February 15 In History
399
BCE
: The philosopher Socrates is sentenced to death. No, Socrates was not Jewish and he did not know about what were the “Israelites” of his day. However, Socrates would be one of those Greek philosophers whose teachings would challenge and influence Jewish thinkers and philosophers. For example, Aristobulus, a second century Jewish teacher asserted that the Greek philosophers, including Socrates were influenced by the teachings of Moses. In 1045, Ibn-Gebriol wrote a work on moral philosophy that included sayings from traditional sources such as the TaNaCh and the Talmud, but also contained his quotations from what he described as “the divine Socrates” and Socrates most famous disciple, Plato.
1113: Pope Paschal II recognizes the Knights of Hospitaller as a separate and independent monastic order to provide safety to the Crusaders and pilgrims. After the Moslems drove the Crusaders out of the Holy Land, the knights relocated to Rhodes and finally to Malta where they carried on their battle with the forces of Islam. During the 16th century, under the guise of fighting for Christ, the Knights of Malta turned to what many called piracy, capturing vessels in the Mediterranean Sea and then holding the captives for ransom. This trafficking in humans took an inordinate toll on Jews who were extremely vulnerable as they sailed for commercial reasons or to flee the effects of the Inquisition. The Jews that were not sold were kept as slaves and provided the nucleus of the Jewish population of Malta.
1493: While still at sea on the voyage returning to Spain, Columbus wrote a letter describing the accomplishment of his first trip to what he thought were islands at the edge of Asia but which were really Hispaniola and Cuba. The letter was addressed to Luis de Santángel a convserso (a Jew who had been baptized) who was the finance minister to the Spanish monarch. He was one of those who championed Columbus’ voyage and actually contributed his funds to help pay for the voyage.
1559: Paul IV issued “Cum ex apostolatus officio” a Papal Bull that confirmed that only Catholics can be elected to the position of Pope. According to some, the Bull was aimed at keeping Cardinal Morone who was rumored to be a secret Protestant from being named Pope. But it may also have been aimed at preventing Marranos from serving as Pope. Pope Alexander VI, (the first Borgia Pope) was reputed to be the descendant of Marranos.
1641(5th of Adar, 5401): Sara Copia Sullam, the daughter of a prominent Venetian family passed away. She was a truly unique figure for her time since she was not only a prolific poetess but a religious philosopher who wrote ”The Manifesto of Sara Copia Sulam” in which she refuted accusations that she had denied the immortality of the soul
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/sullam-sara-coppia
1655: The twenty-three Sephardic Jews who arrived in the fall seeking sanctuary from the Inquisition are officially admitted into New Amsterdam over Governor Peter Stuyvesant's objections.
1694: Today, in Lubeck, Nathan Goldschmidt was accused of having received stolen goods. The trial dragged on for at least five years, and its result is not known. Goldschmidt was the son-in-law of a "Schutzjude” named Nathan Siemssens. The charges against Goldschmidt may have stemmed from gentiles who were opposes to him being granted the same protected status enjoyed by his father-in-law.
1748: Birthdate of English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. According to Bhikhu C. Parekh, “what is surprisingly modern in the…philosopher’s toward the Jewsis that he did not consider them only as the mythical people of the Bible, as most thinkers of his age did, but dealt with this problem as the problem of a religious minority; as such, the Jews had to be tolerated in their religious practices…” (For more see Jeremy Bentham: Critical Assessments by Parekh starting on page 323)
http://books.google.com/books?id=DKh7r2zkyKUC&pg=PA325&lpg=PA325&dq=Jeremy+Bentham+and+the+Jewish+people&source=bl&ots=fV7G81AFy_&sig=H58uW8SH4Z1k_PymksYBjAaC874&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UVIcUeT4I4fd2QXyw4DwAg&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Jeremy%20Bentham%20and%20the%20Jewish%20people&f=false
1758: Mustard makes its first appearance in what is now the United States, when German immigrants manufacture it in Philadelphia, PA. [This was critical to Jews coming to America. Can you imagine living in a country where you had to a corned beef on rye without mustard?]
1764: Founding of the city of St. Louis in what would later be the state of Missouri. The first Jews settled in St. Louis until 1807. Jews worshipped together as a community for Rosh Hashanah, 1836.
1775: Pius VI was elected Pope. He was the author of “Editto sopra gli ebrei,” or "Edict over the Hebrew”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Edict1775.html
1781(20th of Shevat, 5541): Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German author and philosopher, passed away. Lessing was a friend of Moses Mendelssohn. According to these two friends, the test of religion is its effect on conduct. This is the moral of Lessing's Nathan the Wise (''Nathan der Weise''), the hero of which is undoubtedly Mendelssohn. One direct result of this pragmatism was unexpected. Having been taught that there is no absolutely true religion, Mendelssohn's own descendants, along with a large number of other German Jews, had a philosophically acceptable rational for converting to Christianity.
1798: After the occupation of Rome by General Berthier the local republicans dethroned the Pope. The Jews removed their yellow badges. Two days later a tree of freedom was planted in front of the synagogue.
1815: Birthdate of Moses Löb Bloch, native of Bohemia who became a rabbi in Hungary serving as the Rabbinical Seminary of in Budapest. He passed away in 1909.
1827: Birthdate of Bavarian native Emanuel Lehman, who came to the United States with his brothers Henry and Mayer. The three of them settled in Montgomery, Alabama where they prospered as cotton brokers and general commission merchants. Mr. Lehman moved to New York in 1856 where he established a branch of Lehman Brothers which became one of the leading financial firms in the United States. In 1859, he married Pauline Sondheim with whom he had four children before she passed away in 1871.
1847: Birthdate of Austrian composer, Robert Fuchs. Fuchs was not Jewish. But one of his most famous pupils was. From 1892 until 1900, Fuchs was a mentor and teacher for Franz Schreker one of the leading opera composers of his generation with works such as Der Ferne Klang, Die Gezeichneten, Der Schatzgräber, and Irrelohe. Schreker was born 1874 and died in 1934. His life and works were part of an exhibition mounted at the Jewish Museum in Vienna in 2005.
1857: In New York a Jewish jewelry store owner named Ronsenbaum made bail today after being charged in a plot to defraud Samuel Goldbery. He had previously been arrested on charges of "shyterism" for his part in defrauding an an unnamed woman out of an uspecified amont of money.
1870: Founding of Mikveh Yisrael home of the first Jewish agricultural school in Palestine. The Hebrew name Mikveh Yisrael means Hope of Israel. It was one of the earliest attempts to connect a return to Promised Land with the literal re-building of the land through the agrarian life. As we will see, this became a dominant theme personified by the Kibbutz Movement. Mikveh Yisrael was established by a French educator named Charles Netter. The settlement was inland near the Mediterranean town of Jaffa. It would provide employment for many settlers in the days of the First Alyiah, which started during the 1880's. The famous meeting between Theodore Herzl and Kaiser William II took place at the gates of Mikveh Yisrael in 1898. In 1939, some of the graduates of Mikveh Yisrael founded a Moshav form of collective farming community) north of Tel Aviv, which they called Kfar Netter in honor Charles Netter.
1874: It was reported today that Prime Minister William Gladstone claimed that the Jews of London had met a couple of days ago and had decided to support his government in the upcoming election. This stands in sharp contrast to claims by others that the Jews have not done this because they have a tendency to avoid participation in party politics.
1875(10th of Adar I, 5635): Eliakim Carmoly passed away at Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany. Born in 1802, at Soultz-Haut-Rhin, France, Carmoly’s “real name was Goschel David Behr (or Baer); the name Carmoly, borne by his family in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was adopted by him when quite young. He studied Hebrew and Talmud at Colmar; and, because both French and German were spoken in his native town, he became proficient in those languages. Carmoly went to Paris, and there assiduously studied the old Hebrew manuscripts in the Bibliothèque Nationale, where he was employed. Several articles published by him on various subjects in scientific papers made him known; and on the establishment of a Jewish consistory in Belgium, he was appointed rabbi at Brussels in 1832. In this position Carmoly rendered many services to the newly founded congregation, chiefly in providing schools for the poor. Seven years later, having provoked great opposition by his new scheme of reforms, Carmoly resigned the rabbinate and retired to Frankfort, where he devoted himself wholly to Jewish literature and to the collection of Hebrew books and manuscripts, in which he was passionately interested.”
1875: It was reported today that there are 250 Jews on the Managing Committee responsible for the upcoming Purim Association ball.
1877: In New York, the Ladies’ Bikur Cholim Society is scheduled to host a fundraiser today at Ferrero’s Assembly Rooms to provide support for the School of Industry
1879: It was reported today that the Young Men’s Hebrew Union has recently acquired a gymnasium and bowling alley. The organization is in its 3rd year and now has 300 members.
1879(22nd of Shevat, 5639): Joseph A. Engelhart, passed away today in Raleigh, NC. A native of Mississippi, he was elected to serve as North Carolina’s Secretary of State in 1876 when he ran on the ticket with Governor Zebulon Baird Vance. Engelhart actually ran ahead of the ticket. He leaves behind a large family that will benefit from $50,000 in life insurance.
1881: In an attempt to provide information about Jewish practices regarding sacramental wine P.J. Joachimsen wrote from his home on East 69thStreet that “the great majority of conforming Jews in this city use wine made from raisins at the Passover Feast. Of course the raisins are fresh. Such raisin-wine is used in all conforming synagogues for the sanctification of Shabbat and holy days; i.e. for Kiddush and also for services at circumcisions and weddings. Some, but not many, people use imported wine --- Italian, Hungarian or German --- which is certified as ‘Perach’ or ‘Kosher Wine.’”
1882: In Philadelphia, Mayor Samuel George King presided over a public meeting in his office this afternoon that was attended by Christians and Jews who were making plans on how to provide for the impending influx of Jews from Russia. According to Moses Dropsie, at least 100,000 Russian Jews have lost all of their possessions and were candidates for immigration to the United States. So far, 2000 have arrived in New York and a total of 10,000 are expected. Philadelphia has agreed to provide support for 10% of the group. Those attending the meeting plan on petitioning the federal government to exert pressure on the Russians to put an end to the persecution of its Jewish citizens.
1882: While defending his government’s foreign policy in the House of Commons this afternoon Sir Charles Dilke, the Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs said that Great Britain would not be intervening with the Russian government on behalf of its Jewish subjects. “All the precedents showed that English interference in the internal affairs of a foreign country would meet with a rebuff and do more harm than good.”
1885(30thof Shevat, 5645): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1885(30thof Shevat, 5645): German born, American violinist and conductor Leopold Damrosch whose father was Jewish and mother was Lutheran passed away today.
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Damrosch-Leopold.htm
1891: The New York Times reported on a gift worth $3,400,000 given by Baron Maurice de Hirsch “to ameliorate” the conditions of recent immigrants from Russia and Romania.
1891: Representatives of Jewish organizations from throughout the United States met in Philadelphia, PA today where they formed the Jewish Alliance of America. The goal of the Alliance is to alleviate the suffering among Russian Jews by helping them to establish and maintain “farm colonies” in the American West.
1891: Rabbis Gottheil, Silverman and Kohut officiated at the service held this afternoon at Temple Emanu-El in memory of the late Lazarus Rosenfeld.
1892: Nine new cases of typhus were found by New York City Health department doctors today all which involved recently arrived Jewish immigrants from Russia. Among the victims was 12 year old Abraham Mermer who was sent from his home on Essex Street to North Brother Island where joined his parents and other family members who were already under quarantine.
1893: It was reported today the Mrs. Falk is the Chairman of the Committee on Arrangements for the upcoming concert that will raise funds for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian and Orphan Asylum.
1896: Police had to be called to 112 Clinton to restore order after fight broke among members of a Jewish society that used the building “as a synagogue on Saturday nights.”
1897: It was reported today that Mayor William Lafayette Strong, the last Mayor of New York elected prior to its consolidation told a meeting of the Free Sons of Israel that “During my term of office I had had many applications for aid, but I don’t think one single application came from a Hebrew. The Jews take care of their own. They are taught to be self-supporting. Speaking as a gentile, I will say that you manage your charities better than we do.”
1897: It was reported today that an unnamed teacher on New York’s Lower East Side told her students that “If you grow up to be good Jews you will be good American citizens. If you are not good American citizens you will not be good Jews.” (This is an example of the binding of the Jews with the American Dream that has helped to differentiate the Jewish experience in the United States from other Diaspora Communities)
1897: The new officers of District Grand Lodge No. 1, Independent Order Free Sons of Israel are:
Grand Master – Ralph Rosenberg; First Deputry – M. Samuel Stern; Second Deputy – Julius Hass; Grand Secretary – J. H. Goldman. Two of the committee chairmen were appointed – Isaac Engel and Isaac Niner.
1897: Birthdate of Gerrit Kleerekoper, the coach of the Dutch Ladies’ Gymnastics Team who would be killed by the Nazis at Sobibor.
1897: Emanuel Lehman, one of the original Lehman brothers, celebrated his 70thbirthday today. During his birthday celebration this evening, he was presented with loving cup honoring him for all of his support of the Hebrew and Benevolent and Orphan Asylum.
1898: Baron Ludwig Von Erlanger, head of the Frankfurt branch of the banking house of Erlanger and Sons passed away. Erlanger's father, Raphael Erlanger was Jewish but he converted to Christianity at his wife's behest prior to the birth of his sons Ludwig and Baron Emil B. Von Erlanger. The surviving son will now head the banking house which also has major offices in London and Paris. While neither of the Erlanger sons were raised as Jews, critics would describe them as such when it fit their needs.
1898(23rd of Shevat, 5658: The USS Maineexplodes and sinks in Havana harbor in Cuba, killing more than 260 including 15 Jewish serving on board the battleship. This event leads the United States to declare war on Spain.
1898: In Albany, New York state senator Cantor introduced a bill that would exempt “the real estate of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association from taxation, assessment and water rates.”
1898: The Purim Ball will be held tonight at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. This year’s tickets cost more than in the past because a banquet has been added to the event. M.H. Moses, Simon Schafer, Henry Rick, Sol B. Solomon, Jules S. Bache, J.S. Isaacs and Narry are the members of the Purim Association responsible for the event. (Purim actually will not be celebrated until March 8
1898: The New York state senate is expected to pass a bill introduced by Senator Cantor allowing for the incorporation of “The Hebrew Charities Building” in New York City.
1900: Herzl is received by Austrian Prime Minister Ernest von Koerber. Herzl writes a memorandum about the Jewish Colonial Bank. The subscriptions to the Bank are prohibited in Austria and Herzl wants to prevent that little people will lose their money.
1903: Herzl sends a new proposal to the Sultan: Colonization in the Sanjak of Acre in return for a guaranteed annual payment of 100.000 Turkish pounds. In a move that would place him at odds with the “Territorialists” Herzl is already thinking about Jewish colonization in Africa but is willing to make this one last attempt to deal with the rulers of the Ottoman Empire.
1905: Birthdate of composer Harold Arlen. Born Hyman Arluck in Buffalo, NY, Arlen won an Oscar in 1940 for writing the score for “The Wizard of Oz.”
1906: The British Labour Party organized. The Labour Party’s membership was an eclectic amalgam. As one would expect, it included a large bloc of trade unionists. But it is also attacted a cross section of intellectuals and professionals who saw the party as a vehicle that would help reform English society and its political system. Jewish involvement refelcted this membership spectrum. For example, one of its early leaders was Manny Shinwell, a member of the trade union councils in Glasgow. On the other hand, Leslie Haden Haden-Guest, 1st Baron Haden-Guest, veteran of the Boer War, author and solicitor was the first Jew to stand for Commons as a Labour Party Candidate.
1917: Birthdate of George Forman, “a longtime comptroller of the American Civil Liberties Union who brought fiscal discipline to a ramshackle organization near bankruptcy in the late 1970's and later helped it develop into a powerful civil liberties conglomerate.” (As reported by Lily Koppel)
1922: As sign of erosion for support of the Balfour Declaration, “Sir William Joynson-Hicks, a
Conservative Member of Parliament, asked the Prime Minister David Lloyd George, to explain the reason why the Government has promised the Jewish people a national home ‘in a country which is already the national home of the Arabs.’”
1922: Birthdate of Herman Kahn “one of the preeminent futurists” who “predicted the rise of Japan as a major world power.”
1922: In Merv, Turkmenistan, Gevork Alikhanov who was an Armenian and Ruth Bonner who was Jewish gave birth to Elena Georgievna Bonner, the Soviet dissident and human-rights campaigner who endured banishment and exile along with her husband, the dissident nuclear physicist Andrei D. Sakharov. ( As reported by Alessandra Stanley and Michael Schwiritz)
1924: “Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber hails Hitler as an intelligent and sympathetic Leader”
1926: Birthdate of Richard Adolf Bloch who started “the H&R Block tax preparation and personal finance company with his older brother Henry in 1955.”.
1927: Birthdate of comic actor Harvey Korman who was second banana on “The Carol Burnett Show.”
1928: Birthdate of Harold Arnold Ackerman, the New Jersey native who served as a federal judge for three decades.
1929: Birthdate of James Schlesinger. He served as Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Energy. Schlesinger converted as an adult. Reportedly he did this to advance his academic career since he came of age when being Jewish could be a limiting factor in advancing in academia.
1931: Birthdate of Maxine Frank Singer, a leading biochemistry researcher and advocate of science education.
1931: “Two orthodox synagogues, The Hebrew Orthodox Benevolent Association and The Young Men’s Hebrew Association, merged to become Congregation Beth Jacob. Under the leadership of Rabbi Louis Feigonz'l, the members raised funds to build a new synagogue on the site of the old Hebrew Orthodox Benevolent Association. In the 1970s the congregation joined the Conservative Movement in an attempt to attract more members. Today the congregation is small, but still active in the Galveston Community.”
1932: Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, was nominated by President Hoover today to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to fill the vacancy caused by the retirement of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
1932: George Burns & Gracie Allen debuted as regulars on "Guy Lombardo Show”, a hit radio shoe. He was Jewish. She was not.
1935: “A committee created by the U.S. Congress to investigate the distribution of Nazi propaganda in America finds that Nazis are targeting millions of Americans of German heritage with pro-Nazi teachings.”
1938: The Austrian government declared a general amnesty for Nazis.
1939: Lillian Hellman's "Little Foxes" premiered in New York City.
1943(10th of Adar I, 5703): Four hundred fifty of the Jews remaining in the ghetto at Drohobych were taken out of the ghetto to Bronica Forest where they were murdered.
1943: Rutka Laskier, a fourteen year old living in Bedzin, Poland writes in her diary: “Monday
I haven’t written in while and there was nothing to write about. Maybe just the fact that the Germans have retreated from the Eastern front, which may signal the nearing of the end of the war… I'm only afraid that we, the Jews, will be finished before ...But how shrewd am I, I have written already so much about the war and nothing about myself. Janek hasn't been seen since Wednesday. I must admit that I miss him, I mean, not him but his forehead. He has a wonderful white forehead ... I'm curious if Jumek is still in love with Tusia. Actually, he's a good guy. I like him, but not in the same way I like Mietek. With Mulek you can talk and forget about the sex difference, and I like that very much. When you talk to Janek, he is always very polite, reserved, just waiting for the moment he can help me with something and in that way, show me his superiority. Oh, him and his superiority! I can't stand it, that's why I liked Lolek. Actually, I still like him, but I haven't seen him in a while. I plan to go to Lolek in order to get the book "P.P." I heard it's great. It would be a great opportunity also to talk with Tuska about Rozka. I hate those two; I hate Rozka even more than Tuska. I had an argument with Tuska but it was for her own good. I saw how jealous she was (though at that time I didn't understand that). She was afraid to leave me alone in the room with Janek. I made a scene and we fell out. She was basically very pleased with it. And one more thing: I have decided to let Janek kiss me. Eventually, someone will kiss me for the first time, so let it be Janek. I do like him.” In August, the Laskiers were sent to Auschwitz, where Rutka and her mother, grandmother and brother were all killed.
1944: Churchill invites Chaim Weismann to dine with him. After the dinner Weizmann reassured his Zionist colleagues that the Prime Minister still had a positive view of the formation of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine after the war ended.
1946: Birthdate of American actress Marisa Berenson.
1947: Dr. Alfred Meyer and his wife, Annie Nathan Meyer, will celebrate their sixtieth wedding anniversary this afternoon at a reception in the Women's Faculty Club of Columbia University.
1948: Birthdate of Art Spiegelman. The Swedish born cartoonist is best known for Maus: A Survivor's Taleand Maus: from Mauschwitz to the Catskills. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992.
1950: Prime Minister Tawfiq told Ezekiel Shemtob that he would allow the Jews to leave Iraq. He agreed to issue them "laissez-passers" and "full Iraqi passports."
1951: The government led by Prime Minister Ben Gurion resigned “after the Knesset had rejected David Remez’s proposals on the registration of school children” triggering elections that would be held in July.
1951: Birthdate of actress Jane Seymour. Born Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg in England, her father was “a doctor of Jewish origins” while her mother was a Dutch nurse.
1968: A group of 26 Jewish lawyers, doctors and scientists in Vilnius (Vilna) addressed a letter to the Central Committee of Lithuania’s Communist Party describing the widespread discrimination against the Jewish people and demanding the right to immigrate to Israel.
1971: Birthdate of comic Alex Borstein. Born Alexandra Borstein, this descendant of Sephardic Jews is best known for her work on “MADtv.”
1972(30thof Shevat, 5732): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1975: Salvator Cicurel an Egyptian Olympic fencer who competed in the individual and team épée and team foil events at the 1928 Summer Olympics passed away. Born in 1893, he was part of a prominent Egyptian Jewish family that owned The Cicurel stores which were Egypt's largest and most fashionable department store chain
1981(11th of Adar I, 5741): American journalist and writer Isaac Don Levine passed away. Born in Mozyr, Russia, in 1892, “Levine came to the United States in 1911. He finished high school in Missouri, and found work with The Kansas City Starand later The New York Herald Tribune, for which he covered the Revolution of 1917. He would return to Russia to cover the Civil War for The Chicago Daily News in the early 1920s.” Levine was a columnist for the Hearst papers during the late 1920s and 1930s. “He edited the anti-communist magazine Plain Talk from 1946 till 1950, but did not join The Freeman, opting for a stint with Radio Free Europe in West Germany instead. In the spring of 1939, Levine collaborated with the Soviet intelligence agency defector, Walter Krivitsky, for a series of articles in the Saturday Evening Post, exposing the horrors of Joseph Stalin's "workers' paradise." In November of that same year, the series was collected into a book entitled In Stalin's Secret Service. Levine's role in the writing was not revealed at the time. In the meantime, Levine arranged a meeting in September 1939 between American Communist Party defector Whittaker Chambers and President Franklin Roosevelt's security chief, Adolf Berle, at which Chambers revealed, with Levine present, a massive spying operation reaching even into the White House that involved, among others, Alger Hiss in the State Department and, according to Levine, Harry Dexter White in the Treasury Department. Levine also provided testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee in the case against Hiss. Levine wrote the screenplay for the biographical movie “Jack London” (1943) and also appeared as himself as one of the witnesses to the John Reed era in ‘Reds’ (1981). He makes a brief appearance in Walter Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007) as a friend of Einstein, but they fell out over their political differences
1981(11th of Adar I, 5741): Mike Bloomfield, guitarist with Paul Butterfield Blues Band passed away at the age of 37.
1983 (2nd of Adar, 5743): Dr. Eugene Hevesi, who had served as foreign affairs secretary for the American Jewish Committee, died of lung cancer to at Long Island Jewish Hospital at the age of 87. He was born in Budapest, the son of Simon Hevesi, Chief Rabbi of Budapest, and came to the United States in 1937 as an economic attaché in the Hungarian Embassy. He resigned in protest over the passage of an anti-Semitic law in Hungary and served with the American Jewish Committee for 23 years. For 20 years, Dr. Hevesi was also the United Nations representative for six Jewish nongovernmental organizations, including the Joint Distribution Committee and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. He received a Doctor of Laws degree in Hungary and an advanced degree in economics from the Consular Academy of Vienna. In the 1960's, he served as a liaison official between several American Jewish organizations and the Vatican. He is the father of Assemblyman Alan G. Hevesi.
1987: In an article entitled “Israel’s Pioneers Return On Film,” Thomas Friedman describes the filming of “Dreamers,” a film about the Dreamers Commune set in the 1920’s that captures “the moment when the idealism of the first Jewish settlers who came to this land from Eastern Europe to build a utopian society met the realities of the harsh Palestinian landscape and the Arab people who were already inhabiting it.”
1988(27th of Shevat, 5748): Richard Feynman, Nobel-Prize winning nuclear physicist who worked on the Manhattan project passed away at the age of 69. Being Jewish presented a problem for Feynman when he was pursuing his academic career. He was probably rejected by Columbia because of the New York’s school’s Jewish quota. He was admitted to MIT where he had a stellar undergraduate career. After graduating from MIT, Feynman applied to the doctorate program at Princeton. Harry Smythe, who oversaw the program at Princeton, was concerned about Feynman’s religious background. “Is Feynman Jewish? We have no definite rule against Jews but have to keep their proportion in our department reasonably small because of the difficulty of placing them.” Despite the prejudice, Feynman was admitted and performed brilliantly.
1989: The Soviet Union announced that its last troops had left Afghanistan, ending the ten year Soviet military operations in that mountainous Moslem nation. From the Jewish perspective, the Soviet invasion and subsequent defeat influenced Jewish history in terms of the law of unexpected consequences. The Soviet debacle in Afghanistan hastened the downfall of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. This opened the door to a massive movement of Jews from the Soviet republics to Israel. It also provided an opportunity for the rebirth of Jewish culture and the observance of the Jewish religion in the Soviet republics. The foreign fighters who came to the aid of the Moslems in Afghanistan would become a cadre for groups of anti-Western and anti-Semitic terrorist groups that would ultimately pose an even graver, at one level, threat to the West, to the Jewish People and to Israel, than had been seen even in the darkest days of the Cold War.
1992(11th of Adar I, 5752): William Schuman, a composer whose distinctly American style won two Pulitzer Prizes and guided him as the founding president of Lincoln Center and the president of the Juilliard School, passed away today in Manhattan at the age of 81. (As reported by Bruce Lambert)
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/16/nyregion/william-schuman-is-dead-at-81-noted-composer-headed-juilliard.html
1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Founding Myth of Israel: Nationalism, Socialism, and the Making of the Jewish Stateby Zeev Sternhell and Stalking Elijah: Adventures With Today's Jewish Mystical Masters by Rodger Kamenetz
2004: Various editions of the secular press featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including, An Almost Perfect Moment by Binnie Kirshenbaum, Ten Thousand Lovers by Edeet Ravel, My Life in Comedy, With Love and Laughter by Sid Caesar with Eddy Friedfeld, The Eve of Destruction: The Untold Story of the Yom Kippur War By Howard Blum, War Paint: Madame Helena Rubinstein and Miss Elizabeth Arden, Their Lives, Their Times, Their Rivalry by Lindy Woodhead and Language Visible: Unraveling the Alphabet From A to Z by David Sacks, a history of the alphabet from ancient times. Writing as we know it dates from approximately 2000
BCE
, the same time when the Jews first appear on the world scene. Is it a coincidence that the "People of the Book" appear at the same time as the alphabet does? As we have said, studying Jewish History means studying the history of the world.
2007: In an article entitled “Anne Frank’s doomed American dream” The Times of Londonreported on newly discovered letters that reveal the increasingly desperate efforts by Anne Frank’s father to get his family out of Nazi-occupied Amsterdam before they were forced into hiding in the attic where the teenage girl wrote her famous diary.
2007(27th of Shevat, 5767): Robert Adler, 93, who helped invent the device that created a nation of sedentary television viewers forever flummoxed by the question, "Where's the remote?" died, of heart failure in Boise, Idaho, according to Zenith, his longtime employer. Dr. Adler, a Viennese-born physicist with more than 180 U.S. patents in his name, the most famous of which was for the wireless remote control for televisions.
2008: Eli Alexander Sherman the newborn son of Rabbis Aaron Sherman and Stephanie Alexander attends his first Shabbat service at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. At 7 pounds, 14 ounces and 21 and one half inches in length he is the smallest as well as the newest member of the Jewish community. Calendars are circled for the Bar Mitzvah in 2021.
2008: The Jerusalem Post on linereported that more than 50 Hezbollah terror cells believed to be spread across the globe could be activated and used to strike at Israeli or Jewish targets in retaliation for Tuesday's assassination of Hezbollah arch-terrorist and operations officer Imad Mughniyeh in Syria, a senior defense official said; this despite disclaimers from the Israelis that did not commit the act. As Hassan Nasrallah vowed "open war" to avenge Mughniyeh's death, the Israeli Counterterrorism Bureau issued a travel advisory on Thursday that made plain the seriousness with which it is taking the Hezbollah leader's threats. FBI anti-terror units raised their alerts for fear of attacks on synagogues and other Jewish targets.
2009: Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain (JGSGB) Manchester meets at the Manchester Jewish Museum
2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain by Michael Korda, We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work by Jimmy Carter and recently released paperback editions of The Spare Wifeby Alex Witchel and The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace by Aaron David Miller.
2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Levittownby David Kushner and How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer.
2009: A one-of-a-kind, award-winning exhibit of hundreds of pieces of World War II era mail and documents related to the Nazis' attempted extermination of Jews and others will be publicly displayed at Temple Judah. The collection is owned by the Deerfield, Illinois-based Florence and Laurence Spungen Family Foundation, which acquired the extraordinary items to preserve and offer them for public use at Holocaust and genocide educational venues around the world. It includes counterfeit Bank of England paper money created by slave laborers during "Operation Bernhard," the Nazis' failed plot to undermine England's economy and the subject of the recent motion picture, "The Counterfeiters." Steve Feller, who with his daughter Rachel co-authored the book Silent Witness: Civilian Camp Money of World War II, will present an educational program about Holocaust-related money in conjunction with the exhibit. Steve will be speaking at 11:00 am and 1:00 pm. The Florence and Laurence Spungen Family Foundation was established in 2006 to support charitable and educational causes. Many of the historic artifacts now can be viewed online at the foundation's Web site, http://www.SpungenFoundation.org.
2009: Opening day of “The Expanse of Russia in Israel,” an international conference sponsored by Tulane University’s Jewish Studies Program under the Chairmanship of Dr. Brian Horowitz, “The conference is devoted to a long-awaited investigation of Zionism and the influence of secular Russian culture on Israeli life.” Given the rise of Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman, the topic of this conference becomes all the more urgent and timely.
http://www.tulane.edu/~jwst/WebsiteFiles/downloads/conference_schedule_02152009.pdf
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