History events
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.
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
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
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
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
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
1989 — (25th of Av, 5749) Author Irving Stone passed away. Stone is best known for the blockbuster novel and film epic, Lust For Life
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