This Day, December 30, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
December
30
39: A black day on
the Jewish calendar; birthdate of Roman Emperor Titus the man who destroyed the
Second Temple. The Arch of Titus commemorates the exile of the Israelites.
987: Coronation of Robert II, who “conspired with his vass…
39: A black day on
the Jewish calendar; birthdate of Roman Emperor Titus the man who destroyed the
Second Temple. The Arch of Titus commemorates the exile of the Israelites.
987: Coronation of Robert II, who “conspired with his vassals to destroy all
the Jews who would not accept baptism” and inspired mob violence against the
Jews including “the learned Rabbi Senior”
1066(9 Tevet 4827):
Joseph ibn Nagrela, son of
Samuel ibn Nagrela, was murdered in Granada during the Granada Massacre. He had
served as vizier to Badis, ruler of the Berbers. There had been constant
tension between the Berbers and the Arab population. Joseph attempted to ease
the conflict between the two camps and prevent excesses against the local
Arabs. His enemies included Abu Ishak, Berber advisor to the prince, who
accused him of trying to cede the city to a neighboring prince. Badis ordered
Joseph killed and crucified. In the ensuing massacre of the Jewish population,
1,500 families were killed, including Joseph's wife and son. A few years later,
Jews were readmitted to Granada and reassumed high offices.
1066(9th of Tevet, 4827): In what is
called the 1066 Granada Massacre an untold number of Jews in this part of
Muslim-ruled al-Andalus were murdered by a Islamist mob.
1066(9th of Tevet, 4827): Joseph ibn Naghrela, the eldest son of Rabbi Sh'muel ha-Nagid and vizier to the King of Granada, was crucified by an Arab mob
1299: The
City of Damascus, except for its Citadel began it surrender to the forces of
Mahmud Ghazan who had converted to Islam in 1295 marking the start of a
downgrading of the conditions of the Jews in Persia because they were forced
back into the role of “dhimmis” – official second-class citizens.
1334: French born Jacques Fornier was elected
Pope Benedict XII who came to the defense of Jews as can be seen by his letter
to Duke Albert of Austria, “recommending that he take measures for the
protection of Jews” and a letter to the Bishop of Passau urging him to
investigate charges of host desecration aimed at the Jews “and to punish
severely those who had invented such false accusations.”
1576: After spending four and one half years in
prison, Fray Luis De Leon, a converso descendant was released. As a scholar of
Hebrew at the University of Salamanca, he was punished by the Inquisition for
translating the Song of Songs (Solomon) from Latin into Spanish.
1596(9th of Tevet, 5357): Menachem Rapoport (Menachem Abraham ben Jacob
Ha-Kohen) passed away. Known as Rappa, this Italian rabbi witnessed “the
burning of the Talmud pursuant to the papal bull of 1553” and was the author of
several works including “Zofnat Pa’neach.”
1665: Sabbetai Zvi, the famous or
infamous "False Messiah" departed for Constantinople
1669: Based on a case involving “the kahal of
Brest and some Russian priests of Brest, “it appears that the latter caused
much damage to the Jews of Brest, and that during the religious processions
riots took place in which Jewish property was stolen and Jews were murdered or
wounded by priests as well as by others.” Jews had been living in Brest-Litvosk
since the 14th century and although their fortunes had fallen to a new low
during the Cossack Uprising, in 1669, life was improving since King Michael Wisniowieck
re-confirmed the privileges previously enjoyed by the Jews which allowed them
to own property and engage freely in commercial activity.
1673: Birthdate of Ahmed III the sultan who
appointed Judah ben Samuel Rosanes as chief rabbi of hakam bashi of the Ottoman
Empire.
1695: Based on the diploma on display at the Jewish National and
University Library in Jerusalem, today is the day on which Dr. Coppilia Pictor
graduated from Medical School in Padua. He was the first doctor in Bochum,
Germany
1673: Birthdate of Ahmed III, the Ottoman
Sultan who signed the peace treaty of
Passarowitz between Austria and Turkey in 1718. According to the treaty, “Jews
who were Turkish subjects were permitted to live and trade freely in Austria.
Their position was thus more favorable than that of Jews who were Austrian subjects.
In 1736, Diego d'*Aguilar founded the "Turkish community" in Vienna.
1749: Birthdate of Rachel De Leon, the daughter of Abraham
De Leon.
1768: Today, the Jews in Montreal “formed Shearith Israel,
the earliest Jewish congregation in Canada” which, despite the fact the that
the majority of the members where Ashkenazim “adopted the Spanish-Portuguese
Sephardic rite, practised in the senior institution of British Jewry, London’s
Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue, with which they had maintained constant contact.”
1769(2nd of Tevet, 5530): Parashat Mketz;
Seventh Day of Chanukah
1775(7th of Tevet, 5536): Parashat Vayigash
1775: On the same day Jews observed Shabbat, General
Washington’s officers discuss the possibility of recruiting free
African-Americans to fight in the Continental Army.
1777(30th of Kislev, 5538): Rosh Chodesh Tevet;
Sixth Day of Chanukah observed as Washington’s Army suffers in Winter Quarters
in Valley Forge.
1783: In Charleston, SC, Sarah De La Motta and Levi
Sheftall gave birth to Mordecai Sheftall, the husband of Virginia Russell and
the father of Judith, Sara, Luara, Mordecai, Letheria, Henry, Benjamin and
Thomas Sheftall.
1788(1st of Tevet, 5549): Rosh Chodesh Tevet; 7th
day of Chanukah
1787: In Germany, Sara Anschuler and Salomon Schwarzenberg
gave birth to Lazarus Schwarzenberg the husband of Eva Bach and the father of
Sarah, Fannie, Nathan, Moses, Rosetta and Amelia Schwarzenberg.
1792(15th of Tevet, 5553): Abraham Samuel Covo,
the Chief Rabbi of Salonica passed away.
1792: The day after she had passed away, 64
year old Eve Josephs was buried today at the “Alderney Road (Globe Road) Jewish
Cemetery.
1795: Birthdate of English Schoolmaster Henry
Naphtali Solomon the husband of Fanny Phillips whom he married at the Great
Synagogue in 1817 and with whom he had ten children.
https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/4406157
http://www.cemeteryscribes.com/getperson.php?personID=I3363&tree=Cemeteries
henry naphtali solomon - Google Search
1799(2nd of Tevet, 5560): Eighth Day
of Chanukah celebrated for the last time in the 18th century.
1800: Birthdate of English native Mordecai
Solomon, the husband of the former Elizabeth Haines and father of Henry Solomon
who was the husband of Adeline Solomon whom he married in 1865 at the age of
twenty-five.
1807(29th of Kislev, 5568): Fifth
Day of Chanuak
1812: Joshua Lyon Phillips married Elizabeth
Harris at the Great Synagogue today.
1814: In the Hague, Leonardus Levy Abraham
Verveer, the Amsterdam born son of Abraham Salomon and his wife Caroline Elkan
gave birth to Sientje Schoontje Verveer.
1815(28th of Kislev, 5576): Parashat
Miketz; Fourth Day of Chanukah
1815: In Lincolnshire, Elizabeth Cullen and
George Toynbee gave birth to Joseph Toynbee, the grandfather of historian
Arnold Toynbee who took exception to the continued existence of the Jewish
people because according to his paradigm they should have disappeared like
other ancient peoples.
1814: Birthdate of Barbara Elizabeth Gluck the
native of Vienna who wrote her poetry under the name of “Betty Paoli.”
1829: Berton Gottheimer married Julia Zachariah
today.
1832: At Donaldsonville, LA, Joseph Marks
married Eliza Hyams, the daughter of Samuel Hyams of Charleston, SC.
1832: In Edenkoben, German, Daniel and Rebecca
Scheuer Wolff gave birth Johanna Wolff Frank, the wife of Eleazer Frank whom
she married in 1853.
1836: Birthdate of David Castelli, the native
of Leghorn who became “an Italian scholar and educator in the field of secular
Jewish studies” before passing away at Florence in 1901.
1837(2nd of Tevet, 5598): Shabbat
Shel Chanukah; Parashat Miket
1839: In Whitechapel, London, Elizabeth “Betsy”
Samuel and Israel Mordecai Mendoza gave birth to Abraham Mendoza, the husband
of Maria (Miriam) Mendoza.
1845(1st of Tevet, 5606): Rosh
Chodesh Tevet; 7th day of Chanukah
1845: In Wellington, NZ, Solomon and Jane Levy
gave birth to Alfred Lipman Levy, the husband of Annie Elizabeth Levy and Mary
Ann Levy.
1847: In Bonn, Loeb Leopold Ungar and Adelheid
Edel Ungar gave birth to Adolph Ungar, the Chicago printer and author who was
the husband of Henrietta Ungar
1850: Horatio Simon Samuel married Henrietta
Montefiore at the Great Synagogue today.
1851: Horace Greely delivered a lecture tonight at the
Philomathean Society of Brooklyn on "The World's Fair and Its Lessons”
based on his visit to the Crystal Palace where the display of "Jerusalem,
in her lonely humiliation, best typifies the Hebrew state and race."
1851: In Middlesex, England, Caroline Benjamin
and Isaiah Joshua Simmons gave birth to Joseph Simmons.
1852(19th of Tevet, 5613):
Eighty-sic-year-old Philadelphia “Phila” Phillips Pesoa, the daughter one of
Jonas and Rebecca Mendes Machado Phillps (one of America’s earliest
distinguished families) and the wife of Isaac Pesoa passed away today after
which she was buried at the Mikveh Israel Spruce Street Cemetery in
Philadelphia.
1854: In Siroka, Hungary, Leon Faber and his
wife gave birth to Maurice Faber, who was the rabbi at B’nai Zion in
Titusville, PA for ten years where he also taught German language and literature
at the local high school before serving as rabbi at B’nai Israel in Keokuk, IA
and finally filling the pulpit at Congregation Beth-El in Tyler, TX.
1853(29th of Kislev, 5614): Fifth
Day of Chanukah celebrated on the same day that a treaty popularly referred to
as “The Gadsden Purchase,” was signed where Mexico sold the United States
29,000 square miles of territory in the area that would eventually become
southern Arizona and New Mexico.
1853: In Ohio, Josep and Rosina Leopold
Lebensburger gave birth to Caroline “Carrie” Lebensburger Trost the husband of
Samuel W. Trost who she married in 1879.
1855: In Sikora,Hungary, Leon Faber and his
wife gave birth to Maurice Faber who served as Rabbi of Congregation B'nai
Zion, Titusville, Pa., for ten years, and of Congregation B'nai Israel, Keokuk,
Iowa, for two years and finally of Congregation Beth-El in Tyler, TX,
Congregation B'nai Israel, Keokuk, Iowa, and Congregation Beth-El, Tyler, TX.
https://www.utsystem.edu/bor/former_regents/regents/Faber/article.htm
1855(21st of Tevet, 5616):
Seventy-six-year-old German Jewish banker Samuel Bleichröder the father of
Gerson von Bleichröder and Julius Bleichröder passed away today.
1854: In Sikora, Hungary, Leon Faber and his
wife gave birth to Rabbi Maurice Fabert who led Congregation B’nai Zion in
Titusville, PA, B’nai Israel in Keokuk, IA and Congregation Beth-El in Tyler
TX.
1856: Phillip Soman married Harriet Salkin
today.
1856(3rd of Tevet, 5617): Isaac
Morningstar, the 21-day-old brother of Charles and Mary Pivany Morningstar pass
away today after which he was buried at the Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville,
KY<
1857(13th of Tevet, 5618): Fourth Yahrtzeit of
Judah Touro.
1861: Two days after he had passed away,
62-year-old Joseph Moseley “of King Street Commercial Road” was buried today at
the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”
1862: Esther Lewis, the daughter of Elizabeth
and Jacob Philipson and her husband Alexander Lewis gave birth toe Rosa Lewis.
1862: Based on information supplied by the
Associated Press several newspapers carried stories about General Order11
including on that used the headline “Expulsion of Jews from General Grant’s
Department – The Circumstances Stated and the Documents Quoted.”
1863: Leopold Kompert was fined as a result of
a suit “brought against him by the clerical anti-Semite Sebastian Brunner for
libeling the Jewish religion.”
1864(1st of Tevet, 5625): Rosh
Chodesh Tevet; Seventh day of Chanukah; for the first time in three years, the
eighth candle of Chanukah are kindled in a Savanah, GA that is back in Union
hands.
1864: In Kensington, Annie and Israel Edward
Woolf gave birth to Isabelle Rebecca Woolf who did not live to see her twelfth
birthday.
1865:
Birthdate of English writer, Rudyard Kipling. In an article entitled “How not
to be a stranger in a strange land” David Mamet wrote “My favorite poet was a
Jewish man from Krakow, Rudolph Klepsteen. He wrote under the name of Rudyard
Kipling, and his most famous poem is called “If.”It begins: “If you can keep
your head while those around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if
you can trust yourself when all men doubt you.” He was writing, as he always
did, about the Jewish experience.” This runs
contrary to the standard biography that says Kipling was born in India. The death of his son in World War I had a
profound effect on Kipling who became a very active member the Commonwealth War
Graves Commission. The man who wrote of
“the white man’s burden” was particularly concerned that dead Jewish soldiers,
as well as other non-Christians including Hindus and Muslims troops “were
remembered in ways suitable and compatible with their religion and culture.” He
also wrote a poem entitled “The Burden of Jerusalem” that begins:
“In ancient
days
and deserts wild
There rose
a feud –
still unsubdued –
'Twixt
Sarah's son
and Hagar's child
That
centred round Jerusalem.”
1865(12th of Tevet, 5626) Parashat Vayechi
1865: In London, Sarah Staal and L.J. Kesner gave birth to
Chicago Commercial Business graduate Jacob Levi Kesner, the husband of Bettie
Frohmann who rose from being a “cash boy at The Fair Department Store” to
serving as the director of many financial institutions including the Greenebaum
Sons Bank and Trust and Guardian National Bank in Chicago while being a member
of Chicago Sinai Temple.
1867: In Philadelphia, PA, Meyer Guggenheim and Barbara
Guggenheim gave birth to John Simon Guggenheim, “the director and member of the
Executive Committee of the American Smelting and Refining Company, the husband
of Olga Hirsh and the father of John and George Guggenheim who served as a U.S.
Senator from Colorado.
1868: Birthdate of Philip Passon, the native of Russia who
moved to Brooklyn where he was active in the Federation of Jewish Charities and
served as director of the Machzike Talmud Torah.
1869: Birthdate of
Belgian political leader, Adolphe Max.
1869: Le Petit Journal, a conservative Parisian newspaper
published by co-owner Moise Polidore Milaud, the Jewish son of Felicity Bellon
and Jassuda Millaud, continued its innovative way by reporting that mass murder
Jean-Baptiste Troppmann was found guilty today after a three-day trial.
1869(26th of Tevet, 5630): Fifty-six-year-old
Bavarian born Lafayette, Indiana, clothing Moses Amberger the husband of Sophia
Amberg and one of the founders of Congregation Ahavat Achim passed away today
after which his son Nathan managed the business for several years before
selling it.
file:///C:/Users/Owner/Downloads/p16797coll18_1002.pdf
1870(6th of Tevet, 5631): Thirty-five year old
Rabbi Simon Tuska, the Hungarian born son of Rabbi Mordecai Tuska and the
husband of Jeanette Nussbaum Tuska whose last pulpit was Temple Israel in
Memphis, TN passed away today after which he was buried at the Temple Israel
Cemetery .
1871: The annual report on deaths in New York published
today reported that only one person had passed away at the Hebrew Orphan
Asylum.
1871: George Cruikshank, the illustrator who created the
Copper plate engraving “Fagin in his cell” “published a letter in The Times which claimed credit for much
of the plot of Oliver Twist” a work that helped create the image of Charles
Dickens as an anti-Semite.
1872(30th of Kislev, 5633): Rosh Chodesh Tevet;
Sixth Day of Chanukah
1873: Birthdate of Al Smith, 4-term Governor of New York
and the first Catholic to run for President of the United States. Smith enjoyed a great of deal support among
New York’s immigrant Jewish population. He served on the commission that
investigated the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and championed laws to
improve working conditions; a position that would have made very popular with
the thousands of Jewish workers employed in the garment industry. Belle Moskowtiz
was long-time political advisor to Smith and managed his 1928 Presidential
campaign. Smith gave Robert Moses his
big chance in New York State government allowing him to reorganize the state’s
government on a basis fitting the 20th century. Smith’s 1928 campaign actually created the
coalition that would lead to major Democratic victories over the next couple of
years. Jews were a major component of
that coalition, and it ultimately gave them political influence that they had
been sorely lacking.
1875(2nd of Tevet, 5636): 8th and
final day of Chanukah
1875(2nd of Tevet, 5636): Sixty-eight-year-old Simon Waley, the son of
Rachel Hort and Solomon Jacob Waley and the husband of Anna Hendelah Salomons
passed away today after which he was buried at the Balls Pond Jewish Cemetery
in England.
1876: In Philadelphia, Moyer and Alice (Teller) Fleisher
gave birth to University of Pennsylvania trained engineer Walter A. Fleisher, a
member of the Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Institute of
Electrical Engineers and Rodeph Shalom Congregation.
1878: Birthdate of Samuil Efimovich (Haimovich) Lubarsky the
native of Aleksandria, Kherson who was arrested by the NKVD and executed in
1938 following a 15 minute trial.
https://archives.jdc.org/exhibits/in-memoriam/samuil-lubarsky/
1878: The New York Times reported that last
“Saturday was the anniversary of the feast of dedication as commemorated by the
Jewish race; that is to say, the anniversary of the resuscitation of Jewish
worship in the temple at Jerusalem, after the long interruption of the Assyrian
conquest and the renewed (but brief) autonomy of the Jewish nationality, after
one of the severest military struggles, waged by the Maccabees, recounted in
ancient history.” (The NYT would not be the first, nor will it be the last, to
confuse the Syrians with the Assyrians.)
1879: An article published today that traced the history of
the hospitals of New York City, reported that when Mt. Sinai Hospital opened in
1852 with the support of the Jewish community, it was the third hospital
founded by a religious group. During the
1840’s the Episcopalians had founded St. Luke’s and the Catholics had founded
St, Vincent’s.
1879: In Galveston, TX, Louis and Rebecca (Schlenker)
Schatzkey gave birth to Dora Schatzkey Zielonka, the wife of Martin Zielonka
and the mother of
1880:
Birthdate of Munich native Alfred Einstein, the German American
musicologist, critic, and second cousin of Albert Einstein who was “an
outstanding authority on music of Mozart and the Italian madrigal.”
1880(7th of Tevet, 5650):
Four-year-old Hilda Lowenberg, the Charleston, SC born daughter of Molcie and
Isaac Lowenberg passed away today in Natchez, Mississippi.
1880: In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, “Samuel
Hirsch…brought suit” today “against Rabbi Isaac Moses, the editor of a Jewish
newspaper…for slander claiming $5,000 damages” because Rabbi Moses had
described Mr. Hirsch as liar and a thief in his publication.
1880: Ernst Henrici, the “co-initiator of the
so-called Anti-Semite Petition” delivered a speech at “Bock Assembly” espousing
his “anti-capitalist, anti-liberal and anti-conservative agenda.”
1882: “Help for the Hospitals” published today
provided a description of various New York City health institutions including
Mt. Sinai Hospital which was originally created for the use of the Jews of New
York City, but now serves patients regardless of “race, creed or nationality”
and also maintains a system of “charity beds” to serve the city’s needy.
1882: Rachel and Morris L. Kramer gave birth to
Hyman S. Kramer the younger brother of Beckie Kramer.
1883(1st of Tevet, 5644): Rosh
Chodesh Tevet; 7th day of Chanukah
1884: In Philadelphia, PA, “Moses and Miriam
(Levy) Sloman gave birth to Drexel Institute trained artist Joseph Sloman who
designed the stained-glass memorials for Temple Israel in Union City, NJ, who
was a member of Adas Emuno in Hobken and was the husband of the former Martha
E. Stien.
1886: “A Bar But No Barroom” published today
included Charles Goldstein response to complaints by members of St. Ann’s Roman
Catholic Church to his receiving a license to sell liquor at Webster Hall which
is a block away from the church.
Goldstein said that no objections were raised before or after the
foundation was laid for the building last August. Webster Hall is a building
designed to host various Jewish social events including weddings. Liquor would not be sold until 8:30 or nine
in the evening. (Considering the popular
image connecting certain groups of Catholics with the consumption of alcohol,
one must wonder what the real motive for the late-blooming objections was)
1886: It was reported today that a ukase issued
during the reign of Czar Nicholas compelling “resident German Jews to hold
certificates as merchants of the first guild” has been revived in Poland. The certificates cost seven rubles. Since few of the Jewish merchants can afford
the certificates, they will be forced to leave.
1888(26th of Tevet, 5649):
Fifty-seven-year-old (Israel) Robert Weeks Nathan, the son of Sarah Seixas and
Isaac Mendes Seixas Nathan, the husband of Philadelphia native Annie Augusta
Florance whom he married in 1859 and father of Maud, Annie, Harold and Robert
Nathan passed away today.
1888(26th of Tevet, 5649):
Eighty-four-year-old Moses Cohen Mordecai, the Charleston, SC born of David
Cohen Mordecai and Reinah Abrahams Cohen Mordecai and the husband of Rachel
Lyons with whom he had eight children passed away today in Baltimore, MD after
which he was buried at Oheb Shalom Cemetery.
1888: Among the charitable institutions
receiving money from city is the Hebrew Benevolent Society of the City of New
York was got a payment of $60,000.
1888: The Seligman Solomon Society sponsored
evening of entertainment at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
1889: It was reported today the Jesse Seligman,
Henry Rice and Julian Nathan were among the dignitaries who attended the recent
evening of entertainment held in the chapel of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum
1889(7th of Tevet, 5650):
Thirty-three-year-old Myer Silberman, a jeweler from Poland, apparently took
his own life today while “alone in his room at 5 Orchard Street.”
1889: It was reported today that Philip J.
Joachimsen, the Chairman of Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society Advisory is
“confined to his home by illness” which made it impossible for him to take part
in the events honoring state Senator Jacob A. Cantor and Assemblyman Joseph
Blumenthal.
1890: In Waco, TX, Isabella and Lehman Sanger
gave birth to future Baltimore resident Dr. Bertram Julian Sanger, the husband
of Joan Dorothy Eliasberg Sanger.
1891(29th of Kislev, 5652): Fifth
Day of Chanukah
1891: “The Siege of Yemen” published today
described 10 week siege of Yemenite town by an Arab army whose leader declared
he would convert the Jews of Yemen to Islam “or extirpate them.” (That is a
fancy way for saying “wipe them out.”)
1892: Benjamin Kossman transferred to the
Company D of the Sixth Cavalry in the U.S. Army.
1892: Cornelius Herz, the English born American
and French trained physician who worked to develop uses for electricity is in
London, where he may stay for some time as France deals with the Panama
Scandal.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/04/25/90095532.pdf
1892: “No Mercy for the Jews” published today
described reports “from St. Petersburg and other parts of Russia which show
that the persecution of the Jews and the inhumanity of the Czar’s officals
toward that unhappy race are greater than ever before” as can be seen by the
issuance of “six edicts…aiming to disperse the Jewish subjects…weaken their
position in the trading centers and crush out their religion.
1892: As of today, it is reported that many of
the 20,000 Jews who have been converted to Orthodox Christianity since 1891
have been deported to Tcherkesovo, five miles from Moscow where they can be
watch priests of the Russian Orthodox Church.
1892: It is reported that “many of the Jewish
tradesmen and artisans who have been driven from Moscow” have gone to Lodz, a
city in Poland which, thanks to their efforts “is fast become and an important
manufacturing center.”
1893: As the economic crisis worsens, “the
plan” for supplying bread, coal, tea and other necessities to the poor
advocated by and financed by Nathan Straus “will be put in operation
today.” Mr. Koppel, a nephew of Mr.
Strauss will oversee the daily operation.
1893(21st of Tevet, 5654):
Seventy-one-year-old Italian poetess and translator “of medieval Hebrew poems
and original Italian verses in Jewish” Eugenia Pavia-Gentilomo-Fortis passed
away today in Asolo.
1893: Russia signed a military accord with
France. This treaty ended France's political isolation that dated from
the Franco Prussian War. This meant that the next time France faced
Germany, she would have any ally. The treaty also undid the alliance of
the three emperors (Germany, Russia and Austro-Hungry). This treaty was part of
the web of treaties that would create an aura of inevitability at the outbreak
of World War I. World War I marked the beginning of the most catastrophic
period in the history of European Jewry. Yes, it helps to understand the
history of the world when studying Jewish History.
1894: Herzl published a long and detailed
article in the Neue Freie Presse
summing up the major events of the preceding year in France. The Dreyfus trial
is not mentioned in the summary.
1894: Three days after he had passed away,
“Edward Phineas Sanguinetti” the son of Isaac Sanguinetti and Harriet Nathan
was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1894: “The Dreyfus Scandal and the Growth of
French Anti-Semitism” published today described the growing power of General
Mercier “who scored a distinct personal triumph…in the conviction of Captain
Dreyfus” as well as the quadrupling of the circulation of Drumont’s Libre
Parole which makes a specialty of anti-Semitic violence and which along with
“Rocherfort’s Intransigeant are
preaching…nothing less than the wholesale massacre of the Jews.”
1896: The funeral for eighty-six-year-old Rotterdam native and Milwaukee clothing store
owner Isaac Jonker Litt, the husband of Hendrina Speelman Lit whom he married
in 1844 and with whom he had three children – Mary. Bessie and Jacob – and who
was a member of the Fraternal Sons of Israel is scheduled to take place today
followed by interment at Spring Hill Cemetery in Milwaukee, WI.
1897(5th of Tevet, 5658):
Seventy-one-year-old Hungarian born, Chicago resident Eduard Zeisler the
husband of Josephine Ungar passed away today in Chicago.
1897: The Relief Committee of the Board of
Guardians is scheduled to meet this afternoon in London.
1897: Oscar S. Straus, President of the
American Jewish Historical Society presided over the last session of its annual
meeting which was held today in the Assembly Room of New York’s Temple
Emanu-El. The secretary of the society,
Dr. Cyrus Adler, reported a proposed amendment to the constitution on behalf of
the Executive Council that would increase the number of Vice Presidents from 3
to 4 and suggesting that Herbert B. Adams fill the newly created position. The amendment and recommendation were adopted.
1899(28th of Tevet, 5660): Parashat
Vaera is read, in what is the final Shabbat service of the 19th
century.
1899: Birthdate of David Glick, the husband of
Rose Shanis Glick and the father of Stephen Jack Glick, who was buried in
Baltimore when he passed away in 1984.
1900: Adalbert Epstein and Emma Epstein gave
birth to Friedrich “Fritz” Epstein
1900: Fifty-one-year-old Gratz Mortdecai, the
Washington, DC born son of Sarah Ann Hays and Major Alfred Mordecai, the West
Point graduate who had commanded the arsenal at Washington, D.C. during the
Mexican-American War, married Frances Kingsland Gifford today.
1901: It was reported today that the Zionist
Congress meeting in Basel “has resolved to two established a fund of two
hundred thousand pounds to be devoted to the purchase land in Syria and
Palestine.”
1901: It was reported today that the meeting of
500 members of the Order of B’rith Abraham in the Grand Central Palace was a
rancorous two affair.
1902(30th of Kislev, 5663): Rosh
Chodesh Tevet; Sixth Day of Chanukah
1902(30th of Kislev, 5663):
Fifty-five-year-old Rosa Gottschalk, the German born daughter of Saran and
Joseph Ullman, the wife of Albert Gottschalk with whom she had four children –
Levi, Lillie, Bertha and Joseph – passed away today in Baltimore, MD.
1902: Herzl considers the possibility of using the waters of the
Nile as a means of irrigating the wilderness lands of the Sinai Peninsula.
1903(11th of Tevet, 5664): London
born lawyer Abraham Lewis, a resident of Cincinnati and an active member in
B’nai B’rith and the Union Of American Hebrew Congregations passed away today
In Washington, D.C.
1904: It was reported today that Albert L. and
Stanley Wolfson have bought “new seven-story loft building at 39 West 21st
Street.
1904: In Makariv, Ukraine Victor (Avigdor)
Kramer and Anna (Elka) Kramer gave birth to Abraham Albert Kramer, the husband
Blanche Kramer who passed away in Palm Beach and was buried in Sharon, MA.
1904: It was reported today the Meyer Goldberg
and Abraham Greenberg have a plot on the south side of 139th Street,
east of St. Ann’s Avenue in New York.
1905(2nd of Tevet, 5666): Parshat
Miketz; 8th day of Chanukah
1905: “The Great Work Ended” published today
described the impact of the publication of the twelfth and final Volume of the
Jewish Encyclopedia, “easily the largest work yet recorded of American
constructive authorship.”
1905: Governor General Doubassoff sent a telegram to the
government today that he had “prevented several thousand ‘loyalists’ from
marching into Moscow for the purposed of attacking the strikers, revolutionists
and Jews.”
1905: The lecture “How We Think” was delivered “before the
St. Louis Jewish Educational Alliance.”
1905: Birthdate of philosopher Emmanuel Levinas.
1906: “Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, who gave up one of the
largest and richest of the Western Jewish synagogues, Beth Israel, at Portland,
Oregon, to establish in this city what he calls the "Free Synagogue,"
announced today that he had obtained moral and financial support among New
Yorkers sufficient to guarantee the establishment of his congregation and
eventually the building of a synagogue.”
1907: Two days after she had passed away, Rabbi William
Rosenau officiated at the funeral 27-year-old typhoid victim Cora Kaufman Kahn,
the daughter of David Kaufman and wife of Bernard Kahn after which she was
buried at the Hebrew Friendship Cemetery in Baltimore, MD.
1908: This afternoon, in Albany, NY, Governor Hughes issued
a proclamation recommending that contributions being made for those who have
suffered in the disaster in Southern Italy and Sicily be made to the New York
State Branch of the American National Red Cross Society through its Treasurer
Jacob H. Schiff or at the offices Kuhn, Loeb and Company.
1908: It was reported today that the newly elected officers
of the Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity which has 300 members are President, Arthur S.
Levy, Jr.; Secretary, Abraham Rosenberg; Treasurer, Max Leibson; and Historian,
A. Maurice Levine.
1909: Jacob Rogovin and the former Dora Shainhouse, who
operated a dry goods business, in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, gave birth
to Milton Rogovin, an optometrist and persecuted leftist who took up
photography as a way to champion the underprivileged and went on to become one
of America’s most dedicated social documentarians. (As reported by Benjamin
Genocchio)
1910(29th of Kislev, 5671): Fifth Day of
Chanukah
1910(29th of Kislev, 5671): Sixty-six-year-old
Lambert Goldsmith, the father of Ida Goldsmith Morris, passed away today after
which he was buried in The Temple Cemetery in Louisville, KY.
1911(9th of Tevet): Parsahat Vayigash
1911: In Brooklyn, NY, Jacob Brenner was “appointed
Sheriff’s Counsel” today.
https://brooklynhistory.org/library/wp/jacob-brenner-papers-1884-1921/
1912: “The Firefly,” an operetta sponsored by Arthur
Hammerstein that had premiered on Broadway at the Lyric Theatre moved to the
Casino Theatre today where it ran for a total of 120 performances.
1912: In a two-column letter to The Times, Dr. Max
Nordau, President of the Tenth Zionist Congress “points out the opportunity
presented by the impending partition of the Turkish Empire for the earnest
consideration by European diplomacy of the Zionist scheme for the resettlement
of the Jews in Palestine.”
1913(1st of Tevet, 5674): Rosh Chodesh Tevet;
Seventh Day of Chanukah
1913: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Roslyn M. Silverman, the
President of the Muscular Dystrophy Association and an active member of the
Jewish philanthropies who was the wife of Herbert R. Silverman.
1913: “Jewish students
representing most of the universities and large colleges of the United States
at the second convention of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association for the
study and advancement of Jewish culture and ideals, now in session at Columbia
University, were advised tonight by Jacob H. Schiff that they could not expect
to accomplish much without the Jewish religion.”
1914: Dr. William S. Friedman, the rabbi at Temple Emanu-El
in Denver, “likens the persecution of Leo Frank to the persecution of Mendel
Bellis in Russia” and “predicted that when the nations now engaged in the
European war have finished the struggle, they will turn their attention to the
Jews to make him the scapegoat.”
1914: “Shows Jews’ Sufferings” published today described
how Oliver Bachrach wore a yoke built of ash, tore his air and “broke an
earthen post…as did the patriarch in the time of old in token of great stress
of mind” all of which he used to demonstrate the sense of suffering that he was
trying to convey in his address about Jewish suffering.
1914: The Sixth Annual Convention of Pi Tau Pi Fraternity,
led by President Herbert Frank of St. Louis MO, came to an end today in
Cincinnati, Ohio.
1914: Austrian born, American architect Rudolph Michael
Schinlder met Frank Lloyd Wright for the first time today.
http://makcenter.org/rm-schindler-bio/
1914: Today’s list contributors to the American Jewish
Relief Committee for Suffers from the War included the Cohn Raincoat, Co, the
West St. Paul Congregation, Chattanooga Relief Committee and Davidson Bros
& Co of Sioux City, Iowa.
1914: At Rochester, NY, “in an address tonight before about
1,000 delegates to the Jewish Chautauqua Convention Dr. Leon Harrison of St.
Louis said that regardless of Leo Frank’s guilt or innocence, he is “certain
that Leo Frank has not received the fundamental right to which every American
citizen under arrest is entitled – a fair trial.”
1915: The Treasurer’s Report of the American Jewish Relief
Committee released tonight showed that the total contributions had reached
$965.886.25; $755,000 of which was in cash and $210,886.25 in pledges. Today’s largest contribution in the amount of
$5,000 came from Henry P. Goldschmidt.
Felix Warburg is the committee’s treasurer.
1915: “In a letter addressed to Benedict XV,” the American
Jewish Committee asked the Pope to “help he Jewish cause by using “his
influence with the Roman Catholic Poles” – a request that “was not a success”
and which Italian Jews said “created in Italy an impression bordering on the
ridiculous.
1915: Oscar S. Straus, Chairman of the Clothing Appeal
Committee of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, issued a New Year’s appeal
today for clothing and shoes for the destitute” people living in war-torn
Belgium and Northern France. [Straus, a
leading member of the Jewish community, also played a prominent role in the
civic and charitable endeavors of the general community.]
1916: Today, “the Women’s Proclamation Committee” which is
“the national women’s organization” collecting funds for Jewish relief led by
its President, Mrs. Samuel Elkes “received a draft for $1,000” from its St
Louis branch which had held a fund raising bazar on December 11.
1917: At Temple Beth-El, Dr. Samuel Schulman is scheduled
to speak on “Losses and Gains of 1917.”
1917: At Carnegie Hall, Rabbi Wise is scheduled to deliver
a sermon at the Free Synagogue on “Has Israel’s Hour Come At Last?”
1917: Dr. Alexander Lyons of Brooklyn is scheduled to speak
on “Can We Still Believe?” at Temple Emanu-El.
1917: Felix M. Warburg, the Chairman of the Federation for
the Support of Jewish Philanthorpic Socieites announced today that on Sunday,
January 6, 1918, a campaign would being
with the gola of raising more than four a half million dollars “for the support
of Jewish charities in New York City, many of which face large deficits for
1918.”
1917: Dr. Pierre A. Siegelstein presided over the second
annual convention of the American Union of Rumanian Jews at the Park Avenue
Hotel where T. Tileston Wells Chairman of the Executive Committee of the
Rumanian Relief Committee said that “as an ally of the United States in the
World War” Rumania “assuredly pay deference to the feelings of Americans with
regard to the emancipation of the Jews.”
1917: Among the contributions reported today to have been
received by the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering the War
including $320 from Rabbi Moses S. Margolis, $100 from the Sons of Israel of
Frostburg, MD, $500 from the Columbus, Ohio Committee and $100 from
Centreville, Iowa.
1918: It was reported today that James Haines, the Chairman
of the Zionist Society of Engineers, has announced “that in the near future the
Society will send several engineers to Palestine to make a survey of the
natural resources of the country.”
1919: Three days after he had passed away, the funeral is
scheduled to be held today in Manhattan for Hartford, CT born, Columbia trained
attorney Ira Leo Bamberg, the husband of Reba C. Bamberger with whom he had two
children.
1919: Twenty-nine-year-old Colorado School of Mines trained
metallurgical engineer and New York resident Adolph Bregman, the Minsk born son
of Sarah Matlin and Jacob Bregman married Elsie Oschrin today.
1920: It was reported
today that in his New Year’s message Felix Mr. Warburg, President of the
Federation for Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies said that “temporary
business depression must not be permitted to affect that the traditional
generosity of the Jewish people of New York in the support of organized charities”
and “1921 promises to be the hard year that the city’s charities have known,”
in part because unemployment continues to increase.
1921(29th of Kislev, 5682): Fifth Day of
Chanukah
1921: Two days after he had passed away, Myer David Levine,
the husband of Shulla Freeman with whom he had had three children – Flora, Leah
and Jacob Solomon – was buried today at the “Belfast Jewish Cemetery” in
Northern Ireland.
1922(11th of Tevet, 5683): Vayigash read on the
same day that the “The Declaration on the Formation of Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics” was approved by a conference of delegations from the
Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian
SSR.”
1923: In New Haven, CT, Samuel and Lena Goodman gave birth
NYU trained attorney and long-time County Clerk of Manhattan Norman Goodman.
(As reported by Margalit Fox)
1923: It was reported today that “a textbook on medicine in
the ancient Hebrew tongue for which there has been coined an entirely new
terminology in Hebrew” which was written New York Drs. Goldin, Goldstein and
Herbert has been completed.
1923: Ex-Congressman Walter Chandler is scheduled to
deliver an address this evening at the Institutional Synagogue on “The Ku Klux
Klan.”
1923: Harold D. Emerson is schooled to deliver a lecture
this evening on “The Inside History of Motion-Picture Industry” at the Hebrew
Education Society Forum in Brooklyn
1923: Philip Guedalla, the well-known English author and
Liberal leader, was elected President of the Federation of English Zionists
today. (As reported by JTA)
1924: “New persecutions, arrests and expulsions of
Zionists, Zeire Zionists, Zionist Socialists and members of the Maccabee are
taking place in various parts of Soviet Russia, according to reports received
today from Moscow.”
1925: U.S. premiere of “Ben Hur” the silent screen version
of the novel by the same name produced by Louis B. Mayer and featuring Carmel
Myers as Iras, “the Egyptian vamp.”
1926: Two days after he passed away, funeral service are
scheduled to take place for Albany, NY born and Columbia trained attorney
Samuel B. Hamburger, an active member of the Jewish community who “was a
trustee of the Educational Alliance, a founder of the Jewish Board Guardians
and long-time President of the Central Synagogue.”
1927: Birthdate of P.R. specialist Charles J. “Charlie”
Brtoman whose “career” as the public address announcer for the Presidential
Inaugural Parade began with Eisenhower and was end by Donald Trump.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-fires-legendary-inauguration-announcer/
1928: Birthdate of Yehuda Haffner, the native of Manchester
England who gained as Yehuda Avner “personal secretary and speechwriter to
Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Golda Meir
and Levi Eshkol, and as Israeli Ambassador to Australia and the United
Kingdom.”
1928: The National Labor Committee hosted a reception in
honor of Mayor David Block of Tel Aviv and the other members of the Palestine
Labor Delegation including Miss Goldie Meyerson (who as Golda Meir would become
Prime Minister of Israel) this evening at the Manhattan Opera House. Violinist
Max Rosen and Metropolitan Opera soprano Nanette Guilford make their first
joint appearance as part of the evening’s entertainment.
1928: A debate is held at Yeshiva College where teams from
the Hebrew Theological College of Chicago and the Isaac Elchanan Theological
Seminary take opposing sides on “Resolved: The Cultural Restoration of Judaism
depends upon the Restoration of Palestine.”
1928: Birthdate of Lawrence Haffner, the native of
Manchester England who gained fame as Yehuda Avner the Israel diplomat,
confidant of Prime Minister and author.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23739770.2015.1066940
1929(28th of Kislev, 5690): Fourth Day of
Chanukah
1929: “Asks War on Materialism” published today described
the address given by Roger W. Straus, the song Oscar Struss and President of
the National federation of Temple Brotherhoods “at the Hanukah dinner of the
Chicago Conference of Temple Brotherhoods” which he summoned the “mend of
American Jewry” “to rededicate themselves to spiritual leadership.”
1930: “Five Star” a play about journalism written by Louis
Weitzenkorn opened on Broadway at the Cort Theatre.
1930(10th of Tevet, 5691): Asara B'Tevet
1931(20th of Tevet,5692): S.Y. Haim, former Jewish member of the Persian Parliament,
and at the time of his arrest five years ago acting president of the Zionist
Organization of Persia was executed today on the alleged ground that he
participated in a conspiracy again the government and plotted the death of the
Persia Shah.”
1931: At Temple Rodeph Shalom Rabbi Louis I. Newman and
Cantor Nathan G. Meltzoff officiated at the funeral of “Samson Lachman, member
of the municipal before the organization of Greater New York” which was
attended by approximately 800 people including a long list of prominent
honorary pallbearers including Chief Just of the Court of Appeals Benjamin N.
Cardozo and Justice Irving Lehman.
1932(1st of Tevet, 5693): Seventh Day of
Chanukah and Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1932(1st of Tevet, 5693): Forty-year-old Samuel
Abrams, “the head of Victoria Baking Company of Far Rockaway” and the husband
of Bella Abrams with whom he had three children – Jacob, Morris, and Gloria –
suffered a fatal heart attack at his Greenwood Avenue home this evening.
1932: “Frisco Jenny” featuring Harold Huber as “George
Weaver” was released today in the United States.
1932(1st of Tevet, 5693): Seventy-five-year-old
Henry S. Hutzler, the Virginia born son of Fannie and Seligman Hutzler and the
brother of Morris and A. Louis Hutzler passed away today after which he was
buried in Richmond, VA.
1932: U.S. premiere of “Back Street” the film treatment of
the novel by Fannie Hurst directed by John M. Stahl, produced by Carl Laemmle,
Jr with a script co-authored by Ben Hecht and filmed by cinematographer Karl
Fruend
1933(12th of Tevet, 5694): Parashat Vayechi
1933: As of today, “Jewish feast days and holidays will
henceforth be deleted from the German calendar by order of Dr. Wilhelm Frick,
Minister of the Interior.”
1933: “Fourteen hundred leading members of the Iron Guard
were arrested today in the government's efforts to curb the anti-Semitic Nazis
who were responsible for the assassination of Premier Ion G. Duca.
1934: “Restriction on the admission of Jews to medical and
laws schools” in the United States “ were discussed today at Temple B’nai
Jeshurun by attorney Max D. Steuer and Dr. Samuel Kopetzky of Beth Israel
Hospital.”
1934: Major Crumbly arrived in Jerusalem from England where
he will “assume the newly created post of Government Director of Civil Aviation
which is believed to mark the launching of new British policy to designed to
make Palestine an aviation key to India” and which will include the creation of
a “huge airport in Palestine” at a hitherto undisclosed location.
1934: It was reported today that in
Chicago, at “joint session of the American Economic Association and the
American Sociological Society” “Professor Karl Pribram of the Brookings
institute had described ‘a unified program of unemployment’ which included a
national scheme of unemployment insurance that would deal with normal, season
and technological unemployment…”
1935(4th of Tevet, 5696): Seventy-five-year-old
Rufus Isaacs, the son of a fruit merchant who rose from being a ship’s boy, to
a barrister to a leadership role in the Liberal Party that included serving as
Viceroy of Indian and Foreign Secretary passed away today.
http://theinfounderground.com/smf/index.php?topic=15884.0
1935(4th of Tevet, 5696): Philadelphian William
Hindin passed away today.
1935: In Brooklyn, NY, Evelyn (née Lichtenstein) and
Jack Braun, gave birth to Sanford Braun, the stepson of Irving Koufax who
gained fame the great southpaw pitcher Sandy Koufax.
1935: “Magnificent Obsession” a movie version
of the novel by the same name produced and directed by John M. Stahl and music
by Franz Waxman was released today in the United States.
1935: Birthdate of Isaiah Sheffer, the native
New Yorker who created “Symphony Space, a vibrant, eclectic institution known
for its broadcasts of actors reading short stories…” (As reported by Douglas
Martin)
1936: In Manhattan, publicist Benjamin
Sonnenberg and his wife gave birth to Benjamin “Ben” Sonnenberg, Jr. whose
whims and myriad enthusiasms made Grand Street, the quarterly he founded in
1981, one of the most revered literary magazines of the postwar era. (As
reported by William Grimes)
1936: The newly organized Palestine Symphony
Orchestra is heard on the air for the first time today when a concert under the
direction of Arturo Toscanini is broadcast over WJZ’s network from 2:50 to 3:40
pm. The seventy-piece orchestra is
broadcasting from Exhibition Hall in Tel Aviv.
1936: At today’s session of the Peel Commission
Jewish leaders including Beryl Katznenellenson, editor of the Jewish labor
daily Davar and Miss Goldie Myerson, “denounced the government as
‘unfriendly, begrudging Jewish efforts, unmindful of the mandate and its
purpose and negligent eve in fulfilling plain civic functions.”
1936: The Peel Commission interviewed Dov Hos a
Russian born senior member of the General Federation of Jewish Labour who had
been sentenced to death by the Turks for defending the Jews of Galilee and who
had fought with the British during World War I.
During his testimony Hos told the commissioners that where the Jews
established hospitals and schools, the British government is being relieved of
the responsibility and expense of creating and operating them. Commissioner Rumbold responded to these
comments by angrily defending the Mandate government and referring to the Jews
as “an alien race.” Hos responded that Jews were not an “alien race but children returning to their country, to the
country where they lived or to a country where they are going to have their
home.”
1936: Members of the Peel Commission “attended
a concert which attested to the new Jewish life in Jerusalem.” In what was
described as the most important musical experience in its history, “ancient
Jerusalem came alive musically.”
1937: The
Palestine Post reported from London that the British government decided to
publish a White Paper containing instructions for the new Palestine Commission
which was to be empowered to plan on how to implement and if necessary to
modify the Peel plan for the country's partition.
1937: The
Palestine Post reported that the Jewish settlement of Atarot and police
patrols at Tulkarm and on the Nablus-Jenin road came under heavy Arab fire, but
there were no reports of casualties.
1937:
Birthdate of Paul Stookey.
Stookey is “Paul” in the folk trio, Peter, Paul & Mary. He is the
non-Jewish member of the famous trio.
1937: “Tovarich,” produced and directed by
Anatole Litvakm featuring Fritz Feld and with music by Max Steiner was released
today in the United States.
1937: The first edition of Botwin a Yiddish newspaper started by the 2nd Palafox
Battalion, a Jewish company serving with the Polish Dombrowski Brigade during
the Spanish Civil War was published today.
1938(8th of Tevet, 5699):
Seventy-six-year-old Max Rabinovich, the Vice President of the Grand Forks
Building and Loan Association and in 1930 the “honorary chairman of the North
Dakota Allied Jewish Campaign” who was the “husband of Pearl Harstein” and
father of Anna and Joseph Rabinovich passed away today.
1938: In an article in his newspaper, the Courrier Royal, “the Count of Paris, the
heir to the pretender of the French throne, “condemned anti-Semitism” saying
“that is certainly exaggerated to speak of a Jewish peril in France as it
concerns the French Jews who become part of the French community” but said “foreign
Jews are another matter.”
1939(18th of Tevet, 5700): Parashat
Shemot; Starting the second book of the Torah on the last Shabbat of the year
and of the decade.
1939(18th of Tevet, 5700):
Fifty-year-old Charles Bear Mintz, the producer of cartoon and short subjects,
two of which, “Holiday Land” and “The Little Match Girl” were nominated for
Oscars passed a way today.
http://www.scrappyland.com/blog/2012/09/23/in-memoriam-charles-mintz/
1939: U.S. premiere of “Of Mice and Men”
directed and produced by Lewis Milestone with music by Aaron Copland.
1939: The riverboat Uranus reached the
Iron Gates gorge in Romania, on the Yugoslavian border, with 1210 fugitive Jews
from Vienna, Austria, and Prague, Czechoslovakia. The boat's journey was halted
after Great Britain, holder of the Mandate on Palestine, protested to the
Yugoslavian government.
1940: Birthdate of James Burrows, son of Abe
Burrows and director of television hits including’ Taxi,'' ''Cheers,'' and
''Will and Grace.'' “He also presided over one of the most Jewish moments in
television. In a medium in which Jewish characters rarely do anything Jewish,
let alone marry within the faith (Valerie Harper as Rhoda Morgenstern in Rhoda
and Paul Reiser as Paul Buchman in “Mad About You” are just two examples — and
don’t even mention Seinfeld), Grace Adler (Debra Messing) of “Will & Grace,”
not only was married by a rabbi under a chupah, but got hitched to a Jewish
doctor. That was Leo Markus played by Harry Connick Jr. Certainly, Jewishness
has increasingly factored into Burrows’ life. Both his parents were Jewish but
not observant. But his first wife was a Conservative Jew and “made him get back
on the bus.” He had a bar mitzvah at 47, prompting one of his producing
partners, Les Charles, to say: “You’re the first Jew I know who was a bar
mitzvah at 47 and bald at 13.”He is what he calls a once-a-year Jew, attending
shul for Yom Kippur. But he still gathers with his daughters every Friday
evening “to light the candles, have a challah and say a Bracha.”
1940: Birthdate of Barbara Johnson, the native
of Marshfield, Wisconsin, the wife of William Peyser “Bill Jacobson and the
mother of Michael Peyster Jacobson and Stacy Ann Jacobson.
1940: In Little Rock AR, Rabbi Ira Sanders
officiated at the funeral of Seventy-eight year old Sallie Lasker Epstein, the
Pine Bluff born daughter of Samuel and Augusta Lasker and the wife of Ephraim
Epstein whom she married in 1882 and with whom she had four children – Arnold,
Clarence, S.Lasker and Harold.
1940: Adopted birthdate for Karkow native
Zoshia Zavatski who gained fame as fashion model and actress Gila Golan, the
wife of Matthew “Matty” Rosenhaus with whom she three children – Sarita, Hedy
and Loretta.
1941(10th of Tevet, 5702): Asara B'Tevet
1941(10th of Tevet, 5702):: Lazar Markovich
Lissitzky, the Soviet artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer, and
architect, better known as El Lissitzky, passed away. For examples of his art
see:
1942: Pope Pius XII told an American representative that he
regarded the atrocity stories about Jews as exaggerations "for the
purposes of propaganda."
1942: “The Doughgirls” stage-managed by Bernard Hart opened
on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre.
1943: Today, Mordecai Konowitz announced that William B.
Herlands, the Commissioner of Investigations, has been appointed to the
executive committee of the metropolitan section of National Jewish Welfare
Board.
1943: The keel for the SS. Sigman, a U.S. Navy liberty
ship, was laid today. A Russian immigrant, Morris Sigman was active in the
labor movement and was president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers'
Union.
1943: Birthdate of Sir John Andrew Likierman, the Dean of
the London School of Business.
http://faculty.london.edu/ALikierman/index.html
1944(14th of Tevet, 5705): Parashat Vayechi
1944: “Jews In Palestine Debate The Future” published today
described the differing views held Dr. Chaim Weizmann and supporters of the
Biltmore Plan for the future of a Jewish state in Palestine and those held by
others such as Dr. Judah Magnes whose more “moderate plan” has found no support
among the Arabs which would be the key to its success.
1945: Mrs. William Prince President of the Women’s League
for Palestine announced today that work has been started on an addition to the
League’s home for immigrant girls in Tel Aviv
1945: Birthdate of director and actor Lloyd Kaufman.
1945: The New York Times reported that in their hunt
for the Jews thought to be responsible for Thursday night’s violence in
Palestine airborne troops surrounded the town of Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv and
took more than 800 men into custody for questioning.
1946(7th of Tevet, 5707): Fifty-four-year-old
University of Pennsylvania trained attorney and WW I veteran naval aviator
Benjamin M. Golder, the husband of the former Marge Lee Mastbaum and Republican
member of the House of Representatives from to 1925 to 1933 passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1946/12/31/issue.html
1947: Birthdate of Costa Rican political leader, Luis
Fishman Zonzinski, the former President of the Legislative Assembly of Costa
Rica.
1947: Birthdate of historian Michael Burns the author of Dreyfus:
A Family Affair, 1789-1945, France and the Dreyfus Affair: A Documentary
History and Rural Society and French Politics: Boulangism and the
Dreyfus Affair” 1888-1900.
1947(17th of Tevet, 5708): Forty Jewish workers were killed by Arabs at
the Haifa refineries
1947: A bus carrying hospital workers to Mount
Scopus came under attack at the same place where Jewish doctors had been
attacked the day before. Fourteen of the
Hadassah Hospital workers were wounded.
1947: Arab gun men attacked a group of Jews as
they began to bury ten of their murdered co-religionists at the Jewish Cemetery
on the Mount of Olives. British policemen accompanying the burial party carried
on a gun fight with the attackers. One
policeman and one Jew from the Burial Society were killed. The ten people who were to have been buried
and the two new fatalities were put back on a bus and returned to Jerusalem.
1947: The Dora Trial came to an end today when
the following verdicts were handed down: Death by hanging, Hans Moser; Life
imprisonment – Erhard Brauny, Otto Brinkmann, Emil Buhring, Ruldof Jacobi,
Josef Kilian, George Konig, Wilhelm Simon; 20 years imprisonment – Willi
Zwiener; 20 years imprisonemtn Arthur Adra, Oskar Helbig, Richard Walenta; 7
years – Heinrich Detmers; 5 years – Walter Ulbricht, Paul Maischein
1948(28th of Kislev, 5709): Fourth
Day of Chanukah
1948(28th of Kislev, 5709):
Eighty-seven-year-old Naval Academy graduate Admiral Joseph. The Mount Morris,
NY son of Sarah and Raphael Strauss, the husband of Mary J. Strauss and the
father of Helen and Rear Admiral Eliot B. Straus who was awarded the
Distinguished Service Meal and commander-in-chief of the Asiatic Fleet passed
away today after which he was buried with full military honors at Arlington
National Cemetery.
https://www.geni.com/people/Admiral-Joseph-Strauss/6000000007593997884
1948: Israeli armor and infantry captured the
airfield south of El Arish and moved to capture the town itself.
1948: The original Broadway production of “Kiss
Me Kate” with a book written by Samuel and Bella Spewack which earned them two
Tony Awards.
1948: During Operation Horev, the Harel brigade
moved further west into the Sinai Peninsula.
1948: The British government took an active
role on the side of the Arabs in the Israel War for Independence. The British issued an ultimatum to Israel
that unless it withdrew from the Sinai it would employ force to force the
Israelis to leave.
1948:
John McElroy and wingman Jack Doyle (in White 24)
each shot down a MC.205V that had been strafing Israeli troops near the REAF
Bir Hama air base, killing the two Egyptian pilots
1949(10th of Tevet, 5710): Asara B’Tevet
1949(10th of Tevet, 5710):
Seventy-year-old Lomza native, Abraham Joseph Coen the graduate of Jefferson
Medical College who specialized in the treatment of tuberculosis and was a
member of the faculty of Temple University passed away today after which he was
buried at Mount Sinai Cemetery in Philadelphia.
1949: “The Inspector General” a musical comedy
directed by Henry Koster, produced by Jerry Wald and Sylvia fine, written by
Harry Kurnitz and Ben Hecht and starring Danny Kaye was released today in the
United States.
1949: In New York, “real estate mogul Abraham
Hirschfeld” and Zipora Teicher Hirschfeld gave birth to Brown University grad
and long-distance runner Elie Hirschfeld who followed in his father’s footsteps
and then branched out into theatrical production, art collection and
philanthropy.
1950: “At War with the Army” a musical comedy
starring Jerry Lewis and Polly Bergen and featuring Mike Kellin was released in
the United States today.
1951(1st of Tevet, 5712): Seventh
Day of Chanukah; Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1951(1st of Tevet, 5712): Lithuanian
born Brooklyn realtor Israel Lewis the president of a Talmud Torah and a
supporter of Maimonides Hospital passed away today.
1952: The
Jerusalem Post reported that the US offered "no comment" on
Israel's serious warning on Western arms sales to the Arab states. Britain
denied that its arms sales to the Arab states contravened the joint
1952: “The Bad and the Beautiful” a Hollywood
film about Hollywood starring Kirk Douglas premiered today in Los Angeles.
1953(24th of Tevet, 5714): Eliyahu Eliezer
Dessler the Russian born Orthodox rabbi and Talmudist and son of Mussar
movement leader Reuven Dov Dessler, whose words of wisdom included “When you
have a true ambition for something, you will not give up hope. Giving up hope
is a sign that you are lacking ambition to achieve that goal!” passed away
today.
http://matzav.com/rav-eliyahu-eliezer-dessler-ztl-on-his-yahrtzeit-today-24-teves/
http://www.hevratpinto.org/tzadikim_eng/146_rabbi_eliyahu_eliezer_dessler.html
1954: “House of Flowers is a musical by Harold
Arlen opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre and played for 165 performances.’
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1955/12/31/82207250.html?pageNumber=13
1957(2nd of Tevet, 5718): 8th
Day of Chanukah
1957(2nd of Tevet, 5718):
Eighty-six-year-old Kovno native Morris Turitz, the founder of “the New York
Linen Supply Company and co-founder of both The Jewish Daily Forward and the
Federation of Jewish Philanthropies passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/12/26/90876792.pdf
1957: The Israeli government of Prime Minister David
Ben-Gurion resigned.
1959(29th of Kislev, 5720): Fifth Day of
Chanukah
1960(11th of Tevet, 5721): Seventy-five-year-old
Ángelo Donati, “the Jewish Schindler” passed away today.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0005_0_05326.html
http://www.jspacenews.com/jewish-diplomat-angelo-donati-became-pope-jews-holocaust/
1960: Danielle Kahn and modernist architect Isi
Metzstein gave fir to Scottish film director Saul Metzstein.
1960: A group of Israeli university professors signed and
published a public letter denouncing Prime Minister David Ben Gurion.
1963(14th of Tevet, 5724):
Eighty-three year old Bucharest native and Swiss trained ophthalmologist Dr.
David H. Alperin, the hold of Ph.D in biochemistry from Columbia and the
husband of Esther Wexler Alperin with whom he had a daughter and a son,
ophthalmologist Benjamin J. Alperin passed away today.
1963: President Johnson and Ladybird Johnson
were photographed standing with Jim Novy, one of the mainstays of Agudas Achim
in Austin, TX.
http://transition.lbjlibrary.org/files/original/cce0ca8939266da849a8499ee06eec24.jpg
1964: Birthdate of Bat Yam native Keren Morno who gained
fame as actress and writer Keren Mor, the wife of Menashe Noy and mother of two
children.
1965(7th of Tevet, 5726): Seventy-two year old
Manfred George the German born Jewish journalist who came to the United States
in 1939 where he “became the editor of Aufbau,
a periodical published in German, and transformed it from a small monthly
newsletter into an important weekly newspaper, especially during World War II
and the postwar era, when it became an important source of information for Jews
trying to establish new lives and for Nazi concentration camp survivors to find
each other” passed away today.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F70E1FFC3B5F1A7493C3A9178AD85F428685F9
1965: Birthdate of Heidi Fleiss convicted
prostitute and Madame. Her doctor father
is an opponent of circumcision, a rather strange position for a Jew to take.
1966(17th of Tevet, 5727):
1966: Seventy-seven-year-old Warsaw born and
University of London alum Aaron Glanz-Leyeless the Yiddish journalist, poet,
playwright and author whose works included the play “Shlomo Molcho and the
award-wining A Jew at Sea and who had married “the former Sophia Kupfer”
after his first wife “the former Fannie Wolynsky” had passed away died today
“at the Hillcrest General Hospital.”
http://www.alba-valb.org/volunteers/abraham-lewis
1966: Funeral services are scheduled to be held
today for Dr. Bela Fabian the exiled Hungarian leader who opposed the fascist
regime of Admiral Nicholas Horthy whose marriage to Ilona Schwarz Fabian in
1924 at “the Dohany Temple in Budapest, the world's largest synagogue, with a
capacity of 20,000, in was described as not only a wedding ceremony but a
demonstration against anti‐democratic
and anti‐Semitic
rightists.”
1966(17th of Tevet, 5727): Sixty-one
year old Piero Scacerdoti, the general manager of Riunione Adriatica di Sicurtà
passed away today in Saint Moritz.
1967(28th of Kislev, 5728): Parashat
Miketz; Fourth Day of Chanukah
1967(28th of Kislev, 5728):
Thirty-eight year old “songwriter and record producer” Bert Berns who gave us
such hits as “Twist and Shout,” “Hang on Sloopy’ and “Under the Boardwalk”
(favorites of mine that I had no idea were written by a Jew) passed away today
https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/bert-berns
1968(28th of Kislev, 5728): 4th
day of Chanukah
1968(28th of Kislev, 5728): Thirty-eight-year-old
song writer and record producer Bertrand “Bert” Russell Berns passed away
today.
1968: Trygve Lie passed away. Born in Norway in 1896, Trygve Lie was the
first United Nations Secretary General.
In that position he headed the U.N. at the time of creation of state of
Israel. His support was critical in the
birth of the Jewish state and the successful conclusion of the War for
Independence.
1969(21st of Tevet, 5730): Ukrainian
born author Avrom Bukshteyn, who in 1914 came to the United States where “he
studied statistics and sociology at Columbia,” “published articles on social,
philosophical and economic issues” for Yiddish publications and Yiddish
language novels beginning with Dokotor Rapoport in 1918 which was later
turned into a play, passed away today.
1969: While living in Stretford, Greater Manchester, Karen Kay
gave birth to twin boys, Jason and David, a few weeks after birth David died.
Jason (Jason Kay) was born Jason Cheetham.
1969: Birthdate of Jason Kay, best known by his
stage name Jay Kay. He “is Grammy Award winning English musician from the band
Jamiroquai.”
1970(2nd
of Tevet, 5731): Eighth Day of Chanukah
1970(2nd
of Tevet, 5731): Eighty-year-old Lithuanian native and MIT graduate Joseph H.
Cohen who was the “founder of the Atlantic Gelatin division of General Foods
Corporation and the husband of the former Rose Stone with whom he had two sons
and a daughter passed away today in Boston.
1970: Today during a television appearance on
The Dick Cavett Show,” producer and screenwriter Robert “Kaufman revealed that
when his family moved to the town in 1941 they were the first Jewish family to
reside in Westport.”
1973: The New York Times featured a
review of Selected Poems a collection of the poems of Jewish poet Joseph
Brodsky.
1973(3rd
of Tevet, 5734): Eighty-three-year-old Cincinnati native and Harvard trained
physician Dr. Joseph C. Aub, the WW I veteran professor of medical research at
Harvard who was the father of three daughters – Elizabeth, Frances and Nancy –
and the husband of “the former Elizabeth Cope” passed away today.
1974(16th of Tevet, 5735):
Seventy-year-old, Sid Terris, one of the leading “lightweight” boxers of the
1920’s passed away today.
http://www.jewishboxers.com/sidterrisbio.html
1975: It was learned in London today that “the
Prime Ministers of Israel and Britain will exchanging official visits during
the first half of 1976” with British Prime Minister Harold Wilson making his
long-awaited official visit to Israel during the spring as part of a Middle
East visit which will include Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran.” (JTA)
1977: A frustrated Moshe Dayan told Israeli
television that if Sadat insisted on an Israeli agreement to “return” all Arab
lands and recognize Palestinian sovereignty as pre-conditions to peace
negotiations than the peace process is finished. For the next six months there is virtually no
progress in talks between Egypt and Israel.
1977: The
Jerusalem Post reported that President Anwar Sadat of Egypt said that he
was "disappointed" that US President Jimmy Carter lauded Prime
Minister Menachem Begin as flexible. This, Sadat said, "will delay
peace."
1977: The
Jerusalem Post reported that two persons were killed and another two
injured by a bomb explosion in Rehov Shoham in Netanya.
1977: The
Jerusalem Post reported Ephraim Katzir, Israel¹s fourth president, declined
a second term of office.
1978: Roger and Hammerstein’s “King & I" closed
after 719 performances at the Uris Theater in New
York City.
1979(10th of Tevet, 5740): Asara B'Tevet
1979(10th of Tevet, 5740): Composer Richard
Rodgers passed away at the age of 77.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0628.html
https://www.biography.com/people/richard-rodgers-37431
http://archives.nypl.org/the/21252
1980(23rd of Tevet, 5741): Thirty
nine year old Rabbi Morton Waldman who has been leading the Jackson Heights
Jewish Center suffered a fatal heart attack tonight.
1983: Birthdate of Santa Monic native Ashley
Zuckerman, the Australian raised actor “best known for playing Dr. Charlie Isaacs
on WGN America's Manhattan.”
1983: In “Three Decades of Chaim Soutine
Paintings” Grace Glueck provides a brief history of the late French
expressionist painter and a description of his works now appearing at the
Galleri Bellman.
1984(6th of Tevet, 5745): Eighty-four-year-old
exotic food importer Max H. Ries who operated a textile factory in Munich until
1939, passed away today
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1985-01-01/business/8501010745_1_imported-mr-ries-textile-firm
1987: Two people were injured by a letter bomb
in Or Yehuda.
1987: Terrorists were thwarted today in Israel
when 10 letter bombs were discovered and disarmed without injury.
1988(22nd of Tevet, 5749):
Eighty-nine year old William Haber, an economist who helped Jewish refugees
after World War II as an adviser to the United States armed forces and for 25
years after that as president of the American Organization for Rehabilitation
Through Training Federation” and who was a professor emeritus of economics and
former dean at the University of Michigan passed away today.
1988(22nd of Tevet,
5749): Yuli Markovich Daniel Soviet
dissident writer, poet, translator, political prisoner and gulag survivor
passed away.
1989(2nd of Tevet, 5750): Parashat
Miketz; Eighth Day of Chanukah
1989: In “Pursue Peace, Not Just Elections,”
Abba Eban, the former Foreign Minister of Israel, described what he sees as the
next steps to be taken on the road to a Middle East settlement:
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/30/opinion/pursue-peace-not-just-elections.html
In January, the U.S. Secretary of
State and the Israeli and Egyptian foreign ministers will meet in Washington to
discuss how to form a Palestinian delegation to meet with Israel. If all goes
well, these ministers, along with the Palestinians agreed upon in Washington,
will all meet in Cairo to discuss procedures for holding West Bank and Gaza
elections to choose representatives to negotiate with Israel for interim
self-government.Since Israel refuses to deal with the Palestine Liberation
Organization, the U.S. will probably tell Israel that the Palestinian
delegation in Cairo is dissociated from the P.L.O. But this tactic would not
convince others, who would regard them as well-defined P.L.O. partisans. It is
still not certain that West Bank and Gaza elections will be held. The reason is
that the U.S. and Egypt disagree with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's view that
the P.L.O. cannot have any role, direct or indirect, in the peace process. But
Mr. Shamir, after all, initiated the idea of the elections, so it is urgent to
hold them and to break out of procedural debates. Free, democratic elections
would enable the Palestinians to say what they like, display their emblems,
celebrate their leaders and assemble peacefully. This would be a positive
change in the present situation in the territories. Elections, however
important, are not the basic peace issues. Those issues are the status of the
West Bank and Gaza, the distribution of sovereignty or control in those
territories, the location of Israel's secure boundaries and the structural
relationship among Israelis, Jordanians and Palestinians in a permanent
settlement. None of these issues is even remotely addressed in ''the only game
in town,'' as the U.S. has described the elections. In preoccupying itself exclusively
with elections, the U.S. is sidetracking the considerable Israeli and Arab
opinion that is ready to think about central peace problems. U.S. officials
tell us there has been no ''ripening'' of conditions for discussing peace,
security, boundaries and constitutional structure. Contrary to conventional
wisdom, our region has never been as ripe as it is today for large visions and
hard facts. Israel's political parties, media and think-tanks are reflecting
deeply on new possibilities, including confederative and community structures
that could accommodate Palestinian freedom without risk to Israeli security.
The leading Israeli institute of strategic studies (at Tel Aviv University),
headed by mainsteam defense experts, has formulated the far-reaching principle
that ''Israeli security can be maintained through continued military deployment
but without physical control over all the territories and all of the
Palestinian inhabitants.'' Israeli polls report majorities for territorial
compromise and the principle of dialogue with whomever the Palestinians
appoint. This is a promising prospect, because there is now a pragmatic school
in Palestinian mainstream thinking. Eastern Europe's uprising strengthens the
principle that every people is entitled to representatives of its own choice.
Acceptance of this doctrine could bring the Middle East out of anachronism into
the spirit of the age. Besides, the Soviet Union has never been more ready than
now to oppose extremism and to cooperate in stabilizing the Middle East. The
case for discussing the major problems now is strengthened by international
experience, which instructs us that it is just as difficult to get agreements
on small steps as it would be on central issues. Nothing is gained by
procrastination. In the meantime, the U.S. should publicly clarify its own
conclusions on the crucial issue of Palestinian representation in the peace
process. Does the U.S. truly believe it is feasible to produce an
Israeli-Palestinian dialogue in total dissociation from the P.L.O.? If so, it
should give its evidence for that belief.Or does it conclude, together with all
the rest of the world, that this is not feasible? In that case, it should state
its finding openly. This would galvanize Israel and the other parties to seek
pragmatic decisions on their home grounds. The death of illusion is a necessary
prelude to the birth of realism.
1991(23rd of Tevet, 5752): Ninety-one-year-old
New York dermatologist Samuel M. Peck. (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/04/nyregion/samuel-m-peck-91-dermatologist-and-professor.html
1991(23rd of Tevet, 5752): Eighty-six-year-old
New York State Supreme Court Justice Mitchell D. Schweitzer passed away today.
(As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)
1992: “Ice Cream King Takes Another Dip”
published today described the creation of Haagen-Dazs by Reuben Mattus.
1992: “Delta Heat” a cop movie set in New
Orleans produced by Uri Harkham and filmed by cinematographer Avraham Karpick
was released in the United States.
1993: Israel and the Vatican agreed to
recognize one another.
1993(16th of Tevet, 5754): “Superagent” [Irving Paul]
"Swifty" Lazar passed away at the age of 86.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/1994/04/michael-shnayerson-199404
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE5D71126E733BC4953DFB26F958A
1993: Israel's Foreign Minister said today that Israel and the
P.L.O. had concluded their latest round of talks with a "meeting of the
minds," but there was no breakthrough and significant differences
remained. The two sides, still trying to work out the details of the accord
that they signed in Washington in September and that was supposed to have gone
into effect two weeks ago, reached what an Israeli official described as
"a set of understandings" on how to carry out the first phase -- an
Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of
Jericho.
1993: Roni Milo resigned from the Knesset so he
can concentrate on his role as mayor of Tel Aviv.
1995: In reviewing the events that flickered
across our television screen, Walter Goodman described 1995 as being a year of
“Emotional Overload and Emotional Lift.”
As an example of this he wrote that “The shock at the assassination of
Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's Prime Minister was to some extent alleviated by the
immediate surge of revulsion, expressed on television both in the United States
and in Israel, over violent political language as well as acts of violence. At
the widely covered funeral, the tributes of so many heads of state were
heartening, with the pictures of an obviously moved King Hussein of Jordan
carrying special force. Even amid the anxiety over the future, it was a
historic and consoling moment: an Arab leader showing personal sorrow for the
death of an Israeli leader.”
1996: Proposed budget cuts by Benjamin
Netanyahu spark protests from 250,000 workers who shut down services across
Israel.
1997(2nd of Tevet, 5758): 8th
& final day of Chanukah
1997: “Legends of Yiddish Stage Brought To Life” published today
describes Fyvush Finkel’s homage to the world of theatrical Yiddish -- ''Fyvush
Finkel -- From Second Avenue to Broadway.''
1999: Two days after he had passed away, Milton Abrams was buried today
at the Beth Shalom Cemetery in Shaler Township, PA.
2000(4th of Tevet, 5761): Ninety one year old screenwriter Julius J.
Epstein passed away today. (As reported by Richard Natale)
http://articles.latimes.com/print/2000/dec/31/local/me-6888
2000: In “Humble Bagel, Highly Priced But Worth It,” published today Clyde Haberman lamented
the increasing cost of what was once the quintessential New York Jewish Food.
“The holidays required a stop at H & H, the bagel emporium on the
Upper West Side. This produced a discovery that, since the last visit a few
weeks earlier, the price of a bagel had gone up a dime. It now cost 95 cents.
Nearly a buck for a bagel! A bagel! You could understand it, maybe, if you were
able to read your fortune in the poppy seeds. But what is humbler than an
unadorned, untoasted, unshmeared bagel? Ninety-five cents? At Zabar's, across
the street, bagels sell for only 39 cents each. They're 60 cents at Barney
Greengrass, nearby, and at Columbia Bagels, half a mile farther north on
Broadway, and 50 cents at Kossar's, the bialy mavens on the Lower East Side.
One bagel purveyor in Manhattan -- please, he said, no names -- was not aware
of the new H & H price until a phone caller mentioned it. He had to share
the news with a colleague. ''Hey,'' he called out, ''H & H gets 95 cents.''
Then he returned to the phone. ''You should see his grimace,'' he reported.
''That,'' he agreed, ''is a lot of money for a bagel.'' Indeed. At the H &
H store, a counterman could muster little more than an embarrassed smile when
asked why. ''Ask the boss,'' he replied. But the boss, Helmer Toro, was not to
be found at the H & H headquarters in Midtown. A woman who picked up the
phone did allow, however, that ''our bagels are great.'' No argument, even if
there are those who insist that Columbia's or Kossar's are tastier. And the
long lines at H & H this week suggested that 95 cents (with a discount
price of $11 for a dozen, and an extra thrown in free) is hardly enough to
deter committed New York shoppers.”
2001: The
New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about
subjects of Jewish interest including Wittgenstein’s Poker: The Story of a 10-Minute Argument Between Two Great
Philosophers by David Edmonds and John Eidinow and Making The
List: A Cultural History of the American Bestseller,
1900-1999 by Michael
Korda.
2001(16th
of Tevet, 5762): Rabbi Chaim Kreiswirth passed away shortly before midnight,
aged 82, after suffering from an illness. Born at Wojnicz, Poland in 1918, the
son of Rabbi Avrohom Yosef Schermann and Perla Kreiswirth, he was an Orthodox
rabbi who served as the longtime Chief Rabbi of Congregation Machzikei Hadass
Antwerp, Belgium. He was the founder and rosh yeshiva of the Mercaz HaTorah
yeshiva in Jerusalem, and was a highly regarded Torah scholar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Kreiswirth
2001: Final showing of “The exhibition Myer
Myers: Jewish Silversmith in Colonial New York was on view at the Yale
University Art Gallery.”
2002: “The Israeli Supreme Court ruled today
that reserve soldiers do not have a right to refuse to serve in the occupied
territories. It held that Israeli society is too polarized and embattled to
permit selective assertions of conscience by its fighters.”
2003:
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft recued himself and his office from
investigating The Plame Affair. Palme is Valerie Plame the Jewish
2004: Airel Sharon “sealed a deal with the
Labor Party to form a coalition with Shimon Peres becoming Vice Premier,
restoring the government’s majority in the Knesset.”
2004(18th of Tevet, 5765): Artie Shaw passed away. Born Arthur Jacob
Arshawsky, Shaw gained fame as a clarinet player and Big Band Leader. He received a Grammy Life Time Achievement
Award and is a member of the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.
2005(29th of Kislev, 5766: Seventy-four-year-old
Rona Jaffe, the Brooklyn born daughter of Samuel and Diana Jaffe, the author of
The Best of Everything passed away at the age of 74.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/31/arts/31jaffe.html
2005: Pepe Eliaschev, the grandson of Russian
Jewish immigrants, a fixture of Argentine media, and host of the daily radio
show, “Esto Que Pasa” or “This is what’s happening” was fired in what he saw as
a form of media self-censorship.
2005: The first kosher restaurant, Kineret
Aruba Glatt Kosher Deli opened at the Playa Linda Beach Resort in Aruba.
2006: The second edition of Encyclopedia Judaica, a
22-volume work, was published which is to be released in January, was published
today.
2006: “Deposed Iraqi leader, Sadam Hussein, was
executed by hanging”today
2006: The Cedar
Rapids Gazette reports about the growth of religiously orientated games in
an article entitled “How about a game of Kosherland?” The story begins “The
crazy Jewish fun of Kosherland looks la lot like the board game Candy Land,
except gefilte fishing substitutes for he visits to the Ice Cream Sea…” The
founder of Jewish Educational Toys said people are much more willing to buy
religious toys since he helped create Kosherland in 1985.
2007: The
Sunday New York Times features reviews of the books by Jewish authors
and/or about matters of special interest to Jewish readers including Liberal
Fascism by Jonah Goldberg and The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/books/review/Oshinsky-t.html?_r=0
2007: In what would seem to be a reminder of
the common origins of mankind, the Chicago
Tribune reported that a genetic
mutation known to increase the odds of breast cancer in some Jewish women has
been found in significant numbers of Hispanic and African-American breast
cancer patients underscoring the need for genetic testing across ethnic lines
to determine who is at risk.
2008: At
2008 (3 Tevet, 5769): Seventy eight year old “Harvey
Ginsberg, a New York book editor who served long tenures at G. P. Putnam’s
Sons, Harper & Row and William Morrow & Company, and whose most loyal
writers included John Irving and Saul Bellow, passed away today in Manhattan.”
(As reported Bruce Weber) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/books/11ginsberg.html?_r=0
2009: New York’s classical music radio station, WQXR, 105.9 fm
presented a broadcast of selections from the Keshet Eilon 2009 Violin
Mastercourse, performed at its gala final concert at Kibbutz Eilon by
participants in the course.
2009: The Gerard Bechar Center presented The Jerusalem Cantors
Choir, in a concert entitled "Mizmor Le-toda:" a festive show
combining Israeli and Cantorial classics. The evening is a tribute to Cantor
Binyamin Glickman on the occasion of his 75th birthday and celebrating 55 years
of his career as a conductor.
2009: The Psik Theater presented "The Jerusalem
Comedy:" a comedy about Ultra Orthodox, Secular, and those stuck somewhere
in the middle. The play tells the story of the struggle between the secular
theatre "Le'Mehadrin" and the adjacent orthodox yeshiva in the same
neighborhood. The juxtaposition of the two creates extreme comical situations.
2009: Closing session
of the International Conference on Conservative Judaism: Halakhah, Culture and
Sociology at The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.
2009: Final session of The USY International
Convention was held in Chicago, IL.
2009: Israel's population stands at 7.5 million, according to
figures released today by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Published
ahead of the Gregorian New Year 2010, Israel's population has continued to grow
at a steady rate of 1.8 percent over the past seven years, with 160,000 new
babies born since last January 1 and some 14,500 new immigrants arriving over
the past year.
2009: One or more mortars were fired from Gaza into southern
Israel.
2009: “The Russian-born pianist Evgeny Kissin,
who became a British citizen in 2002, has accused the BBC of “slander and bias”
against Israel, broadcasting material he describes as “painfully reminiscent of
the old Soviet anti-Zionist propaganda”.
2009: Today, the Shin Bet, Israel's security
service, released a report which showed that 566 rockets were fired on Israel
from Gaza in 2009; most were fired in January, during Israel's war with Hamas
in Gaza. By comparison, 2,048 rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza in 2008.
2010: In Orlando, FL, the USY International
Convention is scheduled to come to an end.
2010: The 30th Limmud Conference is
scheduled to come to an end today.
2010: The Rt. Hon. Sir Martin Gilbert,
CBE is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled "Britain and Palestine,
1917-1947: Researching the Relationship" at Beit Avi Chai. Attendees will
enjoy an evening with Sir Martin, the official biographer of Winston Churchill,
who is one of the most knowledgeable, literate and prolific historians in the
20th and 21st century.
His eighty-two books include Israel, Jerusalem in the
Twentieth Century, Churchill and the Jews, Holocaust Journey
and his latest offering, In Ishmael’s House
2010: The
Shin Ben (Israel Security Agency) reported today that there was a decrease in
the number of terrorist attacks targeting Israelis in 2010. There were 798
recorded terrorist attacks in 2010 at the time the report was written, compared
to 1,354 in 2009.
2010: This evening, a group of Arab
men attacked a soldier at the entrance to Kiryat Arba. The soldier suffered
head injuries in the attack. His assailants were arrested.
2010: An exhibition on the Jews of
Iran showcasing the community’s 2,700-year-old history and rich heritage opens
today at Beit Hatefutsoth in Tel Aviv.
2010:
Former president Moshe Katsav was found guilty of raping former Tourism
Ministry worker "Aleph," in the Tel Aviv District Court
2010: The
Limmud Conference, British Jewry’s answer to the Edinburgh Festival which has
been celebrating its 30th anniversary came to an end today. Limmud,
which began with 70 Jewish educators getting together Christmas week 30 years
ago, is
2011(4th of
Tevet, 5772): Ninety-four-year-old Bernard Bellush, Professor Emeritus of History at
the City College of New York (CCNY), who was part of “Alcove Number One” – “a
group of student radicals at CCNY during the 1930’s – passed away today.
2011(4th
of Tevet, 5772): Sixty-five-year-old of Adrienne Cooper, the singer who played
a major role in reviving Yiddish culture and music with a special emphasis on
Klezmer passed away today.
http://www.adriennecooper.com/Adrienne_Cooper/Adrienne_Cooper_Home.html
2011: The Jaffa Rd Walking Tour,
an exploration of Jerusalem’s main artery to the coast for centuries which was
also an Ottoman road with British influences, is scheduled to begin this
morning. at Tzahal Square, Kikar Safra #10, across from Jaffa Gate Plaza, at
9:00am.
2011: The Israel Air Force struck a group of terrorists attempting to fire
rockets into Israel this morning.
2011: Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, the rabbi of the Har Bracha settlement and the
dean of the Har Bracha yeshiva, strongly criticized gender segregation on buses
in a column to be published in the B’Sheva weekly today. A number of other
senior rabbis from the national-religious spectrum have also weighed in on the
current
2012: Choreographer Ssmulik Gov-Are and Hadassah Badoch-Kruger Yemenite
dance expert & former soloist with the Inbal and Batsheva dance companies
are scheduled to attend the Israeli Folk Dance End-of-Year Party
2012: After a year, Uncovered & Rediscovered, an evolving eight-part
exhibit that explores the Chicago Jewish experience at the Spertus Institute is
scheduled to come to an end today.
2012: Celebration of the birthday of University of Iowa Hillel Director
Jerry Sorkin
2012: “DADB – A Story of an Israeli Icon” is scheduled to be shown at the
Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival
2012: Dorit Beinisch “was awarded as a knight of The Movement for Quality
Government in Israel.”
2012: The New York Times featured
reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg and Hallucinations
by Oliver Sacks
2012: Israel’s population stands
at 7,981,000 citizens, an increase of nearly 2 percent, according to an annual
end of the year tally from the Central Bureau of Statistics, released on today
(As reported by Gabe Fisher)
2012(17th of Tevet, 5773): Nobel Prize winner Rita-Montaclini
passed away at the age of 103 (As reported by Benedict Carey)
2012(17th of Tevet, 5773): Eighty-nine-year-old Beate Sirota
Gordon, “the unsung heroine of Japanese women’s rights” passed away. (As
reported by Margalit Fox)
2012: Security forces
arrived early this morning at the West Bank outpost of Oz Zion, demolished
makeshift structures and evacuated a small group of right-wing activists who
had remained at the site.
2012: In “Several Eras
End at One Lower East Side Building” published today David W. Dunlap described
the world that surrounded the First Romanian-American Synagogue known as ‘the
cantors’ Carnegie Hall.”
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/30/several-eras-end-at-one-lower-east-side-building/
2013: “Ender’s Game”
and “The Godfather II” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film
Festival.
2013: Twenty-six more
murdering Palestinian terrorists are scheduled to be released today as part of
the Israeli compliance with the pre-conditions for the latest rounds of “peace
talks” which are taking place against a background of stabbings, shootings and
bombings. For a list of the killers and
their crimes see
2013: Hours before
Israel was set to free another 26 Palestinians convicted of terrorism, the High
Court of Justice refused the bereaved families' appeal against the release
scheduled for midnight.
2013: An art historian has found two art works
stolen by the Nazis inside Germany's parliament, a newspaper reported today, in
a new embarrassment for authorities after a huge stash of looted art came to
light last month.
2014: “October 7, 1944”
an “installation, commissioned by the American Jewish Historical Society that
offers a response by the internationally acclaimed choreographer Jonah Bokaer
to an uprising organized by Jewish inmates at Auschwitz in 1944 which pays
tribute to the role of four unheralded women who took part in the uprising” is
scheduled to come to a close today.
2014: “Winter Sleep
“and “David Perlov” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film
Festival.
2014: A “federal civil
suit was filed in Florida by Jane Doe 1 (Courtney Wild) and Jane Doe 2 against
the United States for violations of the Crime Victims' Rights Act by the U.S.
Department of Justice's NPA with Jeffrey Epstein and his limited 2008 state
plea.
2014(8th of
Tevet, 5775): One-hundred-four year old two-time Oscar winning actress Luise
Rainer passed away today. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/arts/luise-rainer-award-winning-actress-dies-at-104.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-30631088
2015: “The annual
reading by recent graduates of the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative
Writing is scheduled to take place today in Tel Aviv.”
2015: The Fifth Annual
Jerusalem Business Conference which “is for Jerusalemites, Olim and returning
residents who have a business, or are considering setting one up” is scheduled
to start this morning at the Begin Center.
2016(30th of
Kislev, 5777): Rosh Chodesh Tevet; Sixth Day of Chanukah
2016(30th of
Kislev): Yahrzeit of Rav Zeligman Gantz, who “served as a Dayan in Prague” and
“was a brother of Tzemach Dovid.”
2016: In addition to
kindling the Chanukah and Shabbat lights, friends and family of Jerry Sorokin
are scheduled to kindle the candles for his birthday.
2016: In Memphis, TN,
Temple Israel is scheduled to host Shabbat Chanukah services followed by a
special congregational dinner.
2017(12th of
Tevet, 5778): Parashat Veyechi; on the final Shabbat of 2017, reading of the
final chapters of Bereshit.
2017: Offensive lineman
Adam Bisnowaty was “promoted to the active roster” of the New York Giants
today.
2017: The Illinois
Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a “survivor talk” by
Magda Brown who as a 17 year old was “deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
2017: The Illinois
Holocaust Museum and Education Center is to host a “Architecture Tour” lead by
Stanley Tigerman, “the former director of the School of Architecture at the
University of Illinois at Chicago.
2018: “The Bender JCC
of Greater Washington is scheduled to host “Mount Vernon Virtuosi: Dancing into
2018. In Albany, NY, B’nai Sholom is scheduled to host the “Ne’imah Jewish
Community Chorus” this evening.
2018: Prime Minister
Netanyahu continues the third day of a trip to Brazil which is scheduled to
include talks with US Secretary of Mike Pompeo who is also in the country.
2018: In Washington,
DC, the Arena Stage is scheduled to present the final performance of
“Indecent,” which “tells the story of the artists who risked their lives to
perform the controversial play ‘God of Vengeance’ in 1923.”
2018: The New York Times features reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Late-Life
Love: A Memoir by Susan Gubar and Jonathan Lethem’s essay “Fictions’ New
Fake Drugs: A Preliminary Pharmacopoeia.”
2019(2nd of
Tevet, 5780): Eighth Day of Chanukah
2019: The celebration
of Chanukah, which has been marked by daily outbreaks of anti-Semitic violence
culminating in a machete attack on Jews lighting their candles in suburban New
York is scheduled to come to an end this evening.
2019: In London JW3 is
scheduled to host a screening “Spider in the Web,” whose protagonist is
“Adereth an aging, jaded Mossad Agent.”
2019: In Jerusalem, The
Tower of David is scheduled to host its final “Chanukah Tour.”
2019: The Chanukah
Festival at Ein Yael, the outdoor museum, is scheduled to come to an end today.
2020: YNY is scheduled
to host a lunchtime concert with A special performance by the Berlin-based duo
of Sveta Kundish (vocals) and Patrick Farrell (accordion/piano) followed by a
climactic “Great Yiddish Culture Crawl.”
2020: B’nai Jeshurun
Congregation is scheduled to host via Zoom “Kosher Fitness” with Rabbi, and
certified person trainer Michael Unger.
2020: As part of its
“Coffee with a Survivor” program, the Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to
host a presentation by “Second Generation Speakers Ron and Steve Coppel”
talking “about how their father survived the infamous “Death March” from
Auschwitz in 1945.
2021:
Anuradha Mittal, chair of Ben & Jerry's board of directors and vice
president of the Vermont-based ice cream maker's nonprofit foundation was voted
"Antisemite of the Year" in the third annual contest run by watchdog
StopAntisemitism .with British singer Dua Lipa placing second and U.S. lawmaker
Marjorie Taylor Greene finishing in third place.
2021:
With 2,554 Israelis having test positive for coronavirus out 86,500 in the last
twenty-four hours, Israelis today are realizing that “infections show no stop
of stopping.
2021:
The Actors Temple Theatre is scheduled to host the final performance of “Swan
Lake Rock Opera,” “a new musical about money, love and titles created by top
Israeli lyricist Mirit Shem Ur.”
2022:
Tel Aviv, Levontin7 is scheduled to host a “New Years Rock Party.”
2022:
Starting at 11:59 PM, the Gatsby Cocktail Room in Jerusalem is scheduled to
begin celebrating “the passing of a year with 12 hours of amazing music and
ravishing people.”
2022:
“According to the CBS 7,106,000 residents of the state Israel are Jews (about
73.6% of the population), 2,037,000 are Arabs (about 21.1%), and 513,000 (5.3%)
are defined as other - i.e Christians who are not Arabs, different religions,
and people without religious classification in the Interior Ministry.”
2022:
Nesya Rosenbloom
whose parents are Josh and Judy Rosenbloom and whose Saba and Savta are David
Levin and Debbie Rosenbloom is scheduled to deliver a D’var Torah this evening
as part of the celebration of her Bat Mitzvah.
2022:
Uri Gurvich is scheduled to perform at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
2023:
Lockdown University is scheduled to host a lecture by Professor David Peier on
“The Marx Brothers and Jewish Humor: Genius ad Outsider.”
2023(18th
of Tevet, 5784): Parashat Vayechi (“And he lived” as in”Jacob Lived…”); for
more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2023: As December 30 begins in Israel,
the Hamas held hostages begin day 85 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
