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…
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).
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 from Turkish authorities.
Poet Leah Goldberg Is Born
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…
Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts Opens
The first forty students, all women, enroll in the newly established Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem.
Scholar Nechama Leibowitz Is Born
September 3, 1905 Scholar, teacher and biblical commentator Nechama Leibowitz is born in Riga, Latvia, where she grows up competing with her brother, future Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz, in their father’s Bible quizzes. The family…
Golda Meir Is Born in Kiev
Born Golda Mabovitch in Kiev, Russia, Meir’s family immigrated to the United States in 1906, settling in Milwaukee.
