History events
1905 — (24nd of Tammuz, 5665) The seventh annual Zionist Congress opened today in Basle, Switzerland. Dr. Max Nordau was elected President at the afternoon session and Rabbi Judah L. Magnes was elected as Secretary of the English-speaking section
1920 — (12th of Av, 5680) Keren Hayesod (Eretz-Israel Foundation Fund) was created in London at the London Zionist Conference. It was intended for education, absorption and the development of rural settlements in Eretz-Israel
1951 — (23nd of Tammuz, 5711) The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had asked the UN Security Council to instruct Egypt to open the Suez Canal for Israeli cargoes and shipping «permanently and unconditionally.» Final plans were made for the new Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem, including a 430-bed hospital, a nursing training school and nurses’ home and a medical school
1955 — (8th of Av, 5715) A plane bound for Israel was shot down by Bulgaria. ….. Fifty one passengers and seven crew members were killed. This episode took place at the height of the Cold War when such incidents were not that uncommon. The plane was flying from Vienna to Tel Aviv when Bulgarian fighters forced the El Al plane to land at Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital. As the plane was circling to land, it was shot out of the sky by the Bulgarians. The Israeli government claimed the bodies and buried them in Israel. The episode provided opponents of El Al with an argument for doing away with a national airline as a luxury the infant state could not afford. But the government stuck to its guns. There were no other such incidents and El Al continued to fly
People
1656 — (16th of Av, 5416) Spinoza was excommunicated in Amsterdam
1671 — (20th of Av, 5431) Abraham de Fonseca ḥakam of the Portuguese community at Glückstadt, and later at Hamburg and author of Ene Abraham” passed away today
1853 — Birthdate of Vladimir Korolenko, “one of the few Russian writers who created positive Jewish images in his works, condemned the Kishinev pogrom” and the trial of Menachem Belis
1904 — (15th of Av, 5664) Birthdate of author Isaac Bashevis Singer. Singer won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978. He passed away in 1991