History events
42 — (14th of Adar, 3892) King Agrippa I began the construction of a gate for the city of Jerusalem
68 — (2th of Adar, 3828) During the Great Revolt, Vespasian occupied the city of Gadara as the legions made their slow, inexorable march to Jerusalem
1423 — (12 Adar 1 5183) Pope Martin V opposed anti-Jewish sermons and permitted Jewish doctors to practice
1592 — (20th of Adar, 5352) Emperor Rudolph II invited Rabbi Judah ben Bezalel Lowe, known as the Maharal of Prague to his castle. The two men met for an hour and a half during which time they “developed a mutual respect for each other. Rabbi Judah Lowe made use of his excellent connections with the Emperor, often intervening on behalf of his community when it was threatened by anti-Semitic attacks or oppression. (As reported by Chabad Knowledge Base)
1835 — (24 Shevat 5595) In Paris, the opera «The Jewess» («The Cardinal’s Daughter,» 1835) by Jacques François Fromental Halévy premiered—a melodrama about the persecution of Jews by the Inquisition
1846 — (27th of Shevat, 5606) In Poland, the National Government issued a proclamation “calling for the Jewish population to join the uprising and ensuring their full equality”
1857 — (29 Shevat 5617) Jews in Siberia were allowed to register under the same conditions as others in the merchant guilds of Russia
1912 — (5th of Adar, 5672) A New York Ladino language newspaper called La Aguila hit the presses but failed due to lack of support and finished running on March 22 of the same year
1913 — (16 Adar 1 5673) At the initiative of Solomon Schechter, president of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the United Synagogue of America was established, serving as an organization for Conservative communities
1919 — (23 Adar 1 5679) At the «Council of Ten» of the Allied Powers, representatives of the Zionist movement, including Weizmann, Sokolow, and Usishkin (who spoke in Hebrew), articulated several programmatic demands: support for immigration and the development of settlement activity in Palestine; recognition of a Jewish council or agency as the representative of the interests of Jews in Palestine and around the world; and granting Jews priority in the issuance of concessions related to the development of the national economy of the country. Weizmann also stated that the Zionists were not insisting on the immediate establishment of a Jewish government or Jewish state institutions; rather, it would suffice for the mandatory authorities to facilitate the entry of 70,000 to 80,000 Jews annually and to create a broad network of Jewish educational institutions. When Jews constituted the majority of the population, they would be able to form a government suitable to the existing conditions.
1919 — (23 Adar 1 5679) Civil War. Pogrom in Borodyanka.
1922 — (25 Shevat 5682) The Anglo-French treaty, under which the Golan Heights were incorporated into the French mandate of «Syria,» came into effect on March 10, 1923
1932 — (16th of Adar-1, 5692) In the Netherlands, the Jewish Historical Museum was officially opened. It was located in a single room on the top floor of the Amsterdam Historical Museum, which was housed in the Weigh House
1936 — (30th of Shevat, 5696) Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope the High Commissioner of the British Mandate of Palestine was booed by a crowd as he left a museum in Tel Aviv where he had just given a dedicatory address. The demonstration was prompted by reports that the mandatory government is about to implement new regulations designed to limit Jewish immigration and land purchases by Jews. The High Commissioner ordered the crowd to disperse but did not order any arrests
1938 — (22th of Adar-1, 5698) Today is the planned date on which passengers will begin debarking at the newly refurbished port of Tel Aviv. The event is viewed as “a milestone in the rebuilding of the Jewish National Home.”
1939 — (4th of Adar, 5699) “Under a decree that Field Marshall Goering announced today, all German or Stateless Jews must surrender with a fortnight all jewels,” “knives, forks, other tableware” “and other objects of gold, silver or platinum as well as all diamonds, pearls and other precious stones.”
1941 — (26th of Shevat, 5701) A large scale pogrom in Amsterdam continued for a second day
1942 — (6th of Adar, 5702) Struma, a ship chartered to carry Jewish refugees from Axis-allied Romania to British-controlled Palestine during World War II, with its engine inoperable, was towed from Istanbul through the Bosporus out to the Black Sea by Turkish authorities with its refugee passengers aboard, where it was left adrift
1942 — (6 Adar 1 5702) The Shoah. In Mariinka (Donetsk region), operational unit 6 executed 50 Jews. In Kolomyia (Ivano-Frankivsk region), 16 Jews from the village of Kobaki were shot. 23 Jews were deported from Odessa
1944 — (29th of Shevat, 5704) It was reported today that “in a move to combat the wave of terror that flared up in Palestine this week, a Jewish vigilant organization calling itself ‘Yishuv’s Guard’ has been formed in Jersualem
1948 — (13 Adar 1 5708) War of Independence. The British army ceased to control the road from Jerusalem to Latrun, which immediately became a site of Arab attacks on transport convoys heading to the Capital. During the initial phase of the war, Arabs identified a weak point in the Jewish defense—the roads connecting the settlements and blocks of settlements located among Arab villages. As long as these transport routes were needed by the British, they were protected, and the area remained calm; but as soon as the army withdrew, the roads turned into battlefields.
1951 — (17 Adar 1 5711) Israel. The first avant-garde art exhibition in Tel Aviv, «The Group of Ten,» was held. The name derived from the number of avant-garde artists (Eliyahu Gat, Yelchanan Galpern, Shulamith Tal, Yaniv Ochshtit, Shoshana Buisson, Ephraim Lifshitz, Dan Kedar, Moshe Propes, Shimon, Tzvi Tadmor) who presented their works at the exhibition. These artists organized 12 more exhibitions until 1960.
1955 — (1 Adar 1 5715) In Israel, a decision was made to declare this year a drought year. The lack of rain affected the Negev, designated as a disaster zone, and the regions of Beit She’an and Emek Jezreel, where the entire wheat harvest was lost.
1965 — (21 Adar 1 5725) In Montevideo, agents of the Mossad assassinated former Latvian SD officer Herbert Cukurs, guilty of the mass murder of Jews in the Riga ghetto.
2007 — (5 Adar 1 5767) A strike at the Railway Company. Workers halted train services across Israel in protest against management’s intention to restructure the company and negotiate a new collective labor agreement.
2011 — (19 Adar 1 5771) The situation in southern Israel escalated. Arabs from Gaza detonated an explosive on the route of an Israeli military patrol near the «Karni» border crossing and fired mortars at soldiers. At 1:00 PM, they shelled the area around Kibbutz Nahal Oz. At 9:37 PM, rockets from Grad struck Beer Sheva and Netivot. This was the first attack on Beer Sheva from the Gaza Strip since the conclusion of the anti-terror operation «Cast Lead» (in January 2009). In Beer Sheva, a Grad rocket exploded between two houses, damaging several homes, the water supply, and the power supply system. In response, the IDF shelled targets in the territory of the Gaza Strip.
2024 — (14 Adar 1 5784) War with Gaza. Day one hundred and forty. Throughout the day, IDF forces shelled targets in the areas of Khan Younis, Rafah, the Nuseirat refugee camp, and the central part of the Gaza Strip, as well as the refugee camp in Az-Zawiya
People
1658 — (30th of Adar-1, 5418) Jacob (John) Lumbrozo, the first doctor in Maryland was tried for having, «Denied Jesus of Nazareth….» Lumbrozo was convicted, sentenced to death, and was to have all his property confiscated by the government. He was later freed from these penalties. Lumbrozo was born in Portugal. He then moved to Holland and finally settled in Maryland in 1656
1744 — (21th of Adar, 5504) In the ghetto of Frankfurt am Main, “Amschel Moses Rothschild and his wife Schönche Rothschild (née Lechnich) gave birth to Meyer Amschel Rothschild, the husband of Gutle Schnapper with whom he had ten children
1813 — (23th of Adar-1, 5573) Franz Delitzsch, Christian Hebraist, born
1824 — (24th of Adar-1, 5584) Sir George Jessel, master of the rolls, England, born
1865 — (27th of Shevat, 5625) Birthdate of pioneer baseball executive, Barney Dreyfuss, the owner of the Pittsburg Pirates and the “father” of the World Series
1878 — Mathematician F. Bernstein was born. He worked on probability theory and mathematical statistics. He died on December 3, 1956.
1884 — (27 Shevat 5644) Kazimierz Funk was born—an American biochemist. He entered the world of science as the founder of vitaminology and modern scientific dietetics. He died on November 19, 1967.
1897 — (21 Adar 1 5657) Mordechai Namir was born in Ukraine—a public and political figure in Israel, mayor of Tel Aviv, general secretary of the Histadrut, and minister. He died on February 22, 1975.
1898 — (1 Adar 1 5658) French writer Émile Zola was sentenced to prison for libel due to his open letter «J’Accuse!» in which he accused the ruling and military circles of anti-Semitism and defended the officer Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of spying in 1894. After several months in prison, Zola managed to escape to London
1904 — (7th of Adar, 5664) Birthdate of Leopold Trepper, a Jewish James Bond. Trepper was born in Poland. During World War II he organized and ran one of the most famous espionage rings in history — The Red Orchestra. Operating in France in 1940, the ring penetrated German intelligence and was able to provide the Soviets with detailed information about the impending invasion of Russia by Germany. Unfortunately, Stalin refused to believe the warnings. Members of the Red Orchestra were captured in 1942. Trepper escaped and hid until the liberation of Paris in 1944. When he returned to Moscow, he was arrested along with thousands of others who had bravely fought the Nazis and spent ten years in prison. Eventually he moved to Israel where he died in 1982
1911 — (25 Shevat 5671) One of the founders of the Bar-Giora organization, Ezekiel Nisanov, was killed by Arabs.
1929 — John Charles Polanyi, a Canadian physical chemist and Nobel Prize laureate, was born.
1937 — B. Gurevich, a distinguished master of sports and Olympic champion in freestyle wrestling in the middleweight category, was born. He died on January 10, 1995
2000 — (17th of Adar I, 5760) Ofrz Haza, popular Yeminite Israeli singer, passed away. Born in 1957, she made her international debut at the Eurovision Song Contest 1983, which she very narrowly failed to win for Israel with the song «Hi». Ofra Haza had a world-wide hit in 1988 with «Im Nina’lu» from the album Fifty Gates of Wisdom. Her international hits also included «Temple of Love (Touched by the Hand of Ofra Haza)» with the Leeds-based post-punk band, The Sisters of Mercy in 1992 and «My Love is for Real» with Paula Abdul in 1995. She also sang in the animated film The Prince of Egypt in 1998. Her Israeli hits include «Shir ha-Frekha» («The Bimbo Song», theme from the movie Shlager, in which she also acted) and «le-Orekh ha-Yam» («Along the Shore»). Haza, who came from the poor Hatikvah neighborhood of Tel-Aviv, at one time almost a slum, was a success story and the subject of pride on behalf of many Israelis of Yemenite origin. She died of AIDS
2003 — (21 Adar 1 5763) Sh. Argov, a former Israeli ambassador to the UK, died at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. He had been severely injured by an Arab and had lain completely paralyzed for two decades. The attack on the ambassador was one of the catalysts for Israel’s anti-terrorist campaign in Lebanon