November 8, 1923 Rabbi Yisrael Meir Friedman Ben-Shalom, a sixth-generation descendant of Rebbe Yisrael of Rizin, is born in Bohush, Romania, to a Hasidic and Zionist family. Friedman Ben-Shalom joins Hashomer Hatzair, the secular Zionist…
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, considered the “father of modern Hebrew,” dies from tuberculosis at the age of 64 in Jerusalem. Thirty thousand mourners attend his funeral on the Mount of Olives.
Rabbi Mordechai M. Kaplan, publishes “A Program for the Reconstruction of Judaism” in the Menorah Journal. His ideology eventually leads to the creation of a fourth American Jewish denomination, the Reconstructionist movement.
Bella Abzug is born in the Bronx, New York to an Orthodox Jewish immigrant family from Russia. Elected in 1970, she serves three terms in Congress and is the first Jewish woman to be elected to the House of Representatives.
During the Paris Peace Conference, one of the major initiatives undertaken by the Allies is recognition of minority rights in European states. While addressing the rights of minorities in general, the Polish Treaty specifically mentions Jewish cultural and civil liberties.
Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts to Ukrainian-Jewish parents, Leonard Bernstein is one of the most prolific composers and conductors in American history.
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is founded with the merger of the Central Relief Committee and the American Jewish Relief Committee.
Responding to a plea from Henry Morgenthau, United States Ambassador to Turkey and American Jewish leaders, led by Louis Marshall and Jacob Schiff, quickly raise $50,000 in aid for the Jewish community in the Palestine.
Teddy Kollek, Zionist leader and long-time mayor of Jerusalem, is born in Nagyvázsony, Hungary.
British Secretary of State for the Colonies Joseph Chamberlain and Theodor Herzl meet to discuss Jewish settlement. At this meeting, Chamberlain proposes that the Jewish state be created in Uganda.
Held a few weeks before the Second Zionist Congress was set to convene in Basle, Switzerland, 160 Russian Zionists from ninety-three cities and towns in Russia meet secretly in Warsaw, Poland.
The Orthodox movement created the Orthodox Union, and adopted a constitution and by-laws at their meeting at Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York.
Gershom Scholem, the pre-eminent scholar of Jewish mysticism, is born in Berlin. He immigrates to the Land of Israel in 1923.
William E. Blackstone, a Methodist lay leader and real estate investor, petitions President Benjamin Harrison on behalf of creating “a home for these wandering millions of Israel.” The Blackstone Memorial was the name of the signed petition.
An early Zionist supporter in England, Alfred Mond (who would later become the first Lord Melchett) is born in England. Despite the fact that his parents were Jewish, Mond was not raised as a Jew and in fact was married in the Anglican church and raised his children as Christians.
Raised in a traditional Jewish household, early Zionist activist Leo Motzkin is born in present-day Brovary, Ukraine.
Scholar and writer Michah Joseph Berdichevski is best known for his Hebrew writings, which included his lengthy debate with Ahad Ha’am about the nature of Hebrew literature, as well as his extensive recording of Jewish folklore.
September 6, 1840 The nine surviving Damascus Jews accused of killing a Franciscan Capuchin friar and his servant to harvest the blood are freed by order of Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman pasha who controls an…
The tensions between the local Shiite population and Jews erupt in the northeast Iranian city of Mashhad.
Following the French Revolution and the August 26, 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man, the issue of Jewish rights is debated in the French National Assembly for three days with no conclusion.
Berlin’s Jewish community reorganizes with a new constitution, the Aeltesten Reglement.
Shabbetai Zevi was born on August 1, 1626 in Smyrna (Izmir), Turkey. A gifted scholar, he showed signs of mental instability early in his life, causing unpredictable mood swings from extreme depression to euphoria.
Baruch Spinoza’s ideas about Judaism are rejected by the Amsterdam Jewish community, eventually leading to his excommunication. He goes on to become one of the most important philosophers of the Jewish Enlightenment, which seeks to reconcile the world of Jewish faith with secular, empirical reality.
Austrian Archduke Albert V ordered that all his Jewish subjects were to be imprisoned and their possessions confiscated following libelous accusations against an influential member of Viennese Jewish community.
