This Day, February 16, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. and Deb Levin Z"L
February 16
600: Pope
Gregory the Great decrees that the phrase “God bless You” is an
appropriate response to a sneeze. Gregory’s policy in regard to the Jews is
expressed in the following sentence, which was adopted by later popes as a
fixed …
February 16
600: Pope
Gregory the Great decrees that the phrase "God bless You" is an
appropriate response to a sneeze. Gregory's policy in regard to the Jews is
expressed in the following sentence, which was adopted by later popes as a
fixed introductory formula to bulls in favor of the Jews: "Just as no
freedom may be granted to the Jews in their communities to exceed the limits
legally set for them, so they should in no way suffer through a violation of
their rights" (As reported by the Jewish Encyclopedia)
1086: In
response to a solar eclipse, citizens of Sicily burn torches and lamps during
normal daylight hours. Jews would have been among those burning these lights.
They had been living in Sicily since the end of the Great Revolt in 70 when
they came to the island as slaves. Jews lived at Palermo, Syracuse and
Catania. The community would survive until they were expelled as part of
the Spanish Inquisition.
1249: Louis IX
of France, also known as St. Louis, dispatched Andrew of Longjumeau as his
ambassador to meet with Mongol Khagan of the Mongol Empire. Louis was in Egypt
engaged in the first of his two Crusades aimed at regaining the Holy Land from
the “Islamic infidels.” Andrew’s mission was part of an attempt to forge
an alliance with the Mongols against the Moslems. Louis had financed his
first crusade (known to history as The Seventh Crusade) in part by expelling
all of the Jews engaged in usury and confiscating their property. Further acts
of his pre-Crusade piety included the burning of some 12,000 manuscript copies
of the Talmud and other Jewish books and an expansion of the Inquisition.
The alliance with the Mongols failed to materialize and the crusade was a total
failure.
1267: “Alfonso
the Wise and Afonso III signed the Treaty of Badajoz, a pact of friendship and
mutual assistance” which “established the border between Castile and Portugal
to the latter's disadvantage.”
1349: The Jews
were expelled from Burgsdorf Switzerland
1349: “The
impecunious Eberhard of Kyburg expelled the Jews of Burgdorf in the territory
of Bern” tonight and “confiscated their property
1525: During
the Great Peasants Revolt which will test the skills “Shtadlan: Josel (Yosel)
of Rosheim, “25 villagers belonging to the city of Memingen rebelled” demanding
an improvement in their economic conditions and change in the political
environment that controlled their lives.
1565(15th of
Adar): In Mantua, Italy first printing of Menorat ha-Ma’or by Rabbi Isaac Aboab
1570: The Jews
miraculously escaped the impact a violent earthquake in Italy.
1594:
Astronomer Tycho Brahe arranged for The Maharal (Judah Lowe, the Chief Rabbi of
Prague) to meet with Emperor Rudolph II.
1616: Elias
Felice Montalto passed away. Montalto had converted to Christianity but
later returned to Judaism. A physician and author who had lived in
Venice, Montalto was living in Paris and serving as the private physician to
Queen Maria de Medici at the time of his death. The queen had him
embalmed and sent to the Jewish cemetery at Ouderkerk near Amsterdam.
1761:
Birthdate of German native Handel bat Gumbert, the wife of Joseph ben Ephriam
Zimmern and the mother of Rosina and Moses Zimmern
1762: Sarah
and Moses Franks gave birth to Rachel Franks, the wife Polish born,
Philadelphia businessman and American patriot Chaim Solomon and the mother of
Ezekiel, Sallie, Deborah and Chaim Moses Solomon.
1768(28th
of Shevat, 5528):After having contracted yellow fever, Rachel Faucette, the
Jewish mother of Alexander Hamilton passed away today leaving the future
American patriot and U.S. Secretary of Treasury an orphan.
1780: Acher
Ascher Lion ou Loew and Gitlé Loëw gave birth to Benjamin Wolf Loew.
1783(14th
of Adar I, 5543): Purim Katan observed on the same day that George Washington
wrote to David Rittenhouse expressing his appreciation for the eyeglasses he
had sent him.
https://www.americanrevolutioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/George-Washington-to-David-Rittenhouse-February-16-1783.pdf
1786: Abraham
de Lyon and his wife gave birth to Isaac de Lyon.
1786: In
Savannah, GA, Sarah de la Motta and Levi Sheftall, of the noted Sheftall clan
gave birth to Emanuel Sheftalll, the father of Solomon, Rebecca, Emanuel and
Elizabeth Sheftall.
1788: In
Charleston, SC, St. Croix born Sarah De La Motta and Savanah born Levi
Sheftall, part of the famous Sheftall clan gave birth to Perla Sheftall, the
wife of Norfolk native Isaac Russell whom she married in 1808 and with whom she
had nine children.
1792(23rd
of Shevat, 5552): Eighty-two-year-old Captain Mordecai Abrahams, the London
born son Brian Abrahams, the husband of Sarah Levy Abraham and the father of
Mordecai and Jacob Levi Abraham passed away today in Virginia today.
1794: In
Maryland, Rachel Gratz, and York, PA native Solomon Etting gave birth to Fanny
Etting, an early member of one Maryland’s most important Jewish families.
1799(11th
of Adar I, 5559): Parashat Tetzaveh
1799: French
forces under Napoleon Bonaparte occupied the Egyptian town of El Arresh after
an eight-day siege. The French Army then began a march towards Khan Younis and
Gaza.
1802(14th
of Adar I, 5562): Purim Katan observed on the same day that Lebanon, NH
blacksmith gave birth to American clockmaker Phineas Parkhurst Quimby.
1803: Moses
Lazarus married Judith Magnus today at the Great Synagogue.
1803:
Forty-two-year-old merchant Benjamin S. Judah, the son of Samuel Judah was
married today to Eliza Israel.
1804: The
“child” of Michael Oppenheim and Kitty Joseph was buried today.
1811: In New
York City, Sarah Seixas and Isaac Mendes Seixas Nathan who were married in 1808
in NYC gave birth to Jonathan Nathan, the husband of Rebecca Moses with whom he
had seven children.
1825(28th
of Shevat,5585): Seventy-two-year-old Brandy Lazarus, the daughter of Sampson
Lazarus and wife of Joshua Isaacs passed away today in New York City.
1828(1st
of Adar, 5588): Parashat Mishpatim; Rosh Chodesh Adar; Shabbat Shekalim
observed as Andrew Jackson ran against John Quincy Adams for the Presidency of
the United States.
1829:
Henrietta Samuel and Solomon Benedict de Worms who “owned large plantations in
Ceylon and was made a hereditary baron of the Austrian Empire by Franz Joseph I
gave birth to George de Worms, 2nd Baron de Worms the English
official and banker whose sibling included Anthony Mayer de Worms, Ellen
Henreitta de Worms and Henry de Worms.
1837:
Birthdate of Asher Asher the native of Glasgow who was the first Jew in
Scotland to become a Doctor of Medicine and the author of The Jewish Rite of
Circumcision.
1837(11th
of Adar I, 5597): Seventy-year-old Cary J. Judah, the New York City born son of
Samuel Judah passed away today in New York.
1840:
Birthdate of Gotha native, Frederike Bognar who became a successful German
singer and actress.
1842: Judah
Cohen married Caroline Davis today at the New Synagogue.
1842: Isaac
Somers married Hannah Marks today at the New Synagogue.
1844: One day
after he had passed away, 22-year-old Henry Marks was buried today at the Brady
Street Jewish Cemetery.
1845:
Birthdate of explorer George Kennan who spent two years working in Russia which
gave credibility to his comments in 1893 that the Russians were indeed issuing
edits aimed to punish the Jews which were forcing them to leave and come to the
United States.
1848: Joseph
Solomon married Caroline Kesner today at the Great Synagogue.
1851(14th
of Adar I, 5611): Purim Katan
1854: L'étoile
du nord (The North Star) an opéra comique in three acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer
was performed at the Salle Favart by the company of the Opéra-Comique, Paris,
for the first time today. Meyerbeer whose birth named Jacbo Liebmann Beer, was
the son of the German-Jewish financier Jacob Judah Herz Beer and Amalia
Liebmann Meyer Wulff
1855: Today,
in The Israelite, H.A. Kusel of Milwaukee, WI, advertised for “a gentleman who
is capable of acting as Chazan, Schochet and teacher” and who has the
certificates to verify these skills.
1855(28th of
Shevat): Jacob Raphael Furstenthal passed away in Breslau. Born at Glogau
in 1781, he is known for his German translations of and Hebrew commentaries to
the Moreh Nebukim of Moses Maimonides and the Ḥobot
ha-Lebabot of Baḥya ibn Paḳuda,
1856(8th
of Adar I, 5616): Isaac de Lyon, the son of Abraham de Lyons, passed away today
on what was his thirtieth birthday.
1857:
"Strange Piece of Rascality and Shysterism" published today reported
on an apparent attempt to defraud Samuel Goldberry who had been arrested on a
charge of petty larceny last March and who was still waiting to stand
trial. According to the article "Heitman, a Jew," a police
officer named Frank White, a man named Piser, a Jew named Rosenbaum and a Jew
named Rosenberg, conspired to con Goldberry out of $165.00.
[Interestingly, the author only the Jews were identified by religion.]
1857: The
National Deaf-Mute College (later renamed Gallaudet University) is established
in Washington, DC, becoming the first school for the advanced education of the
deaf. In the course of fulfilling its educational mission Gallaudet has created
a selected bibliography styled, “Deaf Persons in the Holocaust.” http://library.gallaudet.edu/dr/faq-holocaust.html.
1858: In
Richmond, VA, Solomon H. Myers and his wife gave birth to track star Laurence
Eugene “Lon” Myers.
http://www.jewishsports.net/BioPages/LonMyers.htm
1860: In
Yancyville, NC, Bavarian born Lazarus and Susannah Fels gave birth to Samuel
Fels, the Philadelphia businessman and philanthropist and the brother of Joseph Fels whose company
produced Fels-Naptha.
1861(6th
of Adar, 5621): Parashat Teruman
1861: As Jews
observed Shabbat, President-elect Lincoln continued his train trip to
Washington, stopping in a New York town today where he met and kissed Grace
Bedell, a young girl who had written to the presidential candidate suggesting
that he grow a beard.”
1864: After
enlisting in 1861, Captain Morris Kayser completed his service with Company A
of the Ninety-First Regiment.
1866: In New
York City, Henry and Natalie (Wittkowsky) Mannes gave birth to violinist and
conductor David Mannes, the husband of Clara Mannes and son-in-law of Leopold
Damrosch, who helped to “found the Colored Music Settlement School” and the
Mannes Music School
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/04/25/83683650.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1866(1st
of Adar, 5626): Rosh Chodesh Ada
1866(1st
of Adar, 5626): Seventy-four-year-old London resident Henriette Rothschild, the
Frankfurt born daughter of Mayer Amschel Rothschild and husband of Abraham
Montefiore with she had “two sons, Joseph and Nathaniel, and two daughters,
Charlotte and Louise” passed away today.
https://family.rothschildarchive.org/people/30-henriette-rothschild-1791-1866
1868: Charles August Lauff,
the German native and California businessman, and his wife, Maris J. Sebran,
the daughter of Gregorio and Ramono Briones, gave birth to twin daughters –
Valentina and Julia.
1869(5th
of Ada, 5629): Sixty-four-year-old Esther Nunez Cohen, the Easton, PA bon
daughter of Sarah and Isaac Nunez Cohen passed away today in New York City.
1869:
Birthdate of Moravia native Julius Tandler who became a physician and political
leader in Vienna.
1870: The Jews
of Sweden were emancipated.
1871: The
Executive Committee of the Hebrew Charity Fair presented Emanual B. Hart with
an engraved silver dinner service tonight in recognition of the services he has
rendered in making the latest fund raiser a successful event. Mr. S.L.
Cohen made the presentation speech and Mr. Hart responded with the appropriate
words and toasts.
1872: It was
reported today that of the 73 private charitable institutions in New York City
controlled by religious denominations that received state aide in 1870, two of
them were controlled by Jewish organizations. They received $11, 453.72
out of a total allocation of $688,048.86. No final figures were available for
1871.
1872: “An
Oriental Seeks Justice” published today described the legal difficulties of
Rabbi Aarons, an octogenarian from Jerusalem who while preaching in a small
uptown New York City synagogue “denounced certain wind-dealers who” he claims
“pretended to sell wine especially prepared for Jewish religious observances”
when it was in fact prepared by non-Jews which meant that it was ritually
unfit.
1872: It was
reported today that Mr. Rosenfeldt had committed suicide in Kingston, Jamaica.
Mr. Rosenfeldt had converted to Christianity from Judaism. Many of the
Jews in Kingston thought that Rosenfeldt had changed his mind. But in a
suicide note written to the Bishop the deceased said he had killed himself
because “others were conspiring against” and he wanted to leave part of his
estate to those working to convert Jews. [Editor’s note – I can find no further
reference to Mr. Rosenfeldt or his family who was living in Germany at the time
of his death.]
1877: In
Poland, Sarah Stolnikowicz and Jacob Markel gave birth to importer and exporter
of chemical products turned rabbi, Nisson Markel, the husband of Rose Scharjowicz
who in 1921 came to the United States where he became the spiritual leader of B’rith
Shalom Synagogue in Buffalo, NY
1877: In
Poland, Jacob and Sarah Markowski gave birth to self-taught Talmudist and
history student Nisson Markel, the husband of Rose Scharjowicz who went from
being a Polish importer and exporter of chemical products to serving as a Rabbi
Brith Shalom a Buffalo, NY, congregation after WW I.
1879: It was
reported today that out of the 40,000 people living in Krakow, 12,000 of them
are Jews most of whom are “Orthodox or Rabbinical.
1880: David
Harfeld, the brother of Rabbi Eugene Harfeld failed to return the furnished
room he was renting with his wife, the former Julia Harlan. This
desertion would lead to charges of bigamy in case that would be heard nine
years later.
1880:
Telegrams were received in Cleveland, Ohio from Evansville, Indiana, inquiring
about the whereabouts of Bethold Landua, the Secretary of Kescher Sher Bassel.
Landau, who has not been heard from in two weeks, has possession of nearly
$40,000 of the society’s money. The society is holding its annual
national convention in Evansville.
1881:
Birthdate of Hans Meiser, the pro-Nazi Nuremberg native who served as Bishop of
the Bavarian Evangelical-Lutheran Church. In 1938 he imposed the
following loyalty oath: I swear to God the Almighty and All-knowing: I will be
loyal and obedient to the Führer of the Reich and Volk, Adolf Hitler, I will
obey the laws, and I will conscientiously fulfill all my official duties, so
help me God."
1881: In
Moldavia, Fannie and Benjamin Zuckerman gave birth Californian Samuel
Zuckerman, the husband of Elizabeth Zuckerman and father of Herman and Sidney
Zuckerman who is not to be confused with Lithuanian born Yiddish journalist Samuel
Z.Zuckerman.
1882:
According to the Times of London, the
British Foreign Office is about to issue a report based on information provided
by its consular officials describing attacks on the Jews living in
Russia. While there are no proven “cases of the violation of women” there
is clear evidence of “other serious outrages.” If the authorities had used the
proper amount of force, “the outrages” might have been confined to a more
limited area. For obvious reason, the Jews still living in Russia have
been reluctant to provide information to the British officials. [Editor’s Note
– Use the term “outrages” to describe a Pogrom must be a classic example of the
English penchant for understatement.]
1882: German
immigrants Marcus and Hannah (Itzig) Cronbach gave birth to Abraham Cronbach,
the graduate of HUC and the University of Cincinnati who combined his pulpit
activities with deeply held pacifist beliefs.
http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0009/ms0009.html
1885(1st
of Adar, 5645): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1885:
Birthdate of New York City native and NYU Law School grad Abraham Landau, an
executive with clothing manufacture Julius Schwartz and Sons which later
“became a personal investment firm” starting in 1922, a “president of the
fifteenth Assembly District Republican Club” and “a trustee of Beth Israel
Hospital” who with his wife Hannah raised two daughters.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/02/11/105178222.pdf
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2010/06/18/maurice-wertheim
http://brookhavensouthhaven.org/history/Wertheim/WertheimDegasToMatisse.htm
1889(15th
of Adar I, 5649): Parashat Ki Tisa; Shushan Purim Katan
1889(15th
of Adar I, 5649): Seventy-three-year-old Charleston, SC native and Mexican
American War veteran Julian Harby, the husband of “Joseph Solis” who passed
away in 1865, passed away today in San Francisco, CA.
1890: The
23-piece Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band played at this evening’s concert sponsored
by the Seligman Solomon Society.
1890(26th
of Shevat, 5650): Fifty-eight-year-old Philadelphia Myer Asch, the son of
Clarissa and Joseph M. Asch who reached the rank of Colonel while serving with
the Union Army during the Civil War and pursued a career in dentistry after the
war passed away today in New York.
1890(26th
of Shevat, 5650): Isaac Jacob, a Jewish peddler, ambushed Herman Rogozinski, a
Washington Market poultry carrier and shot him with a 38 caliber “Blue Jacket”
pistol fatally wounding him when the bullet struck Herman in the breast. He
then committed suicide after a failed attempt to kill Mrs. Rogozinksi.
1890: “The Jew
Question in France” published today described the attempts of the Boulangists
to revive interest in the movement by exploiting “discontent in financial and
social circles with” successful Jewish banks in general and the Rothschilds in
particular. (The Boulangists were a right-wing militarist movement named for
General Boulanger and was an example of the social unrest in the Third Republic
that produced, among other things, the Dreyfus Affair)
1891: In
“Rogachev, Russia, Louis and Rose Goedelberg Cohen gave birth to bacteriologist
Dr. Barnett Cohen who served as an “associate professor of physiological
chemistry at John Hopkins University School Medicine”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1952/10/25/83801189.pdf
1891: It was
reported today that Lewis May and Jesse Seligman spoke at the memorial service
held to honor the memory of Lazarus Rosenfeld. They recounted “his
efforts in the founding of Mount Sinai Hospital, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, the
Home for the Aged, the Montefiore Home and Temple Emanu-El.”
1891: It was
reported today that the newly elected officers of the Jewish Alliance of
America are: President – Simon Wolf of Philadelphia; Vice Presidents – Dr. H.W.
Schneeberg of Baltimore, Dr. Charles D. Spivak of Philadelphia and Ferdinand
Levy of New York; Secretary – Barnard Harris of Philadelphia; Treasurer – Simon
Wolf of Washington, D.C. The goal of the alliance is to help teach the newly
arriving immigrants from Russia “habits of self-support” with an emphasis on
farming.
1892: As the
outbreak of typhus fever continues to spread, The Health Department is
scheduled to accept the offer of the Immigration Commissioners to use Ward’s
Island as a quarantine site for those found to be suffering from typhus. The
fever seems to be most prevalent among recently arriving immigrants including a
large number of Jews from Russia.
1892: The
Second Conference of the Russian American Hebrew Agricultural Fund Association
will meet this evening at the Hebrew Institute on East Broadway.
1892:
Birthdate of Rochester, NY, native David Hochstein, the distinguished violinist
and soloist with the Rochester Orchestra who sailed to France as a lieutenant
with the AEF where he performed his last concert at Nancy before being killed
during the fighting at the Argonne Forest in 1918.
1892: It was
reported today that all of the 84 people quarantined on North Brother Island
because of typhus fever are Jewish immigrants from Russia who arrived aboard
the SS Massilia.
1893(OS):
“Glouskine a clever young Jew who served in the Russian army with distinction,
rising to be an under officer” and who “then became the manager of important
iron works in the village of Kamieny” was ordered today “to get out within
eight days together with his family” as part of the forced Russian expulsion of
Jews in Poland.
1893: In Ennis
TX, Rosa Trebitsch and Samuel Henenberg gave birth to Dallas School of Law trained
attorney Hattie Leah Henenberg, the Associate Justice of the Texas Supreme
Court who an “observant Jew” and a member of Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, TX.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/henenberg-hattie-leah
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hattie-leah-henenberg#google_vignette
1895: The
Jewish Lads’ Brigade, (which would eventually become the Jewish Lads’ and
Girls’ Brigade) “the United Kingdom’s old Jewish youth movement, was founded, after a
lecture by Colonel Albert Goldsmid before the Maccabaeans, at a meeting held at
the Jews' Free School in the East End of London today, when the first company
of boys was enrolled” and who would being there first weekly drills six weeks
from this date.
1896:
“Synagogue Members In A Fight” published today described fight that broke
between supporters of Solomon Bentowski and Heyman Solomon during the business
meeting of synagogue that met at 112 Clinton Street in New York. The police
were called but no arrests were made.
1897(14th
of Adar I, 5657): Purim Katan
1897: Three
days after head passed away, 35-year-old Myer Hecht was buried today at the
Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1897: The
third monthly conference of representatives of New York City charities
including N.S. Rosenau of the United Hebrew Charities is scheduled to take
place today.
1897: In
Philadelphia, PA, “Rabbi Nathan I. and Mollie (Sattenstein) Brenner gave birth
to Temple University and Dropsie College alum Jay Gerson Brenner, the Jewish
Institute of Religion trained Rabbi whose career took him from being the
Superintendent of Ahavath Israel Religious School in Philadelphia to sering as
the leader of Temple Beth Mordecai in Perth Amboy, NJ.
1897: Three
days after he passed away, 28-year-old Arthur Lionel Falk, the Manchester born
son of Sarah and Philip Falk, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish
Cemetery.”
1898: It was
reported that Judge Meyer S. Isaacs will speak at the next meeting of the Young
Men’s Hebrew Association.
1899(6th
of Adar I, 5659): Track-star Laurence “Lon” Myers passed away today on his 41st
birthday
http://www.usatf.org/HallOfFame/TF/showBio.asp?HOFIDs=118
http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/JSH/JSH1975/JSH0202/jsh0202b.pdf
1899: French
President Félix Faure dies in office. Faure was the “addressee” of one of
the most famous letters in Jewish History. On January 13, 1898 The French
newspaper L’Aurore published a letter written by Emile Zola entitled
J’accuse addressed to Faure. The letter exposed the conspiracy known as
the Dreyfus Affair.
1900: It was
reported today that the body of Sergeant Morris J. Cohen of the Twentieth
Kansas Regiment who was killed while fighting in the Philippines has arrived in
Hoboken after which it was taken to the home of his brother-in-law in Jersey
City.
1901(27th
of Shevat, 5661): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim
1902: In a
letter to the Sultan, Herzl summarizes his negotiations. The Sultan's decision
is unfavorable.
1903: Birthdate of Liverpool native Louis Pollock
whose family moved to the United States in 1916 where he eventually developed a
career as screenwriter – a career that was ended when he was put on the
Blacklist because the Witch Hunters confused him with another writer, Louis
Pollack. (What a difference an “a”
makes.)
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8f76fxq/entire_text/
1904:
Birthdate of George Kennan, the American diplomat best known as the author of
the policy of containment which blocked Soviet imperialism in Europe and
eventually led to his downfall but who, unbeknownst to his many admirers was
writing in his diaries that Jews were “among the inferior races” whose ability
“to breed copiously” threatened “ our modern civilization.”
https://prospect.org/culture/books/cold-warrior/
1905: It was
reported today that “State Librarian Melvil Dewey was rebuked by the Board of
Regents for the publication by the Lake Placid Club, in which he is interested,
of circulars containing matter considered to be a reflection upon Jewish
citizens” while at the same time he was admonished by the Regents that his
continued responsibility for the circulation of such literature would be
incompatible with his position as State Librarian.
1905: Rabbi
Abram Simon, the Nashville, TN native and HUC graduate who had served as the
leader of the B’nai Israel Congregation in Sacramento delivered the prayer as
the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House Representatives while serving as the Rabbi
at Temple Israel in Omaha, NB.
https://opensiddur.org/profile/abram-simon/
1906(21st
of Shevat, 5666): Carl Joubert, the author whose works included Aspects of
the Jewish Question, Spiritual Forces in Judaism and Tyranny of
Faith passed away today in London.
1907: “The
Siegel Cooper Company announced today the apportionment in its annual
distribution of $10,000 to local charitable institutions, in accordance with
the vote of its customers” which meant “the Hebrew Orphan Asylum received the
largest amount, $500, and the Salvation Army, having received the next greatest
number of votes, got $250.”
1908:
Ukrainian born New York Socialist and state legislature, Abraham Isaac “Abe”
Shiplacoff, the son of Naphthalia Hertz Shiplacoff and Chana Tshipliacov and
Yetta Ettle Itta “Henrietta” Shilpacoff gave birth to Lydia “Libby” Aaron
Greene, he wife of Matthew Greene.
1909: Joseph
Chabot, “a Spanish rabbi from Syria” officiated at the wedding of Sameal
Hanania whose family were Sephardim from Constantinople and Rosa Penso whose
family came from Turkey to the United States ten years ago
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1909/02/17/106117356.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1910: Colonel
Claude Reignier Conder passed away. During his service with the Corps of
Engineers, he took part in a survey of Western Palestine from 1872 to 1874
along with Lieutenant Horatio Kitchener, the future British military leader
known as Lord Kitchener. He also served two tours with the Palestine
Exploration Fund Among his literary accounts of his work were Tent
Work in Palestine, Memories” The Survey of Western and Eastern Palestine,
and The City of Jerusalem.
1911: “On the
ground that Russia has violated the treaty concluded with the United States on
Dec. 18, 1832, because of discrimination against American citizens of the
Jewish faith, Representative Parsons of New York and Louis Marshall of New York
City to-day urged the House Foreign Affairs Committee to report favorably the
Parsons resolution for the abrogation of that treaty.”
1912: A
Turkish Jew, G. Valensin Bey, who was a member of the municipal council of
Alexandria, was appointed Commander of the Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus
by the King of Italy
1912(28th
of Shevat, 5672): Eighty-five year old theatrical manager and writer
Albert L Parkes passed away in New York City.
1912: Six days
after he had passed away “British banker, Liberal Member of Parliament and
philanthropist, Sydney James Stern, 1st Baron Wandsworth, “the eldest son of
Viscount David de Stern, senior partner of the firm of Stern Brothers, and
Sophia, daughter of Aaron Asher Goldsmid, brother of Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid”
was buried today at the “Balls Pond Jewish Cemetery.”
1913: “After
an interregnum of eighteen months and a spirited contest between candidates,
Dr. Joseph H. Hertz of New York was to-day elected Chief Rabbi of the United
Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire at a meeting of the Electoral
College, presided over by Lord Rothschild, President of the United Synagogue.”
1913(9th
of Adar I, 5673): Organist Samuel L. Hermann passed away today in Philadelphia,
PA.
1913: In
Rozwadow, Poland, Sara Jitka Birnbaum and Mamci Springer gave birth to Abraham
Chaim Springer.
1913(9th of
Adar I, 5673): Sig Livingstone, a banker from Tamaqua, PA passed away today in
Havana, Cuba.
1914: It was
reported today that the Young Women’s Hebrew Association must raise another
$45,000 to pay off the debt created when it built a new facility at 110th
Street and Fifth Avenue which provided accommodations for 150 young Jewish
girls.
1915(2nd of
Adar, 5675): French composer Emil Waldteufel passed away.
1915: The
American Jewish Relief Committee issued a plea to every Jew in New York asking
that they send at least one dollar to the office of Treasurer Felix Warburg so
that the committee could take advantage of the offer of U.S Navy to ship 900
tons of food supplies “for the suffering and starving population of Palestine.”
1915:
Birthdate of Leah Ray Hubbard, the Norfolk, VA born singer who became Leah Ray
Hubbard Werblin when she met MCA executive and future owner of the New York
Jets “Sonny” Werblin.
1915: “Order
Jews to Rear” published today described the forced deportation of Jews from a
large part of Poland by the Russian government.
1915: Jacob N.
Chester took issue with claims by Russia that Jews were being forcibly being
deported from Zyrardow because “of the discovery of a concrete base for heavy
guns” at M. M. Dietrich’s factory where only Jews were employed before the war
because “as a matter of fact not a single Jew was ever employed in this
factory” which employed 20,000 Polish and German workers.
1916: Thanks
to the efforts of Albert Lucas, representing the Central Relief Committee of
New York the U.S. Collier Sterling is scheduled to leave today carrying “a
cargo of medicine and matzos” to Palestine.
1916: Mayer
Sulzberger, who had been “elected a member of the Philadelphia Board of City
Trusts in January” of this year was “award an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws
by Temple University” today.
1917: One day
after he had passed away, 80 year old Rabbi Abraham Abelson, “the husband of
Rachel Abelson” with whom he had had eleven children including Rabbi Joshua
Abelson was buried today at the “Merthyr Tydfil Jewish Cemetery.”
1917: After
425 years, dedication of the first synagogue to open in Madrid. We all
know about 1492 when the Jews were expelled. Now we know a little
about their official readmission.
1917: While
speaking tonight at Temple Israel in Harlem on “the possibility of the United
States entering the war” Rabbi M.H. Harris said that Jews have “mixed
sympathies” because they believed the Allied cause deserves the endorsement of
America” but are bothered by the long history of Russian oppression of the Jews
while feeling tied to Germany because of its place in the development of
“modern Judaism.”
1918:
Lithuania proclaimed its independence from Germany. Lithuania would have
to fight both the Germans and the Soviets for its right to be
independent. According to one source, at least 3,000 Jews fought in the
armies defending Lithuanian independence. This active role brought Jews and
their institution a certain amount of early recognition in the early days of
Lithuanian independence. This acceptance would recede during the
thirties. Following the outbreak of World War II, over 90 per cent of the
Jewish community would perish at the hands of the Soviets and the Nazis.
1919: Louis Lipsky, Rabbi Ephraim, Judge Hugo Pam
and Myer Arbrams are among some of the speakers scheduled to address the
delegates attending the Zionist Convention in Chicago.
1920: In
Brooklyn, “Isaac Sackler and the former Sophie Ziesel, Jewish immigrants from
Eastern Europe who ran a grocery store” gave birth to Raymond Raphael Sackler
“whose family made a fortune from OxyContin.”
1920: Today,
following her divorce from vaudeville actor Lou Leslie, Belle Baker, the famous
“torch singer, vaudevillian and movie actress, married her second husband,
Maurice Abrahams, with whom she had one son Herbert Joseph Baker, before
Abrahams died in 1931.
1920: Yiddish
theatre actress, Belle Baker, the daughter of Hyman and Sarah Becker married
Maurice Abrahams today.
1921: Today,
Sir Alfred Mond, who has just returned to London from Jerusalem gave “an
encouraging account of the reconstruction of Palestine” in which he said that
“a very fine class of young Jews from the Ukraine and Galicia” have been coming
to Palestine.
1922: As
England prepares for the Marriage of Princess Mary, one gift which will “give
her great pleasure is a portrait of Viscount Lascelles now being paitned by
Solomon J. Solomon, R.A.” the brother of another Jewish painter, Lilly Delissa.
1923: “In Częstochowa
in southern Poland to Perec Willenberg and his wife Maniefa (née Popow)” gave
birth to Samuel Willenberg, the Jewish veteran of the Polish Army who escaped
from Treblinka during the uprising, settled in Israel in 1950 where he worked
as a surveyor, created sculpture and wrote Revolt in Treblinka while
living long enough to become at his death the last survivor of that death camp
which had claimed the lives of his two sisters. (Telegraph News)
1924(11th
of Adar I, 5684): Parashat Tetzaveh
1924: A bazaar
sponsored by the People’s Relief “Ort” of America which will raise funds for
Jews of Central and Eastern Europe is scheduled to open at the Grand Central
Palace.
1924: Morris
B. Diamond was on the verge of collapse again today, not because he had been
convicted of first-degree murder but because he had found out that last night
his younger brother Joseph had been found guilty of first degree murder for his
role in shooting two bank messengers during a robbery in November.
1925: Dr.
Chaim Weizman, the President of the World Zionist Organization, was greeted
with a standing ovation tonight when he delivered his first public address at
meeting in Carnegie Hall which was the kickoff for the one million dollar fund
raising driving of the Palestine Foundation Fund.
1926: In
London, “Winifred Henrietta (née Regensburg) and Bernard Edward Schlesinger, a
physician” gave birth to director John Schlesinger who won the Oscar for Best
Director for his work on “Midnight Cowboy” which won the 1969 Oscar for Best
Picture.
1926: In
Frankfurt, Edith and Otto Frank gave birth to their first daughter Margot, the
older sister of diarist Anne Frank
1926: Five
days after the employers had locked 8,500 workers the union responded by
calling a general strike of all 12,000 fur workers in New York City lead by Ben
Gold.
1927: In
Suffolk, England, Louisa Ann (née Butler) and Henry William Melton Brown gave
birth to British actress June Muriel Brown.
1928: It was
reported today that Senator William H. King of Utah has “stressed the duty of
the Jews to rebuild their homeland and expressed his sympathy with the Zionist
cause” while “upbraiding certain Jews” who he called “assimilationists” for
their opposition to Zionism.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1928/02/16/91475358.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1929(6th
of Adar I, 5689): Parashat Terumah
1929: Rabbi
Nathan Krass of Temple Emanu-El and Dr. S.M. Rubinow, the executive director of
the ZOA were among the speakers at tonight meeting of the United Palestine
Appeal in Mt. Vernon where it was announced that $20,000 of the $50,000 quota
for the New York campaign has already been raised.
1930: Rabbi
Nathan Krass is scheduled to officiate at the annual memorial services of the
Jewish Theatrical Guild of America be held this afternoon at Temple Emanu-El
honoring members of the guild “who have died since its organization including
Harry Houdini.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1930/02/07/95750430.html?pageNumber=27
1930: “City
Girl” produced by William Fox was released in the United States.
1930: On New
York’s Lower East Side, Rabbi Yitzchak Mattisyahu Weinberg and his wife Hinda
gave birth to Yisrael Noah Weinberg the Rosh Yeshiva at Aish HaTorah.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/834580/jewish/The-Rosh-Yeshivah-and-the-Shliach.htm
1931: On day
after he had passed away and one day before his funeral, the family of veteran
performer of Louis Mann announced the list of honorary pallbearers which
included “Mayor James J. Walker, former New York Governor and Presidential
candidate Alfred E. Smith, Lt. Gov. Herbert Lehman and entertainers Al Jolson,
Eddie Cantor and George Jessel.
1931: “A stock
presentation of ‘An American Tragedy,’ a dramatization of the novel by the same
is scheduled to open at the Waldorf Theatre produced by Jules Leventhal.
1932(8th of
Adar I, 5692): Sir Edgar Speyer, 1st Baronet an American-born financier and
philanthropist who became a British subject in 1892 and was chairman of Speyer
Brothers, the British branch of his family's international finance house, and a
partner in the German and American branches passed away today. He was stripped
of his honors as a British citizen following a smear campaign that accused him
of being pro-German during World War I.
1932:
Birthdate of Romanian born and Holocaust survivor Israeli novelist Aharon
Appelfeld. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/appelfeld.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/obituaries/aharon-appelfeld-dies.html
1932: Birthday
of Harry Goz who played Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” on Broadway in 1966 and
1967.
1932: In the
Bronx homemaker Sarah Greenberg and Samuel Greenberg, “a carpenter who worked
as the foreman of shop in Queens that made upscale furniture” gave birth to
Arnold Greenberg, the founder of the law firm of Greenberg and Tuchman who the
Completer Traveler, a truly unique bookstore.
1932: The New
York Times said of Benjamin Cardozo's appointment to the Supreme Court that
"seldom, if ever, in the history of the Court has an appointment been so
universally commended"
1932: It was
reported today that before nominating Justice Cardoza, President Hoover
“conferred with Senator Watson of Indiana, the Republican floor leader in the
Senate who predicted a unanimous confirmation” Senator Borah of Idaho responded
by saying that if there were two Virginians on the court and John Marshall was
a candidate for the vacancy, I don’t think there would be any hesitation to
confirm him.”
1932: It was
reported today that when objection was raised to the nomination of Justice
Cardoza because he would make the third New Yorker on the High Court (the other
two being Justices Hughes and Stone)
1933: Former
Justice Joseph M. Proskauer was re-elected for a thid term for president and
Paul Felix Warburg was elected vice president “of the Federation for the
Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies at a meeting of the board of
trustees” tonight.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/02/17/99293621.html?pageNumber=14
1934:
Sixty-five-year-old Charles Pearce Coady, a Democrat who served as a
Congressman from Maryland’s Third District and was one of the opening speakers
at the 13th annual convention of the Order of Brith Shalom in
Baltimore passed away today.
1934: The
Austrian Civil War, also known as the February Uprising which had begun on
February 12 came to an end today. When the dust settled, the Socialists were in
disarray and/or in exile while the right combined to form what their enemies
called Austrofascism which did not share the anti-Semitism of German fascism.
1934: “The
Lost Patrol” a talkie version of the British silent film with music by Max
Steiner was released in the United States today.
1934: “The
Knife of the Party” a comedy starring Shemp Howard and filmed by
cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released in the United States today.
1935:
Birthdate of Barbara Myerhoff, acclaimed anthropologist and documentary
filmmaker.
1935:
Birthdate of Gilbert de Botton, the financier who invented the open
architecture model of asset management. A native of Alexandria Egypt, he was a
descendant of a distinguished Sephardic family whose ancestors included Abraham
de Boton. His mother was Yolande Harmer, a Zionist who was imprisoned by
the Egyptians on charges of spying for Israel. (As reported by The Telegraph)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1368137/Gilbert-de-Botton.html
1936: In St.
Louis, celebration of the 60th anniversary of the birth of Zionist
leader Gustave Kalusner.
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,811931,00.html
1936: In honor
of her 75th birthday, Henrietta Szold, American Zionist leader will
be honored today by the Jews of Palestine with the title of “freewoman” which
makes her an honorary citizen of Tel Aviv The title is the feminine form of
“freeman” that has been confirmed on such leaders as the Earl of Balfour and
former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. The Jewish community is
also collecting funds for a social welfare project to be named for Miss Szold.
1936: In
Boston, celebration of the 65th anniversary of Sisters Who Visit the
Sick.
1936: It was
reported today that “Chancellor Hitler’s power and popularity are unchallenged
at present and the Germans are becoming so used to National Socialism and all
it implies that, according to the latest witticism, this year’s party congress
will be held not under slogans like ‘Triumph of Will,’ or ‘Victory of Faith,’
but ‘Force of Habit.’”
1936:
Birthdate of Jerusalem native Eliahu Inbal the Israeli conductor.
1936: In
Beirut, Lebanon, Shneor Cheshin, who would become a Justice on the Israeli
Supreme court and Ruth Chehsin, “the founding president of the Jerusalem gave
birth to Michael Cheshin who served as a justice on the Supreme Court of Israel
from 1992 to 2006.
1936: It was
reported today that “during 1935 more than 61,000 Jews entered Palestine” and
that “if normal conditions should prevail the Jewish National Home could
receive at least another 500,000 Jews within the next ten years.”
1936:
“Charging that Great Britain is failing to carry out the spirit of the Balfour
Declaration creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine, Rabbi Meyer Berlin, its
honorary world president, told the opening session of the Mizrachi Zionist
Organization of America today that appeals would be taken to the League of
Nations, the United States and to the ‘cultural world’ to show the injustice
being done to Jews.”
1936: Funeral
services are scheduled to be held today at Riverside Chape for forty-four year
old Charles David Isaacson, the “writer on music, director of thousands of free
concerts in the metropolitan New York Area, former opera impresario and radio
director” who died yesterday in Bellevue Hospital.
1937: In
Bucharest, in another example of nationalist lawyers keeping Jewish lawyers
from entering the Palace of Justice, “Jewish lawyers attending Court 8 in the
course of their duties were seized by nationalist colleagues and violently
ejected” today.
1938(14th
of Adar I, 5698) Purim Katan
1938(14th
of Adar I, 5698): Thirty-one-year-old Lev Lvovich Sedov, the son of Leon
Trotsky, died under mysterious circumstances today in Paris.
http://spartacus-educational.com/Lev_Sedov.htm
1938: “Benito
Mussolini issues an official declaration that there is no ‘Jewish Problem’ in
Italy and the Fascist government isn't considering any special anti-Semitic
measures. This will change in July, 1938, when Jews are stripped of their
Italian citizenship and banned from many professions.”
1938: I.J.
Singer, the author, is scheduled to address a membership tea being held by the
Women’s American Ort as part of their drive to increase membership to better
aid the suffering Jews of Central and Eastern Europe.
1938: The
Palestine Post reported that two Jews were wounded when Arabs fired at a
Jewish bus which was on its way to the Kastel quarries. Over a dozen of
shooting incidents and attempts to sever communications were reported from all
over the country.
1938: The
Palestine Post reported that the total number of Jewish immigrants in 1937
was 12,475, compared to 31,671 a year earlier. Of these, 3,648 immigrants came
from Poland, 3,601 from Germany and the rest from other countries. This painful
and unjustified reduction was directly attributed to the new British and
Palestine governments' immigration policy.
1938: Abraham
Pais was awarded two Bachelor of Science degrees in physics and mathematics,
with minors in chemistry and astronomy. [Pais was the Dutch born Physicist who
survived the Holocaust and came to America to pursue his career. The Abraham
Pais Prize for the History of Physics attests to the esteem in which he was
held by his colleagues.]
1939: In
London, “the British suggestions for a substitute for the independent state
demanded by the Arab’s was presented at today’s meeting between the British and
Arab delegates at the Palestine conference.”
1940(7th
of Adar I, 5700): Sixty-three-year-old University of Pennsylvania trained
attorney and confirmed bachelor Isaac Hassler, the Philadelphia born member of
a family that reaches back to colonial times who “was a former President of
Young Men’s Hebrew Association and of the board of trustees of Congregation
Rodelph” died today leaving his four siblings – Harry, Eugene, Victor and Essie
– to mourn his passing.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1940/02/17/92882105.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1940: The
Foreign Minister of Rumania met with Ben Horin, a member of the World Executive
Committee of the New Zionist Organization for over an hour and with the
Rumanian ambassador to Washington who is currently in Bucharest, but with will
leaving with Mr. Horin tomorrow for a trip back to the capital city of the
United States.
1941(12th
of Shevat, 5701): Rabbi Benjamin Liss passed away in Columbus, OH.
1941: “Faced
with the ever-increasing problem of assisting European Jews both in their
native countries and in transit to freedom via far-flung routes along which
many have been stranded, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee held
an extraordinary meeting at the Hotel Astor today that will serve as a
springboard for its 1941 campaign.”
1942: North of
Crete in the Mediterranean, HM Submarine Thrasher was subjected to a three hour
long depth charge attack which left it with two unexploded bombs stuck the
vessel which Chief Petty Officer Thomas William Gould helped to remove at great
risk to his life and for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross, making him
one of only three Jews to receive this highest award for valor during WW II.
1942: Columbia
Professors, Joseph P. Chamberlain, Leo Wollman and Jerome Wollman, Dr. Jacob
Robinson and Dr. Nahum Goldman are among those scheduled to attend a dinner
tonight at the Columbia Faculty marking the “first anniversary of the founding
of the Institute of Jewish Affairs” which “has been function in the field of
research with respect to developments in Europe with a view to establishing
Jewish rights when world peace comes.”
1943:
Seventy-four-year-old Russian born Socialist and University of Berne trained
physician Dr. Sergious Ingerman who joined Eugene V. Debs and Morris Hillquit
in forming the Socialist Party of America, suffered a stroke tonight that would
eventually prove fatal.
1943: The
White Rose, an anti-Nazi group posted a sign in Munich, Germany, reading “Out
with Hitler! Long live freedom!” The members of White Rose were not
Jewish, but they were a courageous group that did what it could to oppose
Hitler. Many of its members were caught and beheaded, a favorite form of
death among the Nazis.
1943: Today Mildred
Elizabeth Harnack nee Fish, a member of the anti-Nazi Red Orchestra resistance
movement was beheaded by guillotine in Plötzensee, making her the only American
woman to be executed for treason in World War 11 and whose last words were
reported to be "And I loved Germany so much".
1944(22nd of
Shevat, 5704): Rabbi Gabriel Shusterman, author of Ben Moshe Yedaber passed
away
1944(22nd of
Shevat, 5704): Danish writer and director Henri Nathansen passed away. Born in
1868, he gave up his legal career to become an author and theatrical director.
His Jewish background provided a major theme for some of his efforts.
“His best-known work, ‘Inside the Walls,’ premiered in 1912 and centers
around a wealthy, loving, but conservative Jewish family whose only daughter
breaks away from tradition by attending lectures at the university and secretly
becoming engaged to her teacher, a gentile.” His 1932 novel Mendel
Philipsen and Son, features “a Jewish woman who falls in love with a
gentile painter but instead enters into a loveless marriage with her Jewish
cousin…” In 1929, he wrote a biography of fellow Danish Jew, Georg Brandes. In October
1943, when the Nazis attempted to round up the Danish Jews, Nathansen fled to
Sweden just four months before his death.
1944: “Passage
to Marseille” an off-beat war movie directed by Michael Curtiz, produced by Hal
B. Wallis, featuring George Tobias, Vladimir Sokoloff and Peter Lorre and with
music by Max Steiner was released today in the United States.
1945: “The
premiere performance of” “Concerto for Trombone” by Nathaniel Shilkret with the
famed Tommy Dorsey as the soloist “was broadcast over WNYC” today.
1946(15th
of Adar I, 5706): Parashat Tetzaveh
1946:
“Hechalutz” which means “the worker” a “Palestinian folk opera in Hebrew, with
music and book by Jacob Weinberg was performed tonight at Carnegie Hall during
the sixth Festival of Jewish Arts sponsored by the Manhattan, Brooklyn and
Bronx Zionist Clubs.
1947: Famed
violinist Isaac Stern joins Jack Benny in a laughed filled appearance on the
Jack Benny Program.
1947:
Two months after premiering in New York City “The
Bishop’s Wife” a romantic comedy directed by Henry Koster, produced by Samuel
Goldwyn, with a script co-authored by Bill Wilder was released in the rest of
the United States.
1947:
Morton Gould's 3rd Symphony premiered. In 1995 Gould won the Pulitzer
Prize for “Stringfellow.”
1948: The
Arabs began their first organized attack, on Tirat Tzvi. Tirat Tzvi
(Zevi's Castle) was a Kibbutz founded in 1937 near the Jordanian
border. It was named in memory of Rabbi Zevi Hirsh Klaischer who urged his
fellow Jews to form a national movement following the failed
revolutions of 1848 in Europe. In 1862, he published a book
combining the themes of agriculture and spiritual re-awakening in what was
then called Palestine. He had hoped to move to Mikveh Israel but at
the age of eighty felt himself too old and he died in Germany, one of
the first religious champions of what was to become the Zionist dream.
The attack in 1948 took place between the vote to partition Palestine and
the actual British departure from the Mandate Territory. In other
words, Arab military forces were on the attack determined to wipe out
as many of the Jewish kibbutzim as possible thus destroying
the Jewish state before it was even born. The attack on Tirat
Tzvi failed thanks to the bravery of the outnumbered defenders.
1948: The U.N.
Palestine Commission which “was never permitted by the Arabs or the British to
go to Palestine to implement the” U.N.’s resolution partitioning Palestine
“reported to the Security Council” today that “Powerful Arab interests, both
inside and outside Palestine, are defying the resolution of the General
Assembly and are engaged in a deliberation effort to alter by force the
settlement envisaged therein.”
1948: Two
months after its premiere in New York City, “The Bishops Wife” the movie
version of Robert Nathan’s novel by the same name directed by Henry Koster and
produced by Samuel Goldwyn was released in the rest of the United States today.
1949: In
Manhattan, Seymour and Anne Kornblum gave birth to Allan Mark Kornblum “whose
love for poetry and printing led him to start Coffee House Press, an
independent publisher widely respected for finding and nurturing new authors.”
(As reported by William Yardley)
1950: “If I
Knew You Were Coming’ I’d’ve Baked a Cake” a popular song written by Al Hoffman
was recorded today by Coral Records.
1951:
“Vengeance Valley” the movie version of the cowboy novel by the same name with
a screenplay by Irving Ravetch (the son of a New Jersey rabbi) was release in
the United States today.
1952:
Thirty-one-year-old “Henry Laskau won the one-mile walk at the AAU indoor track
championships in New York City. (As reported by Bob Wechsler)
1953: The
Jerusalem Post reported that from the establishment of the state in May
1948 to the end of 1952, 707,576 immigrants arrived, including 124,225 from
Iraq, 121,536 from Romania, 106,727 from Poland, 62,565 from North Africa and
48,447 from Yemen and Aden. The immigrants hailed from 69 countries.
1953: The
Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had sent anti-typhoid vaccine to flood
victims in Holland.
1953: The
Jerusalem Post reported that forty prominent American senators prepared a
program of action to stop the excesses of the anti-Semitic propagandists in the
Soviet Union and its satellite nations.
1954(13th
of Adar I, 5714): Fifty-six-year-old Harry Passon the brother of Herman and
Nathan Passon who in 1918, “along with Eddie Gottlieb and Hughie Black
organized a basketball team in Philadelphia that would come to be known as the
“SPHAS” and who had one daughter with his wife Bessie Greenbaum passed away
today.
http://probasketballencyclopedia.com/player/harry-passon/
https://sabr.org/research/harry-passon-philadelphia-baseball-entrepreneur
1959(8th
of Adar I, 5719): Eighty-year-old Henry Abraham Boehm, the Austrian born son of
Abraham and Ida Boehm, husband of Minnie Boehm and father of George Boehm.
1961: In
London, world premiere of “Jungle Fighters” produced by Michael Balcon, with a
screenplay by Wolf Mankowitz, music by Stanley Black and starring Laurence
Harvey.
1961: Funeral
services are scheduled to be held this afternoon for thirty-four-year-old
Yeishiva University trained rabbi, Mandel H. Fisch who began his career at the
Chevra Kadisha Temple in Montreal before becoming the leader of the Jewish
Center Nachlath in Brooklyn while raising two children, Nathaniel and Rene,
with his wife Helen.
1962: In Sheboygan,
WI, Rabbi Nathan Barack of Beth El Congregation is scheduled to officiate at
the funeral of seventy-six-year-old Russian born daughter of Abraham and Fanny
Paykel and the wife of businessman Sam Solkovitz whom she married in 1905 and
with whom she had five children – Evelyn, Esther, Hazel, Sidney and Alvin and
who “was a member of Ahavas Sholem Congregation, the Sisterhood of the
congregation, a life member of Beth El Sisterhood a charter and life member of
the Hadassah Society, and also a life member of the Milwaukee Home for Aged
Jews.”
1963: The first of the articles that, in expanded
form, would become Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt's most
controversial work, was published in The New Yorker
https://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/16/1963/hannah-arendt
1964: Larry
Blyden began playing the role of “Doc” in the Broadway production of “Foxy.”
1965: “After
six previews, the Broadway production” of the musical “Baker Street” with
lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and music by Jerry Bock, directed by Hal Prince and
co-starring Martin Gabel “opened at The Broadway Theatre where it ran for nine
months.
1966: Twelve
days after premiering, “The Ugly Dachshund” a Disney comedy starring Suzanne
Pleshette was released in the rest of the United States today.
1967(6th
of Adar I, 5727): Seventy-five year old Russian native and Zionist Isaac Hamlin,
the husband of Channa Freedman and the father of Isadore and Baruch Hamlin, who
in 1909 came to the United “where he worked in tailor shop, rose through the
ranks of various Zionist labor organization before moving to Tel Aviv at the
age of 65 where he “took over the direction of the American Histadrut Center”
passed away today. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/02/17/82593070.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1967(6th
of Adar I, 5727): Seventy-three-year-old Vilna native and “descendant of the
Vilna Gaon” ,Rabbi Berl Aronovitz, “the author of books on Hebrew grammar and
the Bible” and husband “of the former Rose Zuckerman” with whom he had two
children – Evelyn Silver and Dr. Milton Aron, the direcot of the JNF of America
– who served as dean of the Hebrew Theological College of Chicago for
twenty-five years, passed away today in Miami Beach, FL.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/02/18/89660112.html?pageNumber=29
1967: The
original West End production of “Fiddler on the Roof” opened on at Her
Majesty's Theatre and played for 2,030 performances. It starred Chaim Topol, as
Tevye and Miriam Karlin as Golde.
1968(17th
of Shevat, 5728): Seventy-five-year-old Isaac Hamlin, the Russian born founder
of “Histadrut, the Israeli Labor Federation” passed away today at his home in
Tel Aviv.
1968: The
Court of Appeals of the first Appellate District of Ohio affirmed the
conviction of KKK leader Clarence Brandenburg who had threatened to take
revenge “Niggers and Jews” for having violated Ohio’s criminal syndicalism
statue paving the way for an ultimate hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court.
1971(21st
of Shevat, 5731): Ninety-one-year-old San Raphael, CA native Sydney G. Gumpertz,
the World War I winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor passed away today.
https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/sydney-g-gumpertz
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/sydney-g-gumpertz
1972(1st
of Adar, 5732): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1972(1st
of Adar, 5732: Sixty-two-year-old Austrian native Mac Kinsbrunner, the son of
Nettie and David Kinsbuner and husband of Florence Kinsbruner who was a star
athlete at St. John’s Universirty passed away today in New York
1973(14th
of Adar I, 5733): Purim Katan
1973(14th
of Adar I, 5733): Sixty-six-year-old agent and actor’s manager Harry Adler
whose clients included at time or another comedian Alan King, Myron Cohen,
Nipsey Russell, Tony Martin and Red Buttons and who raised to children, Arthur
and Brenda, with his wife Ceil, passed away today at his winter home in Miami
Beach.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/02/18/97115146.html?pageNumber=78
1974: “In the
United States, Barbra Streisand’s album ‘The Way We Were’ debuted at number 97
on the Billboard 200 chart for the week ending” today/
1974(24th of
Shevat, 5734): Ninety-one-year-old Harvard educated philosopher Horace M.
Kallen of the seven children of Rabbi Jacob David Kallen and Esther Rebecca
Glazier all of whom came to the United States where he became the first Jewish
professor at Princeton and leader in the American Jewish Community while
raising his children Harriet and David with his wife, “the former Rachel Oatman
Van Arsdale, passed away today
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/kallen-horace-meyer
http://digifindingaids.cjh.org/?pID=1278441
http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0001/ms0001.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/17/archives/dr-horace-kallen-philosopher-dies.html
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/422
1976(15th
of Adar I, 5736): Shushan Purim Katan
1976(15th
of Adar I, 5736): Ninety-one-year-old NYU and University of Pennsylvania alum
Frederick Paul Gruenberg, the Minneapolis born son of Charlotte and John
Gruenbeg, the husband of Betha Gruenberg and father of John and Edith who was
director of the Samuel S. Fels Fund passed away today.
1977: “The
Princess Who Is Everywhere” published today provides a sketch of Diane von
Furstenberg who has expanded from fashion guru to author.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9E0CE1DA163EE23BA15755C1A9649C946690D6CF
1978: The
Jerusalem Post reported that two persons were killed and 46 injured when an
Arab threw a bomb at a bus passing through Rehov Tzefania in Jerusalem.
1978: The
Jerusalem Post reported that in Washington the US Administration threatened
to withdraw its request for the sale of advanced F-15 and F-16 fighter planes
to Israel if Congress blocked the sale of F-15s to Saudi Arabia and F-5Es to
Egypt.
1985: The
founding of Hezbollah, another Arab/Moslem terror group dedicated, in part, to
the destruction of the state of Israel.
1986(7th
of Adar I. 5746): Seventy-six-year-old character actor Howard Da Silva whose work
in Hollywood was temporarily interrupted because he was named to the Hollywood
Blacklist passed away today.
https://spartacus-educational.com/USAsilva.htm
1987: In
Atlanta, GA, Sydney, Australia native Heather Fenton and Richard Ossoff, the
owner of Strafford Publications gave to Georgetown University’s School of
Foreign Service graduate Thomas Jonathan Ossoff, the husband of Alisha Kramer,
who, when he was elected to the Senate in 2021 became “the first Jewish senator
from Georgia, the first senator born in the 1980s, and, at 33, the youngest
member of the chamber” who was “also is the first Democrat elected to a full
six-year term in the Senate from Georgia since 2003.
1987: “Following the refusenik
protests, Iosif Begun's release from prison was announced today, by Georgy
Arbatov, a member of the Central Committee, in a Face the Nation interview on
CBS.”
1987: The
Demjanjuk trial opened in Jerusalem. Ivan Demjanjuk, a former Ukrainian SS
volunteer, was accused of overseeing the gas chambers in Treblinka. His cruelty
had earned him the name "Ivan the Terrible." Demjanjuk was extradited
to Israel in 1986, was found guilty and condemned to death. The verdict was
appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court. After 3 years of deliberation they ruled
that there wasn't enough sufficient proof that Demjanjuk and Ivan the Terrible
were one and the same person. This was mainly due to the lack of first person
witnesses and the length of time that had elapsed made definite identification
impossible. In September 1993 he was released and returned to the United
States. He was later stripped of his citizenship for falsifying his
documents when he entered the United States.
1988:
Refuseniks met with the British Foreign Minister today.
1989: Mordecai
and Donna Haim gave birth to Danielle Haim of the three sisters whom made up
“the all-female Jewish pop-rock group HAIM” which was nominated in 2015 “for
the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.” (As reported by Jordyn Rosenzwig)
1989:
Publication of “Jews and Geniuses” by Robert Craft.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1989/02/16/jews-and-geniuses/
1989: Larry
Bloch opened “Eco-Saloon,” in a former Chinese-food warehouse just south of the
Holland Tunnel some of the profits which were used to fund a not-for-profit
Center for Social and Environmental Justice.
1990: Elyakim
Rubenstein, the Cabinet secretary, called Ariel Sharon here at his ranch today,
just to be sure he was serious about his intention to resign.
1991: After 73
performances the curtain came down on the “Off-Broadway” production of Stephen
Sondheim’s “Assassins.”
1991: At
Shabbat synagogue services, congregants were mindful of the deaths of Iraqi
civilians, but they were also reminded that Israel had been subjected to
indiscriminate Iraqi missile attacks for more than a month and that fighting
was the price of peace. Worshippers at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the
Upper West Side of Manhattan expressed regret over the killing of Iraqi
civilians and said they were disturbed by the television images of broken
bodies. But most said their support for the war was undimmed. "War is a
terrible thing," said Billy Sussis. But he added that the deaths of the
civilians had not shaken his support for the allied effort. "If you're
going to fight a war, terrible things like this are going to happen." Rabbi
Helene Ferris, however, expressed hope that the incident would "wake up
the world's conscience" and disrupt wide impressions of a bloodless
conflict. "War is about killing," she declared. "It's about
mothers bleeding, fathers bleeding. If we lose sight of that, we may stop trying
to find a better way." At the Forest Hills Jewish Center in Queens, Rabbi
Gerald C. Skolnik, just back from a visit to Israel, gave his congregation
graphic impressions of life in a war zone: an old woman standing beside the
ruins of her home in Tel Aviv, an infant in a gas-mask crib, wailing sirens in
the night, the sight of his own parents donning gas masks and the vibration of
windows as the missiles exploded nearby. "It's not just that the air raids
are terrifying, though certainly they are," Rabbi Skolnik said. "It's
more that the entire rhythm of the country has been thrown out of kilter."
1992: An
Israeli helicopter strike killed the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Abbas
al-Musawi. According to western officials, al-Musawi was responsible for
numerous terrorist attacks including the 1983 terror attack in Beirut that
killed 300 U.S. and French soldiers. Musawi may be dead, but Hezbollah
and its murderous ways live on.
1995(17th
of Adar I, 5755): Eighty-six-year-old Omaha, Nebraska native Elmer Greenberg an
all-star offensive lineman for the University of Nebraska passed away today.
http://dataomaha.com/huskers/player/4131/elmer-greenberg
1996: Youssef
Majed al-Molqi who had been sentenced to 30 years for murdering 69 year old
wheelchair bound Leon Klinghoffer “left the Rebibbia prison in Rome today, on a
12-day furlough and fled to Spain.
1997: The
first Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy opens in New York City leadingto the
founding of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance
1997: The New York Times includes a review of The
Boy Who Went Away, “Eli Gottlieb’s touching coming-of-age novel…”
1998: The
funeral of Abraham Bloch, a graduate of Yeshiva Yitzchak Elchanan who served as
the Rabbi of Congregation Petach Tikvah, is scheduled to take place in
Brooklyn, NY today.
1998(20th of
Shevat, 5758): Martha Gellhorn, whose father was Jewish, passed away at
the age of 89. Gellhorn gained fame for her reporting during the Spanish
Civil War and as one of the many wives of Ernest Hemingway.
1999 (30th
of Shevat, 5759): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1999: Today,
the police “questioned for 11 hours Avigdor Ben Gal, a former army general who
testified in an unsuccessful libel trial Ariel Sharon had brought against
Ha’aretz.
1999: The
United States Third Court of Appeals ruled on the constitutionality of holiday
displays in ACLU versus Schundler.
2000: In an
address before the Knesset, German President Johannes Rau asked forgiveness for
Germany’s murderous treatment of Europe’s Jews during World War II.
2000: U.S.
premiere of “Hanging Up” written by Delia Ephron and Nora Ephron, who also
co-produced the comedy which co-starred Lisa Kudrow and Walter Matthau “in his
final film appearance.
2001: “Sweet
November” produced by Elliot Kastner and Erwin Stoff and featuring Jason Isaacs
and Michael Rosenbaum was released in the United States today.
2002(4th
of Adar, 5762): Three teenagers from Ginot Shomron – Rachel Thaler, Keren
Shatsky and Nehemia Amar – were murdered by terrorist from the PFLP in front of
a pizza parlor at the Karnei Shomron Mall on a Saturday night.
2002: “The
Vatican announced today that it would partly open its prewar archives next
year, but would not make available documents on Pius XII's controversial World
War II pontificate for at least three more years” leading to expressions of
“considerable disappointment by “Jewish leaders and scholars..”
2003: Haifa native Uri Lupolianski began serving as Mayor
of Jerusalem.
2003: “The
Unsettlers” published today provides one version of life for Jews living near
Nablus.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/magazine/the-unsettlers.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
2004: As part
of its celebration of Black History, tonight Showtime broadcast “Crown
Heights,” “a drama set during the 1991 racial unrest in Crown Heights,
Brooklyn” that “follows the friendship of two teenagers, a former gang member
named T. J. (DeQuan Henderson) and a Hasidic Jew named Yudi (Jeremy Blackman),
who in the wake of the violence form a bicultural rap group, Project Cure.”
2005: By a
vote of 59 to 40 with 5 abstentions, the Knesset “finalized and approved”
Sharon’s plan for withdrawal from Gaza after having rejected “a proposed
amendment to submit the plan to a referendum.”
2005: Allen
Weinstein began serving as Archivist of the United States.
2006(18th
of Shevat, 5766): Seventy-four year old Brooklyn born and Cornell and Columbia
trained historian Paul Avrich, the son
“Yiddish theatre actress Rose (Zapol) Avrich” and “dress manufacturer Murray
Avrich” and the husband of Ina Avrich with whom he had two daughters – Jane and
Karen – passed away today
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/24/nyregion/paul-avrich-74-a-historian-of-anarchism-is-dead.html
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/apr/10/guardianobituaries.obituaries
2006:
Britain's most senior Jewish leader has condemned the Church of England for
voting this month to review its investments in companies whose products are
used by Israel in the occupied territories. Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said the
Anglican vote on whether to pull money from "companies profiting from the
illegal occupation" was ill-judged and would inflame relations between the
two religions. At a meeting of the Anglican Church’s governing body, Archbishop
of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual head of the world's 77 million
Anglicans, sparked anger by supporting the vote. The vote angered many within
the Anglican Church and drew criticism from Jewish groups around the world.
Williams' predecessor as Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, said the vote
made him "ashamed to be an Anglican." In a letter to the Times
newspaper, Carey said it was a "one-eyed strategy to rebuke one side and
forget the traumas of ordinary Israelis who live in fear of suicide bombers and
those whose policy it is to destroy all Jews.”
2006: A
revival of Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park” opened at the Cort Theatre
2007: Sheik
Raed Salah, the head of the Islamic Movement’s northern branch gave a sermon in
Jersualem’s Wadi Joz neighborhood in which he “urged supporters to start a
third intifada in order to save Al-Aksa Mosque, free Jerusalem and end the end
occupation.” Salah, who denies any Jewish historical claim to Jerusalem
or the existence of a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount included these words,
“We are not those who ate bread dipped in children’s blood.” (The Blood
Libel is alive and well.)
2007: The
Sabbath Queen gets a royal welcome at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa as
Rick Recht returns with “Shabbat Alive” Part II.
2007(28th of Shevat, 5767): Mordkhe
Schaechter, a leading Yiddish linguist who spent a lifetime studying,
standardizing and teaching the language passed away at the age of 79. As
reported by Wolfgang Saxon)http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/16/obituaries/16schaechter.html
2008: The
Jerusalem Cinematheque features a showing of the internationally acclaimed “The
Band’s Visit”
2008: Owing to high U.S. digital sales, "New
Soul", a song by the French-Israeli R&B/soul singer Yael Naïm, debuted
on the Billboard Hot 100 for the chart week starting today at No. 9, becoming
Naïm's first U.S. top ten single, and making her the first Israeli solo artist
to ever have a top ten hit in the United States.
2009: In New
Orleans, “The Expanse of Russia in Israel,” an international conference
sponsored by Tulane University’s Jewish Studies Program under the Chairmanship
of Dr. Brian Horowitz, enters its second day. “The conference is devoted
to a long-awaited investigation of Zionism and the influence of secular Russian
culture on Israeli life.”
2009: France's top judicial body formally recognized the
nation's role in deporting Jews to Nazi death camps during the Holocaust - but
effectively ruled out any more reparations for the deportees or their families.
2009:
Wilm Hosenfeld, the German officer made famous in Roman Polanski's 2002
film The Pianist for sheltering two Jews who escaped from the Nazis
during the Holocaust has been posthumously recognized as Righteous Among the
Nations by Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial.
2010:
Yeshiva University Museum, Center for Jewish History, University of
Pennsylvania in cooperation with Centro Primo Levi are scheduled to present
“Between Sacred and Profane: Jews and the Modern City: Three Snapshots” part of
“a series of talks by fellows at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic
Studies (U of Penn) who are engaged in a critical analysis of the notions of
the "secular" and "religious" as they affect all aspects of
Jewish life over the past three centuries.
2010: Israel
will erect a memorial commemorating the Red Army’s crucial role in the victory
over the Nazis, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin at a photo opportunity before their meeting today.
2010: Four
hundred cadets graduated from the IDF Infantry Officers Training Course today
and will be awarded the rank of second lieutenant. 7% of them are young women,
25% are religious, 5% are from kibbutzim, 61% are from cities. For the first
time, three of the infantry officer graduates are women who completed the
grueling combat course. The highest number of awards for excellence went to the
Golani Brigade.
2011: “Jewish
Life in Mr. Lincoln’s City,” a lecture by Laura Cohen Apelbaum the Executive
Director of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington, is scheduled
to take place at Adas Israel in Washington, D.C.
2011:
“Precious Life,” an “acclaimed documentary that explores the paradoxes of a
Palestinian infant being treated for a rare immune disorder at an Israeli
hospital” during a period when the IDF was fighting to halt rocket attacks from
Gaza, is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.
2011: The
Jewish community of Tunisia filed an official complaint with Tunisian Interior
Minister Fahrat Rajhi after several of its members were harassed by protesters
outside a synagogue in the capital, Tunis.
2011: Human
rights lawyers are attempting to challenge a government decision designating
the planned city of Harish as a haredi-only town.
2011: The Iron
Dome missile intercept system will be declared operational within a number of
weeks, after the Israel Air Force – who will be responsible for operating the
system – conducted successful test-runs for the first time yesterday and today.
2011(11th
of Adar I, 5771): Len Lesser, a veteran character actor best known for
his recurring role in the 1990s as Uncle Leo on the hit NBC-TV comedy
"Seinfeld," passed away today at the age of 88 8n Burbank, CA ( As
reported by Bruce Weber)
2011: Today in
celebration of Black History month Knicks legend and Assistant General Manager
Allan Houston received the 2011 Martin Luther King Jr. Award in front of
players and fans at Madison Square Garden. Mr. Houston received the award from
Ido Aharoni, Acting Consul General of Israel in New York, in honor of his
efforts in spreading compassion and uniting communities of all backgrounds. The
Martin Luther King Jr. Award has been presented by the Consulate General of
Israel in New York for the past 20 years to individuals and organizations
promoting ethnic and cultural understanding. This annual tribute to the late
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. honors the dream of peaceful coexistence between
people of diverse religions, cultures, and ethnicities. To commemorate this
great visionary, each year the State of Israel, together with the Jewish
National Fund and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, honor
those whose work keeps alive Dr. King’s legacy of hope and peace.
2012: “Ahead
of Time: The Extraordinary Journey of Ruth Gruber” is scheduled to be shown at
the Conservative Synagogue Adath Israel of Riverdale in New York.
2012: Yasmin
Levy is scheduled to weave her Ladino musical magic at Pace University’s
Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts
2012: Mossad
chief Tamir Pardo visited New Delhi just days before an attack on Israeli
officials in the Indian capital this week, Indian media reported today,
highlighting the extent to which Israeli intelligence was in the dark regarding
possibility of a terror attack taking place in the country.
2012: Today,
the Foreign Ministry issued a travel warning for Israelis in Thailand. The
warning said that in the wake of the attacks on Israelis in India and Georgia
earlier this week, Israelis should “act with caution” when traveling in
Thailand. Similar warnings were released Thursday for travelers to Italy,
Norway, and Taiwan.
2012(23rd
of Shevat, 5772): At the age of 101, Ethel Stark who in 1940 established the
Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra, the first all-female Canadian symphony
orchestra which first performed “on the top of Mont Royal” and was “the first
Canadian orchestra to play at Carnegie Hall” passed away today.
http://www.jewishpubliclibrary.org/blog/?p=1630
2012: Yair
Lapid warned today that Israel might "bring on its own demise" and
demanded a change in the system of government.
2013: Cirque
du Purim, the YLD”s annual Purim Party is scheduled to take place in Irvine, CA
this evening.
2013: “Off
White Lies” is scheduled to be shown at the Denver Jewish Film Festival
2013: The IDF
evacuated seven Syrian nationals injured in Syria's civil war to the Ziv
Medical Center in Safed today. An army spokeswoman said the men had arrived
with injuries at the Syrian - Israeli border fence and received first aid from
IDF soldiers on the scene. They were then rushed to hospital for medical care.
One of the Syrians suffered serious injuries, four were moderately injured and
two suffered light injuries.
2013: The
incarceration of “Prisoner X”, the high-security prisoner who committed suicide
in Ayalon Prison in 2010, was made necessary by Israel’s “unique” security
situation, Vice Premier and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon said today
2013: The
Justice Ministry is mulling the release of the file concerning the death of Ben
Zygier, who committed suicide in prison two years ago, Israeli media reported
tonight.
2014: B’nai
B’rith Unit # 182 is scheduled to continue a 35-year-long tradition this
morning, bringing music and Mardi Gras throws to patients at Touro Infirmary
and the residents of Malta Park assisted living facility.
2014: Merna
Lyn, author of The Ten Second Diet is scheduled to speak at Congregation
Beth Israel in Metairie. LA (As reported by Alan Samson in the Crescent City
Jewish News)
2014: In White
Plains, NY, “Focus on the Family” sponsored by Frum Divorce is scheduled to
come to an end.
2014: The 24th
annual Jewish Film Festival in San Diego is scheduled to come to a close.
2014: “Ruth
Gruber: Photojournalist,” an exhibition that “celebrates the remarkable life of
this photojournalist” is scheduled to open at the Illinois Holocaust Museum
& Education Center.
2014: “Israeli
rights groups asked the High Court of Justice today to overturn a law that bans
Israelis from calling for a boycott of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.”
2014: A
memorial service is scheduled to be held today for “Mary Gordon, devoted wife
of author Max Shulman for 24 years who passed away at the age of 95 on January
22, 2014.
2014: The New
York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special
interest to Jewish readers including Mad As Hell: The Making of “Network”
and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies by Dave Itzkoff, Arik:
The Life of Ariel Sharon by David Landau, Abraham Joshua Heschel: The
Call of Transcendence by Shai Held and Our Mathematical Universe by
Max Tegmark, the son of Professor Harold S. Shapiro.
2014: “After
blast ripped through tourist bus – killing four – Israeli rescue forces lined
up along border crossing in bid to aid rescue operations, transfer wounded to
Israeli hospitals – but Egypt refused.” (As reported by Roi Kais)
2015:
Ukrainian born Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman is scheduled to perform with the
Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players.
2015(27th
of Shevat, 5775): Sixty-eight-year-old singer Lesley Gore (Lesley Sue
Goldstein) passed away today.
2015(27th
of Shevat, 5775): Fifty-four-year-old Pensioner Affairs Minster Uri Orbach
passed away today.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-jewish-home-minister-uri-orbach-dies-at-54/
2015: “French
prosecutors said” today “they had taken five teenagers into custody suspected
of vandalizing hundreds of Jewish graves” “at the Jewish cemetery of
Sarre-Union in northeastern France.”
2015: At the
Jewish Museum Of London is scheduled to host a talk by curator Elizabeth Selby
on the exhibition “For Richer For Poorer: Weddings Unveiled.”
2015: “Tens of
thousands of Danes gathered for a torch-lit vigil in central Copenhagen” this
evening “to commemorate the victims of two weekend shootings that have shocked
the nation and heightened fears of a new surge in anti-Semitic violence.”
2015:
Bar-Illan Professor Tova Cohen is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “How Has
the Changing Role of Women In Israel Affected Jewish Orthodox Society?” was
FIU.
2016” The
American Jewish Historical Society and the American Sephardi Federation are
scheduled to host a screening of “Flory’s Flame” – a “one-hour documentary
about the life and music of renowned 90-year-old Sephardic composer and
performer Flory Jagoda.
2016: The Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center, America-Israel Cultural Foundation
and Golden Land Concerts & Connections are scheduled to present a concert
by Israeli singer/song writer Noa (Achinoam Nini) and her “longtime
collaborator/virtuoso guitarist Gil Dor.
2017: The
Oxford JSOC hosted its “Pub Crawl” which began at the Turf Tavern.
2017: “Beer
Sheva” hosted “Besiktas of Turkey in a first-leg match in the Eruopa League’s
Round of 32.”
2017:
Following yesterday’s declaration by President “that he was ‘looking at
two-state and one-state’ formulas for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict” today “Israelis and Palestinians were feverishly debating what might
come next” especially since they were “still confused about American policy
after Mr. Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, reasserted
that the administration “absolutely” supported two states.” (As reported by
Isabel Kershner)
2017: “Winter
weather swept across” Israel today “ as a storm system” that has been “lashing”
Israel for the last two days, “reached its peak, dumping snow on northern
Israel and freezing rain in Jerusalem.”
2017: David Friedman, President Trump’s nominee for U.S.
Ambassador to Israel is scheduled to apologize for “derogatory remarks he made
about liberal Jews” including calling them “worse than Kapos” during his
confirmation hearings today. (Editor’s note – apparently his mornings prayers
do not begin with injunction “I hereby accept upon myself the positive
commandment to love my fellow Jew.)
2017: Professor Steve Feller is scheduled to lead the Coe
College Thursday Forum in “The Conflicted Jewish World of Chaim Potok” – an
examination of the conflicts within Judaism mirrored in the author’s novels.
2017: The Oxford
University Jewish Society is scheduled to host Rina Wolfson speaking on “From
the Family to the House of Learning” in which she examines “how Biblical and
Rabbinic texts deal with a student's shift from the family home to the house of
learning.”
2017: “The Wounded Land” and “The Mezuzah” are scheduled to
be shown at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival.
2017: Today, Martine
“Rothblatt's electric helicopter established new world records of a 30-minute
duration flight and an 800-foot altitude at Los Alamitos Army Airfield.”
2017: Former NBA player Amar'e Stoudemire whom Israel’s
Interior Ministry is working with to help him gain citizenship today played for
Hapoel Jerusalem in a game against Maccabi Tel Aviv in Jerusalem.
2017: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to
present “Astrologers, Spies, Merchants and Travelers” which examines the
“crucial roles” the Jews played “in Italian courtly life.”
2018: Following Shabbat Dinner, the Oxford University
Jewish Society is scheduled to elections for President and Vice President to
serve during Trinity Term.
2018: “Mathew Shear starred opposite Zosia Mamet in the
2017 Tirbeca Film Festival feature, ‘The Boy Downsatirs” which was released in
the United States by FilmRise.
2018(1st of Adar, 5778): Rosh Chodesh Adar –
Second Day
2018: With more than 1,000 mourners including Gov. Rick
Scott packed into Temple K’ol Tikvah, Andrew Pollack looked down at the plain
pine coffin of his 18-year-old daughter, Meadow ,one of the first victims of
the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre to be buried and then told
the crowd, “I am very angry and upset about what transpired.” (As reported by
Terry Spencer)
2018: The funeral for Alyssa Alhadeff, one of those gunned
down at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School was held today.
2019: Kulanu is scheduled to host its “25th
anniversary celebration in Washington, DC” this evening at “Ohen Shalom, the National Synagogue.”
2019: On the first day of the Jewish Film Institute’s
WinterFest 2019 “Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People,” “A Fortunate Man,”
“Working Woman” and “Untogether” are scheduled to be shown at the Alamo Draft
House.
2019: Paris born author Alain Finkielkraut, the son of an
Auschwitz survivor “was verbally assaulted on the street by a group of yellow
vest protesters in Paris when they chanced on him in Boulevard du Montparnasse”
following which “a 36-year-old French convert to Islam was indicted after
saying that Finkelkraut was "going to die".
2019: In Marion, IA, the Artisan’s Sanctuary is scheduled
to host a reception and book signing for Barbara Feller, the author of Road
to Waubeek: Discovering Jay G. Sigmnund
2019: The Red Sea Jazz Festival is scheduled to come to an
end today at Eilat.
2019: In Tiburon, CA, Congregation Kol Shofar is scheduled
to host “Jewish Ecstatic Dancing.”
2019(11th of Adar I, 5779): Parashat Tetzaveh
2020: “Shakespeare Trial: The Shylock Appeal,” “a mock
trial based on “The Merchant of Venice” argued by UC law deans Erwin
Chemerinsky (Berkeley) and Song Richardson (Irvine)” is scheduled to take place
at mid-day in Berkley, CA.
2020: Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik is scheduled to lecture on
“Abraham Lincoln, The Bible & Leadership” during which he “will speak on
the ideals, concepts, and qualities of leadership as can be learned from
Biblical personalities in difficult and trying times as well as America’s
president Abraham Lincoln who led the United States through the American Civil
War, its bloodiest war and perhaps its greatest moral, constitutional and
political crises. Through his unique leadership abilities, and despite fierce opposition,
Lincoln preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the government and
modernized the economy.”
2020: In Scottsdale, AZ, Congregation Beth Tefillah in
partnership with the Aleph Society, is scheduled to host the first day of the
Soul Conference whose speakers includes Rabbis Simon Jacobson, Arthur Kurzwell
and Pinchas Allouche.
2020: The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County, NJ, is
scheduled to host a talk on India native Gila Rosenblatt on the “Jews of
Cochin.”
2020: In Atlanta, the Breman Museum’s seventh annual Molly
Blank Concert Series is scheduled to begin this evening with “Let’s Fall In
Love,” “featuring the Joe Alterman Trio with Special Guest Lena Seikaly.”
2020: The New York
Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special
interest to Jewish readers including Kaddish.Com, a novel by Nathan
Englander.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/books/review/nathan-englander-kaddish-com.html
2021: The Tikvah Online Academy is scheduled to host the
first session “The Artist in Modern Jewish Literature.”
2021: The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to present
“Jewish Life in Late Antiquity: From Colonia Agrippina to Augusta Raurice” with
Dr. Thomas Otten and Dr. Werner Eck, who had been the Professor of Ancient
History at the University of Cologne for almost thirty years.
2021: The Schusterman Center for Israel Studies is
scheduled to present online “Rethinking Blackness in Israel.”
2021: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to
host a conversation with Bill Gates, author of How to Avoid a Climate
Disaster and The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah.
2021: The Jewish Community Center of the North Shore is
scheduled to host online “An Evening with Bari Weiss” the award-winning
journalist and author of How to Fight Ant-Semitism.
2021: Mardi Gras won’t be the same this year since the
parades have been canceled due to the Pandemic, we could spend some time
looking at the Jewish connection to this “Catholic” celebration including Lewis
J. Salomon serving, in 1872, as the first King of the Krewe of Rex.
2022: The London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to
present a lecture on “Eating disorders: Am I allowed to fast on Yom Kippur?”
2022: The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience is scheduled
to present: New Works Wednesday with
Yehuda Azoulay of Sephardic Legacy Series as he discusses his new book “A
Legend of Humility and Leadership: Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu.”
2022: As part of the Coffee with a Survivor program, the
Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to “third generation speaker Elizabeth
Vrato who will describe how her grandfather, Kadri Cakrani, sheltered
approximately 600 Jews in Albania while serving as the military officer in
charge of the Berat region while it was under Nazi occupation.”
2022: LBI is scheduled to present Lori Gemeiner Bihler and
Thomas Sparr as they lecture on “Jerusalem, New York and London: A Discussion
of Three German-Jewish Diasporas.”
2022: The Center for Medicine, Holocaust and Genocide
Studies at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles are scheduled to
co-sponsor “The Fight Against Epidemics in Interwar Poland and the Warsaw
Ghetto: Finding Sara-Zofia Syrkin-Binsztejnowa.”
2022: Israelis could take comfort today in the statement
made previously by Professor Eran Segal from the Weizmann Institute of Science
to Ynet “that he believes there will little to none COVID morbidity Israel by
next month.”
2023: The JWA’s Film Club is scheduled to concluded today
with a screening of “Kissing Jessica Stein,” a 2002 “indie romcom that follows
a Jewish woman as she stumbles through navigating her sexuality, identity, and
sense of self.”
2023: The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled
to present luncheon zoom conversation with Julie Salamon and Brian Lehrer.
2023: Shalom Hartman Institute is scheduled to host a
discussion on “How Should American Jews Approach Their Relationship With
Israel?’
2023: The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host a
screening of “Baltic Truth, which exposes how almost the entire Jewish
community of the occupied Baltic Nations was eliminated with assistance from
the local population” \ followed by a discussion with award-winning Israeli
performer, Dudu Fisher, and Illinois Holocaust Museum Senior Vice President of
Education & Exhibitions, Kelley Szany.
2023: Temple Judea is scheduled to host a minyan this
morning with dynamic married duo Rabbi Feivel and Cantor Abbie.
2023: In Mill Valley, CA, the Marin Theatre Company is
scheduled to present a production of “Justice,” a new musical production that
explores “the personal and professional lives of the first women on
the U.S. Supreme Court — Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia
Sotomayor — at the height of their power.”
2023: The American Jewish Committee of Cleveland is
scheduled to host a free event at The Temple Tifereth Israel in Cleveland.
2023: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present
curator Ivy Weingram for a tour in which she addressed the meaningful question
in the special exhibition, “How Jews Became Citizens: Highlights from the Sid
Lapidus Collection.”
2023: Chazans Abbie Strauss and Laurie Akers are scheduled
to host Shir Chadash.
2023: In San Francisco, the Contemporary Jewish Museum is
scheduled to host the opening of “To Survive I Need You to Survive,” the
opening of Cara Levine’s exhibit that explores themes of loss, empathy and
equity through sculpture, video and socially engaged practices.
2024: A screening of “Pocketful of Miracles” which will
continue through President’s Weekend is scheduled to begin today at The New Plaza
Theatre in New York City.
2024: Temple Emanu-El is scheduled to host “Black History
Month Shabbat wit special guest speaker Isabel Wilkerson, “, the first African
American woman to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, author of the New
York Times #1 bestseller Caste, winner of the National Book Award for The
Warmth of Other Suns and former Chicago bureau chief of The New York
Times.”
2024: In a special event scheduled to take place today Beit
Agnon in Jerusalem will host Haim Be'er for a conversation with the writer and
literary scholar Chaim Weiss, during which we will talk about literature in
times of war in an event which will take place as part of the exhibition
dealing with shell shock and literature and poetry's coping with the war.
2024: As
February 16th, begins in Israel, the Hamas held
hostages begin day 133 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.)