According to one web-site, April 19th is one of the blackest days on the Jewish calendar. From the 11th century (1014) through the 20th century (1943) this date is remembered for the atrocities which took place. Below are a few: )
1014: During a civil war that had broken out between Arabs and Berbers in 1013, the Jews of Cordoba experienced their first massacre today.
1283: Following an accusation of ritual murder (the blood libel) thirty-six Jews were murdered in Mayence (Mainz), Germany,
1283: On the second day of Easter which coincided with the penultimate day of Passover, a Christian mob attacked the Jews of Mayence (Germany) killing ten and pillaging their homes. The mob was responding to the discovery of the body of a Christian child and acting out the consequence of the blood libel. Archbishop Werner tried to stop the mob before they attacked. His intervention kept the blood bath from being even worse. The Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph, conducted an investigation into the affair, confirmed the judgment the mob had passed on the Jews and acquitted the citizens of Mayence of all blame.
1306(4th of Iyar, 5066): The body of Rabbi Meir Ben Baruch was released by the authorities 13 years after his death so that he could receive a Jewish burial Maharam of Rothenburg
1343: A massacre of the Jews in Wachenheim, Germany which had begun before Easter spread to surrounding communities.
1506: During a service at St. Dominic’s Church in Lisbon, Portugal, some of the people thought they saw a vision on one of the statues. Outside, a newly converted Jew-turned-Christian raises doubts about the "miracle." He was literally torn to pieces and then burnt. The crowd led by two Dominican monks proceeded to ransack Jewish houses and kill any Jews they could find. During the next few days, countrymen hearing about the massacre came to Lisbon to join in. Over two thousand Jews were killed during a period of three days ending on April 21.
1541: Ignatius of Loyola took office as the first Superior General of the Society of Jesus.
1566: Pius V issued “Romanus Pontifex. After being in office for three months, Pope Pious rejected the lenience's of his predecessor and reinstated all the restrictions that Paul IV had placed on the Jews. These included being forced to wear a special cap, the prohibitions against owning real estate and practicing medicine on Christians. Communities were not allowed to have more than one synagogue and Jews were confined to a cramped ghetto.
1539: Eighty-year old Catherine Zaleshovska was burned at the stake on the order of Bishop Gamrat and with the approval of Queen Bona Sforza for having denied the basic tenants of Christianity after having converted to Judaism. She had been held as a prisoner for ten years before being murdered. (As reported by The History of the Jewish People)
1654: “Haham Jacob Sasportas” the Oran born rabbi accepted the offer to lead the Sephardic community of London
1664: In London, “Moses Athias ceased to be Rabbi of the synagogue.”
1670(29th of Nisan, 5430): Moses Samson Bacharach, the son of Samuel and Eva Bacharach who married “Fiege, the widow of Moses Ha-Kohen Nerol” after the death of his first wife” Dobrusch, a daughter of Isaac ben Phœbus, of Ungarisch-Brod, Moravia” and who was the chief rabbi at Worms passed away.
1670(29th of Nisan, 5430): Solomon Ben Isaac Marini, “the only rabbi at Padua who survived the plague of 1631” and who wrote a commentary to Isaiah entitled Tikkun Olam in 1652 and who was the brother of Dr. Shabbethai ben Isaac Marini, passed away today.
1689: Sixty-two year old Augusta Christian, the Queen of Sweden who studied Hebrew literature and was philo-Semitic as could be seen by her friendship with Menassaeh ben Israel and “other Hebrew Scholars” but who was unable “to prevent the banishment of the Jews of Vienna, decreed by Emperor Leopold in 1670 “ passed away today.
1707: Emperor Joseph I confirmed an arrangement reached by the Council of Worms on June 7, 1699 which granted “certain concessions” to the Jews of that city.
1753(15th of Nisan, 5513): Jews in Great Britain observed the first day of Pesach as they waited for the House of Lords to act on a bill approved by the House of Commons that would provide them with full civil rights.
1771: Maria Theresa granted two Sovereign Licenses to the Jews of Trieste, licenses that constitute real improvement in their economic conditions.
1772: Birthdate of economist David Ricardo. Raised as a Sephardic Jew, Ricardo eloped with a woman who was a Quaker. He later converted and became a Unitarian.
1775(19th of Nisan, 5535): Fifth Day of Pesach
1775: The Battles of Lexington and Concord with the “Shot heard round the world” marked the start of the American Revolution. Besides the famous Hyam Solomon, “there were hundreds of Jewish soldiers and sailors who fought in the Revolution and patriots who supported it. There was Phillip Russell, a surgeon at Valley Forge; Col. David Franks an aide to George Washington; a “Jew Company, " which fought in South Carolina; Moses Myers, who fought in Virginia; the Sheftall family, which fought and were captured in Savannah. In Manhattan's Chatham Square cemetery, 22 Revolutionary Jewish soldiers lie. Many had sacrificed their lives for their new country. Just like the approximately 500 Americans who were killed or wounded during the three British assaults at Bunker Hill in 1775. (New evidence has surfaced that a Jewish soldier, Abraham Solomon, participated in the Battle of Bunker Hill as a member of Colonel John Glover's 21st Regiment from Gloucester.)”
1776(30th of Nisan, 5536): Seventy-eight year old Rabbi Jacob Israel Emden [Jacob ben Tswi] passed away. Born at Altona, Germany in 1697 was a scholar and when it came to technology, a modernist since he owned a printing press which he used to print Jewish texts. For a while he earned a living by deal in jewelry. He finally agreed to become Rabbi for the community in Emden. The town supplied his last name in the secular world. Emden's real claim to fame has to with an inter-communal conflict that seems quite trivial by modern standards.
1776: Birthdate of London native Joseph Moses Martin who married Abigail Aron Martin five years and two days after the death of his first wife, Dinah Elimaleh Mudahi, the mother of his son, Moses Joseph Martin.
1778(22nd of Nisan, 5538): Eighth Day of Pesach
1778: In Georgia, where the first Torah scroll had been brought to Savannah in 1733, three row galleys of the Georgia Navy engaged, defeated, and captured a Royal Navy brigantine, an armed British East Florida provincial sloop, and an armed brig.
1780(14th of Nisan 5540): Ta’anit Bechorot; erev Pesah
1780: During the American Revolution, British forces under Lord Cornwallis tighten their siege of Charleston which had one of the oldest, and for its time, largest Jewish communities in the thirteen colonies.
1784: Rebecca Franks, and English native Lucius Levy Solomons who died in Montreal eight years after the birth of his daughter gave birth to Esther Solomons today.
1791(15th of Nissan, 5551): First Day of Pesach.1793: In Savannah, GA, Sarah Sheftall and Abraham De Lyon, who had been married in their home town in 1785 gave birth to Abraham De Lyon, Jr, the husband of Esther Nunes Ribeiro.
1794(19th of Nisan, 5554): Fifth Day of Pesach; Shabbat Chol Hamoed
1794: Birthdate of Breindel Blumenfeld, the wife of Wurtemberg, Germany native Mihael Amson Oberndoefrer with whom she had two children.
1796: Birthdate of Louisa Country, VA native Ann Overton Fontaine, the wife of Baltimore born John Jeremiah Jacob and the mother of life long Louisville, KY resident John Jerimiah Jacob
1799(14th of Nisan, 5559): Final Fast of the First Born in the 18th century
1807: David Braham married Sarah Abrahams today at the Western Synagogue.
1808(22nd of Nisan, 5568): Eight Day of Pesach; Yizkor recite for the last time during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson
1810(15th of Nisan, 5570): Pesach
1818: Thirty-four year old Sarah Joseph, the wife of Raphael Joseph was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”
1819: Birthdate of S.L. Schwabacher, the future Rabbi of Odessa, Russia.
1824: Lord Byron, the English poet, passed away. Byron and Isaac Nathan produced Hebrew Melodies, “a both book of songs with lyrics written by Lord Byron set to Jewish tunes by Isaac Nathan as well as a book of poetry containing Byron's lyrics alone. It was published in April 1815 with musical settings; though expensive at a cost of one guinea, over 10,000 copies sold. In the summer of the same year Byron's lyrics were published as a book of poems. The melodies include the famous poems She Walks in Beauty, The Destruction of Sennacherib and Vision of Belshazzar.”
1825(1st of Iyar, 5585): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1826: According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, today, in The Hague, Leonardus Levy Abraham Verveer and Caroline Elkan gave birth to Dutch painter and engraver Elchanan Verveer whose paintings included "The First Pipe" and "Winter," both in the museum at Rotterdam, and "The Widow" and "Sufferers from Sea-Sickness," which belong to the Stadtmuseum in The Hague.”
1827(22nd of Nisan, 5587): Eighth and final day of Pesach
1837(14th of Nisan, 5597): Fast of the First Born observed for the first time during the Presidency of Martin Van Buren, the first Chief Executive to be born in the independent United States of America.
1839: The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom. Jews reportedly had first come to Belgium with the Roman Legions in the first century of the Common Era. Written evidence dates backs to the 13th century. The community disappeared in the 14th century during the Black Death, only to return again in the 16th century when those fleeing from the Spanish Inquisition found refuge there. Brussels and Antwerp were the main centers of Jewish settlement when Belgium gained its independence. The guarantee of an independent Belgium was a given among European powers. It would be the Kaiser’s disregard for Belgium’s independence that would seal British entry into World War I which…well we all know where that led.
1841: After Jacob Ezekiel wrote to President John Tyler challenging Tyler’s reference “to the American nation as a ‘Christian people’” President Tyler wrote back to Ezekiel today explaining his reason for the statement and assuring him that he meant no disrespect to Jews in the United States.
1848(16th of Nisan, 5608): Second day of Pesach
1848: Anti-Jewish violence broke out in Budapest, Hungary.
1851: In Germany, Harris Loewenthal and Hannah Myers gave birth to their daughter Hattie, who became Hattie Weindhandler when she married Solomon Weindhandler after which she served as Vice president of the Federation of Sisterhoods and organizer of the Sisterhood at Rodeph Shalom in New York.
1855: In New York, Solomon Belais, the son of Rabbi Abraham and Naomi Belais and Jael Belais gave birth to Julia Ascher
1856(14th of Nisan, 5616): Shabbat HaGadol observed for the last time during the Presidency of Franklin Pierce.
1856: The town of Nevada, where the Nevada Hebrew City Society had been organized in 1855 was incorporated today.
1856(14th of Nisan, 5616): In the evening, first Seder.
1859(15th of Nisan, 5619): Five weeks after the Dred Scott Decision strengthened the stranglehold of slavery in the United States, Jews observed Pesach.
1860: One day after she had passed away, Laura Henrietta Symons, the daughter of George Symons and Rachel Elizabeth was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1860: At Madison, Indiana, Raphael Sulzer and Rachel Meimendinger gave birth to attorney Marcus R. Sulzer, the husband of Lida Griffith who was active in Republican politics and served as President of District Grand Lodge, No.2 of B’nai B’rth.
1861: A week after the Civil War began with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, "Joseph Friedenwald, a member of a leading Jewish family in" Baltimore, MD was among the six people arrested for attacking Union troops marching through the city on their way to Washington, DC. Baltimore was a hot-bead of Southern supporters whose attacks on the troops verged on being a riot.
1861: The 26th Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment whose members included Dr. Jacob da Silva Solis Cohen was attacked by a group of Rebel sympathizer as it went through Baltimore, MD on its way to Washington, DC.
1861: Colonel Henry K. Craig wrote to Major Alfred Mordecai that he " 'thought well' of his request for a transfer." Mordecai was a prominent Jewish officer serving in the U.S. Army who was born in the South. He was seeking a way to stay in the Army without having to fight against his family and friends. Before Craig could act, he fell ill and Mordecai's chance for a transfer would go no further.
1864: Before recessing, the New York Assembly passed a bill “relative to the New-York Hebrew Benevolent Society.”
1865: The Sephardim in New York held a special prayer for President Abraham Lincoln who was assassinated as he watched a play at Ford's Theater in Washington DC just five days earlier.
1865: Rabbi Sabato Morais delivered an address at Mikve Israel in Philadelphia following the death of President Abraham Lincoln. “The stillness of the grave reigns abroad. Where is the joyous throng that enlivened this city of loyalty? Seek it now, my friends, in the shrines of holiness. There, it lies prostrate; there, it tearfully bemoans an irretrievable loss, Oh! tell it not in the country of the Gauls; publish it not in the streets of Albion, lest the children of iniquity rejoice, lest the son of Belial triumph. For the heart which abhorred wickedness has ceased to throb; the hand which had stemmed a flood of unrighteousness, is withered in death.´ (As reported by the Jewish Virtual Library)
1865: Birthdate of Chaim Zhitlowsky, Russian born Jewish nationalist, author, critic and champion of Yiddish language and culture.
1866: Jacob and Amalia Freud give birth to Alexander Gotthold Ephraim Freud, a younger brother of Sigmund Freud.
1866: “Laying the Corner Stone of a New Jewish Synagogue in Thirty-ninth Street” published today described the ceremonies that took place at the future home Adas Jeshurun, an 80 member congregation which will be housed on a lot measuring 99 feet by 75 feet.
1867(14th of Nisan, 5627): Ta’anit Bechorot is observed as the federal government implemented the recently passed second reconstruction act which President Johnson had vetoed.
1868: At the suggestion of Chief Rabbi N. M. Adler, the three city synagogues—the Great, the Hambro', and the New—with their western branches at Portland street and Bayswater agreed to a scheme today which was submitted to the Charity Commissioners of England and embodied by them in an Act of Parliament in 1870.
1868(27th of Nisan, 5628): Seventy-two year old Judith Russell Nathans, the native of Baltimore who was the second wife of Isaiah Nathans with whom she had seven children passed away today in Philadelphia, PA.
1869: Theodore Minis Etting who had volunteered to serve in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War was promoted from the rank of Midshipman to Ensign today.
1870: German native Adolph Marix who had joined the Navy in 1864 while living in Iowa became an Ensign today.
1871: In New York, the Assembly passed an appropriations bill tonight designed to assist a variety of charitable organizations throughout the state including allocations of five hundred dollars each to the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Albany and the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Brooklyn
1872: In Germany, Albert and Anna Salomon gave birth to Alice Salomon the pioneer social worker, who was forced to flee her native land because of her “Jewish origins” which overrode the fact that she had become a Lutheran in 1914.
1872(11th of Nisan, 5632): Herman Frenkel, who served in the Galician Diet, passed away today.
1872: Today Francis Goldsmid started a debate in the House of Commons on the persecution of the Jews of Romania which resulted in the formation of a parliamentary committee which “watched the activities of the illiberal government of that country.”
1872: Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, the U.S. Counsel wrote to the Secretary of State “tahat all the foreign representatives at Bucharest, except the Russians, had signed an address to the government of Prince Charles” expressing their displeasure with the fact that the several Jews had been severely punished while those “who were charged with the gravest excesses and crimes against the Jewish population of Vilcoon” had been acquitted. “We see in this double verdict an indication of the dangers to which the Israelites are exposed in Romania”
1873(21st of Nisan, 5633): Seventh day of Pesach – 6th day of the Omer
1873(21st of Nisan, 5633): Forty-seven year old British actor and theatre manager, the father of August Harris passed away today and was buried in Brompton Cemetery, London
1874: Three days after he had passed away, 38 year old Louis Goldschmidt, the husband of Hannah Moses and the father of Therese and Annette Goldschmidt was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1875(14th of Nisan, 5635): Fast of the First Born
1875: In Lunny (near Grodno) Russia, Max Rubinow and Esther Shereshewsky, the husband of Sophie Himowich, father of Raymond and Olga Rubinow and graduate of Columbia Medical College who became an actuary and author of The Quest of Security which “established him as the most recognized theorist on social insurance in the first three decades of the twentieth century.”
1876(25th of Nisan): Rabbi Chaim Halberstam of Zanz, author of “Divrei Chaim” passed away today.
1877: In Jacksonville, Florida, David Levy officiated at the wedding of Martha Ritzwoller of Berlin and Mr. Furchgott of Charleston, S.C.
1877: In Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Julie Judith Bamberger and Isaac Seckel Bamberger, the son of Kela Bamberger and Rav Yitschak Dov Halevi Bambergerg, gave birth to Nathan Bamberger
1878: In Bellaire, Ohio, Alexander Schoenfeld and Rose Hartman gave birth to Julia Schoefeld, a graduate of Allegheny (PA) College who worked as a probation officer and school teacher while also serving as a “a member of the State Committee of Federated Women’s Clubs of Pennsylvania” which worked “to effect improvement in child labor legislation and in conditions of working women.”
1880: It was reported today that the Rabbi Morias has published a paper in the April edition of Penn Monthly about the Falashas, “a small nation of Jews in Abyssinia who do not speak Hebrew.”
1880: Birthdate of Julius G. Feit, the native of Galicia who in 1898 came to the United States where he worked as an insurance broker and was the financial and corresponding secretary of the Men’s Club at Tempe Emanu-El of Borough Park.
1880: Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman was elected first lieutenant in the Veteran Corps of the First Regiment of the Pennsylvania National Guard was formed, Hyneman. Three years later he would be promoted to the rank of Captain and serve as the quartermaster.
1881: “His Strange and Great Career” published today traces the life of Benjamin D’Israeli starting with the Inquisition and Expulsion from Spain in the 15th century.
1881: Benjamin Disraeli, former Prime Minster, 1st Earl Beaconsfield and famous novelist passed away. Born Jewish, Disraeli was converted to Christianity by his father. The elder Disraeli was angry with the Jewish community and marched his children to the baptismal font in protest. The elder Disraeli did not convert. Disraeli was proud of his Jewish heritage and certainly suffered many anti-Semitic attacks during his career. In one exchange, he reminded a political opponent that while his ancestors had been drinking blood out skulls, Disraeli’s ancestors had been singing the Psalms of David in the Temple of Solomon.
1882(30th of Nisan, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1882: Sarah Lavanburg, the daughter of Hannah (Seller) Lavanburg and Louis Lavenburg married Oscar Solomon Straus who as Sarah Straus would the life companion of one of the great leaders of pre-War Jewish community.
1882 Rabbi Dr. Henry W. Schneeberger married Sarah Nussbaum in New York City. The couple had six children - Fannie, Sigmund, Charles, Philip, Josephine, and Irvin. Sigmund, Charles, Fannie and Josephine never married and were buried in plots adjoining their parents
1882: In response to a suggestion from the Morning Post, large numbers of English men and women wore Primoses today as a way of marking the anniversary of the death of the Earl of Beaconsfield, better known as Benjamin Disraeli. The flower was a favorite of the famous author and Prime Minister and it was a fitting way of paying tribute to his many contributions.
1882: A private meeting in Berlin raised 70,000 marks which will provide assistance to Jews seeking to leave Russia. The attendees were urged to show a sense of moderation in the resolutions they adopted on the subject since it appeared that meetings in New York and London held to support the Russian Jews had done “more harm than good.”
1884: In Leadville, CO, Lottie, Eva and Abe Schloss participated in a production of “Patience” at the Tabor Opera House.
1884: Birthdate of Harvard trained attorney, Israel Noah Thurman, the native of Russia who in 1892 came to the United States where he supported the work of Margaret Sanger in the cause of birth control and women’s suffrage and joined Louis D. Brandeis as an early supporter of the Zionist movement, and marrying twice, the second time to “Stephanie Robicsek.”
1885: “Afghans and Their Home” published today asks if these Asiatic mountain warriors are descendants of the ancient Israelites.
1886(14th of Nisan, 5646): Fast of the first born
1886: In Russia, Leo and Sarah Cohn, gave birth to Meyer Solomon Cohn, the husband of Sadie Cohn and Bertha Cohn, who liked to claim that Maryland, where he passed away, was the place of his birth as well.
1886 (14th of Nisan, 5646): The City and Suburban News column reports that “the Jewish community throughout the world will this evening begin the celebration of Pesach, or the Feast of the Passover. This festival is also known as the Feast of Unleavened Bread…”
1887: Birthdate of Russian native Boris Fingerdhood who in 1907 came to the United States where he graduated from NYU, became superintendent of the Israel Zion Hospital and married twice, the second time to the “former Mrs. Sylvia Golden.
1889: In London, UK, Sir Meyer Adam Speilman and Gertrude Emily Spielman gave birth to Claude Myer Spielman
1890: Immigrants, including thousands of Jews from Eastern Europe, arriving in New York began using the Barge Office as a processing center today
1891: Abraham Shapiro married Sarah Jacobs at the East London Synagogue today
1891: Ira Leo Bamberger defeated Ernst Nathan in an election for the presidency of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society of Brooklyn
1891: It was reported today that the Hartford Theological Seminary has issued the new Practical Hebrew Grammar by Professor E.C. Bissell.
1891: It was reported today that the Russian government is planning “a fresh campaign against the Jews.”
1891: Birthdate of Hartford, CT native George Fine, the husband of Charlotte S. Friedman Fine and the father of Irving Fine.
1891: Based on material that first appeared in the Fortnightly Review, E.B. Lanin described the crumbling economic conditions in Russia. In response to claims that Jews are at fault for the usurious rates paid by peasants, he writes “Who are the usurers? The Jews? They are not for the misery of the peasants is not with the accursed pale.” The usurer “is not a Jew; he is as orthodox as the Metropolitan Isidore; as loyal as an official of the secret police.” (The fact that the Jews were not responsible for the suffering of the peasants did not keep the Czar and his cadres from using them as scapegoats.)
1892(22nd of Nisan, 5652): Eighth and final day of Pesach
1892: As of today, the city of New York is legally bound to furnish water to the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society free of charge.
1893(3rd of Iyar, 5653): Sixty-three year old Bailey Gatzert, the first only Jewish mayor of Seattle passed away today.
1893: In Hungary, Judah and Marjem Grunwald gave birth to Samuel Greenwald the husband of Szeri Greenwald.
1893: “Converting The Jews” published today provided editorial comment on “the procedure adopted by certain crude and violent evangelists to ‘convert the Jews’” saying that to convert “an educated Chinaman or an educated Hebrew to ‘convert’ him must strike him in the first place as a piece of appalling impudence.”
1895: According to remarks published today made by Rabbi Maurice H. Harris of Temple Israel in Harlem Shakespeare did not want Shylock to be seen as “a selfish monster who lived for gain” but as the victim of persecution who “if he had been treated justly and not gibed and sneered at…would not have wanted his pound of flesh.”
1895(25th of Nisan, 5655): Sixty-three year old Philadelphia philanthropist Lucien Moss, the son of Eleazer Moss and Mary Levy passed away today in his home town.
1895: “Banker, philanthropist and Liberal MP” Sydney James Sternwas raised to the peerage as Baron Wandsworth, of Wandsworth in the County of London” today.
1896: Herzl's The Jewish State was published. This is the seminal piece of literature for the modern Zionist Movement. Known to many by its more famous German title, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), is one of the seminal pieces of literature for the modern Jewish Zionist Movement. "We are a people — one people." "Palestine is our unforgettable historic homeland. . . Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who will it shall achieve their State. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and in our own homes peacefully die. The world will be liberated by our freedom, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind."
1896: As of today most of the tickets for the upcoming concert being held for the benefit of the United Hebrew Charities at the Metropolitan Opera House have been sold.
1896: The Union Hebrew Veterans’ Association met at the Grand Opera House in New York City.
1897(17th of Nisan, 5657): Third Day of Pesach
1897: The first of Boston Marathons was run. While many Jews have run in the race, none is more famous than the team from the Jewish Special Education Cooperative. Team JSEC ran in the 108th Boston Marathon. Runners included Dan Rosen, Amira Rosenberg, Josh Rosenberg, and David Katz.
1897: The Civil Service Commission is scheduled to conduct tests for foreign language interpreters including those fluent in Hebrew.
1898: The new temple that is to be built by Congregation of Adath Israel of West Harlem will used plans drawn by Solomon D. Cohen.
1900: In Leeds, U.K., Annie Morris and Hyman Morris, the son of Fanny Sapira Morris and Jacob Samuel Morris, gave birth to Albert Morris
1902: Birthdate of Newark, NJ native Phil “K.O.” Kaplan a leading middleweight who fought most of the great boxers of the 1920 including his co-religionist Maxie Rosnebloom
1903(22nd of Nisan, 5663): 8th day of Pesach
1903: Riots broke out after a Christian child is found murdered in Kishinev (Bessarabia). The mobs were incited by Pavolachi Krusheven, the editor of the anti-Semitic Newspaper Bessarabetz and the vice governor Ustrugov. Vyacheslav Von Plehev, the Minister of Interior supposedly gave orders not to stop the rioters. The Jews were accused of ritual murder. During the three days of rioting, 47 Jews were killed, 92 severely wounded, 500 slightly wounded and over 700 houses destroyed. Despite a world outcry, only two men were sentenced to seven and five years in prison, and twenty-two were sentenced for one or two years. This pogrom was instrumental in convincing tens of thousands of Russian Jews to leave to the West and to Eretz-Israel. The child was later discovered to have been killed by a relative.
1905(14th of Nisan, 5665): Fast of the First Born
1908: The New York Times reported that the observance of Holy Week and Passover had cut into the city’s social season. Activities had been limited to “affairs for charity, and some private bridges and luncheons.”
1908(18th of Nisan, 5668): Sixty-nine year old Charles Hallgarten, one of the four principle partners at Hallgarten & Company passed away.
1908: Today, Samuel B. Hamburger was elected President “Temple Ahavath Chesed Shar Hashomayim” at Lexington and 55th Street following the death of Marcus Kohner
1908: Organization of the Sons of Zion fraternal order whose members included Jacob S. Strahl, Nathan Chasan and Solomon Neuman
1908: “Ceremonies and Customs of the Easter Season” published today examines the origins and customs of Easter reminding its readers that “our Easter is a successor to the Jewish Passover.” The article pointed out that “the two are the same in their root; but the opposition of the Christians to the Jews led to a change” in the Christian celebrations.
1909” “Criticizes the Jews” published today described a sermon on Sunday evening by Reverend Frederick Lynch, past of the Pilgrim Church entitled “Christians and Jews in New York City: A Warning” in which he characterized Jews as being “ungrateful for American privileges.”
1910: For the third day in a row, the United Hebrew Community gave out supplies for the upcoming Passover holiday to the poor people living on the east side.
1911: On the day on which the completed portions of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine were consecrated The Board of Jewish Ministers sent a congratulatory telegram to Episcopal Bishop Grier.
1911: Birthdate of Podiatrist Benjamin W. Pushkin, the husband of Ann Pushkin and father of Judy and Robert Pushkin
1912: In New York events scheduled for tonight celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Free Synagogue were canceled as a sign of mourning for those who were died when the Titanic sank.
1913(12th of Nisan, 5673): Parashat Achrei Mot and Shabbat HaGadol
1913(12th of Nisan, 5673): Fifty-five year old Sigmund Kohlman, the husband of Julia H. Kolman passed away today after which he was interred in the Springhill Avenue Temple Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama.
1913: It was reported today that based on information from Beirut Baron Edmond Rothschilde has been granted permission from the government in Constantinople “to undertake excavations in Palestine” and that he “intends to establish a museum in Jerusalem in which all the objects that have historic tic bearing upon the Jewish in Palest will be collected.”
1913: It was reported today that Emperor Franz Joseph “has conferred the title of nobility upon the Jewish bank, Dr. Neuman of Budapest” which makes him a member of the Upper House of Hungary.
1913: It was reported today that “The Jewish World of London has been acquired by the proprietors of The Jewish Chronicle of London and will be published from the offices of the Chronicle.
1915: In the case of “Frank v. Mangum” “the Supreme Court denied Leo Frank’s appeal” by a seven to two vote with Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of the dissenters writing "It is our duty to declare lynch law as little valid when practiced by a regularly drawn jury as when administered by one elected by a mob intent on death."
1915: Elisa and Clairce Lispector gave birth to their middle daughter Tania.
1915: Approximately 800 people filled in the Educational Alliance building in New York with an overflow crowd in the streets heard Rabbi Stephen S. Wise speak at “a mass meeting in honor of Baron Nathan Rothschild who died recently in London” where he praised him for “his efforts to give education to the Jews of the world over.”
1916(16th of Nisan, 5676): Second Day of Pesach; 1st Day of the Omer
1916: Because today is the second day of Passover, “the collection of bundles and bags for the United Hebrew Charities Bundle Day” did not take place today but is scheduled to be resumed tomorrow.
1917: During World War I, as the maneuvering continued to try and gain British support for a Jewish homeland, Sir Ronald Graham wrote to Mark Sykes expressing his concern that the Zionist movement was relying too heavily on the hope that British would be annexing Palestine and making it part of the British Empire after the War.
1917(27th of Nisan, 5677): Lt. Joshua Levy, who had been a “clothier” before enlisting in the British Army in 1914 died today while serving with the Norfolk Regiment.
1917: Founding of the Jewish Welfare Board which was designed “to meet the religious and cultural needs of Jewish personnel in the U.S. military.
1917: On the same day that the Russian Foreign Minister offered reassurances that his country would not make a separate peace and that Lenin was criticized for having accepted German assistance to return to Russia, reports continued to circulate that attempts were being made to “organize a massacre of the Jews and intelligent classes” in Kishinev.
1918(7th of Iyar, 5678): Lt. Lawrence Braham Rosenbaum one of the sons of Solomon Rosenbaum, a Russian-born pawnbroker, died today while serving with the Monmouthshire Regiment.
1919: On the fifth day of Pesach which was also Shabbat Chol Hamoed, the Polish army occupied Vilna and attacked its Jewish community.
1919: Eugene Schiffer completed his term as Minister of Finance in Germany.
1919: The Hebrew Scouts Movement is founded.
1919: In Cedar Rapids, IA, John and Ruth Miller gave birth to Joan Miller Lipsky, the widow of Abbot Lipsky.
1919: Birthdate of Philadelphia Sol Kaplan the successful concert pianist and concert business who was blacklisted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
1920: At Gomel The Twelfth Conference of Bund “where the party was split into two separate parties, the majority Communist Bund and the minority Social Democratic Bund, came to an end today. (Editor’s note: Yes, strange as it may seem to us looking at events from 98 years ago, this sort of philosophic wrangling went in in deadly earnest even as post-War Europe was racked with revolution and privation.)
1920: In New York City, Harry and Beatrice Kaplan Reinhardt gave birth to Sheldon Reinhardt and his twin brother, Burton “who as the detail-minded, taciturn television executive behind his more extroverted boss, Ted Turner, played a crucial role in the formative years of CNN and the 24-hour cable news cycle. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1920: Birthdate of Kazimierz Smolen, a Roman Catholic Pole who survived Auschwitz survivor and who after World War II became director of a memorial museum at the site.
1920: Associated Justice Louis Brandeis voted with the majority today in deciding State of Missouri v. Holland, United States Game Warden a case in which Louis Marshall, Esq. submitted an amicus curae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on Missouri v. Holland on behalf of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks was decided today.
1920: Birthdate of Marvin Mandel, the 56th Governor of Maryland.
1922: Birthdate of New York born American actress Marian Winters
1923: Frances (Fanny) Wolf, the New York born daughter of Lillian Hendricks Levy and Louis Napoleon Levy and her first husband Harold Lewis gave birth to Philip Lewis.
1923: In Manhattan, Jacob and Regina (Rothenberg) Hymes gave birth to Philip Frederick Hymes the WW II veteran and hold of an M.A. from the Teachers College at Columbia best known for his backstage work with “Saturday Night Live.” (As reported by Richard Sandomir)
1924(15th of Nisan, 5684): Pesach
1924(15th of Nisan, 5684): In the evening, some of Harvard’s Jewish students are scheduled to attend a seder at the home of Greek and Latin Professor Harry K. Messenger, who along with his converted to Judaism.
1925(25th of Nisan, 5685): Sir David Lionel Goldsmid-Stern-Salomons passed away. Born in 1851 he “was a scientific author and barrister.” The son of Philip Salomons of Brighton, and Emma, daughter of Jacob Montefiore of Sydney, he succeeded to the Baronetcy originally granted to his uncle David Salomons in 1873. He married Laura, daughter of Hermann Stern, 1st Baron de Stern and Julia, daughter of Aaron Asher Goldsmid, brother of Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid by which he had one son and three daughters. He assumed the additional surnames and arms of Goldsmid and Stern in 1899. He studied at University College, London and at Caius College, Cambridge, gaining a B.A. in 1874. In the same year he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple. He went on to produce several scientific works and pamphlets. He was a J.P., D.L. and High Sheriff of Kent, mayor and alderman of Tunbridge Wells, County Councilor for the Tunbridge division of Kent for 15 years and J.P. for London, Middlesex, Sussex, and Westminster. His home north of Tunbridge Wells, Broomhill, is preserved as the Salomons Museum. It is also a part of Canterbury Christ Church University, and is a center for postgraduate training, research and consultancy”
1926: “A group of prominent real estate men met tonight at the Park Lane Hotel” and “announced their contribution of $200,000 to the United Jewish Campaign which formally opens later this week in the presence of Mayor James Walker who had defied doctor’s orders to attend the event.
1927: “King of Kings” a Biblical epic silent film starring Joseph Schildkraut and Rudolph Schildkraut with music by Hugo Riesenfeld and Joseph Zuro and including an appearance by Ayn Rand as an extra was released today in the United States.
1928: Birthdate of William Klein, the New York of “an impoverished Jewish family” who gained fame as French photographer and filmmaker.
1929: “Dinner Aids Salomon Fund” published today described inauguration of the Haym Salomon monument campaign which begin with a dinner at the Hotel Biltmore where attendees heard a speech by “Benjamin Winter, President of the Federation of Polish Jews, which is sponsoring the Salomon memorial.”
1930: In The Bronx, “operatic tenor Jan Peerce and talent agent Alice (Kalmanowitz) Peerce” gave birth to director Lawrence “Larry” Peerce whose most famous film may “Goodbye, Columbus.”
1930: New York Yankee 2nd baseman Jimmie Reese played in his first major league baseball game.
1931: After having premiered in New York City two week ago, “Crack Nuts” a comedy with music by Max Steiner was released to the rest of the United States
1933: As an expression of Nazi anger over Churchill’s speech warning that the Jews of Poland could suffer the same fate as the Jews of Germany, “a correspondent of the Birmingham Post reported from Berlin that ‘today newspapers are full with ‘sharp warnings for England’ with one headline referring to ‘Mr. Winston Churchill’s Impudence.’”
1933: “Campaign of English Nazis Taken Up in Rome During Mosely Parleys” published today described a meeting in Rome attended by Sir Oswald Mosley, Herman Goering “and other Fascist leaders in which methods for growing a Fascist movement that would number more than a million in England were discussed. (JTA)
1934: According to a report by Morton Rotehnberg, President of the Zionist Organization of America, 11,000 German Jewish refugees had entered Palestine from April 1, 1933 through January 1, 1934. As co-chair of the United Jewish Appeal, Rothenberg is contributions totaling three million dollars to aid the refugees from Germany.” At the same time, Dr. Arthur Hantke, director of the Palestine Foundation Fund reported that “there is no unemployment.” There is an “insistent demand for workers” throughout the country meaning that the influx of immigrants will be a net economic gain.
1935(16th of Nisan, 5695): Second Day of Pesach
1935: It was reported today that the project to settle 1,600 Jewish children from Germany to Palestine by February 1936 “is among those supported by American Jewry through the United Jewish Appeal which is conducting a nationwide drive” to raise $3,250,000.
1936: Carl J. Austrian made public telegrams “Presidents and chancellors of several colleges and university in” the United States sent to Rabbi Jonah B. Wise in which they deplored “a decree promulgated shortly after Easter excluding Jewish children from German public schools.”
1936 (27th of Nisan, 5696): As Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Palestine Arabs killed nine Jews in Jaffa. Among the victims was Eliezer Bugitsky who was murdered by Sales Hassan and Abu Aabahi. The riots lasted until 1939. The end product is the White Paper which was intended to put an end Jewish immigration and new land purchases.
1936: Arabs attacked Jews in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa district this morning leaving nine Jews dead and another fifty seriously wounded.
1936: “The economic plight of Jews in Poland suffering anti-Semitism was described at a mass meeting at the Hotel Pennsylvania today called by the Federation of Polish Jews in America in behalf of the American Committee Appeals for Polish Jews” which is trying to raise one million dollars to help the Poles.
1937: Time magazine publishes an article an article about the origins and growth of Hart, Schaffner and Marx as the clothing firm marks its fiftieth anniversary.
1937: Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge a project on which Joseph Strauss served as Chief Engineer was completed today.
1938(18th of Nisan, 5698) Fourth Day of Pesach
1938: In Providence, RI, a Polish born immigrant who “worked as a plumber and contractor” gave birth to controversial academic Stanley Fish the holder of a B.A. from Penn and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale who began his career as an expert on poet John Milton.
1938: Two hundred eighty prisoners attended a Passover service tonight at Sing Sing Prison where were led by Rabbi Jacob Katz, the Jewish chaplain and Zalman Yavneh the cantor at the West Side Institute Synagogue.
1939(30th of Nisan, 5699): Isaac Carasso passed away today in France. Born in 1874, in what is now Thessaloniki but was then part of the Ottoman Empire, Carasso was part of a promienent Sephardic family. He practiced medicine in Spain before beginning his studies of the effects of Yogurt on digestion. In 1919 he founded the company that many Americans recognize as Danon Yogurt
1939: The Mizrachi Women’s Organization of America raised $20,000 at a luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria
1939(30th of Nisan, 5699): Henry Levi Leavitt the Chicago born husband of Lena Gertrude Baer and father of Melbourne, Ruth, Adelaide and Margaret Leavitt who opened The Horseshoe Store in Hoquaim, Washington with his brother-in-law Julius Baer and “served as the first vice-president of Temple Beth Israel in Aberdeen, Washington, passed away today in Los Angeles.
1939: The Women’s League of Palestine raised $30,000 at a luncheon at the Hotel Astor.
1940: In Sofia, Bulgaria, the governments of Bulgaria and Romania signed an agreement creating an airline which will operate between Sofia and Bucharest with connecting flights to Tel Aviv.1941(22nd of Nisan, 5701): 8th Day of Pesach; Shabbat Shel Pesach
1941: Robert F. Wagner, Sr. introduced a resolution in the U.S. Senate stating that U.S. policy should favor the "restoration of the Jews in Palestine." The resolution was supported by 68 Senators.
1943: Members of Belgium Jewish underground aided by Christian railroad men derailed a train filled with Jewish deportees bound for the extermination camps. Several hundred Jews were saved.
1943(14th of Nisan, 5703 ) - PASSOVER, WARSAW Ghetto UPRISING; The Jews were determined not to be moved without giving up a fight. 2,100 Germans, fully armed, enter the Ghetto. The Jews fighting force consisted of about 700 men and women. They were armed with 17 rifles, 50 pistols and several thousand grenades and Molotov cocktails. A small group of Jewish fighters open fire on the entering German troops. After an hour of skirmishing, the Germans retreated. The final liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto began on the Eve of Passover, April 19, 1943. The deportation did not come as a surprise. The Germans had amassed a military force to carry it out, but did not expect to engage in a confrontation that included street battles. Armed German forces ringed the ghetto at 3:00 a.m. The unit that entered the ghetto encountered armed resistance and retreated. The main ghetto, with its population of 30,000 Jews, was deserted. The Jews could not be rounded up for the transport; the railroad cars at the deportation point remained empty. After Germans and rebels fought in the streets for three days, the Germans began to torch the ghetto, street by street, building by building. The entire ghetto became a sizzling, smoke-swathed conflagration. Most of the Jews who emerged from their hideouts, including entire families, were murdered by the Germans on the spot. The ghetto Jews gradually lost the strength to resist. On April 23, Mordecai Anielewicz the ZOB commander wrote the following to Yitzhak Zuckerman, a member of the ZOB command who was stationed on the "Aryan" side: "I cannot describe the conditions in which the Jews are living. Only a special few will hold out; all the others will perish sooner or later. Their fate is sealed. None of the bunkers where our comrades are hiding has enough air to light a candle at night.... Be well, my dear, perhaps we shall yet meet. The dream of my life has risen to become fact. Self - defense in the ghetto will have been a reality. I have been a witness to the magnificent, heroic fighting of Jewish men of battle". The rebels pursued their cause, even though they knew from the outset that they could not win. The Jewish underground would continue to fight the Nazis until the middle of May. The Polish underground only gave minimal help because of anti-Semitism prevalent among many. Although the Allies will neither publicize events nor try to help, even before the war ended, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising became a symbol of Jewish resistance
1943: Chaike Belchatowska who had joined he ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization) in January, 1943, and her future husband Boruch Spiegel, a commander of a ZOB fighting unit were among those who took part in the uprising that began today and we among the handful of fighters who survived.
1943: The Bermuda Conference of Great Britain and the U.S., held in Hamilton, Bermuda, takes no meaningful action to help Jews in Europe. Before the meeting, representatives of both countries had agreed not to discuss immigration of Jews to their nations nor to ship food to Jewish refugees in German-occupied Europe.
1943: A year and a half after having been “to the predominately Jewish district of Sophienstreasse in Berlin,” “Arthur Schmidt was sent on Transport 37 from Gleis (Track) 17 of Berlin-Grunewald Station to Auschwitz” after which he was never heard from again.
1943: “Richard Law, the senior British representative at today’s Bermuda Conference wrote to his boss, foreign secretary Anthony Eden, ‘Sorry to bother you about Jews. I know what a bore it is.’”
1943(14th of Nisan, 5703): Rabbi Menachem Ziemba conducted a Seder tonight in the Warsaw Ghetto days before he would be gunned down the Wehrmacht.
1943(14th of Nisan, 5703): Members of the military attended a Seder at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C.
1944: Birthdate of Tel Aviv native, Yehuda Weinstein, who became the Attorney General of Israel.
1944(26th of Nisan, 5704): Eva Levin Altfeld, the Russian born daughter of Sima and Aba Ascher Levin and the wife of Solomon Altfeld passed away today after which she was buried at the B’nai Israel Congregation Cemetery in Baltimore, MD.
1945: General Bedell Smith, Ike’s Chief of Staff, telephones Churchill to describe the horror that American troops found when they liberated Buchenwald. Smith assures Churchill that it was worse than the scenes Ike had described in his telegraph of the previous day.
1945: A “tommy” was photographed using his bulldozer to push the corpses found at Bergen-Belsen into a mass grave.” (Editor’s note – the British were not being insensitive. They were trying to avoid an epidemic that would have wiped out more the survivors, most of whom were little more than walking skeletons with no resistance to disease.)
1945: For a second time, General Eisenhower cabled Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, with a request to bring members of Congress and journalists to the newly liberated camps so that they could bring the horrible truth about Nazi atrocities to the American public.
1945: General Marshall received permission from the Secretary of War, Henry Lewis Stimson, and President Harry S. Truman for these delegations to visit the liberated camps
1945: During an afternoon speech in the House of Commons, Churchill describes the horrors discovered by Allied troops at places like Buchenwald and calls for Parliament to send eight representatives to view the camps as the first step in bringing those responsible for these atrocities to justices.
1945: U.S. Army troops captured Leipzig, Germany today where they found a general of the Volksstrum who had committed suicide lying in the floor of city “with a torn picture of His feuhrer beside his clenched fist.”
1945: The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Carousel" opened on Broadway.
1945: Dr. Rudolf Kastner crossed the Swiss border today.
1946: Bouquets of gladioluses and other flowers from Palestine were present to wounded American soldiers at Halloran General Hospital in Staten Island as a gift of Palestine war veterans in appreciation of the aid the American military gave in the liberation of Europe’s Jews. The gift was timed to coincide with the Festival of Passover.” The flowers were grown in Mishmar Hasharon a settlement mid-way between Tel Aviv and Haifa.
1946: New York Yankees Pitcher Herb Karpel appeared in his first major league baseball game.
1947: This evening, The Shanghai Jewish Youth Community Center opened its Warsaw Ghetto Commemoration week with a Yizkor service.
1947: Comedian Shelly Berman married Sarah Berman
1948: Twenty-four armored trucks filled with Jewish veterans who had served with the British Army during WW II, drove to a hilltop “situated less than a mile from the Arab village of Bureir” where the Jews disembarked and established a new settlement called Brur Hayal.
1948: Haganah captured Tiberias
1948: Dr. Maurice Finkelstein was appointed chairman of New York City’s Temporary Housing Rent Commission which had been “set up to administer the local freezing rents for permanent guests of hotels, apartment hotels and rooming and lodging houses” while aiding tenants threatened with eviction.
1948: A Palmach unit used Al-Kafrayn for a training base before blowing it up
1949(20th of Nisan, 5709): Reform Rabbi and Zionist leader Stephen Samuel Wise who in 1942 had met with U.S. Under-secretary of State Sumner Wells and that held “a press conference where he announced that the Nazis had a plan for the extermination of all European Jews, and had already killed 2 million” passed away passed away today. (Editor’s note – Guess the World really did know and the world just did not care)
1950: At speech given to the Commerce and Industry Association in New York City, Harry A. Shadmon, director of the export division of the Chamber of Commerce of Tel Aviv and Jaffa said that “Israel stands a good chance this year of doubling the $4,500,000 in exports which it sent to the United States in 1949.” The figure for 1949 is especially impressive considering the military challenges the Jewish state was facing for the first six months of that year.
1951: CBS broadcast the first episode of “Casey, Crime Photographer” produced by Martin Manulis, with music by Morton Gould.
1951: “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” with lyrics by Dorothy Fields and music by Arthur Schwartz, based on the novel with the same name opened at the Alvin Theatre
1952: Herb “Gorman appeared for the St. Louis Cardinals against the Chicago Cubs today pinch-hitting in the 7th inning and grounding out” in what “was his only game in the majors.”
1952(24th of Nisan): Yiddish poet Moses David Gisser passed away in Santiago, Chile
1953(4th of Iyar, 5713): Yom HaZikaron
1953: Hermann Merkin and Ursula Merkin (née Ursula Sara Breuer) gave birth Jacob Ezra Merkin the financier who was a friend and business associate of Bernard Madoff with whom he colluded in the one of the worst Ponzi Schemes of the 21st century.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that torches and ceremonies on Mount Herzl had signaled the start of Israel's sixth year of independence.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Yasha Heifetz, the world-famous violinist, whose countrywide concerts schedule included a Richard Strauss violin sonata, cancelled his next recital, as his right hand, struck by an unknown person who opposed playing Strauss and Wagner in Israel, had become painful. Prime minister, David Ben-Gurion expressed his deep regret over this unfortunate incident.
1953: The Jewish Labor Committee adopted a comprehensive program for this year that included a greater effort to obtain fair employment legislation in states and cities, as well as intensified activity to achieve drastic revisions of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act.
1955: Ten months after having premiered in the United Kingdom, “The Young Lovers” with a screenplay by George Tabori, a score by Benjamin Frankel and featuring David Kossoff who would a British Film Academy Award as “most promising newcomer to film” was released in the United States today.
1960(22nd of Nisan, 5720): Eighth Day of Pesach marking the last observance of the holiday during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower.
1961: In Manhattan, Borscht Belt comedian Freddie Roman and his wife gave birth to Alan Kirschenbaum a television producer and comedy writer who worked on such shows as "Raising Hope," "My Name is Earl" and "Yes, Dear" (As reported by the LA Times obit staff)
1961(13th of Nisan, 5730): Sixty-five year old actress Rose Wallerstein, the wife Los Angeles theatre owner Oscar Ostroff passed away way today in California.
1962(15th of Nisan, 5722): Pesach
1962: U.S. premiere of “Five Finger Exercise” based on the play by Peter Shaffer, directed by Daniel Mann with music by Jerome Moross.
1965: Funeral services for the late Mendel Osherowitch are scheduled to take place this morning at 11 am in Manhattan.
1966(29th of Nisan, 5726): Eighty-year old “prize-winning poet, author, translator, historian, and communal leader Emily Solis-Cohen” passed away. (As reported by Arthur Kiron)
1966: Eighty-nine year old Russian born American opera impresario Max Rabinoff passed away today.
1967: The head of the Zionist Organization of America declared today that Israel's hope for increased Western immigration, particularly a large influx of technically skilled young American Jews, could be realized only if Israel "creates the social and economic conditions" to attract it.1967: Konrad Adenauer former Chancellor of West Germany passed away. Born in 1876, Adenauer remained in Germany during the war. He was imprisoned by the government for his anti-Nazi sentiments. In 1949, he was named Chancellor of the democratically elected West German Government. Adenauer worked to reshape the role of Germany which included accepting responsibility for de-Nazfication and the role that Germany had played during the war. He agreed to a program of reparations for the Jewish people and worked to establish harmonious relations with the state of Israel. He did this in the face of pressure from Arab governments that had a lot more to offer the struggling German economy.
1970(13th of Nisan, 5730): Sixty-three year old Theodore Yudain, the Russian born son of Morris and Bertha Yudain and Connecticut newspaperman Theodore Yudain who was editor of the Greenwich News Graphic, political editor of the Bridgeport Herald and editor of the Stamford Advocate passed away today.
1971: In Casablanca, Moroccan Sephardic JewsDavid and Régine Elmaleh gave birth to “French stand-up comedian and actor” Gad Elmaleh.
1972: The late Diane Arbus's photographs were chosen to appear in the Venice Biennale, marking the first time an American photographer was honored at the event.
1973(17th of Nisan, 5733): Third Day of Pesach
1973(17th of Nisan, 5753): Ninety one year old Hans Kelsen, the main author of Austria's new constitution after the First World War” and the Pure Theory of Law passed away today at Berkley, CA.
1973(17th of Nisan, 5733): Sixty-seven year old realtor Ida (Menter) Arffa, the widow of Emanuel Arffa and mother of Gerald, David and Marvin passed away today in New York state
1973: Barbra Streisand recorded "Between Yesterday & Tomorrow"
1973: “Soylent Greent,’ a science fiction cliff hanger directed by Richard Fleishcer and co-starring Edward G. Robinson was released today in the United States.
1973: Birthdate of Israeli professional tennis player Tzipora “Tzipi” Obziler who represented Israel at the 2008 Summer Olympics in China.”
1974(27th of Nisan, 5734): Yom HaShoah
1974(27th of Nisan, 5734): Yigal Stavi was killed today when his F-4E Phantom II was shot down today by the Syrians.
1974: Benny Kiryati was taken prisoner when his F-4E Phantom II was shot down today by the Syrians.
1975(8th of Iyar, 5735): Seventy-six year old French author and historian Robert Aron passed away on the night before he was scheduled to be formally inducted into Académie Française
1976: Professor of Meterology Tzvi Gal-Chen and his wife gave birth to Rivka Galchen “a Canadian-American writer and physician whose first novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, was published in 2008.” She has served as an adjunct professor in the writing division of Columbia University's School of Art
1978: Yitzhak Navron was elected 5th President of Israel.
1978: NBC broadcast “The Saving Remnant,” the fourth and final episode of the mni-series “Holocaust”
1978: Following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon after Operation Litani, the South Lebanon Army (SLA) shelled NIFIL headquarters.
1978: In Palo Alto, CA, Betsy Lou (née Verne), a writer and occasional actress, and Douglas Eugene "Doug" Franco a Silicon Valley businessman who met while they were students at Stanford gave birth to James Franco “an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, teacher, author and poet.”
1979(22nd of Nisan, 5739): Eighth Day of Pesach and Yizkor
1979: Five Prisoners of Zion - Boris Penson, Anatoly Altman, Leib Khnokh, Hillel Butman and Wolf Zalmanson – were “pardoned by the Soviet authorities and left for Israel.
1981(15th of Nisan, 5741): Pesach is observed for the first time under President Ronald Reagan.
1982: Aharon Abuhatzira was convicted today “of larceny, breach of trust and fraud.”
1984(17th of Nisan, 5774): Third day of Pesach
1984: In “Ernie Cobb Keeps Chasing a Dream” published today Dave Anderson described how Ernie Cobb, who played basketball in Israel when nobody else would give him a chance, overcame false charges that he had taken point in a point-fixing conspiracy during while playing for Boston College.
1985: In a joint ceremony, President Ronald Reagan presented the Congressional Gold Medal to Elie Wiesel and on signed the Jewish Heritage Week Proclamation at the same time that Wiesel “stirred deep emotions when he tried to dissuade President Ronald Reagan from taking time from a planned trip to West Germany to visit a military cemetery there, in Bitburg, where members of Hitler’s elite Waffen SS were buried” saying “That place, Mr. President, is not your place…Your place is with the victims of the SS.’http://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/resources/reagan.html
1987: Lieutenant General Levi ended his term as IDF Chief of Staff. The Tel Aviv native joined the army in 1954 and took part in the parachute drop into the Mitla Pass during the 1956 Sinai Campaign. He passed away on January 8, 2008 (Shevat 1) at the age of 72.
1987: Today a series of shorts that would become the Simpsons became a regular feature of the Tracey Ullman Show, a creation of James. L. Brooks.
1989(14th of Nisan, 5749): Ta’anit Bechroto; erev Pesach
1989: One day after he had passed way, 63 year old Brooklyn born Melvin Annenberg, a loan office with Merchants Bank in Syracuse was buried in Temple Adath Yeshurun Cemetery.
1991: “Drop Dead Fred” a comedy starring Phoebe Cates was released today in the United States.
1993(28th of Nisan, 5753): Yom HaShoah observed for the first time during the Presidency of Bill Clinton.
1993: Fifty years after the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Lillian Lazar describes the fight against the Nazis.
1994: In Riverside Park, as a small group gathered to remember the 51st anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Ruth W. Messinger's thoughts turned to what was happening in Gorazde. "Remembering what happened in Warsaw helps us express our outrage at what is now happening in Bosnia," said the Manhattan Borough President, referring to the siege of the Bosnian town. Benjamin Meed, another New Yorker, was living just outside the ghetto walls when the rebellion began on April 19, 1943, a Jew with Aryan papers. "For weeks I saw the ghetto burn," said the man who is now the president of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance Organization in America. "It was terrible. I remember how I watched my neighbors go about their normal lives. There was a carousel outside the ghetto walls that kept going. I cannot forget the bystanders. Now, I cannot believe that after that the world could allow such a thing today." By the time the handful of ghetto fighters had mounted their valiant but hopeless uprising, there were 40,000 Jews left inside the ghetto facing the fatal deportation that had already carried hundreds of thousands to their deaths. Then, news of what was happening did not make its way easily from Warsaw. Word comes more speedily from Gorazde, where there are reportedly 65,000 people huddling in flight from Serbian forces advancing into the city, and United Nations officials have warned of a potential humanitarian catastrophe.
1994: A Tenement Building at 97 Orchard Street, New York City, NY was designated as a National Historic Landmark. “Built between the years 1863-1864, the tenement building at 97 Orchard Street is representative of the first surge in tenement construction in New York City propelled by the need to accommodate the large influx of immigrants that were settling in the Lower East Side during this period. The late nineteenth century saw a precipitous increase in Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe, many of whom settled in the Lower East Side. The building at 97 Orchard Street housed numerous ethnic groups including Germans, Irish, Greek and Spanish, however, the ethnic make-up of the tenement building between 1890 and well into the 1920s consisted entirely of Eastern European Jews. With its upper four floors remaining virtually untouched for sixty years, the building readily conveys to the present-day observer the harsh and confining living conditions experienced by many immigrants in New York City during the latter part of the nineteenth century, and Eastern European Jews in particular. During its period of highest use, as many as 10,000 people may have inhabited the tenement building at 97 Orchard Street.”
1996: Boļeslavs Maikovskis, the Latvian Nazi collaborator who lived undetected in New York for 36 before fleeing back to Europe died today without ever answering for his crimes.
1997: Amid a ballroom filled with local notables, and political dignitaries, the Jewish Chautauqua Society honored former U.S. Senator Harris Wofford with its National Champion of Interfaith Award. For the Jewish Chautauquans, who promote public service and interfaith dialogue, the award was especially relevant. Wofford, a Democrat who represented Pennsylvania in the Senate, is the Clinton administration's standard-bearer for volunteerism, the chief executive officer of the Corporation for National Service.
1998: In “The World; 50 Years Ago in Israel: Trying to Imagine the Future,” Marc D. Charney traces the history of the Jewish state.
1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of interest to Jewish readers including “The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision” by Henry Kamen, ''The Discipline of Hope,'' by Herbert Kohl, and “Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women” by Elizabeth Wurtzel.
2000(14th of Nisan, 5760): Fast of the First Born observed for the last time during the Presidency of Bill Clinton
2000(14th of Nisan, 5760: As Jews sat down for the Seder, based on the number of sales, thousands of Jews had their first chance to use the Reconstruction A Night of Questions: A Passover Haggadah by Rabbis Joy Levitt and Michael Strassfeld
2001(27th of Nisan, 5761): Ninety-year old Obie award winning playwright Lionel Abel “the son of Alter Abelson, a rabbi and poet, and of Anna Schwartz Abelson, a writer of short stories” passed away today.
2001(27th of Nisan, 5761): Forty-five Ornan Yekutieli, a sixth-generation Israeli on his father's side and a second generation Holocaust survivor on his mother's side who was born in Haifa in 1955 and was head of Jerusalem Now faction in the Jerusalem City Council, passed away in New York while waiting for a liver transplant.
2001: President and Mrs. Bush participated in the “Days of Remembrance” Observance in the U.S. Capitol. The President declared, “We are bound by conscience to remember what happened, and to whom it happened.” Mrs. Bush participated in the lighting of candles with a Holocaust survivor.
2001: At Colgate University’s Saperstein Jewish center Barry Strauss, director of peace studies and a professor of history at Cornell University, delivers a talk entitled “Massacre and Memory," followed by a discussion of the 1914 massacre in a small Russian-Polish village, and its after-effects.
2002: This afternoon 250 Jews and 350 Palestinians shouted at each other across Michigan Avenue in Chicago as the Arab-Israel conflict comes to the Windy City.
2003(17th of Nisan, 5763): Third Day of Pesach and Shabbat Chol HaMoed
2003: “Israel said today that it was willing to pull back troops, release some Palestinian prisoners and ease travel restrictions if an emerging Palestinian government made a serious effort to halt violence.”
2004(28th of Nisan, 5764): Yom HaShoah
2004(28th of Nisan, 5764): Samuel Ralph "Subway Sam" Nahem a journey-man pitcher who began his career with Brooklyn in 1938 and finished it with the Phillies in 1948 passed away today at the age of 88. Nahem came from a Jewish baseball family since his uncle was outfielder Al Silvera.
2004: The Jewish Theological Seminary Board of Overseers organizes a fund raiser that features a rare exhibition of original copies of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights, owned by Dorothy Tapper Goldman. Proceeds from the event will enable JTS to make new acquisitions.
2005: A new mikvah designed by an Israeli architect was dedicated at the Grand Choral Synagogue in St. Petersburg, Russia.
2005(10th of Nisan, 5765): Seventy-nine pioneering jazz drummer Stan Levey passed away today.
2006: Haaretz reported that a sixteen-year-old tourist from the United States who sustained critical wounds in Monday's suicide bombing was still in serious condition.The teenager was fighting for his life after doctors operated on him most of the night. His injuries were mostly to his stomach and internal organs and his aorta was torn, she said. The American boy's family did not want any details about him released to the media.
2006(21st of Nisan, 5766): Members of Portugal's Jewish community said prayers in a downtown Lisbon square to mark the 500th anniversary of a massacre of thousands of Jews in the Portuguese capital's streets. Chronicles from the time recount that when Catholic crowds, incited by a small group of priests, ran amok for three days in 1506 at least 2,000 Jews were butchered and burnt alive. The violence was said to have broken out after a local Jew questioned the validity of a supposed miracle. Lisbon at the time was gripped by hunger amid a prolonged drought and was threatened by an outbreak of the plague. Locals, encouraged by the Inquisition, sought divine help. About 50 members of Lisbon's Jewish community, estimated to number around 1,000, gathered at dusk in a square next to the Maria II National Theater, which was built on the site of an old Inquisition court. Participants declined to speak to reporters, citing a religious prohibition. Portugal's King Manuel I forced all Jews in his country to convert to Catholicism in 1496. Some fled, but those who stayed were subjected to humiliating public baptisms. They were designated "New Christians" or "Marranos," Iberian slang for pigs. Even then, they remained at risk from religious persecution and lived in designated Jewish quarters. In 1988, Portugal's then-president Mario Soares formally apologized to Jews for the persecution.
2007: The Israel Opera presents the season’s first performance of Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos.”
2007: A four day long International Conference entitled “Children Hidden in Belgium during the Holocaust meeting in Israel comes to an end.
2007: Paul “Kurtz appeared on Penn & Teller's television show Bullshit! arguing that exorcism and Satanic cults are merely "hype and paranoia.”
2007(1st of Iyar): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that A Bible that a condemned member of the pre-state underground gave to his British prison guard minutes before he and a fellow Zionist fighter killed themselves is to be returned by the guard's son in Jerusalem today, six decades later. The saga dates back to 1947, when Meir Feinstein, 19, and Moshe Barazani, 21, were sentenced to death by the Mandatory authorities. Feinstein, of the Irgun, was condemned for his part in the bombing of the Jerusalem train station, and Barazani, of Lehi (the Stern Gang), was arrested with a grenade in his pocket while attempting to kill the city's British military commander. The two men became friends in the Jerusalem Central Prison and decided to blow themselves up rather than be hanged. Feinstein and Barazani formed a connection with a British police guard at the prison, Thomas Henry Goodwin, whom they dubbed "the good jailer." Right before their deaths, Feinstein presented Goodwin with a personally inscribed illustrated Bible. The Hebrew inscription read: "In the shadow of the gallows, 21.4.47. To the British soldier as you stand guard. Before we go to the gallows, accept this Bible as a memento and remember that we stood in dignity and marched in dignity. It is better to die with a weapon in hand than to live with hands raised. Meir Feinstein" A separate, similar English inscription was written below. Minutes later, after asking the guard for a moment of privacy to say a few prayers - thereby saving his life - the two men killed themselves with two booby-trapped oranges they'd hidden in their cell. Goodwin only realized later that there was an inscription for him in the Bible. "There is no doubt that they did not want to injure the guard. This is unequivocal," said Underground Prisoners Museum director Yoram Tamir in Jerusalem. Goodwin returned to the United Kingdom after Israel gained its independence in 1948 and kept the Bible for the next half century. Before his death, he asked his family to return it to the Feinstein family. Several months ago, Goodwin's son Dennis contacted the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem seeking to track down Feinstein's family and return the Bible. The Underground Prisoners Museum was able to locate Meir Feinstein's nephew, Elazar Feinstein. Today, Dennis Goodwin will return the Bible to Feinstein at the museum. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert attends the ceremony, which is conducted in cooperation with the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, and under the auspices of the Jewish Agency and the Prime Minister's Office. The Bible will be put on display at the Underground Prisoners Museum. Feinstein and Barazani are buried on the Mount of Olives.
2008: Diversity of Devotion: Celebrating New York’s Spiritual Harmony, an exhibit of photographs on display at the Brooklyn Public Library celebrating Faith in its many forms comes to a close. The Brooklyn Public Library show includes a photograph of Rabbi Levy and Rabbi Eliyahu of Congregation Beth Elohim in Queens taken by photographer and Forward contributor Julian Voloj. The work was drawn from Voloj’s series of photos on black Jews in America.
2008: Palestinian suicide bombers from Gaza drove three explosives-laden vehicles into the Kerem Shalom goods crossing on the border with Israel early today.
2008(14th of Nisan, 5768): Just as it did 65 years ago, the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising falls on the same day on both the secular and Jewish calendars.
2008(14th of Nisan, 5768): In the evening, the first Seder marks the start of Pesach.
2008: The last surviving leader of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising paid silent tribute to the young Jews who launched the doomed revolt against Nazi troops 65 years ago. Marek Edelman, 89, handed yellow tulips and daffodils to his grandchildren, Liza and Tomek. He watched as they placed them at the foot of the gray-and-black Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto, located in a barren square at the heart of the former ghetto. Accompanied by a crowd of a few hundred people in wet weather, Edelman, in a wheelchair, moved on to nearby monuments to leaders of the ghetto revolt, before ending in a square where the Nazis put more than 300,000 Jews on trains to Auschwitz and other death camps. At a separate ceremony, members of the Jewish community read out the names of some of those killed in the uprising and then formed a human chain in front of the ghetto heroes' monument, as sirens wailed and military guards fired three rounds of gunfire as a sign of mourning. The uprising was the first act of large-scale armed civilian resistance against the Germans in occupied Poland during World War II. The Nazis walled off the ghetto in November 1940, cramming 400,000 Jews from across Poland into it, under inhuman conditions. On April 19, 1943, German troops started to liquidate the ghetto by sending tens of thousands of its residents to death camps. In the face of imminent death, several hundred young Jews took up arms in defense of the civilians. They held off German troops for three weeks with homemade explosives and a cache of smuggled weapons. The uprising ended when its main leaders - rounded up by the Nazis - committed suicide on May 8, 1943. The Nazis then razed the ghetto, street by street. Today’s commemorations followed official events held Tuesday, to avoid coinciding with the Jewish Sabbath. President Lech Kaczynski of Poland and President Shimon Peres of Israel led those observances.
2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readings including “Shadow and Light” by Jonathan Rabbn, “How Free Is Free? The Long Death of Jim Crow” by Leon F. Litwack and the recently released paperback edition of “Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands” by Michael Chabon.
2009: At NYU’s Bronfman Center for Jewish life people from all over New York City join in “Sing Out Israel,” an event featuring familiar Israeli and Jewish tunes.
2009: A.B. Yehoshua, the award-winning Israeli author, reads from and discusses his most recent novel, “Friendly Fire,” and chats about his life as a writer and his thoughts on Israel in a conversation with Leon Wieseltier, at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C.
2009: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center opened today under rainy skies, with several thousand people seated beneath large tents, their enthusiasm shown in a standing ovation for survivors.
2010: As part of its Graduate Seminar Program, The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present a program entitled “‘Gentleman's Agreement’ and ‘Crossfire’: Anti-Semitism at the Movies”
2010: Terminal 5 is scheduled to host New York’s community-wide Yom Ha'Atzmaut celebration honoring Israel's fallen and celebrating 62 years of independence at what is described as the largest Yom Ha'Zikaron/Yom Ha'Atzmaut gathering in the world outside of Israel!
2010(5th of Iyar, 5770): Yom Hazikaron
2010(5th of Iyar, 5770): Felicia Haberfeld, a native of Poland who fought to reclaim her husband's ancestral home in Auschwitz decades after it was seized by the Nazis, died today at the age of 98 in Los Angeles. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/01/local/la-me-felicia-haberfeld-20100501
2010: The State Department summoned the senior Syrian diplomat in Washington to accuse his government of "provocative behavior" in supplying scud ballistic missiles to Hezbollah.
2011(15 Nisan, 5711): First Day of Pesach
2011: “Adnan Dameery, spokesperson for the Palestinian Security Forces, reported DNA tests had exonerated a detained suspect and that the masked gunman who had murdered Juliano Mer-Khamis, the former IDF paratrooper and filmmaker, was still at large.
2011: In the evening Second Seder. Somewhere a person with roots in the Gibraltar Jewish Community will say “Todo el que tenga hambre, venga y coma, todo el que tenga menester, venga y pascue” (Anyone who is hungry come and eat; all who have need, come and celebrate) as they follow that community’s custom of reciting the Haggdah in Ladino for the Second Seder.
2011: In the third such attack in Greece in less than 2 years, arsonists break into Corfu island synagogue and damage at least 30 prayer books.
2011: Steve Soboroff was hired by Frank McCourt to be the Vice Chairman of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. (Soboroff was Jewish)
2011: A revival performance of Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart” opened today
2011: “Venerable Art Dealer Is Enmeshed in Lawsuits” published today looks at the challenges facing 65 year old Guy Wildenstein, the leader of “a discreet dynasty of Jewish art dealers.”
2012(27th of Nisan, 5772): Yom Hashoah
2012: “Spoken Word and Music Performance” a Holocaust Remembrance Day observance co-sponsored by La Maison Francaise is scheduled to take place at the Embassy of France in Washington, D.C.
2012: Holocaust survivor and Director of the ADL, Abraham Foxman is scheduled to appear at the Illinois Holocaust Museum’s Yom Hashoah memorial event.
2012: Yad Vashem will publish thousands of new documents today gleaned from national and KGB archives from the former Soviet Union on this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.
2012:” Remembrance” a film that depicts a love story between a German Jew and a
Polish Catholic that blossomed amid the terror of Auschwitz in 1944 is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2012: The world’s most wanted living Nazi collaborator is Laszlo Csatary, the Simon Wiesenthal Center said in its annual report today (As reported by Gil Shefler)
2012: Left-wing extremists defaced three monuments to Israeli terror victims and fallen members of the security services in the Jordan Valley, police discovered today, just one week before Israel honors its war dead.
2012: Irwin M. Jacobs “was named the W. P. Carey School of Business Dean’s Council of 100 Executive of the Year, which honors change-making business leaders who serve as models for today’s business students”
2012: Yad Vashem is scheduled to publish “thousands of new documents gleaned from national and KGB archives from the former Soviet Union on this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. The new archival material – totaling approximately one million new documents – is available following several international agreements made in the past four years with national archives and those with the KGB from the former USSR.”
2013: The Maccabeats are scheduled to perform at a Shabbat Event at the University of Illinois sponsored by Chabad.
2013: “No Place on Earth” is scheduled to premiere in Portland, Oregon and Chicago, Illinois.
2013(9th of Iyar, 5773): Ninety-two year old Francois Jacob, the recipient of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Medicine passed away today.
2013(9th of Iyar, 5773): Eighty-year old computer and math wizard Kenneth I. Appel passed away today.
2013(9th of Iyar, 5773): Ninety-five year photographer turned actor Allan Arbus best known for his role as the quirky psychiatrist on “M*A*S*H,” passed away today.
2013(9th of Iyar, 5773): Eighty-three year old children author and illustration E. L. Konigsburg passed away today.
2013: A dinner to help raise funds for research on treating Glycogen Storage Disease, a rare Ashkenazi Jewish liver disorder is scheduled to be held at the Coral Springs Marriott.
2013: On the secular calendar, 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
2013: A complex $10 billion arms deal in its final stages would strengthen two key Arab allies – the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia - while maintaining Israel's military edge, US defense officials said today.
2013: Following the public outrage over a debt arrangement between Bank Leumi and tycoon Nochi Dankner’s Ganden Holdings Ltd., the bank announced this afternoon that it was backing out of the arrangement.
2014: “The Last Act of Lilka Kadison” is scheduled to have its final performance today at the Falcon Theatre in Burbank
2014: In Poland, observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day which coincides with the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
2014: The main synagogue in Nikolayev, located in the southeast of Ukraine, was firebombed today when two Molotov cocktails were thrown at the synagogue’s door and window. (As reported by JTA)
2014: “Paris-Manhattan” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC Rockland International Jewish Film Festival.
2014: Premiere of “5 to 7” directed by Victor Levin at the Tribeca Film Festival.
2015: “The Art Dealer” is scheduled to be shown as part of the UK Jewish Film Festival.
2015: “G-D’s Honest Truth” is scheduled to be performed for the last time at Theatre J in Washington, D.C.
2015: In Washington, D.C. Dr. Samuel Gruber is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “ Before Modernism: American Synagogue Architecture Before WW II.”
2015(30th of Nisan, 5775): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
2015: “American Jewish comedian Amy Schumer” talked about her “new film ‘Trainwreck’” today “at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.”
2015(30th of Nisan 5775): Eleven days before his one hundredth birthday Elio Toaff who served as Chief Rabbi of Rome from 1951 to 2002 passed away today.
2015: The New York Times features books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East by Eugene Rogan and the recently released paperback edition of Mad As Hell: The Making of “Network” and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies by Dave Itzkoff
2015: In commemoration of Yom HaShoah the Guy Mendilow Ensemble and the Philadelphia Girls’ Choir are scheduled to a perform a concert that includes compositions in English and Ladino that takes us "musical trek from bustling Mediterranean ports and resplendent Balkan capitals to communities shattered in the Second World War and all but forgotten" at the National Museum of Jewish History in Philadelphia.
2015: Today’s Yom Hashoah observance at the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta, GA is scheduled to include a speech by Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat and the Atlanta Boy Choir performing “I Never Saw Another Butterfly.”
2015: The President’s Residence announced today that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with President Reuven Rivlin tomorrow “to request an extension in forming” a new government. (Times of Israel)
2015: “Hundreds of people commemorated the 72nd anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising” this afternoon in the Polish capital city.
2015: “Hungarian Holocaust survivors rescued 70 years ago from a train taking them from one concentration camp to another today paid tribute to the American soldiers who helped liberate them.”
2015: The 12th annual “March of Good Will” a demonstration against anti-Semitism took place today in Prague.
2016(11th of Nisan, 5576): Ninety-three year old Nobel Prize laureate Walter Kohn passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
2016: The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to present “Kosher USA: How Coca-Cola Came to the Passover Seder and Other Tales of Modern Kosher Food” which “follows the journey of kosher foods through the modern industrial food system, traces how iconic products such as Coca Cola tried to become kosher, what made Manischewitz wine the very first kosher name brand to gain an African American audience, and more.
2016: In “Streti’s Matzo, a New York Tale of a Lost Love” published today Nicolas Rapold provided a review of a documentary about the Big Apple and the Bread of Affliction.
2016: Future Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, “an early Trump supporter” attended Trump’s victory party “after the New York Republican primary” today.
2016: In an appearance sponsored by the Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund, “Magda Brown, who was 17 years old in 1944 when she and her family were deported on one of the final transports to Auschwitz-Birkenau” is scheduled to speak at Kennedy Sr. High School.
2016: “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.”
2016(11th of Nisan, 5776): Fifty-one year old Israeli movie star Ronit Elkabetz passed away today.
2016: All decent human beings pray for the recovery of 15 year old Eden Dadon and all of the other victims of yesterday’s terrorist bus bombing in Jerusalem as they fight to recover from their wounds and burns.
2017(23rd of Nisan, 5777): Ninety-six year old Ruth Sulzberger Holmberg, the former publisher of The Chattanooga Times, the Sulzberger paper before the New York Times, passed away today.
2017: The UK Jewish Film Organization is scheduled to sponsor a screening of “The Pickle Recipe” in Glasgow, Scotland
2017: The UK Jewish Film Organization is scheduled to host a special preview screening of “The Zookeeper’s Wife” at the Phoenix Cinema.
2017: “Barney’s Version” and “Weirdos” are scheduled to be shown at the Vancouver Jewish Film Centre. 2017: “An Israeli computer scientist,” “Adi, Sahmir, a professor at the Weizmann Institute” is scheduled to receive a Japan Prize today as recognition “for his contribution to information security through pioneering research on cryptography.”
2017: Poland’s chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich led “the burial ceremony of Torah Scrolls in the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery” today.
2017: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced harsh criticism from bereaved parents today over his management of the 2014 Gaza war during an emotional three-and-a-half-hour-long hearing, including a series of heated back and forths between politicians and families of those killed in battle.”
2017: “Holocaust Escape Tunnel,” a “Nova” production shown this evening, sheds new light on the attempt by 80 imprisoned men and women — mostly Lithuanian Jews — to make a break for freedom in the face of Nazi bullets.
2018(4th of Iyar): Israel Independence Day observed since the fifth of Iyar falls on erev Shabbat; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2018: The Jewish Federation of Cleveland is scheduled to host Israeli singer-songwriter David Broza at its Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration at Landerhaven,
2018: “Ina Lancman, daughter of Naftali Herts Kon, well-known Yiddish poet and writer, are scheduled to give a presentation together with Polish attorney Tomasz T. Koncewicz. Lancman that will focus on Naftali Herts Kon’s literary career and the stirring story of his persecution and the confiscations of his papers under the Soviet and communist Poland regimes”
2018: Natan Sharansky is scheduled to receive his Israel Prize for promoting immigration today as part of Israel’s Independence Day celebrations
2019: On the 76th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, it has been reported that “Hamburg prosecutors have charged a 92 year old former concentration camp guard” “identified only as Bruno D. of aiding and abetting 5,230 case of murder during the almost nine months he spent on duty at” Stutthof Concentration Camp as a member of the SS.
2019: In one of those Calendar Coincidences, on the Gregorian calendar, Good Friday, which marks one of the most famous Passover related events in history coincides with the start of Passover in the evening. For more see The Trial and Death of Jesus by Haim Cohn.
2019(14th of Nissan, 5779): Ta’anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach;
14th of Nisan, 5622(1862): In the evening, during the Civil War, Pesach begins with 21 Union soldiers of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Regiment celebrating with a Seder in Fayette, West Virginia.
14th of Nisan, 5660( 1900): Poor Jews living on the Lower East Side were relieved to find that free matzoth were being distributed at Charles “Silver Dollar” Smith’s “old place on Essex Street.” There was concern that the distribution would end since Smith had passed away last year. Before he had changed his name, Smith was known as variously as Charles Goldschmidt or Charles Solomon. A New York alderman who was part of the Tammany Hall machine, he was called “Silver Dollar” because of the “2,400 silver dollars used as a studded inlay in his saloon…”
14th of Nisan, 5671(1911): This evening, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association host a public Seder in New York and “special services” for the Jewish immigrants currently detained at Ellis Island.
14th of Nisan, 5631(1871): As the Jews of Newark, New Jersey, begin the celebration of Passover this evening, it is estimated that they will consume 10,000 to 15,000 pounds of matzoth during the eight days of the holiday
14th of Nisan, 5671(1911): This evening, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association host a public Seder in New York and “special services” for the Jewish immigrants currently detained at Ellis Island.
14th of Nisan, 5674(1914): Four hundred and fifty Jewish servicemen including sailors from the battleships Texas, North Dakota, Washington, Ohio, Wyoming and Louisiana are scheduled to take part in a seder specifically for military personnel at Tuxedo Hall in Manhattan.
14th of Nisan, 5700(1940): The Sommer family sit down to their first Seder in Liechtenstiein. How this family of German Jewish refugees from Munich came to be there was chronicled by Susi Pugatsch-Sommer in an article entitled “A Pesach Miracle in Nazi Germany.”
14th of Nisan, 5703(1943): Members of Belgium Jewish underground aided by Christian railroad men derailed a train filled with Jewish deportees bound for the extermination camps. Several hundred Jews were saved.
14th of Nisan, 5703(1943): PASSOVER, WARSAW Ghetto UPRISING; The Jews were determined not to be moved without giving up a fight. 2,100 Germans, fully armed, enter the Ghetto. The Jews fighting force consisted of about 700 men and women. They were armed with 17 rifles, 50 pistols and several thousand grenades and Molotov cocktails. A small group of Jewish fighters open fire on the entering German troops. After an hour of skirmishing, the Germans retreated. The final liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto began on the Eve of Passover, April 19, 1943. The deportation did not come as a surprise. The Germans had amassed a military force to carry it out, but did not expect to engage in a confrontation that included street battles. Armed German forces ringed the ghetto at 3:00 a.m. The unit that entered the ghetto encountered armed resistance and retreated. The main ghetto, with its population of 30,000 Jews, was deserted. The Jews could not be rounded up for the transport; the railroad cars at the deportation point remained empty. After Germans and rebels fought in the streets for three days, the Germans began to torch the ghetto, street by street, building by building. The entire ghetto became a sizzling, smoke-swathed conflagration. Most of the Jews who emerged from their hideouts, including entire families, were murdered by the Germans on the spot. The ghetto Jews gradually lost the strength to resist. On April 23, Mordecai Anielewicz the ZOB commander wrote the following to Yitzhak Zuckerman, a member of the ZOB command who was stationed on the "Aryan" side: "I cannot describe the conditions in which the Jews are living. Only a special few will hold out; all the others will perish sooner or later. Their fate is sealed. None of the bunkers where our comrades are hiding has enough air to light a candle at night.... Be well, my dear, perhaps we shall yet meet. The dream of my life has risen to become fact. Self - defense in the ghetto will have been a reality. I have been a witness to the magnificent, heroic fighting of Jewish men of battle". The rebels pursued their cause, even though they knew from the outset that they could not win. The Jewish underground would continue to fight the Nazis until the middle of May. The Polish underground only gave minimal help because of anti-Semitism prevalent among many. Although the Allies will neither publicize events nor try to help, even before the war ended, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising became a symbol of Jewish resistance
14th of Nisan, 5708(1948): Erev Pesach the rations given out in Jerusalem for the observance of Passover included 2 lbs. of potatoes, ½ lb of fish, 4 lb. of matzo, 1 ½ oz. dried fruit, ½ lb. meat, and ½ lb. of matzo flour. As one who was there later wrote, “For the trapped citizens of Jerusalem, who had become accustomed to privation, the Passover provisions seemed like a banquet. However, for the citizens of Jerusalem, it was not a particularly merry affair. On the verge of their national freedom, the inhabitants of Jerusalem sat somberly around their tables. This was the first time since the nightly shellings that the city's citizens had come together in assembly in the various homes throughout the city that had been the dream of two thousand years' Seders. Tonight is a holiday, but tomorrow the struggle will go on. As they sat to begin the Seder, they heard the beginning of the snipers bullets looking for a straggler in the streets. But tonight was different. As they opened the door, as they had done for scores of generations, to welcome in Elijah, there was no fear. Tonight is a night of divine protection. As the Holy One protected the Jews in Egypt, so shall he protect us here in the war torn city of Jerusalem. "Once we were slaves, but today we are free men" recited in the Haggadah, took on new meaning. The British are leaving, the Arabs are attacking, and we are beginning our new national lives as free men in our own country. "Next year in Jerusalem" had a meaning that we never before understood. We meant it; we would not relinquish our dream to return to our homeland, to the city that has been in our hearts throughout the two thousand year exile. Now we are free men, tomorrow we must continue the fight to remain free.
2020(25th of Nisan, 5780):
2020: In Coralville, IA, the pandemic does not halt the learning as Kathy Jacobs is scheduled to lead an introductory y session about Mussar, thanks to the wonders of Zoom.
2020: In Atlanta, GA, the Breman Museum is scheduled to broadcast “a very special Yom HaShoah message online and through social media” featuring Ilse Eichner Reiner, Holocaust survivor, and a Anat Sultan-Dadon, Consul General of Israel to the Southeastern United States.
2020: The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston is scheduled to host “Virtual Yom HaShoah Remembrance & Reflection”
2020: Since Jews only eat two times – when they are sad and when they are happy – in Cleveland, “Nathan, Seth, Eric and Angie are standing by for your orders as “Kantina” is scheduled to open today with curbside pickup and home delivery.
2020: The New York Times features reviews by Jewish author and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains by Ariana Neumann, Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America by Gerald Posner, The Toddler in Chief: What Donald Trump Teaches Us About the Modern Presidency by Daniel W. Drezner and Wayside School Beneaeth the Cloud of Doom by Louis Sachar
2020: Today, Israelis are scheduled to feel the first full day of the government’s plan to open the economy which were announced last and will be reviewed in two weeks.
2020: ““A Slippery Slope: Jews, Schmaltz and Crisco” during which Rachel Gross, American Jewish studies chair at SFSU, talks about how Crisco began in 1913 with intense marketing toward Jewish women, who in turn began relinquishing authority to corporate “experts” is scheduled to be “organized on Zoom by Jewish LearningWorks” this afternoon.
2020: Yom HaShoah Commemoration at Beth Hillel Bnai Emunah, in Wilmette, Illinois, scheduled for today has been canceled due to the Pandemic.