History events
681 — (30th of Shevat, 4441) The Twelfth Council of Toledo which approved several canons aimed at punishing the Jews including on that prohibited conversos from returning to Judaism and allowed for the confiscation of Jewish owned goods came to a close
1240 — (30th of Shevat, 5000) Disputation at Paris on the Talmud
1648 — (11th of Shevat, 5408) The Khmelnytsky or Chmielnicki Rebellion against the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania began in earnest when Bohdan Khmelnytsky brought a contingent of 300-500 Cossacks to the Zaporizhian Sich and quickly dispatched the guards assigned by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to protect the entrance. His defeat of the counterattacking Commonwealth forces coupled with is oratorical skills brought thousands of rebels including the Ruthenians to join his uprising. Jews, who served as the middle-man and administrators for the absentee Polish landlords were an easy target for the rebels. The bloody uprising will mark the long, slow disintegration of the Polish state. The slaughter of the Jews was so great that it would not be surpassed until the time of the Nazis
1844 — (4th of Shevat, 5604) Congregation Shaarai Shomayim u-Maskil el Dol was chartered today in Mobile, Alabama. “Israel I.
1849 — (2th of Shevat, 5609) The West End Synagogue of British which had been formed by Jews who left Bevis Marks in 1841 dedicated its new facility in Upper Berkeley Street
1854 — (25th of Tevet, 5614) Sir Henry Rawlinson wrote to from Baghdad today that “a number of clay cylinders taken from the ruins of what is ‘Ur of the Chaldees’ of Genesis disclosed the fact that a few years” prior “to the fall of Babylon, Nabonnedus had associated his son Bilsharuzur, the ‘Belshazzar’ of Scripture with him in the government” “thus showing the harmony between the Biblical narrative and secular history.”
1861 — (14th of Shevat, 5621) Charles Dyte laid the foundation stone for the historic Ballarat Synagogue, the oldest surviving synagogue on the Australian mainland
1882 — (5th of Shevat, 5642) Bilu was founded at Kharkov
1904 — (8th of Shevat, 5664) Herzl met Pope Pius X and tried to convince him to support the vision of Zionism without any success. The pope totally rejected the idea that Jerusalem would be in Jewish hands: «If you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we want to have churches and priests ready to baptize all of you.»)
1919 — (24th of Shevat, 5679) The League of Nations was founded. British control over Palestine would take its legal form from a Mandate by the League of Nations
1932 — (17th of Shevat, 5692) Degrees were awarded to 13 graduates at the first commencement exercises of Hebrew University which was opened in 1925
1940 — (15th of Shevat, 5700) The Nazi decreed the establishment of Jewish ghetto in Lodz, Poland
1945 — (11th of Shevat, 5705) The Nazis begin the evacuation of the Stutthof concentration camp. In yet another Death March prisoners were sent westward in the middle of driving snow storm. Many would die from freezing. Others were shot or thrown into the icy Baltic Sea
1948 — (14th of Shevat, 5708) Mishmar, a paper first published by Hashomer Hatzair in 1943, changed its named to Al HaMishmar (On Guard) today
1949 — (24th of Tevet, 5709) Ben-Gurion’s Mapai party was the top vote getter in Israel’s first election after the creation of the Jewish state. However, the party only gained 35.7% of the vote which translated into 46 seats in the Knesset leaving Ben-Gurion 15 seats short of the majority he would need in the parliament that has 120 seats
1968 — (24th of Tevet, 5728) Last transmission is received from the Israeli submarine, Dakar
People
1376 — (9th of Shevat, 2385): Nissim ben Reuven, also known as Nissim of Gerona, “one of the last of the great Spanish medieval Talmudic scholars passed away today
1505 — (20th of Shevat, 5265) Ercole I d’Este, the Duke of Ferrara around whose court the life Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol, “the Jewish-Italian geographer, cosmographer scribe and polemicist” revolved passed away today
1978 — (17th of Shevat, 5738) In Kryvyi Rih, then in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Oleksandr Zelenskyy, a professor and computer scientist and the head of the Department of Cybernetics and Computing Hardware at the Kryvyi Rih State University of Economics and Technology and computer engineer Rymma Zelenska, gave birth to Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy a Ukrainian politician and former comedian and actor and since 2019 the sixth and current president of Ukraine