History events
1848 — (15th of Adar II, 5608) Twenty Jews were killed in riots and street fighting that took place in Berlin. Anti-Jewish riots also spread to Bavaria, Baden, Hamburg and many other cities
1885 — (15th of Nisan, 5645) The Yiddish theater season opened in New York with an operetta by Abraham Goldfaden
1899 — (9th of Nisan, 5659) Herzl established the Jewish Colonial Trust as the financial arm of the World Zionist Organization. Its goal was to encourage Jewish settlement and projects which would “advance the Zionist cause.” One of its subsidiaries, the Anglo-Palestine Company, later became Bank Leumi. Other investment helped create the Israel Electric Cooperation and Bank Hapoalim
1911 — (20th of Adar, 5671) “The body of a thirteen year old boy, Andrei Yustschinksi was discovered near a brick factory on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.” This simple statement describes the first event in what will eventually become The Case of Mendel Bellis, one of the most infamous episodes of anti-Semitism in Czarist Russia
1934 — (4th of Nisan, 5694) “Anti-Semitism, hitherto inactive in Yugoslavia, made its first appearance” in Sarajevo tonight “when a group of students demonstrated noisily during a concert given by a Jewish singing society composed mostly of German emigrant Jews” after which “they threw rotten eggs and distributed anti-Semitic leaflets.”
1936 — (26th of Adar, 5696) Founding of Kol Israel (Voice of Israel)
1943 — (13th of Adar I, 5703) On Purim Eve in Czestochowa, Poland, over 100 Jewish doctors and their families were taken away and shot; “Bulgarian military police, assisted by German soldiers, took Jews from Komotini and Kavala off the passenger steamship Karageorge, massacred them, and sunk the vessel.”
1949 — (19th of Adar, 5709) Israeli forces took control of Ein Gedi on the western shore of the Dead Sea
1952 — (15th of Adar, 5712) The Jerusalem Post reported that Britain was contributing £4,452,440 for the first year of the three-year international program (the Blandford Plan) to resettle 800,000 Arab refugees from Palestine in various parts of the Middle East. In addition Britain announced that it was proposing an interest-free loan of £1,500,000 to Jordan to contribute indirectly to the same purpose
2002 — (7th of Nisan, 5762) Seven Israelis died when an Islamic terrorist blew himself up in a packed bus
2006 — (20th of Adar, 5766) Haaretz reported that Archaeologists have uncovered underground chambers and tunnels constructed in northern Israel by Jews for hiding from the Romans during their revolt in 66-70
2010 — (5th of Nisan, 5770) A weak earthquake was felt in northern Israel tonight; no injuries or damage was reported.
People
1693 — (22th of Adar II, 5453) Talmudist Gerhson Ashkenazi, whose many followers including David Oppenheimer passed away today in Metz
1806 — (1st of Nisan, 5566) Rabbi Joseph Harif of Zamosc, author of Mishnat Hakhamim passed away today
1916 — Albert Einstein published his theory of relativity in a journal called Annalen der Physik
1917 — (26th of Adar, 5677) In Jerusalem, ”noted archeologist Eleazar Sukenik and educationalist and women’s rights activist Hasya Sukenik-Feinsod” gave birth to Yigal Sukenik who as Yigael Yadin gained fame fighting in the War for Independence, serving as the second Chief of Staff for the IDF and becoming a first-rate archeologist