History events
1666 — (12th of Kislev, 5427) Three months after Shabbati Z’vi cast off his Jewish garb and converted to Islam, the Rabbinical Council of Constantinople acted to stamp our this heresy that threatened their peaceful place in the Ottoman Empire by excommunicating Nathan of Gaza, one of his foremost «prophets
1738 — (9th of Tevet, 5499) The Jews were expelled from Breslau Silesia
1895 — (22th of Kislev, 5656) “The great Hebrew fair…one of the most extensive enterprises” that the Jews of New York have undertaken is scheduled to open tonight at Madison Square Garden. This fundraiser which has booths sponsored by every Jewish congregation and organization in the city is expected to raise $250,000 for Educational Alliance and the Hebrew Technical Alliance
1917 — (24th of Kislev, 5678) The Turkish mayor of Jerusalem surrenders the city to 2 British soldiers — Sergeants Sedgwick and Hawcombe; A delegation of notables including the mayor of Jerusalem, the chief of police and several imams, rabbis and Christian clergy met with British forces just north of the city and surrendered the “keys of the city.»
1924 — (12th of Kislev, 5685) In the presence of in the presence of Sir Herbert Samuel, ….. the High Commissioner for Palestine, Sir Ronald Storrs, Governor of the Jaffa district in Jerusalem, and Raghib al-Nashashibi, the Arab mayor of Jerusalem a street in Jerusalem that crosses Ben Yehuda Street and Hillel Street was named King George Street or Rechov HaMelech in dedication ceremonies held today. The street was named in honor of King George V in honor of the seventh anniversary of Lord Allenby’s conquest of Jerusalem during World War I
1931 — (29th of Kislev, 5692) Supporters of the Grand Mufti distributed “fake photographs” to delegates to the World Islamic Conference showing Jews armed with machine guns attacking the Dome of the Rock. This was part of the mufti’s plan to inflame relations between Jews and Arabs while cementing his role as leader of the Arabs in Palestine
1939 — (27th of Kislev, 5700) Нolocaust. ….. Dr. Henryk Szoskies, vice president of the Jewish community in Warsaw, who escaped last month and is now in Paris has provided first-hand information on the desperate situation of the Jews living in the German-occupied zone of Poland. “Jews all over the German part of Poland live in constant fear of new persecutions and new orders making life even harder.” He reported that the Gestapo had ordered the establishment of a ghetto in the middle of November allowing only three days to transfer an additional 160,000 Jews into the Nalewiki district increasing the population in this small area to 366,000. “Jews all over Poland face an extremely hard winter…since merchants are not allowed to trade and all their property has been confiscated. Dr. Szoskies has “presented a detailed report to Premier Wladislas Sikorski and other members” of the Polish government in exile in Paris
1940 — (9th of Kislev, 5701) The British deported illegal Jewish immigrants from Haifa to Mauritius. This was part of the British enforcement of the White Paper that effectively ended Jewish immigration to Eretz Israel. When you consider how strapped the British were for resources in fighting Hitler, it is amazing that the government in London could find the resources to intercept vessels sailing to Palestine.
1941 — (19th of Kislev, 5702) Нolocaust. Following two days of killing known as the Rumbula Massacre, an additional 500 Jews were murdered in the “small ghetto” at Riga. The Nazis used buses supplied by the Riga municipal authorities to transport the Jews to the Bikernieki forest where “they were murdered and buried in mass graves
1942 — (1th of Tevet, 5703) Нolocaust. German troops in Tunis, Tunisia, seize 128 Jews and march them to a labor camp. One young Jew who drops from exhaustion is shot and killed
1948 — (7th of Kislev, 5709) In British ruled Aden eighty-two Jews were killed during a savage attack on the Jewish citizens and their property. Other such riots took place in Beirut, Cairo, Alexandria and Aleppo
1949 — (18th of Kislev, 5710) The UN General Assembly voted to put Jerusalem under permanent UN rule. ….. This a repeat of what was in the resolution adopted on November 29, 1947; Arab states support the adoption of the motion to put Jerusalem under permanent UN rule because they are suspicious of King of Abdullah of Jordan who has annexed the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem; Britain opposes the UN plan to put Jerusalem under permanent UN rule; The United States opposes the UN plant to put Jerusalem under permanent UN rule. It favors a compromise put forward by Sweden and the Netherlands under which only the city’s religious shrines would be under UN Control instead of the whole city; Chile abstained from voting on the UN resolution in favor to the internationalization of Jerusalem
1952 — (21th of Kislev, 5713) The Jerusalem Post reported that the Knesset elected Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the 68-year-old Labor Zionist leader, as the second President of Israel. He was elected on the third ballot when he won 62 votes. The other candidates were Rabbi M. Nurock, who received 40 votes, and Mr. Y. Gruenbaum who won five. There were five blanks and eight abstentions
1961 — (2th of Tevet, 5722) An Israeli court found Adolf Eichmann found guilty of war crimes
1969 — (29th of Kislev, 5730) Thanks to newly supplied Soviet radar, Egyptian aircraft shoot down two Mirages and one F-4 Phantom Jet
1998 — (20th of Kislev, 5759) For the first time in more than half a century, the United Nations General Assembly decided today to list anti-Semitism as a form of racism
2001 — (24th of Kislev, 5762) A suicide bomber exploded a powerful bomb near a bus stop at the Checkpost Junction in Haifa shortly after 7:30 AM. About 30 people were injured, most lightly and suffering from shock. A second explosive device was found and detonated nearby. The terrorist was killed
2003 — (14th of Kislev, 5764) The Shin Bet captured Mahmud Amru, the sniper who murdered ten-month-old Israeli infant Shalhevet Pass and wounded her father as he blazed away at a busy playground
People
1712 — (21th of Kislev, 5473) Simon Moses Ben Israel, the Dutch rabbinical scholar who was the father of Moses Frankfurter the Dutch printer who lived from 1672 to 1762, passed away today
1831 — (5th of Tevet, 5592) Baron Maurice de Hirsch, philanthropist, born
1914 — (24th of Kislev, 5675) Birthdate of Samuel Katz, ….. who was a close adviser to Menachem Begin, Israel’s prime minister in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but who later became a vociferous opponent of Begin’s peace efforts with Egypt and the Palestinians. The son of Alexander and Luba Katz, Katz was born in Johannesburg and moved to Palestine in 1936 He changed his first name to Shmuel and soon joined the Irgun. For several years, he was secretary to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, one of the founders of the Irgun. Mr. Katz and Menachem Begin became comrades in arms in the 1940s when both rose to leadership positions in the Irgun, the right-wing underground militia that battled the British Mandatory government of Palestine and later Arab forces in Israel’s 1948 war for independence. In June 1948, Mr. Katz helped organize the voyage of the cargo ship Altalena, which was carrying weapons and Irgun fighters to Israel when it was sunk off Tel Aviv by the newly formed Israel Defense Forces. In May 1977, Begin, the longtime leader of the Herut Party, was elected prime minister of Israel’s first right-wing government in 29 years; Herut later merged with the Likud bloc. Begin chose Mr. Katz as his adviser for information abroad and sent him to several countries, including to the United States for meetings with President Carter, to counter perceptions that Begin was a wild-eyed terrorist and reactionary. But Mr. Katz had resigned to protest Israeli concessions by the time Mr. Carter brought Begin and Sadat together at Camp David in September 1978; at the White House the next year, they signed a treaty returning Sinai to Egypt and calling for Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza. In June 1979, Begin was re-elected to a 13th term as chairman of Herut, by a vote of 1,340 to 8. The 8 votes went to Mr. Katz. In Mr. Katz’s view, peace with the Arabs was illusory; in his view, Judea and Samaria, the biblical names for much of the West Bank, should be annexed as part of the “land of Israel,” and pressure from Washington could be ignored. It was a position Mr. Katz took in many books and opinion articles that he wrote in the years after he left the government. Among Mr. Katz’s books are Jabo, a biography of Mr. Jabotinsky; Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, about the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict and what Mr. Katz considered the deep connections between his nation and the biblical land of Israel; and The Aaronsohn Saga, an account of a Jewish spy ring that worked for the British against the Ottoman Turks. He passed away in May of 2008 at the age of 93 in Tel Aviv