March 15, 1939 Kol Tzion HaLokhemet (“Voice of the Fighting Zion”), the underground radio network operated by the Irgun, sends out its first broadcasts across Palestine as Esther Raziel-Naor hits the airwaves. The network broadcasts…
A specialist in the field of educational psychology, Gavriel Salomon served as Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Haifa from 1993-1998.
Arturo Toscanini, considered to be one of the finest virtuoso conductors of the 20th century, arrives at Lod airport after being asked to conduct the opening performance of the Palestine Philharmonic.
December 19, 1936 Avraham B. Yehoshua, one of Israel’s most acclaimed writers, is born in Jerusalem into a Mizrahi/Sephardi family going back at least five generations in the city. His father, Ya’akov, is a historian…
Playing their final match of an eleven match American tour, the Maccabi Tel-Aviv Football Club loses 4-1 to an American all-star team at Yankee Stadium in front of 20,000 spectators.
80,000 mourners, approximately a quarter of the Jewish population in Palestine, line the streets of Jerusalem for the funeral of Rav Abraham Isaac Kook. He passed away the day before from cancer.
May 13, 1934 Archaeologist Ehud Netzer is born in Jerusalem to teachers Joseph and Pua Menczel. After graduating from the Technion with a degree in architecture in 1958, Netzer earns a doctorate in archaeology from…
March 5, 1934 Israeli-American behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman is born in Tel Aviv while his mother is visiting relatives. He spends his early childhood in Paris and is there when the Nazis defeat France in…
Opening the 1933-34 academic year, Judah Magnes, the president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, outlines an expansion plan for the university.
The first Maccabiah Games, an international Jewish Olympics, open in Tel Aviv.
September 20, 1931 Actress Haya Harareet, best known as Judah Ben-Hur’s love interest Esther in the 1959 remake of “Ben-Hur,” is born Haya Neuberg in Haifa to Polish immigrants who arrived in Mandatory Palestine when…
November 29, 1928 Shulamit Aloni, the lawyer and politician who founds the Meretz party, is born in Tel Aviv. From a young age, Aloni is involved with politics and is relentless in working to bring…
July 26, 1928 Netiva Ben Yehuda, a Palmach member, early Israeli feminist, acclaimed writer and media personality, is born in Tel Aviv to a father from Lithuania and a mother from Ukraine. She has two…
February 25, 1928 Soccer clubs Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Tel Aviv hold their first derby, or rivalry game, which is won by the home team, Maccabi, 3-0. Maccabi also wins the rematch on Hapoel’s…
August 24, 1926 Playwright and translator Nissim Aloni is born Nissim Levi to poor Bulgarian Jewish parents in Florentin, a low-income neighborhood in the south of Tel Aviv that becomes an inspiration for his work….
The Hebrew University officially opens in Jerusalem on Mount Scopus with Zionist and British leaders joined by representatives from universities across the world.
Yehuda Amital, the founder of Yeshivat Har Etzion, is born as Yehuda Klein in Oradea, Romania, where he receives a religious education.
A pioneer in Israeli film, Lia Van Leer is born Lia Greenberg in Beltsy, Romania (today Moldova).
April 24, 1924 Hapoel Haifa is established during Passover in a meeting led by Yehoshua Sherpstein and Yair Aharony at a house in Haifa’s Hadar neighborhood. The organization creates several branches related to sports and…
November 22, 1923 Hannele Meierzak, who as Hanna Maron becomes known as “the first lady of Israeli theater,” is born in Berlin. As a child, she appears in many plays and films, including an uncredited…
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…
September 10, 1923 Journalist and peace activist Uri Avnery is born Helmut Ostermann in Beckum, Germany. After Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power in 1933, Uri’s father, an upper-class Zionist, moves the family to Haifa, then…
July 28, 1923 Mordechai Golinkin’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata” marks the beginning of opera in Mandatory Palestine. Because Palestine has no opera house, the performance is in a movie theater. Golinkin, who wrote…
Retired Israeli Supreme Court Justice Shoshana Netanyahu, the second woman to serve on Israel’s highest court, is born in the free city of Danzig (Gdnask, Poland).
