Tishrei 1, First day of Rosh Hashanah:
On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which commemorates the creation of mankind and its ability to make moral choices, people are judged as to the events of their lives during the forthcoming year.
“With the coming of a new year, may the old year end, together with its evils, hardships, and disasters.” (Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz)
Sept. 24, 1950:
The last flight of Operation On Wings of Eagles arrived in Israel. Also known as Operation Magic Carpet, this daring, secret mission succeeded in airlifting 50,000 persecuted Yemeni Jews to Israel on 380 flights over a two-year period despite extreme logistical and political obstacles.
Tishrei 3, 3179 (582 BCE):
Gedaliah ben Achikam, the last Jewish governor of Judea, was assassinated (2 Kings 25:25). A fast day, which is still observed, was decreed to commemorate his murder, which destroyed the last vestiges of Judean autonomy. Thousands of Jews were then slain, and the remaining Jews were driven into exile.
Sept. 26, 1898:
Birthday of George Gershwin (Jacob Gershowitz), one of the greatest composers of popular music, such as the composition Rhapsody in Blue; the opera Porgy and Bess; and the song “I Got Rhythm.”
Sept. 27, 1791:
In France, Jews were granted full rights and declared citizens, the first European country to enact complete emancipation. Since then, however, France’s record in that regard has been less than stellar.
Sept. 28, 1941:
Some 33,771 Jews were murdered by the Nazis in a ravine outside Kyiv. The two-day massacre is immortalized in Yevgeni Yevtushenko’s poem “Babi Yar.”
Sept. 29, 2000:
Arabs launched a campaign of terror throughout Israel, which came to be known as the Second Intifada (al-Aqsa Intifada). Over the next four years, Palestinian violence – which included a wave of more than 100 suicide bombings that targeted restaurants, synagogues, and buses – would claim the lives of over 1,000 men, women, and children.
Sept. 30, 1928:
Birthday of Elie Wiesel, Romanian-born concentration camp survivor, prolific writer (57 books!), teacher, and activist, who is generally credited with coining the term “Holocaust.” In 1985, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Freedom, and in 1986 the Nobel Peace Prize.
Oct. 1, 1947:
Birthday of Aaron Ciechanover, Israeli biologist who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2004 for characterizing the method that cells use to degrade and recycle proteins using ubiquitin.
Tishrei 10, 2449 (1312 BCE):
Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the second set of tablets (the Ten Commandments), indicating that God had forgiven the Jewish people for the sin of the Golden Calf (Exodus 34:29-30). Henceforth, that day became Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, with forgiveness for all generations, and the holiest day of the year in Judaism. Jews all over the world refrain from food, drink, and other pleasures, and pray all day in their desire to attain forgiveness for their transgressions.
Tishrei 11, 2448 (1313 BCE):
According to tradition, Moses opened the first judicial session of the Israelites with the help of his father-in-law, Jethro (Exodus 18:13-23).
Oct. 4, 1937:
Birthday of Jackie Collins, English romance novelist who moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s and wrote 32 novels, all of which appeared on The New York Times bestsellers list. Her books have sold over 500 million copies and have been translated into 40 languages. Eight of her novels have been adapted as films or TV miniseries.
Oct. 5, 1946:
In the largest campaign of the era, 11 new settlements in pre-state Israel were erected within one night, using the “stockade and tower” method designed to circumvent British Mandate-era restrictions on Jewish land development.
Oct. 6, 1973:
Egyptian and Syrian forces launched coordinated surprise invasions of the Sinai and Golan Heights, beginning the Yom Kippur War. On the Golan, 180 Israeli tanks were attacked by 1,400 Syrian tanks, while along the Suez Canal, less than 500 Israeli defenders with only three tanks faced 600,000 Egyptian soldiers backed by 2,000 tanks and 550 aircraft.
Oct. 7, 2023:
The day that changed Israel, the Jewish people, and the world forever.
Tishrei 16, Simhat Beit Hashoevah (Rejoicing at the Place of the Water Drawing):
Based on Isaiah’s prophesy: “With joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3), a mass celebration with sages juggling lit torches, Levites singing songs, and the water-libation ceremony began at the end of the first day of the festival of Sukkot and took place every night except Shabbat. “One who had never witnessed the Rejoicing at the Place of the Water Drawing had never seen true joy in his life” (Ta’anit 3a).
Oct. 9, 1917:
Arrested by the Turks and tortured for several days, Sarah Aaronsohn, a member of Nili – the secret group that spied on Turkish forces occupying pre-state Israel, greatly aiding the British – shot and killed herself rather than betraying her colleagues.
Tishrei 18, 5572 (1811):
Yahrzeit of Rabbi Nachman, one of the most original thinkers to have emerged from the hassidic world, founder of Breslov Hassidim, philosopher, author of The Thirteen Tales and Likkutei Moharan. Every year on Rosh Hashanah, tens of thousands of Jews travel to Uman, Ukraine, to pray at his gravesite.
“All the world is a narrow bridge – but the main thing is not to be afraid,” he wrote.
Tishrei 19, 5558 (1797):
Yahrzeit of Rabbi Eliyahu Kramer, known as the Gaon (“genius”) of Vilna, the outstanding Talmudic personality of the 18th century. At age three, he already knew the entire Bible by heart, and legend has it that by 12, he was able to mystically create a golem (“life out of formless mass”). He wrote more than 70 commentaries on the Bible, Talmud, and Code of Jewish Law, plus various Kabbalistic works. He was also a renowned expert in mathematics and astronomy. He set out for Israel in 1783, but for unknown reasons did not attain his goal. However, he encouraged his disciples to make the move, and in 1809 a group of 70 became pioneers of modern settlement in Israel.
Oct. 12, 1973:
In response to desperate Israeli pleas, US president Richard Nixon ordered an emergency airlift to Israel known as Operation Nickel Grass. Between Oct. 14 and Nov. 14, cargo planes flew 566 flights around the clock, transporting 22,000 tons of spare parts, tanks, bombs, and helicopters. The airlift was complicated by the refusal of European allies, with the sole exception of Portugal, to allow the US to fly over their territory or refuel at their military bases.
Oct. 13, 1881:
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and his friends agreed to use Hebrew exclusively in their daily conversations, marking the modest beginning of the revival of Hebrew as a living language. He went on to invent dozens of words necessary for modernizing the ancient language, and compiled a comprehensive dictionary. Today, more than 10 million people worldwide speak Hebrew.
Tishrei 22, Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah:
These festivals are observed by beginning to recite the “Prayer for Rain,” singing and dancing with the Torah, completing the yearly cycle of Torah readings, and beginning it again, in one unending circle – representing the past and the future that we carry within us. Unfortunately, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, which occurred two years ago on Oct. 7 (Simchat Torah that year), has forever brought pain and mourning into what is meant to be a joyous holiday.
Oct. 15, 1894:
Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the only Jewish officer on the French Army General Staff, was arrested and falsely accused of espionage against France. His subsequent trial and conviction created a major outbreak of antisemitism unlike anything that had been seen in France for more than a century, which in turn gave the first major impetus to the modern Zionist movement.
<br>Oct. 16, 1886:
Birthday of David Ben-Gurion (David Gruen), founding father and first prime minister and defense minister of Israel, founder of the Labor Party and the Histadrut labor federation. On May 14, 1948, after years of working to make it happen, he proclaimed the founding of the State of Israel, and then led it to victory in the War of Independence. His impact on the history of the modern State of Israel is unmatched by any other figure.
Tishrei 25:
Yahrzeits of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev (5570/1809), popular hassidic leader, who stressed joyful service of God and to look for the good in people; and of Rabbi Moshe Sofer (5600/1839), leading Talmudist, who was at the forefront of the battle to preserve traditional Judaism in the face of the various “reformist” movements of his time.
Oct. 18, 1966:
Yad Vashem recognized Geertruida (Truus) Wijsmuller-Meijer as a Righteous Among the Nations for her courageous efforts to save thousands of Jewish children from certain death at the hands of the Nazis. Every week from December 1938 through May 1940, she arranged for 500 children to leave the Netherlands bound for England. The last transport left Holland on the day the country surrendered to the Wehrmacht.
Oct. 19, 1943:
Treblinka, one of the largest extermination camps, was dismantled and closed after the operation to destroy all evidence of mass murder was complete. Approximately 900,000 Jews were killed there during WW II.
Oct. 20, 1998:
A US patent was granted to Alon Cohen for the invention of the audio transceiver, which enabled the creation of voice-over-network products and eventually the VoIP industry. Cohen is the co-founder of VocalTec Inc. and has four US patents for different communications technologies.
Oct. 21, 1949:
Birthday of Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Party since 1993, Israel’s first directly elected prime minister, the first prime minister to be born after the establishment of the state, and Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, from 1996-1999, 2009-2021, and since 2022.
Oct. 22, 1948:
The Egyptian warship Emir Farouk, which had anchored outside of Tel Aviv harbor in an attempt to blockade re-arming during a truce in the War of Independence, was sunk by three armed motorboats under the command of Paul Shulman, an American Navy officer who volunteered to serve during Israel’s time of need.
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