History events
1197 — (28th of Av, 4957) «In the year 4957, ….. on the twenty-eighth of Ab, there was a great persecution of the Jews in the kingdom of Leon at the hand of the two kingdoms that came to besiege it. At that time they removed thence the twenty-four sacred books which were written about 600 years before. They were written by R. Hillel ben Moses ben Hillel, and hence his name was given to the codex, which was called ‘Hilleli.’ It was exceedingly correct; and all other codices were revised after it. I saw the remaining two parts of it, containing the Former and Latter Prophets, written in large and beautiful characters; these had been brought by the exiles to Portugal and sold at Bugia in Africa, where they still are, having been written about 900 years ago. Kimḥi in his grammar on Num. x. 4 says that the Pentateuch of the Hillel Codex was extant in Toledo»
1569 — (1th of Elul, 5329) In Cracow, Isaac ben Aaron Prostitz began printing “R. Naftali Hertz ben Menahem of Lublin’s “commentary on the Torah Portion of Midrash Rabbah
1889 — (17th of Av, 5649) One hundred twenty Jewish families arrived in Buenos Aires giving birth to the modern Argentinean Jewish community.
1936 — (26th of Av, 5696) Today, the World Jewish Congress adopted the main principles of its organization on a permanent basis, empower the executive committee, which is to be elected, to draft statutes and put them into force and also voted a $75,000 budget to finance during the first year the work to which this session has committed the congress.
1938 — (17th of Av, 5698) Arab terrorists conducted a series of early morning attacks including one by 200 armed Arabs at the tiny Jewish colony of Shimroon” and another at Kfar Yabetz where Arabs “burned an orange packing house and uprooted four hundred trees on the grounds of the Kibbutz.
1944 — (25th of Av, 5704) Five days after Leon Kubowitzki (later Aryeh Leon Kubovy), ….. the head of the WJC’s Rescue Department, relayed a message from Ernest Frischer of the Czechoslovak State Council to the US State Department urging the destruction of the gas chambers and the bombing of railways lines leading to the Auschwitz death camp. US Undersecretary of War John J. McCloy rejected the suggestion five days later, writing to Kubowitzki: «After a study it became apparent that such an operation could be executed only by the diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations elsewhere and would in any case be of such doubtful efficacy that it would not warrant the use of our resources»
1951 — (12th of Av, 5711) The Jerusalem Post reported that Jerusalem was assured of a regular supply of ice for domestic purposes from outside of the city and that the government granted a subsidy, due to the cost of the transport of ice from the coast
2005 — (9th of Av, 5765) The evacuation of Neve Dekalim an Israeli settlement in Gaza was completed today as part of the unilateral disengagement plan that was supposed to put an end to violence in the Gaza Strip
2006 — (20th of Av, 5766) Cease fire goes into effect intended to end the “war” between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon
2012 — (26th of Av, 5772) The price of a price-controlled loaf of will bread is scheduled to rise by 6.53% today. The price of standard 750-gram loafs of dark or white bread will rise to NIS 5.24; a 500-gram challah will increase to NIS 5.72; a 750-gram loaf of sliced and packaged dark bread will cost NIS 7.87; and a 500-gram loaf of sliced and packaged white bread will cost NIS 6.99. (As reported by Jerusalem Post)
People
1591 — (24th of Av, 5591) Abigdor Eisenstadt, aka Abigdor Sofer ben Moses, “the author of translation of festival prayers and a prayer-book from Polish into German” passed away today.
1787 — (30th of Av, 5547) Isaac de Pinto “a Dutch Jew of Portuguese origin, a scholar and one of the main investors in the Dutch East India Company” passed away. ….. He had been born in 1717 in Amsterdam. In1748, Pinto helped stadholder William IV of Orange, sending or lending him money to defeat the French at Bergen op Zoom. In return he asked for uplifting measures against Jewish merchants forbidding them to sell clothes, gherkins or fish on the street. He proposed to send the poorest Jews to Surinam. Pinto was a man of broad learning, but did not begin to write until nearly fifty, when he acquired a reputation by defending his co-religionists against Voltaire. In 1762 he published his Essai sur le Luxe at Amsterdam. In the same year appeared his Apologie pour la Nation Juive, ou Réflexions Critiques. The author sent a manuscript copy of this work to Voltaire, who thanked him. Antoine Guenée reproduced the Apologie at the head of his Lettres de Quelques Juifs Portugais, Allemands et Polonais, à M. de Voltaire. In 1763 De Pinto became bankrupt as a result of speculation; he had to sell his house on Nieuwe Herengracht with five famous fixed wall-paintings by Jan Weenix. De Pinto moved to another fine mansion in The Hague; he and his family were invited to the palace when Mozart and his sister played. In 1768, Pinto sent a letter to Diderot on Du Jeu de Cartes. His Traité de la Circulation et du Crédit appeared in Amsterdam in 1771, and was twice reprinted, besides being translated into English and German. His Précis des Arguments Contre les Matérialistes was published at The Hague in 1774. Pinto’s works were published in French (Amsterdam, 1777) and also in German (Leipzig, 1777)
1793 — (6th of Elul, 5553) Baruch Auerbach, educator and philanthropist, born
1903 — (21th of Av, 5663) Birthdate of Hezl Rosenblum, the native of Kaunas who was a signatory of the Israeli declaration of independence, he worked as editor of Yedioth Ahronoth for more than 35 years
1994 — (7th of Elul, 5754) Hamas took credit for the murder of 18 year old Ron Saval today in an ambush near the Kissufim Junction