Today’s Jewish Birthday

Today’s Jewish Birthday: Zsa Zsa Gabor

Gabor was married nine times, in order to Buthan Belge, Conrad Hilton, George Sanders, Herbert Hutner, Joshua S. Cosden, Jack Ryan, Michael O’Hara, Felipe de Alba, and finally a 30-year marriage to Frederic Prinz von Anhalt which lasted from Aug. 14, 1986 to Dec. 18, 2016. She once quipped, “I am a marvelous housekeeper: Every time I leave a man I keep his house.” [SDJA staff report]

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Today’s Jewish Birthday: Red Buttons

He won an Academy Award as the Best Supporting Actor in Sayonara, a movie drama about the prejudice faced by an American airman who marries a Japanese woman, played by Miyoshi Umeki, who won the Academy Award as best supporting actress. More movies came later including Hatari!; Five Weeks in a Balloon; The Longest Day; The Poseidon Adventure; They Shoot Horses Don’t They; Pete’s Dragon; When Time Ran Out; and 18 Again! [SDJW staff report]

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Today’s Jewish Birthday: Betty Friedan

In 1963, she wrote The Feminine Mystique, which described the “problem that has no name” at the beginning of the book: “The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning [that is, a longing] that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban [house]wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries … she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question – ‘Is this all?’ ” [SDJW staff]

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Today’s Jewish Birthday: Shelley Berman

He started doing stand-up comedy during the 1950s, leading to a recording contract with Verve Records. His album “Inside Shelley Berman” won the first Grammy Award for “Best Comedy Performance-Spoken” and his voice was the inspiration for the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Fibber Fox. He appeared in episodes of numerous television series including Curb Your Enthusiasm in which he played Larry David’s aged father, a role for which he received an Emmy nomination in 2008. He also had many movie credits, and taught humor writing at the University of Southern California. [SDJW Staff]

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Today’s Jewish Birthday: Tom Lantos

His political career began in 1980, when as a Democrat he successfully challenged Republican Bill Royer, and went on to be reelected 13 times. His voting record was liberal on health care, conservative on spending, and protectionist on the environment. He was best known for his work on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where he advocated for the rights of such minorities as Christians in Saudi Arabia and Sudan and Tibetans in China. He declared Turkey’s mass killings of Armenians during World War I to be genocide, and he demanded that Japan apologize for forcing women in conquered countries into sex slavery. [SDJW staff]

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Today’s Jewish Birthday: Nathan Straus

He and his wife Lina Gutherz privately funded the Nathan Straus Pasteurized Milk Laboratory to combat infant mortality, and opened in Lakewood, New Jersey a Tuberculosis Preventorium for Children. During the Panic of 1893, his milk stations sold coal for the low price of 5 cents for 25 pounds. He opened homeless shelters for 64,000 people who paid a nickel each to get a bed and breakfast. He funded 50,000 meals for one cent each. At Abraham & Straus, he established a subsidized company cafeteria. [SDJW staff]

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Today’s Jewish Birthday: Saul Alinsky

He believed demonstrations should be novel and considered sit-ins to be passé.  He once threatened to ship a thousand rats to City Hall, which he described as a form of integration.  He had long lines of supporters exchanging their pennies for dollars at banks, and threatened to have a “piss in” at Chicago O’Hare Airport. [SDJW staff]

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Today’s Jewish Birthday: Arthur Rubinstein

In 1912, he became a regular at the musical salon of Paul and Muriel Draper, who also nourished the musical talents of Igor Stravinski, Pablo Casals and others. After World War I, his concertizing was widely acclaimed in Spain and South America. He toured the world in the interwar years, moving to the Brentwood section of Los Angeles during World War II. He was naturalized as an American citizen in 1946. [SDJW staff]

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Today’s Jewish Birthday: Samuel Gompers

In 1875, Gompers was electd as president of Local 144 of the Cigar Makers International Union. In 1886, he was elected as the second vice president of the Cigar Makers’ International Union and as its first vice president in 1896, a position he retained until his death.
In 1881, Gompers helped to found the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, which reorganized itself in 1886 as the American Federation of Labor, with Gompers as president. [SDJW staff report]

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Today’s Jewish Birthday: Paul Newman

In 1955, his first movie was The Silver Chalice with Pier Angeli. Two years later, he played Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me. In 1958, he starred with Elizabeth Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. He also starred with Woodward that same year in The Long Hot Summer. In 1960, he starred in Exodus, the story of Israel’s independence, and costarred with Woodward in From the Terrace. [SDJW Staff]

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Today’s Jewish Birthday: Piper Laurie

At age 17, she signed a contract with Universal Studios, at that time changing her name to Piper Laurie. She starred with Ronald Reagan in 1950 in Louisa, and claimed to have had her first sexual relationship with the future President of the United States. She acted with Donald O’Connor, Tony Curtis and Rory Calhoun in subsequent films. [SDJW staff report]

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Today’s Jewish Birthday: Israel Zangwill

His play “The Melting Pot” was credited with penning that phrase to describe absorption of immigrants in the United States. After seeing it, former President Theodore Roosevelt reportedly leaned out from his theater box and shouted, “That’s a great play, Mr. Zangwill. That’s a great play.” [SDJW staff]

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