July 29 In History
1099: Pope Urban II, the man behind the First Crusade, passed away. Considering the impact of the Crusades on the Jews of Europe, his impact on Jewish history is self-obvious.
1336: Led by John Zimberlin, a self-proclaimed prophet, a group of peasants in Germany known as the Armleder (for their leather straps warn on their arms) attacked Jewish communities in Franconia and the Alsace region. They also destroyed Jewish communities in
Bohemia
,
Moravia
and elsewhere along the
Rhine
. Roughly 1500 Jews were murdered. Eventually when the Armleder began to attack non-Jews, they were opposed by local Lords.
1567: James VI is crowned King of Scotland. Scotland’s King James VI will enter history as King James I of Great Britain, the monarch who gave his name to the King James Bible, the English translation of the holy book whose text most Americans (including many Jews) will think of as the real words of God.
1588: English naval forces under command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake defeats the Spanish Armada off the coast of Gravelines, France. The defeat of the Spanish Armada meant that the Catholics and their Inquisition would not take control of the British Islesor re-take the Netherlands, the Protestant nation that was haven for European Jews. Morrano spies reportedly provided information to the English which helped them to know when and where to expect the arrival of the Armada.
1644: Urban VIII, the Pope who issued an edict in 1625 forbidding Jews in Rome from erecting gravestones, passed away.
1808: As he prepared for surgery, Rothschild drew up his last will and testament.
1830: Abdication of Charles X of France. Charles abdicated in favor of his grandson. But the Chamber of Deputies rejected this move and chose Louis-Philippe, duc d'Orleans, to fill the vacant throne. This proved to be a good thing for the French Jews since Louis would ratify a motion putting Judaism on a par with Christianity, granting State support to Synagogues and their Minister of Religion. This meant that
France
extended financial support to Jewish religious institutions on par with Christian institutions.
1840: Birthdate of Simon Baruch, a physician, who was born in Schwersen, Germany (now part of Poland). He attended German schools and received a degree from the Medical College of Virginia (1862); was surgeon for the Confederate Army (1862-1865); and practiced in Camden, South Carolina, until 1881, then in New York. He was the Chairman of the South Carolina Board of Health (1880) and was the author of books on the use of hydrotherapy. He married Isabel Wolfe in 1867. His greatest claim to fame was that he was the father of Bernard Baruch, the famed financier and advisor to Presidents.
1847: Grace Aguilar made her last entry in her Frankfort Journal, a 34,000 word long effort that recorded her family’s journey through Belgian and Germany. It was also her last literary effort since she would pass away in September.
1849: Birthdate of Max Nordau. Born Simon Maximilian Südfeld in
Pest
,
Hungary
, he was a Zionist leader, physician, author, and social critic. He was a co-founder of the World Zionist Organization together with Theodor Herzl, and president or vice president of several Zionist congresses. Nordau died in
Paris
,
France
in 1923. In 1926 his remains were moved to Tel Aviv.
1850(20th of Av, 5610): Sarah Moses, the daughter of Abraham Moses and the wife of Lazarus Moses, passed away and was buried in Chatham, Kent, England.
1864: In article describing President Jefferson Davis' cabinet, the Richmond Sentinel reported that "The whole burden of the objections to the Secretary of State seems to have dwindled down to the fact that he is a Jew, for all admit his distinguished abilities. The time is at hand when his abilities will be needed, and we feel confident that when the occasion occurs he will not be found wanting, but will ably sustain the dignity of his office and his already acquired high reputation. "
1870: Benjamin Nathan’s body was discovered at 5:50 a.m. in his New York mansion. “Mr. Nathan was found lying dead with his skull smashed in…A heavy iron instrument used by ship carpenters called a ‘dog’ was found near the body.” This was the murder instrument. Apparently, Mr. Nathan was killed when he interrupted a robbery that was taking place at his home. (Despite the offering of a large reward and numerous arrests, the murder remains unsolved.)
1870: An “excitable weekly” called the Sunday Mercury published an unsigned article accusing Washington Nathan of murdering his father, Benjamin Nathan
1870: The New York Stock Exchange offered a $10,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the murder or murderers of Benjamin Nathan. Nathan had been a member of the Exchange for thirty years.
1873:At Castle Garden (NY), the President of the Romania Society presented a letter at today’s meeting of the Commissioners of Emigration requesting “that the board take charge of five Rumanian emigrants and send them back home.” The five are Orthodox Jews who could not exist on the food prepared at the commission’s Ward’s Island facility. The letter also stated that if the Commissioners would send the Jews home, the Society’s President would see to it “that the emigration” would be stopped in Roumania. The commission agreed to send them back and expressed “regret that the American Consul in Roumania had not stopped the emigration” in the first place.
1875: Suffering from the effects of his trip to Palestine, a fatigued Sir Moses Montefiore spends the day rest in bed.
1875: While visiting Palestine, Sir Moses Montefiore wrote a letter to Hayyim Guedalla in which he described the marked increase in the number of dwellings in Jerusalem, and, given the increasing density of the population, the need to start building “suitable dwellings” beyond the current city limits.
1876(8th of Av, 5636): Shabbat Chazon, Erev Tish'a B'Av
1877: It was reported today that the Jews have established Young Men’s Hebrew Associations in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago and Cincinnati. They are modeled after the YMCA’s. The Jewish Messenger “thinks the system should be extended to other cities” because they have the “power to mold American Judaism.”
1879(9th of Av, 5639):Tish'a B'Av
1879: The Standard’s Constantinople dispatch reported today that the Jewish quarter at Orta Keui, a village on the Bosporus, has been destroyed by “a terrific fire.”
1881: The first ships containing large numbers of Russian Jews arrived in
New York
following pogroms in
Russia
. This was the beginning of mass immigration to the
U.S.
during that would change the face of the American Jewish Community. The great waves of immigration would slow with World War I and come to a halt during the 1920's when an isolationism, nativism and racism closed the doors of
America
to most immigrants.
1882: In Hungary, Solomon Schwarz, Abraham Buxbaum, Leopold Braun, and Hermann Wollner, were charged with murdering a Christian girl named Esther Solymosi . Josef Scharf, Adolf Jünger, Abraham Braun, Samuel Lustig, Lazar Weissstein, and Emanuel Taub, were charged with voluntarily assisting in the crime. Anselm Vogel, Jankel Smilovics, David Hersko, Martin Gross, and Ignaz Klein, were charged with abetting the crime and smuggling the body. This case which turned into a blood libel began in April and would rile the kingdom for at least another two years.
1884: It was reported today two of the rioters who participated in the anti-Jewish riots at Zaleszozuky, Hungary were sentenced to five years in prison and another was sentenced to four years in prison. This was the Hungarian town that was the home of Esther Solomossy, a Christian girl who was allegedly killed by Jews as part of their religious ritiuals.
1885: The Chaplain of the British Embassy in Vienna has completed a census of the religious affiliations of Englishmen and Americans living in the Austrian capital. The Anglo-American population of 1,316 included 111 Jews.
1886: At their meeting this afternoon, The Commissioners of Emigration listened to an appeal by several Jewish leaders including a representative of the Hebrew Immigration Society on behalf of eastern European immigrants being detained on Ward’s Island. The commissioners accepted the argument by the Jewish leaders that the immigrants had friends who would take care of them and were not therefore not indigent. With the exception of a couple of the families in question, the rest were allowed to pass through Castle Garden on their way to a new life in the New World.
1887: Birthdate of composer, conductor Sigmund Romberg.
1887: Isaac Ullmann, Jr. the secretary of the Utopia club obtained an injunction today restraining the club from keep him from exercising his rights a member. The members of the Utopia Club are wealthy New Haven (Ct) Jews. Ullmann had been banned for a year when it was discovered that he had not paid a fine levied against him.
1887: Adolph Reich, who had been convicted of murdering his wife is scheduled to be hung today. When the Judge had pronounced the death penalty he expressed his surprise at a Jew being brought before him on such a charge, “since they were, as a rule orderly, law-abiding citizens.” He could not remember ever sentencing a Jew to be hanged.
1889: A three story house owned on Main Street, Sing Sing, owned by David Ross which was home to numerous Jewish peddlers burned in a fire that started at three in the morning. A machine shop owned by Abram Kipp then caught fire. By the time it was over, only the walls remained.
1889(1st of Av, 5649): Rosh Chodesh Av,\
1891: Birthdate of Bernhard Zondek, the German born Israeli gynecologist who developed the first reliable pregnancy test.
1895(8th of Av, 5655): Joseph Derenbourg, or Joseph Naftali Derenburg, a Franco-German orientalist, passed away. Born in Mainz 1811 when it was French-controlled, was he as a youngest son of the lawyer Jacob Derenburg. According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, "He was a considerable force in the educational revival of Jewish education in France." He made great contributions to the knowledge of Saadia, and planned a complete edition of Saadia's works in Arabic and French. A large part of this work appeared during his lifetime. He also wrote an Essai sur l'histoire ella geographie de la Palestine. This was an original contribution to the history of the Jews and Judaism in the time of Christ, and has been much used by later writers on the subject (e.g., by Emil Schürer). He also published in collaboration with his son Hartwig Derenbourg, Opuscules et traités d'Abou-l-Walid (with translation, 1880); Deux Versions hebraïques du livre de Kalilah et Dimnah (1881), and a Latin translation of the same story under the title Joannis de Capua directorium vitae humanae (1889); Commentaire de Maimonide sur la Mischnah Seder Tohorot (Berlin, 1886-1891); and a second edition of Silvestre de Sacy's Seances de Ilariri.
1895(8th of Av, 5655) Erev Tish'a B'Av
1898: “The Russian Jew in America” by Abraham Cahan, the man who ran the Forverts for 40 years appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. This brought together one of those unlikely combinations – the immigrant Jew and the classical WASP intellectual journal.
http://tenant.net/Community/LES/cahan5.html
1898: Birthdate of physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi Poland. His exploration of the atom earned him a Nobel Prize in 1944.
1905: Birthdate of American poet Stanley Kunitz. Kunitz was poet laureate in 2000.
1914: Birthdate of comedian and actor, "Professor" Irwin Corey
1921: Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party.
1923: The New York Times features a review of The Soul of Woman: A Reflection on a Life by Gina Lombroso, the Italian-Jewish sociologist.
1923: In Bennington, VT, Congregation Beth El, dedicated its new synagogue “at the corner of North and Adams Streets.” The congregation had been founded in 1909.
1928: The Day, a Jewish newspaper printed in New York City, published a report from its correspondent in Palestine that Frieda and Goldina Rubinson, two sisters born in Hamburg now living in Tel Aviv claimed that the late composer Giacomo Pucini had plagiarized the score of his opera “Turnadot” from them. They claim to have proof that they composed the work in 1896 at which time they obtained a copyright in Germany and the United States. The two sisters plan on making a trip to the United States to pursue their claim against, among others, the Metropolitan Opera Company which produced the work in 1927.
1929: Dr. Arthur Ruppin addressed the second session of the 16th Biennial Zionist Congress in Zurich, Switzerland today. He said that “conversion to other faiths, intermarriage, a decreasing birth rate and unchanged mortality rate” were “disintegrating forces menacing the continued existence of the Jews as a people.”
1930: Birthdate of Sol Steinmetz, the Hungarian born American “lexicographer, author and tenured member of Olbom (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1933: Birthdate of Viennese native Peretz Kidron who became a noted Israeli writer, journalist, and translator
1934: The New York Times publishes an article by Sir Herbert Samuel in which the first British High Commissioner for Palestine describes the progress and problems facing the country. His lengthy commentary is based on his first visit to Palestine in nine years.
1935: Publication of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence’s somewhat overwrought account of the “Arab Revolt” during World War I. Lawrence supported the interests of Feisal against the Europeans including his own British Foreign Office. Lawrence believed that there was room in the Middle East for both a Jewish homeland and an Arab Caliphate.
1936: The Palestine Post reported that a British constable and 10 Arabs fell in a day-long battle near Nablus. Among the many arrested, one Arab claimed that he was forced to join the marauders. The Royal Air Force joined the land forces in their organized pursuit of the rebels, many of whom escaped into the more inaccessible areas, carrying their wounded. Arab terrorists warned local Arab villagers living near Motza and other neighborhoods close to Jerusalem that they would be killed and their property destroyed unless they submitted to all their demands. Six Jewish communists were deported to
Russia
and one to
Poland
.
1936:The plan of the Austrian Government to broadcast to Germany the Salzburg festival performances has run afoul of Arturo Toscanini. It has just leaked out from circles in close contact with the Italian conductor that Mr. Toscanini has threatened to leave Salzburg immediately, never to return, if any performance conducted by him is broadcast to Germany.
1938(1st of Av, 5698): Rosh Chodesh Av
1938(1st of Av, 5698): Confronted with the realities of life in Nazi Germany, Dr. Friedreich Gernsheim and his wife Rosa committed suicide
1939: Ben Zion Meir Hai Uziel is installed as Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Haifa.
1940: Orson Welles films the first scene of his classic “Citizen Kane.” Herman J. Mankiewicz shared the Oscar for best screenplay for his work on this epic. Who actually wrote the screenplay would become a source of controversy with many critics siding with Mankiewicz.
1941(5th of Av, 5701): Twenty-nine Jewish mental patients from Lotz were taken away by truck and shot in the woods
1941: The Second Lvov Pogrom came to an end. “According to Yad Vashem 6 thousands Jews were killed by Einsatzgruppen, some Ukrainian nationalists and some Ukrainian militia.
1942: A religious youth center, Tiferet Bachurim, was secretly opened in the Kovno ghetto
1942: Signs were put up in the Warsaw Ghetto offering free bread for any family volunteering to be deported. This was a scheme designed to make the German job of rounding up 6,000 Jews a day a little easier.
1944: 3520 Jews are forced on a death march westward from
Warsaw
. More than 200 die.
1947(12th of Av, 5707): Leo Stein passed away in Florence, Italy. Born in 1872 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, he was an American art collector and critic. In addition to being elder brother to Gertrude Stein, he is also remembered as an influential promoter of 20th-century paintings.
1948: For the first time since the infamous 1936 Berlin Olympics, London hosts the Fourteenth Olympiad where two American Jews each won Gold Medals. Frank Spellman won his for weightlifting and Henry Wittenberg won his in freestyle wrestling.
1948: As the United Nations investigates claims by Azzam Pasha, the Secretary General of the Arab League, that Israeli forces had committed atrocities during Operation Shorter, a team of UN observers came to survey the damage” at al-Tira “and did not find any bodies…”
1951(25thof Tammuz, 5711): On the day before his 71st birthday, Bernhard Weiss, the most prominent Jewish member of the Berlin police department who challenged the Nazi Party and successfully sued Joseph Goebbels, passed away.
http://forward.com/articles/151805/jewish-creator-of-modern-german-police/
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the stage was set for the elections to the Second Knesset. The number of eligible voters reached 900,000. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs signed an agreement with the UN providing for the training of nine experts in various economic, social and administrative fields.
1954:The 1953 Stephen S. Wise award for an outstanding contribution to Jewish welfare was presented today to Youth Aliyah. The citation described the organization's work as "rescuing more than 65,000 children from over seventy-two lands during the past twenty years and educating them for creative citizenship in the land of Israel."
1957(1st of Av, 5717): Rosh Chodesh Av
1970(25th of Tamuz, 5730): Hungarian born conductor George Szell passed away. From 1946 until his death, Szell led the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra.
1974(10th of Av, 5734: Cass Elliott passed away. Born Ellen Naomi Cohen in
Baltimore
in 1941, Elliott dropped out of school, changed her name and headed for
New York
. She found fame in fortune performing with the singing group, Mamas and Poppas.
1975: President Gerald R. Ford became the first
U.S.
president to visit the site of the Nazi concentration camp
Auschwitz
in
Poland
as he paid tribute to the camp's victims.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported from Washington that contrary to earlier reports, the US had had direct contacts with the PLO "for some time" and that they would continue. Three hundred Americans were evacuated from
Lebanon
as Syrians and the PLO reached an agreement on this issue. The price of meat rose by two to three shekels per kilo as agreed between the Ministry of Commerce and Agriculture and the Histadrut's Consumer Authority.
1979(5th of Av, 5739): Herbert Marcuse leftist German born, American philosopher passed away. Marcuse influenced a whole generation of leftists, radicals and anarchists including Angela Davis and Abbe Hoffman.
1981(27th of Tamuz, 5741): Robert Moses passed away. Born into a well-to-do German Jewish family, Moses gained fame as
New York
’s master builder. Both his critics and his supporters agreed that he was one of the 20th century’s influential urban planners.
1981: A bus was attacked in the entrance to Kibbutz Ma'ale Hahamisha near
Jerusalem
. A boy of 12 and a girl of 17 were wounded.
1982(9th of Av, 5742): Tish'a B'Av
1982: Sir Zelman Cowen, who was the 19th Governor-General of Australia, completed his term of office.
1986(22nd of Tammuz, 5746): Seventy-seven year old Richard David Barnett passed. A product of Cambridge and a veteran of WW II, he was a distinguished academic who was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. He also served a President of the Jewish Historical Society of England and Chairman of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society.
1987: Ben & Jerry's agree on a new flavor - Cherry Garcia
1990(7th of Av, 5750): Bruno Kreisky passed away. When Kreisky became Prime Minister of Austria during the 1970’s, he was the first Jew to hold that position.
1992: Aryeh Gamliel begins serving as Deputy Minister of Housing and Construction.
1993: The Israeli Supreme Court acquits accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk of all charges and he is set free
1997:The documentary film Blacks and Jews, written and directed by Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow, was aired on PBS.
1998(6th of Av, 5758): Jerome Robbins, American choreographer passed away. The Tony Award winner’s list of famous musical is almost endless including West Side Story, The King and I, Gypsy and The Pajama Game.
2000: In “The Bible, as History, Flunks New Archaeological Tests; Hotly Debated Studies Cast Doubt on Many Familiar Stories,” Gustav Neibur described the supposed conflict between the tales of the Bible and findings of modern archaeology:
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/29/arts/bible-history-flunks-new-archaeological-tests-hotly-debated-studies-cast-doubt.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm
2001: The New York Times book section includes a review of Blue Diary by Jewish author Alice Hoffman
2003: President Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met at the White House.
2004: A photo exhibit designed to memorialize Anne Frank in what would have been her 75thyear closes at the Kraushaar Galleries in
New York City
.
2006: On Shabbat Chazon, Jews respond to a request from the Governing Council of the Chief Rabbinate by continuing to recite Psalms 83, 130 and 142 on a daily basis.
2007: The National Gallery of Art presents a screening of “The Dybbuk,” the Yiddish film based on Ansky’s celebrated drama.
2007: In Jerusalem, Off the Wall Comedy Empire presents "Find Me a Wife: Find You a Husband," an annual Tu B`Av special event show starring David Kilimnick. Kilimnick approaches the issues of the single man/woman in
Jerusalem
.
2007: The Washington Post book section features reviews of a biography of
America
’s first Jewish Secretary of State entitled Henry Kissinger and the American Centuryby Jeremi Suri and a novel entitled Kalooki Nights by Howard Jacobsen.The novel which purports to be an “examination of a Jewish sub-culture is a convoluted combination of family saga and semi-tepid murder mystery, focusing on its narrator, Max Glickman, a Jewish cartoonist with a hefty persecution complex and a series of anti-Semitic non-Jewish ex-wives.”
2007:“Ariel Sharon Hovers Between Life and Death and Dreams of Theodor Herzl” has its final performance at Theatre J.
2007: The first edition of Yisrael Hayom (Israel Today) appeared.
2007(14th of Av, 5767): Raya Czerner Schapiro, psychiatrist, Holocaust educator and author passed away at the age of 73 in Chicago. After a harrowing experience, Mrs. Schapiro arrived in the
United States
at the age of 5 after fleeing from Nazi occupied
Czechoslovakia
. She was inspired to pursue a medical career in memory of her uncle, a doctor, who had sheltered her before her escape and who died during the Holocaust.
2007: Rep. Anthony Weiner and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) objected to a $20 billion arms deal that the Bush Administration had negotiated with Saudi Arabia because they do not want to provide "sophisticated weapons to a country that they believe has not done enough to stop terrorism," also noting that 15 of the 19 hijackers of September 11, 2001 were from Saudi Arabia. Weiner made the announcement outside of the Saudi Arabian consulate in Washington, stating that "We need to send a crystal clear message to the Saudi Arabian government that their tacit approval of terrorism can't go unpunished."
2008: Robert Wexler, a six-term Jewish U.S. congressman from
Florida
, discusses and signs Fire-Breathing Liberal: How I Learned to Survive (and Thrive) in the Contact Sport of Congress(written with David Fisher) at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in
Washington
, D.C.
2009(8th of Av, 5759): Fast begins at sundown
2009(8th of Av, 5769): Eighty-six year old Dina Babiit who used her artistic skills to survive Auschwitz and to save her mother’s life, passed away.(As reported by Bruce Weber)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/arts/02babbitt.html
2009:The Randi & Bruce Pergament Jewish Film Festival came to a close with a “Closing Night Bash!” - A gala dessert reception and a chance to win membership and fitness benefits at the JCC.
2009: An archeologist announced today that a unique Aramaic inscription on a stone cup commonly used for ritual purity during the first century has been uncovered in a dig on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. The six-week excavation is being carried out within the Gan Sobev Homot Yerushalayim national park, close to the Zion Gate of the Old City. The 10-line Aramaic script, which is clear but cryptic, is being deciphered by a team of epigraphic experts in an effort to determine the meaning of the text, said Prof. Shimon Gibson, of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, who is co-directing the excavation. "This is a difficult script, not one that is worn or graded, which demands research," Gibson said. He estimated that it would take a couple of months to determine what the inscription says. "It is like digging out grandparents' hand-written letters," he quipped. Gibson said the find uncovered two weeks ago was rare because few inscriptions from the Second Temple Period had been discovered in Jerusalem. The dig also uncovered a sequence of building dating from the First and Second Temple periods through to the Byzantine and Early Islamic eras. The additional finds include a house complex with a mikve ritual bath featuring a remarkably well preserved vaulted ceiling. Three bread ovens - dated to 70 CE, when Titus and the Roman army stormed the city - were also found in the house. Archeologists believe that this area of Jerusalem's Upper City was the priestly quarter during Second Temple times. A large arched building with a mosaic floor from the Byzantine period preserved to a height of 3 meters was also uncovered. It may be part of a building complex or street associated with the nearby Church of St. Mary.
2009: In the aftermath of the fatal shooting of a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., a seven count indictment was handed up in U.S. District Court charging white supremacist James von Brunn in his murderous attacked on museum guard Stephen T. Johns.
2009: The New York Times reviews books by Jewish authors including Cooperstown Confidential: Heroes Rouges, and the Inside story of the Baseball Hall of Fame by Zev Chafets.
2010: “A Film Unfinished,” a rigorous and profound documentary that simultaneously exposes the perversity of Nazi propaganda, honors its victims and pays tribute to the resiliency of the filmmaker’s own grandmother and the other survivors of the Ghetto is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2010: The Washington Postreported today that Jewish nonprofit group whose leader was accused of fabricating dramatic stories about rescued sefer Torahs has reached a deal with Maryland investigators forbidding it from publicizing such stories about sacred scrolls unless it can prove them. The agreement ends an investigation into the Rockville-based Save a Torah and its driving force, Rabbi Menachem Youlus, often described as "The Indiana Jones of Torah Scribes." The probe followed a January Washington Post Magazine article that raised questions about Youlus's stories of rescuing Torahs hidden, lost or stolen during the Holocaust. In one story, Youlus claimed to have found a Torah hidden under the floorboards of a German concentration camp barracks years after the buildings had been demolished. In another, he described digging up a mass grave in the Ukraine and finding a Torah wrapped in a "Gestapo body bag." The Torahs were restored by Youlus, who owns a Jewish bookstore in Wheaton, and then sold to more than three dozen Jewish congregations and organizations, including Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Chinatown, Temple Isaiah in Fulton, Shaare Tefila in Silver Spring and several congregations in the Baltimore area. Under the deal reached this month with Maryland authorities, Save a Torah "will only describe where a Torah is found . . . if there is documentation or an independent verifiable witness to such history." The agreement was signed by the offices of Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler and Secretary of State Richard Morris and by Richard Zitelman, president of Save a Torah. Voice mail and e-mail messages left for Zitelman and Youlus were not immediately returned, but the group began an internal probe after The Post's article ran. Its statement about the probe, which is on the group's Web site, says independent investigators "found no evidence to contradict any information provided by Rabbi Youlus to the purchasers of his Torahs." But the investigators, who examined 11 Torahs, also noted in their report that they could not verify the stories about how the Torahs had been found and rescued. Asked whether the probe had found evidence of fraud, Gansler spokeswoman Raquel Guillory said only that the investigation is over and that the agreement "addresses all the concerns our office had and clarifies how the company will do business going forward." The man who pushed for the investigation, Menachem Rosensaft, a vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, said Wednesday that he was disappointed that no one was charged but that he thought the agreement makes it clear that Youlus is a con artist. "Those stories are not just fantasies but desecration of memories," said Rosensaft, a New York law professor. "You have well-meaning people who think they are commemorating victims of the greatest atrocity in history and instead have really turned out to be victims of a scam." Rabbi Shoshana Hantman, who paid $6,000 for a Torah for her tiny congregation in Westchester, N.Y., also questioned why there were no sanctions or punishment and why the agreement doesn't note whether Youlus and the nonprofit will still be allowed to accept donations. "We were hoping that he would have to either shut down his operations or stop accepting donations," Hantman said. "That would be our main concern, if he's still taking donations for what is essentially a bogus operation." Over the past several years, the group has raised between $250,000 and $300,000 a year, including money from boys and girls making donations in honor of their bar and bat mitzvahs. Hantman said she no longer believes that the Torah she purchased was found in a mass grave in the Ukraine, as Youlus told her. "But it hasn't changed our feeling about our Torah," she added. "We love it, no matter where it came from."
2010: Israel is tied with Canada, Switzerland, and Australia as the world's eighth happiest country out of 155 surveyed, according to a Gallup World Poll posted by Forbes today. Forbes said the richest countries were by and large the happiest. Scandinavian countries dominated the list, with Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands taking all top five spots. African nations took up most of the bottom, with Sierra Leone, Cambodia (not African), Comoros, Buriundi, and Togo ranking as the unhappiest countries on earth. Israel far outstripped its neighbors in happiness, with Jordan ranking 52, Lebanon 73, Egypt and Syria 115. The Palestinian Territories were 88 on the list. The US ranked number 14 on the list, ahead of Britain, 17.
2010: Congressman Anthony “Weiner criticized Republicans for opposing the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. This act would provide for funds for sick first responders to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, many of whom reside in Weiner's district. In a speech on the floor of the House, he accused Republicans of hiding behind procedural questions as an excuse to vote against the bill.”
2011: “Sarah’s Key,” a French film that centers on events that began with the roundup of French Jews in 1942, is scheduled to open in major US cities today.
2011: Starting at 1 pm, a Beach Party, complete with eighty-tons of sand brought in just for the event, is scheduled to take place at the Malcha Mall in Jerusalem.
2011: Following a day of advocacy and meetings at the White House, grassroots leaders from about twenty Jewish social justice organizations are scheduled to gather for Shabbat services and dinner at the Historic Sixth & I Synagogue in Washington, DC.
2011: As the doctor’s labor dispute entered its 132nd day Israel Medical Association chairman Dr. Leonid Edelman continued his one-man hunger strike
2011(27th of Tammuz, 5771): Tens of thousands mourned the death of Rabbi Elazar Abuchatzeira at his Jerusalem funeral this afternoon, after he was stabbed to death in the early hours of the morning. The funeral procession set out from the Porat Yosef yeshiva in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighborhood, where Abuchatzeria was eulogized by Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef among others. The procession proceeded to the Mount of Olives Cemetery, where, Abuchatzeira, the grandson of Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeira, known as the Baba Sali, was buried. The Baba Sali was was believed by his followers to work miracles and was one of the leaders of the aliya of Moroccan Jews to Israel. The funeral was attended by Israel's chief Rabbis Yona Metzger and Shlomo Amar as well as by haredi MKs and ministers. Rabbi Abuchatzeira was stabbed in a Beersheba yeshiva just after midnight today. Stunned followers told police Abuchatzeira was stabbed in the upper body by a man he had received as a visitor. Rabbi Abuchatzeira was rushed to the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba in critical condition. Paramedics attempted to resuscitate him, but he died en route to the hospital. Police arrested a suspect, Asher Dahan, 42 from Elad, who they said was delivered to officers by a crowd. The suspect was taken for questioning. Judges in the Beersheba Magistrates' Court ruled Friday morning to extend the arrest of Dahan. Dahan's arrest was extended and he will remain in custody until a further hearing on August 10. Judge Amit Cohen also ordered that Dahan undergo a psychiatric evaluation. The motive for the homicide has not been established at this stage. Dahan's attorney said that his client said that he did not intend to kill Rabbi Abuchatzeira and he was sorry for his actions, according to an Army Radio report.
2011: Women’s organizations that operate public day care centers for preschoolers, including WIZO and Naamat, today called for parents to join the housing protests and take part in demonstrations on Saturday night. The organizations said that the call comes following an announcement from the Finance and Industry Ministries' proposing a solution the law that currently offers education free from the age of three.
2011: After finishing his career at Wisconsin, Gabe Carimi signed a four year contract today with the Chicago Bears.
2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg and An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted and the Miracle Drug Cocaine by Howard Markel
2012(9th of Av, 5772): Tish’a B’Av
2012: The fundraiser being held for US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney while he’s in Israel is scheduled to start at 9:30 p.m. this evening well after Tisha B’Av ends at sundown. The fundraiser will reportedly cost $60,000 a plate.
2012: “Glickman,” a documentary about Marty Glickman, is scheduled to have its Bay Area Premiere at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
