April 21
753BCE: According to tradition, on this date Romulus and Remus founded Rome. Considering the impact that Rome would haveon the Jewish people this date is worth noting.
586:Ricard I became King the Visigoth King of Hispania. “A year later converted from Arianism to Catholicism,which changed the nature of life in Iberia in the same way that Constantine'sconversion had changed things in the Roman Empire. Recared approved the ThirdCouncil of Toledo's move in 589 to forcibly baptize the children of mixedmarriages between Jews and Christians. Toledo III also forbade Jews fromholding public office, from having intercourse with Christian women, and fromperforming circumcisions on slaves or Christians. Still, Recared was notentirely successful in his campaigns: not all Visigoth Arians had converted toCatholicism; the unconverted were true allies of the Jews, oppressed likethemselves, and Jews received some protection from Arian bishops and theindependent Visigothic nobility.”
629:Emperor Heraclius marched into Jerusalem at the head of his army. Heraclius washead of the Eastern Roman Empire. During the fifth and sixth centuriesthe Christian rulers tried to make life for Jews in Palestine as difficult aspossible. Heraclius was defeated by the Persians and the Jews sided withthe Persians who were viewed as liberators. The joy was short lived asthe Christians re-took the land from the Persians and punished the Jewsseverely. Ultimately all of this matter very little since the Arabs wouldsoon appear in Palestine and Islam would become the dominate force.
1073:Pope Alexander II passed away. In 1063, Pope Alexander II had given hisblessing to Iberian Christians in their wars against the Muslims, granting botha papal standard and an indulgence to those who were killed in battle. This wasanother act in the battle between Moslems and Christians for control ofSpain. The Jews were caught in themiddle and their fortunes fluctuated over the centuries. In hindsight, this was really just one morestep in the long path that led to the expulsion in 1492.
1142:Theologian and philosopher Peter Abelard “who had written dialogues that, whileinsisting that Christianity was superior to Judaism showed scholarly respectfor Jewish sources” passed away today.
1481(13thof Iyar, 5241): Jews of Seville burned at the stake
1499:The New Christians, including those who had been forcibly baptized, areforbidden to leave Portugal.
1500:Today “seaweed was spotted by sailors serving in the fleet under the command ofPortuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral who was accompanied by Gaspar da Gama,a Polish born Jew whose slave name had been Yusuf ‘Adil before being forciblyconverted to Christianity, which led them to believe they were near land.
1506:Three days of anti-Semitic rioting ends in Lisbon, Portugal where two thousandJews were killed by the mobs.
1509:Henry VII, King of England passed away.Henry negotiated the marriage between his son, the Catherine of Aragon,daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain (the monarchs who had expelled theJews from Spain). One of the terms ofthe marriage was that the Jews would never be allowed to return toEngland. If Henry had not agreed to thisterm, the marriage would not have taken place.
1564 Thomas Lorkin the father-in-law of EdwardLively, the Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge and considered “thegreatest of Hebraist, was created Regius Professor of Physic.”
1574:Fifty-four-year-old Cosimo de’ Medici whose record regarding the Jews was amixed bag passed away today. On the one hand in “1551 he had issued aninvitation to merchants from the Levant, including Jews, to settle in Tuscanyand do business there and in 1557 he gave asylum to Jewish refugees from thePapal States while refusing to implement the anti-Jewish restrictions issued byPope Paul IV “or to hand over the Jews to the Inquisition. On the other hand, “he yielded to Papalpressure” ordering the burning of the Talmud and “rigorously applying therequirement the Jews wear the distinctive ‘Jews Badge.’” (Jewish VirtualLibrary)
1585(22nd of Nisan, 5345):Sixteenth century Salonica born Rabbi Moses ben Joseph di Trani (Mabit) passedaway in Safed.
http://www.zissil.com/topics/Rabbi-Moshe-ben-Yosef-di-Trani
1619: ShlomoEphraim ben Aaron Luntschitz, who was born at Lenczyk in 1550 and who studiedwith Solomon Luria in Lublin before being appointed rabbi of Prague in 1604passed away today
1649: The Toleration Act waspassed by the Maryland Assembly. It protected Roman Catholics within theAmerican colony against Protestant harassment, which had been rising as OliverCromwell's power in England increased. Marylandhad been founded under the Catholic Calvert family. They were trying to create a refuge forEnglish Catholics. The Jews benefitedfrom what was a clash between different branches of Christianity.
1729: Birthdate of Catherine the Great,Tsarina of Russia from 1762 to 1796.Under Catherine, Russia took part in the three-way partition of Polandwhich gave Russia its large Jewish population.At first, her treatment of her new Jewish subjects was fairlytolerant. She saw them as an economicasset. But in her later years she succumbedto the demands of Christian merchants and began to tighten the noose around theneck of the Jews. In the end, she laidthe groundwork for the creation of what came to be known as The Pale ofSettlement.
1761(17th of Nisan, 5521): ThirdDay of Pesach
1767(22nd of Nisan, 5527):Eighth Day of Pesach
1764(19th of Nisan, 5524):Shabbat shel Pesach
1769(14th of Nisan, 5529:Ta’anit Bechorot; erev Pesach
1769: The group of Spanish soldiers andpriests continues their northward trek towards California bring the Inquisitionto the Pacific Coasts.
1772(18th of Nisan, 5532):Fourth Day of Pesach observed on the same day as the Yahrzeit of Rabbi MeirAbulfaya, Ha Levi who passed away in 1244 observed.
1775(21st of Nisan, 5535):Seventh Day of Pesach
1775: Rebel forces, now serving underGeneral Artemas Ward, began to extend their lines around Boston in what wouldbecome the eleven month siege of Boston.
1778: In Savannah, GA, Sarah De La Mottaand Levi Sheftall who were married in 1768 at St. Croix, the bride’s homeisland, gave birth to Rachel Sheftall.
1783(19th of Nisan 5543):Fifth Day of Pesach
1787: In Georgetown, SC, Bella Moses andSamuel Cohen who had been wed in 1786 in the bride’s hometown of Charlestongave birth to Divinah Cohen, the wife of Isaac Minis with whom she had sixteenchildren.
1791(17th of Nisan, 5551):Third Day of Pesach
1797: Birthdate of Joseph Defflis whopassed away at the age of 13 months after which he was buried at the BrayStreet Jewish Cemetery.
1799(16th of Nissan, 5559):Second Day of Pesach
1799: Having defeated an Ottoman Armyfive days ago, French forces continued their siege of Acre while waiting forfield guns that could breach the walls.
1800: In Amsterdam, Eva Gompertz andAbraham Benjamin Cohen gave birth to Charles Cohen.
1805(22nd of Nisan, 5565):Eighth Day of Pesach; Yizkor
1805: Birthdate of Sir Culling EardleyEardley, 3rd baronet, a Christian evangelical who was, on his mother’s side ofthe family, the great-grandson of Jewish financier Sampson Gideon and afinancial support of the Jaffa-Jerusalem railway.
1808: The name of Raphael Bischoffsheim was included on alist dated today that “included…the twenty-five foremost Jews” in the city ofMayence. The authorities were to chose the representatives for Napoleon’sSanhedrin from the names on that list.Born in 1773, at Bischofsheim-on-the-Tauber, he went to Mayence duringthe French Revolution, and from a small merchant became a purveyor to the army.Bischoffsheim was president of the Jewish community of Mayence prior to hisdeath in 1814.
1813(21st of Nisan, 5573):Seventh Day of Pesach
1813(21st of Nisan, 5573):Pinkus Landau, the Polish born son of Wolf and Estera Landau, the husband ofRozla Landau and the father of Icek Lanau passed away today.
1814: Birthdate of Brigitte Simon, thehusband of Hartvig Abraham von Essen the mother of Ferdinand and Ida FrederikkeVon Essen.
1818(15th of Nisan, 5578):Pesach
1821(19th of Nisan, 5581):Shabbat shel Pesach
1821(19th of Nisan, 5581):Frances Lazarus, the wife Ezekiel Hart the Canadian Jewish businessman andpolitical leader whom she married in 1794 passed away today at Trois-Rivieres.
1822(30th of Nisan, 5582):Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1822: Abraham ben Simon married Beilabat Simhah HaLevi at the Western Synagogue.
1822: Two days after he had passed awayAbrahm Hart, the father of Hyman Hart, was buried today at the “Lauriston RoadJewish Cemetery.”
1823: At “Old Change, Cheapside,” Roseand Barnet Salomons gave birth to Julia Salomons who passed away two monthsafter her third birthday.
1825: In the Netherlands, Salomon LevieGoudsmit, the son of Levie Emanuel Goudsmit and Magdalena Hartog Goudsmit andhis wife Aleida Leentje Abraham van Raalte gave birth to Joel Goldsmith thehusband of Hannah Samuels and father of Henry Goldsmith; Solomon Goldsmith;Lizzie Goldsmith; Abraham Goldsmith; Louisa Goldsmith; and Margaret Goldsmith.
1826(14th of Nisan, 5585):Ta’anit Bechorot; erev Pesach
1827: Esther Gabriel Nunes Da Costa andJacob Samuel Suhami gave birth to Rachel Jacob Suhami.
1833: In London James Graham Lewis andhis wife gave birth to George Lewis who would become a successful lawyer knownto posterity as Sir George Henry Lewis, 1st Baronet, whose firstwife Victorine Kahn, the daughter of Philip Kahn of Frankfort, passed away his32nd birthday after which he married Elizabeth Eberstadt, thedaughter of Ferdinand Eberstadt of Manheim Germany.
1835(22nd of Nisan, 5595):Eighth Day of Pesach; Yizkor
1836: Three days after he had passedaway, 7-year-old John Cohen, the son of Isaac and Sara Cohen was buried todayat the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”
1836: Texans under the command ofGeneral Sam Houston defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacintowhich resulted in Mexican recognition of the Republic of Texas. Among the Jewswho served with Houston was Dr. Albert Moses Levy, the Surgeon in Chief forthis fledgling force. Adolphus Sternewas a friend of Houston from their days in Tennessee and he helped raise fundsfor the Texans.
1840(18th of Nisan, 5600):Fourth Day of Pesach
1840: Birthdate of Asher (Arthurd)Simhah Weissmann, the native of Galicia who served as director of two differentJewish schools before settling in Vienna where he pursued a literary careerthat included workds on “cremation according to the Bible and Talmud” and “thecanonization of the of the Books of the TaNach.”
1843(21st of Nisan, 5603):Seventh Day of Pesach
1843: PrinceAugustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, the sixth son of George III (the one wholost the 13 colonies) who “became a Patron of the Jews' Hospital and OrphanAsylum, later to become the charity known as Norwood” and who supportedlegislation to remove “the civil liabilities of Jews” passed away today.
1845(14thof Nisan, 5605): Fast of the First Born and erev Pesach
1846: Formation of the United Order ofTrue Sisters
1848(18th of Nisan, 5608):Fourth Day of Pesach observed on the birthdate of Carl Stumpf, the psychologistand musicologist whose students included Wolgang Kohler who protested again thedismissal of Jewish professors during the Nazi regime and Kurt Lewin
1849: In Paris, Nathé Weil and AdèleWeil gave birth to Jeanne Clemence Weil who became Jeanne Clemence Proust whenshe married Dr. Adrien Proust with whom she had two children, Marcel Proust andRobert Proust.
1851(19th of Nisan, 5611):Fifth Day of Pesach
1853: In London, Ann Davis and SolomonHyman Cohen gave birth to Louisa Cohen
1856(16th of Nisan, 5616): Onthe same day Jews observed the Second Day of Pesach, in Melbourne, “buildingworkers agitated for the eight-hour day.”
1858: Asof this date, records show that the Association for the Free Distribution ofMatzos to the Poor had spent a grand total of $691.87 to ensure that indigentJews would have unleavened bread to celebrate the recently completed Passoverholiday.
1860: In “From Southern Africa”published today it was reported that “The Jews of the Cape had subscribed £183for the benefit of their suffering brethren in Morocco. Where is the place inthe wide world to which the Jew does not penetrate?”
1860: A letter to the editor publishedtoday from a former prizefighter recounts the history of pugilism in Englandand the United. It included the following positive description of Jewish skillin the ring. ‘” In spite of their muscle, their undoubted courage, and admittedpugnacity, no Irishman has ever long held a distinguished place in the Ring.The Jews, on the other hand, not famous for any of these qualities, havealways, from the days of Menodoza and Aby Belasco, had a good position, andlike their great countryman, Judas Maccabeus, have "made battles and beenrenowned in the uttermost part of the earth." [Mendoza is the 18thcentury British fighter Daniel Mendoza.Belasco was a well-known fighter in “the post Mendoza era.”]
1861: It was reported today that in hisstudy of the synchronisms of ancient Assyrian and Egyptian History, Sir HenryRawlinson has discovered “thefirst clear account of a conflict between the Egyptians and the Assyriansoccurs in the reign of Sargon, (B.C. 721- 702,) who was, as we know from theBible, the King who carried away the Jews captives from Samaria.”
1863: Hooker finalized his plan ofattack. He hoped to fool the South into thinking that Fredericksburg was hismain target while moving three corps of troops against Lee’s left flank. 2000mules were acquired by Hooker to speed up the movement of his army.
1864(15thof Nisan, 5624); First day of Pesach
1864:Today at Chicago Johanna Haas, the German born daughter Levy and Helena Haasbecame Johanna Haas Westheimer when she married St. Joseph, MO merchant SamuelWestheimer after which she moved to St. Joseph where she served as thetreasurer of the Jewish Ladies’ Benevolent Society of St. Joseph and raisedeight children.
1864:Isaac J. Levy, a Confederate Soldier serving with the 46th Virginia Infantryparticipated in a Seder at Adams Run South Carolina. Levy would later admit that he was confusedas to the date of the start of the holiday.(As an example of the confusion that can take place in reporting events,Abraham Bloch described Levy as being a Union soldier)
1864:Birthdate of Max Weber of German nativewho was one of the fathers ofmodern sociology. He was also a noted economist andhistorian."Weber was among those who believed that modern capitalismwas the product of religious notions, variously termed the Protestant workethic and the Calvinist salvation panic...He also believed that Jewishbusinessmen, like Calvinist ones, tended to operate most successfully when theyhad left their traditional religious environment."Obviously,some of his ideas are open to debate based on historicalevidence. But he was an intellectual giant regardless of whether or notyou agree with his theories. He passed away in 1920.
1865(21stof Nisan, 5625): Seventh Day of Pesach
1865(21stof Nisan, 5626: The former Victorine Kahn, the daughter of Philip Kahn, thewife of Sir George Henry Lewis andmother of Alice Victorine Kahn, the wife of Abraham Lionel Hart, passed awaytoday on her husband’s thirty-second birthday.
1865:In Albany, NY, the Argus published an account of Rabbi Max Schlesinger’s talkat Temple Anshe Emeth expressing his feelings about the assassination ofPresident Lincoln and the decision of Congregation to hold services three timeson the day of Lincoln’s funeral, “first at 6 a.m. for morning prayers, at 10a.m. for a sermon by Rabbi Gotthold and at 6 p.m. for evening prayers.”
1865(21stof Nisan, 5625): Twenty-five-year-old Victorine Kann, the first wife of SirGeorge Lewis died today shortly after having given birth to their daughterAlice Victorine Lewis.
1866:Birthdate of San Francisco native and University of California graduate JuliusWangenheim, “a bridge engineer for the Southern Pacific Railroad and San Diegowholesale grocer who was instrumental in developing Balboa Park and other civicendeavors in San Diego.
https://www.sandiego.gov/public-library/locations/wangenheim/juliuswangenheim
https://pancalarchive.org/wangenheimjulius/
1866:Birthdate of Prussian Army officer and American and German journalist EduardGolbeck, the husband of Lina Abarbanell, the German soprano who was adescendent of Sephardic Jews from Bulgaria and the father-in-law of composerMarc Blitzstein.
1868:Birthdate of Bella (Epstein) Unterberg, the wife of philanthropist IsraelUnterberg who founded the Young Women’s Hebrew Association in her home inSeptember of 1902 passed away today.
https://jwa.org/media/ywha-bella-unterberg-still-image
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/young-womens-hebrew-association
https://www.jta.org/1935/12/12/archive/rites-held-for-mrs-unterberg-dead-at-67
1868:Birthdate of Vilna native Rabbi Louis Lazerow, the “founder of CongregationBeth Hamedrosh Hagodol on Rutgers Street in New York” and author of “32religious works” including “The Voice of Judea” and “The Jewish Speaker” whowas the husband of “the former Sarah Kaplan” and the father of three daughtersand two sons – Samuel and Elihu, “a high school teacher in Brooklyn” passedaway today
1869:In Rohrheim, Germany, Hirsh and Jette (Schloss) Gutman gave birth to JosephGuman who in 1884 came to New York where he founded Pacific Novelty Company,married Emma A Haas and served as member of the Federation of JewishPhilanthropic Society of New York City.
1870(20thof Nisan, 5630): Sixth day of Pesach
1870:Birthdate of University of North Carolina trained lawyer Angus W. McClean whoin 1926 while serving as Governor “issued a proclamation urging all the leadersof public thought, non-Jews as well as Jews, throughout the State to volunteertheir services to help raise North Carolina’s quota of $200,000 which is thestate’s part in the national United Jewish Campaign.
1871(30thof Nisan, 5631): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1871:In New York, Bernard Werner and his wife gave birth to lithographer SimonWerner, the Paris trained artist whose “drawings and illustrations” appeared inmany popular magazines including Harper’s and Ladies’ Home Journal and whosepaintings were “exhibited at the National Academy of Design.”
1875(16thof Nisan, 5635): Second Day of Pesach
1878(18thof Nisan, 5638): Fourth Day of Pesach
1878:In Podrovnah, Russia, Rabbi Baruch Schneur and Zelda Rachel Schneerson gavebirth to Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, the father of the seventh and lastChabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
https://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/117515/jewish/Biography-of-Rabbi-Levi-Yitzchak.htm
1880:In New York, Matilde (de Perkiewicz) and Max Liebling gave birth to soprano EstelleLiebling, one of the most influential teachers of singing in America
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/liebling-estelle
1880:For the fiscal year that ended today, the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum hadreceipts totaling a little more than $35,000 and had made expenditures of $12,327.34.
1880:In Prague, Barbara / Babette Bondy and Jakob Bondy gave birth to Bertha Fried
1880:Benjamin Disraeli completed his second and final term as Prime Minister of theUnited Kingdom.
1881(22ndof Nisan, 5641): 8th day of Pesach
1881:John J. and Sophie Rosenthal gave birth to College of Pharmacy graduate LouisJ. Rosenthal the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Baltimore, MD trainedsurgeon and husband of Beatrice L. Lauchheimerwho was an associate professor of proctology at the University ofMaryland and attending surgeon at Hebrew Hospital while also rising to the rankof Lt. Col. in the United States Army Medical Corps during WWI where he sawaction in the Battle of Verdun and the Argonne Forest.
1881(22ndof Nisan, 5641): “Jurist, publicist and scholar, Wolfgang Wessely who had beenborn in Moravia in 1801 passed away today in Vienna.
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Wessely_Wolfgang
1882:Based on information first published in The AllegemeineZeitung, it was reported today that troops in the Russian city of Baltejoined in the plundering of the Jewish population instead of protecting it.Forty Jews were injured in the riots, an unknown number of which laterdied. A thousand homes were destroyed,and damage is estimated to be in excess of 4,500,000 rubles.
1883:Birthdate of Russian native Arnold K. Israeli, the editor of newspapers in St.Petersburg and Constantinople who in 1911 came to the United States where hecontinued working as a newspaper editor before becoming the advertising managerfor General Motors and an active Zionist while raising a family with his wife,“the former Sara Weitz Rubinstein.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/06/20/82046859.pdf
1883(14thof Nisan, 5643): Shabbat HaGadol; Erev Pesach
1883:In Birmingham, AL, the Phoenix Club, whose members included M.V. Joseph and JoeSlaughter which “meets the second Monday in April, July, October and January,was founded today.
1884:In London, novelist Julia Davis who wrote under the pen name of Frank Danby andArthur Frankau, the Bavarian born son of Jewish merchant Joseph Frankau gavebirth to Conservative politician and novelist Gilbert Frankau who wrote for TheWiper Times during WW I and who converted to the Anglican Church at the age of13.
1884:Three men were arrested tonight in Nashville, TN on charges that they took partin the assault that left a Jewish citizen named Meyer Friedman beaten to death.
1884:The Board of Estimate and Apportionment met today and awarded funds to avariety of charitable institutions including the United Hebrew Charities of theCity of New York ($8,500), Mount SinaiHospital and Dispensary (4,250) and the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews(1,820).
1884:The New York Times reported on the plans being developed by the Jewishcommunity to celebrate the 100th birthday of Sir Moses Montefiorewhich will take place in October.Leaders of the community are calling for the establishment of Home forChronic Invalids named in the philanthropist’s honor. In addition to raising funds to construct thebuilding, the community will have to raise $20,000 a year to operate the home.
1885:In Romania. “Joseph and Yetta (Berman) Zingher gave birth to Cornell trainedphysician and bacteriologist Abraham Zingher, the WW I Medical Corps Veteranand husband of Anna L. Cherry who died prematurely under unusual circ*mstances.
1886:It was reported today that oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller has gone to New Yorkto meet with those holding the mortgage on the University of Chicago. Rockefeller has taken an interest in creatinga course that will lead to solvency for the school provided that Professor H.L.Harper would be named President of the school. Harper’s area of academicexpertise is the Hebrew language of which he is a professor. At this point in America, the only peopleinterested in Hebrew were a handful of Jews and academics teaching Biblicaltopics at Protestant dominated colleges.
1886(16thof Nisan, 5646): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer
1889:A report published today described the transformation of a German Jewishintellectual named Emin Bey into Emin Pasha a Moslem leader ruling over a largeswath of central Africa. Much of theinformation was supplied by Henry Stanley, the same man who “found” Dr.Livingston.
1890(1stof Iyar, 5650): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1890:Lucie Hadamard, married Alfred Dreyfus
1890:Alfred Dreyfus is accepted at the Ecole Superiore de Guerre (Superior WarCollege), the prestigious French military school designed to train the elitemembers of the French officer corps.Dreyfus will graduate 9th in his class but his finalevaluation will be marred by the entries of an anti-Semitic French general.
1890:Birthdate of Silesian native and decorated member of Austria’s World War IArmy, Benno Landsberger, a leading Assyriologist who like so many of hisgeneration had his career “interrupted by the rise of the Nazis
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcm4fww
1891:Rosa Gombesky a young Russian Jewish immigrant who jumped from a fires-escapeto the street when the tenement at 194 Henry Street caught fire is beingtreated at Gouverneur Hospital for the serious injuries she has suffered.
1892:In New York City, Israel and Bella Epstein Unterbert gave birth to DorisEpstein Unterberg who became Dore Epstein Unterberg Powell when she marriedMilton J. Powell.
1892:“A Moorish Jew, Joseph MIzrachee” was sentenced to 10 years for shooting HenryPereira Mendes, the rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel.
1892:“Typhus Among the Russian Jews” published today described efforts by theGermans from preventing infected Russians from crossing the border.
1893:The Austrian Premier has informed the American government that it will notgrant diplomatic recognition to Max Judd, the St. Louis Jew, whom PresidentGrover Cleveland appointed as Counsel General for the United States at Vienna.
1893:“Jewish Ministers Aroused” published today described the action being taken byChristian organizations to convert Jews and the response of the Jewishcommunity including that of Temple Beth Israel’s Rabbi Lustiwig who said “Thetrouble is that we have provided sufficient instruction for our people in theJewish faith. The introduction of Friday night and Sunday night lectures totake the pace of Saturday services has done no good to Judaism. While it may be well enough to have lecturesat other times than Saturdays, we should above all other things observeSaturday and all of our synagogues should be supplied with minsters who willimpress upon the people the importance of Bible subjects.” (Editor’s note –This was from a reform rabbi at a Reform Temple)
1894(15thof Nisan, 5654): Pesach
1894(15thof Nisan, 5654): Twenty-four-year-old Jessie Fraley, the son of Moses and RoseHarsch Fraley and the brother of Sadie and Edward Fraley passed away todayafter which he was buried at the New Mount Sinai Cemetery and Mausoleum inAfton, MO.
1894:Today as Jews munch on their matzah the bituminous coal strike that had comeduring the four year-long Panic of 1893 came to an end and Norway formallyadopted the Krag–Jørgensen bolt-action rifle as the main arm of its armedforces, a weapon that would remain in service for almost 50 years
1895:Professor Felix Adler delivered a lecture on “The Ten Commandments: at CarnegieHall” this morning
1895:“The Trustees of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, which is controlled by the HebrewBenevolent Society, held their annual meeting” this morning.
1895:“Care of Hebrew Orphans” published today described the origins and growth ofBrooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum which opened its doors fifteen years ago.
1895:Birthdate of Alexander Raymond Katz, the Hungarian born “painter and muralist’who in 1910 came to the United States where he studied at the Art Institute inChicago and gained fame as being “among the first Jewish artists to receive theapproval of Orthodox rabbis for his interpretive handling of such subjects asthe Ten Commandments” while raising two children, Joan and Donald, with hiswife “the former Elsie Engel.”
https://www.artsy.net/artwork/alexander-raymond-katz-shabbat
1896(7thof Iyar, 5656): Baron Maurice de Hirsch passed away at his estate in Pressburg,Hungary. While the name of Baron Hirschmay be unfamiliar to many living in the 21st century, he was one ofthe great philanthropists his time. TheBaron (and he really was a Baron) was part of an established, extremely wealthyfamily. The Baron funded a variety ofcharities many of which were designed to provide relief for the sufferings Jewsof Russia and Eastern Europe. He donatedgreat sums to establish agricultural communities in North and South Americaincluding Argentina, Canada and rural areas of the United States.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Baronhirsch.html
1896:Oscar S. Straus, who had served as U.S. Minister to Turkey told a reporter fromthe New York Times that “It was my good fortune to enjoy the personalacquaintance of Baron de Hirsch and my recollections of him, while tinged withsorrow at his sudden death, are of the pleasantest kind.
1896:Léon Say, who had worked on the on the Northern Railway Company which was ownedby his friend Alphonse de Rothschild and who had supported Rothschild’s fightto maintain bimetallism while serving as Minister of Finance passed away today.
1897(19thof Nisan, 5657): Fifth Day of Pesach
1897:Three days after war broke between the Ottoman Empire, today the Jews ofSalonika which was still a part of the Ottoman domain munched on their Matzah,heavy fighting began in Thessaly
1898: As the United States andSpain drifted into war after the sinking of the Maine, “Spain severeddiplomatic relations with the United States and the U.S. Navy began a blockadeof Cuba.” Fifteen of the sailors who died on the Battleship Maine wereJewish. Approximately 5,000 Jews servedas volunteers in the military during the war.A sixteen-year-old Jewish trooper was the first casualty among TeddyRoosevelt’s Rough Riders
1899: “Dreyfus Case Evidence” published today summarized the 24columns of coverage The Figaro devoted to the coverage of “testimony offeredbefore the Court of Cassation in the Dreyfus revision inquiry” including thestatement by Major Forzinetti who was the Director of the Chereche-Midi Prisonin 1894 that “Dreyfus consistently and persistently protested his innocence”and declared “that his only crime was in having been born a Jew.”
1900(22nd of Nisan, 5660): Eighth Day of Pesach andShabbat; Yizkor recited for the first time in the 20th century.
1900: It was reported today that Cobwebs “the famous Chestnutgelding” driven by Nathan Straus was
in prime condition” but was carrying “a trifle too much flesh for speeding”when last seen at “the Speedway.”
1901” “The Jewish King Lear,” published described plans for “aperformance of the Jewish ‘King Lear’ and his company which will be give at thePeople’s Theatre…for the benefact of the Seward Park Playground.”
1902(14th of Nisan, 5662): Ta’anit Bechorot; ErevPesach
1902: In New York, as Jews sit down to their Seders, they do nothave to worry about being able to buy supplies during the hoiday because MayorLow has told the authorities not to enforce the Sunday closing laws during theholiday.
1903: Herzl arrived in London as he continued to his quest to getsupport from leading British political leaders and prominent English Jews for aJewish homeland.
1904: “The resolution by Representative Goldfogle of New York tosecure the recognition of United States passports when presented by Americancitizens in Russia without regard to their religious faith was adopted by theHouse to-day without dissent, having been unanimously recommended by theForeign Affairs Committee.”
1905(16th of Nisan, 5665): Second Day of Pesach
1905(16th of Nisan, 5665): MeyerKayserling a German-born rabbi who held pulpits in Switzerland and Hungarypassed away in Budapest. Born in 1829, Kayersling was a noted historian andprolific author.
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Kayserling_Meir
1906(26th of Nisan, 5666):Parashat Shmini
1906: In Moscow, at the Congress of Monarchists publisher ValdimirGringmuth…” declared that ‘Holy Russia’ must be saved from the Revolutions”whose “chief conspirators” include “Jewish rabbis.”
1907: Birthdate of Zuromin, Poland native and Hebrew scholarElchanan Indelman who in 1947 came to the United States where he continued towrite Hebrew and Yiddish poetry while raising his two daughter Alta and Estherwith his wife Leah.
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/28/obituaries/elchanan-indelman.html
1907: The invitations to the wedding of Abram Bijur and AngelitaWertheim which was to have taken place tomorrow were “withdrawn today” becauseIsaac Bijur, the father of the bridegroom” had died of apoplexy yesterday.
1908: Birthdate of Berlin native Alfred Loew who gained fame asthe American record executive and co-founder with Max Margulis of Blue Note Records
https://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=112
1909(30th of Nisan, 5669): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1909: In Bridgeton, NJ, University of Pennsylvania graduateWilliam M. Lewis, the son Lithuanian born so of Jonas and Mildred Lewis marriedMarie Rosenthal today after which he served on the Philadelphia City Council andon the Municipal Court.
1909(30th of Nisan, 5669): Eighty-year-old EdwardSalomon, the 8th governor of the state of Wisconsin passed awaytoday.
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=5243
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/dictionary/index.asp?action=view&keyword=Edward+Salomon&term_id=2686
1910(12th of Nisan, 5670): Ta’anit Bechorot
1910: Tonight, Reverend Thomas M. Chalmers of the JewishEvangelical Society of New York City refused to discuss the Mayor’s rejectionof his request “for a license to preach for the conversion of Jews toChristianity…in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn.”
1911: In New York City, cigar maker Barnett Hart and the formerLillian Solomon gave birth to producer and stage manager Bernard Hart, theyounger brother of playwright Moss Hart.
1911: Birthdate of Bronx born Leonard Warenoff, the son of RussianJewish immigrants who gained fame as Leonard Warren, a leading baritone withthe Met who died suddenly while singing with his Richard Tucker another of theJewish immigrants who was a giant in the world of opera.
https://operawire.com/artist-profile-baritone-leonard-warren-legendary-verdi-interpreter/
1912: “The year-old Wager Earners’ League for Woman Suffrage”whose co-founders included Clara Lemlich and Rose Schneiderman “held its firstmass rally today at New York’s Cooper Union’s Great Hall of the People.”
1912: Rabbi Stephen Wise, assisted by Rabbi Emil Hirsch ofChicago, is scheduled to lead a memorial service at Carnegie Hall this morninghonoring those who lost their lives when the Titanic sank.
1912: In Minneapolis, “Isadore and Molly (Edelman) Davis” gavebirth to University of Minnesota trained attorney and WW II veteran Julius E.Davis, the husband of Lillian Stacia Kropman and father of Lawrence and StephenDavis.
1912: In speaking about the sinking of the Titanic, Rabbi JosephSilverman says, “"Not God was responsible for this great disaster but theimperfection of human knowledge and judgment."
1913: Tonight, Reverend Thomas M. Chalmers of the JewishEvangelical Society refused to comment on his application “for a license topreach for the conversion of Jews to Christianity” on street corners in thesections of Manhattan, Brownsville and Brooklyn that have large Jewishpopulations or on Mayor William J. Gaynor’s letter rejecting his request. In his letter rejecting the petition Gaynorwrote, “Do you not think the Jews have a good religion? Have not the Christians appropriated theentire Jewish sacred scriptures? Was notthe New Testament also written entirely written by Jews? Was not Jesus also born of the Jewish race,if I may speak of it with due reverence?Did not we Christians get much or the most of what we have from theJews? Why should anyone work so hard toproselytize the Jew? His pure belief inthe one true living God …is one of the unbroken lineages and traditions of theworld. I do not think I should give youa license to preach for the conversion of the Jews in the streets in thethickly settled Jewish neighborhoods which you designate. Would you not annoy them and do more harmthan good?” Gaynor had studied in a seminary as a young man. He was a pillar of the community whosurprised everybody by standing up to the corruption of Tammany Hall.
1913(14th of Nisan, 5673): Fast of the First Born
1913: “Feastof Passover Begins This Evening” published in the New York Times reportsthat “at sunset this evening, the celebration of Pesach, the Feast ofthe Passover, will begin in the Jewish households throughout the world. Pesachis the Spring festival of the Jews and was specially ordained to commemoratethe providential deliverance of the children of Israel from the bondage inwhich they had been held for many years under the Pharaohs of Egypt.”
1913(14th of Nisan, 5673): The Young Men’s Hebrew Association willbe holding a seder tonight beginning at 7 o’clock which will be attended bymany of the soldiers and sailors stationed at nearby forts and naval yards.
1913(14th of Nisan, 5673): Sixty-nine-year-old Isaac Aronwitz wasthe youngest person and 109 year old Ettel Polansky was the oldest person atthe seder held at the Home of the Daughters of Jacob on East Broadway.
1914: The second annual track and field championships of theMetropolitan League of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association to plan tonight atthe 69th Regiment armory where Edward Lindebaum failed to break theworld’s record for the 35 foot rope climb.
1914: Gompers (as in Samuel Gompers) versus the United States isreargued for the second and final day today before the U.S. Supreme Court.
1915: “Professor David G. Lyon of Harvard University gave anillustrated lecture on ‘The Samarian Excavations’ at the Menorah Society ofBrown University.
1915(7th of Iyar, 5675): Eighty-one-year-old AbrahamBerliner who served as professor of Jewish history and literature at IsraelHildesheimer’s Yeshiva in Berlin while publishing an acclaimed edition ofRashi’s commentary on the Pentateuch and bringing new life to the MikitzeNirdamin, “a society for the publication of old Hebrew books and manuscriptsthat were either never published or long out of print” passed away today.
1915: In London, Sarah and Abraham Goodman Jacobs gave birth toHenry Jacobs
1915: Seventy Jews from Palestinearrived in Alexandria. They described the conditions in Jerusalem as terrible,with many people dying from starvation. An eyewitness account from the villageof Mea She’arim in Jerusalem tells of the conditions:
"My God…I neverimagined that such wretched poverty really exists and that there really aresuch dark and filthy corners…. old men and women bloated with hunger. Childrenwith an expression of horror, the devastation of hunger written on theirfaces…" This is an example of how the fate of the Jewish homeland was tiedup in the game of international power politics.Palestine was part of the Turkish Empire. The Turks were at war with the Alliesincluding the British who sought to take Palestine as a way to defend the SuezCanal; the French who wanted colonies in that part of the Turkish Empire thatis now Syria and Lebanon; and the Russians who wanted to take control of theDardanelles and the Black Sea away from the Turks. A large percentage of theJewish population in Palestine had Russian origins. While many of the Jews in Palestine werewilling to fight on the side of the Turks, the Turks viewed the Jews asRussians or English sympathizers. Therewas more than a little truth to the Turkish view of things. At any rate, as the war dragged on, the Turksworked to make life miserable for the Jews and the Jews became more sympatheticto the Allied cause.
1916(18th of Nisan, 5676): Fourth Day ofPesach
1916: Dr. S. M. Melamed said today that The American Jewish Chronicle, a soon topublished new publication, said today it “would not in any sense be pro-German,but that it would give all the news of Jewry without reference to race orreligious differences.”
1916: It was reported today that one women in KansasCity have each pledged “to donate a dollar a month to the Women’s Division ofthe Central Jewish Relief Committee” for as longs the World War lasts.
1916: Today, in New York, “County Clerk Schneiderreceived a letter from Louis Schaffer, manager of the Naturalization AidLeague” in which he wrote “Permit us to thank you for the very splendidarrangements your office made for the Passover week in order to accommodate thehundreds of Jews in this city who applied for naturalization papers.”
1917(29th of Nisan, 5677): ParashatShmini
1917: Rabbi M.H. Harris is scheduled to deliver asermon on “The Work That Is Blessed” at Temple of Israel Harlem.
1917: Dr. Enelow is scheduled to deliver a sermon on“God’s Dwelling Place” at Temple Emanu-El
1917: Birthdate of Emanuel Vardi. Born in Jerusalem Israel, Vardi became a world-classviolist who was featured with the San Diego Symphony from 1978 to 1982.
1917:In a memorandum bearing today’s date (April 21, 1917) Lord Cecil, who wasdeputizing for Lord Balfour as Foreign Secretary during the Balfour Mission toAmerica, wrote that:
‘Iquite recognize the very great difficult of carrying out the Zionist policyinvolving as it does a strong preference for a British protectorate overPalestine. That seems to me to make it the more desirable to get France to joinus in an expression of sympathy for Jewish Nationalist aspirations.’”
1917:A report published today from the Central Committee of the Bund in St.Petersburg concluded by saying “With one blow the Russian revolution hasconquered Czarism, abolished all restrictions and opened a new page in Jewishhistory. The liberation of the Jewishnation is in the faithful hands of the revolutionary Russian nation.”
1918(9thof Iyar, 5678): Lt. Frederick Adolphus Arron who had attended Uppingham andthen Cambridge before enlisting died today while serving with the Royal FieldArtillery.
1918:World War I: German fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, known as "The RedBaron", is shot down and killed over Vaux-sur-Somme in France. Despiterumors to the contrary, the Red Baron was not Jewish. According to film based on his life, one ofhis close friends was a Jewish pilot named Friedrich Sternberg who was shotdown and killed during the war. Thiswould have made Sternberg one of over a hundred pilots who flew for the Kaiserduring the Great War. Ironically, Richtofen’s death would result in HermanGoering, the future Nazi Number Two and head of the Luftwaffe, taking commandof what was left of the famed Flying Circus.
1918:Dr. Schulman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The War and American Ideals”at Temple Bethel.
1918:Dr. Isaac Alcalay, the Chief Rabbi of Serbia, is scheduled to deliver a talk on“The Jews of Serbia and of the Allied Countries” at Temple Emanu-El.
1918:At the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall, Dr. Wise is scheduled to speak on “Whythe World’s Woe, Where the World’s Comfort? The Answer of Job.”
1918:Dr. Lissman is scheduled to serve as the Master of Ceremonies at theinstallation ceremony of Maxwell Sacks as Rabbi at Temple Israel of WashingtonHeights
1918:Birthdate of Stephen Theodore Norman, the only grandchild of Theodore Herzl.
1919(21stof Nisan, 5679): Seventh Day of Pesach
1919:In New York, the East Side is expected “secure $100,000,000 in subscriptionsduring the Victory Liberty Loan campaign opening today.
1919:Professor William E. Dodd of the University of Chicago History Department isscheduled to discuss “The Value of the League of Nations” during an open forumat the Sinai Social Center in Chicago.
1920: Oneof two dates in FSB archives for the death of Alexander Dubrovin, the founderof the anti-Semitic journal Russkoye Znamya who helped organized “thepogroms of the Black Hundreds.”
1920(3rdof Iyar, 5680): Seventy-eight-year-old Silesian born American artist HenryMosler best known for his illustrations and the paintings of the Civil Warpassed away today in New York City.
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=3435
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=940CE4D9133FE432A25751C2A9629C946195D6CF
1921:“The Keren Yaseod Bureau was open for the first time” today “at 50 Union Squareand it was filled all day with Jews offering their saving the” Zionist cause“in which they believe.
1921:As the government in New York State moved to enforce the prohibition laws,First Deputy Police Commissioner Johan A Leach “received a call this afternoonfrom a delegation of rabies who said they were short of wines for Passover”which begins tomorrow evening.
1922:Final publication of The American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger.
1922(23rdof Nisan, 5682): Seventy-year-old Philadelphia pawnbroker Abraham Henry Marcusthe husband of Sophia Marcus and father of Bertha, Retta and Henry Marcus, thevaudevillian and “Pulp publisher” passed away today.
1923(5thof Iyar, 5683): Parashat Tazria-Metzora
1923:“Forty Jewish students were seriously wounded to in clashes with Rumanianstudents on the grounds of the University of Bucharest, despite the posting ofmilitary guards to prevent a recurrence of the disorders which started” onApril 20.
1924(17thof Nisan, 5684): Third Day of Pesach
1924:In Berlin, Johanna (Marcuse) Rothman and Max Rothman gave birth to HansRothman, who gained fame as John Rothman, the developer of the New York TimesInformation Bank, “a revolutionary system “that let computer users easily findjournalism by The Times and dozens of other publications” and who raised twochildren with his Gertrude (Ullman) Rotham. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)
1924:In Berlin, Hanna Wiernik and Egon Gluecksman gave birth to Syracuse alum andCornell trained attorney J.D. (Joe Dave) Gluecksman, the WW II veteran whosettled in Los Angeles.
1924: Birthdate of MGM executive DanielMelnick, who was producer of the television comedy hit, Get Smart
1925: In Vienna, Leontine and Moses Pollak, who perished duringthe Holocaust gave birth to Siegfried Pollak who survived thanks to theKindertransport program and who gained fame as Sidney Pollard, the “Britisheconomic and labor historian and Professor at the University of Sheffield” who“pioneered the study of the role of economic management in the process of industrialization.”
1925: In Little Rock, AR, Jesse Heiman and his wife gave birth toMax Adolph Heiman, the brother of Rose Heiman and Robert Jesse Heiman.
1926: Zeta Beta Tau fraternity announced today that “Rabbi StephenS. Wise has been awarded the Gottheil medal ‘for distinguished service to thecause of Judaism.
1926: In Manhattan, Laurence Mayer and the former Mildred Millergave birth to Roger Laurance Mayer a film executive who was instrumental inpreserving and restoring countless classic movies and who owed his career, in astrange twist to anti-Semitism since he turned to movie production work onlyafter having been turned down by several L.A. law firms because he was Jewish.
1927(19th of Nisan, 5687): Fifth Day of Pesach
1927: In Manhattan, Isidor Brokaw, a lawyer who was wiped out inthe Great Depression and the former Marie Hyde gave birth to Norman RobertBrokaw, the head of William Morris and driving force in the entertainmentindustry.
1927: In New York Blanche Haft Brustein and Max Brustein gave birth to Robert Brustein, Dean of the Yale School of Drama.
https://americanrepertorytheater.org/bio/robert-brustein/
1928(1st of Iyar, 5688) Rosh Chodesh Iyar; ParashatTazria-Metzora
1928: Dos Heymishe Shtetl” directed by David Vardi was performedtoday in New York City.
https://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/yt/lex/V/vardi-david.htm
1928: “The Passion of Joan of Arc” a silent biopic based on theJoan’s trial filmed by cinematographer Rudolph Maté was released in Denmarktoday.
1929: Mark Eisner presided over a dinner tonight at the Biltmorewhich “marked the opening of campaign to raise one million dollars to be usedfor assistance to impoverished Jews of Eastern Europe” where attendees heard“messages from President Hoover, Professor Albert Einstein and former GovernorAl Smith” as well as speeches by Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the wife of theGovernor and Lieutenant Governor Lehman.
1929: “To Honor Rabbi Loew” published today described the decisionof “the Prague City Council…to name a street in the former Jewish quart of thecity for Rabbi Jehuda Lowe-Bezalel, who is buried in the ancient Jewishcemetery” and who “was known to thousands of Americans through the film ‘TheGolem; based on the novel by Gustav Maybrink.”
1930: Hank Greenberg made his major league baseball debut.
1930: “Ceremonies inaugurating the planting of two forests inhonor the late King Peter of Serbia and President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia”are scheduled to take place today “in the ‘Ginegar Emek’ near the BalfourForest on land owned by the Jewish National Fund.”
1931: Brooklyn outfielder Max Rosenfeld made his major leaguebaseball debut.
1932:In Philadelphia, PA, “theater director/actor Jack Berlin and actress Ida(Aaron) Berlin” gave birth to Elaine Iva Berlin who gained fame as writer,director and comedian Elaine May.
1932:In New York City, Russian Jewish immigrant “Celia and Benjamin Melnick,” gavebirth to “Daniel Melnick, a producer and studio executive who brought aninnovative and often unconventional sensibility to films that included “StrawDogs,” “All That Jazz” and “Altered States.”
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/oct/21/daniel-melnick-obituary
1932(15thof Nisan, 5692): Pesach
1932:On the first day of Pesach Rabbi Rosenbaum of Temple Israel and Rabbi Katz ofMontefiore Hebrew Congregation tied the current economic crisis to the themesof Passover. Katz said that today, theentire social and economic structure is falling and that a return to the Mosaicsystem offers a source of salvation.After gaining their freedom, the Jews were taught that periodically“they must emancipate those elements in the population who, because of lack offoresight or ability lose their status as self-supporting and self-respectingmen, who, in other words relinquish their freedom because of economiccompulsion.” We must adopt a modernversion of the Mosaic codes which in ancient times called for periodic redistributionof the land and those who sold themselves because of debt were freed.
1933:The slaughter of animals according to the rules of Kashrut was banned by theNazis in Germany. Nazi propaganda portrayed Jewish slaughtering customsas treating animals in an inhumane way. Yes, the people who would butchersix million of our co-religionists actually hid behind the animal rights’movement. There were many Jewish butchers who defied the law as long aspossible and continued to supply kosher meat to their observant customers.
1933:King Christian X of Denmark attended the celebration of the 100th anniversaryof the Crystal Synagogue in Copenhagen to demonstrate his sympathy for theJews. This is the same King Christian who is the hero of a famous "urbanlegend." According to the story he wore a Yellow Star during the warin support of his Jewish subjects. While Christian showed great fortitudeby staying with his people during the war and while the Danes protected theirJewish fellow citizens, the story of the star is a myth. In fact, most ofthe Jews were not required to wear the star. The important thing is thelengths to which the Danes went to protect the Jews. If others had doneas much, the Shoah would not have happened.
1933:“According to a cable message received today by The Jewish Morning Journal”in New York, “Baruch Schwartz, noted Jewish educator passed away at the age of72 in Tel Aviv. Born in the Ukraine,Schwartz was an early member of the Zionist movement. His greatest contribution was his work tomodernize the Hebrew language and the development of simplified methods ofteaching what had been considered to be a “dead language.” Schwartz made Aliyah in 1923 and had completedthree volumes of his memoirs before he passed away.
1934: In Vienna, Emmanuel and Lilly (Hillel) gave birth to MichaelShinagel who “grew up to be the longest-serving dean in Harvard’s 380-yearhistory.
1934: Moe Berg, catcher for the WashingtonSenators, played his 117th consecutive game without an error, setting a recordfor his position. Moe Berg is one of the strangest and most fascinatingof all baseball players. Born to Russian immigrant parents on the LowerEast Side in 1902, Berg graduated from Princeton magna cum laude with theability to speak seven languages. He also played shortstop for theTigers. Berg played for five teams during a fifteen year career. Hewas labeled good field, no hit and was considered a good journeymanplayer. What made him unique were his intellectual feats and the legendsthat surrounded them.He bought numerous papers each day which insisted onbeing the first to read. If you grabbed a section of one of his papersbefore he had read it, he cast the paper aside because it was dead. Inthe 1930's, Berg joined an All Star baseball team that made a barnstorming tripto Japan. Berg was a strange choice since he certainly was not a star.Beg did not joinin the carousing and went off to be by himself. Itwas only later, during World War II that people found out what Beg had beendoing. He spoke Japanese. He wondered around taking pictures ofJapan and some of these photographs were used by the Doolittle Raiders in 1942to help them find their targets when America bombed Japan for the firsttime. And this is only the tip of the iceberg or should I say Moe Berg.
1935:It was reported today that New York Governor Lehman has issued an appeal forcontribution “to a fund for the relief and rehabilitation of European Jewry”which collecting $3,250,000 nationwide “to help the Jews from Germany and otherlands to settle in Palestine.”
1935:In Pittsburgh, PA, “Lena (née Singer), who worked in the family store andvolunteered for disabled veterans, and Theodore I. Grodin, who sold wholesalesupplies” gave birth to actor and talk show host Charles Grodin.
1936: In Tel Aviv and Jaffa, Arabs riot to protestJewish immigration to Palestine. Thiswas the beginning of two years of violence that would not end until 1939.Contrary to popular misconception, these riots were not a spontaneousexpression of Arab feelings. Arableaders called for a general strike and a rebellion against the Mandate and inan effort to prevent Jewish immigration. Initially 80 Jews were murdered and308 wounded. By fall of 1939, over onehundred Jews had been killed in Arab attacks. The official Zionist policy atthe time was “Havlagah”(self-restraint). In other words, the Jewish forces acted in self-defense. They did not go out after their attackers nordid they stage attacks on Arab villages or centers of population. The Arabs would succeed in theirefforts. In 1939, just prior to thestart of World War II, the British government violated the terms of the Mandateand the Balfour Declaration by all but putting and end to Jewish immigration toPalestine and ending the purchase of land by Jews. The British zealously enforced the ban onimmigration which played a helpful role in the success of the Final Solution.
1936: The funeral for six Jews who were murdered byArab rioters in Tel Aviv yesterday was held at 6 o’clock this morning at theend of which all were buried in a common grave including one of the victims whowas never identified.
1936:“The newspaper the Journal said in aneditorial today that the disordered in Palestine between Jews and Arabs wereGreat Britain’s penalty ‘for supporting the Ethiopians against Italy.’”
1936:“Former Governor Alfred E. Smith, Postmaster General James A. Farley andSenator Royal S. Copeland joined today in an appeal for support for the driveof the Greater New York campaign of the Joint Distribution Committee which isseeking $1,500,000 as this New York City’s share of a $3,500,000 nation-widefund for the aid of Jews in Germany and Central and Eastern Europe.
1936:Five Arab leaders who met with the British High Commissioner today said, “therioting had been caused by the government’s refusal to forbid Jewishimmigration and by the sale of land to Jews.”
1936:The Jews of Hebron who lived through the riots of 1929 when sixty-two Jews weremurdered are now “safely sheltered in the Hadassah Hospital.”
1937:“Rabbi William F. Rosenblum of New York urged the Senate Judiciary Committee toreject” President Roosevelt’s court program saying “that the supreme judiciaryis the rock of ages against which demagoguery and dictatorship alike will bedashed to pieces.”
1937:In Chicago, costume jeweler Sidney Kass and the former Celia Gorman gave birthto Jerome Kass, the author best known for the Emmy nominated “Queen of theStardust Ballroom.”
1937:“The Second Hurricane,” Aaron Copland's first attempt at composing opera which wascommissioned by the Henry Street Settlement in New York City where it premieredtoday, at the settlement's playhouse and was performed by students at its musicschool.
1938: Germany issued a decree that effectivelyeliminated Jews from the nation's economy and provides for the seizure ofJewish assets.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that fiveArab terrorists were killed when they attacked the Tel Amal police post and theneighboring Jewish settlement. One Arab constable was killed during the attack.
1938: The Palestine Post reported thatSwitzerland demanded that all foreign nationals and in particular Austrianrefugees leave the country. The acquisition of land, or even a substantialfinancial investment could not any more serve as a reason to obtain a permit toremain on the Swiss soil. (This was aimed at Jewish refugees who sought safehaven in supposedly neutral Switzerland.It is only one example of how the Swiss betrayed the much touted moralhigh ground of neutrality to ingratiate themselves with the Nazis at theexpense of the Jews of Europe.)
1939:In a letter written from Germany to Max Marx in Palestine, Jenny Marx describedthe family’s desperate condition including Siegmund Mayer’s internment in aconcentration, while thanking him for sending a picture of his new fiancée – ameasure that seemed to fill her with hope for the future.
1940: “An assertion that America could learn fromthe lesson taught by the tragedy of Europe only if people were wise enough,patriotic enough, and united enough, was made by Governor Lehman in an addresstonight at a dinner of the State Conference of the National Council of JewishWomen.”
1940: “In the cities of the Free Zone, especially inMarseille, which continues to harbor a very large number of refugees from allparts of Europe, it is understood that steps are being taken to take a censusof all Jews. Identity papers are being examined in all instances and it seemsclear that it is desired to prepare lists of various classes of Jews.”
1941(24th of Nisan, 5701): A mentally illwoman was forced by the sentries to dance by the barbed entrance to the LodzGhetto. When she was done they shot her dead. This unfortunate soul perishedwith no record of her name. By mentioning the episode, she may remainnameless, but not unremembered.
1942:Tonight, as part of “Operation Delay II,” the leader of a unit of Britishcommandos that included Jewish wireless operation Edward Zeff and CaptainIsidore Newman landed off the coast of the French Rivera and mad itsuccessfully to #31 Avenue Marechal Foch, “the home of the Jewish Restianceleader Dr. Louis Levy (Louis of Antibes).
1942:“Nazis Concentrate All Dutch Jews in Amsterdam Ghetto” published todaydescribed how “Nazi officials in occupied Holland ae now moving the Jews fromDutch provincial towns into the Amsterdam ghetto under the pretext that theyintend to make Amsterdam “a port of exodus for Jews from Europe” and that the“Supervision of these Dutch Jews has been entrusted to the German police only,since the Nazis have found the Ductich police to be ‘overly-sympathetic’ to theJews.”
1943(16thof Nisan, 5703): Second Day of Pesach
1943:Sixty-eight-year-old Austrian biologist Hans Leo Prizbram and his wife who hadfled to “Amsterdam in December 1939” were deported today to Theresienstadtwhere he died in 1944.
1944:It was reported today that Max Zaritsky, the president of the United Hatters,Caps and Millinery Workers Union of America and Chairman of the Palestine unioncommittee released a letter from Philip Murray, the President of the CIOexpressing his support for the American Jewish Trade Union Committee of whichhe is now serving as honorary co-chairman.
1945:In St. Louis, MO, Nathan and Bluma (Rubin) Schwartz gave birth author HowardSchwartz whose efforts have him the Koret Jewish Book Award and the NationalJewish Book Award.
1945:Birthdate of director and screenwriter Nadav Levitan, a native of Kibbutz KfarMasayrk
https://human-knowledge.online/en/persons/nadav-levitan-2830302/
1945: In Montreal, Abe Wainberg, a glassware companyemployee and his wife Fay gave birth to Mark Arnold Wainberg, themicrobiologist who played a key role in developing treatment for AID’spatients.
1945: Robert Limpert who had been brutally hung inthe Bavarian town of Ansbach for courageously trying to sabotage the Nazis inthe waning days of WW II was buried today.
1946 (20th of Nisan, 5706): On the 6thDay of Pesach,fiveJews, each of them a concentration-camp survivor, motoring near Nowy Targ,Poland, were stopped at a mock police checkpoint and shot to death. The oldestvictim was 35, one was 25, and the remaining three were 22.
1946:The Palestine civil service strike gained new support when “municipal workersin Nazareth and employees of the Trans-Jordan railways walked out in sympathywith the other strikers.”
1946:Thirty-five-year-old Wisconsin native Morrie “Snooker” Aronvich the outfielderwho “kept kosher for his whole life” ended his seven year major league baseballcareer today as a player with the New York Giants.
1947(1stof Iyar, 5707): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1947(1stof Iyar, 5707): Nineteen-year-old British Army veteran and Irgun member MeirFeinstein and twenty-year-old Moshe Barazani blew themselves up with a handgrenade hours before they were scheduled to be hung in the Jerusalem CentralPrison.
1948(12thof Nisan, 5708): Seventy-three-year-old Gomel born, Columbia educated physicianNicholas Dobkin passed away today in Brooklyn
1948:In “Big Convoy Fights Way To Jerusalem” Dana Adams Schmidt described the attackby the Arabs at Deir Ayoub on the 260 vehicles bring food and other supplies tothe besieged Jewish community which last for a full day claiming the lives offive members of the Haganah leaving another twenty four wounded.”
1948:It was reported today “Trans-Jordan’s Arab Legion and other Arab regular armieswould soon invade Palestine” and that “the Arab League’s Political Committeehad decided to set up a government claiming sovereignty over all of Palestine.
1948:The British government in Palestine denied that any promises had been madeguaranteeing “Jews access to the Wailing Wall…during the” upcoming “Passoverfestival” – a claim disputed by the Zionists.
1949(22nd of Nisan, 5709): 8th dayof Pesach
1951(15th of Nisan, 5711): As UNForces fight the Chinese and the North Korean forces trying to conquer SouthKorea, the Jews observe Pesach and Shabbat.
1952: Sir Stafford Cripps, who as President ofthe Board of Trade attended the Potsdam Conference where he expressed the “opinionthrough economic development Arabs and Jews would learn to cooperate” and that “witha view to an independent Palestine, we must partition the country temporarilyin order to safeguard the interests of the Jewish people” passed away today.
1953: RoyCohn and G. David Schine, two of Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief aides,recommend the removal of 30,000 books from the libraries of the United StatesInformation Service posts in Europe, including works by Dashiell Hammett, W. E.B. Du Bois, Herman Melville, John Steinbeck and Henry David Thoreau, callingthem "pro-Communist.” Not all Jews,even ones who were New York born lawyers, were liberals. This also puts the lie to the notion that allJews were Communists.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that on theoccasion of Israel's sixth birthday, the President, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, orderedthe release of eight prisoners and reduced the sentences of about a hundredothers. Nazareth and Arab villages in Galilee were richly decorated with flags ofthe State. Arab and Druze notables participated in the Haifa march-past armyparade and other celebrations.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported thatdiplomatic steps were taken in an urgent effort to improve the deterioratingconditions on Israeli borders, troubled by a continued infiltration, murder,theft and sabotage.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israelaccused Egypt of an act of piracy when three Israeli fishing smacks werestopped and searched, in international waters, by an Egyptian corvette.
1954(18thof Nisan, 5714): Fourth Day of Pesach
1954:In Chicago, Dr. Karl E. Ettinger presented a reported today at the 51stannual convention of the National Catholic Educational Association that claimed“a dangerous monopoly, amount to a virtual academic ‘cartel’ exists in thegranting of research funds to colleges and universities by the FederalGovernment.”
1954:Danny Kaye was appointed UNICEF's Ambassador at Large, and made a 40,000 milegood-will trip, which resulted in the short, Assignment Children.
1956(10thof Iyar, 5716): Seventy-one-year David Samuel Gottesman, the son of Sarah andMendel Gottesman and “husband of Jeanne Regina Gottesman” passed away today.
1956(10thof Iyar, 5716): Seventy-two-year-old Samuel Gottesman, the “Hungarian-born,American pulp-paper merchant, financier and philanthropist” who best known for“the donation of the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls to the State of Israel, wherethey are housed in the Shrine of the Book” passed away today.
1957(20th of Nisan, 5717): Sixth Dayof Pesach
1957: Judge Hyman Barshay participated in thepanel discussion “The Jury System: Is Justice Done?”
https://www.thirteen.org/openmind-archive/government/the-jury-system-is-justice-done/
1958(1st of Iyar, 5718): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1958: At Treblinka, the construction of amonument 8 metres (26 ft) tall was inaugurated today with the laying of thecornerstone at the site of the former gas chambers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franciszek_Duszeńko#/media/File:Treblinka_memorial.jpg
1961: “On his 50th birthday, morethan 200 persons attended a party for” Bernard Hart, the younger brother ofMoss Hart, “at Sardis” where “Bernie heard himself roasted and eulogized insongs and skits…”
1961:“Israel: The Man in the Cage, an article published” by Time magazinedescribed the events at the Eichmann Trial
http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,895278,00.html
1962:“The Century 21 Exposition” also known as the Seattle World’s Fair for whichLawrence Halprin provided the “master landscaping plan” opened today
1962(17thof Nisan, 5722): Shabbat shel Pesach
1962(17th ofNisan, 5722): Fifty-one-year-old Philadelphia native Jeannette Orleans Gayl,the husband of Joseph Gayl and President of the Women’s Division of ORT passedaway today.
1964: Funeral servicesae scheduled to held at noon today in Temple Ahavath Sholom in Brooklyn for sixty-seven-year-oldNYU trained attorney, State Supreme Court Justice and Surrogate of Kings CountyMaximillian Moss, the husband of the former Grace Leffert with whom he raisedthree daughter and World War Iveteran who was a member of the DemocraticParty, President “of the Jewish Community Council which he had founded in 1940…tocombat Nazi intolerance” and chairman of the executive committee of the Jewish Hospitalin Brooklyn.
https://www.jta.org/archive/maximilian-moss-dies-at-67-led-jewish-cultural-communal-affairs
1964:Houston Third Baseman Steve Hertz appeared in his first major league baseballgame.
1964:“The appointment of Leonard Kaufman as general counsel of the ParamountPictures Corporation was announced today by Barney Balaban, president of themotion‐picture producer. Mr. Kaufman was formerlyhouse counsel for the company in New York.”
1964:“Funeral services” are scheduled “to be held at Temple Rodeph Sholom” today “forBen Hecht, American-Jewish author, journalist, playwright, and stormy petrel inthe Zionist movement, who died suddenly at the age of 70.” (As reported by JTA)
1968:Bernard Gersten, a man who served in many theatrical capacities married adancer named Cora Cahan.
1968(23rdof Nisan, 5728): Seventy-four-year-old Chicago native and Tufts Medical Schoolgraduate Dr. Benjamin Sachs, the ophthalmologist and member of the faculty ofTufts and Harvard who was the husband of Bessie Cushing Sachs and father ofBaruch J. Sachs and Tikvah Sachs Portnoi passed away today after which he wasburied in Beth El Cemetery at West Roxbury, MA.
1969:Today, at the closing session of the ADL’s 56th annual meeting, SamuelDalsimer “a New York City advertising executive” as chosen to serve as theleague’s national chairman and “playwright and producer Dore Shary” became honorarychairman of the league.
1969:“The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail” co-authored by Jerome Lawrence (born JeromeLawrence Schwartz) opened today for the first time at Ohio State University.
1970(15thof Nisan, 5730): Pesach
1971:Publication of The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, ‘a book bythe American pianist and author Charles Rosen” that “analyses the evolution ofstyle during the Classical period of classical music as it was developedthrough the works of Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig vanBeethoven.
1972(7thof Iyar, 5732): Seventy-two-year-old Mrs. Dorothy Silberman Hartman, the AlbanyLaw School trained attorney and law partner of her father Louis Silberman whowas the widow of real-estate executive Jesse Hartman passed away today at herhome on Fifth Avenue.
1974:After 538 performances and “two previews” the curtain came down on the originalBroadway production of Neil Simon’s “The Sunshine Boys” produced by EmanuelAzenberg, directed by Alan Arkin and co-starring Sam Levene as “Lewis” and JackAlbertson as “Clark.”
1974(29thof Nisan, 5734): Seventy-one-year-old Vienna native Dr. Dora Karplus Hartmann,a psychoanalyst long associated with the New York Psychoanalytic Institute andthe widow of Dr. Heinz Hartmann passed away today.
1976(21stof Nisan, 5736): Seventh Day of Pesach
1976(21stof Nisan, 5736): Seventy-six year old Odessa born Léonide Moguy “Frenchdirector and screenwriter” whose birth name was Leonid Mohylevskyi passed away today in Paris.
1977(3rdof Iyar, 5737): YomHaAtzma'ut
1977(3rdof Iyar, 5737): Eighty-four-year-old Gummo [Milton] Marx passed away fifth sonMinnie and Sam Marx.Born in either October 1892 or 18993, he is the Marxbrother most people do not remember. Although he and Groucho were theoriginal performers in the family, Gummo left show business to join theArmy. He was replaced by Zeppo. After the war, Gummo sold dressesand cloth. He came back to show business, but not as a performer.He was the agent for his famous brothers.
1977:The original Broadway production of “Annie” with music by Charles Strouse,lyrics by Martin Charmin opened at the Alvin Theatre today.
1978: TheJerusalem Postreported that the Government and the Histadrut reached a mini-packageanti-inflation deal, providing for a six-month freeze on taxes, prices andservice charges, with an option to be extended for another six months.
1978: TheJerusalem Postreported that Israeli authorities had recently been looking into thepossibility of curbing what was termed as an increased partisan activity by thetoo inquisitive foreign diplomats in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
1979(24thof Nisan, 5739): On Shabbat, in Nahariya, terrorists attacked an apartmentbuilding killing four people including two children and injuring four others.
1981(17thof Nisan, 5741): Third Day of Pesach
1983:“The Anti-Zionist Committed of the Soviet Public was formed in Moscow to combatJewish cultural and emigration activities.”
1984(19thof Iyar, 5744): Marcel Janco, Romanian and Israeli visual artist, architect, art theoristand cultural promoter, known as the co-inventor of Dadaism and a leadingexponent of Constructivism in Eastern Europe passed away.
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/23/obituaries/marcel-janco-a-dada-founder.html
1985(30thof Nisan, 5745): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1985(30thof Nisan, 5745): Ninety-one-year-oldsongwriter and music scout Irving Mills passed away.
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/23/arts/irving-mills-dies-at-91-jazz-music-publisher.html
1985(30thof Nisan, 5745): Sixty-two-year-old fashion designer Rudi Gernreich passedaway.
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/22/nyregion/rudi-gernreich-avant-garde-designer-dies.html
http://www.fashionencyclopedia.com/Fr-Gu/Gernreich-Rudi.html
1985:“The NormalHeart,” a largely autobiographical play by Larry Kramer” premiered at ThePublic Theatre in New York City.
1986:“Act of Vengance” an HBO film featuring Ellen Barkin as “Annette Gilly” andMaury Chaykin as “Claude Vealey” was broadcast for the first time.
1987(22ndof Nisan, 5747): Eighth Day of Pesach
1987(22nd ofNisan, 5747): Eighty-two-year-old NYU graduate and JTS trained rabbi, MorrisAaron Gutstein who in 1921 came to the United States where he led “the famedTouro Synagogue of Newport, RI and then went on to Congregation Shaare Tikvahin Chicago “which he led for twenty-four years” while producing servalnoteworthy articles, teaching at the Spertus College of Judaica and winningseveral awards for his work one from Valley Forge’s Freedom Foundation passedaway today.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/1987/04/22/rabbi-morris-a-gutstein/
https://www.kurtgippert.com/advSearchResults.php?authorField=Morris+A+Gutstein&action=search
1987:In today’s “Postscript” German historian Joachim Fest wrote "In itssubstance, the dispute was initiated by Ernst Nolte's question whether Hitler'smonstrous will to annihilate the Jews, judging from its origin, came from earlyViennese impressions or, what is more likely, from later Munich experiences,that is, whether Hitler was an originator or simply being reactive. Despite allthe consequences that arouse from his answer, Nolte's question was in fact apurely academic exercise. The conclusions would probably not have caused asmuch controversy if they had been accompanied by special circ*mstances."
1988(4thof Iyar, 5748) Yom HaAtzma’ut
1988:Five days after he was killed in Tunis, terrorist leader Khalil al-Wazir wasburied today in Damascus on the same day that the Washington Post reported“that the Israeli cabinet” had approved his “assassination.”
1988(4thof Iyar, 5748): Sixty-seven-year-old I.A.L. Diamond screenwriter whose workincluded “The Apartment” and “Some Like It Hot” passed away today.
1989(16thof Nisan, 5749): Second Day of Pesach; First Day of the Omer
1989:The Price Center, named for Sol Price, the founder of COSTCO who “donated twomillion dollars for the construction of this student center” at the Universityof California, San Diego, opened today.
1992(18thof Nisan, 5652): Fourth Day of Pesach
1992(18thof Nisan, 5652): Eighty-one-year-old Chicago born and University of Chicagotrained attorney Morris I Leibman, the husband of Mary Leibman with whom heraised two sons and recipient of the Freedom Medal passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/29/obituaries/morris-i-leibman-81-a-senior-law-partner.html
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-04-22-9202050616-story.html
1993: Yiddish theater producer and advocate DoraWasserman received the Order of Canada, the highest honor bestowed on civiliansby the Canadian government.Born in Ukraine in 1920 [some sourcessay 1919], Wasserman studied at Moscow's Yiddish Art Theatre and acted with theKiev State Theatre and Kazakhstan State Theatre before Stalinist repressionclosed down most Yiddish theatres in the Soviet Union. In 1950, she fled theU.S.S.R. with her husband and two young daughters. After stints in Poland and adisplaced persons camp in Vienna, Austria, Wasserman and her family arrived inMontreal where she would spend the rest of her life. In Montreal, Wasserman atfirst taught drama to Jewish schoolchildren, many of them Yiddish-speakingrefugees like her, and performed as a singer, pianist, and guitarist. After sixyears, she formed the Yiddish Drama Group, an adult amateur ensemble that laterbecame the Yiddish Theatre and then was renamed the Dora Wasserman YiddishTheatre. The Group's first production, The Innkeeper, was staged in1957. Although her troupe was not made up of professional actors, Wassermaninsisted on a high level of both performance and dedication and was rewardedwith the loyalty of her actors and the high praise of critics and fans. Themore than 70 plays she directed over four decades earned her the title ofgrande dame of the Yiddish theatre. Among the Yiddish Theatre's productionswere classics by well-known Yiddish writers like Sholom Aleichem and SholemAsch; modern works translated into Yiddish for her company, like Montrealplaywright Michel Tremblay's classic Les Belles Soeurs (theSisters-in-Law); and new works written especially for her troupe. The mostsuccessful of these was A Bintel Brief, based on immigrants' letters tothe advice column of the Jewish Daily Forward. Tremblay called herproduction of Les Belles Soeurs the best interpretation in any foreignlanguage. Wasserman's theatre reached an audience beyond the population ofnative Yiddish-speakers, which grew smaller with each passing decade. Shebelieved that, "if [a play] is good, you will feel it. You don't need tounderstand the language on the stage." Still by providing supertitles inEnglish and French, the Theatre's works became accessible to a wide audience inQuebec, and on tours in Israel, the United States, Austria, and Russia. Inaddition, Wasserman traveled frequently to Jewish schools to leadextracurricular programs designed to instill a love of both theatre andYiddish. These programs reached some 3,000 students each year. In 1973, thetroupe moved to the Saidye Bronfman Centre in Montreal, where it is now theonly permanent resident Yiddish theatre in North America. It is also one ofonly four Yiddish theatres in the world – the others are in New York, Warsaw,and Tel Aviv. Wasserman passed leadership of the theatre to her daughter, BrynaWasserman, in 1996, after a disabling stroke. The elder Wasserman died in 2003.Her headstone in a Montreal cemetery reads, "with love and magic, Dorafounded the miracle of Yiddish Theatre in Montreal, a bridge to the Jewishpeople's continuity."
1994(10thof Iyar, 5754): Officer cadet Shahar Simani , age 20, of Ashkelon, was foundstabbed to death near the roadside at the village of Beit Hanina , north ofJerusalem He had been kidnapped whilehitchhiking in the south.
1995(21stof Nisan, 5755): Seventh Day of Pesach
1995:“While You Were Sleeping” a comedy directed by Jon Turteltaub, produced byRoger Birnbaum and Joe Roth and with music by Randy Edelman was released todayin the United States.
1996:The New York Times published anarticle entitled “Modern HolocaustMemorial: Thesis of Victim on Internet” that tells the story of EstherHautzig’s very personal, very innovative efforts to insure that the life of herUncle Ela-Chaim Cuzner will be remembered.
1997(14th of Nisan, 5757): Ta’anitBechorot; Erev Pesach
1997(14th of Nisan, 5757)): Ninety-two-year-oldHerbert Zipper, the composer and conductor who survived Dachau and co-composed“the Dachau Song” passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/23/arts/herbert-zipper-92-founder-of-secret-orchestra-at-dachau.html
1998: “We’ve Never Heard of You, Either” the firstmajor album for Evan and Jaron was released today.
1999(5thof Iyar, 5759): Final Yom HaAtzma’ut celebration of the 20thcentury.
2000:“President Clinton met at the White House tonight with the Palestinian leader,Yasir Arafat, to begin a last-stage American effort to work out a finalagreement between the Israelis and Palestinians.”
2001(28thof Nisan, 5761): Dr.Mario Goldin, 53, of Kfar Sava, was killed when a terrorist detonated apowerful bomb he was carrying near a group of people waiting at a bus stop onthe corner of Weizman and Tchernichovsky streets. About 60 people were injuredin the blast. Hamas claimed responsibility.
2001:“Varian’s War,’ a movie based on the exploits Varian Frey was released in theUnited States.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245540/
2001(28thof Nisan, 5761): Thirty-eight-year-old Stanislav Sandomirsky was murdered by anunknown terrorist north of Ramallah today following which his body was“mutilated.”
2001:The 2001 NFL Draft in which Sage Rosenfels was drafted by the WashingtonRedskins began today.
2002:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or ofspecial interest to Jewish readers including the recently published paperbackedition of “Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the AmericanConsensus” by Rick “The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for theTemple Mount” by Gershom Gorenberg in which the “ senior editor and columnistfor The Jerusalem Post examines the incendiary mix of religious groups-- Arab, Jewish and fundamentalist Christians -- that view the destiny of thesacred Temple Mount as crucial to their apocalyptic faith.”
2002:Official end of Operation Defensive Shield, the Israeli response to a wave Arabterrorism that included the murder of 30 people during a Seder.
2003:Seventy year old singer/song stylists and civil rights activist Nina Simone,whobrought her own unique style to the singing of “Eretz Zavat Halav” and whor*corded “Strange Fruit” written by a Jewish songwriter about lynchings in theSouth on her 1965 album Pastel Blues” passed away today
2003:An Israeli intelligence officer identified only as “Colonel K” gave a lecturetoday predicting that Hezbollah had shore-to-sea missiles in its possession.
2003:In the UnitedKingdom, “Rififi” directed by Jules Dassin was released on DVD by Arrow Films.
2004:Today “the Israeli Army sent tanks into the northern Gaza Strip to try to haltrepeated Palestinian rocket fire coming from the tense territory…”
2005:Ivri Liderperformed in Tel Aviv where he was joined by Rita, Berry Sakharof, and AssafAmdursky.
2005(12thof Nisan, 5765): Fast of the Firstborn.
2005:“A Lot Like Love” co-starring Amanda Peet premiered in Israel today.
2005:Premiere of “Fathers and Sons” featuring Linda Edelstein and Mordecai Finley.
2006(23rdof Nisan, 5766): The Brit of Joshua Larry Rosenstein, son of Mr. and Mrs. DavidRosenstein and the grandson of Larry and Judy Rosenstein (of blessed memory)takes place in New York City.
2006:President Bush proclaims May as Jewish American Heritage Month.
2007:Sara Paretsky, creator of the V.I. Warshawski novels, takes part in a bookreading and book signing in Forest Park, Illinois. Ms. Paretsky is an outspoken critic of the powersof the Patriot Act. Despite threats froma variety of sources, she reported that she found the courage to speak outbecause of her Jewish heritage. Silencehad enabled those who made the Holocaust, and she was not going to bethreatened into silence.
2007: An exhibition entitled “Otot” featuring theworks of Yosef Halevi opens at the Meirov Municipal Art Gallery in Holon. Halevi won the then-coveted DiezengoffPrize in 1962.
2008(16thof Nisan, 5768): Second Day of Pesach, First Day of the Omer – 5768.
2009(27thof Nisan, 5769): Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day
2009:In Cedar Rapids, Holocaust Survivor Irene Furst speaks at Mt. Mercy College.Irene Furst, at 87,still travels the country to tell her story because it’s one she doesn’t wantto be forgotten. Furst is a Holocaust survivor. She fears that as the survivorsdie, so, too, will their stories.
“I don’t know what will happen when all the survivors will be gone,”Furst said. “My children’s generation would still probably remember and talkabout it, but I don’t know what will happen after that. The Jewish people willnot forget, but I don’t know about everyone else.” Furst, a native ofPoland, spent six years in three locations during the Holocaust. These includedthe Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz concentration camp. She celebrated her 18thbirthday shortly after being detained in the first ghetto, in 1939, and wasn’tliberated until May 1945. After the war, she met her future husband, who hadbeen imprisoned in Latvia. They came to the United States in 1947. Furst tellsher story not only to keep the memories going but to help ensure the eventwon’t be repeated.
“It should never happen again,” shesaid. “Germans wanted a final solution to the number of Jews. They wanted tokill all the Jews. “It’s important to know that one race can hate another sobadly that they wanted to kill them,” she said. Her visit to Cedar Rapidsis funded through the Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund.
2009:A Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah) ceremony takes place thisevening at the Waterloo Center for the Arts. The ceremony involves participantsof different faiths and backgrounds and includes a candle-lighting to paytribute to the victims, liberators and rescuers of the Holocaust, as well asvictims of other genocides. The event was organized in collaboration with theSons of Jacob Synagogue of Waterloo.
2009:Today, for thefirst time, Israel Kasztner, the man, who organized a train that saved 1,682Hungarian Jews from death at the hands of the Nazis will be honored in aceremony near the scene of the murder.
2009:Saleh Bahman, aKuwaiti journalist who will be running for parliament in next month's generalelection today called on the Gulf state to establish full diplomatic ties withIsrael. "Israel is a reality and has international influence... Kuwaitwould benefit from Israel's influence if we establish relations with them."
2009:In a statement issued in the House of Commons today, Foreign Secretary DavidMiliband announced that “in light of Operation Cast Lead and in line with” theBritish governments “obligations after a conflict” there would be “a review ofextant export licenses for Israel”
2009:“The government filed a motion with the Sixth Circuit asking for the stayagainst deportation to be lifted, arguing that accused war criminal John Demjanjukhad sought the stay in order to provide an opportunity for the BIA to rule uponhis motion to reopen the deportation order. Since the BIA denied the motion,the government argued, the basis for the Sixth Circuit's stay was no longervalid, and the stay should accordingly be dismissed
2009:After over 14 years Leonard Hoffman, Baron Hoffman completed his service asLord of Appeal in Ordinary, a senior position in the British judiciary.
2009:Eighty-three-year-old Vivian Dorothy Maier the creator of a photographic recordof “Jewish Chicago” passed away today.
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/113385/vivian-maier-jewish-chicago
2010: Centro Primo Levi and the Center for JewishHistory are scheduled to present a Panel Discussion with Moshe Idel about hisBook Old Worlds, New Mirrors: On Jewish Mysticism and 20th-Century Thought
2010: Nevin Shapiro, the crooked University ofMiami booster who orchestrated a $930 million Ponzi scheme “was charged in NewJersey with securities fraud and money laundering” today.
2010:Israeli authors Assaf Gavron and Eshkol Nevo are scheduled to read from theirnewest novels at Cornell University as part of a program entitled “IsraeliLiterature Today.”
2010:Whitney Harris,one of the last of the prosecutors who brought high-ranking Nazi war criminalsto justice at the Nuremberg trials and who, a half-century later, was asignificant voice in the creation of the International Criminal Court, died todayat the age of 97. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/world/europe/29harris.html
2011:“Rabies” an Israeli film about a psychotic serial killer, is scheduled to beshown today at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.
2011:Ten thousandJewish worshipers gathered at the Western Wall Plaza today take part in thebi-annual Priestly Blessing, which usually occurs on the second intermediatedays of Sukkot and Pessah. The blessing, known in Hebrew as the BirkatHakohanim, is a public gathering in which the Kohanim – the priestly class –bestow upon the Jewish people a three-fold blessing that originated with thegiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Massive police presence ensured that theprayers passed peacefully and without incident.
2011:Joining the likes of US President Barack Obama, French President NicolasSarkozy, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and teen pop sensation Justin Bieber,Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was named by Time Magazine today as one ofthe 100 most influential people of 2011.
2011:The Haggadah Fair sponsored by the Kol HaOt organization and the Inbal Hotelfeaturing “the magnificent Haggadot of such internationally renowned artists asAvner Moriah, Maty Grünberg, David Moss, Eliyahu Sidi, Matt Berkowitz, Ya’akovDaniel and Ilya Gefter” came to an end today.
2012:Former AmbassadorRichard Schifter is scheduled to speak about Israel's relations with theinternational community, the United Nations, the U.S. Congress and the AmericanRabbinate at Tifereth Israel Congregation in Washington, DC.
2012:“Jewish Luck” is scheduled to be shown at the Columbia Jewish Congregation’s (CJC)2012 - Twentieth Season of Movies.
2012:“Retoration” and “Mabul” (The Flood) are scheduled to be shown at theWestchester Jewish Film Festival.
2012: “Avigdor Arikha: Works from the Estate”an exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery is scheduled to come to an end.
http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/exhibitions/avigdor-arikha
2013:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or ofspecial interest to Jewish readers including The Interestings by MegWolitzer and the recently releasedpaperback edition of Exorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification ofGermany by Frederick Taylor.
2013:Today, Stephan A. Schwarzman, the Chairman and CEO of The Blackstone Group “announceda $100 million personal gift to establish and endow a scholarship program inChina, Schwarzman Scholars, modeled after the Rhodes Scholarship program.”
2013:“Microcosms: Ruth Abrams, Abstract Expressionist” which opened in August, 2012is scheduled to come to an end at Yeshiva University Museum.
2013:Consultation on Conscience, Reform Judaism’s flagship social justiceconference, is scheduled to open in Washington, D.C.
2013:International conference “Being witness to the Holocaust. 70th anniversary ofthe Warsaw Ghetto Uprising” is scheduled to open in Warsaw.
2013:An exhibition of the work of Holocaust survivor Israel Bernbaum at the GeorgeSegal Gallery at Montclair State University is scheduled to come to an end.
2013:Tiftereth Israel in Des Moines is scheduled to host a giant Israel Festivalcalled “A Taste of Israel.”
2013:Today the cabinet approved an Open Skies Agreement with the European Union,even as Israeli carriers grounded their fleets and hundreds of airline workersgathered outside the meeting in protest.
2013:U.S. Secretary of Defense of Chuck Hegel arrived in Israel today vowing toprovide Israel “with advanced weapons that will enhance its abilities to strikeat Israel.
2014(21stof Nisan, 5774): Seventh Day of Pesach
2014:Today the Supreme Court granted Nathan Lewin's certiorari petition in thefollow-up case of Zivotofsky v. Kerry, which concerns the question whether afederal statute that directs the Secretary of State, on request, to record thebirthplace of an American citizen born in Jerusalem as born in "Israel"on a Consular Report of Birth Abroad and on a United States passport isunconstitutional on the ground that the statute "impermissibly infringeson the President's exercise of the recognition power reposing exclusively inhim.”
2014(21st of Nisan, 5774): Eighty-two-year-old Herb Gray who“represented Windsor West for almost 40 years” and was “Canada’s first Jewishfederal cabinet minister” passed away today.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/herb-gray-former-mp-and-deputy-prime-minister-dead-at-82-1.2617214
2014:In Marionville, MO, a special meeting of the Board of Alderman is scheduled tobe held to accepting the resignation of Jessica Wilson, an alderwoman who isgiving up her position in responsed to the endorsem*nt of Mayor DanielClevenger’s endorsem*nt of the views of Frazier Glen Miller, the anti-Semiticgunman who murdered three people when he attacked a Jewish community center andassisted living facility in Kansas City.
2015:SS guard Oskar Groening is scheduled to go on trial for his role in the murderof Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz.
2015:The Jewish Historical Society of England is scheduled to sponsor Simon Anglim’slecture on “Major General Orde Wingate: Unconventional Warrior.”
2015:The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled tohost a bilingual poetry reading from the works Russian born poet Boris slu*tskyfollowed by a Q & A session with
“Marat Grinberg, Associate Professor of Russian and Humanities at Reed College,and Judith Pulman, poet and translator, who have been collaborating totranslate a selection of slu*tsky’s unpublished poetry.”
WhetherI grow wiser or I grow older—
Igrasp myself clearly to be a Jew.
I thought that I had made it.
And I thought I’d broken through—
Ididn’t make it, I unmade myself,
I didn’t break through, I broke down,
I am not to be read from left to right,
but in Jewish, from right to left.
-Boris slu*tsky, translated by JudithPulman and Marat Grinberg
2015:Israel is scheduled to “come to a standstill this evening at 8 p.m. for aminute long memorial sired to commemorate the country’s fallen soldiers and terror victims…followedby the lighting of a memorial flame for the fall at the Western Wall, the siteof the official state commemoration ceremony.” (As reported by Times of Israel)
2015:The Consulate General of Israel in New York is scheduled to host The OfficialMemorial Day Service “honoring the soldiers who gave their lives in defense ofthe State of Israel and the victims of terrorist attacks” at the 92ndStreet Y.
2015:Flight 2521 to Prague by El Al’s budget carrier UP! “made an emergency landingat Ben Gurion Airport shortly after having taken off amid fears that one of itstires had been been damaged durin take-off. (As reported by Stuart Winer)
2015(2ndof Iyar, 5775: One hundred two year old literary critic M.H. Abrams passed awaytoday. (As reported by William Grimes)
2015:Today “Abu Khdeir’s name showed up on the government’s online database ofterror victims, next to an Israeli flag overlaid with a picture of the Blood ofthe Maccabees flower, which has come to symbolize the country’s fallen.” (Asreported by Judah Ari Gross)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/slain-arab-teen-added-to-terror-victims-monument/
2016:Magda Brown, who was 17 years old in 1944 when she and her family were deportedon one of the final transports to Auschwitz-Birkenau spoked at Washington HighSchool as part of the “annual Yom HaShaoh sponsored in Cedar Rapids, IA by IowaThe Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund under the leadership of Dr. Robert Silberand the Inter-Religious Council of Linn County.
2016:As part of The Holocaust and Genocide Studies Project the Oregon Jewish Museumand Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to present a lecture by Dr.Heather Ohaneson on “The Syrian Crisis in Terms of the Trauma of the ArmenianGenocide.”
2017(24thof Nisan, 5777): Seventy-six-year-old Albert Samuel “Sandy” Gallin the GeneralArtists mailroom employee who worked his up to a vice presidency and booked theBeatles for the first time on the Ed Sullivan television show passed awaytoday.
2017:In Iowa City, the University Of Iowa Chapter Of AEPhi Sorority in act of“gemilut chasadim” so appropriate to this time of the year, is scheduled tosponsor “Jazz on the Rocks” – a fund raiser of the Elizabeth Glaser PediatricAIDS Foundation
2017:In the United Kingdom, after Kabbalat Shabbat, The Oxford Jewish Society isscheduled to host “Oth Week” Friday Night Dinner
2018(6thIyar, 5778): Parashat Tazria and Metzora; Pirke Avot Chapter 2;
2018:In Metairie, LA, as part of the celebration of Israel at 70, Ambassador YoramEttinger is scheduled to speak at Shir Chadash Conservative Congregationfollowing Shabbat morning services.
2018:In the United Kingdom, The Oxford Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Seudahon Pirke Avot following Mincha services.
2018:The Jewish Lake Alliance is scheduled to host Havdalah this evening at theBottlehouse Brewery.
2018:At Agudas Achim in Coralville, IA, Rabbi Jackie Tabick is scheduled toofficiate at the Installation of Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz between Mincha andHavdalah.
2018:The Be’er Sheva Theatre House is scheduled to perform “Lost in Yonkers.”
2019:An exhibition of the work of the Israeli artist Shay Arick is scheduled to comean end today at the Compère Collective
2019:The New York Times featured reviewsof books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readersincluding Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures by Adina Hoffman, TheNotorious Ben Hecht: Iconoclastic Writer and Militant Zionist by JulienGorbach, Working: Researching, Interviewing and Writing by Robert A.Caro and Naamah by Sarah Blake.
2019(16thof Nissan, 5779): Second Day of Pesach; First Day of the Omer
2020(27thof Nisan, 5780): Yom HaShoah
2020:MK Mansour “Abbas delivered a historic speech on theHolocaust in the Knesset in which he spoke of the suffering of the Jewishpeople at the hands of the Nazis.”
2020:The Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York is scheduled to host a Zoompresentation “about Heroines of the Holocaust, focusing on women who fought asmembers of resistance movements.”
2020:In observance of Yom HaShoah (Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day), the ASF IJE,Diarna Geo-Museum, and an international team of researchers for Sephardim inthe Shoah are scheduled to provide a survey of how Sephardic communitiesexperienced the Holocaust.
2020:The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a virtual presentation by AnatHoffman on “Women of the Wall – Resilience and Resistance.”
2020:“HaMaqom|The Place and the JFCS Holocaust Center are scheduled tolead daylong,virtual Holocaust Remembrance Day event, with talks by survivors, survivors’children, authors and historians.
2020:Public Holocaust Memorial Day activities scheduled for today have been canceleddue to the Pandemic but thanks to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museumeach self-quarantined individual can conduct memorial of their own by “readingaloud at ten names of victims and survivors.”
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/landing/en/id-cards
2020:At 11 a.m ET, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled topresent its “virtual Days of Remembrancecommemoration” featuring “Holocaust survivors’ tributes to family members theylost, a stirring message from Benjamin Ferencz (the last living Nurembergprosecutor), and timeless words from the late Elie Wiesel.”
2020:The Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines is scheduled to host, on-line “abrief memorial prayers and songs” as part of its Yom HaShoah observance.
2020:Today, thanks to a list provided by the Jewish Board of Deputies, people canfollow a series of Yom HaShoah events which are scheduled to begin at 9 a.m.with “two minutes of silence to coincide with the siren from Israel to “SavingA Life, Saving the World, Searching for Hope” presented by “Learning from theRighteous” starting at 9:15 p.m.
https://www.yomhashoah.org.uk/live
2021:The East Bay International Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present SFSUprofessor Eran Kaplan talking about immigration and economic/societalchallenges in Israel in the 1940s following a screening of “Ma’abarot”
2021:ONEINFORTY is sched to present, online, “Understanding the Jewish-CancerConnection” where attendees can learn “about Ashkenazi Jews’ one-in-40 risk ofinheriting a BRCA gene mutation which significantly increases one’s risk ofdeveloping breast, ovarian, prostate and other cancers.”
2021:Taube Center for Jewish Studies is scheduled to present UC Santa Cruz professorAlma Heckman discussing The Sultan’s Communists, her book about MoroccanJews.
2021:The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present “Global Nacao: How theUnique Confluence of Culture Can Benefit Modern Jewry.”
2021:YIVO and the American Society for Jewish Music are scheduled to present adigital premiere performance of 5 new compositions engaging with Yiddishfolksongs as part of “Yiddish Folksong in Classical Music.”
2021:The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host Tovah Feldshuh as shetalks about “The Mother, Daughter and Other Roles She’s Played.”
2021:The National Museum of American Jewish History, for which Mitchell Levin is anofficial content provider, is scheduled to present “The Color of Law: AForgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, a virtual book talkwith Richard Rothstein and Lila Corwin Berman.
2021:In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to host, online, a “discussionof the movie American Muslim with Rabbi Yaron and filmmaker, Adam Zucker.”
2021:The Jewish Community Center of the North Shore is scheduled to present, online,a live discussion with “Code Name Ayalon” producer Laurel Fairworth.
2021: Rabbi Ramon Widmont is scheduled to begin hiscourse introducing the visionaries and dreamers of Zionism, their writings andteachings and how they saw and shaped the future at the London School of JewishStudies
2021:Israel’s parliamentary paralysis appears to be ready to continue todayfollowing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement yesterday, that “hesees no option of forming a government backed by the Islamist Ra’am, after theArab Israeli party voted against his bloc Monday in a key Knesset vote.”
2022(20thof Nisan, 5782): Sixth Day of Pesach
2022:Based on yesterday’s report by the BfV, Germany’s domestic intelligence “thatantisemitic offenses are continuing to rise and those that come to light areonly ‘the tip of the iceberg,’” Jews in Germany join t their co-religionists inother European countries and the United States in feeling less secure in theirsafety in societies where among other things “the internet has served asfertile ground for antisemitism.”
2022:In Boston, The Jewish Climate Action Network is scheduled to present a PassoverRally calling for an end to the funding of fossil fuels outside of thePrudential branch of Chase Bank.
2022:The Alliance for Jewish Theatre is scheduled to host a lecture on “The Artist’sMindset” during which Jesse Bernstein will examine such issues as how do“artist measure success when so many professional outcomes are out of theircontrol” and how do artists “avoid allowing the subjective views of others(producers, agents, critics, directors, audiences) be the guide for theirachievements?”
2023:Temple Emanuel of Newton, MA is scheduled to present “Shabbat Alive.”
2023:Temple Emanu-Eland Temple Israel of the City of New York are scheduled to proudly welcomeAchinoam “Noa” Nini and Gil Dor to pay musical tribute to the creation of theState of Israel.
2023:At the Hotel Kirkwood in Cedar Rapids, IA, “Olympic medalist and sexual assaultsurvivor” Aly Raisman is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Luncheon ofLight today.
2023:In Beverley, MA, Temple B’nai Abraham is scheduled to present Havurah Shabbat.
2023:“A special World Zionist Congress” which has been meeting in Jerusalem to markthe 75th anniversary of the State of Israel is scheduled to come anend today.
2024:The Museum at Eldridge is scheduled to host a children's program on thesanctuary’s stained-glass windows.
2024:Qesher is scheduled to present “Sefarad: Music of the Jews of Spain, Portugaland their diaspora.”
2024:As part of the Understanding & Confronting Anti-Jewish Hate CommunitySeries the Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host the on-site program “ConfrontingAntisemitism - A Training for Parents & Caregivers.”
2024: “WonderingJew,” a solo exhibition of new works by Rishon LeTsiyon resident Erez Aharon isscheduled to come to an end at the Gordon Gallery.
2024:The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience is scheduled to go on a field tripto the River Road African American Museum in Donaldsonville, LA, home to one ofthe few restored Rosenwald schools still standing today where participants“will explore the school and hear a panel discussion featuring historians KatheHambrick and Jeanne Cyriaque and exhibit photographer Andrew Feiler. Lunch isprovided. A paid charter bus will depart from MSJE.”
2024:As April 21st begins in Israel, the Hamas heldhostages begin day 198 in captivity.(Editor’s note: this situation is too fluid for this blog to cover so weare just providing a snapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time.)
