History events
1275 — (7th of Shevat, 5035) Raymond of Penyafort, the Spanish Dominican Friar who convinced King James to order a public (and one-side)debate “between Moshe ben Nahman, a rabbi in Girona, and Paulus Christiani, a baptized Jew of Montpellier who belonged to the Dominicans” the purpose of which was to prove the superiority of Christianity and get the Jews to convert
1413 — (3th of Shevat, 5173) Disputation at Tortosa, Joseph Albo being one of the participants
1432 — (2th of Shevat, 5192) The Jewish aldermen and the Jewish community in Pilsen bought from the Town Council a piece of land for which they paid “12 schock of Prague coppers” in the škvrner suburb on which to establish a cemetery
1497 — (3th of Shevat, 5247) Jews were expelled from Graz, (Austria, Styria)
1666 — (10th of Shevat, 5426) Portuguese Marrano Abraham Senior Teixria who openly professed his Judaism after settling in Hamburg and who got King Frederick III to grant privileges to the Jews of Denmark while serving as a confidant and host for Queen Christina of Sweden passed away today
1785 — (24th of Tevet, 5545) Haym Salomon passed away in Philadelphia at the age of 44. Born in Poland in 1740, Salomon came to the United States before the outbreak of the American Revolution. He was a friend of financier Robert Morris and helped several leaders of the American Revolution. Among those whom he lent money to was James Madison, author of the Federalist Papers and President of the United States. Salomon died penniless having bankrupted himself in support of the cause of American independence
1840 — (1th of Shevat, 5600) Sultan Abdul Mejid, under pressure from the Montefiore delegation, issued a Firman against blood libels. He also unconditionally released nine survivors of the Damascus libels. Four Jews had already died.
1863 — (15th of Tevet, 5623) General Grant sent several telegrams to General Halleck acknowledge the revocation of General Order 11. “By direction of the General in Chief of the Army at Washington¸ the General Order from these Head Quarters expelling Jews from this Department is hereby revoked.”
*1896 — (20th of Tevet, 5656) Sir Julian Goldsmid, English member of Parliament, died
1898 — (12th of Tevet, 5658) Herzl travels to Berlin and convenes a conference of Berlin Jews. He also has two conversations with Ahmed Tewfik, the Turkish ambassador
1903 — (7th of Tevet, 5663) Herzl begins a trip that would take him to Paris and London
1908 — (3th of Shevat, 5668) Birthdate of composer Menahem Avidom. Born in Galicia, Avidom moved to Eretz Israel after World War I. He studied music and graduated from the American University in Beirut. He gained fame in Israel and throughout the world for his musical accomplishments before he died in 1995
1930 — (6th of Tevet, 5690) “Jewish women praying at the Wailing Wall today for the life of a sick relative, were ordered by Arabs and later by British policeman to lower their voices or leave” which “was the first attempt to enforce a demand made two months ago on Chief Rabbi Kook by the Society for the Protection of the Mosque of Omar that Jews worshipping at the Wall do so quietly.”
1934 — (19th of Tevet, 5694) Hadassah announced that “the lowest infant mortality rate achieved in a Palestine health district was in Tel Aviv. “The rate was 68.03 among children under 1 year for every 1,000 live births and represented an improvement over 1931 when the rate was 72.52.” Jerusalem “had a rate of 117.30 in 1932 and 104.28 in 1931. Bethlehem…had a rate of 341.91 in 1932, the highest health district rate in the country. The infant death rate for the whole country was 153 in 1932, against 170 in 1931.”
1937 — (23th of Tevet, 5697) The Palestine Post reported that a quarry worker, Haim Katz, 29, and a policeman, Jacob Klinger, 34, were murdered in an ambush at Givat Shaul
1943 — (29th of Tevet, 5703) The Jews of Lubaczow, Poland, are killed at the Belzec death camp
1943 — (29th of Tevet, 5703) Jews hiding in Opoczno, Poland, are murdered by Germans after being coaxed out of hiding with a promise of rail transport to a neutral country. Five hundred «Jews with relatives in Palestine» came out of hiding to register. All 500 were sent to Treblinka and were gassed
1945 — (21th of Tevet, 5705) On Shabbat, Roza Robota and three other Jewish women implicated in the smuggling of explosives used in the October 7, 1944, uprising at Auschwitz are hanged in front of the entire women’s camp at Birkenau. The three women had been previously tortured in connection with the revolt at Birkenau but gave away no one. Robota’s final words were, «that vengeance would come.»
1946 — (4th of Shevat, 5706) In Zanzur, Libya Islamic instigators encouraged the local population to attack the Jewish community. Of the 150 local Jews half were murdered. The rioting spread to a number of small towns near Tripoli leaving a death toll of approximately 180 Jews and 9 synagogues destroyed. The local police and Arab soldiers often joined in the destruction and murder. This outbreak of Arab anti-Semitic violence took place two years before the creation of the state of Israel. This should put an end to claims that only source of friction between Jews and Arabs was the creation of the Jewish state
1949 — (5th of Tevet, 5709) During Operation Horev, the Israeli Air Force shot down five RAF Spitfires on patrol in the area, killing two pilots and taking two prisoners. It is not clear if the Spitfires were being flown by Egyptian or British pilots
1949 — (5th of Tevet, 5709) After three days of fighting around Rafah in which its forces failed to defeat the IDF, the Egyptian government announced, that it was willing to enter armistice negotiations
1952 — (8th of Tevet, 5712) Following the rape and murder of Leah Feistinger, Israeli forces reportedly raided Beit Jalla
1953 — (19th of Tevet, 5713) The Jerusalem Post reported that according to the new and improved rationing schedule each Israeli was now able to purchase four eggs a week
1954 — (2th of Shevat, 5714) Moshe Sharett succeeded David Ben-Gurion as Prime Minister of Israel
1957 — (4th of Shevat, 5717) Yeshiva Kol Ya’ackov opened in Moscow Russia
1968 — (5th of Shevat, 5728) It was reported today that during a New Year’s conversation French President Charles de Gaulle had assured Jacob Kaplan, the Grand Rabbi of France “that it was far from his intention to insult the Jews when he called them an ‘elite people, sure of itself and domineering’ during a news conference in November of 1967. Speaking at a time when France was repositioning itself following the Six Days War de Gaulle also said “that while the Jews though the centuries had ‘provoked, more precisely aroused’ antagonism in various countries, they had received great sympathy from Christians because of their sufferings.”
1987 — (5th Tevet 5747) U.S. Federal Court issued a decision in favor of Agudas Chassidei Chabad («Union of Chabad Chassidim») regarding the ownership of the priceless library of the 6th Rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. The ruling was based on the idea that a Rebbe is not a private individual but a communal figure synonymous with the body of Chassidim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe (Rabbi Yoseph Yitzchak’s son-in-law and successor) urged that the occasion be marked with time devoted to study from Torah books («sefarim») as well as the acquisition of new Torah books
2001 — (11th of Shevat, 5761) Today Amos Oz wrote about his frustration with Palestinian behavior saying that now that Israel is offering the Palestinians a peace accord based on 1967 borders, with minor mutual amendments” “the Palestinian nation is rejecting this agreement” with its leaders now demanding a «right of return» for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled and were driven out of their homes in the 1948 war while cynically ignoring “the fate of hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews who fled and were driven out of their homes in Arab countries during the same war.”
2003 — (3th of Shevat, 5763) “Suicide Bombings Kill 23 in Tel Aviv” published today.
2009 — (10th Shevat 5769) St.-Sgt. Alexander Mashevizky, 21, a resident of Beersheba, was killed in a gun battle with Hamas operatives in northern Gaza City. Mashevizky, a member of an elite Engineering Corps unit, led the joint force, which was ambushed by Hamas gunmen while conducting ground sweeps.
2018 — (19th Tevet 5778) “Data released by the IDF tonight revealed that from 99 terrorist attacks over 2017, 20 Israelis were killed, with 169 wounded. The attacks, which originated in the West Bank, are an increase on the numbers from 2016, where from 269 attacks, 17 Israelis were, with 263 injured.”
People
*1803 — (12th of Tevet, 5563) Birthdate of Austrian native and French pianist and composer Henri Herz who owned his own piano factory and built a concert hall in Paris.
*1850 — (22th of Tevet, 5610) Birthdate of Eduard Bernstein, a leading German social democrat whose “Jewish parents, who were active in the Reform Temple on the Johannistrasse where services were performed on Sunday.” Died February 18, 1932
*1859 — (1th of Shevat, 5619) Birthdate of Odessa native Michael Zametkin, who in 1877 “fled political persecution in his homeland” and came to the United where he worked in the needle trades, became a leader in “the Jewish labor and Socialist movements while becoming a contributor to several Yiddish and Socialist newswires” including “The Jewish Daily Forward which he helped to found.”
*1896 — (20th of Tevet, 5656) Sir Julian Goldsmid, English member of Parliament, died
*1938 — (4th of Shevat, 5698) Russian born Pinchas Friedman one of the earliest Zionist settlers and a founder of Tel Aviv passed who had made Aliyah in 1890 passed away today
*1942 — (17th of Tevet, 5702) Jacob Moshe Toledano who was born in Tiberias was installed as Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv and Jaffa. In 1926 Toledano served as the head of the religious court at Tangiers, and later similar posts in Cairo and Alexandria. Toledano was escorted from Tiberias to Tel Aviv by a grand delegation
*1950 — (17th of Tevet, 5710) Birthdate of Moldavian native Boris Sandler, the Jewish writer whose language of choice is Yiddish