History events
1592 — (19th of Elul, 5352) Papal edict forbids Jews to admit Christians into synagogue
1665 — (16th of Elul, 5425) The small colony of Surinam recently occupied by the English gave full rights to the Jews (mostly Spanish and Portuguese refugees) to practice Judaism and run their own affairs. This remarkably liberal charter was transferred over to the Dutch when they conquered the colony. They used it as a means of encouraging the Jews to remain
1762 — (28th of Av, 5522) The Council of 4 Countries (semi-autonomous congress of Polish Jewry) met for the last time. It functioned for almost 200 years before the Polish government ordered its dissolution
1895 — (27th of Av, 5655) Based on information that first appeared in The London Daily News it was reported today that there are 571, 300 people living in Warsaw of whom 190,300 are Jews
1898 — (29th of Av, 5658) The first conference of Russian Zionists is held secretly in Warsaw
1902 — (14th of Av, 5662) It was reported today “that the Jews of New York number over 600,00 or 16.5 percent of the total population where 500,000 reside on Manhattan Island” which means they make up 27 percent of the population
1929 — (11th of Av, 5689): Following yesterday’s attack on Jews at the Wailing Wall, Arabs attack Jews in Jerusalem on Shabbat. A young Sephardic Jew named Abraham Mizrachi was mortally wounded when he was stabbed at the Maccabi grounds near Mea Shearim, in the Bukharan Quarter
1933 — (25th of Av, 5693) In Tel Aviv, The British High Commissioner and other officials participate in the laying of the cornerstone for the Levant Fair which is to be held here in 1934
1936 — (29th of Av, 5696) Two Jewish nurses were killed today by Arab snipers in Jaffa; Haya Freud, a lookout on the water tower at Ramath Hakovesh was killed by
an Arab during a night raid; Gershon Mosteioff, a student at the Hebrew University who was acting as a volunteer watchman at Kiryath Anavim was among the thirteen Jews wounded by Arab attackers today.
1938 — (20th of Av, 5698) In Berlin, the Reich Minister of the Interior signed Reichsgesetz Part I, the second decree on the law concerning the change of first and last names that included the requirement that male Jews adopt the middle name of “Israel” and that the female Jews adopt the middle name of “Sara”
1938 — (20th of Av, 5698) Arab violence continued to spread and grow more virulent. ….. Early this morning, the body of Meyer Gutwird a 21 year old rabbinical student “who used to devote virtually of his time to religious studies and was often seen early in the morning at the Wailing Wall reading a holy” was found in Jerusalem. Gutwird had been stoned to death and then beaten with an iron rod. A bomb was thrown at a taxicab in Jaffa and Judah Mosseri, a Yemenite Jew, was wounded in both legs when shots were on the border between Jaffa and Tel Aviv
1942 — (24th of Av, 5701) The Nazis gassed 341 French-Jewish children from the ages of two to ten, as well as 323 girls up to the age of 16, at Auschwitz
1943 — (16th of Av, 5703) Some 1200 children are taken from the Jewish ghetto at Bialystok, Poland, to Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, and later to Auschwitz, where they will be killed
People
1655 — (24th of Av, 5415) In a patent dated today, Antonio Fernandez Carvajal, a Portuguese-Jewish merchant, and his two sons were granted citizenship as English subjects. This made them the first naturalized English Jews
1911 — (23th of Av, 5671) Birthdate of Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik Jewish Russian International Grandmaster and long-time World Champion of chess. He passed away in 1995
1915 — (7th of Elul, 5675) Leo Frank was lynched after having been wrongfully convicted of raping 12 year old in Georgia. ….. Frank, the manager of a pencil factory in Atlanta, Georgia, was accused of raping and murdering an employee, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan. Frank was convicted, despite evidence incriminating a janitor at the factory, Jim Conley. The prosecution claimed that Conley only helped Frank dispose of the body, in return for $200. After the trial, further evidence came to light calling Frank’s guilt into question. The governor commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment, but Frank was then lynched. Frank’s trial was sensationalized in the media, which promoted fantastic stories about orgies and rape at the factory. Populist politician and publisher Tom Watson skillfully manipulated the story in order to inflame public opinion, and succeeded in using it to build support for the creation of a new Ku Klux Klan, the original organization having been dormant since Reconstruction due to federal action; a second Klan was founded in 1915 by a group calling itself the Knights of Mary Phagan. Frank’s lynching turned the spotlight on anti-Semitism in the United States and led to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League