This Day, December 9, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
December
9
1212:
In Mainz, coronation of Frederick II as King of Germany during whose reign the
Jewish “community of Austria began to flourish” due to his “recognition that
the Jews were a separate ethnic and religious group and were not bound…
December 9
1212:
In Mainz, coronation of Frederick II as King of Germany during whose reign the
Jewish “community of Austria began to flourish” due to his “recognition that
the Jews were a separate ethnic and religious group and were not bound to the laws
that targeted the Christian population.”
1437:
Sigismund of Luxemburg, who “drained the Jews of their wealth whenever he
could, he protected them from some of the worst excesses,” passed away today.
(History of the Jewish People)
1491: Following the burning at the stake of six conversos and two Jews in
conclusion of an inquisition that was part of the blood libel that gave rise to
the “Holy Child of La Guardia,” the Jews of Avila were granted “a document of
protection” which they had requested.
1565:
Pope Pius IV who issued a bull that improved the conditions of the Jews passed
away today. It allowed them to stop wearing their yellow cap, buy land up to
the value of 1,500 ducats and to trade in things other than old clothes. While
they could speak with Christians, they could not have Christian servants. He
also allowed the Jews to publish the Talmud as long as they did not use that
word in the publication.
1612: One day after he had passed away, Isaac ben Aaron Prostitz, the native of
Prostejov who was sent to Venice by his father to learn the printing trade
passed away today after retiring from his craft.
1624:
Today, King Charles II appointed Sir Edward Nicholas, the author of a pamphlet,
“An Apology for the Honorable Nation of the Jews,” which called for the
readmission of the Jews to England, “secretary for the business of the Cinque
Ports.”
1641:
Forty-two-year-old Sir Anthony van Dyck, who painted “The Portrait of Adriaen
Moens” which had been returned to “Marei von Saher, the sole heir of Jacques
Goudstikker, a Dutch dealer who fled the Nazis in 1940” passed away today
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/dr-oetker-restitutes-van-dyck-831605
1655:
The Whitehall Conference which had been called by Cromwell to consider allowing
the Jews to return to England continued the deliberations which had begun on
December 4.
1666(12th
of Kislev,5427): Three months after Shabbati Z’vi cast off his Jewish garb and
converted to Islam, the Rabbinical Council of Constantinople acted to stamp our
this heresy that threatened their peaceful place in the Ottoman Empire by
excommunicating Nathan of Gaza, one of his foremost "prophets
1667:
In Leicestershire, England, Katherine Rosse and Josiah Whiston gave birth to
“theologian, historian, philosopher and mathematician” William Whiston who
contended the “Song of Solomon” was apocryphal and the “Book of Baruch” was not
and who translated the complete works of Flavius Josephus” the controversial
Jewish historian known simply as Josephus.
1669: Pope Clement IX passed away. The year before his death, the Pope modified
the custom of having the Jews run through the streets of Rome as part of the
carnival festivities by allowing them to pay heavy fines to avoid the race.
This ended two hundred years of humiliation that had been introduced by Pope
Paul II in the 15th century.
1677:
Birthdate of William Whiston “an English theologian and historian” who “is now
probably best known for his translation of the Antiquities of the Jews
and other works by Josephus.
http://sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/
1712(Kislev, 5473): Simon Moses Ben Israel, the Dutch rabbinical scholar who
was the father of Moses Frankfurter the Dutch printer who lived from 1672 to
1762, passed away today.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/wessely-naphtali-herz
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Naphtali-Herz-Wessely
1738:
The Jews were expelled from Breslau Silesia.
1765(26th
of Kislev, 5526): Second Day of Chanukah observed as the American colonists
protest against the Stamp Act.
1771(2nd
of Tevet, 5532): 8th of Chanukah
1773(24th
of Kislev, 5534): Kindle for the first Chanukah Candle
1779(30th of Kislev, 5540): Rosh Chodesh Tevet; Sixth Day of
Chanukah
1783: After the British were driven from New York and General George Washington
entered the city late in 1783, exiled New Yorkers including the Jewish exiles
began to return home. Today Myer Myers joined two other leaders of Shearith
Israel as a delegation that was to convey the loyal greetings of the Jewish
community of New York to Governor Clinton.
1784(26th
of Kislev, 5545): Second Day of Chanukah on the same day that John Adams,
Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Grand Du d Toscane about
the treaty of Amity and Commerce between the United States and Tuscany.
1790(2nd
of Tevet, 5551): Eighth day of Chanukah observed on the same day that Secretary
of State Thomas Jefferson wrote to President Washington about he had received
from the French government concerning their sorrow over the death of Benjamin
Franklin.
1792(24th
of Kislev, 5553): Kindle the first Chanukah Candle
1792:
Birthdate of Max-Théodore Cerfberr, the native of Nancy who may have been one
of the first Jewish career officers in the French Army and who also served as
“president of the Consistoire Central Israelite de France.”
1793:
In Germany, Fromet and Nathan Baldauf gave birth to Leopold Loeb Baldauf, the
husband of Ella Kahn and the father of Henry, Morris, Regina and Nathan
Baldauf.
1795(27th
of Kislev, 5556): Third Day of Chanukah observed for the first time during the
Directorate when a five member governed France.
1797:
In Philadelphia, PA, Rebecca Lyons and John Moss gave birth to Sarah Moss, the
wife of Isaac Phillips and the mother of Barnet Phillips.
1798(1st
of Tevet, 5559): Rosh Chodesh Tevet; Seventh Day of Chanukah
1799:
Birthdate of Baden, Germany native Heinrich Moses Moos, the husband of Fanny
Mayer and the father of Jeannette Moos.
1803(24th
of Kislev, 5564): Kindle the first Chanukah candle
1804:
“ A Ukase (Czarist proclamation) issued today “allowed Jews for the time to
purchase land in Russia for farming settlements
1807:
In Charleston, SC, “David Lopez and the former Priscilla Moses” gave birth to
Priscilla Lopez who became Priscilla Lopez Moïse when she married Dr. Edwin
Warren Moïse in 1835 and then moved to Woodville, Mississippi where he
practiced medicine and she gave birth to three children – Cecilia, Sallie and
Theodore.
1809(2nd
of Tevet, 5570): Parsashat Miketz; Seventh Day of Chanukah
1809: Birthdate of Jules Isaac Mires, the son of Sephardic watchmaker from
Bordeaux who became a successful banker, Managing Director of the Gas Company
of Aries and was decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honor by Napoleon
III in 1860.
1813:
Birthdate of John Addison Gurley the Congressman from Cincinnati, Ohio who
arranged for Cesar Kaskel to meet with President Lincoln so that Jewish
Kentuckian could protest the issuance of General Order 11.
1818:
In Montego Bay, Jamaica, Isaac Simon and his wife gave birth to Sir John Simon,
the English barrister and member of the Liberal Party.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13742-simon-sir-john
1818:
Alfred Phillips married Rebecca Moses Samuel at the Great Synagogue today.
1819:
In Frankfurt am Main Malchen and David Philipp (Feist) Schloss gave birth to
Sophie Schloss
1821: In Bavaria, Ella and Wolf Goldmann, “a former schoolteacher and cattle
dealer” gave birth to
Marcus
Goldman, the German-born American businessman and entrepreneur who immigrated
to the United States in 1848 and was the founder of Goldman Sachs, which became
one of the world's largest global investment banks.
http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=100
1822(25th
of Kislev, 5583): Chanukah
1825(29th
of Kislev, 5586): Fifth Day of Chanukah
1825(29th
of Kislev, Benjamin Cohen, the 13-month-old son of Kitty Etting and Benjamin I
Cohen passed away today.
1831:
Birthdate of Maurice de Hirsch who would gain fame as Baron Hirsch one of the
greatest philanthropists of his time.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Baronhirsch.html
http://www.jta.org/1931/12/10/archive/baron-de-hirsch-centenary
1833: Jacob ben Naphtali HaCohen married Beila bat Judah at the Western
Synagogue today.
1835:
In Gedern, Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany, Lob and Bina Oppenheimer gave birth to
David Oppenheimer.
1840:
Twenty-five year old haberdasher Michael Cashmore, “the first Jewish settler in
Melbourne” and business partner of Samuel Emmanuel,married Elizabeth “Betsy”
Solomon before board the PS Clonmel which would sink, causing him considerable
business losses.
1840: David Benjamin married Esther Solomon in Hobart, Australia today.
1843:
Birthdate of Corporal Isaac Gause who won the Medal of Honor during the U.S.
Civil War.
1847:
In Natchitoches, LA, Samuel Myers Hymas donated the land for the cemetery “to
the Society of Israelites.”
1853:
One day after she had passed away, funeral service were held for Charleston, SC
native Mary Florance the wife of Henry Florance after which she was buried in
the Dispersed of Judah Cemetery in New Orleans.
1855(29th
of Kislev, 5616) Fifth Day of Chanukah observed as the California Gold Rush
that had begun in 1848 came to an end.
1856:
In “Temesvár (then Hungary, now Timisoara in Romania) Rosalia Engel Katscher
and Ignaz Katscher, who had married in 1852 in Makó, Hungary gave birth to
Bertha Katscher (or Berta Kácser) the sister of “Leopold Katscher, noted
pacifist, lawyer and journalist, and Helen Kohlbach.”
http://archives.nypl.org/mss/17921
1857(22nd
of Kislev, 5618): Seventy-eight year old Jacob de Samuel Baïz y Frois, the
Bayonne, France born son of Samuel Baiz and Hanna Frois and the husband of Leah
Oliveira Isidro passed away today in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands
1858: Three days after she had passed away, Charlotte Styer nee Levy, the wife
of Abraham Styer and mother of Mathew Styer was buried today at the “Lauriston
Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1860(25th of Kislev, 5621): First Day of Chanukah observed as
leaders in South Carolina, who were displeased with the outcome of the
Presidential election prepare their ordinance of secession.
1861:
Rabbi Arnold Fischel arrived in Philadelphia and met with Jewish leaders
working to make it possible for Jews to serve as chaplains with the Union Army.
Fischel was on his way from New York to Washington, D.C.
1861: Philadelphia native Myer Asch was promoted to First Lieutenant and
Adjutant of Company H, First Cavalry, New Jersey Volunteers.
1861: Today’s edition of the Louisville-Nashville
Courier gave the following details concerning the burning of a
bridge at Whippoorwill on the Memphis Branch Railroad. A detachment of fifty or
sixty federal soldiers “under the under command of a Dutch Jew peddler named
Netter” fired “a volley of over one hundred rounds from Sharp’s revolving
rifles” at the Confederates who guarding the bridge. Two were killed and the
rest surrendered. The Federals then burn the railroad bridge. “Netter” was
probably Gabriel Netter, a French-born Jew living in Kentucky who within a year
would rise to the rank of Lt. Colonel before being killed in fighting near
Owensboro.
1863(28th
of Kislev, 5624): Fifth day of Chanukah observed on the same day that congress
heard Lincoln’s third annual message in which included the text of an Amnesty
Oath “which offered pardons to Confederates who would take” and plans for
post-war Reconstrucdtion.
1864:
Louis Rosenberg, who would rise to the rank of Corporal, began serving with
Company K of the 82nd Regiment.
1865:
In Kentucky, Charles and Mary Pivany Morningstar gave birth to Isaac
Morningstar who only lived for 21 days.
1865:
In New Orleans, Katherine and Allen Louis Mordecai gave birth of Benjamin Mordecai,
the husband of Constance Miriam Mordecai and “New York real-estate developer
who was chairman of the building committees of Temple Emanu-El and Mount Sinai
Hospital.”
1866(1st
of Tevet, 5267): Rosh Chodesh Tevet; Seventh Day of Chanukah
1868(25th
of Kislev, 5629): Chanukah is observed for the last time during the Presidency
of Andrew Johnson.
1868(25th of Kislev, 5629): Seventy-six year old Catherine Lyons,
the Surinam born daughter of Eleazar Lyons and the wife of Jacob Moss whom she
married in 1812 passed away today in Philadelphia.
1868: Birthdate of German-born Chemist Fritz Haber who synthesized ammonia and
won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1918.
1868:
Austen Henry Layard, the archeologist who excavated Nimrud and Niniveh as
described in Discoveries at Nineveh began serving as the First
Commissioner of Works during the reign of Queen Victoria.
1869:
In London, Mordecai Abrahams, secretary to the Initiation Society and his wife
gave birth to economist and civil servant Sir Lionel Barnett Abrahams, the
husband of Lucy Joseph and the father of Arthur Charles Lionel Abrahams.
1870: The Society of Biblical Archaeology was founded in London "for the
investigation of the archaeology, history, arts, and chronology of ancient and
modern...biblical lands...."
1871(26th
of Kislev, 5632): Shabbat shel Chanukah; Parashat Vayeshev
1872:
Birthdate of Edward Lazansky the native of Brooklyn who “was a Justice of the
New York State Supreme Court from 1917 to 1926, and a Justice of the Appellate
Division from 1926 to 1943” and who “was
a founder and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Brooklyn Jewish
Hospital.”
1874:
In Chicago, Isaac and Hannah (Bachrach Weil gave birth to University of
Minnesota trained attorney Jonas Weil and husband of Caroline Weil who was
president of Temple Israel in Minneapolis, Secretary and Member of the Board of
Directors of the Jewish Family Welfare Association of Minneapolis and a member
of the board of directors of the Talmud Torah of Minneapolis.
1875:
In Louisville, Ky, Henrietta Brooks and Samuel Edward gave birth architect
Samuel Edward Gideon who studied “architecture at M.I.T. and Harvard, as well
as a degree from the School of Fine Arts (Fontainebleau, France)” after which
he taught at Texas A&M and M.I.T. before becoming a professor at the
University of Texas in 1913.
1875:
Today’s session of the Hebrew Charity Fair raised over $7,000 for the benefit
of Mount Sinai Hospital.
1878:
In Falmouth, Jamaica, “two parents were of Afro-Jewish descent” gave birth to
journalist and author Herman George de Lisser who wrote for the Jamaica Daily
Gleaner, of which his father was editor, as a proofreader” and who “was
appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 1920
New Year Honours.”
1878: A fair for the benefit of Shaare Rachmim is scheduled to open tonight at
Tammany Hall.
1878: Joseph Pulitzer bought the St Louis Dispatch for $2,500.
1879(24th of Kislev): In the evening the first light of Chanukah was kindled.
1879: It was reported today in New Jersey, that Chancellor Runyon has decided
not to grant Rachel Blumenthal, young Jewess from Canada, a divorce from Moses
Tannenholz an older Jew living in New Jersey. In 1875, when she was only 17 she
participated in what she thought was a betrothal ceremony with Tannenholz. Much
to her amazement she discovered that the ceremony was a marriage ceremony.
According to testimony offered during the divorce hearing, Blumenthal’s parents
had declined Tannenholz’s offers to end the marriage for a cash payment. The
Chancellor sensed that Tannenholz had been perpetrating a fraud in the matter
of marriage. But he declined to grant the divorce because Miss Blumenthal was a
minor when she moved to New Jersey from Canada so that she could establish
residence (a requirement for filing for divorce) and since she was a minor, she
could not file for divorce under New Jersey state law.
1880(7th
of Tevet, 5641) Seventy-three-year-old Isabella Cowen, the daughter of Isaac Tobias,
the daughter-in-law of Rachel Aarons and Joseph Tobias and the mother of six
children – Augustus, Brginius, Colleton, Sara, Marion and Sophie – passed away
today.
1881:
It was reported today that at least one Russian newspaper has taken issue with
President Chester A. Arthur’s criticism of the Czarist Empire’s treatment of
its Jewish citizens.
1881:
Samuel Shrimski began serving as a Member of the New Zealand Parliament
for Oamaru.
1882(28th
of Kislev, 5634): Parashat Miketz; Rosh Chodesh; Fourth Day of Chanukah
1882:
It was reported today that the Hebrew Free School Associations is planning on
holding its annual meeting this month.
1882:
Some Jewish businessmen who had obtained a temporary injunction were able to
keep their stores open today. The Jews,
who observe the Sabbath on Saturday, have taken the matter to court.
1883:
In Eichstetten, Leopold Bloch, the son of Samuel and Jeanette Bloch and his
second wife Klara Bloch gave birth to Leonie Bloch
1883:
R. Heber Newton delivered a lecture on “The Book of Genesis” during when he
said the book “purported to be a Jewish work, giving the traditions of Jewish
antecedents in prehistoric times…”
1885(1st
of Tevet, 5646): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1885:
Thirty thousand people, including the adjutant of the Crown Prince who been
sent as a representative of the royal family attended the funeral of Herr
Strassmann, the President of the Berlin Municipal Council
1886:
Birthdate of Irma Levy, the daughter of a New York assimilated anti-Zionist
German Jewish family who gained fame as Irma Lindheim, a member of Kibbutz
Mishmar Haemek. (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archives)
1887:
Fifty-five-year-old Rockland, ME native and Baptist Minister Isaac Smith
Kalloch who was ambushed and shot by Charles de Young , the editor-in-chief of
the San Francisco, died today after which Kalloch’s son shot and killed Charles
de Young, the Louisana born Jew who had opposed Kolloch’s bid to become
mayor of San Francisco.
1887:
Isaac Alsbacher and Rebecca Klein gave birth to future Shaker Heights resident
Renda Alsbacher who never married.
1888:
“Old New York Churches” published today featured a history of the houses of
worship on Manhattan’s Norfolk Street including one building on the corner of
Broome Street that housed a Baptist Church, followed by a Methodist church and
is currently being used as a synagogue and another one on Stanton Street that
had been a Presbyterian Church but is now a synagogue.
1888:
In Brooklyn, a caucus of Republicans met today and decided that Ernst Nathan, a
Twenty-third Ward politician must be stopped “at all costs” from gaining any
power in their party.
1889:
The Hebrew Education Fair opened this evening at the American Institute
Building. This fund raiser officially began at 8:45 this evening when Eben’s
Band began playing the grand march as New York City Mayor Grant and A.W.
Lilienthal took their places on the stage.
1889:
In Chicago, President Benjamin Harrison dedicated the Auditorium Building which
had been designed the architect Dankmar Adler.
1890:
University of Moscow trained medical doctor Dayve B. De Waltoff, the Russian born
son of Benzion and Anna Deborah (Wolk) De Waltoff who escaped from Siberia and
in 1890 came to the United States where he served in the military during the
Spanish American War and WW I, invented a liquid soap and Agavin Cream married
Dora Frank today.
1890:
In Dorbian, Kovno Governorate,
Baer-Moses Bloch and Necha Stoch gave birth to Rabbi and PhD
Joshua Bloch the alumnus of the University of Cincinnati, Hebrew Union
College, Columbia, Dropsie College and NYU, was a faculty member of NYU, chaplain
of the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene from 1922 until his death in
1957 and head of the Jewish Division of the New York Public Library from 1923
to 1956 as well as the author of numerous books.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/bloch-joshua
1891:
In what may have been one of the most important events in this year’s social
season for the Jewish community in New Orleans, at Temple Sinai, Rabbi Max
Heller officiated at the marriage of Cincinnati native Julia Seeman, the
daughter of George and Caroline (Carrie) Goodhart Seeman, to Felix J. Dreyfous
which was attended by Isidore Schooler, Harry Hyman, Leon J. Schwartz, Henry
Friedman, Leon Kaufman, Charles Godchaux, Morriss Levy, E.I. Johns, the bride’s
sister, Mary Seeman and the groom’s sister Blanch Dreyfous
1891:
In London, Polish Jewish immigrants, Louis Gertler and Kate "Golda"
Berenbaum gave birth to British painter Mark Gertler.
1891:
In the wake of the passage of the May Laws and increased persecution of the
Jews of Russia during a speech delivered to Congress today, President Benjamin
Harrison said: This government had found occasion to express in a friendly
spirit, but with much earnestness, to the government of the tsar its serious
concern because of harsh measures being enforced against the Hebrews."
1891(8th
of Kislev, 5652): Sixty-nine-year-old Russian physician Leon Pinsker, an early
Zionist and the author of “Auto-Emancipation” passed away today.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/pinsker.html
http://www.zionism-israel.com/bio/biography_leon_pinsker.htm
1892:
One day after she had passed away, 70-year-old Hannah Levy, “the widow of the
late Moses Levy” with whom she had had six children was buried today in the
“West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”
1892:
Reports published today describe the spread of anti-Semitism among Germany’s
political parties as can be seen by “a violent anti-Jewish article” in “the
Catholic organ Germania” that the parties “desirous of annulling the
emancipation of the Jews are growing daily.”
1892:
Reports published today describe efforts to “invalidate Hermann Ahlwardt’s
election to the Reichstag on grounds of corruptions and intimidation of
opponents” including the beating of a member of the Radicals who is “suspected
of being a Jew.”
1893(30th
of Kislev, 5654): Parashat Miketz; Rosh Chodesh Tevet; Sixth Day of Chanukah
1893:
Birthdate of Chicago native and Tufts Medical School graduate Dr. Benjamin
Sachs, the ophthalmologist and member of the faculty of Tufts and Harvard who
was the husband of Bessie Cushing Sachs and father of Baruch J. Sachs and
Tikvah Sachs Portnoy.
1893:
Birthdate of Pittsburgh born University of Pittsburgh trained engineer Richard
Solomon Rauh a member of B’nai B’rith and a support of the Pittsburgh Symphony
Orchestra.
https://rauhjewisharchives.org/entry/rauh-family-2/
1894:
“Finances and Russian Alliance” published today described changes in British
policy toward the new Czar’s government including the arrangement of loans by
London’s financiers along with the expectation of “decent treatment of the
Jews.
1894:
As the former Belle Glazier and her new husband Jacob S. Bernheimer left on
their wedding trip the bride’s father gave a dinner for the children of the
Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
1895:
N.S. Rosenau of the United Hebrew Charities was among those who attended
today’s conference where ways were discussed “promote prosperity among the
farmers” during the current agricultural depression.
1895:
“The great Hebrew fair…one of the most extensive enterprises” that the Jews of
New York have undertaken is scheduled to open tonight at Madison Square Garden.
This fundraiser which has booths sponsored by every Jewish congregation and
organization in the city is expected to raise $250,000 for Educational Alliance
and the Hebrew Technical Alliance.
1895: “When the doors of the Madison Square Garden opened this evening for the
great Hebrew fair the visitors saw much that in splendor will rival what has
been depicted by the authors of ‘The Arabian Nights’ and like fiction, in which
spectacular wonders abound.”
1895:
Birthdate of Vivian de Sola Pinto the British poet and literary critic who was
a close friend of Siegfried Sassoon with whom he served in WW I and who became
one of the great authorities on D.H. Lawrence.
1897:
Birthdate of Philadelphia native Edwin Israel “Hughie” Black, the first capital
of the Philadelphia Sphas basketball team.
http://probasketballencyclopedia.com/player/hughie-black/
1897:
One day after she had passed away, 75 year old Rachel Fishman was buried today
at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1897:
Birthdate of Hermione Gingold. Born Hermione Ferdinanda Gingold in London, she
was the daughter of a high-class Austrian-born Jewish financier. The British
actress known for her sharp-tongued, eccentric persona, an image enhanced by
her sharp nose and chin, as well as her deepening voice, a result of vocal
nodes which her mother encouraged her not to remove. She appeared on stage, on
radio, in films, on television, and in recordings. Gingold passed away in 1997.
1897: Two days after she had passed away, 22-year-old Leah Lipman, the daughter
of John and Rose Lipman was buried at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery.
1898(25th
of Kislev, 5659): First Day of Chanukah
1898: The Jewish Messenger
reported Meyer Dannenberg a member of Or Chaim in New York City passed away. He
"...was an Israelite of the olden school...he was truly pious and he
leaves to his descendants and friends the priceless legacy of a good
name."
1899:
“The Children of the Ghetto” is scheduled to open at the Adelphi Theatre in
London.
1900:
Birthdate of New York City native and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of CCNY Albert
Weisbord who joined with his wife Vera to becoming Communist activists.
1901(28th
of Kislev, 5662): Fourth Day of Chanukah
1901(28th
of Kislev, 5662): Sixty-four-year-old Athalia Wolff Frank, the German born daughter
of Daniel and Rebecca Scheuer Wolff, the wife of Eleazer Frank, whom she
married in 1863 and with whom she had three children – Benjamin, Matilda and
Fannie – passed away today om Boston after which she was buried at the Salem
Fields Cemetery in Brooklyn.
1901:
In Pocahontas, VA, Hanna Bergman and Alexander “Sanders” Lubliner gave birth to
Ida Rebba Lubliner the husband of Isadore Leff and the mother of Harriet and
Sara Leff.
1901:
In the Bronx, Moritz and Fannie Kahn gave birth to Irene Kahn who became Irene
Jonas when she married Dr. Joseph Quincy Jonas.
1902(9th
of Kislev, 5663): Seventy-year-old Edwin Warren Moise the Charleston born son
of Caroline Moses and Abraham Moise, a Sephardic Jew whose family had made its
way from Alsace to the French Caribbean before settling in South Carolina’s
major seaport, pursued a career as a lawyer, soldier in the CSA and adjutant
general in the post-Civil War Palmetto State passed away today in Sumter, SC.
(As reported by Robert N. Rosen)
http://sc150civilwar.palmettohistory.org/edu/people/Moise-EdwinW.htm
1902: When Oscar Straus escorted ex-President Grover Cleveland into the meeting
of the National Civic Federation today, the attendees erupted with a round of
applause.
1903: It was reported today that the divorce of Solomon Cohen, the managing
director of Cohen and Co. Ltd, of Cootamundra and Stockinbingal and Mabel
Lillian Cohen has been finalized.
1904(1st
of Tevet, 5665): Rosh Chodesh Tevet; Seventh Day of Chanukah
1904:
In Richmond, VA, members of Congregation Beth Ahavah (House of Love) dedicated
their new home what is popularly known as the Franklin Street Synagogue,
probably because it is located on West Franklin Street. The congregation is one
of the oldest in the United States tracing its origins back to 1789. The
building which is still in use is on the National Historic Registry.
1904:
Birthdate of University of Cincinnati alum and drama critic Louis Kronenberg
who worked at the New York Times and Time magazine before becoming a professor
at Brandeis.
1905:
“Salome” an opera based on Hedwig Lachmann's German translation of the French
play Salomé which was dedicated to Sir Edgar Speyer “was first performed at the
Hofoper in Dresden.”
1905: The French law on the Separation of the Churches and State (Loi du 9
décembre 1905 concernant la séparation des Églises et de l'État) was passed by
the Chamber of Deputies today. From now on, the functionaries of all religions
in France - Catholic, Protestant and Jewish - ceased to receive state funding
and no longer conducted their affairs under state supervision. France had
become a secular nation thanks to the backlash from the Dreyfus Affair.
1905: The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that in
New Jersey, “the Camden Hebrew Relief Fund has reached $694.38. (Ed. Note – the
money was being raised for the victims of the Pogroms that had taken place in
Russia earlier in the year.)
1905:
Birthdate of New York native Leo S. Palitz the CCNY basketball player and
physician who was married to “Lillian Nassau, the doyenne of New York antique dealers.”
1905:
It was reported today that at a time when the two hundred and fiftieth
anniversary of the arrival of the Jews in what is now the United States is
being celebrated, “the account given in the Jewish Encyclopedia, the twelfth
and last volume of which is about to be published by Funk & Wagnalls” makes
for interesting reading.
1906:
“Zionism,” “an argument against the ambition for separate national existence, a
plea for devotion to the idea of common humanity” by Count Leo Tolstoy was
published today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1906/12/09/101810961.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1906/12/09/101810961.html?pageNumber=22
1906:
“Peculiar Trade That Dates from the Days of Moses” published today described
the origins of Kosher slaughtering which has its origins in the Torah.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1906/12/09/101810964.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1906:
It was reported today that “there are nearly 4,000 kosher butchers in New York”
which “is bought exclusively by at least 75 per cent of” New York City’s
“Hebrew population.”
1906:
It was reported today Switzerland is the only country in which cattle are not
slaughtered in the kosher manner because “the government has forbidden the
killing of cattle with a knife on the theory that the latter is an inhuman
instructed and that by employing it the Hebrew shochat is guilty of cruelty to
animals.”
1907:
The Presidential Address was delivered at University College, before the Jewish
Historical Society of England at its inaugural meeting.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/29777647
1907:
Birthdate of Philadelphia native, Jules Cohen, the attorney who was President
of the Association of Jewish Community Relations Workers and a member of The
Jewish Community Relations Council of Philadelphia which was founded in 1939
1908:
Congressman William S. Bennet is scheduled to deliver an address this evening
on “Immigration” at the auditorium of the Educational Alliance.
1908:
Three days after she had passed away, “Louisa Sophia Goldsmid,” the widow of “Sir Francis Henry Goldsmid and
the daughter of Eliza Solomon and Moses Ashe Goldsmid, was buried today at the
“Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1909(26th
of Kislev, 5670): Second Day of Chanukah
1909:
In New York City, Philip and Bessie Borwick Halprin gave birth to Portsmouth,
NH grocery store owner Harry Halprin the husband of Betty Weiner whom he
married 1934 and the father of Arthur Halprin.
1909:
Birthdate of Chicago native and University of Chicago trained Social Worker
Harry Barron
1910:
Congressman-elect Jefferson M. Levy, the nephew of Uriah P. Levy, was reported
today to have joined publisher William Randolph Hearst and Admiral Dewey in
resigning “from the American Boy Scout organization” because they “did not
approve of the (organization’s) management” and they “think a great deal of the
funds have been raised through false representation and in other manner” of
which they heartily disapprove.
1910:
Birthdate of Troy, NY native and Cornell undergrad Harold I. Saperstein, the
Jewish Institute trained rabbi and spiritual leader of Temple Emanu-El in
Lynbrook, NY for “nearly half a century” while raising to sons – Rabbis March
and David Saperstein – with his wife Marcia.
http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0718/ms0718.html
1911(18th of Kislev, 5672): Rabbi Haim Covo of Salonica passed away at age the
age of 68.
1912(29th
of Kislev, 5673): Fifth Day of Chanukah
1912:
Max Schulman is scheduled to address adult attendees at Chanukah celebration
hosted by the Chicago Hebrew Institute.
1912:
Funeral services are scheduled to be held at noon today at the Waldheim
Cemetery for seventy-year- old Augusta (Meyers) Sultain, the wife of Bernet
Sultan with whom she had six children.
1913(10th
of Kislev, 5674): Seventy-four year old “French pianist and composer”
Élie-Miriam Delaborde who was reputed “to be the illegitimate son of the
composer and pianist Charles-Valentin Alkan” the Franco-Jewish “composer and
pianist” passed away today.
1914: Birthdate of Samuel Katz, who was a close adviser to Menachem Begin,
Israel’s prime minister in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but who later became
a vociferous opponent of Begin’s peace efforts with Egypt and the Palestinians.
The son of Alexander and Luba Katz, Katz was born in Johannesburg and moved to
Palestine in 1936 He changed his first name to Shmuel and soon joined the
Irgun. For several years, he was secretary to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, one of the
founders of the Irgun. Mr. Katz and Menachem Begin became comrades in arms in
the 1940s when both rose to leadership positions in the Irgun, the right-wing
underground militia that battled the British Mandatory government of Palestine
and later Arab forces in Israel’s 1948 war for independence. In June 1948, Mr.
Katz helped organize the voyage of the cargo ship Altalena, which was carrying
weapons and Irgun fighters to Israel when it was sunk off Tel Aviv by the newly
formed Israel Defense Forces. In May 1977, Begin, the longtime leader of the
Herut Party, was elected prime minister of Israel’s first right-wing government
in 29 years; Herut later merged with the Likud bloc. Begin chose Mr. Katz as
his adviser for information abroad and sent him to several countries, including
to the United States for meetings with President Carter, to counter perceptions
that Begin was a wild-eyed terrorist and reactionary. But Mr. Katz had resigned
to protest Israeli concessions by the time Mr. Carter brought Begin and Sadat
together at Camp David in September 1978; at the White House the next year,
they signed a treaty returning Sinai to Egypt and calling for Palestinian
autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza. In June 1979, Begin was re-elected to a
13th term as chairman of Herut, by a vote of 1,340 to 8. The 8 votes went to
Mr. Katz. In Mr. Katz’s view, peace with the Arabs was illusory; in his view,
Judea and Samaria, the biblical names for much of the West Bank, should be
annexed as part of the “land of Israel,” and pressure from Washington could be
ignored. It was a position Mr. Katz took in many books and opinion articles
that he wrote in the years after he left the government. Among Mr. Katz’s books
are Jabo, a biography of Mr. Jabotinsky; Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in
Palestine, about the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict and what Mr. Katz
considered the deep connections between his nation and the biblical land of
Israel; and The Aaronsohn Saga, an account of a Jewish spy ring that worked for
the British against the Ottoman Turks. He passed away in May of 2008 at the age
of 93 in Tel Aviv.
1915:
It was reported today that the one million dollars already raised to aid the
Jews suffering in war-torn Europe, the American Jewish Relief Committee knows
now that it “was only a small part of what was needed” and that a new campaign
must be waged to raise additional funds – a campaign that will benefit from the
expertise of “Manny Strause of Cincinnati, an efficiency expert” who will
devote sixty days of his time to this endeavor.
1915(2nd
of Tevet, 5676): Eighth Day of Chanukah
1915:
Tisa Hanna Maltinsky, “the beloved daughter” of the former Gertrude Kunst and
Samuel Maltinsky “chief proprietor, President and Treasurer of the Crescent
City Jewelry Company” in Pittsburgh, PA and granddaughter of Hyman and Sarah
Maltinsky, passed away today.
1915:
It was reported today Irving I. Lipsitch of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant
Aid Society delivered an address on “How Can Jewish Farmers Be Assisted in
Getting Their Naturalization Papers?” at the last meeting of the Federation of
Jewish Farmers of America which has gone “on record as opposing legislation
using a literacy test to restrict immigration.”
1916(14th
of Kislev, 5677): Parashat Vayishlach
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1916/12/10/104238475.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1916:
“The Women’s Proclamation Committee, the national women’s organization for
Jewish war relief of which Mrs. Samuel Elkeles is Chairman, announced” today
“that it had established new branches in Baltimore, MD and Memphis, TN” and
that steps were being taken to establish branches in Milwaukee, Dayton and
Kansas City, MO.
1916:
In London, a Polish born English watchmaker and jeweler who wrote in Yiddish
under the “pen name of Moseh Oved” and his wife gave birth to Isadore Jacob
Gudak who gained fame as Cambridge trained mathematician Irving John Good, also
known as I.J. or Jack Good, the Bletchley Park cryptologist.
1916:
In Amsterdam, New York Bryna "Bertha" (née Sanglel) and Herschel
"Harry" Danielovitch gave birth to Issur Danielovitch who gained fame
as Kirk Douglas, who has played everything from Doc Holiday in Gunfight at the
OK Corral, to deranged Naval officer in In Harm’s Way to Colonel Mickey Marcus
in Cast a Giant Shadow.
1916:
“A wireless statement from Alfred Zimmermann, Germany Secretary for Foreign
Affairs” sent “in reply to an inquiry made through the German Embassy by Dr. S.
M. Melamed, the editor of the Amerian Jewish Chronicle” received today in New
York declared “that the new constitution granted to the Jews of Poland gave
them far-reaching self-government and a chance to develop their own educational
system.” (Editor’s note – A scant thirty years later the Jewish population of
Poland would be almost non-existent thanks to another German regime.)
1917:
In New York, Frederick Margareten, who was a graduate of CCNY and a kosher food
manufacturer and the Manhattan born so of Regina (Horowitz) Margareten and
Ignatz Margareten and his wife Mary Magareten gave birth to Cecilia Margareten.
1917(24th of Kislev, 5678): In the evening, kindle the first light of Chanukah
1917: According to reports published today, “this evening the celebration of
Chanukah, the Feast of Dedication, will begin among Jewish people and continue
for eight days. Although rated in the traditional calendar as a minor festival,
compared with the Biblical festivals and holy days, it is known also as the
Feast of Lights, and is of great significance, as it commemorates one of the
most heroic struggles and final victory for the Jewish fatherland and faith.”
1917: Just after midnight, Turkish troops began the final evacuation Jerusalem.
According to one report, it was fitting that the Turks should be leaving
Jerusalem for the last time on the same day that the Seleucids left the city
since this day coincided with the celebration of the holiday of Chanukah.
1917: The Turkish mayor of Jerusalem surrenders the city to 2 British soldiers
- Sergeants Sedgwick and Hawcombe.
1917:
“O.A. Glazebrook, the United States Consul, who recently returned from
Jerusalem, predicted in an address” at the Institutional Synagogue today
predicted that “starvation and untold suffering” awaited “the Jews in Palestine
unless very active steps were taken by” Jews in the United States to send money
to the region and “that Germany had begun a complete reorganization of the
Turkish Army and to that end was commandeering all resources of the Turkish
Empire regardless of the needs of the civilian population” which only made the
position of the Jews all the more perilous.
1917: A
delegation of notables including the mayor of Jerusalem, the chief of police
and several imams, rabbis and Christian clergy met with British forces just
north of the city and surrendered the “keys of the city.”
1917: Rabbi
Herbert S. Goldstein delivered a sermon to members of the Institutional
Synagogue who met at Mount Morris Theatre urging “liberal support” for the
drive to raise funds for Jewish war relief.
1917: Among
the contributions reported today to have been made to The Central Committee for
the Relief of Jews suffering Through the War were $222 from the American
Graphaphone Company, “one of the earliest names in recorded sound” which was
founded in 1887 and $222 from the Cannonsburg, PA, Hebrew Association.
1917: It
was reported today that the upcoming issue of The Menorah Journal will carry a
story about the invitation to Israel Zangwill to come to the United and address
the Menorah Quintennial Convention, including “Zangwill’s eloquent, if
regretful replay to the invitation.”
1917:
Today, “the Provisional Zionist Committee announced that Justice Louis D.
Brandeis of the United States Supreme court has received letter of
congratulation from the Armenian United Association of London on the British
declaration in favor of the establishment of a national Jewish home in
Palestine to which the Cabinets promises that ‘his Majesty’s Government will
exert its best endeavors.’”
1917:
Forty seven year old Shreveport, LA native and playwright Arthur Lee Kahn, some
of whose plays “show the influence of his southern heritage and indicate
something of the nature of the struggle of the southern-born playwright” passed
away today.
1917: At the Rockford Hall, in Rockford, Illinois, the Young Peoples’ Jewish
Congress is scheduled to host an “entertainment and dance” in honor of the
Jewish soldiers at Camp Grant who are being granted a furlough so they can
attend the event.
1918:
In the Bronx, Austrian immigrants Asher and Ida Tannenbaum gave birth to
Gertrude Tannenbaum who gained fame as Gertrude Schimmel whose police career
was all the more challenging because of her gender – a challenge she repeatedly
overcame rising to become the first female chief in the NYPD. (As reported by
Richard Goldstein)
1918:
Victor Berger went on trial today on charges that he had violated the Espionage
Act of 1917 by publicly opposing America’s entry into WW I. Berger was a Socialist who opposed all war.
1919:
Mrs. Henry Hershkovitz is scheduled to deliver a report at today’s regular
meeting of the Hungarian Charity Society Women’s Auxiliary in Chicago.
1920(28th
of Kislev, 5681): Fourth Day of Chanukah
1920:
Thirty days after the death of Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport whose pen name was S.
Ansky, passed away, “The Dybbuk” was performed at the Elyseum Theatre in
Warsaw.
1921(8th
of Kislev, 5682): Fifty-one-year-old self-taught painter Ben Austrian, the
Reading, PA born son of Raphael Austrian and Fannie Elizabet Dreifoos” who
“began to paint at the age of nine” and whose works include “Temptations,
“After the Race” and “The Intruder” passed away today.
https://www.artnet.com/artists/ben-austrian/
1921:
Funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning at Sam Rothschild’s
Funeral Chapel for 53-year-old Alfred Loeb, the husband of the former Edith
Marx and the father of Richard Loeb.
1921:
“The Dibbuk,” which has been running at the Jewish Art Theatre is scheduled to
be performed this afternoon at the Apollo this afternoon.
1922:
The North West Young Women’s Hebrew Association is scheduled to host “their
third informal dance” this “evening at the Cameo Room in Chicago’s Morrison
Hotel.
1922:
Mrs. Andrew Roth is the chairperson for the Beth Israel Sisterhood’s charity
bazaar which is scheduled to open tonight.
1922: Cleveland banker and philanthropist Maurice J. “Moses” Mandelbaum, the
son of Jacob and Amelia (Lehman) Mandelbaum married his third wife, Florence
Burnet today.
1923(1st of Tevet, 5684): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1923:
Sigmund Israel, the rabbi leading the Temple at Poughkeepsie, NY passed away
today.
1923(1st of Tevet, 5684): Seventh day of Chanukah; in the evening Kindled the
8th candle
1923:
Hadoar resumes publication
1923: The Jewish Welfare Board sponsored a special Army and Navy Chanukah
Service that was held at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in Manhattan.
During his address to the attendees, Rear Admiral Charles P. Plunkett,
commander of the Third Naval District and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, said that
“There are more kinds of hatreds both religious and social in the world today
than ever existed. This country has been open to the world, a haven of safety,
but we have no room here for those who cannot be assimilated. They cannot bring
their hatreds here.”
1923: In address to the first meeting of the National Council of the Keren
Hayesod at the Hotel Astor, Dr. Arthur Ruppin said that “the housing shorate in
Palestine has been relieved to a considerable estnet by the establishment of
the General Mortgage Bank of Palestine which has invested more than $300,000 in
mortgages enabling the construction of 300 house in Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa and
Tiberias.
1924: In the presence of in the presence of Sir Herbert Samuel, the High
Commissioner for Palestine, Sir Ronald Storrs, Governor of the Jaffa district
in Jerusalem, and Raghib al-Nashashibi, the Arab mayor of Jerusalem a street in
Jerusalem that crosses Ben Yehuda Street and Hillel Street was named King
George Street or Rechov HaMelech in dedication ceremonies held today. The
street was named in honor of King George V in honor of the seventh anniversary
of Lord Allenby’s conquest of Jerusalem during World War I.
1926:
Birthdate of Newcastle upon Tyne native Lionel Kopelowitz, the University
College Hospital trained physician and RAF veteran who “was President of the
European Jewish Congress from 1989 and 1991.
1925:
In Wilkes-Barre, PA, “Morris and Gussie (Levy) Facher gave birth Penn State
journalism graduate and Harvard trained lawyer Jerome Facher who gained famed
from his depiction in A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr.
1926:
It was reported today that The American Christian Fund for Jewish Relief has
announced that the Protestant-Catholic-Jewish mass meeting at the Cathedral of
St. John the Divine last Sunday night had been followed by many contributions
and offers to cooperate in raising the $25,000,000 sought by the United Jewish
Campaign, of which $19,000,000 has already been subscribed, to relieve the
suffering of 5,000,000 Jews in Eastern Europe.”
1927:
“The Private Life of Helen Troy” a silent film about the famous beauty directed
by Alexandra Korda and starring his wife Maria in the title role premiered in
New York City today.
1927:
“Efforts are being by Representative of New York to obtain a government for
Abraham Krotsohinsky, the Russian-born American Jews who was awarded the
Distinguished Service Cross and “who has been described as the ‘hero of the
lost battalion’.”
1927(15th
of Kislev, 5688): Eight-two-year-old Max Landsberg, the Berlin born son of
Rabbi Meyer Landsberg, a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary of
Bresalau who became Rabbi at B’rith Kodesh at Rochester in 1871 where he served
for 44 years passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1927/12/10/98425024.pdf
1927:
“the students of Codreanu's League carried out a pogrom in Oradea Mare (Transylvania),
where they were holding a congress, for which they received a subsidy from the
ministry of the interior: they were conveyed there in special trains put at
their disposal free of charge by the government. Five synagogues were wrecked,
and the Torah scrolls burned in the public squares. After that the riots spread
all over the country: in Cluj eight prayer houses were plundered, and on their
way home the participants in the congress continued their excesses against the
Jews in the cities of Huedin, Targu-Ocna, and Jassy.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/romania-virtual-jewish-history-tour
1928(26th of Kislev, 5689): Second Day of Chanukah
1928: A Chanukah celebration is scheduled to be held this afternoon at the
Bronx Jewish Center under the supervision of Talmud Torah’s principal, Rabbi
J.J. Charlot
1928:
It was reported today that “in the hope of putting an end to anti-Semitic
rioting in Rumanian universities, the Minister of Education has notified the
rectors…that students guilty of participating in anti-Jewish demonstrations to
such an extent as to break the peace will be drafted into the army at once…”
1929: During an interview today Ossip Gabrilowitsch, the Jewish son-in-law of
Mark Twain, commended the music program started last week at Hebrew University.
Based on first-hand knowledge gained by his visit to Palestine last Spring,
Maestro Gabrilowitsch spoke highly of the accomplishments of the Jewish musical
community and identified the areas in most need of growth.
1930: Birthdate of Buck Henry. Born Henry Zuckerman, Henry is known as an
actor, writer and the satirical wit who helped to make SNL into a hit show.
1930:
“In the presence of over 200 representatives of many faiths from various points
in the country gathered at a dinner concluding the Seminar on Human Relations
between Protestants, Catholics and Jews, held at the Hotel McAlpin, Newton D.
Baker, former Secretary of War, was presented tonight with the American Hebrew
Medal for the Promotion of Better Understanding between Christian and Jew in
America.”
1931(29th of Kislev, 5692): Fifth Day of Chanukah
1931: Jews throughout the world celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Birth
of Baron Hirsch
1931: Supporters of the Grand Mufti distributed “fake photographs” to delegates
to the World Islamic Conference showing Jews armed with machine guns attacking
the Dome of the Rock. This was part of the mufti’s plan to inflame relations
between Jews and Arabs while cementing his role as leader of the Arabs in
Palestine.
1932:
“The Jews of this country, in a new era of Jewry, must become the bene-factors
of America, it was declared tonight by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, speaking before
more than 1,200 members of the Congregation Rodeph Sholom, in the synagogue at
7 West Eighty-Third Street.”
1933:
Seventy-three-year-old Eugenie Wottitz Wartski, the daughter of Marie and Dr.
Simon Spitzer who was married to Moritz Wottitz and then Zygmunt Wartski passed
away in her home town of Vienna.
1933(21st
of Kislev, 5694): Fifty-four year old German silent screen actor Julius
Falkenstein passed away today in Berlin.
1934: In a response to a request from Churchill, Leonard Montifore, a member of
the Central British Fund, sent the British statesman a translation of the
recently promulgated Nuremberg Laws, commentary from The Times on these
anti-Jewish laws and a pamphlet describing the conditions in Germany just
before the laws were passed.
1935:
“Paradise Lost” a drama written by Clifford Odets, directed by Harold Clurman
and starring Stella Adler and Morris Carnovsky opened on Broadway at the
Longacre Theatre.
1935: Walter Liggett, Minnesota newspaper editor and muckraker, is killed in a
gangland murder. After writing newspaper articles connecting the mobster Kidd
Cann and Minnesota Governor Floyd Olson, Ligett was gunned down, reportedly by
Kid Cann. Kid Cann was Isadore Blumenfeld a leading Jewish mobster living in
the Twin Cities. He was tried for the murder but “beat the rap.”
1936:
“Dr. Arthur Ruppin, an agricultural and colonization expert for the Jewish
Agency for Palestine, Maurice B. Hexter testified before the Royal Commission
in Jerusalem, where among other things, they worked to refute the criticism of
the Jewish National Fund’s land-purchasing policy made by commission member Sir
Laurie Hammond.
1936:
In Chur Switzerland, 27-year-old Yugoslav Jewish medical student who has
admitted killing Wilhelm Gustloff, the Swiss Nazi leader testified “that he had
decided not to assassinate Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, ‘because it would
cause too great suffering among the Jews in Germany.’”
1936:
“The New York Ladies Auxiliary of the Jewish Consumptives Relief Society of
Denver, Colorado announced” today ‘that it had begun a drive for $45,000” which
will “be used to provide a new dining hall and kitchen for the 300 patients at
the society’s sanitarium in Denver.
1937: The Palestine Post
reported that in Jerusalem two bombs were thrown by Arab terrorists at the
houses of Arabs known to oppose the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini,
who was hiding from the authorities in Lebanon.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that in London the Colonial Office refused to
accede to Colonel J.C. Wedgwood’s request to circulate the names of 137
officials of the Palestine government and judiciary who, on June 30, 1936, sent
a memo critical of the establishments’ activities and policy.
1938:
“Undaunted by efforts to intimidate them, fifty-six of Hollywood’s most
prominent stars, directors, writers and studio heads gathered at HANL activist
Eddie Robinson’s Beverly Hills home” today “to discuss the worsening situation
in Germany and western Europe” which led to a sign “The Declaration of
Democratic Independence” a petition “which they sent to the President and
Congress calling for a boycott of all German products until Hitler stopped
persecuting Jews and other minorities.
1938: As the level of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany increases and Hitler
pursues a more aggressive foreign policy, Churchill gave a speech reminding his
constituents that four years earlier he had called for a four-fold increase in
spending for the RAF and that if those who are criticizing him now would have
heeded his advice then Britain would not be dealing with the Germans from a
position of weakness.
1938: “Dramatic School” a “romantic drama” produced by Mervyn LeRoy and
starring Luise Rainer and Paulette Goddard (Marion Levy) was released today in
the United States today.
1938:
Bessie (Basha) Riff, the wife of Rabbi Naftali Riff, who had arrived at Ellis
Island in 1923 “became a naturalized citizen in the Common Pleas court of
Camden, NJ today.
1939:
Dr. Henryk Szoskies, vice president of the Jewish community in Warsaw, who
escaped last month and is now in Paris has provided first-hand information on
the desperate situation of the Jews living in the German-occupied zone of
Poland. “Jews all over the German part of Poland live in constant fear of new
persecutions and new orders making life even harder.” He reported that the
Gestapo had ordered the establishment of a ghetto in the middle of November
allowing only three days to transfer an additional 160,000 Jews into the
Nalewiki district increasing the population in this small area to 366,000.
“Jews all over Poland face an extremely hard winter…since merchants are not
allowed to trade and all their property has been confiscated. Dr. Szoskies has
“presented a detailed report to Premier Wladislas Sikorski and other members”
of the Polish government in exile in Paris.
1939: “Swinging The Dream,” a musical produced and directed by Erik Charell,
featuring the Benny Goodman Sextet was performed for the last time on Broadway
at the Center Theater.
1940: The British deported illegal Jewish immigrants from Haifa to Mauritius.
This was part of the British enforcement of the White Paper that effectively
ended Jewish immigration to Eretz Israel. When you consider how strapped the
British were for resources in fighting Hitler, it is amazing that the
government in London could find the resources to intercept vessels sailing to
Palestine.
1940: Jewish immigrants who had entered Eretz Israel illegally protested their
deportation by lying nude in their bunks, refusing to dress in an act of
spontaneous, and ultimately futile, civil disobedience,
1940: A German soldier leaps from a car in the Warsaw (Poland) Ghetto and
strikes a Jewish boy in the head with an iron bar, killing him.
1940:
It was reported today that “B’nai B’rith has joined with the American Red Cross
in helping to push the Red Cross’s home service program for the families of men
called to armed served” and that arrangements have been completed “by which the
entire man power and machinery of the more than 800 B’nai B’rith lodges and
auxiliaries in the country would be put at the disposal of home service
sections of local Red Cross chapters.”
1941(19th
of Kislev, 5702): “Rosh Hashanah of Chassidism”
1941(19th
of Kislev, 5702): Seventy-six Hart O.Berg “a pioneer in the manufacture of
machine guns, guns automobiles and submarines” whose most notable
accomplishment was helping the Wright Brothers promote their flying machines
during their first European tours passed away today.
1941(19th
of Kislev, 5702): Following two days of killing known as the Rumbula Massacre,
an additional 500 Jews were murdered in the “small ghetto” at Riga. The Nazis
used buses supplied by the Riga municipal authorities to transport the Jews to
the Bikernieki forest where “they were murdered and buried in mass graves.
1942:
“Winter Soldiers,” a play “about saboteurs in Nazi-occupied countries” directed
by Shephard Traube is scheduled to have its final performance tonight at the
Studio Theatre of the New School for Social Research.”
1942: Seventy-six year old Maximillian Pick was transported from Pardubice to
Terezin where he was murdered in January.
1942: German troops in Tunis, Tunisia, seize 128 Jews and march them to a labor
camp. One young Jew who drops from exhaustion is shot and killed.
1942:
Hannah Karminski was brought to the extermination camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0011_0_10774.html
1942: Christian Century,
an American Protestant journal, attacks Rabbi Stephen Wise, claiming he has
lied about the Holocaust in his recent press conference. Christian Century
further argues that even if what Wise has to say is true, to make the facts of
the Holocaust public serves no purpose.
1943:
“Setback For Hitler” published today includes the views of the President of the
National Conference of Christians and Jews that while there have been race
riots in several U.S. cities, that despite the murmurings against Catholics and
Jews, “there has arisen a general conviction that we must labor together if or
national life is to be maintained.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/12/10/88584348.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1944(23rd
of Kislev, 5705): Parashat Vayeshev
1944: According to a survey completed today, the fate of at least 2,091 Roman
Jews “deported to the north by the Germans is still unknown.
1945:
“Yeshiva…always has endeavored to blaze a new trail in the field of higher
learning, and now that it has become a university will continue to do
pioneering work in the field of divine and human knowledge, Dr. Samuel Belkin President of Yeshiva University declared
tonight at the 17th annual Yeshiva College dinner.”
1946: “The Doctors' Trial,” the trial for crimes committed in Nazi human
experimentation during World War II, began in Nuremberg, Germany.
1946: Chaim Weizmann calls for a Jewish state in Palestine.
1947: The Security Council tables a debate on partition after Syria reports
that Arabs will question legality of such a partition.
1948:
In Tel Aviv, “Israel Friedman, who was executive vice president of the
Religious Zionists of America, and the former Rivka Hershman” gave birth to
Bracha Friedman who gained fame as “whistle-blower Bracha Graber.” (As reported
by Sam Roberts)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/nyregion/bracha-graber-dead-whistle-blower-in-foster-care-fraud-case.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
1948: Iraq is asked by Britain, U.S., and France to reopen oil pipeline from
Iraq to Haifa The promise made that oil refined in Haifa will not be furnished
to Israel.
1948: In British ruled Aden eighty-two Jews were killed during a savage attack
on the Jewish citizens and their property. Other such riots took place in
Beirut, Cairo, Alexandria and Aleppo.
1949: The UN General Assembly voted to put Jerusalem under permanent UN rule.
This a repeat of what was in the resolution adopted on November 29, 1947.
1949: Arab states support the adoption of the motion to put Jerusalem under
permanent UN rule because they are suspicious of King of Abdullah of Jordan who
has annexed the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem.
1949: Britain opposes the UN plan to put Jerusalem under permanent UN rule.
1949: The United States opposes the UN plant to put Jerusalem under permanent
UN rule. It favors a compromise put forward by Sweden and the Netherlands under
which only the city’s religious shrines would be under UN Control instead of
the whole city
1949: Chile abstained from voting on the UN resolution in favor to the
internationalization of Jerusalem
1950: Harry Gold was sentenced to thirty years in jail for stealing United
States nuclear weapon secrets for the Soviet Union. Gold’s testimony led to
David Greenglass which in turn led to Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were
executed after being convicted of espionage. Gold only served about half of his
sentence.
1951:
“Dr. Earl James McGrath, United States Commissioner of Education, said today
that Jewish culture had become "increasingly a part of the whole American
pattern," and that if anti-Semitism "is again to become a threat it
will menace the whole of the American people, the whole of American
democracy."
1951(10th of Kislev, 5712): Fifty-eight-year-old Springfield native
Edward Adaskin, the brother of Herman Adaskin and President and Treasurer of
the Adaskin Furniture Company who “was a member of the Board of Fellows of
Brandeis University and past president of Temple Beth-El passed away today in
Springfield, MA.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/12/10/96226027.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1952: The Jerusalem Post
reported that the Knesset elected Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the 68-year-old Labor
Zionist leader, as the second President of Israel. He was elected on the third
ballot when he won 62 votes. The other candidates were Rabbi M. Nurock, who
received 40 votes, and Mr. Y. Gruenbaum who won five. There were five blanks
and eight abstentions.
1953(3rd
of Tevet, 5714): Eight Day of Chanukah
1953(3rd
of Tevet, 5714): Eighty-five-year-old Sadie Fraley Stix, the daughter of Moses
and Rose Harsch Fraley and the wife of Charles Stix passed away today after
which she was buried at the New Mount Sinai Cemetery in Affton, MO.
1954:
“Deep In My Heart” biopic about Jewish composer Sigmund Romberg directed by
Stanley Donen, was released today in the United States by MGM.
1955(24th
of Kislev,5716): Kindle the first Chanukah candle
1956(5th
of Tevet, 5717): Sixty-two-year-old painter and poet Uriel Birnbaum passed
away.
http://www.jhm.nl/cultuur-en-geschiedenis/personen/b/birnbaum,+uriel
http://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/The-Gate-of-Death/36C13293CEA88220
1957:
The first Japanese ambassador to Israel arrived in the Jewish state.
1958:
Robert Welch, Jr. founded the John Birch Society.
1959:
Bartley Cavanaugh Crum, the lawyer who “was a member of the Anglo-American
Commission of Inquiry on Palestine in 1945 that advised President Harry Truman
to support the opening of the British Mandate of Palestine to unrestricted
Jewish immigration and to ease restrictions on Jewish land purchases” and
authored Behind the Silken Curtain a Personal Account of Anglo-American
Diplomacy in Palestine and the Middle East published by Simon &
Schuster in 1947.
1961: An Israeli court found Adolf Eichmann found guilty of war crimes.
1961:
Ferenc Molnar, a Hungarian author who escaped to the United States to avoid the
persecution of Hungarian Jews and passed away in 1952 was retroactively granted
the status of “returning resident.”
1962:
Premiere of “Station Six-Sahara” a British-German film produced by Holocaust
survivor Gene Gutowski and co-starring Carroll Baker who converted to Judaism
when she married Holocaust survivor Jack Garfein.
1965: In Tokyo, world premiere of “Thunderball,” the fourth film in the James
Bond series featuring Leonard Sachs
1966: Birthdate of Gideon Moses Serchanski, the Tel Aviv native who gained fame
as Gideon Sa'arl, a Likud MK and Minister of Education.
1966:
Seventy-one-year-old poet Lazarus Leonard Aarronson, a native of London’s East
End who converted to Christianity and published Christ in the Synagogue
in 1930, passed away today.
1968:
In the U.K. premiere of “The Birthday Party” directed by William Friedkin,
produced by Max Rosenburg and Milton Subotsky with a script by Harold Pinter.
1969:
Thanks to newly supplied Soviet radar, the IAF suffers a “bad day” when
Egyptian aircraft shoot down two Mirages and one F-4 Phantom Jet.
1969:
The Nixon Administration publicizes the “Rogers Plan” named for the U.S.
Secretary of State that “calls for Egyptian ‘commitment to peace’ in exchange
for the Israeli withdrawal from Sinai.”
(This plan follows a pattern all too common to these negotiations over
the decades – Israel gives up something tangible for an Arab promise)
1969: Birthdate of musician Jakob Dylan, son of Bob Dylan.
1970:
The 6th Asian Games in which Esther Roth-Shachamorov won golds in
100m hurdles and pentathlon and a silver in long jump opened in Bangkok.
1970(11th
of Kislev, 5731): Eighty-two-year-old London born, Columbia University trained
Professor of Chemistry, Benjamin Harrow, Ph.D. passed away today.
1971:
Dr. Ralph J Bunche passed away. Bunche won the Nobel Peace Prize for his
successful role in negotiating an end to the fighting between the Israelis and
the Arab states in 1949.
1972:
Ninety-two-year-old gossip columnist Louella Parsons, the daughter of Joshua
Oettinger, a German Jew, who was raised as an Episcopalian passed away today in
Santa Monica, CA.
1972:
Helen Reddy’s "I Am Woman" tops the charts about four years after she
had converted to Judaism before more marrying Jeff Wald with whom she had son,
Jordan, in 1972,
http://jwa.org/thisweek/dec/09/1972/helen-reddy
1973: A revival of “The Pajama Game,” the Richard Adler/Jerry Ross musical
starring Hal Linden opened at the Lunt-Fontaine Theatre.
1973:
“After only 37 performances and 16 previews,” “In the Boom Boom Room” directed
by Joseph Papp and co-starring Madeline Kahn who “won the Drama Desk Award” for
her performance closed on Broadway today.
1974(25th
of Kislev, 5735): First Day of Chanukah
1974:
Howard Cossell (who was Jewish) interviewed John Lennon as part of a breakaway
segment during tonight’s Washington Redskins football game.
1976(17th
of Kislev, 5737): Sixty-five-year-old Barnard College graduate “Aleen Ginsberg
Schacht, a national vice president of Hadassah and wife of steel construction
executive Lawrence Schact with whom she raised two children – Michael and
BarDara – passed away today.
1976:
Funeral services for Dr. Julian Morgenstern, President Emeritus of Hebrew Union
College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Ohio, are scheduled to be
held at the college this afternoon.
http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0030/ms0030.html
1977(29th
of Kislev, 5738): One day before her 57th birthday Brazilian author
Clarice Lispector passed away today.
1977:
The Jerusalem Post reported that Egypt had returned to Israel the bodies of
three unidentified Israeli soldiers who were killed during the Yom Kippur war.
1977: In Cairo tens of thousands of Egyptians demonstrated, carrying placards
and chanting slogans of support for President Anwar Sadat's drive for peace.
While Egypt severed relations with Arab states, King Hussein of Jordan arrived
in Cairo for a visit. Hussein seemed to be ready to agree to the Jordanian
participation in the joint Israeli-Arab meeting in Cairo, suggested by Sadat,
preparatory to the reconvening of the Geneva Peace Conference.
1979(19
of Kislev, 5740: Fifty-three-year-old “Scottish dramatist, screenwriter and
author” Jack Tobias Ronder, “the grandson of Lithuanian Jews fleeing the Czar
who settled in Dundee and the husband of Anne Christe with whom he had three
children including “actress and playwright Tanya Ronder” family “story inspired
Ronder's first book and a BBC TV series, The Lost Tribe, which was the story of the establishment of Jewish
community in Edinburgh and Glasgow passed away today in London.
1980:
In Boston, the Jacob Wirth Restaurant which was found in 1868 by Jacob Wirth
was added to the National Register of Historic Places today.
1980: In Los Angeles, actor Sandy Helberg and casting director Harriet Helberg
Simon Maxwell Helberg, American actor and comedian best known for his role as
Howard Wolowitz in “The Big Bang.”
1981:
The Moscow Municipal Court sentenced refusnik Boris Chernobylskii “to twelve
months of general regime imprisonment “for resisting the police while
performing their official duties.”
1981(13th
of Kislev, 5742): Sixty-year-old New York City native and Fordham trained
attorney Leonard Kaufman the WW II veteran who was appointed as general counsel
of the Paramount Pictures Corporation by Barnay Balaban in 1964 passed away
today.
1981:
“Lady in the Dark” a musical with music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin
and book and direction by Moss Hart had its premiere UK performance at the
Nottingham Palace.
1982(23rd of Kislev, 5743): Polish born Dutch violist Paul Godwin [Goldfein]
passes away at the age of 80.
1982(23rd of Kislev, 5743): Activist Norman Mayer threatens to blow up the
Washington Monument, before being killed by United States Park Police.
1983:
U.S premiere of “Scarface” produced by Martin Bregman.
1983:
After premiering in November, “Terms of Endearment” a comedy directed, produced
and written by James L. Brooks and co-starring Debra Winger was released U.S.
wide today by Paramount Pictures.
1983:
“The Dresser” the movie version of the play written by Ronald Harwood who also
wrote the script for the film was released today in the United Kingdom.
1984(15th
of Kislev, 5745): Eighty-seven-year-old Case Western University graduate and
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Henry Dietz, the long-time science
editor of the Scripps-Howard Newspapers and “a lecturer in general science at
his alma mater passed away today in his hometown of Cleveland, OH.
1985:
The funeral for 83-year-old “Abraham M. Adler, “co-founder of the Hirschl and
Adler art gallery are scheduled to be held today
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/09/arts/abraham-adler-83-is-dead-co-founder-of-an-art-gallery.html
1987: The First Intifada began in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. (Editor’s note
– such catchy names for the various waves of Arab violence. This event falls at a time when we are
tracing events of 50 years ago when there was another wave of Arab violence
that resulted in the infamous White Paper that closed Palestine to Jews fleeing
the Holocaust.)
1988:
“My Stepmother Is an Alien” a sci-fi comedy directed by Richard Benjamin and
featuring Jon Lovitz was released today in the United States.
1988:
“Mississippi Burning” a film based on the investigation of the murder of three
civil rights workers, two of whom – Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner – were
Jewish featuring Stephen Tobolowsky as “Clayton Townley” was released in the
United States today.
1988: Today the major daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot published a survey
indicating that 80 percent of Israelis now want President Chaim Herzog to
continue urging Labor and Likud to form a new coalition. And 76 percent want
that coalition to include no other partners - especially not the religious
parties.
1990: In New York, Congregation Ansche Chesed sponsors a concert by folk singer
Richie Havens. The concert is a fund raiser for the building fund and is part
of the synagogue's 10th annual Hanukkah Arts Festival, which also offers a
bazaar of gift items and refreshments.
1991:
In a case of a Jewish critic evaluating the work of a Jewish authors and a
Jewish composer, Franks Rich reviewed “Nick & Nora.”
http://www.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9D0CE6D91539F93AA35751C1A967958260&_r=2&
1993:
A revival of Lerner and Loewe’s "My Fair Lady" opens at Virginia
Theater New York City for the first of 165 performances
1996(28th
of Kislev, 5757): Fourth Day of Chanukah
1996(28th
of Kislev, 5757): Sixty-one-year-old Raphael Elkan Samuel, the Marxist and
Professor of History at the University of East London who left the Communist
Party when the Soviets crushed the Hungarians in 1956 passed away today.
https://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/obituary-raphael-samuel-5588939.html
1998:
“For the first time in more than half a century, the United Nations General
Assembly decided today to list anti-Semitism as a form of racism.”
1999(30th
of Kislev, 5760): Rosh Chodesh Tevet; Sixth Day of Chanukah
1999:
It was reported today that “With negotiations at an impasse over a German fund
to compensate Nazi-era slave laborers, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder has
dismissed demands to improve Germany's latest offer.”
2000:
“Ten people were killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in one of the
deadliest days of violence since the current Palestinian uprising began more
than two months ago.”
2001:
In “Music’s Dangers and the Case For Control” published today Richard Taruskin
examined “The Death of Klinghoffer” an opera which its critics, including the
family of the murdered Leon Klinghoffer, distorts a brutal act of murder in
which an old Jew is thrown from his wheelchair into the Mediterranean.
https://cbsnewyork.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/protest2.jpg
http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/10/17/455935940_custom-343dbecffddf9508e9a22d2c33116bab9a80b0f1-s4-c85.jpg
2001(24th of Kislev, 5762): In the evening, kindle the first
Chanukah light.
200I: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak announced he would resign and call a
special election.
2001: The New York Times book section featured books by Jewish authors and/or
about subjects of Jewish interest including Collected Stories by Saul
Bellow, Letters To A Young Lawyer by Alan Dershowitz and Still Alive:
A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered by Ruth Kluger.
2001: A suicide bomber exploded a powerful bomb near a bus stop at the
Checkpost Junction in Haifa shortly after 7:30 AM. About 30 people were
injured, most lightly and suffering from shock. A second explosive device was
found and detonated nearby. The terrorist was killed.
2002:
Yale undergrad and Harvard trained lawyer Ellen L. Weintraub began serving as
Member of the Federal Election Commission.
2002:
An International Symposium entitled "Jewish identity and anti-Semitism in
Central and South Eastern Europe sponsored by the Federation of Romanian Jewish
Communities, the "Goldstein-Goren" Hebrew Studies Center, Bucharest
University and Bucharest History Museum opened in Bucharest.
2002: Susan “Sontag continued to theorize about the role of photography in real
life in her essay "Looking at War: Photography's View of Devastation and
Death", which appeared in today’s issue of The New Yorker in which she
concludes that the problem of our reliance on images and especially
photographic images is not that "people remember through photographs but
that they remember only the photographs ... that the photographic image
eclipses other forms of understanding – and remembering. ... To remember is,
more and more, not to recall a story but to be able to call up a picture."
2003:
The Shin Bet captured Mahmud Amru, the sniper who murdered ten-month-old
Israeli infant Shalhevet Pass and wounded her father as he blazed away at a
busy playground.
2003:
For the second night in a row, The Empire State Building offered a special
tribute to the 110th anniversary of the National Council of Jewish Women
(NCJW), when it was illuminated by the organization’s colors of blue and green.
2004:
The first Broadway revival of “La Cage Aux Folles a musical with a book by
Harvey Fierstein and lyrics and music by Jerry Herman opened at the Marquis
Theatre.
2004:
Birthdate of Mile High resident Judah Ruscha.
2005:
“Chrisie Watts” played by Tracy-Ann Oberman made her final appearance today in
the “BBC soap opera ‘EastEnders.’”
2005: Sgt. Nir Kahane, 20, the military policeman who was stabbed to death by a
Palestinian attacker at the Kalandia checkpoint, was buried in the Kiryat Tivon
military cemetery.
2006: Haaretz
reported that Germany condemned a planned Iranian conference on the Holocaust.
The German Foreign Ministry told a top Iranian official that attempts to
question the Nazis' murder of Jews were "shocking and unacceptable."
2006: The Chicago Tribune
published an “edited” version of a “letter to the editors” describing one Jew’s
view of the annual office Christmas Party, and if you read between the lines, a
whole lot more.
2006: Shuttle Discovery launches on the STS-116 mission at 8:45 P.M. Space
Shuttle Discovery Commander Mark Polansky took a replica of "Refugee"
with him on the shuttle's mission. Each astronaut is invited to take a few
items into space. Polansky took the replica of "Refugee" and an image
of a Darfurian child in a refugee camp in Chad taken by Museum staff member
Jerry Fowler. “Refugee” is the name of the stuffed bear that comforted
Holocaust survivor Sophie Turner-Zaretsky when she is a refugee following World
War II.
2007: The Center for Jewish History, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of
Religion, and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America present “A Legacy for
the Future: Celebrating the Life and Teachings of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
on the Centennial of His Birth 1907-2007
2007: The Sunday New York
Times book section reviews of books by Jewish authors or on topics
related to Judaism or Jewish culture including The Rowing Lesson by the
South African Jewish author Ann Landsman, Touch and Go: A Memoir by
Studs Terkel and Bernard Malamud: A Writers Life by Philip Davis.
2007: The Washington Post list of Best Books for Young People included Leaves
by David Ezra Stein.
2007(29th of Kislev, 5768): In Little Rock, AR, Harvey Luber, a man whose
talents, gifts and accomplishments are too numerous to mention is laid to rest.
To say he was a pillar of the Jewish community, a teacher, a photographer, a first-class
raconteur and lifelong learner as well as a proud father and great Zeda does
not even begin to capture the essence of the man. To say that he was a friend
to all both great and small regardless of rank or status says much about the
basic decency of the man. If one were to write more in this vein, it would
cause Harvey to laugh all the more. Suffice it to say that God apparently was
in need of a great photographer, a memorable laugh and sage if slightly twisted
discussion on matters of Judaica and only Harvey could give Him all that and
more in one soul. He will me be missed and never forgotten.
2007: “Bagels & Barbeque: The Jewish Experience” opens at The Tennessee
State Museum in Nashville. Bagels & Barbeque: The Jewish Experience in
Tennessee is a joint project of the Tennessee State Museum in collaboration
with the Jewish Federation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee, Jewish Community
Federation of Greater Chattanooga, Knoxville Jewish Alliance, and Memphis
Jewish Federation, with the participation of other Jewish communities around
the state. The exhibit’s statewide tour is supported in part by a grant from
Humanities Tennessee, an independent affiliate of the National Endowment for
the Humanities.
2007:
Funeral services for Harvey David Luber, of blessed memory were held in Little
Rock, AR this afternoon.
2008:
Police provided the name of the 10 Pakistani terrorists who attacked various
targets in Mubain last month including the Chabad House.
2008: At Adas Israel, a three-day conference entitled "Zionism, Israel and
Human Rights" with Avram Burg, author and former Speaker of the Knesset
and Sari Nusseibeh, President of Al Quds University moderated by Kathleen
Peratis, Board Member Emeriti of Human Rights Watch comes to an end.
2008 (12 Kislev): Yahrzeit of Solomon Schechter.
2009: Rabbi Addin Steinsaltz is scheduled to produce tractate Niddah, which
deals with the laws that a married woman must adhere to during menstruation.
2009: The 20th Washington Jewish Film Festival includes a screening of “Divided
We Fall,” which tells the story of a childless couple living in a small Czech
village during World War II who hide their former neighbor, a young Jewish man
who has managed to escape from the death camps after losing his entire family.
2009: Funeral services are scheduled to held at the First Hebrew Congregation
of Peekskill today for 97 year old Fordham trained attorney, WW II Army combat
veteran and State Supreme Court Justice Leonard Rubenfeld, the husband of the
former Amelia Kooperstein.
2009: The 24th Annual New York Israeli Film Festival includes a screening of
“Legends in the Dunes,” Ya’akov Gross’ new documentary prepared in honor of the
100th anniversary of the founding of Tel Aviv that follows the development of
the building of the new city across from the ancient city of Yaffo.
2009(22nd of Kislev, 5770): Gene Barry passed away. Born Eugene Klass in 1919,
he enjoyed a successful career performing on the stage, in films and on several
successful television series. His marriage to Betty Kalb lasted 58 years,
making him a success in his personal as well as professional life.
2010: “Tango, A Story With Jews” is scheduled to make its Mid-Atlantic Premiere
at the 21st Washington Jewish Film Festival. The film highlights the role
played by Russian musicians who fled to Buenos Aires in the 19th century in
creating this icon of Argentine culture.
2010:
Funeral services for Dr. Samuel I Mintz, the husband of the former Eleanor
Streichler, English Professor and WW II veteran are scheduled to take place in
Hackensack, NJ.
2010: The YIVO is scheduled to present a program entitled "This Theatre is
a Battlefield: How Antifascist and Zionist Performance Forged a New Jewish-
American Identity, 1939-1948.”
2010(2nd of Tevet, 5711): Eighth Day of Chanukah
2010(2nd
of Tevet, 5711): Ninety-nine-year-old Brooklyn born violin prodigy and Syracuse
University basketball player who co-founded the Famous Artists Broadway Theater
Series passed away today.
http://blog.syracuse.com/entertainment/2010/12/murray_bernthal_dies_at_99_col.html
2010(2nd of Tevet, 5711): Dov Shilansky, Holocaust survivor and former speaker
of the Knesset passed away at the age of 86.
2011: “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg” is one of three films being screened today at
the 22nd Washington Jewish Film Festival.
2011:
Craig Breslow was part of a multi-player trade that sent him from the Athletics
to the Diamonbacks.
2011: As part of the Scholars in Residence Weekend at Touro Synagogue in New
Orleans, Dr. Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, a professor in the Harris School of
Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago is scheduled to address the
issues of terrorism, counter-terrorism and religion.
2011: Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is scheduled to host one of its
ever-popular Musical Shabbats.
2011:
Gaza militants launched several rockets toward Israel's south today, hours
after an Israeli air strike in central Gaza killed a Palestinian militant
planning a terrorist attack on the Egypt border.
2011: Thousands of Israelis marched in Tel
Aviv today to mark International Human Rights Day.
2012(25th of Kislev, 5773): Chanukah
2012(25th of Kislev, 5773): Eighty-five-year-old
“Charles Rosen, the pianist, polymath and author whose National Book
Award-winning volume The Classical Style illuminated the enduring
language of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven” passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by
Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Sasha
and Emma: The Anarchist Odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman by
Paul Avrich and Karen Avrich
2012: Bein Hashmashot (Between the Suns), the
official youth choir of Beit Shemesh, is scheduled to perform at the JCC of
Northern Virginia.
2012: The Sephardic Musical Festival is scheduled to
continue tonight with “Sephardic Story Slam” at Lolita Bar in NYC.
2012: Chabad of North Dakota led by Rabbi Yonah Grossman
is scheduled to host a public menorah lighting complete with Latkes and
Sufganyot (Is there any place where the lamplighters of Lubavitch are not to be
found?)
2012: In Cedar Rapids, Brian Cohen, champion Shofar
Blower, shows that he is a “man for all festivals” as he leads his latke
flipping team in preparing the potato delights for Temple Judah’s annual
Chanukah Dinner.
2012: Israel should define its borders, even if this
means doing so unilaterally, and separate from the Palestinians, former IDF
chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said today.
2012: “The Gatekeepers,” a film by Israeli director Dror
Moreh, was named best documentary today by the Los Angeles Film Critics
Association, whose prizes are among a flurry of year-end honors that help sort
out the Academy Awards race. The French-language drama “Amour” was chosen as
the year’s best film.
2012: A government proposal to allow 1,300 haredi
yeshiva students to enlist in the civilian service program instead of serving
in the military was approved today but was greeted with widespread outrage from
IDF draft reform advocates.
http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=295184
2012: The Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to
open tonight in Israel’s capital city.
2012: Yoram Marciano re-entered the Knesset.
2013: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present
a roundtable discussion “French and Jewish: Defining a Modern Jewish Identity
in the 19th Century.”
2013: “Trembling Before G-d” is scheduled to be shown at
the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2013: On the advice of his doctor “nonagenarian President
Shimon Peres” will not be traveling to South Africa to attend Nelson Mendela’s
funeral which Israel will be represented by Knesset Speark Yuli Edelstein.
2013: The trial of five former employees of the great
goniff Bernie Madoff resumes today.
2013: In a rare instance of unanimous agreement “Both
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and senior Palestinian spokesmen doused any
optimism today that the US-led Israeli- Palestinian talks were on the verge of
a breakthrough. (As reported by Herb Keinon)
2013: Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority were
set today to ink an agreement to build a long-anticipated pipeline from the Red
Sea to the Dead Sea, part of an initiative that would produce millions of cubic
meters of drinking water for the parched region and slake the critically
dwindling Dead Sea (As reported by Stuart Winer)
2013: Anat Hoffman, Executive Director of the Israeli
Religious Action Center is scheduled to deliver a talk entitled Between the
Stones and a Hard Place: The Challenge to Gender Equity & Pluralism in
Israel at the Lawrence Family JCC.
2103: Peter Shurman announced that he would resign as a
member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario representing the riding of
Thornhill effective at the end of the year.
2014: LBI is scheduled to present “Fighting for Kaiser
and Fatherland” German-Jewish Soldiers and the Quest for Integration,
1914-1935”
2014(17th of Kislev, 5775): Ninety-year-old
landscape painter Jane Freilicher passed away today.
2014(17th of Kislev, 5775): Seventy-year-old
Russian violinist Lydia Mordkovitch passed away today in London.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11290327/Lydia-Mordkovitch-obituary.html
2014: Kirk Douglas, “the son of an immigrant Russian
Jewish ragman marked his birthday today by celebrating the launch of his 11th
book.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/at-98-kirk-douglas-the-poet-emerges/
2014: A group calling itself "Guardians of
Peace" hacked into Sony's computer system – a hack which would eventually
lead to the dismissal of Amy Pascal as the Chairperson of the Motion Pictures
Group of Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) and Co-Chairperson of SPE, including
Sony Pictures Television.
2014: “Zero Motivation, a zany, dark
comedic portrait of everyday life for a unit of young, female Israeli soldiers”
is scheduled to be shown at the Washington Jewish Film Festival
2014: “French police arrested five men
suspected of making threats online to attack a synagogue.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/five-arrested-for-threats-to-attack-french-synagogue/
2014: While praying at Chabad-Lubavitch
world headquarters in Brooklyn twenty-two-year-old Levi Rosenviat, an Israeli
man studying for the rabbinate in New York was stabbed by Calvin Peters who
entered the Chabad building shouting “I will kill the Jew! I want to kill the
Jew!” (JTA)
2014; “Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said
today that there appeared to be a lull in the recent wave of terror attacks in
the West Bank and Jerusalem but added that it was far from certain that the
calm would continue.
2015: The American Jewish Historical
Society in collaboration with Moscow Museum is scheduled to present the
documentary film "Alyad" about the Refusenik Movement.
2015: In his criticism of Education
Minister Naftali Bennett, Chief Rabbi David Lau said that the Conservative of
Masorti movement “distances Jews from the path of the Jewish people” – a
distancing that does not include avoiding soliciting funds from Conservative
Jews.
2016: In Haifa, the a-Sham Arab Food
Festival “in which 45 leading chefs from the Arab (Muslim, Christian and Druze)
and Jewish sectors have showcased the culinary treasures of the region passed
down through generations, but with modern twists” is scheduled to come to an
end today.
2016: “Jackie” with Natalie Portman
starring in the title role is scheduled to be released in the United States
today.
2016: “On the Map” a film that “tells the
against-all-odds story of Maccabi Tel Aviv’s 1977 European Championship, which
took place at a time when the Middle East was still reeling from the 1973 Yom
Kippur War, the 1972 Olympic massacre at Munich, and the 1976 hijacking of an
Air France flight from Tel Aviv” is scheduled to open at the Cinema Village.
2016: In Memphis, TN, a Ruach Preneg
Concert is scheduled to kick-off the observance of Shabbat.
2016: Actor, director, producer, author,
philanthropist and most surprising of all Torah Student, Kirk Douglas is
scheduled to celebrate his 100th birthday today.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/kirk-douglas-to-celebrate-100th-birthday-in-star-studded-bash/
2017(21st
of Kislev, 5778): Parashat Va-yeishev;
2017:
Eighty-eight-year-old Marshall Loeb, the Chicago born son of Monroe Harriman
Loeb and “the former Henrietta Benjamin and University of Missouri trained
journalist who “was managing editor of Forbes and Money magazines” passed away
today.
2017:
Kirk Douglas is scheduled to observe his 101st birthday.
2017:
One hundredth anniversary of the British capture of Jerusalem during WW I.
2017:
Attendees at the URK Biennial are preparing to deal with the first major winter
snow storm scheduled to strike Boston as they observe Shabbat.
2017:
Jewish Book Month, an annual event that provides us with a chance to
contemplate Jewish books and the lives of authors such as Rabbi Eugene Borowitz
whose works included The Mask Jews Wear and Liberal Judaism continues
today.
2018(1st
of Tevet, 5779): Rosh Chodesh Tevet; 7th day of Chanukah
2018:
The Lior Milliger Quartet led by saxophone player Lior Milliger whose “music is
influenced by traditional jazz as well as ancient Jewish music and Israeli
folklore” is scheduled to appear at the Cornelia Street Café.
2018:
“The Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, the Iowa Jewish Historical
Society, and the United Nations Association of Iowa” are scheduled to host Dr.
Emile Schrijver, the Director of the Amsterdam Jewish Museum as he lectures on
“Amsterdam’s Jewish Golden Age.”
2018:
In Amherst, MA, the Yiddish Book Center is scheduled to host a screening of a
newly restored prinf of “Der Dibuk” (The Dybbuk)
2018:
In Washington, DC, Adas Isreal is scheduled to host the annual meeting of the
“Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum.”
2018:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education is scheduled to a performance of
“Everyday Things” – “a play weaving Survivor testimonies and treasured objects
from Stories of Survival.
2018:
In Chevy Chase, MD, Ohr Kodesh is scheduled to host “The 5th Annual
Dreidels and Drink” featuring everything from latkes to “dreidel drinking
games.”
2018:
The New York Times published reviews
by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The
Life of Saul Bellow: Love and Strife, 1965-2005 by Zachary Leader and The
Politics of Petulance: America in an Age of Immaturity by Alan Wolfe
2019:
In Boston, the Convention of USCJ and the Rabbinical Assembly is scheduled to
host a Monday Night Concert with Josey Weisenberg and the Hadar Ensemble.
2019:
The National Council of Jewish Women of Greater New Orleans is scheduled to
host its board meeting this evening.
2019:
The Center for Jewish History and the American Jewish Historical Society are
scheduled to host “a conversation moderated by Rabbi Joseph Black of Temple
Emanuel in Denver, in which Amanda Kinsey speaks with Annie Polland, Executive
Director of the American Jewish Historical Society and Ann Kirschner, author of
Lady at the O.K. Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp about the soon
to be made “feature length documentary ‘Jews of the Wild West.’”
2019:
In San Francisco, the Chase Center is scheduled to host the 15th
annual Warriors Jewish Heritage Night as Golden State takes on the Memphis
Grizzlies in an NBA matchup.
2019:
In Palo Alto, CA, the Oshman Family JCC is scheduled to host a “discussion with
Professor Rivka Carmi, the first and only female to serve as president of a
public university in Israel, Ben Gurion University of the Negev.”
2019:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host Rabbi David Wolpe as he lectures on
“Isaac Luria, the Mystics of Safed and the Beginning of Creation.”
2019:
In Washington, Dr. Jean-March Dreyfus is scheduled to deliver the 2019 J.B. and
Maurice C. Shapiro Annual Lecture on “At the Margin of the Holocaust? Writing
the Biography of Mischling in the German Foreign Office: Vollrath von Maltzan.”
2019:
In the wake of the killing of three people at the Naval Air Station in
Pensacola, by a Royal Saudi Air Force on a training assignment who accused the
United States of being anti-Muslim and complained about U.S. support for
Israel, U.S. government officials are scheduled to continue a review of the
security component of a program that trains thousands of foreign airman in the
use of American aircraft purchased by their countries.
2020:
The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience is scheduled to host the last session of
“Learn Arabic with Professor Daniel Tsadik.”
2020:
The ASF Institute is scheduled to host Aviva Ben-Ur discussing her new book,
“Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society: Suriname in the Atlantic World,
1651-1825.”
2020:
In Cedar Rapids, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet over Zoom to
discuss The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks.
2020:
The Illinois Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to host a “Coffee with a
Survivor” session with Sharrel Titelbaum.
2020:
In London, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to “an host a talk about the Jews
Free School.”
2020:
In Manhattan, the Other Israel Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening
of “One More Jump” followed by a Question-and-Answer session.
2020:
Havurah on the Hill is scheduled to present online “Sabbath Breads From Around
the Jewish World,” an “interactive workshop” which explores “the diversity of
the global Jewish experience through bread.”
2020:
The Great YNY Clothing & Computer Drive is scheduled to come to an end
today.
2020:
The Jewish Family Services of Columbus is scheduled to host a virtual program
featuring Julie Remer and Paula Weinstein where attendees will learn how to
make oven fried latkes and easy microwave applesauce for Chanukah.”
2020:
The Breman Museum is scheduled to host the Joe Alterman Trio performing live
via Zoom, Jazz Standards “inspired by photographs from “A Jazz Memoir:
Photography” by Herb Snitzer
2020:
MK Gideon Sa'ar, long seen as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's main rival
within Likud who had announced yesterday evening that he was leaving the ruling
party to launch a new right-wing political movement and run for prime minister
against Netanyahu” is scheduled to “resign from his post as a member of
parliament” today. (As reported by Moran Azulay)
2021:
Two of the National Library of Israel’s leading authorities on its treasures,
Dr. Raquel Ukeles, Head of Collections, and Dr. Yoel Finkelman, Judaica
Curator, are scheduled to explore highlights of the Library’s collection and
offer a behind the scenes window into the challenges and opportunities in
securing the Library’s treasures.
2021:
The Schusterman Center for Israel Studies is scheduled to present online “Professor
Yuval Evri in conversation with Neta Elkayam, an Israeli singer and visual
artist whose work plumbs the culture of the Moroccan Jews from which she
descended.”
2021:
In New Orleans, the Touro Foundation is scheduled to host Casino Night, an
event designed to raise funds to support Touro Infirmary.
2021:
As part of the series on “The Hidden History of Jews and Reproductive Rights in
America” JWA is scheduled to present Dr. Gillian Frank, co-host of the podcast
Sexing History and historian of abortion rights, lecturing on rabbis who fought
for abortion rights before Roe v. Wade.
2021:
The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to welcome “Tony Kushner as
he talks about his work, old and new, and about the journey of a Jewish boy
from Lake Charles, Louisiana, to the pinnacles of Broadway and Hollywood.”
2021:
As part of the JCC’s Book Fest in Your Living Room, the Oshman Family JCC is
scheduled to present David Javerbaum, former head writer of “The Daily Show,”
discussing his new Psalms parody, written in the voice of God and subtitled “97
Divine Diatribes on Humanity’s Total Failure.”
2022:
Kan Kol Hamusika is scheduled to broadcast of a concert performed by “Tro
Delyria.”
2022:
“Hiking the Holyand” is scheduled to sponsor a hike “through the Jerusalem
Mountains” for young singles ages 25 to 45.
2022:
Based on previously published reports the announcement of the UTJ party is
demanding a change to the law that would forbid prayer not conducted “in
accordance with the traditions of the Chief Rabbinate” is increasing the schism
in the “house of Israel” since “the proposal has sparked fierce denunciations
from the Reform movement in Israel, as well as Women of the Wall.” (As reported
by Judah Ari Gross)
2023(26th
of Kislev, 5784): Shabbat She Chanukah; Parashat Va-yashev
For
more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2023:
The Gateways Chanukah Retreat is scheduled to continue for a second day at the
Hilton Hotel in Stamford, CT.
2023:
The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled to host a
special “Hannukah Concert with Michael Winograde and the Honorable Mentshin
with Special Guest Sasha Lurje” this evening.
2023:
In Jerusalem, the Eden Tamir Center is scheduled to host “The Glorious Sound of
the Piano” concert.
2023:
As December 9 begins in Israel, Hamas continues to be a threat as evidenced by
yesterday’s rocket barrages fired into southern Israel, the threat from the
north continues as can be seen by the IDF having had to destroy a Hezbollah observation
post yesterday and despite the recent efforts by the IDF the Hamas held hostages begin day 64 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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