History events
-1273 BCE (22 Nisan 2488) The beginning of the «siege» of the city of Jericho by the Jews under the leadership of Joshua. The Jews did not storm the city; instead, at God’s command, they circled the city every day, preceded by priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant and blowing ram’s horns. On the seventh day, on Shabbat, they circled the city seven times, after which the city walls collapsed, revealing the entire city to the triumphant Jews.
972 — Robert II the Pious, King of France, was born. He is credited with promoting the violent conversion of Jews living in his lands and with inciting mob violence against Jews who refused to convert. The king died on July 20, 1031.
1639 — (2 Nisan 5399) In Rome, two Jewish boys, sons of a certain Fullo Serotini, were baptized after he publicly joked that he would not mind converting his children to another religion if the Pope himself became their godfather. The children were immediately taken away (one of them was still an infant at that time) and baptized. The Jewish community was outraged
1839 — (12th of Nisan, 5569) 32 Jews living in Meshed, Persia were massacred, and the remaining 100 families were forced to convert to Islam. The Jews became known as Jadid al-Islam or New Moslems thus ending the presence of the Jewish community. They continued to practice their Judaism in secret and fled the city with their families whenever an opportunity for escape presented itself
1871 — (5 Nisan 5631) A pogrom in Odessa. «There had long been commercial rivalry with the Greeks in this city, from which the Jews were pushing them out of foreign trade. Only a pretext was needed, and at Passover, a rumor spread that the Jews were throwing stones at the church and stealing a cross from its fence. The Greeks rushed to beat the Jews, joined by others who wished to participate, and together they began to riot, destroying homes and looting Jewish shops. The pogrom lasted for three days, and more than five hundred shops and eight hundred houses were looted and destroyed. The police did not intervene, many city residents encouraged and even rewarded the rioters, and some teachers explained to their students that the Jews were to blame for everything. The authorities began to act only on the fourth day» (Felix Kandel)
1901 — (7th of Nisan, 5661) Anti-Jewish riots began in Smyrna, Turkey. The riots were triggered by the reports of the disappearance of a child who was said to have been slaughtered by the Jews for ‘ritual murder.’Though the riots continued for four days, the child was eventually found and paraded through the streets to show he was indeed alive
1920 — (8 Nisan 5680) Maneuvers of the Jerusalem self-defense organization took place on Mount Scopus. They were conducted openly, in full view of the British authorities, who observed from the windows of the Augusta Victoria Hospital, where the administration was located. After the exercises, the participants marched in formation through the streets of Jerusalem.
1941 — (28 Adar-1 5701) The Egged bus cooperative opened a bus line from the Jordan Valley to Tiberias and Haifa
1942 — (9th of Nisan, 5702) Goebbels described in his diary, Belzec and the cremation of the Jews, «The procedure is pretty barbaric, one not to be described here most definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. . . fully deserved by them.»
1942 — (9 Nisan 5702) Shoah. In the village of Maitovo (Mostovsky district of Odessa region), 100 Jews from Odessa were shot
1944 — (3rd of Nisan, 5704) As the Red Army approached Riga, Kovno and Vilna, Germany picked up the pace with actions against the surviving inhabitants of the ghettos. Children everywhere were being seized and driven off to their death. «The Children’s Action» in Kovno resulted in the death of thousands of children under the age of 17. Most of them were shot. In order to spare their children from such horrors, some parents poisoned them. In Lodz, a mother killed her severely handicapped boy with a lead pipe across the head instead of allowing him to meet his fate with the Germans; Forty Jewish policemen were shot by the Gestapo in the Riga Ghetto; Two thousand Jews were murdered in Kaunas Lithuania; One thousand Jews left the Drancy Concentration Camp in France for Auschwitz Concentration Camp
1948 — (16 Adar-2 5708) War of Independence. An unsuccessful attempt by a convoy from Jerusalem to reach the kibbutzim in Western Galilee. The convoy was ambushed, and 46 Haganah fighters were killed.
1948 — (16 Adar-2 5708) War of Independence. A skirmish occurred 2 km from Beit Lehem on the Jerusalem-Gush Etzion highway between Arab forces and a Haganah convoy escorting a vehicle column from the Gush Etzion settlements back to Jerusalem (the settlements had received weapons and food). The crew of an armored vehicle commanded by Z. Gorovitz was killed; they blew themselves up to avoid capture. Four armored vehicles and seven cars out of 51 managed to turn around and break back into Gush Etzion. The others took up a circular defense in the House near Nebe-Daniel
1952 — (1th of Nisan, 5712) The Jerusalem Post reported that The Ministry of Health had announced that every Israeli between the ages of four and 60 would be inoculated against typhoid
2001 — (3 Nisan 5771) Terror attacks. In Jerusalem, a bomb-laden vehicle exploded, injuring 7 people. At the same location, at the Givat-Zarait intersection, a suicide bomber detonated himself on a bus, injuring 20. In Netanya, at the Park Hotel, a suicide bomber took the lives of 21 people, injuring 140.
2022 — (24 Adar-1 5782) Terror attack in Hadera. Two Arabs began shooting at passersby with rifles. Border police officers 19-year-old Corporal Yazan Pelach and 19-year-old Corporal Shirel Abukarat were killed. Four border police officers were injured. Eight civilians were also injured, including one minor. A greater tragedy was averted because three elite border police special forces fighters, who were dining in a café located 40 meters from the scene, eliminated the terrorists
People
1775 — (25th of Adar II, 5535) Rabbi Chaim Ben David Abulafia, author of Nishmat Chaim passed away
1847 — Otto Wallach, a German chemist and Nobel laureate in 1910, was born. He died on February 26, 1931
1850 — (14th of Nisan, 5610) Wilhelm Beer, German astronomer, died
1878 — Herbert Henry Lehman was born, an American social and political figure, who served as a senator from 1949 to 1957 and was regarded as the conscience of the Senate for standing almost alone against «creeping McCarthyism» in the 50s. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He died in 1963
1949 — (26th of Adar, 5709) Russian born Hebrew poetess Elisheva Bikhowsky passed away
1961 — (10th of Nisan, 5721): Eighty-seven-year-old Moshe Novomeysky the Siberian native and engineer who developed the Palestine Potash Company passed away today
2024 — (17 Adar-2 5784) War with Gaza. Day one hundred seventy-three. In a battle in the south of the sector, Senior Sergeant Nisim Kahlon, 21 years old, from Hadera, was killed