May 20
68(3rdof Sivan, 3828): During the Great Revolt, Vespasian captured Jericho andslaughtered the Jewish inhabitants.
325: The First Council of Nicaea, convoked byEmperor Constantine, opens. Among otherthings, the Council dealt with the issue of setting the date for Easter. Going forward, Easter would never again becelebrated on the same day as the first day of Pesach.
526:An earthquake, with an epicenter in Syria that reportedly killed 300,000people, is felt throughout much of the Near East including at least two townsnow located in the modern state of Israel – Acre and Beit Jann.
1092:During the reign of St. Ladislaus the Synod of Szabolcs decreed that Jews inHungary should not be permitted to have Christian wives or to keep Christianslaves. This decree had been promulgated in the Christian countries of Europesince the fifth century, and St. Ladislaus merely introduced it into Hungary.
1217:At the age of 70 (or close to it) William Marshal the English lead who hadregarded King John’s policy towards the Jews …as harmful to the state” led theforces loyal to King Henry III to victory over the French at the Battle ofLinocln which led to their expulsionfrom country
1285:Henry II, the second surviving son of Hugh III succeeded his brother John I whomay have been poisoned, as “the last ruling and first titular King ofJerusalem” a meaningless title from the point of Jews.
1285Cardinal Latino Malabranca conferred the episcopal consecration on the newlyelected Pope Honorius IV who in 1286 “sent a papal bull to the Archbishops ofCanterbury and York , in which the Vatican denounced ‘the accursed andperfidious Jews’ and condemned their sacred writing” and which “also criticizedthe church in England for allowing Christians to serve Jews and for permittingsocial relations between the two communities.”
1285:Consecration of Honorius IV, the Pope who played akey role in the expulsion of the Jews from England. “In November 1286 PopeHonorius wrote to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, reaffirming thedecision of the Lateran Councils. He enlarged on the evils of relations betweenChristians and Jews and warned of the pernicious consequences of the study ofthe Jews' Talmud. The King joined in the dialogue and condemnation by revivingthe crimes of ritual murder. Jewish writers use the word "allegation"with regard to ritual murder with boring regularity.”
1293:King Sancho IV of Castile creates the Study of General Schools of Alcalá whichwould become one Spain’s oldest and finest universities. During the 1930’s the school would prove tobe haven for Jewish intellectuals fleeing anti-Semitism in other parts ofEurope. The school would cease to be ahaven when Franco led his coup in 1936 that became the Spanish Civil War andbrought facism to the Iberian Peninsula.
1530:Ninety-year-old Avraham HaLevi Mintz the husband of Livo Minz and Chief Rabbiof Padua,passed away today at Padua, Italy.
1444:Sixty-three-year-old Italian priest and Franiscan missionary Bernadino of Sienawho depicted “Jewish lenders as bloodsuckers depleting the city and countrysideof its money in his sermon 43 on usury” died today.
1549:In a decision rendered by Queen Bona (sforza), bearing today’s date, thefollowing regulations, modifying and defining the rights of the Jewishcommunity of Grodno, are introduced: (1)Jews are to pay 17 percent of the taxes the government assessed against thecity; (2) they are freed from somespecial taxes paid in kind; (3) housesand lands formerly bought by Jews from citizens are freed from citizens’ taxes;those bought by citizens from Jews are freed from Jewish taxes. But thenceforth no Jew may buy a house from acitizen without royal permission
1631:The city of Magdeburg in Germany is seized by forces of the Holy Roman Empireand most of its inhabitants massacred, in one of the bloodiest incidents of theThirty Years' War. For once, there were probably no Jews among the dead. The Jews had been explled from the town in1493 and would not be readmitted until 1671 during the reign of the greatelector, Frederick William.
1648:King Wladislaus IV of Poland passed away. Wladislaus was the king of thePolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth when the Chmielnicki, Uprising began in Januaryof 1648. According to some, the King andhis advisors underestimated the size and the strength of the uprising. They suffered to major defeats as theCossacks moved westward. His death leftthe Poles leaderless at a crucial time in their history and may have been acontributing factor to the success of the uprising which brought death anddestructions to hundreds of thousands of Jews living throughout the area.
1663:Lawyer and MP Sir Peter Pett who along with the Bishop of Langley and LordAnglesey drew up a plan shortly after King Charles II returned to the thronethat would have placed the Jews in a ghetto like environment and subjected themto special taxes, was elected to the Royal Society today, as one of itsoriginal fellow.
1671:Frederick William of Prussia permitted 50 Jewish families who had been expelledfrom Vienna to settle in his dominion.
1764(18thof Iyar, 5524): Lag B’Omer was observed Indian raids continued the Virginiafrontier in the wake of what was known as “Pontiac’s War.”
1769(13thof Iyar): Rabbi Nethanel Weil of Prague, author of “Korban Nethanel” passedaway.
1771(7thof Sivan, 5531): Second day of Shavuot: Yizkor
1778:In Worblingen, Germany, Hannah Wassermann and Moses Schott gave birth to AronSchott, the husband of Rachel Schott and the father of Leopold Schott.
1779(5thof Sivan,5539) Erev Shavuot
1783(18thof Iyar, 5543: Lag BaOmer
1790(7thof Sivan, 5550): Second day of Shavuot; Yizkor
1790:The last tragedy in Grodno of which there is record occurred today on the second day of Pentecost, whenEleazer b. Solomon was quartered for thealleged murder of a Christian girl after which “the King refused to sign thedeath warrant, being convinced of the man’s innocence, but could not preventthe execution.”
1794:A day after he passed away, Hyam Simon was buried today at the Alderney RoadJewish Cemetery.
1798:In Kingston, Grace Gomes Cohen, the London born daughter of Aaron Gomes DaCosta and Miriam De Solomon Gomes Da Costa and her husband Judah MordechaiCohen gave Maria Miriam Cohen, the resident of Scarborough and wife ofAlexander Hyman Cohen.
1799:Frances Etting, the Philadelphia born daughter of Miriam and Michael Gratz andher husband Captain Reuben Etting gave birth to American naval officer HenryEtting who reached the rank of captain in 1861.
1803:Priscilla Moses Lopez and David Lopez Sr gave birth to Charleston resident Mrs.Eleanor Lopez Tobias, the wife of Abraham Tobias and the mother of Priscilla,Joseph, Emily and Thomas Tobias.
1806:Birthdate of British philosopher John Stuart Mill
http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs12115-000-1008-z.pdf#page-1
1806(3rdof Sivan, 5566): Talmudist and author Samuel ben Nathan Ha-Levi Loew, who hadbeen born in Bohemia in 1720 and who “presided over a yeshiva at Boskovice,Moravia for almost 60 years” passed away today.
1809(5thof Sivan, 5569): Parashat Bamidbar; Erev Shavuot
1813:Isaac Samuel Wormser, the German born son of Samuel Isaac Wormser and ElkeleSimon Wormser and his Scheinle Ephraim gave birth to their second “stillborn”Child.
1816:The Common Council of the City Richmondapproved an “Ordinance Concerning the Hebrew Society of Richmond” which hadbeen proposed by council member and leader of the Jewish community BenjaminWolfe that allowed the “Congregation of the House of Peace” to a acquire a plotof hill on Shockoe Hill to be used for a burial ground.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/43057456.pdf
1817(5thof Sivan, 5577): Erev Shavuot
1818(14thof Iyar, 5578); Pesach Sheini
1819(25thof Iyar, 5579): Rosey Aaron, the wife of Sander bar Aharon passed away today inEngland.
1819:Rica Meldola, the eldest daughter of Raphael Meldola married David Aaron deSola, the senior rabbi at Bevis Marks Synagogue in London.
1820(7thof Sivan, 5580): Second Day of Shavuot; Yizkor
1820:In Warsaw, Gabriel Berekson, the son of Berek and Temerl Bergson and his wifegave birth to composer and pianist Michal Bergson.
1820:Rabbi Löb Glee Hildesheimer, a native of Hildesheim and his wife gave birth toEsriel or Azriel Hildesheimer, a German rabbi who was a leader in the formationof Modern Orthodox Judaism.
1821(18thof Iyar, 5581): Lag BaOmer
1822:Birthdate of author Emile Erckmann who along with Alexandre Chatrianco-authored the 1869 play “Le Jeuf Polonais” (The Polish Jew) which was thebasis for “The Bells.”
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F50915FA3E541B728DDDAC0994DB405B8985F0D3
1829(17thof Iyar, 5589): Twenty-four-year-old Maria Ketrow, the daughter of John and MargaretGettinger passed away today after which she was buried in the Glade Cemetery inWalkersville, MD.
1835:Michael Rose, the Great Synagogue’s first Rabbi, arrived in Sydney, Australia.
1839(7thof Sivan, 5599): Second Day of Shavuot; Yizkor
1840:In Germany, Moses Leo Butzel and Hannah Bachman Butzel. Gave birth to FannieButzel Heinman, the wife of successful Detroit clothing store owner EmilSoloman Heineman with whom she had four children – David, Solomon, Flora andEmilia.
1842:Arch abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison wrote an article in his newspaper theLiberator, referring to Mordecai Noah, one of the most prominent Jews of theperiod as "a Jewish unbeliever, the enemy of Christ and Liberty." Garrison felt that Noah had expressedsentiments that were hostile to the abolitionists when, as a Judge, he wasdelivering a charge to a Grand Jury.Garrison would continue his attacks on Noah describing him as "themiscreant Jew", that lineal descendant of the monsters who nailed Jesus tothe Cross” and as a "Shylock" who "will have his pound of fleshat any cost."
1842:One day after he had passed away, Jacob Abraham Wood, the husband of HannahSimmons was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”
1845:in Luna, a shtetl in the province of Grodno, Russia, Eliezer Dov Liebermann, amaskilic author and scholar and his wife gave birth to Aaron Samuel Liebermann,“a pioneer of Jewish socialism and the Jewish labor movement, who was describedby Rudolf Rocker and Ber Borochov as the "father of Jewish socialism"(Some sources show his birth year as 1843 or 1840)
https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Lieberman_Aharon_Shemuel
1846:In London, Alfonse Hartog and Marion Moss gave birth to Numa Edward Hartog, aJewish British mathematician who attracted attention in 1869 for graduatingfrom Cambridge University as Senior Wrangler and Smith's Prizeman but as a Jewhad not been admitted to a fellowship which “led to the passage of theUniversities Tests Act of 1871, which removed religious barriers to holdingfellowships at Oxford and Cambridge.”
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7292-hartog-numa-edward
1847(5thof Sivan, 5607): Erev Shavuot
1847:Consecration of the New Netherdutch Synagogue took place in New York. Thecongregation was organized so they could, "have a Synagogue where they canworship according to the Amsterdam Minchag. They number about sixty members.The service was performed by the S. E. C. Noot, the Chazan of the congregation,assisted by several young men."
1848:An article written by Simon Szanto published today “gave a brief account of theaccount of a committee that have formed to encourage “immigration to America sothat the Jews of Austria Hungary might” be able to “acquire true politicalfreedom.”
1851(18thof Iyar, 5611): Lag BaOmer
1851:Birthdate of inventor Emile Berliner. Born in Germany, Berliner came totheUnited States in 1870. His most famous invention was the flatphonograph record which replaced the cylinder that had been invented by ThomasEdison. Berliner made many other contributions through his workatthe Bell Labs. He also was an earlydeveloper of thehelicopter. At the end of his life, he supported the rebuilding ofPalestine and was very active on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.He died in 1929.
1852:Birthdate of Dr. Immanuel Munk, the native of Posen and brother of Hermann Munkwho became a leading physiologist.
1855:Birthdate of Saul Frank. A Dutch Jew,whose parents were Sephardic, he was a successful businessman who settled inCalifornia and married Sarah Vasen the Iowa educated physician who became thefirst Jewish woman doctor in Los Angeles.
1856:A meeting was organized with the Ottoman Grand Vizier Aali Pasha upon his visitto London today where an agreement on the principles to establish a railwaybetween Jaffa and Jerusalem was signed today
1857:In Philadelphia, PA, “Mayer and Fanny Rice” gave birth to Columbia trainedphysician Joseph Mayer Rice, the husband of Deborah Levinson, who afterpracticing medicine in New York, studied psychology at the Universities of Jenaand Leipzig, served as the editor TheForum and founded the Society of Education Research.
1858(7thof Nisan, 5618): Second Day of Shavuot, Yizkor
1864(14thof Iyar, 5624): Pesach Sheni observed on the same day that Confederates weredefeating Union Forces under the incompetent political General Benjamin Butlerat the Battle of Ware Bottom Church which thwarted part of Grant’s plan tosqueeze Lee’s army today.
1865:German-born American brewer and founder of S. Liebmann Brewery (later RheingoldBreweries) in Brooklyn ,Samuel Liebmann, the Aufhausen, born son of Berta (néeFröhlich) and Joseph Liebmann and his wife Sara Selz gave birth to Joseph Obermeyer one of their six children.
1866(6thof Nisan, 5626): Shavuot
1866(6thof Nisan, 5626): Philip Jacob Cohen, who married Eleanor Moses in 1799 passedaway today in Charleston, SC.
1867(18thof Iyar, 5657): Lag B’Omer
1867:A fair was held today at the Concordia Opera House in Baltimore, MD. Proceeds from the event are to be used forthe building of the Hebrew Hospital which, when completed, will offer servicesto all indigent citizens without regard to religious affiliation.
1868:Birthdate of Bavaria native Louis A. Behr who in 1890 settled in Pittsburghwhere he became president of the Rosenbaum Company, Chairman of the Board ofthe National Department Stores and a leader of the Jewish community as can beseen by his service as “a director of the Jewish Federation of Philanthropies,the Jewish Home for the Aged and the Hebrew Instate while being married to theformer Elsie Rosenbaum, the daughter of Max Rosenbaum.
1873:Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis, a tailor from Reno, received patent 139,121 whichprotected their invention of blue jeans with copper rivets in areas of stressincluding the pocket corners and the button fly.
1874: Levi Strauss marketed blue jeans with copper rivets charging $13.50 perdozen. Strauss arrived in San Francisco with canvas that he thought hecould use for making tents to sell to the miners. But what the minersneeded were stout pants, which Strauss gave them using the canvas. Helater changed to heavy blue denim called genes in French which became jeans tothe people of California. The copper rivets were used because the minersput nuggets in their pants pockets and regular stitching would not hold them.
1875:Birthdate of Petrograd native Aaron Potruch who in 1883 came to the UnitedStates where he was a builder in Bethlehem, PA
1876:In Cologne, Germany, “Simon Van den Berg and Catherine Van Stratum” gave birthBrahm van den Berg, the child prodigy pianist who gained fame in Europe “as anoperatic conductor and served on the faculty of the Cincinnati Conservatory.
1877:Thirty-year-old Dr. Ignatz Kornfeld married 24-year-old Harriet Singer today.
1879:Joseph H. De Meza a young Cuban Jew pleaded guilty to charges that he had triedto steal clothing from Mrs. Charles A. Lillie by swindling her. He was held over because he could not raise$3,000 in bail. During the proceedings,De Meza told the court of various swindles he had taken part since his familyleft Cuba six years ago. According to DeMeza, his family had been forced to flee from their home in Matanzas becausethey were part of the insurgency aimed at overthrowing the Spanish rulers of Cuba.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F30916FA385A137B93C3AB178ED85F4D8784F9
1880:Birthdate of University of Georgia undergrad and Columbia trained attorneyLeonard Hass, the defense attorney for Leo Frank and “the first representativeof the ACLU in Georgia” who was the father of John and Leonard Haas, Jr.
1881:In “Posvol, Lithuania, Wolf and Chaija Esther (Shalowitz) Bernstein gave birthto Johns Hopkins undergrad and U. of California Ph.D. Benjamin Abram Bernstein,the husband of Rose Davidson, brother-in-law of sculptor Jo Davidson andlongtime Professor of Mathematics at the Cal, Berkley.
https://dpg.lib.berkeley.edu/webdb/hstc/search?author=&item=77
1882:After a night-long interrogation, five year old Samuel Scharf “confessed topolice” describing the role that his father and several other Jews has playedin the ritual murder of Andreas Huri at Tisza-Eszlar.
1884:Birthdate of Philadelphia, PA native Leon Schlesinger, motion picture producer“behind Warner Bros. cartoons of the 1930’s and 1940’s” who “oversaw thecreation of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd” and who was thehusband of Bernice Schlesinger.
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/classic/leon-schlesingers-obituary-6088.html
1885(6thof Sivan, 5645): Shavuot
1885:NYU trained physician, Zionist and “American patriot” Joseph Isaac Bluestone,the Lithuanian born son of Chaim (Hyman) Bluestone and Golde Chaya Bluestoneand his wife Sarah Rachel Bluestone gave birth to Rose Celia Bluestone
1886:Birthdate of Jake Guzik, the native of Cracow who became the “Treasurer”responsible for the financial well-being for Al Capone which did not precludehim from taking part in a myriad of other criminal activities.
1887:In Poland, Solomon and Rose Goldstock Kolko gave birth to Nathan Kolo, thehusband of Sara Alpert Kolko with whom he had six children.
1888(10thof Sivan, 5648): Sixty-five-year-old Cerinna[Selena} Hendricks,the daughter of Frances Isaacs, the Lancaster, PA born daughter of JoshuaIsaacs and Harmon Hendricks the “prominent manufacturer of copper andgranddaughter of Uriah Hendricks one of the founders of Congregation ShearithIsrael, passed away today.
1888:At Cologne, Rudolf Mosse, the son of Dr. Marcus Mosse and Ulrike Mosse and hiswife Emilie gave birth to Felicia Lachmann-Moses
1888:Birthdate of Rabbi Moses Aaron Poleyeff, the native of Minsk who came to theUnited States in 1920 where he served on the faculty of Yeshiva College.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Rebbi.html?id=MvpGGwAACAAJ
1889(19thof Iyar): Italian Jewish leader Samuel Altari passed away
1890(1stof Sivan, 5650): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1890:Kentucky native Frank Lyon, who during the Spanish American War served on boardthe USS Oregon as an Assistant Engineer “with the rank of Ensign” joined theU.S. Navy today.
1891:“He Wants to go Home” published today described the plight of Barney Greenmanwho came to United States with his parents a year ago. The teenager who has received help from theUnited Hebrew Charities, wants to go back to Rotterdam where he can rejoin hisparents who went back because they “did not succeed in make a fortune…”
1891:In London, as the number of destitute Russian Jews seeking refuge in GreatBritain, The Evening News “warns authorities that if the Hebrew ‘invasion’ isnot checked…an anti-Hebrew movement…will grow up in England.”
1891:Louis Raphael shot his fiancée, Rachel Weinberg this evening and then turnedthe gun on himself.
1890:It is alleged that two or more unidentified individuals threw the body ofSamuel Hutch, a Jewish peddler, down an abandoned mine shaft near Wurtsborough,NY.
1891:Dr. Henry M. Leipziger was unanimously elected Assistant Superintendent ofSchools in New York City.
1892: MathildeBlumenthal and Berthold Hochschild gave birth to Yale graduate and president ofthe American Metal Company Harold K. Hochschild the husband of Mary Marquandwith whom he had one son, author Adam Hochschild.
https://www.mininghalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/harold-k-hochschild
1893:As the condition of Jews in Russia worsened it was reported today those livingin the Asiatic part of the empire are to be expelled in the same manner astheir co-religionist in the Polish part of the empire.
1893:Birth of Herzl's daughter Margarethe Gertrude (always known as"Trude").
1894(14thof Iyar, 5654): Pesach Sheini
1894:Birthdate of “middleweight boxer August “Augie” Ratner, the Minneapolis“gangster and owner of Augie’s Theatre Lounge.
https://www.amazon.com/Augies-Secrets-Minneapolis-Hennepin-Strip-ebook/dp/B01N9OWCZ7
http://www.hazelandwren.com/2013/what-were-reading-augies-secrets/
1895:In Brooklyn, a judgment in the amount of twelve dollars was awarded to thelandlord who owned the building at 116 Seigel Street to be paid by CongregationHavercham which had failed to pay rent for the month of May.
1896:In New York, the laying of the cornerstone took place for the new Synagogue ofCongregation Shearith Israel at 70th Street and Central Park West. At theentrance to the synagogue, there are two millstones that were from Mill Street,the location of the town miller during the early colonial period.
1896:Max Bodenheimer, leader of the Cologne Zionists, invites Herzl to speak.Bodenheimer was a lawyer in Cologne and one of the main figures in GermanZionism. Close to Theodor Herzl, he was the first president of the ZionistFederation of Germany and one of the founders of the Jewish National Fund.After his flight in 1933 from Nazi Germany, and a short sojourn in Holland, hesettled in Palestine in 1935. He passed away in 1940.
1897(18thof Iyar, 5657): Lag B'Omer
1897:According to a compilation of the May Laws published today, the right of Jews“to become shareholders in stock companies, or directors, managers, orsuperintendents of real property belonging to corporations and situated outsideof towns or townlets in the Pale” was severely limited.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10508-may-laws
1898:District of Columbia native Franklin Hart the future paymaster of the “Celtic”joined the U.S. Navy today.
1898:The Jewish Messenger reported thatCongregation Orach Chaim had resolved to purchase its first building at 221East 51st Street. The edifice was formerly used as a church. Prior to this, thecongregants had been worshipping in rented space, reportedly above a beersaloon. During the meeting at which the decision to make the purchase wasreached, long-term president Meyer Dannenberg "...arose and surprisedmembers by giving toward the new edifice $5,000 in behalf of his son, Hon.Isaac Dannenberg."
1898:One day after she had passed away, 38-year-old Elizabeth “Bloomah” Van Gelder,the daughter of Louis Van Gelder and Lydia Park, was today buried in London atthe “Plashet Jewish Cemetery.”
1898(28of Iyar, 5658: Sixty-two-year-old Rabbi Herman Phillips, a teacher at theHebrew Sheltering Guardian Society for the last six years passed away at hishome on 3rd Avenue. A native of Germany, he served as cantor at thesynagogue on west 44th Street in Manhattan before serving as a rabbiat congregations in Boston and Toronto
1899:“French Cheers for Dreyfus” published today described the reaction in Paris tothe acquittal of the notorious Jew baiter, Max Regis on charges of inciting tomurder. An angry mob followed him to thetrain station and the marched to the Officers’ Club where they cheered forDreyfus and Picquart. When the Frenchofficers turned a water hose on the crowd, they were pelted with stones some ofwhich injured the anti-Dreyfus military men.
1899:It was reported today that police arrested fifty rioters who attacked theJewish quarter in Algiers where they wrecked several houses.
1900:The 48th Convention of District No.2 of the Independent Order ofB’nai B’rith opened today in St. Louis.
1901:The celebration marking the golden jubilee of Temple Beth Elohim, “the oldestsynagogue in Brooklyn” came to an end today.
1902:Today Frank Maximilian Steinhardt, the Munich born son of Simon and ReginaSteinhardt, the husband of Alice Florence Ledden, who joined the U.S Army in1882, completed his service in Cuba as chief clerk of the military governmentunder General Leonard Wood.
1903:Miss Anita Sutherland discovered the unconscious body of Washington Seligman,the son of James Seligman, at the Hotel Rossmore, where he had used a safetyrazor blade to cut the left side of his throat in a failed attempt at suicideand rushed him to Roosevelt Hospital where his life was saved.
1904(6thof Sivan, 5664): Shavuot
1904:Birthdate of Kiev native Frank Philip Cohen who in 1911 came to the UnitedStates where he went on to practice law after graduating from BostonUniversity.
1904:Birthdate of Meir Tobianski
http://israelsdocuments.blogspot.com/2013/01/killing-meir-tobianski.html
1905:Birthdate of Washington, DC and George Washington University graduate JosephHenry Abel, the architect who designed such buildings The Broadmoor and TheShoreham Hotel
1906:Birthdate of Helen Fixler, the Sighet native who was the husband of Al Irom andthe mother of Barbara Irom.
1906(25thof Iyar, 5666): Raphael Louis Bischoffsheim, a Dutch-born French banker,politician, philanthropist and founder of the Nice Observatory passed awaytoday.
1907:Incorporation of Dropsie College in Philadelphia, PA
1907(7thof Sivan, 5667): Second day of Shavuot, Yizkor.
1908:The newly formed Hebrew Theatrical Musical Club which has declared that it hasarranged with the theatre management” at Yiddish theatres “that none butHebrews shall be employed as musicians” delivered an ultimatum today “to thenon-Hebrew musicians that they must abandon their places.”
1909:The famine prices in the east side kosher bread market were broken yesterday bythe arrival of bread in large quantities from kosher bakeries in the Bronx,Brooklyn, and Brownsville, which are not affected by the strike and lockout.Kosher bread in some cases sold as high as 18 cents for an eight-cent loafbefore the price broke.
1910:Today, the American Jewish Committee received a cablegram that said “Forcibleexpulsions from Kieff are now taking place in a most brutal manner and many newexpulsions of those hitherto exempted are occurring” while “expulsions fromMoscow are also on the increase” creating “addition hardships.
1911:Birthdate of Buffalo, NY native and Stanford educated agricultural economistDr. Sidney Samuel Hoos.
1911:In Chicago, birthdate of Jerome Morton Comar “the chairman of the executive ofthe Maremont Corporation and leader of the Jewish community as can be seen byhis service as “director of the ChicagoYoung Men’s Jewish council and president of the Jewish Federation and JewishUnited Fund of Metropolitan Chicago
https://www.jta.org/1975/09/23/archive/jerome-m-comar-dead-at-64
1912:In New York, Nathan Finkelstein and Anna Katzenellenbogen gave birth to MosesIsaac Finkelstein, who gained fame as Sir Moses I. Finley
1912:The Independent Order of True Sisters which had been organized in 1846 and nowhas 20 lodges and 4,815 members including Biana B. Robitscher held its 122ndSemi-Annal or 63rd Annual session of the Grand Lodge today in NewYork City.
1913:In Bryan, TX, founding of Freda Temple.
https://www.brazosheritage.org/temple-freda-history
1913:Mrs. M.L. Rothschild is among those scheduled to be considered for a three-yeardirectorship at the annual meeting of the Chicago-Winfeld TuberculosisSanatorium tonight.
1914:In Jerusalem, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Shapira gave birth to Avraham Elkanah Shapirawho served as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1983 to 1993.
1914:“Henry Siegel, the indicted dry goods merchant and banker is scheduled to setsail from London on the White Star liner Olympic” for his return to New Yorkafter claiming that he had not intended to escape the long arm of the law bygoing to England.
1915(7thof Sivan, 5675): Second Day of Shavuot, Yizkor
1915: In the famous kibbutz Deganya, Shmueland Devorah Dayan, Ukrainian Jewish immigrants from Zhashkiv gave birth toMoshe Dayan who as a teenager joined the Haganah, lost an eye in an attack onLebanon with an Australian Division and whoduring the War forIndependence, Dayan played a key role in the relief of Deganya. He rose in theranks of the Israeli army becoming Chief of Staff and Minister of Defense andthen resigning after the Yom Kippur War because he was criticized for Israel'slack of preparedness. In 1977 he joined the Begin government.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/moshe-dayan
https://www.idf.il/en/minisites/past-chiefs-of-staff/lt-gen-moshe-dayan-1953-1958/
1915: TheOttoman government allowed Hebrew to be used once again as a written languagefor letters, although it will be censored by the military.
1915: ThePhiladelphia Inquirer described the function of the Hebrew Free School inCamden as being “to teach the Hebrew language and to translate it into toEnglish.”
1915: As oftoday, “thousands of Atlanta businessmen, including practically every banker inthe city, a Basil Stockbridge, a former assistant to Solicitor General Hugh M.Dorsey, have signed their names to petitions pleading for a commutation of LeoM. Frank’s death sentence.”
1916(17thof Iyar, 5676): Parashat Bechukotai
1916: Asof today, subscriptions to the CentralCommittee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War should be addressedto Harry Fischel, the organization’s treasurer.
1917: TheOttomans allowed the Jews to return to Jaffa and Tel Aviv reversing the orderexpelling them from their homes.
1917: TheSisters of Fidelity are scheduled to hold an informal dancing party thisevening at the new ballroom of the Auditorium Hotel.
1917: JosephFienberg will represent Congregation Ohavo Emuno Beth Hamedrosh Hachocesh, theoldest Jewish Orthodox congregation in Chicago founded in 1859 as a delegate tothe American Jewish Congress meeting today at Chicago and S. M. Jess willrepresent the congregation as an alternate.
1917: TheHebrew Union Veteran Association and the Hebrew Veterans of the War with Spainare scheduled to hold their annual joint memorial services today at TempleAnsche Chesed in Harlem.
1917: InChicago a mass meeting tonight raised over $500,000 for the Jewish ReliefCommittee for War Sufferers with largest contribution coming from Mr. and Mrs.Julius Rosenwald who contributed $150,000.
1917: The Jewsof Chicago are scheduled to celebrate the emancipation of Russian Jews with aseries of mass meetings to be held throughout the city this afternoonconcluding with a banquet at the Hotel La Salle.
1918: Today,Vizefeldwebel Fritz Beckhardt a German Jewish fighter ace in World War I,completed three months of service with Jagdstaffel which he had joined afterupgrading “to fighter pilot status.
1918: It wasreported today that Benjamin Berinstein, Leo Wolfson and Herbert S. Goldsteinare leaders of the movement to raise funds for blind soldiers returning fromFrance that is being spearheaded by the Hebrew Association for the Blind.
1919 Today,the board of directors of Weinstock, Lubin and Company, a Sacramento, CAdepartment store founded in 1874, “decided to recognize more fully the right ofthe employees to take their part, definitely and consciously, in the managementof the affairs of the store” and took the first step by placing “the actualcarrying on the busiess into the hands of the Board of Managers, composedentirely of employees of the store.”
1920:Henry Ford’s newspaper, the DearbornIndependent, with a circulation of seven hundred thousand,"discussed" the Jewish problem. Ford was an anti-Semite and hispaper followed his lead.
1921:It was reported today that “Captain Elkan Voorsanger, the former seniorchaplain of the 77th Division” who spent two years after the WorldWar working to aid Jews in the famine wracked parts of Europe has begun workingto raise funds for 150 bed hospital on Dyckman service which will serve as amemorial “the boy in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps who died in the WorldWar.”
1922:“The first Jewish municipal bond issue in history, amount of 80,000 pounds hasbeen authorized by the Palestine Government for the township of Tel-Aviv…Theobligations are secured by taxation, the bonds being used at 6 per cent,repayable in twenty years.
1922:Birthdate of Lithuania native Sarah Doron who made Aliyah in 1933 andeventually pursued a political career that including serving as a member of theKnesset and Minister without Portfolio.
1923(5thof Sivan, 5683): Erev Shavuot
1923:Birthdate of Brooklynite, Columbia graduate and USAAF second Lieutenant StephenFalk Krantz, the writer and producer whose greatest accomplishment may havebeen encouraging his wife Judith to became a successful writer
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/obituaries/12krantz.html
1923:Birthdate of Israel Gutman the native of Warsaw “who took part in the Warsawghetto uprising, survived three Nazi concentration camps and became a prominenthistorian of the Holocaust.” (As reported by Isabel Kershner)
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/ringelbum/ringelblum_gutman.asp
1924:Today, at Budapest University “while Professor Burgarszky was lecturing ongeneral anatomy some of the students arose and demanded that four of his Jewishauditors be killed on the spot in order to furnish material for dissections”because they had “rarely…seen Jewish corpses.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1924/05/21/101598163.html?pageNumber=3
1925:In Chicago, Morton David Cahn, the son of Joseph and Miriam Cahn and his wifeJulia Elizabeth Cahn gave birth to Morton David Cahn, Jr.
1925:Founding of Davar, the Hebrew language newspaper of the labor movement inPalestine.
1926(7thof Sivan, 5686): Second Day of Shavuot
1926:Actress Helen Menken, the daughter of Frederick and Katherine Menken marriedHumphrey Bogart (who was not Jewish) today.
1926:In Brooklyn, businessman and community activist Harry Plissner and his wifeCharlotte gave birth to Marty Plissner, the “longtime political director forCBS News who helped expand the role of television in covering elections.” (Asreported by William Yardley)
1927:According to published reports, today John D. Rockefeller sent the UnitedJewish campaign a check for $100,000 “with a letter expressing the opinion thatthe drive should receive the support of people of all creeds and all races.”
1928:In Camden, NJ, “The Junior League is” scheduled to give “a Concert and Dance atthe Beth El Synagogue.
1928:In Manhattan, hematologist Carl Reich and school administrator Eleanor(Lesinsky) Reich gave birth to Yale University trained attorney Charles AlanReich the author of The Greening of America. (As reported by SamRoberts)
1928:Birthdate of Alfred Gilbert Aronowitz “an American rock journalist best knownfor introducing Bob Dylan and The Beatles in 1964.”
1929:Speakers including Rabbi Israel Rosenberg of Brooklyn discussed education andobedience to dietary laws at the opening session of the annual convention ofthe Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada which was attendedby two hundred members.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/05/21/95954441.html?pageNumber=42
1930:Sir John Hope-Simpson arrives in Palestine. “Upon the recommendation ofthe Shaw Commission the British authorities conducted an investigation into thepossibilities for future immigration to and settlement of Palestine. Theinvestigation was headed by Sir John Hope-Simpson, who spent a relatively shortamount of time in Palestine reviewing the situation. Hope-Simpson's mainconcern was that there was not sufficient land to support continuedimmigration. According to his report, Arab farmers were suffering from severeeconomic difficulties. Many were tenant farmers who owed large amounts of moneyand lacked the means to ensure successful agricultural endeavors. Others weresimply unemployed. The report indicated that the Jewish policy of hiring onlyJews was responsible for the deplorable conditions in which the Arabs foundthemselves. Due to these conditions, Hope-Simpsonrecommended the cessation of Jewish immigration. Only after new agriculturalmethods would be introduced in Palestine, would room be made for an additionalnumber of immigrants. In response, Jewish leaders in the Yishuv argued thatHope-Simpson had ignored the capacity for growth in the industrial sector.Stimulating economic growth through increased demand would most likely benefitthe Arab economy as well. Hope-Simpson disagreed, seeing the future ofPalestine in agriculture, not in industry. Jews also claimed that since theyhad made a principle of using Jewish labor only, the cessation of immigrationwould in fact have no effect on Arab unemployment. The Hope-Simpson Report waspublished in October, 1930. At the same time, the Passfield White Paper wasissued, clarifying British intentions in Palestine.”
1930: “The Chief Rabbinate of the Jewish Community of Palestinehas joined in the call for a general strike of protest against the suspensionof immigration.”
1931: Birthdate of Israeli political leader Yisrael Kessar. Born in Yemen, he made aliyah at the age oftwo. His service in the military wasfollowed by course work in economics and sociology at Hebrew University and TelAviv University. Following an activecareer with Histadruit, he was elected to the Knesset and served as Minister ofTransportation from 1992 to 1996.
1931: It was reported today that 48 Jewish hospitals in Poland,which represent one tenth of all of that country’s hospital and which will becompelled to close for lacks funds, “have a total bed capacity of 3,5552” whichwas used to treat fifty thousand patients in 1930, half of whom were notJewish.
1931: “Up Pops the Devil,” the movie version of the play by thesame name with a script co-authored by Arthur Kober was released today in theUnited States.
1932: Rabbi R.B. Herson of Temple Beth El in Asbury Park, NJdelivered the opening prayer today when the House of Representatives convenedat noon.
1932: Dr. Léon Israël, the WW II French resistance fighter who wasmurdered by the Milce “attended the funeral of Rosa Israël, a member of hisfamily” after which he “became the director of a clinic in Strasbourg and in 1934was awarded the Prize of the Association of Students and Alumni of the Facultyof Medicine (Strasbourg) and began publishing numerous scientific articles from1934 to 1935.”
1932: Birthdate of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, a groundbreaking andwide-ranging scholar of Jewish history whose meditation on the tension betweencollective memory of a people and the more prosaic factual record of the pastwould influence a generation of thinkers.(As reported by Joseph Berger)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/nyregion/11yerushalmi.html
1933: The speech that Representative Celler had given at thememorial service sponsored by the Jewish War Veterans was entered into theCongressional Record today.
1933: “In the Lawndale neighborhood on the west side of Chicago,Illinois, to Joseph Finfer, a rabbi and kosher shohet butcher, and ElizabethFinfer (née Bassman), a cook” gave birth to Sydel Finfer who gained fame as SydelSilverman was a distinguished anthropologist who became a chronicler of andinfluential advocate for the discipline of anthropology.
https://www.gc.cuny.edu/sites/default/files/2021-12/sydel-silverman-in-memoriam-v2_0.pdf
1934:Jack Benny is among those who will be featured at the“Friars Frolic” which is scheduled to take place tonight at New York’sForty-fourth Street Theatre.
1934(6th of Sivan, 5694): First Day of Shavuot
1934: Rabbi William F. Rosenblum is scheduled to lead ConfirmationServices at Temple Israel.
1934:Rabbi Samuel J. Levinson is scheduled to leadConfirmation Services at Temple Beth Emeth of Flatbush (Brooklyn).
1934: Rabbi Israel Goldstein is scheduled to lead ConfirmationServices at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun on 257 West Eighty-Eighth Street.
1934:Rabbi Samuel Buchler is scheduled to deliver a sermonentitled “The Ten Commandments in Our Generation;" at New People'sSynagogue on Clinton Street.
1934:Rabbi Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to deliver asermon entitled "Young Israel and the Undying Jew;" at the FreeSynagogue meeting at Carnegie Hall.
1934: The 1934 edition of the "Friars Frolic" will bepresented at the Forty-fourth Street Theatre this evening. It will be stagedunder the direction of Lou Holtz, Jack Benny and Nat Burns. The show, whichwill offer a series of original and intimate sketches and playlets, which havebeen presented at private "Frolics," will also enlist the services ofmore than one hundred stars of the stage, screen and radio. With his plainvanilla looks, bland speech pattern and neutral name, Benny was the most“un-Jewish” of Jewish comedians.
1934: Birthdate of Moshe Shahal the Baghdad native who made Aliyahin 1950 and pursued a political career that included serving Deputy Speaker ofthe Knesset.
1935: Birthdate of Michael Rose, the native of Bedford-Stuyvesantwho gained fame as screen writer Mickey Rose
1936: MiguelMariano Gómez began his service as President of Cuba during which he negotiatedwith Congressman William I Sirovich about the possibility of “Cuba opening herdoors to at least 100,000 persecuted German Jews”
1936: J. H. Hertz, chief rabbi of the British Empire is scheduledto deliver an oration at the Willesden cemetery during the funeral services forDr. Nahum Sokolow, one of the founders of political Zionism.” (As reported byJTA)
1936: A memorial service is scheduled to be held this evening atthe Great Synagogue in London in honor of Dr. Nahum Sokolow of blessed memory.
1936: It was reported today that “the Solingen Tageblatt revealeda case in which the Nuremberg racial laws had been used in an attempt toblackmail a wealthy Jew” – a case which resulted in the man being imprisonedfor three months and “the woman was sent to prison for two months.”
1936: “Today all Palestine railways were placed under rigid curfewregulations” and Christians have “joined Jews in evacuating the Old City ofJerusalem” where “only 200 Jewish remains out of a former total Jewishpopulation of 5,000.”
1936: “You Can’t Fool Antoinette” a comedy filmed bycinematographer Boris Kaufman and with music by Casmir Oberfeld who will die atAuschwtiz, was released today in France.
1936:As Arab violence continued, all railways in Palestinewere placed under rigid curfew regulations.“Christians joined Jews in evacuating the Old ‘City of Jerusalem.” As of today, only “200 Jewish families out ofa former total of 5,000 remained in the Old City.”
1937: In Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, Jacob Eli Solomon and BelleBrechner gave birth to solicitor Henry Solomon, the husband of Judith DianManuel with whom he had three children who “co-founded Hillsdown Holdings thathe turned into on the largest food businesses in the UK for which he wasknighted and who was the co-founder of the Portland Trust which works toimprove relations between Israelis and Palestinians.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that Arabterrorists set on fire a special experimental agricultural farm, set up by thegovernment, for the benefit of Palestinian Arab farmers.
1939: Despitethe recent outbreaks of violence in response to the White Paper, as the Sabbathcame to an end, Jews peacefully “paraded in their customary fashion on the mainstreets of Jerusalem.” In an attempt tobridge the gap between Jews and Arabs, the Sephardic community issued astatement that expressed solidarity with the rest of the Jews of Palestine inthe struggle to annul the betrayal of the White Paper appealed to the Arabssaying “Brethren in race, our hand is outstretched today as ever for a truepeace, for collaboration in an honorable and lasting peace. The mandatory proposals will lead to the ruinof the country and the impoverishment of both Jews and Arabs instead ofconstruction and revival.
1939: “Sons ofLiberty, a short drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, which tells the storyof Haym Solomon” and winner of “an Academy Award for Best Short Subject” wasreleased today in the United States.
1940: It wasreported today the Jacob Ruthstein, Isaac Siegmeister and Harry Weinberg wasamong the speakers at the 17th annual dinner of the Beth-El Hospitalwhich was a fund raiser designed to reduce the $74,000 deficit left over from1939.
1940:A concentration camp begins functioning at Auschwitz in Poland. Because most ofEurope's Jews live in Poland and Eastern Europe, the six concentration campscalled death camps will be established there: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chelmno,Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibór, and Majdanek.
1940:This morning FDR met with labor leader David Lasser in the White House and thisafternoon he ate lunch Treasure Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr.
1941(23rdof Iyar, 5701): Thirty-year-old David Raziel, a founder of Irgun, was killedtoday. Raziel was serving with theBritish in Iraq in their fight against the pro-Axis government when a bomb froma German aircraft kill him and the British officer with whom he was serving.
1941(23rd ofIyar, 5701): Dutch physicist Leonard Salomon Ornstein passed away. Born in1880, he studied theoretical physics with Hendrik Antoon Lorentz at Universityof Leiden. He subsequently carried out Ph.D. research under the supervision ofLorentz, concerning an application of the statistical mechanics of Gibbs tomolecular problems. In 1914 he was appointed professor of physics, as successorof Peter Debye, at University of Utrecht. In 1922 he became director ofPhysical Laboratory (Fysisch Laboratorium) and extended his research intereststo experimental subjects. His measurements concerning intensities of spectrallines brought Physical Laboratory in the international limelight. He is alsoremembered for the Ornstein-Zernike theory (named after Ornstein and FrederikZernike) concerning correlation functions. Together with Gilles Holst, directorof Philips Research Laboratories (Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium), he wasthe driving force behind establishing the Dutch Physical Society (Nederlands NatuurkundigVereniging, NNV) in 1921. From 1939 until November 1940 he was Chairman of thisSociety. From 1918 until 1922 Ornstein was Chairman of the Dutch ZionistSociety (Nederlandse Zionistische Vereniging). Immediately after theinvolvement of the Netherlands in the World War II (see Battle of theNetherlands), a friend from the United States of America, the astronomer Petervan de Kamp, offered to bring Ornstein and his family to America. However,Ornstein did not accept this offer, since, as he put it, he would not leave hislaboratory in Utrecht. Owing to his Jewish heritage, Ornstein was summarilydismissed from University in September 1940; he was even barred from enteringhis own laboratory. In November 1940, he was officially dismissed from University.On his own initiative, in 1940, Ornstein withdrew his membership of the DutchPhysical Society. During this period he increasingly distanced himself frompublic life, to the degree that he no longer wished to receive guests at home.Ornstein died six months after being barred from University. One of the fivebuildings of Department of Physics of University of Utrecht, OrnsteinLaboratorium, is named in his honor.
1941: InFrance, more lawswere put into place restricting Jewish movements in allaspects of life. Jews are prohibited from engaging in wholesale and retailtrade. They cannot own banks, hotels, or restaurants
1941:Goering commanded that no Jew would be allowed to emigrate from any occupiedterritory..."in view of the imminent final solution". This was thefirst official reference of THE FINAL SOLUTION.
1942:Three hundred train cars of clothing taken from those who had been killedChelmo arrived in Lodz for sorting by Jewish workers. Ironically this meantthat the death of Jews gave the Lodz Jews work which meant they got to live.
1943:As the Allies begin to win the Battle of the Atlantic which was critical towinning WW II and ending the Shoah, an RAF B-24 sunk the U-258.
1944“Russian Rhapsody” an animated short subject featuring the voice of Mel Blanc“was released to theatres” today.
1944(27thof Iyar, 5704): Reportedly the day on which Salomon Gluck, a French doctor andleader of the French Resistance was assassinated in Kaunaus. He had been shipped from Drancy on convoy 73along with 878 other men all of whom were murdered.
1944(27thof Iyar, 5704): Sixty-nine-year-old Dr. Hans Leo Przibram, the son of Gustavand Charlotte Przibram and Austrian zoologist who was barred from theinstitution he had founded after the Anschluss because he was Jewish died todayat Theresienstadt.
1944:In Jerusalem, Zev and Esther Vilnay gave birth to Matan Vilnai. Zev had been born in Kishinev and moved withhis parents to Haifa at age 6. He workedas a topographer for the Haganah and the IDF.He pursued a career as leading geographer, author and lecturer. Matajoined the IDF where he served with the paratroopers, the Sayeret Matkal anddeputy commander of the assault force for the Entebbe Raid. He rose to the rankof Major General and served as Deputy Chief of Staff before retiring tocivilian life where he served in the Knesset and as Minister for Home FrontDefense.
1945:Between today and May 27,four Polish Jews who return to their hometown ofDzialoszyce are murdered by Poles.
1946:In what would appear to be an ideological self-contradiction, Britain’s Labourgovernment which was trying to hold on to the Empire, including Palestinesuccessfully passed a bill nationalized the UK’s coal industry, part of theplan to bring socialism to the British Isles.
1947:The Palmach “blew up a coffee house in Fajja, specifically in retaliation forthe murder of two Jews in nearby Petah Tikva.”
1947(1stof Sivan, 5707): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1947(1stof Sivan, 5707): In Cleveland, OH, Julius Wirtschafter, the brother ofCleveland physician Dr. Zolton Tillson Wirtschafter and brother-in-law ofReitza Dine Wirtschafter passed away today.
1948:Twenty-six-year-old George Frederick “Buzz Beurling, “Canada’s most famous WWII fighter pilot” who had been recruited to fly for the IAF, “fatally crashedhis Noorduyn Norseman transport aircraft while landing at Aeroporto dell'Urbein Rome” while on his way to Israel.
1948:Firstappearance of the Israeli Air Force. Real combat aircraftbearing the Star of David would not appear until later in the week.
1948:Heavy Syrian shelling of Degania Alef started at about 04:00 this morning fromthe Tzemah police station, by means of 75 mm cannons, and 60 and 81 mm mortars.The barrage lasted about half an hour. At 04:30 the Syrian army began itsadvance on the Deganias and the bridge over the Jordan River north of DeganiaAlef. Unlike the attack on Tzemah, this action saw the participation of nearlyall of the Syrian forces stationed at Tel al-Qasr, including infantry, armorand artillery. The Israeli defenders numbered about 70 persons (67 according toAharon Israeli's head count), most of them not regular fighters, with someHaganah and Palmach members. Their orders were to fight to the death. They hadsupport from three 20 mm guns at Beit Yerah, deployed along the road fromSamakh to Degania Alef. They also had a Davidka mortar, which exploded duringthe battle, and a PIAT with fifteen projectiles. At night, a Syrianexpeditionary force attempted to infiltrate Degania Bet, but was caught andwarded off, which caused the main Syrian force to attack Degania Alef first. At06:00, the Syrians started a frontal armored attack, consisting of 5 tanks, anumber of armored vehicles and an infantry company.[5] The Syrians pierced theIsraeli defense, but their infantry was at some distance behind the tanks. TheIsraelis knocked out four Syrian tanks and four armored cars with 20 mm cannons,PIATs and Molotov co*cktails.[33] Meanwhile, other defenders kept small armsfire on the Syrian infantry, who stopped in citrus groves a few hundred metersfrom the settlements. The surviving Syrian tanks withdrew back to the Golan.At07:45, the Syrians halted their assault and dug in, still holding most of theterritory between Degania Alef's fence and Samakh's police fort. They leftbehind a number of lightly damaged or otherwise inoperable tanks that theIsraelis managed to repair.
1948: Jewish fighters scored their first victoryover the Syrians at Deganya. At in the morning, Syrian troops crossed the Jordan and attacked the Kibbutz withtanks and flamethrowers. By the tanks were inside the perimeter of Deganya when two 65 mm. howitzers andadditional fighters under the command of Moshe Dyan arrived. When they wentinto action, the Syrians were so startled that they retreated. One of theSyrian tanks that had penetrated the kibbutz and was destroyed remains to thisday at Deganya as a memorial to the bravery of the defenders. What seemedlike a miracle was the result of a bold gamble by Yigal Yadin, the man who sentthe guns in the first place.
1948:The siege of Gesher ended when the two field pieces that had saved Deganya fromthe Syrians were rushed southwards. The guns opened fire on the Iraqiforces besieging the Jewish fighters. Faced with modern weapons, theIraqis fled rather than fight.
1948:Foreign Minister Moshe Sharet informed Secretary-General Trygve Lie that AbbaEban was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations.
1948:Mordechai "Modi" Alon and the rest of the Jewish pilots who have beentraining in Czechoslovakia board a DC-54 transport plane and begin their flightback to Israel. Although they have notcompleted their training, the pilots are anxious to get home since they haveheard that the Egyptian Air Force has been attacking the newly created Jewishstate.
1948:“Residents of Kalya and nearby Beit HaArava ultimately fled by boat today andthe two kibbutzim were destroyed by the Jordanians.’
1948:Operation Balak officially begins with its first flight from a Czech airfieldcode named ‘Etzion.’ Operation Balak was the name given to secret program forpurchasing and shipping arms to the infant Jewish state.
1948:The United Nations named Count Folke Bernadotte to serve as mediator betweenthe Jewish and Arab states.
1948:“The River Lady,” a western filmed by cinematographer Irving Glassbergpremiered in New York City today.
1949:Today the leader of Umm al-Fahm “signed on oath of allegiance to the State ofIsrael, which was in the “Little Triangle,” which had been awarded to Israel bythe Lausanne Conference of 1949.
1949:“The Lady Gambles” in which Tony Curtis, appearing in only his third motionpicture, plays the “bellboy” who has four lines and 10 seconds of screen time,was released in the United States today.
1950:Hedda Sterne signed a letter to President of The Metropolitan Museum of Art onMay 20 to protest aesthetically conservative group-exhibition juries. Born intoa Jewish home in Bucharest, she was the “only woman in a group of AbstractExpressionists known as "The Irascibles.”
https://jwa.org/thisweek/may/20/1950/hedda-sterne-protests-monster-national-exhibition
1950:Birthdate of Brooklyn native Alan Zweibel who has worked on several televisionshows starting with writing skits for “Saturday Night Live” and won the 2006Thurber Prize for American Human for his novel The Other Shulman.
1951(14thof Iyar, 5771): Pesach Sheni
1951:In Manhattan, Bill Schwartz, a professor of social work at Columbia University,and social worker Ruth (Efron) Schwartz gave birth to Brandeis grad Gil DavidSchwartz, the CBS executive who wrote under the name of “Stanley Bing.” (Asreported by Richard Sandomir)
1951(14thof Iyar, 5771): Fifty five year old Solomon Landman, the Cincinnati born “sonof Louis H. and Ada Gedalish Landman, the husband of “the former Rita Boehm,”father of Doris, Joan, Louis and Nathan Landman and graduate of the UniversityCincinnati and Hebrew College who began his rabbinic career B’rith SholomTemple in Springfield, Il, founded the Hillel Chapter at the University ofWisconsin and was leading Temple Isaiah in Kew Gardens, Queens when he passedaway today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/05/21/87260846.pdf
1951:One day after he had passed away, funeral services were held “this afternoon inthe village of Zichron Yaakov, near Haifa, for 64-year-old David Remez, theIsraeli Education who had begun his life in he village working as a laborerthirty-seven years ago and whose body had lain in state all night in Jerusalemwhere mourners including President Chaim Weizmann paid their respects.
1952:In New Orleans, the former Betty Seff, a real estate broker and Irwin Isaacson,“an electrical and mechanical engineer” gave birth to Isidore Newman graduateand Harvard and Pembroke College (Oxford) educated “author, journalist andprofessor Walter Seff Isaacson, the husband of Cathy Wright whom he married in1984 and professor at Tulane who is best known for writing weighty tomesincluding Kissinger: A Biography (1992), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life(2003), Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007 and The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors,Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution.
1953(6thof Sivan, 5713) First Day of Shavuot
1953(6thof Sivan, 5713): Seventy-eight-year-old University of Pennsylvania trained oralsurgeon and Spanish American War veteran Dr. Morris I. Schamberg, the founderof “the division of oral surgery at the Vanderbilt Clinic” and the “head of oralsurgery at the New York Post Graduate Hospital who was the husband of Jean M.Chamber and the father of John Schamberg passed away today in Great Neck, NY.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1953/05/21/96623770.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1953(6thof Sivan, 5713): Sixty-seven-year-old Austrian native Nettie Kinsbruner, thedaughter of Shmuel and Rachel Stettner and the wife of David Kinsbruner passedaway today in Miami Beach.
1954(7thof Iyar, 5714): Selig Brodetsky, “a British Professor of Mathematics, a memberof the World Zionist Executive, the president of the Board of Deputies ofBritish Jews and the second president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem”passed away today.
1954:Release date for “Three Coins in A Fountain,” produced by Sol C. Siegel withmusic by Victor Young
1955(28thof Iyar, 5715): Seventy-year-old Russian born American artist CharlesPolowetski passed away today.
http://www.askart.com/artist/Charles_Ezekiel_Polowetski/117580/Charles_Ezekiel_Polowetski.aspx#
1957(19thof Iyar, 5717): One worker was killed when a terrorist “opened fire in theArava region.”
1957:Birthdate of Steven Leiber, a San Francisco art dealer and collector who becamean expert in artists’ ephemera and built an archive that became an importantresource for scholars and curators. (As reported by Roberta Smith)
1958(1stof Sivan, 5718) Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1958(1stof Sivan, 5718: Leah Tarshish Gudelsky, the wife of Harry Gudelsky, the motherof Erwin and Judah Gudelsky and the sister of Allan and Rabbi Jacob Tarshishpassed awa today after which she was buried at the Ohel Yakov Beth IsraelCemetery in Baltimore, MD.
1958:In Savannah, GA, a fire broke out at Adler’s Department Store which had beenfounded by Leopold Adler and subsequently run by his son Sam G. Adler, thehusband of Elinor Grunsfeld Adler and his grandson Lee Adler, the husband ofEmma Morel Adler.
1960:In Atlanta, GA, “the remodeled and expand facilities” of the Temple which hadbeen bombed by segregationists following an appearance by Reverend MartinLuther King, Jr. in 1958 are scheduled to be dedicate today.
1960:Birthdate of actor Tony Goldwyn
1961(5thof Sivan, 5721): Parashat Bamidbar; Erev Shavuot
1961(5thof Sivan, 5721): Seventy-five-year-old Myer Solomon Cohn, the Russian born sonof Leo Cohn and the husband of Sadie Cohn passed away today in Hyattsville, MD.
1962(16thof Iyar, 5722): Fifty-six-year-old German born journalist turned AmericanSocial Worker Dr. Kurt Pine who came to the United States in 1940 where heeventually became “executive director of the Shorefront Young Men’s and YoungWomen’s Hebrew Association” in Brooklyn and raised two children – Alfred andAnnie – with his wife, “the former Bessie Halder” passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/05/21/94102891.pdf
1962: Two daysafter he had passed away funeral services are scheduled to be held inBrooklyn’s Union Temple for Hebrew Union College graduate and St. John’sUniversity trained attorney, Sidney Saul Tedesche the Elmwood, Ohio born son ofAlexander Tedesche and Jeanette Greenfield and the holder of Ph.D. from Yalewho served as a rabbi at Brith Sholom in Springfield, Beth El in Providence,Bethel El in San Antonio, Mishkan Israel in New Haven and Union Temple inBrooklyn while raising two daughters – Carol and Jeanne – with his wife “theformer Irma Goldman.”
https://www.geni.com/people/Sidney-Tedesche/6000000002717858029
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/05/19/140578272.pdf
1962:An Orchestra Hall Concert of the Halevi Choral Society with Hyman Reznickconducting and featuring Cantor Jacob Barkin as guest soloist was recorded livetoday.
http://faujsa.fau.edu/music-data/301854/301854.pdf
1963(26thof Iyar, 5723): Seventy-three-year-old former theatrical agent “Morris Green, vice president of SoundStudios, producers of radio programs” who began his career producing theoriginal edition of the “Greenwich Village Follies” in 1919 passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/05/23/90532844.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1964:Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for seventy-year-old awardcancer and authority on breast tumors Dr. Norman Treves, the native ofCrawfordsville, IN and graduate of Johns Hopkins University Medical School whois survived by his brother Max Tannenbaum.
1965(18thof Iyar, 5725): Lag B’Omer
1965(18thof Iyar, 5725): Seventy-six-year-old Cooper Union trained civil engineer IsraelOrlian, the Lomza, Poland born son of Shrma Zalkrud and Abraham Oliansky andthe husband of Sophie Schmalowitz who was a member of the Progressive Synagogueand a “founder of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University”passed away today.
1966:Birthdate of actress Mindy Cohn, who played Natalie on the sitcom “Facts ofLife.”
1966:In Manhattan, Erfat and attorney Floyd Abrams gave birth Columbia trainedattorney Daniel Abrams who gave up the law for a career in televiosn.
1967(10thof Iyar, 5727): Parashat Behar
1967(10thof Iyar, 5727): Eighty-one-year-old“Samuel Mitchell, the husband of Stella Ratkowsky and “a founder of MitchellBrothers, Inc, a manufacturer of ladies’ sleepwear and a leader of both theAmerican Jewish Congress and the Jewish Board of Guardians, passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/05/20/90343886.html?pageNumber=28
1968(22ndof Iyar, 5728): Fifty-six-year-old concert pianist Ray Lev, the Rostov-on-Donborn daughter of Cantor Moses whose last performance was on April 28 “when sheplayed the Schuman concerto” passed away today.
https://broadcast41.com/biography/lev-ray
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/05/21/77089120.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1969(3rdof Sivan, 5729; Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Friedman, the Rosh Yeshiva, Nachlas Tzvi,Munkacz, Hungary passed away today.
1970(14thof Iyar, 5730): Pesach Sheni
1970:U.S. premiere of “Too Late the Hero,” a WW II film with a script by LukasHeller.
1971:The Second Leningrad anti-Zionist trials in which Hillel Butman and Lev Yagmanwere two of the defendants came to an end today.
1972(7thof Sivan, 5732): Second Day of Shavuot
1972(7thof Sivan, 5732): Forty-three year old Irvin Milton “Bootsy” Lazarus, the son ofSam and Annie Lazarus passed away today.
1973(18thof Iyar, 5733): Lag B’Omer
1973:“Letter bombs were sent to Jewish and Israeli addresses in Britain and Holland”after which two Arabs were arrested by police and expelled from Great Britain.
1973(18thof Iyar, 5733): Sixty-three-year-old Charles Brasch, “a New Zealand poet,literary editor and arts patron who was the founding editor of the literaryjournal Landfall passed away today.
http://jewishonlinemuseum.org/charles-brasch
http://www.otago.ac.nz/press/landfall/index.html
1974(28thof Iyar, 5734): Leontine Sagan, Austrian born actress and founder of theNational Theatre of Johannesburg passed away at the age of 85.
1974(28thof Iyar, 5734): Yom Yerushalayim
1977:JTA reported that “The Senate has confirmed President Carter's appointment ofManuel Plotkin, 53, a marketing research expert and executive of Sears Roebuckand Co., to be director of the Census Bureau. He will be the first Jew to holdthat office of which Thomas Jefferson was the original incumbent in 1790.Senate approval of the appointment was without dissent. Plotkin, who was bornin Irkutsk, Siberia, was taken by his parents to Mexico City at the age ofthree. The family moved to Chicago in 1929 where they have lived ever since.Plotkin and his wife, the former Dianne Weiss, are members of Temple Sholom inthat city. As head of the Census Bureau, which is part of the Department ofCommerce, Plotkin will oversee about 8000 employees, more than half inWashington and the rest in various points around the U.S. They comprise thefield force for monthly population surveys including employment figures for theDepartment of Labor. Plotkin had been for two years the price economist for theBureau of Labor Statistics at its Chicago regional office and a year as surveycoordinator in the Bureau’s Washington office.”
1977:Stroszek a West German tragicomedy film directed byWerner Herzog premiered in Munich today.
1978:Three members of the PFLP (Peoples Front for the Liberation ofPalestine)a terrorist organization, killed a policeman near El Alairlines at Orly Airport outside of Paris, France.
1979:After 857 performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, the curtain came downtoday on the original Broadway production of “I Love My Wife,” the Cy Colemanand Michael Stewart musical.
1980(5thof Sivan, 5740): Erev Shavuot observed for the last time during the Presidencyof Jimmy Carter.
1981: The Israeli Cabinet reportedly will meet today to discussproposals made by Philip C. Habib, President Reagan's envoy who has beenmeeting with the President of Syria over the threat posed by his missileslocated in Lebanon.
1983:“Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone” a sci-fi film starring PeterStrauss and with a score by Elmer Bernstein was released today in the UnitedStates.
1983:Journalism professor and author Nicholas Lemann was married today in a unionthat produced his two sons Alexander and Theodore.
1983:Due to being in a coma that followed an attack of pneumonia, Jan Peerce was notable to perform at was to have been his “comeback” concert scheduled for today.
1984(18thof Iyar, 5744): Lag B’Omer
1985:Israel exchanges 1150 Palestinian prisoners for 3 Israeli soldiers
1988:Leonard Cohen performed a show in San Sebastian, which “Spanish TV station RTEtelevised” in its entireity.
1988:“Willow” a fantasy film featuring Kevin Pollak, was released in the UnitedStates today.
1989(15thof Iyar, 5749): Forty-two-year-old Comedienne Gilda Radner famed for her roleson “Saturday Night” Live died of ovarian cancer today.
http://jwa.org/thisweek/may/20/1989/gilda-radner
1991(7thof Sivan, 5751): Second Day of Shavuot; Yizkor
1992:Poet and college professor Charles Bernstein and artist Susan Bee gave birth totheir second child, Felix Bernstein
http://felixbernstein.com/bio.html
1993:NBC broadcast the final episode of season four of “Seinfeld” tonight.
1993: The Jerusalem Post reported that in her43rd State Comptroller's Annual Report, the State Comptroller, Dr. MiriamPorat, warned that pension funds may soon begin defaulting on payments, ifurgent steps are not taken to reduce their huge actuarial deficits. Theproblem, she disclosed, was compounded by the abuses of the Histadrut, whosefunds represented 93 per cent of all fund members. The Histadrut, she pointedout, often forces workers to sign up for its funds via collective wageagreements, and then assigns them to these with large actuarial deficits.
1994(10thof Sivan, 5754): Staff Sgt. Moshe Bukra, age 30 and Cpl. Erez Ben-Baruch, age24 were shot dead by HAMAS terrorists at a roadblock one kilometer south of theErez checkpoint in the Gaza Strip
1994(10thof Sivan, 5754): Eighty-nine-year-old Meer Parodenck “the founder and presidentof the Parodneck Foundation for Self-Help Housing and Community Development,and president of the board of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board” passedaway today. (As reported by Richard D.Lyons)
1997:“Roseanne,” a sitcom creating by, and starring Roseanne Barr ended its finalseason.
1998(24thof Iyar, 5758): Ninety-three-year-old Hungarian native and “Jewish historianand educator Jacob Katz who began teaching in Palestine in 1936 and became afull professor at Hebrew University in 1962 passed away today.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/katz-jacob
1998(24thof Iyar, 5758): Seventy-three-year-old author Cyril Wolf Mankowitz passed awaytoday in County Cork.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-wolf-mankowitz-1158253.html
1999(5thof Sivan, 5759): 49th day of the Omer; erev Shauvot
2000(15thof Iyar, 5760): Parashat Behar
2000: “A weekthat began in violence ended violently here, with bloody clashes in the WestBank and Gaza and intensified fighting in southern Lebanon.”
2001: The New York Times featured books by Jewish writers and/or of specialinterest to Jewish readers including “Tell Me A Story: Fifty Years and 60Minutes in Television” by Don Hewitt the son of German Jewish and RussianJewish immigrant who transformed television journalism.
2002(9thof Sivan, 5762):Sixty-year-old Stephen Jay Gould an Americanpaleontologist, evolutionary biologist and historian of science who was alsoone of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of hisgeneration” passed away today. (As reported by Carol Kaesuk Yoon)
2002, today,two years after being released in the United States “Escape: Human Cargo,”co-starring Sasson Gabai was broadcast for the first time in Finland.
2002: YitzhakVaknin left the position of Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Welfare.
2002(9thof Sivan, 5762): Brooklyn born and Brooklyn College and NYU alum Dr. SamuelBaskin, the husband of Florence Baskin and the father of Robert and DavidBaskin who “spent his entire professional life in the education field, and wasa pioneer in creating and developing alternative life study programs” passedaway today.
2002: Hamasclaimed credit for the highway bombing at Afula.
2003(18thof Iyar, 5763): Lag B’Omer
2003: Today onC-Span, author and historian Robert Caro, the son of Yiddish speaking Jewishrefugee from Warsaw, talked about Master of the Senate, the third in hisplanned five volume biography of Lyndon Johnson.
2004: “AnIsraeli court today convicted Marwan Barghouti, a top aide to the Palestinianleader Yasir Arafat and an emblem of resistance, on murder charges relating toattacks that killed five Israelis, brushing aside his protests that Israel hadno right to try him.
2005: “TamarSchwartz and her daughter, Hadas, 4, were sleeping when the mortar, grenade andrifle attack came early this morning” at Kfar Darom.
2006: “'It'sYour Birthday, Clifford Odets! A Centennial Exhibition' at Michael RosenfeldGallery” published today provides a window into the artistic side of man whommost of us think of as a playwright.
2007: The New York Times published an op-edpiece by novelist and commentator Mark Helprin arguing “that intellectualproperty rights should be assigned to an author or artist as far as Congresscould practically extend them>”
2007: In NewYork City, rededication of Kehila Kedosha Janina. Eighty years ago, KehilaKedosha Janina opened its doors to serve the small Romaniote Jewish communityon the Lower East Side joining hundreds of other Jewish houses of worship inthe neighborhood. By the 1940’s there would be other Romaniote synagogues inthe New York area. Today this is the only Romaniote synagogue in the WesternHemisphere and one of only five original Jewish houses of worship on the LowerEast Side that still functions as an active synagogue.
2007: TheUpper Mid-West Region of Hadassah presents “Zay Gesunt – You Should Live and BeWell” in Bloomington, Minnesota.
2007: The New York Times features reviews ofbooks written by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readersincluding Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson and Einstein:A Biography by Jürgen Neffep; translated by Shelley Frisch.
2007: The Los Angeles Times and The Sunday Washington Post each featurea review of Shakespeare’s Kitchen by Lore Segal. “The protagonist of Shakespeare'sKitchen is Ilka Weisz, a scrappy, opinionated Jewish refugee who hasappeared in slightly different guises in Segal's earlier novels, Her FirstAmerican and Other People's Houses.
2007:Herzalyia Mayor Yael German presented Eliahu Hacohen with the Herzl Award, “thehigh priest of research into Israeli songs, who has dedicated his life tostrengthening the link with our cultural heritage.”
2007(3rd ofSivan, 5767): Ben Wiesman a classically trained pianist, who helped writenearly 60 songs for Elvis Presley, passed away at the age of 85.
2007(3rd ofSivan, 5767): Barcuh Kimmerling, Professor of Sociology at Hebrew Universityand author of The Invention and Decline of Israeliness: State, Society andthe Military, passed away.
2007: InCleveland, Ohio, Case Western Reserve University confers an honorary Doctor ofHumanities on Morton Mandel who served as a Case Western Reserve Universitytrustee from 1977 through 1992, and is now an honorary trustee. In addition, heis a recipient of the university's Newton D. Baker Distinguished Alumni Award.Mandel has been involved in numerous national and international activities, theCouncil of Jewish Federations, the Mandel Leadership Institute, and the WorldConference of Jewish Community Centers.
2008: Mashina,one of Israel’s most influential pop rock bands plays at Webster Hall in NewYork.
2008:At Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, Michael Levin successfully defendshis dissertation. “A Doctor Is Born.”
2009:Kevin Youkilis, “the first baseman and cleanup hitter for the Red Sox returnedfrom the 15-day disabled list today night and promptly went 3-for-5 to raisehis average to .404.”
2009: John Simon Bercow officially announced that he was seekingthe Speakership of the House of Commons.Victory would make him the first Jew to serve in this position
2009: Final day for The Tel Aviv CentennialMultimedia Exhibit at Vanderbilt Hall, Grand Central Station, NY
2009: In New York, CityWinery celebrates Israel’s 61st Year of Independence with a tastingfeaturing wines from over 15 Israeli Wineries paired with Israeli singingsensation David Broza for the post-tasting entertainment. The event would appear to show tjat Jews havegained their independence from the syrupy taste of the Concord grape concoctionthat was the staple of Jewish homes for decades.
2009: For the lasttime Lt. Col. Shawn M. Pine mailed a box of scarves to his sister MichelleLefkowitz. He purchased the scarves on a weekly basis from a little girl inAfghanistan who sold them to support her family.
2009(26th ofIyar, 5769): Fifty-one-year-old Army Lt. Colonel Shawn M. Pine was killed todaywhen a vehicle in which he was riding in was struck by an explosive device nearKabul, Afghanistan. A second-generationsoldier, Pine served six years in the IDF before graduating from GeorgetownUniversity and pursuing a career in the U.S. Army. He is buried next to his father at ArlingtonNational Cemetery. (As reported by Maia Efrem)
2009(26th ofIyar, 5769): Twenty-one-year-old USAF First Lieutenant Roslyn L. Schulte was killed today when a vehicle in which shewas riding in was struck by an explosive device near Kabul, Afghanistan. Anintelligence officer, she was the first female USAF Academy graduate to havedied in combat. She was killed in thesame attack that took the life of Lt. Col. Pine. (As reported by Maia Efrem)
2009: IranianPresident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced today that Iran has successfullytest-fired a new advanced missile with a range of about 1,200 miles, far enoughto strike Israel and southeastern Europe as well as U.S. bases in the Gulf.
2009: Asdescribed in the articled archaeologists from Israel’s Antiquities Authority(IAA) have revealed two important artifacts recently discovered in Jerusalem,both dating from the First Temple Period.
Thefirst, a bone seal engraved with the name “Shaul” was found in an excavationbeing conducted under the auspices of the IAA, in cooperation with the Natureand Parks Authority in the Walls Around Jerusalem National Park, located in theCity of David. The dig, which is underwritten by the “Ir David Foundation”(City of David)is being carried out under the direction of ProfessorRonny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the IAA.The seal,which is made of bone, was found broken and is missing a piece from its upperright side. Two parallel lines divide the surface of the seal into tworegisters in which Hebrew letters are engraved. A period followed by a floralimage or a tiny fruit appear at the end of the bottom name. The name of theseal’s owner was completely preserved and it is written in the shortened formof the name, Shaul, which is known from both the Bible (Genesis 36:37; 1 Samuel9:2; 1 Chronicles 4:24 and 6:9) and from other Hebrew seals. Another Hebrewseal and three Hebrew bullae (pieces of clay stamped with seal impressions)were previously discovered nearby. The second artifact, an ancient jar handlebearing the Hebrew name “Menachem” was uncovered in the neighborhood of Ras el‘Amud during an excavation prior to construction of a girls’ school by theJerusalem municipality. The jar handle,inscribed with the name"Menachem" carvedin Hebrew,was found among settlementremains dating to different phases of the Middle Canaanite period (2200 – 1900BCE), and the last years of the First Temple period (8-7 BCE) that wererecently uncovered during the excavation. The name Menachem Ben Gadi is notedin the Bible as that of a king of Israel who reigned for 10 years in Samaria,as one of the last kings of the Kingdom of Israel. According to Kings II,Menachem Ben Gadi ascended the throne in the 39th year of Uzziah, King of Judah(Judea). The names Menachem and Yinachem both are expressions of condolence,noted excavation director Dr. Ron Be’eri, who speculated they might be relatedto the death of family members. The archaeologist added that such names alreadyappeared earlier in the Canaanite period, on Egyptian pottery sherds and adocument about an Egyptian governor on the Lebanese coast. This is the firsttime that a handle with the name “Menachem” has been found in Jerusalem.
2009: Four men arrestedwere arrested tonight, shortly after planting a 16.78-kilogram mock explosivedevice in the trunk of a car outside the Riverdale Temple and two mock bombs inthe backseat of a car outside the Riverdale Jewish Center, another synagogue afew blocks away, authorities said. Police blocked their escape with an 18-wheeltruck, smashing their tinted Sport Utility Vehicle windows and apprehending theunarmed suspects. Authorities said the men also plotted to shoot down amilitary plane. James Cromitie, 55; David Williams, 28; Onta Williams, 32; andLaguerre Payen, all of Newburgh, were charged with conspiracy to use weapons ofmass destruction within the United States and conspiracy to acquire and useanti-aircraft missiles. An official told The Associated Press that three of themen are converts to Islam. The official spoke on condition of anonymity becausethe person was not authorized to discuss details of the investigation.
2010(7thof Sivan, 5770): Second Day of Shavuot
2010(7thof Sivan, 5770): Eighty-two-year-old Leonard Wolfson (Baron Wolfson) passedaway today.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jun/17/lord-wolfson-obituary
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/finance-obituaries/7750834/Lord-Wolfson.html
2010: The FirstFestival of Israeli Jazz NY is scheduled to open at The Stone in the EastVillage.
2010: The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum reopened parts of itsgrounds to visitors on today after floodwaters from the nearby Vistula and Solarivers seemed to peak and begin to recede.
2010: Hedy Lamarr was chosen from 150 IT people to befeatured in a short film launched by the British Computer Society
2011: Cedar Village in Mason, Ohio is schedule to host an evententitled “Memory and Jewish Identity” during which Dr. Adrian Parr, associateprofessor in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, andaffiliate faculty, Department of Philosophy and Judaic Studies at theUniversity of Cincinnati will use the narrative of her grandmother’s survivalof the Holocaust and her own subsequent discovery of her Jewish identity toexplore the importance of Jewish cultural memory for keeping Jewish identityalive amidst adversity.
2011: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with PresidentObama the White House today.
2011: Violin virtuoso Gil Shaham is scheduled to play “Walton’ssublime and rarely performed Violin Concerto, a masterpiece of the violinliterature commissioned and debuted by Jascha Heifetz in 1936, with one of theworld's greatest ensembles, The Philadelphia Orchestra.”
2011: In “Perched in Berlin With Hitler Rising,” JanetMaslin reviewed In The Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an AmericanFamily in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson.Just when you thought you knew all you needed to know about the Hitlerera, along comes Larson who provides a fascinating, informative snapshot of thepre-war world focusing on the life of William E. Dodd, FDR’s first ambassadorto Hitler’s Berlin and his exotic daughter.
2011: Despite political unrest, pilgrims are scheduled tocelebrate Lag B’Omer at the El Ghriba synagogue. The normally vibrant celebrations will take amore muted form because of the unstable conditions in Tunisia.
2011(16th of Iyar, 57771): Just a week beforehis 96th birthday, Arieh Handler, on the founders of the ReligiousZionist movement and the last living person to have present at when Israeldeclared her independence passed away today.
http://www.thejc.com/news/israel-news/49280/arieh-handler-dies-israel
2012: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the family and friends ofDr. Todd Burstain, a hameshah mensch who has raised four fantastic sons, arelooking forward to celebrating his birthday today.
2012: Eirc Greitens was awarded an honorary Doctor ofHumane Letters degree from Tufts University when he gave the commencementspeech at the school's 156th commencement
2012: In Flushing, NY, the Free Synagogue is scheduled tohost the Second Annual Sacred Sites Open House organized by The New YorkLandmarks Conservancy
2012: Dr. Hal Lewis, President and CEO of SpertusInstitute of Jewish Studies in Chicago, is scheduled to deliver the keynoteaddress as part of Let My People Know, an afternoon of Jewish education at theMayerson JCC in Cincinnati, Ohio.
2012: A Jerusalem Day family celebration featuring aconcert by Peter Himmelman is scheduled to take place at Ohev Shalom inWashington, D.C.
2012: Schmekel, “Brooklyn's only 100% transgender, 100%Jewish, schtick-rock sensation” is scheduled to appear at Chief Ike’s MamboRoom in Washington, DC
2012: JSSA (Jewish Social Service Agency) is scheduled to holdits largest annual fundraiser, Gala 2012, in Washington, DC. JSSA Gala 2012 – An Evening of Passion andPurpose – will feature performance artist, David Garibaldi.
2012: The NMAJMH and the JSC are scheduled to devote aspecial afternoon to “Family Stories: Daughters, Mothers and Bubbes.”
2012: In Cleveland Ohio, the Hadassah chapter will host acelebratory Centennial Birthday brunch to honor the accomplishments of thelargest Jewish volunteer organization in America and present the CentennialAward to life member, Moreland Hills resident Roz Abraham.
2012: The New YorkTimes featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of specialinterest to Jewish readers including The Cause co-authored by EricAlterman and Farther Away by Jonathan Franzen
2012: Security forces intercepted a Palestinian squadthat attempted to kidnap Israeli citizens in the West Bank, the Shin Betindicated today, adding that the squad's purpose was to negotiate the releaseof Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jail.
2012(28th of Iyar, 5772): Celebration of YomYerushalayim – Jerusalem Reunification Day – 45 years of Jerusalembeing undivided and under control of the rightful owners.
2012(28th of Iyar, 5772): Seventy-eight yearold London born human rights activist David Gerald Littman passed away today.
http://www.dhimmitude.org/littman-biography.html
2013:Dr/ Ted Merwin, associate professor and director, Religion and Judaic Studiesat Dickinson College will speak on the topic "American Jews inEntertainment" at JFK Airport as part of the US Customs and BorderProtection service’s celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month.
2013:Friends and family of Dr. Todd Burstain gather in Cedar Rapids to celebratethis father of four of the finest young men imaginable – a real credit to theJewish community
2013:Ira Forman, who led President Obama’s reelection campaign in the Jewishcommunity, was appointed as the State Department’s envoy to combatanti-Semitism today.
2013:Grafitti reading 'Torah tag' and 'Women of the Wall are wicked' that had beenpainted on a wall leading up to the apartment of Peggy Cidor, a longstandingmember of the board of Women of the Wall was discovered this morning.
2014:Today’s session of the 4th International Writers Festival begins “with a poetryencounter for high school students with the works of Yehuda Amichai, and endswith singing the songs of Amichai.” (As reported by Jessica Steinberg)
2014:“The US called on Israel today to open an investigation into the deaths of twoPalestinian teenagers shot during clashes with the IDF in the West Bank lastweek, after video emerged showing them unarmed during the incident” even thoughthe Israeli government has already said that the video was heavily “doctored”and did not show the level of threat facing the Israelis.
2014:“Bulgaria is making progress in hunting down the terrorists responsible for aJuly 2012 bombing in the resort city of Burgas that killed five Israelis, thecountry’s leader said today in Jerusalem.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/bulgaria-we-will-bring-burgas-bombers-to-justice-soon/
2014:“An IDF raid on the Jenin refugee neighborhood in Samaria today exposed weaponsand improvised explosive devices, as well as knives and various kinds ofammunition. In the course of the raid, local terrorists fired live rounds atthe soldiers but no members of the IDF were hit.”
2014:“The Sturgeon Queens” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan
2014(20thof Iyar, 5774): Ninety-year-old Arthur Gelb, one of those “Times Men” whoshaped the national culture and helped set the national agenda passed awaytoday.
2015: Ten Jewish Baltimoreans are scheduled to be inductedinto the Baltimore Jewish Hall of Fame at the JCC “for their contributions tothe arts, business, education, philanthropy and community building.”
2015:The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled tohost a screening of “Iraq N’ Roll.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-movements-strife-over-shavuot-night-event/
2015:Jean Naggar is scheduled to discuss her memoir Sipping from the Nile: MyExodus from Egypt at the Center for Jewish History.
2015(2ndof Sivan, 5775): Ninety-two-year-old “Julia Hartman, one of the last survivingfighters of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during WWII passed away” this morning.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4659808,00.html
2015:“Two Border Police officers – a man and a woman – were wounded” this morning“in a vehicular terror attack in Jerusalem on the ascent to the Mount ofOlives.”
2015:In Philadelphia, PA, the National Museum of American Jewish History isscheduled to host “Portraits & Politics: The Resonance of ‘FamilyAffairs.’”
http://www.nmajh.org/CalendarEvent.aspx?eventid=316
2015:“Ten Jewish Baltimoreans” including Lois Blum Feiblatt and television executiveBarry Levinson were “inducted into the Baltimore Jewish Hall of Fame at theJCC.
2016:The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host the Chamber Music Ensembles -Competition Winners - of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.
2016:The Israeli Consulate is scheduled to host the 2016 “Beyond Conference.”
2016:In the United Kingdom, the Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled tohost “Bring A Friend Shabbat Dinner” this evening.
2016:”Israel’sdefense minister,” Moshe Alone,” abruptly announced his resignation today,saying he had lost faith in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was “fearfulfor Israel’s future” after his job had apparently been offered to a rival in afar-right party.”
2016:In Coralville, Iowa, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host is annual“Mediterranean-style Family Shabbat Dinner.”
2017(24thof Iyar, 5777): Finish Vayikra with thereading of Behar and Bechukotai
2017(24thof Iyar, 5777): In Cincinnati, ordination ceremonies are scheduled to takeplace at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion.
2017:“Open House Tel Aviv, or Batim Mibifnim, an urban festival of architecture anddesign — now in it’s 11th year — showcasing the city’s chic urban style” isscheduled to come to an end today.
2017:Holocaust survivor Sonia Kaplan, the author of My Endless War isscheduled to appear at the USHMM as part of the “meet the author” program.
2018:The New York Times features reviewsof books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readersincluding White Houses by Amy Bloom, Fascism: A Warning byMadeline Albright with Bill Woodward, Can Democracy Survive GlobalCapitalism? by Robert Kuttner and Not Enough: Human Rights in an UnequalWorld by Samuel Moyn
2018(6thof Sivan, 5778): Shavuot
2018(6thof Sivan, 5778):Ninety-seven year old Bill Gold, the Brooklyn born son of “Pauland Rose (Sachs) Gold, whose name you might not know but whose posters for suchmovies as “Casablanca” are classics passed away today in Greenwich, CT. (Asreported by Robert D. McFadden)
2018:In Little Rock, AR, the Chabad Jewish Center under the leadership of RabbiPinchas Ciment, the quintessential “Lamplighter” is scheduled to host “aspecial reading of the Ten Commandments followed by a dairy Kiddush featuringcheesecake and ice cream”
2018In Iowa City, a scheduled double header includes a Shavuot Service at theChabad House followed by “a Kiddush in honor of Yasha Leba” the daughter ofChaya and Rabbi Avrohom Blesofsky.
2019:As charges of corruption swirled around Prime Minister Netanyahu tonight“Israel’s parliament announced that an “immunity bill,” filed by a Netanyahuloyalist, was among 200 measures slated for votes in the current session.”
2019:In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “The Testament,” a Holocaustfilm with a strange twist.
2019:The Center for Jewish History, the American Jewish Historical Society, YeshivaUniversity and the Museum of the Jewish People are scheduled to host Alfred H.Moses, “President Clinton’s first ambassador to Romania” and the author of BucharestDiary: Romania’s Journey from Darkness to Light and former Senator JoeLieberman “as they discuss Moses’s historic work and keydiplomatic roleinRomania’s transition from its Communist past to democracy - and from “darknessto light.”
2019: Volodymyr Zelenskyybegan serving as the 6th President of Ukraine today.
2019: The Marlene MeyersonJCC in Manhattan is scheduled to host “Israel Story Live, an evening of magicallive radio with the creators of Israel Story—the award-winning radio show andpodcast that public radio icon Ira Glass calls ‘the Israeli This AmericanLife’.”
2019: At Tifereth IsraelSynagogue in Des Moines, IA, the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines isscheduled to “Ethiopian-born diplomat Ariella Rada” as she speaks about “ThePeople of Israel: A Study in Diversity.”
2019:Volodymyr Zelenskyybecame the sixth president of Ukraine
2019: The Temple Emanu-ElStreicker Center is scheduled to host Dan Abrams as his talks with Chris Cuomoabout Abrams’ latest book, Theodore Roosevelt for the Defense.
2019: “Lest We Forget” whichhas been on display outside of the City Hall in San Francisco since April 15 isscheduled to come to a close today. 2020
https://www.jccmanhattan.org/arts-ideas/conversations/israel-story-live/
2020: Via Zoom, theStreicker Center is scheduled to present “Becoming Ruth” with Dr. AvivahZornberg
2020: The Vilna Shul,Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture is scheduled to host on “Behind‘Unorthodox’: Debunking Myths of Ultra-Orthodoxy.”
2020: Chabad in Iowa City,is scheduled to celebrate the birthday of Chaya Blesoksky, the wife of RabbiAbrohom Blesofsky in honor of which 42 women will be lighting Shabbat candlesin her honor on May 22.
2020: Via Zoom, the OxfordUniversity Jewish Society is scheduled to a shiur on Abraham and Jonah” wherewill “be looking at the implications of poor communications in the Tanakh, andhow we relate this to our everyday lives.”
2020: Via Zoom, from SanFrancisco Sherit Israel is scheduled to host “The victims of COVID-19: Adiscussion on how the virus affects its oldest and youngest patients with Dr.Bennett Zier & Dr. Valerie Flaherman will be interviewed by Dr. Jonathan Graf.
https://www.sherithisrael.org/event/covid-19-a-conversation-from-the-front-line3.html
2021: The Streicker Centeris scheduled to present Dr. Michael Marmur and Rabbi David Ellenson, editors ofAmerican Jewish Thought Since 1934: Writings on Identity, Engagement, &Belief, published one year ago, who will delve into the shifting soundscapearound questions of loyalty and belonging, religious practice, seculardiscontents and the creative American recasting of Jewish peoplehood.
2021: The Silicon ValleyJewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screenings of “They Ain’t Ready ForMe” and “Thou Shalt Not Hate.”
2021: The American SephardiFederation is scheduled to present via Zoom, “Sephardi Thought and Modernity:Rabbi Yosef Knafo’s Struggle for Democratization of Knowledge in Fin de SiècleEssaouira.”
https://programs.cjh.org/event/sephardi-thought-2021-05-20
2021: The American JewishHistorical Society is scheduled to host lunchtime “conversation with MuzzyRosenblatt, CEO and President of the Bowery Residents’ Committee.”
https://programs.cjh.org/event/at-lunch-2021-05-20
2021: In Palm Beach, FL,Temple Judea is scheduled to present a virtual “Tour of Morocco with anemphasis the history of Jewish Morocco led by ProfessorRoy Mittleman – Directory of Jewish Studies at CCNY, BA from Univ. ofPennsylvania, Masters in Religion from Temple University, graduate ofReconstructionist Rabbinic College in Philadelphia.
2021: Case Western Reserve University's Siegal Lifelong LearningProgram is scheduled to host a remote lecture on “Budgets, Boycotts, AndBabies: Jewish Women in the Great Depression.”
2021: In Columbus, OH, Congregation TiferethIsrael is scheduled to host “Who Knows One?” Jewish Geography Zoom Racing.”
2021: Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth Countyis scheduled to present via Zoom, Chair Yoga with Sheri Glick.
2021: Based on previously published reports, asof today Israelis will be dealing with mixed messages including President Bidenprodding Prime Minister Netanyahu to “de-escalate” tensions at a time when morerockets are being fired from Lebanon and Israeli military intelligence ispredicting the possibility of some sort of cross-border incursion by terroristscoming from Gaza.
2022: The Americans and the Holocaust travelingexhibition is scheduled to open at Pendleton Public Library (Pendleton, OR),SaintPeter Public Library (Saint Peter, MN), Braswell Memorial Public Library (RockyMount, NC) and Bozeman Public Library (Bozeman, MT).
2022: At noon today a live broadcast on Kan KolHamusika is scheduled to show the Ensemble Phoenix with David Shemer , on thegrand fortepiano.
2022: “Beautiful – The Carole King Musical”which tells the story of her rise to stardom is scheduled to open at the Fox Theatrein Atlanta, GA.
2022:The adaptation of Sarit Yishai-Levi's TheBeauty Queen of Jerusalem is scheduled to be making its way to Netflix.
2023: Lockdown University is scheduled to hosta webinar consisting of a lecture by Professor David Peimer on “The GreatDirector Fritz Lang: In Germany and Hollywood.”
2023: Temple Judea is scheduled to a TorahStudy webinar with Rabbi Feivel Strauss.
2023: The Eden Tamir Music Center is scheduledto host a concert cellist Simcha Held and “Friends,” violinist Polina Yehudinand pianist Michael Zartsekel.
2023 (29th of Iyar, 5783): Parashat Bamidbar and Pirke Avot Chapter 6
2024: The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduledto host a discussion of “20th Century Women,” “with author and filmcritic, Ann Hornaday and Cinema Chats moderator Lucy Shahar, who will lead usin a discussion about this award-winning film.”
2024:The final session of “Run Write Read Repeat, a four-day running and writingseminary is scheduled to take place today.
2024: YIVO is scheduled to host a lecture byMiranda Brethour on “Self-government Between the Shtetl and the Village: RuralLeaders and Jewish Polish Relations in the Lublin Countryside Before WW II.”
2024: The Center for Jewish History and theMuseum of Jewish Heritage are scheduled to present “ a screening of WHITENOISE followed by a panel conversation with director and journalist Daniel Lombroso,Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, President of the Center for Jewish History and Professorof History at Fairfield University, and Anna Duensing, a historian specializingin evolving global politics of white supremacy across the twentieth century whowill discuss the ideas the alt-right has unleashed and how the movement hassucceeded in infiltrating mainstream political discourse and shaping thedirection of the United States.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HncFO8Sujvk&t=2s.
2024: The Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre isscheduled to host a lecture by Dr Waitman Wade Beorn on “Recovering Janowska: AConcentration Camp
in the Historical and Virtual World.”
2024: Joanie and Tom Adler are scheduled to receivethe Maltz Museum’s 2024 Maltz Heritage Award today, at the Cleveland Museum ofArt.
2024: The Streicker Center is scheduled to hosta panel discussion on “Six Months Out” the 2024 Presidential Campaign and theAmerican Jewish Vote.”
2024:As May 20th begins in Israel, an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism sweeps theUnited States and the Hamas held hostages begin day227 in captivity. (Editor’snote: this situation is too fluid for this blog to cover so we are justproviding a snapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time.)
