2013-06-18

JUNE 19 In History

325: Promulgation of the Nicene Creed. The creed dealt with various splits among the various Christian groups and onl dealt in a tangential manner with matters pertaining to Jews. The creed altered the method for selecting the date of Easter.  The change did not ban Easter from ever falling on the first day of Passover.  This change would be centuries away from being adopted. But by adopting even this change, the early Christian leaders showed the need to work very hard at separating their religion from Judaism.

1269: Louis IX (Saint Louis) of France, needing no urging from the Church, ordered all Jews found in public without a badge (yellow or red) to be fined ten livres of silver. The badge in

France

was usually a circle of red or yellow material and was known as a rouelle. The original badge was actually Moslem in origin (Caliph Omar II (717-20)) who decreed that both Jews and Christians wear a distinguishing mark. The "badge" took on different shapes colors and even dress (i.e. a hat or color of a dress) depending on the country.

1286: Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg was imprisoned in a castle in

Alsace

,
Lombardy
.  At the time of his imprisonment, Reb Meir and his followers were trying to leave

Germany

following a new wave of persecution brought by Rudolph I.  “Tradition has it that a large ransom of 23,000 marks (approximately 15,144,900 U.S dollars today) was raised for him (by the ROSH), but Rabbi Meir refused it, for fear of encouraging the imprisonment of other rabbis. He died in prison after seven years. 14 years after his death a ransom was paid for his body by Alexander ben Shlomo (Susskind) Wimpen, who was subsequently laid to rest beside the Maharam.”  Reb Meir was also known by the term Maharam.  His erudition and piety earned him the appellation, ‘Light of the Exile.’ Meir was a leading commentator on Rashi’s explanations of the Talmud.  Such was his reputation that Ashkenazi communities in Italy, France and Germany looked to him for guidance when questions of law and/or custom arose.

1269:“King Louis IX of France …decrees that Jews found in public without a special badge will be fined ten livres of silver. Normally worn on the breast, the Jewish badge is either yellow or red and is designed to warn Christians when they are dealing with or simply near a Jew. Local officials around France repeat the requirement to better enforce the public segregation of Jews in this manner. The badges themselves are sold by the crown, so the government benefits financially two ways: first by selling them, and second by the fines when they aren't worn. (As reported by Austin Cline)

1320: John XXII issued “Cum sit absurdum” a Papal Bull that stated that “Converted Jews need not be despoiled.”

1338: “In recognition of the good-will shown by the citizens of Vienna in time of distress, and in anticipation of its continuance, the Jews declared, in a document written in Hebrew and dated today in Vienna that they would lend to the citizens of Vienna, rich as well as poor, a pound of Vienna heller at a weekly interest of three heller.”

1623: Birthdate of French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal.  Of the Jewish people Pascal wrote, “It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the Jewish people…. This people is not only of remarkable antiquity but has also lasted for a singularly long time… For where as the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago, these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians testify, and as can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell of years. They have always been preserved, however, and their preservation was foretold… My encounter with this people amazes me…."

1747: Nāder Shāh Afshār, the founder of the Afsharid dynasty, passed away. During his reign he reversed the anti-Jewish policies and practices that had been put in place by the Safawid’s dynasty which had ruled during the previous century.

1768: At Uman, the Haidamak Army under the command of Maksym Zalizniak slaughtered thousands of Jews in the Gonta Massacres.  The slaughter came at the end of the siege of Uman in which Ivan Gonta had betrayed the Polish garrison which led to its defeat.  The Polish commandment had tried to “buy the lives” of the Poles by giving up the Jews; a ploy that failed.  Led by Leib Shargorodoski and Moses Menaker, the Jews put up a valiant but futile defense.  The number of dead Jews which totaled more than 2,000 was inflated by the number of refugees who had sought refuge in the town.

1790: The Gazette of the United States, a newspaper published in New York City provides an account of correspondence between the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah, Georgia and the newly elected President of the United States, George Washington.

Washington

’s letter to the Georgia Jews ends with the following sentiments. “May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of heaven and make the inhabitants of every denomination participated in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.”

1790(7th of Tammuz, 5550): Saul Lowenstam “a renowned Dutch rabbi and Talmudist” passed away.  Born at Rzeszów in 1717 he was the son of Rabbi Areyh Leib ben Saul, the son-in-law of Rabbi Abraham Kahana and the father of Rabbi Jacob Moses Lowenstam. His writings included Binyan Arieland a Torah Commentary, HeChatzer HaChadasha.

1832: Birthdate of Frédéric Emile Baron d’Erlanger, the French banker whose family converted to Christianity.  Despite the family’s conversion, the Baron is often erroneously identified as being Jewish. Erlanger created one of the earliest “junk bonds” based on the cotton trade during the Civil War.  This has led to other incorrect reports that Jews were responsible for financing the Confederacy’s war effort.

1854: Birthdate of Jonas Kuppenheimer.  A native of Terre Haute, Indiana, Kuppenheimer, his father Bernard and his brothers Louise and Albert moved to Chicago in 1870 where they established a clothing store that became one of the major men’s clothing brands in the United States.  He passed away in 1921.

1857: The correspondent for the New York Times writes from London that the second reading of the Jew Bill has passed by an immense majority. Furthermore, the opposition seems to be waning and Rothschild is on his way to becoming “a Parliamentary saint” as opposed to an “unparliamentary martyr.”

1867:Ruthless beat out DeCourcey by a head over the old Jerome Park Racetrack to win the inaugural running of the Belmont Stakes and financed by August Belmont, Sr. for whom the race was named financed the building of the track.  The Belmont Stakes would move to its current home, Belmont Park, in 1905.

1871: In Nebraska, Edward Rosewater, a Jewish immigrant who supported abolition and served as a telegrapher in the Union Army published the first edition of the Omaha Bee

1877: As word of Judge Hilton’s decision to bar Joseph Seligman from the Grand Union Hotel because he was Jewish spread across the United States, hotel proprietors in Philadelphia said that banning patrons because they were Jewish was wrong.  Looking at it from strictly a financial point of view, they all agree that the money of “an Israelite” is as good as that “of a full-fledged American.”  Both Mr. Kingsley of the Continental and Mr. Ward of St. George, leading Philadelphia hotels, have had Seligman as a guest and would gladly do so again. While Judge Hilton’s action might have been permissible in New York, in Pennsylvania it would have been illegal.  Under that state’s law, hotel owners have to obtain a license that allows them “keep a hotel, inn or tavern and under the provisions of that license he cannot turn away any person from his hotel, unless he knows that such persons will cause great loss to his house and then he holds himself liable to a fine of $300 and three months imprisonment” as well as a suit for damages from the people who were denied rooms.

1877: At the popular resort of Long Branch, NJ, several hotel owners expressed their surprise that Joseph Seligman had been turned away from the Grand Union.  Even though he is Jewish, the hotel owners, some of whom had had him as a guest, said that he was a desirable guest.  However, many of them expressed the opinion that they did not want Jews staying at their hotels and were sympathetic with the stance taken by Judge Hilton.

1877: According to Edward Lauterbach, the attorney for Joseph Seligman, as of today hundreds of Jews have closed their accounts at the two stores owned by A.T. Stewart & Co which are controlled by Judge Hilton. This is but one example of Jewish support for Seligman whom Lauterbach declared is the leading Jew in the United States and is proudly acknowledged as such by his co-religionists.  Lauterbach said that Seligman might also pursue a case under the Civil Rights Law which would leave Hilton open to fines and imprisonment.

1877: The arrival of today’s New York Times at Saratoga Spring this afternoon has caused quite a stir with its report of the dispute between Judge Hilton and Joseph Seligman over the latter’s claim that he was not allowed to rent rooms at the Grand Union because he was Jewish.

1878: Birthdate of Yakov Mikhaylovich Yurovsky, the Bolshevik leader that some credit with overseeing the execution of the Czar after the Russian Revolution.

1879: The London News published an article describing the terms of the will of the late Baron Lionel de Rothschild.  The estate is valued to at 2,700,000 pounds. Sir Nathaniel de Rothschild and Mr. Alfred de Rothschild, the late Baron’s two sons, have been named as executors.

1880: It was reported today that Sarah Bernhardt has signed a contract to give 60 performances at Booth’s Theatre in New York next winter. The contract calls for her to be paid 3,000 francs a night, one-third of the gross receipts, traveling expenses for herself and three companions and 3,000 francs a month for her hotel bill.  According to the great actress, she has had more lucrative offers but she accepted this because the 200,000 francs has been deposited at the Banque de France as a security bond.

1882: It was reported today that the United States manager for Sarah Bernhardt has signed a contract with Henry Irving the actor/owner of London’s Lyceum Company to perform their full repertoire during an American tour.  Among other things, American audiences will be treated to The Merchant of Venice featuring Ellen Terry in her famed portrayal of Portia and Irving’s unique portrayal of Shylock.  His dignified portrayal of Shakespeare’s most famous Jewish character is a departure from the norm of his time.

1883: The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society was among the private institutions devoted to the care of children that received a grant of funds from the Board of Estimate and Apportionment in New York City. The society received $1,810 out of a total of $30,255 in grants.

1884:Dr. Henry W. Schneeberger a Baltimore Rabbi was one of four people who signed a letter today addressed “to Sir Moses Montefiore, thanking him for his aid to the Russian Jews who had found a refuge in Baltimore. The letter continued to advise Montefiore that the Russian Jewish immigrants had established a school in honor of their benefactor. Dr. Schneeberger was one of the teachers in this school - teaching the immigrants in the daytime and also at night. Dr. Schneeberger also became their mentor in advising the Russian Jewish immigrants to become good American citizens and he cautioned against the radicalism of some in their midst.”

1884: After a rumor circulated through certain parts of the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod that a Jew had kidnapped a Christian child and taken it to a synagogue, a mob attacked the synagogue. During the riot 9 Jews were killed, six houses were wrecked and an untold number were plundered.

1886: The Manchester Guardian reported that the Visiting Committee of the Hebrew Congregations of Manchester and Liverpool has affected a "closer union between the Sephardic and Ashkenazic sections of the Jewish community."

1889: William E. Annin, the associate editor of the Omaha Bee wrote the following description today of Edward Rosewater, the Czech born Jew who was “the editor and publisher of the Omaha Bee.”

"Mr. Rosewater was par excellence the all-around man of the [Bee] establishment. He seemed to have obtained the secret of two of the attributes of Deity, he was omnipresent and apparently omniscient. He wrote heavy editorials and pungent editorial paragraphs; contributed local political news to the city page, clipped selections for the news columns, selected items for those startling chestnuts dubbed 'Connubial Bliss,' 'Peppermint Drops' and 'Honey for the Ladies,' regulated the business office a dozen times a day, and took subscriptions on the streets and advertising contracts from the merchants. I used to think his only sorrow was that he had not in addition been born a steam engine so that he could run the presses. . . "In addition to his ordinary duties above named, he constantly developed strong interest in local politics, and always had a dozen fights and twice that number of ward politicians on his hands. On city or county election days, The Bee office was usually depopulated and every man, from editor down, after rushing in copy, early took a whirl at the polls. After a hard day's work on election day, followed by an all night session in collecting returns, the editor would bob up serenely at 9 o'clock the next morning with his arm full of exchanges and his mouth full of suggestions about the paper, . . ."His indomitable energy, his uncompromising persistency and his invincible pluck were at once the wonder and admiration of the office. . . . Overworked himself, he took his own high tension as the norm of work, and found it difficult to understand why all of his employees could not endure cheerfully the same racking. This made him often very unpleasant as an employer

1890: Police officers Oram and English waited in vain for “a short, stout, red whiskered Polish Jew” named Marcus Goldstein to come to the Gill Engraving printing where he was supposed to retrieve plates for making lottery tickets that were thought to be part of counterfeiting scheme. (more tomorrow)

1891: It was reported today that applications for the summer session The Hebrew Technical Institute under the direction of Henry Leipziger may be made now at its building on Stuyvesant Street.

1892: “Austrian Jew Baiters Thrashed” published today described an episode at Vienna’s Prater Restaurant, witnessed by a correspondent from the London Daily News during which three “Jew baiters” were thrashed by “a beardless youth” after enduring their taunts in silence. It turned out the young man was not Jewish but was in fact an English jockey who had several races at Vienna.

1892: It was reported today that Sarah “Bernhardt continues to play to big audiences in which is proving the most success of all her London seasons.

1892: “Rejected at the Theatre Francais” published today includes a negative review of Le Prince d'Aurec, a satire on the nobility by Henri Lavedan that features a Jewish banker named de Horn as the villain.

1893: Henry Gottgetreu, the attorney for the late Samuel Adler, spoke of behalf of himself and the family when he denied any knowledge of financial problems that Adler had been facing since they assumed that his “fortune” was “at least a quarter of a million dollars.” Mr. Adler had been active in a number of Jewish organizations including the Sons of Israel, the Sons of Benjamin and B’nai B’rith.

1893: “Hebrew Printers at Odds” published today described conflict between Jews workers including a declaration by the Central Labor Federation that “the Hebrew Typographical Union was the only true Hebrew printing union in New York” and a denunciation of the “Hebrew Typographical Union No. 317 as shoemakers, tailors and cloakmakers organized to fight Socialism.” (This small item gives a window into the internecine conflict of the Jewish working class; a conflict that was even more intense than the one with the businesses many of which were owned by Jews)

1893(5th of Tammuz, 5653): Fifty year old Adolph S. Jaeger, a prosperous cigar manufacturer who was, with his brother Morris S., co-owner of Jaeger Brothers, died today, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F70717FF3D5A1A738DDDA90A94DE405B8385F0D3

1893: It was reported today that the brass band from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum played at the reception marking the opening of the Lebanon Hospital

1895: “Literary Notes” published today described the upcoming publication by G.P. Putnam of Israel Among the Nations, “as study of the Jews and anti-Semitism by Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu which has been translated into English by Frances Hellman

1896: “The Jews of Russia” published today describes the restrictive laws under which the Israelites have lived in the land of the Czars including the Ukase of 1727 that expelled the Jews from Russia, the Ukase of 1742 which did the same and the creation by Catherine II and Alexander I of special zone to which the Jews were to confine themselves.

1897: “The Talmud Again” published today provides an in-depth review of the two-volume New Edition of the Babylonian Talmud formulated and punctuated by Michael L Rodkinson which includes the original text and an English translation reviewed by Dr. Isaac W. Wise. Born in 1845, Rodkinson was the grandson of Aaron ha-Levi ben Moses, the son of Alexander Sender Frumkin and the half-brother of Israel Dov Bar Frumkin

1897: Among the gifts and contributions listed at the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Hebrew Technical Institute were $250 from Julius Goldschmidt for tools and physical instruments; a band saw from James Loeb; $500 from the late Bernard Cohen for lathes; $1,000 from the late Leopold Boscowitz for general supplies. (The nature of the contributions is consistent with vocational mission of the institute)

1897:  Birthdate of comedian Moe Howard who gained fame as one of the Three Stooges

1899: In Baltimore, MD, Dr. Richard Gottheil chaired the opening session of the second annual conference of the Federation of American Zionists.

1899: As of today the Federation of American Zionists has 10,000 members divided into “125 societies” with a total of $415.92 in its treasurer.

1899: This evening Rabbi Gustave Gottheil of New York’s Temple Emanu-El addressed a mass meeting in Baltimore in which “he delivered a bitter” indictment “against the injustice done Dreyfus.

1899: In his recent announcement of his resignation as pastor of the Calvary Presbyterian Church on West 116th Street in Manhattan, Reverend James Chambers predicted that the congregation would soon disband because of the changing nature of the neighborhood where “well-to-do residents of the Jewish faith…have crowded out their Christian neighbors.”

1900: Herzl and Wolffsohn settle their differences about the Trust's affairs. And Herzl asks his good dear "Daade" to address him by the familiar "Du" instead of the formal "Sie".

1903: The British Foreign Office sends the first of two letters to Herzl rejecting his proposal to establish a Jewish colony in the Sinai.

1906: In Berlin, Margarete (née Eisner) and Michael Chain gave birth to German born and educated British chemist, Sir Ernst Boris Chain.  Chain left

Germany

when the Nazis came to power.  As an English citizen this leading biochemist won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1945 for his work on the effects of penicillin.

1910: Birthdate of Abe Fortas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Fortas was a close friend and advisor to Lyndon Johnson. There are several stories about Fortas providing Johnson with what we would call a "reality check." Fortas was reluctant to give up his lucrative law practice and accept the position on the high court. He did tell Johnson that the Jewish community would not consider him as the "Jewish Justice" in the sense of a Brandies or Goldberg since he was not a part of that community. In the end Fortas gave into Lyndon’s famed arm-twisting and the rest is history. Fortas ended up resigning from the court in 1969 after questions were raised about some of his business dealings. Fortas passed away in 1982 at the age of 71.

1913: Abram I. Elkus addressed the graduates at the City College commencement ceremony.

1914:Louis D. Brandeis, special counsel to the Interstate Commerce Commission in the 5 per cent. advance rate case, to-day appeared before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce in opposition to the Rayburn Stock and Bond bill, which proposes to confer authority upon the commission to control and approve issues of securities by common carriers.

1915: Birthdate of cartoonist Julius Schwartz

1915: The Jews of Morocco suffer indignities under the French regime that were unknown while under the rule of the old sultans.

1917: In Alexandria, Egypt, Nelly Grün and Leopold Percy Hobsbaum gave birth to “Eric J. Hobsbawm, whose three-volume economic history of the rise of industrial capitalism established him as Britain’s pre-eminent Marxist historian.” (As reported by William Grimes)

1919:  Birthdate of movie critic Pauline Kael.  As movie critic for the New York Times, Kael was one of the most influential influences in the world of cinema criticism.  With her high quality of writing and edgy style, she was a trend setter in an era when women were too often consigned to the style section and gossip columns.

1925: In a cave at Tabgha, near Jerusalem, archaeologists discover a primitive human skull that bears a close resemblance to the Neanderthal man previously discovered in Europe.

1928(1stof Tammuz, 5688): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1928(1stof Tammuz, 5688): Just weeks short of his 61st birthday labor leader Joseph Baroness known as “the King of the Cloakmakers” passed away today.

http://www.jta.org/1928/06/22/archive/15000-pay-last-tribute-to-joseph-barondess-at-funeral-services

1933: On a day when he received an honorary degree from Brown University Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo of the United States Supreme Court delivered an address to the alumni of that Rhode Island institution of higher education in which he declared, “The day is past when problems of public law can be solved by pulling down the law books and marking without other aids the "signposts on the road,"

1933: Cardinal Pacelli issued a concordant known as the Hitler Concordant. Hitler described it as "unrestricted acceptance of National Socialism by the

Vatican

." Cardinal Pacelli later became Pope Pious XII.

1935:In Palestine, the German consulate advises Jews not to travel to Germany, not even if they are citizens and not even for short trips. According to the consul, Jews entering Germany are likely to be apprehended by the Gestapo and placed in a concentration camp.

1934: American author Nathaniel West, the son of Litvak immigrants to the United States, published A Cool Million, the second of the three novels he created during his career which was cut short by an untimely death in an automobile accident.

1936: As Arab violence continues to sweep across Palestine, The Palestine Post reported that one Jew was killed and several deafened and injured by a primitive bomb which was thrown into a bus in Tel Aviv. Avraham Ben-Yehuda, one of the original founders of Atarot, died of injuries sustained when Arab snipers opened fire on a bus in

Jerusalem

. Trees were cut down and the aerodrome damaged at Lydda. The

Jerusalem

water pipe was damaged by a dynamite charge. Two Arabs injured themselves seriously while trying to blow up a road culvert near

Nablus

.

1939: The Mizrachi Women's Organization opened its first independent meeting in

Atlantic City

. Although it was the group's fourteenth annual meeting, it was the first conducted separately from a men's organization. Now the largest religious Zionist organization in the

United States

(under the name AMIT), the organization owes its creation to Freda Resnikoff.

1939: In Palestine, eighteen Arabs--nine men, six women and three children-- were killed and twenty-four wounded by the explosion of a time bomb. In replying to accusations by the British that Jews were responsible for the violence, “Jewish communal leaders condemned the ‘dastardly murder of innocent Arabs, women and children.’”

1940(13th of Sivan, 5700): Zalman David Levontin passed away. Born in 1856, he was one of the first of the Hovevei Zion group and one of the founders of Rishon LeZion and Yesod Hamaaleh. In 1903, Levontin founded the Anglo Palestine Bank in

Jaffa

and acted as its manager until 1924.

1942(4th of Tammuz, 5702): Jews revolt at Glebokie, Belorussia; 2500 are murdered in the Borek Forest.

1942: The family of famed historian Moses Schorr including his wife, his daughter Felicia and his grandchildren were “interned at Warsaw’s Pawiak Prison as citizens of a neutral state.”

1943: Joseph Goebbels announces that

Berlin

is free of Jews.

1944: Five hundred Jews were transferred from the death camp of Birkenau to the work camp at

Dachau

.

1945: Judge Irving Lehman, the brother of former Governor Herman Lehman, delivered the address of welcome at New York City's reception honoring General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who has returned from leading the Allies to victory over the Nazis.

1948: Panama and Costa Rica recognized Israel.

1950:Israel apologized to the Swedish Government today for the assassination of Count Bernadotte, United Nations Mediator for Palestine, by terrorists on Sept. 17, 1948.

1951: For the first time, a Soviet citizen (Jewish) was issued an immigrant visa to Israel. The hoped-for easing of the Russian policy of not letting its citizens out would not materialize for decades to come.

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Knesset passed the first reading of a bill empowering the government to sign an agreement with Bank Leumi Le'Israel, nominating the bank as the currency issue bank of

Israel

.

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the secretary of the Iraqi Jewish Community Council, Dr. Habasi, was detained by police in

Baghdad

together with seven other Jews, on charges of hiding "huge quantities of arms." All of the detained previously renounced their Iraqi citizenship and were waiting for emigration to

Israel

.

1952: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion expressed satisfaction today that the Zionist Organization of America at its convention in New York this week had cleared up the misunderstanding about the right of foreign Zionists to participate in the shaping of Israel's policies.

1952: Birthdate of actress Carol Kane who played Simka on the television show Taxi.

1953: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed after having been convicted as spies.

1957: Saul Rogovin pitched his last major league baseball game.

1959: The U.S. Senate rejects Ike's appointment of Lewis Strauss for Secretary of Commerce.  At a time when most Jews were Democrats, Strauss was a Republican. He was part of the liberal, internationalist wing of the party.  He had worked with Herbert Hoover on war relief during World War I.  Strauss made special efforts to see to that aid from the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee got to the Jews of Europe who were in dire straits.  He served in the Navy during World War II and became involved in atomic energy.  He was rejected because of his role in dealing with Robert J. Oppenheimer.

1962:  Birthdate of 1980’s pop star Paula Abdul.  Her mother is French Canadian and her father is of Syrian Sephardic origin.

1964: The United States Senate passed The Civil Rights Bill that would eventually become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This landmark legislation outlawed a variety of forms of discrimination including that based on religion. The bill, which was primarily aimed at ending racial segregation, had support from Jewish groups and Jewish legislators. In the House, the bill was managed by Congressman Cellar who helped bring it to victory in that body.

1965: A novella entitled "Hapworth 16, 1924", the last published work of J.D. Salinger appeared today in The New Yorker magazine

1966(1st of Tammuz, 5726): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1966(1st of Tammuz, 5726): Comedian Ed Wynn passed away. Born Isaiah Edwin Leopold in 1886 in

Philadelphia

, Wynn’s father was a successful milliner. He did not want his son to go into show business. When the son would not yield, his father asked him to at least change his name so as not to disgrace the family. He decided to split his first name "Edwin" into Ed Wynn. Wynn was a successful comic in vaudeville and the early days of show business. He had his own show, which won an Emmy. He would appear in baggy pants suits pedaling a tricycle fitted with a piano. When his brand of clown-like comedy lost its popular appeal, Wynn followed the advice of his son and turned to acting. He appeared in a wide variety of hits including Marjorie Morningstar, The Diary of Anne Frank and Mary Poppins attesting to his real skill as an actor.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0021_0_21135.html

1967:Prime Minister Levi Eshkol announced that "as an interim stage, a military situation will remain in the West Bank."

1967: “In a secret decision, the government of Levi Eshkol offered

Syria

‘full peace on the basis of the international border,’ with adjustments for Israeli security needs.”

1979: Birthdate of Daniel Jonathan Sieradski “a Jewish American writer and activist” who was “the founding publisher and editor-in-chief of Jewschool, a popular left-wing Jewish weblog, as well as the weblogs Radical Torah and Orthodox Anarchist. He is also the creator of the synagogue listings and reviews website ShulShopper.”

1980: In Charleston, SC, the Greek Revival building housing Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue was designated as a National Historic Landmark. For those who think of American Jewry as being a New York or eastern creation, it comes as a surprise that this is the second oldest synagogue building in continuous operation in the United States.  Also, when this congregation adopted the Reform minhag in 1824 it became one of the founding forces of the Reform Movement in the United States – something most people connect with Cincinnati, Ohio

1984(19th of Sivan, 5744): Abstract expressionist Lee Krasner passed away.

1987: Ben & Jerry Ice Cream founded by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield announce a new ice cream flavor, “Cherry Garcia.”

1989(16th of Sivan, 5749): Writer and social critic I(sidor) F(einstein) Stone passes away at the age of 81.

http://www.ifstone.org/

1992: In Palermo, the Fifth International Convention of Studies of "Italia Judaica" came to a close.

1993: Philosopher and movie star Bernard-Henri Levy married actress Arielle Bombasle.

1994(10th of Tammuz, 5754): Sheina Chaya, the wife Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and the daughter of Rabbi Aryeh Levin passed away.

1994: The New York Timespublished a review of History of Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprisingby Israel Gutman. "They refused to surrender, preferring instead to fight to the death and thus preserve their honor," Israel Gutman writes in Resistance, his account of the band of starving Jews who fought the Nazis in Poland in April 1943. Mr. Gutman, a Holocaust survivor who teaches modern Jewish history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is the director of the research center at Israel's national Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, intelligently outlines the elements that weakened the Jewish resistance movement in Warsaw. These included not only Nazi air attacks and arson, food and water shortages and the neglect of the Polish underground resistance movement, but also the abandonment of the ghetto by its most prominent political leaders and arguments among the many rival Jewish organizations over a course of action. One wishes that Mr. Gutman had recorded events chronologically rather than switching back and forth in time. One longs for more information about heroes like Mordecai Anielewicz, the brave underground leader who escaped

Warsaw

but returned to command the uprising, and Yitzhak Zuckerman, the uprising's deputy commander, who survived to write about it. Still, Resistance, which is published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, lucidly illustrates how a few hundred Jewish fighters with Molotov cocktails, homemade grenades and no military training twice forced the Germans to retreat from the ghetto and refused to go like lambs to the slaughter.

1995: The cartoon strip Rhymes With Orange appeared in syndication for the first time. With its debut, twenty-five-year-old cartoonist Hilary Price became the youngest woman ever to have a nationally-syndicated cartoon strip.

1995: David Libai begins his term as Minister of Internal Affairs.

1996(2nd of Tammuz, 5756): G. David Shine passed away. Roy Cohn, the Chief Counsel, named Shine as investigator for the McCarthy Committee, which was supposedly exposing the Communist Conspiracy during the 1950’s. Shine was drafted and McCarthy claimed the drafting of his investigator was part of the Communist Conspiracy to thwart his efforts. He attacked the U.S. Army for being involved in the Communist Conspiracy. These charges led to the famous Army-McCarthy Hearings, which led to his downfall.

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