July 9, 1959 Riots break out in the impoverished Haifa neighborhood of Wadi Salib after police officers shoot resident Yaakov Elkarif during an attempt to arrest him for being drunk and disorderly. Witnesses dispute whether…
November 19, 1957 Singer Ofra Haza, the youngest of nine children, is born in Tel Aviv to a family who had emigrated from Yemen. Haza grows up in the impoverished Hatikvah Quarter, where she is…
Shlomo Mintz, violinist and conductor, is born in Moscow.
July 10, 1957 Yiddish novelist and playwright Sholem Asch dies at age 76 in London. Asch was born in Kutno in Russian-controlled Poland in 1880 as the youngest of 10 children in a Hasidic family….
Eilat Mazar, a third generation Israeli archaeologist, is most well-known for her work at the City of David site in Jerusalem. She is a professor of archaeology at Hebrew University.
April 19, 1956 Writer and academic Gadi Taub, a leading commentator on the meaning of modern Zionism, is born in Jerusalem. Taub’s grandparents were Zionist pioneers who arrived in Palestine in the 1920s during the…
June 5, 1952 Having been forced to evacuate its campus on Jerusalem’s Mount Scopus after the massacre of 78 medical people April 13, 1948, Hadassah breaks ground on the Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center at…
November 18, 1951 Yoni Rechter, considered one of Israel’s greatest musicians, is born in Tel Aviv. He is the son of architect Ya’akov Rechter and stepson of actress Hanna Maron. He pursues music as a…
Filmmaker Amos Gitai, known for documentaries and features on the Middle East, the Israeli-Arab conflict and Holocaust memory in Europe, is born to architect Munio Weinraub and teacher Efratia Margalit in Haifa.
The Third Maccabiah Games commence in the 50,000-seat stadium in Ramat Gan, Israel.
June 20, 1950 Israel’s first Festival of Jewish Music begins in Jerusalem and runs until July 1. It is arranged by the Music Department of the Israeli government’s Ministry of Education and Culture and the…
Following the passage of March 1950 law allowing Jews to leave Iraq, the Ministry of Aliyah in Israel develops a plan to facilitate their immigration to Israel.
Israeli folk rock singer-songwriter and composer Shlomo Artzi is born on Moshav Alonei Abba, southeast of Haifa.
The Compulsory Education bill, which had been passed on September 12th, enters into law. It mandates that all children between the ages of 5 and 15 attend a state-recognized educational institution.
September 16, 1949 Israel becomes a member of UNESCO, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Based in Paris, UNESCO has the purpose of creating peace and security by encouraging international collaboration in education, natural…
August 17, 1949 Theodor Herzl, who was buried in Vienna after his death July 20, 1904, is reburied along with his wife and parents on the Jerusalem hill that is renamed Mount Herzl in his…
March 27, 1949 Elisheva Bikhovsky, one of the “four mothers” of modern Hebrew poetry, dies of cancer at age 60 in Tiberias and is buried at Kvutzat Kinneret, a kibbutz. A native of Russia with…
The iconic flag with two blue stripes and a blue Star of David at its center becomes the official Israeli flag more than five months after the establishment of the state.
September 9, 1948 Alon Garbuz, the director of the Tel Aviv Cinematheque for four decades, is born in Givatayim, the youngest of three brothers. The oldest, Aharon, becomes a leader in the Histadrut labor federation…
July 16, 1948 Classical musician and conductor Pinchas Zukerman is born in Tel Aviv. At 4, he begins playing the recorder, then the clarinet, and by 8 he is playing the violin and studying at…
December 18, 1947 Actress, singer and transgender-rights activist Gila Goldstein is born as Abraham Goldstein in Turin, Italy. Goldstein immigrates to Haifa as a child and is active with the Maccabi Haifa soccer club. Goldstein…
Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Aaron Ciechanover is born in Haifa to parents who emigrated from Poland before World War II.
June 23, 1944 Photojournalist Alex Levac, a 2005 winner of the Israel Prize, is born in Tel Aviv. A 1967 graduate of Tel Aviv University with a degree in philosophy and psychology, Levac completes his…
Ron Ben-Yishai, a famous war correspondent and recipient of the 2018 Israel Prize, is born in Jerusalem.
