History events
70 — (20 Av 3830) Jewish War. The beginning of the siege of the Upper City of Jerusalem.
502 — (25 Av 4262) An earthquake in Israel with a magnitude of 5-6 on the Richter scale. The cities of Akko and Nicopolis (Latrun) were destroyed
1899 — (9th of Elul, 5659) The Third Zionist Congress begins meeting in Basel
1928 — (29 Av 5688) The newspaper «Rul» (Germany): «There are 2,600,945 Jews in the USSR. Since 1887, 550,000 have emigrated to America, 18,000 to Palestine, and 30,000 to other countries.»
1929 — (9 Av 5689) A demonstration by the youth of Jerusalem under national banners and Zionist slogans («The Western Wall is ours, shame on the government») (see August 16 and August 17). The demonstration took place in protest against the provocative actions of Arabs, which had intensified at that time.
1936 — (27 Av 5696) The World Jewish Congress was founded. Jews from 32 countries (280 delegates) participated in the founding congress
1937 — (8th of Elul, 5697) Sha’ar HaNeveg (which was renamed Kfar Szold) a new agricultural village east of Gedera was established. It was the 17th village to be settled in 1937
1938 — (18th of Av, 5698) As Arab violence spirals to new levels of intensity, ….. six Jews were killed and two, both women, were seriously injured near Haifa this afternoon when a bus going to Mount Carmel was ambushed by Arabs while passing through a forest. It is believed several of those killed were Jewish special policemen. A bomb was detonated on the road running between Herzliah and Raananh wounding some of the 25 workers in a truck bound for a local orange grove. Several other acts of violence and sabotage took place including a bomb-throwing episode on the streets of Tel Aviv
1941 — (22th of Av, 5701) Нolocaust. ….. Heinrich Lohse, Reich commissioner for Eastern Territories of the Ostland (Eastern Europe) region, decrees that Jews must wear two yellow badges, one on the chest and one on the back; that Jews cannot own automobiles or radios; and that their presence in public places will be severely proscribed; A Jewish ghetto is established at Riga; Last of the remaining 25,000 Jews in Kovno were removed to Viampole. Each is allotted three square feet of living space; Six hundred Jews are taken from Stawiski and shot in nearby woods; A massacre begins at Rokiskis that leaves 3,200 men, women and children, shot by the next evening
1941 — (22 Av 5701) Shoah. The beginning of the executions of Jews in the city of Khmelnytskyi in the Vinnytsia region — 400 people, followed by executions on January 9, January 16, March 3, June 12, and June 26 of different years of occupation.
1941 — (22 Av 5701) Shoah. In Korets (Rivne region), 250 Jews were shot. On the same day, a ghetto was established in Mohyliv-Podilskyi (Vinnytsia region). On the same day, the chief prosecutor of the Romanian army ordered the transfer of some Jews from the Securyany camp to a new camp in Edinets (Bessarabia).
1942 — (2 Elul 5702) In Lubeshiv (Volyn region), 2,230 Jews were shot, about 300 Jews fled.
1944 — (26 Av 5704) Near Mount Tabor, fighters from the Palmach established the first settlement of the «Strike Forces,» Beit Keshet
1961 — (3th of Elul, 5721) Elections were held today for the fifth Knesset Ben-Gurion’s Mapai came in first with 34.7% of the vote which earned 42 seats. Herut, led by Menachem Begin and Liberal led by Peretz Bernstein tied for second with each getting a little more than 13% of the vote which translated into 17 seats for each party
1966 — (29 Av 5726) An Iraqi pilot recruited by Mossad flew a new Soviet MiG-21 fighter jet to Israel, which Israeli specialists studied thoroughly and even shared information with the Americans
1984 — (17th of Av, 5744) A car bomb was discovered on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem and defused about 10 minutes before it was to have exploded. In the car were about 12 kilograms of explosives and another three kilograms of iron nails
1988 — (2 Elul 5748) Two Air Force planes collided in the sky over the Dead Sea. Pilots Lieutenant Colonel R. Koller and Major E. Falk died. The tragedy occurred due to the fault of one of the pilots
2005 — (10th of Av, 5765) Haaretz reported that the Israeli Defense Forces unit that is responsible for finding the remains of missing soldiers discovered the burial site of eight soldiers who died during the War of Independence. The missing eight died in fighting on May 13, 1948 near Kibbutz Nahshon. Their remains have been re-interred in cemeteries on Mount Herzl and Rosh Pina
2005 — (10 Av 5765) Disengagement. The evacuation of settlements in Gaza and Northern Samaria begins.
2006 — (21 Av 5766) Second Lebanon War. Day 35. Israel began withdrawing its forces from Lebanon, fulfilling its part of the obligations under UN Resolution 1701. The IDF’s rear command reported that residents of all northern cities could return to normal life in full
2009 — (25th of Av, 5769) According to a report broadcast today on Voice of Israel government radio wealthy foreign Arabs have bought up hundreds of dunams of land in the Galilee, land, which was owned privately and which was zoned for agricultural use, was sold due to economic hardship
2026 — (28 Iyar 5786) Izz ad-Din al-Haddad, the leader of Hamas’s military wing, is killed by an airstrike in Gaza
People
1342 — (12th of Elul, 5102) Simon ben Asher, astronomer, died
1613 — (8 Elul 5373) David Gans, a Jewish historian and scholar, author of a book dedicated to half Jewish, half general history, died in Prague; the book was soon translated from Hebrew into Yiddish and Latin.
1654 — (12 Elul 5414) The Portuguese traveler, colonist, and slave owner Baltasar Fernandes (c. 1580 — c. 1667) founded the Brazilian city of Sorocaba (today a city and municipality in Brazil, located in the state of São Paulo). Fernandes built a house on the banks of the Sorocaba River and a chapel, known today as the Cathedral of Sorocaba. On April 21, 1660, Fernandes donated land, plantations, and local slaves to Benedictine monks. This attitude of B. Fernandes towards the Catholic Church was due to his need to hide his Jewish heritage.
1698 — (18 Elul 5458) Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (Baal Shem Tov) was born.
1857 — (25 Av 5617) Albert Ballin was born — an industrialist, shipowner of the Hamburg-America Line, and the person who invented sea cruises. He committed suicide on November 9, 1918, as he could not bear Germany’s defeat in World War I.
1868 — (27th of Av, 5628) S.A. Bierfield was lynched by the K.K.K. in Franklin TN. ….. This was the first such reported incident involving a Jew. “A masked mob of Ku Klux Klansmen broke into the dry goods store of S. A. Bierfield, a Russian Jew, in Franklin, Tennessee, and fatally shot both Bierfield and his Black clerk, Lawrence Bowman. The reason given by the lynchers was a false charge of Bierfield’s implication in a murder a few days earlier. But as the New York Times reported about a week later, the real reason for the lynching was that Bierfield was «an intelligent advocate of the present reconstruction policy of Congress and a friend to the freedmen of his neighborhood, among whom—he being a merchant—he commanded quite a trade, and perhaps found it expedient to keep one from among their number in his employ.» A Nashville newspaper account stated that Bierfield was «an active and prominent Republican, having considerable influence with the colored people. . . . Our informant says that was his only crime»
1872 — (11 Av 5632) Rubin Goldmark was born — an American pianist, composer, and music educator. He died on March 6, 1936.
1880 — Bella Rosenbaum was born — she became the first Jewish woman in the U.S. to receive a lawyer’s patent. She died in 1960.
1887 — Edna Ferber was born — an American writer and screenwriter. She died on April 16, 1968.
1896 — Gerty Theresa Cori was born — an American biochemist and Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology or Medicine in 1947. She died on October 26, 1957.
1896 — Iona Yakir was born — a Soviet military leader. Hero of the Civil War. Repressed in 1937.
1898 — Samuel Stoller was born in Moscow — an Israeli agronomist who was awarded the Israel Prize in Agricultural Sciences in 1965. He died on March 6, 1977
1992 — (16th of Av, 5752) Giorgio Perlasca, an Italian businessman ….. who saved more than 3,000 Jews from deportation to Nazi concentration camps in World War II, passed away today at his home in Padua. He was 82 years old. Mr. Perlasca died of a heart attack, The Associated Press reported. Trapped in Budapest late in the war by the fall of the fascist Italian Government, Mr. Perlasca, a livestock trader, joined in a plan conceived by international relief workers and diplomats from neutral countries to save as many Jews as possible from the Nazis. When the Spanish diplomatic representative fled Budapest in November 1944, Mr. Perlasca, who had been a volunteer in Franco’s army in the Spanish Civil War, persuaded Hungary to accept him as the Spanish representative, and in two months he issued travel documents to thousands of Jews to save them from deportation. In 1987 Mr. Perlasca, whose achievements had gone largely unnoticed, was made an honorary citizen of Israel and was honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum there. In 1990 he received the Medal of Remembrance of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council
2007 — (1th of Elul, 5767) Yad Vashem posthumously honored a Romanian reserve officer who blocked the deportation of Romanian Jews to Nazi death camps during World War II. Theodor Criveanu joined the Righteous Among the Nations group of non-Jews who rescued Jews from the Nazis