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.»
67 — (8 Elul 3827) Jewish War. Roman victory in the Battle of Kinneret.
1320 — (3 Tishri 5081) Pope John XXII issued a decree for the burning of the Talmud and the expulsion of Jews from the Papal States. Thanks to a large bribe, the Jews managed to annul the expulsion order, although two years later the Talmud was indeed burned in Rome during the Shavuot holiday
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
1840 — (8 Elul 5600) The ten surviving detainees in the Damascus affair — yet another «blood libel» against Jews — were released (four died from torture), and six escaped defendants were allowed to return to Damascus
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
1935 — (8 Elul 5695) Isaac Cohen purchased agricultural land in the western part of Gush Etzion, in the southern part of the West Bank, south of Jerusalem and west of Bethlehem, which was transferred to the Jewish National Fund in 1943. The farm, established in 1935, was abandoned during the Arab uprising and remained under Jordanian occupation until 1967 after the War of Independence
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
1939 — (22 Elul 5699) In 1938, two former officers of the Austrian army, Raphael Lev and Sigmund von Friedman, were recruited to work in the Haganah. In the spring of 1939, they submitted a memorandum stating, among other things: «The situation in which a group of people makes military decisions is intolerable. Only one person can give orders…» As a result, a decision was made to reorganize the Haganah. Appointments to the newly created General Staff, which were temporary at that time, took effect on September 6, 1939. The chief was Y. Dori, the organization and planning department was headed by Z. von Friedman, the training department by R. Lev, and the technical department by Z. Urieli.
1941 — (14 Elul 5701) Holocaust. Two ghettos were established in Vilnius. The first concentrated about twenty thousand people, including so-called specialists and the able-bodied population with their families. The second contained the non-working population. It was liquidated in mid-October, with prisoners shot in Ponary.
1941 — (14 Elul 5701) Holocaust. A Sonderkommando unit 4a liquidated the Jews of Radomyshl (Zhytomyr region). The Germans — members of the unit shot the adult Jews (1107 people), while the «Ukrainian militia» shot Jewish children (561 people). Another unit of Sonderkommando 4a began the liquidation of Jews in Bila Tserkva: about 3000 people were shot over several days. In Zbarazh (Ternopil region), the Jewish intelligentsia was shot (75 people). The commandant of Kherson announced the execution of another 110 Jews on that day.
1942 — (24 Elul 5702) Holocaust. In Krynno (Zabolotiv district of Volyn region), 386 Jews were shot. In Letichev (Khmelnytsky region), 6,000 Jews were killed, over 2,500 in Mezhbuzh.
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
1959 — (3 Elul 5719) Terrorist attack. Bedouins killed an IDF officer near Nitzana.
1970 — (5 Elul 5730) An unsuccessful attempt by terrorists to hijack an El Al plane en route to New York; a flight attendant and four passengers were injured
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
2011 — (7 Elul 5771) The Ha-Movil interchange was opened in northern Israel. It became a central hub connecting many northern cities with the center of the country.
2015 — (22 Elul 5776) Construction began on a 235-kilometer fence along the border with Jordan to protect the country from the infiltration of terrorists and illegal immigrants.
2015 — (22 Elul 5775) The Jewish National Fund began work on the improvement of 80 hectares of agricultural land for the Moshav Maale-Gamla in the Golan Heights.
2021 — (9 Elul 5781) Six prisoners escaped from Gilboa prison, where terrorists convicted of long sentences were held, using a tunnel. Four of them were apprehended on September 10-11, and two more on September 19
People
1729 — (23th of Elul, 5489) Moses Mendelssohn, philosopher and religious reformer, born
1862 — (11 Elul 5622) A. Tsederbaum received a certificate to open a Jewish printing house in Odessa. Alexander Osipovich Tsederbaum (1816 — 1893) was a publicist, founder, and editor of the first newspapers in Russia in Hebrew and Yiddish. In 1869, he founded the weekly newspapers «Den» and «Posrednik» in Odessa, and was also the founder of the first newspaper in Russia in Hebrew, «HaMelitz» (since 1861), of which he remained the editor-publisher until his death
1869 — (1th of Tishrei, 5630) Birthdate of author Felix Salten author of the children’s classic Bambi
1961 — Shalva Berti, an Israeli singer, was born.
1986 — (2 Elul 5746) A. Sobolev, the author of the song «Buchenwald Alarm,» passed away