121: Birthdate of Marcus Aurelius 16th Roman emperor. The “Philosopher” Emperor reigned from161-180 and he was a cut above those who came before and after him. But he had a low opinion of the Jews,referring to them as “stinking and tumultuous” as “he rode through Judea.” He reportedly preferred the company of thebarbaric Teutons in the north to that of the Jews. This attitude may have been shaped by thedifficulty the Romans had in defeating the Jews during their successiverebellions against Rome. Only 25 yearsbefore Marcus Aurelius came to power, it had taken the full force of the RomanEmpire four years to finally defeat Bar Kochba and Rabbi Akiva
570:Birthdate of Muhammad or Mohammad, the founder of Islam.
1096:Approximately 40,000 peasants led by Peter Hermit left Cologne on the start ofwhat was called the “Peasants’ Crusade.”This populist movement among the poor was the most ill-fated part of theFirst Crusade. The peasants had nothingand trusted in God to provide for them. This meant living off of the land whichwould bode ill for those in their path including the Jews of the Rhineland.
1103(10thof Iyar, 4863): Ninety-year-old Isaac ben Jacob Alfasi ha-Cohen, also known asthe Alfasi or by his Hebrew acronym Rif (Rabbi Isaac al-Fasi), a MaghrebiTalmudist and posek (decider in matters of halakha - Jewish law) who is bestknown for his work of halakha, the legal code Sefer Ha-halachot, considered thefirst fundamental work in halakhic literature. Passed away today in Lucena,Al-Andalus.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1191-alfasi-isaac-ben-jacob
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaac-ben-Jacob-Alfasi
1176: Richardde Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, nicknamed “Strongbow” whose attempt to establishan independent kingdom in Ireland was bankrolled by a Jewish financier, “JosceJew of Gloucester” passed away today.
1191:Phillip II, who expelled the Jews from France in 1182 after extorting as muchmoney as he could from them, arrived at Acre to perform his holy Christianobligation to take part in the Crusades.
1192: Asthe Christians jockey for control over the Holy Land, Richard I of Englandgives his support to Conrad of Montferrat’s claim to be King of Jerusalem.
1298(7th of Iyar, 5058): In Rotttingen, a smallGerman towninFranconia, a local noble named Rindfleish, accused the local Jews ofprofaning the host. He then incited the Burgher and local populace to join inthe killing. Twenty one Jews were murdered. The killing soon spread to ahundred and forty communities in Bavaria and Austria. In all tens of thousandsof Jews were either killed or wounded. The killing stopped when the civilwar raging through Germany ended. Albrecht, the newly chosen Emperor, broughtan end to the violence and even punished some the participants.
1303: Pope Boniface VIII issues the bullcreating The University of Rome La Sapienza. Considering the fact that Bonifacebelieved in the concept that “Outside the Church, no Salvation” meaning thatthe key to salvation required membership in the Catholic Church, it is safe toassume that there were no Jewish students or faculty at the school. Relations between the Jews and the schoolhave obviously changed as can be seen by the “wide-ranging cooperationagreement” that was signed by Tel Aviv University and Rome's SapienzaUniversity in March of 2010. The agreement allows for exchanges of students andprofessors, as well as joint research projects and master's programs. TheItalian economist Franco Modigliani and Zionst Ze'ev Jabotinsky were two of themost prominent Jews to attend the University of Rome during the 20thcentury.
1314: Pope Clement V the first of the “AvignonPopes who in the first year of his reign, 1305, became the “first pope to threatenJews with an economic boycott in an attempt to force them to stop chargingChristians interest on loans passed away today.
1344(28th of Nisan, 5104): Levi BenGershon (the RaLBaG) also known as Gersonides passed away.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9813-levi-ben-gershon
1505: Philibert of Luxembourg expelledtheJews from Orange Burgundy.At this time Luxembourg is ruled byPhillip the Fair, King of Spain - where Jews had been expelled in 1492.Phillip's mother was Marie of Burgundy.In this case the Jews merelyseemed to have gotten caught up in the dynasticswirl that was so muchofEuropean History prior to the French Revolution.
1506: Violence continued for a second day inLisbon after Christians attack the Jews when a recently converted Jew “raiseddoubts” about the appearance of a miraculous vision at St. Dominic’s Church.(History of the Jewish People)
1615:Led by Dr. Chemnitz, the guilds of Worms "non-violently"forced the Jews from the city. Chemnitz was a lawyer and he devised a series ofschemes where the Jews were deprived of food and the ability to leave and enterthe city. A deputation came to them on what was the seventh day of Pesachand gave them an hour to leave the city. As the Jews left, the thousandyear old synagogue and the adjacent burial grounds were attacked and desecratedby the "non-violent" citizens of Worms, Germany.
1632(29th of Nisan): “Nicolas Antione, a FrenchProtestant theologian and pastor who attempted to convert to Judaism and livedthe life of a crypto-Jew “suffered martyrdom by being burned at the stake inGeneva today.
1657:After a battle of almost two years Asser Levy one of the original 23settlerswas allowed to serve on guard duty . Levy had beendenied the right to serve, having been told to pay a tax instead. Thiswas the European Way of doing things. Levy would have none ofit.Serving guard duty marked him as a full-fledged citizen.It was an earlyindication that the New World would indeed be a new worldfor the Jews. Levy who was the ritual slaughterer of the town opened hisslaughterhouse on what is now Wall Street. He further petitioned to be allowedthe rights as a Burgher or freeperson on the town, which he received albeitreluctantly by the burgomasters of New Amsterdam.
1728: The London Gazette reports that twelve individuals (including four Jews) whohad been previously captured by Moroccan pirates are now released under a newpeace treaty between England and the Emperor of Morocco. Rachel, David, andRaphael Franco along with Blanco Flora had been captured while en route fromLondon to New York. The Gazette reports that they were returned toEngland on "His Majesty's Ship Monmouth." Interestingly enough,though the other victims are listed by name and nationality i.e. WilliamPendergrass/English, Joseph Patroon/Spanish, Alboro Tordaselas/Gibraltar— thefour Jews (Rachel, David and Raphael Franco, and Blanco Flora), are listed as"Jews," under nationality. These events of 1728 preceded the era ofJew Bills and the civil and religious liberties of Jewish people were far fromsecure. They were indeed people without a country. Our research shows theFranco family to be of Portuguese/Sephardic extraction, who generations beforeundoubtedly fled the Inquisition of Portugal. Raphael Franco became a powerfulmerchant in the diamond and coral trade operating between India, Brazil andEngland.
1729: London native Mordecai Marks who came toAmerica in 1726 “was baptized today at Stratford, CT.”
1746: Four days after the Battle of Culloden,during the “Jacobite Rising” for which Sampson Gideon provided the funds to theHanoverian-Whig government so it could defeat Charles Edward Stuart, Charles,Charles dismissed his remaining force of 1,500 saying that the fight could notgo on without French support.
1747: In New York City, Jochabed Michaels andJudah Mears gave birth to (Judith) Rachel Mears, the wife of Moses Iaacks whomshe married in 1764 and with whom she had fourteen children.
1753(16th of Nisan, 5513): SecondDay of Pesach celebrated on the same day “Benjamin Franklin found a way tolight a drug cigarette, today known as a "joint" or maybe even as a"thick fat blunt" as one youth cannabis blogger so eloquently put it,using the electric jolt of lightning.”
https://www.underthebutton.com/article/2017/04/on-this-day-in-history-benjamin-franklin-invents-weed
1759: Vögele Pressburg, the daughter of IsakAron Arnsteiner and Ella Elsa Eleonora Arnsteiner and wife of Simon SamuelPressburg passed away today at Mattersburg, Burgenland, Austria.
1760: In Buchau, Franziska Levi and DavidEinstein gave birth to Moses David Einstein.
1761(16th of Nisan, 1761): SecondDay of Pesach; First Day of the Omer
1764(18th of Nisan, 5524): FourthDay of Pesach observed on the same day that Abigail Smith, the future wife of foundingfather John Adams, wrote to him during their courtship.
1767(21st of Nisan, 5527): SeventhDay of Pesach observed as the UK prepares to enact the Townsend Acts, measureswhich will inflame relations with the thirteen American colonies and lead tothe American Revolution
1772(17th of Nisan, 5532): Third dayof Pesach
1772(17th of Nisan, 5532): IsraelBen Moses Ha-Levi Zamosz, a Polish born Talmudist who wrote on both religiousand secular subjects passed away today at Brody
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15158-zamosz-israel-ben-moses-ha-levi
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Zamosc_Yisrael_ben_Mosheh_ha-Levi
1773(27th of Nisan, 5533): NehmJoseph Rindskopf, the son of Joseph (Yosel) Alexander Rindskopf, z. Ampel andJentel Mosche Rindskopf and husband of Hindle Rindskopf passed away today inFrankfurt.
1775(20th of Nisan, 5535): Sixth Dayof Pesach observed as the British lick their wounds in Boston after yesterday’slosses at Concord and on the same day that the Royal Governor of Virginia makesthe mistake of seizing gun power in what became known as the “Gunpowder Affair”which ended, unlike the episode with no shots being fired.
1777: At Kingston, the New York Conventionvoted to guarantee the free exercise of religion.
1783(18th of Nisan, 5543): FourthDay of Pesach observed on the same day that Daniel Parker wrote GeneralWashington concerning his meetings in New York the British leader Sir GuyCarleton where they talked about plans for allowing the Tories sail from thatcity now that the war is officially over.
1785: Birthdate of German native Nanette Wexlerthe wife of Leser Lazarus Ochsenhorn whom she married in 1803 and with whom shehad eight children.
1786(22nd of Nisan, 5546): EighthDay of Pesach; Yizkor observed on the same day that future political opponentsThomas Jefferson and John Adams, along with his family, spent the day togetherin London.
1790: Birthdate of Ludwig Hermann Friedlander,the native of Konigsberg who served as physician with the Prussian Army, thefirst step on a career that led to him being appointed as a Professor ofTheoretical Medicine at Halle, as position he held until his death in 1851.
1791(16th of Nisan, 5551): SecondDay of Pesach celebrated on the same day that, during the French RevolutionKing Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette attempted to flee to Varennes.
1795: In Kingston, Jamaica, Grace Cohen, theLondon born daughter of Aaron Gomes Da Costa and Miriam De Solomon Gomes DaCosta and the husband Judah Mordechai Cohen gave birth to Andrew Cohen.
1796: Amsterdam native Rabbi Abraham Azuby, the“first paid rabbi at K.K. Beth Elohim Congregation in Charleston” officiated atthe wedding of “Benjamin Milhado of Kingston, Jamaica to Hannah Depass, “theyoungest daughter of Ralph Depass, a vendue master” in Charleston, SC.(Editor’s note – according to the dictionary a vendue master is an auctioneer.)
1799(15th of Nisan, 5559): First dayof Pesach and Shabbat
1799: In a proclamation, a copy of which isquoted below, Napoleon "promised" the Jews of Eretz Israel the"reestablishment of ancient Jerusalem", coupled with a plea for theirsupport. This was the first promise by a modern government to establish aJewish state. In 1799, the French armies under Napoleon were camped outside ofAcre. Napoleon issued a letter offering Palestine as a homeland to the Jewsunder French protection. The project was stillborn because Napoleon wasdefeated and was forced to withdraw from the Near East. The letter isremarkable because it marks the coming of age of enlightenment philosophy,making it respectable at last to integrate Jews as equal citizens in Europe andbecause it marked the beginning of nineteenth century projects for Jewishautonomy in Palestine under a colonial protectorate. After the defeat ofNapoleon, it was largely the British who carried forward these projects, whichhave in hindsight been given the somewhat misleading name of "BritishZionism." Napoleon conquered Jaffa but retreated from Acco (Acre); Napoleon'sProclamation of a Jewish State was stillborn, and his declaration of equalrights for Jews was repealed in part in 1806.
Letter to the Jewish Nation from the FrenchCommander-in-Chief Bonaparte issued at General Headquarters, Jerusalem 1st Floreal, April 20th,1799, in the year of 7 of the French Republic by BUONAPARTE, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEFOF THE ARMIES OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC IN AFRICA AND ASIA, TO THE RIGHTFUL HEIRSOF PALESTINE.
Israelites, unique nation, whom, in thousandsof years, lust of conquest and tyranny have been able to be deprived of theirancestral lands, but not of name and national existence!
Attentive and impartial observers of the destinies of nations, even though notendowed with the gifts of seers like Isaiah and Joel, have long since also feltwhat these, with beautiful and uplifting faith, have foretold when they saw theapproaching destruction of their kingdom and fatherland: And the ransomed ofthe Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upontheir heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shallflee away. (Isaiah 35,10) Arise then, with gladness, ye exiled! A war unexampled In the annals of history,waged in self-defense by a nation whose hereditary lands were regarded by itsenemies as plunder to be divided, arbitrarily and at their convenience, by astroke of the pen of Cabinets, avenges its own shame and the shame of theremotest nations, long forgotten under the yoke of slavery, and also, thealmost two-thousand-year-old ignominy put upon you; and, while time andcirc*mstances would seem to be least favorable to a restatement of your claimsor even to their expression ,and indeed to be compelling their completeabandonment, it offers to you at this very time, and contrary to allexpectations, Israel's patrimony! The young army with which Providence has sentme hither, let by justice and accompanied by victory, has made Jerusalem myhead-quarters and will, within a few days, transfer them to Damascus, aproximity which is no longer terrifying to David's city. Rightful heirs ofPalestine! The great nation which does not trade in men and countries as didthose which sold your ancestors unto all people (Joel,4,6) herewith calls onyou not indeed to conquer your patrimony ;nay, only to take over that which hasbeen conquered and, with that nation's warranty and support, to remain masterof it to maintain it against all comers.
Arise! Show that the former overwhelming might of your oppressors has butrepressed the courage of the descendants of those heroes who alliance ofbrothers would have done honor even to Sparta and Rome (Maccabees 12, 15) butthat the two thousand years of treatment as slaves have not succeeded instifling it. Hasten!, Now is the moment, which may not return for thousands ofyears, to claim the restoration of civic rights among the population of theuniverse which had been shamefully withheld from you for thousands of years,your political existence as a nation among the nations, and the unlimitednatural right to worship Jehovah in accordance with your faith, publicly andmost probably forever (JoeI 4,20).
1801(7th of Iyar, 5561): Barnard Gratz, the German born son ofMr. and Mrs. Solomon Gratz, the husband of Richea Myers-Cohen and the father ofFanny and Rachel Gratz passed away today in Baltimore, MD.
1803: Myer Tobias married Hannah Woolf at the Great Synagogue today.
1808: Birthdate of Louis-Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte whobecame Napoleon III, Emperor ofFrance from 1852 to 1871. On July 19, 1870, Napoleon III declared war on Prussia in what is known as theFranco-Prussian War. A number of Jews, including Jules Moch and Leopold See,attained high rank in the French army. See later became Secretary General ofthe Ministry of the Interior. The war also marked the beginning of Rabbisserving as chaplains in the German army. After the War the region of Alsace andpart of Lorraine became annexed to Germany. Many Jewish families preferred toemigrate rather than be under German rule.
1810(16th ofNisan, 5570): Second Day of Pesach celebrated on the second day of the VenezuelanWar of Indepenece.
1811: Ephraim Gompertzmarried Adelaide Smith at “Camberwell St. Giles.”
1813(20th ofNisan, 5573): Sixth Day of Pesach observed a week before American forces underGeneral Zebulion Pike captured York, Canada during the War of 1812.
1814(30th ofNisan, 5574): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1814(30th ofNisan, 5574): Thirty-four-year-old “Jewish writer, teacher, translator andpublisher” Moses Philippson passed away today at Desau.
1816(22nd ofNisan, 5576): Eighth Day of Pesach; Yizkor
1817: Solomon JosephMordecai, the Virginia born son of Esther and Joseph Mordecai married IsabellaJane Kincaid today in Franklin, MO.
1818(14th ofNisan 5578): Ta’anit Bechorot; erev Pesach observed on the same day thatPresident James Monroe signed the Neutrality Act of 1818 into law.
1822: In Denmark, Thamar(Terese) Rée, the daughter of Isac Hartvig Rée and Sara Wulff von Essen and herhusband Hartvig Philip Rée gave birth to Vilhelm Hartvig Rée
1824(22nd ofNisan, 5584): Eighth Day of Pesach; Yizkor observed for the last time duringthe Presidency of James Monroe
1826(14th ofNisan, 5586): Ta’anit Bechorot, erev Pesach
1828: One day after shehad passed away 78-year-old Judith Cohen, the wife of Aaron Cohen and the mostof Samuel and Rosy Cohen was buried today at the Lauriston Jewish Cemtery.
1832: Congressestablished a park at Hot Springs, Arkansas when it designated its famous natural springs as a natural resource preserve aspeople from around the country flocked to the 143 degree water as a medicaltreatment for arthritis and other bone ailments. Jews were connected with HotSprings from its earliest day. Jacob Mitchell, a Jewish immigrant fromGalicia, arrived in Arkansas in 1830 along with his two brothers.Mitchell somehow acquired an old Spanish land grant to a portion of thesprings, and he and his heirs spent the next forty years unsuccessfullyfighting the federal government in court over their rights to the springs. Regardlessof the status of the litigation, Mitchell became an active part of the city’scommercial scene when bought a hotel in Hot Springs in 1846 and opened a bathhouse.
1835(21st ofNisan, 5595): Seventh Day of Pesach
1835: Henry Russellmarried Isabella Lloyd today.
1837(15th of Nisan,5597): Jews observe Pesach for the first time with Martin Van Buren asPresident of the U.S.
1838: Charlotte Beyfus married German banker Abraham Oppenheim.
1840(17th ofNisan, 5600): Third Day of Pesach; on the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit Rabbi ReubenHoeshke, Katz who died in 1673.
1841: Despiteopposition from Hamburg’s Ashkenazi community led by Chief Rabbi Isaac Bernays,the Senate granted a license to the New Israelite Temple Society to build ahouse of worship.
1843(20th ofNisan, 5603): Sixth Day of Nisan; on the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit of Rav HaiGoen who passed away in 1038.
1846(NS): inMeshchovsk, Kaluga Governorate, Russia, schoolteacher Konstantin von Plehve andElizaveta Mikhailovna Shamaev gave birth to the vociferously antisemiticInterior Minister Vyacheslav von Plehve who recommended a further worsening of theJews' legal position following the pogroms of the 1880’s and 1890’s.
1846: Two days afterthe end of Pesach, in London, Fanny Heilbronner and Isaac Samuel gave birth toTheodore Samson Samuel
1848(17th ofNisan, 5608): Third Day of Pesach; on the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of Israeben Moses Zamosc of Brody who passed away in 1772.
1851(18th ofNisan, 5611): 4th day of Pesach
1851: In Breslau, SamuelLubszyński and Rebeka Lubszyńska gave birth to Zygmunt Lubszyński, who gainedfame as Siegmund Lubin “the motion picture who founded Lubin ManufacturingCompany, the Philadelphia, PA film company.
1851: After three yearsof meeting at a building on Pearl Street, Congregation B’nai Israel moved toNumber 63 Christie Street, where the congregation began raising “funds for theerection of a more commodious synagogue to the meet the requirements of therapidly increasing membership.”
1851(18th ofNisan, 5611): Isaac Erter, the native of Galicia who gained fame as a physicianand satirist passed away today at Brody.
https://archive.org/details/jstor-1450003
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Erter%2C%20Isaac%2C%201791-1851
1852: Abraham Harris marriedLeah Brandon today at the Great Synagogue.
1854(22nd ofNisan, 5614): Eighth and final day of Pesach observed as pro- and anti-slaveryforces fought it out in what was called “Bleeding Kansas.”
1856(15th of Nisan,5616): First Day of Pesach
1860: Fortunee (neeDayan) Lichenstein, the wife of Louis Lichtenstein was buried today at the“Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1860: “In a small townnear Kowno, Russia, David Rabbino and Leah Yeglin gave birth to BernhardRabbino, the husband of Anna Ladewig who served as a rabbi at several Americancongregations beginning with one Keokuk, IA in 1884 before becoming an attorneyin Florida and then in New York where he settled in 1899 and became an attorneywith the Legal Aid Bureau of the Educational Alliance.
1861: Joseph Seligman,“whose firm, J. and J. Seligman & Co., sold federal bonds in the astonishingsum of $200,000,000” attended a pro-Union meeting today held at Union Square inNew York City.
1861: In Baltimore, MD,a pro-Southern mob attacked the printing shops that produced Der Wecker andSinai, two "abolitionist publications.Rabbi Einhorn, an out-spoken foe of slavery, felt threatened enough to agreeto the request of his congregation that he leave the city. Einhorn would move to Philadelphia where hewould resume publishing the Sinai.
1862(20th ofNisan, 5622): Sixth Day of Pesach
1862: In London, SaraBloom Phillips and Solomon Abraham to Rose Bloom Abraham
1863(1st ofIyar, 5623): Rosh Chodesh Iyar observed on the same day that President “Lincolnannounced that West Virginia would join the Union on June 20th, 1863.”
1864(14th ofNisan, 5624): Ta’anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach
1864: In Opava, a townin the Moravian-Silesian Region, Samuel D. and Charlotte Kaluber gave birth toEmile Kaluber who married an attorney Alois Eisler and became Emilie Eisler,the mother of Otto, Rudolf and Paul Eisler.
1864: “In Wilno,Russia, Chaim and Chaya (Kabatchnik) Weinstein gave birth to Brooklynjournalist and political activist Gregory Weinstein, a reporter with TheLeader, a supporter of Henry George, and an organizer of the “first JewishWorkingman’s Unions who was the husband of Eugenie Lasser, the author of Savonarola:Italian Reformer and Patriot and the publisher of Jew-Baiting byHorace Bridges.
1865: “An estimated 25million Americans attended memorial services for Abraham Lincoln in Washingtonand around the country.” In New York several synagogues held well-attendedservices in memory of the recently assassinated President. At Shearith Israel,after the choir sang a variety of Psalms, Rabbi J.J. Lyons “delivered a shortbut eloquent address, in which he frequently” referred “to the qualities of theman and the unswerving loyalty and honesty of the statesman, whose loss theywere…suddenly called upon to mourn.”This was followed by a recitation of the Kaddish and “a special prayerfor the recovery of Secretary of State Seward who had been wounded on the samenight that Lincoln had been killed. The service ended with a prayer for “ the futureprosperity of the country” and the chanting of psalms by the choir. At B'nai Jeshurun, the chanting of Psalms wasfollowed by a Dr. Raphael’s sermon in which he praised the virtues of the slainPresident. At the BroadwaySynagogue, the chanting of opening hymns was followed by a prayer for thegovernment before the opened Ark and a sermon by Rabbi S.W. Isaacs based on Genesis,chap. xv., v. 1: "Fear not, Abraham; I am thy shield. Thy reward shall beexceedingly great.'' Services were also held at several other synagoguesincluding the Norfolk Street Synagogue, the Greene Street Synagogue and TempleEmanu-El. Theneat little synagogue of the Congregation Sheary Berochole, in East Ninthstreet, was the scene of very impressive ceremonies. At noon, the building wasfilled to overflowing with a very respectable audience, mostly dressed in deepmourning, to participate in the services commemorative of the death of Mr. Lincolnarranged by the congregation. After reciting Psalms 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 10, theKadish, or prayer for deceased persons, was said, and the Minchah Prayerintoned, at the close of which Rev. H. WASSERMAN delivered the funeral sermon.His text was from Isaiah 44, 7: "For a small moment I have forsaken thee,and all forsook thee." The tenor of his discourse was the necessity oftrusting to the goodness of God, however mysterious his providences may seem.He exhorted all to imitate the honesty, charity and good will to all men whichhad distinguished the life and character of our deceased President. The Hebrewprayer for a deceased father was then said, coupled with an exhortation for therecovery of the Secretary of State and his son was then said, and after therecitation of five psalms, the congregation dispersed.
1865:In New York City, Caroline and Daniel Mann gave birth to actor and directorLouis Mann, the husband of actress Clara Lippman and the brother of NathanielMann.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/02/16/102215589.pdf
1865:As the nation mourned the death of President Lincoln, today’s Boston Travelernoted that “solemn and appropriate services were held at both Jewishsynagogues” – a reference to Adath Israel, a Reform Congregation led by RabbiJoseph Schoninger and Mishkan Israel led by Rabbi Alexis Alexander.
1866:In a plebiscite, Charles was elected in a near unanimous vote to serve as Kingof Romania. His government would not prove to be a protector of its Jewishcitizens.
1867(15thof Nisan, 5627): Jews living in Alaska celebrate Pesach for the first time asU.S. citizens since the U.S. had purchased Seward’s Folly 30 days ago.
1868:Birthdate of French author Charles Maurras, whose anti-Semitism first surfacedduring the Dreyfus Affair and continued through his support for Vichy andPetain.
1871(29thof Nisan, 5631):Polish author Jacob Tugenhold who was born near Krakowand who founded a “modern Jewish school” in Warsaw, passed away today.
1874: Di Yidishe Gazeten, the firstinfluential Yiddish newspaper in the United States began publication today.
1875(15thof Nisan, 5635): Pesach
1875: Birthdate of Edouard Alexandre de Pomiane, alsoknown as Edouard Pozerski author of the1929 epic “The Jews of Poland: Recollections and Recipes” who passed away in 1964.
1876: In Hungary, Emil and Sally Gintzler gave birth to Cooper Uniongraduate and NYU trained attorney Morris Gintzler, “the president of the Pulpand Paper Trading Company and the husband of Rose Gintzler with whom she hadhad two daughter – Selma and Dorothy.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/09/29/94882989.pdf
1877: Louis David Meyers, the son of Henry Myers and Julia Davis wasburied today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1878(17th of Nisan, 5638): Shabbat shel Pesah
1879: According to the report made by Superintendent Louis today, theBrooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum was home to 10 children, eight of whom were boysand two of whom were girls, ranging in age from three and half years to tenyears.
1879: Birthdate of Ukraine native Isaac Streisand, the husband of AnnaStreisand and the grandfather of award winning entertainer Barbra Streisand.
1881(21st of Nisan, 5641): Seventh Day of Pesach; on theJewish calendar, Yahrzeit of Rabbi Daniel of Horodno who passed away in 1806.
1882(1st of Iyar, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1882: J. A. Engelbart presidedover tonight’s meeting of a committee formed “raise money to feed and shelterJewish refugees from Russia and to aid them in finding home in” in the UnitedStates. The meeting was held at B’naiJeshrun. Among the attendees were RabbiHenry S. Jacobs and Dr. Simeon N. Leo.
1882: It was reported today that a dispatch from St. Petersburg “statesthat the persecution of the Jews continues” unabated. At least 17,000 Jews have been left homelessafter villages in Southern Russia were destroyed.
1882: “Current Foreign Topics” published today described a privatemeeting that had been held in Berlin to provide assistance for Jews who wishedto leave Russia. The attendees pledgedseventy thousand marks to assist in the endeavor.
1883: In Frankfurt,Germany, Leo Isaac and his wife gave birth to Robert Isaac, who came to the United States in 1915, worked with EugeneMeyer before going on to the “investment firm of Halle and Stieglitz andmarried the “former Lucile Martin.”
1883(13th of Nisan, 5643): Ninety-one-year-old Asher American, who hadserved as the Assistant Reader at congregations on Norfolk, Stanton and SixthStreets passed away tonight.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F05E1D61530E433A25752C2A9629C94629FD7CF
1883: It was reported today that TheCleveland Herald has been interviewing the city’s Jewish clergy on thepossibility of Jews returning to Palestine.Rabbi Hahn considers the idea as being impracticable and feels that “theJewish people…are a great deal better off here than they could possibly bethere.” Rabbi Lane echoes thesesentiments and “is most strongly opposed to …immigration schemes.” The Herald believes “that these gentlemen speakthe prevailing sentiment” of the Jewish people.
1884: According to “The Relations of Animal Diseases to the Public Healthand Their Prevention” by Frank S. Billings which was reviewed today’s New YorkTimes, the author “quotes the Hebrew legislator who forbade pork as food forthe chosen people of the Lord. Moses didthis with a knowledge of its ‘non- hygienic character.”
1884(25th of Nisan, 5644): Dr. Lyon Berhard, one of the oldest dentistsin New York passed away today in Manhattan.Born in Amsterdam in 1812 and a graduate of the Baltimore College ofDentistry, he came to New York 42 years ago.He was a founding member of B’Nai Israel and was an active member of theHebrew Mutual Benefit Society.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E05E5DB173FE533A25751C2A9629C94659FD7CF
1884: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, Rabbi Kaufman Kohler and Joseph Blumenthalwere among the attendees at a reception given at the new building of the HebrewSheltering Guardian Society. Thebuilding which is located at Avenue A and 87th Street was originallybuilt for the use of the late John Jacob Astor.
1886(15th of Nisan,5646): First Day of Pesach
1886: Birthdate ofPauline Lonnersteadter Thalhimer, the wife of Gustavus Thalhimer and mother ofMorton Gustavus Thalhimer.
1888: It was reportedtoday that in Jacksonville, FL, Rabbi of Levy of Charleston, SC had presided atthe marriage of Susie Jacoby of Charleston to Mose J. Ullman of Evansville,Indiana.
1888: The Jewish Messenger reports that Orach Chaim has contributed support for a New YorkCity Chief Rabbi. "This action is the more significant as it is the firstuptown congregation to join the downtown contingent and mostly composed ofGermans while the other uptown orthodox congregations are mostly composed ofthe Polish element."
1888((9thof Iyar): Russian born philanthropist Samuel Poljakoff passed away.
1889:Birthdate of Otto Heinrich Frank, father of Anne Frank, who survived theHolocaust and passed away in 1980.
1889:Birthdate of Adolph Hitler
1889: InChicago, Israel and Augusta (née Mendeburskey) Balaban gave birth A.J. (AbrahamJoseph Blaban) the co-founder the Balaban and Katz Motion Picture Theatrechain.
http://archives.nypl.org/the/18638
http://www.balabanandkatzfoundation.com/
1889:Birthdate of Albert Jean Amateau,rabbi, businessman, lawyer and social activist. Born a Sephardic Jew in Milas,Turkey, Amateau attended the American International College in Izmir (Smyrna),Turkey. He immigrated to the United States in 1910. In the early 1920s, Amateaubegan a movement to bring more Jews into the workplace and government. He wasalso involved largely in the affairs of deaf people. After he returned from theArmy (he served in World War I), Amateau was ordained in 1920 at the Jewish TheologicalSeminary, and he became the first rabbi of a congregation of the deaf. In 1941,Amateau developed the Albert J. Amateau Foreign Language Service, a businessproviding translators for lipsync dubbing for motion pictures. The businesscontinued in operation until 1989. An ardent supporter of his homeland ofTurkey, Amateau began various Turkish-oriented organizations while residing inthe United States. In 1992, at the age of 103, he helped found the AmericanSociety of Jewish Friends of Turkey and was named as its president. Amateau wasalso an advocate of peace, and in 1937, he assisted with negotiations betweenJews and Arabs of Palestine. Amateau died in 1996 at the age of 106 years, 10months.
http://www.sephardicstudies.org/aa.html
1890(30thof Nisan, 5650): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1890:“In Trois-Rivières, Berthe (née Genest) and local politician Nérée Le NobletDuplessis gave birth to Maurice Duplessis who as Premier of the Province ofQuebec issued the warrant which empowered the provincial police to raid “thecultural section of the Canadian Labor Circle, a Jewish fraternal organization”during which they removed “eight hundred books of the 950 volume librarymaintained by Jewish cultural circle.”
1890:Birthdate of Erfut, Germany native David Baumgardt the author and philosopherwho in 1939 found refuge in the United States where he worked for ArchibaldMacLeish, the Librarian of Congress, wrote such books as Maimonides in1955 and Great Western Mystics: Their Lasting Significance in 1961.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/07/22/89946139.pdf
1890: InRussia, “Joseph and Sarah (Herman) Frisch gave birth University of Minnesotatrained attorney, Leonard Herman Frisch who in 1901 came to the United Stateswhere he worked for the Immigration Bureau and while serving as the editor ofthe American Jewish World and Director of the Talmud Torah of Minneapolis, MN.
1890: Itwas reported today that strikers in Austria are trying to turn the labor unrest“into an anti-Jewish crusade. Many ofthe mill and mine owners in the region are Jewish and the Rothschilds own thelargest iron and steel works at Witkowitz.The strikers have turned their fury on the local Jewish merchants andtheir attacks have left several hundred Jewish families “camping in the fieldsin utter destitution.
1891: Afire broke out in a tenement house at 194 Henry Street which is home to a largenumber of Russian Jews.
1892: InRussia, Leon and Bessie Levoitz Epstein gave birth University of Pittsburghgraduate Abraham Epstein a pioneer in the field of providing financial supportfor the “elderly” which led to what we now know as Social Security.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/historians-miscellaneous-biographies/abraham-epstein
1893(4thof Iyar, 5653): Dr. Wilhelm Lowenthal, “the Jewish scientist who had beeninvited to Argentina in 1890 to share his technological expertise onagricultural matters” and who “persuaded Baron de Hirsch to fund the JewishColonization Association (JCA) to aid Jewish settlers in Argentina” passed awaytoday.
1893:William A. Matson, the Secretary of the Church Society for PromotingChristianity Among the Jews wrote a letter today in which he took issueReverend Jacob Freshman’s statement he was “the pioneer” in New York City “inmission work for the conversion of the Jews
1894(14thof Nisan, 5654): Fast of the First Born
1894(14thof Nisan, 5654): “Festival of the Passover” published today states that“Pesach, the Jewish festival of the Passover, begins the evening and continuesfor a week.” Furthermore, “thehouseholds of the Orthodox and many of those who have accepted the modern orreformed” customs will host a Seder.
1895(26thof Nisan, 5655): Joseph Heiman Caro, author of Ṭevaḥ ṿe-hakhen (טבח והכן:כל דני שחיטות ובדיקות) passed away today
1895: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band performedat the Odd Fellows’ Home Fair which is being held at the Lenox Lyceum.
1896: “A Precious Privilege Retained” publishedtoday described a declaration published by the anti-Semitic German “National”Students at the University of Vienna stating that “they would henceforth refustto accept challenges from the Jewish Students’ Corps, as they would thinkthemselves defiled if they fought them.”The Rector refused to respond to an appeal from the Jewish studentsasking that this declaration be overturned. According to some observers, theGerman students’ declaration is rooted in the fact that the Jews have defeatedthem whenever a challenge was made and accepted.
1897 (18thof Nisan, 5657): Fourth Day of Pesach
1897: InSamara, Russia, Sophie (née Markison) and Benjamin Ratner gave birth to GrigoryVasilyevich Ratner, who gained fame as actor and director Gregory Ratoff whoseportrayal of “Max Fabian” in “All About Eve” is one of my personal favorites.
http://www.classicmoviehub.com/bio/gregory-ratoff/
http://projects.latimes.com/hollywood/star-walk/gregory-ratoff/
1899: Fire broke out tonight at the New YorkTheatre in the “dressing rooms used by ‘Hebrew Creditors’ characters” appearingin the first act “The Man in the Moon.”
1899: Testimony continues to be given beforethe Court of Cassation in the Dreyfus revision inquiry.
1899: Four days after she had passed away,Eliza Kane, the daughter of “Moses J. and Sarah Henriques” and the wife of JohnClarke Kane was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1900(20th of Nisan, 5660): Sixth Dayof Nisan
1900: Max Nordau introducedHerzl to Alfred Austin who gives him a friendly letter to Lord Salisbury, theBritish Prime Minister. Herzl sought British support in his attempts topersuade the government at Constantinople to allow the development of a Jewishhomeland. . Salisbury did not receive Herzl "on account of the warworries".
1901(1st of Iyar, 5661): ParashatTazria-Metzora; Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1901: “Alliance Israelite Universelle”published today described plans for a meeting to “be held in the vestry roomsof Temple Emanu-El under the leadership of Jacob H. Schiff where “stereopticonviews of Jewish life in the Holy Land which will be shown by Nissim Behard.”
1901: It was reported today that every year,for the last fifteen years, Charlotte Yonge has sent a manuscript to herpublisher for a story of a “historical character written especially for boysand girls” including The Patriots of Palestine, a tale of the Maccabees.
1902:Birthdate of Polish native Dr. Monah L. Bialik, the holder of Ph.D fromColumbia and the dean of the Yeshiva of Flatbush who was the husband of “theformer Clara Telushkin” with whom he had two children
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/10/07/121476085.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1902: Thesecond annual exhibition that includes “the work of east side artists” andfeaturing “an exhibition of Jewish antiquities relating to Jewish rites andcustoms” is scheduled to come to an end this evening at the Education Allianceon East Broadway and Jefferson Street
1903: “Bishop Praises Jews” published todaydescribed a sermon by Bishop Satterlee of the Episcopal Church who said, “TheJews are preserving the home and family better than we Christians are doing”and that while “I do not know how to account for this, but I do know it to befact.”
1903: “Twenty-five Jews were killed and 275were wounded, may of them mortally, in anti-Semitic riots at Kishineff, thecapital of Bessarabia” today “when a number of workmen organized an attack onthe Jewish inhabitants.”
1904(5th of Iyar, 5664): HannahPeixotto, the Louisville born daughter of Sarah and Mark Straus, the wife of BenjaminFranklin Peixotto who was the “United States Counsel General to Romania” andthe mother of George da Madouro Peixotto; Frances (Fannie) Corinne Bloom; MarkPercy da Maduro Peixotto; Judith Eugenia Salzedo Morningstar; BeatricePeixotto; Mabel Louise Peixotto; Florian (Frank) Peixotto; Victoria MaudBronner and Irving Peixotto.
1904: It was reported that a large number ofJews were part of the cheering throng that greeted Vice Admiral Skrydloff, whois married to “a Jewess” as he stopped in St. Petersburg on his way to the FarEast.
1905(15th of Nisan, 5665): As Russiaconfronted its defeat by the Japanese and the violence of the RussianRevolution, the Jews observe Pesach.
1905: In Dallas, Herbert Marcus, the founder ofNeiman Marcus and Minnie Marcus gave birth to Harold Stanley Marcus whofollowed in his father’s footsteps.
https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fmabz
1905: The Manchester Guardian published “TheAliens Bill: Some Prejudices Examined” by M.J. Landa.
1905: Birthdate of composer Nicholas “Slug”Brodszky, the native of Odessa who came to the United States in 1934 where heworked with lyricist Sammy Cahn and produced songs for numerous movies, themost famous which might have been “The Student Prince” and Love Me or LeaveMe.”
1906: In Montreal Shlomo Chaim Caplan and ChayaBluma Routtenberg gave birth to Yonah Ephraim “Jimmy” Caplan, the husband ofLena Herman and graduate of Yeshiva University who led a congregation inAstoria, NY.
1906: It was reported today that among theearliest contributors to the fund for the victims of the San FranciscoEarthquake were “Half Bros. who gave $25, Morris Frankel who have $10 andSchoenfeld Company who gave $5.
1907(6th of Iyar, 5667): Parashat Tazria-Metzora
1907(6th of Iyar, 5667)):Thirty-eight-year-old Benedict Gimbel, the Philadelphia born son Fridoline andAdam Gimbel and husband of Birdie Loeb Gimbel with whom he had one child,Benedict Gimbel, Jr., who was part of the merchant family that created thedepartment stores that bore the family name passed away today in Hoboken, NJafter slashing himself with pieces of broken glass.
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/11324771/1907-benedict-gimbel/
1908: Birthdate of Yisrael Yeshayahu Sharabi, anative of Sa’dah, Yemen, who made Aliyah in 1929 and eventually became thefifth Speaker of the Knesset.
1909: Funeral services are scheduled to takeplace this afternoon for Edward Karmer who had died at the Jewish Hospital onApril 18.
1909: Miss Ray Pearlman, “an agent of theCouncil of Jewish Women escorted unmarried Russian Jewish immigrant “SarahKoten, the young nurse who shot and killed Dr. Martin W. Auspitz last June andwho was released today under a suspended sentence” from the courtroom.
1910: Birthdate of New York native and NYUtrained attorney Leo Isaksson who appeared to upset the political applecartwhen he was elected to House of Representatives as a member of the AmericanLabor Party in what appeared to be a leg up for Henry Wallace’s bid to win theWhite House.
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=I000046
1911(22nd of Nisan, 5671): EighthDay of Pesach
1911(22nd ofNisan,5671): Sixty-one year old Minsk native and author Henry Iliowizi, theteacher in Alliance Israélite Universelle’s “school at Tetuan, Morocco from1877 to 1880” who came to the United States where he “wasminister of a congregation at Harrisonburg, Virginia; from 1880 to 1888, rabbiof the Congregation Sha'aré Tob in Minneapolis; and from 1888 to 1900, of theCongregation Adath Jeshurun in Philadelphia” passed away today.
1911: Birthdate of NewYork native and NYU trained lawyer Jacob Mishler who served as “a United Statesdistrict judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District ofNew York from 1960 to 2004 and its Chief Judge from 1969 to 1980.”
1912: Birthdate of David Ginsburg, “a liberallawyer and longtime Washington insider who helped found the Americans forDemocratic Action and led the presidential commission on race relations whosereport, in 1968, warned that the United States was ‘moving toward two societies— one black, one white, separate and unequal.’”
1912: In the Bronx, a memorial service is to beheld at the Montefiore Congregation for the crew and passengers who died whenthe Titanic sank.
1912: Guy Zinn, an outfielder with the New YorkHighlanders (later re-named the NY Yankees) “scored the first run ever atBoston’s Fenway Park” today.
1912: A banquet celebrating the fifthanniversary of the Free Synagogue hosted by Rabbi Stephen Wise was postponed aspublic mourning for those who lost their lives on the Titanic continues.
1912: Birthdate of Gertrude Erika Perlmann, theCzechoslovakian-born U.S. biochemist.
1913: A general strike by 4,000 kosher bakersbegan today when 1,000 of them quit work in Manhattan, Brooklyn andBrownsville. The strike had originallybeen scheduled to start on April 29. The early strike date really was of littlesignificance since the bakers would have quite working tomorrow any way do thefact that Passover starts tomorrow evening.
1913: Rabbi Joseph Stolz is scheduled todeliver a sermon on “Walking in the Statutes of the Nations at the IsaiahTemple at Vincennes and 45th Street.
1913: This morning at Temple Sinai, onChicago’s south-side, Dr. Emil G. Hirsch is scheduled to on “The Ethics ofJudaism and the Ethics of Christianity” which is “the concluding lecture in theseries on the ‘Relations of Liberal Judaism to its Neighbors.’”
1913: This afternoon, Dr. Emil G. Hirsch willdeliver the sermon at the People’s Synagogue which meets every Sunday atChicago’s Ziegfeld Theatre. (Editor’s Note: As you can see from these entries,this was a period in which Reform Judaism was making a concerted effort toreplace Saturday morning services with Sunday morning services—a move whichthey thought would improve attendance and participation.)
1913: Morris Siegel, known to his friends andfamily as “Morris the Apple Peddler” attended the Brit Milah today for threeboys – his three sons all of whom were born eight days ago. The crowd of well-wishers grew even largerwhen the entire class of his 13 year old son Harry arrived at the event.
1914: Investment banker and art collectorMaurice Wertheim, the son Jacob and Hanna Wertheim, and his first wife AlmaMorgenthau gave birth to Anne Rebe Wertheim, the younger sister of historianBarbara Tuchman.
1914: Re-argument of Gompers (as in SamuelGompers) versus the United States began today at the U.S. Supreme Court.
1915: Birthdate of SouthAfrican-born, American psychologist Joseph Wolpe.
1915: “It was announced” today “in a letter received fromCounselor Robert Lansing” of the U.S. State Department “by The Jewish DailyWarheit of New York” that “the State Department in Washington has telegraphedthe American Consul at Warsaw” seeking a full report on “the severe sufferingsof the Jews in Russian Poland.”
1915(6thof Iyar, 5675): Seventy-two-year-old Nathan Gratz, a well-known New York lawyerpassed away today. He was the son of Jonathan and Rebecca Gratz (Moses) Nathan.“Mr. Nathan graduated from Columbia College in 1861. He engaged in practice in1864 and was well known in Democratic political circles, clubs, and charitablesocieties. He was a member of New York law Institute, Columbia Alumni, and theNew York Genealogical and Biographical Society.”
1915:Birthdate of journalist Israel Epstein.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1491973/Israel-Epstein.html
1916(17thof Nisan, 5676): Third Day of Pesach
1916:” A‘Life for a Life’ campaign in which 500,000 Jewish women in the United Statesare expected to raise $1,000,000 a month for the needy Jews in Europe wasstarted by the Women’s Proclamation Committee of the Central Jewish ReliefCommittee at the Astor Hotel today.”
1916:Birthdate of Wiera Vera Gran, the Polish born Jewish singer who first performedunder the name Sylvia Green and who became the center of a controversysurrounding her survival of the Holocaust.
http://www.newsweek.com/wiera-gran-strange-saga-warsaw-ghetto-singer-68575
1917(28thof Nisan, 5677): Eighty-six-year-old civil engineer Sir John Howard, thehusband of Georgina Paver and the father o Alice, Rosina, Frederick, Esther,Leah and Howard Hannah who “was involved in building the Palace Pier, Brighton,construction of railways in Andover, Colne Valley, Andover and Redgbridge,Bognor, Midhurst and Mid-Sussex” and who was affiliated with the West London,Brighton and Edinburgh Synagogues passed away today after which he was buried inthe Jewish Cemetery in Brighton.
https://www.jewsfww.uk/sir-john-howard-3750.php
1917:Two days after he had passed away, forty-seven-year-old David Myer Petrofskywas buried in the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London today.
1917: As the Russian military position continued todeteriorate and Russian soldiers demanded immediate peace with the Germans,mutinies broke out. In one instance anartillery officer named Khaust who had demanded that his fellow Russians laydown their armswas saved from an angry assembly ofsoldiers by a Jewish soldier known simply as Rom who intervened on theirbehalf.
1917(28th ofNisan, 5677): During WW I, Lt. Max Oster was killed at the Battle of Aisne.
1917(28th ofNisan, 5677): During WW I, Lt Sydney Fine, 2/5 S Lancers, the son of Jacob Fineof Edgbaston, was killed today.
1918(8th ofIyar, 5678): Parashat Achrei Mot – Kedoshim
1918: Rabbi Krass isscheduled to deliver a sermon on “Hebraism and Humanity” at Central Synagogueon Lexington Avenue.
1918: Rabbi Silvermanis scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Revival of Jewish Culture” at TempleEmanu-El.
1918: Rabbi M.H. Harrisis scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Loaf that Fed the Multitude” at TempleIsrael of Harlem.
1918: “Banquet toJewish Soldiers” published today described plans for an upcoming banquet beinghosted by the Jewish Board of Welfare and the Young Men’s Hebrew Associationunder the chairmanship of Benjamin Natal for the benefit the young Jewish menwho are about to leave for Fort Dix to begin serving in the U.S. Army.
1919: Dr. J. LeonMagnes spoke at the groundbreaking ceremonies for the new Bronx Jewish Hospitalduring which $60,000 was pledged toward the building fund.
1919: The public was invited to attend theentertainment of the children of the Marks Nathan Jewish Orphan Home duringChol-Homaed Pesach.
1919: In Manhattan,Tillie Gold, of Gold’s Horseradish fame and her husband gave birth to heroldest Morris Gold “who helped make” Gold’s a household name.
1919: The JewishLiterary Society meeting at Zion Temple is scheduled to discuss The Religion ofCanaan by Mary Erenberg and The Religion of Babylon and Syria by WilliamElfenbaum.
1919: “The young womenwho worked as telephone operators at New England Telephone and Telegraph walkedoff the job. One of the strike leaders was Rose Finkelstein, a young Jewishworker, who had emigrated with her family as a young child from Kiev, Russia.” (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archives)
http://jwa.org/thisweek/apr/20/1919
1920: “Chaim Weizmann arrivedat the Hotel Royal in San Remo, two days after the San Remo conference hadconvened.” Still smarting from thefailure of the British to stop the riots aimed at the Jews of Jerusalem thathad broken out earlier in the month, the usually reserved Weizmann,congratulates Phillip Kerr, Lloyd George’s private secretary, on the “firstpogrom ever conducted under the British flag.”The unusual outburst took place in the hotel lobby, a publicdenunciation that caught the British leader off guard and led to cooling offperiod for the Zionist leader.
1920: Inthe aftermath of World War I, Palestine ceased to be a part of the defeatedOttoman Empire (now Turkey). The League of Nations made Palestine aBritish Mandate which meant recognition of the terms of the BalfourDeclaration.
1921: Birthdate of Marcos Moshinsky theUkrainian born Mexican physicist who won the Prince of Asturias Prize forScientific and Technical Investigation in 1988 and the UNESCO Science Prize in1997. He passed away in 2009 at the age of 87.
1922(22nd of Nisan, 5682): Eight Dayof Pesach
1922: Philadelphia Athletics 2ndbaseman Heinie Scheer appeared in his first major league baseball game.
1923(4th of Iyar, 5683): D. FalkDuschoff passed away today in Detroit.
1923(4th of Iyar, 5683): Eighty-one-year-oldGerman born Philadelphia lawyer Mayer Sulzberger, a life-long Republican whoserved as a judge and was active in numerous Jewish organizations including theJewish Theological Seminary and Dropsie College.
http://www.library.upenn.edu/cajs/sulzberger.html
1923:Birthdate of pioneering statistician and psychologist Jacob Cohen. (Editor’sNote – I do not have a clue as to what he did but it was obviously brilliant.)
http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/04/04708608/0470860804-2.pdf
1923: Rabbi Aaron David Burack, the Lithuanianborn son of Chaim Natan (Nassen) Burack and Bashe (Bessie) Gitel (Gibberman)Burack and his wife Esther Burack gave birth to Dr. Bernard Burack
1924(16th of Nisan, 5684): SecondDay of Pesach
1924: “The Woman on the Jury,” in Arthur Lubinplayed the role of a juror was released today in the United States.
1924: Birthdate of Morris Edward Chafetz, theson of Jewish immigrants who played an important role in changing the publicperception of alcoholism from social crime or personal failing to a diseaserequiring treatment. ´ (As reported by William Grimes)
1925: “Speedy repeal of the present immigrationlaw "in favor of a measure embodying more accurately the unbiased findingsof science," was urged here today by Adolf Kraus of Chicago, President ofthe Independent Order of B'nai B'rith, in his annual address to the Grand Lodgeconvention of that body, in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.”
1926: At luncheon at the Hotel Biltmore, Mrs.Alexander Kohut told members of the Women’s Division of the United JewishCampaign about “the conditions she witnessed on her trip to Eastern Europe andurge the newly appointed committee heads to spare no effort toward raising the$500,000 which the women have pledged as their share of the New York quota.”
1926: “Sir Leo Levison, President of theInternational Hebrew Christian Alliance, arrived in New York today from Londonon the White Star Liner Majestic to attend the national conference of theAmerican Hebrew Christian Alliance at Buffalo” which is scheduled to begin onApril 25.
1926: Warner Brothers, which was owned by the four Warnerbrothers and Western Electric announcedthe creation of Vitaphone, a process to add sound to film. Vitaphone would bethe sound system used in the making of “The Jazz Singer,” the first talkingmotion picture.
1927(18th of Nisan, 5687): Fourth Day of Pesach
1927: “Counsel for Henry Ford and the Dearborn PublishingCompany, defendants in Aaron Sapiro's suit for $1,000,000 as libel damages,filed today with Federal Judge Raymond their application for a mistrial.”
1928(30th of Nisan, 5688): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1928(30th of Nisan, 5688): Seventy-year-old Dr.Samuel Weszel, a native of Rotterdam who was the Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazic communityin Bosnia passed away today in Bosnia.
1928: According to a prediction made tonight in Philadelphiaby Rabbi Max D. Klein, local chairman of the United Palestine Appeal, “within aweek or ten days Wall Street will hear that two of its banks have completed ajoint loan of three million dollars to the World Zionist Organization for usein the rehabilitation of Palestine.
1928: “The tenth anniversary of the He’Chaultz PalestinePioneer organization was marked at a meeting” held in Paris.
1929(10th of Nisan, 5689): Parsahat Metzora andShabbat HaGadol observed for the last time before the Great Depression
1930(22nd of Nisan, 5690): Eighth Day of Pesach.
1930: The Jewish Theatrical Guild is scheduled to hold anopen meeting this afternoon at the Bijou Theatre where S.L. Rothafel will bethe guest of the honor.
1931(3rd of Iyar, 5691): Sixty-two-year-old SanFrancisco attorney Henry George Washington Dinkelspiel, the Suisan, CA born sonof Meier "Moses" Dinkelspiel and Lena Dinkelspiel, the husband ofEstelle Dinkelspiel and N.N. Dinkelspiel and father of Bette Leve, John Dinkelspieland Martin Jerrold Dinkelspiel who followed in his father’s footsteps to becomea leading member of the California bar, passed away today.
1931: “The Outsider,” film treatment of the novel of thesame named directed by Harry Lachman who co-authored the script was released inthe United Kingdom today.
1931: Plans for a charity dinner to be held on April 22 atthe Hotel Biltmore “under the auspices of the New York Campaign for the Reliefof Jews in Eastern Europe were announced” today “ by Albert Ottinger, chairmanof the local committee.”
1932(14th of Nisan, 5692): Fast of the First Bornis observed for the last time under the Presidency of Herbert Hoover and inpre-Hitler Germany.
1932:“Four witnesses testified today that they had given money to the Rabbi SamuelBuchler, lawyer, former city official and former Jewish chaplain at Sing Sing,in futile efforts to bring alien relatives into this country.”
1933: “Adolf Busch, the German violinist, has just resignedhis part in the forthcoming Brahms centennial celebration in Hamburg becausepermission to participate was refused to the pianist, Rudolf Serkin, because ofhis Jewish origin.”
1934: “For the first time in its history of more than twohundred years” Yale University is the site of a conference of Christians andJews, sponsored by five of the school’s “religious clubs” scheduled to openthis afternoon with the theme of “Common Citizenship.”
1935(17th of Nisan, 5695): Third day of Pesach
1935(17th of Nisan, 5695): In Pelham, NY,merchant and philanthropist Philip Pearlman passed away today.
1935: “Little Mother,” a comedy directed Henry Koster,produced by Jose Pasternak and starring Otto Wallburg was released in Austriatoday.
1936: As tension continue to rise amid reports of plans forfurther attacks by Arabs, “all the Jews in the Beersheba district have beenmoved to Jerusalem in trucks under police escort.”
1936: Jews repelled an Arab attack in PetachTikvah.This attack was part of the Arab Uprisingthat lasted from1936 until 1939.The Arabs aim wastoput an end tothedream of a Jewish homeland. While they failedmilitarily,they were handed victory by a British decision tovirtually put an end toJewish land purchases and immigration. This effectively slammed the doorshut on the Jews of Europe on the eve of the Shoah. Petach Tikvahor "Gateway of Hope" wasoriginally founded by religiousJewishpioneers who had been living in Jerusalem.What wouldeventually become a city, was a collection of mud huts built by 26 families onmalaria infested piece of land seven miles east of what would one day becomeTel Aviv. Petach Tikvah took its name from a verse in Hosea "And Iwill give her...the valley of Achor for a gateway of Hope (2:17)."The moshav would be abandoned for a brief period and then re-started withsupport from Baron Rothschild. Petach Tikvah became a model andinspiration for the moshav movement. Unfortunately, Petach Tikvah is nostranger to Arab violence. During the 1920's, the defense ofPetachTikvahhad helped to defeat an earlier Arab attempt to destroy the effortsby Jews to resettle and rehabilitate land that had been designated as “theJewish Home.’Inthe latest Arab Uprising, Petach Tikvah has been thescene of a suicide bombing in 2002 and the scene of a thwarted bombing in 2003.
1936(28thof Nisan, 5696): Zvi Dannenberg died today of wounds suffered on April 15 whenhe and Israel Khazahn were attacked by Arabs as they traveled from Nablus toTulkarm.
1936: BronislawHuberman, founder and organizer of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra announcedthat Arturo Toscanini has decided to include music by Mendelssohn on the firstprogram he will conduct with the symphony. There is an element of politicalprotest in this announcement since Mendelssohn has been banned by the Nazis.
1936(28thof Nisan, 5695): “In an attack in the Shapira quarter, a Jewish suburb ofJaffa, Arabs killed two Jews and wounded several others” including “a Jewishyouth riding a bicycle in Jaffa” who “was beaten so severely that he diedalmost instantly.”
1936: “The YemeniteJewish quarter outside of Tel Aviv” was destroyed by fire set by Arabs.
1936: Part of a mob ofthree hundred Haurani Arabs “broke into the home of a Jewish family in Manshiehquarter and killed the father and injured the mother who was transported by thepolice along with their three children to Hadassah Hospital.
1937: B'nai B'rith wasbanned in Nazi Germany because of individual members spreading "communistpropaganda.
1937: After moving itsmeeting that had been scheduled to start on April 13 in London, the ZionistGeneral Council is scheduled to meet today in Jerusalem.
1938: Despite bombthrowing which has become a daily occurrence in Jerusalem, an enthusiasticcrowd filled Jerusalem’s Edison Hall for Toscanini’s fifth concert Aprof theseason with the Palestine Orchestra.
1938:German planes fly over Austria on Hitler’s birthday dropping tinySwastikas. This is the “new” Austriaafter the Anschluss which had taken place in March of 1938.
1938: The Palestine Postreported that for the third night in succession bombs had been thrown in thecenter of Jerusalem, injuring Edwin Eisler, 18, and Banu Baland, 35. Forty"illegal" Jewish immigrants who had been in Palestine for many years,declared a hunger strike in order to persuade the mandate's authorities tochange their status from "illegal" immigrants whom the courts failedto deport, to that of recognized permanent residents, so that they could bringhere their families from abroad.
1939: OnHitler's fiftieth birthday, all Catholic churches in Greater Germany hoistedthe swastika in celebration.
1939: “The Four Feathers,” a film version ofthe novel by the same name, directed by Zoltan Korda and produced by AlexanderKorda was released today in the United Kingdom.
1939:The Wirtschafts-und Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA; Economy and Administration Main Office) wasupgraded. It was concerned with SS economic matters, particularly atconcentration camps
1939: At a meeting ofthe British Cabinet’s Palestine Committee, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain,ever the appeaser, stressed that it of ‘immense importance’ with regard toBritish strategy ‘to have the Moslem world with us. If we must offend one side, let us offend theJews rather than the Arabs.’ This pronouncement was a complete violation of theBalfour Declaration and the terms of the Mandate. It set the stage for the effective closing ofPalestine to Jewish immigration in May of 1939; a policy that bought death forthe Jews but failed to win the goodwill of the Arabs.
1940: In the U.K.,Russian Jewish immigrants and longtime residents of the British Isles,“AbrahamSamuel and Rosalie Wander” gave birth to MIchelene Samuels who gained famed asMichelen Vicor and Michelene Wandor, the author of Music of the Prophets, the2007 work that “commemorates the 350th anniversary of the Jewsreturn to England in 1657.”
1941: Philippe deRothschild was “released from Vichy custody” today following which he went toEngland and joined the Free French under Charles de Gaulle.
1941: Birthdate of NewYork native, author and Distinguished Professor of history Blanche Wiesen Cook.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/author/cook-blanche
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Blanche+Wiesen+Cook.-a058726440
1941: German newspapersin Greece come out blaming Jews for ruining Germany after World WarI. During this same period in April, the Greek newspaper New Europewrote in capital letters “DEATH TO THE JEWS.” The paper reported that the Jewswere the cause of economic problems in Germany. Levy stated the Greek papercalled for the destruction of the "Jewish race once and for all."
1942: The Battle forMoscow comes to an “end.” The war in theEast will grind on. But thanks to thegritty, desperate defense of the Soviet capital, the German Army has been stoppedand what was to have been a lightning war turns into a war of attrition. As bad as the Holocaust was, defeat at Moscowwould have made it even worse. TheSoviet victory here, along with other Soviet victories later in the war causedGeneral Douglas McArthur (of all people) to declare that the Red Army was theHope of the World.
1942: “Frank L. Weilwas re-elected president of the National Jewish Welfare Board, and Judge IrvingLehman was re-elected honorary president at the Twenty-Fifth annual conferenceof the J.W.B. which concluded its three-day session today” in New York City.(As reported by JTA)
1942: At Mauthausen,“forty-eight people were shot at two-minute intervals as a present to Hitler onhis birthday.”
1942: “Thirty Frenchhostages – “Communists, Jews and sympathizers” – were executed today by theGerman military command near Roden in reprisal for the bombing last week of amilitary train in which a large number of German soldiers were killed.” (Asreported by JTA)
1942:At a birthdaybanquet for Hitler in East Prussia, Hermann Göring announced that he wasresponsible for the Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933, that set offNazi reprisals against purported Communist subversion.
1942: As part of theexercises commemorating the 1,000th anniversary of the medieval scholar SaadiaGaon, the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York will confer honorary degreeson three modern educators this evening at the University of Chicago.
1942: “More than athousand prominent educational and religious leaders gathered tonight at theUniversity of Chicago’s Mandel Hall at a convocation called by the JewishTheological Seminary to honor Rabbi Saadia Gaon, the thousandth anniversary ofwhose death is being celebrated this year. President Robert M. Hutchins of theUniversity of Chicago presided at the meeting.” (As reported by JTA)
1943(15th ofNisan, 5703): Pesach
1943: On the second dayof Pesach, the Warsaw uprising continued for a second day. The ghetto isbombarded with fire frp, mortars and machine guns. Germans kill all the sick inthe Czyste hospital. Then they set the hospital on fire. Jewish resistance wasstubborn and organized. The Nazis, who had swept France in a mere sixweeks, could not believe that the Jews of all people were providing this kindof a fight. According to one account, some of the Jews could not believethey were doing it either.
1944: “A citation ofthe New York Round Table of the National Conference of Christians and Jews waspresented tonight to former Supreme Court Justice Joseph M. Proskauer,president of the American Jewish Committee, as "a valiant fighter in thecause of goodwill" in ceremonies broadcast from station WHN.”
1944: While it isestimated that more one million Jews are serving the forces of the “UnitedNations” as of today “more than fifty members of Parliament have signed amotion to come before the House of Commons asking that facilities be grantedfor the formation of a Jewish army under British or United Nations command tofight on any required battlefield and to composed of volunteers not a presentliable to compulsory military service.”
1945(7th of Iyar, 5705): During thenight 20 children and at least 28 adults were hanged at Bullenhuser Damn, oneof the satellite camps of Neuengamme. The Bullenhuser Damm Memorial isdedicated to the memory of these children, who were subjected to medicalexperiments in the Neuengamme concentration camp before being murdered, to the4 prisoners who cared for them, and to 24 unidentified Soviet prisoners.(Basedon information supplied by the Wiener Library)
1945: Jerusalem’s District Commissioner, JamesHuey Hamilton Pollock, met with Arab leaders in an attempt to reach a solutionas to how Jerusalem should be governed.Jewish leaders had accepted a British proposal that would have theposition of Mayor rotate among each of the three main religious groups in thecity. The Arabs had maintained that themayor must be Muslim. The compromise wouldallow for a partition plan.
1945: Prime Minister Churchill telegraphs hiswife who is in the Soviet Union stating that “Here we are all shocked by themost horrible revelations of German cruelty in the concentration camps.”
1945: Ernst Hess, who was Hitler’s commandingofficer during World War I ended his work as a “forced laborer’ for plumbernamed George Grau.
1946(19th of Nisan, 5706): Shabbatshel Pesach
1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquirycompleted its report, urging the British to end the land purchase restrictionsimposed on the Jews as part of the 1939 White Paper and to grant 100,000Palestine certificates immediately. TheBritish rejected the proposal, refused to allow immigration on anythingapproaching that scale.
1946: “Five Yemenite Jews were killed when athree-inch shell exploded…in Nathanya” a town halfway between Tel Aviv andHaifa.
1946: Birthdate of “Israeli-born Americanpianist Mordecai Shehori, the native of Tel Aviv who “made his New York debutafter winning the 1974 Jeunesses Musicales Competition.”
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Shehori-Mordecai.htm
1946: Twenty-eight-year-old Brooklyn-bornsouthpaw Herbert “Lefty” Karpel pitched in the second and final game of his twogame career with the New York Yankees.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/karpehe01.shtml
1946: “Devotion” a biopic directed by CurtisBernhardt was released in the United States today.
1947:Seventy-six-year-old Christian X of Denmark, who fourteen years earlier almostto the day had attended the ceremonies marking the 100th anniversaryof the founding of the Grand Synagogue and who according to a popular mythdonned the Yellow Star of David during the Nazi occupation (something he wroteabout in his diaries” passed away today.
1948:On the eve of Pesach, "the last food convoy after Operation Nachson, madeup of some 300 trucks brought provisions to Jerusalem.
1948: Aconvoy that included Prime Minister David Ben Gurion set out from Tel Aviv tothe besieged city of Jerusalem. BenGurion wanted to spend Pesach in Jerusalem with the beleaguered defenders as away of raising morale. The trip wasextremely dangerous because the Arabs controlled the high ground on both sidesof the highway and had successfully beaten back several other suchattempts. While Ben Gurion, who wastraveling in one of the lead vehicles, made it through, the rest of the convoy cameunder heavy attack and was forced to turn back after suffering heavycasualties. This was only one of themany battles fought to open the road to Jerusalem. Long after the war was over, travelers on themodern-four lane highway from the coast to Jerusalem could see the burned-outhulks of the Jewish vehicles that serve as constant reminder of the price theJewish people paid for Jerusalem.
1948(11thof Nisan, 5708): Twenty Jewish soldiers were killed today when “a secondattempt was made to” take Metzudat Koach, a Tegart fort built by Solel Bonehduring the British Mandate” that “was a key observation point on the Naftaliheights, overlooking the Hula Valley” which had been seized by the Arabs thusthreatening the existence of kibbutzim in the Upper Galilee.
1948(11thof Nisan, 5708): Five members of Haganah were killed and twenty-four werewounded during a day long fight “at Deir Ayoub, just short of the gorges of BabEl Wad” with Arabs who were trying to keep a convoy from reaching Jerusalemwhich was under siege that was a violation of international law.
1948:“Arab throngs turned out at Amman to welcome The Grand Mufti, Haj Amin elHusseini” prior to his meeting with King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan who hasintimated that his Arab Legion would soon join armies from Arab nations in aninvasion of Palestine.
1948:“In Jerusalem armed Arabs held up a postal trucked, for the driver to drive tothe Garden of Gethsemane and stole seventy-six bags of foreign, domestic andarmy mail.
1948: Agroup of Jewish veterans who had had served with the British Army during WorldWar II drove a convoy to twenty-four armored trucks to the edge of the Negevwhere they founded “a new settlement called Brur Hayal.
1949(21stof Nisan, 5709): Seventh Day of Pesach
1949(21stof Nisan, 5709): Ben Spector, an ironworker from Russia and the father offamous popular musician Phil Spector passed away today.
1949: Twenty-five-year-oldoutfielder Cal Abrams plays in his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
1949:Publication of The Brave Bulls which would become a 1951 film directedby Robert Rossen.
1950(3rdof Iyar, 5710): Yom HaAtma’ut
1950: During a debatein the House of Commons Prime Minister Atlee’s Labor government announced thatit would continue to refuse to sell arms to Israel while continuing to sellarms to Egypt, Iraq and Jordan. Accordingto sources in Tel Aviv, the British have said they would consider sales ofweapons to Israel if she reaches a full settlement with the Arab states. No such pre-condition has been attached tosales to the Arab states.
1951(14th ofNisan, 5711): Erev Pesach and Erev Shabbat
1951: “When I Grow Up”produced by Sam Spiegel and with music by Jerome Moross was released today inthe United States.
1951(14th ofNisan, 5711): Sixty-one-year-old David Stanley Dreyfus, the Pine Bluff born sonof Isaac and Bertha Simon Dreyfus and the brother of Ruth, Hugo, H. Artie andJerome Dreyfus passed away today after which he was buried in the CongregationAnshe Emeth Cemetery in Pine Bluff, AR.
1951: Funeral servicesare scheduled to be held in Jefferson City, MO for Etta Amolsky Schatzkey, theLulling. TX born daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Amolsky and the wife of AlbertSchatzkey whom she married in 1900 and with whom she lived in Houston beforemoving to Jefferson Cit.
1952: NBC broadcast thefinal episode of “The Big Show” a radio variety show written by Goodman Ace ofEasy Aces who hired Selma Diamond to work on the scripts with him.
1953(5th of Iyar,5713): Yom HaAtzma'ut observed
1954(17th ofNisan, 5714): Third Day of Pesach
1954: “The GoldenApple,” a Jerome Moros musical that had opened “Off-Broadway” in March openedon Broadway today at the Alvin Theatre.
1955: A production of“Guys and Dolls” “starring Walter Matthau as Nathan Detroit” opened today.
1956: A subpoena duces tecum was served today on MauricioHochschild.
1957(19th ofNisan, 5717): Shabbat Shel Pesach
1957: U.S. premiere of“The Spirit of St. Louis” directed by Billy Wilder who also co-authored thescript with music by Franz Waxman.
1958(30th of Nisan,5718): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1960: “From A to Z,” “amusical revue with a book by Woody Allen…opened on Broadway” today at thePlymouth Theater.
1961(4th ofIyar, 5721): Yom HaAtzma’ut
1961: Israel isscheduled to hold military parade in Jerusalem, that despite assurance from theAmbassador Arthur Lourie will not include any aircraft or weapons containingammunition, the Jordanians have alleged will “international peace andsecurity.”
1963: Final performanceof at the Royal Theatre of “Lord Prego,” written by S. N. Behran and for which KalBernstein serve as “general press representative.”
1963: CBS broadcast thefinal episode of “Have Gun – Will Travel” that included an opening themecomposed by Bernard Herrmann and over its six year history included episodeswritten by Bruce Geller and Irving Wallace as well as appearances by MartinBalsam, Sydney Pollack, Norma Crane, Suzanne Pleshette, Werner Klemperer andDyan Cannon.
1965: U.S. premiere of“The Pawnbroker” the film version of the novel by Edward Lewis Wallant,directed by Sidney Lumet and filmed by cinematographer Boris Kaufman.
1965: In Montreal,architect Moshe Safdie and his wife gave birth to “Canadian-American-Israeliplaywright and screenwriter Oren Safdi who whose works included “Jews &Jesus, a musical that satirizes the naiveté of young Jews, half-Jews,Christians who date Jews and vice versa, while questioning the place ofreligion in this unfettered age.”
1967:Birthdate of Mike Portnoy, drummer in the progressive metal band Dream Theatre.
1968(22nd ofNisan, 5728): Eighth Day of Pesach and Shabbat
1968: After 598performances, the curtain came down on Woody Allen’s “Don’t Drink the Water.”
1970(14th of Nisan,5730):Ta'anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach
1970(14th of Nisan,5730): Forty-nine-year-old Poet and translator Paul Celan passed away.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/paul-celan
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/celan
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/paul-celan
1970: Bruno Kreisky became the firstSocialist and the first Jew to serve as Chancellor of Austria.
1970: PiniNahmani, an Israeli pilot being held in a Damascus prison, celebrated a Sedermade possible by two Haggadot and some Matzah crumbs sent by the Chief Rabbi ofZurich.
1971: BarbraStreisand recorded "We've Only Just Begun."
1972(6thof Iyar, 5732): Eighty-six-year-old Isidor Posner, the husband of Ida WeinsteinPosner and the father of Marcy, Rhoda and Irving Posner passed away today afterwhich he was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Lansing, Michigan.
1973(18thof Nisan, 5733): Fourth Day of Pesach
1973(18thof Nisan, 5733): Seventy-four-year-oldencomiast Theodore N. Beckman, the Bessarabia born son of Pearl Treistman andNahum Backman, the holder of a Ph.D. from the Ohio State University where hebecame a Professor of Marketing and husband of Esther G. Society who also served“as the faculty adviser of the OSU Menorah Society and a member of the advisoryboard of Hillel passed away today,
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/04/22/90932508.html?pageNumber=54
https://www.amazon.com/Books-Theodore-N-Beckman/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ATheodore+N.+Beckman
1974: SouthAfrican Jewish professional association footballer Martin Cohen was part of theWhite XI that played their black counterparts today “in a racially chargedmatch at Rand Stadium. After initially going down 1-0 to the black side (thegoal was called off-side by referee Wally Turner), Cohen scored a crucial goalbefore Neil Roberts put the game away.”
1975: LarryBlyden, a practicing Jew from Houston born Ivan Lawrence Blieden, co-hosted thetelecast of the Tony Awards.
1976: PaulaHyman spoke about the history of Jewish women in America on New York radiostation WEVD.
http://jwa.org/thisweek/apr/20/1976/paula-hyman
1977(2nd of Iyar, 5737): Yom HaZikaron
1977: "AnnieHall" a comedy directed and written by Woody Allen co-starring Paul Simonand Janet Margolin was released in the United States, a month after premieringat the Los Angeles Film Fesitval.
1978: The Jerusalem Postreported that Yitzhak Navon was elected the fifth president of the State ofIsrael on his 57th birthday. The minister of defense, Ezer Weizmann, wasexpected to leave for Cairo in another bid to renew the stalledIsraeli-Egyptian peace negotiations. In Washington, efforts were made to setthe stage for another, possibly more promising, summit between Prime MinisterMenachem Begin and US president, Jimmy Carter.
1979: U.S. premiere of“Dawn of the Dead” co-starring Gaylen Ross who would later produce theacclaimed documentary “Killing Kasztner,”
1980(4th ofIyar, 5740): Yom HaZikaron
1981(16th ofNisan, 5741): Second Day of Pesach; First Day of the Omer under PresidentReagan.
1981(16th of Nisan, 5741): New YorkCity native and CCNY grad Sol Rafel, “the executive director of Bronx House,the largest Jewish community center the borough” who had two daughters – Judyand Ellen – with his wife Ruth passed away today
1982(27th ofNisan, 5742): Yom HaShoah
1986: An Irishwoman arrested in connection with an attempt toblow up a crowded Israeli airliner was freed tonight after two days ofquestioning with no charges brought against her, the police said. Anne-MarieMurphy, 32 years old, was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport carryingexplosives on Thursday as she was about to board an El Al flight to Tel Aviv. Shecarried a bag containing about 10 pounds of explosives stashed in a falsebottom. The police said she may have been duped into taking the bomb onto theplane. Detectives are still questioning her fiancé, Nezar Hindawi, a35-year-old Jordanian who was arrested on Friday.
1986: World famouspianist Vladimir Horowitz performed in his Russian homeland.Anon-observant Jew, this performance was one of his last before he went into hisfinal retirement. "It's better to make your own mistakes than to copysomeone else's." "My future is in my past and my past is in my present. Imust now make the present my future."
1987: Two Israeli soldiers and three Palestinian guerrillas werekilled today in a shootout after the Palestinians cut through a Lebanon borderfence and crossed into northern Israel, an Israeli Army spokesman said. TheIsraeli radio said three Palestinian guerrillas who slipped past Israeli troopsin southern Lebanon and crossed the border near the Menara kibbutz ''were wipedout,'' but not before they had killed the two Israeli soldiers who had trackedthem to their hiding place in an apple orchard 500 yards inside Israel. AlFatah, Yasir Arafat's faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, tookcredit for the operation.
1988(3r of Iyar, 5748)Yom HaZikaron observed
1988: Bernard A.Friedman began serving as “Judge of the United States District Court for theEastern District of Michigan” today.
1989(15th ofNisan, 5749): Pesach is observed for the first time during the Presidency ofGeorge H.W. Bush.
1989: In HammersmithLondon, Bernard and Flora Sternberg gave birth to actress Roxy Sternberg.
https://jwa.org/thisweek/apr/20/1989/birth-actress-roxy-sternberg
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4662925/
1990(25th ofNisan, 5750): Seventy-one-year-old Justice Irene Finkelstein, the daughter ofAaron Rushovich and Sonia Chatzkelowitz Rushovich, the wife of DavidFinkelstein and Maurice Finkelstein with she gave birth to Arlene Dawn Joelpassed away today.
1991(6th of Iyar, 5751:Movie director Don Siegel passed away.Born in Chicago in 1912 and educated in England, Siegel had a long andstoried career. In 1945,two shorts he directed, Hitler Lives?and A Star in the Night, won AcademyAwards, which launched his career as a feature director. Among his long list offilm credits were a series of Clint Eastwood films including Coogan’s Bluff, Two Mules for Sister Sarah and the classic Dirty Harry.
1993:At a solemn outdoor ceremony tonight at theplace where several hundred poorly armed Jews battled the Nazis 50 years ago,the leaders of Poland and Israel hailed the valor of the uprising and calledfor a new beginning in the often difficult relationship between Jews and Poles.
1994: “Paul Touvier,the first French citizen tried for crimes against humanity, was sentenced todayto life in prison for ordering the execution of seven Jews during World War II.”
http://articles.latimes.com/1994-04-20/news/mn-48236_1_war-crimes
1995(20thof Nisan, 5755): Fifty-two-year-old, “Jacob Shaham, among the world's leadingtheoretical astrophysicists in the study of neutron stars and professor ofphysics at Columbia” passed away today.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol20/vol20_iss26/record2026.28.html
1997: The New YorkTimes featured reviews of Rabin: Our Life, His Legacy by Leah Rabinand The Boys: The Untold Story of 732Young Concentration Camp Survivors byMartin Gilbert.
1999(4th ofIyar, 5759): Yom HaZikaron
1999(4th ofIyar, 5759): Eighty-four-year-old Baroness Bethsabée de Rothschild passed awayin Tel Aviv
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/22/world/batsheva-de-rothschild-84-a-patron-of-graham.html
2000(15th ofPesach, 5760): Pesach
2000: InShanghai, 100 Jews attended Pesach services at Ohel Rachel Synagogue.
2000: “A Story StillPainful After Repeated” published today provides a review the Robert Myers’“The Lynching of Leo Frank which is another in a list of less than successfulattempts to capture the events surrounding the events that took place in pre-WWI Georgia.
2001(27th ofNisan, 5761): Ninety-two-year-old Avigdor HaKohen Miller passed away today.
http://www.livingwithhashem.com/remembering-rabbi-avigdor-miller-ztl.html
2001: AlejandroMayorkas, the Cuban born Jew and Loyola Marymount University trained attorneycompleted his service as the United States Attorney for the Central District ofCalifornia.
2002(8thof Iyar, 5762): Border Policeman St.-Sgt. Uriel Bar-Maimon, 21 of Ashkelon waskilled in an exchange of fire near the Erez industrial park in the northernGaza Strip. Israeli forces pursued the Palestinian gunman and killed him. Anexplosive belt was found on his body. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigadesclaimed responsibility.
2002(8thof Iyar, 5762): Sgt. Maj. Nir Krichman, 22 of Hadera, was killed in an exchangeof gunfire, when IDF forces entered the village of Asira a-Shamaliya, north ofNablus, to arrest known Hamas terrorists.
2003: The New York Timesincluded reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest toJewish readers including recently released paperback versions of “Sunday Jews,by Hortense Calisher in which she “explores the disparate fortunes of anextended Jewish family living on the Upper West Side after World War II” and“Be My Knife” by David Grossman.
2003(18th ofNisan, 5763): IDF photographer Cpl. Lior Ziv, 19, of Holon, was killed andthree other soldiers were wounded during an operation to destroy a Hamassmuggling tunnel in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip.
2003(18thof Nisan, 5763): Biophysicist, Sir Bernard Katz passed away. Sir Bernard Katzwas born in Germany in 1911. He fled toGreat Britain whenthe Nazis came to power. Katz was notedfor his work on nerve biochemistry. Heshared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1970 with Julius Axelrodand Ulf von Euler. He was knighted in 1970.
2004: The Public Law Department of the Buenos Aires UniversitySchool of Law and the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation organized andpresented The International Seminar "Diplomacy and the Holocaust.”
2005: While somecontroversy swirls around reports of Pope Benedict XVI’s membership in theHitler Youth, reports published today say he has “won strong praised fromJewish leaders…for his role in helping Pope John Paul II mend fences betweenCatholic and Jews” as can be seen by the statement of Rabbi Israel Singer, thechairman of the World Jewish Congress that he views “him as our most seriouspartner in the Catholic Church” over a span of time lasting twenty-six years.
2006(22ndof Nisan, 5766): Eighth Day of Pesach including recitation of Yizkor.
2006(22ndof Nisan, 5766): Seventy-seven-year-old Medal of Honor Jack Weinstein passedaway today.
http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/valor24/recipients/weinstein/
http://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient.php?recipientid=6794
2006(22ndof Nisan, 5766): Eighty-two-year-old Paul Mortiz Cohn, the “Aster Professor ofMathematics at University College London passed away today.
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Cohn.html
2006: “PresidentGeorge W. Bush signed an official document declaring the month of May JewishAmerican Heritage Month (JAHM)”
2007(2ndof Iyar, 5767): Ninety-two year old Israelirabbi Yehuda Meir Abrmowicz, the son Tzvi Yitzchok Abramowicz who made Aliyahin 1935 where “he served as general secretary of Agudat Yisrael, which herepresented in the Knesset from 1972 until 1981, and as Deputy Speaker of theKnesset between 1977 and 1981” passed away today.
2007: Haaretz reported that sixty-sixcivilians were killed in hostile actions since last Independence Day, mostlyduring the Second Lebanon War, bringing the number of civilians killed interror attacks since the state's establishment in 1948 to 1,635, according to NationalInsurance Institute (NII) Director Dr. Yigal Ben-Shalom.
2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that PrimeMinister Ehud Olmert had condemned as "hurtful" and"spurious" comments made by former Sephardi chief rabbi MordechaiEliyahu that the victims of the Holocaust were made to suffer because of thesins of the Reform Movement. Olmert went on to praise the Reform Movement as animportant element in the “House of Israel.”
2007: U.S. premiere of“In The Land of Women” starring Adam Brody with a script by Jon Kasdan who alsodirected the film.
2008(15th ofNisan, 5768): First Day of Pesach
2008: SanFrancisco chefs Gayle Pirie and John Cook are and putting a Slow Food spin onthe Passover Seder for the second night of Passover. The Seder, held at ForeignCinema is sponsored by Heeb and is the magazine’s inaugural "SlowFood Seder.”
2008: The New York Times book section featureda review of “Dictation” the most recent work of Jewish author CynthiaOzick.
2008: The Washington Post book sectionfeatured a review of a biography ofthe Jewish poet Louis Zukofsky entitled “The Poem of a Life” by MarkScroggins and an interview with American poet Edward Hirsch whose grandfatherwas a stringer for a Yiddish newspaper who wrote poems and copied them into thebacks of books.
2008: The Sunday Chicago Tribune reported that two Torah scrolls were takenfrom Kenosha synagogue. Just days before the beginning of Passover, two Torah scrolls eachworth an estimated $40,000 to $60,000, were reported stolen from a Jewishtemple in Kenosha, officials said. On Tuesday, Rabbi Tzali Wilschanski of theCongregation Bnei Tzedek Chabad realized his laptop, which he had used during aclass the night before, was missing. He checked to see whether the Torahs weresafe, and discovered they were missing too. He said he last saw them April 5. Severalvaluable silver ornaments used to adorn the scrolls were not taken, leadingWilschanski to suspect that the robbery was not a garden-variety theft.
"If this was a hate crime, it would explain why they took something that isso dear to us," he said.
"If this was not a hate crime, it was the work of very sophisticatedcriminals who know that the Torah scrolls are much more valuable than thesilver pieces." There were no signs of forced entry into the temple at1602 56th St., but a deadbolt lock was open, Kenosha police Sgt. Hugh Raffertysaid. While police do not have any suspects in custody, they are followingseveral leads, he said.
2009: In Washington, D.C.,Adina Hoffman, aJerusalem-based writer, critic and founder of Ibis Editions, discusses andsigns “My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet's Life in thePalestinian Century, “her new biography of Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali.
2009: Opening session of “Durban II Counter at the Fordham UniversitySchool of Law. The American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists sponsorthis counter-conference organized to address the real issues of "racism,racial discrimination, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance."
2009: Human Rights Watch said in a new report issued today that Hamas security forces killed at least 32 Palestinianpolitical rivals and those suspected of collaborating with Israel during andafter the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. The report also said “unlawfularrests, torture and killings in detention” were making a mockery of Hamas’sclaims to uphold the law in Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas, an Islamicgroup.“Hamas should end its attacks on political opponents and suspectedcollaborators in Gaza, which have killed at least 32 Palestinians and maimedseveral dozen more during and since the recent Israeli military offensive,” thereport by Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group, said. It said that gunmenbelieved to be from Hamas killed 18 Palestinians, most suspected ofcollaborating with Israel, and that another 14 Palestinians had been killed bypeople said to be members of Hamas security forces since Israel ended itsoffensive.
2009: Today President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran used the platform ofa United Nations conference in Geneva on combating racism to disparage Israelas a “cruel and repressive racist regime,” prompting delegates from Europeannations to desert the hall and earning a rare harsh rebuke from Secretary GeneralBan Ki-moon.
2009: Lord Hoffmann(Leonard Hoffmann) completed his terms as Second Senior Lord of Appeal inOrdinary in South Africa.
2009: “President Obama formally nominated FredHochberg” the son of refugees from Nazi Germany “to be Chairman and President of the[[Export-Import Bank.”
2009: Steve Reich wasawarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music, on April 20, 2009, for Double Sextet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Sextet
2010(6thIyar, 5770): Yom Ha’Atzmaut
2010: In “a FederalCriminal Complaint dated today (Case No. 10-8082), Nevin Karey Shapiro who wentto prison for running a $930 milling Ponzi scheme "directed others tocreate and show to the investors documents fraudulently touting the profitability”of Capitol Investments USA which was a key vehicle in the fraud.
2010: The US premier of“I Was There In Color,” is scheduled to take place as part the Yom Ha’Atzmautcelebration at the JCC in Manhattan.
2010: Or Ashual, a 17-year-old student at the Kfar Saba Amanagirls’ school, became the 2010 winner of the World Bible Quiz competition today,which took place on Israel’s 62nd Independence Day at the Jerusalem Center forthe Performing Arts.
2011(16th ofNisan, 5771): Second Day of Pesach
2011: Beit Avi Chai, in collaboration with Merkaz HamagshimimHadassah, is scheduled to hold its second annual English speaking amateurtheatre festival: "Stage One".
2011: Two suspects were arrested today in connection with settingfire to a synagogue on the Greek island of Corfu a day earlier, Greek Policesaid. Arsonists set fire to a synagogue on the island early yesterday, damagingprayer books but causing no injuries, in the third such attack in Greece inless than two years, police said.
2011: A Haggadah Fairsponsored by Kol HaOt and the Inbal Hotel will open today in Jerusalem.
2011: One day afterSteve Soboroff was hired to be the Vice Chairman of the LA Dodgers, MajorLeague Baseball seized control of the team from Frank McCourt.
2012: “In Darkness” afilm about Polish sewer worker and Jews living in the Lvov Ghetto is scheduledto be shown in Iowa City under the sponsorship of Agudas Achim.
2012: “Joanna” and“Life Is Too Long” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish FilmFestiva
2012: “The Man Behindthe Curtain” provides a detailed review of Mr. Broadway: The Inside Story ofthe Shuberts, the Shows and the Stars by Gerald Schoenfield.
2013: “No Place onEarth” is scheduled to be shown for the first time in Claremont, CA.
2013: Adam Burstain,the son of Todd and Jennifer Burstain - pillars of the Cedar Rapids Jewishcommunity- and marvelous student of Judaism is scheduled to appear in the finalperformance of “Urine Town.”
2013: “Cabaret-Berlin:The Wild Scene” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish FilmFestival
2013: “Dorfman in Love”is scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.
2013: Israeli gymnastAlexander Shatilov won the gold medal in the European Men's Artistic Gymnasticindividual Championships, held in Moscow today.
http://www.jpost.com/Sports/Israeli-gymnast-wins-gold-at-European-Championship-310466
2013: U. S Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will finalize a huge armsdeal with Israel during his visit starting today, under which Israel will forthe first time be permitted to purchase US aerial refueling planes and otherultra-sophisticated military equipment that could prove vital to any Israelstrike against Iran’s nuclear facilities
2014: “Igor and theCrane’s Journey” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC Rockland InternationalJewish Film Festival.
2014: “Helen Suzman: Fighter for Human Rights” an exhibition thathas been on display at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center isscheduled to come to a close.
2014: The New York Times features reviews ofbooks by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including NoBook But The World by Leah Hager Cohen, Updike by Adam Begley and
Plato at theGoogleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
2015: Mark Strauss, the“well-known oil painter” and Holocaust survivor who wrote Crumbs under thepen-name of Marek Mann is scheduled to speak at the US Holocaust MemorialMuseum in Washington, D.C.
2015: “Secrets of War”and “Magic Men” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish FilmFestival.
2015: The AmericanSephardi Federation is scheduled to present a lecture by Rabbi Marvin Toyakerand Ellen Rodman, authors of Pepper, Silk & Ivory: Amazing Stories aboutJews and the Far East.
2015: In Washington,DC, Dr. Samuel Gruber is scheduled to deliver a lecture that “will explore theevolution of the movement to preserve historic synagogues entitled “PreservingAmerica’s Synagogues” Past and Future.”
2015(1st ofIyar, 5775): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
2015: Four days afterhe had passed away, funeral services were held today at the Sixth and IHistoric Synagogue for Richard Suzman of Chevy Chase, MD, the “husband ofJanice Krupnick” and father of Daniel and Jessica Suzman.
2015(1st ofIyar, 5775): Eighty-five-year-old record executive Bernard Stollman whoseparents met in the balcony of a Yiddish theatre, passed away today.
2015(1st ofIyar, 5775): Ninety-year-old Frederick Morton, the baker turned author passedaway today.
2015(1st ofIyar, 5775): Eighty-one-year-old Paris born Rosh Yeshiva and expert on Halakahrabbi Aharon Lichtenstein passed away at Alon Shvut, Israel.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/renowned-rabbi-aharon-lichtenstein-dies-at-81/
2016: “A New Leaf” and“Michael Nichols: American Masters” are scheduled to be shown on the finalnight of the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2016: Two days after he had passed away,funeral services are scheduled be held for 92-year-old Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold, thenative of Radom, Poland “who came to America in 1947 and settled in Cambridge,MA, where he became Director of the Hillel at Harvard” and whose mourners willinclude his daughters Merav and Hannah.
2016: The ShapeShifterLab is scheduled to present the Alon Yavnai Big Band.
2016: The Samaritans are scheduled to celebrate their Passovertoday.
2016(12th ofNisan, 5776): Seventy-four-year-old University of South Carolina graduate andColumbia trained attorney Solomon Blatt, Jr. the Barnwell, SC bon son of EthelGreen and Speaker of the House of the South Carolina House of Representatives SolomonBlatt, Sr and husband of Carolyn Gayden with whom he had three children whoserved on a destroyer during WW II and who was Chief Judge of the United StatesDistrict Court for the District of South Carolina at the time of his death,passed away today.
https://www.fjc.gov/node/1377931
https://web.archive.org/web/20120123222517/http://www.charlestonlaw.edu/v.php?pg=254
2017: In Arizona, theValley Beit Midrash and the Jewish Book Council are scheduled to co-host “WhyBe Jewish? – Continuing the Legacy of Edgar Bronfman”
https://www.valleybeitmidrash.org/events/why-be-jewish/
2017: The JerusalemOpera Spring concert scheduled for this evening will “pay home to EnricoCaruso.
2018: The “12 day Journey of Remembrance andCelebration” sponsored by the Steicker Center is scheduled to come to an endtoday.
2018: In theNetherlands, a 23 year old man, identified in the media as “Jordi A” “drew ashape reminiscent of a cross on the main Holocaust memorial monument of TheHague.”
2018: “Hungarian KosherFoods, a Chicago-area landmark for 45 years” “America’s first all –koshersupermarket” which was founded by “Holocaust survivor Sandor Kirsche” isscheduled to become the property today of “Orian Azulay, the owner of thekosher supermarket Sara’s Tent in Aventura, Florida.”
2018: In Metairie, LA,the Jewish Community Day School is its Yom Ha’atzmaut Celebration whichincluding a torch lighting ceremony “representing the 12 Tribes of the peopleof Israel.”
2018: “Spring Scenes,”the final production of the Cleveland Institute of Music Opera Theatre underthe leadership under the direction artistic director David Bamberger isscheduled to open this evening.
2019: “The GreaterReconstruction: American Democracy after the Civil War,” a two-day conferencewhich was inaugurated by “President Susan Herbst of the University ofConnecticut” and heard a keynote address by Professor Eric Foner is scheduledto come to an end today.
2019(15th ofNissan, 5779): First Day of Pesach
15th ofNisan, 5650 (1890): An untold number ofpoor New Yorkers enjoyed eating meat at their Seder tonight thanks to thegenerosity of Mrs. Paulina Rosendorff who had provided the funding that enabledbutchers to distribute their product free of charge.
15th of Nisan, 5675(1915): The 300 Jewish soldiers and sailors who attended lastnight’s Seder sponsored by the Army and Navy Y.M.H.A. which also provided anight’s lodging at the Hotel Roland are scheduled to worship at Temple BethIsrael at Lexington and 72nd Street today while the Secretary ofWar, the Governor of New York and the Mayor of New York City have been invitedto attend tonight’s Seder sponsored by the Army and Navy Young Men’s HebrewAssociation for the benefit of 300 of the 8,000 Jews serving in the militarywhich is being held at Vienna Hall on Lexington and 58th Street.
15th of Nisan, 5677 (1917): One day after U.S. declared War on Germany, Jews gather inthe synagogue to observe Pesach and Shabbat
15th of Nisan, 5705(1945): At least 58 Jews were murdered in a forest near theAustrian village of Deutsch Shuetzen, in what would come to be called theDeutsch Shuetzen Massacre while in the evening, members of the Jewish InfantryBrigade of the British 8th Army serving in Italy took part in aSeder at Faenza.
15th of Nisan, 5725(1965): While Jews in the Soviet struggled to deal with ashortage of Matzah created by the government refusal to let state bakeriesprepare adequate supplies of unleavened bread Rabbis in America were encouragedto deliver sermons that related the themes of Pesach with fight for CivilRights complete with references to the recent voting rights march in Selma.
15th of Nisan, 5728(1968): For the first time, Pesach is observed in a unified Jerusalem.
2020: Using Facebook, The YIVO Institute isscheduled to host “Beethoven in the Yiddish Imagination.
2020: Live on Zoom, the Leo Baeck Institute isscheduled to host “Overcoming the Present – A Virtual Salon with Max Czollek.
2020: Live on Zoom, the American SephardiFederation is scheduled to host “Laughter is the Best Medicine: Virtual ComedyShow with K-von.”
2020: A reading on Zoom of the names forHolocaust Remembrance Day, followed by a commemorative program which isscheduled to be presented by S.F.-based JFCS Holocaust Center in partnershipwith many organizations.
2020: Three Berkeley, CA synagogues arescheduled to host a “Virtua Yom Hashaoh Commemoration” featuring Holocaust “survivorErnst Valfer talking about the trauma of children separated from their parents.”
2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled topresent “The Soap Myth: Play and Webinair” with Dr. Michael Berenbaum, IraForman, Jeff Cohen, Ed Asner and Tovah Feldshuh.
2020: This evening as Yom HaShoah begins theBoard of Deputies of British Jews is scheduled to host “a virtual NationalHolocaust Commemoration marking the 75th anniversary of the end ofthe Shoah and the liberation of Bergen Belsen” by the British Army.
2021: YIVO is scheduled to present a discussionof Judy Batalion's new book, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of WomenResistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos led by Andrew Silow-Carroll.
2021: In what shopkeepers in Israel see aswelcome opportunity, “Ramadan, when Muslims refrain for eating and drinkingfrom sunrise to sunset and gather for festive break-fast meals and to exchangegifts at night, is scheduled to kick off today. (As reported by MohammadAl-Kassim/The Media Line)
2021: LBI is scheduled to host Griselda Pollock (University of Leeds, UK)who will be in conversation with Kerry Wallach (Gettysburg College, PA) aboutthe work and life of the Berlin-born Jewish artist, Charlotte Salomon who wasmurdered at Auschwitz at the age of 26.
2021: Professor Marc Michael Epstein isscheduled to begin his course exploring the relationship between Jews and artthroughout history at the London School of Jewish Studies.
2022(19th of Nisan, 5782):Fifth Day of Pesach
2022: In San Francisco, CongregationEmanu-El is scheduled to host “A Passover Evening Out,” a unique Chol Hamoedevent that features a screening in the main sanctuary of “The Frisco Kid,”starring Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford, a 1979 comedy that includes a storylineabout the first rabbi of Congregation Emanu-El trying to make his way westalong with Passover desserts, wine and soft drinks in the courtyard.”
2022: UK Jewish Film is scheduled host thefinal online screening of “The Dinner.”
2022: The Wiener Holocaust Library isscheduled to host a virtual talk during which Senior Curator Dr. BarbaraWarnock will explore the development of antisemitism in Western Europe from thelate nineteenth century to today and the means by which Jewish organizationsand other groups have fought back against antisemitism.”
2022: In San Rafael, CA, the Osher Marin,JCC is scheduled to host a “Passover Poetry Celebration” featuring a translatedreading of the “Song of Songs” the scroll connected with Pesach by UC Berkeleyprofessor Robert Alter, with a lecture on the book’s liturgical use duringPassover.
2022: As terroristsfire rockets from Gaza and Islamic Jihad shows off its “tunnel city” that willbe used in its next wave of attacks on Israel,while the violence in Jerusalem which was called for by terror groups inGaza on April 13 continues, “residents of Israeli communities living near theGaza fear it's just a matter of time before the south becomes the battle zoneyet again.”
2022: SFSU is scheduledto host Agata Bielik-Robson discussing her 2022 book about how 20th-centuryphilosopher Jacques Derrida used his self-identification as a Marrano as aliterary experiment of autofiction. Presented by SFSU Jewish Studies.
2023: The Vilna Shul isscheduled to host a behind-the-scenes tour of the Boston Athenaeum, including aspecial tour of the Great Boston Fire exhibit, “Revisiting the Ruins.”
2023: The Osher Marinis scheduled to host Henry Michalski discussing his book Torn Lilacs: A TrueWWII Story of Love, Defiance and Hope which tells the story of his parents’survival from Poland to a remote island gulag in Siberia to Kazakhstan and hisfamily’s eventual immigration to the U.S. through Ellis Island.
2023:The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a screening of the “The Lost EichmannTapes.”
2023:The Boston Workers Circle is scheduled to present “Antisemitism: Reclaiming theConversation.”
2024: The Tulane Alumni Association is to honor Avron B. Fogelman with theDermot McGlinchey Lifetime Achievement Award.
2024:In Jerusalem, Agnon House is scheduled to host another joint reading of Agnon'sstories, this time called "The Legend of the Writer" with AdinNer-David, who will try to provide an interpretation of the story, examine hispoignant statement about the act of art and trace the biographical elementsscattered throughout it.”
2024(12thof Nisan, 5784): Shabbat HaGadol; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2024:As April 20th begins in Israel, the Hamas heldhostages begin day 197 in captivity.(Editor’s note: this situation is too fluid for this blog to cover so weare just providing a snapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time.)
