History events
-3761 — The first day of the Hebrew Calendar. ….. «The epoch of the modern Hebrew calendar is Monday, October 7, 3761 BCE, being the tabular date (same daylight period) in the proleptic Julian calendar corresponding to 1 Tishri AM 1 (AM = Anno Mundi = in the year of the world). This date is about one year before the traditional Jewish date of Creation on 25 Elul AM 1! A minority place Creation on 25 Adar AM 1, about six months after the modern epoch. Thus adding 3761 to a Gregorian year number will yield the Hebrew year number beginning in autumn (add 3760 for that ending in autumn). This holds until the Gregorian year 1 BCE. After that (due to the lack of year 0), adding 3760 to the Gregorian year yields the Hebrew year beginning in autumn (3759 for that ending in autumn). Because the Hebrew year drifts relative to the Gregorian year, this actually only works until the year 22,203, but it’s a fairly good rule of thumb.»
1671 — (12th of Tishrei, 5432) As the court Jew Israel Aaron was afraid of the competition of the immigrants, he succeeded in having a decree issued, today, under which no Jews would be received in Berlin except after a careful investigation into their financial condition
1859 — (7th of Elul, 5619) In Budapest, the consecration of “The Dohány Street Synagogue” which was also known as “the Great Synagogue” took place today
1879 — (18th of Elul, 5639) «The Religious Condition of Germany” published today Jews make up 1.2% of the nation’s population, 9.9% of the students in the gymnasia, 8.4% in the commercial schools and 5% of the student
1938 — (10th of Elul, 5698) ….. In Tiberias, an Arab dressed in peasant clothes entered a Jewish owned shop, drew a revolver and shot the proprietor dead and then fired on an aged Jew, wounding him fatally, then aimed at another Jew and Arab in the shop, wounding both; While traveling on the highway between Haifa and Tel Aviv Yechiel Weizmann, Chaim Weizmann’s brother and Yechiel’s son were injured when their car overturned after being fired on by gunmen lying in ambush. Another passenger, the son a prominent Haifa lawyer, died in the crash; A Jewish policeman was killed and another was severely wounded when Arabs attacked the orange groves at Pardress Hanna
1942 — (24th of Elul, 5702) More than 1000 Polish Jews are killed by Nazis in the streets of the Warsaw Ghetto
1943 — (6th of Elul, 5703) German and Estonian soldiers marched through the Vilna Ghetto with orders to seize two thousand Jews for Nazi work camps. ….. The Resistance Movement led by Abba Kovner was prepared to fight. Kovner had divided his force into two battalions. The fighters assembled at their rallying points as the Nazis began moving through the ghetto. One of the battalions was surrounded by the Nazis before its arms arrived. The unit had been betrayed, probably by an unnamed informer working for the ghetto’s Jewish governing body. When word of the betrayal of the unit reached Kovner he prepared his battalion for battle and called upon the Jews of the ghetto to rise against their oppressors. The Jews did not heed his call, responding instead to the governing Jewish body that still believed it could some how save more Jewish lives by wheeling and dealing with the Nazis. Many considered Kovner and his colleagues to be rebellious youth who would make matters only worse. The failure of the uprising led Kovner to eventually lead his followers out of the ghetto and become resistance fighters hiding in the neighboring swamps and woods
1944 — (18th of Elul, 5704) Today, Salmen Gradowski, ….. who had been forced to work as a Sonderkommando at Auschwitz, “buried the notes which he had managed to write over the previous nineteen months…in which he described his own deportation and subsequent events in the camp.” He put the notes, which were discovered after the war, into a metal canister and buried them in one of the pits of human ash. A letter buried with notes said, “I have buried this under the ashes, deeming it the safest place where people will certainly dig to find the traces of millions of men who were exterminated.” According to Sir Martin Gilbert, who supplied this story, “Gradowski dedicated his notes to the members of his family ‘burnt alive at Birkenau,’ his wife Sonia, his mother Sara, his sisters Estera-Rachel and Liba, his father-in-law Rafael and his brother-in-law Wolf. In his letter he also wrote: ‘Dear finder, search everywhere, in every inch of soil. Dozens of documents are buried under it, mine and those of other persons, which will throw light on everything that was happening here. Great quantities of teeth are also buried here. It was we, the Kommando workers, who expressly have strewn them all over the terrain, as many as we could, so that the world should find material traces of the millions of murdered people. We ourselves have lost hope of being able to live see the moment of liberation.’” Shortly after burying the canister, Gradowski was murdered
1986 — (2nd of Elul, 5746) In Istanbul, two Arab terrorists from Abu Nidal’s terror organization kill 22 and wound six inside the Neve Shalom synagogue during Shabbat services
2007 — (23th of Elul, 5767) An Israeli commando unit carried out a reconnaissance mission at an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor that was later destroyed by the Israel Air Force; the Swiss daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung reported today. The 12-man unit was dropped by two helicopters onto the site, according to the report, where they proceeded to take soil samples and photographs
People
1729 — (23th of Elul, 5489) Moses Mendelssohn, philosopher and religious reformer, born
1869 — (1th of Tishrei, 5630) Birthdate of author Felix Salten author of the children’s classic Bambi