This Day, January 30, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L
January 30
1349(10th
of Adar, 5109): The Jews of Freilsburg Germany were massacred.
1592: Clement
VIII began his papacy during which he enacted numerous anti-Jews moving
including the issuance of Cum Saepe Accidere, a papal bull that “forbade
the Jew…
January 30
1349(10th
of Adar, 5109): The Jews of Freilsburg Germany were massacred.
1592: Clement
VIII began his papacy during which he enacted numerous anti-Jews moving
including the issuance of Cum Saepe Accidere, a papal bull that “forbade
the Jewish community of the Comtat Venaissin of Avignon, a papal enclave, to
sell new goods, putting them at an economic disadvantage” and Caeca et
Obdurata, a papal bull that “banned Jews from living in the Papal states
outside the cities of Rome, Ancona, and Avignon” which among other things had
the effect of expelling the Jews from Umbria and Bologna. Last but not least,
he issued Cum Hebraeorum militia a papal bull that “forbade the reading
of the Talmud.”
1648: Spain
and the United Netherlands sign The Treaty of Münster and Osnabrück marking the
end of the eighty yearlong Dutch revolt against Spanish rule. The treaty
guarantees the independence of the Protestant Netherlands from the rule of
Catholic Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. It means that the Jewish
community in the Netherlands, which includes many Sephardic refugees and
Marranos, will be able to grow and flourish.
1649: King
Charles I was beheaded. One of those who took part in the trial was Isaac
Dorislaus, the son of Dutch Reform minister who has been misidentified by some
as being Jews. There was a “converso community” living in England but the Jews
would not be formally re-admitted until after Oliver Cromwell came to power
following the King’s death.
1667: The
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceded Kiev, Smolensk, and left-bank Ukraine to
the Tsardom of Russia in the Treaty of Andrusovo. According “to the
treaty...arranged with John the Jews, who then lived in the towns and districts
that became Russian territory, were permitted to remain "on the side of
the Russian czar," under Russian rule, if they did not choose to remain
under Polish rule. Jewish wives of Greek Orthodox Russians were permitted to
remain with their husbands without being forced to change their religion.
1723: Ester
Alvares and Bordeaux native Daniel Nones gave birth to Raphael Nones.
1764:
Philadelphia native Rebecca Judah and Isaac Hays gave birth to Samuel Hays, the
husband of Richea Gratz with whom he ten children.
1766:
Birthdate of Judith Baierthaler, the daughter of Abraham Baierthaler and wife
of Samuel S. Strauss with whom she had five children
1767(30th
of Shevat, 5527): Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1767:
Birthdate of German explorer Ulrich Jasper Seetzen who was one of the early
European explorers of Jordan, Palestine and Sinai Peninsula whose writings were
published by the British Palestine Association whose members sought “to promote
the study of the geography, natural history, antiquities and anthropology of
Palestine and the surrounding areas, "with a view to the illustration of
the Holy Writings.”
1770: In
England Rabbi David Segal and his wife gave birth to Aaron Levy (Aaron ben
David Segal Levi)
1771(15th
of Shevat, 5531): Tu B’Shevat
1790(15th
of Shevat, 5550): Shabbat Shirah; Tu B’Shevat observed on the same day that
Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, who reportedly was of Jewish
parentage wrote to Otho Williams “informing him of regulations on payment of
invalid pensions.”
1795:
Birthdate of Muenster, Germany native Rosetta Nathan Eisendrath, the daughter
of Nathan Baruch Eisendrath and wife of Elias Levi Rosenheim with whom she had
seven children.
1805: Maria
Magnus married Emanuel Isaacs today at the Great Synagogue in London
1808: In
London, Sam Elias, the professional boxer known as Dutch Sam, and his wife gave
birth to Young Dutch Sam who followed in his father footsteps and became “a
welterweight champion in the 1820’s.”
https://www.jewishsports.net/BioPages/Samuel-Evans.htm
https://www.lookandlearn.com/history-images/XE222137/Samuel-Evans-Young-Dutch-Sam
1805: Emmanuel
Isaacs married Maria Magnus at the Great Synagogue today.
1807: Sir
Robert Grant was “called to the bar” and began the practice of law. This was
but one step on the ladder that led to Grant’s successful career as a member of
the House of Commons. Grant was not Jewish. Robert Grant was a
strenuous advocate for the removal of the disabilities of the Jews, and twice
carried bills on the subject through the House of Commons. They were, however,
rejected in the Upper House, which did not yield on the question until 1858,
twenty years after Grant’s death.
1811(5th
of Shevat, 5571): Twenty-year old Sarah Isaacsm the daughter o Abraham Isaacs,
Jr. and the wife of Abraham L.Phillips who she had married in 1810 passed away
today in New York.
1817: Nine
days after he had passed away, Israel Israel, the husband of Polly Israel and
father of Henrietta and Harriet Israel, was buried today.
1817(13th of
Shevat): Rabbi Yom Tov Netel, author of Tehor Ra’ayonim passed away
http://thefoundationstone.org/en/bible/161-portion-of-the-week/2650-tehor-raayonim-beshalach.html
1823:
Birthdate of Ida Warburg the future wife of Eduard Wolf.
1818: Brussels
native Sara Rebecca Daniels and Solomon Jones gave birth to Alexander Jones.
1825: Isaac
Barnett married Sarah Joseph today at the Great Synagogue.
1827:
“L’artisan” (The Craftsman) “an opéra comique by Fromental Halévy, was staged
at the Opéra-Comique, in Paris
1831: In Paris
Edmond Rochefort and his wife gave birth to Victor Henri Rochefort allied
himself with anti-Semite Edouard Drumont and the infamous Hubert-Joseph Henry
during the campaign to convict Dreyfus and then to destroy as much of the
Jewish community as possible.
1834: In
Elllerstadt, Germany, Salomon Weil, a local merchant and the former Helena Lea
Meyer gave birth to Abraham Weil who served “as a royal Bavarian tax
collector.”
1835: In
London, Frances Cohen and Joel Benjamin gave birth to Rachel Benjamin.
1836: At
Vinnitza, in the government of Podolia, banker Samson Bernstein and his wife
gave birth to “Polish bibliophile” and author Ignacy Berncy, the husband of
Eliza von Mises who moved to Warsaw and was responsible for the founding of a
library at the Great Synagogue at Warsaw.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3141-bernstein-ignacy
1839(15th
of Shevat, 5599): Tu B’Shevat
1839: In
Charleston, SC, Jacob Levin of Columbia, SC married Ann Sampson, “the eldest
daughter of the late Samuel Sampson.”
1842: Solomon
Nathan married Hannah Abrahams at the Great Synagogue today
1842(19th
of Shevat, 5602): Sixty-five year old Branca Brendel Bernisse Hartog Kann the
daughter of Jacob Hirsch Pinto and Levia Leonora Liebe Pinto and the wife of
Hirschel Eliazer Kann passed away today in Nederland.
1846: In
Richmond, VA Catherine de Castrol and Jacob Ezekiel gave birth to Henry Clay
Ezekiel, the husband of Jessie Myers who served in the Civil War and settled in
Cincinnati where he was a merchant and auctioneer.
1846: Two days
after he had passed away, 56 year old Abraham Levy was buried today at the
“Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”
1852: The
horribly mutilated body of Jacob Lehman was found today in the Delaware River.
Lehman was the son of Aaron Lehman, a German Jewish peddler living in
Philadelphia. When last seen, Jacob had in his possession $200 worth of
watches, jewelry and other items that constituted most of his father's
inventory.
1852: A jury
in Philadelphia rendered the following verdict: "That the lad Jacob Lehman
came to his death at the hand or hands of some person or person to the Jury
unknown." Lehman was the son of a German Jewish peddler whose
gruesomely dismembered body had been found floating in the Delaware River
1853: In
Liverpool, “German Jewish parents gave birth to Matilda Beatrice Samuel, who
became Matilda Beatrice de Mille when she defied her family by marrying Christian
actor Henry DeMille with whom she had two famous movie-making son Cecil B. and
William C. DeMille and a daughter Agnes who after her husband’s death gained
fame as a playwright, movie script writer and a developer of talent in the
early days of the movie industry.
1854(1st of
Shevat, 5614): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1854: Seventy-four-year-old
Anglican clergyman John Oxlee whose studies of rabbinical and Hebrew literature
led to “conclusions at odds with both Christianity and Judaism” and who was the
author the three volume The Christina Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation
contended that “the concept of the trinity could be found in the Talmud” passed
away today.
1854: In
Kozim, Prussia Raphael Tuck and the former Ernestine Lissner, the daughter of
David Lissner gave birth to Sir Adolph Tuck, the husband of Jeanetta Flatau and
father of Sir William Gladys, Sybil, Desmond and Mariel Tuck, the Chairman of
the Board of Raphael Tuck and Sons, the firm best known for introducing the
standard sized picture post card who “was created a baronet in 1910.
1854: In Riga,
Eleazar Frommer and his wife gave birth to Jacob Frommer the Rabbi of
Congregation Bikur Cholim Bnay Abraham, New Haven, CT.
1855: Henry
Fitzroy, the husband of Hannah Rothschild and the son-in-law of Nathan Mayer
Rothschild completed his term as Under-Secretary of State for the Home
Department.
1856(23rd
of Shevat, 5616): Fifty-seven-year-old Nikolsburg, Moravia, native and
disciple of Mordecai Benet, Rabbi
Solomon Quetsch who “succeeded Samson Raphael Hirsch” as the rabbi at
Nikolsburg passed at today.
1857: The will
of Marcus Cone was offered for probate today. Included in the will were
instructions for establishing Cone's German Human Benevolent Society of New
York, Cone's German Human Benevolent Society of Syracuse and Cone's German
Human Benevolent Society of Albersweiller, the Germany city in which he was
born. Cone wanted to establish the two societies in the United States
because neither of these cities had any organized way to provide aid for their
indigent Jewish citizens.
1860: It was
reported today that "In England, astonishment is expressed” that Emperor
Napoleon has not appointed the Duc de Persigny to the Foreign Ministry.
Unbeknown to the public M de Persigny will not join the cabinet because he
refuses to serve with Achille Fould, the Minister of State. M Fould is a
favorite of the Empress who “absolutely clings” to him “as the only man
competent to” serve as “Minister of State and of the Household of the Emperor.”
Furthermore, M Fould is Jewish, a millionaire and is connected to “other rich
Jews” through his banking connections. (“Nearly all the millionaires of Paris
at this moment are Jews.”) The Emperor is reportedly “afraid to offend so
important” a component needed to ensure the stability of his government.
“There are people malicious enough to suggest that the Empress' wish in the
matter goes for very little, however, and that she is made to bear the blame
because that is more convenient in these personal matters than a reason of
State.”
1861: In
Gollantsch, Germany, Meyer Rosentreter and his wife gave birth to David
Rosentreter, the President of the Washington Bank National of St. Louis who was
the first treasurer of the St. Louis Jewish Hospital association and the
founder of the Jewish Farmers’ Colony in Washington County, MO.
1862: In
Breslau, Silesia, Helene von Heimburg, a former opera singer, and the conductor
Leopold Damrosch who were Lutherans gave birth to Walter Damrosch, the composer
and conductor who played a key role in the founding of Carnegie Hall and whose
paternal grandparents were Jewish. (A trip to the baptismal fountain was an
easy way that many 18th 19th century Jews thought would
lead to acceptance – a thought that was proved so wrong in the 20th
century.)
1863: In Philadelphia,
Pauline Kayser and David Allman gave birth wallpaper manufacturer Herbert David
Allman, the husband of Mildred Carvahlo Nunez and the President of the National
Farm School.
https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Unique_Institution.html?id=7SgXAAAAIAAJ
1863(10th
of Shevat, 5623): Phineas Mendel Heilprin passed away today in Washington,
D.C. Born at Lublin in 1801, he moved to Hungary in 1842 and then left in
1848 when the revolutionary movement failed. He arrived in the United
States where he gained a reputation as a scholar and author. His son
Michael, who was born in 1823 came to the United States after the failure of
the Kossuth led revolution. On the eve of the Civil War, he refuted Rabbi
Raphall’s position on slavery in the United States describing it as being
immoral and contrary to the teachings of Judaism. He continued to espouse
liberal cause until his death in 1888.
1863: In
Philadelphia, PA, Polish born “painter, lithographer, draftsman and etcher” Max
Rosenthal and Helene Caroline Rosenthal gave birth to Albert Rosenthal the
American artist who was the husband of Henryetta Rosenthal.
http://www.artistsandart.org/2010/05/albert-rosenthal-1863-1939-american.html
1863: In
Warsaw, Talmud scholar Marcus Jastrow and his wife gave birth to American
psychologist Joseph Jastrow.
http://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2012/10/americas-first-pop-psychologist.html
1864: In New York,
Nannie Bayer and Ludwig A. Freund gave birth to the University of Heidelberg
trained attorney Ernst Freund, the holder of Ph.D. in political science from
Columbia who taught political science at the University of Chicago before
becoming a law professor whom Justice Felix Frankfurter “described as one of
the most distinguished all legal scholars in the whole history of the legal
professoriate.”
https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.FREUND
1865:
Philadelphian Morris Schlesinger began serving as Adjutant of the 210th
Regiment.
1865(3rd
of Shevat, 5625): Sixty-two-year-old Elizabeth Holtz, the daughter of Margaret
and John Gettinger passed away today after which she was buried at the Fountain
Cemetery in Fostoria, OH,
1867: Two days
after he had passed away, 38-year-old Rosetta (Benjamin) Joseph, the wife of
Raphael Joseph and the mother of Sarah, Mark and Elizabeth Joseph was buried
today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”
1867(24th
of Shevat, 5627): In Bristol, UK, Joseph Abraham the London born son of Moses
Abraham and the brother of John Abraham with whom he worked as a wine merchant
and who served as both the President of the Bristol Hebrew Congregation and
Mayor of Bristol passed away today.
1868: In
Middlesex, Alice and Simon Cantor gave birth to Florence Caroline Cantor.
1870:
Birthdate of Amsterdam native Moses Alvares Vega the husband of Sara Teresa
Ameringen and the father of Abraham Moses Alvares Vega.
1871:
Birthdate of Pressburg Yeshiva graduate Aaron Tanzer, the holder of a Ph.D.
from the University of Berlin and the “chief rabbi of Tyrol and Vorarlberg who
served as Jewish Chaplain on the Eastern Front with the German Army during WW
I.
1872:
Birthdate of Eduard Bloch the native of Frauenberg who “until 1907 was the
physician of Adolf Hitler’s family.”
1873(2nd
of Shevat, 5633): “French shipbuilder and philanthropist Jacques Isaac Altaras,
a native of Aleppo who tried to help settle Russian Jews in Algeria and who
“founded a school for Jewish children at Marseilles, passed away today.
1874: Nine
days after he had passed away in Nice, France, Daniel Joseph Jaffe, the wife of
Friederike Jaffe with whom he had had four children including Sir Otto Jaffe,
was buried today at the Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern Ireland.
1875: The
London Punch has a cartoon of Disraeli shaking hands with Gladstone and
saying: "Sorry to lose you. I began with books; you’re ending with them.
Perhaps you're the wiser of the two." Disraeli is Benjamin Disraeli the
English Prime Minister who began as an author. Gladstone was his
political opponent who held the post of Prime Minister.]
1876: It was
reported today that Jews had joined with Gentiles to raise twelve thousand
dollars for the Woman’s Christian Home in St. Louis, MO.
1876: It was
reported today that a Jewish synagogue has been opened in Toronto, Canada.
1877: The
Downtown Hebrew Benevolent Society is scheduled to host a ball tonight as part
of the New York City 1876-1877 Ball Season.
1877: In
London, Julia Myers and Flavien Lexard gave birth to Louis Flavien Lexard, the
husband of Netta Lezard and the father of Julien Joseph Lezard.
1877: In
Chicago, Albert and Carrie (Stettheimer) Harzfeld gave birth to Northwestern
University trained attorney Jacob Albert Harzfeld who served as a Captain in
the U.S. Army during WW I in Russia and settled in Kansas City, MO where he was
a member of B’nai B’rith, Y.M.H.A. and B’nai Yedhuda Congregation.
http://www.vintagekansascity.com/menwhomadekc/harzfeld_jacob_albert.html
1878: It was
reported today Marcuse Woodle has been elected President of the Literary
Society of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and Samson Lachman has been
elected Vice President.
1879(6th
of Shevat, 5639): Fifty-nine-year-old Abraham Treunefels the son of Rachel and
Gershon Hirsch Treuenfels passed away today.
1880:
Birthdate of New York native and Boston attorney H. Murray Pakulski, a
“delegate to the Democratic National Convention from Massachusetts in 1908 and
1912 and the husband of Ada S. Feldman whom he married in 1904.
1882:
Birthdate of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United
States. Roosevelt’s New Deal created a variety of career opportunities
for a whole generation of newly college educated generation of Jewish
professionals. For several generations of Jews, FDR was a near-saint.
Starting in the 1970’s, questions were raised about Roosevelt’s failure to do
more to rescue the Jews of Europe. The problem with criticizing Roosevelt
is the need to come to grips with the level of anti-Semitism that existed
before, during and after the war. This reality played a part in
Roosevelt’s dealing with the furor of the Holocaust.
1883: In
Lübeck, Esther Adler, the daughter of the former rabbi of Lübeck, Rabbi
Alexander Sussmann Adler and Lübeck's then Rabbi Salomon Carlebach gave birth
to their eighth child Joseph Hirsch (Tzvi) Carlebach who married “his former
pupil Charlotte Preuss” in 1919 and despite his service in the German Army
during WW I was murdered at “the Nazi concentration camp Jungfernhof.”
1884: In
Hesse, Germany, Jakob and Ida Edelchen Baruch gave birth to Siegmund Salomon
Baruch, the husband of Helene Baruch and father of Inge Baruch and Ellen
Orenstein.
1885:
Twenty-one-year-old pianist Fannie Bloomfield-Zeiser, the Silesian born
daughter of Solomon and Bertha Blumenfield and future wife of Sigmund Zeisler
made “made her New York debut performing with the New York Orchestra.”
1886:
Birthdate of Bloomington native and 1908 graduate of the University of Indiana
Howard Kahn, the “crusading editor in St. Paul who “received the Cosmopolitan
International’s Distinguish Service Medal” for his work in ending the
corruption in that city”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/03/30/89785885.pdf
1886: In New
York City, Frederick and Matilda (Ottenreuter) Gilman Gutter gave birth to
Hunter College graduate Blanche Gutter, who became President of the National
Jewish Women’s Organization of Greater New York while married to her first
husband, David Goldfarb , the father of Stanley Goldfarb and who became Blanche
Gilman after she married paper manufacturer Isaac Gilman after which she
continued her works with “the New York chapter of the American Red Cross, the
Federation of Jewish Women's Organizations, the Federation of Jewish, Philanthropies,
the Federation of Temple Sisterhoods and the Women's Board of Temple Emanu‐El
while serving as chairman of the New York State Commission for the Blind.
(Editor’s Note: Gilman, VT which was
named after her husband was the home of George L. Fox, the Methodist minister
of “Four Chaplains” fame.)
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/gilman-blanche
1889: In Kiel,
Germany, Jewish businessman and communal leader Julius Frankenthal and his wife
Cäcilie, née Goldmann., gave birth to Käte Frankenthal who gained fame as a
psychiatrist and a socialist political leader who served on the Berlin City
Council and in the Prussian State Parliament during the days of the Weimar
Republic.
1889: Crown
Prince Rudolph who had previously promoted the career of his Jewish mistress
Eleconore Kolmann committed suicide today.
1890:
Birthdate of Lodz native Edward Jaloff, the Los Angeles resident who was an
office of the Federatio of Polish Jews of America.
http://www.yivoarchives.org/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=33383
https://archives.cjh.org/agents/corporate_entities/37470
1892: The SS
Massilia arrived in New York with “250 Russian Jews among her steerage
passengers.” After having been expelled from Russia they sailed to
Palestine where the Ottoman authorities issued orders banning them from landing
at Jaffa. A Jewish society then paid for their passage to America.
The Superintendent of immigration said that the refusal of the Turks to let
them land would not influence his decision as to whether or not they can enter
the United States.
1893:
Birthdate of Rabbi Yitzhak-Meir Levin a Haredi, politician, member of the
Kensett and one of 37 people to sign the Israeli declaration of independence.
1893: Charles
Barton’s production of “The Outsider,” a play whose villain is a Cockney Jew,
is scheduled to open at the Park Theatre in New York.
1893(13th
of Shevat, 5653): Fifty-one year old Albert Sidney Aloe, the Edinburgh,
Scotland born son of Nancy Hart Aloe and Sidney Zadoc Aloe the husband of
Isabella Prince Aloe with whom he raised four children – Sidney, Louis, David
and Alfred – who was the found A.S. Aloe, Company, opticians, passed away today
in St. Louis after which he was buried at New Mount Sinai Cemetery and
Mausoleum in Afton, MO.
1894: Isidor
Straus began serving “as a U.S. Congressman from New York’s 15th
congressional district” today.
1894(23rd
of Shevat, 5654): Eighty-six-year-old mathematician Moritz Abraham Stern, “the
first Jewish full professor at a German university” who worked with “Ferdinand
Eisenstein in formulating a proof of the quadratic reciprocity theorem” passed
away today.
1894: In
Pennsylvania, Isadore Engel and Emelia (Molly) Schwartz gave birth to Dorothy
Engel, the future wife of Herman Maltz who owned and operated Maltz Furniture
Store in Los Angeles.
1894: Samuel
Gompers and Henry Weisman are scheduled to address a mass meeting at Madison
Square Garden sponsored by the Trades and Labor Conference.
1894: When his
father passed away today Yissachar Dov Rokeach became the third Belzer Rebbe,
1894: Members
of the Hebrew Typographical Union No. 317 are among those who will join in a
march led by the E.H. Wade Post of the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic, whose
members were all Civil War veterans) which is scheduled to held this evening in
New York City to call attention to the plight of the unemployed during the
worst economic depression to hit the United States that started in 1893.
1895: Hermann
Gustloff and his wife gave birth to Wilhelm Gustloff, the found of the Swiss
Nazi Party whose murder was one of the excuses for Kristallnacht.
1895:
Birthdate of Vienna native William Isaiah Teichner who in 1913 came to the
United States where he studied engineering at Brooklyn Polytech and CCNY,
became “an engineer for the New York Board of Transpiration and the Transit
Authority” and “vice president of the Sea Gate Jewish Congress which raising
his son Dr. Victor J. Tecihner with “his wife Sonya.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/09/06/99794504.pdf
1896(15th
of Shevat, 5656): Tu B’Shevat
1896(15th
of Shevat, 5656): Thirty-two-year-old Blanched Langsdorf, the Pennsylvania born
daughter of Max and Henrietta Loeb and the wife of Isadore Langsdorf passed
away today in Philaldelphia.
1896: “What’s
In A Name” published today described campaign being conducted by the sister of
the late Abraham Hayward to disprove “the damnatory suspicion” that the two of
them have “some mixture of Jewish blood.” The efforts which have included
a letter writing campaign to the London Athenaeum are proof that there “is the
existence of …prejudices in the British Islands.”
1896: In
Philadelphia, President Oscar Straus is scheduled to preside over the opening
session of the 4th annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical
Society
1896: In New
York City, Lena Abrams and David Louis Frank gave birth to Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute trained engineer Jacob Frank, the resident of Newark, NJ amd the husband
of Bernice Brodsky who was “engaged in the design and construction of (numerous)
buildings” including “The Abitibi Pulp and Paper Mill Co., the St. Vincent’s Hospital
and the Newark, N.J. YMHA.
1897: It was
reported today that the Municipal Library at Leipzig has a manuscript entitled
“The Tree of Life” written by Jacob Ben Judah. The manuscript is date
1287 and “it contains the liturgy of the Jews in England and their hymns.
1897: Rabbi de
Sola Mendes is scheduled to deliver a sermon at West End Synagogue entitled
“The Truth About Jonah”
1897: Based on
information that first appeared in The American Hebrew, it was reported today
that Rodef Shalom has selected Dr. Rudolph Grossman to serve as it next Rabbi,
a move “that seems strange for an old conservative congregation” since he was
trained at the Hebrew Union College, the Cincinnati based school that trains
Reform rabbis.
1898: It was
reported today that police had to be called when a riot broke out following an
anti-Jewish speech by Lucien Millevoye in Bordeaux.
1898: The
Young Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Circle of the Auxiliary Society of the Hebrew
Sheltering Guardian Social Orphan Asylum held its regular monthly meeting this
afternoon.
1898: The
Hebrew Infant Asylum Association held its third annual meeting this afternoon.
1898: It was
reported today that next month’s Purim Ball sponsored by the Purim
Association will be held at the Waldorf-Astoria
1898: Three
days after he had passed away, 45 year old Isaac Feinstein was buried at the
“Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1898: Doctors
Richards, Greenfield, Taubenhaus and Singer were among those who addressed a
group of Jews in Brooklyn tonight as part of a campaign to gain support for the
construction of a Jewish hospital in Brooklyn
1899: Rabbi
Gustav Gottheil preached a sermon at Temple Emanu-El this morning in which he
praised the value and role of daily newspapers.
1899: “The
Jews in Palestine” published today provides a summary of the report submitted
in December of 1898 by U.S. Consul General B. Bie Randal in which he said that
“960 families, numbering 5,000 souls inhabit 22 Jewish colonies in Palestine
which have been founded and subsidized by Baron Edmond de Rothschild,
representing the Alliance Israelite Universelle..” Jacob’s Memorial (Zikhron Ya'akon) is the largest of the colonies with a population of 1,600
people. The colony includes a synagogue, a school with five teachers and
4,000 acres on which the settles are growing fruit, mostly grapes, honey and
mulberry leaves which is part of a plan to raise silkworms. (More 2014)
1899: It was
reported today that of the four bills introduced in the New York legislature
seeking a exemption from property tax, on was seeking such relief for the Young
Men’s Hebrew Association.
1899: Rabbi
Isaac C. Noot, principal of the Hebrew Free Schools delivered a lecture today
at Temple Beth-El on “Thou shalt not bear false witness against the neighbor.”
1899: In
Ilford, Essex, UK, Alexander and Jane Bernstein gave birth to media mogul
Sidney Lewis Bernstein who was elevated to the peerage as Baron Bernstein
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-lord-bernstein-1471201.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/07/obituaries/lord-bernstein-94-of-granada-television.html
1900:
Birthdate of Russian composer Isaak Iosifovich Dunayevsky.
1901:
Birthdate of London native and University of Manitoba graduate Lewis Samuel
Booke who settled in Winston Salem, NC where he raised Lewis Samuel Booke, Jr.
with his wife Anne.
1901:
Birthdate of Yalowa (Grundow), Russian Poland native Oscar Serlin best known as
the producer of Broadway hit “Life With Father.”
1902:
Birthdate of Philadelphia native Emanuel “Manny” Sacks, the executive at
Columbia Records and RCA Victor, who played an integral role in the careers of
such stars as Harry James and who played a major role in promoting the
acceptance of the LP record.
http://www.totaltheater.com/?q=node/487
1902: Three
days after he had passed away, Eleazer Tubb was buried today at the “Plashet
Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1902:
Birthdate of Nikolaus Pevsner, the native of Leipzig who became a noted British
expert on art and architecture.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/09/nikolaus-pevsner-life-harries-review
1903: Leopold
Greenberg, Herzl's representative in London, left for Cairo to carry on
political negotiations.
1903:
Birthdate of Sziget, Hungary native and Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Columbia
University John W. Gassner, the theatre critic, playwright and author whose
twenty books included Theatre at the Crossroads and Masters of the
Drama who was the husband of “the former of Mollie Kern” and whose academic
career led him to becoming the Sterling Professor of Playwriting and Dramatic
Literature at Yale University.
1903: In
Poland, Albert and Ernestine (Rayner) Caro gave birth to Marcus Rayner Caro who
in 1912 came to the U.S where he earned a B.S. in 1925 and a M.D. in 1927 and
pursued a career in dermatology while being married to Adeline B. Cohen with
whom he raised two children – Ethel and William.
1903:
Birthdate of London native Victor J. Cohen, who in 1907 came to the United
States where where he founded “two well-known real estate concerns” – Williams
and Company, Inc. and Williams Real Estate --, married the “former Rae Oelbaum”
with whom he ha son named Jerome and became “a Science Fellow of the Belfer
Graduate School of Yeshiva University.”
1904: Herzl
finished his visit to Italy.
1905: In
“Disraeli and Gladstone” published today, Freeman Morris compared the careers
of the two political rivals closing with the conclusion that “Mr. Gladstone
spoke” while Lord Beaconsfield (Disraeli) “did.”
1905: An
advertisement published today reminded readers that “the third and last
installment of Disraeli’s Unfinished Novel” which is “the literary sensation of
two continents will be available in next Sunday’s edition of The New York
Times.
1906: This
evening “the Choral Society for Ancient Hebrew Melodies” whose aims included
the restoration of congregational singing in synagogues using “old Hebrew
music” and the introduction of it “in the simpler forms in Sunday schools” is
scheduled to hold its regular meeting this evening at the Young Men’s Hebrew
Association
1906: In New
York, the School Board for District Number 39 heard further testimony in the
case of Frank F. Harding the Principal of P.S. 144, a school in a Jewish
neighborhood, who is charged with having attempted to proselytize the students
at last year’s Christmas entertainment.
1907(15th
of Shevat, 5667): Tu B’Shevat
1907(15th
of Shevat, 5667): Eighty-eight-year-old Joseph Hart Marks, the New York born
son of Alexander and Esther Hetty Marks and the husband of Cecilia Marks passed
away today in New Orleans.
1908: It was
reported today that “Louis Stern, the merchant and banker, has resigned as a
member of the Board of Trustees of Temple Emanu-El, at Forty-third Street and
Fifth Avenue, the richest Jewish congregation in New York City, in consequence,
it is understood, of the criticism of the marriage of his daughter Irma to a
Roman Catholic, which he believed to have been implied in a recent sermon by
the associate rabbi, the Rev. Dr. J.L. Magnus.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1908/01/30/104716578.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1908: Caught
up in the dispute between the Territorialists and the Jews who will only settle
for a homeland in Palestine, Churchill drafted a letter at the behest of
British Zionist, Rabbi Dr. Moses Gaster. Seeking not to offend either
party, Churchill expressed his support for the Zionist dream of settling in
Palestine while allowing that a temporary refuge may have to be found if such
is the wish of the Jewish people. The Territoralists were those Jews were
willing to accept the British offer of a homeland in Uganda or Kenya as an
immediate solution to the suffering of the Jews in Russia. The Russian
Jews were among those who were the strongest opponents of the solution.
1909:
Birthdate of activist and author Saul David Alinsky.
1910: In a
talk before the Young Men's Hebrew Association today Jacob H. Sehiff, the
banker, urged young men to relieve the Jewish congestion in this city by going
to other parts of this country” saying that the challenge “of persuading the Hebrews
of this city to "build up the American empire in other parts of the
country" had become a "hobby" with him.”
1911: The
Supreme Court heard final arguments in “Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell, and
Frank Morrison versus Bucks Stove and Range Company which grew out the
imprisonment of Samuel Gompers and two others for contempt not obeying a court
order injunction during a strike again the company.
1911:
Birthdate of right-handed pitcher Robert Clyde “Bob” Katz who appeared in six
games for the Cincinnati Reds in 1944.
1912: In
response to an appeal by Dr. J. L. Magnes the New York City Jewish community
announces subscriptions amounting to over sixty thousand dollars annually for
five years for Jewish education in New York City.
1912: In
Brooklyn, N. Y, The Atlantic Union Conference of the Seventh Day Adventist
convention adopts resolutions protesting against the recent massacres of Jews
in Russia and outbreaks of anti-Jewish feeling in so-called Christian countries
as un-Christian and affirming their belief that the Jew is entitled to
religious and civil rights.
1912: In New
York City investment banker and philanthropist Maurice Wertheim and his wife
Alma Morgenthau, the daughter of Henry Morgenthau, Sr. gave birth to Barbara
Wetheim whom after she married Dr. Lester R. Tuchman was known as Barbara
Tuchman a prolific popular historian who won a Pulitzer Prize for The Guns
of August a book that President Kennedy urged people to read so that his
generation might avoid the folly which led to World War I. Ms. Tuchman
won a second Pulitzer for Stillwell and the American Experience in China,
a very readable tome that uses the experiences of Stillwell's career in Asia to
explain the events that would ultimately lead to the victory of the Communist
Chinese. Although she was Jewish, Ms. Tuchman wrote only one book related
to Jewish History - Bible and Sword (England and Palestine from the
Bronze Age to Balfour). Ms. Tuchman passed away in 1989 at the age of 77. Born in New York City, New York she is best known
for her book The Guns of August (1962), a history of the outbreak of
World War I, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China, (1970).
She won Pulitzer Prizes for both books. Tuchman's father was a one-time owner
and publisher of The Nation, as well as the founder of the Theatre
Guild. Her maternal grandfather was the ambassador to Constantinople under
President Woodrow Wilson, and her uncle was the Secretary of the Treasury under
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She said, "The unrecorded past is
none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell
without being heard." Tuchman never went to graduate school, and never
took a single course in writing. In deciding to write, she said, "The
single most formative experience, I think, was the stacks at Widener Library
where I was allowed to have as my own one of those little cubicles with a table
under a window, queerly called, as I have since learned, 'carrels,' a word I
never knew when I sat in one. Mine was deep in among the 940's (British History, that is) and I
could roam at liberty through the rich stacks, taking whatever I wanted. The
experience was marvelous, a word I use in its exact sense meaning full of
marvels. It gave me a lifelong affinity for libraries, where I find happiness,
refuge, not to mention the material for making books of my own.” Tuchman said,
"Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library." She also
said, "Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is
silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a
standstill."
1913(22nd
of Shevat, 5673): Eighty-eight-year-old Joseph Sanson, who had worked as an
official court interpreter passed away today in Philadelphia, PA.
1913:
Twenty-four-year-old University of Pennsylvania trained attorney Abraham David
Wernick, the Russian born son of Myer and Bessie Wernick married Sadi Osteicher
today in Philadelphia.
1914: In
Columbus, OH, Fred and Metz Marx Lazarus gave birth to Ralph Lazarus, the
husband of Gladys Lazarus who was “chairman of Federated Stores the owner of
many chains including Bloomingdales, Filene’s and Foley’s.
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/20/obituaries/ralph-lazarus-74-ex-head-of-federated-stores.html
1914: “The
Wedding of Valeni,” directed by Buchenwald survivor Jacob Fleck, was released
today in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
1915: The
Paris correspondent of the Manchester Guardian sent a dispatch to his paper
today that includes a description of the treatment Jews by the Russian
Government from The Bund Committee of the Lithuanian, Polish and Russian Jews
1915: Clara
Michaelsohn, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Israel Michaelson of 383 Grand Street
became engaged to Mitchell Fligel today.
1915(15th
of Shevat, 5675): Tu B’Shevat
1915: In
Atlanta, the defense rested this afternoon in the case of Dan S. Lehon, CC.
Felder and Arthur Thurman who are on trial subornation of perjury in an effort
to secure a new trial for Leo Frank who was convicted of murdering Mary Phagan.
1915: From
Berlin, the Overseas News Agency reported that in Russia, “Jews ae being
prosecuted officially and demonstrations against them are being organized by
the government.”
1916: Miss Amy
Schechter and her brother Frank were among the two thousand people who attended
a memorial service for their father Dr. Solomon Schechter at the First Rumanian
Congregation where Dr. Henry Moscowitz, the President of the Civil Service Commission,
delivered the principal address.
1916:
Assemblymen Nathan T. Perlman and Meyer Levy and State Senator Irving Joseph
were among the hundreds of people who attended the dance sponsored by the
Madison Republican Club at the New Harlem Casino which raised hundreds of
dollars “for the benefit of war sufferers.”
1916: A report
issued today by the American Jewish Committee signed by President Louis
Marshall and Executive Committee Chairman Cyrus Adler described the suffering
of the Jews in war-torn Eastern Europe, the need to provide them aid and the
work that must be done to protect the civil and religious rights of the Jews
while alleviating the consequences of persecution.
1916: Rabbi
J.L. Magnes is scheduled to speak at a mass meeting in Philadelphia organized
by Dr. Cyrus Adler where it is expected that $200,000 will be raised to provide
relief for the Jews in war-torn Europe.
1916(25th of
Shevat, 5676): Sixty-one-year-old Sydney native Joseph Jacobs, the “Australian
literary and Jewish historian who was a writer for the Jewish Encyclopedia and
a notable folklorist, creating several noteworthy collections of fairy tales
passed away today.
http://www.mainlesson.com/displayauthor.php?author=jacobs
1916: The list
of speakers published today for the upcoming “non-sectarian mass meeting”
designed to raise funds “for the relief of Jews in the warring countries of
Europe included Jacob H. Schiff, the Rev. Dr. S. Parkes Cadman, Louis Marshall,
Rabbi J.L. Magnes, Rabbi Nathan Krass and Joseph Barondes.
1917: It was
reported today the Brooklyn Jewish Volunteer Relief Committee is sending out
25,000 letters to Brooklynites as part of the campaign to raise two hundred
thousand dollars that will go to the national fund being raised to aid the Jews
of Europe.
1917(7th
of Shevat, 5677): Seventy-eight-year-old John Goldhill, who is not to be
confused with sponge maker John Isaac Goldhill, passed away today in London.
1917: It was
reported that thirteen percent of the money sent to provide relief for the Jews
of the Vilna District has to be turned over to the occupying German authorities
and that in spite of all the aid American Jews have sent, unless a great deal
more is done immediately, it will be increasingly difficult to keep the
population “alive through the Winter.”
1918: As
celebrations take place for the upcoming 70th birthday of Nathan
Straus, it was announced that “in his honor 15 teams will start a special
Nathan Straus birthday drive to raise $10,000 each in ten days for the
Palestine Restoration Fund” of which he is the chairman.
1918: In New
York City, Joseph Opatovsky, who gained fame as Yiddish author Joseph Opatoshu
and his wife gave birth to David Opatovsky who gained fame as actor and
screenwriter David Opatoshu.
1919(29th
of Shevat, 5679): Meyer Benjamin, the husband of Henrietta Cohen Foster with
whom he had three children, passed away today at Pittsburgh, PA following a
surgical operation.
1919: The
Versailles Conference decided that the Arab provinces should be wholly
separated from the Ottoman Empire and the newly conceived mandate-system
applied to them. This decision clashed with the expectation of Faisal's Arab
delegation that his state would include Palestine, and the conditional
understandings reached in the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement.
1919:
Forty-one-year-old landscape painter Maurice Braun, the Hungarian born son of
Ferdinand and Charlotte (Schlesinger) Braun married Hazel Boyer today in San
Diego, CA.
1919: Louis
Graftman, one of the first three students from Hebrew Union College “to enlist
at the outbreak of” World War I who completed his training as a Marine at Paris
Island and served at Guantanamo Bay was “was released from service” today at
Galveston, TX.
1919: Thirty-one-year-old
National Academy of Design trained landscape artist Maurice Braun, the
Hungarian born son of Ferdinand and Charlotte Braun married Hazel Boyer in San
Diego, CA.
1920: In
Giessen, medical students “unanimously demand” “the expulsion of all Jews” from
the local university.
1920(10th
of Shevat, 5680): Henriette Goldschmidt, the wife of Rabbi Abraham Meyer
Goldschmidt, who was a social worker, educator and one of the founders of the
Women’s Educational Association passed away today in Leipzig.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/goldschmidt-henriette
1921: Today’s
annual meeting of the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives at Denver being
held at the Cleveland Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio is of special importance because
the attendees will elect a new president to replace the late Samuel Grabfelder.
1922(1st of
Shevat, 5682): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1923: In
Newark, NJ, Jacob Israel Gersten and Henrietta (Henig) Gersten gave birth to
Bernard Gersten, the Executive Producer of Lincoln Center Theater.
1924:
Birthdate of Kurt Rübner, the native of Brastislava who emigrated to Palestine
in 1941 without his parents, sisters and grandparents all of whom were murdered
by the Nazis and gained fame Tuvya Ruebner, the poet, editor, photographer and
member of Kibbutz Merhavia.
https://www.poetrytranslation.org/poets/tuvya-ruebner
1925: “I Love
You,” a silent film directed by Paul L. Stein, was released today in German
1926(15th
of Shevat, 5686): Tu B’Shevat
1926: In
Harrisburg, PA, Helen and Harry Harris Buch gave birth to Louise Grass, the
wife of Eugene Gurfkoff, the Mechanisburg manufacturer and WW II veteran and then Alexander Grass.
1927:
Birthdate of Zeev (Heinz) Raphael, a native of Germany who escaped to safety in
Sweden three days before the German invasion of Poland.
1927: Today,
Rabbi Alexander Burnstein was elected to replace Rabbi Nochman S. Arnoff as the
spiritual leader of Congregation Tifereth Israel in New Bedford, MA.
1927(27th
of Shevat, 5687): Rabbi Joseph Israel Deutsch passed away today.
http://www.balassagyarmatizsidosag.hu/en/deutsch-jozsef-izrael
1928:
Birthdate of Irwin Michnick who gained fame as Mitch Leigh, “an American
musical theatre composer and theatrical producer best known for the musical Man
of La Mancha.”
1928: In
Manhattan, Blanche Stern and Harold Smith gave birth Harold Smith who gained
fame as
Harold “Hal”
Prince, Tony Award winning theatrical producer and director.
https://masterworksbroadway.com/artist/harold-prince/
1929: Pianist
Mischa Levitzki arrived in New York today aboard the liner Ile de France after
“being away on a European tour.”
1929: Temple
Emanu El in Dothan, Alabama was charted today.
1930(1st
of Shevat, 5690): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1930(1st
of Shevat, 5690): “Prominent philanthropist in colonial India, Alice Edith
Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading GBE, née Alice Edith Cohen the daughter of
London merchant Albert Cohen, the first wife of Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of
Reading passed away today.
1930: Simcha
Hinkas, a Jewish policeman, went on trial in Tel Aviv. He is accused of leading
a crowd of Jews who reportedly killed five adults and wounded two children in
an Arab family on August 25, 1929 during the Arab Uprising. According to
the government, while Hinkas was on duty at a crossroad on Herzl Street during
the Arab riots he saw a truck filled with Jews fired on by Arabs who killed
four and wounded five. Hinkas allegedly went back to his barracks, got
his rifle and led a Jewish mob in an attack on an Arab house. A
government witness identified the bullets in the dead Arabs as having come from
a government issued rifle, but could not tie them to the gun belonging to
Hinkas. Two Arabs later identified Hinkas from a group of 13 Constables,
but other Arabs identified different Constables. Alfred Riggs, assistant
superintendent of the police “declared that Hinkas was one of the mildest and
best of the police” but, “for reasons of his own,” the British police official
seemed certain that the Jewish policeman was guilty.
1930: Today,
“Comzet, the government department for settling Jews on the land, announced
that the government had cut the budget” which means that “the Jewish colonists
in the Ukraine will not get a single penny from the Soviet government” during
1930.
1930): Today
in Warsaw, “the famous Chasidic Rabbi ‘Chafetz Chaim’ presided at a great
rabbinical assembly” which was attended by “Chassidic rabbis of Ger, Amschinow,
Cracow, Tarnpole, Petrikov and other Polish cities” where the attendees
discussed “the new law regulating the Jewish religious communities which the
government is proposing.
1931: Charlie
Chaplin's "City Lights" premieres at the Los Angeles Theater.
1931: In the
Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, Jules Weinberg, who “helped run his family’s
newspaper distribution business” and the former Elka Heller gave birth to Linda
Natalie Weinberg who gained fame as art historian Linda Nochlin.
1932(22nd
of Shevat, 5692): Parashat Yitro
1932: New
Rochelle resident Arthur Metzger left the bulk of his estate to his wife Helen
and his son Robert but also allowed for
a redistribution of his estate that would leave bequest to the Mount Sinai
Hospital, Montefiore Hospital, the Federation of Jewish Charities and the New
York Guild for Jewish Blind.
1933: Author
Joseph Roth “left Germany when Adolf Hitler became Reich Chancellor today.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100923110558/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jroth.htm
1933: Nazi
Machtergreifung or “Nazi seizure of power” took place today when President Paul
von Hindenberg appointed Adolph Hitler to the Chancellorship of Germany and
members of the Nazi Party were appointed to “several other high-ranking cabinet
posts.”
1933: On the
day that Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, Eli Boschwitz, a judicial abriter
came home and told his wife, 'We are leaving Germany forever.'"
Boshwitz was the father of 5 year old Rudy Boschwitz the future Republican
leader who would eventually serve 12 years as U.S. Senator from Minn.
1933: Youth
Aliyah opens its offices in Berlin. The previous year Recha Freier, a rabbi's
wife decided it would be a good idea to send young people from Germany to
Kibbutzim. She founded the Juedische Jugendhilfe organization to help
facilitate the work. That same year it became a department of the World Zionist
Organization under Henrietta Szold. Five thousand adolescents were
rescued before the war and another 15,000 after the war.
1933:
“Symphony of Six Million” a film based on the “Night Bell” by Fannie Hurst
which “concerns the rise of a Jewish physician from humble roots to the top of
his profession and the social costs of losing his connection with his
community, his family and with the craft of healing” produced by Pandro S.
Berman and David O. Selznick, co-starring Gregory Ratoff with music by Max
Steiner was released today in the United States.
1934: The
American Economic Committee is scheduled to host a discussion on “Arab
Benefirts from Jewish Enterprise in Palestine” following a dinner at the Royal
Hotel.
1934: WEVD
broadcast the first in a series of programs hosted by Herman Bernstein “o
important current topics affect the lives of Jewish people.”
1934: Two days
before he was scheduled to retire and become rabbi emeritus of Temple Emanu-El,
Rabbi Hyman G. Enelow “sailed for the Mediterranean aboard the Empress of
Australia.”
1934: Mr. and
Mrs. Nathan Chasan of the Bronx announce the engagement of their daughter
Shulamith Chasan to Theodore S. Chazin, son of Cantor and Mrs. Hirsch L.
Chazin. Mr. Chazin is a practicing attorney and the secretary of the
Jersey City Zionist District.
1934: Moses
Mendel Penn, the oldest patient ever cared for at Montefiore Hospital for
Chronic Diseases, will observe his 109th birthday there today. He has partly
recovered from a stroke that paralyzed one side of his body eight months ago.
Mr. Penn entered the hospital on the application of the Bronx Young Men's
Hebrew Association, of which he is the oldest living member.
1935: “Three
Men on a Horse,” a comedy starring Garson Kanin and Sam Levene and produced by
Alex Yoke opened on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre where it ran for 835
performances.
1935:
Birthdate of Albert “Albie” Louis Sachs, the South African born son of
Lithuanian Jews who fought against Apartheid and was appointed a Judge of the
Constitutional Court by Nelson Mandela.
http://whoswho.co.za/albert-sachs-5369http://www.constitutionalcourt.org.za/site/judges/justicealbiesachs/index1.html
1936: At
today’s session of its 16th annual convention, the Federation of
Jewish Women’s Organizations adopted “resolutions approving the boycott of
German products, opposing the sending of American athletes to the Olympics in
Germany and urging a neutrality law that will keep” the United States out of
war. (Editor’s note – This is a leading
national Jewish organization that is in effect supporting the isolationism of
the 1930’s. All the critics of FDR, might want to consider this before
rendering judgments on his behavior before Pearl Harbor.)
1936: At Long
Beach, Long Island, Rabbi Stephen Wise announced plans for a “Boycott Day” to
mark the third anniversary of “Hitler’s persecution of the Jews.”
1937: Rabbi
Samuel Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Can Any One Be Rich?” at
Temple Emanu-El
1937: Rabbi
Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon comparing the four years under
Hitler and Roosevelt at the Free Synagogue meeting in Carnegie Hall.
1937: Rabbi
Israel Goldstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Hitler’s Anniversary,
Roosevelt’s Inaugural and Poland’s ‘Superfluous Citizens’” at B’nai Jeshurun.
(Editor’s note – 1937 was the first year that the Inauguration took place in
January instead of March. The Polish
government had refused to its Jewish citizens as “superfluous.)
1937: At
Rodeph Sholom, a guest speaker from Tel Aviv is scheduled to lecture on “Is
there a Solution for the Jewish Problem?”
1937: Rabbi
Morris Lichentenstein is scheduled to deliver the sermon at the Jewish Science
Society.
1938: The
Palestine Post reported that a Jewish constable, Mordechai Schwartz, who
was charged with the premeditated murder of Police Constable Mustapha Khoury,
was sentenced to death. The court refused to accept evidence that the previous
murder by Arabs of two Jews in Karkur had influenced Schwartz to an immediate
act of reprisal. Schwartz continued to claim his innocence.
1938: Rabbi
Nathan A. Perilman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Protection From Our
Friends” at Temple Emanu-El.
1938: Rabbi
Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Five Tragic Hitler Years”
at the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall.
1938: Seven
hundred representatives of “many Jewish organizations” attending a meeting of
the Council of the Fraternal and Benevolent Organizations heard a speech by I.
Edwin Goldwasser who said “this is a time when the Jew, in his personal
conduct, should consider himself not only an individual but a representative of
his people.”
1938: George
Gordon Battle was one of the speakers at tonight’s dinner at the Manhattan
Opera House where the 400 attendees celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the
Federation of Polish Jews in America.
1938: While
addressing a meeting of the Middle Atlantic States Regional Conference in
Atlantic City, David J. Schweitzer, European vice chairman of the American
Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, said that while anti-Semitism is being
offered as a “cure-all for political and economic ills in many countries”
including Poland and Rumania, in the end “when put into effect” these policies
intensifies the problems “and causes additional suffering among the general
population.”
1938: Rabbi
Jonah B. Wise is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “The Discovery of Scripture;
We Wrote the Bible” at the Community House on East 62nd Street.
1938: Rabbi
Louis L. Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Can Hitler Last Another
Five Years in Germany? Will Cuza and Goga Last in Rumania?” at Temple Rodeph
Sholom.
1938: Premier
Octavian Goga today echoed King Carol’s assurance to the world that Rumania
would strive to meet is Jewish problem “without inhumanities” but there has not
been any “modification of the government’s anti-Semitic program.”
1938: Rabbi
Morris Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “When Nerves Become
Restless” at the Jewish Science Society.
1939: In
response to the “rise of anti-Semitism in the United States after fascism took
hold of much Europe in the late 1930’s” the Anti-Defamation Council, which
changed its name to the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater
Philadelphia, was founded today.
1939(10th
of Shevat, 5699): Sixty-seven-year-old ophthalmologist Edwin Milton Beery who
was also a surgeon passed away today in Brooklyn.
1939:
Hitler, in his anniversary speech in Berlin, talked about the event of war,
"The result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the
victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe."
Hitler also spoke in warm terms about its friendship with Poland.
1940: The
Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA), a special committee created
by the Joint Distribution Committee signed a contract with the Trujillo regime
that was part of plan to settle Jewish refugees in that Central American
country.
1940:
“At a conference today, it was decided that all 30,000 Romani living in Germany
proper were to be deported to former Polish territory” which meant they would
die alongside the Jews in the gas chambers of Treblinka.
1941(2nd
of Shevat, 5701): “Metallurgical Engineer William Irving Sivitz, the son of
Lithuanian native Rabbi Moses Sivitz and Matia Sivitz, and the brother of
Jacob, Sam and Benjamin Sivitz passed away today after which he was buried in
the B’nai Israel Cemetery in Penn Hills, PA.
1941: Having
failed to bomb Britain out of the war in 1941 Germany upped the ante in its war
to starve the Island nation that by announcing “any ship bringing goods to
Britain would be sunk.”
1941: Hitler
delivered his infamous “Speech at the Berlin Sports Palace.”
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hitler-speech-at-the-berlin-sports-palace-january-30-1941
1942: In a
speech at the Sports Palace in Berlin, Hitler told of his confidence in victory
and his hatred for the Jews. "The hour will come when the most evil
universal enemy of all time will be finished, at least for a thousand
years." By the spring, four labor camps would be converted to death camps
for the purpose of extinguishing the Jews; joining Chelmno were Belzec,
Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz.
1942: In
Cincinnati, “Catherine Eugenia (nee Talbot) Buchwald, who was an Episcopalian
and Joseph Buchwald who was Jewish gave birth to Marty Jerel Buchwald who
gained fame as Marty Balin of the Jefferson Airplane.
1943(24thh of
Shevat, 5703): Sixty-seven year old Patterson, NJ native Carl Florian Zittle,
the son of Gustave and Bertha Zittle and the husband of the former Martha
Beatrice Bernstein with whom he had two children – Madeline and Carl -- known
as Zit who worked for a number of Hearst publications, “owned the Central Park
Casino during the administration of Mayor Jimmy Walker” and published Zit’s
Weekly, a show biz weekly, for over twenty years passed away.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/01/31/88513430.pdf
1943 (24th of Shevat, 5703): In Letychiv, Ukraine,
German Gestapo commences mass shootings of Jews from Letychiv Ghetto. 200
surviving Jews from Letychiv slave labor camp were ordered to undress and were
shot with machine-gun into a ravine. Some 7,000 Jews were murdered in
Letychiv. For those with a sense of irony, this was Shabbat and the Torah
reading was Yitro.
1943: The
SS Pierre Soule, a liberty ship, was launched today 45 days after its keel
was laid. The ship was named after Pierre Soule a Louisiana political leader
who was an ally of Judah P. Benjamin, and according to one story in the New
York Times, was Jewish.
1944: Seven
hundred Jews are deported from Milan, Italy, to Auschwitz.
1945: Hitler
gives his last ever public address; a radio address on the 12th anniversary of
his coming to power.
1945: In
Kehrson, two Holocaust survivors gave birth to Meir Hubermann, the grandson of
Holocaust victim Ber Erlich Sloshny, whom they took to Israel in 1950 where he
gained famed Meir Dagan, the Director of Mossad who according to uncredited
sources played a key role in derailing the Iranian nuclear program. (As
reported by Isabel Kershner)
1946: The
Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee
composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining
the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they
bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the
well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in
Washington, D.C. continued its meetings today in London.
1947: Today,
Port authorities in Le Harve “harbor police armed with machine guns” carried
out the order of the authorities to impound an eight hundred ton “Honduran
vessel bearing 600 Jewish refugees bound for Palestine.”
1948: Mahatma
Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist. While Gandhi was a figure
revered by many, some Jews have their reservations about this proponent of
civil disobedience and non-violence no matter what the threat. After
Kristallnacht Gandhi wrote, "If the Jewish mind could be prepared for
voluntary sacrifice, even the massacre I have imagined by Nazis could be turned
into a day of thanksgiving that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race
even at the hands of a tyrant...the German Jews will score a lasting victory
over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted the latter
to an appreciation of human dignity." Apparently Ghandi lacked any
concept of the evil that was Hitler. But even after the war when the
total horror was known, Gandhi said that the Holocaust was "the greatest
crime of our time, but the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's
knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from the
cliffs....It would have aroused the world and the people of
Germany."
1949: “Mark
Ethridge, the United States representative on the United Nations Conciliation
Commission for Palestine” and publisher of The Louisville Courier-Journal left
New York with the hope that his trip will “accomplish permanent peace and
stability in the Middle East.”
1951:
Birthdate of Harvard and Penn alum Laurence Jacob Kotlikoff, the economist who
“is a William Warren Fair Professor at Boston University” and feels strong
enough about his theories to have actually considered running for President in
2012.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/#4bc90ebe9bba
1953(14th
of Shevat, 5713): Eighty-nine-year-old geologist and geographer Alfred
Philipson who survived 3 years in Theresienstadt, passed away today.
http://findingaids.cjh.org/?pID=475495
1953: The
Jerusalem Post reported from Bonn that the West German Chancellor, Konrad
Adenauer, assured Israel that his country would pay the first installment of 47
million marks of the German-Israeli Reparation Agreement within the next two
months.
1953: The
DuMont Television Network broadcast the final episode of “Steve Randall”
starring Melvyn Douglas.
1953: The
Jerusalem Post reported that IDF patrols had beaten back two attacks by
Jordanian marauders at two points along the armistice lines, inflicting heavy
casualties. Jordan falsely claimed that a number of Israeli soldiers were
killed in both encounters. Both sides complained to the UN Israeli-Jordanian
Mixed Armistice Commission.
1953: The
Jerusalem Post reported that traces of copper were found near Jenin.
1958: “Sunrise
at Campabello” the play written by Dore Schary that provided a dramatic
depiction of FDR’s struggle with Polio premiered at the Cort Theatre in New
York City.
1961: “A
motion of non-confidence in the Cabinet over Prime Minster David Ben-Gurion’s
stand concerning the Lavon Affair was defeated today in the Knesset.” (JTA)
1961: Funeral
services were held today for Loula Davis Lasker, the sister of philanthropist
Albert D. Lasker and national vice president of Hadassah who “donated $600,000
to help the Lasker Rink in New York’s Central Park.”
1964(16th
of Shevat, 4724): Writer and theatrical producer Allen A. Adler passed away
today in New York City at the age of 47. Adler was part of a famous Jewish
theatrical family. His grandfather was actor and producer Jacob
Adler. His father was theatre manager and owner, Adolph Adler. His
uncle was Luther Adler and his aunt was Stella Adler.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FB0A17FB3E5415738DDDA80894DA405B848AF1D3
1966(9th
of Shevat, 5726): Eighty-eight year old banker Rudolf Löb, who served as
Chairman of Mendelssohn & Co before the Nazi broke up the bank passed away
today in Boston, MA.
http://digifindingaids.cjh.org/?pID=480081
1966: At the
Carlyle, Rabbi Charles E. Shulman officiated at the wedding of Judith Raices
and David Novick.
1968(29th
of Tevet, 5728): Seventy-nine-year-old former opera soprano Gladys Hettie
Axman, the Boston born daughter of Emma and August Weil who had debuted at the
Met in 1919 passed away today.
1969(11th
of Shevat, 5729): Austrian born, American actress and singer Fritzi Massary
passed away today.
http://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/fritz-massary.pdf
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/02/01/90044940.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1970(23rd
of Shevat, 5730): Marjan (or Maryan) Rawicz, one half of the piano duo of
Rawicz and Landauer that played together for forty years passed away today.
1971: Carole
King's “Tapestry” album is released. This recording by Brooklyn born Jewess
Carol Klein would become the longest charting album by a female solo artist and
sell 24 million copies worldwide.
1971: “Abbie
an' Slats” a comic strip created by Al Capp was published for the last time
today.
1973: “Three
Arabs were arrested in Italy at the border with Austria” thwarting “a planned
attack on a transit camp in Austria for Jewish immigrants from Russia.”
1974: The
Mayor and City of West Berlin hosted a reception to mark the 85th
birthday of Dr. Kate Frankenthal. A psychiatrist and socialist political leader
during the Weimar Republic she fled Germany in 1933 and settled in the United
States in 1936 where she became a consultant to the Jewish Family Service of
New York.
1974(7th of
Shevat, 5734): Sixty-four-year-old Pittsburgh native and California trained
lawyer Murray Chotiner, the original political mentor of Richard Nixon passed
away today.
https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKchotiner.htm
1974: PBS
broadcast a performance of “June Moon” co-authored by George S. Kaufman.
1975: The
final part of the Agranat Commission’s report was published today. The
commission had been set up after the Yom Kippur War to find out why the IDF had
failed to perform as expected prior to, and during, the hostilities.
1976: NBC
broadcast the first episode of “The Practice” co-starring Didi Conn with music
by David Shire.
1978: The
Jerusalem Post reported that US President Jimmy Carter sent a sharp note to
Prime Minister Menachem Begin, complaining over the plan to establish Shilo, a
new West Bank settlement.
1978(22nd
of Shevat, 5738): Fifty-two-year-old Bucharest born Israeli pianist Mindru Katz
passed away today in Istanbul.
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Katz-Mindru.htm
1978: Larry
King (Lawrence Harvey Zeiger, the son of Jewish immigrants from Belarus) “began
broadcasting a nightly coast-to-coast program on the Mutual Broadcasting
System.”
1978(22nd of
Shevat, 5738): Mordechai Yehuel, 27, of Ramat Gan was stabbed and killed in
Ramallah.
1979: The
civilian government of Iran announced it had decided to allow Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini to return from exile in France. The subsequent Islamist
revolution would end the reign of the Shah, a regime which was much friendlier
to Israel than the government that would follow. In retrospect, one can draw a
straight line between the French decision and the Iranian nuclear threat that
the West and Israel face in the 21st century.
1979: Max
Moses Heller completed his term in office as the 29th Mayor of
Greenville, SC.
1979: “The
Triangle Factory Fire Scandal” a film about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
Fire directed by Mel Stuart and co-starring Stephanie Zimbalist and Tovah
Felshuh was released in the United States today.
1980:
Birthdate of Albany Law School grad and U.S. Army veteran Lee Zeldin who served
in the New York State Senate before being elected as a Republican to the U.S.
House of Representatives from New York’s 1s District.
1981: “The
Incredible Shrinking Woman” directed by Joel Schumacher and co-starring Charles
Grodin was released in the United States today.
1982: U.S.
Secretary of State Alexander Haig “filed a reported with President
Reagan that revealed” his “fear that Israel might, at the slightest
provocation, start a war against Lebanon.”1990: The Israeli Government said
today that it had no official policy of settling Soviet Jewish immigrants in
the West Bank or Gaza Strip, and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir dismissed the
debate over the issue as an ''artificial storm'' created by panicked Arab
leaders.
1983(16th
of Shevat, 5743): Eighty-year-old Austrian born American economist Fritz
Machlup who taught at several U.S. universities including’s Johns Hopkins and
Princeton after fleeing the Nazis and who best known at the author of The
Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States passed away
today.
1984(26th
of Shevat, 5744): Seventy-six-year-old Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser, “the spiritual
leader for fifty years of the Forest Hills Jewish in Queen” and the author of
such books as Judaism: Profile of a Faith and Jews, Judaism and the State of
Israel who was the husband of Kallia Halpern Bokser with whom he had two
children – Miriam and Baruch – passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/02/obituaries/ben-zion-bokser-76-a-rabbi-and-professor.html
1986(20th
of Shevat, 5746): One police officer was killed and two civilians were wounded
when terrorists began shooting today in Jerusalem.
1987:
“Outrageous Fortune,” a comedy directed by Arthur Hiller and co-starring Bette
Midler was released today in the United States.
1987: Allan
Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold,” a movie version of the novel produced by
Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan was released today in the United States..
1990: After
having originally premiered at the Tokyo International Film, “Unsettled Land”
an “Israeli drama directed by Uri Barbash” was released in France today.
1991(15th of
Shevat, 5751): Tu B'Shvat
1991: The
New York Times reviews The Smile of the Lamb by David Grossman;
translated by Betsy Rosenberg.
1991: In
Amman, around 3,000 Jordanians demonstrated in favor of Iraq, burned American
and Israeli flags and urged Mr. Hussein to fire chemical weapons at Israel. The
demonstration reflected Jordan's tilt toward Baghdad throughout the gulf
crisis. "O Saddam, hit, hit Tel Aviv!" some chanted. "With
chemical weapons, O Saddam!" others replied. Jordan's population is more
than half Palestinian, and many have voiced support for the Iraqi leader as a
champion who will lead them to statehood.
1991: The
Young Professionals of the American Friends of Tel Aviv University is
sponsoring a black-tie cocktail party and dance, at Stringfellows to benefit
the Adopt-a-Student Endowment Fund at the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv
University.
1992:
Publication date of “Hideous Kinky, an autobiographical novel by Esther
Freud, daughter of British painter Lucian Freud and great-granddaughter of
Sigmund Freud.
1992:
"ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD," by Tom Stoppard, adapted by
Yosef Brodski, staged by Yevgeny Arye and featuring the Gesher Theater Company
is scheduled to be performed in Brooklyn, NY.
1992: As
Israel presses the United States for loan guarantees to cope with a projected
huge influx of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, officials here said
today that the immigrant flow this month had sunk to its lowest in almost two
years and could dwindle even further
1993 “During
fiscal 1992” which ended today, Younkers which had been founded by Lipman,
Samuel and Marcus Younker in Keiokuk, IA in 1856 “had net earnings of $17.6
million on net sales of $473.4 million.”
1997: Kalman
Ruttenstein, the fashion director of Bloomingdale’s who had outsized impact on
women’s apparel suffered a major stroke today.
1998: Premier
performance of Paul Simon's "The Capeman."
1998: U.S
premiere of “Zero Effect” a detective move directed and written by Jake Kasdan.
1998: Evelyn
Lieberman, “the first woman to serve as deputy chief of staff to a president”
“testified before a special grand jury” today that Monica Lewinsky “had
displayed ‘immature and inappropriate behavior,’ was ‘spending too much time
around the West Wing,’ and was ‘always someplace she shouldn’t be’” which had
led her to decide “to get of her because of the appearance that it was
creating” and not be because “she had heard…rumors linking the president and
Ms. Lewinsky.”
1999: At
Temple Israel of Great Neck, NY Rabbi Mordecai Waxman officiated at the wedding
of “Dr. Tracy Shevell and Dr. Brian Jonathon Hines, both of whom are residents
in obstetrics and gynecology at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York…”
1999(13th
of Shevat, 5659): Ninety-three-year-old Professor Mirra Komarovksy the Russian
born daughter of “Zionists and land-owning Jews” who came to the United States
where she became a leading authority in the field of Women’s Studies passed
away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/01/us/mirra-komarovsky-authority-on-women-s-studies-dies-at-93.html
2000: The
New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including Einstein’s German World by
Fritz Stern and The Greenspan Effect: Words
That Move the World's Markets by David B. Sicilia and Jeffrey L.
Cruikshank.
2001: Two
people were injured during at the Tayibe Bridge bombing for which Palestinian
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
2001(6th
of Shevat, 5761): Eighty-five year old pioneer neurosurgeon Joseph
Ransohoff, passed away today.
2001: Prime
Minister Ehud Barak saw 20 immigrants' representatives inside his Jerusalem
office and then presided tonight over a modest support rally at the city's
convention center as he continued his campaign against Ariel Sharon.
2002: “Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon met with aides to discuss a plan to ring Jerusalem with
barriers following two Palestinian attacks there within six days that killed
three Israelis and wounded scores more.”
2003: In “A
Burst of Light Provides Privacy,” published today Elaine Louie discusses
the work of Ayala Sefaty of Tel Aviv who designed her own underwater restaurant
in Eilat.
2003: “The
Israeli experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia has accomplished its goals
of studying the effects of dust storms on weather and recording electrical
phenomena atop storm clouds, scientists said today.
2004: Airing
of the 13th episode of “Boston Public” co-starring Fyvush Finkel,
Michael David Rapaport, Anthony Heald, Jessalyn Gilsig and Joey Slotnick
following which it was announced that the series would be cancelled due to low
ratings.
2004(7th
of Shevat, 5764): Eighty-four-year-old Polish born dental student Bronek
Jakubowicz, better known as Benjamin Jacobs, who survived Auschwitz thanks to
his skill with dental tools that he carried in “a bright red box” which he
called “his passport to survival and who described his experiences during the
Holocaust including the bombing by the British of his prison ship in 1995
memoir The Dentist of Auschwitz passed away today.
https://www.doullbooks.com/product/122307
2005: The
New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including Lot’s Daughters: Sex,
Redemption, and Women's Quest for Authority by Robert M. Polhemus and the
newly released paperback editions of Growing Up Fast by Joanna Lipper
and Oracle Night by Paul Auster
2005: In “The
Observant Reader,” Wendy Shalit provides a prescient synopsis of the varying
ways in which Orthodoxy is portrayed in contemporary literature.
2005: A
Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Pacific Overtures” which had opened at
Studio 54 in 2004 closed today
2005: In “The
Nation; One Clear Conscience, 60 Years After Auschwitz,” published today Roger
Cohen tells the story of Miecyslaw Kasprzyk, an unsung hero of the Holocaust.
2006(1st of
Shevat, 5766): Playwright Wendy Wasserstein, author of the Heidi Chronicles
and The Sisters Rosensweig passed away at the age of 55.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/theater/31wasserstein.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
2007: It was
announced today that Michael Abraham Levy who had been named Baron Levy, had
been “arrested by police on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of
justice regarding the cash for peerages investigation and immediately released
on bail” Six months later he would be cleared of charges related to a scandal
regarding charges of granting life peerages in exchange for political
contributions.
2007: “The
hardcover edition” of The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, a distant
relation of David O. Selznick, was released today.
2007: “Farce
of the Penguins,” an American direct-to-video parody of the 2005 French
documentary film March of the Penguins with the two main characters voiced by
Bob Saget (who also wrote and directed the film) and Lewis Black” was released
today in the United States.
2007(11th
of Shevat, 5767): Eighty-nine-year-old former supermarket executive Benjamin
Saget, the father of Bob Saget, passed away today.
2007(11th
of Shevat, 5767): Eighty-nine-year-old novelist Sidney Shelton passed away
today in Ranch Mirage, CA.
2007: The
House of Love and Prayer, a new multi-lingual musical based on the life of
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, had its final performance at the JCC in Manhattan
2007: In
Derby, UK, as part of Holocaust Memorial Day observances a screening of 'Into
the Arms of Strangers,” for students from the Millennium Centre, with a
Q&A session to follow with Steven Mendelsson who traveled on the “Kindertransports.”
2008: Today,
“the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied John Demjanjuk’s request for
a review” as he continued to fight the 2006 decision order his deportation.
2008: In
Manhattan, the 92nd St Y presents
Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in debating “Does God Exist?”
Two of today’s most provocative voices as debate the ultimate religious
question: Is there a God? Best-selling authors Christopher Hitchens and Shmuley
Boteach pull no punches as they discuss organized religion and its place in
American life.
2009: Maira
Kalman started a new illustrated blog in the New York Times called “And
the Pursuit of Happiness” about American democracy today
2009: Lillian
Hellman’s “Scoundrel Time” opens at the City Lit Theatre in Chicago.
2009: “Batsheva Dance Company, one of the most
inspirational and sought-after companies in the dance world, presents its
acclaimed production, ‘Three’ at the Performing Arts Center in Purchase, New
York.
2009: A
swastika was discovered today at Congregation Shaarey Tphilohan Orthodox
synagogue in Portland, Maine which claims to be Portland's oldest Jewish
congregation.
2009 (5th
of Shevat 5769: Milton Parker, who brought long lines and renown to the
Carnegie Deli in Manhattan with towering pastrami sandwiches and a voluble
partner who kibitzed with common folk and celebrities alike, passed away today
at the age of 90. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/nyregion/05parker.html?_r=0
2010: The
Museum of Modern Art is scheduled to present a musical event featuring Israeli
pianist Menahem Pressler with the New York Chamber Soloists.
2010: The JCC
on the Palisades in Tenafly, NJ, is scheduled to observe Tu B’Shevat with a
program of stories and songs led by Miki Rahav, of Kibbutz Yagur entitled
“Celebrating 100 years of Kibbutz Life with Stories and Songs.”
2010(15th
of Shevat, 5770): Tu B’Shevat
2010(15th
of Shevat, 5770): Eighty-seven-year-old British historian Jack Richon Pole, the
son of Ukrainian Jews who had found refuge in the UK, whose most famous work
was Political Representation in Britain and the Origins of the American
Republic passed away today.
2010(15th
of Shevat, 5770): Aaron Ruben, who was a producer, writer and director for some
of the most popular television comedies of the 1960s and ’70s, notably “The
Andy Griffith Show,” “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.” and “Sanford and Son,” passed away
today at his home in Beverly Hills, at the age of 95. (As reported by William
Grimes)
2010: Joëlle
Alexis won the World Cinema Documentary prize for Editing tonight at Sundance
for her work on Yael Hersonski's “A Film Unfinished.” The movie examines
an unfinished Nazi propaganda film about life in the Warsaw ghetto.
2011: Blood
Relation, a documentary film by Noa Ben Hagai is scheduled to shown on the
final day of the Seventh Annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival.
2011: At
the 92nd Street Y Drawing on a compendium of more than 600 New York
Times articles on the Civil War, Harold Holzer and Craig L. Symonds are
scheduled to discuss revelations about America’s great conflict that are still
affecting Americans today.
2011: Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit is scheduled to sponsor Super Sunday, the
community wide telethon to benefit the Federation's 2011 Campaign.2011: “Return
to Haifa” is scheduled to have its last performance at the Aaron &
Cecile Goldman Theater, Washington DCJCC
2011:
The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including The Neoconservative Persuasion:
Selected Essays, 1942-2009 by Irving Kristol, Panorama by H.G. Adler
and Zero-Sum Future: American Power in an Age of Anxiety by Gideon
Rachman
2011: Cyprus has recognized a Palestinian state within the 1967
borders, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said on today, following
similar recent declarations coming mostly from South American states.
2011(25th
of Shevat, 5771): Eugene Lubin, whose men and boys clothing store in suburban
New York provided bar mitzvah suits for decades, and who was a longtime leader
in Jewish organizations, passed away today at the age of 88. The store, Lubin's
Men's World, has operated in several locations throughout Westchester County,
just north of New York City. In 2010 it opened an operation within Rothman’s,
an upscale men’s clothier in Scarsdale. “What happens when upscale specialty
men’s clothier Rothman’s invites Lubin’s, the 56-year-old young men’s clothing
institution (it has dressed generations of bar mitzvah boys), to move into his
Scarsdale shop? Y-chromosome clothing kismet. From boys to men, all are
suitably attired here at this brilliant -- and stylish -- pairing of retail
roomies,” a Westchester magazine raved. Eric Schoen, who is active with the
Jewish Council of Yonkers, said that “Gene Lubin was a man who cared greatly
about the city of Yonkers and was involved in its business, civic, religious
and philanthropic community." But, like others, Schoen also returned to
Lubin’s bar mitzvah suits. "He also cared that bar mitzvah boys and anyone
celebrating a special occasion looked perfect," Schoen said. "People
traveled far and wide to get that perfect fit." Lubin was a former
president of the Westchester Jewish Council and was a member of the Yonkers
citizen budget commission in 1993. (As reported by the Eulogizer)
2011(25th
of Shevat, 5771): Meyer O'hayon Tapiero, a Morocco native who was among the
founders of the new Jewish community of Marbella in Andalusia, Spain, passed
away at the age of 94. Tapiero and and his wife came to the resort town of
Marbella in 1955 on a holiday from their home in Casablanca, where they had a
successful men’s clothing business, and decided to set up their home and family
in the Spanish region because he “felt the political change coming in Morocco
and decided to look at new prospects beyond its borders.” His wife had come to
Morocco from Berlin, which she fled in 1942. Tapiero convinced two brothers to
join him in Spain, and they and other family members from Morocco built a
synagogue and helped redevelop the community, which had been devoid of Jews
since the Inquisition. The community is now a popular destination for Jewish
tourism and has a Chabad house and other Jewish services (As reported by the
Eulogizer)
2012: The 92nd
Street Y is scheduled to host “Terezin Between Celebration and Investigation” a
frank and challenging discussion about the dual function of the art of Terezín
led by Hanna Arie-Faifman and Michael Beckerman.
2012: The
Israel Prisons Service parole board decided today to reduce the sentence of
former minister Shlomo Benizri, a member of the Shas party who was recently
sentenced to four years in prison for bribery and other offenses. The parole
board decided to cut Benizri's sentence down by a year and four months, so the
former minister is due to be released in April.
2012: The
Jewish Federation of Arkansas announced today that President Bill Clinton will
receive the Tikkun Olam Lifetime Achievement Award of the Jewish Federation of
Arkansas a February 4 ceremony in Little Rock marking its 100th anniversary
celebration dinner.
2013: The
Library of Congress is scheduled to host a presentation on the Bezalel Academy
of Arts and Design featuring Professor Ezri Tabari, the founder and former
chair of the Bezalel MA degree program in industrial design
2013: Jori
Slodki is scheduled to teach a two-hour class “Oy Vay! A History of Yiddish” at
(of all places) Kirkwood Community College in Iowa City, Iowa.
2013: The ORT
Braude Academic College of Engineering in Karmiel is scheduled to host the
opening session of “From There to Here,” a month-long event that will give 15
Oleh artists living in northern Israel showcase their works.
2013: Yeshiva
University Museum with YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and Jewish
Theological Seminary are scheduled to present a panel discussion featuring
David G. Roskeis and Naomi Diament, the co-authors of the newly published Holocaust
Literature: A History & Guide
2013: Former
Representative Gabby Giffords gave a brief emotiaonal opening statement before
the Senate Judiciary Committee that was holding hearings on gun violence.
2013: Israeli
forces attacked a convoy on the Syrian-Lebanese border today, sources told
Reuters, after Israelis warned their Lebanese enemy Hezbollah against using
chaos in Syria to acquire anti-aircraft missiles or chemical weapons.
2013: Beitar
Jerusalem soccer club welcomed Muslim Chechen players Zaur Sadayev and Gabriel
Kadiev to the team in a press conference today attended by Jerusalem Mayor Nir
Barkat and dozens of foreign reporters.
2014:
“Nazi-looted paintings recovered by the Allies platoon known as the Monuments
Men are scheduled to be sold at auction in New York” today. The four lots will
go on the block at Sotheby’s in New as part of a sale of Old Master paintings
and sculpture. Some of the works were owned by the Rothschild family. Two of
the family’s paintings to be auctioned were placed in the private collection of
Nazi leader Hermann Goering, Reuters reported.” (As reported by JTA)
2014: Joan
Dodek (Past President, Washington Committee for Soviet Jewry) and Marcia
Weinberg (Former Chair, Soviet Jewry Committee of Jewish Community Council) are
scheduled to discuss their daring trips to visit refuseniks in the Soviet Union
and involvement in the struggle to free Soviet Jewry at Washington Hebrew
Congregation.
2014: In New
York, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host an evening of entertainment
“featuring a live performance by Mirah” to mark the upcoming closing of
“Chagall: Love, War and Exile.
2014: Rocket
launched from the Gaza Strip hit in an open area in the Sdot Negev Regional
Council. No injuries or damage were reported.
2014: Oxfam
accepted actress Scarlett Johansson’s resignation as a global ambassador,
calling the role “incompatible” with her work for the Israeli company SodaStream.
(As reported by JTA)
2014: The
editors of an ultra-Orthodox daily newspaper today accused the State of Israel
of encouraging anti-Semitism throughout the world, claiming that lax religious
adherence in the nation and “harassment” of the Haredi community were to blame.
2015: Today,
“after a week of intense political pressure and
dwindling support, Sheldon Silver submitted his resignation as Speaker,
effective February 2, while retaining his position as Assembly Member and
vowing to fight the charges against him.”
2015: Ernst
Lutisch’s “Angel” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Cinematheque
2015: “Born
Yesterday” is scheduled to be shown at the 92nd St Y as part of the
Women on Top series.
2015: The
Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present “Piano Games” featuring Ariel
Halevi, Dror Semmel and Michaek Serzekel.
2016: “Over
3500 selflessly committed and highly talented women including 4 from Arkansas
are scheduled to spend Shabbat in New York, as part of the annual
Chabad-Lubavitch International Kinus Hashluchos (conference of Chabad women
representatives and their guests) which is held each year, at this time on the
calendar, in conjunction with the yahrzeit of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka
Schneerson, wife of the Rebbe whose yahrzeit is the 22nd of Shevat.”
2016: The
Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present “The Best of Chamber Music -
Essence of Piano Trios” featuring the Alexander Trio.
2016: The
first of the two-part annual exhibition Illustrators 58 being held at the
Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators featuring the
work of Merav Salomon is scheduled to come to an end today.
2016: Shabbat
Yitro – reading of the Ten Commandments
2017(3rd
of Shevat, 5777): Eighty-eight-year-old “art historian and critic” Dorea
Ashston, the daughter of Dr. Ralph Shapiro and Newark News reporter Sylvia
Smith, passed away today.
http://www.artnews.com/2017/02/02/in-memorian-dore-ashton-1928-2017/
2017(3rd
of Shevat, 5777): Ninety-five-year-old Holocaust surviving pianist Walter
Hautzig passed away today.
2017(3rd
of Shevat, 5777): Ninety-year-old Tulane Graduate Harold Rosen, the engineer
responsible for what has become our modern communication network passed away
today.
2017: In Boca
Raton, FL, supporters of US Holocaust Memorial Museum from South Florida are
scheduled to hold their annual luncheon where “Wendy Holden, author of Born
Survivors: Three Young Mothers and their Extraordinary Story of Courage,
Defiance, and Hope, will interview Eva Clarke, one of the infant survivors
whose mothers are featured in the book.”
2018: As part
of the observance of Holocaust Memorial Day, the Oxford University Jewish
Society is scheduled to “Women in the Holocaust, “a talk by Holocaust historian
Dr. Zoe Waxman, the author of Writing the Holocaust: memory, testimony,
representation (2006), Anne Frank (2015), and Women in the
Holocaust: A Feminist History of the Holocaust (2017), as well as numerous
articles relating to the Holocaust and genocide who teaches in the Centre for
Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University of Oxford.
2018: The
Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Tu B’Shevat Seder this
evening.
2018:
Professor Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University is scheduled to lecture on
“Anti-Semitism Past and Present” as part of the History Matters “a new lecture
series at the Center for Jewish History.”
2018: Leonard
Stein is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Jewish Spain in American Tongue:
The Sephardic Return of Emma Lazarus” at the Center for Jewish History.
2018: As part
of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration “Father Sam
Argenziano of Winnipeg’s Holy Rosary Parish Church is scheduled to speak on the
role the Catholic Church played during the Holocaust.
2018(14th
of Shevat, 5778): Ninety-one-year-old cardiologist and author Dr. Isadore
Rosenfeld passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
2019(24th
of Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar, date on which “the prophet Zechariah
predicted the rebuilding of Zion.”
http://www.aish.com/dijh/Shevat_24.html
2019: The
American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to host an “evening featuring former
CIA analyst and renowned scholar Kenneth Pollack, the author of Armies of Sand
in conversation with Algemeiner editor-in-chief Dovid Efune” during which they
will discuss the “changing Arab military threat to Israel.”
2019: In
Memphis, members of Temple Israel are scheduled to “with the Community Shlicah
Meitave” for a conversational Hebrew class that will help attendees build on
their “existing foundation of Hebrew while exploring contemporary news, music
and other aspects of Israeli culture.”
2019: In Cedar
Rapids, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to discuss Not Our Kind: A Novel
by Kitty Zeldis.
2019:
Observance of National Croissant Day. Oddly
enough the croissant and the bagel – two signature “breads” – are connected to
the same event in history. According to
legend when the Ottomans were laying to siege in Vienna in 1683, “the bakers of
Vienna, who worked in the basement storerooms, heard the sound of Turks digging
tunnels and alerted the” military authorities. For their vigilance, the bakers
received high honors and thanks for their assistance in outwitting the Turks.
In celebration, they baked their bread in the shape of a crescent moon—the
symbol of the Ottoman Empire. After the Turks were defeated, it became custom
to serve morning coffee with the crescent-shaped pastry!
According to
another legend , bagels were invented during the same siege by a Viennese baker
trying to pay tribute to the King of Poland, Jan Sobieski” who “had led Austria
(and hence Poland as well, since it was part of the empire) in repelling
invading Turkish armies. Given that the king was famous for his love of horses,
the baker decided to shape his dough into a circle that looked like a stirrup
-- or beugel in German. (As reported by Ari Weinzeig and “Days of the Year”)
Those living
in Cedar Rapids who observe the dietary laws can take part in the observance
those to Aldi’s and Trader Joe’s both of which carry kosher versions of the
golden, flakey, delicacy.
2020: As
National Croissant Day is scheduled to be observed, Jews can also contemplate
the taste of its close relation – Rugelach.
2020: The
JCCSF is scheduled to Dani Shapiro, as the author of Inheritance talks
about her DNA test that uncovered family secrets and led to discoveries about
her ancestry.
2020: In
Walnut Creek, CA, Congregation B’nai Shalom is scheduled to host “Violins of
Hope: Along the Trade Route” featuring four Bay Area violinists including
Cookie Segelstein.
2020: The JCC
of Greater Boston is schooled to a panel discussion “Can Faith and Politics Be
Separated?”
2020: The
Streicker Center is scheduled to host Dr. Jessica Marglin’s lecture on “The
Jews of North Africa Under French Colonialism.
2020: Funeral
services are scheduled to be held today in Marion, IA for businessman and
pillar of the Jewish Community Bert Katz who was one of those brave men who
came ashore with the first waves at Omaha Beach and led his men in all the
major battles in the ETO as they fought to end Nazi tyranny.
2021: “Mass”
co-starring English born Jewish actor Jason Isaacs premiered at the Sundance
Film Festival today.
2021: Based on
reports published yesterday, as Israelis celebrate Shabbat, they are confronted
with the reality that a growing proportion of Israel’s middle class is being
plunged into poverty because of job loss and “the burden of soaring expenses.”
2021: Israel’s
foreign ministry has stepped up security at its embassies around the world in
light of the explosion of bomb yesterday outside the Israeli embassy in New
Delhi.
2021: Kehilat
Sukkat Shalom is scheduled to host a full day of programming to embrace space
for rest and reflection, and the kehilah’s favorite holiday – Tu B’Shvat, the
Birthday of Trees.
2021(17th
of Shevat, 7801): Parashat Beshalach; Shabbat Shirah; This is the same portion
that was read on January 27, 1945, when Auschwitz was liberated.
2022: The
Alliance for Jewish Theatre is scheduled to host a “Theatremacher Event”
planned by Alix Rosenfeld and Catherine Weingarten.
2022: The
American Sephardi Federation, the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America, the
Sephardic Foundation on Aging, and the Shearith Israel League Foundation are
scheduled to present “Salud i Vida: The 5th Annual New York Ladino Day!”
2022: New
Lehrhaus in partnership with KlezCalifornia is scheduled to present on line “Mickey
Katz, Yinglish Comedy and the Continuity of Klezmer,” a “lecture by
musicologist Uri Schreter of Harvard on the late comedic musician Mickey Katz,
his music, its history and the meaning behind his humor.
2022: The
New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including The Book of All Books by Roberto
Calasso, the subject of which is the Hebrew Bible and the recently released
paperback edition of City Of A Thousand Gates by Rebecca Sacks.
2022: President
Isaac Herzog and his wife Michael are scheduled to depart for the UAE early today
for his first official visit to the Gulf nation at the invitation of Crown
Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed.
2023: The Sir Martin Gilbert Centre is scheduled to
host a lecture by Ula Madej-Krupitski, an Assistant Professor in the Department
of Jewish Studies at McGill University, on “Polish Jews on Vacation: Leisure
and Identity in the Interwar Period.”
2023: The
Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host a screening of “The Matchmaker,”
directed by Avi Nesher followed by discussion with “film scholar Stuart
Weinstock.”
2023: The Quad
Cineman is scheduled to present the first screening of “The Everyday Absurd:
‘The Band Visit’ and More by Eran Kolirin”
2023: The
Center for Jewish History and the Leo Baeck Institute are scheduled to present
a lecture by Susanne Heim on “The Holocaust in the European Context.”
2023: The
Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center is scheduled to host Israel’s 13th
prime minister, Naftali Bennett, to “discuss the application of his 70/70 rule,
which reflected the fact that around 70% of Israelis agree on 70% of the
issues; his attempts to mediate with Presidents Zelensky and Putin; the
fracture of his coalition and his fear that Israel’s internal divisions suggest
chilling parallels to the falls of the First and Second Temples.”
2024: Mosaic is
scheduled a podcast on “How David Ben-Gurion Bore the Burdens of Statesmanship,
and How Israelis Can Today” with Neil Rogachevsky, Avi Shilon, and Ran Baratz
2024: The
Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host a “virtual tour of the
Synagogues of the Lower East Side.”
2024: The
Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host online “Responding to
Anti-Jewish Hate on College Campuses.”
2024: JWI is scheduled
to present on Zoom “an exclusive event with the creators of the
#MeToo_Unless_Ur_A_Jew initiative to learn about their upcoming testimony to
the UK Parliament House of Lords. Ambassador Meryl Frank, one of the founders
of UN Women, will unpack current challenges and explain what we should listen
for during the visit to Israel by the UN special envoy on sexual violence.”
2024: The
American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present “The Blues and Resilience:
A Concert in Honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day” featuring
Israeli jazz musician Itamar Borochov.
2024:
As January 30th begins in Israel, the Hamas held
hostages begin day 116 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.)
