This Day, January 21, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
January
21
763: Thirteen
years after coming to power, the Abbasids defeated the Alids at the Battle of
Bakhamra, ending this challenge to their Caliphate. The Abbasid Dynasty lasted
for approximately 500 and ruled an area extending from Central Asia o…
January 21
763: Thirteen
years after coming to power, the Abbasids defeated the Alids at the Battle of
Bakhamra, ending this challenge to their Caliphate. The Abbasid Dynasty lasted
for approximately 500 and ruled an area extending from Central Asia on the east
to North Africa on the west which meant they controlled all of the Jewish
communities outside of Europe. They built Baghdad and according to some, power
in the Jewish world shifted to those living in this new Moslem power center.
1188: After
hearing Archbishop of Tyre Josias describe Henry II Plantagenet of England and
Philip II of France set aside their differences and agree to “take up the cross.”
The monarch imposed a “Saladin Tax” (one tenth of earnings over the next 3
years) which can be avoided by those who join the Crusade. Of course for
the Jews, there is no escape so they will be despoiled by the monarchs as well
as by the marauding Crusaders.
1189: Philip
II, Henry II and Richard Lion-Hearted began gathering the forces for The Third
Crusade. The Third Crusade took an exceptionally harsh toll on the Jews
of England. Although the third crusade became famous in song and fable,
it was a failure. Unfortunately, it did not end the crusading
spirit. More crusades would follow which meant more misery for the Jews
of Europe and the Middle East.
1306: Phillip
the Fair of France issued secret orders today for his officials to prepare for
the expulsion of his Jewish subjects and the confiscation of their property.
Phillip found that his treasury had been depleted by his wars with the Flemish
and he saw this as a way of replenishing his treasury. Under the terms of the
expulsion any Jews found after the July 22, 1306 (10th of Av) were
to be executed.
1393: The Jews
of Majorca were guaranteed protection by the governor who “issued an edict for
their protection, providing that a citizen who should injure a Jew should be
hanged, and that a knight for the same offense should be subjected to the
strappado.”
1495: Isaac
ben Judah Abravanel and King Alfonso sailed from Naples to Mazzara near Sicily.
The city of Mazzazra was given as a gift from Ferdinand of Spain to Alfonso.
While there, news reached both Abravanel and Alfonso that Charles VIII had
taken Naples. The French rioted against and looted the Jewish community almost
wiping it out. Many Jews were sold as slaves, and many were forced to convert
to Christianity. Abravanel later wrote, "My entire enormous wealth was
stolen."
1527: Jakob
van Hoogstraten, the Dominican priest who burned Hebrew books belonging to
Johannes Reuchlin, a friend of the Jews, passed away today.
1596(21st of
Shevat): Rabbi Judah Leib Hanlish author of Vaygash Yehuda, passed away
1609:
Sixty-eight-year-old Joseph Justus Scaliger, “the Hugenot scholar and professor
at the University of Leiden” who “argued that it was only possible to establish
the true text and meaning of Scripture gaining an understanding of rabbinic
sources” and who “maintained Jews should be permitted to return to western
Europe simply because of their economic importance but because of their
learning” passed away today.
1716:
Birthdate “British businessman” and descendant of “Portuguese Sephardic Jews”
Joseph Salvador, a supporter of the “1753 Jew bill,’’ the sole Jewish “director
of the British East India Company” and active supporter of the colonization of
Georgia and South Carolina where a large number of Sephardim settled including
his nephew Francis was reputed to have been “the first Jew to be elected public
office” what became the United States and the first Jew to die during the
American Revolution.
1727(28th
of Tevet, 5487): Abraham de Fonseca, the native of Hamburg who “graduated in
medicine from Leyden University” and was the son of Joseph ben Joshua de
Fonseca passed away today.
1749:
Birthdate of Chaim Volozhin, a disciple of the Valna Gaon. Also known as
Reb Cahim he was the founder of the Volozhin Yeshiva, which provided the
“template” for similar academies throughout much of what was at that time part
of Poland and the Russian Empire.
1774: The
reign of Mustafa III before who Jewish magician and mystic Jacob Philadelphia
performed, passed came to an end today.
1785:
Birthdate of Liverpool, England native Henry Solomon, the husband of Amsterdam
native Julia Levy and father of rAchel, Simon, Louis and Isaac Solomon.
1793: Prussia
and Russia signed a treaty that portioned Poland. All of a sudden, Russia
had a large Jewish population, something which her rulers had not bargained for
and did not want.
1793: Louis
XVI, whose reign saw “uneven” treatment of the Jews of Alsac, was beheaded by
guillotine on the Place de la Révolution.
1796:
Eighty-two-year-old Jacob ben Abraham Katz was buried today at the Alderney
Road Jewish Cemetery.
1799(15th
of Shevat, 5559): Tu B’Shevat
1799:
Birthdate of Rachel Mocatta, the native of Stratford who married Lewis Raphael
with whom she had five children.
1802: In
Maryland, 37-year-old Rachel Gratz and 37-year-old Solomon Etting gave birth to
Ellen Etting.
1803: Two days
after she had passed away, Judith Levy, the daughter of Moses Hart, the wife of
Elias Levy and the mother of Benjamin and Isabella Levy was buried today at the
“Alderney Road (Globe Rd) Jewish Cemetery.”
1812: In Bonn,
German David (Tebli) Hess and Hindel Flersheim gave birth to Moses Hess an
author, socialist and forerunner of the Zionist movement whose book Rome and
Jerusalem published in 1862, expressed the belief that German anti-Semitism
was based on race and nationhood and advised Jews to accept the fact and revive
their own state in Eretz Israel. Hess, a socialist, had worked with Marx and
Engels. He grew disillusioned with the idea that a "progressive society
would eradicate anti-Semitism."
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/moses-hess
http://zionism-israel.com/bio/biography_moses_hess.htm
1813:
Fifty-nine-year-old Royal Navy Captain Isaac Schomberg the London born son of
Elizabeth Crowcher and Dr. Ralph Schomberg and the grandson of Dr. Meyer Low
Schomberg, whose father had converted to Christianity as a youth passed away
today.
1817(4th
of Shevat, 5577): Israel Isarel, the husband of Polly Israel and the father of
Henrietta Israel passed away today in the United Kingdom.
1824:
Birthdate of Giesen, Lower Saxony, native and future resident of Weaverville,
CA, Samuel Lachman, the husband of Henrietta Lachman with whom he had three
children including vintner Henry Lachman.
1826: In
Prague Judith and Abraham Eidlitz gave birth to Markus Eidlitz who came to the
United States in
1828: In
Moisling, Germany, Moses Nathan Levy, the Hamburg born son of Jette and Nathan
Levy and his wife Hannchen Levy gave birth to Siegmund Nathan Levy
1835(20th
of Tevet, 5595): Thirty-eight-year-old Isaac Davega, the son of Moses Davega
and husband of Grace Labatt passed away today.
1839: Birthdate
of Wurttemberg, Germany native Moritz Beisinger who came to the United States
as a teenager and gained fame as Nelson Morris, the founder of Morris and
Company one of the largest meat packing companies in Chicago and “the first Jewish
director of the First National Bank of Chicago” who was the husband of Sarah
Vogel with whom he had five children “diplomat Ira Nelson Morris; Edward Morris
(married to Helen Swift, daughter of Gustavus Swift, and father of Muriel
Gardiner and Ruth Morris Bakwin); Herbert Morris (who died suddenly in 1898);
Augusta Morris Rothschild (married to retailer Abram M. Rothschild); and Maude
Morris Schwab (married to Henry C. Schwab).
http://chicagojewishhistory.org/pdf/2008/CJH_2_2008-web.pdf
1846 with his
mother after the death of his father, where, as Marc Eidlitz he “founded the
construction firm, Marc Eidlitz & Son Builders N.Y.C. in New York, which
built the St. Regis Hotel and many other projects.”
1829: In
Prague, Abraham and Judith Eidlitz gave birth to Markus Eidlitz who emigrated
to the United States in 1846 where he gained fame as Marc Eidlitz, a leader in
the New York construction industry.
1831 (7th of
Shevat, 5591): Author Achim von Arnim passed away. Von Arnim was not
Jewish but he incorporated the Golem into his works thus helping this Jewish
myth to move into the general European culture.
1837(15th
of Shevat, 5597): Parashat Beshalach; Tu B’Shevat celebrated for the last time
during the Presidency of Andrew Jackson.
1838:
Birthdate of German native Moritz Beisinger, who gained fame as Nelson Morris,
“the founder of Morris and Company, one the three main meat-packing companies
who was the husband of Sarah Vogel with whom he had five children -- diplomat
Ira Nelson Morris; Edward Morris (married to Helen Swift, daughter of Gustavus
Swift, and father of Muriel Gardiner and Ruth Morris Bakwin); Herbert Morris
(who died suddenly in 1898); Augusta Morris Rothschild (married to retailer
Abram M. Rothschild); and Maude Morris Schwab (married to Henry C. Schwab).”
1841:
Birthdate of Edward Rosenwasser, the native of Bohemia, who gained fame as
Edward Rosewater the Republican Party leader and editor of the Omaha
(Nebraska) Bee. Rosewater played a minor role in one of the great moments
of U.S. History – the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation. While serving
as the telegrapher at the White House, he was the one who actually sent
President Lincoln’s words out over the wires to the world.
1842: The
Jewish Chronicle “printed a lengthy account of a turbulent debate at the Wester
Synagogue in which Charles Salaman proposed a resolution for improving
punctuality and decorum during services.”
1846: Edward
Benjamin married Flora Alexander in London today.
1846 Joseph
Solomon married Abigail Pass at the Great Synagogue today.
1846: Samuel
(Shmaie) Bloch and Jeanette Bloch gave birth to Leopold Bloch the husband of
Babette Bloch and Klara Bloch.
1847:
Birthdate of Lionel Jonas Cohen, oldest brother of famed musician Frederic
Hymen Cowen.
1851: Rebecca
Moses and Jonathan Nathan gave birth to Rachel Gratz who never married.
1852: In
Hartford, CT, Leopold Bamberger and Therese Lithauer gave birth to Columbia Law
School trained attorney Ira Leo Bamberger, the member of the board of directors
of several companies including the Broadway Trust Company, the Counsel for the
Brooklyn Teachers’ Association and President of the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan
Asylum who was the husband of Reba C. May.
1852: In
Albany, NY, Bernhard and Ricka (Strauss) Hamburger gave birth Columbia trained
attorney and life-long bachelor Samuel B. Hamburger, who served as President of
the Central Synagogue for seventeen years and “a trustee of the Educational
Alliance for twenty-eight years.”
1854:
Birthdate of architect John Hemenway Duncan, the designer of a mansion for
Jewish investment banker Philip Lehman which gained famed as the “Philip Lehman
Masion” which was “designated as a New York landmark in 1981.
1854: In
London, Rosa Pinto, the London born daughter of daughter of Rabbi David Aaron
de Sola and Rebecca (Rica) de Sola and her husband of Henry (Haim) Pinto gave
birth to Edward Pinto.
1858:
Birthdate of Joseph Krauskopf, the native of Prussia who came to the United
States in 1872 and enrolled in the first class of Hebrew Union College in 1875.
1860: Punch
reported that a dispute has broken out between two Jewish businessmen – Lazarus
Simon Magnus and Henry Guedalla – over control over the Great Eastern Steamship
Company. In one exchange of letters, Mr. Magnus challenged Mr. Guedalla
to a duel.
1861: David
Levy Yulee, the first Jew elected to the United States Senate withdrew from
that body when Florida seceded and joined the Confederacy. Yulee, who
married a Christian and raised his children in the faith of his wife, then
joined the Confederate cause as a Senator.
1862: In
Leavenworth, KS, Alfred Benjamin and Sophie Woolf gave birth CCNY educated
Eugene S. Benjamin the husband of Miriam Gutman and the “vice president of the
Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society.”
1863: Union
General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck wrote to Grant to explain the rescission of
the order #11, stating that "The President has no objection to your
expelling traitors and Jew peddlers, which, I suppose was the object of your
order; but as it in terms proscribed an entire religious class, some of whom
are fighting in our ranks, the President deemed it necessary to revoke
it." Captain Philip Trounstine of the Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, being unable
in good conscience to round up and expel his fellow Jews, resigned his army
commission, saying he could "no longer bear the Taunts and malice of
his fellow officers… brought on by … that order." The officials
responsible for the United States government's most vicious anti-Jewish actions
ever were never dismissed, admonished or, apparently, even officially
criticized for the religious persecution they inflicted on innocent citizens.
1864: In
London, Ellen Marks and Moses Zangwill gave birth to Israel Zangwill the noted
Anglo-Jewish author and Zionist whose literary career in the United States was
launched when he wrote “Children of the Ghetto.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/israel-zangwill
https://spartacus-educational.com/Jzangwill.htm
1864: Private
Jacob Simon, who would be wounded at Cold Harbor, began serving with the
Company E of the 183rd Regiment.
1864:
Apparently Jews were a significant part of the population of Utah since in a
report from Great Salt Lake City, it was noted that “there are two
subjects…which Jew and Gentile..consider of more than ordinary importance” when
it comes to legislative action – bills concerning mining claims and general
corporation.
1865: Birthdate of Moses Moritz Speier who was
transported from Frankfurt-am-Main to Terezin in 1942 where he was murdered.
1866: In Monroe,
LA, Solomon and Babette Levy Kern gave birth to Leon Kern, the brother of
Marcus Rebecca and Spanish-American War veteran Joseph Kern
1867: Trieste,
Italy, “Giuseppe (Joseph) Morpurgo” was “baronized” today.
1868:
Birthdate of “German poet, writer and publicist” Ludwig Jacobowski.
1869: In Albany, NY,
Celia and Simon Illich gave birth to Albany Law School graduate and “former
City Cour Judge in Albany, Julius Illch, who was “treasurer of the Albany
Jewish Social Service, a trustee of Temple Beth Emeth and a past president of
the Capital District Court B’nai B’rith.”
1870: Sarah
Hendricks and New Orleans native Florian Hart Florance who were married in 1869
gave birth to Daisy Florance.
1871: In
Amsterdam, Karel Abraham Wertheim and Henreitte van Heukelom gave birth to
Johanna Sarah Wertheim
1871: It was
reported today that a popular Jewish peddler named Frank who sold to customers
throughout Queens County, New York, has died of wounds inflicted by an unknown
assailant who shot him while traveling to his home in Flushing. Since nothing
has been found missing, authorities assume that the motive was not robbery, but
no suspects are in custody at this time.
1871:
Establishment of Emanuel Jewish
Cemetery in Des Moines, Iowa.
The site is adjacent to the northwest corner
of Woodland Cemetery at Woodland and Harding, just northwest of downtown Des
Moines.
1872:
Eighty-one-year-old Viennese born dramatist Franz Grillparzer the author of
“The Jewess of Toledo,” a play “based on the alleged relationship between
Alfonso VIII of Castile and his mistress Rahel la Fermosa which although not
verified by contemporary documents became the fodder for numerous literary
endeavors” passed away today.
1872: Three
days after he had passed away, 68-year-old Michael Emanuel the son of Joel
Emanuel and Julia Lazarus and the husband of the former Hannah Levy with whom
he had had four children was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”
1873: In San
Francisco, Bertha Kunreuther and Elias Bienenfeld gave birth to engineer Abel
Morris Bienenfeld, the husband of Adelheid Bienenfeld who, before and during
the Spanish-American War “engaged in the reconstruction of warships
subsequently were used by Admiral Dewey at Manila” and who was engaged in the
construction of railroads in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
1874(3rd
of Shevat, 5634): Daniel Joseph Jaffe died in Nice, France. Jaffe had
settled in Belfast in 1852 where he had become a successful businessman.
He was the father of Otto and Martin Jaffe. Martin bought a plot
Belfast’s City Cemetery for his father’s internment. This plot was the origin
of the city’s Jewish Cemetery.
1874: One day
after she had passed away, 36 year old Hannah Levy was buried today at the
“Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”
1875: Millie
Sternberger and Emanuel Beitman gave birth to Cincinnati College of Music
graduate Bertha Beitman Herzog, the wife of Siegman Herzog and social worker
who was President of the Cleveland, OH Council of Jewish Women and a member of
the board of the National Council of Jewish Women and the National School for
Social Service.
1876: Birthdate
of Minsk native and Harvard Medical School trained physician who practiced in
Boston, served on the faculties of Harvad and Tufts and wrote several articles
including “The Early Diagnosis of Leadpoisonning.”
1877: The 25th
annual meeting of the B’nai Brit of the United States began in Cincinnati, Ohio
with 100 delegates in attendance.
1878: In
Kovno, Abraham Elijah and Rebekah (Fisher) Glazer gave birth Simon Glazer, the
husband of Ida Cantor who served as the Rabbi for several congregations in the
United States and Canada including Congregation B’nai Israel in Des Moines,
Iowa from 1902 to 1905, who wrote Jews of Iowa published in 1904 and who “wrote
under the pseudonyms of Zerubbabel, Eliel and Yigosh.”
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9D07E2D61538EE3ABC4B51DFB3668383629EDE
1881: In
Cincinnati, OH, Rosa Stix and Carl Iglauer, who were married in 1876 gave birth
to Florence Iglauer.
1882: The BILU
Movement took root in Russia. The Russian students at the University of Khrakov
formed their own Zionist group called BILU (initials for House of Jacob Let Us
Rise and Go) which called for active settlement of the Eretz Israel by
agricultural pioneers. The first group of 14 arrived July 6 the next year,
hiring themselves out as agricultural laborers. They believed it was possible
to start a worldwide movement to encourage settlement in Eretz Israel.
1882: In Elizabeth,
Russia, Lena Levin and Max Caplan gave birth to Yale Law School educated
attorney Jacob Caplan, the husband of Fannie Kronish and President of the New
Haven YMHA, United Jewish Charities and Jewish Home for Children who served as
a Judge of the City Court of New Haven, CT and was a member of Congregation B’nai
Jacob.
1883: In
Galveston, TX, Eliza Seinsheimer and Harris Kempner gave birth to University of
Virginia alum Robert Lee Kempner the president of the Rio Gande Railway and the
U.S. National Bank Building Company and a member of Congregation B’nai Israel
in Galveston.
1883(13th of
Shevat, 5643): Rabbi Eliezer Landau, author of Dammesek Eliezer passed away.
1883(13th
of Shevat, 5643): Twenty-eight-year-old Sallie Gimbel Greenewald, the daughter
of Adam and Fridoline Gimbel and the wife of Aaron E. Greenewald passed away
today in Philadelphia, PA.
1884:
Birthdate of Roger Baldwin, the protégé of Louis Brandeis who was one of the
founders of the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization that has been
of immeasurable importance to Jews over the decades.
1885: In
Eichstetten, Leopold and Klara Bloch gave birth to Rahel Bloch
1885: Rabbi
David Levy presided at the marriage of J.S. Pinkussohn and Miss Ray Foot of
Newberry, SC.
1886(15th
of Shevat, 5646): Tu B’Shevat
1886:
Birthdate of Jacob Morris Strelitsky, the native of Baku who as John Malcolm
Stahl became a director and producer at MGM and “one of the thirty-six founding
members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
1887: Henry M.
Stanley left London for Cairo as he prepared to lead “The Emin Pasha Relief
Expedition.”
1887(25th
of Tevet, 5647): Alfred Alvarez Newman, the London born founder of the Old
English Smithy whose “collection of Jewish prints and tracts was exhibited at
the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition and who fought to save the old Bevis
Marks synagogue because of its historic significance passed away today.
1887:
Birthdate of Wolfgang Kohler. “Kohler was the only non-Jewish psychologist who
ever protested against Germany and the Nazis. He was not afraid to make
his thoughts about them very public, which could have cost him his life at a
very early age. He was lucky that he was not thrown into a prison and killed
off for the things he said about Germany and the Nazis”
1888:
Birthdate of Philadelphia native Joseph J. Boris, the editor of “Who’s Who in
Colored America.”
https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b046-i391
1888: Today, the
Nation published an article by Annie Nathan Meyer which was an “original plea
for the establishment of Barnard College.”
1890(29th of
Tevet, 5650): Rabbi Dr. Nathan Marcus Adler put on his tallit and t’fillin,
aided by Joseph Vangelder, his faithful servant for twenty years. He said the
Sh’ma with a clear and unhesitating voice and at 8.45 am breathed his last.
Born in 1803, he was the Orthodox Chief Rabbi of the British Empire from 1845
until his death and one of the most prominent 19th century rabbi in the
English-speaking world. (As reported by Rabbi Raymond Apple)
http://www.oztorah.com/2009/08/nathan-marcus-adler-chief-rabbi/
1890: David
Abrahams, the husband of Clara Ann Abrahams, was buried today at the “West Ham
Jewish Cemetery.”
1891: It was
reported that “there are not many Jews in the prisons or reformatories” of New
York City. But based on the request from a board of local rabbis, a
“salaried officer” will be hired to provide for the “spiritual care” the Jews
that have been incarcerated.
1891: It was
reported that “Abraham Tabber, Treasurer of a Hebrew Lodge and Cemetery
Association in Elizabeth, NJ” has disappeared along with the funds in his care.
1891: It was
reported today that Sarah Bernhardt and her company will be sailing from the
French port of Havre for an upcoming performance in New York City.
1891: Louis
May chaired a special meeting of the Board of Trustees of Temple Emanu-El where
the death of Lazarus Rosenfeld, its vice president was announced. Rabbi
Gustav Gottheil “was appointed as a special committee of one to draft suitable
resolutions expressing the sentiment and sympathy of the board” which will “be
published in the American Hebrew, the Jewish Messenger, The
New York Times and The New York Herald.
1892: A large
number of paintings by Thomas Hicks whose works include copies of two portraits
of Jews by Rembrandt hanging in the National Gallery of London are scheduled to
be auctioned off this evening at the American Art Galleries on Madison Square.
(There were those who mistakenly thought that the great Dutch painter was
Jewish)
1892: As the
battle over immigration in the United States intensifies, certain unidentified
labor leaders said today “that protests of workingman were directed not against
the Jews, in particular, but against further immigration” by any group such as
the Chinese “as being hurtful to the welfare of the working classes.”
1893:
“German-American Reformers” which was published today described the activities
of the German American Association, an organization that worked to re-elect
President Grover Cleveland which included efforts to attract the support of
Russian and Polish Jews. Translations of letters by Carl Schurz and
Grover Cleveland that had been addressed to Jews were printed in Hebrew in a
quantity of one hundred thousand. Additionally, the association sent
Jewish, Russian and German speakers to New York’s east side to address the
immigrant voters.
1893:
Birthdate of Ukraine native Michael Moss Zarchin who came to the United States
in 1915, earned a Ph.D from Dropsie College and moved to San Francisco where he
worked as a Jewish education and served on the faculty of San Francisco Jr.
College.
1894: Based on
information that first appeared in The Westminster Gazette, it was
reported today that Sydney Grundy’s new play, “The Old Jew” which opened at the
Garrick Theatre in London “seems to be a failure and is “one of the author’s
worst plays.
1894: “A Great
Education Work” published today described the twice a week evening lecture
series inaugurated by the Board of Education in 1889 as an invaluable resource
for elevating the known of the working class, especially among recently arrived
immigrant’s. When attendance began to fall, the program was placed under the
control of Dr. Henry M. Leipziger , the “well known…lecturer, educator and
Director of the Hebrew Technical Institute.” “Since then, under his able
supervision, the courses of lectures have prospered marvelously in popularity.”
1894: It was
reported today that Sarah Bernhardt will perform in New York for six weeks
following a six-week stint by Eleonora Duse.
1894: It was
reported today that the Rothschilds are forming schools to provide primary
technical education for Jews immigrating to Palestine.
1895: Solon P.
Rothschild represented Annie Winterman on charges that she had defrauded two
men who were patrons of her matrimonial bureau.
1896: Oscar S.
Straus, the former United States Ambassador to Turkey, delivered a lecture on
“Religious Liberty” at a meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1897: It was
reported that Mr. and Mrs. Moses May led the grand march that opened the 14th
annual ball sponsored by the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society. May, the
society’s President, was fiiling in for May Wurster who had been originally
expected to fill this role.
1898: Abraham
Schlesinger is scheduled to be buried today at Cypress Hills following a
funeral at his residence on East 53rd Street.
1898: It was
reported today that Russian-American Hebrew Association adopted a resolution
expressing support for the “patriots of Cuba” struggling to free themselves
from “degrading…corrupt rule of the Spanish Government” while expressing “the
opinion…that the United States…should not deviate from its policy of strict
neutrality…but should take immediate steps to recognize the Cubans as a
belligerent power.” (The Russian American Jews emotionally identified with the
Cubans as another oppressed people but were savvy enough to know the dangers of
expressing belligerency. All of this would be resolved two years later
with the Spanish American War.)
1898: As
ant-Semitic mobs continue to move through the streets of Paris, 500 angry
students demonstrated in front of Emile Zola’s house.
1898: In
Algiers, the troops have cleared the streets of anti-Jewish rioters and made
300 arrests in an attempt to restore law and order.
1898:
Birthdate of Rudolf Mayer, the native of Kraków who gained fame as
“cinematographer, director and producer Ralph Maté.
1899: Reports
are published that Leopold de Rothschild was hurt when a branch hit his face,
breaking his nose and injuring an eye, while the newly elected Member of
Parliament was taking part in a hunt.
1899: Opel
manufactured its first automobile. In 1931, General Motors acquired 100%
ownership of the German automobile company. In 1998 General Motors hired
historian Henry Ashby Turner, Jr. to investigate the wartime activities of
Opel, its German subsidiary, which a group of Holocaust survivors was suing.
His research led to the book General Motors and the Nazis: The Struggle for
Control of Opel, Europe’s Biggest Carmaker published in 2005. Mr. Turner
concluded that although Opel had made the morally dubious decision to produce
engines for the Luftwaffe in 1938, by the time the war began General Motors had
lost control of the company and therefore had no say in its production of
military vehicles or its use of slave labor.
1899(10th
of Shevat, 5659): Seventy-one-year-old Sarah Joseph Ullman the wife of Solomon
Ullmann passed away today in Plymouth, UK.
1899: Sarah
Bernhardt opened the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt today “with a revival of Sardou's
La Tosca, which she had first performed in 1887.”
1900: In his
sermon today, entitled “Perils of the Modern Family,” Dr. Felix Adler “rebuked
his congregation for being too much interested in money getting and for not
being sufficiently interested in the higher things in life.”
1900(21st
of Shevat, 5660): Wilna born Rabbi Solomon Zalkind Minor who delivered his
sermons in German and Russian and established a “Sabbath-school and a night-school
for artisans while leading a congregation in Minsk” and “received permission to
build a synagogue and other communal institutions including a Hebrew school, an
industrial school and an orphan asylum” while leading a congregation in Moscow
before returning to Minsk after Jews were banished from Moscow, passed away
today.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10859-minor-solomon-zalkind
1901:
Legendary American humorist Mark Twain addressed members of the Hebrew
Technical School for Girls at their Annual Meeting on the issue of female
suffrage. Speaking to a packed audience at Temple Emanu-El, Hebrew Tech’s
then-President Nathaniel Myers introduced Twain, starting the ceremony off with
an update about the school’s ongoing expansion efforts and an explanation of
its unique purpose as the single society in New York City offering a vocational
education to Jewish girls. Explaining women’s role in society as vulnerable in
comparison to men’s, President Myers declared the work of the school to be
vital in a world where girls were too often forgotten. When Twain took center
stage, he said that he had been an advocate of women’s rights for many years
and that he saw in this school "a hope for the realization of a project
[he had] always dreamed of.” Women, he felt, were equally competent to vote. He
went on to say that women had been making great progress in their crusade
against discriminatory laws, but that what was needed next was for women to be
the makers and enforcers of laws. As he saw it, men’s corruption in party
politics was a disgrace to democracy, but he said he believed that if women
were given the ballot, they would use their strength to vote down unworthy
candidates and restore the morals on which states are built. Optimistic about
the movement’s progress, Twain insisted that if he lived long enough that he
would surely see women receive their voting rights and use them to enact positive
change.” (As reported by the Jewish Foundation for Education of Women)
1902: Mayor
Seth Low announced tonight that Abraham Abraham, Felix Adler and Oscar Straus
would be members of the committee that would provide the entertainment for
Prince Henry of Prussia when comes to New York next for the “launching of the
Emperor’s yacht.”
1903: Harry
Houdini escaped from the police station Halvemaansteeg in Amsterdam.
1903: Herzl
traveled to Paris.
1904:
Birthdate of Latvian Nazi collaborator Boļeslavs Maikovskis who hid out in
Mineola, NY for almost forty years after WW II who was “brought to Justice by
Israeli historian, author and Director of the Public Policy Center at the
Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies” Zev Golan.
1905(15th
of Shevat, 5665): Parashat Beshalach and Tu B’Shevat
1905:
Birthdate of Harry David “Dave” Sudkin, who played Guard for the NYU football
from 1924 through 1926 and after graduating in 1927 played one season of
pro-football for the Staten Island Staepletons.
1906: In
Washington, a mass meeting attended by Senators Patterson of Colorado, Overman
of North Carolina and Clark of Arkansas and Representatives Sulzer and Bennet
of New York, Rainey of Illinois, Hinshaw of Nebraska, Taylor of Alabama Moon of
Pennsylvania and Trimble of Kentucky was held tonight at Belasco’s Theatre to
protest the treatment of the Jews in Russia.
1906(24th
of Tevet, 5666): Eighty-two-year-old Eliza Weil Bodenheimer, “The widow of
Jacob Bodenheimer, the first Jewish settler in Shreveport area” passed away
today after which she buried at the Oakland Cemetery in Shreveport, LA.
1906:
Birthdate of Isadore Harry Prinzmetal, the Buffalo born lawyer, painter who was
also active in Jewish communal affairs.
1906:
Birthdate of featherweight Maurice Holtzer, the native of Troyes, France whose
record was 114-33-8.
1907(6th
of Shevat, 5667): Seventy-six-year-old Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli
who in 1860 “was appointed professor of linguistics at the Accademia
scientifico-letteraria in Milan and introduced the study of comparative
philology, Romance studies, and Sanskrit” passed away today.
1908:
Birthdate of Mordechai Surkis, the first mayor of Kfar Saba.
1909: In
Philadelphia, at Temple Kenseth Israel, Secretary of Commerce and Labor Oscar
S. Straus and Jacob H. Schiff of New York were among the speakers today when the
delegates to the council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations
dedicated a memorial window to Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, the founder of their
organization which had been designed by Sir Moses Ezekiel.
1910: A motion
to make permanent, the temporary injunction obtained by Nathan Straus two days
ago restraining Max Nathan, Alfred Nathan, the Lakewood Hotel company and its
agents and attorneys from taking to steps to ejted the Tuberculosis
Preventorium from the Cleveland cottage on the hotel grounds in Lakewood, NJ is
scheduled to be argued today in New York State Supreme Court.
1910: The
Angel Island Immigration Station opened today. Prior to the opening of the
Immigration Station, immigrants landed directly in San Francisco. Jews
immigrated through Angel Island primarily in two waves: in the 1920s from
Russia to escape the Bolshevik revolution, and between 1938 and 1940, when
German and Austrian Jews crossed Asia to flee the Nazis. In some ways,
Angel Island was the Ellis Island of the West. But because of the politics and
laws of its time, unlike Ellis Island, many immigrants were detained on Angel
Island for weeks or months at a time, particularly Chinese and other Asian
immigrants. According to Judy Yung, a retired professor at U.C. Santa Cruz and
co-author of a new book about Angel Island’s history, Jewish immigrants had it
better. The average stay for Russians and Jews on Angel Island was two to three
days, and less than 2 percent were deported. “Overall, the Russian and Jewish
experiences on Angel Island were very similar if not better than those of their
counterparts on Ellis Island, where their rejection rate was almost twice as
high,” she writes. “For the overwhelming majority who were coming to escape
religious or political persecution, Angel Island was truly a gateway to the
promised land of freedom and opportunity.” However, it wasn’t an easy gateway
to pass through. Many immigrants — including Jews — were detained. In some
instances, representatives from Jewish and Hebrew benevolent societies felt
compelled to come to Angel Island to testify on behalf of Jewish detainees. In
1915, for example, one such representative spoke to immigration officials,
telling them that “we always take steps to see that Jewish boys obtain work and
do not become beggars.” After this, officials released eight Jewish detainees,
according to Yung’s book. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society also stepped in to
help, opening a Pacific Coast branch in San Francisco in May 1915 mainly to
advocate for the increased number of Jews coming through Angel Island. In 1916,
for example, when 17 Jews refused to eat the food served to them in the Angel
Island dining hall during Passover, HIAS provided the immigrants with matzah
and kosher-for-Passover food they could eat in their rooms. And in 1933, when a
54-year-old widower traveling with his two sons was detained on the island
because officials thought he was “emaciated and frail looking,” HIAS offered a
hand. HIAS helped round up $1,000 from other family members, and the father,
who spent two months on Angel Island, was finally released. In another
instance, a shoe-store owner from Vienna and his wife were held overnight
because they were suspected of being an LPC, a “likely public charge,” meaning
they would need government support to get by. They had come from Shanghai with
just $22 to their name. But because they had the foresight to leave Germany
with two fur coats worth over $2,000 — the Nazis allowed them to take goods but
not money — they were able to convince the officials of their financial
stability. “I was really struck by the resourcefulness of the Jewish
immigrants,” Yung said during a phone interview.
1911(21st
of Tevet, 5671): Parashat Shemot
1911: A review
of Peter the Cruel by Maria de Padilla noted that not all saw Pedro IV
of Castille in that way including the Jews “for whom he always show a marked
regard” and who raised “them to high offices” putting them in a much better
position than Jews found themselves in 14th century England or
during the reign of his successor.
1912: In
Silesia “Hedwig (Striemer) and Frederick D. ‘Fritz’ Bloch gave birth to Konrad
Bloch; the noted biochemist and refugee from Nazi Germany who earned a Nobel
Prize in 1964 for his studies of cholesterol.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1964/bloch/biographical/
1912: Today,
at the 38th annual meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in
New York, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Greenbaum delivered an address in which
he said “there was always a problem of youth – the problem of the boy and the
young man” and “that the public should take an interest in, and co-operate with
the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and other movements which improve youth and
keep the young from temptation and build up character.”
1913: At the request of the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations, 156 women from 52 congregations around the country met in
Cincinnati, Ohio, to create the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods
(NFTS). While local women's groups had been formed in individual synagogues in
the 1890s, the NFTS was the first national body to bring these groups together.
Though NFTS was initially envisioned as a federation of all synagogue
sisterhoods, sisterhoods from Conservative and Orthodox synagogues formed their
own national organizations within a decade, leaving the NFTS as a body of
Reform Judaism. Differentiating itself from the National Council of Jewish
Women and other social service groups, the NFTS focused from the beginning on
women's roles in the synagogue. Early projects included sponsoring children's
Chanukah and Purim parties in synagogues, beautifying synagogues for holidays,
and supporting religious schools. The NFTS also raised money for rabbinical
school scholarships, and played a leading role in creating the National
Federation of Temple Youth. Though the NFTS usually sought to stay out of
politics, sisterhood members were concerned from the beginning with the
changing role of women in Reform Judaism. Leaders encouraged women to sit on
synagogue boards, and instituted Sisterhood Sabbaths, when women could lead the
service in some congregations. From an initial membership of 9,000 in 49 local
chapters, the NFTS grew to 100,000 members in six hundred affiliates across the
U.S., Canada, and twelve other countries by 1995. In recent decades, NFTS
extended its earlier mandate beyond the domestic sphere to take a public role
in such issues as civil rights, child labor legislation, capital punishment,
and abortion rights. In 1993, NFTS was renamed Women of Reform Judaism,
reflecting a desire to be seen not only as an auxiliary group, but as an
organization that puts its members and their interests at the center of Reform
Judaism.
1913: The
annual meeting of the United States Chamber of Commerce opened in Washington,
DC with S.S. Brill of St. Louis, MO in attendance as a delegate.
1913: “The
Board of Directors of the Baron Hirsch Co-Workers met” this “morning at the
Stratford Hotel.
1914:
Twenty-five-year-old Alvah Meyer, a member of the Irish American Athletic Club,
set “a world indoor record of 6.4 seconds in the sixty yard in Paterson, NJ.”
1914: In
Toledo, OH, the former Nettie Goldman and Jacob “J. Michael” Kripke gave birth
to NYU graduate and JTS trained Rabbi Samuel Kripke who served as the Rabbi of
Beth El Synagogue in Omaha, Nebraska where he became friends with Warren Buffet
whose advice made it possible for them to donate millions to philanthropic
causes.
1914(23rd of
Tevet, 5674): Adolph Krakauer, a pioneer Texas merchant died of a heart attack
today in El Paso. Born in Fürth, Bavaria, in 1846, this son of Joel and Babette
(Elsasser) Krakauer was educated in the Latin schools and graduated from the
Royal Commercial College of Fürth in 1862. He immigrated to New York in 1865
and was employed as a clerk there. In 1869 he moved to San Antonio, Texas,
where he went to work for Louis Zork, a leading merchant. He married Zork's
daughter Ada and became a member of the firm. Though he was presumably well
established, he chose to move to El Paso in 1875, at a time when the town's
population was listed as seventy-five Mexicans and twenty-five Anglos. There he
clerked in the firm of Sam Schutz and Son and became manager when the business
was sold; later he became a partner. In 1885 he sold his interest in the firm
and organized the firm of Krakauer, Zork, and Moye with his brother-in-law,
Gustave Zork. The company became a leading wholesale hardware dealer in the Southwest,
with a branch in Chihuahua, Mexico. Krakauer also became president of Two
Republic Life Insurance Company, the Krakauer-Zork Investment Company, and the
Mountainside Realty Company and director of the First National Bank and the Rio
Grande Valley Banking and Trust Company. He also owned extensive real estate in
El Paso. He served as county commissioner and alderman and was elected mayor as
a Republican after a bitter election campaign in 1889. He never assumed the
office, for it was discovered he had not taken out his final citizenship
papers. Krakauer was a leader in Jewish community activities and served as
president of Temple Mount Sinai. He spoke fluent Spanish.
1915: As of
today, the American Jewish Relief Committee for Suffers from the War has
collected $320,097.36
1915: “Final
arrangements were made today for the public hearing President will host on the
Immigration Bill tomorrow in the East Room of the White House where the Young
Men’s Hebrew Association and the Hebrew League of Boston will be among those
speaking in opposition to the proposed legislation.
1915: In
Chicago, at today’s final session of the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations, the Committee on General welfare “reported than 400,000 Jews are
serving in the various armies of Europe.”
1915: A
delegation of 75 Jewish citizens led by Jacob Magidoff, editor of The Jewish
Morning Journal left for Washington today with the intention of presenting “a
petition of protest signed by the New York Jews” protesting the proposed
immigration bill.
1916: “The
American Jewish Relief Committee announced” today “that to date it has received
$1,233,841.60” in donations and pledges including $75 from the Ladies Society
of Columbia, SC and the $200 from the Jewish Alliance of Hamilton, Ontario
which were received today.
1916: In
Paris, Jacques Henri Bloch and Suzanne Levi-Strauss gave birth to Denise
Madeleine Bloch who worked as agent with the French Resistance and SOE before
being captured and murdered by the Nazis at Ravensbruck.
1917: “A
warning that the enthronement of race consciousness among the Jew would result
disastrously for them was uttered” today “by Rabbi Samuel Schulman in a sermon
on “The Jew’s Business” at Temple Beth-El.
1917: Tonight,
in Harrisburg, PA, Governor Brumbaugh “issued a proclamation to the people of
Pennsylvania calling on them to set aside next Thursday, January, 27 as a day
on which to make donations for the relief of Jewish people in the various
countries at war.”
1917: Dr. Wise
is scheduled to preach on “Marriage and Intermarriage” at the Free Synagogue
which is holding its services this morning at Carnegie Hall.
1917: Dr.
Martin Meyer of San Francisco is scheduled to preach on “Sins Against the
Jewish People” this morning at Temple Emanu-El in New York.
1917: Hadassah
issued “an appeal for $75,000 for the equipment and support for one year of a
medical unit to be sent to Palestine” which will provide treatment “for Jews,
Christians and Mohammedans.”
1918(8th
of Shevat, 5678): Sixty-four-year-old Emil Jellinke, the highly successful
Austrian businessman who put the “Mercedes” in Mercedes Benz, passed away
today.
1918(8th
of Shevat, 5678): Jerome J. Hirschler, a 21-year-old New Yorker serving with
the armed forces passed away today at Newport, Rhode Island.
1918(8th
of Shevat, 5678): Forty-eight-year-old Dr. Albert Kohn, a diagnostician at Mt.
Sinai Hospital passed away today in New York City.
1918: Starting
today, several hundred volunteers from Hadassah “will canvass the department
stores and manufacturing houses to secure contributions of shelf worn garments
and materials” as part of the drive by the Palestine Restoration Fund
Commission to send several tons of clothing to the natives of Palestine, great
numbers of whom now have little but to wear but tattered rags.
1918: Following the lead of Reform Jewish
sisterhoods, and at the behest of Solomon Schechter, Conservative synagogue
sisterhoods joined together to form the National Women's League of the United
Synagogue. The founding president of the League was Schechter's wife, Mathilde
Roth Schechter. Mathilde Schechter, born in Silesia and educated in Breslau and
London, had married Solomon Schechter in 1887 and came to the U.S. in 1902,
when Solomon was appointed president of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New
York. The Women's League was just one in a line of significant projects for
Mathilde Schechter. Before establishing the League, she had helped to establish
a Jewish vocational school for girls on the Lower East Side of New York, and
had helped to publish a hymn book called Kol Rina — Hebrew Hymnal for School
and Home. The Women's League's mission was to promote traditional Judaism
in homes, synagogues, and communities. In line with that goal, one early
project was the establishment of a kosher boarding house for Jewish students in
New York City. Other projects included publications providing guidance on
domestic religious ritual as well as traditional recipes and music. In
addition, the League became involved with social action from an early date,
taking an especially active role in the Jewish Braille Institute. The League,
now called the Women's League for Conservative Judaism, has grown from an
original one hundred women in 26 sisterhoods to 150,000 members in 700
sisterhoods. As it has since the beginning, the League continues to be involved
in public policy issues, including women's health, literacy, and foreign
policy. Since 1972, the League has also helped to support sisterhoods in Masorti
(Israeli Conservative) congregations.
1919:
Submission of the Tentative Report of the Intelligence Section of the American
Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference
1919: Today,
during the fund-raising drive of the ZOA the Palestine Restoration Fund
received $46,000 from San Francisco and $15,000 from Los Angeles.
1919: Two days
after he passed away, 81-year-old Aaron Green was buried today at the “Plashet
Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1919: While
speaking “at the dinner of the sales agents of the American chicle Company at
the Waldorf” hotel tonight, Captain William D. Harrigan of the 307th
Infantry who was in command of the force “which rescued the famous ‘lost
battalion’” said he wished “to say a special word for the American Jews as
fighter” because he could “testify to the splendid record by the Jewish members
of the 77th Division who “were put to as hard a test as could be met
with in modern warfare when we made our 35 mile advance through the Argonne
Forest…”
1919 In
Dublin, “the first meeting of Dáil Éireann” which was supported by Yitzhak
HaLevin Herzog who became known as "the Sinn Féin Rabbi" and was the
Chief Rabbi of Ireland before become Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi in Palestine took
place today at the residence of the Lord Mayor.
1920: Having
escaped from the clutches of the “Whites” in Odessa Sholom Schwartzbard arrived
back in Paris today.
1921:
“President Wilson Heads Christian Protest Against Anti-Semitism” published
today contains a public petition signed by Presidents Wilson and Taft that
begins with “The undersigned citizens of Gentile birth and Cristian faith, view
with profound regret and disapproval the appearance in this country of what is
apparently an organized campaign of anti-Semitism conducted in close conformity
to, and co-operation with similar campaigns in Europe.”
1921: Fanz
Schreker’s Der Schatzgräber was
performed for the first time in Frankfurt.
1921: Polish born Nathaniel Phillips, the Jewish lawyer and President of
the League of Foreign-born citizens is scheduled to deliver a speech on “The
Americanism of Grover Cleveland” this evening “at a meeting of the Cleveland
Democracy in New York City.
1921:
King Constantine donates 10,000 Drachmae for the relief of Jewish
sufferers of the fire in Salonica.
1921:
Birthdate of Barney Clark,the first person to receive a permanent artificial
heart, an operation that was performed at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Ky.
1921: In
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Ida (Fishman) Mikva and Henry Abraham Mikva, “Jewish
immigrants from the Ukraine,” gave birth to Congressman Abner Mikvah.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/mikva.html
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=m000703
1922(21st
of Tevet, 5682): Parashat Shemot observed the day before the opening of the 10th
annual convention of the United Synagogue of America.
1923: The
Bardon De Hirsch Fund which was founded in 1891 held its 32nd annual
meeting today in New York City.
1923:
Birthdate of Annemarie Dinah Gottliebova, the native of Brno, Czechoslovakia,
who was shipped to Auschwitz with her mother where she bartered her services as
a portrait painter for her life and her mother’s life. After the war, as Dina
Babbit, she spent the past several decades trying to retrieve her paintings
from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and State Museum (As reported by Bruce
Weber)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Q-7_jLMs4
1924(15th
of Shevat, 5684): Tu B’Shvat
1924:
Birthdate of comedian Benny Hill. “Roses are reddish, Violets are bluish
If it weren't for Christmas, We’d all be Jewish.”
1924: Vladimir
Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin Russian leader died of a stroke at the age of 54.
Lenin’s death brought a power struggle between Stalin and Trotsky to a
boil. Stalin would triumph and anti-Semitism would become as much of a
staple for the Commissars as it had been for the Czars.
1925: The
biennial convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, where
delegates heard about the hardship suffered by at least 15,000 would-be
immigrants as a result of the government’s policy fixing new immigration
quotas, continued to meet for a second day in St. Louis.
1926: “A
record for fund raising for philanthropic purposed was made today when
$3,700,000 was raised in less than four days by the Federation of Jewish
Charities” led by Chairman Jules E. Mastbaum.
1926: In Milwaukee,
WI, Ida Fisman and Henry Abraham Mikva, two Jewish immigrants who escaped from
the pogroms in Ukraine, gave birth to University of Chicago Law School graduate
Abner Joseph Mikva whose career included service as a member of the House of
Representatives, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the
District Columbia Circuit and law school professor at the University of
Chicago, Georgetown and Northwestern who was the husband fellow attorney Zorita
Rose Wise and the father of “three
daughters: Mary Lane (b. 1953), an Illinois Appellate Court judge in Chicago;Laurie,
who teaches at Northwestern University and is on the board of directors of the
Legal Services Corporation; and Rachel, a rabbi and professor who teaches at
the Chicago Theological Seminary.”
1927: Two
funeral services were held today for famed philanthropist Lee Kohns. Bishop
Thomas F. Failer of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Tennessee conducted the
first service at the family’s Manhattan home. Dr. Samuel Schulman of
Temple Beth-El presided over the grave side service in Beth-El Cemetery at
Cypress Hills.
1927: Bernard
Baruch is among the members of a delegation representing the Board of Directors
of City College’s Alumni Association that is attending today’s funeral of Lee
Kohns who graduated in 1884.
1927: At 10:30
this morning, classes were halted for five minutes at City College in memory of
Lee Kohns.
1927: The will
of Lee Kohns was filed for probate this afternoon after having been read at his
funeral. The estate is worth about $3,000,000. While the will the leaves
generous bequests to charity, the bulk of the estate will go to his wife and
their children.
1928(28th
of Tevet, 5688): Parshat Vaera
1928(28th
of Tevet, 5688): Eighty-year-old Celia Hofheimer Fleisher, the wife of Simon B.
Fleisher and the mother of Samuel and Edwin Fleisher passed away today after
she was buried at Mt. Sinai Cemetery in Philadelphia.
1928: While
serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill receives a request
from Chaim Weizmann for a loan intended to assist the Jewish population in
Palestine in a manner consistent the aims of the Mandate. The loan would
gain the support of Lord Balfour but would be rejected by the Cabinet in a move
that had a whiff of anti-Semitism.
1929(10th
of Shevat, 5689): Forty-year-old Ernst Low, the Czech born son of Karl and Rosa
Low passed away today.
1929: “On the
Grand Concourse in the Bronx, Anne and Julius Metzger gave birth to filmmaker
Radley Metger.
1930(21st
of Tevet, 5690): Fifty-two-year-old Youselle Bernstein, the featherweight who
boxed under the name of Joe Bernstein and who fought and lost three times for
the featherweight championship passed away today.
1930: More
than five hundred women attended a reception “in honor of Mrs. Irma Lindheim,
former president of Hadassah and Major Daniel Hopkins, a Labor MP’ which was
held at New York’s Temple Emanu-El.
1931 (3rd of
Shevat, 5691): Composer and pianist Felix Blumenfeld passed away at the age of
67 in the Soviet Union. Born in 1863 Blumenfeld taught Vladimir
Horowitz. Blumenfeld’s work was primarily a product of
pre-revolutionary Russia.
1931: Isaac Isaacs, the first Jew to serve as Chief Justice of
Australia completed his term of office. He was the third person to fill this
position.
1932: It was
reported today that “Everybody’s Welcome,” a musical lyric by Irving Kahal and
music by Sammy which opened on Broadway last October will continue its run at
the Shubert Theatre instead of closing on January 23 as originally announced.
1932: It was
reported today that “Experience Unnecessary” produced by Lee and J.J. Shubert
will continue its Broadway run at the Longacre.
1933:
Birthdate Itzhak Fuks, the Israeli El Al captain who would die when his plane
crashed in Amsterdam 1992.
1934: The
New York Times correspondent in Jerusalem suggests that “the division of
Palestine into Jewish and Arab canton with each of these peoples living as a
separate entity” would be “a solution to the Arab Jewish problem.” Based
on reports from other sources, the Arab canton would include Jerusalem, Haifa
and Jaffa while the Jewish canton would be limited to Tel Aviv, which virtually
an all-Jewish city any way, and a narrow strip of land stretching from Betsian
to Tiberias to the swamps around Lake Huleh.
1935: “Creation
of an American commission to coordinate the activities of public and private
agencies assisting in the economic development of Palestine was voted today by
the National Conference for Palestine.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1935/01/22/93444304.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1936: “Sir
Herbert Samuel and Simon Marks arrived” in New York aboard the Majestic as “a
delegtion from the leaders of the Jews ommunity of England to confer with the
Jewish leaders of the United States on the situation that has arisen from the
intensified persecution of the Jews in Germany.”
1937: Joseph
C. Hyman, secretary and executive director of the American Joint Distribution
Committee announced today that the committee “spent $1,182,000 last year in
Poland for the reconstructive aid to the Jews of that country.’”
1937: In
Shreveport, LA, Sara Ackerman and Ben Greenberg gave birth to University of
Missouri and Columbia trained Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Paul Greenberg,
the husband of Carolyn Levy who was best known for his work at the Pine Bluff
Commercial Appeal and may have been the first to give Bill Clinton the derisive
appellation of “Slick Willy” for his desertion of the role as real reformer.
https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/paul-greenberg-6268/
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/apr/08/former-editorial-page-writer-greenberg-dies/
1937(9th
of Shevat, 5697): Fifty-four-year-old Lemberg native and University of Vienna
trained physician Dorian Feigenbam, the psychoanalyst and pupil of Freud, who
in 1924 came to the United States where he became an “instructor in neurology”
at Columbia and co-founded the Psychoanalytic Quarterly while raising two
children – Daniel and Lou Esther – with his wife Yaffa Feigenbaum passed away
today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/01/03/506511422.pdf
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21674086.1937.11925305
1938: In the
UK, Dora (Hassid) Phillips and Michael Phillips gave birth to Cambridge
educated barrister and Royal Navy veteran Nicholas, Sir Nicholas Addison
Phillips who served in a series of increasingly responsible judicial positions
including Master of Rolls and Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales whose
“Jewish ancestry” first become widely known in 2008 when, during “a speech at
the East London Muslim Centre” he stated “that is maternal grandparents were
Sephardim from Alexandria.”
1938: The
Romanian government strips Romanian Jews of their citizenship.
1938: The
Palestine Post reported that an Arab from Hebron, sentenced to death by the
Military Court, confessed that he participated, 11 days earlier, in the murder
of John Starkey, one of the most distinguished archaeologists working in
Palestine.
1938, fifteen
of the San Fernando Valley’s 100 Jewish families (15/100 = 15%) met in a
private home and, to put together religious services and establish a Sunday
school for kids and a social club for adults, founded the Valley Jewish
Community Center.
1939: “Off the
Record with a script by Saul Elkins was released in the United States today.
1939: The
Mischa Elman Non-Sectarian Refugee concert tour, “the proceeds of which will be
distributed to organizations in aid of refugee Catholics, Jews and Protestants”
is scheduled to begin tonight at “with a Carnegie Hall recital by the eminent
violinist.”
1940: In
Chicago, Dr. Nahum Goldman “told 1,000 members of the Chicago Division of the
American Jewish Congress” that “if the war in Europe goes on for another one
million of the two million Jews in Poland will be dead of starvation or be
killed by Nazi persecutors.”
1941:
Birthdate of Plácido Domingo the Spanish tenor “who spent three years” in Tel
Aviv “in the early 1960’s…where “he learned the basic tenor repertoire before
embarking on an international career.
1941: After
observing a three-day anti-Semitic rampage in Bucharest by the SS-supported
Iron guard in Romania, the Romanian Jewish writer Mihael Sebastian wrote, “The
stunning thing about the Bucharest bloodbath is the quite bestial ferocity to
its…the butchered Jews were hanged by the neck on hooks normally used for beef
carcasses. A sheet of paper was stuck to each corpse with the notation
“Kosher Meat.”
1941: In
Rumania, the Iron Guard raided thousands of Jews, destroyed hundreds of shops,
and looted or burned twenty-five synagogues. In addition, 120 Jews were cruelly
tortured and killed.
1941: Bulgaria
enacted its first anti-Jewish measures.
1942: In the
Vilna Ghetto, the Jews established the United Partisan Organization (Fareynigte
Partizaner Organizatsye, FPO), the only organization in the ghettos that
included all the Zionist youth movements.
1942: U.S.
premiere of “Nazi Agent” an American spy film directed by Jules Dassin.
1942: After
having completely surrounded Novi-Sad, Yugoslavia, Hungarian troops started
what would be a three day long killing spree where Jews were dragged from their
homes in 20° below zero and in heavy snow slaughtered at the “killing pits”
along the banks of the Danube River.
1943: In
Warsaw, the Germans opened fire in the ghetto. Resistance was given
by Jews seizing weapons and firing from rooftops with only 10 pistols. The
Germans retreated after twelve were killed.
1943: “After
seizing 5,000-6,500 ghetto residents to be deported, the Germans suspended
further deportations.”
1943: Over the
next four days, two thousand Jews from Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia,
are deported to Auschwitz. Some 1760 are gassed on arrival, including patients
from the Jewish mental hospital at Apeldoorn, Holland, as well as about 50 of
the hospital's nurses who accompany the patients to lessen their terror.
1944:
Seventy-two-year-old Wharton graduate and yarn manufacturer Samuel Stuart
Fleisher, the Philadelphia born son of Cecilia and Simon B. Fleisher who was
the founder of the Graphic Sketch Club passed away today.
1944(25th
of Tevet, 5704): Sixty-one-year-old Hungarian born and Vienna trained Rabbi
Mayer Winkler who in 1921 came to the United States where he served the
congregation in Homestead, PA before settling in Los Angeles where he served as
Regional Director of the United Synagogue of America, organized a “free
synagogue” and became “one of the first rabbis in the United States to speak
regularly over the radio as the founder of the radio program ‘Synagogue on the
Air’ which he conducted for seven years” passed away today.
1944:
Birthdate of Professor Stefan Reif the distinguished academic from Edinburg who
was the founding director of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit
1945: Ninety-six
Hungarian Jews interned at Auschwitz and working at a quarry at Golleschau,
Germany, are sealed inside a pair of cattle cars labeled "Property of the
SS." Half of the prisoners freeze to death as the train travels aimlessly
for days. At Zwittau, Germany, the cattle cars are detached from the train and
left at the station. Manufacturer Oskar Schindler alters the bill of lading to
read "Final Destination--Schindler Factory, Brünnlitz." After
unsealing the cars at his factory, Schindler frees the Jews.
1945:
Birthdate of Andrew Stein, President of the New York City Council.
1945(7th
of Shevat, 5705): Seventy-four-year-old Nina Jenny Warburg, the daughter of
Solomon and Betty Loeb and the wife of Paul Moritz Warburg.
1945: As
Soviet troops approached, Arno Lustiger left Blechhammer, a subcamp of
Auschwitz as part of the “death march” that was supposed to end at Gross-Rosen
Concentration camp in Lower Silesa.
1946(19th of Shevat, 5706): Eighty-one-year-old
Max H. Aronson, the husband of Rebecca Aronson and the father of Henry, Miriam,
Leopold, Sidney, Dorothy, Ruth, Juliette, Lillian and Alberta Aronson passed
away today after which he was buried at Har MOria Cemetery in West Roxbury, MA.
1947: Members of the Palestine Arab Higher Executive who
are leaving Cairo tomorrow to attend the conference on Palestine being held in
London “held two meetings” today “with the Mufti of Jerusalem” who had spent
much of WW II in Berlin as a guest of Hitler.
1947: Today, in London Dr. Emanuel Neuman the vice
president of the ZOA said that American Zionists “are ready to pour millions of
dollars into the financing of ‘illegal’ immigration of Jews to Palestine.”
1948: Golda Meir's speech to the General Assembly of
Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds helped raise $50 million for the Haganah
at a critical moment in Israel's fight for independence.
1949: “Israeli
representatives in London are showing great wariness today toward the issue of
British recognition of Israel, which is expected to be extended soon,
concurrently with full United States recognition of Israel and Trans-Jordan and
recognition of Israel by Australia, New Zealand and France.”
1949: In
Cincinnati, Leo Baeck, president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism
delivered a sermon that marked the observance of the 125th
anniversary of Congregation B’nai Israel.
1949(21st
of Tevet, 5709): Eighty-two-year-old Rachel Rosen, the widow of Ephraim Rosen
who a founder of the Jewish Home for the Aged in Providence, RI and Ladies
Hebrew Aid Society passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1949/01/23/84186941.html?pageNumber=70
1950(3rd
of Shevat, 5710): Parashat Vaera
1950: After
premiering last month in Los Angeles. “My Foolish Heart” a movie based on a
short story by J.D. Salinger produced by Samuel Goldwyn and with a script by
Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein was released across the United States
today.
1951: In a
case of Jew versus Jew twenty-five-year-old Max “Slats’ Zaslofsky led the New
York Knicks to victory over the Rochester Royals for whom Red Holzman scored
for 14 points.
1952:
Birthdate of Chicago native “American judoka” Irwin Cohen who represented the
U.S. at the 1972 Olympics, a gold medal at the 1973 Maccabiah games and a
silver medal at the 1975 Pan American games while raised two sons, Richard and
Aaron, “an American former judoka who was a 5-time US national champion (2004,
2005, 2006, 2008, and 2009), a silver
medal winner at the 2008 US Olympic
trials and a bronze medal winner at the 2009 Maccabiah Games in Israel.
1953:
“Niagara,” a “film noir thriller” starring Marilyn Monroe with music by Sol
Kaplan was released in the United States today.
1953: The
Jerusalem Post reported on the worsening security situation along the
country's borders, especially the Jordanian-Israeli no-man's-land dividing
Jerusalem. This security deterioration, infiltration and frequent robberies may
have been directly influenced by an intensified anti-Israeli activity of the
Arab states at the UN General Assembly. Jordan prevented any cement or building
materials from being transported to the Israeli enclave on Mount Scopus,
urgently needed there to repair damaged buildings, claiming that Israel wished
to fortify the enclave. The 9,000-ton British cruiser, HMS Kenya, steamed
into Haifa Port for a three-day unofficial visit.
1953: During
the “Doctor’s Plot” which was intended to be the opening act in Stalin’s plan
to murder the Jews in the Soviet Union the “Soviet ukaz awarding Lydia Timashuk
the Order of Lenin for "unmasking doctors-killers" was issued today.
1954: Letters
of administration were granted to Richard Samuel because his father Bernard
Samuel, the former mayor of Philadelphia, passed away without leaving a
will. The estate of the man who served as mayor from 1941 until 1952 is
worth approximately $50,000.1954: The U.S.S. Nautilus, America’s first
nuclear powered submarine is launched at Groton, Conn. Admiral Hyman
Rickover is considered to be the godfather of the nuclear Navy.
1954: During a
cabinet debate over Egypt’s decision to bar ships going to Israel from using
the Suez Canal, Foreign Minister Anthony Eden is able to make a case for the
Arab state’s behavior.
1955(27th
of Tevet, 5715): The former Tola Schwartz died instantly today in an automobile
accident in which her husband Dr. William Fernhoff suffered injuries that would
prove to be fatal.d which claimed the life of “a friend, 52 year old Fanny
Levey of New York.”
1956: In
Dallas, “Freda Ann (née Benson), a singer, actor, and business promotions
manager, and Jerry Segal, a writer” gave birth to Robin David Segal who gained
as “actor, singer, musician, director, producer, writer, composer and educator”
Robby Benson who ironically made his Broadway debut in “The Rothschilds.”
1959 (12th of
Shevat, 5719): Film pioneer Cecil B. DeMille passed away, His father was an
Episcopalian. His mother, Matilda Beatrice Samuel, was the daughter of
parents of “German Jewish heritage.” For most Jews he is the man who gave
the world Moses in the guise of Charlton Heston.
1959: “The
Last Mile” a prison film directed by Howard W. Koch and produced by Max
Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky who co-wrote the script was released in the
United States today.
1959(12th
of Shevat, 5719): Fifty-two-year-old New York born Alexander, the editor of
several science fiction publications passed away today.
http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/samalman_alexander
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?16329
1960: “The
Dumb Waiter,” a one-act play written by Harold Pinter premiered at the
Hampstead Theatre Club in London.
1960(21st
of Tevet, 5720): Forty-eight-year-old Harvard educated attorney David Loeb Krupsaw,
the Washington, DC born son of Sarah and Abraham Krupsaw, the Chairman of the Arlington
County (Virginia) Board and the author of “The Day Nothing Happened” died today
in a plane crash.
https://books.google.com/books/about/David_Loeb_Krupsaw_Personal_Archive.html?id=n8t3oAEACAAJ
https://projectdaps.org/exhibits/show/daps_exhibit/item/178
1961(4th
of Shevat, 5721): Parashat Bo
1961: At the
Ambassador Theatre in New York, after 102 performances, the curtain came down
on “The 49th Cousin” starring Menasha Skulnik as “Isaac Lowe”,
Marian Winters as “Tracy Lowe” and Eli Mintz as “Simon Lowe.”
1961: After
six years, Abraham Ribicoff completed his service as the 80th
Governor of Connecticut.
1961: Abraham
Ribicoff began serving as the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under
President John F. Kennedy.
1962:
Entertainment writer Joe Morgenstern married actress Piper Laure (born Rosetta
Jacobs)
1964(7th of
Shevat, 5724): Austrian born American actor Joseph Schildkraut passes away at
the age of 68. He won an Oscar in 1937 as Best Supporting Actor.
Younger audiences may remember him as the father in “Diary of Anne Frank.”
http://www.goldensilents.com/stars/josephschildkraut.html
1964:
Birthdate of Staten Island native Allan Silverstein who played baseball for the
New York Institute of Technology and was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in
1987.
1964(7th
of Shevat, 5724): Sixty-nine-year-old Cooper Union trained architect Benjamin
Winston a senior architect and specification writer with the State Housing and
Community Renewal Division, and the husband of the former Frances Klein with
whom he had three children – Bertram, George and Roberta – passed away today.
1968: Simon
& Garfunkel released the Original Soundtrack to “The Graduate,”
which quickly went to #1
on the pop
charts and which will bring Paul Simon a Grammy for Best Original Score.
1969: Chicago
attorney Milton Cohen, “the director of the S.E.C.’s special study of
securities market” from 1961 to 1963 “was among those named today to an S.E.C.
advisory committee for the special study of institutional investors.”
1970:
Birthdate of Ramat Gan native and filmmaker Oren Peli the director of
“Paranormal Activity.”
1971(24th of
Tevet, 5731): Polish born Jewish author Yuli Borisovich Margolin passed away at
the age of 70. http://www.forward.com/articles/134265/
1971:
Twenty-one-year-old Annie Leibovitz’s photograph of John Lennon appeared on
today’s issue of Rolling Stone magazine.
1972:
Birthdate of Las Vegas native H. Waldman who played college basketball at UNLV
and St. Louis University before going into a career in real estate which was
interrupted with a stint of professional ball with Hapoel Jerusalem.
1973: ABC
broadcast the first episode of “A Touch of Grace” co-staring Warren Berlinger.
1974(27th of
Tevet, 5734): Lewis L Strauss who was a Republican which was unusual at that
time and who headed the US Atomic Energy Commission under President Eisenhower
from 1953 until 1958 passed away today.
1974: “Equity,
British actors’ union, asked the Home Secretary to bar Soviet companies and
individual performers from appearing in Britain as long as Panovs are refused
right to work or leave USSR.”
1974: “The
Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly deplored arbitrary arrests, police
harassment and persecution of Soviet Jews wishing to emigrate.
1974: “The
Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly called on the USSR to improve
East-West detente by granting more exit visas to Jews wishing to leave for
Israel and permit those choosing to remain in Russia to practice freely their
cultural and religious customs.
1975(9th
of Shevat, 5735): Seventy-four-year-old Sir Aubrey Julian Lewis “the first
Professor of Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry in London” passed away
today.
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lewis-sir-aubrey-julian-10823
1976: BBC2
broadcast the first episode of “The Glittering Prizes” – a drama written by
Frederic Raphael.
1976(19th
of Shevat, 5736): Eighty-four-year-old Lewis S. Rosentsteil, the founder of
Schenley Industries, the giant liquor corporation, passed away today. (As
reported by Leonard Sloane)
1976: In
France, premiere of “Assassination in Davos” film based “on the assassination
of the Swiss Nazi Wilhelm Gustloff by David Frankfurter in 1936.”
1979: Final
performance of “The Girl From Tel Aviv” starring Israeli singer Mary Soreanu
took place at the Hotel Diplomat in New York. Surprisingly, this Israeli
play is written Yiddish with only a few words of Hebrews. The show was
written by Moshe Tamir, with music by Shaul Berzowski
1981:
Birthdate of Cem Stamati “the bass guitar player…who graduated from Ulus Özel
Musevi Lisesi, the Jewish school at Istanbul in 1999.”
1982(26th
of Tevet, 5742): Fifty-three-year-old Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin, the New York
born son of Max and Eva Rebecca Dolnansky and the husband of Tzivia Donin who
was the author of To Be a Jew: A Guide to Jewish Organization in
Contemporary Life passed away today in Israel.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/donin-hayim-halevy
http://thewisdomdaily.com/is-it-still-possible-to-find-spiritual-fulfillment-at-a-synagogue/
1982: In one
of those reminders of the prominent role Jews have played in the world of the
Broadway musical a revival of “Little Me” a musical written by Neil Simon with
music by Cy Coleman and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh opened today at the Eugene
O’Neil Theatre.
1983: The
Bollingen Prize for poetry was awarded to Anthony E Hecht.
1983: “Independence
Day,” a film with a script by Alice Hoffman was released today in the United
States.
1984:
Birthdate of Tel Aviv native and filmmaker Romi Aboulafia, the wife of Ben
Giladi and daughter-in-law of award-winning actress Hana Laszlo best known for
her role in “The Debt” and “Family Secrets.”
1985: Ronald
Reagan is publicly inaugurated for his second term as U.S. President.
January 20 was a Sunday, so the public ceremony was delayed for twenty-four
hours. During his second term Reagan awarded Elie Weisel with a Medal of
Freedom. Much to the dismay of Weisel and other Jews, during his second
term he also visited Bittberg Cemetery where SS Soldiers were buried.
Last but not least, the Iran-Contra Affair which involved Israel in some rather
strange arms deals took placed during Dutch’s second term.
1985: ABC
broadcast the first showing of “Scandal Sheet produced by Irwin Winkler and
Roger Birnbaum and with music by Randy Edelman this evening.
1988(2nd
of Shevat, 5748): Ninety-one-year-old Burmese born American actor Abraham
Sofaer passed away today in Los Angeles.
http://www.filmreference.com/film/8/Abraham-Sofaer.html
1988: One
Israeli soldier was injured when during an attack by three terrorists who were
attempting to cross into Israel from Lebanon.
1988: In
Moscow, a “non-official Museum of Jewish Culture” opened today.
1989(15th
of Shevat, 5749: Tu B’Shevat
1990: Shimon
Peres, the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, arrived in Prague today on the
first visit to Czechoslovakia by an Israeli minister since ties between the two
countries were cut in 1967.
1991: Orders
to stay home from work were canceled for the rest of Israel today, but not for
Tel Aviv, which appears to be the main Iraqi target. Scud missiles came down
here Friday and Saturday with miraculously little effect and no deaths thus
far; one hit the only vacant lot for blocks, another an empty bomb shelter.
1991: Topol,
who left his starring role as Tevye the milkman in the Broadway revival of
"Fiddler on the Roof," to return to Israel explained the reasons for
his decision today. “Speaking by telephone from his home in Tel Aviv, where his
son and daughter were visiting, said: ‘I really felt I should be where my heart
is, with my friends and family and all the people I grew up with. I hope I can
contribute something to the Israeli morale.’"
1992: Yuval
Ne’eman, a Likud MK, completed his terms as Minister of Science and Technology.
1992: Israeli
physicist Yuval Ne’eman completed his term as Minister of Energy and Water
Resources.
1992: William
Caldwell Harrop, who was appointed to his post by President Bush, presented his
credentials as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
1992: Michael
Dougall Bell completed his service as Canada’s Ambassador to Israel.
1993: Mervyn
Taylor completed his service as Minister for Labour.
1993: In
Ireland, Mervyn Taylor began serving as Minister for Equality and Law Reform.
1994:
“Intersection,” the re-make of a French film directed and produced by Mark
Rydell, written by Marshall Brickman and co-starring Martin Landau was released
in the United States today.
1994(9th
of Shevat, 5754): Ninety-one year old former New York Supreme Court Justice
Abraham J. Gellinoff, the husband of Jeanne Lepler Gellinoff whom he married in
1927 passe away after which he was buried at Riverside Cemetery in Saddle
Brook, NJ.
1994: The
future of the New England Patriots was settled in New England's favor when
Robert Kraft, a Jewish Boston businessman who bought the team's Foxboro Stadium
six years ago, won a bidding war that included a nominally higher bid from a
group that hoped to move the team to St. Louis.
1995(20th
of Shevat, 5755): Parashat Yitro
1997: Steve
Grossman began serving as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
1999 (4th of
Shevat, 5759): Actress and author Susan Strasberg passed away at the age of 60.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-susan-strasberg-1076156.html
2000: Maria
Paasche, who helped Jews escape from Nazi Germany on the back of her motorcycle
and whose father and brothers conspired to kill Hitler, died today in a San
Francisco nursing home. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
2001: The
New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including Black, White and Jewish
Autobiography of a Shifting Self by Rebecca Walker.
2001: One day
after leaving the White House, former President Bill Clinton said that Jack
Quinn, a former chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore and a former counsel
to President Clinton, had persuaded him to grant pardons to Marc Rich and
Pincus Green, but he did not elaborate, and he referred questions to Mr. Quinn.
Mr. Quinn referred calls to Robert F. Fink, a partner in the Manhattan law firm
Piper, Marbury, Rudnick and Wolfe who said he believed the president had been
convinced that the criminal charges against the men had not been justified.
2001(26th
of Tevet, 5761): Sixty-four-year-old comic actor Sandy Baron passed away today.
2001(26th
of Tevet, 5761): Eighty-six year old photographer Sol Libsohn passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/25/arts/sol-libsohn-86-photographer-who-captured-ordinary-life.html
2002(8th
of Shevat, 5672): Eighty-six year old Irving Achtenberg the Kansas City, MO
born son of Minnie and Benjamin Morris Achtenberg and husband of Gail Anita
Achtenberg passed away today.
2002: As Arab
violence continued the Associated Press reported that the governor of the West
Bank town of Tulkarem, Izzedine Sharif, said today that about 100 tanks and
armored personnel carriers took part in a raid on his town making it the
largest raid on a Palestinian town in 16 months of fighting. The Israeli
military had no immediate comment.
2003: Two days
after she had passed away, graveside services are scheduled to be held at Sharo
Gardens, in Valhalla, NY for 95 year old Sally Lefkowitz, “the widow of the
late Nate Lefkowitz, who was chairman of the William Morris Agency, and who
“was actively involved in the USO of Metropolitan New York, The Floating
Hospital, The Women's Auxiliary of NYU Medical Center, Women's League for
Israel, Hadassah, B'nai B'rith, Variety Tent 66, and the Manhattan Chapter of
Brandeis University National Women's Committee.”
2003: Today at
Avery Fisher Hall, the New York Philharmonic played with its namesake from
Israel for the first time in more than 20 years, and Lorin Maazel conducted
Mahler's First Symphony, with the New York and Tel Aviv musicians sharing
desks.
2003: Edward
Gene "Ed" Rendell began his first term as Governor of Pennsylvania.
2004: David
Appel, a prominent real estate developer with ties to Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon was indicted today. He is charged with having tried to bribe Mr.
Sharon starting in the 1990’s when Sharon was the Foreign Minister.
Specifically, the Israeli court indicted the real estate developer on charges
of paying roughly $700,000 to Mr. Sharon's son, Gilad, in the hope of bribing
Mr. Sharon. The indictment raises potentially serious legal and political
issues for Mr. Sharon and prompted political opponents to call for his
resignation.
2004(27th
of Tevet, 5764): Eighty-seven-year-old Hedi Stadlen an “Austrian Jewish
philosopher, political activist, and musicologist who was one of the handful of
European Radicals in Sri Lanka” passed away today.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/jan/29/guardianobituaries.alanrusbridger
2005: Eighty-seven-year-old
New York Timesman and food critic John L. Hess died today at the Jewish Home
and Hospital which was founded by the B’nai Jeshurn Ladies’ Benevolent Society
in 1848. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/22/obituaries/john-hess-87-journalist-and-food-critic-dies.html
2006: Hundreds
of Venezuelan intellectuals expressed "shock and consternation" in a
public condemnation of allegedly anti-Semitic remarks made recently by
President Hugo Chavez. "These dangerous tendencies must be denounced and
combated before our society loses its humanity," the group of 250
intellectuals, writers, artists, journalists and others said in a full-page
letter published in the major Venezuelan daily El Nacional. Chavez in a
Christmas Eve speech last month said: "The world has enough for all. But
it turned out that some minorities, descendants of those who crucified Christ,
descendants of those who threw Bolivar out of here and also crucified him in
their own way in Santa Marta, there in Colombia, a minority took the world's
riches for themselves.
2007: The
Sunday Washington Post book section opened with a review of Power,
Faith And Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present by
Michael Oren. Oren is a prolific author who received a Ph.D. from
Princeton. He served as Director of Inter-Religious Affairs under Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin and is currently a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center in
Jerusalem. The Sunday edition of the Washington Post book section also
featured “a conversation” with Norman Mailer discussing The Castle in The Forest,
excerpts from the late Art Buchwald’s Too Soon To Say Goodbye, the last
literary work of the humorist “dictated from his hospice chair” and the latest
excerpt from the novel Jezebel’s Tomb by David Hilzenrath.
2007: The
Sunday New York Times book section featured a review of Norman Mailer’s The
Castle In The Forest “a remarkable novel about a young Adolph Hitler and
his family.”
2007: The
London Sunday Times book section featured a review of Rome &
Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations by Martin Goodman in
which the author asks “Was there anything intrinsic
in Jewish and Roman society,” he asks, “that made it impossible for Jerusalem
and Rome to coexist?”
2007:
The Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times featured reviews of Mailer’s The
Castle in the Forest and Daniel Hurwitz’s Bohemian Los Angeles and the
Making of Modern Politics.
2008:
In Manhattan, screenings of “His Wife’s Lover” which was billed as the “first
Jewish musical comedy talking picture,” staring popular stage comedian Ludwig
Satz in his only screen performance and “Santa Fe” a film depicting the plight
of exhausted Jewish immigrants desperate to begin a new life who arrive on a
ship in New York harbor in 1940.
2008:
As part of plans to celebrate the efforts of Sir Nicholas Winton to save Jewish
children from Czechoslovakia at the outbreak of WW II, plans for the “Train
Prague-London Project” were announced today.
2009:
Memorial services are scheduled to be held in Southhampton for eighty year
Sherwin “Shy” Raiken the Villanova and NY Knicks basketball player
2009:
Michael Bennet completed his service as Superintendent of the Denver Public
Schools and began serving as the United States from Colorado.
2009(25th
of Tevet, 5769):
Charles Hirsh Schneer, a noted film producer who for
a quarter-century helped the Oscar-winning special-effects wizard Ray
Harryhausen lay waste to Washington, San Francisco, Rome and many other places,
passed away today in Boca Raton, Florida at the age of 88.(As reported by
Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/movies/27schneer.html?pagewanted=print
2009
The Jewish community will be represented in the Prayer Service at National
Cathedral by Reform Rabbi David Saperstein, Conservative Rabbi Jerome Epstein
and Orthodox Rabbi Haskel Lookstein of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New
York.
2010(6th
of Shevat, 5770): Lawrence Garfinkel, an epidemiologist with the American
Cancer Society who helped design landmark studies that linked smoking to lung
cancer, died today in Seattle. He was 88. (As reported by Denise Grady)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/movies/27schneer.html?pagewanted=print
2010: The 19th
annual New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the New York
Premiere of “Human Failure,” a documentary directed by Michael Verhoeven “that
reveals the expropriation and sale of Jewish assets that benefited innumerable
citizens of the Third Reich.
2010: The 10th
annual Atlanta Jewish Festival is scheduled to present a screening of
“Ultimatum,”
“a tense
melodrama adopted from Valérie Zenatti's 2006 novel” that “authentically
recreates the eerie wartime mood that consumed Israeli society in January
1991.”
2010:
Authorities say a misunderstanding about a Jewish prayer ritual led to the
diversion of a US Airways flight to Philadelphia today. City police Lt. Frank
Vanore said a 17-year-old boy on the plane was using tefillin. Tefillin is a
set of small black boxes attached to leather straps and containing biblical
passages. One box is strapped to the arm; the other box is placed on the head.
Vanore said the crew on US Airways Flight 3079 questioned the teen, who
explained the ritual. Still, the pilot decided to land in Philadelphia. The
flight had left La Guardia airport in New York this morning bound for
Louisville, Kentucky. It landed without incident in Philadelphia around 9 a.m.
Vanore said the teen has been very cooperative with law enforcement.
2010: The
Washington Post features a review of Koeslter: The Literary and Political
Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic by Michael Scammel, a biography of
Arthur Kosetler.
2011: At
Bloomfield, Michigan, The Jewish Community Center is scheduled to host a
concert performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
2010: Today,
“the European Union approved the acquisition of Sun Mircrosystems” by Larry
Ellison’s Oracle
2011: The 92nd
Street Y is scheduled to host a Tu B'Shevat Seder Dinner with Karina where
attendees can celebrate the birthday of the trees
while welcoming Shabbat.
2011:
In Washington, DC, Theater J Middle East Festival is scheduled to present
“Argentina Reading.” Argentina is a new work by Boaz Gaon in which “the
Israeli daughter of a ‘disappeared’ Argentinean Jew visits the former
Ambassador to Argentina hoping to discover what became of her father 20 years
earlier during the junta’s rise to power.”
2011:
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was moved from the University Medical Center
in Tucson to TIRR Memorial Hermann hospital in Houston, Texas where she can
continue her rehabilitation following her nearly fatal shooting two weeks ago.
2011: The funeral for Sonia Peres is scheduled to be held on
today at 11:00 am at the Ben Shemen Youth Village cemetery.
2012:
“Daas” – a period drama that explore the influence Jacob Frank, the false
messiah -- is scheduled to have its U.S. premiere at the New York Jewish Film
Festival.
2012: Comedian Dave Goldstein is scheduled to appear at the
Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival.
2012:
“Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray” is scheduled to be shown at the Baton Rouge
(LA) Film Festival and the Polo Grill and Bar/ The Jewish Federation of
Sarasota-Manatee in Lakewood Ranch, FL.
2012:
“Mahler on the Couch” is scheduled to be shown at the Las Vegas (NV) Jewish
Film Festival.
2012:
IAF aircraft struck a site in the southern Gaza Strip this morning, after three
mortar shells were fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip.
2012:
A soldier guarding a military post at the Susya settlement in south Mount
Hebron fired warning shots in the air after a Jewish resident approached the
post without identifying himself.
2012:
This afternoon a Palestinian man stabbed a Border Guard officer near the Shufat
Refugee Camp in north-east Jerusalem.
2013(10th
of Shevat, 5773): Seventy-seven year old director, producer and restaurant
critic Robert Michael Winner passed away today.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/jan/21/michael-winner
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/movies/michael-winner-death-wish-director-dies-at-77.html
2013: “The
Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League” featuring the works Sid Grossman and
Sol Libsohn, among others is scheduled to come to a close at San Francisco’s
Contemporary Jewish Museum.
2013:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed former Communications and
Welfare Minister Moshe Kahlon as the new chairman of the Israel Land Authority.
2013:
“Afternoon Delight” a comedy written and directed by Jill Soloway premiered at
Sundance today.
2013:
On the eve of the elections in Israel, “Well-Meaning Idiots” is scheduled to be
shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2013:
Anthony Russell, Anthony Coleman, & Michael Winograd are scheduled to
present a medley of Hebrew, Yiddish, Yemenite, and African-American songs in a
Contemporary Jazz Setting at the JCC in Manhattan
2013:
In what may seem like some kind of political symbiosis, President Obama takes
the office of President publicly as Israel prepares to choose a new government.
2013: When Dan Margalit, the top commentator at the daily free
sheet Israel Hayom, opened the newspaper this morning, he was likely surprised
to see that the commentary he had written the night before did not appear in
its usual spot on the front page. Nor did it appear on the second page or the
third. In fact, he had to rifle through the paper quite a bit to find his
commentary – on page 37. According to some reports, this was as a result of
criticizing Prime Minister Netanyahu (As reported by Barak Ravid)
2013:
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu dangled the prospect of cheaper housing in
front of voters in one of his last press conferences before tomorrow’s
election.
2014: The
Lawrence Family JCC is scheduled to host “The Poetry of Hayyim Nahman Bialik”
an evening in which “Gabriella Auspitz Labson will discuss selected poems by
Israel's national poet, Hayyim Nahman Bialik. Eileen Wingard will play some
melodies to which Bialik's poems have been set.”
2014: Canadian
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is scheduled to “attend a joint meeting of the
Israeli and Canadian governments before accompanying Prime Minister Netanyahu
to Yad Vashem
2014: “The
Women Pioneers” and “Before the Revolution” are scheduled to be shown at the
New York Jewish Film Festival.
2014: Shael
Polakow-Suransky announced that he would depart the New York City Department of
Education to become the president of Bank Street College of Education,
2014: In an
interview published in the New Yorker magazine, President Obama said that
"The Palestinian-Israeli conflict as well as Arab anti-Semitism dog
reconciliation between Arab nations and Israel, even in the face of a common
threat from Iran.” (As reported by JTA)
2014: Isaac
Herzog, the leader of the Labor Party said today that Prime Minister Netanyahu
“appreciates the wisdom of making peace with the Palestinians” but does not
have the “guts” to seal the deal.
2014: Ansar
Bayt al-Maqdis, which has close ties to Egypt’s Salafi movement, claimed that
it was behind the rocket attacks that struck Eilat yesterday.
2015(1st
of Shevat, 5775): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2015: “The
Battle of Algiers” and “Gett: The Trial of Vivian Amsalem” are scheduled to be
shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2015: Yivo and
the Museum of the City of New York are scheduled to present “Behind the Lens:
New York Jews between the Wars.”
2015: Douglas
D. “Doug” Gansler completed eight years of service as the Attorney General for
the state of Maryland.
2015: “The
Counterfeiters” which tells the story of Salomon “Sally” Sorowitsch” is
scheduled to be shown at the Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria, VA.
2015: In
Little Rock, Lubavitch of Arkansas led by Rabbi Pinchas Ciment is scheduled to
offer “The Art of Parenting.”
2016: The
American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present the third and final
performance of “The Merchant of Venice” which has been adapted “in a Sephardi
style” featuring “Jewish Ladino music of the era.”
2016:
The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host “a special theater
performance of Amy and Ken Kaissar's ‘A Modest Suggestion,’ followed by a panel
discussion with the show's director and actors.”
2017(23rd
of Tevet, 5777): Parsahat Shemot.
2017:
As of today, in the last 24 hours, “there have been three separate hate crimes
targeting “recognizably Jewish” residents of the Edgware district” of London.
2017:
On Shabbat, the Women’s March on Washington, a protest that has been endorsed
by the National Council of Jewish Women which is “helping to organize ancillary
events with other groups that the partner with the Jewish community” is
scheduled to take place on the day after President Trump’s inauguration.
2017:
“Shalom Rabin” and “Louis-Ferdinand Celine” are scheduled to be shown at the
New York Jewish Film Festival.
2017:
The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Friday night dinner
sponsored by the Chaplains that includes “2 fabulous guests – Joshua Blachorsky
and Yos Tarshish from the World Union of Jewish Students.”
2018(5th
of Shevat, 5778): One hundred five year old Connie Sawyer, the Colorado born
daughter of “Russian Jewish immigrants” and the oldest working actress passed
away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
2018:
Hadassah Lipsius, a “long-time board member of JRI-Poland, as well as Archive
Coordinator for the Warsaw and Tomaszow Mazowiecki Archives” is scheduled to
address the Jewish Genealogical Society Monthly Meeting at the Center for
Jewish History.
2018:
In Wyoming, the Jackson Hole Jewish Community is scheduled to host “Israeli
Cooking with Judy.”
2018:
The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback
edition of On Turpentine Line by Elinor Lipman as well as an exclusive
interview with Philip Roth https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/books/review/philip-roth-interview.html?te=1&nl=book-review&emc=edit_bk_20180119 and a Q and A with
Simon Sebag Montefiore https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/books/review/simon-sebag-montefiore-by-the-book.html?ref=headline&nl_art=&te=1&nl=book-review&emc=edit_bk_20180119
2019((15th
of Shevat, 5779): Tu B’Shevat;
(Editor’s
Note – In Iowa, the home of this blog, it is zero with eight inches of snow on
the ground and more on the way. So is
the celebration of this tree planting holiday, an act of denial (insanity) or
an act of the optimism that is part of the Jewish DNA?)
2019:
In Atlanta, the Breman Museum is scheduled to be closed in honor of Martin
Luther King Day.
2019:
“Fig Tree” and “Brussels Transit” are scheduled to be shown at the New York
Jewish Film Festival.
2019(15th
of Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit of Sir Martin Gilbert, the
official biographer of Sir Winston Churchill – a marvelous historian who had
the writing skills of novelist – but who always had time to answer the
questions of the most inconsequential of his readers. If you have never had the pleasure of reading
his work you might want to start with Israel: A History or Jerusalem in the
Twentieth Century or In Ishmael’s House or… well the list is almost endless.
https://www.martingilbert.com/blatt/in-honour-of-martin/
2020:
“My Polish Honeymoon” and “I Was Not Born a Mistake” are scheduled to be shown
at the New York Jewish Film Festival.”
2020:
Stanford University is scheduled to host “Travels Through Jewish Latin America”
during which Professor-author Ilan Stavans” is scheduled to discuss “Latin
American Jewish communities, including Amazon tribes who believe they are
descendants of the Lost Tribes and descendants of Crypto-Jews in northern
Mexico.”
2020:
The Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to present “Rembrandt’s Legacy: A
Personal Conversation” during which “Rabbi Meir Soloveichik” is scheduled to
moderate “a discussion on Rembrandt’s legacy between Thomas Kaplan,
philanthropist and private collector, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator of
Northern Baroque paintings at the National Gallery of Art.”
2020:
The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host a lecture by Rabbi
David Wolpe on “Mystical Messiahs and Meditators: Shabbatai Zevi and Abraham
Abulafia.”
2020:
As part of its International Holocaust Remembrance Day events, in San
Francisco, Mercy High School’s Farkas Center is scheduled to “welcome the
‘Violins of Hope’ for a celebration of the cultural richness and resilience of
music written by and for those targeted for genocide in the Third Reich.”
2020:
As Israelis awake today, they are prepared to find out if the Arab terrorists
will be launching more incendiary balloons at neighborhoods in and or near
Jerusalem.
2021:
Following a vote by the cabinet, the coronavirus lockdown which was scheduled
to end today will be extended until January 31.
2021:
Sixty-seven-year-old Yale Law School trained attorney Robert Katzman began
serving as Senior Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second
Circuit.
2021:
The Contra Costa JCC I scheduled to co-host Professor Steven Zipperstein as he talks
about how Arabs and Jews historically have tried to use laws and international
opinion to gain leverage on several big issues, including the Western Wall.
2021:
The Ackman and Ziff Family Genealogy Institute, in cooperation with the Israel
Genealogy Research Association (IGRA) is scheduled to present “Family History
Today: Researching Your Family History in Israel from Home,” featuring Garri
Regev.
2021:
Kung Pao Kosher Comedy’s Lisa Geduldig is scheduled to present stand-up
comedians Greg Proops, Ophira Eisenberg and Sandra Valli.
2021:
The JWA’s Book Club is scheduled to host via zoom Carol Isaacs, author of The
Wolf of Baghdad, “a graphic memoir in which Isaacs explores her ancestral
home of Baghdad, a hub of Jewish life in the 1940s.”
2021:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host Michael Chabon and Ayelet, the
coeditors of Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark
ACLU Cases
2021:
In London, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host its annual Holocaust Memorial
Day Event exploring the theme of Light from Darkness during which “survivors
and Holocaust Education Speakers Joan Salter and Ruth Barnett will share their
testimonies and reflect on the importance of Holocaust Education today” that “will
finish with a candle lighting led by the Mayor of Camden.
2021:
B’nai Jeshurun Congregation is scheduled to host via Zoom “Ethical & Ritual
Issues Through the Lens of Conservative Jewish Law with Rabbi Stephen Weiss”
which will include an exploration of “What Jewish tradition has to say about
the most pressing and significant issues of our day.”
2021:
After having been sworn in yesterday, Jon Osoff is scheduled to begin his first
full day as one of the two United States Senators from Georgia.
2022:
The Temple Emanu-El Center is scheduled to host a virtual service commemorating
International Holocaust Remembrance Day with the Violins of Hope and survivor
Rose Plawner for a reminder of the stakes.
2022:
Today, the FBI said it was investigating the hostage taking
at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, TX as a "federal hate
crime" and an "act of terrorism."
2022:
Seventy-one-year-old Fran Lebowtiz is scheduled to appear for the first of six,
“90 minute-person conversations” at Berkely Rep’s Roda Theatre,
2022:
In Oakland, CA, the Grand Lake Theatre is scheduled to host “Noir City Film
Festival,” a program that “includes an antisemitism-focused double feature of
1947’s “Crossfire,” about a bigoted soldier who kills a Jewish veteran, and
1948’s “Open Secrets,” about newlyweds who come upon a gang of American Nazis,
plus a 2017 documentary short about a 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden.”
2022: Congregation B’nai Torah is scheduled to present online “Simply Shabbat”
with Rabbi Lisa Eiduson and Congregation B’nai Shalom’s Rabbi Joe Eiduson.
2022:
Based on previously published reports, Counter Terrorism Police in the United
Kingdom are hold two more people – one from Birmingham and on from Manchester –
are now in custody as the investigation into Malik Fasal Akram, the British
national who seized a Texas synagogue last Shabbat.
2023:
In New Orleans, Chabad of Louisiana is scheduled to host a a screening of
“Outback Rabbis.”
2023:
In Peabody, MA, Congregation Sons of Israel is scheduled to host a Seudah
Shlishit followed by Maariv, musical
Havdlah and a special “Shavua Tov” program.
2023:
The Eden Tamir Center is scheduled to host “Ensemble Millennium/Toscanini
Quartet, Ensemble in Residence and Friends” featuring violinist Yevgenia
Pikovsky and pianist Julia Gurvitch.
2023:
“Police have approved plans to deploy 1,000 officers and block vehicle access
to roads across Tel Aviv beginning this. afternoon, in anticipation of a mass
anti-government protest against the planned judicial overhaul.”
2023:
Dr. Ronen Pinchas “Hoffman announced his resignation as ambassador to Canada
because his "personal and professional integrity has compelled [him] to
request to shorten [his] post and return to Israel this summer," and that
his opposition to the Netanyahu government made it impossible for him to
continue in his position.”
2023(28th
of Tevet, 5783) Va-ayrah (And I appeared)
6:2-9:35
Shemot (Exodus)
2024:
Congregation Beth El and Jewish Baby Network are scheduled to present a“Tu
B’Shevat celebration with “treats from the trees,” blessings, seed planting,
nature art, scavenger hunt and children’s hike around Jewel Lake.
2024:
In Ceda Rapids, IA, Temple Judah is scheduled to host its Tu B’Shevat Seder.
2024:
The American Sephardi Federation, the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America,
the Sephardic Foundation on Aging, and Shearith Israel League Foundation are
scheduled to present “Bendichas Manos: The 7th Annual New York Ladino Day, curated
by Jane Mushabac and Bryan Kirschen and featuring Rabbi Marc Angel, author and editor
of 38 books, and a 2023 International Sephardic Gala Honoree for his decades of
remarkable community leadership,
Rachel
Amado Bortnick, teacher and founder of the renowned online group,
Ladinokomunita, now in its 25th year with 1500 Ladino-speaking members
worldwide, Elizabeth Graver, author of the groundbreaking 2023 Sephardic novel
Kantika, and long celebrated for her prize-winning fiction, Sarah Aroeste,
singer/songwriter, and Susan Barocas, foodwriter/story-teller, a duo whose
“Savor” program of songs and talk about Sephardic cuisine is garnering raves
here and abroad.”
2024: As January 21st begins
in Israel, the Hamas held hostages begin day 107 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.)
