History events
1140 — (24 Elul 4900) Rabbi Yehuda bar Shmuel Halevi arrived in Alexandria — a thinker who influenced many generations of Jews, a famous poet of the «Golden Age» of Spanish Jewry. After the death of his wife, he set off on a journey to Jerusalem.
1199 — (22 Elul 4959) Pope Innocent III confirmed the provisions of the bull of Pope Callixtus II from 1120, which condemned attacks on Jews during the First Crusade
1317 — (8th of Tishrei, 5078) The Jews of Berlin and Cöln (later incorporated with Berlin) are first mentioned in a law of Margrave Waldemar,” bearing today’s date “which provides that in criminal cases the Jews shall be amenable to the city court of Berlin
1389 — (24 Elul 5149) King Wenceslas of Bohemia issued an order to assist Jews in collecting debts from Christians (which included transferring a portion of the seized money and valuables to the treasury).
1490 — (29 Elul 5250) In Naples, the printers father and son Gunzenhausers published a grammatical study of the biblical phraseology of David ben Joseph Kimhi, titled «Sefer ha-Shorashim.»
1497 — (19th of Tishrei, 5258) Gershon Soncino published one of the first printed editions of “Selihot” in Braco, Italy
1786 — (22 Elul 5546) Purim of Gumelzhina (Purim de los Ladrones — «Purim of the Robbers»). In 1786, about 5000 mountain bandits, trying to plunder the city of Gumelzhina (apparently in Turkey), entered a Jewish-populated area near Adrianople. The ruler managed to drive the bandits away, but the Jews were accused of colluding with them. The Jews protested vigorously and proved their innocence. In memory of this salvation from double misfortune, the 22nd of Elul was designated by local rabbis as a Purim
1825 — (3 Tishri 5586) The cornerstone was laid, symbolizing the beginning of the construction of «the land of Ararat» on Grand Island in the middle of the Niagara River. This «country» and the city of the same name were intended to serve as a refuge for Jewish refugees from Europe
1849 — (28th of Elul, 5609) The first synagogue in South Africa, Tikvat Yisrael, was dedicated in Cape Town
1879 — (27th of Elul, 5639) It was reported today that the population of Romania is 4,582,602 of which 270,000 are Jewish
1911 — (22th of Elul, 5671) In New York, publication of the first issue of Dos Naye Land, a Yiddish weekly
1913 — (13th of Elul, 5673) The trial of Melvin Bellis began. Called the “Russian Dreyfus Affair”, the trial is covered by hundreds of journalist from Russia, Europe and the United States
1919 — (20 Elul 5579) An Anglo-French agreement, according to which the British army retreated from the northern part of Upper Galilee south of the line Rosh HaNiqra — Buaziyah, leaving this territory to the French. However, they did not actually take control of it, and it remained ungoverned, resulting in four Jewish settlements—Metulla, Hamara, Kfar Giladi, and Tel Hai—being left to face a large, hostile local Arab population
1935 — (17th of Elul, 5695) The anti-Semitic Nuremberg racial laws were passed by the Nazis.
1941 — (23rd of Elul, 5701) The Nazis killed 800 Jewish women at Shkudvil, Lithuania; Eighteen thousand Jews are murdered at Berdichev, Ukraine
1941 — (23 Elul 5701) The Holocaust. Eichmann presented instructions for the implementation of a special sign on the clothing of Jews in Germany and the occupied territories to the head of the Security Service, Heydrich. Every Jew was required to wear it, clearly visible, on the left side of the chest. Jewish organizations were obliged to produce it themselves. A special sign for Jews had already been used in the East and was now legalized.
1941 — (23 Elul 5701) The Holocaust. An operational team shot 322 Jews in Bohuslav (Kyiv region).
1941 — (23 Elul 5701) The Holocaust. The execution of Jews from the Berdichev ghetto
1942 — (4th of Tishrei, 5703) The Nazis begin deporting the Jewish community of Kalush, Ukraine, to the Belzec death camp. It will take 48 hours to complete this vile task; The Nazis began the week long process of murdering the Jewish community from Kamenka, Ukraine, at the Belzec death camp; One thousand Jews were deported from Lille, France to Auschwitz
1950 — (4th of Tishrei, 5711) Today, Jordan’s King Abdullah said that if Israel did not remove its forces from the disputed land near the confluence of the Yarmuk and Jordan Rivers within four days, his government would take military action to dislodge the Israelis
1952 — (25rd of Elul, 5712) The Jerusalem Post reported that the government decided to form a Reparations from Germany Purchasing Mission, attached to the Ministry of Finance. The mission undertook that it would purchase and use the received goods exclusively for the development in four fields: agriculture, industry, transportation and power
1957 — (19rd of Elul, 5717) The 5th Maccabiah Games opened today in Tel Aviv
1982 — (27rd of Elul, 5742) Israeli forces began pouring into west Beirut. This was part of an ill-fated attempt by the Begin government to pacify Lebanon and destroy the PLO
1983 — (8th of Tishrei, 5744) Israeli premier Menachem Begin resigns
2009 — (26 Elul 5769) A report was published by the UN commission established to investigate Operation «Cast Lead,» known as the Goldstone Report. Presenting the report, Judge Goldstone stated that Israel violated the 1949 Geneva Convention and conducted military operations in an inhumane manner. According to him, the commission investigated 36 combat incidents during the operation and found evidence of «unjustifiably cruel» actions against civilians each time. The report, 80 percent of which is devoted to listing the «crimes» of the Israeli army, mentions that Hamas carried out shelling from Israeli territory, but it does not emphasize that southern Israel had been subjected to massive rocket attacks for six years, which was one of the reasons for the start of Operation «Cast Lead.» There is also little reflection in the report that during this operation Hamas targeted residential areas in Israeli cities.
2020 — (26 Elul 5780) In Washington, a ceremony was held to sign the agreement on the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The UAE and Bahrain became the third and fourth Arab states to sign agreements with Israel, following Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.
2025 — (22 Elul 5785) War with Gaza. Day seven hundred and eleven. Late in the evening, the IDF transitioned to the ground phase of the operation in Gaza City. Previously, about 70,000 reservists had been called up
People
1730 — (4th of Tishrei, 5491) Sir Solomon de Medina passed away. ….. A native of Bordeaux Medina was a wealthy Amsterdam Jew who went to England with William III, when he and Queen Anne gained the throne of the United Kingdom. According to Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne “The first Jewish knight, created by Queen Anne, was Sir Solomon de Medina. It was Sir Solomon who provided the supplies, including the food that enabled the British Army under the Duke of Marlborough to win the decisive Battle of Blenheim – a vital turning point in the War of Spanish Succession and a swift kick in the shins to Louis XIV’s aspirations.”
1780 — (15th of Elul, 5540) Birthdate of Jonas Daniel Meijer, the first Jew admitted to the Bar in the Netherlands. As a lawyer, he worked to help the Dutch Jews gain full emancipation
1780 — (15th of Elul, 5540) Jacob Rodrigues Pereira or Jacob Rodrigue Péreire an academic and the first teacher of deaf-mutes in France, passed away. ….. Born Jacob Rodrigues Pereira in 1715 at Peniche, Portugal, “he was a descendant of a Marrano (Portuguese Crypto-Jews) family and was baptized with the name of Francisco António Rodrigues. He returned to Judaism together with his mother. His parents were Magalhães Rodrigues Pereira and Abigail Ribea Rodrigues. After his father’s death his mother fled with her son from Portugal to escape the Portuguese Inquisition and the charge that she had relapsed into heresy, and about 1741 she settled at Bordeaux. Jacob Rodrigue Péreire formulated signs for numbers and punctuation and adapted Juan Pablo Bonet’s manual alphabet by adding 30 handshapes each corresponding to a sound instead of to a letter. He is therefore seen as one of the inventors of manual language for the deaf and is credited with being the first person to teach a non-verbal deaf person to speak. In 1759, he was made a member of the Royal Society of London. A lifelong devotee to the well-being of the Jews of southern France, Portugal, and Spain, beginning in 1749 he was a volunteer agent for the Portuguese Jews at Paris. In 1777, his efforts led to Jews from Portugal receiving the right to settle in France. In 1876 Pereira’s remains were transferred from the Cimetière de la Villette (where he had been buried the year in which that cemetery was opened) to that of the Cimetière de Montmartre. In Bordeaux the street «Rodrigues-Pereire» was named in his honor. His grandsons, the Péreire brothers, Emile Péreire (1800–75) and Isaac Péreire (1806–80), were well-known French financiers and bankers during the second empire who encouraged the construction of the first railway in France in 1835. In 1852, they founded the Société Générale du Crédit Mobilier.”
1872 — (12 Elul 5632) Maximilian Abramovich Faktorovich (Max Factor), a cosmetologist, was born. He died on August 30, 1938.
1876 — Bruno Walter was born — an Austrian conductor. He died in 1962.
1895 — N. A. Aduyev (Rabbinovich), a satirist, humorist, poet, and author of poetic plays, was born. He died on May 11, 1950.
1906 — (25 Elul 5586) Irving Warren Yaffe, an American speed skater and two-time Olympic champion of 1932, was born. He died on March 20, 1981
1913 — (13th of Elul, 5673) Eighty-one year old world traveler and author Ármin Vámbéry passed away today
1941 — Yuri Norstein, an animated film director, was born.
1962 — (16 Elul 5722) A. Singer was born in the suburbs of New York. In 1984, he moved to Israel and volunteered for the paratrooper brigade of the Israel Defense Forces, completing officer training. He was killed in 1987 on the Lebanese border in a battle with terrorists. Singer was born in the suburbs of New York. In 1984, he moved to Israel and volunteered for the paratrooper brigade of the Israel Defense Forces, completing officer training. He was killed in 1987 on the Lebanese border in a battle with terrorists