April 24
70:During the Jewish rebellion against Rome, Roman legions break throughJerusalem’s middle wall, but are driven back by the Jewish defenders.
396:As conditions for the Jews in the Roman Empire worsen, the Roman Emperors adopta law that appears to be an anomaly. They issue a decree punishing anyone whoinsults Jewish leaders. "If any one dare publicly insult the IllustriousPatriarchs, he shall be subject to a sentence of punishment." (Editor’s Note – I can find no explanationfor this)
858:Start of the papacy of Nicholas I. During his papacy he issued “a very obscureorder which is contained in a letter Bishop Arsenius of Orta, to whom heprohibits the use of Jewish garments.”
1288: A Christian bodywas placed in the houseof the richest Jew of Troyes, France. The resulting tribunal condemned fourteenof the city's wealthiest men and women to be burned at the stake. This was partof a blood libel which the Dominicans and Franciscans used to “provoke amassacre of the local Jews.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2979/PFT.2009.29.1.1?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21106566490833
1288:“Hebrew-French poet Jacob Ben Judah” was an eyewitness today to an auto-de-fein Troyes.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/jacob-ben-judah\
1342:Pope Benedict XII passed away. In 1337 Benedict’s effort to protect the Jews whenChristian mobs in Germany Bavaria, Bohemia, Moravia and Austria attacked thembecause of false accusations of “host desecration,” proved futile. Benedict’sintervention on behalf of the Jews marks him as unusual. His failure is a testament to the strongpower of these false allocations.
1439(30th of Nisan, 5199): Rabbi,Kabbalist and poet Avigdor Ben Isaac Kara passed away today.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0011_0_10738.html
1547:Elector of Saxony John Frederick, thepatron and protector of Martin Luther, who in 1536, “issued a mandate thatprohibited Jews from inhabiting, engaging in business in, or passing throughhis realm” completed his reign as Elector of Saxony and Landgrave of Thuringiatoday
1547:Maurice, the Duke of Saxony, who expelled the Jews from Zwickau, became the Elector ofSaxony today.
1575:Thomas Wakefield, “the first Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge was buriedtoday at Chesterton.
1731:Daniel Defoe passed away. Apparently,the author of “Robinson Crusoe had a rather low opinion of the Jews since he“depicted Jews as vicious and corrupt” according to “Britain in the HanoverianAge.” For reasons yet not understood, Defoe’s “An Essay Upon Literature” waspublished in the same pamphlet with Toland’s “TheAgreement of the Customs of the East Indians With Those of the Jews.”
1744:The Revenge, a British privateer commanded by Captain James Allen, interceptedthe sloop Fortune, one of whose passengers was an English Jewishmerchant named Isaac Mendez. WhenCaptain Allen brought the Fortune to Newport, he filed papers claiming thecargo of the Fortune as his pirze.Mendez took exception with the claim, and this would lead to tortuouslitigation. [Editor’s note: There will be more to the story in THDIJH in May.]
1758(16thof Nisan, 5518): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer
1761(20thof Nisan, 5521): Sixth Day of Pesach observed on the birthdate of Ira Allen,the younger brother of American patriot Ethan Allen, leader of the GreenMountain Boys and the captor of Fort Ticonderoga.
1764(22ndof Nisan, 5524): Eighth Day of Pesach; Yizkor recited two weeks afterMassachusetts had observed “a Day of Feasting and Prayer” during a smallpoxoutbreak still plague the colony.
1768(7thof Iyar, 5528): Rabbo Ezra be Raphael Malki, the Safed born son of RafelMordechai and Chief Rabbi of Rhodes who was the brother of Moses Malki “who wasprobably an itinerant money living in Newport, RI and New York City in 1759passe away today after which he was buried on the Greek Island of Rhodes.
1772(21stof Nisan, 5532): Seventh Day of Pesach
1772:Empress Marie Theresa issued an order allowing Jews to “engage in jeweler’swork but not to employ apprentices in the business.
1776:During the American Revolution The Pennsylvania Journal published a letter fromThomas Paine in which the famous pamphleteer uses quotes from the Bibleincluding the books of Samuel and Hosea to show that a monarchy is a sinfulform of government condemned by God. (As reported by Abraham Bloch) While mostof the American revolutionaries had never met a Jew, they identified with theancient Israelites through the lens of the Old Testament. They saw King George as a modern Pharaoh andcompared their fight for independence with the Exodus from Egypt. Benjamin Franklin wanted a depiction of theJews crossing the Red Sea to appear on the Great Seal of the United States.
1783(22ndof Nisan, 5543): Eight Day of Pesach; Yizkor
1783:Emperor Joseph II granted the request of his Jewish subjects that they be ableto continue to wear beards. At the same time he reaffirmed all of the otherparts of the “Systematica gentis Judaicae regulation”
1788:In Frankfurt am Main, Guttle and Mayer Amschel Rothschild gave birth to “"CarlMayer von Rothschild the founder of the Rothschild banking family ofNaples."
1790(10thof Iyar, 5550): Talmudic scholar, Rabbi Meir Margalioth passed away in Ostrog
1791(20thof Nisan, 5551): Sixth Day of Pesach
1793:Isaac de Lyon and his wife gave birth to Abraham de Lon, the husband of HannahSheftall whom he married on March 21, 1827.
1800:The United States Library of Congress is established when President John Adamssigns legislation to appropriate $5,000 USD to purchase "such books as maybe necessary for the use of Congress". “The Hebraic Section … Israel, theHebrew language, biblical studies, and the ancient Near East. began operationin 1914 as part of the Division of Semitic and Oriental Literature, and itconcentrates on Jewish culture, Israel, the Hebrew language, biblical studies,and the ancient Near East.” http://www.loc.gov/rr/amed/guide/hsillguide.html
1805: TheSyrian Society which had been formed in March held its first meeting todaywhere it was deiced that the Society would be call “The Palestine Association”whose members sought “to promote the study of the geography, natural history,antiquities and anthropology of Palestine and the surrounding areas, "witha view to the illustration of the Holy Writings”
1807:Rachel Emanuel De Piza and Joseph Gabriel Israel Brandon gave birth to IsaacJoseph Brandon.
1809:Birthdate of Joseph Addision Alexander, a Protestant biblical scholar andstudent of the Hebrew language whose works included two volumes on theprophecies of Isaiah.
1811(30thof Nisan, 5571): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1811:Today thirty-year-old London native Jacob da Silva Solis who arrived in theUnited States in 1803 married Charity Hayes with whom he had seven children andstill found time to found “Congregation Shanarai Chasset in New Orleans” andlater be active in Congregation Shearith Israel in Mt. Pleasant, NY.
1813(24th5573): Parashat Achrei Mot
1813:The American squadron left Sackets Harbor, NY bound for the Canadian city ofYork which would be partially destroyed three days later – a burning whichwould later be used to excuse British troops burning Washington, DC in 1814
1818:“The Jew of Malta” by Christopher Marlow which was billed as “The FamousTragedy of The Rich Jew of Malta” “was revived by Edmund Kean at Drury Lane.”
1821(22ndof Nisan, 5581): Eighth Day of Pesach and Yizkor
1824:Birthdate of Sabato Morais, the native of Leghorn, Italy who rise to become oneof the earliest and most prominent Rabbis to serve the American JewishCommunity. [This is based on an article published at the time of his death. Other sources show April 13, 1824.]
1827:In Rotterdam, Sara Lit and Harry de Groot gave birth to Cato de Groot, the wifeof Rotterdam native Herman Heijermans
1830:Ellen Alice Jacobs and Prussian Gabriel Simmons gave birth to Solomon Simmons.
1834(15thof Nisan, 5594): Pesach
1836:Birthdate of Rabbi Moses Samuel Zuckermandl, the native of Breslau who studiedunder Samson Raphael Hirsch
1838:Birthdate of Jules Levy, the native of London who was perhaps “the mostcelebrated” person to play the coronet during the 19th century
1839:Mr. Eugene Esdra of Bordeaux married Miss Esther Rodrigues Monsanto in hernative city of Charleston, SC.
1840(21stof Nisan, 5600): Seventh Day of Pesach
1842:In Neisse, Germany, Julius Schindler and Bertha Algasi gave birth to SolomonSchindler, the husband of Henrietta Schutz, who came to the United States in1870 where he served as rabbi at Adath Emuno in Hoboken, NJ and Adath Israel inBoston before becoming Superintendent of the Leopold Morse Home for InfirmHebrews and Orphans at Mattapan, MA and a published author whose works includedDissolving Views in the History of Judaism.
1842(14thof Iyar, 5602): Pesach Sheni
1842:In Cincinnati, a group of Jewish women met and established a Sunday Schoolunder the direction of Mrs. Louisa Symonds who would later resign her post dueto the heavy workload. She would bereplaced by Mr. Joseph Jonas.
1843(24thof Nisan, 5603): Marianne Abraham Hamming / Hammo, the Amsterdam born daughter ofAbraham Hamming / Hammo and Heintje Cohen, the wife of Simon Jacob Jacobs andthe mother of Ravel Beer Jacobs and Abraham Jacobs passed away today in theNetherlands.
1845(17thof Nisan, 5605): Third Day of Pesach
1846:The Voice of Jacob contained a shortarticle describing that described the two public Jewish schools at Kingston,Jamaica as “languid and unsatisfactory,” due the paucity of trained and qualifiedteachers.
1848(21stof Nisan, 5608: Seventh Day of Pesach
1848:Birthdate of Saxony native and husband of actress Grace Filkns Adolph Marix thefirst Jewish graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who was serving on the USSMaine when it exploded, served on the Board of Inquiry that examined the causeof the explosion and fought in two major naval examinations during the SpanishAmerican War after which he was promoted to the rank of commodore and actingVice Admiral
1849:Birthdate of Dusseldorf native and University of Bonn educated mathematicianFelix Klein who “became an assistant in the institution of physics in 1866 athis alma mater.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9373-klein-felix
1851(22ndof Nisan, 5611): Eighth Day of Pesach
1851:Charles Sumner began his twenty three year career as a U.S. Senator fromMassachusetts. In 1864, he introduced anamendment to the United States Constitution that would define the United Statesas a “Christian government.” Congressrejected the proposal. (For more see A New Promised Land by Hasia RDiner, et al.)
1852:In Gorizia, Italy, Stefan and Lucia Schmdit gave to “August Schmidt, thehusband of Adele Ammalie Schdmidt.”
1853(16thof Nisan, 5613): Second Day of Pesach
1853:In Paris, Louis-Adolphe Bertillon and his wife gave birth to Alphonse Bertillonwho was not a handwriting expert but who testified against Alfred Dreyfusclaiming that the Jewish French officer was the author of “the incriminatingdocument” known as the “bordereau” – the treasonous document that supposedlyproved he was selling French military secrets to the Germans.
1854:In New York, Ahawath Chesed began worshiping at their synagogue at Number 27Columbia Street which would be there home for the next ten year when thegrowing congregation moved to a facility on the corner of 4th Streetand Avenue C.
1856: Birthdate of Henri-Phillipe Petain. InWorld War I, General Petain was a hero - the leader in the victory atVerdun. In World War II, he was head of the Vichy Government.TheVichy Government was allied with the Nazis and was an active participant in thedeportation and death of thousands of Jews. Some of these were part ofthe very old French Jewish community. Others were relative new-comers whohad sought refuge in France during the 1930's as the Nazi scourge began tosweep across Europe. Petain was not prosecuted for collaborating becauseof his previous military contribution and advanced age. Pierre Laval, thePrime Minister of the Vichy government did not escape punishment.Petainpassed away at in 1951at the age of 95.
1859:The First Hebrew Benevolent Association was founded today in Portland, Oregon.
1861(14thof Iyar 5621) Pesach Sheni
1861:"When the Richmond Blues left...for war" today, fifteen of itsninety-nine members were Jewish including Ezekiel J. ("Zeke") Levy,it fourth sergeant.
1863(5thof Iyar 5623: On the 20th day of the Omer, during the Civil War that“The Confederate Congress passed a tax set at 8% on all agricultural producegrown in 1862 and a 10% tax on profits made from the sale of iron, clothing andcotton.”
1864(18thof Nisan, 5624): Fourth Day of Pesach
1864:Isaac Levy, a Virginian serving the Confederate Army wrote his mother from hispost in South Carolina describing the Seder that he and his fellow soldiers hadcelebrated a few days earlier.
1865:Today the Washington National Intelligencer published the resolution of theWashington Literar and Dramatic Association drawn by a committee that includedSimon Wolf and Julius Lowenthal which began “By the death of Abraham Lincolnthe nation has sustained an irreparable loss, freedom her brightest and purestchampion, humanity her greatest benefactor…”
1866:Seventy-year-old Protestant Biblical commentator Hermann Upfield whospecialized in studies on the “Old Testament” and whose works included a “treatiseon the early history of Hebrew grammar among the Jews” published in 1846 passedaway today.
1867:Michael Rudelsheim married Rebecca Hirsch today in Amsterdam.
1869:Mlle. Janauschek is scheduled to appear in a benefit performance of"Deborah," the proceeds of which will go to the Hebrew Free School inNew York City.
1871:“Synagogue Consecration” published todaydescribed the ceremony led by RabbiS.M. Issacs as Derech Emunoh took over its new home in what had been the chapelof New York University.
1872(16thof Nisan, 5632): Second day of Pesach; first day of the Omer.
1873:Today, oet and translator Alice Julia Lucas - the sister of C.G. Montefiore,and the sister-in-law of Sir Arthur Lewis – who was the founder and Presidentof the Jewish Study Society whose works included Translations from the GermanPoets of the 18th and 19th Centuries, published in 1876and Talmudic Legends, Hymns and Paraphrases published in 1908 “marriedbarrister Henry Lucas, who later served as treasurer and vice-president of theUnited Synagogue.”
1873:Birthdate of Corpus Christi, TX native and “insurance agent” Joseph Hirsch thePresident of the ZOA and “chairman of the American Bankers AgriculturalCommission.”
1875(19thof Nisan, 5635): Fifth Day Pesach and Shabbat
1876(30thof Nisan, 5636): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1876(30thof Nisan, 5636): Eighty-five year old Therese Aron, the Lorraine born daughter ofBaruch Gougenheim and Rosel Rosette Rosele Gougenheim , the wife of Isaac Aron andmother of Simon Aron, (Baby); Rosine Haguenau; Jacob Aron; Simon Aron andGertrude Oppenheimer passed away today in Strasbourg.
1876:Birthdate of Holocaust survivor Erich Raeder.
1878:In Buffalo, TX, Lena Catosk Pearlstone, the New Orleans born daughter of MinaLouis Hart and her husband Barney Pearlstone gave birth to Hyman Pearlstone,who was a businessman in Waco, Palestine and Dallas, TX where he was a memberof the Chamber of Commerce.
1879(1stof Iyar, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1880:Birthdate of Elizabethgrad native Phineas Israeli, the JTS trained Rabbi who in1923 was hired by Etz Chaim Congregtion in Portland where he worked withOrthodox Rabbi Moses Shohet and “initiated modern innovations such as lateFriday evening services with English which was a departure from” having sermonsdelivered in Yiddish” but failed in his attempts to have the congregation jointhe Conservative movements United Synagogues of America and left thecongregation for years later “due to illness.”
1880(13thof Iyar, 5640): Parashat Achrei Mot-Kedoshim
1880(13thof Iyar, 5640): Isaac Amberg, the son of Moses and Sophia Neumann Amberg passedaway today after which he was buried at the Jewish Cemetery of GreaterLafayette in Lafayette, Indiana.
1880: Because of his “reputation of apublic-spirited man…and because of his many gifts to charitable and scientificinstitution which won Raphael Louis Bischoffsheim the exceptional honor of"grande naturalization," by which, today he became a citizen of theFrench republic.”
1881:The Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, the only Jewish “institution foradvanced study in America” is dedicating a new building today. As a testament to the school’s strength, theadministration was able to spend $25,000 to purchase one of the city’s oldmansions and then spend additional funds to remodel it. The school began as a dream of communityleaders in 1872 and opened its doors in 1875 to 17 pupils who used rooms at thePlum Street Temple for their classes.
1881: It was erroneously reported today thatKing Charles I, the new King of Romania “has removed the disabilities of theJews who comprise the largest foreign element of his population.”
1881:“Disraeli, Novelist and Orator” published today examines the career of theauthor turned politician. It concedesthat nobody could have imagined the political heights he was to scale when hisfirst novel came out. At the same time,throughout his 40 year career, he was victimized by the press as can be seen bythe issues of Punch in which he was“assailed…with ridicule, sneer and caricature.”
1882:Lena Catosk Pearlstone, the New Orleans born daughter of Mina and Louis Hart,her husband gave part to Julius Heart Pearlstone.
1883(17thof Nisan, 5643): Third Day of Pesach
1883:Birthdate of German actress Lotte Spira who was forced by the Nazis to divorceher Jewish husband Fritz Spira because he was Jewish and then forced to sign astatement that her daughter Camila was his daughter.
1885(9thof Iyar, 5645): Sixty-four-year-old Dresden born actor and director who “madehis début in 1838 at Hainichen, Saxony” and who ‘was director of the CarlTheater in Vienna” from 1866 to 1872 and who should not be confused with theAmerican actor of the same name who appeared on Broadway in the early twentiethcentury passed away today.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1893-ascher-anton
1885:Birthdate of Romana Manczyk, the Warsaw native who became famous as Zionistactivist Romana Goodman.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/goodman-romana
1885:According to today’s Boston Post,there is a colony of Jews living in China who came to that country two hundredyears before the Christian era.
1887(30thof Nisan, 5647): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1887(30thof Nisan, 5647): Grand Rabbi Joseph Emmanuel Levi of Italy who had previouslyserved as rabbi of Mondovi and Cuneo before taking the pulpit at Corfu passedaway today.
1887:When the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society held its 64thannual meeting this morning, Jesse Seligman was chosen to serve as Presidentand Henry Rice was chosen to serve as Vice President. Currently, there are 482 orphans in theasylum, 277 of whom are boys. According to Myer Stern, the society’s secretary,16 of the boys have recently “been provided with good positions.”
1888:Birthdate of Julius Hart Pearlstone, a native of Buffalo, TX who became amerchant in Palestine, TX and a leader of the Jewish Federation for SocialService in Dallas, TX.
1888:London born Kate Moses and Cairo, Egypt native Myer Balu gave birth to LeonBlau who did not live to see his fifth birthday.
1888:Eleven of Jeanne Franko’s pupils gave a concert in Steinway Hall, and similarevents occurred during the next thirty years.”
1888:Eduard Glaser completed his third journey from Sanaa to Ma’rib
1889(23rdof Nisan, 5649): Salomon or Solomon Formstecher, a German rabbi and student ofJewish theology passed away. Born at Offenbach am Main in 1808 he earned a Ph.D from theGiessen University, he settled in his native city as preacher, succeeding RabbiMetz in 1842 a position he held until his death. “During his long ministry hestrove to harmonize the religious and social life of the Jews with therequirements of modern civilization. His aims were expressed at the RabbinicalConference of Brunswick, Frankfurt, Breslau, and Kassel in the conferences ofthe German rabbis. The most important of his works is Religion des Geistes("Religion of the Spirit," Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1841). It containsa systematic analysis of the principles of Judaism. The author endeavors todemonstrate that Judaism was a necessary manifestation, and that its evolutiontends in the direction of a universal religion for civilized mankind. Judaism,in contrast with paganism, considers the Divinity to be a Being separate fromnature, and allows no doubt of God's existence. Consequently, any theogony, anyemanation, any dualism must be rejected. Formstecher concludes his work with ahistory of Judaism which is a valuable contribution to Jewish religiousphilosophy.”
1889:Birthdate of Yakov Naumovich Reizen the “Ukrainian-born Bolshevik” who gainedfamed Jacob Golos, a member of the Communist Party in the United States and aSoviet espionage agent during WW II.
http://documentstalk.com/wp/golos-jacob/
1889:In Galicia, Aaron and Frima (Silberman) Kligler gave birth to CCNY, Columbiaand Northwestern trained Bacteriologist Israel Jacob Kligler, the professor ofbacteriology at Hebrew University who lived in Jerusalem with his wife HelenFriedman.
1889:It was reported today that some brokers at the NYSE who are not Jewish areaccusing Isidore Wormser of leading a cabal of Jewish financiers in stockmanipulation especially where the Reading Railroad is concerned. The charge is not anchored in reality sincesome of his cohorts are said to include the notorious Jay Gould and the verygentile James R. Keene.
1890:Sylvester Pennoyer was nominated for Governor today at the Democratic StateConvention in Portland, Oregon, with the expectation that he could be able tocarry the Jewish vote in the upcoming general elections.
1890(4thof Iyar, 5650): Frances Cohen, the daughter of Rachel and Moses Cohen and thewife of Philadelphian Jonas Altamont Phillips with whom she had nine children,passed away today in Philadelphia.
1890:Judge Max Mayeyhardt of Rome, GA, the son of David J. and Esther (Marks)Mayerhardt today married Nettie Watson, a native of Tuskegee, Alabama.
1890:“A Mighty Power” by Frank Rothschild, Jr. had a pre-Broadway matineeperformance at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. The play is a melodrama set inCzarist Russia that portrays the suffering of a Jewish brother and sister atthe ends of “a fierce, malignant, autocrat, General Mickrakoff. The play waspoorly received particularly by the Jews in the audience who do not care forthis sort of “buncombe.”
1891:Henry Blumenthal took his father David Blumenthal out of an insane asylum inAmityville, Long Island, today. He then took his father who had been a wealthyJewish dry goods businessman before his confinement to all of the banks wherehe had deposits, withdrew the funds that totaled over $30, 000 and then boardeda ship bound for Bremen, Germany.
1892:Birthdate of violinist Frederic Fradkin, who was concertmaster for the BostonSymphony from 1918 to 1920.
https://secondhandsongs.com/artist/78384/all
https://mahlerfoundation.org/mahler/contemporaries/frederic-fradkin/
1893:“On The Watch For Converts” published today described the aggressive attemptsby various Christian churches to convert Jews in response to which “aconsiderable number” of the Jews in New York “have formulated a plan forcheckmating the vigorous efforts…to proselytize them from their ancient faith.”
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=FB0E1EF6345B1A738DDDAD0A94DC405B8385F0D3
1894(8thof Nisan, 5654): Fourth Day of Pesach
1894:In Tyler, TX, Rose and Samuel S. Mallinson gave birth to Herbert Mallinson, thewife of Beatrice Mallinson and a “member of the board of directors and chairmanof the Southwest region of the American Joint Distribution Committee.
1894:Four days after he had passed away, 53-year-old Woolf Emden, “the eldest son ofthe Joseph and Rachel Emden” was buried today at the “West Ham JewishCemetery.”
1894:In New York, “Russian Jewish immigrants Frederick and Yetta Pitler gave birthto Jacob Albert “Jake” Pitler the husband of Henrietta L. Pitler whose two yearcareer with Pittsburgh Pirates was followed by lengthy career as a coach withthe Brooklyn Dodgers that included being on the 1955 team that won Brooklyn’sonly World Championship.
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/4b700caf
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/pitleja01.shtml
1894:“Mr. Seligman’s Career” published today glowingly described the career of therecently deceased Jewish businessman and philanthropist Jesse Seligman who“came to New York in steerage” and was worth over $20,000,000 when he passedaway.
1895:“Mr. Hutton’s Book On Jerusalem” published today provides a detailed review of LiteraryLandmarks of Jerusalem by Laurence Hutton.
1895:“Saved From Starvation” published today described the work of the Monte ReliefSociety led by Mrs. Sofia Monte Loebinger whose five hundred members provideimmediate relief in the form of money and clothing to the needy immigrants ofthe Lower East Side and who also help them find jobs which will provide longterm improvement in their condition.
1896:A new synagogue is scheduled to be dedicated this evening in Lancaster, PA.
1896:“Does Not Favor Intermarriage” published today described the meeting of the NewYork Section of the National Council of Jewish Women at Temple Beth-El presidedover by Mrs. Alexander Kohut at which included the reading of papers on“Intermarriage” and “A Practical View of Philanthropy.”
1897(22ndof Nisan, 5657): Eight Day of Pesach and Shabbat; Yizkor
1897:It was reported today that during March the United Hebrew Charities dealt with3,326 applications for relief that affected 11,086 peoples. One thousand people received clothes, shoesand furniture while 319 people were taken to the doctor. Of the 950 people who registered for work,589 were found jobs.
1897:In Kovno, Lithuania, Morris and Hinda (Markson) Stern gave birth to Universityof Cincinnati graduate and HUC ordained rabbi Harry Joshua Stern who beganserving Temple Israel in Uniontown, PA in 1922 while serving as chairman of theUnited Palestine Appeal for Fayette County.
1898:On its 76th anniversary, the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan AsylumSociety met at the asylum’s building on 136th Street and AmsterdamAvenue.
1898:It was reported today that among those who attended the 5th annualreunion banquet of the Hebrew Technical Institute were Meyer Cushner,Maximilian Zipkes, James Hoffman, Joseph L. Gensler, Dr. Henry M. Leipziger, A.Lincoln Saruya and Edgar S. Barnay
1898: Congress today declared that a state of warbetween the U.S. and Spain had existed since April 21, the day the blockade ofCuba had begun. Fifteen Jews serving on the battleship were killed. Fivethousand Jews served in the American Army, a ratio of 20% more than the generalpopulation. The first person of Colonel Roosevelt's Rough Riders to reach thetop of San Juan Hill was reportedly a Jew named Irving Peixotto.
1898:The Adath Israel Fair which is a fundraiser for their new building in WestHarlem is scheduled to come to an end.
1899(14thof Iyar, 5659): Pesach Sheini
1899:In Kobrin, Russia, Bazel Zaritsky and Hanna Tennenbaum gave birth to OscherZaritsky who gained fame as award winning American mathematician Oscar Zariski.
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Zariski.html
1900:The Twenty-Seventh Convention of District No 7 of the B’nai B’rith continuedfor a third day in New Orleans.
1901:“United Work for Oppressed Hebrews” published today described astanding-room-only meeting at Temple Emanuel where the topics of the eveningwere “The Condition of the Jews” and “The Alliance Israelite and AmericanJudaism” and the speakers include A. S. Solomons, Jacob H. Schiff, Rabbi H.Pereira Mendes, Louis Marshall and Nissam Benard
1902:The first step toward the creation of apermanent endowment fund for the United Hebrew Charities was taken today byWilliam Guggenheim, a member of the Board of Directors, when he sent” HenryRice, “the President of the organization…a check for $50,000 for that purposeand a promise of $50,000 more…”
1902:Birthdate of Moshe Ziffer the native of Przemyśl, the Austro-Hungarian city that wasthe scene of great Jewish suffering during WWI, who made Aliyah in 191 andbecame a leading Israeli artist and sculptor whose works included busts ofEinstein, Ben-Gurion and Weizman.
1903:“Massacre of Jews in Russia” published today reported that “twenty-five Jewswere killed and 275 were wounded, many of the mortally, in ant-Semitic riots atKishineff…on April 20 when a number of workmen organized an attack on theJewish inhabitants.”
1904:In Chicago, Rabbi Hirsch delivered a lecture at St. James Methodist Churchduring which he said, “If Jesus Christ should return to the earth tomorrow, hewould be welcome in every synagogue in the land …” which led to the audienceresponding with “a storm of applause when he sat down.
1905(19thof Nisan, Fifth Day of Pesach
1905(19thof Nisan): Anti-Semitic riots began in Zhitomir, Russia
1905:In New York, Gladys Seligman the daughter of David and Adelaide Seligman becameGladys Wertheim when she married Henri Hendrik Pieter Wertheim van Heukelomtoday,
1906:In Barley, Hertfordshire, England, Redcliffe Nathan Salaman, the son of Myerand Sarah Salaman, and Nina Ruth Salaman gave birth to Raphael Arthur Salaman.
1907”Birthdate of Chicago native and St. Johns trained attorney Harold Horton Boxerwho while living in New York was active in New York Democratic politicsand served as an officer of the Union ofOrthodox Congregation
1907:Today marks the start of two ten-day sales at Bloomingdales; one for Women’sTailored suits and the other for Men’s Spring suits, overcoats, Prince AlbertCoats and Vests.
1907:Today, The Right Reverend Plato, who had defended himself during a session ofthe Duma by declaring that “I got do in the mud at Kieff in order to save theJews from those who would attack them was elected today to serve as Archbishopof the Orthodox Russian Church in the United States.
1908:It was reported today that while speaking between performance at the Children’sTheatre of the Educational Alliance, Mark Twain announced that “after July 1,the Educational Theatre for children will enter upon an independent existenceunder a different board of directors.
1909:A meeting is scheduled to take place this evening sponsored by the Free Songsof Israel where attendees will express their opposition to the Wagner-SteinBill which allow for part of the land now occupied by Crotona Park to be usedfor in a new armory building
1910(15thof Nisan, 5670): Pesach
1910:It was reported today that “the government order for the wholesale expulsion ofJews residing illegally in Kieff and elsewhere outside the pale, which was tohave taken effect on April 28” and which would have negatively affected atleast 2,700 Jews living in Kieff, “has been suspended by the Premier to permita further examination of the matter.”
1911: Birthdate of comedian Jack E Leonard.Born Leonard Lebitsky in Chicago, Illinois, Leonard was aheavy-set,cigar-smoking practitioner of an aggressive form ofhumor. His movie credits included the “Disorderly Orderly,” “The FatSpy,” and “Target: Harry.” He passedaway on May 9, 1973.
1912:It was reported today that the memorial services which were to be held lastnight in memory of Isidor Straus had to be abandoned because of the great crowdwhich assembled and which, because of its congestion, threatened for a time tocreate serious injury to many people.
1913(17thof Nisan, 5673): Third Day of Pesach
1913:In Chicago, Rabbi Schanfarber officiated at the funeral of 44-year-old OscarGrant Lehman, the son of Louis and Barbara Lehman.
1913:In Chicago, Rabbi Schanfarbert officiated at the funeral of Rena Levi, the wifeof Julius Levi and the “mother of Sigbit and Fannie L. Rothschild.”
1914:Birthdate of Jan Karski, a liaison officer of the Polish underground whoinfiltrated both the Warsaw Ghetto and a German concentration camp and thencarried the first eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust to a mostly disbelievingaudience of Western leaders.
http://web.archive.org/web/20110727171727/http://www.poloniatoday.com/karski0311.htm
http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/saviors/diplomats/list/jan-karski-820/
1914:Birthdate of actress and political activist Roberta "Robbie" SeidmanGarfield Cohn, the wife of actor John Garfield.
1915(10thof Iyar, 5675): Parashat Acrhei Mot-Kedoshim
1915(10thof Iyar, 5675): Seventy-five-year-old Belarus born Rabbi Yshaaya Epstein theson of Rabbi Abraham Epstein and the “husband of “Esther (Judith) Epstein”passed away today in Jerusalem.
1915:“Betty” a musical comedy with lyrics and music by Paul Rubens opened at Daly’sTheatre in London where it ran for 391 performances.
1915:Nearly 1,000 people “representing every synagogue and Jewish society in” NewYork City met tonight “at the Concert Hall for the opening session of theannual convention of the Kehillah or Jewish Community” which is led by “Dr. J.L. Magnes, the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Kehillah” who said“the fate of the Jewish people is hanging in the balance” and wondered if “thegreat war will bring political, religious and national freedom to the Jews?”
1915:The Armenian Genocide began when the Young Turks undertook the systematicannihilation of Armenian intellectuals and entrepreneurs within the city ofConstantinople and later the entire Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. The Jewish population of Palestine was awareof this slaughter. The leaders of itsnascent military force, Hashomer, were especially cognizant of what hadhappened. They were determined that theJews would not suffer a similar fate.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/gallery/the-armenian-genocide-1915-16-in-depth-photographs
1916:Birthdate of movie critic Stanley Kauffmann the husband of LauraKauffman.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115089/stanley-kauffmann-has-died
1916(21stof Nisan, 5676): 7th day of Pesach
1916:Birthdate of movie critic Stanley Kauffmann the husband of LauraKauffman.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115089/stanley-kauffmann-has-died
1916:In Ireland foundation stone of the Greenville Hall Synagogue was laidcoincidentally on the same day as the Easter Rising.
1916(21stof Nisan, 5676): During WW I, CaptainWilfrid Langdon, a graduate of Rugby, was killed today.
1916:In New Orleans, Ted “Kid” Lewis lost a bout which cost him his title as WorldWelterweight Champion.
1916:The Easter Rising began in Dublin. ManyJews were attracted to the cause of Irish Republicanism including EstellaSolomons and Michael Noyk an Irish solicitor who joined Sinn Fein shortly afterthe Rising and defended several of the I.R.A. prisoners.
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/198888/solomons-irish-rising/?print=1
1917(2ndof Iyar, 5677): Sixty-five-year-old Berlin born Oscar Blumenthal playwright andcritic passed away today in his hometown.
1917:The final session of the “assembly of the Eastern Council of Reform Rabbis”which had split over the issues of voicing support for women’s suffrage andZionism was held today.
1917:Jacob de Hass, Secretary of the Provisional Executive Committee for GeneralZionist Affairs said” today “that the consideration by the envoys in Washingtonof the problem of a Jewish nation in Palestine was the result of a carefullyplanned movement by the Zionist organizations in the United States, England,France and Russia.”
1918:It was reported today that “The Jewish Administration Commission for Palestinehas established bureaus in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and is engaged in the actualwork of laying the foundation for the Jewish state. Of immediate concern was the need for “largesums of money designed to save orange growers from ruin owing to theirinability to market their crops due to the World War. Long term loans to the orange growers areimperative necessity.”
1918:Author Thomas Mann and his wife Katia, who would later convert to Christianitygave birth to their fifth child Elisabeth today.
1918:Birthdate of Chicago native, U. of Chicago grad and Rush Medical Collegetrained physician Henry Kaplan, the cancer specialist who raised two children –Ann and Paul – with his wife Leah.
1918:“Violent pogroms” took place in Cracow today.
1919:Hungarian Jewish immigrant Mary Teitelbaum and her husband gave birth to SaraTeitelbaum who gained fame as Clinton confidant Sarah Ehrman.
1919(24thNisan, 5679): A month before his 56th birthday Parisian born operacomposer Camille Erlanger passed away.
1919:“The Chicago Mendelssohn Club” is scheduled to give the final concert of thisseason this evening.
1920:Birthdate of New York City native and Columbia University trained historian Dr.Herman Ausubel who taught at Columbia, Yeshiva University, Brooklyn College andthe University of Manchester in England and whose works included Historiansand Their Crafts.
1921(16thof Nisan, 5681): Second Day of Pesach
1921: Vladimir Jabotinsky was sentenced by theBritish mandatory government of Palestine to 15 years of imprisonment for hisparticipation in the Jewish self-defense corps. During Passover in 1920,Jabotinsky stood at the head of the Haganah in Jerusalem against Arab riots andwas condemned by the British Mandatory Government to 15 years hard labor.Following the public outcry against the verdict, he received amnesty and wasreleased from Acre prison.
1921:Secretary of Labor James J. Davis continued his inspection tour of EllisIsland, the gateway to America for tens of thousands of Jews.
1921:Birthdate of Layos Lenovitz, the native of Hungary who as Lou Lenhart served aspilot with the U.S. Marines during WW II before volunteering for “Sherut Avir,the precursor of the IAF,” taking part in IAF’s first attack on Egyptian forcesdriving on Tel Aviv and helping to airlift immigrants to the nascent JewishState.
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-lou-lenart-20150722-story.html
1922:“The committee directing the Palestine Foundation Fund campaign announced”today “that $300,000 had been raised in New York City with the larges singsubscription being $100,000 from the Society for the Advancement of Judaism.”
1923:The Jewish Daily News published “The Development of Jewish National Art”written by Marie Trommer.
1923:Solomon Lamport who is en route to Palestine to study condition among theJewish settlers, Harry Fischel who has donated a home for the Chief Rabbi ofPalestine and Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein are among the passengers who will besailing this morning aboard the Berengaria, a Cunard Line vessel.
1924:Birthdate of Detroit native Isadore Manuel Singer, a Professor of Mathematicsat MIT who “is noted for his work with Michael Atiyah proving the Atiyah–Singerindex theorem in 1962, which paved the way for new interactions between puremathematics and theoretical physics.” (This breakthrough was accomplished by anAmerican Jew and a native of the Sudan, raised in Egypt who now lives in GreatBritain. Yes, peaceful collaboration ispossible.)
1924:Birthdate of Ruth Maxine Kahn, the native of Des Moines, IA, who gained fameopera and Broadway musical star Ruth Kobart.
1924: Birthdate of composer and pianist YehoshuaLakner. Born in Bratislava, Lakner moved to what is now Israel in 1941.During his early years in Palestine, Lakner studied and played in small jazzband. Yehoshua Lakner's work has received numerous awards, including the EngelPrize of Tel-Aviv for his "Toccata for Orchestra" (1958). He washonored by the Zurich City Council for his theatre music (1969) and was awardedthe Salomon David Steinberg Foundation's Music Prize, as well as acomposer-in-residency from the City of Zurich (1987/88).Laknertaught at the Rubin Academy for Music in Tel Aviv and later used the computerto create multi-sensory musical experiences.
1925:Arthur “Murray married his famous dance partner, Kathryn Kohnfelder” today.
1925:At Carnegie Hall, “Variations for Piano on a Theme by Dvorak,” and “Suite forTwo Pianos,” which had been composed by Leopold Damrosch Mannes was performedfor the first time
1926(10thof Iyar, 5686): Parashat Achrei Mot-Kedoshim
1926:“The strong probability of a Jewish financial expert holding a portfolio -andvery likely that of Finance -- in the new Polish Cabinet, as announced in adispatch from Warsaw printed today, is in line with the policy of CountAlexander Skrzynski, who was instrumental a year ago in arranging a protocolbetween the Jewish Club and the Government
1927(22ndof Nisan, 5687): Eighth Day of Pesach
1927:Birthdate of Springfield, MA native, WW II Navy veteran and Yale trainedattorney David S. Davidson, the Chief Judge of the NLRB and Reform Judaismleader who married Dorothy Davidson after the death of his first wife JudgeRita Davidson.
https://washingtonjewishweek.com/51976/david-s-davidson-former-nlrb-chief-judge-dies-at-91/obits/
1927:“A testimonial performance” is scheduled to “be given at the Mansfield Theatre”tonight in honor of Ossip Dymow who is “celebrating” his 25thanniversary as an author.
1928:“A subscription of $1,000,000 by Felix M. Warburg to the $10,000,000 fundsought by the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation for theestablishment of Jewish Agricultural colonies in Russia was announced today byJames N. Rosenberg, Chairman of the corporation.”
1929(14thof Nisan, 5689): Fast of the First Born; erev Pesach
1929:The Ezra Society for Nervous Diseases arranged the Passover celebration “heldtonight for several hundred Jewish patients at the Manhattan State Hospital onWard’s Island.
1929:Thanks to the efforts of the Jewish Social Service Association “said to be theoldest Jewish relief and family welfare society in America” “flour, food andfunds” have been distributed to those in need so they can “observe thetraditions of the holiday” this evening.
1929:Louis Singer led the Seder at the Home of Old Israel on Jefferson Street whichwas attended by 112 residents.
1930:In the Bronx, Hattie Schwartzberg and her husband Fred, the owner of “a smallfurniture manufacturing business” gave birth to Richard Donald Schwartzberg whogained fame as the award winning director and producer Richard Donner whosegreatest claim to fame may have been directing Christopher Reeve in the 1978epic “Superman” which brought the man of steel to the wide, modern moviescreen.
1931:In a match whose outcome he disputed English boxer “Jack Kid Berg” (Judah Berg)lost his World Light Welterweight Championship.
1932:Detroit Tigers Pitcher Izzy Goldstein, a native or Odessa, Russia, appeared inhis first major league baseball game.
1932(18thof Nisan, 5692): Fourth Day of Pesach
1932:Benny Rothman, the Jewish political activist, led the Mass trespass of KinderScout, leading to substantial legal reforms in the United Kingdom.
1932:Tonight’s “symposium on the theatre to be conducted by the Group Theater andthe Junior Jewish Federations of New York and Brooklyn will take place at theMorosco Theatre instead of the Bijou as first announced.”
1933:Soviet Union Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinov appears on the cover of Timeand is the subject of the magazine’s feature article. Litvinov was the son of awealthy Jewish banking family who became an ardent Bolshevik. Stalin willremove Litvinov, the Jew, when he decides to negotiate the non-aggression pactwith Germany in 1939. Americans would come to know Litvinov during World War IIwhen he served as the Soviet ambassador to the United States where he played akey role in lend-lease negotiations.Litvinov was unique among the original Jews Bolshevik leaders because hewas one of the few to escape Stalin’s wrath and die of natural causes.
1933(28thof Nisan, 5693): Eighty-one-year-old Felix Adler passed away.
http://www.nysec.org/felixadler
1933:After meeting with President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull wroteto Norman Davis, the American representative to the Geneva DisarmamentConference that FDR would regard adjournment of the conference as a failurethat might give Hitler an excuse to start a war. (In the first months of his Presidency, FDRsaw that Hitler posed an undetermined threat to peace. He wanted to keep him at bay because he wasdealing with the worst crisis in American history. What most people fail to understand withtheir twenty-twenty hindsight was that the United States was tottering on thebrink of disaster and there was no guarantee that she could not followed thefascist model of Germany and Italy or the Communist model of the Soviet Union.)
1933:“A conference of executive directors of Y.M.H.A.’s, Y.W H. A’s and JewishCommunity Centers” is which is considering “an evaluation of present membershippolicies, news systems of membership and other measures that will build upmemberships in Jewish centers scheduled to meet for its third and final sessiontoday at the 92nd Street Y.
1934:In the Bronx, Harry Rosen and the former Ruth Jacobson gave birth to WalterRosen who made Junior’s Restaurant and its cheesecake into a New York culturalicon.
1934:It was reported today that Abraham Stavsky, Zvi Rosenblatt and Abba Achimeyerhave gone trial for the murder last month of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff. “Achicmeyer is charged with inciting thealleged murderers by speeches and newspaper articles.” The other two defendants are charged with theactual murder with Rosenblatt having been named as the “trigger man.”
1935:Birthdate of Pottsville, PA native Allan Jaffe, “the entrepreneur who developedPreservation Hall into a New Orleans jazz tradition” and father of Ben Jaffewho followed in his father’s footsteps.
1935:The New Republic published “The Funeral of R.A.A.P.” by Jewish author RobertGessner.
1935:“Today, the Angriff, the official afternoon” Nazi newspaper “in Berlin appearedwith black banner headlines above a story asserting that half the apartmenthouse in” Berlin “were still owned by Jews.”
1936:“Reports that eight Arabs had been killed yesterday during disorders weredescribed as ‘false and baseless’ by the Jewish Agency in Palestine.”
1936:In Detroit, Temple Beth-El began celebrating its 85th anniversary.
1936:Today David Ben Gurion was reported to have “urged that exaggeration of thedisturbances” in Palestine “be avoided” no doubt because the Arabs were usingtheir attacks to pressure the British to end Jewish immigration and landpurchases.
1936:“Assurance has been given to Jews in America by the High Commissioner ofPalestine that he would not ‘put a premium upon violence’ by yielding to anyunjust demands of the Arabs, Dr. Stephen S. Wise said today and thatfurthermore “continued admittance of immigrants to Palestine was guaranteed.”
1936:At a luncheon held in the Hotel Astor, “Luis Posner, Mortgage Commissioner ofthe State of New York said the Jewish settlers” in Palestine “had always purseda policy of peaceful cooperation and mutual understanding with the Arabs.
1936:In Zagreb, Yugoslavia, Dr. Vladimir Matchek denied today that anti-Semiticpamphlets recently published under the name of the Croat Peasant party had beenapproved or circulated by the party.”
1936:While contrary to expectations there was no violence in Jerusalem today “rifleshots were fired at Hakoresh, a Jewish settlement in northern Palestine” and“fires in crops, houses, shops and timber yards” owned by Jews continue tobreak out in different parts of the countries.
1937: Pastor MartinNiemöller, one of the foremost leaders of the German opposition forces toHitler, preached that it is unfortunate that God permitted Jesus to be born aJew.
1938:In Vienna, Marrianne and Hubert Joachim Adler gave birth to San Diego, CA“civil rights and criminal defense attorney” Tom Adler.
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sandiegouniontribune/obituary.aspx?n=tom-adler&pid=144988528
1938:In one of those uniquely American cross-cultural events, the orchestra led byAfrican-American Duke Ellington recorded “a live performance” “On the SunnySide of the Street” with lyrics by Dorothy Fields at Harlem’s iconic CottonClub.
1938:All sessions of the religious school resumed at Temple Emanu-El following thePassover recess.
1938:At the Free Synagogue meeting in Carnegie Hall, Dr. Ludwig Lewisohn isscheduled to deliver a lecture on “My Unwritten Books: A Preview.”
1938:At Temple Rodeph Sholom, Dudley Digges and Rabbi Louis I. Newman are scheduledto deliver an address on “The Ethical Message of Paul Osborn’s play ‘OnBorrowed Time.’”
1939:Birthdate of Ernst Zündel, the German-born Canadian Holocaust denier who alsopublished neo-Nazi pamphlets such as “The Hitler We Loved and Why.”
1939:It was reported today that donations totaling $40,000 have been made to coverlast year’s deficit of $80,000 at the Beth El Hospital in Brooklyn.
1939:In apparent response to pressure from the British government the Greekgovernment announced that a law prohibiting Greek vessels from carrying anymore Jewish refugees unless their papers are strictly in order would beenforced. The move will strike a blowagainst the Greek economy since Greek ship owners and “brokers” had been ableto make “exorbitant profits” from trafficking in Jewish misery.
1940(16thof Nisan, 5700): Second Day of Pesach
1940(16thof Nisan, 5700): Forty-three-year-old Joe “Yussel the Muscle” Jacobs fightmanager passed away today.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jacobs-joe
1941:Birthdate of Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke “a top-ranking American diplomat,magazine editor, author, professor, Peace Corps official, and investmentbanker. He was the only person to have held the position of Assistant Secretaryof State position for two different regions of the world (Asia from 1977 to1981 and Europe from 1994 to 1996). Later, was the Special Representative forAfghanistan and Pakistan under the Obama administration. Holbrooke was born inNew York City, to Dan Holbrooke and Trudi Moos (née Kearl). Holbrooke’s mother,whose Jewish family fled Hamburg in 1933 for Buenos Aires before coming to NewYork, took him to Quaker meetings on Sundays. “I was an atheist, his father wasan atheist,” says his mother, a potter now married to a sculptor. “We neverthought of giving Richard a Jewish upbringing. The Quaker meetings seemedinteresting.” Holbrooke’s father, a doctor born of Russian Jewish parents inWarsaw, died of cancer. His father changed his name to Holbrooke when hearrived in the United States in the 1930s. Such, however, is the family’s lossof contact with its roots that his original name is unknown. After ScarsdaleHigh School Holbrooke received his A.B. from Brown University in 1962 andcompleted a post-graduate fellowship at Princeton University in 1970. Hemarried Kati Marton in 1995. His marriage to Marton has led him to look moreclosely at his past. She was born into a family of Hungarian Jews but raised aRoman Catholic. In researching a book about Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedishdiplomat in Budapest who saved Jews during World War II, Marton traveled to hernative Hungary whence she and her parents had fled the Communists in the 1950s.It was there that an old friend of her mother’s told her that Wallenberg hadcome too late for Marton’s grandparents. It was the first she had heard abouther Jewish roots. Like Madeleine Albright’s parents, Marton’s family hid theirJewish identity when they came to the United States. She learned that one ofher maternal grandparents had died in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Hepassed away in 2010.
1941: The Nazis “closed” the Lublin Ghetto.TheLublin (Poland) Ghetto was established in March,1941andcontained about 34,000 Jews.As of this date Jewscould only leave if they had a special permit or were part of a labor group.The Lublin Ghetto was the first ghetto in the General Government to beliquidated, and the Nazis gained much experience, for future deportationactions. Jews from Lublin were the first victims of the newly constructed deathcamp at Belzec. Only 200-300 of formerly 40,000 Lublin Jews survived in hidingor were finally liberated in several concentration camps. About 1000 Jewssurvived the war in Soviet areas.
1942:Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for fifty-nine-year-oldRomanian born Isadore Wexler, the thirty-year resident of Toledo, HO where heowned the Wexler Ice company and the husband of Yetta Leffner Wexler with whomhe had eight children -- Louis, Joseph, Ralph, David, Morris, Oscar, Max andWilliam A. Wexler – followed by burial at Shari Zedick Cemetery in Lima, OH.
1942:The liquidation of the WloclawekGhetto began today.
1942: Jews throughout GreaterGermany were prohibited from taking public transport.
1942:Eight days after turning nine, Ruth Bachrachova was transported from Prague toTerezin, the first leg of a trip that would lead to the death camps.
1942: Birthdate of singer and film star BarbraStreisand.
1943(19thof Nisan, 5703) Shabbat Shel Pesach
1943:Oliver Harvey, Anthony Eden’s Private Secretary described the British ForeignMinister’s attitude toward the Jews with an entry in his diary stating“Unfortunately AE is immovable on the subject of Palestine. He loves Arabs and hates Jews.” This entry explains why the British Foreignoffice did nothing to save the Jews of Europe from the Holocaust and gives someexamples of the type of society in which Churchill was forced to make hisdecisions.
1943:A twelve-day joint Anglo-American conference designed to deal with the issue ofrefugees (and in reality, Jewish refugees) comes to an end without taking anyaction to save the Jews of Europe including the opening of Palestine tosettlement by Jewish refugees.
1943(19thof Nissan 5703): RabbiMenachem Ziemba a distinguished pre-World War II Rabbi who had been born in1883, known as a Talmudic genius and prodigy was gunned down by the Nazis duringthe Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. “Rabbi Menachem Zemba was born in a suburb ofWarsaw, Poland in 1883. A follower of the Gerrer Chassidic dynasty, he was agreat genius and Torah scholar. He joined the Warsaw rabbinate in 1935 and wasrecognized as a leading rabbinic figure in pre-war Eastern Europe.
RabbiZemba was a moral force in the Warsaw Ghetto, always striving to infuse thecommunity with optimism and hope. He arranged clandestine locations in cellarsand bomb shelters where girls and boys would study Torah. Although affordedopportunities to escape the ghetto, he refused to do so, insisting that hispresence was needed by the Jews in the ghetto. Rabbi Zemba was a strongsupporter of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, donating personal funds for ammunitionand giving his whole-hearted blessing for the endeavor (see Jewish History forthe 27th of Nissan). Five days after the fighting begun, on Shabbat the 19th ofNissan, the house were Rabbi Zemba was hiding was set afire by the SS. Whenattempting to escape, Rabbi Zemba was shot dead by the Nazis. May G-d avengehis blood. The rabbi was buried in the Ghetto, and in 1958 his body was flownto Israel where he was buried in Jerusalem amid a great funeral procession. RabbiZemba was a prolific writer. Unfortunately, most of his scholarly manuscriptswere burnt in the Warsaw Ghetto. His few works which were authored before thewar are still studied by Torah scholars world-wide. (As reported by Chabad)
1944(1stof Iyar, 5704): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1944(1stof Iyar, 5704): Seventy-five-year-old “German physical chemist” George Bredig,the Silesia bon son of Ernestine Troplowitz and Max Bredig who discovered thathis identifying as a Protestant did not save him from fleeing the Nazis becauseof his “Jewish descent” passed away in the United States where he had foundrefuge thanks to the intervention by Ernest Cohen who “ironically” died atAuschwitz.
https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/tyeplmz
1944: Two escapees from Auschwitz, Rudolf Vrbaand Alfred Wetzler reached Zilina, in northern Slovakia, where they worked withJewish leaders on their report. The two men provided separate but consistentaccounts. Factual assertions were checked against records whenever possible. The32-page report was sent to the British and United States governments, the Vaticanand the International Red Cross. Most important, it went to the leadership ofHungary's Jews, next on Hitler's list.
1945:When Soviet troops entered the German capital, they found 800 Jews alive atBerlin’s Jewish Hospital.
1945:“Today, the satellite labor camps around Dachau were being cleared out by theNazis ahead of the advancing Allied troops, and some 15,000 prisoners werefirst marched to the Dachau camp, only to be sent southwards on a death marchtowards the Austrian border,the path for which generally headed southwards,partly along the eastern shore of the Starnberger See, taking a left turn tothe east in the town of Eurasburg and heading towards the Tegernsee.”
1945:Forty-three-year-old Karl Ludwig von Guttenberg who had been arrested after thefailure of the plot to assassinate Hitler in July, 1944 and who refused to namenames despite being tortured by was murdered in the early hours of this morningby order of “Gestapo chief Heinrich Muller.”
1945:Holocaust survivor Dr. Hadassah Bimko Rosensaft, gave one of the firsteyewitness accounts of the horrors of the Holocaust on a Movietone Newsnewsreel that was filmed at the recently liberated Nazi concentration camp ofBergen-Belsen. "Itis difficult for me to describe," she said, "all that we inmatesexperienced here in the camps. As a small, very small example I can relate thatwe inmates were thrown onto the earth of a filthy, lice-filled camp, withoutblankets, without bags of hay, without beds. We were given a 12th of a piece ofbread daily and one liter of turnip soup so that almost 75 percent of theinmates were swollen from hunger. A severe typhus epidemic broke out, and thehunger and the typhus devoured us." Through the camera she told the worldhow the Germans had refused to give starving inmates food shipments sent by theRed Cross until shortly before the arrival of British troops, and how thecamp's SS commandant had stolen large quantities of chocolate intended forJewish children to enrich himself on the black market.
1946(23rdof Nisan, 5706): San Francisco native and Stanfordtrained surgeon Lawrence Harold Hoffman the World War I veteran and brother ofWilliam J. and Melville G. Hoffman passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1946/04/25/88354485.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1946: Five thousand Jewsattending a funeral for five Jews murdered by Poles at Nowy Targ, Poland, threedays earlier were abused from rooftops and windows by anti-Semitic taunts.
1947:Birthdate of Roger David Kornberg an American biochemist and professor ofstructural biology at Stanford University School of Medicine who “was awardedthe Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2006 for his studies of the process by whichgenetic information from DNA is copied to RNA, "the molecular basis ofeukaryotic transcription."
1947: The trial of Hans Biebow “the chief ofGerman Nazi administration of the Łódź Ghetto in occupied Poland” continued fora second day.
1948(15thof Nisan, 5708): Pesach
1948(15thof Nisan, 5708): Fifty-six-year-old New York native Edward C. Hartman, thetreasurer and director of the Stahl-Meyer, Inc meat packers who “began hiscareer there in 1922 with the Louis Meyer Company passed away today at his homeon Long Island.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1948/04/26/84536738.html?pageNumber=23
1948:During the siege of Jerusalem, on the first day of Pesach, Zipporah Porath “feastedon an omelet made from our special Pesach ration, which included Matzah and oneegg each.”
1949:Birthdate of Peter Friedman, the New York native who “played the role of Jewishimmigrant ‘Tateh’ in Ragtime” for which he “was nominated for the 1998 TonyAward for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical and the Drama DeskAward for Outstanding Actor in a Musical.”
1950:King Abdullah of Jordan annexed all of the land west of the Jordan River andthe Dead Sea seized by his troop. Thestate of Jordan was formed by the union of Jordanian-occupied Palestine and theKingdom of Transjordan. In the view of some, the creation of the original stateof Trans-Jordan by the British after World War I was an illegal act sinceamounted to a partition of the Palestine Mandate. That is why there arethose that contend that if the Arabs want a state in Palestine, they alreadyhave it. It is called Jordan. The creation of Jordan in 1950 wasanother act of illegality. The land west of the Jordan River includingthe eastern part of Jerusalem had been seized by the Jordanian Army during theIsraeli War for Independence. Since the Arabs held what is now called theWest Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza in 1950, you would have expected that theArab State of Palestine would have been created. The demand for an Arabstate of Palestine in these areas only began after June, 1967.
1950:The government of Israel announced that it would not accept the annexation ofeastern Jerusalem and the West Bank by Jordan.Israel said that it had accepted the occupation as part of the truceagreement subject to final peace negotiations.Israel expressed its displeasure at the possibility of British militaryinstallations being installed on her frontiers.
1951(18thof 5711): Fourth Day of Pesa
1953(9thof Iya, 5713): Fifty-two-year-old London born and NYU School of Engineeringgraduate Herman M. Braloff, the president of the Cauldwell-Wingate Company,construction engineers which built “projects for the armed forces at theSampson (NY) Naval Training Session and Camp Shanks (NJ) as well as theCarnegie Foundation Building, Temple Emanu-El, Mt. Sinai Hospital and “theaddition to the Metropolitan Museum of Art” while serving on “the board ofdirectors of the Jewish Hospital in Brooklyn and being a member of Temple B’naiSholom in Rockville Cetntre.
1953:Drummer Buddy Rich, the son of Jewish-American vaudevillians, married “danceand showgirl” Marie Allison today with whom he had one child – Cathy – and towhom he remained married “until his death in 1987.”
1955:The Bandung Conference came to an end. At the height of the Cold War,twenty-nine self-described non-aligned nations of Asia and Africa finish ameeting that condemned colonialism, racism, and the Cold War. One of the primemovers behind the conference was Prime Minister Nehru of India. The Israelis had wanted to attend. They saw themselves as a socialist countrywho had thrown the British out and was not officially aligned with either theEastern or Western Blocs. However, Nehrudid not want the Israelis there because it would upset the Arabs and theMoslems.
1955(24thof Iyar, 5715): Eighty-three-year-old Rudland, VT native and Fairfield CTresident the long-time President of Armstrong Manufacturing Company passed awaytoday at Bridgeport, CT Hospital.
1958(4thof Iyar, 5718): Yom HaAtzma'ut
1958:Thirteen months after being released in the United Kingdom, “Ill Met by Moonlight”on which Emeric Pressburger served as co-writer, co-director and co-producerwas released today in New York City.
1958:Chaim Laskov, the recently appointed Chief of General Staff, “presided over ahuge military parade in Jerusalem to mark the tenth anniversary of Israel'sindependence. This took place despite warnings by Jordan that such a paradewould be considered an act of aggression. During the parade, Laskov displayedIsrael's latest military hardware, including weapons captured from Egypt in theSinai and from Syria during clashes in the Hula Valley.”
1958:Brooks Atkinson reviewed the first production of JB, a play based on the Bookof Job for the New York Times.
1959(16thof Nisan, 5719): Second Day of Pesach
1959(16thof Nisan, 5719): Ninety-three-year-old violinist and conductor David Mannes,the husband of Clara Mannes and son-in-law of Leopold Damrosch, who helped to“found the Colored Music Settlement School” and the Mannes Music School
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/04/25/83683650.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1960(27thof Nisan, 5720): Sixty-five-year-old Ukraine native, Sophie Udin, thefeminist and Zionist who married Pinhas Ginguld with whom she had two children– Yehuda and Marcia passed away today.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/udin-sophie-ada
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/udin-sophie-a
1961,Professor Salo Baron testified at the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem.Baron explained the historical context of the Nazi genocide against the Jews.He further explained that in his birthplace, Tarnow, there had been 20,000 Jewsbefore the war but, after Hitler, there were no more than 20. His parents and asister were killed there1961, Professor Baron testified at the trial of AdolfEichmann in Jerusalem. Baron explained the historical context of the Nazigenocide against the Jews. He further explained that in his birthplace, Tarnow,there had been 20,000 Jews before the war but, after Hitler, there were no morethan 20. His parents and a sister were killed there.
1962: Dodger Legend Sandy Koufax pitched hissecond18-strikeout game.
1963:The will of Samuel Paley, the father of William S. Paley, the Chairman of theBoard of the Columbia Broadcasting System, was filed for probate today showingthat that his estate “was valued at $27,000,000.
1963:Oskar Schindler wrote a letter from Frankfurt am Main today “to his closefriend confidante Itzhak Stern” in which he “discusses his financial hardship,”speaks of the “optimism towards the future” he felt a year ago” and expresseshis despair by asking himself “if it’s even worth living.
1965(22ndof Nisan, 5725): 8th day of Pesach
1966(4thof Iyar,5726): Seventy-one-year-old New Yorker, Zionist leader and AmericanHebrew educator Samuel J. Borowsky the general secretary of the NationalAssociation for Jewish Education who attended the Rabbi Jacob Joseph Yeshivaand was an NYU graduate who was the husband of the former Selma JulietteSonnenberg with whom he had two daughters passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/04/25/80004569.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/04/25/80004569.html?pageNumber=31
https://www.jta.org/archive/samuel-borowsky-noted-american-jewish-educator-dies-in-israel
1967(14thof Nisan, 5727): Fast of the First Born; erev Pesach
1968:The original West End London production of Man of La Mancha with music by MitchLeigh opened at the Piccadilly Theatre.
1968:Mauritius becomes a member state of the United Nations. During World War II,the British used Mauritius as detention camp for Jews fleeing Hitler’s Europewho were trying to enter Palestine despite the White Paper. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Mauritius.html
1969(6thof Iyar, 5729): Seventy-seven-year-old Yonkers NY,native and Dickinson College trained attorney,Joseph Altman a powerful figure in New Jerseypolitics which led to his serving six terms as the Mayor of Atlantic City whileraising his son Michael with his wife Lillian passed away today
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/04/25/90095532.pdf
1969:“If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” a comedy directed by Mel Stuart,produced by Stan Margulies and David Wolper, with music by Walter Scharf andfeaturing Sandy Baron, Normal Fell and Marty Ingels was released today in theUnited States.
1969(6thof Iyar, 5729): Sixty-three-year-old Cincinnati native Henry Tavel, the HUCtrained rabbi who served as chaplain during WW II winning the Bronze Star andentered civilian life in 1960 as congregational rabbi in Houston while raisinga daughter Barbara with his wife Charlotte passed away today.
http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0209/ms0209.html
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/04/28/90099871.pdf
1969(6thof Iyar, 5729): Fifty-four-year-old CCNY and NYU alum, Robert F. Greenberg, theNew York math teacher and principal at the Walter J. Damrosch Jr. H.S. whoraised two daughters – Mary and Amy – with his wife “the former Lucy Wachtell”passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/04/25/90095537.pdf
1970(18thof Nisan, 5730): Fourth Day of Pesach
1970:Myrna Lamb’s musical “Mod Donna” opened the Joseph Papp Public Theatre in NewYork today.
1971(29thof Nisan, 5731): Parashat Shmini
1971:In “Making the Rock Pop Scene” published today, Richard Locke reviews FREAKSHOW:The Rochsoulbluesjazzsichjew blachhumoraexpoppsych Gig and Other Scenes fromthe Counter‐Culture by Albert Goldman
https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/24/archives/making-the-rock-pop-scene.html?searchResultPosition=3
1974(2ndof Iyar, 5734): Yom HaZikaron
1974:“Refusenik and war hero Yefim Davidovich suffered a heart attack”
1976:Birthdate of Nathan Rabin, an American film and music critic
1976:At The Town Hall in New York City, world premiere of Steve Reich’s “Music for18 Musicians.
1977:A terrorist bus bombing injured 28 people at Hebron today.
1977:NBC broadcast the fourth and final episode “Lanigan’s Rabbi” which was based ona series of novels by Harry Kemelman co-starring Bruce Solomon in the role of“Rabbi David Small.”
1979(27thof Nisan, 5739) Yom HaShoah
1979(27thof Nisan, 5739): Seventy-six-year-old British Labour Party leader MauriceOrbach, the father of author Susie Orbach and Laurence Obach, the formerhistory teacher and CEO of the Quarto Publishing Group passed away today.
http://www.jta.org/1979/04/27/archive/maurice-orbach-dead-at-76
1980:A seminar on Soviet Jewry sponsored by The European Union of Jewish Studentsopened today in Amsterdam.
1980:The world premiere of “Lakeboat.a semi-autobiographical play by David Mamet wasstaged today by the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre.
1980:Barbara Tuchman delivers the JeffersonLecture in the Humanities. The announcement contains the following:
Barbara Tuchman, who was born in 1912,never earned a graduate degree in history, but her best-selling books madehistory come alive for millions of readers and earned two Pulitzer Prizes fortheir author. Raised in a privileged New York family, Tuchman traveledextensively with her parents before attending Radcliffe College, where shestudied history and literature. After her graduation, she wrote about theSpanish Civil War for The Nation, and then worked at the Office of WarInformation during World War II, traveling in Asia. These reporting stintssparked Tuchman's interest in the history of war. Tuchman’s first book, Bible and Sword:England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour(1956), expressed strong sympathy for Zionism. She is best known, however, fortwo books that won Pulitzer Prizes: The Guns of August(1962), about the First World War, and Stilwell and the American Experience inChina, 1911-1945 (1972). The Guns of Augustwas later made into a movie of the same name. Although her relationships withprofessional historians were sometimes strained, Tuchman did garnerrecognition, serving as the president of the Society of American Historians(1970-1973), and as president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters(1979).Tuchman was the first woman invited to deliver the Jefferson Lecture inthe Humanities under the auspices of the National Endowment for the Humanities.An invitation to give the Jefferson Lecture is the highest honor the federalgovernment confers for distinguished intellectual achievement in thehumanities. In her lecture, presented on April 24, 1980, Tuchman took"Mankind's Better Moments" as her title and theme, reflecting hergeneral optimism about the human condition. Tuchman repeated the lecture inLondon a week later, the first time that a Jefferson Lecture had been repeatedabroad, marking her international renown as a writer. Tuchman published herlast book, TheFirst Salute, just a year before her death in 1989.
1981(20thof Nisan, 5741): Sixth Day of Pesach
1982: “A5,000-word article in the newspaper Sovetskaya Moldaviya condemned the practiceof sending parcels to Soviet Jews by people living in London, Copenhagen, Baselas part of the “Zionist conspiracy.”
1983:In “Discovering Herod’s Israel,” published today, Nitza Rosovsky describes thevarious building projects of the cruel king including those at Caesarea, Masadaand Jerusalem remnants of which can be seen today as well as the opportunitiesfor students to take part in archaeological digs during the summer.
1984(22ndof Nisan, 5744): Eighth Day of Pesach
1984:David Shipler, the New York Timescorrespondent in Israel “was summoned to the office of the director of theGovernment press office, Mordechai Dolinsky, and was ‘severely reprimanded’”for his reporting on the so called “Bus 300 Affair.”
1985:According to Israeli businessman Yaacov Nimrodi, today he canceled the sailingof the merchant ship, the Westline which had been scheduled to leave Eilatfilled with weaponry for Iran as part of a deal that Americans would come toknow as Iran-Contra.
1986(15thof Nisan, 5746): Pesach
1986(15thof Nisan, 5746): Eighty-seven-year-old Morris Israel Fishbein the Chelsea, MAborn son of Sarah Miller and Louis Fishbein, the construction contractor andreal investor who was a member of Congregation Beth Sholom and CongregationMishkon Tifiloh and who four children with his wife Helen Fishbein passed awaytoday in Providence, RI.
1987: Howard Stern held a free speech rally at DagHammarskjold Plaza New York City.
1990: In an example of meaningless politicalposturing, the House of Representatives adopted H.R. 290 “expressing supportfor Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/HouseRes290.html
1990:Securities law violator Michael Milken pled guilty to 6 felonies.
1991(10th of Iyar, 5751): Eighty-five-year-oldEnglish and Yiddish Poet Menke Katz who “won two Stephen Vincent BenetNarrative Poetry Awards, in 1970 and 1974” whose English version of histwo-volume Yiddish epic poem, "Burning Village," had been nominatedfor a Pulitzer Prize” passed away today.
1992: Catcher Jesse Levis appeared in his firstmajor league baseball game wearing the uniform of the Cleveland Indians.
1992: George Steinbrenner dropped his lawsuitsagainst major league baseball.
1992:U.S. premiere of “White Sands” produced by Scott Rudin
1992:“Passed Away” a comedy produced by Larry Brezner and co-starring Peter Riegertwas released today in the United States.
1992:U.S. premiere of “A Midnight Clear” a WW II movie starring Peter Berg.
1993: ABC news analyst Jeff Greenfield marriedKaren Gannett.
1994:After having made it world premiere at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven,Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass opened at the Booth Theater.
1994:“Acting Against Type: The Self-Hating Jew” published today provides aninterview with actor Ron Rifkin who plays the role of Phillip Glellburg inArthur Miller’s “Broken Glass.”
1995(24th of Nisan, 5755):Ninety-five year old Warsaw born “actress, scenarist, film director, and film preservationist”Marie Epstein who had been arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 but avoided deportationand who was the sister of Frenchfilmmaker and novelist Jean Epstein passed away today.
1996(5thof Iyar, 5756): Yom HaAtzma’ut – Israel Independence Day
1996(5thof Iyar, 5756): Seventy five year old Los Angeles native Melvin Wallace “Mel”Bleeker the USC quarterback who played for four years in the NFL – first withthe Eagles and then with the Giants.
http://www.profootballarchives.com/playerb/blee00400.html
1997(17thof Nisan 5757): Third Day of Pesach
1997:A special Sederwas held in Washington D.C. today and attended by the Dalai Lama, as well as bynumerous U.S. dignitaries and celebrities, including Supreme Court JusticeStephen Breyer and Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys
1998:“Sliding Doors” a comedy starring Gwnyeth Paltrow and produced by SydneyPollack was released today in the United States.
1998:“In God’s Hands” a surfing film directed by Zalman King who co-authored thescreenplay was released in the United States today.
1999(8thof Iyar, 5759): Parashat Achrei Mot-Kedoshim
1999(8thof Iyar, 5759): Sixty-three-year-old Alexandria born French psychiatristJacques Hassoun who became an amateur expert on the history of the EgyptianJewish community.
http://www.bassatine.net/hassoun.php
1999:“Woman Wins 600G From Face-Lift Doc” published today described the outcome of asuit brought against Dr. Pamela Lipkin.
2000(19thof Nisan, 5760): Pearl Padamsee, the Indian stage actress, director andproducer whose mother was Jewish passed away today.
http://www.hindu.com/2000/04/30/stories/1330128a.htm
2001:The Criterion Collection released a DVD version of Jules Dassin’s “Rififi.”
2002:The National Science Board has named Erich Bloch as the recipient of theVannevar Bush Award, “its highest award for scientific achievement andstatesmanship.”
https://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/02/pr0230.htm
2003(22ndof Nisan, 5763): 8th Day of Pesach
2003(22ndof Nisan, 5763): Outside the train station in Kfar Saba which had only beenopen for eleven days, Security guard Alexander Kostyuk was murdered and 13 werewounded in a suicide bombing for which groups related to the Fatah Al AksaMartyrs Brigades and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimedresponsibility.
http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Terrorism/Victims/Pages/Alexander%20Kostyuk.aspx
2004(3rdof Iyar, 5764): Estée Lauder, founder of a cosmeticscompany bearing her name passed away.Lauder was born Josephine Esther Mentzer in Queens, New York in1906. She was the daughter of HungarianJewish immigrants. She married Joseph Lauter in 1930, divorced him in 1939, andre-married him in 1942. The Lauter family changed their surname to"Lauder" in the late 1930s.They remained married until his death in1982. Lauder died in her Manhattan home of cardiopulmonary failure at the ageof 97. She was the only woman on Timemagazine's 1998 list of the 20 most influential business geniuses of the 20thcentury. She was also the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
2004(3rdof Iyar, 5764): Twenty-four-year-old Nathan Bruckenthal was killed today in a suicide attack inthe Northern Persian Gulf. “Nathan Bruckenthal was a fun-loving child. “He wasall good things, everything every father would love,” recalled his father, EricBruckenthal. His parents separated when Bruckenthal was 6 years old and thenrespectively remarried, but the two families remained close. Bruckenthal grewup in Stony Brook, N.Y., in a home where a sense of purpose was drilled intohim. His father has been on the police force for 35 years, and his stepfatherwas in the Army. So when Bruckenthal approached his father about enlisting inthe Coast Guard, Eric Bruckenthal was not surprised. Later, after joining thespecialized Tactical Law Enforcement Team, Bruckenthal was deployed to Iraq. He had just found out that his wife was threemonths pregnant with their first child when he was killed. That child, adaughter, recently turned 6 years old. As the only Coast Guard officer to bekilled in action since the Vietnam War, Bruckenthal left a legacy that has beenembraced by the Coast Guard, which has invited his father to speak at itsevents. “Though I lost a son, I gained 40,000 surrogate sons and daughters inthe Coast Guard,” his father said. Though Bruckenthal did not have a barmitzvah, he began identifying with Judaism toward the end of his life anddecided that when he returned home, he would become a bar mitzvah. “He was laidin his coffin, draped in a tallis and the Star of David. For our family, hereceived his last rites as a Jewish man,” his father said. ‘
2005(15thof Nisan, 5765): First day ofPesach. In the evening, count the omerfor the first time.
2005(15thof Nisan, 5765): Ezer Weizman passedaway. If you did not know that such a person had really lived, you would havethought his life was the creation of Walter Scott style novelist.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/obituaries/25weizman.html?pagewanted=all&position=
2005: The New York Times reviewed The Endof Poverty by Jeffrey D. Sachs, in which the author argues that if the wealthy countries of theworld were to increase their combined foreign aid budgets to between $135billion and $195 billion for the next decade, and properly allocate that money,extreme global poverty -- defined by the World Bank as an income of less than adollar a day -- could be eliminated by 2025.
2006(26thof Nisan, 5766): Ninety-one-year-old “Rabbi Moshe (Moses) Teitelbaum, theleader of the Satmar sect passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/nyregion/rabbi-moses-teitelbaum-is-dead-at-91.html
2006: Thisevening, the State of Israel will take time out to remember the six millionJews who perished in the Holocaust, marking the start of Holocaust RemembranceDay. The annual state ceremony will begin at 8 p.m. at Yad Vashem, Israel'sHolocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority. The hour-long event,which will be broadcast live on television and radio, will be attended byPresident Moshe Katsav, Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and scores ofdignitaries and ambassadors from around the world. The theme of this year'sceremony - coming at a time when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hascalled the Holocaust a myth - is "The Human Spirit in the Shadow ofDeath." Six torches will be lit by Holocaust survivors in memory of the sixmillion Jewish victims. The chief rabbis will recite a selection from Psalmsand Kaddish, the Jewish mourning prayer. All places of entertainment will beclosed on Monday night. At 10 a.m. on Tuesday, a two-minute siren will sound tomark the start of a day of ceremonies throughout Israel. A wreath-layingceremony will take place just after the siren is sounded Tuesday at the WarsawGhetto uprising memorial at Yad Vashem, in the presence of Olmert and otherdignitaries. Victims' names will be read out loud during "Unto EveryPerson There is a Name" ceremonies, at both the Hall of Remembrance at YadVashem and at the Knesset. An estimated 250,000 Holocaust survivors live inIsrael. About one-third live in poverty, according to recent social welfarereports. "Israeli society has a moral duty to honor the Holocaustsurvivors, and to take care of them in the twilight of their days," YadVashem chairman Avner Shalev said.
2007:The New York Times reported that “DavidHalberstam, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and tireless author of books ontopics as varied as America’s military failings in Vietnam, the deaths offirefighters at the World Trade Center and the high-pressure world ofprofessional basketball, was killed yesterday in a car crash south of SanFrancisco. He was 73.” Strangely enough the prolific author who wrote on fromApartheid to the Red Sox-Yankee rivalry never wrote about Israel, the MiddleEast, or any topic related to Jews or Judaism.
2007: The military wing ofHamas fired a barrage of rockets and mortar shells from the Gaza Strip intoIsrael for the first time since Hamas committed to a cease-fire in November. Aspokesman for the Hamas military wing in Gaza declared the truce there over.”The rockets fired by Hamas are not to be confused with rockets fired by otherterrorists during this period.
2007:The long awaited second novel by Nathan Englander, The Ministry of Special Cases, was released.
2007: Brooklyn BoroughPresident Marty Markowitz and the Brooklyn Jewish Heritage Committee co-hostedJewish Heritage Night. The annual event, which is open to the public,recognizes the myriad achievements of Jewish Brooklynites and celebratesIsraeli independence.
2007(6th of Iyar, 5767): YomHaAtzma'ut
2007:Irwin Hansen, the creator of the comic strip Dondi suffered a stroke today.
2008:The Jerusalem Cinematheque features a screening of Adma\אדמה. The film looks at the legendary Moshav Nahalal, anagricultural settlement, and focuses on the veteran farmers who are now forcedto deal with the generation gap conflict: the continuation of the traditionalfamily based farms, and difficult personal questions.
2008: The Washington Post reported that author Cynthia Ozick has won 2 Lifetime Achievement Awardsthis week - the $5,000 PEN/Malamud prize for short fiction, and the $20,000PEN/Nabokov award for "enduring originality and consummatecraftsmanship."
2008(19th of Nisan, 5768): Two Israeli security guards were shot dead in a night time attack at theNitzanei Shalom industrial zone, near the West Bank city of Tul Karm. A thirdguard managed to flee after the gunman opened fire. The victims were named asShimon Mizrahi, 53, of Beit Hefer, and Eli Wasserman, 50, of Alfei Menashe.
2009(30th of Nisan, 5769): Irving D. Chais, who in his 45 years as the owner and chief surgeon ofthe New York Doll Hospital in Manhattan reattached thousands of heads, arms andlegs; reimplanted fake hair shorn by scissor-wielding toddlers; and soothed thefeelings of countless doll lovers, young and old, passed away today at the ageof 83.
2009: At Agudas Achim in Iowa City, annualSisterhood Shabbat.
2009: Harvard Law School professor Cass Suunsteinand Samantha Power gave birth to their first child Declain Power Sunstein
2009: In Columbus, Ohio, last day for nominations JCC's Jewish Sports Hallof Fame
2009:At the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., Amy Bloom, authorof the novels “Come to Me” (a National Book Award finalist) and “Away,” joinsnovelist Susan Choi, author of “The Foreign Student and American Woman,” for ajoint reading presented by PEN/Faulkner.
2009:Rosh Chodesh Iyar, 5769 (first day of two day Rosh Chodesh)
2010:“A Tiny Piece of Land” is scheduled to have its final performance at the PicoPlayhouse in Los Angeles California.
2010:“Father’sFootsteps,” a movie about a Tunisian-Israeli family that settles in Paris and “For My Father,” a movie about a Palestinianterrorist who comes to know Israelis first-hand when forced to spend a weekendin Tel Aviv are scheduled to be shown at the 2010 NoVA International JewishFilm Festival.
2011:The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to present “Russian Piano School: AConversation with Vladimir Feltsman” the Russian born Jewish classical pianist.
2011:The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish president and/orof special interest to Jewish readers including “Scribble, Scribble, Scribble: Writingon Politics, Ice Cream, Churchill, and My Mother” by Simon Schama, “Come On AllYou Ghosts” by Matthew Zapruder and “Silver Roses” by Rachel Wetzsteon.
2011:The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish presidentand/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Trillin on Texas” by CalvinTrillin.
2011(20thof Nisan, 5771): A group of 15 Jewish worshipers were hit by gunfire fromPalestinian security forces as they gathered at Joseph’s Tomb. A 30-year-oldmale was pronounced dead at the scene. A 20-year-old man was injured in seriouscondition, suffering of an abdominal wound. He was airlifted to BellinsonHospital in Petah Tikva where he underwent surgery. A 17-year-old youth wasevacuated by a Magen David Adom Yarkon crew in moderate condition, suffering awound to his shoulder. Another youth was injured and evacuated for medicaltreatment after he was questioned by authorities. Another two were in lightcondition and were treated on scene.
2011(20thof Nisan, 5771): BenYosef Livnat, 25, was killed this morning after praying at Joseph's Tomb wherehis father, Noam once sat and learned more than a decade ago.
2011(20thof Nisan, 5771): Onehundred-year-old Hudesa Gora, a Holocaust survivor who ran a fur business inthe Cleveland area for many years passed away today. According to publishedreports, “She belonged to Kol Israel Foundation, a Cleveland-area group of Holocaustsurvivors, and to ORT. Gora was born in Krasnik, Poland, a town of 5,000 at thetime, half of which was Jewish. After the Nazi occupation at the beginning ofWorld War II, Gora obtained false gentile identity papers so she could workoutside the ghetto. According to a story in the Cleveland Jewish News, Goraraised the suspicions of the Catholic family for whom she worked when she“baked a loaf of bread and did not put a cross on the bottom of it per theircustom. She left that job quickly.” The Gestapo once rounded up a group thatincluded Gora, her sister and her sister’s two children, almost all of whom hadfalse identity papers. She was not able to get them for her nephew. “When anofficer discovered this and asked who the boy belonged to, Mrs. Gora preventedher sister from claiming him because she realized the Nazis would know she wasJewish and kill her. The boy was taken away and killed,” the Cleveland paperreported. Gora lost the majority of her family in the Holocaust. She met herhusband, Charles, and married him in Germany, came to the United States in 1949and settled in Cleveland the next year.”
2011:Tamir Cohen, ofthe Bolton Wanderers, and the son Avi Cohen paid a tribute to his late fatherafter scoring the winner against Arsenal and celebrating with a printed T-shirtwith his father's face on it.
2012:“Looking for Lenny,” a film about the late Lenny Bruce, is scheduled to beshown at the Westchester Film Festival.
2012:The Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, a project initiated bypianist Elena Bashkirova, is scheduled to begin today in the Glass Courtyard.
2013:“Kinderblock 66” and “Hitler’s Children” are scheduled to be shown at theNorthern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.
2013:Wa'al al-Arjeh “was convicted of intentional murder and sentenced to two lifeterms and an additional 58 years” for his role in the deaths of Asher andYonatan Palmer.”
2013:Representatives from the Virginia Jewish Community are scheduled to participatein “Mission to Washington” which include briefings from State DepartmentOfficials about the Arab Spring and meetings with Senators Warner and Kaine.
2013:“Pictures of Resistance: The Wartime Photographs of Jewish Partisan FayeSchulman” is scheduled to close at the Oregon Jewish Museum in Portland.
2013:Deputy FinanceMinister Mickey Levy (Yesh Atid) denounced the haredim as "parasites"during an interview on haredi radio this morning. He almost immediatelyretracted the comment, explaining that it was said "in a moment ofanger."
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Deputy-FinMin-calls-haredim-parasites-apologizes-310912
2013:Histadrut Labor Federation Chairman Ofer Eini threatened Prime MinisterBinyamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid with a general strike overexpected budget cuts that could cut workers’ pay.
http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Israels-union-boss-threatens-general-strike-over-budget-310911
2014:Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host “Rwandain the Aftermath of Genocide: A Twenty Year Perspective.”
2014:In Washington, D.C., Georgetown University is hosting “a full-day centenarytribute” in honor of Jan Karski.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/holocaust-whistleblower-jan-karski-honored-by-georgetown/
2014(24thof Nisan, 5774): Supercentenarian Arturo Licata passed away today leavingAlexander Imich “who escaped Nazi persecution and the Soviet gulag” “as theworld’s oldest living man.” (As reported by Yifa Yaakov)
2014:“The Jewish Cardinal” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC RocklandInternational Jewish Film Festival
2014:In New York, Temple Shaaray Tefila is scheduled to host a “Klezmer Jam” whereattendees are encouraged to bring their own instruments and join in thedancing.
2015:In Cedar Rapids, IA, Temple Judah is scheduled to host “Retro Reform” Shabbatservices using Gates of Prayer.
2015:Lewis Black is scheduled to appear at the DeVos Performance Hall in GrandRapids, Michigan.
2015:“The Go-Go Boys” and “While We’re Young” are scheduled to be shown at theWestchester Jewish Film Festival.
2015:Thanks to the efforts of Ben Jaffe, the son of Allan Jaffe of blessed memoryand Alan Samson “the Preservation Hall Jazz Band headlined this year’s 24thannual Touro Synagogue Jazz Fest Shabbat held as part of the Friday nightservice. (The event took place on the 80th anniversary of AllanJaffe’s birth)
2015:Shoah survivor Louise Lawrence Israels is scheduled to speak the US HolocaustMemorial Museum today.
2015:The main, Midtown Manhattan branch of Carnegie Deli was closed temporarily dueto the discovery of an illegal gas line in the restaurant.
2015:Ninety-three-year-old Auschwitz survivor Wladyslaw Bartoszewski passed awaytoday.
2015:The meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition is scheduled to open today inLas Vegas.
2016(16thof Nisan, 6776): Second Day of Pesach
2016:“Two Indian-born Jewish brothers” David and Simon Reuben” were named today asthe
richest people in Britain according to the UK Sunday Times.
2016: The New York Times featuredbooks by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including OldAge: A Beginner’s Guide by Michael Kinsley, Disraeli: The NovelPolitician by David Cesarani and The Houseguest by Kim Brooks.
2017:Seventy-seven-year-old Benjamin Reynolds Barber, the New York born son ofPhilip Barber and the daughter of Doris Frankel best known for his writingsabout Jihad passed away today.
2017(28thof Nisan, 5777): Yom Ha’Shoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day
2017:Holocaust Survivor Jacob Eisenbach is scheduled to speak this afternoon at theSinclair Auditorium at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, IA thanks to the efforts ofthe David and Joan Thaler Holocaust Remembrance Committee chaired by Dr. RobertSilber.
2017:The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to present “When We Remembered Zion”during which “the Grammy-nominated New Budapest Orpheum Society, under thedirection of Philip V. Bohlman and Ilya Levinson, bears witness to thosemurdered, those who resisted, and those who must not be forgotten. 2017: TheYeshiva University Museum is scheduled to present Liel Leibovitz lecturing on“Inbound Exile: Jerusalem As Viewed From Tel Aviv.”
2017:The Center for Jewish History and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research isscheduled to host a poetry reading and discussion led by Lee Sharkey who “willread from her new poetry collection Walking Backwards.”
2017:With “Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day” coming just a week after the end ofPassover, “Yad Vashem created an online photo exhibit commemorating thecelebration of the significant spring holiday before, during and after theHolocaust.”
2017:The Seder Plates belonging to the late Joan Rivers, “made in the 1980s by SpodeJudaica in the United Kingdom” is scheduled to be auctioned today J. Greensteinand Co. in Cedarhurst, NY.
2018:Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, an event discussed in AmbassadorMorgenthau’s Story by Henry Morgenthau, Sr. and was an event that helped PolishJewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin to “coin the concept of Genocide as a crimeagainst humanity.”
2018:Today, “it was announced that the Canadian division would be sold to FairfaxFinancial for approximately $234 million, and would continue to operate thelocations under the Toys "R" Us name, a name made famous by thechain’s founder Charles Lazarus.
2018:”The head of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, warned againstwearing religious symbols on city streets for fear of attacks” and urging “Jewsto wear baseball caps instead of kipot.”
2018:The Streicker Center is scheduled to hold a reception prior to tomorrow’sopening to the general public of the exhibit “Home: Lens on Israel” which is “aphotographic tour celebrating Israel’s 70th birthday, explore the multitude ofcommunities—and worlds—that dwell side by side within Israel’s meager 8,000square miles, just the size of New Jersey.”
2018:The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a new version of“Dine and Discuss” where attendees will watch and discuss an episode of“sh*tsel.”
https://forward.com/culture/334808/why-i-cant-stop-watching-shtisel/
2019:The Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to host an art workshop whereattendees can “create a Mizrach, a family name plate or a decorative plaque”which will be “a personally meaningful work of art for the Passover holiday.”
2019:At the same time that Jews stop praying for the winds to blow and the rain tofall, Israelis are spending Pesach enjoying a “rare Spring-time snow” that hasfallen on Mount Hermon.
2019(19thof Nissan, 5779): Fifth Day of Pesach; Fourth Day of the Omer.
2020:In Boston, the Combined Jewish Philanthropies is scheduled to host “FridayNight Lights: Welcoming Shabbat Together online.
2020:Through Zoom or Facebook Life, the Riverway Project is scheduled to host“Shabbat Recharge” during which “we will light candles, offer a blessing overthe wine and challah, sing blessings for healing and hear a kavannah(intention) from a member of our community.”
2020:The Streicker Center is scheduled to host online Spices 101 with LIor LevSercarz talking about “How to Build the Perfect Spice Pantry at Home.”
2020:Observance of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, marking the 105thanniversary of Ottoman assault on its Armenian citizens which was an event thatHitler reputedly cited when he would take about the need not to fear anyworldwide backlash during the Holocaust.
2020(30thof Nisan): Rosh Chodesh Iyar.
2021(12thof Iyar, 5781): AchararyMot and Kedoshim; Pirkei Avot Chapter Three
2021:The Jewish Federation of Des Moines, IA is scheduled to present “"TheSpirituality of Laughter: A Jewish Look at the Holiness of Humor" withRabbi and Comedian Bob Alper.”
2021:In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to present Torah Studywith Rabbi Feivel Strauss.
2021:This afternoon “streaming live from the Vancouver Symphony with Maestro KenSelden, pianist Orli Shaham is scheduled to perform Beethoven's bright andlyrical Piano Concerto No.2 in honor of the composer’s 250th anniversary.
2021:The JCC of Boston is scheduled to present online “Rock Steady Boxing Class”during which participants “learn how to fight Parkinson’s disease in thesenon-contact boxing style fitness class.
2021:Rabbi Mychal Copeland, author of “I Am the Tree of Life: My Jewish Yoga Book,” isscheduled to lead Earth Day yoga with tree and mountain poses.
2021:Tamar Eden Music Center is scheduled to present “The Glorious Sound of thePiano,” a piano recital dedicated to the memory of pianist Dmitry Bashkirov.
2022:UK Jewish Film is scheduled to host a screening of “Hester Street” at CurzonMayfair.
2022:Theatremacher Community Conversation on Jewish Representation & Casting inTheater, Film,and Television led by Theatremachers Casey Adler, LaurenSchaffel, and Elyssa Nicole Trust is scheduled to take place this afternoon.
2022:The exhibition “Debra Olin: Every Protection” is scheduled to come to an at theMuseum at Eldridge Street.
2022:The Teen Leadership Board & Young Professional Committee are scheduled tohos an Open House at Illinois Holocaust Museum
2022:YIVO is scheduled to host a meeting of the YIVO Yiddish Club featuring ZalmenMlotek, conductor, composer, pianist, and the artistic director of the NationalYiddish Theatre Folksbiene (NYTF), the longest continuously running Yiddishtheatre in the world as he discussed Yiddish Theatre Today.
2022:The Virtual Passover Film Festival, presented by the Marlene Meyerson JCCManhattan is scheduled to come to an end today.
2022:In New Orleans, the Jewish Federation is scheduled to host “Partnership2GetherKosher Wine Tasting” during which attendees will learn “about what exactlymakes wine kosher.”
2022:“Israel’s security forces are preparing for the possibility of a flare-up withthe Gaza Strip following repeated incidents of rocket fire from the Palestinianenclave over the past week.”
2022:Barbra Streisand turns eighty.
2023:The Director of the Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre, Professor ShirliGilbert, is scheduled to deliver the keynote panel at the Schwartz-ReismanGraduate Student Conference in Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto.
2023:Yom HaZikaron is scheduled to begin this evening.
2023:The Yom HaZikaron Ceremony is scheduled to take place in Ammunition Hill.
2023:In a program that represents some of the fruits of ongoing collaboration withleading Israeli composers, the Meitar Ensemble is scheduled to conclude itsU.S. tour with a concert in Merkin Hall.
2023:The Consulate General of Israel to New England and the Israeli House in Bostoninvite you to the annual memorial ceremony for fallen Israeli soldiers andvictims of terror, Yom HaZikaron.
2023:“Belmont World Film’s 21st International Film Series, “Complicated Identities,”is scheduled to observe Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, with theFrench film “Farewell Mr. Haffmann.”
2023:“The long-delayed Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial” is scheduled to begin today.
2024:In Jerusalem, “Passover at Agnon” is scheduled to take place today featuring “dramatizedtours and creative workshop for the whole family.”
2024: This evening, spart of the Genocidal Captivity exhibition events series, The Wiener HolocaustLibrary is scheduled to host “Saving the Survivors: Danish relief workers andArmenian women genocide survivors in the 1920s.”
2024:As April 24 begins in Israel, the Hamas heldhostages begin day 201 in captivity.(Editor’s note: this situation is too fluid for this blog to cover so weare just providing a snapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time.)
2024(16th of Nisan, 5784): Second Dayof Pesach; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
