History events
-124 — (23rd of Iyar, 3618) Simon the Hasmonean, drove the “Greeks” – the Syrians and their Hellenized Jewish allies – out of the citadel which was their last stronghold in Jerusalem
1370 — (26th of Iyar 5130) Martyrdom of Brussels Jews charged with host desecration
1753 — (18th of Iyar 5513) The Jewish Naturalization Act 1753 passed the House of Commons
1883 — (15th of Iyar 5643) One hundred thirty houses belonging to Jews were destroyed during a riot tonight at Rostoff. The riot began after it was reported that an unnamed Jew had murder a Russian
1919 — (22th of Iyar 5679) The Rumanian government granted citizenship to all native-born Jews
1920 — (5th of Sivan 5680) The Dearborn Independent, owned by Henry Ford, began publishing the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
1930 — (24th of Iyar 5690) The Jewish community in Palestine begins a general strike to protest the blocking of immigration
1941 — (25th of Iyar 5701) Jews in Croatia are forced to wear yellow badges
1948 — (13th of Iyar 5708) David Ben-Gurion ordered Yigal Yadin, the Chief of Staff, to launch an attack on the police fort at Latrun “without delay.” Ben-Gurion wanted Yadin to use the Seventh Brigade for the attack. Yadin was opposed to the attack. The brigade was composed of 2,000 troops several hundred of whom were Holocaust survivors who had just gotten off the boat from the Cyprus detention camps. They had little or no training. Many of them did not speak Hebrew. In other words, the Seventh Brigade was a brigade in name only. Yadin knew they were not a fighting force and sending them to attack a hilltop fortress manned by the Jordanian Arab Legion was a recipe for disaster. To make matters worse, the Seventh lacked basic equipment, including water bottles or canteens. Considering the heat, a lack of water would hamper even veteran troops
1948 — (13th of Iyar 5708) The fighting that had begun on May 15 known collectively as the Battles of the Kinarot Valley came to an end. The most memorable fighting took place between the Israelis and the Syrians at Dagania Alef and Degania Bet. Words cannot describe the heroism of the Jewish fighters who stood their ground against overwhelming odds
1953 — (8th of Sivan 5713) The Jerusalem Post reported that Mr. Shimon Peres, the Director-General of the Ministry of Defense, claimed at an exhibition of the locally manufactured products, that few countries in the world produced as wide a variety of armaments as Israel
1967 — (12th of Iyar 5727) In violation of international agreements, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran, blocking all Israeli shipping from the south, thereby raising tension in the Middle East. In Israel, a broad based coalition was formed under Levi Eshkol with Menachem Begin and Yoseph Sapir and Moshe Dayan who became the Minister of Defense. Under international law, blockade is an act of war and this action by Egypt actually gave Israel the legal right to go to war, a fact conveniently ignored at that time and by the current generation of revisionist historians
1970 — (16th of Iyar, 5730) Arab terrorists killed 9 children and 3 adults on a school bus
2007 — (5th of Sivan 5767) Nineteen tombstones were toppled in the Jewish cemetery in Chernigov, an eastern Ukraine city.
People
1760 — (7th of Sivan, 5520) Israel ben Eliezer Ba’al Shem-Ṭob (BeSHT), founder of the sect Ḥasidim, died
1793 — (17th of Iyar 5553) Rabbi Ezekeil Landau passed away. Born in 1713, in Prague, he was a brilliant Talmudist and Halachic authority. Landau was also unusual in that he endorsed the idea of leaning math and science, and supported the traditionalist element within the Maskilim (Enlightenment) movement. Landau helped to establish the first Jewish school in Prague. His magnum opus is called the Nodeh B’Yehuda which is still very popular today. It contains eight hundred and fifty-five Responsa divided into two volumes
1820 — (9th of Sivan 5580) Birthdate of Isidor Binswanger, a leader of the Philadelphia Jewish community who served as President of Maimonides College, the first Jewish institution of higher learning in the United States
1851 — (20th of Iyar, 5611) Mordecai M. Noah, American diplomat and communal worker, died
1932 — (16th of Iyar 5692) Birthdate of Yosef Haim Yerushalmi, a groundbreaking and wide-ranging scholar of Jewish history
1959 — (14th of Iyar 5719) Birthdate of David Blatt, the Princeton graduate who played for and coached several Israeli basketball teams