March 1, 1920 A Shi’ite Arab militia, accompanied by local Bedouins, attacks the Jewish agricultural settlement of Tel Hai, which has served as a border outpost in the Upper Galilee between British-controlled Palestine and French-controlled…
During the Paris Peace Conference, one of the major initiatives undertaken by the Allies is recognition of minority rights in European states. While addressing the rights of minorities in general, the Polish Treaty specifically mentions Jewish cultural and civil liberties.
A delegation of the Zionist Organization, led by Chaim Weizmann, presents the case for a Jewish homeland in Palestine to the Paris Peace Conference after World War I.
Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts to Ukrainian-Jewish parents, Leonard Bernstein is one of the most prolific composers and conductors in American history.
Although its support of the Balfour Declaration was tepid, the AJC did recognize that a Jewish homeland could provide safety for Jews still suffering oppression in other lands.
In seeking official government endorsement for the Zionist cause from a great power, the leadership of the Zionist Organization successfully obtains support from the British government in 1917 by way of the Balfour Declaration.
Sarah Aaronsohn, a Nili intelligence operative, dies four days after shooting herself in an effort to avoid further torture and interrogation by Turkish authorities.
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…
A secret treaty is negotiated to divide the former Ottoman territories between Britain and France.
The Husayn-McMahon correspondence commences between the Arab leader Husayn bin-Ali and the British government official Sir Henry McMahon.
Chaim Weizmann, first President of Israel, then working as a chemist in Manchester, England, is appointed to the British Admiralty as an Honorary Technical Adviser on acetone supplies.
Shmuel Katz, a leader of Revisionist Zionism and a founder of the Herut Party in Israel, is born in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is founded with the merger of the Central Relief Committee and the American Jewish Relief Committee.
Responding to a plea from Henry Morgenthau, United States Ambassador to Turkey and American Jewish leaders, led by Louis Marshall and Jacob Schiff, quickly raise $50,000 in aid for the Jewish community in the Palestine.
Rabbi Raphael della Pergola, the Grand Rabbi of Alexandria, Egypt, administers the oath of allegiance to approximately 500 volunteers for the Zion Mule Corps, known officially as the Assyrian Refugee Mule Corps.
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.
An important moment in Israel’s nation-building comes when the Kuratorium (board of trustees) of the Technion University, then under construction in Haifa, reverses its decision of October 1913 and decides that Hebrew, not German, will be the language of instruction at the new school.
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…
Teddy Kollek, Zionist leader and long-time mayor of Jerusalem, is born in Nagyvázsony, Hungary.
Degania Alef is established as the first Kibbutz in Israel. The idea for a communally operated agricultural settlement in the land of Israel did not, however, originate with the founders of Degania Alef.
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.
January 6, 1909 Moshe Sneh, known for his left-wing politics and resistance to British rule in Palestine, is born Moshe Klaynboym in Radyzn, Poland. Sneh serves as the chairman of the Yardinia Zionist student group…
Max Fisher is born in Pittsburgh to Russian Jewish immigrants. He dedicates much of his life to the Jewish State, raising hundreds of millions of dollars through his career as a leader in nearly every Jewish organization in North America.
