History events
588 BCE — On the secular calendar, Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon lays siege to Jerusalem under Zedekiah’s reign. The siege lasts until July 18, 586 BCE
1630 — (12th of Shevat, 5390) In Santa Engracia (Lisbon), Simon dias Solis, a young New Christian was seen near the local church (on his way to a rendezvous with a young woman) and was arrested for allegedly stealing a silver vessel from the church. After his hands were cut off he was dragged through the streets, and then burned. The real culprit, a common (Christian) criminal, admitted to the crime one year later. As a result, Solis’s brother, a friar, fled to Amsterdam and reconverted to Judaism
1711 — (24th of Tevet, 5471) After two days, the fire that had burned its way through the Judengasse in Frankfurt came to an end. The fire claimed the lives of four and was so destructive that the Jews who had lost their homes were allowed to rent dwellings outside of the ghetto until new houses could be constructed. The 24th of Tevet became a day of communal fasting to mark the anniversary of this disaster
1840 — (10th of Shevat, 5600) A new Jewish School was opened in Riga with Rabbi Max Lienthal serving as principle. In recognition of the sentiments expressed in the sermon with which Lilienthal opened the school the emperor Nicholas presented him with a diamond ring
1866 — (28th of Shevat, 5626) In Switzerland, Jews are finally granted equal rights. It took yet another seven years for the Constitution to be changed
1872 — (5th of Shevat, 5632) In an article published in Havazelet, Jeshua Heschel Levin of Volozin becomes the first to issue a call for a truly great National Jewish Library. Havazelet was an early Hebrew language newspaper which published articles by Eliezer Ben Yehuda among other notables
1893 — (27th of Tevet, 5653) It was reported today from Tangiers that Mohammed Benivda, the governor in Morocco has been imprisoning Jews and subjecting them to the last before finning them. The Jews have broken no law and the governor is doing this simply as a way of making money
1898 — (21th of Tevet, 5658) It was reported today that that there was a renewal of anti-Zola demonstrations in Paris where students “paraded down the boulevard St. Michel shouting: ‘Down with Zola!’ ‘Down with the Jews!’”
1899 — (4th of Shevat, 5659) It was reported today that under a law recently passed by the Imperial Senate, Jews in Russia do not have the right name their own children as they please. Jews are only allowed to use Biblical names and they may not use a modernized form of these. The police have the power to regulate these and other rules which mean Jews may use only the Hebrew or Yiddish forms of names
1903 — (16th of Tevet, 5663) Herzl met with Lord Rothschild. Herzl shows him the correspondence with the British government and asks for three million pounds from the I. C. A. for the Jewish Eastern Company
1943 — (9th of Shevat, 5703) The Germans emptied the detention camp at Zaslaw and placed the Jews in trains to be sent to Belzac to be gassed. Given neither food nor water, the train remained stationary for three days. All but one of the prisoners was eventually killed. He was Emil Manaster who was able to jump from the train and found sanctuary with his sister Jaffa, with Jozef Zwonarz, a Polish engineer; The first transport of Jews from Amsterdam was sent to concentration camp Vught located in southern Holland; Seventy-seven Jews leap from a deportation train traveling east from Belgium. Most are hunted down and killed by German and Flemish SS troops
1944 — (19th of Tevet, 5704) At the Vught Concentration Camp 74 women were put in 1 cell. Ten died of the overcrowding; The Jews of Belgium were among the latest victims of the German efforts to rid smaller areas of their Jewish population. Most were sent to Birkenau
1945 — (1st of Shevat, 5705) All Jewish women at the Brodnica labor camp who were too sick or weak to be moved were shot
1948 — (4th of Shevat, 5708) A platoon of 35 volunteers — half from Palmach and half from Hish — on its way to reinforce those holding the Etzion Bloc, was ambushed and killed by 100s of armed Arabs. The Jews fought to the last man; Jewish settlers, using aircraft for the first time, beat off a heavy Arab attack on settlements at Kfar Etzion, near Hebron, today. The fight there, and others in Haifa and near Beersheba, produced one of the heaviest daily casualty lists to date, with twenty-nine killed and seventy-five wounded so far
1955 — (21th of Tevet, 5715) Dmitri Shostakovich’s «From Jewish Folk Poetry» premiered in Leningrad
1968 — (14th of Tevet, 5728) After leaving England, the INS Dakar arrived this morning at Gibraltar
1970 — (8th of Shevat, 5730) Israeli archaeologists reported uncovering the first evidence supporting the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by military forces of the ancient Roman Empire
1982 — (20th of Tevet, 5742) German police searched for the perpetrators of a bomb attack that ripped through an Israeli restaurant in West Berlin. The blast killed a 14-month old girl and injured 25 diners. Six Palestinians belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) were suspected
1988 — (25th of Tevet, 5748) Start of the first intifada which was really just another round of Arab mob violence and terror designed to drive the Jews from the land of Israel
1991 — (29th of Tevet, 5751) On the day the United Nations set as the deadline for Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, the commander of the Israeli Air Force said that the United States and Israel still have no mechanisms in place to coordinate the two nation’s military activities. And, Maj. Gen. Avihu Bin-Nun said in a news briefing, Israel has little faith that the United States will give Israel advance warning if Iraq, as it has threatened, fires missiles at Tel Aviv. «We may not have any notice, and the first notice may be when the missile hits,» the general said
1993 — (22th of Tevet, 5753) At the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv, a Palestinian from Gaza stabbed four people to death including a Lebanese Arab visiting the city. Islamic Jihad took credit for the attack
2009 — (19th of Tevet, 5769) Today, some 25 rockets were fired on southern Israel
People
1810 — (10th of Shevat, 5570) Leopold Dukes, Hungarian Jewish scholar, born