March 20, 1917 Yigael Yadin, a general known for his archaeological work, is born in Jerusalem. His father is an archaeologist, and his mother is a women’s rights activist. Yadin joins the Haganah when he…
Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky (known simply as “Zelda”), one of the most widely acclaimed and beloved Israeli poets, is born in Russia.
Arthur Ruppin, head of the Palestine Office of the World Zionist Organization, purchases the estate of Sir John Gray Hill on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem for the purpose of building a university.
At the urging of Berl Katznelson, a proposal is passed among Zionist leadership creating the Kupat Holim Clalit (General Sick Fund), a still present healthcare organization in Israel.
May 29, 1911 Poet Leah Goldberg is born in Königsberg, Prussia, now Kaliningrad, Russia. Raised mostly in Kovno, Lithuania, Goldberg begins writing poetry in Hebrew and Russian around age 12. She studies at the Universities…
August 14, 1910 Natan Alterman, a poet, journalist, translator, author and playwright, is born in Warsaw. He moves to Tel Aviv with his family in 1925. He studies agriculture in France and briefly works at…
February 16, 1910 Miriam Roth, whose Hebrew writing elevates children’s literature in Israel, is born in the Slovakian region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. She attends various Jewish schools, including one run by her father, and…
Sixty-six families gathered on the sand dunes outside of Jaffa and selected lots for property in a new neighborhood called Ahuzat Bayit (“Homestead”) that became the first modern Jewish city, Tel Aviv.
May 3, 1906 Stage actor Meir Margalit, a winner of the Israel Prize in 1964, is born in Ostroleka, Poland, then part of the Russian Empire. Margalit begins acting in local plays at age 13….
The first 40 students, all women, enroll in the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem.
December 31, 1898 Eliyahu Dobkin, a signer of the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the founder of the Israel Museum, is born in Bobruysk, Belarus. Dobkin is raised in a religious Zionist family. His father,…
Painter Nachum Gutman is born in a part of Russia that is now Moldova.
Gershom Scholem, the pre-eminent scholar of Jewish mysticism, is born in Berlin. He immigrates to the Land of Israel in 1923.
May 24, 1895 Marcel Janco, a founder of the Dada movement and a major influence on modern Israeli art, is born into a wealthy family outside the Jewish quarter of Bucharest, Romania. Trained at the…
Reuven Rubin (born Rubin Zelicovici), one of Israel’s most acclaimed painters, is born in Galatz, Romania. Rubin’s family was both very poor and religious.
September 15, 1891 Austrian-Israeli writer Moshe Yaacov Ben-Gavriel is born Eugen Hoeflich in Vienna, Austria. He begins writing at a young age in German, particularly in the expressionist style. He serves as an officer in…
September 1, 1891 Yosef Zaritsky, one of Israel’s most renowned painters, is born near Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Zaritsky studies at the Academy of Art in Kyiv and lives in Moscow before making aliyah…
August 22, 1891 Sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, whose final work, “The Tree of Life,” stands outside Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, is born Chaim Jacob Lipchitz in Lithuania. Though his father wants him to…
July 29, 1891 Bernhard Zondek, the obstetrician-gynecologist who creates one of the first reliable pregnancy tests, is born in Wronke, Germany, now in Poland. Zondek moves to Berlin for his medical studies and earns his…
August 4, 1888 Yitzhaq Shami, one of the earliest writers of modern Hebrew literature, is born as Yitzhaq Sarwi to an Arabic-speaking father and a Ladino-speaking mother in Hebron. He takes the name Shami, first…
June 21, 1882 Israeli filmmaker and photographer Ya’acov Ben-Dov is born in Yekatermoslav, Ukraine. He joins the movement for the revival of the Hebrew language in his teens, and he studies photography at the Kiev…
November 7, 1878 Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz, who becomes one of the 20th century’s leading Talmud scholars, is born in Kosava, Russia, now part of Belarus, to the head of the local rabbinical court, Rabbi…
Renowned philosopher Martin Buber is born in Vienna. Buber emigrates to Jerusalem in 1938.
