History events
67 — (15 Iyar 3827) The Jewish War. The beginning of the siege of Yodfat by Vespasian
363 — (18th of Iyar, 4123) The first of a series of earthquakes that would last for two days rocked the Galilee
576 — (4th of Sivan, 4336) Over 500 Jews were forcibly baptized in Clermont-Ferrand, France
1096 — (18th of Iyar, 4856) Jews of Worms (Germany) were massacred by Crusaders. The survivors hid in the Bishop’s palace for one week, after which they were either murdered or forcibly baptized
1418 — (13th of Sivan, 5178) Representatives from the Jewish communities of central and northern Italy met to discuss raising funds for self-defense as well as instituting sumptuary regulations so as «not to show off in the presence of Gentiles»
1530 — (21 Iyar 5290) Charles V, King of Spain, after his coronation as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, confirmed in Innsbruck the charter issued in 1520, stating that Jews should not be expelled without his consent from the places where they had been permitted to settle
1837 — (13th of Iyar, 5597) In Saxony, the Jews were empowered to organize themselves into communities with chapels of their own, and were granted citizenship, with the exception of municipal and political rights
1848 — (15 Iyar 5608) A Rabbinical Commission was established under the Russian government, tasked with representing the interests of Jews. It functioned under the Department of Religious Affairs and Foreign Denominations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Its members were appointed by the minister. Issues for its consideration were submitted by the minister, and it convened occasionally, without playing any significant role
1881 — (19 Iyar 5641) In Alexandria, a nine-year-old Greek Orthodox boy, Evangelis Fornarakis, went missing. Soon, mainly Greeks began spreading rumors that he had been kidnapped and murdered by the Baruch family of Jews for the purpose of using his blood for ritual purposes. Family members were interrogated and arrested, and anti-Jewish riots broke out in Alexandria. On May 23, a boatman found the body on the seashore. An international commission composed of thirty-four doctors concluded that the child had drowned. The Jewish community also turned to the renowned medical jurist Paul Brouardel for arbitration, who demonstrated the absence of any trace of violence and supported the commission’s opinion. Furthermore, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Joachim III, published a letter of protest. Nevertheless, the members of the Baruch family were transferred to Corfu, imprisoned, and subjected to mistreatment. Only on January 4, 1882, did the Corfu tribunal release them
1897 — (16th of Iyar, 5657) Anti-Jewish riots in Algeria
1920 — (1 Sivan 5680) The Hashomer organization, a Jewish self-defense group in the Land of Israel, disbanded itself because it was independent and not subordinate to any political force, admitted new members based on a principle of narrow selection, and was unable to solve the problem of ensuring the security of the entire population of the Land of Israel. It was decided to subordinate the new self-defense organization to the Ahdut HaAvoda («Unity of Labor») party
1921 — (10th of Iyar, 5681) Ra’anana, an agricultural settlement is founded in the Sharon region
1936 — (26th of Iyar, 5696) All Jewish national institutions in Palestine closed at noon today in mourning for Dr. Nahum Sokolow who died yesterday in London” and memorial services were held in the Jewish Agency Building with Menahem M. Ussishkin, president of the Jewish National Fund…and David Ben Gurion chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive as the principal speakers
1936 — (26 Iyar 5696) In the British House of Commons, the creation of a Royal Commission to investigate the causes of the Arab disturbances in the Land of Israel was announced. This would later be known as the Peel Commission
1939 — (29 Iyar 5699) Rallies and protests throughout the Land of Israel against the British «White Paper» (see May 17).
1941 — (21 Iyar 5701) A sabotage unit of the Haganah set out for Tripoli with the aim of destroying the oil refineries in the port. The operation failed. The unit perished (according to other sources, the unit set out on May 12).
1942 — (2 Sivan 5702) Sonderkommando «Plat» shot several dozen Jews in Pyriatyn and 21 Jews in the village of Berezova Rudka, Pyriatyn district (Poltava region). In Tlumach (Ivano-Frankivsk region), 180 Jews were shot, and 380 were transported to the Janowski camp in Lviv
1942 — (2th of Sivan, 5702) Another 1,420 Jews arrived in the Lodz ghetto from Brzeziny. Like the Jews who arrived the day before, their children were taken away from them. They were sent to Chelmno to be gassed.
1944 — (25th of Iyar, 5704) In Hungary deportations of Jews to Auschwitz would begin today with a total of 437,000 being shipped to the death camp through July 7, 1944
1944 — (25 Iyar 5704) Solomon Mikhoels and Shakhno Epstein, leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC), wrote a detailed letter to the head of the Soviet government, Comrade Molotov. They drew the government’s attention to the fact that in Berdichev, Mohyliv-Podilskyi, Balta, Zhmerynka, Vinnytsia, Khmilnyk, in the Rivne region, and several other places, the surviving Jews continued to remain in the territory of the former ghetto because neither housing nor property was being returned to them.
1948 — (9 Iyar 5708) War of Independence. Evacuation of the Dead Sea factories and Kibbutz Beit HaArav; 600 people left, and the property left behind was looted by Arabs
1948 — (9th of Iyar, 5708) Syrian aircraft bombed the Israeli village Kinneret and the regional school Beit Yerah, on the southwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee.
1948 — (9th of Iyar, 5708) After two days of fierce fighting a Syrian brigade including tanks overran Zemach, killing all forty-two of the Jewish defenders.
1948 — (9 Iyar 5708) War of Independence. Bombing of Tel Aviv by Egyptian aircraft in the area of the central bus station. Forty-two people were killed
1948 — (9th of Iyar, 5708) Poland, Czechoslovakia, Uruguay, and Nicaragua recognized Israel.
1948 — (9th of Iyar, 5708) The Arab Legion captured the police fort on Mt. Scopus. The illegal occupation of Mt. Scopus would end with the June War in 1967.
1948 — (9th of Iyar, 5708) Between today and May 20, a unit of the Etzioni Brigade made repeated attempts to fight their way into the Old City at the Jaffa Gate. Despite taking heavy casualties, the Jewish fighters failed in their effort. The brigade was fighting the Arab Legion, the name given to the Jordanian Army which was trained and led by British officers.
1949 — (19 Iyar 5709) The Knesset passed the State Comptroller Law
1950 — (2th of Sivan, 5710) Israel has released the eight crewmen of an RAF flying-boat that had been forced down yesterday by Israeli fighter planes. According to the pilot, the plan was flying from Bahrain to the Suez Canal when it wandered off course due to a navigational error
1950 — (2 Sivan 5710) Operation «Ezra and Nehemiah» began, aimed at transporting 120,000 Jews from Iraq to Israel. It concluded in 1952.
1952 — (23th of Iyar, 5712) After discussing the oil situation in Israel today “in light of Britain’s refusal to grant the Jewish State credits for the purchase of crude oil stocks” the Israeli Cabinet set up “a special Ministerial committee…to prepare regulations for a fuel economy program
1960 — (21 Iyar 5720) In the Knesset, the «Torah Religious Front» party issued a no-confidence vote against the government due to a statement by David Ben-Gurion that the Jews living today are not descendants of those sons of Israel who left Egypt and received the Torah. In response, the head of government stated that the Knesset could not decide historical and theological issues.
1961 — (3 Sivan 5721) A stormy demonstration by religious citizens, mainly yeshiva students, against the opening of a non-kosher butcher shop in Ramat Gan. Six were arrested.
1967 — (8 Iyar 5727) UN forces left their bases in the Sinai and Gaza; Address by General Murtagi to the Egyptian army: «Egyptian troops have taken up positions according to pre-arranged plans. The spirit of our troops is high, for the day they have long awaited has arrived — the holy war.»
1971 — (23 Iyar 5731) A stormy demonstration by the Sephardi organization «Black Panthers» took place at Zion Square in Jerusalem. They protested against the policy of discrimination against Sephardim. The police who arrived engaged in battle with the demonstrators. The demonstrators used stones and Molotov cocktails. Twenty protesters were wounded, and 74 were arrested.
1977 — (1th of Sivan, 5737) Menachem Begin became Israel’s Prime Minister. Begin’s election marked a major shift in Israeli politics. Begin was a disciple of Jabotinsky, leader of the Irgun, and the polar opposite of the Labor Zionists who had dominated Israeli politics even before the state had been created. Begin proved to be more of a pragmatist than had been expected. He met with Sadat and signed the Camp David Accords which led to the swapping of the Sinai for a peace treaty with Egypt. Despite international furor, Begin bombed an Iraqi reactor, an action that people came to appreciate after the first Gulf War. Begin resigned after the death of his wife and went into a state of semi-seclusion. He passed away in 1992.
1978 — (11th of Iyar, 5738) The Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli Government and the Jewish Agency were considering steps how to stop HIAS (the Hebrew Immigrants Aid Society), from helping Russian Jewish emigrants to go to destinations other than Israel. Only 72 out of the 1,086 Jews who left Russia in April, 1978, made their way to Israel
1980 — (3th of Sivan, 5740) In Israel, a stone marker was unveiled in a memorial forest of 3,500 trees which had been created to honor Major Noel S. Jacobs who had commanded the Jewish Company of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps
1994 — (8 Sivan 5754) Following the Oslo Accords, the IDF withdrew from Jericho
2000 — (13th of Iyar, 5760) Israeli troops began evacuating southern Lebanon “preparation for an overall pullout from the area which is to be completed by the end of July
2001 — (25 Iyar 5761) Terrorist attack in Netanya near the shopping mall. Five were killed, forty wounded.
2003 — (16 Iyar 5763) Terrorist attack in Jerusalem on bus No. 6. Seven were killed, more than eighty wounded.
2004 — (27th of Iyar, 5764) The IDF launched Operation Rainbow in response to the deaths of 13 soldiers, the majority of whom were killed after their armored personnel carriers were blown up in the southern Gazan town of Rafah. The goal of the eight-day operation was to uncover weapons-smuggling tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor, and to prevent the smuggling of Strella shoulder-to-air anti-aircraft missiles from the Sinai into Gaza
2014 — (18th of Iyar, 5774) “Maccabi Electra» Tel Aviv won the Euroleague basketball final 96-86 tonight against Real Madrid in Milan in an overtime victory
2021 — (7 Sivan 5781) The ninth day of Arab-Jewish confrontation in Israel and Operation «Guardian of the Walls.» Rocket attacks on Israeli territory from Gaza; the IDF struck Gaza.
2025 — (20 Iyar 5785) The government approved a program to construct a «smart» separation barrier on Israel’s eastern border — from the southern part of the Golan Heights to the dunes north of Eilat. Its length will be 425 kilometers
People
1864 — Felix Yakovlevich Kon, a Polish revolutionary, was born in Warsaw. He died on July 28, 1941.
1874 — Elena Gnesina was born. She was the founder and later director of the Gnessin Institute. She died on June 4, 1967.
1886 — G. Adamov, a science fiction writer, was born. He died on July 14, 1945.
1898 — Maria Knebel, a theater director, pedagogue, and People’s Artist of the RSFSR, was born. She died on June 1, 1985
1953 — (4th of Sivan, 5713) The Jerusalem Post reported that Abu Eliahu, 40, and Eliahu Ephraim, 45, two watchmen in the Jerusalem «corridor» were murdered by infiltrators
1965 — (16th of Iyar, 5725) Israeli spy Eli Cohen was publicly executed by the Syrians
1973 — (16th of Iyar, 5733) Israeli poet and Editor Avraham Shlonsky passed away. A native of Russia, he was a driving force in the creation of Modern Hebrew literature
2001 — (25th of Iyar, 5761) Tirza Polonsky, 66, of Moshav Kfar Haim; Miriam Waxman, 51, of Hadera; David Yarkoni, 53, of Netanya; Yulia Tratiakova, 21, of Netanya; and Vladislav Sorokin, 34, of Netanya were killed in a suicide bombing at Hasharon Mall in the seaside city of Netanya, in which over 100 were wounded
2003 — (16th of Iyar, 5763) Seven people were killed and 20 wounded in a suicide bombing on Egged bus #6 near French Hill in Jerusalem. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. Half an hour later, a second suicide bomber was killed when he was intercepted by police at a road block in northern Jerusalem. The victims: Olga Brenner, 52, of Jerusalem; Yitzhak Moyal, 64, of Jerusalem; Nelly Perov, 55, of Jerusalem; Ghalab Tawil, 42, of Shuafat; Marina Tsahivershvili, 44, of Jerusalem; Shimon Ustinsky, 68, of Jerusalem; and Roni Yisraeli, 34, of Jerusalem
2003 — (16th of Iyar, 5763) Steve Averbach “was on a bus heading to work when a Palestinian terrorist dressed as a fervently Orthodox Jew got on board. Averbach realized immediately that he was a suicide bomber. As he reached for his handgun, the terrorist blew himself up, killing seven people and seriously injuring 20, including Averbach. Israel’s internal security ministry later wrote Averbach a letter saying, “An investigation of the incident revealed that you were courageous, brave, and selfless in attempting to prevent a mortal attack.” It said the bomber had planned to blow himself up in the crowded center of town or in the bus station, where the death toll would have been far higher
2024 — (10 Iyar 5784) The War with Gaza. Day two hundred and twenty-five. In a battle in the southern part of the Strip, Staff Sergeant Nachman Meir Chaim Vaknin, 20, from Eilat, and Staff Sergeant Noam Bitan, 20, were killed. Four soldiers were seriously wounded