History events
66 (17 Elul 3826) — The Jewish War. “With great bravery, the Romans held this last, strongly fortified stronghold. Yet their situation was hopeless, and when the Jews promised them free passage on condition of surrendering their weapons, they gladly accepted the offer. But as soon as the besieged handed over their arms, the ‘Avengers of Israel’ rushed at the defenceless men and began killing them. The Romans offered no resistance and did not beg for mercy, but they shouted: ‘The oath! The agreement!’ At first they shouted these words in unison; then fewer voices joined in, the chorus grew weaker, and finally only one voice remained, crying: ‘The oath! The agreement!’ But then it fell silent too. This happened on Saturday, September 7, 20 Elul according to the Jewish calendar” (L. Feuchtwanger).
66 (17 Elul 3826) — The Jewish War. Josephus Flavius: “On the same day and at the same hour, as if by divine decree, the inhabitants of Caesarea killed all the Jews in the city; more than twenty thousand were killed within one hour, so that not a single Jewish soul remained in the entire city.”
1789 (4 Elul 5549) — The Jews of Paris submitted a petition to the National Assembly “On the extension to them of all those civil rights and privileges to which they are entitled alongside all other citizens and members of the French state.”
1826 (23 Av 5586) — Emperor Nicholas I’s resolution on the Velizh Affair (Blood Libel; see April 1, 1823): “Since this incident proves that the Jews misuse the tolerance granted to their faith, it is ordered, as a warning and example to others, that the Jewish schools (synagogues) in Velizh be sealed until further notice, and no services be permitted either inside these schools or in their premises.”
1827 — (3th of Elul, 5587) In Russia, ….. Emperor Nicholas issued an edict filled with onerous conditions under which Jews were to perform military service including making Jews as young as 12 and as old as 35 eligible for conscription, requiring the Jews to provide “10 recruits per 1,000 inhabitants every year, while non-Jews were to furnish 7 per 1,000 every alternate year” and requiring additional recruits to be supplied to compensate for any unpaid taxes
1856 — (25th of Av, 5616) Today, the Cantonist policy was abolished by Tsar Alexander II’s decree, ….. in the aftermath of the Russian defeat in the Crimean war, which made evident the dire necessity for the modernization of the Russian military forces.” All unconverted cantonists and recruits under the age of 20 were returned to their families. The underage converted cantonists were given to their godparents. However the implementation of the abolition took nearly 3 years. It is estimated that between 30,000 to 70,000 Jewish boys served as cantonists, their numbers were disproportionately high in relation to the total number of cantonists. Jewish boys comprised about 20% of cantonists at the schools in Riga and Vitebsk, and as much as 50% at Kazan and Kiev schools. A general estimate for the years 1840–1850 seems to have been about 15%. In general Jews comprised a disproportionate number of recruits (ten for every thousands of the male population as opposed to seven out of every thousand,] the number was tripled during the Crimean War (1853–1856). After the 25-year conscription term, former cantonists were allowed to live and own land anywhere outside the Pale of Settlement. The earliest Jewish communities in Finland were Jewish cantonists who had completed their service…”
1903 — (3th of Elul, 5663) The forged “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” were serialized in a Russian publication
1906 (5 Elul 5666) — Pogrom in Siedlce (Poland).
1919 (30 Av 5679) — Civil War. Pogroms. …The next day (see August 25), the dead began to be transported to the cemetery. Carts with high piles of corpses moved along the street; women’s legs in white shoes protruded from the wagons, long women’s hair hung down, and the arms of drowned people stuck out. It was hard to look at all this. A doctor who arrived that day, seeing the mutilated bodies — hacked and lying in the streets — drank poison and said: “I no longer want to live and see this.” He died, and the Petliura medics he had been travelling with threw his body off the cart in the middle of the street. More than 1 000 people were killed in the town of Pogrebishche, more than 4 000 were wounded, and the number of raped women was countless.
1922 (2 Elul 5682) — A trial of 37 Zionists began in Kyiv.
1926 (16 Elul 5686) — Following a special meeting, a memorandum appeared within the leadership of the Communist Party of the USSR: “The notion that the Soviet government favours the Jews, that it is a ‘Jewish government’, that Jews are to blame for unemployment, housing shortages, lack of university places, rising retail prices, and speculation — this notion is being widely instilled in the working masses by all hostile elements. Talk of a ‘Jewish dominance’, of the need to stage another revolution against the ‘Jews’ — such talk is heard everywhere. Some Communists and the general public perceive the events of the inner‑party struggle as a national struggle at the top of the party. The guiding hand of monarchist groups is visible in the spread of antisemitism; they place the fight against the ‘Jewish government’ at the cornerstone of almost all their leaflets and proclamations… With no resistance encountered, the antisemitic wave threatens, in the very near future, to emerge before us as a serious political issue.”
1937 — (19th of Elul, 5697) A new wave of anti-Jewish terror had broken out in Bialystok district of Poland, resulting in more than 50 Jews being injured, some of them seriously. In one instance Polish rioters gouged out the eyes of Leib Koza, a Jewish carter
1937 — (19th of Elul, 5697) The Council of People’s Commissars for Ukraine approved plans to settle 1,525 Jewish families and 1,020 individuals in Biro-Bidjan, and 350 Jewish families in Crimea
1938 (29 Av 5698) — A terrorist attack by the Irgun (Etzel) at the Jaffa Market — a bomb explosion. 24 people were killed and 35 were wounded.
1941 (3 Elul 5701) — Shoah. In Grebenka (Kyiv Oblast), 37 Jews were killed; in Narodichi (Zhytomyr Oblast), 268 Jews were killed. In Berdychiv, on that day, the establishment of a Jewish residential area was announced, to which Jews had to relocate within three days.
1941 (3 Elul 5701) — Shoah. The start of a two‑day mass shooting of Jews from the Kamianets‑Podilskyi ghetto. By August 28, 23.6 thousand Jews had been murdered, including nearly all Jews deported from Hungary. In January 1942, another 4 500 ghetto prisoners were shot, including 500 children. Only those working in enterprises fulfilling orders for the occupation authorities were spared. In the summer and autumn of 1942, Jewish specialists were deported to the ghetto from seven liquidated ghettos in the Kamianets‑Podilskyi region. After that, the number of ghetto prisoners was about five thousand people. In February 1943, all Jews in Kamianets‑Podilskyi were exterminated.
1942 (13 Elul 5702) — Shoah. From Turka (Lviv Oblast), about 5 thousand Jews were deported to Bełżec (about 150 of them were left in the Janowska camp in Lviv), and from Bryukhovychi near Lviv, about 250 Jews were deported, while about 20 were killed on the spot. In Lyudvopol (Sosnovoye, Rivne Oblast), more than 1 000 Jews were shot; about 60 Jewish mental patients (among the deportees) were killed in Ladyzhyn (Vinnytsia Oblast). In Sarny, Jews were brought in from Klesiv, Rokytne, Dubrovytsia, Berezhnytsia, and Antonivka
1942 — (13th of Elul, 5702) Нolocaust. ….. At 2.30 am in the morning the German Schutzpolizei in Chortkiv in the western Ukraine starts driving Jews out of houses, splits them into groups of 120, packs them in freight cars and deports 2000 Jews to Belzec death camp. Five hundred sick Jews and children were murdered on the spot; A large scale Aktion occurred in Wieliczka, Poland, during which some Jews were selected for labor with the majority being sent to the Belzec death camp; Seven thousand stateless Jews in the Vichy Free Zone of France were rounded up. Many of these people were refugees from Nazi conquests in Eastern Europe. The Vichy Government was very prompt in turning Jews over to the Nazis; During the roundup of Jews living in the Vichy Free Zone, Germaine Ribière and Pastor Chaudier of Limoges provided refuge for children in the homes of non-Jews; Nazis closed all synagogues and schools in the Kovno ghetto; After being unloaded at the Treblinka death camp, a Jew named Friedman uses a razor blade to cut the throat of a Ukrainian guard. SS guards retaliate by immediately opening fire on the other newly arrived deportees; Thousands of Jews from Miedzyrzec, Poland, are deported to the Treblinka death camp; Nearly 1000 Belgian Jews, including 232 children, are deported to the East; 518 Jewish children deported from Paris are gassed at Auschwitz
1948 (21 Av 5708) — At sea, the IDF Navy corvettes Haganah and Wedgwood intercepted the ship Argiro, carrying arms for Syria and travelling from Genoa to Alexandria. The weapons were transferred, the Argiro was sunk, and the crew was arrested and released several months later
1952 — (5th of Elul, 5712) The Knesset ….. passed the bill increasing the conscription for men by six months (to 30 months). As of June 1, 1953, the maximum age for reserve duty was reduced from 49 to 44. The maximum conscription age for doctors was set at 39 and for women physicians at 34; The new Oil Bill, passed in the Knesset by a majority of 54 to 13, provided for leases to be given to prospectors for 30 years and offered them extensions for another 20 years. The royalties were set at 12.5 percent and investors were to be subject to 50% income tax on companies
1953 (15 Elul 5713) — The Knesset passed laws on pathology and anatomy, on national service, and on proceedings in religious courts.
1965 (28 Av 5725) — A terrorist attack. The water supply system was attacked near the kibbutz Manara in Upper Galilee.
1993 (9 Elul 5753) — At the 11th round of the Madrid Peace Conference, it was announced that the PLO and Israel had reached an agreement on partial autonomy for the territories during secret negotiations.
2012 (8 Elul 5772) — Rocket attack on Sderot. Buildings of two industrial enterprises were damaged
2014 — (30th of Av, 5774) Terrorists in Gaza launched salvo after salvo of rockets just before the ceasefire went into effect at 7 pm local – a ceasefire which was greeted as a victory by Hamas, but which did not have the support of many cabinet members and was seen as a disappointment by many Israelis especially those living in the Eshkol Region
People
1864 — Alexander Kugel, a theatre critic, was born. He died in October 1928
1878 — (27th of Av, 5638) Birthdate of Lina Stern the Latvian born Soviet biochemist who was the first woman to be named as Professor at the University of Geneva and the first female member of the USSR Academy of Sciences
1882 — James Franck, a German physicist and Nobel Prize winner in Physics (1925), was born. He died in 1964.
1903 — Isaac Brinblum, an Israeli biochemist and cancer researcher, was born in Białystok. He died in 2000
1906 — Albert Bruce Sabin, an American virologist and developer of the oral polio vaccine, was born. He died on March 3, 1993.
1913 — B. Chakovsky, a writer, was born. He died on February 17, 1994.
1936 — A. Roshal, a chess coach and editor‑in‑chief of the chess magazine 64, was born. He died on May 21, 2007
1944 — Ron Huldai, an Israeli military, state, and public figure, and mayor of Tel Aviv, was born
1989 — (25th of Av, 5749) Author Irving Stone passed away. Stone is best known for the blockbuster novel and film epic, Lust For Life
1992 (27 Av 5752) — Officer E. Avram was killed during the capture of terrorists in Jenin
1994 — (19th of Elul, 5754) Hamas claimed responsibility for today’s murder of 18 year old Ron Saval who lived at Lehavim
2001 — (7th of Elul, 5761): Fifty-eight year old Dov Rosman was murdered today outside of Kibbutz Magal by Fatah terrorists
2020 (6 Elul 5780) — A terrorist attack. In Petah Tikva, an Arab stabbed to death Shai Ohayon, a 39‑year‑old resident of Petah Tikva