History events
-1244 — BCE (26 Nisan 2517) Joshua (Yehoshua bin Nun), leader of the Israelite tribes during the conquest of Canaan, died.
-357 — BCE (16 Nisan 3404) Queen Esther again invited the king and Haman to a feast, and there she confessed to Ahasuerus that she was a Jew, the niece of Mordechai, and that her people were threatened with annihilation. She accused Haman. And when the king went out into the garden in anger, Haman threw himself onto the queen’s couch to beg her for mercy. When the king returned, it seemed to him that Haman was trying to assault the queen right in his palace — and Haman was hanged on the very gallows he had prepared for Mordechai. That same day, the king appointed Mordechai as his grand vizier in place of the hanged Haman. And since, according to the laws of Persia, the king’s decrees could not be revoked, Ahasuerus issued a new edict, allowing the Jews to rise up with weapons and kill anyone who tried to attack them.
73 — (15 Nisan 3833) The Jewish War. The Masada fortress fell.
1096 — (15 Nisan 4856) A pogrom in Trier. Several Jews were killed, some committed suicide, but most managed to take refuge in the palace of Archbishop Egbert, where they hoped to await the return of Emperor Henry IV to Germany, trusting that he would be able to stop the atrocities. However, the rioters besieged the palace; Egbert himself and his entourage were attacked, after which the Archbishop persuaded the Jews, including their leader Rabbi Micah, to accept baptism. Arriving in Germany a year later, Henry IV allowed them to return to Judaism.
1510 — (30 Nisan 5270) The Jewish community of Frankfurt am Main, one of the largest in Germany, had all its sacred books confiscated. This was done in accordance with decrees of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I from August 19 and November 12, 1509, which resulted from the anti-Jewish writings — «The Jewish Mirror,» «The Jewish Confession,» «The Passover Book,» and «The Enemy of the Jews» — by the convert Johannes Pfefferkorn
1516 — (8th of Iyyar, 5276) The first ghetto was established in Venice
1560 — (14th of Nisan, 5320) The Pentateuch with a Yiddish translation was published in Cremona, Italy
1570 — (5th of Iyyar, 5330) The Chumash (is a Torah in printed and book bound form (i.e. codex) as opposed to a Sefer Torah, which is a scroll) with Yiddish translation was published in Cremona, Italy
1571 — (15 Nisan 5331) A decree of King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland extending his personal jurisdiction over the Jews of Galicia and Lviv.
1637 — (26th of Nisan, 5397) TVenetian Rabbi, Judah di Modena “received word that his Italian manuscript entitled ‘History of Hebrew’ customs had been published in Paris.”
1719 — (2th of Iyyar, 5379) Fire destroyed the Ghetto of Nikolsburg, Moravia
1772 — (7th of Nisan, 5532) Empress Maria Theresa issued an order allowing Jews to “sell new garments they had made themselves» despite protests from the local tailor’s guild
1858 — (26th of Nisan, 5618) Jewish veterans of the Russian Army were given permission to settle in Finland which was a province in the Russian Empire
1882 — (21 Nisan 5642) By order of the Russian Minister of War, a numerus clausus (5%) was introduced for Jewish military doctors and cadets at the Military Medical Academy.
1919 — (10 Nisan 5679) The detachment of Ataman Struk broke into Kyiv, capturing Kurenivka, Podil, and part of the city center. The result of this «visit» was a Jewish pogrom.
1920 — (22 Nisan 5680) The Civil War. Pogroms. The town of Tetiiv.
1932 — (4 Nisan 5692) The settlement Javits (Avnei Eitan?) was founded in Samaria by the Mizrachi movement. Destroyed in the War of Independence. Rebuilt in 1951. Today, it is a religious settlement.
1938 — (9 Nisan 5698) The Palestine Post reported that 32-year-old Yitzhak Petrenko and two Arab terrorists were killed as a result of an Arab attack on the Nesher quarry near Haifa. Two other Arabs were killed after they attempted to attack the escort convoy of the mayor of Nablus. The famous conductor Toscanini arrived in Haifa for a series of concerts. Several unexploded bombs were found in Jerusalem, in the Ben-Yehuda area
1948 — (1 Nisan 5708) The War of Independence. A failed attempt by Arabs from Egypt, under the command of Egyptian officers, to capture Kibbutz Kfar Darom in the Negev; the Arabs lost 160 dead
1948 — (1th of Nisan, 5708) “A group of Jewish immigrants from Egypt set up a camp in an area near Sderot which would be the future location of Bror Hayil; The Haganah repelled an Arab attack on Mishmar HaEmek
1953 — (25th of Nisan, 5713) The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel received as a gift, or purchased at lowered prices, America’s food surplus: wheat, beans, potatoes, cheese, powdered milk, dried eggs and butter. Another important purchase was 100,000 tons of the strictly rationed American steel for local pipe factories
1956 — (29 Nisan 5716) Terrorist attacks by Egyptian infiltrators on this day. A vehicle hit a mine in Magen; three were wounded. An army armored personnel carrier hit a mine near Kisufim; three wounded.
1957 — (9 Nisan 5717) A meeting of the Bureau of the Komsomol Central Committee was held, at which the novel «Yellow Metal» by the writer Val. Ivanov («Great Rus», «Rus’ Primeval»), published in late December 1956 by the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house, was discussed. In it, the author very frankly expressed his opinion about Jews, Tatars, and Caucasians
1962 — (6th of Nisan, 5722) South Korea and Israel established official diplomatic relations today
1970 — (4 Nisan 5730) Statistics on IDF losses for the year of the War of Attrition were published: 152 killed, 726 wounded
1973 — (8th of Nisan, 5733) Operation Spring of Youth came to an end. This was an amphibious assault by the IDF on Beirut and Sidon aimed at those who had massacred Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics
1975 — (29th of Nisan, 5735) The government of Israel recognized Falashas as Jews under the law
2002 — (28th of Nisan, 5762) “Eight were killed and 22 injured in a suicide bombing on Egged bus #960, en route from Haifa to Jerusalem, which exploded near Kibbutz Yagur, east of Haifa
2011 — (6th of Nisan, 5771) The Israeli government has approved a list of writers whose images will appear on banknotes of the new shekel series. This is Rachel — an oetess on a banknote of 20 shekels, Shaul Chernihovsky — on a banknote of 50 shekels, Leah Goldberg — on a banknote of 100 shekels and Nathan Alterman on a banknote of 200 shekels
2014 — (10 Nisan 5774) The spy satellite «Ofek-10» was launched into space from the Palmachim Airbase.
2016 — (2 Nisan 5776) The third Israeli Glass Biennale (the first was held in 2012) opened at the Beit Nagler Arts and Culture Center in Kiryat Haim. The exhibition featured more than one hundred works created by Israel’s top glassblowers. The exhibition ran for a month.
2022 — (9 Nisan 5782) Arabs from Nablus vandalized the Tomb of Joseph for two days (until April 11).
2024 — (2 Nisan 5784) A new unmanned aerial vehicle squadron, named «Mountain Ram» (or «Wild Ram»), was established at the Palmachim Airbase.
2024 — (2 Nisan 5784) The war with Gaza. Day one hundred and eighty-seven. The IAF attacked dozens of targets in various areas of the Gaza Strip, destroying the remaining towers of the Madinat al-Zahra complex in the center of the Strip that had survived previous attacks
People
1439 — (25th of Nisan) Poet and kabbalist Avigdor ben Isaac Kara of Prague passed away today
1563 — (17 Nisan 5323) The book «Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India» by the Portuguese Marrano Garcia de Orta was published in Goa — the first European work on tropical medicine.
1670 — (14 Nisan 5430) Aaron Jacob ben Ezekiel, the Chief Rabbi of Moravia and a scholar, died. His services to the community were so great that the inscription on his tombstone compares his death to the loss of the Ark of the Covenant
1847 — (24th of Nisan, 5607) Birthdate of Joseph Pulitzer. Born in Hungary, Pulitzer came to the United States during the Civil War where he served in the Union Army. After the war he learned English, became rich as publisher of the St Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World. He died in 1911. The Pulitzer Prizes were created by his will and were first awarded in 1917.
1879 — (17th of Nisan, 5639) Karl Isidor Beck, Austrian poet, died
1880 — (29 Nisan 5640) Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan, a leader of religious Zionism, was born in Volozhin. Bar-Ilan University, founded by the Mizrachi religious movement, is named in his honor. Died April 17, 1949.
1914 — (14 Nisan 5674) Manny Makkabi, a PALMACH commander and hero of the War of Independence, was born in Cairo. Died on April 23, 1948, while escorting a convoy to Jerusalem. The Haganah operation in early May in Jerusalem is named after him.
1927 — Marshall Warren Nirenberg, American biochemist and Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology or Medicine, was born. Died January 15, 2010.
1933 — (14 Nisan 5693) Baruch Schwartz, a writer, died in Tel Aviv at the age of 72. His greatest contribution was his work on modernizing Hebrew and developing simplified teaching methods for it.
1997 — (3 Nisan 5757) The body of Israel Defense Forces Sergeant Sharon Edri, missing for 7 months, was found buried in the village of Tsurif in the West Bank. He had been abducted and murdered by Arabs from Hamas in September 1996 while standing at a hitchhiking post near the settlement of Zanoah.