Dalia Itzik Is Born
Dalia Itzik is born in Jerusalem to a family of Iraqi immigrants. In the Seventeenth Knesset (2006), she becomes the first woman to serve as Speaker of the Knesset.
Hadassah Medical Center Breaks Ground
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…
Filmmaker Amos Gitai Born in Haifa
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.
Poet Elisheva Bikhovsky Dies
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…
Golda Meir Secretly Meets With King Abdullah in Amman
The second secret meeting between the two is a last-ditch effort to persuade Transjordan to stay out of an impending war with the soon-to-be declared State of Israel.
LGBTQ Leader Gila Goldstein Is Born
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…
Early U.S. Zionist Leader Emma Gotthiel Dies
Emma Gottheil, one of the first and most important women in Zionist leaders, passes away at her New York home at the age of 85.
Nazis Kill Palmach Paratrooper Haviva Reik
November 20, 1944 Haviva Reik and two other paratroopers from British Mandatory Palestine are among about 40 Jewish fighters executed by the Nazis after the suppression of an uprising in Slovakia. Reik, who was born…
Hannah Senesh Is Executed
Hannah Senesh (Szenes), the poet and Haganah fighter who parachuted into Nazi-occupied Europe to rescue Jews, is executed by Hungarian firing squad in a Budapest prison courtyard.
Composer Nurit Hirsch Is Born
August 13, 1942 Nurit Hirsch, a musician and composer, is born in Tel Aviv. From a young age, she plays piano at a theater, a ballet studio and a quartet club. She plays in a…
Supreme Court Justice Dorit Beinisch Born
February 28, 1942 Dorit Beinisch, the ninth president of Israel’s Supreme Court, is born Dorit Werba in Tel Aviv to a father who works as a civil servant after arriving from Poland in the 1930s…
Actress Gila Almagor Is Born
July 22, 1939 Gila Almagor, known as the “queen of the Israeli cinema and theater,” is born as Gila Alexandrowitz in Haifa four months after an Arab sniper killed her father, a policeman who immigrated…
Ada Yonath Is Born
Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Ada Yonath is born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Jerusalem, then part of the British Mandate of Palestine.
Recha Freier Establishes Foundations of Youth Aliyah
The same day that Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul Von Hindenburg, Recha Freier establishes the Committee for the Assistance of Jewish Youth.
Actress Haya Harareet Is Born
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…
Meretz Founder Shulamit Aloni Is Born
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…
Writer Netiva Ben Yehuda Is Born
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…
Tehiya Founder Geulah Cohen Is Born
December 25, 1925 Politician and activist Geulah Cohen, the founder of the Tehiya party, is born in Tel Aviv. Cohen becomes involved with political movements in Mandatory Palestine when she is young, and she joins…
Israeli Film Pioneer Lia Van Leer Is Born
A pioneer in Israeli film, Lia Van Leer is born Lia Greenberg in Beltsy, Romania (today Moldova).
Actress Hanna Maron Is Born
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…
Supreme Court Justice Shoshana Netanyahu Is Born
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).
First Nurses Graduate in the Land of Israel
Twenty-two women graduate from the Nurses’ Training Institute at Rothschild Hospital in Jerusalem. They are the first to receive nursing degrees in the Land of Israel.
Swimmer Judith Deutsch Is Born
September 18, 1918 Champion swimmer Judith Deutsch is born in Vienna, Austria. Most Austrian athletic clubs ban her because she is Jewish, so she begins swimming with a Jewish club, Hakoah Vienna. Between 1933 and…
Spy Sarah Aaronsohn Dies
Sarah Aaronsohn, a Nili intelligence operative, dies four days after shooting herself in an effort to avoid further torture and interrogation by Turkish authorities.
