February 24 In History
303: The first official Roman edict for the persecution of Christians was issued by Roman Emperor Galerius Valerius Maximianus. This was part a contest between Pagans and Christians for control of the
Roman Empire
. The Jews were not involved. But they would be the ultimate losers when Christianity became the state religion of the
Roman Empire
and the Church unleashed the power of the state on all religious groups that opposed it, including the Jews.
1221: Alice de Montmorency, wife of Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicesterpassed away. In 1217, Alice ordered the arrest of all of the Jews living in Toulouse. They could either convert or be killed. Children under the age of six were taken from their parents, baptized and raised Christians. Her actions violated the promise her husband had made to the Jews of Toulouse guaranteeing them their freedom and right to practice their religion.
1147: In Wurzburg, Germany, a rumor began that a Christian corpse was found in the river which could perform miracles. The Jews were accused to killing the person. In the ensuring riots, twenty two Jews were murdered including the rabbi, Isaac ben Elyukem. After the riot the survivors fled to a local Castle.
1479: After four years of conflict and intrigue, Queen Isabella of
Castile
secured her throne. Isabella’s machinations to gain control of the kingdom show her as every bit as other female monarchs as Elizabeth of England or Catherine the Great of Russia. Later in the year, she would marry Ferdinand of Aragon, a move that would lead to the creation of the modern Spanish state. Contrary to popular misconception, she was the abler of the two monarchs. In fact, it was only because Ferdinand was a man in a male-dominated society that saved his reputation. Isabella’s accession to the throne was the first in a series of events that would end with the expulsion of the Jews from
Spain
in 1492.
1510: Pope Julius II excommunicated the
Republic
of
Venice
. Many remember Julius II as the Pope who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel. Julius II, like at least one of his predecessors, had a Jewish physician; in this case Samuel Sarfatti. From the Jewish point of view, Julius clashes such as the one that brought on the above mentioned excommunication and aesthetic projects meant that he did not have time to waste on persecuting his Jews. Out of sight out of mind or benign neglect placed Julius on the list of one of the “better Popes.”
1582: Pope Gregory XIII announced the Gregorian calendar. This replaced the Julian Calendar which explains why there is some confusion about various dates in history. Of course the Jews use their own calendar, but as a people who “live in time” it is useful to know when other parts of the Western world began changing the way they keep track of the years.
1590: An entire family of Marranos named de Carabaja “was forced to confess and abjure at a public auto-da-fé, celebrated” today. “Luis de Carabajal the younger, with his mother and four sisters, was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and his brother, Baltasar, who had fled upon the first warning of danger, was, along with his deceased father, Francisco Rodriguez de Matos, burnt in effigy.”
1739: The army of Iranian ruler Nadir Shah defeats the forces of the Mughal emperor of India, Muhammad Shah at the Battle of Karnal. Nadir Shah’s rise to power marked an improvement in the lives of the Persian Jewish community. The last half of the 17th century had been a period of persecution for the Jews when many of them actually outwardly converted to Islam. Under Nadir, the Jews were once again free to practice their religion in public.
1765: David Tevele Schiff was named as the Rabbi to lead the Great Synagogue in London succeeding Hart Lyon in that position. Hart had actually been the rabbi for the Great Synagogue and the Hambro Synagogue. The two congregations were supposed to continue this practice. But they could not agree on a successor. Once the Great Synagogue had made its decision, the Hambro Synagogue chose Israel Meshullam Solomon to serve as their rabbi.
1835: Birthdate of Sir Julius Vogel, the eighth Premier of New Zealand and the first Jew to hold this position.
1848: Louis-Philippe, “King of the French,” abdicates the throne. Louis’s reign began with a revolution in 1830 and ended with a revolution in 1848. This monarch from the house of Orleans was a rather dull character when compared to the glory of the Bourbons and Bonaparte but it was his very dullness that got him to the throne. As is so often the case, Louis’ record in dealing with the Jews is a mixed bag. As Elliot Rosenberg points, by the time Louis came to the throne French Jews were well on their way to full emancipation. Under Louis, “rabbis joined other clerics paid from the state exchequer.” While English Jews were still denied entry to Oxford and Cambridge, the doors “opened widely” at French universities. “Jewish communities joined in praising” him as the monarch who “’had enlarged our liberties.’” In 1835, Louis defended the rights of French Jews in a diplomatic conflict with the Swiss. James de Rothschild, head of the French branch of the House of Rothschild was “a royal intimate” who according to his brother Salomon “goes to the palace whenever he wishes. James was not only a pillar of the French government, he was also the man who handled the “personal investment accounts” of the French monarch. All this good will was tainted by the Damascus Affair in which the French sided with those who supported the claim of the Blood Libel against Jews living in Syria. The French were trying to establish their sphere of influence in the Middle East and North Africa and if the price was that of a few Jews, so be it. Regardless, by the time of the abdication, Jewish emancipation in France was so ingrained that nothing would stem that tide. Of course, the Dreyfus Affair, fifty years later would demonstrate the illusory nature of that emancipation. Louis’s successor, Napoleon III would prove to be “bad for the French people” and therefore “bad for the Jews.”
1848: As the revolutionary forces took power, the Republicans named Adolphe Cremieux, a prominent lawyer, statesman and leader of the French Jewish community, to serve as the minister of justice. During his time in office, he “secured the decrees abolishing the death penalty for political offenses, and making the office of judge immovable.” “He was instrumental in declaring an end to slavery in all French Colonies, for which some have called him the French Abraham Lincoln.”
1860(1st of Adar, 5620): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1864: During the Civil War, Joseph B. Greenhut, who had been fighting as a member of the Union Army since April of 1861, resigned his commission and returned to civilian life. Greenhut had fought at a series of famous battles including Fort Donelson, Gettysburg and Lookout Mountain.
1868(1st of Adar, 5628): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1877: An agreement was reached today between the Ottoman rulers and the Serbian envoys led by Prince Milan. The Serbians agreed to all of the conditions set by the Turks except two, one of which was the requirement that the Jews of Serbia be granted the same rights as all other Serbs.
1878: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association met tonight in New York to discuss the proposal made by Thomas Grady to abolish the Free College.
1879(1st of Adar, 5639) Rosh Chodesh Adar
1881: Seventeen year old Marion Calish, the Hebrew teacher at Professor Felix Adler’s kindergarten who has been missing since the 19th, was found just before midnight tonight by a traveling salesman who took her to the local police precinct.
1882: A man who claimed to be named Rothschild and is thought to be Jewish attempted to use a bogus check to pay for purchases at A & C Myer in New York City.
1882: Two of the Jewish refugees from Russia who arrived in Philadelphia, PA on the SS Illinois are the only ones who have been identified as being sick – that is two out over three hundred men, women and children.
1882: A cable sent to the Toronto Globe from London stated that at a meeting of the Committee on the Fund for the Relief of Russo-Jewish Refugees, Sir A.T. Galt suggested that two or three of the Jewish refugees should be allowed to go to Canada’s Northwest Territories to make arrangements for the arrival of their co-religionists.
1885: Birthdate of Joseph Sprinzak, first Speaker of Israeli Knesset. “Born in
Moscow
, Sprinzak's father was active in the Hovevei Zion. When Jews were expelled from
Moscow
in 1891, the family moved to
Kishinev
and then
Warsaw
. The home was a center for young Hebrew writers and Zionists. In the early 1900s, he was one of the organizers of HaTehiyah, a Zionist group led by Yitzhak Gruenbaum. During this period he worked in a Hebrew publishing house as well as on Hebrew and Yiddish newspapers in
Warsaw
. In 1905 he returned to
Kishinev
where he was active in Zionist affairs. In 1908 he spent several months in
Constantinople
where he was in contact with Zionist leaders, and then went to
Beirut
to study medicine. His studies were cut very short when, after just a few months, he was asked to become secretary of HaPoel HaZair. During World War I he was in Eretz Yisrael and after the war, was instrumental in founding Hitahdut, a world movement which joined HaPoel HaZair and Zeirei Zion. A delegate to the 11th and 12th Zionist Congresses, Sprinzak became the first representative of the yishuv's labor movement to be elected to the Zionist Executive. When independence was declared in 1948, he was elected to the Provisional State Council as well as the first three Knessets, serving as speaker for 10 years. Joseph Sprinzak was known as a Zionist leader who strongly identified with the rank-and-file, both in
Israel
and abroad. His conception of Zionism was based on socialism and the process of national rebirth. During his tenure as secretary of HaPoel HaZair, he was involved in the absorption of Jews from
Yemen
. During World War I, he helped organize the yishuv's Jewish workers. In the 1920s, as a member of the Zionist executive, he was head of the Labor and then the Aliyah Departments. He also helped found the Histadrut labor federation and was a member of the Tel Aviv municipality. In the 1930s, as a member of the Histadrut executive, Sprinzak was instrumental in the formation of Ben-Gurion's Mapai political party. In the 1940s he became a leading member of the Zionist General Council and eventually was general secretary of the Histadrut. As Knesset speaker during the body's first 10 years, Sprinzak had a major influence on the country's emerging democracy. He died in 1959.”
1889: Birthdate of Jacques (Jacob) Presser “a Dutch historian, writer and poet best known for his book Ashes in the Wind: The destruction of the Dutch Jews which descried “ the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands during World War II.”.
1890: It was reported today that Sarah Bernhardt will be returning to the United States in October to perform at the Broadway Theatre in New York City.
1890: It was reported today that at the request of Elsie Leslie, 500 hundred children from the Industrial Schools of the Associated Hebrew Charities will attend one of her final matinee performances of “The Prince and the Pauper at the Broadway Theatre. (Elsie Leslie was a noted child actress of her time. Born in 1881, she passed away in 1966. I cannot find any reason why she singled out a school for Jewish students for this treat.)
1890: It was reported today that the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society is caring for nearly 600 children, 200 of whom were girls and 400 were boys.
1891: “Elevated Funeral Trains” published today described the decision of the Directors of the Union Elevated Railroad in Brooklyn to extend service to Cypress Cemetery and the “numerous Jewish cemeteries in the neighborhood and to establish funeral trains consisting of a car for the coffin and two or three cars for the funeral party. Most of the directors are Jewish and Edward Lauterbach who is counsel for the company is attempting to establish contracts with various synagogues to convey the funeral parties from the ferries or bridge to the cemetery.
1893: The
American
University
, a private Methodist university in
Washigton
,
D.C.
is chartered by an act of the Congress of the
United States of America
. A.U. has over one thousand Jewish undergraduate students out of a total of almost 6,000. Out of an estimated 4,700 grad students, 1,000 are Jewish. The school offers a minor in Jewish Studies, a university program in Israel and the services of an authorized Hillel House. (It is also the place where all three Levin children learned to swim - seven thirty on a Saturday morning followed by services at Adas Israel)
1894: It was reported that Kuhn, Loeb & Co is among the contributors to the Citizens’ Relief Committee which has raised $94, 065.50 for those suffering from the effects of the economic depression.
1894: It was reported today that Jacob H. Schiff, Solomon Loeb and Abraham Wolff are among the prominent citizens who have joined a movement led by Cornelius Vanderbilt “to establish a pawn broking establishment” in New York modeled on “public pawn broking establishing that have been of great help to the poor in several large European cities.
1895: “A Most Noble Charity” published today described the work of the Montefiore Home for Incurables which “was originally intended as home where incurable patients should be received and made comfortable during their lives” has not taken on the additional role of providing treatment for chronic invalids” many of whom “were hopelessly stricken by disease” but have left the facility “in the full possession of health.
1896: “Religion In Large Cities” published today described the conditions of religious institutions in New York City including the fact that there “51 Hebrew organizations” in the city.
1896: According to Emily Crawford of the Associated Press, Prince Henry of Orleans is hoping to capitalize on the anti-Dreyfus spirit as a way of bringing about the downfall of the Republic which he no doubt hopes will be replaced with a Monarchy.
1898: “Prison and Fine For Zola” published today described the scene in the courtroom when Emile Zola was convicted. The verdict was handed down at seven in the evening but the jury had agreed on its decision days ago in response, in part to threats from the mob that surrounded the court during the trial. In response to the sentence which stemmed from his defense of Captain Dreyfus the defamed Jewish officer Zola compared himself to Christ saying that he too was “a victim of mob violence office cowardice and a grand miscarriage of justice.” (Considering that the Catholic Churc were one of the groups arrayed against him, this was a bold, fitting, comparison.)
1899(14th of Adar, 5659): Last Purim celebration of the 19th century.
1902: In Berlin, the ninth meeting of the Union of Judæo-German Congregations came to end.
1904: Herzl writes, "Yesterday I had a most curious visitor: Ali Nuri Bey ... His proposal ... comes to this: Sail into the
Bosporus
with two cruisers, bombard Yildiz, let the Sultan flee or capture him, put in another Sultan (Murad or Reshad), but first form a provisional government - which is to give us the Charter for
Palestine
...."
1907(10th of Adar, 5667): Composer Otto Goldschmidt passed away at the age of 87.
1906: Birthdate of Yosef Serlin, the native of Bialystok who made Aliyah in 1933 and worked as lawyer in Tel Aviv while pursuing a political career that included serving as member of the First Knesset.
1909: Birthdate of Max Black. Born in
Azerbaijan
, raised and educated in
England
, Black became a
U.S.
citizen in 1948. It is hard to classify him because his interests were so varied. “Black was famed for his contributions to the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mathematics and science, the philosophy of art, conceptual analysis, and his studies of the work of several major philosophers. Black was a prolific author and lists of his publications contain over 200 items. He passed away in 1988.
1912: Birth of Hadassah, the largest women's organization in
America
.
1914: Birthdate of Esta Saltzman the native of Boston, MA who gained fame as Yiddish actress Esta Saltzman Lubin
1916: The Zionist Council of New York held a mass meeting at Cooper Union tonight. Louis Lipsky, who presided over the meeting, attacked the critics of the Zionist movement, including fellow Jews who had called it a “partisan issue.” He said that “Zionism is the essential ingredient of any policy the Jewish people may adopt at this time time for the protection of Jewish interests.” Wolf Gluskin, who has only arrived in the United States from Palestine where he had helped to establish one of first Zionist settlements, told the assembly about the suffering being experienced by 35,000 Palestinian Jews as a result of the World War. The wine industry, which the Jewish settlers had worked so hard to develop, was on the verge of destruction. The New York Zionists also heard from Dr. Ben Zion Mossinsohn, a teacher living in Jaffa and Dr. Schmaraya Levin of the International Zionist Committee.
1917: H. Pereira Mendes celebrates his 40th anniversary as rabbi of Congregation Shearith
Israel
of
New York City
.
1917: The Judeo-Spanish newspaper El Emigrantewas established in
New Jersey
.
1917: The Russian Revolution begins in earnest when troops of the Czar fire on the citizens of St. Petersburg. This is the first, non-Bolshevik Russian Revolution. Jews played an active role in the various upheavals that would bring an end to the reign of the Czars. The Jews did not realize that anti-Semitism was such an integral part of the Russian psyche that it would survive and flourish under the next wave of autocrats – the Communists who replaced the Czars.
1917: The German plan to bring
Mexico
into World War on the German side is exposed. The incident is referred to as the “Zimmerman telegram.” Zimmerman was the German foreign minister. This bit of arrogance and ignorance was one of the causes of the
United States
entering the war in April of 1917. The Jewish author Barbara Tuchman wrote a very readable and informative book on this subject.
1918: Einstein wrote “to an academic correspondent who had rebuked him for his dislike of war, ‘Your ostentatious Teutonic muscle-flexing runs rather against my grain. I prefer to string along with my compatriot Jesus Christ, whose doctrines you and your kind consider to be obsolete. Suffering is indeed more acceptable to me than resort to violence.’”
1920: The Nazi party held it first major meeting in
Munich
,
Germany
.
1921: In Cincinnati, Ohio, the Board of Governors announced that Dr. Kaufman Kohler, President of the Hebrew Union College, will retire at the end of the current academic year. Dr. Kohler has been serving as President since February, 1903.
1921: As head of the Colonial Office, Winston Churchill makes his first commitment to practical Zionist enterprise by approving Pinchas Rutenberg’s plan to harness the waters of the Jordan and Yarkon rivers for electrical power enabling the Jews to begin to make further plans for substantial urban and rural development.
1922: Birthdate of actor Steven Hill. Born Solomon Krakovsky in
Seattle
Washington
, he is best known for his role as Adam Schiff on the television series “Law and Order.
1922(26thof Shevat, 5682): Sir Ellis Kadoorie passed away today and was buried in keeping with Jewish ritual was buried on the same day at the Jewish Cemetery in Hong Kong. Born in 1865, he was part of prominent Jewish family from Baghdad that moved to Bombay and eventually made their fortune in a variety of enterprises many of which were located in China and Hong Kon
1928: Birthdate of Ezat Delijani, a 1979 refugee from Iran’s Islamic Revolution who became a prominent Los Angeles businessman (As reported by Dennis McLellan)
http://articles.latimes.com/print/2011/aug/30/local/la-me-ezat-delijani-20110830
1932: Benjamin N. Cardozo was confirmed by a unanimous voice vote in the Senate to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Compare the ease with which Cardozo’s name sailed through the approval process with the contentious combat that surrounded the confirmation of Justice Brandeis.
1932: The Maccabee Association of the United States hosts a benefits concert at Carnegie Hall to raise funds for an athletic stadium in Tel Aviv.
1936: “Henrietta Szold…replied today to Palestine Jewry’s greetings on her seventy-fifth birthday, stating that without their assistance she could have achieved nothing.”
1940: Winston Churchill shared a telegram with the War Cabinet in which Chaim Weizmann described the “deplorable” effect that adoption of the Land Transfer Regulations would have. The War Cabinet was unmoved by the plea.
1942:The Struma was torpedoed and sunk by the Soviet submarine SC 213 Approximately 769 illegal Jewish immigrants aboard the Struma perished on their way to Palestine. The
Struma
was one of a series of ships filled with Jews that attempted to run the British blockade. The blockade was part of the British commitment to the Arabs to keep Jews out of
Palestine
in violation of the Balfour Declaration and the terms of the Mandate. The British slavishly enforced the blockade during and after World War II. The
Struma
traversed the
Black Sea
and attempted to stop at
Istanbul
. But the British told the Turks that the Jews would not be allowed to land in
Palestine
so they turned the ship back in the
Black Sea
. It was there that the ship was sunk, reportedly torpedoed by a Nazi submarine. Exodus by Leon Uris is based on another blockade running episode that took place in 1947.
1942: Birthdate of Senator Joe Lieberman.
1943: Hitler sent Nazi members a message on the anniversary of the establishment of the Nazi Party, "The struggle will end . . . with the liquidation of Jewry in
Europe
."
1944: At Birkenau, 200 of the 800 prisoners in the Sonderkommando were sent to Majdanek where they were shot.
1944:Max Jacob a French artist, who was born Jewish but converted to Catholicism, was arrested by the Gestapo and put into Orléans prison. He was then transferred to a holding camp in Drancy for transport to a concentration camp in Germany.
1946:In Tel Aviv, a throng of more than 50,000 Jews attended the funeral of four men killed during an attack on several RAF airfields. For more than six hours, this “all-Jewish” city was truly in control of the Jewish people as there were no signs of any British police or soldiers. Jewish newspapers published black-bordered obituaries for each of the deceased. During the funeral, the Haganah distributed leaflets, giving further proof that the airfield attacks were not the work of the Irgun, but were the work of a broader-based Jewish resistance movement. The attack and the public outpouring of grief seemed to indicate a change in mood among the Jewish population who were now apparently willing to support more aggressive tactics designed to secure their national home in light of what they have come to view of as the British betrayal of the Zionist cause and their support for the Arabs.
1947: Birthdate of Lawrence Bailey Bogdanow an architect whose love for natural materials and fine craftsmanship brought a sense of warmth and ease to the interiors of dozens of Manhattan’s most popular restaurants, including Union Square Café, Savoy and the Cub Room (As reported by William Grimes)
1947: Birthdate of Juval Aviv, the native of kibbutz Kfar Menachem who is known as an Israeli-American security consultant and writer.
1949: "Under the auspices of the United Nations Mediator Dr. Ralph Bunche, an armistice was signed between
Egypt
and
Israel
." This marked, more or less, the end of
Israel
's War for
Independence
. "It was the first such agreement between
Israel
and any of its warring neighbors. The aim of the armistice was not merely to end the fighting but, as its terms stated to 'facilitate the transition...to permanent peace'. The phrase was taken from the United Nations Security Council resolution of November 16." Unfortunately, the Egyptians and the other Arab nations only viewed this as a cease fire. Over the next several decades they would violate the spirit and the agreement as they sought to destroy the state of
Israel
. For the Israelis the armistice was a great victory won against seemingly impossible odds. When asked to explain the reason for this victory which sealed the creation of the Jewish state, Yigal Yadin replied, "If we are to condense all the various factors, and they are many, which brought about victory, I would not hesitate to credit the extraordinary qualities of
Israel
's youth, during the War of Independence, with that victory." In other words, it was the spirit of the people that provided the will to hold out in the early dark days and then to take advantage of later breakthroughs to turn toward victory. As we study Jewish History, it will be interesting to see the similarity between the causes of Jewish victories in ancient and modern times.
1949: President Weizmann entrusted David Ben-Gurion with the task of forming
Israel
’s first government.
1950: Ada Maimon, a member of the Knesset, is spearheading the drive to tighten Israel’s marriage laws. She is seeking to raise the minimum age of consent from 15 to 18 and tighten up on rules concerning the exceptions. Current law, which is left over from the British mandate allows girls to marry at the age of 15 but allows for marriage at a younger age with parental consent. Miss Maimon would limit exceptions to girls at the age of 17. Miss Maimon, who is a member of the Knessett, is most concerned about ending what she considers the abuse of this “loophole” that has girls as young as 12 getting married. Primary opposition is coming from Jews of Oriental orign who are offended by Miss Maimon’s characterization of Oriental mothers as “breeding delinquents.” The fifty-seven year old Miss Maimon is the sister of Rabbi Judah L. Maimon Israel’s Minister for Religious Affairs and is in charge of the agricultural training farm at Ayanot that was founded in 1930.
1952: Birthdate of Simon Weinstock, British businessman and racehorse owner.
1953: Birthdate of March Feinstein the native of Mitchell, South Dakota who has served as the Representative from the 14thDistrict in the South Dakota House of Repesentatives.
1954: Birthdate of Dutch author Leon de Winter whose works include the novels Kaplan and Hoffman’s Hunger.
1956: “Churchill received the Israeli Ambassador, Eliahu Elath, who presented him with a portfolio of woodcuts depicting ancient
Jerusalem
as an eightieth birthday gift from the Prime Minister and Government of Israel.
1956: Birthdate of television journalist, Paula Zahn.
1967(13th of Adar I, 5727): German born, American composer Franz Waxman passed away. Waxman was nominated for 12 Oscars. In back to back victories he won for “Sunset Boulevard” and “A Place in the Sun.” These two films give us a sense of the breadth of Waxman’s skills since the first film was classic cinema noir and the second was a Western.
1976: Jules Feiffer's "Knock Knock" premiered in
New York City
.
1981: Jean Harris is convicted of murdering Dr. Herman Tarnower, the Jewish author of the bestselling The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet. From “eat, eat my children eat” to a mania for weight watching; such is the Jewish experience in the last hundred years.
1981: Two bronze doors, weighing about 200 pounds, were stolen from a mausoleum at the Baron Hirsch Cemetery on Staten Island cemetery today. The police estimated the value of the doors at $600.
1983(11th of Adar, 5743): Ta’anit Esther
1987(24th of Shevat, 5747): Marian Gerber Greenberg, who worked closely with Henrietta Szold, the founder of the Hadassah, the Woman's Zionist Organization of America, and its Youth Aliyah to help rescue thousands of Jewish children from Nazi Germany, died of congestive heart failure at the Cooley-Dickenson Hospital, Northampton, Mass. She was 89 years old and lived in Amherst, Mass. Mrs. Greenberg was the first national chairman of Youth Aliyah, serving in the post from 1936 to 1941. A national board member of Hadassah since 1927, she was a national vice president and a Hadassah delegate to five world Zionist Congresses between 1931 and 1952. She was also national chairman of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Building Fund. She edited the Hadassah newsletter (now a magazine) and, from 1943 to 1946 was editor of the monthly bulletin of the Citizens' Housing and Planning Council of New York. A former resident of Manhattan, she retired to Amherst in 1976, where she taught courses in the Bible and modern Jewish thought, sponsored by the Judaic Studies department of the University of Massachusetts. She was born in Philadelphia and graduated from Cornell University in 1919. She was the widow of David Greenberg, a writer on wildlife and conservation, who died in 1968.
1989(19th of Adar I): Sergeant Binyamin Meisner, an Israeli paratrooper, was killed today when he was struck in the head by a concrete block thrown from a building in Nablus, in the West Bank, the army said. Meisner, a 24-year-old reserve sergeant, is the sixth Israeli soldier to die in the current Arab wave of violence.
1991: The New York Times reviews To Know A Woman by Amos Oz.
1994(12th of Adar, 5754): Dinah Shore passed away. Born Francis Rose Shore in 1916, the Tennessee native gained fame as a singer and star of her own television variety show. (As reported by Stephen Holden)
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/25/obituaries/dinah-shore-homey-singer-and-star-of-tv-dies-at-76.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm
1996: Andrew Beckerman-Rodau a Jewish professor at Suffolk University Law School flew from Detroit to Kiev. His visit to
Kiev
was at the invitation of the Ukrainian Supreme Court in cooperation with USAID, an agency of the
United States
government. USAID's mission is to assist this newly independent country in developing a democratic government.
1997: Time magazine published “Echoes of the Holocaust” that describes attempt for victims regain some of the wealth stolen from them be bankers during the Nazi domination of Europe.
http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,985946,00.html
1998(27th of Shevat, 5758): Comedian Henny Youngman passed away at the age of 92. Youngman was famous for his tagline “Take my wife please.” Youngman did not have a Bar Mitzvah as a child. When he was in his seventies, he finally had one much to his joy and delight. (As reported by Mervyn Rothstein)
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/25/arts/henny-youngman-king-of-the-one-liners-is-dead-at-91-after-6-decades-of-laughter.html
1999(7th of Adar, 5759): David Daube, a world renowned Biblical law scholar who charmed generations of students while teaching at the University of California, Berkeley's law school passed away at the age of 90.
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/10358/noted-bible-scholar-david-daube-dies/
2001(1st of Adar, 5761): Rosh Chodesh Adar
2002: Bruce Fleisher won the RJR (Golf) Championship
2002(11th of Adar, 5762): Leo Orenstein, Russian born American composer and pianist passed away at the age of 89.
2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Life in Pieces: The Making and Unmaking of Binjamin Wilkomirski by Blake Eskin and Kindred Souls: The Friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and David Gurewitsch by Edna P. Gurewitsch. (Gurewitsch, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia was “Eleanor Roosevelt's friend, confidant, personal physician, housemate, and traveling companion during her post-White House years.”)
2005: 14th of Adar – observance of Purim.
2006: London Mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended from office for four weeks after being found guilty of bringing his office into disrepute by comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard.
2007: Israel Non-Stop “seven days of cutting edge Israeli music, theatre, film, art, food and more” began in New York with the appearance of Israeli music phenomenon Mosh Ben-Ari. According to the playbill, “Mosh Ben-Ari combines ecstatic middle eastern rhythms, spirituality, and scents of reggae and African beats. Mosh Ben-Ari's joyous concerts around the world turn into high spirited celebrations for peace. His recently released album, Go Giving, has been praised by music critics and fans alike.”
2007: “West Bank Story” won the Academy Award for Short Film-Live Action. The 21 minute mus