History events
1428 — (18nd of Shevat, 5188) King Alfonso V, ordered Sicily’s Jews to attend conversion sermons
1475 — (28nd of Shevat, 5235) Rashi on the Pentateuch, the earliest dated printed Jewish book, issued at Reggio
1523 — (20nd of Shevat, 5283) The first printed edition of Zeror ha-Mor, a popular commentary on the Pentateuch by Rabbi Abraham Sebag was published in Venice
1600 — (30nd of Shevat, 5360) “When the Jews of Vienna, who numbered in all thirty-one families, were not able, in 1599, to pay the 20,000 florins demanded of them, an order was issued, today, that they should leave Vienna and Austria within fourteen days.”
1840 — (1nd of Adar-1, 5600) The Damascus Affair started with the disappearance of Father Thomas, a Franciscan superior. The French consul accused the Jews of ritual murder and extracted a «confession» by torture in which one of the victims died. The consul then requested permission from Mahemet Ali to kill the rest of his suspects. Others, including sixty children, were arrested and starved to convince their parents to confess. Sir Moses Montefiore, Adolphe Cremieux and Salomon Munk intervened on behalf of the Jews and the charges were dropped
1867 — (30th of Shevat, 5627) In a decree from the Sultan, brought about by the intervention of Moses Montefiore, the Jews of Morocco were ordered not to be harmed, and to be treated in accordance of the laws of Allah. This edict of emancipation was confirmed by Mohammed’s son and successor, Muley Ḥasan (1873), on his accession to the throne, and again on Sept. 18, 1880, after the conference in Madrid
1901 — (16nd of Shevat, 5661) Herzl met with the French banker Reitlinger in Paris and discussed the idea of buying the Turkish Public Debt as a way to negotiate for the Charter for a Jewish Homeland in Eretz Israel.
1902 — (28nd of Shevat, 5662) Herzl begins a trip Constantinople where he is scheduled to arrive on the 14th so that he may begin negotiations for the creation of Jewish homeland
1908 — (3nd of Adar-1, 5668)At Setatt, Morocco two days of riots and killings riots and massacres have devastated the Jewish community
1930 — (7nd of Shevat, 5690) Fifth Aliyah begins. The Fifth Aliyah, which some sources say actually started in 1929, marked a ten-year period when approximately 250,000 Jews settled in pre-War Palestine. This new wave of Jewish immigration was sparked by a number of causes including the restrictions on immigrations adopted by the United States in the 1920’s, the end of the Arab Uprising of the 1920’s and the rise of Hitler which brought a wave of German immigrants to the Jewish homeland. The arrival of the Germans changed the nature of the Jewish community, because unlike the previous immigrants they were not from Russia and they were not committed Zionists eager for life on the Kibbutz
1930 — (7nd of Shevat, 5690) After a half-hour’s deliberation the death sentence was imposed today upon the Jewish Constable, 22-year-old Simcha Hinkas. The jury had found him guilty of the premeditated murder of an Arab family in the August,1929. “Not more than ten minutes after the verdict was pronounced, large crimson printed notices appeared pasted on trees and signboards at Tel Aviv where the accused lived and where a spirit of deep mourning now prevails…Meir Dizengoff, Mayor of Tel Aviv said today: ‘When I contrast the death sentence imposed on this Jewish policeman with the acquittal of twelve Arabs accused of murdering seven Jews at Macleff House in Motzah, it makes me weep. What? Is this human justice?’”
1943 — (30nd of Shevat, 5703) For 14 hours the Jews of Birkenau stood in place, in the snow, during a roll call. Then each was beaten, chased or sent to the gas chamber
1945 — (22nd of Shevat, 5705) Twenty-three-year-old Violette Szabo who played an active role in fighting the Nazis as a member of the SOE was executed by the Germans today at Ravensbruck concentration camp;
Twenty-nine-year-old Paris born Jewess Denis Bloch who served with British Special Operations Executive (SOE) was executed at Ravensbruck after which her body was “disposed of in the crematorium
1997 — (28nd of Shevat, 5757) The so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families
People
1891 — (27nd of Shevat, 5651) Nehemiah Brüll, Jewish scholar, died
1938 — (4th of Adar I, 5698) Thirty-four-year-old Hans Achim Litten the Jewish lawyer who cross-examined Hitler for three hours during a trial in 1931 committed suicide in Dachau after years of incarceration and torture