121: Birthdate of Marcus Aurelius 16th Roman emperor. The “Philosopher” Emperor reigned from
161-180 and he was a cut above those who came before and after him. But he had a low opinion of the Jews,
referring to them as “stinking and tumultuous” as “he rode through Judea.” He reportedly preferred the company of the
barbaric Teutons in the north to that of the Jews. This attitude may have been shaped by the
difficulty the Romans had in defeating the Jews during their successive
rebellions against Rome. Only 25 years
before Marcus Aurelius came to power, it had taken the full force of the Roman
Empire four years to finally defeat Bar Kochba and Rabbi Akiva
570: Birthdate of Muhammad or Mohammad, the founder of Islam.
1096:
Approximately 40,000 peasants led by Peter Hermit left Cologne on the start of
what was called the “Peasants’ Crusade.”
This populist movement among the poor was the most ill-fated part of the
First Crusade. The peasants had nothing
and trusted in God to provide for them. This meant living off of the land which
would bode ill for those in their path including the Jews of the Rhineland.
1103(10th
of Iyar, 4863): Ninety-year-old Isaac ben Jacob Alfasi ha-Cohen, also known as
the Alfasi or by his Hebrew acronym Rif (Rabbi Isaac al-Fasi), a Maghrebi
Talmudist and posek (decider in matters of halakha - Jewish law) who is best
known for his work of halakha, the legal code Sefer Ha-halachot, considered the
first fundamental work in halakhic literature. Passed away today in Lucena,
Al-Andalus.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1191-alfasi-isaac-ben-jacob
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaac-ben-Jacob-Alfasi
1176: Richard
de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, nicknamed “Strongbow” whose attempt to establish
an independent kingdom in Ireland was bankrolled by a Jewish financier, “Josce
Jew of Gloucester” passed away today.
1191:
Phillip II, who expelled the Jews from France in 1182 after extorting as much
money as he could from them, arrived at Acre to perform his holy Christian
obligation to take part in the Crusades.
1192: As
the Christians jockey for control over the Holy Land, Richard I of England
gives his support to Conrad of Montferrat’s claim to be King of Jerusalem.
1298(7th of Iyar, 5058): In Rotttingen, a small German town
in Franconia, a local noble named Rindfleish, accused the local Jews of
profaning the host. He then incited the Burgher and local populace to join in
the killing. Twenty one Jews were murdered. The killing soon spread to a
hundred and forty communities in Bavaria and Austria. In all tens of thousands
of Jews were either killed or wounded. The killing stopped when the civil
war raging through Germany ended. Albrecht, the newly chosen Emperor, brought
an end to the violence and even punished some the participants.
1303: Pope Boniface VIII issues the bull
creating The University of Rome La Sapienza. Considering the fact that Boniface
believed in the concept that “Outside the Church, no Salvation” meaning that
the key to salvation required membership in the Catholic Church, it is safe to
assume that there were no Jewish students or faculty at the school. Relations between the Jews and the school
have obviously changed as can be seen by the “wide-ranging cooperation
agreement” that was signed by Tel Aviv University and Rome's Sapienza
University in March of 2010. The agreement allows for exchanges of students and
professors, as well as joint research projects and master's programs. The
Italian economist Franco Modigliani and Zionst Ze'ev Jabotinsky were two of the
most prominent Jews to attend the University of Rome during the 20th
century.
1314: Pope Clement V the first of the “Avignon
Popes who in the first year of his reign, 1305, became the “first pope to threaten
Jews with an economic boycott in an attempt to force them to stop charging
Christians interest on loans passed away today.
1344(28th of Nisan, 5104): Levi Ben
Gershon (the RaLBaG) also known as Gersonides passed away.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9813-levi-ben-gershon
1505: Philibert of Luxembourg expelled
the Jews from Orange Burgundy. At this time Luxembourg is ruled by
Phillip the Fair, King of Spain - where Jews had been expelled in 1492.
Phillip's mother was Marie of Burgundy. In this case the Jews merely
seemed to have gotten caught up in the dynastic swirl that was so much
of European History prior to the French Revolution.
1506: Violence continued for a second day in
Lisbon after Christians attack the Jews when a recently converted Jew “raised
doubts” about the appearance of a miraculous vision at St. Dominic’s Church.
(History of the Jewish People)
1615:
Led by Dr. Chemnitz, the guilds of Worms "non-violently"
forced the Jews from the city. Chemnitz was a lawyer and he devised a series of
schemes where the Jews were deprived of food and the ability to leave and enter
the city. A deputation came to them on what was the seventh day of Pesach
and gave them an hour to leave the city. As the Jews left, the thousand
year old synagogue and the adjacent burial grounds were attacked and desecrated
by the "non-violent" citizens of Worms, Germany.
1632(29th of Nisan): “Nicolas Antione, a French
Protestant theologian and pastor who attempted to convert to Judaism and lived
the life of a crypto-Jew “suffered martyrdom by being burned at the stake in
Geneva today.
1657:
After a battle of almost two years Asser Levy one of the original 23
settlers was allowed to serve on guard duty . Levy had been
denied the right to serve, having been told to pay a tax instead. This
was the European Way of doing things. Levy would have none of
it. Serving guard duty marked him as a full-fledged citizen.
It was an early indication that the New World would indeed be a new world
for the Jews. Levy who was the ritual slaughterer of the town opened his
slaughterhouse on what is now Wall Street. He further petitioned to be allowed
the rights as a Burgher or freeperson on the town, which he received albeit
reluctantly by the burgomasters of New Amsterdam.
1728: The London Gazette reports that twelve individuals (including four Jews) who
had been previously captured by Moroccan pirates are now released under a new
peace treaty between England and the Emperor of Morocco. Rachel, David, and
Raphael Franco along with Blanco Flora had been captured while en route from
London to New York. The Gazette reports that they were returned to
England on "His Majesty's Ship Monmouth." Interestingly enough,
though the other victims are listed by name and nationality i.e. William
Pendergrass/English, Joseph Patroon/Spanish, Alboro Tordaselas/Gibraltar— the
four Jews (Rachel, David and Raphael Franco, and Blanco Flora), are listed as
"Jews," under nationality. These events of 1728 preceded the era of
Jew Bills and the civil and religious liberties of Jewish people were far from
secure. They were indeed people without a country. Our research shows the
Franco family to be of Portuguese/Sephardic extraction, who generations before
undoubtedly fled the Inquisition of Portugal. Raphael Franco became a powerful
merchant in the diamond and coral trade operating between India, Brazil and
England.
1729: London native Mordecai Marks who came to
America in 1726 “was baptized today at Stratford, CT.”
1746: Four days after the Battle of Culloden,
during the “Jacobite Rising” for which Sampson Gideon provided the funds to the
Hanoverian-Whig government so it could defeat Charles Edward Stuart, Charles,
Charles dismissed his remaining force of 1,500 saying that the fight could not
go on without French support.
1747: In New York City, Jochabed Michaels and
Judah Mears gave birth to (Judith) Rachel Mears, the wife of Moses Iaacks whom
she married in 1764 and with whom she had fourteen children.
1753(16th of Nisan, 5513): Second
Day of Pesach celebrated on the same day “Benjamin Franklin found a way to
light a drug cigarette, today known as a "joint" or maybe even as a
"thick fat blunt" as one youth cannabis blogger so eloquently put it,
using the electric jolt of lightning.”
https://www.underthebutton.com/article/2017/04/on-this-day-in-history-benjamin-franklin-invents-weed
1759: Vögele Pressburg, the daughter of Isak
Aron Arnsteiner and Ella Elsa Eleonora Arnsteiner and wife of Simon Samuel
Pressburg passed away today at Mattersburg, Burgenland, Austria.
1760: In Buchau, Franziska Levi and David
Einstein gave birth to Moses David Einstein.
1761(16th of Nisan, 1761): Second
Day of Pesach; First Day of the Omer
1764(18th of Nisan, 5524): Fourth
Day of Pesach observed on the same day that Abigail Smith, the future wife of founding
father John Adams, wrote to him during their courtship.
1767(21st of Nisan, 5527): Seventh
Day of Pesach observed as the UK prepares to enact the Townsend Acts, measures
which will inflame relations with the thirteen American colonies and lead to
the American Revolution
1772(17th of Nisan, 5532): Third day
of Pesach
1772(17th of Nisan, 5532): Israel
Ben Moses Ha-Levi Zamosz, a Polish born Talmudist who wrote on both religious
and secular subjects passed away today at Brody
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15158-zamosz-israel-ben-moses-ha-levi
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Zamosc_Yisrael_ben_Mosheh_ha-Levi
1773(27th of Nisan, 5533): Nehm
Joseph Rindskopf, the son of Joseph (Yosel) Alexander Rindskopf, z. Ampel and
Jentel Mosche Rindskopf and husband of Hindle Rindskopf passed away today in
Frankfurt.
1775(20th of Nisan, 5535): Sixth Day
of Pesach observed as the British lick their wounds in Boston after yesterday’s
losses at Concord and on the same day that the Royal Governor of Virginia makes
the mistake of seizing gun power in what became known as the “Gunpowder Affair”
which ended, unlike the episode with no shots being fired.
1777: At Kingston, the New York Convention
voted to guarantee the free exercise of religion.
1783(18th of Nisan, 5543): Fourth
Day of Pesach observed on the same day that Daniel Parker wrote General
Washington concerning his meetings in New York the British leader Sir Guy
Carleton where they talked about plans for allowing the Tories sail from that
city now that the war is officially over.
1785: Birthdate of German native Nanette Wexler
the wife of Leser Lazarus Ochsenhorn whom she married in 1803 and with whom she
had eight children.
1786(22nd of Nisan, 5546): Eighth
Day of Pesach; Yizkor observed on the same day that future political opponents
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, along with his family, spent the day together
in London.
1790: Birthdate of Ludwig Hermann Friedlander,
the native of Konigsberg who served as physician with the Prussian Army, the
first step on a career that led to him being appointed as a Professor of
Theoretical Medicine at Halle, as position he held until his death in 1851.
1791(16th of Nisan, 5551): Second
Day of Pesach celebrated on the same day that, during the French Revolution
King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette attempted to flee to Varennes.
1795: In Kingston, Jamaica, Grace Cohen, the
London born daughter of Aaron Gomes Da Costa and Miriam De Solomon Gomes Da
Costa and the husband Judah Mordechai Cohen gave birth to Andrew Cohen.
1796: Amsterdam native Rabbi Abraham Azuby, the
“first paid rabbi at K.K. Beth Elohim Congregation in Charleston” officiated at
the wedding of “Benjamin Milhado of Kingston, Jamaica to Hannah Depass, “the
youngest daughter of Ralph Depass, a vendue master” in Charleston, SC.
(Editor’s note – according to the dictionary a vendue master is an auctioneer.)
1799(15th of Nisan, 5559): First day
of Pesach and Shabbat
1799: In a proclamation, a copy of which is
quoted below, Napoleon "promised" the Jews of Eretz Israel the
"reestablishment of ancient Jerusalem", coupled with a plea for their
support. This was the first promise by a modern government to establish a
Jewish state. In 1799, the French armies under Napoleon were camped outside of
Acre. Napoleon issued a letter offering Palestine as a homeland to the Jews
under French protection. The project was stillborn because Napoleon was
defeated and was forced to withdraw from the Near East. The letter is
remarkable because it marks the coming of age of enlightenment philosophy,
making it respectable at last to integrate Jews as equal citizens in Europe and
because it marked the beginning of nineteenth century projects for Jewish
autonomy in Palestine under a colonial protectorate. After the defeat of
Napoleon, it was largely the British who carried forward these projects, which
have in hindsight been given the somewhat misleading name of "British
Zionism." Napoleon conquered Jaffa but retreated from Acco (Acre); Napoleon's
Proclamation of a Jewish State was stillborn, and his declaration of equal
rights for Jews was repealed in part in 1806.
Letter to the Jewish Nation from the French
Commander-in-Chief Bonaparte issued at General Headquarters, Jerusalem 1st Floreal, April 20th,
1799, in the year of 7 of the French Republic by BUONAPARTE, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
OF THE ARMIES OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC IN AFRICA AND ASIA, TO THE RIGHTFUL HEIRS
OF PALESTINE.
Israelites, unique nation, whom, in thousands
of years, lust of conquest and tyranny have been able to be deprived of their
ancestral lands, but not of name and national existence!
Attentive and impartial observers of the destinies of nations, even though not
endowed with the gifts of seers like Isaiah and Joel, have long since also felt
what these, with beautiful and uplifting faith, have foretold when they saw the
approaching destruction of their kingdom and fatherland: And the ransomed of
the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon
their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall
flee away. (Isaiah 35,10) Arise then, with gladness, ye exiled! A war unexampled In the annals of history,
waged in self-defense by a nation whose hereditary lands were regarded by its
enemies as plunder to be divided, arbitrarily and at their convenience, by a
stroke of the pen of Cabinets, avenges its own shame and the shame of the
remotest nations, long forgotten under the yoke of slavery, and also, the
almost two-thousand-year-old ignominy put upon you; and, while time and
circumstances would seem to be least favorable to a restatement of your claims
or even to their expression ,and indeed to be compelling their complete
abandonment, it offers to you at this very time, and contrary to all
expectations, Israel's patrimony! The young army with which Providence has sent
me hither, let by justice and accompanied by victory, has made Jerusalem my
head-quarters and will, within a few days, transfer them to Damascus, a
proximity which is no longer terrifying to David's city. Rightful heirs of
Palestine! The great nation which does not trade in men and countries as did
those which sold your ancestors unto all people (Joel,4,6) herewith calls on
you not indeed to conquer your patrimony ;nay, only to take over that which has
been conquered and, with that nation's warranty and support, to remain master
of it to maintain it against all comers.
Arise! Show that the former overwhelming might of your oppressors has but
repressed the courage of the descendants of those heroes who alliance of
brothers would have done honor even to Sparta and Rome (Maccabees 12, 15) but
that the two thousand years of treatment as slaves have not succeeded in
stifling it. Hasten!, Now is the moment, which may not return for thousands of
years, to claim the restoration of civic rights among the population of the
universe which had been shamefully withheld from you for thousands of years,
your political existence as a nation among the nations, and the unlimited
natural right to worship Jehovah in accordance with your faith, publicly and
most probably forever (JoeI 4,20).
1801(7th of Iyar, 5561): Barnard Gratz, the German born son of
Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Gratz, the husband of Richea Myers-Cohen and the father of
Fanny and Rachel Gratz passed away today in Baltimore, MD.
1803: Myer Tobias married Hannah Woolf at the Great Synagogue today.
1808: Birthdate of Louis-Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte who
became Napoleon III, Emperor of
France from 1852 to 1871. On July 19, 1870, Napoleon III declared war on Prussia in what is known as the
Franco-Prussian War. A number of Jews, including Jules Moch and Leopold See,
attained high rank in the French army. See later became Secretary General of
the Ministry of the Interior. The war also marked the beginning of Rabbis
serving as chaplains in the German army. After the War the region of Alsace and
part of Lorraine became annexed to Germany. Many Jewish families preferred to
emigrate rather than be under German rule.
1810(16th of
Nisan, 5570): Second Day of Pesach celebrated on the second day of the Venezuelan
War of Indepenece.
1811: Ephraim Gompertz
married Adelaide Smith at “Camberwell St. Giles.”
1813(20th of
Nisan, 5573): Sixth Day of Pesach observed a week before American forces under
General Zebulion Pike captured York, Canada during the War of 1812.
1814(30th of
Nisan, 5574): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1814(30th of
Nisan, 5574): Thirty-four-year-old “Jewish writer, teacher, translator and
publisher” Moses Philippson passed away today at Desau.
1816(22nd of
Nisan, 5576): Eighth Day of Pesach; Yizkor
1817: Solomon Joseph
Mordecai, the Virginia born son of Esther and Joseph Mordecai married Isabella
Jane Kincaid today in Franklin, MO.
1818(14th of
Nisan 5578): Ta’anit Bechorot; erev Pesach observed on the same day that
President James Monroe signed the Neutrality Act of 1818 into law.
1822: In Denmark, Thamar
(Terese) Rée, the daughter of Isac Hartvig Rée and Sara Wulff von Essen and her
husband Hartvig Philip Rée gave birth to Vilhelm Hartvig Rée
1824(22nd of
Nisan, 5584): Eighth Day of Pesach; Yizkor observed for the last time during
the Presidency of James Monroe
1826(14th of
Nisan, 5586): Ta’anit Bechorot, erev Pesach
1828: One day after she
had passed away 78-year-old Judith Cohen, the wife of Aaron Cohen and the most
of Samuel and Rosy Cohen was buried today at the Lauriston Jewish Cemtery.
1832: Congress
established a park at Hot Springs, Arkansas when it designated its famous natural springs as a natural resource preserve as
people from around the country flocked to the 143 degree water as a medical
treatment for arthritis and other bone ailments. Jews were connected with Hot
Springs from its earliest day. Jacob Mitchell, a Jewish immigrant from
Galicia, arrived in Arkansas in 1830 along with his two brothers.
Mitchell somehow acquired an old Spanish land grant to a portion of the
springs, and he and his heirs spent the next forty years unsuccessfully
fighting the federal government in court over their rights to the springs. Regardless
of the status of the litigation, Mitchell became an active part of the city’s
commercial scene when bought a hotel in Hot Springs in 1846 and opened a bath
house.
1835(21st of
Nisan, 5595): Seventh Day of Pesach
1835: Henry Russell
married Isabella Lloyd today.
1837(15th of Nisan,
5597): Jews observe Pesach for the first time with Martin Van Buren as
President of the U.S.
1838: Charlotte Beyfus married German banker Abraham Oppenheim.
1840(17th of
Nisan, 5600): Third Day of Pesach; on the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit Rabbi Reuben
Hoeshke, Katz who died in 1673.
1841: Despite
opposition from Hamburg’s Ashkenazi community led by Chief Rabbi Isaac Bernays,
the Senate granted a license to the New Israelite Temple Society to build a
house of worship.
1843(20th of
Nisan, 5603): Sixth Day of Nisan; on the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit of Rav Hai
Goen who passed away in 1038.
1846(NS): in
Meshchovsk, Kaluga Governorate, Russia, schoolteacher Konstantin von Plehve and
Elizaveta Mikhailovna Shamaev gave birth to the vociferously antisemitic
Interior Minister Vyacheslav von Plehve who recommended a further worsening of the
Jews' legal position following the pogroms of the 1880’s and 1890’s.
1846: Two days after
the end of Pesach, in London, Fanny Heilbronner and Isaac Samuel gave birth to
Theodore Samson Samuel
1848(17th of
Nisan, 5608): Third Day of Pesach; on the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of Israe
ben Moses Zamosc of Brody who passed away in 1772.
1851(18th of
Nisan, 5611): 4th day of Pesach
1851: In Breslau, Samuel
Lubszyński and Rebeka Lubszyńska gave birth to Zygmunt Lubszyński, who gained
fame as Siegmund Lubin “the motion picture who founded Lubin Manufacturing
Company, the Philadelphia, PA film company.
1851: After three years
of meeting at a building on Pearl Street, Congregation B’nai Israel moved to
Number 63 Christie Street, where the congregation began raising “funds for the
erection of a more commodious synagogue to the meet the requirements of the
rapidly increasing membership.”
1851(18th of
Nisan, 5611): Isaac Erter, the native of Galicia who gained fame as a physician
and satirist passed away today at Brody.
https://archive.org/details/jstor-1450003
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Erter%2C%20Isaac%2C%201791-1851
1852: Abraham Harris married
Leah Brandon today at the Great Synagogue.
1854(22nd of
Nisan, 5614): Eighth and final day of Pesach observed as pro- and anti-slavery
forces fought it out in what was called “Bleeding Kansas.”
1856(15th of Nisan,
5616): First Day of Pesach
1860: Fortunee (nee
Dayan) Lichenstein, the wife of Louis Lichtenstein was buried today at the
“Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1860: “In a small town
near Kowno, Russia, David Rabbino and Leah Yeglin gave birth to Bernhard
Rabbino, the husband of Anna Ladewig who served as a rabbi at several American
congregations beginning with one Keokuk, IA in 1884 before becoming an attorney
in Florida and then in New York where he settled in 1899 and became an attorney
with the Legal Aid Bureau of the Educational Alliance.
1861: Joseph Seligman,
“whose firm, J. and J. Seligman & Co., sold federal bonds in the astonishing
sum of $200,000,000” attended a pro-Union meeting today held at Union Square in
New York City.
1861: In Baltimore, MD,
a pro-Southern mob attacked the printing shops that produced Der Wecker and
Sinai, two "abolitionist publications.
Rabbi Einhorn, an out-spoken foe of slavery, felt threatened enough to agree
to the request of his congregation that he leave the city. Einhorn would move to Philadelphia where he
would resume publishing the Sinai.
1862(20th of
Nisan, 5622): Sixth Day of Pesach
1862: In London, Sara
Bloom Phillips and Solomon Abraham to Rose Bloom Abraham
1863(1st of
Iyar, 5623): Rosh Chodesh Iyar observed on the same day that President “Lincoln
announced that West Virginia would join the Union on June 20th, 1863.”
1864(14th of
Nisan, 5624): Ta’anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach
1864: In Opava, a town
in the Moravian-Silesian Region, Samuel D. and Charlotte Kaluber gave birth to
Emile Kaluber who married an attorney Alois Eisler and became Emilie Eisler,
the mother of Otto, Rudolf and Paul Eisler.
1864: “In Wilno,
Russia, Chaim and Chaya (Kabatchnik) Weinstein gave birth to Brooklyn
journalist and political activist Gregory Weinstein, a reporter with The
Leader, a supporter of Henry George, and an organizer of the “first Jewish
Workingman’s Unions who was the husband of Eugenie Lasser, the author of Savonarola:
Italian Reformer and Patriot and the publisher of Jew-Baiting by
Horace Bridges.
1865: “An estimated 25
million Americans attended memorial services for Abraham Lincoln in Washington
and around the country.” In New York several synagogues held well-attended
services in memory of the recently assassinated President. At Shearith Israel,
after the choir sang a variety of Psalms, Rabbi J.J. Lyons “delivered a short
but eloquent address, in which he frequently” referred “to the qualities of the
man and the unswerving loyalty and honesty of the statesman, whose loss they
were…suddenly called upon to mourn.”
This was followed by a recitation of the Kaddish and “a special prayer
for the recovery of Secretary of State Seward who had been wounded on the same
night that Lincoln had been killed. The service ended with a prayer for “ the future
prosperity of the country” and the chanting of psalms by the choir. At B'nai Jeshurun, the chanting of Psalms was
followed by a Dr. Raphael’s sermon in which he praised the virtues of the slain
President. At the Broadway
Synagogue, the chanting of opening hymns was followed by a prayer for the
government before the opened Ark and a sermon by Rabbi S.W. Isaacs based on Genesis,
chap. xv., v. 1: "Fear not, Abraham; I am thy shield. Thy reward shall be
exceedingly great.'' Services were also held at several other synagogues
including the Norfolk Street Synagogue, the Greene Street Synagogue and Temple
Emanu-El. The
neat little synagogue of the Congregation Sheary Berochole, in East Ninth
street, was the scene of very impressive ceremonies. At noon, the building was
filled to overflowing with a very respectable audience, mostly dressed in deep
mourning, to participate in the services commemorative of the death of Mr. Lincoln
arranged by the congregation. After reciting Psalms 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 10, the
Kadish, or prayer for deceased persons, was said, and the Minchah Prayer
intoned, at the close of which Rev. H. WASSERMAN delivered the funeral sermon.
His text was from Isaiah 44, 7: "For a small moment I have forsaken thee,
and all forsook thee." The tenor of his discourse was the necessity of
trusting to the goodness of God, however mysterious his providences may seem.
He exhorted all to imitate the honesty, charity and good will to all men which
had distinguished the life and character of our deceased President. The Hebrew
prayer for a deceased father was then said, coupled with an exhortation for the
recovery of the Secretary of State and his son was then said, and after the
recitation of five psalms, the congregation dispersed.
1865:
In New York City, Caroline and Daniel Mann gave birth to actor and director
Louis Mann, the husband of actress Clara Lippman and the brother of Nathaniel
Mann.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/02/16/102215589.pdf
1865:
As the nation mourned the death of President Lincoln, today’s Boston Traveler
noted that “solemn and appropriate services were held at both Jewish
synagogues” – a reference to Adath Israel, a Reform Congregation led by Rabbi
Joseph Schoninger and Mishkan Israel led by Rabbi Alexis Alexander.
1866:
In a plebiscite, Charles was elected in a near unanimous vote to serve as King
of Romania. His government would not prove to be a protector of its Jewish
citizens.
1867(15th
of Nisan, 5627): Jews living in Alaska celebrate Pesach for the first time as
U.S. citizens since the U.S. had purchased Seward’s Folly 30 days ago.
1868:
Birthdate of French author Charles Maurras, whose anti-Semitism first surfaced
during the Dreyfus Affair and continued through his support for Vichy and
Petain.
1871(29th
of Nisan, 5631): Polish author Jacob Tugenhold who was born near Krakow
and who founded a “modern Jewish school” in Warsaw, passed away today.
1874: Di Yidishe Gazeten, the first
influential Yiddish newspaper in the United States began publication today.
1875(15th
of Nisan, 5635): Pesach
1875: Birthdate of Edouard Alexandre de Pomiane, also
known as Edouard Pozerski author of the
1929 epic “The Jews of Poland: Recollections and Recipes” who passed away in 1964.
1876: In Hungary, Emil and Sally Gintzler gave birth to Cooper Union
graduate and NYU trained attorney Morris Gintzler, “the president of the Pulp
and Paper Trading Company and the husband of Rose Gintzler with whom she had
had two daughter – Selma and Dorothy.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/09/29/94882989.pdf
1877: Louis David Meyers, the son of Henry Myers and Julia Davis was
buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1878(17th of Nisan, 5638): Shabbat shel Pesah
1879: According to the report made by Superintendent Louis today, the
Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum was home to 10 children, eight of whom were boys
and two of whom were girls, ranging in age from three and half years to ten
years.
1879: Birthdate of Ukraine native Isaac Streisand, the husband of Anna
Streisand and the grandfather of award winning entertainer Barbra Streisand.
1881(21st of Nisan, 5641): Seventh Day of Pesach; on the
Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of Rabbi Daniel of Horodno who passed away in 1806.
1882(1st of Iyar, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1882: J. A. Engelbart presided
over tonight’s meeting of a committee formed “raise money to feed and shelter
Jewish refugees from Russia and to aid them in finding home in” in the United
States. The meeting was held at B’nai
Jeshrun. Among the attendees were Rabbi
Henry S. Jacobs and Dr. Simeon N. Leo.
1882: It was reported today that a dispatch from St. Petersburg “states
that the persecution of the Jews continues” unabated. At least 17,000 Jews have been left homeless
after villages in Southern Russia were destroyed.
1882: “Current Foreign Topics” published today described a private
meeting that had been held in Berlin to provide assistance for Jews who wished
to leave Russia. The attendees pledged
seventy thousand marks to assist in the endeavor.
1883: In Frankfurt,
Germany, Leo Isaac and his wife gave birth to Robert Isaac, who came to the United States in 1915, worked with Eugene
Meyer before going on to the “investment firm of Halle and Stieglitz and
married the “former Lucile Martin.”
1883(13th of Nisan, 5643): Ninety-one-year-old Asher American, who had
served as the Assistant Reader at congregations on Norfolk, Stanton and Sixth
Streets passed away tonight.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F05E1D61530E433A25752C2A9629C94629FD7CF
1883: It was reported today that The
Cleveland Herald has been interviewing the city’s Jewish clergy on the
possibility of Jews returning to Palestine.
Rabbi Hahn considers the idea as being impracticable and feels that “the
Jewish people…are a great deal better off here than they could possibly be
there.” Rabbi Lane echoes these
sentiments and “is most strongly opposed to …immigration schemes.” The Herald believes “that these gentlemen speak
the prevailing sentiment” of the Jewish people.
1884: According to “The Relations of Animal Diseases to the Public Health
and Their Prevention” by Frank S. Billings which was reviewed today’s New York
Times, the author “quotes the Hebrew legislator who forbade pork as food for
the chosen people of the Lord. Moses did
this with a knowledge of its ‘non- hygienic character.”
1884(25th of Nisan, 5644): Dr. Lyon Berhard, one of the oldest dentists
in New York passed away today in Manhattan.
Born in Amsterdam in 1812 and a graduate of the Baltimore College of
Dentistry, he came to New York 42 years ago.
He was a founding member of B’Nai Israel and was an active member of the
Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E05E5DB173FE533A25751C2A9629C94659FD7CF
1884: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, Rabbi Kaufman Kohler and Joseph Blumenthal
were among the attendees at a reception given at the new building of the Hebrew
Sheltering Guardian Society. The
building which is located at Avenue A and 87th Street was originally
built for the use of the late John Jacob Astor.
1886(15th of Nisan,
5646): First Day of Pesach
1886: Birthdate of
Pauline Lonnersteadter Thalhimer, the wife of Gustavus Thalhimer and mother of
Morton Gustavus Thalhimer.
1888: It was reported
today that in Jacksonville, FL, Rabbi of Levy of Charleston, SC had presided at
the marriage of Susie Jacoby of Charleston to Mose J. Ullman of Evansville,
Indiana.
1888: The Jewish Messenger reports that Orach Chaim has contributed support for a New York
City Chief Rabbi. "This action is the more significant as it is the first
uptown congregation to join the downtown contingent and mostly composed of
Germans while the other uptown orthodox congregations are mostly composed of
the Polish element."
1888((9th
of Iyar): Russian born philanthropist Samuel Poljakoff passed away.
1889:
Birthdate of Otto Heinrich Frank, father of Anne Frank, who survived the
Holocaust and passed away in 1980.
1889:
Birthdate of Adolph Hitler
1889: In
Chicago, Israel and Augusta (née Mendeburskey) Balaban gave birth A.J. (Abraham
Joseph Blaban) the co-founder the Balaban and Katz Motion Picture Theatre
chain.
http://archives.nypl.org/the/18638
http://www.balabanandkatzfoundation.com/
1889:
Birthdate of Albert Jean Amateau,
rabbi, businessman, lawyer and social activist. Born a Sephardic Jew in Milas,
Turkey, Amateau attended the American International College in Izmir (Smyrna),
Turkey. He immigrated to the United States in 1910. In the early 1920s, Amateau
began a movement to bring more Jews into the workplace and government. He was
also involved largely in the affairs of deaf people. After he returned from the
Army (he served in World War I), Amateau was ordained in 1920 at the Jewish Theological
Seminary, and he became the first rabbi of a congregation of the deaf. In 1941,
Amateau developed the Albert J. Amateau Foreign Language Service, a business
providing translators for lipsync dubbing for motion pictures. The business
continued in operation until 1989. An ardent supporter of his homeland of
Turkey, Amateau began various Turkish-oriented organizations while residing in
the United States. In 1992, at the age of 103, he helped found the American
Society of Jewish Friends of Turkey and was named as its president. Amateau was
also an advocate of peace, and in 1937, he assisted with negotiations between
Jews and Arabs of Palestine. Amateau died in 1996 at the age of 106 years, 10
months.
http://www.sephardicstudies.org/aa.html
1890(30th
of Nisan, 5650): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1890:
“In Trois-Rivières, Berthe (née Genest) and local politician Nérée Le Noblet
Duplessis gave birth to Maurice Duplessis who as Premier of the Province of
Quebec issued the warrant which empowered the provincial police to raid “the
cultural section of the Canadian Labor Circle, a Jewish fraternal organization”
during which they removed “eight hundred books of the 950 volume library
maintained by Jewish cultural circle.”
1890:
Birthdate of Erfut, Germany native David Baumgardt the author and philosopher
who in 1939 found refuge in the United States where he worked for Archibald
MacLeish, the Librarian of Congress, wrote such books as Maimonides in
1955 and Great Western Mystics: Their Lasting Significance in 1961.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/07/22/89946139.pdf
1890: In
Russia, “Joseph and Sarah (Herman) Frisch gave birth University of Minnesota
trained attorney, Leonard Herman Frisch who in 1901 came to the United States
where he worked for the Immigration Bureau and while serving as the editor of
the American Jewish World and Director of the Talmud Torah of Minneapolis, MN.
1890: It
was reported today that strikers in Austria are trying to turn the labor unrest
“into an anti-Jewish crusade. Many of
the mill and mine owners in the region are Jewish and the Rothschilds own the
largest iron and steel works at Witkowitz.
The strikers have turned their fury on the local Jewish merchants and
their attacks have left several hundred Jewish families “camping in the fields
in utter destitution.
1891: A
fire broke out in a tenement house at 194 Henry Street which is home to a large
number of Russian Jews.
1892: In
Russia, Leon and Bessie Levoitz Epstein gave birth University of Pittsburgh
graduate Abraham Epstein a pioneer in the field of providing financial support
for the “elderly” which led to what we now know as Social Security.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/historians-miscellaneous-biographies/abraham-epstein
1893(4th
of Iyar, 5653): Dr. Wilhelm Lowenthal, “the Jewish scientist who had been
invited to Argentina in 1890 to share his technological expertise on
agricultural matters” and who “persuaded Baron de Hirsch to fund the Jewish
Colonization Association (JCA) to aid Jewish settlers in Argentina” passed away
today.
1893:
William A. Matson, the Secretary of the Church Society for Promoting
Christianity Among the Jews wrote a letter today in which he took issue
Reverend Jacob Freshman’s statement he was “the pioneer” in New York City “in
mission work for the conversion of the Jews
1894(14th
of Nisan, 5654): Fast of the First Born
1894(14th
of Nisan, 5654): “Festival of the Passover” published today states that
“Pesach, the Jewish festival of the Passover, begins the evening and continues
for a week.” Furthermore, “the
households of the Orthodox and many of those who have accepted the modern or
reformed” customs will host a Seder.
1895(26th
of Nisan, 5655): Joseph Heiman Caro, author of Ṭevaḥ ṿe-hakhen (טבח והכן:
כל דני שחיטות ובדיקות) passed away today
1895: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band performed
at the Odd Fellows’ Home Fair which is being held at the Lenox Lyceum.
1896: “A Precious Privilege Retained” published
today described a declaration published by the anti-Semitic German “National”
Students at the University of Vienna stating that “they would henceforth refust
to accept challenges from the Jewish Students’ Corps, as they would think
themselves defiled if they fought them.”
The Rector refused to respond to an appeal from the Jewish students
asking that this declaration be overturned. According to some observers, the
German students’ declaration is rooted in the fact that the Jews have defeated
them whenever a challenge was made and accepted.
1897 (18th
of Nisan, 5657): Fourth Day of Pesach
1897: In
Samara, Russia, Sophie (née Markison) and Benjamin Ratner gave birth to Grigory
Vasilyevich Ratner, who gained fame as actor and director Gregory Ratoff whose
portrayal of “Max Fabian” in “All About Eve” is one of my personal favorites.
http://www.classicmoviehub.com/bio/gregory-ratoff/
http://projects.latimes.com/hollywood/star-walk/gregory-ratoff/
1899: Fire broke out tonight at the New York
Theatre in the “dressing rooms used by ‘Hebrew Creditors’ characters” appearing
in the first act “The Man in the Moon.”
1899: Testimony continues to be given before
the Court of Cassation in the Dreyfus revision inquiry.
1899: Four days after she had passed away,
Eliza Kane, the daughter of “Moses J. and Sarah Henriques” and the wife of John
Clarke Kane was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1900(20th of Nisan, 5660): Sixth Day
of Nisan
1900: Max Nordau introduced
Herzl to Alfred Austin who gives him a friendly letter to Lord Salisbury, the
British Prime Minister. Herzl sought British support in his attempts to
persuade the government at Constantinople to allow the development of a Jewish
homeland. . Salisbury did not receive Herzl "on account of the war
worries".
1901(1st of Iyar, 5661): Parashat
Tazria-Metzora; Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1901: “Alliance Israelite Universelle”
published today described plans for a meeting to “be held in the vestry rooms
of Temple Emanu-El under the leadership of Jacob H. Schiff where “stereopticon
views of Jewish life in the Holy Land which will be shown by Nissim Behard.”
1901: It was reported today that every year,
for the last fifteen years, Charlotte Yonge has sent a manuscript to her
publisher for a story of a “historical character written especially for boys
and girls” including The Patriots of Palestine, a tale of the Maccabees.
1902:
Birthdate of Polish native Dr. Monah L. Bialik, the holder of Ph.D from
Columbia and the dean of the Yeshiva of Flatbush who was the husband of “the
former Clara Telushkin” with whom he had two children
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/10/07/121476085.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1902: The
second annual exhibition that includes “the work of east side artists” and
featuring “an exhibition of Jewish antiquities relating to Jewish rites and
customs” is scheduled to come to an end this evening at the Education Alliance
on East Broadway and Jefferson Street
1903: “Bishop Praises Jews” published today
described a sermon by Bishop Satterlee of the Episcopal Church who said, “The
Jews are preserving the home and family better than we Christians are doing”
and that while “I do not know how to account for this, but I do know it to be
fact.”
1903: “Twenty-five Jews were killed and 275
were wounded, may of them mortally, in anti-Semitic riots at Kishineff, the
capital of Bessarabia” today “when a number of workmen organized an attack on
the Jewish inhabitants.”
1904(5th of Iyar, 5664): Hannah
Peixotto, the Louisville born daughter of Sarah and Mark Straus, the wife of Benjamin
Franklin Peixotto who was the “United States Counsel General to Romania” and
the mother of George da Madouro Peixotto; Frances (Fannie) Corinne Bloom; Mark
Percy da Maduro Peixotto; Judith Eugenia Salzedo Morningstar; Beatrice
Peixotto; Mabel Louise Peixotto; Florian (Frank) Peixotto; Victoria Maud
Bronner and Irving Peixotto.
1904: It was reported that a large number of
Jews were part of the cheering throng that greeted Vice Admiral Skrydloff, who
is married to “a Jewess” as he stopped in St. Petersburg on his way to the Far
East.
1905(15th of Nisan, 5665): As Russia
confronted its defeat by the Japanese and the violence of the Russian
Revolution, the Jews observe Pesach.
1905: In Dallas, Herbert Marcus, the founder of
Neiman Marcus and Minnie Marcus gave birth to Harold Stanley Marcus who
followed in his father’s footsteps.
https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fmabz
1905: The Manchester Guardian published “The
Aliens Bill: Some Prejudices Examined” by M.J. Landa.
1905: Birthdate of composer Nicholas “Slug”
Brodszky, the native of Odessa who came to the United States in 1934 where he
worked with lyricist Sammy Cahn and produced songs for numerous movies, the
most famous which might have been “The Student Prince” and Love Me or Leave
Me.”
1906: In Montreal Shlomo Chaim Caplan and Chaya
Bluma Routtenberg gave birth to Yonah Ephraim “Jimmy” Caplan, the husband of
Lena Herman and graduate of Yeshiva University who led a congregation in
Astoria, NY.
1906: It was reported today that among the
earliest contributors to the fund for the victims of the San Francisco
Earthquake were “Half Bros. who gave $25, Morris Frankel who have $10 and
Schoenfeld Company who gave $5.
1907(6th of Iyar, 5667): Parashat Tazria-Metzora
1907(6th of Iyar, 5667)):
Thirty-eight-year-old Benedict Gimbel, the Philadelphia born son Fridoline and
Adam Gimbel and husband of Birdie Loeb Gimbel with whom he had one child,
Benedict Gimbel, Jr., who was part of the merchant family that created the
department stores that bore the family name passed away today in Hoboken, NJ
after slashing himself with pieces of broken glass.
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/11324771/1907-benedict-gimbel/
1908: Birthdate of Yisrael Yeshayahu Sharabi, a
native of Sa’dah, Yemen, who made Aliyah in 1929 and eventually became the
fifth Speaker of the Knesset.
1909: Funeral services are scheduled to take
place this afternoon for Edward Karmer who had died at the Jewish Hospital on
April 18.
1909: Miss Ray Pearlman, “an agent of the
Council of Jewish Women escorted unmarried Russian Jewish immigrant “Sarah
Koten, the young nurse who shot and killed Dr. Martin W. Auspitz last June and
who was released today under a suspended sentence” from the courtroom.
1910: Birthdate of New York native and NYU
trained attorney Leo Isaksson who appeared to upset the political applecart
when he was elected to House of Representatives as a member of the American
Labor Party in what appeared to be a leg up for Henry Wallace’s bid to win the
White House.
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=I000046
1911(22nd of Nisan, 5671): Eighth
Day of Pesach
1911(22nd of
Nisan,5671): Sixty-one year old Minsk native and author Henry Iliowizi, the
teacher in Alliance Israélite Universelle’s “school at Tetuan, Morocco from
1877 to 1880” who came to the United States where he “was
minister of a congregation at Harrisonburg, Virginia; from 1880 to 1888, rabbi
of the Congregation Sha'aré Tob in Minneapolis; and from 1888 to 1900, of the
Congregation Adath Jeshurun in Philadelphia” passed away today.
1911: Birthdate of New
York native and NYU trained lawyer Jacob Mishler who served as “a United States
district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of
New York from 1960 to 2004 and its Chief Judge from 1969 to 1980.”
1912: Birthdate of David Ginsburg, “a liberal
lawyer and longtime Washington insider who helped found the Americans for
Democratic Action and led the presidential commission on race relations whose
report, in 1968, warned that the United States was ‘moving toward two societies
— one black, one white, separate and unequal.’”
1912: In the Bronx, a memorial service is to be
held at the Montefiore Congregation for the crew and passengers who died when
the Titanic sank.
1912: Guy Zinn, an outfielder with the New York
Highlanders (later re-named the NY Yankees) “scored the first run ever at
Boston’s Fenway Park” today.
1912: A banquet celebrating the fifth
anniversary of the Free Synagogue hosted by Rabbi Stephen Wise was postponed as
public mourning for those who lost their lives on the Titanic continues.
1912: Birthdate of Gertrude Erika Perlmann, the
Czechoslovakian-born U.S. biochemist.
1913: A general strike by 4,000 kosher bakers
began today when 1,000 of them quit work in Manhattan, Brooklyn and
Brownsville. The strike had originally
been scheduled to start on April 29. The early strike date really was of little
significance since the bakers would have quite working tomorrow any way do the
fact that Passover starts tomorrow evening.
1913: Rabbi Joseph Stolz is scheduled to
deliver a sermon on “Walking in the Statutes of the Nations at the Isaiah
Temple at Vincennes and 45th Street.
1913: This morning at Temple Sinai, on
Chicago’s south-side, Dr. Emil G. Hirsch is scheduled to on “The Ethics of
Judaism and the Ethics of Christianity” which is “the concluding lecture in the
series on the ‘Relations of Liberal Judaism to its Neighbors.’”
1913: This afternoon, Dr. Emil G. Hirsch will
deliver the sermon at the People’s Synagogue which meets every Sunday at
Chicago’s Ziegfeld Theatre. (Editor’s Note: As you can see from these entries,
this was a period in which Reform Judaism was making a concerted effort to
replace Saturday morning services with Sunday morning services—a move which
they thought would improve attendance and participation.)
1913: Morris Siegel, known to his friends and
family as “Morris the Apple Peddler” attended the Brit Milah today for three
boys – his three sons all of whom were born eight days ago. The crowd of well-wishers grew even larger
when the entire class of his 13 year old son Harry arrived at the event.
1914: Investment banker and art collector
Maurice Wertheim, the son Jacob and Hanna Wertheim, and his first wife Alma
Morgenthau gave birth to Anne Rebe Wertheim, the younger sister of historian
Barbara Tuchman.
1914: Re-argument of Gompers (as in Samuel
Gompers) versus the United States began today at the U.S. Supreme Court.
1915: Birthdate of South
African-born, American psychologist Joseph Wolpe.
1915: “It was announced” today “in a letter received from
Counselor Robert Lansing” of the U.S. State Department “by The Jewish Daily
Warheit of New York” that “the State Department in Washington has telegraphed
the American Consul at Warsaw” seeking a full report on “the severe sufferings
of the Jews in Russian Poland.”
1915(6th
of Iyar, 5675): Seventy-two-year-old Nathan Gratz, a well-known New York lawyer
passed away today. He was the son of Jonathan and Rebecca Gratz (Moses) Nathan.
“Mr. Nathan graduated from Columbia College in 1861. He engaged in practice in
1864 and was well known in Democratic political circles, clubs, and charitable
societies. He was a member of New York law Institute, Columbia Alumni, and the
New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.”
1915:
Birthdate of journalist Israel Epstein.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1491973/Israel-Epstein.html
1916(17th
of Nisan, 5676): Third Day of Pesach
1916:” A
‘Life for a Life’ campaign in which 500,000 Jewish women in the United States
are expected to raise $1,000,000 a month for the needy Jews in Europe was
started by the Women’s Proclamation Committee of the Central Jewish Relief
Committee at the Astor Hotel today.”
1916:
Birthdate of Wiera Vera Gran, the Polish born Jewish singer who first performed
under the name Sylvia Green and who became the center of a controversy
surrounding her survival of the Holocaust.
http://www.newsweek.com/wiera-gran-strange-saga-warsaw-ghetto-singer-68575
1917(28th
of Nisan, 5677): Eighty-six-year-old civil engineer Sir John Howard, the
husband of Georgina Paver and the father o Alice, Rosina, Frederick, Esther,
Leah and Howard Hannah who “was involved in building the Palace Pier, Brighton,
construction of railways in Andover, Colne Valley, Andover and Redgbridge,
Bognor, Midhurst and Mid-Sussex” and who was affiliated with the West London,
Brighton and Edinburgh Synagogues passed away today after which he was buried in
the Jewish Cemetery in Brighton.
https://www.jewsfww.uk/sir-john-howard-3750.php
1917:
Two days after he had passed away, forty-seven-year-old David Myer Petrofsky
was buried in the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London today.
1917: As the Russian military position continued to
deteriorate and Russian soldiers demanded immediate peace with the Germans,
mutinies broke out. In one instance an
artillery officer named Khaust who had demanded that his fellow Russians lay
down their arms was saved from an angry assembly of
soldiers by a Jewish soldier known simply as Rom who intervened on their
behalf.
1917(28th of
Nisan, 5677): During WW I, Lt. Max Oster was killed at the Battle of Aisne.
1917(28th of
Nisan, 5677): During WW I, Lt Sydney Fine, 2/5 S Lancers, the son of Jacob Fine
of Edgbaston, was killed today.
1918(8th of
Iyar, 5678): Parashat Achrei Mot – Kedoshim
1918: Rabbi Krass is
scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Hebraism and Humanity” at Central Synagogue
on Lexington Avenue.
1918: Rabbi Silverman
is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Revival of Jewish Culture” at Temple
Emanu-El.
1918: Rabbi M.H. Harris
is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Loaf that Fed the Multitude” at Temple
Israel of Harlem.
1918: “Banquet to
Jewish Soldiers” published today described plans for an upcoming banquet being
hosted by the Jewish Board of Welfare and the Young Men’s Hebrew Association
under the chairmanship of Benjamin Natal for the benefit the young Jewish men
who are about to leave for Fort Dix to begin serving in the U.S. Army.
1919: Dr. J. Leon
Magnes spoke at the groundbreaking ceremonies for the new Bronx Jewish Hospital
during which $60,000 was pledged toward the building fund.
1919: The public was invited to attend the
entertainment of the children of the Marks Nathan Jewish Orphan Home during
Chol-Homaed Pesach.
1919: In Manhattan,
Tillie Gold, of Gold’s Horseradish fame and her husband gave birth to her
oldest Morris Gold “who helped make” Gold’s a household name.
1919: The Jewish
Literary Society meeting at Zion Temple is scheduled to discuss The Religion of
Canaan by Mary Erenberg and The Religion of Babylon and Syria by William
Elfenbaum.
1919: “The young women
who worked as telephone operators at New England Telephone and Telegraph walked
off the job. One of the strike leaders was Rose Finkelstein, a young Jewish
worker, who had emigrated with her family as a young child from Kiev, Russia.” (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archives)
http://jwa.org/thisweek/apr/20/1919
1920: “Chaim Weizmann arrived
at the Hotel Royal in San Remo, two days after the San Remo conference had
convened.” Still smarting from the
failure of the British to stop the riots aimed at the Jews of Jerusalem that
had broken out earlier in the month, the usually reserved Weizmann,
congratulates Phillip Kerr, Lloyd George’s private secretary, on the “first
pogrom ever conducted under the British flag.”
The unusual outburst took place in the hotel lobby, a public
denunciation that caught the British leader off guard and led to cooling off
period for the Zionist leader.
1920: In
the aftermath of World War I, Palestine ceased to be a part of the defeated
Ottoman Empire (now Turkey). The League of Nations made Palestine a
British Mandate which meant recognition of the terms of the Balfour
Declaration.
1921: Birthdate of Marcos Moshinsky the
Ukrainian born Mexican physicist who won the Prince of Asturias Prize for
Scientific and Technical Investigation in 1988 and the UNESCO Science Prize in
1997. He passed away in 2009 at the age of 87.
1922(22nd of Nisan, 5682): Eight Day
of Pesach
1922: Philadelphia Athletics 2nd
baseman Heinie Scheer appeared in his first major league baseball game.
1923(4th of Iyar, 5683): D. Falk
Duschoff passed away today in Detroit.
1923(4th of Iyar, 5683): Eighty-one-year-old
German born Philadelphia lawyer Mayer Sulzberger, a life-long Republican who
served as a judge and was active in numerous Jewish organizations including the
Jewish Theological Seminary and Dropsie College.
http://www.library.upenn.edu/cajs/sulzberger.html
1923:
Birthdate of pioneering statistician and psychologist Jacob Cohen. (Editor’s
Note – I do not have a clue as to what he did but it was obviously brilliant.)
http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/04/04708608/0470860804-2.pdf
1923: Rabbi Aaron David Burack, the Lithuanian
born son of Chaim Natan (Nassen) Burack and Bashe (Bessie) Gitel (Gibberman)
Burack and his wife Esther Burack gave birth to Dr. Bernard Burack
1924(16th of Nisan, 5684): Second
Day of Pesach
1924: “The Woman on the Jury,” in Arthur Lubin
played the role of a juror was released today in the United States.
1924: Birthdate of Morris Edward Chafetz, the
son of Jewish immigrants who played an important role in changing the public
perception of alcoholism from social crime or personal failing to a disease
requiring treatment. ´ (As reported by William Grimes)
1925: “Speedy repeal of the present immigration
law "in favor of a measure embodying more accurately the unbiased findings
of science," was urged here today by Adolf Kraus of Chicago, President of
the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith, in his annual address to the Grand Lodge
convention of that body, in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.”
1926: At luncheon at the Hotel Biltmore, Mrs.
Alexander Kohut told members of the Women’s Division of the United Jewish
Campaign about “the conditions she witnessed on her trip to Eastern Europe and
urge the newly appointed committee heads to spare no effort toward raising the
$500,000 which the women have pledged as their share of the New York quota.”
1926: “Sir Leo Levison, President of the
International Hebrew Christian Alliance, arrived in New York today from London
on the White Star Liner Majestic to attend the national conference of the
American Hebrew Christian Alliance at Buffalo” which is scheduled to begin on
April 25.
1926: Warner Brothers, which was owned by the four Warner
brothers and Western Electric announced
the creation of Vitaphone, a process to add sound to film. Vitaphone would be
the sound system used in the making of “The Jazz Singer,” the first talking
motion picture.
1927(18th of Nisan, 5687): Fourth Day of Pesach
1927: “Counsel for Henry Ford and the Dearborn Publishing
Company, defendants in Aaron Sapiro's suit for $1,000,000 as libel damages,
filed today with Federal Judge Raymond their application for a mistrial.”
1928(30th of Nisan, 5688): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1928(30th of Nisan, 5688): Seventy-year-old Dr.
Samuel Weszel, a native of Rotterdam who was the Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazic community
in Bosnia passed away today in Bosnia.
1928: According to a prediction made tonight in Philadelphia
by Rabbi Max D. Klein, local chairman of the United Palestine Appeal, “within a
week or ten days Wall Street will hear that two of its banks have completed a
joint loan of three million dollars to the World Zionist Organization for use
in the rehabilitation of Palestine.
1928: “The tenth anniversary of the He’Chaultz Palestine
Pioneer organization was marked at a meeting” held in Paris.
1929(10th of Nisan, 5689): Parsahat Metzora and
Shabbat HaGadol observed for the last time before the Great Depression
1930(22nd of Nisan, 5690): Eighth Day of Pesach.
1930: The Jewish Theatrical Guild is scheduled to hold an
open meeting this afternoon at the Bijou Theatre where S.L. Rothafel will be
the guest of the honor.
1931(3rd of Iyar, 5691): Sixty-two-year-old San
Francisco attorney Henry George Washington Dinkelspiel, the Suisan, CA born son
of Meier "Moses" Dinkelspiel and Lena Dinkelspiel, the husband of
Estelle Dinkelspiel and N.N. Dinkelspiel and father of Bette Leve, John Dinkelspiel
and Martin Jerrold Dinkelspiel who followed in his father’s footsteps to become
a leading member of the California bar, passed away today.
1931: “The Outsider,” film treatment of the novel of the
same named directed by Harry Lachman who co-authored the script was released in
the United Kingdom today.
1931: Plans for a charity dinner to be held on April 22 at
the Hotel Biltmore “under the auspices of the New York Campaign for the Relief
of Jews in Eastern Europe were announced” today “ by Albert Ottinger, chairman
of the local committee.”
1932(14th of Nisan, 5692): Fast of the First Born
is observed for the last time under the Presidency of Herbert Hoover and in
pre-Hitler Germany.
1932:
“Four witnesses testified today that they had given money to the Rabbi Samuel
Buchler, lawyer, former city official and former Jewish chaplain at Sing Sing,
in futile efforts to bring alien relatives into this country.”
1933: “Adolf Busch, the German violinist, has just resigned
his part in the forthcoming Brahms centennial celebration in Hamburg because
permission to participate was refused to the pianist, Rudolf Serkin, because of
his Jewish origin.”
1934: “For the first time in its history of more than two
hundred years” Yale University is the site of a conference of Christians and
Jews, sponsored by five of the school’s “religious clubs” scheduled to open
this afternoon with the theme of “Common Citizenship.”
1935(17th of Nisan, 5695): Third day of Pesach
1935(17th of Nisan, 5695): In Pelham, NY,
merchant and philanthropist Philip Pearlman passed away today.
1935: “Little Mother,” a comedy directed Henry Koster,
produced by Jose Pasternak and starring Otto Wallburg was released in Austria
today.
1936: As tension continue to rise amid reports of plans for
further attacks by Arabs, “all the Jews in the Beersheba district have been
moved to Jerusalem in trucks under police escort.”
1936: Jews repelled an Arab attack in Petach
Tikvah. This attack was part of the Arab Uprising that lasted from
1936 until 1939. The Arabs aim was to put an end to
the dream of a Jewish homeland. While they failed militarily,
they were handed victory by a British decision to virtually put an end to
Jewish land purchases and immigration. This effectively slammed the door
shut on the Jews of Europe on the eve of the Shoah. Petach Tikvah
or "Gateway of Hope" was originally founded by religious
Jewish pioneers who had been living in Jerusalem. What would
eventually become a city, was a collection of mud huts built by 26 families on
malaria infested piece of land seven miles east of what would one day become
Tel Aviv. Petach Tikvah took its name from a verse in Hosea "And I
will give her...the valley of Achor for a gateway of Hope (2:17)."
The moshav would be abandoned for a brief period and then re-started with
support from Baron Rothschild. Petach Tikvah became a model and
inspiration for the moshav movement. Unfortunately, Petach Tikvah is no
stranger to Arab violence. During the 1920's, the defense of Petach
Tikvah had helped to defeat an earlier Arab attempt to destroy the efforts
by Jews to resettle and rehabilitate land that had been designated as “the
Jewish Home.’ In the latest Arab Uprising, Petach Tikvah has been the
scene of a suicide bombing in 2002 and the scene of a thwarted bombing in 2003.
1936(28th
of Nisan, 5696): Zvi Dannenberg died today of wounds suffered on April 15 when
he and Israel Khazahn were attacked by Arabs as they traveled from Nablus to
Tulkarm.
1936: Bronislaw
Huberman, founder and organizer of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra announced
that Arturo Toscanini has decided to include music by Mendelssohn on the first
program he will conduct with the symphony. There is an element of political
protest in this announcement since Mendelssohn has been banned by the Nazis.
1936(28th
of Nisan, 5695): “In an attack in the Shapira quarter, a Jewish suburb of
Jaffa, Arabs killed two Jews and wounded several others” including “a Jewish
youth riding a bicycle in Jaffa” who “was beaten so severely that he died
almost instantly.”
1936: “The Yemenite
Jewish quarter outside of Tel Aviv” was destroyed by fire set by Arabs.
1936: Part of a mob of
three hundred Haurani Arabs “broke into the home of a Jewish family in Manshieh
quarter and killed the father and injured the mother who was transported by the
police along with their three children to Hadassah Hospital.
1937: B'nai B'rith was
banned in Nazi Germany because of individual members spreading "communist
propaganda.
1937: After moving its
meeting that had been scheduled to start on April 13 in London, the Zionist
General Council is scheduled to meet today in Jerusalem.
1938: Despite bomb
throwing which has become a daily occurrence in Jerusalem, an enthusiastic
crowd filled Jerusalem’s Edison Hall for Toscanini’s fifth concert Aprof the
season with the Palestine Orchestra.
1938:
German planes fly over Austria on Hitler’s birthday dropping tiny
Swastikas. This is the “new” Austria
after the Anschluss which had taken place in March of 1938.
1938: The Palestine Post
reported that for the third night in succession bombs had been thrown in the
center of Jerusalem, injuring Edwin Eisler, 18, and Banu Baland, 35. Forty
"illegal" Jewish immigrants who had been in Palestine for many years,
declared a hunger strike in order to persuade the mandate's authorities to
change their status from "illegal" immigrants whom the courts failed
to deport, to that of recognized permanent residents, so that they could bring
here their families from abroad.
1939: On
Hitler's fiftieth birthday, all Catholic churches in Greater Germany hoisted
the swastika in celebration.
1939: “The Four Feathers,” a film version of
the novel by the same name, directed by Zoltan Korda and produced by Alexander
Korda was released today in the United Kingdom.
1939: The Wirtschafts-
und Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA; Economy and Administration Main Office) was
upgraded. It was concerned with SS economic matters, particularly at
concentration camps.
1939: At a meeting of
the British Cabinet’s Palestine Committee, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain,
ever the appeaser, stressed that it of ‘immense importance’ with regard to
British strategy ‘to have the Moslem world with us. If we must offend one side, let us offend the
Jews rather than the Arabs.’ This pronouncement was a complete violation of the
Balfour Declaration and the terms of the Mandate. It set the stage for the effective closing of
Palestine to Jewish immigration in May of 1939; a policy that bought death for
the Jews but failed to win the goodwill of the Arabs.
1940: In the U.K.,
Russian Jewish immigrants and longtime residents of the British Isles,“Abraham
Samuel and Rosalie Wander” gave birth to MIchelene Samuels who gained famed as
Michelen Vicor and Michelene Wandor, the author of Music of the Prophets, the
2007 work that “commemorates the 350th anniversary of the Jews
return to England in 1657.”
1941: Philippe de
Rothschild was “released from Vichy custody” today following which he went to
England and joined the Free French under Charles de Gaulle.
1941: Birthdate of New
York native, author and Distinguished Professor of history Blanche Wiesen Cook.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/author/cook-blanche
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Blanche+Wiesen+Cook.-a058726440
1941: German newspapers
in Greece come out blaming Jews for ruining Germany after World War
I. During this same period in April, the Greek newspaper New Europe
wrote in capital letters “DEATH TO THE JEWS.” The paper reported that the Jews
were the cause of economic problems in Germany. Levy stated the Greek paper
called for the destruction of the "Jewish race once and for all."
1942: The Battle for
Moscow comes to an “end.” The war in the
East will grind on. But thanks to the
gritty, desperate defense of the Soviet capital, the German Army has been stopped
and what was to have been a lightning war turns into a war of attrition. As bad as the Holocaust was, defeat at Moscow
would have made it even worse. The
Soviet victory here, along with other Soviet victories later in the war caused
General Douglas McArthur (of all people) to declare that the Red Army was the
Hope of the World.
1942: “Frank L. Weil
was re-elected president of the National Jewish Welfare Board, and Judge Irving
Lehman was re-elected honorary president at the Twenty-Fifth annual conference
of the J.W.B. which concluded its three-day session today” in New York City.
(As reported by JTA)
1942: At Mauthausen,
“forty-eight people were shot at two-minute intervals as a present to Hitler on
his birthday.”
1942: “Thirty French
hostages – “Communists, Jews and sympathizers” – were executed today by the
German military command near Roden in reprisal for the bombing last week of a
military train in which a large number of German soldiers were killed.” (As
reported by JTA)
1942: At a birthday
banquet for Hitler in East Prussia, Hermann Göring announced that he was
responsible for the Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933, that set off
Nazi reprisals against purported Communist subversion.
1942: As part of the
exercises commemorating the 1,000th anniversary of the medieval scholar Saadia
Gaon, the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York will confer honorary degrees
on three modern educators this evening at the University of Chicago.
1942: “More than a
thousand prominent educational and religious leaders gathered tonight at the
University of Chicago’s Mandel Hall at a convocation called by the Jewish
Theological Seminary to honor Rabbi Saadia Gaon, the thousandth anniversary of
whose death is being celebrated this year. President Robert M. Hutchins of the
University of Chicago presided at the meeting.” (As reported by JTA)
1943(15th of
Nisan, 5703): Pesach
1943: On the second day
of Pesach, the Warsaw uprising continued for a second day. The ghetto is
bombarded with fire frp, mortars and machine guns. Germans kill all the sick in
the Czyste hospital. Then they set the hospital on fire. Jewish resistance was
stubborn and organized. The Nazis, who had swept France in a mere six
weeks, could not believe that the Jews of all people were providing this kind
of a fight. According to one account, some of the Jews could not believe
they were doing it either.
1944: “A citation of
the New York Round Table of the National Conference of Christians and Jews was
presented tonight to former Supreme Court Justice Joseph M. Proskauer,
president of the American Jewish Committee, as "a valiant fighter in the
cause of goodwill" in ceremonies broadcast from station WHN.”
1944: While it is
estimated that more one million Jews are serving the forces of the “United
Nations” as of today “more than fifty members of Parliament have signed a
motion to come before the House of Commons asking that facilities be granted
for the formation of a Jewish army under British or United Nations command to
fight on any required battlefield and to composed of volunteers not a present
liable to compulsory military service.”
1945(7th of Iyar, 5705): During the
night 20 children and at least 28 adults were hanged at Bullenhuser Damn, one
of the satellite camps of Neuengamme. The Bullenhuser Damm Memorial is
dedicated to the memory of these children, who were subjected to medical
experiments in the Neuengamme concentration camp before being murdered, to the
4 prisoners who cared for them, and to 24 unidentified Soviet prisoners.(Based
on information supplied by the Wiener Library)
1945: Jerusalem’s District Commissioner, James
Huey Hamilton Pollock, met with Arab leaders in an attempt to reach a solution
as to how Jerusalem should be governed.
Jewish leaders had accepted a British proposal that would have the
position of Mayor rotate among each of the three main religious groups in the
city. The Arabs had maintained that the
mayor must be Muslim. The compromise would
allow for a partition plan.
1945: Prime Minister Churchill telegraphs his
wife who is in the Soviet Union stating that “Here we are all shocked by the
most horrible revelations of German cruelty in the concentration camps.”
1945: Ernst Hess, who was Hitler’s commanding
officer during World War I ended his work as a “forced laborer’ for plumber
named George Grau.
1946(19th of Nisan, 5706): Shabbat
shel Pesach
1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry
completed its report, urging the British to end the land purchase restrictions
imposed on the Jews as part of the 1939 White Paper and to grant 100,000
Palestine certificates immediately. The
British rejected the proposal, refused to allow immigration on anything
approaching that scale.
1946: “Five Yemenite Jews were killed when a
three-inch shell exploded…in Nathanya” a town halfway between Tel Aviv and
Haifa.
1946: Birthdate of “Israeli-born American
pianist Mordecai Shehori, the native of Tel Aviv who “made his New York debut
after winning the 1974 Jeunesses Musicales Competition.”
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Shehori-Mordecai.htm
1946: Twenty-eight-year-old Brooklyn-born
southpaw Herbert “Lefty” Karpel pitched in the second and final game of his two
game career with the New York Yankees.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/karpehe01.shtml
1946: “Devotion” a biopic directed by Curtis
Bernhardt was released in the United States today.
1947:
Seventy-six-year-old Christian X of Denmark, who fourteen years earlier almost
to the day had attended the ceremonies marking the 100th anniversary
of the founding of the Grand Synagogue and who according to a popular myth
donned the Yellow Star of David during the Nazi occupation (something he wrote
about in his diaries” passed away today.
1948:
On the eve of Pesach, "the last food convoy after Operation Nachson, made
up of some 300 trucks brought provisions to Jerusalem.
1948: A
convoy that included Prime Minister David Ben Gurion set out from Tel Aviv to
the besieged city of Jerusalem. Ben
Gurion wanted to spend Pesach in Jerusalem with the beleaguered defenders as a
way of raising morale. The trip was
extremely dangerous because the Arabs controlled the high ground on both sides
of the highway and had successfully beaten back several other such
attempts. While Ben Gurion, who was
traveling in one of the lead vehicles, made it through, the rest of the convoy came
under heavy attack and was forced to turn back after suffering heavy
casualties. This was only one of the
many battles fought to open the road to Jerusalem. Long after the war was over, travelers on the
modern-four lane highway from the coast to Jerusalem could see the burned-out
hulks of the Jewish vehicles that serve as constant reminder of the price the
Jewish people paid for Jerusalem.
1948(11th
of Nisan, 5708): Twenty Jewish soldiers were killed today when “a second
attempt was made to” take Metzudat Koach, a Tegart fort built by Solel Boneh
during the British Mandate” that “was a key observation point on the Naftali
heights, overlooking the Hula Valley” which had been seized by the Arabs thus
threatening the existence of kibbutzim in the Upper Galilee.
1948(11th
of Nisan, 5708): Five members of Haganah were killed and twenty-four were
wounded during a day long fight “at Deir Ayoub, just short of the gorges of Bab
El Wad” with Arabs who were trying to keep a convoy from reaching Jerusalem
which was under siege that was a violation of international law.
1948:
“Arab throngs turned out at Amman to welcome The Grand Mufti, Haj Amin el
Husseini” prior to his meeting with King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan who has
intimated that his Arab Legion would soon join armies from Arab nations in an
invasion of Palestine.
1948:
“In Jerusalem armed Arabs held up a postal trucked, for the driver to drive to
the Garden of Gethsemane and stole seventy-six bags of foreign, domestic and
army mail.
1948: A
group of Jewish veterans who had had served with the British Army during World
War II drove a convoy to twenty-four armored trucks to the edge of the Negev
where they founded “a new settlement called Brur Hayal.
1949(21st
of Nisan, 5709): Seventh Day of Pesach
1949(21st
of Nisan, 5709): Ben Spector, an ironworker from Russia and the father of
famous popular musician Phil Spector passed away today.
1949: Twenty-five-year-old
outfielder Cal Abrams plays in his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
1949:
Publication of The Brave Bulls which would become a 1951 film directed
by Robert Rossen.
1950(3rd
of Iyar, 5710): Yom HaAtma’ut
1950: During a debate
in the House of Commons Prime Minister Atlee’s Labor government announced that
it would continue to refuse to sell arms to Israel while continuing to sell
arms to Egypt, Iraq and Jordan. According
to sources in Tel Aviv, the British have said they would consider sales of
weapons to Israel if she reaches a full settlement with the Arab states. No such pre-condition has been attached to
sales to the Arab states.
1951(14th of
Nisan, 5711): Erev Pesach and Erev Shabbat
1951: “When I Grow Up”
produced by Sam Spiegel and with music by Jerome Moross was released today in
the United States.
1951(14th of
Nisan, 5711): Sixty-one-year-old David Stanley Dreyfus, the Pine Bluff born son
of Isaac and Bertha Simon Dreyfus and the brother of Ruth, Hugo, H. Artie and
Jerome Dreyfus passed away today after which he was buried in the Congregation
Anshe Emeth Cemetery in Pine Bluff, AR.
1951: Funeral services
are scheduled to be held in Jefferson City, MO for Etta Amolsky Schatzkey, the
Lulling. TX born daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Amolsky and the wife of Albert
Schatzkey whom she married in 1900 and with whom she lived in Houston before
moving to Jefferson Cit.
1952: NBC broadcast the
final episode of “The Big Show” a radio variety show written by Goodman Ace of
Easy Aces who hired Selma Diamond to work on the scripts with him.
1953(5th of Iyar,
5713): Yom HaAtzma'ut observed
1954(17th of
Nisan, 5714): Third Day of Pesach
1954: “The Golden
Apple,” a Jerome Moros musical that had opened “Off-Broadway” in March opened
on Broadway today at the Alvin Theatre.
1955: A production of
“Guys and Dolls” “starring Walter Matthau as Nathan Detroit” opened today.
1956: A subpoena duces tecum was served today on Mauricio
Hochschild.
1957(19th of
Nisan, 5717): Shabbat Shel Pesach
1957: U.S. premiere of
“The Spirit of St. Louis” directed by Billy Wilder who also co-authored the
script with music by Franz Waxman.
1958(30th of Nisan,
5718): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1960: “From A to Z,” “a
musical revue with a book by Woody Allen…opened on Broadway” today at the
Plymouth Theater.
1961(4th of
Iyar, 5721): Yom HaAtzma’ut
1961: Israel is
scheduled to hold military parade in Jerusalem, that despite assurance from the
Ambassador Arthur Lourie will not include any aircraft or weapons containing
ammunition, the Jordanians have alleged will “international peace and
security.”
1963: Final performance
of at the Royal Theatre of “Lord Prego,” written by S. N. Behran and for which Kal
Bernstein serve as “general press representative.”
1963: CBS broadcast the
final episode of “Have Gun – Will Travel” that included an opening theme
composed by Bernard Herrmann and over its six year history included episodes
written by Bruce Geller and Irving Wallace as well as appearances by Martin
Balsam, Sydney Pollack, Norma Crane, Suzanne Pleshette, Werner Klemperer and
Dyan Cannon.
1965: U.S. premiere of
“The Pawnbroker” the film version of the novel by Edward Lewis Wallant,
directed by Sidney Lumet and filmed by cinematographer Boris Kaufman.
1965: In Montreal,
architect Moshe Safdie and his wife gave birth to “Canadian-American-Israeli
playwright and screenwriter Oren Safdi who whose works included “Jews &
Jesus, a musical that satirizes the naiveté of young Jews, half-Jews,
Christians who date Jews and vice versa, while questioning the place of
religion in this unfettered age.”
1967:
Birthdate of Mike Portnoy, drummer in the progressive metal band Dream Theatre.
1968(22nd of
Nisan, 5728): Eighth Day of Pesach and Shabbat
1968: After 598
performances, the curtain came down on Woody Allen’s “Don’t Drink the Water.”
1970(14th of Nisan,
5730):Ta'anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach
1970(14th of Nisan,
5730): Forty-nine-year-old Poet and translator Paul Celan passed away.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/paul-celan
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/celan
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/paul-celan
1970: Bruno Kreisky became the first
Socialist and the first Jew to serve as Chancellor of Austria.
1970: Pini
Nahmani, an Israeli pilot being held in a Damascus prison, celebrated a Seder
made possible by two Haggadot and some Matzah crumbs sent by the Chief Rabbi of
Zurich.
1971: Barbra
Streisand recorded "We've Only Just Begun."
1972(6th
of Iyar, 5732): Eighty-six-year-old Isidor Posner, the husband of Ida Weinstein
Posner and the father of Marcy, Rhoda and Irving Posner passed away today after
which he was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Lansing, Michigan.
1973(18th
of Nisan, 5733): Fourth Day of Pesach
1973(18th
of Nisan, 5733): Seventy-four-year-old
encomiast Theodore N. Beckman, the Bessarabia born son of Pearl Treistman and
Nahum Backman, the holder of a Ph.D. from the Ohio State University where he
became a Professor of Marketing and husband of Esther G. Society who also served
“as the faculty adviser of the OSU Menorah Society and a member of the advisory
board of Hillel passed away today,
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/04/22/90932508.html?pageNumber=54
https://www.amazon.com/Books-Theodore-N-Beckman/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ATheodore+N.+Beckman
1974: South
African Jewish professional association footballer Martin Cohen was part of the
White XI that played their black counterparts today “in a racially charged
match at Rand Stadium. After initially going down 1-0 to the black side (the
goal was called off-side by referee Wally Turner), Cohen scored a crucial goal
before Neil Roberts put the game away.”
1975: Larry
Blyden, a practicing Jew from Houston born Ivan Lawrence Blieden, co-hosted the
telecast of the Tony Awards.
1976: Paula
Hyman spoke about the history of Jewish women in America on New York radio
station WEVD.
http://jwa.org/thisweek/apr/20/1976/paula-hyman
1977(2nd of Iyar, 5737): Yom HaZikaron
1977: "Annie
Hall" a comedy directed and written by Woody Allen co-starring Paul Simon
and Janet Margolin was released in the United States, a month after premiering
at the Los Angeles Film Fesitval.
1978: The Jerusalem Post
reported that Yitzhak Navon was elected the fifth president of the State of
Israel on his 57th birthday. The minister of defense, Ezer Weizmann, was
expected to leave for Cairo in another bid to renew the stalled
Israeli-Egyptian peace negotiations. In Washington, efforts were made to set
the stage for another, possibly more promising, summit between Prime Minister
Menachem Begin and US president, Jimmy Carter.
1979: U.S. premiere of
“Dawn of the Dead” co-starring Gaylen Ross who would later produce the
acclaimed documentary “Killing Kasztner,”
1980(4th of
Iyar, 5740): Yom HaZikaron
1981(16th of
Nisan, 5741): Second Day of Pesach; First Day of the Omer under President
Reagan.
1981(16th of Nisan, 5741): New York
City native and CCNY grad Sol Rafel, “the executive director of Bronx House,
the largest Jewish community center the borough” who had two daughters – Judy
and Ellen – with his wife Ruth passed away today
1982(27th of
Nisan, 5742): Yom HaShoah
1986: An Irishwoman arrested in connection with an attempt to
blow up a crowded Israeli airliner was freed tonight after two days of
questioning with no charges brought against her, the police said. Anne-Marie
Murphy, 32 years old, was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport carrying
explosives on Thursday as she was about to board an El Al flight to Tel Aviv. She
carried a bag containing about 10 pounds of explosives stashed in a false
bottom. The police said she may have been duped into taking the bomb onto the
plane. Detectives are still questioning her fiancé, Nezar Hindawi, a
35-year-old Jordanian who was arrested on Friday.
1986: World famous
pianist Vladimir Horowitz performed in his Russian homeland. A
non-observant Jew, this performance was one of his last before he went into his
final retirement. "It's better to make your own mistakes than to copy
someone else's." "My future is in my past and my past is in my present. I
must now make the present my future."
1987: Two Israeli soldiers and three Palestinian guerrillas were
killed today in a shootout after the Palestinians cut through a Lebanon border
fence and crossed into northern Israel, an Israeli Army spokesman said. The
Israeli radio said three Palestinian guerrillas who slipped past Israeli troops
in southern Lebanon and crossed the border near the Menara kibbutz ''were wiped
out,'' but not before they had killed the two Israeli soldiers who had tracked
them to their hiding place in an apple orchard 500 yards inside Israel. Al
Fatah, Yasir Arafat's faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, took
credit for the operation.
1988(3r of Iyar, 5748)
Yom HaZikaron observed
1988: Bernard A.
Friedman began serving as “Judge of the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of Michigan” today.
1989(15th of
Nisan, 5749): Pesach is observed for the first time during the Presidency of
George H.W. Bush.
1989: In Hammersmith
London, Bernard and Flora Sternberg gave birth to actress Roxy Sternberg.
https://jwa.org/thisweek/apr/20/1989/birth-actress-roxy-sternberg
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4662925/
1990(25th of
Nisan, 5750): Seventy-one-year-old Justice Irene Finkelstein, the daughter of
Aaron Rushovich and Sonia Chatzkelowitz Rushovich, the wife of David
Finkelstein and Maurice Finkelstein with she gave birth to Arlene Dawn Joel
passed away today.
1991(6th of Iyar, 5751:
Movie director Don Siegel passed away.
Born in Chicago in 1912 and educated in England, Siegel had a long and
storied career. In 1945,
two shorts he directed, Hitler Lives?
and A Star in the Night, won Academy
Awards, which launched his career as a feature director. Among his long list of
film credits were a series of Clint Eastwood films including Coogan’s Bluff, Two Mules for Sister Sarah and the classic Dirty Harry.
1993:
At a solemn outdoor ceremony tonight at the
place where several hundred poorly armed Jews battled the Nazis 50 years ago,
the leaders of Poland and Israel hailed the valor of the uprising and called
for a new beginning in the often difficult relationship between Jews and Poles.
1994: “Paul Touvier,
the first French citizen tried for crimes against humanity, was sentenced today
to life in prison for ordering the execution of seven Jews during World War II.”
http://articles.latimes.com/1994-04-20/news/mn-48236_1_war-crimes
1995(20th
of Nisan, 5755): Fifty-two-year-old, “Jacob Shaham, among the world's leading
theoretical astrophysicists in the study of neutron stars and professor of
physics at Columbia” passed away today.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol20/vol20_iss26/record2026.28.html
1997: The New York
Times featured reviews of Rabin: Our Life, His Legacy by Leah Rabin
and The Boys: The Untold Story of 732
Young Concentration Camp Survivors by
Martin Gilbert.
1999(4th of
Iyar, 5759): Yom HaZikaron
1999(4th of
Iyar, 5759): Eighty-four-year-old Baroness Bethsabée de Rothschild passed away
in Tel Aviv
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/22/world/batsheva-de-rothschild-84-a-patron-of-graham.html
2000(15th of
Pesach, 5760): Pesach
2000: In
Shanghai, 100 Jews attended Pesach services at Ohel Rachel Synagogue.
2000: “A Story Still
Painful After Repeated” published today provides a review the Robert Myers’
“The Lynching of Leo Frank which is another in a list of less than successful
attempts to capture the events surrounding the events that took place in pre-WW
I Georgia.
2001(27th of
Nisan, 5761): Ninety-two-year-old Avigdor HaKohen Miller passed away today.
http://www.livingwithhashem.com/remembering-rabbi-avigdor-miller-ztl.html
2001: Alejandro
Mayorkas, the Cuban born Jew and Loyola Marymount University trained attorney
completed his service as the United States Attorney for the Central District of
California.
2002(8th
of Iyar, 5762): Border Policeman St.-Sgt. Uriel Bar-Maimon, 21 of Ashkelon was
killed in an exchange of fire near the Erez industrial park in the northern
Gaza Strip. Israeli forces pursued the Palestinian gunman and killed him. An
explosive belt was found on his body. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
claimed responsibility.
2002(8th
of Iyar, 5762): Sgt. Maj. Nir Krichman, 22 of Hadera, was killed in an exchange
of gunfire, when IDF forces entered the village of Asira a-Shamaliya, north of
Nablus, to arrest known Hamas terrorists.
2003: The New York Times
included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to
Jewish readers including recently released paperback versions of “Sunday Jews,
by Hortense Calisher in which she “explores the disparate fortunes of an
extended Jewish family living on the Upper West Side after World War II” and
“Be My Knife” by David Grossman.
2003(18th of
Nisan, 5763): IDF photographer Cpl. Lior Ziv, 19, of Holon, was killed and
three other soldiers were wounded during an operation to destroy a Hamas
smuggling tunnel in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip.
2003(18th
of Nisan, 5763): Biophysicist, Sir Bernard Katz passed away. Sir Bernard Katz
was born in Germany in 1911. He fled to
Great Britain when
the Nazis came to power. Katz was noted
for his work on nerve biochemistry. He
shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1970 with Julius Axelrod
and Ulf von Euler. He was knighted in 1970.
2004: The Public Law Department of the Buenos Aires University
School of Law and the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation organized and
presented The International Seminar "Diplomacy and the Holocaust.”
2005: While some
controversy swirls around reports of Pope Benedict XVI’s membership in the
Hitler Youth, reports published today say he has “won strong praised from
Jewish leaders…for his role in helping Pope John Paul II mend fences between
Catholic and Jews” as can be seen by the statement of Rabbi Israel Singer, the
chairman of the World Jewish Congress that he views “him as our most serious
partner in the Catholic Church” over a span of time lasting twenty-six years.
2006(22nd
of Nisan, 5766): Eighth Day of Pesach including recitation of Yizkor.
2006(22nd
of Nisan, 5766): Seventy-seven-year-old Medal of Honor Jack Weinstein passed
away today.
http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/valor24/recipients/weinstein/
http://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient.php?recipientid=6794
2006(22nd
of Nisan, 5766): Eighty-two-year-old Paul Mortiz Cohn, the “Aster Professor of
Mathematics at University College London passed away today.
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Cohn.html
2006: “President
George W. Bush signed an official document declaring the month of May Jewish
American Heritage Month (JAHM)”
2007(2nd
of Iyar, 5767): Ninety-two year old Israeli
rabbi Yehuda Meir Abrmowicz, the son Tzvi Yitzchok Abramowicz who made Aliyah
in 1935 where “he served as general secretary of Agudat Yisrael, which he
represented in the Knesset from 1972 until 1981, and as Deputy Speaker of the
Knesset between 1977 and 1981” passed away today.
2007: Haaretz reported that sixty-six
civilians were killed in hostile actions since last Independence Day, mostly
during the Second Lebanon War, bringing the number of civilians killed in
terror attacks since the state's establishment in 1948 to 1,635, according to National
Insurance Institute (NII) Director Dr. Yigal Ben-Shalom.
2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert had condemned as "hurtful" and
"spurious" comments made by former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai
Eliyahu that the victims of the Holocaust were made to suffer because of the
sins of the Reform Movement. Olmert went on to praise the Reform Movement as an
important element in the “House of Israel.”
2007: U.S. premiere of
“In The Land of Women” starring Adam Brody with a script by Jon Kasdan who also
directed the film.
2008(15th of
Nisan, 5768): First Day of Pesach
2008: San
Francisco chefs Gayle Pirie and John Cook are and putting a Slow Food spin on
the Passover Seder for the second night of Passover. The Seder, held at Foreign
Cinema is sponsored by Heeb and is the magazine’s inaugural "Slow
Food Seder.”
2008: The New York Times book section featured
a review of “Dictation” the most recent work of Jewish author Cynthia
Ozick.
2008: The Washington Post book section
featured a review of a biography of
the Jewish poet Louis Zukofsky entitled “The Poem of a Life” by Mark
Scroggins and an interview with American poet Edward Hirsch whose grandfather
was a stringer for a Yiddish newspaper who wrote poems and copied them into the
backs of books.
2008: The Sunday Chicago Tribune reported that two Torah scrolls were taken
from Kenosha synagogue. Just days before the beginning of Passover, two Torah scrolls each
worth an estimated $40,000 to $60,000, were reported stolen from a Jewish
temple in Kenosha, officials said. On Tuesday, Rabbi Tzali Wilschanski of the
Congregation Bnei Tzedek Chabad realized his laptop, which he had used during a
class the night before, was missing. He checked to see whether the Torahs were
safe, and discovered they were missing too. He said he last saw them April 5. Several
valuable silver ornaments used to adorn the scrolls were not taken, leading
Wilschanski to suspect that the robbery was not a garden-variety theft.
"If this was a hate crime, it would explain why they took something that is
so dear to us," he said.
"If this was not a hate crime, it was the work of very sophisticated
criminals who know that the Torah scrolls are much more valuable than the
silver pieces." There were no signs of forced entry into the temple at
1602 56th St., but a deadbolt lock was open, Kenosha police Sgt. Hugh Rafferty
said. While police do not have any suspects in custody, they are following
several leads, he said.
2009: In Washington, D.C.,
Adina Hoffman, a
Jerusalem-based writer, critic and founder of Ibis Editions, discusses and
signs “My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet's Life in the
Palestinian Century, “her new biography of Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali.
2009: Opening session of “Durban II Counter at the Fordham University
School of Law. The American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists sponsor
this counter-conference organized to address the real issues of "racism,
racial discrimination, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance."
2009: Human Rights Watch said in a new report issued today that Hamas security forces killed at least 32 Palestinian
political rivals and those suspected of collaborating with Israel during and
after the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. The report also said “unlawful
arrests, torture and killings in detention” were making a mockery of Hamas’s
claims to uphold the law in Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas, an Islamic
group.“Hamas should end its attacks on political opponents and suspected
collaborators in Gaza, which have killed at least 32 Palestinians and maimed
several dozen more during and since the recent Israeli military offensive,” the
report by Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group, said. It said that gunmen
believed to be from Hamas killed 18 Palestinians, most suspected of
collaborating with Israel, and that another 14 Palestinians had been killed by
people said to be members of Hamas security forces since Israel ended its
offensive.
2009: Today President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran used the platform of
a United Nations conference in Geneva on combating racism to disparage Israel
as a “cruel and repressive racist regime,” prompting delegates from European
nations to desert the hall and earning a rare harsh rebuke from Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon.
2009: Lord Hoffmann
(Leonard Hoffmann) completed his terms as Second Senior Lord of Appeal in
Ordinary in South Africa.
2009: “President Obama formally nominated Fred
Hochberg” the son of refugees from Nazi Germany “to be Chairman and President of the
[[Export-Import Bank.”
2009: Steve Reich was
awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music, on April 20, 2009, for Double Sextet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Sextet
2010(6th
Iyar, 5770): Yom Ha’Atzmaut
2010: In “a Federal
Criminal Complaint dated today (Case No. 10-8082), Nevin Karey Shapiro who went
to prison for running a $930 milling Ponzi scheme "directed others to
create and show to the investors documents fraudulently touting the profitability”
of Capitol Investments USA which was a key vehicle in the fraud.
2010: The US premier of
“I Was There In Color,” is scheduled to take place as part the Yom Ha’Atzmaut
celebration at the JCC in Manhattan.
2010: Or Ashual, a 17-year-old student at the Kfar Saba Amana
girls’ school, became the 2010 winner of the World Bible Quiz competition today,
which took place on Israel’s 62nd Independence Day at the Jerusalem Center for
the Performing Arts.
2011(16th of
Nisan, 5771): Second Day of Pesach
2011: Beit Avi Chai, in collaboration with Merkaz Hamagshimim
Hadassah, is scheduled to hold its second annual English speaking amateur
theatre festival: "Stage One".
2011: Two suspects were arrested today in connection with setting
fire to a synagogue on the Greek island of Corfu a day earlier, Greek Police
said. Arsonists set fire to a synagogue on the island early yesterday, damaging
prayer books but causing no injuries, in the third such attack in Greece in
less than two years, police said.
2011: A Haggadah Fair
sponsored by Kol HaOt and the Inbal Hotel will open today in Jerusalem.
2011: One day after
Steve Soboroff was hired to be the Vice Chairman of the LA Dodgers, Major
League Baseball seized control of the team from Frank McCourt.
2012: “In Darkness” a
film about Polish sewer worker and Jews living in the Lvov Ghetto is scheduled
to be shown in Iowa City under the sponsorship of Agudas Achim.
2012: “Joanna” and
“Life Is Too Long” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film
Festiva
2012: “The Man Behind
the Curtain” provides a detailed review of Mr. Broadway: The Inside Story of
the Shuberts, the Shows and the Stars by Gerald Schoenfield.
2013: “No Place on
Earth” is scheduled to be shown for the first time in Claremont, CA.
2013: Adam Burstain,
the son of Todd and Jennifer Burstain - pillars of the Cedar Rapids Jewish
community- and marvelous student of Judaism is scheduled to appear in the final
performance of “Urine Town.”
2013: “Cabaret-Berlin:
The Wild Scene” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film
Festival
2013: “Dorfman in Love”
is scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.
2013: Israeli gymnast
Alexander Shatilov won the gold medal in the European Men's Artistic Gymnastic
individual Championships, held in Moscow today.
http://www.jpost.com/Sports/Israeli-gymnast-wins-gold-at-European-Championship-310466
2013: U. S Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will finalize a huge arms
deal with Israel during his visit starting today, under which Israel will for
the first time be permitted to purchase US aerial refueling planes and other
ultra-sophisticated military equipment that could prove vital to any Israel
strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities
2014: “Igor and the
Crane’s Journey” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC Rockland International
Jewish Film Festival.
2014: “Helen Suzman: Fighter for Human Rights” an exhibition that
has been on display at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is
scheduled to come to a close.
2014: The New York Times features reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including No
Book But The World by Leah Hager Cohen, Updike by Adam Begley and
Plato at the
Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
2015: Mark Strauss, the
“well-known oil painter” and Holocaust survivor who wrote Crumbs under the
pen-name of Marek Mann is scheduled to speak at the US Holocaust Memorial
Museum in Washington, D.C.
2015: “Secrets of War”
and “Magic Men” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film
Festival.
2015: The American
Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present a lecture by Rabbi Marvin Toyaker
and Ellen Rodman, authors of Pepper, Silk & Ivory: Amazing Stories about
Jews and the Far East.
2015: In Washington,
DC, Dr. Samuel Gruber is scheduled to deliver a lecture that “will explore the
evolution of the movement to preserve historic synagogues entitled “Preserving
America’s Synagogues” Past and Future.”
2015(1st of
Iyar, 5775): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
2015: Four days after
he had passed away, funeral services were held today at the Sixth and I
Historic Synagogue for Richard Suzman of Chevy Chase, MD, the “husband of
Janice Krupnick” and father of Daniel and Jessica Suzman.
2015(1st of
Iyar, 5775): Eighty-five-year-old record executive Bernard Stollman whose
parents met in the balcony of a Yiddish theatre, passed away today.
2015(1st of
Iyar, 5775): Ninety-year-old Frederick Morton, the baker turned author passed
away today.
2015(1st of
Iyar, 5775): Eighty-one-year-old Paris born Rosh Yeshiva and expert on Halakah
rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein passed away at Alon Shvut, Israel.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/renowned-rabbi-aharon-lichtenstein-dies-at-81/
2016: “A New Leaf” and
“Michael Nichols: American Masters” are scheduled to be shown on the final
night of the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2016: Two days after he had passed away,
funeral services are scheduled be held for 92-year-old Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold, the
native of Radom, Poland “who came to America in 1947 and settled in Cambridge,
MA, where he became Director of the Hillel at Harvard” and whose mourners will
include his daughters Merav and Hannah.
2016: The ShapeShifter
Lab is scheduled to present the Alon Yavnai Big Band.
2016: The Samaritans are scheduled to celebrate their Passover
today.
2016(12th of
Nisan, 5776): Seventy-four-year-old University of South Carolina graduate and
Columbia trained attorney Solomon Blatt, Jr. the Barnwell, SC bon son of Ethel
Green and Speaker of the House of the South Carolina House of Representatives Solomon
Blatt, Sr and husband of Carolyn Gayden with whom he had three children who
served on a destroyer during WW II and who was Chief Judge of the United States
District Court for the District of South Carolina at the time of his death,
passed away today.
https://www.fjc.gov/node/1377931
https://web.archive.org/web/20120123222517/http://www.charlestonlaw.edu/v.php?pg=254
2017: In Arizona, the
Valley Beit Midrash and the Jewish Book Council are scheduled to co-host “Why
Be Jewish? – Continuing the Legacy of Edgar Bronfman”
https://www.valleybeitmidrash.org/events/why-be-jewish/
2017: The Jerusalem
Opera Spring concert scheduled for this evening will “pay home to Enrico
Caruso.
2018: The “12 day Journey of Remembrance and
Celebration” sponsored by the Steicker Center is scheduled to come to an end
today.
2018: In the
Netherlands, a 23 year old man, identified in the media as “Jordi A” “drew a
shape reminiscent of a cross on the main Holocaust memorial monument of The
Hague.”
2018: “Hungarian Kosher
Foods, a Chicago-area landmark for 45 years” “America’s first all –kosher
supermarket” which was founded by “Holocaust survivor Sandor Kirsche” is
scheduled to become the property today of “Orian Azulay, the owner of the
kosher supermarket Sara’s Tent in Aventura, Florida.”
2018: In Metairie, LA,
the Jewish Community Day School is its Yom Ha’atzmaut Celebration which
including a torch lighting ceremony “representing the 12 Tribes of the people
of Israel.”
2018: “Spring Scenes,”
the final production of the Cleveland Institute of Music Opera Theatre under
the leadership under the direction artistic director David Bamberger is
scheduled to open this evening.
2019: “The Greater
Reconstruction: American Democracy after the Civil War,” a two-day conference
which was inaugurated by “President Susan Herbst of the University of
Connecticut” and heard a keynote address by Professor Eric Foner is scheduled
to come to an end today.
2019(15th of
Nissan, 5779): First Day of Pesach
15th of
Nisan, 5650 (1890): An untold number of
poor New Yorkers enjoyed eating meat at their Seder tonight thanks to the
generosity of Mrs. Paulina Rosendorff who had provided the funding that enabled
butchers to distribute their product free of charge.
15th of Nisan, 5675(1915): The 300 Jewish soldiers and sailors who attended last
night’s Seder sponsored by the Army and Navy Y.M.H.A. which also provided a
night’s lodging at the Hotel Roland are scheduled to worship at Temple Beth
Israel at Lexington and 72nd Street today while the Secretary of
War, the Governor of New York and the Mayor of New York City have been invited
to attend tonight’s Seder sponsored by the Army and Navy Young Men’s Hebrew
Association for the benefit of 300 of the 8,000 Jews serving in the military
which is being held at Vienna Hall on Lexington and 58th Street.
15th of Nisan, 5677 (1917): One day after U.S. declared War on Germany, Jews gather in
the synagogue to observe Pesach and Shabbat
15th of Nisan, 5705(1945): At least 58 Jews were murdered in a forest near the
Austrian village of Deutsch Shuetzen, in what would come to be called the
Deutsch Shuetzen Massacre while in the evening, members of the Jewish Infantry
Brigade of the British 8th Army serving in Italy took part in a
Seder at Faenza.
15th of Nisan, 5725(1965): While Jews in the Soviet struggled to deal with a
shortage of Matzah created by the government refusal to let state bakeries
prepare adequate supplies of unleavened bread Rabbis in America were encouraged
to deliver sermons that related the themes of Pesach with fight for Civil
Rights complete with references to the recent voting rights march in Selma.
15th of Nisan, 5728(1968): For the first time, Pesach is observed in a unified Jerusalem.
2020: Using Facebook, The YIVO Institute is
scheduled to host “Beethoven in the Yiddish Imagination.
2020: Live on Zoom, the Leo Baeck Institute is
scheduled to host “Overcoming the Present – A Virtual Salon with Max Czollek.
2020: Live on Zoom, the American Sephardi
Federation is scheduled to host “Laughter is the Best Medicine: Virtual Comedy
Show with K-von.”
2020: A reading on Zoom of the names for
Holocaust Remembrance Day, followed by a commemorative program which is
scheduled to be presented by S.F.-based JFCS Holocaust Center in partnership
with many organizations.
2020: Three Berkeley, CA synagogues are
scheduled to host a “Virtua Yom Hashaoh Commemoration” featuring Holocaust “survivor
Ernst Valfer talking about the trauma of children separated from their parents.”
2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled to
present “The Soap Myth: Play and Webinair” with Dr. Michael Berenbaum, Ira
Forman, Jeff Cohen, Ed Asner and Tovah Feldshuh.
2020: This evening as Yom HaShoah begins the
Board of Deputies of British Jews is scheduled to host “a virtual National
Holocaust Commemoration marking the 75th anniversary of the end of
the Shoah and the liberation of Bergen Belsen” by the British Army.
2021: YIVO is scheduled to present a discussion
of Judy Batalion's new book, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women
Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos led by Andrew Silow-Carroll.
2021: In what shopkeepers in Israel see as
welcome opportunity, “Ramadan, when Muslims refrain for eating and drinking
from sunrise to sunset and gather for festive break-fast meals and to exchange
gifts at night, is scheduled to kick off today. (As reported by Mohammad
Al-Kassim/The Media Line)
2021: LBI is scheduled to host Griselda Pollock (University of Leeds, UK)
who will be in conversation with Kerry Wallach (Gettysburg College, PA) about
the work and life of the Berlin-born Jewish artist, Charlotte Salomon who was
murdered at Auschwitz at the age of 26.
2021: Professor Marc Michael Epstein is
scheduled to begin his course exploring the relationship between Jews and art
throughout history at the London School of Jewish Studies.
2022(19th of Nisan, 5782):
Fifth Day of Pesach
2022: In San Francisco, Congregation
Emanu-El is scheduled to host “A Passover Evening Out,” a unique Chol Hamoed
event that features a screening in the main sanctuary of “The Frisco Kid,”
starring Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford, a 1979 comedy that includes a storyline
about the first rabbi of Congregation Emanu-El trying to make his way west
along with Passover desserts, wine and soft drinks in the courtyard.”
2022: UK Jewish Film is scheduled host the
final online screening of “The Dinner.”
2022: The Wiener Holocaust Library is
scheduled to host a virtual talk during which Senior Curator Dr. Barbara
Warnock will explore the development of antisemitism in Western Europe from the
late nineteenth century to today and the means by which Jewish organizations
and other groups have fought back against antisemitism.”
2022: In San Rafael, CA, the Osher Marin,
JCC is scheduled to host a “Passover Poetry Celebration” featuring a translated
reading of the “Song of Songs” the scroll connected with Pesach by UC Berkeley
professor Robert Alter, with a lecture on the book’s liturgical use during
Passover.
2022: As terrorists
fire rockets from Gaza and Islamic Jihad shows off its “tunnel city” that will
be used in its next wave of attacks on Israel,
while the violence in Jerusalem which was called for by terror groups in
Gaza on April 13 continues, “residents of Israeli communities living near the
Gaza fear it's just a matter of time before the south becomes the battle zone
yet again.”
2022: SFSU is scheduled
to host Agata Bielik-Robson discussing her 2022 book about how 20th-century
philosopher Jacques Derrida used his self-identification as a Marrano as a
literary experiment of autofiction. Presented by SFSU Jewish Studies.
2023: The Vilna Shul is
scheduled to host a behind-the-scenes tour of the Boston Athenaeum, including a
special tour of the Great Boston Fire exhibit, “Revisiting the Ruins.”
2023: The Osher Marin
is scheduled to host Henry Michalski discussing his book Torn Lilacs: A True
WWII Story of Love, Defiance and Hope which tells the story of his parents’
survival from Poland to a remote island gulag in Siberia to Kazakhstan and his
family’s eventual immigration to the U.S. through Ellis Island.
2023:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a screening of the “The Lost Eichmann
Tapes.”
2023:
The Boston Workers Circle is scheduled to present “Antisemitism: Reclaiming the
Conversation.”
2024: The Tulane Alumni Association is to honor Avron B. Fogelman with the
Dermot McGlinchey Lifetime Achievement Award.
2024:
In Jerusalem, Agnon House is scheduled to host another joint reading of Agnon's
stories, this time called "The Legend of the Writer" with Adin
Ner-David, who will try to provide an interpretation of the story, examine his
poignant statement about the act of art and trace the biographical elements
scattered throughout it.”
2024(12th
of Nisan, 5784): Shabbat HaGadol; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2024:
As April 20th begins in Israel, the Hamas held
hostages begin day 197 in captivity.
(Editor’s note: this situation is too fluid for this blog to cover so we
are just providing a snapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time.)
