May 10 In History
70: During the Siege of Jerusalem, Titus, the commander of the Roman legions and the son of Emperor Vespasian, opens a full-scale assault on Jerusalem and attacks the city's Third Wall to the northwest.
1013: After three long years of fighting which destroyed the cities of Jaen, Algecrias, Malaga and Valencia, the Muslim Berber tribesmen from North Africa took over the city of Cordoba, replacing the Umayyad Arabs. This shift in power did not have a negative impact on the Jewish population of Moorish Spain as they continued to play a similar role in the more decentralized world of the Berbers.
1267: A Church synod, meeting in Vienna, ordered Jews to wear distinctive garb.
1427: All Jews were ordered expelled from Berne, Switzerland. Expulsions of Jewish communities continued unabated throughout the 15th century: Treves, 1419; duchy of Austria, 1421; Cologne, 1424; Zurich, 1436; archbishopric of Hildesheim, 1457; Schaffhausen, 1472; Mayence, 1473; Warsaw, 1483; Geneva, 1490; Thurgau, 1491; Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, Lithuania, 1492; Mecklenburg and Arles, 1493; Portugal, 1497; Nuremberg 1499; Provence, 1500.
1484: The Inquisitor at
Saragossa
, General Gaspar Juglar was found dead, possibly the victim of a poisoning. This happened shortly after the first auto-de-fe took place in the city.
1529: Suleiman the Magnificent launched his campaign to secure control of Hungary. The campaign would lead to the unsuccessful siege of Vienna in the fall which would mark the high-water mark of Turkish attempts to take control of Europe with all that that would mean for Christians, Moslems and especially Jews.
1655: The British capture Jamaica from Spanish opening the door for Jews to settle in the island colony.
1682: The largest auto da fe was held in Lisbon: One hundred and seventeen persons were judged within three days, including a ninety-one year old woman.
1774:Abraham Solomon married Elizabeth Low at Marblehead, Massachusetts. Solomon was Jewish, a fact reinforced by the fact that he signed his name in Hebrew on the muster roll so that he could receive his pay while serving in the Continental Army.
1774: Louis XVI begins his reign as King of France. Basically, Louis followed the policy of his predecessors when it came to the Jews of France. “The established, finance ally comfortable Sephardim of Bordeaux,
Bayonne
and
Marseilles
” enjoyed the privileges granted by Louis XV. “These privileges had been purchased with a ll0, 000-livres payment in honor of his coronation.”
The Ashkenazi community of
Alsace
suffered the abuse and taxation that had been their lot since the days of Louis XIV. Of course part of this difference in treatment may have been caused by the fact that
Alsace
was Germanic province that
France
had taken as a spoil of war. The French were always suspicious of those living in this border province, Jew and non-Jew alike.
1801: Birthdate of Paul Tulane the businessman whose endowment paved the way for the renaming of the university which was originally known as the Medical College of Louisiana to Tulane University whose many Jewish graduates include Professor Stephen Whitfield. As of 2009, Tulane’s Jewish population ranked number 9 in a list of 30 private universities. Tulane is home to a Jewish Studies program that has been led by the distinguished author and educator Professor Brian Horowitz.
http://tulane.edu/liberal-arts/jewish-studies/
1799: French troops under Napoleon make one last assault in their futile attempt to conquer Acre. If the assault had succeeded would history have been changed? Would Bonaparte have honored the grandiose statements about making Palestine a home for the Jews? Given his “inconsistency” in other areas, it would probably have depended on his needs at the time.
1801: American involvement in the Middle East would begin when the Barbary Pirates of Tripoli (North Africa, not Lebanon) declares war against the United States in what became known as the First Barbary War. American Jews first became involved in the area when Colonel David Franks negotiated a treaty with
Morocco
back in 1786. Jewish involvement would continue when President Madison sent Mordecai Manuel Noah to negotiate with
Tunisia
based Barbary Pirates for the release of imprisoned American sailors in 1813. The appointment of Noah “helped establish a tradition of appointing American Jews to Middle Eastern diplomatic posts. (For more about this fascinating intersection of American and Jewish history see Power, Faith and Fantasy by Michael B. Oren.)
1808: The Westphalian chief of police, a French official named Savagner, entered “The Green Shield.” The Green Shield was both the home and the business center for Rothschild in
Frankfurt
. Savagner and the troopers, who accompanied him, searched the premises looking for proof that Rothschild was plotting with Whilhelm.
1810: Birthdate of Joseph Mayer Montefiore, the native of London who was a nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore
1813: Birthdate of Gustav Christian Schwabe a German-born British “merchant and financier who funded companies such as John Bibby & Sons, Harland and Wolff and the White Star Line.” At the age of six, Schwabe and his family “were forced to convert to Lutheranism.”
1837: As the Panic of 1837 (a 19th century version of the 20thcentury Great Depression) worsens banks in New York fail and unemployment reaches record levels. Some Jews prospered during this period while others struggled. Isaiah Moses, a South Carolina merchant and planter was forced to borrow money from Beth Elohim’s charity fund, Karen Kayemet to help maintain his lifestyle. On the other hand August Belmont, representing the Rothschilds, arrived in
New York
during the Panic. He used his newly created August Belmont & Company to reform and improve the business interests of the House of Rothschild over the next five years.
1843: Birthdate of Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler, leader of the Reform Movement in the United States. Born and educated in
Germany
, Kohler came to the
United States
in 1869 to serve as Rabbi at Congregation Beth El in
Detroit
. The following year he married the daughter of Dr. David Einhorn, the Rabbi at Congregation Beth El in
New York
and the leading Reform rabbi of his day. Kohler followed his father-in-law in that position and supported his views when he helped write the 1885 Reform Platform. He was elected President of Hebrew Union College and died in 1926.
1849(18th of Iyar, 5609): Lag B'Omer
1849: Bernard Sondheim served with the Tenth Regiment of New York State Militia when it quelled the Astor Place Riot, also known as the Forrest-Maready Riots, a unique outbreak of public violence caused by competing fans of two different thespians.
1855: A group of Jews who have converted to Christianity are scheduled to meet tonight at the Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church in Manhattan under the auspices of the American Hebrew Christian Association.
1861: Secretary of War Cameron and President Lincoln officially accepted Major Mordecai's resignation thus ending a 38 year military career of what was at that time, the highest ranking Jewish officer in the U.S. Army
1866: Birthdate of Leon Bakst. Born Lev Rosenberg in what is now Belarus, Bakst “was a Russian painter and scene- and costume- designer who revolutionized the arts he worked in.” In 1893 he produced a self-portrait that hung in the Sate Russian Museum in, St. Petersburg. He passed away in 1924.
1868: In an article entitled “Mr. Disraeli and Judaism” the New York Timessummarized the view expressed by The Jewish Chronicle that Benjamin Disraeli has been a Christian since he was either five or six years old at which time a friend of Disraeli’s father took young Benjamin to a church in Hackney where he was baptized.
1869: The First Transcontinental Railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah (not Promontory Point, Utah) with the golden spike. When the Union Pacific, one of the two companies building the railroad, entered Utah the Auberach brothers (Fred, Sam and Theodore) opened tent stores in Bryan, Wyoming and Promontory, Utah to meet the needs of the burgeoning population The Auberachs were so successful that they opened a permanent store in Ogden, Utah in 1869 and Salt Lake City in 1873.
1872: Birthdate of Marcel Mauss, “a French sociologist best known for his role in elaborating on and securing the legacy of his uncle, Émile Durkheim and the Annee Sociologique and the author of The Gift. He passed away in 1950.
http://www.aaanet.org/committees/commissions/centennial/history/092mauss.pdf
1873: Myer Stern the President of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society and a trustee of Temple Emanu-El was among the mayor’s nominees for Commissioners of Charities and Correction in New York City. Born in 1824, Stern came to the United States at the age of 16 and has lived in New York since 1847. “A large, robust vigorous-looking man with a rather pleasant expression,” Stern is a Reform Democrat who had the support of the Republicans when he ran for the State Senate.
1873: Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a patent for their unique manner of manufacturing jeans.
1874:Birthdate of Moses Schorr, a Polish Rabbi, Polish historian, politician, Bible scholar, Assyriologist and orientalist who died in Soviet prison camp in 1941.
1877: Romania declares itself independent from Turkey. Under the Treaty of Berlin signed in 1878, the Jews of Romania were to receive full citizenship.
1877: The will of Henry Grass, a New York clothier who died in April, was filed in Surrogate’s Court today. The estate was valued at $75,000. The will opened with an invocation “In the name of the God of Israel, Amen.” Grass left $300 to his niece Jetha and a thousand dollars to the daughters of his brother Abraham “on condition that they ‘marry according to the Jewish law.’” He left $100 bequests to the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum , Mout Sinai Hospital and the Hebrew congregation on 57th street between 1st and 2nd avenues. He left one third of the residue of the estate to his wife Rebbeca and the remainder was to be divided equally among his six children.
1879: Today’s “Foreign News” column reported that there had been a massacre of Jews in Satschcheri in the Caucuses. At the beginning of April the body of a child was found in the woods. Seven Jews were accused by the Christian villagers of having killed the child and then having hid the body as part of their Easter Sacrifice. The accused were taken before a local Judge who dismissed the charges after “a medical witness” testified that the child had died of natural causes and that the wounds on the body “were the work of wild animals. The Jews celebrated their deliverance with a party which was interrupted by a an axe wielding Christian mob. The mob, which had been incited by an Orthodox Priest broke into the house killing six of the Jews and injuring many more.
1879: Based on information provided by a correspondent for the Neue Zilricher Zeitgung it was reported today that in the first week of April the Jews of Satschcheri had been massacred after the body of a Christian child had been found in the woods. Seven Jews were accused by the Christian villagers of having killed the child and hidden the body to be used in a holiday sacrifice. The district judge dismissed the charges because the medical witness said the child had died of natural causes and the wounds on the body had been inflicted by wild enemies. Ax-wielding Christian villagers attacked the Jews who were celebrating their deliverance, killing at least six and wounding several more. The correspondent claimed that the local Greek Orthodox priest had incited the attack.
1881: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Wasilkow and Konotop, Russia.
1882: Alliance, an Jewish agricultural settlement, was founded in New Jersey. Alliance was financed by Alliance Israelite Universelle headquartered in Paris. It was part of a movement to have Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe settle away from major metropolitan areas in the United States and Great Britain.
1883: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Craiova, Rumania.
1885: “Welcoming a New Rabbi” published today described the first service conducted by Rabbi Alexander Kohut at Temple Ahavath Chesed. The Hungarian native had replaced another Hungarian native, Adolph Huebsch who passed away last October. In his opening sermon, Kohut paid tribute to his new home, promised to be an apostle of peace and spoke so movingly of his predecessors that some of the congregants were moved to tears.
1888(29th of Iyar, 5648): Sixty-five year old Michael Heilprin passed away.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7500-heilprin-michael
1888: Birthdate of composer Maximilian Raoul Walter Steiner. Max Steiner was born in
Vienna
and supposedly studied under Mahler. He came to the
United States
in the 1930's, another refugee from Hitler's
Europe
. He continued the career as a composer for films and produced musical themes for such films as “
Casablanca
,” “The Caine Mutiny” and “The Summer Place.” His greatest contribution was the music for “Gone With the Wind.” “
Tara
's Theme” is often voted one of the best movie themes of all time. Steiner passed away in 1971.
1890: It was reported today “the upper house of the Prussian Diet has adopted a resolution calling upon the government to remedy the evils arising from the large number of Jews in the public schools” by excluding “the juvenile Jews while still taxing the adult Jews for the cost of public education.
1890: “Complaining of the Jews” published today described the reaction of Her von Gosler, the Minister of Public Instruction in Prussia to proposals that Jewish children be excluded from public schools. He said that “such an attempt would force the nation in a position leading to disruption instead of union.” To him, this is a matter of educational policy and not subject to “political demand.”
1891: “Tories Not So Happy Now” published today described the rising fortunes of the Liberal Party which is due in part to a return of the Jews to this political party. “Under the glamour of Disraeli’s example it became quite the fashion for” Jews to join the Conservative Party. Now, as Jews are confronted with “outside persecution” they recall the debt they owe to the Liberal Party. Among those leading the change are Baron de Stern and H.S. Leon, the son of clockmaker who has reportedly amassed a fortune of 15 million dollars and has sought to be a leader of the Anglo-Jewish community.
1891: The increase of this week’s issue of The Hebrew Standard from 16 to 24 pages is reported to be permanent. The Hebrew Standard “is now the largest Jewish paper published in the United State. “It is intended to be a Jewish family paper” without any congregational affiliation.
1891: Nearly three hundred Jewish children were vaccinated today the Bureau of Contagious Diseases.
1892: “Strikes Turn Into Riots” published today described the violent attacks on the Jews of Lodz by workers who have been on strike since May Day. After attacking the mills where they had worked the strikers turned their wrath on the Jewish community which actively defended itself. Local authorities could not quell the disturbance, but the military units called in showed their sympathy with the rioters and did not defend the Jews.
1893: Three people escaped being asphyxiated today at a tenement on Eldridge Street which is occupied by Jewish immigrants from Russia.
1893: In can only be described as a “starting” development, it was reported today that the Russian government to hold a meeting of Rabbis in the Autumn to discuss “the Jewish question.” This comes in the wake of the governments announced plan for expelling a million and half Jews living in the Polish part of the Russian Empire.
1895: “Meeting of Jewish Woman’s Council” published today described the groups plans for holding a fundraising fair in December and a request from London to assist in establishing schools for Russian Jews who have moved to Jerusalem.
1899: Memorial services honoring the late Baroness Hirsch are scheduled to be held at the Hebrew Institute and Temple Emanu-El
1899: Birthdate of composer Dimitri Tiomkin. Born in Russia, Tiomkin worked in lived in Western Europe before coming to the United States in the 1930's where enjoyed an almost unparalleled career writing scores for film productions. His credits include everything from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, to Giant, to The High and The Mighty and the Guns of Navaronne. One of his classic was the theme for the 1952 classic western, High Noon. He won an Oscar for that one and Tex Ritter gained musical immortality for singing it. His biggest contribution to television was theme for Rawhide. He passed away in 1979, yet another Jew who helped create popular American culture.
1900: Austrian Prime Minister Ernest von Koerber delivered his “Language Bill” Speech which was entirely different than the one he had asked Herzl to write for him. Herzl responded to this apparent slight by asking if the Prime Minister only valued his “secretarial services" or that he thought that Herzl wants “a decoration or something like that?” In fact, Herzl only wrote the speech as way of getting the Prime Minister to help him arrange a meeting with the Sultan of Turkey so that he could make a presentation on the benefits of creating a Jewish home in Palestine
1902: Birthdate of producer David O Selznick. Born in
Pittsburgh
, he was the son of silent film director Lewis J. Selznick and later the son-in-law of
MGM
's Louis B. Mayer. Selznick worked for
MGM
for years before setting up his own production company. While there are many films with the Selznick name on them, the most famous was the Academy Award winner, Gone With the Wind. Selznick died in 1965.
1902: Birthdate of Antaole Litvak director of the film Anastasia
1903: Birthdate of philosopher Hans Jonas. Born and educated in Germany, Jonas would move to Eretz Israel 1933, join the British Army, serving as a combat soldier for five years, return to Israel to fight at the age of 45 as soldier in the War for Independence before moving to Canada and the United States where he wrote and taught until his death in 1993.
1906: Birthdate of New York mobster Abe "Kid Twist" Reles
1909: It was reported today that there is still a possibility that the million dollar bequest by the late Louis A. Heinsheimer may be given to six New York City Charities on condition that they form a federation. Alfred M. Heinsheimer, the residuary legatee under the will, is trying to find a way to accomplish the descendant’s desires desipted the fact that Louis Stern, President of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum has expressed his continued opposition to the creation of such a federation.
1913: Seventieth birthday of Dr. Kaufmann Kohler who for twenty-four years was Rabbi of Temple Beth-El, at Fifth Avenue and Seventy-sixth Street andis now Honorary Rabbi of that congregation.
1919: Birthdate of Daniel Bolotsky, who gained fame as “Daniel Bell, the writer, editor, sociologist and teacher who over seven decades came to epitomize the engaged intellectual as he struggled to reveal the past, comprehend the present and anticipate the future.” (As reported by Michael T. Kaufman)
1922: Birthdate of David Joshua Azrieli, CM, CQ the “Canadian builder, designer, architect, developer and philanthropist.”
1924: Dr. Kaufmann Kohler, President Emeritus of Hebrew Union College at Cincinnati, Honorary President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and known as one of the greatest Jewish scholars of America, celebrated his eighty-first birthday at his home at 2 West Eighty-eighth Street among a gathering of relatives, friends and scholarly disciples.
1926: A column entitled “Jew and Gentile” published in today in Time magazine provided the following portrait of the American Jewish Community in the middle of the Roaring 20’s which had come to include a genteel form of anti-Semitism at America’s leading universities
On the upper end of Manhattan Island there are arising some gorgeous, massive buildings in an Americanized Byzantine manner— rigid facades; a squatty dome; ornate yet severe decoration. They represent the first independent stand on education ever taken by Jewry in the 2,000 years of its exile. Out of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary has grown the Yitzchok Elchanan Yeshivah, in which there will be the first Jewish college ever established in the U. S., equipped to grant "the same academic degrees as other American colleges in a background thoroughly Jewish and thoroughly American in spirit." Such an institution has become more and more inevitable, for a reason implicit in remarks made last week by Gustavus A. Rogers, Manhattan lawyer, who addressed 60 prominent Jews at the Bankers' Club: "We will cater ... to the Jews who have been barred from Christian schools for non-scholastic reasons." There was simple fact in Mr. Rogers' assertion that U. S. universities— he named Columbia, Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown and Princeton — discriminate against Jews in accepting matriculants. Polite evasion by those institutions notwithstanding—except in Columbia's case — Jewish undergraduates form an element in the undergraduate bodies which, if it has not occasioned official discrimination, is a subject for much restless discussion and action among Gentile undergraduates, and this constitutes, for the Jews, discrimination of a most definite sort—exclusion from clubs, preference in athletics, elections, etc. It has seemed to many Gentiles high time that the Jews, with their plentiful resources, relieve themselves of embarrassment by building their own colleges, just as they have their own churches, dwelling colonies (e. g., Long Beach, L. I.), and even hotels (e.g., the Hotel Libby, at Delancey and Chrystie Streets, Manhattan, which opened formally last week for Jews only). Another speaker at the Bankers' Club gathering—met to discuss a music festival to be held this month in Madison Square Garden to raise a fifth of the five millions needed to build the Yeshivah— was Adolph Lewisohn, one of the most intelligent and effective workers on human relationships in the U. S. He referred to the Yeshivah as "the salvation of Judaism," where Jews could acquire a college education in Jewish surroundings and without breaking the Sabbath and other holy days. He said that his own grandsons had been excluded "by one of the East's largest universities." There was a tinge of irony in Mr. Lewisohn's position, whether the grandsons had been excluded for social or for academic reasons. He came to this country from Germany as a lad of 16, in 1865. His brother Leonard was already here and the two built up a big mercantile business, Lewisohn Bros. In 1868 they began specializing in metals, particularly copper, and soon led in world markets. Leonard died in 1902. Adolph, now 77, is one of the world's greatest mining and industrial potentates. He sent his son, Sam Adolph, to Princeton ('04) and to Columbia Law School ('07), then took him into the firm, now Adolph Lewisohn & Sons. As wealth accumulated he entered philanthropy in the educational and artistic fields. He housed the Columbia School of Mines with a gift of $300,000. He assisted the College of the City of New York to form a German library, to build an athletic stadium. He collected paintings—Blakelock, Bellows and other moderns as well as Rembrandt, Titian, Dürer—and put them where they could be enjoyed by the people as well as himself. Now his grandsons, because of the pressure of an affluent Jewish population, are uncomfortable in surroundings to whose peace and prosperity he has contributed much. He hears of requests from the colleges to the heads of preparatory schools to "leave the Jews out" when they fill their quotas of certificate scholars. But Adolph Lewisohn understands the nature of social irony, and instead of berating the Gentiles, he has simply noted their frame of mind and thrown his weight behind a movement to supply the people of his race and creed with an institution which, without in turn discriminating against other creeds, will put the children of Israel on an equal educational footing with their Gentile countrymen.
1926: Large contributions towards the campaign to save the Franc by voluntary subscriptions are being made by French Jews. Louis Dreyfus contributed the amount of 500,000 Francs today. The Union of Presidents of Jewish Societies in Paris has announced its first contribution of 6,335 Francs.
1926: New light upon the life, achievements and opinions of Walter Rathenau, late German Jewish statesman who was killed by anti-Semites, is contained in two volumes of the writings of Rathenau and documents pertaining to his life, released here today. The volumes contain about eight hundred letters of Rathenau and cover a period of forty years. The volumes contain material hitherto unknown in which Rathenau emphasized his loyalty to Germany and Judaism.
1927: In Berlin, Sali and Alex Friedlander gave birth to Rabbi Friedlander.
1928: Birthdate of Alfred Gilbert Aronowitz, an American rock journalist best known for introducing Bob Dylan and The Beatles in 1964.
1929: A joint memorandum to the Mandatory Government by the chief rabbis, the National Council and Agudat Israel demands a halt of all construction work carried out by Muslims near the Western Wall.
1933: Books deemed of "un-German spirit," most of them Jewish, are burned on Unter den Linden, opposite the University of Berlin, and throughout Germany. More than 20,000 volumes are destroyed, including works by John Dos Passos, Thomas Mann, Karl Marx, Ernest Hemingway, Upton Sinclair, Émile Zola, H. G. Wells, André Gide, Sigmund Freud, Maxim Gorky, Helen Keller, Friedrich Forster, Marcel Proust, Jack London, and Erich Maria Remarque. Among those who witnessed the burnings were Sinclair Lewis, Eve Curie and Bella Fromm.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/may/02.asp
1933: Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife had already moved to Southern France when his works work burned during today’s book burnings in German. The famous novelist had been forced to flee because he was Jewish, because he was an out-spoken critic of the Nazis and because he was friend with such decadents as Bertol Brecht.
1940: During World War II, British forces occupied Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, as part of Operation Fork. The British took the action to forestall seizure of the neutral island-nation by the Nazis. The Anglo-Jewish sailors and marines who were part of the occupation force found that city contained a small Jewish population but no synagogue. By Yom Kippur the disparate groups of Jews had coalesced into a semblance of a community. About twenty five Jewish soldiers from England, Scotland and Canada gathered with eight Jewish refugees and Hendrik Ottósson to observe the most solemn day on the Jewish calendar.
1940: The Germans invaded the Low Countries and France putting an end to the so called Phony War. The Blitzkrieg would bring the Holocaust to the existing Jewish populations of these nations as well as to the untold thousands of Jews who had sought refuge in the West since the rise of Hitler during the 1930's.
1940: Author and illustrator Hans Rey was at his desk in Avranches touching up a page of “Fifi” as the Nazis were invading France and the Benelux countries. Unbeknownst to Rey, this major military catastrophe would trigger events that would send him and his wife on race against death that would lead them through southern France and ultimately to the United States.
1941: As Axis forces drive into
Egypt
, Churchill receives secret word of a new threat to the Jews of Palestine. Hitler is pressuring
Turkey
to allow German troops to cross their borders threatening
Palestine
from the North. Churchill reminds his new Colonial Secretary, Viscount Cranborne of his previous support of arming the Jews for self-defense and urges him to get done all that he can. Realizing the danger of a pincer attack, the British now encourage the Jews to build fortifications on the crest of
Mount Carmel
so that they can respond to attacks from the north and the south.
1941 (12th of Iyar, 5701) In Suresnes, France, Aaron Beckermann was the first Jew in France to be shot for resistance.
1941: Raymond Raoul Lambert wrote in his diary: "In view of the persecutions being initiated by the new order in France, against foreigners in general and foreign Jews in particular, in light of what has happened elsewhere, in view of the racist laws and the 'Commission on Jewish Affairs' being run in Vichy from Berlin, I wonder whether this collaboration won't bring about a yet more rigorous Statut [the anti-Jewish laws of
October 7, 19
40]... There are days when I don't dare listen to official bulletins on the radio; they wound me, because I still feel French and call myself a Frenchman. If I didn't have my wife and my three sons, I should be sorry not to have died honorably in action... or sorry to have survived my mother..." As a staunch supporter of pan-Europeanism, Paul Lambet had repeatedly censured nationalistic writers and opposed the more militant French attitudes toward
Germany
. He believed that "
Germany
and
France
, after having been combatants, have to collaborate or decline," a prophetic thought, but expressed too early. Lambert's strong identification with
France
and its interests did not prevent him from taking a deep interest in Jewish affairs. A prolific writer for various French and Jewish publications, he had even published a collection of poems on Jewish themes and had assisted in the founding of the French Jewish Literary Review. He strove to bring French Jewish youth to a better understanding of the need to build "a new notion of a universal order." He was pleased to see the Zionist achievements in
Palestine
, but his very deep sentiment for liberal
France
prevented him from showing any special interest in the Zionist movement. Lambert's diary offers us a very interesting description of his service in the defeated French army in World War II, the creation of
Vichy
and the unprecedented rise of French anti-Semitism.
1943: Famous actor Ralph Bellamy read from “They Burned the Books” by Stephen Vincent Benet to a thousand people who gathered in front of the New York Public Library “as part of the nation’s observance of the tenth anniversary of the burning of books in Germany.
1943: This afternoon, in cooperation with the Council on Books in Wartime, New York radio station WQXR will broadcast “Books Never Die” to mark the 10thanniversary of the first mass Nazi book burning. The broadcast will include a message from Republican Presidential candidate Wendell Willkie and addresses by Sinclair Lewis, Eve Curie and Bella Fromm who were in Germany at that time.
1943: Two Jews were successfully smuggled out of Dobele, Latvia, and hidden in a haystack
1945:At Theresienstad, Herman Rosenblat “was scheduled to die in the gas chamber at 10:00 A.M. But at 8: A.M. he “heard shouts, and saw people running in every which way” because the Russians had liberated the camp. Rosenblat went to find his brothers who had also survived the last Nazi attempt at genocide.
1945: Theresienstadt was liberated by the Soviet Army. Located in the Czech town of Terezin (Theresienstadt was its German name), the ghetto gained some measure of fame as a show place where the Nazis brought representatives of the International Red Cross to show how well the Jews were being treated in the Third Reich. Eventually most of the Jews of Theresienstadt met the same fate as others in the various Death Camps. Sadly, after the liberation there was an outbreak of typhus which raged until August, claiming even more victims. There is a collection of children's art and from this strange ghetto entitled I Thought I Never Saw Another Butterfly.
1946: Birthdate of award winning British actress, writer and supporter of Israel, Maureen Diane Lippman.
1948: “In an attempt to see if war with Transjordan could be averted, the Jewish Agency sent one of its most formidable negotiators, Golda Meir, on a second secret mission to King Abdullah of Transjordan. In a mission that would credit to James Bond, Mrs. Meir traveled at night disguised in the robes of an Arab woman. Mrs. Meir offered a plan along the lines of the U.N. approved partition plan. Abdullah wanted the Jews to drop their demand for free immigration and give up their aspirations for a state. Instead, the Jews could have autonomy under Jordanian rule with Jewish representation in a