought to send them
back to the Führer. Funk No. 2? The Great Powers plainly funked when Germany
was permitted to dismember Czechoslovakia. On the issue of Jewish persecutions
in Germany, Funk No. 2 raised its head this week. Typically funking was a
statement issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of All England:
"Would that the rulers of the Reich could realize that such excesses of
hatred and malice put upon the friendship which we are ready to offer them an
almost intolerable strain!"
*Britain's
Neville Chamberlain did say: "No one in this country would seek to defend
the senseless crime of the murder of vom Rath, but at the same time there will
be deep and widespread sympathy for those being made to suffer for it."
1939(9th of Kislev, 5700): Fifty three year old Aaron Lipper, the
president of Brooklyn’s Kay Manufacturing which makes steel products for
furniture and bedding and “the chairman of the budget and policy committee of
the American Committee for the Settlement of Jews in Birobidjan passed away
today “in Lakewood, NJ where he had gone to recuperate from pneumonia.”
1940: A cargo of 1,771 stateless Jews mostly from Austria, Slovakia,
Bohemia, Hungary and Rumania are loaded aboard the Patria, a French steamer
chartered by the British to ship them from Palestine to detainment camps on the
British island of Mauritius.
1941: U.S. premiere of “Shadow of the Thin Man,” the fourth in a series of
Thin movies in this case based on a story by Harry Kurnitz who also co-authored
the screenplay.
1942(12th of Kislev, 5703): Parashat Vayetzei
1942(12th of Kislev, 5703): Sixty-six year old Elizabeth, NJ
native and NYU trained attorney Abe J. David who served as district court judge
and country prosecutor and who was the husband of Anna Kampner David passed
away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1942/11/22/85067540.html?pageNumber=52
1942: It was reported today that that the Algiers Municipal Council has
adopted a resolution which says that the city would again be governed by the
principles of equality” thus abrogating the anti-Jewish ordinances of the Vichy
period and that the “Jews would be compensated for losses suffered as a result
of the Vichy laws.”
1943: Future Nobel Prize winner Dr. Arthur Kornberg
married Sylvy Ruth Levy, also a biochemist of note. She worked closely with
Kornberg and contributed significantly to the discovery of
1943:
In a review entitled “A Revolutionist’s Testament” Saul Bellow examines the
newly published Arrival and Departure by Arthur Koestler.
1944(5th
of Kislev, 5705): Eighty-four year old Hungarian sportsman Ferenc Kemeny, “a
founding member of the International Olympic Committee and Nobel Peace Prize
nominee” lost his battle with anti-Semitism and, along with his wife, committed
suicide today rather than face the deadly wrath of the Arrow Cross.
http://www.jewishsports.net/BioPages/FerencKemeny.htm
1944:
In Chicago, Ruth and Nathan Ramis, who owned the Ace Food & Liquor Mart on
the city's far North Side gave birth to Harold Allen Ramis who performed and
wrote in several comedies including Animal House and Groundhog Day.
1945: Laura and Edward Hawn gave
birth to Goldie Hawn, the product of the Washington suburbs who first gained
fame on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.
1945: “What Next, Corporal Hargrove?” a WW II comedy written by Harry
Kurnitz was released in the United States by MGM.
1945: John Farrar and Roger Williams Straus, Jr. “began the firm of Farrar
Straus & Co.”
1945: “Saratoga Trunk,” the film version of the Edna Ferber novel by the
same name produced by Hal B. Wallis with music by Max Steiner was released in
the United States by Warner Bros.
1945(16th of Kislev, 5706): Twenty-five year Al “Bummy” Davis, who named to Ring Magazine's list of 100 greatest
punchers of all time” was gunned down today when he tried to thwart a robbery
at Dudy’s Bar in Brownsville.
1946: Plans for the upcoming installation of Joseph Smith to serve as the
new Rabbi of Temple B’nai Israel in Burlington, NJ were published today.
1946: Today, in a ceremony that took place in Tropenmuseum Amsterdam, Rachel
“Didi” Harel was awarded the United States Medal of Freedom
1947: “Against Palestine Partition” a letter from several prominent
Americans published today provides a panoply of reasons of why the United
States should oppose the creation of a Jewish state including the fact that
four –fifths of the proven oil reserves are in Arab hands and the fact that
there are 40 million people inhabiting the Arab League States. The letter
writers “all have intimate Jewish friends” but warn that any outbreak of
violence in the Middle East that hampers American business interests will lead
to a wave of anti-Semitism in the United States.
1947: U.S. Premiere of “The Lost Moment” directed by Martin Gabel
1948: The
Sunday morning religious program "Lamp Unto My Feet" first aired over
CBS television. It became one of TV's longest-running network shows, and aired
through January 1979.
1948: Israeli soldiers jam the biblical city of
Beersheba to hear piano concertos played by Leonard Bernstein.
1948: Israeli premier David Ben-Gurion praises King
Abdullah of Transjordan and says he will meet with Abdullah and other Arab
leaders anytime they wish.
1948: It was announced in Tel Aviv today that “the
picking of citrus fruit will begin throughout Israel this week, with the
prospect of a crop almost equaling last season's in Jewish-owned groves but
altogether of a little more than one-third of the pre-war production in
Palestine.”
1949: The United Nations voted to give Libya its
independence within 14 months triggering a mass exodus of Jews who were so
fearful of their future in the Moslem state that they left even though it meant
giving up most of their property and wealth. Over 30,000 of these Jews
found refuge in the state of Israel.
1954: In New Rochelle, NY, stockbroker Phyllis (Stohn)
Jaffe, and commercial photo lab owner gave birth to NYU trained accountant Don
Lyle Jaffe, who gained fame as D.J. Jaffe, the Madison advertising executive
who became a “mental health advocate.” (As reported by Katherine Q. Seelye)
1954: In Baltimore, “Elizabeth D. (née Davidson) and
attorney Donald N. Rothman gave birth to Thomas Edgar “Tom” Rothman, the Brown
University Alum and Columbia Law School grad who went from teaching English and
coaching soccer” to serving as “the chairman of Sony Pictures Motion Picture
Group.
1955: It was reported today that a two-day conference
under the auspices of the American Tenchnion Society, the financial arm
Technion, which was being held at the Statler Hotel in Washington, D.C. has
come to an end.
1955(6th of Kislev, 5716): Sixty-one-year-old
London native and Stanford University trained attorney Maurice E. Blumenthal
the husband of Rose Horwitz who practice law in Douglas, AZ where he was an
amateur entrainer and then moved to Los Angeles suffered a fatal “heart attack
at the Savoy Hotel in London while one visit to England with his wife Freda.”
1957: It was “erroneously reported” in today’s editions
of the New York Times that Arthur M. Loew was head of Mediterranean Productions
which in fact his son, Arthur Loew, Jr. “head of the independent company.
1958: U.S. premiere of “The Tunnel of Love” produced by
Martin Melcher and Joseph Fields, with a script by Joseph Fields, the son of
Lew Fields.
1959(20th of Cheshvan, 5720) Parashat Vayera
1959(20th of Cheshvan, 5720): Forty-nine-year old former heavy weight
champion Max Baer passed away
1959: At the Brooklyn Jewish Center, Rabbi Herbert Leventhal officiated at
the wedding of Marsha Fensterheim and Michael Aaronson.
1959: Jack Benny, on the violin,
played a duet with pianist Richard Nixon, then Vice President of the United
States.
1961:
Alexander Bittelman was called before the House
Un-American Activities Committee to provide testimony about his former
organization today but he refused to testify, citing his rights under the 1st
and 5th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
1961: New Square, the first Chassidic town in the U.S., elected its
mayor.
1962: U.S. premiere of “Two For The Seesaw” produced by Walter Mirsch, with
music by Andre Previn which saw the movie debut of Harold Gould.
1962: Birthdate of Abraham Kwastler who gained fame as broadcaster Avri
Gilad who has been listed “among the top-ten TV earners.”
1962: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion attended the founding ceremony for the
city of Arad.
1963: Birthdate of Moisés Kaufman, Venezuelan theater director, filmmaker,
playwright, founder of Tectonic Theater Project, based in New York City, and
co-founder of Miami New Drama at the Colony Theatre who was awarded the 2016
National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama and is best known for creating
The Laramie Project (2000) with other members of Tectonic Theater Project.”
https://www.tectonictheaterproject.org/#moises
1965: The port of Ashdod port opened for business when a freighter docked at
the port for the first time.
1965: The Central Council of the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America
created a Golden Jubilee Committee to celebrate the Brotherhood's fiftieth
anniversary. At the time there were over 2,500 members of the Brotherhood.
1965: Birthdate of Memphis, TN filmmaker Ira Sachs whose movies include the
“semi-autobiographical Keep the Lights On” which premiered at Sundance in 2012.
1967: “The eponymous album of The Hassles,” a rock group that included Billy
Joel “was released today.”
1969: Wayne Morse (one of only two Senators to vote against the Gulf of
Tonkin Resolution) is scheduled to speak today at the funeral of Jewish labor
lawyer Lee Pressman which will be attended by “his widow, the former Sophia
Platnik, three daughters – Susan, Marcia and Dr. Ann Pressman – a his brother
Irving.
1970(22nd of Cheshvan, 5731): Chayei Sarah
1970(22nd of Cheshvan, 5731): Eighty-three year old Jacob
Granowitz, the retired founder and “proprietor of the Knickerbocker Textile
Company,” the former president of the Home and Hospital of the Daughters of
Israel,” and “former trustee of Beth Israel Medical Center and the Fifth Avenue
Synagogue” who was the husband of Ethel Granowitz with whom he had one son and
two daughters passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1970/11/23/83162704.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1970(22nd of Cheshvan, 5731): Anzia Yezierska, “a female
sweatshop worker from a Polish shtetl” who became a “renowned author” passed
away today.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/yezierska-anzia
1970: Birthdate of Israeli actress and comedienne Alma Zack.
1972: “Black Gunn” a “blaxploitation” movie co-starring Martin Landau was
released in the United States today.
1973: The Agranat Commission, a national committee charged with
investigating the failures of the IDF prior to the Yom Kippur War, was
established today.
1973: In New York City, Xenia and Charles J. Stephens gave birth to
University of Chicago and LSE trained Pulitzer prize winning journalist Bret Louis Stephen the editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post
whose paternal Louis Ehrlich had fled to the New York after the Kishinev
program.
1973(26th of Cheshvan, 5734): Seventy-four year old George M
Feigin the all-star City College athlete and graduate of Fordham University Law
School who served in WW I and founded Camp Chicopee for boys in Pennsylvania
passed away today.
1974(7th of Kislev, 5735): Forty-nine-year-old Brooklyn and
University of Kansas trained psychologist Dr. Theodore Leventhal, who retired
recently as executive director of the Children's Psychiatric Center of Monmouth
County in Eatontown, N. J. and was the husband of June Levnethal passed away
today.
1976: In New York, premiere of “Rocky” the boxing film produced by Irwin
Winkler and Robert Chartoff.
1976: Three days after he had passed away, the funeral was held for
sixty-six year old “Louis G. Cowan the former President of CBS was following
which he was buried “in a family plot on Martha’s Vineyard.”
1977: Off-Broadway premiere of
“Uncommon Women and Others” the first play written by Wendy Wasserstein.
1980: “The Apple” a musical comedy that “makes use of Biblical allegory including
the tale of Adam and Eve” directed and written by Menahem Golan who co-produced
along with Yoram Golbus and was filmed by David Gurfinkel was released in the
United States today.
1981: “Israeli athletes participating in the World Gymnastics Championship
in Moscow were given a rapturous welcome by hundreds of Jews when they visit
the Moscow central synagogue.”
1982: Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff delivered the closing prayer at the official
dedication of “The Wall,” the Vietnam memorial in Washington, DC
1984: “Operation Moses,” a two month long “covert evacuation of Ethiopian
Jews from Sudan began today.
1985: Jonathan Pollard and his wife were arrested and charged with
spying for Israel. Pollard, who had worked for Naval Intelligence, had passed
on information to Israel regarding Arab capabilities. Pollard was caught as he
was trying to enter the Israeli Embassy in Washington. The Pollard affair
caused great embarrassment to Israel both from the American perspective and
also due to Israel's refusal to support him once he was caught. He was given a
life sentence, and despite numerous requests from Israel for clemency he is
still in prison.
1988(12th of Kislev, 5749): Eighty-one year old Esther Gottlieb,
“the founder and president of the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation” which
provided aid for “older artists in need” passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/23/obituaries/esther-gottlieb-is-dead-art-fund-head-was-81.html
1988: Michael Dekel completed serving his term as Deputy Minister of
Defense.
1988: Weizman Shiry completed serving his term as Deputy Minister of Defense.
1989: Morton Isaac Abramowitz was appointed “Career Ambassador.”
1990: Michael
Milken was sentenced to 10 years for security law violations
1991: William Caldwell Harrop was named U.S.
Ambassador to Israel.
1991(14th of Kislev, 5727): Sixty year
old Columbia University dropout Robert Kaufman, the Peabody and Emmy award
winning screenwriter passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/26/obituaries/robert-kaufman-60-tv-and-film-writer.html
1991(14th of Kislev, 5752):Seventy-nine
award winning director Daniel Mann whose works ranged from comedies like “The
Teahouse of the August Moon” to weighty dramas like “ The Last Angry Man.”
1991(14th
of Kislev, 5752): David
"Sonny" Werblin passed away.
For most Americans, Werblin is best remembered for his purchase of the
New York Jets in 1963. Werblin then used
his fortune to draft the
1992(25th of Cheshvan, 5753): Parsahat
Chayei Sara
1992(25th of Cheshvan, 5753):
Eighty-three-year-old NYU University
trained Bronx obstetrician and general practitioner Dr. Samuel Hillel Sobel,
the husband of the former Betty Gruber with whom he had three children Drs.
Michael and Stephen Sobel and Dava Sobel.
1996: Publication of the Impressionist Print in
which Michel Melot describes Alphonse Hirsch as “an artist but mainly a
hanger-on” to Edgar Degas” who “was one of several prominent artists who
depicted Hirsch in his work.”
Read more:
http://forward.com/articles/181929/is-jewish-girl-star-of-edouard-manets-famed-painti/#ixzz3JZZh5Azz
1997: Speaking “at a ceremony at which he recalled
the push for peace made by” the late
Yitzhak Rabin President Clinton “warned the Israelis and Palestinians today
that they were running short of time” to reach come to an agreement.
1997: The movie version “Midnight in the Garden of
Good and Evil” featuring Michael Ronsebaum as “George Tucker” was released in
the United States today.
1998(2nd of Kislev): Eighty-eight year
old Nosson Meir Wachtfogel, the Lakewood Mashgiach, passed away.
1999(12th of Kislev, 5760):
Eighty-two-year-old Sidney Dubin, the son of Anna and Abraham Dubin and the
husband of Dorothy Dubin passed away today after which he was buried at Access
Jewish Cleveland in Beachwood,OH.
1999: The New
York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics
of Jewish interest including Yosl
Rakover Talks To God by
Zvi Kolitz; translated by Carol Brown, Village of a Million Spirits: A Novel of the Treblinka Uprising
by Ian MacMillan and In The Family Way: An Urban Comedy by Lynne Sharon Schwartz.
2000: Itamar Yefet, 18, of Netzer Hazani died from
a gunshot wound to the head by Palestinian sniper fire at the Gush Katif
junction
2000: Professor Peter Pulzer of Oxford, “the
Chairman of the Leo Baeck Institute of London and a prominent international
historian specializing in the history of German Jewry gave the first inaugural
Simon Dubnow Lecture” today.
2001: “Among the more than 1,100 people the
government has detained since Sept. 11 are dozens of young Israeli Jews who
came to the United States in recent months and took jobs selling trinkets at
shopping malls throughout the country.”
2002(16th of Kislev, 5763): Eleven people
were killed and some 50 wounded by a suicide bomber on a No. 20 Egged bus on
Mexico Street in the Kiryat Menahem neighborhood of Jerusalem. The bus was
filled with passengers, including schoolchildren, traveling toward the center
of the city during rush hour. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. The
victims: Hodaya Asraf, 13, of Jerusalem; Marina Bazarski, 46, of Jerusalem;
Hadassah (Yelena) Ben-David, 32, of Jerusalem; Sima Novak, 56, of Jerusalem; Kira
Perlman, 67, and her grandson Ilan Perlman, 8, of Jerusalem; Yafit Ravivo, 14
of Jerusalem; Ella Sharshevsky, 44, and her son Michael Sharshevsky, 16, of
Jerusalem; Mircea Varga, 25, a tourist from Romania; Dikla Zino, 22, of
Jerusalem.
2003: In Turkey, “the government and many citizens”
who were stunned by last Shabbat’s (November 15) synagogue attacked were
disappointed to learn that such was not the case when terrorists set off more
bombs today in Istanbul.”
2004: In“At Holocaust Museum, Turning a Number Into
A Name,” published today the New York Times reports on plans for Yad Vashem to
make its lists of Jewish victims of the Holocaust, along with biographical
information available on line.
2004: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors
and/or on topics of special Jewish interest including Breath: Poems by
Philip Levine
2005: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asked President
Moshe Katsav to dissolve the Knesset, just hours after he sent shockwaves
across the political system with his decision to quit the Likud and form a new
centrist party. Sharon formally announced that he had left the Likud and had
formed a new party called National Responsibility.
2005: Shaul Mofaz rejected Sharon's invitation to
join his new party, Kadima, and instead announced his candidacy for the
leadership of Likud.
2006: Southern California coastal authorities have
decided to allow a beachfront eruv - a boundary that makes it possible for
observant Jews to carry objects on Shabbat - to be built in the state for the
first time. The eruv will surround sections of Santa Monica, Los Angeles and
Marina del Rey.
2007: The planned chopping down of the chestnut
tree that comforted Anne Frank as she hid from the Nazis did not take place
thanks to a court order issued on November 20,2007 ordering city officials to
into ways to save the 150 year old tree.
2007: “Yiddish Theatre: A Love Story” opens at the
Two Boots Pioneer theater in Manhattan. This new documentary film is about Zypora Spaisman the amazing woman who
has kept the oldest running Yiddish Theater in America alive. Zypora Spaisman
is a Holocaust survivor who conquers all hearts in her passion for art, life
and Yiddish.
2008:
President Shimon Peres returns to Israel after a three-day state visit to Great
Britain where he met with dignitaries,
visited Parliament, delivered a lecture at Balliol College, Oxford University's
oldest college, and met with Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles and the Prime
Minister.
2008:
In Manhattan, the 92nd Street Y presents “An Exploration of the Seven Deadly,” during
which Aviad Kleinberg, one of the most prominent intellectuals in Israel
examines the seven deadly sins with his trademark insight and deadpan humor.
2008:
Dozens of synagogues and mosques across the United States and Canada are to
take part in a first-of-its-kind three-day joint public relations campaign
against anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim xenophobia beginning today.
2009: In the face of far-left, Arab and Muslim opposition, the New York Mets
organization has decided to honor its commitment to rent its Caesar's Club for
a fundraiser benefiting the Jewish community of Hebron that is schedule to be
held tonight.
2009: At the 92nd St Y in Manhattan Alan Dershowitz, the
self-described “top defender of Israel in the court of public opinion,” and
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder and director of J Street, debate issues surrounding
America’s policy in the Middle East with special emphasis on matters
surrounding Israel and its relationship with the United States.
2009: Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre, in collaboration with the National Czech
& Slovak Museum & Library, gives two performances of the children’s
opera, Brundibar, sponsored by the Joan & David Thaler Holocaust
Remembrance Fund, Bradley & Riley, P.C and Dr. Ronald and Sue Reider, two
pillars of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community.
2010: Michael Makovsky is scheduled to delve into Winston Churchill's
complex relationship with Zionism, his impact on the creation of the State of
Israel and the modern Middle East that emerged from the two world wars of the
20th century during a program entitled Winston Churchill, Zionism & the
Modern Middle East at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.
2010: Avrom Bendavid-Val, author of The Heavens are Empty: Discovering
the Lost Town of Trochenbrod is
scheduled to deliver a lecture based on his writings at the Historic 6th
& I Synagogue in Washington, DC.
2010:
The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including Foreign Bodies by Cynthia
Ozick and Saul Bellow: Letters edited by Benjamin Taylor.
2010:
The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or
of special interest to Jewish readers including The Dangerous Otto Katz: The
Many Lives of a Soviet Spy by Jonathan Miles. “The son of a prosperous
Czechoslovakian manufacturer, Katz, who was Jewish, was drawn to the theatrical
(and cabaret) life of Berlin, where he aspired to playwriting. What politicized
him was the rise of Nazism in the 1920s, in particular its vicious
anti-Semitism. He gravitated toward the Soviet Union, which seemed to him — not
incorrectly at the time — the only nation mounting any sort of effective
opposition to Hitler. In his accurate view, all the other major European states
were, albeit somewhat more politely, anti-Semitic as well.”
2010:
Outgoing head of
Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin issued a warning at his final
cabinet meeting today, saying that Israel should not be lulled into complacency
by the relative quiet that the country has recently enjoyed. Yadlin said that
Israel's enemies, with Iran under the leadership of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being
chief among them, are "getting more powerful and better arming
themselves."
2010:
Debbie Rosenbloom, the wife of David Levin, became a savta (grandmother) today
when her daughter-in-law gave birth to a daughter.
2011:
“Latkes & Grits” by Murray Wolfe is scheduled to open at the Missing Piece
Theatre in Burbank, California.
2011:
In California, Helen Duffy and Marcie Lynn Ross starred in “a wonderful reading
of Murray Wolfe’s funny future in-law comedy ‘Latkes and Grits.’”
2011:
David Mitchell became the Rabbi at West London Synagogue.
2011: The 8th Jewish Eye Festival,
the World Jewish Film Festival held annually at Ashkelon is scheduled to come
to an end.
2011: Israel and Arab states plan to attend talks
at a forum opening today sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency
aimed at freeing the world from nuclear weapons.
2011: Israel has
gradually boosted naval patrols around its east Mediterranean natural gas
fields for fear of guerrilla attacks and as maritime rivalry with Turkey
deepens, an Israeli official said today.
2011: A Jordanian
delegation visiting the West Bank today called on Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas to renew peace talks with Israel
2012: The Wiener Library for the Study of the
Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to sponsor a screening of 'Nuremberg: Its
Lesson for Today'
2012: As the eighth day of Pillars of Defense
begins, Israelis mourn the loss of eighteen year old Corporal Yosef Partuk and
an Arab-Israeli civilian identified as Alayaan Salem al-Nabari who had been
killed yesterday morning during a mortar attack
2012: In a case of Jew follows Jew, Lionel
Perez was elected borough mayor of Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grace by
acclamation, replacing Michael Applebaum after the latter was selected as the
new Mayor of Montreal.
2012(7th of Kislev, 5773:
Eighty-one year old “Mr. Food” who was in reality Art Ginsburg passed away
today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/24/us/art-ginsburg-known-as-mr-food-dies-at-81.html?hpw&_r=0
2012(7th of Kislev, 5773):
Eighty-nine year old film editor Dann Cahn passed away,
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dann-cahn-20121125,0,3751475.story#axzz2l8iYAP5b
2012: Ninety year old Valdka Mead, a leader
of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in which she served as a courier and arms
smuggler, passed away today.
2012: An explosion
ripped through a bus in central Tel Aviv around noon on Wednesday — the first
bombing attack in the city since 2006.Twenty-one people were injured in the
bombing, three of them seriously. No one was killed.
2012: The UN Security Council called on
Israel and Hamas to uphold a ceasefire agreement today and commended the
efforts of Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi and others for brokering
the deal.
2013:
The Center for Jewish Culture is scheduled to sponsor a screening of “Marvin
Hamlisch: One Singular Sensatio.”
2013:
Whole Foods in Friendship Heights is scheduled to host “8 Days of Oil” which
will include a free olive tasting…and take-home booklets for celebrating”
Chanukah.
2013:
The Valley Chapter of the of Los Angeles Yiddish Club is scheduled to host an
evening of Yiddish Song with Cindy Paley
2013:
The 7th annual Other Israel Film Festival is scheduled to come to an
end.
2013:
Tonight, Twentieth Century Fox renamed its historic Fox Music Building in honor
of film and television composer Lionel Newman, whose career with Fox spanned
nearly half a century and included more than 200 films, 11 of which earned him
Academy Award nominations, including “There’s No Business Like Show Business”
and “Doctor Dolittle,” and 1 of which – the score for “Hello Dolly” – won him
an Oscar,
2013(18th
of Kislev, 5774): Fifty-one year old Michael Weiner, the executive director of
the Major League Baseball Player Association passed away today. (As reported by
Richard Goldstein)
2013:
The Iranian government is reminiscent of “dark regimes of the past” that tried
to wipe out the Jews and then conquer the world, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said today in Moscow, vowing to deny Iran nuclear weapons.
2013:
German
authorities released more pictures and details today of the massive trove of
art that was discovered in a Munich apartment last year.
2014:
In Melbourne, “Anywhere Else” and “Young Perez” are scheduled to be shown at
the Jewish International Film Festival.
2014(28th
of Cheshvan, 5775): Eighty-two year old Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and
former foreign correspondent Richard Eder passed away today.
2014:
“A new production of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Assassins’ opened today at the Menier
Chocolate Factory in London.”
2014:
In the UK, the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is
scheduled to host a seminar that “will help students acquire skills to locate
archival material on subjects including: the Holocaust, twentieth-century
German history and European Jewish culture.”
2014:
“This Is Where I Leave You” is scheduled to be shown at the 18th UK
Jewish Film Festival.
2014: Hundreds riot throughout West Bank
after Friday prayers
2014: Two Jewish
seminary students were attacked and wounded in East Jerusalem this evening. The
two were reportedly hit with stones, metal rods and nails near the Beit Orot
seminary in Jerusalem's Mount of Olives, days after Palestinian terrorists
opened fire in a Jerusalem synagogue and killed four rabbis and a Druze
policeman. (As reported by Noam (Dabul) Dvir)
2014: “My Old Lady” a marvelous comedy set in
Paris written and directed by Israel Horovit and co-produced by Rachel
Horotvitz was released in the UK today.
2014: “French Interior Minister Bernard
Cazeneuve expressed his support for the Jewish community.” “Every time you feel
the violence exercised against you, when you are afraid for your children, when
you are worried about this rising violence, remind yourselves that the republic
protects you and an interior minister who loves you and who is your friend,”
Cazeneuve said at an event sponsored by Station J, a Jewish radio channel. (As
reported by Stephanie Butnick)
2015: In Fairfax, VA, Congregation Olam
Tikvah Men’s Club is scheduled to host Indian-Jewish Night with complete with a
Kosher Indian Dinner.
2015: “The Law” and “To Life” are scheduled
to be shown in Melbourne at the Jewish International Film Festival.
2015: “Saturday’s Profile” published today
under the headline “WW II Hero Credits Luck and Chance in Foiling Hitler’s
Nuclear Ambitions” described actions by Joachim Ronnenberg, who is now 96, and
his team that “destroyed the Nazi’s only source of heavy water” thereby helping
to thwart Hitler’s plan to build an Atomic bomb.
2015: Jonathan
Pollard, who has been imprisoned for 30 years for spying for Israel is
scheduled to be released today.
2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is
scheduled to host a concert by the piano duo of Tami Kanazaw and Yuval Admoni.
2015(9th of Kislev, 5776): Parsha
Vayetze
2016(20th of Cheshvan, 5777):
Ninety-four year old British hairstylist and Holocaust survivor Rose Evansky
passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)
2016:
“A year-long celebration” of the 100th anniversary of the founding
of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies in Montreal is scheduled to begin
today “with the closing of the 2016 CJA campaign.
2016:
“Fever at Dawn” and “One Week and A Day” are scheduled to be shown in Sydney,
Australia as part of the Jewish International Film Festival.
2016:
Koch Industries and others who invested in the Madoff fund from offshore
accounts won a key ruling in federal bankruptcy court today, when the judge
said certain funds held abroad — estimated at about $2 billion — could not be
made available to victims” of Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
2016:
Following “the closing of the 2016 CJA campaign” “a year-long celebration of
the founding of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies in 1916? Is scheduled
to get underway today in Canada.
2017:
Yitzhak Lewis is scheduled to present the first lecture in the series
“Introduction to Gerhsom Schloem” at the Center for Jewish History.
2017:
“Remember Baghdad” and “The Boy Downstairs” are scheduled to be shown at the 21st
UK International Jewish Film Festival.
2017:
Dr. Naomi Weinberger is scheduled to continue her lectures on “American
Priorities in the Middle East at the Streicker Center.
2017:
Jewish Book Month, an annual event that provides us with a chance to
contemplate Jewish books and the lives of authors such as the award winning
Simon Schama who works included secular works on the British, Dutch and French
including Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution as well as the
Jewish including The Story of the Jews: Volume I and II continues today.
2018: “A rare sword,
which was given as a present by SS commander Heinrich Himmler to the Grand
Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Muhammad Amin al-Husseini during his visit to Nazi
Germany in March 1943,” is scheduled to continue to be offered for sale for a
second day on a British website—The Saleroom— by the German auction house
Hermann Historica, which specializes in selling historical items.” (As reported
by Itamar Eichner)
2018:
Beit Avi Chai is scheduled to host a performance of “Lunar Legends: Chelm and
the Moon,” a play in which “the people of Chelm try to overcome darkness by
chasing after the light of the moon.”
2018:
As part of the UK Jewish Film Festival, “Itzhak” starring Itzhak Perlman and
Bill Joel, is scheduled to be shown at the Glasgow Film Theatre in Glasgow and
“The Accountant of Auschwitz” in Manchester.
2018:
As part of the “Home: Lens on Israel” series, the Temple Emanuel Streicker
Center the photographic exhibition “Moroccan Jews Outside Haifa” is scheduled
to come an end today.
2019:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host the opening of the exhibit,
“They Shall Be Counted: The Theresienstadt Ghetto Art of Erich
Lichtblau-Leskly.”
2019:
In Metairie, LA, Congregation Beth Israel is scheduled to host a Limmud course
on the Prophets which is part of “Ego and Leadership: A "929" Crash
Course in the Prophets.”
2019:
The UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Love In
Suspenders” in Manchester and a screening of “My Polish Honeymoon” in
Cambridge.
2019:
The Center for Jewish History, the Jewish Book Council, AJHS and Tablet
magazine are scheduled to host an evening with authors Stephanie Butnick and
Leil Leibovitz as they talk about their latest work, The Newish Jewish
Encyclopedia.
2019:
“Never Is Now, ADL’s Annual Summit on Anti-Semitism and Hate” is scheduled to
convene today “at the Javits Center in New York.”
2019:
In Sausalito, CA, “Robert Darr, a translator of classic Persian and Arabic” is
scheduled to present “A Jewish Monument to Peace and Collaboration” which is a
“discussion about the history leading up to a golden age of collaboration among
Spanish Christians, Jews and Muslims in the 13th and 14th centuries.”
2019:
Israelis awaken to a world of new political reality where neither of the two
front runners have been able to form a new government.
2020(5th
of Kislev, 5781): Parashat Toldot:
2020:
The international premier of Ohad Naharin's YAG, Batsheva's first production
adapted especially for the screen is scheduled to take place today.
2020:
The MJCAA is scheduled to host a virtual presentation by “actor and author
Rachel Bloom.”
2020:
At HUB Cooking Together, “HUB kids and Families are scheduled to learn “to make
delicious Jewish foods from around the world and learning their connection to
Thanksgiving.
2020:
In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to host Torah Study with
Rabbi Yaron Kapitulnik and Ryan Petcove, the son of Jill and Robert Petcove is
scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah.
2020:
The 8th Annual International Photography Festival ONLINE is scheduled to come
to an end today.
2020:
The Gershman Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end
this evening with screenings of “My Israeli Story” and “Breaking Bread.”
2021:
The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County is scheduled host a talk by
Amanda Levy, the director of clinical services at YAHAD on “COVID-19 and Mental
Health.”
2021:
In New Orleans, Temple Sinai is scheduled to host the final its first series of
classes on “An Introduction Judaism” which “will continue in the Winter and
Spring.”
2021:
The AJEX Annual Remembrance Ceremony and Parade is scheduled to take place
today.
https://www.ajex.org.uk/ajex-annual-remembrance-parade-and-ceremony
2021:
YIVO is scheduled to present “Yiddish Puppetry with Jenny Romain,” the
“co-founder and artistic director of the OBIE winning Great Small Works visual
theater collective…”
2021:
Kalman Weiser, is scheduled to the Silber Family Professor of Modern Jewish
Studies at York University and the author of several studies about Jewish
nationalism and Yiddish linguistics and culture, especially in Eastern Europe
is scheduled to lecture on “Confront Hitler’s Professors: Yiddish Scholarship
and the Nazis.”
https://www.nli.org.il/en/visit/events/confronting-hitlers-professors
2021:
AJT is scheduled to host the “Theatremach Clownshop” a hands-on participatory
workshop led by Baba Yana (Danielle Levsky).
2021:
The New York Times features reviews of books written by Jewish authors or of
special interest to Jewish readers including Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life
Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood by Mark Oppenheimer the
recently released paperback edition of The Language of Thieves: My Family’s
Obsession With a Secret Code the Nazis Tried to Eliminate by Martin Puchner.
2022(27th
of Cheshvan, 5783): Yahrzeit of Deborah D. Levin, wife of Joseph B. Levin with
whom she had three children – Judy, Mitchell and David.
2002:
Temple Emanuel of Newton (MA) is scheduled to present “Israel at a Crossroads:
Directions, Perceptions, Illusions and Challenges” during which Shoresh
Institution president, Professor Dan Ben-David, one of Israel’s leading
economists, will provide “an
eye-opening, big-picture, perspective of the domestic root (shoresh) challenges
posing existential threats in the long-run.”
2022:
The National Library of Israel is scheduled to host Ronnie and Lola Fraser,researchers
for the history website “British Jews in the First World War“ which
commemorates the efforts of the Jewish community in the First World War
lecturing on “British Jews in the First World War"
2022: JDC Archives is scheduled to present the
webinar “Reviving Jewish Culture at Szarvas Camp: From Vision to Reality”
during which Zsuzsa Fritz, JDC Hungary Education Consultant, and Sasha
Friedman, the director of the Szarvas Camp, will reflect on this extraordinary
project, its beginnings and aspirations and its accomplishments, impact and
current relevance.
2023:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to present the final lecture by Martin
Kaufman on “How to Read the Guide for the Perplexed.”
2023:
The Lappin Foundation is scheduled to present online “Anti-Israel Climate on
College Campuses & What We Can Do About It.”
2023:
Temple Emanuel of Newton is scheduled to present “An Evening with Yehuda
Kurtzer,” the president of the Shalom Hartman Institute.
2023:
In New Orleans, Gates of Prayer is scheduled to hold its Board of Trustees
Meeting.
2023:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a virtual event on the subject of
anti-Semitism with Professor Larry Summers, President Emeritus of Harvard.
2023:
As November 21 begins in Israel, tensions continue to mount on the northern
border as Hezbollah continues to launch missiles, mortars and drones into Israel,
the Iranian backed Houthis have officially opened a new front with their
statement yesterday that “Israeli ships are legitimate targets and Hamas
continues to fire rockets at Tel Aviv which does not draw a warning from the
international community about avoiding civilian casualties while the Hamas held hostages begin day 46 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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