August 22 In History
70: According to Jospehus, Titus began the battering operations against the wall of the Temple Court 6:4)
1370: Judah Alatzar of Barcelona, a Spanish Jew, lent the king and queen 110,000 sueldos so they could equip ten ships which would transfer the Pope from Rome to Avignon.
1400: On the day that Emperor Wenceslaus was deposed and Rupert of the Paletine was elected his successor, seventy-seven Jews were executed and three weeks later three more were led to the stake.
1454: Jews of Brno (now a city in the Czech Republic; then a free imperial city of Moravia) were expelled by King Ladislaus
1485: In England the forces of Richard III are defeated at the Battle of Bosworth Field, where loses Richard loses and the House of Plantagenet loses control of the throne to the House of Tudor. It was a Plantagenet king who expelled the Jews from England. Henry VIII, the second Tudor King to sit on the throne, promised that no Jews would be allowed to live in England as part of the marriage agreement with his Spanish born wife. But Henry would inadvertently open the way for the Jews to return when he broke with the Catholic Church over the matter of his divorce. So, on balance, the outcome of the Battle of Bosworth Field was a win for the Jews even though they were not there and the “win” was a long time in coming.
1604: An exemption was issued by the Pope allowing Portuguese conversos to seek pardon for their "offenses," and have their items returned to them. This order was not respected by the Inquisition in the New World.
1609: On the secular calendar Judah Loew ben Bezalel ("Judah Loew son of Bezalel" widely known to scholars of Judaism as the Maharal of Prague, or simply as the Maharl passed away. MaHaRaL is the Hebrew acronym of Moreinu ha-Rav Loew, "Our Teacher the Rabbi Loew". “Yehudah Loew of Prague, also known as the Maharal, was one of the outstanding Jewish minds of the sixteenth century. He wrote numerous books on Jewish law, philosophy, and morality, and developed an entirely new approach to the aggadah of the Talmud. The Maharal rejected the idea that boys should begin instruction at an early age, insisting instead that children be taught in accordance with their intellectual maturity. He was held in great esteem by his contemporaries and has had a profound impact on all streams of Judaism. Rabbi Kook stated that the "Maharal was the father of the approach of the Gaon of Vilna on the one hand, and of the father of Chasidut, on the other hand." Rabbi Shneur Zalman, founder of Chabad Chasidism, and a direct descendant of the Maharal, bases much of his famous work - the Tanya - on the teachings of his great grandfather. Ironically, he is credited with the creation of a golem, an activity he would probably have opposed. A golem is a human figure created from clay and brought to life by use of the Ineffable Name of God. Since the letters of that name were considered to be the original source of life, it is thought possible for one knowledgeable in the secrets of the Divine Power to use them to create life. Discussions of golems go back to the Talmud. Rava is said to have created such a man. In the sixteenth century numerous golems were said to have been created, but in each case their power increased and threatened human life, so they were destroyed by their makers. Yehudah Loew of Prague was said to have created a golem to protect the Jewish community from Blood Accusations. It was close to Easter, and a Jew-hating priest was trying to incite the Christians against the Jews. The golem protected the community from hard during the Easter season. However, the creature threatened innocent lives, so Yehudah Loew removed the Divine Name, thus rendering the golem lifeless. Today someone who is large but intellectually slow is sometimes called a golem. Pete Hamill has written a book called Snow in August about a golem created in the late 1940's in Brooklyn. The Maharal was very active in community work. He did much to improve social ethics. He was a far-seeing educator whose many ideas for educational reform struck deep chords in many people. His resting place in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague is still visited today by thousands of people” (From the Jewish Virtual Library)
1614: Vincent Fettmilch of Frankfurt, a former pastry cook and leader of the Guilds, calling himself the "new Haman of the Jews" attacked the synagogue while the community was at prayer. Although many tried to organize a defense, they were soon overpowered and many took shelter in the cemetery while the community was destroyed. He and his accomplices were hanged and quartered for it 2 years later. They were not hanged for their attacks on the Jews. They were hanged because they had decided to attack the wealthy nobles.
1639: Madras (now Chennai), India, is founded by the British East India Company on a sliver of land bought from local Nayak rulers. Jewish merchants played a significant role in Madras as can be seen from the fact that three Jewish merchants were among the 12 Alderman nominated to serve on the first local governing council established in 1688. One of the first Jews who came to Madras with special permission to reside and trade there was Jacques (Jaime) de Paiva (Pavia), originally from Amsterdam. Most Jews living in Madras were or English or Portuguese origin. They exported diamonds extracted from the mines at Goloconda to England and imported silver and coral. The Jewish community in Madras no longer exists but evidence of its vitality can be seen the Jewish cemetery located on Mint Street.
1642: King Charles I effectively began the English Civil War by branding the members of the House of Commons as traitors. As a result of the war, Charles would lose his head and Cromwell would become head of the English government. Cromwell made it possible for the Jews to return to England in an open fashion after a three century absence.
1654: Jacob Barsimson, who some claim was the first Jew to settle in North America, arrived in New Amsterdam. However, the official founding of the Jewish community in the United States is dated from September 23, 1654 when 23 Jewish refugees arrived from Recife.
1664: Kings Charles II of England responded to a petitions from “the Hebrews in his realm” by saying that as long as they (the Jews) demean themselves peaceably and with due submission to the laws, they may presumed they will enjoy the same favor as they formerly held.
1664: In England, the Jews were granted Royal protection
1800: Birthdate of Samuel David Luzzatto, Italian-Jewish scholar.
1802: Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, the Batavian (Dutch) Ambassador to France delivered a note to the French foreign minister on behalf of the Jews of Germany.
1810 Birthdate of Hirschel Eliazer Kann, one of the founders of Lissa & Kann, a Dutch banking house.
1821: On this day came an end of the Spanish Inquisition in Venezuela. The Venezuela government wrote, "The Tribunal of the Inquisition, also known as the Holy Office, shall be abolished."
1843(26 Av, 5603): Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the third Rebbe of the Chabad dynasty, popularly known as the "Tzemach Tzedek," finally departed Petersburg having successfully prevented the government's disruption of traditional Jewish life. “In 1843, the Interior Ministry of the Czarist government convened a rabbinical conference in the Russian capital of Petersburg, to the end of imposing changes in Jewish communal life and religious practice. Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch (1789-1866, known as the "Tzemach Tzeddek" after his Halachic works by that name) was invited; as a primary figure in the leadership of Russian Jewry, his compliance was required to lend legitimacy to the government's proposed "reforms". In the course of the conference, the Tzemach Tzeddek was placed under arrest no less than 22 (!) times for his refusal to cooperate.” Third in the line of leaders of the Chabad movement was after the title of his voluminous responsa.
1853: Solomon Nunes Carvalho, a South Carolina born Sephardic Jew signed on with explorer and U.S. military officer John C. Fremont as an artist and daguerreotypist. Carvalho would create of a pictorial record of the “Pathfinder’s” expedition that explored the Rocky Mountain region.
1855: Mademoiselle Rachel, the great French Tragedienne, whose visit to the United States has been proclaimed in all the public prints for some months past, arrived today on the SS Pacific. Mademoiselle Rachel is Elizabeth Rachel Felix, the daughter of a German-Swiss Jew named Felix and his wife Esther Haya. She has an older sister named Sarah with whom she used to sing as a child.
1855: Birthdate of Franz Heyse, the first son of Paul Heyse, German-Jewish author and translator.
1860(4th of Elul, 5620): Samuel Holdheim passed away. Born in 1806, he was a German rabbi and author, and one of the early leaders of the Reform Movement in Judaism.
1864: Twelve nations sign the first Geneva Convention creating the Red Cross. The International Red Cross, as opposed to the American organization, has a negative image among Jews because of its unwillingness to recognize the Magen David as a variant of the Cross even though it allows for other variations including the Moslem Red Crescent.
1865(30th of Av, 5625): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1874: Birthdate of Max Scheler, German philosopher. Born to a Lutheran father and an Orthodox Jewish mother, Scheler opted to convert to Catholicism.
1875: A an article was published today that had originally appeared in Fraser’s Magazine (an English publication) which describes a visit to dealer in antiques and jewelry whose small shop is located on a dark and dirty lane in London. The owner of the shop is referred to as “Cohen Hertzog,” although that is not his name and he is described as a “Hebrew” and “a cosmopolitan” – a little old man with high wrinkled forehead and long white beard, a black velvet skull-cap upon his head, keen eyes that sparkle like his diamonds, and an intellect as sharp…as the file with which he tests them.” The Jew’s speech is written in a dialect saying “dese” for these, “tings” for things, etc. And during his oration the Jew reveals that the only thing for which he cares are the gems that he collects and sells. No exactly a portrait of the Rothschilds but certainly a view of the Jew held by many English men and women of the day.
1875: An article entitled “The Talmud” which was first published in the Cornhill Magazine, a popular Victorian journal describes why this “extensive storehouse of Hebrew wisdom,” this “‘extraordinary monument of human industry, human intelligence and human folly’” has become “a faded memory” for the “greater majority of both Jews and Christians.” The reasons are two-fold. First, the Talmud is difficult to study and master; having it own lexicon and language. Secondly, from the Christian point of view the Talmud is filled with heresies which Bacon describes as “absurd trash”; the same words he used to describe the Koran, the Spurious Gospels and the Generations of Jesus.
1875: An article entitled “The Author of Toldoth Jeshu” which was first published in the Cornhill Magazine,a popular Victorian reported that the author of this work known in English as “The Generations of Jesus” was written by a 17th century “Bohemian Jew” known as “Chaim or Joachim who was converted to Christianity and baptized Ferdinand Francis. Thanks to the work of Johann Christoph Wagenseil, the German professor of Oriental Languages, the book was exposed as being blasphemous in its description of Jesus and Ferdinand Francis was condemned to be hanged in the fish market at Vienna. When the condemned man was offered a crucifix by a Jesuit he threw it on the floor and “told the people…that he had only adopted the Christian faith for reason of political convenience.” Ferdinand was then tortured by the his captors but did not cry out in pain. When they cut off his hand he said it was just punishment for turning his back on the faith of his fathers. And he continued to utter the prayers of his people until he died. In the mean time, the shops of the Jews were pillaged; they were robbed of their money and gems even if that meant cutting off their fingers and many were stoned to death. [Unfortunately for Ferdinand Francis, Toldoth Jeshu had been around since the 6th century, so he could not have been its author, regardless of he what he or Wagenseil might have said.]
1880: “A Lost Tribe” published today reviewed Wojinstwujusci Israil by W.J. Remirowitch-Dantschenko which described his encountered with a tribe in the highlands of the Daghesan that look like Cossacks but are Jews who follow “the Mosaic.” Their presence must date back to the days of the Judean kings since they know nothing about the Second Temple or the Temple.
1882: A review of the new musical “Black Flag” published today described the humorous performance by Nat Goodwin who played the role of “Sim Lazarus, an absurd London Jews of the kind that pleases for some occult reason the sense of the ridiculous in the average Hebrew…” [Goodwin was a famous 19thcentury American actor whose roles included Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice.”]
1883: It was reported to that an unnamed American Jew was expelled from St. Petersburg in accordance with Russian law that forbids Jews from living in the city.
1884(1stof Elul, 5644): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1884: It was reported today that fourteen houses and shops belonging to Jews were ransacked and demolished during anti-Jewish riots in Yekaterinoslav, Russia. Two Jews and one rioter were killed during the riots. Unlike other times, the Jews defended themselves from their attackers.
1884: In New York, Justice Power is scheduled to hear the case of Alexander Labotsky whose wife Frieda accused him of having deserted her. Frieda came to the United States ago from Poland. Labotsky said he left Poland because of her; that he had sent her papers for a divorce; and that he would support her financially but would never leave with her again as the Judge had previously suggested.
1885: “The Will of Montefiore” published today uses information that originally appeared in the London Jewish Chronicle to provide a detailed summary of the will of the Sir Moses Montefiore which was executed in January of 1882. The will is twenty pages long and shows that his personal estate is worth between £350,000 and £380,000. The executors include Lord Rothschild, Joseph Sebag and Arthur Cohen. Among those receiving bequest are United Synagogue, Bevis Marks and various charitable institutions in Jerusalem and Palestine.
1885: “His Father to the Rescue” published today described an altercation in Chicago between Henry L. Ottenheimer who spanked 8 year old Robbie Garland for calling him a “Polish Jew” and his father R.H. Garland who came to the boy’s rescue.
1886: Eighty-four year old Professor Calvin E. Stowe, the husband of Harriet Beecher Stowe passed away. Among his best known works were History of the Hebrew Commonwealth and Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews
1887: The will of millionaire Levi Rosenfeld was admitted to probate today in Chicago, Illionis.
1888: The ninth free excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will leave from the foot of the 5th street pier and the East River this morning.
1889: As president of the board of regents of Indiana’s Soldiers and Sailors Monument, Frederick Knefler, the Jewish Civil War general, oversaw today’s laying of the cornerstone in the center of Indianapolis.
1891: Birthdate of Jacques Lipchitz. Born Chaim Jacob Lipchitz in Druskininkai, Lithuania, this American artist was a leading Cubist sculptor.
1893: Birthdate of Dorothy Parker. Born Dorothy Rothschild, she was an American writer and poet best known for her caustic wit, wisecracks, and sharp eye for twentieth century urban foibles. She passed away in 1967
1894: In an article entitled “Religious Duties May Interfere – Hebrews May Not Serve as Inspectors of Election in October,” the New York Times reports that Jews will be limited in their ability to serve as voter registration officers this fall since the first day of registration falls on October 9 which is Erev Yom Kippur. Jewish officials will have to leave their posts early because they have to be in their synagogues before sundown.
1895: The first conference of Russian Zionists that was secretly held in Warsaw comes to and end.
1903: After attending the Shabbat service in the Basel synagogue, Herzl invites a number of leaders including the Russians Mandelstamm, Yelski, Bernstein-Kohan and Tshlenov as well as Wolfssohn, Marmorek, Cowen and Zangwill into Joseph Cowen's room in order to win them over to the Uganda Project. The final decision is to present the offer to the Congress.
1906(1stof Elul, 5666): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1909: Birthdate of Screenwriter Julius J. Epstein. Among his more noted accomplishments; Epstein wrote the un-produced play that became the Academy Award winning film Casablanca. He is also the great-uncle of Theo Epstein, the baseball executive who brought the Red Sox the World Series Championship that broke the Babe Ruth Curse. During the Red Scare, Epstein appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee where he denied being a member of the Communist Party. However, when asked if he had ever worked for a subversive organization he reportedly replied, “Yes, Warner Brothers.”
1911: During the Tredgar Riots, another day of attacks on the Jews of New South Wales in the worst outbreak of anti-Semitic violence in modern British history
1913: In Brooklyn, Isaac and Sophie Sackler gave birth to “Dr. Arthur M. Sackler, medical researcher, publisher and art collector extraordinaire…”
1925: Birthdate of Irving David Chais Irving D. Chais, owner and chief surgeon of the New York Doll Hospital.
1927: Birthdate of Walter Goodman, the Bronx native and reporter for the New York Times and “the author of a widely read history of the House Committee on Un-American Activities.” (As Reported by Douglas Martin)
1933: The Central Verein Zeitung, the “official organ of the Central Union of German Jews, was ordered closed until September 2 without explanation.”
1933: A demand that within the next ten years land and employment must be provided in Palestine for hundreds of thousands of Jews and in the next two generations for millions was the feature of the political report presented in today's session of the Eighteenth World Zionist Congress meeting in Prague by Professor Selig Brodetzky of Leeds, England.
1935: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of New York was invited today to address the World Zionist Congress on Jewry's position throughout the world after he had demanded a full discussion of the situation in Germany.
1936:The American consul general in Jerusalem cabled the U.S. Secretary of State to report, " A local committee of five representative Americans (leading Zionists) has been formed to meet the [Senate] party on arrival and has planned propaganda visits to Jewish colonies before proceeding [to] Jerusalem... [The] junket is designed to appeal to pro-Jewish propaganda.... The [British] Chief Secretary of the Palestine Government takes position on grounds of safety alone that the party cannot be permitted to tour country. With this I fully concur, particularly in view of present recrudescence of terrorism and especially as Zionists are sponsoring tour."
1937: The Jewish Agency Council successfully completed its deliberations at Zurich. After prolonged deliberations unity had been achieved between the Zionist and non-Zionist members. A unanimously adopted resolution stated that partition or no partition, the Zionist work in Palestine must go on. Dr. Chaim Weitzman stressed that the Jewish people were and would always be deeply conscious of their debt to Great Britain, which had exerted herself to do something for the Jewish people and created the indispensable conditions for the creation of a Jewish National Home. The Zionist Executive resolved to ask the British Government to discuss the implementation and broadening of the Peel Report and to arrange for a joint Jewish-Arab conference.
1938(25th of Av, 5698): Jonah Israelovitch, a 36 year old laborer was shot to death by Arab snipers who fired on a bus near Tel Aviv that was carrying workers to Holon.
1938: Firefighters in Jerusalem fought to contain a blaze in a Jewish owned lumberyard started by Arab arsonists that threatened to spread to nearby petroleum storage tanks owned by Standard Oil.
1938: Authorities found the bodies of three Arabs on the Acre-Safed road with a note pinned to the victims written in Arabic that state “So may it be done traitors.” The dead bodies with the note attach appear to be part of a campaign by Arab terrorists to intimidate those in their community who do not support their aims and/or tactics.
1942: Ten thousand Jews from Wielun, Poland, are deported to the Chelmno death camp.
1942: Four hundred Ukrainians, joined by the Polish police and SS troops, surrounded the ghetto and the next day 10,000 Jews were deported to the Treblinka death camp and 2,000 were executed in the Jewish cemetery. See attached for the photographic record.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/august/07.asp
1942: The Jewish community from Losice, Poland, is liquidated at the Treblinka death camp.
1954: Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, opens its fortieth annual convention today at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
1960: After starter Don Drysdale is driven from the mound by the bats of the Giants, Larry Sherry tames San Francisco and gets the win when the Dodgers bats come alive for an 8 to 5 victory.
1966: In an interview published today, Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits described his challenge while serving as the leader of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue as being “to make Orthodoxy elegant and fashionable and to show that you don’t have to live on the Lower East Side in squalor to be a strictly traditional Jew.” Jakobovits is the newly named Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth.
1969: Birthdate of Jonathan Stuart Goldstein, “an American-Canadian author, humorist and radio producer” who is “known for his work on the radio programs This American Life and WireTap.”
1971(1st of Elul, 5731): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1972: Hadassah, the women's Zionist organization, emphasized its concern about the plight of Soviet Jews by giving its highest award to a Soviet Jewish woman and announcing a training program for 20 refugee Russian Jewish doctors and 10 scientists now in Israel.
1973: U.S. President Richard Nixon names Henry Kissinger as Secretary of State. Kissinger is the first Jew to hold this post. This stands in stark contrast to the anti-Semitic remarks that one hears uttered by Nixon on several of his taped conversations.
1976(26thof, 5736): Reb Avraham Yaakov, the leader of the Sadigur Chassidim passed away today in Israel
1977: The US confirmed that Israel had used American-supplied military equipment to assist the Christian forces fighting in Southern Lebanon, but denied that such action was a violation of any US-Israeli agreement.
1977: Egypt was accused by a senior defense source of serious violations of the Sinai agreement by moving forces in the Limited Forces Zone far beyond the acceptable limits.
1977: The Haifa Rabbinical Court ruled that artificial insemination does not constitute adultery. A husband whose wife bore a child by artificial insemination with his consent is responsible for the child’s upkeep.
1982: Rabbi Wall of Burlington presided at the ceremonies formally dedicating the new home of Congregation Beth-El in St. Johnsbury, Vermont
1982: General Ariel Sharon urged Palestinians to discuss peaceful coexistence.
1987:''From Marees to Picasso: Masterworks From the Von der Heydt Museum of Wuppertal,'' a new selection of Israeli art, on display at the Tel Aviv Museum is scheduled to come to any.
1990(1st of Elul, 5750): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1991: The NYPD changed their tactics in dealing with the violence in Crown Heights. Initially, the Department had practiced a strategy of containment in response to mounting violence in the streets, directing its officers only to stop the spread of disorder, but not to try to dispel it. At the same time some community leaders engaged in “blatantly anti-Semitic rhetoric” including Reverend Al Sharpton who said, "The world will tell us that he (Cato) was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident? It's an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights."
1993: The Independent published “Why the BBC ignored the Holocaust: Anti-Semitism in the top ranks of broadcasting and Foreign Office staff led to the news being suppressed” by Stephen Ward.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/why-the-bbc-ignored-the-holocaust-antisemitism-in-the-top-ranks-of-broadcasting-and-foreign-office-staff-led-to-the-news-being-suppressed-says-stephen-ward-1462664.html?printService=print
1994: The third in a series of family tours to Israel sponsored by the American Jewish Congress is scheduled to come to an end.
1998(30th of Av, 5758): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1998: On cemetery ridge overlooking Dawson City in Canada's far northwest Yukon Territories, "Beth Chaim," the resting place of some five Jews, was today. Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Herb Gray, who is Jewish, was the keynote speaker and guests from Vancouver to Toronto joined locals to commemorate the Yukon-led cleanup of this old, nearly forgotten testament to the wandering Jews of a century ago.
1999: The New York Times book section featured a review of Foreign Brides by Elena Lappin, editor London’s “Jewish Quarterly” Actual Air Poems by David Berman, Three Dollars by Australian Jewish author Elliot Perlman and Identity’s Architect: A Biography of Erik H. Erikson by Lawrence J. Friedman whose grandfather, “an Orthodox Jew and a Talmudic scholar, who would always be at the kitchen table going through books, the Old Testament, everything else, and insisting that I would study with him, that I would be clear, be logical, be precise, and I could sometimes win some arguments against my folks by doing that.”
2003: Alabama's chief justice, Roy Moore, was suspended for his refusal to obey a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of his courthouse. This is one of a series of attempts to undermine the doctrine of the separation of church and state which is cornerstone of American democracy and one of the reasons that Jews have thrived in the United States.
2004: The Sunday New York Timesbook section includes a review of A Man’s Guide to a Civilized Divorce: How to Divorce With Grace, a Little Class, and a Lot of Common Sense
by Jewish attorney Sam Margulies and Jerome Robbins: His Life, His Theater, His Dance by Deborah Jowitt, “ grand survey of the great and deservedly popular choreographer of ballet and Broadway, as well as a personal examination of a radically unhappy man; at 57 he could call himself '’a Jewish ex-commie fag who had to go into a mental hospital.’”
2005(17th of Av, 5765): Ninety-one year Dr. Morris Ziff, an expert in rheumatic diseases passed away today in Dallas. (As reported by Jeremy Pearce)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/30/national/30ziff.html?pagewanted=print
2005: Red Sea Jazz Festival Opens.
2005: Israeli newspapers reported that all but one settlement in Gaza had been evacuated. The evacuation has gone faster than the government had planned and bulldozers have already begun leveling the buildings left behind.
2006: Shawn Green was dealt, along with $6.5 million in cash, by the Arizona Diamondbacks to the New York Mets for Triple-A 23-year-old left-handed pitcher, Evan MacLane. Green is Jewish; MacLane is not.
2006: Israel's police raid the home of their State President and seize computers and documents in connection with rape and abuse allegations against him.
2007(8thof Elul, 5767): Eighty-four year old author and social activist Grace Paley passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/books/23cnd-paley.html?pagewanted=print
2007: The Palestine Monitor a blatantly pro-Palestinian publication openly rebukes American Presidential candidate Rudi Giuliani for his statement that 'Palestinian statehood will have to be earned through sustained good governance, a clear commitment to fighting terrorism, and a willingness to live in peace with Israel.’
2008: The Saul Steinberg: Illuminations travelling exhibition, which displays original Steinberg works at various museum and galleries around the world is scheduled to open in Zurich.
2008: At the Jerusalem Cinematheque a screening of “The Summer of Aviya \ הקיץ של.” “In the summer of 1951 in the newly established State of Israel, a ten-year-old girl named Aviya is reunited with her mother Henya, a mentally disturbed Holocaust survivor. Sensitive and understanding, loving her mother and pitying her, while dreaming and longing for her father, Aviya tries as best as she can to support and comfort her. Henya, hounded by memories from her past, gradually begins to fall apart emotionally. Eventually her condition deteriorates to a point where she must be returned to a mental hospital and little Aviya is again separated from her mother. The film is based on the autobiographical experience of Gila Almagor, who starred in the film as well as co- writing and co-producing it.”
2008: The Cedar Rapids Gazettereported that Iowa State labor officials are citing meatpacking plant Agriprocessors with 31 new and repeat safety violations.
2008: An article in the Chicago Jewish News describes the relationship between the Obama family and Rabbi Capers Funnye. According to the New York Times, “Michelle Obama, wife of the Democratic presidential nominee, and Rabbi Capers Funnye, spiritual leader of a mostly black synagogue on Chicago’s South Side, are first cousins once removed. Funnye’s mother, Verdelle Robinson Funnye (born Verdelle Robinson) and Michelle Obama’s paternal grandfather, Frasier Robinson Jr., were brother and sister. Funnye (pronounced fuh-NAY) is chief rabbi at the Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in southwest Chicago. He is well-known in Jewish circles for acting as a bridge between mainstream Jewry and the much smaller, and largely separate, world of black Jewish congregations, sometimes known as black Hebrews or Israelites. He has often urged the larger Jewish community to be more accepting of Jews who are not white.”
2009: In Jerusalem, The Acco Theater's Dance Incubator presents "Neuronervana", a unique and creative dance performance.
2009: As we sit in the synagogue and hear the opening lines of “Shoftim,” friends and family of Shelly Luber, of blessed memory, are reminded that this was his Bar Mitzvah portion a quarter of a century ago.
2009: Hurling rocks and chanting slogans, hundreds of haredi protesters took part in demonstrations against the opening of a parking lot opposite the Old City, in what has become a weekly confrontation over Shabbat observance in the capital.
2010: In Quebec, KlezKanada is scheduled to come to a close.
2010: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Jonathan Schneer
2010: A demonstration is scheduled to take place today outside of the BBC headquarters to protest “Death in the Med,” a documentary that examined the ill-fated confrontation between the Israelis and blockade-breaking flotilla headed for Gaza. .
2011: The New York City International Film Festival is scheduled to show נגטיב (Negative) directed by Yoav Hornung and בן חוזר הביתה (Ben is Back).
2011:After a meeting that concluded at 3 o’clock this morning Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his cabinet ministers concluded that Israel will not respond to the attacks from Gaza with a large-scale operation.
2011:Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks on southern Israel resumed yesterday evening and continued into the early hours of this morning after a lull during the afternoon. In the morning, more than 20 rockets were fired at southern cities. Three Kassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip after midnight landed in Sderot, the Eshkol Regional Council area and on the outskirts of Ashkelon. No injuries or damage were reported in the attacks.
2011(22ndof Av, 5771): Eighty-eight year old Casey Ribicoff, the widow of the late Senator Abraham Ribicoff passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/nyregion/casey-ribicoff-widow-of-senator-dies-at-88.html?pagewanted=print
2011(22ndof Av, 5771): Seventy-eight year old Jerry Leiber who wrote so many rock and roll hits of the fifties and sixties passed away. (As reported by William Grimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/arts/music/jerry-leiber-rock-n-roll-lyricist-dies-at-78.html?pagewanted=print
2011(22ndof Av, 5771): Eighty-five year Samuel Menashe the Greenwich Village poet who won the first Neglected Masters Award in 2004, passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/24/arts/samuel-menashe-new-york-poet-dies-at-85.html?pagewanted=print
2012: Algerian pianist Maurice El Médioni – King of Rai and a legendary figure on the world music scene – is scheduled to host the Dialna Quintet for an evening of Jewish-Arab-Andalusian soul music with Boogie-Woogie, Rhumba and Flamenco rhythms at the Hazan Hall as part of the Oud Festival.
2012: "Vasermil" a film that tells the story of three Israeli teenagers from separate marginalized communities, who pin their hopes on soccer as a way out” is scheduled to be shown at the Avalon Theatre in Washington, DC
