History events
117 (23 Av 3877) — Marcus Ulpius Trajanus (Trajan), Roman Emperor (98–117), a native of Iberia (Spain) and uncle of Emperor Hadrian, died. During his reign, in 115 CE, a Jewish uprising broke out in Cyrenaica and spread the following year to Egypt, Cyprus, and Mesopotamia. Most likely, the driving force behind the uprising was messianic hopes among the Jewish people and the desire to free themselves from Roman rule, both in their homeland and in neighbouring countries
1488 — (1th of Elul, 5248) Makre Dardeke (Teach of Young Children) was published for the first time in Naples Italy, by Joseph Ashkenazi. This Judaic glossary was trilingual: Hebrew, Arabic and Italian
1561 — (26th of Av, 5321) Bull of Pius IV. permits Jews to lay aside the yellow hat on journeys,
1809 — (26th of Av, 5569) A group of 70 people led by the followers of the Vilna Gaon arrived in Eretz Yisrael
1903 (15 Av 5663) —Herzl’s meeting with Russian Interior Minister Plehve:
“At first, your Zionist movement was acceptable to us — as long as it encouraged emigration. However, since the congress in Minsk” (Plehve was referring to the Minsk Congress of Russian Zionists), “we have observed major changes. There is less talk about Palestinian Zionism and more about culture, organisation, and Jewish nationalism. This is undesirable for us.” When Plehve asked what kind of government support was needed, Herzl responded with the following three points:
The Russian government would petition the Turkish sultan for a charter granting Jews the right to settle in Palestine, excluding holy sites. The land would remain under the sultan’s supreme authority, while administration would be transferred to a settler society with sufficient capital, to be established by the Zionists. This society would pay an annual agreed‑upon fee to the Ottoman Empire’s treasury in lieu of taxes.
The Russian government would provide financial support for Jewish emigration.
The Russian government would facilitate the legal spread of Zionist organisations in Russia, based on the principles of the Basel Programme.
Plehve expressed general agreement with these three points and added that the funds for financial support would have to come from taxes paid by Jews.
1909 — (21th of Av, 5669) First Jewish community organization is founded in Santiago, Chile – Sociedad Unon Israelita de Chile. At the same time in Argentina, a group of Jewish students founded Juventud Israelita Argentina which produce a journal entitled Juventud, which became a favorite among Argentinian Jewish intellectuals
1915 (28 Av 5675) — A request by Jewish deputies in the State Duma regarding the treatment of Jews in the front‑line zone. It proved unsuccessful.
1919 (12 Av 5679) — Civil War. Representatives of Jewish communities in Yekaterinoslav, Kharkiv, Taganrog, and Rostov‑on‑Don sent a loyalist letter to Denikin. They hailed the Volunteer Army as a “deliverer” from the oppression of proletarian dictatorship and expressed readiness to support it with money and manpower. They also asked for a special declaration confirming equal rights for the Jewish people (as A. Kolchak had done in Siberia). Denikin refused to grant this request
1920 — (24th of Av, 5680) Establishment of Gdud HaAvoda VeHaHaganah al shem Yosef Trumpeldor a “socialist Zionist work group also known as Gdud Ha’Avoda that its name from Joseph Trumpeldor, the one-armed Russian soldier who died defend Tel Hai from attacks from the Arabs
1941 (15 Av 5701) — The Shoah. The shooting of Jews in Smiļene (Latvia), carried out by members of the local voluntary police. Many children were among those executed.
1941 (15 Av 5701) — The Shoah. Units of the 1st Motorised Infantry Brigade of the SS shot 232 Jews in Chernyakhiv (Zhytomyr Oblast) and 38 Jews in Yemilchino (Zhytomyr Oblast). In Balta (Odesa Oblast), about 200 Jews were killed, including refugees.
1941 (15 Av 5701) — The Shoah. A round‑up of Jews in Paris; approximately eight thousand were arrested.
1942 — (25th of Av, 5702) Gerhart Mortiz Riegner sent the “Riegner Telegram” ….. describing plans for the Final Solution to Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, the President of the World Jewish Congress. “Have received through foreign office following message from Riegner Geneva STOP Received alarming report that in Fuhrers headquarters plan discussed and under consideration all Jews in countries occupied or controlled Germany number 3½ to 4 million should after deportation and concentration in East at one blow exterminated to resolve once and for all Jewish question in Europe”
1942 (25 Av 5702) — 2 700 Jews were deported from Drohobych, Medenychi, Truskavets, and Stebnyk (Lviv Oblast) to Bełżec. On the same day, over 2 000 Jews were shot in Sofiivka, Ihnativka, and Marianka (Tsumansky District, Volyn Oblast). On the same day, 88 Jews were executed in Komsomolske (Vinnytsia Oblast)
1944 (19 Av 5704) — An unsuccessful assassination attempt by Lehi militants on Harold Alfred MacMichael, High Commissioner of Palestine from 1938 to 1944, who was held responsible for the deaths of the repatriates aboard the Romanian ship Struma. He had, through the Foreign Office, blocked their entry into Eretz Israel. Later, MacMichael was accused of failing to pass information about permission for 31 children from the Struma to enter Palestine to the Turkish authorities.
1958 (22 Av 5718) — The first supermarket opened in Tel Aviv.
1970 (6 Av 5730) — Israel and Egypt, mediated by the USSR and the USA, signed a ceasefire agreement. This marked the end of the War of Attrition, which had lasted about 1 000 days.
1978 (5 Av 5738) — The city of Ariel was founded.
1979 (15 Av 5739) — The moshav Beit Yatir was established in the southern part of the Hebron Highlands
1984 — (19 Av 5744) Immigrants from the USA, the UK, South Africa, and France, who studied in a yeshiva in the diaspora in Jerusalem, founded the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Ma’itzad in Judea, south of Bethlehem, in the eastern part of the Judean Mountains, 22 km from Jerusalem, 66 km from Tel Aviv, 22 km from Maale Adumim, and 9 km from Kiryat Arba. A military base is located on the outskirts of the settlement, dominating the entire eastern block of Gush Etzion.
1995 (12 Av 5755) — Israel. Demonstrations against the Oslo Accords.
2003 (10 Av 5763) — End of the hudna (see 29 June): Hezbollah militants fired at least 10 rockets at positions of the Israel Defense Forces in the area of Mount Dov (Shebaa Farms); several shrapnel fragments fell in the Israeli communities of Majdal Shams and Masada.
2005 (3 Av 5765) — The first members of the Ivri community — black American Jews — were drafted into the IDF. Ten young men and eight young women received assignments to the Nahal Brigade.
2007 (24 Av 5767) — Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum, recognised Romanian officer Theodor Crivenea as a “Righteous Among the Nations” for saving the lives of thousands of Romanian Jews during World War II by preventing their deportation to a Nazi concentration camp. Twenty thousand Jews from Chernivtsi were on the list for deportation to death camps. Risking his own life, Crivenea included the condemned people in a list of those retained for work in the ghetto, exceeding the existing quota. After the war, the officer married the daughter of one of the Jews he had saved. He died in 1988 in Romania.
2012 (20 Av 5772) — Israel passed a law on fire safety reforms and the establishment of a national firefighting service
2013 — (2th of Elul, 5773) At Zefat, the three day International Klexmer Festival “the biggest festival of Jewish soul music in the world” is scheduled to come to an end
2024 (4 Av 5784) — War with Gaza. Day 307. A strike on the Al‑Tabeen School Complex near a mosque in the Daraj Tuffah district of Gaza City. The building had been turned into a Hamas terrorist headquarters. Members of the 7th Combat Group and an airborne brigade, under the command of the 98th Division Headquarters and supported by IAF combat aircraft, helicopters, and drones, as well as divisional fire support units, launched an operation in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip after receiving intelligence about a concentration of militants and the presence of terrorist infrastructure in the area — as part of terrorist organisations’ attempts to regain control of the territory. More than 30 Hamas targets in Khan Yunis were attacked, including weapons depots and militant assembly points.
People
1653 — (25th of Av, 5413) Jacob Christian Basnage, Christian historian of the Jews, born
1654 — (5th of Elul, 5414) Jacob Barsimson sailed for New Amsterdam from Holland aboard the Peartree and landed on August 22. Some consider him to be the the first Jewish immigrant to travel to what is now New York City. Other dates have been giving for this sailing
1873 (15 Av 5633) — Alice Lilly Selixberg, an American Zionist and member of the Hadassah movement, was born. She died on 27 August 1940.
1888 — Shmuel Yosef Agnon, an Israeli writer, was born.
1891 (4 Av 5651) — Shmuel Dayan (Kitaygorodsky), father of Moshe Dayan and one of the organisers of the first cooperative settlements in Palestine, was born. He died on 11 August 1968.
1898 — M. Ageev (Mark Lazarevich Levi), a writer, was born. He died on 5 August 1973.
1908 — Arthur Joseph Goldberg, a US lawyer and statesman, Secretary of Labor in President John F. Kennedy’s administration, was born.
1909 (21 Av 5669) — Emanuel Amiran, an Israeli composer, was born. He died on 18 December 1993.
1910 (3 Av 5670) — Sylvia Sydney, a well‑known American actress, was born. She died on 1 July 1999.
1922 — Gertrude Himmelfarb, an American historian and philosopher, was born in Brooklyn.
1937 — Dustin Hoffman, an American actor, director, and producer, winner of Golden Globe Awards (1967, 1979, 1982, 1985, 1988) and Academy Awards (1979, 1988), was born
1944 — (19th of Av, 5704) Famed expressionist painter Chaim Soutine passed away
1981 (8 Av 5741) — Harel Skaat, a popular Israeli singer, was born in Kfar Saba to a family of Yemenite origin. In 2010, he represented Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest.
2019 (7 Av 5779) — Terrorist attack. Near Migdal Oz (Gush Etzion), 19‑year‑old Dvir Yehuda Sorek, a yeshiva student, was killed during an attempted abduction by terrorists
2006 — (14th of Av, 5766) Staff Sergeant Oren Lifschitz, 21, of Kibbutz Gazit and Staff Sergeant Moran Cohen, 21, of Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov were killed in battles in the south Lebanon village of Bint Jbail. St.-Sgt. Yesmao Yallao 26, from Or Yehuda and Cap. (res.) and Gilad Balahsan, 28, of Karmiel were killed in clashes with Hezbollah near Leboneh