History events
1232 — (23th of Shevat, 4992) In London, The Domus Conversorum known in English as the House of the Converts was founded by order of Henry III to provide a home and free maintenance for Jews converted to Christianity
1600 — (10th of Shevat, 5360) The 400 Jews of Verona completed their synagogue after their move into the ghetto
1825 — (26 Tevet 5585) Within the Charleston congregation Beth Elohim (Kahal Kodesh Beth Elohim), a group of 47 reform-minded members emerged and demanded changes to the synagogue service. This event marked the beginning of Reform Judaism in North America
1852 — (24th of Tevet, 5612) Mt. Sinai Hospital, known as Jews Hospital, was founded in New York City
1884 — (18th of Tevet, 5644) The orthodox synagogue in St. Apern Straße was dedicated in Cologne
1890 — (24th of Tevet, 5650) It was reported that the past five years the Jewish immigrants arriving in New York included, 18,535 in 1885; 27,348 in 1886; 25, 788 in 1887; 29,602 in 1888 and 23, 674 in 1889
1903 — (17th of Tevet, 5663) Herzl ate lunch with Lord Rothschild and had a meeting with Sir Thomas Sanderson, Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs in Downing Street. Herzl submits the itinerary of the Commission and the membership. Sanderson recommends Sir Benjamin Baker, builder of the Aswan Dam, as irrigation engineer. Herzl is concerned about each and every detail
1906 — (19th of Tevet, 5666) Bezalel, The Academy of Arts and Design, was founded in Jerusalem by Boris Schatz. Born in 1867, Schatz was a painter and court sculptor to King Ferdinand of Bulgaria. He died in 1932. The school was named after biblical artisan Bezalel, son of Uri, who was one of the main architects of the Tabernacle. It has well over 1000 students and offers degrees in art, architecture, and design
1919 — (15 Shevat 5679) Civil War. A pogrom took place in Ovruch.
1921 — (7 Shevat 5681) In the United States, a public statement was published bearing the signatures of nearly all prominent American public figures, business leaders, and writers—more than one hundred in total. The signatories protested against the antisemitic campaign launched by Henry Ford.
1922 — (16 Tevet 5682) The newspaper Doar HaYom reported new Jewish pogroms in the vicinity of Kyiv (January 3, 1922). At that time, insurgent units of the army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic—who had invaded Soviet Ukraine in late October 1921—were operating in the area. “The commander of the insurgents, Symon Petliura, has categorically dissociated himself from the pogroms,” Doar HaYom reported. “According to him, the residents of Jewish towns in the Kyiv region fell victim to bandits and looters who have no connection whatsoever to the army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic.”
The newspaper further reported that Jewish refugees arriving in Lviv from Soviet Ukraine recounted that fighting between Petliura’s forces and the Red Army led to the destruction of entire villages. “At least 38 Jewish towns were wiped off the face of the earth,” they said. “Many of their inhabitants were killed, and virtually all were robbed.”
1935 — (12th of Shevat, 5695) Leaders of the Jewish National Fund announced that it had raise $20,000 which represents 40% of the goal of $50,000 needed to buy additional land in Palestine “as perpetual national property.”
1937 — (4th of Shevat, 5697) In Jerusalem, George Mansour, the secretary of the Arab Labor Federation testified before the Royal Commission that “there was no employment for Arab workers because of the government’s policy which, he alleged, favored the Jews.”
1938 — (14th of Shevat, 5698) The Palestine Post reported that a government trade school had opened in Haifa
1938 — (14 Shevat 5698) The Mekor Haim (“Source of Life”) Synagogue—the largest in Portugal and on the Iberian Peninsula—was inaugurated in Porto. Baron Edmond de Rothschild donated the funds for the purchase of the land
1938 — (14 Shevat 5698) The inauguration of Zina (Tsina) Dizengoff Square took place in Tel Aviv
1942 — (27th of Tevet, 5702) The Nazis begin “resettling” the Jews in the Lodz Ghetto to the Chelmno Extermination Camp
1942 — (27 Tevet 5702) The Shoah. From Odessa, 1,746 Jews were deported. In the village of Kudryavtsevka (Mostovskyi District), 770 Jews from Odessa were rounded up and shot.
1942 — (27 Tevet 5702) The Shoah. The third mass shooting of Jews in the city of Khmilnyk, Vinnytsia Oblast: 1,230 victims
1944 — (20 Tevet 5704) The Shoah. A report titled “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews” was placed on President Roosevelt’s desk. Compiled by U.S. Treasury officials Josiah E. DuBois Jr. and Randolph Paul, it constituted an indictment of the diplomatic, military, and immigration policies of the U.S. State Department toward European Jewry
1945 — (2th of Shevat, 5705) Three years after the “resettlement” of the Jews from Lodz began, the Soviets liberate the town and find 870 Jews still alive
1948 — (5th of Shevat, 5708) Thirty-five members of the Haganah set out to bring supplies to the besieged four Kibbutzim known as the Etzion Bloc. Located the Hebron hills, the four Kibbutzim were defended by thirty armed fighters. They had already fought off one attack by hundreds of Arabs who were so confident of victory that they had brought bags to cart off the loot. Due to the lack of equipment, which was quite common among the Jewish forces, the thirty five set off without a radio. According to information gathered later, the column was given inaccurate directions by a local Arab who then alerted those who were besieging the Etzion Bloc. The Arabs fell upon the Haganah column and killed all of them. Their bodies were found and brought into the Bloc whose defenders now realized that they were completely on their own
1951 — (9 Shevat 5711) The Israel Electric Corporation (Hevrat Hashmal) called on the public to refrain from using electrical appliances between 4:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., and on Fridays between 9:00 and 11:00 a.m., due to overloads in the power grid. Special inspectors were tasked with enforcing compliance. Newspapers recounted a grim story of a woman who ironed a dress during prohibited hours; inspectors arrived, and while she argued with them, the unattended iron burned the dress. The woman received her first warning and was told that a second violation would result in her apartment being disconnected from the power supply.
1951 — (9 Shevat 5711) The Government of Israel appealed to the United Kingdom, France, the USSR, and the United States to compel Germany to compensate for Nazi crimes
1953 — (29th of Tevet, 5713) The Jerusalem Post reported Soviet Jewry’s fears that a major anti-Jewish policy statement was being prepared and would soon be announced in Moscow. Four knowledgeable Jewish Communist leaders fled from East Germany in anticipation of the oncoming persecution. The Israeli government stopped the distribution of the Communist daily Kol Ha’am to soldiers and warned that unless the newspaper stopped «naming the poor Jewish doctors in the Soviet Union as murderers and spies, it will be closed as endangering public security.» The Histadrut Executive, by 27 votes to one, banned Communist members from participation in any trade-union activities
1958 — (24th of Tevet, 5718) One of Israel’s fondest dreams was fulfilled today with the opening of a new highway linking Elath and Beersheba
1968 — (15th of Tevet, 5728) At midnight, the INS Dakar set sail from Gibraltar. After submerging, the Israeli submarine was supposed to sail across the Mediterranean to Israel
1986 — (6 Shevat 5746) Israel conferred honorary citizenship of the state upon Righteous Among the Nations Raoul Wallenberg. As First Secretary of the Swedish Embassy in Hungary, Wallenberg helped save thousands of Hungarian Jews from July 1944 onward by issuing Swedish passports.
1996 — (24 Tevet 5756) The Knesset approved legislation implementing the Interim Agreement with the Palestinians concerning the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (judicial authority and related provisions). The law passed with 48 votes in favor, 44 against, and one abstention.
1997 — (8 Shevat 5757) The Knesset ratified the Hebron Agreement, part of the Oslo II Accords. Under its terms, the city was divided into two zones: one under Palestinian control and the other—containing the Jewish quarter—under IDF control. Approximately 40,000 Arabs lived in the city
2008 — (9th of Shevat, 5768) A stone seal bearing the name of one of the families who acted as servants in the First Temple and then returned to Jerusalem after being exiled to Babylonia has been uncovered in an archeological excavation in Jerusalem’s City of David, a prominent Israeli archeologist said today
2008 — (9 Shevat 5768) The beginning of another massive rocket barrage launched from Gaza against southwestern Israel, lasting several days.
2008 — (9 Shevat 5768) An IDF special forces unit, Duvdevan, eliminated Walid Abu al-Qassam in Qabatiya near Jenin. Al-Qassam, leader of Islamic Jihad’s military wing in Judea and Samaria and a native of the village of Burqin, had been wanted by Israeli security services since 2002. He was involved in organizing dozens of terrorist attacks in Israel, including the 2006 bombing of a snack bar at Tel Aviv’s old Central Bus Station, which killed seven people
2009 — (20th of Tevet, 5769) Two Grad rockets fired from Gaza hit Kiryat Gat this afternoon, wounding three people and causing heavy damage
2011 — (11th of Shevat, 5771) There were a number of attacks against Jewish institutions in Montreal sometime between yesterday evening and this morning, local media reported today. Vandals reportedly smashed the windows of three synagogues, a Jewish day school, and a Jewish daycare center in the Côte-St-Luc and Hampstead neighborhoods
2018 — (29 Tevet 5778) The first launch of the high-speed Tel Aviv–Jerusalem railway line took place.
2024 — (6 Shevat 5784) The war with Gaza. Day 102. At a hospital, reservist Master Sergeant Noam Ashram, 37, from Kfar Saba, a fighter in the 5352nd Battalion of the 179th “Re’em” Brigade, died of wounds sustained in heavy fighting in central Gaza on December 29. A rocket barrage targeted southern Israel; the “Red Alert” siren sounded in Netivot and in the communities and kibbutzim of Sharsharet, Beit HaGdi, Ma’agalim, Givolim, Melilot, Tidhar, Shibolim, Brosh, Ta’ashur, Kfar Maimon, Tushiya, Zimrat, Shokeda, Tkuma, Be’eri, Havat Izra’am, Yoshevia, and the Noam industrial zone. Approximately 50 rockets were reported. The attack was one of the largest in several weeks. Fighters from the IDF’s 646th Brigade and the Yahalom elite engineering unit destroyed a “strategic” Hamas tunnel running beneath the Salah al-Din highway, which crosses the Gaza Strip from north to south and had been used to evacuate civilians from combat zones. The tunnel was demolished in central Gaza, an area vacated the previous day by the 36th Armored Division “Ga’ash,” from which a rocket attack on Netivot was later launched
People
1711 — (7th of Shevat, 5471) Johann Jacob Raabe, translator of the Mishnah, born
1756 — (14th of Shevat, 5516) Rabbi Jacob Joshua Falk (Yaakov Yehoshua ben Tzvi Hirsch) passed away today at Offenbach
1888 — O. M. Brik was born—literary critic, futurist theorist, and a close associate of Vladimir Mayakovsky. He died on February 22, 1945.
1906 — Ernst Leitz III was born, a German engineer-entrepreneur and owner of Leica. After Hitler came to power in 1933, Leitz actively helped Jewish employees and their families escape Germany, purchasing entire train carriages and supporting their resettlement abroad. For this purpose, Leica opened numerous offices and stores overseas. These efforts continued until Germany closed its borders in 1939. He died on September 8, 1979
1974 — (22th of Tevet, 5734) “Mark Lutsker, a 25-year-old mathematics student, expelled in 1972 from Voronezh University for wanting to emigrate to Israel, was arrested today at Kiev OVIR when enquiring about his emigration permit, sentenced to two years imprisonment for alleged evasion of military service and sent to camp near Kutaisi, Georgia.”
1976 — (14th of Tevet, 5736) Lidiya Nisanova of Derbent who had tried to make Aliyah in 1975 went on trial in the Soviet Union on charges of “speculation” and after having been found guilty was sentenced to 18 months in prison
1977 — (26 Tevet 5737) Arik Ze’evi was born—one of Israel’s most decorated athletes, a judoka, European champion, and bronze medalist at the Athens Olympic Games.
2007 — Y. Stern, a Knesset member from the Yisrael Beiteinu party, passed away