April 15, 1945 The British 11th Armored Division liberates the Nazis’ Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany, discovering 60,000 starving prisoners, most of them seriously ill, and 13,000 unburied corpses. They are the remnants of…
Rattled by numerous attempts on his life, and fearing for the safety of his family, MacMichael steps down in August 1944.
Berl Katznelson, a leader in the Labor Zionist movement, dies suddenly at the age of 57 in Jerusalem. His advocacy for the creation of a labor-based society in Israel would eventually form the basis of the Mapai party, which was created in 1930 and would dominate Israeli politics until the late 1970′s.
Some 156,000 Allied troops land at Normandy and begin their fight to liberate France and ultimately all of Europe from the Nazis. D-Day is the largest seaborne invasion in history.
After World War I, Iraq was under the British Mandate, in accordance with the plan put forth by the League of Nations. In April 1941, a pro-Nazi government seized power and it took the British three months to regain control of the government.
The agricultural outpost of Mitzpe Gevulot was established.
A joint communiqué is issued, and it is clear that no widespread action to rescue Jews will be forthcoming. This bolsters the Zionist argument for a Jewish homeland.
The Biltmore Conference will set the framework for Zionist policy in the years during and after World War II.
After being mistaken as an enemy ship, the SS Struma, carrying nearly 800 Jewish refugees hoping to immigrate into Palestine, including 70 children, is sunk by a Russian submarine in the Black Sea.
Nazis draw up a plan for the “Final Solution” of European Jewry in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee.
Louis Brandeis, retired United States Supreme Court Justice and celebrated American Zionist, passes away in Washington DC at the age of 84.
November 25, 1940 A Haganah bomb does more damage than intended to the immigrant transport ship SS Patria, which sinks within 16 minutes in Haifa’s harbor, killing 267 people, including members of the British crew,…
A close associate of Theodore Herzl, Max Bodenheimer is the first president of the Zionist Federation of Germany and is a leader in the establishment of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). He dies in Jerusalem.
Originally working as laborers in surrounding agricultural communities, the founding members of Givat Brenner establish agricultural and industrial infrastructure for the kibbutz, quickly making it financially stable and self-sustaining.
The SS St. Louis, a ship carrying Jewish refugees fleeing from Nazi Germany, returns to Europe after being refused entry into both Cuba and the United States.
The 1939 White Paper signaled Britain’s readiness to relegate the Jews in Palestine to minority status in a future majority-Arab state.
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…
The Mufti has enormous power in his hands, yet he chooses non-engagement with the British, who controlled Palestine.
December 22, 1938 The Rambam Health Care Campus opens as the British Government Hospital of Haifa and is hailed by the British high commissioner for Palestine, Harold MacMichael, as the “finest medical institution in the…
Kibbutz Kfar (Village) Ruppin is established under the framework of the “Tower and Stockade” movement in Zionism, which takes place primarily between 1936-1939.
In the midst of the 1936-1939 Arab revolt, a debate over British policy in Mandatory Palestine is held in the House of Commons.
At the conclusion of a four-day conference in Cairo, Egypt, Arab leaders adopt the Resolutions of the Inter-Parliamentary Congress. The conference and resolutions are a response to the British Peel Commission Report of 1937.
As part of the Zionist strategy to engage the British government in political negotiations, Chaim Weizmann airs his grievances against the British government for reversing their pro-Zionist policy.
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.
