History events
1321 — (26th of Av, 5081) Jews in France were accused of encouraging lepers to poison Christian wells. Five thousand Jews were killed. At Chinon, 160 Jews were burned in a pit on an island outside of town. Eventually the King, Philip the Tall, admitted that the Jews were innocent. The island is still known as Ile de Juifs (Island of the Jews)
1486 — (20th of Elul, 5246) Volume II of a Mahzor, using the Roman Rite was printed for the first time at Casal Maggiore, Italy
1567 (16 Elul 5327) — Polish King Sigismund II Augustus issued a decree permitting Jews to open a yeshiva in Lublin
1829 (2 Av 5589) — The yeshiva of Metz, France (a central rabbinical school), received the status of a rabbinical seminary of France.
1881 (26 Av 5641) — “The outbursts of wild popular sentiment, such as we have seen in 1881, are explained by the fact that peasants daily witness the most brazen violations of the law by Jews, which always go unpunished. Their occupation and their attitude towards any legal requirements clearly show that circumventing the law and living at the expense of others is an inherent trait of theirs. Such tendencies among Jews best prove the necessity of firmly and unwaveringly following the path laid down by Your Imperial Majesty, and of relieving the native population from the Jewish yoke as soon as possible” (“A Most Humble Memorandum” by N. Ignatiev, Head of Government and Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire, addressed to Tsar Alexander III).
1882 (6 Elul 5642) — Diary of Dr. H. Khisin, one of the pioneers of the settlement of Eretz Yisrael: “Jaffa. I have not written for 10 days. There is simply no physical possibility: my hands are covered in blisters and blood bruises, I cannot unclench my fingers. <…> My back aches terribly, I am terribly tired, and when I come home from work, I am glad just to have dinner and go to bed. This is probably due to lack of habit, though. On the 12th I went to work for the first time. <…> We got up at 5 o’clock, with the sunrise, because work begins at 6 o’clock. We do not drink tea in the morning. After making our beds and tucking a 1.5‑pound loaf of bread under our arms, we set off. <…> About 20 minutes later we were in Mikveh Israel. This farm was founded by Netter in 1870 on behalf of the Alliance. <…> More than 40 Arabs work daily, not counting the permanent employees and apprentices — about 60 people in total. <…> We are going through a harsh school. We are not given any light work — such as laying out rows, planting, picking fruit, watering, etc. — but are assigned the hardest tasks. The overseer drives us hard and does not let us rest, for he was ordered to do so.”
1887 — (1th of Elul, 5647) “Old World News By Cable” published today described a letter from George Blyth, the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem in which he reports that the Jewish population in Palestine has grown from 15,000 to 42,000 in the past few years
1892 — (28th of Av, 5652) The first train belonging to the Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway reached Jerusalem today.
1933 (29 Av 5693) — The 18th Zionist Congress began in Prague, chaired by Motzkin
1936 — (3rd of Elul, 5696) Arab gunmen attacked a car filled with five Jews traveling towards Tel Aviv. Seventeen year old Shoshana Laznicki was wound in the attack and three other Jews were killed by the Arabs
1937 — (14th of Elul, 5697) A watchtower was built at Sha’ar Ha-Golan today
1938 — (24th of Av, 5698) Italy banned Jews from teaching in public and high-schools
1942 — (8th of Elul, 5702) Нolocaust. The Jewish community at Ozorków, Poland, is destroyed; At Siedlce, Poland, “400 Ukrainians, joined by the Polish police and SS troops, surrounded the ghetto” as they prepared to ship the Jews to Treblinka and/or slaughter the rest of them
1942 (8 Elul 5702) — In Murovani Kurylivtsi and Yaryshiv (Vinnytsia Oblast), 2 314 and 595 Jews were shot, respectively. On the same day, the police chief in Lviv, SS Brigadeführer Katsmann, announced that a ghetto was being established in Lviv, where Jews had to relocate by September 7. That day marked the end of the Jewish action in Lviv. During the action, about 38 thousand Jews were deported to Bełżec in six trains, and 2 thousand Jews were killed on the spot
1945 (12 Elul 5705) — The ship Dalin, registered in Bari, set sail with illegal immigrants bound for Israel. On the 29th of the same month, the ship, undetected by the British, arrived at its destination. The immigrants were safely landed ashore. Dalin became the first post‑war vessel to deliver illegal immigrants to the Land of Israel
1947 — (5th of Elul, 5707) Today, 295 of the large number of Jews and part Jews, who left Berlin for Shanghai in 1939 after “having been told by the Nazi regime to get out” returned to Berlin today.
1947 (5 Elul 5707) — Passengers of the ship Exodus were sent from France to Hamburg.
1981 (12 Elul 5743) — The first residents appeared in the new settlement of Susya in Judea.
1982 (2 Elul 5742) — Evacuation of the PLO from Lebanon. In the morning, about 1 000 fighters (out of 14 500 fighters blockaded by the IDF in West Beirut) boarded transport ships at the port of Beirut and departed for Tunisia. The evacuation was preceded by the transfer to Israel of two IDF soldiers who had been held captive by the PLO.
1995 (25 Av 5755) — A terrorist attack. A suicide bomber detonated an explosive device on a bus passing through the Ramat Eshkol neighbourhood in Jerusalem. As a result of the explosion, 3 people were killed and about 60 were injured.
1997 (18 Av 5757) — The Kiryat Shmona Regional College was recognised as an independent academic institution with the right to award bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
2023 (4 Elul 5783) — A terrorist attack on Highway 60 near the Ha‑Kwasim intersection in the southern Hebron Highlands. An Israeli vehicle was fired upon. Bat‑Sheva Nigri, aged 40, was killed; one person was seriously wounded.
2025 (27 Av 5785) — War with Gaza, day 685: Operation Gideon’s Chariots 2 began — an offensive on the city of Gaza. The operation was a continuation of the previous Gideon’s Chariots. To carry it out, 60 000 reservists were issued summonses on August 20, and 20 000 reservists received notices extending the validity of their current orders.
People
1811 — (1th of Elul, 5571) Joseph Derenbourg, Orientalist, born
1819 (30 Av 5579) — Haim Farhi, a statesman of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, died
1820 — (11th of Elul, 5580) Haim Farhi who known as the Hakham Haim, a prominent Palestinian Jewish leader in the days of the Ottoman Empire passed away
1912 — B. Yampolsky, a writer, was born. He died on January 28, 1972.
1912 (8 Elul 5672) — A. Nudelman, a Russian military equipment designer and laureate of five State Prizes and the Lenin Prize, was born. He died on August 2, 1996.
1925 (1 Elul 5685) — Avner Garin, the first mayor of Ashdod, was born. He died in 1993
1940 — (17th of Av, 5700) Leon Trotsky dies as a result of wounds suffered on August 20th at the hands of an assassin working for Stalin
1973 — (23th of Av, 5733) In Moscow, evgenia and Mikhail Brin, both graduates of Moscow State University (MSU) gave birth to Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google
1995 — (25th of Av, 5755) Five Israelis – 26 year old Rivka Cohen, 56 year old Hannah Naeh, 46 year old Joan Davenney, 35 year old Police Chief Superintendent Noam Eisenman — were killed and at least 100 injured including 38 year old Yona Peter Malina who would die ten years later, when an Arab bomb ripped apart a bus in a residential neighborhood of Jerusalem