This Day, January 22, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
January 22
1167(23rd
of Shevat, 4927): Ibn-Ezra passed away at the age of 78 in Calahorra which was
on the border between Navarre and Aragon. There is no way that any entry could
do justice to this Sephardic writer, philosopher, scientist and most imp…
January 22
1167(23rd
of Shevat, 4927): Ibn-Ezra passed away at the age of 78 in Calahorra which was
on the border between Navarre and Aragon. There is no way that any entry could
do justice to this Sephardic writer, philosopher, scientist and most important
of all, world traveler.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/IbnEzra.html
1521: Charles
V, Holy Roman Emperor, opens the Diet of Worms. The Diet of Worms would vote to
declare Luther an outlaw, banning his literature, and requiring his arrest” and
require that he be punished as a heretic. Ultimately this would lead to warfare
between Charles and the rebellious Germanic princes who supported Luther. This
outbreak of fighting would determine who “the real Charles was” when it came to
dealing with Jews. Charles wore two hats or should we say, crowns.
As King of Spain, he was the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, following in
the footsteps, the monarchs who brought the inquisition to Spain and expelled
the Jews in 1492. But as Holy Roman Emperor “he had issued a letter of
protection for Germany’s Jews” and “did not tamper with the privileges extended
by previous Emperors to his Jewish subjects. When the fighting broke out,
Spanish troops came to Germany to support Charles against the rebellious
Protestant princes. When the Jews complained that the Spanish troops were treating
them in the “Spanish manner,” the Emperor issued an order to end the
molestation of the Jews. So, in this instance Charles worse his “German Hat”
and ironically it was a better deal for the Jews of that time and place.
1561:
Birthdate of Sir Francis Bacon. According to one “myth” the Earl of Leicester
was Bacon's actual father and he had as his physician the magician and Jew Dr.
Frederigo Lopez who was the inspiration for “the Jew of Malta.”
1621: William
Prynne, the English jurist and political leader who opposed allowing the Jews
to return to England graduated from Oxford with a B.A.
1648:
Rabbi Shabbetai ben Meir ha-Kohen completed the manuscript for Nekudat
ha-Kessef
1668:
Birthdate Christian Reineccius, the “Saxon theogologian” whose knowledge of
Hebrew made it possible to translate “the Old and New Testaments” into four
languages.
1689: As the
British wrestled with the issue of whether or not James II was still their
ruler, the Convention Parliament met today. By now Jews had been
re-admitted to the kingdom but their numbers were small and they played no
active role in the meeting. But the ultimate outcome certainly had an impact on
their future as citizens of the United Kingdom.
1714: In
Bordeaux, France, Judica Lopes and Raphael Nones gave birth to Aaron Nones, the
husband of Sara Pereyre aand the father of Aaron and Benjamin Nones.
1729:
Birthdate of Gotthold Lessing, German poet, philosopher and playwright.
Although a strong believing Christian, he advocated religious tolerance. His
plays, such as “Die Juden” which appeared in 1749, portrayed the Jews as
decent, admirable people. Lessing was a close friend of Moses Mendelssohn, who
provided the inspiration for the character of Nathan in “Nathan the Wise” a
play whose sympathetic portrayal of the Jews earned it the distinction of being
banned by 18th century Christians and 20th century Nazis.
1752(6th of
Shevat): Talmudist Rabbi David ben Joseph of Breslau, author of Shoresh Yosef,
passed away.
1755:
Birthdate of Abraham Flesch, father of Moravian born businessman Joseph Flesch
who “translated several of the writings of Philo into Hebrew.”
1755: Marshal
Oscar von Lubomirski demolished the Jewish homes built on the outskirts of
Warsaw in a community called “New Jerusalem”. After the demolitions were
completed, all of the Jews were expelled from Warsaw.
1765: Bordeaux
native Jacob Nones and Rose Fernandez gave birth to Selomo Nones.
1775: Pope
Pious VI reinforces all existing anti-Jewish legislation as part of his
campaign against liberalism. He passed away in 1781.
1780: In
Nemyriv, Ukraine, Chaya Lane and Rabbi Naphtali Hertz Sternhartz gave birth
Nathan Sternhartz, known as Nathan of Breslov, “the chief disciple and scribe
of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov” whose biography Chayeh Moharan was written by
Nathan of Breslov.
1781: During
the American Revolution, “Touro applied for assistance to the Spanish and
Portuguese Synagogue in London which replied sympathetically but negatively”
today.
1785: In
London, Daniel Cohen D’Azevedo, the on of Haham Moses Cohen d'Azevedo and Sara
de Haham Moses Cohen D'Azevedo and his wife
Ester Rodriques Cohen D'Azevedo gave birth to Lea Leon, the wife of
Jacob Leon.
1786: In New
York City, Zipporah Levy and Benjamin Mendes Seixas gave birth to Abraham
Siexas, the husband of Charleston, SC native Rachel Nunez Cardozo and the
father of Virginia, David, Benjamin, James and Miriam Seixas.
1789(24th
of Tevet, 5549): Elkaly Esther Louzada, the daughter of Moses Louzada and the
wife of Abraham Isaac Abrahams passed away today in New York Ctiy.
1812: In
Dorsten, Meunster, Germany Julia Isaak and Samson Nathan Eisendrath gave birth
to twice married Moses Samson Eisendrath, the father of Sigmund, Rosa, Hannah,
Nathan and Levi Eisendrath.
1814(1st of
Shevat, 5574): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1814(1st of
Shevat): Rabbi Eliezer ben Joseph of Alton, author of Mishnat de Rabbi Eliezer
passed away today.
1814(1st of
Shevat, 5574): Raphael Bischoffsheim passed away Mayence. A merchant and
prominent philanthropist, he was born at Bischofsheim-on-the-Tauber in
1773. He went to Mayence during the French Revolution, and from a small
merchant became a purveyor to the army. Bischoffsheim was well thought of by
his co-religionist and served as was president of the Jewish community of
Mayence.
1818(15th of
Shevat, 5578): Tu B’Shevat
1823:
Birthdate of Rotterdam native and future Milwaukee resident Hendrina Speelman
Litt, the wife of clothing store owner Isaac Jonke Litt whom she married in
1844 and with whom she had two children – Mary Ann and Jacob.
1832:
Birthdate of Alonzo Barton Cornell, who while serving as 27th
Governor of New York appointed Meyer Isaacs to serve as a Justice of the Marine
Court.
1837(Shevat
15): Rabbi Jacob Simon Sofer of Cracow, author of Maor Shemesh passed away.
1837: In
Alsace, Rodesh Levy and Leopold Heymann gave birth to Michael Heymann, te author
of the “Report of Jewish Child-Saving in the United States” which was read at
the National Conference of Charities ad Corrections in 1897 who served as
director of schools in Algiers and Damascus before becoming the Superintendent
of the Jewish Orphans’ Home in New Orleans.
1840: British
colonists reach New Zealand. According to Maria Weiss, Jewish merchants began
arriving in New Zealand in the 1830’s. By 1840, there were approximately
30 Jews living in the colony including David Nathan who helped found the Jewish
community in Aukland and Abraham Hort who helped found the Jewish community in
Wellington.
1840: Two days
after he had passed away, Nathan Bennaton Vallentine, the son of Rosa and
Benjamin Valentine was buried today in the UK.
1840: In
Posen, Marcus Mosse, M.D. and Ulrike Mosse gave birth to Rudolf Mosse
1842: In
Lattin, County Tipperary, John Keating O’Dwyer and his wife gave birth to their
only son Edward Thomas O’Dwyer, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Limerick, who
after meeting with a delegation led by Saul Goldberg, denounced the
anti-Semitic pogrom in that Irish city – a denunciation which had little effect
since Fr John Creagh CSSR, spiritual director of the Arch Confraternity of the
Sacred Heart, the leader of the anti-Semitic riots was beyond his
ecclesiastical control.
1843(21st
of Shevat 5603): Rachel De Abraham D’Azevedo, the daughter of Abraham Salom and
sister of Mordecai Salom who married Isaac Cohen D’Azevedo at Bevis Marks in
1873 passed away today in Charleston, SC,
1844:
Eighty-eighty-year-old Bohemian born Karl Fischer, the Christian censor of
Hebrew books in Prague passed away today.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6148-fischer-karl
1850: In
London, Catherine Barnett and David Jonas gave birth Louis Jonas.
1851: Martha
Joseph Henry and Daniel Abraham Garcia were married today at Bevis Marks.
1851: In NSW,
Australia, Julia and Lewis Wolfe Levy gave birth to Benjamin (Benn) Wolfe Levy.
1855: In
Schweidnitz, “well known Jewish physician Dr. Mortiz Neisser” and his wife gave
birth to Albert Ludwig Sigesmund Neisser a German physician who discovered the
causative agent (pathogen) of gonorrhea, a strain of bacteria that was named in
his honour (Neisseria gonorrhoeae).”
1856: Twelve
Bavarian, Dutch, and Portuguese Jews, who “had originally organized in 1855 as
the United Brethren Society, a benefit society that provided members with
medical and burial assistance” met today in Brooklyn to discuss plans for the
incorporation of their group as a synagogue. Their efforts would bear
fruit in March of 1856 with the founding of Congregation Baith Israel Anshei
Emes. (בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל אַנְשֵׁי אֱמֶת, "House of Israel
– People of Truth"), the first synagogue formed on Long Island and “the
oldest continuously operating synagogue in Brooklyn.” Today Baith Israel is
“commonly known as the Kane Street Synagogue, an egalitarian Conservative
synagogue on Kane Street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
1858:
Frederick I, who appointed the first Jew to a ministerial position and
supported Herzl, became Grand Duke of Baden today.
1861: The
New York Tribune expressed its displeasure with the decision of Hiram
Ketchum and Professor Samuel F.B. Morse to invite Rabbi Raphael to deliver an
address saying that “when men are out of money, they go to the Jews but we
never would have expected to find” them “so short of speech as to be obliged to
ask Rabbi Raphael to speak for them.”
1863: The
January Uprising breaks out in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. The aim of the
national movement was to liberate the Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth
from Russian occupation. It is estimated that 1,000 to 2,000 Jews participated
in the uprising. Approximately 400 of them lost their lives while several
hundred more were exiled to Siberia by the Russians when the uprising failed.
1864(14th
of Shevat, 5624): In Berlin, 70-year-old Baruch Auerbach “the founder and
life-long director of the Jewish Orphan Asylum” who believed that "Orphans
are not merely poor children, but children without parents; to raise and bring
them up, an orphan asylum should give those children not merely bread and a
shelter, but parental love also, and practical training” passed away today.
1867:
Birthdate of Indianapolis, Indiana native Louis Paul Dessar, the CCNY and
National Academy of Designed trained internationally acclaimed artist.
https://americanart.si.edu/artist/louis-paul-dessar-1233
https://connecticuthistory.org/artist-louis-paul-dessar-dies-today-in-history-february-14/
1868: In
Lafayette Parish, LA, William Louis Bendel and Mary Bendel gave birth to Henri
Bendel who in 1899 came to New York City where he opened “small millinery shop”
that grew into “the women’s specialty shop” that bears his name and is one of
the “fashion leaders” in the Big Apple.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1936/03/23/88645384.pdf
1869: In
Lancaster, PA, Augusta Bernheim and Herman Hirsh gave birth to Monroe Bernheim
Hirsh a member of the executive board of the Lancaster Country Historical
Society and “trustee and treasurer of Congregaton Shaarai Shomaim.
1870: Rabbi
Lewin conducted the first Shabbat morning service at the newly formed Temple
Israel. Services were held in the building owned by the YMCA in
Brooklyn. Dr. Samuel Adler of Temple Emanu-El delivered the sermon.
The service was conducted in English and the sermon was delivered in German.
1870: Ludwig
Bamberger co-founded “the Deutsche Bank in Berlin as a specialist bank for
foreign trade.”
1871:
Birthdate of composer Leon Jessel who died at the hands of the Gestapo in 1942.
http://www.naxos.com/person/Leon_Jessel/24533.htm
1874: New
Jersey authorities took Abraham Levy off of the Hamburg steamer Silesia
before it sailed this afternoon. The Jewish businessman has been accused
by his partner of stealing $2,200 from their Baltimore, MD business.
1875:
Birthdate of Cracow native Solomon Z. Prokesch who came to the United States in
1892, earned degrees from NYU, Columbia and JTS after which he served as the
Superintendent for the Jewish Children’s Home in Boston and chaplain of the
Jewish Protectory and Aid Society in Hawthorne, NY.
1875:
Ferdinand Hitzig, the German student of the Bible who spent 28 years writing
commentaries published separately on The Psalms (1835–1836; 2nd ed.,
1863–1865), The Minor Prophets (1838; 3rd ed., 1863), Jeremiah (1841; 2nd ed.,
1866), Ezekiel (1847), Daniel (1850), Ecclesiastes (1847), Song of
Solomon(1855), and Proverbs (1858) and who contended that the 5th
and 16th chapters of Isaiah were written by the prophet Jonah
mentioned in the Book of Kings passed away today.
1876: In
Brooklyn, Balbina Rahner (née Bugel) and Gebhard Rahner gave birth to
Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner who gained fame as Bess Houdini, the stage assistant
and wife of the great Houdini.
1878: A Jew
named William Yandaw was held as a material witness after he accused Annie
Walker of stealing $35 from him.
1878: In
Vienna, the former Rosa Herlinger and her husband gave birth to Austrian
attorney Ernst Lanzer the patient of Sigmund Freud who was known by the
pseudonym “Rat Man.”
1880(9th
of Shevat 5640): Abraham Ashkenazi, the Chief Rabbi of Palestine whom the
Sultan named “Hakam Bashi” and who was decorated by Emperor Frank Josef when he
visited Jerusalem, passed away today.
1881: In
Botosani, Rumania, Abraham and Fanny (Manales): Kandel gave birth to University
of Manchester, University of Jena and Columbia University graduate, Dr. Isaac
Leon Kandel, the “pioneer in the field of comparative education” and husband of
Jessie S. Davis.
https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2144/Kandel-Isaac-L-1881-1965.html
https://nie.edu.sg/research/cieclopedia-org/cieclopedia-org-a-to-z-listing/kandel-isaac-l
1881: In
Warsaw, Zelman and Liebe (Blumenthal) Altshiller, gave birth to Nathan
Altshiller, who gained fame as Nathan Althsiller Court, the University of
Oklahoma mathematics professor and husband of Sophie Ravitch best known for his
seminal work, College Geometry - An Introduction to the Modern Geometry of
the Triangle and the Circle
1882: The
Hearts of Oak Company featuring David Belasco as “Mr. Ellingham” performed for
the first time at Leubrie’s Theatre in St. Paul, MN.
1883: In
Seligman, Missouri, named for Joseph Seligman, “a fire broke out at the
Exchange Hotel which destroyed it completely along with a large part of the
town.”
1884: In
Russia, Matilda Kopaloff and Bernhard Jaffin gave birth to Columbia University
trained medical doctor Abraham Ezra Jaffin, the husband of Matilda Serge and
First Lieutenant in the Medical Corps of the United States Army during WW I who
was an examine for the New Jerse State Sanitarium for Tuberculosis and the
Medical Director at the Hebrew Orphan Home in Hudson County.
1885: In Fort
Worth, TX, Isadore and Hattie Carb gave birth to “Harvard graduate and New Yok
playwright and drama critic David Carb whose historical novel, Sunrise in
the West, is about his grandmother, Babette Carb, who emigrated from Alsace
to Mississippi, survived he Civil War, and made her way to Texas.
1886: Today,
the Prince of Wales and future King Edward VII, formally opened the Mersey
Railway tunnel the boring of which was completed under the direction of Samuel
Isaac from whom “Queen Victoria accepted a jeweled representation “in which the speck of light at the end
of the excavation was represented by a brilliant.”
1887(26th
of Tevet, 5647): Parashat Vaera
1887(26th
of Tevet, 5647): Seventy-seven-year-old Grace Nathan, one of the 14 children of
Sarah and Isaac Mendez Seixas Nathan passed away today in her native New York.
1888:
Birthdate of Russian born Marine Corps General Moses Joseph Gould was “awarded
the Navy Cross for conduct in action against bandit forces in Nicaragua in
1927.”
1889: Founding
of the Ladies’ Hebrew Orphan Aid Society in Newark, NJ, whose members included
Rose Marx, Helen Straus and Carrie Kempe.
1890(1st of
Shevat, 5650): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1890:
Birthdate of Frederick “Fred” Vison the Kentucky Congressman who followed Henry
Morgenthau as Secretary of the Treasury and who as Chief Justice served with
Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter.
1891: Baron
Hirsch signed a deed of trust in the presence of the Consul General of the
United States in Paris and the Vice Consul that gave control of $2,400,000 to a
group of prominent New York Jewish community leaders who would use the funds to
aid recent Russian and Romanian immigrants to the United States.
1891:
Birthdate of Budapest native Alexander Ferenc Gabor, the son of “philosopher
and theater critic Bernhard Alexander who gained fame as Dr Franz G. Alexander,
the psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who “lived the first 40 years of his life as
an upper‐class European and the last 33 as a very
active. creative American.”
1891:
Birthdate of Polish native, painter Moise Kisling who moved to France in 1910
where he developed his style and gained fame and popularity and was decorated
by the French for heroism during World War I.
1891: The
first modern ocean-going cruise, which was personally organized and supervised
by Albert Ballin, where the pleasure of the voyage was of paramount importance
began today when “he SS Auguste Victoria (named after the German empress) set
sail to cruise the Mediterranean for six weeks.”
1892: In
Paris, Noemi Allatini Bloch and Adolphe Bloch gave birth to Marcel Bloch, the
great French airplane designer who changed his name to Marcel Dassault after
suffering the vicissitudes of World War II
1891:
Twenty-three-year-old NYU trained attorney William Grossman, the New York City
born son of Henry and Katherine (Yasnigi) Grossman and member of the West End
Synagogue married Carrie Basch today in New York.
1891:
Birthdate of Budapest born American psychoanalyst Dr. Franz Gabriel Alexander,
the husband of “artist Anita Venier with whom he had two daughters, Sylvia and
Francesca
https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1176/appi.ajp.159.8.1305
1892: “Too
Much Immigration” published today described the impact of foreign workers
arriving in the United States including that in New York, the Russian Jews “had
practically crowed the Germans out of the clothing industry by working for
lower wages” but who were no in turn were being crowded out by the Italians who
were willing to work for even less and that in New England Jews were crowding
the “Cannuks” out of the mills by working for less just as the Canadians had
crowded out the Irish.
1892: In
Hempstead, England, journalist and editor
Ralph David Blumenthal the Watertown, WI born son of Nancy Levensen and
David Blumenthal who had visited Europe in 1887 as special correspondent for
the New York Telegraph and was the London correspondent for the New York Herald
from 1890 to 1893 married Dasie Blumfeld today.
1893(5th of
Shevat): Seventy-four-year-old historian David Cassel who was active in
“Wissenschaft des Judentums or Jewish Studies which refers to a
nineteenth-century movement premised on the critical investigation of Jewish
literature and culture, including rabbinic literature, using scientific methods
to analyze the origins of Jewish traditions, passed away today.
1893: It was
reported today that Temple Emanu-El has donated “over 3,500 books, pamphlets
and manuscripts” to Columbia to serve as the foundation for the schools
“library of Hebrew literature, philology and religion.”
1893: John
Edelmann, the socialist-anarchist architect who had worked for Dankmar Adler
addressed a meeting at the Hebrew Institute in New York City held to protest
the Panama Scandal now rocking France
1893:
Birthdate of actor Conrad Veidt who is remembered for his role of Major
Strasser in the famous World War II film, “Casablanca."
1894(15th
of Shevat, 5654): Tu B’Shevat
1894:
Professor Knapp of Barnard College was scheduled to give a lecture this evening
at the Hebrew Institute.
1894: As
economic conditions continued to worsen R.H. Macy and Co which was owned by the
Straus family sent $1,355.85 to the Charity Organization in New York for the
second week in a row.
1895(26th of
Tevet, 5655): Edward “Teddy” Solomon passed away today six months before his 40th
birthday. An accomplished pianist and conductor, Solomon was a noted composer
of comic operas in the manner of Gilbert and Sullivan.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13854-solomon-edward
1895: Sculptor
Moses Jacob Ezekiel wrote to his father from Rome today saying that “the
Seligman memorial is progressing slowly – I have made my fourth plan a success
I think and I am doing it full size. It
embodies the idea of the past civilizations who opposed Israel, in ruins. The fasces of the American Union above them
upon which is bust is placed and orphan child hold a scroll upon which is
written ‘His Charity Knew No Race Nor Creed.’”
1895: Two days
after he had passed away, Samuel Lewis Nathan, the husband of the former Eva
Joshua and the father of Joshua, Cecil and Percy Nathan was buried today at the
“Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1896: Solomon
Deutsch, the future resident of San Antonio and Laredo, TX and the Hungarian
born son of Leah Lotti Klein and Juda Deutsch married Rosa Kleinman today after
which they reportedly had at least six children.
1896: The
Hebrew Orphan Asylum of Brooklyn hosted its 13th annual charity ball
which was held this evening at the Academy of Music.
1897(19th
of Shevat, 5657): David Orbansky, Civil War veteran and winner of the Medal of
Honor passed away today following which he was buried in Columbus, Ohio.
1898: A
meeting of anti-Dreyfus and anti-Zola demonstrators is scheduled to be held in
Paris’ Latin Quarter today.
1898: Sir
Lionel Abrahams and his wife, the former Lucy Joseph gave birth to their only
son Arthur Charles Lionel Abrahams, the Oxford Graduate who was killed during
WW I while serving as a Lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards.
http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/fallen-alumni/lieutenant-arthur-charles-lionel-abrahams
1898: Today,
“Selah Merrill…a Congressionalist clergyman and
a prolific writer on Palestine and archaeological subjects relating to
Biblical lands” who “was formerly Consul at Jerusalem from 1882 to 1886” was
nominated today by President McKinley to serve a second term in that position.
1898: In Riga,
which at that time was a part of the Russian Empire, architect Mikhail
Osipovich Eisenstein, a member of a Jewish merchant family which had convert
“to the Russian Orthodox Church and his wife Julia gave birth to Russian and
Soviet director Segei Eisnstein best known for the 1925 epic “Battleship
Potemkin.”
1898: Rabbi
Gustav Gottheil delivered an address about “Jewish Immigration” at dinner
tonight at Delmonico’s that celebrated the 22nd anniversary of the
Legal Aid Society in New York City.
1898:
“Barnato: The Man’s Life and His Fortune in Diamonds” published today provides
a review of Barney Barnato: A Memoir by John Ward.
1899: It was
reported today that J. Ernest G. Yalden is Superintendent of the Baron de
Hirsch Technical Schools and A.S. Solomons is the general manager of the
school.
1899:
Birthdate of Washington, DC native and National University Law School trained
attorney Nathan Cayton who when appointed as a Judge of the DC Municipal Court
“was the youngest man ever to be appointed to a judicial position in the
District of Columbia.”
1899: Founding
of the English Zionist Federation
1899: It was
reported today that the Baron de Hirsch Technical Schools, which has limited
admission to Russian and Romanian Jewish immigrants are now accepting “Jews of
all nationalities.”
1899:
Birthdate of Czech born American historian Guido Kisch who specialized in the
history of the Jews during the Middle Ages.
1899: The
Federated Hebrew Trade Unions sent delegates to today’s meeting of a newly
formed labor organization known as the Central Federated Union.
1899: It was
reported today that John T. O’Brien who had been supplied with a job and card
for free lodging by the United Hebrew Charities claimed that he been the victim
of a “badger game”’; a charge for which there was no evidence. (O’Brien had not
been asked to provide any proof that he was Jewish when he applied for
assistance, indicating that the Jewish charity supplied people who were not
their co-religionists.)
1900: It was
reported today that Dr. Felix Adler has delivered a speech entitled the “Perils
of the Modern Family” in which he “rebuked his congregation for being too much
interested in money-getting and for not being interested in the higher things
of life.”
1901: Count
Boni de Catelane who arrived in the United States from France today responded
to reports in Figaro that he had so depleted his own finances by
gambling that he was compelled to come to members of the Gould family for
financial aid by saying that the paper “has lost half of its circulation and
all of its prestige during the Dreyfus trial,” that “it is the synagogue of
Paris
and that “it is the organ of the Jews today because the Jews pay the most.”
1901: King
Edward VII followed his mother Queen Victoria to the British throne.
Edward counted several Jews among his friends and “inner circle,” something
that did not sit well with much of the British aristocracy. Even more
important, was Edward’s willingness to intervene on behalf of the Jews of
Russia. In a state visit, he approached his cousin, Czar Nicholas II,
about the matter. Cousin Nicky ignored “Bertie.” English political
leaders expressed dismay at the King’s behavior. But for the Jews, Edward
would become a hero. His all too short reign came to an end in 1910.
1901:
Following the death of Queen Victoria, Winston Churchill wrote to his mother
speculating on what changes will take place in the behavior of the Prince of
Wales now that he is king. Churchill wonders if King Edward will “scatter his
Jews or will Reuben Sassoon be enshrined among the crown jewels and other
regalia?” The King would keep his Jewish friends including “the Baghdadi-born
Jew Reuben Sassoon.”
1901: In
Cincinnati, Ohio, Jacob and Bertha Mack gave birth to Richard Jacob Mack.
1902: It was
reported today that Abraham, Felix Adler, Adolph S. Ochs, Oscar Straus and
Jacob H. Schiff are among those whom Mayor Seth Low has named to the committee
making plans for the entertainment of Prince Henry when he visits New York in
February.
1903: Oscar S.
Straus was elected President of the New York Board of Trade and Transportation
this afternoon at the meeting of the Managing Directors.
1904: Herzl is
received by Rafael Merry del Val the Papal Secretary, who promises to take into
consideration the matter of supporting the Zionist aspirations.
1905: The
Sunday New York Times Magazine publishes the first three chapters of an
unfinished novel by the late Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield.
1905:
Birthdate of Karola Bloch, the German architect, left-wing political activist
and wife of Ernst Bloch.
1906: Today,
Jacob Harry Hollander, the son of “Meyer and Rosa Hollander, who became a full
professor at his alma mater, Johns Hopkins marred Theresa Gutman Hutzler with
whom he had three children.
1906: “Between
5,000 and 6,000 Polish, Romanian, German and Russian Jews gathered at Rutgers
Square on East Broadway to mark the first anniversary of ‘Red Sunday’ when
thousands of workingmen were shot down in St. Petersburg while endeavoring to
submit an appeal to the Czar.”
1906: It was
reported today that Illinois Congressman H.T. Rainey had delivered a speech
condemning the attacks on the Jews of Russia in which he said, “In the opening
years of this the greatest of all the centuries the Grand Dukes and their
followers who support the tottering throne of the Romanoffs have resorted to
the hold methods and this time they are inflaming the populace against the
helpless Jews – and already the blood of 100,000 Jews cries out for vengeance”
which means “the time may be near at hand when an instrument may be raised up
to execute upon the men who are responsible for these inhuman butcheries the
old doctrine – an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
1907(7th
of Shevat, 5667): Seventy-nine-year-old Dr. Joseph Kopp, the Viennese attorney
wrote a book “defending the honor of Judaism” in the wake of the rise of
anti-Semitism aft the Tisza Eszlar blood libel passed away today.
1907: Salome,
Op. 54, an opera in one act by Richard Strauss which he dedicated the opera to
his friend Anglo-Jewish financier Sir Edgar Speyer had its New York City
premiere.
1908: In Baku,
Azerbaijan, petroleum engineer David Lovich Landau and medical doctor Lyubov
Veniaminovna Garkavi-Landau gave birth to mathematics child prodigy and
physicist Lev Davidovich Landau the winner of the Nobel Prize in 1962.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1962/landau/biographical/
1909:
Delegation attending the 21st annual council of the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations will have the opportunity to take trains to visit
the Baron de Hirsh School in Woodbine, NJ and the National Farm School at Farm
School, PA.
1909:
Birthdate of South African born physicist and radiobiologist Tikvah Alper.
https://jwa.org/people/alper-tikvah
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-tikvah-alper-1610123.html
http://cshlwise.org/wise-wednesdays/2017/8/23/tikvah-alper
1909:
Birthdate of Holyoke, MA native Morris Sawdish, the University of Chicago and
Yale University linguist who was an acolyte of Edward Sapir.
https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/aa.1968.70.4.02a00070
1909: Sleah
Merrill, the clergyman who worked as an archeologist for the American Palestine
Exploration Society, excavating the second wall of Jerusalem and served as the
United Counsel in Jerusalem three times between 1882 and 1907 passed
away. “A virulent anti-Semite” he opposed Jewish settlement in Palestine,
a view which was adopted by many in the United States State Department.
1910:
Birthdate of New York City native and University of Pennsylvania graduate
Malcom Alan Vendig a U.S. Army Captain who served with 83rd Infantry
Division “during WW II and after the war as military governor of Landkreis
Dachau, Germany
1911: At the
annual meeting of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society several
speakers including Jacob Schiff and Judge Leon Sanders condemned the Gardner
Immigration bill, which proposed to add an educational test clause to the
exclusion laws and severely criticized the special boards of inquiry on Ellis
Island.
1911:
Birthdate of Bruno Kreisky, the first Jewish Chancellor of Austria. He
died in 1990.
1911:
Birthdate of lifelong San Francisco resident Frances Beatrice Lieberman the
wife of Adolph Gutman who was “was a painter, sculptor and etcher whose
subjects included many scenes of San Francisco, child figures, and
seascapes--all in a style that combined realism, impressionism, and
abstraction.”
Frances Beatrice
Lieberman - Biography (askart.com)
1911: In New
York City Agnes Elizabeth Meyer, who was Lutheran and Eugene Meyer, who was
Jewish gave birth to Florence Meyer who gained famed as Florence Meyer Homolka,
the noted photographer who was the wife of actor Oscar Homolka.
1911:
Twenty-year old Lily Kronberger won “her fourth consecutive world figure
skating championship in Vienna” today. (As reported by Bob Wechsler)
1912:
“Elevating A Husband,” with a script by Clara Lipman opened on Broadway at the
Liberty Theatre.
1912: Dr.
Harry Friedenwald of Baltimore, Honorary President of the Federation of
American Zionists introduced Dr. Benzion Mossinsohn, a representative of the
Gymnasium of Jaffa, who delivered a lecture in Yiddish to a very large audience
at Cooper Union tonight on the work of that school, the first strictly Jewish
school to be established in Palestine for 2,000 years.
1912:
“Y.M.H.A.” Dedicates Heinsheimer Annex” published today described the meeting
of the National Young Men’s Hebrew Association where the Louis A. Heinsheimer
Memorial Building which was a gift from Felix M. Warburg was dedicated along
with the unveiling of a tablet memorializing the late Percival S. Menken “which
has been placed at the west end of the swimming pool.
1913: In
Chicago, Mr. Horace Bridges is scheduled to “deliver a lecture on ‘Eugenics in
the Drama’ this evening at the Chicago Hebrew Institue.”
1913: The new
Hebrew Union College buildings were dedicated at Cincinnati, Ohio.
1913:
Birthdate of London native Hyman Barnett “Harry” Mizler who along with his
brothers Moe and Judah worked in the family fish stall “in Watney Street
Market” before become becoming a member of Britain’s 1932 Summer Olympics box
team and winning “the British Board of Control (BBofC) Lightweight Title.”
1913: The
National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods was officially organized today in
Cincinnati, Ohio.
1913:
Birthdate of Avraham Goldberg, the native of Pittsburgh, PA and graduate of
both the University of Pittsburgh and JTS who served as Chaplain in the U.S.
military during WW II after which he moved to Israel where he earned a PhD from
Hebrew University where he became a Professor of Talmudic Studies.
1914: In El
Paso, TX, Theresa Hurwitz and Joseph Berrel Ravel gave birth to Dr. Vincent
Marvin Ravel, the Baylor and University of Pennsylvania trained radiologist who
was the husband of Annette Ravel Kluger Shapiro whom he married in 1941
https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/abs/10.1148/93.2.449?journalCode=radiology
1914: Bronx
resident Solomon Bloomgarden, better as the poet “Yehoash” whose admirers refer
to as the “Yiddish Milton” is scheduled to sail today for Palestine where he
plans on living “for the benefit of his health” and to participate in “the
‘Jewish Renaissance’ in the ancient land of the Jewish People.”
1915:
Birthdate of Samuel J. Popeil, inventor of the Veg-O-Matic.
1915: It was
reported today that the Union of American Hebrew Congregations has selected
Washington, DC to be the site of their 1917 national meeting.
1915: The
Young Men’s Hebrew Association, the Hebrew League of Boston and a delegation of
Jews from New York are among those who will be attending the meeting in the
East Room of the White House where President Wilson will hear the pros and cons
of the proposed immigration bill which the Jews oppose because of the literacy
test.
1915: The
trial of Dan H. Lehon, C.C. Tedder and Arthur Thurman who have been indicted
for subordination of perjury in matters related to the case of Leo Frank which
was supposed to have begun today has been postponed.
1915: “Turks
and Germans Expelling Zionists” published today described the apparent
intention of “Djemel Pasha, the Turkish commander in chief of the army intended
for the attack on the Suez Canal” to systematically destroy “the entire of work
of Jewish colonization built up by the labors of thirty years and the
expenditure of millions of pounds.”
1915: It was
reported today that more than 5,000 refugees from Jaffa and other parts of
Palestine are in Alexandria where they could be joined by almost 80,000 mostly
Russian Jews whom the Central Powers seem determined to drive out of the
country.
1915:
According to tonight’s announcement “by the Provisional Executive Committee for
General Zionist Affairs of which Louis D. Brandeis is Chairman” about 4,000
Jewish refugees from Jerusalem, Jaffa and Beirut have “fled to Alexandria” with
about “5,000 more on their way.”
1915: Leo
Frank was scheduled to be hung today. (The execution would not take place
thanks to a writ issued by the U.S. Supreme Court following arguments by Louis
Marshall)
1916: In New
York City, Jacob H. Schiff delivered a speech in which he said “war will never
cease until we have worldwide free trade and the only way to render
preparedness unnecessary is to raze the Custom Houses and the tariff walls and
have international free trade,” a view that was fully supported by the
President of the American Tariff Reform League, “the first national
organization to declare for the re-nomination and re-election of President
Wilson.
1916:
Birthdate of Michel Haguenauer, the champion of France in singles senior in
1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1949 and 1950 who was “arrested by the
Gestapo and interned in Montluc Prison” during WWII.
1916: It was
reported today that when Governor Martin Brumbaugh of Pennsylvania issued a
proclamation setting next Thursday as special day for making donations to aid
the Jews suffering war-torn Europe “he paid tribute to the Jewish people” and
suggested that contribution be set to the American Red Cross in Washington,
D.C.
1916: “The
Home Mission Council, which met” in New York “last week was attacked” today “in
a sermon by Rabbi Israel Herbert Levinthal of Temple Petach Tikvah…for
utterances regarding the conversion of Jews to Christian faiths reported to
have been made at the council sessions.”
1916: Rabbi
Herbert S. Goldstein of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurum announced today that his
congregation had pledged $1,500 for the upcoming Jewish Relief Day.
1916: Among
the contributors to the American Jewish Relief Committee listed today were
congregations in Atlantic City, Atlanta and Minneapolis.
1917: Rabbi
Hyman G. Enelow delivered a lecture on “The Jewish Interest in Jesus” this
morning at Temple Emanu-El.
1917:
President Wilson delivered an address to Congress today which “was intended as
an open message to the world of the conditions under which he would urge the
United States to enter a world federation to guarantee future peace.” (Editor’s Note – this is a reference to what
would eventually become the League of Nations, the international body that
would give Britain its mandate to govern Palestine with all that would mean for
the Jewish people.)
1917: The
members of the Medical Advisory Board helping Hadassah to send a medical unit
to Palestine include Drs. Harry Friedenwald, Isaac A. Abt, Isaac Adler, Emanuel
Libman, Milton J. Rosenau and Miss Lillian D. Wald.
1917:
Birthdate of Jean-Louis Crémieux, the native of Colombes, France who added
Brilhac to his name while serving as a leader of the Free French during WW II.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/french-resistance-propagandist-cremieux-brilhac-dead-at-98/
1918:
Birthdate of Idea Weiner, the wife of Manfred Erich Swarsensk who after being
imprisoned at Sachsenhausen concentration camp came to the United States in
1940 where he served as “Rabbi for Temple Beth El, a Reform congregation in
Madison, Wisconsin.
1918: In
Vienna, Ida and Siegfried Reginald Wolf gave birth to Elfriede Julie Wolf.
1918: In
London, Lord Reading presided over a banquet celebrating the semi-Jubilee of
the Jewish Historical Society which was attended by ambassadors from the United
States and China as well as by the Lord Chancellor.
1918:
“Hundreds of men and women solicitors” participating in “the drive to get
50,000 new members for the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic
Societies” met this evening at the Hotel Biltmore where they were told that
despite their efforts, “the federation still faces a material deficit in the
current year’s budget for the 89 welfar organizations which compose it.
1918: Moishe
Zilberfarb completed an 18-month stint as Deputy-Secretary of Jewish Affairs in
the General Secretariat of Ukraine, the main executive institution of the
Ukrainian People's Republic.
1919: In
Boston, “Ezra Ramin, a window trimmer, and Beatrice D. (Salamoff) Ramin gave
birth Sidney Nathan Ramin, the award-winning composer and arranger who was a
boyhood friend of Leonard Bernstein. (As reported by Anita Gates)?
1919: General
Orders No.16 of the US War Department which described the Heroism of William
Sawleson which earned him the Medal of Honor was issued today. (“Hearing a wounded man in a shell hole some distance away
calling for water, Sgt. Sawelson, upon his own initiative, left shelter and
crawled through heavy machinegun fire to where the man lay, giving him what
water he had in his canteen. He then went back to his own shell hole, obtained
more water, and was returning to the wounded man when he was killed by a
machinegun bullet.”)
1920:
In Jerusalem, Dr. Samuel Lewin-Epstein, the “son of Eliyahu Ze'ev (Wolf)
Lewin-Epstein and Judith Lewin-Epstein” and his wife Madeline Lewin-Epstein
gave birth to Professor Jacob Lewis-Epstein, the brother of Noah Lewin-Epstein.
1921: In
Warsaw, Stanislaw Baczyński, an author with “Jewish roots” and school teacher
Stefania Zieleńczyk a zealous Catholic whose Jewish roots led the Germans to
treat her and her family as Jews, gave birth to Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński the
Polish poet who fought in the Home Army as Jan Bugaj and whose “uncle, Dr. Adam Zieleńczyk,
escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto and was killed by Germans in 1943.”
1922: Pope
Benedict XV passed away. During World War I in response to the request of
American Jews to alleviate the suffering of Polish Jews, Benedict issued a
letter which was published in “Civilta Cattolica” denouncing
anti-Semitism. In 1917, he spent 45 minutes with Zionist Nahum Sokolov
discussing the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.
1923: The
Golden Jubilee Convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations opened
at the Hotel Astor in New York City.
1924:
Dr. Lee K. Frankel, the Philadelphia born son of
Aurelia Lobenburg and Louis Frankel and the husband of Alice Reizenstein who
held a PhD from Penn where he taught Chemistry became a “second vice president
at Metropolitan Life Insurance Company today
1924: When the
Labor Party in Great Britain formed its first government, Josiah Wedgwood was
named Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald.
1925: “Find
Bronze Age Graves” published described the “investigations of the Department of
Antiquities” at “the site in orange grove at Jaffa where…men diffing a cistern
accidently uncovered bones, potsherds and bronze sword handles” as well as two
graves from the bronze age which may “throw light on a hitherto unknown period
of the history of Jaffa.”
1926: “The
Battle Against Berlin” a silent filmed directed by Max Reichman was released
today in Germany.
1926: The
House of Representatives District Committee which effectively governs the
District of Columbia “decided not to report” the Kosher Law proposed by
Congressman Samuel Dickstein which is similar to a law in his home state of New
York.
1927: After
losing two straight bouts, featherweight Wilbur Cohen, a native of Washington,
DC, scored a victory on points today.
1928: In
"Homeland of Habima,"published today, William Schack described the
current state of theatre in Palestine. According to him "Palestine
is as poor as east side tenement" with a population divided into
three linguistic groups speaking English, Arabic and Hebrew. In the past
year, the only English performances were by amateurs who stage a few "ace
actors." During the same period, the only Arabic offering was a
performance of Carmen. Other than that, Schack has not hear of "any
Arabic theatre in Palestine."
1928: “The
Last Command,” directed by Josef von Sternberg and produced by Adolph Zukor and
Jesse Lansky was released today in the United States.
1929(11th
of Shevat, 5689): Fifty-seven-year-old David Pofcher, the son of Michael and
Rose Pofcher, who with his wife Mamie had five children, passed away today in
Boston, MA.
1929: Yehudi
Menuhin is scheduled to receive “a Stradivatius and Tourte body” from Henry
Goldman, a member of Goldman, Sachs and his wife. (As reported by JTA)
1929:
Birthdate of Lotte Therese Newman, the Frankfurt born British physician who
“became the first woman and the first Briton to serve as President of the
International Society of General Practice” and President of the Royal College
of General Practitioners.
1929: Flags
flew “at half-mast on many public buildings in Newark, NJ” in honor of
“merchant and philanthropist” Felix Fuld whose funeral was held today.
1930: In
Winnipeg, Cantor and Mrs. Alexander Steinberg gave birth to Ben Steinberg, the
noted Canadian musician who served as director of music at the Holy Blossom
Temple in Toronto.
1931:
Birthdate of Canadian Doris Giller who went from being “a secretary with a
supermarket chain” to a career in journalism.
https://torontolife.com/from-the-archives/for-doris-jack-rabinovitch/
https://web.archive.org/web/20091009104037/http:/www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca:80/about.html
1931:
Forty-six-year-old Isidore Goldberg “who made a habit of swindling women
through material advertisements was sentenced to life imprisonment today as
fourth offender.
1931: Sir
Isaac Isaacs, the son of a British tailor, was sworn in as the first
Australian-born Governor-General of Australia.
1931: Silent
screen star Alma Rubens, whose father was Jewish and whose mother was not,
passed away.
1932: Max
Gottlieb a resident of Queens and a government storekeeper was arrested today
and charged as a “bribe-taker” for his role in a scheme by the Joseph Frankel
Company to smuggle toys and novelties into the United States so that it could
avoid paying $150,000 in duties.
1932:
“Prestige” co-starring Melvyn Douglas was released today in the United States
by RKO.
http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9805E7D9113EE333A25756C0A9649C946394D6CF
1933:
Birthdate of basketball star Leonard Robert "Lennie" Rosenbluth, who
played forward on the North Carolina team that won the NCAA Championship in
1957 and went on to a pro career with the Philadelphia Warriors.
1934: In the
Bronx, Hannah (née Kleiman) and Joshua Charles Azenberg gave birth to Emanuel
“Manny” Azenburg, the Bronx native who gained fame as a theatrical producer who
worked with playwright Neil Simon for over three decades.
1934: “The
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid Baronetcy, of Somerhill in the County of Kent, was a title
in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom created today for Osmond
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and
Chairman for the Jewish Agency for Palestine in London” who “was the grandson
of Count Henri Salomon d'Avigdor, Duke of Acquaviva.”
1935: Today
when the High Commissioner for Palestine, Brig. Gen. Sir Arthur Wauchope,
opened a valve that inaugurated the British section of the gigantic enterprise,
crude oil that had been pumped 600 mile through the new desert pipeline from
the Iraq oil fields flowed into a tanker moored in the Bay of Acre off the
coast of Palestine.
1935:
Birthdate of American actor Seymour Cassel.
1936: “The
Illustrators’ Show” for which “Songwriter, author and dentist Nathanial Lief”
provided “additional lyrics” opened on Broadway at the 48th Street
Theatre.
1936(27th
of Tevet, 5696): Seventy-one-year-old Nathaniel Vidaver, the Boston born son of
“Rabbi Falk Vidaver and Anna Vidaver” and the husband of Nellie Vidaver passed
away today.
1936: In
Berlin, “the ‘Juridical Weekly’ published an article proposing that all
marriages between Jews and ‘Germans’ be made the subject of dissolution on the
demand of the ‘German’ partner.”
1937: “A
Doctor’s Diary” directed by Charles Vidor and produced by B.P. Schulberg was
released today in the United States.
1937: “An
official communique today states that by command of King George VV, the British
High Commissioner” in Palestine “has invited Amin Abdulhadi, a member of the
Moslem Supreme Council and Itshak Bensvi, a member of the General[ML1] Council of Palestine
Jew to represent Palestine at his coronation” and that both men have accepted.
1938: An
appeal for continued support of the Jewish colonization movement in Palestine
in a time of renewed persecution of Jews in Rumania, Germany and Poland was
voiced in Washington tonight by speakers before the National Conference for
Palestine, meeting in observance of the completion of twenty years of Jewish
settlement in the Holy Land.
1938(22nd
of Shevat, 5698): Parashat Yitro
1938(22nd
of Shevat, 5698): Sixty-year-old Kovno born “wood engraver and painter Henry
Block, the husband of Dora Block and the father of Adolph and Martin Block
whose “colored wood engravings are on permanent exhibition at the Metropolitan
Museum, the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress in Washington”
passed away today in Plainfield, NJ.
1938: Today’s
royal decree “whereby the citizenship of Rumania’s 750,000 Jews was called into
question” was seen by some as a violation of the Constitution agreed to at the
Congress of Berlin in 1878 and “the 1918 Paris minority agreement.”
1939: Dr.
Israel Goldstein, the President of the Jewish National Fund is scheduled to be
honored this evening for his twenty years of service as the Rabbi of Temple
B’Nai Jeshurun by Jews and Gentiles including Secretary of the Interior Harold
Ickes, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, Episcopal Bishop William T. Manning,
Methodist Bishop Francis J. McConnell and “Dr. Thomas S. Gates, president of
the University of Pennsylvania, Rabbi Goldstein’s alma mater.”
1940: “The
Stars Look Down” produced by Isadore Goldsmith and filmed by cinematographer
Mutz Greenbaum was released today in the United Kingdom.
1940: NBC
began broadcasting again “The Guiding Light,” a soap opera created by Irna
Phillips which it had cancelled but was forced to bring back due to popular demand.
1941: “Drive
Slows Down” published today that the “fall off in donations for the $60,000
campaign of the United Talmud Torahs of Montreal is causing grave anxiety on
the part of the campaign executives including Councilor Max Seigler.
1941: Dr.
Bernard Joseph, legal adviser to the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the executive
body that is cooperating with the British Government asserted that Jews in
Palestine “are facing the paradox of supporting Prime Minister Churchill's war
effort completely and yet being at odds with British administration” over
issues related to the establishment of Jewish homeland including immigration
and land ownership.
1941: The
British army has renewed its recruiting efforts aimed at Palestinian Arabs and
Jews. The new recruits will be used for sentry and other similar guard
duties which would release other British infantry regiments for use in active
combat roles in North Africa.
1941: In
Lublin, Poland; Hans Frank told his fellow Nazis, "We...cannot be asked to
have any consideration left for the Jews."
1941: The Iron
Guard revolt in Rumania led to the first massacre of Jews there during World
War II.
1941: The Law
for the Defense of the Nation is imposed by Bulgaria, forcing Jews to give up
public posts and forcing Jewish doctors, lawyers, and other professionals to
forfeit their jobs. Also, a selective tax is imposed on Bulgaria's Jewish shops
and homes.
1942: Today,
fifty-year-old Rudolf Propper was transported from his last known home in
Pilsen to Terezin, which would be his first stop on the way to Izbic where he
was murdered.
1942: The
Hungarians continued their slaughter of the Jews of Novi-Sad in Yugoslavia.
1942: “A Time
to Kill” a movie version of a Raymond Chandler mystery produced by Sol M.
Wurtzel and with music by Emil Newman was released today in the United States.
1943:
This was Rivka Libeskind first Shabbat in Auschwitz-Birkenau where the women,
who had just recently arrived at the camp, lit candles and sang Shabbat
melodies which led women who had lived there for years too weep and join the
prayer session.
1943: During
Operation Tiger in Marseilles, France, Nazis seized more than 4000 Jews for
deportation over a four-day period. At nearby Les Accates, 29 Jewish children
were seized at La Rose Orphanage. Their guardian, Alice Salomon, insisted on
remaining with them. Marseilles had had a reputation as being the Jerusalem of
the Mediterranean.
1943(16th
of Shevat, 5703): Seventy-six-year-old Maximilian Pick was murdered today at
Terezin.
1943: The
Jewish ghetto at Grodno, Belorussia, is liquidated
1943: A death
train that originated in Grodno, Poland, on January 17 erupts in violence at
the Treblinka death camp when 1000 Jews armed with boards, knives, and razors
attack guards. By morning thousands of Jews who had been on the train are dead,
killed by Treblinka SS troops armed with machine guns and grenades.
1944:
President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9417, establishing the War Refugee
Board. The Board is committed to enforcing the policies of the U.S. government
regarding the rescue and relief of victims of persecution.
1945(8th
of Shevat, 5705): German born Herman Jander, the husband or Ray Jander, the
father-in-law of Alvin Friedman and the father of Reba Friedman passed away
today in Nashville, TN
1945:
Crusading journalist Arthur Kasherman was gunned down this evening in
Minneapolis in a crime that went unsolved but was always thought to be
connected with his exposure of the mob control this half of the Twin Cities.
http://www.startribune.com/murder-of-a-minneapolis-muckraker/86628172/
1945(8th
of Shevat, 5705): Ralph W. Mack, a leader in the Reform movement and an officer
of the American Council for Judaism passed away today in his native Cincinnati.
1945 (8th of
Shevat, 5705): Seventy-five-year-old Else
Lasker-Schüler passed away in Jerusalem (As reported by Sigrid Bauschinger)
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lasker-schueler-else
1946:
Birthdate of Malcolm McLaren, the British born manager of the musical group
“The Sex Pistols.”
1946:
Following the “blasting of a British installation” the British imposed a stern,
tight sunrise-to-sunset curfew on the entire Hadera district of the Palestine
coast between Tel Aviv and Haifa.
1947(1st of
Shevat, 5707): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1947: At
Dachau the Flossenburg War Crimes Trial came to an end with “all but 5 of the
defendants were found guilty, 15 of whom were condemned to death, 11 were given
life sentences, and 14 were jailed for terms of 1 to 30 years.
1947: George
J. Aaronson, President of the George J. Aaronson Company was among those
arrested by the F.B.I. “on charges of trying to bribe a War Assets
Administration official.”
1947: Léon
Blum completed his term as the 128th prime minister of France.
1947:
The British government decided today that it would turn the Palestine Problem
over to the United Nations since it could not get the Jews and Arabs to accept
a common solution.. However, the British would not make their decision
public for another six weeks.
1948:
Birthdate of London born historian Bernard Wasserstein, who studied with Anna
Freud and whose works include The British in Palestine and Britain
and the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945.
http://history.uchicago.edu/directory/bernard-wasserstein
1948:
Birthdate of Brooklyn born conductor Sir Gilbert Levine.
1949: After
renovation The Warner Bros. Hollywood Theatre reopened today with its new name
“The Mark Hellinger Theatre.
1949(21st
of Tevet, 5709): Parashat Shemot
1949(21st
of Tevet, 5709): Fifty year old Henry Ludwig Mond, 2nd Baron Melchett” the
Conservative MP, bank director and husband of Amy Gwen Wilson with whom he had
two sons and who “having been brought up
in the Church of England” “reverted in the 1930s to his family’s original
Judaism and became a champion of Zionism passed away today.
1949: The
divorce of David O. Selznick and Irene Mayer Selznick was finalized today.
1949: During a
debate in the House of Commons, Winston Churchill, leader of the Opposition,
attacked Foreign Minister Bevin for his “astounding mishandling of the
Palestine problem” that could only be described as “gross and glaring.”
1950: It was
announced today that Representative Louis B. Heller has been named chairman of
the Brooklyn League of the American Magen David for Israel” succeeding
Municipal Court Justice Daniel Gutman.
1950: Colonel
Abdullah el Tel, the commander of King Abdullah’s Legion in Jerusalem during
the war in 1948, “split with King Abdullah and now favors the
internationalization of Jerusalem.”
1951(15th
of Shevat, 5711): For the first time during the Korean War, observance of Tu
B’Shevat.
1951(15th
of Shevat, 5711): Seventy-seven-year-old Jeanne Berth Maria Bloch, the Paris
born
daughter of
Gustave Ollendorff and Marie Virginie Joséphine Ollendorff and the wife of Maurice-Meyer
Bloch passed away today.
1952: “Israel
withdrew from all participation in the United Nations General Assembly today
"as an expression of grief and protest" against the hanging of two
Jews in Baghdad, Iraq.”
1953: The
Arthur Miller drama ''The Crucible'' opened on Broadway
1953: The
Jerusalem Post reported that East Germany had started probing the 'Jewish
descent' of its officials and public figures and that the National Zeitung, an
organ of the East German National Democratic Party, warned Jews that they would
be punished if they 'ally themselves with American warmongers.' In Moscow
the New Times accused Zionists of being the enemies of the Russian
people who sought world domination and claimed that the officials of the
American Joint Distribution Committee were 'the lackeys of American
imperialism.'
1954:
Physicist Albert Einstein wrote to physicist David Bohm who had left the United
States during the height of the McCarthy period and living in Brazil concerning
possible places for him to settle including Israel which he says “is
intellectually alive and interesting…”
1954(18th
of Shevat, 5714): Twenty-nine year old English painter Theodore Garman, known
simple as “Theo” passed away today.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/theodore-garman
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp59924/theodore-garman
1955(28th
of Tevet, 5715): Parashat Vaera
1955: “General
Sessions Judge Jonah J. Goldstein was honored tonight at the 35th
annual dinner of the Grand Street Boy’s Association at the Commodore Hotel” in
New York.
1957: Under
massive pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union, Israeli forces
withdrew from most of Sinai after the Sinai Campaign. The threat of economic
sanctions by the United States presented to great a threat for the Israelis not
to give ground. President Eisenhower and his Secretary of State, John
Foster Dulles, gave new life to President Nassar of Egypt. Nasser repaid
their support by tying the cause of the Arabs even more tightly to the Soviet
Bloc. The promises that the U.N. gave to effect the withdrawal were not
honored. And like all other dishonorable acts of peace, war would again
be the result.
1958: In St.
Louis, Goldie Hogan and her husband gave birth racquetball champion Marty
Hogan.
http://www.jewishsports.net/BioPages/MartyHogan.htm
1960: In a
Jewish comedic double header, Mort Sahl and Eddie Cantor who was making his
last television appearance appeared on NBC’s “The Future Lies Ahead.”
1961(5th
of Shevat, 5721): Seventy-six-year-old Lt. Gen. Samuel T. Lawton, the Peoria
born son of Elizabeth and Isaac Slawitsky and John Marshall Law School trained
attorney who “served om France with the 122nd Field Artillery which
saw combat duty in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne campaigns” passed away
today.” (Editor’s note – For some unexplainable reason some sources show his
death date at as January 29 which the reading of the NYT obit proves is erroneous.)
https://generals.dk/general/Lawton/Samuel_Tilden/USA.html
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1961/01/23/97652228.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1961: In its
review of Pamela Frankau’s Road Through the Woods, the New York Times wrote
that she “has written a tightly knit novel with fine characterizations and
moments of real beauty.”
1962: Three
days after its premiere in France “A View From The Bridge” the cinema version
of Arthur Miller’s play directed by Sidney Lumet and featuring Harvey Lembeck
and Morris Carnovsky was released in the United States today.
1963(26th
of Tevet, 5723): Eighty-nine-year-old Lily Montagu one of the first women to
take a leading role in the Reform Movement in the UK passed away today.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/montagu-lily
1964:
Eighty-seven year old NYU trained lawyer and federal judge Clarence G. Galston
the New York born son of“Sigmund and Linda Mainster Galston” who raised two
children with his wife “the former Estelle Elkus” passed away today.
1964(8th of Shevat, 5724): Marc Blitzstein, American
composer whose works included “Cradle Will Rock,” passed away at the age of 58.
http://www.marcblitzstein.com/pages/life/chapters/life02.htm
1967 (11th of
Shevat, 5727): Robert David Quixano Henriques passed away. Born in 1911,
he was a British writer, broadcaster and farmer. He gained modest renown for
two award-winning novels and two biographies of Jewish business tycoons,
published during the middle part of the 20th century. The following year, he
wrote 100 Hours to Suez, and it was around this time, in his late
forties, that Henriques began to take an active interest and pride in his
Jewish identity. He was won over by the Zionist cause, and made frequent trips
to Israel where he bought a small property. In the 1960s, Henriques wrote two
biographies. The first one charted the life and career of his wife's
grandfather Marcus Samuel, the great oil pioneer and leader of the Jewish
community, and the second one described the life of Sir Robert Waley-Cohen
1967: Simon
and Garfunkel performed live at Philharmonic Hall in the Lincoln Center, New
York City. The recording would not be released until July 16, 2002.
1969(3rd
of Shevat, 5729): Seventy-one-year-old Leon Fienberg, “a Ukrainian-born Jewish
American Yiddish poet, writer and journalist passed away today.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/feinberg-leon
1969:Michael
Sylberberg “a distinguished Jewish refugee from Poland reported at a symposium”
at Paris today “that the Warsaw regime’s anti-Semitic campaign was having its
most serious effects on assimilated Jews mostly staunch Communists, who never
expected it and were bewildered to find themselves ostracized.
1970(15th
of Shevat, 5730): Tu B’Shevat
1971(22nd
of Tevet, 5731): Eighty-year-old businessman Henry Guggenheim, the Long Branch,
NJ born son of Daniel and Florence Schloss Guggenheim and founder of Newsday
which “grew into the largest suburban daily newspaper in the United States who
married Alicia Brooks after divorcing Helen Rosenberg passed away.
1971(22nd
of Tevet, 5731): Eighty-four-year-old New York native and former police
commissioner of Hartford, CT Samuel H.L. Goldman, the father of four – Marvin,
Louis, Sylvia and Ruth – passed away today in Jerusalem.
1973:
President Lyndon B Johnson President passed way at his ranch in Stonewall,
Texas at the age of 64. One of LBJ’s closest advisors was Abe Fortas who
considered himself “a nominal Jew.” When LBJ nominated him to serve as a
Justice on the Supreme Court, Fortas, who was one of the few people who could
speak candidly to the tall Texan, told him that the Jews would not consider
this a Jewish nomination. As President, Lyndon Johnson had the courage (both
political and personal) and the skill to enact the 1964 Civil Rights Act and
the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He also enacted many measures such Head Start and
Medicare which had a great deal of support among Jewish voters. At the same
time, his support of the Viet Nam War cost him a lot of support among these
same Jewish voters. More to the point, he supported Israel in the Six Day War
of 1967. Among other things, he kept the Soviets from interfering on
behalf of their Arab clients and forced the Russians to quit threatening
Israel. Long after he had left the White House, The Associated Press published
more information about LBJ’s “personal and often emotional connection to
Israel” which is worth reading in its entirety.
Based on
newly released tapes of the president’s conversations, the news agency pointed
out that during the Johnson presidency (1963-1969) “the United States became
Israel's chief diplomatic ally and primary arms supplier.” LBJ is quoted in one
conversation, “"I sure as hell want to be careful and not run out on
little Israel." Further reports reveal the full extent of Johnson’s
actions on behalf of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Indeed, the
title of “Righteous Gentile” is certainly appropriate in the case of the Texan.
Most students of the Arab-Israeli conflict can identify Johnson as the
president during the 1967 war. But few know about LBJ’s actions to
rescue hundreds of endangered Jews 30 years earlier, actions that could have
thrown him out of Congress and into jail. The Texas congressman’s district had
only 400 Jews, but clearly the Johnson family’s Christian teachings had given
him a strong affinity for Jews and their return to the Holy Land. Five days
after taking office in 1937, LBJ broke with the “Dixiecrats” and supported an
immigration bill that would naturalize illegal aliens, mostly Jews from
Lithuania and Poland. In 1938, Johnson was told of a young Austrian Jewish
musician who was about to be deported from the United States. With an element
of subterfuge, LBJ sent him to the U.S. Consulate in Havana to obtain a
residency permit. Erich Leinsdorf, the world famous musician and conductor,
credited LBJ for saving his live. That same year, LBJ warned a Jewish friend
that European Jews faced annihilation. Somehow, Johnson provided him with a
pile of signed immigration papers that were used to get 42 Jews out of Warsaw.
But that wasn’t enough. According to historian, James M. Smallwood, Congressman
Johnson used legal and sometimes illegal methods to smuggle “hundreds of Jews
into Texas, using Galveston as the entry port. Enough money could buy false
passports and fake visas in Cuba, Mexico, and other Latin American countries. …
Johnson smuggled boatloads and planeloads of Jews into Texas. He hid them in
the Texas National Youth Administration…. Johnson saved at least four or five
hundred Jews, possibly more.” On June 4, 1945, Johnson visited the Dachau
concentration camp. According to historian Smallwood, Lady Bird later recalled
that “when her husband returned home, he was still shaken, stunned, terrorized,
and ‘bursting with an overpowering revulsion and incredulous horror at what he
had seen.’” As President, Johnson met with Israel’s Prime Minister Levi Eshkol
and undertook to replace the recalcitrant France as Israel’s principal arms
supplier, providing Patton tanks and Skyhawk jets and Phantom jets. Soviet
Premier Aleksei Kosygin once asked Johnson why the United States supported
Israel when there are 80 million Arabs and only three million Israelis.
“Because it is right,” responded the straight-shooting Texan.
1973: In a
move that would please a majority of Jewish women today in Roe v. Wade, the
Supreme Court ruled “that a woman’s right to choose an abortion was protected
by the privacy rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution.”
1976: “The
Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry charged today that the new Soviet regulations
reportedly easing emigration procedures “are merely a smokescreen to cover the
new and very real campaign of harassment and terror against Russian Jews
seeking freedom.” (As reported by JTA)
1977(3rd
of Shevat, 5737): Parashat Vaera
1977(3rd
of Shevat, 5737): Eighty-six-year-old Abraham Nowak, the holder of degrees from
CCNY, Columbia University and JTS and WW I Army Chaplain who organized two
congregations in Cleveland before moving to Beth El in New Rochelle and was the
husband of Ann Segal with whom he had two sons – Wellville and Peter – passed
away today.
https://case.edu/ech/articles/n/nowak-abraham
1978: The
Jerusalem Post reported that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who a week
earlier instructed his delegation to break off the Israeli-Egyptian peace
negotiations held in Jerusalem, had now announced that he was leaving the door
open for renewed talks, but on certain conditions. He demanded that, before any
concrete peace negotiations may continue, Israel must agree to a total
withdrawal to the pre-1967 frontiers and recognize the Palestinian rights to
self-determination. The US sought a new format for political negotiations and
urged Israel to resume military talks held in Cairo and postponed by Premier
Menachem Begin. Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan warned that Sadat's conditions
would lead to a dead end and offered no opportunity for progress.
1979: Ali
Hassan Salameh, “the head of Force 17 and an operative of the Black September
Organization that carried out the 1972 Munich Massacre” was killed today when
“a remote-controlled car bomb” was detonated in Beirut.
1980(4th of
Shevat, 5740): Ninety-two-year-old German-born Israeli historian and an expert
in medieval Spanish Jewish history Yitzhak Baer passed away.
1981(17th
of Shevat, 5741): Sixty-five-year-old Lili P. Edelman, the educator who
translated Elie Wiesel's “A Beggar in Jerusalem” and ''One Generation After''
into English from the French passed away today.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/edelman-lily
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/27/obituaries/lily-p-edelman-writer-and-b-nai-b-rith-official.html
1981: A
revival production of “The Five O’Clock Girl” with music by Harry Ruby and
lyrics by Bert Kalmar opened at the Helen Hayes Theatre.
1982: “The
Moscow police dispersed a group that gathered for a Hebrew lesson at the
apartment of Irina Shchegoleva.”
1982: “Shoot
the Moon” with a script by Bo Goldman was released in the United States today.
1984(18th of
Shevat, 5744): Sixty-four-year-old Emmy Award winning producer Jerome Toobin,
the husband of Marlene Sanders and the husband of attorney and CNN analyst
Jeffrey Toobin, passed away today.
1984: The
New York Times features Paul Johnson’s review of The High Walls of
Jerusalem: A History of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British
Mandate for Palestine by Ronald Sanders.
1986: “Desert
Bloom” a movie set in post-WW II Las Vegas co-starring Ellen Barkin and Allen
Garfield was released in the United States today.
1988: The
police imposed a curfew tonight on A-Tur, an Arab neighborhood in East
Jerusalem, invoking special emergency powers in this city for the first time
since East Jerusalem was captured from Jordan in 1967.
1989:
Birthdate of Nick Simmons, “the son of Israeli-American musician Gene Simmons.”
1990(25th
of Tevet, 5750): Ninety-two “Russian American photographer” Roman Vishniac,
“best known for capturing on film the culture of Jews in Central and Eastern
Europe before the Holocaust” passed away today in New York City.
1991: El Al
Israel Airlines and Tower Air are still flying to Tel Aviv. Sheryl Stein, the
manager of public relations for El Al, said it was continuing daily service
from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York to Tel Aviv. She said
that the carrier had not reduced its schedule and that it had 17 flights
yesterday in and out of Tel Aviv to other parts of the world. In addition, she
said the airline was bringing in immigrants daily from Hungary and Romania.
1991: After a
Scud slammed into a two-story apartment building in a Tel Aviv suburb today,
260 Israelis were forced to move into hotels. Almost 1,000 Israelis, most of
whom live in Tel Aviv have already lost their homes because of attack by Iraqi
Scuds.
1993: Work was
completed today on “MY Sam Simon, the fourth vessel of the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society fleet, named after American television producer and writer
Sam Simon, who donated the money to purchase the vessel” which was to be used
to disrupt the activities of the Japanese whaling fleet.
1994 (10th of
Shevat, 5754): Irving B Kahn inventor of the teleprompter passed away at the
age of 76
1995(21st
of Shevat, 5755): In central Israel, two suicide bombers from the Gaza Strip
blew themselves-up at a military transit point killing 19 Israelis. This was
just one of the many acts of terrorism that took placed after Rabin and Arafat
shook hands on the White House lawn. Despite, them the Israelis would
make a variety of territorial concessions. The terror would continue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beit_Lid_suicide_bombing
1996(1st
of Shevat, 5756): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1996 (1st of
Shevat, 5756): Yisrael Eldad, member of the Stern Gang and leader of right wing
political groups after the creation of the state of Israel extremist
politician, died at the age of 85
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0006_0_05733.html
1996: When the
top awards in children's publishing were announced today, the Margaret A.
Edwards Award for Outstanding Literature for Young Adults went to Judy Blume in
recognition of lifetime achievement in the field.
1997 (14th of
Shevat, 5757): Irwin Levine, composer of “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” passed away at
the age of 58.
1998: “A Price
Above Rubies” directed and written by Boaz Yakin and co-starring Julianna
Margulies was shown for the first time at the Sundance Film Festival.
1999(5th
of Shevat, 5759): Eighty year old George L. Mosse, the Berlin born British
educated historian who began teaching at the University of Iowa before moving
to the University of Wisconsin where he made his mark on the academic world.
http://mosse.huji.ac.il/default.asp
http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n80-69015/
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/31/world/george-l-mosse-dies-at-80-authority-on-nazi-germany.html
1999: Steven
Grossman completed his chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee
2000(15th of
Shevat, 5760): Tu B'Shevat celebrated for the first time in the 21st
century.
2001: In talks
today, Israeli officials unexpectedly revived the idea of some form of joint or
international administration for the historic city center of Jerusalem and its
holy sites. This trial balloon was simultaneously punctured by the
Palestinians, who reiterated their demand for sovereignty over all Arab
districts and religious sites in East Jerusalem, and by the Israeli opposition,
which objected to any plan for limiting Israeli rule in the city.
2002(9th
of Shevat, 5762): A Palestinian gunman carried out a terrorist attack in
Jerusalem’s central shopping district, raking the area with semiautomatic
gunfire that killed two and wounded 20 before being shot dead by the police.
2002(9th
of Shevat, 5762): Ninety-six-year-old Stanley Marcus, the son of Minnie
Lichtenstein Marcus and Herbert Marcus, the co-founder along with his sister
Carrie and her husband Al Neiman founded Neiman Marcus who went from majoring
in English at Harvard to being the second-generation leader of the Dallas store
that was synonymous in the minds of many with opulence and class passed away
today.
2003: “Across
Israel's northern border, Hezbollah guerrillas fired mortar rounds and antitank
rockets at Israeli Army positions, prompting return fire from tanks, artillery
and helicopters, as well as stern warnings from Israeli officials.
2004: Sicor
becomes the wholly owned subsidiary of Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.
2004: Two
Israeli cabinet ministers said today that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would
have to resign if a bribery investigation eventually leads to his indictment.
2004: “A Match
Made In Heaven” published today traces the relationship of sculptor Ilan
Ashkenazi and his second wife Tirza Moussaieff, the sister of Shlomo
Moussaieff.
http://www.haaretz.com/a-match-made-in-heaven-1.111755
2005: The
Washington Post published an op-ed column by Samuel Pisar entitled “Will We
‘Never Forget’?” An international lawyer and author of Of Blood and
Hope, Pisar survived Auschwitz. Pisar expressed his concern
that as the survivors reach the autumn of their lives, the world has not
learned from the horrors of their experiences nor will they really remember
what happened in a meaningful manner.
2006: The
New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including Between You and Me: A Memoir
by Mike Wallace with Gary Paul, Maimonides by Sherwin Nuland, The
Poems of Charles Reanikoff: 1918-1975, edited by Seamus Cooney and Nicholas
Miraculous a biography of Nicholas Murray Butler. Regardless of how
history views him (and the picture is none too flattering) Butler earns low
marks in the American Jewish Experience. As the reviewer says of Butler,
“His most creative involvement with the undergraduate college seems to have
come in searching for ways to keeps its Jewish enrollment down. He considered
having applicants take physicals that would ‘find grounds to eliminate socially
unappealing Jews smart enough to have passed the entrance examination,’ and
throughout the 1930's he funneled Jewish students into an affiliated two-year
college in Brooklyn. Its courses were "taught largely by junior faculty
members from Morningside Heights," and the dropout rate was enormous. When
it closed after 10 years, Butler at last gave up on ‘the Hebrew problem.’"
2006: The
New York Times reported on the “four founding mothers of a large chunk of
today’s Ashkenazi Jewish population” in an article entitled “Loy you, K2a2a,
Whoever You Are” by Amy Harmon, a “direct descendant” of one of these four
“bubbes”
2006: The S.
Daniel Abraham Israel Program hosted a career fair at the Renaissance Hotel in
Jerusalem to demonstrate how a Yeshiva University education can benefit them.
2007:
Representative Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor serving the U.S.
Congress moved “to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 52)
paying tribute to Reverend Waitstill Sharp and Martha Sharp for their
recognition by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance
Authority as Righteous Among the Nations for their heroic efforts to save Jews
during the Holocaust.”
2007: Stephen
Arnoff contended that the future of Jewish survival in the United States,
depended, in part on older leaders of the Jewish community paying attention to
the generation of young Jewish leaders who created projects like Hadar,
Storahtelling, Zeek, jewschool, Hazon, Jdub Records and similar Jewish
enterprises
2007: Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz agreed to appoint Major
General (Res.) Gabi Ashkenazi as the 19th Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense
Forces.
2008(15th
of Shevat, 5768): Tu B’Shevat
2008 (15th of
Shevat, 5768): Miles Lerman, the Nazi Camp survivor who helped found the U.S.
Holocaust Museum, passed away. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/obituaries/24lerman.html?_r=0
2009: The
International Astronomical Union named a crater on the moon after American
physiologist Joseph Erlanger.
2009: The
final five nominees for the Oscar for best documentary are scheduled to be
announced today. Among those being considered is, “Blessed Is the Match:
The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh”
2009: In
Germany the scheduled date for the nationwide release of Adam Resurrected
which follows the story of Adam Stein, a charismatic patient at an asylum for
Holocaust survivors in Israel, in 1961 starring Jeff Goldblum as Adam.
2009:
The Centro Primo Levi and the Yeshiva University Museum present a lecture by
Eva Forgacs on the life and work of István Farkas. István Farkas
(1887-1944), a modernist of the École de Paris, whose elusive landscapes
fascinated writers and painters alike, returned in 1932 to his native Hungary
where his mysterious works ultimately presaged his own death at Auschwitz.
2010(7th
of Shevat, 5770): One-hundred-two year old pro-choice champion Ruth Proskauer
who had followed in the social activist footsteps of her parents passed away
today.(As reported by Margalit Fox)
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/nyregion/27smith.html
2010:
“Catfish,” a documentary about social interaction on the web and not about the
traif fish co-directed and co-produced by Ariel Schulman who co-starred in the
film along with Nev Schulman premiered today at the Sundance film festival.
2010:
Mishkenot Sha'ananim is scheduled to present a second round of "A Shortcut
In Time," part of series of lectures delivered over the course of seven
months by the Weizmann Institute's Professor Illem Gross that place “scientists
ranging from Isaac Newton to Stephen Hawking under the microscope.”
2010: The 10th
annual Atlanta Jewish Festival is scheduled to present a screening of “Where I
Stand: The Hank Greenspun Story,” a “chronicle of the endlessly surprising life
of the charismatic newspaperman, Vegas icon and real-life Zelig.
2011: “The
Strange Things About the Johnsons” with a screenplay by director Ari Aster
premiered today at the Slamdance Film Festival.
2011: The New
York Premiere of “Miss You”(Te extraño) is scheduled to take place at The New
York Jewish Film Festival. The film depicts the travail of a middle-class
Jewish Argentinean family and Javier, a 15-year-old boy who left his home
because of the political situation in 1970s Argentina.
2011: Jewish
Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to present the Sixth Annual
Comedy Night featuring Dan Adhoot
2011(17th
of Shevat, 5771): Frank Lieberman passed away. A native of New York,
Lieberman moved to Los Angeles as a teenager. He parlayed his work as an
entertainment reporter for the Herald-Examiner into a public relations
career where he developed a special relationship with Elvis Presley and
represented such show business notables as Sammy Davis, Jr., Phyllis Diller and
Tony Orlando.
2011: The 2011
Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival is scheduled to present “In Rehearsal – a one
woman show by Alison Vodnoy.”
2011(17th of
Shevat, 5771): Ninety-one-year-old Tullia Zevi, a pillar of Italy's Jewish
community and an ardent anti-fascist who spent the war years in exile in
Switzerland, France and the U.S. passed away today.
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=204793
2012: Awkward
Moment Productions is scheduled to present “Circumference” written and
performed by Amy Salloway at the Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival.
2012: 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 “The Balfour Declaration: the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict”
by Jonathan Schneer.
2012: YIVO is
scheduled to present the world premiere of “When Our Bubbas and Zeydas Were
Young.”
2012: Arizona
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) will resign from Congress this week, she announced
in a video message posted today
2012: Knesset
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Shaul Mofaz (Kadima) threatened
today to hold up the defense budget until the issue of soldiers traveling on
trains is resolved. Today, a new arrangement between the IDF and Israel
Railways came into effect, eliminating free rides on most trains between the
hours of 6 and 9 a.m. on Sundays. The arrangement is expected to save the IDF
money and to reduce overcrowding during those hours. Mofaz criticized the new
arrangement, saying it is unacceptable to turn IDF soldiers into
"second-class" commuters in order to save money, speaking with Israel
Radio.
2012: Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu today called on Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein
to open an investigation into Jerusalem Mufti Sheikh Muhammad Hussein for
incitement after he was recorded quoting a passage by the Islamic prophet
Muhammad in the Hadith that calls for the killing of Jews..
2012: A day after announcing her
intention to resign from Congress, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) completed
the "Congress on Your Corner" event that was cut short more than a
year ago when a gunman opened fire on her and her constituents in a Tucson
parking lot. She and a dozen others were injured in the attack; six people were
killed.
2013(11th of Shevat, 5773):
Ninety-one-year-old real estate mogul Sherman Cohen passed away. (As reported
by Charles V. Bagli)
2013: As Israelis are scheduled to vote
in today’s election, “the Association of Craft and Industry in Israel is
calling for the abolition of the Election Day work holiday, saying it will cost
small industrial businesses at least NIS 100 million.”
2013: The JCCNV is scheduled to take
representative to Richmond, VA as part of Virginia Jewish Advocacy Day.
2013: Meir Ariel’s Election Tour is
scheduled to be shown as part of “Election Day at the Cinematheque.”
2013: Regardless of the outcome of the
elections, the big winners today were the country's malls, restaurants,
beaches, and parks – with nearly all filled to capacity as Israelis took
advantage of a rare weekday off, not connected to a religious celebration, with
stores, businesses, and places of entertainment wide open.
2013: In the elections that were held
today the Jewish Home won 12 seats
2013: An unlicensed therapist who is a
respected member of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn was
sentenced today to 103 years in prison for repeatedly sexually abusing a young
woman, beginning the attacks when she was 12.
2014: The next
SermonSlam is scheduled to be held at Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, New
York
2014: Israel’s
Energy and Water Resources Minister Silvan Shalom is scheduled to end his trip
to the United Arab Emirates where he has been attending the World Future Energy
Summit. (As reported by Stuart Winer)
2014: “Up The
Wrong Tree” and “Ukraine Brides: 13 Years Later” are scheduled to be shown at
the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2014(21st
of Shevat, 5774): Ninety-five-year-old Mary Gordon Shulman who had been married
to author Max Shulman, the creator of Dobie Gillis, for 24 years until his
death in 1988 passed away today.
2014(21st
of Shevat, 5774): Centenarian Psychoanalyst Martin S. Bergmann passed away
today.
2014:
“Broad City,” “an American television sitcom created by and starring Ilana
Glazer and Abbi Jacobson” “premiered today on Comedy Central.
2014: Adina
Bar-Shalom, whose father Rabbi Ovadia Yosef was the Shas spiritual leader for
over three decades until his death in November 2013, is putting out feelers to
see how much support she would have in a bid to replace President Shimon Peres
when his term in office ends this year, Maariv reported today. (As
reported by Stuart Winer)
2014: “The
Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit
Hanoun early this morning, killing two men, said by Israel to be terrorists
behind some of the missile attacks on southern Israeli towns and communities.
The air force said it carried out the strike to stop an imminent attack.”
2014: Canadian
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is scheduled “to tour Christian sites in Israel’s
north before attending a ceremony at Tel Aviv University, where he will receive
an honorary doctorate.” (As reported by Spencer Ho)
2015: In Cedar
Rapids, Brit Milah ceremony for Amasai Burt, son of Rodney and Queen
Burt is scheduled to take place this afternoon.
2015(2nd
of Shevat, 5775): Eighty-six-year-old children’s television advocate Peggy
Charren passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
2015: “Federal
authorities are expected to arrest New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon
Silver toda on charges of corruption.”
2015: “The
Zionist Idea” and “Above and Beyond” are scheduled to be shown at the New York
Jewish Film Festival.
2016(12th
of Shevat, 5776) Ninety-one-year-old Eugene Borowitz one of the most
influential Reform Rabbis of the 20th century passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/us/rabbi-eugene-b-borowitz-reform-leader-dies-at-91.html
2016(12th
of Shevat, 5776): Eighty-three-year-old Manhattan bookstore owner Arnold
Greenberg passed away today.
2016: In
Pennsylvania, “a three-judge panel in superior court dismiss some of the more
serious criminal charges, including perjury, obstruction and conspiracy against
Graham Spanier the former President of Penn State who still faces other charges
stemming from his “handling of the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal.”
2016: David
Blatt was fired by the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA.
2016: “Happy
Ends” featuring “pivotal moments from 10 films presented at previous editions
of the New York Jewish Film Festival” is scheduled to be shown at the 2016 New
York Jewish Film Festival.
2016: In Cedar
Rapids, IA, Hadassah is scheduled to host the Tu B’Shvat Seder at Temple Judah.
2017(24th
of Tevet, 5777): On the Jewish calendar yahrzeits of Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer
Dessler, “an influential philosopher and dean of students at the Ponovezh
Yehsiva and Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady and the author the Tanya.
2017(24th
of Tevet, 5777): Eighty-eight-year-old “translator and Soviet dissident” Lev
Navrozov who in more than one publication claimed that while serving as
Israel’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Golda Meir “had given Stalin a list of
Russian Jews who would fight for Israel” and who then “disappeared at the hands
of Stalin’s organs of state security” passed away today.
2017: ““Run
for Mem,” a non-competitive road race past sites related to the history of the
Holocaust in Rome, took place today. (As reported by Rossella TercatinP
2017: The New York Times featured reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Audacity:
How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail
by Jonathan Chait, Class by Lucinda Rosenfeld and The Afterlife of
Stars by Joseph Kertes.
2017: Jewish
philanthropist Robert K. Kraft’s New England Patriots are scheduled to take the
field this afternoon in quest of yet another AFC Championship which will lead
them to the Super Bowl.
2017: In
Atlanta, the Breman Museum is scheduled to host “The Carole King Songbook with
Liz Callaway” which is part of the 2017 Molly Blank Concert Series that
celebrates Jewish contributions to music.
2017: “Who’s
Gonna Love Me Now?” is scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film
Festival.
2017: YIVO
Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to host Brad Hill, David Fishman,
Zachary Baker and Jeffrey Veidlinger who “will discuss the historical
importance and context of the Strashun library, its survival during WWII, and
its transition to YIVO. Lyudmila Sholokhova and Roberta Newman from YIVO and
Lara Lempert from the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania will
discuss YIVO’s landmark efforts to steward the Strashun library into the 21st
century and beyond.
2018: “The
Alienist” a TNT period television series co-starring Matthew Louis Shear
premiered today.
2018: Pianist
Roman Rabinovich and violinist Asi Matathias are scheduled to join the Jupiter
Symphony Chamber Players in “Poles Apart.”
2018: The Wine
Temple on Emek Raim is scheduled to host “wine flight” featuring beverages made
from the Syrah, “the main gape variety of the Rhone region in southeastern
France.”
2018:
Singer/Songwriter Nathan Goshen is scheduled to perform this evening at Zappa,
one of “Jerusalem’s favorite restaurant/bar concert venues.”
2018: JW3 is
scheduled to host a screening of an “Act of Defiance” in London.
2018: “Humor
Me” is scheduled to be shown this evening at the Washington Jewish Film
Festival.
2019: “A Fortunate Man” is scheduled to be shown
this evening making it the final film to be shown at the 2019 New York Jewish
Film Festival.
2019: In the
UK, the Oxford Jewish Chaplaincy is scheduled to host a dinner followed by a
“Mindfullnes Taster Session” “facilitated by Gidon Fineman who trained at The
Oxford Centre for Mindfulness.”
2019(16th
of Shevat, 5779): Eighty-four-year-old CCNY and Columbia educated historian
Leonard Dinnerstein, the New York born son of Abraham and Lillian (Kubrick)
Dinnerstein, whose thesis “The Leo Frank Case” and Anti-Semitism in America established
him as an expert on the topic passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/obituaries/leonard-dinnerstein-84-dies.html
2019(16th
of Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit Rabbi Shalom Mordechai
Shwadron.
http://www.aish.com/dijh/Shevat_16.html
2020: Opening
statements are scheduled to begin today in the case of Harvey Weinstein who “is
charged with five sex crimes including rape and sexual assault” and who has
pleaded not guilty while denying all the charges concerning “non-consensual
sex.”
2020: “God of
the Piano” and “The Birch Tree Meadow” are scheduled to be shown at the New
York Jewish Film Festival.
2020:
Following yesterday’s capture of Arab terrorists “in a wooded area near Kibbutz
Kissfum” Israelis are left to wonder if this infiltration is part of a wider
plot connected to recent rocket firings and the launching of incendiary
balloons aimed at Jerusalem.
2020: In San Francisco, the Jewish Community
Library is scheduled to host “How Yiddish Changed America and How America
Changed Yiddish” during which “Professor-author Ilan Stavans talks about an
upcoming anthology he co-edited, exploring the rich interplay of Yiddish and
American culture (including Latin American culture).”
2020:
The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host “Channeling the
Masters” with Hershey Felder during which he will discuss some of the composers
whom “he has vividly brought to life” including Irving Berlin, George Gershwin,
Leonard Bernstein, Richard Wagner and Frederick Chopin.
https://www.eightyeightentertainment.com/
2021: Rabbi Michael Lezak of GLIDE,Judy
Young, Executive Director, UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women’s
Health, Isoke Femi, GLIDE’s Maven of Transformative Learning in the Center for
Social Justice, and special guest San Francisco Mayor London Breed are
scheduled to discuss via Zoom “Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation at Home.”
2021: Based on data released yesterday, the threat of
COVID remains real since 220 Israelis have died since the beginning of the
week.
2021: As part of Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration, the
UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to begin screenings of “Persian Lessons,”
a “film inspired by true events follows a young Jewish man who pretends to be
Iranian to avoid being executed in a concentration camp.”
2021: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled
to host “Shabbat Under the Stars,” an in-person worship weather dependent
experience in the congregations parking lot.
2021: In Pepper Pike, OH, B’nai Jeshurun is scheduled to
greet Shabbat with a “Kinder Shabbat” designed for “young families” and a
Kabbalat Shabbat services featuring the Zamir Children’s Choir.
2022: Temple Beth Israel, in Waltham is scheduled to host
“Lift Every Voice Shabbat “ during which Rabbi David will deliver “a dvar Torah
that lits up one or more voices from a marginalized group with the Jewish
community.”
2022: The Jewish Film Series at Congregation Beth Am in
Los Altos Hill, CA is scheduled to host a screening and discussion of “Til
Kingdom Come,” a 76-minute, 2020 documentary by Israeli Maya Zinshtein that
examines the s alliance between Trump-supporting evangelicals and Israel’s
right-wing factions.”
2022: In Columbus, OH, Congregation Tifereth Israel after
Shabbat services, Officer Tom Burton of the Columbus Police Department will be
joining the congregation to conduct a review with members of the congregation
on how to exit the sanctuary safely in the unlikely event of an active shooter
and “for those who are unable to join us this Shabbat for whatever reason,
Officer Burton’s presentation will be livestreamed as well.
2022: The New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to
host screenings of “Parallel Mothers” and “The Heiresses.”
2022: The Miami Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host
a screening of “Imordechai.”
https://miamijewishfilmfestival.org/events/imordecai-encore
2022: Based on previously published reports, as Israelis
observe Shabbat they are confronted with the rise in three numbers nobody
wanted to see – “ a surge in the number of seriously ill patients suffering
from the complications of COVID-19”, a surge in prices and a surge in the
poverty rate.
2022(20th of Shevat, 5782): Parashat Yitro
2023: The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County NJ is
scheduled to host the shoring of the comedy Dough at the museum and online.
2023: In New Orleans, the Museum of Southern Jewish
Experience is scheduled to host a
family-friendly event, during which we’ll enjoy a reading of The Little Book of
King Cake with author Matt Haines, then decorate mini King Cake Challahs in
Mardi Gras-colored icing, along with renowned local baker Serena Deutch
2023: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to
present a lecture by Alan Niku on “Warriors and Mystics: Notable figures in
Iranian Jewish History.”
2023: Congregation Beth David is scheduled to present
“Dream to Reality: The Story of the Ehthiopian Community In Israel during which
Oshra Friedman will discuss her personal story.
2023: FeMor Productions is scheduled to launch “iMordecai”
starring Judd Hirsch at the South Florida Lounge.
2023:
The National Library of Israel is scheduled to present a lecture by Israeli
poet Admiel Kosman on “Freud and Buber Read the Talmud Together.”
2023:
The New York Times published reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or
of special interest to Jewish readers including Ms. Demeanor, a novel by
Elinor Lipman.2024: Ilana Benson, YU Museum Director of Museum Education, is
scheduled to conduct a guided tour of The Golden Path: Maimonides Across Eight
Centuries, illuminating the life and impact of the multifaceted luminary and
great Jewish sage across continents and cultures through rare manuscripts and
books.
2024:
The CJP Teen Education and Engagement Network is scheduled to present
“Understanding Antisemitism: Histories and Contexts.”
2024: Chochmat HaLev, GatherBay, Base
Bay, Beth Jacob Congregation of Oakland, Congregation Netivot Shalom, Kehilla
Community Synagogue, Moishe House Rockridge, Oakland Hebrew Day School, Or
Shalom Jewish Community and Wilderness Torah are scheduled to present “Raza
Mystical Song Circle” which is “focused on prayer, niggun (mystical wordless
melodies) and voice-driven improvisational listening project.”
2024: “The Wiener Holocaust Library at
90,” an exhibition celebrating the organizations 90th anniversary is
scheduled to return today.
https://wienerholocaustlibrary.org/exhibition/the-wiener-holocaust-library-at-ninety/
2024: As January 22nd begins
in Israel, the Hamas held hostages begin day 108 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.)
