July 24 In History
1148: Louis
VII
of France lays siege to Damascus during the Second Crusade. The Second Crusade gained nothing for the Christians. The failure of the crusade may help explain “the long period of persecution that included French clergyman giving frequent anti-Semitic sermons. In some cities, such as
Beziers
, Jews were forced to pay a special tax every Palm Sunday. In
Toulouse
, Jewish representatives had to go to the cathedral on a weekly basis to have their ears boxed, as a reminder of their guilt.
France
’s first blood libel took place in
Blois
in 1171 and 31 Jews were burned on the stake.”
1298(14th of Av): During the Rindfleisch massacres, the Jewish community of Bischofsheim on the Tauber, Germany perished
1349(8thof Av): The Jews of Frankfort were killed in what would be called the Black Death Massacres
1518: Sefer ha-Harkavah, a Hebrew grammar written by Elijah Levita (Bahur) was published in Rome today. 249
1716: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Posin
1825(9thof Av, 5585): Tish’a B’Av
1840: Birthdate of Abraham Goldfaden, a Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in the languages Yiddish and Hebrew, author of some 40 plays who is considered the father of the Jewish modern theatre
1855(9th of Av, 5615): Tish'a B'Av
1858: In reporting on a case of alleged war profiteering in the boot business that took place at Weedon in England, the New York Times correspondent writes that “if the Jews are excluded from Parliament they are certainly compensated in some measure by the handsome share the Government allows them in the pretty pickings of such places as Weedon.”
1862: Martin Van Buren, 8th President of the
United States
passed away. “Martin Van Buren was the first President to order an American consul to intervene on behalf of Jews abroad. In 1840 he instructed the
U.S.
consul in
Alexandria
,
Egypt
to protect the Jews of Damascus who were under attack because of a false blood ritual accusation.” Van Buren ordered his diplomats “to extend ‘the active sympathy and generous interposition of the Government of the United states’ on behalf of ‘an oppressed and persecuted race, among whose kindred are found some of the most worthy and patriotic of our citizens.’”
1864: Union General James A. Mulligan was mortally wounded as he led his troops Second Battle of Kernstown, near Winchester, Virginia. The last entry in his diary read The last thing in it, written that day, is: "Well, our cause is gloomy; we will conquer the South about the time the Jews all return to Jerusalem." (The general was not Jewish. But his statement shows the depth of his despair and the universal symbolism that Jews had come to represent.)
1865: On this date, Baron Lionel de Rothschild signs his last will and testament. The will is in his own handwriting. Among the terms of the will is a request that “ ‘my good wife’ shall give 10,000 pounds to Jewish charities.”
1865(1st of Av, 5625): Rosh Chodesh Av
1874: Today’s “Foreign Notes” column reported that “Jaffa is to be dismantled. The walls and turrets are advertised for sale and the old fortifications will soon be utterly razed.”
1877: Henry Ward Beecher, a friend of Joseph Seligman's, preached a sermon against anti-Semitism.
Beecher
was the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. He was an ardent abolitionist and a champion of what today we would call civil rights. Despite this appeal to reason, the policy of social discrimination soon became widespread. Though the Grand Union Hotel was not the first incident in the
U.S.
, it received a great amount of publicity. Seligman was a renowned philanthropist and helped the Union cause during the Civil War. In recognition, President Grant offered him the post of Secretary of Treasury.
1877: TheNew York Times published a letter from Edgar M. Johnson, a prominent Jewish lawyer from Cincinnati, Ohio. He stated that he did not like to engage in a “newspaper controversy…especially one on such a disagreeable topic as the Seligman-Hilton imbroglio.” However, he took issue with the false statements that he had tried to hide his religion when making reservations to stay at the Grand Union or that Judge Hilton’s employees did not know he was Jewish when they offered to let him stay at the hotel. He included the text of the communication in his letter and ended by saying that hotel owners in Saratoga Springs had not had any problem accepting his “Jew money” when he had stayed there in the past. But they need not concern themselves with the matter, since he had no intention of ever visiting again.
1880: Birthdate of Swiss-born American composer Ernest Bloch.
1880: The Rochester (NY) Union reported that Rabbi Max Moll has officiated at the conversion ceremony of Mrs. Morse. Her husband is a member of Aitz Raanon. The ceremony included a detailed examination on Jewish customs and laws which the young woman promised to obey. The ceremony ended with the appropriate benedictions and the announcement that her name was now Sarah.
1881: “Notes of Foreign Life” reported that funds have been collected in Brussels to aid the persecuted Jews of Russia.
1882: Professor Felix Adler sent a check for one hundred dollars to the striking freight handler’s.
1883: “Burdened With an Insane Wife” published today described the attempts of David Holtz, a young Jewish immigrant to annul his marriage to Pauline Moses on grounds that he was misled as to the nature of the ceremony, that he has had to have her committed to an asylum and that he family concealed her history of mental illness from him prior to the marriage.
1883: It was reported today Jews dominated a recent chess tournament. Six of the fourteen players were Jewish and the Jews won first, second and fifth place. This was should come as no surprise because since “the times of the Talmud, Jews have been pre-eminent at games similar to chess, while in modern time” Jews have been some of the best players for several generations.
1884: “A Queen Among Thieves” described the career and capture of Mrs. Fredericka Mandelbaum, a German born Jewess who is one of the most important and famous receiver of stolen goods. Her reputation and criminal activities which have been going on for 25 years, are national in scope. The Pinkerton detectives have been tracking her for years and said that some of her confederates include her husband,, her brother-in-law Hirsh, “Mose” Erich and “Jew” Harris. Don’t be deceived by the names; she dealt with crooks of a variety of ethnic origins.
1888: Mrs. Solomons, one of the Jews who had been on an excursion to Raritan Beach, went to the police to complain about a scheme by one of the organizers the drinking water thus forcing the patrons to buy beer and other drinks to slake their thirst.
1909: On the Saturday before his 60th birthday The New York Times reviews an anniversary volume of essays and speeches by the Zionist leader Max Nodeau. In the chapter on Zionism, the Hungarian born leader writes “Zionism is but a new name for a very old cause, in as much as it merely expresses the longing of the Jewish race toward Zion.”
1911: Fire in Balata district of Constantinople destroys Boys' and Girls' Schools of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, four synagogues, and 1,000 houses, about 600, which belonged to Jews.
1914: Birthdate of Jan Kozielewski, who as Jan Karski, risked his life to infiltrate the Warsaw Ghetto and then escaped to the West bringing a first-hand account of the Holocaust.
1918: On
Mt.
Scopus
in
Jerusalem
, Dr. Chaim Weizmann laid the cornerstone for
Hebrew
University
. It would be several more years before construction began and the university would actually become a reality.
1919: Birthdate of Peter Zinner, Austrian born American Oscar winning film editor. He passed away at the age of 88 in 2007.
1920: Birthdate of Bella Abzug. Born Bella Savitzky in the
Bronx
, she was the second daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. Her father Emanuel Zavtizky was a butcher who ran the Live and Let Live Meat Market. Abzug became a lawyer and a politician. She was a feminist and anti-Viet
Nam
War Activist. While in Congress, she was a strident critic of the war and an unabashed supporter of liberal causes. She passed away in 1998 at the age of 77.
1921(18th of Tamuz, 5681):Since the 17th of Tamuz fell on Shabbat, observance of Tzom Tammuz
1922: The League of Nations confirmed Britain’s mandate over Palestine.
1924: Birthdate of Max Palevsky, a pioneer in the computer industry and a founder of the computer-chip giant Intel who used his fortune to back Democratic presidential candidates and to amass an important collection of American Arts and Crafts furniture.
1924: In London, Sir Herbert Samuel, High Commissioner of Palestine, told the Actions Committee of the World Zionist Organization that substantial progress in the building up of Palestine has been made in the past four years,
1924: The World Chess Federation FIDE is founded in Paris. Approximately 47% of the world’s chess champions have been Jewish.)
1924: Matteo Mathieu Maurice Alfassa became (acting) Governors-general of French Equatorial Africa at
Brazzaville
. The community had a population of 4,500,000. Alfassa served till
16 Oct 1924
. Today the country is called Republic of the
Congo
.
1926: Birthdate of Zvi Dinstein, the Tel Aviv native who served as member of the Knesset from 1965 to 1974.
1932: Hope for improvement in the serious water situation in Jerusalem is seen in an announcement by the High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope, that the concession previously held by a British firm had been terminated and immediate steps were being taken to float a loan to meet the cost of a new water supply which will be undertaken by the government. The project will take at least year to complete which means water rationing will be enforced to deal with any shortage.
1933: Birthdate of George Martin Rosenkoff the native of West Philadelphia, who as George M. Ross, became a Goldman Sachs executive and a philanthropist and the driving force behind the establishment of a major museum of Jewish history in Philadelphia for which he raised $154 million.
1934 (12th of Av, 5694): Hans Hahn “an Austrian mathematician who made contributions to functional analysis, topology, set theory, the calculus of variations, real analysis, and order theory” passed away.
1936: The Palestine Postreported that Arab terrorists threw a bomb at a small religious school (Talmud Torah) in the Yemenite Quarter of Tel Aviv. Nine children were injured. One of the terrorists was later caught by a British constable and arrested. The British government had officially declared that there would be no change of policy in regard to the issue of Jewish immigration into
Palestine
until the Royal Commission was able to visit the country, study the subject and publish its findings.
Britain
expected that all Arab terrorist activities would stop before the commission's arrival in the country.
1937: Alabama drops rape charges against the so-called "Scottsboro Boys." This turn of affairs was a result of two Jewish lawyers from New York with connection to the Communist Party, Samuel Leibowitz and Joseph Brodsky.
1938: Artie Shaw recorded ‘Begin the Beguine,’ the song that helped to make him a household name.
1938: Near Athlit, Arab snipers fired on a large party of American tourists who were returning to the liner Roma docked at Haifa. The fifteen shots did not claim victims.
1938: At Acre, a Jew was wounded when a sniper opened fire on a Jewish owned bus.
1941(29th of Tammuz, 5701): The entire Jewish male population of Grodz, Lithuania was killed by the Nazis.
1941 A ghetto is established in
Kishinev
,
Ukraine
.
1941: An Einsatzgruppe report stated that 4,435 Jews were liquidated in the town of
Lachowicze
.
1942: Opening of Treblinka II, which is a mile from Treblinka I. The opening is part of Operation Reinhard, the Nazis’ plan for wiping out Polish Jewry.
1942(10th of Av, 5702): Three thousand Jews were killed in the Dereczyn action
1942: Martin Luther, undersecretary of state at the German Foreign Ministry, alerts Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop to the fact that the Italian authorities are resistant to the German plan to deport Jews from Italian-held regions of Croatia.
1943: The Spanish government saved 367 Sephardic Jews by diverting them in transport from the death camp of Birkenau to the camp at
Bergen-Belsen
. Six months later they were released back to
Spain
.
1943: During World War II, Operation Gomorrah begins. British and Canadian airplanes bomb
Hamburg
by night, those of the Americans by day. I do not know who was responsible for naming this round-the-clock bombing campaign. But it must have been somebody who had read the Book of Bereshit or Genesis. The name
Gomorrah
as in
Sodom
and
Gomorrah
conjures up the image of fiery destruction that the Allies sought to inflict on the Nazis.
1943: Twenty-one young Jewish partisans in Vilna, Lithuania, join forces with Soviet partisans fighting behind German lines. North of Vilna, nine Jews were killed in an ambush at the Mickun Bridge. Three days later, 32 relatives of the nine dead partisans are seized by the Gestapo at Vilna, taken to nearby gravel pits at Ponary, and executed. Bruno Kittel, head of the Gestapo in Vilna, announces that the entire family of any Jew who escapes the ghetto to the forest will be executed. If an escapee has no family or roommates, all residents of his building will be executed. Further, if any ten-man Jewish labor gang comes back short, the remaining gang laborers will be executed.
1944: The Russian army liberated the concentration camp at
Lublin
.
1944: The deportations continued from
Sarvar
,
Hungary
, despite the fact that the German Army was retreating. One thousand, five hundred were sent to Birkenau. The fact that a retreating army would take time and resources for this is just one more reminder that the War Against the Jews was an intrical part of the German military plan. Contrary to what the Holocaust Deniers and their fellow-traveling Revisionist Historians say, the destruction of the Jews was a critical part of the Nazi program and not just a mere after-thought.
1944: Soviet forces entered Majdanek. For the first time, Allied soldiers saw the gas chambers, crematoria and the remains of thousands of charred human remains.
1944: The Nazis seize 258 Jewish orphans from
Paris
and the surrounding areas. By now the Anglo-American armies have landed at
Normandy
, broken out of the hedgerow country and are sweeping across
France
. If the war had only been about defeating the Allies, all German efforts would have been focused on stopping this advance. This minor episode serves as a vivid reminder that the German war effort was indeed about wiping out the Jewish people.
1944: At
Bourges
,
France
, Gestapo agents and militiamen massacre 28 Jewish men and eight Jewish women active in the Resistance. Some victims are thrown alive into a well.
1944: The German Army adopts the Nazi salute, abandoning the standard military salute.
1944: Time magazine reported that Louis “Waldman believes that the strength of Communism in the U.S. is now reaching a new peak in the C.I.O.'s Political Action Committee ‘the catch-all for the political activities of unions dominated by Communists, militant Socialists and others willing to cooperate with them… Unless the New Deal casts out the seeds of left-wing totalitarianism, which it fosters today, it may either lead to an American variety of Communism, or, what is more likely, provoke an American expression of unadorned fascism.’"
1948: During War of Independence, Israeli forces launched an assault as part of Operation Shorter on an area south of Haifa called the "Little Triangle." With “six 65 mm Napoleonchik cannons…stationed about 3 km to the west of the village and mortars placed to the southeast, a Golani company left a farm near Mazar (north of Jaba') to attack the Arab positions. “They encountered an ambush and retreated after 6–9 soldiers were injured.”
1948: At a Mapai Center meeting held today during the War of Independence, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion accused Mapam of hypocrisy regarding its treatment of Arabs in the combat zone.
1950: The first World Congress for the Promotion of the Hebrew Language and Culture met in Jerusalem
1951:The Jerusalem Post reported that thousands of mourners led the black-draped gun carriage carrying the coffin of King Abdullah of Jordan to the royal cemetery in Amman. The Jordanian police rounded over 70 suspects in connection with the king's assassination, including two relatives of the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini. There were clashes in the
Jordanian-occupied
Old
City
of
Jerusalem
between Arab Legion Bedouins and the local Arabs. The first immigrant from
Russia
, 73-year-old Tova Lerner from Soviet Bessarabia, arrived together with 993 newcomers from
Romania
. The committee appointed to study the cost-of-living index found that it was not a true judge of Israeli living standards.
1956: At New York City’s Copacabana Club, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis perform their last comedy show together.
1966: Zvi Dinstein was appointed Deputy Minister of Finance.
1976: As conditions between Uganda and Kenya continue to worsen President Idi Amin cut off supplies to its African neighbor. The core of the dispute is based on reports that Israeli planes that had conducted the raid on Entebbe had refueled in Nairobi.
1979(29th of Tammuz, 5739): Eighty-three year old Dr. Jacob Furth a pioneering pathologist passed away today. (As reported by George Goodman, Jr)
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FA0A14FE3E5A12728DDDA10A94DF405B898BF1D3
1984: Radio
Luxembourg
reported that Ya'acov Nimrodi, an intimate of leaders across the Israeli political spectrum, had met in
Zurich
with the deputy defense minister and the top intelligence officer of
Iran
and with Rif'at al-Assad, the brother of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. Swiss government sources said that the meeting resulted in a deal to ship 40 truckloads of weapons a day from
Israel
to
Iran
, via
Syria
and
Turkey
.
1986(17th of Tammuz, 5746): Tzom Tammuz
1986(17th of Tammuz, 5746): Fritz Albert Lipmann, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine passed away.
1991(12th of Av, 5751: Author Isaac Bashevis Singer passed away. Singer was born near
Warsaw
. His father was a rabbi and his mother came from a family of rabbis. He moved to the
United States
in 1935. Singer’s genre of choice was the short story. His language of choice was Yiddish. Many of his works first appeared in the “Forwards,” the popular Yiddish language daily. Singer received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978. He was the first Yiddish writer to win the prestigious award
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/01/25/home/singer-obit.html?_r=2
1992(23rd of Tammuz, 5752): Samuel “Sam” Berger passed away. Berger was a driving force behind the Canadian Football League. At different times he owed the Ottawa Rough Riders and the Montreal Alouettes. In 1986 he was made a Member of the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honor, for "his commitments to the sport and to the City of Montreal". In 1993 he was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
1997: 15thMaccabiah comes to a close.
2001: Jewish American real estate mogul Larry A. Silverstein signs a $3.2 billion, 99-year lease on the entire World Trade Center complex, 7 weeks before the
September 11, 2001
attacks .
2002: Hadassah’s 88th annual national convention comes to a close
2002(15th of Av, 5762): Aaron Albert “Al” Silvera, a journeyman outfielder who played for two seasons with the Cincinnati Reds in the mid-1950’s passed away. This meant he was a teammate of such talented players as Johnny Temple, Roy McMillan and Slugger Ted Kluszewski. He was also the nephew of former Major League pitcher "Subway Sam" Nahem.
2003: At the Lincoln Center Festival, Israel’s Gesher Theatre gives its opening performance of of its adaptation of “Shosha.” The troupe has been invited to mark the Centennial of Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer's birth by performing two plays, including “Shosaha” which are based on his novels at the prestigious festival. Founded in 1991 in
Jaffa
, Gesher is one of the only bi-lingual theaters in the world performing with the same cast in Hebrew and in Russian alternately. Gesher means bridge in Hebrew, and the theater has done its part to bridge the Russian and Israeli cultures. While the Gesher has helped Russian speakers integrate themselves into Israeli society, it has also influenced other Israeli theaters to move away from a method-acting style and to follow Gesher’s founder and artistic director Yvgeny Arye’s lead in his use of music in his productions. Shosha is the story of unique characters in unique circumstances, as Singer himself described his novel. The play unfolds in 1930s
Warsaw
under the ominous shadow of Hitler's ascent to power. Aaron (Tsutsik) Greidinger is a young writer surrounded by a colorful society of bohemians, philosophers, Communist revolutionists, Jews and gentiles. There are five women in his life including his childhood love, Shosha. "Shosha is a play about what we have all lost, about a world with only a few days left to exist," says Arye. "Singer wrote Shosha after the fact, not as a sentimental memory, but from the point where the tragic end is already known. When I read the novel for the first time, I felt the characters' heartbeat. The problems they faced are similar to those we face today, the tug of war between Jewish identity and secular culture."
2004: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall, and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters by Ben Green.
2005: In “Giving Hitler Hell,” Matthew Brzezinski recounted the travels of Arnold H. Weiss from youthful refugee from Nazi Germany to his return as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army to his ultimate triumph as a successful businessman and philanthropist.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/21/AR2005072101680.html
2005(17th of Tammuz, 5765): Shiva Asar Be-Tammuz (Fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz).
2005: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Bernard Goldberg’s 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America which lists Jewish comedian Al Frankin as number 37.
2006: It was reported today that Randy Lerner, the son of the late Al Lerner intended to purchase Premier League club Aston Villa.
2006: During the 2006 Lebanon War, the IDF begins its attack on Bint Jbeil
2006: The following were among a total of 43 Israeli civilians (including four who died of heart attacks during rocket barrages) and 116 IDF soldiers were killed in the Israel-Hizbullah war:St.-Sgt. Koby Smileg, 20, of Rehovot; Col. Zvi Luft, 42, of Hogla; Sec.-Lt. Lotan Slavin, 21, of Hatzeva; Lt. Tom Farkash, 23, of
Caesarea
.
2007(9th of Av, 5767): Tish'a B'Av
2007(9thof Av, 5767):Psychoanalyst Albert Ellis “a founder of the now widely practiced cognitive behavioral therapy” whose “blunt advice to patients included “forget god-awful pasts, face fears and change actions” passed away at the age of 93.
2008: The three day Karmiel Dance festival comes to an end. www.karmeilfestival.co.il in English
2008: Begin reading Ezekiel as part of the “Daf Yomi Program” on DownHomeDavar
2009 (3rd of Av, 5769): One hundred twenty-eight anniversary of the arrival of “the first shipload of Russian Jewish immigrants who arrived in New York City” on 3rd of Av, 1881. “This began the mass immigration of eastern European Jews to America, and in the next half-century over 2 million Jews would flee Russian pogroms for the safety of the U.S. This influx indelibly altered the demographics of American Jewry; according to the U.S. census of 1940, 1.75 million Jews spoke Yiddish at home.”
2009(3rd of Av, 5769: Ninety year old George Weissman, the businessman and patron of the arts, who revamped Philip Morris, passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/business/28weissman.html
2009: The Junior Philharmonic gives its annual Jerusalem performance at the YMCA with a program that includes Beethoven’s Symphony #6 – Pastoral, Ravel’s Bolero and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.
2009: Amid another round of political scandals, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine named state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), a self-described “Jewish grandmother from Bergen County” as his new pick for lieutenant governor.
2010: In Cedar Rapids, Jacob Sarasin, son Amanda Colehour and Dr. Dan Sarasin (President of Temple Judah) was called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah.
2010: Opening night of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2010: Palestinian Authority terrorists in Gaza launched a number of rocket attacks on southern Israel today. At least four rockets and mortars were fired at Jewish communities in the Gaza Belt region throughout the day, including one attack on Kibbutz Nachal Oz. Several rockets exploded in the Ashkelon Regional Council district. No one was wounded in any of the attacks.One of the missiles appeared to be a special “import” (possibly from Iran)– a more advanced version than the missiles usually fired at Israel that had apparently been smuggled into the region
2011: The Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation is scheduled to host an Ice Cream Social For New and Prospective Members
2011: The Ritchie Boys Exhibit which will give visitors a chance to “witness how a small group of misfit intellectual Jewish boys formed a US Army intelligence unit and waged warfare against the Nazis during World War II” is scheduled to take place at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan Guy Stern, one of those "Ritchie Boys” is scheduled to attend the event.
2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug Cocaine b y Howard Markel and the recently released paperback edition of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters, edited by Bill Morgan and David Stanford
2011: A group of university students interrupted a Knesset Finance Committee meeting in Ramat Gan today, as part of the current protests against housing prices.
2011: At the International Math Olympiad that came to an end today, “Israeli whiz kids walk away from competition with 1 gold, 4 bronze medals, as Israel reaches 23rd spot out of 101 teams.”
2012: “God’s Fiddler,” a documentary about Jascha Heifitz and “The Moon is Jewish” are scheduled to have their west coast premieres at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2012: Marbin, which first started in 2007 as an improvised music duo consisting of Israeli-American guitarist Dani Rabin and Israeli saxophonist Danny Markovitch, is scheduled to perform at the Bowery Electric in New York
