History events
1409 — (7 Elul 5169) A scribe from Italy, Meir ibn Latif Sefardi, completed copying the Commentaries on various sections of the Mishnah, commissioned by a certain Menashe ben Yehiel.
1533 — (27 Av 5293) The Queen of Poland, Bona, informed the Jews of the city of Pinsk that they could enjoy all the rights that the Jews of Lithuania had. This meant they could own and cultivate land, engage in trade, and lend money at interest. Particularly wealthy members of the community held influence at court and possessed the rights of the local aristocracy, namely the ability to own serfs and collect quitrent from them.
1819 — (27 Av 5579) In Karlsruhe, inscriptions reading «Death to Jews! Exterminate the Jews!» adorned the walls of the synagogue and wealthy Jewish homes. On the same day, a pogrom occurred at the home of the banker Haber. In Hamburg, where Jews were greeted with cries of «Hep, hep!» in public buildings, the senate announced to them that they should not behave «provocatively» and should not bring upon themselves the people’s wrath
1846 — (26th of Av, 5606) The Jewish Oath, originally established by Charlemagne, was abolished in Austria. Until then, a Jew who took oath in a Christian court against a Christian was forced to stand on the skin of a dead animal or be surrounded by thorns and call down the curses of Korach or Naaman if he were not telling the truth
1882 — (3 Elul 5642) Founding of Rosh Pina.
1882 — (3 Elul 5642) The first professional theatrical production of a play in Yiddish in the USA took place in New York. Goldfaden’s «The Witch» was performed.
1883 — (15 Av 5643) The Yishuv. The beginning of the settlement of Yesud HaMa’ala in the Hula Valley
1921 — (14th of Av, 5681) In London, The Times published ….. the third in a series of articles by it “Constantinople Correspondent” that “incontrovertibly demonstrated that ‘The Protocols’ consist in the main of ‘clumsy plagiarisms’ from a French political pamphlet directed against Napoleon III and published in Brussels in 1865 by a French Lawyer named Maurice Joly and entitled ‘Dialogues in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.’”
1923 — (6 Elul 5683) The official opening of the «Hashmonai» sports club took place at the «Sokol» sports field in the city of Rivne.
1925 — (28 Av 5685) The 14th Zionist Congress began in Vienna, chaired by Sokolov. It lasted 14 days. A small group of Revisionist Zionists, led by V. Jabotinsky, attended for the first time.
1936 — (30th of Av, 5696) Fifty thousand Jewish residents of Tel Aviv attended the funeral today of two nurses killed by Arab snipers yesterday
1941 — (25 Av 5701) The Holocaust. Another, the third, mass shooting of Jews from the Daugavpils Ghetto.
1941 — (25 Av 5701) The Holocaust. Deportation of one and a half thousand Jews from the Serbian city of Zrenjanin to the Topovske Šupe concentration camp. Subsequently, all prisoners were transferred from there to various death camps. Practically no one returned. Before World War II, about 1,500,000 (Note: Likely a typo, probably ~1500 or 15,000? Original says «около 1500 тысяч» — ‘about 1500 thousand’ which is 1.5 million, likely an error. Translated as given but flagged) Jews – descendants of emigrants from Hungary – lived in Zrenjanin.
1941 — (25 Av 5701) The Holocaust. Executed: in the village of Rashtadt (Mostovsky District, Odesa Oblast) 44 Jews, in the village of Pervomaisk (Snihurivka District, Mykolaiv Oblast) 40 Jews, in Lityn (Vinnytsia Oblast) 57, in Drohobych (Lviv Oblast) 38. On the same day, the 45th Reserve Police Battalion shot 322 Jews near Slavuta (Khmelnytskyi Oblast). In Lityn (Vinnytsia Oblast), 57 Jewish men were shot.
1942 — (5 Elul 5702) The Holocaust. Destruction of the Kremenets Ghetto (center of Kremenets District, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine). Shooting near the railway station. This lasted 2 days. During the deportation, many Jews preferred to commit suicide, throwing themselves from balconies.
1942 — (5 Elul 5702) Another 6,700 Jews were transported by train (45 cars) from Lviv to Bełżec; when the train arrived in Bełżec, 1,450 people were already dead: they died in the cars from suffocation
1943 — (17th of Av, 5703) The process of destroying the evidence of mass murder that took place at Babi Yar, ….. a suburb of Kiev in the Soviet Ukraine, began. Jewish and Soviet prisoners were set to work, unearthing thousands of bodies and burning them in huge pyres. The Jewish prisoners attended to the horrible task knowing that they too would be shot and burned at the end they tried an escape. During attempt to hide the evidence of genocide, 311 out of 325 Jewish and Soviet prisoners would be killed in their break-out attempt
1945 — (9 Elul 5705) The cornerstone was laid for the Yad Eliyahu neighborhood in Tel Aviv
1948 — (13th of Av, 5708) Yiftah, a kibbutz in northern Israel located near the Lebanese border was established today by demobilized Palmach soldiers who were members of the Yiftach Brigade, after which the kibbutz is named
1948 — (13 Av 5708) The first Israeli money – the Lira – came into circulation. It was without portraits or designs. One side was in Hebrew, the other in Arabic. One Lira consisted of 1,000 mil. The smallest banknote was 500 mil, the largest was 50 Liras. On both sides of the banknote was the inscription «Anglo-Palestine Bank.»
1948 — (13 Av 5708) War of Independence. The beginning of planning and organizing an operation to transfer the army and armaments to the Negev for its liberation
1952 — (27th of Av, 5712) The US granted Israel over $73 million for the relief and resettlement of immigrants and for technical cooperation
1958 — (2 Elul 5718) The first international adult Bible (Tanakh) quiz was completed in Jerusalem. The quiz was held until 1980. It was renewed in 2010. The tradition of determining Torah experts among children continued without interruption.
1982 — (29 Av 5742) The Knesset approved an amendment to the Compulsory Education Law, according to which students are required to complete 10th grade. Education up to the 12th grade must be free.
1988 — (5 Elul 5748) The «Covenant» – the platform of the newly formed organization HAMAS – was published. It begins with the words: «Israel will exist until Islam obliterates it, just as it has obliterated others before it.»
1993 — (1 Elul 5753) Opening of the new central bus station in Tel Aviv, whose construction lasted intermittently for 26 years
2005 — (13th of Av, 5765) Shirat HaYam was evacuated today as part of Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza, Kfar Darom was evacuated as part of Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan
2005 — (13 Av 5765) Terrorist attack. Asher Weisgan, a resident of the Shvut Rachel settlement, killed four Arabs in the industrial zone of the Shilo settlement. He was sentenced to four life terms. On December 22, 2006, Weisgan hanged himself in prison
2011 — (18 Av 5771) In a battle with Arabs, Staff Sergeant Moshe Naftali, a resident of Ofra and son of one of the founders of this settlement, was killed. Ofra is a communal religious settlement. It is located on the border of the Judean and Samarian hills at an elevation of 860 m
2011 — (18th of Av, 5771) The IDF attacked terror targets in Rafah in the Gaza Strip today, in response to a three-stage terrorist attack which killed seven Israelis and wounded dozens in the South earlier in the day
2024 — (14 Av 5784) Terrorist attack in the Bar-On industrial zone. An Arab attacked a security guard with a hammer – 38-year-old Gideon Peri, a resident of the Kedumim settlement. He died in the hospital
People
1764 — (20 Av 5524) Yehuda Leib Ben-Ze’ev was born in Krakow – a writer, linguist. He died on February 17, 1811.
1823 — (11 Elul 5583) Phoebe Yates Pember Levy was born in Charleston, South Carolina, into a wealthy Jewish family. During the Civil War, she was a hospital nurse in Richmond. She wrote a book about that time, still serving as an illustration of the life and thoughts of the elite of the Southern United States. She died on March 4, 1913.
1834 — (13 Av 5594) Yosef Chaim was born – a kabbalist and thinker. He led the Jewish community of Baghdad for half a century. His name was known far beyond Iraq, and his influence spread throughout the Jewish world, from Europe to North Africa. He died on August 19, 1899 (12 Elul 5659)
1856 — (17th of Av, 5616) Birthdate of Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg who gained fame using the Hebrew pan name Ahad Ha’am. ….. A pre-eminent essayist he was the founder of Cultural Zionism with a vision of a Jewish «spiritual center» in Palestine. Ha’am strived for «a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews.» In what would appear to have been a detour from his intellectual pursuits Ahad Ha’am managed the Anglo-Asiatic tea company established by Kaloniumus Wolf Wissotzky, the founder of the Wissotzky Tea Company which prior to the Bolshevik Revolution was the largest tea company in the world
1886 — (17th of Av, 5646) Birthdate of Sholom Schwartzbard a Bessarabian-born Jewish anarchist known primarily for the assassination of the Ukrainian politician Symon Petliura. Schwartzbard held Petliura responsible for the death of his parents who had been murdered in a pogrom in 1919
1920 — Shelley Schrift was born – an American stage, television, and film actress. Two-time winner of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She died on January 14, 2006.
1921 — (14th of Av, 5681) Birthdate of Lydia Litvyak a Soviet fighter pilot during WW II who flew 66 missions before being shot down in 1943
1925 — (28 Av 5685) Anatoly Kuznetsov was born – a Russian writer, author of the novel «Babi Yar». He died on June 13, 1979
1929 — (12th of Av, 5689) Arabs, following their attack Friday on the Wailing Wall and on groups of Jews yesterday, today stoned Rabbi Nical of the College of Torah Chaim; A young Sephardic Jew named Abraham Mizrachi who was stabbed at the Maccabi grounds near Mea Shearim, in the Bukharan Quarter on Shabbat by Arab rioters died of his wounds today
1930 — (24th of Av, 5690) In Ploiesti, Romania, Isidor and Mina Librscu gave birth to Holocaust survivor and Israeli professor Liviu Librescu, who was murdered while trying to protect his students during the massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007
1933 — R. Polanski was born – an American film director
1944 — Mordechai Spiegler was born – a footballer, one of the best Israeli players of all time
2011 — (18th of Av, 5771) Forty-nine year old “Paskal Avrahami, a member of the YAMAM Counter-terrorism Unit was killed this evening during a firefight with terrorists north of Eilat on the border with Egypt. He was married and had three children.”