May 18 In History
323BCE: Alexander dies at the age of 32. Despite the legend, there is no proof that Alexander ever came to
Jerusalem
. He did pass through
Judea
on his way to conquer
Egypt
and on his way from the victory. He left the Jews in peace to practice their religion and to live in a semi-independent status. This was his standard treatment for all those who did not oppose him. He and his subordinates encouraged Jews to settle in
Egypt
and throughout
Asia Minor
. The Jews were allowed to live in their own communities where they were governed by their own councils and courts. Alexander was viewed as an enlightened monarch in much the way that Cyrus the Great had been.
363: The first of a series of earthquakes that would last for two days rocked the Galilee.
576: Over 500 Jews were forcibly baptized in Clermont-Ferrand, France.
1096(4856): Jews of Worms (Germany) were massacred by Crusaders. The survivors hid in the Bishop's palace for one week, after which they were either murdered or forcibly baptized.
1152: Henry II, King of England marries Eleanor of Aquitaine. This marriage produced two future Kings of England – Richard I (known as the Lionhearted) and King John, the monarch who signed the Magna Charta. For the Jews, Henry’s reign was an improvement over that of his predecessor, King Stephen. While Richard was semi-protective of his Jewish subjects, they suffered at the hands of those who wielded power while he was off crusading or fighting to protect his lands in France. In the first part of his reign, John maintained a positive relationship with his Jewish subjects, but as time went on he turned on them and made unrealistic financial demands on the community.
1268: Following the Battle of Antioch the Principality of Antioch, a crusader state, falls to Baibars I the Mamluk Sultan. During the Mamluk Sultanate, there was an upswing in anti- dhimmī feeling although much of this was really aimed at the Christians who held positions in the government and the Jews were just “tangential beneficiaries” of this attitude.
1291: A year after the Jews were expelled from England, after a two month siege, the fortress at Acre (Israel) falls to the Fatimid Egyptians, thus bringing about the end of the Crusades. Subsequently, the various crusading armies never succeeded in uniting as a cohesive force. The infighting and separate treaties defeated them as well as the Fatimid armies. “The founder of the Fatimid dynasty was Ubeidullah, known as the Mahdi. He was accused of Jewish ancestry by his adversaries the Abbasids, who declared him the grandson of Abdullah ibn Maymun, by a Jewess.”
1418:Representatives from the Jewish communities of central and northern Italy met to discuss raising funds for self-defense as well as instituting sumptuary regulations so as "not to show off in the presence of Gentiles." It is plausible that the issuing of these sumptuary regulations, influenced Pope Martin V to issue a protective Bull the following year
1721: In Madrid, 96 year old Maria Barbara Carillo was burned alive making her the oldest known victim of the Inquisition.
1792(26thof Iyar): Canadian Jewish leader Levy Solomons passed away
1794: Betty Hart, the first American female convert to Judaism, married Moses Nathans
1825(1st of Sivan, 5585): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1832:Eliakim Carmoly, a French-born Talmudist and author, was named to serve as a rabbi in Brussels.
1847(3rdof Sivan, 5607): Moses Calmus Lissa passed away
1860: In Chicago, Illinois, the Republican Party nominates Abraham Lincoln for President of the United States. Lewis Naphtali Dembitz, a 28 year old lawyer from Louisville, Kentucky,was one of the three delegates who put Lincoln’s name in nomination. Dembitz was the uncle of Louis Dembitz Brandeis, who would emulate his uncle’s legal career and then excel it as the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice.
1865(22nd of Iyar): David ben Moses Fraenkel, editor of Sulamith, passed away.
1868: As the United States entered into a Presidential election year, The New York Times published excerpts an article from the Jewish Messenger describing the role of “Hebrews” in the political life of Europe and the United States. In the United States, Jews are not “a compact body for political purposes…In the coming campaign, Hebrews will work, and talk, and vote precisely according to their convictions as citizens and in no respect will their political action be dependent upon their religious character as a body. There is no national Hebrew vote.”
1870: A column entitled “Mount Sinai Hospital” published today reported that the New York Times was wrong when it said that Mount Sinai Hospital was maintained by Jews for use by Jews. “The institution is supported by Jewish contribution and its directors” are Jewish “but it has always opened its doors to patients without the slightest regard to creed.” [In fact the hospital had been started before the Civil War to serve the needs of immigrants and indigent Jews. During the Civil War that role definitely changed as it became a treatment cite for thousands of Union wounded beginning with McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign in 1862.]
1872: Birthdate of Lord Bertrand Russell, British mathematician and philosopher. Lord Russell was pro-Palestinian describing them as innocent refugees and describing Israel as occupying land ‘given’ by a foreign power to the Jewish people for the creation of a new state.
1873: An informal reception was held today the recently opened home for aged and infirmed Hebrews at 63rdstreet and Lexington Avenue. The building, which can accommodate 50 individuals, is currently home to 26 women and 2 men. They range in age from 70 to 95. Mrs. P.J. Joachimsen is President of the Board of Directors.
1876: Wyatt Earp starts work as a lawman in Dodge City, Kansas. When he died, Earp’s ashes were buried in a Jewish cemeteryin Colma, California. No, the famous marshal was not Jewish but his wife Josie was and her family had enough power and influence to wriggle around the laws forbidding such burials.
1876: The New York Times featured a review of “Stray Studies From England and Italy” a collection of essays by John Richard Green. “Mr. Green shows how mistaken the modern conception” is when it comes to understanding the treatment of English Jews during the Middle Ages. “That conception is accurately represented by Scott’s picture of Isaac of York in “Ivanhoe,” timid, silent crouching under oppression. The Jew was really…the favorite ‘chattel’ of the king was protected by the crown not only against the people but against the law. Each Hebrew settlement in England was secured from the common taxation, the common justice, the common obligations of Englishman. The Jewry was a town within a town, with its own language, its peculiar dress, commerce, law and religion. No bailiff could penetrate it; the Church itself was even powerless against the synagogue which it contained. In England, at least, the attitude of the Jew was to the end, one of haughty defiance. His extortion was sheltered from the common law. His bonds were kept under the royal seal. Heavy penalties were enforced against outbreaks of popular violence upon the Jews. Mentioning the story of the Red King’s forbidding the conversion of a Jew, because a valuable property would be lost to him.” [Editor’s note – The Red King may refer to the third son of William the Conqueror, William II who was known as William Rufus. Green was an English clergyman who turned to writing histories when his health forced him to leave the pulpit. His description stands in stark contrast to the exploitation that English Jews suffered and makes no mention of their expulsion.
1879: An article published today "The Family Sentiment in Americans" claims that people in the United States are changing their views about family history and genealogy saying that "next to the Jews, we are becoming the genealogical nation on the face of the earth."
1879: A prominent New York banker who is a member of Temple Emanu-El said today that Lewis May, one of the most outspoken advocates for replacing Saturday morning services with Sunday morning serves has just been re-elected as the congregation’s President. In his acceptance address, Mr. May expressed a personal distaste for the change but said he recognized it as a necessity since many of the younger men belonging to the Temple could not attend services on Saturday for commercial reasons.
1879: An article published today entitled “Some Old Graveyards” describes early burial sites in New York City including one on the east side of the New Bowery below Chatham square known as the Olivers Street Burying Ground which was the original cemetery belonging to Shearith Israel, also known as the Nineteenth Street Congregation. The plot was conveyed to the congregation by Noyes Willey of London who received thirty English Pounds for the land. The Jews had been using the land for burials since the 17th century since there are tombstones there bearing the dates of 1669 and 1684. The congregation formally stopped using this cemetery in 1820 when a city ordinance banned burials in that part of the city.
1890: Today’s “Amusements” column includes a review of “The Shatchen” which opened at the Star Theatre last week. M.B. Curtis dominates the comedy with his “droll caricature” of the German Jewish businessman.
1890: “For An Educational Fund” published today described the successful Strawberry Festival sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Association during which three thousand attendees raising $3,500 that will go to the association’s educational department.
1891: “Oriental Records” published today contains a detailed review of Records of the Past, an English translations of the Ancient Monuments of Egypt and Western Asia, edited by A. H. Sayce
1891(10th of Iyar): Rabbi Hillel Lichtenstein, leader of Hungarian Jewry, passed away
1893: “Hardships of Russian Jews” published today described the benefits of efforts by the United States to lessen the suffering Jews living under the Czar. Doing so would cut down on the number of immigrants coming to the United States and at the same time would lessen the burden on those Americans trying to find jobs and homes for immigrants from Poland and Russia.
1894: Members of the Board of Trustees of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society were those who attended the funeral of Sigmund J. Bach as requested by Myer Stern and the Board of Trustees.
1895: Justice Ingram gave the managers of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews of New York City to mortgage its property at 106thStreet and Columbus Avenue to the Bowery Savings Bank for $75, 000.
1896: The United States Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” is constitutional. This decision marked the legal nadir in the field of civil rights in general and race relations in particular. It was from this pit that several organizations, many of them funded by Jews and/or with a statistically disproportionate Jewish involvement, had to climb until the High Court would declare in 1954 that separate but equal was inherently unequal.
1896: Based on information supplied by The London Times, the New York Timesreported today that the work of the Jewish Colonization Association will continue despite the recent death of its founder and benefactor, Baron Hirsch. Dr. S.H. Goldschmidt of Paris will now service as President of the Association with assistance from Herbert G. Lousade of the Anglo-Jewish Association of London. Currently, 1,222 families occupy the 225,000 acres in Argentina under the association’s control.
1897: As anti-Semitic riots break out in Algeria.
1899: Randolph Guggenheimer, President of the Municipal Council will the deliver the address at this afternoon’s ceremonies dedicated the new Hebrew Charities Building at 21st Street and Second Avenue.
1900: In an article entitled “Topical Study” published today in Die Welt Isaac Rulf warned Jews of the danger presented by an increase in anti-Semitism in Germany, including the possibility of murder by the millions. Ruif died a year later but his children did not escape the Holocaust. One son died at Auschwitz and the other committed suicide before he could be shipped to the camps.
1901: Herzl is called to the palace again. He is presented a tie-pin with yellow stones. Herzl hands out the sum of 40.000 francs to Nouri Bey and Crespi for having brought the audience about.
1902: Herzl receives a letter from
Constantinople
that his letter concerning a request for the creation of an
Israelite
University
in
Jerusalem
was submitted to the Sultan.
1902” “East Side Boycotters Meet and Organize” published in the New York Timesdescribed the formation of The Ladies’ Anti-Beef Trust Association which plans to establish co-operative stores if the price of beef being sold on the Lower East Side is not lowered.
1903: The Times of London published a letter from Vyacheslav von Plehve, the Russian Minister of the Interior to the district’s governor, dated 12 days before the riots known as the Kishinev Pogroms, advising the governor not to act against rioters. “The Russian government asserted that it was a forgery and provided a bogus claim that the pogroms had started when a Jewish carousel owner hit a Christian woman. Christians defended themselves and then the Jews attacked them, killing one gentile.”
1904: Birthdate of Senator Jacob K Javits. Born in
New York
, Javits graduated from
NYU
Law
School
. He served in the Army during World II. Following the war he became active in Republican politics in
New York
. Before coming to the Senate, Javits served in the House of Representatives and as Attorney-General for the state of
New York
. Javits was a leader of the liberal wing of the Republican Party and staunch supporter of the Civil Rights movement. Javits served until January, 1981. Having been defeated he resumed his law practice and lectured at
Columbia
. He passed away in 1986.
1905: Frederick Kerry arrived in the
United States
. Now a Roman Catholic, at birth Kerry was a Jew named Fritz Kohn. He and his Jewish wife Ida were baptized in 1901 to avoid the stigma associated with being Jewish in
Austria
. Frederick Kerry is the grandfather of Senator John Kerry, the Democratic candidate for President of the
United States
. At least two of his relatives perished in the Holocaust.
1910: Turkish Minister of Education advocates adoption of Hebrew as national language of Turkish Jews.
1910: Franz Kafka and a few of his friends gathered to observe Halley’s Comet.
1911: Gustav Mahler died at the age of 50. Born Jewish, Mahler converted to Catholicism, so he could become head of the court opera in
Austria
. His conversion did not spare him the contempt of his enemies.
1912: Birthdate of Richard Brooks. Born Richard Sax, to Russian Jewish immigrants, Brooks gained fame as film writer, director and producer. Brooks was received Oscar nominations for the screenplays for Blackboard Jungle, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, In Cold Blood and The Professionals. He won an Academy Award in 1960 for Elmer Gantry.
1915: In Worcester, MA, Benjamin and Mary Meltzer gave birth to “Milton Meltzer, a historian and prolific author of nonfiction books for young people who helped start a movement away from the arid textbook style of the past.” (As reported by Dennis Heveis)
1918(7thof Sivan, 5678): Second Day of Shavuot; Yizkor
1918: Georg Nicolai writes to Albert Einstein telling him that he should not reproach himself for not taking an even more active role in protests against the war.
1921: Ra'anana, an agricultural settlement is founded in the Sharon region.
1921:The Nation included an essay by Lily Winner entitled "American Emigrés." http://jwa.org/thisweek/may/18/1921/lily-winner
1922(20th of Iyar, 5682):Dorothy Elizabeth Levitt passed away. Born in 1882 or 1883, she was a pioneering feminist who blazed new trails in journalism, automobile racing and speed-boating.
1926: In Chicago, Professor James H. Breasted announced that Julius and William Rosenwald have donated $30,000 to be used in building a library near Luxor, Egypt that will be used by the veritable army of visiting scholars and scientist who come to the area each year. The Rosenwald’s general philanthropy was evident in a variety of secular and Jewish charitable activities.
1927: Mayor Walker and more than 1,000 women welcomed Nathan Straus and Mrs. Straus on their return from a pilgrimage to Palestine at a tea given today at the Hotel Commodore by the Brooklyn Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization. During his address to the group, Mr. Straus officially presented Hadassah with the $250,000 health centre which is being built in Jerusalem.
1928: Today a project for a municipal milk supply in Warsaw was defeated in the City Council by the combined vote of the Polish Nationalist and the Jewish middle-class Alderman. The municipal plan was backed by Pilsudski Party and Jewish Socialists.
1930: Birthdate of Senator Warren B Rudman. Born in
Massachusetts
, Rudman grew up in
New Hampshire
. A Korean War Era Veteran, Rudman practiced law in
New Hampshire
before being elected to the Senate as a Republican in 1980. He served until January 1993, having chosen not to run for re-election. He is best known for the Graham-Rudman-Hollings Act, also referred to as the Balanced Budget and Deficit Control Act.
1930: Birthdate of Barbara Goldsmith, author of “Little Gloria: Happy At Last.”
1933: As part of the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt signs the law creating the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). David Lilienthal, the son Jewish immigrants from Czechoslovakia, was the Director of TVA responsible for its early success and its ability to participate in the Manhattan Project during World War II.
1934: The Academy Award is called Oscar in print for the first time by Sidney Skolsky. Skolsky was a close friend of Al Jolson and was responsible for the movie biography of the man who made the first “talkie
1934: It was reported today that "Leaping Lena" Levy has been Chicago sportswriter “that King Levinsky, the Windy City Walloper, otherwise known as the Chicago Assassin, the Personality Kid, and as plain Harry Krakow, is reported to be suffering from a nervous breakdown.” Levinsky was one of a veritable army of Jewish pugilists who fought during the 1920’s and 1930’s when the fight game was a Jewish game.
1936: It was announced in the House of Commons that a Royal Commission of Inquiry would be set up to investigate the cause of unrest in
Palestine
. The Commission became known as the Peel Commission because its chairman was Lord Peel.
1937: Archbishop George Mundelein speaks out against the Nazi Party and Nazi Germany
http://skepticism.org/timeline/may-history/5952-archbishop-mundelein-chicago-criticizes-nazi-germany-nazi-party.html
1937: In Brooklyn, NY, Dewey and Adeline Weissfeld Albert gave birth to Jerome Lewis Albert “who with his father…created and operated Astroland, the space age-themed amusement park that breathed new life into the Coney Island Boardwalk in the 1960s, a time when it was losing its lure.” As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1938: As Arab violence continued to escalate,The Palestine Post reported that Arab terrorists killed an Arab constable in Hebron. Arab farmers were robbed by Arab terrorists in villages around Jenin. The Public Works Department property was set on fire in Nablus and Jewish settlers near Hadera found their tractors and other machinery severely damaged.
1939: A gathering of members of the Hashomer Ha’tzair movement took place at Wieliczka, Poland.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/may/05.asp
1939: As Jews throughout Palestine protested against the White Paper with its limit of 75,000 Jews allowed to enter the country each year and the creation of a state that condemn the Jews to permanent minority status in violation of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate, a resolution for Palestine Jewry was read aloud at the three hour long demonstration in Tel Aviv that stated in part: “Palestine Jewry declares the betrayal policy will never materialize…Palestine Jewry does not recognize the arbitrary restriction of immigration. No power in the world can deter the natural right of our people to come home… Palestine Jewry will not consent to leave the land of the country desolate, but undauntedly will continue reviving it.”
1941: Jewish veterans honor their dead
1942: The New York Times carried a report by a United Press International correspondent who had been trapped in Berlin at the outbreak of the war in December of 1941 and who reached Lisbon after being traded as part of a swap for Axis nationals in Allied hands. According to the story 100,000 Jews had been slaughtered by the Nazis in the
Baltic States
, almost that many in
Poland
and twice as many in western
Russia
.
1942: During a public protest of Nazi anti-Semitism staged in Berlin by Herbert Baum and his followers, portions of "The Soviet Paradise," a government-sponsored anti-Bolshevik exhibition, are set afire. Most members of Baum's group, as well as approximately 500 other Berlin Jews, are arrested.
1942: Another 1,420 Jews arrived in the Lodz ghetto from Brzeziny. Like the Jews who arrived the day before, their children were taken away from them. They were sent to Chelmno to be gassed.
1943: Nearly every resident of the Polish farming village of Szarajowka is shot or burned alive by the SS, Wehrmacht troops, and Gestapo agents. After the massacre, the village is razed.What was the crime for which the villagers were being punished? Sheltering Jews
1944 (25th of Iyar, 5704):Jewish partisan leader Aleksander Skotnicki is killed as his unit battles the armored SS Viking Division near the Parczew Forest in Poland.
1944: Deportations from Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, to Auschwitz end with the transport of 2500 Jews.
1944: In Hungary deportations of Jews to Auschwitz would begin today with a total of 437,000 being shipped to the death camp through July 7, 1944.
1945(6thof Sivan, 5705): First observance of Shavuot after VE Day
1948: Moshe Dayan, who had been born in Degania, was given command of all forces in the area, including the settlements in the Kinarot Valley, after having been charged without creating a commando battalion in the 8th Brigade just a day before. A company of reinforcements from the Gadna program was allocated, along with 3 PIATs (a bazooka-like weapon). Other reinforcements came in the form of a company from the Yiftach Brigade and another company of paramilitaries from villages in the Lower Galilee and the Jezreel Valley. The Palmach counterattack on the police station on the night of May 18 gave the Israeli forces an additional day to prepare defense and attack plans
1948: Syrian aircraft bombed the Israeli village Kinneret and the regional school Beit Yerah, on the southwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee.
1948: After two days of fierce fighting a Syrian brigade including tanks overran Zemach, killing all forty-two of the Jewish defenders.
1948: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Uruguay, and Nicaragua recognized Israel.
1948: The Arab Legion captured the police fort on Mt.
Scopus
. The illegal occupation of
Mt.
Scopus
would end with the June War in 1967.
1948: Between today and May 20, a unit of the Etzioni Brigade made repeated attempts to fight their way into the Old City at the Jaffa Gate. Despite taking heavy casualties, the Jewish fighters failed in their effort. The brigade was fighting the Arab Legion, the name given to the Jordanian Army which was trained and led by British officers.
1948: Fighting under Egyptian command Saudi Arabia joined the other Arab armies in their invasion of Israel.
1948: "At midnight, Egyptian police" ransacked the home of Levan Zamir in Helwan.
1948: While at school today in Egypt, Levana Zamir's teacher told her that her uncle had been taken to prison allegedly because he was a Zionist. The uncle was freed two years later and placed on a ship bound for France.
1950: As a result of Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, 120,000 Jews fleeing Iraq were brought to Israel over the course of a year's time.
1950: Israel has released the eight crewmen of an RAF flying-boat that had been forced down yesterday by Israeli fighter planes. According to the pilot, the plan was flying from Bahrain to the Suez Canal when it wandered off course due to a navigational error.
1950: Colonel Harry D. Henshel and Charles L. Orenstein announced that the United States will be represented in the third World Maccabiah Games opening in Tel Aviv on September 27. Henshel and Orenstein are co-chairman of the national committee for United States participation and Orenstein will chair the committee that will select the athletes.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Abu Eliahu, 40, and Eliahu Ephraim, 45, two watchmen in the Jerusalem "corridor" were murdered by infiltrators.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that The Government approved the special unemployment relief tax scale and hoped to collect IL15m compulsory advance payment on account of future taxes.
1962: Two off-duty police detectives, Luke J. Fallon and John P. Finnegan, were killed today in a botched robbery of the Boro Park Tobacco Company. Jerry Rosenberg, whose jailhouse nickname was Jerry the Jew and Anthony Portelli would be found guilty of the first double homicide of New York City police officers since 1927 and sentenced to death. Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller would later commute their sentences to life in prison. At the time of his death in 2009, Rosenberg would be the longest serving convict in the New York State prison system.
1965 (16th of Iyar, 5725): Israeli spy Eli Cohen was publicly executed by the Syrians. This execution was aired on national Syrian television. After his execution, a sign with Anti-Zionist messages was placed on his hanging body. His body was left to hang for six hours. Eli was born in
Alexandria
,
Egypt
on
December 26, 19
28
. The son of two Syrian Jews, Eli was raised in a strong Jewish and Zionist educational environment. True to their Zionist ideals, the Cohen family moved to
Israel
in 1949. However, Eli stayed behind to organize Zionist and Jewish activities in
Egypt
. Eventually, Eli moved to
Israel
and began training with the Israeli intelligence organization. His preparation was extensive and exhaustive. From weapons to Arab customs to espionage technology, he was trained to know everything about the craft of being a spy. In 1961, the Chief of Military Intelligence, Chaim Herzog, authorized Eli Cohen to be used as a spy for the State of Israel. Soon after, he was escorted to the airport with a ticket for
Argentina
where he would begin to establish his portfolio under his new assumed identity, Kamal Amin Ta'abet. While in
Argentina
, he established his cover as a Syrian émigré and began to make inroads within the Syrian community of Buenos Aries. In time, he established himself as a successful businessman and began to establish relationships among the Syrian diplomatic corps in
Argentina
. It was during this time that Eli met Col. Amin al-Hafez. Through his extravagant hosting of his diplomatic contacts, he was eventually invited to visit
Syria
to set up business operations. Late in 1961, Eli returned to
Israel
for a short visit with his wife. It was during this visit that he finalized requirements for his mission in
Syria
.