January 18
360: In a move that demonstrated how Christianity was becoming the statereligion of the Roman Empire with all that meant to detriment of the Jews,Roman Emperor Constantius II “decreed that only Catholic Churches will begranted exemptions from state taxes.”
532: InConstantinople, the Nika riots come to an end with Justinian still holding theoffice of Emperor. Senators opposed to Justinian took advantage of theseriots, which had grown out of a dispute over chariot competition, to try andbring an end to Justinian’s imperial rule. Justinian was ready to flee the cityand effectively give up his power. However, his wife refused to leave andgive him the courage to stay and defeat the mob and his enemies. Historydoes not record the views held by Justinian’s opponents concerning the Jewishpeople and Judaism. But it does not seem possible that the Jews couldhave been any worse off if they had won given Justinian’s anti-Jewishpolicies. For example, “Justinian ruled that ‘Jews must never enjoy the fruitsof office, but only its pains and penalties…They shall enjoy no honors.Their status shall reflect the baseness which in their souls they have electedand desired.’” Justinian firmly established the principle of servitusJadaeorum (servitude of the Jews) and “the hitherto uneven pattern ofpersecution was systematized” as Christianity and state power becamesynonymous.
746: Today,the are which is now known as Beit She’an was devasted by a massive earthquake
746: Beginningof a three-year period of major earthquakes in Palestine, the focus of whichwere “in the Judean desert, the rift valley, Jordan Valley and Jerusalem.” (Asreported by Jewshihistory.org)
749:According to Michael the Syrian, several ships were sunk off the coast ofPalestine and Lebanon as the result of an earthquake.
973: A yearafter a fire raged through Baghdad “that contributed to the decline of thecity’s Jewish population and its importance in the Jewish world” Benedict VI, acontemporary of Ibrahim Ibn Ya’kub, began his papacy today.
1074: “HenryIV granted the citizens and Jews of Worms, the ShUM-cities and other locations,including Frankfurt, certain privileges relating to reductions in fees andimport duties.”
1174: Bernard,the third child of Burgundian nobles Tescelin de Fontaine, lord ofFontaine-lès-Dijon, and Alèthe de Montbard, who became the Abbot of Clairvauxand was known as Bernard of Clairvaux, the Benedictine who “condemned violenceagainst Jewish people” was “canonized by Pope Alexander III” today.
1562:The Council of Trent reconvenes after a ten-year break. The Council ofTrent adopted additional books for inclusion in the Old Testament. This meantthat the TaNaCh (the Hebrew Bible, or simply The Bible) and Old Testament ofthe Christian Bible were no longer the same texts. A discussion of theimplications of this change is far beyond the scope of this dailysummary.
1606: TheGovernor of Puerto Rico reported one-fifth of the white population of theisland was Portuguese. It was said these "white" Portuguese personswere most likely conversos.
1689:Birthdate of Charles de Montesquieu the French born political theorist who wasuncharacteristically critical of the Jews in Lettres Persanes when hewrote “Know that wherever there is money, there are Jews. Thou inquireswhat they do here? Just what they do in Persia; nothing can be more likea Jew of Asia than a Jew of Europe.” In the same book he also wrote that “thePeople of the Book” was “a mother that has brought forth two daughters who havestabbed her with a thousand wounds.” (As reported by Elliot Rosenberg)
1701: AtKönigsberg, Prussia, coronation of Fredrick I who in 1709 appointed Aaron benBenjamin Wolf “to the office of chief rabbi of Berlin with jurisdiction overall the living in the mark.”
1724: JudahMonis, the Italian born Rabbi who converted to obtain a teaching position atHarvard married Abbigal Maret, the sister-in-law of Reverend John Martyn ofNorthboro, MA, at the First Church in Cambridge
1724: PopeInnocent XIII published Ex Injuncto Nobis a bull that “forbade Jews fromselling new objects” which “was similar to the bull published by Clement VIIIin 1592, and which was meant to put Jewish merchants at a disadvantage.”
1755: InAmsterdam, of Samuel / Shabtay Abraham Cohen Kloot and Judith Grietje / GitcheHartog / Hirts gave birth to Abraham Salomon / Shabtay Cohen Kloot, the husbandof Marretje / Mata Mozes Tokie
1776:Birthdate of Lazarus Magnus, the native of Zwolle, Holland, the husband of SaraMoses with whom he had 13 children at they settled in Chatham, Kent, UK.
1777)10thof Shevat, 5537): Parashat Bo
1777 (10th ofShevat, 5537): Rabbi Shalom Sharabi, known by his name's acronym, the RaShaSH,passed away. He was born in Yemen, and as a young man immigrated to Israel. Hewas quickly recognized for his piety and scholarship, especially in the area ofJewish mysticism, and was appointed to be dean of the famed Kabalistic learningcenter in the Old City of Jerusalem, the Yeshivat ha-Mekubbalim. Heauthored many works, mostly based on the teachings of the great kabbalist,Rabbi Isaac Luria, the Ari. Rabbi Sharabi's most famous work is a commentary onthe prayer book, replete with kabalistic meditations. His mystical works arestudied by Kabbalists to this very day. He is also considered to be a foremostauthority on Yemenite Jewish traditions and customs.
http://www.aish.com/dijh/Shevat_10.html
https://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/2444216/jewish/Rabbi-Shalom-Sharabi-The-Rashash.htm
1782:Birthdate of American political leader, statesmen and orator DanielWebster. In 1850, Webster was Secretary of State under PresidentFillmore. He and his political opponent Senator Henry Clay joined forces todefeat a treaty with the Swiss that would have discriminated against AmericanJews. The issue was one of religious freedom, and not an attempt toprotect American Jews since the American government was working to removedisabilities faced by Protestant Americans doing business with Catholic countries.
1783(15thof Shevat, 5543): Parashat Beshalach, Shabbat Shirah; Tu B’Shevat
1784 Beile andMoses Wolf Levy Heller gave birth to Meiline Heller, the wife of AkivaMuhlhauser with whom she had had seven children.
1788: Leadingelements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from England to Australiaarrives at Botany Bay. According to Dr. Raymond Apple, Emeritus Rabbi ofThe Great Synagogue in Sydney, “When New South Wales was founded as a penalcolony in 1788; among the 751 First Fleet convicts were at least 16 Jews.”
1790:Birthdate of Caroline Lazarus, the daughter of Marks Lazarus and the wife ofArron Phillips whom she married in 1808.
1794: InGeorgetown, SC, Belle Moses and Solomon Cohen gave birth to Isaac Cohen.
1794:Birthdate of Daniel Lessman, the native of Soldin Neumark who interrupted hismedical studies so he could fight against Napoleon and gained fame as a Germanhistorian and poet.
1795: InBavaria, Comednal Moses and Aaron Cohen gave birth to Deborah Cohen, the wifeof Solomon Stix with whom she had ten children.
1795: HistorianSharon Turner, the friend of Isaac D’Israeli who advised him to have hischildren, including Benjamin, baptized during the elder D’Isreali’s disputewith Bevis Marks Synagogue married Mary Watts/
1796:According to one source today, in Maryland Rachel Gratz and Solomon Etting gavebirth to Samuel Etting, the husband of Ellen Hays and the father of Josephineand Solomon Etting.
1798: InDevon, England, Annie Ezekiel and Benjamin Jonas gave birth to “Baruh Jonas,the husband of Teresa Barbarin whom he married in New Orleans.
1798:Birthdate of French native Esther Scheyen, the wife of Marc Levy and the motherof Samuel Levy.
1800(21stof Tevet, 5560): Parashat Shemot
1802(15thof Shevat, 5562): Tu B’Shevat
1803(24thof Tevet, 5563): Ninety-seven-year-old philanthropist and socialist JudithLevy, the daughter of Prudence Heilbuth and the German Jewish merchant MosesHart, who had established the first Ashkenazic Jewish synagogue in London,Duke's Place Synagogue the wife of a diamond merchant and military contractor,Elias Levy, and the mother of a son Benjamin, who died at the age of 22, anddaughter Isabella, who would latter marry Lockhart Gordon, son of the Earl ofAboyne passed away today “in the arms of one her cousins, David Wag” afterwhich “her immense fortune of £30,000 (equivalent to£4,030,000 in 2021) went to a relative John Franks, who was also noted for hisbenevolence, distributing relief to hundreds of needy people withoutdistinction for their religion.”
1804: IsraelB. Kursheedt “married Sarah Abigail (Sally) Seixas, the eldest daughter of”Gershom Mendes Seixas, who was the cantor’s “favorite child: making Kursheedt“his favorite son-in-law.” (As reported by Yitzchok Levine and M.J. Raphall)
http://personal.stevens.edu/~llevine/Israel%20Bear%20Kursheedt_v3.pdf
1813(17thof Shevat, 5573): Charity Cohen, the daughter of Hetty and Rabbi Jacob Hays,the wife of Jacob Cohen and mother of Hetty, Sally, Gitlah and Moses Cohenpassed away today.
1815: InCharleston, SC, Alexander Solomons officiated at the wedding of Elias Abrahamsto Catherine Cohen.
1815: MordecaiMoses married Ann Davis at the Great Synagogue today.
1821:Birthdate of Theodor Goldstücker, the native of Königsberg who became a leadingscholar in the field of Sanskrit and pursued a career in Great Britain afterbeing “asked to leave Berlin during the Revolutions of 1848.”
1823(6thof Shevat, 5583): Parashat Bo
1823(6thof Shevat, 5583): Sixty-year Estera Landau, the wife of Wolf Landau (not to beconfused with the German rabbi of the same name) and the mother Pinkus, Szymon,Sura, Adolf and Rochla Landau passed away.
1824: Threedays after he had passed away, nine-year-old Joseph Gompertz, the son ofBenjamin Gompertz and Abigail Montefiore was buried today at the “Hoxton OldBurial Ground.”
1824: InCincinnati, Ohio, Congregation B'nai Israel was formally organized; those inattendance were Solomon Buckingham, David I. Johnson, Joseph Jonas, SamuelJonas, Jonas Levy, Morris Moses, Phineas Moses, Simeon Moses, Solomon Moses,and Morris Symonds.
1826: MossLaurence married Rayner Andrade today at the Great Synagogues.
1831:Birthdate of Salem, Massachusetts native and Louisville resident Joseph W.Sprague whose art collection included “an Hebrew Scroll of the Law” which was“written on leather, prepared according the directions of Maimonides, thephysician of Saladin and was used by the Yemen Jews in their synagogue inSouthern Arabia.”
1831: After 52minutes, today Anglo-Jewish pugilist Samuel Evans, known as “Young Dutch Sam,” wona fourteen round bout today.
1834: InMiddlesex, Elizabeth and Jacob Lyons gave birth to Abraham Lyons.
1834:Birthdate of Jacob Egers, the native of Halberstadt who “was for more thantwenty years a master at the Training-School for Teachers("Lehrerbildungsanstalt") in Berlin.”
1843: Birthdateof Prague native and University of Vienna trained jurist Friedrich Duschneneswho practiced law in Prague and “who took an active part in the councils of theJewish community and in the political life of Prague.”
1844: InLondon, Hanah Benjamin Leonino, the Marylebone, London born daughter of JustinaSebag Cohen and Benjamin Barnet Cohen and her husband Ippolito Leonino gavebirth to Lucy Deborah Leonino, the wife of Adolfo Kogan.
1844: InBaden-Wurttemberg, Germany, Leopold Hirsch, the son of Lea and Simon SeevHirsch and his wife Therese Tolzele Hirsch gave birth to Rudolf Hirsch, thefuture resident of California who was the husband of Pauline Hirsch and thefather of Julie Lina Moos.
1844: JamesBuchanan, the U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania “introduces a resolution in theUnited States Senate that the United States be declared a Christian Nation andacknowledges Jesus Christ as America's Savior” which is rejected by “UpperHouse.” (This is the same James Buchanan, who as 15thPresident of the United States presided over the dissolution of the Union,betraying his oath of office and making him, in the minds of many, the worstPresident in history)
1845(10thof Shevat, 5605): In London, 57-year-old Emanuel Aguilar who was suffering fromconsumption died in the arms of his daughter, author Grace Aguilar:
1847: InBavaria, Sigmund Myers and he gave birth to Herman Myers, the Richmond, VAeducated Savannah banker and Mayor of Savannah, GA.
1850: Will ofLondon Jeweler Mordecai Myers the husband of Sarah Elizabeth with whom he hadfive children was written today.
1851(15th ofShevat, 5611): Parashat Beshalach; Shabbat Shira; Tu B'Shvat
1851: InCayuga County, NY, Judge Johnson sentenced John Baham to be hung by the neckuntil dead. Baham was one of three brothers charged with the murder of NathanAdler, a Jewish peddler from Syracuse.
1851: AlfredBaham, one of three brothers charged with the murder of Nathan Adler entered aplea of guilty to Manslaughter in the Second Degree and was sentenced to serve5 years and 3 months in state prison. Baham’s plea followed the trials of histwo brothers, both of whom were sentenced
to death forthe same crime.
1854(18th ofTevet, 5614): Judah Touro, the great American Jewish philanthropist passedaway. Born in 1775 in Newport, Rhode Island, Touro moved New Orleans atthe time of the Louisiana Purchase. He became a prosperous merchant andleading citizen. He fought with Jackson’s Army in the famed Battle of NewOrleans where he was seriously wounded. “Touro contributed to numerousJewish and non-Jewish charities. Touro helped found congregation NefuzothYehuda in New Orleans, which followed the Sephardic rituals of his youth. Hesubsequently built its synagogue and began to attend services regularly,provided the land and funds for its religious school, bought land for itscemetery and annually made up for any deficits incurred. He also founded thecity's Jewish hospital, the Touro Infirmary. In the last year of his life,Touro wrote a will which set the standard of American Jewish philanthropy.After modest bequests to family members and friends, Touro donated the bulk ofhis fortune to strengthen Jewish life. He left $100,000 to the two leadingJewish congregations and Jewish benevolent organizations in New Orleans.Another $150,000 went to Jewish congregations and charitable institutions in 18other cities around the United States. He directed that $60,000 be dispensed torelieve poverty and provide freedom of worship to Jews in Palestine. He alsoleft bequests to non-Jewish institutions such as Massachusetts GeneralHospital, which his brother had helped found.”
http://www.jewish-american-society-for-historic-preservation.org/images/Judah_Touro_-PDF.pdf
1857(22ndof Tevet, 5617): One day after her 14th birthday Charity Ritterbandthe daughter of Benvenda Solis and Leon Maness Ritterband passed away today.
1858:Birthdate of Herman Benmosche, the native of Cairo, Egypt, who served as the“Rabbi of Spital Square Synagogue in London” before taking up a similar post atCongregation Beth-El in Norfolk, VA.
1859: AtKalwarya, Russia, Aaron L Weinstein and his wife gave birth to Harris Weinsteinwho in 1881 came to America where he began serving as the rabbi at CongregationShearith Israel in Goshen, IN.
1860: JuliusOchs, the son of Nanette and Leser Lazarus Ochs and his wife Bertha Ochs gavebirth to Nannie Ochs, the younger sister of Adolph Ochs, of New York Timesfame.
1861:Birthdate of German chemist Hans Goldschmidt.
1864: Two daysafter he had passed away, 18 year old New Orleans native, the son of DanielGoodman and Amelia Harris was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road JewishCemetery.
1865:Birthdate of Morris Polsky, the native of Kiev who became a successful realtorin New York and a director of Keren Hayesod.
1867: InHartford, CT, Jacob Mandlebaum and Henrietta Waldman gave birth to BellevueHospital Medical College trained physician and pathologist Fred S. Mandelbaum.
1867: Two daysafter she had passed away, Esther Davis, the wife of Joseph Davis with whom shehad had six children was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) JewishCemetery.
1871: As theFranco-Prussian war comes to an end with the Germans defeating the French, KingWilhelm of Prussia becomes Wilhelm I of Germany as he is proclaimed the firstGerman Emperor in the 'Hall of Mirrors' of the Palace of Versailles. The empirewas known as The Second Reich to the Germans. The real power behind the Germanthrone was Otto von Bismarck who engineered the full emancipation of the Jewstwo years earlier in 1869. Life for Jews in the empire would be a mixed bagwith the rise in anti-Semitism paralleling their involvement in all facets ofcommerce and culture. The creation of the Second Reich is tied directlyto the events that led to World War I that led to World War II.
1874: InChicago, Regina and Julius Eisendrath gave birth to Nathan Eisendrath, the husbandof Clara Osterreicher and father of Juliette, Morris and Arthur Eisendrath who after a number of businessreverses took over the Fair, “ a concern selling millinery and generalmerchandise” that became so successful it was renamed Eisendrath Company andwho has been active member of Temple Emanuel in Chicago.
1875: IsaacBotibol married Jane Angel at Bevis Marks today.
1877:Birthdate of Brno native Arthur Biach.
1878: InMeadville, PA, Melius and Sophia Ohlman gave birth to Squirrel Hill residentAntoinette “Nettie” Ohlman Gallinger, the wife of Pittsburgh businessman GreelyGallinger, the mother of Ruth and Marion Gallinger who was a member ofPittsburgh’s Rodef Shalom Synagogue and the Greater Pittsburgh Section of theCouncil of Jewish Women.
1878: Two daysafter he had passed away, Barnett Joshua Simmons, the son of Joshua Simmons andAnn Levy was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”
1880: InMontgomery, AL, Jeanette Moses, the Kentucky born daughter of Hannah and MorrisNathan and her husband Alfred Huger Moses gave birth to Joseph Winthrop Moses who passed away in Montgomery, AL at the ageof 46.
1880:Birthdate of Shavel, Lithuania native and Love of Zion activist Yankev-ShayeFridman who in 1899 came to the United States where wrote for a variety ofYiddish publications including the Forverts and served as “the principalcontributors, news editor, and novel writer at Yidisher tageblat (Jewish dailynewspaper) in New York.
https://congressforjewishculture.org/people/1641/Fridman-Yankev-Shaye-January-18-1880-May-25-1962
1884: Eightdays after she had passed away, the former Elizabeth Helena de Johngh, the wifeEdward Dentz was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1887: AtAlbany, Samuel Gompers, President of the Federation of Labor, praised New YorkGovernor David Hill for the way he “aided in the passage of laws in theinterest of labor, signed and executed them in their spirit as well as theirletter and did all that a man in his position could do to advance the interestsof the workingmen and the workingwomen of” New York.
1888: InDetroit, Henry and Gussie Robinson Freund gave birth to Detroit College trainedattorney Louis Starfield Cohane.
1888(5thof Shevat, 5648): Fifty-two-year-old Edward Cohen, the Baltimore born son of“Benjamin I and Kitty (Etting) Cohen who moved to Richmond during the Civil Warand went from being a stockbroker to President of the City Bank of Richmond andthe husband of Caroline Davis passed away today.
1889:Birthdate of NYC native and Columbia trained architect and WW I veteran HerbertLippman.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/335128401831
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Fink%2C%20Reuben%2C%201889%2D1961
1890:Birthdate of Kamila Fislova who was deported from Prague in 1942 after whichshe was murdered at Ujazdow.
1890: InBrooklyn, NY, Anna Lavine and Samuel Gabriel gave birth to Williams Collegeeducated drama critic, novelist and playwright Gilbert Wolf Gabriel, thehusband of Ada Vorhaus and WW I and WW II Army veteran whose first novel, TheSeven Branched Candlestick, was published in 1917.
https://snaccooperative.org/ark:/99166/w6dj63vs
1891: TheB’nai Zion Educational Society whose members included David A. Lourie, Charles,Askwith and Louis Arkin was founded in Boston, MA.
1891(9thof Shevat, 5651): Joseph Abenheim, the native of Worms the famed violinist andorchestra leader who played with the royal orchestras at Stuttgart passed awaytoday.
1892: In Austria, Antonia Glass and JacobWiesenberg gave birth to CCNY, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and GeorgeWashington University educated engineer William Maurice Wiesenberg, the husbandof Helen Anita Weiss whose career included service as an with New York CityPublic Service and as treasurer and general manager of the Wilmur EngineeringCounty.
1892:Birthdate of Shevach Samuel Kalinowsky the native of the Ukraine who gainedfame as Samuel Kaylin the composer of 80 film scores including a “Mr. Motto”film starring co-religionist Peter Lorre.
1893(1stof Shevat, 5653): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1894: Anunknown thief stole the book which was the primary source for the upcominglecture to be delivered by Professor Knapp of Barnardat the HebrewInstitute in New York.
1894: Dr.Joseph Krauskopf, leading rabbi from Philadelphia, is scheduled to deliver alecture tonight entitled “Only A Jew” at Ahwath Chesed.
1894: TheUnited Hebrew Charities is one of the organizations that will share in theproceeds from a fund-raising concert to be held this afternoon at theMetropolitan Opera House.
1895: InNeustadt, Max and Hedwig Pinkus gave birth to Klaus Valentin Pinkus
1895: Theofficers and directors of what would become the Hebrew Infant Asylum met todayand “resolved to make strenuous efforts to obtain a charter.”
1895: It wasreported today that charitable institutions in New York City, including thosesupported by the Jews, believe that the new rules for the disbursement of fundsare “too restrictive.”
1895: InDenver, CO, Libby R; Lipchitz and Joseph Miller gave birth to University ofColorado trained physician and surgeon Lewis Isaac Miller the Husband of EthelBluestone, the senior surgeon at Beth Israel Hospital in Denare and a member ofthe Jewish Consumptives Relief Society.
1895: It wasreported today that Dr. Michael L. Rodkinson has been soliciting funds andassistance for creating the first English language translation of theTalmud. (Editor’s note – Rodkinson was a Russian born American publisherwho lived between 1845 and 1904. He did accomplish his goal of creatingan English-Hebrew Talmud as well as the printing other works in English, Hebrewand Yiddish.)
1897(15thof Shevat, 5657): Tu B’Shevat
1897: SirLouis Jean Bols, who would serve “as Edmund Allenby's Third Army Chief of Staffon the Western front and Sinai and Palestine campaigns of World War I” and “theChief Administrator of Palestine for the six months of 1920” was promoted tothe rank of Captain today.
1898: Asanti-Semitic mobs roam the streets of France during the Drefyus Affair, it wasreported that “the events of the past few days are beginning to produce afeeling of panic in Jewish circles. Both the business and private houses of theRothschilds and other wealthy Jews are guarded by special detectives andgendarmes
1898: Thefuneral for Solomon Latz was held at his home on 49th Street in NewYork City.
1898: It wasreported today that a crowd of 3,000 people demonstrated in front of the ArmyClub in Marseilles expressing their support for the army and denouncing Zolaand Dreyfus.
1898: It wasreported today that Oscar S. Straus was so overcome with grief that he faintedas his father’s coffin was being taken from Temple Beth-El for burial at thecemetery.
1899: John T.O’Brien came to the offices of the United Hebrew Charities claiming to be anunemployed veteran. He was sent to the Elite Hotel on 7thAvenue where he was to be employed as a porter.
1899: Thesixteenth annual ball of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society of Brooklyn tookplaces tonight at the Academy of Music.
1899: TheSchribman – Needle nuptials took place in Charleston, SC
1900: In Berlin,Robert Georg Alexander von Mendelssohn and Giulietta von Mendelssohn gave birthto Eleonora von Mendelssohn.
1901: CadetLeo Samuelson of Texas and Cadet Samuel Frankenberg of West Virginia testifiedat today’s session of Congressional committee which is investigating hazing atthe Military Academy they had never been “interfered with on account of “their“religion.”
1902: InRichmond, the Hebrew Free Loan Society whose members included Isaac Caplan wasorganized today.
1902:Birthdate of Massachusetts native David “Dave” Ziff who played end at Syracusein the 1920’s after which he took his pass catching skills to the nascentNational Football League for two years.
1903: A numberof Moses Lindo’s advertisements and items concerning him that had appeared inthe South Carolina which had been collected by Rabbi B.A. Elzas were reprintedtoday in the Charleston News and Courier.
1903(19th ofTevet, 5663): Sir Joseph Sebag-Montefiorepassed away today in London. Born in 1822 to Solomon Sebag and Sarah,eldest sister of Sir Moses Montefiore he succeeded to the estate of hismaternal uncle and he assumed the name of Montefiore by royal license. He wasone of the leading members of the London Stock Exchange, on which he amassed alarge fortune. He was a justice of the peace for Kent and the Cinque Ports andlieutenant of the city of London; and in 1889 he served as High Sheriff forKent. He was for many years a leading member of the Spanish-Portuguesecongregation and was president of the elders of that body. In 1895 he becamepresident of the Board of Deputies, after having been vice-president for manyyears; and in 1896 he was appointed by the King of Italy Italian consul generalin London. He was knighted in 1896
1903(19thof Tevet, 5663): Seventy-seven-year-old Henri Blowitz, the Bohemian born Frenchjournalist whose colorful career included obtaining “the text of the Treaty ofBerlin” and publishing “it at the very moment that the Congress of Berlin wassigning it” - an accomplishment for which “he was an Officer of the Légiond'honneur.”
1903:Birthdate of Berthold Goldschmidt. Born in Germany, Goldschmidt wasenjoying a successful career until the Nazis came to power. At thatpoint, he was forced to flee to Britain where he resumed his career.Oddly enough, he is identified as a “German opera composer” even though theGermans would have sent him to a concentration camp if he had stayed in theFatherland.
1904: Herzlspends the day in Venice before continuing on to Rome via Florence. Hedescribed the day as "a blue Monday" which, in the evening found himchoosing to dine at Bauer's Austrian Beer House so that he could the Englishmenat the Grand Hotel.
1904(1st ofShevat, 5664): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1905: The play“The Scarlet Pimpernel” which producer Alexander Korda would turn into asuccessful film with a script co-authored by S.N. Behrman and starring LeslieHoward in the title role, began its second continued its third week ofperformances at the New Theatre in London.
1906: It wasreported today that “Jacob H. Schiff, Treasurer of the National Committee forthe Relief of the Suffers by Russian Massacres has received from LordRothschild a report made by Carl Stettauer” who had “recently journeyed throughRussia for the purpose of organizing the distribution of relief funds” whichincluded the conclusions that “there is not the slightest guarantee thatsimilar occurrences are impossible in the future” and “there is grave cause tofear that the systematic incitement against the Jews” are possible at anymoment due to the participation of “Russian officials in the pogroms.”
1906: It wasreported today that “the Police Chief of Rostoff-on-Don has been indicted fornot preventing the massacre of Jews.”
1907:Birthdate of New York City native C. Irving “Irv” Constantine, the graduate ofCurtis High School who played college football for Syracuse University beforespending one year with the professional Staten Island Stapletons.
https://www.profootballarchives.com/playerc/cons00200.html
1908(15th ofShevat, 5668): Tu B'Shevat
1908: SamuelClemens whose pen-name is Mark Twin and Supreme Court Justice Greenbaum arescheduled to address the annual meeting of the Hebrew Technical School forgirls this morning at 15th Street and Second Avenue in NewYork. Clemens only daughter married a Jewish composer and orchestraconductor.
1908:Birthdate of Jacob Bronowsky the famed mathematician and cultural historian whocreated the widely acclaimed television series “The Ascent of Man” in which hesaid while standing at Auschwitz: “It is said that science will dehumanizepeople and turn them into numbers. That is false, tragically false. Look foryourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This iswhere people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes ofsome four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done byarrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance."
1908: InBrooklyn, Anna Gleichenhaus and Isaac Goodman gave birth to Moe Goodman whowould gain fame as Martin Goodman the publisher who among other things, createdthe company eventually known as Marvel Comics.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/11/obituaries/martin-goodman-84-began-marvel-comics.html
1909: It wasreported today that Dr. D.C. Potter, chief of the Department of Finance in theCharitable Institutions Divisions of NYC, had told supporters of the HebrewInfant Asylum that there was a pressing need for funds to carry out the work ofthe institution and to build a new home for the city’s Jewish orphans.Work on this building at 192nd Street and Kingsbridge Road hasalready begun.
1909: TheExecutive Board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations is scheduled to meetthis afternoon at the Mercantile Club in Philadelphia.
1909:Twenty-year-old Sam Melitzer, the son of Austrian Jewish immigrants scored 20points “to lead Columbia to…victory over Princeton.”
1909: Membersof the Executive Board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and theirfemale invitees are scheduled to meet for dinner at 6:30 in Philadelphiafollowed by a resumption of the business meeting begun earlier in theafternoon.
1910: RobertW. Hebberd, the former Charities Commissioner is scheduled to be one of thespeakers at tonight meeting of the Council of Jewish Women which is being held“in the vestry room of Shearith Israel.”
1910: It wasreported today that Jefferson Seligman of the banking firm of J and W Seligmanand Company of New York has been made a member of the Legion of Honor by theFrench Government.
1911: Tonight,Theodore Roosevelt is scheduled to address a dinner hosted by the Union ofAmerican Hebrew Congregations under the direction of toastmaster Jacob H.Schiff.
1912: TheJewish Chronicle published a letter from author and Zionist leader MaxNordau in which he condemns President Taft’s role in “the abrogation of theRusso-American Treaty.” Nordau ended his denunciation by writing, “Thesituation for the Jews in Russia will be worse than before and the anti-Semitesin America will make the American Jews pay heavily for their manfulstand—that’s all.”
1912:President Taft received a delegation representing the American Association ofForeign Language Newspapers led by Louis N. Hammerling. Mr. Taft said hefavored admission of desirable immigrants, but immigration laws should bestrictly enforced. The issue of immigration is especially sensitive forAmerican Jews. Attempts to limit immigration from eastern and southernEurope were seen, in part, as an attempt to keep Jews from Russia, Romania andPoland from entering the United States. The term “desirable immigrants”was often used as a code to describe those coming from Western Europe andScandinavia. To add to the complexity of the issue, Jews of Germanic originswere concerned about the influx of Jews from Eastern Europe. They were afraidthat this onslaught of what they considered “the great unwashed” would bring ona wave of anti-Semitism in the United States.
1913: UkrainianJewish immigrants Jacob and Clara (née Nemerovsky) Kaminsky gave birth to DavidDaniel Kaminski who became Danny Kay,the Brooklyn born comedian, actor and singer starred in several movies and hisown television variety program. But he was proudest of being the drivingforce behind UNICEF.
https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/k/ka-kn/danny-kaye/
1913: NathanStraus set sail for Palestine accompanied by two Hadassah nurses - RachelKaplan and Rose Landy. Hadassah had raised $2,500 to cover the salariesof the nurses for two years. Strauss paid their travel expenses andagreed to fund a new clinic in Jerusalem.
1914: BernardA. Rosenblatt, the Honorary Secretary of the Federation of American Zionists,issued a reply to the charges of Dr. Paul Nathan of Berlin that some of theZionists in Palestine were “stirring up discord.” Mr. Rosenblatt issued astatement in which he traced the growth of the Jewish settlement in Palestineover the last three decades; a growth that has been so successful that theZionist movement has attracted the support of such important as Louis Brandeisand Nathan Strauss. He then reviewed the creation of a Jewish Instituteof Technology at Haifa; a project in which Dr. Nathan said he wanted to be anactive participant and which has funded by the Jewish National Fund and Zionistthroughout the world. Now, seven years after the project had begun,Mr. Rosenblatt claims that Dr. Nathan held a clandestine meeting of theBoard of Trustees that was attended only by his German supporters during whichthe attendees voted to make German and not Hebrew, the language of instructionat the Institute. Mr. Rosenblatt said that American Zionists wouldsupport the actions of Jewish students and teachers designed to make Hebrew thelanguage of the school as had been previously agreed. He expressednothing but scorn for his German counterparts who are determined to put aGermanic stamp on the efforts to develop a home for Jews from all over theworld, regardless of their place of national origin.
1914: It wasreported today that David Belasco, the English born Sephardic Jew who used thestage name David James left an estate valued at £41,594
1914: JosephCharlack, Secretary of the Poultry Workers’ Union, whose members are now onstrike for higher wages and a shorter workday and of the Kosher Butchers’Union, whose members have gone on strike in sympathy with thepoultrymen, announced this evening that the rabbis who kill chickens for kosherconsumption have voted to go on strike. He said that this was decided upat a meeting of the representatives of 900 rabbis in the house of Chief RabbiMargulies on East Broadway.
1915: In UpperHungary, Ernest Länyi, a wealthy landowner and his wife gave birth to GyörgyLänyi who gained fame as George Henry Lane reached the rank of Colonel whileserving in the British Army as a member of the elite Commandos known as SOE(Special Operations Executive).
1916: It wasreported today that Mr. Lewin-Epstein, a member of the Executive Committee ofthe American Jewish Relief Committee has “found a shocking condition in thewar-stricken countries” and that many Jews “have died from exposure andstarvation.”
1916: “TheJewish Theological Seminary reopened today with Dr. Cyrus Adler as temporaryPresident.”
1916: HerbertSamuel, 1st Viscount Samuel, completed his service as Postmaster-General in theCabinet of Prime Minister Asquith.
1916: TheAmerican Jewish Relief Committee “announced” today “that to date it hascollected $1,223,497.68 of which $981,816.46 is in cash and $241,681.22 inpledges.”
1917:“The twenty-fifth council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and thesecond biennial meeting of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoodsadjourned today after selecting Boston as the meeting place for 1919.”
1917:Birthdate of English theatrical and film producer, Oscar Lowenstein. Theson of Russian immigrants, Lowenstein passed away at the age of 80. Formore about him read his autobiography, Kinking Against the Pricks.
1917: Thenational organization representing Reform Rabbis and their congregationsapproved a resolution reaffirming “its opposition to the literacy test as acondition for admitting immigrants into the United States as unwise andcontrary to the salutary American precedents, particularly as an educationalqualification already has been imposed by Congress where it belongs, as aprerequisite for naturalization.”
1917: JeanetteSalomon, the Brooklyn born daughter of Samuel and Minnie (Celler) Lederman anda leader of the National Council of Jewish Women married Abraham H. Arons afterthe death of her first husband Mark Salomon.
1918: InOdessa, the faculty of the university rejected the three Jewish candidates “forprofessional posts” and the municipal council adopted a resolution “condemningthe action and expressing sympathy with the rejected candidates.
1918: Theleaders of drive to add 50,000 new members to the Federation for the Support ofJewish Philanthropic Societies are scheduled to meet at 2:30 so they can finishtheir business before the start of Shabbat this evening.
1918: InVienna, accusations that Dr. Braunn was administering drugs to help youngJewish men evand military duty were withdrawn.
1919: TheParis Peace Conference opened in Versailles, France. Among other things,negotiations at the conference would result in the creation of a mandatorygovernment for Palestine that incorporated the Balfour Declaration and wascontrolled by the British. Jews serving in the American delegation pushedfor guarantees of full rights of citizenship for their co-religionist living inthe new countries that would be established by the Big Four.
1919:Among those present at Paris when the conference began was Joseph Barondess,who was a member of the delegation sent by the American Jewish Congress.
1920: “Becausethe dollar pledged for philanthropy four years ago is worth but 48 cents, theFederation for Support of Jewish Philanthropic Charities will launch a campaigntoday to make up a deficit of $1,700,000, according to an announcement made todayby Felix Warburg, chairman of the federation.”
1920: SolWexler and Michael were two of the new members elected to serve as directors ofthe State Bank/
1921: Theninth annual convention of the United Synagogue of America and the fourthannual convention of the Women’s League of the United Synagogue came to an endtoday at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
1921: “Theeleventh annual meeting of the Brooklyn Federation of Charities is scheduled tobe held this evening after the testimonial dinner honoring “Nathan S. Jonas,the honorary secretary and founder of the Brooklyn Federation of JewishCharities.”
1922:Birthdate of Yehezkiel Braun. “From the age of two Yehezkel Braun was broughtup in Israel, in close contact with Jewish and East-Mediterranean traditionalmusic. The influence of this background is clearly felt in his compositions. Heis a graduate of the Israel Academy of Music and holds a Master's degree inClassical Studies from Tel Aviv University. In 1975 he studied Gregorian chantwith Dom Jean Claire at the Benedictine monastery of Solesmes in France. Hismain academic interests are traditional Jewish melodies and Gregorian chant. Helectured on these and other subjects, at universities and congresses inEngland, France, the United States and Germany. Yehezkel Braun is ProfessorEmeritus at Tel Aviv University.”
1922:Thirty-five-year-old Sanford Ullman, the son of Ansel and Magie Ullman and thebrother of Sadie and Abraham Ullman who passed away yesterday in Philadelphia was buried at HebrewFriendship Cemetery in Baltimore today.
1922: SamuelBaskesef, the London born son of Sarah Bakesef and brother of Joseph and IsraelBakesef and Harvey H. Epstein filed for a patent for a Collapsible Hammocktoday
1923(1stof Shevat, 5683): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1923: It wasreported today that Henry M. Goldfogle has predicted that 2,000 delegates willattend the Golden Jubilee Convention of the Union of American Congregationsscheduled to be held in New York next week.
1924: Thecentennial celebration of the founding of B’nai Israel began tnigh inCincinnati “at the Rockdale Avenue Temple.”
1925:Birthdate of Solomon Yurick, the Manhattan native was “best-known for the 1965novel The Warriors (As reported by William Yardley)
1926: “Dr.Chaim Weizmann, in a statement issued today reviewed the Zionist situation fromthe standpoint of Palestine and the relation of the Jewish communities toPalestine” in which he said that “hundreds of thousands of our fellow Jews Ithe United States have not yet contributed one dollar toward the rebuilding ofPalestine.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1926/01/19/119059392.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1927(15thof Shevat, 5687): Tu B’Shevat
1927(15thof Shevat, 5687): “Samuel Jaszal, a former member of the Hungarian parliamentand secretary of the Hungarian Trade Unions” passed away today.
1927(15thof Shevat, 5687): Simon Russek, the husband of Sarah Russek and brother ofRachel Gelbart whose will provided for a $45,000 contribution to the PalestineEndowment Funds passed away today.
1928: One dayafter she had passed away, Leah Ruttenberg, the wife of Marks Ruttenberg, withwhom she had had five children was buried at the “Belfast Jewish Cemetery” inNorthern Ireland.
1928: U.S.premiere of “Gentlemen Prefer Blonds” a silent comedy produced by Adolph Zukorand Jesse Lasky which would later become a hit Broadway play in the 1940’s andwas remade in the 1950’s with Marilyn Monroe as a co-star.
1929:Fifty-two-year-old Sophie Irene Loeb passed away
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/loeb-sophie-irene-simon
1929:"NewYork Daily Mirror" columnist Walter Winchell made his radio début.
1929: Scandalin Baden-Baden, a silent film with music by Artur Guttman was released today inGermany.
1929: Stalinproposed to ban Leon Trotsky from the Politburo. Trotsky was the apostate whoturned his back on Judaism to worship Marx and serve as Lenin’s Joshua.
1929: Mrs.Oscar Straus, the widow of the former Ambassador to Turkey began her expeditionto Nyasaland and British East Africa tonight when she set sail aboard the SSMajestic. (JTA)
1930(18thof Tevet, 5690): Parashat Vayechi
1930: Adelegation of Americans living in Tel Aviv, headed by Nathan Kaplan, anattorney who had moved to Palestine from Chicago, met with Paul Knabenshue, theAmerican Counsel General, in an attempt to get him to help break the impassethat has turned Tel Aviv into a “meatless city.” The British governmenthas resisted all efforts to establish a facility for the slaughter of animalsin Tel Aviv. The British have told butchers in Tel Aviv to return toJaffa where they can practice their trade. In Jaffa, the Jewish butcherswork in an area that is surrounded by Arabs and the Jews were not able to getmeat during the Arab riots that began in August of 1929.
1930:Birthdate of Shmuel “Sammy” Flatto the Polish born French-Israeli businessman,politician and talk show host.
1931: Dr.Judah L. Magnes, Dean of the Hebrew University, presided over the memorialservice held this evening at the Straus Health Center in honor Nathan Straus,of blessed memory. Meir Dezingoff, Mayor of Tel Aviv and Dr. David Yellinof the Vaad Leumi addressed the large throng praising Straus for his“philanthropic and social contributions to Palestine.” The establishmentof the first soup kitchen in Jerusalem and the construction of a health centerin Hedera were cited as two examples of his generosity. During theeulogy, Dr. Magnes revealed for the first time, that Straus had purchased landin the Talpioth section of Jerusalem as a site for a university.
1932(10thof Shevat, 5692): Seventy-year-old William Isaac Spiegelberg Sr., the Santa Fe,NM born son of Bertha and Levi T. Spiegelberg, the husband of Beulah V. BarnardSpiegelberg and father of Marjorie Bettie Spiegelberg and William Spiegelberg,Jr. passed away today in Paris.
1932:Featherweight Harry Blitman fought his 70th bout which he lost.
1933: New YorkMayo John P. O’Brien delivered an address tonight at the Samuel TichnerSociety, a Jewish fraternal organization in which he said his life will “be anopen book” as long as he holds that office.
1933: It wasreported today that “six months option for leasing 17,500 acres of land inTransjordania for thirty-three years and renewable for two more similar periodsat an annual rental of u2,000 ($6,700 at present quotations) has just beenobtained from the Emir Abdullah, ruler of Transjordania, by the Jewish Agencyexecutive of Palestine.”
1933: New YorkMayo John P. O’Brien delivered an address tonight at the Samuel TichnerSociety, a Jewish fraternal organization in which he said his life will “be anopen book” as long as he holds that office.
1933: It wasreported today that “six months option for leasing 17,500 acres of land inTransjordania for thirty-three years and renewable for two more similar periodsat an annual rental of u2,000 ($6,700 at present quotations) has just beenobtained from the Emir Abdullah, ruler of Transjordania, by the Jewish Agencyexecutive of Palestine.”
1934(2ndof Shevat, 5694): “Dr. Alfred Goldschmidt, the general secretary of the GermanB’nai B’rith and member of the central executive of the Central Union of Germanof the Jewish Faith” was unable to recover from a bout of pneumonia and passedaway today.
1934:Just days before his 20th birthday Harry Mizler, the son of “EastEnd Jewish parents” won the British Board of Control (BBofC) lightweight titleat the end of a fifteen round bout atKensington's Royal Albert Hall
1935: “DavidCopperfield” the movie version of the novel of the same name directed by GeorgeCukor and produced by David O. Selznick was released in the United Statestoday.
1935:Birthdate of Gad Yaacobi, the native of Kfar Vitkin who served as an MK andheld several ministerial portfolios.
1936(23rdof Tevet, 5696): Parshat Shemot; the start of the reading of the second book ofthe Torah
1936: InLondon, George H. Elvin, the organizing secretary for the British Olympiceffort “declared that the sports leader of the Berlin Storm Troops hadpublished a book, officially approved, reminding the German people that theirsport is ‘built on hatred’ and that ‘National Socialists can see no positivevalue for our people in permitting Jews to travel through our country andcomplete in athletics with our best.’”
1936: InFar Rockaway, Queens Jacob Sniderman, an accountant and his wife, the formerGertrude Langfur gave birth to Rhoda Carol Sniderman who gained fame asnovelist Rhoda Lerman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/arts/rhoda-lerman-writer-who-defied-labels-dies-at-79.html
1936: “Amovement for settling German Jews in South America has been launched with thecompletion of plans for training the first 125 Jewish youths for colonization.”
1937: TheRoyal Commission, popularly known as the Peel Commission, “ended its work inPalestine” today.
1937: In NewOrleans, “the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the AffiliatedNational Temple Federations of Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods today went onrecord as favoring a more extensive use of ancient, traditional symbols,ceremonies and customs by reform Jewish congregations in their Sabbathservices” as well that use of a cantor…and “a choir composed wholly of Jewishsingers.” (Editor’s note – This would not be the last time that the Reformmovement called for a return to “tradition” as can be clearly seen from theperspective of the last 80 years.)
1938: “Theexpulsion of all alien Jews from Ecuador except those engaged in farming wasdecreed today by the Provisional Military Government of Colonel AlbertoEnriquez” because as “the decree declared, hundreds of Jews” who were“permitted to colonize in Ecuador to escape persecution in Central Europe hadentered business instead of agriculture as the Ecuadorian Government hadexpected them to do.”
1939(27thof Tevet, 5699): David J. Gallert the Harvard trained attorney and formerassociate of Elihu Root who had been practicing law since 1898 and who was bothan “authority on small loan legislation” and the “counsel to the child adoptioncommitted of the Free synagogue passed away today at the Columbia-PresbyterianMedical Center.
1939: JakobMoses Cohen, the German born son of Moses Jakob Cohen and Minkel Minka MinnaCohen and his wife Hanna Cohen gave birth to Zilla Cohen.
1940: InGerman occupied Cracow “about 500 workers” most whom are Jewish “have benrequestioned to help clear off debris” including the huge mounds of dirt andslush that were caused by the “sudden thaw following heavy snowfalls.”
1940: As aresult of a new ordered issued by the Captain of the Port of Constanta inRumania forbidding Rumanian sales from serving “on ships carrying Jewishemigrants bound for Palestine” all Jewish refugees from Rumanians “will beobliged to find crews in Bulgaria and Turkey” but not in Greece where a similarban is already in force.
1941: TheRoyal Air Force Middle East Command issued a communiqué today reporting thatItalian planes had attacked British airfields near Tel Aviv.
1941(19thof Tevet, 5701): Parashat Shemot
1941(19thof Tevet, 5701): Seventy-one year old Marion Louis Simon Misch, the Allentown,PA born daughter of Rachel and Lois Simon and the wife of New Englanddepartment store owner Caesar Misch with whom she had two children, Walter andLouise and who “became the only female owner of a department store inProvidence, RI following the death of her husband while serving at thePresident of the National Council Jewish Women, passed away today.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/misch-marion-simon
1941: It wasreported today that “Dr. Joseph Sarachek, the rabbi of Sheiras Israel Synagoguein Brooklyn was elected a president of the New York Board of Jewish Minister,Inc.” succeeding “Rabbi J.X. Cohen of the Free Synagogue who had held thepresidency for two terms.”
1941: HermanKruk, who had been active in Yiddish cultural activities in Warsaw and Vilna,recoiled from efforts to stage cultural activities in the ghetto stating, “Youdon’t make theatre in a graveyard.”
1942: TheNazis arrested Frans Goedhart and Wiardi Beckman, both of whom were journalistswho took part in the resistance movement after the German conquest of theNetherlands. Tragically, in a manner of the fate of Anne Frank, Beckmandied of typhus in Dachau, on March 15, 1945 when the war was almost over.
1942:Fifty-six-year-old Dr. Max Leder was transported from Pilsen to Terezin on thefirst leg of a journey that would lead to his murder at Izbica.
1942: Aftertwo weeks of constant burial duty of thousands of gassed Jews at Chelmno, YakovGrojanowski escapes. His diary tells of cruelty, murders, tragedy and suicides.His two weeks were only 14 days of the last 44 days of continual murder viagas-trucks.
1942:Seventy-two-year-old Pilsen residentJosef Ables was transferred from Pilsen to Terezin from which he would later betransported to Treblinka where he would be murdered.
1942: DanielMahler was buried today in the Jewish cemetery of Kleinsteinach making him thelast person to be interred in a burial ground that had been in use since the 15thcentury.
1943: A trainfrom Belgium arrives at Auschwitz; 387 men and 81 women are sent to thebarracks while 1,558 people were sent to the gas chamber.
1943: InWarsaw, after 4 months of no transports, the Germans enter the ghetto and begindeportation again to Treblinka. In rounding up people, the Germans went throughthe homes killing people, throwing them out of windows, and looting whateverthey could. 5,000 Jews were rounded up, including 150 doctors. One, Dr. IzraelMilejkowski, commits suicide during the train ride.
1943(12 ofShevat, 5703): Yitzhak Gitterman that native of Horonstopol born in 1889 who“was a director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) inPoland, and a member of the underground Jewish Combat Organization” was killedtoday while fighting today in the Warsaw Ghetto.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005188
1943: Jewishdeportees from Belgium arrive at Auschwitz, where 1087 are gassed.
1943: After afour-month break, Germans resume deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto. WarsawJews react edwith their first acts of overt resistance, expressed in brutalstreet fighting. 1000 Jews are executed in the streets and 6000 are deported tothe Treblinka death camp. An elderly, blind Jewish man is shot by an SS manbecause he is unable to walk without a guide.
1943: The Jewsin the Warsaw Ghetto began their armed resistance to the Nazis which wouldculminate in April of 1943 with the famous Warsaw Ghetto.
1943:Nobel-prize winning Polish émigré poet Czeslaw Milosz--a righteousChristian--condemns anti-Semitism and nationalism as "ills that likecancer were consuming Poland." In his poem, "Campo deiFiori," Milosz laments from Warsaw in 1943--and he's being literal,not figurative--that the carousel's carnival tunes and the laughing crowds inthe Catholic area of Warsaw drown out the sounds of the Germans shooting Jewsin the Warsaw Ghetto.
1943: TheSecond Senate of the Reich Military Tribunal sentenced Lian Berkowitz andFriedrich Rehmer, along with 16 other people from the Red Orchestra, to deathtoday for abetting a conspiracy to commit high treason and furthering theenemy's cause. [For once the Nazis had it right; these were really Germans whohad worked against the Third Reich almost from its inception. For moreabout these true heroes read Red Orchestra by Ann Nelson.
1944:Birthdate of Roger Richman, the son of Washington, DC area rabbi who foundedthe Roger Richman Agency, that dealt with licensing clients, some of whom weredeceased.
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/14/local/la-me-roger-richman-20131015
1944: For thefirst time in its history, The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City hostsa jazz concert. Among the performers are two Jewish pop music legends –Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw.
1944: Germanarmored forces surrounded the forest near Buczac, Poland. They killedthree hundred Jews who had been hiding in the forest for the past ninemonths. Some of the Jews of Buczaz had taken part in armed resistanceagainst the Nazis. This remnant had taken to the woods after the finalroundup of Jews in the town. During their time in hiding, they attackedNazis as well as members of the local populations who had betrayed the Jews tothe Germans.
1945: AsRussian troops approached Auschwitz, Ernest Michel who would cover theNuremberg war crime trials for a German news agency was evacuated from that deathcamp today
1945: “MiklósNyiszli, along with an estimated 66,000 other prisoners, was forced on a deathmarch that took the prisoners into various parts of the Third Reich’sterritories including: German occupied Poland (which was part of GreaterGermany), Czechoslovakia, Germany proper, present-day Austria and further intovarious smaller concentration camps in Germany” events that he would laterrecord in Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account
1945:Kazimierz Smolen left Auschwitz today on the last transport of prisonersevacuated by the Germans, nine days before its liberation. “Smolen was a PolishCatholic involved in the anti-Nazi resistance when the Germans arrested him inApril 1941 and took him to Auschwitz.”
1945: A countwas made of remaining prisoners in the assorted labor and concentration camps:
- Birkenau; 15,058 Jews remained.
- Auschwitz: 16,226 People remained, mostly Poles.
- Monowitz; 10,233 Jews, Poles and assorted prisoners remained.
- Factories of Auschwitz: Another 16,000 Jews, Poles and prisoners.
1945:Actingon orders from Berlin, the SS begins a massive, on-foot evacuation of allprisoners and slave laborers at the Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Monowitz camps andfrom the Auschwitz region (Upper Silesia, Poland). Of the thousands ofmarchers, most die from exposure, exhaustion, and abuse on their way to theirdestinations. Boys evacuated from Birkenau march toward Mauthausen, Austria.Many of the boys are on "cart commando" duty, i.e., harnessed toenormous carts in groups of 20.
1945: “ASong to Remember” a Hollywood version of the life of Chopin directed by CharlesVidor, produced by B.F. Zeidman, written by Sidney Buchman and starring PaulMuni was released in the United States today.
1946:In accordwith President Truman’s “Christmas executive order “ a delegation of Americanofficials: is scheduled to sail on the Queen Elizabeth today so that that theycan “expedite the admission of refugees from Central Europe, many of whom wereJewish, to the United States.
1947:The Detroit Tigers sold Hank Greenberg to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
1948: Afterembarking from Marseille, France today, a ship named the Alexandria reachedIsrael carrying a group of Youth Aliyah children. This group included a younggirl listed on rosters as Nuta Bolestet; in Haifa, she was transferred with afew other children to the Youth Aliyah camp in Ra'anana. Moshe Ya'ari, a YouthAliyah official, recorded the few available details about the girl.
1949: InOrange, NJ, Erika (Ratzer) and Oscar Michael Stemberg gave birth to ThomasGeorge “Tom” Stemberg who founded, along with Leo Kahn, Staples, Inc.
1949: In anattempt to improve relations with new Jewish state, the British ordered theimmediate release of the remaining Jews who were detained in Cyprus duringthose years when His Majesty’s government was determined to keep Jews fromsettling in Palestine. Within a month all them, many of whom wereHolocaust survivors, had reached Haifa.
1949:“Chicken Every Sunday” a comedy produced by William Perlberg, based on the 1944play by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein with music by Alfred Newman wasreleased in the United States today.
1951(4thof Shevat, 5711): Forty-one year old Jersey City, NJ, native Robert S. Marcus,the City College and Yeshiva University trained rabbi and hold of doctorate ofJurisprudence from NYU Law School who led congregations in Lawrence andNewburgh, NY before serving overseas as a chaplain with the Ninth Tactical AirForce where he worked with concentration camp survivors and returning to theUnited States where among other things, he served as the Director of theDepartment of World Jewish Affairs of the American Jewish Congress whileraising two children with his wife Fay passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/01/20/87087942.pdf
1950: HarveyL. Schwamm was elected president of Pan American Trust Company today.
1951: Today,“it was revealed that several members of the adored double-championship CCNYteam had been doing business with gamblers i.e. shaving points and “furtherinvestigations revealed that a total of thirty-two players, many of whom wereJewish, at LIU, NYU, Toledo, Bradley, Manhattan and Kentucky had also been inleague with the gamblers – a fact which was known to such coaches as Nat Holmanand Bobby Sand.
1952(20th ofTevet, 5712): Curly Howard, actor, comedian and member of the ThreeStooges passed away.
1954: Mose M. Feld wrote to Galvestonbusinessman I.H. Kempner today wishing him a happy birthday and informing himthat he had made a contribution to Kempner’s Jewish house of worship.
https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1495993/
1959(9thof Shevat, 5719): Seventy-two-year-old CCNY trained Chemical Engineer JeromeAlexander, the New York born “son of Isaac and Annie Josephine Lewis (Jackson)Alexander, who “was mostly known for his research in the field of colloidalchemistry” and who was the husband of Gertrude Eleanor Hammerslough with whomhe had one child, Alexander, passed away today.
1960: Thisweek’s Play of the Week featured the broadcast of “Lullaby” produced by DavidSusskin with Eli Wallach playing “Johnny Horton” and his wife Anne Jackson as“Eadie Horton.”
1961: TheChaplain’s Medal for Heroism was awarded to the family members of ReverendGeorge Fox (Methodist), Jewish Rabbi Alexander Goode, Reverend Clark Poling(Dutch Reformed) and Father John Washington (Roman Catholic). These werethe famous Four Chaplains who acted with such grace and courage when the UnitedStates Army Transport Dorchester was sunk by a Nazi U-Boat in 1943.Because of the strict requirements for awarding the Congressional Medal ofHonor, this award was created to honor their heroism.
1962: Eighty-one-year-oldSir Boyd Merriman, who served as “counsel for the Jewish case before theBritish Commission of Inquiry in 1929” passed away today.
1963:Singaporean barrister David Saul Marshall, the son of Jewish parents SaulNassim Mashal and Flora Ezekiel Kahn, who had immigrated to Singapore fromBaghdad, which was then a part of the Ottoman Empire, where they ran a business”completed his service as Chairman of the Worker’s Party.
1963: AlDavis began serving as the head coach and general manager of the OaklandRaiders, a date described by his biographer as “probably one of the three orfour most important date in AFL history.
1964(4thof Shevat, 5724): Eighty at year old Edith Julia Morley, the daughter of aLondon dental surgeon who was raised as an Orthodox Jews and became “the firstwoman to be appointed professor at any British University” when she wasappointed “Professor of English Languate at University College, Reading” in1908 passed away today.
1965(15thof Shevat, 5725): Tu B’Shevat
1965: Two daysafter he had passed away funeral services are scheduled to be held today foreighty-four-year-old Moscow born NYU trained physician Arthur Albert Einsteinwho had been affiliated with Beth Israel Hospital since 1931.
1966: Todaythe Henry Settlement buildings at 263-267 Henry Street in Manhattan which hadbeen purchased by Jacob Schiff for the organization in 1895 were designated asa New York City Landmark,
1966: Today,Israel Moses Sieff “was created a life peer as Baron Sieff, of Brimpton in theRoyal County of Berkshire.:
1967(7th ofShevat, 5727): Barney Ross Welterweight Boxing Champ in 1934 passed away at theage of 57. One little known fact about Ross is that he enlisted in theMarines during World War II and at the age of 33 won a Silver Star for hisactions on Guadalcanal.
1968: “TheHappy Time,” a musical produced by David Merrick with lighting design by JeanRosenthal opened on Broadway at The Broadway Theatre time.
1968(17thof Tevet, 5728): Eight-nine-year-old University of Cincinnati graduate and HUCordained Rabbi William Howard Fisneshriber, the St. Louis born son of Hyman andHenrietta Braun Fineshirber and the father of Bertha, Jacob and AaronFineshirber, who served congregations in Davenport, IA, Memphis, TN andPhiladelphia PA while also being a member of the American Council of Judaismand the Red Cross passed away today in Philadelphia.
http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0144/ms0144.html
1969(28thof Tevet, 5729): Parashat Bo
1969(28thof Tevet, 5729): Ninety-three-year-old Columbia trained architect WilliamGabriel Tachau whose firm of Pilcher and Tachau designed the structures atGratz College, Dropsie College and Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia passed awaytoday.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/01/19/90040073.pdf
1970: As partof it “Play of the Month series” the BBC broadcast “The Three Sisters”featuring Janet Suzman as “Masha.”
1970: Arabattacks on Israeli positions continued today when “two Israeli patrols in theBeisan Valley were attacked from Jordan” and Israeli positions in the Golanwere shelled with bazooka fire rockets.
1971(21st ofTevet, 5731): Eighty-five-year-old industrial chemist Leonard A. Levy, thegreat-grandson of Solomon Bennet, the “Demonstrator in Chemistry at theUniversity of Cambridge and Major in the Royal Engineers who co-authored Radiumand other Radioactive Elements and Gas Recorders passed away today.
1972(2ndof Shevat, 5732): Ten days after his 55th birthday, actor, directorand producer Stanley Prager who returned to the Broadway stage after havingbeen place on infamous Hollywood Blacklist” and made his directorial debut withNeil Simon’s Come Blow Your Horn” passed away after which he “enjoyed thedubious honor of having the NYT obituary erroneously report his age.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0695111/
1973(15thof Shevat, 5733): Tu B’Shevat
1973(15th ofShevat, 5733): Sixty-five-year-old Brooklyn born American International Masterof Chess and member of the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame Israel Albert Horowitzpassed away today.
1974: Israeland Egypt signed an agreement for the disengagement of forces in the aftermathof the Yom Kippur war. Israel agreed to withdraw from the Suez Canal.
1974: “SovietJewish refusenik-scientists Alexander Lerner, Alexander Voronel, Mark Azbel,David Azbel, Venyamin Levich, Alexander Lunts, Victor Polsky, and VictorBrailovsky in open letter to scientific societies and scientists of the worlddetail persecution of Soviet scientists wishing to emigrate to Israel.”
1976(16thof Shevat, 5736): Seventy-nine-year-old Friedrich Hollaender, the London bornGerman- American film composer and author passed away today.
https://www.frederickhollandermusic.com/
1976: JosephPapp “one of the most influential men in the American theatre” and the fatherof New York’s famous Shakespeare Festival married Gail Bovard Merrifield, his“fourth wife” today.
1976: TerryBradshaw threw a crucial touchdown pass to Tight End Randy Grossman as theSteelers defeated the Cowboys in Super Bowl X. Grossman was Jewish;Bradshaw wasn’t.
1978: It wasreported today that Jules Jeffroykin, the President of the Federation of JewishSocieties has lodged an official protest with police” calling “on theauthorities to their utmost to identify the men or the organizationresponsible” for bombing their offices yesterday.
1979:Twenty-one people were injured when terrorists set off a bomb in a Jerusalemmarket.
1980: Seventy-six-year-oldmulti-talented award winning Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton who, in 1938, publisherConde Nast had the courage to fire because of “a drawing contributed by Mr.Beaton to the February 1 issue of Vogue” in which “there appeared comments thatwere critical of the Jewish race” passed away today. (Editor – while the restof the world turned a blind eye to Hitler and many Englishman flirted withfascism, Nast gets high marks for doing his bit to “change the world.”)
1980: In LosAngeles, Jillian (Jordan) and Alvin Segel gave birth to Jason Jordan “anAmerican actor, screenwriter, producer, and author, best known for his role asMarshall Eriksen in the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.”
1981: Funeralservices were held today for Rabbi Solomon Levy, the native of Tosh Hungary andthe former Grand Rabbi of Hust, Czechoslovakia who died yesterday whileconducting Shabbat services in Boro Park.
1983: Eighty-seven-year-oldWalter Ulman Austrian born historian who specialized in the Middle Ages and wholeft Austria for England in 1939 because his grandparents were Jewish passedaway today.
1984(14thof Shevat, 5744): Seventy-nine-year-old author andplaywright Albert Halper, the Chicago born son of Vilna immigrant and smallgrocery store owner Isaac Halper, whose “first major novel was Union Square,the husband of painter Lorna Halper and the father of Thomas Halper passed awaytoday.
1985: Thegovernment of Menachem Begin announced that elections would be held in sixmonths.
1985: “BloodSimple” a crime file “written, edited, produced, and directed by Joel and EthanCoen which was the directorial debut of the Coens and the first major film ofcinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld” was screened today at the New York FilmFestival.
1987: DefenseMinister Yitzhak Rabin, speaking to high school students in Nazareth today,reaffirmed Israel's commitment to keeping control of its ''security zone'' insouthern Lebanon. ''It has been 20 months since the Israel Defense Force havebeen stationed'' in the strip, he said. ''During those 20 months not oneIsraeli - Jew, Arab or Druze - has been murdered as a result of terroristaction from inside Lebanon,'' he said, referring to an absence of civiliandeaths in cross-border attacks. However, he added, ''the price was high,'' inthat 12 Israeli soldiers have been killed.
1987: Israelitroops killed four armed guerrillas tonight after the guerrillas infiltratedinto the enclave that Israel calls its ''security zone'' in southern Lebanon.The Israeli authorities did not say to what group the guerrillas might havebelonged. The incident took place about 8 P.M., the spokesman said, whenIsraeli forces found the guerrillas near Baraachit, a village about six milesnorth of the Israeli border and opened fire.
1988(28thof Tevet, 5748): Eighty-nine-year-old Russian born Doylestown, OH businessmanMyer “Mike Liberman who in 1912 came to the United States where he settled inthe Akron, OH area, became on of the owners and managers of the Star BarrelCompany and was a member of “the former Ahavas Zedek Congregation” passed awaytoday.
1989(12thof Shevat, 5749): Eighty-two-year-old broadcasting executive Louis Hausman whowas a vice president at both CBS and NBC and who was the husband of TheodoraHausman passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/21/obituaries/louis-hausman-82-executive-at-networks.html
1989:President Reagan awarded Max Kampelman the Presidential Citizens Medal.
1990: Inarticle published today, Joel Brinkley reported that “as Soviet Jewishimmigrants arrive in Israel at a rate now exceeding 1,000 a week, Israeliofficials acknowledge that they have still not devised a plan for handling themass immigration, and construction of even the first new apartment to house theimmigrants is months away. Still, Israelis at all levels can hardly hide theirdelight at the wave of new immigrants, which many people here see as anaffirmation that Zionism has not died. ''This is the best thing that couldhappen to Israel,'' Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said, smiling broadly in aninterview this week. ''I am happy every minute.'' And as to the lack ofpreparations for the new arrivals, he added: ''Israel does not excel in planning.But it does in improvising.''
1991(3rd ofSh'vat, 5751): Leo Hurwitz, social activist and documentary film producerpasses away
1991:Within 24 hours of the outbreak of the Gulf War, the first Scud missiles landednear Tel Aviv. At least seven Iraqi missiles carrying conventional warheadsfell on Israel early this morning in an area running from Tel Aviv to Haifa.The army said that seven people had been slightly injured "from a numberof different hits in different parts of the country." "It wasmostly from broken glass and hysteria," a senior Government official saidof the injuries. The army said the most serious injuries had been a result ofshock.
1991(3rdof Shevat, 5751): Eighty-one-year-old award-winning documentary film maker LeoHurwitz who fell victim to the infamous blacklist passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/19/obituaries/leo-hurwitz-81-blacklisted-maker-of-documentaries.html
1992:Holocaust survivor Laura Gruenbaum was interviewed by Anthony Young today.
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn509133
1994: In SantaMonica, CA Carrie and Jonathan Fried gave birth to Atlanta Braves southpaw MaxFried who “was named the 2011 Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of FameMale High School Athlete of the Year” and who “pitched for the 2009 MaccabiahGames Team USA Juniors baseball team that won a gold medal in Israel.”
1994(6th ofShevat, 5754): Arthur Altman, the songwriter whose work includes “All orNothing At All” passed away at the age of 83.
1995(17thof Shevat, 5755): Seventy-nine-year-old Joseph Kagan, Baron Kagan, theLithuanian born son Miriam Kagan and Benjamin Kagan, “a successful textilebusinessman” and survivor of the KaunasGhetto who along with his wife Margaret escaped to England where he foundedKagan Textiles, Ltd. Passed away today after having served time in prison fortax evasion.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituaries-lord-kagan-1568684.html
1995:Federated announced the merger of Abraham & Straus with the Macys,Bloomingdales and Sterns chains which means that after 130 years the nameAbraham & Straus will pass into mercantile history
1998: MathewDrudge exposed what come to known as the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal on hiswebsite.
1998:“Ragtime,” a musical based on the E. L. Doctorow novel of the same name openedon Broadway at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts.
1998: TheNew York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of uniqueinterest to Jewish readers including The Old Religion by David Mamet andImpressionism: Reflections and Perceptions by Meyer Schapiro.
1999(1stof Shevat, 5759): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1999(1stof Shevat, 5759): Ninety-two-year-old Frances Godowsky, a prolific painter andsometime singer better known as George, Arthur and Ira's little sister passedaway today.(As reported by Robert McG. Thomas, Jr.)
2000:Arrow Electronics, Inc. the world's largest electronics distributor, agreed tobuy a majority stake in the distribution business of Tel Aviv’s RapacElectronics Ltd.
2000: Anunsophisticated bomb exploded in a garbage can in the northern Israeli town ofHadera today, and the Israeli police suspect that it was aimed at disruptingpeace talks. The Israeli police suspect that Palestinian militant members ofthe Islamic Holy War group carried out the bombing.
2001(23rdof Tevet, 5761): Eighty-five-year-old Mordechai Gifter the Virginian born roshyeshiva of Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland passed away to
2001(23rdof Tevet, 5761): Architect Morris Lapidus passed away today at the age of98. Born in Russia, his parents fled a year later when a pogrom sweptOdessa. Lapidus gained fame for designing three icons of American culture- the Fontainebleau, Americana and Eden Roc hotels. They dominated Miami Beachduring the 1950’s when this strip of sand was one of America’s leading resortand vacation sites.
2001(23rdof Tevet, 5761): Sixty-five-year-old Canadian born actor Al Waxman who was afounding member of the Canadian Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television andwhom many Americans saw as Lt. Bert Samuels “Cagney and Lacey” passed awaytoday.
2002:Worldwide release of “Blackhawk Dawn” the movie version of a book with the samename produced by Jerry Bruckeimer with music by Hans Zimmer and featuring JasonIsaacs took place today.
2003 (15th ofShevat, 5763): Tu B’Shvat
2003: In NewYork, premiere of “Divine Intervention” the work of Palestinian filmmaker EliaSuleiman which is set on the West Bank and in Israel
2004: TheNew York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or ofspecial interest to Jewish readers including Fools Rush In: Steve Case,Jerry Levin, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner by Nina Munk, ThereMust Be A Pony In Here Somewhere:The AOL Time Warner Debacleand the Quest for a Digital Future by Kara Swisher with Lisa Dickey and AfterSuch Knowledge: Memory, History, and the Legacy of the Holocaust by EvaHoffman
2005: In“Trouble in a One-Synagogue Town,” published today Patrick Healy describes theconflict between Congregation Tifereth Israel, which has been the onlysynagogue in Greenport, NY, for more than 100 years and its former rabbi, GaryMoskowitz, who is busy setting up a new congregation called the East CoastJewish Center in this old whaling village at the edge of Long Island. Thearticle is an example of the fact that while some think Jews are “a stiffnecked people” they might be equally well described as “a very fractiouspeople.”
2006: YaakovEdri “was appointed Minister of Health and the Minister for the Development ofthe Negev and the Galilee.
2006(18thof Tevet, 5766): Ninety-four-year-old Sylvia Abrams, the mother of LeonardAbrams, passed away today.
2006: While serving hissecond stint as member of the Knesset, Avraham Hirschon was appointed Ministerof Communications while retaining the Tourism ministry.
2006: RoniBar-On began serving as Science and Technology Minister
2006:Tzupi Livini began serving as Foreign Affairs Minister. She was thesecond woman to hold this position. Her female predecessor, Gold Meir hadleft the position almost 40 years to the day before Livini’s appointment.
2006:Ze’ev Boim completed his term as Deputy Defense Minister and began serving asMinister of Housing and Construction.
2006:In an example of how much the Papacy has changed since its silence during theHolocaust, the Jerusalem Post reported that Pope Benedict XVI, meetingwith Rome's chief rabbi Monday, expressed pain and worry over fresh outbreaksof anti-Semitism, and called on Jews and Christians to wage a united battleagainst hate. Waves of anti-Semitic violence and vandalism have hit Europe inthe past few years as can be seen by last week, attack on worshippers in aMoscow synagogue by a man with a knife.
2007: At thePanthéon, in Paris, on the occasion of the national ceremony in honor of theRighteous of France, the President of the French Republic, Jacques Chiracdeclared: "What a courage, what a generosity of spirit they needed!".He learns from it a lesson: "You, Righteous of France, you havetransmitted to the Nation an essential message, for today and tomorrow: therefusal of indifference, of blindness."
2007: At thenational ceremony in honor of the Righteous of France, Simone Veil, Presidentof the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah declared: "TheRighteous of France thought simply having gone through History. In reality,they wrote it".
2007: TheSeventh Annual British Film Festival, organized by the British Council, opensat move houses in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Nazareth and Jerusalem.
2007: JeffMarx co-wrote four songs for a musical episode of the NBC sitcom “Scrubs” thatappeared tonight.
2007: InCanada, Liberal political leader, Irwin Cotler was appointed Critic for HumanRights.
2007(28th ofTevet, 5767): Columnist, humorist and social commentator Art Buchwald passedaway at the age of 81.(As reported by Richard Severo)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/obituaries/19buchwald.html?_r=0
2008: At theGoethe Institute in Tel-Aviv a screening of “Secret Courage: The WalterSuskind Story.”
2008: Asanother ten rockets slammed into southern Israel from Gaza, one damaging a daycare center in the town of Sderot and another hitting Ashkelon, a town of120,000 people.
2009: AtTheater J, at the D.C. Jewish Community Center, the final performance of“Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears, written and performed by TheodoreBikel.”
2009: TheNew York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topicsof special interest to Jewish readers including Restoring the Balance: AMiddle East Strategy for the Next President by Richard N. Haass, MartinIndyk et al, Nothing to Fear FDR’s Inner Circle and the Hundred Days ThatCreated Modern America by Adam Cohen and FDR V. The ConstitutionThe Court-Packing Fight and the Triumph of Democracy by Burt Solomon
2009: IDFtroops are scheduled to begin observing a unilateral truce at 2 A.M. followinga vote by the Israeli Cabinet to accept an Egyptian-backed, unilateral 10-daycease-fire, ending Operation Cast Lead three weeks after it began.
2009: NadavKandar had 52 full color portraits which were pictures of the peoplesurrounding US President Barack Obama, from Joe Biden (Vice President) toEugene Kang (Special Assistant to The President) published in one issue of theNew York Times Magazine “in what was the largest portfolio of work by the samephotographer The New York Times Magazine has showcased in one single issue.”
2009: TheJerusalem Post reported that a historic natural gas reservoir foundoffshore from Haifa is poised to meet Israel's natural gas demand for about 15years and reduce the country's dependence on gas imports from Egypt andoffshore from Gaza.
2010: InTel Aviv, world premiere of “The Child of Dreams” an “opera by Gil Shohat,based on the play of the same name by Hanoch Levin “commissioned by the IsraeliOpera for its 25th century’ which is based on the events related tothe MS St. Louis.
2010: The 19thannual New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the New Yorkpremiere of “Forgotten Transports: To Poland,” Lukás Pribyl’s “documentary onCzech Jews deported by the Nazis to camps and ghettos in Eastern Poland’sLublin region. 2010: The 10th annual Atlanta Jewish Festival isscheduled to present a screening of “Mary and Max,” a “pleasingly demented anddarkly comic, bittersweet, decidedly adult claymation fable of an improbablepen pal relationship between an unloved eight-year-old Australian girl and amiddle-aged, morbidly obese Jewish New Yorker with Asperger's syndrome.
2010: In ChevyChase, MD, Ohr Kodesh Congregation is scheduled to present “Dreams of Freedom:An Evening with Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz Honoring the Legacy of Martin Luther KingJr.” World famous author and Talmudist, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, is scheduled todiscuss the biblical dimensions of MLK's "Letter from the BirminghamJail."
2010:More than 100 Israeli security police forcibly entered Od Yosef Chai andarrested 10 Jewish settlers. The Shin Bet suspects five those arrestedwere involved in the torching and vandalizing of Palestinian mosque last monthin the Palestinian village of Yasuf. Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva published “TheKing’s Torah (Torah Hamelech), Part One: Laws of Life and Death between Israeland the Nations,” which says that the sixth commandment only applies to a Jewwho kills a Jew. “Non-Jews are ‘uncompassionate by nature’ and attacks onthem ‘curb their evil inclination.’”
2011: MatanVilnai completed his term as Deputy Minister of Defense.
2011: TheWorld Premiere of “Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray” is scheduled to take placeat The New York Jewish Film Festival.
2011: TheKnesset's Law Committee, headed by MK David Rotem, is scheduled to debate abill on conversation the bill today ahead of a possible vote on it, much to thefury of Shas.
2011 (13thof Shevat, 5711): Edgar Tafel, the last surviving member of storied architectFrank Lloyd Wright's original Taliesin Fellowship that began in 1932 atWright’s home and school in Wisconsin, died today at 98. On his own, Tafeldesigned 80 houses, 35 religious buildings and three college campuses, amongother projects. In recognition of his achievements, the University of Illinoisat Urbana-Champaign's School of Architecture created an Edgar A. Tafel chair inarchitecture in his honor. Tafel was born in 1912 in New York to immigrantparents from Russia who started a dressmaking business but then moved to theanarchist Ferrer Colony in New Jersey, where Tafel attended the Colony’s ModernSchool. He later attended the avant-garde Walden School before joining Wrightfrom 1932 to 1941 at both Taliesin and Taliesin West, Wright's summerheadquarters and now the location of The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Tafelwas 20 when he arrived at Taliesin, where he drafted, cut stone, made plaster,prepared cement and kept Wright’s pencils sharpened, and also apparently wassubjected to anti-Semitic comments and treatment by some of the other acolytesat Taliesin, a community that was cult-like in its adoration of Wright,according to the 2007 book "The Fellowship." As a senior apprenticeto Wright, Tafel worked with him on major projects such as Wingspread (1937),the Johnson Wax Building (1939) and Fallingwater (1939). Tafel left Taliesin in1941 and served in a photo intelligence unit during World War II. He opened hisown architecture firm in New York after the war. One of his best-known projectswas a church house for the First Presbyterian Church at Fifth Avenue and 12thStreet in Greenwich Village, a red-brick structure wrapped in balustradesornamented with cloverleaf-shaped Gothic quatrefoils, emulating the adjoining19th century church. It came at a time, 1960, when the dominant theme forAmerican architecture was the so-called "glass box" skyscraper. Tafelmaintained an amicable, if sometimes strained relationship with Wright untilhis death in 1959, and wrote “Apprentice to Genius: Years With Frank LloydWright” in 1979.(As reported by Alan D. Abbey, the Eulogizer for JTA)
http://www.legacy.com/ns/obituary.aspx?pid=148086833
2011(13thof Shevat, 5711): Milton Rogovin, an optometrist and persecuted leftist whotook up photography as a way to champion the underprivileged and went on tobecome one of America’s most dedicated social documentarians, passed away todayat the age of 101.(As reported by Benjamin Genocchio)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/arts/design/19rogovin.html
2012:“The Footnote” an Israeli Hebrew language film centering on feuding Talmudicscholars was named as one of the nine shortlisted entries for the Oscars
2012:Publication today of “What makes a Jewish photographer Jewish?
https://philjason.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/what-makes-a-jewish-photographer-jewish/
2012: “ Iraq‘n’ Roll” a musical documentary that describes Israeli rock musician DuduTassa’s mission to revive his grandfather’s traditional Iraqi songs byremixing the tunes for contemporary listeners, is scheduled to have its NewYork premiere at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2012: TheJewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington is scheduled tosponsor a Middle East Forum featuring Ambassador Dennis Ross
2012: DefenseMinister Ehud Barak said today that Israel was "very far off" from adecision about an attack on Iran over its nuclear program. Barak was speakingon Israel's Army Radio ahead of a planned visit this week by U.S. armed forceschief General Martin Dempsey that has triggered speculation Washington wouldpress Israel to delay any action against Tehran's nuclear program.
2013: TheJacky Terrasson Trio is scheduled at the Red Sea Jazz Festival.
2013: In CedarRapids, Iowa, Temple Judah is scheduled to host another “Shabbat Alive!”service featuring Rich Recht.
2013(7thof Shevat, 5773): Ariel mayor and former MK Ron Nachman died on Friday atBeilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, after a prolonged struggle with cancer. Hewas 70 years old.
2013: After along, tumultuous journey, Hans Sachs’ multimillion-dollar poster collection hasbeen rescued from Germany — and will be sold to the highest bidder beginningtoay at an auction house in New York.
2014: SarahAronson is scheduled to read from one of her three books for children include Believeat the Iowa City Public Library this afternoon.
2014:”AnaArabia” and “The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich” are scheduled to be shown atthe New York Jewish Film Festival.
2014: IfIsraeli-Palestinian peace talks fail, Israel will be subjected to internationalisolation similar to that which brought about the collapse of the Apartheidregime in South Africa, Israel’s Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is leadingIsrael’s negotiations with the Palestinians, warned today.
2014: Hundredsof people are protesting in the Tel Aviv Rabin Square, urging "socialjustice." Protesters arrived at the Tel Aviv square to rally against"rising housing prices, increasing poverty rates and widening socialgaps," according to Ivy Binyamin, one of the protest's organizers. (Asreported by Gilad Morag)
2014: A rockethit an open area between two communities in Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council. Noinjuries were reported. The rocket was most likely launched from the center ofthe Gaza Strip. A color red alert sounded in the area of Sdot Negev and Sha'arHanegev regional councils prior to the hits. (As reported by Matan Tzuri)
2015: AMIAprosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was investigating the 1994 attack on the BuenosAires Jewish center “was found shot and killed in the bathroom of hisapartment” today. (JTA)
2015: “ThreeWomen” and “The Dune” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish FilmFestival.
2015: TheJewish Museum of London is scheduled to host a screening of “Abram Games:Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means.”
2015: TheJewish Museum of Florida-FIU is scheduled to host “When Should I Stop Laughing?Reflections on Jewish Humor” a lecture by Ruth Wisse of Harvard University.
2015: TheNew York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or ofspecial interest to Jewish readers including A Voice Still Heard: SelectedEssays of Irving Howe edited by Nina How and When The Facts Change:Essays, 1995-2010 by Tony Judt.
2016:Employees of Israel’s Mega retail chain are scheduled to go on strike today.
2016:In Tekoa, nineteen-year-old Othman Muhammad Sha’alan stabbed Michal Froman, thepregnant “daughter-in-law of the late Rabbi Menachem Froman, a former rabbi ofthe community who was known as a peace activist.”
2016:Today, “US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro responded to criticism of hischarge last week that Israel appears to institute “two standards of adherenceto the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for Palestinians” in the WestBank.”
2016:In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day the Illinois Holocaust Museum isscheduled to offer half-price admission and “a public tour of the KarkomiHolocaust Exhibition.”
2016:Violinist Israel Gatterer and pianist Eliah Zabaly are scheduled to perform inthe “Classic-Rock” Concert at Migdalei haYam haTichon.
2016:Thirty-eight-year-old Dafna Meir, nurse in the neurosurgery department ofSoroka Medical Center, Beesheba who was stabbed to death by a terrorist in herhome as she fought to protect her children is scheduled to “be laid to rest”this morning “at the Harmenuhot Cemetery in Givat Shaul, Jerusalem.
2016:Music video for "Shed a Little Light" produced in collaboration withNaturally 7 in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Video by Uri Westrich Grab thistrack on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/…/shed-a-little-light…/id1072769793...
2017(20thof Tevet, 5777): On the Jewish calendar, Yahrtzeit of Maimonides
http://www.aish.com/dijh/Tevet_20.html
2017(20thof Tevet, 5777: “Border policeman Erez Levi was killed early this morning afterbeing run over by a car driven by Yaqoub Mousa Abu al-Qia’an
2017:“Khen Elmaleh, a DJ on the Galgalatz Army Radio popular music channel” “wasfired today after express support for Yaqoub Mousa Abu al-Qia’an who killedborder policeman Erez Levi.
2017:An unidentified man used a hammer to smash “a window at the Aleph library inVilleurbanne near Lyon in eastern France.” (JTA)
2017:“Paul Goldenberg, the director of Secure Community Networks — an affiliate ofthe Jewish federations of North America, which advises Jewish groups andinstitutions on security — said 30 threats were called in today to Jewishcommunity centers. Media reported additional threats called into schools andother Jewish institutions.” (JTA)
2017:Eric Paslay is scheduled to give a concert in Chicago, the proceeds of whichwill go the Illinois Holocaust and Education Center.
2017(20thof Tevet, 5777): Eighty-six-year-old “coloratura soprano” Roberta Peters theonly daughter of Jewish couple from the Bronx passed away today.
2017:“Peshmerga” and “Scarred Hearts” are scheduled to be shown at the New YorkJewish Film Festival.
2017:Today Joel “Meyerowitz was honored for his lifelong work with a place at theLeica Hall of Fame and was described as a "magician using colour" andbeing able to "both capture and framing the decisive moment".
2017:Bonni –Dara Michael is scheduled to lead a tour of Yeshiva University Museum’scollection of clothing and textiles that includes “a gold bracelet thatbelonged to the wife of the Hatam Sofer, a pearl and silver embroidered lecterncover of a Chief Rabbi of Izmir, a custom-made 1950 Hattie Carnegie weddinggown, and a 1969 Ark curtain made by Ina Golub for Temple Beth Ahm in NewJersey.”
2017:Today, Israel’s National Library announced the acquisition of thousands ofHebrew manuscripts and books from the Valmadonna Trust Library which holds a“13,000 book assemblage of Hebrew texts from Amsterdam to Shanghai and a hostof historic Jewish communities in between, spanning a millennium, was assembledby the late Jack V. Lunzer, a Jewish British industrialist” who died inDecember of 2016 at the age of 92. (As reported by Ilan Ben Zion)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/national-library-makes-historic-acquisition-of-rare-hebrew-texts/
2017:Peter Hayes a “professor of history and German and Theodore Zev Weiss HolocaustEducational Foundation Professor of Holocaust Studies (emeritus) atNorthwestern University” is scheduled to deliver a lecture on his new book Why?, in which eight questions including: “Why wereJews the primary victims? Why were Germans the instigators? Why did murderbecome the "Final Solution"? And, why didn’t the internationalcommunity do more to help?
2018:Peter G. Weintraub is scheduled to teach the next edition of “Introduction toJudaism” at the Streicker Center.
2018:“Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School announced the termination of Rabbi ShmuelKrawatsky’s employment today, following the publication by The Jewish Week ofan article featuring allegations against him” concerning charges of childmolestation.
2018:The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to offer a Gemara shiur onmesechet Megillah.
2018:In an act of Tikkun Olom, the Oxford University Jewish Society will be leadingHomeless People Outreach where participants will bemaking up and delivering on the streets Oxford small care packages withsandwiches, fruit and water to those “who are sleeping rough night after nightin this cold weather.”
2019: Hadassah is scheduled to host its annual Tu B’Shevat Sederthis evening in Cedar Rapids, IA.
2019: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to hosta Shabbat dinner after Friday evening services.
2019: The New York Jewish Film Festival is dark tonight withplans to continue tomorrow evening.
2020: Despite forecast of snow and near record wind chills inMilwaukee, WI, Lewis Isaac Silber, the son of Rebecca and David Silber, andgrandson of Laurie and Bob Silber and Shelley and Steve Goldstein, is scheduledto be called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah.
2020: This evening, “Leona” and “An Irrepressible Woman” arescheduled to be screened at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2020(21st of Tevet, 5780 Parashat Shemot;
2021: The Lappin Foundation is scheduled to present online “aspecial book discussion of Say the Name: A Survivor’s Tale in Prose andPoetry by Judith H. Sherman” which is her “first-person account of life asa ten before and during the Holocaust.
2021: Samia from jHUB and Pete Saudek from Repair the WorldCleveland are scheduled to lead, on Zoom, “a lunch and learn conversation aboutracial and ethnic diversity in the Jewish community.”
2021:The Streicker Center is scheduled to host artist Tobi Kahn and Rabba WendyAmsellem for a second time as they “explore Rabbi Yehuda haNasi’s story in boththe Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds” which is part of “The Barbara C. FreedmanArtists’ Beit Midrash” lectures
2021: In Nahariya, residents face having to deal with theaftermath of yesterday’s flooding of the Ga’aton River “which passes throughthe city.
2022: LSJS is scheduled to host a new course with Debbie Meyer -'Joshua: Realizing the dream'.
2022: Lockdown University is scheduled to present a lecture byTrudy Gold on “The Empress Maria Theresa and the Jews.”
2022: The Miami Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to hostscreenings of “Hungry Hearts” and “The Replacement.”
2022: JTA is scheduled to host via “The Year Ahead in JewishNews” with the editors of several 70 Faces Media publications — Philissa Cramerof the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Molly Tolsky of Alma and Kveller, and AndrewSilow-Carroll of the New York Jewish Week — who will discuss the year ahead interms of “Jewish News.”
2022: YIVO is scheduled to present a discussion of the Russiangovernment to shut down “Memorial” which was founded in 1989 “to document andpublish the crimes of the Soviet regime. ”
2022: The Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre is scheduled tohost Dr. Jaclyn Granick “as she presents the history of American Jews who wentabroad in solidarity to rescue and rebuild Jewish lives.”
2022: The Vilna Shula, Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture isscheduled to present a virtual Jazz Series featuring Berklee College of MusicStudents and Alumni.
2022:As part of Conversations on Zionism series from JNF-USA, “businessman, thoughtleader and author Scott Shay is scheduled to hold a conversation with JewishNational Fund-USA CEO Russell F. Robinson about diverse facets of modernZionism.
2022:Based on previously published reports, as of today “Israel will have shortenedthe quarantine for asymptomatic coronavirus patients to five days.”
2022:The heavy rains and consequent floods that swept across Israel in recent daysgave way yesterday to strikingly cold temperatures which are expected to dropeven lower throughout the night.
2023:The Jewish Community Center of the North Shore is scheduled to present OleksandraKovalchuk, Acting Director of the Odesa Fine Arts Museum, who will discussUkrainian art history and culture from the 19th century to modern times and howJewish art and artists played an important role in museums and education inUkraine.
2023:Jewish Museum of London is scheduled to help with the launch of ChristineJordan’s latest book Sacrifice, the first instalment in her Hebraicatrilogy, published by Bloodhound Books.
2023:TheatreWorks Silicon Valley presents West Coast premiere of “In EveryGeneration,” a play that follows one family through past, present and futurePassover seders.
2023:The Streicker Center is scheduled to the New York Premier of “Fauda” , alongwith the series co-creator Avi Issacharoff and star Lior Raz (Doron Kavillio),to watch the undercover unit operating on the West Bank and to hear from thepeople behind the most-watched show in the history of Israel’s yes Studios. TheChai Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet for the first time in 2023.
2023:The Walnut Street Synagogue is scheduled to present “Chulent and Hamin: TheStew with a Thousand Flavors” “an online exploration of Jewish food traditionsand the historical connections between Jews and food with Jewish foodresearcher Joel Haber in our eight-part series, The Taste of Jewish Culture.”
2023:In New Orleans, the Hillel at Tulane University is scheduled to hold its boardmeeting.
2024: Hadassah Magazine executive editorLisa Hostein is schedule to “convene a virtual roundtable about theantisemitic, anti-Israel abuse Jewish university students are experiencing andwhat can be done to protect them.”
2024: The Miami Jewish Film Festival isscheduled to host screenings of “A Pocketful of Miracles” and “Rabbi on theBlock.”
2024: Today, the JWA Book Talks series isscheduled to host “Julia Watts Belser, Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdomand the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole, in conversationwith Judith Plaskow.”
2024: Drawing on the values of theholiday Tu B’Shvat, “Jewish Arbor Day,” this Nights at the Round Table isscheduled to explore environmental justice at the Capital Jewish Museum inWashington, DC.
2024: Julie Salamon (Author andJournalist) is scheduled to sit downwith Emily Bowen Cohen author of the graphic novel Two Tribes in an eventpresented by AJHS.
2024: The Illinois Holocaust Museum isscheduled to host an on-site program “Towards Solidarity: An InterfaithConversation About Allyship & Advocacy.”
2024: The Alliance for Jewish Theatre isscheduled to host a remote Community Conversation with Jesse Green, the chieftheatre critic for the New York Times during which participants will discusshis article 'Here We Are: How Jewish People Built the American Theater As WeKnow It'.
2024: As January 18th begins in Israel,the Hamas held hostages begin day 104 in captivity. (Editor’s note: thissituation is too fluid for this blog to cover so we are just providing asnapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time.)
2025(18th of Tevet,5785): Parashat Shemot; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2025: A day to eat falafel in memory ofHolocaust survivor David (Dugo) Leitner who marked his survival by eatingfalafel each year on January 18, the day of the Auschwitz Death March,symbolizing the triumph of life and who passed away in 2023 at the HadassahMedical Center.
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bjgrbggo2
2025: As January 18th begins in Israel,anunprecedented wave of anti-Semitism continues to sweep the United States and, regardless of thestatus of the negotiations, the reality is that the Hamas held hostages begin day 470 incaptivity (Editor’s note: this situation is too fluid for this blog to cover sowe are just providing a snapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time)