History events
1105 — (15th of Kislev, 4866) Rabbi Nathan ben Yehiel of Rome completes Talmudic dictionary. He published his dictionary under the name Aruch. What this work lacks in originality it makes up for in thoroughness. It became a standard text for Jews studying the Talmud during the Middle Ages.
1493 — (15th of Kislev, 5254) Gershon Soncino printed an edition of the Pentateuch at Brescia
1622 — (1 Tevet 5383) King Christian IV of Denmark sent letters to the leaders of the Sephardic communities in Amsterdam and Hamburg, inviting their constituents to resettle in Denmark, where, among other privileges, he guaranteed them freedom to conduct business and practice their religion. (According to other sources, the letter was dated November 15, 1622, or November 25, 1623.)
1896 — (26 Heshvan 5647) An anti‑Jewish incident in the Irish city of Limerick: two Jewish families were stoned (see April 13, 1884, and January 12, 1904).
1926 — (18 Kislev 5687) An article about an extraordinary find in distant Central Asia appeared in the Boston‑based newspaper The Christian Science Monitor. It concerned the genizah of the Yakuboy synagogue in Bukhara. The inventory looked roughly like this: “1) Torah, 200 years old; 2) Torah, 300 years old; 3) Torah, 400 years old,” and so on, up to 1,000 years. The Torahs first ended up with the GPU, then were transferred to the Jewish Museum in Samarkand. Their further fate is unknown.
1938 — (1 Kislev 5699) The Ayalon settlement was founded using the “Tower and Stockade” method.
1940 — (23th of Cheshvan, 5701 )The Atlantic, with 1,783 illegal Jewish refugees on board was escorted into the harbor at Haifa
1941 — (4 Kislev 5702) Shoah. 150 Krymchaks were executed near Yevpatoria
1941 — (4th of Kislev, 5702) Нolocaust. ….. A ghetto was set up at Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia in the old barracks and then in the walled town itself. All the 3,700 local inhabitants were moved out. Although Theresienstadt was set up as a «model settlement,» its death rate reached 50% in 1942 through starvation and epidemics. During an investigation by the Red Cross in June 1943 the Germans changed the external appearance of the town and deported many so that there would be less overcrowding. All the interviews were carefully orchestrated and immediately after the visit most of the «actors» were then deported. In all 140,937 Jews were sent to Theresienstadt, of whom 33,529 died in the ghetto and 88,196 were deported to death camps. There were 17,247 persons left in the ghetto when it was liberated
1941 — (4 Kislev 5702) Shoah. Thirty Jews were executed in Bium‑Lambat and Alushta (Crimea), and 24 Jews in the village of Voroshilov (Larindorf District, Crimea). On the same day, Rothfeld, the head of the Jewish Council in Lviv, reported to the governor of the “Galicia District” that most Jews had already moved to the Jewish residential area. It is likely that on the same day, 73 Jews were executed in Lubny (Poltava Region).
1942 — (15 Kislev 5703) Shoah. 108 Jews were relocated from Lisets to Ivano‑Frankivsk, and 70 Jews from Bohorodchany. A new Jewish action took place in Ivano‑Frankivsk
1948 — (22th of Cheshvan, 5709) New immigrants arrived today at Lod Airport on the day it reopened after Israeli forces had liberated it from the hold of invading Arab Armies
1948 — (22th of Cheshvan, 5709) The UN Truce Mission announces a provisional…truce line between Arab and Israeli forces. ….. Israel and Egypt signed an armistice whereby the Nitzana region, situated in Israel, was declared a demilitarized zone. The armistice agreement also stipulated that on the Egyptian side of the border no Egyptian defensive positions shall be closer to El Auja than El Qouseima and Abou Aoueigila
1952 — (6 Kislev 5713) The Knesset passed a law on the status of the Zionist Organization — the Jewish Agency in Israel
1983 — (18th of Kislev, 5744) The PLO exchanged 6 Israeli prisoners for 4,500 Arabs held by the government of Israel
1992 — (28 Heshvan 5753) The Knesset considered the issue of overseeing compliance with the law in light of the rise in violence against women. Representatives of various women’s organizations attended the discussion. A seminar on this topic was also held in the Knesset.
2007 — (14th of Kislev, 5768) A mild earthquake registering 4.1 on the Richter scale was felt in central Israel shortly after midnight between Friday and Saturday, days after a 4.2 tremor struck the northern Dead Sea earlier this week
2009 — (7 Kislev 5770) Israel. The new Highway 431 was opened. It crosses and connects via transport interchanges with roads numbered 1, 20, 6, 42, 40, 412, 4311, 4313, and 4304, running from south to north.
2018 — (16 Kislev 5779) Construction of the “Zion Fortress” — a new underground command bunker for the IDF General Staff — was completed on the territory of the Kiriya military base in Tel Aviv.
2023 — (11 Kislev 5784) The war with Gaza. Day 49. During the night, soldiers of the 36th Division, with the participation of the Ya’alom special forces, destroyed tunnels in the grounds of the Shifa Hospital complex; IDF units attacked other Hamas targets from land, sea, and air. At 7 a.m., a four‑day ceasefire came into effect to secure the release of hostages. Twenty‑two hostages were freed (11 Israelis, 10 Thais, and one Filipino). In return, 24 women and 15 minors, previously detained for attacks on Israelis, were released from Israeli prisons.
2024 — (23 Heshvan 5785) Operation “Northern Arrows.” About 400 rockets were launched from Lebanon at Israel, including at least one ballistic missile. Air‑raid alerts sounded in more than 530 settlements across the country — from the northern border to Tel Aviv and Petah Tikva.
2025 — (4 Kislev 5786) On Arlozorov Boulevard in Afula, a man lost consciousness. Nearby at the time, Magen David Adom paramedic Roy Polakov was checking the functionality of a “street” defibrillator. Polakov used the device to resuscitate the man. Magen David Adom has installed 1,500 defibrillator stations across the country to save the lives of people experiencing cardiac arrest in public spaces. Specialists from MDA check the devices’ functionality every three months
People
1328 — (21th of Kislev, 5089) Levi ben Gerson finished “Sefer Tekunah” his work on astronomy today
1631 — (5th of Kislev, 5392) Rabbi Samuel Eliezer Edels, also known by the acronym, “MaHarSha,” passed away
1632 — (21th of Kislev, 5393) Birthdate of Baruch Spinoza (known also as Benedict De Spinoza)
1773 — (9 Kislev 5534) Rabbi Dov Ber (“the Mitteler Rebbe” — the Middle Rebbe), rabbi and second leader of the Lubavitch movement, was born. He died on November 28, 1827.
1843 — David Zvi Hoffmann, rabbi, Doctor of Philosophy, second head of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary, renowned expert on the Hebrew Bible and author of a Torah commentary, was born. He died in 1921.
1873 — (4th of Kislev, 5634) Birthdate of Yuliy Osipovich Tsederbaum the scion of Jewish family living in Constantinople who as Julius Martov became a leader of the Mensheviks during the Russian Revolutions
1884 — (6th of Kislev, 5645) Birthdate of Yitzchak Ben-Zvi, the second President of Israel. After the death of Chaim Weitzman, Ben-Zvi was elected in 1952. He served until his death in April of 1963
1889 — (1 Kislev 5650) Zalman Shazar (Shneur Zalman Rubashov), Israeli public figure and third President of Israel (from May 21, 1963, to May 24, 1973), was born. He died on October 5, 1974
1934 — (17th of Kislev, 5695) Journalist Harry Viktorovich Schnittke and Maria Iosifovna Schnittke, gave birth to Soviet composer Alfred Schnittke
1943 — (26th of Cheshvan, 5704) Mordechai «Modi» Alon who had enlisted in the RAF in 1940 finally began his flight training today in Rhodesia. Alon would one of the IAF’s first pilots and hero of the War for Independence
2000 — (25th of Chehsvan, 5761) Maj. Sharon Arameh, 25, of Ashkelon was killed by Palestinian sniper fire in fighting near Neve Dekalim in the Gaza Strip; Ariel Jeraffi, 40, of Petah Tikva, a civilian employed by the IDF, was killed by Palestinian fire as he travelled near Otzarin in the West Bank